#and I have spent so much time/effort making it harder for me to be on my phone [see: not logging back into this website for 2 months lol]

[4linos]

cooking, lying, and loving you.

han jisung x gn!reader

synopsis: you surprise your boyfriend with a home-cooked meal after his long tour, but the dish turns out far from perfect.

wc: 705

After weeks of being on tour, Jisung has finally returned home, and you have been impatiently waiting his arrival. You chose to prepare dinner as a surprise for him because you know how much he must have missed home-cooked meals. Even though you're not very good at cooking, you've spent the entire day planning and putting your all into the dish. You're nervous yet excited, imagining his reaction when he realizes how hard you've worked.

When he walks through the door, the sound of his suitcase rolling across the floor catches your attention. “I’m home!” he calls out, his voice a little tired but warm and full of love.

You rush out to greet him, pulling him into a tight hug. “Welcome back!”

He grins, melting into your embrace. “It smells amazing in here. Did you… cook?” His tone is surprised but genuinely touched.

“Yup!” you say, beaming. “I wanted to do something special for you. Go freshen up—it’ll be ready when you’re done.”

Jisung heads off to change, and you quickly finish plating the food, making sure it looks as good as possible. By the time he sits down, the table is set with candles and everything. You can see how moved he is by the effort.

“Wow,” he says, his eyes wide as he takes it all in. “You did all this for me? You’re amazing.”

You blush at his words. “Anything for you. Now, dig in!”

He grabs his fork and takes his first bite. His attitude somewhat changes, but he masks it with a smile. His nod is a bit too enthusiastic. "Mmm," he adds. "This is so good!" With pride, you smile. “Really? I was worried that things wouldn't work out.” "No, it's delicious!" he insists, taking another bite, although at a slower pace. His thoughts are racing inside.

*It's slightly salty—no, it's really salty. And the texture isn't right. However, they put a lot of effort into this—I can't say anything. I'll simply push through.*

Feeling happy by his obvious enjoyment, you continue to watch him eat. "You really like it?”

“Of course!” he says, washing it down with a big gulp of water. “You did an amazing job.” He clears his plate despite the challenge, finishing with a triumphant smile. “That was so good. Thank you, babe.”

You’re practically glowing from his praise. “I’m so glad you liked it! I was worried it might not be perfect.”

Jisung shakes his head. “It was perfect,” he lies smoothly, leaning back in his chair.

Later, Jisung waits in the doorway, watching you with a sheepish smile as you get ready for bed. Casually, he scratches the back of his neck and says, "Hey." "Yes?" You look at him in the mirror and hum. "Well, I He took a step closer and says, "I have something to tell you.”

Curious, you turn around. "What is it?" After he pauses, he starts laughing. "Alright, don't be upset,

but the dinner wasn't that good."

Your jaw drops as you process his confession. “What?! You said you loved it!”

“I didn’t have the heart to tell you!” he defends himself, laughing so hard he’s clutching his stomach. “You looked so proud, and I couldn’t ruin the moment!”

You grab a nearby pillow and playfully hit him with it. “Babe! I can’t believe you lied to me!”

He tries to dodge, laughing harder. “It wasn’t a lie—it was… creative encouragement! You worked so hard, and I really did appreciate it!”

You can’t help but laugh along with him, even as you give him another light whack. “You’re impossible.”

“But you love me,” he teases, catching your hand mid-swing and pulling you close.

“Barely,” you joke, rolling your eyes.

He grins, leaning his forehead against yours. “Next time, we’ll cook together, okay? That way, you can’t accuse me of lying.”

“Deal,” you say with a smirk. “But don’t think I’m letting you off the hook that easily.”

Jisung kisses your cheek, still chuckling. “Fair enough. Just know that I’ll always finish whatever you make—even if it’s… memorable.”

You both laugh as you settle into bed, teasing each other until the night is filled with warmth and joy, the imperfect dinner already a funny memory to share.

—

nini’s notes!! 112724

heyy. i hope you all have a good thanksgiving tomorrow (if you celebrate, of course). i’m so ready for this year to be over 🤧.

asks are always open if you have a question, concern, or request!

-🎀

[adore-gregor]

my perception of grades totally changed since i started uni

[e-vultures]

I realize this is a pretty lukewarm take on the 'fuck modern tech' site but god I fucking hate two-factor authentication. ok cool so after I intentionally set up barriers for myself to stop being on my phone specifically when I'm trying to get work done in order to get said work done I have to go get my phone? and go into its little notifications? and inevitably spend an hour distracted because of The Way My Brain Works (and the way it has been fucking trained to work by those notifications)? when I tried to fucking get around this problem and work with the tendencies I know I have??? cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! great!!!!!!!!!!

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

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[theearnestonion]

rant in the tags time. its angry and there's caps and swears and discusses.. ableism, I guess?? so beware and all that.

[starsjulia]

rekindling us // leah williamson

a/n : based of this request!! also so sorry it’s short, school is currently consuming my being.

trigger warnings : accidental mistreatment of spouse? idk

You weren’t a footballer like Leah. You had your own passions, your own world, but you had always been her biggest supporter. Whenever Leah was exhausted after a long day, you’d make sure the house was tidy, cook her favorite meals, and offer her the kind of quiet comfort that came without asking. You didn’t need her to tell you how much she appreciated you—you believed her actions would show it. But lately, the actions weren’t there. The little things had faded away.

Leah was constantly missing plans. The dates you had carefully planned together were brushed off with a casual “Sorry, training went long,” or “I got caught up with the girls, we’ll do it next time.” You understood, at first. You knew how demanding her schedule was, how much her career meant to her. But the cancellations became more frequent, the nights spent waiting for her to come home stretched longer, and slowly, without even realizing it, you began to feel invisible.

You continued to put in the effort, thinking maybe she would notice if you worked harder. You took on even more around the house, making sure Leah didn’t have to lift a finger when she was home. But Leah barely acknowledged it. She was so wrapped up in her own world that she didn’t see how much you were doing, or how much it hurt to be overlooked.

One evening, you decided to make a special dinner. You knew Leah had been under a lot of stress lately, so you thought a quiet evening together would help her unwind. You spent hours preparing a dish (other than party food) that you knew she’d enjoy, setting the table with candles and soft music, hoping it would be a reminder of the love and connection you shared.

But Leah didn’t come home on time. As the hours ticked by, the food grew cold, and your heart sank. When she finally walked through the door, she didn’t even notice the effort you had put in. She tossed her bag on the chair and casually said, “Sorry I’m late. The girls wanted to grab a drink after training.”

You tried to hold it together, but the disappointment was overwhelming. She had forgotten, again. Forgotten the evening you’d planned, forgotten how much you’d been waiting for her. Without saying a word, you got up and went to the bedroom, tears stinging your eyes.

Leah, oblivious at first, finally noticed the candles, the untouched dinner, the quiet emptiness in the room. Her stomach twisted with guilt as she realized she had let you down again. She stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say, before making her way to the bedroom.

She found you sitting on the edge of the bed, tears streaming down your face as you hugged your knees to your chest. The sight of you so upset shattered her. She had never seen you like this before, and it hit her hard—how much she had been neglecting you without even realizing it.

“Babe…” Leah’s voice was soft, full of regret. She knelt beside the bed, reaching for your hand, but you pulled away slightly, hurt and frustration etched into every movement.

“Do you even care anymore?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve been trying so hard, Leah. I cook for you, clean for you, wait for you—just to spend a little time with you. But it feels like I’m not even a part of your life anymore. Like you don’t see me.”

Leah’s heart clenched painfully. She hadn’t realized how much her actions had been hurting you. She had been so focused on her career, thinking you’d understand, that she had failed to see how much you were giving and how little she had been offering in return.

“I… I didn’t know,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I didn’t see how much I was hurting you, and I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head, wiping at the tears on your cheeks. “I feel like I’m doing everything for you, and it’s never enough. I just want to feel like I matter to you. Like I’m more than just someone waiting at home for you.”

Leah’s breath hitched as she took your hands in hers, holding them tightly, as if afraid to let go. “You do matter. You matter more than anything, and I’ve been too caught up in everything else to show you that. I’ve been taking you for granted, and I’m so, so sorry for that. You deserve so much more than what I’ve been giving.”

Your tears fell freely now, but this time, Leah didn’t let go. She pulled you into her arms, holding you close as if trying to make up for all the times she hadn’t. “I’m sorry for missing our dates, for not being there when you needed me. I’ve been selfish, thinking you’d just understand, but that’s not fair. I love you more than anything, and I’m going to show you that. I’ll do better. I’ll be better.”

You sobbed into her chest, the weight of everything you’d been carrying finally spilling out. “I just miss us, Leah. I miss what we used to have.”

“I miss us too,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head. “And I’m going to make it right. I’ll make sure you never feel like this again. I love you, and I can’t lose you. Not over something like this.”

You stayed there for a while, wrapped in each other’s arms, the silence between you no longer filled with pain but with the promise of something better. Leah’s apologies weren’t just words; you could feel the sincerity in the way she held you, in the way she promised to be more present, more aware.

In the days that followed, Leah kept her word. She made more time for you—whether it was something as simple as cooking dinner together or making sure you had a proper date night each week. She paid attention to the little things, the ones she had overlooked before. Every day, she made sure you felt loved, cherished, and appreciated.

The connection you shared began to heal, piece by piece. Leah started to see just how much you did for her, and she didn’t let a day go by without thanking you. She showed up for you, not just physically, but emotionally, and you could feel the shift in your relationship.

Leah would wrap her arms around you from behind while you cooked, pressing soft kisses to your neck and whispering, “Thank you. For everything you do. I love you so much.” You’d smile, feeling the warmth of her love and knowing she truly meant it.

It wasn’t long before you both found your rhythm again. The love between you was stronger now, forged through the realization of what truly mattered. Leah’s career would always be important, but she had finally learned that the most important part of her life was you—the person who had stood by her, supported her, and loved her through everything.

And from that point on, Leah made sure that you always knew just how much you meant to her. Because, in the end, no match, no trophy, no accolade could ever compare to the love she had with you. You were her heart, her home, and she would never let you forget it again.

[emma-needs-attention]

I don’t shave every day. It’s not that I don’t “need” to; I have very dark, dense facial hair that grows quickly and remains pretty visible after shaving. When I do shave, I don’t try to cover it with makeup (beyond some powder to reduce redness). In most other ways I present very feminine, but I always have fairly obvious facial hair.

And it makes me feel terrible.

I started electrolysis a couple months ago. It’s excruciatingly painful, expensive, and it takes forever. In an hour-long session, my electrologist is able to remove hair in only a small region (about 1 square inch). A few weeks later, much of that hair comes back. I am told that it will take two to three years of regular treatments to remove it entirely. On top of that, I apparently have a condition called Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation, which causes the skin in affected areas to darken after treatment. For nearly two months after completing a single pass over my upper lip, my mustache was more visible than it had ever been, despite having significantly less hair.

And it made me feel terrible.

I know this is the best way for me to permanently remove my facial hair, but I just canceled all of my upcoming sessions and at the moment I have no plans to begin again.

If I could pay to have my facial hair instantly and completely removed I would empty my savings account. I am intensely aware of it any time I go out in public. If it makes me so uncomfortable, why do I not do more to hide it?

I feel incredibly privileged for a trans woman. I have a loving, supportive family. I have a well-paying job. I live in a very accepting area. I have never had a single person say anything negative to me about my gender identity, which was certainly not what I was expecting when I came out. It is important to me that I be visibly queer, and in my privileged position I am able to do that without fear. A year ago I didn’t think I would ever transition; now I want people to know that I’m trans.

I am disappointed with myself for wanting to remove my facial hair, for changing my voice. I am determined not to have to do more work than a cis person does. Cis women don’t have to shave their face every day. Cis men don’t have to shave their face every day. Why should I? This is who I am, what my body does. Shouldn’t I be proud of that? Am I not supposed to love myself the way I am?

But by that logic, why am I even transitioning in the first place?

I am doing more work than a cis person does. Cis people don’t transition, and transitioning takes effort. I know that there are cis people, both men and women, who do shave every day. Am I lying to myself? I’m a trans woman; aren’t I supposed to want to get rid of my facial hair? Shouldn’t I be trying harder? Doesn’t this give me dysphoria? Am I pretending not to have dysphoria so I don’t have to put in the effort? Does the fact that I’m not trying harder make me… I don’t know, less trans? Non-binary? Is it ok for me to call myself a trans woman? Am I lying to myself?

As a woman who was a man until thirty, there are things about my body that I must accept, that I won’t be able to change no matter how much money I dump into my transition. I’m tall, I have broad shoulders, I have large hands. No amount of surgery or hormones will change these things.

But there are many things that I can change, and while none of them are requirements for being a woman, they may still be changes that I want to make. Where do I stop? Am I finished transitioning when I’ve done everything that is physically possible? My goal isn’t to “pass,” at least not in the way that word is generally used. In a time when cis women are being assaulted because people think they’re trans—because they don’t “pass” as women—the idea of what it means to pass becomes blurry. Often when we say that we want to pass, what we really mean is that we want to be conventionally beautiful.

I am a woman. Therefore, I look like a woman. My transition goal is to pass as myself. I’ve spent the last year trying to figure out who I am so I can look like her. I don’t care whether people see me and think “that’s a woman.” I want to be able to look in the mirror and think “that’s me.” But it can be extremely difficult to separate your own image of yourself from society’s idea of what you should look like. Am I self-conscious about the size of my body because it doesn’t feel like me, or because I’ve been told that women should be smaller? There are tall cis women, there are broad-shouldered cis women, there are cis women with large hands. Those traits don’t make them less womanly.

For the aspects of my body that I do have control over, I am stuck wondering whether I am changing things to become myself, or changing them because I have internalized that the way I am is wrong. At the moment, facial feminization surgery is something that I think I might like to do. But how do I know that I want to do it for the right reasons? I don’t hate my face, but when I catch a glimpse of myself from certain angles I can’t help but think that it isn’t feminine enough. What I should be asking is if it’s Emma enough, but how can I know that? How do I know who I’m supposed to be?

