#and I’m supposed to be at a friend’s apartment early in the morning to study for an exam 😭

[pprodsuga]

tides of regret | heeseung

summary: in the year since heeseung first rejected your love confession, you've tried everything to get over him. a trip to europe makes you realize you miss your former best friend more than anything, and it makes heeseung realize he's got it all wrong.

notes: aaand she's here! this is 24.4K words worth of my heart and soul. consider this a token of my appreciation for welcoming me on enhablr. i sincerely hope you enjoy it. <3

deep cuts: #1

warnings: angst/internal self doubt, playful banter, dirty talking, praise, slight degradation, oral (m and f receiving), dry humping, fingering, mentions of exhibitionism and face sitting, nipple sucking, spit, brief moment of anal (tongue only), condom removal, unprotected sex, creampie.

For @enha-stars – may this story rip you apart and stitch you back together.

masterlist

Incheon feels lonely at three in the morning. 

The overhead lights being turned off because of the lack of travelers at this hour makes the airport feel bigger than it actually is. It’s too quiet without the familiar sounds of luggage wheels on the linoleum or overhead speakers announcing flight changes every ten minutes. You don’t think you’ve ever been to an airport so early in your life. 

It’s quiet enough to leave you alone with your bothersome thoughts. In the years you’ve been away from home as you studied abroad, you can’t help but feel a gravitational pull towards life in Seoul and the people in it. The familiarity of your home outweighs the adventure you once yearned for in your youth, and now you’re left with the exciting notion that, this time, you’ll know when you’ll be coming back.

The terminal has an abundance of seating. Your backpack rests on the seat beside you as Jay double checks the gate number while the rest of your friends find a spot on the seats next to you, attempting to find an ounce of comfort in the dimly lit area.

“I know leaving early saved us hundreds of dollars, but I need sleep,” Sunghoon says from beside you. His usually well kept hair falls in all sorts of places like he woke up without a second thought and hailed a taxi the minute he opened his eyes. 

“You’ll thank me later,” Jay says. “We can sleep on the plane.”

“Our flight doesn’t leave for another two hours,” Jake whines from beside him as he yawns. “How am I supposed to sleep on these god forsakes chairs?” 

“Quit whining and try,” Jay retorts. He looks behind him to see the rest of your friend group approach before glancing over to you. “Doing okay?” 

“How come Y/N gets preferential treatment?” Jake beckons. 

“Because she isn’t a nuisance like you,” Jay immediately fires back before diverting his attention towards you again. 

“I’m alright,” you say, stifling a yawn behind your hand. “Just cold and sleepy.” 

“Hopefully they turn off the damn AC,” Sunghoon says as he pulls his sweatshirt over his head. “I feel like my veins are being injected with ice.”

“It’ll warm up when more people come,” Jay reasons. “I wish there was a coffee stand that was open. I need a cup.” 

“I could go for one,” you agree. “I’m trying to stay awake for the next couple of hours so I can sleep on the plane.” 

The rest of your friend group appear behind Jay and you look down to check your phone for any notifications when Heeseung catches your eye. It takes you by surprise and you abruptly look back at your screen and busy yourself by aimlessly scrolling through social media as he attempts to occupy the empty seat beside you, but Jake beats him to it.

“I’m gonna freeze to death and then all of you are gonna have to deal with my frozen body.” Jake dramatically slouches down onto the seat until his head finds your shoulder, nuzzling his cheek as if trying to find comfort in you. “Jesus, Y/N, you’re so warm.”

You laugh. “I wore layers.” 

“You’re gonna regret that when we get on the plane,” Jake mumbles. 

Heeseung, from the corner of your eyes, opts to move to the seats in front of you. You try not to pay him any mind.

You snort. “Yeah, well I can take these layers off while you freeze until you become an icicle.” Jake hums when you let your head fall onto his. 

“You know I’m not built for the cold. Australia’s my home.”

“And yet you moved to Korea,” Sunghoon provokes. 

Jungwon and Riki are rummaging through the bag of snacks you’d brought for an early breakfast until the restaurants and coffee stands around you open up. Jake’s right, it’s far too cold to stop shivering, but you suppose you’re grateful that the discomfort distracts you from sleeping too early. 

“I can’t believe we’re finally going on this trip,” Sunoo says from above you. With your head still on Jake’s, you turn to look at the boy speaking. “I’m really excited for you to show us where you’ve been for the past four years.”

A tiny smile graces your lips. “I’m excited to show you around London and Paris. The latter is a two hour train ride. My friends and I would go every few weekends or so to explore the city. Pictures and videos don’t do them justice.” You sigh as you reminisce. “I really did think that I’d end up living there when I graduated.” 

“Why didn’t you?” 

“Missed home too much, I guess.” You shrug. “Though, I can’t believe Riki went through a growth spurt in the last two years that I was gone.”

“You went back to Okayama before Y/N came back for holiday break, right?” Jungwon asks, looking between the both of you.

“That’s right,” Riki says. “I was sad that I couldn’t see you before you went back to school.”

“Now he’s twice my height.” You gesture at the younger boy. He’s too shy with the sudden affection and chooses to bury his head in Jungwon’s shoulder. “You were so little.”

“Shut up,” he mumbles. 

“I can’t believe you’re fluent in English now.” Jungwon pushes Riki off of his arm. “You, Jake, and Jay are kind of scary when you speak English.”

“It was a little hard at first. I used to watch a lot of American cinema so I could understand it better than I could speak it. But I can’t lie, it’s fun being able to talk to them in English.”

“You were so cute trying to string phrases together during your first summer back,” Jay coos. “Texting her in English was funny because she couldn’t understand the difference between spelling.”

“Poor Jake.” You pull your head from his and look down at him. “You probably had aneurysms looking at my grammar.” 

You lift your head to see that the aforementioned has fallen asleep amongst the conversation with his mouth slightly ajar and soft snores echoing past your ear. You don’t move when Jay asks if you want Jake off of your shoulder, but you shake your head.

Conversation falls flat when the group unanimously decides that sleepiness is overtaking the need to socialize. Jay keeps checking his watch to look out for the time while your eyes try to look anywhere but at Heeseung. 

It’s odd, the way two people can lose a friendship overnight. The heartbreak that came with romantic rejection wasn’t nearly as bad as realizing texts and phone calls were far fewer in between the moment you had arrived back in Europe to finish your studies. It hurt to know that neither one of you felt comfortable enough to see each other when you were back in your hometown unless the two of you were invited to hang out with mutual friends. 

Still, seeing Heeseung after he had rejected your confession felt like a punch to the gut. 

Long gone were the days of being able to send him unimportant updates about your life abroad or what you were doing at any given summer day back home. You couldn’t ask him to go to the restaurants you used to frequent near his house or yours. You certainly couldn’t call him at random hours because you were bored and missed his voice. 

It wasn’t for the lack of trying. It felt like things might've gone back to normal after a short period of not talking, but your texts going unanswered and your calls going to voicemail was all you needed to know. 

Perhaps it’s why you’re comfortable spearheading this vacation with Jay, who had made it a point to visit you in London when you’d chosen to stay behind instead of going home for the holiday break. The two of you had never spent time alone prior to then, but it touched you that he’d go out of his way to dedicate an entire day to visit you when he was there for a family vacation. 

Coming back to Korea the summer after graduating felt like you were making the right choice, even if your head was telling you to find a home in Europe. Still fresh from your unresolved rejection, stepping off of the plane and knowing you wouldn’t be returning back to your university’s town made the uncomfortable reality of coming face-to-face with Heeseung sink in. You’d have to live with the consequences. 

But it’s been eight months since you returned, six months since Jay’s dad was gracious enough to offer you a position on his marketing team, and five months since he encouraged your entire friend group to take a trip to your old stomping grounds. 

The proposition felt too sudden, especially with how little experience you had working with his team, but you’d spend an evening with the Park family for him to consider you an honorary member. Though, you’re sure Jay might’ve told him something happened between you and Heeseung, especially after telling everyone you wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays. 

To this day, you haven’t uttered a single word to your friends about what happened the night Heeseung rejected your love confession. If you know him as well as you think you do, you don’t think he's told anyone either. 

“Cafes are opening up,” Jay notes. Sunghoon’s ears perk up. “Three of us should go get food and drinks while the rest save our seats.” 

The airport overhead lights must’ve turned on while you were deep in thought. Jay’s right, the coffee stands have opened and it’s likely due to the new influx of travelers who’ve arrived at the airport. Foot traffic is still light and you know Jay wants to get ahead of the crowd. 

Jake has woken up because of the growing murmur around him and lifts himself off of your head to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. He yawns once more but tries his best not to fall asleep again.

“How long was I out?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take,” Sunghoon answers.

“Sorry for sleeping on you,” Jake apologizes. 

“It’s okay. You needed it.” He scrunches his face, not used to the new lighting. “Jay, I’ll come with you to get coffee. I need to stretch my legs.” 

“I’ll help as well.” Heeseung speaks for the first time in a while and his voice nearly catches you off guard. 

“Sure.” Jay gathers everybody’s orders before the two of you follow him around the terminal. 

The line isn’t unbearably long, but with Heeseung towering behind you, it feels like you’ve been standing for hours. You shift from one foot to the other in order to find a happy medium to no avail. Jay orders for the group and you pay attention to him more than you care to when you realize Heeseung is now standing beside you to make room for more people to wait in line. He’s considerate like that and you hate it. 

When the baristas are finished with your order, you reach for the bag of sandwiches in your haste to escape Heeseung. But your fingers touch the steam and you drop the bag into the counter with a hiss.

“Careful,” Heeseung says. “Don’t get hurt, please.” 

Your clumsy nature was always something he teased you for. Heeseung sounds so sincere about his worry that you think you’d rather him pour all of the hot coffee on you instead. 

“Thanks.” You grab the bag with so much as a single moment of eye contact before realizing Jay has started walking back. 

Breakfast is eaten in silence. Everyone is too tired to speak, save for Jake whose twenty minute nap has rendered him a little more awake than the rest of you. You and Sunghoon share your egg sandwich and chocolate croissant respectively without a word spoken between the two of you. 

Meanwhile, Heeseung is staring at the way your thighs are close to Sunghoon’s. He had shifted his body closer to yours in order to form a makeshift table so that sharing pastries wouldn’t result in crumbs on the floor. You can feel Heeseung's gaze on your kneecap and it makes your face flush. 

Sunoo and Jake offer to throw everybody’s trash away when you’re all done eating. The airport is in full swing by now and everyone has said their graces and apologized to Jay for giving him a hard time with how early they arrived. 

It seems that sleep has threatened to overtake you. You’re waiting in line to scan your plane ticket and board the aircraft, but the sudden warmth of the airport has caused you to yawn a few too many times. Riki’s standing in front of you and his height makes for a perfect makeshift wall to lean on. Or, that’s what your tired brain is telling you, because you slouch forward and let your cheek rest against his back as you close your eyes. 

“Sleepy girl,” you hear him chuckle. You merely nod in acknowledgement. 

Your comfort is short lived when he softly nudges you because the line has moved. Soon, you scan your ticket and give the airline agent a smile as thanks before waiting to set foot on the aircraft. 

Sunghoon notices your dropped shoulders and wordlessly takes your backpack off of you. 

“You don’t need to do that,” you say with a frown when you see Sunghoon carrying your belongings with him. 

“Let me hold it,” says Sunghoon. “You look like you’re about to fall over with the extra weight.” 

“If you insist.”

“Let us take care of you, yeah?” Jay interrupts, bumps his shoulder with yours. “You’ve been running all over Europe these past four years and we’ve only seen you a handful of times. You deserve to relax on this trip.” 

“I can’t believe you guys are being so sweet on me. I know that’s ending the second we get back to Korea.” 

The two boys laugh. “Well, it’s only fair, I guess. You’re like, the mom friend.”

“Jay is the mom friend.” The aforementioned doesn’t argue. 

The squeeze of the aircraft is tight and you’re desperately trying to look for your seat. It seems that Sunghoon is sitting in your row, which excites you, but you’ve come to realize that you’ve obtained the ungodly middle seat. You make peace with it for a brief moment before Heeseung clears his throat awkwardly.

“Let’s switch seats,” he says from behind you. His ticket shows the window seat right next to yours. “I know you hate middle seats.” 

“No, I couldn’t ask that of you.” 

“You’re not asking.” He says it with a smile and it makes you cower into yourself. “You should move to your new seat so we don’t hold up the line.” 

Heeseung suggests it in a way that is reminiscent of the days where he’d give up his sweet treats because you wanted a taste. It tugs at your heartstrings but you don’t have time to think about that when you notice how the plane is starting to fill up. 

Reluctantly, you slide into the window seat while Heeseung and Sunghoon follow suit. Your seat belts are buckled and in no time, the aircraft takes flight. 

For the next hour, Heeseung looks like he wants to say something to you. The headphones you've brought do well to cancel out the noise, for the most part. You can see from the corner of your eye that he glances at you from time to time, but you ignore it and choose to get comfortable for the long haul. 

When you notice the flight attendants come with the beverage cart, you take it as a cue to get comfortable and try to get some sleep for the next few hours. Likely due to the lack of sleep from the night prior, you fall asleep as soon as your head rests against the plane.

You don’t hear Heeseung requesting an extra bottle of water for you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

When you come to, you’re barely able to register that it’s time to eat the first meal on the flight. You take your headphones off and put it in your backpack as you blink the sleep out of your eyes. 

“Chicken or beef?” 

Heeseung looks at you, expecting an answer.

“Hm?”

He laughs softly. “Chicken or beef?” 

Your eyes dart between him and the flight attendants when you realize they’re about to approach.

“I heard them asking people which meal they want,” Heeseung explains. “So, chicken or beef?”

“Beef.” You clear your throat. 

“Beef it is.”

Sunghoon requests chicken when the flight attendant arrives. Heeseung orders beef for the both of you before you get the chance. If he notices you looking at him strangely, he doesn’t comment on it. 

The food comes quicker than expected and the meal tastes decent, though you’re trying your best not to elbow Heeseung as you cut away at your portion. He seems engrossed in the movie in front of him while you peek at what he’s watching—Iron Man, to no one’s shock. 

You soften a bit at the nostalgia that comes with Heeseung and Marvel, namely the rainy days in your youth spent marathoning the superhero movies. There had been one year in high school when he’d dressed up as Tony Stark and you as Pepper Potts despite a few girls your age whispering behind your back at the matching costumes out of jealousy. You don’t think you can think of the franchise without thinking of Heeseung. 

The memories almost bring a smile to your face. Heeseung seems to notice you glancing at his screen in between bites. You avoid eye contact when you realize he caught you staring and focus on cutting your meal, praying that Heeseung will stop looking at you and watch the movie instead. 

But he takes one earbud out and holds it to you. 

“Do you want to watch it with me?” He’s halfway through. You tell him such but he doesn’t care. 

“I don’t want to jump in halfway through.” 

“Come on, it’s not like you haven’t done that before.” 

Heeseung says it with such nonchalance that it makes your stomach drop. He sees the way your eyes falter for a moment and the way you glance between his hand and the screen. You try to come up with excuses to refuse his offer, but you’ve got eight more hours until you land.

“Sure,” you settle. Heeseung gives you one headphone and resumes watching.

Between the meals being picked up and tray tables being put away, you manage to fall asleep in your seat. Sunoo sits in front of you and upon coming back from a quick bathroom trip, sees your head resting on Heeseung’s shoulder with his cheek propped on your head. The two of you are fast asleep despite the credits rolling and he can’t help but snap a quick photo. 

You wake up some hours later when Sunghoon says your name. The cabin lights turning on temporarily blinds your vision as you wake up when you realize you’d managed to push yourself back enough to rest yourself against Heeseung’s arm. 

“Oh God,” you say in shock, pulling yourself and the seat upright. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s okay,” he replies, like he means it. “Sleeping on planes is uncomfortable. But I know you know that.” 

You nod. “Yeah. It's too hard to get comfortable.”

“I can’t believe we’re spending two weeks in Europe. I’ve never been outside of Korea and Japan before. You’ll have to help me with my English.”

“Jay or Jake can also help with that.” You say it with a yawn and Heeseung’s eyes cast to the floor for a brief moment. You barely notice, gathering your own belongings as the flight descends. 

“Yeah, I guess they can.” 

When you land, the familiar disorientation of the time difference truly wakes you up. It’s eleven in the morning when the plane door finally opens and Jay’s moving a step ahead of you as he occupies space in the aisle way to grab his belongings. You follow suit and wait for your turn to exit amongst your friends and other travel goers.

Stepping out of the plane and into the familiar terrain of the Heathrow Airport reignites your attentiveness and you smile at the fond memories of being greeted by your university friends upon arriving. The familiar atmosphere of English travelers milling around the gate warms your chest with nostalgia. 

You wait for the boys to emerge before signaling Jay, who follows beside you as you walk towards the baggage claim area. You lead him with little trouble down the escalator as the rest of your friends follow suit, yawning in an attempt to wake themselves up. 

“It’s weird seeing you in your element,” Jay comments as he stands beside you, periodically checking the turnstile for his luggage. “A good kind of weird.” 

“This airport might as well be my second home,” you tell him. “It feels routine to wait for my luggage at this point.”

“I’m tempted to sleep when we get to the hotel but I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule more than it already is.” Jay pulls his luggage. 

“Yeah, that’s smart. I think we should take an hour to freshen up and find a place to eat before we go exploring.”

“I can already hear Jake whining about it.” 

The two of you share a laugh. “He’ll just have to get used to it. We can have an early night and rest up before we explore tomorrow.” 

“He slept on the plane, for the most part,” Jay informs. “Surprisingly, he didn’t snore as loudly as he usually does.” He spots your luggage and takes it off of the belt for you. 

On the other side of the carousel, Heeseung and Sunoo are standing together to find their own luggages. 

“You guys looked pretty cozy,” Sunoo comments. “It was nice seeing you two like that again.”

“It felt nice,” he mutters. “I really missed her.” 

Heeseung doesn’t have to tell Sunoo what happened between the two of you for him to know that you two aren’t as close as you used to be. The older boy feels nearly ashamed that his own friends have caught up on his awkward demeanor.

“Well, she’s back for good and we’re here on vacation. Try not to dwell on whatever it is that’s making you think too hard.”

Heeeung laughs. “I’ll try, Sunoo. It’s just hard when we’re not as close. How can I compete when we’re in her college town and how will I talk to her in Paris?”

“Well, you never know,” Sunoo says as he picks up his luggage. “Anything can happen in the City of Love.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The hotel itself is modest in size. Quaint, old cobblestone surrounding the entryway like you remember it. The people are busy walking in and out of the meeting rooms in the lobby as you walk to the concierge to sort out the rooming situation. Jay stands beside to help distribute the keys and the employee behind the desk bids you a good stay. 

The view from the fifth floor is spectacular already. You catch glimpses of the streets of London below you, street lights decorating the sidewalk and flowers surrounding the city. This feels like the London you remember and it adds a slight pep in your step. 

“Alright, it’s decided that three of you are gonna share,” you say as you reach the first room. “The other four will be split into two rooms and I’ll get a room for myself.”

“That’s not fair,” Jake huffs. 

“I refuse to share a room with any of you.” You pocket the key to the single bedroom. “Plus, Jay’s mom helped me make the arrangements when we planned the trip.”

“Favoritism,” Jake coughs. You nudge his side.

“To make it fair, everyone will pick up a key card without knowing the room number and flip it. That’ll determine who you room with.”

“Alright,” Jungwon says. “Fair enough.”

One by one, your friends pick their key cards and discover their roommates. Jake, Sunoo, and Riki are the unlucky three who will be rooming together for the duration of the week. Jay and Sunghoon are in the room directly across from theirs while Heeseung and Jungwon share a room. 

“Let’s meet at the lobby in an hour,” Jay suggests. “We can get some lunch and do some exploring before deciding on dinner.”

“We can take it easy and sleep early tonight,” you add in. “I know that flying internationally is always a bitch and I try to time my sleep when I need to.”

The eight of you part ways. Your suite has a beautiful view of the sky and the room itself makes you feel like the main character of a romance film. The bed is just to your liking with pillows stacked to the nines. It feels nice to have a moment to yourself. With your friend Yunjin backing out of the trip at the last minute due to family conflicts, you hadn’t had time to think about anything other than arriving at the hotel safely. 

You busy yourself with a shower and freshen up, pulling out options for you to wear for the rest of the night. You settle with something stylish yet comfortable and put enough makeup on your face until you’re satisfied with the person staring back at you in the bathroom mirror. 

True to your word, you enter the lobby when you said you would. Jay and Sunghoon are already downstairs by the seats. Sunghoon stands to offer you the loveseat but you decline politely and sift through your phone until the rest of the guys arrive. 

When they do, it’s like all eight of you collectively agree that hunger has overtaken you. You know of a nearby cafe that serves sandwiches from your days in university. You lead them to the quaint restaurant that has your friends staring at the art on the walls as you greet the cashier and order. 

It’s a slow moment for the eight of you as you all eat in relative silence, the sound of quiet slurping audible from the coffees everyone has chosen to drink. 

“Did you spend a lot of time here?” Jungwon asks. 

“Around the area, yeah,” you say, looking around. The outdoor seating area is just towards the edge of the street with the weather being a cool, cloudy day. “I loved coming to cafe’s like these with my friends after class. We’d study until they kicked us out and then go for a drink or two.” 

“We should go to a pub while we’re here,” Jake suggests. “I’ve always wanted to see an English pub. We have a few back in Australia.” 

“I know just the place! My friend’s brother owns it and they know I’ll be in town for the next week. It would be nice to catch up with them.” 

“Hopefully your friends here kept you out of trouble,” Sunghoon teases. You flick him with your fingers. 

“I’m the most responsible one out of you seven and don’t you forget that.” 

“Do you miss being here now that you’re back?” Riki asks in between sandwich bites. “God, I love London already.” 

“You’re going to choke if you don’t slow down.” He apologies and takes a single bite. “Well, I think I miss my friends a lot. I don’t necessarily miss being in university, but I miss the freedoms that come with it.”

“I still can’t believe you spent four years of your life here,” Sunghoon says. “That’s insane when you think about how you cried when your aunt took you to Tokyo for a week when you were in middle school.”

The boys laugh and you frown. “I was twelve, okay? You wound me. But yeah, I think I grew out of my shell in high school and had this urge to travel but didn’t know how to do it. I was surprised when my parents encouraged me to apply to King’s College, even more so when I got accepted.”

“You’ve always been too good to stay in one place for too long,” Jake says. “We got close until halfway through our first year of high school, I think. I always got the sense that you wanted more than what our hometown could offer.” 

“I always wanted to move to the heart of Seoul eventually. But I think I needed to come here in order to figure that out.”

“Would you really have stayed in London if you had the chance?” 

You avoid looking at Heeseung, whose attention averted from his phone to you. 

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “But what I do know is that I’m happy to be back in Korea and I’m happy to be traveling to Europe.” 

“You always did have that sense of adventure,” Heeseung says. “I remember you were the one who always got us in trouble when we explored a little too far.” 

“Your mom was pissed that time I walked a little too far down the shoreline when we went to Jeju.” The memory feels warm despite your discomfort at having Heeseung’s eyes on you. “I didn’t know who she wanted to kill more, me or you.”

“Definitely me. You could do no wrong in her eyes.”

“What happened?” Sunoo asks. 

“My family and Heeseung’s took a trip to Jeju Island when we were around seven, if I remember correctly. I’d taken swimming lessons and thought I could show off my new skills at the beach we were at, but there was a wave that was a bit too much for me to handle.”

“She was nearly swallowed by the ocean.” Heeseung hits his knee with his palm as he recalls the memory. “I mean, I was seven and it seemed like the wave was gigantic but to my mom, it must’ve been just tall enough that she could see over it.”

“She yelled at him for the rest of the night because she had to pull me out from under the water,” you add. “I was fine. My parents laughed it off but his mom was so pissed at him for not telling me to come back to the shore.”

Echoes of laughter fill the space. It feels nice to be able to laugh like this with Heeseung, temporarily forgetting why you were so awkward around him in the first place. 

When the check is paid, you lead the group around the area. Sunghoon takes out his camera and captures everything that inspires him while Sunoo and Riki are off to explore the shops around. It brings warmth to your chest to see your friends enthusiastically exploring the space you once called home. It had been a dream of yours since Jay came to visit and let you drag him around town for the day. Having them with you feels like you’re healing a part of yourself. 

You duck into the quiet bookstore you used to frequent while you were a student. Filled with novels and trinkets from floor to ceiling, it feels familiar to you. 

You get lost in thought when you glance at the books in front of you and you don’t notice Heeseung approaching. 

“Still love books?” 

“Jesus,” you gasp, clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he laughs. “Seems like you still scare easily.” You hate that he knows you so well. Clearing your throat, you put the book back. 

“Yes, to both. I used to come to this bookstore a lot when I had free time.” 

He looks around. “It looks like a nice place.”

“They have a reading nook in the back. The owner is this sweet older woman who was the first person to help me with my English when I first moved. I think she let me read books for free because I used to bring her sweets.”

“That sounds like something you’d do.” You cast your eyes to the floor. “It’s crazy that there’s parts of you that I don’t know.” 

“Yeah,” you mumble solemnly. Heeseung’s eyes bore into the side of your face as you pretend to look at the titles of the books. 

“Do you talk to your college friends often?” 

“All the time. My closest friends live all over the place. Two of them are from the area, one went to live in the States, and a few live in Busan.”

“I’ll bet it was nice to have some Korean friends when you moved. I remember you used call me to tell me about your first semester here.” 

You can’t help but think about the first few months after you moved when you would call Heeseung for a bit of comfort when things felt too overwhelming. With Korea being nine hours ahead, you always felt a little too bothersome phoning when it was the middle of the night for him, not used to the time difference. But he always answered you or called back when he had the chance. 

You’d spend hours on the phone, talking to him about how difficult it was to learn English and how making friends was not as easy as you thought it would be. Navigating the city felt lonely and isolating because you’d barely made friends in your classes in the first few weeks. Heeseung was there through all of it, reminding you that being eighteen years old in a new country made you brave despite feeling like you were a failure for not grasping a hold on life like you thought you would. 

Falling asleep on the phone with him became a routine, too. Whether it was you who fell asleep after a long day or Heeseung, who had stayed up listening to your worries, the sound of his breathing made it feel like you were back home in Korea instead of exploring a grand new world. 

Soon enough, you could talk your way around and piece together conversations with your classmates until you’d found friends who shared similar interests. Heeseung was the first person you told and the first person to tell you how proud he was that you extended your roots to learn about yourself away from home. You always thrived off of his praise as if making him proud was something you never sought out to do, but appreciated when it happened.

But that was four years ago. Whatever friendship you had with him then is not the one you have with him now. 

“It was nice,” you settle. “I miss my college friends. You might get to meet some later in the week.” 

“Nice,” he mutters to himself when you walk past him. “That’s really nice.” 

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The rest of the week is spent in your old stomping grounds, from touring your campus, to shopping, to sightseeing. The eight of you split up more often than not to explore different areas based on mutual interest. You find that Heeseung tends to gravitate towards you and you aren’t sure if it’s because he feels guilty for rejecting you or because he genuinely wants to explore what you want to do. 

Still though, at least one other person joins you. It feels nice to have a buffer to avoid any awkward conversation or moments, especially when Heeseung trips over his words trying to talk to you. 

The week goes by too quickly for your liking. Spending time in London has felt like coming back home, in a way. You’ll always have your memories here and this city will remain the same when you return in the future. Now, it no longer feels like the place you escape too because things got too hard back home. 

Even with Heeseung next to you more often than not, you’ve found a happy medium The awkwardness dissipates when you set aside your indifference to show everybody your favorite places, watching them explore the city for themselves. 

As expected, Riki and Jake have spent a little too much on clothing with the hopes that they can fit it into their luggage on the way back. It fits miraculously. 

Your friend Leo, the one whose brother owns the pub you used to frequent, tells you he’s excited to see you after all these months. It’s a Friday night when you arrive, seeing it well populated. But it’s rather early in the evening before the rush hour, so you enjoy the relative quietness before people rush in. 

Heeseung, on the other hand, has been in a stupor for the latter half of the week. It began when he managed to talk to you in the bookstore, but blossomed when he watched you navigate your way around the city. You barely looked at your phone for directions and had no problem switching to English when you greeted shop owners. Hearing you speak fluently in a language you once struggled with in your childhood made him feel somewhat removed from your life. The two of you used to joke that he was always better with English. Now, the tables have turned. 

The fear that you’d told your school friends about what transpired between the two of you plants itself in the back of Heeseung’s mind. He worries that your friends won’t like him and that you’ve scorned his name, but he chides himself just as much as he worries because he knows you and how deeply you care about people. 

Heeseung wishes he could go back in time to change what happened. He wishes that he’d admit his mistake and confess to you before you left. It had taken him a long time to confront his own feelings, but seeing you back in Korea made him realize he didn’t care if the relationship was long distance or not. He didn’t care as long as you were in his life. 

The months spent apart without phone calls or texts were agony. He loathed hearing what you were up to from your mutual friends or when he accidentally watched your Instagram stories. Seeing you happy without him made his heart lurch, not out of possessiveness, but because he wished you were comfortable enough to share those moments with him. 

To boil it down, Heeseung hopes this trip can undo a year’s worth of his ignorance. 

But before he can think about that, your exclamation pulls him towards a strange man before you. 

“Leo!” 

The sheer volume of your voice doesn’t go unnoticed by Heeseung, who eyes the bloke the second you make a dash for him. His heart winces when your arms wrap around the stranger’s neck and as he spins you around, squeezing you for good measure. He isn’t pleased when Leo settles to let his arm rest around your waist instead of letting you go. He’s even less so when you don’t attempt to separate yourself from him. 

“Hey, pretty girl,” Leo says with a boyish grin, accent making Heeseung nearly roll his eyes. 

“This is Leo.” You let your head rest on his shoulder for a brief moment. “He’s one of my friends from university. I think we met in, what, second year?” 

“Second year, auditing class with Professor Donahue on Mondays and Wednesdays,” he says. “God, that class was so boring.” 

“He’s the friend whose brother owns the bar,” you explain to them. You introduce Leo to each friend respectively. “Jay and Jake are my friends who are fluent in English.” 

“You can speak it and understand it as well, right?” Leo asks as he shakes Heeseung’s hand.

He nods while giving him a tight smile. “Just a little. I’m practicing.” 

“Nah, you sound perfect already.”

Heeseung feels indifferent to see you in your element with people from your past. The bartender, who is Leo’s brother, tells you the first two rounds are on the house after he checks IDs. Riki and Jungwon are excited to have their first pub experience after you make them promise to take it slow and drink lots of water in between. 

“It’s a bit weird seeing her be like that,” Leo says to Jay with a laugh. “When we first got to know each other, it was me who had to tell her to watch how much she drank.”

“Y/N, drinking?” Jake asks. “No way. Back in Korea, she got drunk maybe twice a year.” 

“She and a mutual friend, Elizabeth, were as thick as thieves. They were like a package deal before we all graduated and until she moved to the States. They’d always go a little too hard after exam season was over or if people invited them out on a Saturday night.”

“Y/N’s always been the responsible one out of the bunch,” Jay adds. “In high school, there was one time she got so drunk that she nearly scaled the roof of my friend’s house. Heeseung nearly fell off trying to get her down. After that, she swore off alcohol.” 

Heeseung makes a few comments in the conversation as he watches you catch up with Leo’s brother and as you facilitate conversation between the rest of the guys. There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realizes there’s a lot he doesn’t know about you. 

The two of you talked less as you became more comfortable in your environment. At first, Heeseung took it to heart and made the assumption that you’d chosen your friends in England over him, but a stern conversation with his mother made him realize he was being juvenile. He could only comfort you so much when he was oceans away. It was probably a good thing that you were talking to him less because that must’ve meant you were as overwhelmed or scared like you were when you first moved to England. 

You’d still call him a few times a week before bed–when Heeseung was getting ready for the day–to update him on everything that happened in the past week. You two texted more frequently than you conversed, sending him pictures of new places you’d discovered or him sending photos of your mutual friends with sad faces at the notion of you not being able to be there with them. 

Heeseung had always felt a bit jealous of your time abroad. He loved Korea, but he yearned for the same sense of adventure you once had. Only, he hadn’t figured it out until halfway through university when it was too late to transfer or apply for a semester abroad. When Jay had proposed this trip and that his father would expense half of it, he jumped at the opportunity to go. 

Although, he didn’t know it would hurt him this much.

Hearing you talk about your life here made him feel like it was his fault that he barely knew your life in England. It was so easy when the two of you lived a few blocks from each other; he’d run into you with your other friends on the street or know exactly where you were likely to be at any given moment. He knew you felt the same way about him too, as you always knew where to find him if you really needed him. 

But it feels like this is the first time he’s seeing you for who you are as an adult, not the child that he grew up with. 

Surely, Heeseung always knew you had a good head on your shoulders. You were always the more outspoken one who stood up for what you believed in, no matter how big or small. You never backed down if someone was giving you a hard time and it was one of the reasons why Heeseung had struck up a conversation with you as you two played in the sandbox after a few kids had stolen the toys he was playing with. That sense of responsibility and gratuity followed you into your adolescent and teenage years, too. Not once had Heeseung heard anyone say a bad word about your character. He’d like to think he had something to do with it, but deep down, Heeseung knows it was all you. 

When you confessed nearly a year ago, Heeseung felt like his heart might’ve ceased to function properly. Truth be told, he’s never taken his daydreams about being your boyfriend too seriously. He always wondered if it was normal to develop small crushes on your girl-friends at a young age and wondered if those butterflies in his stomach was because of how often his other friends at school would playfully tease him until they stopped. Jake and Sunghoon had been people who teased him for having a girl as his best friend until they befriended you too, and Heeseung was satisfied when they stopped with their comments. They, too, could understand why Heeseung was so keen on keeping you around. 

But the butterflies never quite left him. Your smile was too bright. Your voice was too angelic. Everything about you and how you fit into his life felt a little too perfect; Heeseung hated cliches in his youth and this felt like one big cliche joke. He knew his mother didn’t approve of the girls she’d see him with, even in college when he got into his first serious relationship. She wasn’t as enthusiastic about her as she was with you. At the time, the frustration seemed too biased until it ended in a way that made Heeseung realize his mother truly knew what was best for him.

Heeseung never considered the possibility of dating you until you confessed your feelings for him. 

As much as he plays off being the spontaneous, go-with-the-flow type of person, Heeseung gets scared when things go unplanned. He backs away from courage and from moments that make or break his character. He likes to play it safe unless he can make a calculated risk in his favor, choosing to let others fall flat on their face and learn from their mistakes. Heeseung had never considered the possibility of you having feelings for him either. That fateful summer night is one he will always remember, especially in the way the light in your eyes dimmed when he told you he didn’t feel the same. 

He remembers your quick apologies and the way you backed away too quickly for his liking. He had tried to reach for your hand to tell you it was okay and that he didn’t feel awkward about it, but you’d shook your head and merely told him you’d see him later. Heeseung had never seen you leave so abruptly. But he figured you’d get over it, as you typically do when things don’t go your way. You’re resilient like that.

Heeseung assumed you needed time to heal from the awkward encounter and hadn’t reached out to you for a week. He didn’t think much of it at the time and hadn’t made plans with you until he realized you’d be leaving for Europe the week following. By then, it had been too late, because he stopped by your house the morning after you left. 

Getting together with Seulgi after you left felt too easy. He knew she’d always had a thing for him but brushed her off for reasons he couldn’t fathom until he bumped into her a few weeks after you’d left without so much as a text or a voicemail. Feeling a bit irritated at your wordless departure, Heeseung took Seulgi out on a few days to take his mind off of you.

Except, it didn’t work. Heeseung found himself fantasizing about what it would be like to go out to dinner with you when she was sitting in front of him. When she’d texted him to thank him for his time, Heeseung imagined the kind of things you would say after your first date. When he kissed her for the first time underneath the twinkling lights of a local fair, Heeseung pictured you as he closed his eyes. The fantasy was ruined when Seulgi’s perfume touched his olfactory senses, pulling him back into reality. The guilt of kissing somebody who wasn’t you ate at his chest the moment he saw Seulgi smile at him from where he stood. 

He tried his best with her but broke it off when the unrest overtook his mental wellbeing. It was amicable, for the most part. All Heeseung knows is that his parents (along with all of his friends) were happy that he hadn’t continued with that relationship.

“Y/N used to talk a lot about you, Heeseung,” Leo says, bringing the aforementioned out of his thoughts. “We’d be out at dinner or something and she’d always run outside to answer your calls.”

“Really?” Heeseung says out of surprise. He didn’t know you did that. 

“You bet,” Leo replies. “She talked a lot about Korea when we’d hang out with our friends but she seemed to talk about you the most.” 

Heeseung wonders if you told him about what happened between the two of you the summer before you left. 

“I’m flattered.” Heeseung honestly doesn’t know what else to say. He chooses to tell the truth. “I missed her a lot. I grew up with her living a few blocks away. It felt weird not to be with her when I went to college.” 

“Y/N said the same thing. Every time she���d be homesick, she’d tell us she needed to call you.” Leo’s words bring a warm flush to Heeseung’s face but he chooses to blame it on the alcohol. 

“I heard my name,” you say as you walk to where they’re sitting. “Not talking shit about me, my dear Leo?”

“Never,” he teases. “Although, I’m sure I still have some pretty photos of you and Elizabeth at this very pub.”

“Oh God, please don’t.” You push his shoulder when he moves to reach his phone. “Those do not need to see the light of day and you definitely need to delete them.”

“How else am I going to blackmail you?” 

