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kaylathekittykat225 · 3 years ago

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Carnival Ride of Horror // Steve Harrington x Reader

Carnival of Horror // SH

Warning/s: Cursing, laughing at inappropriate times, (very minimal) mentions/implications of abuse/stalking (just wanna warn, its super small but just in case!)

Word Count: 3.5k

Hey guys! It’s been a bit since I’ve written, lemme tell you, life has been kinda crappy and its just a little less crappy now! So I decided to start pecking at the keyboard again and this is what came of it! This lovely person requsted this work and I just got around to starting to really write because I had a free week. Anywhoodles, it’s good to write something again and I hope yall enjoy it!

Again thank you for this idea @seraphiiii

omg i came across your post about writing ideas in my feed and got so excited to see both steve harrington and young justice in the tags lmao. but i think a steve harrington x reader where reader and him go to an amusement park and reader is terrified of the rides so he’s like comforting her throughout them and encouraging her but also laughing (in a good natured way obvi) about how scared she is and stuff? i think that would be so cute!!

Here’s my Masterlist.

Enjoy.

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“Stevie, when we agreed to have a date night away from the kids, I didn't think we would be going into a mass of more kids.” As he pulled the keys out, you stared at the bright light shining machinery that had been set in the middle of a field outside the city. The annual summer fair had finally made its way to Hawkins, and it had left a buzz in the air as everyone planned when they would go, talked about what rides had come this year, who their ride buddy would be; it had been all the kids had been talking about for weeks. They put a day together the coming weekend to go as a group and they planned to drag Steve and you along on the off chance that they needed an “adult” to allow them on the rides.

Funny how they assumed either Steve or you knew how to adult.

“Cause I thought it would be a nice change from us just watching movies or having dinner.”

“Oh, so dino nuggets are no longer date-worthy for you.” Steve almost took you seriously, but he saw the grin that has graced your lips at your own comment. He relaxed a little knowing that you weren’t upset with his idea for date night, but he had always wanted to kiss someone at the top of a Ferris Wheel, and he would do anything to get you to the top of the rotating ride.

“So, you’re not mad that I chose here for tonight?” You shook your head and pulled at the door handle separating the two of you from the outside life.

“Of course not Stevie, I just thought it was an interesting choice.” The smile you chose to have was one that hopefully convinced him that you were okay with where the pair of you were going, even if you weren’t happy with the choice.

You can be happy with the idea of going to a carnival as long as you don’t go on-”Cool, so what ride do you want to do first?”

“Shit.” The world slipped out before you could stop yourself as Steve finished paying for your tickets and asked what you had said. “Nothing just kicked myself. Um…” You looked around frantically for something to do that wasn’t flashing brightly and spinning faster than the legal highway speed. “Let’s go over there!”

Steve followed your hand as he saw you point towards the stands of games that were rigged and way too fricking expensive, but he would do it for you. “Alright, starting out with some games I see, I like it.”

The two of you ran through a few of the games, most of them where Steve got way too into it and you had to step between them as he tried screaming that he deserved that stuffed bear/pony/cat/fish, because he almost had it every single time. He did beat out the basketball one, one of the last ones the two of you did on that strip, bolstering his confidence just enough to get him into a cheery enough mood.

“Alright! We played some games, and let the crazies test out the rides so I’m pretty sure they won’t break down on us. Which one should we do first? They got a drop tower, or how about the pit viper swings? Or, or, or how about we…” The night had been going enjoyable up until Steve turned to the rides you had managed to distract him from and pointed at the glowing and fast-moving monsters.

“How about we do the haunted walk over there?” Steve followed your pointing finger with a quizzical look, he hadn’t really taken note of the scary attraction before, never thought to really look to it with everything else going on. “I bet it won’t even be scary to us after everything we’ve been through right ha.”

You took off with a dry laugh without waiting for a response from him; his cries were head behind you, but the haunted house looked better than anything else around you. “Y/N.” He called you again, but you walked faster. By the time you got to the stairs leading into the building, you were practically running up them to get into the dark house with smoke billowing out of it.

“Y/N!” Your name was the last thing you heard before diving through the door and physically bumping into one of the scarers dressed as a zombie. He seemed nice, breaking character enough to ask if you were okay before you had already turned the corner and left him behind too.

Twisting and turning, you didn’t pay much mind to the screaming witches, zombies, skeletons, or anything that happened all around you; over the music and screaming, you could vaguely hear your name, giving you an indication that Steve followed you.

Not too far in, you found a quieter corner with only a couple cobwebs around it where you quickly ducked back into and tried pressing yourself into it deeper, hoping to watch Steve walk right by you.

Why the hell were you running from your boyfriend? You gained a sense of logic for a second where you paused. Why were you running? This was super childish of you and really had no reason. All Steve wanted to do was go on a few rides and you were being selfish and completely ruining what was going to be one of the few evenings you didn’t have to babysit the kids.

As the guilt started to swirl with your desire to not be found, you didn’t notice as the Frankenstein in the room had taken notice of you hiding in the corner and started to tromp over to you. “Hey, miss, you can’t be hiding in here, you gotta keep moving.”

“I’ll be out in a second, sir, let me just-” “You can’t be here-” “If you give me a second, I will leave as soon as I can-” “Miss you have to leave-” “Give me one dan minute-” “Y/N!”

Among all the screaming the Frankenstein and you had been doing was your name being called by a third and new voice along with a hand clasping onto your shoulder. Looking to the hand, you saw the unmistakable outline of the man you were hiding from. “There you are babe, why were you running off.” Just looking at the Frankenstein’s demeanor, you could tell he went into defense mode suddenly.

“Were you hiding from him miss? Are you okay? Do you feel safe?” The painted man moved to step between you and Steve in an attempt to separate you two.

“Whoa, whoa buddy, back off. She’s my girlfriend, chill out.” Steve tried stepping around the man o little success.

“Oh, your girlfriend? And she’s running from you? I don’t think this is looking very good for you, buddy.” The two were shooting back and forth at each other, getting chest to chest, and starting to cause a larger disturbance that started o be heard over the music and background scream noises. More workers it looked like started to slip into the room and try to get the two men to quiet down, going so far as to begin threats of throwing them out of the haunted house.

You were pulled away from the situation before being pushed away and into the next room, looking like it was on its way to the exit in the next two or three rooms: your destination.

-----

“Y/N?” His voice finally chirped up next to you as Steve took a seat next to you on the grass at the edge of the carnival. “You okay?” When he saw you sitting over here, he had quickly jogged over and took her in as he did so: sitting with her face pressed into her knees and arms wrapped tightly around her legs as she kept herself in as tight of a ball as possible.

You didn’t respond at first, only moving your head to look up at your boyfriend, the person you have embarrassed tonight and most definitely pissed off with your childish antics tonight. “I’m sorry.”

“Whoa what do you have to apologize for? I’ve been worried about you and wanted to make sure that you are okay.” His hand found its way to your back and began rubbing circles into your shoulder blade.

“I was really childish today and you didn’t deserve it, all because I was scared of the stupid rides.” Your words may have been mumbles, but he heard every word clearly.

“Hold on. Babe, did you say you were scared of the rides?” Your small and timid nod was enough for him to understand. “Why didn’t you tell me? I never would have brought you here if I knew that!”

Swallowing the thick feeling in your throat, you looked up at him and saw the disappointment and hurt in his face and that hurt. “Because you were so excited about it, I thought I could get through it and do at least one or two with you. But as we got closer, I guess my nerves got the best of me and I just...ran. Like a stupid child.”

“Hey, hey, hey, no.” Steve quickly shuffled to kneel in front of you and grabbed your hands, holding them in his own and your legs fell down to where you were now criss cross apple sauce. “I’m not gonna force you to do any of these rides if you don’t wanna. If you want to just go home, we can make this a movie night if that works better for you.”

“No, Stevie,” His mouth quirked up at this name. “You already bought the tickets; I don’t want you to waste the money you earned because I’m a scaredy cat.”

Steve took a second to think, racking his brain on how to salvage what has been an eventful evening. “How about…” He paused again and just stared at you with you staring back at him, waiting to hear what he wanted to say. “You can say no, how about we try a few rides, to try and get you on some. If you don’t like riding after one, we can go home, and you can at least say you did it.”

Mulling this idea over in your head, your eyes shifted from where your boyfriend sat in front of you to the bright and joyous scream filled rides were. “I suppose they don’t all look so bad.” You murmured to him, staring particularly at the giant Ferris Wheel that turned, a small memory from early on in your relationship popping into your head. Steve had mentioned a few times that his dream date would be to take a girl up on a Ferris Wheel and cuddle her and kiss her when they got to the top.

“Okay, we can try a few.” Though shaky, your voice was a little stronger this time and you gave Steve a small smile.

“You sure?” A nod. “Okay, I’ll let you choose which one we go on, okay?” Another nod.

Together, the two of you stood to your feet and approached the hustle and bustle of the carnival grounds again. “What did that Frankenstein do to you? I hope he didn’t get you in trouble or anything.” You asked as you laced your hand with Steve while the other went to hold onto his arm, squeezing it slightly as you got closer to the machines and your stomach growing heavy again.

“Oh him, he didn’t do much, just tried scaring me when he though I was some creep chasing you.” He chuckled at the short story, glancing over to you as you took in the carnival for really the first time, looking for something that didn’t freak you out. “How about we start with those spinning pods over there? All they do is spin around and if you want it to, we can make it spin on the inside too.”

Following his finger, you saw what he was referring to as it did spin around, the four small egg things with windows in them were spinning on the main machinery but also appeared to be spinning on their own. As you got closer and apparently joined the line, you could see inside one of them a group of middle school boys cackling as they pulled on the weird center disk that kinda looked like a pizza pan. “Yeah, we can give it a try.” The shakiness in your voice had come back and your grip on Steve tightened.

“Hey, you got this I’ll be right here with ya.” He returned the squeeze to your hand and fishes through his pocket for two tickets to hand over at the entrance. “Up ya go.” He mutters as he helps you up the three stairs leading into the egg ride thing you were entering before he stepped in behind you and took his place next to you. You were already holding a death grip on the center console when the door was shut, and Steve sat next to you. “You know what this is?” He asked gesturing to the disk you were holding onto with the vice grip.

“Something for me to hold onto?” You shocked yourself with how violently your voice was shaking as you heard something start to rumble around you. “Oh, shit its moving.” Steve let a quick chuckle out before he stopped himself and tried explaining the center console would cause the pod thing to spin. “Fuck no! Don’t you dare make this thing spin.” Bloody murder was not even near definitive enough of how much you were screaming.

“Babe, babe calm down, it’s fine! I promise, ha!” In comparison to your screaming, Steve seemed to be having the time of his life as he laughed; at least he wasn’t making the ride spin. “Babe, babe, babe, I’m so sorry I’m laughing, I promise I didn’t mean to, but you were screaming so much! And it was hilarious!” Steve held onto his sides as he nearly fell out of the pod and waited for you to follow his laughing self. When you didn’t step out, he turned back around and saw you still had your hands clenched very tightly to the metal plate, your eyes wide and your lips pursed together. “Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about the rides, do you wanna go home?”

Hearing him soften up got you to finally look at him and slowly let go of the wheel. “N-n-no. I’m…” You paused to catch your breath and steady your voice. “I’m good, I just don’t know if I can do any more of these kinds of things.” Taking his hand, you pulled yourself up and stepped out from the ride and have yourself a few seconds to remember how to use your legs.

“You okay?” You nodded at him and gave a shaky, but okay smile. “You sure you wanna do another one? Cause we can go-”

“No, no, I can do…” The carnival really did have more rides than just ones that wanted to make you die, but none that really made you want to jump on them. “Can we do the carousel? I know I can do that one at least, my mom took me on them enough as a kid to be desensitized to those ones.” Steve looked over and saw the carousel that was filled predominately by smaller children, but if you wanted to do this and it was because he bought the tickets, he couldn’t make her do something else.

“If that’s what you wanna do, then we can do the carousel all night long, babe.” You nodded at him and followed him as he took your hand and the two began the walk to the carousel.

The carousel ride was much less curse filled, thankfully. You and Steve had found a pair of horses sitting side by side and the two of you quickly claimed them. Like you had said, you did get to enjoy this ride due to having done it before and you were able to just chat between the two of you, talking about how the kids were cute, how excited you were to take the kids to the park and not have to rides. It was a fine ride, definitely better than the last one.

“You ready to go home, babe?” Steve turned to you with a smile on his face. Getting you to ride two of the rides was honestly enough for him, plus, he knew Dustin would ride all of them with him later, with you waiting at the end for him.

You were about to agree and leave this eventful evening behind you, but you saw what Steve was standing near and bit your lip. Should you do it? Could you do it? “Actually, I wanna do one more.” He gave a quick quirk of his head before he followed your eyeline and turned around.

“What? Babe, we don’t have to do that, you have been through enough today and you were great, you don’t have to prove anything.”

“But...you have been wanting to do it, you told me about it one time.” You responded a little shyly as you confessed that you were doing it back of what he told you that one time. “I just...I really want you to be able to do it.”

“You...you remembered?” Steve was kind of shocked that you remembered him mentioning it, he had told that to girls in the past, but none of them really went out of their way to think about it, hell, even to remember it. “Are you su-”

“Steve, yes, I wanna do it with you.” The grin on his face was immaculate and contagious as one grew on your face as he quickly took this well and pulled you towards the line to the Ferris Wheel and dug around in his pockets for another round of tickets.

As it went around, you felt your stomach grow heavy again when you finally saw how high it got and had to calm yourself down without causing another scene. “Come on, babe, looks like ours is up.” He gently tugged on your hand and pulled you into the seat next to him before the handlebar was lowered and locked in front of you. “And here we go!”

The squeak that left your mouth was nothing but surprise and terror as you clung onto the bar for your life, your knuckles turning white with the sheer force you were holding on. “It’s really stupid you know that the only thing holding us back from falling to our death is this small bar and it’s really stupid because was if I was reall-holy shit this is really tall!” You finally removed your hands from the bar and moved to press yourself in Steve.

You could feel him trying to stop himself from giggling as he moved his arm to wrap it around you. “You can laugh you know; I really don’t care. I’m the coward of an almost twenty-year-old who’s scared of a carnival.” A chuckle did come through as the ride kept rotating and you slowly moved closer to the bottom.

“I’m not laughing at you, babe, but the noises you are making are fricking hilarious.” His voice still held the chuckle as he pressed a kiss to the side of your head, and you responded with another squeak of shock as you started rising again.

Making it to the top again, you were waiting for it to hit its peak and for the relief of lowering the cart to begin, but instead there was a shudder before the ride stopped. “What’s going on, what’s going on, why are we stopped? Oh god we are about to die, fuck, shit, I don’t wanna die.”

“Babe, calm down, someone below us is getting off so they had to stop the ride for a bit. Remember when we had to get on? Same thing probably happened to someone else.” You nodded your head and just stared ahead to the tops of the trees you never thought you would have seen.

“It’s...it’s not too bad up here.” You finally mutter after a few beats of silence and getting your bearings. “I wouldn’t want to stay up here, but it does look nice.” Steve hummed in agreement and pulled you a little closer. “Hey Stevie?”

“Hmm?” He responded looking down at you.

“Thanks, tonight was fun.”

His face broke out into a grin again at your thanks. “Of course, thanks for giving a few of these rides a chance.” Smiling up at him, you sat a little straighter and caught his lips with your own, the two of you humming to the other that you were happy with your evening.

Though it was not as long as Steve would have wanted to stay in that moment with you (the ride started again and you broke away with another shriek), but he wouldn’t have traded that moment for anything else in his life.

#steve harrington one shot #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #steve #stranger things season 2 #stranger things imagine #stranger things x reader #stranger things season 3 #stranger things #joe keery

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spinster-sisters · 4 years ago

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Who in ateez do u think would be most willing to have a threesome with one their members and like,,,how will that shit go down

Most

San

Wooyoung

Seonghwa

Hongjoong

Jongho

Mingi

Yunho

Yeosang

Least

San:

He loves his members and he loves you. Its a different kind of love obviously but its love nonetheless. Thats the vibe. Hes planning it out for days. Making sure that everything is exactly perfect for all of yours sakes. All of you get fully dressed up for the occasion. I also think he would let the other person lead the encounter just to make sure that they don't feel left out. Is literally down for absolutely anyone getting involved. San is a pleaser and if you don't have a problem with it then neither does he. Just all about spreading the love idfk. will record the whole thing (with everyone's concent obvi) doesn't even see it as anything out of the ordinary because he is so close with everyone.

Wooyoung:

Has the other person there as a confidant. "What do you think I should do" "do you think they've been good enough" "just look at their face like this, so fucked out" is putting on a SHOW. He strives off that attention. Wants all the eyes on him as he plays you like a flute. Honestly, doesn't even limit it to just one person. Like as many as 3 of them at one time all watching and helping him get you off. When there are other people involved he is a little more giving than normal just because he has something to prove. Actively includes them to. Like will have you doing things with them as well because he wants to show off how good you are at sex.

Seonghwa:

I have writen too many of these to not have him close to the top. Has very clear rules though. Like even if its the same member every day for a week, hes not letting them touch you. Like, definitely enjoys having them there (infact, i would go as far as to say that every member has been present at least once) but they are there to watch and watch only. They can only speak when spoken to. They can only touch themselves when he allows it. He wants to keep a very firm boundary between your relationship and the 3rd party he is allowing to watch the show. The only members he would let actively engage in these things is Hongjoong or wooyoung and that only cuz they are the best at separating sex from emotions. Basically likes the idea of someone else being there but doesn't want to risk them getting a little to comfortable with you.

Hongjoong:

Another one of our possessive boys who is strangely into this. Like if anyone else made a pass at you would he beat them with a stick? Yeah. But does the idea of watching you get fucked from across the room kinda turn him on? Also yes. Basically voyeurism. You would be covered in marks from the night before with Hongjoong so its not like the other person involved could easily forget who's partner you are. But Hongjoong just likes having that full view of your whole body as your getting railed. Kinda tunes out the fact that there is even another person there and just focuses on you. Basically just treats them as a non entity and just watches you come undone.

Jongho:

He gets it. He gets the vibe. He just isn't the most confident in his own abilities to pull it off. So may take you and whoever the 3rd party is to sort of warm him up to the idea. He's already agreed, just need a lil kick to make it happen. Probably let's you lead the whole thing because it was your idea in the first place. You should probably give him more attention that whoever else is there or he might get jealous. Like yeah you can suck them off or what have you, but he would probably prefer if he was the only one to actually stick his dick in you. They are mostly just there to help set the mood. If your smart you maybe should use the slight jealousy to spice things up. Like right at the start focus a lil more on the other person just so jongho has the urge to show both of you what he's capable of.

Mingi:

Once again we are faced with the only real problem he has with it being that he's shy. It would have to be either Yunho or Seonghwa cuz he would trust them the most. The whole shtick could be the two of you working to get mingi out of his shell by feeling him up and making him moan. Make sure to fill the whole thing with lots of praise and he will enjoy himself. It might only be a one time thing tho because while he had a good time, it did take a lot out of him.

Yunho:

Its just not his vibe. Like would it be a 1000000% hard no? Not really. But it would definitely never be something he bring up himself. It would take a long ass time to make him agree to it in the first place, and even longer to decide who's gonna join you two. Its not even that he's jealous or anything, he just thinks that adding a 3rd person greatly over complicates the whole thing and isn't just really turned on by the whole thing.

Yeosang:

Hard no. Genuinely will not allow it. Doesn't even like talking about sex in front of the other members. Not only is the idea of someone being in the room a turn off, he just thinks it would be physically painful to ask another member if they wanted too. He loves you so fucking much right? And every time yall have sex, even if its the kinkiest thing in the world, he sees it as an act of love and doesn't want someone hes not in love with to be involved in the slightest.

#ateez smut #ateez reactions #ateez scenarios #ateez au #ateez timestamp

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taexual · 4 years ago

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i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (13)

jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: angst, years of longing escalating into something serious

words: 8.6k (send help)

chapter thirteen

The lamp posts on the street illuminated Jungkook’s face with a warm yellow haze as the two of you walked back to your dormitory, the noise of the party – and the argument you’d had outside of it – already behind you. You didn’t dare to watch him for longer than just a split-second but you could feel his eyes on you when he thought you were too focused on the pavement to notice.

You hadn’t said a word to each other since you left the front yard of his house – and that was already two and a half blocks away – and both of you were busy worrying what the right way to say goodbye once you reached your dorm was. A wave didn’t feel enough but a hug seemed inappropriate after the intense conversation you’d had.

Clearing his throat, Jungkook volunteered to make your trip less awkward.

“Were you actually going to have me arrested?” he asked, recalling your previous threat with surprising clarity – probably because it had impressed him so much.

You sighed, recognizing the amusement on his features – no matter how hard he tried to play it off as simple curiosity – and then said, “no, probably not. That would have only ruined your whole plan and your future—”

“I already have a record,” he pointed out. He said it like that was supposed to make you feel better – it’s totally fine if you get me arrested, you know – but you almost stopped walking in surprise.

“Y-you do?” you asked, unable to fathom how a family as rich as his could not find a way to ensure their beloved son remained a flawless citizen.

“It’s not the first time I got into a fight,” he explained simply and, if you hadn’t known the truth, you’d have thought he really was just your usual troublemaker with no strong backing from his relatives whatsoever. “Some of those fights were more public than others.”

“And your dad—?”

“He took care of it to the best of his ability,” Jungkook admitted, sounding far less dignified than when he mentioned he had a record – as if that was something to be proud of. “But he can only do so much without staining his own reputation. It’s just a few misdemeanors anyway, so he decided it wasn’t worth it. If it proved to be a problem later on, he thought he could just blame it on my youth.”

You chose not to voice it – to avoid an argument that would certainly arise because that was just how Jungkook was – but you couldn’t help thinking that his father’s reasoning was actually different. Maybe he chose not to cover Jungkook’s previous arrest up to teach him a lesson.

“Does that bother you?” you asked instead.

“What?

“That he didn’t put enough work to cover this up.”

Jungkook looked down. All of your questions about his feelings, his wishes, his ambitions were so unusual to him that he didn’t even know what the proper way of answering them was, because you looked like you genuinely wanted to know. You didn’t ask just to be polite.

“No,” he ended up saying, “I didn’t want him to cover it up. And it’s not like I acted out to get his attention, or anything. He seemed really tired of it all when he had to deal with that. You know he’s usually the sort who gets his frustrations out vocally?”

“Yeah,” you said.

“Well, when he picked me up from the police station, he didn’t say a word,” Jungkook said. “It was like I’d unlocked a new level of disappointment – one I’d never seen before – where he was just quietly fuming. Or just… so disappointed, he couldn’t even begin to find words.”

You felt jittery. It was hard to walk when your legs kept trying to bounce nervously, hoping to rid you of the excessive anxiety.

“I never knew this,” you said.

Jungkook gave you a smile that wasn’t supposed to seem sad but, because it was purposefully meant to conceal his despair, sad was exactly what it seemed like.

“My mom didn’t tell yours,” he said.

“But they tell each other everything,” you felt the need to point out but you could feel your own naivety getting the best of you – even the people, who had no secrets, had secrets.

“Yeah, I know,” Jungkook replied. “But I don’t think my mom would have had it in her to brag to her best friend – with a straight-A student for a daughter – that her son got arrested. She may have been less obvious than my dad, but she was still just as disappointed.”

Your heart clenched uncomfortably when he mentioned your scholarly achievements and, for a brief moment, you almost felt bad for being such a good student when he was struggling to be a good person.

But you didn’t think now was the time to feel bad about yourself – especially since there wasn’t anything you should have felt bad about in the first place – and you eyed Jungkook carefully before finally daring to ask, “did they ever say they were disappointed in you?”

“They don’t have to say it, it’s plain and obvi—”

“No, but maybe that’s just you assuming things,” you interrupted. Your mind conjured up a thousand scenarios of how this conversation could have gone wrong, but your mouth kept moving, “you have that right. I mean, they have been disappointed in you plenty of times before. But maybe this time they weren’t. Maybe they were just scared for you.”

Jungkook looked at you and he wanted to believe that you were basing your speculations on some legitimate evidence that he’d missed, instead of just hoping that this was true. But he’s known his parents long enough to recognize their defeat.

“Why would they be scared?” he questioned rhetorically. “I know how to throw a punch.”

“Well, maybe that’s why,” you said.

“No, that’s not it,” he said firmly. “They don’t get scared when I get into fights. They get frustrated, like how did I dare to do that? And then do that again. And again. Maybe they also get confused: I am their son and yet they can’t explain why I am this way.”

He said it like he was diseased – like lacking proper conflict-resolution skills and being impulsive was an illness he’d inherited from someone and, since no one else in his family was sick, that had to mean he didn’t belong there. He belonged somewhere else.

And every time he did something that did not fit into the frame of acceptable behavior in his family’s eyes, it just reminded them that he was the black sheep in a herd of white ones. How did he get here?

“It’s not just you,” you said, your heart hurting. No matter if his parents were really disappointed in him or if they were just worried for him, no child should ever feel like he didn’t belong at home. “Kids from close, loving families rarely grow up to be impulsive or, well, aggressive.”

He clenched his jaw after you said this and that was when you knew that, despite feeling shunned for not being the son his parents had wanted, Jungkook was still their son. They were still his parents.

“I was always like this,” he declared. “From the day I was born. You know that. The relationship with my family hardly changed anything.”

You wondered if he was aware he was defending his family – the family that constantly hurt him with their expectations – by shifting all blame to himself.

“They could have worked as a preventative measu—”

“How, exactly? Remember the time I gave three kids from my pre-school class bloody noses?” he said to prove his point. “Because one of them mocked my drawing of a giraffe and the other two laughed.”

