#anyway idk if i want to put more money in this old thing and flash mod it? i think the adapters are 50 bucks plus a card..

[smute]

ive started ripping cds again and i love it. at first it was bc of my recent audiophile hyperfixation and wanting to experiment with different quality levels but theres something about the process of picking and choosing and not having everything available instantly that makes me listen to music much more consciously idk. its like the difference between chugging a cup of drip coffee in the break room vs. like taking 15 minutes out of your day to make a cappuccino for breakfast. (btw the "process" is so much easier today, i rarely (if ever) have to name/rename tracks like. it even finds the right cover art and lyrics? all by itself? insane.) also, something ive been noticing for a while is that despite having access to a huge streaming library i tend to listen to the same 3 playlists and 5 albums over and over and over and over and.... idk i rarely try out new stuff anymore (see the 271 poasts i made about my constant back and forth between apple music and spotify). actually, ive recently been going entire DAYS without listening to music?? which is a) a terrifying development and b) likely another early warning sign of post-30 conservative brainrot, next to the avoidance strategies my subconscious now employs when it comes to trying out new stuff. and anyway, i think curating my music library a little more deliberately instead of relying on an algorithm that only ever sees me listening to 2015 pop songs is a fantastic idea regardless of my motivation. but yeah. carefully picking out a cd and bringing it home and putting it on my puter and finally listening to it without distractions is an experience that a discover weekly playlist simply cannot recreate

[bvidzsoo]

Your desire

⬦Sugar daddy!Seonghwa⬦

TW: suggestive

Word count: 3,9k

A/N: I hate the grip Ateez has on me, I have never ever written so many drabbles or whatever, I'm a long story kinda gal but here they are...torturing me. Anyways, Seonghwa went ahead and posted on IG today and when I saw him my mind instantly went omg that's some sugar daddy vibes, idk why, don't ask, thank you. Feedback is very much so appreciated! Enjoy!

            I really would have never imagined a year ago that I would be attending such an event like this one. It was even shocking to myself. But it looked like I was the only one who felt out of place as the people surrounding me seemed to know each other as they indulged in small talk and friendly chatter as if they were old friends catching up. The silky dress felt too tight against my skin and I couldn’t help but pull on it, hoping by some miracle that it would loosen up and wouldn’t wrap around my ribs as it was trying to suffocate me. The little golden purse I clutched in my hands tightly was expensive, too expensive, an item I could’ve never afforded by myself. I wasn’t into fancy things, so even if I could’ve afforded it at some point in life, I still wouldn’t have purchased it. The faces of people seemed to merge into one as I took a sip of my champagne, smiling politely when the older man next to me pointed his glass in my direction before taking a sip himself. I wished I were invisible, but the red dress and the red matching lips only placed me in the spotlight. And if it weren’t for my outfit, being by the side of Park Seonghwa, a successful and young CEO, definitely put me in the spotlight. I could feel the curious gazes of men and women alike, even the envy as some whispered as Seonghwa and I glided through the crowd, wanting to reach the bar. He said he needed something strong, perhaps some whiskey, as the people around us were giving him a headache. Currently, we were conversing with an elderly pair who were big names in the makeup industry, Choi San having joined us not too long ago. He was a rising CEO, almost always in the spotlight, as his magazine was becoming bigger and bigger, visited by more and more celebrities lately. He was Seonghwa’s biggest competitor, constantly challenging him publicly and often mentioning him when it had nothing to do with Seonghwa. Choi San liked to provoke people and taunt, living off of the hate and attention directed his way. I didn’t need to have a PhD in psychology to spot all these things, it was clear as day as he flashed his white teeth in the direction of the elderly pair, bragging about last month’s issue and how much money it made. The elderly pair didn’t seem too impressed, but they congratulated him before diverting their attention back onto Seonghwa, who was patiently waiting for San to stop his theatrics. If I wouldn’t have known Seonghwa so well, I would’ve never known he was irritated, his jaw barely clenched, grip just a little too tight on his glass of champagne. I quietly cleared my throat, getting his attention. His round eyes watched me, face devoid of any emotion, but the glimmer in his eyes assured me that he was feeling fine. I offered him a small smile and his cheeks twitched before he looked away, focusing back on the elderly pair. They were laughing about something I didn’t bother paying attention to, eyes falling on an already staring Choi San as I took another sip of my champagne. It almost made me choke; I couldn’t deny that he was a good-looking man, but I only had eyes for Seonghwa. At least for now.

“I’ve heard about the deal you made with an American firm,” San spoke up with a smirk, one eyebrow raised in Seonghwa’s direction, “Congratulations, breaking through on the American market isn’t something easy.”

Seonghwa chuckled, but it lacked humor, “San, when I made my breakthrough on the American market you were still running around, trying to find a headquarter for your company.”

The elderly pair laughed at the very harmless jab, but San’s smirk slightly faded, annoyed by Seonghwa’s comeback. He was probably right, but I wouldn’t know, I have never been interested in their world of business.

“You look gorgeous, Y/N.” The sudden shift of conversation made me tense as the eyes of four people fell on me, San’s a little hungrier than the rest. I forced a smile on my face, grip tightening on the glass of champagne. I wished the dress didn’t show as much cleavage as it did, and that my hair wasn’t in a low bun, unable to cover my shoulders, “Isn’t that necklace—”

“The latest Saint Laurent Teardrop Chain Links Necklace?” Seonghwa raised an eyebrow before taking a sip of his whiskey, “It is, San. And it’s custom made.”

San’s eyes fell back one me and I cleared my throat, feeling awkward, as the elderly lady eyed me a little bit suspiciously, I felt obliged to speak up, “It’s not something I usually wear, but Seonghwa insisted.”

“I think I have seen that dress on a magazine cover, not too long ago.” The elderly lady noted, eyes narrowed at me. I felt like they could tell how poor I actually was compared to them. It felt like a paper with the words ‘intruder’ was glued to my back and everyone was staring, pointing their fingers at me, or whispering vile things. I gulped, but before I could speak up, I felt an arm sneak around my shoulders, squeezing my arm lightly.

“You have seen it right, then, Mrs. Eom, it was on my magazine.” Seonghwa said with a smirk, sending me a wink which made me slightly blush. The day he saw it on the mannequin he sent me a picture and texted me that he’d get it for me. I refused, because it was truly too much and it also cost a lot, and also, I didn’t really have a fitting event where I would wear it to. So, I guess Seonghwa had to do something about that and that’s how I was dragged along to this fundraiser for disabled people. This wasn’t something which had been in the contract I have signed two months ago, but I didn’t dare bring it up when Seonghwa showed up to my apartment in the morning, holding two designer boxes and a designer paper bag. He said he didn’t have time to have breakfast with me, but he expected to see me in the evening, wearing everything he handed me. Before I could accept or refuse him, he was running off, phone at his ear as he spoke to someone important. I could only sigh and hope for a dinner in a very fancy restaurant, instead I found myself at a place infested with very important and insanely rich people. I was sure I even saw the prime minister like half an hour ago.

“Oh, delightful!” Mrs. Eom exclaimed, but no emotion came through her voice, eyes watching me almost accusingly. Why did an old hag have beef with me when she didn’t even know me? Before I could say something inappropriate, Seonghwa gave my shoulder another squeeze, swiftly taking his arm off my body. He seemed to know me well too, a glance at my face and he was able to tell what I was feeling and thinking. We hadn’t spent too much time together in these past two months, but it felt like we understood each other on a deeper level, beyond words even. I looked around as the orchestra started playing, the front of the room slightly clearing as people made place for those dancing. My eyes fell back onto Seonghwa, and as his eyes were trained somewhere else, I dared staring at him openly. He was an absolutely gorgeous man, breathtaking even. His black hair was slicked back with three strands framing the right side of his face, longer strands than the others poking around on his nape. His shoulders were relaxed yet his posture was straight and proper. His silky black shirt, with three buttons undone at the top, was tucked inside his black dress pants, an Yves Saint Laurent belt keeping his outfit together. The black velvet coat reached just bellow his thighs and his Yves Saint Laurent shoulder bag had been disregarded a while ago at the table we sat at. Despite my obvious staring, Seonghwa remained oblivious to it, however, San didn’t. His eyes were narrowed and lips pulled into a grin as we made eye contact. My cheeks burned and I quickly averted my eyes. Catching feelings wasn’t written into the contract, or what would happen if Seonghwa and I did fall for each other, a thing which was far from happening. I wasn’t in love with him, but I had eyes, and I found him extremely attractive. Whether he was dressed up or wore something casual, Seonghwa always looked spectacular. As a waiter passed with a tray in their hands, San quickly placed his empty glass on it and cleared his throat, interlacing his hands in front of himself.

“Miss Y/N, may I have the honor to dance with you first tonight?” San’s eyebrows were raised as he looked at me with a smirk and I stared at him without a reaction. Was I allowed to dance with him? Seonghwa was right next to me, he certainly wouldn’t like that. And I didn’t want to dance with him either, he sometimes made me feel very uncomfortable with his unnecessary comments and over the top compliments. But before anyone could interject, San took two steps towards me and then grabbed my left hand carefully, a smile erupting on his face, “Come.”

And before I could refuse him, he was pulling me after himself, making me hand my purse over to Seonghwa in a hurry as San lead the way to the dance floor. I felt awkward as curious eyes watched us, some people greeting San as we passed by. His grip turned firm and I could feel my palm get sweaty as I braced myself for what was to come. It couldn’t be that bad, besides, I would only dance with him for a short amount of time before I would excuse myself to the bathroom in hopes of getting away from him. San stopped in the center, facing me with a charming smile, sharp eyes watching me closely. I cleared my throat and placed my hand on his shoulder, allowing his hand on my lower back to pull me closer towards himself. I slightly tensed, but willed myself to relax in his arms. I didn’t quite enjoy dancing with Seonghwa’s competitor and biggest rival, especially not when I knew how much distaste Seonghwa had towards San.

“Fancy seeing you here tonight, Y/N,” San spoke up as he swayed us to the slow beat of the orchestra, “I didn’t think you’d attend such an event.”

San didn’t know what type of relationship was between Seonghwa and I, but he has seen us together quite often, always bugging Seonghwa whether I was his girlfriend or not. I most certainly wasn’t.

“It came as a surprise to me as well.” I admitted quietly, focusing on not stepping on San’s feet or on my own dress. The high heels were also slightly uncomfortable, I couldn’t help but be hyperaware of every move I made.

“So, Seonghwa didn’t plan on bringing you along, huh?” A satisfied smirk made it onto San’s face and I sighed, looking over his shoulder.

“He most certainly did since I’m here, don’t you think?” I couldn’t help but slightly snap, sending him the smallest glare as we made eye contact.

“Of course,” San chuckled, pulling his eyebrows up, “he wouldn’t want to leave behind his eye candy.”

His comment didn’t sit well with me, but I just bit the inside of my cheek and let it go, not wanting to give San the satisfaction of seeing me annoyed. He waited a few more seconds, probably thinking I was formulating my answer, but when the silence continued to stretch on, San chuckled to himself, looking amused as I dared take a glance at him.

“Everything you’re wearing tonight is quite expensive, isn’t it?” He continued, eyes running over my frame. It certainly felt uncomfortable as I could easily spot the lust in them as his eyes stayed a little too long on my exposed collarbones.

“Yes, they were expensive.” I hummed, looking over his shoulder when San glanced at my face.

“Bought them yourself?” His tone feigned innocence, but the smirk on his lips made it obvious that he was prodding and jabbing, “Didn’t think a university student could afford all of these things, to be honest.”

I gulped as my throat felt suddenly dry, heartrate picking up. Of course I couldn’t afford what I was wearing tonight, two months ago I could barely pay rent and the tuition fees for my course at the university. Seonghwa seemed like an angel in disguise at the time, however, lately I’ve been feeling guilty for accepting all of his money instead of trying to make some myself. In my defense, my itinerary was so packed I could barely find a place which would hire me even half norm, it was frustrating.

“Some of these were gifts.” I opted to answer, clearing my throat when San’s fingers slightly dug into my lower back, pulling me even closer to himself. Our bodies were almost touching, his musky scent invaded my nostrils. I certainly didn’t like it.

“You know,” He spoke up again, eyebrows furrowed, “Seonghwa is quite known for changing partners after like…half a year, I guess his standards are too high or something. Unless…”

My heartbeat paused for a second as I looked San in the eyes, “Unless, you’re not his girlfriend but his whore—”

“I think you’ve spent enough time with Y/N for a lifetime, Choi San.” The sudden harsh voice made me flinch as I carefully peeled myself away from San, heart beating like crazy as I turned my head. I was met with a furious looking Seonghwa, kind eyes pulled into slits as he glared San down, jaw clenched. I noticed the people around us glancing our way, and when my eyes fell on San his chest was puffed out and eyes challenging as he stared down the taller man.

“Seonghwa,” I whispered and curled my fingers around his bicep, getting his attention, “He’s not worth causing a scene, let it go.”

His eyes bore into mine as I heard San scoff at my words, but before he could open his annoying mouth and say something else, Seonghwa gripped the hand I had around his bicep and peeled it off, hand slipping to my wrist as he turned around and took off, steps hurried. I struggled to keep up with him in my high heels and even ran into someone, having to hastily apologize as Seonghwa wasn’t stopping anytime soon. I noticed the direction we were storming in, the restrooms. I gulped and realized Seonghwa was angry and needed time away from everyone, probably to give me a lecture and break off the contract we had. I could only hope he wouldn’t ask for the money back; I couldn’t remember if that was a clause or not in the contract. We rounded the corner and Seonghwa kicked the door of the restroom open with his foot, shoulders raising and falling rapidly as we entered the men’s restroom. A guy, who looked like security, was washing his hands, pausing when he noticed us.

“Sir—”

“Get out.” Seonghwa’s voice was low as he glared at the poor security guard, who seemed to be speechless for a few seconds.

“This is the men’s restroom—”

“And I said, get out.” Seonghwa emphasized his words again, staring daggers at the unbudging security guard, seemingly a glaring match breaking out between them. My nerves were rising, and I tapped my heel against the floor, biting my lower lip when nobody moved.

“Seonghwa.” I called out for him, but he didn’t look away from the security guard. However, the man broke his staring contest and looked at me, taken aback.

“Park Seonghwa?” He asked amazed and as I nodded, he quickly bowed his head and scurried out, making me let out a long sigh. My shoulders slouched forward as I pulled my hand out of Seonghwa’s, which made him whirl around and look at me with a sharp stare. I gulped and suddenly felt small underneath his eyes as his fury was directed at me only.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to dance with San, but I don’t think I had much of a chance,” I found myself explaining quickly, “And I didn’t want to cause a scene which would damage your reputation.”

Seonghwa took in a deep breath before releasing it, jaw clenching, “You’re not my whore, Y/N, you’re my sugar baby.”

I bit my lower lip, the term still making me feel slightly uncomfortable. I don’t think I could ever get used to it. I looked at the floor as Seonghwa sighed loudly again, realizing that he was angry at San and not me, having overheard his words.

“Yeah, I know.” I muttered as I saw Seonghwa’s polished shoes come into view as I was still looking down.

“You didn’t want to come tonight and I forced you into coming, I’m sorry.” His voice was soft and he looked guilty as I looked up at him, eyebrows furrowing.

“You didn’t force me, what are you talking about?” I asked confused.

“I saw how uncomfortable you were feeling all night.” He explained, playing with the rings on his fingers, “I also should’ve chosen a dress less revealing knowing your preferences, I’m sorry for that too—”

“Seonghwa, this dress is gorgeous!” I said with a chuckle as I pointed at it, hands shimmying down my hips, “Albeit a bit too revealing, and too expensive, but it’s beautiful and I appreciate your gesture, I hope you know that. Regardless of how I’ve been feeling tonight.”

Seonghwa gulped and took a step closer, eyes running over my frame before he looked back up into my eyes, “You are gorgeous, not the dress, Y/N. That’s just a piece of fabric.”

My cheeks flushed at his words and I averted my eyes shyly, feeling Seonghwa’s soft fingers grip my chin as he made me look at him again. He stepped even closer and his warmth wrapped around me, fruity scent enveloping me and making me shiver. Seonghwa certainly noticed as he studied my face for a reaction, but I was trying hard to contain the fluster I was feeling and my frantic heartbeat.

“Our contract is coming to an end next month,” Seonghwa whispered, as if he was afraid anyone would hear us, there was nobody but us inside the spacious and marble covered restroom, “Let’s extend it for another six months.”

“Six months?” I asked surprised, remembering well that Seonghwa’s contracts only lasted for three months. He hummed and nodded as he closed the gap between our bodies, tilting my head slightly up. It was rare that he stood so close and held me so boldly. We were rarely physical with each other, the occasional hand holding and kisses on the cheeks happened when I was feeling down or Seonghwa was feeling tired, and we made out a couple of times here and there when we were drunk. The contract made it clear that everything had to be consensual and if one person refused, it shouldn’t be brought up until they were ready to talk about it or made it obvious that they wanted it to happen. Seonghwa was a respectful and well-mannered man, there were few others like him, if none at all. My lips slightly parted as Seonghwa’s eyes fell on my lips and I closed my eyes when he started leaning in slowly, lips pressing against mine carefully, experimentally. It was so light that if I were to pull away, it felt like it never happened, but instead, I pressed myself firmly against him, Seonghwa’s hand coming to hold the side of my face. Our lips moved slowly against each other, testing, searching, savoring the other’s lips. My hands rested against his chest as his free hand went to hold my waist, slowly slipping to the place where San held onto earlier, my lower back. This time, goosebumps erupted on my skin and I slightly shuddered against Seonghwa as his long fingers dug into my skin, his lips picking up pace. I matched his feverish kisses, desperately wanting to tangle my fingers into the hair against his nape, but not wanting to mess up his hairstyle, so instead, I gripped the collar of his velvet coat, my other hand going around his shoulder. Seonghwa pulled me into himself totally, chests pressing together painfully as he sucked on my lower lip, carefully pressing his tongue against my mouth. I understood what he wanted and parted my lips for him, granting him access as he tilted my head up even more, hands clutching onto me firmly, his tongue carefully exploring my warm mouth. He tasted like the whiskey he had been drinking, and cherry. He loved cherry candies; he had probably eaten one not long before. My nose pushed against his cheek as our tongues tangled together, lapping at each other, a fire ignited inside me as my hand slipped up to his nape. Before I could second guess myself, I allowed my fingers to tangle into the short strands and I tugged on them, Seonghwa’s hand abruptly slipping down to my ass as he gave it a firm squeeze, making me gasp into his mouth. He took that momentum to suck on my tongue and suddenly my knees felt weak from the lack of air, but not just. I could devour him right here, but that wasn’t very lady like, nor too smart. Anyone could enter the restroom anytime. And despite the urgency in Seonghwa’s kiss, he sucked on my lower lip as he pulled back, pressing his forehead against mine. He was panting and I had to wipe the corner of my mouth as saliva threatened to drip down.

“Let’s do six months.” I rasped out, in the process of catching my breath. As I opened my eyes, I watched as Seonghwa’s teeth was attached to his plump lower lip, a deep hum leaving his throat as he agreed with my final answer.

“Good, I’ve still got a lot to offer to you.” He said as he opened his eyes and a smile instantly appeared on his lips. And then, his finger was rubbing underneath my lower lip and the corner of my mouth, chuckling as my own eyes fell onto Seonghwa’s unnaturally red lips. It made me blush as I allowed him to fix me up, hand giving my ass another squeeze, making me gasp as I jumped. The amused smile disappeared from his lips as a pleased smirk took its place.

“Let’s dance?” He asked and I nodded wordlessly, mesmerized by his voice and eyes as Seonghwa took a step back, hands falling from my body as I detached myself from him too, gulping nervously. He extended a hand and I placed my palm in his, fingers intertwining as he lead us towards the door.

I wouldn’t mind having Seonghwa as my sugar daddy for another six months, not if he would kiss me again and again like he kissed me tonight.

Masterlist (divider)

[fireflylitsky]

TELL ME ABOUT THE AKATSUKI 90S HEIST AU RIGHT MEOW :sakuguncat:

WELL OKAY IF YOU INSEEST

So, it's exactly what it sounds like XD Pain is putting together a very specific crew to pull off a massive heist (we are stealing from Danzo y'all). It's set in the 90's because I don't want to deal with accounting for modern security technology, I just want heist shenanigans. Also, the 90's are just fun.

The opening is just kind of an introduction of all the members and their roles for this particular job. (I watched a lot of heist things for this). Anyway, I'll share Kakuzu's bit for youuuu (SHOCKINGLY NOT KAKUHIDA--I am thinking KakuKonan for this but idk yet, I'll have to see how it plays out)

“Hidan…” the monstrously large man beside him growled, his voice even rougher than his disposition. It wasn’t scolding, it was warning. 

That was Kakuzu. The two were kind of a package deal. Where Kakuzu went, Hidan followed. You’d think given something like that, there was some fondness between them. 

Yeah, that wasn’t it.

Hidan left something to be desired for Kakuzu on most levels. He was always missing two things at any given point—a shirt and a fucking brain. Most levels though. Not all.

The guy could take a hit, take it and take it well. He had more plates and screws in his body than any human ought to. Too many nerve endings dulled over his years of brawling—being broken and getting ‘fixed’—that he couldn’t feel a fucking thing anymore. That kinda thing came in useful in a fight. 

Not to mention, he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. In fact, he didn’t mind getting them downright filthy. 

He liked it.

Turning faces into something resembling your grandma’s homemade jam was quite possibly the only thing he was good at, but damn, was he good at it.

His partner would do it if he had to, but with Hidan, well, Kakuzu never really had to. He was too old for that shit anyway. He wasn’t such a fossil that he’d lost his impressively overbearing physique, but muscle was easy to find. 

Expertise and experience? Now that was a scarcity in high demand. 

Most people didn’t stay in the game as long as Kakuzu had, they either died out or dipped out. So if you had your sights on a big enough mark, enough to pay for Kakuzu’s name-brand assistance, you knew you were getting the real deal.

And Kakuzu was all about a deal. That suitcase next to him? The one that looked like it might be filled with guns? Yeah, it wasn’t. If you opened it, you’d find the most meticulously clipped and organized display of coupons and vouchers you could possibly imagine. No bullshit.

No one dared say a word about it though. No one still alive, anyway.

Anything to save buck, which brings us right back to Hidan. That guy seemed plenty content to be paid in sex, violence and bbq spare ribs. A few loose, bloodied teeth scattered across the asphalt was like a fucking tip to him.

Most people were in ‘the life’ for the money. Hidan genuinely just enjoyed it. Fucking mental, that one.

Because of this, Kakuzu found their partnership to be quite lucrative, thus, Hidan became much more tolerable. Even so, “much more tolerable” was still barely passing for Hidan, who constantly rode the line in such a way that threatened to grate on Kakuzu’s deepest nerves. 

Maybe Hidan managed to grind him numb, because Kakuzu kept him around anyway.

Hidan glanced over at his partner, uncrossing just one of his arms to raise a one-fingered salute. Still tipping back on the old, rusted chair legs, he slipped for a brief second, caught himself, and flashed Kakuzu a cocky grin, still flipping him off.

Kakuzu wouldn’t appease Hidan with the reaction he craved. He stared for a moment, nonplussed, glancing at that idiotic tattoo wrapping around the moron’s neck. A thin dotted line and a small bit of text that said “cut here”. Kakuzu hated that damn thing, it was far too tempting.

He simply faced forward and stared at Pain once more. Hidan scoffed.

Things were going well so far.

“Right,” Pain said, thinking he ought to move things along. He could see Deidara was getting antsy.

[were-wolverine]

street kid dick au

aka some more stuff for a different au i have

ROBIN (dick grayson)

BLUEJAY (jason todd)

SPARROW (tim drake)

plot stuff below:

bruce never goes to the circus. he reads about the flying graysons in the paper a few days later, but by then dick is lost to the system. he’s put in what is essentially juvie, because social services was full, but escapes after a few days and hides out in Park Row.

a few families in Crime Alley let him stay with them in exchange for help with their kids/work/ etc. he never stays too long because he doesn't want to be a burden, but it keeps him going for a few years. eventually everyone in the area knows him and loves him like their own.

after a while of that, he ends up at Ma Gunn's School for Boys. he's a progidy- good at avoiding detection and light on his feet. he makes a great pickpocket for Ma Gunn

dick, in the meantime, is still working on his plan to go after tony zucco. the lessons help, though he only steals from people who are obviously well-off. he makes sure all the boys at the school get fed, and anonymously leaves money for the people nearby that are clearly struggling. he's a sort of Robin Hood (pun intended) figure in crime alley

anyway, flash forward a bit. dick has been working for Ma Gunn for almost a year, and has been looking out for the vulnerable people in his section of crime alley, and the other kids in Ma Gunn's "school"

enter one jason todd, 12 years old and dropped off by the Batman. him and dick become fast friends, and jason joins dick in his robin hood role

one day they realize Ma Gunn is doing far worse things than they thought (IDK SMTH BAD). jason convinces dick to let him contact batman and he agrees, but only after getting out as many kids as he can

the school is shut down, but they stay in the area and decide to protect Crime Alley themselves if batman won't do it. they don the masks more to protect their faces than to hide their identities. dick goes by Robin and jason goes by Bluejay

they become the vigilantes of Crime Alley, but they also help as their civilian selves by babysitting, helping out at stores/restaurants, teaching some basic self defense, etc.

batman eventually confronts them but they come to an agreement. tim, instead of fixating on and following batman, follows robin and bluejay. he realizes robin is dick grayson the same way as in canon but doesn't really have anything to do with the information (aka he doesn't figure out batman's identity)

dick and jason corner tim one night and are basically like "oh shit we gotta adopt this poor kid" when he explains himself. so they kiiiinda kidnap him (he agrees to go but like the cops don't know that). bruce definitely knows dick and jason's identities, and knows they took in tim but honestly agrees tim is better off with them than his absent parents (plus he knows he couldn’t stop them even if he tried)

(tim essentially goes missing according to the police, but it takes a while before anyone even notices he's gone- which just convinces them they did the right thing)

they have an actual apartment (it's not nice or big but it's comfortable and safe enough to live in) and a few safe houses across the Alley, and tim slowly becomes ingrained in the community they've built

(if anyone notices the new kid looks a lot like the missing Drake boy, they don't mention it)

dick and jason train tim and eventually clear him for patrol. he takes the name Sparrow.

jason never finds out about his bio mom (sheila haywood) but he is still taken by the joker and beaten with a crowbar (in gotham, not ethiopia). dick and tim find him just in time but he’s close to dying- even flatlines once- but they get him to the batcave & medical attention in time.

once jason is stable, dick goes back out on his own to confront the joker. since, in this au, dick was never raised by bruce, he’s a lot more morally grey. ergo, he kills the joker after jason almost dies by his hand.

jason and tim are honestly both like “good riddance” cuz, again, not raised by bruce. bruce himself is super pissed but dick (with tim’s help) gives a whole argument with a slideshow and statistics n everything. bruce cuts contact for a while but the three of them don’t give much of a shit, they still stop by the manor to see alfred and keep him company when bruce is out.

(alfred was in the army and worked for fucking MI5, the only thing he’s disappointed about is that dick, a child, had to kill the monster bruce refused to)

after dick kills the joker, jason stays in the manor with alfred for a while to recover. dick and tim visit as often as they can, even separately, and at any time of day. after a few months jason is able to go back to their apartment in crime alley, but is still benched until he’s fully healed. during that time he acts as their ‘man in the chair’ and learns a couple new languages to pass the time.

sidenote: babs has been working with bruce as batgirl for a few years (she starts at 16) when she is paralyzed by the joker and becomes oracle. the joker stuff with jason happens when she’s 19, but she’s doing a semester abroad for college at the time. she only meets the boys after she gets back, while jason is still at the manor recovering. jason and babs become good friends, and she teaches him how to hack/code/work with computers.

LATER

steph (14) comes in about a year later as spoiler, and pretty much forces bruce to make her his sidekick (babs gives her the batgirl mantle). dick (18), jason (16) and tim (13) meet her pretty much the same way they met babs- at the manor while visiting alfred.

tim and steph become best friends, as do babs and dick. jason is friends with both steph AND babs, but his brothers are his best friends. anyway, through those connections (bruce to the girls to the boys) they are introduced to the young hero teams. dick (18) and wally (19) become besties and so do jason (16) and roy (17).

[munohlow]

Ok real quick gonna propose an idea for that powerpuff girls reboot:

Don’t

But it if they really must (they shouldn’t!), there’s some better ways I think they could go about it, as well as what I’ve seen floating around (like don’t).

Pretty much all of these are assuming they’ll go the gritty reboot route because that’s pretty popular atm. A dark gritty take on anything is getting a bit tired, I think people are more open to weird and sincere stories, whether they’re adaptations or original. But recently a lot of comics (good comics!) 10+ years old are getting faithful adaptations (good adaptations!) and reviving that early/mid 2000’s taste for “what if Superman, but bastard?”

