#boy do i ever not need an excuse to make a playlist with a shit ton of sea shanties on it

[coff33andb00ks]

Rule Breaker - Pt 3

max Verstappen x single mom!reader

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warnings: cursing, jos is an even bigger asshole, barely proofread, logan's there, glazed-over mentioning of childhood trauma Summary: Max has it all...right? Besides, he's too busy collecting trophies and completing side quests for anything else. Until... You moved across a whole ass ocean to start over, uprooting you and your son's lives to become social media admin for cars that drive in circles. word count: 7937 (i got so carried away holy shit) auth.note: listen, eagle boy swayed me with his pretty eyes and soft voice... also this was a great excuse for me to rewatch Mulan for the millionth time. spotify: i made a playlist

"Team meeting in ten," GP commented.

Max nodded, eyes following y/n through the window as she paced in the small courtyard, talking on her phone. He hadn't seen or spoken to her since they'd finished the Q and A the day before. Surprisingly, he'd actually enjoyed it. He told himself it was because she'd made sure to gather thought provoking questions, not because some of his answers had made her laugh and her laugh made him feel relaxed. GP turned to look out the window and Max quickly looked down at his plate, even though he'd just taken the last bite of his breakfast. When the engineer turned back, Max could feel his amused expression.

"Looks like it might rain," GP said casually.

Nodding again, Max washed down the last of his food with his coffee. "More chances for fuck ups."

"It's not a crime."

He finally looked up. "What?"

GP nodded towards the window.

"If rain was a crime, would they put god in prison?" Max asked, keeping his face blank when his friend snorted and rolled his eyes.

"You're not a robot, Max."

From the corner of his eye he could see her approaching Christian, who was coming from the garage. "I never said I was."

"Then stop acting like one. You're still young, I guess you're attractive, and you're at the top of your career."

"Thank you for that endorsement," Max said drily. Horner had stepped aside with y/n, whose hands were moving as she spoke to him. "I'll be sure and put it in my Tinder profile."

GP's eyebrows lifted. "You have one?"

"Fuck no." He pushed his chair back. "I don't have time."

"Max," his friend sighed.

"I'll see you at the meeting." He took care of his dishes, making sure to thank the staff working the dining area before leaving the motorhome, telling himself it was so he could get some fresh air and clear his head for the meeting. His legs carried him around the corner to where y/n and Christian were still talking, and he boldly approached.

"…speak to him." Christian shot a look at Max.

"If he was joking I wouldn't think twice about it.," y/n said, frowning. "But I don't see how it could have been. He was extremely rude, implied I wasn't worth hiring based on my looks, and…"

Max kept his mouth shut, knowing she needed to do the speaking. Giving her a faint nod when she looked at him, he felt a glimmer of pride when she straightened her shoulders.

"I didn't spend four years in college – sorry, university – and work three jobs at once to be demeaned. I know I have the skills and drive to do my job, but if this team continues to foster that sort of toxic environment you'll have to look for a new social media admin," she said firmly.

He tried to but couldn't keep the smile from forming.

Christian looked slightly impressed, giving her a reassuring nod. "I understand. He's not employed by us, he's only here by our good graces."

"I know he's the father of the your top driver, and I spoke with him before coming to you," she said, as though Max wasn't standing right there.

Christian pressed his lips together and Max knew he was trying to hide his smile. "Of course. We'll deal with it, I promise."

"Thank you." She relaxed, sighing softly. "I'm not trying to cause trouble, Mr. Horner."

"It's Jos fucking Verstappen, he's the trouble," Christian muttered. "Don't worry, alright? If anyone ever gives you a problem, reach out to me."

She nodded. "Thanks again. Oh!" She turned to Max, smiling hopefully. "I already asked Checo and he said yes to doing it this week. Would you be up to 24 hours with you at Monaco? Not the full 24 hours since I don't want to watch you sleep, but I just stick with you for the rest of the day and show fans a behind the scenes look at what a practice or quali day for you looks like."

"Why?" he asked, still stuck on the thought of her watching him sleep.

"Well! Casual fans don't realize how much work goes into being you. The training and diet and analyzing and teamwork. All the stuff you do even before practice and quali, like walking the track."

"For the whole day."

"Yeah, except for sleeping. I mean, that would probably really ramp up views, but—"

"I'm not that interesting though," he said. Why would anyone want to spend a practice or quali day with him?

"Oh don't start with the modesty. You're an elite athlete. I'm not asking you to invite me into your bedroom and let me show your bed to the world, just a small peek at what you're like. We can highlight your sim racing, explain how it's helped you learn the tracks so well. Talk about your suit, why the fireproof is so important." She tipped her head. "Maybe a shot of your suitcase to prove you do have clothes other than Red Bull gear? If you do, because I'm beginning to think you only have one pair of jeans and a Red Bull shirt."

He laughed at that, shaking his head. "I guess I can do it. We'll see how Checo's goes."

"Perfect. Speaking of, I'm doing that tomorrow so I gotta start posting to hype it up—"

"Meeting in two minutes," Christian told them.

Max looked at him, chagrined to admit he'd forgotten the man was there. "On the way," he promised, rubbing the back of his neck when Christian shot him a knowing look and headed off. Turning back to y/n, he cleared his throat. "I'm not showing my suitcase to the world."

"Is it that embarrassing?" she asked, clicking her tongue in sympathy. "Do you have Red Bull boxers too?"

"No, I—" he cut off, remembering the company's joke birthday gift to him the year before. "Okay, I do, but they're not in my suitcase."

"At least let me throw a team logo pillow on the bed—"

"Absolutely not."

She fell into step next to him, an extra bounce in her walk. "Are you saying there's already one there?"

He shouldn't say it. It would probably be inappropriate. He told himself that repeatedly, even as he drew a breath and opened his mouth. "Why the interest in my bed?"

"I told you, I love sleep. Oh." She frowned. "It'll be a hotel bed anyway."

Opening the motorhome door for her, he glanced up at the cloudy sky as the aroma of flowers he couldn't identify washed over him. "No?"

"Are you saying you get an Airbnb?" she asked in confusion. "Do they even have that in Monaco—"

"You didn't know? I thought you asked Google everything," he teased.

Her brow furrowed deeply. "Didn't know what?"

"I live in Monaco. So no, it wouldn't be a hotel room."

The confusion melted away, her eyes widening a little. "Oh. Wow."

"Wow?" he echoed, heading to the stairs.

"You're rich rich."

"Don't say that," he requested, making a face. She made wealth sound dirty.

"In my defense I didn't think to look up everyone's salary when I got hired. I mean I knew you were rich, but—"

"Stop saying it—"

"Sorry." She smiled sweetly, which told him she wasn't sorry at all. "Have a good meeting, Max. Oh, wait!"

He stopped at the top of the stairs, huffing when she lifted her phone and snapped a photo of him. "Why do you need a picture of me right now?"

"To show the world that even Max Verstappen, three time world champion, record breaker and maker, is sometimes late for a meeting."

Dragging a hand over his face, he sighed. "You're in a strange mood today."

"I'm getting comfortable. It's what I do. Lull everyone into thinking I'm sweet and quiet, then once I know I can relax I let my true self out."

"I'm scared to ask what your true self is," he admitted, ignoring his phone when it began to buzz with a phone call.

"Chaos," she told him, snapping another photo. "And I'm so putting a team logo pillow on your bed next week."

"No," he warned her as she turned to go back down the stairs. "No pillow."

"Go to your meeting or I'll post on Twitter than you have Red Bull boxers!"

"You wouldn't."

"Try me, rich boy."

And, damn everything, he laughed. She spun at the bottom of the stairs, giving him a smile that was pure sunshine. Not about to tempt fate, he held up his hands in surrender and went to the conference room for the meeting, still smiling as he slid into his seat next to Checo. When the meeting was over he hung back, his smile long gone as he waited for whatever Christian had to say.

"Two things," Christian started, leaning back in his seat with a sigh.

Max rolled his water bottle between his hands and stayed silent.

"Your dad."

He nodded. "I'll talk to him—"

"He's on probation now. If he so much as looks at anyone the wrong way, he'll be banned from the garage and the paddock." Christian steepled his hands. "It would probably be best if I did it now, but…"

"I'll talk to him," Max said again, already dreading that conversation. "Sometimes he speaks before he thinks, and unfortunately y/n was on the receiving end."

"Are you defending him?"

"No. I'm saying…" What was he saying? He didn't even know himself, so how could he explain it to Christian?

"You're saying what he would expect you to say. Max." Christian leaned forward. "I know he's your father. But – what did y/n say? He creates a toxic environment."

Max was on his feet and pacing before he realized he was moving. "What do you want me to do? Cut him out of my life completely? He's my dad. He made me who I am." Slinging his cap onto the table, he ran a hand through his hair. "He gave up on a marriage so I could achieve my dreams. I know people call it abuse and yeah if I could change the past I would, or at least some parts, but… Would I be me if he didn't do what he did?"

Christian sighed and Max hung his head. The bitterness between team principal and his father had been around as long as he could remember. And he understood, he did. Most days even he didn't like Jos that much.

"What he said to y/n was unacceptable. I know that. When she told me, I…" He paused, unsure whether he wanted to admit what his first thoughts had been. Starting to pace again, he stopped at the window and looked outside, noting that the earlier clouds had rolled away. "I was ready to tell you to ban him."

Christian nodded. "You sure you want to talk to him? Because I'll do it. I don't have a problem telling him to go fuck himself."

"I should do it," Max said with a sigh.

There was silence from Christian, and Max finally snatched up his hat and sat back down. "I'll do it, Max."

He would never admit to the rush of relief at those words. "What was the other thing?"

"Y/n."

He set his jaw. "What about her?"

"She's off limits."

Max blinked. "How do you mean?"

"I've seen the way you look at her."

He pinched his eyebrows together. He wasn't aware he'd been looking at her in any particular way. He just…looked at her. It was true that she did make him smile a little bit more than he usually did, but that had to be due to her self-professed chaos��

"It's in her contract. Yours too, I'm sure."

"I'm – Nothing's happened." Yes, she'd slept in his private room and yes, his sheets had smelled of her and given him dreams he shouldn't have been dreaming. But nothing else had happened.

Soft hands, plush hips, bright eyes, lush mouth—

"Keep it that way. We can't afford another PR disaster."

Max snorted, unsure how anything he did – not that he would do anything – with y/n could come close to the disaster Christian had caused. "I'm not texting her, so."

"Cheeky bastard," Christian muttered. "Go get prepped for practice."

Grabbing his water bottle from the floor, Max left. Off limits. What the hell did that even mean? He couldn't be friendly with her? He couldn't keep his promise to watch a movie with Kevin?

Fuck Christian anyway, he wasn't one to talk about someone being off limits, he decided. He went down for another coffee, inconspicuously looking around for y/n. Not seeing her, he turned his attention to the upcoming practice, trying his best to push his worries about his father to the back of his mind.

When he approached the garage he saw her, and he frowned slightly when he saw Logan talking to her. Did they know each other? They obviously did, judging by the way she laughed at something he said. Sourness filled his mouth and he gulped down his water, grunting when a hand suddenly clapped his shoulder.

"Mate, you coming out tonight?" Lando asked with a grin.

"Not a good idea to go out before quali, mate," Max said automatically.

"I'm not gonna get drunk. A few of us are just going out to eat. You in?"

"I think I'll skip it. But we'll go out Sunday?"

Lando's grin widened and Max chuckled, knowing he was remembering what little he could of the celebration in Miami. Lando loved to party after a race. "Absolutely. Good practice, yeah?"

Max grinned, bumping fists with him before they parted. The American was still talking to y/n. Didn't he need to get ready? Go fluff his hair or something? Walking up to them, he nodded at Logan. "Have a good practice alright, mate?"

"Oh, yeah, better get to the garage." Logan turned and flashed a smile at y/n. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure. Be safe," she said.

She was smiling a little too hard, in his opinion. And then she was—

Hugging? Him?

Max felt like he might vomit.

"Later, Max," Logan said as he jogged off.

"What did he want?" Max asked.

She looked up from checking something on her camera. "Hm? Oh, nothing, just chatting. He's nice."

"Yeah, a complete sweetheart," he said with a roll of his eyes. Then, shoving the sourness away, he cleared his throat. "I've got the sim racing tomorrow after quali, then the race is Sunday."

Y/n blinked, then nodded slowly. "Yes?"

"I promised Kevin we'd watch the movie?" he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah. Don't worry about it, I know you're too busy. He hasn't even mentioned it again, I'm sure he's already forgotten." She turned slightly and knelt to take pictures of his car in the garage.

"But I promised."

"Max, it's really not that big a deal."

It was. To her it might not be. If she couldn't do something with her son when she had promised she could, she was able to do it another time. He couldn't just show up to her flat to watch a movie. And Kevin had been so excited… He tried not to remember all the promises that had been made to him as a child, promises he had learned at an early age would never be kept. "Y/n…"

She looked up at him, drawing a breath to, he was sure, tell him again that it was fine. But she paused, studying his face, and he heard her sigh as she lowered the camera. "This is really important to you, isn't it?"

"And to Kevin," he pointed out.

"He did talk about it a lot last night before he went to sleep. Made sure the hotel tv had Disney plus and asked if Ellie would buy some popcorn…" She sighed, smiling. "Did you want to do it next week before Monaco?"

"I was thinking today? After the practice and debrief. If you're not too busy," he added, unintentionally looking towards the Williams garage.

"No, I don't have any plans. Just editing and posting, and I can do that while you two watch a movie. I've got plans for dinner, but there's plenty of time."

"Plans?" he asked, trying his best to sound casual.

"Yeah! Logan offered to take me out to see a little of the town. He's offered to be my tour guide."

At night. Now he knew he would vomit. "How delightful," he managed.

"Yeah, he's sweet. Don't worry, I won't give away any secrets."

The sourness returned, doubled, and he recognized it now as jealousy. Which was beyond ridiculous, because she wasn't his to be jealous over. Seeing that she was about to stand he immediately offered his hand, easily steadying her as she rose to her feet.

"Thanks."

He wondered what sort of cream she used on her hands. They were so soft. "Y/n—"

"Max!"

Y/n's smile faded and she practically snatched her hand away. "I'll message you the hotel info," she said, turning on her heel and sweeping into the garage.

"I need to talk to you," his father demanded.

Looking into the garage, he saw that he had a full thirty minutes before practice began. No way out of this conversation. Nodding, he followed his father to a relatively secluded spot, keeping his head down.

*-*

"His father is such an asshole, honestly. We were talking outside the garage and he marched up like he owns the—" Y/n glanced to make sure Kevin still had his headphones on and wasn't listening in. Seeing that he did and wasn't, she turned back to Ellie. "—fucking place and barked at him all 'I need to talk to you' like the guy isn't about to go out on the track."

Ellie made a face. "What a prick. What did he have to say to him that was so important?"

Y/n shrugged, bending to gather the dirty pair of socks off the floor. "No idea. He dragged him off and I could see them but couldn't hear anything. I felt so bad for Max."

"I would have too. And he didn't say anything when he got back to the garage?" Ellie smoothed the bedding while y/n stuffed the dirty laundry into a sack.

"Not to me." Sighing, y/n dropped the sack inside the bathroom and then got down on her hands and knees to make sure nothing embarrassing was lying around. "He looked like a kid getting yelled at, Ellie. I had no idea his dad was that much of an—"

She saw Kevin moving and stopped, getting to her feet while he set his tablet and headphones on the table. "Gotta pee, mama," he said, sliding out of the chair.

"Did you finish your game?" she asked while Ellie looked around to make sure the hotel room was presentable.

"Yeah, it's easy," Kevin said.

"Are you gonna tell him?" Ellie whispered.

"No… What if he can't make it? I don't want to get his hopes up." Y/n pushed the chair in at the table and checked the tablet, seeing that Kevin had indeed finished the alphabet game she'd downloaded that morning for him.

"If he doesn't come, maybe we can—" Ellie laughed when there was a knock at the door. "Never mind."

"It might not be him," y/n muttered, even though she knew it had to be. He'd been so insistent, and she'd been able to tell that it was possibly more important to him than it would be to Kevin.

"I'll make sure the lil rugrat washes his hand," Ellie murmured, slipping into the bathroom.

Y/n rubbed her hands on her thighs and went to open the door, giving the hotel room one last glance before doing so. And, just as she'd known, Max was in the hallway. "Hey," she greeted softly, eyes widening a little when she saw he was wearing a pair of sweats and a hoodie. "Holy shit, you're allowed to wear non-Red Bull clothes?"

He snorted, letting out a laugh when she just stared at him. "Very funny."

"No, no, I'm serious. Isn't that in your contract or something?" Stepping back, she finally gave him a grin. "C'mon in."

"I don't know if he's allowed, but I brought some sweets." Max held up the grocery bag hanging from one finger.

"Yeah, he's allowed. No allergies or anything," she assured him, closing the door once he'd stepped inside. "He's washing his—"

"Mister Max!"

Y/n nearly teared up. Her son sounded so excited, and she had a moment of panic for letting him befriend Max. He was too busy to drop by regularly, and after Monaco Kevin would be staying home with Ellie, so—

"There's my little mate!"

Fuck's sake, even Max sounded excited. As though a movie with a three year old was the height of his day. Looking on as he swung Kevin up and spun him in a circle, she took the bag and emptied the packets onto the table while Ellie greeted Max and brought out the popcorn from where she'd hidden it from Kevin. Max and Kevin talked nonstop to one another, Max telling him about practice after Kevin gave him a detailed report on what he'd done all day. The boy grabbed his tablet and showed him the games he'd played, showing off his alphabet skills.

"You're good with letters, yeah? Maybe you'd be good learning a new language?" Max suggested.

"Do you know a new language?" Kevin asked.

"He's really good with him," Ellie whispered to y/n.

"Shh," she hissed. Because she already knew. And she didn't need it pointed out to her. Besides, she was listening to Max tell Kevin about the languages he spoke, then to him rattle off a few sentences in each one, much to Kevin's amazement.

"Can you teach me?" he asked hopefully.

"When I can, kleine maat." Max ruffled Kevin's hair. "That means little mate."

"You're my big mate," Kevin decided.

"Grote maat," Max said, repeating it slowly a couple times before Kevin said it properly. "There you go. You'll be speaking Dutch like a pro in no time."

"You want a drink, Max?" Y/n offered. "We don't have Red Bull, sorry—"

"Water's fine. Thanks."

"Can I have water too, mama?"

Nodding, y/n fixed their drinks while Kevin turned on the TV and opened Disney+, rolling her eyes when he told Max the password so he could put it in for him. She saw that Ellie was putting on her shoes and raised her eyebrows. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, I don't want to intrude on big mate, little mate bonding time," Ellie said with a small smile. Peeling Kevin from Max long enough to give him a quick hug, she grabbed her wallet and phone. "And I've seen Mulan about six hundred times, so I'm just gonna go for a walk. Take pictures. Get a coffee and a pastry."

"Have fun," y/n said.

"Mhmm, you too," Ellie said with a smirk as she left.

She rolled her eyes and handed Max his drink then Kevin his cup. Motioning for Max to have a seat on the small sofa, she couldn't help but smile when Kevin immediately climbed to sit next to him, and had the feeling that before the movie was over her son would be cuddled close to his big mate.

"Join us?" Max asked while Kevin looked for the movie.

"Work," she reminded him, transferring the sweets and popcorn to the coffee table and getting her laptop. "I'll watch from here."

"It doesn't look very comfortable."

"It shouldn't. It's work."

He looked ready to argue, but instead took a sip of his water and grabbed a bag of candy. Tossing it onto the table, he gave a small shrug when she looked at him. "You said you like strawberry milk."

Y/n looked from him to the bag several times. He remembered that? She'd mentioned it during the Q and A, when the question had been other than red bull what's your favorite drink? Staring at the bag, she felt a sudden rush of warmth. No one had bought her candy in so long… "Thank you," she murmured.

"You're welcome," he said softly.

She almost told him he didn't have to, but she knew that he already knew that. He'd done it because… She didn't know. Maybe to apologize for his father's behavior. Maybe to show he listened. Maybe, just maybe, because he'd seen it in the shop, remembered her liking strawberry milk, and had bought it because that was something he did, buy a little something for no other reason than you said you liked it.

She tried to focus on work, but the movie kept getting her attention. Finally she gave up, scheduling the posts she'd edited and closing her laptop. Grabbing a bottle of water, she joined them on the sofa as Mushu revealed himself to Mulan. As she'd expected, Kevin had already crawled into Max's lap, sharing his bag of popcorn with the man as they both focused on the movie.

"Mama," Kevin whispered, reaching for her.

She scooted closer, sighing as he turned so he could lean against her arm. Max shifted, and she tried to act nonchalant when he draped his arm behind her on the back of the sofa. Smoothing her son's hair, she pretended not to notice when the arm slid to her shoulders. He probably hadn't even noticed, she told herself, aware that his eyes were locked on the TV screen, paying attention to the movie. When Kevin's favorite part began he sat up, quickly sliding to the floor to sing along and she fully expected Max to pull away from her.

But he didn't, and she pulled her knees up, unable to focus on anything except the weight of his arm around her. It was solid but not uncomfortable, a very real reminder that she hadn't been in this position in a very long time.

"He's so mean," Kevin mumbled as Shun-Yu appeared on the screen. Y/n waited for him to hurry over to climb into her lap but he chose Max instead, and she bit back a sigh when the man gently soothed him, hugging him close.

"It's okay, kleine maat. The good guys will beat him, yeah?" he murmured, pausing the movie.

Kevin nodded against Max's shoulder. "Yeah but he's bad."

"A lot of people are," Max said softly. "But if we focus on that we don't see the good. Do you think about your happy days more or your bad days?"

"Happy days," Kevin said.

"Because they make you happy, yeah? If you think about bad days you'll always be having them. It's like that with people. Focus on the good and do what you can to keep the bad from happening. Bad happens, but the good will always be there."

"Okay."

"You ready to finish the movie?" Max asked gently.

Kevin nodded.

Max finally looked at y/n, glancing down when he saw the way she was staring at him. "I didn't—"

"No, you're good," she promised in a whisper, picking up the remote to resume the movie then hugging her knees. If she didn't occupy her arms, she would throw them around him. Usually she had to explain those things to Kevin. Ellie helped, of course, but Kevin always came to her for more explanation after a life lesson. But Max… He'd explained it so eloquently and gently that he'd understood. And she didn't know why, but, god help her…

It was the sexiest thing she'd ever witnessed.

His arm stayed around her shoulders through the rest of the movie. When Mulan was cast out, she got a little emotional as she always did, even after over six hundred views, and she felt his arm tighten around her, hesitating a tiny bit before letting her head lean against him. All she could smell now was him, the gentle but memorable sandalwood and amber scent that she remembered well from the day before.

"Gotta pee," Kevin announced a little bit later, clambering down and running to the bathroom. Max took the remote to pause the movie.

Y/n began to pull away, lifting her head when he squeezed her arm.

"You're fine," he whispered.

His face was so close. Seeing a tiny piece of popcorn on his chin, she reached up to brush it away, freezing at the sound of his sharp inhale. "Sorry, you got a little…"

When the hell had his eyes become so blue? Just a day ago they'd been a normal blue. Now they reminded her of the antique blue willow china her great grandmother had treasured. Her gaze slipped to his mouth and quickly moved back to his eyes and she heard him inhale again.

"Max?"

"Y/n, I…" His eyes flicked down and she unconsciously licked her lips.

She knew she shouldn't but she suddenly, desperately, wanted to know what it was like to kiss him. She hadn't thought about kissing anyone in what felt like a lifetime, but now she needed it. Lifting her chin slightly, she dropped her hand to his chest. "Max—"

"Y/n, you… I—"

"Okay!"

She snatched herself away from Max as though she'd been burned, going so far as to jump to her feet while Kevin rushed back to the sofa. "Go ahead and hit play, I'll be back in just a minute," she promised, nearly tripping over nothing in her haste to get as far away from Max as possible. "Hit play, it's fine, I've seen it a million times."

Once in the bathroom she closed the door and leaned against it, covering her face with both hands. What the hell was wrong with her? Just because she hadn't been kissed since— She dropped her hands, wrinkling her nose in thought. Kevin was three years and two months, and… At any rate, it had been so long she'd assumed she was never going to be kissed again. She hadn't even thought about it in ages, because she'd been so focused on work and raising her son and trying to survive. Now, all of a sudden, she was craving one so bad she'd practically begged him.

He'd been about to tell her he couldn't. She was sure of that. Which only made it even more embarrassing. How could he even want to? She'd seen the girlfriends of other drivers on the grid, there was no way he'd be even remotely interested in her. She wasn't a model or tennis star or whatever their occupations were.

Not to mention she couldn't. It would be wrong on so many levels. What kind of impression would her behavior leave on her son? Not to mention the troubles it would cause at work? And it was in her contract that any sort of fraternization with other members of the team were forbidden. She'd known that but she had read the full contract on the flight to Italy. If she and Max did anything it would eventually come out and she'd be jobless again, this time in a foreign country.

Checking her phone when she felt it buzz in her pocket, she sighed while reading Logan's text.

We're still on right?

She wanted to say no. The best thing for her to do would be to suffer through the rest of the movie, say goodbye to Max, have an early dinner, put Kevin to bed, then take the world's coldest shower. But she was already typing out her reply.

Of course! Looking forward to it.

And she was, she thought, seeing the delivered change to read then the three little dots that he was typing a message. Logan was fun. Nice. Completely uninterested in her romantically, she thought with a sigh.

Great. Be there at 8 to pick you up. Give Kev a high 5 for me?

Will do.

Pushing away from the door, she turned on the water to wash her hands and jumped slightly when there was a gentle knock.

"Y/n?"

"I'm almost done," she called.

She heard his sigh. "Can I come in?"

No. "Yeah, sure."

He opened the door and stepped in, and she swallowed when he closed the door behind him. "I…"

"Max, don't," she groaned, washing her hands and grabbing the towel. "You don't have to tell me you wouldn't have… Even if I wanted you to. I know."

"Wouldn't have what?" he asked.

God, could the moment get any more embarrassing? "I – You – Jesus, never mind."

"Kiss you?" he murmured.

Why did the way he said it sound like so much more than a kiss? "It's fine. Go back and finish the movie."

"Y/n, I can't."

"You have to leave?" she asked.

"What – no, not the movie," he said. Cupping a hand over his mouth, he breathed deeply and dropped his hand after a few seconds, looking pained. "I can't kiss you."

"Oh." Oh. "Do you have a girlfriend or—"

"If I had a girlfriend I wouldn't be in this tiny toilet with you."

And she believed him. He didn't seem the type to put himself in a situation that could be misinterpreted if he had a partner. "Right. Of course. Then…"

"It's…" He sighed.

"Are you gay? Because I won't tell any—"

"I'm not gay," he cut in gently. "It's… I'm not allowed to kiss you."

She blinked, suddenly understanding. And she wondered if he'd read the contract, too. "Right. Neither am I."

"Christian talked to you too?"

"No? Why would he?"

"He told me you're off limits." Max shook his head. "Said I look at you or something."

"Oh." He did? And just how did Max look at her? "I see."

"And it's in our contracts. Yours and mine, I mean. So… I can't."

She nodded. "Of course. Understood. No more explanation necessary, Max."

"I wouldn't want you to lose your job," he said softly.

She continued to nod. "Got it. Thanks."

He tipped his head, then reached to take the towel from her and she realized she was still drying her hands. "I'll still be Kevin's friend."

Still nodding, she picked up her hand cream and squeezed a dollop into her palm. "Thanks. He likes you."

"I like him too." He hesitated, watching her carefully. "You okay?"

"Peachy keen," she promised, rubbing the cream into her hands. "Just getting ready for my dinner."

His lips settled into a fine line. "Your date."

The way he said it irritated her. As though she was in the wrong for making plans with a new friend. "It's not a date, but yes."

"I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time," he said with absolutely no emotion.

"Well, he's not contractually obligated to be nice to me, so… I know I will," she said, forcing as much sweetness into her voice as possible.

"I'm not nice because of a contract," he snapped.

"Right, sorry, my mistake. He won't not kiss me because of a piece of paper," she corrected.

Max's eyes flashed, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "I thought it wasn't a date?" he asked carefully.

Good, at least he had some emotion. "Oh, so I'm only allowed to kiss him if we're on a date?"

"I didn't say—" He cut off, pressing his lips tight together and exhaling slowly. "You said it wasn't a date."

"Why do you care either way?"

"Is it a date or not?" he ground out.

"It's not." She took her hair down from the ponytail as he sighed with something like relief. "But it could be in the future."

"What, so you'll kiss him because I won't kiss you?"

"If I kiss him, it'll be because both of us want it," she said. She knew she was being silly, maybe even a little stupid. But he was acting as though he were doing her a favor. As though he were somehow honorable, a gentleman even, because he refused to do what she now knew they both wanted.

"Y/n, I can't—"

"A word I'm sure you're not used to saying about yourself," she muttered under her breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, an edge in his voice.

"I didn't know that 'can't' was in your vocabulary is all." Looking at her phone to check the time, she cleared her throat. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to change."

He hesitated while she opened her makeup bag. "Do you want to kiss him?"

"Why do you care?"

He visibly bristled. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Does he have a reputation for hurting women?" She picked up her hairbrush, and had brushed out her hair completely before he finally answered.

"No." It sounded like it hurt him to say it. "He's nice."

"Then you don't have to worry."

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, no." She laughed humorlessly. "You don't get to ask that. Now please, I have to change."

He stared at her, looking annoyed and irritated, his jaw still twitching. Then, with a huff, he turned to open the door. And froze when he saw the dress hanging from the hook. "Is… That's what you're wearing?"

"Oh my god, Max, you're starting to sound like a jealous boyfriend."

"I'm not jealous," he snorted.

"And you're not my boyfriend," she snapped.

She waited for him to turn around and restart their argument. Altercation. Whatever it was. Instead, he muttered something under his breath and snatched the door open. Went out, closing it. And sounded perfectly normal when he apologized to Kevin and resumed the movie.

Y/n was still annoyed even after changing and doing her makeup. She fussed over her hair, unsure whether she wanted to wear it up or down, finally leaving it down. She was fully aware that she was putting more work into her appearance than she would have if Max hadn't said what he had, and still knew she was being silly and stupid. Hadn't she just told herself nothing could happen between them?

Yes, but maybe if he hadn't acted as though he were doing an immense favor she wouldn't be so upset. I wouldn't want you to lose your job. Indicating that if he kissed her and they were found out, his job was secure.

"Sanctimonious prick," she muttered while she spritzed perfume on her wrists and rubbed them together. As she exited the bathroom the outer door of the room opened and Ellie came in, her jaw dropping when she saw her.

"Holy shit babes, you look amazing!"

She smiled, doing a turn for her friend. "You think so?"

"His jaw is gonna be on the floor the whole time. Holy shit, milf alert." Ellie whistled softly, waving her hand as though overcome with heat.

Y/n giggled. "Thanks."

The movie was ending and Kevin oohed and aahed over her dress, telling her over and over how pretty she was. Max stared at her, his jaw set, but said nothing, looking away and starting to clear up the remains of the snacks.

"Isn't she pretty, grote maat?" Kevin asked.

And even though her back was to him, she felt his gaze. Glancing over her shoulder at him while she fastened her necklace, she watched his shoulders rise and fall with a sigh. "Very pretty, kleine maat."

"You're supposed to tell her," Kevin whispered. "Always tell a lady she's beautiful. Right, aunt Ellie?"

"That's right, buddy," Ellie said proudly. She gave y/n an odd look, silently asking what had happened, narrowing her eyes when y/n merely shrugged.

"Because women are pretty all the time," Kevin went on and y/n smiled. At least she was doing something right…

After fastening her earrings she turned from the dresser, breath catching in her throat when she found Max staring at her. Vaguely aware of Ellie telling Kevin to wash his hands so they could eat the dinner she'd brought, she squatted, getting her heels from her suitcase, along with her shawl.

"Je bent mooi," Max said.

She met his gaze as she rose to her feet. "What's that mean?"

"You're beautiful," he whispered.

"Thank you." And though she knew it was catty, she couldn't help the words that slipped out of her mouth. "Do you think Logan will like it?"

His jaw twitched. "He'd be stupid not to."

"That doesn't answer my question," she practically cooed, slipping on her heels.

He made a sound of disgust in his throat. "He's annoying and dumb sometimes, but he's not stupid. So, yes, I think he'll like it."

"Look at you, hyping me up." She wasn't stupid either, she could hear and feel the jealousy. Good, she thought, getting her small handbag and transferring her few necessities to it.

"Is he picking you up?" Max asked. "Or are you meeting him somewhere?"

"Are you gonna stick around and question his intentions?" she scoffed. "Because if so, I'm meeting him."

"I just—"

"Do you want some pasta, Mister Max?" Kevin asked as he came out of the bathroom with Ellie.

"Ah, maybe next time," Max said after clearing his throat. "You eat some for me, hm?"

She wanted to be mad that he was so good with her son. Proclaim they could only ever be coworkers, then turn around and continue to be her son's favorite person. It wasn't fair. But she didn't want him to be mean to Kevin. So she smiled, fixing her shawl while Max told Kevin he would see him at quali tomorrow, wishing she could stay mad at him but that was impossible, especially when he lifted her son up and gave him a tight hug, telling him he'd enjoyed the movie.

"Can we watch another one day?" Kevin asked hopefully and y/n drew in a breath, prepared to say they couldn't ask Max that, he was too busy.

"Of course we can. You pick the movie and we'll watch it next week?"

He gave Kevin another hug then gently encouraged him to eat his dinner, smiling and saying goodnight to Ellie. Then he turned to her, and she felt an unexpected heat ripple through her as his eyes slowly looked her up and down.

"Thanks for coming," she murmured, walking him to the door.

"I enjoyed it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "For the most part."

"Kevin had a great time."

"Yes. And that's all that matters."

Ouch. "Goodnight, Max."

"Enjoy your dinner with Logan."

"I will."

He rocked back on his heels, exhaling harshly. "I'm…" He cleared his throat. "Goodnight, y/n."

She closed the door and bit back a whine. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

"Talk tonight when you get back?" Ellie asked gently, watching her while she fixed Kevin's plate.

"It's nothing," she insisted, double checking that she had everything in her handbag. Phone, ID and passport, room key, lipstick, mirror. "Just being stupid."

"You're not stupid, mama," Kevin said anxiously.

"I know, thank you. Sorry. Just feeling stupid."

"But you look so pretty," he told her.

She smiled, sighing as she crossed the room to kiss his cheek. "You're the best son in the world, you know that?"

He giggled, rubbing the lipstick from his cheek. "And you're the best mama."

"Only because you're the best son," she insisted.

"Do you like Mister Logan?" he asked suddenly, scrunching his face when she fastened the bib around his neck.

"He's nice. But he's just a friend."

"But." Kevin's lips poked out in thought. "He's taking you on a date."

"Dinner. You know how you miss Cotton?" She took a napkin and cleaned the smudge of lipstick from his cheek when he nodded. "He misses America sometimes. It's kind of like when you pet the cats on your walks."

"Ohh…" Kevin nodded with all the understanding a three year old could muster. "So he's gonna pet you?"

She blinked, instinctively reaching to swat Ellie's arm when her friend choked back a giggle. "Not exactly," she groaned. "We're just gonna talk."

Ellie was still giggling ten minutes later when Logan knocked on the door. "Sorry, sorry," she gasped when y/n shot her a glare. "I'll behave."

"That'll be the day," y/n muttered under her breath as she went to open the door. "Hey," she greeted warmly, smiling up at him.

He was dressed in slacks, a button down, and a jacket. His smile faded a little as he stared at her, and she saw his throat move as he swallowed. "Whoa. You look great."

"Thanks. You do too."

She let him in so Kevin could say hi, ducking into the bathroom to fix her lipstick and remind herself that it was just dinner. Logan was just a friend, or at least would hopefully be a friend. Saying goodnight to her son, she felt her shawl slipping, ignoring Ellie's knowing look when Logan immediately reached to catch it, his hands gentle as he draped it over her shoulders. Just dinner. Just dinner with just a friend.

But when they walked down the street to the restaurant, which was just around the corner, and his hand brushed hers she told herself it was alright. And when he slipped his hand protectively over hers she didn't pull away. In the restaurant when Lando and a few others called out to him she hung back, blushing when Logan gently tugged her along to greet his friends.

"Didn't know you had a date tonight, mate," Oscar commented, nodding to her in greeting.

She could have corrected him. Could have announced to everyone that it wasn't a date. But Logan's bashful chuckle warmed her and she smiled. "We American's have to stick together," she said, enjoying Logan's laugh.

"You know, England is an ally," Lando said with a smirk.

"Still haven't forgiven you for taxation without representation," she sighed.

"That wasn't me," Lando defended while the others laughed.

"Your ancestors though," Oscar told him.

"They were doing what they thought was right? How am I at fault now?"

"You opened your mouth," Carlos said with a laugh.

"C'mon, babe, our table's ready," Logan murmured, hand slipping to the small of her back.

"Enjoy your date!" Oscar called after them.

"I hope you trip over your independence!" Lando yelped when Oscar elbowed him.

Laughing, y/n let Logan guide her to the other side of the dining room, where they were thankfully shielded from the table of drivers. He held the chair for her and she thanked him while the waiter handed them the menus.

"I'm sorry about that. Oscar and Lando… I should have told them it wasn't a date," Logan said once they were alone.

"It's fine," she assured him. "I mean, technically, it is a date."

"I guess so. I just don't want you thinking I'm making it out to more than it is."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Two friends, hopefully. Spending time together." He looked up from his menu. "Probably should have taken you somewhere more casual, huh? This place makes it look like I'm trying to impress you."

She hadn't thought of it like that. "…Are you trying to impress me?"

"Do you want me to?"

Their eyes met and she slowly inhaled, thinking over what the best answer would be.

So you'll kiss him because I won't kiss you?

Do you want to kiss him?

She exhaled, sending thoughts of Max as far away as possible. "I think I do."

He looked relieved and oh, so handsome in this light. "Then I might be trying to impress you a little."

"You're doing amazing so far."

taglist

@spookystitchery | @halleest | @lyannesworld | @llando4norris | @kravitzwhore | @younxii | @silentreader128 | @samantha-chicago | @mrsbrxkkxr | @cmleitora |

[ghost-proofbaby]

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY FOUR

in which you and eddie win the bet.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 7k+

→ a/n: oh, holy fuck. holy fucking shit. i have no words, because i know it's not really over yet (we still have an epilogue, friends! don't forget that!) but... i did it. i finished another fic. that's just... insane?

thank you to everyone who has been so very kind and supportive of this fic. i owe you all the world. i'm sure i'll either make a sappy post between now and thursday, or i'll get extra sappy in the a/n on the epilogue, but for now - please know you have all my love. <3

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

24:00 ─────────────── ㅇ 24:00

DINGUS: hey, i facetimed them for last hour’s proof. had to work out when they wanted me to head over and pick her up. 

BIRDIE: both still alive? both still well? 

DINGUS: so it seemed. 

ARGYLE  😎: what a relief! I knew they had it in them

JOHNNY BOY: They still have to last one more hour. 

NANCE: They’ll last the hour. Have a little faith, babe. 

JOHNNY BOY: Still don’t like the fact we’ve just started calling them instead of requesting the photo proof. I mean, how do we not know they’re lying? Did you talk to both of them when YOU called, Nance? 

NANCE: Yes, I told you guys that.

NANCE: Besides, you guys already know that Eddie hates having his picture taken. We’re lucky we ever got picture proof to begin with.

DINGUS: also i JUST facetimed them??? physically saw them?? your lack of trust in me and nance kind of hurts jon

BIRDIE: @NANCE hey can you call ME babe next? 

HOUR TWENTY FOUR – 4:00 PM

“Hey there, love birds. Glad to see you didn’t kill each other.”

Steve. 

You wait for Eddie’s arm to leave you, for him to put space between the two of you, but he doesn’t. He keeps you pressed flush to his side as if the sudden arrival of a friend doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. 

“Hey, Harrington,” he even casually greets first. 

He’s making no move to get up off the floor. 

Just a little bit longer. Let me sit here and live in this moment a little bit longer.

“Munson,” Steve nods to Eddie before setting his sights on you, “Doll. Nice to see you, kind of glad I’m not having to fish you out of the canals.” 

You feel it — Eddie’s arm tenses behind you ever so slightly at Steve’s nickname. Clearly, it’s still a sore spot for him to work through. 

“I was feeling generous,” Eddie shrugs as if he hadn’t just revealed a flash of jealousy to you. You’re not even sure if he knows that you felt it. But it was there, in the slightest tightening of his grip and the flexing of his bicep behind your shoulder.

“Generous? I think you were feeling friendly,” Steve waves his hand between the two of you, as if he thought he was pointing out the obvious. 

If he thought this was close, he’d faint at the imagery of you on the kitchen counter, Eddie’s face between your legs as he begged for you to let him touch you. 

Just as you had noticed Eddie’s jealousy, he notices the way you suddenly heat up, shifting in your seat ever so slightly. That pull on the corner of his lips tells you all you need to know. You kind of hate how easily the two of you can finally read each other. You kind of love the way he’s looking at you as if he’s thinking the exact same thing. 

“Do I get my free punch now?” you finally speak up, tone flat as you muster a glare in Steve’s direction. You’re forgoing all polite and pretend oblivion. 

Every single one of you here knows what happened. The bare bones of it, at least.

Eddie looks at you curiously, “Excuse me?” 

Steve only grins, holding out his arms as if welcoming you, “Take your best shot.” 

You stand quickly, and Steve even flinches. He clearly had thought it was all a bit, but you were deathly serious. After the night you’d had, you wanted to punch something, anything. 

“Hold on,” Eddie fumbles to follow you as you stand in front of Steve, your eyebrow cocked as you pause, “Hold on, why are you punching Harrington?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. ‘She’d never go for me, why would she go for you?’” you remind him, and fully expect for hurt to flash across his face. Instead, merriment continues to tug on his lips, “That ring a bell?”

“It might,” Eddie drawls, slowing down his movement to stand more casually, no longer in a rush to break up the fight. His eyes flash with something, with some sort of affection as your hand curls into a fist threateningly and you continue to glare daggers at Steve, “‘S cute to see you defending my honor, sweetheart.” 