“I-I remember—” you struggled to find a word, “that. It’s not an acceptable way to solve conflict. If they’d taught you that—”

“Acceptability is subjective,” he snapped.

“Uh, sure,” you said and then stopped to wonder if you had the right to draw these conclusions about him.

You thought that, if only Jungkook had gotten more love from the people who were most responsible to love him, he may have grown up to be different – but saying that out loud would have made you sound far too condescending and it would have made a normal person feel uneasy.

Someone who was as arrogant as Jungkook was bound to get riled up – he was already defensive enough as it was – and, maybe, rightfully so. He wasn’t telling you about his family to have you psychoanalyze him. He was just talking to you.

“I-I guess there are other factors that determine how a person chooses to react to something,” you said, threading more carefully now. “For example, you let your testosterone make your decisions for you.”

The sudden transition to biology confused him as he turned to look at you with furrowed eyebrows. “My testosterone?”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “It’s obviously your uncontrollable hormones that get you in these situations in the first place. You’re like a twelve-year-old boy, unsure what to do with himself, so you just go with whatever your instincts tell you.”

“Fourteen-year-old boy,” he corrected.

You shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference is I was fourteen when we stopped being friends.”

That only confused your further. “What does that have to do with—”

“Maybe you were the preventative measure that my family was supposed to be for me,” Jungkook said, the words pouring out as smoothly and elegantly as the floating of your skirt in the windy night. He chuckled humorlessly as he finished, “and then I lost that – the only positive influence in my life.”

You wanted to tell him that he never lost you. That he tried to rid himself of you, he tried to walk away – but he never lost you. No matter how much you wanted to detach yourself from him, to walk away, to move on – he never lost you.

And, more than that, you wanted to ask him why that happened – to demand why he walked away – but allowing him to shift the focus to your relationship would have been selfish. This wasn’t about you-and-him right now. This was about you and him.

Because you were here. You were always here. But Jungkook wasn’t – not always. Often, he fell out of touch with himself completely. And if there was no him, there could never be you-and-him.

“You… you need to be the positive influence in your life,” you said instead, advocating for independence when all you wanted was for him to let you hold his hand so he was steadier on his feet. “You can’t rely on others to get you out of the messes you create all the time.”

“I know,” Jungkook said but he no longer felt like discussing the reasons for his behavior, because every reason eventually led back to you – and when he thought of you, he couldn’t think of anything else. “But I never learned how to take care of myself, did I?”

“No, you never did,” you agreed and then, watching him smile appreciatively – you rarely ever agreed with him – you continued more playfully, “maybe it’s time you started learning, you big baby.”

He laughed and even the wind stopped to listen.

“Maybe,” he said then, the same pathetic hopeful tone that was in your voice before, now evident in his, “I do have you to help me again, don’t I?”

You do, you wanted to say, you’ve always had me. But you only smiled.

“I can’t be the one to handle your conflicts for you,” you said instead. “You have to learn how to do that yourself. How to do that responsibly. I can just… be there for you.”

And, much to the joy of your body that was aching to support him, he smiled and said, “that’s more than enough.”

“Okay,” you swallowed. You felt relieved suddenly – like the tension that surrounded you since you left the party had finally dissipated – and, paradoxically, nervous. Like you didn’t know how to act anymore.

Jungkook didn’t seem to notice that, however, as he teased, “support me even when I inevitably fuck up again, though, yeah?”

You raised your eyebrows, countering his lively pout.

“That’s not a very good attitude,” you said. “How do you expect to change if you’re setting yourself up for failure from the get-go?”

He shrugged. “By a miracle?”

“Jungkook.”

“Come on. I have you rooting for me. I won’t let you down,” he assured you and then, carelessly throwing his arm around your shoulders, added, “I am a great actor. I just have to start playing a responsible role.”

“It’s your father you’re supposed to prove your responsibility to, not me,” you reminded him – just like he’d reminded you a few days ago in your dorm room – although your skin was burning from his touch. “But I’m hoping that by pretending to be responsible, you’ll actually learn a thing or two and prove yourself to us both.”

Jungkook looked at you – his face so close and so welcoming – and said, in the most laid-back fashion that was possible for someone who’d just crossed half the campus while analyzing his childhood issues, “you’re very preachy when you’re drunk.”

It felt like you’d left the party years ago as you said, “I don’t feel drunk anymore.”

“Oh, well. That doesn’t surprise me then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he leaned his head against yours and the touch of your temples was electrifying -- like shock therapy that numbed every one of your senses except the ones that consumed his close presence. “I’ve missed your lectures.”

You doubted that but your voice didn’t sound convincing when you spoke – he probably wouldn’t have even heard you if he wasn’t so close, “have you, really?”

“Hmm,” he purred and your pulse nearly flat-lined. “I’ve missed everything about you.”

If you two weren’t walking so close to each other, if he didn’t have his arm around your shoulders, if his head wasn’t pressed against yours – then maybe his words wouldn’t have strummed the strings of your heart so terribly and so delightfully. Maybe you wouldn’t have forgotten all about the seven-year-long silence when you heard the song his words played for you.

But you were walking so close to each other – so close, in fact, that a passerby wouldn’t have been able to tell where your body ended and his began; you shared a silhouette.

And he did have his arm around your shoulders – pulling you closer to him while making sure you were steady on your feet even if his own balance was off.

And his head was pressed against yours – so gently and yet so naturally, it was as if there were magnets inside your skulls and they literally pulled you to one another.

And, thus, when you reached the door of your dorm room, you could not imagine yourself saying goodbye. You couldn’t imagine watching him walk away.

“Are you coming in?” you asked as Jungkook waited a few steps away, unsure how to behave now that the moment-at-the-end-of-the-night had arrived.

“I thought you said you felt like going to sleep,” he said perhaps a little awkwardly.

“I do,” you said and maybe you were still drunk without realizing it but you felt bold enough to add, “but I also feel like spending time with you in a place where... we don’t have to worry about what other people think. Not to mention, your wound needs to be taken a look at.”

“My wound?” his bruised cheekbones had completely escaped his mind. “Oh, that—it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“At least, let me put a band-aid on it,” you asked.

“And cover up my beautiful face?” he scoffed, using his favorite strategy of dealing with problems – deflection. “No.”

You sighed. “It won’t be beautiful if it scars.”

“Are you kidding?” he still didn’t give in, bringing a hand down the side of his own face and clenching his teeth so you wouldn’t see him wince when he touched the wound. “It’ll make me look badass.”

“You’re a baby,” you declared and then ordered, “come inside.”

“Not if you’re going to be pulling your medical equipment out on me—”

Groaning, you cut him off with a reluctant – but irritated – promise, “I won’t. Now, come in.”

“Are you sure?” Jungkook checked again but he was already reaching for the door that you kept open for him.

“Yes,” you said.

He still hesitated. “Because you don’t have to—”

His uncertainty did terrible things to your boldness – it seemed to vanish with every moment that he did not enter your room.

“Look, if you’d rather get back to the party,” you said, “and drink some more of Taehyung’s painfully unbearable drinks, then, by all means, go—”

“No,” he cut in sharply – maybe too sharply – and then, just to be sure you understood why he cut you off, he said, “I’d rather be with you.”

“Well, come inside, then,” you said and, because you were nervous, you felt the need to add, “but I can’t promise to be more entertaining than absinthe.”

He snickered, finally walking past your doorway. “Oh, you have a far bigger effect on me than absinthe.”

He stopped to take his shoes off. You stopped to lock the door.

The hallway of your dorm-room was very small for two people but, locked away from the rest of the world, you suddenly felt like you were home. Like there was nothing to be nervous about here. Like you were back with your best friend that you’d known for decades.

“Ah,” you started to say because you were back with your best friend that you’d known for decades, “so it burns your throat when you get in contact with me and you feel sick every time you look at me?”

“That’s—” Jungkook paused, one sneaker off. He raised his eyes to look at you. “You really hate it that much, huh?”

“It’s a rational feeling,” you said, unbuckling the strap of your own shoes. “Absinthe is not meant to be enjoyable.”

“Well, if we’d stayed longer, you would have seen what my bandmates do with it,” Jungkook said. “It involves a cube of sugar and a whole lot of cursing because their hands shake too much to do anything.”

He hadn’t realized just how hypnotizing it could be to watch someone take off their shoes so, when you finally placed your shoes on the floor, your feet aching from the torture you’d put them through tonight, he was still staring at your legs.

You cleared your throat, somewhat self-conscious now. “I’m, uh—I’m a little intrigued.”

This got him to lift his eyes to your face. “Oh? So… does that mean there’s a little possibility you’ll go to the party with me again next week?”

“Next week,” you repeated, realizing that this was Parental Advisory’s routine: parties every Friday, hangovers every Saturday. You turned around with a soft sigh and headed into the bedroom, plopping down on your bed. “I didn’t sign up for that.”

Jungkook chuckled, sitting down on the bed next to you.

“You don’t have to come,” he said, keeping respectful distance from you – because you weren’t walking across campus anymore, now you were on a bed – but still remaining close enough to hear your faint breathing. “I was just kidding. We can stay here.”

You looked at him. “No.”

“No?” he repeated, his voice breaking in surprise. “Okay, then. We don’t have to do anything togeth—”

“No, I just mean—you like that,” you clarified before his stomach could drop any lower. “You enjoy partying, hanging out with people, drinking, dancing, and all that. I don’t want you to give that up to hang out with me here.”

You were saying you didn’t want to bore him. You were saying you didn’t want him to overstep the boundaries of your fake relationship.

He’d never heard you say something so stupid before and he didn’t realize that it was his own words that got you to feel this uncertain.

“I’m not giving anything up,” he said because, apparently, even the smartest people sometimes needed to have it spelled out for them. “I do enjoy that but I also enjoy spending time with you.”

In your defense, it wasn’t spelling out that you needed. It was reassurance.

“We haven’t done that since we were… well, in middle school,” you pointed out and your last words were an incantation of a silence spell that prevented you from saying anything else for the next few minutes.

This time was no exception, as both of you shared a thoughtful moment, avoiding each other’s eyes, and then Jungkook clapped his palms on his knees, nodding his head in the direction of your laptop on the desk across the room.

The spell was broken. You weren’t going to speak of that day. Not today.

“Well, come on, then,” he said. “We have a lot of catching up to do, it’s been seven years. Show me the movies I’ve missed.”

“Lots of movies came out in seven years,” you replied but got up from the bed to get your computer nevertheless.

“Well,” Jungkook said, dramatically extending his arm to check the non-existent watch on his wrist. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

You sat back down, smiling at his antics, and pulling up your Videos folder. You scanned it briefly, trying to pick one movie that would leave a long-lasting impression on him – even though you couldn’t explain why you wanted to impress him.

“Don’t think about it,” he suggested. “Just choose the first one. We’ll watch them all.”

You scoffed. “There’s not a chance in hell you’ll stay awake through more than one movie.”

“You want to bet?” he countered, knowing your taste in movies too well. “After the movie you’ll choose, I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep for a week.”

You rolled your eyes as you smiled – he’d never grown to like horror movies as much as you did – and teased, “don’t be a baby.”

“I can’t,” he pouted on purpose, hoping for more of your sympathy and not knowing that he already had all of it. “I scare easily.”

“You don’t,” you said. “You just get distracted all the time and everything catches you unprepared.”

“That’s the same thing,” he insisted.

Sighing as you finally settled on the movie, you gave him a look. “Just try not to fall asleep on me, okay?”

“Do you mean that literally or—”

“I mean it in every sense of the word,” you replied. “If you start snoring during my favorite part, I might not be able to forgive you.”

“So strict about snoring,” he said, a mocking grin on his lips.

“I am,” you replied, completely serious. “So, now that we’ve established that—”

“We established that in second grade,” he reminded you, “when you tried to suffocate me with a pillow during our sleepover.”

“I…” you started to say but the memory was too unexpected and overwhelming – and he didn’t remember it correctly. “I tried to get you to stop snoring!”

“By putting a pillow on my face!”

“Nothing else worked!”

“You could have kicked me!”

“I did!” you said. “Several times. My feet bruised.”

He rolled his eyes, adamant to prove your murderous tendencies. “Oh, please.”

You shook your head, the argument so pointless and unnecessary that you chose to opt for a compromise. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight, alright?”

“It won’t,” he assured you, “I stopped snoring after that incident. I guess, you could say I haven’t recovered from that trauma. I’m constantly afraid someone’s going to try to use a pillow on me—”

“I wasn’t trying to do that!” you said with a groan and when he opened his mouth to protest again, you cut in quickly, “drop this or I really will suffocate you with a pillow.”

He closed his mouth again and then nodded, impressed.

“Still very strict about snoring,” he corrected his earlier statement. “I’ll keep my breathing in check.”

You finger lingered on the mouse button, ready to play the movie you’d picked, but your mind lingered on the memory he’d brought back and all the other memories that came with it. It’s already been a long night, full of reminiscing, discussing, and analyzing.

But you couldn’t resist it.

You’d wanted to know for so long – even if there was nothing to know and it was something that just happened as things sometimes did – that even the late hour couldn’t stop you.

You didn’t want closure. Seven years have gone by – you didn’t want it.

You needed it.

“Can I ask you something?” you started, swallowing slowly.

“Of course,” Jungkook said, unsure why your face had clouded all of a sudden.

“It’s been seven years,” you said and the thunderclouds started to make sense. “Why did you talk to me that night at the party?”

The question was so loaded, he probably wouldn’t have been able to answer it without reflecting on his entire life. But right now, after the night he’d had, you managed to catch him off guard and his mind was void of any answer that made sense.

“Because you were there,” he said because that was the simplest way of explaining it.

You needed more. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve…” he shifted his weight to his side until he was half-laying on your bed, his left shoulder pressed into the corner where your bed met the wall. His body was facing you but his eyes were on your hands, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a very long time. Actually, since the day I told you we shouldn’t be talking anymore,” he paused here. He never learned how to talk about that without pausing. “Not a clever decision on my part.”

“Mm, no, not really,” you felt the bitterness in your voice as you said this but you didn’t try to justify it – and Jungkook didn’t need you to.

“Yeah,” he only nodded. “So, I don’t know. I saw an opportunity to talk to you again – and I was drunk, and sort of on a post-show high – so I took it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he confirmed but it sounded like only one half of an answer that you needed. Jungkook didn’t know how to explain the other half and he naively hoped he wouldn’t have to. “Timing, right?”

You weren’t sure if that was right. He could tell.

“You deserve a better answer,” he acknowledged, sighing heavily, “but I don’t want to lie and make up stories about how I’d been—I don’t know—bracing myself to talk to you for a long time, how I planned it all out, because that’s not true. I did want to talk to you, I’ve wanted to every day, but I probably never would have. Not if I wouldn’t have seen you right then and there, in front of me.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t think I was in any position to seek you out,” he replied, “and, actually, I sort of got the feeling that you weren’t that excited to see me, either. Every time I saw you on campus, I’d blink, and you’d be on the other side of the street, already far away from me.”

Fair enough, you weren’t entirely blameless in this, either, you decided, and then admitted, “yeah. Maybe I was avoiding you a little.”

He chuckled. “I deserve that. I made the decision to… to stop talking to you and I knew I should have stuck with it.”

“Can I ask you something else, then?”

He knew what you were going to ask as he exhaled shakily and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Why did you make that decision?” you asked, unafraid of the potentially childish connotations in your voice. You just needed to know. You’d waited for this long enough. “Why did you decide to stop being friends with me?”

Even though he hadn’t answered you yet, just getting the question out of your system felt so relieving, it was as if Sisyphus had dropped his boulder on your chest seven years ago and now, at long last, you’d rolled it off.

The boulder seemed to roll off onto Jungkook, however, as he tried to open his mouth to speak several times, but always ended up closing it again. He didn’t know where to begin.

“We… we were so different back then,” he finally said. He looked at you then and there was hope in his eyes – he wanted you to understand him without any words. “Remember?”

“From right now?” you asked. You weren’t willing to try to decipher the signals his eyes were sending you. Right now, you needed him to use his words.

“From each other,” he clarified. “You were always so focused on your studies and spent so much time working with the school staff when you were in the student council, you were essentially the de facto headmaster of our school.”

You snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. And I was… well, you knew me then. I haven’t changed much.”

“The troublemaker,” you said and then, almost automatically, tried to make light of the situation because he looked like he was having a hard time and you didn’t want that. “Good thing there are no more PTA meeting in college, huh?”

Jungkook laughed at this but his laughter lacked humor.

“Yeah,” he said, not sounding wistful in the slightest. He wouldn’t go back to high school even if someone paid him to do it. “There’s still the risk of expulsion even without them. That never goes away in any institution.”

“It’s what brings you to life, though,” you said, your previous discussion returning to your mind. “You love the adrenaline, the danger of doing something that might have long-lasting repercussions. You always have.”

“And you don’t,” he said sadly. “That’s why I felt like—I didn’t want to—I was bad for you.”

Your loud heartbeat momentarily halted your ability to comprehend his words. “Hmm?”

“You probably don’t know this, but,” he hesitated on the very edge of what he knew you needed to hear, “I’d overheard my parents talk about us once, after our middle school graduation.”

There it was again. The last day of your middle school.

Thankfully, this time, the silence spell didn’t linger and Jungkook continued. Actually, this time, the spell didn’t even work on him – now that he’d decided to answer your question – now that he’d found how to answer it – he couldn’t be silenced.

“And the only thing I remember from their conversation,” he said, “is my mom – who’s been on my side for as long as I could remember, standing up for me to my teachers even when they believed I was a lost cause – saying to my dad that she was afraid I was going to be the end of you.”

“What?” you asked, perplexed.

After spending almost every day with Jungkook – and his family, too – for years, you hadn’t even considered that they may have been talking about you when you weren’t there.

“She, um… she saw something between us that we didn’t, I guess,” Jungkook continued as his fingers absentmindedly toyed with the edge of your blanket, his eyes on the shredded fleece. “And she believed I would be the reason why you stopped working so hard. Why you lost your ambitions. She thought I’d turn you into someone entirely different.”

“But that’s—why would she—” all the questions you had tried to pour out of you at once.

“She saw how much we meant to each other and—”

“Yeah, but—” you cut him off and, closing your eyes for a moment to settle on just one of the many things you wished him to explain, you tried, “I mean, why couldn’t she have looked at it from a different perspective? I could have been the good influence that you needed in your life. Y-you said I was.”

“I thought you were. I still think you are. But, um…” Jungkook spoke to the fleece blanket because he couldn’t speak to you, “she… she didn’t seem to think you had it in you to resist me.”

“Resist you?” you repeated, unexpectedly offended. But that only lasted for a second before you felt it necessary to disarm yourself and stop pretending. You were absolutely devoted to Jungkook when you were growing up. “Oh, fuck it,” you said. “She probably had a point.”

Jungkook was prepared to hear your offence. He was not prepared to hear that.

“She had?” he repeated, looking at you for the first time since he started talking.

You swallowed the ball in your throat. “Yeah.”

Shakily, Jungkook concluded, “so, I made the right choice, then.”

“By putting an end to our friendship?” you asked, suddenly aware of how cold your body seemed to be, your hands especially – and painfully so, too. Dancing with the ghosts of your past proved to be difficult. “Was that for my benefit, then?”

It wasn’t the disbelief in your voice that he focused on. It was the anger.

You’d moved on. He thought you moved on – you were still the same in almost every aspect that he remembered, but you were also so different: so mature, so determined, so certain.

And he was partially right – you clearly didn’t hold a very strong grudge. But he also felt ridiculous for assuming that, despite it being so long, you wouldn’t still be angry about this now.

You’d allowed him back into your life and blessed him by not asking him to explain himself for weeks before you finally gathered the courage to do it; it was natural for you to feel angry about something that you’d waited for for so long.

“That’s… well, it was supposed to be,” he explained and then felt the need to defend his decision by saying, “that’s how everyone seemed to see it. I didn’t want you to lose the best parts of yourself because of me. And I don’t doubt that your parents were also relieved when I was no longer such a prominent part of your life.”

You had considered the possibility that Jungkook ended your friendship per the request of his parents. But you had assumed they saw you as a threat to him – even if, in retrospective, that didn’t make a lot of sense; what threat could you have possibly posed to him or the company?

Instead, it was the other way around.

Looking down, you said, “my parents weren’t relieved.”

“They weren’t?” Jungkook repeated because he couldn’t find enough words of his own.

“No,” you confirmed, remembering the not-so-distant times when Jungkook’s name was a forbidden word at your dinner table. “Hardly any parent would feel relieved to see their child cry her eyes out for days.”

Admitting this made you feel vulnerable and it would have made you feel pathetic, too, if Jungkook didn’t immediately wince after you said this – not from pity, but from his own hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said because he had to, and because he was. And then, even though he didn’t have to, he continued, “I didn’t handle that well, either. I broke my leg in a bike accident about three weeks after we last talked.”

You frowned, focusing all of your energy into your confusion so your wet eyelashes wouldn’t release the droplets of tears down your cheeks. “Was that—”

“That’s how I deal with my emotions,” he said with a nod, confirming your guess. “That is, I don’t. I get reckless and I do stupid shit. That’s the last time I ever saw Dad’s beloved Ducati. He sold it.”

“He sold the bike?” you asked. The bike had belonged to Jungkook’s father who was a casual collector of sports cars and motorcycles – much to the joy of his underage son – but Jungkook was never permitted to drive any of them, at least, not until he was “old enough” according to his father’s standard.

“On the same day they ‘scraped my body off the pavement.’ That’s how he put it,” Jungkook said. “I only got to ride it that one time. Clearly, I’m not a natural. But dad couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to get on a bike for the first time without a helmet or any help at all. He wasn’t even looking for reasons why I did it, he didn’t ask me anything. Just sold the bike, locked up the garage, and didn’t talk to me for a week after I returned from the hospital. Actually—t-that was the first major thing that lead to me moving out of their house later on.”

You replayed his words for a long time, thinking and trying to understand.

“Why did you ask me to put this act? To play a couple for your parents?” you asked when you thought you were ready for the final cross on the last T. “If they thought you were a bad influence on me, this—seeing us back together again, could have painted you in the wrong light again.”

He didn’t think so.

“It’s been so long,” he said, “and you’re arguably the best student in your year. You’re determined and driven. And you’d rather kick my ass to the curb than give in to me and what I want. You… you affect me in ways I could never affect you. Control me in ways I could never control you. And I mean that in a good way. You are a good influence on me. And my parents can see that now.”

Obviously, he wasn’t entirely aware of how much control he still had over you, but because now you knew that this was precisely the reason why you’d stopped being friends seven years ago, you chose not to bring it up.

“I… I don’t control you,” you said.

“You do,” he disagreed. “Maybe not intentionally—actually, probably not; I’d like to think that you didn’t want me to suffer—but you do. You want to stay inside of your room, watching movies – and I want that, too. You want me to come to class and I want that, too. You want me to change and I’m changing.”

“I just—I don’t want you to kill yourself with your recklessness. But I don’t want you to be different,” you said, looking down. “I’d... always liked you the way you were.”

Your broken-up confession couldn’t have warmed his heart more. And yet, he had to point out, “I was unbearable.”

You gave him a look that wasn’t threatening at all because your eyes were still glossy from the tears.

“I know,” you said.

He smiled in spite of himself. “And you still liked me that way?”

You nodded, not saying anything else because he already knew the answer to that—and every other—question.

“I’m sorry for these seven years,” Jungkook said then and maybe that wasn’t enough to cure the wounds the years had left but it was a start. “You had a future ahead of you and I didn’t. My parents could see that but there was little they could do. I had to understand and deal with the fact that I was going to fall off the rails sooner or later myself. I was fourteen and I had to understand that. And I did. I knew that. And I also knew I didn’t want to drag you down with me. You didn’t deserve that.”

You fell into silence again.

You knew you wouldn’t have walked away from him then – anything he’d have asked, you would have given him. Any cliff he would have jumped off of – you would have followed.

To realize that Jungkook didn’t let you go because he didn’t want to be your friend anymore, or because he got tired of you, or because he didn’t care about you anymore -- or because of any other reason you tried to find over the years -- but rather, he let you go because he knew you wouldn’t, was groundbreaking.

It didn’t fix the hurt, it didn’t make it better, and, perhaps, nothing would – the years have gone by and you couldn’t get them back – but now you knew that the end of your friendship was a sacrifice of sorts.

You were intertwined together – it was you-and-him, always you-and-him – and you were comfortable living this way, both of you were. But that wasn’t right. It wasn’t healthy.

Except, you weren’t the one who had her eyes opened seven years ago – if there was no you and him, there could never be you-and-him – and so Jungkook ended up having to break out of your comfort zone, to leave your sanctuary, and walk in a different direction. On a different road.

All so you could have a road for yourself.

“I’m…” you tried to say but the tears that had welled up in your eyes were now cascading down your face and Jungkook – alert as soon as he saw that you were crying – sat up straight. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. Thank you for telling me.”

“I… you’re welcome,” he said, wanting to reach out and wipe the tears away but watching you do it yourself. “Although, I wish I didn’t have to tell you anything. Not just because I don’t want you to think about my mom differently after this—she always wanted what’s best for you, we both did—but also because I… I wish there had been a different way. A way where we could have kept in touch and still remained individuals.”

“Maybe there was no such way at the time,” you said. “We’d been close from the day we were born. Maybe we needed to spend some time apart to learn how to be ourselves.”

“Maybe,” he agreed but he didn’t think that was fair. “We were too close.”

“We were,” you said and couldn’t help sniffling; the tears have started to block your breathing. “Sorry, I just—it didn’t have to be seven years. I-I mean, it doesn’t take that long for people to mature.”