“You’re the worst.” You look cute when your nose is a bit red from drinking. You always did suffer from redness to the face when you drank. “I can’t believe Elizabeth and I let you into our friend group.”

“Hey! I was the one who introduced you to her in the first place.”

“I’ll bet if I texted her right now, I’d have it in writing that she’d choose me over you.”

“Okay, you don’t need to do that because she definitely would.” 

The group laughs and conversations flow nicely as a few other friends from your university days join you later in the evening. It feels like a reunion, of sorts. It feels especially wonderful to have most of your favorite people under one roof despite the slight language barrier. But everyone seems to get along well enough, especially Riki, who has taken a liking to your Japanese friend you met on your first day of orientation. 

When the room gets too hot, you make your way outside where you’re fenced in by a metal barricade. It’s cold outside, but the alcohol running through your veins keeps you warm enough that you decide not to go back to ask for a jacket. Heeseung wants to follow you but stays still in his seat when he sees Sunghoon exit the door after you leave. 

The wine in your hands is still halfway full. You’ve decided that you’ve taken the lead far too many times this week and that Jay can handle getting everyone home. It’s your fourth drink of the night, just enough to keep you buzzed for the duration of your time at the pub. 

You register the door sliding open and make room for Sunghoon when you spot him over your shoulder. 

“Your friends are really nice,” he comments, leaning on the railing next to you. 

“They’re the best,” you say with a fond smile. “I owe them a lot. I only started enjoying my time here when we became friends.” 

“You know, I was a little worried that you wouldn’t be happy when you moved to London for the first time.”

“What makes you say that?” 

“I think a lot of people would describe you as brave and as someone who will dive in head first to things that scare you, which is true for the most part. But I think people rarely pay attention to the vulnerable side of people like you because it looks like you have it all together.”

“I was a total wreck when I first moved,” you said. “I don’t know if you remember the few times I called you when Heeseung wasn’t able to pick up.”

“Oh, I remember. That was the first time you cried to me and now you have no issue getting your snot on my sweaters.” You swat his arm at the joke but he dodges you just in time. “I remember Yeji getting worried about you too. She was so young and always said she wanted to be brave like you.”

“Sweet girl,” you say. 

“The two of you are similar. I watch out for her a lot, you know? Our relatives always think she puts on a brave face and don’t think twice when she talks about her fears. They always tell her she’ll be fine, but it’s hard to actualize that when you don’t believe it.”

“I thought about coming home a few times when things got really hard,” you confess. “I was out of my depth because I couldn’t speak English very well. I could only speak fragments and getting my way around campus was so hard.” 

“I don’t know how you did it, if I’m being honest. But I’m glad that you stuck around long enough to see what your life would be like.”

“Me too. I’d really love to think I’ve become a better person now that I’ve gotten the chance to know myself beyond the comfort of my home, you know? I love you guys and I love my family, but sometimes being back in Korea felt like I was listening to what was expected of me instead of what I wanted.”

Sunghoon laughs. “Yeji said the same thing a few weeks before we left for London. Part of me thinks she’s considering studying abroad. I found a few college brochures in her room.”

“Don’t you know better than to snoop inside your sister’s bedroom?”

“Yah,” he says. “Yeji steals too many of my sweaters and she said I could get them back.”

“You’re just too easy to make fun of, Hoonie.” 

A comfortable silence passes over the both of you. The audible sound of people talking amongst themselves and the beautiful lights of the city illuminate what makes London so beautiful. It isn’t until Sunghoon speaks that you pull yourself out of your daydreams.

“I heard you that night,” Sunghoon confesses. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“The night of the bonfire.I know you told Heeseung you liked him.”

You turn your head to him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured you’d tell me whenever you felt ready,” he says with a shrug. “You went back to London a couple of weeks later and I wanted to spend time with my friend. There never seemed to be a right time.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and balances from one leg to another. “You looked really sad, Y/N. I’ve never seen you look that way before.” 

There’s a beat of silence. 

Sunghoon listens as you sigh and you push yourself from the railing. Your back touches the cold metal as you look beside yourself to see him. 

“I deluded myself into thinking Heeseung might’ve felt something for me too,” you admit. “It’s not that girls and boys can’t be friends, but towards the end of our friendship, it was like something shifted.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d…touch me longer. Hugs, pulling me by my waist at parties, lingering near me at Riki’s bonfires, that kind of thing. He started playing with my fingers a lot more. Heeseung never used to touch me like that. He’d interrupt conversation with guys to pull me away. I always knew what he was doing but I liked him so much that I didn’t care if he interrupted a good thing between me and someone else.” 

Sunghoon purses his lips and watches as you look ahead at the glass doors to see your friends laughing. “I noticed that too.”

“When we were alone, it felt like he was one sentence away from telling me he loved me more than a friend. Not that platonic crap that the eight of us tell each other, but the deep shit where that kind of love comes from kindred souls.” 

“Heeseung’s too stupid to see what’s good for him anyway.” Sunghoon pulls a laugh out of you and he’s glad to hear it. 

“But then I confessed to him the night of that bonfire.” You bite your lip at the memory, willing yourself not to tear up. “I mean, you heard him. He told me he didn’t feel the same way and didn’t want to ruin our friendship because it was perfect as it was.”

“And then you heard he’d gotten together with Seulgi.”

“Yeah.” You nod once and look down at your drink. 

“They weren’t together long,” Sunghoon says. “She wanted more but he didn’t want to give that to her. The boys were confused because he seemed to be really happy with her until he broke it off so sudden. I always thought it was because he felt too guilty after rejecting you.”

“What did the guys think?”

“Riki hated her. I have a feeling it was because she wasn’t you, though. I think Sunoo, Jungwon, and Jake were surprised when he’d gotten together with Seulgi after you left and were trying to be nice about it. Jay was indifferent, but then again, you two weren’t as close as you were with the rest of them until he visited you while you were away.”

“Did his opinion change?” 

“Definitely. Heeseung had a period of time in the new year where he went on a couple of dates with her, telling us he might’ve made a mistake by breaking things off too soon.” Sunghoon shakes his head as he tells the story. “Jay was unbelievably pissed.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how he gets when he’s angry. He’s quiet and doesn’t talk until he’s calm. But it was like a volcano erupted, or something. Jay came back mid January to find out Heeseung had been seeing Seulgi for a couple of weeks and completely lost it on him. He said things about not knowing a good thing if it spat in his face and how he ruined every chance of happiness because of his own doing.” 

“Wow…I didn’t know Jay said that.”

“It was scary. Heeseung tried to fight back and say it was his life and that Jay didn’t have a right to say what he could and couldn’t do, but the poor guy never stood a chance. Jay asked him if he would be happy if you came back to see him dating Seulgi and that shut him up real quick.”

“What do I have to do with it?” you ask. “He rejected me before I left.” 

“I don’t know,” Sunghoon says truthfully. “I always thought that Heeseung was trying to redeem himself through Seulgi. But I guess we’ll never truly know.” 

“It’s been almost a year,” you reminisce. “You’d think I would’ve gotten over him by now after spending time in Europe with, well, other boys.”

“He’s not just any guy who rejected you,” Sunghoon says. He looks out at the street, finding the words to say. “You two had been best friends since before me or the guys got to know either of you. There’s a special kind of bond between people who grew up together, you know?

“I think a large part of you misses being friends with him. Sure, rejection always stings, but it’s knowing that you don’t have your best friend that hurts you more.”

“Jeez,” you chide. “You always know how I feel.”

Sunghoon laughs. “I’m just observant. I know that it’s hard to be on this trip because Heeseung’s trying to be that friend you once knew. He probably feels guilty for giving you the cold shoulder during your first few weeks back in Seoul.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well he’s not doing a great job showing it. Life would be easier if he left me alone.”

“But do you want that?” 

You cast your eyes to the floor. “No, I don’t.” 

Satisfied with your answer, Sunghoon nods. 

“You know, I knew Heeseung had feelings for you the night we played spin the bottle just before we graduated high school.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hoon. He never liked me.” 

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Do you remember what happened that night?” 

“Vaguely. I remember that being my first time trying alcohol and Jake having to cut me off when I couldn’t walk straight.”

He nods. “When you were sober enough to string a few sentences together, some girl suggested playing spin the bottle. When it was your turn to spin, it landed on me.” 

You make a face. “Ah. I do remember kissing you.” 

“Well you don’t have to look grossed out,” Sunghoon teases. “Everyone knew it was awkward because we’d been friends for like, five years at that point. We were both so flustered that the kiss lasted for maybe two seconds before everyone cheered.

“Heeseung was pissed. I saw him looking at me like I’d killed his family, or something. I swore I could see steam coming out of his ears. He wouldn’t talk to me for a week because I’d been your first kiss.”

“Seriously?” 

“Dead serious.” Sunghoon laughs at the memory. “He wouldn’t answer my texts. In the group chat we were in, he’d acknowledge everyone but me. It wasn’t until a week later when we were all hanging out that I told him there was nothing between us and it was awkward to kiss you in front of our friends.” 

You stand there, dumbfounded. “Huh.”

“I’ve never told anyone that,” he confesses. “I doubt anyone remembers us kissing except for him. I assumed this would be a story I’d tell you and the guys when you both eventually got together.” 

He murmurs an apology. “It’s okay, Hoon. I’m glad you told me. I guess I’m just…confused. Why did he reject me if he allegedly liked me?” 

“I wish I knew. He was miserable when you left and refused to talk about you moving back to Europe for your final year abroad. Heeseung was really sad when he found out you weren’t coming home for Christmas break.” 

“I couldn’t bear to see him. I was so heartbroken and the friends here tonight were consoling me in the way they knew how. I knew I’d be a depressed wreck if I came back home.”

“That makes sense,” Sunghoon affirms for you. “I’m glad you met up with Jay while he was here, though. You got some kind of Christmas gift from home.” 

“Me too. I feel like Jay and I got closer because of it. I knew he could tell something was off but he didn’t say anything about it. Something tells me he knows more than he cares to say.” 

“You know Jay.” You both nod. “More observant and caring than the rest of us. Part of me thinks Heeseung’s jealous of your new friendship with him since the two of you basically planned this whole trip on your own.” 

“Well, Jay has more international travel experience and his dad knows the right people,” you say with a shrug. “I spent four years of my life here. It makes sense.”

“To us, yes. To Heeseung? I think his feelings cloud his judgment.” 

“He never used to confuse me,” you admit. “We used to talk about how much we hated when people made us guess how they felt or what they were thinking. We always said it was unfair if you make people you love, make you guess their intentions. But he’s doing that to me and it’s been driving me insane.

“Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I watched him date girls in high school. I watched him with what I thought would be his first serious girlfriend during our first year of college before he went through that short hookup phase. God, that hurt me so bad and I couldn’t say anything because it wasn’t my life.” 

“For what it’s worth, I think it was brave of you to confess to him,” Sunghoon tells you. “I don’t say that as a cheap cop out to make you feel better either. You know me, I’m really sentimental about things even if I don’t come off that way. To confess your feelings to someone who you love…one can only hope to hear that someday.” 

You nudge your shoulder with his. “You say that like you didn’t have girls begging for a date.” 

Sunghoon laughs and you know what he means. 

“You’ve always been the bravest of all of us,” he continues. “I think the reason why I wanted to be friends with you when we were kids is because you didn’t take bullshit from people. I was too shy to stand up for myself between my career as a figure skater while trying to be a normal kid. You and Heeseung offered that kind of normalcy. I could see you two in the bleachers at my competitions and then we’d go out for ice cream like it was any other day.” 

“Well, now you’re going to make me cry.” 

“I mean it, Y/N. You’re a great friend and a great person. I hope Heeseung hasn’t fucked things up too bad that you leave his life for good.” 

You shiver. “Me too.” 

“Talk to him,” Sunghoon advises. “Do it before we leave. You’re removed from your life back home.” You open your mouth to refute but he beats you to the chase. “If it doesn’t work out, then you’ll know your answer when you go home and you can resume your life without Heeseung in it.” 

Sunghoon leaves you alone with your thoughts but makes you promise that you’ll join the group soon.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

When you walk back into the pub, Jake clouds your personal space before you can even think about ordering another drink.

“Jesus, Hoon. Couldn’t you have offered Y/N your jacket if you guys were gonna be out that long? Poor girl looks like she’s about to freeze to death.

Jake’s affinity for the dramatic never ceases. Your friends look at your goosebumps and the way you’re acclimating to the warmer temperature inside while Sunghoon merely rolls his eyes.

“I’m fine,” you say. “We only came in because I started to get cold.”

“Let me get my jacket for you,” Heeseung says as he rises from his seat. 

“No.” You’re sure you say it too abruptly, but you can’t bear the thought of wearing his clothes after the conversation you just had. “I’m fine, honestly.” 

“Stop being stubborn and wear a damn jacket,” Leo chides, wrapping his coat around your shoulders. “You have this habit of never bringing one when you need it and it drives me crazy.” 

“But that’s what I have you for, don’t I?” 

As you tug the material closer to your body, Sunghoon watches as Heeseung stares at Leo with a hard expression. 

“Not when you’re back in Seoul, you goof.” Leo takes your empty glass. “I’m glad you have these guys back at home. They seem really good for you.” 

“I love them a lot.” You say it so tenderly with your head tilted as you look at the boys you’d call family, only for them to coo at your clearly vulnerable, inebriated state.

“My mother, my older sister, and best friend,” Riki says with a hiccup as he engulfs you in a hug. “Seriously, I would be dead in a ditch without you.” 

“I don’t know a better person,” Sunoo chimes in from where he’s seated. 

“There was one time where Y/N had this lemon phase where she couldn’t stop drinking lemonade or eating lemon candy,” Jake tells the group. “Now I think of her every time I see something yellow.” 

“That’s kind of fitting though, isn’t it?” Leo asks. “Yellow for sunshine.” 

Everybody agrees and it makes your cheeks and neck warm up. You hide yourself in Leo’s jacket, but God, Heeseung wishes he could hide you in his arms instead. 

Still, he can’t help but agree with Leo. If there’s any truth to his words, it’s that you are made of pure, unfiltered sunshine.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, all eight of you board the train for a two-hour ride to Paris. For the next five days, you’ll be acting as a tourist rather than tour guide, for the most part. Jay volunteers to take the lead since you did most of the heavy lifting in London. You do, however, chime in to give him a few recommendations from your prior visits to the city. 

Sunghoon’s advice plagues your thoughts, so much so that Jungwon has had to guide you out of the hotel and into the cab before arriving at the train station. Both he and Sunoo look a bit worried about you, but you wave them off and tell them you had one too many to drink. You know they don’t believe you but you’re grateful they don’t press on. 

Paris is much more beautiful than you remember it, and it’s likely due to the fact that you’re here on vacation, not because you wanted a weekend getaway to escape the stress of midterms and exams. The people are just as indifferent as ever. You’re able to practice some of your basic French to order coffee and pastries for everyone. It’s a feat that leaves Heeseung impressed and you try not to acknowledge him when you see his jaw drop. 

The hotel itself is more beautiful than the last. You have the room with the balcony and double doors leading to a breathtaking view of the buildings and streets below. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen, even if the streets are littered with trash and the people are a bit too loud. It still feels charming. 

The rooming situation is the same as London, with you in the single room and the rest of the boys to fend for themselves. This time, Jungwon, Jay, and Sunghoon are sharing the three bedroom with Heeseung and Jake sharing another, and Sunoo and Riki in the other double. The hotel must’ve miscalculated the rooming situation and put your single room at the end of the hallway away from the others, but you aren��t complaining. 

The first few days are filled with happiness and dread, namely when you see Heeseung as you begin your day. He has a knack for making you laugh until you come to the notion that you really shouldn’t be finding his jokes very funny because he doesn’t deserve that kind of reaction from you. 

In fact, he doesn’t deserve your attention after ignoring you for as long as he has. Seeing Leo again brought up memories of crying in his flat with Elizabeth and drinking too much wine to forget the pain temporarily. Your friends invited you to a night spent in the pub after Leo begged his brother to close it for the night so that you could have a free space to drink and talk about Heeseung until your voice gave out. 

Your irritation carries over and Heeseung can tell when you move away from him when he tries to stand next to you. He’s hurt but he tries to understand that you have a right to be, even if he knows in his heart the reasons why he acted the way he did. He just needs to find time to talk to you, even if the conversation doesn’t end the way he hopes it will. 

With two days left on the trip, you’ve eaten your way through the streets of Paris and have done your fair share of shopping. Each of the boys had bought you a small token of their appreciation (Heeseung paid for your latte, Jay purchased a small wallet from Prada, Jake gifted you new sunglasses, Sunghoon a charm for your bracelet, Sunoo a bowl of pasta for lunch, Jungwon a pair of earrings, and Riki a new jacket that looks similar to his from back home). It warms your heart to know you have people who care about you enough to show and tell you. 

The Eiffel Tower calls your name one late afternoon and by the time you all manage to walk up, the sun is setting below the horizon. There are couples around Heeseung who are taking photos left and right, one of which asks him to take a few pictures for them. He can’t help but wish he was in their place, asking a stranger to take a photo of the two of you as he kisses the apple of your cheek. Heeseung snaps a few good ones before the couple thanks him. 

It doesn’t help that you look like a walking goddess. Truth be told, Heeseung wanted to buy you more than just coffee when the boys agreed to each give you something as a token of their gratitude. Heeseung had come up with a list of ideas he wanted advice for, but it was Sunghoon who’d told him to keep it simple for your sake. He was right, as always, because you thanked him with a pleasant smile instead of ignoring him like you had in the days prior. Heeseung gets the feeling that you wouldn’t appreciate a grand gesture from him right now.

He hates that he can’t read you like he used to. He hates that the other friends know you better than he does, and he hates that he’s in the City of Love and he can’t call you his girlfriend. 

Riki and Jungwon are more perceptive than they let on. Heeseung sees the way their eyes dart between the two of you and how they’ve been trying their best to navigate the new dynamic. Riki, especially, hadn’t been receptive of Seulgi the first time Heeseung invited her to a bonfire. Heeseung had overheard the younger boy telling Jungwon it wasn’t the same without you there and that he’d rather go home than spend another minute getting to know someone who wasn’t you. 

At the time, Heeseung was beyond irritated and refused to speak to Riki for the rest of the night. Now, however, he understands why Riki acted the way he did. 

You look so beautiful underneath a Parisian sunset. Heeseung knows he’s staring. He’s grateful that you’re too preoccupied with Sunghoon taking photos of you. But God, he wishes you’d laugh at him like that. 

“You should talk to her,” Jake says from beside him. Heeseung jumps at his sudden appearance. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“I want to.” Heeseung says it out loud for the first time. He wants to work it out with you and get his best friend back in whatever way you’ll allow. “I miss her, Jake. I miss being her friend and I fucked up when I rejected her.” 

Heeseung doesn’t notice Jake’s eyes widen at the sudden admission. Jake had his fair share of theories and considered Heeseung to be his best friend, but even he knew there was a limit about what he was willing to share and what he kept to himself. Heeseung’s friendship with you was something he stopped trying to learn a few years after he got to know you; Heeseung had a soft spot for you and had no problem letting people know that. It wasn’t until you mentioned to Jake that you hadn’t spoken to Heeseung in months that he knew something was up. 

“She clearly cares about you,” Jake says. “She wouldn’t be on this trip if she didn’t.”

“But she’s been ignoring me the past three days. And before you say it, yes, I know that she has a valid reason to, but I’m hurt and I want to make things better.”

“You have to let her take the reins and let her talk to you when she wants to,” Jake advises. “You know how she is. Y/N’s headstrong and she might not know how she feels right now, but she always knows what’s best for her. You’re good for her, Heeseung. Let her come to that conclusion on her own.”

Heeseung relinquishes his breath. “You’re right. I just…miss her. A lot. Things will never go back to the way they used to but I don’t think I want them to. I used to pray every night that I could somehow make everything like it was before that night but now I want more than that. She deserves better and I want to be better for her, not that coward who was too scared to try something new with the person he loves.” 

His friend’s words bring a smile to Jake’s lips. “Well I, for one, believe in you. I think the rest of the guys do too.” 

“I know,” Heeseung says softly with his eyes on you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

You can’t believe you leave Europe in two days as you sip your wine. Jay’s father was gracious enough to reach out to his friend at the hotel’s restaurant to negotiate having this meal compensated. It’s a gesture you hold onto and make a mental note to write a thoughtful note when you settle back in Korea. Jay sits next to you and partakes in the wine activities with you, namely picking out two different bottles to share with the table. Talking to Jay like this makes you feel otherworldly, like you’ve gotten more experience out of life since you chose to study abroad. You feel lucky, in a sense, that your life has given you more than you expected it too. 

The younger boys head upstairs after dessert and bid you all a goodnight in case they don’t see you before falling asleep. For the next thirty minutes or so, it’s the five of you laughing away at the hotel bar like old times, reminiscing about embarrassing moments from high school or how difficult it was to hear Jake’s Korean when he first moved. 

The Australian leaves as soon as he yawns. Sunghoon, a little too tipsy upon standing from the bar table, presses a gentle kiss to your head when he says goodnight to the rest of you. Jay gives your arm a reassuring squeeze and you understand for the first time that he always knew you better than he let on. He says goodnight and tells the bartender to charge his room whenever you two close the tab. 

Now, you and Heeseung are sitting together, mere inches apart as the Parisian sky twinkles with stars above the two of you. 

Neither of you know what to say. You fidget with the glass and contemplate on whether you should head up as well. Heeseung can sense your awkwardness and wish he hadn’t messed things up so badly that you can’t stand to be alone with him without thinking of an escape plan. He misses when the two of you could sit in complete silence and still feel comfortable around one another. 

“Thank you for showing us around,” he speaks up before you can make the decision to leave. “I remember you talking about all of the places you showed us when you first moved here. I’ve always wanted to visit.” 

“Really?” 

Heeseung nods. “I used to be so jealous that you got the opportunity to travel abroad every time you talked about it. But I think I like it better this way, with you as the tour guide.” 

That brings a laugh out of you and Heeseung can’t help but smile. He doesn’t care if it’s the alcohol allowing your walls to come down. He’s grateful for the chance. 

“I used to write down places I wanted to show you,” you confess. “There were so many places that reminded me of where we’d used to hang out as kids. It always felt like there was a part of you with me.” 

His heart melts. “I wish I could’ve visited you while you were here. Your friends seem pretty cool.” 

“They are.” Heeseung watches you smile. “They’ve been with me through a lot and helped me get over this fear of failing in a different country. My friend Suki, who now lives in Tokyo, was the first person to really get me out of my shell and convinced me to go out. Awkward Y/N? Going to clubs?” 

“You know how to dance, though. I bet you killed it.” 

“A little too much, perhaps. I didn’t date or hook up much, but there were a few times that I did.” Heeseung’s heart begins to sink as does his hope. This is not where he wanted to lead the conversation but his ears perk up at your next point. “But I wasn’t happy doing that so I stopped making out with random guys on the dance floor.”

“If only thirteen-year-old you could see you then,” he teases. You bump his shoulders with yours and he feels electricity running down his arm. 

“I think I did a good job adjusting and learning. There were times where I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing with my life because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stay in London or go back to Seoul. That burden felt too much.” 

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came back home.” 

Your head whips to look at Heeseung, who can only sit and watch as your eyes begin to water. 

“Why didn’t you say anything when I texted and called you?” you ask meekly, your voice barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you see me when I came back?” 

“I know.” He gulps. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so, so sorry.” 

You sniffle and Heeseung wants to cry too. “Everyone came to pick me up at the airport. I kept looking for you but you weren’t there. Jake had to pull me away from baggage claim because he said you weren’t coming but I didn’t listen. I told him he was wrong. You always come.” 

Heeseung’s soul breaks with every crack in your voice and with the way your lips quiver. He sees your mascara beginning to smudge and resists the urge to wipe it away so that your eyes may look fresh and dry. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I have no excuse.” 

“I wanted my best friend but you never showed up for me. You didn’t call or text me when you knew I was home and I had to wait until Riki’s bonfire to see you.”

“I was an idiot and stupid,” is the only answer Heeseung can come up with. “I used to be so scared of change. You left the country and I had to start thinking about what I wanted to do with my life but it was so hard without you in it.”

“Then why did you leave me?” 

His heart shatters. 

You’ve turned away from him in an attempt to walk back to your hotel room. However, Heeseung has learned his lesson. He doesn’t let you stray too far and gently tugs your wrist to pull you into his chest and is surprised when you don’t fight him off of you.

He doesn't care that your tears have stained his shirt or that you’re hiccupping into his clothes. All Heeseung wants to do is let you know he’s here for you now, despite his past mistakes and clouded judgment. Heeseung loves you for your bravery and vulnerability. He can only hope you understand that. 

“Let’s go to your room, yeah? I can help you take your makeup off.”

Whether from the alcohol or your need to be near Heeseung, you let him guide you to the elevator. He digs in your purse for your room key and coaxes you to sit in the bathroom while he locks the door. This routine feels a bit familiar; in his youth, he learned how you like to take your makeup off and get ready for bed after a particularly rough night drinking. He could never understand why he hadn’t minded taking the extra step and to keep himself sober when you were in the vicinity, but he understands it now. 

Heeseung meets you in the bathroom and washes his hands before putting your hair in a ponytail. He bites his lips when he sees your fresh tears and mutters another apology, forcing himself not to wipe away the tears with his fingers. Instead, he lets you blot them with a tissue before gathering makeup remover in his hands and gently smears it all over your skin. 

“I didn’t like change,” he says after a quiet beat. “I was too cowardly to take what I wanted, even if the person I wanted said they wanted me too. I don’t know why I didn’t chase after you that night or why I thought you needed space before you left. I don’t have an explanation for any of it except to say that I was a coward who never wanted anything to change between us.” 

Heeseung warms a wet cloth and wipes the balm away until he’s satisfied and moves on with your favorite cleanser, rubbing it between his hands until it foams. 

“I think, deep down, I’ve always loved you more than I led on. I can’t think of any moment in my life where you weren’t there or times that I didn’t want you around. Even when we were in elementary school and everyone kept saying we would get cooties from each other, I wanted you with me.” 

He lets you wash your face and applies the rest of your products on as you once taught him. 

“I’ve always had this sense of pride when it came to being your friend. Everyone always talked about how cool you were because you always knew what to say and when to say it. I love that about you, you know. You have a way of making people feel like they’re really special. I don’t know why I was so afraid of that.

“I love who you are and what you believe in. You make the world a better place for everyone around you. How you treated me was a small fraction of why I love you. I love your passions and that you aren’t afraid to chase after them. I love that you stick with the same boba order even though you tell yourself you’ll try something new. I love that you hate the beach but go with us every time we ask. I love when you get a little drunk because you don’t fight me when I want to take care of you.”

Heeseung swallows. “But mostly, I just really love you.”

You open your eyes for the first time. Heeseung can only stare. 

“You really hurt me.” 

He glances down. “I know. I’m sorry.” 

“What hurt the most was knowing you weren’t going to be there as my best friend, Heeseung. I could handle your rejection. I could find a way to get over you. But I could never get over losing our friendship. I never wanted you out of my life because it’s better with you in it.” 

“Please don’t get over me,” Heeseung croaks. His own eyes begin to swell and he forces a choked sob down his throat, aggressively wiping his eyes to rid himself of tears. He presses his forehead against yours. “I don’t want you to get over me.” 

You don’t say anything for a few moments. Heeseung swears he feels the blood rushing to his ears as he anticipates your response and he’s sure that even if what you say isn’t what he wants to hear, he’s happy to wear his feelings on his sleeve for once in his life.

“I don’t think I could even if I tried.” 

Heeseung’s heart stops beating. He doesn’t kiss you even though he wants to. He doesn’t take your hand and pull you into him like his heart tells him to. Instead, he whispers a quiet thanks and is surprised when he hears you laugh. 

“I can’t apologize enough. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to do or say anything.” 

“I know,” you whisper. Heeseung's hands are dangling awkwardly by his side. He feels like pushing his forehead against yours was too much. But your hands reach for him and you give him a squeeze.  

Heeseung throws caution out of the window and envelopes you in a hug. He feels your body melt against his and can’t help but look at the way you’ve folded into his chest in the bathroom mirror, with your head in his neck and his cheek on the crown of your head. Heeseung missed holding you like this–with your bodies intertwined as if you were two soulmates who were forced apart upon creation. 

He stroked your back with his hand and kept the other secured around your waist. Your soft breaths touch his skin and it feels like he’s got electricity running through his veins. 

“I’m sorry,” Heeseung whispers again. “I will keep apologizing until you know the depth of my regret.” 

The boy feels like he’s floating when you press a soft kiss to his exposed chest, mentally thanking Jake for forcing him to let loose and unbutton a few. 

“You could start by staying with me until I fall asleep,” you say. “Like old times.” 

He tries not to punch the air. “I can do that.” 

Heeseung waits in the bathroom until you’ve changed into comfortable clothing. He isn’t surprised when he sees you in shorts and an oversized shirt. It’s reminiscent of what you used to wear when you’d sleep in the guest bedroom in his house or vice versa, but now that he’s acknowledged his feelings for you, he can’t help but coo at how cute and sleepy you look. 

You tuck yourself in bed with the blankets to your chin and he completely melts to the floor. You pat the spot next to him and he sits on top of the blankets. 

“Under the covers, silly.” 

“I don’t want to rush it,” Heeseung says in a panic. 

“We aren’t rushing. We’re two best friends who got each other back.” 

Heeseung has never been more relieved. Though, he knows you’re a stickler for outside clothes in bed, so he makes the decision to take your key card and change.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says when he notices you rise from your spot on the bed. He holds two key cards to prove it and leans over to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “I’m going to change and then I’ll be right back. I promise.” 

He comes back ten minutes later. It warms your heart at the sight of him and you feel the comfort in your body when he slides underneath the covers. 

You surprise yourself when you move to lay your head on his chest with your arm around his body. Heeseung doesn’t seem to mind, though, and he pulls you closer to him like you’ve done it a million times before. The two of you have wanted this for too long to make it feel awkward. 

“What did Jake say when you came into the room?” you ask.

“He was half asleep until I turned the light on but he asked me if we resolved things. I told him yes and then he asked if I was staying the night with you when he saw me leaving.”

“Am I right to assume he was more excited about having the room to himself?”

Heeseung laughs. “That you are.”

“Deep down, I think Jake knew we’d find our way. I think they all did.” 

“I’m sorry,” Heeseung whispers once more. You quiet him with a kiss to his cheek. 

“I know, Hee. We can talk more tomorrow. For now, let’s sleep.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, Heeseung wakes up before you do and frowns when your body’s all the way on the other side of the bed. He leans over your sleeping frame and brushes strands of hair from your face, admiring how serene you look in your sleep. For a moment, Heeseung ponders if it’s too soon to wake you up the way he’d like to, but if last night was any indication about how you felt, he’d be willing to take the chance. 

He leans down to kiss your forehead and both of your cheeks repeatedly until your eyes flutter open. Heeseung thinks he could listen to your laugh every morning with the way you wince at the sunlight and how his lips touch your skin. Still, your gaze finds its way to Heeseung’s and you can’t help but smile. 

There was a brief moment before you fell asleep that you’d wondered if you’d been too quick to forgive him. But for as hurtful as the past year was, you can’t help but acknowledge the steps he took during the trip in an attempt to undo all of the contempt you had built for him. You owe it to yourself to be happy with Heeseung. 

“Good morning, pretty girl,” Heeseung says with his morning voice that sounds a little too good for seven in the A.M. “Did you sleep well?”

“Slept like a baby. I feel like one too.”

“That’s because you are a baby,” Heeseung teases, kissing your cheeks and then the tip of your nose. “My baby.” 

“I really want breakfast but I’m too lazy to get up from the bed.”

“We could always order in. I’ll pay.”

You shake your head. “I’ll be too tempted to stay in bed and it’s our last full day in Paris. Let’s just get ready and have breakfast at the hotel restaurant?” 

The both of you are halfway done eating breakfast when the rest of your friends trickle in, joining your table and the ones next to you. It takes them a while to wake up, but it’s Sunghoon who speaks up first. 

“I’m assuming you two talked?” 

“And made up,” you say with a tilt of your head. 

“That’s my girl,” Sunghoon says proudly, sipping on his coffee. 

“I’ll let that slide since we’re all friends,” Heeseung jokes. You laugh and, for the first time in a while, you don’t feel guilty about it. 

“I had the whole room to myself, too. I woke up and didn’t have to fight anyone for the bathroom,” says Jake. 

Riki nearly spits his juice out. “You guys slept together?” 

“Not like that!” you’re quick to exclaim. “He just slept over. Slept. As in, we closed our eyes and actually slept.” 

“Both of us knew we needed our beauty sleep before dealing with the six of you asking us questions,” Heeseung adds. “But for your information, we made up. We still have things to figure out, but we’re back to being friends.” 

“Hopefully more than that,” Jungwon coughs behind his coffee. He merely smiles when Heeseung looks in his direction.

“I think you two should spend the rest of the day by yourselves,” Jay suggests. “We can either meet up for dinner or whenever we have to check out.” 

“I second that,” Sunoo agrees. “You two clearly need to talk.” 

“I wanted to go shopping with Y/N again,” Riki says with a frown. Jake presumably knocks his shin with Riki’s, who clears his throat. “But you two should totally hang out without us.” 

“I think we might,” Heeseung says, holding his hand out for you to take. He stands from his seat and encourages you to stand as well, leading you away from the table. “Thanks for the breakfast, Jay!” 

“I’m choosing to be the bigger person because Y/N’s been through enough,” Jay mutters when Heeseung is out of hearshot, making the table laugh.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

“You know, I think the reason why I had such a hard time reaching out was because we’d never gotten into something that serious before,” Heeseung admits. The gelato in your hand isn’t as good as you remember it, but it does the job to cool you down on a particularly warm afternoon. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Do you remember when we were kids and how hard it was for me to talk to you about anything that was action movies or superheroes?” 

“God, you and your Superman cape from fourth grade,” you snort. “You wore that thing to school everyday. Your dad had to wash it every night otherwise you’d refuse to go to sleep.” Heeseung shuts his eyes at the memory. 

“You were the only person I felt comfortable pouring my heart out to, you know. You were always the first person I called when I needed someone to talk to, but then I was the reason why you got hurt…I think part of me didn’t know if I was allowed to reach out to you.

“It’s a stupid excuse, I know. But when I heard you were coming back to Seoul a few weeks before you did, I couldn’t help but think about how many times I could’ve texted you.”

“Yeah, you could’ve.” Heeseung merely nods at your agreement. “We’ve been through a lot over the years, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.” 

“I just wish I had come to this conclusion when it happened. I was so caught up in graduating and focusing on how I felt that I didn’t consider how you must’ve been dealing with all of it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so selfish in my life.” 

“I think the time you refused to let me be friends with Jake because you said you needed friends aside from me was your second most selfish moment.” 

Heeseung rolls his eyes. “Quit it. I was thirteen, okay?” 

Neither of you particularly care to do any sightseeing today. It feels nice to walk side-by-side without the company of your other friends. The juxtaposition of how you felt towards the beginning of this trip compared to how relaxed you feel surprises you a tenfold, but you suppose that comes with genuine apologies and forgiveness. 

You’re willing to admit Heeseung looks criminally good in black jeans and a striped button down. He wears his clothes so effortlessly yet still looks like he could’ve taken his wardrobe from a magazine. You’ve always found it a bit unfair that Heeseung always manages to look so cool without trying too hard. 

“You’re staring,” he mutters, looking at you from the corner of his eye as the two of you walk down a cobblestone street. 

“I’m not,” you lie. You turn your head to avoid his gaze, but Heeseung thinks he likes seeing you this shy. It’s new territory for him, one that he wants to explore. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

“Go for it.” 

“Why did you forgive me so quickly?” Heeseung asks. “I appreciate it, I really do, but a big part of me feels like I don’t deserve that just yet.” 

It takes you a while to answer. Why did you forgive him as fast as you did? For a week and a half, being in close quarters with Heeseung made you feel nothing but anxious and on edge, so why were you able to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of him?

“I’ve always held onto the idea that you’re a good person,” you begin. “I’ve always admired that you intend to care for the people you love and make them feel like they have a place in your life. You’ve always made me feel safe, like I could run to you when things got too hard. 

“What you did was in poor taste, sure, but making bad decisions doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. I know you, Hee. I know how you get when you’re faced with a difficult choice and how long it takes for you to come around. I was justifiably hurt but I think a part of me always knew you’d fix it somehow.” 

“I wish I could feel deserving of that kind of forgiveness.” 

“You know me. You know I wouldn’t tell you that if I didn’t feel like what I’m saying is true. I’ll admit that I shocked myself with how quickly I let my guard down with you…but you’re Heeseung. You've been my best friend since the first grade and you’re the boy I happen to have a really big crush on.” 

Heeseung bites his lips at your confession, willing himself not to be too forward as to kiss you in the middle of the street. He sees your bravery and the way you’ve put your heart directly in the palm of his hand, acting out of vulnerability even though the both of you knew he hurt you once before. 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Instead, Heeseung grabs your hands and locks his fingers with yours, squeezing three times to tell you he loves you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The afternoon comes and goes with little to no plan. Heeseung’s a bit worried that he hasn’t heard anything from the boys and he’s rendered shocked that you’ve taken it upon yourself to let the day take you where it may instead of finding the next spot to visit. 

