#anyway dont go out on black friday

[sunshinequeer]

My internal monologue at work: I do not want to be here, I hate this job, I hate this place, I hate these people, please just leave me alone @ customers, I do not want to be your personal shopper, how do you not see how busy I am with all of the stuff I'm doing by myself, how do you treat another person as your servant so easily and why the fuck do I have to let you

Customers: "You have a really great energy, I love your aura" or my personal favorite "Let me continuously treat you as subhuman so much as to not even really look at you"

[northern-passage]

i thought there was a call to boycott the entirety of black friday and cyber monday?

i think there are people on tumblr & twitter that are advocating for a full boycott (which is good), but specifically with BDS & according to their website they're just calling for a targeted boycott against puma, HP, and marvel for black friday and cyber monday (along with the other targeted companies)

personally, i'm also boycotting starbucks (for their treatment of unionized workers) as well as a few of the other companies not listed in the immediate full boycott list.

as of 11/22 on their twitter, this is what they shared:

1. Consumer boycott targets - The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company's proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

2. Divestment targets - The BDS movement is pressuring governments, institutions and investment funds to exclude and divest from as many complicit companies as practical, especially weapons manufacturers, banks, and companies listed in the UN database of business involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, as well as the WhoProfits and AFSC Investigate databases of companies enabling the occupation. Below we give some of the targets we are campaigning against.

3. Pressure (non-boycott) targets - The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these brands and services due to their complicity in Israeli apartheid. We have not, on strategic grounds, called for a boycott of these brands and services, instead we strategically call on supporters and institutions to mount other forms of pressure on them until they end their complicity in Israeli apartheid.

4. Organic boycott targets - The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but is in support of them due to these brands openly supporting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

ultimately the companies listed under the first category you absolutely should be boycotting 100%.

and i'm not going to tell you to not also boycott black friday, especially since it coincides with the temporary 4-day "truce." like i said, i know there are groups that have been advocating for a full boycott this weekend along with protests; there were hundreds today, from Washington, DC, to Massachusetts, to California, to Florida... i shared the creator's day because they do that every other month or so on itch.io anyways & i wanted to link the BDS information alongside it. they may update in the future as well and call for more targeted boycotts as the holidays ramp up so i suggest bookmarking the website or following them on twitter, and look for a campaign near you to get involved directly.

BDS has also called for a global day of action on November 29th, which includes intensifying all targeted boycotting campaigns.

[thetimetraveler24]

As a retail worker I’m actually relieved Black Friday sucks and is basically just another day of the week. But my inner child is screaming because I always wanted to go to the stores and watch the carnage unfold. Literally didn’t even want to buy anything I just wanted chaos. And now that I actually have a reason to be out at the stores on Black Friday the deals suck and there is no carnage.

[fooltofancy]

gonna curl up in a stupid little ball w fields of asphodel (beloved) and try to sleep, the piles of things looming can goddamn wait.

[gyuswhore]

Grease (the tragedy)

“Careful, those marks on the floor aren’t just oil and paint.”

jeon wonwoo x reader

word count: 5.8k

warnings: smut [minors DNI], fluff, angst, mechanic!wonu, annoyances to lovers, blind date gone wrong but then gone right, kissing, clit stuff, oral (f. rec), thigh fucking (oop), this all happens at a desk LMAO, title is a what I thought was a funny spin on how people say "grease (the musical)"....has nothing to do with the musical though but lots to do with actual grease!!!

synopsis: In which you have to sit through one of the worst dates of your life, followed by the insistent tug of fate and compulsion that lead you straight back to where you'd sworn you'd never go.

[a/n]: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WIFE CAMOTHY @highvern everyone go say happy birthday to cam or ill appear in your room at night 🔫 anygays HAVE FUN READING THIS I hope this is all the sexy wonu content you wanted, I cant wait for your reaction hehehhehe

and also bigbigbigbig thank you to jessifer @the-boy-meets-evil for proofing this for me!!! ily heh

and and to everyone reading this who is not cam, I hope you enjoy reading mechanic!wonu as much as I liked writing him heheh PLS REMEMBER TO REBLOG AND TELL ME UR THOTS it could be in the tags, replies, an ask literally anything!!!! id love to hear what you guys think!!!!

masterlist

 [You]: do you think he died on the way [Liv]: hes still not there??? [You]: what do you think????? [Liv]: let me ask Amelia [You]: dont bother [You]: he can show up whenever he wants im leaving in 5 [Liv]: you promised you’d sit thru this!! [You]: sit thru what? an empty seat across from me???

Liv doesn’t respond immediately, and you immediately know she’s buggered off to ask her cousin why your date still wasn’t here. 

It’s not like you couldn’t have asked him yourself, the sparse textbox sitting just under Liv’s contact. You open it to inspect the contents. 

[liv’s cousin’s something]: Amelia gave me your number [liv’s cousin’s something]: friday night at the sage&salt at 7  [liv’s cousin’s something]: is that okay [You]: uh hey [You]: yeah that’s fine

Today 7:20 PM

[You]: im here?

The first thread of texts were enough to make you feel like this was some cold business meeting instead of a date, knowing wherever this would lead would be either the city dump or off a cliff. Liv was hearing none of it, taking the guilt tripping route, saying she’d already committed and her cousin was irritating enough even without a scuffle.

So when Friday evening came around you’d pulled on the first dress your fingers could find, took all of ten minutes fighting with your makeup to make it look like you did something and left the house with zero expectations. 

Despite that, as you see a man walk into the establishment dressed like he’d gotten into a fight with a squid and a paper shredder, you feel the stone in your chest tank into the abyss. Zero expectations, and he’s somehow managed to strike out anyway. 

The jacket looks like he’s put it on as a weak cover for the grime stains on his shirt and trousers, a couple jet black splatters across the outfit to really pull the whole thing together. It’s not like he looked homeless or anything, his face surprisingly handsome with his hair pushed away from his forehead. Although he remains looking like he’d been playing football in some neighbourhood parking lot before remembering he had an adult appointment too. 

You’d never seen the man in your life, but your gut told you this was the shit texter who’d kept you waiting for nearly an hour. He seems to notice too, eyes locking from across the restaurant as the waitress leads him to your table. 

“Wonwoo,” you greet with a difficult smile, half sure it came out as a grimace. “Right?”

“Yeah,” he huffs as he practically slams back down on the chair, and you wonder for a moment how the legs didn’t give out. He says your name and you nod. “Sorry I’m late, I got a call in the parking lot.”

He’s been in the parking lot this entire time?!

It’s like you’ve been doused in gasoline and lit on fire, yet somehow needing to give him a shaky reply anyway. 

“O–oh, I see.”

The waitress saves you from spitting in his face when she asks if you were ready to order. 

Dinner was off the table, as you discussed with Liv who forwarded it to her cousin to her–whoever it was that set up this god awful date–and agreed on dessert and perhaps a drink. 

“I’ll have the chocolate cake,” you request in an attempt to make this somewhat better. You consider for a moment before asking for a drink as well, “And a dry gin martini, please.”

“Um,” he staggers as he barely skims the menu, ultimately flipping it closed. “I’ll have the same, I guess.”

Deep voice. You might’ve liked that if you weren’t already so peeved. 

The waitress disappears with the menus, leaving you two alone for the first time. 

“So,” you start with an exhale. “How do you know Amelia?”

“Her husband.”

“I see.”

Silence. 

“How do you know her husband?”

He sighs like this is all inconveniencing him, and it irks you to an irrespective degree. Like you wanted to be here either. 

“He brings his car to the workshop alot, became friends somewhere along the line.”

“Workshop?”

He looks a little startled, cocking his head to the side. “I’m a mechanic? Did Olivia–was it–not tell you?”

“No, she didn’t.”

It’s silent yet again as the man across from you refuses to elaborate. You curse as you ask him a follow up question. If there was anything you hated more than shouldering a dead conversation, it was sitting through an awkward silence. 

One hour. You’d sit through this for one more hour and then you’d leave. 

“What kind of cars do you work on?”

“Expensive ones,” he answers. You might’ve kicked yourself if he’d ended it at that, but he continues with a purse of his lips. “Ones that rich people abuse to an inch of the machine’s life and wonder why the dealership gives up on it. Vintage pieces too.”

“Have I heard of it?”

“The cars?”

“No, I mean,” you let out a breath. “Your workshop.”

“Jeon Motors, just a couple streets down actually.”

You did know what he was talking about, not expecting to recognise it through the empty question, passing by it on multiple occasions in this part of the city.

“Oh, I’ve seen it a few times.”

“Yeah, we’ve been there for a while.”

“Family business?”

“Uh–sort of.” 

“Okay,” you sigh in an irritated laugh. This was going to be a very difficult hour. “Keep that to yourself too.”

“Is there a problem?”

Just as you lift your eyes to lock with his, a ready yes, there is actually a problem on your tongue, there’s an intrusion. 

“Here are your chocolate cakes,” the waitress places the cakes down, and then the drinks. “And your dry gin martinis. Do you guys need anything else?” By the time the waitress is gone you’ve somewhat forced yourself to put that sudden surge of flames out, to a degree at least. 

“Okay,” he sighs, grabbing his glass and downing nearly half the contents. He emerges, wiping a bit of a spill from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

“Hm?” He’s speaking to you with a very weird surge of intensity, and it confuses you.

“Neither of us wanna be here. You’re clearly trying to be hospitable but I’d really rather you not, especially when we’re both doing this to get our respective ticks off our hides.”

There isn’t much you can do but stare at him. 

“Have I misjudged your advances?” he asks over his glass, sharp eyes piercing. 

“No!” you yelp, reaching for your drink yourself, taking big sips only to emerge sputtering and heaving. 

Your date looks like he’s rising out of his chair when you raise a hand to stop him. 

“No,” you repeat, less jumpy this time. “I guess we could’ve cleared that out from before.”

Did he…snort?

“Sorry.” Dropping his chin to his chest, he composes himself. 

“What?” you ask, remaining annoyed as ever. 

“Nothing.”

That does it. You slam your now empty glass down on the table, slipping your fork out of the napkin a little forcefully, the metal glinting in the light of the restaurant. You dig into a corner of the cake and shove it in your mouth. 

If he was gonna be rude, you could be too. 

“I don’t know about hospitable.” You swallow. “But I assumed not being an ass was kind of an unwritten rule for any situation really. Including the ones you’d rather not be in.”

Wonwoo stares at you with a blank face, his cake untouched. “I’m being an ass. My laugh couldn’t have offended you that much.”

“So you did pick that up,” you comment. “With the way this conversation’s going I would’ve thought it flew right over your engine.”

“I’d argue your laugh was the least offensive thing you’ve done tonight.” You plunge your fork into your cake again. “But clearly we’re in different realms of etiquette.”

Your eyes meet the rough stains on his attire, and then his own that bore into yours like a challenge. The cake isn’t too sweet, rich just the right amount and texturally sound. Maybe something good did come out of this fiasco. 

“Okay fine,” he announces, sitting up straighter. “I apologise.”

“For laughing?”

“And for being obscenely late.”

“And?”

“And…” he genuinely looks like he’s struggling to figure it out, but catches your eyes flickering to his tattered and stained outfit. “And for my entirely inappropriate dressing sense. You’ll have to forgive me for that one, oil and grime are my spoils of war.”

“Wear it like a badge, mister mechanic, but perhaps somewhere it’s appreciated.” 

Wonwoo has already finished his drink, his cake remaining untouched. “You’re quite adamant on disliking me.”

“And you’re quite adamant on being a horrid conversationalist.”

The corners of his mouth lift the slightest bit. Opening his mouth to respond, you cut him off. “Cars don’t talk? Or perhaps, machines are easier to understand?”

“More like I don’t care to be personable.”

“That can’t be good for business.”

“The cars speak for themselves.”

He’s a weird one. Even more so when he offers to pay the entire bill, promising you he wasn’t lying when he said he was good at what he does, and to “make up for lost personality points.” You manage to pay your half anyway, considering the circumstances. 

“Can you at least let me drive you home?” Wonwoo asks as you both step out of the establishment soon after. 

“Depends.” You fix the strap of your bag. “Will it fall apart on the highway?”

The blaring white of the restaurant's outdoor lights backlight Wonwoo to make him look like some sad angel. He turns to you, the same slight smirk that seems to be plastered on his face. “Why don’t you find out?”

“What do you mean sell it? I got this thing a year ago!” 

There isn’t much you can do but sigh loudly as you listen to Olivia talk about the state of her car, the one that cost too much to justify but she seemed to use and abuse like a very replaceable toy truck. 

Leaning against the hood of the darn thing, you talk to her. “The dealership is giving you a shit deal to take it off your hands, you might as well try your luck.”

The look on her face is easy to read as she silences. Not convinced in the slightest, waiting for the conversation to end just so she could figure it out on her own. Sighing loudly, you look back to the dark beauty with a crate of issues that make it spit and sputter to a stop every few weeks. 

“How much did you say the repairs cost again?”

“Enough to put me on food stamps,” she whines through her frustration, tears pricking against her eyes as they glisten under the neighbourhood streetlights. “Why are you smirking like that?!”

“It’s just,” you pause as you consider your next words, pressing your lips together. “This is a little bit your fault.”

Lies, it was entirely her fault. 

Liv stares like you’ve just offended her, which you’re sure you have.

“Care to share how this possible bankruptcy could be my fault?"

“Because you drive the thing like you have a secret reserve buried somewhere in Tenerife.”

“My apologies for making a habit of not being a public nuisance and going forty on a national highway.”

“Your speed-o-metre is not the issue here.”

“Yes, of course, everything’s my fault.”

“Liv, please!” You groan loudly. “Just…let’s try putting up a listing tomorrow. Consider the prospects and you can decide from there.”

Sagging her shoulders and stretching her neck, Liv decides to simply trudge back indoors in silence. You take it as a begrudging yes, and follow her inside. 

That very night, when you were at the very cusp of falling into the dark space of sleep, your brain re-awakens before your eyes do. A jolt as the memory comes back to you of the many months ago, sitting in that restaurant across from a man who was too handsome for the personality he seemed to sire. 

“Expensive ones,” he had said. “Ones that rich people abuse to an inch of the machine’s life and wonder why the dealership gives up on it.”

How fitting. 

“Are you going to explain or should I explode instead?” 

You’d mentally prepared for the bombardment of accusations from Liv, her questioning perfectly right as you yourself cringed at the thought of showing your face here of all places. The one last one that’d officially banned her from ever setting you up with an individual of her choosing ever again. 

Hearing only silence as her answer, she appeals; “I thought he was the worst date of your life.”

“Nothing to do with his skills as a mechanic,” you mumble, refusing to make eye contact. 

“And everything to do with this being a horrible idea anyway!” Liv stares up at the sign on top of the garage. Jeon Motors. “What makes you think this guy can fix my car?”

What did make you think he could fix Liv’s car? If you’d known you might have given her an answer, but as you stare at the giant signboard that you’ve driven past for longer than you can remember, you can’t help but feel this place has been haunting you. Just a little. 

You can’t help but feel the tingle of goosebumps rise on your skin, the hairs across the expanse standing up at the thought of walking inside. There was no way you could differentiate the reaction from plain nerves or from the cringing drills that sound all the way outside the establishment. Regardless, you make an attempt to look confident as you make your strides into the pungent of the workshop. 

The first thing you note is how…clean everything is. Cleaner than any other workshop you’ve walked into anyway. 

The interior is bigger than it looks from the outside, the ginormous hall hosting about a dozen cars within your eyeshot alone. One side of the great hall holds an array of parked cars in different stages of dismantled and deconstructed, while the other side is lined with contraptions that look like stripped and enlarged elevators. 

Once you’ve inhaled a beyond recommended amount of smoke fumes and listened past all of the clanging, banging and sparks, you register the people that are elbow deep in the hoods of the vehicle they’re working on, enough to leave you and Liv standing at the entrance of an establishment that you can barely make sense of. 

“Can I help you?” A man in stained beige overalls approaches your wide eyed pair, face half covered in his baseball hat and hands occupied with a rag. 

To your slightest dismay, it isn’t the man you’re looking for.

“Uh– is Wonwoo here?” you ask. 

“He’s in a meeting right now. Are you a friend?” 

No, just a failed love interest.

“He,” you falter. If you weren’t a friend…then what were you? “He gave me his card.”

“Do you need help with your car?”

“Mine, actually,” Liv pipes. “It’s outside if you wanna take a look first.”

With one sweeping look across the warehouse, your eyes land on one of the few doors on the left. You register the plain look of it for barely a moment before joining Liv outside. 

By the time her car has been rolled and parked inside for a more thorough inspection, it’s taken you every last grain of your willpower to not stalk back out and wait in your car. For whatever reason, you can’t help but feel a very familiar spasm of irritation spark through you. Here you are, left anxiously waiting for the same man for a second time, merely feet away but remaining occupied with more important things. 

At the very least, the multiple hands prodding around the car’s engine were being somewhat of use, attempting to survey the same issues that had been looked at about a dozen times before. You silently promise to be a better person if this trip wouldn’t be for vain.  

“Am I late for something again?” 

Your throat is suddenly clogged as you open your mouth and no sound graces your presence. The face that meets you has his eyebrows raised as he stares at you in expectation, a ghost of a smile on his face. 

“W–Wonwoo, hi, um.” You clear your throat loudly, heat cursing your cheeks. “No, of course not.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure after…four months?” he asks, hands on his hips and his back straightened.

“I…my friend’s car needed to be looked at so…”

“Ah, of course!” He turns to where you’ve motioned, looking at the popped hood of the car his employees are working on. “I’ll take a look at it myself, don’t worry about it.”

He’s already walking away, towards the car and leaving you a ways away from the action. You stare at his back; the overalls tied at the waist and the stained white T-shirt that clings to his form from the humidity.

Wonwoo remains a man of a few words, and you remain at wits end about it all. 

A loud honk gives you something to do as you jump at the sound so up close, scrambling to move away from the smack centre as another car pulls into the garage. 

“Careful, those marks on the floor aren’t just oil and paint.” Wonwoo snickers from his place hunched over the hood as he cranes his neck to look at you. 

You walk over to where he is to get out of the way. “Was that meant to sound like an innuendo?”

“I was talking about the occasional running over someone’s foot,” he answers. “Not sure what you were thinking.” 

Ignoring the jab, you note that it was now only you and him crowding the car, “Where’s Olivia?”

“Went to look at spare parts.” You watch him as his gloved hands reach further into the enclave and yank at something hard. 

“So you can fix it?” 

“The car? It’ll take a couple days but it’s not really an issue.”

Furrowing your brows, you press on, “But the dealership—”

“Dealerships are the spawn of the devil,” he grunts as he finally wrenches out a spare nut or bolt or something that’s covered in oil. “Let me guess, they wanted her to sell it back to them?”

It’s your turn to raise your brows. “Yes. They tried fixing it, but it'd just stop again.”

“Because they’ve been fixing the symptoms.” He raises his eyes to meet yours, hands occupied with rubbing the part in his hands relatively clean with a rag. “They haven’t bothered to do anything about the actual problem.” 

“Because that’s gonna cost…?”

“Couple hundred, give or take,” he announces nonchalantly, turning his focus back to the engine. 

“But—” That’s it?

“Fifty extra for every question I have to answer after this.” You briefly wonder if Wonwoo’s eyes were always this piercing, boring into your soul like he didn’t need words to know what was going on with you. 

“Fine,” you huff, moving to drag a chair over, mostly just so you could have reason to break eye contact, and plop down as you watch him work. 

The more you think about it, the more you can find yourself unbothered by his strange behaviour. He wasn’t bleak, but nowhere near one of the more interesting people you’ve met. Taking the opportunity to really scan the man head to toe, you can’t say you find anything truly concrete to be this put off by him. 

Not much of a talker, but with the times you’ve prayed for a man that knew when to shut up sometimes, you wonder how much you can actually complain about this boon in particular. 

Besides, he was a looker, and you were completely content shutting your trap if it meant you got to shamelessly ogle at him from this close. 

“You know, this place looks bigger than it does from the outside.”

Wonwoo stares pointedly. 

You raise a shoulder in nonchalance, “Wasn’t a question!”

He simply huffs as he mumbles, “More length than breadth I suppose.”

“What are those things called?” you ask as you watch a sedan get lifted into the on some platform on the other end of the row. 

Glancing back, he answers, “Post lift, car lift, whatever you wanna call it.”

“What does it do?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Touché.” 

Glancing back at him, you catch sight of his stained shirt once again. “Is that the same thing you wore to our date?”

Chin to chest, he registers what he’s wearing, hands still working on pulling bolts and boxes out of the hood. “Have about twenty of the same shirt, I can never be too sure.”

“You’re impossible.”

He smirks, “Touché.” 

You questioned if this was a mistake. 

Olivia could pick up her car herself, so why did you insist to be the one that did it? As you pay the taxi driver, you feel your ankles lock for a moment as you move to slip out of the cab. Frozen, you hear the driver ask you if everything was alright, to which your legs seem to work again, finally foot to gravel in front of the dreaded workshop.

The Jeon Motors sign blares the same as it always has in the afternoon light, glinting as it encourages you to walk in and do one of the stupider things you’ve done in life. Other than the ridiculous outfit you’ve put on, of course. 

But alas, as you hand over your slip to one of the many mechanics in the workshop, you find yourself praying he wasn’t here after all, that perhaps you could miss him as you leave and never have to see him again. 

Somebody yells out his name, and the dream drifts away like smoke. 

Finding the courage, you look up to where the man shouted for him, and immediately wish you hadn’t. 

Wonwoo remains in his overalls, the same ones that he had tied to his waist the last time you saw him. His undershirt however…

The tank top is revealing too much for you to pretend you don’t care, his hair remaining pushed back and away from his forehead as he walks over to you in what feels like slow motion. He takes the slip that he does not need, smiling at you as he says his hellos. 

“Car’s all fixed up, just need some papers that need signing and you’re all set.”

“Oh, but Liv isn’t here today.”

“That’s alright, you can sign them too,” he reassures, motioning for you to walk with him towards the car. “The car was alright in the test drives, revving hasn’t caused any problems either.”

He halts in front of the now (supposedly) fixed black sedan and pats the hood lightly, “If anything happens tell her to bring it straight here, although it shouldn’t have any more problems.”

“What’s your rate of return on customers?” you ask, a slight smirk on your face.

He thinks for a moment, “Pretty crap. But I guess that means I’m doing something right.”

You consider yourself something of a helicopter parent when it comes to your own car, but perhaps you’d change that if it meant you’d get to come here a little more often. 

Goodness, what’s gotten into you.

Wonwoo’s smiling too, and for a brief moment the silence is nearly awkward. A pause before he proposes leaving. 

“Shall we go to the office then?” 

Nodding eagerly, you trail behind him as he leads you towards the other end of the workshop, passing by even more cars in all their stripped or constructed glory. Glancing in front, you catch sight of Wonwoo’s back, ensnared for a moment before you snap your head away, reciting every curse word you know like a mantra. 

“It’s less hot in here too, keep the air on all the time.” Wonwoo stands in front of the plain doors, hands on the handle to wrench it open. You recognise it as the same door you had noted a few days ago. “Would you like anything? Coffee, tea?”

“Um, just water is fine, thanks.”

It’s quite plain, beige and leather against cream walls and unfittingly white lights. There’s a desk on one corner that’s beyond cluttered with more papers than you can register, pens and other office supplies mixed into the disorganised chaos of the large tabletop.

“Sorry about the mess, I can never find time to sort through it.” To your surprise, the light tinge of his cheeks suggest he might actually feel a little embarrassed. 

Cute. 

There’s cabinets that line on one of the far walls, and you watch him take his gloves off to open it and reach for a cup. The white porcelain emerges stained with an ashy grey as his fingers betray him. He looks flustered, glancing at his hands and back up to the cabinet. 

You can’t help but laugh a little, moving forward to help. “It’s alright, let me.”

“Sorry,” he apologised again, with a sheepish look on his face. “I’ll, um, wash this off.”

“Go on, I’m here,” you reassure as you move towards the water dispenser in the corner to fill your clean cup. 

He returns with significantly cleaner hands and apologises one last time. “Seems all I do around you is apologise.”

You have the good humour to chuckle, “So I’ve noticed.”

He does well to clear out most of the clutter that’s on his desk, leaving enough room to set down a few pieces of paper as you take a seat on the opposite side. 

As you scan through the papers, he attempts to make sober conversation. “You should…bring your car around for inspections if you want.”

“Oh? Even if I ask a million questions?”

“I can make an exception or two,” he grins. 

“And if you charge me double?”

“Might not charge you at all.”

“Might?” you question as you lift the pen he’d given you to sign the first space. 

“Might.”

“And what’re the conditions for that?” 

He doesn’t answer as he ponders and you fill in the second blank. “I’ll have to think about that.”

You snort before you can help it, your last signature coming out a little wonky as your hands shake. Turning the papers over to him, you continue, “Well then, let me know when you figure it out.”

He stares pointedly as he accepts the papers before dropping his eyes again, “Can I?”

“Hm?”

“Can I? Let you know?” 

It’s like you’ve been frozen over, the typewriter in your mind jamming as it punches out the implications of what he’s saying. 

“It seems, at least to me, that we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he continues. 

You hesitate. “I think so too.”

“I…I don’t want to put anything like pressure on you but–” 

“Would you like to try the new gelato place downtown this week?” you ask finally as you save him from his misery. “If…you’d like.”

He looks stunned for a moment before he’s scrambling, “Oh–of course! Yes, anytime is fine with me.”

“Great,” you smile, lifting from your seat. “It’s a date.”

“I’ll promise to wash my hands this time…and my shirt. And I won’t be late.” 

“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep,” you tease. 

You’re nearing the door as he follows behind, and just as you’re about to pull down on the handle, you hear him say your name. 

Turning around, almost too eagerly, you look up at him in expectation. He’s close, almost right behind you as he looks like he’s debating whether opening his mouth is a good idea. 

“Are you doing anything else today?” 

“Um,” you stutter for a moment. “I don’t have to drop off the car till later tonight, that’s all really.”

He swallows. “Do you wanna stay? Just a little while. We can stay in here, nobody comes in anyway.”

You aren’t entirely sure why you said yes, because you did actually have dinner plans with Liv later tonight, but the teeny tiny voice in your mind egged you on anyway. Besides, Liv wouldn’t mind, not if you were cancelling for this.

This entailed the very friendly contact of Wonwoo’s tongue in your mouth, and the extremely cordial way it seemed to caress your insides. If somebody asked you how it led to this, you don’t think you’d have an answer. Not that you care, especially when his hands are grabbing your waist and hips like that.

He’s already locked the door, reassuring you that nobody would find their boss and client in the smack dab middle of the devil’s tango. You take his word for it, relishing in the way his hot breath hits your skin below your ears, his mouth sucking under your earlobes as you whimper ever so quietly. 

Your hands are on his exposed biceps, feeling him up all to your heart's content. “Do you–Do you always wear stuff like this?”

He emerges, wet lipped and eyes trained. “So I wasn’t imagining it.”

“Imagining what?” you ask as you let him unbuckle your trousers.

“Please. Like you weren’t stripping me with your eyes.”

If you were warm before you, you're boiling up now. Were you being so obvious?

“It’s alright,” he reassures as you feel his fingers make contact with the crotch of your panties, pushing in to put pressure on your clit. “Wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t picked up on it.”

You feel his fingers push the dampening fabric away as his fingers make contact with your hole, coating his fingers in the arousal that’s made itself known. It’s hard to not hiss at the way he begins to circle it, thanking the universe that the loud noises of the workshop outside were masking whatever evidence of the heinous crime you were committing inside. 

Back against the couch in his office, you settle into the cushions once you feel him rub at your clit, one hand spreading your lips apart as he continues to massage your own wetness onto your throbbing cunt. 

When he retreats you almost cry out, but are smothered when he plunges two fingers into your hole instead, curling them almost immediately inside you. The consistent brush of the tips of his fingers on your walls are making it difficult to keep your eyes open, and absolutely impossible to keep your moans at bay. 

“Wonwoo, that’s so good, fuck.”

Through your closed eyes, you don’t note when Wonwoo gets on his knees. But you do feel him yank your trousers off entirely, and you definitely feel him place his wet mouth flush on your lower lips, sucking at your clit as he continues to pump his fingers in and out of you mercilessly. 

That’s all it takes for your noises to become increasingly high pitched, hands buried in his beautiful hair as he continues to pleasure you beyond imagination. 