“No. It didn’t have to be,” Jungkook said but the fact that he agreed with you didn’t bring you much joy because his words were sad. “I have no excuse for that.”

Knowing that you could have been setting yourself up for more heartache, you still dared to ask, “would you have talked to me sooner if I hadn’t been avoiding you?”

“Probably,” he said, afraid to look at you in case he’d lose control of himself at the sight of your tears. “I-I couldn’t resist myself. But would you have replied to me?”

You looked down, making it easier for another tear to trail down your cheek. “I did that night at the party.”

Jungkook bit his lip. “Would I have seen you again if I hadn’t crashed my car?”

You inhaled sharply, not liking that this was what it came to. “No. Probably not.”

“It didn’t have to be seven years,” he said again, nodding thoughtfully, “but I think that we… started to talk again right when we had to. When it was time.”

You didn’t like that, either. “That can’t be true.”

“We’ll never know what’s true,” he said, leaning in closer to you but still not daring to reach out and touch you. “But it’s been long enough.”

“It has been,” you said, nodding and, feeling more tears coming. You sniffled, throwing your head back to fight the crying, and excused your emotions again, “it’s been a long day. It’s been seven long years.”

It’s been a long life; but you didn’t think of your years as his best friend to be draining. If anything, these were the years that made you feel alive: both of your families so close, it was like you grew up with two sets of parents, and with a soulmate for a best friend.

It’s what happened next that was a task.

Life had been pouring out in every shade of color around you when you knew him, when you laughed with him. And when you didn’t, you had to physically strain yourself to see the world in anything other than black-and-white.

You’d worked so hard to get used to the darkness of your life that the explosion of the color spectrum when you finally got to laugh with him again was almost painful. You’d grown so accustomed to monochrome that seeing colors all over again felt scary. Dangerous. Potentially hurtful.

But now you knew he never meant to take the colors out of your life. By doing so, he ended up having to sacrifice his own brightness. His own light.

Maybe what hurt the most right now wasn’t the memory of the years that you’d spent without talking, but rather the pointlessness of it all because here you were again: together. Affecting each other in ways ordinary people should not have been allowed to affect one another.

“Come here,” Jungkook finally asked, extending his arms, but you shook your head, not wanting to admit to how big the hurricane cloud in your chest was. “Come here, please.”

The insistence of his tone wasn’t what got you to move closer in the end – it was the pain in his eyes.

This had hurt him, too. He was the one who had to find a different way so he wouldn’t have to end your friendship. He was the one who eventually failed and had to say goodbye – stone you so you’d run away. Wound you, so you wouldn’t come back.

It would have hurt your pride if you didn’t love him so much.

And he couldn’t find it in himself to say how much he wanted you to come back after he told you to leave; how much he agonized over your phone number – which he’d deleted off his phone only to realize that he knew it by heart – and how much he wished he was different—better—so he wouldn’t have to stay away from you. He couldn’t find the words.

So, he just held you – like it was the first and the last time he was ever going to hold you. And he hoped that this would be enough for you to know that he knew you loved him. He’d always known.

And he loved you, too.

“I’ve missed you. Everything about you,” he whispered, clutching your body tightly against his own and sinking his face into your hair. “So much.”

Your hair grew wet – you could feel the pain leave his heart in tears – and, even though you’d seen him cry before, you’d never cried with him. But it felt inevitable now – like everything you’d done together in the past few weeks was only the prologue and tonight you were turning the page, you were starting the first chapter of the rest of your lives.

It hurt because of how long the prologue was. It hurt because of the seven empty pages.

But it felt so relieving to reach the end. So freeing.

You wrapped your arms around him tighter because you were ready to work on letting go of the pain, and you were ready to move on, and you were so happy to have him with you. You didn’t know what awaited you after tonight but that scared you much less than all that you’d already survived.

“If history repeats itself,” you said, your nose stuffed from the crying, “we’ll find a different way, right?”

Jungkook considered pulling away when you said this but that didn’t seem right. Not holding you when he could, didn’t seem right.

“We will,” he said into your hair. “I’m not leaving again.”

And he meant it – in the long run, at least. Because this night was coming to an end.

Your laptop – and the movie you didn’t get to watch – was long abandoned as you and Jungkook sat on your bed, your legs crossed and hearts open, and you talked.

You talked and the seven empty pages filled. The filled with words, written in different fonts with different colors, but they filled.

You talked and your bodies grew tired even if your minds didn’t, so you lied down on your backs next to each other, the white concrete ceiling painting itself in the colors of all that you’d missed about each other.

You talked and the hours went by – minute by minute, morning was creeping up on you.

“It’s late,” Jungkook said when your room got so dark, he couldn’t make out which bits of skin, glistening in the pale light from the street lamps outside, were yours and which were his. But even so, he remained on his back next to you. “I should probably go home. Maybe we can watch a movie tomorrow? Or next week?”

“I… I don’t have plans tomorrow,” you said and you wanted this night to keep going so badly, that if you’d been Faust, your soul would have gone straight to hell: beautiful moment, do not pass away! “Will the party be over now?”

“No, probably not yet,” Jungkook replied, “won’t be the first time I’ll be woken up by someone drunkenly smashing a bottle or something,” he said and then, when you bit your lip, clearly concerned, he added, “it’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Then, because you were not Faust and the devil had not chained your soul to the pits of hell just yet, you found a way to stop the moment as you said, “you could stay here.”

“Hmm?” Jungkook turned his head to look at you, unsure if he understood your offer. “H-how do you mean?”

“Just… stay here,” you said with a shrug as if it was that simple. Your eyes remained on the ceiling. “The RA didn’t see you come in with me. And, usually, no one smashes anything in the middle of the night here.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again. He didn’t want to go – but just like he did before coming inside earlier tonight, he didn’t want to force you into something you weren’t ready for; God knew you’d already done so much for him.

But you assured him, “yeah. You didn’t want me walking home alone, well, maybe I don’t want you stumbling around at 3 AM, either. You’d already had one fight today.”

“It’s, uh,” he checked his phone, “four-thirty.”

You gave him a look.

“But your concern is understandable,” he added quickly, catching on, “I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable with you here.”

“Okay,” he said, your gazes so intensely focused on each other, both of you were almost paralyzed as you lied side by side.

“Yeah?” you asked. “So, you’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay if you let me.”

You turned to your side, facing him. Your eyes never left his, just like his did not stray from yours. You even seemed to blink in unison.

“Stay,” you said. “I’m letting you.”

He turned to his side as well and, as his eyes fell to your lips – he could have touched them with his own if he dared to move a little bit closer – you knew you would have allowed him do a lot more than just stay here for a night.

But you’ve come a long way tonight, both literally – when you walked back here from the party – and figuratively – when you scratched the wounds until they bled because there was no other way for them to heal properly – and maybe that was enough for one night.

“Goodnight,” Jungkook whispered because you’d walked so much tonight but your road hadn’t ended yet. He didn’t dare to touch you.

“Goodnight,” you whispered back because just having him here with you after so long felt enough right now. You didn’t have to to touch him.

keep reading | masterlist

#bts reactions #bts fanfiction #bts college au #jeon jungkook #jungkook fanfiction #bts angst #college au #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #friends to lovers au #bts f2l #fanfiction #bts au #angst

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bbugyu · 4 years ago

Text

how seokmin knew

a journey with yoon jeonghan, lee seokmin, and you.

from the second seokmin first saw you, he thought you were far too good to be true, and he hadn't even gotten to learn the best parts of you yet.

prelude | part one | part two | part three | epilogue

wc.8888 | fluff, smut, courtship, oh jeez where do i even begin, the beginning i guess, polyamory, fem reader, musician!seokmin sugar daddy!jeonghan escort!reader, threesome, fingering, oral (everyone receiving), creampie, cumpla (like gunpla but with cum), (sorry), (but seriously lots of cumplay), overstim, switch!seok dom!han switch!reader, phone sex, snuck in a babygirl, hell yeah fighting for dominance, let's talk BOUNDARIES, hi mingyu, sorry but seokmin being a special guest is hot as hell, the required listening for the last scene is the album "new edition (1984)" by new edition (which is a real lp i own and listened to while writing it)

hELLOO!! welcome to my poly seokhan au! i have been neck deep in this universe for weeks now and i am finally releasing it in three parts! i will be posting today (obvi), tomorrow, and friday at noon pst, plus a little bonus epilogue whenever i finish it! today is all about seokmin and how he fell in love. i really poured a lot of myself into this one, between the poly reader and the obsession with architecture and the record collection (three fun facts about me, but you get no more context), so if you like it, please let me know! i did my best to portray the relationship as realistic and as healthy as possible❣️ also this series lowkey became a “how many cameos can i naturally squeeze in” kinda piece so if you spot one u should absolutely let me know hehe. and i edited my masterlist to accommodate for serial aus, let me know what you think!

please read the prelude linked in the contents of this post! it gives important context for the beginning of this part, establishes relationships, and sets the general mood 😏

seokmin lived a fairly simple life. he held private piano and guitar lessons in the comfort of his apartment, vaulted ceilings and tall windows helping to bring a bright, airy, studio environment during the day that he felt suited musical lessons perfectly - not the mention the lovely acoustics the tall room provided when he sang, belting out improv musical theater riffs as he scrambled eggs for a sandwich. he genuinely found joy and pride in helping adults and children alike train their hands to achieve new heights. he also did some contract vocal lessons at an entertainment company, stopping by the studio two or three times a week to train young new hopefuls in the music industry. he wondered how different his life would have been if he had taken their path, but he enjoyed the quiet downtime in his line of work, and wouldn't trade it for anything

his simple life. he drank tea in the mornings as the sun rose over the skyline, rode the subway with his guitar bag over his shoulder and his groceries in two overstuffed ecobags, and enjoyed his days off by relaxing in his home, scribbling down lyrics and compositions on the legal pad that never left the music shelf of his upright piano. the less simple part of his life could be described simply as you.

the second time he had been summoned to accompany you, he had been at home, heating up leftover takeout and mindlessly watching some drama on a saturday evening after having gotten lunch and playfully wasting the afternoon with a friend, when he received a phone call. he answered it without giving too much thought, expecting an invite for drinks, as was usually the case when he heard from jeonghan. he put it on speaker and set his phone on his kitchen counter, leaning against it as he ate.

"hello?"

"minnie!" he had said, the smile obvious in his voice. seokmin responded with a short greeting before jeonghan continued. "are you busy tonight?"

"just watching tv," seokmin said, spoonful of fried rice in his mouth. "why? you feeling lonely?"

"something like that," jeonghan said. the architect must have been in the car, he thought briefly, hearing the static noise of wheels on pavement in the background every time he spoke. "listen, you remember y/n, yeah?"

he nearly choked. "uh, yeah. of course. did you think i would forget?"

"not really," he said matter of factly. "we're currently heading home after that exhibit opening and she's been asking about you all day. any chance you can get to my place in half an hour?"

seokmin blinked, staring at nothing as he processed. "tonight?"

a laugh. "yeah, tonight. she's been really sweet lately, i thought you could be her treat."

her treat. "right now?"

"yes," jeonghan laughed again. "right now. if it helps the decision making process, i've had my hand between her legs this whole time and she gets needier every time you talk."

seokmin swallowed harshly, imagining you squirming in the passenger seat of the car, huffing and desperate, begging for him with jeonghan's fingers curled into you. he adjusted against the counter, his pants suddenly feeling slightly tighter. "i'll get a cab."

then he heard you, your signature whiny moan as jeonghan no doubt worked you into a mess despite his even tone as he spoke. "y'hear that, sweetheart? he said yes. i'll pay for the cab when we get there. see you soon?"

"yeah," he said, eyes still unfocused. "yeah, see you soon."

after jeonghan asked you to be an angel and hang up for him, seokmin stood and looked around at his leftover fried rice and the drama that continued playing, remnants of his simple life that he found plenty enjoyable and fulfilling on its own, but fell to the shadows as you came into the light.

the cab ride felt too fast, and jeonghan's car pulled into the driveway of his luxurious home only minutes after seokmin arrived. he emerged from the door of the cab and stood in the late november air as the other car parked, the passenger door swinging open in a hurry.

"seokmin!" you squealed, heels clicking against the drive as you ran up to him in a shoulderless, long sleeved jewel toned dress that was not at all suited for the current temperature. your arms wrapped around his neck and he laughed into the hug. "i missed you."

"it's practically snowing," he chided, pulling away to wrap his coat around you, and you happily fell into his chest. he didn't stop you when you pulled his face to yours, kissing him briefly but deeply. you tasted familiar, memories of eating you out entering his mind as he thought about how jeonghan had likely made you clean his hand in the car, and despite your forwardness and his generally shy nature, it wasn't the winter air that sent chills up your spine when he muttered "i missed you, too," against your lips.

"okay, kids, get inside while i pay the nice driver," jeonghan said, holding out your coat to seokmin. he took it, draping it over your bare shoulders. you grinned at him, working your fingers between his and leading him towards a side entrance of the home.

he felt a flash of embarrassment, wondering what the cab driver must have thought about the interaction he was witnessing, but seokmin figured that he had probably seen much stranger and decided to not worry about it, especially when you were regaling the events of the evening.

"they were playing classical," you groaned, punching in the door code with the hand that wasn't fiddling with his fingers. "from a cd. at a modern art exhibit. what part of that makes sense?"

seokmin laughed. "is that why you were thinking about me?"

you smiled as he followed you through the doorway, revealing a grand kitchen with a large island countertop. he had been here before, but on halloween, when it was full of life and the counter was covered in food. "jeonghan may have let me watch some videos," you said, and seokmin felt heat rising on his neck as he thought of you asking to learn more about him in his absence. you stepped out of your heels and walked towards the large fridge as you spoke, retrieving a water bottle. "that jazz piano number you did, jeonghan said it was at a bar? that would have been so much better, especially considering the artist's vision. his stuff was so full of life, i'm honestly surprised he allowed them to do anything other than live jazz - classical was too stuffy."

"it was a commentary," jeonghan reminded you, closing the door behind him as you offered a bottle to seokmin. "juxtaposition of traditional museum atmosphere with outlandish architecture and colorful, emotional art pieces," he said, sounding rehearsed. "the music was supposed to feel stuffy compared to the visuals."

"you guys worked too hard to settle for that," you shot back. you may have held a little resentment for the fact that jeonghan hadn't even asked for your opinion on the matter, considering you were less than a year away from a degree in musical theory. "if i hear clair de lune at one of these unveilings one more time, i'm gonna tear my fucking hair out."

seokmin laughed, but jeonghan only gave you a tired chuckle, and only after you quirked an eyebrow at him. he should have known you were only acting impressed at the exhibit because you wanted seokmin around. jeonghan could be cruel, but not so cruel as to invite a friend over to make his lady's night, only to deny everyone the pleasure after he already arrived, and this was a fact about him you were completely aware of. now was your chance to act out with little to no sacrifice - the most he would do is punish you in bed, and that, you were willing to handle.

jeonghan tsked when he saw your laptop and schoolwork spread across the kitchen island. "didn't i ask you to not do this?"

you eyed the counter, noting the teasing tone he took. "not do what?"

"leave your shit in the kitchen. you have a whole room to do schoolwork in, make a mess in there," he scolded, clicking his tongue as he flipped a textbook shut.

"i work better in bright, open spaces," you said quickly.

"i gave you a window to the sunroom."

"and i love it," you stated obviously. "and the desk you chose is nice, and the chair is super comfy, but it's still too dark in that room. it makes me want to fall asleep." you turned to the musician. "how have you been, seokmin? i haven't seen you in weeks, and jeonghan purposefully keeps secrets when you guys go out."

seokmin said close to nothing of substance as he said he was doing well and leaned against the kitchen island, focusing more on the way you shrugged the fuzzy coat off your shoulders and setting it in the counter to tuck your arms into his, wrapping them around his torso and resting your chin on his shoulder to give the man of the house a flirtatious look. jeonghan simply rolled his eyes at you with a faint smile on his face, taking off his own outer coat and going to hang it in a closet. you hummed as seokmin spoke about anything he could think of, smiling when you felt his gentle, hesitant fingers rubbing circles into the small of your back.

and that night, seokmin was perhaps too eager to secede control, allowing his friend to gently order the two of you to do whatever pleased him. currently, you were between his thighs as he laid out comfortably in jeonghan's bed, the architect fucking into you from behind as your voice went hoarse from sucking seokmin dry. his thick cock stretched your jaw to its breaking point, but your neediness for his cum on your tongue outweighed the soreness you knew you would feel the next day as you bobbed your head, your hands wrapped around what wouldn't fit. he choked, his fingers itching to reach out to you, but remembering jeonghan's firm words of no touching and gripping the sheets instead as he came into your mouth and you moaned around him. jeonghan had stopped you from swallowing completely, a hand around your throat as he pulled you against his chest, forcing your neck to crane around so he could share the treat. seokmin watched, hand involuntarily going to pump himself again despite the sensitivity, as his release dripped down both of your jaws between the feverish kisses. you whined, jeonghan continuing to thrust into you as he stole the gift seokmin gave you straight from your mouth, his fingers finding your clit, making your knees shake as he came in your pulsating cunt.

that was the first time in his life that seokmin had ever cum twice in one session, having been too turned on at the sight to even think about not having you ride his face, cum seeping out of your precious hole. too turned on by the way your fingers dug against his scalp and the way you tasted to even think about turning down jeonghan when he asked to touch him, groaning against your core as he slowly and teasingly jerked him off. too turned on by it all to even think about not cumming when he was told, fist clenching the now familiar sheets as you rolled off him, panting from the overstimulation. your face was wrecked, tearstained and flushed, as you collapsed into his side, wrapping your arms around his torso and burying your hot face in his neck, his own face not much better. jeonghan proudly announced he was off to take a shower, sucking a line of cum off his thumb before saying that you lovebirds were welcome to stay as long as you would like, fully expecting you two to continue without him as he walked to the bathroom.

seokmin felt shy, for some reason, despite having just having taken a shower with you, and just before, having had sex with you both. you had asked him if he wanted sweats or a shirt to sleep in, saying jeonghan wouldn't mind if he borrowed some. he turned you down, but watched you tug a far too large shirt over your otherwise bare form, and let you lead him back to bed.

"it's a custom mattress," you told him, giggling as you pulled him onto the oversized bed, kneeing yourself to the center and plopping down next to where jeonghan was wasting time on his phone. you planted a kiss on his cheek and he looked up to smile at you before you turned back to seokmin. he noticed the duvet changed, and he wondered if jeonghan had swapped it out after the mess they had made on it. you maneuvered yourself under the covers, gesturing for him to join you. "c'mon," you said. "we cuddle here."

seokmin had never even considered the idea of spending the night in bed with two other people, but found it surprisingly comfortable for it being his first time.

he did a lot of firsts with you, as it turned out.

you started to text him when you were alone and bored, which was something you and jeonghan had discussed with the strict understanding that you would have open and honest talks about it frequently, and that you would let him know any time you reached out to the musician. the first time he ever had phone sex, seokmin was busy at the company he did contract work for, and he had even told you so after the first suggestive text you sent him, but that didn't stop you from sending him increasingly dirty ideas and photos, making him silence his phone and shove it in his back pocket as he tried to focus on his students. when he finally slipped away to a private bathroom, he groaned at the way you looked, laid out on a plush couch and squeezing at your own breasts, with your back arching just so, and he quickly called you to ask if you were trying to get him fired.

"maybe if you get fired, you can come work with me," you whined, fingers already teasing your slick folds just at the low tone in seokmin's voice. his mind whirring as you gasped suddenly, revealing that you had already started. "jeonghan's been too busy for me this week, please don't tell me you are, too."

seokmin's eyes squeezed shut, back hitting the bathroom wall as he pulled himself out of his pants, trying not to drop his phone from his ear as he imagined how absolutely delightful you must look in that moment. "i'm never too busy for you, baby."

jeonghan took him out to dinner. it was normal, mostly, and not the first time since seokmin had seen his dick, but he noticed the older was acting slightly different as seokmin turned the meat on the grill.

"about y/n," he said finally, and seokmin fumbled with a chunk of pork before clearing his throat.

"yeah?"

jeonghan smiled. "she hasn't said it yet, but i think she really likes you."

that made seokmin freeze, suddenly thinking about how he was at dinner with his undefined sext buddy's long term partner. "really?" he squeaked out.

"listen, i want you to know," he said, picking off some cooked meat and chewing it casually. "whatever happens between you two, i'm okay with it. she promised to keep me in the loop, and i trust her."

seokmin nodded, putting down the tongs and grabbing his chopsticks, continuing to avoid eye contact. "okay."

jeonghan laughed. "stop acting like i'm her dad. you and i are in the same relationship with her at this point."

he swallowed, a smile creeping across his face. "well, she does call you daddy."

the next time he saw you, you came to him, appearing at his apartment one early tuesday evening as his last client was leaving. he greeted you casually, but still snuck a quick kiss on your lips as he let you in, his student packing up their guitar. he took your winter coat and told you to make yourself comfortable as they finished up, telling you where the restroom was if you needed it, but in a tone that made you think he was saying it more to announce to his student that you had never been there before than for your comfort, which pulled a quiet giggle from you as he quickly organized his loose leaf sheet music into their designated folders. you watched him from the piano bench as he made short conversation with his student, accepted a check, and bid the aspiring guitarist farewell, closing the door behind them. when you were finally alone, seokmin blushed at the realization that you had been smiling at him the entire time, thinking about how his client must have thought their teacher had gotten himself a cute girlfriend.

you were less forward this time. less needy. you flirted, but not in the outright ways you had every other time seokmin saw you. you stood and joined him by a bookshelf as he put away materials, asking him about his day (quite lovely, especially with this to look forward to), what he had eaten for lunch (he'd gotten ox tail soup delivered as a celebratory meal for a student that just had their first solo piano recital that weekend), and how he managed to command authority in all his students when he always looked so darn cute (he had pitched his eyebrows at you and went "yah," but was unable to keep a straight face long enough to argue with you). you smiled, taking a baseball off the bookshelf and turning it over in your hands, and asked why he invited you over. he cleared his throat, saying he thought it'd be nice to take you out on a proper date, but faltered when your shining eyes caught his.

"a proper date?" you asked, smiling slyly.

"i- uh, yeah, i mean-" he cleared his throat, hand finding the edge of a table as he tried to figure out what he was trying to say. "people generally treat you in exchange for your company, right?"

"generally," you agreed, focusing on his standup piano on the far wall as you thought. "i don't want you to, though."

“i didn’t mean-” he stretched his jaw - a nervous habit that you had begun to notice - as he readjusted his approach, not wanting to imply that he wanted your exchange to be purely transactional. "i just wanna take you out. for real."

you gave him a small smile, knowing what was the case despite your teasing. "okay. it's a date."

to change the subject from one that seokmin clearly didn't know how to continue - and besides, you weren't hungry enough for dinner yet - you returned the baseball to it's display and asked him how he taught his lessons. he laughed, not because your question was funny, but because he didn't know how to answer it in a way that didn't sound like a pitch to a potential client.

"then teach me like a client," you demanded playfully, skipping to sit at the piano bench and turning to grin at him.

seokmin took a moment to look at you, with a knit sweater tucked in the front of a pair of loose jeans - a far cry from the tight fitting, short dresses he normally saw you in - sat in his apartment as the last remnants of sunrays dipped behind the skyline. "you know how to play," he said finally, but walking over to join you anyways.

"teach me like i don't," you said as he sat beside you, scooting over slightly to accommodate. "i'm very good at acting incompetent."

he laughed again. "normally, people pay me for this kind of time, but i'll give you an intro. we'll start with hand placement," he said, gently putting his hands on the keys. "starting position is important, even though you'll be moving around the keys a lot when you actually play. your thumb," he said, wiggling his right thumb and smiling when you giggled. "it starts on c. that's your root."

"oh, right," you vocalised, placing your right hand similarly an octave up from his. "music has a bunch of letters, huh?"

"only the seven," he joked, pulling his hands off the keys as you comfortably set your fingers where they belonged, a motion you clearly made often. "wow, are you sure you're a beginner? you picked that up fast."

you knocked him with your shoulder, giggling. "quick, what do i do next?"

he smiled. "try pressing the keys in order. c to g, thumb to pinky. be firm, this isn't an electric keyboard. it can sense fear."

you sucked on your cheek, smiling at the way seokmin explained things as you played, but used your pinky to strike the black key instead of g, giggling at the flat note. "oh, that sounded wrong. this piano must be out of tune."

"stop," seokmin said teasingly. "beginners don't have that kind of pinky dexterity, by the way."

"maybe i'm a prodigy," you said, grabbing his sleeve with both hands excitedly. "you have to teach me, mr. lee! you're the only one that can help me hone my gift."

"stop it," he repeated, laughing, giving you a fake glare. he put his hands back on the keys. "lesson over."

you pouted, but it was short-lived as he began to play. you watched his hands effortlessly move over each other as you listened to the gentle flowing melody. despite being classically trained yourself, back when you were young and your parents felt you needed the discipline of regular lessons, you found yourself being impressed by his deft finger movements. your eyes shut, and you let your temple fall to his shoulder as you listened.

"yiruma," you said when he stopped playing despite the song not being over.

his arm went over your head, allowing you to lean into his chest as he planted his hand on the bench behind you, your eyes still shut. "you know your stuff."

"it's one of my favorites." you smiled, eyes fluttering open again. "you play well."

your breath stopped in your throat when you realized how close his face was to yours. "have to. people pay me to teach their kids."

"jeonghan pays me to be nice to him, doesn't mean i'm good at it."

seokmin couldn't help but laugh. "how did that even start, by the way? he would never tell me when i asked."

you sighed, straightening your posture. "i suppose you should know, considering this is becoming a regular thing."

