#because it was worded JUST ambiguously enough that it might have been sort of a more poetic straightforward thing????
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
triangle-strategy-notes · 1 year ago
Text
Gustadolph, Thalas, and Erika Concept Art
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Concept/reference art for Gustadolph, Erika, and Thalas! Translation notes and image id under the cut.
Translation notes:
"Will you kindly keep your illegitmate hands off of me?!" was probably more directly translated like, "You're a bastard, stop existing in my vicinity." But it was a question and also used some polite language, so I changed the wording around a little to suit that.
"Hair tufts, eyes, and lips are all in the same place" was one I felt pretty uncertain about and ended up going a lot off of context. It definitely seemed to be saying something about hair, and was probably saying something about lips and eyes, but there might have been something about eyebrows or something else in there too.
"Wham" was a mimetic word that meant something more like "violent; holding nothing back."
Image ID:
[id: The first two out of the five images are the full Japanese pages of concept art for Gustadolph, Thalas, and Erika. The first page has their official canon portraits. In the third image, which is a translation of the notes on the first, there is an illustrator's note that reads, "Gustadolph is a beautiful yet terrifying man with long, silver hair. Personally, I find that his design puts me at ease since he has more of a restrained royal look instead of the typical stylish villain look. (Tatsuaki Urushihara)" and another illustrator's note that reads, "I remember thinking the three Aesfrost siblings were spot on from the first rough draft. Erika has a cat-like quality to her. (Yasuaki Arai)"
The fourth and fifth image are translations of the second page. The top half of the page is titled "Commander of Country B" and has several images of Gustadolph. One has a caption pointing to his ruff collar that says, "bird feathers." Another two notes next to his face read, "He's beautiful but rather cold…" and "He's overflowing with dangerous charisma." The second half of the page has pictures of Thalas and Erika. It's titled "Commander of Country B's Younger Sister and Brother". There is a drawing of Erika having thrown Frederica to the floor. Erika's dialogue reads, "Will you kindly get your illegitimate hands off of me?!" and there is a note next to Frederica that reads, "Liberty gets hit and falls down." In another drawing Thalas is holding a sword, both he and the sword spattered with blood. His dialogue reads, "I suppose even the lowly masses have some red blood in their veins…" There is a note between the two of them that reads, "The character sheet said they were an unlikely duo, but since I had already done 'Consortium Merchants' and 'C1 and C2 House Heads,' I decided to draw them as twins." Another note between mirroring portraits of Thalas and Erika's reads, "Hair tufts, eyes, and lips are all in the same place." There are also some small copies of the word "whisper" between them. There is an illustrator's note at the bottom that reads, "Erika and Thalas's setting and plotline never changed much, and even in the trial version they had a nice, simple bully feel to them that made them easy to design. (Tatsuaki Urushihara)" /end id]
26 notes · View notes
asahicore · 3 months ago
Text
cold hands - psh (m)
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader
synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.
genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey
word count. 39.5k 😂
a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)
Tumblr media
Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.
The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.
It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers
Tumblr media
When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.
Just to name a few:
There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin. 
A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off. 
In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior. 
The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her. 
So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.
Right?
He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life. 
These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me. 
The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you. 
Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.
You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.
“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”
“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.
“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes. 
“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace. 
You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.
“You don’t believe them?”
You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”
This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.
Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)
But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.
“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department. 
“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him. 
“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.
“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”
The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.
Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains. 
“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. 
He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself. 
“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”
Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”
The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore. 
The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now. 
“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.
Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.
You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”
Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon. 
You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”
“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.
“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”
Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”
You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.
He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”
Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.
At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”
“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.” 
For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”
“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?” 
Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.
He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.
“There you guys are!”
You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”
For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”
Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser. 
You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.
He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”
Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”
“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.
“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.
“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”
Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”
“You’re on, Sim.”
“You’re going down, Sim.”
Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.
Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.
Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.
You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.
When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing. 
Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.
The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated. 
You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.
“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”
“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder. 
Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”
He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.
When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”
His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.
You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.
“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”
Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”
Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.
Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together. 
At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing. 
Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.” 
He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest. 
In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.
Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing. 
Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”
“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”
All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever. 
You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?
As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer. 
His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style. 
You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.
He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning. 
“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”
“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.
You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.
“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.
Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.
He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”
“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”
“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”
“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”
“They really don’t.”
“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.
“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.
“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.
“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.
“Where’s that choir of yours?”
--
When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.
He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center. 
“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.
“You had time to bake?” 
“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”
Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”
You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.
Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.
“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”
“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”
“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.
“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.
“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”
“I came to your concerts!”
One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal. 
As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown. 
Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.   
Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned. 
A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”
He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”
Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”
An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it. 
The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face. 
As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”
“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”
“What if they come back for them?”
“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it. 
The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café. 
He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.
“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”
“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”
“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”
“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”
Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.
The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.
“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”
“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice. 
He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.” 
The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”
He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”
“For sure.” 
There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.
“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”
At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”
“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”
Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.” 
He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.
“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”
You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”
You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”
“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”
“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.
“That makes sense.”
You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”
“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”
You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”
“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”
When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.
“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”
“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.
“It’d be my pleasure.”
“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”
Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.
“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.” 
You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”
Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”
“Your mom must be really strong.”
Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.” 
“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”
“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree. 
The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.
The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks. 
“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.
Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”
“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”
You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later. 
The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.
“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.
“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack. 
Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.
But you don’t. 
Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.
All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you. 
He can hardly fall asleep that night.
--
For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had. 
But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner. 
Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.
If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.
Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.
And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone. 
In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends. 
Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met. 
He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love. 
Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart. 
Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.
And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.
So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all. 
Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted. 
That was his first mistake. 
Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”). 
“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.
“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.
Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”
Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”
There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.
“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”
“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”
“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.
“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”
“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”
Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”
Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”
Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.
He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least. 
The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.
The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game? 
That was his second mistake.
You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.
yn.sim i’ll be there!!
You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.
“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.
“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.
“Your team jacket?” 
He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.
A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.
“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.
First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long. 
Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.
He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.
“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.
“Okay.”
He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”
Your smile widened. “Of course.”
He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.” 
Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.
Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.
Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority. 
As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over. 
A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.
Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.
The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him. 
To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal. 
And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure. 
The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.
Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.
It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.
chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!
Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.
“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.
Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute. 
He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too. 
Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.
And that was when he saw you.
Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?
He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.
His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.
“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger. 
“Hey. I was wondering where you were.” 
“You’re the one who came late.”
“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”
“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”
“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.
He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.” 
Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”
You nod. “Mh-hm.”
“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.
You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”
“It looks good. You look good.”
“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly. 
“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”
“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”
At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?” 
Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.
“Oh, that was Jaemin.”
“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.
You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”
Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”
“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.
“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”
He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.
He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner. 
“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.
“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down. 
“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.
The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”
Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.
For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.
“I’ve missed you.”
You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.
“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”
Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.
“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper. 
Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”
You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.
“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”
“Just us two?” 
“Just us two.”
He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.
There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.
“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”
You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”
He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”
To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”
Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.
“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”
He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.
“Okay.”
But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”
The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”
“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”
You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”
At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”
Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”
Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”
You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”
He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”
“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”
Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”
“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.
“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”
“I wasn’t that bad!”
“I should’ve filmed you.”
It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.
Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.
Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.
“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.
Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance. 
Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.
“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”
“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?
“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.
He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.
“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.
“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.
“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his. 
He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.
“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”
“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.” 
Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.
Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.
“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.
“Mh-hm.”
“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”
“Right.”
There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.
“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.
“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain. 
“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”
“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.
“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”
Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.
“So you agree that I’m tall?”
You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”
Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”
“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”
“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”
Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.
“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”
Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”
“You-what?”
“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”
You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.
“Sure.”
“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”
“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.
“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”
“That’s smart.”
“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”
Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.
You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months. 
Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.
“Minjeong?”
“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”
“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.
“But she’s not the best with relationships.”
“What do you mean?”
Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-” 
A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”
Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”
“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”
“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”
“You’re like, nineteen…”
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in. 
She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.
“Minjeong, I promise-”
“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Go inside.” 
She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.
--
Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.
yn are you still up for doing something this week?
He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.
She never lets things get serious.
Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.
So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all. 
He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.
You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.
Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.
In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.
When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.
You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.
“Like what?”
“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”
Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego. 
“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.
You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.
“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”
Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.
He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.
It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.
He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.
You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.
You grab his hand; it warms him right up.
Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.
He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth.  He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.
Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.
At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind. 
He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.
In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.
Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.
“Do you wanna come up?”
“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.
“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.
“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”
“Minjeong karaokes?”
“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”
You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.
The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you. 
“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”
Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”
This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had. 
“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.
“Hm?”
“I mean, me too.”
You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”
Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.
Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner. 
After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month. 
He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely. 
His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.
He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.
“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.
You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.
His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.
“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.
“Yes, please.”
He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.
Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.
As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.
--
When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.
You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.
Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you. 
He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.
You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”
“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”
This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex. 
It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.
You’re better than a dream.
“I feel great. Do you feel great?”
“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.
The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was. 
“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”
What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.
“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”
“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”
“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there. 
You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”
And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.
--
After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.
His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.
If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well. 
The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.
He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.
He has never felt so awkward in his life.
“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.
“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”
“I haven’t!”
“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”
“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.
“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.
He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.
Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”
You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”
Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.
But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere. 
So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”
--
After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you. 
The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”
He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”
“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”
With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.
It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment. 
His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away. 
A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.
“I was gone two minutes.”
“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?” 
“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.
“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.
He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there. 
He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm. 
As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck. 
“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”
Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.
As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern. 
But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you. 
What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace. 
After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.
All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.
--
Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public. 
Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.
It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.
It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party. 
Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.
Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.
He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it. 
But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything. 
Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.
And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends. 
So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep. 
As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy. 
But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”
When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point. 
The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention. 
Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.
There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.
“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”
He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes. 
“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. 
“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”
“Have you guys tried saying something?”
The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says. 
He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently. 
No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.
Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.
“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”
“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”
“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”
“So this has to do with your parents?”
“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”
“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.
“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”
Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.
Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”
Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.
A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”
“Since I met her, basically.”
Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”
Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.
“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. 
“How did you know, anyway?”
“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”
Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”
“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”
“I didn’t want to make things weird.”
Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”
“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.
“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”
Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”
“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”
“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.
“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.
“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”
Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.
“Everyone…”
“Everyone?!”
“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”
“So everyone.”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”
“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.
“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”
“‘Cause of Heeseung?”
“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.
“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”
“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.
“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”
“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.
“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”
Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”
Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”
A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”
“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”
“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”
“What would happen more than once?”
Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”
“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.
“Yeah, what did you think?”
“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”
“Well, we were.”
“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”
“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”
Jake frowns. “Why not?”
Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”
“What are you scared of?”
“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”
“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”
Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”
Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”
“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”
“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”
“Not really, no.”
“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”
He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”
--
They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.
He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.
Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.
That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.
“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.
“Jay texted me.”
“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.
“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment. 
He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”
“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”
He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”
“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”
“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”
“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.” 
Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.
You scoff. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”
“That’s different-”
“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”
“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”
“Of course I do! But I have to.”
“No, you don’t-”
“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”
“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”
“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”
“Again, that’s different-”
“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”
You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”
“Yes.”
As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”
Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper. 
“You heard me,” you say coldly.
He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”
You glance at him. “Yeah.”
A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.
You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”
“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”
His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.
“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”
--
It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.
Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…
What was Sunghoon?
Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.
Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.
No, okay, it was definitely your fault.
Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.
From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.
“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside. 
“What is?”
“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.
“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”
“I don’t think I do, actually.”
She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”
You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”
“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”
“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”
“So you are going after him?”
“So you do like him?”
Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”
“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”
“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”
“And how have you gathered that?”
“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”
“I’m not-”
“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”
“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”
“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”
You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.
“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?” 
The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing. 
Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.
He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.
Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.
So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you. 
You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.
Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.
You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?
Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.
Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.
It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.
Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.
You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.
The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.
Then you went home for a weekend.
It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.
Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.
The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.
At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.
You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours. 
Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.
It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.
“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”
You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”
“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”
You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”
“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”
“It wasn’t any of your business.”
“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”
“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.
“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”
“Why can’t he?”
“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”
Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”
“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”
Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.
“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”
You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”
“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”
“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”
“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”
“God forbid.”
After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.
You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.
But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.
It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history. 
Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.
Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.
Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.
Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?
Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.
“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.
“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.
“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”
“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”
“Not to them, it doesn’t.”
“Then forget them.”
“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”
“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”
“I wish it was.”
“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”
He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”
“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”
You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”
He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what has it been about?” 
He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?
“I love you.”
Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.
“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.
“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.
“I was waiting for you to say something.”
“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”
“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.
“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”
“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”
Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”
“I think I have too.”
“You think?”
You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.
Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.
You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”
You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.
--
Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.
Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.
It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.
Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.
You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.
He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.
Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.
“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.
“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”
“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.
As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”
“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.
“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears. 
“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.
He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”
“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.
You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.
--
In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.
He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.
The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.
And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.
When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.
The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”
Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.
Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.
“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.
“What do you need, baby?”
“You.”
“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.
“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.
“I’m not sure I do, actually.”
You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.
“That I can do.”
He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.
“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”
“I love it, Hoon.”
He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”
You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.
“Please what?”
“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”
He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”
“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.
“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”
You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.
You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”
With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.
But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.
“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.
“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.
“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.
“I know, baby.”
Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.
Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.
You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.
Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.
Tumblr media
© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!
permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)
2K notes · View notes
junedenim · 13 days ago
Text
catch some z's
Tumblr media
he's lovedrunk.
warnings: smut, blowie, angst, fluff, ambiguity, you get the picture
word count: 4.6k
He’s bored. It's not a major affliction, it just sort of happens at these kinds of things. Parties fall into two categories boring and too drunk to remember. He doesn't want to get drunk so he's bored. Everyone else seems drunk. He knew he had come to this party too early. It's only 10 o'clock and he's been here for 2 hours and he's ready to go home. But everyone else is just getting started. In fact, half the people planning to attend this party have yet to arrive. So, he guesses that's why he's staying. Within that half, there's you. That kind of thing just happens too.
Your relationship has been a fuzzy one. Alex used to date your best friend but now they are just friends. He's also friends with your friend's wife. Everyone just kind of knows each other. It's all very incestuous. But you've always been friends. You're witty, sharp like a whip, and have a laugh so contagious he's gotten stomach aches from it. He also might be in love with you but that part is a little fuzzy too.
He sits and waits at the bar, still nursing just one drink. He knows not to go too heavy on the alcohol like last time. He's been too sloppy with his liquor lately. Somehow, you're never drunk. He's seen you down enough liquor to make a person fall over but you stand the same: hand-on-hip with a slight curve of your spine. It's enough to get him to break a sweat.
He's been stuck daydreaming for too long he thinks he might have fallen asleep. He leans against the bar and debates whether it's worth staying. He knows you'll come here with someone else because you always do. He wonders if you're ever alone. There's also someone on your arm and someone in your bed.
Sometimes, it's him. He's okay with the "sometimes" part of things. It works for people like him, the comers-and-goers of the world. But within that "sometimes" you're together, you like to play these games. Bring another man along, show up late to the party, pretend he doesn't exist. He knows you do all this to get a rise out of him, in more ways than one, but his impatience is at the max. Alcohol would make it more tolerable but he wants to be fully aware tonight.
A warmth spreads across the back of his neck and there you are with your hand on your hip, that curve in your spine, and Michael on your arm. Michael is fine. He's a horrible drunk but one of the more manageable men in your life. He'll pass out on the bar soon enough and you can pawn him off to one of your other friends to take home.
He knows all this because of the glint in your eye. He's only turned around, his vision not even properly focusing on taking everything in, but that spark shines through. You're smiling and it's both conniving and lustful. He wants to take a bite out of you sometimes, to have you lodged in his throat.
