#btw this is like a part two of a post i made a year ago if you know which one we're practically family

[loustatdivorce]

not beating the allegations

[bullseyelover]

BENJAMIN “DEX” POINDEXTER aka BULLSEYE therapy prop notes from Daredevil S3

[prodagustd]

the road not taken 04 | myg

part four: a wish

Summary: Were you about to go crazy if you started to consider that Yoongi felt something for you?

<part three | part five>

—pairing: lawyer!yoongi x actress!oc

—rating: +18

—genre: brother's best friend, one sided pinning (or both?)

—warnings/tags: slow burn, angst, FLUFF ❤️‍🩹, eventual smut, angst, sexual tension!!!!! flashbacks, ANGST!! mentions of sex 👀Btw english is not my first language!

—words: 9.6k

—a/note: hiiii friends!!! i'm glad to say that it didn't take me six months to post this :D. I genuinely went through the most stressful two months of my life so I'm really proud that I could finish this chapter while trying to survive this thing called being an adult!! Anywayy, I’m excited for this chapter but I’m MORE EXCITED FOR THE NEXT ONE… 👀 so please have patience with this story!!! I promise it’s worth it hehehe. As always, you are more than invited to discuss this chapter in the asks, feedback is always welcomed <3 this one is very fluffy i hope you enjoy ittt. (Also if you read a typo, no you didn’t)

series masterlist | teaser | playlist

Four years ago

Seven days before New Year’s Eve

Were you too naive to still believe your father when he said that you were granted a wish every Christmas? He used to say that every year when he was still around and you were still a kid, when the clock struck twelve you could wish anything you wanted, as long as it wasn’t something material or more presents, you had to wish for something special, something that made you happy. 

The last Christmas before your father passed away you were seven years old and still believed in Santa Claus. That year, for some reason, your wish slipped your mind, you forgot about it completely. You stayed at your house, watched movies the whole day in your pajamas and at midnight your parents let both you and Simon open only one present before sending you to bed. You remembered how your father chased you to the stairs to tickle you until you cried of laughter and how good the cookies your mother made that night were, perhaps that year you were too happy to remember making a wish, perhaps what you had was enough. When you woke up the next morning, you were sad that you had wasted it, but your father, wise as ever, told you not to worry. He said that it was like you were saving your wish for the next year — maybe then it would be stronger, and maybe, since you waited, you would have a better chance of it coming true.

By the time Christmas came the following year your father was already gone, and with him all the magic of the world. You had to grow up, you stopped making wishes and tried to stop believing in stories, but it was difficult when his words were still at the back of your mind like some sort of tradition every holiday season. Despite knowing that magic didn’t exist and perhaps not a single wish of yours had ever come true, you still couldn't help but believe you still had your last wish, and everytime the idea of finally making it crossed your mind, you stopped to tell yourself you could still wait another year, just to be sure. 

That morning you saw Yoongi leaned over his car, adjusting his cap as he saw you walking over to him and you thought about your saved wish for the first time this year. And then again when he grabbed your hand to drag you out of the room, or when he waited for you at the bottom of the stairs before leaving the house, but you wouldn’t admit it, not even to yourself. 

He dragged you all across your grandmother’s hometown as if you didn’t know it like the palm of your hand, as if the streets weren’t filled with kids running and whole families doing last-minute gift shopping, but he didn’t seem to care, so for once, you didn’t let it annoy you either. You observed the happy families and the kids playing in the snow, and sat in the park for as long as the cold weather allowed.

It was like you entered a trance, you tried to fight the urge to snap out of the moment and talked and talked the whole afternoon about everything and nothing at the same time, Yoongi listened and laughed while playing with the ends of your hair, pushing you closer to the edge of illusion. If you weren’t so adamant to stay in that blurry haze, you would’ve done something to stop him, you would’ve push his hand away when he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, you would’ve hated how easy it was for him to play dumb, how natural it was to touch you without feeling something was wrong. You ignored it instead, you ignored him and his wandering hands and the fact that he didn’t dare to mention the moment you shared in the closet, nor the way your noses brushed together, or how his fingers hugged your waist as if you weren’t just friends. Even if you would’ve died for him to say a word about it, to tease you, to attempt to make fun of you just to know that what happened was real and not something you dreamt last night.

If you were really dreaming, you held on to your sleep for a while. When Yoongi found that secondhand bookstore five blocks away from the park, he grabbed your hand when you ran across the street before the traffic lights turned green and stayed inside wandering the aisles with him, you let him lean over to whisper jokes in your ear and you punched his arms when he made you laugh a little bit too loud. You tried to keep your voices low and made a list of books to read the following year. You didn’t buy any of them but you read the prologues and the author’s biographies like it was the most interesting thing in the world. You waited for Yoongi when he started to talk with an old man about a book he needed for college and, when he felt you drifting away, he hooked one of his fingers on the belt loop of your jeans and pulled you close to him again. You felt his hands on your waist, keeping you pressed against the side of your body while he pretended to be focused on the conversation, but he was focused on something else. His long fingers played with the waistband of your jeans as your chest felt tight and your breath felt heavier. Maybe you were beginning to go insane, maybe you had a fever and everything was just a product of your imagination, but a tiny voice inside your head quietly suggested that maybe this time you weren’t insane, maybe it was just him.

It was getting dark outside, and you were supposed to be home anytime soon, but he turned his head to you and whispered in your ear that you should save a seat at the coffee shop next door and wait for him while he paid for the book. Even if it was cold and snowing neither of you wanted to return home yet, so you agreed. You made your way to the cute little coffee shop adorned with Christmas lights and sat on a table to wait for him to arrive at the table, until you saw him entering the shop with a book wrapped in brown wrapping paper in his hands. 

You observed him approaching with your face on the palms of your hands, you watched his eyes scanning the place until they found you in some poor illuminated corner. He smiled, his eyes never left yours as he made his way to your table, and when he sat in front of you, he slid the book towards you. 

“This is for you.” He simply said, crossing his arms over his chest like it was no big deal. 

You frowned, confused. Did Yoongi get you some lawyer book? You didn’t know, you grabbed the wrapped book in your hands and scanned it as if you were able to see through the envelope. “The book you needed for college?”

“It’s not that.” He huffed. “It’s a present.” 

You tried to bite back a smile, but you failed. “Is this your way to tell me you forgot to buy me a Christmas present?” You joked, making him roll his eyes. 

“C’mon, you know me.” He said “I would never give you a Christmas present before Christmas, are you crazy?”

You laughed “So is this not a Christmas present?” You inquired, teasing him. 

“It is a Christmas present, but not the Christmas present that I got for you.” He tried to clarify, and it sounded confusing but you understood him anyway. 

You nodded, tearing the wrapping paper to reveal that Yoongi just bought you an Anne Sexton poetry book, the title “Love Poems” shinned in red on the cover, making you hold your breath for a second. 

You raised your gaze from the book to find his eyes, which were looking at you expectantly, the same way someone looked at the moon, yearning. The same way you were looking at him. 

“How did you know…?” The question died in your lips.

“I just know.” He cheekily said, and that was enough.

You know me, he said, and you felt your heart aching when you realized that Yoongi knew you too, and it was becoming impossible to escape from it.

You spent these past weeks trying to make it disappear, but there it was again, that strange feeling you felt in your chest, like something tugged from a string tied to your heart to try and steal it away. You were sure Yoongi thought he had his ways with you, that he was some kind of genius that knew exactly what to say and what to do to erase the frown from your face and make you laugh, but the truth was that he didn’t need to do much effort to win you over, the truth was that he already had you. He had you then, and he had you now and you weren’t sure if that was ever going to change, but today you didn’t care, you let him walk you home as he wrapped his arms around your shoulders like that warm wouldn’t chill you to the bone when he left. 

You had successfully gone through dinner without having to answer questions about college, or your future, or anything about yourself at all, part of it was because your grandmother didn’t ask any questions to begin with. Maybe you were a bit jealous that she seemed more interested in Eva, your cousin, who was a biochemist and just got engaged, or Aidan, your other cousin, who was just admitted into college, or even Yoongi, who was about to graduate, however, you felt relieved that the attention was not focused on you. You were used to your family thinking that you were a thirteen year old teenager and not a twenty one year adult, the attention was never really on you, sometimes it bounced on you accidentally like a ball and, from time to time, you got to share a glimpse of information about your life, but most of the time your mother answered for you as if you were a kid in the hospital room, trying to include you in conversations and talking about your own projects, and that was enough for everyone. 

In the past, your mother had sat you down several times to explain that your grandmother was never an easy woman, she reassured you that her judgmental behavior was a reflection of herself, not of you. She always offered to let you stay at home if you wanted to, but you refused only for the rest of the family, you could stand being with your grandmother if that meant being with the rest of them. And you learnt to endure it all: your grandmother’s judging look, all the talking about your cousin’s achievements, their goals, projects, flawless record, and the fact that everyone seemed to be finding their paths except for you. You had to learn to pretend you were happy for them and not jealous, you took several breaths and moved on, and for a while you thought that after two decades of your life you had finally mastered the art in not giving a fuck about what your family thought about you, until today when you ran to hide in the closet so they wouldn’t find you. 