"you don't have to if you don't want to," he assured quietly. you smiled at the thoughtfulness. "i'm just curious, is all."

"i don't mind," you said, shaking your head gently at him. you inhaled, organizing your thoughts - this wasn't a subject you explained very often. "i had a scholarship for the first two years of uni, but i would have to pay tuition afterwards, so i decided to become a paid escort to save for it." you paused to study seokmin's reaction, but for the first time from someone other than jeonghan, you found no creased brow, no vague frown. no judgement. "men would hire me through a broker to accompany them to dinner, go to parties, the general stuff. i even played golf a couple times - terribly, obviously, but rich men really enjoy teaching young pretty women how to play golf. i always got a cab ride home at the end of the night, though. never did anything more. jeonghan was one of my clients."

seokmin nodded. "how long did you do that for?"

despite how you would normally take that question, you knew he meant no shame in asking. "ten-ish months? jeonghan was only for the last month or so, though."

"before he asked you to quit?"

you laughed lightly. "actually, someone else asked me to quit. this guy that had been hiring me regularly for almost my entire career. he wanted me to date him properly. i think he wanted a trophy wife. he was young, like, only a few years older than me, and he was nice, y'know? a little awkward in the beginning, but paying someone to go out with you is always a little awkward, and we got comfortable with each other pretty fast. he wanted to take the next step with me, but he wanted the end goal to be marriage."

seokmin adjusted as he thought. "but you said no?"

"i said yes." his wide eyes made you laugh, but you understood his shock. "i was ready to quit anyways, i guess?" you shrugged, shaking your head. "i wanted to go on real dates instead of getting paid to eat with men my parents' age. yukwon felt realistic to me. someone i could see myself with." you sighed. "i went out with jeonghan during my last week of escorting. when i told him i was quitting, he asked me to choose him instead."

he watched you when you paused, pursing your lips. "and then you said no?"

you giggled, bumping against his chest as he laughed with you. "i tried! but jesus, when that guy gets an idea." you shook your head again. "he asked how much yukwon was paying me - which he wasn't, by the way. we were going to do it for real, even though he was still gonna support me financially and pay for my schooling. i was gonna sign a prenup and everything - but jeonghan kept saying he would double it. said i didn't have to marry him, and that he just wanted to keep spending time with me, and if i wanted to call it quits later, i could. no pressure, no sex, no commitment… he gave me a choice, and i realized i didn't love yukwon. i thought i could, but i didn't."

"so he saved you?"

"from a lifetime of settling? i guess so. he's funnier, too," you admitted sheepishly. "i always had the most fun on nights i was with jeonghan."

seokmin smiled. "he is good at lightening the mood."

"and," you said, eyes wide. "he didn't even want us to be exclusive, said i could keep escorting or go on dates with other guys if i wanted, as long as i promised to make time for him when he wanted me. it was kind of the perfect arrangement."

seokmin nodded again. "was, being the operative word?"

you laughed, remembering how well he knew jeonghan. "lasted less than a month. we spent too much time together, and i quickly realized that every time i went out with someone else, i wished i was with him. to be honest, when i met you, i thought this would be a one time thing, so i may have tried to make it seem a little less involved than it is." you sighed. "we never really defined what we were. i think we've both always known that he was more than a sugar daddy to me, but he does basically pay me so that i can keep my schedule open for him, so i guess it's easier to tell people that? instead of everyone assuming i'm some gold digger taking advantage of his money?" you shrugged. "i do love the guy. i'm about 94% sure he loves me, too."

that made him laugh. "how long have you been together?" he asked, trying to figure out the timeline in his head. he had known about jeonghan's relationship with you for quite some time, though not the exact nature of it, or that you were so fantastic, for the mass majority.

"about a year. right before halloween, actually," you said, smiling as you leaned into him. "you were technically an anniversary gift."

his lip quirked upwards, watching you. "was it a good gift?"

"the best," you whispered, placing a slow kiss on his lips. your hand went to his sharp jaw, and you sighed against him as the kiss deepened, suddenly feeling needier than you had previously.

"does he know you're here?" seokmin asked quietly, mind flashing back to when him and jeonghan had gotten dinner together. "like this, i mean."

you nodded slowly, a hand on the bench to steady you as you leaned into him further. "he's in japan this week, told me i could see you as often as i want. just asked that i call him when i can, we spoke this afternoon."

"promise?"

you giggled. "you act like i would risk it. i like you too much, and you know he would make us both regret it if i was seeing you behind his back."

he examined your face, a smile on his lips, knowing it wasn't the part of the statement that he was meant to focus on but unable to think of anything else. "i like you, too."

so he kissed you, sitting on the piano bench in his loft apartment, and despite it being nowhere near the first time, something about it felt special. new. different.

later, though much sooner than later would imply, when the two of you were unable to stop yourselves from undressing each other, he had you seated firmly in his lap on the couch in his living room. the way he filled you out made you incapable of doing much outside of digging your hands in his hair as he rolled his hips up into yours, rambling about how perfect you were. how well you took him. how he had never seen anything as breathtaking as the way your brows stitched together and your mouth hung open as he fucked you. you huffed, twisting your hips slightly, triggering a groan from you both.

"so beautiful," he muttered, hands on your bare hips, rubbing circles into the soft flesh above the bone. "fuck, you're incredible."

"shit, seokmin," you exhaled, forehead falling on his. you knew he wasn't even using all his length, but he was thrusting deep enough into you to make you see stars. "god, i'm close."

you watched his tongue dart out to wet his lips as he focused on you, pulling himself off the couch and sitting up straight as his hips steadily rolled into yours. "come on, babygirl. you know i love the way you feel."

you cursed, arms winding around his neck as you pressed your chest against his, desperately kissing him as you felt yourself falling over the sweet edge. he groaned when you squeezed at him, arms wrapped around your waist, fingers gripping any amount of you he could as he worked you through your bliss. he only slowed to gently put your back to the couch, your legs wrapped around his waist as he curled over you, arms under your body to pull you into his chest, and a hand at the base of your neck to hold you steady as he firmly fucked you into the cushion.

"fuck, baby, you're so good to me," he groaned, forehead pressed just under your jawline, his mouth latching onto your neck as soon as he managed the words. you were gasping for air, arms over his shoulders, wondering if seokmin always made love this deeply and genuinely, or if you were just special.

afterwards, he discarded the condom that he insisted on using (you asked what the point of you getting something shoved into your cervix was if you couldn't enjoy his particularly bountiful creampies with no consequence, but he said he was not getting cum on the couch his clients sit on), pulled his underwear back on, and returned to you quickly, kissing up your body after pulling your panties back over your hips. you ran your fingers through his messy hair, causing him to look up at you. he said sorry, a laugh on his lips, asking if you wanted to get food delivered instead of going out.

"that sounds perfect," you giggled. "don't apologize."

"i'll take you out for real this weekend, i promise," he said, sitting up and stretching out his shoulder. you watched, quietly admiring how gentle and soft he seemed, with surprisingly firm muscles hiding under his usual large sweaters and shirts. "and i'll pick you up so we don't get tempted. but for now, kimchi soup and bibimbap?"

you nodded excitedly, sitting up to wrap your arms around him and planting a kiss on his shoulder. "sounds delicious."

he tried not to get excited by your touch, thinking about how you had said this was becoming a regular thing, and therefore he didn't need to get as much of you as he could before you slipped through his fingers like he had the first few times you met. he couldn't help himself, though, when his eyes met yours and you smiled gently at him, and had no choice but to put an agonizingly slow kiss on your lips before he stood to announce he was changing into something comfortable if you were just going to stay in. you giggled and grabbed your sweater from where it got discarded, pulling it over your head as you told him there was no chance in hell you were putting jeans on again before the morning, and he smiled at the implication that you would be staying the night with him.

"i have lessons tomorrow," he reminded you softly as he gathered up his clothes and walked to the stairs. "if you'd like, you can stick around, but it'll be boring."

you hummed. "i don't have class, but i should do schoolwork," you mused, watching him walk up the steps to what you could assume was his lofted bedroom. "it's been lonely at the house, though."

"if you wanna bring your things here, you can," seokmin suggested, his voice projecting easily through the space. he pulled on a pair of shorts and a more casual shirt than the one he had been wearing for his work day. "it would give you something to do while i teach youths how to play chopsticks. do you stay at jeonghan's when he's not around, too?"

you laughed, thinking about your all but abandoned apartment as you meandered towards the stairs. "lately, yeah. i used to spend more nights at home than in his bed, but he gets really busy planning stuff in the winter and has less time to take me out." you stretched your back. "i think he likes knowing i'll be there when he gets home late. makes the day easier."

seokmin nodded as he came back down, running a hand through his hair, thinking that he, too, would find his days easier if it meant going to bed with you every night. "that's very kind of you."

"it's selfish, i promise." he laughed. "if you saw how tiny my place is, you would choose jeonghan's too. besides, i get cold in bed alone."

he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. "is that why you're here?"

you giggled. "no, i'm here because you invited me over. but that might be a factor in why i'm staying," you teased, hugging him tightly.

the next day, you were sprawled on his bed, writing an accompanying essay for your composition project as he taught lessons down below, only emerging to refill your water glass and use the restroom as infrequently as possible, trying to not disturb his lessons. parents often accompanied the children, usually reading a book and listening to their child practice. a college friend of his stopped by, as he tried to do at least once a month, accompanying his niece, and seokmin recalled that he was the one that had given jeonghan his number again over a year ago, feeling like he should thank him but not knowing how.

"seokmin," you called down softly when you heard him chatting casually with his friend. you padded down the steps with your empty water glass, spotting the young girl at the kitchen table with a marker and a sheet of paper, smiling when you remembered her slightly clumsy, but surprisingly advanced keystrokes, considering her age.

"what's up?" seokmin asked, pushing off of the counter he was leaning against, and he ignored the quick, questioning nudge mingyu pushed into his side.

"hi, sorry," you said, waving lightly when you noticed the tall man beside him. "i was wondering - if you have time - if you could listen to my composition piece and tell me if you think it leans more romantic or more post-great war?"

seokmin nodded. "absolutely. do you need me now, or can it wait ten minutes?"

"it can wait," you assured, eyes darting between the two men. you lifted the glass in your hand. "i needed a break."

he smiled, taking your glass and moving to pull open the fridge. "this is mingyu, by the way. mingyu, y/n. he's an architect, also."

"also?" mingyu asked, eyeing you. seokmin stared at you, realizing what he said.

your brows ruffled as you studied the tall man's face, not recognizing it. "we must not be in the same social group. i'm a friend of jeonghan's."

he gave you silent thanks for keeping the relationship ambiguous. mingyu, however, nearly yelled. "yoon jeonghan?" he laughed. "you know, i didn't even see that guy at his own halloween party. you still keep in touch, i assume, seokmin?"

he nodded, putting your filled water glass on the counter beside you, and you wondered how you never saw mingyu at the party, either. "yeah, we hang out fairly often."

"he introduced us," you interjected. mingyu smiled between you two. "thought we'd match well, i guess."

"well, you just asked a music teacher to review your composition, so," mingyu laughed. "he was right?"

seokmin studied you with a crooked smile on his lips. "have you ever known yoon jeonghan to be wrong?"

you stayed another, more innocent night, but when seokmin woke the next morning, his face was pressed against the side of you neck, and you were pushing your ass back against his morning wood.

"fuck, good morning," seokmin groaned, hands gripping at your hips where they had already been aimlessly floating.

"oh, thank god you're awake," you panted out. you spun in his grasp, pushing his shoulder back on the bed and climbing atop him. "you must have been having a fantastic dream, because you would not stop touching me."

he couldn't help the whine in his throat, mostly from embarrassment. "i'm so sorry."

"don't be," you rushed out, peeling off your shirt. "i just need you now."

considering this was his third time seeing it, he didn't think he would be so awestruck still, but the snapshot of you, topless, seated on his lap with your hands on his chest was a view that seokmin would likely never get over, because it felt like he was the dorky, awkward protagonist and you were the long-shot love interest that was way too cool and way too hot for him in this cliché coming of age comedy.

you kissed him, and he pushed your hips down to grind against his lap, pulling a gasp from your lips. he took the opportunity to bring a hand to your neck, pulling you into open mouth kisses. you moaned without shame as you rolled your hips.

"you know what jeonghan told me?" you asked, pulling back to tug his underwear just far enough down to release the member you couldn't stop thinking about.

you straddled his lap, hands on your thighs. seokmin pushed his bare cock against your core, the wet fabric sticking lightly to his length. "what, baby?"

"he told me he wanted you to plug me up," you breathed, biting your lip when seokmin used a thumb to pull aside your underwear and drag your wetness across his dick. you moaned. "he wanted you to fuck me senseless and tell him all about it."

seokmin groaned, neck stretching out. "i can do that."

"no, baby," you said, bringing his free hand to your face and putting a kiss in his palm before you lifted yourself up, his thumb still hooked on your panties as you rubbed the head of his cock through your folds. "i wanna fuck you."

you sunk down onto him, jaw dropping. he smiled lightly, running his hands down your thighs. "i'll let you if you can."

your toes clenched, and you tried to maintain face. "i can."

seokmin folded his arms under his head, trying to avoid the temptation of fucking up into your warmth. he sighed, breathing out a "go on, then."

you put your hands on his chest and bounced on him several times, biting at your lip at how wide he stretched you out, but taking too much pride in the way his eyes hung half lidded and his breathy groaning to stop.

your hands went to his neck, leaning forward, lifting his head slightly off the pillow to kiss him, his hands falling from behind his head to hold yours, stopping you from pulling away.

he moaned into your open mouth, and you backed up for only a second to blearily meet his eyes as he panted. "baby."

you nodded, stealing a few more messy kisses. "yes?"

he groaned again, your hips twisting over his. "you're like a dream."

you could feel the heat radiating off your neck and cheeks, but you just pushed on his chest to sit upright, hands landing on his thighs. you moaned again, unapologetically, as you rotated your hips over his, and he bucked into you at the angle change. "if this is the dream, please don't wake up."

seokmin had a sneaking suspicion that he was in love with you, or at the very least falling towards it. the confirmation of this fact threw itself in his face, not when you proved that you could fuck him, sitting deeply on him to push his cum further in, or when you squealed and giggled as he threw your back onto the bed so that he could pull your underwear off proper and bury his tongue in your heat, but afterwards, when he wandered into the kitchen after using the restroom and found you wearing one of his shirts, waiting as his electric kettle bubbled to life, his favorite blue mug on the counter beside a white one - the white one, he realized, with the finger heart design that he had chosen for your coffee the day prior. and he told you so, rushing to explain himself and assure you that you didn’t have to say it back, but you just hushed him and smiled, saying that you loved him too.

seokmin had to go to the entertainment company that afternoon. you walked with him to the station near his apartment and he sat you in a cab, a kiss on your lips, before he hurried down to catch his ride to work. he breathed heavily when he could finally lean against a wall in the train, having to run to catch it before the doors closed.

seokmin❣️: almost didn't make the train 🙃

you: but you did!!! proud of you 👍

seokmin❣️: thanks 🥴💕

you were both smiling after that.

he took you out to eat that weekend, as promised, and you had honestly forgotten what it was like to date people that weren't jeonghan. you liked riding the subway with him (you couldn't even remember the last time you took it), and you thought it was cute that he let you stand against a wall to keep easy balance as he stood in front of you. you were slightly impressed that he barely rocked with the movement, only grabbing an overhead loop when the train was pulling into a station.

"wait, you're especially pretty right now," he said suddenly, leaning forward to inspect your eyes.

your head hit the wall gently in reaction, flushing at his comment, wanting to bury your face in your scarf. "thank you."

he gave you his signature crooked smile. "of course."

it was cold out, but seokmin wrapped his hand over yours, shoving the whole ordeal into his coat pocket as he walked you down the street towards the restaurant he had picked. you giggled, squeezing his hand in his pocket, but he just continued telling you about which of the trainees he was working with seemed like they would debut.

"jiyoon composes, too! i'm really impressed with her actually," he said, trailing off when he saw the sign for the restaurant. "ah, here it is."

you thanked him when he held the door open for you, and you were immediately struck with the smell of tomato, cheese, and bread.

"i haven't had pizza in ages," you said excitedly, following him to a table.

"don't tell me," seokmin said, helping you take off your jacket and hanging it on a hook at the end of the booth. "you guys don't order pizza?"

you shook your head, sliding into the booth comfortably. "not often. jeonghan likes asian food."

seokmin froze as he was pulling off his jacket to stare at you. "what about you?"

"i like eating."

he laughed. "well, i like pizza."

after dinner, you insisted he come back to the house with you. he said he didn't know, thinking that you would probably need your energy for when jeonghan got home the next day. you pouted, knitting your fingers with his as the two of you stood on the sidewalk outside the pizza place.

"but i really wanna show you my record collection," you said, batting your eyelashes at him.

that was all it took.

you discovered that there was a bus stop near jeonghan's home, and while you would likely never take a bus without seokmin, you thought it was a good nugget of information to tuck away as you marched through the front door of the estate you practically called home.

"welcome to yoon manor," you joked, spinning to smile at seokmin.

he looked around, and despite having been here before, it felt grander coming through the main entrance and without the distraction of party guests. he had seen it empty briefly, from a different angle, when you were pulling him up to your bed a few weeks prior, but he realized he hadn't actually been able to see much when you were the focus of his attention.

"the kitchen's that way, there's a bathroom," you said, pointing at the opening past the stairs as you pulled off your scarf. you folded it over your arm as you walked further into the home, seokmin following you closely. you walked past a partial wall, pointing further down the hall that held the secondary living space that he originally met you in. "there's a bathroom to the left there, and if you go to the end of the hall there's an open sunroom."

seokmin looked around the room you stood in, recognizing it in bits and pieces, but it looking much different without a crowd and flashing lights.

"and this is the living room," you said, spreading your arms as you spun to him. "tv, couch, bar, and most importantly," you giggled, tugging him towards the far wall of the room, which was covered in deep toned shelving, speakers, and a record player. "my record collection."

you took off your jacket as seokmin looked around in awe, noticing you had select autographed records displayed alone on picture ledges with spotlights pointed at them. one picture ledge was empty, centered just above the player. you tossed your coat into the couch, pulling seokmin's off his shoulders as well, despite his distraction.

"these are all yours?" he asked, turning to look at you after you had discarded the coats.

you nodded, spinning the felt of the record player mindlessly as you looked around. "i actually had started a collection years ago, but i couldn't make an excuse to spend the money on it very often. jeonghan gave me a pretty good excuse. also, whenever he pissed me off, he knew he could take me to a record shop and i would forgive him."

seokmin laughed. "does that happen a lot?"

"not as often as you'd think, considering what an ass he is," you teased. you gestured to the collection. "this is my baby, though. the house is his, but this wall is mine."

"well, play me a record," seokmin requested plainly, making you smile into a laugh.

"okay," you said, scooting past him to pull out one of the many cube drawers amidst the shelving. you flipped through a few. "dancing music?"

seokmin watched your hands, humming. "slow dancing, but, like, in a nostalgic discoteque."

you thought for a second, then closed the drawer to move to a different one, quickly flipping through and finding the record you wanted. you pulled the lp out, putting the bright blue sleeve with five smiling men on the empty picture ledge.

seokmin wrapped his arms around you as you set the record, striking the play button and enjoying the whirring as the lp spun, the needle connecting and the speakers scratching to life. you spun in his grip, laying your arms over his shoulders as he pulled you away from the record stand, into a more open space to playfully dance to the soulful bass lines and pop melodies of new edition.

"this house is insane, right?" seokmin asked, squinting at you as you laughed and nodded.

"it really is. the craziest part is he's still working on it."

"really?" seokmin looked around. "what else could he wanna change?"

you let your eyes wander. "i think it's a work in progress for him. the sunroom was brand new when we met, and he added this record display last winter, when i told him i always wanted to collect. the bar is new," you pointed. "he finished that in october. the kitchen was a summer project."

he blinked heavily, trying to register. "does he do all the work himself?"

"his team helps him," you explained. "he has a few contractors he works with and they manage the construction projects, but every once in a while i wake up on a sunday and he's cutting wood in the garage because he got an idea. he drafts all the changes, usually participates in the build, and picks most of the furniture, but he has people to collect the options for him."

"and he also does all that for other people, too?" you nodded, giggling. "and has time to take you to events almost every weekend?"

"i know. i didn't understand how he found the time until i realized that he just gets paid to do his hobby."

seokmin nodded. "me too, i guess."

you grinned. "me three. you should stay with us more," you suggested, rocking with him gently. "he'll be late tomorrow, but he's working from home this week…"

"hush," seokmin chuckled. "i have to work. besides, i'm sure he wants you alone after letting me claim you while he’s been gone."

"about that," you said, pulling away slightly to give him a cheeky smile. "i haven't gotten him to admit it yet, but i think jeonghan has a crush on you."

seokmin choked out a laugh. "what? me?"

"seokmin," you started, giving him a look. "he wanted you to join us for sex. more than once."

"okay," he scoffed lightly. "people have sex just for the sex sometimes," he pointed out, but in a tone that had no chance at convincing anyone.

"sure," you giggled. "but think about it. he kept me to himself all this time, and suddenly he's encouraging us to see each other without him? asking me about everything we do together..."

he swallowed. "everything?"

"everything," you breathed, eyes trained on his lips. "he knows i'll always go back to him, and i think he's hoping i'll bring you with me."

he blinked at you, processing. "is that what you're doing? bringing me back to him?"

"only if that's something you're interested in," you stated, cocking your head.

"him, you mean?"

you thought a second. "yes?"

you watched him blink repeatedly, seemingly considering the concept. he thought back to all the nights that became early mornings, laughing and joking with the architect since before he had even an ounce of notoriety. he thought of how jeonghan had reached out to him again a few long years later, and the way he had insisted on paying every time they got food. he wondered if there had been something happening that he hadn't noticed, his oblivious nature getting the best of him again. he thought about when things changed, when they met less often and jeonghan seemed quieter around him. and months later, when he started mentioning you.

"maybe," he said finally, mind whirling. "i don't know, i've never thought about it."

you nodded, putting your arms over his shoulders and swaying lightly to the music. "take your time," you said, smiling when his forehead pressed against yours. "we'll wait for you."

#this is my life's thesis #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen smut #seventeen scenarios #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan imagines #dokyeom fluff #dokyeom imagines #jeonghan smut #dokyeom smut #poly seokhan au #i wrote dis #hannie #sunshine #i love this one yall #my magnum opus #i cant wait to post the rest <3

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rottingflovver · 4 years ago

Text

Random relationship (and just general stuff) headcanons for the ADA squad!!

Atsushi Nakajima 🐯

Soft boi

Smells like strawberries and vanilla

Don't question me on this, he just does

Also probably adores eating strawberries and vanilla, alongside ice cream and anything sweet really, but like, in moderation (it's gotta be a soft food tho)

He also likes fruits and veggies

A healthy boi

His ideal date would be sightseeing, just walking around town with his s/o and admiring the scenery

Would try to be really cheesy and say something like "you're prettier than any location we've been to" but he'd get too embarrassed halfway through so it would just come out as a stammering mess

He's adorable tho, you love him

When sleeping, if you sleep in one bed, he'd legit be like a big cat (no pun intended)

He'd be so warm, and his arms would be wrapped around you in a soft embrace

Prone to having nightmares so please comfort him

Ozamu Dazai 💀

The literal opposite of a soft boi

What I mean by this is that he's a straight up f-boy

Don't @ me, it's official; he's left every woman he's ever been with crying

But don't worry, once he gets attached to you, he'd be all giddy and happy whenever you even exist around him

My dude adores coffee (+ alcohol!)

Doesn't really eat much (please force him to eat more) but he's a sucker for sweets (I feel like he'd be really picky tho, like "no this brand of chocolate is absolute garbage I only eat the finest *insert niche brand literally no one has EVER heard of*"

We love him for it

He'd also really be into salty snacks, anything that has a crunch to it really

Did I mention that he smells like washed out Cologne mixed with his natural scent (+ the most recent way he tried to commit not-living)

His ideal date would be a coffee-date

He knows it's not much but that's where he feels the most relaxed and happy, so he wants you to experience that with him as well

Unlike Atsushi, this boy can FLIRT

Expect a cheesy remark every few seconds

It comes to the point where it's actually kinda annoying

Once you start firing it back at him (it's gotta be something sincere tho) he'd be flustered and kinda flabbergasted

Is also prone to nightmares, but don't expect to see this side of him unless he REALLY really trusts you

Kunikida Doppo 📚

Stoic boi

Idk how to explain this but I feel like the 🗿 emoji really represents him

Also he smells the most normal out of everyone ㅡ literally just some kinda nice perfume and neutral, washed out shampoo (by neutral I mean that you can't really identify what it is, but it's nice)

I feel like he'd be warm

Like not to Atsushi's level, but he'd be a good heat provider if it ever gets windy or rainy

Not to mention how comforting his hugs are, although, extremely awkward (he's so inexperienced with them Lord help him)

Also a sucker for coffee but that's because it's the only thing keeping him sane (and awake, Kunikida go to bed challenge)

He's a really good cook

Like it surprises you how many dishes he actually knows how to make, given how much time his work occupies

He's also more like your dad (or even mom tbh) than your boyfriend, because he's always nagging cuz of some idealistic criteria you failed to meet (ie. "cLeAn YoUr RoOm")

That's why his preference for dates are dates that don't even feel like them

It's literally just everyday activities

Going shopping together? Sure, he's down, gotta get it done anyway and it's nice to have company. You want him to teach you how to make a certain dish? Geez, finally, it's about time you start doing that yourself. You wanna join on a mission? That's a bit too dangerous, but you can meet him afterwards

Like do you get what I'm saying

It's so obvious you two have a thing for each other but he's just so damn dense and yet somehow gets super flustered at the same time

Compliment him on something he's insecure about and he'll be a mess for like 10 whole minutes (by this I mean he genuinely won't be able to utter a word)

Akiko Yosano 🦋

She listens to girl in red

Okay maybe not, but she definitely stans Dreamcatcher

I'll stop you get the point

Her favorite LOONA solo is Heart Attack

(That was the last one I swear)

But fr tho, she looks and acts scary but she's a whole sweetheart

Kind of cold but it's okay you can warm her up (melts if you do that)

Really scared of letting people get too close to her, but if you keep insisting and being nice to her she'll have to accept your love

ALSO fond of coffee (seriously what's with these people) and a mediocre cook (she's trying ok)

Will always be down to try and make something with you, whatever the dish may be

Smells like oranges and roses (not mixed, obvi on different days it's a different vibe)

Also sometimes has a lingering aftertaste of blood due to her job at the ADA and you're kinda just like 😶 about it because?? Do you tell her?? Does she know?? What do you do???