“I’m so close, keep going, please, it feels so–”

He somehow buries his face in deeper, sucking harder, licking faster, and it’s enough for you to finally feel yourself collapsing on the inside, your composure dissolving as you moan so loud you’re sure they can hear it outside, even through all the clanging and revs of cars. 

There’s no way for you to know how long you lay there slumped against the couch cushions, but when you hear Wonwoo speak to you in your ear, you answer. 

“Was that okay?”

“More than okay,” you say as you grab his face and pull his lips to yours, tasting the tang in his mouth from your arousal. “Do you have a condom?”

“I–fuck,” he thinks for a moment. “I don’t think I do.”

You try not to feel too disappointed, but you sigh into his mouth anyway. 

“Can I fuck your thighs?” you hear him ask, and you might have just orgasmed again, untouched. 

“Fuck, yes you can.” 

With a yelp, you feel yourself lifted off the couch as you wrap your arms around Wonwoo’s neck, letting him guide you to his desk. “Wonwoo!”

You hear a loud crash of the desk being stripped of all its inhabitants, and your back hitting the cool of the table top. 

Wonwoo unties the arms of his overalls around his waist, letting the legs pool to the floor before slipping his hard cock out of his boxers. 

You don’t see it as you feel him lock your knees together and lift both your calves to rest on one of his shoulders. But you do feel it as he pushes the head into the seam of your thighs, watching the indent as the pink of his dick appears before you through the skin of your thighs. 

Wonwoo’s face is contorted as he pulls back and pushes back through again, this time brushing against your still sensitive clit. You gasp at contact, and immediately feel him thrusting faster. 

“Wonwoo,” you grunt. “Lower.”

He obliges, pushing his dick lower so it can rub flush against your clit as he begins to roughen up his pace. 

You moan as you feel his free hand that isn’t holding your legs trail to the ends of your shirt, caressing over your stomach to pull it up and reveal your bra clad tits. He pushes his hands under the nearest cup and begins to grope you so wonderfully with his big, warm hands. Rolling the bud between his fingers, you can only grasp onto his wrists as a handheld to keep you down on earth. 

The desk beneath you is rattling with noise, the full drawers making themselves known as Wonwoo pounds into your thighs like he would die if he stopped, mouth coming in contact with whatever skin of your legs he could reach, his breath fanning the side of your knees. 

You’re close again, and you know he is too with the way his thrusts are beginning to grow sloppy. 

“There,” he pants. “Almost.”

You orgasm for the second time, the throb your clit beyond comprehension as the rough of his dick slides across your clit mercilessly. 

“Cum like this, Wonwoo please I need to see you cum.”

And he does, shooting the heft of his load to cover your already wet cunt and thighs, landing on your stomach as he continues to ride out his high between your legs. 

The back of your head hits the table as you take in gulps of air through the aftermath of it all. Wonwoo is putting his weight on the back of your thighs, holding onto the table for support. 

“Oh, Liv is never gonna let me live this down,” you pant, lolling your head to one side as you register him. 

He peers up at you through his hair, the stupid smirk on his face, “Do you care?”

You’re smiling a little too when you answer, “Not really.”

And then your legs are off his shoulders as he nestles between them instead, diving in to lift your head and kiss you. 

And you let him, although you wouldn’t really call it too much of a kiss—not when the both of you were smiling like idiots through the clash. 

[asahicore]

kiwi and layla - sjy

pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. in which you mistake jake’s backpack for your own, making you each go home with the other’s bag. both of you are too curious for your own good, so you quickly find out that you excel in the subject the other is failing - a mutual tutoring agreement ensues, and it turns into much more than what you had expected. genre. high school au, f2l, lots of fluff and some angst too, f2l, shy reader x outgoing jake warnings. food & swearing, mention of parent death and divorce, kms jokes, jake being stupid but also really cute (lmk if i've missed any!) word count. 26.3k a/n. this is part of the unexpected collab !!! go check out the other fics and caelin thank u for hosting <333 hope u guys like this one, it took me a while but i had so so much fun writing it !!! i love my jakey in here he's a little bit confused but he's got the spirit. @zreamy thanks for being the world's awesomest beta reader and a decent friend ig... 2 baddies wouldnt be the same without you... lifeguard wet body sunghoon coming soon guys dont miss it! as always pls remember how important reblogs and feedback is for us writers!!! it's what keeps us going <3 enjoy!!

listen to the playlist!

This was not your backpack. 

In your defense, it looked so similar to yours - scratch that, it was the exact same as yours - that you couldn’t possibly have been able to tell the difference between the two bags until you’d opened one of them. Just a basic black Eastpak that probably a hundred other kids in your school owned with nothing to tell them apart, because you hadn’t had the mind to add a little something to it and make it recognizable. You hadn’t really needed to - your backpack was always on your back, next to your seat or in your locker. There was no way you might lose it or mistake it with another.

Until today, obviously. Instead of having a chill last class before spring break like every other teacher, your psycho math teacher Mr Choi had decided to give you a major test on this otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. While other students watched a movie or played Kahoot, you were stuck in a cold classroom with algebra questions in front of you. Mr Choi had argued that this would be better than having a test after the holidays and ruining your time off with studying, but a test was a test, and math was math, so you hated the idea anyway. 

To eliminate all cheating possibilities, Mr Choi made his students only take a pencil and eraser with them, leave their bag at the back of the classroom and put their phone in a box he kept on his desk. Plus, with his hawk eyes watching intently, there was no way to sneak answers on a small sheet of paper or even on your palm. 

When the test was over, your brain was so fried and you were so eager to get the hell out of there that you didn’t even notice the two identical black backpacks next to each other, you just grabbed the first one you saw, not even questioning that it might not be yours.

And indeed, yours it was not. From your snooping around, you quickly found out it belonged to one Jake Sim. 

You knew Jake. Although you’d been attending the same school for the past three years, you could probably count the number of times you’d talked on one hand - but you knew him. Or at least, you knew of him. You knew that he was good at STEM subjects and that he was on the soccer team; you knew he was a really sweet guy and was easy to talk to, even for someone shy like you. 

Most importantly, you knew he was friends with Park Sunghoon. This was important because you had liked Park Sunghoon since the moment you’d laid eyes on him - or rather, your whole friend group had. It might’ve sounded extremely odd to others, but you and your friends had a few random people at school you liked to keep tabs on or create backstories for, and Sunghoon, because of his dashing looks that had struck all four of you in your first week of freshman year, was one of your victims. Well, you liked to think of them as characters on a TV show rather than victims, but to each his own. Your other characters included that popular sophomore who already considered herself a celebrity because of her ten thousand followers on TikTok anyway, the French and Spanish teachers you were sure had a thing going on, and that one guy in Yena’s biology class that only showed up every two weeks but always looked stoned (hat guy, Chaewon liked to call him, even you’d never once seen him with a hat on). It was all harmless, really - none of you ever actually went up and talked to them, just discussed them among yourselves.

Perhaps Sunghoon was different, because each of you had had a class with him at some point, so you’d all had at least shared a word with him. You probably hadn’t talked to him more times than you’d talked to Jake, so the information you knew about him was pretty surface-level - he was an ice skater, but everyone knew that, and he was shy like you, which was immediately noticeable. He also had one of the most handsome faces you’d ever seen. But again, everyone who saw him knew that.

You, Yena and Chaewon had debated whether one of you should just go ahead and make a move (Hyewon didn’t participate because she already had a boyfriend, but she was all for approaching the boy). You guessed you could describe what you felt towards Sunghoon as a sort of crush, even if it was one you shared with your friends - you found him cute, and you got nervous when he was around. But you were more the watch-from-afar-and-pine type, so you were satisfied with liking him from a distance. You didn’t think you actually had the guts to strike a conversation with him - that was more Chaewon’s thing.

However, this didn’t mean you weren’t curious about the contents of his best friend’s backpack. Your being shy didn’t mean you weren’t interested in other people’s lives - if anything, you were quite nosy. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but you were just a regular teenage girl, so this was fine, right? After just a few minutes of snooping, you found out Jake Sim wasn’t hiding any big state secrets in his Eastpak, anyway. Just some textbooks, notebooks, and a lot of single sheets of paper. It was pretty messy in there. 

Your idea of him being good at STEM subjects was correct - he kept all of his graded tests in the sleeve pocket of his math notebook, and there was not a single one that had received a note under 95. He even seemed to be doing some extracurricular exercises - there were formulae that were completely unfamiliar to you and that you were sure you hadn’t done in class. You found it slightly insane, but that might have just been because you despised math and wouldn’t understand why someone would want to do more of it than was required of them. 

His English homework was another story. His essays had more red from the teacher’s pen than his own black ink, and from the grades on his reading comprehension tests, you highly doubted he’d actually read any of the assigned books. You weren’t in the same English class but apparently had the same teacher, Ms Park, so you were studying the same thing. You couldn’t help but cringe as you read his answers on a Pride and Prejudice reading test - he seemingly kept mixing the sisters up, assigning actions and character traits to Lydia that clearly belonged to Jane. At least he somewhat got Darcy right, writing that “he’s probably not as bad as he looks,” with no further explanation. 

As you aimlessly flipped through his English notebook, curious about the way he took his notes - or if he even took any - you noticed some scribbles in the margins. Looking closer, some of them were in his handwriting while others were in an unfamiliar one. It looked like some sort of conversation, so you assumed the other writing belonged to his deskmate. You also did this with your friends in classes where the teacher was very strict about no chatting in class.

dude coach said if I fail any of my classes I would be out of the team, you read Jake’s handwriting.

Wait seriously????

yeah and I suck at english so Im scared it might actually happen

You just need to study more bro

bro I DO but this shit is hard

Then find someone to help you

neither of you guys is that good in that subject either tho

Ok ouch but also just find someone else then

bro who

IDK man 

Y/N maybe ? she’s good at English and she’s nice so she might say yes 

there you go about y/n again dude MAYBE you ask HER to teach you some sonnets

Shut up you’re the one who needs help dumbass

whatever isn’t it weird just asking her randomly though like i dont want her to feel like she has to say yes

Lol if she sees your grades she might do it out of pity

fuck u man

You were surprised to see your own name written there - it felt weird knowing that Jake and his friend were talking about you, for some reason. And what if that friend was Sunghoon? You had a hard time believing he not only knew you existed, but thought of you as good at English and nice. You liked to think both of these things were true. 

He was also spot-on about saying you would agree to helping out Jake in those subjects, but what he got wrong was thinking you’d do it out of pity. Clearly, you and Jake were in very similar positions. You didn’t have any sort of club you’d be kicked out of if you failed a class, but it sure as hell wouldn’t look good on your college applications, so you needed to get your math grades up. 

Jake and you both desperately needed something the other person could help with, so you had a feeling he wouldn’t turn down the offer that was brewing in your head.

—

This was not Jake’s backpack.

He noticed it right away - it was much heavier than his own and the straps were tighter around his shoulders than they should be. He looked inside for some clues about who it might belong to, and luckily, the first thing he found was a journal that had Y/N’S DIARY written on the cover page in big, pink letters. 

Unluckily, however, he’d also noticed that you had practically sprinted out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang, and indeed, you were already far gone when he tried looking for you around school. He had to get to soccer practice anyway, so he put the issue to the side for the time being.

When he got home, he had to shower then have dinner, so it wasn’t until 8 p.m. that he remembered he had your backpack. He had meant to text you straightaway about it, and he knew it was wrong to look into someone’s belongings, but he couldn’t help himself, especially when his best friend Sunghoon had liked you for ages. Maybe this was an opportunity to find out more about you.

Your mind-blowing grades in English don’t come as much of a surprise to him, and after reading through your most recent essay, he thought you definitely deserved them. Your essay was on a Shakespeare play he had never heard of - you apparently also had Ms Park for English, and he didn’t know she was doing Shakespeare in class, so he wondered for a second if you were actually crazy enough to read another book and study it. As if 300 pages of Jane Austen weren’t enough as it was. 

What shocked him were your math grades. It was like looking into a fucked-up mirror: while you excelled at English, you sucked at math; while he excelled at math, he sucked at English. You were just as close to failing your math class as he was at failing English.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Sunghoon’s idea hadn’t been so dumb - you could help him out, and he had an actual argument as to why you should, rather than just using pity on you.

As he put your stuff back in your bag, he was reminded of something - your diary. For some reason, the pretty floral pattern on the cover made him feel even worse for opening the journal in the first place, but he did it anyway. Either you’d only just picked up the habit of writing in a diary or you had finished your previous one recently, but this one seemed pretty new, as only about ten pages had been filled with your neat handwriting. Judging from the dates at the top of almost every page, you wrote in there everyday, and Jake only felt even worse that you hadn’t been able to write in it that day.

Still, he flicked to the first page and started reading. And he read and read, unable to take his eyes away from your diary. He thought he wouldn’t have cared much and a page would have satisfied his curiosity, but the way you wrote about the people around you and about yourself fascinated him. Basic high school things like friend drama and annoying teachers actually became interesting through your words. You didn’t use particularly complicated sentences or unheard-of words, on the contrary, you used simple language, and that spoke a lot more to Jake than any of the classics he’d attempted to read for class. 

And then, he saw an all too familiar name in an entry dated from just a few days ago. 

I sat next to Sunghoon today. It was during physics and both of our desk partners were absent, so Mrs Kim made me change seats. She always does this, and I used to wonder whether she hated to see an empty seat or to see a student sitting on their own, but whatever the reason, today, I was just happy about it. This isn’t our first time sitting next to each other in class, but I was still nervous, since I wasn’t expecting it. I hope he couldn’t feel the awkwardness practically oozing off of me or the way I very obviously struggled with the exercises (obviously, anything to do with math is not my forte). We shared my textbook because he’d forgotten his, and he showed me his notes when he saw I couldn’t keep up with Mrs Kim as she told us what to write down. We only exchanged a few words but I was satisfied when class was over. It’s odd, because you’d think someone would want to talk to the person they like and get to know them more, but I don’t feel that with Sunghoon. Maybe it’s because we’re both so introverted, and he seems to have just as hard a time as I do starting conversations, so I’ve sort of accepted our silent fate. I’m fine just continuing to steal glances at him from across the cafeteria. 

After that, there were a few more pages of writing up until yesterday's entry, but it was the only mention of Sunghoon. Jake had apparently been wrong to think that a girl’s diary would be full of rantings about her crush and things along the lines of “omg, he looked at me today”. 

But you had very clearly referred to Sunghoon as the person you liked, and Jake wasn’t going to let that go so easily. This was precious information that he held in his hands now, so he had to figure out how to deal with it properly for your sake as well as his friend’s.

Turns out there was more he could help you with than just algebra.

—

Seeing Jake Sim in a setting other than school was slightly odd, if you were being completely honest. 

You had just been about to text him about the backpack mix-up when you’d received a message from the man himself, asking if you could meet up the next day to exchange them. In response, you’d asked where you should meet, thinking he’d offer either his house or yours, or some halfway point between them, but he surprised you by proposing some café in the center of town. They have good hot chocolate there, he’d said, and that had been enough to convince you. 

And also I have something I want to talk to you about. 

Your stomach had turned at this message - what on Earth could Jake Sim need to discuss with you had been your first thought, and then you realized you also had plans you wanted to share with him. So his idea of going to a café was actually good for you, too.

You’d only been waiting for about five minutes when he appeared at the café, red and panting from seemingly sprinting to his destination. 

“Y/N, I’m sooo sorry,” he immediately said when he saw you waiting. “I was planning to be early, but when I got on the bus I realized I literally forgot your bag, so I had to go back but the next bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes so I just ran the whole way here, and now I’m all sweaty, and I’m late, and I’m really sorry.”

He’d rushed through his sentence and was breathing heavily as he looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer. He seemed so genuinely sorry for such a small thing that after your surprise faded, you started laughing. It was his turn to be surprised, and he immediately stopped talking at the sound of your soft giggles.

“It’s okay, Jake. I haven’t even been waiting five minutes,” you explained, smiling. “Let’s just go in, yeah?”

Jake’s heart did something weird just then, and the feeling was so unfamiliar and confusing that he decided to promptly ignore it. As if in a daze, he stood still for a couple of seconds until the sound of a bell ringing, the one the café had on its doors to signify the entrance or exit of a customer, snapped him out of it. He followed you into the shop, let you order and pay for you both (“I’m the one who took the wrong bag, it’s the least I can do,” you’d said) and sat across from you at a booth in the back.

You gave each other your respective bags back, then started chatting as you sipped on your hot chocolates (Jake had been right - they really were delicious). He was surprisingly easy to talk to, and whether he sensed you were a reserved person or was just naturally talkative, you liked that he both managed to do most of the talking and ask you loads of questions at once. Usually, you wouldn’t have really cared to listen to someone go on and on about their passion for soccer and the recent game that their team had won, but for some reason, you were hooked on Jake’s every word. The way his eyes widened in excitement as he recounted the winning goal he scored, the way the volume of his voice decreased as he filled you in on the team gossip even though no one was listening to your conversation, the way his grin turned into a proud smirk as he mentioned his coach congratulating him - every single one of his actions had you mesmerized. You’d never seen anyone so expressive in their speech, never seen anyone punctuate every sentence with a movement or a facial expression. It was just fun, listening to him.

Even when he didn’t talk, he stayed expressive. He asked you whether you did anything outside of school, and he listened intently as you told him about the theater group you’re in, humming and nodding and laughing at all the right moments. Usually, you wouldn’t have talked about it for more than thirty seconds, afraid to bore others with unnecessary details, but Jake’s reactions and the questions he asked made you actually feel listened to and like what you were talking about was interesting. So you grew more confident and told him what you loved about acting and about theater, about your own gossip (the arrogant actress who got the lead role and thought she was better than everyone else, that one guy who was clearly flirting with three girls at the same time), and you almost couldn’t believe Jake seemed so entertained by your stories. 

“So, you said your group focused on more classic plays, right? Does that mean you’re good at English Lit?”

With his spoon, Jake scooped some whipped cream into his mouth, hoping he was appearing as nonchalant as he was trying to be. He had to make you think he’d deduced that just now and not because he had been snooping through your backpack just the night prior. 

You, however, could not have cared less how he’d figured it out - you were just grateful he had segued into this topic of school and grades, because you’d been wanting to bring it up yourself but had no idea how.

“Um, yeah, actually, it’s my best subject. Math, on the other hand…”

You chuckled as his eyes widened and he leaned in across the table, pointing his spoon at you as he spoke. “See, that’s interesting, because math is my best subject, but I suck at English Lit.”

“Oh, really?” you asked, trying to sound genuinely surprised even though this piece of information was not at all new to you.

“Yeah,” he said, looking back down at his almost-finished drink with a small smile on his face.

“You know-”

“You know-”

You and Jake had spoken at the same time, and your eyes locked for a second before you started laughing. You gestured at him to go on first.

“I actually need pretty urgent help in English. Coach said he’ll put us out of the team if we fail even just one of our courses, and I’m very close to failing that class.” He took a moment to let out a sigh. “So, if you want, we could help each other out. Me with math, and you with English.” 

His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he bit his lip as he looked at you expectantly. You thought he looked far too nervous for such a simple request, expression more like a boy who’d just asked his crush to the prom rather than offering mutual help you both desperately needed. You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your lips - you had never known Jake Sim to be so… cute. But he was waiting for an answer, so you pushed the thought out of your head.

“That’s a great idea, actually,” you replied, as if you hadn’t had the exact same idea. You were just relieved you hadn’t even had to bring it up yourself. “I also really can’t afford to fail math. It would look terrible on college applications.”

Jake let out a long, loud exhale. “God, yeah, college, I hadn’t even thought of that. Even more motivation to get better grades now,” he said with a chuckle.

You chuckled along, then cleared your throat and sat up straighter. You watched with amusement as Jake mirrored your actions and even the fake serious frown in your brows. You presented your hand for him to shake, which he did without hesitation.

“So it’s a deal then. We’ll tutor each other until we’ve gotten our grades up.”

“Deal,” he replied. As you both withdrew your hands, he dropped his serious facade and burst into giggles, a sound you hadn’t expected from the boy but somehow fit him well. You watched his face closely for a second, noticing the curl of his lips and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, before breaking into laughter yourself.

You stayed in the café for another half hour, going over details of where and when you’d meet, of what exactly you needed help with (“Everything,” you’d said, to which Jake had replied “Same”), and just talked some more.

“I’m taking the 53 that way,” Jake said when you exited the café, pointing towards the bus stop.

“Oh, so am I!” you exclaimed.

“Seriously?! What’s your stop?”

And that’s how you and Jake figured out you only lived two bus stops away from each other. 

“That’s so cool! It’ll make it easy to meet up then,” he said, and you hummed in agreement. After a pause, he added: “But if we live so close to each other, how come we didn’t go to the same schools earlier? Aren’t you usually supposed to go to the one in your district?”

“I used to live in another part of town,” you explained. “Then my parents divorced when I was in middle school, and I stayed with my dad because he lived closer to the school I was at, but I moved to my mom’s place for high school.”

“‘Cause she lives closer?”

“Yeah, basically.” There was more to it, but you didn’t think Jake would be particularly interested in your parental issues - although you surprised yourself for even considering telling him. If Jake sensed that you weren’t saying everything, he didn’t push, just swiftly changed the topic as you waited for the bus to come.

When you got home some time later, the first thing you did was open your diary and start writing. It had felt wrong not to write in it even just for a day, so it was a relief to feel the pages between your fingers and the familiar scent of the paper and your perfumed pen. You wrote without thinking too much, simply letting all of your musings out into your diary and freely brushing the tip of your pen across the pages. 

You didn’t ever reread your entries right after writing them, but if you had that day, you might have noticed all you could write about was the boy you’d drank a hot chocolate with.

—

Spring break week passed by far too quickly, and it was on the first Monday back at school that you and Jake met again. He had soccer practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, while you had theater rehearsals on Thursdays and Saturdays, so you’d agreed to meet up every Monday and Wednesday after school. Since his mother worked as the school nurse, she drove him to and from school everyday - so on Monday, you met Jake in front of the nurse’s station, waiting for his mom to wrap things up before she drove you both to their home.

You had been surprised to learn that the kind nurse that never asked too many questions and always let students take a nap if they didn’t feel well was Jake’s mom, but upon reflection, it made sense. Once you knew, it was almost obvious that she had raised him - they shared the same friendliness, the same comforting smile and the same ability to make conversation. The whole ride home, she asked you about yourself and thanked you for agreeing to tutor “our little Jakey,” because “God knows he needs the help.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh when a blush crept on Jake’s face and he looked out the passenger seat window with an embarrassed frown, muttering something like “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

She noticed his reaction and laughed along with you. “I’m just saying, Jakey-poo. It’s good to know to ask for help when you need it,” she cooed, reaching a hand out to ruffle his hair. This only made Jake groan loudly and hide his face in his hands. You didn’t know Jake very well, but this flustered, red-faced side of him was definitely one you liked seeing.

The first thing that greeted you when you reached Jake’s house was a happy welcome home bark.

“You have a dog?!” you exclaimed, unable to reel your excitement in.

“Yeah! This is Layla,” Jake said, giving energetic rubs to the Border Collie that made her whole body shake side-to-side but that she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. 

“Hi, Layla,” you cooed, crouching down to her level to let her sniff you. She decided you were a person worthy of petting her. “She’s so cute!”

“I think she likes you,” Jake said, a grin on his face, as he watched Layla presenting her belly to you and asking for scratches there. “Do you have a dog?”

“We have a Corgi at home. And a cat, too.”

“That must be fun,” Jake chuckled. “Do they get along?”

“Depends. They have a bit of a love-hate relationship.” You looked up at Jake, and it was uncharacteristically quiet as you locked eyes for a couple of seconds. You both looked away at the same time, surprised by the sudden eye contact.

You gave Layla one last rub and lifted yourself up. “Um, should we get started?” 

Jake paused for a second as if he’d forgotten what you were here for in the first place, then started nodding his head quickly. “Right, yeah. Let’s go to my room. Downstairs is just one big room and my mom will probably watch TV or make dinner or something, so it might be distracting…” he explained, lightly scratching the back of his neck. It seemed like he was embarrassed to be bringing you to his room, which you couldn’t help but find endearing.

“Okay, sounds good,” you said with a smile, hoping it’ll reassure him.

You followed him up to his room, ignoring his complaints as you lingered on the framed photos on the wall next to the stairs and giggled at his baby pictures. 

“Do not look at those,” he said with a warning tone that didn’t scare you in the slightest. When you didn’t listen, he grabbed your hand that had been pointing at a photo of baby Jake in the bathtub and forced you to keep walking.

“Why?” you asked, a slight whine to your voice.

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing! I was an ugly baby.”

“What?! You were so cute!”

“Whatever. I’d rather study English than talk about this, and that’s saying something.”

When you looked at Jake, you were surprised to find that he actually seemed upset about this. You weren’t sure what was so wrong with looking at his baby pictures, but the last thing you wanted to do was make him mad, so you stayed quiet and continued your way to his room. Once there, although you were infinitely curious about all the posters, pictures, figurines, trophies, and other small tokens of Jake’s life, you didn’t ask him about any of them, just sat next to him at his desk and opened The Picture of Dorian Grey, the book you had both been studying in Ms Park’s class.

You’d agreed on spending forty-five minutes on English, have a small break, then spend forty-five minutes on Math. It wasn’t a lot, but you both had other homework and things outside of school you needed to do, so you’d decided to start out that way and see if it worked out.

You were glad to see how seriously Jake was taking this - he listened intently to what you said and asked questions when he didn’t understand something. You quickly figured out that what he didn’t like about English Literature was that the answers weren’t as straightforward or as logical as they were in math, and even worse, that multiple answers were possible depending on the reader’s interpretation. 

“It just all feels like a guessing game,” he said, resting the side of his head on one of his palms. “How am I supposed to know what this dude meant? And if it can be analyzed in different ways, how can Ms Park tell me the way I understand it is wrong?”

“It’s all about the way you justify it,” you explained. “You can’t just say whatever. Ms Park will look out for how you use the text to support your answers.” You then went on to pick out a specific part of the book, asking Jake to analyze Dorian’s mindset in that scene. 

“He sounds like he’s going insane,” Jake said flatly when he was done reading, getting a chuckle out of you.

“Exactly. How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, just the words he uses,” Jake replies, shrugging.

“Okay, underline those words,” you instructed gently. Jake sighed, but he complied.

“There.” 

“Good. What can you say about those words?” When Jake just looked at you like a lost puppy, you reformulated your question. “What do they have in common? What type of words are they? Are they common nouns, verbs…”

Jake looked back at the words he’d underlined on the page. “They’re… adjectives?” he said, tone unsure.

“Exactly!”

Jake paused. “So?”

“So now you can say that the author uses many adjectives to convey the gradual loss of sanity of the main character.”

“Oh.”

When you looked at Jake, he wore an expression like the words on the page were finally starting to make sense to him. “That’s the content. You can also look at the structure. See how many punctuation marks there are? Commas, semi-colons, question marks… It’s like he keeps cutting himself off. His thoughts are all over the place.”

Jake nodded slowly. “So, I just need to look out for things like that?”

“Basically, yeah. And the more you practice, the more these things will stand out to you. It actually becomes somewhat repetitive sometimes.”

Jake let out a shaky breath. “That’s actually relieving to hear,” he said with a chuckle.

Thirty minutes passed by like this as you showed Jake ways to make sense of a literary text. When the timer rang, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out wide with a sigh. He put his hands behind his head and let it hang back, and the way your stomach flipped at the sight of his exposed neck and Adam’s apple made you look away immediately. You could barely meet his eyes as he turned his head to look at you, still in that same position, and, with a smirk, asked if you were ready for some snacks. 

You gulped, trying to look as normal as possible. “Uh, yeah, sure!”

Downstairs, Jake presented you with all sorts of snacks - there were so many, you felt like you were in a convenience store. This was worlds away from your ingredient-only household. You opted for some biscuits and a banana while Jake made himself a bowl of cereal. A very distracting ten-minute long argument then ensued about the order of milk and cereal - horrifyingly, Jake poured his milk before his cereal. You thought it was a myth that some people actually did it that way, but Jake very proudly defended his choice. 

“I bet you eat pizza with pineapple on it, too,” you said half-jokingly, only for your joke to punch you right back in the face.

“Duh,” Jake answered.

You could only shake your head in defeat. “Let’s just get back to studying before I murder you.”

“Damn, Y/N,” Jake said, laughing. “That’s harsh.”