You had to work on that, you knew that, but at least for now the blatant disinterest for your life spared you from having to explain your life crisis, at least Yoongi was by your side, redirecting attention to him and the real question everyone wanted to ask but no one dared, a question that eclipsed any other topic of conversation: what was happening between the two of you? 

You looked at him next to you, charming as ever, talking with your uncle across the table. He decided to put on his glasses, his cheeks were pink and the sleeves of his blue sweater were rolled up to his elbows, his arm was casually resting on the top rail of your chair and every time he made a joke he looked at you to check if you were laughing. Every attempt he made to try to make you part of the conversation made your heart swell, but you were more than happy just observing him blending into your family as if he were part of it; you wanted to be as clueless as everyone on the table and believe that Yoongi could be sitting next year at this very same table to be there for you, for a moment you allowed yourself to dream of a reality where he saved you from every family gathering like he was doing tonight.

From the tip of your nose to the tip of your toes you felt warm, almost as if you had a fever. It was probably because you were still wearing your black sweater inside the house or because the memory of the book Yoongi gave you kept your cheeks burning red, or maybe because when dinner was over and your family lingered over the table for the longest time they could, you saw Yoongi tilting his head towards the stairs, meaning it was time to go to bed. 

There was a couple differences between this weekend and the night Yoongi slept with you after coming back from The Alley, that night you wouldn’t have ask him to stay over if you were sober, and he most likely wouldn’t have stay if he wasn’t high, tonight you had to share the room, but it was impossible for you not to be dramatic and always make big deals out of small things. Unlike you, Yoongi didn’t flinch when you told him you were going to sleep in the same room, you failed to remember that you were the one who had a decade-long crush on him and not the other way around.

Now the house was quiet and everyone was scattered around the floors, your cousins were in the living room with your uncle, your grandmother was already in bed, your mom was in the kitchen washing the dishes and Yoongi was upstairs, waiting for you. Before going with him, you changed into your pajamas and went to the kitchen to steal a few cookies that your mother cooked for tomorrow morning. You could wait a few hours more to eat the cookies, but you were desperately trying to look for an excuse to prolong the moment you entered the room you were sharing with the man upstairs. 

You entered the kitchen, making your mother turn around from the sink to take a quick look at you before coming back to the dishes. “Are you already going to sleep?” She asked, a curious tone on her voice. 

“Yeah, but I wanted to grab a few cookies first, is that okay?” You inquired, already opening the cabinet above her head to grab a big plate.

“Just a few, remember they’re for everyone.” She warned, and you hummed in response, knowing that you were going to grab more than just a few. 

The room fell silent for a moment, you heard the water running and your dragging feet making their way to the cookies on the counter before she raised her voice again. “Are they for you and Yoongi?” 

You hummed again “Yes, just a few, I promise.” You said, grabbing what it seemed to be a whole batch of cookies to put on the plate. 

You tried to be quick, putting an extra cookie for the road between your teeth and turning around to escape from your mother before she could see you and scold you for stealing way too many cookies. Trying not to make any noise, as if that could make you invisible, you made your way towards the door to escape, but when you thought you were about to succeed, you heard the nickname your mom used for you from the corner of the room, stopping you in your tracks. 

“Wait, darling.” You heard her tone of voice, surprised that it wasn’t annoyed, but rather motherly. 

You turned around slowly with your guard up, as if in that way she wouldn’t notice the cookie between your teeth. You took it out of your mouth, hiding it behind your back.

“Yes?” You answered, remaining calm. You would not give yourself away when you already made this far. 

She closed the faucet, turning around to face you. Her eyes fell upon you, offering you an apologetic smile, which was weird, it was the kind of smile she gave you when she knew she was about to upset you. It wasn’t the kind of face someone who was about to scold you would make, she looked hesitant, almost worried. 

“I wanted to-... I mean, I wanted to ask you about something.” She said, stumbling with her own words. Her eyes were not focused on the plate on your hands, not even in your face completely, like she was trying to avoid your eyes. You felt a rush of nervousness running down your body and quickly dissipating, you didn’t know why. 

“About what?” You inquired, wiping the crumbs from your mouth. 

She sighed, playing with the towel in her hands to keep her hands busy. “I know you don’t want me to be all over your business, and I’m aware you are not a teenager anymore, but I can’t help worrying a little bit.” She explained, or at least she tried.

You frowned, more confused than ever. The conversation seemed to be taking a completely different path than you thought five seconds ago. 

“What do you mean, mom?” You said, taking a step forward, what did this have to do with the cookies?

Your mom pursed her lips, hesitating for a microsecond until the words finally came out of her mouth. “You are already a woman, darling, so I wanted to know if you are… cautious.” She pronounced, making emphasis on the last word and letting it sink in the air, but you still didn’t understand what she was talking about. 

“Cautious with what?” You must've looked like a total fool, asking once again what she meant, but your mother seemed to want you to understand without having to explain. 

She shifted in her place and you saw a flash of embarrassment in her eyes, but it quickly disappeared. “With Yoongi, I mean.” She said, making the name resonate in your ears “I know you’re both adults and you can do whatever you want, but I wanted to make sure that you are using protection.”

The realization fell upon you like a ton of bricks, each word she uttered felt like a different punch to your stomach. You opened your eyes widely, almost choking with your own spit.  “What? No, mom-” You wanted to interrupt her, but she was quick to talk over you. 

“I just want to make sure!” She said like she was apologizing “I don’t mean to be invasive, but it’s important to me that you’re being safe.”

You winced, feeling your face burning as you began stuttering “Me and Yoongi…-We are not, I mean-”

“Honey,” She stopped you, looking at you like she was a sex education teacher trying to explain why you should use protection. “I was not born yesterday, I see things happening, and believe me, I have no problem with you sharing a room, but I can’t help but ask.”

You were left completely speechless, and her constant interruptions while you were trying to finish a sentence were not helping. You racked your brain to find a logical explanation, but you were incapable of forming a decent sentence when she was looking at you like she was a doctor. The fact that your mother thought that you and Yoongi were having sex made your stomach squirm, and how she stated that it was obvious left your head spinning. Did she see you today in that closet and immediately assumed you were… fucking? God, that sounded so bad, so incredibly embarrassing. You still felt yourself blushing when you thought about that moment, you couldn’t even fathom the idea of seeing him without a shirt, less alone having sex with him.

“Mom, please. You don’t have to worry, really.” You tried to explain, but that was not enough to leave your mother content, by the look on her face you knew she didn’t believe you one bit. 

“I know I don’t have to worry!” She defended herself “Yoongi is a great boy, and I trust you… But you know, if things get a bit too frisky...” 

You closed your eyes shut, trying not to picture that in your mind, “God, mom, don’t use that word!” 

“Sorry! I mean… You know what I mean! I hope you’re using protection, no matter the circumstances.” 

You took a deep breath, ninety percent sure you were about to die of embarrassment, but with your last breath you made sure to be clear with your mom so tonight she would sleep peacefully “Believe me, mom. You don’t have to worry, nothing happened between Yoongi and me, I mean it.”

You could see it in her eyes, she was not convinced, and she was right to be so. That was a lie, and she knew it. What happened today was not “nothing”, and your mother knowing that only made your cheeks burn.

“Fine.” She said, struggling to let the conversation go “But if something does happen… Be safe, okay?”

You nodded repeatedly, trying to end the conversation as soon as possible. “Yes, of course.” You promised, but the idea of that ever happening sent a chill down your spine, you tried to shake that thought as far away as you possibly could. 

Your mom smiled and you took it as your cue to go. You tried to walk away, but before you reached the door, she spoke again. 

“And darling?” She said, making you turn around to see her. “I know you don’t like coming here without your brother, so thank you for coming anyway.”

“It’s fine, mom.” You said, and it was true. “At least Yoongi made up for it.”

She smirked, suppressing a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure.”

You rolled your eyes, in disbelief. “Yup, I’m going now, goodnight!” You said, finally escaping from the conversation. You heard your mom’s laugh in the distance as you closed the door behind you to run upstairs. 

Present

When you visited Simon’s apartment for the first time you could clearly notice it was a boy’s apartment from the lack of decoration, the lack of food in the fridge and the amount of boxes still unpacked weeks after moving in, but after you entered through the door tonight you saw a completely different version of it. It was a part of him that you missed out when you were gone, now there were plants on the living room and traces of Florence all over the place, like her purple slippers on the door and the purple toothbrush on the bathroom, her scrunchies on the entryway table and the framed picture of her beside them. You found it endearing, it was like a secret world made just for the two of them, a proper home. 

“When is Florence coming back?” You asked, leaving your bag on the couch. 