Pain.png

Hint: you should definitely tell her tho

SHE FINALLY HAS A CONSISTENT SHOPPING BUDDY

Although she doesn't force you to carry everything around like she forces everyone else to, because you're special ✨

That would also be your assumption on what her favorite date is, but she can actually be pretty romantic!

Don't expect anything grandeur tho, it's just a fancy dinner date at a restaurant

Poor bb has been planning and saving up for this for months now so please appreciate it

She sleeps like a rock

She's just straight, like a soldier

Oh the irony

But I feel like if you were to hug her she'd instantly melt into your embrace

Is ALSO prone to nightmares (seriously what's with these people) but she doesn't wanna bother you with them

Edogawa Ranpo 👓

Praise him

Please

He has a praise kink

So please praise him

He's surprisingly soft

Maybe it's all the sweets he eats, but he's both soft to hug and soft personality wise

Oh yeah did I mention he emits an aura of candy

Like he walks into the room and you don't even have to look to know that it's him, cuz it'll just smell like sweets all of a sudden

Speaking of, he really adores them

To the point where you'll have to force him to eat something healthy from time to time as well, I mean, seriously, that much sugar CANNOT be good for you

If you give him some homemade baked goods (ei. cupcakes, brownies, cake, ect.) listen he will LITERALLY lose it

You're his angel now

No not even that, you're a GODDESS/GOD to him

(Yes he's that dramatic)

He likes taking you to see detective movies with him where he figures out the killer in the first 3 minutes

Also he gets lost so gosh darn easily; never ever let him out of your sight or he'll just be gone forever

Other than that, he lets you organize and plan the dates, cuz he thinks you could do a way better job at being romantic than he ever could

He's really okay with anything you wanna do ㅡ he's just happy to be with you

(Just don't take him to someplace where he can't eat candy)

Force him to eat spicy food and he's breaking up with you nckdndjc

When sleeping together, he's sprawled out across the mattress

In many ways he's just a big teddy bear, you can climb on top of him and sleep there and he'll just be chill with it

These next few ⬇ are only friendship hcs bc a sis doesn't wanna go to jail

Kenji Miyazawa 🐄

Baby boy, baby

Listen I can't explain it but he smells like grass and that fresh air country smell

Like you just know he does

LOVES getting head-pats

Loves giving them too!!

He's so confused when it comes to city stuff, so he'd much rather chill with you somewhere on a grass field

Expect to play a lot of tag and hide n seek with him!! It'll be extra fun if he drags Kyouka and Atsushi with him as well

Sometimes he'll randomly drop a country fact that seems so obscure to you (think; that one time he mentioned they just throw criminals off a cliff) and you'll just stare at him like; 👁 👄 👁

He loves to eat

Literally anything

"I love cows but I love eating them too"

He mentioned before that he shouldn't eat a lot cuz he has no power when full but you can't just??let him starve??

Give him an apple and water and he'll be fine

Introduce him to arcades and he'll get hooked in a matter of seconds

Kyouka Izumi 🌺

baby girl, baby

Loves to go sightseeing like Atsushi

Kind of stoic in the beginning but as she slowly warms up to you she'll be smiling all the time

Brings out Demon Snow to protect you if a leaf falls a little too threateningly

Cdndjdj no but fr ㅡ she never really had friends that accepted her and wanted to spend time with her so she really doesn't want anything to happen to you

You have to remind her that she's just a kid; she should be allowed to relax and enjoy the moment for a bit

Smells like flowers and death

The death part of it fades away with time

Spends a lot of time with Atsushi!! Meaning you will spend a lot of time with Atsushi as well

If you don't like him I'm sorry but you two just can't be friends

She has no idea what counts as friend activities and what doesn't so expect her to either: a) not propose anything, or b) propose totally obscure stuff

But if something cute catches her attention she'll make an attempt to guide you to it

Like if she thinks you two should eat ice cream she'll stare at a nearby ice cream shop intensely

Sadly missing Junichiro and Fukuzawa cuz I just don't know enough about them 😔 we sad

#bungou stray dogs #atsushi Nakajima #bsd #dazai osamu #kunikida Doppo #akiko Yosano #edogawa Ranpo #kenji miyazawa #izumi kyouka #atsushi x reader #kunikida x reader #dazai x reader #yosano x reader #ranpo x reader #headcanons #bsd headcanons #bsd hcs

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coldtomyflash · 4 years ago

Note

I feel like the most obvious path to Coldwestallen has been to have Barry and Iris get together first, although I've seen a couple fics where Len and Iris do, but I don't think I've ever seen a Coldflash turn into Coldwestallen. Do you think there's a scenario where that could happen ?

Oh that’s true isn’t it. Probably because it’s easiest, since westallen is established, or since Iris/Len is a bit easier to add Barry to in a natural way. I’ll be honest and say that all the coldwestallen story conceits I have are either westallen that adds cold, or coldwest that adds barry, or westallen and coldwest that gets messy (there’s a double amnesia AU I may still one day write).

That being said - of course there’s a scenario where it could happen.

There’s always a scenario where something could happen :D

I guess you’d have to start with - how did Barry and Len get together and why weren’t Barry and Iris together to start?

I’d honestly say it works best if you go with mid to late S2 for establishing coldflash. That was you don’t have established WA in canon yet to write your way around, and you can ignore Legends and Len leaving town in S2. Just branch from 2x09 where Len warns Barry about the Trickster and Weather Wizard and go from there.

Starting from that - I would say it makes sense to establish coldflash in whatever manner makes sense to you, whether it starts as a frenemies with benefits, blowing off steam kind of thing (my preference), or whether it is them working a case and getting closer until sparks fly (also fun) or something else. But establish coldflash and their dynamic - but don’t yet make it into a super serious and super committed thing.

Len isn’t foolish and he is perceptive - he knows Barry is and always has been holding a candle for Iris. This doesn’t bother him because he doesn’t expect this thing with Barry to get ‘real’. It is what it is, it’s fun, there’s mutual respect and everyone is having a good time, with a bit of spice and danger. If he finds himself a little over-invested, well, that’s on him, and he’ll deal with it when it needs dealing with.

Enter Iris, tentatively opening herself to Barry, finally - feeling ready for something with him (post Eddie’s death, sometime in S2, much like canon). Barry, then, is inexplicably torn - surprising himself, Len, and Iris. This is Unforeseen. Barry’s been in love with Iris for half his life, he’s not supposed to experience any conflict about finally having the opportunity to be with her now that she’s in a place where she’s emotionally open to that.

But, well, he is. Conflicted, that is. Because yeah, he feels for Iris, that hasn’t gone away. But now he’s guilty because, he’s kind of with Len? And really, to his own surprise a bit, really likes being with Len. He’s funny and charming and strong and sometimes mean and okay Barry actually kind of likes that mean-streak if he’s being fully honest, it’s refreshing and makes him feel more safe to be himself, more humble and down to earth, not like he has to constantly be the perfect golden boy on a pedestal but is allowed to be human.

Being with Len is good for him, and Barry doesn’t want to give that up. Which is a startling revelation to him when Iris kisses him and he kisses her back then immediately goes into a weird spiral because - are he and Len even exclusive? They never talked about it. What is he even doing? He can’t build a life with Len - can he? Holy crap he wants to build a life with Len. But Iris - what about Iris? He still wants to build a life with her. He and Len have never talked about Iris, not really, except skirting the topic, and Barry knows he’s never been subtle about his feelings for her but -

Iris is. Confused. Barry never fully confided what’s going on with Len to her. He hinted at some scandalous liasons, maybe, but she had no clue Barry was in any sort of situation that she might be interrupting. Barry is terrible at divulging his secrets or telling his friends and family anything, we know this.

Barry is an idiot (love him to death) and decides that Len is somehow the right person to confide in with his struggles. Len is. Shaking his head. Barry wtf. Go be with Iris. You love her, I’m not an idiot, I knew this would end. Barry like - screw you, aren’t you supposed to be a greedy thief and demand to keep me? Len like - wait you want me to... steal you? Like a brick of gold? Barry throwing his arms in the air like I don’t know I just don’t want to lose you!

Len suddenly confronted by the fact that Barry has real, grown-up feelings for him and not just a bit of puppy love, that he’s actually considering staying with Len and losing out on his chance to be with Iris. Which is a bit arresting because - that’s a lot of love and depth, and it’s suddenly there on display with all the despair etched into Barry’s face at the prospect of giving up Len and since when did Barry fall in love with him holy shit holy shit holy shit -

And like - Len is a greedy thief, okay. And he’s mean. He wants to keep Barry. He gets to keep Barry? He’s going to keep Barry. He doesn’t expect it to last because it’s Barry and Barry is Good and Right and Deserves to Be with Iris. But Len is Mean and Greedy and Fights Dirty. (len’s perception, obvy). So he tells Barry he won’t make him choose, but also gets all sexy-possessive (it’s one of my favourite things, okay, just allow it) and makes sure to remind Barry of all the enjoyment he gets from being with Len.

But being the instigating little shit that he is, he also encourages Barry to talk to Iris, to even take her on a date, to see if he can get from her what he gets from him. why? why play with fire? because len plays to win and he’s not going to be satisfied if barry regrets his choice and leaves him in a year over iris. he wants all of barry now that he’s got the option, dammit.

So a very conflicted Barry takes Iris out. Kisses her. Gets all heart-beating confused and delighted and everything. Things get a bit hot and heavy and then he stops and has to talk because this is great but he feels guilty as hell and part of that guilt is because yes okay Len said this is fine but is it really and what does Barry want and okay Iris totally has a right to know where his head is at.

So Barry opens up to Iris about the situation and she’s like “relationship? huh? but - he’s a thief, I don’t - you’re the flash - how does - huh?” quite understandably I would say, because last time she met Len, he was threatening to blow her up in her own livingroom. It wasn’t a great first impression. sure barry hinted at some ~liasons~ with someone and maybe she suspected it was cold but this is so much beyond that.

So she takes it on herself to at least make sure this guy has good intentions for Barry because whatever the situation, she still loves and cares for Barry and if he’s in over his head with this antagonist and is being taken advantage of, it’s her duty as his friend to help make sure he’s okay. (And also - Barry wants to be with her. he said as much. he isn’t shy about being in love with her. so why the hell is he still hung up on this guy?)

And Len is... weird. Okay. He’s weird. She goes to talk to him and he’s speaking in riddles and double-speak and innuendo. So much innuendo. Why? Puns all the way up, all the way down. And they argue and it’s... electric. Like shockingly electric. It gets to like them standing chest to chest breathing heavy and hissing invective at one another before they realize - oh. Oh this is tension, this is chemistry. This is dangerous.

Nothing happens. They back off as one. Recalibrate. Try to sort their heads around ‘what the hell was that’. Len tells Barry that Iris visited him. Barry confronts Iris. Iris tells him she was legit worried, and Barry decides they all need to sit down together so he can more legitimately smooth over Iris’s actually-quite-reasonable fears and maybe like... sort out what he wants.

but obviously what he wants is to have his cake and eat it too. because he’s always been in love with her but now he’s also in love with him, and either way he wins and he loses and that is a very painful and difficult situation to be in and maybe len never should have encouraged him to pursue this because what a goddamn mess his heart is now.

and from there, naturally the next thing to do is to conclude the narrative in a satisfying way and get the three of them together. both len and iris comforting a distraught barry on instinct, looking at each other and pausing, then continuing because “this is my job” “no it’s mine”. like a game of chicken comforting him and challenging each other, raised eyebrows and “your move” looks until they’re kind of very tenderly seducing barry and it’s delightfully overwhelming to him. it’s soft (softer than how i’d usually write smut tbh) because the focus is on these very intense and overpowering emotions and this deep (healthy!) possessiveness born out of love from all three of them.

and because i’m a sucker for it there’s got to be this pivotal moment where len and iris kiss. like len and iris are peppering barry with kisses, stealing his lips, taking turns doing that as they undress him (they work so well in tandem, gee what a surprise), and then he leans back a bit as they move to trade his mouth off again and his eyes are half-lidded but the desire is plain as day so iris and len have a moment of silent negotiation and then they kiss and -

oh. oh, that is more than just electric. it’s something special. deep, powerful, undeniable.

so of course really fantastic sex is had by all, because this is fanfiction and sex is never awkward and no one accidentally falls off the bed (except that would be super funny and i’d probably write it that way just because). and barry is delighted and blissed out af. and iris and len’s fingers intertwine over barry’s stomach as they lay on either side of him, and it’s beautiful and offers a promise of what’s to come.

i’d keep that end short rather than do the whole relationship negotiation but honestly knowing me, i’d actually end up incidentally dragging it out more and adding in more of that relationship negotiation dynamic before they got to the end because i can’t help it.

But uhm. To answer your question: Yes. Yes I do think the scenario is possible.

#coldwestallen #there's probably a million typos in here sorry guys #tumblr writing #kind of #Anonymous #long post #long post for ts

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ones-delight · 4 years ago

Text

I unfortunately won’t have therapy until the end of this month (I should have scheduled one earlier this month ugh lmao I thought one later this month would be better) so I’m doing what my therapist suggested, write down all what’s going through my head even if it doesn’t make sense to help bring myself back to reality. lol. I’m very much lost in my own sauce of feelings and thoughts. it’s allllll about my ex again so ugh lmao. My main anxieties are just feelings about my ex and what’s coming up this semester.

I’m currently in my apartment in Iowa City since we’re about to start back up my usual routine. I’ve been here for almost two weeks now which is nice because I’ve been trying to take my time to relax and get myself mentally prepared for this upcoming semester. I’m also low key glad I’m having these overwhelming anxieties right now instead of later this week. I need to ask my therapist again what exactly I am feeling (if it’s like a panic attack because i truly dont know) because I’ve been feeling hella anxious the past few days (in general) and yesterday my anxiety was so intense that I barely ate and I felt sick to my stomach. idk if others have the same too but when I also get hella anxious, all I want to do is go to the bathroom so tmi lmao. I feel this way now and I just cannot stop crying so again, I’m just writing everything that’s going through my mind lmao.

#1) Related to my ex, heart break

Yeah.. I literally keep talking about this/him and I’m glad I have multiple outlets that I can say what’s going through my mind because if I keep these thoughts to myself, I keep spiraling. I’m also very thankful I have multiple strong support systems from people where it truly doesn’t get annoying to them when I keep talking about him/my overall heart break/healing journey. I know I don’t want to burden my friends with my own thoughts (it can be a lot) so overall very thankful for friends, family, and my therapist lmao.

I think the last time I talked about my heart break was the letter I wrote to him. I wrote it and sent it to him lmao. I also wrote his mom a letter in Spanish because I want to stay connected with her and very thankful she reciprocates the same energy, Apparently, he never received the letter even though I sent it over 3 weeks ago, but anyways yeah that’s a story I will tell later in this post. Anyways, it’s legit easier said than done to completely stop checking on his social media. I was doing great before winter break. Now that winter break has happened (still kind of is for a few more days), I have relapsed where I was checking very often. The break was great since I got to spend quality time with family, however, unfortunately being back in Wichita still floods a lot of my emotions where there are still a lot of memories of him and I that still makes me feel sad (luckily no longer sobbing about but I do still feel some type of way. It’s getting better thankfully). It also hurts that he’s making new memories with his new girlfriend Kylie so I was def feeling all sorts of things. Sorry, I’m trying to go onto chronologize order of events that have happened. I’m jumping back and forth lmao

First, did I mention his mom called me the day before Christmas? I was SHOOOOOK when I saw her name on my phone. I legit froze because I wasn’t sure if it was actually her so I accidently missed her call. I’m so glad she left a voicemail so I could listen first and immediately call her back LMAO. But basically, she wanted to check in to see how I was doing, wish me and my family a merry christmas/happy new year, and asked if I could come see her. We joked a bit back and forth like how she was learning English for me while I’m learning Spanish for her. lmao. so after this phone call, I wrote her a letter to update her on what I’ve been doing. I wrote it all in Spanish since that’s her primary language so thank god for google translate. overall, I told her about how I’m about to earn my masters degree in may, I’ve lost now 30 lbs of weight/having a better relationship with food, how I’m honestly still hurt about her son cheating on me (I was in my feels. You know if you ever get those feelings like you want your mom? She legit is like a mom to me since my mom isn’t an active part of my life so yeah I guess you can say I got mommy issues but anyways) I also told her that if she’d still like me to come over, I’d love to come over and see her.

Few days go by, I’ve been creeping onto his social media, it stings to see how he has flaunted his relationship with Kylie. It hurts because I keep playing this comparison game because he truly has NEVER allowed me to post about us and he would himself refuse to post about us on his social media. So, just to see how he’s been basically spending every single day with her and posting her throughout all of his social media, makes me feel an extreme type of way. during new years, she had a party at her house where it was him, her, his brother paco (which I was SHOOOK because she met paco and not everyone has ever met paco, who is his oldest brother), miguel and his girlfriend (both are super cute btw), Blake (surprisingly), and Erik. I felt some kind of way because obviously I know they would share a new years kiss even tho they’ve only been dating for literally a month. I dated him for 3 years and NEVER got a new years kiss (because he wanted to be with bros). Valentines day is coming up and it’d be their “two month” anniversary and I just KNOW he’d actually put EFFORT into spending that day with her. 3 years I dated this guy and he never ONCE did ANYTHING for me for valentines day. ok I’m getting more hurt thinking how he’s treating his other girls better than me so anyways BACK TO THE TOPIC

few days go by and I got another call from his mom. I actually picked up this time because I was really excited to hear her voice again. I legit would die for this woman legit #1 mom. She asked if she could see me and I happily said yes. It really means a lot that she still gives me the same energy that she gave me when I was still dating her son. One of the hardest parts of us breaking up was the potential of losing his family too because they are all truly good people and I am NOT the CEO of letting people go lmao. okay back to subject, I had TONS of anxiety driving over to her house because I had so many thoughts. I asked on the phone if 1.) is Lalo there. She said no. 2.) Is Paco there. No, he apparently flew back to California that morning. I was low key hoping paco would be there still because it would be cool to catch up with him but anyways my main concern was if eduardo was there so since he wasn’t, I was like “ok vroom vroom let’s go” lmao. WOWOWOWWO seeing her just made my heart so happy. She def has a lot more gray hairs since the last time I saw her lmao she’s the cutest anyways, I’m really shook that HIS DAD FREAKING HUGGED ME. THIS MAN NEVER USUALLY HUGS ANYONEEEEEEEEEEE. Typically how we greet each other, it’s like a wave from a distance and we obvi acknowledge each other. so WOOOOW I was very thankful and shook he hugged me. Anyways, his mom showed me around the house with the Christmas decorations, I noticed her birds were still doing well, she even showed me her new plants she got lmao. We sat at the dining room table and talked and ate mexican snacks. She has broken English and I have broken Spanish so literally thank god for dualingo because it has helped me. I love how when we are together, we talk really slow and try to annunciate for each other LMAOOO. Anyways, THIS WOMAN ALSO GOT ME A STOCKING filled with Mexican Candy. omg this woman i love her so much. Anyways, I showed my tattoos to her and she legit wanted to murder me lmao but she says she likes them but hates them at the same time. She also sat me down and we had a serious conversation in terms of how she sees me. She said that I am no longer known as lalo’s novia, what I am to her is a daughter. I am evelyn’s sister and yo boi that got me crying in the club because that’s what I would love to have, to maintain my relationship with them . Okay, to kind of speed things up, basically we kept talking about Evelyn’s quinceanera that’s happening this year AHHHHHH, dropped Evelyn off and her friend to a friend’s quince, and his mom took me to eat at paleterias tropicana where I tried elote for the first time and had a jugo verde WOOOOOW SOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD. literally cannot stop thinking about it. Anyways, random note, I noticed my old K-State beanie in the car and his mom said it was Evelyn’s. It gave me a weird feeling because it was originally mine that he gifted me on our first Christmas together but obviously I knew he wouldn’t keep it so I’m not suprised he gave it to Evelyn. It made me wonder then what did he do to the other gifts that he originally gave me but I gave it back to him once we broke up.. okay that was a tangent, anyways, that was it with the night with his mom and ughhh it was a really fun night and I really am looking forward to seeing her again.

Now fast forward to now-ish, me not doing good of not checking his social media, I got triggered because they now made it “facebook officlal” that they are dating. it triggered me because again, he refused to publicize our relationship and it really threw me off that they’ve only been dating for a month (technically interested in each other since October, started dating November) and already publicizing they are together. they moving hella quick and basically, I got hella bitter. I felt reckless and I texted him. I KNOW I shouldn’t have texted him because I immediately felt a sense of regret after but also low key glad I did text him. ugh i hate me lmao. Anyways, i texted him and he asked if he could call me so I said yes. Luckily, the conversation was better than I expected because it was simply like two old friends catching up. It was a really good feeling even tho I’m honestly still hurt about the way that he treated me. It caught me by suprised when he said that he has talked about me with Kylie and he actually stated that he knows what he did and feels regretful for the choices he made. That was a huge shocker and I do still have trust issues because I try to take things that he says with a grain of salt. He may be saying things to me that I want to hear but it’s not the truth so anyways lmao. Our conversation was good and it really got me thinking what exactly am I doing/how am I really feeling.

I really am happy for him. Yes i’m still deeply hurt and feel a type of way about how he treated me, but I can’t do anything about the past and all I can do is just simply be happy for him. I will always love him without a doubt, but he isn’t my person. I hope this doesn’t come off as selfish but he will never find someone better than me, he is simply finding someone better suited for him. What helps me the most about this is thinking about ME because that’s the situation for him, however, I know I will find someone better than him because I deserve the best.

I felt bad for asking because I am just fucking nosy and I’m glad he was okay with me asking about what happened with his relationship with Lila (the girl he left me for) and how did he start dating Kylie. He shared with with me that even though it was all great in the beginning with Lila (and let me tell you dude, he totally was hella infatuated with her lmao), they started becoming two different people. She apparently wasn’t emotionally there for him when he needed her (IRONICCCCCCCCCCCCC BECAUSE THAT’S EXACTLY HOW HE WAS WITH ME THROUGHOUT OUR 3 YEARS TOGETHER) and she ended the relationship. It did make me sad to hear because everyone needs support and it is sad when you go to someone for support and they don’t give you it, ya know? anyways, he said with Kylie, they’ve been friends for two years (I knew who she was when we were together but they’ve always only been friends since they worked at the Sunflower together. This will sound extremely bad but I never thought about her being a girl to worry about because she did a lot of “white” things that we make fun of white people for and so it kind of shocked me that he is dating her now but anyways) apparently he said that “they were hanging out and next thing he knows is that he kissed her and that’s how they started dating.” dude didn’t want to go into detail which was fine but I’m also in my head like “ok lmao you literally just got broken up by your ex and then immediately start hanging out with another girl? ok” ANYWAYS, I really am happy for him and wish him the best.

It was cool to hear about what he’s hoping to do. He shared a lot more detail than usual which again caught me by surprise. Anyways, he shared that he is currently looking for a new place to live (a house to rent) somewhere in college hill (conveniently where Kylie also lives lmao) with Erik. He is also hoping to find another job soon because things at KWCH are no longer making him feel happier so he’s looking to see if he can work for a non-profit org which makes me happy for him because I’d also want to do the same. If I’m at a job where I’m not excited to be, I’d want to also try to make a switch. He also shared that junior (martin, his little brother) will be moving to Cali in May to move close to paco which wow made me really happy for them all. Anyways, he shared that he is hoping to stay in Wichita for about one more year and then possibly relocating to KC or somewhere in Oklahoma. i did encourage him KC because it seems that KC has much more opportunities than Wichita and Oklahoma. Only thing we both hate is driving in KC lmao

Okay, so overall, I’m still really hurt about how our relationship was and how it ended but I’m very grateful that I’m doing what is best for me to make progress because this is not an overall easy thing to do, move on. I do feel low key embarrassed that I still am not over our break up but I’m very glad that I know that He isn’t my person. we will and I cannot get back together with him even if he stated that he has “changed” Yes i invested so much in him to be my forever partner and it didn’t work out but that’s okay. I’m always willing to invest in people to be the best version of themselves and it really makes me happy to see people thrive. I truly cannot and will not take him back if there was ever a time where he wanted to give us a second try because I need to remember how he treated me. If he really was always thinking it was me, then he shouldn’t have cheated on me, treated me so poorly. I’m okay with us remaining friends, but as partners in life? that isn’t it. I deserve so much better and the man of my dreams will come. I’m 10000000% okay with being single because I know I need to work on myself so that I can be fully ready for my next. I really wish my next relationship is my one and only, but hey we’ll see.

so this is already extremely long but I’m very glad I got this all out of me. I know I have other anxieties such as starting school again, which will be my last semester before I earn my masters (FINALLY), RA training coming back up (so me working is coming back), JOB SEARCH. So much is coming up and AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I need to get my head into gear.