"Hiya, sailor!" You salute him, having a big joke out of you. That'll make it tougher. When you're in this joking mood, you have him play court jester for you, mock him all night, tease and toy with him before you finally give in. He doesn't know if he can work for all that tonight. He feels tired and there's a pounding in his head. It's light but he won't make it past midnight. He can tell by your smirk that you're in it for the long haul and you're ready to drag him through it.
Alex finds it best to just play along. The quicker he gives, the quicker you'll give. He bows his head. "How are you doing, ma'am?"
You play your swooning act, a soft gasp, and give him your hand. He places a soft kiss on the back of it, giving it the featherlight touch that he knows leaves you aching for more. He wants you to ache. "We had a long journey from Rex."
His head lifts slowly, trying to keep track of all your slight movements like the way your eyebrow quirks as you wait for a response from him. You know how to handle your prey. You're a master of it. "You've been out already?" He raises himself up completely, leaning back against the bar.
He's thankful for the way Michael sways, already lost in the sauce. Any sober person would question these slow movements, this dance you do with one another, every position calculated. Each of your response times inch on for years. There's an extended period of time—one long enough to be classified as an eternity—before you give a slight nod of your head. "Rex Club, Bridge—enough for Michael to be drunk."
"Michael's drunk," Alex notes like this is new information. Michael looks like he might need a chair but you kept him pinned at your side like your puppy. Alex takes a sip from his drink to wash you down.
He waits for your quip, the one that will make him feel foolish. But your eyes begin to wander and he's panicked he's lost your interest. You tug at Michael's hand like you're trying to keep him awake. "Can I have that?" You point to his half-empty glass, sitting in his hand. Zig-zag.
"Yeah." The glass looks better in your hands, somehow turned into fine china. The liquor slips easily down your throat and the glass is suddenly empty, sitting on the bar beside him. Your head roams around the room like you're looking for someone else to prey on. At one point, he would have begged for you to stay but he's too tired to make a fool of himself. Another drink doesn't sound bad so he orders another of his and one for you. That makes you stay. Alcohol is always key to getting your attention.
"You didn't ask me what I want?" You play coy, biting your lip, letting go of Michael's hand to place your hands on your hips. He's got you, he knows it now. You've let go of Michael, now you just need to rid of him, pawn him off to Matt or something.
He shrugs. "I know what you like." You'll take anything, you're flexible that way, and you're a dipsomaniac, at least in practice.
You hum and tilt your head like you don't quite believe this but he knows this to be the truth. He knows that you know this. Your hair flows down with the movement of your head, your neck is exposed and just like that, you've knocked him back. You know each other so clearly, so knowledgable in the movements that'll make the other snap. His control has broken and he's been reduced to a puddle just by the sight of the slope of your neck. How sweet it is.
"Should we get Michael a seat?" He asks. The man's eyes are half-shut and he hasn't said a single thing this whole time. Alex wonders if he's hooked on anything else but at least he isn't doing his drunken rambling routine yet.
You look over Michael with an admiring gaze. Alex doesn't understand Michael. He's a normal guy who can sometimes make you laugh and sometimes make you want to kill him. He's not exciting and he can be rather tiresome. Alex knows, in some sense, Michael is a project for you. He's a toy for you to play around with for this month. But shouldn't these projects be more interesting than Michael? There's nothing admirable about Michael. He's miserable to look at. (He's handsome but Alex is steadfast in the belief no one is worthy of you, not even himself, not that he wants to be. He's content with whatever this is because this is fun. Michael is not fun).
"Michael and I will grab us a table. You'll bring over the drinks?" You're playful and, to him, it's hurtful. He thinks you should know he's tired, that this was a long week and he can't do this hours-long dance with you. Now, you're just being cruel. You walk away, swaying in your hips and his eyes are on your ass. He waits and waits and waits for those drinks.
He sets them down at the small table, the one up against one of the walls. Michael has gained an awareness of his surroundings and spots the two glasses sitting before him. "Where's mine?"
Alex chuckles at the man's slurring. Michael is a punching bag to him. But then you're looking at him and with a smirk you say, "Al, go get Michael a drink."
He swears to himself this is it. He'll grab Michael a drink and grab your hand and go home and fuck you because this is all tiring. You once said you like a man in charge so he's going to do that and he does do that and you yelped and yelled at him to sit down. So, he sits down. "You can be so extreme," you say with an eye roll.
He's baffled by this. "I'm extreme?" He doesn't understand how you aren't aware of the extreme torture he is suffering from. "What about you?"
You scoff and sip your drink, smiling into the glass. "You like to make scenes."
Alex laughs. It's a falsehood of a story to consider him to be capable of making scenes. He has always been the quiet mouse sitting in the corner. He's been known to occasionally come out of his shell but compared to you. There's no competition. "You don't know me very well."
You bite your lip and lean back in your chair. Michael is chugging his drink. "I know you perfectly."
He concedes, "Yeah." It's the truth. You've always had this irregular responsive relationship. One look and each of you knows, like the stare you give one another as Michael burps. Hidden peals of laughter slipped under the "pleasantries" you exchange.
You cross your legs. His eyes travel down the exposed skin. A thigh to kiss, a knee to caress, shoes to scatter across the halls of his house. During one of the first go-arounds you two had, you kicked his shin. He swears the bruise is still there.
"You make me laugh, Al," you randomly say. He considers this to be a calculated move. Your right leg, the one crossed over the left, swings back and forth, knocking against the leg of the table and his leg. His view of you is obstructed by the glass sitting in front of your lips like you could kiss it at any point. He's always wanted to be a cold liquor-filled glass.
He'll play with the cat. "Why's that?" He leans back in his chair, wraps his hands around his glass, sitting his arm on the table. He crosses his leg—right over the left—knocking his boot-covered foot against your strappy heels. If he could smoke in here, he'd lit a cigarette now. He knows how that gets you going.
You shake your head at him. And then, you're blushing. It shocks him how much he's overtaken you. It shoots pleasure through him and puts a feather in his cap. He'll boast about this to whoever cares to listen. You lift your head back up and push your hair back, uncovering those rosy cheeks. "You really know how to do a girl in."
"Do a girl?" It's his way of prompting Let's get the fuck away for Michael and fuck. But it's cheesy and sloppy and has you turning your face away, looking around the room again. Not a good sign.
"Is anyone else here?" The question makes him wince. Why should you give a fuck about anyone else when he's here? He's here, exposed, and he made you blush just a minute, who else here has made you blush? Certainly not Michael.
He shrugs and downs most of his drink. Michael's glass is empty and he's rising out of his chair to go get another. "You get the next one, Mike?"
Michael, with no awareness of time, money, words, or you, nods his head. "Yeah. I got you. I got all of you." He leaves and it's a relief.
Alex inches closer to you while you're looking away. He thinks about reaching out but that isn't part of the game. "When are we leaving?" It could be too much, too quick. Sometimes you like it hot and cold but that's not important to Alex right now. He's tired. And horny. Really fucking horny.
You cock your head back like you're trying to evaluate him. "We? Leaving?" You click your tongue. "No. Not now." He'll take his time. Alex knows he sometimes has to wine and dine you. Another drink will lighten things up and maybe induce Michael into alcohol poisoning so he can leave for good.
Michael comes back with more drinks. You all sit in a silent circle. Your eyes are off looking at the rest of the party, looking for someone better to devour. Alex is looking at you, trying to will your eyes toward him through his stare or magical powers or whatever. Michael is looking at his drink. Michael likes his drink very much.
"When are you going to look at me?" Alex finally asks. Wizardry wasn't doing much so maybe words will work.
Your head turns back. You look at him, really look at him, dissecting him for your science fair project. Your gaze is puzzling at first, trapped in a landmine. You brush your hair behind your ear twice and lean back in your chair again. A smirk reemerges across your face. "I'm looking at you now aren't I? Do I need to watch you all the time?"
Alex nods. "I'd like you to."
You adjust yourself. He's made you frazzled. How pleased he is. "Okay." It's like you've accepted your fate, surrendered yourself, not to him, never to him, but to wherever the night leads. For him, this is preferably his house and preferably right now.
"Go?" He points his thumb behind him to the exit. You look sold with the smirk burying itself deeper on your face and your feet both firmly placed on the ground. It excites him to an extreme degree.
You tilt your head to the side and he's ready to stand and sweep you away for the rest of the night. Your smile grows wider. "Michael, we're going to Al's." His smile fades and his head drops back with a groan. You stand and grab Michael as you're unsure if he can stand on his own two feet.
Alex grunts as he stands and doesn't bother helping with Michael. "You hate me," he says, sipping the rest of his drink. He puts his suit jacket back on and waits for you and Michael, who is leaning against your back, slumped in sleep how Alex wishes to be.
You pinch Alex's side, the first touch all night. He squirms away from it but he's desperate for your hand on him again. You possess a touch that makes a man unfold. "You're very cute when I work you up."
"Why don't you let me work you up?" Code for Please let me into your panties right now.
You begin to walk toward the exit. You sigh and pull Michael to your side, his arm wrapped around your shoulder and his head slightly perked up as he relearns how to walk. "I have to take care of Michael," you say. Michael can take care of himself. Michael has a hundred other people at the party who would have taken care of him. But you enjoy working Alex up, you told him this. When his hair gets all messy from his hands running through it so much, that's your favourite part of him. The unraveling and the unraveled.
The air feels late as you walk toward Alex's place. He chases the alleviation of a cigarette, placing it between his lips and dangling it there. Michael is saying something about Canada but his ears feel too muffled to listen. You stand between Alex and Michael, your arm around the latter and the side of your hip knocking into the former. You're testing him, he knows this.
"Michael, would you like to go home?" Alex asks at a red traffic light. A taxi rounds the corner and Alex hopes to shove him into it.
Michael babbles something on your shoulder before looking at Alex. He chuckles. "No, we're going to your place, remember? Silly guy."
You cackle with Michael, making fun of Alex, who puts up with all this because his house is just a block away but these cars keep getting in the way of crossing the street. Michael stands up straight, brushing off his shoulders like there's dust there or something. He starts trying to touch his toes. The traffic light is still red. "Are you having a good time?" You ask.
He thinks about spitting to show his disgust. He turns his head to you and smiles with such a falsehood that it gets you giggling again. You tap his shoulder and leave your hand there, commanding attention. "When are you going to kiss me?" You ask.
Alex laughs. "If this traffic light ever turns green." That and Michael getting hit by a car. Alex truly does like Michael.
You giggle. "You have many rules." Your body seems closer.
"I do?" He questions, a smirk appearing as your face draws closer. "I think you're projecting."
"Mhmm," you agree but words are so far away and your lips are so close to his. Kissing passes the time quickly. He is looped into you and refuses to take his hands off of you. You pull away but Alex's hand remains in contact with your arm. You look behind you. "Michael, the light's green." And then, you're crossing the street and Alex has to remember what walking is. Your skin's touch burned into the palm of his hand and he finds himself having to catch up.
Michael races into the house the second Alex opens the door. He lets you enter first and locks the door after himself. Michael is sitting at the kitchen table and you’re moving through his cabinets. His boots stop clicking at the archway into the kitchen. You turn your head toward him, your hair spilling down your back. “Where’s your alcohol?”
“You finished it off.” He rubs his right eye. He’s getting a headache. Maybe this is a prolonged hangover. He wants to sit down but he can’t sit at the same table as Michael, he might have a stroke if he does that. He takes his suit jacket off and folds it over his arm. He unbuttons the top two ones of his shirt. It feels so fucking hot.
You turn around with a frown. Your hands go to your hips. Your head tilts to the left. “Michael needs his bottle.” Like he's a baby or something and not a grown man. This would be more fun if Alex was drunker. He's just tired.
Alex rubs his hand over his face, trying to scrub away his headache, the exhaustion, and this sweat. "There's some stuff in the fridge. I'm gonna go change." He turns his back and hears you mutter, "Okay," before he moves into the bedroom. He can hear you snap open a bottle and Michael is doing some shouting but it's largely muffled to him.
Alex takes his shoes off. He pushes his trousers off and pulls his button-up over and ends up facedown on his bed. His head aches and his back feels sharp. He debates going to sleep. He knows you can manage to let yourself out, you've done it before. 
The door creaks open and you come in and sit on the bed. Your hands make their way through his hair and for a moment he thinks he's imagining this pleasure. He feels a gentle release of his tension as your healing hand sweeps through his hair, their cold touch on his scalp. "My poor old baby."
Alex muffles a chuckle into his pillow and turns his head to look up at you. "I'm not that bad."
You openly giggle. "I don't know. You're suffocating yourself in your pillow."
Your hand continues to move its way through and his eyes flutter momentarily, almost eroding his exhaustion. "Where'd Michael go?" He's either dead on the couch or you let him out because not a peep can be heard. That whining has finally gone away, maybe that's why he feels better.
You sigh. You remove your hand from his head, using them to remove your shoes. "He's getting more alcohol."
"Ah," Alex says. Michael is like a fly Alex is simply unable to get rid of. It's rather frustrating but he's pretty sure that's the reason why you keep him around. Because he bugs the hell out of Alex. But Alex actually does like Michael.
His eyes have been closed for too long. You're somehow in your bra and underwear, sitting on the side of the bed with your arms crossed. Your returning touch snaps him out of it. Your hand skims through his hair. "Go to sleep," you whisper.
"You're almost naked and you want me to sleep." For people who have slept together so much, Alex can only think of two times you've actually slept together (one was his birthday, and the other was that blizzard last December). That's where the chink in your relationship lies but we won't concern ourselves with that today.
"Why? You want head to relieve your head." You're playful and wonderful and he's pathetic and weird and he loves you so fucking much and you know this and you love this and maybe even part of you loves him but he can't be sure of anything just that you feel good and he makes you feel good and maybe that's all it has to be (but wouldn't it be great for it to be more).
He flips onto his back. "If you insist." And he insists. He insists so much. He'd beg at this point but he's just so tired. He hates feeling this way like he'd give up parts of himself just to please you. But your hands are playing with the waistband of his underwear and all of that feels pointless.
"Oh, how you flatter me," you gush. You bring your legs up onto the bed and sit on your knees. You overpower him, hovering above. One hand moves up and grazes over his stomach, the other deepens into his underwear. He better flatter you, fully erect with all of him—his heart, his soul, his dick—sitting in your hands.
Tingles overtake him. Your mouth covers him and your tongue washes over the head like windshield wipers. He's jelly in your hands, complete mush. You take him deeper. He hits the back of you, unable to go any further. It's all too much but he can't turn this feeling away. The moaning, groaning, grunting, and whimpering that escapes his lips. 
You take your lips off of him and sit up so your eyes meet his. Your hand continues to move up and down. You smile, just slightly, no words. In there, he sees the love. He sticks his tongue out and you giggle and stick yours out. He puts his away while you leave yours out and return to his cock. He's back to feeling overwhelmed and you're quick, wanting to get this done before Michael is back. That doesn't ruin the feeling. It's actually kind of exciting like when you're a teenager and you're scared your parents are going to catch you. It's this newfound excitement, the kind he seems to find on every corner he passes with you.
He thinks about being brutal with you. It's something you've done before in these vignettes of quickies. The fast, rough nature of forcefully moving himself into your mouth. But he doesn't want this soft nature to leave. The one that you set the tone with when you walked into his bedroom and combed your hands through his hair. The kind that makes him feel warm inside, not from the sweat or liquor, but a much rarer feeling.
Instead, he reaches down and pushes the shadow of your hair back, just so it's out of your way. You laugh with him in your mouth. He's not sure why but it has him tensing his muscles, a desperation in the vibrations. You move him further and quicker and his heart is beating in his ears. 