As if on cue, Jay texts him with plans for the evening. 

jjongcaprio: 20:00, Pétrelle. It’s a five minute walk from the hotel

jjongcaprio: I made reservations for you and Y/N tonight. Don’t worry about me and the boys, just take her out on a romantic date 

jjongcaprio: The bill’s covered. The reservation’s under your name btw

heeseung: bro i cannot ask you to do this 

jjongcaprio: You don’t have to. You and I both know Y/N deserves to be wined and dined 

jjongcaprio: Plus I saw you looking at a few restaurants when we were on the train. I managed to pull some strings for you and got a last minute reservation for tonight

heeseung: thank you jay…i really don’t know what i’d do without you

jjongcaprio: It’s really not a problem, bro. Promise me that you’ll try to be happy with her. The guys and I are rooting for you two

“So,” Heeseung clears his throat as he looks up from his phone, “I think you and I should go out for dinner.” 

“Where are you thinking of going? I can text the others and see if they’re done sightseeing, or whatever it is they’re doing.”

“I mean just us two.” He stands awkwardly when you’ve turned your attention to him, his feet planted on the sidewalk beneath him as if that’ll help steady his beating heart. 

“Like a date?” 

“Yes,” he says immediately. “Like a date. I, Heeseung, am asking you out on a date. Tonight. At eight.” 

“I, Y/N, would love to go on a date with you. At eight.” 

The twinkle in your eye and your coy nature makes him feel like a teenager again. He leads you into the hotel and walks you to your door before stepping back as you step inside. 

“We’ve got an hour and a half before we need to leave. I’ll come by and then we can walk together. The restaurant is only a five minute walk, so you can wear those new heels I know you feel guilty buying.” 

“They’re really pretty though,” you rationalize. 

Heeseung nods. “Gorgeous, actually. Maybe you’ll be as tall as me if you wear them.” 

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” 

Heeseung bites his bottom lip as you disappear behind the door, locking eyes with you until you’re completely out of sight. Flirting with you like this is a completely new phenomenon for him. He’s only daydreamed about what you might say if he said something a little too suggestive or how you might act if he dedicated a wink in your direction. Heeseung had never considered that he’d be the one flustered, cheeks reddening to the point where he starts to feel shy. 

His nerves are endless as he picks out an outfit for tonight. Heeseung sends a quick text to his parents, who had pressured him into bringing nice clothes for a fancy dinner, and spends a few minutes updating them on the events of the past few days. His mother is pleased, to put it lightly, and sends a handful of emoticons to display her happiness. His father tells him words of encouragement before making Heeseung promise to bring you for dinner as his girlfriend, not just his best friend. 

With the last touch of his cologne, Heeseung looks at himself in the mirror and tries not to think too hard about how he looks. You’re Y/N, his best friend since he can remember, and you’ve seen him with snot dripping from his nose. 

“I look fine,” he says to himself in the mirror. “Y/N will like the look because your mom picked it out and we know those two agree on everything. Absolutely nothing to worry about.” 

Heeseung’s only regret is he doesn’t have a bouquet of flowers to present you with as he makes his way to your hotel room. He wipes his palms on his trousers and takes a deep breath before knocking on your door. 

When it opens, he’s met with the sight of you in a short black dress that hugs your hips to accentuate your body. The dress itself is an elegant, spaghetti strap number with a flattering neckline paired with jewelry that makes your skin appear to be glowing. Your heels match well with the dress you’ve chosen, so much so that Heeseung’s jaw drops when his eyes rake over your body. 

“Wow,” he mutters. “Just…wow.” 

“I’m not used to you being speechless,” you say mildly, closing the door behind you. 

“You look gorgeous,” he sputters. “I shouldn’t be seen with you tonight.” 

“You’re dramatic, Hee.” You give him a once over and Heeseung thinks he wouldn’t mind you checking him out as you please. “You look handsome as ever.”

He beams at the compliment and holds his arm out for you. 

“Shall we?”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

Heeseung knows the type of person you are and what you value, yet he still renders himself shocked when you allow him to take control of the evening. He knows you don’t need to have the expensive consequences that come with a first date or to be sipping the most luxurious wine to be happy, but Heeseung can’t help but feel like you deserve to feel as elegant as you look every once in a while. 

The host leads the two of you to a table with the most gorgeous view of the Parisian scenery. The twinkling stars paired with the dimly lit restaurant adds a romantic touch to the evening. Heeseung mentally thanks Jay for preparing wine recommendations so neither of you have to think too much about it. 

For a moment, he’s worried that he’s reached too far out of his depth. The fanciest thing Heeseung has ever done with you is eat ramen after prom in your best outfits because you both came to the conclusion that prom should be spent with someone you actually like. It’s funny in hindsight when he thinks about it now. 

You look so beautiful like this, allowing yourself to be taken care of by him. Talking to you over the table feels like you’re back in Korea before all that transpired. The food is impeccable and Heeseung thanks his lucky stars that he and Jay got it right. You sing praises left and right. 

Dinner ends much quicker than he’d like as the two of you finish dessert. The waiter tells him the bill has been taken care of and Heeseung sits in his seat awkwardly as you look out the window to see the view from outside. But he hears the live band in the background and sees a few older couples slow dancing from where he sits and makes up his mind. 

“Do you want to dance?” 

You pull your attention to him. For a moment, he thinks he’s asked the most absurd question known to man when he recalls all the times you refused to make a home on the dance floor until you’ve gotten at least four drinks in your system. 

You surprise him. 

“I’d love to, Hee.” 

The room disappears when he leads you to the dance floor. He mimics the other dancers and takes the lead, swaying your bodies back and forth to the melody of the music. You smell of vanilla and cinnamon, a scent so distinctly you that it makes him grin like a man in love. 

“Thank you for tonight,” you say against his neck. “I won’t lie when I say I feel like a princess.”

“That’s because you are a princess,” Heeseung says, kissing the top of your head. “You deserve to be treated like one.”

“I can’t believe you pulled this off so quickly. Don’t restaurants like these require reservations?”

He chuckles nervously. “About that…Jay helped me with the details. I was looking up restaurants to take you to if I got the chance before our trip ended. I guess he saw the list and chose the most romantic one out of the bunch.”

“I owe Jay a thank you.”

“We both do.” 

“I feel lucky to have people in my life who care about me this much,” you say. “I’m so happy you’re back in my life.” 

“I’m happy to be in it.” Heeseung squeezes your waist. “Deep down, it’s always been you that I’ve loved. There’s not a single person who makes me feel the way you do.”

“Yeah?” 

You feel him nod. “I’ll say it until you believe me. I’ll even yell it in this restaurant right now.” 

“Please don’t,” you laugh. “I believe you.” 

The sound of the melody overtakes the conversation. You feel Heeseung’s steady heartbeat as he expertly moves your bodies together on the dance floor. When you close your eyes, you think of this moment and how badly you want to commit it to memory, no longer in anguish over the tribulations of the past year. It feels nice to let go of your worries, even better that you have Heeseung back. 

“I really want to kiss you,” he murmurs under his breath. You pull your head back.

“Then you should kiss me.” 

Heeseung wastes no time and pulls you into him, one arm around your waist and the other behind your neck. His mouth finds yours when he decides he loves the taste of red wine on your lips. It feels poetic to be kissing you for the first time as you’re both dressed to the nines in the middle of Paris. To him, kissing you feels like a breath of fresh air and the start of something new. For you, kissing him feels like coming home. 

When he pulls back, you search for his eyes. 

“Take me back to the hotel,” you whisper. 

Heeseung feels his heart drop. 

“I’m sorry. We can go back now.”

You grip the collar of his slightly unbuttoned dress shirt when he moves. It’s only then that Heeseung sees the want in your eyes and the pure lust that clouds your pupils. 

“Take me back to the hotel.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

By the time your elevator reaches your floor, Heeseung’s dress shirt is completely unbuttoned with his toned chest exposed. You’re barely able to detach yourself from his mouth when he pushes you out of the contraption. Your hand reaches for his as you pull him towards your room, digging through your purse when you feel Heeseung’s lips on the back of your neck. 

“You look sexy in my jacket,” he mumbles, pressing wet kisses to your skin. 

“L-Let me find the key.” 

“So sexy.” His hands slide up the side of your body until he grips your waist. 

When the door opens, you pull Heeseung inside with you and lock it shut before pushing his dress shirt off of his body, exposing his muscular build and broad shoulders. You aren’t shy about hiding your lust, gazing all over his chest and abdomen as you feel your core drip with arousal. 

“I like it when you look at me like that,” Heeseung says. He reaches for your hand and places it on his chest. You take the liberty to glide your nails down his abdomen, feeling the way he tenses underneath your touch. 

“I’m really wet,” you say as you eye the tent that has grown in Heeseung’s pants. 

“Are you?” he asks. “You won’t mind if I check?” 

You shake your head and Heeseung takes that as a green light, his hands finding the soft fabric of your dress before pushing his hand underneath it. He whimpers when his fingers come in contact with your wet lips. It’s adorable, the way you push yourself against him to chase his lips while he fingers smear your wetness across the fabric of your panties. 

“Bed,” you mumble against his lips. 

He follows where you pull him, loving the way you take control when you push him onto the mattress. Heeseung distracts himself to catch his breath from the overwhelming sense of pleasure to realize that you’ve started to undo his belt buckle and take his hard cock out of his pants. 

“You don’t have to—”

“I want your cock in my mouth,” you plead, looking him in the eye. “Please let me.” 

You sit politely on your knees as you unbuckle Heeseung’s pants. His chest rises and falls in anticipation and he looks down at you to see that your mouth is watering at the sight of him. 

He’s already fully hard; he has been since you started unbuttoning his shirt in the elevator. You spit directly onto the tip of his cock and he bites his lip at the sudden contact before watching as you swipe your hand up and down himself. 

Heeseung doesn’t want to think about how you learned to do what you’re doing to him. He doesn’t want to think about the boys you’ve kissed or the people who got to see you like this before. What he does know, however, is he’s the only person from here on out who will see you on your knees if he can help it. 

Your mouth envelopes the head and Heeseung emits a short grunt. The tension between you two begins to slowly dissipate as you fit more of his cock inside of your mouth. Your tongue expertly traces every ridge and vein as you push your throat down onto him, causing Heeseung to put his palms on the mattress and throw his head back. 

You hum around him when he moans. He’s itching to put his hand behind your head but refuses the idea, letting you set your own pace. Heeseung watches as you switch your angle, sitting up to rest on your knees to push your head further down on him. He witnessed as you spread your legs, a choked moan coming from his throat in conjunction with a particular gag from your mouth. 

There’s spit everywhere. It’s trailing down your lips and connecting to his cock when you pull yourself from his body. It’s seeping to his pants and he’s about to speak up when your motion attaches itself to his sensitive balls, licking at its warmth while your hand strokes him from atop. 

“That’s it. Fuuuuck.”

He bucks his hips once and curses. Heeseung feels your mouth envelop one of his balls, the pressure of your mouth around it making him feel a kind of euphoria he didn’t know was possible. Your mouth moves to the other to give it the same treatment before retreating back to his cock. This time, your hand massages him from below as you suck on him. 

When you look up at him and wink, he decides enough is enough. 

“Baby,” Heeseung pants, attempting to push your head off of him. He thinks it’s so sexy that you’re turned on while giving him a blowjob. “Baby, please stop. I don’t wanna come yet.” 

You oblige and take your mouth off of him with a popping sound. You sit back and Heeseung stares at you through drooping eyelids in pure shock and amazement at how you’ve managed to pull him to a near orgasm as quickly as you did.

“Come here,” he beckons with his fingers.

He attaches his mouth to yours and pushes his tongue inside of your mouth, exploring the warm, wet walls you have to offer. Heeseung decides that he loves the feeling of your tongue against his and lets you suck on the muscle. 

You take your dress off to reveal sheer panties with nothing else on. Heeseung’s jaw drops at your beauty, but he also cannot believe how sexy his best friend’s body is. To him, you were sculpted from the hands of Aphrodite herself with great love and care. And it’s all for him.

“You are so fucking sexy,” he murmurs, hovering over your body to press kisses to the valley of your chest. You let his hands roam and spread your legs to make room for him. 

Heeseung’s head travels back to your chest and you watch as he envelops your right nipple in his mouth. “Your tits are just perfect.” 

He makes a show out of it, hands cupping your breasts to massage them as his mouth works on you. He pushes your tits together and shoves his face between them, inhaling your scent while his tongue gathers whatever taste your body gives him. Heeseung moves to your left nipple and uses his tongue to flick the hardened bud over and over again until you’re arching your chest into his mouth. 

He grinds himself into your core with his pants still loose around his legs. It brings a moan out of your throat and he swallows it whole with his lips pressed firmly against yours. The friction feels delicious with the fabric of your panties against the hardness of Heeseung’s cock. He grinds against you with the help of your hips rolling into his, your natural wetness coating his cock in your essence. 

Heeseung moves his head to kiss your jawline, moving his mouth all over the expanse of your neck until he kisses right below your earlobe. You let out a particularly loud moan when he does, and Heeseung curses.

“Shit. Yeah baby, make those sounds for me. Let me hear your pretty moans.” 

His mouth attacks the area again and you aren’t shy about it. Your hands tangle in his hair as he kisses your neck and grinds his cock against the wet panties, which have by now molded to the shape of your pussy. 

Heeseung groans at the feeling of a particularly wet gush and lifts his hips enough to elicit a whimper out of your mouth. He experimentally lifts his hips again to align himself with you as he did before. The pressure must feel so good because your mouth hangs open with your eyes boring into his. 

“That’s it,” he encourages. “Does my baby feel good?” You can only nod and he doesn’t blame you. “That’s a good baby. Fuck, you’re so wet, it’s driving me crazy.” 

Heeseung feels your legs wrap around him and the way your heel pushes his lower back into your core. He takes the hint and quickens his pace, wanting nothing more than to see you come for him.

“You gotta come for me now, pretty girl,” he coaxed. “You deserve to come. Won’t you do that for me?” 

Heeseung is sure that he’s never seen or heard anything more erotic compared to the vision of watching you come. Your mouth opens with breathy moans as you focus on your pleasure and your eyes squeeze shut as if you’re trying to savor the moment in your mind.

“Atta girl,” Heeseung praises when your hips grind into his. He keeps himself still and lets your body take over. 

You eventually come down and realize Heeseung has yet to come, but that’s the last thing on his mind. He sinks his body down to come face-to-face with your crotch and licks the come off of the soiled fabric of your panties. The sheerness gives him a sneak peek at your pussy, and he groans when he licks a slow, fat strip up your slit.

“You taste so fucking delicious, baby.” He licks at you again, faster this time. “Tastes like milk and honey.” 

Heeseung kisses your wet panties over and over again, his soft lips providing jolts of pleasure. His hands roam around the soft flesh of your thighs and squeezes them as if he remembers you’re all his to touch. The feeling is one you want to commit to memory, but it seems like Heeseung knows your mind is working overtime because he reaches his hand to find yours and gives it a reassuring squeeze. 

You let his hand go when he pulls it from you to slide the useless barrier down your legs and to undo the straps of your heels. He takes great care to kiss your skin tenderly, starting by your ankle and making his way down just shy of where you need him the most. Heeseung repeats the process on the other leg until he comes face to face with your glistening core, licking his lips as if he doesn’t know where to start. 

“Such a pretty pussy,” he says before placing a soft kiss to your clit.

He repeats the motion, kissing your folds like they’re delicate antiquities that need to be handled with the utmost care. His lips become covered with your essence; he feels you squirm underneath him and uses the expanse of his palms to gently pry your legs open for him, soothing the soft skin of your inner thighs. 

Heeseung tentatively licks your slit and decides he loves the sound of your moans when he has his mouth on you. He does it again, dragging his tongue to feel every ridge and crevice that he’s yet to explore. His mouth feels like a warm comfort with the slow pace he sets, licking you as if he’s trying to tell you how much he loves you without saying it. 

“You taste divine.” 

You look down below to see his hair covering his eyes and brush it away with your hands. Heeseung looks right into your soul and you feel your heart clench, causing you to roll your hips into his face. He merely buries his nose close to you until he bumps your clit with the tip, pushing his wet muscle into you deeper. 

When your moans get lighter and your breathy sounds are the only audible thing in the room aside from his own moans. You open your eyes to see Heeseung humping the mattress below you. The sight is so erotic that you can’t help but let out a loud whine at the thought of Heeseung pleasuring himself while pleasuring you. 

He brings his fingers to your pussy and sways his fingers back and forth until he foregoes his slow pace, favoring a faster one. He abuses your swollen clit while you can only lay there and watch him play with you. Heeseung expertly inserts his middle finger into your seeping hole and bites his lip to concentrate on getting you to come again. 

“I need it,” he confesses, bringing his mouth to lick you as he adds another finger. “I need you to come for me again, baby. Can you do that for me?’

“Yes, Hee,” you pant. “I wanna come so badly.”

“You can do it, baby. You’ve been such a good girl tonight, giving me the best head and letting me make you come. I think you deserve to feel good.” 

“I do,” you nod rapidly. “Fuck, I think I’m coming.”

“That’s right,” he coos, hammering his digits into you while his tongue laps up the juices leaking from your pussy. “So good. You taste so fucking good. Give it to me.” 

He doesn't relent until he’s satisfied. Heeseung cleans the come from your lips as best he can while sneaking his hand to his cock, pumping himself as he tastes your orgasm on his tongue. 

“You’ve crazy,” you mutter as you settle from your high, loving the feeling of Heeseung’s mouth tenderly licking you clean. 

“For you.” He pulls his face away and wipes the back of his hand before pressing a kiss to your clit. 

When he rises to take his pants and boxers off, he sees you with your arm covering your face. 

“Are you doing okay?” 

“Perfect, actually,” you sigh. You remove your arm to see him with his cock in his hands and motion him to come towards the edge of the bed as you crawl on your knees before sitting upright to pull him into a searing kiss. 

“That might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Heeseung says against your mouth. “It’s better than porn, if I’m being honest.” 

You grab his cock and stroke him. “I’ll consider letting you take a video of me when we get back home if you fuck me right now.” 

“Turn around,” he says after an open-mouthed kiss.

You follow his instructions and he groans to himself as you present your perfect pussy to him again. Heeseung sinks to his knees and smacks your ass before shoving his tongue into your hole. He spreads your asscheeks apart and digs his nose against you, licking up the wetness and remnants of your orgasm like it’s his last meal. His tongue licks up your body until he finds your wrinkled muscle and presses a soft kiss to your tightest hole. 

The surprise comes to him when you moan softly. Your body doesn’t jerk away. Rather, you spread your legs further for him and Heeseung moans against your pussy before bringing his tongue to lick over the muscle again. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asks, dipping his tongue back in.

“Better than I imagined.” 

“You imagined my tongue in your ass, baby?” 

You nod. “I’ve always wanted to know what that feels like.” 

Heeseung doesn’t give you a verbal answer. Instead, he spits into your hole and watches it dribble down to your pussy, licking his way from your incredibly wet folds to your hole once again. He licks over the expanse with the surface of his tongue one, twice, three times before you’re whining for his cock. He wastes no time tearing open the condom and hurriedly places it on himself. 

The first stretch of his cock in your pussy makes him see Heaven. The sharp gasp that comes from your mouth is music to his ears and he’s careful to sink himself into you slowly, inch by inch until you’re telling him he can go further. 

His cock impales you at such a perfect angle that it has you falling to your elbows, your back arched so perfectly that he’s sure you’d be the most popular pornstar if you really wanted to be. He keeps half of his cock in you to allow you to adjust, but he underestimates just how cock hungry you are because you back yourself until he’s filling you to the brim.

“Baby’s such a slut, isn’t she?” Heeseung wonders out loud. He grins when you nod. “I love you like that. So dirty for me.” 

“Only for you,” you say, cheek pressed to the mattress when Heeseung thrusts in you. 

The sound of skin slapping echoes throughout the room. It doesn’t take long for your wet juices to glisten over the back of your thighs and onto Heeseung’s. His hands find purchase on your hips as he pulls your body close to him, loving the way your choked moans become muffled by the mattress below. 

“So. Fucking. Tight,” he moans with detailed thrusts. “So. Fucking. Wet.” 

He climbs on the bed and plants his feet on the blankets, holding your body in place as he pounds into you from above. The angle has you seeing stars and rips moan after moan from you. 

Heeseung grins wickedly. “Such a fuckable body. So perfect.” 

His degradation paired with praise ignites a fire inside of you. You can only moan louder to let Heeseung know exactly how he’s making you feel and you can’t help but think you deserved to be fucked exactly the way Heeseung is fucking you.

The pleasure feels like an explosion of a thousand suns. Your body is warm from the hours you’ve spent in the hotel room and your neighbors getting a good night’s sleep is the least of your concerns. Heeseung’s cock drills into you from above like he’s a sex god and it nearly brings you to tears. 

He turns you over carefully until you’re laying flat on your back with your head propped against the pillows. He steals one from you and puts it underneath the small of your back to create leverage before lining up his cock with your entrance and pushing himself in again.

Heeseung thrusts like he’s got to prove just how in love with you he is. Your wanton moans fill the room with his low grunts as his cock continually hits the one spot that makes you see stars, over and over again.

But you know he could do more to make you feel better. He must notice you in deep thought because he slows his hips. 

“What is it, baby?” Heeseung asks when he notices your eyebrows knit together. “Is this okay? Do you need me to stop so we can take a break?”

“Take it off,” you whisper. His hips have faltered and his pace stutters at your words.

“Take what off?”

“The condom.” Heeseung nearly chokes. “Take the condom off.” 

“Baby—”

“I just wanna feel you.” 

Heeseung curses and his hips automatically drill into yours at the request out of pure shock. He can’t lie to himself. He’s thought about it multiple times since you left for Europe and as he’s come to term with his feelings for you. The cute fantasies about taking you on dates to dinner or drive in theaters transform into daydreams about dirty affairs in his bedroom with his seed leaking out of your perfect hole. 

Still, he doesn’t believe it.

“Please, Hee,” you plead, arching your chest towards him. “Let me feel you. Don’t you want to come inside me?”

“Fuck,” he falters, his forehead on yours. “You can’t just say that…I can’t be risky with you.” 

“Yes you can.” He watches you bite your lip and feels your hands push him off of you. Heeseung doesn’t put up a fight when he slips out of your warm hole and feels your hands grip his cock, desperately trying to tug the condom off of him. 

Heeseung sees the pathetic rubber in your hands when you bring it up for him to see. It’s glistening and his mouth drools at the sight, lips parting enough as if he stares at it in disbelief. He groans lowly in your ear as he peppers a few wet kisses to your neck. 

You spread your legs wider in the air and grip his cock in your head, pumping him a few times before letting his bare tip rest against your hole. His sharp intake is enough to make you bite your lip. 

“Pussy’s so wet,” he says against your neck, pushing an inch inside of you. “God, I could come like this.”

“You can.” 

“No, baby. Gonna fuck you the way you deserve before I come.”

With that sentiment, Heeseung pushes himself inside of you until he’s fully sheathed within your walls. He relishes the way you gasp at the sudden movement and he uses this angle to his advantage, positioning his ear next to your mouth to hear your delicious sounds. 

He moves his hips at such a pace that it makes you feel like your body’s bouncing on top of the soft mattress below you. Heeseung presses his chest against yours to kiss you like his life depends on it, tongue invading the privacy of your mouth but you couldn’t care less where his mouth goes. He can feel your nipples on his skin and groans into your mouth when you clench at a particularly hard thrust. 

“S-So good,” you stutter against his mouth with a breathy moan. Heeseung feels your arm around his shoulders, scratching at his back. “Fuck, fuck!”

“Mhm,” he coaxed. “Such a good baby. You look so pretty underneath me.” 

With a new sense of purpose, Heeseung lifts himself to push himself into you at a deeper angle. He forces his hips into you harder, your hands coming to your chest to cup your tits to give you something to hold in the meantime.

“That’s right, beautiful. Squeeze your tits for me.” 

You do, pinching and twisting your nipples until you hear Heeseung moan above you. It sounds nearly animalistic, the way his throat emits a groan that sounds so primal. He sees the dirty smile you paint your mouth with and leans his head down to press a kiss to your forehead before his hand comes to your cheeks, squeezing them between my fingers.

“You like it when I fuck you like this?” Heeseung asks, hips rolling against your own pelvis. When you nod, he gives you a nasty smile of his own and gives you a few harsh thrusts for good measure before pulling himself off of your chest with his cock still inside of you. 

Heeseung sits on his knees and pulls out just far enough where his hot tip remains buried inside of you, relishing in the panty breaths you emit as he watches your chest rise and fall. You look so beautiful to him with your hair messed up against the pillow beneath you and with a few faint hickeys on your chest and neck. Heeseung thinks that all of his wildest dreams could never compare to how gorgeous you look when you’re positioned directly where he wants you. 

You don’t complain when he pulls out to rest his cock on your wet, bare pussy. You wince at the loss and let him slide himself up and down, biting your lip when he grazes your swollen clit over and over again. 

The man above you lifts your right leg so that he can grip you tighter. You relinquish any control left in your body as Heeseung curses and kisses the side of your ankle. He dips the head of his cock inside and thrusts shallowly as if to tease, but you know he’s exploring all the way his cock looks like against your own body. 

It feels euphoric. The whole affair is dirty, but it’s the kind of dirty that makes you want to do it again. It’s the kind of dirty that makes this night an event you’ll want to remember for the rest of your night because Heeseung had poured his entire heart and soul for you to take. 

For Heeseung, this pleasure is less about knowing you have him permission to put himself inside you. You’ve always been so sure of yourself and your body; it’s something Heeseung has always admired about you as a person. Growing up with your insecurities of relationships and dating might’ve made you feel like a late bloomer; to Heeseung, your tendency to keep your head straight has always been a testament to how knowledgeable you are about yourself and about others. You save yourself for people who are worthy of you, and god, does he want to be worthy of you.

“I love you,” Heeseung whispers from above you. His eyes are closed and he pays no mind to the feeling your pussy gives him. Flashes of your memories stitch together like a film reel with your laughter as the soundtrack. He doesn’t think he wants to hear anything else for the rest of his life. 

Just for good measure, he whispers it again. “I love you so much.” 

“And I love you.”

Heeseung opens his eyes to see your tender ones, cheeks flushed from the sudden compliment. He always liked that he knew how to get you to blush when no one else couldn’t. This time, a sense of pride blooms in his chest. 

“I’ll never let you down,” he confesses. “And if I do, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” 

“I know, baby.” Heeseung’s hand cups your cheek and caresses it. “I trust you.” 

That’s enough for him to release your leg from his grip and pound himself into you like his life depends on bringing you to peak happiness. 

Heeseung’s palms are planted firmly on either side of your body as his hips roll gracefully against yours, the hot, wet mess between the two of you splashing on both of your thighs. He watches your eyes close shut and as your back arches to relieve some of the pressure, feeling somewhat proud of himself when he watches as your hands grab at the sheets for stability. 

There’s nothing that compares to watching you orgasm. Your eyebrows knit as if you’re concentrating while your mouth stands slightly ajar at the euphoric feeling of that single knot that’s threatening to come undone until it does. All of the girls he’s deluded into thinking he liked could never compare to the looks and sounds you’re making. 

“That’s it,” he coaxes softly. “Cream my cock, baby. That’s a good girl.” 

Heeseung feels you push and clench around him, gushing until there’s nowhere left for your come to go. He peeks down at where the two of you meet and groans when he sees his cock becoming painted in a sheer layer of white. It edges him on and the moment he locks his eyes with yours, his hips begin to stutter and he spills all he has to offer inside of you. 

He comes with short breaths as if he can’t believe you’ve allowed him to do so. Your hips move up and down as if to milk him for all he’s worth while Heeseung’s trying his best to balance his body on top of yours, grateful that some of his gym workouts prevent him from completely collapsing on top of you to.

His come seeps from your bodies and he pulls out, a few droplets splattering on your pussy lips. He nudges the tip against it, smearing his paint across your canvas and marveling at the sight. 

“My good girl,” he murmurs, eyes locked in at his handy work.

“I’ve never let anyone come inside of me,” you say with a fond expression. Your arm comes to brush Heeseung’s hair from his face before cradling his cheek when he looks at you in surprise. 

“Really?” 

You nod, biting your cheek. “Well, I always knew you were it for me. I didn’t want anyone else tainting what’s yours.” 

“Mine?” he asks, catching his breath. “You mean it? You’re mine.”

“I’m yours, Hee.” 

“All mine,” he mutters to himself in disbelief. 

You still feel his cock working itself against you. He’s still hard, a wonder after your hours locked away in your hotel room. It makes you laugh.

“No one has ever compared to you either,” Heeseung says. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you as he continues toying with your pussy. “Even when I fooled myself into thinking I didn’t like you.”

You laugh. “Well that’s good to hear. I realized all the guys I went after while I was abroad either looked like you or reminded me of you.” 

“I can confidently and stupidly say the same.” 

Your laughs echo through the room. Heeseung pulls your body upright, not caring that your mixed come is leaking on his cock and his bare lap. He kisses you with tender care, lips moving at a slow pace while his hands roam over the expanse of your back while your hands are on his broad shoulders. Heeseung could live like this everyday if you’d let him. 

You smile midway through when you feel his fully hardened cock against you. Heeseung apologizes quietly against your lips but feels you shake your head, pulling back to push him against the headboard until he’s comfortably seated. 

He looks at your pussy when you hover above him, the white cream still sticking to you as you grip his cock. Heeseung can’t believe his eyes when he understands what you’re about to do. Before he can even think, you align yourself with his cock and sink until you’re stuffed with him.

“Shit,” he curses through his teeth. 

“What good is coming inside of me if you don’t do it again and again, Hee?” 

“That might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“Oh, yeah?”

You don’t move just yet, opting to press small kisses to Heeseung’s face. You kiss his forehead, both temples, his nose, both eyelids, and the apples of his cheeks before placing a kiss to his lips. 

“Before we leave, I want you to fuck me against that window,” you say, turning your head to the window that glimpses the city below. 

“But people can see,” is Heeseung’s first comment.

“So?” 

He chokes and when you feel his cock twitch inside of you, you can’t help but laugh at him.

“I’ve heard talk about your escapades, Lee. Why so shy with me?” 

He smacks your asscheek. “Naughty girl. Didn’t know you were nasty like that.” Heeseung gives you that kind of teasing smile that has you folding for him all over again. “Alright then, humor me. What else do you want to do before we leave?” 

“I’d love to give you a blowjob while we shower, too.” 

“That can certainly be arranged. Anything else?” 

You look around the room. “I kind of want to see you eat me out while I sit on the desk chair. Makes me think you’re some kind of secretary who’s desperate for my pussy.”

“I am desperate for your pussy,” Heeseung reminds you. “What if I’m the stone cold CEO and you’re the cute secretary whose ass I dream about?” 

You swat his chest. “This is my fantasy. You can have yours when we get home.” 

Heeseung raises his eyebrow. “Mm, you sure?”

“Positively,” you nod. Heeseung’s hands travel from your ass to your hips and guides you up and down his cock, letting you set the pace after the brutal first round from a few minutes prior. 

“Gonna fuck you in and on my car, since you like being watched so much,” Heeseung teases. His words seem to make your pussy clench and hips move faster. He forgoes any shyness when speaking about his fantasies and spills his every thought.

“I always thought you looked so cute in your old school uniform. I’ve always wanted to take you in that skirt they gave you.”

“I’ll buy one of those sexy schoolgirl costumes and surprise you for your birthday,” you say, locking your eyes with him. “Oh, professor! Is there anything I can do to raise my grade?”

Heeseung laughs at your antics, but the images of you in the costume aforementioned makes his grip on your body tighter. 

“I selfishly want to watch you suck me off while I play with the guys.” He says it in a way that makes him avert his gaze and you can see a faint blush on his face. “I-I saw this video on Twitter. It looks hot.”

“I can do that for you.” You kiss both of his burning cheeks.

“But mostly, I just want you to sit on my face. Mad at me? Sit on my face. Sad? Sit on my face. Happy to see me? Sit on my face.” 

“Simp,” you grunt, thighs burning from pushing yourself on and off of Heeseung’s cock. 

“And proud.” He smacks both ass cheeks again. “Now what do you say, baby? If you ride me until you come, you can blow me in the bathroom before I fuck you in front of the entirety of Paris. Can you do that for me?”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, you meet Heeseung and the rest of the guys in the lobby while Jay checks out on behalf of all of you. Jake’s the first to see you coming. 

“You’re glowing and I don’t know if I like that.” He raises his eyebrow at Heeseung, who has pulled you into him by your waist. 

“At least some of us are getting laid,” you retort. “I don’t recall seeing anyone do the walk of shame even though you had the room to yourself.” 

Riki and Sunoo don’t try to contain their laughter as Jake’s cheeks turn a shade of pink. He rolls his eyes when you look at him, but shakes his head and punches your arm with your first. 

“Nah, I’m really glad you two got that out of your system and worked it out.”

“You guys had major sexual tension,” Sunoo comments. 

“Thank God Y/N’s room was at the end of the hall,” says Sunghoon. “I don’t know how their neighbors felt but I can sleep peacefully knowing I didn’t have to hear all of that.” 

“Okay, enough,” Heeseung laughs. “We get it, we had a lot of sexual tension and now we’re fine.”

“So you guys are boyfriend-girlfriend?” Jungwon asks. 

“Y/N is my girlfriend and I am her boyfriend.” 

“I will key his car if he hurts you again,” Riki tells you, looking at Heeseung after he’s finished speaking. You detach yourself from his waist and bring your arms around Riki to give him a squeeze.

“Thanks, Riki.”

“Okay, we should call the cabs right now so we can get to the airport early,” Jay says from behind you. 

“Jay is such a dad,” Jungwon whispers. 

He pays no mind to Jungwon’s words, instead focusing on the way Heeseung pulls you into his chest. It warms his heart in ways he can’t explain.

“Congratulations, you two. Let’s go home.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

add yourself to my taglist !!

taglist: @baevsxii @lillotus17 @syzavxy @mrmld @nikilvrfvr.

[oddinary4bts]

Chasing Cars | teaser (jjk)

☆summary: when your brother goes to study on a semester abroad, your life collides with his best friend Jeon Jungkook, who's coincidentally your roommate. Will you survive the collision, or will you crumble into dust?

☆pairings: brother's best friend!Jungkook x younger sister!female reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI, some chapters have mature content)

☆genre: forbidden love?au, college!au, slice of life!au, smut, angst (as usual a lot of it), fluff

☆warnings: alcohol consumption, curses

☆word count: 1.1k

☆a/n: teaser time babyyyy!! I hope you guys love it :') thank you to @moonleeai and @jessikahathaway for beta-ing, you guys are the best <3

☆series masterpost

☆add yourself to the taglist here!

☆☆☆☆☆

If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol

☆☆☆☆☆

The hour is late. Jungkook is tipsy, far more than he thought he’d get tonight, but then again, Taehyung is not in a better state, and Sera, Jimin’s girlfriend, had to force him to go home before they got too drunk.

They’re all supposed to help Taehyung’s little sister move in tomorrow, Jungkook included.

“Man,” Taehyung lets out, and Jungkook looks away from the game of Smash they’re playing - that he’s majestically losing - to focus on Taehyung.

“What?” he lets out.

“Can’t believe Y/n will be here tomorrow,” Taehyung answers.

“Can’t believe you’re forcing me to live with a girl.”

Taehyung chuckles. “Don’t worry, Y/n is chill.”

Jungkook doesn’t doubt she is, considering how well he gets along with Taehyung, and Taehyung’s made it seem that he gets along well with his sister. He imagines Y/n’s just going to be a mini Taehyung, which frankly could be fun to have around.

But he doesn’t know anything about her other than the fact that she is Taehyung’s little sister.

“You know,” Taehyung adds as the game finishes. “I meant to tell you something.”

Jungkook cocks his pierced eyebrow in question. “Yeah?”

“Just wanted to say that if you touch my sister, you’re fucking dead.”

Jungkook bursts out laughing, shaking his head, but Taehyung remains entirely serious. Like he meant what he just said - could he?

“You’re joking right?” Jungkook asks as his laughter fades away.

“No, I’m dead ass,” Taehyung insists. “You breathe in her direction, and you’re dead.”

“Damn.” Jungkook widens his gaze, and then picks up the beer he’s been slowly drinking since Jimin left. “Understood.”

Hell, Jungkook knows that he sleeps around. Taehyung does the same - he can’t help but understand Taehyung when he says to stay away from his sister. And he thinks it’ll be easy. Y/n’s probably just going to be a clueless baby college kid, and though Jungkook doesn’t mind going for younger, he’ll have plenty of new faces to explore once Frosh week starts next week anyways.

So he promises Taehyung he has nothing to worry about, and they play a couple more games before they head to bed.

Jungkook wakes up early the next morning, the sun shining right in his face the most efficient alarm he’s ever used before. He wants to go to the gym before helping Taehyung’s sister, and though he hates being awake so early, he immediately forces himself to get up lest he falls back asleep.

His workout goes well, and he’s pleasantly sore when he heads back home. He’s lucky - he manages to park not too far from the apartment. He’s walking home, gym bag in one hand and his phone in the other, when Taehyung texts him to ask where he is.

Jungkook types ‘Fuck off’, pressing send as his attention is solely on his phone.

Until said phone flies out of his hand as he collides with a girl he didn’t notice, and Jungkook watches in horror as the device falls in a flower bed.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” you say, and you immediately dive into the flower bed, retrieving Jungkook’s phone. 

You hand it to him, and Jungkook just stares at you, mouth agape. He’s aware he’s staring and that he probably looks stupid, but he’s dumbfounded.

You’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot.

“Don’t worry about it,” he answers quickly when you cock an eyebrow, your cheeks slowly turning red. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“At least it didn’t break,” you say, and you flash him a quick smile.

It does things to his heart that Jungkook barely comprehends - it’s like his heart is going miles a minute, yet it’s soothing, warm, much like the pavement feels in the summer when the sun has just dipped below the horizon.