Your knees almost physically wobble. The nickname that once struck such anger and irritation in you has become your favorite thing, something that can so easily elicit such a physical reaction. Any taunting has dissipated from his tone when he falls from his tongue now. Adoration takes its place.

Steve looks between you two for a second before his face twists up, “God, I think I liked it better when you two hated each other.” 

“Never really hated each other,” Eddie corrects Steve, but his eyes never leave yours. 

“Right, must have slipped my mind.”

One of the questions that had been torturing you has now been answered — Eddie would, in fact, be acting differently around your friends. It’s almost enough that you feel no need to punch Steve.

Almost.

“Where do you want it?” you tear your gaze from Eddie, looking back to Steve now expectantly, “Cheek? Nose? Chin? Jaw?”

Steve’s eyes widen. “My God, have you just been dreaming of this moment for the last hour?”

“I have.” 

Eddie leans back against the wall, still watching and still smirking as he crosses his arms. 

“I know Eddie’s your boyfriend now but-“

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you correct him quickly, but something inside of you twists at saying that.

He wasn’t your boyfriend. You two had just agreed you’d need time apart before even thinking of exploring what this new chapter will bring you two. So why does it feel so wrong? Why do you suddenly feel like a pathetic teenager, desperate to bestow some cheesy title upon her crush? 

Eddie nods when you suddenly look at him, as if he can read your mind, “I’m not her boyfriend. Just… her scary dog.”

Scary dog privilege. And God, does that moment feel light years in the past now. Years ago rather than hours ago. His promise to protect you suddenly rings truer now. If you ever did find yourself in trouble, you knew he’d answer your call. You knew now why his protection only extended to you. You finally, finally understood.

“Scary dog?” Steve squints at Eddie, and his judgmental demeanor has fully returned, “What the fuck does that even mea-“

He doesn’t get to finish the sardonic sentiment. The slap of your palm interrupts him.

“Ow!” he yelps out, head snapping from the force of the hit and hands already coming up defensively. 

Eddie pushes off the wall the moment Steve’s hands are up in the air, “Lay a hand on her in retaliation, Harrington, and I’m breaking your arm.” 

All the joking, cocky demeanor has faded. Like he had said — scary dog privilege. It applies to more than just pricks at the bar.

“I’m not,” Steve grumbles, rubbing at the red imprint now singing his cheek, “Jesus Christ, I said a punch.” 

You fight a smile, “I don’t know how to throw a punch.”

“I can teach you,” Eddie pipes up, now standing beside you, hovering in your orbit. 

“Don’t-“ Steve puts out a warning finger, “-encourage her. I only said you could punch me because I knew you couldn’t throw a punch!” he continues to cradle his face, now pouting at you, “Do you feel better now?” 

You only answer with a triumphant smile. Because your palm is stinging, and you know violence isn’t the answer, but yeah. You do feel a little bit better. 

“I don’t,” Eddie hums. He only has to take one step forward for Steve to back up, throwing out defensive eyes as he narrows his eyes, “Think I deserve to get a slap in, too, Stevie.” 

“Fuck that,” Steve spits, eyes wide with genuine fear that makes you want to giggle, “You do know how to throw a punch. If I’m letting you get a free one in, I deserve twenty four hours notice.” 

“Then consider this your notice.” 

Is this what I had always been missing out on? 

You always knew Eddie was playful with everyone, had witnessed how he joked with friends, but you’d never been included. The thought that this was the new normal makes your heart nearly burst. To be on Eddie’s side finally, to be in his good graces properly, makes you feel as if you belong more than any private movie night with Steve or impromptu dinner date with Robin. More than any night out with Nancy. More than any smoke session with Argyle, and more than any literature debate with Jonathan.

It’s as if Eddie was the missing link. You never felt you belonged, because you’d always ached for your rightful spot at his side, not just amongst the group.

The three of you stand in a makeshift circle and every single one of you smiles. Even Steve, through his slipping pout and swollen cheek, is grinning. 

Suddenly, it’s not quite as heavy as it once felt.

Everything has changed. Leaving now is not leaving forever. 

“I’d pay to see that,” you comment, taking a daring step to bump shoulders with Eddie. His eyes meet yours, his dimples come to life, and suddenly — you’re home, “Think I can get a front row seat to you beating Steve’s ass?” 

Steve starts to protest but Eddie only nods eagerly, “I think that can be arranged.” 

“I am once again reminding you two that I liked your screaming matches more than whatever this,” his hand flails, motioning to the way you two are standing closer to one another than you are him, “whole teaming-up-against-me bit is.”

“We’re not dating,” you’re reiterating as Eddie laughs out, “Stop being a crybaby.” 

You look at one another again. Another foot in the door of your newfound home, another look into your new place to rest your head. It’s as if you’re just now realizing you’ve spent the entire year missing Eddie, even as he was right there in front of you. 

“Well, God save us all when you two are finally dating,” Steve mumbles with a shake of his head.

“If-“ Eddie starts to correct, but you stop him.

It’s not an if when it comes to you two dating, you decide. It’s a when.

“I’ll send a gift basket when the day comes,” you snark. The look that Eddie sends you could heal every wound ever left behind, right then and there. 

You’re home. When Eddie throws his arm around your shoulders and Steve rolls his eyes at you two (affectionately, even if he’d deny it), you know you’re home.

—

But then, you actually do have to go home. 

You try to put it off. The three of you occupy Eddie’s living room for a while, Steve complaining about the way Robin woke him up endlessly throughout the night and how he never did finish that assignment due in his English Literature class. It reminds you that life will continue on; you have to go back to work and school, deal with daily annoyances that should seem bigger than all that’s happened with Eddie tonight, but they don’t. They all seem minuscule now, really. 

“Do we still have to send photo proof?” Eddie asks once Steve’s tirade has waned. You’re sat between the two boys, Steve’s body turned almost completely to face the two of you while you and Eddie slowly sink back into the cushions. 

You’re sure if Steve knew the activities that had taken place on this couch, he would not be sitting so comfortably. If at all.

Steve sighs at the mention of the bet, “You probably should. Jonathan’s been antsy about it the entire time. Me and Nance tried to cover for you guys, lying about calling and stuff but-“

“Why would you lie?” you inquire, uncurling a bit from your overly comfortable position to stop from falling asleep and actually participate in the conversation. 

“Because, unlike the other idiots,” Steve gives a pointed look at you and then Eddie, “We had a hunch about what was going on here. And it’s about time, by the way.” 

You think over his words for a second before you look at Eddie with sudden embarrassment, “Have you- Oh my God, have you been telling Nancy what we’ve been doing?” 

“What?” Eddie sits up straighter, looking just as panicked, “No. No, absolutely not, I-“

“What have you guys been doing?”

Both of you ignore Steve as Eddie continues on.

“-just spoke to her on the phone once or twice. But I didn’t give her any details. Have you been telling Steve what we did?” 

Steve, still being ignored, repeats himself, “What have you guys been doing?” 

“Absolutely not,” you scrunch your nose at the thought of being that honest with Steve. You loved him, truly, but not enough to tell him about those kinds of things, “I’d rather sleep in the canals than tell him.” 

“What have you guys been doing?” 

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up, and he mockingly stabs himself, “Ouch, sweetheart.”

“Not like that,” you backtrack, but more casually as the worry of Steve and Nancy knowing the truth, “I just meant-“

Eddie interrupts with a hand on your knee and a smile on his face, “I know what you meant. I’m just fucking with you. I feel the same way with Nance.” 

“Guys?” Steve grows further impatient, “I- What the fuck did you guys do? Oh my God, is it even safe to sit on this fucking couch right now?” 

“You don’t wanna know,” you say.

“No, it isn’t,” Eddie says. 

It earns him a slap on his stomach as he leans over in laughter at the way Steve launches out of his seat.

“You guys- No. No fucking way,” Steve brushes at the back of his jeans, as if they’re contaminated, “Nope. No way. You’re just fucking with me, Munson.” 

“Am I?” 

Another slap lands on Eddie’s shoulder as he laughs harder. 

“Steve,” you turn to your friend, trying to smile sweetly, “Sit back down.” 

“No.”

“You just said you don’t believe-“ 

“We should get going,” Steve insists through his blush, “You two should take your final picture and we should get going.” 

Eddie finally stops chuckling, leaning back up and against the armrest, his ankle cross in front of your shins as he stretches his legs out and sighs, “God, you should see your face right now, Harrington.” 

Steve’s scowl deepens, “It’s not funny. Take the fucking photo so we can go.” 

You make no move to dig out your phone, because you know. You know once you take this photo, you’ll be leaving, and this will all be over. Once you step foot back into that hallway, time apart begins. Learning how to navigate this new unknown with Eddie begins. It terrifies you, it saddens you, it exhausts you. You hadn’t been prepared for this part of the night.

Even before the confessions, you hadn’t given much thought to the ending of the twenty four hours. You’d assumed it would end in bloodshed and a larger than life fight, probably before the clock even ran out. You’d never assumed it could end in laughing, inside jokes between you and Eddie, in something not only bitter but also sweet. 

“Phone, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers as he leans forward and holds out his hand with the palm up, “Before we traumatize the poor guy any further.” 

“I will wait in the car, I swear to God-“ Steve starts to protest as you finally dig your phone out of your pocket. 

You’re looking down, unable to meet Eddie’s gaze in fear of him picking up on your faint sadness, as you mumble, “Get your panties out of their twist, Steve. Jesus.” 

Eddie snorts at that, right as you pass your phone over. 

Steve doesn’t comment when you willingly tell Eddie the code to unlock your phone, or the way you let him hold it rather than you. He doesn’t comment on the arm that Eddie seems to constantly keep around you now. 

He’s doing it while he can. Cherishing being able to hold you at any capacity before you leave and the distance begins. The time apart you two agreed upon won’t be for forever, but it still kills a buried part of him that had just begun to sprout roots again. A thing made of hope that he planned to tend to this time around. 

“So, how do we wanna do this?” he asks in a strained tone, as if asking that question and throttling you two closer to the finish line physically pains him.

You hope it pains him, selfishly, because it pains you. “No idea.”

“We’ve gotta make it a good one.”

“We do.” 

Eddie suddenly lights up with an idea as his thumb sweeps across your screen, opening your photos’ app and scrolling up to the first picture you two had taken at the beginning of this night. 

“Up for a trip down nostalgia road?” he teases, wiggling his brows as he holds the phone up for you to get a clearer view of the picture.

Eddie, flipping off the camera and scowling. You, hardly smiling with a pathetic thumbs up. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out, nodding slowly. 

It’s unspoken, what happens next. The camera app is opened and Eddie returns your phone to your grasp. The two of you resituate to mimic the photo as closely as possible while Steve fiddles with some of the items on Eddie’s entertainment center. 

You stretch out your arm, put your thumb up into view, blink away any tears burning the back of your eyes. Eddie’s hand has taken position as well. 

You snap the photo before you can think too hard on it. 

“Think that’ll be the winner?” Eddie curiously asks as you immediately bring the phone close to your face, swiping to view the snapshot just taken. And when you do, with the refreshed memory of that first photo, your heart physically aches. 

Almost an identical image. At a quick glance, it’s the same Eddie and the same you from the first one. But the similarities fade the moment you look closer. Eddie isn’t scowling, not genuinely – those damn dimples are even making an appearance as his eyes were squinted up in a valiant effort to fight off the smile he wears now. And your smile, your smile, is no longer half-assed. It’s something real, something full, something even a bit sad. The same face you wear when saying goodbye to an old friend and trying to hold back any tears until their train has long since left the station. You can almost physically see your vines in this photo wrapping around the two of you, clinging so desperately to avoid any separation. Time apart. You’re regretting suggesting that now. 

It’s a cute photo. A photo of two friends, if you could call yourself and Eddie that now. 

“All done?” Steve interrupts the moment, both of you and Eddie only staring at the photo. You take a peak at him out of your peripherals, and you can see it written plainly on his face – he’s feeling all the same emotions as you. Something sad, something nostalgic, something reluctant. “Not to rush the process but… I may or may not have a hot date tonight to get ready for.” 

Eddie tears his gaze from the photo, “A hot date?”

“A hot date,” Steve nods, a boyish grin gracing his lips, “And I’m picking her up in… t-minus…” he pauses, checking his watch, “Three hours.” 

“Smart move. Charm her before I rearrange your face and all.” 

Steve throws his head back in a groan, “You two won’t be letting that go any time soon, will you?” 

“Nope,” you chime in as you swipe to open up the groupchat, not offering Steve a single glance until you’ve sent off the final addition of photo proof to the rest of your friends. You consider adding some sort of sarcastic comment, some well earned bragging and a boisterous told you so, but you don’t. 

It doesn’t feel like you’ve won. Leaving this apartment, this battleground, with all the new bruises and healed wounds you’ve acquired over the span of the twenty four hours doesn’t taste like victory. Really, it tastes like… nothing. 

There’s no victory, no solid ending for you to cling to. It’s simply ending and there’s still thousands of words you have to say to Eddie. You need more time, another twenty four hours, to fill with every single thing you never told him. More casual confessions of honesty, more hours wasted in his bed, more insignificant bickering to partake in. It’s all on your tongue and desperate for attention, and yet, you know you can’t succumb to it. 

You have to go. It’s the last thing you want to do, but you have to. 

Steve checks his phone when it buzzes with the notification of your message you sent and opens his mouth, no doubt about to comment on your lack of words with the message, but you’re already standing. It’s like ripping off a bandaid. You need to get it over with, get out of this apartment before you decide you’d rather sink right into these couch cushions and decay just to ensure you never have to really leave. 

Eddie’s quick to follow. 

“Let’s go,” you say to Steve, grabbing up your bag, not looking at Eddie at the risk of losing all composure. 

Neither boy fights you, following you right up to the front door. Steve leads, opening it back up as reality slams you in the chest. As if there’s an invisible barrier here, and you know that in crossing it, you’ll be leaving a piece of yourself behind in apartment 2C. 

Leaving now is not leaving forever. 

But it sure does feel like it. 

Steve awkwardly looks over your shoulder at Eddie, some silent communication you only see his half of as he shrugs and does a timid wave, turning to leave. 

One foot hangs midair, your toes beginning to push through that barrier, when Eddie grabs you. 

“Hey,” he breathes as he wraps his fingers around your bicep, forcing you to turn to face him. You let him, your body moving to his accord but your eyes still not meeting his, “You good?” 

You take a deep breath in through your nose, “Me? Yeah. Yeah, I’m great. I’m… I’m good.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Positive?”

“Will you look at me, then?” 

Reluctantly, so very reluctantly, your eyes meet his. Big, brown doe eyes. This close to them, you can see the way they shine to match yours. You both probably look insane to Steve right now, but you don’t care. Between the sleep deprivation and all the emotions you’ve had to experience over the last day, the tears are well earned.

You almost reach out and kiss him. You almost press up onto your toes and put your lips on his, almost pour every emotion you’re feeling in the moment into a far from innocent peck. 

But you don’t.

“We did it,” you croak blandly, “We won the bet.” 

As if the Universe is screaming in agreement, you can hear a chime in the distance signifying the hour. Probably the church you recall passing in the middle of the night when the two of you had ventured off to the parking garage. It almost feels as if it’s mocking you. 

“We did it,” he echoes as his grip on your bicep loosens. You expect him to let it fall back to his side, nearly begging out loud for him to retract his touch from you so you don’t do something stupid like stay.

You swallow down thick emotions, just like molasses, “I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

Time. You two needed time apart. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, as he does the one thing you had somehow hoped he wouldn’t yet yearned for ardently – the hand that had wrapped around your arm now cups your cheek, thumb stroking your skin so softly, you nearly melt in his doorway, “I’ll see you around, sweetheart.” 

It doesn’t taste like victory, yet it doesn’t taste quite like loss. It’s bittersweet. 

You still don’t kiss him. And he doesn’t kiss you, even as his touch against your cheek lingers so heavily before he pulls away. 

You cross the barrier and find you were right. You feel that piece of you tear off and flutter to the ground, and you begin to wonder when you’ll have the chance to come back and reclaim not just it, but Eddie.

—

Steve didn’t speak much on the drive back to your dorm, and you’re sort of grateful. 

If you were a good friend, you’d ask more about his date. You’d get him giddy as he spills the details about this girl and his plans for the night, chastise and tease him all in good fun. You’d be smiling and making plans for coffee tomorrow morning so he could tell you all about how the date went. 

But you’re not a good friend.

You sit in your silence the entire drive, and you pick at your nails, and you selfishly stay focused on Eddie. On all of your own qualms and all your own issues, worrying about what comes next and already feeling your chest tighten the moment you start to think about when see you around will come.

The two of you never discussed that, did you? There was no discussion of just how much time was needed apart. 

Steve shifts the car into park in the west lot, right outside your building, “Alright, stop making your cuticles bleed for two seconds and tell me what’s wrong.” 

Your hands pause exactly as he requests, caught red-handed. “Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Something’s obviously wrong. I told you to go get him – and yet, he’s still not your boyfriend.” 

“It’s complicated,” your voice finally breaks. There’s no tears this time, just confusion and desperation clawing at your throat. 

Because, was it complicated? Was it really?

The last year was what had been complicated. All the pretending and the fights and the tension. All the false beliefs and all the lies overlapping with one another. That was complicated. But this? The feelings you harbored and finally acknowledged for the boy you just left behind? 

That wasn’t really complicated. 

And Steve knows this, you can hear it in his sigh, “I think that’s the issue.” 

“What?” you turn your head towards him, scrunch your brows, even your breathing and try to shoo away the image of Eddie’s wet eyes. 

You wish you would have kissed him. 

“Look, i just think you two keep making things complicated when they should be simple-” 

You didn’t want to hear it. Childish as it might be, you do not want to have to hear this speech. Because you know Steve’s right.

“I’ll see you later, Steve.”

“Wait-”

You don’t wait. You slam the door in his face once you’ve got your footing outside of his car, truly earning your title of bad friend.

Awful. You weren’t just a bad friend, you were an awful friend. 

And yet you can’t think on it, leaving it be until you had the time to properly dwell on how you’d apologize later. All you care about now is getting inside your dorm, moping and being miserable on your own. Your strides are longer and faster than they were even when you’d backtracked to Eddie’s apartment, determined to get behind closed doors and to properly mourn all that had been gained and all that had been lost in the last twenty four hours. 

Twenty four hours ago, you were reluctant to even step foot in Eddie’s apartment. And now, it’s the only place you really want to be. 

Luck refuses to be on your side as you slam into your dorm room, sweaty and tired and just fucking emotional, only to find your roommate there. There will be no dramatic crying, no cinematic scene with your back pressed to the door as you fight back sobs, it seems. 

“You look rough,” is all she notes, sparing you a second glance before she returns to whatever she was tasking on at her desk. Her makeup, you think.

Good. Maybe she’ll be heading out, leaving you to suffer alone like you wanted. 

“Yeah,” is all you can answer her as the door clicks shut behind you. 

Rough’s a good way to put it. 

“Think you’ll be here tonight?” she asks, still distracted, “Troy and I are hanging out today – he spent the night here last night, by the way – and if you’re gone again, I was thinking about inviting him back over. Only if you’re cool with it, or already have plans, though. Our RA has this final and I didn’t even have to sneak him in last night-”

She continues on her rambles, never looking your way as you drop your bag onto your bed, and quickly lift yourself to lay right next to it. 

Normal. You were having to go back to fucking normal. Your worries were no longer revolving around Eddie or making it through the next hour, no longer preoccupied with keeping your friends up to date in order to ensure a payout of five hundred dollars – now, you just had to worry about boys named Troy and possible room checks by your RA. Finals to be taken, essays to be finished, shifts to be covered at the diner so you’d have enough cash to go out with your friends next weekend. 

You should be relieved. But it all just feels impossibly heavy. 

Your roommate catches on quickly, and when you only reply to let her know you’ll be here tonight, she stops talking. She focuses on finishing her makeup and gathering her things, hardly even offering you a goodbye as you shift to curl up more comfortably in the center of your mattress. 

You should also know better than what you decide to do next. You can’t help it, though, as you tug your phone out of your pocket and unlock it. You don’t listen to the voice inside your head that screams stop as you click on your photos’ app. Ignore the animal inside that whines as you scroll, and you click on the very first photo of you and Eddie. 

It’s painful, but you have nothing better to do in your solitude. You don’t linger on the first photo too long, still being fresh in your mind, before quickly swiping along. 

The set of matching photos you and Eddie took of one another, black and white socks covering touching toes visible in each one. You nearly laugh at the Darth Vader figurine both of you took turns holding. You nearly cry when you realize you were, in fact, smiling in your photo. A small one, a forced one, but there nonetheless. 

The selfie from the bar, your amaretto sour and Eddie’s whiskey & coke lifted towards the camera. The way both of you had tried to look annoyed, over exaggerated and furrowed brows paired with pouting lips. Your thumb swipes subconsciously over the photo for a second too long, and you’re startled when you realized it was a live photo. The moment after the photo was taken, Eddie’s eyes had moved to look at you. And in that live photo, you watched every ounce of annoyance evaporate. Leaving behind something you recognized now. Leaving behind eyes sparkling with a brief glimpse of adoration. 

There’s something else you better recognize now in the next photo. The picture you’d taken when Eddie had locked himself into his room, only opening up long enough to insist you took the photo, the one that guaranteed you your money. You had been right – there was a flood of regret on his face. You hadn’t imagined it. But you had also been wrong; he was never looking at your own rotted vines and mourning them; he was looking at his own, tethered and shredded, regretting that he had ever taken an axe to them. You don’t press down to see this live photo. You don’t want to witness that door slamming in your face again. 

The two photos taken in his bed. The one in which both your faces are scrunched from the flash, in which you can see the physical wall between you two.  And the one in the dark, where you both wear tired smiles, unaware of the night to come.

The photo on the bike, a helmet mostly covering your blushing cheeks, but not Eddie’s. 

The photo from the parking garage, meant just for you two. 

The photos from Betty’s. You don’t linger on the one of you; you do linger on the one of him. 

Each swipe only makes your heart ache more viciously, painful and sharp reminders of the night you had had. You don’t have to press down on another single photo to witness the live outplay of it – each memory is running through your mind in real time as you retrace your steps of the night. Twenty four hours, twenty four steps. With each photo, you watch yourself grow more relaxed, watch smiles come easier without your awareness and finally pinpoint all the care Eddie had been looking at you with the entire time. 

You notice the lack of photos from the last few hours. You nearly scorn yourself for it, but there had been no time. There was no time for memories frozen in time amongst all that hard honesty and those sacrilegious revelations.

Except there was one more moment in time frozen for you. You’re quick to exit the photo app finally, leaving behind that picture of Eddie with full cheeks only to open up your text messages.

Your text thread with him. Filled to the brim with bad pastry jokes and underlying need. You remember that urgent want to comfort him, to remind him he was enough. To erase all the hurt and all the old scars caused by a life from before your time with him you still hadn’t become fully privy to. 

You’re still rereading the last message, bet you wouldn’t say that to my face, when suddenly a new message appears. 

EDDIE: Make it home okay? 

Space and time. They are the last things you want, that you need from him right now. 

YOU: yep. my roommate just left. 

EDDIE: Is your dorm bed as comfortable as you remember? 

YOU: like sleeping on a cloud. 

You wish you were still in his bed. You wish you were back at the beginning, with him rather than all alone. 

EDDIE: Oh shit, you’re trying to sleep? Sorry

EDDIE: I’ll stop bothering you and leave you to it. Sweet dreams. 

No, you nearly scream at your phone screen, come back and bother me. Bother me for the rest of my days for all I care. 

You’d never sleep another wink if it meant having him. You remember what you told him about starting over, starting fresh. And maybe taking a much needed nap would offer that. Maybe sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time would be the smart choice, letting you awake with a clearer mind and better intentions.

But you don’t want that. The animal inside still clings to all that has happened. 

Something about that makes you brave.

YOU: i never said that, and you’re not bothering me.

EDDIE: Didn’t you say you wanted a nap earlier?

YOU: that was earlier. i’m wide awake now. 

An internal battle continues to take place. Your mind whispers liar, knowing damn well that if you put down the phone and turned your cheek to bury into your pillow, you’d be out like a light within seconds. 

EDDIE: Ah. I see. 

You fiddle with your thumbs for a second, stomach churning as you try to come up with a response to keep the conversation going. Technically, when you had said the two of you needed time apart after all that had happened, it should have meant interactions like this as well. Texting each other was not offering each other space.

But he’d started it. That was on him.

YOU: do you remember what i said about space? and starting over? 

EDDIE: I do. I’m not very good with giving you space, it seems. 

YOU: well, considering you’re on the other side of town, i’d say we’ve got the physical sense of space down. 

There’s a pause in his replies that causes you to sit up. A falter. You curse him for not having a smartphone as well, for not having the privilege of being notified whether he was just taking his time typing or if he had put the phone down. You really hoped it was the former, practically wished upon every star that that was what was happening. You hoped he was glued to his phone as you were yours. 

Maybe he still had that photo he’d taken a few hours ago, the one you swore you’d heard him take as you dozed off. Maybe he was still staring at it like you had done with all of your photos. 

EDDIE: About that…

You stare at the message, the hidden meaning behind it completely lost on you. 

YOU: About what? 

EDDIE: I’m not home right now. 

Your heart clenches. 

YOU: You’re not?

EDDIE: I’m not. 

YOU: Eddie, where the hell are you right now?

Your mind reels with all the possible choices. He could be at the bar, at the parking garage, at Nancy’s place. He could be anywhere. 

But then he only sends a picture in response, and you know where he is. 

You nearly topple into three other students from how you sprint down the hallway. You don’t even grab your key to your dorm room, skipping the elevators and nearly throwing yourself down the few flights of stairs in haste. You don’t care how your lungs cry out, you don’t care how your thighs burn, you don’t care how your shoulder aches from how roughly you slam open that front door of the building. You don’t care about the strange looks you get on your way out. You don’t care about the odd angle you twisted your ankle in on that last step. 

The only thing you care about is the boy standing there, helmet off and balanced on the seat of his parked motorcycle that he leans on, arms crossed as his eyes light up at the erratic sight of you. 

You don’t even check for any traffic in the parking lot as you make your way to him. 

“I’m sorry,” he calls out once you’re close enough to hear him, “I know we said give it time and shit, but you left, and I just-” 

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence. 

When you make it to Eddie, you’re in no business to carry anymore regret with you. This time, you don’t just yearn to kiss him, to wrap your arms around him, to pour out all those emotions you were feeling across tongues. 

You do it. You kiss him, uncaring for all the stares of fellow students. He nearly falls backwards into his bike from the force of you colliding against him, but he’s quick to catch himself as his hands find your waist. 

“You-” you pull back, gasping a bit to start to scold him before his lips follow and interrupt you, “Fucking-” Push and pull. You retreat, and he follows, “Idiot.” 

His hands squeeze around you, tugging you a stumbling step closer so that your chests are flushed against one another.

“I am,” he mumbles against your lip, the tip of his nose grazing over your cheek as he refuses to let anymore distance be put between the two of you, “I am a fucking idiot. I’m sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing.” 

His hands cradle your face and he kisses you this time, reaffirming that he felt everything you had. All those words you hadn’t said, all his own admissions he’d withheld, spill between clashing teeth and eager lips. He takes your breath away, shamelessly, greedily. And you let him. You offer all the air that’s left in your lungs up to him on a silver platter. 

When the two of you finally pull apart, eyes opening wide and foreheads pressing tightly to one another, he’s grinning like a fool. 

“So, I had a better idea than time apart,” he murmurs, “What if we just… start over?” 

“Start over?” you question wearily. 

He nods, “Yeah. Just… Just pretend this last year and all our bullshit didn’t happen. Start fresh. Let me not be a massive dick this time.” 

His hands drop from your face as he takes a step back, taking you in fully. You want to shy under his gaze, but instead you can only melt. His fondness is a warmth like no other, capturing you by the crown of your head and pouring down over you in waves. 

“Okay,” you finally agree, feeling your own cheeks spread and ache in a lovesick smile. Coming home, that’s what this felt like. “Okay, we can start over.” 

“Great,” the homecoming warmth only spreads as he straightens up his posture. A very serious look overcomes his face, laced with determination for a brief second until he relaxes it into a friendly smile, doleful eyes meeting yours as every single flower he had ever planted in your chest blooms like a spring morning. He sticks his hand out, nearly making you snort, “Hi, I’m Eddie.” 

You can’t help it. His front door is open, a warm glow within welcoming you. 

You ignore his hand entirely as you impulsively reach up and interlock your fingers at the nape of his neck, tugging him into you for another kiss. 

He pulls back far too soon for your liking, but his hands have also found their spot against the small of your back, “Do you greet all the new strangers you meet like this?” 

You roll your eyes, “Shut up.” 

He pulls you back in for a chaste peck, and it tastes like home. 

“I like you,” you whisper into the limited space between the two of you, “I mean it. I like you so fucking much, Edward Munson.” 

He grins, cracking your chest wide open with hope, “The feeling’s mutual.”

taglist: @catherinnn @haylaansmi @gaysludge @paprikaquinn @manda-panda-monium @audhd-dragonaut @blushingquincy @hellkaisersangel @eddieslittlewh0re @ajkamins @prettyboy200 @munsonzzgf @blue-eyed-lion @digwhatudug @madaboutjoe @wickedslashdivine @sweet-villain @somespicystuff @big-ope-vibes @jadequeen88 @sylviin @emma77645 @notbeforelong @lolalanaie @lo-siento-ama @happy-and-alone @micheledawn1975 @aysheashea @moon-huny @munsonswrld @bambipowerblueaddition @averagestudent03 @bakugouswh0r3 @mattefic @mxcheese @bietchz @nativity-in-black @stezzil @vngelis @coley0823 @folklorebau @luvmunson86 @theherothesavior @keene200213 @hargrovesswifee @m-chmcl-rmnc @cherrymedicine13 @iunaelumen777

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[mercurygguk]

head over skates · jjk ; part ii.

··· SUMMARY; jeon jungkook is the captain of the hockey team and one of the biggest fuckboys on campus. you happen to have known him for as long as you can remember but he is not who he used to be and you simply can’t stand it.

so what happens when you’re suddenly stuck doing a project with him for three weeks?

SERIES MASTERLIST · # TAG · MOOD BOARDS · PLAYLIST

PAIRING; hockey player!jungkook x f. reader

GENRE; fwb au, childhood friends to enemies to lovers au, college au

WORDCOUNT; 1,074

RATING; 18+

WARNINGS; swearing

a/n; part 2 os hockey jk!!! i hope you're enjoying this little series so far <3 please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or in an ask! ty for reading muah

The Nook – the campus café – is bustling with students and professors when you step inside later in the afternoon. You just finished your psychology class and texted Jihyo, asking where she was. She told you to meet her at the café for late lunch at which your stomach grumbled as soon as you read her text. That granola bar you ate earlier will only get you so far before hunger returns. Your stomach grumbles again as you step closer to the counter, quickly glancing over the menu before ordering a chicken salad and an iced coffee. 

Once ready, you grab it and try to spot Jihyo inside the busy café. When you finally spot her, you frown softly – she’s sitting in the far corner with Namjoon. They really didn’t waste any time getting to work on the project. You try your best to ignore the jealousy bubbling inside of you as you make your way to their table. 

When class had ended almost immediately after the pairs were revealed, you had packed up your stuff and left the room before Jungkook could start a conversation. When Jihyo texted you about your sudden disappearance, you were already sitting in your seat in your next class. You told her you only had a 5 minute gap between classes and had to hurry there to make it – she seemed to believe your excuse and didn’t ask any further questions.

Phew.

“Hey,” she greets you with a warm smile when you sit down next to her. “How was class?”

“Boring but at least I had Minhyuk to keep me entertained,” you grumble, voice dripping with sarcasm as you unbox your salad to pour dressing over it. Before you can take your first bite, you look up at Namjoon with your best attempt of pleading puppy eyes, “Namjoon, please switch partners with me. Please!”

Both he and Jihyo look rather surprised at your sudden outburst as you stuff your face with a big bite of salad and chicken, looking more upset than ever as you wait for a response to your pleading request.

“I- um, who was your partner again?” He asks instead of just agreeing like you had hoped he would.

You sigh deeply, “... Jungkook.”

The mention of your childhood friend turned ex-friend has Namjoon shaking his head and laughing dryly as if you just told a really bad joke. You stare at him with a glare, waiting impatiently, internally praying and hoping he’ll say yes if you look miserable enough.

“I’m sorry, ____, but no, I don’t think so.”

You groan, the hints of a whine under it, “why not? You know Jihyo and I always do projects together-”

He shrugs, “as much as I feel bad for you, it’s still a no. Jungkook isn’t exactly the type of guy you wanna pair up with for projects.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes, “yeah, no shit. Why do you think I’m asking?”

Jihyo places a hand on your shoulder as if to calm you down. Looking at it from an outside point of view, you probably need it. 

“Come on, ____,” she chuckles, “I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think.”

She’s probably right – Jungkook isn’t a bad guy or anything, that much you know. He’s just that guy who cut you out of his life as soon as popularity grabbed a hold of him and made him prioritize everyone else over you. You’ve never been about that popular lifestyle so when he first gained attention from the pretty girls and the cool boys in high school, you knew the expiration date for your friendship was nearing. And as someone who hates holding grudges, you’ve been holding this exact grudge for half a decade with no plans of ending it any time soon.

“But it’s Jungkook,” you groan in frustration, “you know our history.”

She nods, “yes, I do. But maybe it’s time for both of you to move past that? It’s been 5 years already, ____.”

Despite knowing she’s right, you let out a fake laugh and return your focus to your salad. As much as you’d like to move past it, you just can’t. Jungkook really hurt you and it seems he doesn’t care so why would you spend your time and energy on him? Why should you forgive him for leaving you behind without so much as an explanation for his asshole behavior?

“Yeah, over my dead body.”

Jihyo sighs deeply in defeat while Namjoon stifles a laugh. You shoot them both an annoyed look before taking another big bite of your salad. You should’ve known Namjoon wouldn’t switch partners with you – he’s crushing on your best friend, for Christ’s sake. But still, it was worth a shot.

The three of you finish lunch in the matter of 30 minutes before you have to be at yet another class. They share their next class and you’re on your own once again, dragging yourself to class.

Luckily, this class is the last one for today.

Once you locate the classroom and find a seat, you get settled and ready for the class to start. You’re browsing around on your laptop when a text suddenly appears in the right upper corner of the screen. The fact that you receive a text isn’t that exciting or out of place but the person sending it certainly is. 

And as if one text wasn’t enough, a row of them ticks in after the first one.

[2:24 PM] Jeon🤬👊🏼: hey, idk if this is still your number

[2:24 PM] Jeon🤬👊🏼: if it is, hey ;)

[2:24 PM] Jeon🤬👊🏼: wanna meet up sometime this week to work on the project? 

You stare at the texts for a minute, racking your brain for all the reasons why Jeon Jungkook still has your number after all these years and then you wonder why you still have his. Also, since when does Jeon Jungkook care about doing a project? You didn’t exactly peg him to be the one encouraging school work. Although, it seems you’re taking too long to reply because he sends you another text before you have the chance to think of a reply.

This guy certainly doesn’t fear the concept of double texting. Or triple texting. No, he shamelessly texted you four times – probably without second guessing it too.

[2:25 PM] Jeon🤬👊🏼: I’ll bring iced Americano :)) if you still drink it, that is

You’re simply speechless.

all rights reserved © mercurygguk · tumblr

[captainofthedauntless]

Hello!! I just wanna say first I love your work and your doing amazing and if possible I'd like a to request something.

It's my birthday today, and I was wondering if you could write the bayverse tmnt boys and how they would celebrate your birthday or their birthday's if that's ok? I love you and have a great day👋

Hi lovely! Happy Birthday :] I hope it's still the right day LMAO

(Thank you BTW! You are so kind and that means a lot.)

Post-movies HCs below!

I think they all go a little apeshit for birthdays TBH. They are very aware of mortality, risking their asses all the time, and love any excuse to celebrate life.

(Since you didn't specify romantic or platonic, I'll try to do a bit of both! I think the guys would make an effort to know their brothers' partners anyway, so if you're with one they're probably all excited to celebrate with you LMAO)

Don's a sweetheart, okay? Like, to his core. He's sweet and thoughtful and caring, so if you're important to him then it's important to him that he do everything he can to make your big day as special as possible.

This guy totally keeps a list of all the things his loved ones mention through the year that might make good gifts. Things you need fixed, things you need replaced, stuff you want to do- he writes it all down (literally or mentally, I'm not sure). So when your birthday comes around, he's got ideas ready and waiting!

The remote for your TV that only works if it's held at a Very Specific Angle, with a muttered prayer and a sacrifice of chicken nuggets? Replaced, and it probably controls your lights now, too.

You mentioned your computer running slow? He gives you a very professional looking purple coupon for one free computer cleaning, courtesy of DuzMachines LLC, signed by the CEO himself, Donnie Tello. (He looks way too amused by it, honestly.)

Or your hidden passion for table tennis that you only brought up off-handedly six months prior? Well, you better be ready to stretch your wrists, because he assembled a table for it and found a net and paddles and he and Mikey have been practicing to kick your ass.

If you guys are dating, he makes absolutely sure that he gets some solo time with you, away from his family. He leaves all of his tech in the lair (except for his phone and an Absolute Emergency Only panic button, because he's been doing this "save the city" thing long enough to know that if he actually goes off without a way for his brothers to get a hold of him, he'll come back to something on fire or someone bleeding or some sort of bomb going off in Central Park) and takes you for a nice drive. You guys go out in the middle of the night when the traffic is as easy as it'll ever get, and he puts you on DJ duty, and you spend a couple hours just driving around and enjoying each other's company until you end up parked in a quiet spot and he's pulling out a cooler bag of your favorite dessert to share with you.

He stutters a little, but he tells you how much he loves you. How happy you make him. How grateful he is to get to be yours. He kisses you so sweetly that it's even better than the dessert, and when you finally break apart you're smiling and he looks absolutely lovestruck.

"I mean it, you know that?" he says softly, cupping your cheek is his hand and squeezing ever so gently. "I love you."

Leo is micro managing the shit out of his family. Every inch of the lair will be cleaned and prepped for celebrating, okay? If he sees a single pizza box out of place he will be a bitch about it.

He really, really wants to have everything perfect for you.

He's really big on meaningful gifts. He works with April to get you a nice copy of one of his favorite books and writes a heartfelt little note on the first page, wishing you a happy birthday.

Or maybe he's painstakingly curating the perfect playlist of songs that make him think of you and burning them onto a CD, writing your name on the front in that perfect handwriting of his that makes it look like he cares about each letter.

He's the one coordinating all of Mikey's big plans for your big day, too. Leo makes sure everyone's at the lair and settled on time, makes sure that every gift is accounted for and wrapped, makes sure that you know exactly what to expect so you're fully prepared when you walk in to a very happy (read: loud) family gathering.

If you're dating, it's even worse. Everything gets double and triple checked. He makes himself and everyone else a little insane.

And then you come in and grin at him and suddenly the mismatched wrapping paper and clashing bows are more charming and homey than they are frustrating.

Leo makes absolute certain that he gets you alone at the end of the night. It looks like a really natural transition to you, but you know from the big fake yawn Mikey puts on that he isn't nearly as tired as he claims- and knowing your boyfriend, you suspect he had a hand in the comfortable privacy the two of you find yourselves in.

You almost call him out on it, but he's looking at you with so much love it makes your heart ache a little, so you decide to skip the teasing. (For now.)

He gave you a gift with the rest of the group, sure, but now he digs out a cute little box. When you open it, there's a bracelet in just the right metal to contrast gorgeously with your skin, lovingly shaped and formed and perfect.

He's nervous, but it only takes you looking up at him and going "Oh, Leonardo," for him to smile at you again.

"I'm happy to make adjustments to it, if you want."

"If you think I'm letting this out of my sight long enough for that, you are spectacularly incorrect."

He chuckles, and he helps you put it on, and he presses a kiss to your forehead so tenderly you think you may melt right into the floor.

He immediately gives in to you tugging him down to kiss his lips, too.

Obviously, Mikey has exactly zero chill. He goes a lot apeshit. We're talkin' hand-painted banner with your name that goes across the entire living area, a table cloth in your favorite color, every single game and activity you have ever mentioned enjoying all stacked up nice and neat so you can pick whatever you want. You want to play Twister? You bet, baby- he'll even go easy on you. More of a Charades person? He's rounding up the whole crew to play, and Splinter is damn good at it. Mario Kart? You get first dibs on characters and cars. (He will not go easy on you, though. He has a reputation to protect, birthday or not.)

Do not get me started on food.

This guy goes ham. April gets a novel-length shopping list, with your favorite snacks and all the ingredients for your favorite meal and your favorite dessert and he's making mixed drinks that have edible glitter in them. Booze optional- he's a mocktail master, alright?

Leo happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Mikey does a test run of your meal. Leo proceeds to be stuck because Mike needs a taste tester, and "C'mon, Leo, it's gotta be perfect!", and "No no, just one more tweak, 'kay? Then you're free to go be boring."

(It was not just one more tweak.)

Now, if you're more lowkey, he tries- really really really tries- to keep it chill for you. He does. But he doesn't know how not to do a little something, so you're still getting some Chef Mikey action. Sorry.

If you're dating? Hooooo boy. You are getting smothered in as much affection as you can stand- and he's pretty good at gauging that, so it's only good vibes here. No overload from Mikey, not on your big day! But if you're receptive, you're getting texts right at midnight (despite him being on patrol, BTW) full to the point of bursting with emojis. He follows that up with good morning texts when he gets up. Then it's you coming down to the lair and celebrating and eventually, when things start to slow down a bit, he tugs you away to a secluded corner of their home for cute smooches and big hugs and "Happy birthday, Angel."

("You have a good day?" he asks, eyes big and hopeful and sweet, and when you say yes he scoops you up and spins you just to hear you giggle.)

Raph is actually the only one of the four with any kind of chill- mostly because he is terrified of ruining your day. Birthdays are a huge deal to him, and if he screwed up yours he would legitimately feel guilty until the day he died.

