#and most of the time he handles it very well.

[bi-writes]

hi! i was thinking if you could write an older!boyfriend simon x reader BUT reader is john price's daughter so is kinda of a forbidden and secret relationship !!!! they've been dating for a long time now until john finds out !!!!!

18+

"how is she?"

"doing well, john. but you don't have to worry about her anymore, you know that right? she's not yours to worry about."

"she is mine. i know she's not..." john huffs. "she may not be blood, but she's mine, yeah? so when i ask 'ow she is, you tell me, kate. can we agree on that?"

"sure, john. she's in georgia. her russian got very good. if you want to know my honest opinion, i think she'll be one of my best."

"well...i wouldn't stand for anythin' less."

"john?"

that voice is music to him. he turns, taking his hat off, and he laughs, genuinely, when he sees you. his whole face lights up, and you make your way to him. it's been months since you've seen him in person--even though he makes you send him constant updates about what you're doing and where you are, you find yourself missing this man and the warmth he gives off whenever you are in his proximity.

he's always looked at you so kindly. he's always taken care of you. whenever you pick up the phone, he's always answered.

"'ello, bug."

he crushes you in a warm hug. he puts a hand on the back of your neck and holds you to his chest, and the tension in his shoulders deflates now that he has you with him.

"hi, john. miss me?"

"well...you were the only one with sense in my house."

"you live alone, john."

"aye."

he pours you a hot cup of tea before he makes you tell him all about your new posting. most of it is classified, and you tell him that, but his face lights up when you talk about the new skills you're learning and all the opportunities that kate is giving you. his face scrunches a little when you talk about the more dangerous ops, but john never has the same regard for his own life.

the mess hall gets busy once dinner time rolls around. his men were not expecting you, and that much is clear when they see their captain even enjoying a meal in public and not secluded in his office. you smile at his sergeants, but when your gaze lingers a little longer on the doors, johnny just nudges you with his elbow.

"miss the big guy?"

"what? no."

"he had a long night last night," he wiggles his eyebrows at gaz, who just laughs a little. "i might need to try the whole brooding, scary look LT has got on. attracts the most bonnie things, fuckin' christ."

your plate flies when you stab at your food too hard. the cutlery clatters as it hits the floor, and you jump a little, swallowing.

"are you alright, bug?"

"huh? yeah, oh...yeah, just...fucking clumsy. i...i'm gonna...find the toilet."

the blood is rushing in your ears as you make your way out. you're vibrating, hot inside, and you feel him before you see him, even in your anger.

when he pulls you into the shadow of a nearby supply closet, you swipe the blade out of your boot and hold it up against his throat. even through the mask, the blade bites, and he hisses as you hold him up against the wall there.

"don't fucking touch me," you snarl, and ghost's eyes are bright and alive as he holds his hands up defensively.

"wot--"

"and don't what me," you snap. "actually, don't fucking talk at all, you cheating, manipulative, british piece of shit--"

"look so pretty," he murmurs, tilting his head to the side. "did you do y'r hair, baby?"

"i will kill you."

"'s olright. last thing i see'll be you."

"i'm not fucking kidding, simon!"

he bends a little, tilting his head, and you breathe out through your nose as he leans his forehead against yours.

"reckon ya spoke t'johnny."

you scoff. "told me all about your winnings last night, lieutenant."

"was no winnings, love, don't be so fuckin' naïve." simon swipes at the handle of the blade, curling his gloved fingers around your wrist and forcing it away from him. "y'r just mad cause y'r cunt missed me."

"don't flatter yourself, asshole."

"so if i pull your knickers down right now, y'won't be drippin', swee'eart?"

"that's irrelevant."

"'s not. turn around and bend over."

simon's sorry, so he eats your pussy from behind. he gets down on his knees, and the crack of them satisfies you immensely, up until you feel his mouth between your cheeks, tongue slicking up your folds. you brace yourself against the wall, palms flat against the concrete as he puts two gloved hands against your ass and spreads you wide to fit himself nicely there. he hums, groans, makes you whine as he slurps obscenely into your cunt, laving at the drip of you until the taste of you floods his mouth.

"simon..." you whimper. "tell me i-it's not true."

he presses a wet kiss to your ass, biting it firm.

"'s not true, love. promise."

"fuck your promises," you sniffle. "you're a professional liar."

"tha' 'ow it's gonna be, innit? not gonna trust me? believe me?"

you rest your forehead against the cool wall, and the shadow of him envelopes you when he stands. he grunts a little as he gets to his feet. his big hands squeeze at the curve of your waist, and you close your eyes when you feel his breath against your neck.

"i'm sorry, simon."

"for wot?"

"i just...i like you so much. so much."

"come 'ere," he murmurs in your ear. he pulls your hips back, pressing your ass against his pelvis, and you dig your nails into the wall when you hear his belt buckle and zipper. "my pretty girl. my pretty, pretty girl."

"i missed you s-so much, simon."

"i know, love. quiet now. someone'll hear."

it's not the worst place you've fucked. you've snuck quickies in the rec room. behind the mess hall. met up in filthy gas station toilets, fallen into the backseat of a car in the parking lot of numerous military bases. even once, you deigned to suck his dick in his office, and you had to hide behind his couch when john came in to ask about an op.

john had a rule. his men were off-limits. he should've thought about that before he hired a man straight out of your wet dreams for his stupid fucking task force.

you're weak. and simon is a man.

inevitable.

you're a mile into pound-town when someone interrupts. simon is cock-deep inside of you, pelvis up against your ass, one hand braced around your throat and the other squeezing your ass. your eyes are rolled back into your head, and there's drooling coming out of your mouth. it's hot, disgusting, filthy to let him have you like this, but it's been weeks since you've seen him, and the phone calls aren't enough.

you love talking to him. you love when he talks to you. he'll never be annoying to you, you'll never get tired of him, but the distances hurts. you want simon to be all around you--inside of you, against you, his voice in your ear and his mouth against yours and his warmth your only sheet, but you can't bring yourself to do more than this.

you're too afraid of disappointing people. you're too scared of simon's rejection. if your relationship is nothing but fun, nothing but sex, you can pretend it isn't real, but you're just lying to yourself now.

you babble, and it sounds like love, but then the hallway light blinds you, and familiar blue eyes nearly kill you.

"jesus christ!"

simon puts his body in front of yours to cover you, using a harsh boot to kick the door closed. you squeak, covering your face with your hands, and you groan audibly as simon pants against your back.

"fuck--" you gasp. "oh...fuck, fuck, fuck!"

simon buries his face into the crook of your neck, laughing a little.

"bloody hell," he breathes. "reckon we're fucked, huh, love?"

"it's not funny, simon! we're in so much trouble!"

"well..." he squeezes your throat gently, tilting your head back. "could still finish. no sense in pretendin' now."

"you are not going to come when he's probably waiting for us outside."

"i'm balls deep in my favorite girl," simon mutters. "could come just fine. just say the word."

"you're disgusting."

"mmm..." simon squeezes your hips. "keep talkin'. i like when y'talk t'me like tha'."

"fucking asshole."

"yeah...yeah."

"you stupid, immature, unhinged pain in my ass--"

"fuck."

well.

you're definitely never leaving this room.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

(Answer this after watching Chapter 4)

I NEED an X Reader where Reader comforts Doey after he's first frozen, or maybe one where Reader literally smacks some sense into Doey after the Safe Haven blows up(and we need the refugees to escape PLEASE-)

"Oh, it's you! Is the Doctor...?"

"No. Not yet. I'm working on it." You shook your head, looking apologetically at the doughy toy that had recently become one of your allies.

Even though you were just halfway through your trip through "No Man's Land", you're relieved that you didn't have to worry about Yarnaby following you around. You could have certainly used Doey's help beforehand, but he did save you from Pianosaurus at a critical moment where you thought it was truly the end for you.

Besides that, you were used to dealing with things on your own.

You sent Huggy into a pitfall, killed Mommy Long Legs, and set Catnap and Yarnaby ablaze without really anyone's assistance.

Killing the Doctor, on the other hand, was going to be a very different challenge. He wasn't some Bigger Body with flaws you could exploit--he was cruel, calculating, and wanted to prey on your fear and reasons for coming back to this factory.

Not to mention the Prototype, who was working with the mastermind behind the experiments for reasons still unclear to you. But the "why" wasn't important to you right now--letting this place burn down is what mattered most.

Doey was rather opposed to the idea of setting explosives in the foundation, although after everything you've seen (and knowing him and Poppy have probably seen things ten times worse), you were on board with the plan.

Because what was the alternative?

Letting all these toys starve and cannibalize each other? Waiting for some other poor soul like yourself to come here and die? Allowing the Prototype to have his way?

Absolutely not.

First things first..you had to find the omni hand for your grabpack, knowing it would give you greater access to the facility's systems. Apparently the Doctor had it under lock and key, meaning you had to take him out of commission before you could reach it.

At some point in your mission, you came across Doey again, who was inspecting a pipe. You felt a little bad for disappointing him when you said the Doctor wasn't dead yet, although he must have known it was going to take you some time.

But who could blame him? Him and the others have waited years and years for an opportunity like this. For someone like you to come along and save them.

He couldn't be at fault for being so eager.

"I figured as much." He sighed, smiling at you as he turned away from the pipe. "I've been here gathering parts for the generator."

"Really? Where's all the.....oh." You stopped yourself upon seeing him holding his stomach and giggling. "Right."

"Yup! LOTS of--ah!"

Without any warning, the pipe burst open with loud hiss and began spraying a cloud of cold gas directly onto him. Upon contact with his body, he became frozen solid.

You stood there in shock for a moment, before remembering that dough didn't mix well with the cold, and you panicked as you looked for a way to stop the flow of gas.

Then you looked up to see a switch, using one of your grabpack hands to turn the handle. Fortunately that seemed to do the trick, as the cloud dissipated almost instantly, allowing Doey to thaw out rather fast.

Despite your quick actions, he seemed thoroughly shaken, his eyes wide and his yellow arm stretched out, dragging it behind him as he quickly huddled into the nearest corner of the rooms.

"Hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts, HURTS!!!" He cried out, his arm morphing back into its usual shape as he tries taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

You frowned slightly and approached him, ignoring the opening doors for the moment. "Doey, are you okay?"

"N-No. He's made it impossible for me to get around here!" He snapped at you. "Traps like this are everywhere!"

His voice sounded different--with a lot more aggression to it, and so you kept your distance, feeling yourself growing tense.

You had to remember that no matter how innocent or kind these toys appeared to be...they were traumatized and obviously not of sound mind. They could turn on you at the drop of a hat.

Either that, or they're simply animals with unpredictable behaviors.

But you knew Doey wasn't some animal. He was an ally, someone you had learned to trust.

Your gut says that you seriously shouldn't, considering how trusting Mommy almost got you eaten alive, and trusting Poppy led to her redirecting the train and dragging you further into this mess.

But once you saw things from her point of view, you've come to realize that this wasn't something you could just walk away from.

How could you go on with life knowing all of this was happening beneath your feet? Especially now that she believes you were the only person who could help everyone who's suffered here--or at least whoever's left.

She put a lot of faith in you, and you couldn't let her down.

Although she definitely wanted you to hurry, you had to at least take the time to make sure Doey was okay after that trap was set off.

"It's the cold that hurts....th-the big mean Doctor knows that.." He sniffled, now sounding on the verge of tears as he hugged himself.

"And that's why I'm gonna stop him." You promised. "I'm gonna find whatever's left of that prick and destroy him. Once and for all."

"...I-I know. You can go on ahead. I'll..I'll be okay...I'll be okay..."

Despite what he says, you knew he very much wasn't okay just yet.

Then you had an idea.

"I know you will be. But first..."

The clay creature looked at you, seeing you open your arms up, the grabpack's mechanisms down at your sides. "Can I get a hug for the road, big guy?"

Doey sniffled again, at first hesitant to respond, but seeing your sweet attitude and the hope written on your face brought a smile back to his own features.

He nodded and hugged you tightly, squishing you against him and lifting you off the ground a few feet.

The smells of clay and dough were overwhelming, but they're a lot better than the other...ghastly scents you've somehow grown desensitized to.

"Of course you can, buddy!" He laughed. "You'll need it!" After a few moments, he set you down and checked to make sure he didn't leave any residue on you or your grabpack. "Thank you. That...made me feel a lot better."

"I'm glad. I feel better, too." You chuckled, adjusting the straps before making your way further into No Man's Land, praying that you'd make it to the Doctor's hideout and back to the Safe Haven alive.

They were all counting on you.

You couldn't fail.

Not after everything you've been through.

[jensthwa]

mountebank chem pt. four (JYH x reader).

part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.

SUMMARY:

* 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤: 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐲. The first time you met Yunho, you knew he was going to be part of the biggest tragedy of your life: the loss of your freedom, of your free will. You didn't know why back then but what you did figure out is that you and Jeong Yunho were going to, eventually and very publicly, date each other at some point. Is that reason enough to hate his guts? Well, of course! Now, when the time comes to fulfill the prophecy, how the hell are you going to pull it off? And, most importantly, what do you need to do to not fall in love with him in the process?

PAIRING: rich!yunho x afab!rich!reader.

GENRE: enemies to friends to lovers.

WORD COUNT: 24.1k.

WARNINGS & TAGS: SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, dual pov (both yunho's and reader's), use of fem pronouns sometimes, angsty angst that angsts in the form a verbal fight, tears, unresolved feelings and denial, tension, a heartfelt conversations with bro and lots of yearning!, a time jump (three months or so), mingi and love being unhelpful but helpful at the same time, yeosang being a cutie pie and a little bit of his story gets mentioned!, the L word, confessions, apologies, mentions of body dysmorphia and body related insecurities, soft!dom yunho (he's a little bossy), switch!reader (oc hates to let him win i guess), reader has breasts and a vagina, mirror play, teasing, light choking, messy kisses and makeouts, masturbation (f), just the tiniest bit of voyeurism, praise kink if you squint oh my god, fingering, multiple orgasms, love making (who else cried), the post-sex convo and more feelings and dreams are discussed.

NOTES: hi everyone! WE MADE IT!!!!! here's part four of this mini series that is PART OF THE LOVE'S AN UNCHARTED PATH. after this, there's an epilogue/little part five to let everyone know sort of what happens after this + to set up the next story in the universe. i also just want to adress that one of you kindly suggested to change up some of the terminology i use in the warnings and for some other things in the fic itself and i thank that person a lot! but i also want to encourage you, if you feel something's missing or if i can do anything to be more inclusive in my stories, to let me know! i hope you all enjoy it part four of mbc, we've come a looong way and i'm happy on how this turned out. this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3

POSTED: february 2nd 2025.

taglist: @kyunlov, @tinyelfperson, @0115degrees, @daniela-f-uwu, @ultrapinkvoidbouquet, @kyeomooniee, @fairylover68, @sushiinmidnight, @qveenbunni, @calmoistorm, @potatomountain, @svintsandghosts, @lemonkait00, @blue5ummer, @fancypeacepersona, @hyukssunflower, @i-love-ateez, @alsomimi, @e3ellie, @st3ft0n3s, @hotteokkay, @xylatox

masterlist - part one - part two. part three.

You dream about him. Every night. 

His mouth on yours and his hands handling you with care fill the gray matter of your brain and rots it. It fits you. 

A rotten brain for a rotten person. 

The scenario repeats in a loop in your head even when you're awake, alone in your house office, accompanied by staff at the main office building. It doesn't really matter what you're doing, who you're with or if the task at hand requires your full attention, Yunho still invades your mind and makes you feel like you're leaping, flying through skies and then falling, falling, falling, before hitting the ground hard. 

Because at the end of the memory, it plays what you did. 

The way you pulled away, the way you left him there without a proper explanation. 

You didn't have dinner with your brother, it was over nine o'clock at night. You needed an escape goat, a plan, an excuse to flee from the happiness you grasped with your sticky, messy, disgusting fingers. 

Everything you touch seems to turn to shit. 

So you can't touch Jeong Yunho even if you want to. 

You shan't, you won’t, even when he’s so close to you it takes a lot for you to hold back. He’s a message away, a meeting away from you. And his messages on your phone kept piling up this week until they didn’t. 

And now, as you watch him enter the meeting in a suit and tie, you do your best to pretend nothing happened between you even though it's supposed to. To everyone else's eyes, you’re still a couple. 

You’re grateful for that. You don’t sit together, you can’t sit together. Of course you can't, that would be very unprofessional. You can't voice your opinion about any decisions made by his team (or rather, his brother's team) today because that would look like you're doing it to either spite him or to be on your boyfriend's side, it would look like corruption! 

God bless the stupid societal and corporate norms. You won't even have to speak to him today, if you're lucky. You know he's shadowing his brother today, learning his way through these meetings you've been attending for years or at least pretending to do so.

There's absolutely no reason to speak to him today. 

Yay. 

Soohyun sits at your left, at the head of the table, and Yunho sits with his brother at Soohyun’s left. Neither your father or his are here today so everyone’s shoulders are a little less tense and the meeting is a quarterly one, which means people are going to be explaining graphics and reading numbers you have to stay focused on. 

There's things you have to write down, there's statements you have to whisper in your brother's ear so he can say them out loud instead of you. 

But Yunho looks way too good in his suit and tie and it's a little distracting. 

And he's looking right at you, too. 

You can hear your co-workers immediately gossiping about it, you can see your brother turn to you, then to him, then to you and you can faintly see how he raises a brow. Faintly, because you're pretending to read over some papers in front of you by the time he bumps your leg to try and catch your attention. 

You step on his foot under the table, he mutters an offended ouch and pinches your arm in retaliation, which causes you to stop pretending to eye the documents and turn to him. 

“Stop it.” 

“You started it,” he says and then Soohyun gives you that look that lets you know he knows something you don't, although it can possibly be like that because he's a clueless little shit. “Did something happen between yo—” 

Well, maybe not as clueless. Good thing you wore great heels today, the face he makes as he's trying to pretend that the sharp end of your Louis Vuitton is not stabbing him in the leg feels like a victory. 

“Keep quiet, the meeting is starting.” 

Oh, how you love winning. 

The thing is, you can't even enjoy it now. Yunho’s face pops up on your mind again and it serves as a reminder of just how close he is. 

As someone from the sales team starts their presentation, your eyes drift to Yunho in a way that feels oddly familiar. 

There, trying to stay upright even though you know he's zoning everything out, there's this memory from your junior year in highschool that never tortured you the way it does now. 

Although he's always been very tall, Yunho used to sit near the window, in the second row of the classroom you both shared that year. Not his decision, certainly whoever made that decision was not the sharpest tool on the shed because all he did was look out of the window and close his eyes when the teachers were not paying enough attention to him. 

And you used to stare at him just like you're doing now. Through the corner of your eye, with your back straightened and ninety percent of your attention on the topic at hand. He held the other ten percent, tenderly, softly, without realizing what he was doing. 

Just like he held you that night. 

At the time, you wondered what went on in his head every time he drifted away from the class. New ways of making your life impossible? A new insult to your integrity, maybe? Highschool Yunho was everyone's dream but, for you, he meant nothing but nightmares and headaches. 

Nothing has changed much. 

But instead of wondering if he's thinking about new ways of pestering you with his presence, now your heart races at the possibility of him thinking about the kisses you two shared last week. 

You hope no one notices the sudden shift on the chair or the gulp you make to keep your emotions buried deep down inside of you, where no one can reach them. 

Trying to regain focus and ignore Yunho completely, you look at the projected graphics in front of you. The person doing the presentation turns to the next slide as soon as you're beginning to understand what the hell they're talking about. Surprisingly, your brother turns to whisper at you about it. 

“The new company sales are lower than expected.” 

When you turn fully to him, you can see he's biting his cheek in concerned concentration. You want to roll your eyes. 

“I told dad no one would care about this company and you were the one who approved for us to go forward with it.” 

“I know.” 

“Dumbass,” you whisper, scrunching your nose and turning to the presentation again but your brother nudges you slightly and you have to look at him again. 

Only for your eyes to completely bypass him and land in Yunho. 

God fucking damnit.

Is this what having a crush is like? Is tortuous and you hate this even more than when you couldn't stand seeing his face out of pure annoyance. 

This is why you probably never had a crush on anyone before. But it's strange, because it doesn't feel like something new. Yes, Yunho attending meetings is new but the feeling is familiar and grossly nostalgic of something you feel like you left behind.

And now has come back in full force. 

You never had a crush on Yunho, at least not that you know of. 

But this feeling is telling you otherwise and it's maddening and disgusting and— 

“Something definitely happened, hm?” 

Eyes flicking over your brother's sudden concerned expression, you push back on the seat and sink in it a little. This way, when you look up to him, Yunho is nowhere in sight. When you speak again, you make sure only Soohyun hears you. 

“We can save it, don't worry about it. I'll write up a proposal of how we can market the concept of the company in a way that it at least piques people's interest.” 

Your brother huffs, unsatisfied with your deflection and the way you visibly close up at the mere thought of telling him if something did happen between you and Yunho. 

But he says nothing. It stings that you know he's going to leave it at that, the support you're supposed to have slipping through your fingers as you do your best to keep your feelings to yourself. It's not his fault, not really. 

He doesn't know any better. 

You don't know any better, either. 

But your focus on the meeting comes back and you end it with thirteen pages of virtual notes and a list of things you need to do today to keep this shitshow of a company afloat. 

There's a split second when you get out of the room that you feel Yunho’s eyes on you. You're afraid he's going to take the opportunity to talk to you, so you look up and around trying to find something, someone you can use as a distraction, as a shield. 

But then there's like four pairs of hands dragging him away and you see that annoyed glint in his eye, usually reserved for you, as they turn him around and away from you. 

Yes, of course they wouldn't let him speak to you right now. He's shadowing his brother, he has important things to do! 

Yay. 

You ignore the beating of your heart as you move quickly through the halls. Soohyun and Gunho are already aiming for the elevator so you opt for the stairs, knowing you won't have to speak to anyone at all if you get to your office like this. 

Well, Soohyun's office. You have yours on a lower floor, not as unnecessary space-taking as his, but you usually work there because you enjoy the view. 

So when you finally close the door behind you and the view is blocked by thirty piled up boxes you start thinking that the universe is upset with you. Is this your karma? Everything and everyone against you just because you walked out of a kiss before making a mistake? 

Is not like Yunho cares that much about you anyway!

Huffing, you look around the room until your eyes land on that stupid tree you started painting when Soohyun told you he wanted to redecorate his office. Its branches extend just a little more than what you remember and there’s a part of it that was unfinished the last time you saw it. You can only assume either Seonghwa or your brother had something to do with it.

Which sucks. 

Because you’re so painting over the stupid tree one day. 

You stare at it while your mind wanders. Head slowly filling up with noise, you finally feel at ease when your thoughts are nothing but work: You need to write up a proposal to that stupid vintage-esque focused company to see if there’s some salvation for it. You need to speak with marketing, get one of them to go along the process with you. You need to sit down with your brother and kindly tell him to never allow something like this to ever happen again. 

Making a mental list to organize and prioritize everything you need to do, you barely register footsteps echoing in the long hall. You should’ve, because it’s lunchtime and there’s no one on the floor, but you don’t. 

And so when the person you least want to see comes through the door and lets out a heavy sigh, you turn to him like he grew a second nose over the course of the twenty minutes you last saw each other. 

“I hate it here, I truly do.” 

It almost makes you want to laugh, but you remain stoic as you move through the office. You take a few boxes and you put them down on the floor until there’s some light leaking through the window and illuminating the space enough for it not to give you a headache as you work. 

Sitting on your brother's chair, barely sparing him another glance before turning on the desk computer and pulling up an empty document. You click and tap a few meaningless things: You pick the font, you mess with the font size for a second before setting it back to its default. Anything to help you look busy and not like your heart is going a million miles per second. 

“Can I help you with anything, Yunho?” 

Blurry, in the background, you can see him look around the office, probably taking the mess in. He moves too, walks until his expensive shoes are tip to tip  with a literal mannequin resting against the wall. 

You stop paying attention as you write the date and the proposal title. Something simple, something that both your father and the CEO of the dumb not-approved-by-you company that has you in this predicament can understand. You hate to say that you assume they’re not very smart if they put out such a dated and non profitable idea for their company. 

Still, you try to address Yunho like nothing’s bothering you and like you’re not nervous you two are in a room alone after everything that went down. 

“You can ask Seonghwa what that means,” you start, sighing like his friend and your brother are hopeless. Because maybe that’s what they are. “They’re not running any ideas by me even though I’m the one that spends the most time in this office, so.” 

“Hm,” he starts and you can hear him walking around, but your focus is now on the first few words of the proposal. You realize there’s really nothing you can start before speaking with marketing and so you open the notes app, to have a list of ideas to run through them at least. “Thought you worked from home.” 

“I do. I have an office three floors down, too.” It’s easy sharing information with him now, especially if it means there’s something to talk about that’s not… Well, the kiss. “I hate it, it’s in a corner and people can see into it. It’s easier to work here.” 

“And Soohyun hyung doesn’t mind?”

“Considering he’s never here, I doubt it.” 

“Cool, cool.” 

There’s something in his tone that makes you want to look up, lump in your throat growing in size enough for you to cough it away. You don’t look up, you can’t look up even if you’ve misspelled the word rebrand like four times already. 

But then the light you managed to cast onto the space disappears completely. You feel something besides you, the soft material of an expensive suit blazer grazing your arm and cheek. You see veiny, masculine hands secure themselves around the arms of the chair before he’s turning you to face him. 

You gulp. 

He’s leaning down close, closer than he should be, closer than what he’s allowed to be considering anyone can walk in on you. You’re flushing, you can feel the redness creep up your neck and heating your ears and face before you gather the courage of raising a questioning brow. Yunho stays silent, his eyes scanning your face and briefly landing on your lips before returning your stare. 

“Can I help you with anything, Yunho?” You ask him again, quieter this time, voice trembling a little. 

“Princess,” he starts, the corner of his lip raising just a little, like it’s funny he has to say what he’s about to say, “are you ghosting me?” 

Shit. 

“Why would you— Why would I—,” a nervous chuckle abandons you and then you huff, trying to seem offended at his accusation, “W-what do you mean by that?” 

Leaning into your space a tiny bit more, he repeats “Are you ghosting me?” 

Creasing your brow, you straighten in the chair but do nothing to pull him away “No.”

“Then what about the ten messages I sent you and you left on delivered?” 

Faking a surprised gasp, you move to take your phone out of the pocket of your jacket and unlock it to swipe through your messages “You did? Oh, my God, I’ve been soooo busy.” 

“You’re shit at lying to me.” 

“I’m not lying to you—” 

“Are you okay?” 

Your eyes snap from the phone to his face, genuine annoyance creasing your eyebrows this time. 

“You don’t have to ask me that everytime you see me, Jeong.” 

“But are you?” He asks as you finally find his chat and open the messages you dreaded to see the entire time that passed. There’s a few of them practically begging you to speak to him, one apologizing for the kiss and the other ones you don’t even see because Yunho is taking the phone from your hand and placing it on the desk next to you. “I mean, what happened didn’t trigger anyth—” 

You hate he’s this considerate with you, even after you clearly walked out of the situation with a poorly formulated excuse.

“What happened was a mistake.” 

Yunho physically deflates and lets the chair go, the tension on your shoulders lifting a little now that he’s not as close. 

“What?” 

“It was a mistake, we shouldn’t have done that. We’re professionally obligated to work together, fake all of this together, so it shouldn’t���” You pause and consider for a bit before doing something you never do: take the blame “I shouldn’t have. I apologize.” 

Letting out a breath, you turn the chair and delete the misspelled rebrand to write it the correct way, heart too weak to even look at his reaction. It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re never doing anything like it again. 

You hear him shuffle with the boxes at both your feet and, from the corner of your eye, you see him turning away from you and then back, hands on his hips “I don't think it was a mistake.” 

“Well, it was.” 

“I liked it.” 

That brings out a genuine, short lived laugh out of you “Thank you, I’m a great kisser.” 

You open your brother’s email and pretend there’s an urgent matter inside the contents of one of them until Yunho’s hand closes over yours, over the mouse. 

“Y/N.” 

There’s a lot of things about Jeong Yunho you hate: The swoop of his hair when there’s no gel on it, the free aspect to his nature you’re never going to get even if you try to, that one time he called you an ugly giant after wearing platforms for the first time ever. 

And the sweetness of his voice when he says your name, the plea you hear on it and the shudder it brings to your spirit. It shakes you, it moves you to look at him again, to actually take his feelings into consideration. 

He’s staring at you with so much hurt, it makes your heart sink into an abyss of guilt. 

“Hm?” 

“I think I like you.” 

Oh. 

Oh, no. 

Your heart drowns deeper, your resentment towards the situation grows branches like the tree on the wall. They hug your pride and your ego, they poke you on your side for reciprocating Yunho’s feelings just a little. 

Well, a lot.

“You think?” You ask him and your voice sounds far away. He nods. You stand up from the chair, hand squeezing his before letting drop. “Stop thinking then.” 

His eyes closing shut and his jaw tensing is the last thing you see before you busy yourself with the boxes against the window. You pick up two at a time, heavy and the cardboard smelly as you walk to the other side of the office, away from him. 

“I’m being serious, Y/N.” 

You sigh “So am I, Yunho. You don’t like me, you liked that I kissed you.” 

“Oh, I forgot you know exactly what goes through my mind and my heart, thank you for the remainder!” 

Looking at him over your shoulder, you drop the boxes against the corner wall “Lower. Your. Voice.” 

“No, no. Because that’s not an appropriate response to what I just told you!” He walks towards you and you meet him halfway, heart beating with annoyance at the way he’s speaking to you. He towers over you again, jaw clenched and voice a mere murmur when he speaks again “You have no say in what I feel, how I feel it, when I feel it.” 

“I know I don’t, you idiot. I was just providing you with a bit of perspective.” 

“Perspective?”

“What do you like about me?” Chin up and nose scrunched in a way it only does when you’re really angry, you insist “Why now? Why do you suddenly care? Is it out of pity? Is it because it’s convenient, because we’re already pretending? Is it because you want to fuck me?!”

“Watch it, Y/N.” His tone is laced with clear offense at what you offered just a second ago. 

“You don’t like me,” you start, shaking your head, “you can’t like me.” 

“Why not?!” 

He’s breathing hard, walking backwards, offering up his palms to the sky and looking around the room like any of that is going to give him an answer to his questions. 

“Why not?” He repeats and there’s that hurt in his voice that, for some reason, makes your eyes water. Are you having a panic attack? A heart attack? Everything hurts. Liking Yunho hurts, wanting him hurts. He comes back, his eyes searching yours even though you can’t do anything but cast them down, to your shoes and his shoes and the boxes and the carpet “Why can’t I like you, princess? What’s not to like? What kind of self-deprecating ideas do 

you have in your head that makes you think I can’t care about you like that?”

Shaking your head again and closing your eyes, you are barely able to stifle a sob and force your tears back. You want to tell him that that’s not the reason but you would be lying to him if you did. 

That’s part of the reason. 

Behind the whole letting your mother’s win argument, there’s an undeniable amount of self hatred that can’t let you feel like there’s any truth behind his words. 

Why would he like you? Why would he care about you? 

Your hands are dirty and sticky and your being is way too clumsy, so everything you love drops and breaks and turns to dust before your eyes. The fact that there’s this whole fake relationship deal in the middle of it and you can place the blame on your mothers is a blessing in disguise. 

It’s a weapon you can use. 

Even if you don’t want to: His hands are cradling your face, his forehead dropping against yours and drawing a surprised gasp out of you because you didn’t even feel him get him close. 

“I like you, I care about you,” there’s certainty in his tone, like he made up his mind, like he’s confirming his feelings to both you and himself, “I… I—” He takes a breath when you open your eyes and beg him to not say what you think he’s about to say. He takes the hint. “Do you not like me back, Y/N? Are you trying to… Is that what’s happening?” 

You say nothing, but swallow back your feelings and brace yourself on his forearms, nose budging his as you move a little. 