“Right, yeah,” Jungkook answers, and his cheeks burn.

His cheeks fucking burn, and he wishes he could just disappear, dive below the ground until you can’t see him anymore. You just keep on smiling, eyes never disconnecting from his, and he wonders if you, too, feel like he does.

Shit, he thinks he might even hear bells in the distance.

You glance away, and it’s like he’s falling forward while not moving at all, and all he can do is pathetically clear his throat, as if that’s going to offer any help.

“I see you’ve met Y/n!” Taehyung yells from behind you, and Jungkook freezes.

Jungkook freezes, and then something burns in his lungs, like he’s under the surface struggling for futile oxygen he knows he won’t find.

You are… Taehyung’s sister.

You’re Y/n.

His best friend’s little sister.

The one thing Jungkook can’t have.

It makes him feel cold, his heart suddenly dropping in the Arctic sea amongst the icebergs. 

“We literally ran into each other,” you say, looking back towards your brother.

And Jungkook sees it - your hair is the same shade as Taehyung’s, your face has the same shape. The smile though - your smile is different from Taehyung’s, and maybe that’s why he was fooled.

Fooled for a few seconds which felt like an eternity.

You walk away then, heading to the open back door of a car. You grab a box, and Jungkook puts his phone in his pocket, eyeing a bag on the backseat.

“Do you want me to bring this in?” he asks.

Only because he wants you to look at him again. His heart flutters in his chest when you do, and he forces it down with a swallow as you nod once.

“Yes, please!”

Jungkook nods too, and he grabs the bag before following you in. His right foot lands on the first step leading to the apartment when Taehyung stops him with a hand on his arm.

Jungkook frowns slightly, meeting his best friend’s gaze.

“I’m serious, JK,” Taehyung says through gritted teeth. “You fucking touch her, you’re dead.”

And Jungkook knows right then and there that he’s fucked. Entirely, thoroughly, immensely fucked.

Because he already wants you, and he hasn’t even talked to you for more than twenty seconds.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures Taehyung, and he hopes Taehyung can’t hear how fake he sounds.

How is he supposed to resist indulging in you when he already knows you’re all he’s ever wanted? 

He really is entirely, thoroughly, immensely fucked.

☆☆☆☆☆

Read chapter one here!

What did we think? Are we excited to read?? Let me know here!

All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2024. Do not copy, repost or translate.

Taglist: (strike-through means dumblr isn't letting me tag you)

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@infiresyg93 | @junggukjeonfreakinwife | @sweet-pinee | @chimchimmarie | @pamzn

[miryum]

☆ 18+ minors dni ☆ (ish. Not descriptive at all)

So I’ve done Brother’s Best Friend!Jason Todd, right? Well, what about Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd?

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd would have a totally different vibe and I will die on this hill

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, instead of playing the long game like Brother’s Best Friend!Jason Todd, would think to himself, right when he met you, “that’s who I’m gonna marry”

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, from the moment you entered his home, would have his eyes set on you because holy shit you were so innocent and lovely and had no idea what you were walking into 

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would be envious of his little sister, Stephanie, for being friends with you, but also extremely thankful that you two were friends because it’s how he met you

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would hang around Wayne Manor more and more often just for the chance of seeing you. Of course, Alfred was the first to catch on. Then Steph, then Bruce, and slowly the rest of the family

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who didn’t care that you were only in college and he was nearing thirty – you were his

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would stare at you when you and Stephanie were studying together in the Wayne library. He would literally just stand in the doorway, arms crossed and staring in your direction, a deadly smirk on his lips. How else was he supposed to flirt with you? Ever since the Lazarus Pit, his perception of… social awareness was off

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would contemplate whether or not he should ask you out because you were Steph’s best friend and he didn’t want to insert himself into your friendship

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would take his contemplations out on one of the punching bags in the gym. Dick eventually had to come in and check on Jason after he had broken two punching bags

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who hung around Steph for days on end, gaining up courage to ask her if she was okay with him asking you out. Steph was definitely suspicious and finally just bluntly asked him what was wrong

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who breathed out a sigh of relief when Steph squealed happily and cried out, “of course! Oh, you two will be perfect together!”

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who then waited two and a half more weeks to ask you out because he was too nervous. He would send you winks and even drove Steph back to Gotham University after break just on the off chance of seeing you. He did and he had never smiled more widely in his life

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who groans and burrows his head in his hood whenever Steph teases him about you or when Dami asks, “I do not see the problem. If you cannot ask a girl out, Todd, then perhaps you are not fit to fight villains”

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who finally asks you out after you and Steph had a sleepover at Wayne Manor. He got up extra early that morning and began stress-making pancakes, as any rational person does

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, after sliding you a plate full of pancakes, stutters over his words and scratches his neck and heat fills his cheeks, is relieved when you’re the one to ask him out

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, later, would insist that he wasn’t nervous and would tell everyone, even your grandkids, that he was the one to ask you out

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who caved under your smirking glare and eventually admitted to your grandkids that he didn’t have the courage to ask out the love of his life

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who takes you wherever you want with Bruce’s money – even if you only ask to go browsing at the bookstore, he would buy you any book you looked at

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, as I’ve said earlier, doesn’t really know how to act at first and doesn’t know how to show his affection. So, he buys you gifts and gives you the key to his apartment two months in

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, after spending the first (non-sexual) night with you, suddenly realised how touch starved he was

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who then did not spend another second not touching you. Whether it’s an arm over your shoulder, holding your hand, or pulling your feet up onto his lap when you two are sitting on the couch

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would slowly move you in without you even knowing. At first it was a couple clothes, and then a book or two, and then a couple picture frames here or there, and then oh well, it just makes sense that you move in

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would decorate your skin with open mouthed kisses after your first (sexual) night with you, whispering over and over again how much he loves you

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who wouldn’t have to introduce you to his family because luckily, you already knew them all! 

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would join you and Steph for girls night and paint his toes and gossip and let you run your hands through his hair (and maybe braid it)

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who would be the epitome of a gentleman and open doors for you, stare down other guys who looked at you, and gave you his leather jacket when he took you out riding on his motorcycle (and if you got a little handsy, he wouldn’t mind)

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who didn’t dare get you into the Red Hood/vigilante business and god forbid a villain got ahold of you

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who threatened your safety and then afterward hold you close, whispering sweet nothings as he lets Tim and Cass take care of it

Best Friend’s Brother!Jason Todd who, even after years of being together, would still kiss you like there’s no tomorrow and remind you that he loves you every five minutes

[milawritesstuff]

hiii please write some pedri angst with a happy ending like they have this big fight and the reader leaves but the next day at training while talking with gavi he realizes how much he needs her and goes to find her thank uu

A/N: I have so many ideas and sometimes I can’t get anything in writing so I just start to write and hope the story takes form. This is one of those stories. Hope you like it.

Warnings: none

•••

You sat At Pedri’s table going through your textbooks trying to suck up as much information as possible. You had been studying all day at his house while he played video games in the living room. You had taken a quick lunch break and then gone right back to your books.

As you turned the page you heard Pedri’s footsteps and then felt his arms go around your waist from behind. He gave you a kiss on your cheek and then rested his chin on your left shoulder.

“When are you going to be done? I’m bored” he said.

“Pedro, I told you I’m really nervous about this test. In fact I don’t know how I’ll be able to sleep tonight I am so stressed out.”

He began to leave small kisses on your neck and as much as you wanted to give in and close shut your textbooks you knew what your priority was. You let him leave a few more kisses as you reached for your phone, which had been sitting face down on Pedri’s table all afternoon, only to realize it was already 10pm. “Oh my god Pedri. I have to go home. It’s already so late and my test is early tomorrow morning.”

“Are you kidding me?” He growled as he let go of you and began to pace around the dinning room. “Im sorry, are you mad?” You asked as you packed up your stuff and sensed a bit of annoyance in his tone. “You spent all day just sitting here with those books Y/N. What was the point of you coming over? For that rushed lunch?”

“I’m sorry Pedro but I wouldn’t have been able to see you at all today if I hadn’t studied. This is a very important tests and I’m really nervous.”

“I know, you’ve said it a million times already.” He spat back. You stood there dumbfounded because Pedri had never talked to you that way. You decided to ignore him and started to walk towards the door. You had so much to deal with and you would deal with him another day.

At least that was your plan until Pedri couldn’t keep quiet. “Why do you even care anyway? We’re gonna get married and you won’t need to work. I’m going to take care of you.”

His words stopped you dead in your track “That’s your plan?” You asked him.

“It’s not yours?” He asked almost surprised.

“I’m not some gold digger, Pedro.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

He stood there in silence.

“I just don’t know why you spend all day studying. I can’t even see you sometimes when I have my days off because you’re at uni. I could have gone out with my friends today instead of being stuck inside just waiting for a second of your time.”

You wanted to walk out of his apartment and just go home but your pride got in the way, like always. You couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He knew how proud you were of your achievements and it really pissed you off that he seemed not to care at this moment.

“So I should just drop everything when Mr Pedro Gonzalez has some time for me?” You ask. “What about when you leave for days with the team. I’m just supposed to be sitting here waiting for you to come back home and kiss the floor you walk on?”

“I leave for work. My job is the team. My job is what’s going to pay our bills.” He explained.

You scoffed. “Your job isn’t more important than my school Pedro. And your career isn’t going to pay my bills, I am.”

You turned around and began to walk towards the door. When your hand made contact with the doorknob and you began to twist it you heard Pedri. “If you walk out right now, it’s over.”

His words crushed you. You didn’t dare turn around. You knew this wasn’t just from today. The two of you had been digging at each other for weeks. He had been gone for a few weeks with the national team and when he came back you had been consumed with your studying. When you finally got some free time his family had been in town and he hardly had any time for you. Everything had been so fast paced lately and you yearned for some quality time with your boyfriend but you had come to the realization that this would be your life if you stayed with him. His career was just starting and even if you two got married and had kids he would still be gone on trips frequently and his career would always have to come before yours.

You gulped as you felt a tear fall from your eye making its way down your cheek and towards your chin. “I thought I had made it clear we were over Pedro when I said your career wasn’t going to pay my bills.” You finished turning the knob of his front door and walked outside.

You half hoped he would come running behind you and pull you back in. Telling you he was sorry and didn’t mean anything. You also half hoped he would not do that. That he would let you walk out of his life like this and the two of you would never have to turn back. And as you took another step and didn’t hear his footsteps behind you, you knew which option Pedri had chosen. And it killed you.

The next morning Pedri was in a bad mood. He had a bad practice and as he and his teammates walked back to the locker room he looked at his phone. He had hoped to get a message from you but of course he hadn’t. And he knew it too because you weren’t one to say sorry first. He took out his clothes and closed his locker. He stood there and punched the door.

“Hey, hey what’s going on?” Said his friend Gavi who was now next to him.

“I think I fucked it up with Y/N.” He said.

“What happened?”

“We broke up last night.” He said.

“What? But didn’t we just go look at rings for her?” Asked Gavi surprised.

“Maybe I was wrong Pablo. Maybe she’s not the one.”

“But you’re clearly upset Pedro. If she wasn’t the one you wouldn’t be acting like this.” Gavi talked some sense into his friend. “Tell me what happened?”

Pedri went on to tell his friend what happened the night before. He thought Gavi would be on his side but he was wrong. “I can’t believe you told her that.” Said Gavi.

“Excuse me, aren’t you my friend? Why are you taking her side?”

“Because you’re a dumbass.” Said Gavi. “How could you say that to her?”

“I was annoyed. She has been paying more attention to uni than to me.”

“What if she had told you that your career didn’t matter?” Asked Gavi. “She can’t say that.” Spat Pedri back.

Gavi rolled his eyes. “You have a problem my friend. You either show her some respect or actually if you’re going to act like this just leave her alone.”

Pedri couldn’t go home that afternoon because he was just thinking about you. He ended up driving around the city until he reached the port. He parked his car and began to walk around thinking of a way to say sorry to you. Finally he sat on a bench and made the dreaded call.

Y: hello?

P: I’m sorry.

Y: Pedro, I don-

He interrupted you.

P: I’m sorry for being an asshole. I want you to know that I - I’ll take care of you if want to. If you don’t then I won’t. But I still want to be with you.

You laughed.

P: But I - I love you Y/N. Can we please forget about last night?

Y: Pedri, I’m also sorry. I just, I miss you so much and we have been fighting on and off and I’m stressed with my exams. Maybe I overreacted.

P: Can we just forget about last night?

Y: Please.

P: Can I come pick you up?

Y: Yes.

[makethatelevenrings]

HAPPY 3K FOLLOWERS!!!! (Also congrats on making it to the halfway point of your thesis!)

For the bingo, could we pretty please get "Wanna bet?" with Dick Grayson?

thank you!!!! hope you like :)

want to join in the celebration? see the bingo sheet here

“I don’t know if you could tell but I just rolled my eyes,” you commented. A low chuckle sounded over the comms and then that warm, honey sweet voice followed.

“I felt a disturbance in the force,” Dick Grayson teased. “I take it you didn’t like that last joke?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was supposed to be a joke?” He snorted at your tone and you continued on, “I figured you plucked that straight from the shitty pun section of the Reader’s Digest.”

“I hate that you guessed that right.” A gleeful chuckle escaped you. Ever since Barbara told you that she needed to expand her operations and enlisted you to help, you never figured you would become Nightwing’s “person in the chair” but here you were, set up in your small Bludhaven apartment with various pieces of technology strewn around you and three monitors tracking crime reports in the city.

“Nightwing, we have an attempted robbery currently three blocks to your right on Roosevelt Avenue.”

“On it, Pythia.” The name came from being an oracle of Apollo at Delphi, something Barbara was very proud to come up with once you agreed to take over Nightwing’s operations so she could focus on Gotham.

Since starting this working relationship with Nightwing, you had become fast friends with the snarky vigilante and you appreciated his love and devotion to this city. You saw the risks he took and the people he fought. You saw it all from behind the screen of your computer and it broke your heart. You wished you could do more than give him information in an attempt to give him a leg up, but sometimes he came limping back to you with a black eye and that shit-eating grin and you were helpless but to apply an ice pack to his eye and bandage his cuts.

“Done and dusted,” he crowed. You sighed in relief and then let your lips curl up in amusement as you watched his fight from a security camera you hacked into.

“That was some fancy footwork there, ‘Wing. You trying to impress someone?”

“Nah,” he hummed over the line. “I’ve got my hands full already.”

You clasped your hands together and rested your chin on your knuckles, eyes peering at the map as you waited for a new dot to appear to dispatch him. “Hmm? I thought a charming man like you would never let himself be tied down.”

“I’m not usually the one being tied down,” he retorted. You stifled your laugh and played with the small silver band that rested on your ring finger.

“Oh, really? That’s salacious. I should tell the tabloids. Local vigilante spends his free time tying helpless folks up. Whatever shall we do?”

“Well, see, now I’m going to have to make sure you don’t spill my secrets.”

“You’ll never be able to silence me.”

“Wanna bet?” The rough, throaty tone that he spoke in made your body tingle and warmth flushed through your veins. You cleared your throat and studied the map once more. It was a slow, quiet night for once. Even though it was only two in the morning, he could afford to take off early.

“Come home and show me,” you murmured.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Tag List:

@someoneimsure @perpetual-fangirl900 @visagebrise @cursedandromedablack @alexxavicry @the-wayward-daughter @raging-trash-of-mind @bunny-kawa @khaylin27

[seresinsbabe]

Some Strings Attached

Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin x fem!reader

Synopsis: It was supposed to be a quick fuck. No strings attached. That was all. But six weeks later when you’re staring at two pink lines you realize there were some strings attached. And now you have no idea how to find the father because you only know his first name.

Warnings: discussions of pregnancy symptoms, pregnancy tests, mention of abortion, doctors visits, ultrasounds, general early pregnancy stuff that may trigger some

Word Count: 2.2k

THIS BLOG AND ITS FICS ARE 18+! MINORS DNI!

I do not consent to having any of my work shared on any other platform. If you see any rendition of my works on another site know that it has been posted without my permission.

Prologue | Masterlist | Next Chapter

You ran through the next few weeks on autopilot. Things at work were so busy between the big case you were helping on and trying to study for the Bar exam. And the lease on your apartment was ending in the next few months. The leasing office had been bugging you about renewing, but you just weren’t sure if you wanted to yet. It was a nice enough apartment, but you were starting to feel like you needed more space. It was only a one bedroom and San Diego was going to be your home again. It was time to put down some actual roots. Your parents would always let you move in with them until you found a house. Not to mention your car was starting to become unreliable. Just the other day it stalled in the middle of an intersection that thankfully wasn’t busy. 

With all this going on you hadn’t noticed the changes happening in your body. The sudden upswing in nausea you had barely noticed and when you did you attributed it to a pattern of forgetting to eat because you were so deep into your work. You hadn’t even noticed the tenderness in your breasts, perhaps because no one, including yourself had touched them in a way you’d notice the tenderness. You’d been feeling extra tired but you just attributed that to the amount of work you’d been doing. It wasn’t until your nausea hit the breaking point of vomiting one morning when Cassie was over that your mind even went there.

“Wha-no! I mean ma-no!” You vehemently shook your head as Cassie looked at you with wide, nervous eyes. “I’m on the pill!” You were religious in the way you took it…okay well that was a lie. If anyone was a serial pill forgetter it was you. 

“Yeah but didn’t you forget them at your parents house that weekend?” Your eyes went wide and you felt sick again at the realization. That night you hadn’t been taking your pill and you hadn’t used a condom and…he didn’t pull out. 

“Ohmygod. Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Your finger wove through your hair, gripping so hard at the root that it was a bit painful. “What am I going to do? A kid? Am I even ready to be a mom? I don’t even know his last name!” The tailspin was starting and Cassie knew she was going to have to stop the spiral before it got out of control. 

Softly she grabbed your wrists and pried your fingers out of your hair. It was like you were paralyzed with shock as your best friend pulled you into a tight hug. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I mean period and pregnancy symptoms are the same. It could just be your time of the month. Come on, I’ll go with you to get some tests.” Cassie was right. It could very well just be your period showing up. You nodded and let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. 

No words were spoken as she grabbed both of your purses and pulled you out the front door. There was a CVS not far from your apartment. Your body was wrought with nerves at buying a pregnancy test in your hometown, but San Diego was big enough and the parking lot was still mostly empty with it being morning that you didn’t think you would run into anyone. You were coming close to your twenty-seventh birthday anyway. Buying a pregnancy test was common for people your age, but that didn’t make it any less awkward in your mind.

Ten minutes later you stood in the family planning aisle of the pharmacy. There were so many tests you had no idea what ones to get. Digital? Not digital? Clearblue? First response? How was it that you graduated law school at the top of your class but you couldn’t pick a fucking pregnancy test?

Cassie showed back up at your side, a bottle of wine and a multitude of snacks in the basket on her arm. 

“Wine?” You raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, for us to celebrate if it’s negative.”

“And if it’s positive?”

“Then I’ll drink the bottle for the both of us.” You let out a biting laugh and turned back to the tests. Cassie’s hand popped up in your view, plucking a pink box with a set of three tests. “I remember seeing a couple boxes of these in my sister’s bathroom when she was trying for Stella.” That was all the convincing you needed.

You guys were in the home stretch. Standing in line behind some old lady picking up a pack of depends and prune juice when the door chime went off. Your leg was bouncing and you were staring at the floor when a familiar voice spoke out.

“Well look what we have here!” If a black hole was going to open up and swallow you whole you wished it would happen sooner rather than later.

Looking up you spotted hair so bleached it was unnaturally white, especially when paired with the overly tanned skin. Libby Wilson. A ghost from high school past that you hoped would stay in the cemetery. Libby had taken the Y2K popular girl trope way too seriously. From the looks of it she still took it too seriously. Most people grew after high school, became different people and changed their looks. Not Libby. Her clothes were a little more modern, but other than that it was as if she was looking at a yearbook picture.

And as if the universe wasn’t shitting on you enough it was like her eyes were drawn to the items in your basket, specifically the box of tests. Her eyes bounced around at the other items and then to you and Cassie. Apparently the bleach hadn’t completely fried her brain and she was still able to connect the dots.

“Oh, honey, aren’t we a little too old for this? I mean we’re not in college anymore.” You didn’t have the fucking mental capacity to deal with this. Normally you would have been quick on your feet with a comeback, but your mind was failing you at the moment. 

Thankfully Cassie’s mind was still working at full capacity. 

“Your husband still seems to be stuck in high school. Or at least he was when I saw him at O'Shaughnessy's with Melanie Baker last weekend.” A smirk tugged at your lips as you watched the anger flash across Libb’s face for a quick second before she regained her composure. 

“Well. Good luck.” It was a sickly sweet call of support before the woman turned and walked towards the pharmacy counter.

You squeezed Cassie’s hand in silent thanks as the old woman finally paid for her items. Your nerves shot back up one ride home, only getting worse the close you got to your apartment. What were you going to do if you were pregnant? There was always an abortion, but did you really want to do that? Yet at the same time could you really juggle being a single mom and starting a law career? Sure, your parents, your siblings and your friends would absolutely help where they could. But you knew yourself, you knew how stubborn you were when it came to accepting help. Even if you needed it. 

And Jake. What were you going to do on that front? All you had was his first name. He could be halfway across the world right now. Even if you did find him, who was to say he would want any part of this? Still, did he deserve to know if you were pregnant? This whole thing was a mess. This was exactly why you didn’t listen to your pussy. Your brain has never steered you wrong.

Three minutes had never felt so long. Your hand was tightly clasped around Cassies as you waited, tears ready to spill no matter the results. The time on your phone went off, but you didn’t move. It was Cassie who made the move to shut the sound off. She stayed still, her eyes on you as she watched to see if you would move. When she realized you weren’t she tentatively pushed herself up from the floor. 

“So?”

“It’s positive.”

Suddenly you couldn’t breathe. Your chest felt tight and at the same time you could hear your heartbeat in your ears. You felt the tears rolling down your cheeks but your head spinning so much you weren’t sure if they were real or not. Positive. You were pregnant. A metaphorical window opened and all your plans for the future flew out of it.

Of course you knew you had options. It was your body, it was your life. Despite the heavy feministic views you had you just knew you couldn’t make the decision without at least trying to find Jake. It was only fair. You worked in the legal system, you’d witnessed mothers give up their legal rights. If that was what you so chose to do. Maybe you would come to find you wanted to step up. That you would want to be a mom to the little thing growing inside of you.

Cassie’s voice was what finally brought you out of your second spiral of the day. 

“Don’t freak out yet,” you scoffed. That was easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one pregnant. “I think you should call your doctor. Set up an appointment to get a blood test. Maybe you just happened to have three false positives?” You gave her a look that said yeah right, but you knew she was just trying to make you feel better. To find a glimmer of hope in a not so sunny situation.

The days leading up to your appointment felt like an out of body experience. Your mind was constantly running, you’d called in sick yesterday, and then again today. Which thankfully, due to your otherwise spectacular attendance, no one questioned it. 

You took a deep breath and it came out shaky. The paper sheet underneath you crinkled as you waited for Dr. Bahn to return with your results. Over the weekend, through a lot of tears with Cass you decided you were going to go through with the pregnancy. 

It wasn’t going to be easy, but you wanted it. You’d always wanted to be a mom, maybe not in this way and not this soon, but you knew you wanted it. As far as Jake was concerned, you were still going to try to find him. You were going to give him the option to be in the child’s life, but you were also going to give him an out. If he didn’t want anything to do with the kid he could waive his rights, you wouldn’t come after him for any child support. He could effectively wipe his hands clean of it all.

A knock at the door signaled the doctor’s return and you sat up straighter. Cassie, who had stuck with you like the dutiful best friend she was, tightened her grip on your hand. Dr. Bahn studied your face, trying to read your expression while hers remained neutral. 

“The blood test came back positive.” Relief you hadn’t been expecting washed over you. Happy tears pricked at your eyes. “Considering the estimated date of conception would put you at about 7 weeks we’re going to go ahead and do the initial ultrasound. I’ll give you a moment to change.” You nodded, watching as the woman exited the room again.

No sooner had the door closed was Cassie asking you how you felt. You just shrugged as you changed out of your clothes, not thinking twice about Cassie being in the room with you. It wasn’t as if she had never seen you naked before during your twenty-two year friendship.

“Relieved? Happy? Nervous? I don’t know, this is a big change.” You answered as she helped tie the robe from behind you. Another knock came and the ultrasound machine was pushed in by a medical assistant. Dr. Bahn followed in, her expression still neutral. It must have been something she’d practiced over the years. It wasn’t until you were crying, a small smile on your face as she pointed out the barely there blip on the screen. 

In the passenger seat of Cassie’s car you stared down at the ultrasound picture, your fingertips lightly brushing over it. It was a quiet moment of solitary bliss before Cassie started up with the questions again. Questions you didn’t want to think about just yet but that you knew you couldn’t really push off. Like when you were going to tell your parents, what you were going to do about your car that was in the shop again, and of course what you were going to do about Jake.

“I’m not going to tell my parents until I figure things out regarding Jake.” It wasn’t that your parents would be overly upset with you, your mom was somewhat of a free spirit and your dad pretty much did whatever she wanted of him, they would probably be happy. After the initial shock wore off, but you knew they would want to know about the father. It was already going to be embarrassing enough for you to tell them the pregnancy was the result of a one night stand, let alone that you had no clue who or where the father was.

Cassie nodded. “Alright, let’s get looking for Mr. Jake.” 

@zbeez-outlet @glenpowellsstargirl @laneyspaulding19 @isakyakiisak @clancycucumber230 @rosewritesitout @crthurston @marvellover91 @the-house-of-rose-and-ember @fighterpilothoe @eternalsams @honeymilkshakesblog @cycbaby @whatislovevavy @cherrycola27 @so-I'm-blue @cassiemitchell @bioodforbiood @mjsvinyl @getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth @buckystwilight @luvrrish @yourmomssidehoesposts @afterglowsb-tch13 @classyunknownlover @pono-pura-vida @milestomaverick @stiles-banshees @hangmanscoming @alana4610 @itsa-me-marioooo @freshavocadoooo @ravenhood2792 @finelytaylored @fredsandlokiswhore @startrekfangirl2233 @lillie-g98 @one-sweet-gubler @blackwidownat2814 @saskiameyersstuff @hopeless-romanticnamed-s @agentstarkid @lilyhw1 @nobody7102 @cosmic-psychickitty @goldenloverschild @novagreen04 @sophham @algae-tm @darkheartcherry @djs8891

[iboatedhere]

peaches from the June prompts -OR- endless freckles from the Summer List. AU! 🙏🏼

Xx

They’re only three weeks into the season before Alex declares that the man that sells peaches and honey three booths down and across the aisle from him is a real fucking problem.

Alex has been attending the Barton Creek Farmers Market for as long as he can remember, sitting on a stool while his abuela sold agua fresca and horchata in the summer and Mexican coffee and hot chocolate during cool fall mornings.

She’d let him help when he got a little older, taking money and making change, filling cups with ice, and squeezing fresh limes.

He loved being there and spending time with her. She had this way about her, treating first-time customers like old friends and regulars like family. She loved to make people smile. She loved the community. She loved Alex, kissing the top of his head and slipping him twenty dollars, a life-changing amount when he was six, for his hard work.

Then he got older, and other things took precedence. Studying, sports, and girls…he didn’t have the time or desire to get up early on a Saturday morning and sit beneath a tent in one hundred-degree heat.

She said she understood and that he was becoming his own person and finding his path. There were no hard feelings. He still loved her, and she loved him, and he’d still get twenty dollars in a card sent to his dorm at UT at the end of the season.

Abuela passed the winter before he graduated college, and a few weeks after graduation, he got a call from the market organizers asking if he’d be taking over her booth.

“What kind of guilt trip is that?” Alex asked June afterward, tipsy on tequila in his small post-college-pre-job apartment. “She put me down as a contact, she knew that they’d be calling. What am I supposed to say, never mind, let my grandmother’s beloved business fucking rot?”

“I wouldn’t say it exactly like that, but yeah,” June had said. “You’re not under any obligation to continue.”

“If I don’t, then who? You? Dad?”

“No one,” June said. “Sometimes things just end. It sucks, and it’s sad, but it’s the way things go. You should tell them that she loved attending and being a part of the market and that our family appreciates the offer, but you’re not in a place in your life where you can make that kind of commitment. Simple. They’ll understand.”

Alex shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because I already told them I’d be there. The market starts in two weeks.”

That was five years ago.

Now, Alex lives in an understated but pricey loft downtown. He works at a law firm that offers enough pro-bono work that he doesn’t feel like his soul is dying and contemplates going into politics each time a politician does something stupid, which is almost all the time. He dates and hangs out with his friends, and every Saturday morning, from nine to one, he sells drinks to market-goers behind the Barton Creek Mall.

“You’re going to cut your finger off.”

Alex looks down at the cutting board where his index finger is dangerously close to the paring knife he’s using to slice strawberries.

“Told ya,” Nora says from her perch on the stool.

“Fuck,” Alex says as he puts the knife down.

“Please don’t swear,” June says sing-songs through an over-the-top smile as she passes a family with three small kids their watermelon agua frescas. And please don’t cut your finger off.”

“Yeah,” Nora agrees, “the hot paramedics aren’t even working today, so it would be a total waste.”

“Not that he would care,” June says, “he’s been staring at Henry for the past three hours.”

“I have not,” Alex snaps, “and how do you know his name is Henry?”

“Because we’ve actually spoken to him instead of staring at him like a big creep,” Nora says.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping?” Alex asks.

“I am. I crunched the numbers. Did you know that raising your prices by just ten cents increases your earnings—.”

“No, no,” Alex interrupts, “I don’t want to know, I don’t care. I’m not in it for the money.”

“Everyone is in it for the money,” Nora deadpans. “Even rich lawyers. Hell. Especially rich lawyers.”

“I’m different. This is how Abuela Lina and I’ll continue to do it this way, too.”

“Yeah,” June says, “he’s not here for the money. He’s here to pine from afar over Henry.”

“Would you please shut up,” Alex begs as June and Nora cackle.

“Just go talk to him,” June says.

“And say what? Hey, I work at the booth over there, and I’ve been trying to count the freckles across your nose for weeks now?”

“Oh, yikes,” June says.

“Down bad,” Nora adds with a shake of her head.

“I hate you both,” Alex tells them.

“Just go and bring him a drink,” June says. “Tell him that it’s hot and that you thought he might need it, and don’t you dare come back here without his number.”

“What if he doesn’t want to give me his number?”

“Then you move on and stop mooning over him.” She shoves a cup into his hand. “He seems like a pineapple kind of a guy.”

“You know what they say about pineapple, right?” Nora asks, and Alex grabs the cup and steps out of the booth so he doesn’t have to listen to her.

The peach guy—Henry, apparently—works at Fox Family Farm, or at least that’s what the pale yellow banner with a minimalistic sketch of a fox, its tail curled around a full peach basket, hanging on the front of the booth says.

He’s taller up close, blonder too, and when Alex hovers just a few feet away, he’s shocked at how blue his eyes are.

It’s like he was created in a lab to specifically become Alex’s problem. His very hot problem.

“May I help you?” Henry says in a British accent.

Alex nearly drops the drink.

“Fuck,” he swears as he scrambles to grab it. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sure you did anything wrong.”

“Right, this is for you,” he says, setting the cup down before he almost drops it again. “I work at the booth over there.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Henry says, waving at June and Nora, who are crowded close together to watch.

Alex steps into Henry’s line of sight, blocking them.

“I just wanted to introduce myself since it’s obvious I’m the only one who hasn’t.”

“Technically, you still haven’t done that.”

“I’m Alex.”

“Henry.”

“Yes,” Alex says, “I’m aware.”

Henry smiles wide and bright, and Alex guesses that at least two dozen freckles are dotted across his nose and cheeks.

“Can I ask,” Alex starts, “what the hell are you doing in Texas?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that my grandmother passed and left me a peach orchard?”

“No.”

Henry hums. “A shame. Maybe I can take you to dinner and convince you.”

“Wow,” Alex says, “I was sent over here just to get your number.”

Henry grabs a pen and a scrap piece of paper. “I can give you that as well.”

[inkofamethyst]

December 13, 2022

The concerts went really really really well!!!

I hope I can still manage to fit in performing arts in some capacity when I’m in graduate school because it’s been a long time since I’ve felt the same kind of joy that I did up on that stage with over a hundred other people making really, really good music.  Like, I’m going to need an outlet like that to stay sane, I think.  Why get drunk when you could get a performance high instead?  It’s basically the same thing (I’d imagine (/s (I realize that I make sarcastic statements which like, when I go back and read four-year-old entries I can pick out the sarcasm, but I don’t know how far in the past I’m going to be able to detect my own tone in the future, so tone tags might be useful? idk))).

Speaking of grad school, I flip spontaneously between “look at those acceptance rates what if i dont get in anywhere and disappoint everyone” and “look at my experience it would be foolish to think that at least one or two of these schools wont accept me” and I think the solution here is to simply stop thinking about it at all but Lord knows I can’t help myself.  Whenever the future is murky, I find myself feeling a little wobbly.  It’s gotten better these past few years, I think, especially when I manage to keep myself busy.  I’m going to refuse to look at phd admissions forums until after I... until after I’m accepted somewhere or I get back all of my decisions, whichever comes first.  “Oh you’re sure to get in somewhere” they all say BUT THEY DON’T KNOW THAT FOR SURE AND NEITHER DO I AND IT GRINDS MY GEARS.

In other news, I snatched one of the little mini ground billboard thingies that were advertising my concert (the concerts are over so what is the org gonna do with ‘em (also the choir groupchat was alight with people saying they wanted to take one so I just silently did the same myself)) and hung it on my wall and a) I understand the kleptomaniacs who nab road signs now and b) it’s so nice to just have!!  Who knows, maybe I’ll hang it in my grad school apartment lol.

Today I’m thankful that I wasn’t hit by the post-concert blues, instead I’m just singing a bunch of the music a lot which is fun.  I’m also thankful that I decided to hang out with a few of the choir people tonight!!  I would’ve otherwise just stayed in my room all day, but I figured that some socializing would do me good (also my photo-friend had to give me a rain check for a dinner we were supposed to have today, and I was a little disappointed), and it did!!!!  Today was reading day, so they had been studying together from early in the morning, and I just popped in to say hello and ended up chilling for three hours before heading to someone’s place for another two hours to just kind of chat (and also play some typical party games but thankfully none of them got out of hand (and I also didn’t feel left out on the alcohol front because this was in someone’s suite and there was none available)).  I was definitely the most.. boring of the group, but that’s okay, I didn’t feel like I brought down the energy, I felt like I was contributing, actually, which was a really, really lovely feeling.  Again, I’m really glad I went :)  I knew everyone in the group decently well (and everyone was great about respecting boundaries and things like that, so it was edgy enough to be fun but not so much that we were uncomfortable), so it was really comfortable just joking around with them.

[strwrs]

I’m in a mood tonight skdhsjdhjd

[miekasa]

NICE.

+ pairings: eren yeager + (fem) reader

+ genres: rich kid au, college au, friends to lovers au, fluff, light-ish angst, smut/nsfw content (everybody gets a piece)!

+ warnings: mentions of depression/anxiety, mentions and use of drugs and alcohol, some of the smut happens under the influence so be cautious if that’s something you don’t like, i swear this is all more idiots in love than angst tho i just wanna disclose everything fairly

+ notes: this is alternatively titled super rich kids and you can probably figure out why. some of this is based off of real life, some of it is straight out of gossip girl and i challenge you to separate the facts from the fiction :’) anyways, i hope we all remember the lyrics to in my feelings

+ more notes: one quick reference for ages in this fic—all the vets are older but not by that much, think various stages of grad school. armin, connie, sasha, annie, and bertholdt are all college sophomores. eren, the reader, and pretty much everybody else are college seniors, so they’re about a year or two older. also here is a playlist for your reading pleasures, shoutout to ryn for letting me mooch of their spotify account :’)

+ word count: 19k. i’m sorry.

+ summary: fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you.; or the story of notorious rich kid and self-proclaimed bad boy eren yeager, and his not so goody two-shoes best friend.

“So you’re saying that you don’t love me? That you’re not riding? That you’ll actually leave from beside me?”

“I’m saying that it’s ass o’clock in the morning and I’m not driving in the rain to Brooklyn to pick your sorry ass up.”

“But… but I want you, and I need you, and I’m down for you.”

You check the time on your phone screen and groan. 3:57am. Far too early to be dealing with the likes of Eren Jaeger. “Just get an Uber or something. I don’t know what you and your idiot friends were up to this time, but I don’t want any part of it.”

“First, they’re our idiot friends. Second, I don’t think they let you take Ubers from jail, and even if they did, it’s, like, four in the morning, so I don’t think there are any Ubers driving around, so could you pretty please come pick me up? I promise I’ll make it up to—”

“From where?” you cut him off, slowly sitting upright in your bed. You hold your phone closer to your ear, ready to listen again; because, certainly, you must have misheard him the first time. You wait, but the line is silent, save for Eren’s awkward chuckling. “Eren Asher Jaeger, tell me that that was another stupid lyric from that stupid song, and that you are not in prison right now.”

Eren makes a sad attempt at laughing. “Technically, it’s a holding cell, not really prison… and I would leave, but they suspended my license for a month, and Min can’t drive yet, so we kind of need you,” he explains, “Uh, no pun intended.”

“Min?” you pull your eyebrows together at the mention of the younger’s name, “Is Armin with you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

With a frown and a heavy sigh, you push yourself out of bed, wedging your phone between your shoulder and your ear as you grab the nearest pair of sweatpants.

“Why did you get him caught up in whatever stupid shit you were doing tonight?” you complain, scanning your dark bedroom for a shirt to wear, “Erwin’s going to castrate you when he finds out.”

