#and its the first file where i have had a last name for him! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

asahicore · 9 months ago

Text

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

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

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

word count. 26.6k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And that’s your business, because…?”

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

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

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

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

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

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

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

“I’m sorry?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“At least you’re self-aware.”

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

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

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

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

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

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

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

Then you see it.

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

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

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

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

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

“Y/N-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“This is so good,” you mumble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm?”

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

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah.”

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

“...Jong?” you try.

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

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

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

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

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

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

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

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

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

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

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

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

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

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

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

“Exactly!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Nowhere. Go on.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“None taken.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She had a dream that she m—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

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

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

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

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

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

“No. Stop.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jong, your textbook.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

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

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

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

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

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

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

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

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

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

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

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

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

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

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

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

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

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

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

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

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

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

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

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

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

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

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?”

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

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

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

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

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

“Aren’t you cold?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

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

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

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

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

kazuha sunoo…?

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

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

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

you …

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

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Y/N…”

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

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

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

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

you boo-hoo

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

you … are you feeling better?

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

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

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

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

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You smile. “Never.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

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

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

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

He’s still Jong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In any case, he’s hiding something.

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

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

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

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

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

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until you didn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You said so yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fifty years, huh?”

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

“I wasn’t planning to.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You smile. “I am.”

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz @enhastolemyheart (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen x reader #jay x reader #jongseong x reader #enhypen fluff #jay fluff #enhypen fanfiction #jay fanfiction #enhypen au #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios

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buckysleftbicep · 2 months ago

Text

all that's left 𐙚 b.b

pairing: fwb!bucky barnes x fwb!fem!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, minors dni, friends with benefits relationship, unprotected sex, lots of angst, arguments, hurtful words, bittersweet ending (sorta)

summary: you and bucky were never meant to be more than friends with benefits—until you say those three words. he walks out. then a mission traps you both in a sealed room, and suddenly, there’s no escaping the walls you both built.

word count: 4.4k

author's note: hi! for my first fic, it's kinda long, started working on it after watching thunderbolts! i hope you enjoy it, if you did, let me know or reblog, whichever works! love ya and have a great day! i hope this doesn't flop :")

“(Y/N), you’ll be with Bucky”.

The sentence cuts like paper through skin — quiet, clean and a lot deeper than it actually looks. Steve’s voice is steady, casual, captain-like, just as he always was when it came down to missions, the kind of tone he uses when he is expecting no resistance, and despite the glance that seems to reflect some sort of apology and perhaps even pity, you knew he was just doing his job. He is the team leader after all.

But the sound of his name, his name that you couldn’t bring yourself to even utter for the last two weeks, drops into your gut like a live grenade, you didn’t move, didn’t even blink. Your fingers stayed steady on the edge of the thick mission file, but inside you, something splinters, not all at once, but just a small, sharp crack under your ribs, the kind that gets worse when you pretend it doesn’t exist.

Across the briefing room, Bucky’s face remains still, his expression stoic, unreadable and you find yourself thinking that perhaps, you never were able to read him the way you thought you did. Because if you did, you’d figured out that everything that had transpired between you and the brunette was nothing more than meaningless flings, quick fucks if you will.

What was it they said?

Right — good enough to fuck, but not good enough to love.

You exhale softly, biting your lip as you scanned the file quickly, hydra base, intel recovery, two agents in, clean extraction. Of course it’s you and him, it always had been, both of you were known as SHIELD’s dream team when it came to intel extractions, break a few necks, fire some bullets and you both were out, unscathed, efficient, dangerous.

And then you’d return back to base, where his lips would meet yours feverishly as his hands trailed your curves, his fingers long accustomed to every crevice of your body. Bucky knew how to draw out every sound, every breath, every damn piece of you that craved to feel wanted.

You could remember the way he undid your suit on his bed, whispering those sweet nothings in your ear as you begged him to fuck you, your eyes blown wide with lust, and lips swollen as he teased out of you feelings you never knew you had.

But all of that was short lived, because well as much as you harboured nothing but stupid, aching love for the cerulean eyed man, he thought differently. That was clear as day when he had pushed himself off you, shock painted on his face as he pulled his pants on hurriedly, almost as if being in the same room for just another second would kill him. You had stumbled to your feet, bare and trembling, your voice rising as your heart cracked wide open, “I didn’t mean to, I swear Buck, please-”. You had reached for him, almost as if he’s already gone and left you, and he is.

“You were never supposed to fall in love with me (Y/n)-”

“I-I know Buck, please even if its not real for you, p-please, I just-”

He cuts you off, the emotions that were warring in his face replaced with that of coldness, the icy gaze that fell on you crushed whatever hope you had left.

“Let’s stop this, you were just convenient, don’t make this more than that”.

You had remembered that silence, god, it was deafening, and you felt the words like a harsh slap, like a knife twisting under your ribs and you watched, eyes rimmed red as the man you once believed could one day love you back walked out.

“Everything alright?” Steve’s voice cuts through your thoughts, you nod, eyes still trained on the file even though you damn well knew that moment was still playing in your head, like some sick film that couldn’t stop replaying itself.

“Buck?” Steve asked, shooting a glance towards his pal, you dared yourself to look up, Bucky’s jaw is clenched tightly, eyes unreadable as always, fixated on the door behind the capotain, almost as if it could offer some kind of salvation.

“Yeah, all’s good”. The brunette replied.

Liar.

The flight is quiet, too quiet, the kind of quiet that is far from peace, it was brittle, breathless, the kind that hung in the air like smoke after a fire. You had sat at one end of the jet, legs crossed, a mission file open in your lap that you hadn’t actually read past the first line.

Across from you, Bucky sat with, face turned just enough that you could see the line of his jaw, tight and unmoving. He hadn’t even looked at you once since takeoff.

Not that you were looking.

Well, not really.

But it was impossible not to notice him, the way he took up space without even trying to, the low sound of his breathing, even and steady, the slight twitch in his gloved fingers where they tapped a rhythm only he understood. You used to know that rhythm. You used to know everything about James Barnes.

And now?

Now you couldn’t even tell if he hated you or worse — felt absolutely nothing at all.

You kept your eyes fixed on the printed pages in front of you, even though your mind was anywhere but on the mission specs. It was a simple job, according to the file at least, in and out like Steve had said. You and Bucky had done this dance dozens of times, a flawless rhythm honed by years of fieldwork, communication and something that had once resembled trust.

Once.

The last time you were on a mission like this, you had ended up on Bucky’s lap, breathless, gasping, half-dressed as his mouth burned its way down the soft skin of your neck to the valley of your breasts, metal hand fluttering over your skin like he wanted, no, like he needed to memorise every inch.

Your moans had bounced off the walls of the jet as it lurched from turbulence, as Bucky kissed you though it, called you his pretty girl, said he needed you, wanted you.

And now, he wouldn’t even look at you.

“Should be a quick one, get the files, and you’re both out, no detours, as far as we know, this base has long been abandoned”. Steve’s voice crackled through the comms, grounding you with its usual steadiness. “Files are stored in a secure server, sublevel three, eyes up, low contact expected, you two copy?”.

“Copy” you said first, voice even, rehearsed, almost if you didn’t just cry your throat raw the last two weeks.

There was a beat of silence, then, “copy”. Bucky’s voice was rougher, lower and it sounded like a word forced out through clenched teeth.

And that was it, silence reclaimed the jet, thicker than it was before.

You risked a glance at the brunette, a real one this time, and your stomach twisted in a knot. He hadn’t moved. His eyes stayed fixed on the small window beside him, gaze distant, the curve of his brow giving nothing away.

There was a time where you thought you could read him, every flicker of emotion, every blink, every breathe, you knew when he had a bad night, when the nightmares plagued his dreams, you knew when his therapist had hammered down on him, giving him one of her many unsolicited advices that well, he never did take seriously, besides the one where she told him to talk to someone he trusted. You.

Well, it was you, between the hungry kisses and your back against bathroom walls as Bucky filled you so perfectly, he was sharing his life with you, the days he spent with HYDRA and of course, the 40s.

But maybe that had been an illusion, or maybe you were just hopelessly naive, stupid.

You turned your gaze back to the file, the words blurry as a headache bloomed at the base of your skull, you could feel tears well up in your eyes as you tried to get the words Bucky spat harshly out of your head.

God, you had begged him to stay, to not leave.

Begged him to stay after the words slipped out, — I love you — so fucking stupidly, so recklessly when your body was tangled with his as his hips had snapped against yours. You hadn’t even realised you had said them at first, until you had seen the look on his face, almost like you had stabbed him.

Your voice, small, shaking naked in every sense of the word, you could still see his cold, icy, piercing gaze, the softness draining from him like light bleeding out of a room.

Now, here you were, trapped in a tin can, above hostile territory with the man who shattered you, who was fine pretending you were both just teammates. Just agents. Like you hadn’t fallen asleep in his arms and thought, maybe, just maybe this could be real.

You clenched your jaw, blinking hard against the sting in your eyes.

You didn’t want to love him anymore, but god, you missed the way it almost felt like he did.

The hallway stretched ahead like a vein of steel and silence, cold and humming with the kind of tension that settled in your bones, the kind that made your skin itch under your tactical gear. You and Bucky moved through it like you always had, together, seamless, wordless.

Muscle memory wrapped in old wounds, you fell into the rhythm automatically, Bucky would move, and you would follow, you’d gesture, and he’d respond, the dance that made SHIELD send the both of you out for every data retrieval mission, because the both of you never failed.

Even now.

At the end of the corridor, two guards stood, chatting lazily, their rifles slung low, Bucky glanced at you, nodding towards them, you didn’t hesitate before the both of you sprang into action.

It was efficient. Brutal. Over before the guards even knew they were in danger, you veered left, using the shadows like muscle memory, silent steps, steady breaths, the first guard didn’t even have time to draw his weapon, you slipped behind him, arm hooking around his neck in one clean, practiced sweep, the way Nat taught you, he struggled for a moment, but you held tight, twisting just enough until his knees buckled and he went down like a soft thud.

Bucky was already on the second guard, a flash of movement, a sharp, harsh kick to the back of knee to drop his stance, and before you knew it, guard two collapsed like dead weight.

You didn’t flinch when Bucky’s hand brushed against yours as you passed the second server room. But you felt it, a graze of skin. barely a touch — and yet it seared like contact with a live wire.

He flinched, not a recoil exactly, but a hitch. The faintest disruption in his usually smooth motion.

Enough to make you ache.

Then the door to the server room hissed open. You entered first, sweeping the corners, eyes scanning out of habit more than necessity.

“Clear,” you muttered

You knelt by the console and pulled the flash drive from your pocket, it slid into place with a soft click, and lines of code immediately flickered across the screen, the words, “download initiated” flashed across the computer, the whir of fans, the pulsing red light overhead and the steady tick of your heartbeat.

Then— SLAM.

The door behind you shut like a guillotine, a mechanical hiss following the unmistakable sound of a lock sliding into places the panel on the wall started blinking red.

“What the fuck—” you whirled, reaching instinctively for your comm.

Absolutely nothing, no static, not a voice.

You looked at Bucky, already at the keypad, jaw tight, eyes focused on the screen as his fingers danced over the keys, punching in override codes with mechanical precision, but even he looked tenser than usual — less sure.

“Backup lockdown protocol?” you asked, trying to keep your voice even.

“Could be,” he said, not looking at you. “Maybe they knew we were coming.”

“Great.” You exhaled sharply. “Perfect.”

The room was small, closer than it had felt a minute ago, the red emergency lights cast shadows across the concrete floor, licking up the walls like flickering firelight, and the fact that you were this close to Bucky didn’t help, thoughts ran through your head as you tried to suffer through the silence.

Too tense. Too close.

“You don’t have to look so pissed,” you muttered after a long, stretching silence, arms folded tight over your chest like they could hold the ache in. Your voice echoed slightly in the metal-and-concrete hush of the server room, small but biting. “It’s not like I planned to get stuck in a room with you.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn around.

That silence was cold and heavy and deliberate, it was more infuriating than any argument. More cruel than any insult. And just like that, the restraint you’d been clinging to fractured, snapping apart like thin glass under pressure.

“Seriously, Bucky?” You took a step forward, fists curling tight at your sides, heat prickling behind your eyes. “You’re just gonna stay quiet?”

He paused. His back tensed. Then, without looking at you, he said flatly, “I didn’t realise we had anything left to say.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Sharp. Surgical. You sucked in a breath like it would stop the sting, but it didn’t. Instead, your lips curled into a bitter smile that didn’t reach your eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” you said, voice tight with disbelief. “Maybe a follow-up to ‘you were convenient.’ Maybe that’s not something you just say and then disappear.”

At that, his shoulders stiffened. His fingers twitched near the keypad, as if they were still trying to solve the problem — like maybe if he focused hard enough, he wouldn’t have to face the real one standing behind him. But the motion faltered, and he let his hand fall away.

“You said it like I meant nothing to you,” you continued, voice cracking, breath hitching somewhere between fury and heartbreak. “Like I was just some mistake you made in a moment of weakness. Some warm body you used to get through the night.”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t have to.” The words tumbled out of you now, raw and ragged. “I was there for you, Bucky. Every night. Every fucking night. When you couldn’t sleep. When the nightmares got so bad you couldn’t breathe. When you looked in the mirror like you didn’t deserve to be alive—I was there. And y-you used me.”

He turned at last, his eyes wild, stormy. His voice broke as he spoke.

“You told me you loved me.”

You flinched like the words had weight, like they could bruise you more than he already did.

“You think I could keep touching you after that?” he said, quieter now, like something inside him was unraveling.

And you froze.

The air thinned, shrank around you. Your heart thundered against your ribs.

“You think I could keep doing that to you,” he went on, his voice barely holding together, “knowing you felt something—when I... when I couldn’t let myself feel anything at all?”

Your voice was barely more than a breath. “So you ran. Because someone gave a shit?”

His eyes flared, a flicker of something wounded flashing through the cracks in his carefully worn armor.

“You don’t get it,” he snapped, cerulean eyes darkening. “You never did.”

“Then explain it to me,” you said, stepping forward until the air between you pulsed. “Help me fucking understand why I wasn’t enough.”

He looked like he wanted to bolt. Like the truth was a weight too heavy to hold. But he didn’t move. Not yet.

“You were supposed to know the rules,” he said finally, voice flat but not emotionless. “You made them. No feelings. No strings. You knew what this was.”

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you,” you whispered, tears stinging the corners of your eyes. “I just... did. And maybe that was stupid. Maybe I read something into it that was never there.”

His jaw flexed. His face closed off. And when he finally spoke, it was like ice cutting through your ribs.

“You did.”

The silence that followed was endless. Deafening. It rang in your ears louder than gunfire.

You stared at him, something inside you slowly collapsing in on itself. Your spine straightened, chin tilting up in a last shred of defiance even as your voice wavered.

“Wow,” you said. “Guess I really was convenient.”

He didn’t move. But something flickered across his face — guilt, pain, maybe even regret — and for the smallest second, it looked like he might take it all back.

But he didn’t.

Your throat closed. You couldn’t breathe past the pressure rising in your chest. You were unraveling, piece by piece, in front of the one person who’d already seen you at your most vulnerable. And it still wasn’t enough.

“I was a mission to you,” you said. “Something broken to fix. A distraction. A warm place to hide when the rest of the world got too loud. But y-you…”

Your voice cracked, and you turned away, hating yourself for how much it still hurt.

“You were everything to me. And I hate that you still are.”

That finally did it.

Bucky’s face shifted, like something inside him broke and bled out all at once. His jaw clenched so tight the muscles twitched, his lips were pressed into a thin, hard line, but even that didn’t hide the tremble beneath. His eyes, dark, stormy—flickered with something close to pain, raw and real, like the weight of everything you said was scraping against his soul.

The lines around his eyes and mouth deepened, harsh shadows carved by years of anger and loss, Bucky’s breathing hitched—sharp and ragged—like he was fighting against the damn emotions clawing their way up from somewhere deep and dangerous. You caught the briefest flicker of something you’d never seen before: brokenness.

A crack in the armor.

His metal arm twitched at his side, a reminder of what he’d been through, what he still carried. The cold gleam of the metal contrasted with the heat of his skin, flushed in anger or pain, or both. His whole body was tense, like he wanted to run, or fight, or maybe just disappear.

And yet, even with all that anger, all that rage, there was this dark, raw ache in his eyes—like he hated himself for feeling it, for letting you see it. He looked like he was on the edge of losing control, and maybe that scared him more than anything.

“I begged you to stay,” you said, almost whimpering as tears fell, Bucky’s voice came a second later, rough and ruined.

“I left because if I stayed, I would’ve destroyed you.”

You turned then, eyes blazing through the blur of tears. “You didn’t destroy me, Bucky. You left me alive to remember it.”

The server beeped — a cold, neutral sound. Files downloaded. Mission complete. Job done.

But this wasn’t a mission. This wasn’t something you could walk away from with a pat on the back and a debrief.

This was ruin. Quiet, private, and absolute.

You turned your back to him, shoulders trembling. Your hands curled into fists, knuckles white with the effort of staying upright. Silent tears carved paths down your cheeks, but you didn’t make a sound.

Behind you, Bucky didn’t speak. Didn’t move. The air between you was thick and poisonous, buzzing with everything you’d said and everything you hadn’t.

And in that unbearable silence, you finally understood the one truth that stung more than all the rest:

He wanted to love you.

But James Buchanan Barnes didn’t know how.

The server beeped again.

Still, you didn’t move, you couldn’t. Your hands trembled at your sides, your back still turned, chest rising and falling like your lungs were trying to remember how to breathe without pain. The words still echoed in the tight air between you, circling like ghosts neither of you could exorcise.

And then you heard it.

Footsteps. Slow, deliberate. The quiet creak of his boots across the floor. Closer. Closer still.

“Don’t,” you rasped, not turning around, afraid that he would see the tears that now stained your cheeks. “Don’t come near me if you’re just going to walk away again.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky said behind you, voice thick, low, loaded.

Then his hand was on your arm, warm flesh this time, not metal, turning you gently, carefully, until you were facing him.

Your eyes met his cerulean ones, and something snapped, Bucky crashed his lips against yours like he’d finally broken through whatever leash he’d kept himself on, no, it wasn’t gentle or sweet, it was punishment and apology and desperation all at once — teeth and tongue and heat and anger and god, it was everything you remembered and everything you’d tried to forget.

You kissed him back with everything you had.

Your hands clawed into his shirt, dragging him closer, pouring all your pain into it, needing him to feel it. You wanted to hurt him with your mouth, your nails, your breath — the way he’d hurt you — but it was all tangled in love, twisted, beautiful and devastating all at once.

Bucky’s hands cupped your jaw, tilted your head, deepened the kiss until you were dizzy.

“Say you hate me,” he growled against your mouth.

You gasped, breath catching. “I do.”

“Liar.” His voice was rough, ruined. “You feel this. Same as me.”

And then his metal hand gripped your waist, pulling you against the hard line of his body. You moaned — couldn’t help it — the contact lighting a fire beneath your skin, melting the last of your resolve.

“Fuck,” you hissed, as he backed you into the server console, lifting you onto it with ridiculous ease.

He stepped between your legs, breathing ragged, hands everywhere, tugging at your clothes, sliding under them, desperate to feel skin.

“You still feel like mine,” he muttered, voice cracked and reverent as he shoved your shirt up, exposing your stomach, your bra, the sweat-slick skin he used to worship like religion.

Your fingers fumbled with the zipper of his tac vest, shoving it off, needing to touch. To drag your nails down his chest. To mark him, claim him back.

“You walked away from this,” you gasped, kissing his jaw, biting it. “But your body still remembers me.”

He groaned deep in his throat. “I never forgot. Not once.”

And then he was on you, mouth on your neck, tongue sliding down to your collarbone, hands rough as he ripped open the button of your pants, dragging them down with agonizing speed. You gasped as cool air hit your thighs, and then again as he dropped to his knees like you were something to be worshipped.

“Bucky—” you whimpered, fingers tangling in his hair as he looked up at you with blown pupils and a bruised mouth. His hands hooked behind your knees, dragging you to the edge of the console like you weighed nothing.

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped.

You stared down at him, chest heaving.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

That was all he needed.

He buried his mouth between your thighs like a starving man, and you screamed — hands fisting in his hair, legs shaking as his tongue slid deep, his stubble scraping your thighs in the most delicious way. It was filthy. Sinful. He moaned into you like he was addicted to the taste of your pain, your need.

You were already close — the heat was unbearable — but he didn’t let up, didn’t pause, not even when you came apart on his tongue, shuddering and crying out his name like it was a confession.

He stood then, mouth wet, eyes feral, dragging you off the console and spinning you around.

Your palms slapped against the metal surface. You were still panting, legs trembling, but you wanted more. Needed him.

“Tell me you still want this,” he said against your ear, one hand trailing up your back, the other palming your ass.

“I want you,” you choked out, pressing back into him. “I want all of you.”

The sound he made — a desperate, broken groan — was followed by the sound of his zipper, then the feel of him, thick and hard, rubbing against your slick folds.

When Bucky pushed into you, it was like being split open and healed all at once.

You both gasped. Swore. Clutched at the metal console like it might save you from drowning in the fire.

He set a brutal rhythm — relentless, deep, pounding into you with years of unsaid words and unmet longing. You met every thrust with your own, sobbing his name, eyes fluttering shut as pleasure coiled tight again in your belly.

“You feel like home,” he groaned, fucking you deeper. “You are home.”

You shattered with his name on your lips.

And this time, when you broke, he didn’t let go.

He followed you over the edge, spilling inside you with a raw, guttural moan, his forehead pressed between your shoulder blades, his arms wrapping tight around your waist like he was terrified you might disappear again.

The silence that followed wasn’t the cold, cruel kind anymore.

It was quiet. Close. Reverent.

And when he finally pulled back, pressing a kiss to your spine, your shoulder, your temple — you knew.

Bucky couldn’t say it.

But this time, he wasn’t going to leave.

“I left because if I stayed, I would’ve broken you. And maybe… maybe I already did.”

Your breath caught, the confession hanging heavy in the room between you both. For a moment, the walls didn’t feel so cold. The distance shrunk, just a fraction, because finally, for the first time, he wasn’t hiding behind that ironclad façade.

You took a shaky step closer, eyes searching for something you’d never dared hope to see: vulnerability.

“Maybe you did,” you whispered, voice trembling, “but I’m still here.”

His gaze faltered, raw and unguarded. The storm behind his eyes softened, just enough to invite you in.

Before you could think twice, your fingers reached out, tracing the cold metal of his arm, and then his cheek. His skin was warm, alive, and beneath his guarded exterior, you found something broken, but not beyond repair.

Bucky’s lips parted, as if to speak, but instead, he pulled you into a bruising, desperate kiss that said everything words couldn’t. It was an apology, a plea, a promise all tangled into one.

The mission could wait. The past could wait.

Right now, it was just you and him, raw, broken and real.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough to start again.

i love, love, love, thunderbolts, it reignited my love for bucky ౨ৎ

2K notes · View notes

r66dusthewriter · 12 days ago

Note

Hiii! I love your works so much — they’re so amazingly written. I was wondering if I can request you do the Hot Ones interview for Drew Starkey with the Outer Banks cast — only if you want to!