He reads your silence wrong “Y-you do?” 

You think it matters if you do or not. Your heart is already breaking by the time the words are on the tip of your tongue. 

“We can’t,” you whisper to him, letting your tears wet your cheeks and squeezing his forearms when his thumbs start to move in trying to dry them, shaking your head to signal him to stop. As your eyes catch his, you prepare yourself for the gentleness you’re about to lose, with the care you’re about to push away for his own good. “Because if we do, they win.” 

You didn’t know your heart could break this way, as you watch his expression morph from confusion to pain to utter, genuine anger. It’s the same face he made last week, in your living room, as he yelled at his mother for even daring suggesting that you two should be together. 

There’s a time when hurting Yunho brought you some sense of vengeance, a time where you considered it payback for being that person literally planned and made for you. 

Now, you want to hit your head against the wall for even daring filling his eyes with tears, for being the reason frustration descends and wets his shoes as he looks down. 

“Oh.” 

He lets you go and you miss it. You immediately want to take your words back, push him closer to you, hug him, kiss him, whatever it may be to keep him next to you.

You start to mourn the loss of the bond you were able to form with him right away. 

And it hurts. 

He nods again. And it hurts. “Oh, that’s what this is about.” 

It fucking hurts. When he laughs, hands on his face as he wipes his tears away, you feel like you’re going to pass out. 

“And you don’t care about me enough to tell them to go fuck themselves.” He says, a resentful statement that leaves his lips before a breathy laugh does. 

Opening your mouth, you attempt to contradict his words. That’s not true at all, he has to understand, he understands you, he— He raises his hand to stop you from speaking, he shakes his head like he doesn’t want to hear it. 

Like your excuses, even if he hasn't listened to them at all, are not worth his time. 

“I get it.” No, you don’t. “I understand.” No, you really don’t. 

But you say nothing. As he’s slipping through your fingers like sand, at your own doing, you just stare at him with sorrowful eyes and an apology on your teeth. 

He looks at you like he’s expecting you to stop him as he reaches the door. You want to, you really do. 

You don’t. 

“Thanks for letting me know.”

When the door closes behind him and leaves you alone in an office that’s not really yours, feeling like you’re not yourself, you finally allow the reality of what you just did to hit you. 

Hand shaking, you cover your mouth and let out a sob as you let yourself cry what you just lost. But, as you do, you remind yourself that you don’t really deserve Yunho’s care. 

You don’t really deserve his love. 

Hurting him is probably the easiest way out he has of whatever he thinks he’s feeling for you. 

Walking slowly to the desk, you wipe your tears away and nod to yourself. Yes, this is exactly what needed to happen. Good. Yes. What were you doing before he came in? 

You grab the mouse. 

Ah, the proposal. Of course. 

The noise comes back, louder this time. Unbearable and ear-piercing, it forces you to close your eyes and listen to the beat of your heart before you push the sound away. You can’t afford to crash right now.

You skim through your tasks in your mind and, as you do, the reminder of a little notification you saw on your calendar this morning, with Yunho’s name on it, is what finally lets the panic break through your senses. 

“No.” 

And you spend the rest of the afternoon typing your escape plan away. 

By the time your brother remembers he has an office, it’s dark outside and the proposal is

printed and in a folder placed neatly in the middle of his desk. 

He closes the door, raising an eyebrow at the way you’re resting your shoulder against the window behind his chair, the boxes blocking them all piled up in the corner you initially started moving them to this afternoon. 

“You’re still here.” He muses and you turn to him, scoffing at the obvious. 

“Well, somebody has to work.” 

“I was working,” he sounds a little bit offended, but when he passes in front of you and pulls back his chair to sit on it, you faintly smell whisky and cigarettes. “I was at a meeting in the gentlemen's club with Gunho.” 

“That’s hardly working, Soohyun.” 

Looking over his shoulder, he’s face to face with your unimpressed expression. Of course he went to the stupid club with Gunho, of course he didn’t do shit today. 

“Let me remind you that I am, in fact, older than you.” 

“And?”

“I deserve respect and zero questioning.” 

You hum, slightly amused this time. You know he’s goofing around, you know he’s hardly mad at the implication that you do all the work he’s supposed to do plus yours but there’s this slight worry in his face that’s unusual.  

“Is Gunho oppa okay?” 

Your brother frowns “Of course he is.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m— Why are you asking?” 

Shrugging, you turn away from him to look at the city through the window again. You can see the river and the buildings that encapsulate it perfectly and it brings you a strange sense of comfort everytime you zone out and just people watch those who feel free enough to walk along the bridge at this hour, with the cold and the rain and the mess that the leaves leave behind as they fall. 

“You look distraught.” 

“Well, you’ve been crying, of course I am.” 

Interesting. You didn’t think he could tell, which means your face is puffy and you look ugly. Great. 

“The mess in this office made me tear up when I got in this afternoon,” you say, swerving around the accusation with ease because there’s no way in hell you’re telling your brother what’s up with you. “I’m going to need your help when it comes to explaining that to dad.” And then you use your chin to point to the proposal sitting in front of him. 

“You didn’t have to do this today, I know sales are low but-” 

“Oh, that’s not it. That one is sitting on your email. This—” you take two steps, tap the front of the folder with your nails, “is a new thing. A thing he won’t understand nor approve unless you understand it and approve it.” 

And then you move back to your position by the window, staring at the lights and the buildings one more time without explaining anything else. When you hear the flick of the pages being turned, you know he understands how serious you’re about it. No space for debating, no time for complaining: you need him to get it done now, and so he will. 

Because your brother can be a lot of things but he’s not dumb. 

And he can read a room like no other except maybe you. 

Seconds turn into minutes and then the clock ticks and blends together as you wait, shoulder hurting by the time your brother lets out a heavy sigh. 

“No, I won’t approve this.” 

Definitely not what you wanted to hear. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You want to—” 

Defensiveness floats you, over-stimulates your senses and makes you see red at the rejection of your proposal “I want to expand our market, our clientele, our opportunities to keep this company on top. Can you relate?” 

“Y/N…” He scowls at your attack, at your tone “You’re running.” 

“I’m doing something for the company!” 

You think your roar is heard all the way to the first floor. Soohyun stares at you wide-eyed, mouth agape for a second before he closes it again. He has to fix his tie, his suit ironed for once as he takes the jacket off and discards it against the chair. 

Brat, princess, annoying little sister. You know that’s what he calls you, he has called you that ever since you were a child and in the most endearing way possible. You have yelled at him before, you have stomped your foot and cried and moaned until you got your way, until he agreed to let you do something. 

You have never screamed at him like this before, though. 

It shows in the way your chest rises and falls quickly, in the way he has to take a calming breath to not yell back at you. Your eyes are full with tears when he looks up and the crease of his brow disappears because, even though you both could be closer and understand each other better, he still is your brother. 

Your brother, who loves you and cares about you in his own way. 

It proves more difficult to let him see the real you, more difficult than what it felt with Yunho or with anyone else. 

So when the tears fall down your cheeks, you wipe them away quickly and pretend they were never there. 

“I don’t know what the hell happened,” he starts, calm, taking a step into your direction and raising his hand and you recoil a bit out of habit. He hesitates for a few seconds but then he’s squeezing your shoulder and pulling you into a tight hug that feels unfamiliar, unusual and weird until it doesn’t. You melt into the embrace because you need it, because it allows you to let go of your frustration and cry it out on your brother’s chest, “but you’re going to explain it to me whether you like it or not. And only then, I will consider saying yes to your proposal.” 

When you pull away to look at him, it’s with a pout and a scowl that draws a breathy laugh out of him. 

“Stupid.” He pushes you away a little before pulling you back in for a hug, “Always keeping things to yourself instead of letting me take the weight of it all. Stupid.” 

It takes a few minutes, but when the hug doesn’t seem necessary and your usual disgust for physical touch comes back into your system, he allows you to take two steps back and clean your face with the back of your hand. 

“Haven’t seen you cry since you were a child,” he whispers and you shrug, ignoring the fact that your heart stings at the comment. “What happened?” 

You tell him everything that night. 

Yunho hasn’t seen you in three months. 

Which, at first, came as relief. He didn’t want to see your face ever again after the things you confirmed to him back in your brother's office. Who needed you, right? He told himself his mother loved enough to understand the sudden change of heart, although she doesn’t exactly know what happened between you in the first place. 

Maybe he should’ve been honest when he got the chance, back in your house, the afternoon they told you both about the pr relationship. 

He was so close to telling the truth, too, when he walked out of the living room and into the hallway to clear his head and not scream at his mother in front of yours. It was there, at the tip of his tongue, and then his mother appeared in front of him with that spark behind her eye that could only mean one thing: it didn’t matter what the truth was, he was going to do this even if it killed him inside. 

Her words the next second confirmed it and he wondered right then if his freedom was worth the suffering:

“Either you do this or I’ll make sure you’re never able to dance again, Jeong Yunho. No more public university, no more friends, no more staying at the dorm, just your father’s company,” and he was about to refuse, yet again, she raised her finger as a warning. “I mean it. Y/N is perfect to clear the company’s image but if we can’t use her then we’ll have to work twice as hard as we do now to clear it.” 

And Yunho would rather fake an entire life with you than work for the man who single handedly ruined his life the second he was born. He didn’t hate his father, he thought about him like a concept he would never understand even when he desperately tried to, but he would never become part of his company.

Not in the way his mom suggested, anyway. 

He just needed to get through college, pretend to be interested in the family business and then land a freelancer job elsewhere, in a foreign company maybe, one who didn’t seem a threat to his father’s and then move on his own when he had enough money saved. 

Independence. He needed independence. Strangely enough, he needed you to gain that independence even though you meant the exact opposite to him, in his head. 

So he doesn’t know why he yelled at you that afternoon. To take it all out, maybe? He thought he hated you back then, too.

He had already agreed to it in the hallway, to his mom. 

He had already agreed to it the second he was born. 

Which is crazy because that’s not a normal experience to have. And if you were born a boy or him a girl, none of this would’ve happened in the first place. You’d be friends, like Gunho and Soohyun, and maybe he’d be forced to be with someone that wasn’t shoved down his throat for so long. 

Imagine his surprise when he kissed you back that night in his dorm. No, scratch that, imagine his surprise when he started liking you the second you showed your true colors to him. 

You’re not perfect by any means, but neither is he and it only took you allowing him to enter a little bit into your mind, into your heart, into your soul, for him to fall for you hard. Or maybe he always liked you? His mind didn’t allow him to sleep at all when you left, but it didn’t allow him to go and follow you that same night either, so the conundrum continued to torture him until it didn’t. 

After the fight in the office, he went home and sat in his childhood bedroom for a while. He had dinner with his brother when he came home to look for some documents in his father’s home office and then he went back to his dorm and stared at the ceiling until Yeosang came back from wherever he’s been disappearing to these days. 

He pretended everything was fine under Yeosang’s scrutinizing gaze but his friend and roommate knew him so much it only took less than a week for his sudden mood to reach the ears of the rest of the friend group. 

Not so subtle messages started entering his phone. He answered all of them and then used the excuse of being on the app to check your chat in case you sent a message and it didn’t notify him for some reason. He told them everything was okay, that he was feeling a bit under the weather. 

And he managed to convince them until he checked his calendar one day (the one he shared with you) and realized all foreseeable events had been cancelled. You had another meeting where you two needed to coexist, a company dinner with both your team and Gunho’s team that he needed to go to as your plus one and, surprisingly enough, a paparazzi session scheduled by your mother that you needed to first prepare to and then do. 

All of this was explained to him by his PR assistant. It surprised him to see that many postponed and canceled the app. It angered him to assume you canceled everything just because you didn’t want to see him. 

He didn’t want to see you either, but he had to. Weren’t you the one who more than once scolded him for not being professional enough? 

Ha! 

It was his opportunity to tease you about it. And so, when he was told to go to your brother’s office the next day, he had this whole speech ready to go. He would tell you to stop being so dumb, that a kiss and his feelings is something that can be ignored. That he needed you both to forgive and forget. 

Yunho needs to continue his plan, even if his own heart breaks in the process. And as he got down the elevator and walked the hall to reach the office, his heart desperately asked him to reconsider. Because there, while pushing the door handle to enter the space he dreaded to be a week prior, Yunho realized he wanted to ask you to be his again. 

When he found nothing but Soohyun on his chair, his conviction deflated and his ego sank to the ground. 

“Yunho!” Your brother sprung out of his chair, excitingly rounding his desk until he reached for him. Arm around his shoulders, Yunho raised a brow at the sudden animosity. “Were you expecting someone else?” 

“N-no.”

“Right.” 

He knew Soohyun could call his bullshit from a mile away. But it didn’t matter, he was already sitting down in front of him in the new couches facing each other. He wanted to point it out, but Soohyun beat him to it. 

“Your friend Park Seonghwa has amazing taste.” 

“Ah,” he breathed out a laugh, a nervous chuckle that made him gasp for air a second after, “yeah. He, um, was top of his class before he graduated.”

“I can tell,” Soohyun nodded and looked around, scrunching his nose in a way that reminded Yunho of you. “Y/N is not going to be available for the next few months.”

What? 

“W-what?” 

“I know you came here looking for her and we’ve known each other since you were born, Yunho, I think we can skip the shitty formalities.” 

“Hyung…”

Soohyun shaked his head, laughing with a relaxed sincerity that is such a Soohyun thing to do “There’s never not been a moment in my life where my sister doesn’t surprise me. I know you know her and I know you two have grown… Closer since this whole PR thing started but I don’t think you can grasp the full Y/N effect until you live with her, you know?”

He didn’t. Not at all. 

“She crafted in four, maybe five hours a project that would’ve taken me at least a month to sit down and write,” he explained and Yunho swallowed thickly, the lump on his throat going down. “And she wanted to get it done as soon as she got the approval from dad. So, I hope you understand that she couldn’t exactly give you a notice before postponing and cancelling your shared schedule.” 

Ah. So you didn’t want to speak to him at all. He scoffed, annoyed. “So she asked you to tell me?” 

“Nope. In fact, I’m pretty sure she would kill me if she knew I’m meeting with you at all.” 

Yunho blinked, confused. 

“Oh.”

“But I love you like a brother, Yunho. You’re my family, you’re her family even though she hates it and I realized recently that the four of us need to stick together. If everything else goes to shit, we’ll still have us.” 

The four of you. Including him and Gunho. 

“And as a family, we owe each other honesty. We owe each other loyalty and forgiveness and understanding. You see where I’m going with this?” 

“No,” he admitted, frowning a bit. “What does any of that have to do with me and Y/N? We don’t like each other, I know you and Gunho noticed at some point. It’s the way things are supposed to be.” The words had a bitter taste, but he pushed through them. 

He sounded like you.

Soohyun let out a sigh and he got up from his seat to squeeze Yunho’s shoulder “She comes back in three months, Yunho. She’s doing something from the company but she has to come back, right?” 

Yunho shrugged, pretending the information didn’t spark something close to hope inside of him. 

“Understanding. That’s what we owe each other: Love and understanding… And lunch. Your brother actually owns me lunch, feel free to join us.” 

Your brother is the weirdest guy ever. However, he realized that as Soohyun walked out of the office and left him to consider his words, that he was already planning on telling you when you came back. 

He missed you already, too. 

And yet, he didn’t find the courage to tell you at all. It tormented him, greatly, vastly. It consumed him through his classes, his dance rehearsals, his performances. It tugged on his heart the days he had to go to the office and pretend he cared about the company, and through his hang outs with his friends. 

They asked about you all the time. He had to remind them you were on a business trip, he had to make up a story, he had to tell them the details were apparently confidential when he didn’t even know where you were.

He could’ve just called you. He could’ve just asked you. 

His finger over your contact on his phone while he sits in Wooyoung's room during a house party, in the dark. 

He could just ask you. 

He–

“Okay, what the fuck is going on with you?” 

He drops his phone, the light of the screen going out as it lands down on the bed. 

“Holy shit, Mingi!” 

 A light turns on and he squints his eyes at the sudden intrusion. 

“You scared the shit out of me!”

“I walked in here like five minutes ago,” his best friend deadpans and Yunho pouts like a child. “You know, I’m starting to feel like I don’t mean that much to you anymore.”

That offends him deeply and he scowls before tossing a pillow in his direction  “What the hell are you even saying?” 

“I’m a patient person, Yunho,” he catches the pillow and tosses it back, “and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what's been going on for the last month and half but you keep saying everything’s fine.” 

“Because everything’s f—” 

“No, it’s not!” 

Mingi is tired, he can tell. He’s been holding his worries inside since the day he told everyone about his relationship with you and Yunho feels awful. This is that part of his life that’s hard to talk about. He only explained to Mingi about the dreadful desire that his father has of making him work for him around a year ago and he’s known Mingi for so long at this point that it does feel a little like he doesn’t trust him enough. 

But it’s hard and he has kept his feelings and desires buried for so long he thinks he might’ve accidentally dragged his feelings for you along with it and now they’re all mixed up and scratching the walls of their enclosure, begging to come out of him. 

“I’m not used to push people around to tell them about their feelings but you’re my best friend and—” 

“I kissed Y/N.” 

Mingi stops mid sentence, blinking a few times before moving to sit beside him on the bed. Yunho hopes, as he faintly hears the music outside of the room getting louder and Wooyoung screaming something that he can’t exactly make up, that Mingi doesn’t think he’s suddenly confessing his afflictions out of pressure. 

Instead, the words came out of his mouth like he couldn’t resist telling them in the first place. After keeping it to himself for weeks, nearly three months, it finally feels like breathing a little. 

“O… kay.” He says as a response and it’s Yunho’s turn to blink at him in disbelief, Mingi laughs a little. “So you kissed the girl you like. Isn’t that something to be happy about?” Yunho gapes at the insinuation of Mingi knowing he likes you, except, it doesn’t come as a surprise. His friends are very observant, to his absolute horror they can’t be fooled. “Did she reject you? Is that what’s going on?” 

“No! I mean, yes. We… She kissed me first!” He defends himself, taking a quick inhale before cursing softly under it. “And then I kissed her. And then we kissed and she left and she ghosted me for a little, actually. And then I saw her in her office, that's not actually her office but her brother’s, and I… I kind of confronted her? And then she rejected me.” 

By the time he finishes his rambles, Mingi looks amused and a little worried. 

“You have to be in this… Fake relationship with her and that’s tormenting you, then? Because she rejected you?” 

“No, that’s not… We’re not— I am, we are still in the fake relationship, it’s just that she’s gone.” 

“She died?!” 

“What? No! No, she’s,” Yunho closes his eyes, laughing at the assumption because he knows Mingi said it to get that exact response in return, “she’s not dead. She, um, she’s on that business trip.” 

“Oh, that’s right! You told us—”

“I lied.”

“What?” 

His poor best friend looks confused beyond belief and that guilt of not telling him everything creeps in once more, threatening to shut him up until he reminds himself Mingi is trustworthy and deserves some clarity. 

“She is on a business trip, I just don’t know why or how or where she is,” he finishes softly, his lips in a line and revealing just how uneasy that makes him feel. “I don’t know where she is and I think that she left because I— Well, when she rejected me we didn’t end up on the best of terms.”

“So you think it’s your fault.” Mingi finishes with a nod, letting out a sigh a second after. “Well, it’s not.” 

“It kind of is, though.” 

“Yunho, it’s not. She’s a grown up, if she decides to run away from her feelings instead of facing them she’s kind of a dumbass.” 

“Mingi!” Yunho’s pushing him a bit with his hand on his shoulder before he can help it. 

“She is!” Laughing, his best friend takes no offense at the push and instead pushes him back, teasingly. “Remember that one party you had at your place, when your parents were gone on that business trip with your brother?” 

“Oh, that party?” 

“Yeah, that party,” Mingi nods, looking away for a second, something shining in his face Yunho realizes he’s longing for. He wants that to shine on him, too: the security that being with the right person brings you. “Love tried to run away from an argument that night, too. I just didn’t let her.” 

“Are you calling your girlfriend a dumbass?” 

“Yeah,” and instead of saying it with a grudge, the confirmation comes out of a place filled with, well, love. “She was a dumbass back then, at least.” 

“Y/N is not like that at all,” Yunho says after a bit, “she’s not a dumbass for running away from this. Our thing… It’s kind of different. We’ve been put in this situation since we were kids and we hated, like actually hated each other for a while. We treated each other so badly, Mingi, you have no idea the way she gets under my goddamn skin sometimes,” and despite saying it like it’s a bad thing, he can’t help but smile. Mingi notices this, too. “You know I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, right? Well, hers is way worse.” 

“Wait, you told us that this relationship was something to clear your company’s image?” Mingi recalls and Yunho feels another pang of guilt against his ribcage. 

“It is! It totally is, it’s just… Well, she was born a girl and I was born a boy and our parents have a very, um, old-fashioned concept of love and what it’s supposed to look like. It was decided a long time ago that we were going to end up together.” 

There’s a few seconds of silence before Mingi bursts out laughing so hard it drowns the noise from outside the room. 

“That’s funny to you?” Yunho asks, light-hearted and smiling at the sound of his best friend's laugh. 

“No, no, it’s just… Your parents are forcing you two together for some weird legacy, bloodline reason and you fell for the girl you’re in a fake relationship with and you’re supposed to hate?” 

Now that he hears it like that…

“Basically, yeah.” 

“Oh, San’s girl is about to have a field trip with this information.”

“Dude!” 

“What? It’s dumb! Y/N is a dumbass, you’re dumber for not just calling her and telling her you miss her and you’re both really fucking dumb for not telling your parents to fuck off. You’re grown!” 

Yunho sighs, shaking his head. “She doesn’t like me like that, Mingi.”

“Yes, she does!” He laughs again, covering his mouth with his hand once he realizes Yunho is getting annoyed with it. “Yunho… Ugh, is this how you all felt those few months where I was crying over Love?” 

“I didn’t feel anything.” 

“Because you’re a puppy,” Mingi’s shoulder brushes against his in a not so subtle way of teasing him and his eyes blank in pretend annoyance. “You are. And you’re a pretty great guy, Yunho. If she doesn’t like you back it’s not the end of the world.” 

Yunho nods, but he’s suddenly not as convinced as he should be. 

“And you’re also one of the strongest people I know, in here.” Mingi’s finger taps over his heart on his chest. “But you don’t have to carry your burdens on your own. This is all… It all seems pretty dumb to me but it must be really hard on you, hm? Especially since you want to live a life separate from your family, right?” 

That, Mingi knows. “Mhm.”

“And so does Y/N?”

“No, I’m not so sure about that,” he murmurs back and his heart aches when he thinks about you and the way you’re treated home, in the way your mother has treated you in front of him. “I think she thinks she’s nothing without her family but I also think she was raised to believe that. They… Well, even her brother has a hard time seeing how fucking amazing she is.” 

“Is she?” Mingi drops his head to the side, doubt and a little prejudice on his expression. “Is she fucking amazing, Yun?” 

“She’s… She’s such a good person. Which is really crazy for me to say, because I thought she was a spoiled brat for a long time. And she is! But she’s also… She cares so deeply and she’s enjoys painting and she’s so great with kids and—” 

“And you have it bad,” Mingi laughs again, shoving him against the mattress with a push and standing up from the bed. Yunho laughs, recognizing the amount of pushing as tipsy Mingi behavior and nothing else. “So bad. Were you about to call her?” 

He feels called out and a little shy about it. He blushes and all. 

“Maybe.”

When his focus goes back to his phone, it’s when he hears it. 

And his heart drops to his ass. 

A distant curse and the sound of a call ending is enough to send his mind into a new, different spiral. 

“Was that…?” 

Yunho picks up the phone, checks the last call he made and your name appears next to the nine minutes and a half his conversation with Mingi lasted. 

His mouth runs dry, his throat closes as he turns to screen to show it to Mingi.

“Holy fuck.” 

“What do I do?” 

“That’s insane. San’s girl is going to have the best night of her life.” 

“Mingi!” He blocks the phone, tosses it on the bed and gets up to shake his best friend's shoulders. “What. Do. I. Do. Now.” 

Your heart still beats like the day you not-so-accidentally listened to a conversion you shouldn’t have. 

There’s the distant memory of your phone vibrating under your pillow at the hotel you were staying at for the night. It happened only a few weeks ago, near the three month mark into your trip around the country, looking for businesses worth the investment in little towns. That far into your adventure, you had met at least a dozen small companies worth every penny inside your father’s pocket, more so than the one’s already signed. You had met wonderful people who didn’t exactly know who you were and you had been treated so kindly it made the ache in your chest go away. 

At least for a little bit. 

So when you sleepily read Yunho’s name on your screen at two am in the morning, the sting of the pain was unfamiliar and the first thing that crossed your mind was that something bad happened to your brother. Or his brother. Or him. 

What other reason did he have to call you when he left that office hating you all over again? 

“H-hello?” 

Nothing. Just silence and maybe a distant melody, the ruffling of the phone against something. 

“Yunho? If you called me to piss me off I swear to God—”

“Holy shit, Mingi! You scared the shit out of me!” 

Mingi? 

There’s a deeper voice you can hear on Yunho’s end and that’s when you realized he didn’t mean to call you in the first place.

And you should've hung up there. But you didn’t and so you listened to their entire conversation and realized one thing: 

Mingi was right. You are a dumbass. 

And Yunho is even dumber, but that’s something you would have to rub on his face when you gather the courage to see him again. That day is not today, you made sure of it. 

You see, you’ve changed just a tiny bit these past three months. It’s not like you went to a spiritual retreat but by crafting that proposal while fleeing your feelings and the mess that you made with just one kiss, you came around something you never experienced before. Not fully, at least: 

Freedom. 

You spent Christmas and New Years all alone, with no one dear to you around and you saw the fireworks from your hotel window and you felt and suddenly you understood what Yunho sees in in sleeping in that tiny dorm with a roommate and a pile of dirty clothes in a corner, with no pushing their way into the room to pick his messes up and no one making sure he eats at the correct time, the correct meals and the correct porcelain for the day.

No rules, no conditions, just a place where he can be free and himself. 

You did all of that while also making sure you didn’t abandon your priorities. You went to sleep late because you wanted to and then you went to bed early the next day because there were no rules, no events you needed to attend to, no photographers asking you to smile.

There was no one to tell you that you looked fat after eating one delicious, non dietetic meal. There was no devil (your mom) whispering in your ear how everyone would notice the carbs, the bloat and the tiny zits. 

There was no one there to stop you from cutting your hair. And so you did. What once was kept long and straight in order to keep a traditional, clean look, now rested in waves on your shoulders,

It makes it so much easier to walk out of the shower, in less time too! 

And although your heart yearned for Yunho everyday, especially after hearing his conversation with Mingi at two in the morning when you weren’t even supposed to, it was the first time in years you felt happy enough to drop the mask, the pretences, the good posture and even the makeup. 

Yup, you went out without makeup three times! That’s some information that would send your mother into cardiac arrest at the very least. 

So now, as you try to move fast through a college campus that’s not yours, with a box that contains something you call an apology and it might not even be, your heart is beating with the same amount of strength just at the thought of all this backfiring. 

Because you’re not ready to see Yunho, not yet. You want him to come and find you, to come and tell you if he wants to accept you back into his life, under his terms, after you so insistently kicked him out of yours. 

You sneakily checked his calendar. You bribed your assistant, who bribed his assistant, so now his schedule for the week is in a screenshot on your phone and you have checked it four times to confirm this is a good time to be here. 

He has dinner with his family and yours (who don’t even know you’re back yet) at his house, on the hill, which is forty minutes away from his campus. That’s exactly the window of opportunity you’ve been waiting for since coming back. 

And you came back a week ago. 

You may or may not have memorized the code for the door from that only time you came to his dorm and so it’s not really a surprise when you quickly enter it and hear a screech behind you when you are busy closing the door. 

When you turn around, Yeosang is shirtless and covering his chest with his hands “Y/N!”

“Yeosang.” You say with a small bow, struggling to not laugh and turning your face away, looking at the postered up wall. “So nice to see you here, in your room.” 

“W-what are you… I mean how do you… Should I call Yun—” 

“No!” When you turn to him again, eyes wide with worry, he has a shirt on and his phone in his hand. “Please don’t… Let me do something real quick and then you can speak to him, okay?” 

You start to fumble with the box, placing it at the end of the bed and opening it up fast. You throw the lid on top of Yeosang’s bed and then get to work, pulling everything out. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I hate lying to my friends, Y/N.”

“And you’re such a great friend for that but you won’t be lying to him because I’m not asking you to do that.” 

“I wouldn’t even if you did ask me to.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that…” 

Okay, so you changed a little bit. Not a lot. 

You sigh, struggling with the placement of your gift/apology because Yunho changed his sheets and so the color scheme it’s not perfect anymore. 

“What’s all of this?” 

“Yunho enjoys dancing,” you start and you see him nod from the corner of your eye, so you smile. “He told me he did it to have this dorm but I didn’t buy it at all, and so when I was on my trip I… Sort of thought of him a little bit, not a lot.” You clear your throat, a slight heat creeping up your cheeks. “But I didn’t want to wait another day without giving this to him. I just… I can’t exactly be here when he sees it.” 

You finish, turning back to Yeosang and you realize you’re out of breath, nervousness creasing your brows. 

“Would you please let me know how he reacts to it the next time we see each other?” You ask softly, almost shy and Yeosang visibly relaxes at the tone. It makes you feel understood somehow and so you relax a little bit, too. “If you’re here when he gets here I mean, um, you are all dressed up.” 

When you point to his outfit, he seems to remember that he was, in fact, getting ready to go out when you walked in. His hair is wet but styled and all. 

“Oh, I was… I was just going to the club.” He points to a camcorder on his beat and you raise a curious brow, but don’t really ask anything. “I’m making a dance documentary for one of my classes. Yunho is in it, too.” 

That peaks your interest and he laughs, possibly at the way you light up at the mention of your fake-boyfriend-possible-love-of-your-life name. “He is?” 

“Yes, he’s… A big part of it, actually, but I go to this club to get footage and… You should ask him to explain it to you.” 

Now, at that, your smile sure turns sour because there’s no actual way of knowing if he wants to see you again or not. 

After all, he didn’t attempt to contact you after that phone call. 

You don’t know if he noticed that he called you, either. 

It’s kind of killing you inside, all the space you need to fill with assumptions instead of facts. 

“Sure, um…” 

“I can stay until he comes back.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to ruin your plans for the night, Yeosang. You should go and—”

“I want to see it. I want to record it,” he explains, looking over your shoulder and into the gift in Yunho’s bed. “He says he’s not sure, but I think he wants to dedicate his life to it, you know?” 

“To dancing?” 

Yeosang nods. 

Your voice sounds very small when you ask him “Do you think he’s going to like it?” 

He smiles, softly, endeared almost.

“He’s going to love it,” he assures you, “And your haircut, too.” 

You chuckle at that, touching the ends of it that rest on your shoulder “You think?” 

“Yeah! It suits you, actually.”

“Thank you, Yeosang.” 

This time, and after making small talk with his roommate, you leave Yunho’s dorm with a smile on your face instead of tears running down your cheeks. 

There’s exhaustion pouring out of Yunho by the time he reaches his dorm door. He closes his eyes, rests his forehead against the cool wood of it and lets out a sigh to collect himself. He needs to have the energy to take a shower, after all. 

It’s not as late as he expected it to be, the digital clock on the wall glows blue and neon and lets him know it’s around nine thirty. Good, that’s great. 

He misses you. 

And it’s hard not to think of you when he’s surrounded with people who know you, who bring you up when it’s time to talk about positive results for the company, or the time you organized an event for you mother because your brother had no taste to pick the venue or catering or whatever the fuck they were going on about tonight. 

It didn’t escape him that Soohyun glanced at him every time your parents brought you up and he wonders if it shows in his face just how much he longs to see you again.

He’s thinking about your face when the room unexpectedly lights up and Yeosang is standing on his own bed, in the corner, smiling like a creep. Yunho almost falls as a curse slips past his lips and he stares at his friend like something is deeply wrong with him. 