“And you’re a freak,” you retorted, a grin blooming on your lips.

“You know, you remind me of my friend Jay,” Jake mused as you walked back up the stairs. “He has so many of these small battles that he just won’t let go of. He got super worked up over an argument about mint chocolate chip ice cream once.”

“Let me guess, you like that ice cream?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s not my favorite, but I’ll have it once in a while.”

“God, Sim, you just get worse and worse.”

You sat back down at his desk and started eating. “I bet you think I’m weird for liking math too, right?”

“That’s the worst offense of them all.” 

Jake’s sudden quietness caught you off guard. When you turned your head to look at him, he was already gazing at you with a smile and a sort of thoughtful glint to his eyes, resting his chin on his palm. It sounded like he was thinking out loud when he spoke next. “Guess we’re perfect opposites of each other. Like two peas in a pod!”

The realization of what he’d said dawned upon him as soon as the words left his mouth. He slowly lifted his head as his eyes widened. “I don’t mean- just, you know, since you’re good at English and I’m good at math, and- you know… I didn’t mean it in a weird way, or anything…”

His eyes kept glancing back and forth between you and his bowl of cereal, as if he was scared of looking directly at you but wanted to check your reaction. 

As a smile grew on your face, you kept your eyes trained on your biscuits so he wouldn’t see your flustered expression. But when you looked at him again, he held your gaze, mouth slightly agape. You didn’t have it in you that he had gotten the idiom completely wrong. “I know, don’t worry.” You chuckled. “We are opposites of each other. You just better be as good at teaching math as I am at teaching English,” you teased.

You watched as a smirk tugged one corner of Jake’s lips up and he raised an eyebrow. “Who said you were good at teaching English?”

You gasped. “You said you understood better now!”

Jake’s smile softened as he giggled. “I’m just teasing. You are a good teacher.”

You sat up straighter at the compliment, a proud smile on your face. “Your turn, Mr Sim. I’m all ears.”

“Right,” he said, mirroring your posture. “Shall we start by going over Mr Choi’s test from last week?” 

Your smile dropped instantly at this. Reluctantly, you fished your graded paper out of your bag. You already knew Mr Choi was a psychopath, but you still didn’t understand where he found the will to grade thirty papers over the weekend. You avoided Jake’s gaze as you handed him your test with a big, red, circled D- at the top.

You cringed as Jake sighed. “At least it’s not an F, right?” he said in what you could tell was an attempt at reassurance but somehow only made you feel worse. He looked over your answers quickly, trying to find what in particular you struggled with. “All right. Let’s start from the beginning, yeah?”

For the next forty-five minutes, Jake went over each test question with you, breaking them down and explaining how to solve them in a way you understood. The words he used were so much clearer than the half-assed explanations you were used to from Mr Choi, and for once, math actually made some sort of sense. Your brain still felt broken after almost an hour of numbers and greek letters, but at least, you felt smarter rather than dumber at the end of it. You had never been more grateful for the sound of a phone alarm than the one signaling tutoring was over. 

“That wasn’t half-bad, right?” Jake asked with a wide grin.

You felt so tired, you could probably pass out right then and there, but Jake looked so proud of himself after you had been able to complete an exercise correctly on your own that you didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Right,” you replied, mirroring his grin. “You’re an okay teacher, I guess.”

He jokingly glared and tutted at you, but you both laughed right after. “I need to walk Layla, so I can walk you home, if you want?” he offered as you started packing your things. His words had an uncertain tone to them, as if he wasn’t sure you’d still want to spend time with him after this - but it only took you a second of thinking to realize you’d rather continue hanging out with him than going home on your own.

“Sure! I need to walk Kiwi too, actually.”

“Your dog’s name is Kiwi?!”

“Yes,” you said, chuckling at his fascinated tone.

“That’s an adorable name.”

“Thanks, I chose it.”

“Oh, then I take it back. Worst name I’ve ever heard for a dog.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed, lightly hitting him on the head with your math notebook, making him raise a hand in self-defense as he laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. Does your cat also have a fruit name?” 

A pause. “Mango,” you mumbled, and he immediately burst into laughter again. You side-eyed him as you zipped up your bag.

“Wow, you have amazing taste in pet names, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you said, laughing along. Then you realized something, and you suddenly stopped laughing, looking up at Jake with wide eyes that made him slightly start to panic. “Oh my God, Jake, are our dogs going to meet?”

“Our dogs are going to meet,” he echoed in a sort of fascinated whisper. You both understood the other - dogs becoming friends was the cutest thing ever.

“Let’s go,” you whispered back excitedly.

When you reached the living room downstairs, you bid Mrs Sim goodbye, then went to the entrance to put your shoes back on. “You two sure get along well,” you heard her say to her son with a suggestive tone. Even though she had dropped the volume of her voice, the door was wide open and there were only a few meters between you, so you’d heard her loud and clear. 

“Geez, Mom,” Jake groaned, seemingly irked by his mom’s insinuation.

“It’s just you’ve never brought a girl home, Jakey-”

“Okay, we’re leaving now! Layla, come!”

You hadn’t even realized how wide you were grinning until Jake saw you tying your shoelaces and grumbled “What are you smiling so hard for.”

“Nothing,” you giggled, and your smile grew as you watched a grin break through his pretend-upset expression.

You sighed contentedly as you stepped outside, letting the crisp early April air hit your face. You tightened your scarf around your neck and buried your hands in your pocket and you and Jake started walking side by side, Layla happily leading the way. The streets were fairly quiet at this time of day, save for the yells of children still playing in their backyards before dinner and a few cars of people coming home late from work.

Only the first five seconds of the walk were silent, until you couldn’t contain yourself anymore. “So, never brought a girl home, huh?” you asked with a teasing smirk.

Jake let out an offended scoff and looked up to the sky as if God could help him out of this one. Sadly, He didn’t, so Jake had to find an answer himself. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

Pouting, Jake spared you a sideway glance. “Because you’re a girl,” he replied, voice lowered to a mumble.

You chuckled at this. “Very astute observation, Jake.”

“No, I- Ugh,” he groaned before laughing along with you. “I don’t need a girl to know how bad I am with- well, with girls.”

“I can help with that,” you said before you really thought about it. “I mean, I’m not a love expert by any means, but I can maybe give, I don’t know, pointers or something if there’s someone you like-”

“There’s no one I like,” Jake quickly cut in. “Um, not right now, at least.”

“O-okay,” you replied, nodding. “That’s fine.” 

“What about you? Do you like anyone?”

As Jake asked the question, he realized he already knew the answer - you liked Sunghoon. How could he forget?! Half of his plan had been to make you get closer to his friend, but he hadn’t even started thinking about that yet. In his defense, he’d come up with that plan three days ago.

Your answer surprised him. “Um, no, me neither. Not right now, at least,” you said, repeating his words with a smile on your face. You locked eyes for a second before looking away at the same time, chuckling.

“Right,” he said. He knew what he had read in your diary, so maybe you were just too shy to admit you had a crush on his friend of all people.

An unexpected awkwardness settled between the two of you, and you more than anything wanted it to go away. Even though it’d only been a few days since you and Jake had started getting to know each other, you already felt comfortable enough to be yourself around him, and it usually took you weeks before reaching that level with anyone. This hadn’t happened since you met Yena and Hyewon at the beginning of high school - they had been friends since middle school, and so had you and Chaewon, and when the four of you met, you had instant chemistry. But maybe it was slightly too early to start talking about crushes with Jake.

For once, you were the one to break the silence - you asked him whether he knew what he wanted to do after school. Basic question, but you were genuinely curious. 

Looking a little bashful, he confessed his dream had always been to be a math teacher and soccer coach at a middle or high school. You told him he already had the talent for it, and when he blushed at your words, you made sure to tease him for it.  

“I’m not sure yet,” you said when he returned the question. “I know I wanna go to college and continue doing English Lit and theater there, but that’s about it.”

“That’s already good enough,” Jake said with a smile. “Still got time to figure out what comes after, right?”

You naturally mirrored his smile - there was something contagious about Jake’s puppyish grin that made it hard not to smile yourself. “Right.”

The three of you reached your house quickly after that. Your mom still hadn’t come home from work, so Kiwi was even more excited than usual for your arrival home. You and Jake watched fondly as your dogs sniffed each other for a few seconds before starting to run around together. The fact that they got along made you really happy, perhaps unreasonably so, and you started bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet as you watched them play. “Our dogs are friends!” you exclaimed excitedly. 

When you turned to look at Jake, he wasn’t watching the dogs like you had been - he was gazing straight at you, eyes soft with something that made your heart skip a beat. You couldn’t look away, and it was only after a few seconds that he seemed to snap out of the sort of daze he was in. He cleared his throat and you finally tore your eyes away from him.

“Let me just- Kiwi! I need to put his leash around him,” you said, speaking quickly to dissipate the weird atmosphere as best as you could. You led Jake down the path you usually took with Kiwi that led to a park in your neighborhood, and you were relieved when normal conversation started again.

Jake insisted on walking you back to your house even though he had left his earlier. He made a whole show of not going until you’d walked inside and closed the door, so you’d rushed to your window to shout his name and wave goodbye at him, which made him laugh.

You turned back to Kiwi when Jake and Layla had turned a corner and you couldn’t watch them anymore. “Are you happy you made a new friend, Kiwi?”

The Corgi barked happily at you in response - probably more at hearing his name than because he understood your question, but still, you liked to think you could communicate with your dog on such a level. You chuckled and took him in your arms. “Me too.”

—

Apparently, you couldn’t even wave to someone in the hallway without being interrogated about it anymore.

“Y/N, did you just say hi to Jake Sim?” Chaewon asked like you’d just insulted her whole family.

It was 10 a.m. on a simple Tuesday morning, the day after Jake and you had studied together for the first time, and you’d just walked past the boy - so of course, you said hi to him. Maybe, your heart started beating slightly faster when you’d noticed him approaching. Maybe, it was nice to be on the receiving end of his friendly grin.

“Yes?” you replied, sentence coming out more like a question.

“Since when do you say hi to Jake Sim?!” 

“Since today, I guess.”

“But why?!” She’d raised her voice so much, you’d gotten strange looks from other students in the hallway. 

“I told you!”

She shook her head slowly at you as if to say, No you didn’t!

You rolled your eyes and sighed. Chaewon and her early onset short-term memory loss. “The backpack thing? And agreeing to tutoring each other? I wrote to the group chat about this!”

“Oh, that! Of course I remember that,” she said, even though you knew she had forgotten about it and remembered it just now. “So, has that started already?”

You reached the classroom for your next class and sat down in your usual seats next to each other, waiting for the teacher to arrive. Busy hallways like these were the perfect place for gossip, because they were loud and nobody paid attention to others’ conversations. “Yeah, yesterday afternoon.”

Chaewon gasped. “And you didn’t tell us?!”

“Will you quiet down? I was going to see and tell you guys today anyway.”

“Okay, so, tell me about it.”

“But-”

“Tell. Me.”

You wouldn’t see Yena and Hyewon until lunch in two hours, and you knew Chaewon didn’t have the patience to wait until then. So you sighed again and obliged, telling her about your afternoon with Jake in every detail you could remember, because she would ask about insignificant things anyway. 

To your surprise, the first thing she said when you were done talking was this: “Y/N, do you like Jake?”

Your mouth opened slightly in shock at the question, but before you could even retort, you started giggling. “No, I don’t,” you said in a way that sounded like you very much did.

“Oh my God! You so do!” Chaewon said, giggling along with you. “You whore, you’ve only talked to him, like, twice,” she joked.

You gasped fake-dramatically and slapped her arm. “Oh please, look at Hyewon and Jaemin, they started dating after a week of talking.”

“Yes, and they’ve been going one year strong, so clearly, you need to ask Jake out and get this over with. You’ll get a boyfriend and a math tutor all-in-one, it’s a perfect deal!”

“Don’t get too carried away, okay? Jake and I are friends. Like you said, we barely know each other right now.”

You meant this - sure, you had had a really good time with Jake both times you saw him, and you were looking forward to your next tutoring session, but you chalked it up to the excitement of making a new friend. Plus, barely last week you felt some sort of way towards his best friend - wouldn’t it be weird to practically transfer your feelings from Sunghoon to Jake?

“Whatever. Yena and Hyewon are gonna freak when I tell them,” Chaewon said excitedly.

You shook your head at your friend but couldn’t keep down the amused grin on your face. “You guys are insane.”

“Oh please, like you’re not the president of our Park Sunghoon fanclub. I can’t believe you’re leaving us for his best friend!”

“Hey, if anything, less competition for you, right?”

Chaewon opened her mouth to say something, but the teacher arrived, starting the lesson before having even put her bag down - Mrs Lee always arrived late but never wasted a second of class when she was in the room. Your friend resorted to sticking her tongue out at you instead, and you chuckled at her childishness as you opened your History notebook. 

—

Jake was a complete, total, utter idiot. His plan had consisted of two things only, and he’d somehow managed to forget one of them, even after talking about it with you, albeit vaguely. It had taken him two weeks and one Park Sunghoon to even remember it.

Between Jake’s soccer practice, Sunghoon’s ice skating practice and Jay’s being away at boarding school, the three friends only had one night every week on which they were all free - Friday night. So, every Friday, they planned some sort of hang out at one of their houses and gamed or watched movies all night.

Kinda like date night, but for bros.

This was one of those bro nights; namely, the one in the second week of you and Jake tutoring each other. The boys had decided to go to the burger joint they like that night and were in the middle of a french fry fight when Sunghoon mentioned your and Jake’s new friendship.

“So, Jake… what’s up with you and Y/N?”

Jake halted in his motions, redirecting to his mouth the fry he was about to throw at Jay. “Nothing’s up with me and Y/N. What makes you say that?”

“Just, you know, you seem like you’ve become actual friends. Talking in the hallways and walking your dogs together and whatnot.”

“Y/N as in Y/N? Sunghoon’s Y/N?” Jay said, halfway through a bite of his cheeseburger.

“She’s not my Y/N-”

“Yes, Y/N as in Y/N, you idiot,” Jake cut in. “And like you said, we’re friends.”

“Is she the girl you posted some BeReals with?” Jay asked, and Jake nodded. “She’s pretty! No wonder Sunghoon likes her so much.”

Sunghoon sighed as he let his head hang low. “God forbid I find a girl cute, because I’ll mention it once, two years ago and you guys make me out to be in love with her.”

“Sunghoon, you act like girls don’t exist, so of course when you not only mention a girl, but describe her as cute, that means you’re in love with her!”

“But I’m not! We were literally having a whole conversation about girls, I happened to see Y/N and her friends from far away, I said she was cute, and now you guys won’t let me live it down. Jay, you weren’t even there!”

“Yeah, but the way Jake told me about the whole thing, it really sounded like you liked her.”

“Why would you trust Jake to relay something like this correctly?!”

Jay paused and tilted his head. “You have a point there.”

“Hey!”

“So you don’t, like… like her, or something?” Sunghoon asked, looking at his friend as he sipped on his Pepsi.

This made Jake stop. Did he like you? Wasn’t the fact that he was considering it sign enough? Surely, if there was nothing there, he would have answered no right away.

But there was no use thinking about it. You liked Sunghoon. And as much as he liked to deny it, Jake knew Sunghoon liked you, too. After two years, there was finally an opportunity for the two of you to get closer - Jake wasn’t about to get in the middle of that. If anything, he should help his friends out. Then, when you and Sunghoon eventually got married, Jake would have the honor of saying it was all thanks to him in his best man’s speech. 

“No, I don’t. Don’t worry, Hoon, I’m not gonna steal your girl away from you.”

“Again, she’s not my girl-”

“Whatever you say. I’ll introduce you guys.”

Even if Sunghoon didn’t think he liked you yet, Jake knew it was just a matter of time - his friend just needed to spend a few hours with you to realize he did. You were pretty, smart, funny, nice, had the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard, got along with dogs, and even though you sometimes had weird opinions, it was always fun, talking to you. It was easy and comfortable. Anyone with taste would fall for you.

Anyone, except for Jake, of course.

—

For the past three weeks, you and Jake had gotten along perfectly, but today, on this bright Tuesday afternoon, you really wanted to strangle him. 

When he’d invited you to come and watch him at soccer practice, you’d been surprised, but happy - usually, you invited people to watch an actual game, not just practice. But you were just glad for the opportunity to spend more time with him. 

Without realizing it, you were giddy with excitement the whole day, counting down the minutes until classes were over and Jake’s practice started. Jake had told you to just head to the bleachers while the players got ready in the locker room, but when you reached said bleachers, someone was already sitting there, looking at something on their phone. You recognized him immediately as Sunghoon. He didn’t notice you right away, so you had time to wipe the surprise off of your face - you hadn’t thought anyone came to watch practice, but Sunghoon was probably here for Jake, just like you. 

“Hey,” you said quietly as you sat down next to him. Even though you were technically still on school property, this was the first time you saw Sunghoon outside of somewhere like a classroom, a hallway or the cafeteria. You weren’t as nervous as you thought you’d be, seeing him unexpectedly like this. 

You chuckled when Sunghoon started at your sudden arrival. “Oh, hey, Y/N,” he said, chuckling too, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.”

“It’s fine,” you said with a smile as you sat down next to him on the bleachers. You didn’t know what sort of distance was appropriate between you two, if you should sit close or far, but you stopped yourself before you could overthink something as trivial as that. Neither of you said anything for a few seconds and you wished practice had started before you got here, so that you’d have something to look at other than an empty field.

You broke the silence before it became too uncomfortable. “So, do you come watch Jake often?”

You’d been fiddling with your hands as you spoke, only turning your head to look at Sunghoon as you awaited his answer. Your eyes didn’t even meet for a fraction of a second before he whipped his head to look at the field, as if unable to look at you and talk at the same time. At least he had a nice side profile for you to look at.

“Um, just on Tuesdays. I have ice skating practice after this, so I come here first, then he comes with me to the rink,” he replied. He glanced at you, lips pressed into a thin line that somewhat resembled a smile and that pushed dimples into his cheeks. You simply hummed in response. 

“What about you, how come you’re here?”

“Jake asked me,” you replied. Sunghoon let out a long “oh” as he nodded, turning his head back towards the field again. You didn’t think you’d ever had such a slow conversation. It was like you and Sunghoon both repeated your words ten times over in your heads before saying them out loud.

“Are you coming to my practice, too?” he asked after another pause.

The question took you aback slightly as you hadn’t even considered it, but it could be fun, seeing Sunghoon practice ice skating. It’d also be fun to hang out with Jake. “If it’s fine with you, then yeah, why not,” you replied, smiling at Sunghoon. He glanced at you again before looking away with a smile, an actual one this time that showed his teeth and made his eyes crinkle.

“Yeah, sure. People usually only come to actual shows, so I like it when someone’s there to watch practice.” Before you could find something to say, the players arrived jogging onto the field, immediately starting their warm-up laps. Some were serious about it and stayed focused as they ran, while others goofed around, running backwards and slapping other players on their butts before sprinting away. Jake, of course, was part of the latter group.

Now that something was actually happening on the field, you and Sunghoon had an excuse not to make conversation anymore. You tried to ignore it, but it was so awkward you wanted to die. You realized now why you were so attracted to people like Jake and Chaewon - without even being aware of it, they brought you out of your shell and made you feel at ease. You wished you could do that on your own, but you were always too scared, so you needed that person who was confident enough showing themselves to you first to make you feel comfortable doing the same. You and Sunghoon, unfortunately, were too similar in that sense to do that for each other. So you just sat there in silence, observing Jake and waving back at him when he caught your gazes.

The ninety minutes of practice didn’t go by in total silence - you asked Sunghoon about some soccer rules you didn’t get, and he shared some anecdotes from his and Jake’s earlier teenage years, including a very entertaining story about a tantrum 9-year-old Jake had thrown when he hadn’t agreed with the red card the referee had given him. You weren’t sure how the topic came up, but at some point, you even shared pictures of your pets. Sunghoon had one of those small crusty white dogs, but you kept your laughter in and cooed over how cute she was. 

But still, most of the time, you were watching Jake. You had never been interested in soccer or any sort of sport that involved balls until now. Somehow, he managed to make flushed cheeks, a heaving chest and hairline beaded with sweat look glorious. In total honesty, you were paying more attention to the player himself than to the sport, to the point that you barely noticed when he scored a goal during their practice match. It was only when Jake started cheering and high-fiving his teammates that you realized what had happened, and you gave him two thumbs up and a wide grin when he looked your and Sunghoon’s way, proudly shouting “Did you see that?!”

The realization hit you like a ton of bricks right there and then. The way your heart swelled as you watched his excited, puppyish grin take over his features was undeniable - you liked Jake. You like liked him. Your gaze continued to follow him as he finished his celebratory lap. If you could’ve seen yourself right then, you’d probably have been embarrassed by your awestruck expression and slightly agape mouth, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Much to your dismay, you realized that Chaewon had seen right through you. You hadn’t wanted to read too much into your feelings, but they had become too obvious to ignore. You hadn’t experienced them yourself since middle school (Choi Soobin had really been a heartbreaker back then), but you’d heard about the telltale signs of a crush too many times not to know about them. It was now clear that the way you felt about Jake and the way you had felt about Sunghoon were worlds apart. Feeling nervous around him and your heart skipping a beat when you made eye contact; wanting to see him smile; laughing at all his jokes, even the bad ones; missing him even though it’d been seconds since you said goodbye, and counting down the days until you saw him again. And, yes, looking at his pictures on social media over and over again. You did all those things, so you knew there was no point in lying to yourself anymore - you liked Jake Sim. 

It didn’t help that he was always kind to you, never making you feel stupid for not understanding something in your tutoring sessions and being patient enough to explain the same thing over and over again. He always paid attention to small things, which never failed to make your heart race, like asking after your aging cat’s condition after you’d told him he had a health check-up over the weekend or stocking up on your favorite snack the week after you’d told him about it. He’d also immediately picked up on your habit of teasing the people you felt comfortable with and you loved how he returned it tenfold. It was as much fun debating with him over nothing and making him shut up with your senseless arguments as it was being rendered speechless when he came up with the perfect retort. 

And of course, there was no denying that Jake was ridiculously attractive. There were times you got so caught up in the way his lips moved as he spoke or the way his fingers looked as he pointed at numbers on the page that your mind completely blanked out and you stopped listening to his words for a few seconds. You didn’t know what to make of his small chuckle and smirk when he noticed your gaze fixated on him, but you knew it wasn’t good for your heart. And let’s not even get started on the fact that sitting so close to him meant you could smell the lingering scent of his cologne every single time.

Even now, with flushed cheeks and hair slicked back with sweat, you want to run onto the field and give him a big smooch on his cheek, telling him you were proud of him for scoring that goal.

But even though you were getting closer and he had offered for you to come watch his practice, you squashed down as best as you could any hope that he might feel the same way about you. Even if he insisted he was bad with girls, Jake was popular at school, and you were sure there were many other girls who had a crush on him - so why would he like you of all people?

Sunghoon’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. “Every time he scores, he acts like it’s the first time he’s ever done it,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at his friend’s over-dramatic antics. The coach was trying to get Jake to calm down so that the game could resume.

“He’s so cute,” you said, voice quiet, before you could stop yourself. But as soon as the words were out, you realized what you’d done, and your eyes doubled in size as you turned to look at Sunghoon. He had whipped his head to look at you, too, and his eyes were just as big as yours. Then, he burst into laughter, and you hoped the Earth would suddenly open beneath your feet and swallow you whole. 

When his surprise had subsided, Sunghoon turned to you again, an incredulous but amused glint in his eyes. “Did you just call Jake cute?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, slightly frowning as you avoided Sunghoon’s gaze. “I just meant, you know, it’s cute how excited he got. I didn’t say he was cute,” you mumbled, knowing you were doing a poor job of defending yourself.

“That’s exactly what you said, though. You said, and I quote, He’s so cute.” You glared at Sunghoon. Who knew he would only become talkative once it came to teasing you about Jake? 

His expression softened slightly when he realized you might actually be upset about this, and he turned his attention back towards the field, smile growing when he found his friend. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

“There’s nothing to be said anyway.”

“Oh? So you don’t mind if I tell Jake that you have the biggest, fattest crush on- hmph!”

You’d cut Sunghoon off by pressing your palm to his mouth, mustering the most menacing look you could to scare him off. “I do not,” you said firmly as you moved your hand away from him.

“Sure, you don’t,” he replied, chuckling. Clearly, your most menacing look wasn’t so menacing.

“I get why Jake’s so annoying now, it’s because he’s friends with you.”

Sunghoon raised an amused eyebrow at this. “He might be annoying, but he’s also cute, right?”

“Shut up!” you shrieked immediately, but you couldn’t stop the grin forcing its way onto your lips.

“Just saying,” Sunghoon said, and you laughed together. Maybe you should’ve been more worried about Jake’s literal best friend finding out you had a crush on him, but you somehow trusted Sunghoon not to blabber about it. Whether because he was nice or because he wanted to watch you struggle with your feelings, you weren’t sure, but at least you felt your secret was safe with him.

You looked back at the field, and just as your eyes found Jake, you saw him turn his head away. Had you seen him just seconds prior, you might have noticed the crease in his eyebrows as he watched you and Sunghoon laugh together. Sunghoon isn’t that funny, he thought, what could you be laughing so hard about?

He didn’t understand the sudden weight in his heart at the sight of you and his friend getting along so well. This was his whole plan after all - force some proximity between you and Sunghoon so that you could talk and hopefully make your feelings clear to each other after some time. Clearly, it was working. So why was it bothering him so much? 

He had to turn his attention back to the game, so he could only ruminate over it for five seconds, but for the remaining thirty minutes, he could barely focus on anything. Whenever he glanced back at you and Sunghoon, you were both looking at him and not talking to each other, and that somehow bothered him even more. 

He used his time in the lockers to get out of the weird mood he was in - whatever was going on between you and Sunghoon, he didn’t want to ruin it by being grumpy. So when he came back out and found the two of you waiting for him at the bus stop, he put on his best smile. 

Having you around made his usual Tuesday afternoon with Sunghoon more fun - after years of friendship, Sunghoon ignored most of his jokes and could tune the sound of his voice out, but you still laughed at everything he said, and his heart swelled with pride every time he made you laugh.

It was only a ten-minute bus ride from the school to the ice rink so you still had twenty minutes to spare before Sunghoon’s lesson started. As always after soccer practice, Jake was famished, so you stopped by a convenience store and got more snacks than you really needed.

You sat next to Sunghoon and across from Jake at a picnic table in front of the ice rink, watching the boy in front of you with fascination as he gorged himself on banana milk and chocolate snacks.

“God, how long has it been since you last ate?” you asked with genuine concern in your voice. Sunghoon followed your gaze towards Jake, only then noticing his friend’s feral behavior as if this was a normal occurrence for them.

“Like three hours,” Jake answered. “I’m starving. So hungry I could eat Sunghoon.”

When he looked up, you were both peering at him with furrowed eyebrows and bewildered expressions on your faces. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you mean that Sunghoon is a horse?” you asked.

Jake mirrored your confused expressions. “What? No, why would I say that?”

“The saying goes, so hungry I could eat a horse, dumbass,” Sunghoon chimed in.

“Why would I eat a horse?” Jake replied, shaking his head and chuckling at you and Sunghoon like you were the ones who had gotten a basic idiom wrong.

“Why would you eat me?” Sunghoon bit back, sounding almost offended.

“It’s just a saying, dude.”

Half-an-hour and two whole packets of biscuits later, you and Jake sat side-by-side on the benches, watching Sunghoon as he did his warm-ups on the ice. This was your first time seeing a professional ice skater and you were transfixed, to say the least. He was just skating across the rink and rolling his arms and neck to get the muscles moving, but it all seemed so effortless and elegant that you couldn’t help but watch with your mouth slightly open, eyes eager to keep up with Sunghoon’s figure.

You were so mesmerized that you had no idea Jake was practically burning holes into the side of your face. Eyes narrowed and nose scrunched in disgust, he couldn’t believe you were enjoying the show in front of you that much. “He’s not even doing anything special right now, you know,” he said, but it only made him realize that when Sunghoon did start doing cool stuff, you’d like it even more.

Your head barely budged in Jake’s direction as you answered him, and your eyes certainly didn’t leave Sunghoon. “Really? It already looks so cool, though.” Jake scoffed, but that still didn’t get your attention, which made him scoff again. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a child whose parent wasn’t paying attention to their drawing. 