I feel like I was supposed to be a cis woman, but… why? Who am I to say that I wasn’t supposed to be trans? That I wasn’t supposed to transition at thirty, to have both a male puberty and a female one? Being trans has made me more self-aware, more open-minded, more empathetic. The totality of my experience is what makes me who I am. Maybe there’s a world in which I was assigned female, maybe there’s a world in which I was put on puberty blockers as a kid. But the girl in those worlds isn’t me.

Loving yourself and wanting to change are two feelings that can coexist. I tend to think of body positivity as simply accepting yourself as you are, but it is more nuanced than that. As a trans person, who I am inside is not the same as who I am outside. Which one am I supposed to love? I do love myself, but I also love who I could be. I’m transitioning so that someday they’ll be the same person.

Over the past year I have become both my biggest supporter and my biggest critic. I constantly tell myself how pretty I am, how brave I am, how fucking cool I am (hey, nobody else is saying it and it’s true). This forced positivity has been fantastic for me. I can confidently say that I truly love myself for the first time in my life. But I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t love myself more.

I can’t help but stare at myself in the mirror all the time now. I actually bought a new mirror so I didn’t have to walk as far to do so. I’ve taken more selfies than I did in my entire pre-transition life. After many months on HRT, I finally see myself in my reflection. But my eyes refuse to focus on my stubble. Sometimes I catch myself thinking “I’m going be so beautiful once I get rid of this facial hair,” and it feels like a betrayal. Fuck you Emma, I’m already gorgeous.

[taurasiluvr]

Can I request CC being pissed asf after losing a game so she fks her gf with strap using all that pent up anger

absolutely need that

caitlin was nothing short of pissed.

the game had been a disaster from start to finish. the opposing team had taken an early lead, scoring within the first few minutes, and things had only gone downhill from there. despite their best efforts, her team had been outplayed at every turn. passes were intercepted, shots missed the mark, and their defense was like a sieve, letting through shot after shot.

by the time the final whistle blew, the scoreboard read a humiliating defeat. caitlin had given it her all, running herself ragged trying to turn the tide, but it hadn’t been enough. she could feel the frustration boiling over as she stormed off the court, barely acknowledging the half-hearted pats on the back from her teammates.

in the locker room, the atmosphere was tense. no one dared to speak, each player lost in their own thoughts of what had gone wrong. caitlin ripped off her basketball shoes, throwing them against the wall with a loud thud. she slumped onto the bench, her head in her hands, trying to calm the raging storm inside her.

she was glad she had someone back home, who could soothe her frustration and help her get back the confidence she needed to have for the next game.

that was how you ended up on your stomach, getting absolutely wrecked by caitlin's favorite strap. your face was pushed against the pillows however, it didn't do much to stop your noises from echoing throughout your bedroom.

"fuck," caitlin muttered, her hips snapping harshly. she was absolutely relentless, her pace punishing and unyielding. each thrust drove you deeper into the mattress, your body writhing with the intensity of it all.

"you like that?" she growled, her voice low and rough. "like being my stress relief, baby?"

you could only moan in response, your hands clutching the sheets as you tried to hold on. the pressure was building inside you, each powerful thrust bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

caitlin's hand came down on your ass with a sharp smack, making you yelp. "answer me," she demanded, her pace never faltering.

"yes," you gasped, your voice muffled by the pillow. "love it, i love being yours."

"good," she hissed, her hand sliding up your back, pressing you further into the bed. "because i’m not stopping until i’ve fucked all that frustration out of my system."

her words sent a shiver down your spine, the intensity of her need driving you wild. she pounded into you harder, the rhythm of her hips merciless and precise. the sensation was overwhelming, the pleasure mixed with just the right amount of pain.

caitlin’s free hand reached around to your front, her fingers finding your clit. she began to rub in tight circles, adding another layer of sensation that made your body quiver. "cum for me," she commanded, her voice dark and demanding. "wanna feel you cum around my cock."

you were on the brink, the combination of her relentless thrusts and the pressure on your clit pushing you over the edge. with a cry, you came hard, your body convulsing with the intensity of your orgasm. your inner walls clenched around her strap, your vision blurring as waves of pleasure crashed over you.

caitlin didn’t stop, riding out your orgasm with powerful thrusts, her fingers never ceasing their movement. she watched you in the mirror, her eyes dark with satisfaction as you fell apart beneath her.

when you finally came down from your high, your body trembling and spent, caitlin slowed her pace, gently easing out of you. she leaned down, pressing soft kisses to your back, her earlier anger and frustration replaced with a tender affection.

if you enjoyed, any interaction is greatly appreciated!

with love, rylin 𝜗𝜚

[thatbloodymuggle]

MASTERMIND (iv)

FOUR - MOON AND STARS

SUMMARY: A child of light and dark, you are the Night Court’s best kept secret. After decades spent in hiding, you yearn to stretch your wings. But you quickly learn that freedom comes with a price, as you find yourself trying to outfox the fox in his own den.

PAIRING: eris vanserra x reader

WORD COUNT: 9.8k

SERIES MASTERLIST

WARNINGS: language, graphic descriptions of violence, smut, oral (f receiving), loss of virginity, p in v

“Fuck, Eris,” you moan.

He slaps your leg harshly in a wordless command to keep your voice down as he buries himself further between your thighs. 

You’re not quite sure how you ended up here, pressed up against a bookshelf with Eris on his knees beneath you, your leg swung over his shoulder as he feasts on you like a man starved. You’re sure the myriads of ancient philosophers behind you are rolling over in their graves right now. But with the way he’s suckling on your clit like it’s his last day on Earth, you can’t complain.

You bite down on your lip so hard you can taste blood to keep the sounds at bay, but he seems determined to make your job impossible as he curls a finger against that delicious spot deep inside you. Your legs tremble violently as you feel your high approaching, and you grip onto his crimson hair for dear life. He can feel you clench around his fingers, and he flicks his tongue against your clit at a punishing speed.

“Eris, I’m—”

Your lips part in a silent gasp as you reach your peak. The ecstasy coursing through your veins is dizzying, and your legs fall limp. Eris holds you steady as he continues his ministrations, riding you through your orgasm until the overstimulation is too much and you’re pushing his head away. You glance down shyly through spotted vision to find up looking up at you, grinning like a devil. He pulls your panties back into place and eases your leg off his shoulder before rising to his full height. He taps his thumb against your mouth, and you part your lips obediently. He dips his fingers into your mouth, and you wrap your lips around them. Your cheeks flare at the taste of your own arousal, and he groans as you swirl your tongue around his fingers, sucking them clean.

“Always so good for me, Little Bird,” he murmurs while pressing a chaste kiss on the shell of your ear.

He pulls his fingers out of your mouth and dips down to your height to capture your lips in a slow, but sensual, kiss. 

“I think I like you better on your knees,” you mumble into his mouth. 

He grins against your lips, “I’d gladly spend eternity on my knees for you.”

You sink your teeth into his bottom lip teasingly, “If I’d known that all it takes to defeat the Fox is spread my legs, I would’ve dropped my dress a long time ago.”

He nips you back harder, “Don’t mistake my insatiable appetite for weakness, darling.”

Despite the playfulness of his words, there’s an underlying warning that makes your skin prickle with thrill. You whine in protest as he pulls away. He wipes his thumb over his mouth, collecting the remaining evidence of your tryst, before sucking it between swollen lips. 

“As much as I would love to stay hidden with you between bookshelves all day,” he smooths down the front of your wrinkled dress, “I do have a meeting to get to.”

Your lips dip into an exaggerated pout and you reach up to fix his tousled hair, “What will I ever do without you?”

The lilt of your teasing tone elicits a toothy grin.

“Allow me to walk you out,” he intertwines your fingers with his.

You frown and keeping your feet planted in your spot despite his efforts to guide you away, “Can I stay for a bit longer? I was hoping to get through the late Lady Margrave’s anthology before I was so rudely interrupted.”

His lips twitch upwards, but you can see the hesitancy in his eyes.

“I’d rather not leave you here alone,” he maintains.

You raise your hand to his face, rubbing your thumb along his jawline in a coaxing manner, “I promise I won’t be long. And Sage will keep an eye on me,” you reference the smokehound who is currently sleeping soundly in her favorite spot in front of the fireplace.  

He purses his lips, and groans as you teasingly trail your touch down the sensitive skin behind his pointed ear, “You are the devil.”

“I learned from the best,” you muse as you place a swift kiss on the corner of his lips, “Is that a yes?”

“A reluctant one,” he quips, “Only if you promise not to stray from the library—in and out.”

“Promise.”

With your fingers metaphorically crossed behind your back, you don’t feel an ounce of guilt lying through your teeth. 

He rubs his thumb along your knuckles before hesitantly pulling away, “’Till we meet again?”

You flash a coy smile, “’Till we meet again.”

Your shoulders slump with relief as he winnows away in a flash before he can change his mind about letting you stay. You pat your hair down and adjust the skirt of your dress before wandering back towards the front of the library. Sage twitches softly as you take a seat on the couch behind her and pick up your book. The fire warms you as you mindlessly page through the anthology, biding your time before you plot your next search of the house. Your eyes flick back and forth between the text in front of you and the grandfather clock in the corner, your leg bouncing with anticipation. Once the clock strikes 11:00, you deem fifteen minutes to be an acceptable waiting period. You shut the book and place it on the small table beside you, knowing that it will be magically reshelved. Sage sluggishly lifts her head when you rise to your feet, and you give her a soothing scratch between her ears.

“You’ll keep quiet about this, won’t you?” you coo as if she’s a loving pet, rather than a vicious animal.

She merely blinks at you, vermillion eyes unbothered.

An uncomfortable feeling settles in your chest. Eris must really trust you if this creature he’s trained to kill doesn’t so much as bat an eye at your snooping. You give her one last stroke before rising to your fall height and setting off towards the grand, oak doors. You slowly creak them open, peering out to make sure the hallway is empty before exiting. 

The chronically dim light of the hallways works to your advantage as you slink along the shadows in the corridors. This is risky—much riskier than you last venture, as the clock hasn’t even struck noon yet. There are sure to be guards and Vanserras lurking behind every corner. But with only two weeks left to uncover Eris’s true intentions, time is ticking. It’s been difficult keeping Rhys’s incessant pestering at bay, and you’re not sure when you’ll get another opportunity to search through the house with Eris’s constant watchful eye. 

You don’t rush through your movements this time. You empty your mind of everything except Azriel’s map, your eyes and ears at high alert. Beron’s office is about a mile and a half from the library, four floors up. With your creeping pace it will take at least thirty minutes to get there, so you can’t afford even a momentary lapse in focus. You approach your first guard and hold your breath as they unknowingly pass you. You keep your side pressed against the wall as you continue, your footsteps feather-light.

The Mother must be on your side, as you finally make it to the right hallway without running into a single Vanserra. You presume that Eris’s brothers must be with him at whatever meeting he is currently attending. The hair on your arms stands on end as you approach a large, scarlet door. Of course it’s red, you think to yourself. You pause, scanning both ends of the hallway. You wait a few beats, looking out for any unexpected guests, before emerging from the shadows and approaching the blood-colored door. You press your ear against the wood, listening carefully for any breathing or movements. You can sense some wards inside the room, but thankfully none on the door. So, with a deep breath, you wrap your hand around the doorknob.

Your heart beats at a thunderous pace as you creak the door open, inch by inch. Your shoulders slump with your relief as you are greeted with an empty, albeit ghastly, room. You hastily step inside and shut the door behind you before fully taking in your new surroundings.

Unlike Eris’s chambers and office which hold a warm glow, this room is…cold, to say the least. The walls are made of the same limestone in the hallways, and the floor is covered by a carpet the same shade of red as the door. In the center of the office sits a sleek, black desk. From what you’ve heard about the cruel High Lord, this is a fitting space.

You scan over the papers on his desk, careful not to move anything out of place. Nothing piques your interest, so you move to his cabinets. The first drawer slides open easily but contains no information you didn’t already know. You go to pull the second open, but frown at the ward keeping it sealed tight. You could use your spell-cleaving abilities—but doing so may alert Beron that someone went rifling through his office. With a sigh of frustration, you redirect your search to more discrete hiding places. 

You run a hand underneath the desk, and find a small, hidden compartment. You pull it out, and a rush of adrenaline surges through you as you stare down at the box full of correspondences with Brialynn. Although she is no longer a threat to Prythian, you eagerly rifle through them, hoping to find something that may reveal Beron’s next steps. But as you page through, your hope diminishes. Nothing useful—yet again. You carefully rearrange the parchment the same way you found it, and slot it back underneath the desk. 

“If I was a misogynistic tyrant, where would I hide my secrets?” you wonder aloud. 

You scale the room, running your hand along the bookshelf in the corner. Most of the books have collected so much dust, the titles are nearly impossible to read. But there’s a single binding in the corner catches your eye. It’s dust-free, unlike the others. You pull it out, but instantly regret your decision as you flip it open. You shouldn’t be surprised, really, that the only used book in Beron’s office is filled with obscene images of nude females. But that doesn’t stop your face from contorting with disgust. Despite the bile rising in your throat, you still flip through it just in case there is something of use buried within the explicit photographs. However, you are only met with disappointment and an even more blistering nausea as you come up short. You shove the book back in its place with a shudder. Pig.

Having searched every nook and cranny of the dreadful office, you’re at a loss. Your eyes land on that second warded drawer, and you bite your lip in contemplation. Is it worth the risk? You fish a spare coin from the depths of your pockets and pinch it tightly between your fingers. 

“Heads, cleave. Tails, don’t cleave,” you mutter to yourself.

If Rhys could see you know, he’d be screaming. Your lips twitch at the thought, and you throw the coin high in the air. It clatters against the desk and rolls around for a bit before landing.

Heads.

Cleave, it is.

You place both hands on the cabinet and shut your eyes. You take a deep breath in and dispel every lingering thought in your head with a slow exhale. You focus on the feeling of the cabinet at your fingertips, picture yourself physically sucking out every last drop of magic. A wet chill snakes across your hands, up your arms, as you twist and play with the magic, coaxing it to unfurl from the cabinet. Click.