I hope you have a great day!!

‘Big news for the unemployed’ | Hot ones versus

Pairing: Drew Starkey x fem!reader.

Masterlist | Who am i? | REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

a/n: I started my little (a casual 11h first day shift) side/summer student job a few days ago. I filed a complaint to HR and had a screaming match with my supervisor the same night. I have never longed for unemployment the way I do now.

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: none

Word count: 1.5k

When Drew spun the bottle, it landed squarely on Maddie, signaling that your team would kick off the first round.

“As the only kook here” Drew began, a grin playing on his lips as he read from the card, “I’m pitting pogue against pogue in a three on three challenge. Lose a game or fail to answer a question and your entire team must eat a deathwing. However, if you pass my test, then I will suffer the wrath of the last dab”

He glanced up and smiled at Maddie “Madelyn, the bottle landed on you, so your team will answer the question first”

You sat closest to Drew, your legs intertwined beneath the table with his, a comforting reminder of what the two of you had.

“Alright, Y/n” Drew said, nodding toward you.

“Shoot,” you replied confidently.

“Outer Banks has hooked viewers for four seasons with its countless twists and turns,” Drew continued, eyes twinkling “However, name one storyline you think should've never made it out of the writers’ room”

The entire cast gasped dramatically.

“Is this your way of trying to get me fired?” you joked, laughter bubbling through the group.

Jonathan turned to you, a grin on his face “Do you want to eat that wing?” he asked, his eyes searching yours. You shook your head rapidly.

“Oh I know!” you said with a confident tone “Sarah getting shot where she did and literally being able to sprint the next morning. Like, give my girl a break”

“That’s why I love you!” Madelyn shouted, laughter rippling around the room.

“That’s a solid one,” Chase agreed, nodding appreciatively.

Meanwhile, Drew slipped off his rings, mentally preparing to take on the dreaded deathwing.

“Oh, now I feel bad” you murmured, worry flickering in your chest.

“You worry too much about him,” Jonathan said with a smile. “He’ll be alright.”

Chase chuckled, watching Drew carefully pull apart the wing. “Oh you’re shaking”

Then Drew took his first confident bite, a big one, causing you to gasp.

“Just relax,” Madison advised Drew “Oh my god. Big bite!”

“Baby, no!” you whispered, soon covering your mouth, hoping the mic hadn’t caught that. “He doesn’t have to eat the whole thing, does he?” you asked, turning to the producers.

“Yes, he does. Yes, he does,” Jonathan repeated with a smirk.

“It’s okay baby. I want to” Drew nodded and assured mouth full, the pet name barely audible.

“He does.” Jonathan assured further “He’ll want me to do it and i’d respect that”

Once Drew finished, the chewing looked agonizing. His fist covered his mouth as he fought through it, and you looked at him with concern while the rest laughed and cheered him on.

“It’s getting hot” he coughed, face warming up but proud.

By the time round three rolled around, Drew picked up the next card with a dramatic flair, eyes scanning the words before he read aloud.

“After five years of long shoot days in remote locations, our cast has become like a family. So now, it’s time to see how well you know your co-stars in the game of ‘Who posted it’, you’ll be shown a series of Instagram photos and must correctly identify whose account it is from. The losing team must eat a death wing”

Groans and nervous laughter erupted around the table as the challenge began. Despite a strong start, your team stumbled through the last few images. The final buzzer sounded and the opposing team cheered as the loss was confirmed.

You let out a dramatic sigh, then confidently picked up one of the fiery wings from the tray.

“I’m usually really good with spice,” you said, squinting at it skeptically, “but why do I feel like this is not gonna go well for me?”

“No, no, no, you got this ba–” Drew began, but was cut off by Jonathn, who grinned and shouted “Eat that wing baby!” taking Drew’s words right out of his mouth.

The table burst out laughing as you gave Drew a playful glare and took a bite. At first, your expression stayed neutral. You chewed, shrugged. “That’s actually really good, it’s not that—oh”

The second wave hit. Your eyes widened slightly as the burn kicked in, creeping across your tongue. The opposite team laughed as you blinked through the rising heat.

“I take that back!” you gasped, fanning your mouth. “That’s warm… but good”

“Look at us!” Madelyn clapped, looking at both you and Carlacia as she chewed. “Taking it like champs…it is really hot though”

Drew leaned over with a smug smile and whispered just loud enough for your mic to catch it faintly, “Knew you’d make me proud”

You grinned, mouth burning but your pride fully intact.

For the final round, the stakes were turned up, quite literally, as each of you added a dollop of the infamous Last Dab hot sauce on your next wing.

Drew read the final challenge with mock gravity in his voice, holding up the card like it was a royal decree.

“The treasure of the Royal Merchant has caused many to betray their closest allies. This game is no different as we have come to a final ‘Winner Takes All’ challenge. That’s right. No more teams, it’s everyone for themselves in the most cutthroat party game of the seven seas ‘Musical Chairs’” Drew read.

Groans, laughter and a few exaggerated threats echoed around the table as you all stood and the crew prepared the game.

You soon found yourself circling the chairs just behind Drew, tension high and competitive glints in everyone’s eyes. The music stopped suddenly and chaos ensued. You and Drew dove for the same chair at the exact same time. He ended on your lap as the others looked around for who lost. With your arms around him, you patted his chest and he chuckled as he stood up.

“Oh, it’s me,” he announced with chivalry, stepping aside and reaching for his wing

“What a gentleman,” Carlacia teased with a smirk.

“He just didn’t want to sleep on the couch tonight,” JD added under his breath, which you barely heard, making the ones who did erupt in laughter.

Drew shot you a wink, high fived you with a grin and took his wing like a champ, downing it as applause rang out.

“You gotta get outta here” Madison told him, waving dramatically.

“Alright, fuck y’all,” Drew said with a grin, stepping off set as the others booed him playfully.

The game whittled down quickly, with chairs disappearing and cast members losing left and right. When it came down to you and Chase in the final showdown, adrenaline surged. The music cut out, and with lingering reflexes, you claimed the last seat.

The cast cheered off-frame, someone yelling, “Attagirl!”

“I told y’all to put your money on that girl!” Madison added proudly.

Once the clapping died down, the cast re-emerged and Drew held out the trophy with dramatic reverence.

“And here we have it…the wing of champions,” he declared, handing it to you.

You took it with a grin, and held it up, turning toward the camera as the rest of the cast rallied around you.

“Thank you all for this.” you began in mock sincerity. “The wings were really hot and I’m just honored to survive this. But more importantly, I’m really hoping I can take home the ones we didn’t eat”

You glanced pointedly at a producer off-camera.

The cast and crew burst into laughter as you finished “Outer Banks Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix, please watch it… . But seriously though…I’m dead serious about the wings—can i? I have ziplock bags in my purse.”

The screen faded to black as the entire set cracked up behind you.

—--

The "First We Feast” Instagram post announcing the video with the cast blew up almost instantly, but after the full video dropped, the internet practically caught on fire.

Clips were reposted across Tiktok, fan accounts captioned everything from your teary-eyed wing victory to Drew handing you the trophy but what really set the comments section ablaze was the chemistry.

drewdorabl3 I counted three ‘baby’s’ and two babes’. I am NOT okay.

obxsuperfan1 Just checking if I’m having auditory hallucinations…did anyone else hear Y/n call Drew ‘baby’?

rafesleftsock And Drew too! If you’re wrong then I need my hearing checked too.

mells134 I turned on the captions. They definitely said it!

drewswife.09 here y'all go again. they’re bestfriends 🙄

ikervt Me when i’m delusional

89kovcg Jobs people. JOBS

p0gu3l0v3r Ughhhh the way he looks at her

yenakls445 anyone else hear JD talk about how Drew didn’t want to sleep on the couch? 😭

dellaos.cc yes omg!

89kovcg Huge news for the unemployed.

c3rtifiedpoguecollector who’s gonna tell them we heard everything?

y/n/y/l/n tell what to who? I’m so lost y’all

madelyncline babe just go ahead and log out

Speculation turned into full-on obsession as fans began dissecting every glance and laugh. Someone even made a compilation called “Every time they forgot they weren’t alone” on TikTok. It had a million views in a couple of hours and naturally, more chaos ensued yet you and Drew, thanks to your lack of social media presence, remained mostly unaware.

#drew starkey imagine #drew starkey one shot #drew starkey fluff #drew starkey x female reader #drew starkey x y/n #drew starkey x you #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey #rafe cameron x reader #rafe x reader #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron fic #rafe outer banks #outerbanks rafe #drew starkey fanfiction #rafe cameron fluff #obx cast

706 notes · View notes

syofrelief · 1 month ago

Text

buzz

unofficial pt 2 to this but you don't need to read the first one. fluff! kisses, too.

Your grin was wolfish when your new little helper trudged into your office.

Soap's head still had a stocking cap's worth of gauze wrapped around it, the purple bruising around his eye faded only slightly. He grunted a hello and stomped to the armchair next to your desk.

"Well hi there, mister," you teased, flicking through your notebook innocently. "Heard you got a bit banged up out there. I like the hair, by the way."

Soap groaned, lower lip pushing out. "Aw, bile yer heid, ah cannae believe they made me shave it off," he whined, grieving his perfect mohawk. You snickered at the reverence in his eye as he patted the bandages gingerly. You wondered what lay beneath it, how his head would look without its trademark style.

"Desk duty?"

"Aye," he sighed. "It's th'worst. No offense."

"None taken. Not for everybody." You could feel the tremors his bouncing knee sent into the floor as he sank into the cushions. A part of you did feel bad for teasing, but it was overtaken by the immense relief blooming in your chest.

Desk duty meant inside. Away from out there. When one of the privates had stuttered out that Sarge's been shot, miss, I can't- you hadn't even let the poor boy finish before sprinting to the bay. It had been a bloody mess. Literally.

Cold terror seeped under your skin, remembering the limp feel of his hand. You shivered.

"Y'alright, lass?"

His voice made you jump. "Hm? Yes. Yeah, I'm...I'm good."

"You look like yeh've seen a ghost." His twinkling eyes made you smile warmly. He had such a pretty face, even bruised up. A little unfair, honestly.

He settled again, chin on his hand as you continued combing through the thick file in front of you. Warm grew on your cheeks as you felt his unwavering stare. You liked having him with you, but recently it had become a distraction. His gaze was a little too open. Too vulnerable in a way that made your lungs struggle for air.

"Johnny," you said suddenly. "Where's Price put you? For desk stuff."

He shrugged, playing with the seam on his pants. "Dinnae, somewhere down the hall."

You cocked your head. "You got a shift today?"

"...Aye."

"You gonna...show up?"

He pouted at you, blue irises shining like the deepest sapphires. Damn those eyes. His fingers stilled on his jeans, all energy focused towards beaming the biggest pleading puppy look he could manage. Your tongue dried and you resisted the urge to pinch his cheek.

"You can't skip," you laughed waveringly, voice light and frail. Great cover-up.

"But...I wanted teh sit wit' you," he pleaded.

Where was this coming from? God, rip out your heart why doesn't he?

"Soap," you said gently. "Go on. We'll talk at lunch."

Grumbling, he dragged his feet all the way to your door, sending you a sour look as he headed off to his own little office. Poor baby, you thought, gaze drifting to the now-empty armchair. Soap wasn't built for desk work; he needed the flashing lights and high octane and loud booms. It'd be a tough couple of weeks.

Sighing, you hoped he wouldn't be too angry with you, reaching for the newest project. It proved to be even denser than the last one, and your head dropped to your desk. Ugh.

Despite banishing him (gently) to his work, you heard him scamper by your doorway more often than was necessary. On day three you'd started timing the intervals. Five minutes. Ten. Six and a half. Ten and fifteen seconds.

The telltale creak of the floor beneath his heavy boots echoed again. Rolling your eyes, you swiveled around to catch him in the act.

Your jaw hit the floor when you saw him. His bandages were gone, and...

"John," you breathed. His government name shocked the smile right off him, and he flinched.

"Aye, whassat for?" He stuck his tongue out, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Your...hair," you said again, hand over your mouth.

It was gone. Gone, gone. Brown fuzz barely covered his scalp, pink scar tissue in knotted lines behind his ears. Your shock was maybe a bit too evident, because hurt flashed across his eyes. Immediately you regretted it, going to stand.

"Hang on, I didn't-"

He sniffed and turned to the door.

"No, Soap, wait!"

You leapt up to kick the door shut before he could leave. Plastering yourself against the door, you fought to keep his gaze. Johnny's ears were a deep purple, and you gently touched his arm.

"I'm sorry," you said quietly. "It's not...it's not bad. It just surprised me. That's all. Come on, please don't...I'm sorry."

He rocked on his heels a moment, gaze still shy. Hair meant a lot to him. Everyone had something in this place. You had so few things to make you, you. Any little feature was clutched onto for dear life. Scented soap, a shade of lipstick, piercings. Soap had hair. He liked taking care of it, combing his hands through it or styling it on lax days.

"Looks chopped, ah ken," he muttered, scruffing a hand over his bare neck. You smiled softly, reaching up to run your hand over the peach fuzz. It tickled.

"It suits you," you said, and you meant it. As much as you missed his waves, his eyes shone a bit brighter now. "Come on, sit. I've got nothing to do."

"Um," he began, and you paused. "Ah...had a question fer ye, actually." He pulled a crumpled note from his pocket, trying to smooth it into legibility. "I...what's this mean?"

You peered at the chicken scratch. Tran/map.

"Oh, they just want a translation of the map. Was this on a picture of something?"

He stalled, trying to remember. "Uhm."

"Here, bring it to me."

Moments later, you had a map sprawled on the floor, annotations and notes in a foreign pen scrawled over it. You were poring over a few dictionaries, trying to find matches.

"So, the best way to do this is to start with any context clues. The..."

Your words fell on deaf ears. Johnny was gazing at you, cheeks pink and lips in a loose smile. Hair drifted from behind your ear, and his hands twitched. He wanted to fix it. He wanted...touch. He'd missed sitting in with you, hearing you hum and the delicate smell of your office. Pretty bird. Smart bird, too, using all the big words he-

"Johnny?"

He blinked, caught. His hand was halfway to your hip, reaching for your keys.

"You...you okay?"

You were blinking at him, a little confused. He nodded, grabbing the key ring gently. He tugged, liking the jingle. You watched him fidget for a bit, then shakily continued.

His sharp ears caught the waver in your voice. The pink on your neck. A slow grin spread across his cheeks. He edged closer, thigh nudging yours. The keys were a nice fidget, but his fingertips burned to squeeze the soft of your hip. Your mumbling didn't pause as he cautiously leaned his forehead on your shoulder, nose brushing the soft cotton of your sweater.

You'd stopped trying to explain the process, now just doing his work for him. Murmuring the new words to yourself, pen scratching soothingly on the papers. Soap's eyelids were heavy with the heady knowledge that you knew. You knew what he was doing, let him cuddle closer, buzzed hair tickling your jaw.

The pen stopped. He felt your chin twitch, your eyes meeting his.

"Soap," you said gently. "Are you asking for something?"

He didn't move, hands frozen on your hip. Baby blues blinked innocently up at you from his curled position on your floor. A choked sound in the back of his throat.

You smiled, setting your book down with a thud. "C'mere, idiot."

He crawled forwards, burly arms wrapping around your middle. Elation bubbled over in his chest, flowing into his veins like nectar. The soothing coo you let out as you ran your hands up his back send his mind into the stratosphere with euphoria.

He clutched at you like a lifeline as you held him, cheek on his head. The stubble was growing on you. It felt nice, like a soft blanket. You scratched gently behind his ears, resulting in a rumbling purr from his prone form. Soap's head rested on the plush of your chest, eyes half-lidded and bleary.

"Missed ye," he mumbled, grip tightening. You frowned, petting his neck.

"You see me every day, silly goose."

"Yeah, but..." he nosed into your neck, pulling himself closer. "Hav'nae done this inna while. Missed it."

You hummed in understanding, nails raking gentle patterns on his skin. A knot of scar tissue made you pause. He noticed, eyes flicking to yours. Concerned. That echo of terror whispered in your head, remembering.

"You scared me," you whispered, throat tight. You smoothed over the scar, too close to those pretty eyes and the fragile mind behind them. Soap sat up, slowly, something stirring in his eyes. It was too much. You hung your head, eyes welling.

"M'sorry," you choked out, tears bubbling over your hands. He drew you close, murmuring dissent at your quiet sobs.

"Aye, none a' tha', birdie," he sighed, "was just a scratch. 'M alright, doll, look," his hand took your and pressed it to his heart, thumping steadily beneath his warm chest. "See? 'M jus' fine."

You crept into his lap, latching yourself securely under his chin. Soap made no effort to stop you, wrapping his arms tight behind your back. He rocked gently, lulling you until the sniffling ceased.

"Aw, wee one," he soothed into the crown of your head. "Didnae know ye cared so much." His tone had the audacity to be teasing, and you whipped angrily to him.

"Didn't- Johnny MacTavish, how-"

He chuckled, kissing your cheek. "Teasin, teasin'. I ken."

You huffed, brow still pinched. His lips pressed a kiss there too.

"C'mon, it was funny. Laugh. Laugh, bonnie, lemme see tha' smile-"

You tried to keep your face twisted, but the insistence of his lips across your face cracked your composure, face splitting. Giggling as he crowed triumphantly, smacking a kiss onto your nose.

You grabbed his face and pressed your lips to his. A small noise in his throat, his fingers tightening on your hips. You licked gently into his mouth. He tasted warm and sweet, sending a shiver down your back. His hands slid up to your jaw, cupping you delicately. Something blossomed in your chest. This was how it was supposed to be. A feeling, one that had been shoved down in the dark, finally coming up to the surface. You nipped at him, trying to fuse your bodies together. Johnny groaned, cheeks flushed.

When you parted for air, his lips were pink and swollen. He took in your flustered face and heaving chest. Your dilated eyes met his.

"Hi, lamb," he smiled, pinching your blushing cheeks. "Look cute all messed up."

You scoffed, burrowing into his neck. His firm, warm skin smelled of fresh pine. You sucked in greedy lungfuls, nosing beneath his ear. His shoulder sloped perfectly for your head. A puzzle-piece match. Meant to be, your heart preened as your hand fisted gently in his shirt.

"Lass," he said, pecking your hair. You hummed, too content to face him. "Ah've a question."

You cooed contentedly, not really listening as his warm grip kneaded your thigh.

"Can I stay here?"

Your brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"Can...can I stay in yer office?"

Your eyes cracked open, brow raised. "Can you work in my office? Johnny..." you breathed a laugh, shaking your head. "I'd get nothing done. Neither would you, for that matter." He blustered indignantly, puppy dog eyes back in full force.

"But..."

"No, Soap," you laughed, kissing his forehead. "Nice try."

His protesting was silenced when you pulled him closer, lacing your fingers together. You were bluffing, but his pout was cute. You'd ask the CO tomorrow to move his stuff in here.

Soap grumbled, breath puffing over your ear.

"Wha' if I get shot again, then ye have to let me-"

"No."

yippee!

#john soap mactavish #cod #call of duty #141 #x reader #drabble #fem reader #fluff #call of duty soap #soap x reader #soap cod

696 notes · View notes

mrsvante · 16 days ago

Text

Terms of Surrender

pairing: yoongi x reader

genre: idol au, established relationship, pfp (kinda)

summary: he always left a piece of himself behind when he went away. now he’s trying to remember where he put it. a slow burning love letter to quiet homes, messy reunions, half eaten cake, and the way someone’s touch can make a tired soul feel whole again.

warnings: military discharge, emotional vulnerability, fingering, oral f!receiving, light edging, praise kink, yoongi calls you a good girl 🫠, swearing, teeth rottingly tender intimacy, clingy yoongi, post service identity crisis, minor angst with comfort, domestic fluff, one deeply judgmental dog named holly

word count: 4,907

a word from our sponsors 💁🏽‍♀️: i know these drabbles have been pretty much pfp but i got a little emotional with yoongi because we made it!! they’re all finally home & whole. how could i not get emotional?! ughhhh it feels so surreal to know ot7 is back 🥹 anyway, enough of me blabbering..hope you enjoy!

Yoongi slouched deeper into the backseat of the cab, his head tipped against the cool glass of the window as the late June sun painted long shadows over the city. Seoul hadn’t changed much. Same humming traffic. Same old buildings with half lit signs.

But somehow it all felt a little different today, like the world had edged forward a few paces without him and now he was just catching up.

The driver didn’t say much, which he appreciated. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.

His shoulder ached, an old reminder stitched into the muscle. He rolled it slowly, grateful it hadn’t flared up during the last few months. He’d been careful, pacing himself. Desk work had its own kind of strain, though. Different from physical labor. More like being filed down from the inside out, every second smoothed into the next until time itself lost its sharpness.

Twenty one months. It was a long time to be out of the rhythm of everything.

But he was going home now.

The cab pulled into the underground lot beneath his apartment complex. Yoongi paid, murmured a soft thank you, and stepped out, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder. His fingers tapped over the security pad and the door buzzed open, welcoming him into silence.

The elevator ride was short.

He input the house code into the door, and the smell hit him first.

Takeout. Sweet and salty. Something you knew he liked.

Then your voice.

“~Congratulations, our beloved Yoongi~”

You sang in an absurdly high pitched voice, standing in the middle of the dining room in fuzzy socks, his old sweatshirt, and some too tiny shorts that clung to your ass like a second skin. A small cake sat on the table beside a bottle of Glenfiddich and a cluster of takeout boxes.

Yoongi blinked.

You ran over to him, grabbing his hand before he could even take off his shoes, dragging him into the middle of the room.

“Dance with me,” you demanded, swaying your hips in exaggerated circles, clearly trying to make him laugh.

“I literally just got discharged—”

“Exactly. So you don’t have any excuses.”

He rolled his eyes but let you spin him around once. Then twice. You clapped like it was the best performance of his career and leaned in to kiss his cheek with a loud, theatrical mwah.

Yoongi’s mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile.

You cut the cake and plated a slice. Soft, homemade lilac frosting smudged along the edge. You were beaming as you scooped up a bite for him with your fork.

“Open.”

“I’m not a dog, aegi.”

You tilted your head and arched a brow. “Wanna bet?”

Still, he opened his mouth and let you feed him. The cake was good. Moist and sweet, but not too sweet.

He was tired. Fucking exhausted, actually.

But his heart, his heart had never felt this full.

You nudged his side gently. “You look more dead now than you did on your last day of basic.”

Yoongi groaned, head tipping back. “Because basic was body hell. This was soul death. There’s a difference.”

You giggled. “So… filing paperwork was harder than running ten kilometers with a loaded pack?”

“Absolutely. You ever been stuck with a malfunctioning printer and an angry office ajumma on your ass for six straight hours?”

You leaned into him, resting your head on his chest. “Guess I’ll just have to nurse you back to health.”

“You’re already doing a pretty good job,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your hair.

Later that night, the cake was half eaten, the whiskey two fingers lower, and the takeout boxes stacked haphazardly on the counter. The lights were dimmed, the room washed in the soft glow of the TV as the drama played on the screen.