“Cooler than me?”

Finally, you look at me, Jake thought, and his frown immediately dissipated into a grin when your eyes met. But judging by the teasing way your lips curled up, he already knew he wasn’t going to like your answer.

“Cooler than you,” you replied before turning your attention back to the rink.

Jake leans back with a pout, opting to glare at his friend instead of you. He tried to put himself in your shoes and figure out what it was about Sunghoon you liked so much that Jake didn’t also have. Devastatingly good looks? Check. Charming smile? Check. Cute dog? Check - Jake more so than Sunghoon. Brains? Okay, both of them lacked this. Good personality? Check - however, you needed months before Sunghoon revealed himself to you, whereas Jake was outgoing and was comfortable even with people he’d just met. 

So why was the bearer of your affection Sunghoon and not Jake?

And why did Jake even care that you liked his friend over him in the first place?

It wasn’t like Jake liked you - he couldn’t like a girl that his best friend liked - so why did this at all matter to him? If anything, the fact that you liked Sunghoon back should’ve been something to rejoice over. It had been, up until now, and Jake couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t figure out this weird sensation that had plagued him in the soccer field and followed him to the ice rink as he watched you watch Sunghoon with amazement.

Jake was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when you detached your eyes from Sunghoon, who was talking to his coach, and tilted your head at him. “Jake?” 

The boy only let out a low hum, still too upset to look at you.

An amused grin made your lips quirk up. “Are you pouting because I said Sunghoon was cooler than you?”

Jake scoffed, turning his head away from you. “No.”

A pause. “So you don’t mind if I go on and on about how elegant and beautiful ice skating is, while running after a ball and kicking it is the basis of the stupidest sport in the world?”

Jake glared at you, but it only made you smile more. “It’s not stupid.”

Despite himself, his pretend angry facade broke apart at the sound of your airy giggles. Jake didn’t think his ears had ever been graced with such a pretty sound before - he slapped himself mentally as soon as that thought crossed his mind. 

His heart did jumps and spins more impressive than Sunghoon’s when you reached a hand out to ruffle his hair, shaking your head at his behavior. For once, he was glad that you turned back to Sunghoon so that you wouldn’t see the bright blush spreading all over his face.

For the next hour, Jake put his weird feelings to the side and watched his friend practice his routine for his upcoming competition. Even he had to admit that Sunghoon looked pretty cool doing what he loved.

You told him you found it all the more impressive because you’d never skated before, so it looked unachievable to you, and an idea immediately formed in Jake’s mind. As soon as Sunghoon’s practice was over, he rushed over to his friend and asked if the two of you could join him on the ice. Sunghoon turned to his coach, who simply shrugged.

“I trust you to look after them,” she said. “Just make sure to be out when the hockey team gets here.”

Before you knew it, Jake was helping you tie up your ice skates (the sight of which made you faint-hearted) and both boys helped you onto the ice rink, each holding onto one of your hands as you tried not to freak out at the feeling of your knees being so wobbly. Sunghoon demonstrated how to move around the ice, and soon enough, you’d gotten the hang of it - but you still made sure to keep Jake at an arm’s length so you could grab onto him every time you lost your balance. Jake stayed by your side, smiling fondly at how excited you looked and cheering you on every time you took a step of your own. Sunghoon, on the other hand, seemed to find it funny to watch from afar and point and laugh every time you stumbled.

After some time, Sunghoon announced he was feeling hungry and decided to go eat some snacks, leaving you and Jake alone in the rink. The wink Sunghoon threw your way when Jake wasn’t looking let you know what his true intentions were, and you couldn’t believe Jake’s best friend had just become your wingman.

“Feeling ready to skate around the rink?” Jake asked. His boyish grin was contagious, and you found yourself matching it even though you were still nervous about moving around too much.

“If you help me,” you answered tentatively, looking at him worriedly as you held out your hand for him to take. The softness of his gaze as he smiled down at you made you want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Of course,” he said, taking your hand in his warm one. Your fingers intertwined as if out of second nature and you thought you finally understood why people said their hands were meant to hold someone else’s.

Being friends with an ice skater for such a long time meant Jake had acquired some skill, too, which is why he could so easily show you how to turn or pick up speed. Whenever you lost your balance, he was always quick enough to make sure you didn’t actually fall, picking you up before your backside could touch the ice. He found your frightened expression every time you thought you would fall absolutely adorable, but your pout and slight frown whenever he teased you were somehow even cuter.

He only let go of your hand after some ten minutes (neither of you had even begun to question Sunghoon’s whereabouts by then) when he came to stand in front of you, a serious expression on his face.

“I think you’re ready, Y/N,” he declared solemnly.

“Ready for…?” you asked, scared of whatever he had in mind.

He leaned in slightly and the sudden proximity took you aback, but he didn’t seem to realize. A mischievous smirk broke through his handsome features. “A race,” he whispered, then skated to one edge of the rink and motioned for you to follow him. Reluctantly, you did.

“First to the other edge has to…” he thought for a second, gazing at the ceiling. You wanted to be mad at him for proposing a race when you’d literally just learned how to skate, but how could you when he looked so cute and giddy, searching for the loser’s penalty? “Buy the other ice cream!”

Your eyes were probably the image of tenderness as you looked at him. “Deal,” you said, wanting to sound as playful as him but voice coming out soft. Since when had you fallen so hard for him?

You held each other’s gazes for a couple more seconds before both turning in front of you, getting ready for your race. Jake counted down from three, and your skating wasn’t so bad at first - until you got too cocky for your own good, trying to go at a pace you clearly couldn’t handle. Before you knew it, your knees betrayed you and you found yourself tripping over, your butt making a loud thump sound as it came into contact with the ice.

On your way down, you’d shrieked Jake’s name, and he was at your side in the blink of an eye, holding your shoulder and looking at you worriedly. The pain was immediate, and for a few seconds, you couldn’t answer him and reassure him that you were fine.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked to race, God Y/N I’m so stupid I’m so sorry are you okay I didn’t want you to get hurt-”

“Jake,” you squeaked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay, calm down,” you said when the pain subsided, managing a smile. “I’ll just have a sore butt tomorrow.” He chuckled at the word ‘butt,’ but you didn’t have it in you to roll his eyes at his childishness.

“Are you sure you’re okay? There’s an infirmary here-”

“I’m sure, Jakey-poo,” you teased, making him lose the concerned expression as he bore an unimpressed one instead.

“I guess you are fine if you can think to call me that. Come on, up!” he said as he stood up, reaching his hands out for you to take. Just as he helped you up, Sunghoon came sprinting and stood at the entrance to the rink.

“Is everything okay? I heard a yell,” he said, slightly out-of-breath with half a biscuit in his mouth. Guess he really was eating this whole time.

You and Jake laughed and shook your head at him, and you reassured him that everything was fine. 

“Good, ‘cause the hockey team’s here and we have to go anyway.”

There was a bus that took Sunghoon directly from the ice rink to his house, but you and Jake had to go back to the school to catch the one you usually took, which meant you had a forty-minute journey in front of you. And yet, Jake’s company made those forty minutes feel like five, and you found yourself disappointed when the bus neared your stop.

“If you want, we can still go walk Kiwi and Layla,” he offered shyly a few minutes before your stop, as if he’d read your mind. 

“I’d love to.” You watched as his small smile bloomed into a wider one.

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, relieved. “I was scared you’d be tired of me after spending the whole afternoon together,” he admitted, looking down at his lap with a bashful expression on his face. It wasn’t often that Jake looked timid like this, but whenever he did, your heart tripled in size.

“I don’t think I could get tired of you.” You were too shy to look him in the eye while you said this, but in your peripheral, you saw his grin get impossibly wider and his eyebrows raise. He bumped your shoulder with his, making the both of you burst into giggles.

You were still smiling long after you’d come home from your walk.

—

Unfortunately for Jake, forcing you and Sunghoon to sit together for ninety minutes hadn’t resulted in the two of you confessing your undying love for the other and getting together - clearly, his plan hadn’t worked very well. But Jake, instead of coming up with another strategy, decided he should just basically do the same thing again and hope it went better this time. 

Bro night had been a tradition for the past three years that the boys only very rarely broke, in cases of illness, filial obligations or important competitions the following day. This wasn’t any one of those cases, but Jake decided bro night must be slightly sacrificed that night - for your and Sunghoon’s sake. Years down the line, he knew you’d thank him.

This was why he tricked you into thinking you had been invited to bro night (you’d heard a lot about it and considered it an honor to be included) when really, he made Jay promise not to show at the cinema so that you and Sunghoon could be alone. The two of them would make up an excuse about not being able to make it on time and show up later at the diner (“If you want to set them up, shouldn’t we also leave them alone after the movie?” Jay had asked Jake over the phone, and Jake had been unable to explain why he didn’t want you to spend the whole night alone with Sunghoon).

“They ditched us,” Sunghoon had said in lieu of a greeting when you found him at the entrance of the cinema. He turned his phone screen towards you, showing you their group chat - Jay had had some sort of meeting at his school that had run late and Jake had to go to the vet suddenly because Layla kept making weird noises.

“Oh no, I hope she’ll be okay,” you said, voice laced with genuine worry.

Sunghoon just sighed. “I’m sure she will.” He knew what his friends were up to - it almost never happened that one of them was unable to make it to bro night, so two at once? They were clearly lying. He would make sure to tell Jake how worried sick you were about his dog’s fake illness later on just so his friend would feel extra guilty.

You had been looking forward to hanging out with Jake and his friends all day, so you were disappointed to know he wouldn’t make it until later. It wasn’t much comfort that the movie they had picked, some recent Marvel release, was one you were not at all interested in, and you couldn’t even obsess over Jake’s presence next to you instead of the movie because he wasn’t there. You’d have to sit with awkward, quiet Sunghoon for God knows how long - at least the cinema wasn’t much of a talking place. 

You declined his kind offer of sharing a big popcorn tub - you didn’t want to risk a cliché reaching-for-popcorn-at-the-same-time moment with Sunghoon, although you’d daydreamed and giggled about it happening with Jake earlier that day. Instead, you sipped grumpily on your Cherry Coke, watching the trailers for upcoming movies and discussing them with Sunghoon. (“I’m so excited for the Barbie movie,” he’d surprised you by saying. Maybe he wasn’t so bad.)

As the lights dimmed, announcing the imminent start of the movie, Sunghoon whispered something that completely changed your mind about Marvel. “It’s so stupid that Jake isn’t here, seriously. He’s been going on and on about going to see this movie since the trailer came out.” Suddenly, you’d never felt the need to pay attention to something more than this. 

Well, in your humble opinion, the film wasn’t anything to write home about. It was a lot of loud action scenes with some funny one-liners that, okay, you chuckled at. And the actors were hot. You could sort of see why Jake would enjoy Marvel movies, although you yourself liked films with more social commentary, such as Mean Girls or Bee Movie. You’d need to make Jake watch Twilight one of these days - you were sure he’d like the soundtrack, if nothing else.

At least, you and Sunghoon have something to talk about during your short walk to the diner. As you enter the restaurant, a familiar voice calling out your name catches you off-guard.

“Chaewon? I thought you didn’t work on Friday nights!” you exclaimed, letting your friend bring you into a hug. You gave her a once-over - she always looked so pretty in her work uniform, white t-shirt dress draping her body perfectly, apron cinching at her waist, and short pigtails under her 50’s style diner hat. If the blush spreading on Sunghoon’s cheeks at her sudden appearance was anything to go by, his thoughts might not have been too far from yours.

She pouted, taking your hands in hers and swaying them between the two of you. “I usually don’t, but Yunjin asked me to trade shifts and she always says yes when I ask her, so I felt bad saying no.” You nodded and she turned to Sunghoon.

“Hi, Sunghoon!”

“H-hi, Chaewon.”

“Where’s Jay and Jake?” she asked, looking behind the two of you. You’d told the group chat about your evening plans and a lot of freaking out had taken place. 

“Should be here any minute,” you sighed, and when she looked at you questioningly, you told her you’d explain later.

She sat you at a four-person booth by the window and brought you drinks (“On the house,” she’d said with a wink, but you weren’t sure this had been allowed by any of her superiors) for you to sip on while you waited for the others. Every time she was free, she came over to your table and gossiped about the customers. You did not miss the way Sunghoon’s face lit up whenever she approached you.

Jake and Jay see you before you see them. Jay, the only one with a driver’s license out of the three, had picked Jake up, and he was parking his car when Jake gasped loudly, making Jay jump. “I’m trying to park, man, can you be calm?”

“What’s she doing here?” Jake exclaimed, completely ignoring his friend.

Jay followed Jake’s gaze, but he wasn’t sure what his friend was going on about. All he saw was you, whom he recognized from pictures only, Sunghoon, and a waitress that seemed overly-friendly. “Who?” he asked.

“Chaewon,” Jake hissed, like her name was a curse. “She’s ruining our plan!”

Jay sighed. “First of all, this is your plan. Second of all, it was ruined from the beginning. And by that, I mean that your plan sucks, Jake.”

Jake clicked his teeth. “Whatever. Let’s just go,” he said, getting out of the car and heading straight for you. He made sure to give Chaewon a pointed look as he sat next to you in the booth, but she just seemed happy that more people had arrived. 

You bumped your knee into his to get his attention. “Hi,” you said with a smile.

He looked at you dumbly for a few seconds before Jay cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi. This is Jay,” he said, tilting his head towards the boy but not taking his eyes off of you. You and Jay exchanged hey’s before Chaewon took your order, quickly giving it to the kitchen and scanning the room to make sure every table had what they needed, then headed back to your table. 

“Is Layla okay?” you asked Jake, worry making your brows furrow.

“Huh?” The sudden mention of his dog took him aback. Why wouldn’t she be okay?

“Layla?” you repeated, tilting your head. “Is she okay? You said you had to go to the vet.”

His eyes widened as he remembered his lie from earlier, and he started nodding frantically. “Oh yeah, yeah, she’s fine, we panicked over nothing,” he said with a nervous giggle. Jake was the worst liar Jay and Sunghoon had ever seen, but you were none the wiser.

“What about you, Jay? How was your school thing?” Sunghoon asked, turning to his friend with a glare and making him choke on his Coke.

“Oh, that was fine too, I guess,” Jay mumbled.

As expected, Jake and Chaewon were experts at leading the conversation, and Jay himself was pretty talkative. They all bounced off of each other naturally, and even Sunghoon knew how to throw in witty remarks now and there. You also participated, but you were more than happy just listening to them and laughing along. You tried not to think too much about how your knee would bump into Jake’s once in a while, or how he seemed to look at you every time he made a joke.

At some point, Chaewon had rushed over to your table, looking right at you with wide eyes and beaming. “Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God, Y/N, hat guy is here!” 

You instantly mirrored her expression. “Where where where?” you asked, lifting your body up to scan around the restaurant.

“Over there in the corner, but be discreet!”

You were not at all discreet as your eyes found said hat guy, noting with satisfaction that he was characteristically hatless, and you burst into laughter. “I can’t believe he’s here!”

“Right? Probably has the munchies or something,” Chaewon said, laughing along.

You only noticed then the perplexed looks all three boys were sending your way. “Who the heck is hat guy?” Jake asked, which only made you and Chaewon laugh harder.

“You wouldn’t get it,” she replied airily, waving Jake off as she made her way to a customer who had called for her. 

The boys turned to you and you shrunk in your seat at their attention. “Just a guy the girls and I find funny,” you explained, shrugging and glancing quickly at Sunghoon. If only he knew about all the times you and the girls had gossiped about him, even though he’d done nothing of importance.

When her shift was over, the first thing Chaewon did was take off her apron, then dragged you to the bathroom, where she drilled you for details about your cinema “date” with Sunghoon. 

“It was not a date, it just ended up being the two of us because the others couldn’t make it,” you insisted, but she wasn’t having it. “There’s nothing to say anyway. We got there, talked a bit, watched the movie, walked here, and that’s it.”

Chaewon sighed, shaking her head as she reapplied her lip gloss. A small smile made its way onto your lips. “I think he’s into someone else anyway.” 

You noticed how her hand faltered for a split second. “Oh yeah? Who?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant, but you knew your friend too well. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” 

Unbeknownst to either of you, the discussion between the boys back at the table was not too different from yours.

“Bro, I’m literally going to kill you,” Sunghoon whisper-yelled even though you were way out of earshot already. “Do you know how awkward that was?”

“Just so you know, I had nothing to do with this,” Jay said. “I told him that putting two socially constipated idiots like you wouldn’t end well, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Y/N’s not an idiot!” Jake immediately reacted.

“And I am?!” Sunghoon retorted.

Jay just rolled his eyes.

“You are, because this is the second time you’re alone together with the girl you like and you can barely make conversation with her.”

“For the last time, I don’t like her, I just called her cute once in freshman year-”

“Same thing!”

“Jake, I don’t know how many times I can tell you the same thing before you get it. I’ve been around Y/N enough to know I don’t like her like that, okay? We’ve had two classes where we sat together for a whole semester, and we’ve worked with other people in group projects. Not to mention, you’ve made me sit through one of your practices with her. She’s nice. She sends me the homework when I miss class. She even laughs at my jokes sometimes. And her dog is super cute. I’m sure we’d be better friends if we both didn’t have crippling shyness, but I don’t like her like that. I just don’t.”

“But how?!”

“What do you mean how? This sorta thing doesn’t have any sort of reasonable answer, you just do or you don’t. I don’t. Clearly, you do.”

Jake heard the last part of Sunghoon’s words, and promptly decided to ignore them. He had to understand this first - he’d figure out his feelings later. “This whole time, I thought you were just downplaying your feelings, ‘cause you’re an awkward asshole who doesn’t do emotions,” he said, eyes tightly shut and holding his head, the confusion making his brain hurt.

“Okay, ouch. But no, I wasn’t. I really don’t know what got into your head.”

“I know what got into his head,” Jay said. Both of his friends looked at him questioningly, so he went on. “When Sunghoon mentioned Y/N, you probably thought she was super cute too, Jake. But because of bro code and whatnot, you didn’t wanna show any interest. And then as you saw her around more, you probably liked her more, but you thought Sunghoon liked her, so you sort of gave him your crush on her instead of dealing with it. You lived vicariously through him, basically. Except you’re an idiot because he doesn’t even like her like that, so you could’ve shot your shot a long time ago already. I don’t know why you didn’t just listen to him, to be honest,” Jay finished, shrugging.

“You also thought he liked her!” Jake retorted.

“That’s besides the point. The point is that you’re stupid.”

“But- but, what about all those times you talked about her? I didn’t make those up!” 

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “The most I ever said about her was something like, Y/N and I both forgot our textbook today, or Y/N brought cookies for the class because it’s her birthday. You were always the one to notice her everywhere and go, There’s your crush, or something.”

Jake sighed, defeated. He could admit Sunghoon was right about something, and he was wrong - but he hated that Jay was also right. Had he really managed to bury his feelings for you all these years just for what he thought was Sunghoon’s sake? Sure, he was a loyal friend, but that felt a little much.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, recoiling from his friends’ expectant gazes and taking a sad bite of his cheeseburger. “It’s not like she likes me back, or anything.” 

He watched in confusion as Sunghoon let out a loud groan, screwing his eyes shut and taking his head in his hands as if it hurt. “This is so frustrating, I’m going to kill myself.”

Jake turned to Jay for some sort of explanation to their friend’s sudden suicidal thoughts, but Jay just looked back at Jake with disgust. “When did you become so dumb? I swear you didn’t use to be like this,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

Jake’s eyes flickered between his two friends in utter dismay. “What?”

“Jake,” Jay started. “Do you really, honestly, genuinely think Y/N doesn’t like you?”

The boy leaned back in his seat with a pout. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Sunghoon’s head whipped up at this. Jake gulped at the intense glare his friend fixed him with - he’d never looked so angry with him, and it made Jake wonder what on Earth he could have said or done that made Sunghoon so upset. “Why?” he asked simply, but the frustration was evident in his voice.

Your diary popped up in Jake’s head. What he had read was clear. Of course, the entry dated from over a month ago now, but why would your feelings have changed since then? Jake sighs deeply, getting ready to reveal to his friends what he’d seen, but then he sees you and Chaewon emerging from the bathroom. “They’re coming back,” he mumbled.

It was Sunghoon and Jay’s turn to sigh. “Just pay attention to her, Jake, okay?” Jay instructed, giving his friend an intent look.

“I already do,” Jake replied, frowning.

“No, really pay attention to her. Then use your pea-sized brain for once in your life, and maybe you’ll realize something.”

A strongly-worded reply was on the tip of Jake’s tongue, but all thoughts of violence and murdering his friend were replaced by images of rainbows and pretty flowers when you smiled at him. He felt like the biggest of idiots for liking you so much and only realizing it now.

“Hi,” he said dumbly as you found your seat next to him again, then stole a french fry from you even though he had many left himself. When you gasped at his audacity, he just giggled.

“Hey!” you exclaimed in protest before stealing a fry back. 

If you hadn’t been so caught up in your little world, you’d have noticed the knowing look your three friends exchanged and their simultaneous eye roll. 

—

The following Monday, you decided to have your tutoring session at your house instead of Jake’s. His mom was away at a convention for the week, so you’d have to take the bus anyway - since your house was two stops earlier, you offered to switch it up for once. Jake had never actually been inside your house and was curious to see what it was like, so he eagerly agreed. 

Kiwi was happy to see him and followed the two of you around the house as you gave Jake a quick tour before going up to your room. When you reached the top landing, you realized that Kiwi was still at the bottom of the stairs and was looking up at you expectantly. “Is she not allowed upstairs?” Jake asked.

“Usually not, but I let her come up when my mom’s not here. Come on Kiwi! It’s okay!”

Kiwi didn’t need to be told twice - she trudged her little body up the stairs, and you couldn’t help but giggle at her adorableness. “She’s so cute,” you cooed, looking at your dog with a huge smile on your face.

“She really is,” Jake agreed, but when you turned your head to face him, he wasn’t looking at Kiwi - he was looking straight at you, a softness in his eyes that made your stomach turn. He snapped out of it when he noticed your round, surprised eyes, and cleared his throat. “So, where’s your room?” he asked, looking around the hallway and avoiding your gaze.

“Over there,” you replied, fighting the smile that tried to make its way to your lips as you headed towards your room, Jake and Kiwi following right behind. 

You told Jake to wait for a second as you went to get a second chair. When you came back, he was standing in front of your shelves, upper body slightly bent forwards to observe all the decorations and framed pictures closer. You placed the chair next to your desk then joined him, answering all the questions he had about the items on your shelves. Who’s this? When was this? Where did you get this? In his defense, you really did have a lot of things - you were trying to get rid of your hoarding habits, but you got attached to every small thing that held some sort of significance. You went to sit at the edge of your bed and just watched him, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

It reminded you of the first time you’d been to his house, how upset he’d seemed when you talked about his baby pictures and how you hadn’t wanted to risk looking at all the stuff in his room. You were also curious about things like that, and you wondered once again what had bothered him so much. The question was burning your tongue - although you were nervous to ask it, not wanting to upset Jake once more, you now knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the type to stay mad for long. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Jake replied, fingers toying with your favorite Littlest Pet Shop figurine you had kept from when you were eight.

“Why didn’t you want me to look at your baby photos that one time?”

Jake paused at your words. He stood up straight and set the figurine back on the shelf. He glanced at you before walking over to your bed and taking a seat next to you, leaning back on his palms while you rested your hands underneath your thighs. 

“You probably noticed I don’t mention my dad, right? Or the fact that he’s never home?” 

You nodded in response. You had noticed it, but you’d never brought the topic up in case it might be sensitive. Jake sighed. “He passed away when I was six.”

You turned your head towards him. To your surprise, his face remained expressionless - you couldn’t detect any sort of sadness or anger in his features, as if he was just reciting a fact. His uncharacteristic numbness upset you even more than any tears could have. 

He met your gaze and gave you a small smile. “I was so young that I only have very vague memories of him, like playing soccer together in the backyard or a trip to the beach with my parents and my brother. I only remember his face and his voice from the photos and videos my mom has shown me.” He sighed again, shifting forwards and resting his hands in his lap, fiddling with his fingers. “So when I see these pictures, they sort of just remind me of what I’ve lost? I really don’t like lingering on them. I sort of just ignore them every time I walk up or down the stairs.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have mentioned them if I’d known-”

Jake is quick to shake his head. “No, no, don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have guessed.” You want to comfort Jake in some way, thank him for telling you something so personal, but you’re not sure what words to use - so, instead, you take one of his hands in yours and bring it to your lap, then cover it with your other one. Your eyes meet for a second - he looks slightly taken aback at first, but then, his eyes drift down to your joined hands, and a small blush spreads on his cheeks.

“I’m- I’m okay, really. Like I said, it happened so long ago that I’m used to not having a dad now. It almost feels like it’s always been that way, which makes it even weirder to think it wasn’t. It’s just… It feels weird to miss someone I barely remember so much, you know?”

You nodded and let out a low hum. “I do know.” Jake tilted his head at you, silently asking you to go on. “It’s different, but I get that feeling of missing something you barely remember. I have these blurry memories of my parents being happy together and the three of us being a happy family, and then all of a sudden it’s hearing arguments from my room and my dad moving out, and they’re asking me, Do you wanna live with mom or dad?”

You watched as Jake moved his hand slightly, intertwining your fingers together and squeezing your hand. “I was older than you were when they divorced, so I guess I have more memories to hold onto, but they hurt more than anything.” You let out a deep sigh. “My dad cheated, so it’s not like I wished my mom had stayed with him, but I was too young to understand what was happening. I just wanted my parents together again.” 

When you lifted your head to look at him, he met your gaze, and his eyes were so soft yet so intense, like he was seeing right into you. Then he chuckled. “Do you ever get jealous of other people’s parents?” he asks, a shy smile playing on his lips.

“All the time,” you admitted with a chuckle, relieved to find out you weren’t the only one. “Yena has been blessed with these like, practically perfect parents that are still in love after twenty years, never argue and have a healthy relationship with all of their kids. I’m so in awe every time I see them.”

“Sunghoon’s parents are like that. I feel terrible, but every time they come to cheer him on at his competitions, I just get so jealous, wishing I also had three people coming to see my games and not just two. And I always feel so silly for feeling that way.”

“You’re not silly for that, Jake,” you said, and the honesty in your voice seemed to take him aback slightly. A grin spread on your lips. “You may be silly for other things, but not for that,” you teased, making him chuckle. “I can be your third person, if you want,” you said softly, lightly bumping your shoulder against his.

His eyes seemed to light up at your words, and your smile couldn’t help but get wider at his reaction - that was, until he raised an eyebrow, almost defiantly. “Yeah? I thought you found soccer boring,” he said with a playful smirk.

“It’s not boring if you’re the one playing,” you replied. A small noise of surprise escaped his throat before he could help it, not expecting you to be so forward, and you both burst into giggles. 

He cleared his throat when you both calmed down and stood up straighter, trying to put on a cool front. “Of course it isn’t.” He turned his head to look out the window, and the sight of the sunlight perfectly hitting his features and turning his dark brown eyes a hazel color almost took your breath away. “It’s really nice out,” he suddenly said. He turned back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “How about we ditch the tutoring for today and go out?”

His eyes drifted down to your lips, watching as a smile tugged at the corners of your own. “I’m in.”

That was how you found yourselves sitting at a bench in the park close to your house, eating ice cream and watching Kiwi and Layla play together. You tried each other’s ice cream, and you regretted your choice of simple vanilla and strawberry as soon as Jake’s mango ice cream touched your tongue. Your eyes widened at the amazing taste - it felt like you had bit into an actual mango. 

“Good, right?” Jake asked, chuckling at your reaction.

“What the heck, yours is so much better than mine,” you mumbled, pouting at the ice cream in your cup like it had personally hurt you.

Jake thought for a second, looking back and forth between your upset expression and his own cup. “Wanna switch?”

Your heart was screaming yes, but your brain was screaming no. You tried your best to appear genuine when you smiled at him. “No, don’t worry about it. I still like mine.” You looked at him as you scooped another spoonful into your mouth as if to prove to him you were happy with your choice, even going so far as to hum in delight.

Jake just chuckled and shook his head at you, taking your cup and giving you his anyway. You were about to protest until he started eating your ice cream, imitating your previous hum. You quietly accepted the exchange, smiling as you tasted the mango ice cream again and trying to ignore the fact that Jake hadn’t switched the spoons with the cups, so you were using his and he was using yours. 