Simon took off his shoes, wandering through his house as he turned all the lights on “On Monday.” He replied.

You made a mental note to leave on Monday, even if Simon repeated a thousand times that it was okay for you to stay there on the way here, you didn’t want to intrude in his life. Instead you decided it would be easier to intrude in Minnie’s life, who’s apartment was big enough for the two of you, the only person she shared her apartment with was not an actual person, it was just her orange cat. 

 “I was supposed to go with her.” Your brother kept talking “But me and Yoongi are behind on some work and I had to stay… Well, I’m the one who’s behind, really. Yoongi is just helping me.”

You did not forget that Simon and Yoongi worked together at the same law firm downtown ever since they graduated. You knew that Yoongi got the job as soon as he graduated and then he was followed by your brother, after years it was still impossible to keep them apart, which had become a problem for you. 

You nodded but didn’t say anything about it, you reasoned that Yoongi was still working before arriving at your house, that explained the clothes, the shoes and the messy hair. You sighed just by thinking about it, at least dinner was over, at least your first encounter with Yoongi after four years wasn’t the worst thing that happened tonight. 

It was impossible, but you tried not to think about it too much. Yoongi’s presence was some kind of collateral effect that came with your life, it was too late to detach him from it, but you still tried to run away from it for years and years, only to come back and still find him here, talking to you like nothing ever happened, like you were still friends. 

Yoongi and you were always on different stages of your life, on different places, on different paths, but you seemed to agree on one thing: keep everything secret, no one needed to know what happened between the two of you, that was why Simon was always talking about Yoongi when you called him, that was why he couldn’t stop talking about it him now, he didn’t realize that you didn’t want to know anything about his best friend, you could never told him why.

You followed your brother to his guest room as he talked and talked about how smart Yoongi was and how he was capable of taking so many different cases and not dying in the process, how nice it was to work with his best friend and blablabla. You swore that if you heard the name one more time you would explode, so you decided to drastically change the subject of the conversation, you were willing to say anything to take his name out of your brother’s mouth. It took a second, but when the room fell silent, you looked at your feet, a bit unsure, gathering enough courage to finally say what you’ve been meaning to tell him since you arrived home.

“I’m sorry for not telling you about the proposal.” You softly spoke, and Simon, who was looking for a blanket in the closet in the corner of the room, turned his head to look at you. “I wanted to tell you in person, but I wasn’t planning for that article to come out, I didn’t want the whole world to know.”

Simon left the blanket on the bed, turning his body to look at you more clearly. “Mom told me that you think Ian leaked the news” He mentioned, and you nodded, at the risk of looking crazy. 

“Sally suggested it.” You confirmed, sitting on the bed “And if he didn’t, he’s fine with it anyway. He doesn’t care if people see me as this bitch who broke his heart, I might as well be.” 

He looked at the wall behind you, confused. “I think I missed a chapter here.” He said, sitting on the edge of the bed “Maybe more than one. Weren’t you in love with him?”

You wanted to grab a pillow, bury your face on it and scream as loud as you could, but for the sake of looking like a sane person you contained yourself. “I thought I was.” You said sincerely. you believed there was a time when you were sure you were in love with Ian, there were moments you thought that the good things about him could outweigh the bad things, but deep down you knew that if you were really in love you wouldn’t have to do all that math, you wouldn’t have to fight to ignore his arrogance and his big ego. 

“And when did you realize that you weren’t?” He continued to ask “Or when did you realize he was a jerk?”

You scoffed, bitterly. “I guess I always knew both, I tried to make it work regardless. I enjoyed being with him for some time, but then he planned an engagement party full of people I didn’t even know. He didn’t care to call any of you and expected me to say yes… Does that say more about him or me?”

He kept quiet, not knowing what to say, but you already knew the answer. 

“Ian was an asshole, kid. He was jealous of you, of your family, of your job, none of us understood why you were with him.” 

“That was not what I asked.” You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Ian was a prick, I get it, but I wasn’t much better either.”

“You can’t make me think you deserve each other, are you kidding?” He said. 

“I can’t blame him for everything, I made my own bed.” You huffed “I was terrible and it took me almost four years to snap out of it, that was not his fault.” 

“You are right, but you’re here now, aren’t you?” He reminded you, calmly. “Isn’t that what’s important?” 

You began to become exasperated “C’mon, Simon, don’t try to be nice, you’re supposed to be mad at me.” 

“I am mad at you.” He corrected you, sending a chill down your spine “You’re working all the time, you never call, never text back, we barely see you and the only way to know about your life is when we read some article saying you broke up with your boyfriend because he proposed to you, are you kidding? Of course I am mad, but because I miss you.”

You felt a wave of regret hitting all your senses, suddenly your eyes were burning with tears and you are not supposed to cry, you knew that, but the single tear that slid down your cheek was quicker than any thought that could cross your mind. Somehow, you wished your family hadn't noticed how absent you'd been these past few years, that they just shrugged and said “that’s just her” and forgot about it, it was not necessary to look at Simon’s face to know that he couldn’t just forget about it. He loved you, your mother loved you too, you didn’t have a family that you would want to run away from, but you did it anyway,

“I’m sorry…” You murmured, looking at him with eyes full of regret. “It wasn’t you, it wasn’t any of you, it was me. I was so angry when I left, I didn’t know how to handle it.”

You wouldn’t trade your career for anything, it was one of those few things that made you happy, but after years of trying to convince yourself that every decision you made for the last few years was the right choice, this was the first time that you admitted that maybe you weren’t thinking clearly when you decided to move to the city and never look back. 

Simon frowned, thinking about it twice before asking “Were you angry, bug?”

You tilted your head, giving him a sad smile, hoping that it could explain everything.”I was quite angry, yes.” You answered “Not at you, though.” 

“At mom?” 

“Maybe a little bit at mom, yeah.” You laughed, shaking your head. You sighed deeply, letting the silence sit in the room for a moment before you could put in order all the things you wanted to say. “I remember when I told her I left college she looked at me like I finally lost my mind, it was like she saw it coming, you know? Me, again, being lost, it was not a surprise, but rather something she would expect of me. I know she was just worried and I know I can be a lot sometimes, but it hurt anyway. I don't blame anyone, Simon, but all I needed was someone to believe in me and no one did. I had to leave.” Something ached inside your chest because that was not the whole truth, but it was all you could say tonight, you couldn’t say that Yoongi was also one of the reasons. “I’m not trying to justify myself.” You mumbled “I’m just saying that I was so angry that I didn’t realize how many mistakes I made.” 

The silence that took over the room was so strong it made your stomach squirm. You shifted in your place, but Simon stayed there, with his gaze lost somewhere in the room as he processed what you just said. 

“I always believed in you, you know that?” He spoke, causing your head to snap up towards him. “I know a lot of people tried to tell you that you weren’t, but you’ve always been special and I’ve always seen it.” 

“I know you did.” You sighed. “But I was being so stubborn, I walked away and I’m so sorry.”

“I know you think you’re too much, but you’re not.” He continued talking “Maybe mom just wanted everything to be simple, for her kids to go to college, graduate, get a job and a home and never have to worry about whether they are choosing right or wrong ever again. But you’re not simple, bug, you’re extraordinary and talented and too brilliant to stay still, but you’re not too much, not for me.” 

You held back a sob, feeling ridiculous. “I’m sorry.” You said, once again, because you haven’t said it enough times.

“It’s okay now, I mean it.” Simon reached for your hand to squeeze it tightly. 

You sniffed “God, I should be comforting you for being a bad sister, not the other way around” 

“I don’t need to be comforted, I’m okay as long as you’re here.” He tried to cheer you up. “And you were not a bad sister, you were sad and acted shitty.” 

You smiled, because you told Simon that you were angry but instead he heard that you were sad, you didn’t feel like correcting him because he wasn’t so wrong about that. 

“I’m sorry.” You repeated once again like a scratched record, making him laugh. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No.” he replied, “But only if you promise not to disappear again.” 

You raised your hand, extending your pinky finger in front of his face. “I promise you, Simon, I will not disappear again.”

Simon tangled his pinky with yours, making your promise impossible to be broken, and your soul felt at ease for a moment.

“Fine, good enough for me.” he said, throwing himself back onto the bed. “Now I want to hear everything about the proposal, and I want you to describe to me exactly the face he made when you said no.”

You laughed, throwing yourself on the bed the same way he did and tried to summarize the last three years in just one night. Only for today, your body did you a favor and your head stopped spinning at least for now. Something began to feel right.

Four years ago

Seven days before New Year’s Eve

You could hear the radio at the end of the hallway in your grandmother’s room, softly playing jazz to cancel out the outside noise. Not everyone in the house liked the radio, your cousins always said that it was annoying and kept them awake, but it was still one of those old habits of your grandfather that remained in the house even if he was no longer here, so you liked it. The music inevitably seeped under the door of your room, Yoongi hummed some Frank Sinatra song as if he knew the lyrics to it, making you laugh and beg him to stop. 