#personal

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petersasteria · 4 years ago

Text

The Forces of Nature || Ch.10

Pairing: Peter Parker x Superhero!Reader

Summary: “There’s this kid out there that can control the wind or something. I think she’s a great addition to the team. Let’s recruit her.”

SERIES MASTERLIST || PP MASTERLIST

Click the picture for better quality

"Step five. Let her know you're Spider-Man. I don't know how, but she'll have to know." Peter muttered to himself as he silently read step five that was on the recruiting method which was pinned on the bulletin board in his room above his desk. For the next three days since Friday night, a.k.a the night he did step four, he had been reading and re-reading step five over and over.

After all, telling Y/N that he was Spider-Man was different and he had never done it before. Ned, aunt May, and MJ found out and figured it out on their own. "At this point, Y/N may have already figured out." Peter told himself, but he immediately shook his head.

However, it was impossible for Y/N to figure out because she and him weren't really close before. Therefore, Y/N has never really paid attention to Peter. Y/N may have picked up a few of MJ's traits here and there, but she never got MJ's way of observing. Again, Peter asked Scott for help when he took a break from patrolling on a Monday afternoon.

"Hey, what's up, Petey?" Scott smiled as he answered the phone. He munched on some chips while watching television. Peter scrunched up his face because it sounded like some weird ASMR mukbang video on YouTube.

"Yeah, hi. I need your help again." Peter said as he lifted his mask until his mouth so that he could speak properly and so that he could be understood.

Scott put his phone away from his ear and looked at Luis and grinned, "Hey dude, guess what."

"What?" Luis smiled.

"I'm talking to Spider-Man on the phone!" Scott bragged. "We're, like, besties now. He asks me for help. Like, I'm so honored! So, so honored."

If Peter didn't have any steps to be followed or if he weren't recruiting anyone, he would've laughed at Scott. But now, he didn't. He was desperate for help. He didn't know what to do.

"Um, Mr. Lang? You still there?" Peter asked.

Scott quickly pressed the phone on his ear again and said, "Yeah! And don't call me Mr. Lang. I sound old or whatever. Call me Scotty!"

"That sounds kind of weird." Peter admitted. "I'll, uh, I'll call you Scott instead."

"Sure thing, spider-bro!" Scott said excitedly as he looked at Luis, who gave him two thumbs ups. "Anyway, what did you need help with?"

"I don't know how to tell Y/N that I'm Spider-Man." Peter said in a hushed voice, afraid that someone might hear him despite sitting on the rooftop.

Scott nodded and hummed, "Well, I don't know what to say. I guess, just ease your way through it before actually telling her."

"How?" Peter questioned.

"I don't know." Scott shrugged. "Drop hints for a few days or something and when the time is right, just say it. Tell her."

"Scott, that's genius!" Peter grinned. "Thank you!"

"No problem, Spidey!" Scott chuckled. "I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Okay. Bye! Tha-"

Scott hung up and put his phone on the coffee table. Luis was shocked, "I can't believe you hung up on Spider-Man."

"I mean, I have to act chill, you know? I don't want to let him know that I'm freaking out!" Scott shrieked. "Like, he called ME!"

"Yeah, that's awesome!" Luis laughed and gave Scott a high five. Meanwhile, Peter was already planning on what hints to drop before telling Y/N about his secret.

Tuesday

Today's the first day that Peter would showcase his spider powers to Y/N. He didn't know which skill to show first. Although, that question was already answered when Y/N walked in school pushing a very very big box full of different items.

Peter jogged up to her and he said, "Good morning, Y/N!"

She gave him a sweet smile as she wiped her sweat with the back of her hand. She mumbled a small 'good morning' before pushing the big heavy box again.

"Allow me." Peter stopped her as he picked up the big heavy box with ease. Y/N looked at him in shock.

"Peter, oh my god." Y/N said. "Where the hell were you when I needed you? We literally live near each other."

"Sorry about that." Peter said as the two of them walked to her locker. "I woke up late and I went straight here. I was surprised that I got here first and when you entered the school with a big heavy box, I figured out why."

Y/N chuckled and opened her locker. Peter looked down at the loosely closed box and was able to take a peek at the things inside it. Peter furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and looked at Y/N, "Um, what's all this, anyway? Are you running away or something?" He joked.

"No!" Y/N laughed and shook her head. "Those are all the old things from my community theater. I figured I could take it and bring it here and donate it to the theater club. Plus, the glee club need props too."

Peter nodded and pursed his lips, "Right, right. I forgot that you joined all of the clubs."

"Not all. I didn't join the cheer squad." Y/N smiled politely before closing her locker.

"Why didn't you?" Peter asked. In his opinion, not that anyone was asking, she would be a perfect fit in the cheer squad.

"I didn't want to risk my power for memory." Y/N whispered. "I can't touch the ground directly, remember? What if I'm on the bottom of the pyramid and the rocks start forming some memory on the field or something? I can't risk that. No one else knows about my powers except for you and Eunice."

'And the Avengers.' Peter thought. He nodded and said, "Yeah, that's understandable. Anyway, do we head off to the auditorium first before going to class? Or do we take this big ol' box with us to history?"

"Auditorium, please." Y/N smiled.

"Lead the way, Barbra Streisand." Peter chuckled as they walked together.

"You know Barbra Streisand?" She asked with a laugh.

"Of course, I do! I mean, not personally, but I do know her. I've seen her movie with Seth Rogen and her carpool karaoke with James Corden."

"That rhymed! Are you a rapper now?" Y/N laughed.

"Who knows?" Peter shrugged. "Maybe I'm the next Eminem." He joked.

The pair arrived at the auditorium and she made sure they placed the box on stage in the middle for the theater club moderator to see. Y/N pulled out a paper from her backpack and wrote down: My community theater decided to get rid of our old props. I figured I should donate them here instead of throwing it away. Sincerely, Y/N Y/L/N.

Y/N looked through her bag and pouted when she realized that she didn't have any tape or anything that could stick. Peter saw this and remembered that he put some leftover web fluid in a container in his backpack.

"I, uh, I have something sticky." Peter blurted out as he quickly looked inside his backpack for the container.

"Pete, you're my friend and all, but that sounded wrong." Y/N giggled. Peter's face flushed red, but didn't pay attention to it as he handed her the container. It was in an old Elmer's glue container.

Y/N thanked him before squeezing out the 'glue' at the back of the paper. Her face lit up when she didn't see the typical white color of the glue. She was surprised that it was transparent. "Okay, tell me where you shop for school supplies. This transparent glue is my new everything!" She said as she gave back the 'glue' and pasted the paper on the front side of the box.

"Uh, I didn't buy it. I actually made them." Peter said, which wasn't a lie. He really did make it, it just wasn't glue, that's all.

Y/N nodded. She was impressed. She grabbed her backpack and said, "Can you make me some?"

"Sure!"

The pair walked out of the auditorium in silence and the silence continued on even when they reached the classroom. It wasn't an awkward silence like before. It was comfortable.

"Peter?" She called his attention as they sat down in their respective seats.

"Hm?" He hummed.

"Thanks for carrying the box. If I had known you were that strong, I would've called you before I left my apartment." Y/N chuckled.

"No problem." Peter smiled. "I'm really glad I could help. Helping people is a part of me." He hinted, as if his super strength and web fluid weren't enough hints.

"You know, Spider-Man is like that." Y/N smiled. "That's why I admire him so much. I just wish I could know who he is."

"I know right? Same here." Flash said from behind her. Y/N and Peter turned to look at him as Flash shrugged.

Flash looked at Peter and nodded at him, "'Sup, dickwad?"

Peter gave him a thumbs up before he and Y/N turned around to wait for the teacher.

Wednesday

Y/N came to school that day wearing the most early 2000's look ever. She also wore pink as an homage to the most famous Mean Girls quote, "on Wednesdays, we wear pink". She wore a slightly fitted, long sleeved, pink shirt with a pink skirt and heels. She was dressed as Karen Smith. MJ, Ned, and Peter were surprised with her outfit.

"What's with the Mean Girls get up?" Ned asked with an amused smile on his face.

"Ned's right." MJ said as she looked at Y/N up and down. "I've never seen you wear pink before, but you actually look good in it."

Peter nodded, "Yeah, I agree."

"No mean remarks, Peter?" MJ asked and eyed him suspiciously. Peter just shook his head before he smiled at Y/N, who smiled back at him.

Later that day during lunch, Y/N was walking to her seat when she slipped on the floor. With Peter's enhanced reflexes, he immediately caught Y/N before she fell and he was able to catch her tray and her food.

Y/N gasped and she looked at Peter with wide eyes, "How did you do that?! You're so cool!"

Peter shrugged as he set down the tray before helping Y/N sit down so that she wouldn't slip again. MJ and Ned looked at each other because both of them knew that Peter was up to something and they had to corner him and ask him about it.

When the day ended, Y/N had to go to the auditorium for theater club. Finding Peter alone by his locker, Ned and MJ immediately cornered Peter. When Peter turned around, he was surprised to see MJ and Ned.

"Um... hey guys." Peter said.

"You're being really obvious, Peter." Ned said.

MJ nodded, "Yeah. I thought you being Spider-Man was supposed to be a secret. Why are you being obvious?"

Peter sighed. There was no choice but to come clean, "I need to drop hints about my powers to tell her that I'm Spider-Man."

"Why do you need to tell her?" MJ asked.

Peter opened his mouth to say something, but he immediately closed it. MJ didn't know about Y/N's powers and it wasn't his secret to tell. As much as his feelings were complicated towards Y/N, he would never tell her secret to anyone else. He wouldn't do that to anyone, even Flash Thompson. Thankfully, he thought of a quick cover up.

"Because I want her to know. We're friends after all." Peter reasoned.

Thursday

When Peter arrived at Y/N's apartment to pick her up like he did every morning, it was announced that classes were cancelled because of the storm.

"Peter, why don't you stay here for a while? You and Y/N can hang out here while I go to work." Eunice offered.

Y/N smiled, "Yeah, Pete! We can bake or something."

Peter shrugged, "I suppose I could stay." He pulled out his phone to text aunt May that he'd be staying at Y/N's apartment until it was safe to go out.

Eunice eventually went to work an hour later and the two teens were doing different things. Peter made himself comfortable in the couch as he watched Mean Girls. Y/N was busy in the kitchen as she cooked brunch for the two of them.

The two of them didn't know or didn't notice that it was all domestic at that moment. They failed to notice that they both looked good together. At one point, Peter paused the movie and stood up to stretch. He walked to the kitchen and watched her.

"You could've told me that you were cooking. I could've helped you." Peter said. He grabbed plates and set the table. It was the least he could do.

"Nonsense! You're a guest, Peter." Y/N smiled. "I'm done, anyway." She brought the food to the table and sat down. Peter sat down across from her and they ate in comfortable silence.

"This is really good." Peter said as he broke the quiet ambiance of the dining area. She grinned and thanked him.

"I have to tell you something, Y/N." Peter gulped. He figured it was time to tell her. They were alone together and neither of them could walk out due to the storm.

"What is it?"

Peter took a deep breath and said, "I'm Spider-Man."

Y/N stared at him and smiled, "That's cute, Pete. I'm Spider-Man too. Anyone can wear a mask."

"No, no, no. I mean it, Y/N." Peter sighed. "I really am Spider-Man."

"How am I supposed to believe you, Peter?" She raised an eyebrow.

"One, because I believed you when you told me about your powers. Two, I lowkey showed you." Peter said.

"I used my super strength to pick up the heavy box, I used my web fluid for your paper and told you it was glue, I told you that I loved helping people-"

"Helping people isn't a power, Peter. It's a choice and the web fluid thing sounds wrong."

"I also used my enhanced reflexes and agility to catch you when you slipped at the cafeteria. I'm Spider-Man." Peter added. Y/N stared at him and said nothing. "Please say something, Y/N."

Y/N blinked a few times and cleared her throat, "Well, thanks for telling me. I'm just mostly embarrassed because you know about my big crush on Spider-Man and YOU ARE Spider-Man."

"Oh, right." Peter blushed. "I forgot about that."

"And please continue to forget about it." Y/N chuckled lightly. "Anyway, let's talk about something else. What's it like being the friendly neighborhood hero?"

"Oh, you have no idea how hard it is. But I love my job." Peter said.

The rest of the day was spent with Peter talking about his patrolling stories and Y/N showing off her powers and Peter also showing Y/N his wall-crawling ability. He even showed her his web-shooters.

"I can show you my web-shooters!" Peter said excitedly.

"You know, no matter what you call it, it really sounds wrong." Y/N laughed. "It's like you're going to show me your penis or something."

"I never thought I'd hear you say 'penis'." Peter looked at her.

She shrugged, "What can I say? I'm surprising."

"That's true." Peter nodded in agreement as they smiled at each other.

* * * *

sorry it took a long long time x

𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @myblueleatherbag @harryismysunflower @buckys-little-hoe @justanothermarvelmaniac @itstaskeen @sandystoriess @heeeyitskay @slytherin-chaser @quaksonhehe @yaya4302 @lil-mellow-bunbun @starlight-starks @swiftmind @alex-stancati @sovereignparker

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @marvelousell @justasmisunderstoodasloki @rubberducky-jrr @petersholland @osterfieldnholland @miraclesoflove @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @perspectiveparker @hollands-weasley @itstaskeen @call-me-baby-gir1 @the-panwitch @iamaunicorn4704 @chloecreatesfictions @holland-styles @halfblood-princess-505 @spidey-reids-2003 @herbatkazmiloscia @whatthefuckimbisexual

#peter parker #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fanfic #peter parker fic #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh

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boymeetsweevil · 5 years ago

Text

MBD - 04

Grouping: Reader x Yoongi

Word Count: <8k

Summary: Three lessons to be learned: 1) don’t read the comments. Ever. 2) Baking will never let you down. 3) Don’t tease Yoongi.

Warnings/Themes: Angst?? Heavy doses of body image and related unhealthy behaviors, low self-esteem, cyberbullying? May be triggering for some. Some suggestive content. A jealous Yoongi.

part 0, part 1, part 2, part 3

A few more days pass through your break from work. Yoongi stayed with you the morning after coming back from the club to help you nurse your hangover, but he’d been in the dorms and studio since then. This left you with extra time on your hands.

In that time, you visited your best friend and your cousin who both lived deeper in the city, a mere hour’s ride from your apartment in the outskirts. You also got ahead on some work despite the fact that your boss gave you strict warnings about fully enjoying the break after seeing how hard you worked on the project for the quarter. But eventually you ran out work you could do and had nothing left but Netflix and the internet.

As it turns out, being alone with the internet ends up being a horrible set of circumstances. Curiosity and boredom get the best of you, and you find yourself breaking a cardinal rule.

You google Yoongi to see what pops up and get recent news about him being spotted with a lady friend. You know better, but optimism pulls you in and you’re opening up one of the articles. Apparently a fan that snuck into the VIP booth snapped a picture of you dancing with him at the club you went to a few days prior. Yoongi looks handsome with his bare face half obscured by his mask and a soft expression as he looks at you. But you let out a raspy gasp at your picture.

The only good thing about the photo is that your face is turned away from the camera, leaving your identity barely undiscovered. But your neck is coated with sweat, gleaming under the club lights. In the picture, the dance-move you’re doing is frozen, awkward and contorted, your body looks all wrong. With the powerful camera flash, you can see all the spots on your clothes where sweat had accumulated, all the spots where your amateur makeup skills failed. There’s no grace, no elegance, no dignity afforded to you in the photo. It’s not the first time you’ve seen of yourself in a random pap site or careless photos. But it’s by far the worst one you’ve seen.

Like a magnet is drawing you there, even though your stomach already feels like shards of ice are forming inside it, you break a second cardinal rule. You read the comments.

It’s amazing that she feels comfortable looking like that when there’s a literal GOD standing next to her. I could never do that. I wouldn’t even leave the house

Why is something like this allowed when there are much prettier girls to pick from?

I don’t think Yoongi would be stupid enough to date this girl, the picture probably just makes it look like they’re together when they’re obvi not

actually I think this is the same girl in that ##0524 photo. Look (image01) same hairstyle and earrings. I think she just turned into a blimp...

Guys plz be nice u don’t know this person. Maybe she has a really great personality

so? This is what she gets for trying too hard to cling to Yoongi

Yo it’s prolly cuz she’s rich. You see those leggings? I didn’t even think they made them in that size but they’re from that brand IU wears. And they’re like $250 :0

She wasn’t even that pretty before this but now I REALLY don’t get it. Yoongi~~ there are skinnier girls who would suit u better

Load 675 more...

You slam your laptop shut before fumbling for your phone. Breathing levelly, you’re the picture of eerie calm with the exception of the way your hands tremble. You pull up your text messages to text your best friend when you stop yourself. While the company knows that you’re dating, you’re not allowed to disclose any information about Yoongi or the relationship to any third parties. To the public he’s still single despite his dating clause having expired long before you even met. And there’s no way to explain what you’re going through to your friend without bringing up your secret boyfriend’s stardom.

So who can you turn to, you wonder. You can’t tell your friends. You can’t tell your mother either. As much as you love her, she’d spill the secret in minutes out of well-meaning pride. And there’s no way you can tell Yoongi.

Taking a deep breath in through your nose, you hold it for as long as you can before shoving a pillow over your face and screaming. All that’s left to show for the few minutes you spend screaming is the fact that you feel about 1% better and your now-hoarse voice. But the relief doesn’t last. The relief leaves room for heat to rise on your skin. Annoyance fills all your empty spaces. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and feel more anger.

Maybe you just aren’t working hard enough and people can just see that. Maybe you just aren’t being productive, you haven’t earned your spot yet. You hop off the bed and look around the room, almost frantic in your search for something to work on and actually improve.

Start with a deep clean, you tell yourself.

Two days later when Yoongi comes over, you’re still in the process of purging your tiny apartment.

“What’s all this,” he kicks gently at the garbage bags full of clothes littering the walkway to your bedroom. You jump at the sound of his voice, having forgotten that he mentioned coming over.

“I’m just doing some tidying up. I started with towel folding videos on YouTube and ended up realizing I have a hoarding problem.”

“I don’t think having dust bunnies under your bed counts as hoarding, but okay.” He searches for some space on your bed to sit in. The duvet’s surface is also covered in a mixture of old clothes and little knick knacks you’ve had since before you graduated college. “I didn’t realize you had so many clothes.”

You watch him pick up a spaghetti string top that you hadn’t gotten around to sorting yet. He gestures towards the two trash bags full of clothes on the floor.

“Put it in that one,” you point to the one furthest from the bed.

“Is this the donate pile?” He folds the shirt almost neatly and places it on the top of the other items with a sympathetic pat.

“Uh, no.”

“Then what is it? Looks like you already have everything you’re keeping,” he peers into your stocked closet.

“That’s actually the...inspiration pile,” you explain quietly.

“What?”

“It’s the stuff I'm gonna keep as motivation for me to lose weight.”

“Oh,” you’re surprised to see what looks like faint disappointment in Yoongi’s eyes as your words register. “I mean...makes sense.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean that’s one route you could take.”

“Is there another route?” You turn to face him fully from your spot on the ground with a confused smile. The shoes you were organizing lay unattended.

“Well, you could not lose the weight,” he shrugs.

You avert your gaze to the ceiling, as if the true meaning of his words will be scribed there. It sounds as though he’s suggesting you don’t try to get back down to where you were before the huge project your boss assigned you, but you figure that can’t be it.

“I just mean that you could donate these,” he points at the clothes in the inspiration pile. “Some of them look like they’re brand new—I’ve never even seen you in them. And you could just get some new clothes.”

“You mean like ones that fit me now?”

“Or like before.” He shrugs. “Your style was nice, I don’t know why you changed it.”

“It changed because nothing I had before fits now. So I have to wear this other stuff.” You’re talking about the shapeless sweaters and the monotonous greyscale pants.

“You don’t have to.”

He makes a valid point, but it’s a small one. Besides, there’s something else you’re digging for. “So you really think I should buy bigger clothes?”

“Yes,” he says, like it’s so simple.

“Okay...but these clothes are supposed to be there to motivate me to lose the weight. If I just get a new wardrobe, that’ll mean the motivation is gone.”

“Okay,” he draws out the syllables while waiting to hear what your point is.

“That means I’ll stay like this.”

“What do you mean ‘like this’? What’s wrong with that?”

Your fists clench at your side as you think back to the photos of you in the club. And the comments from the netizens all saying roughly the same thing. With the puzzled way he stands there and looks at you, you feel another wave of frustration rise up. Did he really not see what was happening? Was he really going to make you say it?

“Hey,” he peers down at the veins rearing against the skin of your hands. “I mean it. What’s wrong?”

He gets up like the discussion is about to go somewhere but his phone ringing loudly with the little jingle reserved for one of his producer buddies stops the conversation in its tracks. You take this as a moment to shoo him out your place before your head explodes. Yoongi looks conflicted, he truly does. Still, he answers the call dutifully and gives a few affirmative words to assure that he is going to be at the studio soon and is ready to work. The call is short, but the mood is still tense like an angry, trapped breath.

“I have, like, 5 more minutes before I have to go—”

“You know what? Never mind. You’re clearly busy with studio stuff and I’m...busy too.”

With steely eyes, you take the clothes he was trying to help you with and add them to your own pile. He picks up the few things he brought with him in his brief visit and eyes you like he wants to say more. His gaze lingers over the sides of your face like a regretful touch and you turn to the side to shrug it off.

Another beep from his phone shatters the gossamer thin atmosphere further. He sighs and pulls his phone back out before hunching his shoulders.

“Can I use your laptop to check my email really quickly before I go? They just sent me a file and I can’t open it on my—”

“Yeah, yeah, just take it with you. I don’t need it,” you cut him off and wave a hand in the direction of your computer.

He looks almost upset when he gathers your laptop in his arms with the rest of his things, but doesn’t push the issue any further. The air is too tight for anything, even a genuine goodbye. Your throat is sore with oncoming angry tears and you just want him out.

The door shuts behind him softly, in place of the usual goodbye kiss. You wait until you know he’s gone let it all out.

*** Yoongi opens your laptop when he’s in the back of the car taking him to the studio. It takes him a minute to remember your password, but he logs on with minimal difficulty and the last thing you were looking at pops up obediently.

The rest of your break from work passes without a visit from Yoongi again. It’s not a coincidence. It’s because you turned your phone off for 48 hours and even after you turn it back on, you mute all other notifications and only look at it to check your work email and tell your friends that you’re ‘unplugging for a bit’.

In that time, you get all your clothes sorted. You burn through an entire fitness-based podcast series. You declutter your whole apartment. But there’s still an unpleasant buzzing under your skin that doesn’t go away. Even with the reintroduction of at-home cardio and the shady water fast you did that promised a lifted mood and a loss of 2 pounds.

Then you’re home from work one day, and you find yourself pacing all around the rooms of your place. You’re fed up with bottling things up, but you don’t know what to do with this knowledge. Yes, it’s nice to realize that everything you’d been chasing wasn’t worth the torture you put yourself through, but you can’t seem to get any further. So you try baking. And when that doesn’t put you at ease immediately, you break down and call Yoongi.

Yoongi picks up immediately. Part of you is surprised because he’s been working on new mixtape stuff and when that happens he’s usually unreachable. But another part of you isn’t surprised because, to him, you dropped off the face of the earth after a near-argument and he’s still technically on break from promotions for a little while longer. There’s no reason not to be answering the phone. In spite of all this, his tone is a tentative mix of concern and relief that has you blinking in confusion before curtly telling him you wanted to talk at your place.

He arrives in a defensive cocoon of layers and squared off features. Only one of the two he sheds at the coat rack by your front door before going to find you in the kitchen, just finishing shoving dozens of muffins into the oven.

“Hey,” he says after clearing his throat to make his presence known.

“Hey.” You turn around and remove the oven mitts you’re wearing. “We need to talk about some things.”

“I know,” he chuckles humorlessly. “I saw that shit on your computer.”

Your brow furrows in thought as you recall the last thing you used your laptop for. Recollection comes eventually. Briefly you wonder if Yoongi read past the top comments. If he gave into the urge to comb through every single one to satisfy morbid curiosity. You nod.

“It definitely has to do with that.”

“Fuck what those people are saying. You don’t need to change or to—to keep an inspiration pile.”

At that, you groan. Your fingers tap on the countertop impatiently. “Can you please stop saying stuff like that?”

“What? That you’re perfect the way you are?” He spits.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not true.”

“Why wouldn’t it be true?”

Frustrated tears well up in the corners of your eyes because while you get that this isn’t an issue he’d ever have to worry about, part of you still don’t understand how he doesn’t get it. He’s trying so hard to be a good, romantic boyfriend that he doesn’t even see how much he misses. It’s supposed to be comforting, you’re sure, but it only infuriates you.

“Because I don’t fucking match you like this!”

He jumps at the sound of your raised voice, eyes wide. “Match me? What the hell?”

“You heard me,” you mumble.

“Yeah, I fucking heard you, but it still doesn’t make any sense. You’re not signed to some stupid contract, you’re not mandated to do anything with your body.”

“Haven’t I, though? I signed that fucking non-disclosure agreement after all. And I get a fucking angry call from your PR agents every time I show up in your pap photos, even though my face is never in them.” At this point you’re pacing again. This time it’s in tight circles in front of your fridge. “You said it yourself, you saw those awful comments. You saw how mad people get when I don’t show myself in just the right way. Those fans ripped me apart, Yoongi.” Your voice cracks and you curse yourself for being an angry crier. Crossing your arms around yourself, you try your best to beat back the tears.