Your eyes flutter open at the sound, and you find the drawer cracked open. A toothy grin stretches across your face as you grab the singular folder lying within. However, your smile drops instantly as you page through the contents: log after log of Eris’s whereabouts, finances, and even his smokehounds’ patrol patterns. Thankfully there’s nothing here that links Eris to the Night Court, but Beron knows about his monthly visits to the Spring Court. He knows his son is up to something. And if he finds out what, then…

Thunderous footsteps in the hallway break your train of thought. Your face pales, and you hastily shove the folder back inside the cabinet. Your hands tremble as you quickly put the ward back into place. Just as the lock of the drawer clicks, so does the blood red door swing open. 

You stand, frozen, as you stare into the cold, dark eyes of the High Lord of the Autumn Court. His lips are snarled, and his presence seems to engulf the whole room, but for some reason, his gaze isn’t fixed on you. He strides forward in three thunderous steps, and you stumble backwards to the other side of the desk, shaking like a leaf. But again, he seems to look right past you as he stops in front of the drawer where you were just stood moments earlier. Every survival instinct you have seems to vanish as you stand there, waiting for him to throw you in the dungeon, or better yet, execute you on the spot. But he doesn’t so much as look in your direction as he opens the cabinet and flips through the folder. 

Is he blind? How on Earth is he not seeing you?

You glance down at your trembling hands, and the silver ring sitting snugly around your  thumb winks at you. It couldn’t be—could it?

You creep backwards towards the door, and Beron slams the cabinet shut with a huff. 

“Must be a false alarm,” he grumbles under his breath.

He marches towards you, and you scramble out of the way just in time for him to brisk by. He swings the door shut with a slam behind him, and despite being left alone in the room, relief doesn’t wash over you. 

Your legs wobble as you reel over what just happened. You should be dead, or at the very least, behind bars. But by the grace of Eris, you’re standing here unscathed, despite feeling like your heart is seconds away from giving out. You stand unmoving for a few minutes, until the shock settles enough to make your escape.

The hallway is empty, and you don’t hesitate to slink into the shadows along the walls. You try your best to remain light-footed, but you can’t creep out the way you crept in. You all but run through the house, heart still pounding in your ears. Your stomach churns as you turn a corner and find yourself in a brightly lit passage—no shadows in sight. No sneaking through this one. If you get caught running, your near escape from death will be all for nothing. So, you take a deep breath before emerging from the shadows and setting into a steady stride. You breathe in and out with each step, counting your paces until you near the end of the stretch. Almost there.

But as you turn the corner, you collide with something hard.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Eris stares down at you, wide-eyed.

Think quick, you urge yourself.

“I was just—I was just looking for a restroom, and I got lost,” you stammer.

Your tone is unconvincing. But you hope the lie is enough considering you aren’t, in fact, too far from the library he left you in.

His jaw clenches and he grips your upper arm tightly, pulling you into an alcove around the corner. You want to shrink under his scrutinizing glare, but keep your chin high.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” his tone is firm despite his hushed whisper.

Your force your lips upwards into an innocent smile, “You just scared me, that’s all.”

He purses his lips and studies you as if he can see straight through your lie. He sticks his head out into the hallway, checking to make sure you’re alone, before speaking in a low murmur, “You promised you’d be in and out.”

“I know,” you hook your pinky finger with his in an attempt to settle his unease, “I’m sorry. Really.”

His relaxes slightly into your touch, but the tension in his shoulders is still apparent.

“Let me walk you out,” he sighs, and you silently sing praises that he doesn’t press the subject further.

He pulls his hand away from yours but rests a hand against your lower back as he leads you down the hallway. You follow quietly, still on edge. Even as you exit the walls of the Forest House in favor of the chilling autumn wind, you remain silent. The two of you pass at least a dozen sentries on your journey through the courtyard, but with Eris by your side, they don’t so much as bat an eye. It isn’t until you’re at least twenty yards out of the golden gates that you halt and turn towards the crimson-haired man beside you.

“I really am sorry,” you blurt, “I didn’t mean any harm.”

His lips curl into a soft smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“I’m not angry with you, Little Bird,” his voice is warm, but holds a certain harshness as he continues, “But you must think me a fool if you believe I can’t sniff out a lie when I hear one.”

Your cheeks flush and you divert your gaze to the ground beneath you. Intermix lies with half-truths, if needed. He’s privy to others deceiving him, Azriel’s voice rings through your mind. You twist the ring around your thumb in thought before raising your hand, the silver glistening brightly underneath the beating sun. 

“What is this?” you deadpan, gesturing to the ring on your finger.

His eyes harden and his soft smile dips down, “I take it you met my father?”

“I ran into him in the hallways,” you speak with conviction this time to conceal your lie, “And I wasn’t looking for the washroom. I wanted to surprise you in your chambers, and I thought I could find my way there on my own.”

He scans your face as he mulls over your response. To your relief, he seems to take the bait.

“It’s something I picked up during the war on Hybern,” he finally answers your question, “When adorned, the wearer becomes invisible to any High Lord’s gaze.”

 Your lips part as you study the shining piece of jewelry on your thumb. You move to slide it off and return it, but his hand wraps around yours.

“I told you I want you to keep it,” he affirms. You open your mouth to protest, but he changes the subject before you get a chance, “When will I see you again?”

Your height weighs heavy, but you force on a playful smile, “Bold of you to assume I want to see you again.”

He matches your teasing tone, “Bold of you to lie again.”

You roll your eyes, but your grin betrays you.

“Tonight?”

His eyebrows shoot up and his grin widens, “So eager to see me again, aren’t you darling?”

Your eyes narrow into a glare, “I can always occupy myself with my filthy little romance novels,” you drawl.

“It would be cruel of me to leave you imagining my head between your thighs when I can show you the real thing,” he stalks closer to you with a wide-mouthed smirk, “Meet me here after nightfall. I’ll send you a signal when I’m ready.”

A red tint crawls up your neck at his sinful insinuation. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered, you raise your lips to his ear and whisper lowly, “’Till we meet again.”

Before he can respond, you winnow away in a flash. The dust-filled cabin greets you. You don’t bother discarding your boots or coat as you pace by the fire. What the hell do you do now? Telling Eris what you found in Beron’s office would mean blowing your cover, effectively ending your mission. But not telling him would mean putting him in danger. You run shaky fingers through your hair, pulling tightly at your roots as if the pain will give you some sort of answer. 

You tug desperately at your connection with Rhys, screaming down through the cobblestone tunnels of your mind. Your patience is wearing thin, and the walls of the cabin seem to shrink in closer with each pacing step. 

Are you okay?

Finally, Rhys’s voice chimes through and you feel like you can breathe again.

I found something, you skip the niceties, in Beron’s office.

You can hear the frown in his voice as he replies, I thought I told you to stay far, far away from him.

You roll your eyes and choose to ignore his chastising, Do you want to hear what I found or not?

Obviously, he quips, irritation clearly laced in his tone.

Beron knows Eris is up to something, you cut straight to the point, I’m unclear on the extent of his knowledge—I had to get out of there before I could really comb through it all. But he knows Eris is sneaking around behind his back.

There’s a prolonged pause, and you hold your breath as you wait for Rhys’s response.

That’s it?

Your eyes widen in incredulity, and you hiss over the connection, What do you mean ‘that’s it’? Eris is in danger.

I mean that’s not our problem to deal with, and your job is to dig up information on Eris, not Beron.

The nonchalance in his voice makes your blood boil.

It most certainly is our problem if Beron is out for blood. If he makes a move against Eris before Eris gets to him, not only is our alliance with Autumn shot, but so is Prythian stuck with Beron as High Lord for another eternity.

You don’t attempt to hide the distress in your voice—even if you risk revealing more than you intend about your feelings towards the Autumn Court heir. 

You’re right, Rhys reluctantly replies.

You head lulls back in relief, I know I am. 

I’ll have Cassian tip Eris off when they next meet in Spring, Rhys decides.

You frown. Cassian and Eris meet on a monthly basis in the Spring Court, and if you remember correctly, they aren’t due to meet again until you leave Autumn.

You need to inform him sooner, you argue, What if Beron makes a move before then?

If we tip him off now, that may very well expose you. And my first priority is your safety, not the sly bastard’s.

Much to your displeasure, Rhys’s tone is firm and leaves no room for discussion. 

Fine, you bitterly relent.

You raise the cobblestone barriers of you mind before he can reply. You know it’s childish and rude, but right now, you couldn’t care less. You were already on edge, and now your mood has been soured even further. 

“Stupid High Lords,” you grumble while kicking the dust underneath your feet, “What ever happened to democracy?”

Democracy hasn’t existed in Prythian in at least a millennia. But that doesn’t stop you from fantasizing about a world in which it does—a world void of archaic classist ideologies, misogyny, and most importantly, pompous High Lords who have a stick so far up their ass they can’t see straight. You lay on your bed, still fully clothed, and stare up the ceiling as you immerse yourself in your imaginary land. Maybe it could be ruled by females—warriors like the Valkyries. Education would be a universal right. A soft smile tugs at your lips at the thought of it. Maybe you could work teaching younglings, fae and humans alike, the works of Tydeus and his scholarly counterparts. Or maybe you’d be a scholar yourself, travelling from territory to territory, documenting the lives of each kind of resident because everyone’s story deserves to be told.

Anxiety still grips you like a vice—but dwelling on it would be futile. So, you close your eyes and keep building your dream wor;d. And for just a moment, you let yourself slip away from the harsh reality of your predicament.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Meet me after nightfall, he said, I’ll send you a signal, he said.

Night has fallen. It fell nearly four hours ago, in fact. And as the clock nears midnight, there’s still no signal in sight. 

You’ve been trying your best to busy yourself—folding clothes, reading, tending to the fire. But with each minute that ticks by, your patience thins and your worry grows. He’s probably still wrapped up in whatever business he has. But after your revelation in Beron’s office that morning, you can’t help but picture a grimmer scenario. 

As the long hand of the clock passes the 12, your resolve crumbles. You hastily pull on your boots and drape a cloak over your shoulders. Before you can talk yourself out of it, the world twists and folds and you find yourself in the spot outside the golden gates where you left him earlier that day.

It’s deadly silent, the only sound coming from the large oak trees rustling against the wind. The stars twinkle bright above, giving you some source of light as you scale the area. You keep quiet, eyes and ears alert for any sign of life. 

A sinister feeling rolls through your gut. Something’s wrong. You’re not sure how, or why, but you can sense it—clear as the night sky in Velaris.

You calmly approach the golden gates, chin held high as the sentries come into view. They look over you in a scrutinizing manner, but don’t make any movement to stop you as you pass underneath the glistening arch. Once through, you conceal yourself in the shadows as you scale the courtyard and head towards the closest entry to Eris’s chambers.

The moment you enter the Forest House, the sinking feeling in your stomach grows. You make quick work of the stairwells and hallways, moving swiftly but remaining in the shadows to avoid detection. This time, the image of Azriel’s map doesn’t guide you—rather, your body moves on its own accord, as if being tugged along by some otherworldly force. Your steps falter as you approach the oak doors of Eris’s private chambers. You slip out of the shadows and press an ear to the door. All you can hear is the crackling of a fire, and so with trembling hands, you slowly twist the door open.

Your heart breaks at the sight before you.

All you see is red. It burns bright ruby in the embers of fire. It flows deep crimson in the locks of his hair. And it bleeds angry scarlet from the skin of his back.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

His voice is almost unrecognizable. He sits crouched in front of the fire; head slumped. His limbs are limp, shoulders heaving in shuddered breaths. And his back faces you, displaying a tunic so bloodied, you can barely see its eggshell white color.

“Leave,” he croaks.

But you can’t. You can’t move. You can’t breathe. All you can do is stare at the violence of the red. Everywhere.

His head cranes to the side, and your eyes meet his. Gone is bright amber. They are cruel—handcrafted by the wicked of the world.

“Are you deaf?” he snarls, “Get out. Now.”

His cold gaze returns to the fire. Despite the malice of his tone, you creep forward slowly, as if approaching a wild animal. As you walk closer, you can see the slash marks more vividly. You can see how the fabric of his shirt splits around each slice, count the number of marks on his back. He’s trembling. With rage or pain, you’re not sure—perhaps both. And as you approach his side, you can see how he holds his hands over the blazing flames. It’s reminiscent of your burn and pull away game. But he never pulls away. 

You crouch down beside him on your knees, facing his side. But his gaze is unmoving from the flames. His jaw clenches tightly as you study his profile. Up close you can see the swelling around his eyes, the dried tear tracks on his cheeks. Your own eyes water but you refuse to let them fall. Instead, you reach your arms out to his. You move slowly to avoid startling him, and he doesn’t stop you as you gently wrap your hands around his wrists. The fire burns hot against your skin, but you grit your teeth through the pain. 

He allows you to gently guide his hands away from the flames. You intertwine your fingers with his and rub his knuckles soothingly even as his hands lie limp in your grip. His head remains trained towards the fire, and you can see the reflection of the flames dancing in his golden irises. You lower your head reverently to his hands and brush your lips against them. You place a delicate kiss on each knuckle—as if doing so can take away just a little bit of his agony. Just as you think he may relax into your touch, he snatches his hands out of your grip.

Eris rises abruptly, hissing at the pain, and braces himself with one arm against the wall. He glares down at you.

“I told you to fucking leave,” he bellows. But you don’t so much as flinch at his harsh tone. Instead, you rise from the ground in front of him.

“No,” you speak with conviction, but maintain a gentle tone.

His jaw shifts, “I’ll call for my guards.”

“No, you won’t,” you retort.

He’s furious—you can surmise that much. But his cold exterior is slipping, and you’ll be here to catch him when he falls.

“Wipe that pathetic look off your face,” he sneers, “I can’t stand it.”

“I’m sorry,” you reply simply.

His façade cracks. For just a moment, you can see the anguish hidden beneath his glaring eyes. His hand slips down the wall, and he grunts as he pushes himself back up. But his body is trembling, his legs shaking. You lurch forward just in time.

You loop your arms around his neck, careful not to graze any of his wounds, and encourage him to lean his body weight onto you. With a shaky breath, Eris succumbs to your touch and rests his head in the crook of your neck. His arms wrap loosely around your body to stabilize himself.