You know it’s almost midnight, as your roommate just informed you, but you didn’t want to turn the lights off yet. All of the cookies already disappeared from the plate, Yoongi was laying on his side the same way you were and the lamp on the nightstand warmly lighted up his brown eyes, you couldn’t help but feel you were not supposed to be in such presence, his messy hair and the loose white shirt he wore to sleep, his sleepy eyes, his pink lips; it looked just like the kind of view that was bound to haunt you forever. 

The nightstand that separated you was not far enough to stop that pull from the string in your chest, not when he was looking at you like that, his gaze fixated on yours like he didn’t want to leave you awake alone, and neither did you. You felt yourself shaking because, what was the version of you that existed when you were asleep? And what happened inside his head when you were not there? What was happening inside his head right now?

Did you cross his mind the same way he crossed yours? When you finally fell asleep, would he remember that moment in the closet or would it be just water under the bridge? Did he spend every waking second of the last seven hours thinking of that fleeting moment when you could almost feel his lips on yours?

Or was that just you?

The night was fading away, your eyelids were getting heavy but you still couldn’t find the will to sleep. 

“I’m sorry for today.” You almost whispered, gathering enough courage to mention the little accident “I’m sorry for dragging you with me to the closet.”  

He smiled softly, closing his eyes for a second. “It’s okay, it was cozy.” He teased you, making you groan in annoyance. He laughed loudly at your reaction, annoying you even more. “I’m serious, it was okay.” 

“Was it really?” You asked him “Wasn’t I being silly?”

“It's okay being silly sometimes.” He assured you, but that did not ease that anxious feeling in your stomach. He seemed to see it in your face. “What’s wrong with being a little silly? I would’ve run from your grandmother, too.” 

You bitterly laughed, covering your face with the palms of your hands “Stop, I’m being immature.” You groaned “I’ve got to get my shit together.”

“C’mon Pinky, you have to stop with that.” He said. 

“I would if I could.” You remarked.

“Didn’t you say you were going to get your shit together after the holidays?” He reminded you “Why are you worrying right now?”

Yoongi was right, that was the initial plan, but ever since you came back home everything was pointing in different directions and it was beginning to drive you crazy, it was like the universe was forcing you to think about it, it was not letting you run away from it, not even temporarily. First, it was Yoongi, showing up every few days at your doorstep, grabbing your hand, squeezing your legs, whispering things in your ear like he wanted you to go insane, it was Minnie, offering you a job, talking about The Alley, saying you were supposed to be on the big screen, and then it was your mother, expecting you to make up your mind once for all. And still, you had your whole life ahead, why were you worrying right now?

“I don’t know…” You sighed “What if I come back next year and the plan was not good enough? What if I end up hiding again from everyone?”

Yoongi shifted in bed, curious “Do you have a plan, Pinky?” The nickname rolled off his tongue softly, you swimmed in the tenderness of his voice, something about it made you want to tell him everything.

“Not really, I mean… It all sounds so bad.” 

“You have a plan.” He affirmed, smiling “I want to hear it.”

“It’s not a plan.” You contradicted yourself “If it were a plan, it would suck.”

Yoongi hummed “It’s something like a plan, then.”

You scrunched your nose, unsure. “Yeah, but not quite like a plan, something like a…” You said, but the words died on your lips before you got the chance to finish. 

“Something like a dream, then?” He continued to ask, but you shook your head.

“Something close.” You expressed, unable to find the right words to explain your thoughts. You stayed silent for a second, believing he was beginning to lose interest in the topic, until the words slipped past his lips like a spell.

“Something like a wish.” He pronounced, and he was not asking, it was almost like he knew. 

You thought there was not much difference between a dream and a wish, but in this case, there was. 

You smiled at him, nodding, somehow you felt you could trust him with all your secrets “Yes, like a wish.” You affirmed, and it felt like a confession. “I don’t know Yoongi, have you ever stayed up late and planned something but when you woke up next morning you felt it was stupid? Well, I do that every night.”

“I’m sure that whatever it is, it’s not stupid.” He said, making your heart swell.  

“I would like to believe you…” You murmured “Do you have a dream, Yoongi? Something you’re too scared to wish for?”

You could see him think about it for a moment, but his eyes were still connected with yours. Oh, how you wished to be inside his mind right now, read his thoughts, witness his dreams, know all his secrets.

“Yes.” He confirmed, “But I can’t talk about them out loud right now.” 

You laughed, biting your bottom lip. “Okay, fair. What about those you can say out loud?”

“I’m not going to tell you because you’re going to laugh.” He pouted, making you frown. 

“Laugh?” You repeated, sounding more offended than you actually were. “I would never, c’mon.”

He raised an eyebrow, testing you “You sure?”

“Of course, don’t piss me off.” 

“Fine, fine.” He let out a long sigh, believing you. “My wish would be… to stop time for a while. Sometimes I believe I can’t think when time’s running, all I do is study and come home to my mom, there is very little time that I have for myself.”  

You felt your chest tighten, but it didn't surprise you that Yoongi felt this way. He already mentioned to you that, even if taking care of his mother didn’t feel like a burden, he still felt he was missing out on so many things. 

“And what would you do if time stopped right now?” 

Yoongi shifted his eyes for a moment, and you almost missed it but you saw it, the urge to hold back and the words getting stuck on his throat. 

“Mmm…” He hummed, “I’ll go to the beach.”

“In winter?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t care.”

“And where else?” You continued to ask.

“Honestly? I’ll go anywhere but home.” He confessed.

“What’s wrong with home?” You of all people knew exactly what was wrong with home, but you wanted to hear why he thought that. 

“Home it’s okay,” He waved off. “It just feels like I spent my whole life there. I went to college expecting something to change, and a lot of things did but I still feel like something else is supposed to happen, like there's something else for me to see.” 

It was looking in a mirror, it was the same thing you’ve told him a few days ago but in other words, in another tone. Yoongi sounded resigned, like his wish was clearly something that was not meant to happen and he needed to come to terms with it, nothing could ever make you more sad. 

“There’s plenty for you to see, Yoongi, are you kidding?” You chuckled  “You’re twenty five, you’re barely grasping life.” 

He scoffed, bitterly, “It’s not that easy.” 

“Of course it is easy, do you know it’s not necessary to stop time to go to the beach?” 

“I know, Pinky.” He agreed, “But what does it feel like running away?” 

“Running away would be so bad?” You asked, hearing the question echoing in the room, letting you know that maybe it was something you weren’t supposed to wonder out loud. Yoongi didn’t dare to ask such a question, but you seemed determined to make his wish come true, maybe you were the only one who could do it. 

“Don’t ask me.” He said, looking at the ceiling to avoid your gaze.  “Don’t act like running away isn’t your wish as well” 

You snorted, immediately grabbing a pillow and threatening to punch him in the face with it, but Yoongi is quick to cover his face with his arms.

“Don’t!” He protested, laughing.

 “Don’t expose me like that!” You whined, embarrassed. 

“What, am I wrong?” 

“Maybe you’re not…” You dared to answer, leaving the pillow on the bed again “But how do you know?”

“I told you, Pinky.” He murmured “I just know.”

You shook your head in denial, how could it be? Were you really that transparent or Yoongi really just knew? 

“What else do you know?” You continued to ask, curious. 

He pretended to think about it, pouting his lips and looking at the ceiling as if the answers were to fall from the sky. His eyes shifted towards yours, tilting his head “I know that you would run away to the beach with me if I asked you to.” 

A giggle was built in your throat, you laughed nervously as you tried to decipher if he was joking or not, even if Yoongi could see right through you, it was a bit difficult for you to do the same with him. 

“I don’t know about that.” You said, ignoring the way your heart was beating against your ribcage. “Do you mean in… an hypothetical scenario?” 

“It’s a hypothetical proposal.” He answered.

“I’ll have to check my schedule first.” 

A smirk tugged from the corner of his lips. “What about… two weeks away from now?”

You did the calculation in your head, but you already knew that by then Yoongi would have to go back to class, so you doubted. “What about the semester?” You asked, trying to be the voice of reason. “Your last semester, might I add.”

“That could wait.” He did not hesitate “Isn’t it part of running away? Leaving things behind?”

You laughed “And what would people say about me, then? That I made you leave college, nuh-hu.” 

“Here we go again with that.” He rolled his eyes “I don’t care what people say and, besides, I’m not leaving college, I’m… postponing it.” 

That didn’t sound like the Yoongi you knew at all, but then again, this whole conversation didn’t sound like anything Yoongi from the past would say. A thousand questions crossed your mind, like what do you do on the beach in winter? Wouldn’t being alone be a problem? What are you going to talk about, where are you going to stay? If you say yes, would he grab your hand when you crossed the street, would he try to kiss you again? 