You sat curled against Yoongi on the couch, legs tangled with his, one of your hands absently tracing the inside seam of his sweatpants. Holly was nestled comfortably by Yoongi’s feet, occasionally twitching in his sleep as if chasing something.

Yoongi’s arm rested around your shoulders, fingers playing with the end of your sleeve.

The silence had long settled into something easy. He hadn’t said much since dinner, but you didn’t mind. That was just him. He was always more of a slow pour—thoughts aged like wine, shared only when ready.

The main couple on screen kissed under a lamppost. The music swelled dramatically and you snorted.

“They’ve known each other for like four episodes.”

Yoongi gave a soft, amused breath through his nose. “That’s two more than some people get.”

A comfortable beat passed. Then he spoke again, quieter this time.

“I missed this.”

You turned your head slightly against his chest, your ear catching the soft thump of his heart beneath his shirt.

“Missed what?”

He didn’t answer right away. His fingers stilled against your sleeve.

“This,” he repeated, gaze fixed somewhere past the TV. “Normal things. You. Even Holly’s stubborn little attitude.”

You smiled, glancing down at the tiny dog in question. “He’s been moodier than usual with you being so regimented lately.”

“Yeah, well,” Yoongi exhaled slowly, “I’ve been moodier than usual without you.”

You lifted your head to look at him fully, but his eyes were still on the screen, though it was obvious he wasn’t really seeing it. There was a distant kind of sheen in his expression. Like he was still partially somewhere else.

He finally glanced at you, the corners of his mouth tugging faintly. “I think I forgot how to sit still for a while. Everything about that place… the rhythm, the silence, it’s different. Not bad, just…” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Sterile. Like life paused and I was watching it through a window. The days bled together. Same halls. Same faces. Same tired conversations.”

You reached up, brushing your fingers along the edge of his jaw. He leaned into it a little.

“But now it’s over,” you said gently.

“Almost,” he replied. “Still doesn’t feel real. I’ve been fantasizing about laying on this couch for months without forcing myself to stick to a bedtime. About your cheesy dramas. About Holly hogging all the foot space.” He nudged the dog lightly with his toe. “But the moment I stepped through the door, it felt like no time had passed and also like a lifetime had gone by.”

He paused. His voice dropped just slightly.

“I’m nervous.”

That surprised you a little. You sat up straighter.

“About?”

“Coming back.” He didn’t mean the apartment. “About being with the guys again. Being BTS again. It’s stupid—I’ve done this my whole adult life. But it’s like… what if the music feels different? What if I feel different?”

You softened, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “You are different. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

“I know.” His eyes flicked down. “I just—there’s pressure. Expectations. We’re all gonna be different now. Older. We’ve lived outside of that world for so long, it’s not going to be the same. And I’m scared I won’t love it the way I used to. Or that I’ll want it too much and burn out again.”

Your thumb softly traced beneath his eye.

“You don’t have to have all the answers yet,” you murmured. “Just take the next step. One at a time.”

Yoongi let out a breath. Not quite relief, but close.

“You always know what to say.”

“No,” you said with a small smile. “I just know you.”

He looked at you again, really looked this time, and that quiet, aching fondness was back in full force. The kind that never demanded attention but still managed to take up all the space in the room.

“I want you there,” he said, voice soft and sure. “When it all starts again. Not hidden. Not on the sidelines. Just… with me.”

You nodded, brushing your nose against his before whispering, “Always.”

Yoongi didn’t kiss you right away.

He held your face like it was the last fragile thing in a world made of sharp edges, and then, he kissed you.

You didn’t know who started it, but the kiss deepened before either of you thought to stop it. A soft press of lips became something hungrier, something hot and slow and aching with everything unsaid.

Yoongi’s hand cradled the back of your head, his thumb brushing just behind your ear. The other slid to your hip, pulling you closer until you were practically on top of him. You shifted, straddling his lap fully, thighs settling on either side of his, and the sound he made sent a sharp pulse straight through the apex of your thighs.

His tongue traced the seam of your mouth, and you opened for him. The taste of whiskey lingered faintly on his breath, but more than that, it was him.

Warm and addicting.

You rocked forward just slightly, enough to feel the stiff press of him beneath you.

Yoongi tensed, groaning into your mouth as your hips moved again. The pressure, the friction, had you squirming before you could stop yourself. His hands gripped your hips harder, guiding the movement just a little, just enough.

“Shit,” he muttered, his voice ragged against your lips. “You trying to kill me?”

You smiled against his mouth, breath catching. “Maybe.”

Another roll of your hips and he swore again, this time dragging his mouth to your jaw, then your neck, where he pressed a kiss just below your ear.

And then, a wet snort.

You both froze.

Then came a soft shuffle and another sneeze like exhale. Yoongi turned his head just enough to see Holly sprawled on his side by the couch, staring up at you both like he had just woken up to a live drama finale he definitely shouldn’t be watching.

You burst out laughing.

Yoongi let his head fall back against the couch with a dramatic groan. “This fucking dog…”

“I think he’s judging us.”

“I know he’s judging us.”

Still laughing, you moved to slide off his lap, but Yoongi caught you before you could. In one smooth motion, he stood, lifting you with him. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders automatically, heart thudding.

“Yoongi—”

“We’re taking this somewhere Holly can’t emotionally imprint on the trauma.”

You laughed even harder, your nose bumping against his cheek as he carried you toward the bedroom, his grip firm and certain.

“And what exactly do you plan to do to me in there?”

Yoongi glanced down at you, eyes dark and glittering with intent, lips brushing the shell of your ear as he murmured, “things you definitely shouldn’t do in front of your children.”

You shrieked and hit his chest, breathless from laughter, head tipping back as he kicked open the bedroom door with his foot.

Behind you, Holly let out one last disgruntled little puff of air and curled back into a loaf.

Yoongi didn’t rush.

He was finally done with his service. There was no need to. And true to himself, Yoongi planned to take his time with you.

Even with weeks of want pressed into the heat between you, even with the taste of your mouth still lingering on his tongue and the shape of your thighs burned into his palms, he didn’t rush.

He laid you down gently, your back sinking into the mattress, the light from the hallway casting warm shadows across your skin. His eyes took you in like he was starving, like he’d been starving for months.

He peeled you out of his sweatshirt with a few gentle tugs. No shirt underneath, no bra.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. “You are trying to kill me.”

You smiled, breathless and hazy, but it faltered when he leaned down and dragged his mouth over your breasts. His tongue was slow, tracing lazy circles around a nipple until it hardened beneath the drag of his lips. Then he sucked, just enough to make your fingers curl in his hair.

Your breath hitched. Yoongi hummed, tongue flicking once more before trailing lower, over your side, your stomach, your hips.

He whispered things as he went, words too quiet to make out. You only caught pieces. So good… missed this… fuck, you’re soft… Like a prayer, or a lullaby meant only for his own ears. There was admiration in every press of his lips. Admiration and hunger and something even more dangerous.

By the time he slipped your shorts down your legs, your thighs were already trembling.

His palm dragged up the inside of your knee, thumb brushing softly over sensitive skin. “Open for me, sweetheart,” he said, low and hoarse, like it cost him to keep still.

You did, thighs falling apart with no hesitation.

The air kissed the wet heat of you, and Yoongi’s gaze sharpened, but still, he didn’t dive in. No frantic desperation. No rush.

Just his lips brushing along the crease of your thigh.

Then again.

Then the other side.

Over and over.

Getting closer.

And then pulling away.

You squirmed. Your hips lifted instinctively toward him, only for his hand to pin you down gently, thumb stroking circles just beneath your hip bone.

“Yoongi…” you whimpered, voice threadbare with need.

He looked up at you, chin tucked between your thighs, hair messy, lips slightly parted—but his eyes glittered all dark and mischievous.

“I’ve been waiting twenty one months to take my time with you,” he said, all soft spoken sin. “Don’t think I’m gonna rush it now.”

Then finally, he licked one long deliberate stripe up your folds.

You gasped, back arching clean off the mattress, but Yoongi only hummed like he was tasting something divine. He didn’t stop there. His tongue moved with devastating precision, every flick calculated, every slow swirl around your clit designed to bring you just close enough.

And then retreat.

And then build again.

He latched his mouth around you, sucking just enough to make your breath stutter, hips rising for more. His grip tightened.

But then, he stopped.

You let out a strangled sound, hips jerking in confusion, in desperate disbelief.

He looked up again, mouth slick, eyes too wide and too innocent to be sincere. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

Your chest rose and fell in sharp bursts. “You—you stopped.”

He tilted his head, mock concern twisting his features into a mask of gentle confusion. “I did?”

“Yoongi—”

“Shh,” he whispered, as two fingers slid deep into you before you could protest.

Your body seized, a cry breaking from your lips as he curled them just right, his thumb pressing lightly to your clit.

“You sound so fucking pretty like this,” he murmured, eyes locked on yours.

He found that spot inside you again, massaging it with slow, steady strokes until you felt it build. All hot, overwhelming, and dizzying.

And then, he pulled away.

Again.

You choked on a sob, hands flying up to clutch at his arms. Your eyes were glossy now, cheeks damp, your whole body trembling from the tension he’d so artfully crafted.

“Yoongi—please,” you whispered, voice broken, barely holding together. “Please, I can’t—”

He kissed the inside of your thigh, lips soft against your skin.

“Yes, you can. You can for me, right?”

His voice was sweet, gentle. But it wasn’t kindness. It was torture.

Another round. Another climb. This time he used everything—his tongue, his fingers, his mouth—driving you to the edge until your body couldn’t tell if it wanted to cum or cry. You were gasping, breath breaking with every stroke, every flick of his tongue, thighs clamped tight around his head in desperation.

Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes, your body pulsing on the edge of release, so close it hurt.

And Yoongi, he looked up at you with that same soft smile, that same faux innocence, like he wasn’t the one breaking you down piece by piece with every touch.

Like this wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

And just when you thought you’d reached your limit, thought you were about to break, he gave in.

Yoongi sat back on his heels for a moment, the soft light casting shadows across his jawline. His lips were still slick from you and swollen, a flush faintly blooming on his cheeks.

Then, without a word, he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Exposing the lean muscle and sharp lines of his body inch by inch. He tossed it to the side, not breaking eye contact. His hands moved to the waistband of his sweats next, dragging them down with a roll of his hips.

You propped yourself up slightly, breath catching as he stood to push them all the way off.

“Are you putting on a show for me, Min?” you teased, your voice soft but playful, cheeks still flushed from the cruel bliss of everything he’d just done to you.

He smirked, his cock heavy and flushed, bobbing slightly as he stepped back between your legs. “Don’t act like you’re not the one begging for an encore.”

You laughed, but it slipped into a gasp when he leaned over you, bracing one hand beside your head while the other lined himself up. The blunt head of his cock nudging at your entrance, hot, hard and achingly thick.

His eyes met yours.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, the words barely audible over your pounding heart.

Then he slid inside.

Your cry was half sob, half surrender as he pushed inside slowly in a long, unhurried thrust. Inch by inch, filling you until his hips were flush against yours and you felt impossibly full, stretched wide and warm around him.

Yoongi dropped his head to your shoulder, breath shuddering against your skin. “Fuck,” he groaned, voice cracking on your name like he’d been starving for this moment. Like this was his first breath of air in months.

He didn’t move.

Just stayed there, pressed so deep it felt like he could feel the beat of your heart from the inside. You clung to him, dazed and overwhelmed, trying to process the way he filled you so completely it almost hurt.

And then, he moved.

Slowly.

So slow.

Each roll of his hips deep and devastating. He fucked you like he had all the time in the world, like he was making up for every lost second. His lips trailed kisses across your cheek, your temple, the corner of your mouth. His hands gripped your thighs and then your hips, grounding you as your body molded to his.

Your legs wrapped around his waist, drawing him deeper, your nails scraping down his back as the pressure built again.

“Yoongi,” you whispered, voice trembling.

He kissed you softly. “I know.”

Your moans grew louder, breathier, every thrust coaxing more from you, unraveling you thread by thread. The steady rhythm turned hungrier, hips snapping a little harder, a little sharper, but never losing that deliberate care, that tether of control wrapped tightly around both of you.

You broke with a sob, your body clenching tight around him, your back arching as the pleasure finally tore through you. It rolled in waves, raw and overwhelming, your fingers clawing at his shoulders as if you could anchor yourself to him.

He didn’t stop.

“Good girl,” Yoongi rasped, the words gritted out through clenched teeth. “That’s it. Let me feel you.”

He thrust through it, riding the high, until your body began to tremble under his and your cries gave way to quiet, broken whimpers. He kissed your throat, your chest, lips suckling and biting your nipples as he fucked you. His hands soothed over your hips as if to apologize for the ruin he was leaving in his wake.

Then he finally let go.

He thrust deep one last time, a full bodied groan tearing from his lips as he came. His whole body shuddered against yours, mouth finding the hollow of your throat as he moaned your name into your skin, like it was the only thing he wanted to say.

When it was over, he didn’t pull away.

Yoongi cradled you against his chest, his heartbeat still pounding as your legs slowly slid down from around his waist. He kissed your temple, the corner of your eye where a tear still clung, then ran his fingers gently through your hair.

Your body still twitched in the aftermath. His touch was slow, soothing, grounding you as if he couldn’t bear to let you drift even an inch.

“I’m home,” he whispered.

And this time, it wasn’t a metaphor.

It was a vow.

No drills. No deadlines. No long hours and coming home too mentally exhausted to do anything.

Just this—his skin on yours, your name on his lips, and the silence finally filled by the sound of peace.

You lay tangled together in the low, amber warmth of the bedroom, skin to skin, legs lazily woven through his. The room had gone quiet again, save for the hum of the city beyond the window and the low, steady sound of your breath returning to normal.

Your skin was cooling but still slick with sweat in places. Every inhale brought the scent of sex and warmth and him. Something earthy, grounding, and entirely Yoongi.

Your head rested on his chest, ear pressed to the steady drum of his heart. The beat was slower now, steady again, but the weight of it beneath your cheek made you feel safe in a way that nothing else ever had.

Yoongi’s fingers drifted along your spine, light and slow and without direction, like his body needed the constant contact to believe you were still there. Every now and then his thumb would pause at your lower back, or brush along your side.

He wasn’t ready to sleep.

Not yet.

Neither were you.

You lifted your head after a while, your cheek creasing against his chest as you shifted just enough to look at him. His eyes were open, soft and dark in the low light, already watching you.

There was something in his expression that made your chest ache.

Something unspoken passed between you. That quiet pulse that always beat strongest when there was nothing left to perform, no ego, no masks. Just you. Just him. Just the knowing.

Then you shifted and climbed over him.

Yoongi’s hands found your hips instinctively, his breath catching slightly as you reached down and guided his still hardening cock inside you again. He was still sensitive, and so were you, but the stretch felt like being wrapped in silk.

You sank down slowly, breath trembling as your body molded to his. No urgency now, or easing. Just the soft, burning ache of connection that ran deeper than anything physical.

He stared up at you like he couldn’t quite believe you were real. Hair tousled. Skin flushed. Lips parted as he exhaled a shaky breath that ghosted over your throat.

“You’re gonna ruin me,” he whispered, voice hoarse and low.

You smiled, leaning down to kiss him.

And then you moved.

You rolled your hips in gentle circles, every glide and shift dragging him deeper, tighter, making both of you gasp. Your hands framed his face, thumbs brushing over the curve of his cheekbones. His eyes fluttered shut, overwhelmed by the intimacy, by the heat, by the way your body gripped him like it knew him.

His hands gripped your waist, fingers digging in just slightly, anchoring himself.

“You feel so fucking good,” he whispered. “Every time, but—fuck—like this…”

You could feel him trembling beneath you, trying to hold still, trying not to lose himself too fast.

“You’re perfect.”

You kissed him again. Softer now. Like a promise.

“I love you,” he said, the words so quiet they nearly disappeared into your skin.

You paused, not from doubt, but from the weight of it. From how much it meant to hear it like that. Bare. Honest. Unprovoked.

He tucked your hair behind your ear, his thumb brushing over your temple.

“I do. I love you. And I’m so fucking happy you gave me a chance.”

“Yoongi—”

“I was scared,” he confessed, voice breaking a little. “Not of you—never of you. Just… of being seen. Of being known like this. You looked at me and didn’t flinch. You didn’t run. You stayed.”

You rolled your hips down again and his breath caught hard in his throat. His head tipped back, jaw slack with pleasure.

“You stayed.”

You kissed him again, this time slow and deep, like you were pouring every ounce of yourself into the space between you. Your hips moved with aching tenderness, each motion drawing you closer to the edge again.

“I think about the sounds you make,” he murmured against your throat. “When you cum. When you break. They’re so fucking beautiful, baby.”

Your breath hitched. The tension building again, coiling low and tight as his hands guided you in that same slow rhythm.

“I’m gonna record them one day,” he whispered, brushing his lips against your ear. “Sneak them into a track. Hide them in the layers so only I know they’re there.”

Your heart thudded hard.

“The breath you take right before you fall apart. That little gasp. The way you cry out my name. I’ll keep it buried in the beat like a secret.”

You clenched around him involuntarily, the pleasure building so high, so fast, your whole body quaked. Your hands gripped his shoulders, face tucked into the crook of his neck.

“Let go,” he whispered. “Let me hear it, sweetheart.”

And you did.

You came with a soft sob, your entire body locking down around him, thighs shaking, chest pressed to his. You shook with it, clung to him like you’d fall apart if you let go.

Yoongi followed soon after, holding you tightly as he spilled inside you, voice catching in your ear as he whispered your name like it was the only word that still mattered.

The practice room was just how you remembered it.

Long wall of mirrors. Scuffed floors. The faint scent of sweat and long hours spent rehearsing lingering in the corners. And yet today, it didn’t feel like a space for work. Not really. It felt like something awakened. A quiet celebration carved out between return and rebirth.

You stood near the back wall, tucked between two Hybe staffers holding sparklers that wouldn’t light, watching as Yoongi was gently bullied into the center of the room.

He stood awkwardly, barefoot on the polished floor, sweatpants slung low on his hips, a bouquet of white peonies and hydrangeas cradled in one arm and a cake in the other. His ears were red, and he was already muttering protests.

And then they started to sing.

Namjoon sang the loudest. Jin the most off key. Hoseok was filming the whole thing on his phone while simultaneously trying to shove a party hat onto Yoongi’s head. Jungkook laughed so hard he dropped his sparkler, and Taehyung had thrown confetti prematurely and was now trying to brush it out of Yoongi’s hair with no real success.

Yoongi stood in the eye of the storm with Jimin’s arms wrapped tightly around him, expression caught somewhere between exasperated and shy amusement. His fingers curled tighter around the cake as he tried to will down the smile pulling at his lips.

He wasn’t successful in the slightest.

After the last line of the song was shouted more than sung, the room burst into laughter and clapping. Staff members cheered. One of the managers brought out a cooler of drinks. Jin wrapped his arm around Yoongi’s shoulder and gave him a firm shake.

“Welcome back, hyung. You’re officially free.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes, but the look he gave Jin was full of something warm and deep. “Don’t remind me.”

The others gathered around him, pulling him into a loose huddle. There were back pats, too tight hugs, soft words exchanged that only they could hear.

They had all made it back.

Every last one.

For the first time in over two years, BTS stood whole again. Not just in title, but in body and soul. Hair a little shorter. Faces a little sharper. But hearts still tethered together by something that hadn’t faded with time.

“We did it,” Namjoon said, voice thick, gaze sweeping over them all. “All of us.”

Yoongi smiled faintly. “Now we make music.”

They stood there for a long moment. Just the seven of them, the silence stretching wide and comfortable. Like standing at the edge of something new, but not uncertain, familiar.

Yoongi’s eyes drifted across the room.

They found you instantly.

You weren’t even trying to hide, just leaning against the mirror with arms crossed lightly over your chest, watching him like you always did. With that quiet kind of pride that didn’t shout. The kind that just saw him.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

He smiled, just for you. Just a flicker. A promise.

Then Jungkook shouted his name and Yoongi was pulled back into the huddle, laughter erupting again as someone tried to smear frosting on his face.

You stayed where you were.

Watching as he laughed. Watching as he stood surrounded by his brothers. Whole and healed and home.

And when he looked back at you one last time over someone’s shoulder, you nodded.

Go on.

This was always where he was meant to be.

masterlist

dividers courtesy of @uzmacchiato

#bts fanfic #bangtanarmynet #bts fanfiction #bts au #bts idol au #fanfic #bts smut #bts fluff #bts military service #bts min yoongi #bts yoongi #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi fic #yoongi fanfic #min yoongi #yoongi #Spotify

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endofthelinegang · 2 months ago

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𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ bob reynolds x stark!fem!reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ you storm back into Avengers Tower when Valentina de Fontaine dares to relaunch the team—with Bob Reynolds, the unstable Sentry, at its core. Old secrets, god-like power, and a name that still echoes through the halls collide in a confrontation that could tear everything apart—again.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ none besides bad words

You didn’t knock.

You kicked open the reinforced side entrance of Avengers Tower like you owned the place—and technically, part of you still did. The guards didn’t even have time to react. Two shouted, one reached for his comm, and the last instinctively stepped back when your eyes locked on him with that signature Stark glare that could curdle milk. You were a storm in designer boots and a vintage Stark Industries jacket. You felt vintage walking in and seeing things being torn apart and redone.

“Where is she?” you barked standing in the middle of the entry way. “Where the hell is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine?” You looked around as all eyes made contact with you, no one sure how or when they should speak. Your eyebrows raised as you finally picked one person to hone in on. Clearly an intern, not dressed in the same attire as everyone else, looking at you like you were the most amazing thing to step into this place, and breathing so heavy

The nervous intern muttered something about the 40th floor, and you were already moving—your heels a steady clack-clack-clack of fury across polished glass floors. The elevator doors tried to close politely. You shoved them open and punched the panel like it owed you money. By the time you reached the conference floor, you were practically vibrating.

Valentina turned at the sound of your footsteps. She was standing just outside the boardroom with her arms folded, talking to a man you didn’t recognize. Her eyes narrowed the moment she saw you.

“Not now,” she said coldly, turning back to talk to the man that was staring at you in horror.

“Too damn bad,” you snapped, storming toward her shooeing away the man that she was talking to.. “You don’t get to relaunch the Avengers without telling me. What the hell are you doing?”

Valentina sighed and turned back toward the glass doors. “I don’t have time for one of your little episodes, sweetheart.”

“Oh, you don’t have time?” You followed her, voice sharp as broken glass. “That’s rich, considering you just revived a ticking time bomb and called it a team. You think Bob Reynolds is a good idea? Are you out of your mind?” You pulled one of your many devices from your pocket and began to pull up his file that included The Void and the idea of The Sentry as the only time the world had seen that was in the mountains.

Valentina kept walking, ignoring you. You followed her into the long hallway that led toward the upper-level strategy rooms.

“I’m not here for permission,” she said without looking at you, pictures and videos of Robert Reynolds surrounded the two of you as you kept up with her more than furious. Yes all of them were a bad idea, but they at least knew what they were doing. This new guy was seriously going to be an issue.