So he keeps it pretty simple. He's a crafty guy, so he might carve you a little wooden decoration for your place, or make you a bowl out of clay, or knit you a big blanket in your favorite color. It's thoughtful, it's either useful or gorgeous, and it's easy for you to carry home.

He's the one that keeps Mikey in check- tries to keep some of the bigger, crazier schemes in line, but he does it without raining on Mike's parade.

And if anybody catches an attitude on your big day? They have this guy to deal with. He takes zero shit. Seriously, Leo's getting bitchy? He gets one (1) warning look. Vern turns up and does anything even remotely annoying? Raph's behind you, silently threatening anything and everything Vern holds dear. Mikey gets too noisy? Raph's bumping his shoulder and having some silent sibling communication. It's all so subtle it's almost off-brand, but it's his way of making sure you have a good day. He's protective!

And if you're dating? Please.

He's doing whatever you want. You need a massage? You're hungry? Tired? Like two degrees too cold? He's got you.

You're having the perfect day if he has to cut his own arm off to make it happen, okay?

He's perceptive, too, so you probably don't have to ask for much.

The gang tries to sing and you look a little uncomfortable? "Happy Birthday to you, blah blah, cake time." And he's winking at you and passing you the cake cutter and it's so no-bullshit that everyone takes the hint but it makes him the center of attention long enough for you to relax again.

(And if you're not a cake person, he totally has Mikey organize another treat, just for you. He helps Mike in the kitchen, too. That shit is made with so much love.)

The night ends with the cuddles of your life. He gets kinda quiet, and it's easy to think he's just tired, but you look over at him and he's staring at you and he looks like you're built out of stardust.

"Shit," he mutters, nuzzling into you and hiding his face in the process. "Love you."

[satan-is-obsessed]

modern steddie au, u can also read it here

The first time he heard it he didn't even pay attention to the actual lyrics. He was in his car and the song just came on. It was loud and not his usual style but it was also catchy, so Steve decided to add it to a playlist.

The second time it came on he was cleaning his house and at this point he knew the melody so he was jumping around while vacuuming.

The third time it played he was laying on his floor close to a mental breakdown. This time he really listened. Every word poured through him and filled his mind. "Pretty in Pink" by Scene Queen usually just a song that was a little fun addition to his playlist, now breaking his heart and making him mad.

"Relatable" he murmured through his angry tears. And so it began. His little obsession with the singer. His little secret as he didn't actually feel comfortable sharing this one, even with Robin.

So, the second he saw she was playing in the city near him he jumped to buy the ticket.

"This is perfect, Robin is going away with Nance for the weekend, I don't even need to make an excuse to ditch them." he was talking to himself from excitement.

He spent the whole week, leading up to it, buzzing with nervousness and joy. It was his first time going to a gig alone, it wasn't his scene (xd) at all and he was a little petrified trying out a new style. He settled on wearing platforms black jeans and an oversized dark pink sweater. At last second threw in some earrings and a bit of pink shadow and strawberry lipgloss (he's favourite). It made him feel more confident to have a comfort item with him even if it was just a lip product.

Once he got to the venue and bought a drink (hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to relax) the man slowly made his way onto the floor.

It wasn't big and most of the people seemed really friendly. Their joined energy made him feel a bit lighter, or maybe it was the drink, either way the nerves floated away and he was left with pure euphoria of seeing his favourite artist.

Before the main event though came the support band. Corroded Coffin. It was the first he ever heard the name. Sounds about right for the amount of people dressed in black and chains.

Steve wasn't really paying attention to the band as they walked out. They set and tuned their instruments. Soon the first song started playing, The man glanced at the stage right as the lead singer came out. He's heart fluttered.

The man was beautiful. Tall, slim, a maine of big, curly, dark hair rested on top of his shoulders. He was dressed in a mesh crop top and tight, heart stoppingly tight, leather pants. The best thing - his pale skin was covered in tattoos. They were peaking out of his cropped top and through the mesh. Steve couldn't stop staring, mouth slightly open. If it keeps going that way he'll drool. It's like he just witnessed the 8th wonder of the world. Yes, he's aware of how corny that sounds.

Then the brown eyed (oh his brown brown eyes, Steve could drown in them) man was now singing. Screaming and singing. The tone of the metalheads voice wrapped him around as if a blanket was thrown over his heart.

"Shit" was all he could muster as he realised, he might have just fallen in love with a complete stranger. No it's a crush. It's just a crush on someone who doesn't know and won't ever know he existed. It didn't stop the blush that spread all over his face turning the cheeks almost burgundy.

When it was time for the actual reason he even got here in the first place to walk out the man couldn't stop thinking about the singer.

Ofcourse he was having fun, Scene Queen was doing amazing live. But the thoughts kept racing, kept imagining things that weren't supposed to be happening.

And then he felt it. The hot air of a breath on his ear and a whisper.

"Couldn't help noticing you staring at me, big boy"

Steve whipped his head around, the vocalist of Corroded Coffin waa standing near inches away from him, their bodies touching, a big grin spread across his face

"Hi, I'm Eddie" he said in his perfect dark voice.

Steve couldn't function. His breath hitched, the blush spread from cheeks down his neck.

"Get yourself together, for fucks sake" he thought.

"And you are?" said Eddie not moving away.

"hot, i mean uhmm, hmm, i-" the shorter man cleared his throat "I'm Steve" great job at least you said you name right.

"Hi, Hot Steve" and fuck. He was flirting, he was perfect and beautiful and tall and handsome and he was flirting with him.

"I, uh, wow" wow? wow??! but Eddie was laughing, and god, his laugh was like honey on an opened wound. The man looked at him again, leaning in.

"So Stevie~" if he doesn't stop singing his name, the nickname, which was super hot, Steve is gonna jump his bones right here, in the midst of a crowd "could i maybe buy you a drink?"

*idk how to write it so good old tv skip scene*

They got their drinks and were talking away, it felt like they've known each other for way longer. The conversation and the flirting were going smoothly until Eddie touched Steve's thigh and made him short circuit and spill the drink.

"Shit, sorry" he grabbed for a napkin to try and wipe the liquid off of the curly haired mans pants.

"It's okay, big boy" god damn it he's gonna drive him crazy with the nicknames.

"Sorry" stop apologizing, he said its okay "fuck i spilled some on myself too, okay wait I'm gonna be right back, don't go anywhere"

Steve excused himself and headed to the bathroom. He splashed water on his face to calm himself down and just then remembered "mascara. fuckkk" he looked in the mirror, great now he looks like a fucking panda, that's just amazing. As he started wiping it away he heard a knock on the door.

"Sorry, I'll be a second" he screamed in response.

"It's me- Eddie, you okay in there? You've been in here for good 10 minutes, you didn't drown, right?" god he kinda wish he did, he made a fool of himsef enough already.

"Y-yeah, I mean no, I mean I'm okay" he stuttered out.

"You sure I don't have to help you? .... give you cpr or anything?" the taller man chuckled. It made him giggle as he opened the door.

"I mean it, I'm okay" (trust me, i had to) he looked at the brown eyed man, he was so close, he blushed.

"You sure you don't need a mouth to mouth?" the vocalist whispered in the air between them. They were inches apart and Steve's blush was running down past his collar now, this is it.

"okay" he was so quiet and Eddie took that answer and pushed him into the bathroom locking the door after them and smacking their lips together.

The kiss started gentle on the rockstars part but Steve was hungry for it. He wrapped his arms around Eddie's neck and pushed them imposibly closer, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. The taller man smiled along his lips.

"Someone's eager" he snickered and Steve just whined and kissed him again tangling his hands into the curls of the other man's hair. That brought a moan out of his mouth which gave Stevie the perfect opportunity to slip in his tongue. As if a switch was flipped the older man grabbed his thigh and sat him on the counter. They stayed like this moans and whimpers until they couldn't breath anymore and the tension got too much. They pulled apart, forheads touching and brething deep and heavy.

"Fuck me" Steve sighed impressed more than asking but metalhead just smiled and responded

"Well if you're asking me this nicely" he leaned in again and kissed the younger man's nose, then mouth again then jaw and moved to suck on his neck.

"Ah, that's not exactly what I meant but I'm not complaining" Eddie pulled away at that which made Steve whine again, disappointed at the lack of contact.

"I can stop if you don't feel comfortable, just say the word and we can be out of here and back to drinking or not even talking if you want to, I don't wanna pressure you into anything" he was dead serious and it made Steve even more hot and bothered.

"That was the hottest thing you could've said, don't stop" and with that his lips were back in Eddie's.

Their hands were roaming and exploring each others bodies but it didn't feel like enough, they were grabbing at each other, pulling their shirts up as they rocked their hips together.

"Fuck, Eds" Steve moaned, and grabbed him stronger, climbing his body, he felt Eddie's dick twitch at that. "You like it when I call you Eds?" he giggled. The older man now awfully shy hid his face in the crook of Steve's neck.

"I think you know the answer to that, god what are you doing to me" they were picking up the pace, their breaths got heavier with each movement. Soon enough they were both at the edge of fucking in a public bar restroom, which isn't the best place for that kind of activity let's be honest here.

The dark blonde man pushed his hips harder into singers making his hand slip. A groan escaped his mouth.

"Not to sound like a virgin but if we keep on going I might just cream my pants, man. I'm so close." he panted and Steve just laughed pulling hik even closer.

"Do it" he whispered "for me?" and that was enough to push Eddie past his limit. "Stevie" he moaned right into his ear sending hot and cold shivers and pushing the younger man to arrive with him.

"Eds, you're amazing" Steve don't say anything stupid you've known each other for like an hour.

But that just made Eddie blush and kiss his neck

"You're breathtaking" the older man said and he squirmed at those words.

They cleaned themselves up and still blushing messes just kinda looked at each other awkwardly as if they didn't just make one another come in a public restroom at a show.

"You wanna come back to mine and watch some movie and order pizza?" to be honest it caught Steve off guard, he thought maybe a rockstar like Eddie would just get what he wanted and leave.

"I'd like that, yes" their fingers tangled with each other as they held hands. " I'd like that very much, Eds"

[moonchildreads]

small town

Chapter 9 - Adult Education

IN THIS CHAPTER: A collection of mugs, a Latin-English dictionary, and Dottie has an epiphany [3.8k]

WARNINGS: none! it's my birthday so you get fluff today lol

masterlist - prev - next | playlist

So you got a little education And a lot of dedication But you want a little night school

Thursday, May 1st - 1986

Dottie wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but when Eddie walked into the library no earlier than fifteen minutes late into their shared Thursday free period, the paper he proudly slammed onto the table in front of her hadn’t been on her “Eddie Munson’s Shit Excuses For Arriving Late” list. As it turns out, he had taken the initiative to seek out his teachers to request a complete list of every assignment he owed and even negotiate with them partial credit for delivering them before their respective final exams.

“So it’s only 50% for these two no matter what, but in Latin it’s 75% if I get more than a C+ in the final,” he was explaining, the two of them sitting at a table near the back where it was less crowded.

“Okay… okay, we can totally work with this. This is great, Eddie,” she smiled up at him and he could have sworn her eyes shone brighter than the sun. “Now we just need to make a schedule, see how many items we need to knock off every day before finals week.”

She ripped out a page from her notebook and drew a calendar, writing down “May” in bright red marker at the top and filling in the squares with her favorite black pen. Eddie noticed she was making space for Hellfire, his band activities (both practice days and their regular gig at The Hideout), and had even logged May 15th, his birthday, as a day off. She was writing down her deadlines too, the page turning into a combined schedule for both of them right in front of his eyes. Her gesture felt oddly domestic, like she was making space for him in every aspect of her life, building a routine that was not only hers or his, but theirs. It made his insides all warm and gooey.

“I think I got most of it down, but we can shift things around if we need to. If we can do double time this first week so we can have a lighter load by the third week, that’d be ideal. I was thinking we could do Wednesdays at Gareth’s with everyone else, and then days of the week at yours and weekends after lunch at mine.”

“You wanna come over to my place?” he looked at her like she had grown two heads overnight.

“...Is that an issue?”

“Yes? No! I mean…,” he scratched behind his ear. “Darling, I live in a trailer park.”

“You’ve mentioned that before, yes.”

“And you’re not… freaked out?”

“Am I supposed to be?”

It was like a narrowed eyes and furrowed brows competition had unofficially begun at their table. Eddie could not understand how she didn’t care about the fact that she’d have to go to his trailer every single day to essentially supervise him while he did his homework. He was terrified of what she’d say if she saw the state of his home, the ever present mess he and his Uncle lived in, the fact that his room consistently smelled like weed and their bathroom had moisture stains on the ceiling. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was, he knew there wasn’t anything wrong with his living arrangements, but there was a part of him that felt too vulnerable to show her the side everyone loved to laugh at since middle school: words filled with venom like “trailer park trash” and jabs at the absence of his parents still fresh in his mind. He was terrified of showing her the Eddie he was when his guard wasn’t up at all times. Terrified she wouldn’t like the complete version of himself, all raw and weak and endlessly flawed.

Dottie, on the other hand, was confused as to why he thought she’d have a problem with him living in a trailer. She knew he’d had the Hellfire boys over at various points; one time Donny asked if he had seen his lighter around, thinking he might have left it behind in Eddie’s kitchen. Eddie brought it to school for him the next day, complaining about how he had had to crawl behind the fridge to retrieve it. His unusual reaction couldn’t about his Uncle, not when he had mentioned several times that Wayne Munson worked graveyard shifts and Eddie had dinner alone almost every day because his Uncle ate “way too fucking early” for him to join the older man, choosing to postpone his last meal of the day until after the sun had gone down. She didn’t know what she’d done to make him believe that she had an issue with anything that he was; it hurt her to think that he was afraid of her in any sense of the word.

“I just don’t want you to get in trouble with your Dad,” he said, grasping at straws. “He’s probably not gonna like it when you tell him you’re coming over every single day.”

“I already told him I’d help you out until graduation and he’s more than okay with it,” she leaned closer to him, dropping her voice to a murmur so other students couldn’t hear her. “He’s not afraid of your little Satanic act, dumbass, he knows you’re a nerd.”

“Yeah, but,” he wrung his hands under the table. “This is Hawkins. People will talk, y’know.”

“Eddie, people have to be really blind to not have noticed that we hang out all the time by now. We have lunch together every day. You drive me home when it rains,” Dottie grabbed one of his hands, holding it between hers on her lap. “I don’t care about stupid rumors, and I promise you my Dad doesn’t either. You’re one of my best friends, he’s not gonna come kick your teeth in because we’re reading Shakespeare in your trailer.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, trying to hide the inner turmoil he was feeling at her words. “I fucking hate Shakespeare.”

“If you talk shit about my fave bard again, I’m gonna be the one to kick your teeth in,” Dottie let go of his hand and immediately wanted to grab it again. “Now pick a subject and get started.” From the corner of his eye, Eddie watched her work on a set of notes titled Safety and Sanitation Procedures and Guidelines. As much as he wanted to stare at her all day (and draw on her notes to remind her constantly that he’d been there), he tore his sight away from her face and focused really hard on getting through as many Latin worksheets as he could for the remainder of his free period, putting to good use the dictionary that she fished out for him while she was waiting for him to show up. Dottie had to keep herself from lovingly sighing every time she caught him writing down a new word he had found interesting in the notebook he used to jot down his ideas for his latest D&D campaigns. It was so quintessentially Eddie that she wondered for a brief moment if she was going to be able to survive being stuck like velcro to him until finals week. Only time will tell, she thought dramatically, letting the six major workplace accidents detailed in her open textbook distract her from the boy sitting next to her.

The rest of the day had gone about as normal as any other Thursday, except for the fact that instead of taking the bus home with Gareth (who kept complaining about the fact that he still had to take Drivers Ed classes for a few more weeks), Dottie was getting into Eddie’s van to go pick up snacks for their first proper study session. To say that she was nervous was quite frankly the understatement of the century, but as soon as she clicked the very frayed seat belt on and he punched an Iron Maiden tape into the deck, she felt herself relax into the seat. Nothing had to change just because they were going to study alone in his trailer instead of doing it in Gareth’s living room surrounded by their friends. They had been alone multiple times by now; whenever he drove her home after dropping Gareth off first, while they waited for Dustin to arrive for Hellfire, that one time they’d gone to the Palace Arcade on a Saturday afternoon before a movie night with the rest of their friends in Jeff’s basement. Everything is gonna be okay, she realized, as she watched him heavily ponder on what kind of chips he wanted to buy at the gas station. He settled on a big bag of nacho cheese Doritos.

Once snacks had been acquired, they made their way towards the Forest Hills trailer park in relative silence, Eddie drumming on the steering wheel as he drove. When he parked, the music cut off as he killed the engine and he looked at his front door in mild panic. Dottie made a move to grab her backpack from the floor, unbuckling the seat belt, but he launched himself across her to stop her from opening the van door.

“Uh, Ed-”

“I forgot to tell my Uncle you were coming,” he said, his eyes wide.

“Can you- shit, just wait here for a second, okay? Let me go in first.”

“God, Eddie,” she laughed. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Look, darling, I don’t think you wanna see dear Uncle Wayne with no shirt on. Or no pants.”

“Good call,” she patted his arm, still caging her to the seat. “I’ll wait here then.”

He nodded, eyes drifting to her hand on top of his jacket sleeve and hurried to pull back and go inside, haphazardly carrying the bag of snacks, his metal lunchbox and backpack, shutting the door behind him with his foot. Dottie giggled, waiting patiently for him to give her the signal to go in. He’s so cute, she thought to herself in the privacy of his van. That was allowed, right? To think that one’s friends were cute, or nice, or pretty…

A few minutes later, Eddie emerged from the trailer, waving at her with a grin on his face. She jumped off her seat, careful to not slam the van door on her way out, and hiked her brown corduroy backpack up her shoulders. Ever the gentleman, Eddie offered a hand to help her climb the steps and bowed when she walked past him, making her roll her eyes at his antics. Soon enough, she was inside his trailer for the first time in her life, curiously looking around while he nervously watched her take in the sights.

“Sorry it’s such a mess, I wasn’t really expecting anyone to come over today,” he scratched the back of his neck.

“I’ve been in Jeff’s basement, this is more than okay,” Dottie reassured him, trying to make him feel less nervous. “I like the mugs!”

“Thanks, those are mine,” Wayne Munson came out of the bathroom, looking very unbothered by the fact that his nephew had yelled at him to get some jeans on before she saw him in his ratty boxers.

“Oh, hi! It’s lovely to finally meet you, Mr. Munson,” she smiled at the older man walking down the hall towards them. “I’m Dorothy.”

“You can call me Wayne, kid, I know who you are” the man laughed, stepping into the living area with a twinkle in his eyes. “Eddie talks about you all the time.”

“He does?” Dottie asked, feeling self conscious all of the sudden.

“Only good things, I promise,” Eddie said, hoping that he didn’t sound like a fucking lovestricken idiot. “Uh, Dot’s gonna be around a lot this month, so…”

“I’m helping Eddie with his homework so we can all graduate together. Hellfire Class of ‘86,” she explained. “I hope that’s not a bother, we can go to the library if you’d prefer.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m never here anyways. Just glad to see Eddie has good friends.”

“Well, he’s a good friend to us too,” she said, looking at the boy who was now bright red standing next to her.

“We should- we should get started, right? So you can be home for dinner. D-d’you wanna go to my room? Or, uh, there’s a table outside too, I guess.”

“Do you have a desk in your room?”

“Yeah, but you really don’t wanna go in there,” he chuckled breathlessly. What’s happening to me?

“Okay, well, let’s sit outside before it gets colder then. We got snacks, Mr. Mun-” Dottie stopped herself and giggled when he raised his eyebrow. “Wayne. Sorry. We got snacks if you’d like some, Mr. Wayne.”

“That’s alright, kid, I had a late lunch. Thanks,” he said, his eyes twinkling with mirth at the nickname.

Wayne walked over to the couch where he had been sitting before Eddie had disturbed his peace and sat back down with his coffee mug in hand, focusing on the small TV in front of him. Wordlessly, Eddie began grabbing snacks out of the gas station bag and shoving them into Dottie’s hands, hurrying her towards the exit. Having a very amusing conversation solely with their eyes, she could hardly contain her chuckles once he started pushing her with his hands on the small of her back, his Uncle pretending not to notice that his nephew was looking like a lovesick puppy around this clean cut girl to preserve his dignity. He would have never guessed this turn of events having seen the kind of magazines Eddie had hidden underneath his bed throughout his adolescence.

Finally, they sat at a shaded picnic table and got to work. Dottie busied herself with her AP Spanish homework she had been neglecting for a week and was due the next day, and Eddie continued working steadily through the Latin worksheets he had started earlier in the library. She’d had the foresight to check out the dictionary for him and he was endlessly grateful because he would have actually bashed his head on the side of his trailer without it.

“I like your Uncle,” Dottie said, not looking up from her folder. “He seems nice.”

“He is,” Eddie marked an answer in his multiple choice sheet. “He’s kind of the only family I have left so…”

“I’m glad you have him,” she smiled. “And his cool mugs.”

“What’s it with you and my Uncle’s mugs?”

“I like people that collect weird things, I think it’s fun. And also mugs are the superior liquid container.”

“Mugs? Seriously?”

“Yeah. Everything tastes better in a mug.”

“Sure. Fuck glasses,” he teased.

“Fuck glasses,” she concluded, grabbing a highlighter from her pencil case.

They worked in companionable silence, Eddie only disturbing the quiet to read out loud random words he found in the dictionary and thought were funny. He cataloged her reactions to them; some words made a little chuckle escape from her lips, for others she’d just roll her eyes at him. His favorite, by far, was when he got her to snort loudly as he explained that vagina meant “sheath” in Latin. (“You wish,” she’d said, and he had had to hide his growing blush in the pages of his notebook.) The sun was setting later and later these days, so when Wayne popped his head out of the door and asked them if they wanted to join him for dinner, it came as a complete surprise that they had been doing homework for almost three full hours without taking any breaks.

“I’d love to stay, but I should get home before it gets dark or my Dad will worry,” Dottie said, smiling at the older man. “Maybe some other time?”

“Sure, door’s always open for ya,” he smiled back. He had been listening to their conversations on and off all afternoon through an open window and was pleased to know that she could hold her own against her nephew when he became restless.

“I’ll hold you to that then,” she turned to Eddie when his Uncle disappeared inside the trailer again. “Let’s check off what we did today and you’re free until tomorrow after Hellfire, okay?”

“Y’know, I was thinking…”

“Uh-oh,” she said while crossing out items from their shared To-Do List. “That’s not good.”

“Would you let me finish, woman?” he said, faking his anger. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to get pizza before we hit the books tomorrow. My treat. I’m always really hungry after Hellfire and you know I can’t think for shit when I’m hungry.”

“Pizza sounds great,” she zipped up her backpack. “Though I’m not sure we’ll get a lot done with everyone around but we can catch up over the weekend.”

“What d’you mean “everyone”?” Eddie was confused.

“Hellfire. Hellfire is everyone. Or did you mean just us seniors?”

“I meant us. As in only me and you.”

“Oh.”

Dottie looked at him for a beat, trying to gauge how serious he was from his expression. He looked sincere, perhaps even a little bit shy about having to clarify what he had meant. Friends totally went out together for pizza, right? It was completely normal behavior for two buddies to get food before a study session, wasn’t it? He’s not asking you out, girl, calm down, her brain supplied in order to get her thoughts in line before she embarrassed herself. Wasting a few more seconds by gathering her things and getting up from the bench, she schooled her expression into a calm smile and tilted her head nonchalantly.

“Well, the guys are not gonna like us ditching them, but I’m never gonna say no to pizza.”

“Great!” he pushed himself up and guided her to his van to take her home. “I’ll get started on those Biology flashcards tomorrow after getting some cheese in me, I promise.”

James knew something was different the moment Dottie sat down at the table after her shower, hair wet and fluffy pink pajamas on. She looked deep in thought, like she was struggling with internalizing a new concept, not even glancing at her father sitting across from her while she piled mashed potatoes on their plates. The radio was playing in the background, some Bryan Adams song she had never bothered learning the name of filling the room and providing a much needed distraction from the anxious butterflies flying around in her stomach. He waited patiently until she was halfway done with her plate before trying to bring his daughter back to the Land of the Talking.

“You okay there, honey?”

“Huh?” she looked up at him, eyes bleary. “Yeah… yeah, jus’ tired.”

“Too much studying?” James asked, trying to sound casual.

“A bit. Met Eddie’s uncle today.”

“Was he nice?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, pushing a meatball around her plate with her fork. “He invited me over for dinner sometime. He collects mugs. And hats.”

“Hats?”

“Like baseball caps. I like him. He’s quirky.”

“Seems like it. You’re gonna go over there tomorrow too?”

“Yeah. Actually, I…,” she readjusted herself in her seat. “Is it okay if I come home late tomorrow? We have Hellfire after school, and Eddie wants to get pizza before going back to his house so we’re probably gonna wrap up at, like, an ungodly hour.”

“How late are we talking about here?”

“Dunno, but you don’t have to pick me up. Eddie can bring me home when we’re done.”

“You’re still doing weekends here, right?” James got up and started clearing the table, Dottie following him into the kitchen.

“That’s the plan, yes. Weekdays at his, weekends here, Wednesdays at Gareth’s.”

“Okay. Just… make smart choices.”

“Jeez, Dad,” she closed the fridge door with her foot. “We’re just studying, it’s not like we’re… planning a heist or something.”

“Look, honey, I trust you, okay? But I’m the father of a teenage daughter whose entire friend group is teenage boys. And I was a teenage boy once too. I know what’s going on in their gross little minds, and it’s definitely not studying.”

“Ew! Don’t say that about my friends!”

Dottie leaned on the counter watching her dad rinse the dishes, the radio now playing Lionel Ritchie’s Say You, Say Me. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand what he meant, but she honestly, hand on her heart, didn’t think he had anything to worry about. It was normal that he was concerned, and they both knew he would never forbid his daughter from seeing her friends even if they were all boys and she was the only girl in their tight-knit group, but there was a small part of Dottie’s brain that felt strange knowing that he didn’t fully trust the intentions of the people that made Hawkins bearable for her. She feared that eventually the rumor mill would become too loud, and her dear dad would fall prey to the same kind of judgy attitudes that seemed to plague the small town when it came to her friends. About Eddie in particular, who had done nothing wrong to deserve such hatred from strangers except carry the Munson name.

“Dad?” she gnawed on her lower lip, nervously.

“Mhm?”

“I know that you’re thinking “boys will be boys” and all that, but… They are all good people. Eddie is good people. You know that, right?”

“I know,” he sighed, turning off the water and looking at her. “But I’m still gonna worry. He’s older than you, bit of a rebel, in a band. Has a bunch of tattoos and smokes. He’s every dad’s worst nightmare.”

“You do remember that two of his best friends are 15 year olds, right? He’s a harmless nerd.”

“Why do you think I still let you go to his house unsupervised?” he joked, going back to the dishes. “Just make good choices and we won’t have to talk about your boyfriend again, m’kay?”

“Oh my god, you’re the worst,” Dottie shook her head as she left the kitchen, leaving him alone while he cackled to himself at his daughter’s discomfort. It occurred to her, once she was comfortable in her own bed about to turn her lights off, a copy of her and Eddie’s shared schedule pinned to her corkboard above her college acceptance letter, that she had never corrected her dad when he called him her boyfriend or even denied having a crush on him. Oh, he’s never gonna let me live that one down, she thought to herself. She clicked her bedside lamp off and turned around so she wouldn’t see her desk, fully intending on denying the accusations to anyone who asked, even to herself if she needed to, when her eyes found her new Hellfire shirt draped on the seat under the window with the rest of the clothes she had laid out to wear the next day. Fuck. I have a crush on Eddie Munson, was her last thought before she drifted off into a peaceful slumber, nacho cheese Doritos, puns with Latin words and the smell of Camel cigarettes mixed with cheap woodsy cologne making their way into her dreams.

taglist (ask box is open if you want me to add you!): @munsonology

[peas093zzz]

Letters to the Lover Unknown...

A story of two poets (Zola & Jermaine) who meet through a poets pen pal program . They are matched up and write poems to one another, they eventually get to know each other through letters and decide to write a poetry book together about love since most of their poems are about the trials of their love lives. They eventually meet and fall in love.

Zola

Set the Mood:

“New Apartment-Ari Lennox”

“Starting Now-Brandy”

“Self Care-Savannah Christine”

The big move...

I have spent most of my life in San Myshuno, being a true city girl at my core. I’ll miss the hustle bustle of the city but I need a change of pace. Windenburg was really 3rd on my list of places to move but Newcrest was still devoloping and San Sequoia was too family oriented for me. I still wanted to experience a good night life while also having the option to live in suburbia quietness. It’s also not too far of a drive, 4hrs was not too bad and a 1hr flight was something I could stomach.

My older brother Sailen (Say-Len) was helping me with the drive and moving into my new place. I got lucky with the place I found. When I was scouting one weekend. I happened to look in the classifieds and saw a 1/1 available with some stipulations. I later called and spoke with an older widow named Peggy, she said the rent would be lower if I did grocery shopping for her weekly and came by to help with her garden. She lived in Henford-O-Bradley which was a 20min drive from my new home. She seemed sweet and like she could use some company. I love my elders. Hearing their stories from youth until present day is my favorite pastime. They have so much wisdom and beautiful life lessons. It also gave me something to do while exploring and hopefully meeting new people.

S:“Ayeee man turn this lovey dovey shit off! Put on something else, bout to fall asleep at the wheel”

Z:“Nobody wants to listen to Rod wave crybaby ass!”

S:“N**ga I’m driving so I get the Aux anyway!”

Rolls eyes and switches the playlist, he so aggy man.

S:“30 more mins and you’ll be starting your new life! how you feeling bug?!”

Z:*Sigh* “I’m excited but a little nervous. My head is all over the place to be honest. Everything is secured but I’m just worried about making friends. I have not even met my new co workers yet! Idk I know I’m overthinking it but I just want to this to be a good decision ya know?

S:“Do you ever really know if something is good or not? Tbh it could be a bad one or it could be the best decision of your life, the only way to know is to try. To experience it. You don’t want to get old and regret not going for it and any where you go you’ll meet someone who'll like your weird ass lol.”

Z:“Shut up! I really can’t stand you sometimes but you’re right”

S:“And don’t worry about friends I’m going out tonight I’ll bring you back some “friends”

Z:“You better not bring no strange hussies to my new apartment lol”

My brother and I could not be more different but he truly is my bestie. I was sad to be leaving him and the family back at home. But I wasn’t happy and they knew it too. My brother was my number one supporter for this move, probably because it gives him an excuse to come to party and have a place to crash at afterwards. He is quite the explorer but cool with never leaving home fr. He’s kinda a mommas boy lol and my mother and I ehhh.

S: "We here bug!"

We finally arrived to my new place, I could not wait to fill this place with furniture but mostly new memories and fun times. Time to blast Ari Lennox “new apartment”

[teen--marvel]

just a side note before we get started; joe's hair went through it's own character development during this season, hahaaa.

okay, let's get into it while i'm still jamming to stummer's playlist. spoiler alert;

I take the photo from him and notice the brighter image that has been zoomed in more on the definite tall figure that mom actually described very well. Making a noise I whisper in my terrified awe “Holy shit” I flick my eyes to Nancy and lift the photo slightly “And this is what you saw in the woods yesterday?” She adjusts in her seat and nods, pointing towards it “Yes it’s exactly what I saw.” “It’s what mom saw too, right? How she described it, yeah?”

still wasn't right what johnny boy did BUT he did get the evidence summer was talking about

~

“So you like– like her like her don’t you?” I ask 

unpopular opinion that no one asked for so don't come for me ; i don't understand why they didn't just keep her single when the show started when she ended up having feelings for jonanthan not long after we see their first interaction.....

~

 “Well I happen to know she doesn’t view him as her boyfriend.”

point made.

~

I park the car in front of the house and make a face at the other car in the driveway “Who’s car is that?”

half expecting it to be steve at this point, tbh, but it could be hopper in a civilian car

~

When we walk inside my feet freeze halfway through the doorway, Jonathan crashing into my back with my sudden halt “What the hell Sum–” he stops when he notices what I do, the rest of my name a shocked whisper “–mer.” Mom is sitting on the couch– she, however, is not alone.

am i correct on my theory?

~

Lonnie is sitting next to her

not this asswipe

~

“Mom, what’s going on?” Jonathan asks, quickly followed by me asking “Why is he here?”

yes sir and ma'am! ask all the questions!

~

“You both really going to ask questions like I’m not in the room?” he half laughs,

yes. yes they are.

~

“What happened here?” “Don’t worry about that” Lonnie says and I continue to ignore him as I look only at her “Mom… that thing you saw last night, did it come back?” “Summer,” Lonnie warns, shaking his head quickly “That’s enough.” “Again, why are you even here?” 

excuse me, lawn, but... ya'know what? he's not worth it, lol.

~

Once we’re in his room, Jonathan shuts his door and immediately tells our unwanted guest “You need to leave.”

YASSSSS, JONATHAN!!!!!!

~

I scoff and cross my arms over my chest, leaning towards him ever so slightly as I let him know “Yeah, well, you being here, you’re just making things worse, like always.”

~

“Or whatever the hell you want to call it, Summer!” he shakes his head at me “But you do that and you’re gonna push her right over the edge. You hear me?”

boy, don't you dare started yelling at summer!!!! i will come through this computer/phone screen!!!

~

Jonathan knocks on my doorframe, pushing the door further open when I say to come in. “Hey” he says when I look at him in the mirror. I turn around and face him, smiling sadly with my own “Hey” back. He lifts up his tie and, looking down a little with his hesitation “Do you, uh– do you remember how to…?” “Yup, come here” I answer, waving for him to walk over and he wastes no time. He stops in front of me and lifts up his collar, laying the tie around his neck before lifting his chin up a little and out of my way.

i love everything about this interaction!

~

“I knew there’d be a Summer breeze today” Dustin says and I smile at him with my soft reply “Looking sharp, Dustpan.”

if you get rid of their nicknames, ma'am, i will fucking riot!

~

Lonnie doesn’t waste a second before standing up and shaking everyone’s hands, thanking everyone for coming and that we’ll see them at the rec center for the wake that’s been put together for us.

he's a fake ass bitch.

~

I roll my eyes and turn my back towards them, jerking my head back when I’m pretty sure I see who I think I see off across the roadway from me.

is it this little nugget right here?

~

I cross my arms over my chest and make my way over, walking around a tree before I come face to face with none other than Steve.

oh... nevermind 😂

~

 “You trying to say you want to be my friend? We can’t be friends, Harrington.” “No– trust me, Byers, I know that… I just,"

are they my new favorite idiots or just favorite idiots 2.0?

~

“If you need to talk… I’m–” “Here” I finish for him when he trails off and he nods with my soft reply, slowly looking up and connecting his eyes with mine as he replies back just as softly “Yeah.”

i really love that fact that he's trying to be there for her and she's just "uh, no thanks"

~

I move my eyes between his, the silence stretching between us making me uneasy because I’m realizing it’s not awkward. 

~

“But I appreciate it.”

MY FUCKING HEART, ELLIE!!!

~

 “That’s all that matters.”

~

Hearing muffled shouting causes me to sit up on my bed, furrowing my brows as I try to get my bearings. I slide the headphones back to hang around my neck, recognizing that the muffled shouts are coming from the living room when mom yells “You were here for the money!”

such an asshole, lawn is, ugh..

~

I don’t even have time to process the hand hitting me across my face before the force knocks me to the side, the noise seeming to echo off the walls and in my ears at a ridiculous high volume. I stumble to the side and instinctively reach up to cradle my cheek, instantly pulling my hand back when the sting of my palm touching my swelling skin is like a punch to my gut.

i ride at dawn

~

Mom pulls me more into her side and yells back at him “Maybe I am a mess. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m out of my mind! But, God help me, I will never ever let you near my kids again,” she steps back with me, putting me farther away from him before she turns and grabs his bag from the recliner chair beside us, her eyes taking in the wall of lights and bringing her back to what he said earlier. She laughs once and points around “And I will keep these lights up until the day I die if I think there’s a chance that Will’s still out there! Now, get out!” she throws his duffle bag at him.

wrong season, but same energy, hahaa

~

“He–” Hop stops and the anger fills his eyes like it usually does whenever Lonnie gets brought up “That piece of shit hit her?”

thank freaking goodness they have hop <33

~

Hopper looks at mom, who shrugs at him and stammers out “It’s– it’s her decision” “Fine but if you change your mind–” he starts and I nod once “You’ll be the first person I call.”

he said protective!stepdad!hopper

~

“I went to the morgue last night, Joyce.” he states, looking right at her and she drops her hands “What?” Hop looks between us, his face taking an even more serious look while he declares “It wasn’t him.” “What– what do you mean?” I say and he looks from me and over towards mom “Will’s body, it was a fake.”

claps for hop!!

~

Hop looks between us, his eyes landing on mom as he says “You were right.” She leans forward, placing her hands on her knees and Hop scoots forward in the chair, making sure she hears every bit of his next words “This whole time, you were right.”