You crossed your arms, thinking about it, not daring to agree right away, but how could you say no? When he was looking at you, convinced that you would say yes. 

You opened your mouth, not sure what you were going to say but still ready to answer, and before you could utter a word, he interrupted you. “Run away with me to the beach, Pinky.” He asked in a soft tone, looking at you with warm eyes and warm words, making your heart shake violently in your chest “Only for now, I promise I’ll make it worth it.”

You smiled, ignoring that little person inside you that tried to warn you about something, but you weren’t sure about what because all you could feel was your heart racing. “Fine, I’ll follow you for now.” You simply said, trying to sound as cool as possible “Let’s run.” 

In that moment you forgot about years and years of disappointment and failed dreams, failed wishes, you ignored the reality, deciding everything was false and true at the same time. You didn’t need to look at the clock to know that it was midnight, something inside your chest sparkled and told you it was time to make your wish, and for some reason, you listened. It echoed in every corner of your mind, your wish was the beach in winter. 

Four days before New Year’s Eve

Two weeks ago, when you bought Yoongi’s Christmas gift, you thought about it like a farewell. You stood in the shop and talked to the tall man with the long face and chose the gift as you tried to convince yourself this was a way of saying goodbye to him. 

That Christmas morning Yoongi tore the brown wrapping paper and opened the long box to find that you decided to give him a red tie. It wasn’t bright red, it was deep dark red, red like a rose. It came with a notebook and a pen with his initials on them. In your mind, you were giving away that version of him that lived in your head and clung to your thoughts and clung to your heart, that version of him you could never let go. Yoongi was about to graduate, he was about to become officially a lawyer, an adult, a man, he wasn’t that boy you fell in love with years ago, he was a wish you had to let in the past and your gift was just a way to remind you of it. You had a purpose, a plan, you had everything figured out until he decided to ask you to run away with him, until you said yes.

His gifts for you were a vinyl copy of Is This It by The Strokes, two tickets to watch When Harry Met Sally at the Alley the following week and a pair of red gloves for the rest of the winter. 

Yoongi looked at you and smiled like you both knew something everyone else in the room didn’t. “The gloves match with the tie.” He had said.

So now you had no plan, what you did have though, was a bunch of pictures of several locations Yoongi thought of booking for your trip to the beach. You were doomed. 

You thought the only person in this town who could possibly understand what you were going through was Minnie, the only person in the world who knew about your feelings for Yoongi, and the only person who you could call a friend at the moment. 

You weren’t expecting to see Minnie again when you saw her at The Alley a few weeks ago, but she had different plans; it was like she forced you to be her friend again. You tried to stop thinking you didn’t deserve it, you had to swallow your guilt and accept her friendship, and after a few five hour calls filled with gossip, you ultimately decided not to be against it, even if she called you everyday and still talked nonstop about that audition in the city, talking with her felt like you were still fifteen, and you liked it.

That night, as she raided her closet looking for a dress for you to wear at the New Year’s party at The Alley, you sat on her bed and gave her a run down of everything that happened with Yoongi since you came back home, it didn’t take her much to get you to admit that you were still in love with your brother’s best friend, so you might as well be honest and tell her everything. 

“You’re being stupid right now, sweetheart.” You heard her muffled voice from inside her closet. The next thing you saw was a piece of fabric flying in the air and landing at your feet. You grabbed it, putting in front of you to reveal a short pink dress that you would never, ever wear. 

You snorted, leaving the dress on the pile of clothes that you already rejected. You seemed to forget that Minnie was not the most adequate person to talk about “boy stuff”, perhaps because she was way too honest. You didn’t know whether it was a mistake or not to tell her about the trip to the beach, because all the questions she was asking and all the things she was stating to be true were thoughts you were desperately trying to avoid. 

“He wants to fuck you, I don’t know how else to tell you this.” She said, walking over the clothes to make her way to you. You threw yourself on the bed, covering your face with your palms “I mean, I wish I could only tell you that he’s head over heels for you, and honey, that he is, but he also wants to fuck you.”

You groaned, kicking your feet. “God, you make me want to throw up.”

“Of excitement, I’m assuming.” She affirmed “I’m telling you, there’s no way you’re going on a trip alone and come back without having fucked.”

You looked at her, begging her to stop talking, but she was not finished. “Stop!”

“Picture this.” She ignored you, forming a rectangle with her fingers and looking right through it as if she was directing a scene from a movie “First scenario, a storm causes the power to go out, there’s no electricity, you have no way to be warm so you sleep in the same bed to warm up, there’s tension, you look at each other and kiss, you fuck.”

“Okay, I don’t see that happening.” You shook your head. 

“Second scenario, you just finished showering, you go out of the bathroom wearing only a towel because you think he’s not there, but he is! He sees you, you kiss, you fuck.”

“That’s not… That sounds like porn.” 

“Third scenario!” She exclaimed. 

“Fine, that’s enough.” You stopped her, waving your arms in the air. 

“No, you have to prepare! And when it happens you will know that I was right.” Your friend insisted, but you refused to let any of those ideas in your mind. 

“What if you’re not?” You wondered “What if he just wants to be my friend and I’m just imagining everything?”

“But you are not, are you kidding?” She laughed “That man is clearly in love with you, why are you convincing yourself otherwise?”

You felt Minnie’s body sitting right next to you, causing you to sit back on the bed to look at her face to face. You were sure you were about to start crying out of frustration. “I don’t know, what if I get hurt?”

Minnie pursed her lips “Baby, I can’t answer that question at all, but you have to take the chance.” 

You groaned, annoyed. “I don’t want to take the chance.” You whined “I was fine before seeing him again, I wasn’t even thinking of him.”

“That is a lie,” She laughed, mocking you. “We both know you never stopped being in love with him, now you have him in the palm of your hand, do something.” 

Minnie stood up again, looking for another piece of clothing on the floor as you kept silent, wondering if any of that could be possible. Did you really have him in the palm of your hand? Was he in love with you and you were being stupid for believing that he wanted to be just friends?

“What should I do?” You asked her, hoping that the redhead in the room knew all the secrets of the universe. 

“Invite him to the New Year’s party and wear a hot outfit, how about that?” Minnie offered, like that could answer all your prayers. 

“Would that resolve all my problems?” You joked, talking to the sky. 

“C’mon, he literally asked you to run away with him, don’t you find that a little bit hot? Don’t you really think that was not code for ‘I want to fuck you’?” 

You laughed “Yoongi is not like that!” You protested. 

“I hate to break it to you, but you are hot.” She insisted, throwing another piece of clothing at your face. “And if Yoongi is not blind, he knows that, and let’s not forget the most important fact here.” 

“Which is…?”

“He’s in love with you, let’s start wrapping our heads around that.” She simply said “Once that’s done, you invite him to the New Year’s eve party at The Alley, you wear a hot outfit and confront him about it, tell him to stop playing around.”

You grabbed the dress Minnie just threw at you, which was another short dress, but this one was actually cute. It was black and was covered in black sparkly sequins with thin straps, you were definitely going to freeze to death if you wore that, but you were sure this fitted the description of “hot outfit”. 

Minnie was right, you couldn’t keep running away from the facts, everything was laid on the table, you didn’t need more proof to know that Yoongi felt something for you, even if you weren’t sure if it was the same that you felt for him, you needed to gather enough courage to find out what it was. 

You grabbed the phone in your pocket and opened Yoongi’s chat, you decided to invite him to the New Year’s party. 

taglist: @kingofbodyrolls @overtherainbow35 @namin13 @p34rluv @moonchild1 @yoongisoftface @namgihours @idkjustlovingbts @yoongisducky @bangtansmauyeondan @tarahardcore @wobblewobble822 @secfir @ot72025 @baechugff @heroinanne @mortal-body-timelesssoul @hiii-priestess @wii-wii @jungkookies1002 @busanbby-jjk @acquiescence804 @yoongibaybee @hsbongwater

[greenbloods]

🕸 waifnumber17 Follow

she let me hit becuause behind my whimsy there is this Sorrow

[this post was made by an adherent of the great council of 101!!! DNI if you adhere to andal succession law]

🌻 littlelordroses Follow

omggg my fields have been absolutely THRIVING since the tyrells have brought comfort and prosperity to the capital. feel so proud to be a reachman. thank youuuu @ mace_the_ace

🦁 hearmerawr Follow

mace tyrell is a separatist and a cryptofascist btw

🌻 littlelordroses Follow

umm could you provide some sources for this?

🥖 heelobread Follow

LANNISTAN GLOWIE SEETHING RN

🏵 ofthegreenlands Follow

lolol thats def cersei isnt it

🦁 hearmerawr Follow

it’s not my job to educate you

❄ whorefrost Follow

ok this is a long shot but if any of you are in the area around the godseye i lost my raven Moonwing yesterday and i was wondering if any of you might have seen him. he was pacing around my room two nights ago mumbling things like 'snow' and 'king' and 'hardhome'. my brother likes to play pranks on me so i thought it was just one of his games but when i woke up my raven was gone. i miss him a lot so i wanted to reach out to see if any of you might have seen him

🌙 moonglowinherhair Follow

heyy im in the godseye area too (im from Crofter's Fall if youve heard of it) but i was wondering if you have any more information about your bird? theres a lot of ravens around these parts haha

❄ whorefrost Follow

hes black

🌙 moonglowinherhair Follow

anything else?