“You should be,” you growled. “Because I know what happens when people start playing gods again. You can put a fresh coat of paint on this place, call it a new era, but this is the same old Tower, the same old risks, and you’re walking around like you’re not dragging the entire world back into a void—literally.”

That stopped her. She did not know that anyone had yet connected Bob and The Void. Then she saw the file you were building around her head and Valentina turned, her expression flat and unreadable. “You done?”

You stared at her, seething. “If it’s so safe, if you’re so sure of this, then explain this.”

You hit buttons on the flat screen to zoom in on the video. The panel lit up: chaos. A newsreel — from before the Tower fell the first time. Footage of the Void, wild and unfathomable, rippling through air like a tear in reality itself. Streets swallowed. Sky blackened. Heroes screaming in the comms. Tony’s voice, briefly, trying to redirect the fight before the feed cuts out.

Valentina didn’t blink. She simply sighed and started walking again, “We’ve accounted for that.”

You scoffed. “You don’t account for a black hole wearing a man’s skin. You bury it.”

Valentina’s voice dropped, razor-sharp. “You don’t get to lecture me. You vanished when Tony died. You let the tower rot. Now we’re rebuilding it with people who show up.”

The blow landed. You had truly been MIA, you mostly spent time with Morgan teaching her things, and helping out your mother. Valentina had reached out to you previously to help her with projects in Malaysia to which you declined. You stiffened. Then you smiled bitterly. “You really think Reynolds is gonna stay Reynolds?”

“I think Bob deserves a chance. Just like your father did.” You inhaled sharply, before you could say anything the double doors to the strategy room opened. Voices echoed—low, measured. You could hear the faint whir of holograms booting up. The meeting had begun.

“Fine,” you muttered. “Let’s meet your new golden boys.”

Valentina’s voice cut the air like a scalpel as she stood staring at you putting her hands on the door, “Don’t go in there.”

You turned slowly. “Watch me.”

“This briefing is classified,” she said, now fully stepping in front of the doors like she actually thought she could stop you.

“That’s cute,” you snapped. “You think I haven’t had full access to every inch of this place since I was old enough to spell ‘repulsor.’ Classified doesn’t mean jack when my last name’s still on the damn tower.”

“(Y/N), I’m warning you.” She tried pulling one of her classic faces as a warning, that maybe a little flash of her possible power would ward you off.

“Oh please. What are you going to do? Threaten to uninvite me to the apocalypse you just reignited?” You pushed past her.

The double doors flew open before she could reach for your arm, and the room full of mismatched government-chosen Avengers froze mid-brief. They looked like an HR violation waiting to happen.

Your voice cut through them as you slammed your hands down onto the table, “Which one of you geniuses is gonna stand in the way of me talking to Mr. Reynolds?”

Confused glances bounced around the room like startled birds. Bucky Barnes was leaning back in a chair with his arms folded, a half-eaten protein bar forgotten in his hand. He stared at you like you’d just crashed a funeral with a flamethrower.

“Who the hell—” the one nearest to you, the agent with the misshappen shield whispered looking around the table.

Bucky squinted. “...Stark.”

A pause. That landed. Now the attention was sharper—measured. Heavy with names they couldn’t say out loud. All of them were just staring at you unsure of what to say, other than Alexei who was genuinely just confused.

Bob Reynolds straightened slowly from where he sat near the end of the long, curved table. His hands, folded neatly just a moment before, opened like he wanted to surrender before the war even started. Your eyes locked with his. Unflinching. There was no way you were letting him sit through this meeting like some hero.

You jabbed a finger toward the door behind you, Val had walked away from the doors with a phone up to her ear. “Come with me.”

He blinked taking in a big deep breath. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Now, Reynolds.” You spoke over him not really caring what all he had to say.

The air shifted. Awkward silence blanketed the room. Bob looked to Bucky considering he was the only one brave enough to point you out, not to mention the only one who knew who you were. He didn’t say a word—just pressed her lips together and sighed. Then Bob looked back at you.

And you didn’t move. You weren’t bluffing. You weren’t going to leave. He saw it in your stance, in your eyes, in the electric coil of tension behind your expression like you were two seconds from dragging him out by the collar if he hesitated.

Bob rose from his seat and walk around to where you took your hands off the table patting them off of John Walker’s back before holding the door open for Mr. Reynolds to walk out of. Everyone watched him leave with you like he was being taken to his own execution. Which—honestly—wasn’t that far from the truth.

The walk to his quarters was silent. Uncomfortably so. The corridor stretched long and sterile, fluorescent lights humming softly overhead. His footsteps were muted, measured — each step echoing faintly against the polished floor. He led the way, careful to keep his gaze fixed somewhere ahead, but every few seconds, a flicker of tension made him glance back at you, as if you might vanish—or worse, explode—between steps. His jaw clenched tightly, lips pressed thin.

When you stepped inside the room the government had decided was good enough for Bob Reynolds, a bitter laugh threatened to escape. It was a sterile prison masquerading as accommodation: walls washed in cold white, the kind of lighting that felt more interrogative than comforting. The bed was untouched—linen pristine, corners sharp—like a shrine that no one dared disturb. No personal touches softened the space. No photos smiled back at you from the nightstand. Not even a half-empty glass of water perched on its surface.

He hovered near the desk, awkward and unsure, fiddling nervously with the hem of his sleeve. His movements were small, controlled, like a man carefully trying to keep the weight of the world from bursting free through his skin. Shoulders hunched in a protective arc.

You crossed your arms, the silence thick between you.

He turned slowly, eyes hesitant, voice low. “You can sit if you want.”

You didn’t. You stayed rooted, standing tall.

Bob’s gaze flicked to the chair—then back to you—before he lowered himself stiffly onto it, as if sitting too quickly might trigger some catastrophic event. The chair creaked under his weight, breaking the stillness like a single gunshot in an empty hall.

Your eyes swept the room again. This wasn’t a room. It was a holding cell dressed up with throw pillows. Stainless steel walls closed in coldly. A lone, thin bed with sheets pulled tight. An armchair that had never cradled a living soul. The light was harsh, unforgiving, casting shadows sharp enough to slice through the tension.

“I didn’t think anyone would come,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, swallowed almost entirely by the silence.

“You think I had a choice?” Your words cut sharp, voice cracking the quiet like a whip. You crossed your arms and stared him down.

He tilted his head, surprised by the fire in your tone. You gestured at the stark walls, your voice rising. “You do realize people died, right? That you blacked out Manhattan. No tech, no backup generators, no communications. For six hours. Do you even know what that did to hospital patients? To air traffic? To kids stuck in elevators?!”

Bob flinched, shoulders jerking slightly, hands clenching tighter until his knuckles blanched.

“They’re calling it a freak grid failure on the news,” you pressed, voice sharp with accusation. “But I’ve seen the files. That wasn’t a blackout. That was you. The Void.” You had not told anyone but you had accessed what records you were given access to when she first invited you to the projects and kept up with them, you knew this would happen.

His breath hitched audibly. His gaze fell hard to the floor, as if it might somehow carry the weight of his shame. He looked dead, like he wasn’t even breathing as he shifted his weight around in his chair. You didn’t relent.

“You turned the most alive city on Earth into a tomb. And now they’ve put you in a cape. Put you on a team. And I’m supposed to trust that decision?” You could tell that no one had given him the second degree about this, that no one had even really achknowdlged to him directly what had happened.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he muttered, voice thin, fragile.

“Then say no,” you snapped, eyes blazing, head shaking.

“I did,” Bob whispered back, barely audible. “They said it was already done.”

You paused. Just a beat. He looked up then—and for the first time, you truly saw him. His face was stripped bare of anger or defense. Instead, it was raw and scared. Not the kind of fear someone shows when cornered, but the kind that lives beneath the surface—held tight, pressed down, like a powder keg waiting for a spark.

“I told Valentina I wasn’t ready to be involved,” he said, voice trembling slightly. “I told her what it felt like… after New York. What I saw in my head. How quiet it was. How good it felt.”

Your breath caught. The words hung in the air, fragile and impossible.

“You’re saying it felt good?” you repeated, disbelief thick in your voice leaning forward to look at him a little better and to show him that this shit was no joke.

He shook his head quickly, eyes darting away like he feared your judgment. “Not happy. Not good good. Just… right. Like the universe was finally quiet enough for me to breathe.”

You said nothing. He swallowed hard, throat bobbing visibly. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. But the second it did, everything stopped hurting.”

Suddenly, your voice broke the tension. “I blipped,” you said, steady despite the tremble beneath your skin. “Five years. Gone in a snap. One second I’m walking beside Happy talking about new safety features in the Iron Man suit that should help my dad stay alive, in fact I wasn’t even sure where he was, and then... dust.”

His posture changed again, this time more to face you fully rather than turn away.

“I came back to a world where my best friend—my dad—was dead. My mom had a daughter I’d never met. A five-year-old who barely knew who I was. Everyone else moved on. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t even get to be there when he died.” You blinked hard, staring at Bob like he owed you an explanation.

“Tony Stark died saving the universe, and now you’re sitting here in his tower, part of the team that’s replacing the one he built.” You hit him hard again with your words watching as he nodded his head.

His face crumpled, tight lines folding across his forehead and around his mouth. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Neither did I.” Another beat. The silence stretched taut.

You fixed him with a hard look, arms crossed tighter. His eyes were too bright—unnatural blue, sharp like shards of carved light trapped inside a man who barely contained them.

“I saw your father on TV,” he said suddenly, voice quieter, softer. “After Sokovia. After Titan. At the compound with Steve Rogers, back when they tried to make peace. I remember thinking he looked like someone who didn’t know what silence felt like.”

You said nothing, the weight of that statement sinking into the space between you. You untangled your arms and looked at the plain wall nearest your head.

“I’m sorry he’s gone,” Bob added, voice genuine, careful. Not pity, but understanding. Like he knew what it was to lose someone the world expected to be invincible.

Your throat tightened. You blinked slow, heavy.

“Yeah,” you finally said. “It is.”

Bob looked like he wanted to step forward, maybe reach out, but he stayed rooted. Instead, his fingers gripped the desk, digging in like if he let go he might simply disappear.

“I didn’t want to be an Avenger,” he admitted. “I wanted help.”

You tilted your head, skeptical, but he was being honest, you could tell this guy really was not sure of what any of this menat. “So you thought signing up for Valentina’s pet death squad would help you get that?”

“She said the team could give me structure. Control. That they’d watch me.” He shrugged his shoulders just repeating what information he had been fed.

“That’s not help. That’s a cage.” You whispered gritting your teeth thinking about how she could do this to someone in the first place and then trap them again.

Bob’s mouth twitched, a flicker of agreement struggling to surface but trapped.

“You walked into the Avengers Tower five minutes after blacking out half of New York,” you said, voice low but unyielding. “That’s not rehabilitation. That’s PR cleanup.”

His jaw flexed, silent. Then, finally, a breath: “I didn’t feel human after it happened.”

Your gaze locked with his. This time, he didn’t look away.

“I thought maybe if I wore the suit,” he continued quietly, “if I stood next to real heroes, I might be able to be one.”

“You’re not your suit,” you said coldly, you felt like your mom. You remembered all of the arguments they had about that exact sentence. It felt thick in your mouth and spitting it out at this stranger felt almost painful.

“I know. But you came in here today and now I feel like maybe I am a mistake that needs fixing.” His voice rose, not in a way that would be argumentative but in a way that gave confidence.

“You say that like it’s a compliment.” You scoffed and gave him a side smile.

“It is.” You stared. The tension tightening up your spine like a coil.

“So?” You weren’t sure where this was going, but he was suddenly standing.

“I want you to stay because you’re the only one smart enough not to lie to me.” Your face snapped into shock and your stomach twisted.

“I’ve spent every day since New York waking up and wondering if I’m still me,” he confessed, voice breaking. “Or if the Void’s just pretending.”

Your heart hammered in your chest. He shifted half a step forward.

“I look around and all I see are people trying to contain me, or use me. Not understand me. You came in here, told me I was dangerous, and didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing.” He exhaled slowly, almost like relief. “You’re the first person who made me feel like I might still have a choice.”

You turned away, fingers dragging slowly down your face. “God. I must be out of my mind.”

“You’re not,” Bob said gently, voice steady like a lifeline. “You’re just the only one here who still believes in consequences.”

You looked back at him. He looked fragile—nothing to do with size—but like a man holding back a hurricane with bare hands. If he were being honest and you were the only person willing to actually help him then you couldn’t leave. You knew enough to be asked to create him you just hadn’t been stupid enough to fall for it and it was not her asking this time. It was him. The patient. The test subject.

“I’m not your friend,” you warned.

“I don’t need a friend,” he said quietly. “I need someone who doesn’t flinch.”

Silence hung heavy again he really wanted this, and he was not going to take no for an answer.

Then—finally—you sighed.

“Fine,” you muttered. “But this isn’t a team-up. I’m not getting a badge, and I’m not wearing a damn vest.” You were being serious, this was not a mess you wanted attached to your name. You were already going over how to create something that could stop him and you hadn’t even told Valentina of your sudden cooperation.

“You don’t have to.” He sighed a breath of relief hearing that you were in agreement.

“I’m here to make sure you don’t wipe out another city.” You pulled your phone out of your pocket and started texting Valentina letting her know a few important things, like the lab you would need and the room you would like to occupy.

“That’s all I want too.” Your eyes narrowed, sharp and watchful.

“If I even sense that thing in your head pushing out, I pull the plug. Hard.” You opened his door again and dialed another number your little helpers that needed to start moving your equipment and stuff around.

Bob nodded slowly. “Understood.”

You took one last look.For the first time, he wasn’t fidgeting. Just still. Watching you like the first sliver of light in a sky that’s been black too long.

#bob reynolds x reader #bob reynolds imagine #bob thunderbolts #bob x reader #bob reynolds #robert reynolds imagine #robert reynolds x reader #robert reynolds #sentry x y/n #sentry x you #sentry x reader #the sentry x reader

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notsopersonalcharlie · 1 year ago

Text

Work Divorce

Aaron Hotchner x BAU!reader angst/fluff

Summary: Aaron and you come to a realization when you get into a fight about a case.

Warnings: Cannon typical descriptions of violence, alcohol, mentions of divorce, aaron being cuddly, no use of Y/N

Notes: I thought of this (and wrote it) at the airport so sorry for mistakes! Read more of my hotch stuff here and the angsty interlude to this here Gif isn't mine

“Absolutely not. You are not going out there.” Hotch’s mouth was a straight line, and his features read anger to anyone but you. It was his eyes that gave him away. Pure panic and fear.

“Hotch, I built a rapport with him over the phone. I can-“ You tried.

“That’s final.” The whole room was tense, the police officers who didn’t understand the implications and your team, who felt like they were watching their parents get into an argument.

“You have to let me do my job.” It hung in the air, and Hotch didn’t respond.

The tension followed the team onto the plane. The case had ended badly. Yes, the team had managed to rescue four of the five hostages, but not all of them and the unsub was dead. And it had become abundantly clear that Hotch had made the wrong choice. You could have saved them all.

You were kneeling on the dirt floor of the cave the unsub had dug, holding cloth to a bleeding hostage. The other four had been able to walk out on their own and you were waiting with her for the paramedics who had to make their way through the forest. She was crying, tears leaking down the sides of face and dragging clean lines in the dirt and blood that had been caked there.

“He wanted to talk to you. I could hear your voice. I cou-“ she hiccuped, “Why didn’t you come?”

Your lip trembled and you swallowed trying not to think of the memory as you curled yourself into a seat beside Derek, using him as a barrier against Aaron. He had sat down in his usual seat, the one beside it occupied by JJ who usually sat where you were now.

“You did what you could, kid,” Dave said, patting your shoulder on his way past you.

You tried to sleep on the flight, closing your eyes and staring at the back of your eyelids. You had no idea how much time had passed since the plane took off, but you heard an exchange beside you and Derek moved, replaced with the familiar warmth you knew as your husband.

“I-“

“I don’t want to talk right now,” you responded, eyes still closed. The scene of her body being carried out of the hole, limp hand sliding out of yours, was replaying on a loop. Aaron’s hand rested lightly on your calf where you’d pulled it up to make yourself smaller. It was his form of an ‘I’m sorry’.

-/-/-/-/-

Derek and Emily were whispering over the dividers between their desks when Spencer got in. He tossed his satchel in its usual spot and leaned over.

“What’s going on?”

“Their stuff is gone from their desk. Hotch got here alone,” Emily hissed, nodding to where you usually sat. All of your trinkets, colorful pens, and most importantly your wedding photo were gone. It had been a week since the last case, and the last time the team had seen the two of you together was the day after you got off the jet. You had gone into Hotch’s office, door closed, and from the expressions visible through the noise proof window, it looked like you were yelling at him.

You had left, stormed off was more like it, and not been back over the week. And now this on a monday morning. Hotch was visible through the window, frown prominent as he read over a case file. All three younger agents averted their eyes when he looked out, but Spencer managed to scan over the expression when Hotch looked at your empty desk. Melancholy was the best way he could name it.

-/-/-/-/-

Another week and another case passed without a single mention of you. Hotch had never been one to wear a wedding ring, not after his first divorce, so there was no indication there. Still Hotch’s expression flickered to sad when he looked anywhere you usually were, beside him on the jet, in the bullpen, at the round table, and even in moments when the team was used to your quips against him.

“Whatcha got, babygirl?”

“Is everyone there?” Garcia asked, uncharacteristic of her. All ears turned in that direction.

“Everyone but Hotch and Rossi.”

“Good. They are still married! Legally at least. Hotch put in the transfer papers two days after the fight for them to move to the counterterrorism team.”

“Three whole floors?” JJ joked.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Jennifer!” Penelope’s voice shrilled, “This could be serious! The fight was real!”

“Baby girl, let’s not get all sorts of spin up.”

“They drive to work separately!” Reid cut in. All eyes turned to him.

“What?”

“Wednesday and Thursday I saw both their cars in the garage on my way in.”

“And you kept it to yourself?” Emily complained. The door to the conference room, turned BAU office opened admitting the other two members of the team.

“Thanks for the heads up, baby girl. We gotta go.” Morgan ended the call before she could give them away.

“What was that about?” Rossi asked, taking one of the seats.

“Just warning us about weather patterns,” Emily said at the same time as Morgan said, “She was telling us about another case to keep an eye on.” The two agents glared at one another.

“Smooth,” Rossi joked, “Can we get back to work now?“

-/-/-/-/-

The case didn’t end up being too horrible or difficult. They made it out without another killing and the unsub was caught without a firefight.

Emily picked up her phone, the ringtone distinctly Garcia.

“Hey, we’re almost-“

“Stall! I don’t want to see them fight!” Emily’s eyebrows knit and she frowned. JJ gave her a questioning look.

“Who?”

“The Hotchners! Just stall!” The call ended. Emily looked at the team, who were slowly getting out of the SUV, a few protesting groans since they all had to run through the streets of Cincinnati a little bit longer than they would have preferred. She huffed to herself and quickly unclipped an earring, dropping it between the seats.

“Shit!” The whole team turned to look.

“I dropped my earring.” Hotch looked exasperated, but he turned the car back on so they could turn the lights on and climbed in the back with Emily to hunt it down.

Upstairs the other SUV of the team was standing in the hallway talking to you.

"How was the case?" You were carrying a few things from Hotch's office, the blanket from the back of the couch and one of the photos of you and Jack that sat on his desk. Spencer was documenting the items in your hands and cataloguing them, JJ could tell based on how is eyes scanned over the items twice.

"Not bad. We were just talking about celebrating." You gave a tight smile and your eyes flickered to the elevator coming up from the garage.

"I'll talk to Hotch. I gotta go." You rushed for the stairs, the door closing just before the elevator doors opened to reveal the rest of the team.

"They seem like sturdy earrings," Morgan sighed, "but whatever." JJ and Spencer were staring at Hotch openly before Emily coughed.

"What?" Hotch asked, looking down at his suit.

"Nothing. We were just talking about celebrating today. We haven't all hung out for a while. Rossi, can you host?" The older agent rolled his eyes.

"You know you could at least ask me before asking in front of the whole team," he griped, "But yes. I can host. Make yourselves scarce. Drink some water. See you at seven." The agents scattered to their desks, but once Hotch and Rossi were in their offices, they stood with their heads together, occasionally glancing up at Hotch's office to see if he noticed the missing items.

Aaron walked into his office and immediately noticed the lack of blanket on the couch. Additionally a spot in the dust on his shelf and an absent little plastic dinosaur that sat next to the Captain America figurine on his desk gave away your recent presence. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the rest of the room before deciding everything else was in place. With a sigh, Aaron tossed his go bag by the door and removed some files from his briefcase before picking both bags up and heading for the door.

The agents in the bullpen were whispering and Aaron rolled his eyes at them. They were terrible profilers sometimes.

"See you soon," he called, hiding his smile when they all jumped apart.

"It must have been so bad! For them to be avoiding each other! And stealing stuff out of Hotch's office? That's crazy!" Emily hissed.

"We'll find out tonight." They knew you would never miss an evening at Rossi's. You two were always there first and left later than everyone else.

The younger agents nodded in agreement and dispersed, a continuous drone of concerned texts in their chat as they got dressed for the evening and stopped for snacks, wine, and beer.

Spencer, who was chronically punctual arrived first, the driveway conspicuously empty. He jabbed a message into the chat 'no one's here yet'. The responses of shock were followed by 'go inside and ask dave about it!' from Emily.

The front door was always unlocked when he knew they were over, given Dave's chronic laziness and the access to a firearm in basically every room in his massive house.

"Rossi! It's Spencer, don't kill me."

"We're in the kitchen," came Hotch's voice. Spencer peaked in and failed to hide his shock. You were sitting across Aaron's lap, red in the cheeks from alcohol. Your arms were wrapped around his neck and you were in a full body laugh. Aaron was laughing too, his headshaking, eyerolling one when you said something particularly silly. Dave was leaning on the other side of the counter, the grin on his face prominent.

"I can't believe you would betray me like that," Aaron chuckled, "It's my stuff."

"Nuh uh! We're married! It's my stuff too." Aaron's arms squeezed tighter around your middle, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. You could feel his smile when he kissed you again and you felt like a teenager blushing. Dave pointed past you to the doorway.

"Don't you dare start texting, boy genius. Let the kids find out on their own." You and Aaron both turned to see Spencer put his hands up, phone slipped back into his sweater pocket.

"Take a seat, Doctor Reid. Have a drink," you joked. Dave poured him a glass of wine.

"So you just switched teams?" You looked at Aaron, who shrugged a little bit. No use lying.

"Kind of. We both realized there was no world in which Aaron could be impartial, no matter how hard either of us tried. And I got promoted." Watching Spencer's gears turn was always fun. You could almost see the puzzle pieces fall into place as they did in a split second.

"You're the new supervisor in the CT unit! That's why you stole your stuff from his office. They were for yours." You nodded.

"Precisely. And it's not stealing! It's mine!"

"It is absolutely stealing, you're a menace."

"Your menace," you corrected, booping him on the nose before reaching for your wine.