DAMN STRAIGHT THEY WERE RIGHT!

~~~

i love you.

i love this series.

that is all.

chapter 6 <33

King of My Heart Chapter 5 - The Flea and the Acrobat

Author: @stiles-o-dylan24​  Pairing: Steve x Summer Byers (eventually)  Word Count: 7.6k Warnings: canon violence and themes, physical abuse, language, character injury, mentions of funeral events, just overall grief and sadness  SERIES SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

|| << PREV ||  MASTERLIST  || NEXT >> ||

I’m on my third loop of the downtown square when I start heading back towards the funeral home– where the car is still parked from when Jonathan left me with it while he and Nancy went to the school to use the dark room and I went on my previous caffeine hunt. 

Keep reading

[moonmothmama]

[listen on spotify]

tracklist:

Rolling Down to Old Maui - David Coffin it’s a damn tough life full of toil and strife we whalermen undergo

Hornpipe Instrumental (Live) - The Lost Quays

Roll The Old Chariot Along - David Coffin oh a night on the town wouldn’t do us any harm

Bones in the Ocean - The Longest Johns as i live all the years that they left me behind

The bonny ship the Diamond - Ian Giles, John Spiers, John Bowden, Graham Metcalfe for the bonny ship the Diamond goes fishin’ for the whale

Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her - Stan Rogers for the voyage is done and the winds don’t blow

E Ipo - A Boy Named Sue no matter where you go i will follow close behind

Are You Sleeping? - Harry Nilsson when the morning comes i’ll be there by your side

Pack Up Your Sorrows - Mimi & Richard Fariña but if somehow your could pack up your sorrows, and give them all to me,

Drowsy Sleepy Maggie - Treebeard

Nantucket Sleighride (to Owen Coffin) - Mountain and i know you’re the last true love i’ll ever meet

Catch the Wind - Donovan to feel you all around me and to take your hand along the sand

Today - Jefferson Airplane i feel like pleasing you more than before

Pokarekare Ana - Te Huhu return to me, i could die of love for you

You’ve got a friend - Carole King and i’ll be there

Blood Red Roses - Storm Weather Shanty Choir for it’s time for us to roll and go

The Mermaid - VFSS Shanty Crew our gallant ship was lost, and the most of her merry men was drowned

Old Stormalong - Paul Clayton Stormy, he is dead and gone, weigh-hey-hey Mr. Stormalong

I’ll Go And ‘List For A Sailor - Morris On Band so now i’ll cross the ragin’ sea

The Whaleman’s Lament - A. L. Lloyd for the pleasures are but few, my boys, on them bitter whaling grounds

Here’s A Health To The Company - David Coffin, the Revels Chorus we’ll drink and be merry, all out of one glass

The Weary Whaling Grounds - A. L. Lloyd oh a man must be mad or want money bad to venture catchin’ whales

The Dark-Eyed Sailor - Steeleye Span for my dark-eyed sailor, so young and stout and bold

Tahi Nei Taru Kino - Ngati Poneke what is this within my chest that pinches so? is it love?

Off To Sea Once More - A. L. Lloyd get married lads and have all night in and go to sea no more

A Salty Dog - Procol Harum a twisted path, our tortured course, and no one left alive

Roll the Woodpile Down (Live) - The Lost Quays rollin’ the whole world ‘round

A Pillow Of Winds - Pink Floyd and i lie with my love by my side

[whoreforharlow]

Just to add to the discourse on Jack working with Chris Brown, and how that makes him look because he says he's a man who respects black women...

Both Ella Mai and H.E.R. are both black women featured on the album as well. On the list of who should not be collaborating with him, black women are at the top, black men second, and then white people. If black women are collabing with Chris Brown, after EVERYTHING he's done to us, my expectation that a white man would miss the opportunity to jump on the album is wayyyyy low. If a white man observes black women engaging and supporting Chris Brown, it's a solid assumption to believe that he wouldn't find any issues in it. Many believe "he's paid his dues" and have moved on from his negative behavior. Now, this is not at all an excuse, but it's more of an explanation. We can't hate the white man for not being in our corner, when black men and women can't even be in our corner. The most woke of them will only mimic our actions, and if we don't demonstrate the respect that we expect, they won't know what to do but copy what we do and how we view ourselves. If we pointing fingers, the black women on the album should be put on the hot seat before we ever look at the white man.

Also, this is an industry, and for him to pass up an opportunity to work with the biggest names would be a disservice to his career. Like for him to take what is quite literally personal moral stances against people who are problematic, he wouldn't get anywhere. Does he give up his dream of being a big shot legend? Because the reality is you can't reach the GOAT status that he's looking for, without playing the "game" set before him. Can we isolate and blame him solely, sure you can, but it's unfair to try one without trying all. He's unproblematic beyond calling himself an alpha, but who he associates with is questionable. Could he do better? Yes. Will doing better get him the results he wants? Not necessarily, or at least not in the way and in the time frame he's looking for.

I don't support the idea of overlooking wrong because everyone else is doing it, but tbh this mentality is SLIM in this world. Many will do wrong because EVERYONE else is doing it. Just as I said, it's not an excuse it's just an explanation. Would we all like for every misogynistic, colorist, homophobic artist to be canceled completely? Yes. But would that leave us with a very small percentage of the current mainstream media socialites? Also yes lol. Now realistically, we would have to really sit with ourselves and think about who do we listen to? Who are on our playlists? Even if they themselves are unproblematic, have they associated themselves with problematic people? Then by the logic we're using with Jack, literally all of our "faves" gotta go.

As for Anitta... to be completely honest, beyond her just being annoying lol, I didn't know anything about her. It wasn't until I saw people saying she was a racist that I knew she was, well, racist. From what I could see on Tumblr, A LOT of blogs didn't know, and found out from the Grapevine on here too. So with that being said, what can we assume that Jack knows about her? What do his black friends know about her to warn him about her? When I Google it, I saw stuff about 2013 and 2017... they met like this year lol. Again, not an excuse, but an explanation. From what I can tell, Jack doesn't spend time on social media to be reading up on the Anitta racism threads that span back almost a decade ago. Realistically, I doubt that he and his friends are researching the folks they hang out beyond their discography. Should he have someone on his team doing that shit for him?? 10000% because honestly being friends with Anitta isn't really something necessary for his image, if anything, bringing it down. I definitely think he's needs a black woman on his PR team, because as literally the most ostracized demo, we SEE everything lmao, can't get shit passed us without alarms going tf off.

Baby Boy is honestly on the denser side of the pound cake, and that's okay, I don't expect too much from a white man from Kentucky. But it's just that, I don't expect much. He's just trying to climb the ranks, play the game, and the only reason we're mad is because he's "supposed" to be the one good one... when in reality black men should be that for us black women. If we look for accountability, our own men should be held with more expectation and standard than a white man. I just don't like that we've elevated him to such a standard that he, as a white man, does not necessarily have to hold up. Take that as you want, but I said what I said. "I love black women", "I support black women", "I admire black women" are not conclusive statements, it's not solely black women that he's into. We're not the end all be all for him, that would be a FETISH lol. If he dates a white woman, that doesn't negate or contradict ANY of those above statements, but yall have contorted this man into a box that feels good, and will take it as him just pandering and capitalizing on black women. And before I hear "well he just talked sooooo much about loving black women, he obviously was pandering" HE TALKED ABOUT BLACK WOMEN BECAUSE HE WAS ASKED ABOUT BLACK WOMEN!!! Every interview he gets a black women question and he's gotta answer it lol, yall want him to say "I love all women" to that question? Yall would throw a fit at that too lol do I think he's capitalizing on black women, absolutely, but is that any different than what black men who literally rap the most disgusting stuff about us do too? NEITHER are correct, but yall just mad at Jack because we're letting a white man do it to us and not just black men and we feel a way about it. Welp, don't support his or any one else's pandering... its that easy. Black women are not dumb, we know what we're doing with these white men. We eat up any amount of attention because our own men won't give it to us, it's hard out here, and I do it too so I'm not judging. But there is an accountability that we need to take on. It's not just Jack.

[studiojeon]

bitterness in goodbye | jjk

this is part of my troubled outsiders series. sadly, you can't read this as a stand alone (meaning: feel free to check the previous parts ♡)

| summary | - You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

warnings: none (?) i mean chaeryeong insults jungkook which is an atrocity in itself but-

contents: we diving into the angst my friends. jungkook is an innocent, kind hearted soul, i promise. oc's got the feels (out oct. 1) for jk. idol!jungkook × student!reader.

author's note: I EDITTED THIS FROM MY PHONE DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THAT IS? also, thank u for the amount of support i've been receiving lately, i appreciate everyone lots. feel free to ask away or suggest anything btw, i would love to write for any prompts you guys come up with. 💞💗💖💘💓💕

words: 1.57k

playlist: honey by halsey

Four weeks later, the receptionist of your apartment complex hands you over a cardboard box with the hoodie Jungkook and you had talked about that day on the Han River. Jungkook kept pestering you to please please please send him your address for confidential purposes, which you knew had to do with his determination to literally provide anything that catches your eye right away. You assumed it was a sensitive topic for the boy whether people had purposefully taken advantage of his money before, so you didn’t dare to say anything when the man asked you for your size literally two hours after he dropped you off, scared to either reject his solidare intentions or piss him off for bringing unwanted memories back. In  your defense, your personality type keeps oscillating between INFP and INFJ so it’s only natural that you take extra care to make sure those around you have as much peace of mind as possible in your presence. 

As pretty and comfortable the piece of soft clothing is, an important factor is missing, something that you can’t recreate buying two of the same size and color, and that is Jungkook's escence and how good it looks on him in comparison to anyone else in the world. Meaning, you didn’t like it as much as you thought initially would. And it absolutely did not have to do with the fact that your short stature made you look like a toddler who stole their dad’s jacket.

Still, in order to show Jungkook how much you appreciate his gift, you bring it to work the next day, and the rest of the days after that, with the excuse that with winter rolling around you needed something to keep you warm in the office. Jungkook doesn’t miss the opportunity to confirm your assumptions regarding your appearance whenever he barges into your office randomly throughout the week, arguing that ”you look so adorable” and doesn’t stop for two weeks more, until he gets used to seeing you wearing something you shared with him. Which doesn’t help ease your growing romantic feelings for him whatsoever.

Because yeah, you liked Jeon Jungkook, just like every human being with eyes and sexual desires, except, you didn’t just like him in a superficial way, and that’s where the problem with him resides. Though you are sure everyone has fallen in love with the endearing boy at some point - especially the excluded and invalidated women of society - you can’t help but place some blame on you for allowing yourself to be swooned so goddamn easily. Your mom had said to you at some point to be wary of the way some men would talk to you when you grew up, their intention usually being getting inside your pants, which has happened to you more times than you'd like to admit. And with the argument that she knew you better than anyone, she claimed you would comply right the second someone talked sweet to you; you despised the fact that was the case with Jungkook (and Jungkook only), although he had never shown any sexual innuendos. What your feelings could do to your relationship with Jungkook and your rather chill lifestyle scared you to death, shiver me timbers and all that shit, having romantic feelings for someone else is embarrassing, especially when your chance with them has been scratched out the second you laid eyes on them.

Jungkook sits on your couch, legs spread on your thighs as you two pretend to watch some series on netflix. “I don’t buy for a second the act you’re putting on right now.” he speaks randomly after staring at your deep-in-thought state for a few minutes and laughs when you snap at him for not letting you overthink in peace. “What’s going on?”

Truth is, you don’t fucking know. A few hours before he arrived at your place (you had to pick him up at the dorm and sneak the both of you through the subterranean parking lot, because god forbid someone saw Jungkook arriving at some chick’s dorm on a saturday afternoon) you swore you would be able to conceal whatever emotional turmoil you had going inside of you without compromising your regular behaviour around the man, but when push comes to shove, it’s impossible to keep yourself from wondering how far you could go before that special someone found out what was going on inside of your head.

Jungkook’s phone rings in his pocket with some annoying tone he had downloaded illegally from youtube the same day the company had handed over the device as a gift for him (you still were a little bitter over how they neglected the rest of the staff but you also knew it was kind of impossible for the human kind to just gift a-thousand-dollar-phones to almost five hundred people out of solidarity). “Hyung?” he picks up, still wary of your unusual behaviour, concerned eyes looking at you. “No, uh- i’m with Yugyeom right now.” and your heart shatters into a million pieces.

You have been suspecting for a while that Jungkook is being hesitant to introduce you to his social circle. Although, you’ve tried your best not to take it personal, it is getting harder to resist the urge to ask him what the fuck is up with that. The fact that Jungkook had to lie about the person he was hanging out with broke your ego; he could’ve just said he was with a friend, right? You suddenly feel like you’re fifteen again, when the guy you liked would love you in the dark but pretend he didn’t know you in the light. 

Holding your tears back, you gently push him off and make your way towards the bathroom in the most nonchalant way you could. This is your fault for falling for the nice popular guy in the first place, you remind the reflection staring back at you. Still, as bad as it hurt, there was no way you were going to cry over a stupid boy, let alone when he was literally sat on the next room. He can go fuck himself if he thinks he can just toss this behind as if nothing ever happened.

You text Chaeryeong instead.

“chaery bom bom: i swear to god i gonna throw hands the next time i see the bitch.

chaery bom bom: like who the hell does he think he is? fucking squidward looking asshole.

chaery bom bom: he ain’t even that cute bub, you’ll get over him. i know jinyoung wouldn’t treat you like this”

You sigh. Chaeryeong has been enamored with the idea of you and his former company colleague from GOT7 since the day she met the guy (which was somewhere around ten years ago), and although he was all that, you didn’t like his quiet and cold aura, it intimidated the fuck out of you (Jungkook was the entire opposite of that).

You spray on some perfume just to have an excuse as to why you randomly ran to the bathroom when Jungkook’s inquiring eyes stare as you sit back on the couch, which is exactly what he does. “You done with your call?” you ask, bitter.

Jungkook frowns, a bit taken aback by the sudden question but still unaware of the way his words had made you feel, not even sensing the hostile change in your mood. “Yes, it was one of our managers. He was wondering if I could come back to reshoot some...-thing.”

Okay, now you kind of understand as to why he lied in the first place and to say you feel guilty is an understatement. “I supposed he backed down once you mentioned you were hanging out with Yugyeom.” playfulness makes its appearance on your tone and Jungkook rolls his eyes at you, tongue poking on the inside of his slightly red cheeks.

“Sorry for that” he moves closer and cuddles your arm, like a sad guilty puppy. “It’s just- I don’t want them asking questions''.

You understand. He is a very reserved and private person after all. It took you a bit to crack him open yourself. Plus, you kind of share that trait with him, you’d hate it too if people were constantly on your nerves for the people you decide to hang out with. 

And that’s all it takes to forgive him. Not very cash money of you.

“You better not pull that shit again, though” you shift in his hold and he looks up at you. One look into your eyes and he knows what you mean. “I’ll kick you out.”

After nodding, Jungkook resumes his concentration on the series you picked out for him. Due to your short attention span, you are very picky about what you invest your time in, especifically with audiovisual pieces of media, so Jungkook trusts you whenever you recommend something on very rare occasions. As a matter of fact, Jungkook was busy attacking your kitchen counters for snacks (which you didn’t have) when you mentioned Money Heist. “Munch on some grapes instead” you suggested to soothe his disappointment.

You can’t help but feel a little sad when Jungkook doesn’t refrain from cuddling your arm after pleading to forgive him. You wish you could cuddle him instead, that he would lay his head on your chest as you play with his soft hair, but you recognize there are some things you just can’t have.

[bopbopstyles]

BEHIND THE BAR

RATING: R/smut (sex, heavy alcohol use, lots of cursing, heavy banter)

WORD COUNT: 17.3k (she long and you may need to read on desktop)

CATEGORIES: bartender!y/n, fratboy!harry

MASTERLIST | INSPO TAG | Y/N’S LINGERIE | TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE BITS OF BANTER | BLURB MASTERLIST | DRABBLE TAG

a/n: the long awaited bartender!y/n fic has ARRIVED! thank you to my fabulous anons who dreamt up bartender!y/n and made me fall so in love with her and fratboy!harry’s dynamic that i had to write her. she is tattooed, sassy, and full of spunk and i ADORE her. if you need more of her and harry, check out the inspo tag which has all the discourse. concepts for these two are ALWAYS open. s/o to @harrystylescherry, @stellarboystyles, @harrysclementines​, @havethetimeofyourstyles​ for beta reading and @bfharry​ for providing harry’s dad joke 😘

“Cheers, Birthday Princess,” you told him, and then you bumped your glass against his, before tipping it back. Harry slammed the glass down on the counter and shook his head as the alcohol coursed through his veins.

Then, he leaned forward on the bar, resting his elbows on the alcohol-covered surface. You tried to keep it clean, but there was no way to keep up with it all. “How about a birthday kiss, Madam Bartender?”

“In your dreams,” you answered, realizing what you had said only after the words left your mouth.

Harry smirked, a dimple poking out. “We’ve already talked about dreams, Y/N. You know you’re already in them, so no need to beg for it.”

or

Y/N is a bartender and Harry’s obsessed with her

pls reblog and share with your friends 💕

In hindsight, perhaps taking a job as a bartender at the campus bar as a freshman wasn’t your smartest idea. You had to spend most of your weekend nights behind the bar trying to hear orders from slurring frat boys ordering the cheapest beer on tap and got shit tips because apparently your classmates didn’t care about tipping their bartenders. But at the same time, it was a great way to always drink for free and make friends, both with the other bartenders and with students who frequented the bar, as well as the neighborhood regulars earlier in the evening.

The thing you loved most about it, though, was the power you held behind the bar. It was your space, space where you made the rules and could throw out any person who messed with you. Which, as a stunningly gorgeous 21-year-old girl serving alcohol at a popular bar, happened plenty. You and Mike, the bouncer who usually shared shifts with you, had a hand signal that you could give him whenever someone was causing problems, and he would happily come to the bar and throw out whatever obnoxious man was giving you trouble. You frequently considered that Mike actually enjoyed throwing people out of the bar.

It was a Saturday night, the busiest night of the week and nearing one AM. The bar was packed, bodies pushing past one another to get to the bar, girls drumming their fingers on the fake wood counter. Tendrils of your long black hair stuck to the back of your neck, the result of constantly being on the move from the moment the rush hit until the bar closed. A cropped black tank top stuck to your skin, the sliver of skin between the hem of the shirt and the top of your black skinny jeans not enough to keep your body cool. Your ponytail swung back and forth as you moved, winding around Matt, the other bartender tonight, with ease. The two of you usually shared shifts, both being students and having the same availability. Generally, he was a good guy, taking the drunk guys so you didn’t have to deal with them and always making sure people didn’t give you trouble. The one downside to Matt, though, was his frat brothers. They appeared every shift without fail, bringing with them chaos and an inordinate amount of drink orders. They loved to annoy you, asking you the contents of every fancy drink they could think of and asking about your love life.

Tonight, it seemed, was no different.

You noticed the minute they entered the bar, a collection of t-shirts, a couple of jerseys you despised, and a button down shirt or two, all of them talking and yelling at each other. “Matt, your fan club is here!” You called down the bar, and Matt laughed as he grabbed the vodka off the wall to make a drink for two girls that were staring at him with wide eyes.

You grabbed two shot glasses and the handle of tequila from where you’d left it below the bar. “Salt and limes?” You asked the girls who had ordered the shots. They were most definitely not twenty-one, but then again, serving underage college students was how the bar made any business. The girls nodded, and so after you had poured the shots, you grabbed the salt shaker and two cut limes, pressing the limes into the rim of the glasses and pushing all the items across the bar. One of the girls handed you her card and you heard the words “Keep it open!” over Taste by Tyga and Offset that was blaring in the bar. It was your playlist, one that you’d perfectly curated for the bar with input from the other bartenders, and you were pretty proud of it.

After swiping the girl’s card and adding it to the stack of open tabs, you whirled back around to take the next customer. The sight of his brown curly mop and gleaming green eyes made you sigh—it was Harry. He, frankly, was a bit obsessed with you, but he was Matt’s little so you let it slide. Also, Harry’s attention didn’t make your skin crawl, instead it made your belly clench and witty comebacks fall easily from your mouth. The two of you had settled into a consistently flirtatious banter and you didn’t mind it, frankly. Sometimes, it was the highlight of your night.

The first time you ever met Harry, you noticed him long before he finally spoke to you. He was sitting at a booth not too long after your shift started, so it wasn’t super busy yet. He had caught your eye because he wouldn’t stop staring at you and he had a weird bandana wrapped up in his hair. (Or was it even a bandana? Maybe a scarf? You couldn’t be sure.) It wasn’t the creepy kind of stare that made you call the bouncer over, but the kind that made you blush against your every attempt not to. When Matt came in, a bit late as usual, Harry beelined to the bar, sitting down in front of him.

“Y/N, this is Harry,” Matt had said, grabbing the bottle of Jack from the wall and pouring some in a glass, then adding Coke to it before pushing the glass towards Harry. “He’s my little.”

You leaned onto the bar, the surface still dry since it wasn’t packed yet. “I was waiting for you to say hi. Saw you staring for the past fifteen minutes.”

The blush that rose to Harry’s cheeks made you smile at him, and Matt chuckled. “Staring isn’t nice, H.”

“Wasn’t staring,” Harry mumbled. “Just watching you make drinks.”

Your eyebrows lifted. “Have you never seen a bartender before?”

“No, fuck,” he said to himself and you internally grinned at making him a bit embarrassed. He was easy to mess with, especially now that you had confirmed that he had, in fact, been watching you. “You’re just good at it.”

You looked to Matt. “He thinks I make good drinks,” you informed your co-worker. “What do you think, Harry? Am I better than your big?”

Harry could tell he had dug himself into a hole, his eyes sweeping between you and Matt. “I—I don’t know—maybe?” Matt’s eyes widened and Harry stumbled over his words, trying to correct course. “No, no, Matt’s better. Matt is definitely better.”

You leaned forward a bit more, inching closer to Harry. “Thought you said I was good at it?”

You could feel his eyes drift to where your cleavage was exposed from the deep-v of your black t-shirt. “You are.”

“So which one of us is better?”

“You.”

Matt groaned and you moved away, a triumphant grin on your face. “Not fair,” Matt said. “Harry’s got a crush on you, of course he’d say you’re better!”

Harry choked on his drink and you raised your eyebrows at him. “A crush, huh?”

“Shit,” Matt said. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

You bumped your hip against his. “It’s ok, Matty boy. I figured that out when he wouldn’t stop staring at me.”

Harry blushed and you moved away, tending to the other customers at the bar.

That night had begun the back-and-forth between you and Harry, a playful dynamic of flirtation and jokes that usually left you triumphant and Harry blushing at the bar. He kept showing up early and Matt would tell you things like “Oh, he’s just coming by to drop off my charger” or “He just wants to chat.” All of them were excuses for Harry to be in the bar with just you, Matt, and a couple of customers, him having your relatively undivided attention. He’d tell you terrible jokes and ask you questions about your classes or family, most of which you ignored. You never asked him questions back, just let him talk and you listened, although you pretended like you didn’t, because you didn’t want to encourage him.

The truth was, though, you didn’t mind him. You kind of looked forward to those conversations. When he got really drunk he was a bit more annoying, repeating your name until you finally paid attention to him, only for him to say nothing except “You’re cute” or something along those lines. He entertained you, at least, and that was more than could be said for most of the patrons.

Tonight, it seemed, was no different than usual. “Y/N!” He said, shoving himself between two people who had managed to snag one of the green vinyl covered bar stools. His hair was messy, perhaps a bit sweaty, and he was swearing a black t-shirt, a silver chain tucked under his shirt. You could immediately tell he was decently drunk already, based on the glassy expression in his eyes and the grin on his face. “Want to hear a joke?”

You wiped off the bar with the towel over your shoulder before answering him. “Sure.”

“What did the therapist say when a naked man wrapped in cling film went into their office?”

“I don’t know,” you answered, resting your hands on the bar and looking at him dead on. “What did they say?”

Harry was grinning at you, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Clearly I can see your nuts.”

You groaned and Harry just guffawed. “Harry, that was horrible.”

“You just have no sense of humor.”

“Says the guy making jokes like that,” you shot back. “Now, what do you want?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet. “Five fireball shots.”

You had to take a second before replying because the thought of a fireball shot makes you want to vomit. The combination of the cinnamon flavor and the burn it sent down your throat was one you hated, but it seemed Harry enjoyed it. “Really, Harry? Fireball?”

“What? It’s good!”

You shook your head, but grabbed shot glasses, laying them out in a line on the bar. “You’re insane.” You turned, grabbed the bottle of Fireball, and then returned to him.

“Make it six,” he said, slashing you a smirk.

“If it’s for me I am not drinking it.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m plenty of fun,” you told him, cocking your hip. “And I have good taste in alcohol.”

“Y/N, please,” he begged, pouting slightly for you.

Sometimes he was such a child, you thought as you gave in, grabbing another shot glass. “Fine,” you told him. “But this is the only time.” He grinned at you, and you just poured the shots, drawing a line down the glasses with the alcohol.

He snagged one of the shot glasses and you took one at the end. “Cheers,” he said, lifting his shot, and you did the same, knocking the glasses together enough for a clink to ring out.

You tipped the shot back, letting the burn of the cinnamon whiskey fall down your throat. You swallowed, dropped the shot glass to the counter, and looked to Harry. He was grinning, his empty shot glass on the bar. “Satisfied?”

“Very.” Then he picked up the shots, holding them together in his two massive hands, his rings clinking against the glass. You watched him walk away, his shirt disappearing into the throng of people, and then your attention was caught by another patron, asking you for a Long Island iced tea that made you laugh once you had turned away from them.

The night passed with many empty bottles of vodka and gin, the drinks of choice for all the girls who came up to the bar, and you nearly ran out of Budweiser, since it was on tap and the cheapest beer. You were bopping your head along with your playlist, Piece Of Your Heart by MEDUZA ringing through the speakers. The electronic music was supposed to help keep your energy up, but it was three AM and you were beginning to tire, the whiskey and coke you made yourself doing little to keep you going.

People were starting to filter out of the bar, groups heading to get a late night snack or head home. You were thankful for it—if you could start cleaning before official close you would be happy, perhaps being able to get home sooner.

“Can I get another whiskey coke?” You turned and Harry was sitting in a barstool at the bar, right in front of you.

You nodded, grabbing a glass and the handle of whiskey. “Where’d all your friends go?”

“They left.” He drummed his fingers against the wood, the light of the bar catching on the silver of his rings. You were a bit fascinated by them, if you were being honest. Why he wore them, where they came from, what they meant. The same questions rang in your head in reference to the tattoos that littered his arms and peeked out from under his shirt.

“You didn’t go with?” You pushed his drink towards him and returned the jack to its spot on the wall.

He shook his head, taking a sip of the drink you made him. “I was going to wait for Matt.”

You raised your eyebrows and then nodded towards where Matt was leaning over the bar, talking to some girl whose drink had long since been emptied. “I think he’s already got someone waiting for him.”

Harry looked to where Matt was and then shrugged, before turning his gaze back to you. “Guess I’ll just hang out with you, then.”

“Oh really?” You took some empty glasses off the bar where people had left them and dropped them into the bucket under the bar to be taken back to get cleaned.

“You’re more interesting than him anyway.”

You laughed, grabbing an empty shot glass and putting it in the bucket. “And why is that?”

“You’re hot.” He didn’t even pause before he replied.

He licked across his bottom lip after he said it and you couldn’t help but watch the action. It wasn’t like you didn’t know Harry thought you were attractive—you did. It was just that he had never outright told you, or been quite this forward. Usually he was skating around the topic and now that he wasn’t you didn’t quite know what to say. So you said the first thing that popped into your head. “Have you been behind a bar?”

“Only at the house.”

“Your frat house does not count as a bar.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It is not a bar, Harry.”

“Fine. Then no, I haven’t.”

You took a step away from him and waved your hand at the space. “Would you like to?”

This time, it was him raising his eyebrows at you. “What am I going to be doing?”

“I’ll teach you to make drinks.”

“I know how to make drinks,” he scoffed.

“Jungle juice doesn’t count.”

He huffed and then pushed away from the bar, standing to his full height. “You’re being mean,” he stated, but walked to the end of the bar and came around the side anyways. “It feels so different from back here.”

You turned, one hand on the bar and the other on your hip. “What do you mean?”

“Dunno. Feel…powerful, I guess.”

You nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. “So, Mr. Bartender, what do you want to make first?”

Harry considered his options, looking around the bar and taking in the options in front of him. He looked a bit overwhelmed, if you were honest. You glanced around, checking on how busy it was, and you were thankful that it was pretty much empty, so no one would probably be bothering you and Harry. “I’ve always wanted to make an Old Fashioned.”

“Can do,” you answered, grabbing the proper glass from the shelf, and a bottle of your favorite bourbon, setting both on the counter in front of you. “Do you know what’s in one?” He shook his head, a slight blush on his cheeks, and you smiled to yourself. He could be so goddamned cute sometimes. “It’s whiskey, bitters, and a bit of sugar. Do you know how to muddle?” He shook his head again, and you nodded, grabbing the rest of the supplies you would need.

You spread it out in front of you, popping a sugar cube in the old fashioned glass. “So this is the bitters we’re going to use,” you informed him, passing him the bottle of Angostura bitters. “Put two dashes of that in the glass over the sugar.”

“What the fuck is a ‘dash’?”

“A bit,” you told him. “Just do it.”

He did as you asked, tapping bitters into the glass. “Is that enough?”

You nodded, and then grabbed the soda gun and pressed the button for water, adding a bit to the glass. Then, you passed him the muddler, which got very little use at this bar. In fact, you hadn’t made an Old Fashioned in ages—it wasn’t exactly the drink of choice for most college-aged people. “Now, you’re going to muddle this—like mix them together, crushing the sugar.”

“Why does mixology have the weirdest terms?” He said under his breath and you snorted. He did as you said, listening to your instructions, crushing the sugar and mixing it with the bitters in the glass, the sugar dissolving in the glass.

“Good. Now you add the ice.”

You pulled back the top of the cooler that held the ice, and Harry grinned as he picked up some  with the scooper and filled the glass with it. “Always wanted to do that.”

“And now you have.” You shut the top of the cooler and passed him the bourbon and a jigger. “An ounce and a half of bourbon,” you informed him.

He reached over and took the bottle and jigger, and his close proximity made you inhale. You could smell cologne, a bit of sweat from the party he was at earlier, and a trace of smoke as he moved. The scent had your spine straightening, your mind just as muddled as the contents of the glass. How did he smell so good? He was a college boy. Who gave him the right to be so goddamned attractive and smell this delicious? His long hair, the length not quite reaching his shoulders but close, swung slightly in your face as he pulled away, the tips of his curls brushing against your cheek. He was so close that if he turned his head, your lips would meet.

You tried not to think about that.

But he lingered close to you as he poured the bourbon in the jigger, your sides nearly touching, just half a step away from one another. If the music hadn’t been playing, you probably would’ve been able to hear him breathe and he could’ve heard your breath hitch when his bicep flexed as he held the bourbon. Your eyes trailed over the tattoos on his arms, dancing over the ship and the rose at his elbow, all the way down to the anchor at his wrist.

“Now you’re the one watching me.”

Your eyes snapped up to his, where he was looking at you, smirking. “Pour the shot in, Harry.”

He looked back to the jigger he was holding, and tipped it into the glass, the amber liquid dropping through the glass. You handed him the stirrer and he twirled it in the glass, before setting it back down on the bar. The sound of his rings hitting the glass sounded in your ears as he grasped the drink, bringing it to his lips.

His eyes were on yours as he tipped it back slightly, letting the alcohol pass between his lips. You tried not to focus on his Adam’s apple bobbing as he sipped. When he lowered the glass, his tongue darted out, wetting his bottom lip, and it made you tug your own into your mouth softly. Then you asked, “How is it?”

With his gaze trained on your mouth, he answered, “Delicious.”

“Y/N!” Your head bounced up to see Mike darting his head inside. “Time for close.”

You looked up at the clock on the wall and realized he was right—more time had passed than you realized. “Shit—yeah, sorry Mike. Matt,” you called down the bar to your co-worker who was very caught up in his flirtation. “Will you kick all of these people out for me?”

“Even me?” Harry asked and you roll your eyes at him.

“You can stay,” you told him and he gave you a smile, taking another sip of his drink. “As long as you help me clean up.”

While Matt kicked the remaining stragglers out, making sure the ones that are too drunk get in an Uber, you and Harry cleaned up. He helped you flip chairs on top of tables and pick up the glasses littered across surfaces, even in the bathroom. You filled the bin with the glasses and took them into the kitchen, filling the industrial dishwasher to the brim. He even took a rag and wiped down the tables, singing along to the Tame Impala you’d turned on and finishing off his Old Fashioned. You put the bitters away and the remnants of the drink he had made, and toss some lime rinds into the trash, wiping off the last bit of the bar.

“I’m going to head out,” Matt called to you from the door. He’s got his arm wrapped around the girl’s shoulders, a wide smile on both of their faces. “You good, H?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to walk Y/N home.”

This was news to you. “I drove,” you replied.

“Then can I snag a ride?” He asked, and you shrugged. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Also, the idea of making him walk didn’t sound like a good idea, even though the frat house wasn’t too far from the bar.

“Sure.” You grabbed your purse and leather jacket from where you’d stashed them under the bar, and pulled them on. “C’mon, let’s go.”

You waved goodbye to Mike, who was left to lock up, and walked around back to where your car was parked. It was a must have for you, not wanting to walk home at four in the morning after a long night of working. Plus, you never drank much while you worked—all you had had was that disgusting Fireball shot earlier in the night and a whiskey coke throughout the evening. Harry followed behind you, his hands in his pockets as he walked, the faint light from the street lamp illuminating the sidewalk leading to the parking lot.

“It’s dark,” he said when you turned into the lot.

You unlocked your car and turned to look at him. “It’s four AM. Of course it’s dark.”

He moved towards the car, pulling open the passenger side door. “No, I just mean that it’s dark for you to be walking to your car alone.”

“Oh.” You tossed your purse into the backseat and slid into the driver’s side, flipping on the ignition. “Matt or Mike walk me to my car most nights.”

His long legs ended up a bit cramped in the passenger seat of your car and it made the corner of your mouth turn up. “Good,” is all he said before pulling on the seatbelt and clicking it. You reversed out of the spot, your phone automatically connecting to the Bluetooth as you flipped on your turn signal. “That’s the wrong way.”

You turned and looked at him. “Don’t you live at the house?”

He shook his head though. “No, I’ve got an apartment with some brothers on the West side of campus. Take a left here.”

You absorb this information and switch the turn signal. “Why don’t you live there? I thought most people did.”

“I like the privacy, I guess. When you live with all your brothers, they tend to know every bit of your business.” He was looking out the front windshield and you did the same, eyes on the dark streets in front of you. Being this close to him in the car had your body temperature spiking a bit, although you wouldn’t have admitted that to anyone. Harry was just the boy who flirted with you every chance he got and was Matt’s little. He was just someone to entertain you on slow nights or when you were stressed. Right?

“Take a left at the light,” he said, breaking you out of your trance. You flicked on your turn signal and eased into the turn lane, swinging your car onto a side street. “I’m having a birthday party next weekend at the house if you want to come,” he suddenly said.

Your eyes bounced to Harry, who wasn’t looking at you, his palms resting on his knees. You could sense the tension in his body—was he nervous? Did you make him nervous? “Is it your 21st?”

He quirked a smile at that. “How’d you know?”

“Well, you’re a junior. I just assumed.” Matt also might’ve mentioned it once or twice, but you didn’t tell Harry that.

A blush crept across his cheeks. “I—uh—it’s on Saturday at nine. We’re hitting the bars after, but the thing at the house is just going to be brothers and drinks and some music. Pretty low-key, I think.”

“I’ve got work,” you told him. “But I’ll try and stop by before my shift. I’m not supposed to be there until ten.”

He nodded quickly and you tried not to think about the fact that Matt was never going to let you live this down. What were you even doing, saying yes to Harry? You weren’t even interested in him. He was just a boy to flirt with, someone who told you bad jokes and ordered Fireball shots. “It’s right up here,” he said, pointing to a house off to the right.

You slowed the car in front of a one-story bungalow, a couple of cars in the driveway and lawn chairs on the front lawn. “You live in a house?”

“Somehow it was actually cheaper,” he explained, unbuckling his seatbelt. “Plus, kind of nice not having people complaining about the noise.”

The area was definitely still on campus, but you didn’t know anyone who lived over here. “Are your neighbors all students too?”

He nodded. “Some other brothers have a place a couple houses down, there’s a house of Pi Phis over there. But yeah, it’s all students. On game days it’s a fucking mess.”

You put the car in park, and turned off the ignition. “I can imagine.” Harry didn’t make any moves to get out of the car, just sitting there staring at the dashboard of your old Toyota, his hands fidgeting on his thighs. “Harry?”

“Fuck,” he exhaled, catching his bottom lip in his teeth. “I...” Then he glanced over at you, and under the dim streetlamp you could see the expression in his eyes. It’s one you knew well. It’s the look he gave you when you wore your favorite lace bodysuit that was conservative enough to wear out, or when you gave him just as flirtatious of a comeback as the one he served you.

Then, all of a sudden he was moving towards you, his hand curving around the back of your neck and pulling you towards him. It was awkward, the seatbelt holding back your shoulder, but it didn’t stop you from leaning towards him, meeting him halfway. His lips tasted like bourbon and bitters, a trace of Fireball when you nibbled on his bottom lip that was just tucked between his teeth. He was sweet with an edge of fire, and when he tilted his chin slightly to change the angle, rotating his head just enough to kiss you deeper, you knew you were fucked.

For so long, you had been trying to keep him at a distance. Just let him exist as a flirtation, nothing more than that. You’d ignored the thoughts that blazed through your mind when you were drunk with your friends and saw him at a party, his lips on some girl, and you wondered what they would taste like on yours. Now that he was kissing you and you knew what they tasted like, there was no way you would be able to forget.

Especially the way his fingers threaded through your hair, his rings cool against your warm scalp. How he tugged on your lip with his teeth and you let out a soft whine, pulling him closer by the neck of his shirt. The fact that it was nearing four thirty in the morning and you were in your car making out, your seatbelt still on, didn’t seem to matter. The exhaustion that had been all-consuming earlier was gone, your body rushing with adrenaline from the feeling of his mouth tucked against yours, his hands on your skin and the way his lips searched for yours when you pulled away for air.

“I should go home,” you said, breathing heavily as you moved back into your seat.

Harry was looking at you intensely, his lips slick from your saliva, his cheeks flushed from kissing you. His hands still lingered on your neck and hip, and you weren’t ready for him to let go. However, you needed sleep, otherwise the rest of the day was not going to be pretty. You had a paper due on Tuesday you had to write and if that didn’t happen this afternoon after you slept you were fucked. “Yeah,” he finally answered, pulling away. “It’s late.” He shuffled in the seat, turning to push open the door. “Get home safe, okay?”

You nodded, and with one lingering look at you, Harry slid out of the car and shut the door behind him. Under the dim lights you watched him walk to his front door, pulling open the screen door and unlocking it. Once he was inside, you finally turned back on your car and put it in drive, peeling away from the curb without a glance back.

On Tuesday, you were knee-deep in edits for your paper when your phone screen lit up with a text. Despite the fact that you told yourself you would be ignoring any notifications that flashed across your screen, you were intrigued by this message because it was from a number you didn’t recognize. So you leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden chair you were sitting in (chosen to make sure you stayed awake) and grabbed your phone.

The sight of the message made you choke on air.

Hey, Y/N, this is Harry. Matt gave me your number, I hope that’s ok?

That was it. The whole message. What the fuck were you supposed to do with that? “Fuck,” you muttered to yourself, because now you couldn’t ignore it. You had your read receipts on, something you turned on one time when you were breaking up with an ex and wanted him to know that you were ignoring his messages on purpose, and never turned off. So now Harry knew you had read his message.

So you typed back, hey! what’s up?

The typing dots appeared and you had the sudden urge to throw your phone halfway across the room as you waited for his reply. But you didn’t, because Harry’s text popped through before you could take any actions to make it seem as though you weren’t staring at your phone waiting for his text.

Just wanted to say thanks for the ride home on Saturday. Then, in a separate message, Also, the invite for my birthday party still stands, but no pressure.

You nibbled on the edge of your thumb nail, your other thumb poised over the screen as you considered what to reply. You decided on coy. i'll see how it goes :) you wrote out, and then thumbs up reacted to his thank you text.

Looking forward to it is what he replied with, and that felt like the end of the conversation, so you locked your phone, turned it on Do Not Disturb, and tried to re-focus on the paper open on your computer screen.

It took everything in your body not to check your phone a couple more times, just to see if he’d kept the conversation going. You had no idea what to say to him—he was the one who texted you in the first place. It seemed like his job to keep the conversation going, not yours. So you let the conversation linger, not even saving his number in your phone.

When Saturday rolled around, you considered for a long time whether or not you were going to go to Harry’s birthday party. Matt had texted you too, combining the text with a notice that he wasn’t working that night and Lucy was covering his shift, which meant you were going to be doing all the heavy lifting. Lucy was a freshman, new to bartending, and most definitely was hired so she would be ready to replace you when you graduated next year. The fact that Matt texted you told you that Harry must really want you to come, even if it was just for a bit.

So you turned on your getting ready playlist and grabbed your favorite bodysuit—it was long sleeved and high necked with a mesh leopard print, meaning that when you wore your black bralette underneath it, it would show through. It was enough to get eyes on you (you could neither confirm nor deny if you specifically meant Harry’s eyes), but not too much that you felt completely exposed, thanks to the long sleeves. You grabbed your black jeans, even though in an ideal world you would’ve chosen your leather skirt instead, but the last thing you wanted was alcohol stuck to your legs all night or some asshole seeing up your skirt when you bent over for ice.

You kept your makeup simple, but in line with the outfit—a light smokey eye, eyeliner, and a tinge of a deep red to your lips. Rhea, your roommate, let you use her dry shampoo, so you sprayed it at your roots, giving your day-old hair some revival. With a pair of gold hoops and a pep talk, you were ready, your phone and wallet slipped into the pocket of your trusty leather jacket.

You had never been to a frat house when you couldn’t hear the music pounding from outside. But as you walked up the grassy front lawn to the KDR house, it seemed quiet—all the lights on, even. You rapped on the door twice, running your hand through your hair as you waited for the door to open. When it did, a guy was standing there who you were pretty sure you recognized from the bar—he was close with Matt and Harry, you thought.

“You’re the bartender, Y/N!” He said, pointing at you with his index finger, lifting it from the red solo cup he held in his hand.

“I am,” you replied. “Harry and Matt invited me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, and you tried not to read into that too much. “Come on in, I’m Caleb, Harry’s little.” And that, you realized, was why he was always hanging out with Harry and Matt. You followed Caleb down the hall, which had composite photos on the wall going back to the 70s and 80s. It was weird being inside the house with all the lights on, because you could actually see everything for the first time. You saw what was usually a coat room and discovered it was actually a study of sorts, bookshelves with textbooks and random course books lining the shelves and a couple of old leather chairs in the corner that you usually stashed your jacket on.