As you ate in silence, occasionally chuckling at your dogs’ antics, Jake stole some glances at you. He wasn’t sure why you looked so much prettier today than all the times he’d seen you before. Or maybe you were just as pretty as you’d always been, and he was just finally letting himself admit it. 

He may have had many friends, but there weren’t many people Jake was truly himself around. He always felt the need to be this friendly, outgoing guy that made it seem like everything was going well in his life, but with you, he felt like it was okay to stop pretending. He felt like it was okay to ask for help, like it was okay to reveal the darker parts of his life.

Now that Jay and Sunghoon had practically forced him to see the truth, Jake didn’t know what to do about his feelings for you. He finally understood why he always looked forward to your tutoring sessions, why he was so excited whenever he walked past you in the hallways, and why he was so bothered about you and Sunghoon getting along.

Sunghoon. Because even if Jake now knew that he liked you, he also knew that you liked someone else. And what was the point of letting himself fall for you even more when there was no happy ending in sight for him? He’d only get hurt in the end.

Just as the thought hit him, you turned to look at him and meet his gaze, a soft smile on your lips. Every time you smiled at him like that, Jake felt like he was watching a movie. Everything happened in slow-motion, with flowers falling around you and violins playing in the background. Jake almost felt sick, knowing he was only the second lead in your romance movie. He was the stupid werewolf and Sunghoon was the vampire that glistened in the sun and got the girl. (You had convinced him to watch Twilight, saying it was a mandatory watch to understand who you were as a person. Of course, Jake had streamed it that same night. The soundtrack was surprisingly good.)

Your voice snapped him out of his downward-spiraling thoughts. “You know, I almost got scared that Sunghoon would appear out of thin air and start hanging out with us.”

Jake tried not to sneer at the mention of his best-friend-turned-number-one-nemesis. “Why? Wouldn’t you like that?” he mumbled, clearly doing a poor job of seeming unaffected.

You frowned, then lowered your head, focusing your gaze on your almost-finished ice cream. “No, I’d rather if it was just the two of us.” Jake’s eyes widened, unsure if he’d heard that correctly or not. But before he could say anything in response, you spoke again. “It’s just, he was there when I came to watch your practice and when I thought we were all going to see a movie together, it was just him and me. You would’ve liked that movie, by the way,” you said, looking up at Jake with a smile.

Jake’s heart swelled. He wasn’t sure what what you were saying all meant, but unconsciously, his lips mirrored yours and he smiled back at you. Until he remembered you didn’t like him, and his smile fell immediately. Obviously, you had no idea what he was thinking, so his sudden stony expression sent alarms ringing through your head.

“It’s not that I don’t like him, or anything,” you said, panicked, and Jake had to keep himself from scoffing, “it’s just that- you know. It’s nice to hang out with you outside of tutoring sessions,” you finished, mumbling. 

Jake had no idea what you were saying, so he stayed quiet, watching as Kiwi and Layla ran around in circles. You liked Sunghoon, so why would you rather hang out with Jake and not him? You weren’t making any sense. 

You, on the other hand, were not liking Jake’s uncharacteristic silence. In hopes of getting his attention, you crossed one leg over the other, shifting on the bench to face him. “Plus, don’t you think he and Chaewon really hit it off the other night? I think that was the most I’ve ever heard him talk,” you said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. To your dismay, it didn’t work. You didn’t know whether he was sulking or genuinely upset - all you knew was you desperately wanted to see a smile on his pretty face again.

“Jakey?” you called out, and your voice sounded so small it hurt his heart. He hummed in response, only glancing at you for a fraction of a second. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied, scooping the last of the ice cream in his mouth. As he tasted the strawberry and vanilla flavors, he couldn’t believe he had given his precious mango ice cream up all for a girl who didn’t even like him back. What a fool.

“I don’t know, you’re all- weird, all of a sudden, for lack of a better word.” You searched for some sort of an answer in his eyes, but he supplied you with none. 

Jake sighed deeply. He could feel the ugly mix of emotions in his belly turning into anger - anger at what exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to lay it on you. “It’s just the heat, it’s making me tired,” he said. Sure, it was warm for a May afternoon, but it wasn’t that hot. But you didn’t want to push it.

“Should we go home?“ you offered, and the worry in your voice made him feel even worse. He just couldn’t understand why you were being so nice to him. He knew you probably just thought you were looking after a friend, but he'd rather you not care about his well-being and leave him be. He didn’t need one more reason to like you - he already had plenty of those. 

He nodded, mustering as convincing a smile as he could. “Sure.” 

The walk home was much quieter than usual. You could feel that Jake was keeping something to himself, and it was killing you; but whatever it was, you wanted him to tell you when he felt ready and not feel forced to. Your hand was aching, desperate to reach out and grab his as you had done before, but you were afraid that would only push him away even further. So you stayed silent most of the time, only commenting on the things around you or speaking a thought out loud when you thought it might make Jake smile. Every time his lips curled up, even ever so slightly, your heart swelled with relief.

Unbeknownst to you, Jake was making up his mind. He knew he needed time away from you to gather his feelings before he could see you as a friend again. 

When you reached your house, Jake waited outside with the dogs as you grabbed his bag he’d left upstairs. You hugged goodbye as always, but this one was different - it lasted a few seconds longer than usual, and you could swear Jake held you tighter than he normally would. It felt like he was saying goodbye for more than just a couple days.

You didn’t understand why it made your heart ache so much.

—

The next day, when you walked past Jake and Sunghoon in the hallway, Jake barely glanced at you and only tilted his head in your general direction instead of his usual wide grin and wave. You were so shocked by his sudden snubbing that you halted in your steps right away, looking behind you at his retreating figure. You locked eyes with Sunghoon, who seemed just as confused as you felt. He shrugged at you before returning to his friend and nudging his arm.

On Wednesday morning, you got a text from Jake that he couldn’t make it to your tutoring session that afternoon because of an extra soccer practice to prepare for their game that weekend, something he had never mentioned before.

Thursday and Friday weren’t very different, and your heart became heavier with every time you walked past each other and he acted like you weren’t even there. You desperately wanted to know what you’d done wrong, why he’d started to reply in one-word sentences instead of his usual voice messages and tons of emojis, but no matter how much you cogitated, you couldn’t figure it out. Even when you asked him how his game had gone, a dry Good stared back at you from your phone screen.

That Saturday, your girlfriends came over. Yena had brought beads and strings to make accessories out of, and the mere sight of them had brought fond memories back to all four of you - during your first sleepover in freshman year, this was the exact activity that had kept you occupied for hours. 

You got started on them immediately, each finding a comfortable spot in your room as soft music played in the background. You lay on your bed while Chaewon and Yena took over the floor and Hyewon sat at your desk.

“I’m gonna make one of those phone accessories,” Yena said excitedly, reaching for the biggest, most colorful beads.

“I’m gonna make couple bracelets for Jaemin and I,” Hyewon said somewhat shyly but beaming. Yena and Chaewon groaned at her words, but they gave you an idea.

“You guys are vomit-inducing,” Yena replied, and if you didn’t know your friend any better, just going off the tone of her voice, you’d have thought she was being serious. Hyewon just rolled her eyes, used to this daily slander she received simply for being in a relationship.

“I’ll make something for my little sister,” Chaewon butted in, and you and Yena simultaneously ‘aww’ed. 

“So it’s aww when Chaewon does it for her sister, and it’s vomit-inducing when I do it for my boyfriend?” Hyewon exclaimed, appalled.

“Little sisters are cute. Boyfriends are gross,” Yena replied matter-of-factly, making you giggle.

“Whatever. You guys are just jealous that you’re dying alone and I’m not. What are you making, Y/N?” she asked before Yena could retort again. The two exchanged a glare as you thought over your answer.

“I’m not saying,” you replied with a giggle. 

“She’s making one for Jake, that evil wench,” Chaewon immediately said, making your eyes widen. Yena gasped dramatically while Hyewon smiled at you.

“How did you know?” you asked Chaewon.

“Just your face. You’re so obvious,” she snickered. 

“You’re a traitor, Y/N!” Yena exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at you, and you hid your face in your hands, muttering an apology. “Wasting time and energy on a boy.”

“Don’t listen to her, Y/N. Whatever it is you make, he’ll be super happy you thought of him. Then he’ll finally ask you out and you’ll live happily ever after, just like me and Jaemin,” Hyewon said with a serene smile on her face. Chaewon and Yena exchanged a look, then faked a gagging sound. “So bitter,” Hyewon muttered, shaking her head at your friends.

“I’m not sure about that,” you sighed. “I just want to be friends again. He’s been ignoring me all week.”

All three snapped their heads up at you. “He’s been ignoring you?” Yena echoed, and you meekly nodded. “Give me his phone number. No, give me his address. I’m going there right now,” she said, already sitting up.

“Gosh, Yena, it’s fine,” you said, gesturing at her to sit back down, laughing at your friend’s seriousness. “I’ll see him on Monday anyway, I can just see how he behaves then.”

Yena didn’t look convinced, but she yielded anyway. “If he hurts you, I swear I’ll give him a stern talking to. And a broken nose.” You laughed as you thanked your friend. 

Hyewon asked for more details about this Jake situation, so you filled your friends in about his mysterious behavior that week. Chaewon had been the only one to see it firsthand, when you’d walked to a class together and Jake had walked past you without saying anything. You told them about his sparse answers to your texts, his lack of response to the TikToks you sent him. He wasn’t even reacting to your BeReals anymore. It was just such a complete switch-up in attitude that you had no idea what to make of it. They tried to come up with reasons for it, but it really didn’t make much sense. It just felt like he suddenly decided to hate you - or maybe you had been interpreting everything wrong, and the two of you had never been friends in the first place. 

“This is so confusing,” Chaewon suddenly said, seeming lost in thought. “I thought for sure that he liked you.”

“Liked… me?” you echoed.

“Yeah. Just the way he was when we were at the diner. He kept looking at you and was always smiling and blushing whenever you talked to him. Also the way Jay and Sunghoon were behaving. Boys are so obvious when their friend likes someone, it’s like they’re trying to fumble it for him. And I mean, anyone with functioning eyes can see that you like him too, so I don’t know why he’s doing this all of a sudden.”

Yena sighed. “Boys are stupid.”

“That, they are,” you agreed, sighing as well and returning your attention to your craft. Maybe a simple gift like this wouldn’t fix what was going on between you and Jake, but you had to at least try. You couldn’t let go of your friendship so easily.

Even though it seemed as though he could.

Nothing changed the next week. On Monday, you woke up to a text that pulled your heart down into your stomach.

jakey-poo i think we should stop tutoring each other for now

For an hour as you ate breakfast and got ready for school, you ruminated over your answer, only to ask him a simple why? in the end.

jakey-poo i’m to busy w soccer practice and other stuff we can start again when exams are near

you oh okay

You felt pathetic, but you had no idea what to say. You couldn’t force him into this, and you definitely couldn’t show up at his house and demand a better explanation. If you were Yena or Chaewon, maybe you could - but you weren’t. You couldn’t even bring yourself to ask him if the two of you could still hang out outside of that, so scared you were for his inevitable rejection.

During the week, you tried to find a time when you could give him your small handmade gift, but Jake wasn’t even looking you in the eyes anymore. The only time you made eye contact with him over those five days was on Wednesday at lunch - as you walked into the cafeteria, you scanned the whole room, unconsciously searching for him. When you did, he was already looking at you - he was close enough for you to see the slight frown in his eyebrows, the lack of the usual glint in his eyes. But as soon as he’d seen you’d found him, he turned away. You only looked away when Chaewon called out your name.

In the few classes you had together, he always slipped away before you could get to him. Him walking past you like he couldn’t even see you broke your heart a little bit more every time, and by Friday, you had completely given up. Your friendship with Jake was over, and you had no idea why, no idea who or what to blame.

Monday and Wednesday afternoons felt empty now that you had gotten used to spending them with him, and you couldn’t even walk Kiwi without missing him. He seemed to miss Jake and Layla too - he’d sometimes tilt his head at you as if asking where your new friends were, and when you got to the park, he’d gloomily stick to you instead of running around like he usually would, especially when Layla was there.

The worst part was at night, when your thoughts kept you up. You’d reread your and Jake’s text conversations, wondering what went so wrong so quickly, warm tears spilling from your eyes out of sadness and tiredness. On those nights, you’d sneak Kiwi up to your room and let him cuddle up to you in your bed. You’d comfort each other that way.

You had no idea that a couple kilometers away, Jake lay in bed sleepless as well, Layla at the edge of his bed and whining in her sleep. You had no idea that missing you had carved a deep hole in his chest.

—

Enough was enough.

It had been days since Layla had last seen Kiwi, and to a young pup like her, that felt like eternity. Lately, Jake hadn’t seemed happy to go on walks with her like he used to, and he barely had any energy to play with her. She also hadn’t seen you in days, and she wondered if that had anything to do with Jake’s recent despondency. 

But thankfully, Layla was a smart girl, so she knew exactly what to do to fix this dire situation. On Friday, she waited for Jake to come back from soccer practice and take her on a walk. As soon as they reached the sidewalk outside of their house, she pulled on her leash in the opposite direction of their usual route. Jake tried pulling her the other way, but she wouldn’t budge.

“We’re going that way, Layla,” Jake said, amused by his dog’s sudden stubbornness. Layla barked back. “Come on!” 

She was really not moving. “We never go that way,” Jake said, sighing. “That way’s the-”

That’s when he realized. Layla wanted to go to the park you went to with Kiwi. “But what if we ran into them?” Jake asked. 

Layla barked again. She wanted to say, That’s exactly why I want to go there, but of course Jake didn’t understand. He sighed again and obliged, letting Layla lead the way. She had a good feeling that she’d finally see her friends again today. 

Jake’s heart started beating faster with every step he took, knowing that you might be out right now, too. When he’d seen you at school, you’d seemed as sad as he was, and he felt terrible for perhaps being the reason behind it - but he didn’t know what else to do. He could either spare your feelings or his. If this was hurting you, he knew you’d move on quickly enough anyway - and when he came to terms with being just friends with you, he’d come back, and everything would be perfect like it used to be. Foolproof plan.

If there was one thing Jake had learned from the tutoring sessions with you, it was that the weather always reflected the protagonist’s inner thoughts. If they were upset, it would be gray and rainy - if they were happy, it would be warm and sunny. Jake glared at the sun, just another reminder that he wasn’t the main character in this story. If he was, it would be thundering and lightning would be striking.

As if his life was a joke, two minutes after Jake and Layla had walked into the park, he saw you. At least you were facing the other direction, so you couldn’t see him, and he could redirect his route to avoid you. But he let himself indulge in the moment for a few seconds. You had laid out a picnic blanket for you and Kiwi and rested on your stomach with your elbows propping you up, reading a book. Kiwi slept peacefully next to you - this dog was the furthest thing from a guard dog Jake had ever seen. You kicked your feet up in the air, flip flops discarded to the side of the blanket. Jake was happy to see you like this, enjoying the warmth of this sunny May afternoon. 

He was about to walk away, but a sudden movement caught his eye. Two school kids started running to you, and before you could even register their presence, one of them snatched your flip flops and they both sprinted away, shrieking with laughter like two little devils. Where the hell were their parents?!

Without thinking, Jake started running after them, and so did Kiwi and Layla. 

“Hey! Come back here!” Jake yelled, hoping in vain that these kids would listen to someone older than them. Kiwi did his best, but his tiny legs didn’t allow for such a chase - Layla, barking loudly at the thieves, was the first to reach them, and she managed to scare them so much, they tripped over their feet. But unlike them, she was well-behaved, so she sat once her job was done and waited for Jake to arrive. 

“What are you two doing? You can’t just steal other people’s things!” he admonished, holding onto his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Both kids were already teary-eyed. “We just wanted to play a prank, we’re sorry!” one of them quickly said, voice shaky.

“It’s not to me you should apologize, but to her,” Jake said, turning around to point in your direction. That’s when he noticed you sitting on your knees, hands covering your face as your shoulders trembled. “You made her cry!” Jake exclaimed, tone much angrier than seconds prior. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the kids by their shoulders and forcing them to keep up with his quick steps.

You didn’t notice their presence in front of you until Jake prompted them. At the sound of the all too familiar voice, you whipped your head up. Jake swore he heard his heart breaking when he saw your red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. You barely heard the kids’ apology, so amazed you were at suddenly seeing Jake.

“We’re sorry for stealing your flip-flops and making you cry,” the first one said.

“Sorry,” repeated the other one, handing you your shoes.

“Oh, right. Thanks, just don’t do it again,” you replied, sniffing as you took back your shoes.

“We won’t!” they replied in unison before running away once more.

Jake stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He watched you stare at your flip flops like you’d never seen them before in your life. “You’re not going to thank me for catching those delinquents?” he asked after a small while, chuckling slightly.

This made you look up at him. He gulped as your eyes met. Then, you burst into sobs again, and Jake started panicking. He crouched down to your level, first holding you by the shoulders then forcing your head out of your hands so he could wipe away your tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“No no no, why are you crying, Y/N?” he asked softly, pulling you into a hug.

You continued crying into his shoulder, ignoring Kiwi and Layla’s confused stares. “You- you- I haven’t seen you in ages!” you exclaimed.

Jake sighed. He didn’t understand why you were crying like this for him, all he knew was that he’d never felt so awful. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whispered into your hair, pulling your shaking body closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

You leaned back to glare at Jake, your bottom lip jutting out in discontent. “Do you even know how much I missed you?”

Jake held your head in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the world. Mouth agape in surprise, he looked at you with sad eyes. “You… you did?”

Your eyebrows creased. “Of course I did!” Another sob rippled through your body, and Jake took you back in his arms, wrapping them around your shoulders and resting his cheek against your hair. 

“I missed you too.”

“Then why did you do this?” you asked, voice breaking.

“Because I didn’t want to get hurt,” Jake whispered back. “But I didn’t think I’d hurt you. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

You leaned back again, but this time, you looked confused rather than angry. His eyes were soft as they scanned your face and as he brushed strands of your hair back behind your ears. “Why would you get hurt?” you asked again, bringing your voice to the same volume as his.

Jake sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if in pain, before opening them again and boring them into yours. “I like you so, so much Y/N. So much so that I don’t know what to do with myself. But I know that you don’t feel the same way, and I was scared that by staying by your side, I’d just fall in love with you even more and get hurt in the end. So I pushed you away because I didn’t know what else to do, but I’m so sorry I- You’re crying again?”

Your fists grabbed at the front of Jake’s t-shirt as sobs raked through your body once more. It was official - Jake was the stupidest person you’d ever met. And you were in love with him.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I like you too, you idiot!” you yelled back. Your tears were probably staining his t-shirt, but you couldn’t care less. He liked you. Jake liked you.

You were too busy crying to see Jake’s eyes slowly widening in disbelief. “You what?!”

Gently, Jake pushed your shoulders back so he could look at you. Even with puffy eyes and a runny nose, you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Pretty like an angel that had graced the Earth with her presence. “You what?” he repeated, just to hear you say it again.

“I like you, Jake. I’m so in love with you it's actually pathetic,” you said with a chuckle, looking down out of shyness. But when you looked back up, Jake’s eyes were going back and forth between yours, the expression on his face like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard but desperately hoped it was true.

As you locked eyes, both of your faces lit up with grins. You burst into laughter together, finding each other’s hands and intertwining your fingers together. Then Jake brought you back into his arms, holding tightly, as if he was scared you might disappear any second. Kiwi and Layla had long walked away to give the two of you some needed privacy.

In each other’s arms, you rocked side to side gently and laughed for no reason other than the incredible fact your feelings were reciprocated. “You stink, you know,” you suddenly said in-between giggles. “You sweat while you ran after those kids.”

“I sweat? You mean I swote, right?” Jake asked a pause.

You leaned back to look at Jake. “Swote?” you echoed, and he nodded. Your umpteenth smile made your cheeks lift. “You have to be kidding-”

“I am,” Jake cut off, mirroring your smile. “I just wanted to make you laugh.”

You gasped and lightly punched his chest before letting your body fall against his again. “You’re so silly,” you said, sighing in bliss at the sound of his giggles.

Then all of a sudden, Jake pulled away and looked at you, almost frightened. “What about Sunghoon?” 

“What about him?” you asked back, confused by Jake’s question.

“I thought you- Didn’t you- you know…”

You tilted your head at Jake, a small grin spreading on your lips again. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you liked him…” Jake mumbled, looking away with a pout.

Before you could stop it, a noise of confusion left your throat. You looked at Jake like he was insane. “I can barely have a conversation with Sunghoon, what made you think I liked him?”

Jake pursed his lips and let a resigned puff of air out of his nose. “I, um- Remember when we mixed our backpacks up?” he asked and you nodded, smiling at the fun memory. “I may have, um, I may have read… your… diary,” he admitted, voice getting quieter with each word. He dared a glance at you - you looked horrified, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And you wrote that you liked Sunghoon,” he finished with a whisper.

It was silent for a few seconds, and Jake was bracing himself for a slap to the face or your screams, until you did the last thing Jake expected you to do - you laughed. You laughed so hard and for so long that he got scared you had gone insane and this was the first part of your mental breakdown before you murdered him in cold blood for having invaded your privacy. He would’ve deserved it, he thought.

“I don’t- oh my God, Jake, I don’t- I don’t like Sunghoon. I never really have, or not in the way you think, I can’t- oh my God,” you explained in between giggles, trying to catch your breath but starting to laugh again every time you managed to compose yourself. Jake tried to laugh along, but he was too confused to do so properly.

“You’re not mad?” Jake asked, eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“No,” you replied, shaking your head and the last giggles out of your throat. “You read it ages ago, and we didn’t even know each other back then, there’s no point in being mad now. It’s just funny - I know exactly why you think I liked Sunghoon, but I didn’t. Not really. And even if I did, those feelings are nothing compared to the ones I have for you now,” you said, beaming. A blush spread on Jake’s cheeks, and you could tell he was trying (and failing) to contain a proud grin.

You explained to Jake the ‘character’ thing you and your friends had going on and that Sunghoon (and hat guy) just happened to be one of them - you watched as Jake narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded, trying to understand this concept that was so foreign to him. 

“You know, it all makes a lot more sense now,” Jake said when you were explaining. “It would’ve been weird for you to like Sunghoon when I was right there.” He smirked down at you as you playfully rolled your eyes. 

“Oh my God!” you suddenly exclaimed, startling Jake in the process. Dramatic as always, he put a hand over his heart and exhaled loudly. “I have something for you. For us, actually.” You reached into your bag and got out the two accessories you’d made for you and Jake. “These are for us to put on our backpacks, so that we don’t confuse them again. They also match.”

Jake’s eyes were fixated on the string of beads as you placed into his palm. “I tried to give it to you over the week, but…” 

A teardrop fell into Jake’s palms, and when you looked at him, you realized he’d started crying. “Jake?” you cooed softly, and he sniffled, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

As a response, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and buried his face in your hair. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I promise you’ll never go a second without my undivided attention from now on,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, and you hummed happily.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

He leaned back, and you were relieved to find the familiar puppyish grin on his lips. You gazed into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and before he could stop himself, he grabbed your head in his hands and pressed a delicate kiss to your forehead. You raised your eyebrows in surprise, but when his face was back in front of yours, your eyes immediately drifted to his lips. They looked soft and plump and pink, and were utterly inviting. Every time you’d started daydreaming about kissing Jake, you’d stopped yourself, not wanting to over-indulge in your fantasies. But was this finally, really happening?

“Y/N?” Jake said quietly. You could swear his face was getting closer.

“Hm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

Your face broke out into a grin. Without warning, you pressed your lips against Jake’s - initially just for a peck, but as soon as you started pulling away, Jake chased after your lips and trapped them into a kiss, a proper one this time. You’d never done this before, so it was naturally somewhat clumsy, but you and Jake were so giddy with excitement that you couldn’t care less. So what if you were smiling so hard, your teeth clashed against his, or you kept bumping noses? You were kissing Jake Sim. 

The second time around, he let you pull away to catch your breath, and you wished you could photograph the sight in front of you - Jake with flushed cheeks, closed eyes and a serene smile on his face. He was so pretty, and now, he was all yours.

When he opens his eyes and finds you looking at him, his smile widens. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Yes,” you echoed, laughing. You pressed your lips to his cheek before burying your face in the crook of his neck.

He hugged you to him and the sweet sound of his giggles filled your ears and your heart. “My girl,” he whispered, before leaning his head back, face to the sky, and screaming it loud enough for the whole park to hear. You tried to shush him, but you couldn’t stop laughing yourself out of sheer excitement. Layla and Kiwi came running back to you, barking happily and trying to lick your faces. 

“I cried so much today, my eyes are gonna be puffy tomorrow morning,” you said between giggles. 

Jake pressed his lips to yours in a chaste kiss. “I’ll make sure you never cry again, Y/N,” he said, and he sounded so genuine, you almost wanted to cry again right then and there.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur - while you and Jake kissed, laughed, talked, and hugged, hours that felt like minutes passed you by. Jake kept on looking at the accessory you made him, poking fun at you for knowing his favorite color even though he’d never mentioned it.

“It was a lucky guess,” you grumbled. “Your room’s walls are that color,” you said, pointing to a particular dark blue bead.

“I love it,” he replied with a kiss to your forehead.

As always, he walks you home - and this time, you can take his hand without any hesitation. Your mom had come home from work while you and Jake were out, and you found her in the kitchen, prepping some veggies for dinner. 

As soon as Jake introduced himself, a flash of revelation struck her and she shot you a knowing smirk. “So you’re Jake,” she said, and the boy glanced at you with amused confusion. “That one over there has been badgering me about you these past few weeks.”

Apparently, you agreeing to be his girlfriend had already gone to his head, because instead of looking surprised at your mom’s words, he slowly turned to you with an arrogant smirk gracing his lips. “Has she?”

Your mom nodded slowly. “Oh, yes.” Then her expression slowly morphed into something else as she remembered your red, puffy eyes from the other evening when you’d told her about what was going on with Jake. She raised her kitchen knife and pointed it straight to him, eyes narrowed. “If you ever hurt my daughter again, I’m putting you in the lasagna, young man.”

Jake gulped, smirk completely wiped off of his face. You just watched in amusement. “I- I won’t,” he stuttered, eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

A wide grin reappeared on your mom’s face as she went back to cutting the vegetables. “Good!” 

Jake looked at you for some sort of explanation, but you simply shrugged. He’d just have to get used to your mom’s crazy. 

“You know, you’re just as handsome as she described,” your mom told Jake with a wink.

“Mom, please!” you exclaimed, cheeks burning with heat. You liked it better when she was threatening your boyfriend with a knife, but he was relieved by the new turn this conversation had taken.

“What else has she said?”

“Oh, you know, just your typical he’s so smart, he’s so cute, he’s so funny-”

“Okay, that’s it!” you cut in before your mom could spill more on you. You ignored Jake’s noises of complaint as you grabbed him by the shoulders and led him towards the door. “I think it’s time for you to go home, no?” 

“Y/N, come on!” Jake whined, giggling. 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner, Jake?” your mom offered, making you stop in your tracks. You stared wide-eyed at her but she just looked at Jake, wearing an inviting smile.

“Sure!” Jake beamed. “I just need to call my mom.”

“Oh, invite her along! I always make enough to feed an army, anyway.”

“Really?” Jake asked, incredulous. Since his brother had left for university, it had always been just he and his mom at the dinner table. The thought of sharing a meal with you and your mom filled his heart with warmth. 

“Yeah!”

Jake smiled giddily as he got his phone out. “Thanks, she’ll be stoked.”

Although you both wanted to help your mom, she urged you to stay outside with the dogs and enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day, insisting she didn’t need any help. So you and Jake spent some time throwing sticks for Kiwi and Layla and giggling at their cuteness. Kiwi quickly got exhausted and came to lie down at your feet, but Layla was tireless. “Your dog, your responsibility,” you said as you sat down next to Kiwi, rubbing his tummy and watching Jake throw the stick over and over again for Layla.

Jake was as relentless as Layla, and every time she ran after the stick, he ran to you and pressed a kiss to another part of your face, making you giggle every time. Once on your forehead, once on your nose, once on your cheek, then the other, and once on your lips.

Then his mom rang the bell, and as your mom opened the door for her, the oddest thing happened - they called out each other’s name and hugged as if they were old friends. You and Jake exchanged a confused look before turning your attention back to them.

“What a coincidence!”