"We're here!" Penelope's voice echoed through the house, followed by the cacophony of Emily and Derek arguing. It was about you.

"Just come in here!" You complained. There was a thunder of footsteps running through the front hallway and the three other agents cartoonishly paused in the doorway staring.

"You know people are allowed to get new jobs right?" Aaron asked. He wasn't usually the joker in the group, but sometimes with just the right amount of alcohol his dry humor took over.

"Thank god! I thought I was going to have to start planning two parties!" Penelope gushed, running over to hug you. You laughed, sliding out of Aaron's lap. He was reluctant to let you go. He had been every time you were together, now that you didn't see each other constantly he missed you being beside him.

"Anyway, if we ever separated I would get the team," you stage whispered. Aaron pinched your thigh.

"Absolutely no you wouldn't."

"We will have to write up a contract for your work divorce," Spencer laughed.

"That's not fair! He used to be a lawyer," you whined. Aaron pulled you back into his arms, resting his chin on your shoulder where you stood in front of his stool.

"187 over here can help you." You bickered and laughed and explained yourself to the team once JJ and Will arrived.

"I can't believe you thought we broke up," you sighed once dinner was over and all of you had settled in the backyard under the summer stars.

"I can't either," Dave laughed, "They have no idea how much more of a mess you two would be."

"Hey!" Both of you interjected. The team laughed as you both looked at each other. Aaron pulled you ever closer, nuzzling his nose to your cheek. He was properly drunk now, which is why you both decided ubering over was a better idea so you didn't have to worry about a car.

"He's right," he muttered, his letters slurring together. You chuckled, wrapping your arms over his shoulder and squishing him to your chest.

"I know. I would be too."

#notsopersonalcharlie #charliewrites #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner sluff #hotch x reader #hotch fluff #hotch imagine #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds

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ttdamian · 29 days ago

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ᯋ ݁ Filthy child II ݁

⸺ Authors note ; Yandere! platonic! batfam x Neglected! fem! reader. Potential disturbing wordings/descriptions. This is meant to be psychological horror, with angst. Viewers discretion is advised. Usage of Y/N, M/N (mothers name) English isnt my first language. wc: 2,2k Not beta read. IM SORRY THIS WAS KIND OF RUSHED. I HAVE EXAMS (੭ ;´ - `;)੭. ⸺ directory ; Previous, next

The halls of Wayne Manor had always been quiet—but tonight, they felt hollow.

The silence didn’t settle. It pressed. Heavy, suffocating, like a weight laid over the entire estate. Even the grandfather clock in the hall, usually a steady and familiar tick in the rhythm of the night, felt like it had forgotten its purpose. The seconds came too slow. Or too fast. Or not at all. Bruce couldn’t tell anymore.

He sat alone in the study, surrounded by flickering shadows that danced like ghosts against the walls. The fire in the hearth burned low, casting little warmth, only light—and even that felt artificial. It illuminated the room like a stage, like a place where something terrible had just ended, or was about to begin.

He hadn’t moved in hours. He didn’t know when he had last slept. He couldn’t remember what had brought him here in the first place—whether it was instinct, or memory, or some subconscious hope that sitting in this room would somehow bring her back.

The call came just past midnight.

The ringtone echoed too loud in the dark, shrill and sharp like a scalpel. He stared at the name on the screen for a long time. Gordon.

He didn’t want to answer.

Some part of him already knew.

Still, his fingers moved automatically, lifting the phone to his ear. There was a brief silence on the other end, followed by a breath, and then—

“She’s dead, Bruce. I’m sorry. [M/N] is dead.”

The words didn’t sound real.

They didn’t feel sharp, or sudden, or cruel.

They came slow. Soft.

As if wrapped in cotton, cushioned to protect something fragile.

But there was no protection. Not from this.

Bruce didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. The firelight flickered across his face, but his expression didn’t change. Not right away.

It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

“[M/N] is gone.”

Gordon repeated it like a priest offering last rites. Final. Definitive.

But Bruce’s mind rejected it instantly.

No. That wasn’t possible.

She had been angry, yes. Distant. She had left him—Left to be with another man years ago— But that didn’t mean she was gone. That didn’t mean she was… dead.

He tried to find his voice, but when it came, it didn’t sound like his own.

“It can’t be her,” he said, hollow and mechanical, as if reading lines from a play. “You’ve made a mistake.”

He clung to that idea like it was oxygen. Mistaken identity. Wrong file. Someone else’s name on the report. There had been a mix-up—there had to be.

Gordon’s voice softened, but it didn’t waver.

He knew that tone. It was the same one Gordon used when delivering news that shattered people. That tone wasn’t used for lies.

“I’m sorry. It’s her. We confirmed it.”

Bruce’s hand tightened around the phone until his knuckles whitened.

His vision blurred, not from tears, but from the kind of pressure that builds behind your eyes when something inside you breaks and refuses to show it.

The fire crackled in the hearth. The sound was so familiar, so normal, that it felt obscene. Everything around him was the same—this room, this chair, the hum of the old manor—but something vital had been ripped out from underneath it all. And the world just kept going.

Gordon spoke again, quieter this time.

“She has a daughter, Bruce. A young girl. She… she doesn’t have anyone else.”

The words struck deeper than the first blow.

Bruce closed his eyes.

Of course she had a daughter.

Their daughter.

The one [M/N] had carried in silence. Had raised alone. Had hidden from this city, from this life, from him.

He remembered the way she used to stand in the doorway of their bedroom, one hand resting on her stomach, the other clutching her robe closed as if it could shield her from the future. She lied. Saying it was a stomach ache. But he knew better. Because he knew there were things she never said aloud—fears, hopes, quiet heartbreaks—but he saw it in her eyes. The way she looked at him like she was already saying goodbye.

“She needs you,” Gordon said again. “She’s your responsibility now.”

That word—responsibility—hit harder than he expected. Like an accusation dressed up as mercy.

He stood abruptly, knocking over the chair behind him. The clatter echoed in the room, sharp and final.

“No,” he said, breathless. “I’m not her father.”

He said it like a curse, like if he said it with enough certainty, the truth would rearrange itself to obey.

But even as the words left his mouth, he could feel the lie in them.

He could see her—[M/N]—in his mind. Smiling that tired, sad smile she wore the day she left. And he could see the child now too, in flickers and fragments. A girl with [M/N]’s mouth and his eyes.

That was the part that terrified him the most.

Not that the girl existed. But that she might look at him the same way her mother once did—with too much trust. With too much hope. With something like love.

Because if she looked at him like that, he didn’t know if he could survive it.

He didn’t know if he could let her go.

Sterile walls wrapped around you like a second skin—cold, impersonal, suffocating.

The kind of cold that didn’t just sit on your skin but seeped into your marrow. The kind that pretended to be clean, but only masked the rot beneath.

Machines sang a song you never wanted to learn. A flat, mechanical lullaby that buzzed against your skull like gnats. Too loud to ignore, too hollow to comfort.

Everything beeped in rhythm, but none of it felt alive.

Harsh white lights flickered above, humming like a stage show performed just for you.

Too bright. Too artificial. They cast shadows in all the wrong places, made even your hands look unfamiliar.

It had been three days since you opened your eyes.

Three days since you were dragged out of whatever haunted dream your body had escaped to.

Three days of voices too soft, hands too gentle, smiles too wide.

The nurses were kind. Sweet, even.

They brushed your hair back like you were glass.

Tucked your blankets like they were afraid you’d vanish.

Whispered words your mother never would have said.

And you hated them for it.

Not loudly. Not openly.

But in the quiet ways children hate things they don’t understand.

You recoiled from their kindness like it was acid. Because it wasn’t hers.

Because no one was her.

No one else could hum that cracked lullaby.

No one else could cradle you with rough hands and a heart too bruised to beat cleanly.

No one else could love you the way she did—flawed, fevered, terrifying.

You didn’t want anyone else to try.

So you waited.

You waited for him.

Your “father.”

The word tasted foreign on your tongue.

Awkward.

Mismatched.

Like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit, no matter how hard you pushed. But the nurses said he was coming. That he had been called. That his name was Bruce Wayne.

You didn’t fail to recognize the name.

How could you not?

Especially when it had been whispered in the dark of your childhood, slurred between sips of liquor and choked sobs. Escaping from your mother’s lips like a curse. Or a prayer.

And every time she said it, something in her changed. Her eyes would glass over, her mouth twist—not in grief, but in something quieter. Sicker.

You remembered how she'd go silent afterward. How her fingers would tremble around the bottle. How she’d stare at nothing for hours.

Bruce Wayne.

You mouthed it now in the dark, like you were trying it on. Seeing how it felt in your throat.

And it didn’t feel right.

It felt like poison.

Like the reason your mother stopped smiling.

Like the thing that hollowed her out from the inside until there was nothing left but bitterness and ash.

Maybe that was why her love felt wrong sometimes. Felt broken. Too sharp in some places and too soft in others.

Maybe that’s all she ever knew. All she ever learned—from him.

Maybe that was what you were born from.

Not love.

But rot.

Not hope.

But him.

You sat up slowly, arms trembling under the IV, and stared out the hospital window. The city beyond looked too bright. Too alive. Somewhere out there, he was walking streets that had never known you. Breathing air untouched by the girl he didn’t know existed.

And soon, he’d be here.

You hoped.

Coming for a daughter he never asked for.

And you’d have to look him in the eye.

And pretend that wasn’t already a kind of grief.

You moved to return to your bed, tip toeing quietly and closed your eyes.

Not to sleep. Not even to rest. Just to escape.

The walls around you continued to buzz, like they were trying to deafen out your memories. Like if they kept humming long enough, you’d forget the dark. Forget the cradle. Forget the hands that once reached for you—too soft, too kind, too wrong.

But something about the quiet daylight felt different.

Thicker.

Heavier.

You sat in it, back pressed to starched hospital sheets, arms wrapped around yourself. The air felt syrupy. Sweet in a way that made your teeth ache. A warning masked as comfort. And then—

You felt it.

Not a draft. Not a shift.

Arms.

Familiar, in a way you never wanted them to be.

They crept from behind you, slow, certain. Wrapping around your waist like they’d never left. Not cold. Not hot. Just there. Holding you like you belonged to them.

The same ones from the dream.

You didn’t scream.

You didn’t even flinch.

Because somewhere deep in your bones, you knew they were never really gone. They had been waiting. Watching. Curling just beneath your skin, coiled around the memory of your mother and the rot she left behind.

The arms tightened, just slightly—gentle, even tender.

Like a mockery of love.

A touch pretending to be comfort.

You pressed your lips together, throat burning with something you couldn’t name. The kind of grief that didn’t have a beginning, because it had always been there. Because you were born with it.

You didn’t want to cry.

But your eyes stung anyway.

You thought maybe if you stayed still enough, quiet enough, the arms would dissolve. That you’d wake up and this would be another dream.

Another lie your mind fed you while your body stayed caged in this hospital room.

But then—

A knock at the door.

Soft. Polite.

You blinked.

And just like that, the arms were gone.

Vanished without sound or weight. As if they had never been there to begin with.

But your skin still remembered.

“Miss [Y/N]?”

The voice was old. Warm. Tired.

You turned, just slightly, to see him standing there—his silhouette cast long in the flickering hall light.

You didn’t know him. Not really. But the way he stood there—with his gloved hands folded neatly in front of him, eyes gentle but unreadable—you could tell he wasn’t here by choice. He was here out of duty.

Duty to the man who wasn’t with him.

To the man who couldn’t come.

Because Bruce Wayne wasn’t ready to face you.

Wasn’t ready to see what was left behind after [M/N] died.

Wasn’t ready to see her in your eyes.

Alfred gave a soft, practiced smile. “Master Wayne sent me to bring you home.”

Home.

You almost laughed.

But the sound died in your throat.

Because you didn’t know what that meant. Because the last time you’d called anywhere “home,” it was filled with rot, empty bottles and slurred words and lullabies that never ended right.

Still, you nodded.

Because what else could you do?

He approached slowly, like you were something fragile. Like you might shatter if he moved too quickly. And maybe, in some way, you would.

“I’ve brought your things,” he said gently. “And if you’d like, we can leave this morning. I thought it might be easier.”

You didn’t answer.

Just stood on shaking legs, IVs removed, your hospital gown replaced with clothes too clean, too new. As you followed him down the hall, you glanced back once.

Half-expecting the arms to be waiting.

Reaching.

But there was only the hospital bed. Neat. Untouched.

And the faint scent of sugar and antiseptic.

You walked beside Alfred in silence, the hallway stretching endlessly ahead. Each step echoed like a heartbeat. You wondered if Bruce was somewhere, pacing. Watching from a distance. Maybe he couldn’t look at you without seeing what he lost. Or maybe he didn’t want to look at you at all.

Maybe that’s why he let someone else do the loving.

Just like your mother did.

You didn’t cry.

But deep inside, something curled tight and silent.

And as you stepped out into the morning air, the sun above thin as a sliver of bone, you felt the arms again.

Not touching.

Just near.

Waiting.

Watching.

Like they always had.

@ TTDAMIAN. pretty please, translate and rewrite any of my works, or repost my works in any other platform without asking. (ts a joke get out)

Taglist: @cssammyyarts @wendee-go @sadeem575 @c4xcocoa @time-shardz @whaaaaaaaaat111 @noone1233nobody @justanerd1 @bbmgirll

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shmalk · 1 year ago

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141 is filled with alphas, not a single omega in sight. there are a few betas, but they're either low-ranking or transfers that were never going to last.

like you! (beta!reader) who works at reception and takes calls, scans badges and is the first point of contact for the task force.

none of them know your name, none of them even speak to you - maybe price, when you transfer a call to him, he'll mumble a thank you. or even laswell, when you bring her a coffee.

it's nothing, really, you don't mind.

only, one day, a totally normal friday, you've done the exact same style in your hair you always have, and you're wearing more clothes than you were yesterday.

price wants a coffee, sure- you make it, just the way he likes, and head towards his office. you knock, and wait a few seconds until you hear 'come in.'

the office is silent, it usually is - but this time there's more than just price inside.

they're finishing up just as you enter, soap and gaz sitting in front of the desk whilst ghost leant against the back wall.

"my apologies, captain." your voice isn't exactly quiet - why should it be, you've done nothing wrong, but its still respectful. price just nods as you place the cup down on his desk.

"thanks, that's all." he dismisses everyone in the room, and you wait for the boys to file out before you do, soap and gaz both giving you a cheeky smile.

ghost is the one to hold open the door, standing just adjacent to the doorway with his arm sprawled against it. its a heavy door, and you swallow as you pass him.

"thank you," you all but mumble out as you rush past him - straight into the break room.

you can't help but rant about the situation to your roommate whilst you're packing up your things, your phone tucked between your jaw and shoulder.

"i mean- he held the door open for me and i couldn't even look him in the eye to say thank you!" you stress, throwing your bag into your passenger seat before leaning back against your car. "god, all i wan't right now is a plate of sushi and some boba."

"too bad its pizza night, dweeb."

"thats not fair! i could loose my job, i should be allowed to eat my comfort food when im stressed out."

you stress about it over the whole weekend, and when you return back to work on monday you try to act as casual as possible. of course, you don't see ghost - price doesn't order a coffee, and youre break time comes around quicker than you expected.

you had brought- oh, theres- your favourite sushi, and a boba drink sitting where your food was supposed to be. in somewhat messy hand writing, on a small piece of paper, theres your name.

signed ' s. riley. '

i am a sucker for sweet lil moments like this !!

in my head i think that simon would like a beta, or an alpha, but in this lil snippet (which is CERTAINLY getting turned into a fic) he's big and broad and gets worried when he's with alphas because they can't think straight, he tells them what to do and he does it.

but you? you dont react to his scent or chase him down to get him to court you - so, of fource, he courts you. <3

#john soap mactavish #kyle gaz garrick #shmalk ! ᧔♡᧓ #task force 141 #simon ghost riley #john price #simon riley x reader #alpha!simon riley x beta!reader #beta!reader #alpha!simon riley #alpha!ghost #alpha!ghost x beta!reader

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jaylver · 2 years ago

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SLUT! — P.JS

synopsis: experiencing love in your last year of high school was totally unexpected, especially when it’s the fact that you had fallen for the boy everyone wants. what you weren’t prepared for was the troubles that came with it. however, you were willing to pay the price just for the sake of love.

pairings: non-idol!jay x afab!reader

genre: acquaintances to lovers, high school au, romance, angst, coming of age (?)

warning(s): profanities, (slight) slut shaming, underage drinking and partying

wc: 6.7k

a/n: last fic of 2023! thank you for all the support 🫶 a little piece dedicated to everyone and also those who loves this song equally as much as me! please leave a feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated! muah xx

Finding love was the last thing you had on your list right now.

It was the final year of high school. Everyone was freaking out over the fact that they were growing older and their time in high school was over. The Californian air couldn't be any more duller after that. Senior prom and graduation preparations were already starting even though it was just the start of the year. What was stopping them anyway?

Being a teenager was art, but what they didn't tell you about growing up was the process of falling in love.

It was torture. Witnessing people in love all around you while you struggled with advancing past the talking stage. No, it wasn't fair. However, having cupid strike its bow at you unexpectedly one day was the worst of crimes.

You know the embarrassing feeling when you see your classmates outside of school? Right. That was how you felt the moment Park Jong Seong walked into your mother's clinic, your eyes widening behind the counter. Must you be responsible for the counter at this very hour?

“Hey—Y/N?”

Jay was a classmate. You didn't really know him and neither did he know much about you. It was just neutral, where you coexist in the same space until the bell rings and the day ends. You get the gist.

That doesn't exclude the point where Jay was widely known, though. He wasn't like his popular jock friends or an athlete whatsoever. Instead, he was a studious guy who kept his reputation clean. Basically, he was your typical golden boy. You knew he wasn't completely innocent to an extent, but at least he was good at hiding it.

There is no denying that everyone wants him. He was a nice guy paired with strong, distinct features. It was no secret he was also known for his looks and caring manners.

“Jay? What are you doing here?”

He was wrapped in a thick hoodie, hands hidden in his pants pocket. “Caught a cold. I thought I should drop by to see a doctor and get some medicine,”

“Oh no,” you tried your best at giving a concerned expression, though you were busy skimming through files on the laptop. “Do you have a record here?”

“I do. Not my first time,”

You tried for his full legal name instead of ‘Jay Park’ and thankfully, his record showed up. “Found it,” you glanced up just to find him staring back at you. This was probably the first time you were this close to him, enough to be able to distinguish the moles on his face.

“I'll call you in a bit,”

You did what you always do every time, inform your mother and call the patients in. But Jay wasn't just another patient to you. When you called his name, you watched as he got closer, casting you a sweet smile right before he disappeared behind the door, leaving you to your seat at the counter, overthinking the littlest details that you knew you'd have to spill to your best friend after.

Jay waited patiently by the counter once it was time to pay. His gaze followed your every move as you got his prescribed medicine and stuffed them carefully into a bag.

“Here you go,” you passed the bag over, then accepted the cash he had been holding for a while. “Thanks,” you muttered, taking the chance at avoiding eye contact when you slipped the cash into the register.

“Thank you too,” Jay said, immediately gaining your attention. He was still managing a smile even though you could tell he was shivering slightly.

“No problem. Rest well,” you took a piece of candy from your own bowl of personal sweets stash. “Here,”

“Candy?”

You nodded, humming softly.

“Thanks,” his voice was quieter, sounding as if he was in disbelief. Unbeknownst to you, his eyes twinkled, a hint of fascination lingered. “I'll see you around, Y/N.”

“See you.”

That night, you laid awake replaying the encounter you had with Jay. It was the first time you've ever talked to him, and it was barely anything, but you somehow understood why people liked him by then. Not like you didn't like him initially, you meant, romantically.

It was definitely an odd place to meet and talk to him. Out of all the possible places, it just had to be your mother’s clinic that none of your peers came to once, that was until him. But somehow, it was the right timing despite the location. It was the wrong place at the right time.

Who knew his cold and your candy would soon start something neither of you expected.

“Do you wish you made out with him or something?”

Telling Yunjin about it was probably the best and worst idea. Sure, she could be a great moral support, except she lacked filters when needed.

“What the fuck—no!” You glanced around, hoping none of the passing students heard your stupid discussions. “He's hot but not like that, at all,”

“So you admit he's hot!”

You rolled your eyes, chucking the bag of Doritos back to her. “I never said he wasn't,”

“You intended it, said you didn't get the ‘hype’ around him,”

“Until now!” You threw your hands up in surrender, only getting a cackle from Yunjin as a response. “Whatever. It's a one time thing. He's out of my league. It's a whole ‘You Belong with Me’ music video type of situation excluding me being friends with him,”

“You're yapping at this point,”

“Thanks, I know,”

“It's not that serious, Y/N. You fighting your life trying to defend yourself only makes it seem like you're in denial,” why must she always be on point?

“Whatever, whatever,” you waved her off, stubbornly ignoring what she said. “I'm at the back of the line anyway, I should be worrying about graduation and college,”

“Oh right!” Yunjin physically jumped, her backpack shook. “I need your opinion on something.”

That whole Jay discourse had swarmed your head that was currently leaning against the window. You purposely picked a seat by the window at the back of the class, hoping for some space to think since it was a class you didn't have with Yunjin.

“A dollar for your thoughts?”

To your right stood Jay, shouldering his backpack and offering a warm smile. You knew you shared this class with him, but to have him walk up to you at that very moment was something beyond unexpected.

“Hey,” you greeted rather stiffly, not knowing what to do now that you were put under the spot. “W–what are you doing standing there?” Facepalm.

“Oh—do you mind if I sit beside you?” He pointed at the empty seat next to you, and you shook your head. You usually sat with random classmates anyway, having no close friends in this class was a struggle.

Jay's face broke into a smile of relief, plotting his bag down before taking a seat. “Thanks, I don't really have anyone I know here,”

“You don't?” That's weird. You always noticed how people naturally swarmed around Jay's table, either greeting him or chatting with him.

“Not really. None of them are really my friends,”

But you were?

“You're a friend to me, though,” he added, as if reading your mind at that instant.

You were taken aback, but you hid it well, masking it with nonchalance. “Really?”

He nodded, a sincere smile that told you he meant it. You let yourself loose this time, reciprocating his smile. “I'm honoured,”

“I'm even more honoured.”

Throughout the class, you didn't miss the occasional glances from him and neither did you stop yourself from looking at him. He was much more breathtaking up close. Who were you to deny that?

By the end of the class, the bell rang and everyone started to pack up, some already rushing out in a hurry. You, on the other hand, was too caught up in your headspace to notice Jay was already done tidying up beside you and was waiting for his queue.

“Uh—Y/N?” he tapped you on your shoulder, stealing your attention at once. You stared at him expectantly, blinking with curiosity behind your eyes.

“Yeah?” You dragged the word out slightly, packing your last book into your bag.

“Would you like to go to a party this weekend?”

A party? That'd be your first.

“Where's that? Can I bring my friend too?”

“Yes and it's at Jake's house,” he winced, forgetting you're not one of those frequent party goers. “I'll text you the details—wait, I don't even have your number,” he laughed awkwardly, which only made you smile.