❄ whorefrost Follow

he bites me a lot

⚔️ swordcrosseryaoi Follow

streets are saying sansa poisoned joffrey and took off from kings landing on leathery bat wings to go to the wall you go girl!! starks stay winning

fireandboob Follow

oh my fucking none of these people care about you. a stark brigade literally plundered my whole village!! can we not do this again i hate this goddamn site

🍏 fossobabe Follow

does anyone know if we have tomorrow tomorrow

🍁 plummpudding Follow

for man, perhaps. but for a tree, time is different. a river roiling back and forth, both here and there, but inconstant--always inconstant. a thousand years are but a mere moment through the eyes of a heart tree

📿 sparrowsbones-777-deactivated2990707 Follow

yeah go pray to your rivers northoid. and when the shaman comes to tear your heart out and sacrifice it to your trees, maybe spare a thought for the Seven and their divine might. we'll be waiting.

🍁 plummpudding Follow

254.421.81.132

❄ whorefrost Follow

yooo thats near where i live! if you see a raven flying near your house, could you dm me?

⛓ rhllorbot Follow

The night is dark and full of terrors.

[Beep-boop! I look for heathens and non-believers. Sometimes I mess up.]

🐗 bobby-b-bot Follow

IS THAT HOW YOU SPEAK TO YOUR KING??

🐀 askmeaboutmylengtheory Follow

every time i scroll past this post i have to reblog

🦀 crackedclaw Follow

hey can i ask you about your leng theory?

🐀 askmeaboutmylengtheory Follow

No.

🍏 fossobabe Follow

what the hell happened to my post

🗝 adropofdragonblood Follow

alright we're solving this once and for all

🧀 bloodncheesewasan1n51d3j0b Follow

op you coward wheres stannis

🗝 adropofdragonblood Follow

many have been asking the same question

🕯glasscandle-was-taken Follow

ok i know i shouldnt be surprised bcz its popular on this site to bandwagon onto the next popular thing but just a reminder that if youre supporting the conquests of daenerys targaryen youre supporting a literal colonizer and imperialist. plus slavery is literally a unique and traditional part of ghiscari culture so we cant be surprised that people over there dont like her. begging yall to pick up a scroll once in a while

🍷adornishred Follow

K

👁️ eye-motif Follow

U

⛈ pisswaterprincess Follow

N

🩸 blood-motif394 Follow

what if we were both locked in the formless dark void of the dungeon together, bereft of our own names and our own identities, bereft of everything that made us who we were. and we were both boys

🐒 littlestvalyrian Follow

haha that would be pretty epic i think

[hannieween]

lunacy | city lights series | h.js

You could no longer hide your infatuation over Joshua Hong. It was becoming painfully obvious, though you weren't sure to what extent he was aware of this. Or if he even cared, for that matter.

✮ pairings: joshua hong x female reader ✮ genre: angst, smut (18+) ✮ aus: rock singer joshua, neighbors with benefits ✮ word count: 18.8k

↣ part i – part ii – part iii – navi post – other fics

₊🎧: underwater - baekhyun ♡︎ | shutdown - moon byul and seori ♡︎ | beautiful liar - monsta x ♡︎ | more - i.m ♡︎ �� nsfw warnings under the cut!!

✮ warnings: mentions of menstruation, smut with plot, dom Joshua, sub reader, big dick Joshua, phone sex, dirty talks, foul language, corruption kink, praise kink, exhibitionism: bj in a public space, cum swallowing, multiple sex scenes, masturbation, oral sex (f, m), brat taming: orgasm denial and pussy slaps, unprotected sex, creampie, pet names: pretty girl, baby, princess, sweetheart, bunny (hers) baby boy (his)

part iv

In your few years being a full time writer, you've made little traditions to keep for yourself.

For example, each time you started outlining your drafts, you'd go to a special spot in your favorite library, near the windows to watch people walk by on the streets. It helps your brain flow with ideas and brainstorm for hours.

Whenever you need to come up with stronger ideas for a plot, or find yourself in a bit of a writer's block, you go to the rooftop of your building. A tradition which has started to taint under the memories of you and Joshua, because quite inevitably, you start thinking of him.

And whenever you submit a finished draft, you tend to go elsewhere. Literally, you buy a ticket and go somewhere else, distract yourself for a little while, even sometimes, you give yourself the luxury to stay in a hotel for a night or two and come back feeling like a new person.

This time, you only bought a ticket for same day travel. But the method of transportation was by train. Which suited your needs a little bit more: you could see the landscape roll by your eyes, the openness of the outskirts of your city was beautiful—so different from looking out the window and seeing big tall buildings and billboards.

You've only visited this city once, when you published your first book years ago. As a young writer, you didn't have much money to go anywhere but there.

But you came across a gem: the town was colorful, it had its own quiet magic of a place loved and celebrated by the people who lived there.

When you first visited, you felt alien to the silent movement of the day. It was so strange to you that at first you got an eerie chill that maybe you got to a ghost town by accident, being so used to the buzz of the city throughout the day.

That's why you chose to come here as soon as you submitted your finished draft. It felt like sending a love letter and then hiding under your bed covers.

There was a small creek in the middle of the beautiful town, and a wooden bridge stood above it. You sat on a bench near the creek, the only noise filling your brain was the current of the stream.

Until the buzz of your phone interrupted that peace.

[9: 14 AM] Yen ✿: good news! [9: 14 AM] Yen ✿: you've been green lighted the second installment to your trilogy   [9: 14 AM] Yen ✿: yay! 🥰 [9: 15 AM] you: What? they already finished reading it? I sent it at midnight ???  [9: 15 AM] Yen ✿: of course you're up already  [9: 15 AM] Yen ✿: they haven't read it yet, that much i can tell you but  [9: 15 AM] Yen ✿: idk what to say girl [9: 15 AM] Yen ✿: they already want to know you're working on book 2

That doesn't make sense, you said to yourself.

[9: 16 AM] Yen ✿: why do i feel like this is bad news  [9: 16 AM] Yen ✿: are u not excited or  [9: 16 AM] you: I am! this is great!  [9: 16 AM] you: I'm already working on book 2 :) [9: 16 AM] Yen ✿: great i'll tell them  [9: 16 AM] Yen ✿: btw what happened to mr hot neighbor  [9: 17 AM] Yen ✿: 👀👀  [9: 17 AM] you: Can we have that conversation on another day? I don't want to think about him right now [9: 17 AM] Yen ✿: fine

But it was entirely too late.

Memories of the last night you spent with Joshua started to flood your mind. You saw him last that Saturday night when you asked him to continue with your little agreement of being fuckbuddies.

He agreed. So you agreed to not see each other on Sunday, but what did happen was that he finally asked for your number. Though as expected, he hadn't texted yet.

That was another reason for your departure today. As soon as the clock hit midnight and it was Monday, you sent your file with the finished draft of your book and booked a ticket for the magical town you remember having visited in your first publishing experience.

Will he text? He hadn't all Sunday, so you didn't see it foreseeable that he would on Monday. Well, what do you actually know about him? You knew a few things. You seemed to have measured his behavior really well but what else did you know?

Nothing.

Not his birthday, his favorite color, his favorite song or movie. Does it matter? He's your fuckbuddy. There are no rules as to what you should know about the person you're fucking.

There may be a few details that are pertinent to doing what fuckbuddies do, yes. Like protection and being tested and such, a thing that you already had covered with Joshua, obviously.

But, should you know your fuckbuddy's favorite color? You knew that he didn't like to kiss you while fucking you, for example. And he conveniently fucks you in positions that distance your hands from his face so you can't touch him either.

Why does that feel like a bitter pill to swallow? Ah, yes. You have a terrible infatuation over him. Like a thorn that you do not dare to remove. In fact, you like the pain you get from it because it's the only thing you'll get.

You let out a broken sigh, swallowing your tears. You felt particularly emotional that day—a sign of your upcoming cycle, so your hormones were working twice as hard.

Another reason to stay away from Mr. Hot Neighbour, if you will.

Despite the sunny day, the temperature was growing colder, so that the season was changing to winter. You liked the mixed taste of it, the sunny sky and chill in the air, sitting by the peaceful creak of the ghost town.

You had a pending decision looming in your mind from the moment you took the train in the break of daylight. Should you tell Joshua how you feel? Is it something you thought helped your situation?

There was nothing you could compare your situation to your past experiences. Your past lovers never got to be as relevant as Joshua. No lover ever shook your heart so hard to the point of hurting. It wasn't just the sex, or his crushing beauty—you were well aware of that. 