“Right! Such a small world, I can’t believe you’re my daughter’s boyfriend’s mom.”

“Boyfriend? Gosh, has he finally asked her out? I was going crazy seeing him moping around in his room!”

“Mom!” Jake yelled, face already reddening as you burst into laughter.

You joined them inside the house and set the table while your mom finished up dinner. Jake’s mom had brought a bottle of red wine as a gift, so she poured two glasses for her and your mom, but you and Jake stuck to Sprite. 

Apparently, they knew each other from some yoga class they both went to every Sunday - you found out this was the woman your mom often went out for lunch or drinks with. They were so excited to meet each other like this that they talked most of the time, leaving you and Jake to eat your food quietly and giggling every time you made eye contact or your feet touched under the table. 

Just as you were about to take your last bite of lasagna, your phone pinged with a message. Curiously, so did Jake’s. Chaewon had sent a message into the group chat, asking to meet her at work when her shift was done because she was craving an Oreo milkshake.

chae bae y/n u better come ik ur not doing anything better tonight anyway

You scoffed. You were doing something better.

“Shit, today’s Friday! The boys are waiting for me at the diner, I completely forgot,” Jake exclaimed as he read the messages on his phone.

“Language, Jake,” his mom scolded.

“At the diner?” you repeated.

“Yeah, that one we went to last time. Why?” Jake asked when he noticed your surprised expression.

“That’s where Chaewon wants to meet.”

You both turned to your respective moms, silently asking for permission to leave the dinner table.

“Just go,” your mother said with a smile.

“I’ll take Layla home later,” Jake’s mom added.

You thanked them before rushing to get a bag and heading to the bus stop, hoping a bus would come by soon. Twenty minutes later, you were opening the doors of the diner and looking around for your friends, who were nowhere to be found. You were fishing your phone out of your pocket to call Chaewon when a familiar voice caught your and Jake’s attention.

“What are they doing together?” you heard Jay say, followed by loud shushes. You turned your head to find all five of your friends (plus Jaemin) crammed in a booth in the corner that was somewhat hidden from the rest of the restaurant. But they were trying so hard to be discreet that it made their presence even more obvious - they hid their faces with their hands as if that would make them disappear from your view. You and Jake shared a look before chuckling, shaking your head at your friends.

“Whatever, they’ve clearly found us,” Jay sighed and exited the booth, walking towards the two of you.

“Were you guys trying to get us to make up or something?” Jake asked with an amused smile.

“Yeah, we grouped up and planned this whole thing. It was a real team effort.”

“It might’ve worked better if you hadn’t all stayed here, you guys were so obvious,” you chided.

“Tell that to your friends over there! They insisted on watching it unfold,” Jay grumbled, and you looked behind him to see your friends frantically waving at you.

You switched to a bigger booth that could accommodate all seven of you, and as soon as you’d placed your orders, Yena practically pounced on you, demanding an explanation as to how the two of you were already made up.

You turned to look at Jake and smiled at him before answering. “It’s all thanks to Kiwi, really,” you told Yena.

“Kiwi? As in your dog Kiwi?” Chaewon asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Mh-hm.” In your peripheral, you noticed Jake tilting his head at you.

“You mean Layla, right?”

You imitated his head movement. “No, I mean Kiwi.”

“But Layla made me go to the park today. I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for her,” Jake insisted, giving you an are you being serious look that you mirrored.

“I wasn’t going to go outside at all but Kiwi kept bugging me to take him on a walk, that’s why I was in the park in the first place. It’s thanks to Kiwi,” you repeated.

“It’s thanks to Layla,” Jake retorted, playfully narrowing his eyes at you.

“Trouble in paradise,” Jaemin whispered, and Hyewon slapped his arm.

The whole table was silent as you and Jake stared each other down, waiting to see who would cave first. It was like everyone could breathe again when Jake’s face broke out into a grin and he rested his arm behind your shoulders. “Okay, it’s thanks to Kiwi,” he conceded, making you hum in satisfaction. You rested your head on his shoulder and ignored Yena’s groan of disgust at the PDA.

But Jake, as always, wasn’t letting you off the hook so easily. “And Layla.”

—

02.06.202X - 12:18

rodrigo hater y/n i can see you being gross from across the courtyard can u guys not feed each other ur still on school grounds and ur ruining my day have some decency

sweet hyewon you guys are super cute <3  jaemin and i only have the same lunch period once a week i miss him

rodrigo hater ugh wheres chaewon she’d have my back

you hyewon love u yena frigg off you’re not going to like this… i think she’s with sunghoon rodrigo hater WHAT

sweet hyewon omg hahahaha saw it coming cuuuuute

rodrigo hater i hate you all so much you’re all kicked out of my celibacy club

chae bae we weren’t part of it in the first place

rodrigo hater GO AWAY YOU TRAITOR

03.06.202X - 09:15

you jake wake up  wake up wake up please

jake ??? R U okay?

you kiwi keeps whining i think he wants to see layla come over?

jake . did u just wake me up before 10 am on a sunday morning for this

you i made pancakes?

jake i’m going back to sleep

you but i miss you :(

jake running

07.06.202X - 16:39

stink #1 hey

jake no

stink #1 wtf man

jake im busy

stink #1 smooching ur girl?

jake yeah stay mad bro

stink #1 where’s hoon

stink #2 he’s at ice skating practice with me <3 this is chaewon btw

jake AYO????

stink #1 HE GAVE YOU ACCESS TO HIS PHONE???

stink #2 hehehe bye losers

stink #1 oh my god jake this is huge

jake right… our little boy he’s grown so much

stink #1 i’m getting teary eyed anyway i wanted to say i think we should invite the girls to bro night more often it’s always fun with them

jake oh? if u wanna see yena just say so bro

stink #1 fuck u man

jake ur literally so obvious you get 100% more obnoxious when she’s around

stink #1 idc she laughs at my jokes

jake which is proof that there’s something wrong w her anyway i’ll ask my girl about it

stink #1 ew and thx ^^

09.06.202X - 17:03

jakey-poo y/nnnnnn y/n hellloooooo y/n y/n y/n baby :(((( where are u what r u doing i miss you hello y/n my baby darling angel pls answer me layla misses you

you jake sim

jakey-poo HIIIIII

you jay is a genius i’m anime pomodoroing the hell out of this essay it’s working so well i’m almost done with it already

jakey-poo don’t compliment another man ever again i’m going to cry

you but jay’s your friend

jakey-poo i’ll kill him if i have to

you gosh okay jay’s an idiot

jakey-poo hahaha he is ice cream after dinner ???

you duh

31.07.202X - 21:03

jakey-poo i’m waiting for you outside the theater baby we have a lot of talking to do. i can’t believe you kissed someone else in front of me

you jake baby it was just acting <3 you know you’re the only one i really kiss

jakey-poo i know i am so come here and kiss me quick you did so well and you were so pretty on stage and i love you so much  COME QUICK I WANNA KISS YOU

you i’m hurrying i promise but a lot of people are trying to talk to me :(

jakey-poo ofc they are you killed it my baby’s already famous <3

you hehe love you my jakey-poo

jakey-poo STOP IT WITH THAT

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. feedback and reblogs always appreciated!

[choism]

Rough Rider | j.wy

twink!Wooyoung x afab!Reader

Genre: Smut, fluff

Summary: In which you meet a hot twink at a club who has a slightly unhealthy obsession with the 2000's and y2k bimbocore.

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: reader is gn, twink wooyoung, top wooyoung, alcohol consumption, reader gets buzzed but not drunk, grinding, makeouts, cunnilingus, bathroom foreplay (pls dont do this), cumming untouched, fingering, wooyoung has pleasure piercings (tongue, nipple, dick), kind of public sex, buttplug usage, unprotected sex (no !), creampie, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, squirting, cum eating, wooyoung has a huge dick, lots of dirty talk, i went ham with the smut

A/N: IT'S FINALLY HERE! I know I've been teasing this fic for soooo long but after rewriting and editing a ton of times, I finally got it! It's not as long as I'd like it to be but eh, I still think it came out good. If you blame anybody for this ides blame @cheollipop for indulging in dms foe the past month, she is responsible for this rot! Tysm to @pyeonghongrie for beta reading for me mwah mwah and extra special thanks to @atzfilm for creating the banner! I hope you all enjoy and remember to leave feedback!

WOOYOUNG'S SHIRT COLLECTION (Includes both shirts mentioned in the fic!)

The night was brisk with the cold air of fall, leaves falling from the planted trees in the sidewalk. Cars zooming past on the busy street, traffic bustling given it’s nearly 11pm on a Friday night. You and your friends decided to go clubbing, despite the chillier than average weather. They had raved about this brand new queer inclusive club that had opened up nearby and how badly they wanted to go considering the rather lackluster amount of gay clubs in the city. Hearing about a new club piqued your interest, you aren’t one to party much, definitely a more ‘mope at the bar’ kind of person but hey, it’s new and fun and your friends seem to be excited, and that’s enough to get you to go.

The three of you are about to enter the club, excitement coursing through all of your veins.

“We are about to go in! Wanna split or group first?” Your friend says, teeth chattering. Your friends didn’t really dress for the weather, deciding to wear more skimpy, cute outfits despite your protests that they will catch a cold. Admittedly they were cute outfits, but you just couldn’t justify freezing your ass off in this weather. You had opted for something a bit more suitable, a sheer, lace long sleeve undershirt paired with a tight vest, black jeans ripped at the knees, the threads hanging on for dear life and some multi-colored doc martens for added comfort. It was practical, and cute, two of your main goals for today’s adventure. You weren’t really attempting to impress anyway– just wanted some fun with your friends.

“I think we should group at the bar and get a bit more buzzed, pre-game wasn’t enough for me and I need some alcohol to warm me.” Your other friend speaks up, rubbing both of their arms for added emphasis. You all collectively agreed and finally the bouncer let you in, your friend speaks up again, “After a round of shots maybe we can split? I want to go explore a bit, scope the grounds.” They giggle and bump your arm and you laugh in return.

Seated at the bar you order two rounds of shots, one for the buzz, second for fun. You each down your drinks and make faces of disgust, giggling at each other's quirky looks. Soon after, your two friends split off to do their own thing for a while and you decide to sit at the bar, doing a bit of scoping of your own. The crowd is bigger than you thought it would be, definitely more lively and scattered. It’s nice going to a new club and seeing fresh faces and especially being at a more open gay club, the diversity is refreshing. You order a Negroni to sip on while you people watch, not interested in exploring yet and not interested in getting fully drunk. Staying buzzed is how you relax, much to your friends dismay, and much to your dismay your usually the one dragging them home, unless they decide to go home with some stranger for the night.

Sipping the bitter drink you turn back to the crowd. You decide to look over for your friends and see who they’ve decided to unfortunately drag onto the dancefloor and grind into for the night, when your eyes land on probably the most gorgeous man you’ve seen your entire life. He was swaying his hips against a man significantly taller than him, pushing back against him seductively with his arms wrapped behind loosely around his neck. His eyes were shut and clearly enjoying his experience, but that wasn’t what caught your eye. He was beautiful, his long black hair wavy and swept lightly over his eyes, his smile curved mischievously. Looking further down to his outfit, his top cropped showing his pierced navel, and if you squint you can see his, maybe pierced, hardened nipples through the white material.

What really catches your attention are the words on the front of the tee– Rough Rider– in angry bold red cowboy font, a small cowboy hat adorning the large R. You choke a bit on your drink, laughing to yourself.

Really, you don’t expect any less from some twink in an open queer club, but it’s still amusing nonetheless. Once you get over your musings, you continue examining him. He’s wearing the lowest lowrise jeans, barely even covering his pelvis and accentuating the V of his hips and– oh my god, is that a thong? As if he can hear you he turns to face the stranger he was just filthily grinding against and there, you get your answer. A hot pink whale tale poked above his waistline. Curling over his hips sexily. It’s honestly hot and causes you to pick up your drink once again, taking a more hefty sip. Now you also have a full view of his full ass and god, you don’t think you’ve ever been this attracted to some stranger in a club. He’s clearly seductive on purpose, using his feminine wiles to make everyone in the club bow to him, and it’s fucking working.

As if sensing your stare, the man turns around again and shoos off the other guy, opting to feel himself alone on the dancefloor now. But instead of closing his eyes once again, he ends up looking in your direction, directly at you. You look to your left. You look to your right. God damnit. The bar is nearly empty on either side of you. You gulp and sip on your drink, a weak smile painting your lips as the seductive man saunters over, taking a seat next to you. He ignores you at first, ordering a cosmo for himself and watching the bartender make it intently. His drink is set in front of him and he sips it, eyes fluttering as he turns to you.

“So, what’s your name?” He asks, his light voice like heaven. Could this man be any more beautiful? 

“It’s y/n, and yours?” You sip again, fluttering your own lashes. It’s not like you dressed like a slob tonight, and you're fairly curious so you play along, wanting to see where this encounter goes. He smiles with his teeth, probably the most mischievous smile you’ve ever seen.

“Wooyoung, Jung Wooyoung.” Wooyoung crosses his legs and leans more into the bar. “So what brings you here? You don’t seem like the dancing type, and you’ve been at the bar this entire time.” Has he been watching you?

“My friends wanted to come because it’s a new club, and I wasn’t opposed.” Yes, seem disinterested, that’ll hook him. You mentally slap yourself. The stranger- no, Wooyoung giggles. He stirs the stick in his drink, swirling around the pink edible glitter he asked the bartender to put in specifically.

“Well, y/n, maybe instead of sitting here ogling strangers, why don’t you dance with me a bit?” He smirks and takes the stick into his teeth, nibbling at it. You nod your head in agreement and he swiftly hops from the bar, grabbing your hand and guiding you onto the dancefloor. You can hear his giggle as he leads you into the crowd and it’s endearing.

Instead of grinding on you however, as you had expected from watching him earlier, he spins you around so your back is flush to his chest. He doesn’t move his hips against you though, probably waiting for you to consent first by flirting more. Instead he places his hands on your hips and sways the both of you to the beat of the music. A few minutes of swaying and you're bored, you never really dance and you want to see where this could go, so you lightly press your ass back into his crotch to chase some sort of friction. You can hear his breath hitch for a second, before you feel him lean forward a bit, “How far do you want to take this, sweetheart.” Now it’s turn for your breath to hitch.

You fully press your ass into his now semi hard member, still moving your hips to the beat. “As far as you’ll let me.” You stutter over your own words a bit, and are honestly surprised by your own boldness. You can practically feel him smirk against your neck, his breath fanning of it .

“Whatever you’d like, I’m yours for the night.” He kisses along your neck and fully rolls his hips into your butt, his movements precise to pleasure you in the best way possible. His hips dip underneath your shirt and it feels like time stops, like you are the only two people in this entire club. If you could, you would let him take you right here, in front of everyone.

“B-bathroom, please, now.” You barely mutter out and he takes your hand, intertwining your fingers with his as he drags you to the club bathrooms.

Since it’s a new club, the bathroom is actually fairly clean and you breathe a sigh of relief. You’ll be damned if you have sex in an unhygienic place. Wooyoung shoves you into a stall and immediately presses his lips into yours, feverishly kissing you as if he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment. You return his kiss and slip your tongue into his mouth, he moans loudly and grins, sucking on your teeth.

He presses his now fully hardened crotch into your pelvis, grinding down slightly to chase a bit of friction, then he pulls away and you whimper. “God fuck your so hot, let me eat you out please.” He says desperately, as if it’s his life’s mission to give you head.

“Yes yes, please, yes god.” You start to unbutton your jeans and you immediately regret your decision to wear them, the tight material barely sliding down your legs. Wooyoung drops to his knees and kisses your bare thighs, stroking them lightly in anticipation. Your underwear is still on and he can see how soaked you are through the material, showing a damp spot over the front.

“So wet for me baby, wanna make you feel so good.” He places gentle kisses over your clothed pussy, sending shivers down your spine.

“Wooyoung, please.” Needing no more instruction, he pulls your underwear down with his teeth and your core is now exposed to the air. He licks against your thigh, then the other one, teasing you before he finally places open mouth kisses against your clit. Your hand flies to his thick head of hair, pulling a bit at the euphoria. He suckles and licks against your clit like he’s a master at it, bringing his thick fingers up to prod at your folds and tease your entrance. He doesn’t hesitate, slicking up one of his fingers with his spit and sliding it into your dripping hole with ease, curling it a bit to give you maximum pleasure. You moan, not caring for the other people in the bathroom. They are all probably fucking each other too.

You look down for the first time directly at the scene, taking in how his hair falls to the front of his face, his veiny arms flexing with each twist of his thick, long fingers. God, his fingers are like cock. You didn’t know a twink could have such nice hands but you’ll never doubt yourself ever again. He’s not fucking into you forcefully but opting you curl at your g spot, deriving the most pleasure out of you as possible. He moans against your clit. Was he getting off on this? He wasn’t touching himself, one of his hands in your pussy, the other on your thigh. God that’s hot.

As if the worst timing ever, you hear a ding from your phone, then another, then another. You don’t tell Wooyoung to stop, opting to quickly look at your notifications.

Friend 1: where is y/n? why aren’t they at the bar :((

Friend 2: dunno may b they r getting fucked lol

Friend 1: yea right

y/n: busy, not coming home

Friend 1: OHMYGOD OHMYGOD

Friend 2: Y/N ARE U GETTIN DICKED DOWN RN ????

Friend 1: ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME

You set your phone down, not even bothering to read the slurry of texts they sent after yours because you're too focused on your own pleasure at the moment. You look back down and Wooyoung seems wholly unbothered, also seemingly too focused on getting you off. Now that you're paying attention again, you can feel your orgasm building fast, and as if he can sense it too he adds in two more fingers, curling into your pussy harder and bringing you closer to your finish. You're gonna come, you can feel it, the hot band expanding and about to snap. Has it even been 15 minutes? When was the last time someone made you come this fast.

Soon, you feel it hit you, and it hits hard. Your thighs convulse on either side of Wooyoung’s head and you can feel the wetness rush through. Wooyoung lets out a slurry of really loud moans that vibrate through your core, overstimulating you a bit. You push his head away once you feel too much and he sits back onto his heels.

You look down to see a very visible wet spot on his jeans.

“Did you-”

“Yeah, you just tasted so fucking good, couldn’t help myself sweetheart.” 

Oh my god, he came untouched from eating you out. Fuck, that’s hot.

He smirks and stands back up, “Why don’t we get out of here so I can make you feel even better, hm?” Kind of dazed and shocked, you nod your head and get dressed again, and he pulls you out of the bathroom, then out of the club doors, calling an uber.

***

Soon the both of you arrive at his apartment, he fumbles with the keys a bit but he opens the door, and you are met with a sight.

His entire apartment is 2000s themed. This man isn’t a twink, he’s a bimbo, and somehow that’s hotter. The couch is a deep dark velvet leopard print material, there's fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, a pink lava lamp on a bookshelf in the living room. Random posters littering the walls. It was honestly cool and interesting. Wait. This is a one night stand. You can’t be interested, duh!

“Sorry my apartment is a bit trashy, do you want some water before we continue?” He says lightheartedly, you didn’t know he could be polite. It’s cute. You mumble yes and he tosses you a water bottle from his pink fridge, and you take note of the Bratz magnet holding his grocery list and you snicker to yourself. He leads you to his bedroom which is surprisingly a bit more tame, littered with figurines of all kinds. Well, the Monster High dolls neatly organized on the shelf aren't exactly tame, but it doesn’t bother you, so it’s fine. His sheets are cheetah print, silk, and as you lay on them you forget the outrageous pattern and focus on how nice they feel, how much better it would feel underneath you as Wooyoung fucks you. 

“It isn't overwhelming, is it? I know I kind of have an obsession…” Wooyoung trails off, clearly a bit nervous about the way his interests have overtaken his apartment. “A lot of my partners tend to be taken aback.” He frowns, setting his own bottle of water on the nightstand next to his bed. He sits next to you on his bed and it bounces a bit with the added weight.

“Why would that bother me? I think it’s cute, and these sheets are nice.” You wiggle your eyebrows suggestively and he fully laughs, a blush dusting his cheeks. You can see a look of contemplation sweep his expression briefly, before he grins and pins you to the bed.

“Hm enough talk, let me please you some more sweetheart.” He kisses from your chest to your neck, suckling lightly and most definitely leaving a small mark. “Are you clean?” He asks between kisses along your jaw, making his way to your mouth.

“Yes, are you?” He grins wildly and finally kisses harshly against your lips.

“I am darling, are you okay with me filling you up, nice and full.” His choice of words are so hot, it sends a wave of heat through you. He places his thigh in between yours, pressing into your core roughly. “You’d like that, me filling you up with my cum, fucking into you properly. I’d bet you look so pretty on my cock sweetheart, trembling beneath me.” You moan into his mouth as he presses his thigh harder, before pulling back to take off his shirt. You were right, he does have nipple piercings. And actually, maybe you were too buzzed at the time, but you're just now noticing the cool metal that slides against your tongue with each press of his own. Holy shit he has a tongue piercing too.

You wonder if he has any more.

You sit up to take off your clothes as well, discarding them to the side and leaving you in your underwear. You didn’t wear any sort of bralette or bra, never thinking you would get any action, so you're left in your panties. Wooyoung shimmies out of his clothes too, but he makes a show of taking off his jeans. Oh that’s right, the thong. He turns, his back facing you, as he slowly pulls them down, revealing the bright thong. It hugs his ass so nice and oh my god that’s a buttplug. You’ve literally never felt more wet in your entire life. He takes off his thong and turns his head, “Wanna take it out for me?” He asks innocently and you groan. You crawl to the edge of the bed and pull his hips to the edge, eliciting a squeal from the small man.

Making a show of it, you twist the plug a bit, slowly moving it in and out and he whimpers, before you pull it out fully. His hole gasps around the emptiness and he finally turns around, if you weren't shocked before, you're definitely shocked now. His cock is hard and leaking, for one it’s huge and thick and veiny, the pink tip dripping precum and beading onto, you guessed it, a cock piercing, a prince albert pierced through his thick head and collecting the drips of precum. You look up and he smirks, “Like what you see?” he climbs onto the bed and you scooch against the headboard.

“Fuck yes, god Wooyoung please just, please fuck me already.” He licks a stripe from your navel to your sternum, making a show of tasting you. Wooyoung reaches over to grab a bottle of lube conveniently already on top of the nightstand, drizzling some into his hands and warming it up before slicking up his cock. He spills some onto your pussy, the cold liquid sending shivers down your spine before warming up to the feeling as he spreads it around, rubbing over your clit a few times.

“‘m gonna make you feel so good baby, make you feel so full.” He whispers as he lines himself up with your entrance, slowly pushing inside and god you can feel every inch as he pushes, filling you to the brim, his cock twitches inside of you a few times and finally he bottoms out.

“So big…..fuck.” You whine, wrapping your arms around him and clawing at his back. His cock is so big it barely fits, it stings a bit but it feels so good.

“Gonna move now okay? Let me know if anything hurts.” He moves out and you gasp, the feeling of him dragging along your walls feels so good, so so good, you haven’t had sex this good in, well, ever. He pulls out about half way before pushing back in, going slow so you can adjust to his length. The lube and your slick helps immensely, and soon he picks up his pace a bit. Wooyoung licks and sucks at your neck, shoulders, collarbones, and chest, leaving plenty of lovemarks and hickeys. The pleasure is rushing through your body, between his mouth all over you, the metal of his piercing dragging along your skin, and his large cock– the metal of his dick gliding along your walls– you feel your orgasm approach fast.

“Fuck, fuck faster Youngie, please more wan’ more.” You cry, tears stinging your eyes. The nickname slips out but it does it’s job, and he fucks into you harder, raising your leg onto his should to get a better angle. Wooyoung fucks directly into your g spot, the piercing atop the head of his cock feels so delicious, so so full. “Youngie gonna come, so close please.” 

“Fuck baby, gonna come too, wanna fill you up so good with my cum.” He pants, his hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. Wooyoung brings a hand to your clit and rubs in a back and forth motion, bringing you to the edge, the band that mended earlier snapping once again as you cum all over his cock. He doesn’t stop, fucking you past your orgasm. The overstimulation is too much but at the same time, and you feel a rush, a wet heat builds alarmingly fast and then you feel a gushing wetness, like your peeing.

“Fucking shit, squirt all over my cock sweetheart, jesus.” 

“Woo- Wooyoung fuck huh feels good please!” While squirting Wooyoung finishes inside, as promised he fills you up with his cum and god it’s so much, never ending hot ropes filling you up and spilling from the sides onto the sheets as he fucks you through your second orgasm. The both of you are panting as you come down from your highs. Wooyoung slips out of you and you clench around nothing, his come spilling out a bit. He bends down and laps at his own cum quickly, trying not to overstimulate you any further, but trying to clean you up.

“Fuck y/n that was so good, that was the most I’ve ever cum.” He chuckles, getting up to grab a damp washcloth to clean you up, and lifting you out of bed and knot the small couch in his room so he can change the sheets. You help yourself to his drawers and ‘borrow’ a pair of boxers and a shirt. You don’t even look at the shirt, just grabbing some random one. Wooyoung comes back in with fresh sheets and looks at your shirt, drooping them on the floor to double over cackling.

“What? What's so funny.” You frown. Wooyoung points at your shirt and you look down, reading it upside down. “I heart submissive men?” You giggle, “Why do you have so many shirts like this?” You question, quirking a brow.

“Why, did you want one?” He laughs as he changes the sheets and plops onto the bed, patting the spot next to him. You curl up next to him, glad he isn’t kicking you out.

“What if I just kept this one, I like it, maybe I do like submissive men.” He snorts,

“Didn’t seem like that 10 minutes ago when you were underneath me, moaning my name.” You elbow his ribs and he fakes his pain, being dramatic.

“Well, maybe next time I want to be on top!” You huff and turn onto your back, staring at the ceiling. Huh, cute glow in the dark stars. Everything about him is so endearing, and draws you in.

He laughs and turns over next to you, propping an elbow underneath his head, “Who says there’s gonna be a next time?” He questions, genuinely curious. You turn over to him and place a gentle kiss on his lips,

“I do.”

© Choism 2023. do not repost or translate.

[michelleleewise]

Chocolate and promises

Pairing: Loki x female reader (eventually)

Warnings: mentions of domestic abuse, slight mention of blood, hitting, mentions of bruises and injuries (not graphic), toxic relationship, reader needs a hug, possessiveness, controlling behavior, self deprecating thoughts, minor dark themes, loki comforting reader

Summary: your friendship with Loki and grown over the last two years, until something threatened to take it away

A/n- this chapter will have two parts. A&B, it was too long for one part lol.... Graphics by: @harlequin-hangout 💚💚

Part one--part two: a-

You ran down the hall making your way to Loki's room, wanting him to be the first to know, You bounced on your feet knocking on the door hearing shuffling on the other side, smiling as the door opened revealing.. "oh..hey, is Loki in there?" You asked smiling at the man. "Whose asking?" He huffed crossing his arms. Another jealous one..you thought to yourself "y/n...best friend. And you are?" You asked holding your hand out watching him look down his nose at it "Jason.." he sneered keeping his arms crossed. "Well..Jason is Loki here?" You asked again when the door opened further revealing your Loki.

Hello my dear, how are you?" He asked stepping into the hall wrapping you in a hug. "Great! I have news, but your bodyguard here wouldn't let me pass...I must not be on the list." You said as Loki turned to the man. "Just because I shared my bed with you for the night does not give you liberty to tell my friend anything, am I clear?" He snapped seeing Jason's eyes widen "I'm sorry, it won't happen again." He said stepping back "your right, it will not. See that you are gone when I return." He said turning back to you "what was your news darling?" He asked guiding you down the hall to the kitchen.

"Oh yes! Allen asked me to move in with him!" You screeched as loki rounded the island grabbing the kettle "isn't it a bit soon y/n?" He asked seriously filling the kettle "we've been dating six months loki, dont be such a prude." You snarked sitting on the stool "I beg your pardon?" He feigned offense, one hand on his chest "I thought you would be happy for me." You said seriously "I am dear, I just don't want you to rush into anyrhing." He said smiling "some of us don't have as much time as you old man." You snarked "well if your just going to call me an old maid.." he started "no! No..I just...I'm happy." You said smiling as Loki walked around the island "if you are happy then I am." He said pulling you into a hug.