You curse as you stub your toe against the edge of your bed on your way out of the room. Given the time, weather, and the fact that you have several exams to start studying for, hanging up and leaving Eren in the middle of god knows where Brooklyn doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, but you couldn’t go back to sleep knowing that Armin would have to suffer with him.

“Relax,” Eren breathes in a tone all too nonchalant for the situation at hand, “He didn’t get charged with anything, and nothing’s going on his record.”

“You don’t know that,” you retort, sliding your raincoat over your free arm, as you paddle down the stairs of your apartment, “The NYPD suck.”

“True,” he hums, “But I paid off the cop, so it’ll be fine.”

You pause in your steps, but really, you shouldn’t be surprised. “Of course you did,” you mumble, moving again and grabbing your car keys off of the kitchen island.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he questions. His tone is actually genuine and it tempts you to roll your eyes.

“What it always means, Eren,” you sigh, stepping into the elevator, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thank you, baby. I love you.”

“Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Get off my line.”

He doesn’t have time to throw in another pitiful “I love you” before the line goes dead and he’s met with static silence. He hangs up the station telephone with a silent chuckle, turning around to face Armin and Officer Hannes.

“Someone’s coming to pick us up,” he says, trying to focus on Armin’s sigh of relief and not the warmth creeping up his neck and into his cheeks, “I’ll, uh, call a tow for the car in the morning.”

The cop, too tired to care, only shrugs, and pays them no further attention. He hands Eren a plastic bag with his car keys and newly suspended license, escorts him back into the cell, and returns to his desk. Eren gives Hannes the finger while his back is turned.

Beside him, Armin is still quivering; bouncing his leg up and down, fiddling with his fingers, gnawing on his bottom lip. Eren frowns, a heavy wave of guilt washing over him as he takes in the younger’s anxiety ridden state. It wasn’t fair that Armin could have potentially suffered legal consequences because of his stupidity.

Eren’s lucky that Hannes was sleazy enough to accept his bribe and let him off with minimal punishment. With that they were doing, things could have ended up far worse for the both of them tonight.

“I’m sorry, man,” he apologizes, hands stuffed in his front pockets, “About tonight, I mean. We—I shouldn’t have done that, not with you there.”

Armin looks up at him with sparkling, doe eyes and Eren wants to punch himself in the gut for making him go through all of this, even if it didn’t amount to an actual arrest. “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”

“I could have prevented it,” he says. Because it’s what you would have said, too.

“It’s not your fault, I wanted to come, remember?” Armin tells him, redirecting his gaze to the grey floor of the precinct cell. He takes a deep breath, almost calming down completely when a sudden thought reignites his nervous ticks, “You… they’re not gonna tell my parents, right?”

“No, no—of course not.”

Armin was legally an adult; he, nor Eren, nor the police had to tell his parents anything. Sure, Hannes could rat them out, but honestly that sounded like way more work than he was cut out for; not to mention he’d be bound to reveal that he let them off easy for a couple thousand bucks.

Armin nods, “And… that wasn’t Erwin on the phone, right?”

“Are you kidding me? He’d murder me on the spot,” Eren says. He pauses before tacking on, “I, uh… I called (_____).”

“Oh,” the younger gapes, “She’ll kill you, too.”

“Yeah,” Eren sighs, scratching the back of his neck in nervous anticipation, “Trust me, I know.”

“You have your access card on you, right, Armin?” you ask. He nods sheepishly, hand on the car door handle.

“Thanks again for coming to get us,” he says meekly, “I’m sorry about waking you up and everything.”

You offer him a warm smile through the rear view mirror, “Don’t worry about it, I’m just glad you’re safe. Text me when you get up tomorrow, okay? We can get brunch, my treat.”

His face lights up at the prospect of free food, and he nods once more, enthusiastically, but his expression falls again when he speaks, “Okay, and I’ll, um, pay you back for the tickets and stuff as soon as I can—”

“It’s fine, really, don’t worry about it,” you repeat.

“It was almost three thou—”

“You forget who you’re friends with,” you cut him off with a smile, “Don’t worry about it, okay? It wasn’t your fault.”

Armin’s eyes dart to Eren quickly, before clearing his throat, a light pink tint to his cheeks. You know that the prospect of money can be a sensitive subject for Armin, one easily triggered by his very environment, but this wasn’t negotiable on your end. You know that Armin doesn’t like the feeling of owing anyone anything, but he knows he won’t get you to budge; so, he quietly nods, appreciative of your generosity, before bidding you and Eren a final goodnight and sprinting towards the dorm. Once you see that he’s safely inside, you wave one last time, and wait for the door to shut behind him.

Slowly, Eren turns to the driver’s seat to look at you. You were eerily calm when you came to pick him and Armin up from the station. You didn’t yell, cuss, or punch him in the face like he expected. You politely talked to the officer, thanked him for his service, paid their fees, and up until now, you’ve shown no signs of being angry with him at all.

The two of you drive back to your shared apartment in complete silence, Eren too confused, and borderline scared, of initiating a conversation. He wonders if you’re too tired, or if you really don’t give a damn anymore, but when you pull into the underground lot of your building and put the car in park, he finds out the silence was simply the calm before the storm.

You take your hand off of the gear shift and turn towards him. It’s a quiet stare down for nearly a full minute before you break the mime act with a slap to his thigh.

“Drag racing? Are you out of your fucking mind? Of all the stupid shit you’ve done—and you’ve done a lot of stupid shit—this has got to take the cake. Just what the actual fuck were you thinking?”

“Ouch!” he inhales sharply, rubbing over where you’d hit him, “We were just having fun! Then these other guys showed up and started talking shit so—”

“Having fun?” you echo, “You couldn’t think of anything fun to do that’s not illegal in every borough of New York City?”

Eren feels his cheek flush, but he only huffs with the illusion of disinterest, “I don’t know why you’re freaking out so bad. I’m a good driver, it was those other squids that got us into shit, I’m telling you. They showed up looking for a fight, then ran like a bunch of pussies when the cops came.”

You exhale slowly, shaking your head in disbelief. You seem to have no other words to say to him, choosing to step out of the car and slam the door behind you. Eren quickly follows, slamming his door equally as hard, and hot on your trail as you march towards the elevator.

“(_____), come on, enough with the silent treatment,” he whines when you stick yourself in a corner of the elevator after pushing the button to the penthouse, “I told you I didn’t start shit, Armin and I got ratted on.”

“I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about whether or not they started it, Eren. You’re still the problem here.”

“Me? How am I the problem?” he pulls back, eyebrows drawn together in genuine confusion, “I just told you I didn’t do shit.”

You scoff, crossing your arms and shifting your left leg, “I’m not doing this with you right now.”

“Doing what with me?” he presses, tone growing icy.

“This, Eren!” you reiterate, “I’m too tired to hear your bullshit right now.”

The elevator dings and opens into your apartment. You push past him, continuing your deliberate strides through the living area, and to the stairs, but Eren catches you with a hand on your wrist before you can go any further.

“Will you fucking stop that,” he growls, “If you’ve got something to say, then stop running away from me, and just say it.”

“Funny,” you sneer, pulling your wrist away from him and settling both your feet on the bottom step, “You’re one to talk about running away from things.”

He takes a step back, standing just a notch below you, perfectly frozen in place. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means your little drag racing episode was not only dangerous and immature, it was you running away from your problems like a spoiled child, yet again.”

Eren’s features narrow at your accusations; eyes fading into hooded slits, lips curving downwards, and voice bobbing low, “I’m not running away from anything.”

“Oh, please, Eren,” you roll your eyes, arms retreating to their crossed position in front of your chest, “Cut the bullshit.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” But he bets that even in the dim lighting of the apartment, you can see the tips of his ears growing red, just like they always do when he’s lying.

“Oh, really?” you ask, eyes widening in mock surprise, “You don’t think I don’t know this whole thing has something to do with the fact that your mom came home on Friday?”

Another pause. “Who told you that?” He asks, but it comes out more like a statement.

“Nobody had to,” you snap, “Jean said he caught you with a sack of coke over the weekend, and I knew something was up.”

“It wasn’t mine, I was—”

“I said cut the shit, Eren. If I went up into your room right now I bet your ass I’d find more than enough of it in a shoebox somewhere.”

He retreats, almost bashful, but unapologetic all the same. “Fine, whatever, I did a few lines. Big deal.”

“The big deal is that you think this is fucking normal, and now you’ve upgraded from coke to getting yourself arrested! It’d be one thing if you were acting like a misfit on your own, but to drag Armin into it because you—”

“Drag him into it?” he echoes with the snare of sarcasm dripping from each syllable, “You talk about Armin like he’s six. I don’t know why you think he’s some helpless little baby, but you have no goddamn responsibility over him. He’s not your fucking charity case.”

“I never fucking said he’s my charity case—don’t you ever fucking say that,” you say, “Having some basic respect and concern for my friends isn’t charity.”

“Wake the fuck up! You baby Armin when he’s a grown ass man. I didn’t force him into the fucking car to get sympathy points from you.”

“Grown? Armin is barely nineteen, disowned by his parents, is on a full fucking ride to an insanely expensive university, and you got him arrested tonight! Do you know what could happen if NYU found out? They could fucking kick him out, take his scholarship away—and then what, huh? Or were you just gonna buy off the headmaster, too?”

“You’re acting like I fucking planned for it!”

He’s screaming now, voice bellowing throughout the apartment, face red—and he doesn’t mean to, he doesn’t mean it at all; but it’s late, and he’s tired, and those shouldn’t be excuses, but he’s too prideful to back down.

“Of course you didn’t! You didn’t plan for anything, you were just being a reckless, irresponsible asshole like always,” you tell him, too blind-sighted by anger and the need to chide him that you miss the teary undertones in his words.

“And what’s it matter to you?”

“It fucking matters to me when you call at some godforsaken hour asking me to pick you up from prison!”

He takes a step forward, right leg elevated by the same step that both your feet rest on. “Well, what else am I supposed to fucking do!” He shouts even though he’s mere inches from your face, “Tell me just what the fuck I’m supposed to do instead!”

“You’re supposed to act like an adult and fucking talk to someone!”

“Who the hell am I supposed to talk to, huh?” he presses, taking a step forward and forcing you to retreat backwards, and up a step, “My mother who’s never home or her bastard boyfriend?”—another step forward for him, another step backwards for you—“The step-brother I can’t get in contact with?”—one step forward; one step backwards—“Or maybe the dad I never had, right?”

“Me, Eren!” you yell back with equal vigor, throwing your hands up at your sides, and planting your feet firmly. “Armin, Mikasa, Jean—anyone! You have people who fucking care about you! Stop treating us like correction officers, we’re your fucking friends!”

There’s silence for a while, just you and Eren staring at each other, heavy breathing, waiting for the other to make the next move. He opens his mouth, but when he tries to speak, his resolve washes away, his throat tightens and the words get sucked back in.

It would be easy to keep yelling, screaming, blaming you for blowing up on him. He used to think the scolding he got from you after pulling some stupid stunt was the worst part; but now, he thinks it might be his favorite part. He hates to hear you scream, and it hurts to see you cry, but if you’re yelling, you’re angry that he hurt himself; you care that he’s okay.

“I—” he stutters, words quiet and broken, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to get like this tonight, it was an accident I—”

“You never mean for any of it to happen, yet it always does,” you interrupt, voice soft yet strained, “I know you have your own shit to deal with, but so does everybody else.”

“(_____), please, you’re right, okay? I should have said something before,” he admits, mouth small as he voices his confessions, “I should have talked to you or one of the boys, but I—I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

He’s groveling now. Mouth in pout, eyes wide, voice small, and honestly, he thinks he might cry. At this point he doesn’t care if he does.

“I want you to mean it,” you finally say, and when he looks up, he hates the look he sees in your eyes. It’s something between sad and hurt and empty and it’s awful. Someone like you shouldn’t feel that way. He shouldn’t make you feel that way.

“I—”

“When you’re ready to tell me exactly what’s going on with you—what’s happening that made you think going to jail would be better than facing your issues—I’ll be here to talk,” you continue, eyes watering, “But until then, goodnight, Eren.”

Eren winces when you turn around and ascend up the remaining stairs. He flirts with the idea of following you, going to your room to finish talking, but you’re probably angry enough to have it locked. His room is up there, too, but he opts for part of the sectional, laying down with the palms of his hands kneading against his closed eyelids.

For as long as he can remember, you’ve been there for him. Your friendship, at times, was like a game of tag—Eren always on the run with you loyally chasing after him; he’d always run amuck, and you’d always be there to catch him in the act. Now, it’s five in the morning, there’s no more yelling, no more chasing, no more racing, but he’s still running.

The following morning, you take Armin out to brunch, as promised. Jean tags along too, something about hanging out with the two of you being infinitely more entertaining than his genetics lecture. It doesn’t seem like Jean knows anything about Armin and Eren’s late night antics, so you don’t bring it up yourself.

Oblivious, Jean chats your ears off as if nothing is awry. Whether he knows it or not, he does a great job of distracting Armin from his own thoughts. They both eat to their heart’s content when you remind them you’ll foot the bill; and you don’t bat an eye when Jean convinces Armin to order his third round of pancakes. He deserves it.

Afterwards, Jean convinces the three of you to go window shopping with him in SoHo, claiming that he needed inspiration for his latest fashion assignment (you don’t question why he’s taking a fashion class as a biology major, but you suspect it has something to do with Mikasa). Window shopping soon turns into actual shopping, so almost completely unprompted, and with little effort on his part, Armin gets a few pieces of clothing on your behalf, while you try to ignore Eren’s words itching at the back of your mind.

Armin’s not a baby, but he certainly is a kid with a rough past and rough relationship with his parents at a time in his life where he arguably needs them the most. A little extra support from his friends wouldn’t harm him.

It’s nearing six when the three of you are wedged in a small booth inside a café, indulging in overpriced hot chocolate. Three sips into his second cup, Jean excuses himself to the bathroom, leaving you sitting across from Armin.

“You know, you don’t have to keep buying me stuff to make up for Eren,” Armin says, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I’m not trying to make up for him,” you sputter, careful not to spill your drink over your lap, “You had a rough night. Just accept my gifts, don’t be a brat.”

“I do accept them. Erwin’s been eyeing that Off White sweater for, like, three weeks now. He’s gonna have a hissy fit when he sees me wearing it.” You chuckle, and he continues, “But you know, as much I love spending time with you, you can’t use me to avoid Eren forever.”

“I’m not avoiding him,” you frown.

“You said you were going to take us to brunch, and then spent the whole day with us.”

“Funny, I recall you saying something about how much you love my company about thirty seconds ago.”

“He’s called you at least ten times today.”

“I was spending the day with my favorite NYU student… and Jean,” you bat your lashes, “I see you maybe once a week. I live with Eren, I have to see him every day.”

Armin calls your name with a pout, “He’s sorry, you know.”

“Not sorry enough,” you mumble. Armin opens his mouth to say something again, but then Jean’s sliding back into the booth, chatting about how he’s finally come up with the perfect anniversary date for Mikasa.

Armin doesn’t notice your sigh of relief, but he does take note of the way you wipe away your notifications when a text rings through. If Eren could spend his days running away from his problems, then you could, too.

Despite being arguably the greediest of you all, Jean loves company, so he doesn’t hesitate to say yes when you ask to crash at his place after your shopping escapades. You expect to be welcomed with sounds of screaming, laughter, and loud music, but to your surprise his apartment is completely silent upon your entering.

“Bertholdt has class and Marco has a meeting,” he prompts, as if he could read your thoughts. He shimmies his coat off his shoulders and tosses it over the bar in the foyer.

Their apartment has the same amount of rooms as yours and Eren’s, but is all stretched along a single floor. It’s more of a maze, really, with intricate turns, and hallways, that all more or less open up into the expanse of the foyer and bar. Their living room is your favorite part. A dark, brown leather sectional wraps around the back three walls and an oversized flatscreen encased in an ebony frame takes center stage. A collection of vinyl records litters the walls above the couch; each of the boys contributing their favorite discs as décor.

“If he has class, shouldn’t you have class?” you question, fingers dragging over the ridges of the closest record.

“I’ve had class all day, but that doesn’t mean I go,” Jean shrugs, walking up behind you and taking your jacket off your shoulders and your bag from your hand, “Besides, Bertholdt will probably cut half-way to go see Reiner, if he can even stay awake that long. Going with him is just as productive as staying home.”

“You’re all a mess,” you scoff, turning around as a cheesy grin grows on Jean’s lips. His smile is infectious, and soon you catch yourself grinning just because.

“You want something to drink?” he offers, throwing your coat over his elbow and tilting his head in the direction of the bar.

“You’re bad at mixing drinks,” you remind him, but follow him anyway.  

Jean laughs, not bothering to deny the jab. He doesn’t try his hand at anything mixed or complicated this time; simply offering you a glass of your favorite red, and pouring himself a smaller amount.

He puts the album you were gawking at earlier on the record player, the two of you sinking into the couch as lovely melodies radiate throughout the apartment.

He spends the first hour bitching about how Marco’s supposed to become a CEO in less than a year, yet has the attention span of a squirrel; but the playful lilt in the brunette’s voice, and the begrudging smile on his face lets you know that it’s all love. He gushes about Mikasa for a good half hour, cramming you with stories about his girlfriend’s talent for sewing and fashion. You also learn that Bertholdt’s been busier than usual these days, and Jean suspects it has something to do with a secret lover.

You pinch your eyebrows at his hunch. Bertholdt’s never been one for dating. He’s had many friends with benefits in the past, but they weren’t relationships, nor were they secrets. In fact, you don’t think that he could keep a secret to save his life.

“Why would he be hiding it if he were seeing someone?” you question, swirling your newly refilled glass.

“Dunno,” Jean shrugs, “But it’s sus, I’m telling you. He’s been oddly busy for someone with a 2.3 GPA. Either way, I’ll pry it out of him eventually.”

“You’re so fucking nosey,” you chuckle, watching the mischievous, satisfied grin settle onto his features.

“I kinda think it’s Armin,” Jean says after a while, downing the remaining wine in his cup, while you choke on your own drink.

“Why on Earth do you think if Bertholdt had a secret lover that it’d be Armin?”

“Because he was in love with him for, like, two years in high school,” Jean says, as if the information should be painfully obvious.

“Yeah, and Bert also hooked up with a million different people in high school.”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t still in love with Armin.”

“I don’t think Armin’s kissed another human, let alone is in a secret relationship with one.”

“Hm, true. I forget he’s still a virgin.”

“Hey—there’s nothing wrong with Armin being a virgin, leave him be.”

“I know there’s nothing wrong with it,” Jean whines, “But it’s so—he doesn’t have to be. Armin’s cute! And very attractive—dare I even say sexy. He could go outside and get laid right now if he just tried.”

“Stay humble, Jean boy. If I remember correctly, you only started breaking hearts a year ago,” you tut. Jean’s nose goes pink as he shoves you away when you continue, “But, if you’re so concerned with Armin’s virginity, why don’t you go help him out with it.”

“Actually, if I remember correctly, I think that’s more your gig,” he shoots back, a smug smile tugging on his lips. “Not to mention, I’m not trying to get beat up by Annie. Though, I wonder how much longer it’ll take before she finally snaps. Hey, maybe the both of you can tag team him, I’m sure Annie wouldn’t mind, and it might even make Armin less nervous to have you—”

It’s your turn to shove him now, throwing in an extra punch when his head bobs back with laughter. You’re very certain Annie would mind; you would mind if someone inserted themself in your kind of, sort of, not really relationship, and ruined your four years of pining.

“Speaking of lovers,” Jean prompts, once his laughter dies down, bending his knee and turning closer to you. “Why are you and lover boy fighting? Trouble in paradise?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you hum, sipping your drink in between words. Jean’s eyes pinch together. “Marco and I would never fight.”

“My god, will you let your Marco fantasies go already? You’ve already caused him one sexuality crisis,” Jean groans, “You know I mean Eren.”

You sigh, lowering your glass and reaching forward to pinch his cheek. “It’s nothing you have to worry your pretty little head over.”

“Please,” he scoffs, flicking your offending hand back, “He’s been texting us nonstop since this morning at, like, nine. I didn’t even know he was capable of waking up before noon.”

It’s your turn to roll your eyes, but Jean continues, “Why he would ask us for advice on you is beyond me. He knows you better than all of us combined.”

“And why you’re saying all of this is beyond me.”

“Oh, come on, what’d he do,” Jean pushes, borderline whines, as he puts his empty glass down in a cup holder embedded in the couch. He’s always been the most prone to gossip, but you forget that wine makes him even more of a nosey prick. “Must have been pretty bad. Or stupid.”

“Try both,” you mumble, “Well—I don’t know, it wasn’t… the worst thing anyone could do, but it was really fucking reckless—and why he did it, I couldn’t even tell you. I don’t know what goes through his mind half the time, but I swear he must have been on crack last night.”

“He probably was. On crack, I mean. I told you, I took an ounce from him over the weekend, but that was after Eren and Ymir did, like, five lines.”

“Do they really do that regularly?” you nearly cry, a hand massaging your temple, “Fucking Christ, if he really was high while driving, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Well, I don’t know if regular is the right word,” Jean ponders, “Maybe for Ymir, but god knows what she’s on half the time, anyways. Besides, coke isn’t the worst thing they could do.”

“You sound like you speak from personal experience.”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, pausing when you shoot him a disapproving look, “Oh, come on! You’re no angel, either—if memory serves, you were high as shit at Moblit’s birthday party, and kept singing the star spangled banner all night.”

“Yeah, on weed! One time! It was on a rooftop and the stars were out and it has the same rhythm as the happy birthday song, cut me some slack!”

He finds laughing at your expense to be much more fun, however, as he continues to chuckle while you throw a fit. He’s also not one to let a topic of gossip go undiscussed, and has no problem bringing the conversation back to Eren.

“It’s because you two don’t talk, you know,” Jean tuts, “That’s why you fight like this.”

For the second time, the younger’s words have your eyebrows growing close together. “I mean, I guess—but it’s more than that. Eren and I live together, we obviously talk, but—”

“I know, I know, but just hear me out, okay? You and Eren talk about a lot of things, yeah, but you also… don’t. And sometimes you don’t have to, because you guys, like… get each other.”

“Wow. What a way with words you have, Jean Kirstein. You should write a self-help book.”

“What I mean,” he sneers, unhappy with the sarcasm being thrown his way, “Is that you guys understand each other in weird ways. It’s actually kind of cute—sometimes a little freaky, in all honesty. It’s why you don’t always have to talk about serious things. But you take it for granted and let shit bottle up, and then get in denial about it until you blow up in each other’s faces.”

“Please, you barely passed one philosophy class and now you think you’re Plato.”

“You’re doing the in denial thing right now!” he taunts, “Come one, when you two fight like this, what’s it usually about?”

You sigh, sinking back into the plush leather of the couch, and wrapping your hands around a fluffy throw pillow. Thinking about arguing with Eren isn’t particularly something you like to do, and truthfully, you don’t really get pissed at each other that often. Not to the point of ignoring each other, at least.

“I don’t know,” you drawl, “Drugs, me forgetting things, him doing stupid shit, him thinking Mikasa could do better than you, school, drinking, the fact that he leaves his big ass shoes at the top of the stairs for me to trip over and fall to my death every morning, when—”

“His parents?” Jean cuts you off.

“I—we don’t really… it’s not so much fighting over his parents, it’s all the stuff he does to deal with his parents. He never gives his mom’s boyfriends a chance, and he never really talks about why, either. I know he’s secretly just angry and insecure about his dad, but… I don’t know. That doesn’t really make it better.”

“True,” he nods, “See—he doesn’t talk about it.”

“I know, and I told him that last night, too, but… it’s a sensitive subject for him—his dad, I mean,” you sigh, “And you’re right, he shouldn’t bottle his feelings up, but, on the other hand he’s watched his mom get married five times. I don’t always blame him for not wanting to talk about it.”

“Yeah, but just because it’s hard to talk about doesn’t mean he shouldn’t,” Jean lolls, “Wouldn’t you have rather he said something than have done whatever stupid shit he did to make you want to sleep here tonight?”

“Okay, Socrates, I get it,” you lighten up, “I’ll talk to him—or get him to talk to me. Are you happy?”

“Quite,” he says, annoyingly chipper as he rises from the couch. “I hate seeing my favorite power couple fighting.”

Jean knows his words would elicit a slap to his arm, so he takes off just before you can reach him, prompting you to chase him out of the living room and down the hall. The brunette cackles ridiculously loudly as you scream his name with profanities sprinkled in-between. You catch a hold of the bottom of his shirt and pull him back, finally flicking him on the forehead.

He accepts his punishment with pride, offering you a signature smile in return while you both catch your breaths. It’s a sweet moment, the two of you looking at each other with stupid smiles on your face, exhalations tickling your cheeks.

Jean’s eyes break the gaze first, as he looks down the remainder of your face, and back up to your eyes again. His words could get caught in his throat, but he doesn’t let them—he shakes his head, and swiftly turns around, beckoning for you to follow him.

“Come on, we can steal Marco’s clothes for your pajamas this time.”

Jean spends all of three minutes pulling apart Marco’s dresser before swiping a t-shirt and Christmas themed pajama bottoms from his room. He tosses them in your direction before leading you back down the hall and to the left, opening the door to the guest bedroom for you, before leaving you to change.

They have more than one guest bedroom, but this one is unofficially yours. Little pieces of you can be found littered throughout the room, from spare jewelry to mismatched makeup. You spot a single, gold, teardrop shaped earring on the vanity and sigh as you run your fingers over it.

You swear you’d lost it a few months ago. Trust Jean to put it away for safekeeping without telling you he’d found it. The boy in question returns moments later, knocking while walking through the door with your purse in hand.

“How’d you know I was about to ask you to get that?” you question, a smile on your face as you retrieve the small bag from his hands.

Jean offers you a cocky grin, “Cause I’m the best.”

“Don’t go getting a big head, now,” you tease, “Or, well, an even bigger head.”

Jean ignores your insult, as you take a seat at the edge of the bed, fishing through your bag for your phone to plug it in for the night. He’s about to turn around and bid you goodnight, when the flash of something orange peeping out of your purse prompts his next thought.

“Hey, you picked up your refill, right?” he asks innocently, “It should have been ready last Thursday.”

You sigh, head falling slightly when you close your bag and place it on the vanity. “Uh… no.”

Jean’s mouth is already open, ready with equally friendly and scolding words, but you cut him off before he can talk. “I was going to on Thursday, but I had class late, and then I forgot on Friday and I haven’t really had time since then. But I have a few left-overs from the last two months, so I’ve been taking those!”

Jean’s mouth closes, but his eyes narrow as he begins to walk towards you. You know he’s putting two and two together, so you speak ahead of him again.

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have any left over, but it’s only five, I promise! I’ve been really good, lately.”

Jean’s eyes remain in concentrated slits, but his resolve is waning when he reads over your expression. His facade fades as he takes the final steps towards you to stand directly in front of your body.

“Okay,” he says, voice soft through his smile, “I’ll go with you to pick them up tomorrow before I drop you home, yeah?”

It elates him more than it should to see the smile you flash his way. Unfortunately, it’s short-lived, as his next question leaves your face twisted with guilt.

“Have you… told Eren yet?”

You consider lying and saying yes, but something tells you Jean won’t buy it. Your silence seems to speak loud enough, as his shoulders drop with a quiet sigh.

“I want to, I just… well I’m mad at him right now, and even when I’m not… I don’t know why it’s so hard,” you confess.

“He’d wanna know, you know,” Jean says, and it’s not the first time he’s said it to you, either. “You know he wouldn’t judge you or anything.”

“I know that. But, truthfully, if I had things my way, not even you would know, Jean.”

It was an accident that Jean found out that you’d been taking anxiety medication.

It was at somebody’s house party where the majority of your friends and their guests had gotten piss drunk. Reiner’s date had suggested mixing their alcohol with molly she’d supposedly had in her bag. In her drunken stupor, she’d mistaken your purse for her own, but luckily, a not so drunk Jean had noticed the label didn’t match her name, and snagged the bottle before the worst could happen.

They ended up not finding her molly, anyway, but it’s a moot point. Jean had cornered you about the bottle later in the week with honest intentions; he’d been concerned that might be another kind of drug disguised by a prescription veil. However, you’d assured him that it was indeed your prescribed Lexapro, and not a shady mixture of black market substances.

And, he’d been more than understanding in the aftermath. Quite frankly, he had somewhat made it his business to ensure that you got and took your medication on time and felt comfortable getting to and from your therapy appointments.

It’s endearing in a way that made you pause and count your blessings sometimes. Jean had been nothing but unequivocally supportive in his understanding about anxiety and had gone the extra mile to comfort you where need be. It made you wonder why you hesitated to tell Eren on several occasions.

It was probably the very nature of anxiety itself that had you doubting your trust in Eren. You wanted to tell him—of course you did—but, you couldn’t. You know that Eren would do everything in his power to make it better, even if that was just being. You know that he’d want to know and he’d kill to understand. But you couldn’t possibly burden him with your problems, not when he has a million of his own.

The one person in the world you wanted to tell, you were terrified of talking to. And you know it’s irrational to be afraid of him, but you can’t seem to control those thoughts. It’s a tiring, consuming, endless cycle.

Jean watches the way your gaze lowers to the floor. He knows exactly what you’re thinking, and, god, he swears if he could take that train of thought away from you, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

With a heavy heart and tired eyes, he takes a final step forward and wraps his arms around your body. He counts three, four seconds before you hug him back. He raises a hand to the back to your head, cradling your face into his shoulder and squeezing you tightly.

“Hey, I’m proud of you, you know that,” he speaks, just a notch above a whisper, “I know you’ll tell him when you’re ready.”

“I will,” you murmur into the fabric of his shirt. You hug him back a little tighter and close your eyes, “Thank you, Jean.”

And Jean holds on, and hopes you know that he wouldn’t let you go, “You’re welcome, (_____).”

You come home to find your entire apartment littered with flowers; in the hallway, on the sectional, atop the counter, up the stairs.

There are several boxes of your favorite macarons stacked in a small pyramid on the kitchen island, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you checked the labels to find that they were shipped straight from the south of France this morning. There’s too many bottles of Ace on the coffee table, sparkling next to a basket of what looks like your regular skincare products. A pretty, gold bow rests atop an even prettier pair of red-bottomed heels, and if you’re not mistaken, that’s a limited edition, vintage YSL clutch on the sectional, resting against your favorite throw pillow.

You sigh, making your way to the couch to pick up the orange envelope sticking out of the handbag. Just as you’re about to open it, you hear footsteps, and a voice that follows.

“You’re back,” Eren chirps from mid-way on the staircase, “I, uh, there’s catering coming from Butter coming soon. I know it’s your favorite,” he continues as he descends the stairs.

He has his hand on the back of his neck and there’s a faint, pink tint to his cheeks as he slowly makes his way towards you. You cross your arms, looking him up and down when he stands in front of you.

He’s wearing dark jeans and a tweed sweater with patches at the elbow. His hair is split down the middle, longer than usual, so the ends of sweep over his eyelashes; and there are telltale signs that he’d been toying with it.

“Eren, what is all of this?” you finally ask, shifting your weight to your right leg.

“Part one of my apology and explanation,” he replies, a hopeful timbre to his voice. You roll your eyes, but he continues anyway, “Actually, part two is in that envelope.”

Skeptical, you unfold your arms and open the envelope. You don’t know what you were expecting—a card, maybe tickets to a musical or something; but what you definitely weren’t expecting were two tickets to Paris.

“France?” you look up, tickets in hand, “You don’t get it do you? You can’t just buy all of this shit, jet us off to Europe and expect everything to be okay.”

“No, no it’s not like that—I swear!” he interjects, hands moving sporadically, “It’s just, well… Can we sit? Then I can explain everything.”

Eren looks at you with those big green eyes and that sad pout to his lips, and you find yourself sighing and taking a seat on the couch against your better judgement. There’s a small smile to his lips when you do—a little victory—and he sits next to you, your knees resting against each other as you face him.

He’s shaking, and your resolve to punish him with whatever solid exterior and half-assed silent treatment dissolves as you take his left hand in your right, and recall your conversation with Jean. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s me, Eren. You can talk to me.”

When he feels your smaller hand envelop his, the shaking stops, and for a moment, it feels like he can do this, like everything is okay. He smiles, and takes a deep breath.

“The other night, you were right, about my mom and her boyfriend coming home,” he starts, words slow and heavy, “I didn’t even know she was coming—I knew she was visiting this month, but she didn’t tell me when, and I thought it was going to be just her, you know? But then she showed up with him, and, well, I don’t know. I was upset. She’s been home for a week now, and we haven’t even gone to dinner or anything.”

He pauses, and you squeeze his hand for reassurance, “We were supposed to get lunch on Thursday, but she cancelled. Had some meeting or something, I don’t know, I don’t care. Friday comes and she says she wants to have dinner, right?”

You nod, he continues. “I thought it was just going to be us, but he was there. That’s when she told me that… that they’re…” he squeezes his eyes shut, “They’re engaged.”

Your mouth falls into a small o-shape. Everything made perfect sense now.

It’s not that Eren didn’t love his mother, quite the opposite actually. He’s a mama’s boy through and through; she’s his role model, his everything, he adores her. Her career as a designer often takes her on long business trips, most frequently as prolonged stays in Paris, so much so that she relocated her primary office there shortly after Eren graduated high school.

Now, she only visits home for one or two weeks at a time, sometimes only for the weekend. Upon her decision to permanently relocate, she planned to leave Eren under the unofficial supervision of Mikasa. Instead, Eren bought Mikasa her own three-bedroom apartment in Midtown (according to his logic, it was better for her to have her own place than to move in with Jean), and a shared two-story penthouse for the both of you that overlooks Central Park.

Eren misses her more than he cares to admit, but he puts on the same facade every time she comes home because he hates the company she brings.

Paris is where she met her newest boyfriend, Mitchell, and Eren swears he hates that man with every fiber of his being. It’s not saying much, though, not when Eren’s hated every single one of his mother’s past romantic partners, right down to his own father.

“Is… is that why you—”

“Rented a brand new Corvette and went drag racing at one in the morning?” he chuckles, “Yeah. It was stupid, I know, but I was just angry, I guess. I dunno what I was feeling, but it wasn’t good.”

You nod, wrapping both of your hands around his now and offering him a warm smile. He smiles back, just for a moment. “That’s what the tickets are for, actually. The wedding.”

“They’re getting married in France?” you question, to which he nods, “On the first? Isn’t that a little short notice to plan a wedding?”

“I think you’re underestimating the power of Carla Jaeger,” he chuckles, “Apparently, it’s been in the works for a few months now. He proposed with fireworks or some shit. Said she wanted to tell me in person, though.”

“This ticket is for next week,” you say, rereading the dates on the papers. “The wedding is three weeks from now.”

“Well, I kind of figured we could take a little vacation before then,” he grins, “I texted most of the boys earlier, and they can probably come to the wedding, but I want to spend some time with you before it gets hectic, you know? Consider it an end of the semester present.”

Your eyes flicker down to your hand, still wrapped around Eren’s, when he starts to trace circles into your skin, “I thought I just told you, you can’t jet us off to Europe to fix things.”

“You did,” he hums, “And I know I can’t—I’m not trying to, I just… Truthfully, I reserved the plane and the hotel a few weeks back and it really was just going to be a surprise for us—well, more like a gift for you because I know you’ve been busting your ass in chem—but then… everything else happened, and I think a break sounds perfect before I watch my mom get married for the sixth time.”

You watch him continue to toy with your hands for a while, processing your conversation. It was typical of Eren to surprise you like this, so you can’t figure out why this particular present leaves you feeling warmer than usual.

“You sure you don’t need a break from me?”

Eren beams and takes the opportunity to lace your fingers together. “Nah, you’re annoying, but not Jean level annoying.”

You scoff, “I’m telling him you said that.”

“It’ll sound better coming from you, anyway,” he shrugs, “Besides, I might just murder Mitchell if you’re not there with me.”

You chuckle, on the verge of accepting his proposal, but the mention of Jean prompts another thought to cross through your mind. “I’d love to, but I… I don’t know. I don’t want Armin to spend the first few weeks of winter break here all alone.”

This Christmas would mark one year since Armin had seen, or even talked to, any of his immediate family members, with the exception of Erwin.

Last year, you all tried to salvage the damage by sticking around so, at the very least, he didn’t have to feel alone. You and your friends decided that Armin ought to be celebrated, not ostracized for any aspect of himself, so you all chipped in for a cute, impromptu trip to the Catskills so that everyone could be together and close to home.

This year, however, there seemed to be quite a few conflicts of interest. Even if Armin was one of the boys who was planning on attending the wedding, you doubt he had plans leading up to it. You know that Marco, Bertholdt, Mikasa, and Jean had invited him to go to Aspen with them, but Armin declined the offer. Similarly, Connie, Sasha, Annie, Reiner, and Ymir would be off to Dubai as soon as classes ended; an invitation Armin had also turned down.

You weren’t sure what Erwin’s plans were, though you’re certain they involved his own friends in some way or another. At the very least, it was unlikely that he would leave his younger brother completely stranded over the break; but you didn’t want to make plans without knowing Armin wouldn’t be alone.

“He won’t, actually he’ll be closer than you think,” Eren reassures you, “Hange and Moblit wanted to go skiing anyways, so Erwin is taking all of them to the Alps instead of Aspen. Armin doesn’t know yet, but he’s going with them.”

“Shouldn’t Erwin spend his break campaigning, and not skiing? Last I checked, he wasn’t too popular in Queens”

“Ah, you know Erwin,” Eren shrugs, “He has a way of making people devote themselves to him. He’ll win the election with or without campaigning, trust me—the point is, that little baby Armin will be safe and sound under Erwin’s protection, and you don’t have to worry about him.”