You can feel his eyes shut tight against your skin, and you gently stroke your fingers through his hair. He slowly tightens his grip around your waist, his hands fisting the fabric of your dress, until he gives into your comfort completely. You stand there for a while holding him, each of you afraid to be the first to speak.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he mumbles into your shoulder.

You continue threading your fingers through his locks, “I know. But I’m here.”

His grip around you tightens. You know he’ll need to lie down soon, but you don’t want to push him.

“Let me help you,” you whisper.

He shakes his head, “You can’t,” he pauses before adding, “Faebane.”

You surmised as much. But that doesn’t stop the nausea at the far too vivid image of his torture. 

“Allow me to try. Please.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. But after a few beats of silence, he grunts and lifts his head from your shoulder. You don’t miss the wince he tries to hide at the movement. He doesn’t protest as you wrap his arm around your shoulder and tug him in the direction of the bed. He leans his weight against you and allows you to guide him slowly. He grits his teeth with each step, but doesn’t so much as whimper at the shooting pain. Sweat beads on his forehead, and he nearly cries in relief when you reach the bed. He slumps down on his stomach and turns his head to the opposite wall, so he doesn’t have to look at you.

You stare down at the man before you, and hastily wipe away the tear that trails down your cheek. He looks…broken. You desperately want to march into Beron’s office and kill him yourself. But you take a deep breath, forcing yourself to maintain your composure. He flinches as you rest your hands at the bottom of his tunic, gripping it softly.

“May I?” you ask.

He nods reluctantly against the pillow.

You take a deep breath to brace yourself before ripping the fabric and sliding it off his body. You swallow your gasp as you lay your eyes on his bare back. At least a dozen angry red slashes cover the expanse of skin. They are raised, surrounded in half-dried blood. It’s clear that whatever torture device his miserable excuse for a father used was laced with Faebane, as they show no signs of healing. 

Eris shudders as you run a finger along the side of one of the wounds, careful not to press too hard or touch the affected area directly. You can’t heal him with the generous amount of Faebane. But you may be able to take the pain away.

The room is silent aside from the crackling fire as you hover your hands over his back and shut your eyes. You empty your mind and focus on your fingertips. You imagine tendrils of bright light extending, curling around each wound and stroking it with a gentle touch. You picture your mother—how she used her healing hands long ago to take away your pain when you cracked your head against the staircase banister as a youngling. You remember her soft touch, which in and of itself soothed your anguish. And then, you evoke an image of Eris. You focus on the strong bridge of his nose, the crinkle of his eyes when he laughs, the freckles on his skin. 

A moan of relief fills the otherwise silent room, and your eyes snap open. Eris’s features are relaxed—a stark contrast to the look of agony they held moments ago. 

“Better?” you ask softly.

He nods, his chapped lips parted. 

“Do you have a washroom?” you ask.

He blindly points an arm to the back left corner of the room.

The elegance of his bathroom doesn’t even register in your mind as you hastily grab several washcloths and wet them with warm water before returning to the bed. Eris hasn’t moved an inch.

“I’m going to clean them, if that’s alright,” you speak clearly.

He nods silently again.

The bed creaks underneath you as you sit on the edge and begin to work on his wounds. Even though he can no longer feel pain, you still take great care to clean each area carefully as to not further irritate the skin. With the mess of blood gone from his back, you can clearly see each laceration. They’re deep—painfully so—but once the Faebane wears off, you figure they should heal quickly. 

“All done,” you set the bloodied rags aside and stroke your hand soothingly down his side. 

He sluggishly turns over but still doesn’t meet your eye, even as he lays with his back on the bed. You remain seated on the edge, not wanting to cross any more boundaries than you already have.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asks quietly, his eyes trained on the fire across the room.

You tuck your bottom lip between your teeth. You knew the question was coming. And with the heavy emotions weighing on you, you can’t bring yourself to lie.

“A gift from my mother,” you reply, “She was of the Day Court, gifted with limited healing powers.”

He hums, “What was she like—your mother?”

Your lips curl into a soft smile and you kick off your boots so you can rest your feet on the bed.

“She was warm. Like a crackling hearth,” you roll the ring around your thumb, “Smart as a whip. I think in another life, she would’ve been a renowned scholar.”

His lips twitch upwards, but his eyes are solemn.

“Why wasn’t she?” he asks.

Because her life was stripped away by a cruel male who unknowingly impregnated her, you think.

 “Because she loved being a mother more,” you reply.

He nods in understanding. Silence fills the air again, but this time, it isn’t suffocating. You divert your gaze to the fire, watching how the flames move together in a coordinated waltz.

“I’m sorry,” Eris croaks, “For snapping at you.”

You turn your head, eyes wide with surprise. For the first time since you first entered the room, his gaze is trained on you. Your breath catches in your throat at the sight. Their amber hue is magnificent. Even with the sorrow they hold, you wish to be bathed in the golden, bright as the sun, for the rest of your days. 

“Your eyes are breathtaking,” you whisper in response.

The golden resembles honey as his lips stretch into a soft smile. He shifts over slightly, beckoning you to come closer. You tentatively crawl forward and lie a few feet away from him, but he pulls you against his chest. You rest your head in the crook of his arm, sinking into his touch.

“They’re my mother’s,” he muses.

“What’s she like?” you use his own question against him.

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, “When I was young, she was bright—like the sun. But she’s…dimmed since then,” he diverts his gaze to the ceiling and wets his lips before continuing, “Autumn is beautiful, in all its colors. But people often forget how unforgiving its harsh winds can blow.”

You purse your lips as you mull over his words. You shift in his hold so you lay on your side, facing him. You’ve always longed to trace the bridge of his nose, the sharp cut of his jawline. And this time, you don’t stop yourself.

“Have you ever thought about leaving?” you ask while dusting your fingers over his freckles.

“Many times,” he mumbles, eyes fluttering at your delicate touch.

“Why don’t you?” you run your finger down the tip of his nose.

He catches your hand in his, resting it against his chest. You suck in a breath as he shifts, turning his head to face you. 

“Even in all its cruelty, this is my home,” he rasps, “You haven’t seen the wickedness I’m capable of. I wasn’t made to fly free like you, Little Bird.”

He wears a soft smile, but the sadness lingering beneath the mask is hauntingly beautiful. 

“It’s only in darkness that we see the brightest stars,” you barely speak above a whisper.

His forehead falls against yours, and you melt into his touch. 

“You’re too good for me, Little Bird. I can’t give you the life you want—the life you deserve,” his lips brush yours as he speaks.

You furrow your brows, “You don’t know what I want.”

His nose bumps yours, “And what is it that you want?”

A hurricane of emotion crashes over you. As you look into the golden of his eyes, you feel everything all at once—the fear, the confusion, the guilt, and most overwhelming of them all, love.

“I want you.”

It’s Love that surges you forward. It’s Love you hope he feels as you connect your lips to his. For the first time in your life, it’s Love that takes you over completely.

“I want you,” you repeat against his mouth, “Darkness and all its shining stars.”

It’s slow, but filled with a passion unlike any you’ve shared with him before. It’s salty—from his tears or yours, you’re not sure. And as your lips slide against his, you breathe a life into each other you never knew was missing before.

He raises himself from the bed and cages you between his elbows, his lips never leaving yours. You tangle your hands into his hair as he slides his tongue along your bottom lip, deepening the kiss. As he lifts you up and fiddles with the zipper at the back of your dress, you are reminded of the wounds on his back.

“You need to rest,” you gasp against his mouth, “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care,” he mumbles as he drags down the zipper at an agonizingly slow pace.

Any semblance of logic leaves your mind as he drags the fabric down your body. He disconnects his lips from yours and you arch into his touch as he reattaches them to your neck. He makes quick work of your bra as he trails open-mouthed kisses down your neck. Your mouth parts in a silent gasp as he wraps his lips around your nipple, flicking over the other with his thumb. He takes his time, worshipping every dip, every curve of your body. The arousal pooling between your legs is almost too much as he switches his mouth over to your other breast.

“Take me,” you gasp, “Mark me,” he toys with the band of your panties, “Have me,” he pulls the material down, “I’m yours.”

He groans against your breast before removing his mouth and licking his swollen lips, “You can’t say those things to me, Little Bird.”

“I mean it,” the hand trailing up your quivering thigh pauses, “I want you. All of you.”

He rises so your eyes are level with his, his hand still inches from where you need him most. He searches your face for any sign of hesitation—but there’s none.

“Are you sure?”

You grab his face and pull his lips down to yours. He shudders at your wordless affirmation but moves his lips against yours with a fervor you’ve never felt before. As his tongue swipes into your mouth, so does his hand continue upwards. You whimper as drags his middle finger through your slick, teasing your entrance before sinking in. Your eyes flutter shut as he curls it inside you, using his thumb to rub circles on your clit. You struggle to keep up with his kiss as he pumps his finger in you, stimulating the most intimate part of your body. Just as you fall back into rhythm, he works a second finger inside you. You mewl and tug harder on the hair at the nape of his neck. He rests his forehead against yours as his fingers stretch you out, his thumb continuing its ministrations against your clit. You feel the coil tightening in your gut, the unbridled pleasure building rapidly. 

You grip his bicep, squeezing it slightly, “I need you inside of me. Please.”

You gasp as he curls his fingers once more before pulling them out. Your body involuntarily chases after his touch, but he doesn’t give you a second to process the loss as he reconnects his lips to yours. Your hands tremble with need as you hastily work on the fastenings of his pants, eagerly pushing them down. You palm him through his underwear as he shoves the material off his legs. He moans into your mouth as you dip a hand underneath, wrapping your hand around his hardened length. You can feel him pulsing with need under your fingers as you stroke him. You retreat as he shoves the last bit of material down his legs, a sigh of relief escaping his lips as he frees himself completely. 

Eris braces himself with both arms above you and your heart thrums in your chest as he stares down at you.

“You’re sure you want this, Little Bird?” he asks.

Your doe eyes are wide with need, “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

“You tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” he whispers as he nudges your thighs further apart.

You nod and wrap your arms around him, careful not to touch the wounds on his back. He runs his tip through your soaking folds, and you jolt at the sensation. You brace yourself on his shoulders as he lines himself up with your entrance. Your lips part in a silent gasp as he pushes just his tip in. He presses his nose to yours with a heavy groan, but doesn’t move as you adjust to the foreign stretch. 

“Keep going,” you gasp.

He peppers kisses along your jawline as he inches in further. Your toes curl at the burning stretch, your nails digging into his shoulders. 

“I need you to breath for me,” he mumbles against your jaw.

You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath as you force yourself to exhale, eyes squinting as he shifts inside you. You cry out as he pushes in another inch, and he rests his forehead against yours once more.

“Talk to me, Bird,” he mumbles.

“It hurts,” you gasp, “But keep going.”

His eyes don’t leave yours as he pulls out slightly before pushing back in. He inches in further which each shallow thrust, and you slowly become accustomed to the stretch.

“Feels better now,” you gasp as he sinks in a bit more.

“Just a little more,” he coos, thumb stroking your cheek soothingly.

You think you might implode as he pushes in completely, his hips meeting yours. He releases a guttural groan as he bottoms out. You’ve never felt so full, and you’re sure you’re adding new wounds to his shoulder with how hard your nails are digging in.

“How does it feel?” his voice is strained as he reins in the instinct to pound you into oblivion.

“So full,” you whimper.

He catches the tear that trails down your cheek with his thumb.

“Is it okay if I move?” he asks gently.

You nod and wrap your legs around his hips to brace yourself. He hooks one arm underneath your thigh, steadying you before drawing back slightly and pushing back in. You moan in unison at the feeling, your walls squeezing him like a vice.

“Do it again,” you gasp.

His hips move again in a shallow thrust, and although the burn hasn’t subsided completely, it’s now accompanied by a budding pleasure in your gut. He reconnects his lips to yours, swallowing your gasp as he pulls out almost completely before sinking back in.

“Faster, Eris, please,” you moan into his mouth.

He shudders at the way you say his name, eagerly fulfilling your request as he slowly accelerates his pace. You whine with each roll of his hips, completely enamored with the way he fits into you so perfectly.

He reaches a hand down between you and you cry out as he uses his fingers to stimulate your clit. His thrusts never falter, and you relish in the sound of his skin slapping against yours each time he bottoms out. 

“You were made for me, darling,” he mumbles against your mouth, “The way your cunt just sucks me in.”

He raises your leg slightly, the new angle allowing him to hit you even deeper. The pressure in your gut builds with each thrust, and you feel your high rapidly approaching as he flicks your clit even faster.

“’M so close, Eris,” you groan into his mouth, barely able to keep your lips sliding against his.

He moves with a newfound vigor, latching his lips against your neck.

“Let go for me, love,” he coaxes, grunting at the way your walls spasm around him.

He flicks your nipple with his free hand, and that’s all it takes for you to find your release. You all but scream as you reach your high, clutching tightly onto his hair as waves of pleasure roll through you. His teeth press into your neck as his pace falters, and he bottoms out again before spilling into you. His groan is even louder than yours as he keeps rolling his hips, riding through both of your orgasms. Your vision spots and you feel like you’re floating as you come down from the peak of your high, falling limp beneath him. He slumps against you, pressing your body further into the mattress. With his weight on top of you and his softening cock still inside you, you’ve never felt more alive.

You stay like this for a while, reveling in the aftermath of your orgasms, until the lust-filled fog raises and the soreness between your thighs registers. He pulls out slowly, and you wince at the overstimulation. He raises his head from your neck and places a sweet kiss on your lips before flopping down beside you, exhaustion finally kicking in.

You lazily drape an arm over his stomach and nuzzle your head into the crook of his shoulder. He wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you even closer, and places a kiss on the top of your head. 

“How was that, Little Bird?” he mumbles into your hair.

You open your mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. There are no words that could do justice to the feeling of pure, unadulterated bliss consuming you. You can feel him smiling against your head as you struggle to speak.

“I don’t think I can ever read my filthy little romance novels again,” you blurt, rather ineloquently.

His chest rumbles with barking laughter, and you can’t help but giggle at the sound.

“Don’t be discouraged,” he grins, “I’m sure we can incorporate your little books into the bedroom in a way that’ll truly leave you speechless.”