Because it is. 

It’s almost comical how breathless he is as he asks him: “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“Hey!” 

“—Standing in the corner like a serial killer.”

“Turn around, Yunho.” 

“What?” 

“Turn,” he repeats, slowly, as he climbs out of the bed, the camera pointed in his direction still. “Around.” 

So he does. 

And what he sees… Confuses him. Until it doesn’t. 

There’s a few things on his bed: There’s some polaroid pictures lined up, different people he doesn’t know in them, all in different traditional attire and Yunho can see there’s inscription in them, the dates all read from early november to two weeks ago. 

There’s tickets to a competition that’s supposed to be sold out. He knows, he tried to get a ticket the second they announced it but couldn’t. The top dance teams are going to battle for some bucks but, most importantly, they’re going to battle to keep the dying scene alive. 

A book titled Why Dance Matters next to a golden retriever plushie with a suit that makes him giggle out of the pure weirdness of it. 

There’s a copy of grease with some signatures in the front. He can make out something that reads as Barry Pearl in it, he thinks. His mind reels at what that means. 

A cd in a clear case with a beautiful sunset and a building he recognizes immediately as the orphanage you took him to. Six silhouettes he can only imagine symbolizes him, Jaemi, Hyunjoon, his brother, Soyi and you. 

But what confirms it’s something you did, it’s the envelope that sits in the middle of it all. It's waxed and sealed with something that looks regal, elegant and, when he picks it up to see the seal up close, he smells your perfume. 

He turns to Yeosang, eyes watery, in request of an explanation. 

“Open it! I’ve been dying to read it but I’m a great friend,” Yeosang almost wiggles with excitement and Yunho’s eyes water a little. “Or so she said.” 

“She was here?” 

“Y/N?” His friend asks in return, weirded out. “Well, yes.” 

“When?” 

“An… hour and something ago.” 

“Where did she go?” 

“Are you okay?” 

He’s speechless, envelope shaking a bit in his hand as he pushes the need to run to you away. He doesn’t know what this means, he doesn’t know what the letter says either. His heartbeats are thumping on his ears and muffling Yeosang’s words a little bit. 

He needs to calm down. 

He needs to read the letter. He’s–

“You’re crying,” Yeosang turns off the camcorder, closing the screen and tossing it softly on his bed before taking a few steps in his direction. Concern is written all over his face, a little bit of guilt too. “I shouldn’t have let her in, right? I knew something was off with you but I had no idea that you two had fought or—” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Yunho quickly dries off his tears, shaking his head at his friend’s anxious apology. “I just… I missed her so much, Yeo.” 

“Oh.” 

“So fucking much.” 

“Yunho…” He closes his eyes and jumps a little a Yeosang’s sudden embrace, but he’s grateful for it. Envelope trap between his chest and Yeosang’s rib, he takes a bated breath filled with things he can’t quite burden his friend with. 

He remembers Mingi’s words loud and clear, but the only thing Yunho wants to do right now is find where you are so he can see you again. Hug you again. Kiss you again. 

That night, after he realized he had dialed your number by mistake, he had a full on breakdown in Wooyoung’s room and it took Mingi and Mingi’s girlfriend to talk him out of fleeing the country out of embarrassment, out of guilt. He thought back then he had definitely lost you, because the consensus the three of them came to was a ‘let her reach you if she wants to clear things out’ instead of a ‘call her and explain it yourself before she has the chance to reach out to you first’. 

Mingi said you had to at least prove you had any interest in making things right, in fighting to at least keep your friendship with him. 

As he opens up the letter, he immediately knows he should’ve just called you. 

He even forgets Yeosang is right beside him, looking away to give him some privacy to read your words without actually letting go of the embrace, just in case he needs it. Yunho knows this, he’s thankful, his legs shaking with need to go after wherever you are. 

And he’s about to ask again but, as he turns his head to regard his friend and explains the letter a little, he’s one step ahead of him. 

“She’s staying in a hotel, not her house.” Yunho opens and closes his mouth, about to ask him the name of the hotel when he shakes his head. “The luxury one in Itaewon. What? Did you think I would let her go without getting the information first?” 

Yunho shrugs, Yeosang clicks his tongue in disappointment, letting go of him and putting, at least, ten steps between the both of them. 

“She’s very talkative when she’s not with a big crowd, Yun. Now move.” 

“I think I—” He starts to say but stops midway, looking down at the letter and then at his friend again. 

Yeosang gives him a soft smile, the one he curves on his lips when he’s endeared with something, with someone. Yunho went clubbing with him once, he knows the smile very well. 

“I know,” he says in a murmur and then sighs like it’s a task to be around him. “Now, let’s go. We’re going to the same area anyway and I could use the ride. There’s the box.” 

In the car (one he ordered from an app, not his family car), his leg moves up and down and his hands tremble with anticipation and, as the imposing structure of the hotel comes into view while he stares at the window, he swears he feels at ease. 

For the first time in months, he feels like he’s home. 

And it’s all because he’s about to see you again. 

Yeosang is not a very discreet person. He’s soft spoken and he looks like he cares about his friend’s a great deal, but he has that clumsiness of a person who’s used to being transparent about things. 

He asked you if you just got home with a spark of hopefulness in his eye, like he couldn’t wait to clue in Yunho about it, like he knew what he was going to do when he read your letter and saw your gift. 

Yeosang asked you like Yunho had already forgiven you and that had filled you silly head with warmth and hope and expectations you shouldn’t have because, as far as you noticed, Yunho is not the most honest friend to have. 

So you asked yourself if Yeosang knew about the fight, if the rest of his friends knew. 

And you still told Yeosang where you are staying. 

There’s only one lamp helping with lighting up the bedroom, the city outside of it alive and busy like it always is. The amount of lights beyond the river bring you comfort, something familiar spreads on your chest when you take them in and you admit, for the first time in three months plus the week you’ve been staying here, that you love this stupid city even if it makes you feel trapped most of your days.

But here? In this space that you have made yours over the last seven days? You love it. 

Your hair is wet and your face is clean of any product. You told yourself to go about your night routine like you weren’t expecting something else to happen. That way, when it doesn’t because you feel that what you did is unforgivable as much as it is cruel, you won’t be as disappointed. 

So your face is moisturized and you have your nightgown underneath the silk bath this hotel provides and you’re totally not thinking about Yunho being in the same city as you, you are totally not freaking out over the reaction to your gift, you’re chill. 

You’re chilling, you’re cool. 

And the way your heart leaps when you hear a knock at the door means nothing, because you ordered room service like thirty minutes ago. It’s fine. 

He’s probably not showing up. 

So why the hell is he there when you open the door? And where’s your room service when you need it? 

“Yunho!” 

“Y/N…” 

The atmosphere turns weird and tense right away and you grab onto the frame of the door as he stares at you with indecipherable emotion in his eyes. Is he happy to see you? Is he here to curse you out? 

Is he mad? He’s totally upset at you. He is, he’s… Skinnier, just a little bit. His hair is lighter, too, like a brownish blond that suits him and his skin tone and he looks so good even if there’s dark circles under his eyes. 

You missed him so much. 

“Come in! Um…” You say after what feels like hours of silence, of you two just staring at each other with a little disbelief, opening up the room door wider and stepping aside so he can pass right by you. 

His cologne makes you a little dizzy, drives you a little crazier but there’s not enough time to focus on that because he has the box you left earlier in his dorm in one hand and your letter in the other. 

You close the door, taking in a little calming breath that does nothing to appease the erratic beat of your heart. 

The eighty two square meters of this room suddenly feel like ten and when he puts the box down on the coffee table of the immediate tiny living room space of this suite, you feel like it’s over. 

He turns around, a hand on his hip and the shade that the lamp casts on him doesn’t allow you to determine if he’s clenching his jaw or not, if he’s upset or not, if he’s—

Yunho raises his hand, the one holding your letter. 

“What’s this?” 

Oh, he’s so upset. Okay, good, you foresaw this the moment you decided to give him something. It’s okay, you tell yourself as you walk the steps separating you and take the letter from his hand, you can deal with this. 

And, although you have changed a little in the months you didn’t see him, there’s a long way to go before your defensiveness stops being the only way you know how to approach a situation targeting you and your ego. 

“If you didn’t like it, you could’ve just thrown it away or burned it, Yunho, you didn’t have to come all the way here—” 

“Read it to me.” 

You look up at him, blinking once and then twice at his request. 

“Didn’t you—” 

“Princess,” he says, letting out a tiny breath in between his words, “read it to me. Please.” 

Now that you’re physically closer to him, you can pick up this gentleness in his features that you know well. It’s the same expression he had back in the orphanage, when Jiwoo took Jaemi in her arms and he was left staring at you with his cheek pressed on his forearm while he rested on the table. You think about that exact moment a lot, late at night, when the only thing overwhelming your thoughts it’s him. 

You swallow the lump on your throat down as you take out the letter from the envelope. It’s a little dark but there’s really no need for you to read the words when you know them by heart. You wrote and rewrote them at least a hundred times before deciding the letter looked good and that it wasn’t too long, too obnoxious, too sweet, too cringy. Just the right amount of emotion in case it came to bite you in the ass, like now. 

“S-sure,” you let out a sigh, past caring if he sees you’re a little affected by the situation as a whole. “Yunho, I’m sure you’re reading this after seeing the gift layed out in front of you. Take it as an expression of gratitude for all the times the mere thought of you got me through a day, even in this time when we’re supposed to be upset at each other. I think about you a lot and I think about what I did, too. I’m— This all sounds to stupid and formal,” you criticize your own work without thinking it through, frowning and looking up at him. “This letter is supposed to be an apology and it reads like an email.” 

Yunho shakes his head, a tiny smile tugging on his lips. “Go on, please.” 

Sniffing because you feel uncomfy and vulnerable, you continue.  

“I’m sure you’re wondering why now and not three months ago. Well, it takes a lot for me to defy the expectations people put on my shoulders. As you know, my last name is laced with success I didn’t work on and letting go of things you’re used to is hard, but I did. I went away, I learned, I grew up a little bit and in my journey the only constant was you. Not the fight we had, not the way we have treated each other throughout the many years I’ve known you. I’ve always seen your life from the outside even if I was a part of it, I’ve seen your social media posts and wondered if I wasn’t deserving of the same kindness you display to your friends on them but, as you proved to me that I am deserving of it, I understood that it wasn’t your voice in my head telling me I didn’t, it was mine.

“Not my mother’s voice, not anyone else's, but mine. Accepting that was hard but I did it and I did it on my own but as a result of the impact you had on me the second you turned around and held me with the care I now think I deserve.” Something drops on the paper, wets it and blends the ink of the pen you used together and you realize there’s tears running down your cheeks. “I can’t ask you to forgive me for what I did. But just know that I kissed you because I wanted to, not because you were being kind to me. And I pushed you away because, out of everyone that has come and gone from my life, you’re the only person who has the possibility to break my heart and mend it the times you seem fit…” 

You look up and to the side to wipe your tears. You’d pat yourself on the back for how you read this to him, without any stutters or mistakes, but the truth it’s that melancholy swallows you as you reach the end of the letter. It’s more emotional than what you’d remembered, too, now that you’re reading it outloud and in front of the man you love. 

There’s no need for you to read what comes next because you want to say it looking at him. 

“And I’m sorry. I love you and I don’t love you just because we kissed or because we are forced to be together. I love you because you’re part of me, because you’ve always been. I love you and I can’t stand to lose you. Again, I’m sorry,” you repeat, looking down at the words again before finishing in a whisper: “Yours, Y/N.” 

There’s this pregnant silence that follows that makes you fidget on your feet. It takes a second for you to gather yourself together again, wipe your cheeks and look up at Yunho. There’s disbelief in his expression and you wince in preparation for what’s about to follow. 

“Like I said,” you start again, extending the letter to him so he can take it, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to do anything, really, a-and I understand if this is all too childish or too cringy for you to say something back. I don’t need you to say something back! Really, I don’t,” you laugh amidst the sudden verbal vomit and shrug, not even looking at him anymore. “I j-just wanted you to know. And I mean it: If you don’t want me that way, it’s completely fine, Jeong. I also settle for being your friend, i-if that’s easier for everyone— For you, if that’s easier for you,” you correct yourself, “because I don’t really care what anyone thinks anymore, including my mother, she can go fuck herself and she can win all she wants if that means keeping you in my life and—” 

He grabs the letter and in a second he uses the tight hold you have on it to push you closer, tearing the paper in the process. 

“Kim Y/N, you big dummy.” 

He lets go of the letter and you do too, hands resting on his chest as you stumble forward a little, the paper falling to your feet as his right hand settles on your cheek, the left one on the nape of your neck. 

“Excuse me?” 

Yunho laughs, breathy and pointed while his eyes scan your face. “You heard me.” 

“Are trying to piss me off, Jeong Yun—” 

This time, when Yunho kisses you, it doesn’t feel new. It doesn’t feel like defiance, it doesn’t feel like you’re breaking the rules or letting your mom win. 

It feels like coming come. 

The ache in your soul stops the second his lips move against yours, deliciously slow and firm while he holds you close. His hands shift, they move the satin robe as they descend and find their place on your back, on your hip. Your chest collides with his with a soft nudge forwards and you sigh against his mouth, welcoming the way his hands tighten on you, feeling finally at ease in his embrace. 

You thought, when preparing his gift, writing the apology letter and then earlier at his dorm, that your self control was something to be admired. Yeah, you love him deeply and all, but you had the restraint to give him the opportunity to decide what he wanted to do with all the things you told him. 

Now you think that there’s nothing in the world that could stop you from kissing his lips raw, from pulling his hair a bit when your fingers tangle in it, from drinking the sound you get in return. 

Fuck your self control. You want Yunho like you never wanted anyone or anything before. 

That’s why you’re grateful when he pumps the break, lips leaving yours and breath on your lips. When you open your eyes, he’s already staring at you. With the way he’s holding you, you barely have to get on your tippy toes to nuzzle his nose against yours with care and the action reminds you of that day at the office, before you fucked up, but the feeling is way different. 

This time, your gut tells you that whatever is about to happen with the two of you is something that’s going to linger, that he’s going to stay one way or another and your heart thumps loudly at the thought of having Yunho in your life forever. 

Four months ago, the thought would’ve given you a headache. 

Now, it heats up your cheeks as his hands return to your face. 

“I’m sorry, I had to kiss you. I also should’ve gone after you that night, in my dorm, I— I’m also sorry, Y/N,” he lets go of you softly, putting a step in between the two of you so he can take your hands in his. “I’m sorry I cornered you in the office and I’m sorry I expected you to just… Drop all of your beliefs and convictions for me. That’s the most delusional thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s okay—”

“But I love you,” he breathes out and you feel like the air it’s been knocked out of your lungs. “I’m a big pretender, you know? I… I try to be as positive as someone can be, I try to be aloof and I ignore a bunch of things in order to let myself be distracted from what my family expects of me, so I couldn’t understand when you didn’t want to do the same. I do now.

“And I don’t let myself enjoy a bunch of things either, Y/N, but I do allow myself little moments of happiness. When I’m with my friends or when I dance, I tend to have those little moments and then I allowed myself to see you in a new light and I… If I thought those two things brought me some sort of respite from my sorrows, I had no idea you of all people could feel like… Like…”

“Home?” You offer, your voice a sweet whisper full of understanding. 

“Like home.”

He swallows tightly, averting his eyes to the floor for a second. 

“I’m sorry for not returning that call,” he says, his brows creasing a little bit, “I took advice from drunk people in love, so I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you come to me.” 

“I was doing the same,” you whisper back, shrugging his worries away. “Letting you come to me, that is. I couldn’t even— I mean, I should’ve given you all of this in person instead of dropping it off like a scaredy cat.” 

“You did hear the conversation though?” 

“Yeah. Mingi called me a dumbass and I’m not going to forgive him.” 

He laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “He was right, a little bit.” 

“He called you dumber,” you return, frowning at his jab even though you know he didn’t intend any ill with it. “So yeah, you could say he was right.” 

There’s a few seconds where he just stares: at your hands, twined together with ease and familiarity. At your face, a loving smile lifts the corners of his mouth up before he steps closer again and lets his thumbs trace the curve of your mouth, your cheekbone, your nose. 

“I missed you so much, my love.” 

Oh.

Fuck. 

You warm to the pet name immediately, its significance running through you like a shudder and making you gasp softly, almost imperceptibly. You guess it shows on your expression, the smile on Yunho’s lips widening as his knuckle presses on your cheek gently. 

“You liked that I called you that?”

“Shut up.”

“My love,” he repeats, pecking your lips, “I love you. I’ve… I actually don’t know if I’ve loved you this way all this time, but I’m sure I loved you to some degree. I cared— I care about you.” 

You tear up again. 

That voice that tells you that you don’t deserve him comes back, a distant murmur of it this time, but it’s still there. 

For a good reason, too. 

“Forgive me for being so horrible to you all these years,” he makes a face, like he can’t believe you’re apologizing for that right now. “I wish I could say I did it because I was a vain, stupid child but it was all very much thought through.” 

“I know.”

“And I was horrible. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now, I—”

His lips press softly against yours again. “Stop it. I was horrible to you too, we were both stupid and childish and we had our reasons.”

“Did we, though?” Your nose scrunches while you truly think about all the times you could’ve been nicer to each other and chose to be mean instead. 

His eyes water a little. You frown, fingers tightening around his wrists, you turn to kiss his palm. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I just love you a lot,” he sniffs and you catch with your knuckle the tears that roll down his cheeks. He closes his eyes, letting out a breath and untensing his shoulders at the same time. “And it feels so good to be able to say it.” 

“When did you figure it out?” Curiosity takes over you for a second, you allow yourself to wonder about it without any guilt now. 

He hums, thinking about it with a pout on his lips “Like I said, I think I’ve always loved you to some degree. I just… Didn’t know it. I’ve never loved anyone like this before but I think that when I saw you with Jaemi and my heart felt like it was about to come out of my mouth, I kind of knew.” 

“So when I kissed you…”

“I knew,” he nods, “and I should’ve been more insistent when I was trying to talk to you. Go to your house, do something, but I’m… A little inexperienced in this type of stuff.” 

“Because you have no bitc—”

You’re already giggling before he interrupts. “And you love me like I am, so now what?” 

The smile on your lips is so wide you have to look to the side, focus on the shadow of the chair in the tiny living room space for a second to compose yourself. 

It doesn’t really work, because he’s smiling as hard when you turn back to him. 

And then, for the first time since he got here, he seems to notice the length of your hair. He brushes it back with his fingers, the strands barely damp now, and gasps when he reaches the tips at your shoulders. “You cut it!”

With a nod, you laugh at his sudden surprise. “I did, I’m about to get disowned.” 

“Oh, your mom is going to pass out at the very least.” He agrees right away and you laugh again before he joins, his teeth nipping at his lower lip for a second. “She’ll forgive you, though.”

“You think so?”

“You look too beautiful to stay mad at you for long.” 

Oh, your poor heart. You shake your head, diverting the attention from you by brushing the strands of his hair that rest on his forehead back. 

“Blond?” 

“Kind of, yeah. It’s this… Honey something that my hairdresser suggested.” 

Humming, you let your fingernails scratch his scalp gently as they go down, hands resting on his shoulder when you’re done. “They did a great job,” you say before you click your tongue, cocking your head to the side. “Are you sure they weren’t just calling you honey and you misunderstood?” 

His brow lifts, the corner of his lips does as well and he’s ducking his head so he can speak in that cocky tone of his you’re so used to. Only this time, there’s an edge to it that sends a shiver down your spine. 

“And If they did?” 

You know what he’s asking, you know why he’s asking. You find yourself curious about this type of teasing on his behalf, so you allow it to happen.

In your own terms.

“Did it happen?” You return, leaning even closer, hands grasping the lapel of his suit jacket and tugging on it, pretending to smooth it out with your palms afterwards. 

“Princess…” 

When you look at him, there’s this fiery energy that crosses his expression and it makes your imagination run wild with possibilities. 

Now that you both got through the emotional part of your reunion with tears, with overdue confessions and very necessary apologies, what’s left to resolve is this pent up tension that’s always been something more. With the way Yunho behaves sometimes, so proud and tough, you have a vague idea of what it could be like. 

And it makes you giddy with anticipation. 

You would like to turn your assumptions into facts. So you play dumb, fakely perking up when he calls you, blinking with pretend innocence a few times to sell the act. “Hm?” 

Catching the way his jaw ticks at your behavior, you realize that the rush that went through your body every time you got under his skin was not out of the pleasure of winning. 

It was because you liked it. 

Very much so, that the way his eyes scan over your body like he's deciding what to do with you and your attitude make you let out a tiny puff of air that he drinks right up when he crowds you again, hands on your hips and lips on yours once more. 

His mouth doesn't move with any trace of carefulness anymore. Before, you were able to tell he needed to kiss you, longingly, with all the things he couldn't say before on his lips against yours. Now, his tongue makes its way past your teeth and swipes against yours in a way that makes you stumble backwards, almost leaving the tight squeeze of his hands behind. 

Yunho catches you, walks with you until you feel the arm of the tiny couch supporting your weight as well. 

He leans in a little bit to help you up on it, his body immediately in between your legs, his palms making their way downwards. One is on your lower back, thumb absentmindedly caressing the area, and the other one is pressing right next to your leg on the couch so he can bite your lower lip and give both your lungs a bit of a break before diving into your mouth again. You wrap your arms around his neck and keep him close. 

Closer, closer, closer. You need his body pressing against yours as you try to keep up with the intensity of his kisses. You've never been kissed like this before, never with so much love and passion and want and need. 

You've been kissed while drunk and touched while high in the past, you've been fucked by people you don't remember the names of and you had dropped the sleeping around once you graduated college. 

There's so much of your youth you wish you've done sober. Because now, when his tongue catches a soft moan and his hand moves from your lower back to your leg, under your robe, you don't know why you freak out. 

No, you know exactly why. 

Breaking the kiss, you take two seconds to look at the plush of Yunho’s lips after being deliciously smothered with yours. You're both breathing hard, chests rising and falling in tandem and gasps for air filling the room. 

His hand moves higher, measuring your reaction and you know he's about to ask if it's okay to touch you when you grab his wrist and stop his movements. 

“We don't have to—” 

“Is not that,” you say right away but you're both speaking over each other. 

“I mean, there's a lot we need to talk about. I want you to tell me about your trip and—” 

“Sure, we can do that later,” you nod. “Right now, I'm— I mean, let me turn off the light and you can touch me all you want.” 

He frowns. 

“What?” 

Heart picking up for a different reason now, you clear your throat and try to cough the anxiety away. You can talk to him about these things, it's okay. It doesn't really matter how embarrassed you feel once the words come out of your mouth. 

“Um, I went up a few pounds while on the trip and— And that's a good thing!” You say when he looks at you like he's about to tell you that it's okay. “I ate whatever I wanted, it was great, really. I just…” 

“You did?” He asks in a soft, excited whisper.

“I don't know if you'll, um, i-if you're going to like it.” You finish, blinking the shame away. 

Yunho’s expression softens and you take it as an agreement. You've only been touched in the dark, anyways, so you push into his chest a little bit and off his embrace (even if you don't really want to) and start moving towards the only light casting shadows on the room. 

Only to be tugged right back by a firm hand on your arm.

With his chest against you and his lips grazing your ear, you can barely help the way you shudder. There's something hard poking your ass and the apparent size of it has you gulping, salivating even. 

But you have to turn off the light. 

“Come here,” he murmurs and softly moves the both of you to stand in front of the mirror that's next to the entrance. 

Even if you tried not to, it's something you've been avoiding the whole time you've stayed here. The mirror is huge, floor to ceiling and its position it's very elegant, very fitting for the purpose of this suit that's supposed to be reserved for people who need different outfits for different events. 

You haven't really used it other than quickly checking your clothes earlier today, before leaving to go to the dorm and, even then, it was only a quick ten seconds.

It stings a little that, although you've made progress, your body and the way you perceive it still have such a grip on you. When you add the man your heart desires to the mix? Well, there's little to nothing you can do to let go of your insecurities.

The heat of Yunho's body leaves you for a second and he's turning another light, the one closest to the entrance, adjusting its intensity so the ambiance is not broken by the bright glow of it. 

You gulp again when he returns, but melt into his chest when he presses his body against yours again. 

How can you feel so comfortable with him but so uncomfortable with yourself? It's weird, it's strangely very you but you can't even tell him that because the intensity of his gaze when you catch it in the mirror shuts you right up. 

You know he's telling you to listen to him, to notice how serious he is about this as his chin rests on your shoulder. 

“I've called you ugly before, right? I've have actively contributed to your insecurities in a way that I'm not going to forgive myself for, ever,” he starts and the direct approach to it makes you teary eyed all over again. He notices, lips finding your shoulder to comfort you. “The thing is, Y/N, that I never actually meant it. I think I was pissed off because you were— and are so fucking beautiful.” 

You close your eyes and let out a pleading sigh “Yunho…” 

“No,” he says and you feel how he shakes his head, his chin still on your shoulder. “Someone needs to tell you this. You live in your head way too much.” 

He understands. 

You love him so much. 

“Open your eyes, princess.” 

You do. 

“Look at yourself.” 

You don't. You look at him instead. 

He's staring at you through the mirror and he straightens his back to rest his cheek against your temple, the height difference at his advantage because, this way you have to look up at him and it will give away the pure rejection you have for your reflection. 

“I don't think I've ever found someone as beautiful as I found you. When I realized that, that was what pissed me off… Well, I think I somehow buried the thought away but you are so breathtakingly pretty, Y/N.” He takes in a breath and you lose yours, his hand resting on your hip going up and tracing the curve of your waist. “But it doesn't really matter what I think, it matters what you think, hm?” 

Turning his head, his nose presses against your skin now and he leans in, nuzzling softly, with care, until his lips peck your jaw. 

“I can assure you that you can go up a hundred pounds, go down, up again and I wouldn't care. It doesn't matter, I have found you beautiful in every version that you have presented yourself in and I will find you beautiful if you change your whole appearance everyday. I love you,” he reminds you, “and I love everything that you bring along with you. Insecurities, panic attacks and clever insults to my clothing included.” 

The chuckle that you let out makes him smile against your cheek and he gives you a little peck before putting some space between your face and his. He looks you up and down in the mirror again and you can see genuine want in the way his pupils dilate. You see it happening in real time but then you also see his self-restraint. 

You're at a loss for words, but manage to mumble out “Thank you, Yunho.” And then you turn your head, catching his lips in a soft closed mouth kiss that he returns right away. 

“Whenever you're ready to let me prove how beautiful I find you, I'll be here.” He says when you let his mouth move away from yours, your lips softly pecking his jaw instead and getting a sigh in return. “I can wait.” 

Then, the worst thing happens: His hands leave your body and he starts to step away. 

It's a little embarrassing how quickly your entire being protests and you realize that there's a clinginess to you that you're not so sure where it came from. You reach for him, barely turning, and tug him right where he was. 

Looking at him through the mirror again, you enjoy the genuine surprise on his expression and the way it turns into desire when you put his hands on you again: on your stomach, on your hip. 

When you turn your head to look at him directly, his eyes stay fixated on the reflection. His hand on your stomach turns, knuckles softly caressing you. You want to ask him what he likes about that but don't, instead, you tell him what goes on inside your head. 

“Yunho, I do want you. I want you… But I also want to make sure that you like me.” 

He looks at you then, mouth ready to reassure you again but you shake your head to shut him up. 

“I heard you,” you confirm, smiling a bit and then closing your eyes at the visage that accompanies the concept of your body in your mind. You know it's far from what it actually looks like but that also means that you don't know exactly what it looks like and that's terrifying. “I know you love me but would you like me?” 

“I do,” you hear the frown in his voice and take a deep breath before opening your eyes again. “Princess, do you trust me?” 

You nod without a second thought and he leans in, nose almost touching yours. 

“Would you let me show you how much I like you?”

It takes a second or two, but you nod again.

“And would you let me know if it's too much?” 

“Yes,” you breath out, too intoxicated by the closeness, by the way his lips softly trace yours without actually kissing them to think about the implication of his words. 

When he pulls away again, you let out a sound that gives away how much you want him. Yunho’s lips curve and when your eyes finally focus on his again, you can see the quick decision he makes as he looks at the mirror again, resolve and purpose in his expression as he takes off the jacket of his three piece, tossing it on the sofa. 

There's something magnetic in the way he rolls his sleeves up, securing them in his forearms and your eyes follow the motions and trace the veins that you're able to see before he turns away from you. 

He takes one of the chairs he's able to easily mov, placing it behind you both. You realize you've walked a few steps closer to the mirror, and so your back is pressed against it when his attention returns to you, when he takes your face with his hands and crushes his lips against yours without explaining what he just did. 

You brace himself on his forearms, nails pressing on his skin because somehow this kiss feels different. Its pace is not hard to keep up with but it feels like you are, the care he puts in his movements as his palms brush your hair back slowly and then go down, down until they're reaching the knot that keeps your robe closed. 

This time, instead of panic, you feel your stomach flutter. Butterflies all over, there's goosebumps on your skin when he tugs the robe open and feels the satin of your pajamas with his fingers. He makes a noise and, at first, you think it's out of protest because you're not already undressed for him.

But then his knuckles trace the hem of the nightgown and he makes the noise again, tongue flicking against yours harder, getting a moan out of you.

Yunho’s lips find your cheek, your jaw, nipping at the skin of your neck and over your pulse when he gets to it and you close your eyes, head falling against the mirror and head moving to the side so he can kiss every inch of skin if he wants. 

“You smell so fucking good.” 

That makes you smile, a droopy curve to your lips before you bite a sound back “I showered.” 

“You always do,” he whispers into your skin, lips finding your ear. “You always have. Do you know how many times I had to control myself around you?” 

“Hm,” you muse, pretending to think about it. “Do you know how many times you had to?” 

“Oh, trust me princess, I know.” 

He pulls back and you open your eyes. You wonder if yours are carrying the same intensity as his when they go down your body, taking your sleepwear in. 

It's a simple blue v-neck slip dress with some floral lace at the trim lines. It splits on the sides and falls mid-thigh. Something very basic in your opinion, but you don't miss the way his eyes are glued to the skin of your thigh. You're not wearing a bra and your nipples are painfully hard. 

“I didn't actually expect you to come to me tonight,” you lie a little, lips turning up into a shy smile. “So I didn't—” 

“Is this what you wear to sleep?” He interrupts and you watch him gulp. 

“Mhm.” 

“Every night?” 

“Something like this,” you tug at the fabric, softly, “yes.” 

“Fuck.” 

You giggle in return at how affected he seems, but the amusement dies when his eyes return to yours. Holding your hand, he takes a step back and then another and another until he's falling with a thump on the chair he brought close. 

He takes you in one more time before letting go of your hand and manspreading on the chair “Come here, princess.” 

The tone of his voice makes your entire being shake and you take in a breath before following his command. Which is crazy because you never, ever would've followed an order from him. 

But now you can't help yourself. 

Standing in between his legs, you can see when he holds the arms of it after attempting to touch you as soon as you get close enough for him to be able to reach you and, when you're about to straddle his lap, he shakes his head and clicks his tongue in response. 

You understand what he wants immediately and you turn around, watching your reflection in the mirror as you sit down on his legs that he managed to close again in the three seconds it took you to do so. 

You're breathing hard by the time he accommodates you both on the chair, his very clear erection pressing against your ass and lower back and making you dizzy at what you're looking at. 

The image on the mirror is clear, it allows you to see both your reaction and his reaction when you fidget without thinking about it on his lap and the friction it causes brings you a whisper of pleasure. 

“You're a dream, Y/N,” he says and you can tell it came out of his mouth without really thinking about it. Finally, he moves his hands and his nails press on the skin of your shoulders, goosebumps evident and tremor barely concealable when he drags them down the length of your arm and over your hands that rest on top of your knees. 

He covers them with his and you stop following his movements in the mirror to look at his face “Can I?” 