"And everything is going to be great! You'll still see me here, and don't even think your getting out of our movie nights." You smiled hearing him laugh "Well I should hope not, what else do I have to look forward to?" He asked grabbing two cups from the cabinet "Oh I don't know....jason." you smiled seeing him glare at you. "Sorry about that by the way." You said looking down "you did nothing wrong, he had no right to say anything. Besides...he wasn't that good anyway." He said shrugging making you laugh "oh..so no loss then?" You asked as he slid a cup to you "Darling, as long as I have you, I'll be fine." He smiled "ooo careful, your bordering on sentiment." You said sipping your tea. "Only for you my dear." He smiled.

Loki looked at his phone for the umpteenth time seeing no messages, sighing as he set it down. It was going on six months since you moved out of the tower and he felt like he was losing you more and more each day. He sat back in his chair looking out the window thinking about the last few months. He had noticed your behavior slowly start to change from your happy, bubbly self that he adored beyond reason, to a quiet reserved shell. The drastic change unsettled him, as well as your change in wardrobe. Where once you wore bright pastels, were replaced with blacks and greys with the occasional dark blue. Not to mention the only skin showing was from your neck up and your hands. It gave him an uneasy feeling.

"Friday...is y/n in the tower?" He called out to the ceiling "no Mr Laufeyson she is not." The AI responded making him sigh. He hated what he was about to do but for you he would walk through Helhiem barefoot. He got to his feet and made his way down to the labs. His mind raced with possible scenarios as the elevator traveled down. If that insignificant human hurt you he would end him in the most painful way he could imagine. He was pulled from his thoughts as the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open.

Stark!" He yelled across the lab making Tony jump "geeze Rudolph give a guy a heads up." He said holding his chest "I need to know where y/n is, I have not heard from her in quite some time." Loki said crossing his arms. "Oh, she put her notice in." Tony said sitting down "what does that mean?" Loki snapped staring at him "it means she quit, she isn't here anymore." Tony explained "what..why?" Loki asked taken aback "something about her boyfriend wanting her to stay home or something" Tony said running a hand through his hair "but I told her she's welcome back whenever she wants." Tony explained. "Very well, thank you stark." Loki said turning around. "You've seen it too...haven't you?" Tony called out making Loki stop "whatever you do...don't get caught." Tony said, loki nodded before heading back to his room, something was going on and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

You heard the doorbell ring, hurrying to the door before it woke Allen, opening it seeing Loki standing there "H..hey...what are you doing here?" You asked looking around "I have not heard from you, so i.." he started "I'm fine..really." you hurried fidgeting with the sleeve of your sweater. You looked up seeing him frown. "Sorry I haven't messaged, I've just been really busy." You said smiling. "That's quite alright dear, I was wondering since you missed movie night, Stark is hosting a small evening for us, and I wanted you to join me." He smiled watching you. "Oh...um I don't know." You trailed off looking down when Loki gently grabbed your hand.

"Please darling, i..I miss you." He said, looking up seeing his eyes soften. "How can I say no to you." You said seeing him smile "then I shall see you there?" He asked "yes, I'll be there." You agreed when Loki leaned forward wrapping his arms around you making you stiffen before he stepped back looking at you "I'll see you tonight " He smiled turning to leave as you slowly closed the door. "Your not going." You heard from behind you making you jump. You turned heading for the kitchen "have you been talking to him again?" Allen asked making you freeze "what did you tell him?" He continued stalking towards you. "You took my phone, how could i...." You were cut off by the back of Allen's hand hitting your cheek, knocking you to the floor, touching your lip seeing red on your fingers.

"Are you talking back?" He snarled looking down at you. "No, I just..." you trailed off as his fingers threaded through your hair pulling harshly "I think someone needs taught a lesson." He said, pulling you up dragging you towards the bedroom "Allen stop! Your hurting me!" You yelled as he opened the door pushing you inside. "You know what to do." He snarled, kicking the door shut. You walked towards the bed, closing your eyes hearing his belt buckle "I think twenty should do it? Don't you think?" He asked walking up behind you. You stayed silent knowing that was the best option.

You laid awake, wincing when you rolled to your side, your eye and cheek stinging. You waiting for Allen to doze off, listening as his breathing evened out you knew it was now or never. You slowly crept out of bed, padding to the closet to grab whatever clothes you could find in the dark before going to the door, looking back hearing him snore you slowly opened the door, slipping out. You walked to the living room quickly throwing on the t-shirt and sweatpants, grabbing your shoes as you tip toed to the door. Slowly opening it to freezing as it creaked, looking back to the bedroom door praying he hadn't heard. After a few minutes you carefully slipped out closing the door behind you. You released the breath you had been holding as you bent down slipping your shoes on, looking up and down the dark street you sighed, starting towards the tower.

You slunk down alleyways and backstreets until you saw the top of the tower, taking a quick look around before making a run for it. You knew Allen would be awake soon, If he wasn't already and he would definitely notice you missing. You heart raced as you made it to the end of the alley across from the tower, your eye throbbed and your lip burned where it was split but you were so close you could taste it. If you could just make it over there everything would be fine. You took a deep breath, looking up an down the street before bolting to the doors, pulling them as hard as you could but they wouldn't budge. "Shit!...Tony!...Loki!" You yelled as loud as you could knowing they couldn't hear you.

You heard a car up the street, hurrying behind the building trying to hide when the car stopped. "Y/n! I know your out here!" You heard Allen yell making you blood run cold. "Just come home and I'll forgive you." He said when you heard footsteps rounding the building. "You know I love you I just got upset, let's talk about it." He continued. You looked around seeing a dumpster against the building, quickly running over lifting yourself in "stop making this harder then it needs to be!" He yelled when you heard a door fly open "Al, hey...what are you doing here? You heard Tony's voice. "Oh hey Tony, y/n and I had a small disagreement and she left. I thought she might be here." You heard Allen say back making you scoff.

"Well I haven't seen her, but if I do..." he trailed off "what is going on?" You heard a deep voice "loki.." you whispered, feeling a tear run down your cheek "hey lokes, Al here lost y/n." Tony said. "What did you do to her?" You heard Loki ask sternly "that's none of your business." You heard Allen snap back. "She's my friend, so I'm making it my business!" You heard Loki yell before the scuffle of footsteps "ok, ok calm down, Al go home. I'll call you if I see her." Tony said when you heard footsteps retreat. "You will not call him!" You heard Loki yell "of course not! But I wanted him to leave." Tony said. You released the breath you were holding, shifting to lift the lid of the dumpster.

You peeked out seeing Loki holding his daggers and Tony with his blaster on "Hey guys...it's just me." You said quietly, lifting the lid higher "Oh my God..y/n?" Loki said, rushing over he lifted you out like you weighed nothing, setting you on your feet but not letting go "what were you doing in there?" He asked brushing trash off your clothes "he was right behind me, i..." you trailed off feeling your eyes burn. "Well he's gone now, let's get you inside." Tony said holding the door open. Loki gently grabbed your arm guiding you, keeping your head down so your hair would cover your face. Making it upstairs you walked into the common room seeing it empty.

"Ever the insomniacs huh?" You laughed "Well i was headed to bed, y/n your welcome to any room you like, just let me know." Tony said heading back to the elevator "ok, thank you Tony." You said looking down "anytime kid...Loki." Tony said stepping onto the elevator. "I should probably find a room." You said keeping your eyes down, not wanting him to see how weak you had been when you felt his fingers under your chin, slowly lifting your head up to look at him. His eyes meeting your one, traveling across your face when you felt his thumb lightly brush you puffy cheek "l..loki...i..." you tried, feeling a lump rise in your throat when he wrapped his arms around you, gently cradling your head to his chest

"I am sorry y/n, I should have come sooner." He whispered, pressing his cheek to your head "no, it wasn't your fault loki, it was.." you started when he suddenly pulled back "no, absolutely not. None of this was your fault." He said through gritted teeth "I will have his hands for touching you." He growled beginning to pull away "no loki...please. he's not worth it." You said grabbing his shirt "he does not deserve his pathetic existence." He snarled trying to pull free "Please, don't go...stay with me." You whispered making him stop and look at you, his eyes softening "very well, anything for you darling." He said relaxing. "Help me find a room?" You asked looking down the hall. "If you wish, you could stay in my room tonight, everything is already set up." Loki said smiling.

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose." You said fidgeting with your sweater. "You could never impose, come on let's get you settled." He said holding his arm out you looped yours around his as he guided you towards his room. "I'm not displacing Jason am i?" You asked smiling hearing him laugh "I would throw him out of the window for you dear." He said making you laugh "haven't you done that before?" You asked nudging him with your elbow "and I will again." He said looking over smiling at you. You made it to his room as he opened the door waving you in first. You looked around, smiling seeing nothing had changed.

"If you wish you can take a shower, there are towels In the bathroom, have you eaten?" Loki asked turning the lights on "um. No.." you said pulling on your sleeve "ok, I will make you something while you get cleaned up." He said walking into the small kitchen. "Loki.." you trailed off, his eyes meeting yours "Thank you, for everything." You smiled "I would burn the realm for you dear without hesitation." He smiled back. You walked to the bathroom closing the door with a soft click before pulling your sweater over your head, grimacing seeing the bruises littering your skin. Slowly running your fingers over them you finally let yourself feel as tears streamed down your cheeks.

Sinking to the floor you brought your knees to your chest quietly sobbing as the weight was lifted. Your life wasn't your own, it was Allen's. He had taken everything from you, and you were too weak to stop him. You thoughts spiraled when you heard a soft knock on the door "everything alright darling?" You heard Loki ask "yes, I'm ok." You called back wiping your face. "I have some sleep clothes for you when you are done, they are on the bed." He said "ok, thank you." You said standing up. Looking in the mirror at your puffy face you sighed "i want my life back." You said to yourself, walking over to the shower turning it on.

You came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel seeing Loki reading in the living room "I'll be right back" you said trying to duck into the bedroom, but your were sure he saw. You quickly dried off, slipping the clothes on he had left, smelling his cologne on the shirt making you sigh. You grabbed the towel throwing it in the basket seeing his cloak hanging by the door. Thoughtlessly reaching your hand out feeling the material "how is that so soft." You said grabbing it wrapping it around your shoulders seeing it engulphed you as you wrapped it around you. You walked into the living room seeing Loki set his book down "I see you've taken to claiming my things again." He laughed, standing up. "Oh i...um sorry I can put it back." You said starting to take it off when Loki grabbed it pulling it back over you "no, you are welcome to anything you wish darling." He smiled.

"Now, come eat." He said guiding you to the couch, he sat down patting the space between his legs holding up a hair brush "come darling, sit down." He said as you sat down on the floor between his knees, seeing he made you grilled cheese and soup. "T..thank you Loki." You said, feeling the lump return to your throat as he threaded his fingers through your hair. "You are welcome, now eat while I work my magic." He said making you smile. You took a few bites of your sandwich, feeling the brush glide through your hair, closing your eyes sighing "tilt your head Darling." He said as you shifted, laying your head on his thigh feeling his fingers seperate and twist your hair.

"Did you know, where I am from when we go in to battle and return victorious we place a braid in our to symbolize our strength and courage." You heard him say, your scalp tingling feeling his fingers gently glide through your hair "and you my dear have ridden through Hel and emerged triumphant." He said tying the end of the braid setting the brush down. "Darling.." he trailed off, looking down seeing your fast asleep. Running his fingers along the braid you shifted slightly, his cloak slipping down your shoulder revealing a bruise traveling around your neck, clenching his fist he took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as you nuzzled his leg making him smile.

He got up, cradling your head he lifted you up carrying you to the bedroom gently laying you down tucking his cloak around you. Slowly backing up he felt your fingers wrap around his wrist "loki...please.." you trailed off, eyes still closed "yes darling? Do you need something?" He asked watching you "stay.." you mumbled pulling on his arm "I don't know y/n.." he said when you scooted over pulling him with you "please.." you whispered. He sighed, flicking his wrist changed into a shirt and sweatpants he laid down next to you as you curled up to his side, nuzzling your face into his shoulder making him laugh. He ran his fingers through your hair hearing you sigh. "Sweet dreams, my little valkyrie." He smiled closing his eyes.

@vbecker10 @lokisgoodgirl @sinsandguilt @high-functioning-lokipath @mochie85 @slytherclaw1227 @jaidenhawke @budugu @xorpsbane @schizonephilim @lokidokieokie @holdmytesseract @your-taste-on-my-lips @lokixryss @asgardianprincess1050 @tallseaweed @aniar4wniak @sekaishell @lokispetblogs @loopsisloops @trojanaurora @lonadane @yelkmelk @stupidthoughtsinwriting @123forgottherest @silverfire475 @goblingirlsarah @commanding-officer @glitterylokislut @kkdvkyya @cueloki @daggers-and-mischief @sititran @witchyblue @verycollectivecreator @nixymarvelkins @chantsdemarins @shinraski @usagishira @nightshadelm @filthyhiddles @dukes2581 @assemblingavenger @lulubelle814 @irishhappiness @wolfsmom1 @luvlady-writes @lovingchoices14 @thomase1

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

‎‧₊˚✧{danny's masterlist}✧˚₊‧

ok it's finally here, i have been meaning to make a masterlist for so long and now it's happening. also note that this masterlist is only gonna be fandoms and characters i have already written for! you can send me a quick ask to see if i write for a particular fandom!

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Matthew Murdock

delicate - t. swift “is it cool that I said all that? / is it chill that you’re in my head?"' notes: my first ever fic! risque but not smutty

dress - t. swift "say my name and everything just stops/i dont want you like a best friend/only bought this dress so you could take it off." summary: ten months of yearning wears you and matt down to desperation. notes: smut, fem!reader (head warnings)

blank space - t. swift "so it's gonna be forever/or it's gonna go down in flames?/you can tell me when it's over/if the high was worth the pain" summary: your dad makes your life horrible. matt can make it worse. notes: angst, fem!reader, dead dove: do not eat (head warnings)

the lakes - t. swift "take me to the lakes/where all the poets went to die/i don't belong/but my beloved, neither do you." summary: your hearing aids run out of battery, and you're forced to struggle through a day of ringing ears and being deaf. matt helps, as he always does. notes: comfort, hoh!reader

moon song - p. bridgers "and if i could give you the moon/i would give you the moon/you are sick/ and you're married/and you might be dying/but you're holding me like water in your hands" summary: you hate that elektra and matt are getting married. will you convince him not to go through with it? can you? notes: angst, male!reader

born to die - l.d. rey "choose your last words, this is the last time/'cause you and i, we were born to die" summary: as matt murdock's wife, your life is rather full of surprises. getting kidnapped by wilson fisk takes the cake as the worst one. notes: angst, wife!reader, HEAD WARNINGS!

black friday - t. odell "i wanna go party/i wanna have fun/wanna be happy/could you show me how it's done?/ you look so pretty/pretty like the sun" summary: you have a list of things to do within a year of living in new york. matt helps you check everything off- oh, and you fall in love with him, too. it's not on the list, but you do it anyways. notes: fluff, fem!reader

false god - t. swift "but we might just get away with it/religion's in your lips/even if it's a false god/we'd still worship/we might just get away with it/the altar is my hips" summary: the night before your wedding, you and matt are starving. you want to order room service, matt wants to eat out. notes: smut, hoh!reader

we're in love - boygenius "will you still love me if it turns out i'm insane?/i know what you'll say/but it helps to hear you say it anyway." summary: when your past finally catches up to you, matt truly learns what 'in sickness and in health' means notes: angst, hurt/comfort, fem!reader

peace - taylor swift "the devils in the details/but you got a friend in me/would it be enough if i could never give you peace?" summary: tinnitus, buffalo chicken pizza, and objections. what more can you ask for from matt murdock? notes: fluff, hoh!reader

enter sandman - metallica "exit light/enter night/take my hand/we're off to never-never land" summary: you have a hard time sleeping. the devil has a few games in mind to tire you out. notes: SMUT!, fem!reader

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

Mortal Kombat 1

Johnathan Cage

you're the one - greta van fleet "you're the one i want/you're the one i need/you're the one i had/come on back to me" summary: you're johnny cage's assistant babysitter agent, and you're his opposite. and yet, he finds himself unapologetically into you. notes: fluff, gn!reader

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

The Last Of Us

Joel Miller

season of the witch - donavan "you've got to pick up every stich/oh no, must be the season of the witch" summary: you've lived in the small town of everbrook for a while now, and you thought nothing could shock you anymore. you're wrong. notes: fluff, witch!reader, monster hunter!joel

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

Five Nights At Freddy's

Mike Schmidt

lover, you should've come over - jeff buckley "my body turns and yearns/for a sleep that won't ever come/it's never over/my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder." summary: you get a tattoo, and it terrifies mike. mostly because he realizes how much you love him. notes: angst, gn!reader

•☽────✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧────☾•

Greta Van Fleet

Danny Wagner

fearless - taylor swift "run your hands through your hair/absentmindedly making me want you/and i don't know how it gets better than this/you take my hand and drag me head first, fearless" summary: daniel has been acting awfully weird lately. luckily, the kiszka brothers are on the case! notes: fluff, fem!reader

silver springs - fleetwood mac "i follow you down/till the sound of my voice will haunt you/you'll never get away from the sound/of the woman that loves you" summary: the three times daniel wants you, and the one time he gets you. notes: right person, wrong time trope, gn!reader

scott street - phoebe bridgers "do you feel ashamed/when you hear my name?" summary: he's your danny, even while putting the pieces back together. notes: hurt/comfort, gn!fiance!reader

Josh Kiszka

timeless - taylor swift "and sometimes there's no proof, you just know/you're always gonna be mine/we're gonna be/i'm gonna love you when our hair is turnin' gray" summary: you decide to be kind after being cheated on. it spirals out of control, thanks to josh kiszka. notes: fluff, fem!reader

Misc.

question..? - taylor swift "can i ask you a question?" summary: you ask your boys the burning question-- the question you don’t know if you can live without the answer to. notes: fluff, prefrences

bound for n.y.c. - greta van fleet summary: as tour manager, it's your job to get the boys to new york city, your home town. just don't fall in love with them, or anything. notes: fluff, an experimental fic where i explored poly dynamics lol i hate this now i don't think its very good but oh well

To Be Continued....

[gallierhouse]

asking for opinions about armand on a friday night is crazy because ive been terrorizing the people in my life about him for a month and now?? im being asked to talk about him?? anyway so i couldnt get thru s1 back in 2022 bc it felt like a kind of rehash of hannibal (character dynamics wise) in a different setting and kind of bored me. i really liked louis in the pilot and honestly would just watch a historical drama about a black pimp and his gens de couleur family in 1930s nola and that was cruelly ripped away from me and ill never forgive lestat. BUT THEN s2 arrived and i gave it another go and armand just rose out of this show as a character ive truly never seen before?? his identity-lessness, his role as a bad stage director, that eager black hole growing around 500 years of life, its so fascinating. the Moment for me with him is obviously the donor painting seeing the whitewashed beautiful pleading garish (when compared with the real man) painting just shifted something in my soul. and THEN getting hit with the arun/maitre stuff and them the entirity of ep5 directly after? ive literally memorized the loumand argument from listening to it so many times Television of All Time fr. i love failmarriages that rot and decay and are inescapable and loumands whole thing felt so good and fresh and so so tasty. those bitches do not like each other. they dont even like each other and yet theyve stayed together for 77 yrs in a relationship built on abuse, spite, and 24/7 power exchange bdsm and thats CRAZY ! plus ive never seen toxic yaoi executed so well with two nonwhite, darkskinned characters and as a south asian that lowkey made me happy lol. anyway i love armand so much he sucks so bad but i do feel deeply seen and deeply compelled by his little gremlin ass

I miss Louis’ New Orleans era too. I get why Lestat fell in love with him, though, if I saw this beautiful creature pull a knife on his own brother in the middle of the street I’d stop at nothing to pursue him. It’s alluring. I think that’s the part of Louis Lestat has always loved and loathed most, his fierce independence and survivor’s instinct and capacity for violence. I say loathed because Lestat’s always torn between wanting Louis like that and wanting Louis to be his little housewife. He’s stupid like that.

I thought his stage direction was nice. Were his plays “good”? No. But were his notes well thought out? Yes. His notes for the trial were good. So it’s the playwright’s fault the scripts were bad, actually.

Re: his identity, I really think he’s doing fine. Not everyone needs a laundry list of hobbies and characteristics to “have an identity.” It’s true that Armand molds himself into whatever shape that’s required of him and sometimes he makes erroneous assumptions about it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an identity. I think Armand doesn’t perceive himself as having an identity, and it’s obvious that he structures his life around whatever role he’s occupying, and that it’s all very fragmented and difficult for him to see the continuity in it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an identity. His priorities and thought process are fairly obvious to the viewer, so that’s his identity. You can see the structure of his mind. That’s him. Right there. We don’t have to wait for the “real” Armand, he’s already here.

I don’t remember when I started loving him, but it was before the painting. Maybe the hunt, or when he starts participating in the interview. The painting did change something for me, though, and so did the bench scene. But I liked him from the start of season two, really, from the moment I found out he’d essentially been stalking Louis the whole time in Paris. I like him most when he’s got a little bit of edge, but then again, I love him when he lies. I actually have a shirt with their argument printed on it. It’s so fucking funny.

Well, I think there was love, at least before Armand strangled it to death. I don’t know if Louis ever loved Armand again, not after the trial, but I think Armand loved Louis, although not in a way that would really be comprehensible as love to anyone else. Maybe only the way you love something you own. But I think he at least enjoyed the performance of it. Besides, all the best relationships are 24/7 BDSM built on abuse and spite. You don’t agree? I think it’s very romantic.

Yeah, it’s the first time I’ve seen something like that too. And it was the greatest thing ever and I’m really glad we got a South Asian lead, even if I’m unsatisfied with AMC’s promotional strategy. One million seasons of Armand and one million posters of his face splashed across all major cities around the world, please. He’s perfect! More people should see him. More people should be subjected to him.

[sucker4sixx]

Promises

Recycled from 2023!

Plot: unlike def leppard nikki makes promises he cannot keep

Warnings: mental breakdown, smut

Another friday night. You spent the day at home cooking a lovely meal for nikki, he was always disappearing to have a drink with his band but this time he promised to come home, it was different from all the other promises because this time he said he ment it.

Again.

You cooked you both a huge chilli, his favourite. And set it out by 7pm. He finished work at 5 but you didnt expect him to come home straight away, that was completely fine. Just aslong as he was home before nine.

8pm. You ass was getting sore from the uncomfortable wooden seat that you waited on and the candles where halfway done. Yeah sure you where nervous but its not exactly like hes done anything wrong, theres still time for him to arrive. You thanked the stars you put the plastic containers over the plates or otherwise they would be cold.

8:30. You where growing impatient, the tight black dress you wore starting to itch. No matter how much you checked your phone you wouldnt call him. Its his job to keep a promise. He is an adult.

8:50. Tears started growing in your eyes "ten minutes nikki. You got ten more minutes" you whispered to yourself.

8:51...

8:52...

8:53...

8:59 *ping* your phone buzzed

Contact name: "nikki"

"Hay baby foing to be a lirtle late back hime tonight, lobe you so much x"

That same message you got almost every second day, your eyes pouring of tears now.

"Fuck you."

Not exactly mature but your brain was racing and it was all you could muster up. Instead of doing what you would usually do, cry in your bed. You picked up the two, well made, plates of food and threw them on the ground.

Screaming all hell. The wine glasses filled with that extremely expensive wine he bought you? Smashed against the wall. You would crush the candles but they had already completely melted.

Your phone rang and rang as you lay on the kitchen floor covered in cold chilly, pieces of glass from the wine glasses leaving tiny scars on your arms. Anyone wouldve thought you where manic, but you thought this was too tame compared to how he really made you feel. You cried your eyes out as if you had no neighbours and you where in the planet completely alone, thats how you felt anyways.

10pm, you didnt move from your position, the melt down slowing but the crying becoming more dramatic.

"How could he do this to me? Im such a great girlfriend. I cook home made meals, i dont expect much of him" you though, only seeing red.

*click*

You look over to see nikki standing at the door way, looking at you like you where some sort of monster "babe? Ive been calling you like crazy! What have you done!" He scolded you, walking towards the 'crime scene' as few might describe it. "You have no fucking right to be scolding me!" You screamed back, standing up, feeling light headed from crying and screaming so much "every week, i slave in the kitchen over you" you pointed to the chilli on the ground "baby i promise ill come home tonight you just go cook a fucking meal that will take you fucking hours so that i can stand you up!" You mocked him. You walked towards him slowly, grabbing onto his shirt leaving it covered in chilli "ive fucking had it with you nikki" you said weakly, crying "i-" "dont talk to me right now" you walked upstairs, a trail of chilli staining the white carpet.

You ran a shower and locked the bathroom door so that he couldnt come in. The water pelting against you as you sat down made the feeling go away, the deep feeling of being stabbed in the back. After your long shower you got out and put on your pjs that thank god you remembered to take them in and dried your hair with the hairdryer that sat on the counter.

*knock knock*

You turned round to look at the door where the knocks came from. "Honey?" god he knew you loved when he called you that "what is it, nikki?" "Let me in please" he winced, almost like he was crying "i cant" he just huffed and sat against the door "i know i failed you multiple times" you sat against the door too feeling your eyes tear up "but god if you only knew how much i love you. God if only i could show you then youd know forever" "nikki ive heard it before. Your never going to change" you heard him crying softly "baby please" he pawed at the door, the alcohol becoming more evident. You reluctantly opened the door and he looked up at you like a lost kitten, propping himself up with one hand, eyes bright red and puffy. You both stayed still for a minute untill you got onto your knees, his gorgeous eyes scanning your face for your next move. Softly you kissed him and he brought his hand up to hold your face.

Without warning nikki slowly started backing you up onto the floor, his other hand behind your head. When you where fully on the ground, his hands traveled down to your pj pants to pull them down to your ankles while you undid his tight leather jeans. Soon you where both stripped as nikki sat inbetween your legs, kissing you on the neck making you whimper softly. He grabbed onto your hands tight "please dont leave me baby" he whispered, your hand coming up to tangle your fingers in his hair making him whimper too. He sat up, left arm resting by your head, legs spreading yours to give him more access and his right hand holding his dick. He dragged his tip through your folds painfully slow, knowing how to tease you right "nikki hurry up!" You laughed, you laughter was cut off by a gasp as he pushed into you. He moved down slowly since there was no foreplay, both groaning as he did so "fuck honey, your so tight"

You grabbed him into a tight hug as he finally got right into you, stopping to let your pussy adjust. "Are you okay baby?" You pulled him back in, making his dick go in further, you moan softly "i missed you" as a response nikki started moving out of you and moving back in before he was fully out. Your back arched on the cold tiles as nikkis pace quickened, still in a tight hug. He peppered your face with kisses making your face blush even more"im so sorry baby, im so sorry" he mumbled speeding up, your sweat mixing and the sound of his skin hitting yours becoming louder. You trailed your tongue up his neck making him moan and rest his forehead head on the cold tiles. You brought your hand down to play with your clit noticing that nikki was unintentionally getting more out of it than you, your other hand coming up to tug on his black scruffy hair.

Five minutes later he started thrusting sloppily and you felt the knot in your tummy tighten as he started to hit the g spot, you let out a loud moan and nikki figured you out, pushing in and out harder the exact way he did making you almost cry his name "baby...im going to cum" you winced feeling your vision blur and nikkj picked up his pace"let yourself go honey, cum around me" it was odd not hearing nikki swear and dirty talk but then again it was odd having soft sex and even odder having it on the bathroom floor. Your thighs shook as you felt the knot undo. Nikki moaning loudly when he felt you tighten around him "oh fuck baby, where should i cum" "on my chest" with that he pulled out fast and pumped himself a few times, making deep eye contact.

After a second or two his warm cum splatted on your tummy and rolled down your sides, he let out a struggled moan, hanging his head low.

None of you moved for a minute or two. Your back lay against the cold tiles gasping for air and nikki stayed between your legs gasping too. Both covered in sweat. Eventually he got some toilet paper and cleaned you both up, after, he picked you up carefully and carried you bridal style into the bedroom laying you down gently, no words spoken at all. "Are you alright darling?" He looked down at you "i just need you to be here then ill be alright" you felt your eyes tearing up, he got in next to you, staring at you sympathetically "ill be home tomorrow night i swear on it, ill try even harder" you couldnt help but frown, hearing the same speech again and again was getting tiring "yeah." "what did i say?"