You flush at the insinuation, but swiftly reply, “If we’re already planning for next time, then I’d like to be involved in that discussion.”

“Oh?” he muses, “And what is it that you’d like next time, Little Bird?”

You hum in thought, tracing shapes along his abdomen. You peek up at him from his shoulder, and find his eyes already trained on you.

“I could feel you reigning yourself in,” you purr, “Maybe next time you should let go.”

“If I let go then you won’t be walking for a week,” he caresses the dip of your waist.

You nip at his nose teasingly, “I think I’d be perfectly content staying in this bed for a week.”

He takes a steadying breath, and you smirk at the effect you so clearly have over him.

“One day, Little Bird,” he kisses the tip of your nose, “One day I’ll absolutely ruin you.”

You grin and nuzzle your head back into his shoulder, “Sounds like a plan.”

You lay like this, wrapped up in each other’s embrace, for a while. No words are shared, and the only sound filling the room is the crackling of the fireplace. You hope your touch conveys all that you can’t say.

“Thank you,” he whispers after a few beats of silence.

Déjà vu surges over you. You remember the first time you laid beside him—how little, and how much, has changed since then.

You echo his words from that night, “Never thank me.”

You want to say more. You want to tell him everything you feel. You want to open the book of your mind, let him read every single footnote in the story of your life. But there’s so much to say, you wouldn’t even know where to start. So instead, you settle for the words on the very tip of your tongue.

“My brightest star,” you hum, placing a kiss on his ear.

He strokes his thumb along your shoulder, “If I’m the stars, then you’re the moon.”

You smile into his skin, and your eyes flutter shut. Between the comfort of his touch and the whirlwind of a night you’ve had, you find yourself unable to keep exhaustion at bay. 

As you drift from consciousness, there’s no Rhys nagging in the back of your mind. No sister to beg for forgiveness. No dead mother, no cruel father. There’s just Eris.

And for the first time in your life, you feel peace.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Throughout Eris’s long, miserable existence, Pain has been a constant.

It sings in the tortured cries of those who have wronged him. It swims in the eyes of his mother, a shell of the woman she used to be. It bleeds from his skin, with each lash he’s earned from his father.

 It’s Pain that wakes him, yanks him from his fleeting escape from reality.

He hisses at the feeling of silken sheets rubbing against the fresh wounds littered across his back. He moves to push himself up, but pauses at the weight on his chest. When he looks down, Pain vanishes momentarily.

Somehow, you’re even more breathtaking in your sleep. Your cheek is pressed up against his shoulder, arm draped over his stomach. You look so innocent like this, and he wishes the image to forever be imprinted in his memory.

Just as suddenly as it vanished, Pain returns.

He shifts slowly, wincing as he slides out from underneath you. Your head falls against the pillow and your gentle breaths falter, but you don’t stir. Eris grits his teeth as he pushes himself up so he’s seated, his back against the headboard. The cool wood is soothing against his burning skin. He knows that sleep won’t come to him, now that Pain has arrived again. So instead, he indulges himself in you.

Guilt washes over him as he watches how your bare shoulders rise and fall with each breath. He’s selfish for indulging himself in you when he knows he can’t have you. He knows it will have to end soon—before you can fall victim to the tragic fate of Vanserra women.

Eris is just thankful you haven’t realized the shimmering thread of gold tying you to him yet.

He was sure the bond would snap into place for you tonight. Shame pools in his gut as he realizes how badly he wanted it to snap in place for you. In all his selfish desires, there’s nothing he wants more than to call you his. But by some grace of the Mother herself, you’re still blissfully unaware of your mate. 

Since the night of the Equinox, the night when you were wearing that sinful little red number, he’s spent hours on end reading about mating bonds. Much to his disappointment, he’s yet to find anything on how to sever them. But he’s learned two things.

The first is that mating bonds don’t always snap into place for both parties at the same given moment in time. And when they don’t, it’s statistically more likely for males to feel that shining thread of gold first.

The second, and the one that puzzles him right now, is that if the bond doesn’t snap into place immediately, it does when you’ve realized your feelings for your other half, at the peak of your vulnerability. With the…the rawness of how you spoke to him tonight, of how you gave yourself to him entirely, he couldn’t imagine a moment where you could be more vulnerable to the bond’s hold over you.

His fingers ghost over your hair, which looks resembles a halo around your head, as he mulls over the possible explanations. Perhaps the bond is one-sided, and it just won’t snap into place for you. He hasn’t found any literature on this, but if human can be made Fae, then surely nothing is impossible. Alternatively, it’s possible the bond didn’t snap into place because you weren’t wholly vulnerable—because you were holding something back.

 Just as that thought crosses his mind, so does your body shift, exposing a bit of black ink on your side. Eris pauses his stroking movements and his brows cinch together. He doesn’t remember you having a tattoo—and with how many times he’s seen, touched, imagined your naked body, he’d surely remember it. A lump grows in his throat, and against his better judgment, he reaches forward and tugs the sheets down your body.

The cold heart you were just beginning to warm freezes over entirely as he lays eyes on the Night Court insignia inked beside your breast. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, making sure his imagination isn’t playing tricks on him.

But the only one playing tricks is you.

His jaw clenches so tightly that it might break as he brushes over the marking with his thumb. Behind the Illyrian Mountain lies a shining sun—symbolic of the Day Court, he pieces together.

Morrigan’s big, brown eyes. Your ability to appear out of nowhere, as if emerging from the shadows. All the questions about his family, his business dealings. Lurking around the halls of the Forest House. Your penchant for ancient literature unbecoming of a regular merchant’s daughter.

Bile rises in his throat as everything hits him all at once. He snatches his hand away from your body, as if you’re poisonous to the touch. Eris scrambles to the side of the bed and heaves, but nothing comes out. He squints his eyes shut and tugs harshly at the roots of his hair.

He’s a fool. A fool for not realizing it before, for being so entranced by your allure that he didn’t see what was so obviously sitting right in front of him. A fucking fool for thinking that someone could love him, so unequivocally.

You’ve had him wrapped around your finger this whole time—pinpointing his weaknesses and using them to your advantage. You’re no better than he is. No better than Beron. No better than your pathetic gang of friends in Velaris. 

Worst of all, you are the darkness you speak so fondly of. 

Pure, unbridled rage bubbles in the pit of his stomach. Red hot fire surges from his fingertips, and he knows if he doesn’t move away from you he’ll burn the whole house down until only ashes are left.

So, he finds himself back in front of the fireplace, his hands dancing with the flames, with only Pain to keep him company. And as he stares into the burning embers, he decides his next move. If you want to play him like a pawn, then so be it. He’ll just have to take your queen.

taglist:

@lilah-asteria @goldenmagnolias @myromanempiree @i-know-i-can @hannzoaks @olive-main @lilylilyyyyyy @batboygirlie @stuff-i-found-while-crying @moni-cah @6000-fandoms @melsunshine @roseodelle @rcarbo1

[hoshifighting]

josh’s part in the cock worshipping post got me thinking thots and i raise you:

✨🎀 cock ring with a bow on it 🎀✨

— joshua using a cock ring with a pink bow on it — WARNINGS: smut, hand job, cum denial, edging, cockring, oil/lub, crying, begging, sub!joshua, dom!reader.

joshua's eyes are wide with desperation, his body trembling as he looks down at the pink bow tied around the cock ring. it’s such a pretty, innocent thing, but the torment it’s causing him is anything but. you can see the sweat glistening on his forehead, his abs tensed, muscles straining as he tries to hold on.

his cock is harder than you’ve ever seen it, veins prominent and skin flushed. his balls are tight, begging for release, and you can see the desperation in his eyes.

“please, y/n,” he whispers, his voice shaky. “please let me cum. i can’t take it anymore.”

you hum thoughtfully, running your oiled hand slowly up and down his length. the way he moans, his hips bucking involuntarily, makes you smile. “look at you, joshua,” you coo, your tone both teasing and affectionate. “so desperate, so needy. all because of a little pink bow.”

he shudders, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “it’s too much,” he gasps, his voice breaking. “please, i need to cum. i’ll do anything.”

you stop abruptly, watching as his face contorts in frustration and need. his body trembles, his breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. “you’re so pretty when you cry,” you murmur, wiping a tear from his cheek. “but you know you have to earn it.”

he nods frantically, his eyes pleading. “i’ll be good, i promise. just please…”

you resume your slow, torturous strokes, watching as he writhes beneath you. the oil makes every touch glide smoothly, and you can see the way it drives him wild. “do you like this, joshua?” you ask softly, your thumb circling the tip of his cock. “do you like being teased, being denied?”

“y-yes,” he moans, his head falling back.

“all tied up and desperate. you’re going to be traumatized by pink bows after this, aren’t you?”

he nods frantically, his breath coming in ragged gasps, making you laugh.

his tears flow freely now, his body shaking with the effort of holding back. you can see the strain in his muscles, the way his abs clench with every touch. “you’re doing so well,” you praise, your voice soothing. “just a little longer, okay? you can do it.”

he sobs, nodding weakly. “i can’t… i can’t…”

“yes, you can,” you insist, your hand moving faster now, the oil making obscene sounds in the quiet room. “just hold on a little longer. i know you can do it.”

his eyes roll back, his moans growing louder. you can feel him getting closer, his cock twitching in your hand. “please,” he begs one last time, his voice barely a whisper. “please let me cum…”

you feel a thrill of satisfaction at his words, his utter submission to you. “good boy,” you purr, finally reaching down to remove the cock ring. “you’ve done so well, joshua. you can cum now.”

the moment you slip the ring off, he lets out a cry of relief, his body shaking as he finally reaches his release. you watch him, feeling a sense of pride at how completely you’ve unraveled him. his moans fill the room, his eyes rolling back as he spills over your hand, his entire body tensed with the force of his orgasm.

when he finally collapses back against the bed, spent and panting, you lean down to kiss him gently. “you did so well,” you whisper against his lips. “such a good boy for me.”

he smiles weakly, his eyes fluttering open to look at you. “thank you, mistress”

[webslingingslasher]

Care less

for the frat!peter girlies.

Peter blames his aunt. 

May went and raised him to look forward to the middle of february. She would make little boxes and handwritten notes tied up with a fun-sized candy bar. May told him it was a day to celebrate love in its entirety. For a friend, for a teacher, for just the sake of love existing everywhere you went. 

Except, not everyone likes valentine's day. Some even hate it. Some would loathe the day so much that Peter feels like an idiot for caring. Dinner reservations that were going to be ignored, flowers that would go wilted and chocolates that were never going to get eaten. 

Peter has a handful of nothing and the one time he really wanted to outperform himself, it was brushed off and it was his aunt’s fault for getting his hopes up about valentine’s day. He had been so thoughtful too, planning weeks ahead to book a dinner slot and a fun date. Not to mention the mini fortune he spent on roses, not that you were a giant fan of roses but every girl deserves a bouquet on valentine’s, even if they triple in price. Peter even bought a second bunch of your favorite kind, just to prove he cared. 

It meant nothing. His efforts meant nothing and maybe he shouldn’t have assumed, but he never thought that you’d hate the holiday. It was a day entirely built around feelings, around love- and you just rolled your eyes at him. 

“I fucking hate valentine’s day.” You said it like it was nothing, taking two bites of a banana and handing it over to Peter. He asked if you were excited, maybe even hinting at that you should be excited. Peter Parker was about to romance the hell out of you. But not anymore. 

“Explain that one for me?” A toss, the peel falls into the trash can. You shrug as if you’ve never thought about it before, but it’s something you’ve held in your chest for as long as you can remember. 

“It was a holiday created by girls who didn’t feel loved enough by their boyfriends, or something. I think the practice is stupid, you should treat me good and do nice things for me everyday, not just once a year. And everything is crowded! Everyone has the same lame idea about dinner and a movie and flowers and… it’s just not something I buy into.” 

Peter feels every bit of him curl up and die inside. Valentines is his third favorite holiday, he adores the pinks, reds, and purples. He loves seeing couples of every stage, the beginning stages or lifelong partners. They all love the same; with everything in them. 

“Well, actually, I do have a confession. Chocolate covered strawberries. They’re outrageously expensive, but I buy them every year. If you’re wondering, I was hoping we could boycott the baby holiday and eat some strawberries or something.” 

A small lift in his heart, it’s something. You’d be happy with one thing and he could deliver that, but first he has to try and sway you, right? Peter needs to preach what valentine’s is about, he needs you to understand how lovely it is. 

“I’m surprised you hate it so much. I figured you’d love it, since it’s pink and feelings, and stuff.” You wink at him, you think it’s a joke and Peter’s in the same boat as you. “I know, right? It always seemed so gimmicky to me, I think.” 

“That doesn’t mean it’s bad.” You pretend gag, Peter feels his heart sink into the hollow of his chest. “You’re right, it’s cringy and that makes it so much worse.” Peter doesn’t agree, not even in the slightest. Nothing about it is cringy, there’s nothing embarrassing about showing you love someone. 

“Right. It’s cringy and a gimmick and everyone who participates is stupid.” Maybe he’s a little cynical, it hits harder when you nod with exaggeration. “So glad you agree, petey!” He doesn’t. Peter couldn’t be further away from your opinion but he’s really not in the mood to be shut down or judged, so, he just changes the subject and tries to ignore everything crumbling apart in the back of his mind. 

“Isn’t this cute?” 

You squint your eyes when you read the card, a tiny smile shows. “It’s cute. Not worth…” You snatch the glorified cardstock and flip it, your eyes widen, you pretend to choke on the dollar amount. “Ten dollars, holy shit. For some glitter? Fuck that.” 

You want it out of your hold, scared that if even a speckle spread you’d be forced to buy it. “What happened to the good old days of making your own card? My mom used to eat that up.” 

Peter delicately sets the card down, he tries to see it how you do, but he can’t. Sure, it’s wildly marked up, but wouldn’t your partner be worth the price? Peter would buy the moon for you if he could, a ten dollar Hallmark card won’t be his holdup. 

But, maybe you’d like a handmade one more. He can do that. 

Peter’s trying to be mindful of your opinion while also planting the seed that valentine’s isn’t all that bad into your brain. It’s days away and all he can hear in the back of his mind is ‘I fucking hate valentine’s day.’ 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Peter- do you fucking see this?” 