He turned into the long living room and kitchen, which was where most of the parties happened in their house, and you were met by a pong table and a collection of boys, many of whom you recognized from the bar. Your eyes scanned over the group, and you found that you were, unsurprisingly, one of four girls in attendance. The others were next to brothers, an arm slung around their shoulders. You found Matt and Harry easily in the crowd, Matt saying something to Harry with his palm pressed to Harry’s chest, his other hand gripping a can of Natty Light. How he could drink such watered down piss while being a bartender you didn’t know and you quickly decided you would be ragging on him for it the next time you worked together.

“Bartender girl!” One of the guys called out, and that made Harry and Matt’s heads immediately swivel towards where you were standing. The discomfort that had been lingering was suddenly there in full force. You hated being the center of attention, something most people never expected since you thrived at the bar. The key part of being a bartender, though, was you had the bar between you and the patrons. It was a safety net, something that gave you power and confidence. Without it, though, you felt naked in a situation like this.

The sight of a tiara on Harry’s head, though, immediately made you feel more at ease. The words Birthday Princess were printed on the tiara in bright pink writing, and the sight of it resting in Harry’s hair brought a smile to your face.

Matt immediately broke into a grin and widened his arms, which you rolled your eyes at. “Y/N! You made it!”

You walked over to him, having nothing else to do, but didn’t give him a hug. “Barely. I can’t stay long—I’m supposed to be there at 10 so Lucy doesn’t kill someone with her heavy handed pouring.”

He chuckled, and then gave Harry a clap on the back. “I’m going to go check on the beer. Have fun, H.”

It left you and Harry alone—or as alone as you could be in a crowded room. Your eyes roamed his body, the black silky shirt drawing in your eyes, white stitching that spelled out his last name on the chest, the way it was unbuttoned low. It was the first time you’d been able to see his tattoos—the edges of what seemed to be wings on his collarbones that you wanted to see the rest of, and a silver chain with a cross hanging on it lying on his chest. You could feel his eyes on you too, and steeled yourself under his gaze, trying to remain confident as you stood in front of him.

“Nice tiara,” you said, breaking the silence.

He blushed, reflexively reaching up to touch it. “I was hoping you didn’t notice.”

“It’s literally a bright pink tiara on your head, Harry, how could I not notice?”

“Matt and Caleb made me wear it. My other little, Tyler, bought it and insisted.”

“Can’t let the family down?” You said, the corners of his lips lifting.

“Guess not.” A silence fell between you again and you busied yourself by investigating the space you were in. The worn couches on the wall, a massive dining table with alcohol covering it, dishes in the sink and a stack of red solo cups on the counter. It seemed like exactly what you would expect from a fraternity house, even if there wasn’t a party going on. Finally, he cleared his throat and thickly asked you, “Want to play pong?”

You blinked, not expecting the question, but shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’ll drink any you don’t want to,” he said.

“Why? Think I’m not any good?”

“No—I just—you drove, right?” He was stumbling over his words and it made you give him a small smile. You decided to be a bit of a tease, and brushed your fingers over the stitches on his shirt, just to mess with his brain a bit.

“I did,” you answered. “But I don’t think I’ll be drinking too much.”

His eyes widened a tad and you watched as he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Let’s see your skills, then,” he finally said and you followed him over the table, where they were setting up for another round. He set down his cup on the side of the table and you fiddled with the cups, making the lines straighter. “Ready?” He asked you, his body shifting closer to yours. There was just a hair of space between your hips and you sucked in a breath before nodding.

You hadn’t thought this through, you quickly realized, because pong meant that there was barely any space between the two of you, and he kept brushing against your back and arm as he moved around. When he passed you the ball his fingers touched yours and your eyes would flit to his, only to find his green irises looking right back. The scent of his cologne and the alcohol on his breath wrapped around you when he laughed close to your ear, the contact of his skin on yours when he gave you a high five and lightly gripped your hand for just a beat too long sent shivers down your spine. When he picked up a cup to drink from it, you watched as his lips—the ones you had kissed exactly a week ago—wrapped around the rim and the beer slid down his throat. You were actively trying not to think about kissing down the column of his neck as you looked back to your cups on the other side of the table.

“Can I get gentlemen’s?” You asked and next to you, Harry nodded, agreeing with your decision to re-rack.  The guys playing you quickly reshuffled your cups and you dropped the beer-covered ball into a cup of water to your right. When you picked up the ball and rolled it between your fingers, you decided to tease Harry a bit more, because it was your favorite pastime. You offered the ball to him, clasped between your thumb and forefinger, and looked him dead in the eyes. “Blow on it for good luck?”

His eyes widened, but then a cocky grin drifted across his cheeks. He leaned in and blew softly on the white pong ball, his pupils dark and focused on yours. Then, at a volume only you could hear, he whispered, “Sure you don’t want me to blow something else?”

Rather than give him the satisfaction of knowing he had your pulse stuttering, you licked your lips and replied with, “Let’s see if you’re so cocky when I’m on my knees.” You turned back to the cups and with ease, you threw the ball as it sank into a cup. You peeked a glance up at Harry, only to find him already staring at you, blinking in rapid succession. “Your turn, Styles.” You grabbed the other ball and pressed it to the stitching on his chest and his lips quirked up, snatching the ball from your grasp.

“Kiss for good luck?” Your eyebrows lifted at his words and he was smiling at you, a cocky gaze fixed on you.

“In your dreams,” you answered with an eye roll.

“Oh, baby, you’re already in them,” he whispered as he tossed the ball. It hit the rim of your one remaining cup before falling in perfectly.

His words rang loudly in your ears as Harry raised his arms above his head in success, ignoring the words he just had said to you. You, however, couldn’t say the same. They were running through your head on a loop. He dreamt about you? You wanted to know more, wanted to know every bit of his dreams, what they looked like and what you did in them.

At the sound of your name you blinked, pushing yourself out of your daydreams. “Yeah?”

It was Harry, his palm resting on your lower back and burning the skin with his touch. “It’s almost ten.”

“Fuck,” you breathed out, pulling your phone from your jacket. “I—shit I have to go. Sorry.”

He shook his head. “S’fine. I’ll walk you to the door.”

You waved goodbye to your opponents and some of the other boys you had been introduced to. Harry’s hand left your body as you both walked, and you couldn’t help but be disappointed. “Happy Birthday, by the way,” you said as you turned into the hallway, the chatter of the boys over the music fading a bit.

Harry dug his hands into his pockets and smiled at you. “Thank you. And thanks for coming. It—it was nice, having you here.”

The softness in his tone was in direct conflict with the banter at the pong table, but you didn’t mind. You kind of liked that the two of you had this duality, the ability to go each direction. “I had fun.” You pulled your car keys out of your pocket and turned the knob on the door. “I’ll have a birthday Fireball shot waiting with your name on it, Birthday Princess.”

That made his smile turn into a grin, his dimples popping out as you stepped across the threshold and onto the front porch. “Looking forward to it, love.”

As you walked away, you tried not to let his term of endearment fill your every thought, but it was hard, especially when you looked back and he was standing in the doorway, watching you walk to your car. You exhaled and opened the driver’s side door, realizing that you had dug yourself into quite the mess with this boy.

You had been watching the door out of the corner of your eye all night, waiting for Harry and all of his friends to arrive. Lucy had noticed and pestered you about it, but you hadn’t given in. You didn’t feel like the entire bar staff knowing your personal business—Matt was plenty. You busied yourself by serving patrons, making an absurd number of vodka tonics (which you despised, but you had found freshman girls preferred them to gin, for some reason) and opening bottle after bottle of beer.

You were humming along to Broken Clocks by SZA when the door opened and your name was called over the bar, Matt’s voice booming in the space. “Y/N, I need a shot for the birthday boy!” Harry was standing next to him, Matt’s arm thrown over his shoulder, a grin on his face.

You turned and quickly queued In Da Club by 50 Cent, before grabbing the bottle of Fireball off the shelf. When you turned back to the bar, Harry was standing in front of you, the Birthday Princess tiara unfortunately absent. “Where’s your crown, Birthday Princess?” You asked, pouring the dark liquid into a shot glass for him.

“It’s a tiara, Y/N,” he corrected, snatching the shot. “And Caleb accidentally broke it.” You could tell by the twinkle in his eyes and the color in his cheeks that he was more than a few drinks in, no doubt doing shots with the rest of the party before hitting the bars.

“Good to know,” you answered, and just because he was so goddamned cute, you grabbed another shot glass and poured yourself a shot of Fireball.

“Takin’ a shot with me?”

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

Harry was about to say something when the music changed and he let out a cheer, Matt and Caleb and another boy, who you assumed was Tyler, pounded on the bar on either side of him. Then, they began to sing and you could help but guffaw.

“Go, go, go, go go, go, go, shawty/It's your birthday/We gon' party like it's yo birthday/We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday/And you know we don't give a fuck/It's not your birthday!” They sang, and you couldn’t help but join in at the end.

“Shots, shots, shots!” Matt cheered, and Harry lifted his shot glass, raising his eyebrow at you.

“Cheers, Birthday Princess,” you told him, and then you bumped your glass against his, before tipping it back. Harry slammed the glass down on the counter and shook his head as the alcohol coursed through his veins.

Then, he leaned forward on the bar, resting his elbows on the alcohol-covered surface. You tried to keep it clean, but there was no way to keep up with it all. “How about a birthday kiss, Madam Bartender?”

“In your dreams,” you answered, realizing what you had said only after the words left your mouth.

Harry smirked, a dimple poking out. “We’ve already talked about dreams, Y/N. You know you’re already in them, so no need to beg for it.”

You rolled your eyes at him and pushed lightly on his cheek, a pout settling onto his lips. “Shut up, Styles.”

“Meanie,” he said, moving back to rest normally against the bar. “You have to be nice to the birthday boy, didn’t you hear?”

“Not if he’s a prick,” you informed him, resting your hands on the lip of the bar and locking your elbows, leaning slightly forward. “Now, do you guys want anything else, or are you just going to annoy me all night?”

“Four whiskey cokes,” Matt told you. “And make ‘em strong.”

Throughout the night, their group achieved higher and higher levels of drunkenness. They started singing a Cheetah Girls song in their corner booth, much to your enjoyment, and Matt got on the table, something Mike only allowed because he was an employee, and made the entire bar sing Harry Birthday to Harry. When Mamma Mia came on, Tyler—who you were increasingly discovering was pure chaos in a body, perhaps even more chaotic than Harry and Matt combined—tried to start a conga line through the bar. Not only was he stopped by Mike, but also by the sheer number of people packed into the space.

Meanwhile, you were left behind the bar, fielding drink requests and racking up students’ credit cards with drinks they probably would forget ordering in the morning. You even had one Beer Baptism, an exciting element of the night, when some hockey player informed you he has drank every beer on tap, meaning he had achieved his Beer Baptism status. Harry and Matt lost their shit in the corner when you announced it and rang the bell over the bar, before grabbing two full pints of the hockey player’s requested beer of choice—Budweiser, for some fucking reason—and poured it over his head.

After three, the bar had started to empty out, but the four musketeers in the corner were still going strong. Harry kept coming up to you and asking for a shot of this or such and such drink, and even requested to make an Old Fashioned behind the bar again. You told him he was too drunk to make it right, but next time he could. Every time he came up he offered some sexual innuendo or bad joke, a lingering touch on your hand when you passed him his drink, or a wink that left u scowling at him. He even unbuttoned his shirt a few more buttons so by the time it was just him and his lineage in the corner, it was barely even on him. The whole idea of “No shoes, no shirt, no service” was quickly becoming a possible line you could use, especially when he kicked his feet up on the table and Caleb was trying to grab at his boots and pull them off, much to your amusement.

At 3:45, there were no patrons left except for the booth full of boys, so you had Lucy start cleaning up while you grabbed a beer—your first drink of the night other than the shot you did with Harry—and walked over to the boys. Harry was on the end, since he kept on coming and going from the booth, his knees spread wide and one arm slung over the back of the seat. At the sight of you approaching, he straightened up and set his drink down on the table.

“Hey,” he said, drawing out the Y as you slid in next to him, his arm falling easily around your shoulders.

“Hello,” you answered, nudging his knee with yours. “You’re man spreading all over my booth, Styles.”

Tyler snorted and Harry shifted, pulling his knees in closer together. “Didn’t know it was your booth.”

“I work here, you know.”

“I noticed,” he answered, tongue running over his lip as he looked at you. “I like this top you’ve got on.”

You sipped on your beer before replying, “It’s a bodysuit, actually.”

“So I’ve got a genuine question,” Matt said, leaning in towards you from across the table. “How do you pee with that on?”

“It’s got snaps on the crotch.” For some reason Tyler and Caleb blush at the word crotch and it makes you smile internally. “Can be a bitch to take on and off, though.”

“Huh.” Matt leaned his cheek on his palm. “I never fully understood the appeal.”

“Well,” you said, placing your beer on the table. “They tuck into pants and skirts so there’s smooth lines. But also it kind of feels like you’re wearing lingerie.”

That had all the boys blushing, including Harry, who said, “So that’s like lingerie to you?”

You glanced down at the lace long-sleeved bodysuit you wore and shrugged. “Guess so.”

“I always thought lingerie involved less material, not full on sleeves.”

You mulled this over, and decided to push his buttons a bit more. “So is a babydoll not considered lingerie to you?”

His eyebrows scrunched up and if you were being honest, the expression was positively adorable. You wondered if it was the face he gave when he couldn’t figure out a math problem or was looking at IKEA instructions. “The fuck’s a babydoll?”

“Other than a pet name?” You threw back and Harry quirked a smile. “It’s like a…sexy nightgown, I guess you could say.”

“Sexy nightgown.” Harry stated, mulling over the thought in his head, and you watched as he brushed a hand through his hair, considering the concept. “And that would have more material than what you’re wearing right now?”

You shrugged and took another sip of your beer. “Arguably.”

“Then yeah, I guess that’s still considered lingerie. A sexy nightgown, huh?” He blew out a breath of air and looked to the boys across the booth from you. “Damn, the girls I’ve been seeing have been holding out on me.”

The boys laughed, but you wanted Harry’s attention back on you. Maybe it was the close proximity of his body or the smell of his cologne that overwhelmed your senses, or the way you could see the butterfly tattoo on his abdomen and the low rise of his incredibly tight skinny jeans, but you wanted him. Badly.

So you reached down and placed a hand on his thigh, high enough to make his breath catch but not too high where you were actually touching him. Just close enough to make him consider the prospect. “You’ve been picking the wrong girls, then,” you said, the words low in your chest and Harry’s eyes were on you in an instant. Immediately there was movement on the other side of the booth, Tyler, Caleb and Matt sliding out one by one. “Leaving, boys?”

Matt nodded. “H?”

Harry’s eyes hadn’t left your face and the weight of his gaze had your heart pumping a mile a minute. “I think I’m going to stay.”

His fingers moved from the booth seat next to him to cover your hand that rested on his thigh, slowly inching it up his pant leg. “I’ll take him home,” you said, glancing back to Matt. “I’ll let you know when he’s home, okay?”

Matt gave Harry another look, and then nodded, obviously trusting you to take care of his friend. “Let me know if you need anything.” With that, he turned away, waving to Lucy and giving Mike a slap on the back on his way out.

Your attention turned back to Harry, who had somehow slid closer to you on the seat. “What was all that talk about lingerie, hmm?” He asked, the hand that rested next to your shoulder moving to rub the top of your arm, heat surging through your veins at his touch. “You always chew me out for sayin’ shit to you, and then you go and say that. In front of my friends, no less.”

You drummed your fingers on his inner thigh and caught the way he swallowed thickly at the feeling. “I wanted to see what you’d say, I guess.”

“And?”

“I now know you’ve never seen a babydoll. Or nearly enough lingerie.”

He sucked in a breath and then leaned his head down, his lips brushing against your earlobe. “Is that your way of asking me if I’d like to see your collection?”

Your heartbeat was thudding in your ears as he grazed your hair with his nose, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling. He had your insides moving in circles like they were on a merry-go-round, consumed in nothing but him. Slowly, you lifted your leg closest to his so it hooked over his knee, tugging yourself closer to him. “Perhaps.”

Under the low lights of the bar, the green of his eyes twinkled at you, your coyness making him grab at your knee, kneading his thumb into your skin over your jeans. “You told Matt you’d take me home.”

“I did.”

“What’s the likelihood we could change the destination on that ride home?”

Your hand moved from his thigh to his torso, skittering over his shirt and tucking against his exposed skin, his butterfly tattoo flexing under your touch. “I could be convinced. What did you have in mind?”

“Your place,” he said, hand squeezing your knee tightly when you scratched his skin softly. “Fuck, Y/N.”

“You’re drunk,” you told him simply.

With a combination of tenderness and need that had you desperate for him, he nudged your temple with his nose and said, “I won’t be in the morning.”

“Is that right?” The feeling of his breath in your ear made you grab at his side, pulling at his skin with your hand, wanting just to feel him in some way. You were sober and yet he had you feeling drunk, drunk on need and desire. “Then come on, Birthday Princess.”

The wood of your front door slammed against your back the second you shut the door behind you, Harry’s body pinning you to the door. His hands tugged on your hips and your hands were in his hair and the sounds falling from your mouth were positively sinful. The way he pulled on your bottom lip and sucked on it, making you press up into his body, hands tugging at his shirt, how his hands fell to your ass and squeezed, you squeaking into his mouth. How he lifted one of your legs and hooked it around his hips, allowing your centers to meet, and he shakily exhaled. It was consuming, kissing Harry, trying to keep track of what he was doing and then finally giving up and just losing yourself in him, in the way he touched you and made your entire body erupt in flames.

“Jump,” he said, pulling at your other thigh and you did so immediately, not even wasting a beat before hooking your ankles around his hips and letting him grind into you.

You let out a wanton moan at the feeling of the friction from your jeans meeting and rubbing into you, and from the way his breath caught, you knew he was just as affected as you were. His necklace swung on its chain as he pulled away and sucked a line of kisses down your neck, just as you had thought about doing to him earlier. When he prodded at your pulse point with his teeth and then licked over the spot you tugged on his hair, his name a broken whimper on your lips.

Hands met skin, both of you needing more and more. You pushed at his shirt, the predominantly unbuttoned garment falling easily from his shoulders and pooling at his elbows. The fresh skin served as an opportunity, and you took it, bending your head and licking across his collarbones, his head tipping back at the feeling. You sucked a mark onto the protruding bone, right over the wing of one of his swallows, and blew on it when you were done, Harry hissing above you.

From the way his fingers were digging into your jeans and you were panting in his hold, you knew that if you didn’t slow things down they were going to get out of hand—and quickly. So you lightly pushed at his shoulders, his gaze bouncing up to your eyes. “We should stop,” you mumbled, sucking in air finally. “Just—just sleep for now. Yeah?”

“‘m feeling more sober now,” he said, diving back into your neck, but you pulled on his hair, hauling him away.

“I had to literally help you walk to my car.”

He pouted at you. “That was a weak moment.”

But you shook your head at him, having none of it. “I want you at full capacity,” you told him, and his jaw dropped slightly, just enough to part his lips and you to press a finger into the space. His teeth tugged on your nail and finger pad, eyes on yours. “Want you fully sober so I can see what I’ve been waiting for.” Then you dropped your finger from his lips and ran it along his jawline, watching his eyes try to take in every one of your motions. “Plus, I want you to be able to remember my lingerie collection when I model it for you.”

When Harry groaned, it was deep and unrestrained, a demand from the most feral part of him. His head dropped to your chest and you pushed through his locks, his panting breath on your skin through your bodysuit. “I’m not gonna be able to sleep with that image running through my head.”

You rested your hands on his shoulders and pressed down on them so you could unhook your ankles and drop to the floor. “I think you’ll manage. Now, c’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

His fingers threaded through yours as you pulled him through your apartment, thankful Rhea was spending the night at her boyfriend’s so she wouldn’t be awoken from the giggles that left your mouth when Harry tripped over your shoes and the corner of your bookcase in the living room. You led him to your bedroom and left the door open, walking over to your dresser, kicking off your booties on your way. “Are you going to take this off?” His fingers graced over the top of your shoulder and you inhaled sharply.

“Yes.” You unhooked your hoop earrings and dropped them into your jewelry box. “Is that a problem?”

“Slightly,” he answered, fingers trailing down your arm. “I was hoping to do that myself.”

You turned around so he was facing you, eyes blown out in desire and cheeks flushed from the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed that night. “Then do it.”

His tongue darted out quickly, licking the center of his lips, and then he smiled at you, a boyish look of delight. “Is this my birthday gift?” Fingers brushed the top of your jeans and you nodded. “Goddamn, aren’t I lucky.” He popped the button and drew your zipper down, eyes fluttering to yours to make sure you were okay as he moved his hands to your hips, pushing the material down. “Holy fuck,” he suddenly breathed out and you glanced down.

The tattoo on your left hip had caught his attention, his palm resting just above where it started, his eyes trained on the ink on your skin. “What? You’ve got plenty of them.”

A chuckle left his mouth, and then he just shook his head. “You keep on surprising me.” His fingers crept down your skin, brushing against the chrysanthemums that covered from where your bodysuit sat on the rise of your hips to a bit down your thigh. “Does it mean anything?”

You nodded slowly. “It was my grandmother’s favorite flower.”

He must have noticed your word choice, because he quietly said, “I’m sorry,” before bending down and kissing over your tattoo. You inhaled sharply and watched as he tugged your jeans the rest of the way down your legs. Once you’d stepped out of them, he rose back to full height. “Can I take this thing off?” He asked, pulling softly on the hem of your bodysuit.

“Yes.”

“Snaps, hmm?” He ducked his head and you widened your legs enough for him to be able to tuck his hand between your legs. The pads of his fingers brushed over your clit and you couldn’t help the whimper that felt from your lips, the sound of it making Harry smile. “I can feel you.” He pressed lightly to your center through the two layers of material and you gripped the dresser you were leaning against.

You hadn’t been this wet, this in need of someone in such an all consuming way, in ages. Most people would have probably been embarrassed, but you just nodded, affirming his statement. Yes, you were wet, and yes it was all for him.

In a flourish, he gripped your bodysuit where the snaps laid and pulled, the sound of the fastenings coming undone cascading through your silent room. “Convenient,” he muttered to himself. Then, his hands pushed the mesh fabric up, revealing your black lace thong and the stretch of your bare stomach. “You know,” he said, squeezing at the curve of your torso, “I quite liked this thing. All that mesh. Could see your bra all night and it drove me fucking crazy just having to watch and not be able to touch you.”

When he pushed it above your breasts, revealing your lacy bralette, you lifted your arms and let him pull it over your head, the fabric falling to the ground. “Well, now you can,” you informed him.

The gaze he fixed you made your skin tingle. Without another beat, his hands were on your breasts, fingers brushing across your skin and then dipping into the material. With your breasts exposed, he whispered your name, forgotten on his tongue when he leaned in and fastened his lips to your nipple, the skin hardening immediately from the wetness on his tongue.

Curses left your mouth in a string, hands tugging on his hair as he prodded at your skin. He didn’t linger there though, seeming to be too focused on the greater task, because he lifted his head from your chest after a minute or so. And then his hands were at your back, unhooking your bralette and pulling it from your body, revealing your nearly fully naked body to him. His thumbs brushed over the solar system tattooed on your ribcage and you shuddered at the feeling.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he mumbled, eyes taking you in. “Good god.”

The heat that rushed to your cheeks you couldn’t stop, so instead you distracted yourself with teasing him. “Take your shirt off.” His eyebrows raised, but he followed your directions, unbuttoning the final button and pulling the material off of his shoulders. As he was about to drop it to the ground you stopped him, taking the fabric in your hands. He watched in fascination as you pulled it over your shoulders, buttoned the middle two buttons, and then looked up at him. The shirt covered most of your ass, the tops of your thighs and your tattoo exposed.

“Like my shirt, huh?”

You nodded, and then decided it was your turn to touch his skin. Your hands criss-crossed across his exposed chest, brushing across the marks you had left and down, tracing his nipples until they pebbled, and then down to the laurels on his pelvis, barely peeking out from the top of his jeans. Then, you popped the button on his jeans, and when he didn’t stop you, you pushed them down his legs, struggling a bit with how tight they were, but succeeding finally. He was left in nothing but his briefs, a lion tattoo on his thigh exposed to your eyes and some small ink on his knees you thought was cute. You wondered how drunk he was when he did it, but decided not to ask.

“What happened to getting ready for bed?” He asked, hands running up and down your arms.

“We’re dressed for bed, aren’t we?” You turned around though, and led him out of your room and down the hall to where the bathroom was. “Go ahead—I’m going to get us some water. Use anything you want, except my toothbrush. There’s spares under the sink.”

You left him to his own devices and made your way through your apartment, grabbing two glasses and filling them with water, tucking a bottle of ibuprofen under your arm. He would need it in the morning. After leaving them on your bedside table, you headed for the bathroom where the door was open, Harry brushing his teeth at the sink. You slid in next to him and he moved to the side, allowing you to grab your face wash and splash water on your face, swiping the liquid in circles over your skin. After your moisturizer and eye cream, you started brushing your teeth, trying not to focus on how Harry was just leaning against the wall watching you.

“You good over there?” You asked, spitting into the sink and rinsing off your toothbrush before dropping it into the jar on the sink that held them.

He nodded. “This is going to sound weird,” he said, “but I feel…comfortable with you. Like this kind of shit,” he gestured to the bathroom, “I’ve never done this.”

“Brushed your teeth?”

“No,” he grumbled, grabbing for your hips. “I don’t usually get ready for bed when I spend the night with girls.”

You tried not to read into that statement, to wonder if you were some normal hookup or something more. Instead, you leaned in and pecked his lips, before tugging him out of the bathroom and towards your room. “Water’s on the table,” you told him, shutting the door behind you as you stepped inside. “And some ibuprofen, if you want it.”

He walked over to the opposite side of the bed and gulped down the water, tossing some of the medicine on his tongue and finishing off the water. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” you answered, and then pulled back the covers on your bed. You settled in between the sheets, and watched as Harry slid in beside you, obviously trying to gauge what you wanted. Once he was comfortable, you shuffled towards him, and without thinking too much into it, you rested your head on his chest. He immediately brought his arm around your body, holding you close to him. “Night,” you mumbled.

“Night, Y/N.” His voice was gravelly from exhaustion and alcohol, and you shut your eyes, falling asleep to the rise and fall of his chest.

You blinked, eyelids heavy from exhaustion, as you woke up. Sunlight was streaming in your curtains, which despite being blackout curtains, could do little to hold back at the sun in the morning. As you gathered your senses, you realized that the other side of your bed was empty. Picking up your head, you took inventory of the room—Harry’s boots on the floor, your clothes haphazardly tossed in your laundry basket, your phone charging on your bedside table and a full water glass sitting there.

You had finished yours last night, if you remembered correctly. But you shrugged and grabbed the water, chugging it as you unplugged your phone and checked the time. It was noon, which was the normal time you woke up after a shift, meaning you’d had somewhere between seven and eight hours of sleep. You could’ve slept for hours, but what was more urgent than a couple more hours of sleep was where Harry had run off to. Slowly you pulled yourself up, Harry’s shirt still adorning your body, and walked out of your room and into the hallway, where the smell of coffee hit your nose immediately.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Harry said when you walked into the open plan kitchen and living room. He was sitting at the bar that divided the room in half, a cup of coffee in his hand and a bottle of Pedialyte on the counter next to him. “I’m glad you found the water. I was getting pretty close to waking you up.”

“Thanks for that,” you said, raising the glass to him. You meandered past him into the kitchen, where you grabbed a coffee cup—this one was from a National Park you’d visited the summer before with your family—and filled it with coffee. “How long have you been up?”

“Two hours,” he answered. “I have a hard time sleeping after a big night out.”

“Pedialyte?” You asked, nodding to the bottle on the counter.

He grimaced and set down his cup. “Yeah. I went out and got it while you were asleep.”

Sun was streaming in the white curtains in the living room, casting the whole apartment in a bright mid-day glow. Harry was in just his jeans, no shirt, and you couldn’t help but wonder what he had worn out. “Did you wear that out?”

He glanced down at himself. “Yeah. Stole one of your big sweatshirts, too.”

“Did you now?” You shifted away from the counter, rounding the counter so you stood in front of him. “Which one?”

Green eyes followed your hand as it landed on his knee, moving it away from the other one to create space. When you took a step forward, you could hear his breath hitch and gave him a coy smile, your free hand sliding up his thigh. “Your green one. Said Obsession on it, or something—it was the only one that fit me.”

You chuckled softly. “It’s my ex’s.”

He huffed. “S’mine, now.”

“Is it now?” You asked, setting your cup on the counter next to Harry’s. “Planning on taking over for him?”

“As an ex?”

You shook your head, hands drifting up his torso. “As the guy who gets to wear my clothes.” You tried not to think about what those words meant, what you were asking him, because your mind was too wrapped up in him to even be thinking about your intent.

“Happily.” His hands finally landed on your waist, ring-clad fingers pressing into the skin covered by his shirt. “You know, you look good in this.” Fingers slipped under the material of his shirt, the white Styles on the chest stretching over your breast as you breathed.

“It’s black,” you told him, trying to keep your breathing even. “Everyone would look in it.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, kneading your sides. “Dunno about that.”

Both your hands and Harry’s explored each other’s skin, taking inventory of every rise and fall, roll of skin, the places that made each other gasp just a bit. It felt good, being this intimate with someone just like this, nothing but one another’s hands. “Then what’s so special about me wearing it?”

Palms cupped your breasts, squeezing delicately, his full forearms tucked underneath the fabric of his shirt. “That you’re the one in it,” he murmured, voice dropping an octave. “You, wearing my shirt, my last name on your chest.” He blew out a breath and you tweaked one of his nipples in reply. “Fuck, Y/N, you’re a dream.”

“How about we move this to my bedroom,” you said, slipping your hands up to his shoulders. “And I finally show you my lingerie collection?” You didn’t have to ask him twice. He was standing, your hand in his, and pulling you in the direction of your room immediately, a giggle leaving your lips at the sudden movement. “Somebody’s eager.”

“You’ve been talking about this lingerie for like twelve hours, love,” he said, shutting your door behind you. “I fuckin’ dreamed about it.”

You pulled out of his grasp and he fell down to your bed, where the sheets were twisted from sleep. His messy long hair and shirtless torso drew in your gaze, the way he leaned against your pillows, watching you. “Did you now?” You turned to your dresser and pulled out your top drawer, where your lingerie lived. “Close your eyes,” you told him, peeking back at where he laid.

Once he followed your instructions, grumbling about missing out on half the show, you pulled out your first item—a dark blue babydoll, lace appliqué covering the skirt and a bow nestled between the molded cups, a matching g-string that you slid over your hips. You fluffed your hair, suddenly wishing you had had the forethought to wash your face before you took on this endeavor.

“Open,” you told Harry, and turned in his direction.

“Holy fuck,” he said in one breath, sitting up immediately, as if a jolt of electricity had ripped through his body. “Is this a babydoll?”

“Good memory,” you replied, leaning against your dresser. You didn’t know what to do with your body other than just stand there and let his eyes trail over you. “Thoughts?”

“How would you feel about never wearing clothes again?” He asked, gnawing at his lip. “Just that.”

You blushed, and picked at the hem of it. “I think I might get cold.”

“I’ll give you a jacket.”

“How kind.” You turned around and when he whined, you turned just your head to him. “There’s more sets to show you, you know. Close those eyes, mister.” He did as you asked and you pulled off the lingerie, lovingly folding it back into your dresser. Your fingers ran over the lace in front of you, trying to decide which one of your, admittedly many, sets you wanted to show him next. Finally, you settled on a pink lace set that was essentially see-through. You’d never worn it before—it was one of your newer purchases, one you’d chosen after a successful test grade.

You pulled up the panties and hooked the bra behind your back, sliding the straps up your arms until they settled comfortably on the dip of your shoulders. Then, you turned and at the sight of Harry sitting there, patiently waiting, you decided to reward him a bit. You walked towards him, and when you reached his form, you settled your hands on his shoulders. The touch made his eyes flutter open, and the second he saw your body his eyes widened. “Wow,” was all he could say as he studied the material covering your skin.

“What do you think?” The more his eyes lingered on you, the more you loved how you burned under his gaze.

He licked his lips and reached out, thumbing across the top of the lace thong you wore. “How is this one even better?”

You tilted your head to the side and pressed closer to him, his palms falling down your sides as you stepped between his knees. “You’re the first person to see this one.”

“Really?” He seemed like a kid in a candy store after being told he could buy whatever he wanted. “I’m honored.” You pulled away from his grasp and he groaned, snatching your hips back between his hands. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got more to show you,” you informed him, pulling his hands off of you. “Patience, Styles.”

“Baby,” he rasped, the pet name falling from his mouth with ease, and you wondered if you would ever forget how it sounded. “I don’t know if I can survive much more.”

Your eyes fell to his pants, where you could see his hard-on, the outline of his dick straining against the tight denim. “Somebody’s desperate.”

“Tease,” he shot back. “I’m serious, though. I’ll let you finish later.”

You considered his proposal, but ended up pulling away. “One more. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

He groaned, but nodded, shutting his eyes obediently as you moved away from him. At your dresser, you found the set you were looking for, a dark green set. The bra was a balconette cut, lace appliqué covering the cups and running up the straps. You pulled on the suspender belt that matched, the straps dangling down your legs as you put on the thong next. Then, you grabbed a pair of black stockings and clipped them to the bottom of the suspenders. You fluffed your hair a bit and then turned back around.

“Open,” you instructed and when Harry’s eyes opened the moan that left his mouth ran down your spine like fire.

“Fuck.” The word was all he could say, his jaw literally dropping at the sight of you standing there. “Come here.” You didn’t move, though, wanting to hear him beg for you. This set had your confidence soaring through the roof, the combination of the material on your skin and Harry’s gaze making you want to see what you could make him do for you. “Please,” he finally said, shifting towards you.

So you walked over to him, slowly, keeping your shoulders back so the bra strained across your chest. When you reached him you placed a hand on his bare chest, pressing him slightly back so he rested on his hands, eyes staring up at you as you rested a knee on either side of his thighs, sitting down on his lap. “Worth the wait?”

His hands immediately moved, settling on your hips, sliding over the green lace. “You’re going to kill me,” he rasped, words rough in his throat. The sight of his pupils blown out in desire, chest rising and falling under your palm as he took in your body in this set made you grasp the back of his neck and pull his lips towards yours.

The two of you met in a blaze of fire, need flowing between you as he tugged you closer, your center brushing over the denim of his jeans. When you whimpered he suckled on your lip and you pulled at the roots of his hair, needing to hear him groan into your mouth. You wanted to hear every one of his sounds, to take inventory of him and store it away for later when he wasn’t right there in front of you. Lips met and parted, slotting together with ease as you both surged towards one another, begging for more.

His hands were covering every inch of you, pulling and grabbing and scratching at your skin, somehow bringing you closer and closer to him. When you began to rock against his jeans he let out a hiss, pulling your hips down onto his even more. Then his head dipped, nudging up your chin as he found your neck, nibbling and biting at your skin before licking along his marks, leaving you a whining mess in his lap. You were cradling his head, not wanting it to end, just to make him continue and continue and continue.

Now that you had him, you realized how long you had been waiting for this, even if you pretended like you weren’t. You had wanted him since the first time he made a bad joke and told you you looked beautiful, when he responded with a quick remark, countering your sass with plenty of his own. He met you tit for tat, ebbing and flowing with you like waves on a beach.

Your fingers wound around his cross necklace and tugged, just enough to get his lips to leave your skin and look up at you. “Tryin’ to get my attention?” He teased, squeezing at your waist, tight enough that he would probably leave marks but you didn’t mind. In fact, you looked forward to inspecting each inch of your body and seeing what he had left behind.

“Your jeans,” you mumbled. “I want them off.”

He chuckled lightly. “Now who’s the desperate one?”

“Shut up,” you said and he just smiled at you, his dimples poking out.

“Go on, then.” He watched as you slid back on his thighs and popped the button on his jeans, before getting up so you could pull them all the way off. Once they were on the ground, you moved towards him, but he stopped you. “Lay down for me, love,” he said, eyes trailing down your body as you stood in front of him.

You didn’t bother with sass, just falling to the twisted sheets and looking at him as he crawled towards you. His fingers found the clips of your suspenders, and you nodded at him, giving him silent permission to begin to undress you. When he released the stockings and began to pull them down, he kissed every inch of your revealed skin, creating a line down your calf that had your breath coming out in pants. “Harry,” you said, the last syllable of his name trailing off as he did the same thing to your other leg.

“Yes?” He asked, eyes popping up to you. His hair was a mess from your hands and you loved it—the sight of him with wide eyes and puffy dark pink lips, color in his cheeks and marks on his chest from your nails. When you didn’t respond, unable to even create words as he slipped his hands up your body and tugged down the suspender belt that sat at your waist, he said, “You’re going to have to speak up if you’ve got something to say, baby.”

That pet name. It was going to be the death of you and you had no idea why. Maybe because of the emotions swirling in your chest as you looked down at him, the way you wanted to simultaneously lie in his arms for hours and jump his bones, but also just hold his hand and hear him talk to you. Perhaps it was the fact that no one had ever called you that like he did, with desire and passion laced in the word, a tenderness and an edge to it that made you weak in the knees. “I need you,” you finally uttered.

“Do you now,” he responded, leaning forward on his knees so he hovered over you. “Can you be more specific?” Impatient, you grabbed his hand and pressed his fingers to your center, where you had soaked through your thong long ago. A low groan fell from his chest at the feeling of your wetness, and he peeked up at you from where he was touching you. “You’re soaked through,” he said in awe, brushing against your center and making your back arch up. “Fuck, Y/N. Is this for me? Did I get you like this?”

“Yes,” you drawled, pushing down onto his finger. Your mind was spinning, eyes fluttering shut and just losing yourself in the feeling of finally having contact where you needed him most. “Please,” you begged finally, rocking against him with your hips, chasing more.

Harry moved without pause, pulling your underwear down your legs and running his finger between your folds. The feeling of his touch on your warm flesh had you squirming, his name mixed in with curses as he rubbed softly in a circle. “That feel good?” He asked and you could feel his eyes traveling over your body even though your eyes were squeezed shut from the feeling. When he brushed his index finger against your hole which was dripping for him, you gasped, hips jutting down against him so the tip of his finger brushed inside of you. “God, you’re so wet,” he mumbled, almost to himself.

Then, he dipped a finger inside of you and you cried out, desperate and needy for him, unable to contain the sounds falling your lips as he built up a momentum, curling his finger inside of you and hitting your sweet spot. “Another,” you said, eyes finally opening so you could see him.

And the sight didn’t disappoint. His eyes were on your center, watching his finger move in and out of you, and you could see the outline of his bulge in his briefs, a small wet spot where his tip was. The fact that he was leaking while fingering you somehow just added to your pleasure. He added a second finger and pressed them deep inside of you, the cool metal of his rings brushing against your entrance and making you buck up against his fingers. You were squirming on the bed, unable to stay still because he was building an orgasm inside of you like no one else ever had. You could feel your belly tightening and your high was rising, sweat beads forming at the back of your neck.

When he rubbed on your front wall you let out a helpless cry. He had found the spot that made you go insane and you could tell he was happy, a smile stretching across his face. “I’m close,” you panted.

“What do you need?” His words were low and they just made you want him more.

“Your mouth.” The words were broken, but he seemed to understand because he shifted immediately, falling to his stomach between your legs and pulling you towards him. He decided to go harder, because he slammed his fingers into you at a brutal pace and matched it by licking at your nub, sucking and pulling at the sensitive skin. His tongue was sin against your skin, circling your clit and making you cry out. You dug your fingers into his hair and tugged at the strands, his name tumbling from your lips in a beg and a whine and a prayer all in one.

It didn’t take long before you were coming, the feeling rushing up without you even realizing, your back arching and hips bucking against his fingers and mouth. He lapped at you through it, eyes open and watching your orgasm, the shudder that left your mouth and how you fell into the mattress when you came down. When he pulled his fingers from you, you hissed, and he just kissed your pelvic bone, before sitting back on his heels and dipping his fingers into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the digits that were covered in your juices.

“Get over here,” you demanded, hooking your foot around his hips and pulling him towards you.

He clamored over you, his lips finding yours once again, and you sighed into the kiss, pulling his mouth closer to you. You needed him like you had never needed anyone else, a feeling that took over your body and ran your mind. When his head dipped and he tugged on your earlobe you whined. “Can I have you,” he asked into your skin. “Please? I waited and I just…fuck, I can’t wait anymore.”

“Yes,” you told him, hands falling to his waist and pushing down his briefs. “Condoms are in my bedside table.”

His head bounced up at that and he reached over, wrenching open the drawer and searching blindly for a packet. When his fingers found one he moved back over you, the foil falling next to your head. Then, he pushed his briefs the rest of the way down his legs, letting the material fall to the floor with the rest of your clothes. Next was your bra, his hands moving to your back and deftly unhooking it, pulling the lace from your skin. “Beautiful,” he hummed, nestling his face between your breasts.

You chuckled, brushing his hair back. “I swear, boys and boobs,” you said.

“Hey,” he replied, picking up his head. “Don’t make me out to be some horny teenager.”

“Aren’t you?” You teased, picking up the condom between your fingers.

“No.” He took the packet and ripped it open with his teeth. “I’m twenty-one, baby.” Then, he rolled the condom down his length and you watched, absorbing his fully naked body for the first time. The cut of the muscles under his skin, the way his tattoos stretched across his torso, the full length of him that you decided you wanted in your mouth after.

He brushed his tip against your slit and you whined unabashedly, rocking towards him. “H,” you mumbled, “please.” That was all he needed, because without another pause he was pressing into you, bottoming out in one go. You let out an unrestrained moan, grappling at his shoulders as he sunk onto his elbows, his face hovering above yours. As he pulled out and pushed back in, a groan from his lips filling the space between you, you watched his face. The way his eyebrows pulled together and he bent his head, resting his forehead against your collarbone as he found his rhythm.

Once he did, it was heaven. His sweaty skin meeting yours as he drove into you at a brutal pace, but one that felt fucking incredible. Your ankles hooked around his hips and held him close inside of you, and you tugged on his necklace to pull his lips to yours, needing the softness of his tongue inside your mouth again. Your hands twisted in his hair, yanking on his strands when he pushed in particularly hard, and he groaned. He liked his hair being pulled, you discovered, and you decided to keep at it, threading your hands through his locks and pulling whenever he hit that spongy spot that made you see stars.

“Like that,” you rasped when he latched his lips to your neck, most definitely leaving a mark on your skin. “Yes, H, just like that. Fuck, you’re so deep.” Your words were a mess, just a stream of consciousness, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he slammed into you harder and pulled your leg higher, tugging it so that your foot rested over his shoulder and your hamstrings stretched. And when he pushed back in, you scrambled at his back, drawing harsh lines down his skin at the feeling of him reaching a new depth.