Aright one route they could go would be like that of Samurai Jack season 5 on Adult Swim. Written and animated by the original team and keeping to its truest nature while maturing it a bit along with the original fan base and maybe have an overarching plotline. The difference being that keeping it like the original ppg would create a stronger contrast with more mature and brutal violence, similar to Invincible’s friendly neighborhood Spider-man vibes and use of graphic violence.

This would be the second best way to adapt besides not doing it at all..... but that would also take more money and might not last beyond a season, ending with a solid conclusion like Samurai Jack did. Plus I’m semi doubtful the original team would be on board to drag out the girls’ story, especially like this.

Addressing the leaked script, a common comparison made was to the Netflix adaptation of The Umbrella Academy. Both are loose adaptations about child superhero siblings coming together after years of being apart, dealing with childhood trauma and their parent’s wrecklessness as adults.

And talking monkey.

Where Umbrella Academy made changes for the sake of depth and character development amidst the sci-fi madness, the CW Powerpuff Girls script attempted to be edgy and gross for the sake of being edgy and gross. They just want to be mature and topical while ignoring everything enjoyable about the original. It also just straight up sucks. I’m no writer but it seems like a lot of people who are writers are pretty pissed about paid professionals pushing this to the point of post-production. Well not post production, it was being filmed, but I enjoy alliteration. That’s also pretty far into development for something this bad, while it was rejected and is being reworked, it still got approved by enough people to shoot a pilot. If the leaked script itself isn’t a marketing ploy, I imagine that’s the real reason it was shut down. CW probably would’ve went through with it, otherwise. Maybe just keep it cancelled, yeah? Yeah.

This idea isn’t mine either but instead of the child star allegory, it could be more interesting to sort of see it carry on from where it left off, as the continued adventures of the powerpuff girls. Similar to the The Venture Bros. (a show I have not watched but know vaguely about, again this is someone else’s thought, I just think it sounds good) the girls can be grown up but start to realize they want to explore their lives and goals as individuals outside of heroism.

This at least appeals to me because you can keep the show’s status quo, keep the characters together, and have them grow into better more interesting characters as opposed to starting with a dour world where everyone is dead or just worse insufferable people. Instead, begin where audiences are comfortable and open to a new interpretation then let the characters realize there’s more to life and explore what kind of people they can become. (Or just don’t do it.)

Also just hear me out, but maybe, possibly? perhaps the professor was a good dad in the original cartoon? And let’s keep that? Let him remain a wholesome father figure? Is that okay? Don’t make this reboot? But if they do, keep him a nice loving parent?

Since this is the CW/ Warner bros who own DC comics, the best case scenario (cancelled) would be to make it more like the MANY SUPERHERO SHOWS THEY ALREADY MAKE. The good ones, anyway. I’m pretty sure the girls have crossed over with some DC characters in the cartoon already, why not make them canon DC characters? Maybe not. Could be cool! Better not, though. But they could still model the show after some of their better shows. Flash, Arrow, Supergirl are all not bad depending who you ask. I just finished Gotham, that was neat. Superman and Lois sounds like it’s pretty good so far. Powerpuff girls would better suit an earnest, straightforward, lighthearted take. Keep the humor, idk maybe up the violence to keep it dark and cool if that’s what people want (we don’t) and have it contrast with family drama like Invincible. All that to say that a darker, comical, well-written, DC-ish superhero thing they should look to for reference should be Doom Patrol.

This show fuckin litty. It’s like the better parts of Legends of Tommorow and Titans put together, as in it’s super weird and dumb but in a way that’s fun and moving. I recently rewatched season one as refresher before getting into season two and dammit if it didn’t get me in my feels amidst the quarantine. It’s about broken people working through their issues and pulling themselves together to help one another. Admittedly, it doesn’t have the best representation of those with disassociative identity disorder, as one character sometimes referred to as “Crazy” Jane has a different superpower with each of her alters. The character is very much a product of the 80’s but the writers of the show do their best to show that Jane respects the alters and their free will. But it also deals with topics of abuse, self-image, trauma, disabilities, homophobia, discrimination, and more in a way that gave me some catharsis while watching after all that’s been going on the past couple of years. Aside from all the comedy and action, it all flows together naturally, which is what you want in any series, not just your gritty superhero show. Doom Patrol is also batshit weird, every episode feels almost self contained/ freak-of-the-week while still following the main overarching plot, and Powerpuff Girls is very much like that, without the bigger plot or mature themes (as it should remain, let it be). Many will find it vaguely similar to The Umbrella Academy because GERARD WAY WAS INSPIRED BY DOOM PATROL TO WRITE THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. The og comics, not the show, but still.

Also let’s address this

The hell was this about?

Anyway Idk maybe I sound like “Old Man Yells at Cloud,” but this really isn’t the way to go. Don’t do it, CW. Leave it alone, CW. Just don’t do it. We don’t need more sequels and reboot cash grabs, there’s plenty of up and coming writers with good original ideas waiting for their shot. And even with all those new edgy shows and movies, some of which are actually not bad, not everything needs to be so grim. Like sure Teen Titans Go! is a goofy reboot but it’s still just a fun dumb cartoon, it’s not bad, I bet that other ppg show was also just fine. Maybe YOU are “Old Man Yells at Cloud.” But what do I know?

And all THAT to say you should go watch all those other things I mentioned and some old ppg episodes back to back, instead. Don’t fuckin do it, CW

[heyitsyn]

Keeping Up With Seijoh Pt. 10

a/n: based on this post uwu

okayokayokayyeyyy

LOOOK I LOVE THIS SCENE LIKE I CAN GO ON A RANT OF HOW IMPORTANT THIS SCENE IS LIKE SKDJSLDKKSSM

okay so

yuhhhhhh

the way this is set up is basically seijoh simping for you

also they have their own separate gc just for them bc they dont want you to see them just simping for you

even tho oiks ltr does that everyday

but hes not ready for that conversation

there was a few times that you were kinda curious as to what was in the chat

but they would click off and they would blush before diverting you to a different conversation

this might sound hella weird and creepy

idk bout yall but i think its cute that they take random pictures of you doing the sinplest things

this all started bc of one picture

from baby aki-kun

so basically you stayed behind with kunimi during monday to just study and you sat in front of him while sharing his desk

babie took a pic of you just studying and he sent it to the gc with no context

its a known fact that seijoh doesnt practice during mondays so they were all doing something out of school

but they were all missing you so seeing you with kunimi fueled jealousy in everyone

even kyo

oikawa blew up in the chat and was keyboard smashing

the others were just teasing him like hes lucky youre with him

but behind the screen, they were blushing and red and envious and AAAAA

thus spurred on some sort of competition

like they would send the chat pictures of you like 'hA TAKE THAT SHES WITH ME'

unbeknowst to you, these boys have folders of just cute candid pics of you

oikawas insta is filled of you and his snap is full of you in his story and his tiktok is full of screaming simp rants about you

the tiktok comments are all like, 

‘IS SHE YOUR GIRLFRIEND?!’

‘OIKAWA-SAN SHES ADORABLE’

‘BACK🤺OFF🤺OIKAWA🤺I🤺CALLED🤺DIBS🤺ON🤺HER🤺FIRST🤺‘

random ones like him doing a day in my life type of vids and you appearing and everyone can just see the small blush on his face and the bashful yet happy smile on his lips

its really adorable

but the real ones know that shes been appearing in his insta since day 1

moilk.bread.1

thats practically your account now 

welll,,,

its more of a fan account for you and a lot of people from aoba johsai follow that account since you dont have an official one yet so they all simp for you there

the pictures were all from everyone like the boyz group chat was a haven for your candids

you did think it was strange that the boys would constantly ask to take pictures with you and everyone was just trying to get a pic to have aesthetic couple pics w you

and they would put it as their wallpaper or lockscreen

IMAGINE THE BLUSH THEY WOULD GET WHEN COMPLETE STRANGERS WOULD ASK THEM IF THATS THEIR GIRLFRIEND

oooo i mentioned this in the post too that iwa and you went to the gym and you guys took a mirror pic

after, you didnt really like the gym bc its just hard yanno?

iwa went back and while he was setting up his weights and equipments, his gym buddy noticed his phone light up causing your picture to show up

'oh? is that your girlfriend, iwaizumi?'

duh he doesnt have a girlfriend so he was like 🤨 until he saw his phone

the lockscreen was blaringly bright and your 'couple pic' was showing with the notifications

totally not oikawa blowing up their group chat bc he was with you

ofc babie hajime got all flustered and he blushed before shaking his head

'n-no'

he mumbled and his buddy laughed before clapping his back

'well, you obviously like her so do somethinf about it before someone does'

dont you think he doesnt know that?

also with mattsun!

this mans works in a cute cafe that this old granny owns and this thought has been living in my head rent free

and he was working during the weekend at the cafe

there were other people there but granny loves him bc hes been working there sibce he was like 15 and she took care of him a lot

he was like a grandson

so while he was serving, this granny was manning the cashier and checking people out

issei's phone was there on the table behind the counter and it started glowing at the indication of the messages being received

'have a nice day-oh!'

she noticed it right there and she saw the picture on his lockscreen

you were probably being carried by him due to your levelness with his height and you were kissing his cheek while issei smiled brightly

that was a picture you both took during an outing at the mall and the sunset behind you was just perfect to take a picture in

poor granny was like 'oop dont look at the messages' so she turned it over to not go to his privacy

there again you were

it was a polaroid of you two and he was backhugging you at school

hint? 👀

askldfjlsdkf

she knew issei was a very handsome young man so there shouldnt have been a surprise that he would be dating someone

can we name this granny?

granny inko lol

okay so granny inko saw issei coming over to rest the serving board thing and she beckoned him over

mattsun nodded and leaned over the counter to see what she wanted only to be greeted with a flick to the forehead

‘oW what was that for?’

he whined while holding the spot

granny inko tutted disapprovingly before crossing her arms

‘youve been working all week this week when you could’ve taken time off to spend it with your pretty lady. is this how men are nowadays? didn’t i teach you right to treat women properly?’

duh baby mattsun was confused like O_O

‘wha?’

his dumb question made her grab the phone and place it on the counter in front of him

‘your girlfriend, child. women need attention constantly and as much as you want that money, is it worth losing that smile full of happiness?’

okay stop it granny im getting emotional

more like disagreeing bc that wouldnt put food on the table BUT ANYWAYS

baby issei was surprisingly embarassed and scratched his neck

‘um,, baa-chan,,,,, she’s not my girlfriend’

he flustered and gave her an awkward smile

granny inko shot him a confused look and tapped the phone

‘well, she looks like she is. and if not, better hurry your move, boy. girls that make men happy like that only comes as rare as a good scratch ticket’

LMAO 

i do not encourage gambling so please save your money kids

you know what

these boys do that just to actually feel like it

okay thats confusing so imma explain it in greater detail

whenever someone mistakes you as their girlfriend, it makes them feel like you are for that split second and its just an addicting feeling

its like what if you were their girlfriend?

i mean, youre already the whole team’s girlfriend but theyre greedy brats and just want you for themselves

ohohohohoh

kyo!!

kyo def has a selfie of you both with the doggie filter but it was actually you who took it while he was just staring at you in the background

that was his lockscreen for like the rest of his high school career

lol

anyways!!

he was actually in a fight and during it, his phone fell off to the ground and conveniently oikawa messaged causing it to light up

one of the thugs had their hands gripping kyo’s collar and was pushing him against the wall while the others were surrounding them

they saw the phone flash and kyo cursed at the terrible timing and he made a mental note on killing oikawa later

a guy picked it up and he smirked, seeing the pretty smile of a pretty girl

‘heh? whats this?’

kyotani pushed the guy who was holding him but other two surged towards him and held him tighter

their leader snatched the device and chuckled

‘oh. its that bitch from his school. what is it’

he snaps his fingers as he tries to remember before stopping

‘aha! l/n y/n!’

kyo growled

‘shut up!’

the guy grinned at him and tapped the phone against kyo’s chin

‘oh yea. i heard shes a cutie. most people here know her, kid. now we know shes connected to you and guess what. you cross us again, she’ll take your place as you are right now. orrrr, we can,,, use her as our pet. thats how she is in your team, right? so let us have a turn. maybe we can send you a pic, hm?’

yea no that wasnt happening

kyotani easily beat those people up after because even just saying that unleashes power he didnt know he had

‘bastard. youre lucky this is just a warning. you touch her and i will kill you’

he landed one last kick on the guy’s face before taking the phone and leaving

now he has to figure out how to hide the bruises

you fussed later and he didnt tell you the reason instead just saying they said something that made him angry

nah

you were a person he didnt want to disappoint and he knows how much it hurts you to see him in that state

that was one of the things he hated but loved at the same time

you were such an empath that you would treat him and wince as if you were the one feeling the pain instead of him

and it made him feel special

you were one of the few things he holds close and he would be damned if anything happened to you because of him

the group chat was actually just blowing up with more screaming and the third years yelling at each other with the first years just casually reading the texts

they were used to the arguments within the team and you would remain so naive with the whole thing

kunimi is the type to keep silent and he didnt really care about anyone getting angry if you were spending time with him

but he does get annoyed if you were with kindaichi because you three were a package lol

like when kindaichi and you were at the arcade, this kid walked all the way there just because he didnt want kindaichi to hog you to himself

duh you thought this was adorable and endearing bc they wanted to hang out w you

no LUV theyre greedy brats who gets jealous over yOU

OH

so like i mentioned before that you and makki would walk over to the bakery and you guys would buy food there and such

and its also canon in here that makki only shares his food with you and no one else lol

why?

because when you eat the puffs, you put one in each cheek and it makes you look so adorable like a squirrel

sorry but squirrels are so cute like AAAAA

makki takes so many pictures of you and a lot are surprise shots where your eyes would be wide with cheeks full of food

aaaaa so cute

like you and makki sat down on a bench in the park across the bakery and you excitedly dug in to your own treat

makki chuckled at your excitement but he placed his hand on you arm to stop you

‘y/n-chan. say aaa’

you lit up and let him put the puff in your mouth and thought he was done but was surprised when there were two

you happily chewed it and went back to looking at your treats

but makki interrupted you again by calling you out

‘princess~’

the nickname made your eyes widen with red painting your cheeks and the shutter of the camera made you realize what he did

‘makki-senpai!’

you whined and he laughed

makki had a lovestruck smile on his face and he wiped the bit of creme on the corner of your lip

‘gotta take care of my princess~’

STOPPPPP MY HEART? GONE MY SOUL? GONE HOTEL? TRIVAGO

OH MY GOD IM IN SUCH A MAKKI AND MATTSUN AND IWA AND OIKAWA AND THIRD YEARS IN GENERAL BRAIN ROT PLEASE HELP

but we gotta give love to the second years :’)

ive mentioned that watari is the only person to ever go into your house right?

well, he comes over to cook and such so you guys spend time making food for the team 

watari takes this opportunity to take pictures of you cooking and the group chat cries bc its so domestic and they all start having the same thoughts

they really said seijoh braincells

it was like seeing a glimpse of a possible future for them

you, wearing an apron, cooking on the stove with your hair thrown in whatever with baggy clothes

gosh

thats like you someday being their wife and waking up one morning to see you there cooking in the kitchen

oikawa swears he had a dream that night because of that picture and he continuously thanks watari for YEARS because of that picture

okay are you curious about the dream?

yuhhh

oikawa woke up in an unfamiliar bed in a foreign room 

he felt his bones crack when he stretched and his hand extended out to a side that was still quite warm

hm

somebody must be sleeping next to him

then he stood up, catching his reflection in the mirror in front of the bed

;)

why would there be a mirror there hmmmm????

ANYWAYS

he noticed he had a bigger build and his hair was longer

then came the itch of the facial hair that he swore wasnt there a minute ago

this guy even checked out his butt and to his surprise, wow

obviously he was confused and a part of him thought this was the future

tooru walked to the door to go into the hallway and concluded, yep, this was not his house

then he heard music being played somewhere and a mixture of voices coming from a room

sounded like a woman and children

he stops at the top of the stairs, suddenly hit of the thought that this voice was so familiar

‘hm?’

tooru walked downstairs and stopped when down the hallway in front of the steps led to the kitchen where the voices seemed to lead to

‘mama! mama! mama! toast! i wan toast!’

‘in a bit, darling. just let me finish flipping the pancake’

the song was lo-fi with the volume being turned low enough to hear the voices fine

tooru wandered down the hallway and he stopped, finally seeing the owners of those voices

there was a handsome little boy sitting on the chair by the island and his brown hair was a mess of wild curls

there was a woman with h/c hair swaying to the tune and a beautiful little girl curled up in her arms while sitting on her hip

‘hey’

oikawa spoke out and caught everyone’s attention

‘papa’s awake!’

‘pa!’

‘hello tooru’

tooru froze

that was you

he knows it’s you

‘y/n-chan’

he whispered and you looked back at him from the pan

‘yes? if youre looking for coffee, we ran out apparently’

that was not what he was talking about

he hastily walked over to the boy and he blinked rapidly

‘you look like me’

he mumbled and the child grinned

‘eung! papa  and yozo look the same! mama and nana say so!’

yozo?

feeling like all the attention was on him, the little girl whined and her hands made grabby motions to him

‘pa pa’

she whined and tooru just felt something in him that screamed to hold the kid

you shushed the little girl

‘dont worry, looney loon. papa’s right there’

loon?

tooru stayed frozen at his spot and you raised an eyebrow at him

‘tooru? luna wants you’

oh

luna

that snapped him out of his trance and he held the little girl in his arms where she smiled at him and then he felt tears welling up in his eyes

then he woke up

okay sorry that was a long dream

so this dragged on for so long already okay

this was only meant to be small but aaaaa i couldnt help itt!!!!

but anyways!

the boys are just simps for you and theyre creeps that take pictures of you and they think about you all the time pls accept their love

also a mild continuation of the dream:

oikawa was holding luna and she was happily laying there when another figure emerged from the hallway

‘iwa-chan?’

he asked, surprised

what was he doing here?

iwa heard his name and grunted before going to a beeline for you

you smiled at him and he leaned in to give you a kiss to which oikawa froze in

iwa noticed his best friend holding his daughter and luna saw her father there

‘daddy!’

she shrieked and tooru blanched

‘uh, what?’

iwa extended his hands out to hold the girl but tooru held her tightly and leaned back

haji narrowed his eyes

‘um, give me my daughter, oikawa’

he grumbled and tooru shook his head

‘no! shes my daughter!’

you blinked

‘your god daughter, yes. but she’s half of your best friend, tooru’

half of his-

god? daughter?

‘so that means-’

‘piece it together, oikawa. did ya get brain damage or something? babe, call the doctor’

oikawa screamed

a/n: lol look WHO ROSE FROM THE GRAVEEEEEEE :) anyways. i really want to deeply apologize to everyone for taking an unexpected break and i shouldve told you guys and im really sorry :( everythings just chaotic lmao and im just like taking a breath for a second uwu and im so AMAZED at how many people still follow me even tho ive been gone for so long like bls yall are real ones :’) i love you all and the req box is still closed at this time as i need to finish the ones i have first soo thankyou for reading thiss and hopefully ill update soonerr!!! :)))

also not me completely messing up my kuws and missing 8 and 9 in my masterlist and having a mindblowing realization that i have 10 keeping up with seijoh fics

[tennessoui]

Idk if you are still doing this. But 18 and 40?

i think you're my last one !!!

(all you need to know for this is that on monday i went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and today i went to the Smithsonian museum of natural history)

18. Someone’s birthday + 40. “It’s just hard for me to forgive you after everything that’s happened.”

"You said you'd be polite," Padmé murmurs just loud enough for Anakin to hear. "Civil. I think your actual words were, 'Yeah of course, Padmé, I won't even look in his direction!'"

"This me being polite," her friend mumbles from next to her, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the lineloium of the floor.

"You glared at him so hard the second he came in that he didn't even approach me," Padmé points out, exasperated. "I'm the birthday girl! He came to see me!"

"You see each other all the time," Anakin defends gruffly, crossing his arms. "You work in the same building. Look even your exhibits are next to each other."

He gestures with a hand to the doors on the other side of the lobby. One reads Hall of Fossils--Deep Time. The other, straight ahead, reads Ocean Hall.

"First of all, you do know we don't actually work in those exhibits, right?" Padmé checks. "And second of all, with the new funding the Deep Ocean Exploration team has just gotten--"

Anakin cuts her off with an angry huff of derision. She hides her smile behind her glass of champagne as she takes a sip.

"Don't even get me started on that, Padmé. I don't understand at all how they chose deep ocean exploration over my team's proposal! I don't think I'll ever forgive him after everything that's happened now! You know we needed that funding! Our satellite designs are flawless! NASA approved, even! We could be out there now, exploring the galaxies! But Obi-Wan Kenobi says a few words about the fucking ocean and suddenly half the nation is putting on flippers and oxygen tanks?"

Padmé has to bite her lip to control her urge to burst out laughing at the angry, petulant expression on Anakin's face.

"I bet he slept with someone," Anakin mutters mutinously as Padme watches him watch Obi-Wan Kenobi move across the room, talking with party-guests and waitstaff interchangeably. The man, in an appropriately tailored and casual suit, throws his head back when he laughs at something someone says to him, and he pats her on the arm. Anakin's jaw flexes.

"I think it's quite telling that you think he's attractive enough to sleep his way into millions of dollars," she says, taking a sip of her champagne. "I can't think of a single fuck in my entire life worth that much money."

Anakin splutters and his face turns red. "That's not what I--" he gets out.

But Padmé has had enough of both of them pretending that they don't think the sun revolves around the other. As much as Anakin hasn't taken his eyes off of Obi-Wan since the man walked in, Obi-Wan has been shooting just as many surreptitious glances at Anakin when he thinks the blond-haired man is looking somewhere else.

It's been years of this. Two years exactly, actually, of Padmé in the middle of two men who are at each other's teeth professionally but can't seem to stay away from each other in their private lives. She's lost track of the amount of times the two of them have broken into deafening arguments over lunch or dinner or drinks because "We should be spending more resources on exploring space!" "Only 5% of the ocean has been explored!" "I can tell you what's down there! Fish!" "And I can tell you what's in space! Rocks!"

Padmé is, quite frankly, sick of it now. She'd like her life much more if her two friends could decide what exactly they wanted from each other. But no, they argue and hate each other when they're together, but she'll post a photo to her Instagram of her and Obi-Wan and a new intern, and Anakin will be texting her not even five minutes later, asking who that guy is and why he's holding Obi-Wan's waist in the photo. Or Anakin will publicly and loudly declare his intention to get back into the dating scene, and Padmé will spend the next two or so weeks fielding questions from Obi-Wan about if Anakin's found any space nerds to date, how those days may be going, if anyone's come back for seconds....

"You didn't let me finish," Padmé says quickly, when she catches Obi-Wan's eye and smiles at him, certain that this will get him to come over. "I was saying that with the new funding, Obi-Wan might not be working at the museum anymore."

Anakin freezes beside her. "What?" he breathes out.

"There's an open position in a research facility in Hawai'i. He's been tapped for it. I don't know really if he plans to accept yet..." she says leadingly, but it's pretty clear pretty quickly that Anakin isn't listening anymore.

"He never told me that," he says in a very small voice.

He sounds so unsure, hurt, that Padmé almost regrets what she's about to say. "Why would he?" she asks anyway. "You were just saying how you would never forgive him for winning the funding. This just be perfect for you. He leaves, you never have to see him again."

Anakin's eyebrows furrow and he looks confused. Hurt. Angry. The perfect expression for Obi-Wan's arrival in front of the pair of them.

"Padmé!" Obi-Wan smiles as he leans in and kisses her cheek. "Happy birthday! Amazing celebration, I cannot believe they allowed you to host it in the museum itself."

"Well, you only turn 35 once," she smiles at him.

Obi-Wan nods seriously with a teasing grin on his face. "Now you're old enough to run for president and everything."

She laughs. "Me? A head for politics? I'm not sure. But," she says slyly when it's very clear Anakin isn't going to say anything himself, too busy staring at the side of Obi-Wan's face with an intense, creepy sort of glare. "If anyone I know does, I think it'd be you. Ani and I were just talking about how they granted funding to your proposal the other day. Congratulations!"

"Thank you, thank you," Obi-Wan says graciously, but his smile has become fixed and his eyes dart over to Anakin.

Anakin, who decides to take this moment to figure out how to speak again. "When do you leave?" he asks in an angry, harsh tone. Padmé sighs to herself. She should have known a surprised and hurt Anakin turns to fury before he turns to acceptance, especially where Obi-Wan Kenobi is concerned.

"Pardon?" Obi-Wan asks politely, turning his body to face only Anakin. Padmé tries not to sigh again. She should be used to this, the way their eyesight narrows to only each other.

But on her birthday, really?

Anakin's jaw flexes as he gnashes his teeth together. There's nothing Ani hates more in the world than someone acting as if his question is a silly question.

That's not what Obi-Wan's doing of course, but Obi-Wan's done it enough in the past to rile Anakin up that Padmé can understand the confusion the astrophysicist is going through.

"To Hawai'i. Padmé said all your water money is gonna get you a fancy new position on the West Coast. Just wanted to know when you're going to go."

Padmé has half a mind to tell Obi-Wan that that is not, actually what she said, but Obi-Wan looks as if he wouldn't even realize she's spoken if she tried.

"Would you miss me?" the oceanologist murmurs, stepping closer to Anakin. "Were I to leave, would you miss me, Anakin?"

Anakin looks like a deer in the headlights for a second, before his face shuts down. "I wanna write it on my calendar, celebrate the day."

Obi-Wan's face flashes with something that leaves his eyes colder than before, and he steps back. Away. Padmé winces and tries to take a sip from her champagne glass before realizing it's empty.

"Well, that certainly makes things easier," he tells Anakin shortly before turning his full attention back to Padmé. "I meant to come over and say goodbye. It's a bit of walk home, and I have an early day tomorrow."

"But you just got here," Anakin sounds confused, as if he'd expected to keep Obi-Wan's attention for much longer.

Obi-Wan summarily ignores him and leans into kiss Padmé's cheek again. "Happy birthday again, Padmé," he tells her gripping her hand in both of his for a second before dropping it and turning back into the crowd.

"What was that?" Anakin says gruffly, crossing his arms. "Why'd he kiss you? He's leaving so early! And ignoring me! What?"

Padmé shakes her head and puts her hand on his arm. It looks like she's going to have to spell a few things out to her silly astrophysicist. "That was you fucking up," she says slowly.

Anakin scoffs. "What? No. We say that shit all the time to each other."

"Anakin, listen to me," she waits until his eyes are on hers and not trying to catch Obi-Wan's receding figure. "Today at lunch, he told me he hadn't decided if he was going to take the position yet. But I think he just did."

Anakin blinks at her. Men are stupid. These men especially.

"If you want him to stay, you have to tell him."

"Tell him--I...why do I--don't be ridiculous--"

"Anakin, I've known Obi-Wan for four years. The only thing he talked about the first two was the ocean. For the last two, it's been the ocean and you."

Anakin stares at her and then stares at the people around them. Padmé knows he's trying to find Obi-Wan in the crowd. "But...he's leaving."

"But he came here wearing a coat," she points out, giving him a little push towards the unmanned coat room.

"I--right," Anakin mumbles to himself.

Feeling like the best friend in the whole world, Padmé takes his champagne flute from him and pushes him harder forward. "Go get him, Ani," she encourages, but she gets the feeling Anakin isn't even listening to her anymore as he moves across the lobby to the coat room.

She watches just long enough to see Obi-Wan emerge from the room wearing his tan coat and Anakin pushing him furiously back inside. The door closes behind them, and Padmé hopes it comes with a lock.

But if it doesn't, that's their problem. She's done enough for one night.

[mingishoe]

Summary: You and Wooyoung have been friends for as long as you can remember. After an unfortunate event, the two of you decided to make a safe word for when you feel uncomfortable or want out of a situation. Cinnamon. You just happen to say it on your wedding day.

Genre: Fluff, Smut, Angst! hits of crack

Pairing: Wooyoung x Fem!Reader ft. Seonghwa x reader

Word count: 15.1k 

Warning: infidelity?/cheating I do not encourage cheating, please don’t cheat :)

Smut Warnings: Dom!Wooyoung Sub!Reader, lots of dirty talk, teasing, unintentional edging, oral (m&f receiving), unprotected sex, fingering, hand job, marking

A/N: ik this is like an oLD trend,, I wrote this back in may and never finished it but I reread it and decided I liked it too much not to post so here it is :)

also please don’t make fun of my header it sucks bc idk how to make them sjkdhsks

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

You honestly don’t remember when you met Wooyoung, you just know that he’s always been your best friend.

You were 3 and Wooyoung was 4. You were just starting to be able to put your sentences together and make some sort of sense, and Wooyoung had already pretty much figured it out.

The two of you never did much talking, you just always sat together and played. Wooyoung was just a comfortable presence until you finally started grade school.

You were 6 and Wooyoung was 7 and it was probably the scariest thing that either of you have experienced at that time. Wooyoung’s mom drove the two of you to your first day of the 1st grade.