You just fell in love of the way your bodies synced together. The way that he seemed to hear your thoughts and read the way your body moved so well. He made you feel seen.

Maybe it's not a great idea to confess to him. But you could try another way, maybe taunt him with silly questions about love, like you did before.��

After what seemed like an hour had passed, you opened the small portable cooler you brought with your person. You came prepared with a meal to have in the quietness of the creak, hearing the sounds of nature and the quiet life of the little town around you.

It was a peaceful day, the only thing that disrupted it was your pending talk with Joshua, which still resided in your head, wasn't even a fact yet.

You planned to stay until sunset, which due to the fact that winter was onset, happened early. You chose to read a book on the two hour trip back home, which was a good choice since it had been a while since you read something other than your own work.

In the elevator of your building, you found yourself wishing for a night of peaceful uninterrupted sleep. You didn't want to suffer from insomnia for a good while, although you knew that with your second book green lit, that might be happening soon.

You stifled a yawn as you got to your apartment. It was 7 PM and you decided that it might be a good idea to prepare yourself for bed. You drew yourself a bath, had a small meal and went overboard and induced yourself to sleep with melatonin—for good measure.

The good thing was that it was a dreamless, heavy sleep.

You woke up the next day feeling incredibly groggy and much to your demise, felt the silent announcement of the beginning of your cycle. With a groan, you dragged yourself out of bed and kick started your day.

[11:55 AM] joshua: bunny, are you busy today?

You stared at your screen for a good while. You were in the middle of your daily chores, cleaning your mail and responding to some others when your phone buzzed on your desk.

You turned the silent mode on and decided to respond to it later.

Why does he have to call you that? Does it hurt him to call you by your name?

Easy, you told yourself.

[18:31 PM] joshua: i'll take that as a yes ? [18:34 PM] you: I'm free tonight

You bit your lip. God, why do you feel like a teenager that time you first talked to the person you had a crush on?

[18:34 PM] you: But we can't do anything [18:34 PM] joshua: what do you mean ? [18:37 PM] joshua: are you in?

Your stomach dropped.

[18:37 PM] you: Are you outside my door right now?  [18:37 PM] joshua: where else? [18:37 PM] joshua: open up [18:37 PM] you: Let yourself in

You removed your cancellation headphones from your head and attempted to smooth your hair to appear at least decent and not like the little study mouse you were the whole day.

"Bunny? Where are you?" you heard his sweet voice call from the living room.

"In the study," you replied just as Joshua pushed the door open, sneaking his head in first.

"Hi there," he smiled at you sweetly, looking around like a child in a toy shop. "Wow, this room is so... you."

You laughed. "Is that so?"

"I like it," he nodded, looking at the shelves upon shelves stacked with books and clutter, collection toys and figures from your favorite media. Fairy lights on the walls, a couch on the side that hosted your small army of squishmallows that moved the first night that Joshua slept in.

"Thank you," you replied with an excited smile.

"So? What do you mean we can't do 'anything'?," he did bunny ears over the word.

"I'm... going through stuff," you said, making a circle motion with your palm toward your lower belly.

"Oh," he blinked, then cocked his head to one side. "And?"

It was your turn to blink in bewilderment. "What do you mean 'and'? Is it not super gross for men to even hear the word menstruation?"

"Maybe, for some. I don't know. I don't care," he shrugged with ease. "You've never had period sex, I take it?"

"Joshua! No!" you chastised, your stomach fluttering uneasily when he laughed.

His nose wrinkled as he giggled. "Sorry, but you can't expect me to be grossed out by a little blood. I've done it before, if it makes you feel better."

"It does not," you replied with sincerity, crossing your arms and standing from your armchair.

He was wearing what he usually wore when he was home. Sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. His hair was unlike the last time you saw him, it hung loose and you just loved it, it made you want to run your fingers through his dark locks.

"Well, if you don't want to have sex tonight, maybe we can chill instead, if you want," he shrugged as he took some aimless steps in your office room.

Your stomach tightened. "What do you mean?"

"We could watch a movie," his hand brushed his hair distractedly.

"I-I was actually about to go out," you blurted.

"Oh, you were?" his eyes scanned you briefly.

"To the drugstore. I'm... running out of supplies," you muttered, feeling your blood run to your cheeks.

He smirked. "Bunny, you don't have to be shy with me. Come on, I'll come with."

"O-okay," you muttered. "Let me get a bag."

It felt weird to walk down to the drugstore with Joshua strolling by your side. Doing simple ordinary things with him was something new to you, since you only saw him in your bedroom, and occasionally on the rooftop of the building you both live in.

When you found yourself wishing he would take your hand, you dug both your hands on the large pocket of your hoodie.

"How did it go? Your book thing," he asked, breaking the ice.

You smiled at his choice of words. "It went well. They want me working on the second book already."

"Oh, that sounds good," he gave you a gentle smile. "But they don't give you like, time to rest or something like that?"

"Well, I screwed up a bit because I was a little ahead of deadline and told them the second book was in the works, so there's no time to rest," you shrugged.

"I get it," he nodded. "I don't get days off either. It's either recording vocals, writing music, networking or something else."

"Did you have to work yesterday too?" you asked with genuine curiosity.

"I went back to the studio because Jihoon wanted me to re-record some lines. We went on a rabbit hole after that 'cause he's nervous about possibly working with major producers. We're self-produced for now," he smiled and rolled his eyes at the memory.

"Was it good though, at the end?"

"Oh, yeah. The perfectionist he is, he didn't stop until he okayed it," he nodded and opened the door of the drugstore for you and you muttered a word of thanks. "And the day before... Sunday. Yeah, I normally go out with my mom—or try to."

"Oh?" you pushed your eyebrows up. "What did you do this time?"

"We had lunch and then visited a botanical garden. Drove her home after that," he told you with an absent smile, probably remembering his day with his mom.

Your heart swelled with fondness. "That sounds really nice, Joshua," you replied, trying not to show the emotion you felt.

"Yeah," he seemed to snap himself from his train of thought, looking up to the aisles. "I don't know where I'm going, I'm following you."

You laughed. "Don't worry, you won't get lost baby boy," you said with an air of confidence as you turned to the aisle where you'd find what you needed.

"Did you just call me baby boy?" he giggled goofily.

You ignored him, throwing in the basket your supplies.

"You told me you needed supplies, bunny. What's this?" he said, looking up to the shelves. "Snacks?"

"These are my supplies," you said with a whine. "Don't judge me."

"I'm not judging," he lifted his palms to your view. "Whatever you need."

"I actually do need to collect something from the counter," you said, fishing your prescription from your pocket but not showing it to him.

"Oh, are you sick?" he inquired as he followed you out of the snacks section and toward the counter.

You kindly handed your prescription to the lady and she handed back birth control pills. Then when it was time to pay, you tried to hide your blushing face to Joshua, who could probably notice your natural shyness kicking in, no matter if he stood behind your back.

"Are you on the pill? Why did you never tell me?" he muttered beside you as you both walked out of the drugstore with your bag full of supplies.

"Not yet," you frowned, though your face felt hot. "In theory and according to this, I begin today," you told him, keeping your eyes glued to the sidewalk.

"I see," he replied, seemingly thoughtful. But then, he asked: "So we're watching movies tonight?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice," you admitted. "It's been ages since I watched a movie at home—or at the cinema, for that matter."

"Cinema," he smiled. "Sometimes I forget that you're an old lady."

"Shut up, Joshua," you scoffed but couldn't help the growing smile on your face.

The only way you could describe your apartment was something akin to a fortress: never short of food or supplies, you had everything you ever needed for entertainment, you worked there most of the time. You were lucky to have made it your little fortress—and well, also you worked hard to keep it that way.

When you got back home with Joshua, you freshened up in the bathroom and changed into comfier clothes and brought a blanket to the living room, where you had a decent tv screen.

"What do you prefer for tonight, princess?" Joshua asked as you returned to the living room wearing your comfiest attire.

"Aren't you choosing tonight?" you asked as you sat beside him on your couch and threw the blanket over your legs.

"What, you're not sharing?" he asked, looking at your fluffy blanket.

"I can bring another blanket for you," you blurted, feeling deeply embarrassed.

"What if I only want to share yours?" he pouted cutely, he even made puppy eyes.

Don't torture me like that, your inner voice pleaded to him. 

"I- we can share," you smiled abashedly. "Sorry, I just didn't think-"

"I'm just playing with you, bunny," he laughed merrily.

You stopped cold. "I- what do I do?" you blurted. "Do you want to share or not?"

"Oh, you sweet thing. Alright, let's share," he exhaled. "We're watching horror, then."

"O-okay," you muttered, feeling deeply flustered at the whole exchange.

The blanket covered you and Joshua perfectly. It was large enough to cover your whole bed. So you confidently propped your feet bundled up in fluffy socks on your coffee table without the blanket falling off or uncovering Joshua.