“Feel so good,” he mumbled, words broken as they spilled from his lips. “Y/N, god, so good.” His hands fisted in the sheets and you dug your nails into his shoulders when he swiveled his hips slightly, brushing every inch of you. When you squeezed him, his head tipped back, exposing his neck and you leaned up, ignoring the burn in your hamstring, and licked up his throat. He rasped your name as you pulled at the skin at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, making a mark of your own for him to enjoy later.

You fell back down and slipped your leg from its spot on his shoulder, and pulled him close to you, wanting to kiss him again. His lips seemed to be your new obsession, wanting nothing more than to be touching them constantly. He didn’t seem to have a problem with it, slotting your lips between his and kissing you fiercely as he pistoned in and out of you.

There were going to be bruises on your inner thighs, you were sure of it. You would be feeling the impact of his hips on your thighs for days, every time you sat down the muscles would ache and you would remember this—him moving in and out of you and panting in your ear, mumbling about how good you felt around him, how gorgeous you were, how much he loved fucking you. The prospect of feeling him for days was one you looked forward to.

When he gave a particularly deep thrust you moved up on the sheets, grabbing hold of his neck to hold yourself steady, and he moaned. You peeked down at him and as he moved back in, you asked, “Did you like that?”

“Yeah,” he replied, a broken confirmation. “Again, please.”

You’d never really done this before, so you decided to be careful with him, just a bit of pressure using your fingers. With four fingers on one side of his neck and your thumb on the other, halfway down his neck, you pressed down on his skin when he drove back into you and his eyes fluttered shut at the feeling. The heel of your palm rested on the hollow of his neck as your fingers squeezed on either side of his neck, watching in rapture as he fucked into you harder and leaned into your touch. Slowly, you loosened and then tightened your grip, changing it up to make sure he was getting enough air.

“Is that good?” You asked, trying to focus as he drove harshly into you, the sound of his hips slapping your skin filling the room. He bobbed his head and pressed into your palm, so you squeezed your fingers again, wanting to give him what he asked for.

“I’m close,” he said, voice husky.

“Me too,” you answered, kicking your heels higher around his waist and pressing up into him so he reached even deeper inside of you. You could feel that same high building inside of you, an intensity waiting on the brink as he pressed into you, your fingers pressing into his throat again and again.

Then he pulled away slightly, rising up so his arms were fully extended and you couldn’t quite choke him anymore, so your hand fell to his bicep, squeezing at his skin as he somehow moved both faster and deeper inside of you. His hands dug into the sheets and he drove in and out of you at a pace unmatched, your head falling back to the mattress. You were panting, eyes glued to the sight of his necklace swinging back and forth as he moved, the tension in his muscles and the sheen of sweat covering his skin. He was utterly, breathtakingly beautiful.

You couldn’t take it anymore, and reached down between you two, rubbing your fingers over your clit because you were just seconds from the edge and you needed it. Harry’s eyes took in the sight in awe, and his jaw dropped slightly, a curse ripping through his throat as you clenched around him and threw back your head, a deep moan falling through the air. You were squirming underneath him, Harry’s hands having to hold onto your torso to keep you steady as he thrusted into you, finishing himself off as you came, tightening around him. His name left your lips in a beg and he picked up your hand, bringing it back to his throat.  

With a tight squeeze, your fingers wrapped around his throat like before, he bucked into you once more and then was practically growling as he emptied himself into the condom, body shaking against you. You unwrapped your hand from his neck and ran your fingers through his hair, before pulling him down to your chest, wanting him close as he pulled out of you. “Holy shit,” he mumbled into your shoulder, and you laughed softly.

“You ever had someone choke you before?” You asked, brushing your fingers up and down his spine as he settled.

“No,” he said, his lips puckering against your throat, light kisses to your skin. “Kind of liked it, though.”

“Kind of?” You squeezed his butt cheek in jest, and he squeaked against you, making you fully laugh, body rumbling against him. “You literally picked up my hand and put it there.”

He tucked his face deeper into your neck and you could tell he was embarrassed. “Okay fine, I really liked it.”

You hummed and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I did too. It was my first time doing that.”

“Yeah?” He picked up his head and propped it up on his palm, looking at you. “Was it okay?”

Pushing back the hair from his forehead, you nodded. “I thought it was really hot.”

A smile quirked up on his lips. “You mean you think I’m really hot.”

You whacked his shoulder and he feigned pain, jaw dropping slightly. “Stop fishing for compliments.” He rolled his eyes at you, but moved off of your body, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling off the condom, tying the end and tossing it in the trash. Red marks covered his back from your nails and you ran your hand over them, watching as he shivered from the sensitivity. “If anyone sees your back they’re going to think you got fucking mauled by a bear.”

He turned his head and raised his eyebrow at you. “A bear, huh? I thought it was just this really hot girl.”

“Good to know you think I’m hot too.” He laughed and turned fully around, crawling back into bed with you.

The sheets were sweaty but you didn’t mind, you just wanted to be close to him. He laid down on his back and pulled you in, your leg draping over his and your breasts pushing up against his side. Your head rested on his shoulder and you let out a breath, relaxing into his hold.

After you’d been lying there for a few minutes, he cleared his throat and you looked up at him. “You know,” he said, “I don’t know if this was obvious, but I really like you.”

His ring-clad fingers trailed up your back, drawing circles against your skin. You considered his words, rolling them over in your head, and considered your own feelings. Where did you stand? You knew you liked him based on how you felt around him, this just constant desire to have his hands on you. The way you could joke around with him and the banter between you made you feel at ease, a kind of comfort with him that you hadn’t found with anyone else. He was gorgeous and kind and a bit of an idiot, but you found it endearing. You also, admittedly, loved how obsessed he was with you. “I like you too,” you replied, turning your head so you could fully look at him, your chin resting on his chest.

He looked down at you, sliding his forearm under his head. “Yeah?”

“Mhm,” you hummed, kissing the skin nearest to you. “Really like you, even.”

“Well thank god,” he said, pinching your skin slightly. “It would’ve been really awkward if you didn’t.”

“Why is that?”

He smiled at you. “I might’ve introduced myself as your boyfriend to your doorman.”

You rolled your eyes at him and pushed up, moving so you could hover over him fully, hands on either side of his head. “Does this mean I have to go to all of your formals and shit with you?”

“Obviously,” he replied, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. “And my drinks at 260 are going to be free.” You huffed at his request for you to make all his drinks at the bar you worked at to be free, but Harry was having none of it. “Come on, baby, I’ll come to every one of your shifts.”

“Fine,” you answered, sliding your knees up his sides so you could sit squarely over the laurels on his pelvis. “But you have to bring me a snack.”

“Oh,” he said, quirking up his lips in a smirk, “baby I’m a full meal.” You swatted at his chest and he laughed, grabbing your hand and pressing a kiss to your palm, before tugging you back into him. You fell into him with ease, unable to hold up any walls to him anymore. Somehow, he had busted through each one of them and you didn’t want to rebuild them. Having him wrapped up in your heart was perfectly fine with you, you thought to yourself when he kissed the top of your head and asked if you wanted pancakes.

Yeah, you decided, you could get used to this.

fill my inbox with your favorite moments, lines, things you’re having ~feels~ about, or other concepts you’re dreaming up for bartender!y/n!!!!

[wonjaekook]

Residual Starshine

Pairing:  Soccer player!Yuta x fem!reader

Description: You’ve experienced plenty of irritations in your life. For better or for worse, none of them are quite like Nakamoto Yuta.

Word Count: 19.3k

Genre: strangers-to-friends-to-lovers ; fluff, smut, touch of angst

Warnings: my first published full blown smut scene (only one towards the end, nothing crazy), sexual references?, swearing, mentions of alcohol

A/N: Mingyu appears as a somewhat bad character in this, but I absolutely don’t think of him that way. As always, this is entirely fictional. If you want one song to vibe to while reading this, I was listening to Everybody Talks by Neon Trees a lot :-) this is the longest fic I’ve ever written and the first one containing smut that I’ve ever published, so please let me know what you thought!

Taglist: @junglewoos​ @insomni-writing​ @neowritingsnet​

This is my contribution to @/leesmrk’s sports collab, but she deactivated (Dee I miss you) so @lucas-wongs​ has compiled the masterlist in her stead! The link to the master post with all other submissions is in my masterlist.

You didn’t expect to be spending your first morning before classes with your face smashed into your pillow, pressing the cotton over your ears. Yesterday morning had been perfectly lovely - you slept a solid eight hours and you only awoke to the beautiful morning sunshine greeting you through your blinds.  All things considered, it was a very natural wake-up. However, the loud J-rock blaring through the floor from the apartment below you is the exact opposite of natural. Perhaps the music isn’t as loud as you perceive it to be, but you happen to take things quite personally when you’re woken up an hour early.

Except, you don’t take it personally enough that you force your body out of bed. Instead, you allow yourself to let out a loud groan of annoyance before you pull your covers over your head. Thankfully, the music shuts off about five minutes later and you drift back off to sleep.

When you awaken again an hour later, the sunlight coming into your room doesn’t seem nearly as friendly as it did yesterday. Still, this time you do force yourself to get up. You go through your usual routine - bathroom, change into your running clothes, and stretch. You hear no sounds of any stirring from your roommates as you get ready. It’s somewhat of a relief to have the apartment to yourself in the morning. You put your headphones in and step out of the apartment, trying to get yourself in the zone with your workout playlist while also doing a quick look around to see if anyone is out. One set of stairs and you’re at the door leading out of the small complex - a building with four apartments, two on the first floor and two on the second floor. Outside on the step leading to the sidewalk and there’s still no one around. Without a second of hesitation more, you’re off at a light jog. Half of the apartments in this area of your campus are dedicated to student athletes and there’s nothing you dread more than running, quite literally, into someone who’s by far your superior at this activity and who would judge you. As you run, the thought of your lower neighbor comes to you. You wake up early to go run - but they woke up earlier. At that thought, a frown subconsciously makes its way to your face. Shooting a quick prayer to the heavens that you don’t run into anyone, you continue on.

Though you hadn’t started running until this summer, you know your campus well enough in the years you’ve been here to find a nice path. That also means that, when you see pairs of runners ahead of you, you can make unexpected turns to avoid passing them. At one point, you veer out of the way of a pack of people who you assume is the running club. About forty five minutes later, you’re sweaty and more physically exhausted than when you had left, but the energy thrumming in your veins leaves you with a deep sense of satisfaction. You had successfully avoided every person you had come across on your run and-

You nearly open the door of your complex into one of your neighbors. Acting on reflex, you step back and dip your head, avoiding looking at him. “Oh, sorry.”

“That’s alright.” His voice is a smooth rumble and you look up, briefly forgetting about your sweaty and near-unpresentable state. He looks freshly showered, his skin smooth and just slightly sunkissed. Based on his physique, you would have guessed that he’s a student athlete, but his hair seems a little too long to match the stereotype. It’s a bit of a mane, a dark mop sitting atop the throne of his handsome face, and you think it suits him. As your eyes drift from his hair to his eyes to his nose and finally to his mouth, which has been set into the crooked angle of a smirk, it dawns on you that you’re checking him out very openly. Your face, already warm from exercise, turns blazing hot. After all of the hard work you went through to avoid embarrassing yourself this morning… “You’re cute, too, don’t worry.”

Several very intrusive thoughts come to you at once. By his very specific phrasing, he thinks you’re attractive. He also knows he’s attractive. The warmth of the complement fades to indignation at his cockiness. You press your mouth into a thin line and lower your head again, not making eye contact with him as you slip past him through the door. You’re not sure if his gaze follows you as you march back up the stairs to your apartment.

“One of our neighbors is a total ass!”

One of your roommates, Sowon, is lounging on your sofa as you sit at the small table in your shared living room, grinding the pen in your hand into your planner in frustration. It’s well into the afternoon now, the sun casting lines of shadows through your blinds, and you’re still hung up on what happened earlier. Sowon is also perfectly aware that you’re exaggerating, but she encourages you to continue. “The soccer neighbors or the volleyball neighbors?”

“Of course it’s one of the soccer neighbors! The volleyball neighbors would never do this to me.” You huff, eying the nearly empty container of cookies on the table.

“You’re aware that Johnny just brought those over so he had an excuse to hit on Yein, right?” Sowon releases a strand of hair that she had just idly wrapped around a finger, watching it twirl in the air. Your second roommate only sighs at the mention of her name, but doesn’t deny it.

“And Doyoung was the one who actually made them. So, by association, I am entitled to an equal share of cookies.” You consider Doyoung a friend - you shared a chemistry class with him once and he seemed to tolerate your presence, even enjoy it at times. He even sends you the occasional text still. “That doesn’t mean Yein isn’t going to be the one to give the container back, though.”

Yein frowns and opens her mouth but Sowon raises a finger to stop her. “Y/N is correct.”

With a shake of her head, Yein turns her attention back to you. “You were talking about the soccer neighbor?”

After you explain the situation as truthfully and dramatically as possible to them, they look at each other once before looking back at you. Sowon speaks first. “He’s definitely flirting.”

“Or he’s just like that naturally.” Yein counters. “Who flirts at eight in the morning?”

“You’d be surprised.” After you say that, her words sink in. You ran into him at eight in the morning, when he was looking refreshed. He’s a member of the soccer team, meaning he probably exercises in the morning. He also has pretty stereotypical rocker hair. “Holy shit, he’s the asshole who was blasting J-rock through the floor this morning!”

“Okay, never mind. He is a jerk.” Sowon wrinkles her nose.

“Was it at least good J-rock?” Yein prods.

You shrug. “It was alright, I guess. But that’s besides the point!” You slam your planner closed. “I’m giving him a piece of my mind the next time I see him.”

For several days, as classes start, you still get in your morning run and, each day, without fail, you’re woken up by the boy’s J-rock about an hour early. You fail to catch him at any time of the day until, finally, you’re on your way out of the apartment one morning. As you pull open the door, you nearly ram into him once again, though the situation is reversed. He’s the one who’s sweaty and warm, headphones firmly in his ears. That changes as he smirks, popping them out at the sight of you in the door. “So, we meet again.”

“Uh-huh.” You take the position of a displeased mother about to lecture a child, your arms crossed over your chest as you block the door. “You know, I have words for you.”

“Wow, already? People usually don’t have words for me until at least the third time we’ve met. Well, at least not more than a few choice ones like-”

You cut him off before he can inflate his own ego more. “Stop playing music so loud at six in the morning.”

He tilts his head like he’s confused, but the way his lips are quirked up tells you that he knows exactly what you’re talking about. “Baseless accusations. Maybe you should take this up with Jaehyun or Kun. I would never do such a thing.”

“Come on. I know it’s you.” The look you give him is entirely unamused, so he relents slightly, the smile falling from his face.

“What are you gonna do, report me to housing?” Before you can reply that, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll do, he continues. “I’ll tell them about the parties you and your roommates have. I’m sure they’d love coming out here at 3 AM one day just to tell you to keep it down. Almost as much as they’d love to come to my door at 6 to do the same.”

He starts walking towards the door and you turn your body inward, allowing him passage while silently fuming. “You-”

“My name is Nakamoto Yuta. You can say that if you need something to scream.” He gifts you a sly wink as he unlocks his door and lets himself in, leaving you so bewildered that you can’t think of a response at all.

“Stop messing with the soccer boys.” Sowon immediately reprimands you after you recount what happened. “You know the school will punish us before they punish them.”

“Yeah, and if this is your way of flirting, you need to think of something better.” Yein adds from the connected kitchen, tossing the stir-fry in her pan. “I’m not risking getting kicked out because you decided to mess with the soccer team’s star player.”

“To be fair, I don’t think he was really upset about the interaction. He seemed amused by my reaction.” You slump down, your forehead resting on the table. “And I didn’t know who he was until he said his name.”

“Well, he doesn’t know who you are-”

“And I don’t want him to.” You cut off Sowon. “I’ll just… deal with it.”

You get one more peaceful morning of running alone before, two days after you had first talked to him, Nakamoto Yuta comes jogging up to you. You don’t hear him at first. Music blares in your earbuds, drowning out most of the background noise of the morning, and your heartbeat in your ears fills out the parts of your internal sound profile that your music doesn’t quite reach. He comes up behind you, nearly making you jump out of your skin when you see the figure of another person jogging in your peripherals. Your pace falters, but you immediately try to right yourself and regain momentum, praying he’ll just pass by you without saying anything. Except he doesn’t leave. With an internal sigh, you turn your head towards him. He offers you a grin and air-taps over his ear. Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you pull out your headphones. “What?”

“Great morning, isn’t it?”

You contemplate shutting your eyes so that you can purposefully trip and eject yourself from this conversation. “I guess.”

“It’s soccer season. You know that, right?” You narrow your eyes at him, but nod. “Our first game is coming up soon.” You don’t like where this is going. “You should come.” “You must be hard-pressed for attendees to be randomly asking your neighbor to come to your game.” You reach for your earbuds again.

“Hold on, hold on.” You pause, then immediately wonder why you’re even giving him the time of day. Still, you relent for a moment. “If you come to the game this Saturday, I’ll stop playing music so loud when I wake up.”

“If you were a kind and courteous neighbor, you would just do that without having to threaten me to go to one of your games. And,” you state flatly, “I’ve already been to enough soccer games for the rest of my life, thank you very much.”

As you jog away, he doesn’t try to stop you again, but you could swear that he seems the slightest bit disappointed.

The next morning is more of the same as usual. The same loud J-rock that wakes you up an hour early, your same run, your same shower and breakfast and classes. You consider shifting your sleep schedule so that you wake up at the same time as Yuta, though you dismiss the idea because why should you change your lifestyle to adjust for his? You’d rather suffer the early wakeup.

Except, two days after he asks you to come to one of his games, the music stops. That first morning, you wake up at your usual time. You’re prepared to be upset at Yuta waking you early again, but when your foggy morning brain processes that you had woken up to your own alarm and not his music, you lie there confused. When you go out for your run not long after, you almost hope that you’ll run into him. There’s no way he’s just being nice is there? He has to be sick or something. To your disappointment, you don't run into him and you’re just stuck in your confusion. This goes on for three more days and each day you become more perplexed.

As you’re returning to your apartment after your classes that Friday, someone holds the door for you as you approach. “Thanks-” you start, then see who’s holding it for you. “-oh! Jaehyun!”

“Hey, uh, Y/N, right?” You smile at him, nodding firmly. You’re almost surprised that he remembers your name because you’d only chatted once before, back when you were moving in. He’s perfectly polite, almost shy-seeming, and completely different from his roommate. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I’m just getting back from classes.” Thinking of his roommate… “I was actually wondering, um…” He gives you a confused look, waiting for you to continue. “Is Yuta doing okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. Why?” Jaehyun hadn’t been aware that you were at all acquainted with his roommate.

You appear equally as confused as he does. “Oh, I… never mind. If you don’t mind me asking, where’s your next game?”

He brightens up at that. “It’s a home game. Tomorrow at six, don’t miss it!”

You return his smile. “Great, thanks, Jaehyun! I’ll see you around?” He sends you off with a wave before you go your separate ways, entering your respective apartments.

Should you actually go to his game? You don’t owe him anything, you never agreed to his deal, but he did stop playing his music so loud. You’re not really doing anything on Saturday either… maybe you’ll bug Sowon and Yein so that they’ll come with you.

That evening, the apartment below yours is particularly busy. All of the soccer boys are home - Yuta, Jaehyun, Kun - and the volleyball and art boys are also over - Johnny, Doyoung, Jungwoo, Taeyong, Ten, and Sicheng. After all, as Johnny says, Friday nights are for the boys. Conversation flows from school to girls to boys to soccer, upon which Jaehyun shares a very interesting observation with his friends.

“By the way, it seems like you have another admirer, Yuta.” Jaehyun says as he takes a swig of his soju, recently acquired from the nearby Korean market and grossly overpriced.

“Sure,” Yuta responds, rolling his eyes, “who would that be?”

“You know that girl from upstairs? Y/N? She asked about you today and then asked me about our next game.”

“We haven’t even had our first game and you’re already collecting fangirls? Come on, Yuta,” Kun chimes in this time, breaking away from his conversation with Sicheng about their shared organic chemistry class.

“That can’t be right,” Yuta says, leaning back into the couch, “L/N Y/N? I’m pretty sure she hates my guts. I tried to make a deal with her to get her to come to the game and she just brushed me off.”

Doyoung narrows his eyes at his friend. “Y/N doesn’t just hate people for no reason. What did you do?”

Yuta raises his hands defensively and half-glares at him. “I didn’t do anything! I was just being myself and she decided to hate me.”

“The star-player, cocky version of yourself or the normal version of yourself?” Doyoung says, looking entirely unamused.

Yuta thinks back to all of the encounters he’s had with you and cringes slightly. “Listen, she was the one who was checking me out first-”

“Stupid.” Doyoung shakes his head before taking a sip of the water he’s drinking. “Some people take well to forwardness, but not her.”

“Are you sure? Because if she’s asked after me, I think that means she likes it.”

“I am going to spike a ball into your head, you-”

“Guys, calm down,” Sicheng says with a rather flat tone. Instantly, the two bickering boys stop, resorting to glaring at each other. Jaehyun gently shoves his roommate to get his attention and the room quickly returns to normal. Later, Doyoung passes Yuta a new bottle once his has run out, so he knows that the younger was never truly angry at him. The small party doesn’t go long into the night - tomorrow’s the first game of the season, after all - and, surprisingly, there isn’t much noise from their upstairs neighbor either.

That is mostly thanks to you. You had convinced your two party-addicted friends to attend someone else’s get together instead of hosting their own, so you ushered them out of the house at around ten in the evening. You know that they’ll come back fine in a few hours, rumpled and with their makeup half sweated off, buzzing with alcohol and the blaring music of whatever houseparty they were invited to, but you still tell them that your phone will be off of silent in case they need anything. Previous semesters, you might have gone with them, but, now, you just want to sleep so you can wake up early and go on your usual run.

The morning comes with your sleep uninterrupted by your roommates. After you awaken, instead of lying in bed and contemplating life for a while, you drag yourself up and to their rooms, where you find each of them peacefully asleep in their beds. Yein bothered to change out of her party clothes and into pajamas while Sowon didn’t, her dress half off of her shoulder and bunched up under her butt. Both of them are snoring away, hugging pillows and blankets.

The relief of seeing your roommates in good condition adds a spring to your step. A few minutes later, after you’ve stretched on the floor of your bedroom, you’re halfway out the outside door of the complex when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You know who it is even before you turn around.

“Y/N,” Yuta says, grinning much too brightly for how early it is. He doesn’t seem like he’s been out yet, which is strange. “Good morning.”

“Is it?” You lift an eyebrow.

“Perfectly!” As he talks, you begin to move farther out the door. Down one step. Down two steps. On the sidewalk. “Do you want to run together?”

“Shouldn’t you be just coming back from doing that?” You pull out your phone.

He quickly matches his stride to yours. “I decided to start running an hour later on the weekends. You know, sleep in a bit since I have the time.”

“I’m happy for you.” You select a song and put one ear of your headphones in.

“Are you coming tonight?”

“Didn’t I already answer that?” In all honesty, you feel like you should be more irritated with him than you actually are. He’s at least amusing to talk to. Plus, he stopped waking you up an hour early without you even promising to come to his game.

“Yeah, but then you asked Jaehyun about it.”

You stop moving, turning to look at him. He has another one of those infuriating smirks on his face and all of your previous enjoyment flies out the window. “Maybe I’m a huge fan of his.”

“What position does he play?”

“I don’t have to answer that!” Now, your face is already warming and you haven’t even begun your exercise. You turn away from him again and begin to slowly jog. “Bye, Yuta.”

“He’s a midfielder! And I’m a forward! You can see today at the game!” He calls after you as you get farther away, his voice getting more distant. Part of you feels bad for your neighbors - the windows aren’t exactly soundproof. You just wave a hand back at him in dismissal. A minute later, you look behind you. To your great relief, and mild surprise, he isn’t following you. He went the complete opposite direction.

“Will you guys please come with me? I promise some of the guys on the team are hot.” You tug on Sowon’s sleeve like a child does to their mother when they want something.

“I thought you hated college soccer because of your brother.” She flips a page in her textbook, scribbling down something in her notes.

“I don’t think this one will be so bad. Our team is supposed to be really good this year, right?” You look hopefully at her.

“How am I supposed to know? How is anyone supposed to know? Today is their first game.” She stops attempting to study, looking at you. “Also, I’m messing around. I’ll go with you.”

You look at your other roommate, who is in the middle of the very exhaustive task of sitting on your sofa and scrolling through her phone. She gives you a thumbs up. “As long as I can put on face paint!”

A couple hours later, you find yourselves in the bleachers surrounding the soccer field. It’s a modest stadium, not a stadium at all but just a normal soccer field with bleachers on either side and some decently sized flood lights for night usage. Not too far away is a moderately sized building that is a shared locker room space for all of the school’s athletic teams. Your school never invested much of its funds into soccer until recently, largely thanks to Yuta and some of the other members who are in their third or fourth year playing who made a name for your university in the sport. You also suspect that they probably talked the ear off of the provost so that he finally agreed to give them more funding, but that’s just a personal guess.

From your place on the home side of the bleachers, you have total vision of the field. Both teams are running warm-up drills and it’s easy enough to spot the people you know: someone from your physics class named Mingyu, someone you remember from a party named Baekho, and your lower neighbors, Jaehyun, Kun, and, of course, Yuta. His hair is pulled back from his face in a small ponytail at the back of his head and a small version of your university’s lion mascot stands out proudly on his red jersey.

You purposefully make a point to look for him last, only to find that he’s completely focused. Though it’s just shooting drills, he seems like he’s entirely in the zone, his eyes sharp and calculated. From what you can tell. The physical distance between you isn’t huge, but you can’t read his expressions that well from this angle.

The sharp scream of a whistle being blown indicates that there’s five minutes until the start of the game. The teams both do a bit of last minute stretching as they gather around the coach, a man you recognize as a biology professor. Finally, just as the clock hits six, they squeeze closer together, arms slung over each others’ shoulders in a tight circle, and do some sort of indistinct chant that ends in something like “Go Lions!”

After they break away, you can see the shift in atmosphere. Everyone is completely serious. It’s the first game of the season and they aren’t going to destroy the reputation they’ve built up for the last three years. You watch as Jaehyun moves to his position as a midfielder, Kun moves to his position as defense, and Yuta lines up in the position of forward center. A coin flip gives the kick-off to the away team, a school with a hawk mascot. Everyone shifts slightly on their feet and, for a moment, the world seems to be silent. The crowd leans forward in their seats.

Then, the whistle is blown.

The game gets to a roaring start. From how cautiously the other team is playing, they seem to know the reputation of the Lions - a team that shot up out of nowhere and suddenly has one of the best forwards in college soccer. You find yourself grinning as the ball barely makes it past your team’s defensive midfielder Mingyu before it’s in the Lions’ metaphorical hands. Your midfielders carefully juggle the ball between them, passing and passing and passing, before it reaches Jaehyun at center midfield. He does his job quickly and efficiently, making it almost look easy, and the ball meets the half-tip. From there, the ball is stolen by one of the Hawks’ defense at a failed pass to the second striker, Baekho. The ball shoots all the way to midfield.

For a few tense minutes, you watch the players run back and forth across the field, their eyes never leaving the target. The game pauses every so often when the ball gets kicked out of bounds, but it always resumes with just as much vigor. About a quarter of the way through the game, Yuta finally has his breakthrough. Jaehyun lands a kick directly in his direction, giving him the perfect opportunity. The strike is clean and so fast that you would have missed it if your eyes weren’t glued to the movements of the ball. All of the people on your side of the bleachers launch to their feet in roaring cheers as the ball sails past the opponent goalie’s right side and into the net. You’re standing alongside everyone else, your hands cupped around your mouth as you yell in excitement. It’s not often that you see such a well done shot from a college team.

The boil of the crowd’s blood dies down a bit as the game continues, but soars back up whenever something particularly exciting happens. In the third quarter, the Hawks manage to land a goal on your team, but Yuta comes in clutch a few minutes later and scores two easy goals almost one after the other. The final score is deeply satisfying at 3:1.

The opposing team try to be good sports about it, but they’re obviously sulking when they shake your team’s hands. After they break away, they’re all gloriously sweaty, which you’re sure Sowon is excited about. Some of the spectators immediately rush out of the stands and make their way down, friends and significant others of the players, you presume. Part of you wants to go down there and be a part of the excitement. Luckily enough, a distraction comes in the form of some of your other neighbors before you’re forced to make any decisions.

“Hey, Yein, Sowon, Y/N!”

When you turn, you see Johnny and Doyoung approaching. Yein stiffens slightly and you nearly start laughing at your friend’s embarrassed behavior. Sowon greets them first. “Hi, guys.”

“I didn’t know you guys were into soccer?” Johnny asks, his eyes shifting easily from Sowon to you to Yein, where they remain.

“Not really! But Y/N wanted to go today.” In her nervousness, Yein easily exposes you.

“I wasn’t the only one who wanted to go,” you huff, crossing your arms. Doyoung and Johnny exchange a look that makes you want to change the subject. “I guess you guys are here to support some friends?”

“Yup, Yuta, Kun, and Jaehyun,” Doyoung says, looking towards the field, where some of their other friends are already gathered around the star player. “They played really well. It’ll be a good season.”

“I hope so,” Sowon says, also watching.

“Well, we don’t want to keep you guys from them,” you say, wanting to eject yourself from the conversation before it turns in a different direction. To your displeasure, Johnny is a master of knowing exactly what you don’t want and then doing it anyways. You’ve never really talked to him before, but it seems that he’s similar to Yuta in that way.

“Why don’t we all go say hi?” The tall boy says, grinning. “You guys can tell me how those cookies were, too.”

There is no escape. Now, as you follow them down the bleachers, you reflect Yein in a way. She no longer looks quite as nervous, eagerly chatting with Johnny, while you grow increasingly more fidgety. It’s not that you don’t want to talk to Yuta. You just don’t want to give in to whatever game the two of you silently decided you were playing.

Then again, it is much more fun to play along than it is to outright reject him. Plus, today’s actual game was good. You’ll give him that.

Trying to seem as nonchalant as possible, you join the small crowd surrounding Yuta. If you thought he glowed normally, he absolutely shines now. There’s something about him being in his element at the very top of his game that makes you forget your irritation with him for a moment. In that instant, he’s a star. In that instant, he reminds you of your brother. Then, he spots you and opens his mouth.

“Y/N!” As he calls out to you, the girl he was talking to before you arrived seems perturbed, but he ignores her, pushing his way closer to you. “You actually came.”

You turn your nose up at him slightly. “No one ever said it was for you.”

“Of course not. You and I both know the truth, though.” The wink is nowhere near subtle or sly and you scoff at him. He seems unbothered. “This was your first Lions game, right? Did you enjoy it?”

You nod hesitantly. “I heard you guys were good, but I didn’t know how good. You played a near perfect game.”

The self-satisfied smile drops from his face. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“What do you mean?” Tilting your head, you match his somewhat grim face.

“There’s always better plays to make, better places to have been. You know.” He quickly tries to play it off like he’s uninterested rather than deeply bothered. You’re not sure you know what the truth is. You haven’t talked to him nearly enough to know. This is the first hint of something serious that he’s shown you. It almost makes you want to talk to him more to find out.

“Dude, shut up, you’re good.” From the side, Johnny butts in, elbowing his friend. You’re glad for the interruption, as you once again didn’t know what to say. The mood raises, with some of Yuta’s friends reenacting the best parts of the game, joking about his long hair, betting on what next week’s game will look like. A few minutes later, the Lions’ coach shouts for all of the team members to go shower and get changed, so the crowd slowly disperses.

After you’re alone with your roommates, Sowon and Yein can’t help but give you playful shoves as you walk home. Sowon is the first to verbalize her amusement. “I thought you hated him?”

You grumble under your breath, not saying anything in particular.

“You played a near perfect game.” Yein mimics, making your face burn.

“I do not sound like that! Also, I know a good game when I see one and I know when to admit it!” You kick your shoe against the pavement as they giggle at you.

From then on, it seems like you run into Yuta far too often for your own good. Every few days, you bump into him when you’re either about to go run or when you’re coming back from running. When you go with Yein to return Johnny’s cookie container, Yuta is in his apartment, lounging on the sofa and chatting with Jungwoo, your third volleyball neighbor. Once, when you’re studying at the school library because you need a change of scenery from your apartment, he runs into you. That time, you snap at him.

“Are you stalking me or something?”

He places a hand over his heart, pretending to be offended.  “What do you mean? If anything you’re the one stalking me. I come here every Thursday after practice to study.” He huffs. “If you’re talking about when I was in Johnny’s apartment, I was already there before you even arrived. Unless you’re accusing me of being psychic, too.”

Your shoulders slowly lower at the guilt you feel. Cringing slightly, you raise your hands in apology. “I didn’t mean to imply…” You sigh. “Sorry. Can I buy you a coffee or something to apologize?”

Only after Yuta’s mock hurt shifts to a triumphant look do you realize the implications of your words. You’re really on a roll with implications today. He grins. “If you really want to.”

As you pack up your things, Yuta tells the few teammates he had come to study with that he’s going, and you walk out of the library side by side. Luckily, he actually makes for easy conversation and good company. You don’t know why he insists on the flirting and cockiness in your shorter interactions. As you walk to the campus coffee shop, you learn that he’s a studio art major. He learns that you’re a physical therapy major. You learn that he’s taking a statistics class that you had already previously taken - he put it off while you got it done in your first year - and, without thinking, you offer to help him if he needs it. After you order both of your coffees, finding out that he likes a lighter roast, you sit at a table in the shop with him. Silence comes and goes as both of you do some of the studying that you intended to do at the library. Every so often, he asks you a question. Usually, you answer him. You always return with a question of your own. You find out that his favorite of the bands that he used to blast through the floor is One Ok Rock.

“Sorry,” he finally says, appearing genuinely remorseful with the sheepish look on his face, “I didn’t have upstairs neighbors last year. I didn’t know you could hear it through the floor.”

“It’s fine. Sorry I snapped at you back then.”

It’s very strange to be on perfectly good terms with Nakamoto Yuta.

A few days later, when your brother sends you a ticket for the local professional soccer team, the Ravens, you almost feel like you should ask for a second so you can bring Yuta. Figuring it would be too much to ask, you plan to go by yourself, thankful that the game falls on a day the Lions aren’t playing. Plus, you can’t imagine what your roommates would say if you chose to go out of your way to take him with you.

You’ve taken to hanging out with the long-haired center forward, helping him with his math when he needs it and just… generally enjoying his company. That doesn’t mean you’re all sugar and smiles to him - it’s much more fun to mess around a little, make him think that you don’t like him quite as much as you actually do. The only thing you can think of that would personally offend him would be to say you’re going to one of his games and then failing to do so.

On the bus ride over to the stadium where the Ravens are playing, you’re thankful that you don’t recognize anyone from your school. You’re in the team’s colors, silver and forest green, and it would be clear to anyone where you’re going. Only after you get off of the bus do you realize just how many came to watch. The stadium is full, packed to almost capacity. That’s probably why your brother hadn’t gotten you tickets earlier - all of them were taken. He probably gave tickets to the earlier games to your parents. They would have thrown a fit if he had only invited you earlier, even if you are his favorite.

As you make your way to your seat, you remark on how strange it is to see your last name printed on the backs of the shirts of a bunch of strangers. The vibe of the crowd is completely different from that at your school’s field. While college students are excitable and energetic, these spectators are rabid. At any moment, there’s one hundred people yelling, someone trying to start a chant, someone screaming just for the sake of it. The air is buzzing with the anticipation of the crowd.

There’s a moment of sudden thick silence, like the moment before a dam is about to burst, where the crowd is silent. Then, both teams are stepping out onto the field and the stadium explodes. In the middle of the line of the eleven Ravens players, like he’s trying to blend in even though half of the crowd is chanting his name, is your brother. There’s a coin flip and it’s decided that the Ravens will start. He gets into his position, forward center, and the audience takes another breath.

You’re on the edge of your seat. Half of the game you’re standing. There’s a thrill about the experience that makes you so invigorated and proud beyond belief. If it had been strange seeing your last name on the backs of fans’ jerseys, it’s just as weird hearing the announcer say your brother’s name as he scores. If Yuta had been residual starshine, your brother is a shot of pure gold. He has long given up trying to make himself small where he glows the brightest, smiling as the whistle is blown for halftime. His teammates slap each other on the back when they go for water. Just as the game is about to resume, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket once. You figure that whoever is texting you can wait.

The other team makes a comeback in the second half, scoring on the Ravens and tying the score. You feel a bit bad for the goalie, a guy you know as Kim Yongsuk, who your brother had introduced you to in the past. He’s probably beating himself up over it. Still, the team doesn’t falter, doesn’t repeat their mistakes. It’s a hard game - from how close you are, you can almost see everyone breathing hard. Finally, with just a few minutes left to spare, the ball travels smoothly from the Ravens’ defensive line, to the midfielders, to the offense. Once it’s in your brother’s possession, it’s over. He shoots and he scores.

To be fair to the other team, they try to recover, but it’s just not enough. Time is called and it ends 2:1. The Ravens have won. You find yourself clapping and cheering with the other fans, shouting your elation to the huge stadium. As things begin to wind down and the teams shake hands, people begin to trickle out of the stadium. A satisfied hum is in the air, leaving a smile on your face, too. Perhaps soccer games are the reason you like parties, too. The warm, excited atmosphere, the noise, forgetting about the outside world to become absorbed in something else.

Finally, reality calls again after all of the players filter out to their respective locker rooms. You pull out your phone, about to send a text to your brother. However, when your phone comes to life, the first thing you see is a text from Yuta.

NaYu: Are you at the Ravens game??

An instant later, right on cue, you hear his voice. “Y/N!” Upon looking up, he’s bounding down the aisles towards you, also donning forest green and silver. Watching him weave through the rest of the people trying to leave, you wouldn’t be surprised if he would have slid down the railing if there weren’t other people there. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take long for him to reach you. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Why not?” You tilt your head, smiling slightly. You’re in too good of a mood to outright lie to him.

He blinks. “I thought you hated watching soccer.”

You hold your hands behind your back, swaying playfully. For once, he’s the confused one. “I don’t know what gave you that impression. I really enjoy seeing the Ravens play.”

“But… you said…” He furrows his eyebrows. “Didn’t you say you’ve seen enough soccer games to last your whole life already, or something?” “I changed my mind.” Your phone buzzes in your hand.

B/N: You still in the stands? I’m coming up.

At that, you freeze. Yuta nudges you. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” You’ve kept the fact that your brother is the Ravens’ star striker away from everyone, besides your roommates, and you can’t even begin to imagine how Yuta would react if he found how. What would he think of you? “You can head out without me, Yuta. I’m waiting for someone.” The concerned expression doesn’t leave his face. “Are you sure? It’s kind of late-”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine, I’m-”

“Y/N!”

You turn just in time to see your brother jumping the gate blocking off the entrance to the field from the stands. Most of the stadium has cleared out by now, ushered out by staff, leaving very few people. Your brother has a hoodie on with his team’s colors, the hood up and partially blocking his face from distant onlookers nonetheless. You cringe internally as he jogs up to you, not seeming tired at all, and you greet him as he engulfs you in a warm hug. “Hi, B/N.”

“I’m glad you could make it. It’s not often that I get to play for my favorite sibling.” You’re looking at your brother, but you’re sure that Yuta has a shocked look on his face as he connects the dots. Now that your brother has directly stated who he is to you, there’s no avoiding it. He looks past you and realizes that you’re not alone. “Who’s this?”

“I…” Now that you’re actually looking at Yuta, you realize he’s entirely starstruck. He looks like he’s stuck in one place, his eyes wider than normal and full of awe.

You take over for him. “This is Yuta. He’s my friend from school and our team’s center forward.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m B/N! Since Y/N finally decided to show her face at her own team’s games, I heard you guys are doing well this year. Go Lions!” He raises a fist, giving Yuta a sunny smile.

Yuta blinks hard, looking almost like he might pass out. “Y-yeah. We’re doing alright, I guess. Thank you for your support.” He reflexively dips into a shallow bow, making your brother chuckle.

“You don’t have to be so formal. Any friend of Y/N’s is a friend of mine.” He elbows you not-so-gently. “Y/N! Tell me next time you want to bring him. I’ll throw in a second ticket.”

Yuta unfreezes a bit and looks at you. “You don’t bring Yein or Sowon?”

You shrug. “I don’t like to bring only one of them. It feels unfair to the other.”

“Still, I’m glad to see that you’re not lying about having at least one friend.” Your brother gives you a wicked grin and heat fills your cheeks.

“I have friends!” You insist, clenching your fists at your side.

“Do you?” Yuta teases, making you press your lips together in a look of indignation.

Before you can counter him, your brother interjects. “I hate to part with the two of you, but I have to leave.” He steps back, waving a hand at the two of you. “See you!” “I hope you stub your toe on the way out!” You shout back at him as he retreats.

“Hey, this toe is worth a lot of money! Love you, too!”

There’s a period of silence as you watch your brother disappear. Yuta clears his throat. “Do you want to go back?”

“Yeah.” You follow him wordlessly for a while, making your way out of the stadium. He walks by your side, his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t seem upset, just a bit shocked still. As you approach the bus stop, you finally speak up. “Did you come with anyone else?”

“Some of the guys from the team. I told them to go ahead without me so I could talk to you.” Of all the things he’s ever said, that makes your heart feel strange. A tiny flutter of a butterfly’s wings, if you will.

Then, as you make it to the bus shelter, you turn to him, grabbing onto the edge of his sleeve. “Yuta, promise you won’t be weird after this?”

He blinks, not fighting your grip. “Why would I be weird?”

“Just… I don’t really tell people about my brother. I don’t want you to think any differently about me because of it.” This level of vulnerability isn’t something you usually show and it feels foreign, unfamiliar. When you told Sowon and Yein about it, it didn’t feel this way. Yet, standing under the shelter with Yuta, his deep green sleeve in your hand, his eyes on yours, the light of the city falling faintly on your faces, you feel your heart pound even harder in your chest.

“I already liked you before I ever knew that.” He reaches up oh so slowly. You don’t know what he’s going to do. Touch your cheek, pat your head, kiss you? Before you can find out, the bus pulls up with a loud exhale, spewing exhaust. The doors open and the driver looks at you expectantly as you turn and get in. Yuta follows you, silent. Both of you pay your dues and sit down, side by side, his sleeve brushing yours.

You know exactly what it is about him that drives you insane. At the same time, you have no idea. While you don’t want things to be different with him after tonight, you also desperately wish for the opposite. You’re tempted to slap yourself in the face to try and wake yourself up from whatever strange dream you’re happening, but you don’t know how the boy next to you would react.