Your eyes were watery as you got out of the car with Wooyoung and his mom. She walked the two of you into your class and hugged the both of you goodbye.

Wooyoung sat next to you and watched as a tear fell down your cheek. He was only 7, he didn’t know how to comfort anyone but he tried. Wooyoung brought you into a hug that most 6 year old girls would hate because boys have cooties. Even you thought boys had cooties, but not Wooyoung. Wooyoung was cootie free.

Wooyoung gave you the tightest hug, “It’s okay y/n! I promise I’ll be next to you the whole time,” and he kept that promise.

Wooyoung was next to you all day, through the first introductions, making sure to help you if you got shy, “And this is my best friend y/n! She’s shy right now.” To snack time when you shared your fruit gummies with him just because you knew they were his favourite. Even at nap time Wooyoung made sure he was close to you even when you were supposed to be separated.

That day was the first time you knew you were sticking with Wooyoung for forever.

Every day you spent the entire day with Wooyoung, slowly making more friends. Most of your friends were boys, San, Yeosang, Mingi, and Yunho. You being the only girl in your friend group was wild. You developed basically what was a boy personality, you were always playing outside with them, in sports, and don’t even get started on your humour. You had the humour of a 10 year old boy and that would never go away.

One day your class was in the playground and Wooyoung was trying to push you on the swing. One of Wooyoung’s friends, Jisoo, came over and asked Wooyoung to go on the slides with him.

You shrugged and went over to San and watched as he struggled on the money bars, “Sannie! You’re not strong enough!” San pouted at you as he jumped down from only the very first bar, “I am! I just… have a scratch on my hand so it hurts.” You laughed at sans excuses before he pulled you to the slides, “Come on! Let’s race on the slides!”

Wooyoung was at the top of the little castle the play set was supposed to look like with Jisoo. She had Wooyoung practically cornered as she spoke to him, “Wooyoung, since you’re my boyfriend we have to kiss.”

Wooyoung didn’t remember having a girlfriend. He was pretty sure she never even asked him to be her boyfriend, “I’m not your boyfriend.” Wooyoung very simply told her.

Everyone knows how these elementary school relationships work, if someone says you’re dating, you’re dating. It’s not always that both parties agree.

She obviously didn’t care that Wooyoung didn’t want to be her boyfriend. “Well, now you are.” Wooyoung shook his head, still disagreeing, “Why not?” Wooyoung looked around trying to find you and when he did he pointed in your direction, “Because y/n is my girlfriend.” And he wasn’t wrong, you were his friend that was a girl, his girlfriend.

Wooyoung and Jisoo both watched as you came up the stairs with San, “y/n, is it true that you’re Wooyoung’s girlfriend?”

You blink at both Wooyoung and Jisoo, “What?” You look at Wooyoung who’s nodding at you, “Yeah, Wooyoung is my boyfriend.”

Jisoo looks at you with a scowl before sliding down the slide. Wooyoung looks relieved as Jisoo leaves, “You just saved my life.” You roll your eyes and laugh at Wooyoung, “We need a code word in case this happens again.”

You nod then turn to san, “San you need to leave, you can’t hear the code word.” San makes a fuss but finally agrees after you tell him you’ll give him your gummies tomorrow at lunch.

You sit down with Wooyoung in front of you making sure no one else is around you, “What should the word be?”

The both of you sit and think for a few seconds before Wooyoung speaks up, “Umm… what about clouds?” You shake your head, “I don’t think so, we talk about clouds a lot.”

Wooyoung nods, “You’re right, what about pomegranate?” Once again you shake your head, “I’m never going to remember that.” Wooyoung frowns but nods. You speak up again, “What about cinnamon?”

Wooyoung looks at you like you just said the smartest thing ever, “Yes! That’s perfect!” The two of you high five with a laugh, “Race you down the slide!” Wooyoung said before quickly jumping down to get on the slide.

⋆

Day after day you spent with those 5 boys, with Wooyoung. You and Wooyoung had sleepovers every single night, on school nights, weekends, and even in summer. It was never a problem until you got to high school.

Don’t think that middle school was easy breezy covergirl. There were always stares as you walked with Wooyoung or any of the other boys for that matter. You honestly really weren’t sure why, like yeah they were all extremely attractive but it wasn’t anything to be petty over.

All the boys were constantly being approached by different girls since middle school started and it didn’t stop in high school or in college. You never got approached by any boys because of the ones that constantly surrounded you.

Any boy you talked to got scared away by either Wooyoung or one of the other boys. Any girl that liked one of the boys always tried to threaten you, like you even cared at all.

You hadn’t ever had a boyfriend and honestly you didn’t really mind contrary to others opinions. Some of your other friends had tried to tell you it was all Wooyoung’s fault and in all honesty it was but you didn’t mind. You had Wooyoung so you were okay.

One of the things that always stuck besides your friendship with Wooyoung and the other boys was the safe word.

After another uncomfortable incident that happened in 6th grade you changed the code word to a safe word. So every time you were wanting to get out of a situation or felt uncomfortable all you had to do was either say or text the word ‘cinnamon’ to Wooyoung. You two were still to this day the only people who knew what that meant.

It was a few weeks before prom and the bell had just rung. You were waiting for Wooyoung at your locker so you could leave together. You were leaning against your locker scrolling through your social media when you sense a presence in front of you.

When you look up your heart stops in your chest, “Hello princess,” you look around for Wooyoung before looking back to the boy standing in front of you, “S-Seonghwa, Hi.”

You’re quick to find Wooyoung’s contact and type a single word, “cinnamon” and press send. It was senior year and you were all 18, and Seonghwa had been trying to get into your pants for the longest time.

Seonghwa and Wooyoung were both known to absolutely hate each other, and it’s all because of you. Everyone knows that Wooyoung is extremely protective of you but Seonghwa doesn’t seem to care. He also doesn’t seem to get the hint that you're not necessarily his biggest fan.

You put your phone in your pocket after you see Wooyoung’s name flash on the screen signalling he was coming. “Where’s your little boyfriend?” Seonghwa teases you as he places one of his arms on the lockers next to you.

You press yourself against the locker trying to get away from Seonghwa, “H-He’s not my boyfriend… but uhh, he’s not here.”

Seonghwa smirks at you before pulling away slightly, “Perfect, he’s finally not up your ass.” You start to say something before Seonghwa stops you, “anyway, I haven’t had a chance to ask you because you’re always with someone and your friends aren’t necessarily my biggest fans…” you look at Seonghwa with red cheeks that match his, “You’re blushing.” Seonghwa’s mouth drops slightly in shock, “Shut up, let me ask the question.” You smile at Seonghwa as he continues, “D-Do you want to go to prom with me?”

This time your heart stops for a different reason. You definitely didn’t expect that. You look up at Seonghwa with cheeks that honestly rivalled his, “Seonghwa… I-”

“No, she doesn’t.” Wooyoung spoke up causing Seonghwa to look down with even redder cheeks. Wooyoung grabbed your hand pulling you away from Seonghwa before you could even say sorry.

“Wooyoung, what’re you doing?!” Wooyoung stopped you in the middle of the hall, “What do you mean? You sent the word!” You looked down awkwardly, “M-Maybe I said it a little too early…”

Wooyoung stood there with his mouth slightly open, “So you’re saying that you were gonna say yes to Seonghwa?” You pout at Wooyoung, “I don’t- I don’t know?”

“But y/n, you know exactly what he wants.” Wooyoung was right, you knew that probably all Seonghwa wanted to do was finally get into your pants. But you weren’t sure, what if there was that slim possibility that he actually truly just wanted to take you to prom, “You can go to prom with us, you know that.”

You nod at Wooyoung, “I know but you all have dates…” Wooyoung sensed your disappointment and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, “I don’t have a date,”

You looked to Wooyoung as the two of you walked to his car, “Really? You’ve been asked by approximately half of the school.”

Wooyoung rolls his eyes and pushes you making you laugh, “Yeah but that doesn’t mean I wanna go with any of them.” You nibble on your lip in thought, “Maybe you should.”

Wooyoung looks at you with furrowed eyebrows, “What do you mean?” You huff as you get into Wooyoung’s car, “Maybe you should go somewhere with someone who isn’t me for once…”

Wooyoung doesn’t know how he should take that. He can’t tell if you’re actually being sincere, jealous, or if you’re just finally getting sick of him, “Do you not want to go with me?”

You sighed as you grabbed onto Wooyoung’s hand, “Wooyoungie, you know that’s not what I’m saying. I just think that maybe you should just… I dunno, give someone else a chance. Plus you know parties aren’t my scene.” You can tell Wooyoung is hurt by what you said but he’s trying to play it off as he doesn’t care.

Once you arrived at your house Wooyoung unlocked your door and waited for you to get out, “Are you not gonna come in?” Wooyoung shook his head without even looking at you, “I have to help my mom with something, tell your mom I said hi. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”

You stayed looking at Wooyoung for a second before stepping out, “Oh… okay. Love you, see you tomorrow.” Wooyoung mumbled an ‘I love you’ before driving off.

You know you shouldn’t really be too affected by Wooyoung right now knowing that he’s upset but that doesn’t stop you from biting your lip in worry.

You open the door and see your mom in the kitchen, “Hey honey, hey Woo.” You pout as your mom unconsciously says Wooyoung’s name because he always comes home with you, “Wooyoung didn’t get off…”

Your mom looks up and immediately knows something’s off, “What happened?” You just shrug and sit at the stool next to where your mom is cutting vegetables, “He got mad at me.”

Your mom laughs softly knowing that it probably wasn’t even a big deal, “Wooyoung got mad because I told him that I didn’t wanna go to prom with him.”

Her eyebrows shoot up “Why don’t you wanna go to prom with him?” You just shrug, “It isn’t that I don’t want to go with him, I just don’t wanna go in general. So I told him that he should go with someone else… because somewhere close to 30 other girls asked him and he rejected them. I told him that he should give someone else an opportunity.”

Your mom looks conflicted. Well shit- that means that what you did was probably terrible and actually really mean. “Y/n sweetheart, Wooyoung rejected the other girls because he wanted to go with you. It’s not like he feels it’s a requirement, you know what I mean?”

You rest your head on the counter, “So you’re saying I should go to prom with Wooyoung?” Your mom shakes her head, “Not if you don’t want to, I’m just saying not to think that Wooyoung thinks he has to.”

“Someone asked me to prom…” your mom's head snapped up to look at you, “Really?! Who was it?” You laugh loudly before responding, “You know that boy that Wooyoung talks about all the time?” This time your mom’s jaw drops, “That boy umm… Seong- something? You know I’m not good with names,”

You nod vigorously as your mom is having a heart attack at what you’re saying, “Yes! Seonghwa! But he asked me today after school… and it was kinda cute? I’ve never seen him so flustered before. His cheeks were so red and he just looked really cute. But I don’t know, like I said I don’t even want to go at all.” You almost leave it at that but make sure to mention the obvious, “but Wooyoung would kill the both of us so that’s a no go.”

Your mom winks at you before leaning in to whisper, “Sometimes you need that adrenaline… just don’t let Wooyoung find out.” You pull away from your mom with a gasp, “You did not just betray Wooyoung like that!” Your mom just shrugs with a laugh.

The next day Wooyoung is really distant and is just pretty much ignoring you. Everyone else notices the shift in your energy making them pretty uncomfortable, “Y/n, what the fuck is happening?”

You look at San for a moment before simply saying, “Wooyoung’s mad at me.” Before San can even ask you why, you walk away and go to your class.

Thankfully that class has pretty much no one that you’re friends with so you’re free of any interrogation. You notice that Seonghwa is in this class so you decide to sit next to him, “H-Hey Seonghwa, sorry about yesterday…”

Seonghwa looks up from his phone to see you sitting next to him making him sit up straight, “Oh, Umm no it’s okay. I can handle rejection…” for some reason that made you feel really sad, “It’s not that I don’t want to go with you, I just don’t want to go in general.”

Seonghwa is looking down at his hands with his lip in between his teeth and your heart literally breaks, “You can just say you’re going with Wooyoung, it’s okay.”

“I-I’m not going with Wooyoung either…” This makes Seonghwa look at you, “Y-You’re not?” You shake your head with a soft smile, “I told you,”

You laugh as Seonghwa visibly perks up. You thought about what your mom had previously told you, “Why don’t you give me your number and maybe we can do something else?”

Seonghwa freezes, obviously not expecting you to ask for his number, “What about Wooyoung? Won’t he like murder you?” You laugh and nod, “Let’s just not let him find out… our secret.” You have your phone held out to him waiting for him to take it. He looks at you cautiously before deciding you were being serious, “Y/n, Wooyoung is going to murder me and send my balls to my mother if he sees my number in your phone.”

You pause for a minute, that being way too specific for Wooyoung to not have said that to Seonghwa, “Uhh… right.” You grabbed your phone from his hand and sent him a smiley face so he would have your number. Before you had a chance to say anything else your teacher walked in starting the class.

You and Seonghwa sat comfortably next to each other, not as awkward as you thought it was going to be.

When class ended Seonghwa walked out with you and you looked around you hoping that Wooyoung wasn’t there. You stopped yourself and looked up at Seonghwa, “Let’s start over yeah? Let’s just forget about Wooyoung and the other boys and not worry about them.”

Seonghwa smiled and nodded but still looked around like he was nervous making you laugh, “See you later,”

The rest of your classes were insanely awkward. Wooyoung still sat next to you and in all honesty it probably would’ve been better if he didn’t. The concerned glances of San and Yunho were becoming too much once it reached lunch time.

Both you and Wooyoung were mindlessly poking at your food and Yeosang was getting sick of it, “What the fuck is y’all’s problem?”

You drop your fork and look at Yeosang, “It’s none of your business.” Wooyoung rolls his eyes at you before snapping, “She doesn’t wanna go to prom with me.”

It was your turn to roll your eyes, “Wooyoung I already told you, I just don’t want to go! It has nothing to do with you!” Yeosang already regretted asking.

“Oh okay but you were going to say yes when Seonghwa asked you?” You froze. Yeosang froze. Everyone at the table froze except Wooyoung, if this was a cartoon there’d surely be steam coming out of his ears.

“What the fuck is your problem?!” You can see the veins sticking out on Wooyoung’s neck as his face turns red from anger, “You know exactly what my problem is and you know exactly why Seonghwa wants to take you to prom! He just wants to fuck you and then he’s gonna leave you.”

That was it. You pushed your tray of food at Wooyoung making it spill all over him, “Fuck you.” You’ve never wanted to hit Wooyoung as much as you do in this moment but you knew that it would hurt the both of you even more, so you contained yourself and just walked out of the cafeteria.

Wooyoung sat completely frozen. Everyone was completely shocked at your reaction. They’ve honestly never seen you this angry in the 12 years they’ve been your friend.

“Wooyoung I don’t know what your problem is but you need to fix it.” San stood up and followed you out of the cafeteria so he could make sure you were okay.

He went out the back doors of the school and walked some distance to the line of trees behind the school, that’s where you normally went if you skipped class or were wanting time to yourself.

“Y/n?” You didn’t look towards him opting to continue to text Seonghwa. You don’t even bother turning your phone off when San sits next to you, “Since when are you and Seonghwa all buddy buddy?”

You look at San with pleading eyes, “Please don’t.” San wrapped his arm around you letting you rest your head on his shoulder, “I’m not gonna say anything love, I’m just curious.”

You shrug as you further lean into San, “Just the other day when he asked me to prom, like Wooyoung said. I just- I just don’t know why he got so upset you know? I wasn’t going to say yes but that doesn’t mean he can’t let me deal with it by myself?”

San nods, “You know how protective he is over you, he loves you too much to see you get hurt.” You whisper this last part so quietly that almost San doesn’t hear you, “What if I want to?”

⋆

It was finally the night of prom and Wooyoung was still pissed at you. It's been weeks and you were honestly over it at this point so you didn’t even bother messing with him.

You and Seonghwa have gotten closer, he’s taken you out to eat a few times and you’re constantly texting. You honestly really enjoy his company and may you even go as far to say you like him.

While everyone else is at prom you’re laying in bed with your mom watching whatever’s on. Your phone buzzes and you see Seonghwa’s name. You look to your mom with a guilty look before opening the message,

Seonghwa:): You’re lucky you decided not to come to prom, it’s the most boring party I’ve ever gone to. No one has even spiked the punch yet.

Your mom snorts from beside you, “They still spike the punch?” You laugh and nod, “They do a little more than spike these days…”

Your mom watches as your thumbs hover over the keyboard, “Why don’t you invite him over?” Your eyes widen, “You’re really just betraying Wooyoung up and down these days aren’t you?” But you just shrug and send him a message back.

You: Why don’t you come over?

Seonghwa looks up from the wall he’s leaning against and sees Wooyoung and the rest of your friends sitting at a table looking awfully tense and awkward.

He watched as Wooyoung took a swig from a vodka bottle that he got from god knows where before deciding that he was going to take up on your offer.

Seonghwa stood outside your door for a solid two minutes trying to decide if he should knock or just go home. He doesn’t have a chance to do either before you open the door and look at him in amusement, “You’ve been standing out here for a while… do you wanna come in or not?”

Seonghwa walks in front of you as you close the door. Your mom is watching him in amusement as he looks down with red cheeks, “This is Seonghwa? Like Seonghwa Seonghwa?”

You bite your lip to keep you from laughing, “Yes mom. Seonghwa Seonghwa.” You eye her in warning before she says what you know she wants to, “Anyway, we’re going to my room, if you need anything just call me.”

“Prove that Wooyoung is wrong, Seonghwa” Your head snaps toward your mom with wide eyes, “I’m just kidding, go on.”

Your mom shooed the two of you off as she was too busy laughing.

“S-She’s just joking.” Seonghwa rubs his neck awkwardly, “Wooyoung told your mom about me.” You nod as you open the door to your room and let him go in, “I’d like to say it was all good things but…”

Seonghwa stops to look at your room, “I don’t know why but I didn’t expect your room to be so… cute.” You squealed as you jumped on your bed to cover up the stuffed animals that were sitting there.

Seonghwa grabbed one of your teddy bears and held it as he laid down next to you, “Do you not wanna change?” Seonghwa looked down seemingly like he forgot he was still in his suit, “I don’t have anything to change into…”

You thought for a minute before speaking up, “If it isn’t weird… one of the boys’ clothes will fit you.”

Seonghwa thought for a minute before nodding and standing up, still holding your teddy bear. You smile as he’s hugging the bear, “Looks like you like Mr.B.”

While you're going through your drawers you hear Seonghwa giggle, full on giggle, “You name your stuffed animals?” You pout as you hand Seonghwa a shirt with a pair of sweats, “Here, you can just change here.”

“Okay but don’t look, you aren’t ready for the sexy that I am shirtless.” You raise your eyebrows at Seonghwa with a smirk, “Seonghwa sweetheart, I’m friends with nothing but boys, I’ve seen abs before.”

Seonghwa looks at you expectantly before throwing Mr.B at you making you squeal. You cover your eyes with your hands as you hear him shuffling. You feel something being thrown down at your feet and you get the sudden urge to look.

You slowly separate your fingers and look at Seonghwa with your lip in between your teeth. You inhale sharply when Seonghwa makes eye contact with you as he’s undoing his belt.

Your cheeks are burning as you make no move to look away. Seonghwa doesn’t break eye contact as he pulls his belt through the loops. You whine as you turn over to put your head in the pillows while flailing your legs. You can practically feel the amusement dripping off of Seonghwa. Thankfully he ignored it and laid back down next to you.

Seonghwa was facing you as you were still whining with your head stuffed in the pillow. Seonghwa tapped on your shoulder making you look at him, “You’re really cute.”

You look away with a small smile, “Look at me princess.” You bite your lip as you look back at Seonghwa but you can still hear Wooyoung nagging at the back of your mind.

“Hwa… can I ask you a question?” Seonghwa nods while never looking away from your eyes, “Y-You don’t just want to… f-fuck me and then leave me, right?”

Seonghwa’s eyes flash what you can only express as anger, “Who told you that?” From the tone of Seonghwa’s voice you immediately knew that Wooyoung was lying. From your silence Seonghwa already knew the answer to his question, “It was Wooyoung, wasn’t it?” You pause before nodding carefully.

“Look, I don’t know what Wooyoung told you but that’s not true. Wooyoung- Never mind…” you shake your head, “N-No what?” Seonghwa bites his lip contemplating if he should actually say it, “Wooyoung knows that I l-like you… and I guess he didn’t want you to know so he said that.”

Your mouth parts slightly as you took in what Seonghwa just told you, “You like me? Like, like like me?” Seonghwa looks at you with a smile, “Yeah, like like.”

You just realised that what Wooyoung told you was a complete lie, “W-Wait! So you’ve liked me for three years?” Seonghwa nods sadly before wrapping his arms around you and hiding his face in your neck.

You carefully bring your hand up to run your hand through his hair. You feel a sudden urge of confidence and you pull Seonghwa’s head back to look at you before you carefully place your lips on his.

When Seonghwa doesn’t kiss you back you panic and pull away, “S-Sorry, I should’ve-” you get cut off when Seonghwa grabs your face in his hand and places his lips back on yours.

You pull away with a small whine as you place your head in Seonghwa’s chest and the two of you stay like that for what felt like forever. Seonghwa held you as you started to fall asleep in his arms.

The two of you were asleep for maybe 30 minutes when you woke up to your mom talking to someone. Your phone started to ring and you answered it with a tired ‘yeah?’ It was your mom, “Hide him. Tell Seonghwa to hide- like now.”

You didn’t even ask why before you started hitting Seonghwa’s chest frantically and telling him to go inside your closet. He almost falls on the floor but successfully makes it into the closest in time for your door to swing open.

Your eyes widen when you see Wooyoung walk into your room. You immediately look to Seonghwa not knowing what to do. The door to your closet is partially closed, only open enough for Seonghwa to see out.

“Wooyoung what do you want?” Wooyoung went to sit on your bed with heavy eyes, “I’m here to say sorry.” You would take his apology any other day but he’s clearly drunk right now, “Wooyoung, you’re drunk.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. I overreacted.” You kept looking to the closet making Wooyoung turn around in suspicion, “What’re you looking at?” You pull Wooyoung's face to look at you and you press your lips to his.

You honestly surprised yourself but you moved your hand to the direction of the closet and signalled Seonghwa to go. Seonghwa stepped out of the closet but stopped in the middle when he saw you kissing Wooyoung.

You pulled away and Wooyoung was looking at you with eyes the size of disks. You widen your eyes at Seonghwa and try to tell him to go but he points at his clothes on your bed. Shit.

Once again Wooyoung tries to look behind you making you pull him in once again. You kicked Seonghwa’s clothes off the bed and just signaled for him to go and this time he actually did. Once you made sure he was at least in the kitchen you pulled away from Wooyoung.

You quickly get up and kick Seonghwa’s clothes underneath your bed before going in your drawer and handing Wooyoung some clothes, “Here, just change and I’ll get you some water.”

When you closed the door to your room you almost had a heart attack. Seonghwa was in the kitchen talking to your mom and you walked up to them with the reddest cheeks, “S-Seonghwa, I’m sorry… I just- I just couldn’t let him see you. Maybe you can come over tomorrow or something?” Seonghwa nodded and gave you a hug before walking out.

Once you made sure Seonghwa walked out you sighed and almost started crying, “Mom, I like him.” Your mom looked at you like you were stupid, “And?” You looked to your room where Wooyoung was, “Wooyoung doesn’t like him. But he lied about Seonghwa so…” her mouth dropped open as you continued, “Andimaybejustkissedwooyoung but it was so Seonghwa could leave without being seen.”

You quickly grabbed Wooyoung a bottle of water and ran back to your room before your mom could say something. You were glad you and your mom were really close but you still couldn’t handle certain things she said to you.

When you reentered your room Wooyoung was sitting on your bed with the cutest pout, “What’s wrong Woo?”

“Who’s car just left?” You froze with your mouth wide open, “My mom… had a friend over…” Wooyoung nods but then his eyebrows furrow, “I didn’t see them?” You shook your head, “You're drunk Wooyoung.” You hand him the water and he drinks the entire thing like he found water in the desert.

“You need to sleep. Come on, let’s cuddle yeah?” Wooyoung smiles as you wrap your arms around him when you lay next to him.

His eyes never leave yours as he whispers, “I love you.” This time it felt different though. Your heart starts to beat faster as Wooyoung looks at you with loving eyes, “I love you.” Wooyoung shakes his head, “No you don’t, not the same way.”

Your heart almost exploded, “W-Wooyoung your drunk, don’t say things like that.”

Wooyoung grabbed your hand and started playing with your fingers, “But I’m sober enough to know what I’m saying y/n.”

“I-It’s late Woo, you should get some rest.” Before Wooyoung could continue anything he was going to say you turned and faced your back to him with your eyes squeezed shut. What the fuck are you supposed to do? You like Seonghwa but if Wooyoung isn’t just drunk and saying stuff you don’t want to hurt him.

Whenever you woke up Wooyoung was gone. You honestly didn’t know how he managed to get up and leave with a hangover and not wake you up.

You got up and went to the kitten to see your mom looking the most conflicted you’ve ever seen her, “What?” You looked at her with suspicion not knowing what she was going to do.

Once your mom sees you she shakes her head and pretends like whatever just happened didn’t happen, “Wooyoung just left…”

Your eyebrows shot up, “You let him leave?”

“Why not?” Your mom looked at you with furrowed eyebrows making you pout “Because he’s hungover and he can’t drive like that…”

She shakes her head, “He's fine… What about Seonghwa? Are you going to invite him over?”

⋆

After that day you never once brought up Wooyoung’s drunken words, your kiss, or the lie about Seonghwa, too scared that it would ruin your friendship but you had the hunch that it was already falling apart. Everything had been different since that day and you’re not sure in what way. There were lingering stares and touches that made your hearts race a little bit faster.

After a couple of months you and Seonghwa ended up dating and let’s just say when you announced it, it wasn’t pretty. Wooyoung threw what would be best described as a hissy fit and the rest of the boys thought you were joking.

Once they realised you were being serious they all supported you, even Wooyoung. It took Wooyoung the longest though. He ignored you for what felt like forever before San finally convinced him to get over himself.

You all continued to be friends in college, going to the same school. After a while they were finally warming up to Seonghwa and actually thought he was cool which meant a lot to the both of you.

Let’s just say Seonghwa didn’t want to fuck you and leave you because he’s stuck around everytime.

It was at the 4 year mark that Seonghwa proposed to you.

It honestly shocked you way more than it did everyone else, which was saying something.

It was at your 23rd birthday party, in front of the entirety of your friends and family. For whatever reason Seonghwa decided to do it at the birthday party your family held for you, making it all the more stressful.

You were never one for PDA or doing something private and intimate in a public setting or in front of people, so when you saw Seonghwa go down on his knee you almost told him to get up.

Everyone else was either crying or screaming and the only thing you managed to do was look at Wooyoung with wide eyes. You watched as Wooyoung shut his eyes before pushing through the people to leave. You wanted to follow him, you really did but with Seonghwa staring at you with his eyes shining brighter than ever you just couldn’t.

“Will you marry me?” Your eyes started watering and before you knew it you were crying.

The one word completely changed everything so fast it almost gave you whiplash, “Yes.”

The cheers got louder and more tears fell when you wrapped your arms around Seonghwa but it just didn’t feel right. Once everyone calmed down a little bit you went to San, “Where did Wooyoung go?”

He glanced at the ring around your finger with sad eyes, “I think just to the front… I dunno.”

You saw Wooyoung sitting under the big tree in your yard so you go sit next to him without saying anything.

You sit in silence for what felt like forever before you spoke up quietly, “I’m too young to get married aren't I?”

Wooyoung laughs with a nod, “A little bit… you’re still 23, most people wait to get married until their 30’s.”

You knew Wooyoung was right. You were still really young, you haven’t done half the things you wanted to do before you started a family.

“Remember how you always used to say you never wanted to get married? Because it felt like you were trapped?” You snort, “It is.”

Wooyoung turns to look at you with slightly teary eyes, “Then why did you say yes?”

You pause with your mouth opening and closing before you whisper, “I-I don’t know…”

A tear falls from Wooyoung’s eyes making your heart shatter, “D-Don’t leave me, please.”

Tears start leaving your eyes and now the two of you are sitting under your tree crying while looking into the others eyes, “Woo, I would never leave you. I promise.”

Wooyoung lets out a choked sob making you take his face in your hands, “Wooyoung, I love you so fucking much, you have no idea.”

Wooyoung shakes his head as more tears fall from his eyes, “N-Not the same way y/n. I love you. Now you’re engaged to fucking Seonghwa out of everyone. I spent so long keeping him away from you because I just fucking knew that something like this would happen.”

“Woo trust me. It doesn’t matter if I’m engaged to Seonghwa or not I still love you more than anyone and anything in the world.”

While you were outside Seonghwa was running around looking for you. He found San and asked where you were, “She’s outside talking to Wooyoung. I wouldn’t bother them if I were you.”