You swallow and then nod and he giggles, this hard facade he has on slipping as he presses a reassuring kiss to your shoulder “Can you say it, my love?” 

“Yes,” you say quickly, your voice betraying you “Please.” 

He closes his eyes, a curse under his breath. “Don't beg me, princess, I got you.” 

You can't help but be curious and, although this is something you can find out as the night goes on, you end up wondering out loud either way: “Why? You don't like it?” 

He shakes his head, that hardness in his expression returns when he opens his eyes to look at you and the curious glint of your expression through the mirror. 

“Do you enjoy it when I beg you, Yunho?” 

And then you slightly move on his lap, trying to pass it like an absentminded movement. 

He sees right through it and the realization shows on his face. 

“Ah,” he laughs, back falling against the chair and head lolling back, “are you going to be a brat, princess?” 

Your mouth quirks at the quick and accurate read he gives your attitude. 

“Of course you are.” 

Again, the bravery your amusement gives you is short lived. He uses his hands over yours to open your legs and his, fast, earning a surprised squeak out of you. Your first instinct is attempting to close them but he huffs and perches your legs on his. You loop your feet around them to avoid falling forward at the lack of things to hold on to. 

This way, your panties are on full display as well. They're simple cotton white panties and there's a wet patch in the middle of them that grows a little at the display, at the image you see in the mirror. 

Yunho curses under his breath again. 

“You're my dream,” he says, a little bit distracted again and then he remembers himself. “I don't like people begging me, I don't give them the time to.” 

Raising your eyebrows, you're about to protest because you don't want to hear about his encounters with anyone else, but he won't let you. 

“One time, I almost had a fight with a friend over teasing. You know her, Mingi's girlfriend,” he says and you don't know if he's smiling at the memory or at the way you squirm under his touch when his fingernails start dragging over the skin of your inner thighs slowly. “I told her the truth: I'm too impatient to tease. She said it's necessary, I said I never needed to tease anyone to get with them and it went on for almost an hour.” 

He reaches the plush that has formed on your inner thighs and you can physically feel your centre growing wetter. 

“I never got it,” he insists and, when he pretends that he's going to touch you where you need it the most only for his touch to go back down the expanse of your thighs, you let out dissatisfied huff. “Now I think I do.” 

“Yunho…”

“You wanted to beg?” He asks, mouth against your ear and hot breath on your cheek. “I can make you beg.” 

You give in almost immediately. 

“Please,” tongue wetting your lips, you attempt to move in order to get some sort of relief but he's quicker than you. Strong hands hold your hips steady and you puff out some air again. “Please touch me.” 

It's clear the whine on your voice affects him because he pants against your cheek, nudges your face with his nose and then dives with his lips to kiss your neck again. 

“Be still, princess.” He commands and you stop trying to wiggle against him, only to rest your back against his chest when he brings his hands down in a caress and holds you fully open for him again. “I got you, but do as I say.” 

He takes your nod as an answer this time and his lips travel down your neck, to the skin of your back and then your shoulder. You watch in the mirror as his teeth catch the strap of your nightgown and, when he speaks again, it's a little muffled because of it.

“Can I take this off you?” 

You take a breath before replying “Yes.” 

And then he slips the strap off your shoulder with his teeth and you swear you're ruined for everyone else entirely. 

There's no way anyone is going to make you tremble like he did just now.

He goes ahead and does the same to the other strap, hand quick in catching the gown from falling completely. 

“Should I?” 

“Yunho… Stop teasing me.” 

He chuckles and takes his time to redo what he just undone: he pulls the strap on your left shoulder up again, switches the hand that's holding your second to last piece of clothing up, and does the same to the other strap. 

“But you look so pretty in it.” 

Your skin heats up harder than ever before. 

“You look so pretty like this, all breathless and ready for me to touch you… Do you know how happy it makes me that I can touch you, princess? That you’re in my lap and not in my head?” 

You swallow back a whine “Y-you thought about me like this?” 

“I dreamed about you like this,” he kisses the nape of your neck and then focuses his attention on the shoulder he neglected before, “for months.” 

You hum in acknowledgement at his words, but your mind is elsewhere because his hands return to their ministrations on your inner thighs and it's hard to concentrate on anything else but the pad of his thumbs ghosting over your panties as they move. 

He finally concedes and lets his hands wander upwards until they get ahold of the hem of the nightgown and, in one swift movement, you're left in nothing but your underwear in front of him. 

Well, in front of the mirror. He's watching the reflection of your body carefully and you can barely spare a look at it, breath caught in your throat at his reaction. 

When he sees your naked torso, he fully lets out a moan. 

You feel slick rush out of you at the sound but don't turn to yourself to verify what exactly about you made him react that way, made him get even harder against your ass. 

“God, look at you.” 

Breathing hard, you turn your head slightly so that your nose touches his and you think he's about to drop it, give in and kiss you when you feel his thumb and index pressing against your cheek, turning your head to the reflection again. 

“Is this okay?” 

You know he's referring to the hold on your face and you mumble out a yes, still looking at him through the mirror. 

“I said, look at yourself.” 

You do. 

Legs open and still perched on top of his, white panties turning a little see through due to your arousement and nipples pebbled in full display, you allow yourself to enjoy the two seconds of clarity before your body starts to shape shift in your head, before your thoughts turn you undesirable and before you fall into your dysmorphia. 

Yunho is right there to catch you, though. 

“Do you know how lucky I am that you're even allowing me to see you like this, Y/N?” 

The hold on your face relaxes and you follow the movement of his hand, down until it settles on your throat, relaxed, not even putting any pressure. 

“Still okay?” 

You nod. 

He puts in slight pressure now and, when you moan, he chuckles but doesn't say anything to acknowledge what makes him laugh. Instead, his hand keeps descending until his fingers rests in between your breasts and then he softly cups one of them, thumb passing over your nipple and making you jump at the sudden contact before letting go. 

“So fucking pretty. You see this?” His fingers take hold of the skin of your tummy that connects with the curve of your waist and he pinches slightly, making you squirm and tickling you a bit. “Everything you are, everything you have makes my heart beat,” he kisses your shoulder again, “and my dick hard,” and again, “and makes me want to prove to you that there's no one in this world that can come close to you, not in my eyes, my love.” 

Oh, my God. 

He says it in a way that makes you want to believe him. And, deep down, you know you do. 

Even though it's complicated, even though it takes effort to make years and years of self-loathing disappear, you know you can try. 

Because you desperately yearn to see yourself from Yunho's point of view. 

This time, when you turn to kiss him, he doesn't put up any restraint. His dominant mask slips off of him for just a second when you grab his face, pliant mouth moving at the rhythm and pace yours is marking, a whine getting muffled with your tongue. 

He gives your legs rest, closing his legs (and, in consequence, yours as well) and, when you tug at his hair so you can mark his neck down at the weird position you're in, he groans and you want to smile but he's searching your lips before you can even leave a bruise on his skin. 

“I love you, I love the way you think about me, I love what you make me want to think about me,” you assure him when you pull back to look at him. His cheeks are red and his lips are swollen and you love the way they're parted as he recovers his breath. 

“Lesson learned?” 

“Mhm,” you kiss his lips again and take the hand resting your waist, bringing it down to your clothed sex so he can feel how wet you are “now please, would you touch me?” 

“Fuck, you really do love to beg, hm?” He says and it's breathy, like he can't actually believe, and he doesn't give you time to respond because he's already kissing you again. “Let's go to bed.” 

“W-wait.” 

“Yeah?” 

The way you glance at the mirror is a dead giveaway of what you truly want. It makes him take in a sharp breath and grab your face in between his hands, fascination written all over his expression. 

“Do you want to watch when I touch you?”

You breathe out a moan in response.

“You want to watch yourself while I make you come?” 

A little shy but with resolve, you nod. 

He curses. 

Next thing you know, your legs are perched over his again and they’re wide open. Your arms fly back to hold onto him, onto anything that helps you not fall on your face but then his perfect, veiny hand presses on your torso and you fall back comfortably into his embrace again. 

He wastes no time, lips marking a path from your shoulder to your neck and fingers ghosting your clit over your panties and you whimper, impatience making you move against his crotch and making him grunt at the friction. 

“I k-know you just s-said you just discovered the joy of t-teasing but can you please do somet— Fuck!” 

His thumb presses on your bundle of nerves over the cotton and you can’t help but shake. 

It has been a while since you’ve even touched yourself truly, with want and need behind. It’s been a while since someone else touched you there, period, so the sensation feels new and you kind of feel like an overly inexperienced woman with the way you can’t help the immediate build up when he starts moving his thumb.  

It’s electric and you notice that your eyes closed the second he touched you, so you remember yourself. You remember what you asked for, what you actually want to see. 

When you open them again and look at Yunho, you find him already looking at you. His parted lips turn into a proud smile when he catches your eye and he nods, kisses trailing up to your ear, teeth nipping at the skin. 

“Good girl.” 

Fuck. 

He stops his movements to let his index, middle and ring finger cup your sex entirely, press into the fabric and let it soak with your arousal. You see in the mirror and you watch, with fascination, how he manages to twist the cotton to the side and expose your pussy for you both to see with the same hand. 

“You’re so wet, princess, I bet you taste so good…” 

Your brain short circuits and malfunctions when he finally touches you without anything in between his skin and yours. His index reaches out and collects the evidence of how much 

you want him, of how much you want him and you moan when the fabric snaps against your pussy when he lets go of it. 

“Do you?”

He toys with the stickiness on with his fingers, rubs it in between them and then brings his hand up so you’re able to see it without the mirror’s help. 

“Look at me,” you do, obedient, “and open up.” 

You open your mouth and allow his fingers to get in and rest against your tongue. You suck out of instinct, eyes never leaving his, and he gulps as he watches you taste yourself until your arousal transfers from his fingers to your tongue. 

“Let me taste it now.” 

Licking into his mouth, the fingers that were previously on yours settle on your throat, not allowing you to fully lean in and kiss him like you want but, instead, letting him have control of it. 

You swear you see stars when he sucks his tongue into his mouth and he hums, pleased with the taste. 

“You taste so fucking good.” 

Letting you go, you’re breathing hard when he pushes you a bit to put some distance between the both of you. 

“Get up and take these off.” He snaps the elastic of your panties and the sting against your skin makes you whine. 

You can’t think, can’t speak, can’t do anything but wait for him to lead your actions and the consensual loss of control feels so freeing that it makes you dizzy. So you oblige, getting off his lap and allowing him to turn you around so that your ass faces the mirror. When you look at him, he’s looking at the reflection and not you, so you decide, with a boost of confidence because of the hunger in his eyes, to give him a little show. 

You bend over, forehead almost touching his chest and proceed to take off your underwear that way. You open your legs a little, giving him a clear view of it when the fabric falls from your legs and pools at your ankles and, when you twist your head to the side to look at his reaction, his tongue is out and licking his bottom lip like he’s starving for it. 

For the first time ever, you feel both sexy and desired at the same time. 

He reaches for your ass in a way you’re not so sure it’s calculated and you fall fully into his chest with a soft moan when he opens you up for him even more. 

“So hot,” he says, low, under his breath, like he’s not even thinking before he speaks and he lets his fingernails drag on your skin (something you’re learning he enjoys doing and that you also like, a lot) until his hands fall to his knees again. “Fuck.” 

He still hasn’t even touched you properly and you already feel drunk on his touch. You feel that way, at least, when you prop your hands against his chest and push yourself up. He turns you around quickly, sits you on his lap with your legs open again and sighs. 

“I’m not going to make you beg for it anymore when all I want to do is watch you come, princess.” 

Arm around your middle, he presses you flush against his chest and takes your right hand in his. It allows you to let go of the grasp you have on him a little and, when he guides your own fingers to your pussy, you get why. 

“Show me how you like it.”

You feel lewd, exposed and dirty in a way you never thought you would enjoy. But here you are, craving 

“Yunho…”

“Show me,” he insists, “so I can learn.” 

Isn’t it a little bit funny that he sounds like he’s the one begging you when he speaks? 

You show him. Starting with collecting a bit of your slick, you drag a finger upwards from your entrance to your clit and then, only when you can see it fully glistening in the mirror, is when you press down and caress it in circular motions that send electricity through you right away. 

As you do with everything, this is something that, although you don’t really have time to even think about doing most of the days, you have perfected. There’s a science to it, a method that you’ve discovered via need and lust and that has never been so thoroughly explored than right now. 

It’s like you have kept your needs like a nasty little secret inside of your heart, just like you did with your love for Yunho, and you’re letting it all out. 

You pick up the pace, alternating from circles to side to side motions and the pleasure quickly becomes overwhelming. Or have you been touching yourself for him for minutes now? Time disappears in every sound you unconsciously let out, it blends with the glint of passion in Yunho’s eyes and it dissolves in an orgasm that quickly takes over you and shakes you forward. 

“That’s it,” he mutters with his lips against your temple and his hands holding you steady. “Now’s my turn.” 

He replaces his hands with yours, bats your fingers away when you try to prolong your pleasure and takes over at a relentless pace, overstimulating you.

It goes on like that for a minute or so where you shake and you readjust in his lap and you shake again when he bucks your hips and you feel him firm against your ass. You desperately want to help him feel this way, too, but there’s only so much you can do when he teases your entrance with his index and finds you relaxed enough to put it in slowly. 

Slowly until it glides in and out smoothly and you hold onto your forearm, and whimper and his name spilling from your lips in bliss when his ring finger joins. You hope you don’t look too delirious, you wish you’re not making a fool of yourself for feeling the heat pool on your lower belly so quickly again. 

“Oh, yes, yes, I’m—” 

“Don’t look at me or what I’m doing, look at yourself.”

Huh?

“W-what?”

“Watch yourself come,” he reiterates, breathless and, when you disobey and look at him through the reflection, he’s already focused on your face, mouth hanging open and brows furrowed with determination. “I want you to see how beautiful you look coming all over my fingers, Y/N.” 

He curves them upwards and the sensation somehow intensifies “Shit.” 

“Come, Y/N.”

You’re not sure if you’re able to prove his words to be true. When you come undone, you’re looking at yourself and in the mirror is someone you don’t exactly recognize. Someone you don’t perceive as yourself because, yes, the person staring back at you is beautiful. And that person looks sexy and sensual and is glowing with pleasure written all over their face but they’re not someone you have categorized in your brain as you. 

And then you understand. This raw, pure, unfiltered state of you is something you hadn’t reached before. Naturally, you had never seen yourself come. And you hadn’t been handled with so much care through an orgasm before, so you lived it fully and then, only when you stop shaking and your legs fall from his and your feet are on the floor, holding your weight steady, is when you allow yourself to look away from your reflection and turn to the man responsible for the best orgasm of your life. 

His lips are quivering, his eyes are closed and his chest rises and falls against your shoulder as he holds you to him. 

“You… Jeong Yunho…” 

He smiles, probably at the way your voice trembles and gives away just how fucked out you already are, but he doesn’t open his eyes  “Yes?” 

“My turn.” 

When he opens his eyes, you’re already standing up in front of him, his hands shifting on your body, the fingers that just made you see stars leaving a wet trail on your skin before they settle on your stomach. 

And, although he seemed tough and dominant just a minute ago, he puts no resistance when you grab his arm and make him stand up as well. You get on your tippy toes to nuzzle his nose with yours and he holds onto you again as you stumble backwards, towards the bedroom. 

“You’re too dressed, Jeong.” 

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy me in a dress shirt,” he says, a smug smile in his lips when your back hits a wall and he presses his body to yours, “prepping you to take my coc— F-fuck, princess.”

Your hand teasing his erection over the fabric of his expensive pants is enough to shut him up. Good, you already let him have his fun (and yours, by consequence) and, even if you enjoyed the loss of control, there’s something equal parts rewarding and hot about winning it back with the simple press of your thumb where you believe his leaking tip is. 

“You’re too overconfident sometimes, Jeong,” you whisper against his lips and it may be your two amazing orgasms or the way you love to have something over him, a little bit of power at least, that make you overly confident right now as well. He puckers out to kiss you but you don’t budge. “Want to see if you prepped me right?” 

It’s a question for consent. You have to make sure he wants you this way, too. That this is fun for him, too. And when he pauses your heart feels like it stops for a second, just like time. 

But right after there’s this quiet agreement you both come to and his mouth devours yours as you move in tandem, in coordinated effort to undress him: You loosen his belt and work on the button of his pants while he unbuttons his shirt and both your feet move with synchronized steps until he’s falling on the bed and you’re getting on your knees in front of him. 

He, however, stops you with a hand caressing your face softly. 

“Later,” he mutters with a soft smile that’s laced with something passionate and lewd you feel you’re about to discover. He leans in, teeth catching your bottom lip and pulling until you’re whining and you taste a little blood on your mouth. “I need to fuck you right now.” 

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. You do however make sure to peel his underwear off him while you’re on your knees, the size of him making you wet and ready all over again.

When you stand up, he grabs your tired legs to pull you closer. It feels like a pause in the middle of passionate urgency, but when he takes his time to kiss under your belly button and the expanse of your hips, you feel like it only adds fuel to the fire. 

The fact that he’s even taking the time to explore you makes you want to combust.

“Oh.” He bites you right over your hip bone and you take his hair into your fingers, pulling him back. “Y-you said you needed to fuck me?” 

“I do,” he laughs against your skin and then leans back, taking him with you and you let him, falling on your side before he pushes you against the mattress, body covering yours and palms touching you all over. “I just enjoy taking my time with you.” 

“I can see that, Jeong.” 

He’s distracted again within the second, looking down your body and taking you in like it’s the first time he’s seeing you even though he had a clear view of you and your pussy in the mirror five minutes ago.

And there’s this urge that takes over you, you can’t even fight the words that come out your mouth next.

“Make love to me.” 

He pauses again and then your words register in his brain, you can see the exact moment they hit him and you think you see him tear up a little before he blinks the deep emotion away to focus on the moment. You have to do the same. 

“I will. Every day of my life, if you ask me to, if I’m so lucky to.”

The rest of the night, from the moment he says those words, kisses you and moves you so you’re in the middle of the bed, it all passes in slow motion. 

And it all passes really fast, too. 

Yunho makes love to you. He enters you while looking into your eyes and whispering how much he loves you against your lips and you say it back. He holds your hand as his hips move and his length drags deliciously inside of you. He marks your chest with his lips and your heart with his love and he closes his hands over yours when his pace picks up and he allows to lose himself in the moment too. 

You make love to him as you push him onto his back, his pretty face all flushed, the pink coloring his neck and his chest where you hand rest as you ride him and watch his control slip from him, as you memorize his moans and grunts and as your walls squeeze him in before coming again on his cock and it only takes to firm, hard strides for him to spill himself inside of you as well, the prove of your love making spilling out of you a little when he holds you to his chest and he pulls out of you, both of you sated, both of you in love. 

It feels like an hour has passed when someone speaks again, the silence in the room comfortable and accompanied by the beats of both your hearts. In reality, it’s only been around ten minutes where you’ve closed your eyes and breathed the remnants of Yunho’s cologne, cheek pressed against his chest and his fingers drawing random figures on your naked back. 

You decide to break the silence when you remember something. 

“I think they forgot my room service.” 

There’s a pause and then Yunho is laughing loudly and it makes you smile. His chest vibrates and you can see, on your peripheral, how he covers his eyes with his forearm. 

“I’m being serious, I ordered like three hours ago.” 

“Maybe they knocked and we didn’t hear them,” he mumbles tiredly and you finally look up, chin pressed where your cheek was a second ago. “We were pretty… Busy.” 

“That’s worse, Jeong!” 

“Why?” He asks, genuinely clueless and then it clicks for him. He brings down his arm and opens his eyes wide with shame. “Oh, my God.” 

“Mhm.” 

“How are you going to look the receptionist in the eye?” 

“She knows me, too. She asked me to take a picture with her  when I check out.”

Yunho sighs and says nothing. He looks at you, hand on your back moving until it reaches your face and he lets his knuckles trace your nose in a way that makes you scrunch it. 

“I forgot you were famous.” 

“We both are,” you w-hisper back, lips forming a thin line as you think. “I mean, if someone leaks that we’re both here, it won’t look weird because we’re supposed to be together.” 

“Supposed to?” He frowns. 

“Well, yes, to the public at least.” 

Yunho pouts. 

He pouts and your stomach twists and turns with nerves and butterflies. You’re joking, kind of. 

“Are you not my girlfriend, Y/N?” 

Oh, he’s adorable. It’s so easy to tease him when you’re both not at each other’s throat. 

You wonder if you’ll ever have a fight again, your heart weak for him even when you try to keep the joke going. 

“I haven’t been asked to be anyone’s girlfriend…” 

The deadpan expression that follows your quip breaks your resolve entirely and you laugh, hiding your face on his chest as he mumbles something you don’t catch. 

“What?” You look up at him again. 

“I said that you’re annoying and that you are my girlfriend.” 

“No, I think you said that you love me.”

There’s something so reassuring in the way the annoyance disappears from his expression and it’s replaced by something sweet and he looks like he can barely fight the words back when he replies with: “Yeah, I do.” 

You hum, happy with his response “I thought so.” 

Pressing your cheek against his skin again, there’s only two seconds of silence before his hand is on your shoulder and shaking your body. 

“Say it back, Y/N.” 

“So needy,” you tease and he shakes you again, groaning, so you sigh and pull away from his body to sit up a little. “I love you too.” 

He leans into your space, a blissful smile curving his lips before he pecks your mouth in a sweet, short kiss “Good,” he whispers, falling against the pillows and dragging your body with his so that you’re resting against the soft material as well. “When did you come back?” 

“A week ago.” 

“Hm,” his hands return to your body, fingernails dragging softly up and down your arm, “your family doesn’t know.” 

At the mention of them, you close your eyes and squeeze, reality washing over you. 

“I’m sure my mother does.” 

“She doesn’t,” he assures you, “she would’ve mentioned it by now and she only talks about the project you’re going to lead once you’re back.” 

You open your eyes “What project?” 

“I’m not sure,” he says softly, “I thought you were already leading one?” 

“Something like that,” you nod. “I, um… Was networking in a way, gathering new information on new companies to invest in and help their growth. Small business with original concepts that we can boost or help bring to the city and all of that.” 

“Did you have fun on the trip?” 

“Yeah,” you answer truthfully, “I did. I met a lot of people, I visited places I never even knew existed, I also learned a lot about myself and about what I want… And I got away from Satan for a while.” 

He knows you mean your mom, so he snorts out a laugh and shakes his head at the jab. 

“I missed you a lot, though.” 

His amusement dies slowly but happiness remains on his face. You’re sure yours is a reflection of his, as well. 

“I missed you too,” he answers in a murmur and you nuzzle the hand that reaches your cheek before giving it a kiss. “I’m glad you had fun and it sounds like being away helped but… Never do it again.” 

“Oh?” You try to tease but he insists. 

“Never leave without telling me again, please,” his whisper sounds like a plea and your heart beats louder. “I’ll miss you too much.” 

There’s an impulse, a need that soars through your blood. “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away again but, when I do, you can go with me.” 

“I will,” he answers right away and at the confirmation that you want him there with you, you see the tension slip away from his features, “my bags are already packed and all.” 

“I bet they are,” eyes rolling back in annoyance, you press a palm on his chest and push him a little. “Needy.” 

“Shut up.” 

There’s a lot of things to talk about. A lot of things you want to tell him, to mention, to bring up and discuss with him. Like what happens after you leave this bubble you’re floating in, if you tell your brother and his right away, if he’s going to tell his friends or wait until you’re a little far along in the friendship to do so. 

You have to ask him if he wants to tell your parents like… Ever. You’re not so sure you even want to. 

But he shuffles and moves until his naked chest is against yours and his hands are around your body, chin resting on the top of your head as he yawns. 

There’s this feeling of calmness that washes over you as you consider that, maybe, this can be the way you fall asleep from now on. No sleeping or sleepless nights, just Yunho’s embrace and his steady breathing above you, the beat of his heart, a lullaby that lulls you until your eyes are closing and tiredness takes over your senses. 

This time, you dream about a future together and nothing more. 

If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and please remember the next part it's much shorter and would be the end of this mini series!

© jensthwa, 2025.

[buck-up-buttercup]

So we all know how protective and possessive Caleb is. I want to write some head-canons on how he perceives and responds to people showing interest in MC (you) throughout the years.

As a child, Caleb had a fierce obligation towards protecting you from bullies. He even went so far as to lock you in an attic to prevent you from getting caught up in a fight with those twerps (reference Rain's Embrace). Especially with how fool-hardy you could be, he knew to keep you out of it completely. The bullies he mentions fending off would have been more than eager to play with a cute girl such as you. Caleb didn't like how rough they could be with you, obviously lacking respect towards a young girl who wanted to "run with the boys" as you so claimed. And of course, you only wanted to because Caleb could. But Caleb could handle himself and unfortunately, he couldn't juggle fending these kids off and keeping you unscathed in the mix of things. He needed to prove to these kids that he was not to be messed with and neither were you. That day, he made it doubly clear that no kid was to mess with you. He never fully explains to you the scuffle he went through to gain this sort of respect, but he won't ever forget learning to take advantage of his Evol to use against someone for the first time... and of course, that first time was for you. Everything he did was for you, somehow.

As a high-schooler, Caleb had many admirers and thus received many gifts and notes in school. You were always a little put off by it. You always thought Caleb was cute, but you didn't realize just how cute until his admirers showered him with attention. You also joked with him about being jealous that he received so many gifts on holidays from secret (or sometimes not-so-secret) admirers while you were left with none. He'd quickly play it off with a smile, claiming you could have all of his gifts if you wanted them since he had no interest in any of his admirers. Besides, he always provided you with the most thoughtful and personable gifts, so was it really so bad? Quality vs quantity, after all. He'd be sure that you would never know about him going behind your back to scare the life out of any teenage boy who so much as looked your way. One instance would have been in PE when the boys were having their typical "locker talk." Caleb wasn't one to join in on such conversations... until you were brought up one day. Some dumb boy would talk about checking you out and Caleb would immediately chime in, "keep her out of your filthy conversation. If I hear anyone say anything demeaning about her, they're going to regret it. Got it?" The boys would be wide eyed and agree not to speak about you. Even if there were some jocks involved, they knew better than to try to one-up someone with Caleb's stature. Not only was he a well-liked and high-achieving student, he was very athletic and a fairly large guy. Caleb also intercepted any guy who tried making a move on you. At one point, you had a sweet guy start to show a liking towards you. You expressed your disappointment to Caleb when this guy suddenly avoided you after his feelings were admitted to you. Caleb would just shrug his shoulders and say, "his loss, pipsqueak." Meanwhile, he'd secretly be proud of himself for scaring the poor guy off after Caleb posed a light-hearted threat at him. "So, you like her?" The guy would confirm and Caleb would nod thoughtfully before adding, "then you need to stop. She's not for you to have." He'd smile politely but his eyes would be sharp as daggers, "Kay?" The guy would take the hint real fast and run.

As a college student, Caleb has some good friends from the Aerospace Academy. One of the boys would say something about the "pretty girl in Caleb's photos" on his moment posts. Caleb wouldn't respond much to this, though he would say something if they followed your profile. "Don't be weird," he'd warn. When meeting you for the first time, they'd be chivalrous. Afterwards, they would definitely tease Caleb for not letting them have a chance with you. He'd roll his eyes at this but would definitely need to take his frustrations out later, whether it be through working out or diving into his schoolwork to distract himself. It bothers him that others see how precious and pretty you are. On the one hand, it makes him proud to know and be so close to such a beautiful and lovely person. On the other hand, he wished he lived in a world where it was just the two of you so no one else could come in between you. His anxieties would only heighten once he thought about the potential pursuers you had at your own college. His head hurt as much as his heart just thinking about it.

As a colonel, Caleb would have strong jealousy towards the multiple men in your life. When he finds out how close you've grown with Zayne after the explosion, he'd feel regretful. He wanted to be the one to comfort you, especially as he harbored the guilt of causing you such pain from disappearing and having you believe him dead. Once he learns about your partnership with Xavier and how he's neighbors with you, he'd feel annoyed. He wouldn't like how often you'd need to work with Xavier, and now you two could even walk home together or see each other at your own apartment complex whenever? Ugh. Frustrating. Rafayel would get on his nerves as well, making his temper flare up. Why do you even need to be around this famous artist? Especially one with a bounty. He would not like the messages he'd see on your phone from Rafayel. He'd contemplate blocking his number on your phone but didn't have a good enough excuse to... so he simmered with anger silently. Sylus is by far his least favorite person you're associated with, though. Being in cahoots with the leader of Onichynus only spelt out trouble in his mind. He would chastise you on the sort of company you keep. He'd be adamant about knowing your whereabouts and to never go into the N109 Zone without him knowing of your exact location and an itinerary of what you'd be doing and who you'd be seeing. This is only because you refused to have him escort you himself since this was "Hunter business" and you could handle yourself... which he highly doubted, but he knew better than to belittle you now that you were an adult and a capable Deepspace Hunter. At the end of the day, Caleb just wants you safe and the only way he can curb his anxieties is by keeping you under his watch and care as often as possible.

Though the man is endearing, he can be downright suffocating. But why wouldn't you want to drown in all the love and care he showers you under? MC doesn't always realize just how deep his love runs for her.

[angstywaifu]

I Only Want You - Liam Mairi

Request: Liam Mairi fic (smut) where he is the readers first time and he’s super sweet when she gets a little nervous or shy? Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI. Smut. Fingering. Unprotected P in V. Readers first time.

Masterlist | Support Me

Ever since battle brief and the comment I had made, I had felt Liam’s eyes on me all day. Every time I met his gaze he didn’t look away. He’d look at me as if he was trying to figure something out. Like if there had been a hidden meaning in my words. And there had been.

Ever since I’d laid eyes on Liam I had been attracted to him. He was easily one of the most attractive riders in the quadrant in my opinion. And I knew a lot of other girls thought that with how they looked at him. Especially in gym or challenges. The way he moved and handled himself, it was like an art form. An art form I’m sure translated to his skills in bed. My room was just up from his, and at least once or twice a week I would catch a girl sneaking out or in. Usually the same girls, but occasionally I would see someone different.

But I had never dare hinted I wanted to see what it was like. I didn’t want to risk the friendship we had. Liam and I had hit it off almost immediately after I very nearly kicked his butt in the first day of challenges when we had been paired up. He eventually got the better of me and won. But after he pulled me up from the mat and introduced himself, we’d been close friends since. But now it felt like we were at a turning point in our friendship after my comment.

“One time! It’s happened one time, Rhi!” Violet says loudly as I join my squad and take my place next to Rhiannon.

*“Right. And what would you call that whole thing with Tynan?” Rhiannon asks in a sassy tone that nearly has me laughing.

”Threshing.” Violet says in a way to try shrug it off.*

*“And what about Barlowe’s constant threats?” I ask as I lean around Rhiannon with a smirk on my face. Liam shakes his head at me, knowing I’m just fuelling the fire now.

”They’re just threats. The only time I’ve actually been targeted was at night, and it’s not like Liam here is sleeping in my bedroom.”*

*He pauses his wood carving as he shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, I’m not opposed-”

”Don’t even start.” Violet whips her head towards Liam. “You are a shameless flirt.”

His usually cocky grin spreads across his face. “Thank you.”*

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

Rhiannon leans back in her chair and laughs. “Don’t mind her, she’s just sexually frustrated. Makes a girl crabby.” Adds as she starts writing in her book.

“That has nothing to do with it.” Violet mutters.

“And yet I don’t hear you denying it.” Rhiannon adds with a sweet smile.

“I’m sorry I don’t make the cut.” Liam says teasingly.

“Maybe not for her.” I add a little too flirtatiously, causing Liam’s eyes to snap to me as I sink back into my chair trying to hide behind Rhiannon as my cheeks flush bright red. Shit.

I yet again felt his eyes on me as I walked into the dining hall. As my eyes scan the hall I find him sitting with Xaden, Garrick and Bodhi. All of whom are looking at me then back at Liam before laughing at him. Were they talking about me? Surely not. I tear my gaze from them and grab some food for dinner before walking over to Imogen and Rhiannon who were the only ones in our squad at our usual table. Both of them going silent as I take seat next to Imogen and slowly pick at my food.