Then, you sit up, rubbing him with your hand, finishing him off onto his stomach. He's left with his toes curling and his eyes closing. It's all too much. He wants to take you in handfuls. A moment passes. You stand and return with a tissue, rubbing him off of himself. You tuck him away back into his underwear.
You're still in your bra and panties. He reaches up and fixes a strap sliding off your shoulder. You reach your hand behind yourself, approaching the snap. He shakes his head. "Stay like that. I just like to look at you sometimes."
You're blushing again. Your hands fall onto his thighs. "Your head better?" Deflection. For someone who commands such a spotlight, you shrug away any attention, at least that is mixed with affection.
He reaches out and places his hand on your thigh—his right, your left. "Yeah." It'd be nice to stay like this for a while.
"What will we do when Michael gets back?" Oh, right. Him.
Alex says, "Lock the door."
You laugh and you tell him so, "You make me laugh." You lay down and tuck your head onto him. "Was that okay? Me moving?" You don't usually ask for permission, especially from him, especially when you're like this—next to naked and alone together. His arm curls around you, keeping you close because that's when everything feels good.
He feels sleepy. "Yeah." Everything is okay with him, everything that involves you like this is okay. His eyelids flutter and he feels bad for not doing anything for you but he's tired and he's taken care of you plenty of times before.
The front door shuts. Alex groans. You laugh. Michael whistles. "I'll make him leave."
Alex shakes his head. "You're going to make a drunk Michael leave?” A drunk Michael is the worst human being on Earth. Alex seriously does like Michael.
You stand up. Your hand finds his and tugs on it. He sleepily sits up but you've already left the room, moving out into the living room, still, only in your bra and panties. Alex thinks about putting his clothes back on but it's Michael and he doesn't care if Michael knows you've just given him head. Actually, it feels him with glee for Michael to know that. Besides, Michael is too drunk to recall anything anyway.
Michael has poured three glasses of brandy. "It'll help you digest dinner!" He exclaims. Alex doesn't think any of you had dinner unless you count all this liquor. Alex joins you and Michael on the couch and sips on his glass of brandy.
You put your hand on Alex's thigh. Michael leaves about an hour later. You and Alex are very drunk by the time he leaves. He doesn't remember the rest of the night. But you're in his bed when he wakes up. You're both hungover. He shouldn't drink so much.
*
a/n: i had fun writing this. i think it's written a little differently than my other stuff but maybe that's just me thinking i sound like hemingway. (currently reading the sun also rises). thanks!
84 notes · View notes
beevean · 3 months ago
Text
The Devil Forgemasters in Netflixvania: why you shouldn't fix what is broken
I have a lot to say about how the show completely ruined Hector and Isaac, as characters and thematically. Adding more and more to the original post about how the changes made to Dracula and the Belmonts ruin the story would derail it more than I'd like to, so take this as some sort of lateral continuation.
Devil Forging is not tied to Dracula.
This is, admittedly, an obscure detail that not even many game fans know, but it's a good starting point.
Devil Forging (Japanese: 悪魔精錬術, Art of Devil Refining) is described to be a blasphemous branch of alchemy that creates life out of a wisp of conjuring matter. While it's ambiguous whether Hector and Isaac are the only Devil Forgemasters in the world or simply the most talented ones, it has been confirmed that they were infused with Dracula's own power to become Forgemasters.
Igarashi said it in a pre-release interview of the game...
youtube
"Innocent Devils are created out of strong magical essence. Previously when Hector was part of Dracula's army, Dracula himself provided that magical essence, so it was easy to create Innocent Devils..."
It was shown in a page of Prelude to Revenge...
Tumblr media
And Death's entire plan in Curse of Darkness hinges on both Hector and Isaac being "suffused" with his master's power, making them the perfect vessels for his resurrection.
Tumblr media
In the show, Devil Forging (or just Forging) is nothing of the sort. Forgemasters create Night Creatures by putting souls from Hell into recently dead, intact corpses. Hector in particular knew how to resurrect creatures in a zombie state since he was a child. Neither him nor Isaac, who studied by himself, needed Dracula to become Forgemasters: he met them when they were already adults and well-versed in dark arts.
This, on its own, doesn't ruin the story much: it's not a big deal if Devil Forging is changed from alchemy to necromancy, especially since this Dracula didn't use to be the alchemist Mathias Cronqvist. I also don't mind in a vacuum that the art has more limitations, like needing fresh corpses or tools. But, much like removing any hint that Lament of Innocence happened, it spirals into worse and worse consequences.
There is, however, something that can be mentioned here. The show makes a frequent point, through Carmilla, Lenore and the Captain, that Dracula might have planned to kill Hector and Isaac together with all the humans: Isaac accepted this fate and for this reason refused to befriend Hector, Hector could be manipulated at the other vampires' leisure. This conflict wouldn't have existed if Isaac and Hector trusted Dracula with their lives, as in, if he was the one who "made" them as they were: in fact, a big deal is made out of the Devil Forgemasters' humanity. I will elaborate more on the details next.
Dracula hired Hector and Isaac shortly after Lisa was killed.
In the prequels, Hector and Isaac went to knock to Dracula's door out of desperation (in one version when they were young boys), because there was no other place in the world for them. Dracula welcomed them and taught them the dark arts, on the condition that they would serve him, which they did out of gratitude for being allowed to live. Their talent was enough to earn them the titles of Devil Forgemasters and Generals. Their loyalty was then put to the test after Lisa's death, when Dracula used their powers to make an army to crush humanity with: Isaac was perfectly fine with it, Hector had reservations.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
The wording implies that Hector was shocked by Dracula's descent into madness. One can even read his "indiscriminately" as a hint that at first Hector was also alright with punishing the guilty, but then had second thoughts the moment he realized Dracula's slaughter was beyond reason.
Only bits and pieces of all of this was kept in the show. As I mentioned, Dracula met the two when they were already adults and hermits, one in Rhodes and the other in the Sahara, and the two were impressed by how Dracula was the first one who treated them with kindness. Then he returned to them after Lisa's death, more or less telling both of them "I need you to exterminate the human race". Isaac was, again, up to it, while Hector had to be convinced with a lie: Dracula promised to him a compromise, that of culling the human race and using it as livestock. Then, he took them to his castle and immediately promoted them to Generals, because he trusted them as humans against humanity.
Why does it matter? Hector started off with all the building blocks to go through a similar character arc he goes through in the CoD prequels, but he's turned into a less sympathetic character, as he was on board with turning humans into cattle from the get go. An anti-villain who'd enslave his own kind out of a misguided sense of mercy needs a carefully woven narrative to justify, and possibly redeem. We all know what happened to him.
To be fair, the story wasting Hector is not the fault of the lore changes, so there's no point in elaborating here. I will mention, however, that some fans genuinely believe Hector deserved to be enslaved and raped precisely because of his original plan, which makes the narrative even grosser.
Why does it matter? 2: Hector not feeling grateful for Dracula giving him a home, because their relationship is now more shallow and cheaper, makes him weaker to Carmilla's and Lenore's manipulations: game Hector, pre-character development, would have had the right counterarguments against them, and he would have come off as less passive.
Why does it matter? 3: Hector and Isaac only worked under Dracula for a year, and they're already called Generals. In the prequels, it's implied they spent years studying under him and gaining experience, both in the alchemy lab and in the battlefield, which is why they're called Generals in the first place (unlike the show version, who allegedly aren't even physical fighters). While Dracula explains that he trusts them due to being humans willing to exterminate other humans, it's questionable that Dracula would trust their qualifications so much; this is made even worse by the fact that Hector was "hired" thanks to a lie. Their importance and talent are diminished, and Dracula comes off as more impulsive and less caring of those he trusts.
(and while this is more minor, Dracula, who in this version is meant to be more sympathetic, looks like more of a bastard for leaving Hector and Isaac in their isolated homes until he had a need for them. The story could have put Isaac through a character arc where he realized that his "friend" only saw him as a tool and discarded him as such, but nothing comes from it.)
Neither Dracula nor Isaac respect Hector.
In the games, Dracula respected both Hector and Isaac as his trusted Generals, but he favored Hector, which caused Isaac not a small amount of grief. Isaac himself was torn between respecting Hector as a friend and comrade and resenting him for "getting closer to Lord Dracula". In any case, it's obvious that both of them had a role in Dracula's court, it just happened that Hector was more talented than Isaac.
Before talking about the show, it's necessary to talk about the stats sheets that came out with Season 2, that implied that Hector and Isaac were meant to be both physically weak, with the former slightly stronger and more powerful in "necromancing" than the latter. This implies that the original idea was more in line with the games, with Hector being more talented than Isaac: this would have explained why Dracula resorted to lie to him to hire him.
But this, for whatever reason, was not kept at all. Not only the two are roughly on the same level of raw power; not only Isaac eventually is shown to be a menace in battle; but Dracula and Isaac have nothing but contempt for Hector as a person. They insult him gratuituously, calling him "a child in a man's body", "just a little boy", "a creature too simple for betrayal", "easy to lie to", and making fun of his love for animals. Furthermore, Isaac in particular says that he never cared to befriend Hector because he assumed, and accepted, that both of them will eventually die at Dracula's hands, so there was no point in forming a connection - but it could have been just an excuse because it's clear that he simply cannot stand him.
This is not just petty bullying, it's baffling writing.
Why does it matter?: this Hector should not even be in the castle, let alone with an important role like a General of Dracula's army. If Forging is a branch of magic well known in certain circles, unrelated to Dracula, why couldn't he attempt to find another one that would be on board with his plan? Especially since it seems to be common to shun them for their blasphemous powers, so there has to be another Forgemaster with a chip on their shoulder that wouldn't need to be manipulated.
Hector is kept in the dark about Dracula's real plan. He is considered so stupid that anyone could sway him. He yells in the middle of the war room that he doesn't enjoy paddling in the blood of children, confirming that he doesn't want to target innocents. He is also not special compared to Isaac, who is also shown to be quicker in Forging and capable in fighting. Hector is nothing short of a liability for Dracula, and it's all his fault for not realizing how much of a detriment hiring a naive "manchild" for a plan that goes against his very morals would eventually become.
But then again, Dracula in the show seems to like having liabilities in his castle.
Hector did not challenge Dracula of his own volition.
While the details are unclear and can only be inferred, it is pivotal that, at some point, Hector decided that he couldn't be an instrument of slaughter. He may have come to this conclusion out of principles (PtR) or out of pride for his own humanity (MF manga), but what matters is that he decided that he would rather flee to live in the human world that rejected him than to keep living in Dracula's castle where he was respected as a Devil Forgemaster but not as a person.
Tumblr media
Hector's choice to run away in search of freedom, while understandable and admirable, has terrible consequences on Isaac, his foil and rival. He had to leave the castle to pursue the traitor: the two fought, and Isaac lost. Not only Hector left him alive instead of mercy killing him, letting the failure soak in, but thanks to their absence from the castle, Trevor and his companions had less obstacles to overcome, so they managed to reach Dracula and kill him. Isaac was beyond furious at Hector's betrayal: not only the rival he respected turned his back on both him and their Lord, but with one act, he stripped Isaac of everything he held dear in his life, from his position to the Lord who accepted him to his very home. Thus, the tragic cycle of revenge the two get stuck in during the game.
Tumblr media
In the show, the real agent of S2 is Carmilla. She is the one who has decided that Dracula is an insane old man and she has to stop his insane plan (because it would harm vampires in the long run, of course). Her plan is to manipulate Hector into convincing him to convince Dracula to move the castle at Braila, all while praising his skills and reassuring she only wants to save his life from Dracula's insanity. Hector, who already had doubts, easily goes along with Carmilla's will, and by the time she reveals she disdains him as well, he doesn't have the strength to rebel, which leads to his beating and imprisonment in S3.
Why does it matter?: the most important theme of Hector's character is him gaining agency and choosing to amend his mistakes by being a better person than those around him. He is meant to be a parallel to Isaac (who close loyalty over freedom and couldn't rise above his bitterness and anger), Alucard (who is burdened by his family, not his wrong choices) and Dracula himself (who lost his heart out of grief and, like Isaac, kept spiraling downwards). Stripping him of his thematic relevance leaves Hector with nothing to his name: while Hector is canonically someone who clings in search of affection, the show takes this trait to absurd and frankly humiliating degrees.
Contrast the climax of game Hector's character arc of facing his former benefactor, telling him he has no right to judge mankind, and swearing that this time he will fight him face to face instead of running away:
youtube
with the climax of show Hector's character arc of protecting the woman who abused him, gaslighted him, raped him through deception, imprisoned him, never once respected him as a person and put a cursed ring on him that forced him to mutilate his own hand to break free, and then allowing her to die on her own terms so that she won't have to face the consequences of her actions, crawling back to her (and Dracula! He wanted Dracula back after everything he had done!) because up until the end, he never acknowledged the fatal flaw of weakmindness and insecurity that led him to being tortured in all sorts of ways.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
(Isaac telling us that "he changed" is the biggest lie of the show. "He never had agency", he also says, and not only that is true, it keeps being true until the end of the show, in the face of any character development.)
Hector's character is much more than being a generic badass: he is meant to be an inspiration to not falter and succumb to your weaknesses because you are valuable as a person and human, regardless of how others see you. Even if you make mistakes, you can choose to become a better person, and you can find people who love you for who you are. It is incomprehensible how much his show's counterpart ends up promoting the complete opposite message.
Why does it matter? 2: while the story beats the viewer over the head that Hector is a simpleminded manchild, Dracula and Isaac actually look like the biggest idiots in the castle. Carmilla makes clear from her entrance that she has no respect for Dracula and would rather do as she pleases, yet Dracula keeps her alive, allowing her to talk with the "manchild easy to lie to", and Isaac flippantly agrees to her plan to "stop her from causing mischief". Hector gets all the blame for his naiveté and is punished beyond measure, while the other two gets off scot free from their plot-mandated stupidity. It's one thing when in the mangas Dracula and Isaac trusted Hector and thus were left blindsided by his betrayal: they have absolutely zero reason to leave Carmilla alive, let alone trust her.
Why does it matter? 3: Isaac has no solid reason to resent Hector. The two have no connection whatsoever, Carmilla is clearly the one in charge, Isaac sees Trevor, Sypha and Alucard storming the castle with his own eyes, and he was also partially responsible for Carmilla betraying Dracula. He never feels guilty for his negligence in recognizing her as a threat or Hector as someone capable of betrayal. His glee at seeing Hector suffering and his desire to kill him are far less motivated, impactful and tragic. It also comes as a slap in the face that in S4 he "forgives" Hector for lacking agency, without a word about his blind loyalty and stubbornness that nothing could harm his Lord.
Addendum: this is a smaller point related to the previous one, but I feel the need to mention it: there is a very big difference between an insane, ruined Isaac spying on a happy Hector from the shadows, plotting his downfall, and a gleeful Isaac spying on a tortured Hector and rejoicing in his suffering. The former creates palpable tension, because we are rooting for Hector's new happy life, and Isaac ruining it cements him as a despicable and threatening villain; when Isaac in the show is glad to see Hector in pain but still wants to kill him, it has no impact because everyone wants to see Hector suffer, and by that point, killing him would have been a mercy. Once again, it only feels spiteful and kicking someone when he's down.
Isaac and Hector swapped places without reason.
This is by far the most unpopular opinion and perhaps the most biased, but it has to be included.