The ride passes excruciatingly slowly, as does the short walk back to your complex. Finally, as you’re standing in the stairwell, about to part ways with him, he speaks. “Do you want to study together tomorrow?”

At that, such a normal suggestion, you smile. “Sure.”

He reflects your expression. It’s a familiar look on him, which you’re grateful for. “I’ll text you. Goodnight, Y/N.”

The next day is entirely ordinary. It’s like the previous night never happened. Yuta is perfectly normal, perfectly flirty, perfectly infuriating. In fact, the entire week after is normal. You go to the Lions game, cheer on your neighbors, and pretend to be difficult with Yuta after the game. He’s always so hard on himself after his games, remarking on what he believes are the many things he could have done differently to play a better game, despite scoring all of the team’s goals and securing wins every time. You hope that you talking to him afterwards raises his spirits just as much as you enjoy it.

Then, one Saturday, you’re out running when Yuta jogs up to you. Once again, he scares the shit out of you, making you nearly trip. “Hey, Y/N.”

You tear out your headphones, giving him a look. “Have you tried not jumpscaring me?”

The shrug he gives you looks strange, as he’s jogging slowly next to you when he attempts to emote. “It’s kind of funny.” You grumble under breath about showing him what’s funny, and he continues. “Do you want to run together on the weekends?”

“This again?” You say, frowning.

He rolls his eyes. “Listen, I know you’re lonely. Since you come out to my games, I thought I should do you some sort of favor in return.”

“I also help you with your statistics homework.”

“Anyways, you’re in luck because I also don’t have a running partner. It’s a lot easier to set a pace and keep moving if you have someone with you.”

You know he’s right, but it doesn’t make you feel any better. When you’re running, you’re at your most vulnerable - sweaty, tired, out of your element. There’s plenty of reasons you shouldn’t want him to run with you. “You have to run so much faster than I do. I would just slow you down.”

“Not really,” he says, looking at your feet as you jog next to him, “see? We’re both doing fine right now.”

You realize that he’s right. You keep moving wordlessly for a minute, until you speak quietly. “Would you really not mind?”

You focus on his hair bouncing as he takes each step for a while before you look at his face. In the morning sunlight, he gives you a pure smile. “Not at all.”

On Saturdays and Sundays, he’s waiting for you just outside of the complex at seven in the morning with his hair tied up to keep it out of his eyes. He easily matches his pace to yours. He’s always much more awake at that hour than you are, but the quiet encouragement he whispers whenever you slow down help perk you up. It takes you a little while to realize that he’s doing something very similar for you to what you do for him after his games.

It’s a cloudy Sunday morning. Usually, you don’t talk a ton while you’re running together, but it seems that his curiosity has gotten the best of him. “What made you want to start running?”

“Hm?” You hum, snapped out of the world that was just your feet thudding against the ground and the sound of your breathing in your ears. “Do I have to have a reason?”

“People usually don’t just randomly start doing it. Maybe they want to get stronger or lose weight. Maybe they want to impress someone.”

“It’s not about impressing anyone. I’m doing this for me.” You say it firmly, confidently. His pace stutters and he watches you continue forward. There’s something in your voice that makes him incapable of moving, and all he can do is stare at you for a moment, his heart speeding up in his chest for reasons other than the running you’re doing. When you realize he isn’t following, you turn towards him, jogging in place. The way your face is illuminated by the sunlight being cast upon it makes him sure he’s never met someone as incredible as you before in his life. “Are you coming?”

You don’t know what’s up with him. His expression is something you’ve never seen but can’t quite place. He catches up in a few bounds and you resume your run.

The next Friday, you receive a strange text.

Unknown Number: Hey, is this Y/N?

You contemplate whether or not you should respond, but you get a second text.

Unknown Number: This is Mingyu from physics

Now, that’s strange. You start to type out a reply.

Y/N: Hi! What’s up?

Kim Mingyu: I was wondering if you could help me with the lab report from last Friday? I’m having some trouble

Y/N: Sure, do you want to meet in the library later?

Meeting up with someone who you’ve never really talked to before is strange. Mingyu tries to joke with you, but something about them falls flat. You try your best to laugh and help him anyways, figuring it’s just stiffness from interacting with someone new. Though it’s nice to finally have a physics buddy, you’re almost relieved when you go home.

As you approach your complex, you see a small group formed on the lawn outside. Sicheng and Ten are standing on one leg, holding the other leg up and trying to knock each other down. A small smile comes to your face when you realize that Yuta is in the group, cheering for his friends. Around the same time you see him, he sees you and his eyes light up. He’s quickly getting to his feet and bounding towards you. Taeyong calls after him with a frown. “Yuta, you’re next!”

Still, he sidles up next to you as you walk closer to the circle. “Y/N! Where are you coming from?”

“Just the library. Actually, I was meeting up with one of your teammates, Mingyu. We were working on physics.”

The smile he wears twitches downwards for a moment. “I didn’t know you had a class with him.”

“It wasn’t worth mentioning. I never talked to him before today.” You shrug, shifting the backpack on your shoulders. “What are you guys doing?”

“One-legged fight. You should join.” He suddenly has a sadistic gleam in his eye and you take a tiny step away from him.

“And give you an excuse to push me on the ground? No thanks.”

“Aw, Y/N, I’m hurt. You don’t think I would just push you if I really wanted to?” At his proclamation, you shake your head, trying to force down a smile but failing miserably. “I’m kidding, of course. I would never.”

It’s almost sunset and he looks glorious in the golden light, the sun reflecting off of his dark hair and making his eyelashes cast long shadows on his cheekbones. If you were bolder, you might say something about it. Instead, you let out a snort of laughter, looking away from him. From the circle a few yards away, cheers erupt. Ten is curled on the ground, dramatically bemoaning his loss to Sicheng, who stands proudly over him. Taking that as his cue, Yuta gives you a small wave and rejoins his group.

When you enter your apartment with a small, content smile on your face, Yein looks up from her cooking. “Good day?”

“You could say that.”

The next morning, thankfully, is a Saturday. Yuta is waiting for you, looking just as fine in the morning sun as he did in the evening rays. He’s stretching as you approach him. “It looks like it’ll be good weather for the match today.”

“It better be.” He says it lightheartedly, but you can really imagine him threatening the weather. He’s told you that he hates the rain, partly because it makes it unpleasant to play but also just because it dampens his mood. The team is lucky they’ve gotten good weather for the season so far.

As you’re running, you remember what something you needed to ask Yuta about. “Hey, are you free on Wednesday night? My brother offered me two tickets for his game.”

His eyes light up. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah?” You tilt your head, trying to keep your pace steady. “He said he would pull through, so he did. You made a good impression on him.”

“I am totally free. Completely. Did I tell you how free I am that day?” The child-like excitement in his voice makes you smile in return.

“Wow, with how not free you are, I guess I should invite someone else,” you tease and he lets out an uncharacteristic whine.

“Y/N, I know you’re messing with me, but if you take someone else after asking me, I will never forgive you.”

Now it’s your turn to pretend to be offended. “I see how much our friendship means to you, Mr. Nakamoto.”

He sighs dramatically, bringing a hand to his forehead as he acts like he’s going to faint. “You’re so serious.”

You stick out your tongue at him. “You’re such a fanboy.”

“I can’t help it. Your brother is just so cool. I don’t know how you don’t try to hang out with him literally all the time.”

That gives you pause. You feel your feet connect with the earth repeatedly for a minute, thinking about your brother and your complicated but not complicated relationship. You trust Yuta with so many things, so you may as well tell him. “A few weeks ago, when I said I was only doing this for me, I lied. Just a little.” You say, not looking at him. You’ve never really admitted it out loud before. “I want to get good enough to run with my brother. I almost never see him these days, but if I can start getting up to run with him sometimes… it’ll be like when we were kids. Or something. I don’t know.”

“He’s important enough to you that you want to change something about your life to spend more time with him,” Yuta says quietly, keeping pace with you. “I hope he knows how much you care about him.”

“You don’t always need to change to show you love someone. That’s why it was only partly a lie when I said I’m only doing this for myself.” You flash Yuta a smile, which he returns. Though your lungs burn and your legs ache, the air you breathe in is cool and fresh. “I’ll race you back.”

His eyes flash. “Challenge accepted.”

The next time you see Yuta is later that day, at his game. He’s serious, as usual, in the zone. As the season goes on, the bleachers fill up more and more with students eager to see the Lions throw sparks. The games continually get harder, but they manage to clutch this one out with a final score of 3:2.

Despite the win, Yuta still seems somewhat down. Afterwards, you’re about to go up to him to describe the glorious moment when he slid between two of the opponent defenders and scored, but you’re stopped by a heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, Y/N.” To your surprise, Mingyu is the one approaching you. He doesn’t take his hand away.

“Oh! Mingyu, hi.” You try to smile at him, but your eyes wander over to Yuta briefly. “Good game today! You guys played solidly.”

“Ha, thanks. Could’ve been better on my part, I’m always looking to improve, you know.”

“I get it,” you respond, nodding.

“Are you possibly free on Wednesday night? We have a lab due on Friday and I just think it would be easier to do if we can work together, ya know?”

“Oh, um, I’m actually busy then.” You force yourself to not look at Yuta. “Does Thursday night work instead?”

“Sure, whatever. I’ll see you then.” The way he squeezes your shoulder once before stepping away to talk to some of his own friends makes your stomach turn. Why is he being so… weird?

Shaking your head, you turn back to who you had intended to greet in the first place, only to find that he had been looking at you already. What’s with the look in his eyes? Why is everyone being so weird? Ignoring the feeling, you join his circle. Yuta moves closer to your side, his arm looping around your waist as he does so, pulling you in slightly. The touch is brief but intimate, sending a bolt of electricity through your body. You swear that you can almost feel the heat of his skin through your clothes. Then, his arm is back at his side like nothing happened. You want to speak up, say what you were planning on saying before, get your mind back on a normal track, but you find that Johnny, Ten, and Jungwoo are already recreating the scene, making Yuta smile through the veil of whatever emotions he’s experiencing right now.

When the entire team heads over to the locker rooms to clean off the shine of sweat and dirt that had been accumulated through the game, you can’t help watching him. As he goes, you catch flashes of his smile while he congratulates his teammates. Something stirs in your heart.

That night, you dream of healing smiles dressed in a lion’s mane of black hair. That same visage is waiting for you the next morning when you go out to run but, here outside of your head, he’s solid, real, more than heated touches and soft caresses. At the same time, he is those things. Or, so you wish him to be.

When you study with him the next night, he is as he usually is, theoretically. Sometimes it feels like his eyes linger longer than usual, his hand rests a little closer, he smiles a little wider. It’s nothing you can confirm because, to any normal gaze, he seems entirely the same. Perhaps you’re confusing yourself into imagining things. Has his flirtatious nature finally tricked your brain into thinking he likes you?

Sometime that evening, you go to the bathroom and stare at yourself in the mirror. You pat your face rather harshly to try and drive some sense back into your brain. You should tell him. This new boy who has become so close to you. Why are you afraid of it going wrong? You emerge from the bathroom with the same feelings that you entered it with and, there he is, looking up at your return.

The next day, Tuesday is a brief reprieve from the torture of trying to figure out his feelings through his actions. Then, your brother’s game comes. Your chatter fills the space between you on the bus ride to the stadium, him telling you about the anime he’s watching, you talking about the drama you’re watching in response. He jokes about culturing you by getting you to watch a show with him.

Watching your brother’s game with Yuta at your side is an entirely different experience. While you think you normally have pretty good commentary on your own, he provides an extra edge, excitedly explaining why some players choose to do some things or making observations about small moves that you ordinarily wouldn’t notice. Both of you absorb the atmosphere of the stadium, bursting into cheers whenever something incredible happens, screaming extra loud when your brother scores.

During halftime, when the roar of the audience is less deafening, you realize that you’ve never asked Yuta about his background with soccer before. You nudge him. “Hey, Yuta? How long have you been playing?”

He taps his chin, trying to think back. “Probably since I was five?”

“No wonder you know so much,” you say, “I’m talking to an expert right now.”

“You know too much for just a casual viewer,” he says back, snorting, “don’t tell me you don’t have some experience.”

“I only played a bit when I was younger, but I wasn’t any good. It was always more fun to watch B/N. I ended up just taking care of him whenever he pulled something or fell and scraped his arm… you know.” A wistful smile forms on your face. “It started off as just kissing bruises like my mom would, but then it turned into intense Googling whenever I couldn’t immediately figure out what was wrong with him.”

“Maybe you can kiss my boo-boos whenever I get hurt, too, then.” He’s smirking, the ever-familiar gleam of mischief in his gaze.

You force yourself to roll your eyes at him, ignoring the feeling of your heart jumping in your chest. “You’d better not get hurt, Nakamoto.”

“Only because you asked so nicely.”

A few minutes later, the game resumes. This matchup is considerably more difficult than the game you had attended before. Each time the Ravens seem like they’re close to scoring, the opponent defense sends it back towards your end of the field or the goalie successfully blocks it. All the same, your defense and goalie do their jobs, too, leading to a brutal back and forth. By the time the game is over, the only goal that had been scored was the single one your brother got in the first half.

“Ah, that was tense. They almost took it back there for a second.” You stand, stretching your arms behind your back to loosen them up a bit. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure.” Yuta gets up as well, following you as you begin to climb the stairs. “Is your brother not coming to see you this time?”

“He told me he has some press deal after this.” Once you’re in a more open area, Yuta walks next to you instead of behind. You can now see that he’s frowning.

“Does he keep you a secret on purpose?”

“I asked him to.”

“I can’t imagine keeping someone like you hidden like that.” At that strange comment, you stop, looking at him. He seems to be taking the issue very personally.

“It’s easier this way. No one prying into my life, no one asking me for autographs from him all the time. People know who our parents are. What’s so important about an unknown sister?” Is there something else he wants you to say? The look on his face is something you’ve only seen maybe once or twice. He’s in a strange mood, that’s for sure.

“I get it, it’s just…” He sighs, looking at the ground with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Yuta.” He finally meets your eyes. “It’s important to me that what people think about me is what I show them first. I don’t want to be a reflection of my brother, no matter how much I love him.”

“Is he the reason you didn’t want to talk to me at first?” There’s amusement in Yuta’s voice again, that strange seriousness gone.

You start to walk again and he keeps pace. “No, that was just because you woke me up at six in the morning.”

“I guess both of us have experiences that precede our reputations then, huh?”

The bus comes not much later. The previous reminder of how you met has him offering you one side of his earbuds, saying that this would be a better introduction to J-rock than the one you had before. As you listen, you’re tempted to lean your head against his shoulder or take his hand, which is resting oh so close to yours. Instead, you just sit still and look out the window.

After you get off of the bus, the topic of shows you both like makes a return.

“I will take it upon myself to expose you to great art. Are you free tomorrow? We have to start immediately.” Yuta begins to pester you, practically bouncing as you walk.

“Actually, I’m busy tomorrow. I’m working on physics with Mingyu again.” He doesn’t initially not react to your first statement. However, when his teammate’s name comes out of your mouth, he frowns.

“Of anyone…” The sudden change in his attitude catches you off guard. “Why him?”

“I don’t choose who’s in my classes. What’s wrong with you? I thought you got along with your teammates.” You’re nearing your complex at this point. The lamp posts bordering the sidewalk cast long shadows on the ground as you walk.

“In a team context, they’re fine. Usually. Just, that guy…” He’s scowling now, making you frown deeply in return.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, Y/N.” He pauses, but then his feet stop moving a moment later. “Fuck it, I do know. He’s not a good person. He’s a manipulator. He’s a good manipulator, but he’s bad at lying when you actually confront him-”

“Yuta, you’re being ridiculous. Even if he is, I’m strong enough to take care of myself.”

“Y/N, he was with me at that first game! The one where I found out about your brother? What if he saw? He’s the type to use information like that to get what he wants. What if he-”

“What if he what, Yuta?” You glare at him, anger muddled with some other hurt now filling you. “He hasn’t done anything. He isn’t going to do anything. Our ‘secret’ isn’t going to get out. I can take care of myself.”

With that, you brush past him, into the complex, into your apartment. Thankfully, your roommates aren’t in the common area, so you safely make it to your room. Once you’re there, you shove your face into your pillow. You consider screaming into it, but you know he’s probably in his own room, where he could hear you. Instead, you just heave breath after frustrated breath.

You don’t know why you snapped at him. Actually, you do. It’s the fear that he’s actually doing what he accused Mingyu of. After every word you’ve exchanged, every conversation, you should be confident that he’s not like that. But, you’ve never been in this situation before. What if he…

It’s a stupid notion and you know it. That’s just the surface. Another layer of your feelings peels away. You hate when people are too protective of you. You want to make your own decisions, to learn for yourself. You hate when your brother is too protective of you and you hate when Yuta is.

That’s not even all of it. Finally, you reach the root of your aggression. What right does Nakamoto Yuta have to try and be protective of you when you aren’t even together? Was that the concern of a friend or the concern of a jealous lover?

You curl in on yourself even more tightly, breathing through the pillow under your face. No one has ever flirted with you as much as he has. You’ve never been so ridiculously on and off with someone before. Still, neither of you are willing to answer the question. You’ve never actually fought like this with him before.

Perhaps he hates you now that you’ve thrown his warnings back in his face.

The next day, after your classes, you force yourself to go to the library to meet Mingyu, Yuta’s words heavy in your mind. As you work, you can tell he’s still trying desperately to get on your good side, even emanating Yuta in a strange, off-balance way. It’s not amusing when he does it.

Finally, the subject you’ve been dreading comes.

“Are you a fan of the Ravens? I think I saw you at one of their games once.”

You swallow back disappointment. Mingyu is the worst fear of your insecure self and you finally have to come face to face with it. “I guess you could say that.”

To your surprise, he doesn’t take it farther than that. If Yuta’s right about him, then it’s probably just one piece of a larger goal. Though you never cared much for Mingyu, it doesn’t feel good to see things begin to unfold.

Not seeing him for two days in a row brings your mood down more than you’d like to admit. At the same time, you’re not ready to apologize yet. You don’t know what exactly is happening on his end, you never know, so when you go outside to run at your normal time on Saturday, you half expect him to be there.

He isn’t. And you don’t run into him on your way back, either. The game it is, then.

As the day progresses, the sky gets increasingly cloudy. In the evening, when the Lions and their opponent team are out on the field running final drills, it’s easy enough to tell that a good number of people had looked at the forecast - the crowd in the bleachers is much thinner than usual. The sky could open up and pour its soul out onto all of you at any moment.

You don’t even bother pretending that you’re not watching Yuta. As he steps off the field for their usual pre-game pep talk and chant, you swear he makes eye contact with you. Normally, he wouldn’t even bother looking, because he’s usually confident that you’re there. You’re not sure what the look in his eyes is now.

The coin toss decides that the other team will start with the ball. That might have been the first omen about the game. Then again, maybe the other team is just… better. Their defense is at least tighter than yours. At halftime, they have a point up on the Lions, 0:1. Yuta seems to take this very, very personally. Within ten minutes of the game restarting, they tie the score back up.

At about three quarters of the way through, it begins to rain. The referee deems that they’ve played far to stop, so the match continues. Almost like they take the poor weather as a sign, the rival team scores nearly immediately after.

You pathetically huddle under a single umbrella with Sowon while Yein shares one with Johnny. The ball slips rather than flies around the field, back and forth, back and forth, until, finally, with barely any time to spare, it’s at Yuta’s feet. The world seems to move in slow motion, then. His right foot moves backwards. It swings forwards. He makes contact.

He misses.

You try not to gasp. Yuta himself seems to be in shock, with how he goes stiff for a moment. Then, he’s back in action, targeting where the goalie had thrown the ball. This time, it’s not enough. A minute later, after another brutal back and forth, the scream of the whistle soars above the sound of the rain. It’s over. The Lions have met their first loss of the season.

The two teams barely wait around to shake hands before they’re rushing off to the locker rooms, away from the rain. Yuta moves slower than the rest, seeming to drag his feet through the muddying grass. Ahead of him, all of his teammates are moving quickly, but moping nonetheless. From your position, you see Mingyu kick the shins of someone you recognize to be one of the younger players. You see Kun’s mouth move as he tells him off, but they’re far enough away and the rain is loud enough that you can’t hear. If you hadn’t been displeased already, you are now.

Might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?

“You guys can go back,” you say, taking a step out from under the umbrella after you’re out of the bleachers with your friends. When Sowon tries to shove her umbrella in your hands, you push it back. “I’ll be fine! It’s only a short distance.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“Don’t worry.” With a sigh, she turns, reluctantly walking back behind Yein and Johnny.

You take off running, trying to outpace the raindrops pelting you. By the time you make it beneath the slight sheltered roof of the locker room building, you’re damp, but not entirely soaked. It’s enough to be an annoyance, your clothes sticking slightly to your skin.

You wait outside for a good few minutes. Small groups of players from either team leave, the opponent players giving you strange looks as you lean against the wall and shiver, Baekho and his group giving you an awkward acknowledgement, and, finally, Mingyu emerges.

“Y/N?” He seems confused, but somewhat excited. As if you’re there to meet him.

“Mingyu. Answer one question for me.” You say it wearily, expressing it like the chore it is.

“What are you acting so weird for?” The excitement you glimpsed before dies.

“Were you going to use me to get in good with my brother?”

The rain is the only sound you hear for a couple solid heartbeats. “Y/N, listen…”

“He was right…” You grumble to yourself. You glare up at him. “You can do your physics labs by yourself. Delete my number.”

He stands before you for a moment more before he realizes that you’re serious. He turns and walks away, into the haze of the downpour. A minute later, Jaehyun and Kun emerge from the building.

“Oh, Y/N,” Jaehyun says, seeming surprised. “Are you waiting for Yuta?”

“Is it that obvious?”

The two of them exchange looks and smile. Kun speaks next. “He’s probably not coming out for a while. He usually gets all depressed when we lose a game, but I’ve never seen it this bad. He’s been standing in the shower for like fifteen minutes.”

You glance at the door. Jaehyun nudges you. “He’s the only one left in there. I wouldn’t tell anyone if you, say, went in right now.”

“A bonafide cupid right here,” Kun says, swinging the bag he has slung over his shoulder around so he can dig through it. He produces something, offering it to you. “Here.”

“What is…” You trail off as you take it from him, your face warming as you realize exactly what it is. “Kun, what is this?!”

“I don’t want any miniature versions of him running around. I’m always prepared.” You stare at Kun incredulously a beat longer before you shove the condom in your damp pocket.

“Good luck!” Jaehyun calls back to you as they begin to walk off, leaving you standing under the overhang. Taking a deep breath, you push open the door and walk inside.

Unsurprisingly, the place has a somewhat sweaty smell to it. The rows of lockers are labeled with names and a little image depicting the sport the owner plays, as all of the school’s teams use the same locker room, and the occasional miscellaneous socks, gloves, and other things are scattered about. A row of sinks is against one wall and past the sinks is an entrance into the shower area. You make your way there.

As you get closer, the distinct sound of one shower running gets louder. The only curtain that’s closed is a middle stall, all of the others open and empty. Parallel to the shower stalls is a long wooden bench. “Yuta?” You call out. He doesn’t respond, so you try again. “Yuta?”

“Go away.” This time, the response is sharp and harsh. He certainly is in a mood.

“Yuta, it’s me.”

“Y/N?” His voice is significantly less negative now. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

You can barely hear him sigh over the sound of the shower running. “You couldn’t wait until after I was done?”

“No.” When you say that, the water shuts off. A hand sneaks out to grab the towel hanging from a hook affixed to the partition between the stalls. You don’t see anything revealing, but you look away anyways. The scraping of the rings being drawn back tells you he has emerged from the stall.

“You can look at me, you know.”

“I didn’t want to be rude.” You look back, greeted with the sight of his gloriously wet hair and bare torso. He emerged quickly enough that he didn’t have time to dry much of the water dripping off of him. The only part of his body that’s covered is his waist and thighs, though the towel still reveals a tantalizing v-line. You forcibly swallow your thirst.

“Blatantly checking me out again? I get it, but would it kill you to be less obvious?” The comment throws you back to a simpler time, when you were just irritated with him for his cockiness and blasting music through the floor.

“Speak for yourself.” You cross your arms. It was obvious enough that he was enjoying the sight of you in a wet t-shirt and shorts.

“Why didn’t you wear something warmer?” He says, frowning. He steps closer, leaving little space between you.

“I didn’t think it would cool down this much.” You look away, not able to face his bare chest quite yet. The room still has a certain steam about it from the hot shower he was taking that makes it a little harder to breathe. Then again, maybe that’s just him being mostly naked in front of you. He reaches out, touching the hem of your shirt.

“You’re soaked,” he says, rubbing your shirt between his thumb and index finger.

“You’re just making me wetter.” Your face burns something fierce as you say it, contrasting the chill that had settled over your skin from standing outside. “You would think you’d dry yourself off more before getting out of the shower.”

“I was just eager to see you, I guess.” You finally have the courage to meet his eyes again.

“I missed you this morning.” You almost pout while saying it, feeling small under his gaze. It’s not an uncomfortable smallness, but one that makes you feel closer to him.

“I figured you didn’t want to see me.” He reaches out, brushing his fingers softly over the side of your face. His touch is blissfully warm. “Or, I think that you did want to see me, but you would only be angrier if I showed up.”

The thought almost makes you laugh. It would be one of the few times he’s been wrong about your feelings. But, if he always knows so much… “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I talked to Mingyu a few minutes ago and you were right. I should have trusted you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you handle it on your own.” He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. “You’re strong enough to deal with assholes like him. You don’t need me.”

“I might not need you, but I do want to keep you around.” The small confession has your bottom lip quivering. “Did I mess up your game today?”

“It was mostly the rain.” He sounds so nonchalant, but you can tell he’s still bothered. “Not you. But, if you do feel bad about it, Miss Physical Therapy, there is something you can do for me.”

His eyes have shifted away from their darkness into a different sort of moodiness. You step closer. “What is it?”

He moves back, taking a heavy seat on the bench. “I’m quite tense. Give me a massage.” His eyes bore into yours. “If you so choose.”

You step behind him. The thrill of what you feel like he’s implying thrums in your veins. The muscles of his shoulders and back are hard under your fingers, showing years of training and toning. You’re almost surprised at how well built his upper body is for a soccer player. His skin is beyond perfect too, and the little droplets of water from his steamy shower that settle on his skin glisten temptingly in the low light of the locker room.

“Sorry my hands are cold,” you practically whisper.

“It’s fine. Feels nice.” He wasn’t lying when he said he was tense - you can feel the knots leaving his muscles as you press down on them, dissolving into smooth flesh that’s soft to the touch. As you work along his back, one particularly tough knot has your thumbs pressing harder into him, drawing a low groan and a curse from his throat. “Fuck.”

The sound turns you on more than you’d like to admit. As you finish his back, you become even more hyper aware of the little noises he’s letting out, the space between you becoming noticeably warmer. Slowly, reluctantly, your hands leave his skin and you circle back towards his front, not quite wanting to look him in the eye. “Is that better?”

“Much.” The air feels heavy. “But you’re not done, yet.” Ordinarily, he’d be smirking so hard you’d be able to hear it in his voice, but there’s only a low command to his tone now. He reaches out, guiding your dominant hand forward so that it’s resting on the front of his shoulder. There’s no hiding from his eyes now. You decide then - if you’re going to do this, you might as well go all out. Sliding onto his lap, your knees pressing into the wooden bench on either side of him, makes you feel both powerful and small at the same time. His face is only a breath away from your own. You swear you can see his eyes flicker to your lips. Trying to play innocent, despite the fact that you can basically feel his dick hardening under his thin towel, you shift slightly, putting your focus on his shoulder and pectoral muscles. Every so often, you readjust yourself, purposefully bouncing slightly on his lap, almost grinding down on him. He doesn’t crack, remaining still and keeping his expression flat. The only signs he gives of being aroused are the slight shiver to his breath and the prominent bulge you’re now certain you can feel. That, and the hands he has on your body, one on your hip and one on your thigh, fixing you in place.

The process is slow, arduous, but you eventually finish with his pectoral and shoulder muscles. You pull your hands away, placing them in your lap and then sitting back, unmoving on his lap, reveling in the way you’ve very clearly made him feel. “Is that all?”

His eyes flicker down to your lips again before boring into your own. “You missed one spot.” Wordlessly, he reaches up, tapping his own lips.

You could walk away right now. His hands aren’t so tight on your body that you couldn’t just get up and leave, go back to your apartment and forget this ever happened. But why would you want to? You’ve been dreaming of his lips for weeks. Finally, you’re about to get a taste. Still, there’s an edge of apprehension digging slightly in your gut.

You’ve sat in silence for long enough that he’s opening his mouth, an apology about to leave his lips, when you swoop forward, pressing your lips to his.

Where he had given you the choice to initiate, he’s the one who really leads. He almost instantly deepens the kiss, dragging you even farther up his lap, pressing you hard against his barely-shielded dick. You feel his fingertips against your skin, under the hem of your top.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes, but-” Where his hands had stilled under your shirt they begin to move again. “Yuta, wait.” He freezes once more, looking up at you. If you didn’t know better, you could swear you see a little bit of fear in his eyes. A shaky breath leaves your lips. “I won’t fuck you unless you tell me you actually have feelings for me. Did you mean what you said back then? After the games?”

“Is that a requirement for all the guys you sleep with or am I special?” You can feel his cock throbbing under you and your own insides ache in response. Of course, he’s delaying what both of you want by being coy. The frustration building up in your gut and in your heart makes you feel like you’re going insane.

“Yuta…” You mean it to sound admonishing, but your tone is more akin to a whine as you lightly drag your nails down his chest. His breath stutters slightly in his lungs at the motion, but in that moment, a sort of gentleness you’ve rarely seen takes over his facade.

“You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met,” he breathes out, eyes locked with yours, “how could I not have feelings for you?”

You kiss him, sweetly, desperately. His hands begin to move once more, his fingertips digging ever so slightly into your skin. When his hands make it to the edge of your shirt, giving you a suggestion, you cover them with your own, guiding him to take it off. As soon as the garment is out of the way, his lips are on your neck, your collar, the soft skin of your chest. He can feel the hum of your voice through your breast as you speak. “I really like you, Yuta. More than I’ve ever liked anyone else.”

His fingers nimbly unclasp your bra and it falls to the ground somewhere. As his touch ghosts over your breasts, you arch into his hand, drawing a warm chuckle from him. “That’s good,” he says, thumbing slow circles over your nipples, “because I feel the same way about you.”

You pull him back to your mouth, pulling him as close as you possibly can, breathing him like he’s air, tasting him like he’s food. His tongue is slick against your bottom lip, against your own tongue. Almost unconsciously, you rock your hips against his bulge as you move. Impatiently, he tugs at your shorts, pulling you out of the kiss.

“These have to come off.”

“It would kill you to go slow for once,” you laugh, getting off of his lap on shaky legs.

“I go slow for you all the time,” he responds, shifting the towel at his waist, which you realize is barely holding onto him from all the grinding you were doing on his lap, “I’ve been going slow for months now. Isn’t it time to speed things up?”

You roll your eyes, but shimmy out of your shorts, leaving you in your panties and him in his towel. From this angle, he can truly appreciate you. Every curve, every beauty mark, every fold and crease on your body. He leans back, his hands bracing him against the bench. Then, he shifts forward abruptly, taking the opportunity to snap the elastic of your underwear against your skin.

“Yuta!” The cry is half an admonition, half a laugh. You move to push his shoulder gently and he catches you by the hand, pulling you on top of him and kissing you once again. Before you realize it, he has a sneaky hand slipping into your panties, touching you where you’re most sensitive, making you jolt against his hand.

“Is this okay?” He murmurs the words against your lips and you nod, trying to focus on kissing him through the pleasure of his fingers. It’s been far too long since anyone has touched you like this and you’re not used to it.

“Mm,” you moan back, “more than okay.”

He had said he wanted to go faster, but it seems like he’s just going so slow, making you fall apart on his hand, first with just a thumb on your clit, then two fingers pushed more deeply inside of you than you could ever reach yourself. At some point, you’re no longer kissing him and your cheek is pressed to his instead. You nip at his ear, which you now realize is pierced, and the damp spikeyness of his hair rests against your temple.

His free hand rests over your breast, rhythmically squeezing it as you ride his fingers. Oddly enough, you feel like he predicts your climax before even you do, working you carefully through the release of pleasure as you shudder against him and clench around his fingers. Before you can fully regain your senses, he’s kissing you again and removing his hand, wiping his sticky digits against the towel slipping from his waist. You figure you’ll finish the job, reaching down to untwist the cloth so that it falls open against the bench.

You continue kissing him as you take his dick in your hand, your thumb sliding over the precum beading at his tip. It’s his turn to shiver, his cock twitching in your hand. Giving it slow, purposeful jerks, you watch him become perfectly uncomposed under you and you grin, leaning closer to press a kiss to the juncture between his neck and shoulder. He’s stiff, but remarkably soft to the touch, veiny and thick enough that your mouth waters. A couple minutes pass before he’s encasing your hand in his own, slowing your movement.

“I don’t want to come in your hand.” You stop, looking at him with faux-innocent eyes. He blinks desperately at you. “Please.”

“Can I suck you off later?” The words leave your mouth unexpectedly. You hadn’t even really been thinking about the later, but you figure you’re safe to assume that there will be one.

“Of course, pretty girl.” He strokes your hair and you can just think about him holding it back in the future as he-

Trying to distract yourself from the later and focus on the now, you slide off of his lap once again. He almost seems confused, made lonelier by the tiniest distance you put between the two of you. It’s almost a funny image, him half pouting at you while his dick is out, standing up against his abdomen and completely exposed. You let out the smallest exhale of a laugh. “You showed me yours, so I figured I would show you mine.” Your panties fall to the ground, where you kick them in the general direction of the rest of your clothes. The sight of your shorts reminds you of another important thing. “Oh! Also!”

You scramble over to them, reaching into the pocket and producing the little foil packet. Yuta stares at you. “You’re… prepared? I didn’t even think this far ahead and half the time my brain is controlled by my-”

“Kun gave it to me before I came in here,” you say, waltzing back over to him. He takes the packet from your hand, tearing it open. You… give him a hand as he rolls it on. “He’s awfully ready for a great many situations, isn’t he?”

“I think he was expecting this to happen a lot earlier than it actually did, honestly,” Yuta responds, pulling you back on top of him for the third time. Once again, your knees rest on the hard wood bench. “Can we not talk about my roommate, please?”

“I can agree to that.” You smile, kissing him. “Can we talk about how much I like you instead?”

“We can always talk about that,” he says, one hand on his dick, one on your hip, “are you ready?”

The mood dips, making your body shiver in anticipation again. “Yes.”

The way he positions his cock and begins to push into you makes both of you let out noises of relief, a groan from him and a sigh from you. You sink down onto him further until he’s fully sheathed inside of you, hard and pulsing and ungodly warm. He gives an experimental buck of his hips, pulling a moan from your lips and shaping his into a cocky smirk. “Already feel that good?”

“Shut up,” the complaint dies in your throat as you lift yourself up on your knees and sink back down again, bouncing on his lap slightly. You focus on the feeling of him inside of you, the sensation of him hitting your G-spot, the touch of his fingers on your clit again. His breath mingles with yours whenever he takes a break from kissing you. Your hands wander the smooth planes of his chest, your thumb briefly ghosting over his nipple, your palms getting sweatier as you hold onto him. It’s not long before you let your head fall back, your thighs tense as you hold onto his shoulders and move up and down on top of his cock.

His lips are hot as he mouths your neck. You’re not usually the type for marking, but, honestly, the thought of wearing his hickey on your skin sounds beyond appealing. He introduces the slightest bit of teeth, grazing them over your pulse as you ride him. The trail of tiny nips goes down past your collarbones to your breast. Your heart beats loudly in your ears and the desperation of chasing your orgasm makes the passage of time feel fuzzy, but in the sweet, bubbly way a soda does rather than the heavy, blurry way a cold would.

“Yuta,” you whine, the knocking of your legs against the bench growing painful, “can you…”

“I got you, baby.” With a grunt, he stands, lifting you by the thighs. You wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him close. A breath later, your back is pressed to the wall and he’s pushing into you once again. The new angle is a change, and it’s a good change. Every one of his thrusts hits exactly right, pushing you further and further until-

“Yuta, you’re gonna make me...” you pant against his mouth, breathing the same air as him. At some point, after he had picked you up, you had reconnected your lips, and he swallows the little noises you let out hungrily. You clench and unclench your fists behind his back, as your arms are slung over his shoulders.

“Mm, good. That’s my girl.”

All you can think as he pounds into you is Yuta, Yuta, Yuta. You come undone with a final swipe of his thumb and a choked cry of his name. Once your own orgasm has stopped burning quite so bright, lowering to a comfortable simmer in your gut, his hips slow with each thrust until he pushes into you and stays there. You can feel him throb inside of you even through the condom.

Your skin feels like it’s glowing in the aftermath of his love, warm like coals after a fire has just ceased to burn. Warm with the promise of more flames in the future. You lean your face in the junction of his shoulder and neck, breathing love onto his skin. His deep, uneven breaths slow over time as he presses gentle kisses to the exposed flesh of your shoulder. The silence between you is only interrupted by the ambient sound of water flowing through pipes hidden in the concrete walls of the shower part of the locker room. That’s enough of a reminder for you to groan, clutching onto him tighter. “I can’t believe we just confessed and fucked in your sweaty locker room.”

“From my perspective, it’s more ‘wow, I can’t believe we finally confessed and fucked, even if it was in my sweaty locker room.’” That, at the very least, makes you smile. Slowly, he begins to pull out, separating from you with a sticky, wet sound. He backs up, turning so that he can place you gently on the towel still lying on the bench. He disposes of the used rubber quickly, throwing it in a trash can at one end of the room.

Now that he’s no longer touching you, it feels so much colder. “I feel bad for whoever has to clean this place. I hope they don’t find that.”

He shrugs. “I’m sure they’ve seen worse.” He makes his way back to you, naked body still on full, glorious display for your eyes only. “Wanna shower while we’re here?”

You groan. “Yuta, I’m tired. No funny business.”

“Who said anything about any ‘funny business?’ I just suggested we clean off the sweat from all that physical exertion.” He’s smirking, not even pretending to be innocent.

“You’re insatiable.” Still you get up, joining him in the shower stall that he holds open for you. If any follow up activity happens while you’re in there, the only way anyone on the outside would be able to tell would be from the quiet sounds that are mostly drowned out by the noise of the shower.

As you finally redress, accepting the hoodie that Yuta had in his locker so that you don’t have to put your wet shirt back on, he can’t seem to keep his hands off of you, like he’s afraid you’ll go away. The environment between you feels different, but the same. After you’re both fully dressed and start walking out the door, you reach out to take his hand. He accepts the action, interlocking his fingers with yours. Both of you stop under the overhang of the building. By now, the sun has set and a few street lights shine along the walkways of the campus through the haze of rain. “Yuta, are you my boyfriend?”

He blinks a couple times. “Wasn’t that implied?”

You turn away, suddenly shy. “I mean… I just… wanted to clarify…”

“You’re too good for me.” He laughs, then kisses your cheek. Both of you stare out of the rain, as if it’s going to suddenly stop just because you’re politely waiting for it. “I meant it. Every time.”

“Hm?”

“Every time I said I liked you, or that you’re amazing. I was just afraid of- I don’t know. That I’m not honest enough or nice enough, or even good enough at soccer. I just-” He seems so tired as he says it, so brutally truthful, so terribly self-doubting.

You squeeze his hand. “Yuta, it’s okay. Honestly, all this time, I thought you’re too good for me. You’re so much more than the things you say you are. You’re a star.”

“I’m not. I can be an asshole, and jealous, and not serious even when I should be-”

“Yuta, if you like me despite all of my ridiculous bad qualities, I’m pretty sure I can deal with a little jealousy. You’ve shown me who you are and I still like you. You’re loyal and funny and romantic and so many other things. I like you.”

He sighs sweetly, like he was holding in a breath for so long and is finally letting it out. He’s holding your hand so tightly, it feels like he might never let go. Right now, you think you might be okay with that. “Sorry. I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”

You peer into others’ eyes for a long time, content to just look. Then, the cold finally gets to your legs and you shiver, scooching slightly closer to him. You look out. The rain isn’t getting any better. “Do you want to run? To make up for us not going together this morning?”

He doesn’t even respond. He just glances at you, winks, and tugs at your hand, starting to go. The rain pelts you as you go, utterly soaking you, getting in your shoes, darkening your borrowed hoodie. His hair sticks to his forehead, making him look a bit like a wet kitten. Maybe a lion, more accurately. Still, in the passing lights and the sheen of the rain, he glows.

“Yuta?” You say between shallow breaths.

“Yeah?” He keeps going, keeps tugging you along. You have to work to keep up with him, pumping your legs hard.

“Do you want to go professional?”

He looks back at you quickly, but then turns forward. “I would.”

“I really think you could do it!”

Then he’s laughing, truly, mirthfully. “That’s the second best thing you’ve said to me today!”

At that, you’re laughing too, though it slows your pace, though it makes your lungs burn, though it helps rain water run into your mouth. When you make it to your complex, soaked through, looking like you just took a swim in your clothes, you don’t want to let go. Reluctantly, both of you part ways to change clothes in your respective apartments with the promise to meet soon and start Yuta’s effort to culture you with anime.

Sowon and Yein tease you relentlessly, both when you enter your apartment leaving puddles on the ground and when you leave again ten minutes later completely dry. They tease you for the next week whenever they catch you leaving if they know you don’t have classes. The next Friday, you end up staying up far too late watching one of Yuta’s shows, which you admit are at the very least fun, and you fall asleep in his bed. You’re sure you’ll never hear the end of it from your roommates, even if Yein has been staying in the volleyball boys’ apartment every other day for the last month.

In the morning, a mere three hours after you and Yuta went to sleep, you wake up in his arms to a strange blaring of J-rock. He reaches over you to slap his phone and shut it off. You stay awake just long enough to comment on how strange it is hearing the music next to you and not through the floor.

When you wake up around noon to Yuta staring at you, his bangs half covering his eyes, you flip over, checking the time so that he can’t see the absolutely embarrassed look on your face. “You’re so weird.” “Why are you being all shy? I’ve seen you naked. There’s nothing more to see.”

“There’s plenty more of me to see, thank you very much, Nakamoto Yuta.”

“I know there is, darling.” His arm is still slung over your torso like it was when the alarm went off and he tries to wrestle you back around to face him. You squirm in his hold.

“Darling? You’re so weird. Why are you so weird?”

“Weird? I thought I was romantic and funny and-”

“And weird!” You wiggle more until he flips you onto your back, straddles you, and pins your hands to the bed. It’s quite an incredible sight, him pinning you down with his raven hair a complete mess and no shirt, where you can faintly see marks that you may or may not have left on his chest earlier in the week. “No fair. Home ground advantage.”

He leans in, looking ever so charming despite his disheveled appearance. “You know what makes for great morning exercise?”

“You’re weird and a horndog and-”