“You ok? You’ve been super quiet since battle brief?” Rhiannon asks as I roll a potato around my plate.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I tell her as I look up at her. Behind her I see Liam and Xaden looking over at me.

“Regretting the comment you made to Liam about sex?” Rhiannon teases me as Imogen’s head whips towards me.

“Clearly I need to sit closer to you first years in battle brief. What did you say to him?” She asks a she props her head up on her arm as she looks at me, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Violet made a comment about missing sex, and the boys started being well boys and Violet shot them down, then this one her pipes up and says to Liam maybe he’d make the cut for someone else. Gods I’ve never seen those boys eyes go as wide as they did when those words left her mouth.” Rhiannon informs Imogen.

“And he’s been avoiding me ever since. Successfully ruined that friendship.” I say sarcastically as I finally stab the potato on my plate.

“And yet his eyes have not left you once since battle brief.” She adds sternly.

“Wait, you haven’t hooked up with him?” Imogen asks as her eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Wait, you think Liam and I have slept together?”

She shrugs. “I mean with the way he looks at you and follows you around. Hell no guy goes anywhere near you because of him, and trust me they’ve tried. Even poor Bodhi over there wanted to have a shot with you before Liam sternly told him to look elsewhere.”

I shake my heat at them. “Trust me, not been there or done that. Not with anyone. And he doesn’t see me that way.”

Both girls look at me like I’ve told them the skies as pink as Imogen’s hair.

”Wait, you’re a virgin?” Rhiannon asks, lowering her voice so only I can hear her.

I nod. “Yes, and he definitely wont want to be with someone who has no experience/”

“You girl are so blind and oblivious.” Imogen states bluntly.

“I am not. If he wanted to be with me he would’ve tried. And he hasn’t. And I don’t want to be added to the list of girls he brings back to his room every other night.” I say a little too angrily.

“And also jealous apparently.” Imogen adds with a smirk.

“Am not.”

”Then how many girls are there?” Rhiannon asks.

I purse my lips together. And it’s all the answer they need from me to prove their point. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not the one girl kind of guy. And I don’t want to be on a list. It ain’t happening.”

“Maybe you just need to shoot your shot? What’s the worst that could happen?” Imogen adds so casually.

”I ain’t wrecking the friendship more than I have already. It will all be fine in a few days. He’ll sleep with someone and forget all about it.”

”I don’t know, that boys eyes have barely left you since you walked in and sat down. I say just go for it.” She adds before turning her attention back to her food.

I look up and immediately meet Liam’s blue eyes. I feel like he’s staring into my soul. As if trying to read my mind and intentions behind that comment. I shove my barely touched plate of food away before walking out of the dining hall and back to my room. I’m glad neither Rhiannon or Imogen try to follow me. Clearly deemed I’d had enough teasing for the evening. But in my hurry to leave, and my mind elsewhere. I don’t hear another set of feet following me, running to catch up. It’s not till they call out to me, that my blood runs cold with dread and my heart starts beating at a rapid pace.

“Y/N, wait up!” Liam calls behind me.

Only one more corridor and I can hide in my room for the night. Hide and deal with this tomorrow. I push my legs faster hoping my pace is faster than his. But it isn’t, and his hand grasp my wrist and spins me towards him. His other hand reaching out to steady me as I collide with his very solid muscular chest beneath his tight fitting black linen shirt. Too embarrassed to look him in the eye, I keep my eyes focused on the ground. He goes to grab my chin to raise my head but I tilt my head to the side and avoid his grip. I don’t have to know his eyes are furrowed at me right now. I’ve never avoided him touching me like that. Like I hated being close to him.

”Can you look at me?” He asks softly, his hand falling to his side.

I keep my eyes firmly on the floor. “What do you want Liam?”

”I want you to look at me Y/N. I want you to talk to me and not ignore me like I’m the plague like you have since battle brief.”

Anger flairs in me and has my eyes flicking up to his in an instant. “You weren’t exactly doing much better.” I snap.

He chuckles at me. “There she is.” I roll my eyes and go to leave, but he reaches out again and grasps my wrist.

I turn back and face him, watch as he swallows slowly, nervously. His eyes darting over me. Liam was nervous. Something I could say I had never seen him be.

“Are you ok?” I ask quietly.

”That comment you made today. In battle brief.” I gulp. Shit. “Did you mean you when you made that comment?”

I roll my eyes. “Heaps of girls want to be with you Liam, you know that.” I say trying to dodge the questions as I look down at my hands.

”That’s not what I asked.” He pleads, his fingers grasping my chin and forcing my eyes back to him. My breath catches in my throat at the intensity in his gaze “Did you mean you?”

His voice is almost pleading. Like, like he wanted my words to mean me. That I wanted him. That he would make the cut for me. That I would let him in.

”And what if I did? What if I was meaning me?” I ask quietly as I take a cautious step closer and place a hand on his chest as his hand moves from my chin to cup my cheek.

”Then we might need to go somewhere else if you did sweetheart.”

Gods I could have melted at the huskiness in his voice.

”I’m not being another girl on your list. It’s not what I want. And….”

“And what?” He asks, leaning down towards me.

”I’m…. I’ve never been with anyone. Ever.” I confess, averting my eyes from his.

”You would be the only girl on my list if you meant you. I only want you.” His voice so soft and gentle as his thumb runs over my cheek.

I look back up at him, his blue eyes piercing into mine. ”Then yes. I did mean me.”

I gasp as Liam backs me into my closed door, my legs locking around my waist as he kisses me, so soft and gentle as if testing the waters. He bites my lip before pushing his tongue into my mouth when I gasp at the sensation. His hands push under my shirt, his fingers skimming up and down my sides. I moan into his mouth as his grip around my waist tightens. His weight pushing me back into the door. I instinctively wind my fingers into his hair, as I tug I feel the moan rumble from his chest before he removes his lips from mine and rests his forehead on mine.

“Do that again.” He whispers against my lips.

I smile and do as he says, tugging on his blonde hair. I watch as his eyes darken and flare with desire. He walks backwards from the door, placing me back on my feet as he pushes the jacket from my arms and tugs on the bottom of my shirt. I raise my arms and he’s quick to discard of the material before removing his own. I go to trace the relic on his arm, but he kneels and starts to remove my boots, followed by my pants and underwear. He slowly stands back up, kissing his way back up my leg, sending shivers through my body. As he stands to his full height, he quickly removes his pants, exposing himself to me. He chuckles as I take him in. All of him.

Neither of us speaks, not wanting to break the moment. Liam grabs my hand and pulls me with him as he sits down on desk chair, guiding my legs either side of him. I go to sit but his hands hold me up by my waist. One of his hands slowly moves down, his fingers lightly caressing my skin as he makes his way between my legs. My hands grasps his shoulders as a moan rips from my throat as he inserts to fingers into me, my eyes closing as my head rolls back. He curls his fingers inside me, hitting the perfect spot, causing my to jump forward a little, but Liam’s hand keeps me steady as he chuckles at my reaction. He slowly slips his fingers from me as I groan at the loss. Liam’s hand comes up and cups my cheeks, my eyes opening to meet his.

“You ready?” He asks me, eyes blown wide with lust, but looking at me like I am the most precious thing in the world.

I look down at him. Gods I’m nervous. But I wanted him. I wanted him so badly. And now all embarassment and regret from making that comment in battle brief was gone. Because now I had Liam sitting below me, looking at me like I’m his everything.

I nod. “I’m ready.”

My eyes go wide as he stretches me open. It takes all my will power to keep my eyes open and looking at him. They risk fluttering shut but I force them open. My fingernails dig into Liam’s shoulder, definitely leaving marks as he lowers me slowly onto him. Eventually he sheaths himself inside me as I sit in his lap, a moan rippling through me and him.

He leans back in the chair as best as he can, as he starts to thrust slowly up and down. Each thrust pulling sounds I didn’t know were possible to come out of me as I clench around him. Every time i clench around him his fingers dig into my waist. His lips meet my neck, pressing light kisses and bites as he moves his way down my neck. As my fingers slip back into his hair and tug, he bites down hard causing me to yelp.

Liam thrusts up into me as he wraps his arms around my waist as he stands up, keeping himself inside me as he walks over to the bed and lays me down. He hitches my legs over his shoulders, immediately making me moan with out even moving. The position of my legs now having him hit a completely different angle in me. He smirks at me as I squirm under him. His hands find their place either side of my head as he leans forward and thrust into me. This time I am unable to keep my eyes on him as they roll back and flutter close. Liam clearly forgotten about the command he had given me as I clench around him and his pace picks up.

My hands reach up and pull Liam’s lips down to mine in a passionate kiss that is a fight for dominance. Each of us biting at our lips, our tongues fighting, Eventually Liam wins as my fingers run down his chest. He moves one of his hands to raise my hips, my eyes flying open at the new angle as Liam rests his forehead against mine as he stares into my eyes. A silent command to keep my eyes on him as we finish. With the rate I’m clamping down around him, he knows I’m close. Liam shifts his balance on his legs, his hand not raising my hips moving to my most sensitive bundle of nerves. Immediately I come undone beneath him. His name rolling off my lips, mine soon tumbling off his as he finishes as well.

In one swift movement Liam rolls to his side, pulling me with him and cradling me against his chest. He presses a kiss to the top of my head as his fingers trace up my thigh and back, lulling me into sleep. Liam must sense me dozing off in his arms as he pulls the blanket over us, his arms tightening around me as I doze off into the best sleep I’ve ever had.

[pomefioredove]

I kinda wanted to be a little different with this one—

May I request a sugar cookie #5 with dried fruit and chestnuts please? Thank you very much!

this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever written /positive I hope you guys enjoy

order #5, sugar with dry fruit, chestnuts

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ sickness and kisses

summary: kalim wants to be a part of everything- including your cold. what better way to share germs than getting close? tropes: sick fic, first kiss characters: kalim additional info: romantic, gender neutral reader, reader is yuu, a little gross

"It should have been me!"

Jamil winces and takes a step away from the bed. You hold out a hand to him, as if to say "take me with you."

"Kalim, they're not dying. It's nothing but a cold,"

The boy peels himself off bed at your feet, which he's been attached to all afternoon.

"You don't get it, Jamil! They're going to miss my birthday party- the desserts, the music, the games! Who knows if the Prefect will be here for my birthday next year!"

"Kalim," you pat his head to comfort him, though, if anyone needs comfort, it's you. "I'll be fine. We can have another party when I'm better."

He sighs, leaning into your touch. "It's not the same..."

Jamil looks more sick than you now.

"Ahem. I've brought soup and tea, and there are extra blankets in the foyer. Kalim, we should be going,"

Kalim pouts and clings to your blankets. "Just a moment..."

"I'll be waiting outside,"

Jamil doesn't need to be excused twice, leaving the room and closing the door on his way out.

Kalim sighs. "I just hate when my friends are sick... I wish there was a way I could share some of your pain,"

"That's nice, but you don't have to- ack," you cough into your fist.

Kalim's sympathetic pat would be comforting, if not for that look. You can tell he's thinking something.

He waits for you to finish hacking and coughing, at least. Then:

"I have an idea," he says. "You can get me sick. That way, we can still spend my birthday together, and you won't be alone!"

Thinking something, alright. You're surprised Jamil couldn't feel that on his "Kalim's bad ideas" radar and come running before anything more happened.

"I appreciate that, Kalim, but this kinda sucks," you smile. "I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy."

He smiles back and sits beside you on the bed, closer now.

"But you and Jamil said it's just a cold! I've been poisoned, you know- I think I could handle it!"

You blink. "Well... yeah, but it's still sucky,"

"But we'll be together!" he insists. "Now, how should we do this? I've never gotten sick on purpose before, so I don't- oh, I know!"

"Huh?"

He comes a little closer, leaning over you. "I'll kiss you!"

Your eyes widen, and again, you're surprised Jamil didn't feel that and burst through the door like the room was on fire.

"Like... seriously?"

"Why not? It's the fastest way. But I could figure something else out if you don't want to," he eyes your hands. "Maybe you could-"

"Alright! I concede! Just... one kiss,"

Kalim beams. "One is all I need!"

With no further warning, questioning, or thought, he dips in and presses a sweet, chaste kiss to your lips. It doesn't last for more than a second, but it still leaves you a little flustered.

He hums, licks his lips, and then hops off the bed. "Thanks, Prefect! I'll be back in no time, don't worry!"

He leaves the door open behind him. You're honestly the last person he should worry about, now.

You wonder, for a moment, what he was thinking- Kalim is ditzy, not dense. He had to have known what he was...

Your eyes widen as you remember something else. Oh, crap.

If this works, Jamil is going to kill you.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

god youre so right about the dream writing getting more "polished" im not sure if you talked about this yet but do you think Silver is in trouble with how much magic hes using + the number of people hes transporting dream to dream? like honestly Im worried for him

[You can read my thoughts on the book 7 chapter 12 part 2 update here!]

For real 😭 I mean, I still have several major problems with the dreams (like how the pacing is off, how the characters waste so much time standing around and talking about their personal lives when the world is in peril, how they have a very set pattern especially when it comes to the OB boys, and how the dream logic keeps overcomplicating or contradicting itself). However, the character writing has drastically improved for some Savanaclaw and Heartslabyul dreams. Leona, Jack, and Ace’s dreams were very meaningful. Ruggie, Cater, Trey, and Deuce’s dreams had their moments as well, even if they were sillier overall. I largely found the Octavinelle and Pomefiore dreams to be dull or time wasters, Ignihyde’s (Idia’s) and Scarabia serviceable, and Diasomnia’s (Sebek and Lilia’s) good but Lilia’s was too long and Sebek’s was too short.

I too was at first confused about how often and how easily Silver is able to dream hop (something I had expressed in this post), but I honestly don't think anything will come out of it, even if it's fun to theorize. Silver states in book 7 that his UM doesn't take much to use. On top of that, Mr. Shroud (or was it Mrs. Shroud, I forgot but one of them for sure) theorizes that the mages that are resting are recovering the magic they use in their dreams (since technically sleeping helps mages recover from blot accumulation). So I think it's supposed to be a combination of these factors (although fans have suggested other ideas too) that explain away why no one is worrying about Silver's wellbeing this late into the dream hopping. Again though, his UM is probably designed this way as a plot contrivance to justify how he's able to visit so many dreams. In the most recent JP main story update, Silver mentions the limit he can handle when using his UM is ~10 bodies. He has just reached that cap (himself, Sebek, Yuu, Grim, Ace, Deuce, Cater, Trey, Ortho Leona; Idia is also there, but he is present via his tablet while his actual body remains elsewhere so I'm not sure if he counts). At the end of Trey's dream, it seems that they're able to leap into Riddle's dream just fine so I don't think there's really an issue.

[celtrist]

RADIOMOTH BAD END ROUTE

In these endings, it's more or less assumed Alastor has gotten out of his deal (if the route doesn't involve his owner)

In this ending, Vaggie successfully catches Alastor and marries him much like Charlie's bad end (and this one like her can have the option of Charlie also being married to them or not). Depending if you want to go the force transitioning route: Alastor either gives up once Vaggie successfully forces a transition surgery onto him or (if you don't want to go that route) he just gave up too tired to fight Vaggie and her traps.

Transition or not, Vaggie dresses him as a woman, forces him to grow his hair out, and just generally takes on a more feminine appearance. She goes as far as to rename him "Alison" and only refers to him as female in public. In private she will at times refer to him as a male but in past tense and in a degrading way. She makes it a point to make sure he doesn't have his antlers. Whenever they start growing back, Alastor panics and hurries to rip them off before Vaggie sees them. It's painful, but always less painful than when Vaggie does it as she's very violent with her approach. She will sometimes hit him for having antlers or even seeing signs that they've regrown.

Anytime Alastor remarks discomfort with himself, Vaggie gets frustrated and berates him about it. When she notices him turning to accidental self-harm to deal with his discomfort (hair pulling, claw scratches, etc.), she admonishes and at times hit him as well (like if he pulls his hair, she'll pull his hair yelling at him "isn't this what you like?").

Vaggie hides this poor behavior from Charlie (whether or not she's still in a relationship with Charlie or not in this route), and forces Alastor to keep quiet about it as well. If he gives any indication otherwise, she will punish him in private. While I'm not sure if Alastor would or would not have all his bells and whistles (I feel like it would make sense in this route if Vaggie would find a way to "depower" him to make him easier to handle, but not sure how she'd do that. Maybe have him drinking diluted holy water over time?), Alastor more or less has just given up on this route. He doesn't feel like he can do much else and is unmotivated to attack back.

Vaggie doesn't touch him if he says "no" or gives a strong indication of "no". But she will touch if he bare minimum doesn't give an answer. She'll start slow and build up to more as it goes on (given the situation of course. She's not doing more in the middle of the hotel with others). It's not uncommon in the private sensual moments for her to get violent and belittle Alastor and how she's the only one who would love a woman like him. In the case of a transitioning route, Vaggie will taunt him about having used to be a man. And if Alastor gives an indication that he wishes he never transitioned, she will taunt him more and abuse him further until he says he's happy to be a woman. These more violent times occur when Alastor begins to show distress, typically for either the sex or his forced gender but not exclusive to those. She will lightly degrade him when she's not angry too, but it's mixed with sweet words as well. Afterwards of any sort of serious abuse, Vaggie will give Alastor a lot of aftercare. She'll stop touching him a little bit if he tells her to, but generally makes it a point that she has to at leat help him clean up either with a cloth or in the bath at least.

Most sensual times Vaggie does genuinely try to be nice and try to find what Alastor likes (whether he likes it or not). It's when Vaggie is already angry or frustrated with Alastor that she gets into the more abusive sensual moments. Vaggie isn't really abusing Alastor 24/7 (well, other than enforcing an unwanted gender identity and relationship I suppose). Anything nice she would do for Charlie she'd do for Alastor. Surprising him with things that he doesn't expect (like sinner meat or masculine clothing) is one of her favorite ways to show affection to see the brief light in his eyes from the gift.

Vaggie is as protective of Alastor as she is of Charlie, and she is also as very loving of him as she is of her. Vaggie will shower Alastor with genuine compliments, even in private sometimes she just wants to shower Alastor with love rather than any sort of abuse. Whenever Alastor does something particularly good (like introducing himself as Alison the first couple of times and holding her hand out of his own volition), she'll praise him and reward him for it. Vaggie takes more into consideration of attire for Alastor rather than what she just wants to see. While she still puts Alastor in "less than Alastor styled" outfits from time to time, those clothes are mainly for private or special occasions. For the most part, Vaggie gives (and allows) Alastor clothes more up his alley, even suits as long as he still looks feminine enough. While Vaggie will get violent with Alastor for showing discomfort with his forced gender, she normally first tries to comfort Alastor about his body and self. It's when Alastor begins getting more upset that she'll go into the abuse as described above. Even when the circumstance isn't sensual, however, she will always follow up her abuse with comfort for Alastor. This would, I can imagine, grow into a stockholm syndrome situation, especially if Alastor wanted to deny the situation he's in.

[valenteal]

Ok so I know we all wish there was more reaction in canon to the revelation of Dazai’s past. But I think there’s more of a reaction than people realize. It’s like the entire dynamic shifts after the meeting with the mafia. And it’s easy to attribute this to things getting more serious, more dangerous, because no one mentions Dazai being the reason for it. But I think it’s important to understand about these characters that the not saying anything is extremely indicative of their feelings on the matter. I think the tension is mostly glossed over because at the end of the day this is still Atsushi’s story and he’s kinda oblivious to it. But Dazai and Kunikida aren’t really partners after that, their interactions go way down, their banter is no longer a staple of the series. And Dazai wasn’t really close enough with anyone else to see major changes in his relationships with them, but we can guess based on what we do know.

For one thing, anyone thinking Fukuzawa already knew, sorry to burst your bubble but Taneda didn’t tell him jack. In fact Dazai made up a story about randomly meeting him at a bar and Taneda offering to find him a job if he won a bet or something. Dazai lied to Fukuzawa just as much as anyone else, he had elaborate cover stories. Fukuzawa told Kunikida to shoot him if he showed a hint of malicious intent but Dazai managed to worm his way out of that disguising it as his solution to the case/a suicide attempt. He pretended to be the bad guy to put on a show for the people listening in, and create an excuse for the listening device to be destroyed and gave Kunikida enough hints that he’d think twice about actually shooting him and pretended he wanted him to do it. It’s a very masterfully done scheme really, because Kunikida was so wrapped up in how it affected the case that he miss took Dazai’s innocence in the case for a lack of hidden evil. Kunikida definitely saw a side of Dazai that would make the President say “shoot him” but he didn’t even realize it because it was connected to solving the case. And when he lists off all the things he has problems with about Dazai it’s all about his unprofessional behavior and laziness and he doesn’t even mention that Dazai was so incredibly good at playing the bad guy that it didn’t feel fake. He didn’t mention the chilling aura. Dazai distracted him with all his other bad behavior.

But Ranpo must have known right? Well he certainly knew something was off about Dazai immediately after meeting him even without putting his glasses on. But I don’t think even he could have deduced Dazai’s past with the information he had. Because you have to remember that Dazai’s crimes were erased by Mushitaro’s ability and that Ranpo specializes in understanding crime scenes, not psychological profiling. Ranpo uses physical evidence for the most part and he needs knowledge of the crime to find the perpetrator. I don’t think it works the other way around. Not to mention that Fukuzawa trusts Kunikida and Kunikida said Dazai passed his entrance exam so Ranpo probably didn’t choose to look too closely at Dazai.

Anyway, the point is no one at the agency knew Dazai was in the mafia until the Guild arc. And Dazai’s interactions with the rest of the agency changed after that revelation. I think only Atsushi, Kyouka, and Kenji don’t change how they see him, because Atsushi is Atsushi, Kyouka probably already knew from when she captured him and his pep talk made her more comfortable with the idea, and Kenji is Kenji. Everyone else though? It’s a shock. And a lot of them probably just don’t know how to handle it. It helps that they got Kyouka around the same time it was revealed but Dazai had been lying to all their faces for two years at that point and he showed absolutely no remorse for that. Dazai doesn’t make a big deal of it, doesn’t try to make excuses for himself, doesn’t try to justify anything. Without him starting the conversation none of them have a way to comfortably bring up the subject. And because none of them (except Kenji) knows how to communicate in a healthy way, they just end up stewing with the information without fully processing it or acknowledging it. They’re stuck in this limbo of doubt and discomfort. It’s actually incredibly nuanced and I bet it’s all going to come to a head at some point in the near future and it’s going to be that much more satisfying for the wait.

[bearprofessorr]

chasing the stars, part 2.

seeking each other out once is a coincidence, twice is a choice.

ship: bfd!declan o'hara/fem!reader. tags/warnings: slow burn, very tiny Declan POV, reader smoking, references to cheating, no y/n. word count: 2.3k

Part 1 here!

a/n: so. i did in fact speak some famous last words - i forgot that uni exists again and got distracted with life stuff, sorry y'all!! Still writing p3, it's at 1.6k and I'm nowhere near done so... yay? enjoy :)

Taggie, as ever, had made a beautiful meal, with your occasional assistance and constant motivation to combat her self-doubt. And as the evening wound down, now that Caitlin and Patrick had been back at their respective institutions and Maud was back and forth between London and the Cotswolds - mostly in London as of recent - the house was quiet most of the time - even more so if Taggie was out for the night either at your or on the town. Declan was appreciative for the noise, even if the loud pop music and over the top singing sometimes woke him up in the early hours of the morning, he preferred it over the eerie silence that lingered in the creaky house when it was just him.

The girls were set up in the living room, with lamps and candles being the only light setting the atmosphere around them with some rerun of an old film playing from the TV - but the light chatter and laughter overtop made it clear they were barely watching it. As Declan walked past the archway to the living room, he noted at least 2 empty bottles on the table, and one half-full. He was glad Taggie had someone to confide in, and even more glad that it was someone as truly wonderful as you. Regardless of any pull he felt toward you, his priority was always to put his daughter's happiness over his own - even if at times he let that fall to the wayside in pursuit of grander things. Now that he was making plans to leave Corinium - if Tony would just let him - he hoped that it would help him prioritise keeping those he loved happy. Even if that happiness meant letting them go.

Taggie ended up falling asleep on the sofa adjacent to yours, the wine making her blink out as soon as she brought her blanket around her shoulders. You, however, were wide awake. The film had long since ended, and you didn't want to risk changing the channel and waking her up. So, as quietly as you could, you rummaged around in your bag for your tobacco and papers before darting around to the kitchen so you could turn on the light. The process of rolling was therapeutic - even if Taggie chastised you for the habit, it was one you had gained at the bright age of 15 from your sister and never looked back.

Just as you approached the main door to sit outside on the stairs, a familiar voice chirped up from behind you, surprise in his tone, "You smoke?"

You looked over your shoulder to see Declan, still dressed in his suit, minus the tie, unbuttoned to the chest. He plucked a cigarette from the packet in his pocket, letting it hang between his lips as he walked toward you. "It's fine, you can smoke in here, there's no need to go outside."

"I know, I just prefer it. It's a nice night out - no clouds so I reckon you could see the stars pretty clearly." You smiled, turning the handle and stepping out, leaving the door open behind you in case he chose to follow. He did, stepping out into the chill air beside you, the flick of his lighter the only sound between the pair as he lit his, before offering the flame to you. The silent communication between smokers was a language you knew well, leaning over with the cigarette between your lips, and Declan brought up his hand to cup in the direction of the wind, shielding it.

The night was as beautiful as you thought, the treeline being a lovely backdrop to the sky above, with stars twinkling in the clear night sky. You settled yourself on the step of the house, tucking your knees to your chest and pulling your cardigan closer to yourself as a breeze blew past them both. You broke the silence, as you had a habit of doing, "Can't sleep?"

"I don't fall asleep until the early hours most nights now without some help." Declan admitted, blowing out a breath of smoke. "Yourself?"

"Me neither." You agreed, "Self-inflicted, but for the most part there's nothing I need to be up for, if you understand me."

Declan hummed in agreement, letting the conversation drop off. Together, you sat in comfortable silence until you'd finished your respective cigarettes. You continued to sit, after flicking the end over to a pre-existing pile. "You don't need to stay out here just because I am."

"I know."

"It's cold, aren't you cold?"

"No, not really." He paused, a secondary layer of questioning under his next words, "Do you want to be alone?"

That was a question you had been pondering while you smoked, ever since you bumped into Declan before. The wine was clouding your judgement slightly, aiding to your honesty.

"No, I don't think so."

"Then I'll stay."

"Okay then."

Silence, again.

Then you asked a simple question, but a complicated one at the same time, "What you said earlier, how long have you felt like that?"

Declan knew immediately what you were talking about, and instinctively bit the inside of his lip. He reckoned he didn't know exactly when his opinion changed, he just knew when he stopped being so optimistic about it all. Maud, who was still legally his wife, didn't feel like a partner much these days. They lived such separate lives, he had no idea what she was doing day to day - just as she knew nothing of his life now.

"A while." He nodded, tired eyes looking out to the treeline. "It's a weird journey, it's not like there was one day I woke up and decided I couldn't keep going, I came to the realisation that it wasn't going to help anymore a few months ago."

"After she cheated?"

"After she cheated again." Declan corrected. "Then as soon as she came here, Rupert was all over her - and vice versa - and I think I knew it was never going to stop, even so far from the city. I don't want to have to move again just to stop all that."

"I get it." You agreed, leaning your head back to rest against the wall. "I stayed with my ex, after he cheated, thought he could change. He didn't, and I was naïve to think that he would." The memories still stung even though it had been months since you had broke things off, but the wine wasn't helping in that regard. "Not that you are- marriage is a different ball game entirely."

"Is it, though?" Declan sat down beside you, resting his elbows on his knees. "I thought she could change. She told me she could - that she had. I still love her, even though she cheated, and it stings."

"That's for you to decide, and by the sounds of it, you have." You tried to sound reassuring, but by the drop of Declan's smile across from you, it might not have been so helpful. You adjusted yourself to be able to look at him properly instead of just glancing over every so often. "It's not over, if that's what you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't run out of time to find someone else." You suggested, "I know it's still very raw, but rebounds are a real thing for a reason."

"I haven't even talked to her about it-"

"That doesn't mean shit and you know it." You let yourself speak freely, knowing partially the spirals you threw yourself in when you were in Declan's position. "She threw the relationship away as soon as she made the choice to sleep with someone else."

"Hey-"

"I'm sorry." You backtracked, seeing the same signs as your conversation earlier start to rise onto Declan's features, "I'll leave you be, sorry." You reiterated, going to stand, but Declan - like before - reached for you without words, asking you to stay for his sake over yours.

"It's alright, love." The nickname brought a smile to your lips, which was mirrored on Declan's as you sat back down outside. "I've felt the anger as well as all the moping."

"I know it's to be no better than them," You postured, to no one in particular, "but I considered cheating back just to know what all the fuss is about - is there something so exhilarating about it that makes it all make sense?" You bit at the skin on your lip, which as soon as you caught it, brushed your hand over it to try stop the habit, "I don't know. It was months ago but I'm still stuck on the 'why?' did he just not love me anymore? Was there some secret thing he didn't want to ask me to do so looked elsewhere to have that need satiated? It's stupid to think about it now, there's no way I'll ever get an answer from him-"

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it? To try and logically approach it…" Declan chimed in, evidently having done some similar thinking in his own time, "but, if my understanding of it is correct, it isn't based in logic - it's not a mastermind villain thing, it's out of desperation, not wanting to admit something to your partner so you fill it with someone else. Most of the time, from what I talked to Maud about, she didn't know how to talk to me about something, but felt more comfortable bringing it up with someone she had less ties to."

He pulled out another cigarette, offering the box to you, who took it with a smile, placing it between your fingers and reaching across for him to light it. You had a lighter, it was just easier to have Declan do it, at least that was how you rationalised it. You took a puff of it before responding with, "Very wise, more grounded than my approach, that's for certain."

"Wisdom comes with age, sometimes."

"It comes with experience, if you're shut off from the world, you can't exactly ponder on the nature of things you have no knowledge of."

"That's why I said sometimes." Declan added with a chuckle, lighting his own cigarette.

A thought came to you , one that was purely born from curiosity and nothing to do with your conversation in any substantial way, so you proposed, "Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask, I might not answer, though."

"Fair play." You took a moment to phrase the question in your head, looking at him to gauge his immediate reaction to your words, "If you were unspoken for, to put it nicely, what kind of woman would you go for?"

His eyebrows raised, his hand pausing on it's journey to put his cigarette up to his lips, instead falling to rest his forearm on his leg. His eyes broke from yours, looking to the gravel under his feet. He tapped the end of his cigarette, the ashes blowing away in the wind. "I'm not that picky, I'd say. Ideally, she'd be intelligent - at least to the point I can actually talk to her about the world."

Your mind flashed with memories of drunken philosophical talks and rants you've overheard over the months that you've known the O'Haras. Him and Taggie have had it out over life ideologies, with his daughter often taking the more optimistic approach and him the 'realist' outlook. It makes sense he would want someone he can stand toe to toe with in intellectual debate.

He pondered the question further, before continuing, "I'd want her to be passionate about her own hobbies, you know? I can't stand those wives who spend their days loitering around - it seems lifeless." His lips formed a scowl, a memory coming to the forefront of his mind transitioning it to a fond smile for a moment, "Maud, she used to be as busy as I was, and I loved her for it - she was always happier when she had a project. Then, as the years passed, she got placated by the repeat roles. Then it started to set in, the boredom, but by that point she lost the motivation to go to open calls and she just lounged around, trying to host parties to fill that social urge." He took a long breath out, "I can't do that anymore."

"I get it - I mean not exactly but I understand. Seeing your partner succeed and supporting them in that makes you realise why you fell in love with them all over again."

"Of course - it's a fluid thing," He agreed, a smile forming, "I hope, if things go the way I expect, that I could fall in love again."