Isaac in the games had a very specific role of being Hector's foil. He was the loyalty to Hector's pride, he saw himself as a tool while Hector recognized his own humanity, he succumbed to his own hatred while Hector eventually rose above it. He has a negative character arc, becoming more and more obsessed, unhinged and destructive from the prequels until the end of the game where he meets his tragic end, both puppeteer and puppet - his sister Julia is proof that he too had people who cared about him and he cared about, but it was not enough against Dracula's influence. Even his design tells us a lot about him: not only he let his uniform rot off his body in his insanity, but the intricate tattoos on his body can be seen as proof of how far he'd twist himself to show loyalty to his Lord.
While it's not necessary to recreate 1:1 his story in the show, it is immensely frustrating that show Isaac pretty much stole what should have been Hector's arc, leaving him with a flat arc that can be vaguely read as "forgive your abusers if they're sad enough".
It's not just about Hector, though. Show Isaac comes off as a worse version of both characters. I have already explained how in S2 he comes off as more negligent and thus less sympathetic than game Isaac in similar circumstances. S3 and 4, combined, should be about him travelling around, meeting new people and slowly realizing that he can be more than Dracula's right hand because not all humans are rotten to the core. In practice, show Isaac spends the majority of S3 causing much more reckless havoc than game Isaac, targeting people who merely dared to stop a dark wizard from invading their towns, flip-flopping between "maybe humans can be good" to "nevermind you are all rude and deserve to be used by me as demons", until in S4 he suddenly has the realization that he enjoys having agency and would rather build a better world (which includes killing people for "just" reasons); it's almost like the arc game Hector went through in the manga, except we actually see him trying to atone for his past sins, acknowledging that his dark past makes him hateable, and genuinely reforming thanks to Rosaly's influence.
Why does it matter?: Isaac is nowhere near as sympathetic as the show wants him to be, and his arc is shallow, rushed and generic. This is because he switches between two different characters with little buildup.
Why does it matter? 2: Hector and Isaac were meant to be foils in everything, from designs to personalities to arcs. They make each other stronger as characters. In the show, they have no thematic relevance, and the only contrast is that Isaac keeps getting what he wants while Hector keeps getting tormented and humiliated, not for a good narrative reason but out of petty favoritism and spite respectively. It makes their reunion in S4 ring hollow, because, much like the three protagonists, the two didn't have a relationship in the first place to make their mutual forgiveness poignant.
Bonus: the uniforms.
This is the hill I will die on: Hector and Isaac's designs in the games are crucial to the understanding of the characters, and the way the characters were redesigned in the show makes no sense.
In Prelude to Revenge, we see the Devil Forgemasters' full uniforms:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
They wear a big, dark cassock with a sash, that makes the both of them look like priests, and bat-shaped chest armor bearing the crest of their position. As we know, Isaac also went so far as embedding that crest on his back, signifying how devoted he is.
Tumblr media
After the events of the prequel and during the game proper, their outfit changes. Hector wears what we can assume are the clothes underneath the cassock, haphazardly stitched back together, but keeping the sash (now with Rosaly's ribbon tied around it) and the chest armor, symbolizing how he's forced to face his past again to avenge his wife. This outfit is also designed for running and combat, as shown by the one glove and the arm guard.
Tumblr media
Isaac, on the other hand, is unrecognizeable. After three years of rotting in the ruins of the castle, the uniform fell off his body, and he did not bother to fix it. He only modified the chest armor, making it smaller and creating chains, shoulder pauldrons and a collar to keep it on his body. It is meant to contrast his previously put-together design, and convey that Isaac's sanity is as gone as his clothes. Furthermore, he is flaunting the tattoos that symbolize his utter devotion and belonging to Dracula.
In short, Hector and Isaac started from a similar place, but they diverged to very different paths.
Tumblr media
This, on the other hand, is nothing short of lazy.
There is no explanation as to why they wear different uniforms. There is no color coordination, no red/blue motif in their clothes. There is no reason Isaac wears a dark priestly uniform while Hector still looks combat ready when he's only a smith (wouldn't the arm guard get in the way?). Hector is shown wearing a red sash ever since he was a child, which doesn't explain why it's included in Isaac's uniform as well. Even the crest on the armor looks different:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
There was no thought put in any of this, it was all sloppily stolen from the fandom wiki, and once again, it ruins the carefully woven connection between the two characters.
Hector and Isaac's story was airtight, with just enough room for speculation but enough material to get invested in, emotional, a great example of tragedy, and every choice was made for a reason. It was a story of revenge on the surface, but it also tackled quite well, despite its limitations, themes of humanity and agency and freedom. The writing in the show is not only sloppy and more shallow, but it accidentally promotes terrible themes in its misanthropy, cruelty, and lack of care regarding abuse and trauma.
27 notes · View notes
yuseirra · 5 months ago
Text
I've been thinking over this god thing over and there's another idea I have related to it!
Earlier I've said that ame-no-uzume(god of the arts) and her husband sarutahiko(the great bright god) may be related to Ai and Hikaru.
Their story might also have been inspired from Izanagi and Izanami and they're very famous, so I believe I wouldn't have to explain a whole lot, (and I bet there are people who know it in more depth) but.. Izanagi and Izanami (the creator gods of Japanese Mythology) have Amaterasu(the sun god), Tsukuyomi(the moon god) and Susanoo(the god of the sea and storms) as their children. Ruby has something to do with Amaterasu and we have a girl who goes by Tsukuyomi as a character, Aqua, with the full name being "Aquamarine" has a name that has to do with the sea.
The reason I've brought this up is because of the lore between Izanagi and Izanami. Izanami dies, and Izanagi tries to bring her back to life but fails. It rings a bell, right?
Yes, this story of theirs also aligns with the things that have been mentioned in Mephisto and Fatal. Those songs revolve around a person who desperately wants to meet their love again (who's likely passed away) but cannot.
I've been wondering just why the ED's title was named Mephisto. Mephisto is the name of the devil, right? When you have a wish and the devil in the same picture, it means there's some kind of pact.
If the person singing in the song's been kamiki (which I've been pretty much stressing over and over through multiple posts now) it'd mean he's had gone through something like that too, to revive the one he loves.
This could be why there is a "stage" that's mentioned in BOTH of the songs, he's in a deal that he can't back out from.
この舞台で足掻くことをやめない
I will not stop to struggle on this stage(Fatal)
だけどステージが逃がさない いついつまでも憧れ 焦がれているよ
But the stage won’t let go I'll keep yearning and longing forever(Mephisto)
At this point, I'm so sure kamiki HAS done something to bring Ai back. He's made some sort of sacrifice for Ai it seems, he's probably made wishes regarding it, that come with a price but he didn't really care about his life in the first place after she's gone so he was willing to risk it. The efforts were probably in vain, though. But it could be really close to being granted if something's "filled in"
あなたがいないと生きていけない 何もかも捧げてしまってもいい あなたの愛がまだ足らない 欠けたものは何で埋めたらいい?
Without you, I cannot live anymore I would sacrifice anything for you I can’t get enough of your love What should I use to fill in what’s missing?(Fatal)
compared to Mephisto, Fatal seems more.. eager? energetic? but in an insane way. The speaker is actively doing something to fulfill their end goal. That's why I feel kamiki's missions are probably close to finish- he's all right with dying after having completed it
but in ch 154 he's heard that Ai wants to "help him" along with her children. and that she loved him dearly. This is going to leave him so devastated and conflicted lol because he's probably way past hope at this point. He can't be saved. He can't fulfill what Ai wants, that's going to make him very miserable. That's my guess. It's like everything he's doing had him stray even further off from what Ai wants.
Or it could be that he can't give up on Ai EVEN MORE now since he KNOWS that she loves him back too. Who'd give up on someone like that? She was like the only person who understood him and loved him. I can totally see why he couldn't let her go after all these years (may it be twisted. there is still some ambiguity in his words and we can be backstabbed) she was the one for him and he was to her, too, at least that's how he's felt when they were together. So he'd do ANYTHING for her. That lines up very well with those lyrics too.
So yeah. If my speculations are right Kamiki's so doomed... and doomed because of all the things he did that he thought was for Ai. Aligns with the respective mythologies too~.. I'd be surprised if these have NOTHING to do with the plot that's going to be revealed in the future because it just WORKS. It starts making so much sense to me.
26 notes · View notes
rainboneish · 3 months ago
Text
i lied, i can’t wait until the official release, so have an absolutely massive text dump about what i think about chapter 267 and what i think could happen from here considering the newest developments:
okay i’ve decided… i like the fact that nobara is back, and i do think that it doesn’t contradict anything that has been previously established (her survival was very deliberately left as a possibility in a decently believable way)
the way she went down (and what Nitta said about her status) was open ended enough, no complaints there (especially comparing her “departure” (to quote gege) to Nanami’s and Mahito’s line wondering if he could drop her with one hit since he couldn’t do that with Nanami if he wasn’t already on the verge of death, it’s more than a bit of a Checkov’s gun, which is why so many people were already theorizing that she would return the way she did)
i also think that Megumi and Yuji’s conversation about her being as ambiguous as it was is not outside of the realm of realism, since it was only a couple days after she went down (so around 2 months earlier than the point when she woke up) so if her status at that moment was “comatose on life support and very unlikely to wake up”, so almost the same status Yuji last saw her in (plus considering the time Tsumiki spent in a coma makes it more likely for Megumi to sort of struggle to state the fact out loud)
however…
while I understand that gege might have deliberately avoided mentioning her status so that she would surprise us the way she did Sukuna, i think that it would feel less like a deus ex machina if they had mentioned her at least one more time, either by having Yuji (or anyone) visit her sickbed during the month’s preparation for the showdown, or by having Gojo allude to SOMETHING at any point where Yuji wasn’t present (be it at the airport, while talking to Ijichi before the fight, the same way that Yuta said that he would put Inumaki to work set up the recorder scene)
it didn’t have to be anything that would necessarily confirm her status or a direct mention of her, it could have been an unlabeled hospital bed at some point or something equally vague
i just personally would have liked having another connecting dot for her return around the time when seeds for similar surprising events were planted to make it fit a tad better
anyway, all that said and done, now to the return itself: Loved it, the whole chapter was very well executed and the build up in the chapter itself was very good
it does feel a little out of character for the tone of the series itself (gege has a habit of not letting the good guys win anything without it feeling bittersweet or pulling the rug right from under them (and us) at the last second (the fight against the death paintings with Yuji’s grief after, Mahito being absorbed, Kenjaku starting the culling games just as Yuki’s appearance gave people hope, the whole Tsumiki twist just when we thought they were getting out, the way Gojo died just when they thought he won etc)
because of that i am SO SCARED RIGHT NOW (which i’m sure he did on purpose)… everything looks like we are lined up for 3 to live (if gojo stays dead, which i hope he does, as much as i love him, the guy’s last words are that he is happy he went out the way he did and that he hopes his afterlife vision is real, LET HIM REST, he wouldn’t want to survive in exchange for Yuji or Megumi’s death (also having another character come back from the “dead”, especially one that is properly established to be dead, at this point feels like it would cheapen the concept of death in the series))
now, if this is how it ends, and this chapter was officially announced as the climax of the battle in advance so that’s likely, especially with the condition sukuna was in at the end, you won’t catch me complaining (i’m not THAT kind of shonen fan, griping over on twt about how it’s bad writing if we get a happy ending, these kids have been through ENOUGH, let them have time to grow older together, they never even managed to get to first name basis)
however: we do have another 4 chapters left…
and that leaves us with the option that if gege decides to be evil (like he often is) we could dramatically go from having unexpectedly reached the final “3 live 1 dies “ configuration, giving us a sense of security, to a fear of reaching the dreaded “only one survivor” option
Now, I previously made a different too long post about why either of the boys being the lone survivor would both be equally good story telling for a bittersweet ending to this story (see here)
now, i’m going to exclude the option of Nobara dying because her coming back just to be killed a chapter or two later would be stupid (plus the only way i can see that happening is if Uraume suddenly shows up at the dam after having killed Hakari and taken a train which… yeah… ), so that would automatically make her the lone survivor (again, already talked about the reasons why either of they boys dying works, though i will say that her return would strengthen Megumi’s will to live)
Nobara is more independent as a character than either of the boys, as far as her motivations go. She is the one character (out of the three of them) who viewed being a sorcerer as a job (think about her asking Momo is her life is just a job during their fight), more than having it directly tied into her purpose in life, which is something a lot of the adult survivors have in common. She has people outside of jujutsu society that she would like to see again (to be blunt, she has other friends and family, unlike the other two, plus she didn’t go through the additional trauma that made the other two cling to each other even more)
while she would definitely grieve them immensely, she has the resilience to grow around that grief, if both Megumi and Yuji should somehow die with Sukuna.
Again, i don’t think this is the most likely outcome, especially considering that gege said that he hopes the ending will make people happy which dead main characters don’t tend to do, but i do think that this is definitely an option i can’t dismiss out of hand until Sukuna is officially dead
edit: another point in favour of the happy ending is of course, the whole "jjk is about breaking the cycle" theory, which is reinforced by the "cycling curse" line on the second to last page of this chapter
22 notes · View notes
lincolndjarin · 1 year ago
Text
The Thing That Gives
main masterlist ✧ kinktober masterlist ✦
kinktober : day thirteen - afab!reader x ezra
prompt : tentacles [ 18+ mdni ]
Tumblr media
word count : 2.4k
summary : you find yourself in the slimy grip of the unknown.
warnings, etc. : dubcon/noncon (these tags apply to ezra, i wrote a reader who is like really into tentacles), dead dove do not eat, smut, tentacles, reference to pornography (reader reads hentai lmao), sort of tentacle horror i guess lol, reader is into the tenacles of it all like i'm gonna be so honest she's like hell yes about tentacles she's a real weirdo in this (she just like me fr), t in v?? (tencacles in vag??), tentacles in every hole, anal, oral in the tentacle receiving sense, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, ambiguous ending
a/n : i'm so so glad someone requested him with this prompt bc it's so ezra like let's be real. originally i wanted to write something where he's a tentaclly monster and lowkey if people like this i might do that in the future lol. anyhow this is def the craziest thing i've ever written but it was so so much fun, happy friday the 13th!!
Tumblr media
“Pretty little thing like you? Shouldn’ta been on the Green in the first place.” 
That’s what that son of a bitch had said when he’d locked you in that abandoned ship ages ago, those words have been replaying in your mind ever since. You’d been skeptical to trust him in the first place, he spoke in strange, strung out sentences and he had a smile that immediately made you suspicious but he’d just been too damn charming. 
It didn’t help that you’d just lost your partner. 
She had been your protector and navigator, as a third generation prospector you were equipped to do one thing, harvest. She had done everything else for you but after an unfortunate incident where her suit had gotten caught on some rubble you were left alone with the entire harvest and no one to watch over you. 
Maybe that’s why you’d been so naive to his allure, and his promises to keep you safe on your journey back to your ship. 
Stupid. 
You practically handed your ship to him on a silver platter. 
“This looks familiar, I think we’re nearby.” 
You had signed your own death certificate with that. 
He’d wrestled you into an abandoned ship minutes later, firmly sealing it shut and taking you entire harvest. He doesn’t even give you enough time to feel angry with those parting words, you just feel dumb. 
It took you days to get out of there. 
You’re lucky you stay stocked up on rations in case of emergencies but you don’t get to feel good about that fact. You’re too busy mourning the loss of your harvest. 
When you finally manage to pry the metal doors open you immediately go off in search of your ship. You’re certain it’s a lost cause. Ezra probably took off ages ago but what else are you supposed to do? So you keep on marching through the Green.
It only takes a few moments more before you’re shocked to see the outline of your ship in the distance. 
Had he somehow missed it? 
Sure he was a scumbag but he was a smart scumbag, he should have found this with ease. It’s an easy hike, down a steep hill and back up another, that’s the quickest, most straightforward way there. 