A romantic gesture? A public display of love and admiration? Dozens of carefully inflated heart shaped balloons? A girl crying into the arms of her friend while her partner showers her with flowers. Is it the love? Is that what you’re pointing out? 

“Yeah, it’s-” 

“Disgusting.” 

“-cute.” Peter frowns, is that what you really thought of valentines? Nothing was swaying your mind, Peter thinks that you’re more solidified in your mindset than before. 

“I’m sorry, trouble, but I’m finding it hard believing you hate valentine’s day.” It’s like he just called you a slur, you pull your hand from his and stuff it into your jacket pocket. 

“I don’t hate it, I loathe it. What do you see watching that? Personally, I’m seeing gravel covered flowers and wasted space that turns into deflated balloons. Fuck that.” Peter shakes his head, you’re seeing it wrong. “It’s about the gesture.” 

“It’s about how you love someone so much, there aren't enough things in the world to buy to show it, and there are never the right set of words to say it quite right. I’ll buy all the flowers in the world for you, and I’ll use all the air in my lungs for these balloons but it’ll never match the love I have for you.” 

Peter clears his throat. “That's what I see, anyways. I think valentine’s day is an excuse to be a little cringy and basic because we all want that sometimes.” He might’ve finally broken through, but you crack a grin and bump your shoulder into his. 

“Ah, yes, because I’m so unfulfilled that a man has never gotten me a teddy bear for valentine’s day.” Would you want one? He could get you one. Or could that be a reason you might detest the holiday, not that he’d ever take your opinion for resentment or bitterness. 

“Have you ever had a valentine?” A small stumble, your hand is tied into his again. “Besides elementary, nah. And honestly, I should be happy so I don’t have to deal with all that stuff.” 

‘I should be happy so I don’t have to deal with all that stuff.’ But, now you do, don’t you? 

“Trouble, you do realize you’re my valentine this year, right? And I’m yours?” You feel your breath catch, no, you hadn’t realized. It’s always just been another day for you and you assume the same for Peter, it’s not like there was much to celebrate. 

“It’s also just a day that ends in Y.” Is that really the answer you have? It’s just another day to you, even if you finally have someone to claim? You might not care about the holiday, but Peter does and he’s going to get his valentine’s day, no matter what. 

And you’re going to enjoy a handmade card. 

And a teddy bear. 

Peter’s finger-combing his hair after a shower, he’s had the reservation for weeks, but he also wasn’t aware of your detestment towards red hearts and arrows. 

“Wanna grab some dinner wednesday?” If he didn’t say it by name he’s hoping you won’t scream bloody mary on him. “Sure.” A smile washes over Peter’s face, it drops in a second. “Wait, isn’t that valentine’s day? Ha, yeah, no thank you. You, me, and the entire city? Fuck that.” 

‘Fuck that, fuck that, fuck that.’ Weeks boiled into nothing. “But, if you wanna cuddle and watch a movie I’m down.” It’s something. He’d get to give you flowers and a card and a teddy bear and he can’t forget the strawberries. You told him you loved them. 

“Good with me, trouble.” 

Peter tried to sway your mind, he tried to make you enjoy the love and glitter and colors. But you hated it all. So all he has to do is ditch the flowers and the dinner and just… do nothing. 

Peter’s first real valentine and all he has to do is… nothing. 

Three rose bouquets tossed onto his closet floor, it was haphazardly done. Petals scattered around the cellophane, some even reached to his shoes. They were thrown in without care, they were hidden. 

But they were beautiful. A few front buds have taken a beating, but the others were fully blossomed and lively. You’ve never seen roses in such a vivid red, their petals almost like velvet under your fingertips, their smell unlike any other. 

The thorns have been expertly shredded, nothing but smooth, soft stems in their wake. It doesn’t matter if Peter didn’t mean to have you see them, they were too gorgeous to leave locked away in a dark room. They deserved the affection water and sunlight would give them. 

You clutched all three in your arms, the weight welcomed. You laid them out nicely across his bed, the third bouquet dropped a small card and you picked it right back up. 

‘Trouble- 

This day was made for you. 

Charlie’s at 8. 

Yours, 

Peter’

You bit back a smile. Charlie’s? It’s nice, too nice. And expensive. Peter got you reservations at Charlie’s? Holding the card to your chest you nearly squeal, you have no idea how he kept the secret from you. Or the roses. 

When you hear his bedroom door open you spin, waiting for him to be in the doorway so you can place a thousand kisses. Instead it’s Ethan and he looks surprised. “You’re here?” He points to the flowers, “Peter gave you those?” 

“I found them in his closet, he just tossed them in here! And he must’ve forgotten to tell me about Charlie’s.” Ethan doesn’t smile with you, he’s not sharing any joy. For a second you start to wonder if you were the person who was supposed to receive the gifts. 

“He didn’t forget.” You scrunch your face at him, “I think he did and I need to start getting ready now. Ethan, do you know how nice Charlie’s is? It’s fucking fancy.” You’re not prepared, you don’t have anything that screams Charlie’s worthy in Peter’s closet. 

“No, you’re not hearing me. There is no Charlie’s and there weren't supposed to be roses. I was supposed to get them before you got here, but, here we are. No roses and no Charlie’s.” You smack at his arms, pulling at his fingers to drop your flowers. 

“They’re mine!” Ethan’s on a mission to steal them, and he’s not being gentle. 

“No, you didn’t want them.” 

You watch him for a second, how could he say that, of course you want them. Thirty six reminders of Peter, how could you ever say no? You fight for what's yours, Ethan allows you to keep one bouquet. 

“I do want them!” 

Ethan’s not being nice to you tonight, he’s gruff with his response. “No. You didn’t.’ 

“You keep saying didn’t! I never said I didn’t want…” 

Except you did. Just like you said you didn’t want to get dinner with Peter. You feel terrible, you feel like crying. He’d had this planned for weeks and the whole time all you did was poke fun and degrade the holiday not knowing you were crushing him behind the scenes. 

You wanted the flowers, but you didn’t deserve them. You hand over the last bouquet silently. 

“I think it’s best if you pretend you didn’t see these.” You can’t imagine the ache Peter must have in his chest, he planned something out just for you to stomp all over it. It’s not about the value, it was the gesture. He can’t tell you how he feels, but taking you out to one of the nicest places in the city, where you know it has a month minimum reservation list makes you understand him just a little bit better. 

“This is so bad, Ethan. This is so,” you suck in air, “so bad.” 

“It’s not terrible,” a crinkle when he shifts weight. “But it’s not great.” You wince, if you could, you’d go back in time and shove your foot in your mouth, or tell yourself to shut the fuck up. 

“Well, I mean, what the fuck?! It’s fucking Peter! How was I supposed to know he was pro valentines day?”

“How was he supposed to know you were anti valentines day?” 

You sink to the bed and hold your head in your hands, “I just want Peter right now.” You want to hug him and kiss him and tell him how sorry you were. Ethan hesitates for a second, before stepping closer to lay the flowers across your lap. 

“You found them. They’re yours.” You protect them from being taken, but still have self-pity. “I don’t deserve them.” Ethan scoffs, “of course you do. Everyone deserves pretty flowers.” 

You pout at yourself in the mirror and fix any smudges. Brushing out any stray wrinkles your newest dress might’ve made on the way over. Ethan had very kindly instructed a pledge to pick you up an outfit so you could change before Peter got back. 

With minutes to spare, he’s back and taking a deep breath at your appearance. “Wow.” A surprised hum when you kiss him, you wipe red from his bottom lip while you apologize. “I’m so sorry, petey.” 

“For what?” A look around the room, red roses give him the reason. “Oh. Hey, it’s no big deal and I-” A frown when you silence him by holding a finger to his lips. 

“I’m sorry. I found those flowers and all I could think about was you and how much it meant to me that you got those for me, then I saw the card and I couldn’t believe you got us reservations and I just felt… special. I’ve never had a valentine, but I get it now. It’s just a day you get to dote on me extra hard.” 

Another surprise kiss, “and if you didn’t already cancel I think we can get to Charlie’s on time. But if you did, that’s okay. Because I think those are the most lovely flowers I have ever gotten, and I might have seen a little teddy bear in there but I didn’t wanna get too presumptuous.” 

This time, Peter kissed you. “There’s also a homemade card.” 

“You didn’t!” You fall in closer to his chest, his hands can have free reign tonight, you wore the dress just for him. 

“I did. I even wrote a little poem.” 

A chaste kiss, “just when I think you can’t get better.” 

“There’s also glow in the dark mini golf planned for after.” A peck, “so thoughtful and handsome.”

A whisper, he’s got blown pupils and hoping he’d get another kiss. “And your strawberries are in the fridge.” 

Your hearts about to explode, “fuck, I love-” you stop yourself, but you heard it and so did Peter. He brushes it off, “love?” Fuck it, you’ll both keep circling around it. 

“Yeah, I love love.” 

A hungry kiss, a squeeze to the back of your thighs. “Yeah, I love love, too.” 

[themeraldee]

SO WHAT IF: homelander got with a Female SO who is a screamer in bed. Not because it hurts but it feels sooo good. Better if she’s a quiet, timid employee at vought he finds endearing.

(He is so interesting. I can see him with strong women as seen in the show, but he would also like a submissive thing that fawns over him. He’s so versatile with ships!)

yessss yesssssssss

the semi-public sex would go HARD.

Also I'd love to see Homelander discover this. Such a difference to when they're just being cute and lovely or interacting at work. Here's her screaming his praises. Even though timid, she'd be making sure he knows how good it feels. Having had partners before who either found her vocal cries either disturbing or annoying, she wants to make sure he knows she's feeling good. All thanks to him.

Also at first she's super quiet and holds back, not wanting to be too much and freak him out. Until he forces it out of her one way or another...

lil 18+ snippet below cut

He knows you've always been reluctant to move your bedroom activities to other, more risky, places. Yet the thought of getting everyone to hear you get the life fucked out of you sounded too good to pass on.

"You gotta keep quiet for me sweetheart. Or everyone out there is gonna hear you sing for me." Except he has you on your back on your office desk, bent in half, knees next to your chest as he's stuffing you full of his cock. The squelching noise your bodies make on each slide is deafening enough without your screams and moans getting in the way.

Before he buried himself in you, he's spent good time getting you ready, feasting on your cunt until you were sopping wet and ready to take him the way you always want to. Full throttle without stopping.

And with each thrust you get louder and louder. You mumble just how good, ahh ahh, s'good it feels. How good he feels. It's barely coherent but Homelander licks up every word of praise from your lips.

Now that he's learned how to get you to let go he doesn't hesitate to abuse the sensitive spot inside you with short snappy thrusts until you sing for him freely.

Although there's no debating whether or not your moans are easily heard from the hallway, the answer comes swiftly anyway.

Someone knocks on the door. "Uhmm, is everything okay? I've come to bring you the paperwork you asked for." One of your co-workers sounds from the other side of the door.

Homelander takes pleasure in knowing it's the off-putting man he's seen attempt to flirt with you. Yes, let him hear. Let him hear how nobody could ever make you scream this way. Nobody but Homelander.

He gives you a head tilt that says 'see?' and he clamps his hand over your mouth while he rams you even harder. The wooden desk legs squeak horribly against the floor as the desk moves forward with every snap of his hips.

Still, Homelander puts good effort into keeping his voice stable. "Buddy, now's really not the time. Leave it till tomorrow."

"B-b-but." Even though the man is usually oblivious to Homelander's presence anytime he oversees his inappropriate behaviour, at least now he understands there's more at stake.

"Leave." His eyes power up automatically with his tone and while the disaster of a man can't see him, the shift in atmosphere is palpable.

At least from his perspective. Homelander's still fucking your brains out and you're barely aware of the situation. It feels too good to give up on the haze of pleasure lighting up your nerves and force yourself to face the real world where there's embarrassment that comes with nearly getting caught.

He watches the guy scuttle off at his menacing tone.

Finally, Homelander returns his attention back fully to you.

"Look how much attention you're attracting." He lets himself get back in the moment. His voice wavers when you squeeze around him.

"What's that, hah you want more?" He grips onto the desk, letting his pent up energy go into splintering the wood and not the fragile bones of your pelvis.

"Bet they'd all love to see what you're screaming for huh? Maybe I should let them. Let them know I'm the only fucking one to get you singing like this. Fffuck, yeah that's it. Feel so fucking good baby..." With his hand wedged in between your bodies he strokes your clit into completion.

Your screams are muffled by the leather of Homelander's glove and you let yourself scream your heart out as your cunt finally pulses around him with orgasm. The desk finally gives in and breaks when he spills inside you.

He puts all the force he wants to squeeze you with into destroying the office furniture. Because at the end of the day you're the irreplaceable one.

[yandere-yearnings]

Weird thought rant ‼️

I always see in smuts that the MC gets a belly bulge and all that but okay, hear me out, how about MALE belly bulge? I have no idea if that’s possible due to male anatomy but I just thought that would be something

Join the cause and support Male belly bulge 😸

dw nonnie, i'm alr w/ you😌✨ (+ for reference it is possible!!)

anyway, this, for vio bc i feel like it'd be more prominent on him than my other ocs. also as a little smth for all the vio fuckers who continue to dominate the inbox🥰

NSFW under the cut!

“Shit.” Gasping breaths. Intakes hitched harder and harder. “Fuck, please. Please, I’m sorr-”

Vio's words never quite made it out of his mouth, not when your fingers quickly found their place within the wetness oozing from the space between spongey tongue and roof. Teary greens straining to meet your gaze, pleading mercy like what you were doing to him was torture, even though Vio was the one who slammed his ass back to meet your hips each time, without fail. 

“Aren’t you a fucking mess?” The amusement in your voice was palpable, and you knew it got him off, what with the way he keened, forehead pressing to the sheets and hands fisting the fabric as though it could save his life. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard an apology from these pretty lips,” your point was driven home when he gagged, and your spit-slicked digits slipped out just for you to smear it to a shine on them, “best not start now, hm? It might make me wanna take pity on you and then-”

He cried your name, and you watched the muscles in his back ripple as he convulsed. Sweat glistening, mesmerising in the way rain droplets were when they ran races against glass windows, dripping into the divots of sacral dimples you were aching to dig your thumbs into.