“How come you get to call him a baby?”

“Because I’m a hypocritical asshole who doesn’t deserve you, but is hoping you’ll come with me anyway.”

Eren smirks, but there’s a genuine undertone to his words as he moves his fingers to toy with the ring around your pointer finger. The same one he gave to you two Christmases ago. Well, kind of.

The ring he originally gifted you was a Harry Winston piece, with an encrusted band that wrapped into two sunflowers, both made of classic, white diamonds with emeralds sparkling in the center. After seeing the design, and the price tag, you demanded that he take it back, or at the very least, get it sized to fit on your index finger or thumb so that people didn’t get the wrong idea.

Instead, he came back with a simple, silver chain for the original ring to hang from, and the current ring on your finger; a rose gold band with tiny diamonds studded around it. Likely equally as expensive, but more appropriate according to you.

“Fine. But you have to be on your best behavior,” you agree, paying no mind to Eren’s thumb twirling your jewelry, “Do you promise me no drag racing or antics of any sort while we’re there?”

Eren shakes his head at the memory, eyeing the first ring that sits against your chest.

He smiles. “I do.”

The afternoon after your last exam, you bid the remainder of your friends goodbye, grab your bags, and hop on a plane with Eren. It arrives in Paris, but you’re rerouted off to Nice before you can so much as blink at the Eiffel tower; you’d be staying there for the two and half weeks leading up to the wedding, in a small villa.

You had to hand it to him, Eren really outdid himself. It’s dark and nearing three in the morning when you arrive, but even in your sleepy stupor you can admire your accommodations. The villa is secluded, the perfect distance from the water, and decorated lavishly almost to your exact liking. You wouldn’t be surprised if Eren sprung it on you that he’d bought the place, and wasn’t merely renting it for this vacation.

Every day after that, Eren proves he was honest in his intentions of this being a getaway gift to you. He’s planned every activity under the sun—from hot air balloon rides, to helicopter tours, to jet-skiing. The days are certainly fun and filled with beautiful memories, but there’s something special about Nice at sunset; something about the sound of gentle waves brushing up against the beach, and the spotlights carved from sun-cast shadows on the buildings.

It’s just after dinner time, bordering on your eighth night here, when you and Eren are walking along the cobblestone streets that border the beach, the length of your sundress flowing every which way with the breeze, and the tail of Eren’s blazer flailing like a cape behind him.

He looks nice tonight, but, truthfully, he always does. He claimed he hadn’t put on the casual green suit because of your outfit, but you swear he was wearing khakis before he saw your dress. The tips of his ears go red when you tease him about it at dinner, but it doesn’t really matter to you; he would have looked good, regardless. Those suits are made for him, after all; tailored to fit perfectly, and designed by his own mother.

The streets tend to settle down after six, locals and tourists retreating indoors or heading to the beach to relax and draw in the evening. Tonight, however, there’s much more commotion than usual on your route.

“Maybe we should take the long way,” you suggest. On the tips of your toes, you realize that there’s some kind of special event happening in the square, filled with lights and music that grows louder with every step you take.

But the crowd and the lights and the smell of food only piques Eren’s interest. “No way—let’s check it out!”

You don’t have the time to refute before his long legs surpass your own stride, headfirst into the sea of people. You can only follow with a smile and a shake of your head. The soft green of his suit jacket serves as your guide as he navigates through the crowd, but the closer you get to the center, the more people there are.

You can feel palms of your hands growing uncomfortably warm as you become hyperaware of just how many people there are. You clutch the end of your dress in your hand, for both practicality and as a sort of comfort mechanism, as you try your best to calm the anxious wave threatening to crash against you.

With a deep breath, you begin to walk again, unaware of Eren’s actions until you physically walk into his hand, long fingers poking at your belly. You hadn’t realized he stopped walking, or that you’d caught up with him, and your eyebrows crinkle when you look down to see Eren’s left hand extended behind him and towards you, palm facing upwards.

He doesn’t say anything, or look back at you at all. Only wraps his larger fingers around yours when he feels the weight of your hand in his, and continues to guide you through the crowd, his pace slower, and hand firm around yours.

The mass of people becomes more spread out when you approach what appears to be the center of the event; and it looks like a party, maybe a wedding of some sort. There’s food and champagne galore, and more than enough happy guests dancing along to upbeat music in the streets.

Eren’s eyes light up as he takes in the scene, “You wanna dance?”

“What—Eren, no!” you refuse, “We cannot crash these people’s party!”

“Why not?” he counters, without a care in the world, “Seems like an open invitation to me! Come on!”

And for the second time that evening, you find yourself being pulled into his schemes; this time in the direction of the open space dubbed dance floor.

You’re both terrible and ostentatious and people start to watch, but it doesn’t matter because you’re smiling too wide and laughing too hard to care. Eren has a way of moving both with and against the music, forcing your body to follow his lead.

He shouts something over the noise, but you don’t have time to register his words before he laces your right hand with his left, and places his right hand on your waist. There’s a blink of confusion for a moment before you’re being swept off your feet and into a dramatic dip. You don’t have time to secure yourself against his shoulders, but Eren does a fine job of supporting you with a single arm against your back.

From what you can tell the song is far from over and the dramatic pose is completely unwarranted, but you and the crowd alike are victim to his charm. You indulge yourself, looking up at him with eyes too fond to memorize every feature of his face in this moment; the way he’s laughing with that big, dumb, wide smile of his that makes his nose crinkle and his eyes light up.

You’re too busy looking at him to hear Eren’s voice calling out to you, or even realize that he’s moved you from your pose to standing back upright. He’s equal parts amused and concerned at the glazed over look in your eyes.

“Hello? Anybody home up there?” he teases, elongating the vowels and squeezing your waist to alert you.

The reminder of his hands on your hips pulls you back to reality, your eyes fluttering down to his arms, then back to his face. It feels stuffy suddenly, too close to function.

“Yea—yeah! Do you wanna get a drink? Yeah, let’s get a drink!” you exclaim, haphazardly pointing and walking towards the food.

You don’t see it, but Eren looks on with glittering eyes, his verbal agreement heard only by himself as you veer towards the buffet. He can still feel your body in his grip, still see the specks of gold in your pupils as he lingers on the back of your silhouette lovingly. And before you can realize, he snaps himself out of it—an out of body experience similar to yours a few moments ago—before catching up with you.

You end up socializing for much longer than intended. Eren makes friends with everyone, to no surprise, and, uncharacteristically, you feel influenced by his actions, and converse with a few people yourself. You let him take the lead, though. Partially because he’s better at it, and partially because you just like listening to him speak French.

“Hey, we should probably get out of here,” he whispers into your ear after waving goodbye to a lovely couple you’d just met, “Before the host of this party realizes we’re miles better than his actual guests.”

You nod with a smile, more than happy to play by his rules for the evening. He offers you his hand again, that same, dopey smile on his face when you take it.

He leads you out of the crowd and back on to the path to your villa, the smell of warm food and sounds of vibrant music growing dull as you venture further from the celebration. It’s much darker than it was when you began your trek back from the restaurant, but beautiful all the same.

Your sandals pad against the wooden dock that leads up the villa, and Eren unlocks the door silently, ushering you inside before entering behind you.

“I know I said I wanted to leave, but I’m not really tired yet,” Eren confesses, pulling his blazer off of his shoulders.

“Me neither,” you say, placing your small wristlet on the table with a shrug, “What do you wanna do though, I’m not—”

“Great!” he cuts you off, smile too big. You narrow your own in suspicion. That tone of voice with that look on his face usually meant something mischievous, at best. “Remember when you said the first time you’d smoke would be with me, and then pranced away and took a bowl from Hange and got high as shit at Moblit’s party?”

“Why does everyone remember Moblit’s party but me!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he chuckles, waving the topic away, “Anyway… Do you wanna smoke now?”

You blink. “I… did you… smuggle weed all the way to France?”

“No, of course not!” he refutes, “…I got it here.”

You scoff, but don’t have the time to question him further before Eren’s tugging on your wrist and pulling you into the bedroom. You take to sitting on your bed while he rummages through his suitcase to retrieve a small, clear jar with several rolled joints inside and a lighter to match.

He shuffles next to you in the bed, mindlessly handing you the lighter while he unscrews the top off the jar. He takes out two of the joints, places one next to the jar on the nightstand, and tucks the other between his teeth. He asks you to hand him the lighter, and you do so wordlessly, distracted by the sight of Eren’s gaze and the blunt poking out his mouth.

“This’ll be fun, yeah?” He reassures you, “Technically, you let Hange take your weed virginity, but I’ll be better.”

“Can you not phrase it like that,” you roll your eyes, “You already took my virginity virginity, don’t be bitter.”

An all too smug grin settles on his features as he recounts the fact. “Besides,” you tack on, “I’ve never done it like this before. So, it’s still a first, kind of.”

Eren cups one hand around the joint, sparking the lighter with the other until it catches fire. He inhales, slow and deliberate, as if he were putting on a show, or a lesson, of sorts, taking the smoke into his lungs and out through his mouth.

You’d gravely miscalculated how attractive Eren would look doing this. Sure, he’s hot, you knew that, but the pronunciation of his jawline when he exhales, and the confidence with which he drags on the blunt is a stark reminder to you. He takes a few more hits, just as slow and sensual as the first, and the room begins to feel warmer.

“Come closer,” be beckons, smoke rolling off of his tongue with every syllable.

You snap yourself out of the haze of your imagination and scoot closer to him. He silently hands you the joint, and it feels heavy between your fingers. At the distance, you take in the smell—pungent and off-putting, but too familiar.

Eventually, you bring it to your lips, careful not to let your tongue press against the tip, and inhale slowly, like you’d seen Eren do before. You do your best to hold the smoke in your lungs for a bit, but seeing as the last time you did this you were amped up on adrenaline and drunk off your ass, the task proves to be much more difficult. It tickles before becoming uncomfortable and you exhale ungracefully, puffs of smoke punctuating your coughs.

Eren watches with a grin, amused at the sight of you fanning the excess smoke away with your nose scrunched in distaste. “You should have warned me you were gonna cough like a bitch.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you whine, trying to hide the hint of a smile creeping onto your face. You hand the blunt back to him, “You’re supposed to teach me, not tease me, asshole.”

Eren pauses his laughter, unsure of what to make of your tone; rushed, a bit embarrassed, but testy. It’s quiet while he stares at you, trying not to let the implication of your words run wild in his mind; but it’s futile when you’re pouting like that, the room is growing foggier, and he’s been semi-hard since you accepted his offer.

“Fine. Watch and learn,” he breathes, words coming out more jagged than he’d intended.

This time, he completely exaggerates every motion; he inhales at a tantalizing pace and flutters his eyes closed while he lets the smoke swish in his mouth, down his throat, and expand into his lungs. He cranes his neck upwards, and purses his lips to let the clouds exit in the streamline that follows the slope of his jaw.

Maybe it’s the drugs getting to you, but your mind is filled with nothing but sheer clouds that aren’t thick enough to block out thoughts of Eren. The weed is unattractive, potent in smell, and all kinds of wrong; yet, everything about him is soft, sultry, and pulls you in.

“Wanna try again, or do you need another lesson?”

You faintly mutter a profanity under your breath. His words end with giggles, a sign the drugs have already begun to take their effect on him, his expression is still smug. You forget Eren knows just how attractive he is. Motherfucker.

“Actually,” he cuts your train of thought, “I have a better idea, come ‘ere.”

Eren beckons you forward again, closing the gap between your legs so that your knees graze each other under the fabric of your clothing while you’re sat next to each other. He leans over, far too close into your personal space, as if to test something; he freezes when his nose is mere inches from your face, a dissatisfied scrunch taking over his features.

He reinstates his hold on your wrist, motioning your body backwards until your back is against the frame of the bed. He hums in approval, positioning himself next to you again, equally as close, but far more comfortable for what he has planned next.

“I’m—I’m gonna try somethin’, okay?” he stutters, the first word mistakenly coming out in broken German, “Just, don’t freak out on me. It’ll be good, promise.”

You nod, unsure of what you’ve just signed off on, but you don’t have time to ask questions. Eren takes another hit, then passes the blunt to his non-dominant hand. He turns to face you, leans forward, and places his free hand on the back of your neck to pull you closer; the expanse of his palm leaving room for his thumb to venture over the bottom half of your cheek.

Eren pulls you in until your lips are millimeters apart, and he can see the pattern of your eyes in beautiful detail. He shifts his hand now so that the majority of it covers your face, the pad of his thumb running across your bottom lip. He applies the perfect amount of pressure to pry your willing mouth open, and then, finally, exhales.

This time, you can taste it. It’s woodsy, and bitter, but the sweet undertones dance on your tongue. This time, there’s more to think about than just the smoke in your lungs; like the burn of Eren’s hand on your neck; the pressure of his thumb against your bottom lip; the proximity of his lips to yours; the look in his eyes.

“Feel good?” he doesn’t bother to pull away before asking, and the words ghost over your lips with the remaining smoke. You nod; he smiles. “Wanna try again?”

You let out a breathy note of affirmation, and then he’s inhaling and exhaling into you, and you welcome him with pried lips and a heavy thumping in your chest. The confidence with which he maneuvers his body and the drugs is nerve-wracking, yet comforting at the same time; he has an expertise and power that intimidates, but compels you to follow.

Together, you finish the first blunt, and Eren lights the second without missing a beat. His hands are more demanding this around; they guide you into submission, and he’s pleased to find that you’re willing to listen.

After the third exhale, you stop focusing on his hands, and more on his lips. After the fourth, you think you might be high—not to the stars as you infamously were during Moblit’s party—but with a comfortable, dull buzz in your head. Everything feels a little fuzzy, out of touch, but you host a burning want for something more, something tangible.

You don’t know it, but Eren feels the same.

After the fifth exhale, Eren pulls away, the blunt a simple stub as he flicks it away onto the night stand, and you miss him being too close. You miss his hands, you miss his warmth, you crave his touch.

“Eren,” you call, unable to think of or see anything but him in the haze. He answers with a strained, “Yeah?” keening towards the sound of your voice, wide eyes flitting all over your face.

It’s too much, too close, too hot. That’s when you cup his jaw, pull him forward, and meld your lips together.

Kissing Eren is painfully familiar, and unnervingly satisfying. It’s certainly not your first kiss with him; and, yet he has a way of making you feel like it is while reminding you of your history. His lips are soft, and they taste like smoke and the chapstick you swear by because he refuses to buy or test out his own.

You pull away too soon, gauging his reaction with blown-out eyes, before dipping forward to have him against you again. Then again, and again, and again, until Eren is tired of your leaving, and his hands are back on your neck.

This kiss is deeper, Eren searching to satisfy the hunger aching inside of him, and you’re happy to comply when his thumb is pressing at your lower lip again. You open your mouth for him and he doesn’t waste a moment, brushing his tongue against yours experimentally, and then flush into your mouth.

He groans when you rake your fingers into his hair, and pulls back with a hissing noise when you scratch at his nape. Large hands move to grip at your waist, and he pulls you into his lap with a concentrated gaze—a brief second for him to admire the sight of you on top of him, before he resumes kissing you. He sucks on your tongue, rolls his past your teeth, and bites on your bottom lip.

You know he relishes in the sounds he elicits from you, and under any normal circumstance, you’re willing to put up a fight with him, but not now. Now, you let him unzip the back of your dress and snake his hands beneath the fabric. The rubbing motions of his hands turn into gripping, gripping into grinding, and eventually, an unfiltered moan slips past your lips when you feel Eren’s erection roll against you.

“Fuck,” he pulls back with a suck of your swollen lip, “You’re so hot.”

Eren quickly switches your positions so that he’s hovering over you. You chuckle lightly underneath him, taking the opportunity to run both your hands through his hair and cradle his head in your hold, “Haven’t done anything yet.”

“I know,” Eren murmurs, dipping his head down to press kisses into your neck, “Still so sexy. So pretty, always.”

Eren bites a hickey into your collar bone, and everywhere he can touch; your neck, your ears, your cheeks, your lips. Your moaning serves as the spark to keep him going, but he’s barely coherent himself the way you keep pulling at his hair and grinding yourself against him. Even through his clothes, you can feel how painfully hard he is.

He barely catches your tongue between his lips when you moan again, sucking harshly before bruising his lips over yours again. His hands are grabby again, finally pulling your dress completely off of your body, leaving it to form a puddle on the ground. They’re back on your as soon as possible, massaging over your tits, and running his index finger over your nipples.

“Eren... Eren, please,” you whimper, chest heaving as you look down at him. He rolls his index finger over your right nipple, with his left hand teasing the other with his thumb. You can’t tell if the look in his eyes is a product of the weed, or just his glassy, borderline predatory stare, but it makes you shiver with pleasure when he wraps his mouth around your nipple and sucks.

“I want you.”

“Want you, too,” Eren hums, pulling back with a thin trail of spit from your breast, before moving to give your left nipple the same treatment, “More than you know.”

You keen to him when he teases his teeth against you, finally having had enough you force him off of you with a tug of his hair. “Then take off your clothes.”

Eren blinks, wide-eyed but glazed all the same. He chuckles lightly, a blush spreading over his cheeks as he nods. He sits back on his knees, pulling his shirt over his head, forgoing undoing the buttons, and pauses briefly with his hands over the zipper of his pants.

“Please tell me you’re not that gone that you forgot how to undo your zipper,” you tease him, chest still heaving from his previous ministrations. Eren smiles, doe-eyed and hazy, and shakes his head.

“No,” he reassures you, finally undoing his zipper and shimmying his pants off his legs, “Was trying to remember what underwear I was wearing. Didn't want it to be embarrassing.”

His honesty makes you laugh, and Eren pauses for a moment to soak it in. Even like this, even with him stumbling over the steps to undress himself, and you almost completely naked in front of him, he can make you smile. There’s something equally sexy and endearing about your giggles; a juxtaposition that makes him want to hug you or kiss you or something in between. And you—you like the look in his eyes even through your giggling; the way he smiles back and blushes and tells you exactly what he’s thinking.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “Don’t think mine are particularly sexy either.”

Eren hums, shuffling back on to the bed so that he’s between your legs, and leans forward to kiss you again. He still can’t seem to keep his hands off of you, his fingers immediately flying to your underwear and peeling them off your legs, pulling you closer despite the lack of space between your bodies.

“Yeah, doesn’t matter,” Eren echos, tossing the offending item to the side, before cupping your face in his hands, “I’d still wanna fuck you in your granny panties.”

“You wanna fuck me?” you question, eyes sparkling and hopeful.

“Yeah, I do,” Eren can’t help but to smile again, happy and high and drunk on you, too, “Will you let me?”

Your feverish nodding is all it takes for Eren’s mind to go hazy again; clouded with you, you, you. You pull him into a kiss, arching your body into his, and running your hands down the sides of his back. He moans at the feeling, punishing you by nipping at your lower lip and pressing your stomach back to the mattress with his palm.

Your eyes meet his as Eren lines himself up with your cunt, teasing your folds with the head; but it doesn’t take long before he finally pushes in, sheathing himself inside you completely without movement. He waits a minute, whether it’s to make you comfortable, or to gather his own bearings, you’re not sure; but when he’s ready, he flashes you a smile and waits for one in return, before he starts thrusting.

You know Eren’s not gentle; rough whether or not he intends to be by virtue of his size in comparison to you, but you seem to have forgotten just how capable he is of making you lose your senses. He has you gasping, grasping at him at him unintelligibly, feeling full with his cock inside of you.

Eren groans, borderline growls, when he feels you clench around him, when he sees you shaking beneath him. He could do this all; could watch you all day.

“So pretty, the prettiest. Prettiest girl, my favorite girl,” Eren praises, eyes raking up and down your thrashing body, “My favorite fucking girl.”

“You—you, too.”

“Yeah? I’m your favorite, too?” Eren coos, reaching out to guide your arms over your head, the force of his body pinning your hands down; you can hardly gasp before he lacess your fingers together, and gives you a reassuring squeeze.

“Promised you, didn’t I? That I’d be good to you, be on my best behavior,” Eren reminds you, leaning forward.

He eyes your necklace—eyes glued to ring around it—bouncing with your body. He bends his head down to kiss it, bites at the skin near it; a possessive streak overcoming him as the diamonds shine against you. “I said I’d treat you good, always. Meant it.”

He stutters, when you squeeze him back; fingers tightening around his hold, your pussy clenching around his cock. Your whining is insistent, and mixes with Eren’s low moans and guttural noises. Eren doesn’t let up his pace, fucking you fast and deep, and it’s only a matter of time before you feel a knot twisting in your belly.

You attempt to move your arms, searching for a release of the feeling building up inside of you but Eren is strong; stronger than you, and he keeps you in your place. Keeps your arms pinned above you, keeps his palms pressed into yours, keeps his lips hovering above yours, just out of reach.

“Eren,” you call his name through shaky moans.

“Yeah? What, baby?”

“Kiss me.”

And so he does, his lips needy and hungry over yours. Eren fucks you and kisses you through your orgasm, tasting your moans on his tongue in timing with him cumming inside of you. You don’t let up; kissing him lewdly while you both come down from your highs.

“So good,” Eren croons against your lips, down your jaw, into your skin, “So good for me.”

You both moan in chorus when he finally pulls out, Eren’s head laying on your collar, nose nuzzling into your neck. He lets your hands free, and immediately you wrap them around his back, holding him close as you both attempt to catch your breaths.

You don’t know how long you lay there like that, with Eren on top of you, and your thumb rubbing circles into his cheek while he sleeps soundly. Maybe an hour, maybe more, maybe less; but the euphoria of your sex doesn’t quiet seem to fade.

It might last all night, maybe even for the rest of your trip but you don’t mind. You think back to earlier in the evening, when you’d caught his gaze after your dance. The feeling isn’t all that different; warm, and fuzzy, and too much and not enough all at once. It feels good, it feels like Eren.

You hum softly to yourself, careful not to wake up the sleeping boy on your chest, when you realize exactly what these two moments have in common: a rare event in which Eren is still in front of you, steady and stagnant, no running or chasing; and you don’t want to let him go.

Sometimes Eren thinks you act oblivious on purpose just to fuck with him, because there’s absolutely no way you—or any human with a functioning nervous system and social cues—can’t tell that he’s completely, stupidly, and embarrassingly in love with you.

Long gone are his days of trying to deny it or get over it. He realized that sophomore year of high school—almost eight years ago—that no matter where he went, what kind of drug he inhaled, or how hard he tried, you’d be permanently etched into his heart. That doesn’t make it any less exhausting, and, in fact, only makes it more astounding that you haven’t caught on yet. Honestly, Eren’s considered hiring a private psychiatrist just to make nothing’s wrong with you.

Amazingly, the remainder of your vacation continues just like the former half. The only exception being that now you’re in Paris. And that he’s shamelessly coerced you into letting him fuck your brains out on several occasions. But besides that, everything’s chill.

Just two best friends traveling through France together and stopping to fuck in any semi-private location they can find. Just two peas in a pod walking along the Champs Elysées at damn near midnight. Just two best buds with linked arms tasting (see: feeding each other) every macaron flavor they come across while violinists play stupidly romantic, classical music in the background.

He knows he should probably talk to you about it, but for some reason he can’t. Like telling you would make it all too real, and give it a meaning that could so easily be taken away from him; give you a reason to want to leave him. Right now, it’s just a fantasy, and he’s free to keep dreaming, believing that he’s special and worth enough for the affection you’ve shown him.

He doesn’t want to be one in a list of your boyfriends, or fiances, or husbands; he wants to be your only one, and if he can’t be, then he’d rather be stuck to your side as your best friend. At least that way, in someway, he could remain special to you; not a forgotten, ordinary ex of your past.

Though, a best friend who he’s sleeping with regularly and he’s in love with and will always be in love with is starting to sound a lot like a husband to him. At least, the kind of husband he would like to be to you.

You call his name, asking him if he wants to try another sweet. Eren rolls his eyes. What he wants is to fuck you, and marry you, and have you bless his stupid little existence with two runts for kids that look like him but act like you so his life savings don’t run out by the time they’re twelve. But sure, he’ll settle for having you feed him another macaron in the meantime.

“This one tastes just like the coconut one,” he mumbles, chewing his way through the pastry you’d stuffed into his mouth whole.

It’s the seventh bakery you’ve stopped at tonight, and even though Eren’s growing pretty sick of the sugary treats, he’ll walk with you to every damn bakery in Paris tonight if that’s what you want.

He blinks at the thought. He’s so lovesick it’s disgusting. And he wouldn’t do a damn thing to change it.

“That’s probably because it’s almond and coconut flavored,” you say, wiping the stickiness from your fingers onto a napkin.

“I didn’t taste any almonds.”

“I don’t even think you could spell almond, much less tell me what they taste like.”

Eren simply pouts in refute, leaving you giggling at his expression. He doesn’t know if it’s possible, but you seem even prettier in Paris than in Nice. But, that’s probably his rose-colored glasses speaking.

“You think there’ll be macarons at the reception?” you question, biting into yet another pistachio flavored treat, “And if not, would it be rude to bring my own?”

He chuckles. “Yes, babe, I’m sure there will be macarons there.”

He’s always loved Paris, even when his mom moved away here and left him in New York, and he’d always loved it more when you’re with him. He feared that having to attend another, what he considered to be wasteful, wedding in arguably one of his favorite places in the world would leave a bitter taste in his mouth; but, thankfully, he’s only fallen deeper in love since being here.

“You sure you won’t be sick of them by tomorrow?” he asks, watching you debate between taste testing another variation of vanilla bean or rosé.

“How could I get sick of them?” you answer offhandedly, not sparing him a glance away as you choose the pink snack. How could he get sick of you.

“By the time we get back to New York you’ll have forgotten all about them,” he scoffs.

“Don’t worry I’ll quit it soon. I’ll have to eat something solid if I wanna take my meds and go to bed,” you spew with a smile, unaware of what you’ve actually just said, “But they are delicious and I have no regrets.”

Eren pauses. Then so do you, mouth stuffed with sickly sweet.

“I mean—”

“I know, you know,” he cuts you off, “About the meds and stuff.”

You look like you could pass out, or scream, or cry, or everything in between. Eren figures saying more is better than saying less, so he continues.

“I saw a bottle in the bathroom a few months ago,” he admits shyly, but careful about his tone, “Didn’t understand half the words on the label, but it had your name on it so I just, uh… Googled it.”

Of course he knows. Eren’s always kind of known, just never had the words to express it. He imagines that’s what you’re feeling right now.

“Oh,” you finally gape, “Why didn’t you, um… you know, like, say… anything?”

“It seemed like your secret to tell,” Eren shrugs, features softening out, “Besides, I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”

Eren’s always been better at showing than saying, anyway. He hopes that his actions, small as they may seem, might have provided you with any sort of comfort in the past few months. Maybe even before that, too.

“Oh,” you repeat, continually blinking at him, “That’s… that’s it? You’re cool with it?”

Now it’s Eren’s turn to blink. “What do you mean am I cool with it? They’re your meds.”

“Yeah, but like… you’re not mad I didn’t tell—”

“Of course I’m not mad,” he cuts you off with a soft smile, “It’s not really my business. I mean, like, you’re my business because I care about you, but you have your own private stuff, too, which is cool. Besides, when I was, uh, researching it, I learned that it can be hard to tell people stuff like that even if—”

Eren shuts up when he feels your weight against him and your arms wrapped around him. Shell shocked, he takes a moment to hug you back, and slowly comes to rest his chin atop your head after leaving a flurry of kisses.

“You didn’t have to look it up or do any kind of research, you know,” you mumble softly into his jacket. Eren borderline chortles, but only hugs you more tightly.

“Of course I did. If not for you, then for myself, because I meant it when I said I’d never seen half the words on the prescription before in my life,” he replies, heart glowing at the sound of your small chuckles.

He’s expecting an equally witty response, but you surprise him when you pull back just enough to face him, a hazy smile on your face. “You’re amazing, Eren.”

Don’t blush, fool. Don’t blush, fool. Don’t blush—fucking idiot.

“Yeah, I’m pretty great,” he boasts, leaning back into the coolest pose he could muster up while ignoring the growing heat creeping up his neck. It’s all in vain as you reach over to playfully tug at one of his ears.

He thinks you’re pretty like this. All the time, but most notably when he has you in his arms. So pretty, that he has to lean forward to kiss you; you don’t seem to mind, if the way you smile into the kiss is any indication of your feelings. Eren finds himself mirroring your grin; moving his arms from around your waist to the sides of your face.

The workers in this poor little café probably hate the two of you, but he doesn’t fucking care. He’s got his favorite girl in his arms right now, and you taste like almonds and coconuts and like the love of his life.

And he should tell you. Eren wants to tell you, and he finds himself wondering if those same intrusive, fearful thoughts were part of the driving force behind your own reason to keep your secrets from him.

You pull away from him, hands lightly draped around his neck, and you smile like you’re shy—like he hasn’t known you your whole life. Still, Eren finds himself smiling back; and thinks that if you were brave enough to tell him how you were feeling, then he should do the same.

“(_____), I… I gotta tell you something,” he starts, voice soft as his fingers curl around your waist a little more tightly, “Though, I’m kind of hoping you already know.”

You blink at him, almost innocently. Eren bites the inside of his jaw; you’re going to have to stop doing that before he jumps you again.

Better now than never, he supposes. He tries to shake his nerves when he takes your hands in his, completely covering them with his palms, and closes his eyes. Despite that, you try to offer him comfort, squeezing his fingers as best you can; and Eren takes that moment to thank his lucky stars for whoever decided to put you in his life. Because he knows that no matter what, even if he royally fucks this up, you’ll find some way to be there for him.

He slowly blinks his eyes open again, gaze resting on the ring around your neck. A faded chuckle escapes his lips when looks at it. The only one who got the wrong idea about his gift was you. But, he supposes that’s his fault; he never did explain it, after all.

“It’s nothing… It’s just that, I’m in—”

But Eren’s startled by a voice that makes him freeze. He almost wants to believe he misheard it, but he can hear the telltale clacking of vintage heels on the floor of the bakery and he knows that he didn’t mishear a thing.

Eren turns his head, and sure enough, there is his mother, in all her five foot glory, adorned in designer clothing from her beret to her shoes. With a fucking street urchin on her arm.

“Well, well, well, what a lovely surprise,” Carla beams, red lipstick perfectly in place even after a long day of wear.

Eren’s eyebrows draw together, as he takes in his mother and her fiancé standing in front of him. He can just barely register you calling out towards her, carefully maneuvering yourself off of his lap, and into the neighboring chair; but still keeping your right hand wrapped around his left. He can feel you squeeze it—whether to give him comfort, or warning, he’s not sure yet; probably both.

“It’s so good to see you!” you beam, excitedly offering her and Mitchell a seat across from the two of you at the table. Eren opens his mouth to refute, but you squeeze his hand again; a warning.

Carla leans forward to encase you in a hug, exchanging cheek kisses, and leaving Eren to stare at the street rat across from him. Mitchell seems to know better than to make eye contact with him, irises scattering from Carla’s back to the décor of the bakery while the two girls catch up.

“We missed you at the rehearsal dinner on Sunday,” Carla recounts, eyes fluttering to Eren’s briefly. One look into her son’s eyes, and she understands why; one look into his mother’s eyes, and Eren knows she has him all figured out. “I was worried you might not show at all.”

Eren strategically averts your gaze when you turn your head towards him, choosing to look at his mother instead.

“I didn’t even know there was a rehearsal dinner,” you tell her, tone polite, but Eren can hear the clear jab directed towards him, “I’m sorry, I—we would have gone, otherwise.”

“No need to apologize, darling,” Carla smiles, “I’m sure you two were very busy.”

“We were,” Eren cuts in, words definite. He sees a hint of surprise flash in his mother’s eyes briefly, expertly covered up with her sweet demeanor. She only nods in understanding, sitting back a bit to wrap her arm around Mitchell’s.

“What are you even doing here, Ma?” Eren questions, even as you do the same with his hands under the table, “Isn’t it bad luck to see the groom before the wedding.”

“After the third or fourth wedding, you grow tired of pleasantries and superstitions, my love,” she replies, “This place makes Mitchell’s favorite macarons, we thought we’d share a few before the big day. Maybe get some tea as a pre-celebration.”

The topic of sweets has you speaking up once again, engaging both his mother and Mitchell in a discussion about them, and your other findings from bakery hopping earlier. If Eren didn’t love you to pieces, he would have left the table a long time ago.

It carries on much longer than he can bear to endure; almost an hour of you, and his mother, and Mitchell making pleasant conversation while he tries his best not to brood beside you, but it’s futile. He feels like a little kid again. Stuck at the dinner table with his mother and a man he was being forced to get to know, only for him to become a stranger to him in a matter of months.

Eren grinds his teeth into each other when you laugh at something Mitchell says. He’s not going to sit through his any longer; or ever again.

“Well, this has been fun,” Eren says, voice blatantly monotonous as his cuts through the conversation, “But we should all probably head back go to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

“Eren, we should—” but, he stands up quickly, hand wrapping around yours to force you upwards too.

He doesn’t care to look at you, knowing the dissatisfied expression he’ll be met with. He fishes for his wallet and pulls out too many Euros, neatly tucking them under an unused knife to pay for the meal.

Eren’s steps out from between his chair and the table. “We’ll see you guys tomorr—” But is stopped before he can take three steps away.

His mother’s hand wrapped around his wrist. She stands, significantly shorter than Eren’s full height. “Actually, Eren, could I borrow you for a bit?”

And he doesn’t want to, because he knows exactly the conversation waiting for him. But he looks down at her, lets his eyes flicker to you, and back to her, and he knows he doesn’t have the heart to walk away. Not even if he tried.

He sighs with a shallow nod. He can feel your hand on his shoulder, the proud smile on your lips when you tell him that you’ll meet him back at your hotel. Mitchell ensures him and Carla that he’ll make sure you get back safely, and Eren still can’t stand the guy, but he’s grateful that he can at least be of use for something.

Eren kisses you on the forehead briefly, a promise to you and himself that he’ll finish his confession later. After all, he probably should come to terms with the woman who taught him what love is before he vowed to love you for the rest of his life.

The walk to his mother’s hotel is silent, Eren choosing to keep to himself, hands stuffed in his pockets to prevent his mom from holding them. He’s probably acting like a child, but isn’t that what he is to her; isn’t that she treats him as.

“Look, Ma, you don’t need my approval to marry him,” Eren grumbles, when they finally exit the elevator into the hotel room, “It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Of course I don’t,” Carla offers him a small grin, even if he won’t look at her directly, “But it matters to me.”

“Why does it matter now? It didn’t matter with Keith, or Henry, or Henri with an I, or any of the others,” Eren mumbles, reluctantly taking a seat on the stool opposite the vanity.

His mother tracks his movements with soft eyes and an amused grin as Eren absentmindedly bends a knee and begins to fiddle with the hem of his pants. Just like he used to when he was upset as a child.

“It mattered then, too, Eren,” she tells him, sitting on the stool and facing him.

He’s surprised by her words, his wide eyes giving him away even if he attempts to act unfazed. “It didn’t seem like it.”

Carla opens her mouth to speak, but closes it, words stuck in her throat. She watches Eren’s hunched figure, her tall son not even bothering to look her in the eyes. She exhales slowly; if he were five feet smaller, he’d have tucked himself under her arm, still refusing to look at her, but he’d have snuggled his head into her side while he pouted anyway.

“I suppose it didn’t,” she admits, “In the end, the love wasn’t enough to make it last, then.”

Eren is quiet for a bit at that, pulling at his pants leg. “And… and you love him enough, now?”

“It’s more than love, Eren. It’s... happiness—for yourself and another person—it’s being okay with somebody knowing you now, and forever. Whichever version of you that is.”

“Then why did you marry them before?” Eren asks, “If you knew it wasn’t enough, if you knew it was just going to end up as another big mistake.”

“Maybe the marriages were a mistake, and some of what came with them, but I don’t think the feelings were,” Carla muses, “Love is never wasted.”

“How can you say that?” Eren questions, disbelief and exasperation painted on his face, “Of course it is—you wasted your time, and your money, and your—your everything on those people who couldn’t care less about you now!”

“Eren—”

“You let them into our house,” Eren speaks over her, “You let them into your life, and they left. They always left—”

“Eren—”

“—And you even let some of them come back! Everyone, you let everyone have another chance, another anniversary, another wedding,” He’s ranting, crying, hot, irrational tears streaming down his face; hiccups interrupting his speech, “So—so, so if it’s not wasted and everyone gets another chance and another chance and another chance—why didn’t he come back, huh? For his?”

Eren’s standing now, arms flailing every which way during his breakdown, but his mother doesn’t try to stop him. She lets him continue, hears him out.

“If it’s love—if it’s not wasted, and it’s real—then why didn’t he come back? Why didn’t he want to? Why—why didn’t he want me? Why did I end up the bastard?”

Eren looks his mother in the eyes for the first time in the duration of their conversation with that final question; with his vision blurry, and chest heaving, and cheeks wet. Carla has no words to say; can only carefully open her arms, and wait for her son to come crashing into them. And he does; and it rains and pours, and Eren holds onto his mother for dear life, and onto the pieces of her breaking heart.

“Am I not good enough to have that kind of love?” Eren asks through tears, “Am I not special enough to want to know?”

“Eren,” she finally speaks, moving to cradle his head in her hands, “You don’t have to be special or good, to be known or loved. It’s enough that you were born. That’s enough to make you deserving of love.”

She doesn’t mind the tears against her palms or the hiccups of Eren’s breathing, “And you already have it.”