But of course you fuck even this up, because that’s just your luck these days. 
You stumble over a tree route, tumbling down the hill before your helmet collides with a stone at the bottom, your nose slams against the glass with a sickening crunch and just like that, you’re out cold. 
Tumblr media
When you finally come to your senses you’re shocked to find yourself face to face with the man who betrayed you in the first place. You’re used to hearing his sickly sweet, over complicated sentences, you’re convinced he enjoys the sound of his own voice more than anything else on this godforsaken planet. But for the first time since you met him, he’s speechless. 
It doesn’t take much to figure out why, as you blink a few times, clearing up your vision. You rake your eyes across his form, he’s held in place by several slick and constantly moving tentacles, his space suit is in tatters, his helmet thrown to the ground along with your own and you briefly wonder how he’s even breathing, but based on the way his chest rises and falls he’s perfectly fine.
“B-birdie?” He rasps out. Your first instinct is to slap him but you realize quickly that you’re in a similar predicament, your suit discarded on the ground with your limbs being restricted by the throbbing appendages. 
Well this probably isn’t good. 
There’s a lot going on in your head right now. 
You sort of wonder if you died during your fall and this is some sort of afterlife. You’d heard reference to the eternity after this life, people often talked about it but you never really believed it until now. But now you think of the magazines back on your ship and wonder if this is your afterlife, is there some higher power out there who knows you spend your free time looking at dirty magazines featuring people in the exact predicament you found yourself in now? 
That doesn’t exactly make sense though. 
If this was your perfect afterlife it would just be you and the tentacles, why is Ezra here? 
You don’t get much time to question anything going on because the tentacles start pulsing, almost violently, squeezing your limbs tightly before starting to frantically surround you and your ex-partner. 
“No- please, Kevva above.” You watch curiously as a tendril wraps around his throat, he’s a few feet from you, directly across from where you’re propped up. 
You can practically feel the fear coming off of him. You swear he’s about to cry as the tentacles remove his remaining undergarments. 
“Not again, please, please-” His prayers are cut off when one of the pulsing limbs pushes past his swollen lips. You almost feel jealous, is this your afterlife? To watch Ezra living your dream and not appreciating it? You want to feel its sweet caress, sliding into your mouth, slipping under your clothes and holding you with its entire being. You frown, practically green with envy. 
He isn’t even appreciating it. He thrashes and whines through the slimy flesh between his teeth. You don’t have to be bitter for long, the tendrils surrounding you are gentler than his, almost sweet with how they move across your goosebump riddled skin. There’s so many colors, swirling purples and greens and grays until one finally presents itself in front of your face, as if it was looking at you. 
You don’t know what compels you to do it but you open your mouth, letting whatever it is slide across your tongue. Tiny suction cups prodding at your taste buds as it slips further into you. 
You should be choking, or at the very least gagging as it bumps against the back of your throat, but you don’t. Ezra certainly doesn’t seem to have the same luxury, his chest heaves and his eyes water as the tendril in his mouth pushes itself in further. You experimentally let your tongue swirl around the appendage, sucking slightly and you’re rewarded with a sweet taste that hadn’t been there until now, closing your eyes you suck it in deeper, letting it slide further down your throat. 
It’s giving you air. 
That’s how the two of you are still alive, whatever this thing is provides you with it. And you desperately want more. You want to be one of the girls in those comics, you want to be ripped straight out of the magazines you love so much. 
So you moan.
Almost as if to show it how good it makes you feel. How thankful you are. 
And deep within the depths of your subconscious you know how happy that makes it. How long it’s waited to have its affections reciprocated, and in return it is gentle. It doesn’t tear your clothes the way it did Ezra’s, it doesn’t even fully remove them, the tentacles slow from their frenzy as they lift your shirt above the swell of your chest and tug the waistband of your shorts down to your knees. You don’t even get a chance to feel self conscious because at the same time Ezra spits out the tentacle in his mouth, groaning as the remaining scraps of his clothing is fully destroyed, and boy is he a sight. 
How long has he been here? The entire time you were stuck? It looks to be that way, his cock red and aching as the tendrils slide across the already leaking tip. He’s a mess. More so than he usually is. It looks almost painful. How many times has he come? 
You're snapped out of your thoughts when your own tentacles mirror the movements of his. The one in your mouth slowly retreats but you whine, running your tongue against it and it stills, no longer filling your throat but still letting you leisurely suck it. 
Ezra once again opens his mouth to speak but instead of it filling him once more it just slides across the bottom of his face, still rather effectively silencing him. You can feel one of the thicker tentacles spreading your legs, it isn’t much of a strain, the others help keep you balanced. You can’t look down but you’re certain if you did you’d see yourself dripping for this unknown being. You don’t have to wait. It simply slips past your folds and finds its home against your cervix. You almost sound like Ezra now as you scream, except yours is more of a squeal, overjoyed and blissed out as it pulses within you, never actually moving in and out, just expanding and shrinking inside of your weeping cunt. You’re having a bit of trouble focusing in your haze of pleasure but you realize that it moves as one. With every pulse inside of you it matches the pattern when it slides up and down his shaft. 
It’s like he’s fucking you without touching you, sort of.
Although this is better than sex. 
At least for you, Ezra continues to look at you frantically, tears spill from his eyes now and you can tell by how his muscles tense and his balls tighten that he’s coming yet there’s no physical release, it’s like he’s already spent. He doesn’t even have a chance to go soft, the tentacles continue without missing a beat and he’s still hard in their grip. You don’t feel all that bad for him, not after what he did to you, and it’s hard to feel bad about anything when the tendrils wrap themselves around your breasts, circling them until they jut out, a pair of suction cups attaching themselves to the peaks of your nipples, the same happening to Ezra as you both begin writhing. 
Are you even going to be able to go back to normal sex after this? Your first orgasm tears through you violently. Your entire body trembles and you fight the urge to bite down as you scream.    
You can’t possibly ever feel this good again, it’s just too perfect. You assume it can’t get better yet somehow it does, a thing tendril wrapping around your leg before a smaller suction cup latches onto your clit, at that point you’re a goner. Your body evaporates into muffle moans and squeals. It barely even registers when another thick tendril slips between the swell of your ass, pushing into your other hole, taking you completely in its slippery hold. 
Now it’s perfect. 
You watch with wide eyes as a matching tentacle slides up Ezra's leg. 
You’re one in the same, if there was another here with you would they receive identical treatment? You have so many questions that you’ll know you’ll never get answers to, the idea makes you a little sad but almost as if it knows you’re mood has shifted it pushes up deeper into you and you unravel all over again, shrieking as you come, your slick mixing with whatever already coated the tentacles. 
You must be the spitting image of your favorite illustration in the magazines, the page that you can flip to purely based on muscle memory. A woman, vaguely resembling you, stretched out with a tentacle in every hole, you probably look as happy as she does as well, drool leaking from the raised corners of your mouth. 
You want another orgasm, one more would be nice. You aren’t sure how many times Ezra’s come at this point, you do suppose that if it kept at this all day long you might eventually snap, after a certain number of orgasms it would probably get painful. 
In all honesty you aren’t sure you care though, it’s kind to you, whatever it is, a part of you thinks it wouldn’t let you hurt. The moment the thought crosses your mind you come one last time, this one catches you a bit of guard, following the last in quick succession. Maybe you could live like this, here with whatever this creature is, watching Ezra would eventually get sad but you would adapt, this thing, whatever it is, is gentle, and it loves. 
You make a conscious choice to give yourself up to it completely.
You could live here and be happy with this creature. 
And in an instant you’re released, the tendrils slide out of you, setting you down. 
All you had to do was give in to it and it let you go. 
You gasp for air as it drops you to the ground, fumbling for your helmet, taking in several gulps of filtered air as you retch. You’re eternally grateful to the fact that your helmet didn’t crack during your fall. It takes several minutes to find your bearings but eventually you manage to resituate your suit and fix your clothes before you stand face to face with him. Despite watching what you did to escape it doesn’t seem to register with him as he continues to thrash and fight, he must be exhausted at this point. 
Stubborn bastard isn’t ever gonna relax.
Poor thing, you almost feel bad for him. 
Almost. 
You tilt your head as you stare at him, the tendrils still stroking his red straining cock while he gives you a pleading look. But you only have eyes for the case at his feet once you remember its presence. You reach down, taking it in your hands and clicking the locks to see if it’s all still there and much to your delight everything is accounted for, you swiftly shut it and look up at him once more. The tendril slides away from his mouth, it’s giving the two of you a chance to speak.
“Plea-“ His words are cut short as you watch a tentacle tweak his nipple, you reach out a gloved hand to run a thumb over his puffy chest.
“Pretty little thing like you shouldn’t have been on the Green in the first place.” You grin at him before crawling out of the ravine, the sounds of his strangled moans follow you until you close the doors of your ship behind you.
Maybe you’ll come back for him. At the very least you’ll come back for the experience of being held by such a creature as the tentacles beneath the earth.
It doesn’t matter all that much. 
Either way you won’t be back until you’re sure he’s learned his lesson.
Tumblr media
a/n : ooooo hope everyones having a frightening friday the thirteenth and i also hope everyone enjoyed this lol
80 notes · View notes
ghastlybats · 11 months ago
Text
Anatomy of a Ghost
Steddie, Steve Harrington POV, angst, not actually that steddie-focused but its there
(this is sort of angst with ambiguous ending, I just have a lot of thoughts about the way people treat Steve in regards to Barb's death, and the possibilities of Steves own misconceptions about it and his lack of support system. Honestly I could write an essay about this.)
wc: 1,859
cw/warnings: themes of survivor's guilt, some of this could be dissociation idk
summary: there's a dead girl standing at the edge of Steve's pool, and he's convinced that his house is being sucked into the water. he hasn't slept in a while.
There’s a dead girl outside, and the house is being sucked into the pool. 
Every night, Steve sat on the floor in front of the sliding glass doors and stared at it, watched the pool get closer and bigger. He didn’t need his bat, Barb never moved. She always stood in the exact same spot, right there in front of him on the other side of the eerie blue water. Her clothes were always dripping. He would watch the puddle below her grow with each droplet. 
When it all started, he might have shrugged it off. Steve used to think he was a reasonable, logical person. Maybe not smart, but he was pretty sure, once, that his house could not possibly be sucked into his pool. The pool was too small to hold the whole house. 
Actually, though, there wasn’t much in a house. Mostly drywall and spongy insulation. Some wood, some granite countertops. Metal, glass. Shag carpet and kitchen tile. Maybe his whole house could fit into the pool after all, once it had collapsed and broken. And as he watched the pool, night after night, the truth became undeniable; like a black hole, the pool was pulling him into it. 
Somewhere in his mind, he knew that the moment he stepped out into the yard, he would be dragged under the water. So instead, he kept the doors closed and locked and he sat on the Persian rug, picking at the fibers and staring out at the pool, knowing that there would come a day that it devoured him. 
Barb knew it too. She stood at the edge of the water and looked down at him. Even when he tried to talk to her, he could find no words, and so he never did. It seemed like she was alright with that arrangement, because she never tried to speak either. She wasn’t the one making his house collapse into the pool. She was just a bystander, the same as Steve. Sometimes, he thought she might be looking at him in pity. 
That night, it was storming. The pool was closer than ever before. It was two forty-seven in the morning, but Steve didn’t know that. Upstairs, his walkie-talkie has been going off constantly for the past three hours, but he didn’t know that either. The rain and the crash of thunder masked the sounds of the house. He couldn’t hear each droplet of water that rolled off of Barb’s hands like he usually could. He didn’t hear the knocking on his door, or the shouts of his name. He did not hear the turning of the lock. 
That night, the edge of the pool was mere inches away from the doors. Steve was wondering what it would feel like to drown. He had actually considered asking Barb about it. He hadn’t bothered, though, had figured she wouldn’t hear him over the sounds of the rain. 
There was a flash of lightning. Silence for several seconds before the roll of thunder. 
“Steve?” Said a voice from behind him. 
Steve flinched violently. For the first time in maybe weeks, in the dead of night, he pulled his eyes away from the pool to look at Eddie. 
“What are you doing, man? Are you okay?” Eddie stood in the doorway to the living room, hair damp and face pale in the lightning that flashed again from outside. That split second of light was enough to see the concern on his face. 
“I’m keeping an eye on things,” Steve told him. Thunder. Eddie stepped farther into the room, until he stood just at the edge of that glowing rectangle of light seeping in through the windows. 
“Don’t want to disturb her, so I leave my walkie upstairs.” Steve turned his gaze back to the edge of the pool. Eddie followed suit. 
“Disturb who, Steve?” He asked. 
“Barb. You’ll see her when the lightning strikes again, she’s kind of hard to make out in the dark,” Steve explained, matter-of-factly. 
The lightning came again. 
“Steve, I… I don't see her. I don't think…” Eddie said quietly. The thunder rumbled. 
“Just wait. Maybe you missed her.”
Eddie didn’t speak. Steve didn’t look at him. The pool was still only inches away. 
“Have you been doing this every night?” 
Steve began picking at the rug again. “The house is getting sucked into the pool,” he explained. 
Eddie said nothing. 
“It’s not her fault, she’s not the one doing it. The pool gets closer every night. Its only a few inches away now.” 
“Steve, it's… it's the same as it always was.” 
Steve’s brow furrowed. “No. It’s— I can see it getting closer,” he insisted. 
“Sweetheart, when was the last time you slept?” 
Steve didn’t have an answer for that. Days kind of started blurring together, he hadn’t kept count of nights.  
“If the house is collapsing into the pool, then we need to get you out, okay? Let’s get you some clothes and a toothbrush and you can come stay with me for a while, the van’s outside and it should even still be warm,” Eddie murmured, and put a gentle hand right between Steve’s shoulder blades. 
“I can’t leave her this time,” Steve said. 
“Do you think she wants you to die?”
Steve stared out at the girl across the pool. 
“I don’t know. I think that if I was her, I would.”
Lightning. 
“Why?”
Thunder, loud enough now to shake the fine China in the cupboard to their left. 
“Because it's my fault she died. It’s my pool she died in.”
Eddie was quiet for a moment. 
“I don’t think it was, for what its worth. You couldn’t have known, Steve. Nancy brought her to your house, Nancy was the one to pick you over her. You had no connection to Barb, right? That’s what you told me,” Eddie said. He paused to gauge Steve’s reaction. 
“It was my pool,” Steve said again. 
“Jonathan was the last person to see her alive. Why shouldn’t he shoulder this guilt?”
Steve had nothing to say about that. 
“I’m not blaming someone else in your place. All I’m saying, Steve, is that this burden never should have been yours. And you know very well how I feel about Nancy putting it onto you.” Eddie sighed, and stood. “I’m going to pack you a bag, alright? You’re going to sleep at my place tonight, and when you wake up, we’re going to figure out what to do next.”
Steve didn’t respond, again. He heard Eddie walk away, his Reeboks squeaking against the hardwood floors of the entryway, then the quiet thumping of footsteps as he climbed the stairs and headed into Steve’s room. 
For the first time, Steve was having trouble making out the shape of Barb in the darkness. He stood and, holding on tightly to the doorframe, unlocked the glass door and pushed it open. 
He wasn’t dragged immediately into the pool. He was careful, very careful, as he walked around the odd shape of it, to not slip on the narrow ledge. Only a few inches between the house and the pool. It felt like miles on the other side. 
Now, he stood opposite to the house, between the pool and the woods, rain soaking his clothes and chilling his skin. It was darker there, he felt. He reached out into the darkness, and found nothing but rain. 