“So you’re going to let a few fans tell you how to feel?”

“A few fans?” You’re close to laughter. “Try six hundred comments on one photo. Six hundred comments about the person who isn’t even the celebrity. And then multiply that by the number of times someone’s caught me at an unflattering angle or when I was bloating or when I started gaining weight back for real. Do the fucking math, Yoongi.”

That shuts him down instantly. Immediately worry replaces the incredulity. “I—how many times has this happened? Is this not the first time?”

You sigh at his ignorance. “No, but this is first time I was dumb enough to read the comments.”

“Why didn’t you say anything the first time something like this happened?” Yoongi’s face is full of distraught guilt. It’s hard for you to look at.

“What do you want me to say? Did you really want to hear me say all this stuff about some of your fans? These are people that love you. And you love them.”

“I love you, too. You know that,” he whispers, voice raw with emotion.

You can only sigh again because you do know. He does love you. He loves you perhaps too much. At this point, it seems like he’s so infatuated with you that he can’t fathom that people would have issues with you. But he’s also so in love with his career that you don’t have the heart to show him the things you’re facing. The dissonance would be too much to add to his already-full plate. And knowing Yoongi, he might do something stupid and get himself in trouble with his own fans. You’d hate to be the cause of something like that in his career.

The oven beeps and you use that as an excuse to escape the way his eyes shine as he contemplates just how much he wasn’t aware of until now.

He leans on the doorframe to watch you pull out the muffins from the oven and drop them unceremoniously onto the stovetop. The muffins are perfectly golden-brown and give off a warm, sweet scent that fills the kitchen quickly. You stand silent with your back to him, shoulders rising with the careful breaths you’re forcing yourself to take.

“Do you still love me,” his voice is small when it floats over to you.

“Ughh,” you claw at your face with your oven mitts. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t have asked you over if I didn’t. But...you have to understand that this is hard for me.”

“And what is ‘this’?

You turn and lean back against the counter, gesturing vaguely with a gloved hand. “This idol thing.” He tilts his head, not understanding. “I just mean that you have this amazing image because you’re out in the spotlight and I don’t want to sully that for you by...not looking like I should.”

“Why do you care about what other people think so much?”

“That’s so easy for you to say when people love you and you look like that. It’s different for regular people.” Your voice cracks once more as the shine lighting up your eyes breaks and runs down your cheeks. “It’s different because I’m already not deserving of you in their eyes. I can’t be regular and not look perfect.”

His hard demeanor softens at the sound of your sniffles and he comes to pull you into his chest, smoothing over your back. “Baby, there’s nothing wrong with the way you look.”

“I know that,” you sob. “I know that there’s nothing wrong with me, but you’ve seen what people say on those stupid forums. No amount of self-confidence could protect anyone from that shit.”

“Can I ask you something,” he says softly after a few aching moments of listening to you try to rein in your breathing.

“Y-yeah.”

“Who are the most important people in your life?”

“Huh?” You look up at him with watery lashes and he wonders how you could ever find fault with what you see in the mirror.

“Whose opinion matters to you most?”

“I don’t know,” you rub wet cheeks against the fabric of his top and think. “My boss since he pays me, obviously. And coworkers, I guess. My friends, definitely. My family, although they’re pretty easy to ignore.” He snorts. “A-and you,” you add on at the end hastily.

He gives you a sad smile when you look up at him. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I mean...doesn’t how you feel matter? You just listed a bunch of other people.”

“Of course what I feel matters,” you say suddenly. You push back from him to clear your head. The tears have stopped flowing, though your cheeks are still wet. “I just can’t go through the world only ever hearing or caring about what I think. But I like myself, Yoongi.”

He nods seriously.

“Even if it doesn’t seem like it because I’m shy sometimes, or quiet. I like myself. But it still hurts to have people tell me they think I shouldn’t. I’m not the type of person who doesn’t react when people attempt to hurt me. That’s the part that hurts the most, I think. Knowing that it was their goal all along.”

“I get that. Or,” He purses his lips, “I think I do. I want to get it, anyway.”

You give him a weak smile because he’s cute, even in moments like this.

He squeezes your hand before bringing it to his lips. It’s not quite a kiss, just him brushing his lips against your skin while he talks. “But I still want to be there for you. And I hate that I could only guess when you were hurting.”

“I should have told you, but I was embarrassed.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” He moves back to pull up a chair at your dining room table. His gaze is genuine and engaged as he looks to you for an answer.

“I’ve been dieting since the company approved us dating privately. This is the first time I’ve been...normal around you. I was worried you’d have this epiphany. That I’m not who you thought I was.”

“Do you remember the first night we met,” he asks all of the sudden.

“Yeah? You came to visit me at work and freaked my supervisor out. She still has that napkin you autographed.”

“That’s not the first night we met,” he shakes his head and chuckles. “We first met at my party. The one your cousin brought you to.”

“Oh, god. I hardly remember that, I was so drunk. I think I blocked it out.”

“You looked like this back then,” he smiles softly at you, memories of that night settling over the surroundings as they play out in front of him.

“Yeah, I know,” you nod softly, eyes averted.

“And you were so pretty that night too.” His gaze turns slightly salacious. “In that little shiny dress you wore—what ever happened to that?”

“You’re dumb,” you shove him with a simpering smile. He merely grins before pulling you slightly closer towards where he’s seated at the kitchen table.

“You still have it?”

“Oh my god, leave me alone.”

He leans into your space, making you duck your head to hide the way your cheeks flare up at his personal attention. Seeing you like this makes something coil in his belly. In due time, he thinks as he backs off. In due time, he’ll really give it to you. But in the meantime he behaves and doesn’t do anything more than intertwine your fingers together.

“I’m donating the clothes from the inspiration bag,” you mumble into his hair.

He pulls back and is careful to keep his face neutral. “Yeah?”

“I did a lot of thinking. And I realized that I don’t think I can say I really like myself if I keep forcing myself into this...mold.”

His brows furrow, lips pouting prettily as he focuses on following your train of thought. “So, what does that mean now?”

“So, this is me. For a long time probably, unless something major happens. I’m telling you so it can sink in. This is your out.”

“Okay,” he stands up from his chair slowly. Large, warm hands come to cup your face tenderly. “And this is me telling you I don’t want an out.”

“Okay,” you breathe out a sigh of relief so deep you don’t know where it came from.

“Glad that much is worked out,” he says before planting a sweet kiss on your cheek. “Hey.”

“What?”

“Can I have a muffin?”

You roll your eyes but go and get a plate from the cabinet. He watches you carefully as you hesitate at the oven before gingerly putting two muffins on the plate. When you return to the table, you mumble something about just wanting to see if they came out good and he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes a bite of one of your rare instances of culinary genius. He lets out a moan that makes your eyes widen and you take a bite before nodding to yourself.

“Just open a bakery already,” he says with a semi-full mouth and reaches out with grabby hands until you get the message to leave your chair. He pulls you into his lap and you try not to feel too self-conscious as you settle your thighs on top of his own. His hand lands on top of your lap casually, large hands splaying out on top to squeeze affectionately at the softness he finds there.

You worry you’re cutting off the blood supply to his legs but he sits happily with you in his lap and even kicks a little rhythm out while finishing his muffin. You get up and he snags the untouched part of your muffin before pulling his phone out of his pocket.

There’s a stream of messages in the group chat asking about his whereabouts and what he wants to do tonight. He answers that he’s with you and the other members all complain about how long it’s been since you visited them. Jungkook even tells Yoongi to bring you over to his place since they’re having a small kickback with just themselves and your post-break workload is still light. He purses his lips and asks for a raincheck, not wanting to push you into being on just yet.

***

A few days pass and the messages get more and more annoying as the other members whine about not having seen neither Yoongi nor you in far too long. So during one of the last days of their break, while he’s trying to dictate a cookie recipe to you, he breaks down at the 13th ping from his phone in a short period.

“Do you want to come hang out with me and the guys tonight?”

Normally if you’re invited over, you jump at the chance because you love getting out of your apartment and you like seeing Yoongi in his element with the people he’s closest to. But you don’t jump on the invitation now because it’s been so long since you last saw the guys and you know that you looked different then.

“I don’t know,” you fold toasted almonds into the cookie dough.

“Why not?”

“You know why,” you sigh. “And as nice as they are, I don’t really want to deal with the ‘did you do something with your hair’ or ‘wow you look so different’ comments.”

“They’re not gonna say that, they’re not total assholes. Look, if anyone says or does anything stupid, I’ll rip them a new one and take you back here.”

You purse your lips while you think it over. “And then will you stay the night?”

“If something stupid happens, I’ll cancel my studio appointment and stay over,” he smiles at you, eyes crinkling. “I’ll tell them we’re on our way now.”

“I can’t leave now,” your hands flutter up as you go from 0 to 60. “I’m a mess, I need to—”

“It’s just the guys. There’s literally no one there worth impressing. I would know.”

“Fine,” you groan. “Just let me change. I’m covered in flour.”

In your room, you find yourself unsure of what to put on. You no longer have any of the clothes you used to wear when you needed to feel like you objectively looked good. But you do have the gorgeous leggings Yoongi gifted you. You switch out your current shirt for a cleaner one and slip on a pair you’ve become obsessed with.

Yoongi punches in the code to the front door of Jungkook’s apartment while you hold the tin of cookies you made. Your fingers slip against the container due to having grown a bit clammy on the ride over. It took a heinous amount of time to wrap them in a way that would keep them warm all during the ride across the city. And now you’re nervous despite the fact that Yoongi sensed it in the car and hurled reassurance after reassurance at you.

But when Namjoon pulls the door open and greets both of you with a smile and a hug and no weird looks, you let out a tiny sigh of relief.

The guys crowd around you after Yoongi announces that you baked. Hoseok mumbles to himself about Yoongi hiding you purposefully so he could hoard your baking and takes two cookies for good measure. Jungkook says thank you politely before splitting one with Jimin. Taehyung takes two for himself and Namjoon and tells you ‘welcome back’. While the rest of the members snack, you count off the remaining sweets in the container and realize you didn’t give any to Jin.

The oldest member is standing in the hallway, drinking from a glass of water and scrolling through his phone when you find him. He must not have gotten the memo that you arrived, so you make your presence known by softly clearing your throat.

“Long time no see,” you smile at Jin.

He peers at you over the rim of his glass for a few long beats and you work to keep your smile natural. You can’t help but worry that he’s looking at the way you’ve has changed since he last saw you, chiseling away at the outside to see the familiar you he knows underneath.

“I guess it has been,” he finally says when he drains his glass. He leans back to rest his back on the wall. “Whatcha got there?”

“Oh, um, they’re just some cookies I made today. Yoongi had been bugging me about making them and I gave some to the others. I just thought I’d see if you wanted any.”

“I’ve always liked your baking.” He reaches out and plucks a cookie from the tin. A second later half of the cookie is gone. He chews thoughtfully.

“This is a new recipe, so I don’t know if it’s as good as it could be. I haven’t had much time for experimenting in the kitchen with work up until now so they might be—”

“I can only imagine how good they were when they first came out of the oven,” he finishes the rest and cuts your rambling off.

You stand there, oddly nervous, while he chews. When he finishes, he watches you fiddle with the lid so the cookies don’t get stale.

“Something’s changed about you,” Jin says finally, his eyes moving from your hair to your toes. You nearly drop the tin in your fumbling, and cringe from both the comment and your clumsiness.

“Yeah, I... gained some weight recently,” you blurt out in the hopes that it’ll be less uncomfortable if you’re the one to say it. But it’s not.

“Hmm,” Jin’s eyes rove over you more thoroughly, making you stand ramrod straight. “I don’t think that’s it. It’s something else, I think.”

“Oh. Well I don’t know, then.”

“What’s going on,” Yoongi’s voice creeps into the mix.

When you turn your head, you’re greeted with the sight of Yoongi in the doorway. He looks comfortably settled against the doorframe, like he’s been there for a while. His gaze isn’t directed at you, but at Jin, you realize. A quick glance back shows that they’re both looking at one another.

“Nothing. We were just talking.” Jin shrugs before walking over to you. A hand on the small of your back brings you with him and up to Yoongi.

Yoongi fixes Jin with a narrowed stare. “The guys were wondering where you both were. They want to play a game together.”

“We were here. No need to worry about us.”

“Well, why don’t you go in and tell them that? I’m gonna speak with my girlfriend.”

Jin gives him an amused smile before giving you a two-fingered captain’s salute and heading to the living room. It might have seemed dorky if anyone had done it, but you marvel over how cool he makes the gesture look. Yoongi turns to you then and takes in your distant expression.

“He didn’t say or do anything to make you uncomfortable, did he? Jin sometimes is a total asshole.”

“No, he—well, he said I looked different.”

“Do you want me to beat him up,” he steps forward to rest his hands on your shoulders. “Because I can, just say the word.”

“It’s really okay. He said it wasn’t just the weight. That it was something else.”

Yoongi’s lips thin as he tries to look for some other message in your words. “I don’t know what the hell that means.”

“It probably didn’t mean anything bad. Just let it go.”

Yoongi nods but takes both your hands in his to kiss them. You lead the way to the living room, feeling a little more like you can handle the night. There’s not much space with all seven members and you. You end up seated away from Yoongi, on the couch between Jungkook and Jin.

Somehow you get roped into playing some Mario game with two teams. You don’t know anything about video games, but you listen to Jungkook’s instructions carefully when you get one of the controllers because he’s one of your teammates. You’re not very good, though. Jin, your team captain, eventually has to maneuver his hands over yours so your character does the right thing.

“You sure you didn’t change your makeup style or something,” Jin asks during one of the rounds where you’re supposed to be playing against Hoseok.

The question takes you by surprise and you turn toward the sound of his voice only to realize just how close he is when he’s acting as a gaming coach of sorts.

“Uh, no. Why?”

“Dunno,” he doesn’t look at you while he converses with you. He’s watching the screen with a hawk-like focus. “You just look prettier than I remember.”

You stutter around nothing, not sure what to say. In the end you settle for saying nothing, though you do spare Yoongi a glance. His gaze must have already been directed at you because you make eye contact immediately. Knowing that he’s probably just making sure you’re having an okay time, you give him a thumbs up and attempt to make Kirby spin on the large screen in front of you.

The night stays that same level of odd. No one else does anything out of the ordinary, barring Jin. He’s strangely attentive even after you get the hang of playing enough to take full control of the controller. After that point, he still slings an arm across the back of the couch, which makes full contact with your shoulders because of how tightly packed you all are on the couch. And when he wants your attention, he makes a habit of brushing his hand down your arm and sometimes leaving it there.

You figure you just don’t spend enough time with Jin to get used to him. But you’ve seen enough interactions between him and the younger members to know how touchy-feely they are with each other. Maybe you’re just enough of an extension of Yoongi to be included in that touching. So you try your hardest not to question it. It’s just nice to know you've been accepted that much and you start to lean into the touch like you would with your own friends.

Soon enough you’re taking part in the high fives that melt into hand holding when you score a goal.

‘Quite a feat for a beginner’, Jin tells you.

Yoongi watches from across the room as your face lights up once again from Jin’s praise. You look like you’re having wholesome fun and the urge to interrupt that is what kills him. But what kills him more is the way Jin’s thumb strokes gently against the curve of your flank as he gestures to something on the screen while Jungkook takes a turn with the controller.

He didn’t think he was the jealous type, but when Taehyung orders pizza one painful hour later, Yoongi’s come to the realization that he’s much more selfish than he knew. Jin whines until you let him feed you a bite of the pepperoni pizza on his plate, knowing you’re too nice to say no. You think this is run of the mill behavior, but even Jimin raises his eyebrows at the display before peering at Yoongi’s furious profile.

The last straw, though, is when Jin wipes a trickle of grease from the corner of your mouth and waits until you’ve turned your head to say something to Jungkook before sucking the residue off. At that, Yoongi stands up abruptly, nearly toppling over the empty box that was near his knees.

“It’s getting late,” he answers the curious stares watching him trudge over to you. “We should head out now if we still want to get back to your place at a decent hour.”

“Oh,” your eyes are wide, “You don’t have to. I know you wanted to do your thing in the studio tomorrow. I should be fine on my own,” you hint back to the promise he made to stay over if the night was a bust.

“I changed my plans already, so I’ll go later in the week. Come on, let’s call a car and go.”

“I can drive you guys. I brought my car,” Jin offers suddenly. His arm is back to resting behind your shoulders. And because his fingers are close enough to graze your shoulder, they do.

“You really don’t have to,” Yoongi bites out. His stare is potent with silent accusation.

“Yoongi, why not? Jin’s place is across the bridge from mine. It actually makes some sense, and I was getting kinda tired. If we wait for a car, I might not be able to get up early enough to go to that brunch spot you mentioned.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jin claps his hands with finality and gets up from the couch before extending his hand out to you. Much to Yoongi’s chagrin, you take his hand like it’s a genuine gesture of chivalry.

Jin somehow manages to get you to sit up in the passenger’s seat with him, leaving Yoongi to fume in the backseat. Occasionally Jin’s eyes will meet his in the rear view mirror and they’ll crinkle with impish amusement before returning to caressing your silhouette.

“So,” Jin says once he gets on the freeway. “Is our Yoongi treating you good?”

You laugh because you don’t see the game at play. “Of course he is. He’s the best boyfriend I could have asked for.” Yoongi’s resolve softens momentarily at your sincere tone. “I love him, even when he gets weird like tonight.” That comment has Jin cackling.

“You know,” he says once his laughter dwindles down, “I actually had the flu the day of Yoongi’s party. The day you guys met.”

“That explains why I didn’t actually see you there. I remember everyone else being there, though.” You gaze wistfully out the window. “I was too shy to talk to any of you guys then.”

“That’s okay. If I had been there, I would have talked to you.”

“That would have been a fun night, I bet.”

“Yeah,” he makes sure Yoongi’s looking in the rearview mirror. “Who knows how close we’d be today if I hadn’t gotten sick.”

Yoongi’s cheek nearly bleeds with force of his teeth gnawing on the inside. If he could, he’d reach forward and throttle Jin. But he’s driving so that’s not an option.

The torture doesn’t last much longer because about 10 minutes later you’re directing Jin to the parking garage of your apartment complex. The goodbyes are annoyingly drawn out and Jin manages to invite himself to brunch the next morning. All the while, Yoongi stands behind you, dying to get inside and away from the eldest member.

Finally, the door gets slammed shut before Jin can say something stupid about seeing you both tomorrow. Yoongi gives the door a smug look and then turns to catch a flash of your eyebrows raised in amusement. His eyes narrow and he approaches you slowly as you shrug off your layers in an almost too mundane way.

“What’s so funny,” he drawls. He attempts to peer at your face only for you to keep whipping it away every time he gets too close.

“Nothing,” you turn and give him your back while you smooth over your already made bed. “It’s just interesting watching you with Jin. I never really get to see you guys together.”

“What’s interesting about it?”

Yoongi starts unbuttoning his own outer layers with painstaking care, giving you ample time to twitch under the weight of his gaze. You fight to keep a smile from sneaking onto your face, but it’s too hard and you let your lips turn up in a little grin. He can’t see it, but he can hear it in your voice.

“You’re just cute when you’re mad.”

A muscle in Yoongi’s jaw jumps.

“You noticed that I was mad, huh?” He shirks off his jacket roughly, sulking in his subtle way. Luckily—or perhaps not luckily—you’ve come to recognize it well.

“I did.” Your voice is high and steady as you remove your sweater, leaving you in a soft and worn t-shirt. “I’ll admit it was entertaining. A little bit.”

“Is that so?” He hums.

“I mean, I don't know what you were mad about. But I could tell it wasn’t about something serious.”

He merely nods and watches you fidget. You peer at him through the side of your eye and see him meticulously undoing the clasp of his watch. From the way he moves slowly through the process of undressing for bed, you can tell something’s coming.

“Let me ask you something, then.”

“O-okay.”

“Is Jin still your favorite?”

“Are you kidding?”

You have to stop hunting for pajamas at your dresser and turn to him to see if he’s in fact kidding. But he looks dangerously serious, and you have to fight to keep your eyes from rolling.

“That’s what this is about? All this sulky Yoongi is because of that?”

“Just answer the question,” he shrugs his shoulders lightly.

Supposedly he’s calm and collected and not jealous, but his eyes are sharp as they zero in on you. Easily, he pushes himself off the wall he was leaning on. The steps he takes toward you are measured and slow. You still find yourself holding your breath as he comes to sit benignly on the bed across from you. It’s something he does sometimes when you’re getting dressed or undressed. Because ‘he likes the view’, he usually says. But tonight it makes you grab the first thing that you find out of your pajama drawer so you’re not leaving your back vulnerable.

“Of course he’s not my favorite anymore. I haven’t felt that way since before we got together.”

“I was just wondering.”

“Yoongi,” you sigh and pull the old t-shirt off to replace it with a sleep shirt. “When you asked me who my favorite was half a year ago I didn’t realize you were flirting with me. And I didn’t really know much about the group either.”

He nods like he thinks what you’ve said is completely reasonable and you stuff your legs through some of your yoga pants roughly. When you finish, you’re still standing defensively on the other side of the room. He looks up at you and beckons you over without a word. You feel compelled to move forward. Unsure of what would happen if you didn’t humor him.

When you’re finally approaching the V of his parted legs, he motions for you to sit next to him on the bed. You do.

“You know,” he begins slowly, “You looked like you were having a great time tonight.”

“Oh,” you blink. “Yeah, I was having fun. Even though it took a while for me to win a round. And even then I think Hoseok might have let me win.”

“Was Jin a good teacher?”

“Yeah, he was a good teacher.”

“I bet he was. He had a good student. He looked like he was enjoying himself.”

“Maybe,” you tap your finger on your chin pensively. “It didn’t seem like he hated having to show me how to play.”

“No, trust me, he was enjoying it.” Yoongi’s tone dips audibly, and you stop yourself when you realize what he’s implying.

“God, Yoongi, stop it. It wasn’t like that. He was just being nice.”

“I’ve known Jin a long time. I know what he looks like when he’s flirting. It started as soon as you walked through the door.”

“That’s crazy,” you mumble. But then you think of all the lingering touches and glances again and it clicks. “He...he was probably just trying to rile you up. Jin likes to mess with people sometimes. You’re always saying that.”

Yoongi pins you with an odd look. It’s partly amused, partly pitying. Then it turns cold. “You know, Jin’s been sweet on you since I first introduced you. The first night you met, he told me he used to date someone who looked a bit like you when he was younger, before debuting.”

“Oh my god,” you whisper again.

“You really didn’t know?” Yoongi leans in so the words practically brush against the skin of your cheek. “He was shoving himself all over you the whole night and you didn’t notice?”

You shake your head, at a loss for words. His hand finds its way to your opposite arm, pulling you closer to him.

“Hmm,” he hums in acknowledgment.

Then Yoongi’s lips are pressing gently to the skin of your neck. There’s a hint of something in the kisses that makes them feel a bit too heated to be chaste. At first you think it’s gratitude, but when you turn your head to meet his lips with your own, it’s clear that it’s not just that. His tongue snakes in between your lips, and you let it happen as you turn the evening’s events over in your memory.

“Yoongi,” you whisper between kisses.

“Hmm?” His large hands are splayed low over the swell of your back, a pinky finger just barely dipping under the waistband of your pants.

“I think I did know.”

“Huh?”

“I think as soon as he said that thing in the car—about being in your place—I knew he wasn’t just being friendly anymore.”

“Yeah?” he mumbles against your lips.

Taking you by surprise, he pushes deeper into your mouth until he’s stealing your breath. His lips are plush but insistent. And you’re conflicted. But suddenly he’s pulling away with a damp mouth and a firm grasp on your hip.

“You knew and made me sit through all that and then invited him to brunch in front of me?” He nips at your lax mouth. “That’s not very nice.”

“I know,” you sigh.

“Don’t you think you should be punished, then?” When you pull away looking like he’s grown a second head, he shrugs mildly and like he didn’t just threaten to take you over his knee. “Or not. Your choice.”

#bangtan bookclub #networkbangtan #yoonginetwork #hyunglinenetwork #btswriters #yoongi imagines #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fanfic #bangtan scenarios #bangtan imagines #bangtan fanfic #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fanfic

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wordsfromthesol · 5 years ago

Audio

A Better Reality

Author: @wordsfromthesol Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader Summary: You just began a new job at Arkham Asylum and your newfound talent allows you to help a certain masked vigilante. Warnings: Language…I think that’s it? Word Count: 2.8k Taglist: @ghost-brocolli (You seemed real excited for it, so I tagged you 😉 ) A/N: So, this so isn’t where I was expecting this story to go…but oh well. Here it is! Also there’s a song...so recording is how I envision it sounding, but like you obvi don’t need to listen to grasp the story.

Everyone said you were crazy to move to Gotham, and you totally understood but you couldn’t help feeling like you were meant to be here. It seemed like everything went wrong in your life all at once, and everything else was pushing you towards Gotham. A psychologist position opened up at Arkham Asylum, just as your old job let you go. Granted, a position opened up at Arkham every few months, but you chose to overlook that fact. You had an unusually high tolerance for psychopaths and thought you may actually be able to help some of these people.

You started work just days after you moved in and quickly realized you had a knack for helping those affected by Scarecrow’s fear toxin. An earlier formula had caused several people to go insane and unshockingly they all ended up in Arkham. After a few months, you even started treating Jonathan Crane himself. Though, you only got in three sessions before the villain broke out of the prison.