"I said before, but there's no age limit to it. Taking that risk is timeless."

"Risk?"

"It is a risk - in my opinion - to fall in love with someone, especially if you don't know if they feel the same way. Even if you aren't in love, to put your heart out there takes courage." You blew out a cloud of smoke, "At least that's how it feels."

Declan hummed in recognition, "Of course." Something stirred in his chest, the process of moving on already having started. It was hard to think of a future so unfamiliar to what he's known, but it wasn't as daunting a concept as it had been a month ago. There were kind people, behind all of the rich folk who populated the valley, in the most unexpected places.

You shivered in the cold, the wine wearing off enough to catch a chill. You finished the rest of your cigarette, putting it out on the stone of the stair. "I'm going to head back inside, if that's alright?"

He looked up at you as you stood, bidding you farewell with a nod as he looked ahead to finish his second cigarette. "Goodnight, love. I might see you in the morning if you're still around."

"Goodnight, Declan."

[thegoldenavenger]

musings about nyy's relationship to sqq and why i think one of the most interesting lenses to look at it is thru one where sqq did not explicitly abuse her the way he is accused of

so nyy who loves sqq because he's a source of stability and safety for her. nyy is the only female disciple (donghua only) (in any case the most important girl on the peak by a long shot) on a peak who's lord is capricious, aloof and rumoured lascivous who encourages his disciples to emulate him. being sqq's favored disciple carries with it safety and some privilege, perhaps financially but definitely socially on qing jing

sqq dotes on nyy by his standards. sy successfully argues that it is in character for sqq to help lbh (who he hates) on the basis that it will make nyy happy. this implies that there are instances where sqq gives nyy favors even when it makes lbh's life better (incidentally, mirroring qjl giving sj favors when qht wants it even though that ends up making sj's life worse later). the mission wasn't in pidw, we only know that og!sqq didn't put lbh in his carriage (or else it would've been important enough to include in the pidw text) but it is likely that nyy spoke up the same way in PIDW and sqq just handled it differently (perhaps letting lbh on nyy's horse and letting nyy ride in the carriage). (also, obviously, sqq picks up another disciple bc nyy asked for one once recreating the cycle of giving basically a dress up doll to a sheltered girl)

regardless, this shows that sqq does favor nyy in tangible ways and she isn't projecting the relationship. however, sqq does Not reciprocate or provide for nyy in typically paternal fashion. for example, the system says that it is in character for sqq to stay inside instead of accompany nyy to the market enough so it makes him tell her to ask literally anyone else (including lbh who he doesnt trust or see as competant) to walk around town while a murderer of young girls is on the loose.

i love interpeting this as some kind of terrible codependancy where sqq is using nyy to mirror and fix or overcome his past traumas by projecting qht upon her and replacing qjl as himself. now he holds all the power. and nyy imprinted on him, feeling the closest to him compared to her shixiong, as well as herself being likely isolated by sqq's favor, which leaves him as her closest relationship prior to lbh.

the thing with children is that, even for adults it's very hard to reconcile a person being nice to you, and then being mean to someone else. so for nyy whose whole safety system is sqq, and whose closest relationship was with sqq before lbh, it's no wonder she has a terrible time believing that lbh's treatment is cruel and unusual. besides the genre conventions of the premise and corporeal punishment perhaps (not confirmed) being accepted, nyy's own experiences help blind her to the reality of lbh's circumstances. because sqq treats her fairly, and she sees lbh failing at cultivating, being late to class (bc of extra chores or whatever), and she doesn't always see first hand him being punished or bullied, she automatically assumes the treatment lbh recieves at sqq's hands is deserved. this is compounded by lbh literally telling her to her face that sqq and his shixiongs are doing him a kindness aklsjfslka when she DOES try to help him

(obviously not his fault, her help often gets him into more trouble that she isnt there to see but it does help keep her believing the narrative that it's lbh's fault for making sqq mad or disappointed to the point of punishment.)

so we have nyy who things sqq isnt doing anything bad to lbh except that sometimes it makes her sad when lbh is hurt. we have lbh who turns to nyy for comfort even though that comfort often returns to him worse later. and sqq who is purpetuating cycles.

i also think, it would be very interesting if, to add to the weird ambiguous nature of sqq's and nyy's relationship, would be if sqq used her to help regulate his own emotions. i believe in the novel mf informs nyy when lbh gets punished by sqq (i am not sure if that's something im making up, sorry i dont have access to the novels rn) but regardless, i like to think it's because sqq is repeating behaviors he learned in the past, specifically, finding a calm in a girl nearby after letting himself go off on lbh for whatever reason. i like this reading for several reasons. the first: it adds another layer onto nyy and sqq's relationship that continues to make it suspicious and odd to outside viewers. the second: it reinforces nyy's believe in sqq's perspective of the narrative because she'd see sqq's aftermath before lbhs (due to cultivation and lbh's nature, giving him time to recover before nyy sees him). and third: it creates an unstable surface for nyy to stand upon.

sqq is her safety net but she is not unaware that he has lines that can be crossed that result in punishment. being a girl and sqq's favorite shields her from having to excel in swordsmanship and cultivation, but it can't shield her from everything and her closest friend being lbh who she knows is working hard but still gets punished all the time has to instil some sort of uncertainty upon her that if she steps wrong sqq may turn on her. she IS unaware that she could never cross sqq's line though, what with being a girl and sqq not believing that women have agency or are, like. people.

(RE sqq's benign misogyny: i believe that just doesn't. see women as fully realised complex human beings. i think his past as a slave really imprinted him the helplessness that girls are subjected to and even (to his perspective) foster. like? the girls he grew up with were taken advantage of, and then qht was so naive that she couldnt comprehend that sj's life might actually be a little bit bad when she wasn't looking. i think women, to him, are creatures to be pitied that cant actually harm him. he doesnt, as far as i remember, ever blame qht for her participation in his trauma. nor blame nyy for her participation in his trial whether her accusations were true or not. if he blames anyone it is the men he sees as manipulating them when he cannot be that man himself. so, there's that)

and then. the lingxi caves and the demon invasion arc. sqq murders liu qingge and fails to murder lbh. (allegedly)

i think it is heavily implied in the novel if not outright stated that the invasion arc was the turning point in lbh's views on sqq. previous to this he was holding onto the belief that he was doing something wrong and if he was just good enough sqq would praise him. that his shixiongs were mean but he'd become stronger for it. but after winning an impossible duel and his peers on the sect praising him, but sqq still hating him finally proves to him that sqq hates him and nothing can change that. that all this time sqq had just been cruel to him for no reason. (also, meng mo's influence upon him cementing that truth to him)

and on top of this we and liu mingyan, who sees lbh win and sqq's disdain of him and then finds out her only remaining family has been murdered in a cave by someone who should have been able to be trusted. AND. then watch as that murderer is pardoned by everyone.

so i think this is the point lmy starts hanging out with lbh and nyy. lmy and lbh bonding over sqq being a pos and lqg's murder and how unjust cang qiong is. i think it is possibly lmy that helps lbh see that it's not just sqq that's rotten, that the entire sect is aiding and abetting him. when sy wakes up in sqq's body and asks where lbh is yqy already knows sqq had him strung up in the shed. why? bc yqy was the one to find them and didnt do any thing about lbh? or someone reported that sqq qi deviated while punishing lbh and made the conscious decision not to tell anyone to let lbh down? whatever way it's obvious yqy has deferred to his shidi's decisions on his peak and seeings as yqy also did not pursue sqq for lqg's murder lmy would have reason to dislike him just as much as lbh, and perhaps help lbh see the dissonance between sect leader and his favoritism

so nyy's best friend lbh is now friends with a cooler, older girl who keeps talking shit about sqq. and i think, nyy could respond one of two ways. 1) distance herself from lbh and lmy and cling to sqq even harder. or 2) start becoming a little rebellious. lmy, raised on a peak of women for women who already is suspicious of and hates sqq, whose own brother talked about sqq's presence at brothels, would obviously be concerned about nyy's closeness with sqq. i think, either out of genuine worry and comeraderie or calculation, she could start pressing on nyy's relationship with sqq, with lbh helping

the thing is, i think both lbh and lmy could have genuine worry for nyy but i also think theyre both absolutely capable of manipulating nyy as well. just depends on the story youd like to tell. they both can be true at once, even.

anyways, nyy is jealous and in a precarious position, wants to keep her place as lbh's best friend and maybe be cool in her shimei's eyes as well, so i think it is very very plausible that she lets them talk her into also being a bit worried about her relationship with sqq. she's already living with the uncertainty of knowing sqq can be cruel, and now her two closest peers being suspicious of him all coalescing into unstable footing for nyy

THEN we have the immortal alliance conference and lbh's presumed death.

five years where nyy has to wonder if sqq killed her best friend and lmy is there to tell her, well. he killed my brother and hated lbh who would have stopped him? c:

five years of nyy wrestling with her grief as sqq spits on lbh's memory and lmy is there to comfort and grieve with her and protect her from sqq.

and then lbh comes back and nyy and lmy are there to be his inside sources at cqms (besides sqh who is. you know, another thing this isnt about him)

lbh comes back and can tell nyy to her face that sqq tried to murder him, that means of course he murdered liu qingge and this just. has to recontextualise everything for nyy. (at this point, lbh has also canonically dragged nyy into his dreams so, there is a fun additional element where lbh could have influence nyy's perception and memories through that)

by the time qiu haitang is added, and lmy and lbh can build an entire trial around her story, nyy is in the perfect place to join that testimony. she cannot refuse that lbh was mistreated, that lmy's quest for revenge is unfounded, she no longer can hide behind her doubts. :3 and qht, she's an older nyy isn't she? she was the innocent young lady who's entire world was turned upside down by sqq. she knows what nyy is feeling, her grief, the inability to believe sqq is capable of something like this! but he is! and she's there to help her.

so nyy, filled with guilt and not able to 100% trust her own memories, and still filled with a childish sense of justice… that's how she decides to testify against a man who has shaped her childhood regardless of whether he was, personally, intentionally, abusive of her. (though i do think even at his most charitable he was neglectful of her needs)

and i'm so ENCHANTED by the idea that she does this to help her friends lbh and lmy, and this stranger who she comes to know qht, get justice and then is shocked and horrified and betrayed when this leads to the razing of cqms, that this leads to sqq's prolongued and disproportionate torture. and i am ENCHANTED by the concept that she still loves lbh and cant blame him bc he's earnest and open and she remembers him as this sweet boy who came to her to hide from bullies and she still cannot rectify that a person can be two things at once, or, that she cant overcompensate for the difference bc look at what happened to sqq when she did that so she still loves him and closes her eyes to all his faults. he's kind to her.

this may be. my own bias but i like to think she blames lmy because everything was fine before she started hanging out with lbh and talking about how sqq killed her brother! maybe, if she hadn't convinced lbh that sqq hated him, lbh would have been a better disciple and sqq would never have tried to kill him and they could all be a happy family on qing jing peak. :)

and that's how nyy and lmy nasty hatefuck

uh addendum is how sqq gives lbh his view on women. that they're pitiable creatures who can't ever truly hurt him. by recreating the cycle that traumatised him, sqq also perpetuated his own view about the passivity of women, teaching lbh that. the way sqq never blamed qht for her complicity in his trauma, is the way lbh never blames a woman for hurting him and abusing him, instead folding them into his harem. lbh doesn't conceptualise women as real people, merely objects that have been acted upon by men and he should be the man who helps them. but that's a different essay i think?

[ender-cloud]

My (personal) thoughts on Jimmy Mouthwashing and how the fandom perceives him: did anyone ask for this, no, but i just wanna talk about him!

Under cut to make things look cleaner

Jimmy is the most hated character in mouthwashing, and for good reason, his actions are morally wrong and what he did to Anya is just absolutely disgusting and horrible. But is Jimmy a bad character? No.

Yes he’s a bad person but thats because he’s well written, and sometimes the fandom seems to skip over all of that. There is a reason why for 80% of the game you play as Jimmy, you are supposed to feel this connection to him, you need to play as him to understand why most of the crew was able to follow him, he’s good at manipulating even the person playing.

Jimmy has so much depth to him, everything we see through his eyes is for a reason, the way we see characters through his perspective is for a reason, and thats what makes him such a great character.

Everyone tries to ignore him most of the time “oh sorry you had to draw Jimbob” or stuff like that and while it’s funny it’s not the only view you should have. Jimmy’s character is not meant to be pushed to the side, if he was you wouldn’t play the game through his eyes.

This man is smart, conniving, manipulative, and jealous of power he’s not able to handle. This is apart of the theme that is taking responsibility but Jimmy is usually mischaracterized as this dumb evil horse lover.

He’s not the only one who seems to mischaracterized, Curly is too. Everyone seems to act like he’s this perfect dude whose great for Anya and would be the hero but he is just as in fault as Jimmy.

Curly was the one who knew Jimmy and always saw the best in him, it is heavily applied that he knew what Jimmy was doing to Anya and did nothing about it when Anya didnt even have to say his name for Curly to know. This is because Curly thought of Jimmy as his friend and his right hand man (which is also kinda mischaracterized)

Curly didn’t just like, hate jimmy all of this time, no they were friends, and Jimmy’s betrayal hit him. Curly also had troubles with taking responsibility, he didn’t take responsibility for how he did almost nothing to stop Jimmy and also he couldn’t take responsibility for being the captain and keeping everyone safe.

You play as both perspectives so you see how similar the two are in some ways and how different they are in others. It’s not a question of if Curly’s better for Anya because thats not the point, the point is to show that they both are at fault and both cant take responsibility which isnt shown that often.

Anya doesn’t need Curly, she needs time to heal, she needs to go to therapy and take care of herself, not date someone who was friends with her abuser. She needs time before she should be in a relationship with anyone because what happened to her is a traumatic experience that no one should go through.

Also Daisuke and his thoughts on Jimmy as well seem to be twisted. Daisuke trusted Jimmy, theres a reason why Jimmy was able to convince him to climb into the vent, its because Daisuke felt almost kinda safe, like he could trust him.

This is because Jimmy is a good manipulator, however a character acts around Jimmy is because Jimmy has shaped them to feel that way, Daisuke wouldn’t have just climbed in there if he didn’t think that Jimmy wouldn’t mean for him to get hurt, even though we might see that he did we have to put our perspective with Daisuke.

Personally I hate Jimmys actions and who he is as a person but I love his character, i like how it’s portrayed in such a new and unique way. Every character in mouthwashing is (I didnt talk about Swansea because I couldn’t think of anything at the moment😔)

I feel as though while no one should forgive Jimmys actions, they should see that he’s a good character and very very well written and is not meant to just be pushed into the background. His toxic masculinity, his manipulative mind, his incapability to take responsibility even in the end when he put Curly in the pod instead of himself, its all written for a reason.

I uh, hope you enjoyed this ramble, it’s something I’m very passionate about because i really really like character analysis and character writing and Jimmy’s character is one of my favorites to just try and figure out the inter workings of.

Without Jimmy, Mouthwashing wouldn’t be the game it is

[goddamnitmahtin]

Jason is a Teenage Dad Part 5

(So this part might be a bit wonky in some places, I did write a portion of this while in the hospital on pain meds so.)

Keeping the family business from Danny? Yeah that didn’t happen. The child could go ghost whenever he wanted and use his invisibility to sneak around the manor. He knew about the Batcave and how everyone else in the house was connected. What impressed Jason the most is that he didn’t need to ask any questions to understand what was going on. He had met Babs, Cass and Steph and immediately knew who they were. He knew Jason used to be Robin. He knew Tim was Robin now.

It had only been 4 years and Danny had improved so much. His flashbacks had toned down significantly and he was running around like a normal 7 year old. Well as normal as a half ghost 7 year old who used to be 15 with ghost powers could be. He adapted well.

Things were changing in the household constantly, people coming and going from the house whenever needed. Jazz Sam and Tucker only stayed in the manor half of the time, having the Manson estate that the three of them also shared. Steph on the other hand, was living with them full time. She had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend who dumped her after finding out. According to Steph, she wasn’t planning on telling anyone except Tim but Clockwork had left her a note telling her move in with Bruce and that he would handle everything else.

Clockwork did that sometimes. Like with Cass. She had gotten one of his post it notes one day and it had spooked her enough to turn around instead of following her orders. She had gotten another one when she was saving Commissioner Gordon, telling her to let Batman take her in. Not all of the notes were on big things. Sometimes they would get one just because. The latest one Jason got was telling him to remind Sam to eat lunch. It was almost as if the family had gained an all seeing, overpowered, ancient being uncle.

Ever since learning about Danny’s halfa status and his own…. whatever he was? It’s hard to pinpoint. He wasn’t exactly a revenant, didn’t fit the requirements of a liminal and didn’t possess the full capabilities of a halfa. But he was still some sort of ecto based being. Tucker had taken it upon himself to try to give it a name. The closest thing Tuck had suggested so far was a zombie but that was flimsy at best. Anyways, after learning the truth, Jason was doing his best to provide for the slightly different needs of himself and Danny as ecto beings.

Bruce had been nice enough to let them put their graves in the Wayne family cemetery. Since Jason hadn’t been dead for very long before he came back so Bruce had never had the time to give him one. And Danny had gone far too long without one according to Jazz. It means a lot to the dead to be honored with a grave, even if they themselves weren’t in it. Bruce had let Jason and Danny design a mausoleum for their name stones to be in. With compartments as if their bodies were in there and everything. Jason tended to just store things in his while Danny sometimes felt better to sleep in his. Jason admitted, being near his grave made him feel better but he was far too big in the shoulders to fit in the compartment. Danny and Jason designed the structure to fit up to 6 bodies, incase anyone wanted to be buried with them in the future.

Jason also started working with the JL to try and dissolve the Anti-ecto Acts. The SCP Foundation was fighting against it hard. Apparently, they saw ecto beings as SCPs that should be under their jurisdiction. Danny’s friends were helping out the case together. Since ecto beings were technically under the rule of their own government. Apparantly JLD was cooking up something so the Ghost King could get involved personally with the help of Sam and Tucker who were on good terms with the guy.

The ambient ecto in Gotham was enough to live off of so it wasn’t too bad but others like them that didn’t live in high ecto areas like Gotham or Amity Park didn’t deserve to not have access to ecto and even more didn’t deserve to hide who they were in order to survive. The ecto in Gotham wasn’t as pure as Jazz said Danny used to work with in Amity and the purer the ecto, the better for the environment and their health.

Danny was turning out to be the little genius. Jason knew that he could still remember things from before he was de aged and apparently, he had a lot of experience with mechanical engineering. He was working with Tim and Tucker to try and develop a filtration system of sorts to clean the ecto in Gotham. At first, Jason wasn’t so sure about leaving Danny all by himself on the lab. He was only seven after all. But after talking to Jazz about it… he was concerned about other things.

“Well I love his enthusiasm and these blueprints look… oddly professional but he’s only just a kid and if something goes wrong and no one is in the lab with him…” Jason said, sipping his coffee. He wasn’t lying, Danny couldn’t draw artistically to save his life but the moment he needed to draw a blueprint he was suddenly DaVinci.

Jazz who stayed at the manor almost exclusively except for nights where her work took her to a part of town that was closer to Sam and Tucker’s place and it was too late to drive all the way home, looked at the blueprints over Jason’s shoulder while she headed to the kitchen to pour herself her own coffee. “Looks like he never lost that talent of his. Danny could build anything he put his mind to back then. He was even more talented than Mom and Dad. It was too bad that he was always so busy being Phantom that he never got to… well you know… spend time on the things he liked.”

And with that, Jason watched as she walked away to the kitchen. Jason and Jazz were friends. Very good friends. Maybe even best friends. Well… something like that at least. She was nice enough and helped him raise Danny as a mother figure and the two of them hung out a lot. Her room was next to Jason’s so she could be close to Danny but most nights she just crashed in his room. He had an extra bed for her and it was easier to switch out who got up if Danny had an episode in the middle of the night. The two of them had talked about it. It wasn’t like Jason was blind, he knew she was very pretty but he didn’t feel any attraction toward her that went past platonic. She had said she felt the same way and the two of them agreed it would be too weird anyways since he was her brother’s dad. Not many really understood their dynamic but that was okay. It worked for them and Danny.

Jazz came back from the kitchen with a mug of coffee and the coffee pot. She filled Jason’s since it was low and he nodded in thanks. He had told her countless times that Alfred preferred to do that stuff himself but honestly this was just their routine in the morning now. He would get coffee and then she would join him, stealing the coffee pot until they were done with it and it was time to wake Danny for the day.

“I know that… but I don’t know… I worry,” Jason said. He knew it wasn’t a logical fear that he would get hurt. Halfas didn’t get hurt because of mortal causes like metal or, well, a stab wound. Jason may or may not have tested it on himself and sure enough he was also pretty immune. Just needed some ecto and it healed right up with no pain like it never happened.

Jazz just smiled softly, “I know you want him to have a normal childhood. As much as we can give him. But given both of our pasts, I’d say we are far past that. All that matters now is that he gets to experience the things he never got to the first time around.” She was right of course, sipping her coffee lazily.

“Okay yeah… in this family I have seen kids to weirder things. Once we wake up our star for the day, we can tell him he can build his machine. I would just prefer that he had someone with him while he tinkered,” Jason responded. When it came to things like this, he knew that Jazz knew Danny better than he did. She knew him before he was deaged and knew what kinds of things he missed out on.

She smiled at Jason, “You are a good dad Jason. I can see your self doubt in your eyebrows. You are doing just fine.” She rubbed his back comfortingly while the two of them looked at one another, Jason acknowledging that she’s right and that he needed that, Jazz acknowledging his need for comfort. After the moment passed, Jazz left to wake up their little star.

“Well then,” Jason turned his head to see Stephanie indulging in her peanut butter and oreos craving. She was standing next to Tim who had just stolen the coffee pot for himself.

“What now,” Jason asked.

“I just don’t get it is all. She likes you and you like her. And yet you refuse to fuck!” Stephanie shrugged as she shoved more cookie into her face.

Jason simply gestured toward her belly, “I don’t think you get room to talk right now.”

Tim spit out his coffee laughing.

…

Tim was at the Batcomputer looking over the next case he and B were gonna looking into. It was fun and all but he almost felt like he needed more of a challenge… like… something to do. School was too easy and he ahead already finished the work for the rest of the year. He was even considering starting next year’s work but he was going to have to ask Babs or Tucker to hack to the system into letting his online course end early so he can start the next ones. He could do it himself but he was going to be busy on patrol tonight.

As of right now though? He was playing babysitter so Danny could nerd out on his ecto machine. The “lab” Danny asked for was just a small corner of the Batcave that Danny had set up with an almost kitchen like feel except instead of an island in the center, it was a hunk of metal pieces fused together that made weird noises sometimes. Tim understood the bare bones of what Danny was building, it was a typical filtration system but how it was supposed work with ecto? Not Tim’s area of expertise. He was just there so that if Danny needed help or if something happened, he could call Jason. Nothing had ever happened before and Danny was fully capable of handling it all by himself but it was mostly so Jason wouldn’t have a heart attack.

Tim was pulled out of his thoughts when her heard a swoosh next to his head. “Danny, what did we say about flying in the cave?”

He watched and Danny became visible, his head poking out from behind the massive screen, “Give a warning and don’t touch anything that’s not mine…” Danny said, pouting, “But I have something to tell you Tim!”

Tim thought about this for a moment. Knowing Danny, it was either something interesting, what category of interesting was yet to be seen but Danny wasn’t like normal kids that said things that had no meaning. He could hear Danny out. Now was there a large chance that something very concerning about his past life was about to come up that he couldn’t share with Jason lest his brother have an aneurysm. Tim was willing to roll those dice.

“Okay Spooky, what’s up?” he said.

Danny clapped happily, phasing through the computer to fly right up to Tim’s face, “Stephanie needs your spleen!”

Well… not what Tim was expecting. But it was worth asking about further. At the very least he wanted to know what this child had to say about it before coming to his own conclusions.

“Elaborate?”

Danny laughed, unnervingly happy about this whole thing, “I asked this doctor ghost I know to watch over Stephanie for me! He’s very nice! Told me about how he used to treat Grand-B when he was sick before he died! Anyways, he told me all about Stephanie’s condition and he says that even though most people can live without a spleen, Steph’s blood is kind of weird so living without one isn’t possible for her. She’s having her baby right now upstairs and even though the ghost doctor said that she will okay after giving birth for now, her spleen will eventually finish necrotizing and once enough of it is gone, she will probably die which sucks because she’s going to be a cool mom. Anyways, you’re the only one in the house that is enough of a match that can save her and can also live without your spleen because you’re really healthy! It’ll be super easy though since I’m a ghost, I can do it super quick. Steph might be more liminal after and her eyes might glow sometimes, but that’s okay!”

Tim jumped out of his seat, “She’s having her baby RIGHT NOW?!”

Danny nodded smiling, “Yes! Upstairs! She went into labor really fast so she didn’t have time to go to the hospital.”

Tim shook his head, running toward to the stairs, “Priorities Danny! I promised her I’de be there!” Tim ran as fast as he could into the manor and through the halls.

“Is it because you like her?” Danny asked while flying along side him.

Tim scoffed, “Danny, my wildly inappropriate crush on who’s practically my sister has nothing to do with this!”

Danny’s smile never left his face as he kept flying along at Tim’s side, “It’s okay, I know you like boys too so you can just get a boyfriend and get over her!”

Tim almost halted in his steps but he didn’t, “Danny! Not the time!”

Danny laughed in that spooky way he did sometimes, “Okay!”

Tim kicked Stephanie’s door open and ran to her side, holding her hand, “I’m here! I’m here!”

Steph shot him a glare as she immediately began to squeeze his fingers, “You are late Timothy.”

Tim apologized as the blond began screaming in pain. The only one in the room besides the two of them was Alfred who had decided to deliver the baby himself. Was there anything that guy didn’t know how to do? Steph didn’t seem to be on any pain meds or any sort of epidural so she was muscling her way through this like the women of old, and she was handling it pretty well even though she was screaming bloody murder.

Tim tried his best to be as supportive as possible, telling her to breathe and ignoring her as she cursed him out repeatedly for telling her what to do. She squeezed his fingers tighter than Tim thought was humanly possible, to the point where they actually went numb as she pushed over and over.

There was no doubt that the entire household was just outside the door waiting for news on the baby’s arrival. The birth seemed to take forever as she kept pushing. Tim had read about how sometimes births could take a while so he wasn’t concerned about that, but he was very concerned about how the longer Stephanie pushed, the more color seemed to drain from her face. She looked as though she was starting to lose consciousness, probably from the pain.

Finally, Tim heard the cry of an infant. The baby was born. Tim looked away as Alfred did what he needed to do to prepare the baby for being held and made sure Stephanie didn’t have any tears or bleeding. He felt as she finally let go of his hand. As the feeling came back to his fingers, he was hit with the realization that she had broken 3 of them.

Once Alfred said everything was covered, Tim looked to Stephanie once again, She was covered in sweat and there was almost no color in her face. It was almost deathly pale, making Tim very concerned. He could see her starting to dip out of consciousness. Was that normal? He took her hand again wit h his unbroken one and tried to get a response from her. He didn’t get it.

“Alfred, I think something is wrong,” Tim said, looking to the butler.

“The Ghost Doctor says that she will be okay, she’s just in shock from the pain. But he also says that her immune system is really weak right now and since we aren’t in a hospital, she has a high chance of getting sick,” Tim heard Danny’s voice say as the boy appeared at the foot of the bed.

“Is there anything that can be done about this Young Master Danny?” Alfred said as he finished cleaning the baby and wrapped it into a blanket.

The seven year old nodded, “Ghost Doctor says that if I help, she will stabilize. I think I should take Tim’s spleen now too.”

Tim just nodded. It wasn’t the craziest thing he’s ever heard. This was the Wayne family. Shit was always crazy.

By the early hours of the morning, Stephanie was happily holding her baby girl that she had named Kore. Jason and Jazz were scolding Danny for not sharing information with them but also telling him how proud they were for helping. Bruce was breathing for the first time in hours. Cass was wrapping up Tim’s fingers. Tucker and Sam were on their way to greet the newest addition to the family. And Tim? Had never been happier to lose a spleen.

[luciaintheskyainthi]

Greetings, I just remember your overdue pre-order of angst.

I imagine peter didn't ask Jason out not because he might return back to his universe. But deep down is the parker luck, Mj almost die because of Spider-Man rogue and many of the loved ones hurt or perish.

Doesn't matter if Jason said that he is red hood that he can handle himself. Remember iron man. Even though he is a hero with armor. So I think peter will prefer to be no one there for him.

As he might think "it better this way, so they won't get hurt because of me (parker luck)."

If we're looking at Peter at the early stages of ECM, then yes he's unwilling to connect with anyone like that. That's why Jason knows so little about Peter even though they've been living together for five weeks by the end of part 1. Most of what Jason does know is personality related, or worked out through subterfuge.

Knowing that Jason is the Red Hood does make a difference to Peter. Knowing that Jason's more than capable of taking care of himself means that Peter can start to really get attached, which is why Peter does start to let go of tidbits of information towards the end of Part one. This however, has been tempered by the fact that there's still the likelihood of him having to leave, which is in part why Peter can't recognise that attachment as anything more than platonic (that slow burn do be burning slow, lemme tell you) But also he's still grieving. There's no romantic feelings cropping up because of that too.

To me, it's about Peter being able to trust himself, and also trust that those he cares for can care for themselves.

As much as I enjoy the trope of Peter isolating himself out of fear of hurting others, and there are plenty of writers who've explored this idea very well, I don't want to write about a Peter who forcibly pushes people away. Holds them at arm's length? Sure. That's really what's been happening through much of ECM... But as I've said in a past ask, something I love about Peter Parker is both his faith in others, and his resilience. In ECM, Peter pushing others away again would be him giving up, which is of course what he did post NWH. His (self-enforced) isolation and grief reinforced that behaviour. But he's slowly had time to heal in ECM, and that means those arms of his have been letting people like Jason draw closer.

Being around others, caring for the welfare of others - people whom he can place a face to a name of, not just randos in Queens - has helped him gain a new perspective. Part two will explore more of Peter's connections to other people, and give him an opportunity to look at the future for what it really is: a time of potential and growth, not just a long-winded path towards self-destruction.

[wheneclipsefalls]

Swimming Lesson (A Precious One Shot)

Pairing: Adult Ao'nung x Hyperfeminine human reader

Summary: Ao'nung is more than eager to teach you how to swim. He doesn't, however, anticipate what it leads to.

Warnings: aged up characters, explicit sexual content MDNI, reader has mild fear of water, interspecies relationship, established relationship, swearing, possessive beahvior, brief mention of violence, past bad relationship, insecurity, marking, scenting, dom/sub dynamics, etc.

A/N: I've been overthinkg this one for way too long. Here's how it turned out

Precious Masterlist

Adult Ao'nung photo by Cinetrix

Tawtute modesty is a perplexing concept. Most Sky People dress in a way that covers their body, even going as far as creating cubbies in their metal homes where they can change these clothes without others seeing. For a species that appears to have just as much sexual drive as Na’vi do, they certainly waste a lot of time and effort acting ashamed of their bodies. 

Although your clothing is far more appealing, and even revealing at times, you too act very shy about being exposed. 

And yet, it appears that this cultural norm is thrown out the window when it comes to swimming attire. Calling an outfit a swimsuit as you do, suddenly gives a tawtute a free pass to discard ninety five percent of their clothing and prance around without care. 

No one had informed Ao’nung of this however so when you walk out in your handmade swimsuit for the first time, it takes him a moment to connect his mouth to his brain again. You give a little twirl as you always do, before rambling on about what material it’s made of and how easy or difficult it was to construct. 

And as usual, Ao’nung takes his time admiring your latest work with greedy hands that always come out to grip your hips and spin you from side to side. This is a common routine for the two of you. It is customary for him to see your latest projects first so you can receive his opinion. Although both of you know he offers nothing close to helpful feedback. The real joy from this arrangement comes from him opening ogling you in the pretty clothes until you sufficiently feel confident in your genius. 