Panicked, he stumbled forward and again, found nothing. He stood exactly where Barb would have been standing, should have been standing, and looked back to the house, and the open glass door, and the single lit window just above it where he saw Eddie rushing back and forth in his room. His hair was plastered to his forehead now, his hands hung limply at his sides and he felt the droplets running down his arms, drip-drip-dripping off his hands. The sound of it overpowered the rain and thunder. He hadn’t even noticed the lightning strike. 
He felt stuck to that spot, staring in through the door at the spot he had occupied on the floor, god knows how many nights he spent there. He wondered if maybe, one of those nights, he should have offered to let Barb come inside. 
Eddie was at his side again, Steve vaguely registered seeing him come back downstairs, watching the fear overtaking his face when he saw the open door, and then the way he hid it when his eyes fell on Steve outside. He was steering Steve back towards the house, and they weren’t being careful on the narrow ledge between the house and the pool that time but they made it inside nonetheless. There was a large duffel bag on the ground, stuffed full. Eddie closed and locked the sliding door again. The drip-drip-drip became muffled by the carpet, but he could still hear it. 
There was a towel wrapped around him, gentle hands drying his hair and soaking as much water as possible out of his t-shirt, his pants, brushing the rivulets off his hands and feet. His skin stung with the removal of the constant chill, but he was handed clean, dry clothes right out of the duffle bag, and when he didn’t move to change, Eddie took care in removing his shirt and drying him off again, replacing it with the new one. Then pants and underwear, in a reversal of the way Steve had once looked after Eddie, in the weeks after his death and revival, and long hospital stay. There were no secrets between them, anymore, not really. 
The dry clothes did nothing to soothe the sting, but Eddie wrapped a blanket around him, a fluffy throw from the couch, picked up the bag, and with a hand on the small of Steve’s back, walked them to the door. Steve turned back only once, and even in the bright flash of lightning, Barb was nowhere to be found. The pool was getting farther away again, but it might have just been a trick of the light. 
The drive to Eddie’s wasn’t silent, but Steve didn’t remember Eddie ever keeping the volume of his radio so low. Whatever tape was in the deck was nothing more than a quiet hum over the rain and the rumble of the engine. 
Then they were there, and Eddie was leading him inside with that hand on his back again, and he was being made to lay down on Eddie’s bed, and he tried to ask where Eddie was going to sleep, but he just got a shake of the head and a murmur of assurance, that Eddie would be alright. 
For the first time in what must have been a very long time, Steve began to feel sleepy. Eddie was talking quietly, none of the words meant much of anything, but his voice rumbled like the thunder, now far in the distance, and the rain battered the roof of the small bungalow which Wayne and Eddie called home, and the room smelled like smoke and the sheets like sweat. Steve didn’t dream at all, but that blackness of sleep must have lasted forever.
48 notes · View notes
not-terezi-pyrope · 9 months ago
Text
Trans musings: I sometimes pass, but maybe only to the French?
I'm currently riding the train back to the UK after spending the weekend in Paris, and while I've been here, particularly this last day, I seem to have reached a startling threshold re: passing as a girl.
For the record, I still dress pretty androgynously in public and my experience throughout most of the time I've been on hormones, even as my appearance has started to gradually change, it's that I'm read as male by default. I default to male bathrooms still for safety reasons, unless I'm with other trans women, am in an explicitly queer space, or am dressing very femme.
The first hint of something odd going on was last week when a family member told me I was looking unusually pretty, and asked if I was wearing makeup - I was not. I left for my trip, and was pleased to be told during one outing in Paris that a homeless man had apparently gendered me correctly, but wrote it off as one of those sporadic anomalies.
Today though, I have been gendered correctly multiple times by strangers, when holding open a door, while going through customs, and, most significantly/alarmingly, given my anxiety, while trying to use male restrooms.
The first time, a French security guard addressed me as madame and tried to stop me from entering. Stuck for what to do, I kinda locked eyes with him and said, "um, decide!", relying on my voice to convey that I was amab, which it apparently did. The second time, I tried to take preemptive action by deeply humming under my breath as I entered another public bathroom, but a stranger still stopped me and said something inducing the word "hombres", which I could not understand and awkwardly disengaged from my locking myself in a cubicle.
The ridiculousness of these aside, I'm wondering if I'm maybe reaching some sort of male fail threshold. Some people have suggested it might be time I make the switch to using the female restroom by default, which would be exciting. I certainly don't want to face the anxiety of being stopped in public bathrooms from now on. However, there are some factors that have me cautious about assuming I'll be read as more femme;
Casually polling other trans international travellers, it sounds like trans women are more easily read as women in France or Germany than in the UK or US, I guess due to cultural differences with presentation, etc. As I've only noticed this in France (the family member comment being the exception?), that may be the predominant factor over my appearance, and I don't want to cause scandals back in the UK by assuming I'll be ambiguous enough to not have security called on me in the women's WC.
As I don't speak French, I was not talking much during these instances, until I did so deliberately, and as shown my voice will immediately out me. Although I don't generally speak a lot while using public restrooms, if I'm with a friend I might, so I have to keep that in mind.
I'm wearing a pinkish shirt today, and that with my somewhat visible breast bump may be pushing me over the edge. This might not apply in other clothes. However, some of the male fails were with my coat done up, so who knows?
Regardless, I'm going to have to take note of this going forward, and see how more people react. I have friends who say that they are reading me as feminine first in various photos, which is encouraging, but I find that trans supportive people tend to have more leeway on that, even if they're not themselves aware of it. I will also need to start more seriously looking into voice training, because if I am nearing an edge, I can maybe push myself more fully over it with more explicit presentation and a better matching voice - exciting! I just hope that in the interim I don't have to deal with too many unpleasant interactions like bathroom ones today while I find my feet.
(Demonstrationary photo from today beneath the cut)
Tumblr media
18 notes · View notes
asaka-lucy-dr-rc · 4 months ago
Note
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASAKA🎉🎉🎉
I don’t know if I’m too late or not but I wanted to say Happy Birthday!!!
I don’t really have much and I didn’t have too much time, so here are some small drawings I did for brainstorming ideas for an English assignment alongside a photo I took of Hajime and Nagito in tomadachi life?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I also have a Small Ramble about Hajime Hinata for you!
Hajime is my one of favorite characters because he's the perfect balance for a protagonist. The story uses the fact he's "basic," and gives it life. His story is of someone who is so insecure, depressed, and feels so inferior about being talentless that he gives up his own life just to be something he can be proud of. Just so he can be something worth remembering. He finds his own strength, not only that but he decides he won't live in the past but rather the future and present. That he'll decide his own future, no matter what happens. In contrast to class 78th they're basically the school dropouts after all, they don't know how life will go, but they'll figure it out. They'll make their own future, together! Out of all of the protagonists and messages the Danganronpa franchise has, Danganronpa 2 resonates with me most. Hajime has a wonderful story, a fun personality, a cute appearance, and is a beautifully compelling and charming character. He’s honestly adorable, he’s such an introverted realist a lot of the time haha!
Hope my Ask is enough to make you smile for your birthday, Sorry if I’m late!!!
sorry I don’t have that much to say about Makoto… I LIKE HIM TOO THOUGH!!!
Ohhhh my gosh your drawings are SO CUTE!!😍😍 Thanks for showing me this, Zen! I knew you had good drawing skills (I must have seen your drawing of Nagito in your YouTube video) but I didn't know you drew such lovely and funny things, so this is a pleasant surprise! 😆💕 hehe, it seems like Hajime is yelling something at Nagito every 5 seconds or so. I’m happy to see these silly boys!
I also didn’t know you have been playing Tomodachi Life! I have never played this game myself, but I love looking at the screenshots of this game. Did they become good friends with each other in that world? It's so nice to see them together on the beach under the stars! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)✧.。.:*
And thank you for telling me the reason why you like Hajime!💖 I totally agree with you that he has a wonderful story! I didn't notice it the first time I played the game, but when I replayed it and followed the story from the beginning, I found that his sense of inferiority is described well before he knows he's a reserve course student. I haven't checked how it's expressed in the English translation yet, but he tends to use the phrase "俺なんか" a lot more than other protagonists. “なんか” is an ambiguous word, similar to "some" in English, but it is an expression of self-deprecation to use it after the first person (俺). He has a subconscious tendency to be self-deprecating even though he has lost his memory, but I think that is why he easily falls for people who are kind to him. In fact, he was very shocked when he realized that Nagito might be the culprit in the first class trial, saying, "You were so kind”. It's very cute how he felt that way about Nagito even though they only met for the first time two days ago. ( *´艸`)💖 (He is rather cautious and suspicious of things, but I feel that in relationships he easily falls for others!)
As you say, the process of how he, who originally felt inferior and introverted, becomes determined to make his own future is very touching, and his personality itself is what makes him so cute and appealing. Honestly, when I first saw Hajime, I wasn't attracted to his looks at all, but now I think he's the cutest guy ever. I feel happy whenever I see his cute smile!😊💓
Thank you so much for this wonderful gift and taking the time out of your busy schedule! Your message definitely made me smile! I was actually in the process of preparing a post that would sort of summarize the birthday gifts I received, but your message came just in time for me to post it. So my birthday has passed, but in that sense you made it! 🥳
I'm happy and grateful every time I get a message from you. Hope you have a great day! 🫶✨ And I hope to hear more about your thoughts on Makoto sometime! 😆
12 notes · View notes
mimiruku · 3 months ago
Note
Hii~! Can I ask Self and Partner from the relationship meme for Miruku? (⁠ㆁ⁠ω⁠ㆁ⁠) I'm here for the tea.
Tumblr media
█  𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐎𝐂 𝐀𝐒𝐊 ⸻ ( ⚝ )
I light up when i see you in my activity / inbox, i'm being so serious. thank you for indulging me once again !
╰┈➤     SELF   :   How is your OC's relationship with themself ? Does your OC like who they are ? Is there anything about themself that they would change ?
The self is ambiguous and uncertain, perpetually unable to recognize who he is. Fundamentally, he is a person of change, it's not hard to refashion himself, adjust in a way that he is easier to swallow ; but this leaves him in a moor like state, with uncultivated personhood , ( what are your future plans? dreams? your pride? and will ? these are things he does not have, these are things he borrows from other people. ) It's strangely isolating , though if you were to ask him, he would not have any desire to particularly go against the grains of sand , ' there is no need to fix something that isn't broken. '
of course, he is the way he is for the ' plot ' of it all, it's haphazard at best and uncoordinated ! but it is between Kawahira and the concept of ' protecting the planet ' ! and him being a vessel of sort ? I call his existence ' A message from earth ' hahaha, ( is this comprehensible, I doubt djsadhas but i tried! )
Tumblr media
╰┈➤     PARTNER   :   Does your OC currently have a partner? Multiple partners? How did they meet, and what is that relationship like ?
Partnership is such a perfect word to describe his relationships, one that is devoid of proper ' labels ' ( of course unless asked otherwise. ) If not careful, he'll likely end up with ' multiple relationships ' with varying intimacy, like most things in his life, this too is unconventional and frankly? thoughtless. Friends and lovers are all the same to him, if he likes you enough, he'll chose to love you  ⸻  and a lover does what a lover will ;    HE WILL LOVE YOU,  unquestioned, full throttle and without hesitation, the problem being that he grows to like many people, you can imagine this childish conceptualization of relationship can get messy really quickly.
ex.   Reborn had to swiftly and effectively dissuade the growing brain funk inside Miruku's head : he's so attached to Reborn ! he'd have done anything and everything he asked ! Or how he had been effectively became a severe insecurity and love rival of both Tsunayoshi and Gokudera because he behaves and treats their crushes like his girlfriends, he had kissed them both on the lips at some point because ' what are friends for!'
It so follows that romantic endeavors with him might at first feels like pulling teeth , he looks at you with bright sparkling eyes, earnest enough to say i love you, i love you, love me back ? all the while being able to repeat that elsewhere.   ( funnily enough if anyone would have just told him 'we're exclusive now and don't do that to others' he'd have been like 'bet' and devoted his entire romanticism to you . . . unfortunately this is not a series where people know how to communicate, so everyone now has this problem too.   )
Tumblr media
5 notes · View notes
colortracker · 5 months ago
Note
hey, its me again, im back with a few more questions
i find it interesting that you distinguish pink and red, but not brown and orange. in my mind, the distinction between brown and orange is more important or obvious than red and pink. was this a conscious decision, and do you have a reason for this?
do you know why, or have a theory as to why, grey and gray are different to you? could you have been given this association at a young age? do you have synesthesia, so the spelling changes they color of the word? (i have synesthesia)
if you were given one of those optical illusions where two colors that are actually the same appear different, do you count those as different or the same? (so basically, is color more based on perception or reality? according to your last answer it seems like you make it up as you go, so i could see ruling them as different, but could also see ruling them as the same.)
as a treat for answering all these questions, would you like to hear about the pattern languages tend to follow when naming colors? you might find it interesting. but also if you dont wanna read me yapping you could also just google it - find the wikipedia for “color term”.
just saw this one, woohoo more qna!
it was a conscious decision. i see browns as just dark orange, mainly because you don't see brown as distinct on any color wheel. red and pink on the other hand are often separated, and i do see there being a distinct area between purple and red that cannot be just classified as variations of either, but instead actual pink
i may have synesthesia? i have a tendency to make color associations to a lot of things, but i'm not sure if it counts as synesthesia in any traditional way. basically anything comes with some sort of color attached to it if i think hard enough, so maybe? though it more likely just has to do with the fact that i see 'a' as a softer letter and 'e' as a sharper one, which causes gray to be lighter and grey to be darker.
this was a really fascinating question to think about. i believe i would count it as the same? though in cases like the infamous dress from 2017 i would mark it as both gray and yellow and blue and gray, since that's less of an optical illusion and more of just brains being fucky. a little off topic but wasn't the reason behind that that the lighting in the image was way too ambiguous, so our brains filled in the gaps and caused the colors to be different to different people? correct me if im wrong on that. anyways generally count them as the same, since they would be the same still if you colorpicked them.
oh i would love to :]
6 notes · View notes
anamazingangie · 1 year ago
Text
without reservation | rhaenyra x daemon
🕯️ Rated E 🕯️4.8k words 🕯️ Complete 🕯️ by AmazingAngie🕯️
Tumblr media
Tags: canon divergence, minor harwin/rhaenyra, loss of virginity, incest, infidelity, size kink, breeding kink, painful sex, darcyphilia, happy ending
Warnings: ambiguous ages, possible period typical underage
Summary:
“I want to hear you.” He said, words firm. She shook her head before admitting, “I might cry.”  He smiled, a twisted crooked thing, “I’m almost certain you will, my princess.”  She shifted a little—“You won’t stop, if I do?” She asked, nervously.  “Oh sweetheart, I promise you, tears have never been the reason my desire wanes.” Rhaenyra wailed when he seated himself fully inside of her. Her tears were in pain—partially, but they were in relief too. Finally she wasn’t a maiden, and she had her uncle to thank for that. 
part four of ? of amorous autumn / kinktober.
7. darcyphilia / crying during sex / painful sex 
🕯️without reservation🕯️
Rhaenyra was a beautiful bride—her eyes bright and smile wide when she leaned in to kiss her new husband. Harwin Strong was not a prince, but in her eyes he was better. He was a knight, a protector, and best of all—he loved her. 
Her father was pleased that she had finally settled on a match, and one so close to his own advisor. The Strong’s were loyal and trustworthy, a good family to bind themselves to through marriage, even if they were not a particularly famed name. 
Rhaenyra did not need to marry for a name—she was a Targaryen, after all. 
No, she needed to marry because she needed to have an heir. 
But Viserys hoped she would find happiness, too.