It had been a long day, everyone at the prison was frantic given the escaped convict, and all you wanted to do was curl up on the couch with hot chocolate and a good book. The universe had other plans, on your way home you saw people running from the metro station. No. Not already. You immediately got out of your car and tried to calm those far enough away from the station – after all you saw first hand what the gas was capable of and you did not need that toxin in your brain.

“Okay, miss…miss can you hear me?” The woman nodded as you approached her, careful to maintain your distance. “I need you to listen, find a sound and focus only on that. It can be the sound of the cars going by or the buzzing of the streetlights. Can you do that for me? Focus only –” your voice cut off as you noticed a figure standing on the ledge of the nearby apartment building. No no no, not on my watch buddy. You ran towards the building and leapt up to the fire escape. I think this is the most I’ve exercised in years. Finally, you reached the top of the building and slowed your pace. You didn’t know how the toxin was affecting this person and you definitely didn’t want to be attacked tonight.

“What a beautiful night, you come up here often?” The masked figure briefly turned their head in your direction before resuming their gaze over Gotham. Okay, well at least they won’t attack me. You get a little closer and sit on the ledge of the building before you look up and realize that the figure is the infamous Red Hood. You could only imagine what the gas was projecting into his mind. “Listen to those police sirens. I wonder how long their sirens will be on. The noise of the sirens must be distracting so many people.” Giving him time to reflect on your words, and hopefully focus on the police sirens, you watch the panic spreading below. When he didn’t step back from the ledge you started again. “Hey, can you do me a favor? I’ve been working on this song and it would be great to have someone else’s opinion.” You noticed the slight nod he gave, at least I think that was directed at me. “I need you to really listen though, focus on the lyrics and the sound of my voice. Only my voice.” With that you began to show part of yourself that no one had ever seen.

“I’ve lost my grip on reality

Can’t seem to trust my reality

Don’t know who to turn to

I don’t know where to go

No one hears me crying

As I’m fighting back the pain

I’ve lost it all

And I don’t know where to find it

How do you start a search

When you don’t know what you’re looking for

But it’s echoing through you like a ghost

Oh it chills me to the bone

How do I not know

I’m choking back the tears

As the world is shattering

How do I not know

I’ve lost my grip on reality

Can’t seem to trust my reality

Don’t know who to turn to and

I don’t know where to go

No one hears me crying

As I’m fighting back the pain

I’ve lost it all

And I don’t know where to find it

Can it be I’ve disappeared

Or gotten lost along the way

Oh I’ve risked it all

And now the darkness is calling my name

Where’s the strength to push it back

Oh how do I not know

I’ve just…

I’ve lost my grip on reality

Can’t seem to trust my reality

Don’t know who to turn to and

I don’t know where to go

No one hears me crying

As I’m fighting back the pain

I’ve lost it all

And I don’t know where to find it

How do I begin to find it

Where do I find it…”

The masked vigilante, at some point during your outburst, sat beside you and was now staring directly at you. He placed a hand on your knee before letting himself fall off the building.

“NO!” You screamed before you saw him land on a nearby rooftop. Has to be fucking dramatic doesn’t he. You got up from the edge of the building and slowly made your way back to your car.

As soon as you got home your head hit the pillow and you were out like a light. Waking up the next morning was brutal, you kept replaying the rooftop moment in your head. The toxin didn’t seem to affect him the way it did others, he only seemed to want to hurt himself. He didn’t abandon all his morals or start hallucinating (at least you think). What could possibly be in his head, that his greatest fear is himself?

Work was surprisingly dull, but you were grateful that it was Friday. You could go home and try to forget about last nights events. Or so you thought. Knee deep in a new book, you heard a knock at the fire escape. Red Hood? What the hell. You motioned for him to come in.

“You know, this is Gotham. You should probably lock that.”

“Oh look, he does speak when his mind hasn’t been infected with fear gas. Good to know.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I guess I wanted to thank you.”

“Of course, it’s kind of my job so.”

“But I’m not one of your Arkham patients.”

Of course, he already knew who you were. “Not yet anyways” you arched your eyebrow and gave him a sly smirk. Without another word, he seemed to make himself right at home. Walking into the kitchen, he opened all the cabinets in search of a mug and poured it full of the hot chocolate sitting on the stove before joining you on the couch.

“So is that like your go-to song when people tweak out on fear gas?”

“Heh, I don’t usually break into song during my sessions.” You lean in closer to him, “Despite what you’ve heard, life isn’t a musical.”

“Damn, well if I had your voice I would make mine a musical. Think of all the fantastic numbers I could do while punching people in the face. So much material to work with.”

“I don’t even think you would need to punch them if you broke into song. They would just collapse on the floor out of shear surprise.”

“Hey, whatever works doll…I just asked because. Those lyrics.”

“Yeah, I thought they may be applicable, that’s why I picked it.”

“You have more?! I gotta hear them now.”

“Psh, in your dreams maybe Red. I don’t even know you.”

“Do you want to?”

“Well,” you chuckled to yourself, “you’re in luck. I just moved here and don’t know a soul. You seem like a good person to start with.”

You must have talked the whole night with the vigilante before falling asleep on the couch, at least you don’t remember ever making your way to the bedroom. Yet here you were, waking up Saturday morning in your own bed, with the smell of French toast and coffee coming from the kitchen. What the fuck, is he still here? You pull back the covers and make your way to the kitchen to find someone cooking breakfast. Though that someone was no longer in his Red Hood get up, but you caught a glimpse of a mask.

“You’re in my apartment.”

“Yeah, I made a ‘thank you’ breakfast.” He turned from the stove and did a half bow. “You’re welcome, you’re welcome.”

Rolling your eyes, you walked over and grabbed coffee before gesturing at his outfit. “Did you even sleep? Or was the outfit change more important?”

“Well I didn’t want to hide this jawline from your view. That would just be cruel and unusual punishment.”

“And we wouldn’t want that after I saved your life.”

“Exactly. Now sit and prepare to be amazed.”

***

“Wow, okay, I’m amazed.” You mumbled out while shoveling more of the delicious food into your mouth.

“Slow down there, you aren’t on death row.”

You glared up at him but were too enveloped in the food to formulate a response.

“So, did you ever figure out how to find it?”

Can’t he just let me eat in peace. “Find what?”

“Your reality?”

“Oh man, are we going there?” Red Hood just shrugged if off, though he was actually curious. “Alright, Red. The truth is, not always. Some days things seem to be going well and the next day it feels like my entire life has exploded in my face.”

“Heh, I thought you were supposed to be the sane one.”

“Everyone is fighting their own battles.” You watched the vigilante stand up and walk over to the window, as he crawled out, he looked back at you.

“I like you, Y/N/N.”

Welcome to the life of a vigilante’s therapist, you thought as you cleaned up the mess from breakfast.

***

It had been nearly a week before you heard from the masked man again. This time there was no breakfast, only blood.

“What the hell, Red?”

“You’re a doctor, thought you could help.”

“I guess, technically, but not that kind! Why don’t you go to a real doctor?”

“Eh, it’s just a flesh wound. Come on, Y/N/N, you can manage.” You rolled your eyes as you walked to get your first aid kit.

“If this is going to be a regular thing, you are going to need to bring me actual medical supplies because I am so not funding your stupidity.”

“Deal.”

You sat next to him and got to work, “So, why come here? Don’t you have someone who patches you up.”

“Didn’t really think about that, just wanted to talk to – someone outside the life.”

“And what ever would you want to talk about Red.”

“Hmm…what did you do today?”

You couldn’t hold back you laugh as you finished bandaging his arm. “Seriously?” A small grin spread across his face. “Alright, I woke up at a solid 10:00am and made breakfast. Then played video games until about two hours ago, when I started writing some songs.”

“Oh, I wanna hear!”

“No.”

“Buzzkill…”

“Yeah, well. You’ve already heard more than anyone and I don’t even know your name.”

You continued to talk the rest of the night, until you put on a movie and fell asleep on the couch. Though you awoke the next morning, yet again, in your own bed, this time to the smell of eggs and bacon.

“This just going to be a weekend routine then?”

“If you’re lucky.”

***

You started getting visits, on either Friday or Saturday nights, every week. The same old story, he wanted to talk about random every day nonsense while you patched up his latest scrapes. You would wake up to the smell of breakfast and he would leave shortly after. It had been a few months now, and it was nearing 3 am Sunday morning, yet your new vigilante friend hadn’t shown up. You began pacing in your living room.

“What if he’s dead somewhere? How would I even know? I don’t even have a damn name. Of course, I had to go make friends with a damn vigilante. I mean, I’ve never even seen his eyes. Just the red and white of that domino mask he insists on wearing…because heaven forbid I see the color of his damn eyes.” Your rant is cut short by a faint laugh coming from your window. You ran over and slapped him in the shoulder. “YOU CAN’T FUCKING DO THAT I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD.”

“Aw, you care.”

“OF COURSE I FUCKING CARE YOU IDIOT. GET IN HERE NOW.”

“Alright mom, calm down. I was put on stakeout duty as punishment.”

You glared at him, “Punishment for what? Wait…punishment from who?!”

“Uh…Batman. I may or may not have taken the Batmobile on a joyride Thursday night.”

You stifled a laugh, “You really like to piss him off don’t you.”

“What can I say, it’s a gift.”

“One he probably would like to return.”

“Yeah.” Red Hood hung his head and walked over to the kitchen, in search of hot chocolate.

“Wow, alright. Struck a chord there. Wanna tell me what’s up Red?”

“I don’t need you to be my therapist, Y/N.”

“Okay, not trying to be. I know it’s probably strange for you…but generally when people care about someone, they do like to know what’s going on in their life. Including the shitty parts. Oh, and the hot chocolate ran out about two hours ago.”

He huffed and began stalking back towards the window when you grabbed his wrist. “Uh huh, buddy. One, it is 3 in the morning, I don’t care if you are the Red freaking Hood, you aren’t going home this late. Two, you DEFINITELY aren’t going home at 3 in the morning when you are this upset.”

“I’ve left your apartment later than 3 before.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t awake to stop you so…now I am. Sit your ass down.”

“I could easily get passed you and leave you know.” He mumbled as he stumbled over to the couch.

“Yeah yeah, big tough masked man here.” You followed him to the couch, “What color even ARE your eyes?”

“Really, Y/N/N, really?”

“Well if you won’t tell me your damn name and I have to try and describe you to the police one night when you vanish off the face of the earth…it would be nice to have accurate information.”

“Jason.” He took off the red helmet, “Jason Todd,” and then the domino mask. You couldn’t form any words, you just sat there staring at him, mouth agape. Not because you knew who this person was, after all you were not native to the city and the rest of the world tended to sleep on the craziness that was Gotham City, but because after all this time he so nonchalantly revealed his identity. You figured he would have to be dead or on his dead bed. By the time you got over the shock of the reveal you got lost in his eyes. They were the most intense steel blue eyes you had ever seen. Impossibly blue. Could this man look more perfect, what the actual fuck.

“Uhm, Y/N/N? You good.”

You shook yourself out of your own mind, “Your eyes are like impossibly blue. You had to show off the jawline, but not those? Red, you are focused on the wrong attribute.” With that Jason’s mouth turned upwards as he doubled over laughing. You rose from your spot on the couch and waved your hand as you made your way to the bedroom. “I don’t lie and I better wake up to an amazing breakfast after the heart attack you gave me tonight.”

You did and Jason spent the entire day at your apartment, he said it was to make up for the time he lost on stakeout, but you didn’t really care about the reason.

“Alright, I’m going to let you get some sleep so you can deal with the crazy people tomorrow.” He finally said while getting off the couch.

“They aren’t crazy.”

“Sure Y/N/N. Normal people go to an asylum.”

You shrugged, “But what is normal?”

“No fun, that’s for sure.” Jason made his way to the window.

“You know, you can use the door…like a normal person.”

“If people saw the Red Hood walking out of your front door, what ever would they say?”

“One, like I care what they say. Two, I guess you’ll just have to keep some boring old civilian clothes here then.”

“Only if I can bring along a toothbrush too.”

“Deal.” You got off the couch and headed towards your bedroom, when you felt his hand grab your wrist and spin you towards him.

“Good, because I finally found a reality that I don’t ever want to lose.” Jason mumbled just before his lips crashed into yours.

#jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #red hood #red hood x reader imagines #red hood imagine #red hood x y/n #dc imagine #dc comics x reader #fanfic #batboys #batboys imagine

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catchlalune · 4 years ago

Text

My Dearest Rose

a/n: hello again my starbursts! I hope quarantine is treating you well, please don’t forget to keep practicing social distancing! In the next installment of fics I may never finish writing is one very dear to me, I was having soooo much fun writing it but admittedly lost my steam. There are a lot of errors that I haven’t fixed and though the plot was thought out it was not completed in its entirety (obvi) it was maybe about 55% complete? But please give me some feedback and tell me if you like this style of song fic! (Also the very end is supposed to be very close to the very end of the story, I jumped around a bit whilst writting it!)

Pairing: Kim Woosung x Reader

Word Count: 3012

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Fantasy! Au, Cinderella! Au (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella to be more precise)

Warnings: mentions of minor character death

The sweetest sounds I’ll ever hear are still inside my head

The kindest words I’ll ever know are waiting to be said

The most entrancing sight of all is yet for me to see, and the dearest love in all the world is waiting somewhere for me

The first time you meet him it is down by the public shoppes. He’s someone you’ve never met before and someone you are sure you’d remember due to the color of his hair, golden like inside of an iris’s petals.

His eyes were so brown and so kind you had trouble responding to him when he spoke to you.

“Miss? Are you alright?” You have to blink several times for his words to register in your head and when they do, you jolt and quickly look to the ground.

“Yes, I think so.” You finally speak up as you gather the packages that were dropped when you were trying to not be trampled by the majestic horses and the beautiful blue carriage embroidered with the most astonishing golden detailing.

“Those royals, never caring if they’re in someone’s way.” He comments as he begins to stack the packages for you and you quickly take them from him.

“Oh, I’m sure they were going somewhere very important.” you reply sheepishly He doesn’t seem to buy that but gives you a gentle smile nonetheless.

“Important enough to almost run someone over? I’m not sure about that.” He remarks, with a telling smile. You stop for a second just to think over his words, your brows furrowing as you turn from him.

“Well, thank you, thank you very much.” You thank him meekly remembering you really are in a hurry, but before can make your getaway he frantically follows you.

“Wait, what’s your name?” He asks, questioningly. You weren’t inclined to answer but you did nonetheless.

“(Your name)? I like it.” The smile he gives you is charming, fit for a prince you think.

“It grows on you I guess, if you’ll excuse me I really must deliver these now.” You can hear the fatigue in your voice as you say that and you turn to leave again but he continues to follow.

“I can help! I do wish to speak to you some more and figure out what a man would need to learn in order to get in your good graces.” He says cheerfully and he takes the heaviest boxes from your arms before you can think about protesting. He just sets off in the direction you were headed.

“Well, I suppose I should know the name of the man that would like to know. And why he might be so adamant in helping out a girl he’s just met.” You sass as you jog after him.

“Let’s just say that he’s” a charming stranger.” He chuckles out, smirking.

“How charming can he be if he won’t answer a simple enough question as his name?” You ask as you stray away from him for a moment to drop off a package to the baker’s wife who was waiting outside of the bakery for you. She greets you with a wide smile and a warm muffin freshly baked. She sends you off with well wishes and a Tell your father thank you!

“How well do you know the people of this town?” You jump a little at the voice of the strange man to your left.

“I’d feel more obligated to answer once I know how to address you.” You shrug. He laughs and shakes his head.

“I thought I would be able to get away with not telling you but I concede. My name is Woosung.” He says pleasantly

“I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want to tell me if you want to help me but alright, it’s a pleasure to meet you Woosung.” You say almost dropping a box.

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine.” He replies smoothly. You want to smile at that but cover it up with a shift of the packages in your arms.

“So it is.”

With the help of Woosung you were able to get the deliveries done much faster than anticipated. Though he was a little strange and a bit over eager he was kind enough to help you with your task and see it through to the end. You decided it best to reward him by sharing half of your muffin with him.

“It is much better when it’s still warm and with a glass of cold milk. My mother always thought so anyway.” You comment, remembering. He perks up at that while mumbling the question you so dreaded hearing with a mouthful of muffin, his stuffed cheeks making him look like a woodland creature.

“Thought so?”

“Yes, she passed when I was five. I remember bits and pieces but not everything.” You say. His shoulders slump and he gives you a sympathetic look.

He replies. “I apologize for asking.” You were glad he didn’t say he was sorry for her passing, for you never really knew what to say after that in a conversation.

“There’s no need for an apology. I’ve learned to live with it now, my father had a girlfriend a couple years past and she was nice at first. Until she wanted me to call her mother then she got very mean. She made me do all the chores around the house alone and then at the end of the day would make me sleep in front of the fireplace as her two daughters took my room.” You state, seemingly unhappy with it.

“And your dad did nothing to stop it?” There was anger simmering underneath his tone.

“He wasn’t around often. He may have been around for a week at a time before leaving for business trips. Until one day I begged him to stay or to take me with him and then he questioned why. My stepmother and sisters left very promptly after that.” Is what you respond.

“What do you do now?” He asks,with eyes that seem to be hanging off your every word.

“Now I work with him. We moved towns after that and we are actually fairly new here. We own the flower shoppe right down there.” You point to the shop on the far side of the square that sat on the corner of the road. The bench two of you sat on having the perfect view of the quaint little store.

“I’m not sure why I told you all this. But I think it probably has to do with having the same old routine all the time.” You continue.

“I understand that. Working tirelessly day in and day out doing the same old thing. It is nice to do something out of the ordinary once in a while.” He nods looking up at the clouds that lazily passed by. You were glad that at least someone could understand you.

“Well, what about you?” Your question seems to startle him.

“M-me?” Was that a stutter? He seemed so confident a moment ago. “My story is not very interesting. Just a boring family living in a boring place surrounded by boring people doing boring tasks.” He sounded a bit bitter about it.

“That does seem a bit uninteresting.” You remark, letting it go for now, allowing the silence to settle comfortably over you both. Well, as silent as the ambience of the busy town square would allow. When the sun begins to lull he stands and stretches looking much like a cat, the thought makes you giggle and he grins in your direction.

“Leaving so soon, Prince Charming?” He blinks at you, a bit startled. “You act so gentlemanly, it is something befitting of a prince.” You tease.

He shakes his head at this. “Oh hardly m’lady, I am not deserving of such a title.” He tilts his head then a small frown adorning his lips. They were a pretty pink color like that of a peach-colored rose. You then wonder. “Will I see you again?”

“Perhaps, if you are ever in need of a bouquet.” He says smiling at you again, always such a dazzling occurrence.

“I will make sure to need one in the future. Then, I’ll be going first.” Woosung says, you nod at him a small wave after until he turns his back and disappears down the cobblestone walkway.

When you turn to make your back way to the store, your best friend stands before you a question in his eyes and his arms folded across his chest.

“Oh! Dojoon, you nearly frightened me to death.” You squeak out, the hand over your heart could hardly calm its frantic beating.

“Who was that?” He questions. You weren’t sure why but the tone in his voice had you a bit miffed. He was a nosy man but all in good faith. He was the first person you bonded with in town after landing a job in your store and you two were basically attached to the hip ever since. Usually you two would take turns delivering and working in the store, often alternating between the tasks. He probably set out to find you after you took longer than usual to get back.

“A charming stranger, that’s all.” You said, opening the door to your store, not really caring too much if it hits him as it shuts.

“He has a name, doesn’t he?” He pushes. Dojoon had no trouble keeping up with your shorter strides.

“Who has a name?” Your father's voice makes you jump for the third time that day.

“No one, papa. How were the sales today?” You say, diverting the conversation.

The attempt to change the subject worked well in your favor as your father and Dojoon were easily distracted by telling you animated stories of the days events. You only listened half heartedly, in the back of your mind you hoped -though a strange thought-that you would be able to meet the charming man once again.

♧♧♧

After that encounter, Woosung came back the next day, and then the next, always incredibly charming and princely. The two of you spent so much time together you hardly noticed the changing of the seasons, summer turning to autumn, autumn to winter, the chill of the snow bidding its farewell when spring came and nestled its way into the trees, breathing life back into the nature around you.

The two of you often spent time working together, if he didn’t help you with deliveries then he was helping your father with business matters or Dojoon with tending the flowers. If anyone enjoyed Woosung’s company more than you it was Dojoon. He was certainly skeptical at first until he met him and then they bonded well over their common interests in black roses and music.

“Aye, did you all hear? The prince is giving a ball!” One of your regulars Mr. Windsong informs you with a bright smile. You notice Woosung stiffen next to you but you choose not to say anything about it.

“Oh is he? I’m sure that will be very nice for the royals.” You reply to him flippantly, you weren’t very interested in the affairs of the rich.

“You should be more interested,” Mr. Windsong motions for you to lean in so he can whisper in your ear,you humor him if only to get him to leave. “I hear he is to be picking a princess. Any lady he sees fit to marry so all of the eligible young woman in the land are invited.”

“Trying to marry my daughter off are you?” You giggle at your father’s grand entrance bringing with him the lingering smell of cherry blossoms from the outside.

“Oh no papa, he was just telling me about the ball the Prince is holding.” You watch as your father raises his brows and hands off a couple packages to Woosung to put away.

“Oh the I heard about that too, apparently his parents want to marry him off. A little strange if you ask me, the King isn’t even past his prime yet.” The wind chimes tinkle as Dojoon steps in and Mr. Windsong steps out bidding everyone a farewell.

“Perhaps his parents just want what is best for him.” The three of you turn your heads to Woosung whose mouth is slightly turned downwards.

“Perhaps, but regardless it has nothing to do with me,” You get up from your perch behind the register and pick up a watering can to water some yellow carnations. “I have no interest in marrying a prince, let alone one I don’t know. Don’t you think marrying someone you hardly know is barbaric? What’s the use of marriage if not to marry someone you love?” You remark.

“Well we don’t know if the prince is being forced into it, he could not be.” Woosung adds, smiling at you but you sigh shaking your head slightly.

“I’m not talking about the prince, I’m talking about the women. Why are we expected to just fall in love at the drop of a dime? Who cares if you’re a prince or a common man if you just expect us to just fall at the mention of fame and fortune?” You rebuttal.

If there was one thing Woosung was not expecting it was that. Your words caused his skin to flush, they were so cold.

“Now dear, not all men are the same.” Sensing the tension your father steps between the two of you and Dojoon lets out a loud boisterous laugh.

“Honestly, papa. I’m as mild and as meek as mouse, whenever someone gives me a command I obey. But the idea of being forced into marriage infuriates me. I loathe it, what am I to do if the one I marry forces me into it to? Will I ever get to be myself?” You question.

“Listen to me dear, I will not let that happen. No one will ever force you into anything ever again, not even me.” Your father sets a warm palm on your shoulder as reassurance and you nod at him.

“I know, I just get scared sometimes thinking of life outside this shop. What if when you pass I’m married off to some evil man? Money does the worst things to people papa.” You can hear the “emotion” in your voice.

You watch as Dojoon steps forward with a crooked smile and shakes his head. “What am I chopped liver? I thought we made a pact that if you weren’t to be married by the time of your father’s passing that we’d-”

“Why are we speaking as if I’m about to meet the undertaker?” Your father interrupts, his question makes both you and Dojoon laugh.

“Not at all sir!” Dojoon says, face flushed from laughing.

“It’s just, mama passed out of nowhere it seemed and if that were to happen to you too well I..I wouldn’t know what to do.” You prune at a patch of Forget-Me-Not’s as you say this, you vaguely remember your mother being fond of the baby blue blooms.

☆☆☆☆

"I yearn for you, for your soft glances and your approval. I have never known a feeling quite like this, I only wish for you to extinguish the fire inside me. Please, tell me you care for me too."

You can't help but look at him from his confession, affairs of the heart were not something you were well versed in. But you'd be lying if you said his presence didn't alight a fire in you and snuff it out all at once. Its the tenderness of his voice and the way the moon reflects off the water on to his face that makes your breath quicken, at least that's what you tell yourself.

"You know I care for you."

"But do you care for me? Does me being a prince make a difference? Tell me now, and I won't ever bother you again but you have to speak to me. Please do not shut me out." Woosung sounds desperate and you cant help feeling it's your fault for making him this way.

The two of you sit there for a long while, him waiting patiently and you staring at the way the moon hits the water. You want to say it, want to speak your truth but admission is so hard and you are so weary. Regardless of the passage of time Woosung never moves from your side, he remains even when the chirping of early morning birds can be heard. He knows you, he understands.

"I- I wish to-" Your voice comes out hoarse but Woosung doesn't seem to mind, he just hangs on every last word.

When you turn to him you can see the adoration in his eyes, it was always there sparkling and bright. You could always feel it, the way he seemed to find your gaze in a crowded room always. The way with which he spoke to you, soft and steady. The way with which he bore his heart to you, slow with no pressure. It is all you can think about before pressing your lips to his in a kiss that would make Aphrodite squeal.

The touch of his lips on yours is so right, he melts into it but does not move to make it go any further. It is languid and full of the emotions you both can not hope to ever put into words. It is full of the longing and of two beating hearts that call out for each other. Even then he remains as he always has.

"Charming."

"My dearest love, you are the charming one. And I will always be right here for you." He speaks the words like the whisper of a song as he taps the spot on the left side of your breast where you can feel a hammering.

It's clear to you now that from the very moment you met at the shoppes all those seasons ago that he had always been for you, waiting and patient.

#the rose #the rose fluff #the rose angst #kprosenet #kim woosung fluff #kim woosung angst #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kim woosung

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