"What you say every day" he stopped to think for a minute "ill try harder this time, ill tell mick. You know him he wont let me stay i swear, I want to be better for you baby i mean it" you felt your cheeks glow but stopped yourself from thinking of any change actually happening.

Saturday night. You spent the day at home cooking a lovely meal for nikki, he was always disappearing to have a drink with his band but this time he promised to come home, it was different from all the other promises because this time he said he ment it. Again.

You cooked you both a spaghetti, your favourite. And set it out by 7pm. He finished work at 5 but you didnt expect him to come home straight away, that was completely fine. Just aslong as he was home before nine.

8pm. You ass was getting sore from the uncomfortable wooden seat that you waited on and the candles where halfway done. Yeah sure you where nervous but its not exactly like hes done anything wrong, theres still time for him to arrive. You thanked the stars you put the plastic containers over the plates or otherwise they would be cold. No matter how much you checked your phone you wouldnt call him. Its his job to keep a promise. He is an adult.

8:30. Tears started growing in your eyes again *CLICK*

"hey baby im home!"...

[shurisbathwater]

𝖳𝖮𝖴𝖢𝖧 𝖬𝖤.✫

*𝖻𝗈𝗇𝗎𝗌 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝖿𝖾𝖾𝗅 𝗆𝖾

𝖼𝖺𝗇 𝖻𝖾 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽 𝖺𝗌 𝖺 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗇𝖽𝖺𝗅𝗈𝗇𝖾.*

𝖳𝗈𝗑𝗂𝖼!𝗌𝗁𝗎𝗋𝗂 𝗑 𝖻𝗅𝖺𝖼𝗄 𝖿𝖾𝗆! 𝖱𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋

𝗐 𝖺 𝗋 𝗇 𝗂 𝗇 𝗀 𝗌 ::

Cussing

𝗑 𝗍 𝗋 𝖺 𝗌 ::

Y/n is such a bad b plzzz I cant

𝗍 𝖺 𝗀 𝗌 ::

@shuriszn @letitias-fav @shurismainbxtch @dreamwallkers

𝖳𝖤𝖤𝖭𝖠𝖦𝖤 𝖥𝖤𝖵𝖤𝖱 ☆ 𝖣𝖱𝖠𝖪𝖤

𝖲𝖧𝖴𝖱𝖨 𝖶𝖠𝖲 𝖨𝖭 was in Wakanda's hottest nightclub--packed on a Friday night. Every single girl had eyes for her, though it had been about four months since you left, you lived rent free in her mind.

She sat on the lounge chairs in the special V.I.P section, each girl on one side of her, giggling and drinking.

She had touched and teased and even slept with other girls, but none of them could do it like you. She didn't feel anything without you.

They were probably here for free drinks anyway. She beckoned a server over and grabbed three shots, only to down them all in a mist of three seconds to get you out of her mind.

"Shit." She mumbled, the bitter taste hitting her tongue.

But how ironic, a red-haired girl walked into the club, though she was upstairs, she saw her through the huge crowd and in her black shades. Perfect for a distraction.

She wore a black tight fitted dress, her red hair wavy to perfection. Her hips swayed seductively as she walked.

Shuri licked her lips and pushed past the hoes trying to get her attention.

She made her way to the stairs and pushed past the huge crowd in the club. The strobe lights made it harder to see the mysterious girl- but she didn't care.

"Move." Shuri mumbled as she pushed through the crowd full of people trying to enjoy their night.

She saw her sitting on the bar stools, her gucci shoulder bag sitting on the side. "I'll have anything you have, I don't care." Her sweet voice spoke in a way that made you want her more.

"On me." Shuri said as she sat on the stool next to her, only to find out it was just the girl she wanted to see.

You.

"Shuri."

"Y/n..You look so.." she said as she licked her lips, staring you down.

"Youre staring."

"I'm aware." She smirked as she looked at you through her shades.

"I...you..."

"Dont finish that sentence. I'm not interested."

You took sips of your drink until you finished, and got up to go to the dance floor.

She was shocked that your aura and..whole demeanour had changed. You were more confident in a way, and that just made her want you more. . She wanted you. She wanted you now and she was going to get you no matter what.

After all, the princess always gets what she wants, right?

Shuri followed like the lost puppy she is.

The strobe lights shined on you and you alone as you swayed your hips to the music, the bass getting louder.

Out of body,

Thats just how I feel when I'm around you shawty.

Shuri sneakily comes up behind you and places her arms around your waist as you moved. Your body language became stiff. She began to whisper in your ear.

"I've been searching and searching, but nobody can do it like you ma."

"I want you. And I'm gonna have you. Riri Williams? Who the hell is that?" She breathed onto your skin, leaning down to kiss behind your ear where your tattoo is.

You say the word, im on the way

--This shit feels like teenage fever

"You had many chances Shuri, and you blew it."

There was barely any distance between the two of you, it was close enough to kiss, but of course you weren't going to do that.

"Every kiss." You leaned in closer, Shuris breaths getting heavier.

"Every touch." You wrap her arms around her shoulder, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

"--doesn't mean anything to me now. So I suggest you stop trying because its not going anywhere." You whisper as you look into her eyes once again.

"Goodbye, shuri."

You walk off of the dance floor to meet Riri. She watched you helplessly as Riri sat on the bar stool, looking at was supposed to be hers with love. You put Riri's hands in yours and leaned down to kiss her. "What was..that encounter about?" She asks as you break the kiss.

"Just had to remind Shuri who's shes talking to."

And thats when she realised you had really moved on. That wasn't part of the plan.

"I'm not fucking finished." she grumbled as she got off of the dance floor, your words still lingering in her mind.

"Every kiss"

"Every touch."

"--doesn't mean anything now."

A/N : i made this lil bonus for yall bc why not. Also double uploaddddd!! I also rlly wanted to finish this i was on a hiatus. Did I eat?

[dullahandyke]

Hang on actually before I hit post limit.pinned post so I can edit this and have my tumblr thoughts even tho I'm post limited

-

6.40PM

Yup okay hit the post limit <3 new followers please know this is normal

-

6.47PM

Anonymous asked: did they put bugs in him again

Yknow it's hard to tell but I think they might have. Guys we need to get riku dewormed again, this keeps happening to him :(

Anonymous asked: I forgot I had notifs turned on for your blog . Oopsie daisy

HAHAAAAAAAA ANON I CACKLED.... flattered u have urgent coverage on which large surface I'm thinking abt being slammed into at any given time but ig this is an object lesson in paying too much attention to me or something

-

8.06PM

Listening to a queer history podcast and it's so funny they're explaining to me what yuri is... I know ❤

-

8.14PM

on my laptop now bcos i gotta study for this stupid test..d. and then afterwards theres a powerpoint im actually rlly gonna enjoy presenting but i gotta facking put it together, augh

-

8.51PM

niche complaint but it sucks shit when animanga do the 'character suddenly becomes hot as part of a daydream/joke' gag and they dont go full bishie. give that man a delicate jawline NOW!!!

-

9.13PM

really happy with this sticker on my laptop. whenever im feeling down i just rememebr that this man got a lobotomy

[ID: a black frame meme featuring Hajime Hinata from Super Danganronpa 2 at the chapter 1 cabin party, smiling and holding a glass of orange juice. It is captioned, "This man, got a lobotomy.]

-

9.18PM

whew im a sneezy girl. the sneezing sneasler. wait thats a pokemon. ritalin on friday unless i have a heart murmur

-

9.37PM

@effervescentleaf asked:

-

9.39PM

i know im constantly posting abt my beard but its still weird as hell to consider that i have a beard that other people can see. when people look at me they see androgyny. what the fuck. i keep being drawn to people with beards and make-up/long hair/jewelry/whatever the fuck else as my favourite examples of gender non-conformity and like. IM that. im that with my stupid eyeliner. what the shit

also that reminds me im not gonna have time to do my eyeliner before my class test tomorrow :/ now i Could just go without it bcos i'll have a presentation later in the day that i should probably be serious for. but where is the fun in that. i will be wearing a hawaiian shirt instead of a t-shirt and thats all that can be expected of me <3

-

9.55PM

i probs need to eat a proper meal but the call of pop tarts it is so great.... sighhhh i got the bread out the freezer for soup so ill see if thats defrosted. and if not. squints. cup noodles. kinda want the cup noodles anyway but the soup is gonna expire soon so i gotta be fuckinnn responsible and nutritious or whatever

sidenote i kind of rlly enjoy having just one long ledger of posts all day. kind of fun

-

11.51PM

Ugh fuck my gay life I gotta make a PowerPoint... I'm tired I'm a bit sick i gotta sleeeep... wanted to make it fancy but ig that's fucked :(

-

12.01AM

I saw a video of a cat and now I miss bubbles :( bubblesssss... I'm going home tomorrow tho so I'll see her then :)

[redxixi]

pleasure cabin

werewolf AU 

content warning:  werewolf!dabi AU, NSFW thoughts, kidnapping, corupption, naked people?,shapeshifting dabi, a bit of reader gettin pyshically hurt (not absure)

A/N : this is my first time writing something this long or writing anything in particular i hope its good. you can expect a part 2 of this. my asks will be open sooo ask whatever you want. might be slight grammar error pls bear in mind english isnt my first language lol.

.

.

you wake up to the sound of a buzzing alarm clock causing youre head to pound. you roll over turning it off and stare at the ceiling trying to remain awake.

you were never really a moring person, you like nights better than the moring. At night its far more calming and peaceful than in the moring. Full moon nights were the best. youd often go out of the city, into the woods where you have a little cabin that youre grandparents used to own. about a couple miles away from the cabin, deeper into the woods, lies a beautiful lake where the moonlight reflects on the water and illuminates the surrounding area. youd often go there once a week to get away from the hustle and bustle of the college campus.

today was friday so that meant you could go there after class and you couldnt wait.

pulling youre sheets off of you and heading into the bathroom where you already miss the warmth of youre bed,you force youre self to take a cold bath since that always woke you up. after youre done with youre shower you look at the time.

"6:00"

realizing you will probaly be late for class you quickly throw on youre favorite oversized shirt and mom jeans along with a pair of boots that youre mother once owned.

"i wonder how mom is doing lately" you wonder while putting on the pair of boots

on youre way to class you bought a couple of donuts and a coffee. you never liked coffee but that was the only thing you could afford at the time and it was cheap so you forced your self to drink the bitter beverge and head to class.

"Y/N" you hear youre name so you turned around. "wait for meee, i missed youu so muchhh" you look at the brown haired girl."Uraraka you saw me yesterday stop being dramatic" you say sarcastically to youre best friend. Uraraka has been youre only friend since high school, the 2 of you were like sisters. Uraraka has always been a pretty girl that gets along with everyone. she the extroverted friend that adopted you, the introverted friend and since then you 2 have been through everything together.

"stopp being so meann anyway i realllyy need youre help" she says with a desperate face. "can we pleaseee switch partners for the math assigment. i really wanna do this with deku, im thinking of asking him out tonight so if you switched it would be a big help." she says while holding both youre hands.

"sure i dont mind switching, btw who is youre partner again?"

"i got paired with uhhh dabi" she says with a worried look on her face.

"oh dont worry its no big deal as long as hes okay with us switching then im fine"

"REALLY you mean it omg YOURE THE BEST thankk you soooo muchhhh" she says while bear hugging you

"nway i gotta get to class see ya BYE." she says while running away to her class.

"this isnt good...im not fine." you think about dabi and his face, how he haunts youre dreams, youre thoughts, youre life. you never realised when this happend. at the beginning of the semester when you heard that the devilishly handsome looking man would be in youre class you couldnt help but feel a bit exited. when you got to class that day and sat in the back like you always do to avoid people he came and sat right next to you.

"goodmoring angel" he said in a deep sexy voice. youre cheeks grew red

"goodmoring." you say back in a shaky voice. that nickname and deep voice did something to youre insides and youre core. that day you couldnt focus on anything the teacher said. instead you kept admiring him.

his hands.

his hands were adorned in beautiful skull like rings and he painted his nails black. his forearms had veins going all the way up and he had a beatiful snake tattoo on his forearm. "his hands are bigger than mine." you thought. you couldnt help but wonder how they would look like around youre neck, between youre thighs and in youre mouth. "he must have done that with alot of girls." you wonder.

since that day he sat next to you everyday becoming even more attractive, if that was even possible. you look forward to going to class now too and today isnt any diffrent. entering class you look around and take youre seat where you usually sit waiting for youre dark prince to show up. but he never did.

the entire day you hadnt seen dabi nor heard from him. you missed him and started to grow worried. durning luch you felt down cause he wasnt there. "where is he? is he hurt? sick? did and accident happen?" you frantically start to overthink. in search of awnsers you head over to Ochako's class. you remeber her saying dabi's brother, shoto sits in her class so you decide to go ask him about it. on youre way there you passed the headmasters office where you hear a fimiliar voice. taking a peak through the window you see dabi talking to the headmaster."whats he doing here?" you wisper to your self.

"i wont be able to come to school for atleast 2 weaks...somthing came up in my family and its urgent." 2 WEEKS?! he will be gone for 2 weeks you felt sad,confused, angry. why was he leaving for 2 weeks? what happend in his family? will he be alright? will he ever come back? you felt light headed so yu decided to head home. you felt torn on the inside and you had a splitting headache. arriving home you took a hot bath and layed in bed thinking about today and how you wouldnt be able to see dabi for the next 2 weeks. not to mention you got alot of unfinished homework and assigments left you didnt do. this was all too much. you decided to forget all about everything and go to the cabin where you could relax and do youre work in peace. you took out youre suitcase threw some clothes in and headed out.

when you arrived at the cabin it was already 5:00 it was about to get dark. you took out your suitcase and keys and headed inside the cabin. it was a neat looking,2 story tall cabin with a nice porch outside and beautiful garden. going inside you head upstairs to the master bedroom where you just threw your self on the bed. you where exausthed. you probably should have taken a bath but you didnt have the strenght. slowly you feel youre eyelids getting heavy and drifting into sleep.

you woke up around 4:00 am that night feeling better. you head downstairs to drink some water, since you couldnt sleep anymore. after that you headed to the upstairs balcony and started into the silent and mysterious woods. there was a bit of fog that was hanging on the trees making everything seem like it as from a horror movie. it was a full moon night. the moonlight illuminated the area making it seem like the abyss of the woods came to life,as if the woods where trying to warn you of the danger that will overcome you. you felt sticky and sweaty, in desperate need of a bath you make the oh so great decision to go swim in the lake. the woods may scare other people but you basically grew up here with youre mother and it felt like home. the fog,the silence,the howling wind, it seemed like all of it is your friend. and tonight those friends where telling you something. but you shook it off as your "imagination". taking your bathrobe and phone you head towards the lake, the fog was thick and howling wind was loud. after a while you reached the lake and its as beautiful as ever, the moonlight reflected its light on the clear water making it shine like diamonds and the fog made it seem like the sky came down just to great you.

but something was off and you could feel it, it was as if something were watching you, waiting for a moment to attack its prey,that prey being you. you felt a bit anxious so you stripped of your clothes, put on your towel and went in the lake. it was the perfect temperture, you found youreself getting lost in the oh so relaxing feeling of water against your skin. you soon forgot the anxious feeling, the only feeling you felt was peace, comfort and tranquility. nearby you in the woods were a pair of dark blue eyes stalking your every movement, maping out the curves of youre body, taking in the form of your supple looking breasts and the curves of your waist. "she looks like a goddess." the blue eyed man thought to himself and he was not lying. you looked so elegantly in the lake, the moonlight reflected of your body making you look a pure maiden of the gods. "its as if the moon god himself sent you down from heaven" the blue eyes man couldnt help but want to ravish you, you looked so innocent, so curruptible, so breakable. he would make you scream his name for hours, giving you all the pleasure you wanted, filling you to the core with his children, making you his. these thoughts dwelled in his mind as you swam so peacefully unbeknowing of the terror that was about to come upon you.

after a couple minutes of swimming you decided to get out. putting on your bathrobe and gathering all your stuff, you are ready to leave when you hear some tweaking in the woods next to you. its probably nothing you think trying not to panic but as you where about to turn around you hear growling. wolfs? cyotes? no thats impossible you lifed here all your life and you never heard of any wolfes or cyotes being here. emerging from the shadow was indead a wolf but not a regular wolf, this wolf was huge about 6 feet tall and it looked as big as a car. you froze unable to procces anything from fear, the blue eyed monstorous figure slowly stalked towards you and you didnt dare move. the figure stopped in its tracks and the both of you looked at eachother, it was strange, you felt as if you have know this figure, its sky blue eyes reminded you of a certain someone.

CRACK. you heared a loud cracking sound from behind the figure causing it to turn its head and as soon as it did that you ran. you didnt know where you where going but you just ran. you head footsteps from behind you and knew that thing was on your trails, you ran deeper into the woods into an area that you dont recognize. the trees seem bigger and its branches too, you kept getting scrached from its roots but the pain only seemed to push you into running faster. soon you run into a big root from one of the trees that you didnt see.

CRACK

the sound of your ankle breaking was heard vividly. you fell into the ground screaming, crying and didnt know where you are. as soon as you looked behind you there he was, the blue eyed figure, waching you closely, you were his prey, and he was your preditor. you couldnt help but cry. "please i dont wanna die" you say sobbing, you didnt want to die, you wanted to see your mom, graduate, you wanted to see dabi and if possible be his. as if the figure understood your plea it backed away a couple inches and howled loudly. the figure started to transform, it was getting smaller, its paws were shrinking and it started to look like...a human?

"my dearest Y/N dont be afraid i would never dream of hurting you. dont you recognize me my love?" you couldnt believe what you were seeing. the blue eyes monster was now a human and not just any human, it was dabi. youre dabi, the one you fell in love with. you felt dizzy you couldnt procces what was going on and the pain in your ankle made it worse. you cant think straight, your eyes closed you felt your consciousness slipping away from you, as your unconscious body is about to fall dabi leaps forward and catches you.

"oh my sweat angel sleep well once you wake up you will be all mine"

and you would,once you woke up your whole world would become upside down, your whole world would become his.

(A/N : part 2? maybe? probably?)

[richardgoranski]

musical recs!

more obscure ones first - the mad ones: non-linear story that takes place in the main characters head as, within the second it takes for her to turn her cars key, she relives the series of events that led to her deciding to run away from home instead of going to college ("i have to back inside" "go." "im supposed to be leaving for college today" "go!" "im the valedictorian, the valedictorian goes to college" "...oh, i know." "...but what if...?" "...what if... she doesn't? oh, twist.") mostly focuses on her relationships with her mother, her (ex) boyfriend and her best friend who is insanely funny but also super weird and fucked up. also cars. if youve heard "run away with me" its from this show! oh and critical context that i was not aware of when i first listened to it, its very important to know that "the proposal" is entirely within the protagonists head and does not literally happen. id highly recommend reading the script its so good - vanities: shows the friendship between three girls, first when theyre in high school, then when theyre in college, then when theyre adults and have drifted apart, its very fun but also kinda tragic and the music is super cute - head over heels (this one was on broadway but almost everyone i talk to about it isnt familiar so i consider it obscure): so theres this kingdom whose livelihood depends on some unexplained magic thing they call "the beat" and the king hears from a (notably nonbinary, played by peppermint, the first trans woman to originate a leading role on broadway) mysterious oracle that the kingdom will lose its beat when 4 vague prophecies come to pass, so the king tricks his family into going on a road trip so he can make sure the prophecies dont happen, but uh oh! his daughters unapproved shepherd boyfriend follows along in the disguise of a sexy amazon warrior and literally the entire family is hot for him/her in this disguise. it gets weirder. also its a jukebox musical with songs by the go-gos. also the dialogue is shakespearean. - love in hate nation: you probably know about this one because its a joe iconis show, but in case you dont- its the 60s and susannah, a black teenage girl with a ukulele she writes songs on, is sent to juvy (which is kind of unsubtly a metaphor for The State) where she meets a bunch of other fucked up teen girls, one in particular is like if james dean were a rock and roll chick and susannah falls head over heels for her. lauren marcus plays an evil fucked up lady in charge of the juvy and events occur!

less obscure: - 9 to 5 the musical: its 9 to 5! songs by dolly parton! i love it! - moulin rouge!: moulin rouge! -freaky friday the musical: so because every freaky friday has a different plot i actually have to synopsize a little bit- mom and daughter swap bodies as is expected, moms an uptight chef whos getting married to her new bf, daughters a slacker and a bit of a jerk but we like her anyway, the plot hinges on finding the second of a pair of magic hourglasses in a scavenger hunt run by the daughters crush, the actors playing the mom/daughter duo are like sooooo good you kind of forget that they dont literally swap bodies out of character

omg i actually saw head over heels on broadway😳!! i’ve actually never heard of vanities so i’ll have to check it out for sure!! and same with freaky friday.. i mean i know freaky friday of course but did not know there was a musical LOL. thank you so much for these and for the summaries / commentary as well!!!!!

[therealpontius]

I mean it

Plot: your boyfriend likes to lie alot more than goes noticed…

Warnings: breakdown/ screaming/ arguing/ crying/ smut/ p n v/ alcohol use

Another friday night. You spent the day at home cooking a lovely meal for ryan, he was always disappearing to have a drink with bam and novak but this time he promised to come home, it was different from all the other promises because this time he said he ment it. Again.

You cooked you both a huge chilli, his favourite. And set it out by 7pm. He finished work at 5 but you didnt expect him to come home straight away, that was completely fine. Just aslong as he was home before nine.

8pm. You ass was getting sore from the uncomfortable wooden seat that you waited on and the candles where halfway done. Yeah sure you where nervous but its not exactly like hes done anything wrong, theres still time for him to arrive. You thanked the stars you put the plastic containers over the plates or otherwise they would be cold.

8:30. You where growing impatient, the tight black dress you wore starting to itch. No matter how much you checked your phone you wouldnt call him. Its his job to keep a promise. He is an adult.

8:50. Tears started growing in your eyes "ten minutes ryan. You got ten more minutes" you whispered to yourself.

8:51...

8:52...

8:53...

8:59 *ping* your phone buzzed

Contact name: "ry"

"Hay baby foing to be a lirrtle late back hime tonight, lobe you so much x"

That same message you got almost every second day, your eyes pouring of tears now.

"Fuck you."

Not exactly mature but your brain was racing and it was all you could muster up. Instead of doing what you would usually do, cry in your bed. You picked up the two, well made, plates of food and threw them on the ground. Screaming all hell. The wine glasses filled with that extremely expensive wine he bought you? Smashed against the wall. You would crush the candles but they had already completely melted.

Your phone rang and rang as you lay on the kitchen floor covered in cold chilly, pieces of glass from the wine glasses leaving tiny scars on your arms. Anyone wouldve thought you where manic, but you thought this was too tame compared to how he really made you feel. You cried your eyes out as if you had no neighbours and you where in the planet completely alone, thats how you felt anyways.

10pm, you didnt move from your position, the melt down slowing but the crying becoming more dramatic. "How could he do this to me? Im such a great girlfriend. I cook home made meals, i dont expect much of him" you though, only seeing red.

*click*

You look over to see ryan standing at the door way, looking at you like you where some sort of monster "y/n? Ive been calling you like crazy! What have you done!" He scolded you, walking towards the 'crime scene' as few might describe it. "You have no fucking right to be scolding me!" You screamed back, standing up, feeling light headed from crying and screaming so much "every week, i slave in the kitchen over you" you pointed to the chilli on the ground "y/n baby i promise ill come home tonight you just go cook a fucking meal that will take you fucking hours so that i can stand you up!" You mocked him. You walked towards him slowly, grabbing onto his shirt leaving it covered in chilli "ive fucking had it with you ryan" you said weakly, crying "i-" "dont talk to me right now" you walked upstairs, a trail of chilli staining the white carpet.

You ran a shower and locked the bathroom door so that he couldnt come in. The water pelting against you as you sat down made the feeling go away, the deep feeling of being stabbed in the back. After your long shower you got out and put on your pjs that thank god you remembered to take them in and dried your hair with the hairdryer that sat on the counter.

*knock knock*

You turned round to look at the door where the knocks came from. "Honey?"god he knew you loved when he called you that "what is it, ryan?" "Let me in please" he winced, almost like he was crying "i cant" he just huffed and sat against the door "i know i failed you multiple times" you sat against the door too feeling your eyes tear up "but god if you only knew how much i love you. God if only i could show you then youd know forever" "ryan ive heard it before. Your never going to change" you heard him crying softly "baby please" he pawed at the door, the alcohol becoming more evident. You reluctantly opened the door and he looked up at you like a lost kitten, propping himself up with one hand, eyes bright red and puffy. You both stayed still for a minute untill you got onto your knees, his gorgeous eyes scanning your face for your next move. Softly you kissed him and he brought his hand up to hold your face.

Without warning ryan slowly started backing you up onto the floor, his other hand behind your head. When you where fully on the ground, his hands traveled down to your pj pants to pull them down to your ankles while you undid his tight blue jeans. Soon you where both stripped as ryan sat inbetween your legs, kissing you on the neck making you whimper softly. He grabbed onto your hands tight "please dont leave me baby" he whispered, your hand coming up to tangle your fingers in his hair making him whimper too. He sat up, left arm resting by your head, legs spreading yours to give him more access and his right hand holding his dick. He dragged his tip through your folds painfully slow, knowing how to tease you right "ryan hurry up!" You laughed, you laughter was cut off by a gasp as he pushed into you. He moved down slowly since there was no foreplay, both groaning as he did so "fuck honey, your so tight"

You grabbed him into a tight hug as he finally got right into you, stopping to let your pussy adjust. “Are you okay baby?” You pulled him back in, making his dick go in further, you moan softly “i missed you” as a response ryan started moving out of you and moving back in before he was fully out. Your back arched on the cold tiles as ryans pace quickened, still in a tight hug. He peppered your face with kisses making your face blush even more“im so sorry baby, im so sorry” he mumbled speeding up, your sweat mixing and the sound of his skin hitting yours becoming louder. You trailed your tongue up his neck making him moan and rest his forehead head on the cold tiles. You brought your hand down to play with your clit noticing that ryan was unintentionally getting more out of it than you, your other hand coming up to tug on his ginger scruffy hair.

Five minutes later he started thrusting sloppily and you felt the knot in your tummy tighten as he started to hit the g spot, you let out a loud moan and ryan figured you out, pushing in and out harder the exact way he did making you almost cry his name “baby…im going to cum” you winced feeling your vision blur and ryan picked up his pace“let yourself go honey, cum around me” it was odd not hearing ryan swear and dirty talk but then again it was odd having soft sex and even odder having it on the bathroom floor. Your thighs shook as you felt the knot undo, ryan moaning loudly when he felt you tighten around him “oh fuck baby, where should i cum” “on my chest” with that he pulled out fast and pumped himself a few times, making deep eye contact. After a second or two his warm cum splatted on your tummy and rolled down your sides, he let out a struggled moan, hanging his head low.

None of you moved for a minute or two. Your back lay against the cold tiles gasping for air and ryan stayed between your legs gasping too. Both covered in sweat. Eventually he got some toilet paper and cleaned you both up, after, he picked you up carefully and carried you bridal style into the bedroom laying you down gently, no words spoken at all. “Are you alright darling?” He looked down at you “i just need you to be here then ill be alright” you felt your eyes tearing up, he got in next to you, staring at you sympathetically “ill be home tomorrow night i swear on it, ill try even harder” you couldnt help but frown, hearing the same speech again and again was getting tiring “yeah..” “what did i say?” “What you say every day” he stopped to think for a minute “ill try harder this time, ill tell april. She wont let me stay i swear, I want to be better for you baby i mean it” you felt your cheeks glow but stopped yourself from thinking of any change actually happening.

~

Saturday night. You spent the day at home cooking a lovely meal for ryan, he was always disappearing to have a drink with bam and novak but this time he promised to come home, it was different from all the other promises because this time he said he ment it. Again.

You cooked you both a spaghetti , your favourite. And set it out by 7pm. He finished work at 5 but you didnt expect him to come home straight away, that was completely fine. Just aslong as he was home before nine.

8pm. You ass was getting sore from the uncomfortable wooden seat that you waited on and the candles where halfway done. Yeah sure you where nervous but its not exactly like hes done anything wrong, theres still time for him to arrive. You thanked the stars you put the plastic containers over the plates or otherwise they would be cold. No matter how much you checked your phone you wouldnt call him. Its his job to keep a promise. He is an adult.

8:30. Tears started growing in your eyes again *CLICK* “hey baby im home!”…