There was not a doubt in anyone’s minds that she would have both in her marriage, with how she smiled on her wedding day and seemed to bloom in response to her new husband’s touch. 
Her wedding night, however, wasn’t spent smiling.
No. It was spent with her head buried in a pillow—it muffled her sobs, and hid her tears. Though it could not hide her shame, the pain, the embarrassment. 
.
Harwin was a good man. 
He was a good enough man that when his new wife complained of pain, he stopped. 
No matter how much she pleaded, he wasn’t going to hurt her. He couldn’t, truly. His length flagged just from seeing her wince beneath him. 
He knew violence and suffering from his work and it had no place in his bedroom. He wouldn’t inflict such things on his wife. The mere thought made him feel sick. 
 She was young, and stressed from the day. They would try again, he promised. 
.
Harwin was a good man. 
He was, perhaps, not good with his fingers. 
Not that either he nor Rhaenyra were aware of this. 
But it meant they made little progress, and all attempts had ended much like the first. 
Despite being married for twenty days, Rhaenyra was still a maiden.  
Harwin insisted it was enough to kiss her, and to lay with her. 
It wasn’t enough for her, though. 
.
It was strange how all the things she loved about him were the same things causing her resentment. 
She could hardly complain—what would she say? Her husband was too kind. Her husband didn’t wish to hurt her. Her husband was too honorable to even stay aroused when she was in any sort of distress.
Gods, women would swoon at the thought of a man so honorable. And Rhaenyra would have, too, a month ago. 
But now…
Rhaenyra knew she was more than a vessel for an heir. But that was all she was to her father, and his council, and his kingdom. The expectation of conceiving someday was there, it was why she had wed. And the lack of success and consummating the match was a failing that seemed to guarantee her future failure, too. . 
But what could she do? It was too late to tell someone. It would invalidate the marriage and make them vulnerable. More than that, it was embarrassing. Harwin has been promoted to Commander of City Watch, and though he had thrived in the role, men were fickle creatures. They were eager to compare their virility in a bedroom to all they did beyond it—this fact would make Harwin seem weak, even if the  kindness should have been seen as a strength. 
It was embarrassing for her, too. She had failed to take him—her duty as his wife, perhaps her singular duty as his wife. 
She tried. She was willing! She begged him. She knew any pain would fade, but Harwin denied her. And every time she was left naked, alone, and humiliated. 
If she believed in a god, she would pray to them. 
Pray for someone who loved her without reservation. 
Pray for someone who would hurt her in this way. 
.
Daemon returned a moon later and was apologetic for missing her wedding—”I would have liked to see it—or at least the bedding ceremony.” He said with a teasing leer. 
At the mention of that, Rhaenyra burst into tears. 
The truth came out with them, as she cried into the leather vest covering her uncle’s chest. 
.
He kissed the top of her head, shushing away her worries and fears as his thumbs brushed tears off her reddened cheeks.
“I’m here now, I’ll help you. I promise.” 
He had never broken a promise to her before. She knew he wouldn’t break this one, either, and the relief it brought her was palpable. 
.
Harwin complained at supper that patrols had been changed—as commander he could adjust the schedules, giving him a reprieve opposed to taking night shifts three days in a row, but that would be unfair. 
“I shall miss you.” He said with a smile, pressing a kiss to her cheek. She nodded, poking at her food, realizing this meant he would not come to her rooms that week. “I shall miss you, too.” she said. 
It was partially true.
She liked being held at night. The warmth and comforting embrace that reminded her of sneaking into her mother or uncle’s rooms when she was a girl. But with Harwin it made her heartache, too, for his presence in her bed reminded her of what they had failed to do there. 
.
She did not consider that her uncle had orchestrated her husband’s absence. Not until she entered her rooms, ready to retire for the evening, only to find him seated at the table she often ate breakfast at. 
“I was not expecting you.” She said, though she wasn’t upset, not really. 
He leaned back in his chair—the action rude for he should stand in greeting her, the princess, but they had never cared about such formalities. 
“I do not make promises lightly, princess.” He said, his voice smooth. 
“Perhaps, but even so I was not expecting you so soon.” She said, correcting herself. 
He tilted his head, “I wished to unburden my niece of her troubles, I would not wish suffering upon her for a moment longer. I saw little reason to wait.” 
Her lip trembled, he sounded so very sincere. He beckoned for her then, pulling her into his arms and lap. Cradling her like she was a little girl while she clung to him. 
“My poor niece has been neglected, does your husband not even do this? Does he not even hold you?” She shook her head, he didn’t, not really. He was afraid to even touch her, most nights, for fear she might find pain in it.
That memory emboldened her—Daemon was here to help her. She wanted to know what that would entail. And so she asked him what was to come. 
Daemon’s hand, the one running up and down her back, stilled. “I shall tell you, but you must undress first.” 
Rhaenyra felt her cheeks flush. It had to be done, she supposed, in order for him to aid her. 
She hadn’t expected him to help, though. It felt oddly intimate, having a man undo the laces and hooks of her dress. Harwin had always come to her later—after she had changed into a chemise, either on her own or with the help of a servant. The sensation of his deft fingers and short nails pulling through the lacing was…nice. She could feel the heat of him behind her, too, and his breath on her neck. 
When the dress was in a puddle of fabric on the floor, he peeled the chemise over her head—done so quickly she was too surprised to stop him. She hadn’t realized by undressed he meant fully nude. But she didn’t want to doubt his methods when he was helping her. She was still as a statue—and naked as one too, save for the silk stockings that clung to her legs. 
Daemon made no move to touch her, and she found herself almost…disappointed by that, even more so when he backed away. 
“Come here—yes, on the table.” He said, tapping the surface of the wood as she turned and looked at him with confusion. She did what he said, feeling awkward as she sat on it, still naked and now with her feet dangling slightly off the floor. 
“Now lay back.” Daemon said. She swallowed, still unsure, but she followed the instruction. She felt a warm hand wrap around her ankle—and she damned the stocking that prevented her from feeling it fully. He gently brought the ankle to the table's height, and then—oh.
He repeated the action with her other ankle—the positioning of them had her feet flat on the table, and her knees bent, forcing her thighs to part and fully display her folds. Gods, this was humiliating. She bit her lip, willing him to say something, but the only sound in the room was of fabric shifting—him sitting, and then the scratch of the chair scooting closer. She tilted her head up, slightly, to see him staring intently at her most private parts. 
She wanted to cry. This was stupid, she was about to close her legs when his hand stroked her ankle—the pressure of a thumb on the sloping bone helping to calm her, despite the humiliation of the pose. 
“This is how a Maester would examine you—but I will attempt to make it less dreadful, and I beg you to feel no shame.” His words were almost reverent when he next spoke, “You’re beautiful, Rhaenyra. You always have been, trust me—have confidence in your beauty here too.” He whispered, and she thought he might be leaning in closer. 
Her own breath hitched at the compliment, suddenly feeling a bit warm. 
“I’ve seen more cunts than I can count—whores, lady’s,  queen’s, and everything in between, but none as perfect as yours.” He said, sounding sincere. 
“I have to touch you, to help.” He said—opposed to asking her if he could touch her. But he did say, “I shall stop, if you ask me too. I promise.” 
She nodded, and he squeezed her ankle before it began. 
He pressed on her stomach and stroked around the flesh between her legs—gently parting her folds but making no effort to penetrate. His fingers moved above her slit, his thumb gently pressing a bud of flesh that rested there. 
“Has he touched you here?” Daemon asked, and she shrugged. He had tried, she thought. But he had large hands, his fingers were not very precise. 
Her uncle made a humming noise, and she heard the sound of a bottle uncorking. His finger returned to that spot, this time slick with something, and then he began rubbing. 
Gods, that was lovely. She wanted more of that. It was like the coil of arousal she had felt was finally expanding—lengthening into a spring as it was all drawn to the place where his finger was—and then he stopped. 
She whimpered, and Daemon calmed her before once again parting her folds. “Good, that’s good.” He murmured, “You’re wet now—you just needed to feel good, before your cunt would consider allowing something inside it. Some women can’t get wet, but not you—not your perfect cunt, it’ll weep and gush as it should, it  just requires your partner to earn it first.” 
Rhaenyra blushed, not sure what to think about that. 
“Now that you’re wet this shouldn’t hurt.” Daemon said, and she felt a digit slip into her. She whimpered a little at the stretch—though he was right, it didn’t hurt, exactly. He curled it inside of her before thrusting it gently. When he paired the movement with his thumb pressing down on that spot above she—ohhhh.
She was moaning, she thought, and her head ached from where it had slammed against the table. She didn’t even notice when he added another finger, too concerned with the pleasure. Her hips arched against his hand as she rode out her release—her first release, before collapsing back to the lacquered wood 
Daemon was stroking her still, his fingers wet and slipping easily across her skin. “That was good, Rhaenyra. Now—you’re relaxed and wet, this is when a man should try and enter you,” Her breath hitched, and Daemon smiled—”Or,” he continued, “When they should try to stretch you for such an entry.” 
Two fingers pressed back in, curling and making her plead for something. Something more. 
A third finger squeezed in between the other two, sinking in without incident but making her hiss when it settled fully inside her. It wasn’t the stretch so much as the sharp sensation of cool metal on the hot overstretched skin of her cunt—a signet ring. A Targaryen signet ring. She thought with a whimper. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but the ring reminded her of who was doing this to her—her uncle, her Daemon, and she wanted to watch. 
He had been watching her, she realized with a little gasp—her eyes opening only to see his own gazing at her in return. And then she saw his mouth move before she heard the words, it was as if everything was off slightly. 
“Do you want more?” He asked, and she nodded without hesitation. “What do you want?” He followed, and her brow creased—wasn’t it obvious? He smiled, a soft thing, at her confusion. 
“I could fill you with a taper—just enough to rid you of the film that ails you.” She shook her head, she didn’t want him to remove his fingers only to replace it with some object as impersonal as a taper. 
“The alternative is my cock, Rhaenyra.” He said. She knew he was going to say it, watching his lips form the harsh sounds with an eagerness that was shown when she nodded in response. 
He smiled, fingers lazily pumping into her while his other hand freed his tunic from his trousers. He’d already removed his leather vest, and the belts that held his blades. Whether it was for comfort, or because he intended on their meeting ending this way, she wasn’t sure. 
She wasn’t sure she cared. 
Why did his intentions matter, when it was she who wanted this?
She didn’t even see the appendage—it was slipped out from his pants and covered by the tails of his smock. But she felt it being lined up with her folds, the tip dragging through the mess of fluids Daemon had drawn from her. 
Before it pressed inside, he rearranged her slightly—bringing her legs around his waist and forcing her hips to arch up slightly to meet his own. It was more comfortable, less awkward than before, when she was spread wide for him—though truly even that had not been as embarrassing as she feared. 
She had never felt more comfortable with someone than she did with her uncle. She trusted him, in this and in everything—and so there was not a trace of nervousness as he began to press his length into her. It was warm, and big, but everything was so incredibly slick that it felt right. 
His hand guided the appendage, feeding it slowly into her folds—there was no awkward ramming or thrusts that resulted in him between her thighs instead. He was practiced in this, that much was obvious. But it didn’t bother her—the practice had contributed to this being good and she was grateful for that. 
She whimpered as her folds swallowed the head of him—and then bit her lip, tensing—worried he might stop at the sound. It wasn’t painful, it was just a lot and her body conjured a noise that wasn’t entirely of pleasure. But even that had been enough to make Harwin still, and she didn’t want that to happen now. 
But Daemon didn’t stop, his hand stroked her thigh until she relaxed, and then he carried on—pressing deeper. God the stretch of it, his fingers had not prepared her for that, and it ached, the muscles unused to being strained from the inside in such a way. She whined, biting her lip so he wouldn’t hear—but Daemon’s thumb pulled her lip from her teeth’s prison. 
“I want to hear you.” He said, words firm.
She shook her head before admitting, “I might cry.” 
He smiled, a twisted crooked thing, “I’m almost certain you will, my delicate little princess.” 
She shifted a little—still speared on the first inch of his length. “Y-you won’t stop, if I do?” She asked nervously. 
“Oh sweetheart, I promise you, tears have never been the reason my desire wanes. Especially not from you—you look so pretty when you cry, princess, makes me so hard. Don’t hide it from me. I swear I will stop at the word ‘no’ and nothing less.” 
God, the relief that offered her—she felt her entire body relax. She didn’t even flinch when he warned the next bit might sting. She just nodded, her eyes closed and fingers gripping the edge of the table. 
She wailed when he seated himself fully inside her, the task done with a single thrust that bludgeoned through whatever barrier of innocence remained—then went so far beyond it she swore he was in her guts. 
It hurt. It was like the pain of every previous attempt combined and multiplied by a thousand, the tearing sensation in her core so sharp she was sobbing. His length was unyielding inside her, solid as an iron stake, and feeling like one for how it burned. But there was a relief in this fact, that he was still hard—that he had done it, she had done it. He hadn’t pulled out, even as she writhed and whimpered and cried. 
Her tears were in pain—partially, but they were in relief too. Finally she wasn’t a maiden, and she had her uncle to thank for that. 
One of his hands was stroking her thigh, while the other cupped her neck—his thumb brushing tears away from her cheek while he remained inside her, unmoving, and likely waiting for the pain to fade. She wasn’t sure it would. Her whimper of, “It hurts, kepa.” Was evidence of that. 
His expression was one of sympathy—but his words were not an apology. “That’s because you’re so perfect, a cunt so tight your husband can’t even handle it, can he? It’s so little and so pretty.” He paused for a moment, his eyes squeezing shut as if trying to control himself. “But the prettier the cunt, the more it hurts at first. It has to be broken in, sweetheart, before it feels good.” 
She nodded, though to be honest she wasn’t entirely listening, too distracted by the pain. It was still there—though not as sharp, it was as if the points had dulled slightly and it was more of a throbbing than a stabbing. It was still enough to make tears leak from her eyes, though. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t used to pain, not like this. 
But Daemon was there. Which made it better, somehow. He didn’t coddle her. He didn’t stop. He was honest with her, that this might hurt—but that it would pass, and he would be there.
Gods, she loved him. 
She loved his fingers, too, especially now as they slid between their bodies—finding that little bud above her folds. It was stretched too, as if he had pulled it closer to her opening with his cock. He freed it, though, and rubbed the sensitive nerve with slick fingers. It felt good, both the sensation and the reminder of how this had led to pleasure earlier in the evening. 
A shadow of that pleasure seemed to loom, lingering below the clouds of pain. And for the first time since he entered her she could imagine it feeling good, even if that feeling was far away. He seemed to sense this too, for he started moving. 
She had thought it might make things worse—like a leather shoe rubbing against a blister turned wound on your heel, adding to the rawness. But it wasn’t, it was a relief, the movement creating a distraction from the pain that turned into…something else. She closed her eyes and let her body move with Daemon’s, the thrust creating a rhythm of the flesh that was so unfamiliar, so unlike her other attempts with Harwin. 
Daemon was nothing like him. 
He was better. Part of her whispered. 
Harwin didn’t love you enough to do this. 
Harwin was too weak to do this. 
She moaned, surprising herself—and then it happened again—her eyes fluttering open to see Daemon smirking, almost victorious at the noise of pleasure he had wrenched from her. 
“Does it feel good now, princess? Getting used to the feeling of a cock in that pretty cunt. Just a matter of time until you crave this, too.” He said, hiking her leg higher and leaning forward to brace his other arm on the tangle. The angle changed and she moaned loudly, her hands rising from the table to reach for Daemon. The length inside her wasn’t enough, she wanted to feel his flesh beneath her palms. Beneath her lips. She wanted him everywhere. 