You never stop him when he gets handsy either. Although that pretty blush often spreads from your cheeks to collarbones and you giggle at his lack of restraint, he knows you enjoy the obvious display of carnal desire. It’s a win-win scenario. 

And today, stars above, there is so much for him to look at. Or rather, so little fabric to cover your form because this swimsuit as you call it is tiny. In many ways it feels a lot closer to the usual attire of females in his clan with intricate straps and only a tiny top and bottom to shield some of his favorite parts. In fact, this set is much like your bra and panties combo.

When he squeezes your hips and turns you to the side, he is more than ecstatic to find that this duo is actually more revealing than most of your undergarments. Is this truly considered decent in tawtute culture? Oh well, he knows better than to question when something good comes his way. Whatever reasoning sky people have come up with to justify these tiny outfits, he is grateful for. 

The bottoms are held together by strings that tie at each hip similar to the ties on your upper back that keep the small chest piece in place. You’ve chosen fabrics of light blue for the base and cream for the trim that is of course bunched into frilly fashion. It wouldn’t be yours without some extra flare. The front of the bottoms cover decently but the back draws a shape higher onto the hips that leaves more than half of your gorgeous ass spilling out. 

And it’s not the only thing to spill. The bottom sit low on your hips so that the front is tucked just beneath that adorable pooch of a stomach that Ao’nung is constantly tempted to bite into. Even the ties on the hips just barely press lines into your plush flesh that you call love handles. And to top it off, there is a tiny bow between your breasts and a matching one just atop your vulva. 

Eywa above, if he knew teaching you to swim would put you in an outfit like this he would have fought even harder to make this day come sooner. 

“Do you like it?” You ask, cheeks pink but eyes telling him that you already know the answer to your own question. 

“What did you call this?” He asks, sweeping your long hair over one shoulder to admire the curve of your spine. 

“A bikini.” 

“Oeyӓ tawtute, I more than like it.” His lips gently press over a mark he had sucked into your skin last week, just above your shoulder blade. With twiddling fingers and a smile he can practically feel radiating even from behind you, goosebumps rise over your exposed flesh. “I don’t know what stops you from wearing this bikini thing more often.” 

You snort and playfulling try to elbow him in the ribs. “You horny meathead.” With a giggle you turn around to scrunch your nose up at him which he has come to recognize as a chiding expression. 

He’s not sure what is so funny about his comment. You may be giggling but he sees no reason why you couldn’t wear this during day to day life on the island. Although, he wouldn’t want to miss out on your strange dresses either. 

“You know I can’t do that.” 

He doesn’t but Ao’nung lets it drop when your small hand intertwines with his own and you practically begin skipping towards the beach. It seems this successful outfit has put you in a good mood, so it’s best to hold his breath and pray that it will remain that way once you get to the water. It has taken a couple weeks of convincing, borderline demanding, that you learn to swim. 

Today you don’t show the usual signs of apprehension so Ao’nung plays along carefully, treading as light as a hunter worried about spooking their prey. 

The good luck has passed. Whatever giddiness you felt from showing off your new bikini dissipated ten minutes ago when you two had finally reached the shore. Now you remain perched on the rock wall that extends a way into the shallows, watching with a nervous smile where Ao’nung stands in the water. 

“You are stalling.” He accuses. 

“I’m not.” You protest, bottom lip becoming snatched between your teeth. “I just think I need to observe you some more before I get in. After all, nothing’s better than watching the master.” 

You catch on fast, that’s for sure. In the short few weeks the two of you have been together it seems that you’ve already devoted yourself to figuring out how to charm him and target certain weak spots. Try as you might, however, that isn’t going to work today. 

“Get in.” 

Your arms wrap around your own torso, a nervous habit of yours. He isn’t being mean, isn’t even raising his voice in the way some of his own teachers did when he was younger but it takes very little to intimidate a small tawtute like you. It’s important that he maintains some form of strict authority in these lessons, otherwise you will walk all over him. 

It will never cease to perplex him how carelessly humans treat learning to swim. He thought the most horrific part of it would have been their form alone, something that had made his jaw drop the first time he saw Spider swim, but unfortunately it goes far beyond that. Among the seaside clans it is customary to have newborn children already learning how to kick to the surface on their own. Children know how to swim far before they can take their first steps. From what he’s heard, even the Omatikaya teach their children from a young age. And yet, Ao’nung was horrified to hear you say that some humans don’t learn how to swim until they are adults, some even die without learning. 

He won’t let that be your fate. So no matter what it takes, he is getting you in the water today. 

“You are being a bad numeyu [student], precious.” He warns, clicking his tongue in feigned disappointment. Just as he expected, your shoulders drop slightly. No doubt if you had a tail it would be tucking between your legs right now. Such little praise to have you melting and such little criticism to have you proving you can do better. 

“We can start tomorrow I prom-AH!” Whatever promise you had hoped to placate him with turns into a squeal when Ao’nung heaves himself up onto the rock wall in one fluid motion. Immediately you start running back towards the beach. You know just as well as him that he can and will hunt you down to drag you back since it has come to that. 

There is a part of him that awakens at the first sign of a chase. It’s the same part of his nature that has him imagining all the ways he could rip those scraps of fabric you call a bikini off and ruin you for any other man. It doesn’t help his focus to have your squishy ass bouncing further out of your bottoms as you sprint. 

Regardless, the hardest part about catching you has nothing to do with the skills he has learned as a hunter and everything to do with keeping his carnal desires at bay. You would be all too happy to let take a session of his head between your pretty legs over a swimming lesson. 

He has one thick arm wrapped around your waist within your first five steps. You waste no time in starting your pleas to be released, shorter legs kicking in the air as he tucks you against his chest. 

“Wait! Ao’nung, I can’t! Not today. Put me down!” 

“You can not learn without getting in the water.” He says simply. 

“No no! I can’t! I can’t!” Once again your words turn to shrieks when he swiftly jumps back into the ocean, softly landing his feet in the substrate. The waves only reach his hips at this height and with you in his arms you are nowhere near having your head dunked under. 

Nevertheless your efforts to cry for mercy quickly shift into clawing your way up his body. You squirm and wiggle and manage to twist halfway towards him so that you can grab his shoulders and try to get higher. You climb him like one does a tree, but with far less grace than anyone who has experience climbing to get the fruit. 

“What are you doing?” With furrowed brows it takes everything in him not to laugh, only grunting softly when your feet get dangerously close to keeping him between the legs. 

“Okay I think that’s enough for today. Bring us back up!” 

“It is fine. Nothing is going to happen.” He assures, using his other hand to steer your feet away from his tewng [loincloth]. Ao’nung tries not to think about how good it feels when your legs wrap around his torso instead. 

“Easy for you to say! You’re like ten feet tall and can hold your breath for an eternity.” The tide is not strong today, just as he planned, but even the small waves billowing against his waist seem to put you on edge. 

This is why you teach children to swim early on. They have no notion of fear. 

He is caught between two conflicting temptations. Laughing his ass off at your antics and chucking you into the deep end much like they do for Metkayina babies. However, both won’t have the desired result in the end. And Ao’nung tries to remember too how different you are from the Metkayina. They are born with life saving instincts while from what he has seen from humans, has been nothing but concerning regarding their instincts. There is no telling if you will resurface if he lets you go under now. 

Growing up his teachers had always been strict; unforgiving. He knew the importance of learning skills swiftly so as not to become a burden for the clan, and even more so surpassing expectations as he would someday be Olo’eyktan. A tough regiment had worked for him but you…

You are soft. And it’s one of his favorite qualities you possess, both physically and emotionally, but this also means that using that strict attitude to the same degree would more likely have you giving up and locking him out of your room more than making any real progress. No, while a firm hand is necessary with you at times, it’s evident that praise draws so much more out of you than negative repercussions. 

Ao’nung had thought you particularly inept when it came to climbing but he is surprised to find that you’ve scooted your way significantly up his torso and now have your blunt nails dig into his shoulder blades. Oh how he wishes they were dug in there for the same reason they were last night as he fingered your demon pussy open. 

“Oeyӓ tsyeym [my treasure], do you think I would let you drown?”

“Well no but-”

“Is there anyone that knows these waters better than me? Anyone further capable when it comes to moving through the sea?”

“No.” You mumble against his shoulder. 

“So since you are here with me, an expert, and we’ve already established I will not let you drown then does that not mean you are the safest person, both human and Na’vi, in the ocean today?” He tucks a curve finger beneath your chin so you are forced to meet his expression, his brows raised in question. 

His logic is difficult to deny although there is still some hesitancy in your movements when you nod. But he’ll take it.

“And as your karyu [teacher] who is experienced in these ways should you not be trusting my methods?”

“Ao’nung-”

“No?”

Those pink lips form into what is surely meant to be a scowl but instead looks like nothing more than a pout to him. You know he’s right. How could you claim otherwise? But you stubbornly want to hold onto this fear. 

“Yes, I suppose.” You say in a voice so small that Ao’nung’s ears have to perch forward to properly catch it. 

“Good girl.” He grins, pecking you on the cheek before you can think up another excuse. “Let us begin.”  

“Mawey, paskalin [be calm, honey]. You are too tense.” He purrs, hands supporting the curve of your back as you attempt to float atop the water. It’s a form not typical for the Metkayina but considering your small lungs he has deemed it essential for taking breaks in the water. However you are stiff as a board. 

“I’m just trying not to sink.” You squirm until back on your feet and latched to his side. Perhaps you worry the tide will be strong enough to pull you out. 

“The harder you try the more you will sink. Diving is not meant to be a struggle won. You must move with the water, do not fight against the sea.” For you to truly understand what he means you would have to actually try submerging beneath the waves. He had insisted that you learn without your mask, after all there is no guarantee you would be with it at all times, but it seems this crutch is one you are attached to and therefore refuse to go beneath the water without. 

It is no issue. Ao’nung would rather teach you to dive the proper way slowly than have you relying on this crutch indefinitely.

“But you said that the sea is unforgiving. That it is a powerful force that does not discriminate when choosing prey.” Wet hair sticks to your cheeks as you look up at him. Ao’nung screws his lips and places a hand on his hip. You know how to pack a lot of trouble for someone half of his size. 

“Hm, you love to twist my words, precious.” He teases, one hand snatching your hip to tug you in closer. He steadies your weak form when you stumble at the action. 

“I-I’m not twisting it but this doesn’t make any sense. What am I supposed to do if a wave pulls me out from shore? I’ve heard even some Na’vi can not kick their way back in and so if they can’t neither can I. Not with these weak tawtute legs. And that’s not to mention the sea creatures. To some of them I’m not even a full bite!”

“None this close to shore are big enough to bite.” He cocks his head to the side. “Only some that could sting.”

“Ao’nung!” you screech hitting a hand against his chest. “I’m being serious. How am I ever going to be strong enough to do anything out here? It’s a hopeless cause which I knew but then again when do I ever really listen to-”

“You have forgotten to breathe.” And sure enough you pause for a second to take in his words before finally inhaling a shaky breath. When you get into rambles like this it’s common for you to fly off without any end in sight. Some days they are born out of nerves while others it's in excitement as you explain your favorite romantic movie in detail to him for thirty minutes. How did you survive such rambles before him? Who else was there to remind you the importance of oxygen? 

“You think too much, paskalin.” Your pout only deepens but you lean against him. “I said I will teach you to swim and so I will. The rest is not for you to worry about.” Your hair tickles his lower abs when your head rests against him. He hears you inhale, preparing himself for more weak protests, but then you stop. 

Your attention is snatched off to his far left where there is some splashing. He follows your gaze to find it fixated on one of the newests Ilu’s in deeper waters. This juvenile can only be a few weeks old as it is shorter than his forearm and remains in close proximity to its mother. 

When he spots the way your expression softens, an idea sprouts. Ao’nung has been taking the wrong angle this entire time. It was only last week that he discovered how empathetic you are for animals, especially ones that have not reached adulthood. You had gone from constantly cooing at the strange small animals in your magic screen to falling apart into blubbering tears when one of the baby hippos, as you called them, couldn’t find his mother. It took a long time of hearing your choked up voice ramble about how alone that little creature must feel. It was a strange experience. Then again, that was during your bleeding week. 

“We call her An’ali and her mother Se’xte.”

“She is adorable.”

“Do you want to see her?” 

“Well yes but it’s deeper out there…” You trail off, uncertainty present in your tone. 

“Grab on.” He instructs before bending down onto one knee and prompting your hands to his shoulders. You’re slow to comply, those big beautiful eyes peeking up at him with a flicker of apprehension but it seems your curiosity overrides that emotion because you finally clutch his shoulder to sprawl out across his back. 

He could walk out to the ilu without any struggle of touching the bottom but Ao’nung opts to swim out smoothly, keeping his head and yours above the water. Just a small step to get you used to the feeling of gliding through the water. However, his swishing tail coming to aid does get tangled with your feet every now and then causing a giggle to bubble up your throat. 

Luckily this sensation appears to distract you from the way the ilu swim out further into deeper waters. Ao’nung finds himself holding his breath, praying that you don’t notice how much further the sandy bottom is now. Fortunately, just as he hoped, the cute creatures have your full attention upon reaching them. 

“Wow,” You whisper in a daze, looking past his shoulder. An’ali rubs up against her mother, earning an affectionate call in return. “They are beautiful.”

“They are ilu. Peaceful creatures.” When he reaches behind him to grab one of your hands there is resistance but he continues until it is resting upon the mother’s head. Se’xte gives a curious look but does not push away your tiny hand that pets at her head. He has a strong enough bond with her to have trust extending to you as well. 

“And you ride them?”

“When we are younger, yes. Once a Na’vi has come of age and undergone their iknimaya they ride Tsurak.” If you are this amazed by the ilu he can only imagine what you will think once he introduces you to a Tsurak. Once he gets you more comfortable in the ocean maybe he can convince you to let him take you for a ride. At a slow pace of course. Your soft little hands do not have an ounce of the grip strength necessary to hold on for anything faster. 

“She likes you.” Ao’nung smiles as Se’xte gives a chirp. He can practically feel you beam against his ear. 

“I like her too.” It only lasts for another minute or so before the ilu is ducking beneath the water, not a sufficient amount of time to get a closer look at her baby. “Where are they going?”

“Beneath. We can follow.” Your fingers dig deeper into his shoulders, your breath wavering. Ao’nung doesn’t wait for permission however. It’s best not to give you time to overthink it. “Take a deep breath, paskalin.” 

He waits to hear you deep inhale before diving beneath the surface. Your right arm hooks around his neck instinctively, your legs kicking out frantically but then there are the ilu just ahead, swimming around one another in a playful circle. Not wanting to push his luck too much on the first time, he surfaces after only a few seconds. This time he sets you to stand on a rock so that your head is above the soft waves. 

“Ao’nung!” You gasp, holding a hand over your heart as if it is about to go into cardiac arrest. “Are you insane?! I could have died.”

“And yet you didn’t.” 

That deeply rooted frown melts even as your eyes glare daggers back at him, no doubt not appreciating the smug look he wears. “You maniac!” Your accusation is accompanied by your right hand splashing water back at him. You’re barely holding back giddy laughter as you splash at him. Say what you want, but he knows you enjoyed the rush. 

Ao’nung sweeps his own right hand out to splash back but his miscalculation of strength and the difference in height turns it into a full wave that washes over your entire upper body. “Oh.” He cringes slightly, feeling just a tad bit guilty for playing so rough. 

However, to his surprise it lights something in your eyes. That embering fire turns into full blown competition as you try to imitate his man made wave. He fights back with his own, this time more gentle, retaliation as your laughter picks up. The Metkayina male’s tail swishes in excitement the further you take this little competition. Little sounds erupt from you that confuse him for a moment before he realizes this is your human form of battle cries. 

His stomach aches from laughing so hard even as you manage to push a wave high enough to pummel him in the face. Ao’nung’s cerulean eyes narrow, his lips turning up into a crooked smirk. You have the better sense to scramble across the short distance of the rock when he lets out echoing yips and cries of a hunter who has already caught his precious prey. 

Laughter and shouts coalesce together when he snatches you back in his arms. The splashing dies down as you struggle to catch your breath between wheezing laughter. Even Ao’nung himself finds his heart pounding at a significantly faster rhythm, but it’s spurred on by a new thrill that has taken him. 

In the fit of playing you’ve slowly floated out of the circle in his arms, still holding onto his arms for support but there is no fear in your eyes now at being loosely kept above water. Just as he thought, the worst was all in your head. 

“Do you trust me?”

You pause, eyes flickering between his face and the water again. And though it takes a moment for you to respond, you finally relent. “I do.” 

Ao’nung smiles and situates you to float on your stomach. “Follow my lead, precious. Take a deep breath.” 

Once he is sure your lungs are filled with oxygen Ao’nung wastes no time in helping you dive beneath the surface. His hands guide your body into the proper arch so that you can sink below and once you are, he dives beneath himself and grabs your clasped hands. With ease he slips deeper until he is directly below you and able to smoothly pull you through the water. 

Your eyes are squeezed shut, as if bracing for harsh impact. Rolling his own eyes, he taps your cheek gently. When they timidly open he gives you a wide grin and a wink. However, Ao’nung does not have your spotlight for long. Now blown wide into sparkling orbs, your eyes take in every detail of the sea.

He gets to see it. The first time you fall in love with the ocean. The way you almost let out the breath in your lungs when a spade wing skates close by. How your gaze reflects every vibrant color the reefs have to offer. From the smallest to largest creature, you pay each the same undivided regard. 

He couldn’t say what you see if his life depended on it, too enraptured in watching your reaction instead. The way one hand unclasps from his and reaches out to pet the juvenile ilu that passes them. Ao’nung can’t remember the first time he saw the ocean. He was only a baby and since then the underwater world has been his home more than the land above. So there is no telling if he looked at it for the first time the way you do now. Does he still appreciate the beauties of the sea for what they’re worth? Or has he grown to take such things for granted? 

It feels like seeing it anew when he looks at it through your eyes.  

He could watch you forever. Pull you through every inch of the sea if it means you can experience every wonder present from the open sea to the small nooks and crannies. You however can not hold your breath forever like this. So reluctantly, Ao’nung pulls you back up above the waves.  

You gasp for air, but luckily there is no coughing fit to follow. Ao’nung keeps you above the surface as you fight to go back into a steady breathing pattern. However, it seems that the rapid beat of your heart is not just from catching your breath but also a reflection of the pure adrenaline your body displays. 

Nothing is said for a long moment. Trying to gauge your reaction is difficult but a ravenous energy buzzes from you. Those pink lips part, but you don’t speak right away. You don’t appear to know what to say. And then slowly, your right hand comes to cup his cheek. He’s lost in your eyes the moment they snag his. A small sound catches in your throat, something between a laugh and a sigh. 

For all the millions of words you’ve spoken, somehow this sound is the one he understands the most. True and utter awe. 

Ao’nung doesn’t have to think when your lips touch his. It’s as simple as holding his breath, effortless as he pulls your body closer to his and bends to meet your kiss. It’s only been a few weeks since you first came to retrieve your bunny from his marui but his body has already begun acclimating to yours beautifully. He knows when to anticipate your little gasps for air when you’ve been kissing too long. His large hands have memorized the curve of your face and the feel of his fingers threading through your silky hair. 

The ocean has never felt more tranquil than with you in his arms. 

“The purple on the fins also reminded me of a dress that I put down ages ago, but now I don’t know maybe I will pick it up again. Because it looks so pretty in the water. Now that I think about it, it reminds me a lot of Annika’s dress. The one she magically receives at the end.” 

Ao’nung wracks his brain to identify which movie you are referring to. Is this one you have already showed him or are you simply thinking out loud? Chances are it may be one of the stories he missed entirely because you were too tempting wrapped in that silky lingerie. Distracting you had earned him a light slap to the head but you didn’t complain once you were clenching around his thick fingers. 

Even with your translation, following the plots of those weird stories is not nearly as entertaining as watching your face scrunch up in pleasure. Regardless, it’s important to you so he tries his best to behave. Or at least behave enough to keep you from kicking him out of your room. 

“Oh my god what I would give to have the fabric for that dress.” You groan, your little theatrics tugging a smile to his lips. 

“You were a very good numeyu [student] today, paskalin.” Ao’nung says, squeezing the hand that is interlocked with his own. Your fingers barely peek out from where his massive hand has them caged. 

“Yeah well I have a pretty good karyu [teacher].” You send a wink even as heat rushes to your cheeks. 

“Well I wouldn’t be a good teacher if I didn’t motivate you properly. So since you were so good for me today,” He snatches your waist and pulls you to a stop against him in one move. “I think you deserve a reward.” Those soft hands rest along his stomach, thumbs absentmindedly rubbing circles along the swirling pattern of his skin. 

“Oh…I…is that so?” All essence of confident flirting flitters away before his eyes. Much like a fish out of water you gape for the proper words. It is far too easy to render you to such a state. 

“Why are you soaking wet?” Lo’ak rounds the corner and jumps onto the woven walkway. While you put effort into breaking away and turning to the Sully boy with a smile, Ao’nung finds no reason to conceal his distaste for the untimely interruption. 

“We were swimming.” You chirp, bouncing on the balls of your feet. Lo’ak’s unnatural dark brows knit together. 

“You can’t swim. You’re terrified of the water. Remember last time I tried to get you in. It took hours and after five minutes you-”

An unrecognizable string of words fall from your lips to interrupt a story that Ao’nung was becoming quite interested in hearing. The consolation prize however is hearing your sharp tone shut the other male down. Whatever embarrassing memory Lo’ak was wanting to share is certainly enough to have you fidgeting beside him. “Ao’nung is teaching me how to swim.” You say, switching back to Na’vi. 

“You are?” Lo’ak scoffs, finally turning to address him. His golden eyes dart between the two of you and it takes no genius to understand what memory the forest boy is recalling. In his youth Ao’nung had not been the most patient in teaching Lo’ak especially. Then again, he was also not in love with Lo’ak. He never earned the same softness that you bring out in him. 

“It seems she has only been in need of the right karyu.” That smooth comment has Lo’ak eyes narrowed into slits. Sensing the tension between them you are quick to jump in. 

“It was actually a lot of fun! I got to see a spade wing and a baby ilu, Lo.” Your voice is infused with so much energy, it’s clear you are attempting to compensate for the negative energy withering between Lo’ak and himself. 

“And you went out in that? Tsmuke [sister], those are barely scraps.” He huffed, gesturing at your swimsuit. Something swells in Ao’nung’s chest. By the stars he is not about to let some forest boy crumble your confidence in wearing such a garment after all the work you’ve done to get this far. However, just as he is about to steer you behind him and give this skxawng [moron]  a piece of his mind, you shrug and let out a little laugh. 

“You wear nothing but a loincloth every day, Lo’ak. You’re not really in a position to judge.” Lo’ak opens his mouth to protest but you beat him to the punch. “Anyways, we’ve got to run. Bye!” You call out with a dramatic wave while tugging Ao’nung down the walkway. Sending a sly look over his shoulder he catches the way Lo’ak watches from afar with a pinched expression. 

“Sorry about him.” You sigh. 

“He does not approve.” 

“No, it’s not like that. Lo’ak just thinks he has to play this protective brother role. It’s not personal.” His relationship with Lo’ak has come a long way since the Sullys first landed on this walkway. They’ve grown to put up with one another and occasionally be friendly, a necessity with the Omatikaya male courting his sister. That being said, he has never considered them close, nor would he be offended at finding out Lo’ak sees it the same way. You on the other hand don’t seem to understand this dynamic as you desperately try to reassure him. 

“I swear he thinks just because he’s taller he can play big brother. He has concerns but that’s just part of his bravado act. I wouldn’t let it bother you.”

“It doesn’t.” Ao’nung shrugs. Although, it nags at him that Lo’ak has been sharing these concerns with you. If he has complaints they should be brought to him directly, not woven into your mind in hopes of creating doubt. Would that work? Have you already developed your own concerns? You’re a shy little thing at times but Ao’nung has always figured that to be part of how your personality reacts to his own. Surely, you must know the way he feels about you. 

For all the ways you openly wear your heart on your sleeve, he still somehow can not be sure. Some things still remain a mystery when it comes to you. 

“What is this?” You ask, once you're back inside his marui. He squints to make out one of the small figurines he had placed next to his hunting gear. 

“A…cat?” He answers, eyes still squinting to see if he has passed your test correctly. 

“No Ao’nung. I mean what is it doing here? What are all of them doing here?” The rest of the figurines are much like this cat one, although just like your bunny they all wear tiny clothes. Calico Critters you had called them the first time he asked. They serve no real purpose, just tiny things that stand there but the important thing is that you adore them. 

So naturally he swiped them to bring back here. 

“They don’t do anything, precious. Just exist I suppose.” 

Your attempt at a stern expression is endearing, hand placed on your hips as your neck cranes to glare up at him. 

“I’m starting to think you’re a kleptomaniac. You can’t keep stealing my stuff.” 

“It is not stealing.” He shrugs. 

“Oh really? Then what is it?” 

“Relocating.” Ao’nung grins. “Now you can enjoy them here.” 

Although there is not true ire in your questioning there is in fact real push back on the topic. You know why he has stolen your creepy figurines. Just as you know why he has strung some fabrics of pink and purple like a canopy along the ceiling of his marui. And placed a few of your extra blankets in his hammock. Whatever it takes to lure you back here night after night. 

Notwithstanding all of his efforts, you continue to split your time between here and your place in the tawtute caves. Moving into his marui would be a natural next step in your relationship. Of course you are attached to all the silly trinkets you’ve acquired but he is not opposed to letting you litter his marui with them as long as you would call this place your home too. 

Still, he remains patient. Many courting couples wait until properly mating before living together anyways. You must share the same morals. However, he sees no harm in enticing you all the same. 

“I know what you’re doing.” Your voice smooths out into a sing-song tone. Ao’nung’s long hair falls over his right shoulder when he cocks his head to the side and feigns innocent curiosity. “You truly are ridiculous.” Fighting back a smile you begin arranging the figurines neatly into their separate families. 

He has the decency to wait until they’re organized before sweeping you from the ground and falling back onto his hammock in one swift move. It draws a surprised chirp from your lips. A deep sigh echoes from his own chest even as you make weak protests about him giving you a heart attack.

“You know I still need to dry off.” You remind him but Ao’nung already has his head leaned back against the woven fabric. His right arm smoothly encircles around your middle to clamp you against his chest. You squirm and thrash to get out of his hold but it only takes an iota of his strength to keep you locked there. Even with his eyes closed in a show of feigned sleep, he can’t keep his lips from twitching into a pleased smirk. 

That smirk crackles into a full laughter induced grin when your small hand swats at the side of his head. “Ao’nung,” You chide, a slight whine to your tone that has him stifling back his amusement. 

Peeking his eyes open he finds your own strangely colored eyes glaring back at him. This little game of back and forth is one that you both enjoy frequently but he has a feeling that this time you may actually insist on being let up to get your towel. A sigh heaves from his chest as he shakes his head fondly. “There is no need, tawtute. I will keep you warm.” He says, reaching down to pull out a blanket and toss it over your small form. 

Ao’nung is grateful when you don’t fight him further or demand a proper reason. He would give one but it’s unlikely you would understand. How could he explain that seeing you drenched like this does something to him? That your hair smelling of the sea’s salt water serves as a direct signal of you and his home coming together? Everything about you is unique, so new and foreign to him but there is something about witnessing those beautiful aspects of you slowly integrate into his life on the reef as well that lingers with him. 

But you’re tawtute. Your sense of smell is greatly dampened in comparison. It’s a shame considering how many times he has scent marked you and you can’t even recognize it, let alone appreciate the possessive gesture. No, there isn’t an easy way to explain to you what he is feeling as he presses his nose against your crown. And even if there is, it’s doubtful that he would be the one to find it. Saying the right thing hasn’t always been his strong suit. It’s Tsireya that is good with the mushy sentiments. 

And why waste the air with such jumbled nonsense when this moment already holds everything he needs? An ocean breeze that filters through the entrance of his marui to coast over your frame and carry your essence. A soft sway to the hammock, lulling him to relax. The satisfying weight of your warm body draped across his own. 

And then there are your hands. Uncalloused pointer finger that delicately begins tracing over his shoulder tattoo. The soft glide of your finger greatly contrasts the pain he had endured to stain his skin with dark ink. You’ve never witnessed a Metkayina tattoo ceremony but your quiet fascination carries a certain reverence. 

Swirling down further and further until he can feel the tickle along his bicep. Such a simple sensation, barely more than the brush of a breeze, yet it melts through him like liquid gold. The unconscious tense of his muscles release and already he can feel his breath deepen. He’s on the verge of succumbing to this silent lullaby when his ear twitches from being touched. 

Ao’nung opens his eyes to find that you are carefully tucking a few strands or curly hair behind his pointed ear. Letting others touch his hair is not a normal practice for him. Traditionally he has relied on Tsireya exclusively to fashion it into a suitable hairstyle. There is something deeply…personal about it. It’s always been a fixation for you though.

And where his tail typically pikes onto alert and a growl blossoms in his chest at a foreign touch to his curls, somehow it all dissipates away when it comes to your strange tawtute hands. 

Perhaps it's the way you marvel at him openly. You’ve always had a fascination for pretty things, a category that he was pleased to find himself a part of when your hasty confession came that first night. You’re often shy in speaking it, but your touch and stare always hold that same appreciation for his physique. 

There’s more to it, though. 

When you stare up at him like this, all bashfulness put to the side, it cuts him open. As if with one prolonged moment you’ve managed to strip him bare and peer into his very soul. It’s not his hair or intricate tattoos that you see. Not even the dozen of physical differences between you two that screams alien. You look at him. 

Whatever you see in him. 

If only he could read your thoughts. Finally untangle your tawtute customs and culture that have webbed you into a puzzle for him. Do you get that burning in your chest too? That one that feels like his heart has been clutched in an iron grip? Perhaps a grip from the same hands that now go back to tracing his tattoos. 

With the smallest sigh your head drops back onto his chest. Sleep overcoming you is obvious by the now absence of touch along his right bicep. Ao’nung follows you into slumber mere minutes after when he has finally brought his heart rate back to a normal speed. 

Your nap far exceeds his own. While Ao’nung had only dosed off for a few minutes but you are dead to the world for at least a half hour. Apparently that little swim had worn you to the bone. He would have to help you with endurance. It seems tawtute are not built for staying in the water long. 

In fact you are so still as you sleep that Ao’nung finds himself placing a hand across your back to check that it still rises and falls with breath. When you do wake up it takes a minute for you to make out where you are with blurry vision. A sheepish look crosses your features upon realizing what position you’ve remained in. It’s followed by some silly notion that you laying on top of him is somehow considered rude or uncomfortable. He’ll never understand why you make these assertions. 

Regardless, Ao’nung quickly wraps both arms around your waist when you attempt to move off of him. Dislodging yourself from his hold is an impossible task, a truth that you must come to recognize as you only give a feigned huff and try fighting back a smile. 

“We can’t stay here forever you know.” 

His pointer finger slowly drags over every vertebrae of your spine as he lets out a thoughtful hum. “Maybe not forever but I did promise a reward. Can’t have you skipping off before receiving what you are owed.” 

The air seems to thicken with his words. A familiar tension is slowly wound as all of your sleepiness dissipates and goosebumps ripple across your skin. He can feel the evidence of his own excitement shifting beneath his tewng. Dirty thoughts of all the ways he could reward you sprout to the forefront of his mind. There is no end to these thoughts when it comes to you. Never before has someone woven themselves into his fantasies so incessantly. Even to the point where it can be a struggle to focus on his duties while you swim through his head. 

Ao’nung pushes down those ideas for now, however. It’s only fair that you get to pick the reward after all that you’ve accomplished today. And then…if you need some ideas he would be more than anxious to supply. 

“Have you decided what reward that will be?” He asks, forcing his hands to remain above the tempting curve of your ass. Just for now. You’re not always the most articulate when his wandering hands come into play. 