And Eren looks at her with eyes wide and wild like a child, staring at the first person to have ever loved someone as messed up, and plain, and ordinary as him; and he can feel more tears bubbling at his eyes.

“Ma, I’m—I’m so sorry,” he chokes out, wrapping his arms around her even tighter, chin resting on her shoulder while his shake through his tears, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Carla hugs her son as close as she can, like he’s five years old and the apple of her eye and she can take all his pain away. “You don’t have to be. You’re my son, and I’ll love you always.”

It feels like they have all the time in the world like that, to hug and cry and apologize; but Carla hopes Eren knows that he was always forgiven; that he never had anything to apologize for in the first place.

“She loves you, too, baby,” she coos, holding Eren as tight as possible, “But you have to let her know that. That you accept it.”

“Do you think she knows?” Eren asks, words muffled into the fabric of her clothing, “That I love her, too?”

“I do,” Carla confirms, pulling away to look at Eren in the eyes; his beautiful, shining, green eyes, “But I don’t think that either of you really realized it. I mean, you did give her an engagement ring, darling.”

Eren huffs at the memory, “She thought it was a gift.”

“Because you gave it to her as a gift.”

“I thought it was pretty obvious.”

“Love has a way of making people blind,” Carla muses, “Especially two lovesick semi-adults with too much money on their hands.”

Eren’s cheeks grow pink at the accusation, “It’s your money!”

“Yes, and I’m very happy to have it,” Carla chuckles, motioning for Eren to stand up. He does, and she looks up at him with glimmering, proud eyes. “Now, go, shoo. You have a girl to propose to, don’t you? There might be two Jaeger weddings this weekend.”

Eren nods, certain of himself for the first time in a while. He turns on his heel with a vigor igniting his footsteps, but pauses when he reaches the elevator. He makes a sharp turn, running back to his mom one last time, and squeezing her suddenly, and tightly against him.

“I love you, mom,” he says; the words too foreign on his tongue, and he vows to not let them be a stranger to his vocabulary from here on out.

“I love, you, too, Eren,” Carla calmly wraps her arms around her son one last time, “And I always will.”

You half-expected your walk back to your hotel with Mitchell to be painfully awkward, but he proves to be a pleasant conversationalist, even in Carla’s absence.

You know that Eren isn’t fond of him, but you wish that he would at least give him a chance. There’s no way to know if a marriage—if any relationship—will last forever, but, sometimes, you think it’s not about knowing about forever; but, rather about wanting it to make it there; about willing to go the distance with that person.

You can see that want, that willingness that works alongside love in Mitchell and Carla’s relationship, that stands out from her past marriages. You get the feeling they’re going to last; and that, most importantly, they both want it to, too.

It’s quiet out as you both walk the streets of Paris, Mitchell taking the time to point out small notes in architecture that interest you. You readjust your jacket as a gust of wind washes over you, careful to make sure your necklace doesn’t snag against your clothing.

“That’s a beautiful ring,” he calls to you gently.

“Thank you,” Surprised, you quickly let out an embarrassed cough, looking down to your left hand resting atop the uppermost button on your coat. “It was a gift.”

“I meant that one,” Mitchell corrects, carefully gesturing to his own neck to indicate that he was talking about the ring on your necklace, and not the one on your finger.

“Oh, thank you,” you repeat, “That one was actually a gift, too.”

The older man hums, continuing your walk to your hotel. “Must have been one hell of a gift. I don’t know many people who give out engagement rings as presents.”

“Oh, no, no, no, it wasn’t—it’s not an engagement ring,” you tell him, feeling a warmth creep up your cheeks even in the chilly atmosphere of the night, “Eren gave it to me, actually, a few years ago—it was a Christmas gift.”

“Eren, huh?” Mitchell smiles fondly, “That makes sense. Carla tells me how much he cares about you.”

“You—she does?” you stutter. Mitchell nods. “I—I mean, I care about him, too.”

“Enough to accept an engagement ring from him, it seems,” Mitchell taunts, “I’m no specialist, but I know a Harry Winston piece when I see it. They’re not cheap.”

“Trust me, I know,” you scoff, “I almost killed him when I saw how much he spent on it.”

“And you took it, anyway?”

“Well, he—he was supposed to return it,” you defend yourself, “Because I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea! But he just, well, he gave me the other one instead, so I wear that one on my hand.”

Mitchell pauses, just as you both stand to the entrance of your hotel. “And what was the wrong idea you didn’t want people getting.”

“That... that...,” you pause, thinking back to that Christmas day.

Even though Eren is known for spending ludacris amounts of money, the ring came as a genuine surprise to you. A couple thousand on shoes, sure—you’re victim to that yourself; a couple hundred thousand on a lavish vacation wasn’t out of the ordinary, either; but a million, maybe even more, on a ring that you could have only ever asked of him in your dreams was another thing completely.

And, sure, even a few million didn’t mean much to you or Eren at the end of the day, but it wasn’t just the price; it was the object of the money, too. To accept a house, or a car, or a jet for that amount is something you could rationalize; but a ring seemed foreign, and far out of your league.

Then there was the display and value it held beyond money. It’s beautiful, gorgeous, but more than that, it’s tailored to your exact liking. The synthesis of your aesthetic and everything you could ask for, garnished with the memory of Eren in the very design; the diamonds you love, the flowers that remind him of you, and the way they stems wrap around each other and the petals meet in the middle.

A small gasp leaves your lips and instinctively, you reach to clutch the ring in your hold. There was no way this was an engagement ring... Eren hadn’t proposed to you when he gave it to you—in fact, he was so casual about it, that it had you stunned that he hadn’t thought to consider that other people might think it meant something more than what he intended it to be.

But, looking back, it seems like you’re the only one who didn’t understand what was going on. Because Eren told you, even then, that he’d wanted you forever; you didn’t know how to hear him. It was all right there—not just in the ring, but in all his gifts, in the entirety of your friendship.

Eren loves you, more than you could ever know.

“It’s an engagement ring,” you say aloud, but more to yourself than to Mitchell, “Oh my god, it’s an engagement ring.”

Mitchell can’t do anything but smile at your revelation. You’re practically bouncing off the walls, connecting the puzzle pieces of your relationship in the middle of the street at damn near midnight, but you don’t care; because it finally feels right, and it finally, finally all makes sense.

“He, but he never pro—oh my fucking god, I’m going to kill him.”

You feel elated and confused and happy and murderous all at once. Eren wanted to marry you; Eren loved you. He wants you for the rest of his life, and you’ve been too blind to see it this entire time.

Still, you think that maybe a verbal proposal might have helped to open your eyes a bit.

“Mitchell, I have to—”

You’re cut off by the echo of your name coming from the opposite end of the street, and you can just barely make out of Eren’s figure in the faded lights of the street lamps. His name falls from your lips like a whisper, and you hardly register Mitchell’s amused, soft laughter from beside you.

“I think that’s my cue,” he says, patting you on the shoulder, “I better get back to Carla. Something tells me you two have a bit to talk about.”

You can barely nod at him, eye still wide and stunned, but a smile on your face even in your fearful anticipation. You don’t have time to thank him before he turns away, bidding you goodnight; and then you have something else to focus on, as Eren’s footsteps grow louder, and his silhouette grows sharper the closer he gets to you.

He practically crashes into you, chest heaving, hair wind-swept and wild from his running. He puts his hands on your shoulders, to steady himself physically and mentally, labored breaths ghosting over the top of your head.

“Hi,” he finally squeaks; and that stupid, big, dopey grin is on his face.

It’s ridiculous, so utterly ridiculous that you can’t help but greet him back. The two of you stand there, smiling like fools for god knows how long, before the realization strikes you for a second time.

Eren opens his mouth to finally speak, but a pained squeal leaves his lips instead as he feels the back of your hand slap his chest. “Ouch—hey, what was that for!”

“What the hell do you think you were doing proposing to me without telling me?” you screech, packing another punch to his chest for good measure, but it’s a poor barrier and does nothing to stop your tears from falling, “You’re an idiot, I should kill you for this, you know that, Eren Jaeger?”

Eren laughs softly, only to be heard by you in close proximity. He takes your offending hand in his, and reaches for your other, pulling both of them between your bodies. He can feel tears welling in his own eyes, as he looks down at the necklace, glimmering perfectly under the moonlight.  

“In my defense, the first thing you told me to do when I gave it to you was to return it.”

“I might not have said that if you told me what it meant,” you can hardly choke out a laugh through your tears; and Eren can’t stop his from falling either, “It’s insane, you know. This whole thing—to ask me to marry you at 19. For me to not realize until we’re 21.”

“I know,” Eren agrees, inching closer even though there’s barely any room between you, “I know. But I know I love you, every version of you. I always have, I always will.”

You close your eyes as Eren’s hands move to your face, gingerly sweeping your tears away from your cheeks. He feels too close, it feels like too much; but you don’t want him to move.

“You know... if you had asked me, then,” you start, blinking your eyes open with a sniffle; you’re met with Eren’s emerald greens one with far too much hope and love glimmering in them, “I—I don’t even know what I would have said.”

“And if I asked you now?”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, slowly raising your hands to wrap around Eren’s wrist, and lower them to your neck, before looking at him again, “Ask me.”

Eren blinks, carefully trailing his hands up and around your neck, nimble fingers undoing the clasp of your necklace. He hardly lets the chain pool into his hand before it’s tossed aside, and the ring is still between his thumbs and index fingers as he lowers himself on to one knee.

“You are the love of my life, and there’s not a single version of life—a single version of you, or me—where I don’t want to be with you forever,” Eren says, “And you know how shit I am with my words, but I fucking mean it. I swear to you, that I’ll do my best every day to show you how much you mean to me; marry me, and I’ll prove it to you, I swear, I will.”  

Your lips are wobbling at Eren’s confession below you, and you can just barely beckon him upwards in your state. He’s hardly back on two feet before you’re pulling him against you, ghosting the word “yes” on his lips before you kiss him.

You both melt into the kiss, Eren’s hands skillfully cupping your cheeks, while he keeps the ring in his hold and bruises your lips together.

“You don’t have to prove it to me, Eren,” you assure him, hand shaking when you pull apart and let him slip the ring onto your finger—where it belongs, “You already have.”

For his first birthday as a married man, Eren requested something intimate. He wanted just a small celebration with all of your mutual friends, some good food, alcohol, and lots of fun.

Supposedly simple and intimate for him entailed renting out the top floor of the Whitney, which was currently encasing an exhibit portraying some kind of abstract modern art that allowed for a very drunk Eren and Armin have to entertain themselves by trying their best to recreate the paintings using very flawed couples aerial yoga.

The art, paired with the dimmed lighting, Jean’s choice selection of overtly sexual music, and Eren’s pick of overpriced champagne also meant that Marco, Bertholdt, Connie, and Sasha found everything ten times funnier than they were—which meant they were a million times louder than usual.

Jean stands next to you by the bar, watching as Eren attempts to hold Armin above his head by holding on to just his waist. They’re unsuccessful, of course, resulting in both boys toppling onto the ground as the majority of their older friends laugh along.

“Lucky me, I get to take him home at the end of the night,” you drawl, turning to the bartender to order another drink.

She smiles, easily preparing your martini and sliding it you with an inquiry. “That’s your boyfriend? The tall one with the brown hair?”

“No,” you sigh, eyes closed for a moment before taking the glass between your fingers. “That’s my husband, unfortunately.”

× even more notes: this fic. is my baby. it’s been a draft of mine for over two years at this point. it’s gone through various fandoms but i’ve never quite been able to complete and post it, so i’m very happy that it’s finally here! i hope you all enjoyed, and i just wanted to say that i’m glad to finally have been able to share this with you all!

[buckyseddie]

buried feelings

pairings — theo raeken x fem!mccall!reader

summary — in which, she’s forced to admit her long time feelings for theo when her brother and best friend lock her inside her room alone with him.

word count — 4.0k.

warnings — angst, fluff, mentions of harry potter, mentions of past heartbreak, flashbacks, use of pet-names [princess, sweetheart], deep confessions, hand-holding, kisses, stiles and scott being the caption of reader and theo being a couple.

notes — was feeling kinda sad, so i wanted to write about my fav comfort character to make me feel better :). also, before i forget, my tumblr is acting up because of my lap top and so i can’t get the word count. i’ll wait until it starts working again, but i wanted to post this real quick!! i’ll update the word count when i can. gif and divider creds to owner!

p.s., feedback is very much encouraged and appreciated <3.

main masterlist

IT STARTED OUT AS AN innocent crush — an infatuation, if i’m being completely honest.

the first time she met theo, was when he helped protect her big brother from the chimera who’d tried to take his power and life.

she was only human and got tossed aside — she had been trying to protect scott.

noticing her shaking body, theo had walked over to her and lifted up her limping form, asking her if she was alright as she nodded and thanked him.

she’d never met theo way back when scott and stiles had met him.

but, she’d only always known of him as scott’s and stiles’ old childhood friend, who’d moved away after the fourth grade.

but, she’d gotten to meet him the night that belasko tried to kill scott — for real.

and she’d finally gotten a real glimpse of the boy who her brother and best friend had always talked about knowing.

she remembers that day so clearly — of how he’d asked them if they even remembered him, and how he wanted to be in the pack.

and she knew — right away since that night — that she trusted him, even if that said trust would come back to bite her in the ass one day — that day being the moment she found out the truth of his real intentions.

she’d walked home that night, not knowing that she’d get to have a much more formal introduction with the raeken boy, the very next day.

she’s hanging out with malia and stiles outside the school, in the early morning.

stiles is currently spewing some paranoid rant about how his old friend isn’t the theo that he remembers.

malia and [y/n] both try to calm down his judgemental and paranoid ass, but then a car pulls up and theo exited the car, him looking up and waving a friendly hand and charismatic smile in their general direction.

stiles rolls his eyes, still going on and on about the recent rant he’d been on, minutes before.

she then turns to him, scolding and lecturing him for judging someone, before getting to know him first.

and with that, she walks away and rushes to the library to get some studying in for an upcoming quiz.

ironically, she runs into theo there.

he sits down across from her with a charming smile, before pulling out a book of his own to read.

[y/n] didn’t think of theo as the reading type.

but, on the contrary, he’s not even actually reading at all — he’s simply observing her.

then, she shortly leaves the library to do some studying at her locker, during her free period.

but, as she’s opening her locker to grab some of her assignments, while trying to ignore the red flush to her cheeks from the cause of theo’s smile, she’s yanked by stiles and liam to go ‘spy’ on theo.

it’s way too obvious that the idea of spying on theo was stiles’ idea, not liam’s.

besides, liam is supposed to be studying with mason, not letting stiles take him on this spiteful trip to expose theo, just to prove his paranoia right.

but, even though she hates the idea of being apart of stiles’ plan, [y/n] follows along anyways, to keep stiles from doing anything stupid.

but, she should know that by this point, not even she can stop him from doing something stupid.

they ends up following theo to a bridge.

he stands in the middle, slowly dropping a flower into the river — it’s the bridge near a stream of currents, where his little sister had frozen to death in.

grief and sadness fills liam’s lungs, quickly realizing why he was so suspiciously secretive — he’s still getting over his sister’s death.

it doesn’t matter if that it’s because he was the cause of it, because the dread doctors had brainwashed and corrupted him into doing so.

but, the second [y/n] shared a look with liam and he told stiles that guilt, grief, and sadness was the scent he caught, she felt something towards the boy — ever since that very moment.

maybe, it was pity, or understanding.

it didn’t matter, because she saw a boy who was clearly struggling, but was too scared to ask for help.

it didn’t matter that her brother’s best friend was suspicious of theo.

it couldn’t matter to her.

not when she knew exactly how it felt to lose someone that you deeply cared about.

in fact, it was the one thing that they bonded about — it was what intensified their, somewhat, growing friendship.

he obviously couldn’t reveal that he was the reason that his sister was dead — even, if he really wanted to.

but, he could still vent to her about how devastated over her death he felt. that, at least, was the truth.

theo may have lied about a lot of things.

but, whenever he talked about his sister, that was the one thing he never lied about.

it didn’t matter that stiles was always bursting into their conversations, trying to catch him in the act — even when theo was only ever close to tears because of the amount of guilt he’d felt every day over tara.

you see, theo was usually the type to keep his emotions held inside.

but, with [y/n], he couldn’t help but open up to her because he could see that she wouldn’t judge him, no matter what.

so, as they’d grown closer, her tiny little crush quickly turned into real and confusing feelings — feelings that she didn’t want to admit.

so, she went on with their friendship, as if nothing had changed.

but, things had changed.

everyone saw it.

even scott did — at the time, he’d trusted theo enough to let him be that close to his sister, before he’d betrayed them all, of course.

now, that was the biggest betrayal [y/n] had ever experienced. especially, with someone who she’d thought cared about her.

it certainly wasn’t the first time that someone pretended to care for her, just to use her.

but, that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt her any less.

she felt her heart break to pieces when her brother had told her that the boy who she’d grown to love, had betrayed them all — that he’d brainwashed liam into killing scott, killed scott himself when liam wouldn’t, locked malia away, distracted stiles with his poisoned dad, and pushed lydia into a comatose state.

it didn’t matter that she’d thought that they connected — unlike, any other relationship she’d ever had with anyone — because he’d done what other boys had done to her so many times.

so, in conclusion, that trust that she’d felt towards him, had come back to bite her in the ass.

it didn’t matter that he couldn’t bare to hurt her — he hadn’t locked her up or killed her.

because in truth, even though he never acted like it, he really did care about her.

the dread doctors had always made him feel like he could never have a chance to be normal.

but, with her, it was different.

and he’d be lying, if he said that he didn’t think about changing his mind about destroying scott’s pack — for her.

she made him want to be good — she inspired him to be better.

but, there was no changing the dread doctors’ mind — he had to go through with his original plan to rip apart any happiness that surrounded [y/n] and her pack.

and trust me, he didn’t enjoy any second of being the cause of it. but, she would never know that.

at least, not yet, anyways.

then, when everyone was forced to work together with him and his new pack, kira sent him to hell.

and [y/n] was forced to deal with the fact that the one person that made her feel less alone, was gone.

sure, she’d had the pack — each and every one of them had made her happy and made her feel as if she had a family, but theo was different.

while most of her friends, were like sisters and brothers to her — or some like derek, peter, and argent, who were like father-figures to her — it wasn’t the same way that she felt about theo.

but, he had tried to kill her brother.

and she would never forgive herself for getting close to someone who only had bad intentions and used her.

what was even worse, was that she still felt broken over him being gone — she’d felt so shameful over that fact.

but then, a year later, liam and hayden ended up bringing theo back from hell, to be of use to fight off the ghost riders issue.

she could still remember the night she saw him again so clearly.

[y/n] walks down the stairs, searching through her purse. “liam! do you need anything from the store? i’m running over there now for a few things.” she calls out, waiting for a response from the young beta as she continues to search for her keys.

upon not hearing anything from liam being said, she looks up, just as she pulls her keychain out of her purse.

she walks further into the kitchen, noticing, not only liam and hayden, along with malia, lydia, and her brother, but a confused and exhausted looking theo.

her eyes widens in shock, fear over-taking her.

“w—what’s this? what’s he doing here?” she exclaims, starting to back up.

“h—he’s here to help.” liam says, stepping in front of her, in order to calm her down.

“he’s here to help? since when did he want to help? the last time we thought he wanted to help, he tried to kill scott and split up the entire pack!” she exclaims, tears brimming in her eyes and heart breaking at the broken expression on theo’s face.

theo begins to feel ashamed to be near her.

to see the scared expression on her face, it makes him flow with an overwhelming amount of guilt — for hurting her so much that she couldn’t trust anyone or believe in the best of anyone anymore. not even him.

because in his eyes, all that’s noticeable is fear.

if only he had realized that the fear was only placed to hide the love she still feels for him.

because even after everything he’s done, she still loves him.

scott, who also isn’t too happy about this reunion, tries to calm her down by walking her into the living room.

but, all she does, is freak out on him and leave the house in a hurry.

she had to get away from the suffocating feeling of being near the boy she once loved, but now hates.

after that night, theo worked extra hard to get her to forgive him — he tried to show her that he wasn’t the same person he was before.

that’s why he wanted to change for the better — the reason why he helped the pack defeat the ghost riders.

and after helping the pack defeat the hunters and the anukite, [y/n] and scott invited him to live with them, upon realizing that he’d changed and just wanted to live and be in the pack.

after everything was over, and theo had officially moved into the guest room in the mccall house, [y/n] had talked to him more and apologized for the way she’d acted before.

then, it seemed as if they were becoming closer again — like they once were.

she had thought that her feelings for theo would never go away — she was so overwhelmed by them.

so, like any sane person, she’d went to and confided in her brother about her issues.

but, scott had also become very close with theo — they’d practically become best friends.

so, was it really that impossible to believe that he’d tell stiles and they’d come up with a plan to bring them to together?

she’d been making some popcorn for her harry potter binge-watch marathon.

the point of binge-watching her favorite movie series was to calm and distract herself from the boy that she’s been in love with for a long time, who just-so-happens to live in the same house as her.

but, as she makes her way back into her bedroom, she notices theo standing in the middle of her room, playing with his curly locks.

her heart races as she can’t help but start to think of what it’d feel like to drag her fingers through his soft and slightly grown out hair.

she sighs, shaking herself out of her daze, burying the thoughts as she steps inside the room, brows furrowing.

“theo? what’re you doing in here? did you need something?” [y/n] asks, setting her bowl of popcorn down on her desk and folding her arms across her chest, while trying to remain calm and keep her heart from falling out of her chest.

he turns around, brows furrowing in confusion.

“what do you mean? scott told me you wanted to talk to me about something…” theo trails off, eyes glinting with a form of confusion, raising a brow.

“wait, what?” she tries to say more, becoming much more confused, trying to figure out why scott would tell theo that, when he knows that she’s having a lazy day.

just as she comes up with a solid reason of why scott told theo that she needed to talk to him, her bedroom door is suddenly slammed shut.

both theo and [y/n] turn around as she races over to the door, trying to turn the knob to get out, so that she can avoid admitting what scott wants her to.

just as she tries to pull the door back open, a strong weight pulls it back into place, the knob jiggling before she can get a chance to open it — they’ve locked the door.

[y/n] groans angrily upon realizing this.

“what is it?” theo asks, noticing the look of realization on her face.

“scott lied to you. i never said anything about needing to talk to you.” she mutters, sighing in defeat, before turning her body around and slumping against the door.

“what do you mean, princess?” he asks, brows knitting together and copying her actions as he moves to sit down beside her.

“scott… he tricked you into coming into here. and… he locked us in here because he wants me to admit what i’ve been hiding from you.” she mumbles, groaning once more.

tears brim up at her [y/e/c] eyes, before she covers her face with her hands, wanting to fall into a hole and never come back out of it.

upon sensing her overwhelmed emotions and anxiety, he moves closer to her, lightly moving her hands away from her face.

“there’s that beautiful face.” he says in a teasing voice, trying to lighten the mood.

she presses a light smile onto her lips, her cheeks tinting a red color at his words.

but, after a few seconds, she frowns, starting to stress out about telling him of her feelings.

i mean, surely, theo’s going to want to know the truth.

and honestly, he deserves to know the truth — it’s not right to push him away and keep this from him.

he also frowns, noticing not only her frown, but her tears.

not a second goes by, before he’s wiping the tears away, as if they were never there.

“[y/n], please, talk to me. what’s got you so upset and nervous?” he murmurs, heart aching at the thought of her going through something alone.

“i—i’m scared of what will happen if i tell you…” she trails off, looking down at her now fidgeting hands.

“you know i’d never judge you, right?” he asks, now cupping her cheeks, hoping that she’ll look at him.

“i—i know that. but… what if i tell you and you don’t feel the same?” she mumbles, refusing to look up at him.

he sighs at this and lifts up her chin gently with his forefinger and thumb.

his eyes soften as more tears cloud in her eyes.

“sweetheart, i don’t know what you haven’t told me. i can never know that, unless you tell me yourself. but, i promise, i’m not going to react badly to it.” theo declares, waiting for her to make a decision.

sighing, she nods. “okay…”

i mean, did she really have a choice at this point?

he just wants the truth.

and worse case scenario, if he doesn’t feel the same, all he’ll do is tease her once in a while over it. he wouldn’t abandon her because of it.

looking up at him, she grabs his hands from her chin and from her cheek, placing them in her lap as he interlaces them together, giving them a gentle and comforting squeeze.

she bites her lip in nervousness as her breath easily hitches in her throat.

taking a deep breath, she tries to form the words. “theo, i don’t know if you’d caught on before. but, when we first met and started to get closer, i felt something — something i’ve never ever felt with anyone else before.” she starts, moving to stare down at their interlocked hands, scared to look at him while she admits everything.

“i don’t know what it was back then. whether… it’s as silly and simple as a crush or a deep infatuation with you. but, it was there,” she states, waiting for the moment that he rips his hands away from hers, upon hearing the words she’s saying.

but, he doesn’t.

so, she continues. “god, it was always there. i just didn’t want to ruin our friendship, just like how it is now. so, i pushed my feelings down — pretended that they never existed. and then, the whole thing with the dread doctors and your plan had happened. and i felt betrayed.” [y/n] murmurs as she tries to gauge his reaction.

he simply sighs, rubbing comforting circles onto her thumb, which eases her emotions just slightly.

his expression is full of guilt and regret, a frown now etched onto his lips.

“i felt so heartbroken because of it. i’d thought you were just using me, in order to get to scott. and it hurt so bad. because that’s all that was ever done to me by other people. i’ve always been used, left and right. and i guess… i thought you were different.” she sighs, biting her lip to keep from breaking down right there.

“princess, i never meant to hurt you. i never meant to hurt anyone. i know it’s a stupid excuse, but the dread doctors would’ve killed me, if i didn’t go along with it. i wish i knew that being with you was the right choice, rather than hurting everyone i care about.” he states, squeezing her hand once more.

“theo, it’s okay. i forgave you for that, a long time ago. but, that’s not what this is about.” she states, sighing as he cocks his head to the side, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“then… what’s it about?” he asks, still wearing his confused expression.

she sighs, getting ready to really tell the truth — all of it, no matter the outcome.

“it’s about what i did… in order to hide my true feelings. i know that you think that when you were dragged to hell, i was fine — like i didn’t mourn you. but, i did. god, it hurt to lose you. i was so torn that i barely ever left my room, unless i absolutely had to. and when you first got back, i acted as if i was scared of you and hated you. but, it was all a lie. it was all a mask — i thought it’d be better, if you thought i hated you and was deeply scared of you. but, i was really just hiding how much in love with you i was.” she explains, daring to glance up at him.

his frown turns into a ‘o’ shape, eyes tearing up.

“y—you loved me?” he stutters, shock overtaking him.

“y—yeah. and… i still do. i always have and that’s not going to change. theo, i know i’m risking our friendship over my feelings for you. but, stiles and scott didn’t really give me much of a choice. i guess, that’s what i get for confiding in my brother.” she says, breath hitching in her throat as he pulls his hand away from hers.

tears brim in her eyes as he moves to stand, lost in thought.

as he glances down at her, he notices this, realizing she thinks he’s going to reject her.

chuckling, theo offers her his hand. “princess, don’t cry. i’m not rejecting you. i’m just in a little shock — that’s all. now, take my hand, please.” he explains, causing a sigh of relief to escape her lips, before she takes his hand and he pulls her up into a standing position.

“you should’ve told me about this earlier.” he states, raising a brow as he runs a hand through his luscious curls.

“and w—why is that?” she questions nervously, glancing up at him as he towers over her.

“because i’m already in love with you.” he states casually, taking a strand of her [y/h/c] hair, twirling it around his fingers, awaiting her response.

“w—what?” she sputters, feeling as if she can’t breathe.

although, before he can answer her, a sassy voice speaks up from behind the bedroom door, “are you guys together yet? you guys have been talking a whole lot, but i don’t hear you guys making out yet!” stiles exclaims sarcastically, before a groan comes from him — most likely from scott elbowing him or something.

“sorry! i’ll be quiet.” he squeaks as [y/n] sighs, rolling her eyes at her friend’s nosiness.

stiles really went from despising theo, to becoming his best friend and rooting for him — [y/n] never thought she’d see the day.

“it’s true. the moment i met you, i knew i needed to figure you out. i wasn’t sure how, but then i sat across from you in the library on my first day. and i smiled at you and you blushed and i just knew from that moment that you were special — i knew in that moment that i needed to know you. it had nothing to do with getting close to the pack, or to scott. i wanted to know you because i wanted you in my life. and you are. and although it’s been one hell of a rocky road since, i wouldn’t change a single thing, because i fell for you. and you were the only thing keeping me together when i was in literal hell. you’re the best thing in my life and now that i know you feel the same, i’m never letting you go — not now, and not ever.” he states, caressing her cheek, a soft and loving look in his eyes.

“r—really?” [y/n] asks, voice breaking because she just couldn’t believe it.

theo raeken… is admitting that he loves her. how is that even remotely possible?

it can’t be.

but, it is.

because if he doesn’t love her, would he pull her closer to him, so close that they’re practically chest to chest? if he doesn’t love her, would he tuck her hair behind her ear so gently, leaving his hand there as she blushes at how close he is to her? if he doesn’t love her, would he slowly and surely lean into her and connect their lips in passion and gentleness?

you can’t answer with, ‘no he doesn’t love her,’ because you���d be lying.

she freezes in shock, before realizing what’s happening.

then, she wraps her arms around theo’s neck, gently tugging on his curls and kissing him back with just as much love and passion.

he presses himself even closer to her, hands moving from her cheeks to her waist, his heart soaring.

by the time they finally pull away, they lean each other’s foreheads against each other, breathing heavily.

“wow.” she murmurs, absolutely breathless.

“my thoughts exactly.” he mumbles, a huge smile placed on his lips.

[y/n] and theo spend the rest of the day cuddling and binge-watching harry potter, so absorbed in each other that they forget all about being locked in her room in the first place.

[marvelcriminalhoe]

The Vampire Kings Religion

Soft Dark! Vampire King! Steve Rogers x Human! Religious! Reader

Chapter 10

Series Warnings: Soft dark Steve, obsessive/possessive behavior, forced marriage, talks of blood, talks of feeding, death, eventual smut, eventual kinks, +18 minors DNI, maybe a little bit of dubious consent idk yet. This will be a soft DARK story so read at your own will.

AN: This chapter is pretty boring, but we learn about the past and how the church really is. But the next chapter is the wedding !!! with smut !!! and something dark !!!! so be prepared for that. It will make up for this boring chapter lol

word count: 2,298

series masterlist

After that morning of early sexual escapades, Steve became much more gentle and affectionate with you. It was like some sort of bond was formed and he took pride in making you fall apart underneath him. He was still controlling towards your actions, but he was far more gentle, and you have far more freedom here than what you had back home in the human village. You were starting to actually enjoy your time in the palace. You’ve grown closer to Nat and Wanda, spending most of your time with the vampire and witch. You steered clear from most everyone else, especially Bucky. It wasn't that he was outwardly mean to you, but you knew he didn't like you, the glare he always sent you before Nat would elbow him was evident of that.

Right now, you were in Steve’s library, reading one of the old novels you found, when someone comes in, drawing your attention from the page. You look up to see the brunette vampire and his brooding nature walk towards you, taking a seat across from you. You close your book, sitting up straight to look at him properly, “Can I— Can I help you?” Your voice comes out weaker than you had intended and a bit shaky. You’ve never spent alone time with him and he scares you a bit.

Bucky just grunts at you, rolling his eyes. He studies you for a moment as you try and not to shrink in on yourself. “Look.” He says, “I don’t like you.”

“I gathered that.” You tell him. He pauses, a small smirk on his face, you caught him off guard with your little quip. “I don’t like you.” He says again, “But-“ He adds before you can interrupt, “It’s come to my attention that I haven't really given you a chance. And since you're going to marry my best friend in a week, and since my wife has basically adopted you, I thought we should,” He waves his hands around, “Get to know one another.”

“Nat is making you do this, isn't she?” You question. His smirk widens, “See, we’re already on our way.”

The next few minutes are awkward, and weird, and silent. Both of you just staring at one another, not really having anything to say. Finally, you break it with, “Why don’t you like me?”

“You’re human.” He says as if that makes sense.

You raise an eyebrow at him, “So were you. That’s not an excuse.” “No, it’s just not a good one.” He shrugs. Bucky sighs, “I’m just not a fan of the church and the people involved with the church.”

“Why?” You question him.

“Do you believe in the teachings?” He questions back.

You shrug, “I suppose I do. I grew up with them. Heard the stories of how horrible we were treated. How humans were hunted and killed by the monsters.”

“And you believe them?” He questions you again.

“I’ve never had a reason not to. Why would they lie? Why would my father lie?” You shake your head.

He looks at you for a moment before he hums, “Steve said you didn't know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“What they’ve done.” He states. Your eyebrows drop down into a frown.

What is he talking about? The church is good. The church watches out for the innocent humans, making sure we survive in this world full of beasts. Makes sure we don’t get lost in their way of life, their way of sin.

You look over at Bucky, “What do you mean, what they've done?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” He questions you, and truthfully, no, you aren't sure you want to know, but you're also tired of not knowing everything thats around you. Since being in the palace, around Steve, the small freedoms you've been given, so different from the prison you had at home, you want more. You need more. “Yes.”

25 years ago

Bucky is walking around the villages, trying to scope out the surroundings. The palace has been given reason to believe something sinister is going on, various creatures have been going missing, never to be seen by their loved ones again. Steve asked Bucky to go look around, try and find anything that aligns with what might be going on.

As he starts walking through the human village, Bucky feels the hairs on the back of his head rise, something feels off. But before he has the chance to leave, a prick in his neck, Wolfsbane, his mind supplies for him, an illegal plant to grow and produce, as everything in his vision goes black.

When he comes to, his wrists are locked in silver, burning the skin it’s touching. He feels weak, the Wolfsbane still in his system. He knows he’s underground somewhere, it’s dark, musty, and the only smells he can take in are human. He spends hours chained the wall until a group of human men come down.

They spend the night torturing him with silver knives, scaring his perfect skin for all of eternity, screaming out for the pain to end. He’s never endured anything like this. The cuts run down his left shoulder, down his arm, to his hand. The smell of his blood fills his senses. At some point he passes out and he doesn't think he’ll wake again.

But he does. He wakes to soft hands touching his face and the smell of blood still in the air, though this time, it’s not his blood. He opens his eyes to see a young girl staring at him with worried eyes. She's cut her palm and is holding it out for him to drink from. He does. After he gains some strength back, he watches as the young girl unlocks the chains on his wrists. He falls to the ground with a loud thud, pushing the girl away when she tries to help him up.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers to him.

He stares up at her, wondering if this is part of the plan. Send this young girl down here to give him strength before they torture him some more. As if sensing his un-trustful thoughts, she speaks up again, “I— I heard you screaming. Why are they doing this to you?”

“Because I’m a vampire.” He rasps out. The young girl shakes her head, “I’m sorry.”

He watches her a little longer, but she doesn't reach out for him again. Bucky slowly stands, still weak and wobbly, steading himself with the wall.

“Their in mass right now, you have to leave before they finish.” She ushers him towards a door, opening it to see some stairs that lead outside.

“Why are you helping me?” He questions her, still having doubt any human here would show him any kindness after what he just endured.

She shrugs as if to deter what she’s doing is as serious as it is, but there is a strong conviction in her young eyes, “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Bucky makes it out the door, up the stairs, to the fresh air. He doesn't stop as he makes his way out of the human village, only looking back when he crosses the boarder into safe territory.

“I don’t understand.” You tell him, Eyebrows still furrowed down, “Why would they do that to you?”

“Because of what I am.” He says, “Because of what the church believes.”

“No.” You shake your head, not wanting to believe him, “The church wouldn't do that.” Though, you aren't sure you thats the truth.

Bucky raises an eyebrow at you, “Really? You can’t think of anyone at the church that would do something like that? Anyone that hates the creature so much they resort to torturing them and killing them?”

You stay quite, because yes, you can think of someone. Truthfully, you can think of plenty of people at the church that would do something like that. You look over at him, “Why are you telling me all of this? What does this have to do with me?”

Bucky sighs, “That young girl that helped me, she was your mother.”

Your eyes widen in disbelief, “How do you know that?”

“You look just like her.” Bucky scoffs out a laugh. “Your grandfather is the one that tortured me, gave me the scars.” He motions to his mostly covered arm, scars peaking out underneath his long shirt. “He died shortly after that incident. Without him, we couldn't charge the church with anything. Your father took over soon after, marrying your mother, and although his ideals are the same as your grandfathers, nobody was going missing anymore, so we couldn't do anything.”

“I— I’m sorry that happened to you.” You whisper, unsure of what to say, trying to take in everything that you were just told. You don’t know how to feel. You know the church doesn't see the creatures that roam as anything more than vile, heinous begins, but to kidnap and torture them, to kill them in cold blood, you didn't think they would do that. That’s what you are told they do to us.

“Steve thought you deserved to know.” Bucky shrugs, standing from his chair. He looks down at you, a small smirk on his face, “This doesn't mean we’re friends now. I still don't trust you.”

“Noted.” You nod, but you don’t feel as intimidated as before. Bucky leaves the library with a nod, leaving you with the running thoughts in your head. You don’t have to question if he’s telling the truth or not, you know he is.

Your mother had a scar on her palm, one she never said where it came from and you were too young to ask. There’s no way he would know about it. You have questions now, questions, you aren’t sure who has the answers to. You also feel sick. It’s not that you truly believed in the words the church preached, but you still followed them, still expected those around you to follow them. You’ve had this overwhelming guilt and shame running through your veins since that last night at home. You don’t know how to feel now, what to believe, how to act.