“Running! Let’s go.” He suddenly rises up, taking one of your hands with him and pulling you into a sitting position.

“Yuta, it’s noon! There are going to be people out everywhere.” He tugs on your hand and you move so that you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. “And it’s Saturday, so there’s going to be even more people…”

“You don’t need to worry about people judging you. If anyone gives you any funny looks, I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Punt a soccer ball at their heads?” You’re standing now, looking at him uncertainly.

He shrugs. “Sure. But, seriously. I promise that you have nothing to be self conscious about. You also have me. That part most importantly.” You would smack him if the smile he gives you doesn’t have you reluctantly agreeing.

He’s right, of course. The run is completely fine. At least, you’re distracted enough by your boyfriend for it to be fine. When you return, you split off to take showers in your apartments. After you emerge from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around your body, you find him waiting in your room. You register him saying something about the tables turning and “great afternoon exercise” before he practically pounces on you.

Afterwards, through your sex-high haze, you hear a loud knocking on your front door. Groaning, you move only so much as to press your face into Yuta’s shoulder. “Don’t wanna get up…”

“Did I make you feel that good?” His voice is a warm rumble, teasing, though full of the same tiredness that yours has. You’re about to jab him lightly in the side when his hand shifts down, two of his fingers running through your folds. Shivering at the suggestion, you wiggle closer to him, hiding your face even more.

“Let me rest, you sex-fiend.” Before he can reply, there’s a few more insistent knocks at your door. “Ugh…”

“Were you expecting someone?” You shake your head against him. He reaches over and grabs your phone. “I heard this going off earlier while we were busy.” You make no move to take it from him, so he turns it on, his eyes scanning the recent chain of texts you’d just received. “It’s your brother.”

You immediately bolt straight up. “What?” Your mind ticks back to the previous day before you’re scrambling out of bed. “Shit, shit, shit, I forgot he was coming today!” As quickly as you can, you try to throw on the various items of clothing that had gotten scattered around the room in your - Yuta’s, more accurately - haste to move them off of the bed, where you had laid them out for after your shower.

Yuta stretches lazily. “Glad I could remind you.”

“Asshole, get clothes on! He’ll kill you if he figures out what we did!”

“Ah, to be killed by L/N B/N. You say ‘what we did’ like it’s a bad thing.”

“He’s my older brother, for God’s sake!” You throw a shirt at him, smacking him in the face. “He will murder you! If he doesn’t murder me for forgetting our plans first…”

“And your plans are?” He slips his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, slipping it on.

“I’m taking him to see your game. Maybe meet the team. Who knows? You won’t be able to see it if you don’t move your ass.” You finish putting your jeans on.

“I’ve never escaped through a window before, but it sounds fun.” He’s still smirking, clearly amused. You’re certain he would actually do that if you let him.

“On second thought, just stay here. I won’t let him into my room.” Your phone lights up with your brother’s face and number and starts to buzz. You pick it up. “Sorry, I’m coming! I was napping.” You hang up. “Please, Yuta?”

He steps into his own jeans. “That’s what I was planning on. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to incapacitate myself before the game.”

With that reassurance, you close the door to your room and head for the apartment door. Your brother, clad in a hat, hoodie, and jeans, weirdly normal for him, is standing in front of your door, his phone in his hand. He narrows his eyes. “Hi, Y/N. For a second there, I really thought you forgot about our plans. Who takes a nap on a Saturday afternoon?”

You step aside, letting him in. “I was just tired today for some reason. Sorry.” “You’re lucky you’re my favorite.” He walks in, sliding off his shoes next to yours. “Are your roommates home? It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”

“No, but they’ll be at the game later. You won’t miss them.” You stand there, swaying somewhat awkwardly. You’re sure that he’s noticed that you’re acting strangely. “Who let you into the lower doors?”

Your brother steps inside casually. “Your neighbor Jaehyun. Nice kid.”

“Y-Yeah. He’s one of our midfielders.”

“I guess I’ll get to see him in action soon, then. Where near here is good for something quick? We only have an hour and a half until the game.”

You’re thankful for a change in subject. “Depends what you want to eat! Think about it while I run to the bathroom?”

As you head there, you glance at your closed door. You feel kind of bad for leaving him in there, but it’s for his own protection. When you get back to the door, your brother is in the same place, staring at the shoes around the entry. He points at a pair of men’s shoes, which you realize with dawning horror are Yuta’s.

“Y/N? Whose shoes are these?”

“Oh! Those are, um, Johnny’s. Yein’s boyfriend.”

He deadpans. “Johnny. Your neighbor. The one who lives right across from you. Who is dating your roommate who isn’t here right now.” When you don’t respond, he sighs. “Y/N, it would be a lot easier to lie to me if you didn’t tell me so much in the first place. Who’s in your room? I know you hate closing your door if you’re not sleeping.”

Reluctantly, you walk to your room, cursing observant soccer players. Yuta looks mildly surprised to see you, and you walk over to where he’s sitting on your bed, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him over to your brother. If he’s afraid of your brother, he doesn’t show it.

“Yuta, was it?” He’s still expressionless. “I’ll have you know that there’s a few rules.” Before Yuta can even ask about the rules, he’s launching into a detailed explanation about consequences, saying something about maiming and making it look like an accident.

“B/N, you’re a professional now. You should really try not to say such scary stuff. Also,” you say, frowning, “I can handle myself. You know that by now.”

Yuta breaks his silence. “She really can. She’s strong enough to deal with anything.”

“You really believe that?” Your brother’s gaze is unyielding.

“I do.”

“Well, then.” He suddenly lightens up, smiling at the two of you. “Want to join us for dinner? I’m thinking noodles.”

“I actually have to get to warm-ups soon…” Yuta says regretfully.

“That’s a good boy. See, Y/N, I trust your judgement. We best be off, then.” Abruptly, your brother turns, putting his shoes back on. You scramble to join him, grabbing your things and putting your own shoes on.

“I’ll see you later?” You say to Yuta, who’s simply staring, somewhat shell shocked that he survived the encounter.

He blinks, then gives you a sort of smirk. “How about a kiss for-”

“Don’t push it.” Your brother cuts him off, standing in the doorway. He starts down the stairs. When he’s not looking, you lean over, pressing your lips to Yuta’s cheek. Before you can turn around, he sneaks one of his own onto your lips. You run after your brother.

He thoroughly grills you about Yuta during dinner, but you don’t mind. You keep out the parts about sex and the specifics of the relationship coming to fruition and he seems satisfied. You barely make it to the game in time because of your brother’s interrogation, but you still get there early enough to see some of the drills. In work mode, he crosses his arms, making approving comments about Yuta’s footwork. Your boyfriend is in a similar mood, already focused in.

Then, the game starts. The other team starts with the ball, but it makes no difference. The Lions take it back, sending it back and forth across the field, gaining and losing it, until Yuta, as usual, scores, redeeming himself from the previous week. Your brother says something under his breath about potential and skill. Through the game, the Lions make great plays and you find yourself cheering for all of them, even Mingyu. The rival team stands no chance - not for lack of skill, but simply because your team is determined. By the end of the game, the score is a solid 3:0.

You’re one of the first onto the field after the teams break away from shaking hands. You meet Yuta in the middle, jumping on him in a hug when you reach him. You can’t stop the outpouring of praise, telling him how well he played, how brilliant he was. He just laughs, telling you he did his best. It’s the most positive thing you’ve heard from him after a game.

When you let go of him, willing to let the rest of his friends surround him now, you step away in search of your brother. To your surprise, he’s chatting up the Lions’ coach, who seems somewhat flustered by the Ravens’ striker speaking to him. Before you can get close, the coach blows the whistle he has around his neck, getting the attention of everyone around him, but particularly the team.

“Boys! Gather round, we have someone here with something to say to you.”

It doesn’t take long for them to recognize who your brother is.

It’s funny seeing the team rush to your brother, some pretending to be cool, some openly fawning over him. But, there’s one person who isn’t looking at him. From across the mob forming around your brother, you make eye contact with Yuta. And, in the midst of the stars shining in the form of the Raven, the Lion’s light falls on you.

[parkers-gal]

How about some Tom angst, when after getting off a flight and feeling gross and wanting to go home, Tom is swarmed by fans and takes forever signing stuff

requests are open

—

After waking up at four A.M. for your flight, you and Tom had learned it would be delayed for a few hours. It was out of your controls, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t be frustrated. You were stuck in a swarming airport with an A-list celebrity; it was only a matter of time before they mobbed you. You had already been followed by the paparazzi on the way here, you couldn’t handle anything else this early. 

By the time the clock struck six o’clock, more fans had started piling the airport. It seemed as though airport security could not care less about your entire ordeal, so you and Tom were stuck hiding out in a family bathroom until your flight was scheduled to take off. 

It had been sixteen hours since then, and you hadn’t showered in almost a day. You felt icky and exhausted, wanting to get off the plane and directly home once the aircraft landed. 

Of course, you couldn’t.

Tom, being the gentleman he is, left you alone to pick up the baggage so he could be with the fans for a little longer. You didn’t mind at first, thinking if he went now, the two of you could leave once you finished grabbing the suitcases. 

You were wrong, however, because as Tom was taking pictures and signing posters, you were stuck in the middle of about twenty paparazzis, begging for details and secrets regarding Tom and his career. 

You groaned — internally, of course — and forced a polite smile towards the men surrounding you. You could handle this many cameras and people and pictures shoved in your face — on a good day. This, however, wasn’t a good day. You were irritated before you even got on the plane; you couldn’t deal with this right now. 

Excusing yourself through the crowd, you left the luggage with Marty, a body guard working for the airport, and made your way  over to Tom. You had to lean in close just so he could hear you, but you spoke in a whisper, not wanting to startle him. 

“Can we get going?”

He turned his head with another smile, nodding his head before whispering back, “Just a few more minutes.”

A few more minutes turned into fifteen, and you had texted Harry to park somewhere close. He complied of course, and you made your way over to Tom one last time just to tell him you were leaving. 

You abandoned him before he could reply, Marty following you to the exit and fighting off quite a few paps. He quickly situated the luggage into the back, and you thanked him with a twenty, sliding into the passenger seat next to the younger Holland. 

“Hey Y/N-” he paused just as he was about to switch gears from park to drive. “Where’s Tom?”

You sighed, still slightly annoyed. “Inside.”

“Doing..?” “He’s been with the fans for the past thirty minutes, what do you think?”

You felt sorry for snapping at him, but he nodded, smiling softly as though to say “I understand.” It was comforting, knowing he had been in your position before. The person that was always accompanying Tom, the person that was neglected because they weren’t the celebrity in Hollywood. It was comforting to know that you weren’t the only one being neglected, and not just by the fans. 

Harry rolled down your car window, the one closest to Marty. 

“Hey, man!” Harry hollered over the loud sounds of cars, airplanes and screaming fans. “Can you get Tom? We’ve got to leave now. Tell him it’s Harry!”

Marty nodded silently, undoing a button on his suit before gliding through the glass doors and directly into the crowd. He had a gun, not that he would ever use it.

You sat in the running car listening to Harry’s playlist, for ten minutes. Tom finally got in the backseat, but by this point, you were fuming. Harry could tell, too — he’d tried to make things easy for you, but it’s not like he could fix his brother’s oblivious state. 

The car ride home was filled with tension, and unbearably so. You didn’t bother helping with the luggage, either. Tom hadn’t helped you in the airport, and you sure as hell didn’t want to stand around in the cold London air when you could be taking a warm bath or a refreshing shower. 

Stepping inside, you nearly slammed your keys into the bowl, unwrapping your scarf from your neck just as Tom set the luggage down. 

“Love?” He took another step, removing his gloves. “What’s wrong?’

“You! You’re what’s wrong!” 

Harrison and Tuwaine smiled politely, awkward in whatever situation had just walked through the door. 

“What do you mean?”

Hanging your coat up, you walked into the kitchen for a quick glass of tea before you planned to shower. “I mean, you took nearly forty minutes signing shit, Tom! Do you realize what time it is?”

“It’s late, I know-”

“No, Tom,” you spoke sternly. You suspected everyone was listening with how quiet the house was. “You don’t know. We’re over five hours late. You left me alone in baggage claim- I- I had to eat breakfast in a fucking bathroom, for Christ’s sake!”

“That’s not my fault,” He defended himself. 

“I never said it was! I am saying today has been a shitty day! You taking the extra time with your fans just happened to tie the knot!” “It wasn’t even that long.”

You scoffed, slamming your mug down onto the kitchen counter. 

“I have been awake for over twenty hours. I’m not having this conversation if you can’t see how ridiculously long this entire day was.” 

You left the kitchen, sending a rough “Hi,” to the boys before making your way upstairs, footsteps harsh on the hardwood floor. 

“Y/N!” Tom yelled, making his way to you again. 

“What, Tom?” You were nearly crying at how frustrating today was. All you wanted to do was take a bath and go to sleep. Get some fucking rest in your own bed without people you didn’t even know, swarming you. “What?”

He breathed out heavily. “I’m- I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how exhausting today was for you.”

“Yeah well, it was. I don’t have the energy to fight or be mad so if you don’t want to deal with this right now then you can sleep on the couch or something.”

“No- no I-” he chuckled, rubbing his forehead. “Look, I’m sorry. That’s what I was trying to say.” You looked up at him, pausing before nodding. “Let me help you- you’re tired and probably want to shower before you sleep.”

“Yeah, I do,” you were still speaking harshly, and Tom stepped forward, inviting you into his embrace. You accepted the invitation, falling into his chest and hugging him tightly, because no matter how infuriating this boy was, you knew you needed him. 

[hacked-by-jake]

New Life

Summary: Finally you will move to Duskwood and start a new life. A moving with the help of the chaotic Duskwood Squad and a shamed hacker with the wrong moving box, can it be more beautiful?

Pairing: Group & Fem!MC x Jake

Words: 4,4 k

A/n: Welcome to this OneShot. After a long time something of my own. I dreamed about it and so the idea came. So I hope you’ll like it and have fun. Excuse the mistakes etc etc etc.

Take care and stay healthy! Much love.❤️

4 a.m.

"Shit" you hiss annoyed and look at the stain of coffee on the floor, which was sweped in your haste over the edge of the cup, "My poor coffee".

Because of sorrow you forgot again why you even walked to the door.

You want to make your way to get a cloth when it rings again, "Oh right" you shake your head over your forgetfulness. It’s just too early for you.

Quickly you open the door to your apartment and look in two radiant faces belonging to Dan and Richy, your heroes of the day.

"Good morning" both say at the same time and you would just like to crawl back into bed.

"Good morning guys, come in. Careful not to step on the coffee, he did not deserve it"

Hectically you put your cup next to the door on the small dresser to go to the kitchen and get something to wipe away.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Dan asks you as you come back with quick steps.

"You look tired, haven’t you slept?" Richy asks, grinning, you shake your head.

"Only about half an hour and that was an accident. I didn’t want to sleep," you explain.

"Why?" Richy looks around the almost empty apartment. All that’s left are only the biggest furniture you’ll be taking with you and a lot of moving boxes.

"I had to pack so much stuff and besides I was really excited. Do any of you want coffee? I made more, and I left two more cups outside." You’re offering.

The eyes of both men grow big,"I certainly don’t say no to coffee," Richy jokes and follows you into the kitchen.

"Just take what you need. I still have to pack the rest of my clothes and the stuff from the bathroom" You already ran off only to then make a 180 degree turn, "My cup" you mumble and grab it.

"MC, let’s take it easy, we have all the time in the world," Dan rebukes you and you sighing.

"I’m sorry, I’m probably more excited than I thought," you apologize and drop into the chair at your kitchen table.

"This is normal. You don’t move to a completely strange and creepy city every day," Richy throws in and immediately gets a nasty look from Dan.

"Are you serious?" he asks, "You’re not making it better!"

Richy looks embarrassed in your a little desperate face, "But for that, this will be the coolest time of your life!" he tries to save the situation, "Hey, think about it, the Duskwood Squad is finally completely united in a few hours!"

The prospect of the time you are about to be with your friends, and that always without having to go home, also makes you smile like the two men

"But it’s about time, Shorty, we miss you at our place.

A visit every few months is simply not enough, or just for one night over the weekend. You should have seen the girls the last days, there was no rest"

Dan finds just the right words to calm you down. You’ve waited so long to move to Duskwood, and now it’s finally time. A new phase in your life with a group of good friends that you met during a worst-case similar situation.

Since then, there hasn’t been a day when you haven’t written or spoken on the phone. You’ve played so much Doodle Splash to pass the time for your next visit that you feel like you’ve painted more than Picasso ever did

"You are right! " you agree resolutely, "time for the best time of my life! "

-------------------------------------

"I actually thought you had a few less things," Richy stands breathless in your apartment door. Of course, the big things, like your couch, your bed and your desk, were brought into the truck first which Richy borrowed from a friend company for removals.

And now for about 20 minutes you’ve been carrying one box after the other downwards to store it. In between, even one of your neighbors came to help, who actually wanted to go to work but still had a few minutes.

"That’s because the boxes are too small," you joke, and Richy looks at you with a look that clearly says 'You don’t believe that yourself'.

Defending you raise your hands and push with your foot another box over to him, which he can bring down.

About 10 minutes later, in which you had to take out all the boxes again, and put them back in, you put down the last box in your hallway. Behind you, Dan and Richy come up the stairs as you pull the little key to your former apartment out of your pocket and sigh.

"Finish!" Richy cheers and puts an arm around your shoulders, "Are you ready?" Dan asks you and you nod. A little sad, you put the key in the keyhole one last time and lock up.

Dan takes the last box from you and you go down the stairs together. You throw the key into the mailbox as agreed with your landlord and turn around one last time.

Determined not to be sad or rather melancholic, you climb forward into the truck behind Richy while Dan closes the big cargo hatch.

He himself gets into the driver’s seat.

"Let’s go into your new life" he announces solemnly as he starts the engine.

"Into a new life"

-----------------------------------------

"I wanna be the very best!

Like no one ever was!

To catch them is my real test

To train them is my cause" you all shout the theme music of Pokémon.

Richy has turned on his playlist where all the songs you can only imagine are. You’ve been driving for about an hour and a half.

"POKÉMON!" Richy screams and throws his hand into the air.

"Don’t shout!" Dan grumbles and gives him a annoyed look, "You just screamed too!" the mechanic defends himself and twists his eyes. "I need another coffee, I’m driving to the next rest stop, otherwise I won’t make it for the next two hours," says Dan and you agree.

At the gas station you get yourself a new coffee and a snack. Actually 3 hours are not so much driving, but with the grumpy Dan and the lively Richy, who are two clowns at the same time, it can be exhausting.

After you get back to the truck, and this time Richy drives on, you actually managed to fall asleep after half an hour.

-----------------------------------------

"Wake up, Shorty" you hear the voice of the bearded man far away, "We are almost there," he explains and you open your eyes. You need a short moment to realize where you are and what’s going on, but then you straighten up. Your head was lying on Dan’s shoulder.

"Sorry" you mumble and stretch as much as possible with so little space." It’s fine. I almost slept myself" he waves off and you just nod. No wonder, the two boys also left at 1 a.m., to be with you in time.

In fact, you can already see that you will reach the entrance of Duskwood in about 5 minutes. You’ve been driving this way so many times, you know the way around, like in your own hometown.

"I’m so glad I don’t have to drive any further," Richy whines and drums with his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song that sounds quietly from the radio.

"When the truck is empty, you have to bring it back" Dan reminds him. Without going into the mocking comment, the mechanic turns the radio a little louder.

When the sign 'Welcome to Duskwood' appears in your sight, you start to grin broadly. Nervously you slide back and forth on the seat and bite your lower lip.

Richy crosses the border into the small town with secrets you still have learned to love.

"Welcome to Duskwood" Richy congratulates you and you happily clap your hands.

Welcome new life.

-------------------------------------

When you turn into the street where your apartment is, very close to Jessy’s, you almost jump up from your seat. Just the seatbelt holds you back when you see the rest of the group standing outside the door: Jessy, Cleo, Thomas, Lilly and Hannah.

All 5 wave wildly and Richy pushes twice on the horn to greet. As far as the side of the road goes, Richy stops the truck and you quickly unbuckle yourself. You rip the door, and without using the stairs, you jump out of the car, "Leave the door where it belongs!" you hear Richy shout, but you’ve been on your way down for a long time.

"Hello" calls all of you in a choir as a tight and not quite gentle hug with the 4 girls takes place. All at the same time you fall into each other’s arms. Compliments are exchanged and joy about the move announced.

"You pretend you haven’t seen each other for four years!" you hear Richy laugh and roll his eyes. "That’s how it feels," Hannah chuckles next to you.

"Hello MC" Thomas shouts amused and you stretch an arm in the air and waves in an indefinite direction, "Hello Thomas, I don’t know where you stand but HI!"

After you finally broke up from each other, Hannah holds out your new front door key that she kept for you. She was the one who looked for apartments for you on the spot when you couldn’t be here. She took over the visits and took pictures. If it was possible, she took you with her through a video call.

"Congratulations MC, welcome to the family" she smiles.

"Thank you folks, it’s so nice to finally be here!"

-------------------------------------

After you have arrived correctly and you have looked at your apartment once again in empty state, you have started to bring everything into the apartment. Now, of course, things are moving much faster with more people.

You’ve built up in the stairwell to the second floor: Dan, Richy, Thomas, Cleo, Lilly, Jessy, Hannah and you.

In a row your carton reaches from person to person and quickly most of it is done. From your apartment comes music that you run via a Bluetooth speaker. Fortunately, you have labeled everything so that after all the boxes are in your apartment, you only have to push them into the right rooms. And then the big things come.

The three of them, Thomas Richy and Dan carry the sofa upstairs.

You just stand by with a slightly nervous face and hope no one gets hurt.

"You have to be careful! The sofa is tipping!" Dan shouts loudly as Richy tries another handle.

"I know! But I don’t want this thing to fall on my foot," Richy hisses. Thomas, who supports the side, only twists his eyes.

-------------------------------------

All the important parts are now in your apartment. Now, the truck is empty and ready to be brought back.

"Okay, I’ll bring the truck away, and you start here. I’ll come back when you’re done and I can get the beer I earned," Richy jokes as he takes the key off the kitchen table.

"You get nothing" you call laughing after him, "Oh wait until the man Without Face learns of your sin. To deny a working man his beer is bad!"

Laughing, you shake your head, "I’m waiting for the next new moon."

"How can you always joke about it?" Jessy asks without understanding.

"Well, that’s just relief," you explain and smile at her calmly.

-------------------------------------

4 hours, a lot of laughter, bad jokes, quarrels and almost broken furniture later, the most important is on the right place. The bed is built up and ready for the first night in the new apartment, in your new life.

"How’s your thumb, Richy?" Ask the sulking mechanic carefully.

"All right, I can take a lot, I’ll survive," he calms you down and presses the cooling pad more firmly on his finger.

A lot went wrong trying to build your wardrobe. Someone had forgotten a screw when the ceiling was mounted.

The moment Richy tried to hit a nail with a hammer in the lower area, the ceiling came loose and fell down.

Both side walls of the cabinet fell into each other, and Richy accidentally punched hit his thumb. For a few seconds you were all just staring at each other and then laughing. Fortunately, Richy’s injury wasn’t that bad, but you gave him something to cool down with.

And now almost everything is ready. There are only a few boxes missing, but you will take over yourself." Thanks for your great help, guys! Many thanks to Richy and Dan who picked me up and drove so long. And of course, thank you all so much for helping me here!"

You’re all sitting around the table in your living room. You’re sitting next to Jessy on the floor while everyone else is comfortable on the sofa and armchair.

"And again, for the thousandth time today; Welcome to Duskwood MC" Hannah cheers and keeps her beer up. All together you toast.

"I’m so tired," Dan mutters, sipping his drink." Oh yes, so am I," joins Richy and you nod.

"But it was worth it" Lilly smiles and looks around, "And as soon as it’s done, it can only be great!"

"Perfect!" Hannah improves her sister.

"Indescribable" agrees Jessy.

-------------------------------------

"See you guys tomorrow!" you call after the group and close the door.

Just a short and quiet moment you close your eyes exhausted. Preferably you just want to go to bed, but first you still want to unpack a little more.

The sound that tells you that you have received a message pulls you out of your mind.

You pull out your phone and smile when you see that it is Jake who wrote to you.

Jake: Hello, MC.

Jake: How did the move go?

MC: Hi, Jake. Pretty good, I’d say, exhausting and stressful, but good.

Jake: Have you finished?

MC: No, not quite, I do the rest myself, the others have done enough.

Jake: Do you like the apartment?

You grin, he has improved his skills for small talk since you met and Hannah return.

MC: Yes, it’s really nice, do you want to come? You can look around.

Hopeful you stare at the screen. It would be really nice to see Jake today.

What this is between you, you don’t know for sure, sometimes it goes ahead and sometimes back. You’ve seen each other a few times since Hannah was rescued. Mostly here in Duskwood.

After a difficult time between the three siblings and still the problem with Jake’s pursuers, everything has improved.

However he did it, he managed to turn all the tracks that linked him to the suspicion so that they no longer point to him. He is still very careful and occasionally travels from town to town for a few weeks but most of the time he is in Duskwood. This is where you first met.

After the first conversation between Hannah, Lilly and Jake and a lot of explanations, the hacker decided to take an apartment here to catch up the time with his sisters. Since then, he has also become a little more open and better in interpersonal relationships.

At some point he was in the vicinity of your old place of residence and then it happened that you have a day to drink coffee. And the next day in your apartment. The beginnings were sometimes a little difficult because of him because he really didn’t talk much, but after some time it became really nice. There was even a kiss. Your first kiss together.

It was on your balcony and it was at night, under the stars. But since then, not much exciting has happened, unfortunately.

Jake: I think I’d just bother you unpacking.

MC: Bullshit, of course not, I could use a little quieter company after the whole group was there :)

Jake: Don’t you want to go to sleep soon? You must be tired.

MC: Jake, don’t make excuses, if you don’t want to, you can just say no, that’s not bad for me. But I promise I’d be happy if you were here.

You watch him start writing and then delete the message.

Jake: I’m on my way :)

Without answering his message, you close your phone and stare at the bare wall facing you for seconds.

Then you can’t stop yourself from doing a little joy dance, "Yess!" you hisses and grins all over your face.

Jake won’t be long before he gets here, so you decide to clean up the empty bottles and candy that are still on the table.

Although it’s only about 10 minutes to wait, it feels like a half an eternity until it finally rings.

Before you open the door, shake all your limbs to loosen up and clear your throat.

Then you open the door.

The hacker, dressed in black as always, stands with a slight smile in your hallway, "Hello MC" he greets you with his melodic voice.

Immediately you get very warm and you try to keep your own smile small, "Hi Jake. Come in" you walk to the side to let him in.

-

Jake actually knows your apartment already.

Officially, you don’t know anything about this. But off the record, Hannah told you.

You couldn’t handle the handover of the apartment yourself, so Hannah did it for you, and Jake was with her. He had only told her that he was bored and wanted to come along, but when he looked around and said some things like, "MC has enough space here" and "This will be a good place for her" she realized that he just came to make sure the place was nice enough for you.

Nevertheless, he now curiously lets his gaze wander through the now filled apartment.

"When it is done, it will look really nice" he confirms after you have shown him everything, as well as explained the room layout.

"Yes, I think so," you agree and smile.

"What are you going to do next?" he asks, pointing to the boxes in which your clothes are still to be cleared into the closet.

"That’s exactly what" you answer and kick one of the boxes, "You can sit on the bed if you want, while I unpack," you are proposing and tear the tape off the cardboard.

"I can help you if you don’t mind," he offers and you nod, "Sure, if you want"

-

Cleaning up with the group was really fun, but now with Jake, it’s beautiful. The atmosphere is calm, not stressful or a mess. You talk about everything that comes to mind while Jake keeps holding clothes in front of your face so you can tell him where it belongs.

Two boxes are already empty. In your second one there is still a little bit inside and Jake is also on his way to get a new one. You watch him as he opens the box, only to close it again immediately afterwards. His cheeks turn pure red and his eyes squint nervously at you, "Uhm, I think I’ll take the box first" he mumbles and you can hear the trembling in his voice only too well.

"Why? What’s going on?" you wonder about his reaction.

"Nothing at all, everything okay, here’s another one" he scratches nervously in the neck and does not look at you when talking.

Skeptically you walk over to the box to take a look inside. When you open it, you quickly realize the reason for his shamed behavior.

Your underwear. You decide not to say anything to make it even more unpleasant for him, but you cannot hide the smile on your lips.

For the next few minutes, it’s quiet until it rings at your door. You look at your watch in wonder. It’s just before 9, and you’re not expecting anyone today.

"Be right back," you inform Jake, "And keep your hands off my underwear," as you disappear out the door, you can see him raising his head in a flash, staring at you with big eyes. Laughing you open the door, "Phil?" you ask surprised when you see Jessy’s brother standing there. Phil has also become a good friend of yours, you visited Aurora as a group several times when you were here.

"Hi MC" he greets you, "I hope I’m not interrupting? I actually have to leave right away again, the Aurora is crowded today.I just wanted to stop by and greet you in Duskwood and congratulate you on your move" he smiles his typical charming smile as you hug briefly, "Thanks Phil" you nod grateful. He separates from you and then does not joyfully pull up an eyebrow, he looks behind you and you turn around as well. Jake is standing in the living room and has the same annoyed look as Phil on his face.

"Have fun, you two," Phil grins a little cocky and puts his arms around you again, just quick.

As he disappears down the stairs, he still calls, "We have to do something together in the next few days."

You slowly close the door and turn around with a wide grin to Jake, who still looks dark at the door. Yeah, that Phil and Jake don’t like each other hasn’t changed. On the contrary.

Jake finds Phil is the most unsympathetic person in the world, and Phil thinks he’s better for you than Jake is.

When Jake frees himself from his rigidity, his attention falls on you. You bite your lower lips and put a hand in front your mouth to stop your next words. Even the hacker seems to know what is going on and looks warn, "Don’t say it"

Innocently you raise your eyebrows, "What? I don’t know what you mean, do you mean? -"

"Stop" Jake stops you and heads back to the bedroom.

"What? Shouldn’t I say that you-"

"MC" he threatens.

"Are you jealous?" it bursts out of you and groaning Jake drops his head in the neck, "You really need to say this, don’t you?"

-------------------------------------

After you keep teasing Jake with it, you decided to stop for today. You two ordered a pizza and a drink, because you don’t have much here, except for the beer Hannah bought.

You had the TV running quietly but didn’t pay attention to it. Jake asked you what your wishes and hopes are in for your new life, and you talked about the time with the Man Without a Face. Until now, you’ve only talked to him about it. Just a little bit with Hannah but somehow you’re still not ready to deal with all this. The occasional jokes about it will help you soothe your thoughts a little.

During your conversation, you accidentally fell asleep. The hacker didn’t know what to do, he doesn’t want to wake you, but he also doesn’t want to leave without saying anything. After watching you for 20 minutes and thinking about your relationship, he felt weird just looking at you while you're sleeping. So he decided to leave.

However, you seem to have noticed this immediately because the moment he opens the door, your eyes open.

"Wait" you stop him and he looks at you frightened, "If you leave now while I sleep, then I feel like I was a one night stand," you joke and and he grins.

"You’re much more than that," he replies quietly. You raising your upper body, and a little shy, stroking the fluffy pillow on your couch.

"Can you.. can you stay, Jake?" Your voice is quiet, tired and a little nervous, "I feel uncomfortable being here alone the first night," you admit. You had this feeling the first time while you built up the bed. Even though the Man without a face is in prison and you’re safe, you still have this unpleasant ulterior motive.

He seems to think about, but without you telling him, he understands what you’re worried about.

"All right" he sighs and closes the door again.

"You can sleep in the bed, I’ll take the couch," you say and get up to get a blanket and a pillow.

"No, the other way around. You should sleep in your bed, your day was exhausting and you need to rest"

Before this discussion can be extended, you decide to make a short process, "Okay, you have two options now. Either you sleep with me in bed, or we both sleep on the couch. 'Cause I’m not gonna ask you to stay here for me, and then let you sleep there!"

The hacker stops briefly, turns slightly red but then grins, "I don’t have a chance anyway, do I?" he asks.

You shake your head, "Not without a war"

-------------------------------------

Luckily, you are in possession of a much too large sweatpants which fits him only narrowly, but fits.

The room is dark and it is completely quiet in the whole apartment. You try to be inconspicuous, and slide a bit towards him. You know he’s not asleep yet, and when he doesn’t try to stop you, you get a whole lot closer.

You hear Jake lifting the blanket, the invitation to come to him entirely.You don’t take your time but slide so close that you can put your head on his chest and he puts an arm around you. Immediately its beautiful smell envelops you and your pulse accelerates many times. Even his heart you hear racing what makes you smile.

"Do you know how many times I dreamed about it?" he whispers into the darkness and your heart makes a leap, "No, but if it was only half as often as I did, then I can imagine it," you answer and a quiet laugh vibrates in his chest.

"Good night, MC, see you tomorrow"

"Good night, Jake," you whisper, and then you feel his lips flapping softly over your forehead, just a touch, like a breeze. But for you, it means the world.

Welcome new life, you mean well with me.

❤️🎭🌹

Masterlist

[idy-ll-ique]

Bollywood Hits.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Desi!F!Reader

Warnings: deals with racism

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Requested: Nope

Summary: Steve sees Y/N for the first time and instantly falls in love, finally getting the date he wanted 6 months after meeting her. When they go to a restaurant, though, things go downhill.

Author's Note: Hiya peeps! This one is for my desi readers lmao but everyone is allowed to read (pls do lol). Enjoy!

---

"Yeah, excuse me, one second—"

Bucky and Sam waved him off as Steve stepped into the balcony at Bucky's place, taking out his phone which was ringing. As he stood there talking to the person on the other end, his eyes landed on the balcony next-door. His phone nearly dropped from his hand, his eyes bulging, a shocked look on his face.

How come Bucky never told him his next-door neighbor was so pretty?

She was wearing headphones, singing along to the songs as she cleaned her balcony. Only, the songs she was singing weren't English. Judging by the accent and words, his best guess was Hindi. Her voice was angelic, and her looks further confirmed the fact. That woman was going to be the death of him.

"Rogers, Rogers, are you listening?!"

"Uh— yeah, sorry, you were saying?"

After the call ended, he went back inside and towered over Bucky, who was sitting on the couch and having beer with Sam. Bucky raised an eyebrow at Steve's stance; his arms were crossed and he had a glare on his face. "What did I do?" he drawled. "Who's your neighbor?" Bucky blinked.

"My nei— oh! On my right, Y/N. Why, what happened?" Steve groaned and plopped down next to his best mate, grabbing a bottle of beer for himself. "How come you never told me your neighbor was so hot?!" Bucky burst out laughing as Sam stood up, walking into the balcony to check for himself. His eyes, too, went wide and his jaw dropped.

Y/N, when she felt someone's stare on her, paused the music and turned to see an incredibly handsome, dark-skinned man staring at her, jaw dropped. Her cheeks flushed and she lowered her gaze, turning away from him. No way. Why would someone look at her in that way? When she looked back up, no one was there.

She shrugged and continued working, resuming her favorite Bollywood Hits playlist. "Aye, aye Y/N!" Blinking, she looked up again and saw three men standing in the balcony. A white, blond haired man, the previous handsome dark-skinned man and her neighbor, Bucky Barnes.

"Hi Bucky, your friends?" she smiled at him, taking off the headphones. Steve's heart squeezed in his chest at her accent; God, she was breathtaking. "Yeah. Sam and Steve. Guys, this is Y/N Y/L/N." Y/N snorted at that, coming over to rest her hands on the railing of her balcony. "How do you manage to get it right, always? Accent and everything."

"I try my best," he winked at her and she grinned. Bucky, ever since he had moved into the apartment, had shamelessly flirted with her. Y/N didn't like him back, but she got flustered at every single pick up line and Bucky found her endearing. Recently he had stopped but they still talked; he was now like her protective friend.

"How long have you been living in America?" Sam asked her, grinning. "A few years now," she answered, giving him a smile. "Where did you live before moving here?" Steve inquired. "I used to live in Mumbai," she grinned at him. "Nice, nice. Well, I see you're busy right now, how about we go back inside, boys?" Bucky clapped both men on the back and went inside.

Sam followed but Steve stayed where he was. "I heard you singing, you have a brilliant voice," he smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you! I actually took lessons, back when I was in India," she laughed, picking up the headphones again as he followed his friends into the apartment.

What had just happened?

---

After that day, Steve's visits to Bucky's apartment became more and more frequent. He often bought gifts for her; tiny things, like her favorite Starbucks order (that he had learnt from Bucky) or flowers, like a true 40's gentleman. Bucky passed on the gifts to her, saying Steve left them at his place to pass them on to her.

Y/N always had the same question on her mind, why? Why would he bring her gifts? Bucky used to suggest that he liked her and wanted to take her out on a date, but Y/N never believed him. Why would Captain America, an American hero, a global sensation, want to take her out on a date?

6 months passed just like that; the boys were back at Bucky's apartment after a gruesome mission, chilling around and having beers. That's when they heard it. A loud shriek came from Y/N's apartment, followed by… more loud shrieks and smashing of glass kitchenware. Steve's blood ran cold; Y/N was in trouble and he needed to do something.

He abruptly stood up and ran out of the apartment, breaking into Y/N's with ease. He didn't expect what hit him, though; Y/N was crouched near the door, her knees pulled to her chest, seemingly cowering away from… nothing? "Steve!" Y/N sobbed when she saw him, immediately getting up and throwing herself into his willing, open arms.

"Y/N? Doll, what happened?" Steve whispered into her hair, rubbing her back, trying to soothe her. Bucky and Sam entered the apartment too, looking around for potential danger. "Th-There's a lizard in my apartment… I—" She gulped, trying to keep more tears at bay, "I have a phobia of liz-lizards, please get it out, please," she cried into his shoulder.

Steve didn't laugh. He simply held her close, looking around for the tiny reptile. Sam located it near the window and easily shoo-ed it out, Bucky cleaning the glass that was lying on the floor. Y/N probably dropped the plate in shock and fear. "Y/N, it's gone, you're fine," he smiled, making no move to get her out of his arms.

"Are you sure?" Y/N asked meekly, pulling away from him. She finally realized how close they were standing and blushed; she liked the man too, had liked him ever since Bucky suggested he was into her. Their lips were currently only inches apart. "Yep, I'm sure. Sam got it out of the apartment." An agreeing noise came from Sam and Y/N finally relaxed.

Bucky stepped into the sitting room after throwing away the glass pieces in the trash can that was in the kitchen. "Thank you so much, Bucky." Y/N looked at her neighbor with a smile. "Call me whenever those things bother again, okay? I'm always here for you." Steve watched as Bucky and Y/N shared a hug.

"Thank you for shoo-ing it out, Sam," Y/N said next, turning to his friend. They gave each other a hug, too. "No worries at all," he winked at her and Steve smiled when she blushed. She looked cute when she was flustered. "And finally, thank you Captain America for… keeping me safe," she breathed out, her breath hitching when she turned to her crush.

"Oh, no problem at all!"

Bucky and Sam left the apartment, leaving the two with their obvious tension. "Listen, um, I was wondering… would you like to get dinner sometime? There's a diner nearby, Bucky's friend works there…" "I'd love to get dinner with you." Expecting a hug, she was pleasantly surprised when he leaned in and gave her a sweet peck on the lips.

They shared numbers and Steve left the apartment with a huge grin on his face.

He was finally getting the date he had wanted for 6 months.

---

"Steve!"

He looked up, grinning when he saw Y/N making her way towards him, dressed in a magnificent red dress. "Doll, you look wonderful," he commented, bringing her in his arms. He pressed a kiss to her cheek to not spoil her makeup, and Y/N giggled at that. "Shall we?" Y/N nodded and the two people entered the diner.

Almost everyone looked up at them, their eyes going wide when they saw Steve. Then their eyes immediately narrowed at Y/N, because who was she? Surely Captain America was not dating an immigrant? Y/N's brows furrowed and she unconsciously shifted closer to Steve, who hadn't noticed anything.

"Hi, I'm Adam, your server for the day. What would you like to order?" Steve and Y/N went over the menu and Steve gave his order first. Y/N's voice cracked slightly when she noticed how Adam grimaced at her accent. She had made no point of getting a fake American accent, since she loved her desi one so much.

"Will that be all?" Adam turned to Steve, an eyebrow raised. "Yeah, thanks." Adam went away and Y/N's eyes followed his form. He went back to his friends and talked to them in hushed whispers, which made them all giggle quietly and sneer. Y/N's heart started thudding in her chest, her fear unbeknown to Steve.

Then suddenly, she noticed a young East Asian lady in the bunch who was frowning at the others. Her gaze caught Y/N's and she gave her a small, apologetic smile, nodding her head towards the white people that were talking shit about her. She reluctantly returned a smile; at least she wasn't the only person of colour around.

"Y/N!"

Startled, Y/N turned to see Steve blinking at her. "Hm?" she cleared her throat, giving him a grin. "Is something the matter? I called your name three times and you weren't listening…" Oh God, was this date too boring for her? Should he have done something else? "Sorry, sorry, just lost… what's up?"

They maintained a light-hearted conversation as they waited for the food to arrive. Surprisingly, it was the East Asian woman who brought them their orders. "Hi, I'm Leah, I'm replacing Adam. Here are your dishes." Leah placed the food in front of them. "What happened to Adam?" Steve asked curiously.

Y/N tensed up. "Um, does that really matter? Thank you so much Leah, that will be all for now." Y/N briefly closed her eyes as Leah sympathetically patted her on the shoulder, going away. "Y/N, is something the matter? You've kinda been on the edge ever since we walked into the diner," Steve asked finally.

"You wouldn't get it," Y/N muttered, prodding her food. "What? Try me, tell me, please," he insisted, eyes going wide when Y/N's filled with tears. "Just eat your food, Steve." Heartbroken, Steve only watched as Y/N gulped down her food through the tears.

Leah was watching the couple and she sighed when she saw Y/N crying. Wiping her hands on her apron she walked up to the couple and stood next to them. Y/N didn't look up, but she could tell it was her. "Is everything okay?" Steve asked her, now getting irritated. "I know what happened to her, sir."

Steve blinked. "What is it?" he asked, desperate for answers. "I replaced Adam because he was being a racist jerk. Everyone working here, in fact, is looking at you two weird. You can't help but notice the stares, speaking as a POC. You wouldn't get it, Mr Rogers, you're the pinnacle of America, a blond, white man. We have it rough."

He turned to see Y/N desperately hiding her tears as she tried (and failed) to choke down the food. "My coworkers were talking about you two. Why would Captain America want to go out with an immigrant? Why doesn't he settle for a nice, white lady, that's more his type. I'm sorry about that," Leah spoke quietly, toying with her hands.

Steve's entire being filled with rage like he had never felt before. He pushed himself off the table and stormed past Leah, who sat next to Y/N and tried to console her. Y/N's tears ceased when the palm of Steve's hand connected hard with Adam's cheek. Everyone in the diner froze. "How dare you," Steve breathed out.

Adam clutched his cheek, paralyzed with fear. "How dare you talk about my date like that? Who I like or hate is none of your business. Not any of your business!" He yelled the last line. "If I ever, ever catch you talking about my love life again, any of you, you'll be sorry you were ever born!" With that, Steve returned to his table.

Pulling out his wallet, he paid for his untouched and Y/N's half-eaten food, handing the money to Leah with a smile. "Thank you," he told her sincerely, helping Y/N into her coat. "No worries, sir. You two make a cute couple," Leah chuckled, waving as the two walked out of the diner. Y/N, as soon as they were outside, threw herself in Steve's arms.

"I'm sorry for ruining our date," she mumbled into his neck as his arms went around her waist, bringing her close. "You didn't ruin anything, doll. How about next time, we meet at my place and order takeout?" he suggested, pulling away and wiping Y/N's face with his fingers. "I'd like that a lot."

"Let me drop you home, come on." With a soft kiss placed on her forehead, the two walked back to her apartment building hand-in-hand.

---

A/N: Leave a like you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!