“And then who’s gonna fuck you like this, huh?” Your cleaner hand reached out, wrapped around his throat tight enough to choke him, and pulled him up. It drove you deeper into him — had Vio's eyes rolling to the back of his skull, had him clawing at you with almost the same intensity as he moaned. “Fuck you this good,” your hand trailed to his abdomen, where skin stretched thin, “fill you up, make you scream. You know I’m the only one who can do it for you. Only I know who you are, what you deserve. Right, Vio?”

“O-Only you,” Vio rasped, “only you, Y/N. Please.”

“You keep saying that,” you hummed, pressing a kiss to his jugular absent-mindedly. His pulse was fluttering, light and so fast in a way you thought suited the image of delicacy he’d crafted for the world. The way his body molded to your shape said otherwise, unbreaking, despite your efforts to do just that. “What are you begging for? What have I not given you?”

“Everything.” Wisps of blue flurried in your vision, and they were all you could see for seconds after Vio tilted his head back on your shoulder. The ocean, in the colour of his eyes. Lapping waves that undulated and moved towards you. “This much isn’t enough.” Seasalt at his nape, on your tastebuds, becoming addictive. “Give it all to me.” Threatening to drown you. “Y/N.”

For a second you were gone, and then his voice, weighted only momentarily, had you snapping back into reality, into motion, into him. “Greedy,” you tittered, index up his Adam’s apple to tap on his chin and push it down, “can’t you see that I already am?”

“Fuck.” Vio's eyes widened, the slightest bit — you wouldn’t have caught it if you weren’t looking. Your palm smoothed over where his belly bulged, applied a little pressure and watched his pupils blow. It was funny to you that he hadn’t noticed before. “Fuck. Y/N, wait.” Between his legs, Vio's dick twitched, clearly not as spent as either of you had first assumed, not with how it was leaking now. “Wait!”

There are things you’d never know about him; what type of pleasure coursed through his veins on seeing the strain you put on him, if it was a physical fulfillment, if it was solely the feeling, or the thought, being claimed, stretched, ruined. You never wondered about it long — after all, it didn’t matter. In seconds, the ocean overflowed for you. He spilt for you.

Vio lost his mind for you.

[gemissleeping]

Sea Foam | Chapter Three

Theodore Nott x Siren!Reader

Read the other Chapters here.

Summary: It’s been three weeks since Theo found you by the Black Lake, and he’s tried his best to respect your wishes. But it hasn’t done anything to help either of you, and all of your efforts come crashing down in the bathroom at a Slytherin party.

Length: 2.1k

Notes: More of a Theo POV than the usual. Angry Theo. Teenage boys being teenage boys (foul and icky, nsfw language). Overbearing best friend Blaise. Smoking Theo. Slightly intoxicated reader. Soft Theo. Tears. I did not proofread this at all you have been warned, pls do tell me if there are any errors. Listen to Cinnamon Girl by Lana if you’d like to go through it. ily enjoy!

“You’re staring again,” Blaise grumbled under his breath from beside Theo in Divination. It had been three weeks since Theo had found you on the shoreline. Dressed only in your nightgown in the height of the winter frost. That crestfallen look on your face while the wind had bitten at you both. He’d tried his best to respect your wishes since then; making sure to steer clear of you whenever he could, to stop flitting through your mind like it was his favourite novel. He’d tried his best and still he’d failed, over and over.

He knew it was wrong, but he was beyond help. Slipping into your mind was unbearably easy. So much so, that he’d found himself doing it purely by accident on a few occasions, and he couldn’t quite figure out why. He knew you could practice occlumency, had even witnessed you obliterate Malfoy’s attempt at invading your mind in a Defence Against the Dark Arts class last year. Yet you barely even seemed to notice when he did it. Your apparent lack of awareness only made it harder for Theo to stop himself.

“Sorry,” Theo mumbled, blinking his trance away as he glanced over to Blaise with a dull apology. Blaise and Theo had become fast friends in First Year. After Cormack had made a comment about Theo’s Mother on the train, and Blaise had responded by hitting him right between the eyes. Blaise and Theo were close. Though not as close as you, Milli and Blaise were. Everyone knew that the three of you were utterly inseparable. Having met long before the rest of them at Hogwarts.

Unfortunately, it also meant that Blaise had adopted a tendency towards being irritatingly over-protective of you. Likely for good reason; Theo hadn’t made the best of impressions when it came to his relationships with women. They were often fleeting, borne of convenience and nothing more.

Which was exactly why Blaise was currently pissed with him. Blaise spent an awful lot of his time watching people. Regrettably, for Theo that included him, and these days he spent most of his time firmly stuck on you. To say Blaise wasn’t pleased would have been an understatement.

At this point, he may as well have been your damn guard dog, and Theo was tiring of the act quickly. He’d spent years wanting to know you, outside of the occasional class project. Years of pretending you didn’t exist for Blaise’s sake. When really, you were a large part of the reason that he had never settled on anyone to begin with.

Theo turned back to his parchment, huffing as he saw the ink stain leaking across the page. That, along with several half-finished notes, provided rather damning evidence of his distraction.

He stole a glance over at you again, keeping his head low in the hopes Blaise wouldn’t catch him. You were sitting beneath the window, stuck in a daydream of your own as Trelawney prattled on. Eyes misted over, one hand woven through your hair as you rested on it.

You were lovely.

Theo wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had resumed his staring. But as Trelawney brought the lesson to a close, the dull edge of a textbook collided with the side of his head in a singular, harsh thud. Breaking his focus on you as he looked up in bewilderment to Blaise, who stood with his edition of Astrology for the Ungifted raised.

“Git.” He hissed, lowering the book with scathing eyes.

Theo didn’t see you for the rest of the afternoon, not with Blaise practically escorting him to their dorm as soon as Divination concluded. Enzo was already there, lazily slung across his desk chair. Brow raised as Blaise entered in a huff, Theo trailing behind him in defeat. There was supposed to be a party in the Common Room tonight. But right now it wasn’t looking like Theo would be in for a particularly enjoyable evening.

“I know what you’re trying to do. You want to fuck her.”

“I don’t want to fuck her,” Theo winced at his friend’s choice of words.

“You don’t want to fuck her? You don’t want to fuck her?” Blaise rounded, textbook jabbing at Theo’s chest incredulously. Theo groaned, knowing Blaise wouldn’t rest until he knew Theo was being honest with him.

“No, I- fuck, fine. Yes, I want to. Of course I do, but that’s not-”

“Not what? Forgive me for my utter faith in your fucking abysmal track record. But she is my best fucking friend Theo.” Blaise snapped, turning from the boy’s dead-eyed stare and viciously tugging at his tie as he stalked towards his bed. Whipping it from his neck in a surge of anger.

Enzo rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. Watching the display unfold with anxious eyes as Matt cracked the bathroom door open, lighting up with sadistic intrigue. The pair exchanged a glance, the former silently begging the latter not to stick his foot in.

Theo felt his chest tighten at Blaise’s words. His hand running roughly along his jaw, trying to soothe his irritation. Gazing at the ornate wooden panels on the ceiling with a sigh before he attempted to break through to him again. It was out in the open now at least, it likely couldn’t get worse.

“You don’t understand, she-”

“Please, Nott. Tell me what I don’t understand about the girl I’ve known since she was three years old.” Blaise bellowed, reigniting as he swung back to the taller boy. The click of the door interrupted them.

“What’s with all the shouting? I can hear you fools from the hall,” Malfoy droned, bored as he kicked the door shut behind him. Flicking his wand to cast some sort of muffling charm across it.

“Fuck off, Malfoy.” Blaise sneered, not even glancing over to acknowledge his friend’s arrival. The words feeling far more aimed towards Theo than the blonde. Draco only sighed, moving past the both of them.

“None of you ever thank me for anything that I do for you,” He grumbled in response. Throwing a stack of books onto his bed before going to shove Matt out of the bathroom.

“If you even think about fucking touching her-” Blaise continued, steam practically rising from his skin as he narrowed in on Theo again.

“Oh, he has.” Matt interrupted, leaning back against Enzo’s desk with folded arms. Theo shooting him a heavy glare as Matt only smirked back knowingly. An expression Enzo swiftly answered by scolding him with a kick to the shin.

“Look at me, Nott,” Blaise demanded. His voice low, lip curling back in a sneer, “I’ll skin you, understand?”

“Listen, I-” Theo started, his own voice rising as his attention shifted back to Blaise, irritation swelling. But he was impossible to reason with when he was like this, everyone knew it.

“You don’t fuck with her,” Blaise cut in, his voice soaked with finality. Standing before Theo while his chest heaved with anger, book still clutched in his accusatory palm. Theo could feel his own restraint unwrapping. The other’s eyes on them only pushing him further into that corner of himself. He needed air, now. Or else he was going to do something he couldn’t undo. Then you were certain to never speak to him again.

Hands raised in silent surrender, he backed away from Blaise. Jaw set as he plucked his jacket from the end of his bed, turning for the door. Enzo’s tired sigh leaked through the dorm as he pulled it open harshly, likely readying himself to chastise Blaise. Something he’d also likely do to Theo when he caught him later. Though if he had any luck today, maybe Enzo and the others would already be drunk by the time he got back.

He made for the edge of the forest. Rolling a cigarette as he went, trying not to bite down on the filter between his teeth from residual disdain. The icy air was a small mercy, quenching the heat running through him almost immediately. For hours he stood out there, letting the smoke in to empty out all of the things he didn’t want to feel. Watching as the moon chased the sun down to the horizon.

The party would be well underway. God willing you hopefully had yourself tangled in someone else by now. At least then Theo might have been able to give himself a proper reason to stop, smooth things over with Blaise. Though he had begun to doubt if even that would work.

Theo made his way through the tangle of writhing bodies in the heat of the Common Room. No desire to taint himself further with the desperate need to forget that rolled off of the sweaty air. Matt was by the stairs, where the crowd thinned out at its edges. More enticed by the girl whose cigarette he was lighting than by any questions he might’ve had for Theo, as he continued his path to the dorms.

He had meant to go straight there. To take off his jacket, untie his shoelaces. Instead he found himself headed past his door, down to one of the communal bathrooms that lined the dormitory halls. He wasn’t sure why, until something tugged at him. Drawing him to push open the bathroom door; and there you were.

Gaze flitting to his hazily in the mirror. Eyeliner smudged, haloing your eyes. You stilled where you had been standing, as if he had walked straight out of your thoughts. Softening as you took in his wind kissed hair, and he the tremble of your fingers on the countertop. Theo pushed himself away, against the pull of his chest, away from what he wanted. He made for the door again, unsure of why he had allowed himself to be led to you to begin with.

“You weren’t at Dinner,” you called softly, not daring to turn and look at him without a reflection between you. He stilled, one hand on the door as his heart hammered at his ribs.

“You told me to stay away,” he answered simply. Afraid to turn around in case what he saw laying in your eyes only salted the wound some more.

“Not that far.”

You breathed, turning to face him. Eyes aching to touch his cheek, graze across his thoughts, his desires. Theo’s hand dropped from the door, chest swelling from your proclamation. He could feel his breathing falter, hear the force of it. He turned hesitantly, a rasp collecting in his throat.

“Well how far would you like me?”

He saw your breath hitch, didn’t even have to scratch at your mind. You seemed to be leaking into his on your own accord. He could hear just how far you wanted him, and it wasn’t far at all.

Your lips parted, so he made sure to be the first to speak. To save you both the trouble.

“You’re drunk.”

You shook your head, eyes growing glassy with the salt of tears as you moved towards where he leant against the door.

“I’ve been getting your little messages. The ones you keep leaving for me to find,” he murmured. Suddenly enraptured by his hands as his voice creased over his words.

“Theo-”

“It’s unbearable for me. Is it like that for you too?” He cracked, eyes flashing up to yours. Entirely afraid before you, before the possible weight of your answer. Because the truth was he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t tell which words were real and which you fed him to keep him at arm’s length. He searched you, begging for any kind of answer, but hoping only for one.

“Yes.”

Your tears spilled in an instant, and maybe you were a little drunk, but you were also sure that it didn’t change any of it. He knew as much, taking a tender step towards you to grasp your cheek. Running his thumb along the soft skin to collect your tears.

“This trance you seem to think I’m under,” Theo clarified, eyes lingering on yours as his thumb continued its path. Despite no longer having any need to do so. “It’s lasted five years already,” he breathed, “it’s not going to pass any time soon.”

You paused, smudged eyes widening as you gazed up at him. His confession sucking the air out of your lungs until you could no longer doubt that you needed him. You simply watched him for a moment, as though debating whether to say something you wouldn’t be able to swallow. The one thing that was still holding you back.

“I don’t know how to stop myself.”

“Then don’t,” he whispered, leaning closer to brush a strand of hair from your eyes. “You don’t need to be scared of wanting this.”

Theo drew back slightly, letting his fingertips linger. Brushing through the strands of your hair, behind your ear. His voice gentle, certain, “I’ll be here, whenever you’re ready.”

Keep an eye out for Chapter Four here, or comment to be added to the tag list for future updates <3

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[deanstead]

Low Effort

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Requested: no

Summary: Y/N gets a surprise visit, which triggers some unpleasant symptoms

Word Count: 1k+

Tags/Warnings: mentions of stomach cramps, slight allusion to anxiety, negative emotions

A/N: Long time no see! This is a thing I needed to get off my chest and needed to get the emotions out, so it’s just some Jay comfort/fluff. Also, a warning that I haven’t written in so long, this kind of feels a bit meh, so I hope I haven’t lost too much of my writing touch LOL

JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST

You closed your laptop shut, just as your phone lit up with a notification about a new message from Jay.

Sorry, got held up. 10 minutes. Tops.

You smiled, typing a quick response of acknowledgment to tell him not to hurry before you got up, grabbing your bag. You were too fried to continue anything else so you figured you would just go and wait for him. Fresh air was better than whatever was coming through the office vents.

As the glass doors of the main entrance on the first floor slid open and you felt the chill of the Chicago winds hit your face, you sighed. Fresh air was definitely better.