Something flickers in your expression. Only a second before you are averting your gaze and gnawing on your bottom lip. Ao’nung’s exploring hand stills as curiosity lights within him. Propping himself onto one elbow he invades your space, forcing your eyes to meet his own. 

“You do.” He smirks, reveling in the way you fight to squirm. 

“Well, maybe. I don’t know. It’s just an idea so I’m not sure if-”

“Sevin [beautiful/pretty],” Ao’nung interrupts. “Tell me.” He coats his voice in a smooth purr, hoping to coax an answer from you, but his patience can only last so long. Whatever idea has sprouted in your brain must be obscene enough to prompt such hesitation in telling him. However Ao’nung has come to find that your meter for rating lewds acts is far more sensitive than his own. Regardless, you have his attention now. All of his previous ideas are cast to the side in favor of hearing what has you blushing. 

“I was thinking that maybe…if it’s okay with you…that I could…suck you off?”

Ao’nung’s devilish smirk drops in an instant. 

“For your reward you want to suck my cock?” The vulgar language has your cheeks deepening in color but you manage to nod.

Great Mother above, where did he find you?

It seems he must have done something right in his past life. He was ready to find satisfaction in your slick along his tongue and watching your writhe with pleasure but now you are sitting on top of him, the true depiction of bashfulness, asking to put his cock down your throat. His brain can’t really make sense of it, but he still stands by not asking questions when nice things come his way. And precious, you are by far the nicest thing he has ever had. 

“Is that weird?”

“No,” comes his instant reply. Subconsciously he holds his breath. You’re an easy one to spook. 

“Actually I was hoping you could teach me.” 

This is starting to feel far too close to one of his favorite fantasies. So much so that Ao’nung takes note of every detail in the room to confirm that this could not be just some erotic dream. But this is real and a feral creature is stirring inside of him, gnawing at the bars of its enclosure. 

“You’ve never…” Ao’nung trails off. Neither of you have talked much about past relationships, you especially. It’s common knowledge that the Metkayina prince has had his time sleeping around but he has no inkling of what you’ve experienced. The only hints he receives are the clear hesitation in your movements. Just enough to have him wondering if he is your first. 

“I have. Just once.” That has his other arm propping him so he is now sitting up properly. “I mean I tried to once but I-I wasn’t very good at it. At least that’s what he said. Which make sense, I had no idea what I was doing so I couldn’t really be mad when he said we shouldn’t again-”

“Who?” A dark venom fills his chest. This is the first time you’ve discussed a past lover and he’s already not liking the light it's being presented in. 

“Just a guy I used to date back with the Omatikaya.” So he’s not here. It would take crossing an ocean to kill him. Then again, he’s done more for less. Was it an Omatikaya male or did you fool around with one of the science tawtute? “It’s fine. He was right.”

His brain lags at the information. Caught between confusion and rage. 

“And oh god now I’ve made it sound like the most unappealing thing possible. Great.” 

Ao’nung barely hears your embarrassed groan. What man in their right mind has a beautiful creature like you on her knees for him only to criticise and turn her away? To be presented a gift and not only reject it but smash it into pieces, tear your confidence to shreds. So what if you’re inexperienced? A true man knows how to teach, takes joy in it. Joy that this creature has tossed out without regard. 

It’s a perplexing tug of war between emotions. As a man himself he can’t help but find this person’s actions incredibly ridiculous. And yet, the idea of him enjoying your body has Ao’nung imagining ripping this faceless man to shreds. And a man he must not be. No true man does this. 

To treat you in this way…there is no honor in such actions. The Omatikaya are different but they are still respectable Na’vi. It could not have been one of them, that would somehow feel worse. So a tawtute it must have been. A vrrtep [demon]. 

“It doesn’t have to be that. I think I might be making it a bit weird by sharing this.”

“This man said such things to you?” To your face? He looked you in the eyes as you fiddled with the hem of a lacy skirt and apprehension seated beneath long lashes and told you he didn’t enjoy your mouth around him? He watched those beautiful eyes hold back tears? Looked at perfection incarnate and spat in the face of it? 

“Well yeah but..does it really matter?”

Does it matter? How could it not matter? Is that what he wanted you to think? That this was no big deal, convince you to suck it up and move on without complaint? That wouldn’t work on you. It’s only been a few weeks and even Ao’nung knows that words cut you deep. Anyone with a morsel of sense would know that. But this man, the same that somehow had the honor of sharing your bed, obviously had not taken a second to understand you. 

Could he even please you if so? Had he even tried? Not in the way Ao’nung has, that much has been obvious from the way you still tremble after the orgasms he coaxes from you. It’s not a contest, for that he would require true competition. However a part of him, a part that directly conflicts his innate urge to pummel any man that has touched you, feels as if there should be competition. No one would ever compare to him, but your past experiences should have at least been enjoyable. 

“Who is this?” His throat strains to hold back a growl. 

“Um…I’m getting the feeling that it’s a bad idea to tell you.” 

Smart thing that you are, you’re right. Correct if your goal is to prevent Ao’nung from ripping this anonymous man’s throat out. He can’t fathom why you would want to protect him but then again this is very in character for you. No matter what someone has done you always have a way of finding a soft spot for them. You care so much, sometimes too much. 

And this man didn’t care for you at all. 

Your precious heart is too big to tell him, but the Metkayina prince vows he will find out one way or another. 

“He was just being honest.” 

“Sevin,” A stern understone laces the pet name as he captures your chin. “He did not deserve you.”

Ao’nung weighs those words with every ounce of sincerity he can muster. And you feel it. It shows in the way your shoulders drop and expression melts into something new. Not a smile by any means but his words have touched you, they beckon you further into his arms. And then there is that cinch around his heart again. 

And being the ridiculous little thing you are, you thank him. As if telling the truth is ever a favor. You are utterly nonsensical at times. Utterly nonsensical and utterly his. 

“What he deserves is a spear through the chest.”

“Okay big guy, calm down.” You say, patting his chest while trying to hide your creeping amusement. You think he’s joking. How cute. 

“Are you asking me to teach you because that’s what you want or because you think this is what I want?” Ao’nung hates to ask, to potentially ruin this opportunity for himself, but it’s needed. He won’t be like that pathetic creature of a lover you once had. Avoiding that starts with making sure you aren’t simply doing this for his benefit, to prove yourself in a way that he has never and will never ask you to. 

“Do you want it?” 

His hairless brows drop as he gives you a deadpan look. “Precious, you already know that I do.” Want it more than you can even fathom. “But that’s not what I asked you.”

There is a beat of hesitation, you poor bottom lip already torn up from your gnawing. “I want to feel like I know what I’m doing. I want to make you feel good in the same way you do me.” 

“You already do.” There is still much left for the two of you to explore, so much more he can’t wait to do with you but there is no rush. You’ve brought him to the heights of pleasure no one else has before. 

“I know but…still. And it’s not the only reason why. I’m curious.” Your head tilts in a subtle way to create a curtain out of your hair and hide that sheepish look. “You’re just so different and I…I’m interested.” 

Different.

Interested.

Two trails of thoughts fighting for attention. Different from your past lover. Different because he is Metkayina or different because he is a Na’vi. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter but it’s difficult to stamp down that curiosity.

However, Ao’nung focuses on the latter. The same that has his ears perking with his own interest and groin suddenly becoming very aware of your weight situated there. 

A low hum of appreciation rumbles in his chest as he slowly situates your further onto his lap. His turquoise cheek brushes against your jaw before he presses a slow kiss there. “My curious sevin, hm?” You suck in a breath when his sharp teeth just barely nip at your earlobe. 

“Yes.” You whisper but those small hands are already smoothing over his shoulders, one even slinking to the nape of his neck. 

“You know I am always happy to sate your curiosity, precious.” 

That abused bottom lip is finally released when he captures you in a kiss. Despite the growing anticipation, Ao’nung leads this kiss in a pace that is anything but rushed. It’s languid. Relaxed. Sensual. And when he tilts his head to deepen the kiss you eagerly respond in kind. 

The ties of your bikini are much simpler than the average Metkayina top and yet it’s difficult to concentrate on undoing them when his tongue is swirling around yours and your hands have already taken real estate lodged deep in his hair. Fingers fumbling for a moment to undo your top he can’t fathom at which point he had let you get such a tight hold on him. Those curious hands hold more power than he would dare to let you know. 

The skimpy piece of fabric finally sags, only held up by being sandwiched between his chest and yours. 

“This is what you want?” Ao’nung asks again, only departing from your lips for a second. 

“Yes.” He pulls back when you eagerly chase after him for more.

“Promise me.” He demands. 

“I promise.” 

No words have tasted sweeter against his lips. So Ao’nung rewards your sweet behavior with a slow beckon of his tongue. Skillfully exploring and stroking your own until a groan has your lips parting wider for him. His right hand cups the back of your head, easily encompassing the width of your skull in his hold. Anything to keep you there, to continue breathing in your essence until it is seared down his throat. 

Your breath is erratic when he pulls away. Even more so when he whispers a simple, “good girl.” There is always a visceral reaction that comes from that short phrase. An ease of tension in your muscles, a breathy sigh that directly trails to a shiver down your spine. It’s become one of his favorite coined phrases for that reaction exactly. Praise has a way of slipping you into a new headspace, one where worry dissipates and you finally allow him to worship you in the way you deserve. 

Ao’nung veers back just enough to let your top fall before pulling you close again. Your breasts press against his chest, those tender nubs already prickling against his skin. So responsive and he’s hardly done anything to you yet. 

It’s your turn to fumble with the ties when you attempt to undo his tewng. Ao’nung smoothly shifts onto his knees but that doesn’t greatly reduce your struggle when it comes to unwinding the ties from his tail. He’s partly to blame. The second you graze the base of his tail it reacts with a strong swish. Without one of your own, it must be difficult for you to comprehend the unique sensitivity of his tail. You sense there is something, though, hands already retreating shyly. 

“What is wrong?” He murmurs against your temple. 

“Nothing.” 

It’s less than convincing, even more so when you grapple to meet his gaze. “No need to be shy, precious.” 

“I just…don’t want to hurt you.” 

It’s tempting to roll his eyes, a tawtute habit you’ve somehow managed to ingrain in him. Instead, he grasps your tiny hand carefully in his own and begins pushing it back towards his tail. “Just as you are mine, paskalin, I am yours.” Ao’nung fights back a shiver when you just barely brush the base of the wide appendage. “Which means I am yours to explore. Yours to enjoy.”

“Take advantage of it.” Something flickers in your countenance at his words. Although still slow and careful in actions a spark of intrigue ignites. He has been the main instigator in your interactions, far more bold in letting his desire for you show. And while Ao’nung revels in always having the upper hand it’s important that you understand the joy that comes from it too. To let you wander and sate your curiosities without restraint. Finally allow yourself the freedom from silly tawtute concerns that plague you. 

Because he is yours. 

He has been yours since the first time he saw you land at their shores with ribbons in your hair wearing that ridiculously short yellow dress. Even he did not know that day how far gone he already was. 

Either way, you two have obviously been crafted for one another. And Ao’nung will be damned before he lets pointless Sky People customs get in the way of you fully enjoying that bond. To finally taste the ecstasy that comes with owning someone, body and soul. 

Finally his tewng falls away and Ao’nung helps you dispose of it to the side. As he works on the ties of your bottoms now a kernel of courage slowly sprouts within your actions. Ao’nung smirks against the crook of your neck when he feels the traces of fingertips along his pecs before dragging over the lines of his abdomen. 

As tempting as it is to tease you for the interest, Ao’nung spares you his knowing looks and instead encourages the action by placing sweet kisses along your throat. With very little effort he ripens an old mark he had left there last week, licking over the now beautiful contrast of color in delight. It seems to spur something within you as well, small kisses now running over his collarbones and down his chest. 

The touch is featherlight, enough to have him almost squirming at how it tickles him. However, you are already letting your touch travel south. Ao’nung graciously aids this endeavor, sliding you off of his lap, flinging your bottoms to the side and laying down on his back with spread legs. For a moment he considers standing up and letting you kneel for a better access but it feels like a risk. 

You are just barely mustering up enough confidence to explore. A small thing like you is easy to startle, standing above you could be too intimidating. And as much as he loves watching your nerves paint a beautiful blush over those cheeks, today it’s in his best interest to tread carefully. 

Ao’nung holds back a jerk reaction when your hand wraps around the base of his cock. Despite your demure nature this activity has become one very familiar to you. It’s been a safe substitute for your little pussy as you work your way up there. It’s hard not to think about how you will stretch around his thick cock someday, how little whines will bubble up your throat without reprieve and he will finally know what it means to be inside of you. 

But you are small. And fragile. 

It’s easier to push those thoughts aside in order to maintain his patience. 

You only stroke him a few times, hand barely able to wrap fully around him. And then without any warning, there is a loss of touch and you are crawling up his chest again. Ao’nung pulls back and raises a brow when your right hand slinks to the back of his head. Perhaps you are wanton for another kiss but then your lips never descend to his. Instead there is a shift in his hair before the rest of his long locks are falling freely and you are holding the band that originally had it tied into a bun. 

This is a common preference of yours, seeing his hair unrestrained. However, today you don’t just fling the band to the side and become engrossed in admiring the curls. That large band is fitted around your wrist before you are bending back to gather your own hair. The view is more than preferable, back curving and chest opened up for his heated gaze. All of a sudden he can’t remember what his objections to his own hair were. Not when his teeth are drawing blood from his lip just imagining how perfectly they would sink into your right breast. Just above the nipple where no one but him would get to admire such a beautiful mark. 

You tie your hair back into a ponytail, even giving its roots a good tug for measure. You mean business. 

“Who is stealing whose stuff now?” Ao’nung jests. 

“I don’t see you complaining.” Your nose scrunches at him in a teasing manner. It wipes away when his warm hands encompass your hips, kneading the flesh sensually. His left  hand travels up your stomach and past your ribcage before brushing one nipple not so innocently. 

“I’m very generous when it comes to you, precious.” You won’t understand how true those words are, especially when you’re too busy gasping at the harsh tug he gives your right nipple. 

Saliva gathers along his tongue as he flicks the other hardened nub. Those pretty little tits always feel good in his mouth. So malleable. Your cries always responsive. If it weren’t for the clear ache between his legs the Metkayina prince would have you flipped onto your back and mouth tormenting those perfect breasts until you would beg for him to stop by now. 

But that’s not the reward he promised you, he reminds himself as you are released and slink back down between his thighs. Apprehension settles in your shoulders again when you are face to face with his twitching cock. Fisting the bottom you take a deep breath to steady yourself. 

“Paskalin,” He calls lowly. “There is no rush.” 

Everything in his body screams otherwise, but Ao’nung maintains a cool composure. You’re already nervous. Already scarred from a past bad experience. It’s his job to do everything in his power to ease that burden. Even when that means torturing himself with the perfect image of you nestled between his thighs all while desperately aching for your touch. 

“Yeah but you’re-”

“I am fine. It’s your reward, sevin. Do what feels natural to you.” 

What feels natural to you is far more than what he is ready for. Plush lips press against his hip bone, trailing down into open mouthed kisses along his thigh. And then there are your teeth. Those silly blunt teeth that struggle to make an indent in his flesh but your attempt is stimulating all the same. A soft tongue and small teeth encompassed with those perfectly kissable lips work to suck and bite a new color along his upper right thigh. 

You’re trying to mark him.

Claim him as he has claimed you so many times. 

It’s concerning how fast it frays as his self control, awakening that primal beast within him. His own nails sink into the root of his messy hair while his other hand resting at the back of your head, carefully ensuring to cup you gently not push. When a muscle in his thick thigh flexes that silky tongue chases the line it makes. 

The entire endeavor has his body awakening with anticipation, fighting the urge to pin you down and take what he wants now. It is ridiculous how such a simple act from his tawtute has him twitching with need but he loves seeing you this way. Letting your unbridled desire show, using his body the way that has always been your right. 

When you pull back, Ao’nung’s neck cranes to see the damage. And damage you can barely call it as there is the smallest purple spot blooming along his upper thigh. Tiny indents of teeth around it. 

It is nowhere near the possessive carnage of his own marks upon your lighter skin, in fact the change in color is hardly a contrast. But it’s his. Your adorable attempt at marking your territory is utterly his to treasure. His precious tawtute leaving the sweetest of gifts. 

“So pretty, paskalin.” He purrs, finger stroking through your scalp as he battles the urge to stick his tongue down your throat again. The pad of your thumb brushes over the mark, gaze just barely peeking up at him beneath your long lashes. 

His body can’t fight a jerk this time when you unexpectedly grab the base of his cock again. A reassuring smile is quickly plastered on his face when you look up at him in concern. The size of him is borderline comical in your hand. Cock practically the length of your forearm, it’s daunting to imagine what a tight fit it will be in your mouth. Equally erotic and nerve wracking to think of those sweet lips stretching around him. 

“Promise you’ll help me do it right?” You ask gently, as if you aren’t simultaneously stroking his twitching cock in one hand, precum already drizzling down between your fingers. 

“I promise. Stop worrying.” Ao’nung prays you don’t hear the waver in his voice. How unfair it is to expect him to answer your questions when it’s taking everything within him not to fuck up into your fist. “Just start with your tongue, precious. Let yourself taste.” 

He had meant for you to explore slowly, maybe start from the bottom and work your way up but it’s clear you’re out to kill him because instead your pink tongue immediately flicks at the head of his cock, right over the slit where a drop of precum rests. 

It’s a pure shot of electricity. 

And that’s when Ao’nung knows…he is in trouble. 

How did he not calculate for this? This is by far not the first time he has had a beautiful woman’s mouth running along him, but they had all been Metkayina women before you. Their tongues had a rougher texture, something enjoyable but entirely different to the silk-like surface of your own. It’s so soft it almost tickles.

He’s known this from the first time you kissed but somehow that never translated into how it would feel against his most sensitive parts. 

Mercy is not afforded to him. Like the good numeyu you are, his instructions are taken to heart as your tongue lathers along every inch of him. Sometimes shorter flicks of your tongue while others long strokes that travel from the base to tip. You are duteous in your task. Even going as far as running over his heavy balls hanging beneath. 

Great Mother above, he was not built to contain himself like this. 

Blown out pupils look up at him when you pull back. It’s impossible to miss the seated hunger in your gaze, but first and foremost you wait for him to guide you. There is a drop of his arousal resting at the corner of your lips innocently, already starting to glow as eclipse has set outside. 

Without thinking, Ao’nung finds his own thumb pressing at the dot to slip it back inside your mouth. The digit is accepted without question. Curiosity getting the better of him now, the prince presses his thumb down on your tongue. 

Obediently your jaw slacks and lips separate. The pad of his thumb drags over your silky tongue as his other fingers curl beneath your chin. Saliva coats the digit before Ao’nung softly presses your jaw closed. “Suck,” He instructs. 

Unlike with swimming you don’t question his methods. You suck hard enough to hollow your cheeks, presenting the perfect tools to imagine what it will feel like around his cock. “There you go. Breath through your nose, sevin.” 

You take every direction graciously, following each to a tee. By the time he pulls his thumb out with a pronounced pop sound, it has a line of saliva still connecting it to your lips. He can’t help himself. Ao’nung slides that wet thumb down between your legs and lets it brush over your clit. A choked sound echoes from your throat, clasping his shoulder as he reaches further down to confirm his suspicions. 

You are absolutely drenched. 

“I-I want to try,” your breathy voice rushes out. 

Biting back a moan, Ao’nung kisses your cheek before whispering, “Do as you wish.” 

With heavy lidded eyes, he lays back and watches you settle between his thighs again. There is less urgency this time, desire overriding your apprehension. Less timid now, you take his cock in hand and start to fit your lips around the head. The tip is barely past your lips before you are emulating the ministrations he had taught you on his thumb. Cheeks hollowed and tongue running wild, you suck the very life out of him. 

“Precious precious,” Ao’nung gasps out, pulling your head off of him. “Not yet, sweetheart. Not yet.” 

His body thrums from the aftershock. Too much all at once. “Let’s focus on getting me in that pretty mouth first, hm?” 

“Sorry,” You mumble, already pulling back but Ao’nung pushes your head forward again. 

“Don’t apologize, sevin. You are being so good for me.” Wrapped in his praise you lower down around him slower this time. 

Just fitting the head inside is already a mouthful, something he tries to keep in mind as his hips are begging to buck up into your sweet cavern. It feels like being wrapped in satin. That perfectly hot wet cocoon of your mouth encircling his cock as if it was made for him. Not even halfway down and he can just barely feel the back of your throat. 

Ao’nung keeps you positioned there, not wanting to push you too far yet. He makes the mistake of looking down, however, and that image alone has his balls drawing up, dangerously close to the edge. Your pink lips stretched to their limit, such a beautiful contrast to sparkling eyes that peek up at him for approval. An absolute masterpiece. 

A shudder ripples forward when you suddenly pull off of him. “It won’t fit,” you pout. 

As if the situation isn’t already enough, those deceptively sweet words have the filthiest of fantasies running through his head. 

“That’s alright. You can use your hand for the rest.” He prompts. 

The advice helps when you lower down again, fisting what you can of the rest with your hand but even then it won’t cover all of him. “Now you can try your tongue, sevin. Just like I taught you.” 

But the way your tongue incidentally rides the vein on the underside of his cock is far more than what he taught you. It’s only his reaction that has you less oblivious to its sensitivities. Ao’nung lungs suck in air sharply, the concave of his stomach accenting the x shape of his ribs. 

“Am I hurting you?” You ask, abruptly rearing off of him. Those beautiful features are painted with such genuine concern Ao’nung is caught between laughing at your innocence and growling in need. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean-”

“You are so far from hurting me, precious.” Voice thickening with something carnal, Ao’nung pins you with ocean blue eyes. “That pretty mouth feels so good around me. Let me feel it again, paskalin.” 

The words strike you hard, plummeting you into a daze-like state as you softly follow the push of his hand. Whatever worries you have dissipate, too focused on getting him to gasp like that again. And it turns out such filthy words are exactly what you need when he is nestled in your heat, wide eyes crinkling with glee. 

“There we go. Now suck, sweetheart.” 

It takes little encouragement for your compliance. Even the small directions of how hard to suck, where to lap your tongue is ardently followed. Less experienced you may be but your obedience makes up for it ten fold. And then you are following him down into the thick haze of desire. Nostrils flaring, your head starts lowering down to take him deeper. 

Despite his flaring desire to watch you choke on him, Ao’nung hesitates. You’re fragile. This isn’t like the other women he has been intimate with. Throwing you around, using you too harshly, can come with consequences. Push too hard and he may just break you, making this an experience you never wish to repeat. 

But then his cerulean eyes catch a glimpse of your thighs, the way they squeeze together. That tantalizing essence is thick in the air, even more so when you begin rutting against the fabric like an animal in heat. There is still a slyness to your movements that tell him you’re trying not to get caught, but it’s too late. 

You are enjoying this just as much as him, big wide eyes begging for more. 

And so more you will get.

“You want my cock down your throat. Don’t you, sweetheart?” 

The hum you give in response not only confirms his theories but lights every pleasure center in his brain. A growl rumbles in his chest. “Of course you do, because you’re a good fucking girl, aren’t you?”

Another whine around him and Ao’nung’s toes are curling against the hammock. He fists the base of your ponytail and both of your hands position themselves at his hips, blunt nails digging in. “Then do as I say, sevin. Relax that throat and let me in.” 

The first time he slinks past the back of your throat, your gag reflex kicks in dramatically. Immediately he pulls out to allow you a ragged breath but before he can ask if you’re alright, your hands are clawing at his hips and trying to pull him back in. Ao’nung doesn’t need to be told twice. 

The pattern continues. His hips draw forward a little more each time until the choking seems to be too much and Ao’nung draws back to allow you air. Each time he is rewarded with the view of your sinfully debauched state. Lips ruby red, a mixture of his precum and saliva glossing over them, and blown out pupils lazily staring up at him. 

You’re a quick learner. It’s easy to fall into a rhythm of this pattern. It comes to a point where you are efficient in taking a deep breath before he is spearing down your throat again. Until it can be done faster and faster. Until he has almost three quarters of his length encompassed and able to thrust a couple times before needing to pull back. 

“Fuck, precious!” He groans, feet already planting against the hammock’s surface. “My perfect little cocksucker.” 

Those words spurs a new energy through you. When he comes to pop out after a couple thrusts, you snag his hip and give him a look. A silent communication that tells him all he needs to know. And by Eywa, it could not come at a better time. He is hanging just over the edge of release. It’s unclear how much longer he can keep that beast inside of him caged. 

So when you pull back for one last breath, his grip tightens on your hair and Ao’nung hips finally snap up with vigor. You take it like a champ, choking and drooling but eagerly pushing him to fuck down your throat. Those little ruts against the hammock becoming even more desperate with every growled moan he releases. 

“So fucking perfect.” He growls out between clenched teeth. The last tangible sound before his hips are ricketting sporadically and his balls are drawing up against him. Ao’nung finishes with his head thrown back. A position that only lasts for a moment as he quickly remembers to look down and watch the way you choke around him. He doesn’t fight it when you pull back and the rest of his spend lands across your jaw and collarbones. 

Now caught in his own daze, the prince hazily savors the masterpiece before him. Tears glossing over your eyes, abused lips parted, and his bioluminescent cum painting your satin like skin. If only there was a way to keep this image tucked away in his pocket forever. 

Coming down from his high, Ao’nung feels a tinge of guilt when he surveys your state. That is, until he catches another whiff of your arousal and watches a dopey grin trace your lips. For the first time in perhaps forever, he finds himself speechless. 

That grin dampens down in the silence, however. Chest still heaving for air you nervously ask, “Was it…good?” 

Nothing more than a raspy whisper but your concern is pure. 

Ao’nung is baffled. Wholly bewildered at how you can sit there with his sperm still dripping down your breasts and sincerely ask him such a question. 

He’s going to kill that pathetic man, that is for certain. Rip apart the one person that ever dared to make you question such a thing. The man that made you feel like anything less than a goddess. 

“Good?” He asks, slowly rising to sit up. You bite your bottom lip. “Oh precious, you aren’t good.” Ao’nung’s thick tail swerves behind him when he settles onto his knees, hands clasping your hips. “You are addicting. My perfect unraveling.” 

If he wasn’t so impatient he would savor the way your breath catches and eyes sparkle in delight. But he only sees it for a second before you are manhandled onto your back with a squeak and he is bullying his head between your squishy thighs. 

“Spread those pretty legs, tawtute. It’s my turn to taste.”

If you enjoyed this story please take the time to share your thoughts. I can't express enough how much it means to me, especially for this little story! It's one of my favorites<3

Taglist: @pandoraslxna @xylianasblog @m1tsu-ki @paztelbeebee @glass-rosette @mommyanddadskiller @lovebeinaprincessworld @veiraiya @tleeee @neteyamssock @ikeyniofthetayrangi @paztelbeebee @peonies-and-unicorns @deadpool15 @eloide @mimidaydreams @importantstudentbusinessspy-blog @miraclealignertlsp369 @xylianasblog @himikoquack @strawnanabery

[hai7ani]

yves!! the kpop anon here :p i dont know if you already got an ask about this, but what do you actually think about bonten trio? a lot of people say they wouldnt get along, but i like to think that they would😭 what do you think?

Bonten trio

Ngl realistically they don't get along well at all. Especially Ran and Sanzu who has had some kind of vendetta against each other going on since Kantou Manji, so I think it'd be hard for them to be in the same room long hours without some stuff breaking out. I do think that Sanzu in general is a very difficult person to handle as well, hence why. There's of course more stuff between him and the brothers that has made them so hostile with each other.

I think this also applies to all of Bonten in general like they're not bosozoku kids who rev bikes and fight idiots who badmouthed about them anymore. They're wanted criminals who kills and trade drugs/weapons/prostitutes for a living, drive million-dollar cars and stay in penthouses all over the world. They live looking over their shoulders all the time.

Extras

Lore accurate Bonten trio?

Bonten trio only came to be because they're the most popular characters in Bonten, but I think realistically the Bonten trio should be Kakucho, Kokonoi and Takeomi. These three are the real pillars of Bonten. One's in charge of money, one's an advisor who Mikey listens to a lot and plans most things since he does have ample knowledge of the underworld, and one's his left hand who oversees most things in the organisation. Think of Mikey and Kakucho as K-Drama My Name's Choi Mujin and Jung Taeju. Sanzu.... he's always off doing his own thing if not serving Mikey, so I don't think he fits into the list, or he even wants to fit in at all. He doesn't like anybody, doesn't get along with anyone.

Kakucho and Ran

Kakucho and Ran have a decent relationship since last time. They're able to sit together and have a drink from time to time, talk about life, but both are smart and clever enough to respect boundaries and not overstep. They are good with words. But one time Kakucho tried advising Ran on something that he thinks Ran is doing wrong/going off track and Ran got pissed. But they don't argue/go back and forth like Rindou and Kokonoi would, like in Helheim where they quarrelled in front of everyone because of a girl. Instead, a lot of passive aggressiveness and stern tones are used between the two. Sharp mouths and clever minds at work.

Rindou

Rindou doesn't care about anything. I've thought of this before and I really can't see Rindou being involved in the organisation as much. I do think that he tried leaving Bonten after witnessing Mikey kill someone (during the shift from Kantou Manji to Bonten after their win in the Three Deities) and realising the weight of all this, but couldn't, so he stayed, but he doesn't like it. He has the mentality of "I didn't ask to be here, so why should I care?" Something like that. He was only dragged into Kantou Manji/Bonten because South lost.

Kokonoi and Kakucho

Kokonoi and Kakucho have a strict business-only relationship. Other than organisation stuff, do not fucking talk to me. But they're cool with each other to say the least. Nothing wrong with each other.

Takeomi (and Kakucho)

Takeomi has that relationship with everyone but he and Kakucho are the closest/have the most interactions because of their positions (even though it's also pretty clear that they don't fancy each other, Kakucho only entertains Takeomi because he knows how to separate work and personal, Takeomi can't). But even so, Takeomi picks fights the most, probably because of his age multiplied by his position that he thinks it's no problem to order the executives around.

I love this specific panel in chapter 212, I really liked the way Kakucho talked to Takeomi here, like damn Kaku you're quick with it 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

Rindou and Takeomi

Rindou thinks the guy has a special vendetta against him because he keeps biting on Rindou at any chance he gets.

Rindou and Kokonoi

The two have nothing to say to each other. The two might be tied together by some stuff that requires Kokonoi's help since he's in charge of finance, but Rindou thinks other than that he has nothing to talk to with the guy. All of them in general have had interactions with Kokonoi because of this reason. He's a cool guy, but it's strictly business-only (no money no talk) with him.

Mochi

As for Mochi...... I don't know honestly. I don't know much about him because his aura in Tenjiku and his aura in Bonten are completely different. No backstory given either like ZERO. All we know is that he used to fight with the Kawata Twins before Tenjiku and he's a fucking beast. At least for the Haitanis they have delusional-enough fans to make things up. But for Mochi???? Can someone share us some thoughts... I'm not in that radar 😭🙏🏻

Mikey

I don't have anything to say about Mikey because I still don't understand his mind even after rereading the manga. Like. I don't know if it's accurate to say that he doesn't care? He lets them handle things their own way, which to him is considered very lenient (he can be more fearful if he wants, but he doesn't need to, because the others already know better than to get cocky around him) and only gives out approvals. Maybe if he wants something or a certain territory he'll give out orders. But he still has his own methods for handling certain stuff. I like to think that all of them are constantly trying to live under his radar so that nothing troublesome happens. For example, they're handling some stuff, and the one thing they always say as a reminder (either to each other or to underlings) is to "make sure Mikey doesn't know about this" or "make sure you're doing it right. You don't wanna piss Mikey of." Just something along those lines. They won't involve Mikey for petty stuff

Lol i know anon only asked about bonten trio but i wanted to take the chance and talk about the others too. Lmk if yall have any other thoughts lets chatttt