“Why? Don’t I have the right to-” san shakes his head and stops him, “Just don’t. Let them talk it out okay? If you’re so curious you can see from the window.” San and Seonghwa watch the two of you from the window.

San doesn’t look concerned in the slightest whereas Seonghwa has his eyes filled with concern, “She’s crying.” San shrugs, “So is Wooyoung, she’s fine.”

Seonghwa watches how you have Wooyoung’s face in your hands and the way the two of you are staring into each other’s eyes. He watches as Wooyoung falls into your chest and the way you hold Wooyoung. You’ve never held him like that…

You’re practically sitting on Wooyoung’s lap making Seonghwa turn to San with a confused face, “W-What is she…” San shrugs with an equally confused expression, “I have no idea.”

When Seonghwa tries to go outside San stops him, “Just- Just let them have their moment… please?” Seonghwa lets out a pained sigh as he watches the woman he’s engaged with sitting on the lap of the man who tried to keep them apart in the first place.

You had your eyes closed as Wooyoung rocked you back and forth with his arms wrapped around you tightly, too scared to let go.

You pull away slightly and rest your forehead on his just looking into each other’s eyes, “Wooyoung I’m serious. No matter what, I’m always on your side. I don’t care how much you think I love Seonghwa, I love you more okay? I won’t leave you. Ever.”

You wanted nothing more than to stay with Wooyoung and hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay but you couldn’t. No matter how much you wanted to kiss away his tears, you just couldn’t do that to Seonghwa.

You heard a door open and close so you quickly got off of Wooyoung and wiped the tears off your face. When you looked up and saw Seonghwa you tried your best to smile at him without it seeming fake, “There you are. Come on baby, your mom wants to talk to you.”

You didn’t miss the glare Seonghwa gave Wooyoung before pulling you away. You tried to stop the trembling of your lip as Seonghwa brought you back inside with everyone. Your mom took your hand and brought you into her room.

As soon as the door was shut you let out a sob and buried your face in your hands. “Why did you say yes sweetheart?”

You let out incoherent babbles with sobs and sniffles in between, “I have no idea what you’re saying.” Your mom makes you laugh slightly and you finally look at her. You take a few deep breaths to calm yourself down before you start to speak up again.

“I truly w-wanted to say yes but not right now you know? I’m still really young and I have a feeling Seonghwa wants to get married soon and I don’t know…” your mom sighed, “He wants to get married this summer.”

Your mouth dropped open, “It’s December- Summer is in like 7 months.” Your mom nodded with an apprehensive look on her face, “What? You think I’m going to back out or something?”

Your mom doesn’t respond and changes the subject, “A beach wedding would be cute. Especially in the summer.” You really didn’t want to be having this conversation. Not so soon at least.

“Yeah… I’ll talk to Seonghwa about it.” Your mom could clearly see on your face that you didn’t want this, but it wasn’t in her place to say anything. She was confident that you would work it out.

⋆

It had only been maybe a month before Seonghwa started pressuring you to start making wedding arrangements. The two of you settled on a beach side wedding in June. Even though it was still several months away you were still extremely anxious. Everyday that passed you felt the sinking feeling in your stomach grow.

No matter how sudden, how rushed, or how short a time you have, you're going to have a cute flowy dress no matter what anyone else says. It’s too hot to have a skin tight dress or a big ball gown dress.

You had taken Wooyoung and your parents to go dress shopping with you and all of them cried when you put on the dress, Wooyoung for maybe a different reason.

It was tight from your waist up with a sweetheart neckline, making sure to show your figure perfectly. The bottom was flowy covered with pretty sparkles covering the entirety of the dress.

You remember how beautiful you looked with the headdress and veil. The way you looked to Wooyoung with teary eyes had him squeezing his eyes shut to contain himself, “D-Do you like it Woo?”

Wooyoung smiled and nodded even though you could tell he was very obviously upset, “You look beautiful.”

A month after it was time for the anticipated bachelor and bachelorette parties. Bachelorette parties are supposed to be fun right? You had practically no friends that were girls, and the ones you did have you weren’t super close with you. While Seonghwa went out with his friends for his bachelor party you asked Wooyoung to come to your place for yours.

Wooyoung was apprehensive, not knowing if he could really stay with you all night, but he decided that he wanted to spend one last night with you.

You’re not going to say it wasn’t tense or awkward because the lingering stares were too much for the both of you to handle.

You tried to put on a movie to distract from the tension but if anything it made it worse. You were too scared to say anything as Wooyoung’s eyes were glued to your lips, “W-Woo…”

“Can I kiss you?” You stayed silent for a while not knowing what to say, “Wooyoung-”

“Just once. Please.” You couldn't say no. Not when Wooyoung was looking at you the way he was.

You should’ve said no. You should’ve thought about Seonghwa and said no, but as soon as you nodded it was too late.

You felt yourself immediately become hot when Wooyoung’s lips met yours. All thoughts of Seonghwa left your mind the second he held your face in his hands.

Your heart started racing as you tilted your head to deepen the kiss. Wooyoung didn’t expect you to keep going but he definitely didn’t want it to stop.

You both knew it was wrong and you both knew you should stop before the both of you got too carried away, but that didn’t stop either of you.

You pulled away so you could catch your breath and the way Wooyoung was biting his lip made your thighs clench.

“Wooyoung, we should stop.” Wooyoung nodded but made no move to get away from you, “Y-You’re right. This is wrong.”

You nodded mindlessly as Wooyoung leaned in again. His lips met yours for the second time and this is what felt right. It felt different from kissing Seonghwa, but in a good way. You didn’t want to pull away.

Wooyoung’s tongue went to lick your lips making you gasp slightly. Wooyoung used that as an opportunity to slip his tongue in your mouth.

Your cheeks burned as the kissing sounds were the only thing able to be heard. You unconsciously moved yourself so you were on top of Wooyoung.

Wooyoung gripped your waist and pulled you closer to him before he carefully flipped the two of you so you were laying on your back.

You whimpered quietly as Wooyoung moved to attach his lips to your jaw and neck, “Woo- I-” You whimpered as Wooyoung started sucking lightly on your neck, making sure not to leave marks.

You spread your legs further to make room for Wooyoung to get in between them, “Wooyoung, Please-” Wooyoung pulls away from your neck and looks up at you with dark eyes, “Y/n… A-Are you sure? You don’t have to j-just because I want to.”

You shook your head with a whimper whenever you felt Wooyoung’s boner on your inner thigh, “I want to Wooyoung, j-just please!” Wooyoung groans as you run your hands up his back to grip onto his hair.

Your heavy breathing is the only thing that can be heard as Wooyoung lifts your shirt to grope your chest through your bra.

Wooyoung wanted to take his time with you, to make up for all the lost time. He wanted to kiss and mark every inch of your body but he knew he couldn’t, not when he knew tomorrow you were going to be back with Seonghwa.

Wooyoung knew he should stop. Wooyoung knew he should be the bigger person and put his foot down and say that it wasn’t okay. You knew it was wrong, he didn’t have to tell you that but you were too far into it to stop.

“Wooyoung stop.” Wooyoung looked up at you concerned that you changed your mind and wanted to kick him out, “Stop thinking about Seonghwa… it-it’s okay.”

You both knew it wasn’t okay but that was the only thing that could stop the guilt from taking over.

Wooyoung let out a shaky breath as he nodded and went back to pay attention to your chest. He hesitantly lifted your shirt over your head and took a minute to look at your chest.

You didn’t wait for Wooyoung and you quickly pulled your hands behind you to undo your bra. You let it fall down your arms as Wooyoung let out a groan, “F-Fuck~ you’re so pretty.”

You suck in harshly whenever Wooyoung attaches his lips around one of your nipples. Your hand moves to grip onto Wooyoung’s blonde locks as he swirls his tongue around your perky nipple.

The hand that isn’t wrapped around your waist moves to tweak your other nipple between his fingers. Once he decides he’s paid enough attention to one he switches and does the same to the other.

Your mind is clouded with nothing but lust and you can only think about having Wooyoung inside of you, “Wooyoung- please fuck me!” Wooyoung groans before pulling your shorts down, “Patience sweetheart.”

Wooyoung spreads your legs and leaves wet kisses from your ankle to just beside where you need him the most. He repeats his actions with your other leg before placing open mouthed kisses on your clothed core making your thighs close around his head lightly.

“W-Wooyoung!” Wooyoung chuckles deeply before finally sliding your now ruined panties down your legs. Wooyoung bites his lip as he sits back to take in the sight of you naked underneath him.

He slowly brings a hand down to rub his fingers through your soaked folds, “F-Fuck y/n. You’re so pretty. Too bad I can’t have you to myself…”

Wooyoung didn’t want to get into a pity party while you were naked underneath him so he experimentally rubbed your clit in small circles with his thumb making you wither underneath him, “Wooyoung please stop teasing me! Do something!”

Wooyoung honestly didn’t even realise his teasing but he complied and swiftly gripped your hips and placed his head in between your legs.

Wooyoung licked a stripe up your cunt while he tentatively watched your face, trying to engrave the smallest of expressions into his brain. Your hand reached down to grip onto Wooyoung’s locks making him groan against your core.

Your eyes had shut from the pleasure as soon as Wooyoung’s mouth had touched your dripping cunt but you wanted to see him. You forced your eyes open and you swear you almost came at the sight.

Wooyoung lifted his face from your core making a pathetic whine come from your pretty lips whenever you saw his lips and chin covered in your juices.

You bit your lip as Wooyoung made eye contact with you before wrapping his lips around your clit. You moaned loudly whenever Wooyoung had probbed at your entrance.

His two fingers slipped into your tight hole almost completely with how wet you were, “Do you hear that sweetheart?” Your face was burning as you heard the lewd squelching noises coming from your bottom half, “You’re fucking soaked. All for me.”

“Yes Wooyoung! Fuck- all for you, just for you!” Wooyoung was encouraged by your words, and your noises, so he increased the speed of his fingers inside of you.

His fingers weren’t as long as Seonghwa’s so it took him a minute to find that spot inside of you, but when he did your grip on his hair tightened.

Wooyoung smirked against you as he continued to massage the sweet spot in you making you gush juices, “Woo- pleasepleaseplease, G-Gonna cum!” He sucked harder on your clit so he could push you off the edge.

Wooyoung was insanely hard in his pajama pants, almost crossing the edge to becoming painful. Wooyoung smirked as he swiftly added a third finger, making you feel the stretch.

Your mouth dropped open into a silent moan as you came. You pulled harshly on Wooyoung’s hair but he absolutely loved it. His groans were vibrating your clit, only intensifying your orgasm.

“Fuck W-Wooyoung! Fuck me- I n-need you to fuck me!”

Wooyoung wasted no time before he quickly stripped himself of his clothing. You barely had enough time to take the sight in before Wooyoung had his cock in his hand as he ran it through your folds.

He paused making you whine, “W-Wait y/n, condom?” You shook your head and pulled Wooyoung closer to you by wrapping your legs around him, “It’s o-okay… unless you w-want to?”

“I-I mean no but S-Seong-” You groaned and shook your head knowing that if Seonghwa found the condom it would be over.

“It’s okay W-Wooyoung… please?” He took a deep breath in before he slowly pushed in. You both moaned in unison as he had bottomed out inside of you. Wooyoung was a lot bigger than Seonghwa making you feel a stretch you haven’t felt before.

Wooyoung gripped your hips tightly as he tried to contain himself. You were already so tight but the way you were clenching around his cock almost made him cum on the spot, “y-y/n wait. If you keep doing t-that, I'm gonna cum.”

You nod in agreement knowing that you were pretty much walking on the same line he was. After probably a minute too long Wooyoung hesitantly starts to pull out before slowly thrusting back into you.

You let out a choked sob as Wooyoung started to thrust shallowly into you, still determined to tease you. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as Wooyoung brought a hand down to rub softly at your already sensitive clit.

After you whined about Wooyoung teasing you again Wooyoung gave in from more of his own need than yours, he would tease you for hours if he had the time and patience.

Wooyoung’s grip on your hips tightened as he slammed his hips into you. So much for wanting to take his time with you.

“Wooyoung! Fuck- y-you fuck me so good!” Wooyoung groaned and placed his feet on the bed so he would have more leverage to fuck into you.

“Y-Yeah? Does it feel good? Does my cock feel good?” Your head spun from Wooyoung’s words.

“Fuck yes- f-feels so good!” Tears sprung in your eyes from the pleasure you were receiving, Wooyoung’s cock hitting your spot with each thrust.

“Does Seonghwa fuck you good like this? Does he fuck you the way you deserve?” You shook your head, not remembering if you’ve ever felt this good before.

“No fuck!” Wooyoung managed to chuckle at your response, “Aww poor baby, you won’t be able to get fucked properly after this. Seonghwa won’t be able to fuck you without you thinking of me. You better be careful baby because once you moan my name it’s over, then you’re gonna be running back to me so I can show you what it’s like to be fucked properly again.”

Wooyoung’s words were becoming too much for you to handle as your legs started to shake. The coil in your stomach was so close to snapping and then your phone rang.

Wooyoung immediately stopped all movements making you let out the loudest whine you’ve ever made, “Wooyoung why- fuck!”

Wooyoung looked around before grabbing your phone, “Your phone is ringing” you honestly almost started crying, “Just leave it-”

Wooyoung shook his head, “It’s Seonghwa.”

You groaned loudly as your high was slowly starting to fade. You grabbed your phone from Wooyoung’s hand and took a deep breath before you pressed the answer button, “H-Hello?”

You heard what was loud music before it got quiet, “What’re you d-doing?” You heard Seonghwa hiccup as he was speaking.

As you started to respond to Seonghwa, Wooyoung started to thrust slowly making you inhale sharply, “oh n-nothing, we’re just watching that new movie…”

You heard someone speaking in the background before grabbing the phone, “Sorry y/n, Seonghwa’s drunk. I told you Seonghwa they weren’t doing anything, have a little more faith in them would ya?” You weren’t even listening to San with Wooyoung starting to increase the speed of his thrusts.

“What?” You held the phone away from your face so they wouldn’t be able to hear your heavy breathing, “Are you sure they’re not fucking?”

Your mouth dropped open in a silent moan whenever Wooyoung started rubbing against your sweet spot, “Wh-What is he talking about?”

San yelled at Seonghwa before bringing the phone back to his ear, “Seonghwa thinks that you’re having sex with Wooyoung.” Your eyes roll to the back of your head when Wooyoung reaches down to rub your clit, “Huh? Like right now?”

You hear San laugh on the other end of the phone like he knows how ridiculous it sounds, “Yeah, anyway, sorry about that. Go ahead and continue with whatever you were doing. Bye!”

You hang up quickly and throw your phone somewhere. You wrap your legs around Wooyoung’s waist and bring him even closer to you, “Did you hear him? Seonghwa thinks we’re fucking right now… little does he know he’s never gonna be able to satisfy you again.”

Once again Wooyoung’s words started bringing you over the edge, “Imagine if he came home and saw us right now, the look on his face when he sees his pretty little wife fucking her best friend.”

Your nails dig into Wooyoung’s back as your core starts to throb around Wooyoung’s cock, “He would see how good I’m making you feel, and he would know by the way your pretty little moans sound that he’s never made you feel this good.”

Without warning the coil in your stomach finally snapped. Wooyoung’s name came out of your mouth like it was the only word you knew. The feeling of you cumming was enough to push Wooyoung off the edge of his orgasm.

Your moans got even louder when you felt Wooyoung’s hot spurts of cum cover your walls. Wooyoung’s moans and groans engraved themselves into your brain as he was right next to your ear.

Your legs were shaking even after Wooyoung had pulled out and was laying next to you. Your cheeks burned red as both you and Wooyoung’s eyes were glued to your legs.

“Has Seonghwa ever made you feel that good before?” Wooyoung asked seriously. You let out a dry laugh before looking at Wooyoung with raised eyebrows, “What did that just look… and sound like?”

Wooyoung laughed before pulling you back on top of him. One of his arms wrapped around your waist while his other hand started running its fingers through your hair, “Like a no?”

You looked up to Wooyoung with a small smile, “Yep…” you looked at the clock on your bedside table and saw that it was only just after midnight, “Woo, we need to get dressed…”

Wooyoung agrees but neither of you make any effort to actually move. Wooyoung feels you becoming heavier on top of him signaling you’re falling asleep. He knows he can’t leave you naked on the bed for Seonghwa to see you and become even more suspicious so he carefully rolls you over to your back and gets up.

He goes over to the drawers and tries to find you some underwear to put on. While he’s over there he finds a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to put on you as well.

He places the clothes on the bed and looks around to find the clothes he had just previously ripped off of you, as much as he wanted you for himself he wouldn’t hurt Seonghwa to know that he had slept with you.

Once he puts the soiled clothing in the dirty clothes he quickly puts his clothes back on so he can go dress you.

As he carefully slips your underwear on you he feels a sudden wave of guilt. He tries his best not to let Seonghwa’s voice in the back of his head get to him as he continues to dress you.

He lifts your top half up as he puts your head through the hole. You mumbled something before you placed your head in Wooyoung’s neck and wrapped your arms around him, “L-Let me see your arms sweetheart.”

You whine quietly before sticking out your arms for Wooyoung and once he succeeded in fully dressing you, you wrapped your arms around him again and pulled him on top of you.

Wooyoung smiled fondly at you when he felt your grip tighten, “Love you Woo.” His heart clenched in his chest, “I love you more sweetheart.” He loved you more than words can explain but he knows you don’t love him in the same way, you couldn’t. Not when you’re marrying Seonghwa.

Wooyoung really tried not to think about it and focused on your breathing and soon enough he fell asleep while holding you.

⋆

Wooyoung woke up to the loud ringing of his phone somewhere. He tried his best to answer before it woke you up too, “Hello?” Wooyoung couldn’t keep up with whoever was on the other end of the line, “Wait wait wait- who is this?”

The person groans, “Yeosang you idiot.” Wooyoung makes a noise of acknowledgement before telling him to continue. As Yeosang is talking, Wooyoung looks over to your sleeping form next to him.

You just look so peaceful and so beautiful that Wooyoung can’t help but groan in annoyance making Yeosang stop talking, “What?”

Wooyoung carefully gets up to go to the kitchen so he wouldn’t wake you up, “Yeosang I fucked up big time.”

Yeosang pauses and Wooyoung hears shuffling so he's assuming he’s going somewhere else, “Please don’t tell me what I think happened…”

“Are you at your place?” Yeosang sighed harshly, “San and Yunho are here too though.”

Wooyoung nodded and went back to your room to grab his bag, “It’s okay… Seonghwa?”

“Oh his way back home… so you better leave before you feel too guilty.” Wooyoung agreed and hung up. He sits down next to you and brushes the hair out of your face before kissing you gently.

Your eyes flutter open as Wooyoung is pulling away. You grab onto his face and pull him into another kiss. When you pulled away you looked at him with your lip in between your teeth, “Are you leaving?”

Wooyoung smiles sadly and nods, “Seonghwa is coming back so I think it’s best if I go…” he watches as your eyes widen in a panic before he pulls you closer to him.

“No no no it’s okay! Hey sweetheart it’s okay, it’ll be fine.” You wrap your arms around him tightly, not wanting to let go, “Please stay?”

You looked at Wooyoung with watery eyes that made him want to give you the world, “I want to baby I really do, but Seonghwa he’s gonna be here in a minute and… I don’t think we could be in the same room as him right now.”

You nodded knowing that he was right but you still don’t pull away. Wooyoung gets up making him pick you up while he’s at it. He drops your legs so you’re standing on your tippy toes, “I love you.”

Wooyoung tightens his grip on you and rests his head on your neck, “Love you.” You finally let go of him but almost immediately grab onto his face to give him one more kiss, “Y/n-”

The way you’re looking at Wooyoung makes him weak and he can’t resist when you plea, “One last time. Please?”

Wooyoung holds your face with both of his hands as he kisses you with much love he can possibly muster. You let out a soft whine making him pull away, “I-I have to go…” you nod but when you make an effort to actually sit back down your mouth drops open and makes a noise of slight pain and discomfort.

Wooyoung snores loudly at you making you glare at him, “Sore?” You nod with a pout making Wooyoung feel a wave of pride mixed with slight anxiety, what if Seonghwa notices?

“I know that look Woo. I’ll be fine, it's okay.” Wooyoung nods once again but still looks concerned, “Want me to run you a bath? It’ll help.” You consider his offer but decline knowing that he couldn’t join you even if he wanted to.

Wooyoung finally makes his way to the front door, double checking he had everything he needed. He pulls the door open right as Seonghwa is pushing it open making him jump, “Holy shit! You scared me!” Seonghwa jumped too making him hold his hand over his heart, “Are you fucking serious?!”

The both of them stand at the doorway trying to calm down from the jump scare they both just received, “So, are you leaving already?” Wooyoung opens and closes his mouth trying to find the words before nodding, “Yeah, Yeosang asked me to take them something to eat… did y’all have fun last night?”

Seonghwa looks unsure of his answer but nods anyway, “Yeah, you know how it is with the boys… what about you and y/n?” Wooyoung panics slightly but nods, “Umm yeah, we just ate some snacks and watched a few movies.”

Seonghwa nods and they both stare at each other awkwardly before Wooyoung speaks up, “S-Sorry, I gotta go… the boys, they’re waiting.” Seonghwa nods and moves out of the way for Wooyoung to walk out.

Once Seonghwa closed the door, Wooyoung let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding in. When Wooyoung got to his car he threw his head against the steering wheel and let out a loud groan.

He fucked up big time.

When Wooyoung drives to Yeosang’s place he actually stops to go get food knowing they’re probably starving… plus if Seonghwa asks he doesn’t want him to know he was lying.

When he knocks on the door, San opens it with a large smile when he sees the bags of food Wooyoung was holding.

Wooyoung doesn’t even greet san before shoving the bags of food into his hands and walking into the apartment, “I fucked up.”

Yeosang and Yunho who were sitting at the table drinking coffee looked towards him. San followed Wooyoung completely confused, “Like our order?”

“No you idiot.” Wooyoung sits at one of the empty chairs at the table before looking at Yeosang with an extremely distressed look, “We- I fucked up big time Yeosang.”

Yunho’s eyes widen when he gets an idea of what happened, “We? As in You and y/n?” Wooyoung wanted nothing more than to say no and lie but whenever he nodded all three boys in front of him exploded.

“Wooyoung are you fucking kidding me?!” San had nothing else to say knowing that you had lied straight through your teeth whenever Seonghwa had called you. But then again what did he expect you to say, ‘Yeah I’m fucking my best friend’ obviously not.

“Even after Seonghwa had called her? After she told me straight up that that didn’t happen?” Yeosang really doesn’t look surprised but Yunho on the other hand looks like he’s having a heart attack.

Wooyoung shakes his head in response to San’s question, “So before?!” Wooyoung suddenly feels an immense amount of guilt as he shakes his head again.

San looks confused for a moment before his mouth drops open, “While we were on the fucking phone Wooyoung!” Wooyoung has never wanted to lie more in his entire life but he can’t bring himself to do it so he slowly nods.

A million expressions pass through San’s face and Wooyoung can’t stand the harsh glares of his friends, “Wooyoung- they’re getting married… MARRIED WOOYOUNG!” Wooyoung scoffs at Yunho who’s looking at him like he’s trash.

“You don’t think I fucking know that? It was just a kiss Yunho a-and then I pulled away. We both said we couldn’t do it but then she kissed me again…” Their glares soften as they see as Wooyoung starts to tear up.

“And I asked her like 3 times if she wanted me to keep going and every time she said yes. I-I’m not saying it’s y/n’s fault… because I was the one that started it. And yeah I know it wasn’t a very smart decision but I- Yunho I love her so much.”

Yunho sends Wooyoung a sad smile as he continues. All the boys know how Wooyoung feels about you so in all honesty they really don’t blame either of you, “I love her so fucking much and in that moment I know she felt the same way… I just couldn’t handle it. And Yunho this morning when I told her I had to go- she kissed me again and begged me not to leave. She begged me to stay and give her kisses while we laid together but I couldn’t. I couldn’t Yunho, not when Seonghwa was on his way home to come back to his fiancé.”

Wooyoung wipes the tears that are falling whenever he finally stops talking. The three boys look between each other not knowing what to do or say, “Do you think she’s going to go through with it?” Wooyoung looked at the other boys expectantly with nothing but Hope filling his eyes.

In all honesty they really didn’t think you were, but it wasn’t their business to put out there. “You know Wooyoung… I don’t know. I really don’t know, but for now all we can do is wish the best for both of them…” San put his arm around Wooyoung, trying his best to comfort him in any way possible.

⋆

You saw Seonghwa open the door to your room with a large smile. You got up from the bed to wrap your arms around him in a big hug. You squeezed your eyes shut as you let out a shaky breath, “How was your night?”

“We had fun, believe it or not, I wasn’t the one who got the drunkest.” You laughed softly as you pulled away.

You sat back down with a slight grunt, “You alright?”

You nodded as you swallowed harshly, “I slept wrong, my back hurts.” Seonghwa nods in understanding.

He walks to the bathroom and you flop back onto the bed. You shut your eyes and cover your face with your hands as you felt like crying.

As you tried to focus on your breathing Seonghwa came out of the bathroom and pulled on your hand. You looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows, “I ran you a bath princess.”

You smile and follow Seonghwa, “I’ll let you relax alright?” You nod as he kisses you on the cheek, thankful that he doesn’t want to join you.

As soon as Seonghwa walked out you locked the door behind him and looked at yourself in the mirror. You couldn’t do this. You scanned yourself in the mirror as you took your clothes off, trying to make sure there weren’t any hickeys on you.

You carefully went to sit down in the bath with a pained expression and a groan. You soaked your body in the water and bubbles and you couldn’t stop the tears that started flowing from your eyes.

You couldn’t stop the soft sobs and the way your body shook. You needed Wooyoung.

You don’t know how long you sat there and cried but the water was now cold and your fingers were wrinkly.

You looked down and your eyes widened as you saw the bruises on your thighs and hips, “Shit Wooyoung-”

“Are you okay in there?!” Seonghwa knocked on the door and called out to you.

“Umm… yeah I’m okay! I’m getting out now!” You looked at yourself in the mirror one more time and you could tell you had been crying for who knows how long. You tighten the towel that’s wrapped around you as you walk back into your shared room to get some clothes to change into.

You made sure you grabbed a pair of sweats to cover the bruises and a random shirt. You grabbed your phone and pressed San’s contact as you walked out of the room, ignoring Seonghwa who was looking at you.

San answered your call almost immediately, “Hey my love, what’s up?”

“San cut the bullshit, I know he’s there.” San was quiet on the other line before you heard a door close.

Your breathing was shaky and you walked out of your apartment, needing to get some fresh air, “Y/n what the fuck were you thinking? You’re getting married!”

You laughed dryly, “Do you think I don’t fucking know that? I’m not oblivious to what I did.”

“You lied right through your teeth. How do you think Seonghwa would feel?” Tears started pricking at your eyes again because you know you would’ve broken Seonghwa’s heart.

You know how much Seonghwa loves you and it hurts you knowing that your love for Seonghwa isn’t as strong, “San I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do lovely… you’re getting married in a week. A week y/n. You need to decide if you’re going to call it off or not.”

You shook your head, “I can’t do that Sannie. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

You heard a sigh, “You need to talk to Seonghwa. Y/n I know you don’t want to go through with it. No matter what decision you make, it’s going to hurt Seonghwa.”

You didn’t even realise you started crying again until San started trying to comfort you, “Hey, y/n, listen to me. Everything is gonna be okay. You and Wooyoung will work it out.”

You nodded more to yourself, “Y-You’re right. Look, I got to go. Take care of Wooyoung for me.” You didn’t let San respond before you hung up the phone and shut your eyes.

You fucked up and you knew it. You were getting married in a few days and you just cheated on the man you’re getting married to.

You dragged your feet as you walked back to your apartment, wanting to take as much time as possible getting there.

Seonghwa was at the door and immediately walked to you whenever you walked back in. You stiffened as Seonghwa pulled you into a hug, “What’s wrong princess?”

“N-Nothing. It’s nothing, I’m okay.” Seonghwa pulled away and held your face in his hands. He raised his eyebrows at you, knowing that something was wrong, “I’m sorry. I’m just really stressed with everything going on.”

Seonghwa nodded in understanding, “It’s okay. I’ll take care of everything, we’ll work it out. Love you.”

“Love you.”

⋆

Your wedding day. It’s the day that should be the happiest moment of anyone’s life. You and Wooyoung haven’t seen each other since… then, but he texted you this morning making sure that you were okay.

Your mom and San and a couple other members of your family were helping you with your hair and makeup, San was just there for emotional support.

Everyone could see it in your face, you didn’t want to do this. Everyone tiptoed around you being careful not to mention Wooyoung or being married even though you were literally sitting there in your wedding dress looking out the window.

Your wedding was at the beach. It was supposed to be beautiful. There was a breeze, the ocean looked absolutely beautiful, and it was sunny.