“Real smooth, Jay,” you signalled for his phone, and he grabbed it out of his jeans pocket without saying a word, eyes following your move as you typed in your number.

When you handed his phone back, he didn’t hesitate to press the call button. Obviously, you heard your ringtone coming from your backpack. You glanced at Jay, giving him a face that was saying ‘really?’, quite incredulous that he’d doubted you.

“Just wanted to be sure,” he smiled, scratching the back of his neck out of awkwardness. “I’ll make sure to text you,” he held his phone up, waving it a little and slowly getting up from his seat, to which you followed suit. At that moment, the classroom was already almost empty, so it was just a few lingering students with you and Jay, but it all felt like you were in a completely different universe altogether.

“Cool,”

“Cool,” Jay echoed after you, and you resisted yourself from laughing. Apparently he noticed your tight smile and smiled along with you. Wordlessly, you two communicated through each of your smiles even as you walked side by side out the door.

“Which way are you going?” he was quick to ask, eyes shining with expectations.

“I’m going that way,” you pointed to the right, down the busy corridor.

“Oh,” Jay visibly faltered, the expectations he held behind his gaze were crushed. “I’m heading that way,” he pointed to the left, the opposite direction of where you’re going.

“I guess that’s it for today,” you patted his shoulder, unbeknownst to how Jay had froze under your touch for a second. “Until our next class together, then,”

“See you,” he waved, gradually backing away.

You couldn’t help but grin. “Bye!”

You watched as he walked away, his back now fully facing you. It took you another beat before your feet were willing you away to where you were meant to go. But what you failed to realise as you concentrated on your steps was Jay turning his head back to catch a glimpse of you, his head only filled with the thoughts of you.

He’s so screwed.

Staying at the library was the last resort for you once you got to know Yunjin had an impromptu extra hour class after school. She promised she'd take you to the pool, considering the weather was only getting hotter day by day. But you suppose it'd have to wait for now.

What was worse, the heatwave or high school? Trick question.

The library was mostly empty by this hour, only a couple of students remained to either study or chill around just like you. It was one of those times where you wondered why you didn't explore more. As you wandered along the towering shelves filled with old books, you caught sight of an interesting looking one.

Instinctively, you pulled the book out of the shelf without thinking twice. But what caught your eyes wasn't the cover of the book or the book itself in general. Instead, it was the pair of eyes staring back at you through the small gap from where the book originally sat.

The most surprising bit of all was you knew and recognised who those eyes belonged to. Jay.

Your eyes widened, so did he once he saw your reaction. For some inexplicable reason, you stood up straight, unknowingly fixing your hair out of a nervous habit.

You were nervous? It's just Jay. No, wait, that's probably why. It's Jay. How were you not going to feel nervous around him?

Quick, think! Were you going to find him in the next aisle or run away. Maybe not the latter. You turned on your heel and walked forward, deciding to find Jay and greet him out of courtesy.

You were just about to turn the corner when you stumbled into the man you were looking for, perfect. Actually, not perfect. The moment you crashed into him, you stumbled into his chest and his hands flew up to catch you, the book originally in his possession dropped to the ground with a firm thud.

There you were, literally in his arms and looking frenzied. His wide eyes matched yours. It took a few beats and a moment for your mind to formulate what's happening for you to finally push yourself from him, absolutely flustered from embarrassment.

“Hey,” you dusted your front in an attempt to hide your burning cheeks.

“Hi,” he replied rather breathlessly, mirroring your rosy cheeks.

The book that fell to the ground suddenly became unimportant to Jay, but to you, it was a mark that was burning into the precious floorings. You moved fast and picked up the book, yet you weren't quick to hand it back, instead you took a look at it.

“Pride and Prejudice?” You noted from the old cover, then glanced at him, a glint of interest sparked. “Didn't know you're like that,” you extended the book out to him.

He took the book back into his possession, smiling rather sweetly. “Literature is the death of me,”

“Isn't it a selective subject?”

“It is. I was an idiot for thinking I could hold on,” he rolled his eyes, making you giggle softly.

“I'm sure you will. You're—like—Einstein smart,”

“Are you trying to stroke my ego right now?” He crossed his arms, leaning onto the bookshelf ever so casually.

“No, I'm just pointing it out. You literally rank in the top 5 every year! It's annoying,”

“Is it so?”

“Very much,”

“Should I be flattered? I'm flattered,” he bowed dramatically, unable to hide his smug smile. It was your turn to roll your eyes, shaking your head at him. He only let out a laugh at your reaction. “What are you doing here at this time anyway?”

“Oh—Yunjin, my friend, had a random impromptu class so she had to stay back. I was waiting for her since she’s bringing me to go swim, but now I don’t know if that’s happening,”

“You could always stop by my place for a swim,”

You blinked, head tilting to one side. “What?”

Jay seemed to have become embarrassed judging from the reddening tips of his ears that you were (thankfully) oblivious to. “I have a pool, and my parents are out of town for maybe a few months or so for work, so it’s practically unused,”

“What about your friends? Don’t they go over to swim?”

“They do, but they’re looking to take more advantage of it by wanting to throw a party soon since my parents are away,” he grumbled in the last part.

“Well, are you?”

“I guess? I don’t mind it,” he hummed, bright eyes flickering to you. “Will you come if I do?”

“If I’m invited,”

“Obviously you are,” Jay said matter-of-factly, eyebrows raised. “So what do you say?”

“Sure,”

“Great. I’ll hold you to it,” he snapped his fingers, and was basically beaming now. It only made you form more visible heart eyes. “But for now, I’ll see you at Jake’s party,”

“Deal.”

That day, you left the library with a lovesick smile instead of a book. You didn’t even get annoyed after knowing it was too late for a trip to the pool, and obviously Yunjin caught onto that. On the walk home, you thought about him and the party. Anxiety and anticipation were both building up, until he came up in mind again and everything disappeared.

You got lovestruck and it went straight to your head. It was almost the first time you’ve actually felt the way you’re feeling now, nobody had once made you fully experience every emotion of having a crush in your years in high school. No one was even capable of it, that was until Jay appeared into your life.

Going to bed that same night, you thought of him again. At that point, you wondered if he would materialise in your bedroom from the amount of times you had him in your head. Maybe he’d be accidentally manifested into life.

Tossing and turning, you kicked your feet at the imaginations you had of him. Upon realising your own behaviour, you covered your face with a pillow and screamed into it. Were you crazy? Oh my God, you were!

Then it hit you.

You’re admitting this now. You like Park Jong Seong.

“I can’t believe we’re here,”

Yunjin was currently having the best of her life even though nothing has happened yet and you both had just arrived at Jake’s house.

The walk in was already shocking. On the lawn of Jake’s house were knocked out drunks, then by the door were people making out and doing weird things you didn’t want to think of again. You were surprised that everything happening before you was something you’ve seen in movies and you were actually experiencing that now.

“Is this even … legal?” you glanced around, cringing at the tacky set ups and badly picked music in the background.

“No. But you’ve drunk before, so who are you to say?”

“Touche,”

Wandering further into the house, you realised there were many people here, but you weren't surprised at all. Jake was a well known footballer anyway, how could he not be popular in the first place?

"Y/N!"

At the sound of your name being called, you looked over your shoulder to see Jay approaching you. His eyes carried the same kind of brightness he has around you, the corner of his lips were curved up into a wide smile. Let's not forget how he has his hair styled up at that moment. Was he expecting you to not feel anything?

"Jay! Hey," you waved meekly at him until he was standing before you. You noticed his gaze on your friend who was standing beside you, a look of unfamiliarity clearly written in his expressions. "This is Yunjin, by the way,"

Yunjin and Jay both greeted each other amicably, though a little awkward but it was natural for it to be like that. Jay turned to look at you, eyebrows raised. "This would be a great chance to introduce my friends but—"

"Jay!"

"I take that back,"

You and your friend exchanged a brief look, stifling your laughter at Jay's demeanour. He was flailing his hand to get his friend to come closer, and by then, you could recognise who it was.

"Bro, why were you running around all night? Were you expecting someone—oh, hey," Jake, the host of the party and the popular footballer, had finally taken account of you and your friend's presence. "I'm Jake, nice to meet you,"

"Likewise, I'm Y/N,"

"Yunjin,"

"Y/N and Yunjin, you guys are new faces around here,"

"It's not really our scene," you nudged Yunjin a little, and she nodded in agreement. It's true, you and her equally preferred a night in with a romcom playing than this. But you'd make it an exception this time, and maybe the next time for Jay's party.

"You're always welcomed. Any friend's of Jay or friend's of Jay's friend are welcomed to our party," Jake patted Jay's back, while the latter only rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Jake! Your toilet's clogged—" another one you recognised to be a part of the friend group appeared out of the blue. It was Sunghoon. Star hockey player and basically every girl's crush, he was known for his wits, charming good looks, and crazy hockey skills, duh.

If you told yourself from months back that you'd somehow become friends with Jay and meet his friends, you'd think you're crazy.

"Hey, sorry," Sunghoon winced, but gave Jake a pointed look after. Jake scoffed in annoyance, then left with a huff and a wave of goodbye to you and Yunjin. "Sorry 'bout that, I'm Sunghoon,"

"I'm Yunjin," when did she become this bold? Whatever it was, you were willing to support her.

"I'm Y/N,"

"You're Y/N?" Sunghoon gasped quietly, glancing between you and Jay, interest forming in his head.

Jay slapped the back of Sunghoon's head, and in the midst of the latter's grumbles, he could only smile awkwardly at you. "Shut up," he hissed to Sunghoon.

"First, ouch. Second, whatever," Sunghoon bumped Jay roughly with his shoulder. "Wanna get some drinks?"

"I'm fine, I'll pass. Maybe Yunjin can go along with you?" You eyed Yunjin, and you saw her giving you those 'i owe you my life' type of eyes.

"Sure," Sunghoon smiled at Yunjin, but gave Jay a firm nudge, his gaze alone conveying the message. Apparently bro telepathy was a thing, because in a few seconds, he decided Jay was staying with you and wandered off along with your best friend.

"It's just us two now," you said, as if it wasn't already obvious.

"Yeah," Jay was equally stiff as you were. "Sounds crazy, but do you want to go up to the room? It's a little loud here,"

"I don't think it's 'a little' but totally, sure. Lead the way," you figured Jay was familiar with his way since it was quite literally his best friend's house.

He wordlessly took your hand and intertwined it with his. It was so casual and sudden that it was unexpected, knocking the breath out of you. He made sure you were walking in front of him the whole time, hand never leaving yours and only gripping tighter as he held you close to avoid the crowd.

In a world of boys, he was a gentleman.

He eventually brought you to a quiet room down the hall upstairs, into a bedroom that was decorated much simpler. You guessed it was the guest room, it would've made most sense.

"Do you normally bring girls here?"

Jay's face contorted into a mix of shock and disbelief, arms thrown into the air. "What—no!"

"Really?"

"What makes you think that?"

You shrugged, taking a seat on the bed. "I don't know? Well, everyone wants you—"

That was your crime.

"—you're popular, smart, cute, kind and—am I talking too much?" You paused, feeling the bed dip beneath you as Jay joined your side.

"I like it," he hummed, turning to look at you. "I like you,"

You blinked. One second. Two seconds.

"What?" Your eyes were widening, whereas Jay was just staring back calmly with an unwavering smile.

"I like you, Y/N," the confession rolled off his tongue like a secret he has been keeping for too long. The eyes that were searching for yours were filled with longing and hope.

Was this really happening right now?

"I like you too, Jay,"

It felt like the world had stopped and it was just you and him there. You were taking in his confession and so was he. It might've been silent but it was comfortable.

"Can I—" he leaned in, but stopping just an inch away from your lips. You could feel his breath on yours, noses making contact. That was how close he was.

"Yeah,"

Just before Jay could press his lips against yours, the door burst open and you jumped, literally. You heard a thud too, and realised Jay was on the floor.

You turned to look at the door, finding the culprit standing there awkwardly. It was Jake, and he, too, was self aware that he had crashed an important private moment.

"Uh—I just wanted to find Jay…"

"Jake, if you don't close that door right now, I swear—"

Jay didn't even need to finish his sentence when Jake slammed the door shut, yelling out 'sorry's and saying he'd be waiting for Jay down the hall. Talk about awkward encounters.

You locked eyes with Jay, who looked thoroughly embarrassed but also humoured. It didn't take long before you burst out laughing and he joined along. Soon, he returned to his original spot next to you too.

"That was … bad,"

"It was," you were fidgeting with your hands, suddenly nervous. "I guess the timing wasn't right,"

"It really wasn't,"

Silence fell between the two of you, and there was something in your mind that was bugging you. "Does this mean we're …?" You didn't need to finish what you were saying for Jay to get the meaning.

"I mean, do you want to try it out first? We don't need to rush into anything, don't even need to be official. I just wanted you to know how I feel,"

"I can do slow," you nodded, catching a brief glimpse of Jay.

"I'll always be waiting for you," Jay took your hand in his, and that was when you finally had the courage to meet his eyes again. "Whenever you're ready."

People say dating the popular guy was a bad idea, but for once, you were willing to let loose and give your heart a go.

Who knew the start of your newfound romance would soon blossom into a whirlwind of tears, love, and scandalous teen romance.

"So you're dating him now?"

Having Yunjin scream into your ear in the morning during the first period was not surprising. Maybe telling her everything over the phone and leaving her hanging wasn't the best idea. It wasn't your fault she was hungover anyway.

"Shush! Do you want everyone to know?"

"I'm sure everyone knows by now,"

You gave her a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"

"Jake kinda saw you guys, then he blabbered it to Sunghoon, and I guess others heard it because he was not quiet about it,"

Jake. You heaved a sigh, shaking your head a bit. "We're not boyfriend girlfriend official, but just … trying things out, you know?"

"I know," Yunjin let out a satisfied hum. "I think he'd be great for you,"

"Really?"

"He's a nice guy, Y/N. Judging from his reputation, he seems like a good man," Yunjin practically gave you her seal of approval, and it left you feeling happy for the rest of the period.

That was until lunch break where everything fell apart way too fast.

Walking out to the cafeteria, you didn't think much about anything else as you listened to Yunjin rant about her latest online purchase. But the moment you heard Jay's name along with yours in passing, your ears perked up. You thought nothing of it, leading up to Kim Minjeong confronting you head on and you knew that's when you should start worrying.

"Are you … the one with Jay?"

You glanced at Yunjin for a split second, anxiety bubbling in your stomach. "I guess?"

"You're a slut. Don't you know I have a thing for him? There's something call girl code—"

"Woah woah, wait, what? Look, we don't even know you like that," Yunjin quickly butt in upon seeing you fall silent.

"Everyone knows me! Everyone knows Jay and I had a thing! What is it you want? His popularity? Money—"

"Shut up,"

Speaking of the devil.

"You okay?" Jay appeared by your side, gaze softening once it landed on you. "I was searching for you, didn't know this is happening,"

"I—"

"Jay! What are you doing? Why are you with her—"

"Can you just quit it? We've been through this many times, Minjeong. I don't like you and I never have, why can't you just accept it?" He sounded exasperated, almost as if he had been putting up with this for ages. "Put my girl's name out of your mouth and leave her out of this. She's the one I want, not you,"

The only way you could describe Minjeong's face there was rageful. Her expressions were contorted and her lips were etched into a frown. She knew she couldn't defend herself further, so she eventually left with a huff.

It was quite unsalvageable at that point and you felt yourself breaking down from the inside out. Even when Jay called your name, you only shrugged him off and brushed past him. The worst part of all: he didn't run after you either.

Great. Now you were going to spend the rest of the day mulling in bed.

That didn't last long either. Once you got into bed, ready to sleep away from the day's incident and think back to Yunjin's pep talk, you heard your phone buzz. Not once, but multiple times. Who was sending messages at that time? Of course, it had to be him.

jjongster: hey, can we please talk?

jjongster: like right now

you: right now?

jjongster: yeah, send me wherever you're most convenient to meet

This was stupid. Sneaking out of your room when it's dark out and meeting Jay down the street from your house. All when your emotions were not stable and set yet. You've sent him the address and now he's waiting there, standing by his car like a dream.

"Hey," he called out softly as you walked closer to him.

"Hi," you hated this, the sudden stiffness and awkwardness that got between you two, you shouldn't be suffering because of it.

"Sorry for asking you to come out this late," he was quick to apologise, taking a step closer to you. He was always so nice, so kind and loving. "I–it's just eating me up, and I really wanted to tell you—speak to you—in person. I wanted to see you,"

"It's okay, I get it. I'm sorry too, for leaving so abrupt and ignoring you. That was wrong of me to do," you were feeling guilty about what you did earlier, letting your emotions get the best of you and neglecting Jay.

"I understand, don't worry. Are you feeling okay? I didn't expect that to happen, I'm sorry,"

"Don't apologise, it's not on you," you brushed away the strand of hair that constantly fell onto your face, occasionally avoiding his stare. "And I don't know. I don't know how or what to feel,"

He frowned. "Tell me, tell me what's on your mind,"

"Jay, what if this was all a bad choice? You're you, and I'm … me. You're the golden boy, everyone wants you! Now they're talking behind our backs and all I do is hear rumours that aren't true, names being called …"

"It's not a bad choice, Y/N! I want you … so much. No one else compares. Can't you see that?" Jay moved closer to you, his hands now on both your shoulders. "Don't push me away now,"

Jay was taking his chance, and you thought it was a big mistake, but he doesn’t. It might blow up in his pretty face, and you didn’t tell him straight on to do it anyway, yet you knew he was going to and he wasn’t going to care what others think.

"I could never," you shook your head, welcoming his embrace as he pulled you in, and before you knew it, the tears you held in all day started streaming down your cheeks.

He held you there on the pavement as you broke down in his arms, his hold on you never once loosened. There that night, under the starry sky and illuminating street lights was a connection and trust formed unknowingly between you and him, love that blossomed like a flower in spring.

"Gosh, I probably look stupid right now crying," you chuckled, pushing yourself slightly off of him to glance at his face.

"You look pretty, gorgeous to me," his thumb travelled to your cheeks, wiping away the tears that remained.

"I shouldn't have said that … us being a bad choice," you said quietly, cursing internally that you've even doubted it in the first place. "I trust you, Jay, I do,"

"Thank you," his hand travelled down to hold onto yours, a smile ever so soft. "We'll go at your pace. Whenever you're ready,"

"Whenever I'm ready." you repeated, unable to stop yourself from smiling either.

Jay knew he was already in deep, experiencing feelings he's never felt before in his eighteen years of life, but seeing you then, made him realise maybe young love was something to believe in. For once, he had a love to fight for.

Jay was true to his words. He, in fact, did throw a party at his place. But what he didn't tell you was the cleaning up, and boy, was it a headache.

Once everyone had filed out a little after midnight, it was only you and Jay left. It was peaceful. In an empty house that had music blasting in the background, you and Jay each struggled to pick up all the rubbish strewn. You liked this. You like him.

It might've taken a while, but eventually you had the place cleaned, or at least, rubbish-less. There was probably more deep cleaning needed (that was for the next day to worry about). However, for now, it was finally just the two of you, and a whole lot of space with nothing to do.

"Wanna go for a dip?"

"Now?" You glanced at the clock, then back at Jay, who was trying to convince you with his starry eyes and nodding his head like an overly enthusiastic puppy. "Fine."

You didn't even know why you agreed to it. It was a lucky decision you brought an extra pair of everything since you were staying over.

Jay was already in the pool, floating around when you walked out. The light coming from the pool was the only thing providing light. Blue reflection and wet messy hair made Jay increasingly dreamy, till the point where you stood there for a bit too long and he had to call for you.

"Coming!" You huffed, but the moment you reached the edge of the pool, you found yourself stuck and feeling nervous.

The sight of Jay's bare front and your lack of clothing was nerve wracking to even think about. Your mind was in a fuzz even as you accepted his hand and let him pull you in, the cool water invading your senses.

His arms came to wrap around your waist, the only thing you could hold for support was his bicep, so that was what you reached for. Jay didn't mind, he only held you tighter, a conspiring glare glazed over his eyes.

"Hey," he tilted his head, gaze travelling all over your features. You were close, very close. It was almost as if you could hear your own heartbeat in your ears.

"Hi," you whispered back. Your hand was on its own journey, absentmindedly moving to his shoulder.

You should be dying out of anxiety by now, or even freak the fuck out, yet, you successfully kept your composure, in front of a hot man. Hooray!

"How's the water? I swear it's clean. I gated it off before the party,"

You laughed, remembering how Jake was so insistent on keeping the pool part of the party. He claimed that a pool party was way cooler than just a regular party. Jay was not convinced.

"It's nice. Chilly,"

Jay nodded for a bit, pursing his lips, thinking for a beat. "I'm glad you were here today,"

"Why?"

"I just like having you here, that's all,"

"You're so cheesy, it's annoying," you joked lightheartedly, knowing you secretly enjoyed this side of him.

"Whatever, you tolerate it anyway,"

He was right, you did. Over the few months, you've grown to memorise and remember every part of Jay. His habits, his likings, et cetera. It was crazy how your relationship grew with time, but the much crazier part was the fact that you two had not gone official yet.

"Against my will,"

"That's a lie,"

"Whatever you say," you said in a sing-song tone, which only made Jay roll his eyes, reaching up to pinch your cheek.

His gaze never left yours, not even once. It was trained on you, always had been and always will be. The eventual silence got to you, and it was just the distant noise of the water that filled the air.

It was one of those moments where you think 'was this real'. Spoiler: it was. He was testing the waters, you could tell, and you let him.

Jay inched a little closer, eyes flickering between you and your lips. It was obvious that he was nervous from the shaky breath and wavering confidence, but it only made you more relieved.

You let out a breath, meeting his lips halfway. At first, he was shocked, you were too, but for different reasons. Kissing him was a breath of fresh air. His lips moved against yours naturally as if it was his first instinct, like he has been waiting for this for ages, which was not entirely wrong. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss and you swore you felt yourself imploding.

The moment you two finally pulled away to catch your breath, you could only stare at him and hold onto him tighter as if you were afraid he might not be real. Jay chased after your lips, pressing haste pecks and smiling into every one of them. It was infectious, everything about him was and it had you intoxicated.

You realised at that second that you’d be willing to go against the world for him if you had to. Even if someone called you a ‘slut’ again, maybe it’d be worth it for once, and you knew he’d always be right there to defend you.

“I'm ready,”

“Hm?” he was still in a haze, eyes staring back at you with more than love in them.

“I’m ready to be yours, Jay, I’m serious,”

“You are?”

He has never been so relieved and happy leading up till that moment, just having you in his arms was about to make him burst. All he needed was to see you nod and watch your lips mouthing ‘yes’ as a confirmation before lifting you up, arms tight around you.

Under the moonlit swimming pool, you’ve never been happier.

The night might’ve already ended for others, but to you and Jay, it was still ongoing, and you wished for it to not end. So, there you were, in his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he lay beside you. There was barely any space between you and him, his hand brushed against yours from time to time, neither of you dared to move from your original position.