“Y/N.”

You glanced up, your eyebrows naturally bunching together at the sound of a woman’s voice.

As your eyes met hers, you froze for a moment, your brain still processing the fact that she was here.

“Amy?” Her name slipped past your lips before you could stop yourself, even though the only emotion you were feeling at this moment was surprise. There was nothing positive or negative about it.

Amy could feel it in your voice as well. “Can we talk? I’ve missed you.”

You frowned as a cramp shot through your lower abdomen.

“I thought we were better friends than this. Low-maintenance, remember?” Amy said, and you could hear the tone in her voice, the one she used when she was upset or disappointed.

The feeling of indignation shot through you once again.

“Yeah, low maintenance, not low effort.”

Your voice was low but you didn’t let the emotion sway it. You spent years telling yourself that it was just a low-maintenance friendship, that you were both just busy, but you couldn’t ignore the way she’d reappear in front of you only when she needed your support, or when the guy she was seeing was out of town.

You glanced up at the street but hadn’t seen Jay’s car yet.

You exhaled. “Look, Amy. You have your priorities, I get it. Just don’t expect me to drop mine when you blow back into town or when your boyfriend doesn’t have time for you. It doesn’t work that way.”

You felt the cramps intensify and knew what it was. You called it “emotional cramps” with Jay, joking that as long as he kept you happy you’d be fine. Yet, here they were again. Maybe it was because you hadn’t had them in a while, you felt them more intensely now.

You put a hand on your stomach as you looked up at Amy. As expected, she had an indignant look on her face.

“How could you say that, Y/N? I know the fact that I was seeing Trevor was a sore spot with you because you weren’t seeing anyone so I didn’t want to make things harder for you. But now…”

You couldn't even respond as the pain ripped through you once again and you bent forward slightly, your knees buckling a little. You braced yourself for the impact of your knees hitting the concrete sidewalk when you felt his arms around you.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

Jay.

Amy seemed stunned for a moment before she spoke again, “It must be her…”

“Why’s it acting up?” Jay asked, his entire focus on you as you glanced up at him and quietly shook your head.

Jay glanced up at Amy. They didn’t know each other since you’d met Jay sometime after contact between you and Amy had dwindled to almost nothing. By the time you and Jay had started dating, you’d made up your mind to let go of Amy and this friendship, and it had merely nagged at you a little at the back of your mind from time to time so you hadn’t brought her up.

“Come on, we’re going to Med,” Jay said quietly, pulling you upright.

You glanced at him. “Don’t you dare carry me,” You warned.

Despite the worried look in his eyes, Jay smiled. “We’re going to Will.” He repeated, almost like he was daring you to argue.

You didn’t argue. Partly because all you wanted to do was get out of there but partly because you knew it was useless. Besides, the pain was more intense than you remembered.

Without a second glance back, Jay helped you into the car and drove off, both of you leaving Amy still standing on the sidewalk.

You knew what had triggered the attack, so after getting medication for the pain and cramping, you’d been feeling much better.

“You know I’d be feeling even better if you would stop hovering, Detective.” You said, directing the comment at your boyfriend.

Will smiled as he tapped on the iPad in his hand and glanced at his brother. “She’s fine. Her tests are normal, and it was probably just a one-off stress-related attack.”

You nodded. “I’ll follow up with my therapist, I promise.”

Will ruffled your hair affectionately and you growled because he knew you hated it.

“I’ll get the discharge started.”

Jay was quiet as he leaned over you, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “You sure you’re okay?”

You nodded, before you glanced back down.

“Amy’s an old friend.” You said, after a while. "At least, she was."

Jay didn’t say anything, so you continued, telling him about how Amy was when she started dating anyone, and it only progressively got worse. “And it’s not about seeing her often, you know? It’s just…”

Jay nodded. “You didn’t feel like she cared.”

You sighed quietly. “I just… it got to a point where I realized she didn’t care. I was a friend when she needed me, and when she didn’t, I just… didn’t exist. And apparently, to her, that’s me being sore.”

Jay just took your hand in his, gently stroking your fingers.

“But I just realized it was better to have no one than to be treated that way, so I just…”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Jay said quietly. “Listen, someone who gives you low effort doesn’t deserve you. I don’t care who they are. Anyone who makes you feel this way doesn’t deserve even one percent of you.”

You looked up at him and smiled, a little sadness hidden behind it.

“I guess seeing her today just brought it all back, you know? And then it triggered all those emotions and then my stomach cramps decided to join the party.” You made a face.

Jay smiled quietly back at you. “But you know what? You’re not alone. At least not anymore.”

You smiled and leaned forward for a hug. Jay perched by the edge of the bed, pulling you gently into his arms and you buried your face into his shoulders, feeling his arms encircle your entire body.

“I know.” You whispered.

Jay kissed the top of your head. “Good.”

THANK YOU FOR READING!! PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THIS!!

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[waldau-archived]

hii i would like to request a fake dating scoups x reader au where the reader falls first but coups falls harder <3 thank u!

here you go anon, hope you like this :)

reset — choi seungcheol | 2,008 words | fluff, hurt/comfort

cheol brainrot go brrrr

gender neutral reader. warnings: none.

technically speaking, the party’s going fine.

despite how much you want to hate it, it’s going the way parties do. there’s music, there’s alcohol, there’s your own corner if you want to tune out the sound of everything else, and there’s seungcheol’s friends. he’s spent at least half an hour introducing you to everyone — you’ve met a lot of them before, but there’s still some new ones. there’s always new ones.

and even though they’ve been nothing but polite to you, engaging you in conversation and making an effort to learn more about you, you can’t shake off the feeling that this isn’t really where you’re supposed to be.

you don’t know who you were kidding when you agreed to be his fake date for the party. he’s already had a ton of people hanging onto him throughout the course of the night. you’re not sure why he even bothered asking you. he could have asked his manager to find someone that would actually match with him, and maybe create a big splash if it made it to the news.

instead, he’d asked you out.

it won’t make a difference in the news, anyway, he’d said, like he wasn’t aware of the way he shattered your heart with those words. like it was common knowledge that nobody could even imagine the two of you together. like it wasn’t worth anyone’s time or imagination, most of all his.

suddenly, you find the sounds in the room too loud to bear. it’s not the first party you’ve been to, but it’s the first one where you’ve felt truly alone. you’re glad you haven’t touched your drink yet.

no one’s really paying attention to you exclusively, and you’re okay with nodding along and throwing in an occasional response here and there. but then it’s not okay, anymore. you shouldn’t have to be here in the first place, on this stupid fake date you agreed to because of your little crush on seungcheol.

okay, maybe it’s not just a little crush. but the point is that you shouldn’t have to be here hurting your feelings in order to spend a little time with him.

you excuse yourself under the pretense of having to take a call and head towards the balcony. joshua, one of seungcheol’s closest friends, comes up to ask you if everything’s okay. you’ve been friends with him for long enough that he can tell when you're fine and when you're not, but you give him a look that hopefully conveys you want him to let this slide.

“seungcheol mentioned this isn’t really your thing, so let him know if you want to go home. i know he’ll be okay with that.”

you nod wordlessly, words of gratitude stuck in your throat. what seungcheol tells you is true — joshua is just too damn perceptive.

you feel like you can finally take a better breath when the door shuts behind you, separating you from everyone else. the cold air makes you feel better, even if it’s beginning to seep into your skin because of the outfit you’ve worn.

it doesn’t matter, though. you need a bit of a reset.

somehow, it hardly takes four minutes before you feel someone behind you. and it’s not just anyone.

“do you have a death wish or something?”

you choose not to grace him with an answer.

“hey,” seungcheol prompts when you don’t reply. “what’s up?”

“shouldn’t i be asking you that?”

seungcheol steps to your side and looks at you. even though you’re gazing down at the empty road sparsely dotted with streetlights, you can feel his gaze pierce you.

“do you want to go home?” he asks softly.

it hurts. he shouldn’t be this considerate to you and then not like you back. it can't just be one without the other.

“i don’t know, do you?”

he sighs. “okay. i don’t know what i’ve done wrong, but i can tell you’re not comfortable right now. are you done for tonight?”

you shake your head. “i don’t want you to leave because of me. it seemed like you were having fun back there.”

“and you weren’t,” he replies, reading between the lines.

“it doesn’t matter, okay? it’s not your fault i’m not having fun.”

“that’s not how this works,” seungcheol stresses, stepping forward to grip your arms and recoiling a bit. “you’re cold.”

you shrug. another thing that’s not gone well today.

seungcheol takes off his jacket and hands it to you without any hesitation, but you don’t take it. you can’t keep living in your little daydream, living on moments where you think he might love you just a bit more than he would a friend. one of you needs to break the cycle, and if it’s going to be you, you’re prepared.

“seriously, what is wrong with you?” he asks, soft but sharp. you finally look him in the eyes. he has that gaze — the one where it looks like he knows exactly what you’re thinking about. it scares you sometimes, the way he’s so accurate. he must have picked up something from joshua over the years.

“nothing’s wrong with me, cheol,” you say, slightly bitter. “just because i don’t want your jacket doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.”

"you're right, i'm sorry," he says, taking a step closer to you. "i shouldn't have said it like that. but...it's not just about the jacket. at first i thought i caught you on an off day, but you seemed fine till we got here. i don’t know what happened after that. are you hungry? did someone say something to you? do you need me to punch anyone?”

you give him an exasperated look. “you’d punch someone if i asked?”

“in a heartbeat. i thought you knew that by now.”

“and if i was wrong?”

“you’re never wrong when it comes to things like these. and i’d forgive you even if you were.”

"you're too trusting, you know that?"

"well," seungcheol says, lowering the jacket. but it's still in front of you, still on offer. "you're my best friend. i think you have some privilege."

you hate the earnestness in his voice as much as you love it. “i know. sorry.”

“don’t apologize, sweetheart. tell me what’s wrong, and tell me how i can fix it. i’ll do anything.”

“it’s…nothing you can do,” you say, turning away from him. it's most definitely not in his control, but it’s not your fault for loving him, either.

“how will you know if you don’t try?”

“you just know some things, cheol. trust me on that.”

“yeah? like i know you’re hiding something from me right now? something that’s eating my best friend up, and i don’t even know what to do to help?”

again. those two words. they tear you up from the inside just as much as they hold you together. you can’t help the sharp feeling in your throat which indicates tears might be on the way. you're just frustrated at the unfairness of it all. if only life was a little kinder.

seungcheol, ever perceptive, notices immediately. “sweetheart? it’s something i did, isn’t it? something i said?”

you shake your head, not wanting tears to well up.

“don’t lie to me,” he says, draping the jacket over your shoulders and pulling you into his embrace. you push him away, even though you whole body wants nothing more than to be with him.

“please tell me?”

you take in a breath, the cold night air stinging your nose. “you said something.”

“what was it?”

“you said it wouldn’t make a…difference, if i was your date,” you say, focusing so much on not crying that your voice is barely audible to your own ears. “you said it like no one would care if we were together. like it wouldn’t affect you in any way. like i’m just…your best friend. and no one can see me as anything more.”

seungcheol sucks in a sharp breath. “can i hold you? please?”

you almost refuse, but decide otherwise. you’ve spilled out your mind to him, anyway. the least you deserve is a hug from him.

“i’m so fucking sorry,” he breathes into your hair, his arms looped around your waist and holding you close to him. “i didn’t— i’d never say something like that. that’s not what i meant when i said it.”

“then what did you,” mean, you mean to ask, but your breath gets swept away when he presses a kiss to your head.

“it’s just…everyone knows how close we are,” he says, hand gently running up and down your back. “i thought people wouldn’t bat an eye if they assumed we were dating, you know. i know people who already think we are. or…that we should.”

you look up at him at that. he looks serious about what he’s saying, but also shy, like he doesn’t want you looking at him when he’s speaking.

“people?”

“some of my close friends.”

that's news to you. “so you don’t mind…people thinking we’re a thing? or thinking we should be?”

“of course not,” he says, holding you with one hand and tracing your cheekbone with the other. you fall for him just a bit more, right there. “anyone would be lucky to have you. i’d be the luckiest guy to have you.”

he just says things like that, and it makes you wonder if he really means them. so you decide to push him this time, and see where it goes. and blame it on your nerves and the drink you never had if things don’t go well. “would you?”

“want to have you?”

you nod, breath trapped in your throat.

“yeah,” he breathes out, leaning forward and tucking his chin in your shoulder.

you swear your world stops for just a second. you’re hardly even aware that he’s leaning on you now.

"yeah as in?"

“i’d like you to take you out for a real date. if you’ll let me.”

you pull away to look at seungcheol. he’s blushing, but he’s not looking away.

"if i'll let him, he says."

"well?" seungcheol lifts a hand to fix your hair.

“this isn’t a joke?”

he steps back and rubs his face, probably in an attempt to brace himself for whatever he wants to say. it doesn’t work. you like him like this, you think. with his hair messy and his eyes shy.

“of course not. i’d never joke about something like this. especially when it’s you.”

you should be the one who's shy and blushing, and yet there's nowhere else you'd rather look. “what made you…”

seungcheol takes your hands. they're a warm contrast to your cold ones. “i’ve been wrestling with it for a while, and i never told you because i didn’t want things between us to be weird. but i couldn’t keep faking it after i saw you tonight. you look so good, it’s been killing me.”

you shake him off to loop your arms around his neck and pull him down to you, feeling a bit braver. “so if i told you i wanted to leave right now…”

he swallows loud enough for you to hear. “we’d be out of here right now.”

you stand on your tiptoes to bring yourself to his height and place a little kiss on his nose.

he pouts. “that’s it? that’s all i get after confessing to you?”

“i don’t want our first kiss to be in front of an audience, cheol.”

seungcheol smiles. “fair. but i don’t know how much longer i can wait now.”

“you’re going to have to ask me out for real, you know.”

“but you haven’t told me you like me back yet,” seungcheol says. you can hear the whine in his voice and it makes you laugh a bit.

“you need to hear me say it?”

“of course i do! i've spent weeks thinking about tonight.”

“aren't you lucky, then?" you tease.

“the luckiest,” he says solemnly.

it's your turn to blush now.

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