The perfect wedding right?

San made sure you had everything you needed because you really didn’t have any motivation. You had barely finished your vows and Seonghwa had gotten his done months ago.

It was time that San had to leave and go help Seonghwa and the rest of the boys. San pulled you into a hug and you didn’t want to let go, “S-San please stay.”

“You’ll be okay darling. Just… don’t force yourself to do anything okay? You’ll know what the right decision is when you get up there.” San gave you an unconvincing smile but you nodded and took a deep breath.

San gave you a kiss on the forehead and one last hug before he went to join Seonghwa and Wooyoung.

San’s heart physically broke whenever he walked into the opposite room. He could see how happy Seonghwa looked and how Wooyoung looked like he was going to cry.

San felt so awkward but he was pained by his friends. He walked over to where the rest of the boys were, “What the fuck is going on?”

San made sure to speak quietly so neither Wooyoung or Seonghwa could hear them, “Dude there’s no way.”

“No?” Yunho looked at San with a sad smile as he shook his head.

The three boys sat there quietly as they watched Wooyoung try his best to keep a smile on his face as Seonghwa read his vows to Wooyoung. They really felt bad for Wooyoung.

Once poor Wooyoung confirmed his vows, it was time. Seonghwa stood in front of y’alls family and friends with Wooyoung next to him looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

If literally everyone was being honest, they didn’t think they’d actually be sitting there looking at Seonghwa. No one had ever imagined anyone else but Wooyoung standing there.

You wanted Wooyoung to walk you down the aisle but in the end it didn’t seem very smart so you had your closest family member do it. You stood at the exit of the building trying to force yourself to walk out. You took a couple of deep breaths before you heard the music start to play.

You felt like you were going to simultaneously vomit and shit yourself.

Your heart felt heavy as you saw Seonghwa looking happier than ever and your feet felt more like cinder blocks the closer you got.

You were tearing up and before you knew it, your body was shaking with soft sobs. Seonghwa was the complete opposite, his eyes shone with only love as he took your hands in his.

Wooyoung had the dreaded task of being the ring bearer, even though he wasn’t a child, so he walked from his spot next to Seonghwa in front of the two of you to hand Seonghwa the box with the rings.

Wooyoung gave you the most pained smile you’ve ever seen and you couldn’t help yourself when you pulled Wooyoung in for a hug. You both held onto each other so tight, absolutely terrified of letting go. Finally Wooyoung decided to pull away with teary eyes and quickly went back to his spot.

Usually the groom goes first in saying his vows, but you decided that you wanted to start out.

You forced out a laugh as you started, “Seonghwa… we’ve known each other for the longest time. After I realised that you were just a big softie who smelt like c-cinnamon all the time… cinnamon… that’s how you make me feel, warm like cinnamon.”

Wooyoung’s heart froze. Maybe it was just a coincidence? It had to be. Until you said it again… and again… and when you gave Wooyoung the look, he knew he had to do something.

What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t just grab you and run, but he also couldn’t let you exchange rings.

Wooyoung’s adrenaline was pumping and he was suddenly glad he was there. His breathing got faster and he started shifting his weight anxiously, “You okay Woo?” San, who had noticed Wooyoung’s shift in mood was now… concerned to say the least.

Wooyoung couldn’t focus on anything else you were saying and before he knew it you had the ring and Seonghwa had his hand held out.

Your hand was so shaky and your vision was blurry from all the tears and you dropped the ring. That was Wooyoung’s opportunity, “I’ll get it-”

You glanced at Wooyoung and you knew, “I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Seonghwa- I’m sorry, I love you so much.”

Behind Seonghwa, the boys shut their eyes in anticipation and your mom gave Wooyoung a knowing look with a nod.

Seonghwa looked confused for a minute before Wooyoung successfully found the ring and gave it to Seonghwa.

You and Wooyoung looked at each other for a minute before he grabbed your hand and started running.

You wanted to look back but you couldn’t. You couldn’t bring yourself to see the look on Seonghwa’s face as you ran away with Wooyoung.

You listened to the gasps of everyone you passed by but in all honesty, most weren’t surprised.

San, Yunho, and Yeosang looked at each other in both shock and relief. They honestly were really close to running with the two of you.

It was dead silent besides the sound of the ocean. No one knew what to do. Do they just… leave? Do they wait? If you ran you’re probably… not coming back.

San really wanted to cheer you on but it would obviously be a little bit insensitive with Seonghwa standing there so he contained his cheers with the biggest smile on his face.

Seonghwa couldn’t even comprehend what happened. There was no emotion on his face. He looked at the ring in his hand to where you and Wooyoung were distant.

The two of you couldn’t be seen anymore and you finally stopped Wooyoung, “W-Wooyoung I’m in heels. The beach isn’t nice to heels.”

“Let me carry you then.” Wooyoung lifted you up bridal style and walked you back to the parking lot. When he found his car and let you down and looked at you with a cheesy smile.

You rolled your eye at him with a matching smile as you got into his car. As soon as Wooyoung got in he took off before anyone could find y’all. You watched Wooyoung as he was driving, “Do you think that was a little too harsh?”

Wooyoung thought for a moment, “Umm, I- maybe wasn’t the best outcome but it wasn’t the worst.”

You bit your lip in thought before you spoke, “Wooyoung I love you.”

Wooyoung glanced over to you as he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel he was staying at, “I love you.”

“No- Wooyoung I love you a-and I’m so sorry that I had to make you go through that.”

“Y-n, it’s okay-”

“No it’s not. It was so much unnecessary pain for the both of us. Me and Seonghwa, we were never going to work out. It just wasn’t meant to be. You’re what I want- no need. You’re my soulmate Wooyoung, and I know that’s cheesy and I understand if you just wanna give up on me and just be friends again… but that’s okay. It’s better than not being with you at all. It was so hard Wooyoung- I’m so used to being with you 24/7, i'm used to the way we used to cuddle, the way you would hold me and make me feel like everything is going to be okay and I miss it so much-” you continued to ramble until Wooyoung grabbed your face to get you to stop.

Your heart already felt like it was going to explode but when Wooyoung pressed his lips against yours, everything was calm.

It was right. This is how it was supposed to happen, with Wooyoung. Wooyoung was what you needed.

You pulled away with a smile, “Come on.” You got out of the car and walked into the hotel with Wooyoung trailing behind you. Y’all got a few stares along with a couple of ‘congratulations’ thrown at you making you laugh at Wooyoung's flushed cheeks.

Wooyoung takes your hand in his as he leads you to his hotel room. He immediately shuts the door and you move to sit on the bed.

The tension in the room was thick. You both knew what you wanted to happen but neither of you were making the move.

“Kiss me Wooyoung.”

That was the only push he needed. Wooyoung’s lips crashed against yours as you leaned back so you were laying on the bed. Wooyoung hovered over you and you held onto him tightly.

When Wooyoung pulled away he looked at your dress and laughed softly, “I- I don’t know how to take it off…”

You groaned at Wooyoung but you sat up and directed Wooyoung how to take it off. Wooyoung tried not to ruin the moment completely so he let his lips trail along your neck and shoulder.

Wooyoung pulled you so you were standing up and let the dress fall off of you. He picked you up and laid you in the middle of the bed while biting his lip.

Wooyoung sat up and took a minute to look at you, “W-Wooyoung-”

“Patience darling, I’m taking my time with you this time.” You whined as Wooyoung lowered himself down and attached himself to your neck.

“Wooyoung you can’t-” Wooyoung scoffed against your shoulder before he started to suck marks.

“Why not? You’re mine now.” You couldn’t stop the smile that came across your face before you squealed whenever Wooyoung bit down on your neck.

Your breathing was heavy as Wooyoung slowly made his way down your body with sloppy kisses and hickeys on your chest and stomach.

Wooyoung reaches your thighs and you stop him, “W-Wait.”

You grab onto his hips and bring him lower so you could grab onto his belt. You let Wooyoung straddle your waist as you shoved your hand in his pants to release his cock.

Your mouth watered as you slowly jerked Wooyoung off. He looked down at you with dark eyes and a parted mouth. Wooyoung reached underneath you to undo your bra with a groan when he saw you exposed underneath him, “You’re so pretty and you're all mine.

Your core was throbbing with need but you just ignored it in an opt to get Wooyoung off and his cock was pulsing in your hand.

You let out soft whimpers as Wooyoung kneaded your tits in between tweaking your nipples.

Suddenly Wooyoung pulled away from you making you groan before he moved up and held his cock in front of your lips. You immediately took him between your lips and sucked on his tip lightly.

Your legs instinctively spread as Wooyoung had a hand resting on your hip. He took that as a cue to dip his hand into your panties.

Wooyoung immediately felt how wet you are with a cocky smirk on his face, “I knew you’d come back for me to fuck you properly. Good thing you’re mine now so you’ll always get fucked right, just how you deserve.”

You pulled away from Wooyoung’s cock because you knew he was on the verge of cuming, “C-Cum in me.”

Wooyoung groaned deeply, “Please Wooyoung, show me that I’m yours. Make me yours.” He watched you for a second in complete disbelief before he gathered himself and spread your legs further as he carefully pushed into you.

You moaned loudly, remembering the stretch of Wooyoung’s cock. Your pussy pulsed around his cock, pushing him over the edge. Your eyes squeezed shut and your mouth was open as you took in the feeling of Wooyoung filling you.

Your legs wrapped around Wooyoung loosely as he started to thrust inside of you. He was still fully hard and was determined to get you to cum twice because he can’t be the one getting all the pleasure.

You were already embarrassingly close to cuming untouched so you almost came immediately after Wooyoung picked up his pace.

The fact that Wooyoung was still fully dressed while you’re completely naked was a lot hotter than it should be, so you grabbed onto his tie and pulled him down to attach his lips to yours.

Sloppy noises filled the room from your kisses along with your cum mixing together on your bottom half.

All the sensations mixed together were too much for you to handle especially when Wooyoung let his fingers trail down and rub figure eights on your clit.

You let out a muffled sob as your legs wrapped around Wooyoung’s waist again and held him close to you as you came. Your sobs mixed with whines got louder as Wooyoung slowed his thrusts, “Nonono! Don’t! Please don’t stop- please Wooyoung!”

Wooyoung laughed at how desperate you were before pulling out of you. You started babbling about how you needed to cum again and Wooyoung cocked his head in fake sympathy, “Aww, do you? I guess since I’m being nice today I’ll let you cum again.”

Wooyoung swiftly pushed back into you, making tears start running down your cheeks from how good it felt, “Does my cock make you feel that good? So good that you’re crying?” You couldn’t even answer Wooyoung properly from the pleasure you were feeling.

Wooyoung couldn't understand the incoherent babbling but he continued to tease you, “Huh, look at that, not only are you crying, but you're drooling too.” Your mouth was wide open and Wooyoung snorted as he used the opportunity to press his thumb against your tongue, “You’re so messy and I can tell you're about to make an even bigger mess.” He was right, you were about to cum again.

Wooyoung was waiting for you to cum again before he did. As much as his words affect you, they do the same to him.

He gripped your hips tightly as your legs tightened further around him, completely trapping him inside of you so you could cum again. Once again with the way you were throbbing so deliciously around Wooyoung’s cock, it didn’t take long for him to cum inside of you again.

Your soft whines and Wooyoung’s groans were filling the room as you both came down from your second orgasm.

As soon as Wooyoung pulled out of you, all of your mixed cum started to drip out of you and Wooyoung watched with furrowed eyebrows. He reached over to grab his phone and before you knew it, you saw a flash go off, “Jung Wooyoung I know you did not just take a picture of my pussy-”

Wooyoung laughs and takes a couple more, “I’m gonna put it as my background.”

“I dare you…”

Wooyoung pats your knee and gets up to get a wet towel to wipe off the mess on your pussy and thighs, “I told you- so messy.”

You roll your eyes and smack Wooyoung’s arm, “It was all you!”

Wooyoung looks at you with a smug smile, “Yeah, only because I fuck you so well. Now get up.”

“Wooyoung I can’t…” he really really wanted to make another remark but he decided to stop teasing you and removed the sheet from around you before you moved off of it.

It was actually kinda late and he was surprised neither of your phones were blowing up but he realised he had his on ‘do not disturb’

As Wooyoung was getting a set of clothes to sleep in he checked his call log and saw like 50 calls from several people.

“Don't call anyone back. At least not yet…” Wooyoung looked to where you were as you looked up at him with pleading eyes.

“I won’t… I want to stay with you.”

 You held your arms open for Wooyoung and he walked over to you with a smile, “But here, you need to put some clothes on before I wanna fuck you again.”

You giggle as you put on the shirt and boxers Wooyoung gave you before you wrapped your arms around him tightly.

The two of you lay in each other’s arms until you speak up softly, “I told you I’d never leave you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Wooyoung didn’t take his eyes away from yours as he spoke, “I love you so much y/n and I know you’ve always felt the same a-and then you said yes when Seonghwa asked to marry you-”

“I know. It was always you Wooyoung, and I’m not going anywhere anymore. I’m all yours.”

[aforrestofstuff]

What would happen at an s-class slumber party? Including Saitama I guess. Like who falls asleep first, who plays games, etc

I got these two asks like, literally ten minutes apart and idk what prompted all of these sleepy time curiosities pertaining to the S-Class but I am HERE for it. I’m gonna put them together into one masterpost because they’re roughly the same thing lol. Thanks for requesting stuff y’all! 😄💖

I was having trouble thinking of a possible scenario that could explain why the S-Class would even want to be in the same room together for more than 30 minutes, let alone have a sleepover. The best I could come up with is Sitch paid them all a handsome sum to sleep in the Hero Association lobby and stand guard because there’s an S-Class threat hit squad on the hunt for his executive ass. And, being the cheap-asses that they all are, they took the offer.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s get crackin fellas:

Tornado of Terror: She’s grumpy as all hell to be here (even though she got paid the most), so she just falls the fuck asleep and tells everyone to wake her up at the first sign of trouble because she thinks she’s the only one who’s capable enough to deal with it. She brings a pillow, a blanket, her jammies, and a teddy to sleep with. If anyone dares to open their mouth about Sir Stuffers then she’ll gladly explode their head.

Silverfang: Volunteers to take first watch, but because he’s an old shit he falls asleep 20 minutes into his shift. He doesn’t bring anything to sleep with because he convinced himself that he has the willpower to stay up all night but Charanko “accidentally” mixed melatonin into Silverfang’s tea before he left for the mission so now he’s passed the fuck out and not waking up anytime soon.

Atomic Samurai: Same as Silverfang: thinks he can stay up to stand watch and falls asleep 10 seconds into his shift. Except, he doesn’t need to be poisoned to accidentally fall asleep because dealing with his disciples is a triple full-time job and as a result, daddy Kami is always ready to pass the fuck out at any time. He’s basically a narcoleptic past 8pm. To sleep with, he brought a ratty-ass pillow and a bottle of night juice (saké).

Child Emperor: is nocturnal and completely fine with staying up all night, so he’s on watch the whole time. Although, the sound of candy wrappers makes it hard for anyone else to sleep and as a result, everyone is ready to punt this kid by 3am. He shows up in gym shorts and a t-shirt because what’s the point of getting dressed with these hooligans and spends the whole night hanging out with Zombieman. Although, he did bring a sleeping bag and pillow just incase he wants to take a power nap.

Metal Knight: Shows up in a power suit like this mf in Pacific Rim. Everyone thinks he’s just controlling a drone remotely but Sitch told him if he doesn’t show up in person then he doesn’t get the money, so he’s sitting in this tin can the whole time and trying his best to stay awake (he passes out by midnight). He’s also in his underwear. Idk why that was worth it to mention but there you go ❤️

King: Mentally on the verge of a breakdown at the thought of spending the whole night with these jackasses but shows up anyway because he wants that PS5 and is willing to do anything to get it. He gets there in his jammies, sets down his pikachu sleeping bag, and falls asleep without saying hi or offering to take watch. Everyone thinks that he’ll wake up naturally at the first sign of trouble and finds it really impressive that he fell asleep so fast, but he really just passed out from hyperventilating so hard. He would normally be perfectly fine with staying up all night because he’s a gamer and he does it all the time anyway, but anxiety really do be like that sometimes.

Zombieman: Is nocturnal like Child Emperor when he wants to be, but can also fall asleep in .2 seconds on a bed of nails. He’s perfectly fine with staying up all night because he constantly does it when following leads on a case and doesn’t bother bringing anything to sleep on. In fact, he shows up in full gear because he’s mildly paranoid and he wears it all the time anyway, it’s basically a second skin by now. He spends the night playing cards with CE and taking occasional sips from a flask to calm his nerves. They also take turns telling spooky ghost stories by the light of Zombieman’s lighter, to which he pretends to be scared. When he wants to smoke, he does it by Bofoi’s machine because fuck that guy.

Drive Knight: Forgot to change his Duracells the day before and falls over the second he walks in the door. Everyone thinks he’s a lazy ass for falling asleep so soon but he’s actually in a robo-medical emergency.

Pig God: is perfectly fine with staying up all night because, as I’ve said on multiple other hcs, he’s a hardcore gamer and being nocturnal is basically second nature. However, like Child Emperor, the sound of him constantly eating in the dark has everyone ready to jump his ass by midnight. He’s dressed in his pajamas as well, and they’re so big that they share the clothing measurements of an actual humpback whale.

Superalloy Darkshine: Falls asleep by 9pm on the dot every night and knows it’s pretty much impossible for him to stay up all night so he shows up in his Bedtime Thong(tm) with a sleeping bag and kindly asks everyone to wake him up if there’s trouble. Nobody listens but he pretends they do. He also brings a “small stash” (actual grocery bag filled to the brim) of protein bars to snack on incase he gets hungry in the middle of the night and offers a few to everyone, to which they decline (ultra-vegan keto-friendly gluten-free sugar-free flavor-free protein bars taste like actual garbage). And because he drinks a swimming pool of water every day (gotta stay at peak physique, yo), he gets up at least 12 times in the middle of the night to pee and he pisses so loud for no reason that it sounds like there’s a waterfall in the next room.

Watchdog Man: Carries his human-sized doggy bed in with his mouth and falls the fuck asleep without even announcing his presence. Nobody even notices he’s there. Sitch forgets to pay him.

Flashy Flash: Is fine with staying up all night to stand watch because he had to do it so many times in the ninja village anyway, but fuck me if he isn’t pissy about it. He shows up in full gear because, like Zombieman, he wears it so often that it’s basically a second skin at this point. By 2am he fucks off to take a shower because being in the same room with these people actually makes him feel unclean and he doesn’t leave the bathroom until the sun starts to rise. His hair, however, looks twice as shiny.

Genos: Shows up, points his arm cannon at the door incase of possible intruders, and doesn’t move for 12 hours. He brought Saitama along because why not and mr caped baldy greatly regrets it.

Metal Bat: Shows up in gym shorts with his bat, a blanket, and a pillow and fucks off to the corner of the room to brood. He takes watch for a few hours in between power naps, and sleeps with his phone .2 inches away from his face incase Zenko calls. When she does, he wakes up at the speed of light and loudly answers the phone like there isn’t at least 7 other people sleeping within close proximity to him. It’s never for an emergency, she just calls like 3 times into the night because she had a bad dream or she’s wondering how he’s doing. But regardless of what it is, Badd is ready to run all the way home and be with her. He just took the job because he wants to buy her a bigass gift with all the money he’ll be receiving.

Tanktop Master: Same as Superalloy, except he snores like a motherfucker. He doesn’t need waterfall piss to keep everyone up because this mf sounds like a lawn mower. He shows up in his Tanktop Pajamas (which is basically just a Tanktop with pajama bottoms) and takes watch in between power naps, to which he sleeps on a Tanktop Sleeping bag (just a regular sleeping bag, there’s literally nothing different about it) with his Tanktop Pillow (also just a regular pillow, literally nothing special about it).

Puri-Puri Prisoner: sleeps naked. Dick out.

Saitama: Gets bored as hell by 10pm and tries to wake up King so they can play video games together on his gameboy that he smuggled in, but the poor bastard is OUT. Saitama tries to sleep, however, he forgot to bring anything to sleep on so he tries to roll up his cape and use it as a pillow but, alas, he gets a neck cramp so bad that he actually almost starts to cry.

[loxxxlay]

Can we get the rest of the ball destroying story?

This is a very long and probably anticlimactic story about how I destroyed an attorney's metaphorical balls by not letting him get away with being a toxic pile of shit. I hope you enjoy.

So, the first thing you need to know is that my old boss (whom I will call M) is a real fucking asshole. 1, he voted for trump; 2, he's a creep; 3, most obnoxiously, he treated his previous lead paralegal like a freaking wife.... or actually worse than a wife really... like an object. like a trophy wife. When the lead paralegal left, he basically treated her like she was divorcing him, as if she was an object of his possession. And he was like "you'll NEVER have it better than you have here, and i'll never let you come back." (Funny story: i am one of 5 paralegals there who put in their 2 week notice during June, and they were so panicked that they called this exact former lead paralegal and asked her to come back. -_-)

Okay so anyway, let's cut the story back to about 2 months ago. I have been M's lead paralegal for about 8 months now since the previous one left, and I'm hating it. I'm actively job hunting because M is becoming toxic to me the same way he was to the last paralegal. I needed references, so I asked another attorney who also worked there to be my reference. We will call him T. So T is my favorite attorney. T is the first person I came out to as having a girlfriend at the firm, and he never once betrayed me. He is everything that M is not. He gives positive feedback like he gives out candy, but he's also honest and real in a way that not a lot of ppl are.

So anyway I secretly ask him to be a reference on my resume, and T is like "sure! but well funnily enough, I'm actually leaving the firm in 2 weeks. I can't ethically recruit people while I'm here, so I'm going to end this conversation here, but.... wink wink, nudge nudge, call me in 2 weeks." So I'm like COOL COOL. And we don't speak of it again.

So 2 weeks pass, I continue job hunting, T leaves the firm. He calls me literally the next day, and he immediately is like "I wanna hire you" and I'm like "okay cool, I wanna be hired." So boom I got a new job. Ethically. (I'm serious though, T is a very ethical guy and he did nothing wrong.) So anyway, T is okay with me waiting until my NYU program in June is over, so my start date is July 1. 1 month from then. T also asks me very politely not to tell M where I'm going because it would sour their "friendship" (a.k.a. the attorney world in utah is a small world and he doesn't want M to get his feelings hurt). And I want to be clear, T did not pressure me at all - he asked for a favor, and I decided to do it for him, because I care about him, that's it. If at any point it became a burden for me, I would have changed my mind, and T would have understood.

So, I wait a week until I'm in New York to tell M i'm leaving him. I come up with a brilliant excuse for why I don't want to tell him where I'm going - "I have a few offers and I don't want to talk about it while I'm still deciding" (which wasn't even really a lie). So I call my boss and I tell him I'm putting in my two weeks. And he treats me like he always treats people - he interrogates me. Except this time, he's shocked and upset, so he SUPER interrogates me. It's super inappropriate questions like "why are you quitting???" and "is it because of money???" and "this is SUCH bad timing" - but it's frustrating because he's an attorney and he knows how to dress up these rude questions with politeness. In a way that if I call him out on it, I'll be the one who looks inappropriate. :( It sucked. But luckily I had spent 3 days researching how to approach this, and.... I gave him nothing. He was desperate for fuel to try to convince me to stay or guilt-trip me into working overtime, and I just didn't give him any because I was prepared, and also.... I'm good at this. My mom says I've been good at this since I was 3-years-old lol.

Anyway so unfortunately during the conversation, he asked the question "Where are you going?" and I immediately gave him my excuse. And I expected that to be done and over with. Idk why I thought it'd be that easy... He immediately started trying to guess where I was going. And at what point, he said "are you going to work for T????" and..... honestly guys... I panicked. I lied. I said, "uh, no." flat out lmao. Like, I was just so shocked that he was asking me in the first place. :( But weirdly, he believed me and that was that (or maybe he filed away the lie for later use as you'll see). I also want to make it clear here that I, at first, wasn't telling M where I was going because T had asked me to... but at this point, with how nosy and inappropriate M was asking, I didn't want to tell M anymore either. It wasn't for T that I was hiding it; it was for me. Like, no M, I don't want you to have any personal details. You're being 150% more of a creep than usual which is impressive considering.

Anyway so I never tell anyone where I'm going except 2 ppl whom I trust on my last day (and yes, one of them betrayed me, which kinda sucks D:). I told T that I had lied to M, and T was like "it's okay, if he finds out, I'll have ur back" and also... I told T I go by Echo instead of my legal name/dead name, so I'm fine with the lie because M will probably never find out anyway. and T was delighted and super supportive of my enby identity. ^_^ It's cute because he never called me by name, but now all of his texts and statements deliberately start out with my name as if to remind me that he supports it lol.

Anyway so flash forward to my new day at the job. It's going great. I love it there. And then I check my phone and I see this fucking text:

M: "I hear you work for T now. I wish you the best, but I specifically remember asking you if that's where you would be working, and you said no."

Like.... what the actual fuck? He never texts me, and also I've been gone from his firm for like a day.. max... have some chill, lmfao. like. At first, I was REALLY upset. Not in a "i feel bad for lying" kind of way. I couldn't care less about that. More in a "i feel like i'm being stalked, one of two close friends betrayed me, and also what the fuck, why are you texting me this??" #yikes. But then that night, I was talking to my dad about it. And I became super amused? Like. What is he going for here? What does he want me to say? What response does he hope that I'll give that will make him feel better? Does he want me to call him crying and begging for forgiveness and for my job back? Like? I genuinely sincerely want to know what the fuck he was expecting me to say. I want to understand what was going through his head lol.

And of course, because I am a passive aggressive bitch, I immediately catch on to the fact that he is Butthurt (shocking, I know). His feelings are hurt. An object of his, his very own lead paralegal, lied to him outright and he didn't see it coming! How dare she! He wants to make me feel hurt like he feels hurt, and he's a lawyer, he knows how to interrogate people and manipulate people and get them to suck his dick, idk. So he should be able to use those skills to make me feel bad for lying. He wants to one-up me. But see, what he didn't realize is that....

1, I don't feel guilty for lying to him... at all... like, it took me a couple hours to realize this, but the only negative emotion it made me feel was discomfort and fear. not guilt. the same way i feel when a strange man asks me for a hug, and i feel like refusing would look "rude." Like, there's nothing guilty about that. So yeah. His goal is to expose my guilt to make himself feel better, but... my guilt doesn't exist, so good luck

2, um, like I said earlier, I've been a passive aggressive bitch since the day I was born, unlike this bitch who had to go to college to learn how to do it, and not only that - I'm better at it than him. lmfao. His pride is gonna take a hit.

so I toy with the idea of ignoring him because I know that will really fuck him up and make him constantly think about it and check his texts to see if I've responded. But then T tells me that it's probably better to not burn a bridge because again.... super small world here.

So anyway lol, my response ends up being pretty simple but painstakingly constructed:

"Thank you! :) It wasn't an option at the time - it was a new development after you and I had already talked. I wish you the best as well."

The "Thank you! :)" to seem like I am utterly oblivious to the hidden accusation and passive aggressiveness. The middle sentence to be like "uh, are you really accusing me of lying right now?" and the last sentence, my favorite, to shut down the conversation forever. Now, if he responds, he already lost. Because there's no way to continue this conversation without exposing the fact that his "I wish you the best" was completely insincere. I've stripped away his ability to respond fake-politely (which is his modus operandi), and I've forced the last word on him.

Also, even better... (and no one has any way of proving this, least of all him, but) that statement (the "it wasn't an option at the time - it was a new development after you and i had already talked") is completely a lie on my part, and he knows it. T offered me the job the Monday after he left. There's no way he doesn't know that. So not only did I show obliviousness and not only did I shut the conversation down, I outright stonecold lied a second time. And there's no way for him to call me out on it. Like what could he even do? Send me a screenshot of my hire date? Send me a screenshot of an email I sent to a coworker? If he tries that, he's already lost again because like ... obviously super immature... it would be so easy to crush him with niceness like "Wow, I can tell this has really bothered you!" hahahhaha. Sadly he's smart enough not to do that, but it must be infuriating to know I'm lying and not be able to accuse me.

As an attorney whose literal job it is to catch & expose people lying, he literally watched me flat out lie to his face. Twice. And I didn't feel bad about it. And there was nothing he could do about it either time. He went to law school for this shit, and he still can't out-passive-aggressive me, the classic bitch.

Anyway so T apparently he showed his wife M's message, and she was like "oh my god what an asshole!!!" which I must admit was extremely validating!! And then he showed his wife my message, and she made a shocked face and said "wow she's good." And I always thought T was kinda just flattering me to be nice when he complimented my use of words in defusing angry clients and conveying info about a sensitive subject... but apparently his wife thinks so too, so I guess he's been more serious than I thought. I feel so.... complimented.... it's weird.... but I"m very happy and squeeing.

It's been like almost 24 hours and M has yet to respond to me, and if he does, he's already lost. I'll eviscerate him.