Half asleep, you were taking your time to do something. You took the chance to move your hand closer and gently made contact with his. It didn’t even take a beat for him to lace his fingers with yours, his grip ever so firm, calloused skin against yours. You could tell Jay was equally drifting in and out of sleep as you were, mind in a haze but awake enough to comprehend that you were next to him and not a figment of his imagination.

“I’m in love with you,”

It was faint, almost a whisper, but a mumble that was audible came from Jay. You turned your head to look at him, even under the dim lights, you were able to see that smile from him. The one that always made him look like a lovesick fool, that his friend would claim he’d have whenever he talked about you; it was a smile only reserved for you, and you were the cause of it too.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled out, eyes remained shut, but the smile stayed.

“Goodnight.”

There in the bed slept two young lovers, a fresh love that was unbreakable that connected the two of you together, all of it was fated. From the clinic to now, it might’ve started at the wrong place but it surely was at the right time, and you were glad to be next to him, hand in hand, anticipating what the future had in store for you two.

☆ permanent taglist (open):

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rueclfer · 3 months ago

Text

birthday smokes // katsuki bakugou

a/n: happy late birthday and 420 to my baaabbyyy <3 written on my phone while i was high and not home and i didn't want to bother proofreading (which may be obvious sawy) but just wanted to throw something silly out here

katsuki didn’t understand when his file had apparently been accessible to everyone in this agency. the moment he stepped through the front door, everyone had their eyes on him. he met their gazes and returned it with an awkward nod, greeting them as per usual. it may have felt odd for a minute, but of course he’d be the center of attention in this building- it did have his name plastered to the front of it, after all.

it wasn’t until he reached his office when that impending sense of dread revealed itself in the form of knots in his stomach. the moment the door swings open, his vision clouds with falling rainbow confetti and a crowd of his old peers and mentors jumping out from the shadows.

“happy birthday, kacchan!” izuku cheered, followed by a plethora of blow horns and kazoos before he slowly pulled the door shut in front of him.

katsuki spent his day with a deadpan expression and a monotone “thank you” on repeat.

his parents scheduling themselves into his calendar for a phone call in the middle of his work day. several people stopping by his office during his allotted lunch time. business meetings starting and ending in birthday wishes.

he just wants today to end already.

a few hours ago, you received a message from him letting you know that these “annoying ass coworkers” had successfully dragged him out for birthday drinks after work. he’ll be home late.

you jumped at the sound of the door clicking open.

“fuck,” you mutter to yourself as you shove a wad of crumpled saliva damped rolling papers under your thigh. you somehow ruined a few good sheets in the process of attempting to roll the perfect joint for katsuki- something that you’ve always left for him to do.

your bare thighs laid tense under the rolling tray in your lap as you rush to pack down the flower with the end of a chopstick you grabbed from the kitchen. this was your third go, and you were sure you had it down this time around.

katsuki groans as he toes off his work shoes by the front door, tossing his jacket over the coat rack, and dropping his bag onto the ground.

“the fuck are you doing?” he pads over to you, stretching his arms behind his back.

from behind the couch, he rests his chin on your shoulder, looking down into your lap where he watches you fumble with the cone in your hand.

“what is that?” he scoffs out a chuckle.

you could smell the alcohol under his breath as his laugh brushed past the shell of your ear.

“tada!" you beam, holding up the roll in front of your eyes, "it’s for you! special birthday roll for the special birthday boy.”

“we already celebrated last night,” he mutters against your neck in between light kisses, “and this morning.”

“but you had to go to work today so i thought it’d be nice if we got to wind down together!”

you turn your head to the side, meeting his gaze as it flickers back and forth between the wonky joint in your hand and your proud expression.

“...with that?”

your face drops and lips fall into a tight line before he bursts out in a fit of drunken giggles, drawing a scoff out of you.

“i’m kidding, i’m kidding. you know i’m just teasing.” he steps over the couch, plopping down right next to you.

katsuki takes the joint from your hands and grabs a lighter from the coffee table. he runs the flame over its body a few times before holding the filter end up to your lips.

“it’s your day, silly.” you hold your hand out to stop him, “you get the first hit.”

he pauses and cock an eyebrow at you, seemingly flabbergasted at the suggestion.

“who the fuck do you think i am?” he nudges your hand away and brings the joint back up to your lips.

“it’s your birthday,” you whine.

“exactly. it’s my birthday, so stop arguing with me.”

his spine surges with satisfaction as he watches you roll your eyes and reluctantly wrap your lips around the filter.

who was he to break tradition?

“mhm,” he hums, sparking the lighter.

katsuki doesn’t particularly care about getting high and it doesn’t do much for him, but placing his lips around the damp area where yours had been whether it left a lipstick stain or not made him only crave more.

you almost knock the rolling tray off of your lap when your body jerks forward, hunched over your knees and coughing out the smoke towards the ground.

“i think…i…did a…good…job,” you say in between muffled coughs in your sleeve as he takes the joint from your fingers.

“good for never paying attention whenever i roll for us,” he quips, slowly blowing the smoke out the side of his mouth.

you pout, finally setting the tray down on the coffee table and crawling up to him.

“well, this was only for a special occasion,” you whisper in his ear, “don’t expect me to do this again.”

“no shit,” he turns his head and whispers back, almost grazing your nose with his own, “i roll for you, and your job is to sit there and look pretty.”

he almost blushes when you suddenly lean back and go quiet, not trying to be subtle while your eyes travel down his body.

“now that you mention it, when you’re sitting here all cute in your tight ass hero suit on your birthday of all days, you make me wanna try and roll another one just so i can look at you while i do it,” you giggle.

katsuki snorts. your tolerance has always been bad, but when you’re this high, you’re embarrassingly flirtatious.

he sets the half smoked joint down on the ashtray sitting on the side table and brings his arm around you, placing his hand against the small of your back.

“i’ll give you something better to look at,” he mutters, pulling you closer to him, “but you have to promise to keep your eyes open.”

heat crawls up your neck as a laugh escapes your mouth from the shock.

“suddenly it’s sounding like it's my birthday.” you blush.

“nope. still mine and we got about two hours to celebrate."

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mvst4far · 3 months ago

Note

i need some clay smut like asap.. my baby is so unappreciated on here.

yess, i completely agree! i rarely see any fics about him ☹️

Clayton Beresford x f!reader

SUMMARY: Due to a stressful week of work, Clayton takes a night off to spend at a bar─where he meets you and your carefree attitude.

WARNINGS: Mentions of alcohol, dirty talk, small praise, (somewhat) dom!Clay, sub!drunken!reader (sober when having sex), piv, unprotected sex, doggy, a lot of cum, Clayton's big dick, usage of "baby", slight aftercare, and some cursing.

Clayton had been working nonstop all week long. Barely any breaks, barely any time for sleep and barely any time to take a long, warm bath that he so desperately needs.

With this new merger coming up with a Japanese company, Clayton found himself trapped in long, endless meetings that made him yawn of boredom.

He was in a tiresome state, no doubt. And it didn't make it any less harder than being stuck in his office, going through files of paperwork.

The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Skyline of Manhattan cured his stress a little, due to always being a huge fan of the city view. It was the reason why he demanded for an office on the top level, and knew no one could go against it. He was the CEO, after all.

The whole company was named after his father, which he took over when his father passed away. His father passed away when Clayton was still a little boy, which was why he was only twenty-two and already a billionaire.

With all of these responsibilities, Clayton decided that maybe just one night off couldn't hurt anybody. Surely, his co-workers could hold down the fort... otherwise he'd be rethinking those that he hired.

So, there he sat, alone at the bar counter sitting on one of the creaky stools in silence. He had ordered a whisky on the rocks─which was probably his third one by now. He always preferred being alone, even when there was a lively party happening right behind him.

God forbid a man enjoys his peace.

Though when he caught sight of you in the corner of his eye, he spun his stool around and watched you. Sure, he looked like a creep, but you were too drunk out of your mind to even notice.

You seemed so... carefree. A lot different than people he spent his time around, especially since they were so serious and enjoyed long, boring conversations about work.

But, you... your hair was messy and wild, your dance moves swayed and off beat with the music due to your intoxication of being under the influence. It actually made Clayton smile a little, and crack a small chuckle. He didn't know the last time someone made him genuinely laugh.

Soon enough, his body started moving more quickly than his mind. He approached you from behind and tapped you on the shoulder, clearing his throat which caught your attention.

When your eyes locked on his, the first thing he noticed was your flushed cheeks and overly wide smile. It definitely didn't take long until Clayton convinced you to leave with him.

౨ৎ

The door that led into Clayton's bedroom slams shut as your lips were eagerly attached to his neck, legs around his waist as he held you up to his penthouse ever since you two left his car.

He threw you onto his bed, watching you giggle and squirm around against the mattress as he unbuckles his belt and begins to strip in front of you.

He could tell you weren't as drunk as before, due to your cheeks returning to its natural color instead of light pink.

"Get undressed for me, will you?" Clayton orders in a gentle mutter, stepping out of his pants once they pooled around his ankles.

You chuckle and lean back on your hands, being able to see his large tent through his boxers. "Why don't you do it for me?.." You tease, your boldness being something entirely new to him. Though he wasn't complaining.

He chuckles and shakes his head in amusement, discarding his shirt that exposed his fairly toned chest and stomach. "C'mon, you can't make me do all the work," He responds with an equally amount of tease, "Be a good girl and get out of that dress, alright?"

With a heavy, dramatic sigh and sarcastic roll of eyes, you gave in. "Fine..." You mutter, sitting up on your knees.

Your hands reached to your back, slowly sliding down the zipper and be cautious to not accidentally zip your skin. Your movements were slow and deliberate as you kicked the dress off the bed, your eyes never leaving Clayton's.

"See? Wasn't so hard, was it?" He asks, looping his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers.

You scoff at his cockiness, unclasping your strapless bra. "Yeah, yeah... whatever." You grumble, discarding the fabric off to the side.

As Clayton removes his boxers and steps out of the clothing item, leaving himself completely bare. You could almost feel your mouth watering at the sight of his size. How the fuck would that fit?

"Jesus Christ..." You whisper, leaning back on your hands again.

Clayton laughs in amusement and playfully rolls his eyes, not surprised by your reaction at all. "Close your mouth, baby." He teases, placing his index finger underneath your chin as he pushed your jaw back in place─your lips pursing together.

౨ৎ

It didn't take long until Clayton was thrusting in and out of you without a care in the world, your loud, porno-like moans bouncing off the walls and satisfying Clayton's ears like ecstasy.

"Fuck! C'mon, baby, cum for me." He praises breathlessly, his lips pressing against your ear.

All of Clay's little pushes and praises brought you extremely close to edge, which made him fuck you senseless. You had already came for him twice, but this man was really enjoying the sensation of destroying your stretched cunt with his large length.

After you came on his slick, sticky cock, he pulled out of you and flipped you around. His hands came to grip on your hips, bringing your ass up as he aligned your hole with his still hard cock.

He had probably came inside of you more than three times already, he just wanted you to feel as good as he did.

As Clayton began moving his hips against your ass, his movements were a lot more slow. Like he was taking his time with you and savoring the moment.

"You're so tight," He groans, gripping your hips so tight that there would definitely be left over marks.

"I─" You start, your voice somewhat muffled by the pillow.

"You, what? C'mon, use your words, baby."

"I─it hurts," You finally managed to get the words out, your chest heaving desperately for more air.

Clayton had never stopped so fast in his life, pulling out of you and allowing you to roll over onto your back. "Fuck, sorry. I─I didn't know..." He mumbles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

You sigh and shake your head, "It's okay," You reassure, letting your hair splay around you on the pillow as you took a few moments to catch your breath. "It's not your fault."

Clayton nods and collapses beside you on his back, his head turning towards yours as he studies your side profile. "You tired?"

"Wrecked."

He scoffs in amusement at your response, his hands grabbing your waist as he pulls you against him. Your face buries into his chest, arms wrapping around the back of his neck. Even after his dominance in bed, he really was just a sap underneath it all.

The two of you fell asleep that way, wrapped in each other's embrace.

౨ৎ

The sun gently rose, cascading a yellow hue over your eyes which stirred you awake with a groggy groan. You had a mild headache due to your excess amount of drinking last night, but you still remembered the events that played out.

When you sat up, there was no sign of Clayton anywhere. The sheets were crinkled beside you due to his figure laid there earlier, but now, he was gone.

To your side, on the bedside table, there was a yellow sticky note stuck to a vanilla scented candle.

"Had to leave for work. Stay if you want. ─ Clayton Beresford."

Clayton Beresford?

You just spent a night with the youngest billionaire in Manhattan?!

Due to being under the influence, you couldn't remember if he told you his name or not. It didn't matter anyways, this changed everything for you.

#hayden christensen #clayton beresford #clayton beresford fanfiction #clayton beresford smut #fanfiction #smut #requests

222 notes · View notes

miorirenkova · 4 months ago

Text

“i know there’s a blade where your heart is, and you know how to use it”

assassin!reader x nishimura riki

“you can take my flesh if you want girl,

but baby don’t abuse it.”

summary: you were given the task to eliminate niki, in order to target his influential uncle who loved him quite a lot. to do so, you had to get close to him, perhaps catch him in a vulnerable position and finish the job. easy enough, right?

warnings: interesting family relations, revenge, depictions of violence and blood? smut, no fluff even if you squint

warnings for the smut: rough sex , fingering , oral (f and m recieving), hair pulling, choking, spanking , degrading , petnames/degrading names , dirty talk , creampie , breeding kink, knifeplay, overstimulation , biting , begging , size kink , corruption kink (i think), gagging, tieing up, multiple orgasms , messy making out, unprotected sex, pwp, p in v, cunt slapping, should be it forgive me if i missed anything

word count: 7.5k words

note: this is lowkey just pure filth badly written with the illusion of a plot 🙏🙏 also this def feels a bit like a drabble some places so forgive me 🙏 and if it doesent make sense/the writing is weird some places also forgive me!!!

this was a req for my friend and also forgive me if its bad not my best fs i def was losing it towards the end nd i didnt crosscheck!! sorry for the bad smut too cOUGH

also, the words with the red colour in the middle here and there (except for the last line) are all lyrics from the song ive linked so they arent actually saying it except for one part where they actually do say the lyrics and for that ive added quotations there so you would understand.

the song is a theme song that i chose for the fic cuz i like doing that for all my fics. its ur choice whether u wanna listen to it or not. tyy

mdni . hate comments will be deleted

(under cut!!)

————————————————————————

“yeah but.. why exactly are we targeting his nephew instead? i mean, it won’t be that hard to just take him out, right?” you replied in response to what your boss said as you poured yourself some coffee. great! you were barely finished with your last mission and now your boss is already pushing more work on you. and if it wasn’t already bad, you have to go undercover in this. and why that’s such a problem? it’s cause you can’t do acting for the love of god and always get close to fucking the act up.

“sure, but i don’t think you realise the political risks that come with having him executed. they won’t be directed at us sure but they definitely will cause a stir in media.” your boss replied as she took one of the cups of coffee from you. “and plus,” she added, “i promise you it’s much less tedious for you to eliminate his nephew then him. ill give you the briefing once again.” she paused before picking up some file and continued, “we will get you into the university the target studies in and all you have to do is get close to him, somehow, date him if necessary and just execute him when the time and place is right.” she completed, taking a sip from her coffee and moving her chair to her file cabinet, seemingly taking out some files as if she didn’t just drop a bomb on me.

easy, my ass!

do i look like someone who can easily just flirt their way into someone’s life? you groaned as you realised there truly was no way out of this and your boss was determined to have you do this.

“..i don’t have a say in this, do i?” you placed the finished cup of coffee in the sink, as you begrudgingly asked. “nope, so chop chop, get to it.”

how fucking annoying. truly, you wish one day your target could be your boss. but some things can only be dreams..

————————————————————————

quite frankly, you knew it was going to be a bit of a pain in your ass but you didn’t realise it was going to be THIS bad of a pain in your ass.

first problem? this uni is like straight out of some petty coming of age romance film, everyone barely notices some random quiet girl in the back. no matter how cringe that sounds, you were getting badly ignored and it wasn’t helping.

second problem? your target, nishimura riki, is some bitchy fuck boy! okay, maybe that’s a little overboard, just a little. he was this overly smart, and.. kind of annoyingly hot, popular guy who is just a bit too cocky and competitive. sure, with his friends, he seemed like a pretty kind and charismatic person. but it was all still a problem for you because how the hell do you get him to talk to you, let alone glance at you!?

if this was some sappy romance, you would be fine with just staring at him from afar. but, it’s not. you actually have something to get done and your boss’ annoying ‘chop chop’ is practically ringing in your head. damn it.

also, you were pretty annoyed too due to the fact that you’re practically reliving uni life except its worse because you know absolutely nothing about this place or the people here. just silently attending classes like some loner. sigh, what has your life become?

you were about to enter your next class and god maybe someone up there took pity on you because coincidentally, there was actually a seat empty next to that japanese idiot! finally, none of his shitty friends were bombarding him. holy shit, finally, you can make at least some sort of progress.

you head over to the seat, a bit too eagerly, and sit down, trying to act as normal as you can.

oh.

oh this bastard.. he didn’t even bother to look at who sat next to him? seriously!

as you took out your books so you could at least act like a normal student, you saw one of his friends coming over, presumably to talk to riki.

“hey ni-ki, you are still up for that arcade night tomorrow, right?” his friend, whose name was maki, from what you had learned, asked riki who you just learned was also called ni-ki. okay, good, you’re already gaining some new information, no matter how useless it may be.

“oh.. well yeah, about that..” riki scratched the back of his head, groaning. “i don’t think i can. some assholes tried to target an attack on me yesterday and ever since then, my uncle has been hell bent on getting me some bodyguard.”

oh my god. you could barely contain your reaction. first of all, pretty sad that his next assassin is sitting right next to him. next of all, a bodyguard??? this could either become really bad or really good for you, depending on how you act. but right now, there were already ideas brewing in your mind how you could use this to your advantage.

maki scoffed, looking at him with amusement “a bodyguard? you’re kidding?? damn, guess you’re a hotshot now, huh? leaving us peasants behind.” he replied while letting out some dramatic gasp, taking the other seat next to him. “still, did those attackers hurt you? are you okay?” riki nodded, also taking out his books as the professor walked in, replying “yeah, i’m fine.. well as fine as someone whose about to get all their privacy taken by some stupid bodyguard can be-!” in response, maki just laughed as he just made fun of his pathetic fate while advising him to convince the bodyguard to let him come.

after that, you didn’t really bother to care about their conversation and just blocked it out as it was irrelevant, and instead started thinking about the next course of action you could take. you took out your phone to shoot a message to your boss about your plan, to which you quickly received a thumbs up with her letting you know she would handle it. finally, you actually made some progress! you could definitely treat yourself to some good food for this.

————————————————————————

and handle it, she did. your boss sent you a message not long after, which you saw after class. she sent you some messages with information.

first of all, riki’s uncle was apparently consulting his close friends to get a good bodyguard, however she got to know that..

and secondly, she has connections with one of his close friends and managed to get them to vouch for you as bodyguard, so hopefully, mr riki’s uncle would agree and your plan would go smoothly!

all that’s left now is for your boss to give you the green light that you were appointed and then you could finally do your work. thank god that atleast now you don’t have to somehow flirt with this man. his cocky attitude would make it feel like you’re flirting with some full of himself guy from my university days.

————————————————————————

after a few days, you got the message that you were finally appointed as his bodyguard, after she pulled some strings here and there. you met the uncle who honestly seemed like a really chill guy for someone who is like.. a major target for like.. everyone in the political field.

you got a room next to riki’s in their abnormally large house so that you could be next to him at all times. obviously, you knew riki wasn’t actually going to accept it without any resistance, especially if his conversation with maki from a few days ago was anything to go off of. you just didn’t think he was going to be this mad..

“stay 10 feet away from me.”

“you aren’t coming into the restaurant. i don’t fucking care, if you want, tell my uncle.”

“can you please quit? if you don’t do it yourself i’ll say you were trying to harass me or something.”

“cry to my uncle about it, i am not letting you come”

that’s all you heard in your first few weeks! this goddamn asshole was extremely mad about having a bodyguard and he kept making my job difficult, so difficult that his uncle had to literally call me and ask me if i’m even doing my job! fucking hell.

for instance, the arcade night was a literal nightmare.

you followed riki down to the car that had come to pick him up, presumably with his friends.

you were about to open the door for him when he glared at you before getting in and immediately slamming the car door shut. what the fuck!? I could have lost my hand there! you tried your best to control yourself from lashing out at him and went to open the door, only for him to lock it immediately.

“excuse me?” you mouthed as you looked at riki questioningly. the windows of the car rolled down as riki put on of his arms on the sill, leaning back smugly. “what? pfft, you really thought you were going to come in the same car as me? how cute.” he scoffed before continuing, “get your own car. or maybe get the drivers to drive you there. orr…., better yet, leave my ass alone and have a life. thanks!” he waved you goodbye, smirking annoyingly before immediately having his friend drive off, not even letting you respond.

wait- he didn’t even tell you the address!? fuck!

you stood there dumbfounded, trying to figure out what to do. that fucker did that on purpose, didn’t he? you groaned, plopping down on the bench in the garden, figuring out how to tell his uncle that his beloved nephew abandoned his bodyguard.

and that was only one instance of a million, that occurred in that nightmarish week.

and quite frankly, it was a million too many. you had enough.

it was saturday night and riki was cooped up in his room, probably playing some shitty game. you were bored out of your mind but you couldn’t go anywhere as long as riki was in his room. you sighed before making a decision.

you were planning to talk to him about his annoying behaviour and thought, why not now? it’s time you disturb him a little too.

you walked out of your guest room and knocked on the door to his room.

no response. you knock again, twice this time.

no response, again. you knock once again, this time more aggressively.

seriously? i know he’s in there, is he actually ignoring me!? you groan before opening the door, sick of waiting for him to respond. and of course, he was playing video games. and almost as if to mock you, he put his headphones back on, showing you that he had his headphones off and indeed, could hear perfectly that you were knocking.

you walked over to his console before removing the plug. you play games yourself and you know very well how annoying it is to disconnect mid game. deserved!

as soon as the game turned off, you looked at riki.

“what the fuck was that for?” he practically shot daggers at you, placing down the controller and placing his attention on you.

“at least i have your attention now, no?” you smiled, leaning on the window in his room.

“could have just told me you were desperate for my attention, a bit dramatic, no?” he smirked, imitating your tone and wording the desperate in a tone that seemed a bit too.. inappropriate.. for the current situation.

“yup, that’s exactly what i would have done if you actually cared to look at me.” you paused before continuing, “anyways, i came to talk to you about the way you’re acting.”

“oh? what? you ‘gonna lecture me on how i am being unreasonable?” he said before scoffing. “yes, actually! you are being unreasonable! i am merely doing my job so can you not keep getting me in trouble? if you hate this so much, go talk to your uncle, not take it out on me!”

he stilled, almost as if he was listening to you intently, before chuckling. fucking chuckling at what you said. “seems you aren’t all that you portrayed yourself as when i saw you here, huh?” he said, grinning at you. you looked at him, confused at what he meant. “actually, i don’t hate this as much as you think. don’t get me wrong, i still do hate that i have no privacy but i was doing all that just to see you react.” he paused before continuing, “i mean, when i first saw you, it annoyed me that my father thought someone whose the same age as me somehow can protect me better than i can. i felt like annoying you to see how you’d react.” he confessed as if he was just telling you some gossip. he was kidding, right? just getting a reaction, my ass! he almost got me fucking fired like 7 times last week!