Steve’s weakened your convictions so much over the past few weeks you aren’t sure you have any left. That’s only increased the guilt.

How can you turn your back in your religion, your beliefs, so quickly?

How could your religion be so cruel this whole time? How could you not see that?

Where do you go from here?

You don’t leave the library for a few more hours, too busy in your head. When you do leave, walking mindlessly through the halls of the palace, Steve finds you staring up at one of the paintings, the one that reminds you of the view you have from your bedroom window. An open field surrounded by trees, light sprinkling through the branches, small and delicate, like the fairies you used to watch fly around.

“You always come back to this one.” Steve whispers in your ear, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. You jump slightly, though you've come accustomed to him surprising you. He kiss your cheek before resting his chin on your head, staring up at the painting with you.

You hum softly, “It reminds me of the view from my window. So strangely so.”

“Strange indeed.” He speaks softly. He holds you like that for a few more moments, both of you lost in the painting, before he turns you around, chest to chest. He stares into your eyes with what you could mistake as affection, mixed with something darker. “We marry in a week, my darling.” He bends down, capturing your lips in a slow, but hungry, kiss, “And then, you will be my queen.”

You don’t say anything back, letting him rest his forehead on yours and hold you in his arms, letting his hands wander where they want. Your mind is too busy running with your thoughts to focus on anything else. Conflict rising in your mind. Your past beliefs mixing with the new knowledge you've been given. Not knowing which thoughts to focus on, to believe.

The church murdered innocent creatures.

Creatures are vile monsters.

You are going to marry Steve.

Steve is a vile monster.

You are to be queen over these lands.

Queen of the vile monsters.

The church is in the wrong.

The church has only ever done what is right.

Your mother saved a vile monster.

Your mother saved Bucky.

He deserved to be saved.

“The palace was sealed sir.” One of the human boys tells him, walking into his office. “There was no way we could get in without them knowing.”

He doesn't look up from the papers on his desk, “So what is it you have to report then?”

The boy hesitates, “We saw her through the window.”

“And?” He finally looks up at him, eyebrow raised.

“She was— we saw her.” The boy stumbles out his words.

“Speak.” He grunts.

“She was kissing him sir. Willingly. She didn't seem to be rebelling against the king at all.” The boy tells him in a rush.

He leans back in his chair, a frown etched on his face. “Your dismissed.” He grunts. Once he’s alone in his office, he slams his hand down on his desk. She willingly went along with him? Willingly kissed such a vile creature? He should’ve known she would be worthless. Should have known she would be trouble like her mother.

He runs a hand down his face, a smirk forming, a plan forming. Perhaps this is actually a good thing. Two birds with one stone. Perhaps, she’s not as worthless as he thought. No, this could work in his favor after all.

******

taglist: @mansaaay @helenaeisenhower @fanfic-fangirl

[wooahaes]

lonely hearts club [pt.8]

pairing: non-idol!wonwoo x chubby!fem!reader

word count: 2.5k~

warnings: a lot of angst on reader’s part.

daisy’s notes: sorry my hand slipped-

summary: With graduation fast approaching, Wonwoo only meant to vent about his feelings to an anonymous Twitter account known for giving people a space to vent and an anonymous way to express themselves. What happens when the person he has feelings for is the same person behind the account... and the same person who thinks he’s in love with their best friend?

< prev || masterlist || next >

You’d texted Wonwoo that morning, early before class, a thanks for helping you out. That you appreciated him a lot. He left his apartment with a pleasant warmth in his chest, because it was longer than that--and he wanted to preserve that text and frame it in his mind as something special.

Maybe it was time for him to take another step. He felt like he was moving fast, going from just talking to you to wanting to ask you out in the span of mere weeks, but you weren’t a stranger. Wonwoo had seen your face almost constantly for the past few years of having classes together. If it weren’t for that, maybe he’d take longer. Maybe all of this would be one long slow burn romance where people would be sobbing at a loving glance over twenty-thousand words in. He didn’t want to say he loved you yet.

But, fuck, he was feeling something and he couldn’t deny that.

He told Mingyu that night. Mingyu had been surprised, and asked what changed his mind.

“It just feels right,” was all he could say, because it was the truth. Wonwoo wanted to do the romantic things he’d been daydreaming about. The things he’d read about in the book you’d given him. The dates, the hand-holding, the kisses: every single thing he’d been pining for for so long. He didn’t want to lie in bed at night and feel that deep ache that haunted him.

He wanted you, plain and simple. And he was pretty sure you liked him just as much as he liked you.

So he opened up those Twitter DMs one last time. He told Hearts exactly what he told Mingyu: that he was going to finally ask her out. He just had to figure out where and what to do. He thanked them for listening, for encouraging him endlessly. He didn’t think he’d ever have the confidence to act this soon without their support.

lonelyhartsclub: That’s great, Wonwoo. I believe in you! I’m glad you’re finding your happiness. Take care. ❤️️

He closed out the tab, and opened a new one. If he was going to take you out, he was going to do it right.

Jiyoung said she wasn’t going to be back that Tuesday night, either. While you wanted to believe she was studying, Wonwoo’s earlier messages told you otherwise. Jiyoung simply told you that she would see you tomorrow and not to wait up for her. You’d been at work when she told you, and Junghoon came up to see that you’d been staring at your phone instead of finishing the coffee you were supposed to be making. Sparing him a quick glance, you shoved your phone back into your pocket and busied yourself with actually doing your job.

“It’s done,” you said, glancing back at the order ticket.

“What?”

“I think Wonwoo’s asking Jiyoung out.”

Junghoon watched you, measuring your reaction. “Okay?”

“I’m happy for her,” you said, despite the fact you felt anything but. A part of you was crushed. Pressed small and compact for you to pack away and never address again because it was just another unrequited thing you were starting to believe in all over again. “Right?” You said a moment later, ignoring the way your voice cracked. “I should be. I am.”

“You don’t sound happy.” He had started another drink for the order. “Sunny, you really look like you’re about to cry.”

“I’m not,” you said, as if your voice didn’t shake. As if you weren’t fighting back tears. If you cried, it meant you were betraying something within yourself. You told yourself you wouldn’t like Wonwoo--that you couldn’t because the plan had always been to set him up with Jiyoung. That was why you meddled. That was why you kept this going. Not because you were starting to fall for Wonwoo.

This was inevitable. You knew that.

Junghoon had left you alone for the rest of your shift, giving you as much space as he could. One wrong word could break through your walls and make you face the truth you’d been blocking out more and more over time--and Junghoon knew you wouldn’t accept leaving early because you could always use the money. He pushed you over to cleanup duty for the rest of your shift when he could. He’d handled taking orders if you’d help make them when they started stacking. No people required. He knew how to handle you when you were upset. That was why he was one of your closest friends. You wiped down counters as Junghoon counted out money, put away most of the food that didn’t have to be thrown out (he’d slipped a few things into his bag for the two of you to share later, not saying a word while he picked out your favorites), did the things he knew you hated doing at closing time. Soon enough he had ushered you outside and was locking up.

“Let’s go get some snacks,” he said as he looked back up at you. “And then we can watch whatever movie you want, okay?”

“Junghoon--”

“I’ll spend the night.” He knew you too well. He knew your excuses. If you wanted to be left alone, all you had to do was tell him while looking at him. “You’re obviously upset,” he said. “You can pick whatever Disney movie you want to subject me to and I’ll sing along with you,” he smiled, taking your face in his hands. “Okay? Tonight’s your night.”

You didn’t even want to fight him on that. You didn’t feel like it, and you didn’t want to be alone even more. “Okay,” you said.

Junghoon took your hand, his warm in your own as he started to gently guide you. It made you miss the feeling of Wonwoo’s hand in your own, slightly cold but warmed by your own touch. The two of you picked out snacks from the convenience store closest to your home, walking the rest of the way just to savor the night together. You had class tomorrow morning, sure, but you didn’t care how late you’d stay up with him. He pushed you to go change into your pajamas, promising to set everything up in the meantime, and soon enough you were curled up close to a Junghoon wearing your clothes (some of your things were baggy on him, but he never complained) with an arm around you. You’d upload a picture onto your Instagram later with the caption that you loved your best friend.

And even among his teasing of you missing the movie in his comment, he loved you, too. It was nice to be loved.

wonwoo: are you busy saturday afternoon? there’s a bookstore in the city i’d like to show you :)

It was stupid. But...

sunny 🌻: yeah, i’m down!

sunny 🌻: meet in front of the library?

wonwoo: alright 💜 i’ll see you then

No one ever said you were good at making smart decisions.

This was thanks for making things easier for him. That was what you told yourself. If this was a date, Wonwoo would have told you outright and you would have asked him about Jiyoung. You’d spent time with him alone before, after all, and none of those were actually dates--even if one of those felt... similar to it.

... Right? This wasn’t a date. You didn’t like Wonwoo. Wonwoo didn’t like you. You were in the business of lying to yourself, but you accepted those things as truth going into that day.

It was fine. You met him in front of the library around two, happily changed after your morning shift at work, and ready to see whatever store he was going to show you. He was just repaying the time you took him to one. This was not a date.

But, fuck, it was getting awfully hard to keep saying that when Wonwoo held your hand through a busy part of the city. Neither of you let go until you finally reached the store, and even then his hand had bumped against yours, wanting to hold it again but deciding against it when the two of you went inside. He found a few books with you, and the two of you curled up together on one of couches upstairs. You ended up leaning against him, reading over his shoulder. He slowed down his own pace, careful not to cut you off from a single page. He did, unbeknownst to him, but you were okay with that. He’d buy the books anyway when the two of you left.

It was harder to deny it when he took you to dinner. It was nothing fancy, but he still paid--he had asked you out today, it was only fair, right? He smiled those pretty smiles at you, that same fond look in his eyes that he’d always carried since the first day you walked into that store weeks ago.

It was harder to deny it when the two of you went out to an arcade. Wonwoo liked video games, and you knew that he’d probably always do pretty well with his own scores. But he’d get quietly passionate about these sorts of things, the same way he did when you sat next to him playing with him and his friends a week ago. His hands covered yours, steadying your aim in a shoot-em-up. You didn’t want him to pull away. He’d get so invested and he was so proud when you handled yourself without him.

He won you a fox plushie from one of the machines. It had its own set of round spectacles and it reminded you of him from the moment you laid eyes on it in the machine. Wonwoo pressed it into your arms, saying he’d won it for you.

“You didn’t have to,” you said.

“I wanted to.” He curled your arms around it. “So you can think of me whenever you see it.”

When he took you home, standing outside your apartment with you later that night, it was near impossible to deny it. He’d held your hand on the way up, pace slow to keep from leaving you too soon. Everything that had made your heart flutter all day felt heavier, more regretful. You were afraid. Fear worked in funny ways, and despite the fact you wanted nothing more than to kiss Wonwoo, something inside of you was afraid of it. But that warm feeling in your chest, the heart-fluttering things you couldn’t keep denying when he was right there in front of you, were stronger.

“Can I...?” He said, already leaning in. And you...

You didn’t think.

You kissed him, surprising him for a second, but his fingers grazed along your jaw. You were hugging that stupid little fox plushie so tight to your chest, the bag of books hanging from your fingers, and you let yourself get lost in a self-indulgent moment between you and Wonwoo and no one else. Your eyes had fluttered shut, reveling in the feeling of being kissed back. His cologne enveloped you, and the world seemed to melt away for a moment. As cheesy as it sounded, there was nothing but you and your feelings and Wonwoo.

And then you remembered, and you pulled away. You apologized, already feeling choked up by tears, and immediately started to unlock your door.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asked softly, reaching for you. “Did I do something wrong?”

No. Yes. It’s complicated--Why wasn’t it Jiyoung? Why couldn’t it be that easy after all?

You let yourself into your apartment and shut him out, back pressed against the door as your heart hammered in your chest. He knocked, calling out to you with your name that time, no pretty nickname to make you feel warm. Then he texted you a minute later when you refused to respond, asking if he had crossed a line. He was sorry if he did, because of course he was. Wonwoo was understanding.

You kicked off your shoes, not bothering to do anything else as you escaped into your room. Jiyoung was out. You had the apartment to yourself for at least another hour until she came home. That gave you time to pull yourself together for once and deal with this by not meddling in anything. You left your things in your room and took a long hot shower that scalded your skin, eyes squeezed shut as you let the water distract you from the ugly feeling rising into your chest. Jiyoung was prettier than you, and smarter, and more talented--so why did Wonwoo kiss you? Why would Wonwoo have always been looking at you, like Jiyoung had claimed? Why would your friends keep pushing for you to go out with someone who so obviously liked you?

... Wonwoo liked you. You’d pushed hard against that thought time and time again. Wonwoo liked you, and something about that felt terrifying and amazing in a disgusting mish-mash that left you breathless. People had liked you before, maybe, but not like this. Not in the gentle way Wonwoo had liked you. Things had moved quicker than you expected after three weeks, but maybe that was a testament to how much he liked you. To how much you’d started liking him once you really started to see who he was as a person. He wasn’t quiet Wonwoo who had good book opinions: he was Wonwoo who gently taught you to play video games with his friends, who washed your cardigan for you and took you out for lunch just to pick your brain about the books you’d read, who came over when you were having a crisis over classic literature without seeming to think twice about helping you.

And now all you could do after he kissed you was lock yourself in your room, that stupid little fox pressed tight against your chest as you processed everything. You’d wanted to throw it, to text Wonwoo back that he misunderstood and you’d fucked everything up and that you were sorry.

He never went out with Jiyoung. He wouldn’t just kiss you if he did. He wouldn’t just give you a pity kiss or a pity date or pity gifts that he picked out and wanted you to think about him when you saw them. That would be cruel. Wonwoo wasn’t cruel. You reached for your phone, swallowing your feelings as you found Junghoon’s contact.

sunny 🌻☕️💌: i fucked up

hoony ☕️💾: Sunny???

sunny 🌻☕️💌: jiyoung is really gonna fucking hate me if she likes wonwoo and you were right this was a really fucking bad idea im sorry

hoony ☕️💾: Sunny?

hoony ☕️💾: Sunny

hoony ☕️💾: Are you there?

sunny 🌻☕️💌: i just need to be alone right now. wanted someone to know i’m going through it rn and to not bother me

hoony ☕️💾: Do you want me to come over?

hoony ☕️💾: Wait nvm you said you need to be alone

hoony ☕️💾: I’m here, okay? We’re here for you

sunny 🌻☕️💌: thanks, hoony

sunny 🌻☕️💌: love you.

The last thing you did that night was put out a tweet that submissions would temporarily be closed and any DMs would go unanswered.

Stay safe, fellow lonely hearts. The pain of a broken heart was truly the worst part of it all.

taglist: [ask to be added!] @yoongischeeksluv @rebelspy @mystiicturtle @hwashiningstar @x-veex @nothingbutadeadesceane​ @cersti-mo0

[imagine-a-life-like-this]

Break My Heart (L.F/H.HJ)

Warnings : suggestive content

Word Count : 2821

Synopsis : she could feel herself falling for hyunjin, but after seeking comfort from felix, she realizes that maybe she’s not actually in love with hyunjin, but in love with felix.

She looked over to his sleeping figure, sleeping peacefully beside her while there’s an internal war happening between her heart and mind. Her hand hovers over his face, hesitating whether or not she should brush the hair out of his face. She leaves the apartment unheard instead.

           How did it get this far, she wonders to herself, sitting in her car outside the apartment building. He was just a friend, one of her best friends since childhood, and that’s all he was supposed to be. Until one drunken night when lust took over their bodies and she woke up in his bed for the first time. No strings attached. They whispered between stolen kisses, but over time, the strings began to attach.

           She found herself jealous whenever he was talking to another girl, jealous that someone else was getting the attention she so desperately craved. In the early mornings as the sun is starting to rise, she finds herself hesitating to leave, wondering what he would do if he were to wake up and she was still there. Would he wrap his arms around her and press delicate kisses to her face? Or would he coldly kick her out like the others?

           She likes to believe she’s different than the other girls; better in a way. They are best friends after all. The friendship they’ve built over the years hasn’t changed at all with this new development, but she knew it would if her feelings were to be known. He doesn’t do feelings, and she knows she will never be the exception.

           He wakes in an empty bed, feeling emptier than usual, and he knows why. Once again she disappeared before sunlight, before he woke up. It’s for the best, he reminds himself, but he wishes just once she would stay. Give him the chance to fall in love with her like he so desperately wants. The crush he’s had on her since high school slowly growing over the years, but never reaching love.

           He doesn’t do feelings, but she’s different. She’s always been different. She’s different in the best ways. He can be himself around her, he can feel vulnerable and self conscious when she’s around; she doesn’t judge him. Instead she tells him reassuring words, helping him love himself once again. He can open his heart to her and know that she would never hurt him, not in the ways he’s been hurt in the past, not at all.

           But they’re just friends, best friends. She’s a person he can’t lose, so instead of opening himself up to these growing feelings, he pushes them down and pretends they don’t exist. He pretends they aren’t there until lust takes over and he kisses her with passion. He takes his time with her, savouring every moment like it’s his last. Sex with her is different because it doesn’t feel like hooking up; it feels like love. Like a love that can last.

           She meets her other best friend, Felix, at the café on campus before class, like they do every day. Her coffee is already paid for and on the table in front of an empty chair. “Good morning, angel.” Felix smiles, pushing the coffee closer to her as she sits. He takes in how exhausted she looks; not just physically but emotionally as well. Bags hang under her eyes, an obvious attempt to cover them failed.

           She doesn’t say anything as she holds the warm cup in her hands, taking a sip and tasting the sweet taste of her favourite coffee, her order exactly as she likes it. “Can we skip, just for today?” She speaks softly, so softly that if Felix wasn’t entuned with everything about her, he wouldn’t have heard a single word.

           “Anything for you, angel.” He closes the notebook he’s been studying from and takes one of her hands in his from across the table. “Did you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” Yes. She does, but she can’t bring herself to say the words. I’m in love with Hyunjin. The words are stuck in her throat, burning to be released, but she meets Felix’s happy eyes and can’t bring herself to say them.

           “I’m just really tired today.” She lies. She lies so easily she wonders when she’s changed so much. She never made it a habit to lie to her best friend, knowing Felix knows her better than she knows herself.

           “Movies and cuddles?” He asks, a soft smile on his face as she agrees with a quick nod of her head. He wanted to do everything he could to see her smile again; the same smile that takes his breath away. She was his angel, that was no secret, but she was also his first love, and that was a secret.

           “You’re heading for class already?” They heard the familiar sound of the third person of their small group, the same group from middle school. Hyunjin could see the exhaustion written on her features, wondering if she even got any sleep the previous night. Is it hard for her to sleep next to him even though he only sleeps peacefully with her by his side?

           “We were actually going to do a movie day today.” She spoke up, trying her best to keep her voice even while looking at Hyunjin, taking in how absolutely ethereal he looks even so early in the morning.

           Hyunjin watched as she left with Felix, their hands clasped together. He could feel her slowly slipping through his fingers, landing in Felix’s open arms. He knew Felix would be the better choice for her, always waiting for her with open arms and her favourite snacks and drinks. Felix knew everything about her, learning her likes and dislikes and her life story throughout the years of knowing each other.

           But Felix doesn’t know her the way Hyunjin does. He doesn’t know each and every curve of her body, the way her toes curl as pleasure takes over. He doesn’t know about the freckles on her back that Hyunjin loves to connect with his fingers while they drift off to sleep. He doesn’t know how she shies away when her clothes come off, not realizing just how beautiful she is.

           Hyunjin knows the stories behind all her scars. He traces them with his fingers, pressing delicate kisses as he whispers how beautiful he finds her. He knows she closes her eyes, scared of the intimacy of eye contact in the moment. He knows the small squeaks that turn into loud moans when she can no longer hold back.

           He likes to believe he knows her intimately, but intimacy is more than being naked and having sex. It’s knowing why she hides her face when she gets a compliment. It’s knowing her comfort drink when she needs a hug from the inside. It’s knowing why she doesn’t expand her friend group, keeping just Hyunjin and Felix in her close circle despite many people begging to be let in.

           Hyunjin knows what she’s like in bed, knows what she looks like naked. He knows about the scars and the stretch marks. He knows about the hidden birth marks.

           But Felix knows what makes her tick. He knows her favourite thing to drink on rainy days. He knows her coffee order down to the exact amount of sugar. He knows what her parents do for a living, and how often she speaks to them. Felix knows when she’s lying but knows she will tell him the truth when she’s ready. He knows how to cheer her up when she’s been crying. He knows the ins and outs of her life, the things Hyunjin wishes he knew. The things he wishes he took the time to learn.

           She’s curled up in Felix’s arms while he brushes his fingers through her hair, comforting in a way she knows Hyunjin never could. He whispers little nothings to her, reminding her that he’s by her side no matter what. “I think I’m in love with Hyunjin.” She eventually lets out as a tear slips from her eye. She can’t see his reaction with her head in his lap, staring towards the television that was playing a movie she honestly doesn’t remember the name of.

           She can’t see the heartbroken look on Felix’s face as he tries to play off the hurt by chuckling. “It was bound to happen.” He blinks back his own tears as he focuses on comforting the love of his life. He always knew it would be Hyunjin over him, but he still held out hope.

           “I don’t want to love him.” She moved so she was facing Felix instead, his hands still in her hair as their eyes met. He could see the heartbreak in her eyes, the same heartbreak he’s sure she could see in his own.

           “Then love me instead.” Silence fell over them as the credits rolled in the movie neither of them were watching.

           “I wish I could.” She whispered, reaching up and wiping the tears that couldn’t be held back anymore. She keeps her hand on his freckled cheek, rubbing his cheek with her thumb, hoping to comfort him the way he always did her.

           “Pretend. Let me help you not love him anymore.” He would take her pretend love over no love at all any day. He would take her in any capacity she would allow. Maybe over time she would fall for him instead, he would just have to prove himself.

           “I don’t want to break your heart, my sunshine.” Her sunshine. The man that could brighten any dark day with a simple smile. How she wishes it was Felix she fell for.

           “I don’t care if you break my heart, angel. Break my heart if it means you fall out of love with Hyunjin. I would gladly have my heart broken by you a million times if it brought the light back to your eyes.” She sat up slowly, bringing her other hand to his other cheek, cupping his face gently before pressing her lips to his.

           He melted into her kiss, a kiss that he’s fantasized about for years now. He wonders to himself if this will be the only time he feels her lips, so he savours every second. He wraps one arm around her waist, while placing the other hand on the back of her head, pulling her as close as he could. “Don’t hate me if I break your heart.” She whispered; her forehead rested against his.

           “I couldn’t if I tried.” He admitted. He meant every word. No matter what’s going to happen, she owns his entire heart. He wouldn’t be able to hate her if he tried.

           She spent the night at Felix’s, wrapped up in his loving embrace, and waking to his delicate kisses on her cheeks. She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face, taking in just how nice it was to wake up beside someone. “Good morning, angel.”

           Felix was delighted when he woke up with her still in his arms. He’s spent years wondering what it would be like to be with her like this. This morning was a dream come true; for once reality was better than his dreams. “Good morning, my sunshine.” She pecked his lips before sliding out of bed to get ready for classes.

           Just like every morning, Felix bought her coffee and the two waited for Hyunjin at their regular table. Unlike every other morning, Felix had his arm draped across her shoulders, looking at her like she was the only person in the room. She wondered how she never noticed the love Felix held for her.

           Hyunjin was shocked at the sight he saw when he walked into the café, and if he’s honest, a little jealous. “You two look extra cozy this morning.” He chuckled, taking a seat across from them, trying to keep a fake smile plastered on his face.

           “We’re dating now.” Felix beamed, not knowing that those simple words, the words that made his world spin, broke Hyunjin’s heart. But there was nothing he could say, because he knew that Felix could treat her better than he ever could. Felix was ready to make her his entire world, but Hyunjin wasn’t.

           “I guess if there was anyone good enough for her, it’d be you.” Hyunjin commented, putting on his best fake smile as he watched the way she looked up at Felix with the same stars in her eyes that he wished she looked at him with.

           As the days and weeks passed, Hyunjin started distancing himself from his friends, finding comfort in a new woman every night. He was losing himself, his grades dropping as he slowly gave up. She noticed, trying to reach out and help him, but he shut her out. He yelled and screamed until she left his apartment with tears in her eyes.

           She found comfort in Felix, just like she always did. But something felt different. The more time she spent with him, pretending to love him the way he loves her, she found herself pretending less and less. Every smile that was meant for her spread warmth through her body. His touch burned her skin in a way Hyunjin’s never did. Her smile came naturally every time she woke up in his arms, him pressing delicate kisses to her face, smiling his infectious smile, and looking at her with all the love in the world.

           As the realization hit her, there was a knock on her door. Hyunjin was stood on the other side, his hair dishevelled as if he just rolled out of bed. He was nibbling on his bottom lip as he paced her apartment, trying to think of the right words. He needed to get everything off his chest before he could mend his friendships and fix himself. “I like you, Y/N. More than I thought I did.” He finally sat beside her, looking at her with a look of adoration she’s never seen from him before.

           “Hyunjin…” He shook his head, effectively stopping whatever she was going to tell him.

           “I’m not here to tell you to break up with Felix, because frankly, that man loves you more than I ever could. No matter which way you look at it, Felix will always be the better option, and I know you know that too. I’m here to fix our friendship that I threw away because of my jealousy.” He paused to run his fingers through his hair, thinking of what else he needed to say, wishing he wrote everything down as to not forget anything. “The three of us have been together since middle school, and I don’t want that to change. And honestly, I want to watch the light return to your eyes as you two fall more in love. I know being with me drained it, and god I am so sorry. I’m sorry I was so selfish, wanting to keep you for myself because you made me happy; I didn’t even realize you weren’t happy.”

           “I was, Hyunjin. For a while I was happy with you. So happy I thought I was falling in love with you. But it was lust.” As the words left her lips, Hyunjin teared up. She took his face in her hands, wiping the tears away as they fell. “Just as you made me happy before, Felix makes me happy now.”

           “You deserve all the happiness.” They both chuckled, tears falling from both their eyes now.

           “So do you, Hyunjin. And you’ll find it.” He wrapped his arms around her, thankful that his best friend refused to leave him even when he deserved it. “It’ll be the three of us until the end of time, so you’re stuck with Felix and I whether you like it or not.”

           “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

           When Hyunjin left that night, she couldn’t sleep. Flashes of Felix’s smile swirling in her mind every time she closed her eyes. Without thinking twice, she was out her door. In no time, she was standing outside Felix’s place, waiting for him to answer her knocks. As soon as the door opened, she threw her arms around him, pressing her lips to him, taking him by surprise, but he wasn’t complaining. The shock quickly wore off and he was wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. “What’s with the surprise visit?” He chuckled as they pulled away, closing the door as they entered his apartment fully.

           “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” She admitted. “I’m in love with you, Lee Felix.” She beamed up at him, watching as he mirrored her wide smile.

           “And I’m in love with you, L/N Y/N.” He pressed his lips to hers again, knowing there would be many more kisses to come. Knowing that he wasn’t going to get his heart broken.

[everythingiaskfor]

previous

warnings: angst, college au.

you were sitting in the cafe with all your friends, talking about midterms, as most of them were happening in the following week, and how unprepared some of you felt. you could include yourself in that group.

“we could make a study group, just so we can keep each other focused without forcing ourselves too much” you suggest. “we’ve done this before and it worked, we could meet this weekend”.the group quickly agrees and starts to plan the details. you decide to meet at your place, cause it was close to everyone, in the morning so you could study the entire day. he comes in mid conversation, someone explains briefly what the topic was.

“can i come too? i really need to keep my grades up so i don’t lose my position in the team” Kagami asks.

“yeah, of course! we’re meeting at y/n’s house at 9 a.m, saturday. bring some snacks, we’re sharing” one of your friends responds. with all the details decided, the topic shifts, and after some hours of conversation, you go home.

the rest of the week goes by, you attend your classes as usual till the afternoon, and in the night you decide to stay home so you can be well rested and prepared for the study day.

you wake up at 7:30 to the sound of your alarm, especially annoyed cause you had to wake up early on the weekend. you make yourself something to eat quickly and start to organize your small apartment to have your friends over, making a place for the snacks in the kitchen, and some specific spaces to sit down around the living room. some minutes before the decided time people start to come in, choosing their spots around the house, and at 9 o’clock everyone is set and ready to start.

the studying session goes well, some people were together in a corner as they were in the same class, and the rest spread everywhere, stopping time to time to drink water, coffee or an energy drink , and snacks near everyone. around 2 p.m people were hungry, so you make some sandwiches, and after a quick break you go back to work, focused on understanding the definitions of that one class that you simply cannot understand. soon it’s night, and some of your friends start to leave. by 8 p.m another one says goodbye, leaving you and Kagami as the last ones.

“uh, if you want me to, i can go home now. like, if you don’t really have anything to study.” he says, worried to be bothering you.

“no, it’s fine. i actually am still struggling with some stuff, don’t worry.” you respond, offering a smile.

“oh, okay. but if you’re done and i’m not yet, you can tell me, i’ll leave.” he answers, now with a less tense expression.

the two of you go back to studying for another hour, and you decide that you looked at everything you were supposed to.

“what are you studying right now?” you ask, sitting beside a confused looking Kagami.

“statistics. i just don’t get the hypothesis tests. like, okay i get a number, now what does it mean?” he explains, pointing at the paper in front of him with an irritated look.

“i took this class last semester. like, i wasn’t the best, but i was approved, maybe i can help?” you offer.

“yes, please!” he accepts almost instantly, but keeps going “i mean, if that’s not a problem to you. it’s kinda late and you already did your stuff…”

“i literally offered Taiga, it’s fine” you respond, slightly smiling, trying to relieve him.

“thank you!” he answers, looking more comfortable with the idea.

you start to describe exactly what to do and the meaning of the results, and explain how to work the exercises. after almost 2 hours, he has finally got all the answers right, so you decide that it was enough studying for one night. he puts the books and notes back in his backpack.

“i’m so hungry. completely forgot to eat since everyone left” you say, putting your things back in your room.

“me too. maybe we could order something? it’s been a while since we just hung out like this.” he says.

“okay, let’s do this. you order, i pick something to watch?” you answer, and he nods, picking his phone and opening the catalog.

sometime after the food arrives, you’ve been watching a sitcom, as it was the easiest pick. you grab another slice of the pizza, pointing to the screen.

“it’s crazy how that actually happened to us once” you comment about a scene of a party, where some people flud the bathroom and just keep acting normal like it wasn't their fault. he laughs. you two start to dig up memories of your adventures of these times you spent together.

the conversation has been going for a while, you’re not watching whatever it was anymore. you’re lying on the ground, staring at the ceiling, with a lingering smile, provided by the last story told. he’s sitting beside you, looking at you. you feel a change in his gaze.

“y/n” he calls your name, facing the ground. you sit up straight and look at him. “you know we can still live moments like those, right? the fact that i’m with her doesn’t change our friendship.” he looks at you, and now you look away.

“i know what you mean, Kagami. but it’s not the same. it doesn’t mean it’s bad.” you stop for a bit. “it’s just… different.”. he looks at the wall behind you. absorbing the information.

“i just don’t want to lose what we have because of what i have with her. you know you mean a lot to me, and so does she. in different matters. i just want you two to get along, so i don’t have to choose between my best friend and my girlfriend. can you try, for me?” he explains his point. you look at your hands, fidgeting something, thinking what to say.

have you had this talk with her? that’s the first thing you think , but decide not to say. you’ve been trying to not make things weird, and reach for him. in the very start you even tried befriending her, but you realized she just didn't want to. you’ve been trying to be nice to her, but she’s always indifferent. you’ve been trying all along. but she just doesn’t want to make it easy. and you don’t even know why. maybe she’s jealous of your friendship, cause you’re close. but everyone knows you and Taiga are friends, that’s all. right? so why was she acting like that?

“of course i’ll try. i don’t want to lose you either.” is the answer you land on. you look at him. he looks at you, and smiles. you smile back.

“we have to hang out more. we’ve been too far.” he says, standing up. ”i’ll let you rest now. good night.” he continues, going to the door.

“good night. take care, and text me when you get home.” you say, opening the door. he leaves and waves walking down the corridor, you wave back and close the door.

the night was long, you decide to clean everything up when you wake up. you take a warm shower. his words echoing through your head. so he doesn’t have to choose? so he would have to think to make a choice? can you try? he’s really not seeing what’s happening?

you lay on your bed, and the good moments of the night come in taking the place of those weird thoughts. you fall asleep easily, a slight smile hanging from your lips.

next

[enhais]

Hiii! How about like yandere vampire Enhypen reacting to the reader running away discovering that they are a vampire! If you don’t do reactions can you do this idea for Sunghoon? Thank you <3!

yandere vampire!enhypen reacting to the reader running away after discovering that they are a vampire.

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pairing: vampire!enhypen x gn!reader

genre: yandere

warning: as usual, if you don't like yandere, don't read :)

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jungwon

let me just say this. you have no chance running away from this guy. i mean, you could try, but you were being watched by seven guys 24/7 (amongst other things).

he had decided to explain the whole “vampire” situation to you in a calm and collected way, not wanting to scare you away. it was already too much being kidnapped by him and not being able to go outside, he knew that.

“doll face, there’s nothing for you to worry about,” he took your hand in his and rubbed small circles into your skin, “i don’t plan on hurting you... but if you pull some tricks, i wouldn’t have any other choice.” you were in shock and didn’t dare move. all you thought about was how you had to escape from this hellhole.

sunghoon walked over to you slowly and sat beside you, “he just said he wasn’t gonna hurt you, so why are you thinking about escaping, hm?”

heeseung

he’s got his head in the game. the chance of you running away is low, but never zero. so when you did run away, heeseung lost his mind.

he came back home after a day of practice and went looking for you only to find your clothes scattered all over the floor and a note filled with hatred.

“what do they mean “blood sucking monster”, huh? im the sweetest guy they’ll ever meet...”

you were back at the dorm an hour later, tied to the bedpost with no chance of escaping ever again. he gave you rules and threatened to punish you if you disobeyed.

jay

you came back from a short walk around the neighbourhood and were met with jay drinking a red liquid from the fridge. the moment you saw his fangs your heart skipped a beat and you immediately ran back out.

“COME BACK!” he shouted after he heard the door slam shut, “i shouldn’t have been so stupid... i could’ve held it in a bit longer, damn it.” he put the blood back in the fridge and followed you.

you didn’t know where to go, so you just hid between the trash behind the building. of course this wasn’t the best idea as jay came walking slowly towards you, making your adrenaline pump.

“i should’ve explained it from the beginning, huh?” he said calmly, “i wouldn’t hurt you. ever.” he crouched down to your level and grabbed your chin to make you look at him, “you don’t know where to go, huh? come back with me.” you sniffled and walked with him back to the dorm, not having much of a choice.

jake

he was understanding. how could you possibly want to stay with a monster like him? however, he needed you back in his life as soon as possible and that’s why he asked the guys to gather up and come up with a plan.

jay and jungwon went to your parents’ house, heeseung and sunoo went to check your friends and niki, sunghoon and himself went to the woods, not too far from the apartment building.

it was dark and cold outside and you were hiding behind a tree, for some reason thinking that would be the smartest move. it wasn’t. jake used his vampire senses and found you within minutes.

“why are you hiding, baby?” he cooed, trying to make eye contact with you. you sat still, not wanting to make the situation worse, “i’m taking you back home, yeah?”

sunghoon

he was mad. punching the walls, making his knuckles bleed.

everything had gone well. you were becoming more comfortable around him and he had eased the punishments, but yesterday you heard him and sunoo talking about their “walk” through the woods. you didn’t think much about it at first, but then you saw it. their clothes bloody and eyes red. so, you snuck out in the middle of the night through the window and ran as fast as you could.

when sunghoon went to check on you this morning, you were gone. he sighed and slid down the wall, face buried in his hands. jay came walking in, “what’s wrong?” he looked up at him, “they ran away...” jay rubbed his hand on the younger’s shoulder, “then let’s find them, shall we?”

they told the others to look out for you as they went to your parents’ house. your father opened the door with a smile, “how might i help you?” sunghoon cleared his throat, “is y/n home? we were supposed to study, but someone told me they had gone back home.” your father nodded and called your name. now you had no other choice but to obey them.

sunoo

he couldn’t believe it. he had been so sweet to you? letting you eat sweets and go on walks with him to the company. but now you were missing because he told you about his... curse.

he decided to wait a couple of days, sending you some texts telling you how sorry he was. but, just like jake, he needed you in his life to keep him sane.

“sweetie, i’m sorry... we can talk things through. just, come with me, yeah?” you looked at him as you ate the ramen he paid for at the convenience store. “i don’t want to die...” you mumbled before continuing, “i really liked you, sunoo, i did, but don’t you think you should’ve told me earlier?” you bit the inside of your cheek, sad and frustrated about the current situation, “yes, you’re right and i’m sorry, but please... give me another chance.” his eyes were puppy-like and you sighed. you couldn’t say no to him.

niki

i think niki would be sad and angry. how could you leave him just like that after he told you about the most important thing in his life (after you of course).

i mean, it wasn’t easy escaping. you had to wait until the early hours of the day to even give it a shot. once you realised there was an easy way out through the window, it became obvious that that was the thing you should do.

it hurt you tremendously leaving niki like that, but you had to. for your own safety. however, not even an hour later, niki found you running through the city and took you back using his super speed.

“you shouldn’t have done that, baby. it was very stupid of you.” he explained after he sat you down on the couch in the cold living room. you were nervous and afraid of what would happen next, but he just gave you a kiss on the forehead, “you’re in big trouble, but we’ll talk about that tomorrow.”