So like I know this story is probably disappointing and might not seem like I shanked his balls, but ... take my word for it because if u knew what a chaotic insecure pathetic mess he was and how he desperately claws for control by trying to intimidate and upset all of his employees (and pretty much always succeeds), then you'd understand that he's NEVER encountered something like this before. Someone literally just not giving a shit what he thinks about them. And from what I know of him, I promise you that this has certainly fucked him up for a good long while. And that makes me happy :')

[thephantomofthe-internet]

Read Into Me Chapter Two: The Importance of Being Earnest

Steve Harrington x Reader

Catch up on the series HERE

Word Count: 2,030

Warnings: Swearing, death illusion

Author’s Note: This chapter is a bit shorter than I’d like, but I promise that the next one is longer! Also, some of the tags aren’t working for some users, so I’m so sorry if you aren’t getting notifications for this series! If you know how to fix this lemme know!

Tags: @divinity-deos @thecaptainsgingersnap​  @wolfish-willow @scoopsohboi @herre-gud-nej​ @clockworkballerina​ @maddie1504​ @i-am-trash-so-much-its-scary​ @banjino-in-the-whole @buckysarge​ @wildcvltre​ @stanleyyelnatsiii​ @t0rment0 @10blurredsmoke10 @unussuallchild10 @n3wtscaseofniffler5​ @alwaysstressedout @peterparxour @linkispink1995​ @asharpknife @a-big-ball-of-idk​ @used-avocado​ @mochminnie​ @sledgy14​ @lilmissperfectlyimperfect​

Steve was so very fucked. He’d been sat at his desk since he got home from school and could not think of a single fucking thing to write. He’d had his notebook open, his typewriter loaded with paper, pen uncapped and waiting to be used, and the most work he’d done was chew on its blue cap. He just couldn’t think.

Writing was not his thing. Reading was not his thing. School was not his thing. He had lines of trophies on his nearly empty shelf-swim meet, track and field, basketball, and baseball for one summer in fifth grade. He could understand how to play a sport. That was competitive, improvisational, and had a core outcome-you won, lost, or tied. The same three outcomes with a million ways to do it, a million variables to get in the way. Math and science were the same, he could swing Cs and Bs in those classes, but English was the opposite. There were too many opinions. Too many options. When he managed to read one of the assigned books for class and not merely the Cliff’s Notes, he found he had nothing to say about it. Everything the author said felt true, even when his teachers were telling him to look for specific things in the narrative. Sure, if someone told him that the conch shell in Lord of the Flies meant something, but if you asked him what he wouldn’t know. And he would believe you if you said that the conch shell didn’t mean anything. His essays were all crap.

He thought about calling Nancy. Nancy would know exactly how to help him, she always did. But Nancy was with Jonathan now and he wasn’t confident that they were still friends at all. If they were ever friends. He didn’t think that they were. They weren’t really friends before they dated. Still, his hand hovered over the egg shell white rotary phone on his desk, a gift from his eleventh birthday. He lifted the phone off its hook, dialling the number off by heart. It took three rings for someone to pick up.

“Eleven?” Mike Wheeler’s frantic voice came through the other end. Steve couldn’t help but roll his eyes, the boy was far too attached to that girl, it was honestly concerning.

“Nah dude it’s Steve, your sister around?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

“She’s out with Jonathan.” Mike’s voice dropped into one of boredom. “You know, her boyfriend?” he was such a little shit sometimes.

“Yeah, I know dipshit, you wanna tell her I called when she gets back?” Steve huffed back.

“If I remember.” With that, the call went dead. Steve groaned, rolling his eyes as he slammed the receiver back onto the hook. What a fucking waste of time. He’d never hear back now, that kid didn’t like him from the start and would do whatever he could to keep them from being friends.

What was to be done now? He didn’t have anything to say about his spring break! Mr. Lawrence was a bastard for even asking him to write about it. Nothing happened! His parents went to Miami Beach to rekindle their marriage for the hundredth time and left Steve at home alone. He tried to throw a party but almost got busted by the cops with a fake ID at the Pick n’ Save and Tommy’s brother wouldn’t give them any weed to supplement what would’ve been a pretty dry party. He cancelled the party after that and sat at home alone. Nothing much to tell about and definitely wouldn’t fill a page, even if he used the longest words he knew.

Steve stood from his desk, looking through his shelf till he found the heavy yellow pages he’d put on the bottom of his shelf to weigh the sucker down so it wouldn’t fall over as fast. He flipped it open, searching through the numbers till he found what he was looking for, lifting the receiver off its hook again.

Across the street, you were sprawled out on your rose printed bedspread, your head in your hands with Samantha sat on your desk chair, laughing at your pain. “You know it’s not that bad, right? You could’ve gotten stuck with someone way worse.” She said, mindlessly digging through the black jewellery box sat dusty in the corner of your desk. Your mother had sent it from Spain and had filled it with different things she found across Europe. You didn’t care much for the stuff yourself but you kept it on your desk to show that you used it, not that she was ever home to seemed to notice.

Your bedroom was clean and stark white. It used to be pink, to match the rest of your white iron rod and pink padded furniture. You didn’t like the pink that much, and you didn’t adore the white, but you could hide it behind the art you tacked to the wall. Every portrait, still life, and landscape painting you’d been proud of hung proudly in your home gallery. You’d done recreations of your favourite album covers, and splatter art with balloons, and a few charcoal drawings of your grandparents and your father. You’d painted clouds and stars on your ceiling when you were in middle school, and while they had a lot of room for improvement, you left them above your head as a comfort to you. Your father had helped you scrape the popcorn ceiling down flat and helped paint the ceiling sky blue. It was your last project together.

“Oh yeah totally…” you said through your hands, refusing to look at her, focusing instead on the yellow sun spots floating under your eyelids.

“I mean, you could’ve gotten stuck with Tracy Lords again, she’s in that class.” Samantha replied easily, pulling out a green sea glass bangle from the top drawer, running her fingers over the red velvet interior of the box. Tracy Lords was a menace to productivity, at least she was according to Samantha. They had issues, which meant that you did too by association, but she’d done nothing to you except glare and pop her gum at you.

“At least she does her work!” you sat up, letting your feet dangle over your bed. “I don’t think he’s ever done his work on time, he’s always late with stuff!”

“That’s not your problem; as long as you do your work then Lawrence won’t care.” She flashed the bangle in front of your face “You should wear this more it’s nice.”

You shrugged “You can have it if you want.” You didn’t really care about what your mother sent you, it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t care enough about you to be home for more than a month out of the year. Besides, where on earth were you supposed to wear any of it? Your mother loved to spend your father’s riches on random, useless crap and you hated the idea of showing off the money your father died for. It wasn’t anything to brag about.

“Nah, not my style, it won’t match any of my stuff.” She put the bracelet back, closing the box with a metallic thump. “But anyway, you’ll be fine. Steve’s completely harmless.” You weren’t exactly sure if you believed her.

The phone on your desk blared loudly. You begrudgingly jumped off the bed, pulling it off the hook. Your grandmother was still at the hair salon and if you didn’t answer, one of her little friends from the old folk’s home might think that she died again.

“Hello?” you asked, motioning for Samantha to move over a bit, closing your white curtains closed again, your eyes scanning the streets with a bored expression.

“Hey is this Y/N?” Steve asked cautiously. He couldn’t quite remember your voice but he had double checked your last name in the year book and the phone book.

“Yeah, who is this?” dread filled your stomach the second he spoke, you were hoping against hope that it wasn’t Steve. You could see him pacing his window from across the street.

“Hey it’s Steve from English?” Fucking hell. You wanted to slam the damn receiver onto its hook. But if you did that, Samantha would think that you were crazy and you didn’t want to seem like such a baby.

“Oh hey what’s up?” you asked cautiously. Samantha was pulling at your sleeve, mouthing ‘Who is it?’ at you. You pulled your arm away, pushing her chair away from you with your foot.

“Oh nothing much, I was just wondering how your paper’s going?” Steve didn’t really know why he called you, he wasn’t certain that you’d even help him if he asked. He hardly knew you, he couldn’t name two things about you. But you seemed smart, you could be of some help if he had the balls to ask for it.

“Oh um…it’s fine. How’s yours going?” your hand came to the back of your neck, rubbing it awkwardly. You wanted to run away, to utterly disappear into another dimension. You didn’t like strangers, especially the whole small talk part. You didn’t feel like you had anything interesting to say about yourself and you hated silence. Your mind just didn’t come up with questions to ask.

Steve’s face burned. He couldn’t admit that he was stupid now; he was hoping that he wasn’t the only idiot in the class. “Oh um it’s good! I’m almost done.” He said, mentally cursing himself for saying that he was anywhere near finished.

“Oh cool. Do-do you want to switch them off tomorrow?” Now you had no idea what this phone call was even about. In the back of your mind, you assumed that he just had a question about the essay, but now you had nothing to grab onto.

“Yeah sure, that works for me.” He said, looking to his empty paper.  He was so totally screwed now. He couldn’t admit that he was an idiot to you, not when you already had everything so clearly understood. You spoke so confidently, it made him feel small and pointless.

“Okay…I’ll see you in class then.” You said. Steve bid an awkward goodbye and you both hung up unsure what the hell had just happened.

Samantha was on her feet, jumping on your mattress “Did Steve Harrington just call you?!?” she cried, following it was it a giddy scream. You hushed her, rolling your eyes.

“It’s nothing to freak out about, you weirdo!” you countered, turning to face her fully with a sullen expression. Your heart was still pounding hard in your chest, adrenalin pumping through your veins.

Samantha landed on her knees, looking up at you incredulously “What? He’s cool! That’s cool! Boys never call you!”

“Way to rub that one in.” you scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest. Talking to people wasn’t your strong suit, and while for the most part you were okay with not having many friends, you lack of experience with relationships made you very insecure. “You crushed one of your spikes on my ceiling.”

Samantha reached up and touched each individual black spike with the tips of her finger, finding the dented one at the top of her head. “It’s true! God, I’ve got more guys calling me and I’m a lesbian.” She lowered her voice at the mention of her sexuality. You both knew that your grandparents wouldn’t be kind to her if they knew, their homophobia a mark of their small mindedness.

“Yeah, well, the guys at this school are all idiots.” You looked back to your paper, pulling your red pen out from behind your ear and crossing out a word on your essay.

“You didn’t think Jonathan Byers was an idiot.” Samantha replied. You cheeks flashed cherry red. It wasn’t fair of her to even mention him. He was a dickhead and Samantha knew it.

“Yeah, well now I know that he’s just as big of an idiot as everyone else is.” You muttered, pulling your desk chair over and taking a seat once again.  You didn’t have the time for stupid boys, anyways. You had work to do.

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 73 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch and co. are still stuck in China and Xingke’s flipping out because the Chinese assholes are gonna kill the Empress and go with someone less problematic for their political marriage to Britannia’s creepily overaged prince. However Lelouch pulls out a Knightmare that’s basically the Twink version of the Gawain and busts everyone up as well as pulling a Father Cornello on them and letting the people know they’re all elitst 1% assholes that don’t care about them, which I suspect all countries probably know about their leaders but it sucks to hear it in a recording so riots show up all over China and CC Geass Flashes Anya to take her out so Britannia has to back out because the Chinese Hierarchy are now the least popular people in the world. So Xingke gets to be with his Empress and joins the Black Knights but Dietard wants the Empress to marry someone on their side so they can basically do the asshole move Britannia just tried to do but for them. All the girls are like ‘hey no’ and Lelouch is like “Oh hey Tamaki buddy, let’s go talk and get me the fuck out of here” so before Lelouch actually has to give Tamaki more lines and elevate him beyond the Black Knight’s Yamacha Shirley calls and Lelouch just straight up asks Shirley about love in a weirdly forced series of circumstance. But Shirley’s like “Yeah don’t fuck with love, don’t you love anyone?” and Lelouch is like “Yeah I do, Nunally!” and I don’t think that’s at all what Shirley meant but it does mean Lelouch sees that fighting for something beyond politics is powerful and agrees to not marry off the twelve year old girl, so that’s good. Lelouch decides to return home while they hunt down the Geass cult which is in China for some reason despite that being one of the like two places on earth Britannia doesn’t control and the Geass Cult largely being a Britannian affair. Meanwhile Sayoko is basically a Lelouch Vtuber at this point with her insanely accurate Lupin III mask of Lelouch and kisses Shirley so Shirley’s a little bit more gay than she was before and is not sure how to feel about that. When she’s about to tell the real Lelouch he kisses like a girl, Anya and Gino show up because we’re retreading the whole ‘sleeping with the enemy at school’ thing from the first season except with way less interesting enemies. Also the preview for the next episode is Lelouch dramatically talking about enemies finding out he’s Zero overtop footage of Shirley and Milly absolutely naked in a batthouse scene so I think we know what kind of episode that’ll be.

Inuyasha: The Panther Demon filler concludes with everyone meeting at the site where the Panther Master is being revived behind a strong barrier, if only someone just got a barrier upgrade to their sword, oh wait. But yeah everyone manages to free the hostages so even though Kagome’s jewel shards revives the Panther Master he’s still a zombie without a sacrifice which is weird since Naraku managed to completely revive the Band of Seven with one jewel shard each from skeletons and the Panther Lord has three shards so idk the rules here but yeah he steals the souls of his own men to revive and is Wind Scar Proof because he just is. It’s pretty cool to see him shooting his claws and lightning and shit but he’s too big and slow for it to be much of an interesting fight. Sesshomaru’s about to go full demon which would be interesting since we haven’t seen his full demon form since he lost his arm but in a neat bit of character development, Tenseiga calms his rage and tells him to use it instead. You get the feeling Sesshomaru only goes full demon when he flies off the handle and forgets about speed and strategy so him opting to not repeat the mistake he made against Inuyasha is pretty cool. Anyway Tenseiga heals the souls of the Panther Demons and drains their energy from the lord so he’s back to Zombie Cat Man which Inuyasha can Wind Scar because that’s what happens to villains on this show, all Wind Scars all the time. The Panthers don’t wanna fight anymore since their boss just killed them and tell Inuyasha to tell Sesshomaru the feud is over and they’re going back to the West. Honestly this is basically the same backstory they gave Kirinmaru in Yashahime so it’s funny for them to say they’re going back to the same place Kirinmaru is from, wonder if it’ll ever come up in Yashahime since most filler seems canon there.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke and Kuwabara continue the assault on Tarukane’s compound and basically plow through the lower demons easy since they’ve been fighting minor deities up to this point. It’s always pretty cool in Shonen to just have a few rounds to show how much power creep the heroes have had where certain things just don’t bother them anymore. Toguro murders a Chimera which has an oddly similar backstory to Nina from FMA and he seems really bummed about it but he’s like “Hey we’re both monsters made by humans telling us to do shit, so sorry for killing you bro”. And Tarukane basically sees Toguro is the next boss and is like “Yup time to scam some people off of this” and he sets up a betting ring for how far Yusuke and Co will get into his compound. This is kinda neat because it puts Tarukane in the weird position of betting against his own guards and hoping Yusuke will make it all the way to Toguro and then lose after everyone else has seen how awesome Yusuke is and bets on him. And funnily enough Sakyo’s in on the betting and he’s watched anime before so he knows to bet on the plucky teenagers with weird powers. So yeah Yusuke and Kuwabara finish plowing through the demons while Hiei kinda stalks them and remembers getting his eye surgery and wanting to help his sister but it’s kind of against spirit world rules for demons to just go plow through humans even if they’re scumbag humans so now Yusuke and Kuwabara have to go fight the Triad of boss demons Toguro has under him before Hiei busts in and just murders everyone for kidnapping his bird-loving jewel-crying little flower of a sister.

Fate Zero: So Kiritsugu can break Kayneth’s Terminator 2 Gaara defenses with rib bullets that just say ‘no’ to using magic and fucks his arrogant ass up. Saber and Lancer do some combo shenanigans to stab Caster right in the book and disrupt all his hentai tentacle demons but the book heals so idk why he can’t just make more. Kirei fucks up Maiya and Iris but didn’t double tap Maiya and DID double tap iris but she’s got Saber’s bullshit healing scabbard on her which no one knows about so Saber’s like “uhhh why are you healing” and Iris can’t tell her so she’s basically “Uhh internet?” Lancer comes in to save Kayneth’s worthless ass and tells Kiritsugu to stop being a dick to Saber because she’s pretty dope. But as usual for an early Fate encounter, no one dies and nothing of terrible consequence happens despite it being teased a couple times. I’ve noticed a trend with Fate that it really doesn’t like killing characters early so you’re basically guaranteed to have the first 2-3 major battles have a zero net gain/loss. Rider in UBW was probably the subversion to that since it happened crazy fast and anticlimactic but even that wasn’t till like ten episodes in.

Konosuba: So we finally meet Wiz the big booby Lich and Kazuma learns a new skill, both fun things. Also the gang gets a house to stay in after escapades with an army of haunted dolls and the most “I need to pee” in a horror setting since Corpse Party. But yeah, good progress this time honestly, the living in a stable gag was getting kind of old so Kazuma’s a bit stronger now and they have a home base so that’s pretty cool. Also Wiz is a Demon General or some shit but no one cares cause there ain’t no money in murdering busty zombie waifus.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So turns out Minako is Princess Serenity, except everyone who knows anything about Sailor Moon or indeed plot structure knows Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity, that’s like the Luke I Am Your Father of this series. But still turns out Minako has been guiding everyone with the power of video games but also thinks the power of friendship sucks and she’s gotta go do everything alone. This makes things super awkward because Mamoru’s pretty sure he was in love with the Princess but likes Usagi, now instead of running with this interesting thread of a reincarnation falling in love with someone new we’re gonna do the reveal that Usagi’s the princess and the whole ‘till death do us part’ part of marriage was just a metaphor and you’re stuck with one person no matter how many times you reincarnate. But yeah, Minako fights the bad guy on top of the tower but he has Naraku’s Barrier now and Minako doesn’t have the Red Tessaiga upgrade yet so she needs the power of friendship but this barrier is friendship-proof and this fight is basically a bunch of kids on the playground making up increasingly stupid powers that negate the other powers the other guy just made up. Anyway Tuxedo Mask shows up and is like “Holy shit Sailor Moon I love when you kiss me and kick ass, go get em sweetie I’ll hold your flower” and they kiss and Usagi has learned that if she just pretends she got this the power of her confidence will beat the bad guy. Unfortunately she does not got this and Tuxedo Mask has to pull a Piccolo and throw himself in front of the blast.

Durarara!!:  So now that we’ve had our climax for the arc we have a six month timeskip and everyone’s just kinda living life, Mika and Seiji are being clinically insane together, there’s cops harassing Celty to the point of mental breakdown (normal cop stuff) Shinra’s dad’s in town, Namie’s become Izaya’s secretary for blackmail shit, you know, normal stuff. Also there’s a katana-wielding maniac going around slashing people and Anri’s being bullied and sexually harassed to the point of mental collapse, normal stuff.

[snurtsnurt]

I just watched Ocean’s Eleven for the first time and I’m in the mood for conversation!

(Granted, I watched the movie in Russian because pirating movies off the internet is harder than it used to be, so some quips and one liners obviously fell through, and the movie kept loading every other minute because of bad internet, but! I had a good time.)

[SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED THE MOVIE YET YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY DO THAT SOON SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER]

So first off, the whole romance aspect of it doesn’t really… sit that well with me? It just tastes weird to watch. If I understood correctly, Tessa filed for divorce with Ocean cuz she had the moral high ground and didn’t like that he was a criminal, correct? So then she gets with Benedict, who is a casino owner?? Idk why she thinks he hasn’t done something shady but ok. Ok. She got into a relationship with Benedict, who for some reason won’t kiss her in his own casino because someone is always watching??? He owns the casino/hotel/wherever they were???? Why wouldn’t he give her a smooch?? I don’t get it. Tessa is in a relationship with Benedict, but she still has underlying feelings for her ex husband who has been in jail for, what was it, four years? Four years, and Ocean is still very much in love with her. (Or so it seems, who knows what goes on the mind of a con artist.) Now Ocean wants to get his (ex) wife back, and clearly talking doesn’t work so he goes through the effort of putting into his super complicated plan the fact that she’ll watch the cameras to see that actually Benedict doesn’t love her more than money. And then she… goes back to Ocean? Because fuck it?? Idk man seems kinda sketchy to me. Maybe I missed the memo.

On another note, whoooooo boyyyyyy!!! That was quite the heist, even I, a viewer of the movie, thought that that old dude actually wasn’t feeling all that good, but no. No. It was all part of the plan!! I genuinely don’t know how they thought so diggly darn far ahead, but boy was it cool to watch unfold! I love the fact that when Benedict realized that they had filmed the thing prior, my mind immediately flashed to the fake vault they had the acrobat demonstrate his abilities. Of course the team would use it for more than simply watching the acrobat do his thing! What a cool little hint to the big reveal!!

Plus, that moment when we saw that they were in the SWAT uniforms? Ahshgsjajaja I loved it so much, it got the happy chemicals in my brain gushing.

Furthermore, the music throughout the movie was On Point. That bop when they threw in the thingamajig to knock out the guards? Perfect heist music, exactly what I need to be played during the big break in. The calm classical music as the team drove away in their swat vehicle and then parted ways? Mwah! Chef’s kiss!

Also, the fact that I had to wait through a loading symbol every other minute made me appreciate the costumes of the background characters as well! Sometimes you just need to scrutinize every single thing on the screen, and then you see two gals in the corner looking finer than ssssomething flattering Idontknowwherethissimilewasgoing and you can’t help but make up a story in your head that describes what they’re doing at this casino. Also, I noticed two completely different girls wearing the same exact dress in two different scenes, which was cool because it was a pretty neat dress.

So anyways! Overall, 9/10 movie, loved the heist, loved the crime, didn’t understand the romance!

Feel free to talk to me about crime films, movies about heists, or your opinion on Ocean’s Eleven! :3

[jungxk]

// rant

i'm jus so heartbroken rn i've been crying for the past hour i jus need to put my feelings out there, i hope it's ok w you.

my mum wakes up today and jus starts berating me bc i didnt put washed dishes into the cabinets & the kitchen looked messy for her. i'm supposed to do it bc there's nothing else i actually do but yesterday i had woken up in the evening nd they called me to pray straight away so i totally forgot about it (coupled w the fact that i dont like doing it either cuz there's always sm dishes nd it's such a hassle). she jus started scolding me senseless nd im someone who doesnt get mad easily, even if i do i tend to stay quiet bc i dont like conflict & angry emotions are ugly. but i couldnt stop it today? she kept calling me selfish nd she's been calling me that the past few days as well bc i never help out w chores or anything. she's always asking me "what do u do for this family" or "what do u do in this house" every single time nd ofc i cant say shit bc i dont. i'm doing uni online nd it's really not that easy but bc i dont talk to my family like at all, they think i'm all good. the other day i pissed them off nd my parents straight up said "why do we need to pay for ur uni ure not doing anything anyway" & i jus... i didnt even know if i even deserve to feel sad over it. they were asking me what i wanna do after uni as if im not just in my first year & when i said im not sure they got so mad and my mum purposely said "just marry her off" to push my buttons into giving them an answer. they keep saying i'm pushing them into being the worst and saying the worst to me but how is that fair? they're parents? adults? i'm jus 20 & i can control my emotions? but today really jus pushed me she got so mad at me for the littlest things nd i jus exploded. I asked her why she's mad and she's like cuz of the kitchen bla bla bla nd it got so frustrating i told her it's not my problem nd i jus wont ever eat again since all the unwashed dishes piling is my fault. nd then she got mad at me for that and scolded me. I hate being touched but mostly i hate being hit. imagine getting hit at 20 years old bc my mother is too emotionally unstable that she cant take a few seconds by herself to calm her anger down. I hate it. nd bc i said it's not my problem she came nd told me "yea it won't be ur problem when i die too! i'll make sure when i do, u never come see me." jus... what kind of parent says that? i'm so careful w what i say & i slip sometimes bc i'm human but how can a mother say that? she doesnt know anything about me. she doesn't know i dont like being hit, she doesnt know i dont like it when ppl act impulsively on emotions. sometimes i feel like i really am the problem nd that i'm really selfish. spending shit ton of money to get me to study, maybe i am selfish. i dont mind it. i know myself well enough to hate things about myself. but to have parents who barely know me as a person rather than a daughter, getting this much mad at me for smthn so simple jus makes me so sad. bc i was doing the task when she asked. she does things like this then wonders why i cant ever talk to her. entire family thinks i'm immature bc i behave exactly how they treat me. 20 years. I never ask for much. but it's starting to feel like asking to study in the uk was my greatest downfall. it feels like i dont deserve this. every day i'm itching to get away, to live alone bc they've made me feel like i can never work well in groups. it's always somehow my fault as if they havent been invalidating me nd my feelings since birth.

nd i can never tell them all these bc i'm never confident in them. i'm never confident in whether i would be accepted nd comforted without ridicule or scolding. my brother & father tell me it's like that, that jus bc i may get a scolding shouldn't stop me from being open. but what kind of stupidity is that? my mother who makes me feel like the world is ending when i accidentally break smthn, that it wasn't an accident but rather it's me nd that i jus cant do a good job— where is the comfort i can ever find coming to her w a problem?

nd bc of that we're not close. bc of that she's closer to my cousins & everyone else really. they've never concerned themselves to talking about family issues w me but when i dont know, they shame me, saying i never bother to ask— how would i know when to ask? should they be telling me when there's smthn going on?

this makes the concept of family so repelling for me. there is inherently no reason to ever have a child that isnt selfish or self fulfilling. what they do as parents is to make them feel as important nd respected as they expect from the child. but it's never like that w south asians. emotions dont exist if ure the child nd apparently getting mad is a norm nd shouldn't stop u from being emotional w someone.

at times i tell myself that i should pay back every penny my parents spent on me. bc sometimes it feels like it's being used to make me act or feel a certain way. i dont wanna feel this way. theyre my parents, i know theyre good people. but i'm so hurt by the things going on nd the things from the past. my mother invalidates me sm. she more or less kinda blamed me for feeling useless and depressed last year. my brother was telling her to go easy on me nd she got so mad & frustrated bc she didnt know what she was doing wrong. "if she feels so useless why doesnt she do anything about it?" like that was such a golden chance for her to have comforted me nd i couldve opened up? but she ruined it nd hurt me again.

last year i lived w her alone nd my dad was in our home country. I was having some troubles w him gone but i dont call or text bc... it always felt like a drag. it never felt like a conversation nd the only time it did was when i complained to him about my mum. so much shit happened between my mum and i & this person advised me to jus write some of my feelings to her. so i wrote her a long letter nd i included saying how not having my dad was hard on me too. flash forward im in my home country & w my dad. i know nobody here bc i didnt grow up here. i'm doing online uni & basically have to stay indoors cuz of covid. she brings that letter up when she was to berate me nd it jus feels so uncomfortable for me? like ok my actions dont line up but i wrote that cuz i was looking for comfort nd understanding. if i knew it was going to be held against me, i would not have done it? "u said it was so hard for u without him, so what do u even do for him here now?"— what can i do? i'm just 20 nd the situation im in is not normal? i'm grateful to be w my dad again but what can i do? &it always freaking comes down to house chores. i try my best. when our maid doesnt come i do my best w my tasks. i know it's not enough but i jus... i dont even know. ig that part of me is selfish nd lazy.

it's so suffocating here. all my feelings are bottled up nd im so scared what that would do to me in the future. but at least i know i'm too selfish to ever spend the rest of my life w someone.

sorry for the long rant. i hope this didnt ruin ur mood or anything i jus need an outlet nd ur blog jus feels so comforting nd welcoming. thank u for listening to me nd my feelings. God bless u really kssjdjsj

i’m rlly sorry this is happening to you bby. idk what race u are but this sounds so much like that asian mentality where emotions are black and white and comfort in any way is out of the question. ur still rlly young tho so ur relationship with ur parents has room to improve i promise. i think it’s rlly important for u to move out whenever u can tho bc that’s what rlly improves the relationship. having said this i do think the way your mum talks to u/treats u is emotionally and mentally abusive so whether you want to uphold that tie with her in the future is ur choice i just rlly hope u get somewhere safe and away from ur family soon x

[yhtaejoon]

hi! this is chey, i was here close to opening with kim1 (kim joonwoo), but i got really busy with a new job and accidentally dipped. i’m so so sorry for that! anyway, here’s taejoon’s unfinished info page & his pinterest board. this is rushed so it’s probably gonna be messy??? idk. we’re all in this together. hmu on discord if that’s your thing --- pepper#4940

full name is kang taejoon, but he has no affiliation with the kang family. he’s actually filling the role of daebak8! i checked the last names to make sure he didn’t have the same one as one of the families but alas, my pea-brain still failed me.

on that note, he’s a tiktoker born in 2000. started on vine in 2012, but didn’t actually get serious about his online presence until 2014-ish and IMMEDIATELY started lying about his life because what else is a fourteen year old gonna do online?

lied about his age, his hobbies, his family, his experiences, etc. he just really, really wanted to seem interesting, and hey! it worked! he eventually fooled thousands of people into thinking he’s someone worth their time. chased trends like crazy, kept in close touch with his “fanbase”, picked up sponsorships all while keeping his ACTUAL life completely secret basically. got very comfortable with lying.

he was always pretty obsessed with the attention because he lost his popularity when he stopped playing soccer (f’s in the chat for the former athlete side of him) & getting money from promoting brands was good, too, bc while his family isn’t necessarily lower class, they could still use some help. plus he needed cash to buy anime merch.

flash forward to 2020. he graduated high school in early 2019, still has no desire to go to college or get a “real” job. he has it made rn living in the daebak house and creating online content still. living the life.

except not really because how fulfilling can it honestly be to watch thousands of people becoming fond of ur fake persona? he still lies a ton, has begun to feel like no one will ever like him for who he actually is bc it’s quite disappointing in comparison to the always ON persona he shows. 

his tiktok user name is “beetlejoon” which is a play on beetlejuice if you couldn’t tell dshbfvds.

he speaks english really well from a mix of classes when he was young, growing up online and trying to appeal to westerners, and watching a ton of western shows/films. he does kind of have an accent but for the most part.... a lot of ppl who only know him online assume he lives in america/is from america.

the rumor about him buying views/followers is definitely true. he’s not losing popularity or anything, he just wants to look even more relevant than he actually is.

cries himself to sleep like every night but you’d NEVER guess. he’s super funny when he’s around people, knows what people want and will do anything he can to blend in and make everyone like him. needs that validation so bad. life of the party.

flirts a lot for no other reason than he can and he likes the validation of people flirting back! but his love life is hectic and always disappointing. on one hand, he knows a ton of his followers are delusional w the idea that they can be with him and he doesn’t wanna lose followers by being Unavailable. on the other hand, can’t risk being too close with anyone and them finding out nothing he says is true. heehee.

he follows whatever trends are in at the moment, so he owns a ton of dumb shit that will never be practical/clothes he’ll never wear in public/probably has dumb tattoos he got impulsively.

his trademark thing (that he stole Obviously) is a broken heart that he draws on his cheekbone Every Single Day. probably claims that it’s a tattoo just to fuck with his followers but there’s those odd times when it’s not there and everyone’s confused.

wears all black usually, lots of chains, leather, platform boots, dangly earrings, but he’s not the kind of guy your parents worn you about. he couldn’t be scary if he tried. he’s CLEARLY just a tiktok e-boy. he’s more like the lowlife your parents compare you to to make you feel better about how slow your life is moving.

while we’re talking about parents.... his gave up on him when he moved into the daebak house. he tries to give them money and support them but they won’t have it. decline his calls. don’t write him back. they think he’s mad embarrassing which is... fair. his tiktok presence is definitely questionable

likes to be funny and make people laugh, but he actually cannot take anything seriously even if he tries. this definitely gets on peoples’ nerves, has probably ended some good friendships/relationships/whatever else. sometimes he can lighten the mood if it’s dark but most of the time it just pisses people off bc it seems like he doesn’t care/doesn’t understand.

idk what else to say but if you’ve read this far and you like music, two songs that i heavily associate with taejoon are cotton candy by yungblud and lowkey as hell by waterparks. listen to them if you want... or don’t.

i don’t have a plots page put together yet, but here are some vague ideas i have:

(0/2) --- past tinder dates whom he lied to about his age and it came out somehow </3 maybe he tried to take them to a bar and he got caught with a fake id. maybe they went snooping and found out none of his info adds up. either way, the dates were short-lived and they probably clowned him pretty hard.