“are you fucking kidding me? is this some romantic story to you, a challenge to get me to react? seriously..” you sighed exasperatedly, and practically glaring at him. “what? is it so wrong of me to have some fun? it just amused me to see you acting all high and mighty when you’re my age.” okay, sure, maybe you were acting a little bossy because you found it funny that someone so cocky and popular at university was getting protected by you but- wait.. did he say ‘his age’!? how does he even know that?! “how do you know i’m your age? I don’t remember telling you my age, unless your uncle told you it..” you reply, confused.

he looked at you, almost looking puzzled at your question. “what? i thought you were just ignoring it but i think you actually didn’t realise.. you do know we are in the same university, right?” oh right, you had completely forgotten you had that whole university thing before. wait, but even then, did he actually notice you? damn.. “right, but i thought you didn’t know i existed.” you laughed sarcastically, looking at him.

you both talked to each other, surprisingly without him trying to piss you off every second and you having to clench your fists from anger. he was just a normal university student with a bit of a crazy home life and well.. extremely hot, if you haven’t mentioned it already. honestly, you don’t ever talk to the people you’re targeting like this so it was definitely something new. it made you see him as someone more.. life like? which is quite weird since you are technically about to take that very life out of him soon.

damn.

————————————————————————

riki.

nishimura fucking riki.

you don’t know what it was about him but damn did every single moment spent with him make you feel so weirdly happy.

at first, it was just nice to hangout with someone normally after years of having your only interaction with people being your colleagues or the people you were going to kill.

then, for some reason, he started spending almost all of his free time at home which just meant he was with me most of the time. as if conversing with him occasionally wasn’t already making you question your professionalism, now he’s spending all his time with you. normally, he would go out, hangout with friends and just do something away from me. and now? complete switch.

and on top of that, it was annoying you because it felt like a constant reminder that, ‘hey look, you have all the time and opportunities to kill him spotlessly and you. aren’t. doing. it. just admit, he makes you feel giddy.’ and you didn’t like that.

you had so many opportunities to just end this whole thing, easily get rid of your traces, but no. every time you would pick up that gun in your pocket, you would just end up putting it right back where it belongs. every. single. time.

sometimes, he would catch you in the act because of how your brain was practically short circuiting and you wouldn’t even realise that the gun was still in your hand. you wouldn’t even realise it and he would look at you, confused

“just what exactly were you planning to do with that?”

you made an excuse once, but you kept doing the same damn thing. maybe a part of you wanted him to see, be mad at you so maybe you could just finish the job quick. this was torture.

but then, you started to realise how suspicious he was being. not just once, not even twice but instead thrice! he caught you thrice, holding that gun, looking incredibly suspicious. hell one time you almost had it even pointed at him.

anyone would find it suspicious and at least confront you about it, if not directly get you removed! it almost felt like he knew, and was instead playing along. goddamn it.

and of course, he wasn’t stupid. he did notice. he saw all those times you looked like you were about to do something. he would be a fool if he didn’t find your behaviour at least a little suspicious. like how you became his bodyguard right after you conveniently overheard him talking about how his uncle was looking for a bodyguard for him.

like how you act like he doesn’t have a million targets on his back.

like how you were conveniently almost always in the same classes as him.

like how he would catch you trying to avoid him when he talked to you.

like how he would catch you holding a gun conveniently when he had his back to you.

like how he would catch that look of guilt, in your eyes.

he wasn’t stupid. in fact, far from it.

he knew and you kept confirming his suspicions.

the voices in my head screaming ‘run now’, im praying that their human

————————————————————————

and as if the universe was mocking you or maybe telling you to hurry up with it, his uncle actually goes on a business trip abroad from which he won’t be back for at least 2 weeks. great.

well, technically, it should be great, you should be ecstatic that you practically hit jackpot with this opportunity. especially with the constant messages of your boss telling you to hurry up becoming background music in your mission.

you should be happy but of course, you aren’t. you aren’t because you know you had just as many opportunities before and wasted them.

but you had made up your mind.

whatever you were doing, have been doing and might do if you don’t put an end to this is stupid.

and you are going to put and end to it today no matter what.

after ni-ki came back from uni, you spent some time on your laptop and with him, switching between the two and still never being able to pull out your gun.

finally, it was evening and ni-ki had said that he would make dinner for us, wanting you to try his cooking.

you made your way to the kitchen, finding him standing there.

“how’s it going?” you asked as you came up next to him, taking a spoon and trying some of the garnish he had made for the food. “mm.. tastes pretty good, honestly didn’t think you had it in you.” you chuckled as you looked up at him.

his breath hitched at the sound you made before clearing his throat, “impressed?” he said as he walked over to grab some dishes. “sure am.” you replied in the affirmative, watching him intently.

he came back and stood over you, reaching for something behind you. you were just about to move away when he placed a hand on the side, blocking you.

shit, he was close.

too close.

this whole time leading up to this, the sexual tension between you two was so thick it could be cut with a knife. so, you actually feeling something for him wasn’t the only thing distracting you.

you could practically hear his heartbeat due to how close he was.

and you could tell he knew, as he took his sweet time grabbing whatever the fuck he was grabbing behind you.

finally, he moved away, allowing you to let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.

fucking hell! it was driving you insane that he kept doing this and breaking down the resolve you would slowly build up. before, you would at least pick up the gun but now? you could barely do even that.

you had enough. just as ni-ki turned around to focus on something in the bowl, you walked over to one of the knives on the counter, swiping it clean and sliding it on your finger. this wasn’t sharp enough.

then, you turned around and spotted the knife next to ni-ki, which looked extremely new and sharp. that could definitely work.

if you weren’t picking up the gun, you’ll just have to take the knife.

you slowly walked over, keeping an eye on whether he was continuing what he was doing or getting ready to turn around.

just as you were about to grab the knife, ni-ki turns around immediately and grabs your wrist, and yanks it away along with the knife.

and even then, instead of pushing you away, he only brings you closer.

fuck.

“honestly, if i didn’t already have my eyes on you, i wouldn’t have noticed you sneaking up on me at all. you’re honestly more skilled than i thought.” ni-ki said, looking down at you with that unexplainable look in his eyes, caressing your wrist with his fingers, sending shivers down your spine.

why you pointing at me with that knife?

“hah- so you did know?” you groaned. you were annoyed that he caught you but for now, you have to think about how to turn this around.

“god, how stupid do you think i am, huh? i can even tell right now that pretty little head of yours is fucking thinking of some way to turn this around, no?” he smiled, slowly inching the knife you were holding closer to himself.

“what the fuck are you doing?!” you spat, unconsciously trying to pull your hand away as if you weren’t planning to do exactly what he was right now. “thought i could make your work easier, no?” he replied, looking down at you with that same mocking he had in his tone.

“so you were just playing with me, huh? if you already knew my true intentions, why didn’t you do anything, hm?” you looked up at him, gripping the knife just a little bit tighter.

“i suppose i was just confident in my own skills being better than yours.” he replied, flicking out his tongue to wet his lips, looking directly into your eyes while doing so, making you almost drop the knife. “better than mine? tch, really? you should know i trained for this shit.” you replied, amused that some random untrained college student, no matter how tall or well built, actually thought he was better than a trained assassin.

“so did i, glad we have that in common.” he looked at you, sarcastically making it sound like some moment of getting to know each other. “honestly, as someone who worked in your field too, it’s pathetic seeing you act like this.”

“what.. are you saying?” what did he even mean, working in my field!? his words were barely registering in your brain. you tried to pull out of his grip but it seemed to only make it tighter, definitely leaving a mark there.

“god you still don’t get it, do you?” he smiled before continuing, “do you know how my parents died? because i don’t.” he scoffed. “my parents died in what the world deemed as an ‘unfortunate car accident’ but i knew better than to believe that.”

“i knew there was no way that was all there was to it. fortunately enough for me, my parents being in the same field you are, i naturally got pulled into it. but it worked in favour for me, i could use it to my advantage and find out the truth.” he leaned back a little before continuing, “and i tried. but my uncle found out after he came back to japan and was furious. ultimately, he pulled me out of that shithole and forced me to live my life normally as a student, at least for a bit. and well, here i am.”

and as if he didn’t just drop a bomb on me, he lazily smiled at you as if he just recited some joke. “uh.. what? i mean, thanks for the story?” you replied, unable to process. this must be a plot for something, assassin attempts to kill an assassin!? what the hell was happening..! “wait no, so you’re telling me that you- seriously?” you looked up at him shocked, unable to believe or understand him.

“honestly, it’s not as shocking as you’re making it seem. i mean, all i said was we have another thing in common.” he grinned. “anyways, you do know that i left your hand free for the past 5 minutes, right? you could have easily stabbed me” ni-ki spoke and as if to emphasise what he said, he grabbed my wrist once again. “or maybe.. you don’t even want to, hm? just admit you can’t.”

“and, so what if i can’t? it’s not like you’re pushing me back anyway, hm?” you retorted, looking right back at him.

“maybe i don’t want to push you away. maybe the real reason i didn’t run was because i liked what we had. even if what we had was this.” he said, bringing the knife closer again, emphasising what he meant.

“god when you say things like that..” you paused while getting closer and holding the knife to his heart, “i feel like stabbing this knife right into your heart.”

“go ahead. it’s yours anyways.”

you pulled away the knife before looking up at him, his words doing nothing to help the beating of your heart. you grip the knife in your hands before running your hands through your hair.

“careful or you’ll lose it”

“but girl, im only human”

as you run your fingers along the edge of the knife, ni-ki pushes your wrist to the side before pulling you in and crashing his lips on yours. your fingers rush to grab onto his shirt, stunned from the shock of his sudden action, before reciprocating the kiss with just as much eagerness.

the knife was long out of your hand and instead on the kitchen counter as ni-ki backed you up against the kitchen island, not breaking the kiss.

the kiss was like a silent plea between you two, a confession unspoken about the feelings between you two. a plea to put the differences behind.

his lips were warm against yours, moving against yours in a slow to gradually fast rhythm, getting more needy, rough and messy as time went. ni-ki’s hand rested on the small of your back, pulling you in even closer as his breath hitched due to your hands finding home in his hair.

you tried to pull away due to the loss of breath but it was useless as he only pushed you on top of the island before caging you with his arms on your sides.

finally, he pulled away, taking deep breaths as you both looked at each other. without wasting another second, ni-ki leaned in to kiss you but instead of doing so, he bit your bottom lip causing you to let out a gasp of his name, gripping his shirt that you wanted off, oh so desperately.

he hummed as if acknowledging your gasp before swiping his tongue over your bottom lip over the beads of blood that accumulated. “god, look at you fucking saying my name so prettily, hm? tell me..” he paused before pulling away to rest his head in the nape of your neck, “..do you fucking enjoy being reduced to a mess by me like this?”

you open your mouth to respond only to let out a sharp cry at the sensation of ni-ki’s teeth sinking into the skin on your neck. “fuck ni-ki- ngh-!” all you can do is gasp out in response to his degrading words, wrapping your legs around his waist, tugging on his hair.

only after licking and marking that spot did he pull away, grinning at the mark on your neck. “guess im the one who made a mark on your neck instead, hm? instead of you,” he wrapped his fingers around your neck before continuing “slitting my throat open like how you badly wanted to, right?” he let out a breathy laugh before squeezing your neck, blocking your passage of air making you throw your hand back and having your hands wrap around his wrist in a silent plea.

finally, ni-ki let go before tugging on your shirt, looking into your eyes for permission. you nodded shakily, still shocked from his earlier actions, letting him pull off your shirt that seemed to practically be burning your skin because of how hot it felt in the room.

as soon as the shirt was off, ni-ki leaned in, placing soft, wet kisses down your cleavage before reaching behind you to unclip your bra with ease, causing it to fall off your body, letting it be long forgotten.

he wasted no time before wrapping his lips around your nipples, eagerly sucking and biting on the flesh, causing you to arch your back, grinding against his crotch.

he groaned against your body, reaching to grab your hair without pulling away, pulling it back causing you to throw your head back, your hands rushing to support yourself on the counter.

he used his other hand to fondle your other breast, rolling the bud between his fingers. he pulled away after a bit, only to switch to the other breast.

he finally let go of the flesh, looking at the wet mess he had made. “god, look at you arching like that.. fucking whore..” his words a direct contrast to the way he was smirking at you.

“ni-ki, stop fucking teasing me-“ before you could complete your sentence, ni-ki used the opportunity to slip his fingers inside, gagging you with them as he scoffed. “really? is that the attitude you’re going to give me? acting like a brat as if you weren’t whimpering like a bitch in heat at just me sucking on your neck?” he pushed his fingers deeper inside, making you choke on it, your spit dripping down. “if you truly want it so bad, beg for it. show me just how damn pathetic you actually are.” and as if motioning for you to do so, he pulled out his fingers that were wet with your spit, making you almost embarrassed with how pathetic it made you look.

“just what makes you think i’d do that?” you replied, smirking. it’s not that you wouldn’t, you were ready to get on your knees at this point but, you wanted to see how far you could actually push him. “think? oh baby, i know you will.” ni-ki replied, the nickname making your cheeks red at the way your heart fluttered at the contrasting sweetness of it. he immediately leaned back in, leaving wet kisses down from your cleavage to your stomach before finding home between your thighs, pulling down the pants you were wearing.

“god, you act all high and mighty only to be drenched like a whore.” he hummed as he said those dirty words, rubbing his finger along your clothed cunt. you wish he was joking but you knew that you were practically dripping for him, the effect he had on you was making your head dizzy.

and ni-ki? he didn’t have any better of a condition. in fact it was probably worse. his cock was throbbing with need at the sight between your legs, wanting nothing more than to just rip those stupid panties off and make your writhe against him. it was painful but he wasn’t going to let go until you did. he would make sure you would eat your words.

he slowly pulled on the strap of your panties before letting it go, making it slap against your skin, the sensation making you let out a whine. your hands reached down to grab his hair, trying to signal that you wanted him to quit teasing. “words baby, i am gonna’ need you to use that pretty mouth of yours, yeah?” he spoke in response to your action, the vibrations of his voice making you arch your back. “fuck ni-ki, please-!” you spoke, your hips thrusting up in a desperate plea for him. “im sorry please just- ‘need you so bad-“ you cried out, not caring anymore about your pride and just babbling out pleas, begging pathetically.

“there you go, that’s what i wanted to hear.” he grinned before practically ripping your panties apart, shoving one of his digits inside causing a moan to escape your mouth. he barely waited before slipping out his finger and replacing it with his tongue, eagerly lapping up your juices.

you gripped his hair tight, pulling him deeper causing him to groan. he continued his ministrations before adding his fingers once again, finding that plush spot that practically made you see stars. you didn’t even bother to control your moans, silently thanking his uncle again for being on a 2 week trip, but this time, for a much different reason.

you let out a whimper of his name, trying to speak but only letting out ineligible slurs. “gh- ni-ki! ‘m close, hah-“ you arched your back even more, rolling your eyes back, moaning out. “please-“

rollin’, rollin’, rolling back your eyes through your mind like

ni-ki only gripped your thighs tighter, pulling them around him, and inserting another finger, using his thumb to draw numbers ‘eights’ on your clit, urging you, making your thighs shake as your body chased your high.

you let out a broken whimper as you finally let go, your high crashing down on you as you released all over his fingers and face, shaking. but instead of pulling away, ni-ki only continued to fuck your cunt with his tongue, not bothering to slow down. “w-wait ni-ki- slow down, i can’t-!” you cried out, trying to push him away but only pushing your hips further into his face, the pleasure becoming overwhelming.

he finally pulled away, looking up at you as he licked one of his fingers clean, looking right into your eyes, a smirk on his face. “god you have such a pretty cunt, hm? all for me too.” he said, slapping the flesh causing you to let out a silent scream, as if he was confirming his words. he pushed one of his fingers back in, finger fucking your cunt even though you were already shaking.

“s’too much- fuck ni-ki no more-“ “fuck stop running your mouth for once, huh? you can take it.” he interrupted your pleas, shoving his finger deeper and massaging that spot, making you reach your high once again. you cried out once again, your cunt spasming around his finger and creaming.

“there you go, i knew you could do it.” ni-ki said before licking his fingers clean once again, grinning at you. “god, never thought you could be such a whore. all i need is one finger to ruin you like this?” he got up and slammed his lips on yours, wanting you to taste yourself.

you moaned into the kiss, wrapping your hands around his neck and pulling him in. you break the kiss and tug on his shirt, telling him to remove it.

thankfully, he didn’t say much before letting you pull it off, only to pull you in and kiss you once again.

you pushed against him and use the opportunity to turn him around against the island, getting on your knees. ni-ki ran his hands through his hair, breathing heavily as he looked down at you, observing you.

you unzipped his pants, before wrapping your hands around his cock, slowly running them up and down, causing him to groan and grip your hair.

“fuck, quit it-“ ni-ki moaned out, tightening his grip and pushing you towards him. and you did listen as you opened your mouth and took him inside your mouth, practically gagging due to his length.

ni-ki let go momentarily to grip the counter before grabbing a fistful of your hair and pushing you in, using your mouth for his pleasure. “that’s it- god, your mouth- feels so good..” he threw his head back, face-fucking you.

but, this only continued for so long before ni-ki forcefully pulled you away, bringing you up. “turn around.” you were confused at his action but decided on just doing as he said, turning around. you see him grab his discarded shirt from earlier and place it down on the counter, before pushing your face down onto the shirt, making sure you didn’t get hurt. if you could, you would have teased him about how he made sure you would be comfortable but quite frankly, you weren’t in a position to do, literally and figuratively.

just as you were distracted, you felt a cold sensation on your back, making you involuntarily arch your back. ni-ki leaned in close to your ear to whisper, “can you guess what this is, hm?” while slowly dragging the cold metal like object down your back. “let me answer for you. i bet that pretty head of yours is too fucked out to let out a coherent answer.” honestly, he wasn’t wrong, you could barely think, let alone play a game of guessing.

“it’s the same knife,” he pressed the object, which you now know is a knife, into the small of your back as if proving his words, causing you to yelp due to the sharp sting, “ ,you tried to oh, so cruelly end my life with. does it strike a chord?” you whimpered into his shirt, the scent of his perfume short circuiting your sense. it wasn’t just a painful sting but instead it definitely bordered between pain and pleasure, the lines barely existing. and the reality of his words only made the sensation, weirdly enough, better. yeah, you were going insane and it was all this damned nishimura’s fault.

you felt him slowly drag the knife down your back, only teasing the sharp edge along your skin. once he got to the back of your thighs, he softly dragged the sharp side of the knife, drawing something that you were honestly to fucked out to figure out. the knife wasn’t digging into your skin and only just scratching it, which caused a slight burning pain, still ignorable nonetheless and made you whine into the shirt.

ni-ki let out a chuckle at your sound, his self control barely hanging on by a thread as he pulled away the knife and placed it away from you, not wanting you to get hurt badly later on.

“you look so fucking pathetic right now..” leaned over you, grabbing the belt from the front before dragging it down your back, “god, the things i want to do to you..” he groaned, almost annoyed at how insane you were making him feel. you moaned out in response, pushing your hips back, wanting him to quit teasing you. he pulled away the belt only to roughly strike it on the plush of your ass, making you gasp and grip the counter.

as soon as he did that, you heard him pull away only to roughly grab your wrist, securing them behind your back with the belt, tying them. just as you were about to let out a sound of protest, you felt his cock prod at your entrance, causing you to instinctively push your thighs together but getting blocked by ni-ki’s hand.

he held your thighs apart before roughly slamming in, not giving you a warning making you let out a sharp cry of his name.

“ni-ki-! fuck-!” you cried out, fighting against the restraints your hands were bound in. eventually you resorted to digging your fingers into you palm, using it as some sort of way to ground yourself to reality. ni-ki barely slowed down before picking up a relentless pace, pushing his cock deep into you before pulling out completely, only to slam himself back again.

you heard him groan and dig his fingers into your hips as you pushed your hips up, doing your best to meet his thrusts even though you barely could due to how fast he was going. you were surely going to have bruises everywhere, tomorrow.

“take it, so fucking.. gh- pretty for me-“ you could tell ni-ki had lost all of the control he had earlier too due to the way he was groaning and letting out slurs of praises and degradation. “my pretty slut, right?” he snapped his hips up to emphasise every word he said. “my. pretty. fucktoy. all fucking mine-“

“hah- ni-ki! yours, yours, please-! slow down-“ you could barely register how loud you were but also you couldn’t care less, just letting out sobs of his name as he continued ramming his cock into your cunt.

he slowed down just a little before pulling out and turning you around. “fuck, you’re being too loud. do you really want all the guards outside to find out how much of a dumb cockslut you are, huh?” he smirked at you before grabbing the panties you were wearing, that was now soaked in your release and wetness, and shoved it into your mouth. you let out a sound of surprise but as quickly as it came, it was replaced by ni-ki slamming back into you, this time pushing one of your legs onto your chest and the other on his shoulder, the new spot causing you to practically black out as he thrusted into you.

all that could be heard from you were pathetic whimpers that were muffled against your panties, a constant reminder of his effect on you. and shit, the sight? it was sending ni-ki into overdrive, taking everything inside him to control himself from releasing then and there. and it didn’t help that your cunt was gripping him like a vice.

you arch your back as you reach your high, shaking as you released on his cock. you cried out, tears clouding your vision.

“that’s it baby- cream on my cock like that.” he groaned, throwing his head back and letting out quiet, guttural moans. “shit im close- where do you want me to-“ you quickly interrupt him by pushing your hips up, despite being insanely tired to do so, to signal that you wanted him to finish inside you.

you felt him twitch at your action, before one of his hands come up to wrap around your throat, shoving you deeper into the counter. he was already going insane every time he looked at you, which was practically all the time since his eyes were always on you, due to how fucking cute you looked, so much smaller compared to him. and now you want him to fill you up? “fuck, yeah? you want me to fill this pretty pussy up? fucking breed you and make you all fucking mine, hm?” you sob out his name, nodding to agree as his words made it all the more pleasurable, shaking from the overstimulation.

you feel your release nearing once again causing you to moan out his name again “gh- ni-ki!”, unable to even wrap your mind around how you were already this close again. ni-ki’s moans increased in sound before he finally slammed into you one last time, filling you up with his release, you following right after. he slowly stilled, still thrusting into you and riding out both of your releases before finally stopping.

the room was filled with the smell of sex and your deep breaths joining together. you wrapped your hands around his neck to pull ni-ki in, and he obliged, slowly placing his lips on yours, a stark contrast to the atmosphere just a few seconds ago.

and all you two could think about was,

‘well, damn. that was the best mistake you both had made in your lives’

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note: damn this lowkey brain vomit filth do forgive me if this is bad i was losing it towards the end and i suck at smut AND i didnt cross check this

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