She wanted him. 
His thrusts were emphasized with a grinding motion now and it was pressing him even deeper in a way that felt unnatural and impossible but not unwelcome. She wasn’t sure what had changed, but suddenly her body had decided to accept him, and decided to allow the pain to fade away. It wasn’t a conscious choice on her part, she could only thank the gods for it—because gods, she was grateful for this feeling.
Her hips were rising from the table to meet his own, and his chest was heaving—a droplet of sweat falling from the tip of his nose and landing on her neck, the exertion he was putting forth obvious. They were both moaning, the sounds of their breaths and hips meeting contributing to the sinful noises that echoed through the room. 
They would echo in her head after, too, she thought. She’d never forget this—the way he felt inside of her, and the way he sounded. This is how it should have been—this is how it should always be. 
Her nails dug into Daemon’s shoulders—more like claws than fingers with the brutality of their grip. Daemon just moaned, his own fingers digging into her thighs, so hard that even his dull nails felt like daggers against her skin. She wasn’t sure why that of all things did it, but the sharp sensation was one too many—she burst. 
She clenched down so tightly Daemon hissed, as if the pressure wounded him. Her core was trying to force him out, but he was stronger, continuing to thrust through the pulse of her muscles in a way that made her release just keep going. 
It took all her energy with it, and when the tingles of pleasure began to fade, fatigue set in. She slumped against the table, her desire—her ability to participate had been drained from her. Daemon didn’t seem to mind, though, his pace didn’t change—though he gripped her more tightly and his gaze strayed to where he was entering her. 
She wondered if it looked obscene, it must, surely? She’d felt herself down there—the slit that seemed much too small for anything more than a finger. But he’d fit three in there, and then somehow his cock had followed. And it was perfect, but she doubted it looked that way—Daemon’s expression could have fooled her, though, he looked awed by what he saw. 
[He was]
[She did not know that he had dreamed of this.]
[That he had been enraged by his actions that forfeited his right to this, to her.]
[That he thought he had lost his chance at this, at having her like this.]
[But no, his little niece—married for a month and still a virgin, as if she was waiting for him.]
[He’d taken it from her, happily, biting back the desire to come when she whimpered and struggled because her tiny little cunt was too tight for his cock. But she took it. He made her take it. And she had loved it,  she’d come from it, and now—gods, he didn’t know if she was still conscious but he was going to finish. 
It was going to happen soon. The sight was too good—her stretched around his length, body clinging to him and pulling him back in while also fighting him, trying to rid itself of the appendage. It was perfect. She was perfect, now more than ever, with her folds stretched out around him and messy from come, blood, and sweat that had spread from his cock to her pelvis with the enthusiasm of his thrusting. 
He wanted to make her even more messy. Wanted to fill her so full of his seed she was choking on it. With so much she got pregnant.
Fuck—that was it, he spilled inside her, deep thrusts that he ground even deeper. He wanted it to get to her womb, he wanted his seed to plant a baby in her before her husband could. If he would even live long enough to. He was slamming into her now and she was whimpering, and he wasn’t sure if it was in pleasure or pain, he didn’t care. His purpose was getting all his seed into her, where it wouldn’t spill. Even if it hurt—she’d understand when it was their child she held to her breast.]
[Eventually, he was empty.]
She was empty—he had come, gods he had come, so much. She was sure when he finally finished and slipped out of her that it would come pouring out—enough to fill a washbasin, if not two. But she couldn’t focus on what was spilling out, no, all she felt was empty. 
He had split her open and hollowed her out, rearranged her body to make a place for his cock and then just taken it from her, and he was gone, and she was crying before she even knew what she was sad about. Daemon hugged her to his chest as she, not for the first time that day, sobbed into his fabric covered shoulder.
It was a long time before she was calm enough to speak—but Daemon seemed to know, asking her, “What’s wrong? What can I do?” 
She pulled back from him, so she could see his face—his eyes lined with concern and face set in a frown. 
“Don’t leave me again. Not ever. If you go, you have to take me with you. The Keep is empty—I’m empty without you, especially now.” She said, wiping snot from her nose and using her thumbs to rub away tears. He had always filled her emotionally—the cups of joy and happiness never as full as they were in his presence. But now that she knew what it was like to be full of him physically, too, she couldn’t imagine being parted. 
“Okay. But—I must warn you, I take my job of filling you very seriously.” He teased in an attempt to lighten her mood and it worked—she laughed. 
Eventually, a peacefulness settled between them, a contentness with his palm stroking her hair and her nose against the bone of his collar. He was standing, while she remained seated on the table they had just coupled on, making their difference in height less dramatic than it usually was. And so, when her chin tilted up slightly, she found her mouth so very close to his—close enough to kiss.
They hadn’t done that yet, and she remembered—faintly, him saying to her as a girl, ‘kisses are for those you plan to marry’. 
Well. That settled it. 
She cupped his cheek, drawing him to her and letting their mouths meet. 
.
Poor Harwin never made it back to his wife’s bed—the streets were a dangerous place. Sometimes the gold cloak served as a beacon instead of protection. 
..
When Rhaenyra started showing, people pitied the young widow all the more. 
(After all, they had no idea she spent nearly every night in her uncle’s bed.)
Her father was almost thankful, when Daemon offered to wed her—to treat any child like his own. 
(After all, they would be, but they had no idea of that, either.) 
.
Rhaenyra was a beautiful bride—her eyes bright and smile wide when she leaned in to kiss her new husband. Daemon was a prince, but in her eyes he was better. He was a knight, a protector, and her uncle. He loved her as only another Targaryen could.  
.
She cried on her second wedding night, too. 
Daemon wasn’t a good man, after all. 
And he was far too good with his fingers. 
He drew nearly a half dozen orgasms from her, leaving her writhing and pleading and sobbing until finally he entered her with his cock. 
That was finally enough to satisfy her.
.
stories with similar themes,
Daemyra prevailing over Rhaewin: Being Strong | 6k words / complete / Modern!AU Global Warming | 4k/complete/Modern!AU
crying during sex: deliciae | 8k/complete/westeros!au give me what i want | 15k words / complete / historical westeros!AU ←also one of my favorite things i’ve written.
thanks for reading <3
22 notes · View notes
pynkhues · 2 months ago
Note
https://x.com/loust4t/status/1838065208046055446
This split second was so beyond devastating, Jacob makes Louis' agony so raw here. It's one of those moments where I wonder what it was like for him filming it and what it was like for Sam lying there experiencing it.
I really want them to revisit this moment and show the full thing, Louis (apparently having left to change clothes) coming back and seeing Lestat's body and it really hitting him. I wonder if they would--if any part of Lestat was conscious for this. Just curious because Lestat's last words in Claudia's diary weren't shown, so it seems like they might revisit it. And I still think too that there's ambiguity around what Lestat was intending to do to Claudia in that last episode (I initially assumed he was trying to kill her, but having Antoinette try to wrestle her into drinking some poisoned blood doesn't seem like a great way to do that?), so it could be something they revisit.
God, I know. Jacob is so, so good in that scene, especially playing Louis at such extreme emotional intensities across the board. He really is a phenomenal actor, and I can't imagine how taxing shooting that episode was for any of them, but especially for him.
I'm curious as to if they'd revisit Lestat's murder as well? Like, it does make sense that Lestat would want to talk about it both with Louis privately and with Daniel in the interview, but I actually wonder - now that ghost!Claudia has been basically confirmed - if it might not make more sense to have Lestat reconciling it with her? It was her plan after all, and the fact that they're both sort of perceived orchestrators of each other's 'deaths' offers so much to explore, especially given they never reconciled it in the way that was always inevitable for Lestat and Louis.
It feels like a real thread to pick up with the two of them too because, as you said, it's not really clear what Lestat was planning with Claudia. I mentioned it here, but it's interesting too that the poison Claudia uses isn't actually just arsenic, it's arsenic and laudanum, and the latter is actually a sedative as opposed to a poison. It really re-emphasises it, I think, as being a tool to make the murder happen, as opposed to the murder weapon itself.
He could've been thinking he and Antoinette would use that just to incapacitate her to kill her in the same way that she was using it on him, but Claudia's strength is in her strategising and bloodlust, not in her brute force. The show's really made a point of that both in her not being able to hold someone down long enough to turn them, but in how easily Bruce had managed to not just incapacitate her, but keep her that way.
Sure, Lestat was pretty ill during that sequence, but Lestat is all brute force, so if he'd wanted to kill her, I feel like he would have? Especially given he knew what the plan was for the night well before he showed it. In that sense, it really does feel like there's more there to explore, and I want to see it both because I think there's so much there, but also because I selfishly want to see what Delainey would do in that sequence too, haha.
5 notes · View notes
sleepy-lil-kit-kat · 1 year ago
Note
your fic with hades was SO CUTE!!! i loved it! :D i was wondering if you could do something else with him? it can be anything!!! i think he would be super protective as a cg!!! maybe meg and hercules question his ability to watch over a regressor, thinking their not safe with him. i dunno just a thought!! thank you!!
skies will be gray
~600 words, not on ao3
same as before, disney's hercules and some Greek mythology. set ambiguously post-canon
cg!hades, regressor!reader, ascended-to-godhood!reader. due to being from a pov that is very attached to hades, not wholly sympathetic to meg and hercules. hurt/comfort
i ought to admit, this... isn't my best work, lol. i rewatched hercules and it still didn't feel right, but i felt bad letting the request sit too long in my inbox. Meg and Hercules are... sorta the villains here? they're doing it from a place of caring, and Meg has a lotta issues with Hades... they're not bad guys really, but they are making a mistake (maybe one i might write them fixing later. who knows!)
- k!nk/nsfw please dni! this is a sfw age regression post! -
requests are open! see my pinned <3
"Lord Hercules, Lady Megara. My Lord speaks of you both." You clutch your chiton tightly as you look at the two heroes, trying not to betray your nerves too strongly. Or betray the fact that you really, truly, do not want to speak.
"My father's mentioned you as well." You stiffen up at that, even though it's probably just the usual gossip that goes around when a mortal ascends. Probably, most likely, flavoured with that disdain for Hades and those that live with the dead that all the gods above have.
"I see. Well, please excuse me, but I must be getting on with my duties." The formal mask serves you well, here.
"What exactly is your domain? Hades is as close-lipped as ever on the matter."
"Well, Lady Megara, I don't–see how it is of any concern to you. Please excuse me." You bow shortly, then step back and let your form dissolve into smoke, so that you can be on your way. So that you can escape.
(It's quite likely, you think, that you'll need to sit with Hades for a while when you get back. And he'll rant about how the gods favour the heroes born to them, but you don't mind that.)
-
"You manage to get that stubborn ghost back down here?" Hades is as ever, and that in itself is enough to calm you just a little.
Mechanically, you nod, then sit yourself down on your cushion, letting yourself go sort of limp.
"Stressful time up there, huh? You ran into someone?"
For a second time, you nod, and hold up two fingers so that he can see.
"Two someones, huh? Don't worry, kid, barely anyone's likely to come down here after you."
You flinch.
"Ran into someones who... might?" He himself sounds hesitant now, though he hides it well. "It wasn't Hercules and Megara, though, right?"
Though you don't say anything, your stillness is answer enough.
"Oh, mercy," he says, and then you spy, at a distance, the two heroes. Hades rises to his feet, and so do you, clinging to the fabric of his robes as though it's anchoring you to reality. "So nice to meet again, heroes," he drawls."
"You've been hurting the godling."
Rapidly, you shake your head, but you don't think they see it.
"Hades, we spoke to them earlier, and they said–"
"They spoke? That's strike one, then, because if they can help it, they don't." Hades's firey hair turns red as he interrupts Hercules. "Go on, why do you think I'm hurting the kid."
"You're hardly the best candidate to care for anyone!" Megara's eyes are practically burning as she says it. You know of their history, you know that she has every reason to think this, but–
You tremble slightly, clinging tighter to Hades.
"Get out."
"But-"
"Get. Out."
Even faced with the god's wrath, his form covered in ruby-red flame, they don't back down. Hercules puffs up more "Not unless-"
"Stop it," you whisper, unable to take much more of this.
Improbably, the two heroes hear you. Hercules pales, and they both–
–they say something to each other, and then they leave.
There's a beat. Hades turns, crouches down. "Hey, hey kid," he says, tone oh so gentle, gentler than you think you've ever heard it before, despite the rage that he'd been in just a minute ago. (He'd... he'd calmed himself, for you.) "Those idiots are gone now, yeah?"
You nod, slowly.
He sighs slightly, though it's not you he seems aggravated at, and lifts you up. Unlike what usually happens though, he just holds you there. Like a moth to a flame, you press yourself closer to him, soaking up his shadowy-safe presence. In his arms, you're so small, so protected. Nothing could ever hurt you.
All is right with the world.
8 notes · View notes
freeuselandonorris · 1 year ago
Note
Okay for the 'director's cut' ask - I still maintain that this is the hottest fic I've ever read and I would love to hear more about it - You won't know what you like better
oh man, a throwback!! so much fun to get to revisit this fic. so, you won’t know what you like better is my foray into threesome fic, jev/andré/james, with DP. i can’t remember exactly why, but i really struggled with writing it. i think i originally wanted it to be something sweeter and lighter, but it kept growing teeth and trying to bite me.
i do remember that i was very deliberate about writing it from james’ POV, because i wanted it to be written from the outsider’s perspective to jev and andré’s relationship. a lot of people reading this probably weren’t in the formula E fandom back in 2018, but let me tell you all: jeandre was INTENSE. you think landoscar and maxiel are a lot? nah. jev and andré were a whole other ball game. jev once livestreamed them sharing a hotel bed. it was nuts and yet somehow nobody was surprised in the least.
anyway. so they were super intense, and there was this sense that jev was EXTREMELY into andré in quite a sincere way whereas andré was sort of playing up to the idea of it more? and then james was andré’s friend from way back, had sort of been drafted into techeetah by him, and gradually insinuated himself into their dynamic to an extent. and i was never sure how much jev really liked james, or how much he just wanted james to like him so that andré would either be jealous or be pleased? pre-marriage jev was a LOT. he was visibly needy and wanted reassurance and he just — had this air about him, like there was a hunger inside him that would swallow the whole fucking world if he let it.
soooo because, as we have established, i love me some kink-based character study, i thought, well. what’s the sexual expression of that? it’s wanting more. it’s one cock not being enough. it’s wanting to be stretched to your limit, stuffed so full of love you can’t possibly fit any more in (conflating love and fucking, which again feels like a very jev thing to have done back then). SO i wanted this to be from james’ POV because i wanted him to be sort of aware of this, that he’s essentially being used as an accoutrement to jev and andré’s not-100%-healthy psychological games, but he goes along with it anyway because well — he’s only human, isn’t he.
that’s also why i had andré speak for jev a lot in this fic. it’s partly a loving, kind thing: they’re so attuned, andré knows what jev wants and can verbalise it for him in a way that jev might struggle with (you’ll notice this trope pops up a lot in my fics, partners just intuiting the other’s desires without having to talk about it, and it’s probably the most toxic straight-up fantasy trope i indulge in consistently lmao. people, talk to your partners! use your words! every day i try to take my own advice and largely fail!) but it’s also got an edge of control to it, of andré not really giving jev the space to figure out what he wants or the agency to ask for it himself. and again, james’ inner monologue shows that he’s aware of this dichotomy and doesn’t quite know what to do with it.
i did try to end it on a happier note, because i didn’t want it to get too bleak and angsty, but it’s definitely ambiguous as a fic, i think. thank you for your sweet words about it and for asking about it, it was nice to revisit an old one!
fanfic writers: director’s cut
5 notes · View notes