(0/?) --- fans of his tiktok page.

(0/?) --- alternatively, people who know of his tiktok page and think it’s dumb.

(0/1) --- another influencer who is jealous of his following, thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

(0/1) --- another influencer who “beefs” with him online so they both get more views.

(0/1) --- another influencer he collabs with a lot, even if their content is completely different. they’re friends, so might as well piggyback of each other’s popularity!

(0/1) --- close friend who makes frequent appearances on his tiktok, usually for relationship trends bc he doesn’t have an actual partner to film them with. usually acting like clowns, clearly faking but his fans still think it might be real. 

(0/1) --- someone he hooked up with at one (or more) of the daebaek house parties and ghosted afterwards. completely acts like he doesn’t know them. oops.

(0/?) --- friends to do dumb shit with. he’s impulsive and just hates to be alone (especially when doing stuff that might get him in trouble) so you could say these are his accomplices. if he wants to do things he’ll regret, they’re always in!

(0/?) --- some mellow friends who balance out his chaos.

(0/1) --- the one (1) friend he got matching tattoos with on impulse. probably something really stupid. the one thread that holds their friendship together when they fight.

(0/1) --- someone who holds themselves to really high standards, takes life seriously. thinks they’re better than taejoon and doesn’t hesitate to show it.

(0/1) --- ex partner who broke up with taejoon because (1) he wouldn’t stop lying to them, (2) he still claimed to be single online and (3) he just cracked jokes when they tried to talk out their problems, wouldn’t really listen. probably hate him now but he’s really sorry. please accept these (cheap, probably wilting) apology flowers.

i want every plot. all of them. anything u can throw at me! but if i kept typing ideas out, i’d be at this forever and we really can’t have that. so just hit me up if any of these catch your attention or if you’ve got anything you think he’d fit! 

[calumcest]

i took a walk with my fame down memory lane (i never did find my way back) - chapter one

[ao3]

have i ever mentioned my britpop au? i don’t think i have :) this is quite literally the definition of self-indulgence like genuinely this is so self-indulgent that it probably counts as a deadly sin and i have literally no justifications for it 

before anybody comes for me for starting another chaptered fic: i have 50k of this lined up and i’m still going at the speed of light (as sam can attest to) fear not we’re going to get there with this one i promise also for anyone still waiting for the soulmate au thats going to get finished too once this is out of my system 

i have an inordinate number of people to thank for putting up with me/this fic so let us begin: @tirednotflirting​ deserves every single ounce of praise and love i have to offer for reading this whole thing, listening to me talk about it, bouncing ideas with me, being so patient and kind about it, coming up with such brilliant ideas and for just generally being an all-round sweetheart. @calumftduke​ also deserves excessive praise and thanks for reading a big old chunk of this and being so sweet about it. @killingangels​ genuinely breathed life into this fic and cheered it on to the place it is today thank u for diving into a britpop phase with me. @ashesonthefloor​ and @clumsyclifford​ listened to me whine about this fic even though neither of them care and i truly owe them for that. @kaleidoscopeminds lets me thirst over the gallaghers but keeps me in my place about it which is truly the vibe check i need and also listened to me talk about this fic over the past few weeks and is just generally such a joy to speak to. i’m certain i’ve forgotten someone my brain has not been switched on in weeks now but anyone who’s listened to me talk about this over the past few weeks deserves a ticket straight to heaven honestly 

quick bit of vocab: our kid is a term used by siblings in manchester. not sure why i don’t understand mancunian culture myself but the gallaghers are always saying it in interviews and my mancunian friend concurred that it is correct so idk what goes on up there 

warnings: heavy drug use (its oasis and blur in the ‘90s theres a lot of coke/weed/alcohol) and lots of swearing (including the c word because they’re british)

-

He’s here, in England, not in Sydney, and he’s twenty, not seventeen. That was then, and this is now.

But for a moment - just for a few seconds - he could have sworn that then and now were the same thing. Just for one moment, he could have sworn he’d seen Michael Clifford.

-

or: calum's in oasis and michael's in blur and it's the height of the 1990s britpop war

Liam had once asked Calum if he believed in fate. 

“D’you think it’s all real?” he’d said one day, out of the fucking blue. Calum, though, used to Liam beginning conversations in the middle after two long years of knowing him, had just looked at him. 

“Do I think what’s all real?” he’d asked. Liam had indicated up at the sky with his eyes and cigarette. 

“Fate, and all that,” he’d said, lifting the cigarette back to his lips. Calum had watched as his cheeks hollowed around it, turning potential answers over and over in his mind. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he’d said eventually, and Liam had raised his eyebrows and nodded as he’d exhaled a cloud of grey smoke that had blended in with the sky and the council houses. 

Calum thinks he probably should have known then. Maybe Liam had been trying to make a point, in that strange way he sometimes does - what are the odds you’d end up here, with us? Calum hadn’t given it a second thought at the time, just rolled his eyes and nudged Liam’s foot with his own and said Noel’s going to do his fucking nut if we’re not there in ten, and that had been that. The conversation never even crossed his mind again until it was too late, until fate had already had her way with Calum. 

In Calum’s defence, though, fate never showed her hand. She never threw him any hints, no flashing neon signs that said Calum, your destiny is this way. Fate came piecemeal, came in short snippets of conversations or flashes of familiar faces or, on occasion, Liam and Noel swearing loudly at each other as they stomp up the stairs in Calum’s house.

“I’m arsed,” Liam’s saying loudly, when he barges into Calum’s room. Noel’s hot on his heels, midway through a spiel he’s clearly prepared which Liam’s having none of, and he turns to Calum when they get through the door, an annoyed expression on his face. 

“Tell him he’s a prick,” he says. 

“Why?” Calum says, setting his magazine aside, because he needs to know what he’s supposed to be endorsing before he picks a side in an argument between the Gallagher brothers. 

“Our kid wants us to miss the match tonight and go to some fucking gig,” Liam grumbles, throwing himself down on Calum’s bed and picking up his magazine. 

“It’s not ‘some fucking gig’, Liam,” Noel says irritably. “It’s the fucking Boardwalk. We’ve got to hear what else is out there right now.” 

“I told you, I’m fucking arsed what else is out there right now,” Liam says, flicking about five pages on from the article Calum had been in the middle of reading. “I don’t write the fucking songs, do I? Go on your fucking own. You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” Noel rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, and Calum’s Gallagher Explosion Incoming senses start tingling, followed swiftly by his Peacekeeping Skill Set activating. 

“Look,” he says hurriedly, before Noel can say something that’ll lead to a couple of black eyes, mostly because neither of the brothers have ever cared much about collateral damage and Calum values his bruiseless skin. “What if we start the match, and if City look like they’re going to lose, we go to the gig?” Noel closes his mouth, and then opens it again, and then closes it again. 

“Fucking whatever,” Liam grumbles, which is the closest they’re going to get to acquiescence from him. Calum stares at Noel beseechingly, because this is the best idea he’s got and pretty much the only one he thinks Liam’ll agree to, and Noel rolls his eyes, sighs dramatically, but then nods reluctantly. 

“City won’t fucking lose,” he mutters, as he sits down in the chair at Calum’s desk. “Not to a bunch of Scousers.” 

“Lost to Liverpool not four weeks ago,” Calum reminds him, and Noel scowls. 

“That second goal was fucking offside,” he says. 

“Ref was a fucking wanker,” Liam chimes in, from where he’s lying on Calum’s bed, still thumbing through the magazine. “‘Ere, what’s this, then?” he adds, with a grin, and turns the magazine around, tapping on the page. It’s a picture of a (very pretty) boy spread across a motorbike, and Calum rolls his eyes, snatching the magazine out of Liam’s hands. 

“Fuck off,” he says, but Liam’s just laughing, head tipped back on the bed, all full lips and bright blue eyes and long, dark lashes. If Calum hadn’t been doing lines with Liam for half of last night, he could almost believe the angelic innocence the boy gives off. 

“Looks like our kid,” Noel says, sitting down on the chair at Calum’s desk. Liam raises his head far enough to give Noel a two-fingered salute, but he’s still grinning, and Noel’s grinning too when he flips Liam off in return. 

Fucking hell, Calum thinks. It’ll take more than his three O Levels to fucking understand those two. 

 -------

 City end up conceding three goals in the first twenty-five minutes, and Liam’s the one who stands up, voice already hoarse from screaming at the TV, and demands they go out. Noel, never one to resist pressing buttons that only he can find on Liam, makes a snide comment about it, and Calum, to keep the peace, makes a comment about United, giving both brothers something to spend the entire bus journey to the Boardwalk ranting about. 

Noel gets them in for free, because he knows someone who knows someone who’d been a roadie with a band who had been on tour with the Inspiral Carpets for like, half a second, or something. Calum doesn’t really care how they get in for free, whether Noel gets them in by knowing someone who knows someone or by hiring a hitman on the bouncer, as long as they do get in for free, because he’d rather save his money for weed. 

The band that’s playing are immediately declared to be boring little fuckers by Liam, who beelines for the bar and only has to flutter his lashes twice before the pretty girl behind the bar sidles up to him with a coy look on her face. To his credit, though, he doesn’t linger after getting the drinks, weaving through the crowd to Noel and Calum with a mixture of shouted insults and threats at anyone in his path, three overfull pints balanced precariously in his hands. 

“You’re paying me back for these,” is how he greets them again, taking a sip from Noel’s before handing it to him. Noel just rolls his eyes, turning back to the stage and raising the pint to his lips. 

“Am I fuck,” Calum says, taking the other beer out of Liam’s outstretched hand. Liam scowls, but lets him take it, taking a sip from his own glass. 

“I’ll just smoke your weed, then,” he says, like he doesn’t do that anyway. Calum just shakes his head and turns back to the stage, where a new band are setting up, fiddling with their amps and mic stands. 

“D’you even know who these pricks are?” Liam asks Noel. 

“Don’t even know if they’re worth knowing yet,” Noel says. Liam shrugs, like that’s a fair point, and then a squeal of feedback makes all three of them (and the rest of the crowd) jump, causing loud swearing from at least eight people in the vicinity as their drinks slosh over them. 

“Fucking hell,” Noel mutters, shaking his hands off. 

“Evening,” the lead singer says, voice deep and rich. “We’re Blur, and this is Popscene.” They immediately launch into something that’s all guitars and overdrive and beat, and Noel’s soon tapping his foot along in interest, spilled beer forgotten, as the singer starts jumping around enthusiastically. They’re not standing anywhere near the stage, and the distance and bright lights combined with the movement are making the singer look more translucent than opaque, which is making Calum’s head hurt. He chooses to focus on the bassist instead, because Noel’s kind of got a point that they should be listening to what else is around, although he’s probably just looking for more people to nick ideas off. 

By the third song, though, Calum realises he’s really stood far too far away to get any benefit from watching the bassist - he can’t even tell whether he’s using a plectrum or not, and his eyes are already starting to hurt from squinting - and lets his gaze wander across the stage. There’s a guitarist wearing glasses, which Calum’s pretty sure Liam’s going to have a comment about that’ll involve the words ‘fucking’ ‘not’ and ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, with maybe ‘cunt’ chucked in for good measure. The drummer’s so far back that all Calum can make out is a shadowy figure behind the kit, and when the singer stands still long enough for Calum to see more than just a hazy figure all he can vaguely make out is what looks like very pretty features and blonde hair. 

It’s the other guitarist, though, that makes Calum stop, his heart stilling in his chest for the briefest of moments. 

He looks so familiar, messy blonde hair sticking up at all sorts of angles that Calum’s only ever seen on one other person, that it makes Calum’s stomach lurch. He’s got his face down, focusing on whatever they’re playing, so Calum can’t really see - not that he’d be able to tell from this distance, anyway - but there’s something that’s so achingly known to Calum that it makes him swallow, mouth suddenly dry. Even the guitarist’s posture is familiar, a little tense, a lot focused, with an edge of something cool and relaxed. 

Calum’s so mesmerised by the guitarist, heart hammering in his chest, that he barely even realises three more songs have come to an end until the band all stop, gather together at the front of the stage and do an awkward half-bow-half-wave to the crowd. There’s a smattering of applause as they straighten up, and the lights are too bright for Calum to see properly, but he sees a flash of a smile that looks so much like one he hasn’t seen in almost four years that it makes something electric shoot through him before he’s even processed it, and then they’re turning around and heading off the stage. 

“Fucking shite,” Liam says, over the sound of the crowd’s growing murmurs. “Would’ve rather watched City fucking lose.” They all know he’s lying. Liam’d probably rather cut off his limbs one at a time than sit at home to watch City get thrashed. 

It reminds Calum where he is, though, as he takes a sip of his beer with slightly shaky hands. He’s in fucking Manchester, in a dingy bar with two of the biggest pricks he’s ever met in his life, watching shitty bands play mediocre songs to avoid having to watch his football team get massacred by Everton. It grounds him, shakes him out of it, makes him remember that he’s here, in England, not in Sydney, and he’s twenty, not seventeen. That was then, and this is now. 

But for a moment - just for a few seconds - he could have sworn that then and now were the same thing. Just for one moment, he could have sworn he’d seen Michael Clifford. 

 -------

 They stay to watch three more bands, and then Liam’s in a fucking mood and even Noel’s had enough of the music, so they head back to Noel’s flat to drink and get high. Liam and Noel bicker the whole way there, first about whether or not Liam should be paying for all the weed Noel buys that he smokes, then about whether or not Liam had actually slept over last night or whether he’d been at home, then about whether or not the shirt their mam had bought Noel for Christmas had been green or blue. Calum offers his input on all of them, siding with Noel twice and Liam once, but gets snapped at to shut the fuck up by the both of them each time, making him roll his eyes as he kicks stones along the pavement. 

(“Noel’s a fucking cunt,” Liam had said to him once, fuming, after a particularly nasty argument that had ended in every bag of frozen peas being dug out of the freezer. 

“Yeah,” Calum had said. “So are you, though, mate.” 

“Don’t call my brother a cunt,” Liam had said, and Calum had rolled his eyes, picking up the now-defrosted bag of peas on the table and taking them back into the kitchen, where Noel was nursing his own black eye. 

“What the fuck is his problem?” Noel had said furiously. 

“You’re both twats,” Calum had said with a shrug, tossing the peas back in the freezer.

“Hey,” Noel had said sharply. “That’s my fucking brother.” 

Calum’ll never pretend to understand them.) 

They spend the night lying on Noel’s living room floor, pleasantly drunk and so stoned that Liam and Noel forget to argue for about three hours. Calum drifts in and out of sleep, listening to Liam and Noel mumbling to each other and remembering to speak once every twenty minutes or so, until Noel nudges him at what must be about five in the morning. 

“What’d you reckon?” he says, looking thoughtful. 

“About what?” 

“That band, tonight.” They saw five bands, so Calum would be well within his rights to ask which one, but somehow, he knows. 

“Good,” he says. “Interesting. Sounded new, y’know?” 

“Yeah,” Noel says, rolling on his side to face Calum. He hums, like he’s thinking Calum’s words over. “Liam reckons they’re not rock ‘n’ roll enough.” Calum rolls his eyes. 

“Liam reckons the fucking Stones aren’t rock ‘n’ roll enough,” he says, and Noel snorts, and it sounds so fucking ridiculous that Calum giggles, which makes Noel burst out laughing, and soon they’re cackling on the floor, tears streaming down their faces as they gasp for breath and clutch at their stitches. Liam, who’s been sleeping soundly, looking peaceful and tranquil and not at all like the guy who’d threatened to knock Calum’s teeth out for suggesting City should have played a different formation not six hours ago, stirs and opens his eyes, blinking blearily. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he mumbles, and then rolls over, and goes back to sleep. Noel glances at Calum, flushed and panting from laughing, eyes bright and gleaming, and that one look is enough to make the both of them collapse in laughter again, cheeks and sides and throats hurting. 

The next morning, when Liam wakes Calum up by nudging him in the ribs and saying get up, lazy bugger, we’re late for work, that’s what Calum remembers from the night before. He remembers laughter, Noel’s living room going blurry around the edges, and the pleasant buzz of alcohol, weed and two of his best mates thrumming through his veins. He doesn’t remember the boy on guitar in the Boardwalk.

 ------- 

 The next time fate has her way with Calum is a good year and a half later. 

They’re recording their first album, which Noel seems to think means he’s recording his first album and everyone else is just there to complement his fucking genius. He’s not managed to stop being a cunt for about six months now, and, not one to let Noel beat him in anything, Liam’s getting equally insufferable. The studio is a fucking battleground, and Bonehead always takes Liam’s side and Tony’s just fucking useless, and Calum thinks to himself at least twice a day: is this really worth it? Maybe I should’ve just stuck with construction. 

They’re getting there, though, and when it’s good, it’s fucking good. They can all sense that there’s something there, something new and bold and, as Noel in all his endless humility declares it one night, groundbreaking. They’ve recorded Supersonic, a song that Noel somehow wrote in about half an hour, recorded a video for it on the roof of some warehouse in London, and there’s something about it that none of them can quite put their finger on, something that feels almost overwhelming, feels like it’s bigger than them. They’ve even been on the radio a few times, been playing bigger and bigger venues, got a contract and management and all that nonsense, and for all the flaws that combine to make up the Gallagher brothers, Noel’s got a fucking knack for songwriting and Liam’s voice is unlike anything Calum’s heard before. 

The problem is that lately, it’s been bad more than it’s been good. They’d done sessions at Monnow Valley which had sounded like absolute shit, too clean and thin, and with every day that passed and every track that couldn’t be used Noel got more and more frantic, snapping at everyone who dared speak to him. Liam, never one to resist a fight with his brother, had risen to the challenge, and the fallout had been messier and dirtier and involved more collateral damage than even Calum had expected. It had culminated in a trip to Amsterdam which had ended before it even began after a fight broke out on the ferry. Calum remembers seeing Liam zooming past, a happy grin on his face, heading right for the middle of the action, and then twenty minutes later zooming past again, bruised and bloody, still grinning, being chased by a policeman. It had ended in Liam being deported, handcuffs and all, and a screaming match between the brothers in which both of them quit and were fired by the other at least twenty-three times. 

Since that, though, things have got a little better. They’ve started recording in Sawmills in Cornwall with Noel as a co-producer, and Noel and Liam have started talking again, and everyone had breathed out a collective sigh of relief when Noel had announced he was going to head to the shops and Liam had wordlessly got up to join him. Slowly but surely, things have started looking up. 

It’s in the middle of one of those sessions that everything changes. 

“Eeyar, Calum,” Noel calls, from the corridor outside. “Your mam’s on the phone.” Calum sighs - fucking hell, what does his mum not understand about we’re recording an album and I’m twenty-two years old, I’ll call you when I fucking call you - but puts his bass aside and gets up grudgingly, trotting outside to see Noel holding out the receiver for him. 

“I want you back in in ten,” he says warningly, like he’s Calum’s dad and they’re eating dinner soon, and Calum rolls his eyes and flips him off, which is as good of a yes as Noel’s going to get. Noel sticks his tongue out at him and heads back into the studio, probably to yell at Bonehead from the soundboard for being too loud, or maybe too quiet, or maybe too middling. He’ll find something. 

“What?” Calum says, a little irritably, lifting the receiver to his ear. 

“Hello to you too, Calum,” his mum says smartly. “I haven’t heard from you in over a week.” Calum rests his arm against the wall, and his forehead against his arm, and stares at his shoes. 

“I’m recording an album, mum,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound too annoyed. “We’re busy.” She makes a small hmm, a you should have stayed in a real job kind of hmm, but doesn’t push it. 

“Are you eating well?” she asks, a stern undertone to her voice, like she knows Calum’s diet right now is entirely liquid. 

“Yes,” Calum lies. He gets another disapproving hmm for his trouble which sounds like it might be the prelude to a speech about how he should stop wasting his time and come home and do a proper job and eat some vegetables, so he decides to change tack. “How’s home?” 

“Oh, home’s good,” his mum says. “Janet next door’s got a new man, invited us to the wedding next month - can you imagine? A wedding in March? I said to her, I said ‘you’ll be wanting to move it to May’, and she said ‘oh, we want an indoor wedding anyway’.” Calum hums noncommittally, because he has absolutely no idea what that’s supposed to mean. What the fuck’s wrong with an indoor wedding in March? “Anyway, your dad and I have decided to go. Janet extended the invitation to you, too, but I said I didn’t know if you’d be back from your recording session.” 

“I don’t know either,” Calum says. “Noel’s being a right cunt about the whole thing.”  

“Calum,” his mum says reprovingly, like she wasn’t the one he picked the word up from in the first place. “Well, regardless, you’ll be home by April, won’t you? I told your dad you’d help fix the wall in the garden.” Calum groans, because that’s pretty much the last thing on the list of things he wants to do, including having Noel claw his eyeballs out for fucking up the bass on Supersonic again, and his mum tuts. “You’ve got experience in construction, Calum. You should put those skills to good use.” 

“I’ve never fixed a fucking wall, mum,” he says. 

“Well, the wall needs fixing,” she says, like that’s that. The wall needs fixing, so Calum’s got to suddenly develop the skills to do it. 

(For her, though, Calum’ll do it.) 

“What’s wrong with it?” he says, already mentally ringing up the cost of the bricks and mortar he’s going to need. “Looked fine last time I was home.” 

“I think the ivy must have loosened the cement,” his mum says. “I was watching TV the other night - I saw Michael on Top of the Pops, actually - and then-”

“Hang on,” Calum interrupts, because he only knows two Michaels, and one of them’s here in Cornwall with him. “Michael who?” 

“Michael Clifford,” his mum says, like it’s obvious. “Anyway, then I heard a huge crash outside, and I told your dad to go and take a look, and he said the wall had caved in. Just a bit, you know, near the shed, but-” she’s still talking, something about foxes and de-weeding the garden, but Calum’s not listening. 

Michael Clifford, she’d said, like it was simple and obvious. Like it stood to reason that she saw him on Top of the fucking Pops. Like it made sense that Calum’s childhood best friend, his fucking everything from the age of seven to seventeen, was on a British music show. 

“Michael Clifford?” he repeats, in the middle of whatever his mum’s saying. 

“Yes,” she says, sounding a little annoyed that Calum’s not listening to her impassioned speech about ivy. “Anyway, your dad said he’d need some help with it, and that it can wait until you’re back. But I want it done as soon as you are, because I don’t like the idea of Janet being able to see into our garden. Oh, that’s the chicken done. Call me in a few days, let me know how things are. Give the others my best. Love you.” She doesn’t even wait for a response, just hangs up, leaving Calum staring at the floor with a dial tone ringing in his ear and a name bouncing around in his mind. 

It can’t be him. She must have been mistaken. What the fuck would Michael Clifford be doing on Top of the Pops? What the fuck would Michael Clifford even be doing in Britain? The last Calum had heard from him, about a year and a half after he’d left Sydney, Michael had been sure about becoming a policeman. He’d seemed so dead set on it, had signed himself up for the academy and everything. Calum might not have heard from him in almost half a decade, but he’s pretty sure nobody would stray so far from ‘policeman in Sydney’ to end up at ‘musician in Britain’. No, he thinks, shaking his head and pushing himself off the wall with his arm, his mum must have been wrong. She hasn’t seen Michael since they’d moved from Sydney five years ago either, so it’s understandable that she’d mixed him up with someone else. 

But, a little voice says, as he heads back into the studio and is greeted with the sight of Liam sprawled across the sofa, laughing at something Noel’s just said, both of them looking far too high-spirited for Gallaghers, she watched Michael grow up. She knew his face better than you ever did. 

“‘Ere,” Liam says, interrupting the voice in Calum’s mind as it’s about to start reeling off a list of times Calum’s mum had spotted Michael in a crowd or down the road or in a photo before Calum had. “Noel says he’ll sprint around the house naked if Tony doesn’t fuck up his drums on this take. What d’you reckon?” 

“I reckon it’s a good thing Tony can’t fucking play drums then, isn’t it?” Calum says, as Liam drops his feet to the floor to make room for Calum on the sofa. Liam snorts, and Noel scowls, but his eyes are still lit up with amusement. 

“Well, I reckon you’re both cunts,” Noel tells them, and Calum grins, hoping they don’t see the way it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and reaches over for Liam’s beer to try and calm his churning stomach. 

 -------

 Calum can’t sleep that night. 

He’s usually so drunk that Liam’s gentle snoring doesn’t even register to him as he throws himself down on his bed, often fully-dressed, and falls right asleep, only waking up to fumble around for paracetamol in the middle of the night when his throbbing headache overpowers his exhaustion. He’s not used to lying there, stomach still unsettled, mind racing, staring blankly up at the ceiling, growing more and more frustrated by the noise of Liam sleeping. 

Liam rolls over in his sleep, mutters something under his breath, and then his breathing evens out again, and Calum times the minutes passing by the way he breathes in, out, in, out. The moonlight’s getting brighter - or maybe it’s the sun rising, he’s not sure - and eventually, when Liam rolls over again and smacks his lips in his sleep, Calum’s had enough. He gets up, pads out of the room and down the stairs, heading in the direction of the kitchen for a drink. 

He’s surprised, though, when he pushes the door open, to find Noel sat at the breakfast bar, a sheet of paper in front of him, still wearing the same clothes from the day before. He turns around at the noise of the door opening and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like a greeting to Calum, who grunts back at him as he grabs a glass out of the cupboard and fills it with water. 

“Can’t sleep?” Noel asks, and Calum raises his eyebrows over the glass of water he’s gulping down. 

“No,” he says, setting the glass down on the counter. “You?” Noel shakes his head. 

“‘S Bonehead’s fucking snoring,” he says, by way of an explanation, but Calum’s known Noel for five years now, and knows him better than that. 

“And that’s why you’re still dressed?” Calum says shrewdly. 

“Fuck off,” Noel mutters, raising a can of beer to his lips so he won’t have to say anything else. Calum sighs and shakes his head, but chooses not to push him on it, hopping up on the counter and swinging his legs. 

“You writing?” he asks, and Noel looks down at the sheet of paper under his hand, and shrugs. 

“Trying,” he says. Calum hums, and the two of them lapse into a comfortable silence for a while. 

It helps, Calum finds, to be with Noel. He’s never been a man of many words - neither him nor Liam have ever been particularly gifted in that area - but Calum knows he’s always safe with Noel, thrives in the quiet comfort of Noel’s presence. Noel never asks, never pushes, but he’s always there if Calum ever needs anything, and even though they never speak about it, they both know the same is true vice versa. 

(Calum can count on one hand the number of times he’s needed Noel, and can count on one finger the number of times Noel’s needed him.)

That’s not to say Noel doesn’t have his moments, though. He’s obstinate, brash, loud, arrogant, thinks his opinion is worth at least twelve times as much as anyone else’s, and takes himself far too seriously half the time. Calum’s had some of his most memorable arguments with Noel, edged out only slightly by how spectacular his arguments with Liam have been. Both of those, however, are eclipsed by how fucking nuclear the arguments between Noel and Liam are. The two of them bring out both the worst and the best in each other, grating at each other’s virtues and soothing each other’s flaws. They don’t know how to be happy unless they’re dancing along the line between love and hate, and Calum’s not sure it’d work any other way. He’s seen them in their brief, private moments of peace - Liam’s head on Noel’s chest, Noel’s arm wrapped around him, Liam murmuring something about a song or a memory that makes Noel snort, which in turn makes Liam’s lips curve up in a proud smile - but neither of their ships could sail anywhere without a restless sea to guide them. They need the fighting, need the bickering, even need the punches, to keep the wheels turning. A conversation’s not really begun if Noel and Liam haven’t called each other cunts at least twice, Calum thinks, and if Calum’s not been called upon by both of them to call the other a cunt within ten seconds of the inevitable argument breaking out. 

It had been an argument like that a year or so ago that had led to them traipsing to the Boardwalk to watch that band play. Calum remembers the energy they had, raw and a little off-kilter but something there all the same, remembers the lyrical shouting of the singer and the way he’d bounced all over the stage, but not as much as he remembers the guitarist. 

He’d looked so familiar, blonde hair and posture combining to make Calum’s heart ache like no music had ever quite managed to. It couldn’t have been him, though, he’d told himself. There was absolutely no way that Michael Clifford could have been playing in the fucking Boardwalk. Michael was in Sydney, back home, probably sunning himself on Bondi Beach and laughing at something Ashton was saying as Luke grinned at Ashton with wide blue eyes. Michael wasn’t in Manchester. 

Except, a little voice in his head says, maybe he was. Maybe Calum’s mum hadn’t mistaken some guy in a band on Top of the Pops for Michael. Maybe it was Michael. 

“D’you know that band we saw, a few years ago?” Calum says, out of the blue, before the thought to say the words has even crossed his mind. Noel looks up at him, thick brows furrowed. 

“Seen a lot of fucking bands,” he says, a little slowly, like he’s trying to figure out what Calum’s actually asking. Calum half-considers dropping the subject entirely, but Noel’s been in the business far longer than he has, and if anyone’s going to know, it’s him.

“The one in the bar. After the City match.” Noel purses his lips, brows creasing further, before nodding thoughtfully. 

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah. They’re famous now, they are.” 

“Oh,” Calum says, and swallows. That’s not what he expected - or, he finds, wanted - to hear. 

“Yeah. Heard their first record. Or maybe it was their second, I don’t know. It wasn’t all that.” 

“What’re they called, again?” Calum asks, hoping the question sounds innocent, but Noel’s eyes narrow a fraction. 

“Blur,” he says. 

“Blur,” Calum repeats, testing the word out, letting it sit on his tongue. 

“Why?” 

“No reason,” Calum says. Noel looks at him for a moment, like he’s weighing up whether or not to say something, but then seems to let it go, shaking his head.

“You’re a fucking odd one, you are,” he says, which is the nicest thing he’s said to Calum in months. 

“Cheers,” Calum says, with a grin. “Good-looking, too.” 

“Don’t push it,” Noel warns, and Calum laughs, swinging his legs. 

“What’re you writing, then?” he asks. Noel looks back down at the sheet of paper. 

“Don’t know, really,” he says. “Just can’t seem to get it right.” 

“Want me to take a look?” Calum offers. 

“You?” Noel says sceptically. “You barely even play a fucking instrument.” 

“Bass is a fucking instrument, you prick,” Calum says, only half-incensed. 

“You’re up there with the fucking tambourine player,” Noel says, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his lips. 

“Fuck off,” Calum says, and Noel leans back in the chair, grinning. “You’re the one who bought him that fucking tambourine, anyway.” 

“Little twat might as well do something worthwhile,” Noel says, like Liam’s voice isn’t one of the two indispensable elements they’ve got. 

“At least I can play guitar,” Calum counters. Noel raises an eyebrow.

“Playing?” he says. “Well. If that’s what you want to call it.” Calum scowls and flips him off, and Noel just laughs and gives him a two-fingered salute in return.

“Go on, then,” he says, shoving the piece of paper to the edge of the breakfast bar. “Let’s see how much damage can be done to my genius.” Calum rolls his eyes but reaches over to pull the piece of paper towards him. There’s barely anything on there, just two lines: I can’t tell you the way I feel/Because the way I feel is oh so new to me. Fucking hell. 

“I’m off to bed,” Noel says, like he can sense the questions bubbling under the surface of Calum’s frown, and pushes himself back from the breakfast bar. Calum looks up, catches the brief look of don’t you dare fucking ask me what that’s about that flits across Noel’s face, just the most fractional chink in his armour, and nods, hopping off the counter and tucking the sheet of paper into his pocket. He should probably try and get some sleep too, if only because he’s going to have to be in the best frame of mind possible to deal with how insufferable Noel’s going to be tomorrow on three hours’ sleep. 

“I’m going to smother your brother if he’s not stopped snoring,” he tells Noel, following him out of the room. Noel snorts as he starts up the stairs, that strange mixture of derisive and fond that the Gallaghers manage so well. 

“You’ve got more of a fucking chance of him waking up a bird than you do getting him to stop snoring,” he says. Calum sighs, all long-suffering, like this is news to him, even though he’s been sleeping in rooms with Liam since they were seventeen and sixteen respectively.

“Good thing the tambourine player’s expendable, then,” he says, and Noel laughs, soft and quiet in the stillness of the night. 

“You’d be doing the world a fucking favour,” he says, but there’s a strong edge of pride and fondness that Noel only ever gets when talking about Liam, and Liam only ever gets when talking about Noel, and they never get when talking to each other. Calum thinks they’d probably both rather switch to being United fans than ever admit any semblance of love exists between the two of them, but it hums lowly beneath the surface, visible for anyone who bothers to look beyond the black eyes and hurled insults and weeks of refusing to even look at each other. No one can deny that the two of them fucking hate each other half the time, but without the push and pull of their relationship, without the back and forth and the give and take, the band couldn’t work. If the two of them ever lost that, if one of them ever pulled or pushed too hard, that’d be it. It should probably concern Calum more than it does that his entire career is poised on the knife’s edge that is Liam and Noel’s endless tug-of-war, but he's yet to lose the strangely settled feeling in his stomach every time Noel quits or fires Liam that tells him they'll be alright. You'll be alright. There are still better things to come. 

“You’re just saying that because you want to sing,” Calum retorts. 

“Nah,” Noel says with a grin, hand hovering over the door handle of his and Bonehead’s room. “I’m saying it because I want more royalties.” Calum rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning too. 

“I’ll see what I can do for you,” he promises. 

 -------

 As Calum had predicted, Noel’s a fucking nightmare the next day. 

He snaps at everyone who dares come within a ten metre radius of him, and, when everyone stops going into the same room Noel’s in, he specifically goes out of his way to find Liam to start an argument that ends in Liam complaining that one of his teeth is loose. 

(“It’s not fucking loose,” Bonehead says, and then decides to leave the room, presumably because he doesn’t want to deal with Liam’s moaning and whining. Calum can’t really blame him, and starts to shift surreptitiously towards the door himself.

“Since when are you a fucking dentist, you cunt?” Liam shouts after him, and Bonehead flips him off as he walks away. “You’re coming with me to the dentist, you are.” He’s rounded on Calum now, blocking the path to the door, and Calum sighs. 

“If we get more beer on the way back,” he bargains, and Liam nods.) 

That’s how Calum’s ended up in some posh dental surgery, spread out across a leather sofa and looking very incongruous in his oversized shirt and baggy jeans amongst the glass and the fancy-looking plants, waiting for Liam to come out of his appointment. It’s taking far longer than he’d expected - he’d thought it’d be a quick your tooth’s not fucking loose, you knob, you’ve definitely had worse, like everyone else had told him, but Liam’s been in there for a good fifteen minutes now, and Calum’s getting bored. 

The receptionist keeps making eyes at him, and Calum can’t tell whether they’re I want to fuck you eyes or whether they’re you look like you’re going to try and rob this dental surgery eyes, so eventually he picks up the nearest magazine off the coffee table and flicks it open to a random page just for something to look at that isn’t her. 

There’s a very pretty guy staring back at him when he looks down, blonde and blue-eyed and grinning inanely at the camera, and the caption reads BLUR: the cocky rebels you’re allowed to love. 

Blur. That’s what Noel had called the band from that bar in Manchester last night. They’re famous now, they are, he’d said.  

Calum barely even notices the way his heart speeds up as his eyes fly across the page, scanning the article for any mention of Michael before he really realises what he’s looking for. The author and the singer - Damon, apparently - keep referring to a Mike, an Australian Mike, which puts Calum right on edge, but Michael had never gone by Mike. He fucking hated it, corrected anyone who called him anything other than Michael, refused to respond to any teachers who tried to call him Mike, threw glowers at any classmates who did the same. He’d barely even let Calum call him Mikey in his most vulnerable moments, rubbing small circles on his back soothingly as he coaxed him to throw up all the cheap booze they’d nicked from the corner shop. 

Calum’s fingers are slick with sweat as he’s turning the page and his eyes are starting to water from how little he’s blinking, and he’s not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing, whether he wants Mike to be Michael or not. When he reaches the bottom of the second page, however, Calum’s heart stops. 

There’s a picture of the whole band. Damon’s standing second from the left, right arm holding his left bicep, head tilted upwards, looking lazy and effortlessly beautiful, like he fucking knows he’s worth looking at. It reminds Calum of Liam a little bit, the way he plays into the camera, the way he knows that with a small tilt of his chin and a slight lowering of his lashes he’ll have half the fucking nation on their knees for him. Maybe that’s just the way singers need to be, Calum thinks, eyes flitting to the ginger guy to Damon’s left, who looks a little uncomfortable, and then to the guy directly on Damon’s right; tall, broody-looking, dark hair swept across his face. To his right is a shorter dark-haired man, looking tense and on edge, and to his right is-

Michael Clifford. 

There’s no mistaking him. He’s got the same blonde hair still sticking up at all sorts of angles, the same sleepy, sea green eyes, the same pretty lips slightly parted in a pout. He’s holding himself confidently, miles away from the slightly scrawny teenager Calum had left behind, staring into the lens of the camera like it’s a challenge. Come on, Calum. Tell yourself I ever stopped mattering to you, go on. 

Calum doesn’t need to read the caption to know it’s Michael, knows it from the way he’s clutching his right wrist with his left hand, but does it anyway, one final, desperate grasp at a straw - from left to right: David Rowntree, Damon Albarn, Alex James, Graham Coxon, Michael Clifford. 

Michael Clifford. 

The words seem to sort of swim in front of Calum’s eyes, like they’re not really there, like his mind’s superimposed them on the article somehow, but the picture’s still there, clear as day. Michael, a hint of stubble on his jaw, face more angled and figure fuller and shoulders broader and God, he looks so fucking good that Calum’s stomach flips and drops and flips again. 

“-fucking hell, Earth to fucking Cal,” Liam says, sounding sort of muffled, and Calum nearly drops the magazine in shock, yanked back into reality so suddenly and jarringly by the sound of his voice. 

“What?” he says, looking up to see Liam with an irritated expression on his face, cradling one cheek in his hand. 

“Let’s fucking go,” Liam says, already halfway to the door. Calum stares after him for a moment, mind trying to process Liam wants to leave over the tangled jumble of Michael Michael Michael currently winding its way through every cell in his brain, before he jumps up, magazine still in his hand. 

“Sir,” the receptionist calls immediately, like she’s had her eye on him the whole time. “You can’t take the magazine with you.” Calum looks down at the magazine, and Liam turns around from the door, a slight tension in his posture that Calum recognises as the one he gets when he’s spoiling for a fucking fight. Christ, he’s not about to deck the fucking receptionist, is he? 

“Or what?” Liam says, a little menacingly. “You gonna fucking stop him?” 

“I just-” 

“What the fuck do you want with the fucking magazine, eh? Fucking paid enough for the appointment, buy yourself another." 

“C’mon,” Calum mutters, rolling the magazine up and hurrying over to Liam, putting a hand on the small of his back. “Let’s go.” Liam hesitates for a moment, like he’s torn between going to get beer or shouting at a receptionist, but eventually the alcohol seems to win in his mind, because he settles for throwing her one final glare and letting Calum guide him out of the door. 

“What’d they say?” Calum asks as they walk out, his hand still on Liam’s back, because he knows Liam better than to trust he won’t just change his mind on a whim and go storming back in to give the receptionist a piece of his mind for not wanting Calum to take a fucking magazine. 

“Don’t fucking know,” Liam mutters, pushing open the door to outside. Calum shivers a little when the cool late-February air hits him, and decides that Liam’s probably safe now, letting go of him to wrap his arms around himself as they head back to the car that’s been waiting for them. “Sounded like he said something about my flaps.” Calum snorts. 

“Bit forward of him,” he says, and Liam grins. 

“Why’d you take that fucking magazine, then, eh?” he says, rounding the car without looking into the road and flipping off the car that has to screech to a halt to avoid running him over. 

“What?” Calum says, a touch shiftily. “Oh. Saw a good article in it. Wanted to finish reading it.” Liam throws him a look over the top of the car, a look that’s unnervingly shrewd, but then shakes his head and ducks into the car. Calum does the same, taking a moment to tuck the magazine into his pocket and feeling it weigh down one side of him, unbalancing him just slightly. It’s kind of apt, he thinks as he gets into the car. Michael had always made him feel a little unbalanced, too. 

“Let’s get some fucking beer,” Liam announces, and Calum grins, trying not to think about the way the magazine feels pressed between him and the seat. 

“Let’s get some fucking beer,” he agrees.

 -------

 Calum doesn’t look at the magazine again until a good week later. 

He’s drunk, and maybe still a little high, which is the driving force behind the whole evening. They all are, because Liam had scored some great coke off some guy called Neville, which Calum had declared to be the funniest dealer name in all of history, leading Bonehead to admit that his weed dealer used to be called Barnaby. Noel had sided with Calum, claiming Neville was far worse than Barnaby, and, predictably, Liam had jumped straight in on Bonehead’s side, and after about two minutes of shouting Tony had mumbled something about not being drunk enough for this and slipped out of the room. 

“Fucking useless,” Liam says derisively, as Tony walks out. “I should fire him.” 

“I fired you two days ago,” Noel says, pointing at Liam with the card he’s using to cut up the coke. “You can’t be firing anyone.” 

“It’s my fucking band,” Liam says, incensed, like it’s not actually Bonehead’s band that Liam had wheedled his way into. 

“Who writes the fucking songs?” Noel counters. “You just play the fucking tambourine and look mardy.” 

“Fucking greatest frontman in the world, I am,” Liam says indignantly. 

“You’re too fucking high to find the front of the stage half the time,” Noel says contemptuously. 

“I know where the front of the fucking stage is,” Liam says, pointing at Noel with one hand and Calum with the other. “‘S between knobheads numbers one and two.” Noel rolls his eyes, too busy cutting lines to flip him off, so Calum does it on both of their behalfs, and Liam grins, swigging from his beer. 

“Save us a fucking line,” Bonehead says to Noel, who’s just bent down to hoover up at least four of the thin white lines on the table. 

“Get your fucking own,” Noel grumbles, like he’s the one who’d scored it, not Liam, but he lets Bonehead push him aside, slumping back against the sofa. 

“Greedy cunt,” Bonehead mutters, and Noel swats him upside the head, handing him the card. 

“We should have a fucking celebration,” Liam declares grandly, gesturing widely with his beer bottle. 

“For what?” Noel says. “Album’s not even fucking finished yet.” 

“Sounds fucking great, though,” Liam says. 

“Well, you’ve clearly not heard it then, have you?” Calum says with a snort, accepting the card Bonehead holds out to him and leaning over towards the coke. There’s not much left, but Liam’ll fucking do one if he doesn’t leave any for him. “Fucking hell, Noel. You a fucking vacuum?” Noel just grins and shrugs at him, cocaine clearly starting to settle into his veins, and Calum rolls his eyes, cutting two thin lines for himself and leaving enough for the same for Liam. 

“It’ll sound great once it’s mixed,” Liam insists, as Calum bends down.  

“That’s what you said last time,” Bonehead points out. 

“No I fucking didn’t,” Liam says, even though he’d literally spent about a week bouncing around saying it’ll sound fucking great when it’s mixed, just you fucking wait. It’ll be fucking biblical. Calum straightens, wincing slightly and pinching the end of his nose, and throws Liam a look. 

“You fucking did,” he says. Liam scowls at him, and motions for the card. “Come over here. No way you’ll reach the coke from over there.” Liam rolls his eyes but complies, heaving himself up and then throwing himself down next to Calum, making a noise of outrage when he sees how little is left for him. 

“What the fuck, Noel?” he demands, and Noel just cackles. Christ, he’s blitzed out of his fucking mind already. 

“We should fucking celebrate,” Noel says, like he hadn’t shot down Liam saying it not two minutes ago. 

“Celebrate what, you prick?” Calum says, wrinkling his nose as the bitter cocaine drips down his throat. Fucking grim. At least his mouth will be too numb to taste it soon. 

“Fucking all of it,” Noel says. “Us. Recording an album. The fact that we’re going to be number fucking one.” Calum snorts, but he’s starting to feel a little giddy, a little warmer, and he leans back with a grin. 

“Number fucking one,” he repeats, and Liam nods solemnly next to him. 

“Fucking right,” he says, like it’s what they’re owed. Calum catches Bonehead’s eye and grins, knows he’s thinking exactly what Calum’s thinking - yeah, us two fucking deserve it for putting up with the both of you. 

“Just wait ‘til we release Supersonic,” Calum says, shuffling up a little to rest his head on Liam’s shoulder. Liam’s arm comes around him, warm and comforting, and he squeezes Calum absent-mindedly as he hums contentedly. Calum lets his eyes flutter shut, euphoric and a little overheated, grinning to himself as he lets himself fantasise. Number fucking one, he thinks to himself. Fucking imagine. 

“Knock those Blur cunts off the top,” Noel says, and Calum’s eyes fly open. 

“What?” he says. 

“Their new song,” Noel says scornfully. “Fucking, what’s it? Girls who like boys who like girls who like boys, something like. Fucking shite.” 

“New song?” Calum echoes, mind trying to work around the cocaine to process what he’s being told. 

“Am I the only one who fucking listens to the radio?” Noel demands. “That’s our fucking competition, that is. We’ve got to knock them off the top spot.” 

“Competition,” Calum says slowly. Competition. Michael Clifford is his competition. 

And, fucking hell. Does Michael even know Calum’s his competition? Does Michael even know Calum’s in Oasis - does Michael even remember Calum? It’s been what, four fucking years now since the letters had petered out, since Calum had got too caught up in his new life of Liam and Noel and drugs and music and Michael had been too busy with his family and friends and the fucking police academy. Michael might not even recognise Calum, might not even remember his name. 

(Something tells him, though, even through the haze of drugs and alcohol, that they could never forget each other. After all, it says, who forgets their first kiss? Who forgets their first fuck? Who, it says, a little too knowingly for Calum’s liking, forgets their first love?) 

Liam seems to have sensed something’s up because he’s frowning, waving a hand in Calum’s face, and Calum blinks, shakes his head abruptly and sits bolt upright. He stopped loving Michael. He fucking did, no matter what the churning in his stomach might be telling him. That’s just the fucking booze.

“What the fuck’s up with you?” Liam says, sounding annoyed.

“Don’t feel great,” Calum says, which isn’t entirely untrue. The high’s too high, and the alcohol’s making his stomach clench and contract, and he’s sweating a little too much, and his hands are clammy, and- 

“Oh, fucking hell,” he says, a little faintly, and lurches to his feet, crashing into the bathroom next door and only just making it to the toilet bowl before he’s throwing up everything he’d ingested in the previous twenty-four hours. He’s glad he’s still high because it means he can’t quite taste the bile in his throat, can’t entirely feel the way his stomach’s heaving that he distantly registers is going to absolutely fucking kill tomorrow. 

Halfway through his retching someone appears behind him, kneeling down beside him and rubbing small circles on his back comfortingly. Calum feels fucking pathetic, slumped over the toilet bowl with tears leaking out of his eyes, someone making quiet, soothing sounds behind him, all because of fucking Michael Clifford. 

(That thought makes him retch once again.)

“Waste of fucking coke, that is,” the person says mildly when he’s finished, leaning up and flushing for him, and it’s Liam. Of course it’s Liam. No one else would willingly spend their short high in a tiny, cramped bathroom watching Calum throw up. Noel would probably lock him in and turn off the water supply, maybe grab a camcorder for good measure. 

Calum huffs out something that’s supposed to be a laugh but sounds like more of a sob as he sits back, wipes his upper lip and forehead and rests his head against the cool tile wall. Liam sits down opposite him, legs pressed against Calum’s because they’re both too fucking big for the bathroom on their own let alone together, and blinks at him. 

“Fuck brought that on?” he says, more curious than anything. Calum’s stomach lurches again, images of Michael smiling at him sleepily on a Saturday morning, of Michael with his head tipped back in detention, laughing at something Calum had said, and the picture of him in the magazine, so much older and yet so fucking familiar, flashing through his mind in rapid succession. 

“Probably just overdid it,” he says weakly. Liam gives him a hard stare. 

“A fucking baby would’ve had a hard time getting high on what you snorted,” he says. 

“Baby wouldn’t’ve drunk five fucking beers beforehand, though,” Calum says, coughing slightly and wincing as he tastes the echo of acid at the back of his throat. 

“Depends whose baby it is,” Liam says. “Pretty sure mine would.” Calum snorts, and lets his eyes flutter shut as he starts to come back to himself a little, shivering and wrapping his arms around himself as he realises how cold he is. Fuck, he’s all clammy. Gross. 

Almost as though he can read Calum’s thoughts, Liam nudges Calum’s knee with his own. 

“You’re fucking rank,” he says. 

“Cheers,” Calum says, not opening his eyes. 

“Take a fucking shower.” Calum pulls a face. He’s not in the fucking mood to shower. 

“Tomorrow,” he says. It’s not like Liam’s never done the same. 

“You’re fucking rank, ” Liam tells him again, like he’d not thrown up in the sink two nights ago and left it there overnight, but he puts his hand on Calum’s shin and pats it, and Calum offers him a weak smile. 

“You don’t have to stay,” he says. 

“What, go back in there and listen to our kid break his neck sucking his own cock? Don’t fucking think so,” Liam scoffs. “I’ll be fucking sober in five minutes, anyway, given the amount of coke you pricks left me.” Calum smiles again, a little less wobbly this time. 

“Sober?” he says. “You drank twice as much as me.” 

“Not all of us are fucking Aussies, though, are we?” Liam says, and Calum can hear the grin in his voice. “Might as well be a fucking southerner, you.” That makes Calum open his eyes a fraction, enough to glare at Liam. 

“Piss off,” he says. “You and your fucking Irish blood. I’d drink anyone else under the fucking table.” 

“Fucking right,” Liam says proudly. “Never met anyone who could outdrink me, let alone an Aussie.”

“You’ve never met any except me, you prick,” Calum says, and Liam grins. 

“Well, most of you fuckers are smart enough to stay where it’s warm and sunny and the birds are fit, aren’t you?” he says. “Only the stupid ones end up here.” Calum scowls, and kicks at Liam’s leg half-heartedly. 

“Fuck off,” he says. “Didn’t choose to move here, did I? Got dragged kicking and screaming.” 

“But you’re still here,” Liam points out, and Calum finds he doesn’t have an answer to that. At least, he thinks, not one he’s willing to give Liam. 

“You must miss it,” Liam says when Calum doesn’t answer, a little surprised, like the thought’s only just crossed his mind after five fucking years of friendship. Which, knowing Liam, is probably the case. 

“Australia?” Liam hums his assent. “Dunno. I guess. I miss Vegemite.” He hesitates, before adding: “Mostly miss my mates, though.” 

“Oh?” Liam says, cocking an eyebrow at him. “You still talk to them?” Calum shrugs, a little uncomfortably. After all, it had been him that had ignored the last letter Michael had sent him. He’s the one who hadn’t written back. 

“No,” he says. “Phone calls are too expensive, and none of us are fucked writing letters.” 

“Ah, well,” Liam says, stretching out on the tiles and sighing contentedly. “Just you fucking wait ‘til we’re number one. You’ll see them then. We’ll be touring Australia three times a year, and that.” Calum can’t help but snort. 

“Three times a year?” he says. “There’s only five fucking cities worth playing in.” Liam grins. 

“And you’d better have friends in all of them, mate,” he says. “Not bloody paying for hotels if I can help it.” 

“My mates are all in Sydney,” Calum says, and there’s a little tug in his chest as he realises that actually, that might not be true anymore. He doesn’t know what happened to Ashton and Luke, either. If Michael can go from police cadet in Sydney to fucking famous musician in the UK then Ashton and Luke are probably, like, astronauts, or something. Maybe he should check with the ASA. 

“What?” Liam says curiously, clearly seeing the expression on Calum’s face, and Calum hesitates.

He’s not sure whether he should tell Liam. What the fuck would he even say? My ex, sort of, is in the band Noel’s lining up as our competition? You know Blur? Yeah, I fucked one of the guitarists. Liam wouldn’t get it. Great, he’d say, eyes gleaming. Eeyar, you must have some good stories about him. You can embarrass him in the press. Or maybe, get in, mate. Infiltrate them, eh? Fucking good thought. Oi, that Damon’s alright, isn’t he? Maybe I’ll have it on with him. He wouldn’t understand the weight behind it, what Michael meant to Calum. Means to Calum. Fuck, he doesn’t know anymore. 

“I think a mate of mine might have moved over here,” Calum says eventually, when Liam raises an expectant eyebrow. It feels fucking weird calling Michael a mate. The word doesn’t feel quite complete in his mouth, like maybe there should be a soul prefixing it. 

“Oh aye?” Liam says, raising his other eyebrow too, like he knows what Calum might mean by ‘mate’. “Where’s he living?” 

“I don’t know,” Calum admits. Liam hums, like he’s thinking it over. 

“D’you want to know?” he says, in that strangely perceptive way he sometimes does. Calum shrugs, and hopes Liam doesn’t catch the tension in his shoulders. 

“Maybe,” he says. “Dunno. Depends.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Liam doesn’t ask him to. Instead, his emotional capacity probably filled for the night, he claps his hand on Calum’s thigh. 

“Want to see if we can get Noel to piss himself?” he says, eyes bright, and Calum can’t help but snort. 

“‘Course I fucking do,” he says, getting to his feet. Liam braces himself on the sink as he pulls himself up, a little unsteady, and grins. 

“Ten quid says he does,” he says, and Calum snorts. Noel had pissed himself once, three years ago, and Liam can’t fucking let go of it. 

“You don’t fucking have ten quid,” he says, following Liam out of the room, still feeling a little light-headed and woozy, but no longer nauseous. 

“Neither do you,” Liam counters, pushing open the door to the living room, and Calum has to concede there.

“How about the loser sucks the other’s dick, then?” he says, grinning, and Liam throws his head back as he laughs. 

“You’re on,” he says over his shoulder, eyes twinkling. 

“Who’s getting who to suck their dick?” Noel demands. 

“You’re helping me get Calum to suck my dick,” Liam tells him, throwing himself down on the sofa next to Noel and resting his head on Noel’s chest. Almost instinctively, Noel’s arm comes around him, holding him close. Calum could almost be fooled into thinking they’re in some sort of a truce, that the booze and cocaine have broken down the barrier of hatred between them and left only the underlying love, until Liam reaches forwards, picks up a bottle of beer and holds it to Noel’s lips with a wicked grin. 

“Drink up.”

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chapter two