"You can do the same," you suggested to him after he saw you put your feet up on the surface of your otherwise neat coffee table.

"You're weird," he muttered, but followed you nonetheless, extending his large legs on the coffee table with yours.

"Why?" you frowned.

"You don't seem like the person who would tolerate feet on a table," he laughed. "But you always prove me wrong in something."

You felt your cheeks grow hotter. "What- why? Why does that make me weird? I just wanted to stretch my legs."

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing," he shrugged. "I mean, your apartment is always super clean and you're a bit haughty about certain things so I just thought-"

"I am not haughty!" you gasped.

"Ah, there we go again," he let out his high pitch giggle.

"Shut up, Joshua. You're not perfect either," you muttered with a pout.

"I know, sweetheart," he laughed harder.

"You-you're cocky," you blurted. "You're... you're..."

Joshua arched his eyebrows, waiting for your best worst descriptor.

But you just sighed: "God, you might be perfect."

He laughed harder. "Are you sure you're not ill? Let's take you to the doctor," he joked.

You scoffed. "Ugh, I'll take it back. You're the worst."

"I'm anything but perfect, baby. Far from it, actually. But I appreciate your lukewarm compliment," he said, sliding a hand under the blanket and finding your thigh, to which he gave a gentle squeeze.

With a jolt, you rose from the couch, visibly startling him. "I almost forgot my snacks! D-do you want something to drink?"

You hid yourself in your kitchen and heard his distant reply. "I'll have whatever you're having."

A silent sigh escaped you. You needed to find some kind of rein to your emotions when Joshua was around you.

"Does hot tea and milk sound okay?" you asked.

"Sounds great. Thanks," you heard.

You returned with a tray with two mugs and a plate full of your favorite sweet snacks. Joshua frowned slightly then you set the tray between you and him, setting a clear barrier between you two.

If he noticed you were creating some distance, he didn't say anything. And you silently thanked him for it.

Joshua chose a horror movie. If he did it because he enjoyed horror, he didn't look the part, not one bit. His face wore a frown in disgust throughout the whole thing—and it wasn't only because of gory depictions.

The film was deeply disturbing, to anyone in their right mind, it would seem. But you occasionally giggled at certain moments when Joshua flinched or even jumped on the couch. You never bat an eye, you even found the story a bit flimsy, reliant in shock value and with very evident plot holes.

"That was... something," you muttered as the credits rolled on the screen.

"You are scary," he told you, still looking deeply startled.

You let out a laugh. "Why?"

"You laughed when the lady found out that her daughter was dead!" he pointed with an obvious tone.

"What, it was funny," you shrugged. "I dunno, the face she made was funny. Thought it was a weird cry face."

His mouth parted, frown deepening. "That's psycho talk," he shook his head.

"Chill, it's just a movie," you huffed.

"You pick next time," he rolled his eyes. "But let's not watch horror in a while. I've had my fill."

You laughed. "You want me to hold you?" you teased.

"Yeah, that would be nice. Please and thank you," he mumbled in a low tone.

You realized he seemed serious for a moment. "Wait, you're not joking?"

"Yeah, I am," he laughed. "Unless you want to, though," he nodded at you with a cheeky smile that could only mean that he was now teasing you.

"I'm fine, thanks," you shook your head. "I don't find cultish things scary."

"What do you find scary, then?" he inquired, he leaned his head back on the sofa and turned to see you.

You were eating on your snacks. You were not hungry, just felt the need to keep your hands and mouth busy.

"I... don't know," you replied after a long minute.

"Interesting," he muttered.

"What is?"

"You are," he frowned slightly.

"Were you expecting me to curl up in a ball and ask you to hold me?" you taunted.

"Kind of? Yeah," he said, his eyebrows arched a bit.

"Well, maybe we can keep searching for the one horror movie that makes me want to do that," you suggested with a playful smile on your face.

He narrowed his eyes. "Oh, you might be a bit crazy," he joked. "Lucky for you, I'm a bit crazy too."

"Oh, yeah? And why does that make me the lucky one?"

"Because I might say yes," he muttered with a smirk.

"Deal it is, then," you lifted your chin almost proudly and tended your hand to him.

He shook it contentedly. "Deal. But not tonight, though. Maybe in a month—or two."

Your chest tightened at the sound of that. Time with him, making plans, made your heart flutter in your chest.

"Sure, whenever you're ready, baby boy," you replied with a grin.

He closed his eyes slowly. "God, why did I do to deserve this," he muttered with a downturned smile.

You rolled your eyes, then threw the blanket off your legs. "Bathroom break," you announced for the nth time, since during the movie you had a few. "I'll be back."

When you finally returned, Joshua was fast asleep on your couch, breathing deeply with his arms crossed on his chest.

The sight of it was warm, almost too cute to even process. You felt the urge to grab his cheeks and pinch them or squeeze the air out of his lungs.

Maybe you are crazy.

You picked up the tray from the couch, the barrier that kept his hands away from you and placed it on the kitchen counter, deciding to clean up the following morning.

Deciding on what to do with the large man asleep on your couch, you sat quietly beside him. Twiddling with your fingers. Should you wake him and tell him to go home? Should you suggest that he stay the night? He lived right next door, he could just walk to his bed in less than a minute.

But you wanted him to stay with you.

Then suddenly, he jerked awake with a loud grunt, throwing his hands at you like big claws. "Bwaaah!"

You let out a screech in sheer terror at having him give you the scare of your life. "Goddamnit, Joshua!" you slapped him on his shoulder repeatedly.

He laughed himself silly. "Got you," he muttered with teary eyes, not even trying to dodge or cover himself from your attacks.

"Yeah, yeah," you stuck out your tongue at him, making him laugh harder again.

"You're too cute," he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Screw you," you pouted.

He rolled his eyes. "Oof, don't go around saying that. You potty mouth," he teased with a grin still plastered on his stupidly beautiful face.

You scoffed, but fell short of witty replies to give him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked softly.

It took you two seconds to understand what he was referring to.

"Oh, I'm okay. Well, not okay but I just don't feel like dying yet," you muttered with an offhanded air.

He pouted cutely. "I'm going to pretend I know what that means."

Joshua was a few inches away from you, just at hand's reach, but you didn't dare touch him. Even if you were dying to.

You laughed. "I'm fine, Joshua. I can deal with the pain just fine."

"Oh, okay," he shrugged slightly. "I was about to offer a back rub, but given that you're okay..."

"I'd like that," you nodded, feeling your cheeks grow hotter. "I'd like that very much, please."

Joshua grinned. "Lie down, princess," he instructed, patting on his thigh once to indicate the place where he wanted you to lie your head.

You did so, lying on your tummy, head resting on his thigh and stretching your legs on the sofa. His large hands started massaging softly on your lower back, over your comfy clothes.

"Oh, oh? That feels good," you exclaimed, feeling bewildered. "You're really good at this."

"Why do you sound surprised?" he asked and you darted a look at his face, he flashed you a grin as he caught your eye.

"I-I'm not—well a little," you muttered as his hand pressed softly on your lower back alleviating the stress from the cramping you've had all day.

You scrunched up your face when he got to a region that activated your nerves, it didn't exactly hurt, but it made you clench your muscles in response.

"Does that hurt, bunny?" he muttered.

"It feels weird," you replied. "Keep going."

You heard a soft chuckle. "Do you like this?"

He used both hands to rub your lower back, fingers digging at the sides of your hips, applying just the right amount of pressure to your skin to make you groan in satisfaction.

"Yeah. Feels so good," you muttered, closing your eyes.

You could feel yourself letting loose, so much that you weren't aware when you fell asleep on his lap. What woke you up with a start was feeling your drool dripping from your parted lips and onto his lap.

The back rubs had stopped, in fact everything had stilled and when you darted a look up, you found Joshua asleep, still in the same sitting position he was when he was giving you back rubs.

It was 2 AM, you suspected that you had fallen asleep around 11 PM. So Joshua didn't dare move under the risk of waking you up.

He slowly stirred after noticing that you had moved from his lap.

"Hi there," he whispered groggily with the ghost of a smile.

"Let's go to bed," you muttered, not caring that you could simply tell him to go home.

You got up from your couch and dragged him along, silently thanking him for not protesting against your wishes.

He took off his large t-shirt as you threw the bed covers and climbed your bed before he did.

"What?" you asked when you saw him standing by the foot of the bed, his bare torso exposed to your view.

"Do you have an issue if I sleep in my briefs only?" he asked, genuinely curious.

You laughed. "Please. We've slept naked before," you muttered, but he didn't budge. "Yeah, 'm okay with it."

He took his sweatpants off and climbed to your bed, lying next to you.

You instinctively scooted closer to him and he smiled, sliding an arm under your body to drag your body so that now his chest was pressed to your back, his arms circling you so he was practically hugging you from behind.

"Are you feeling better?" he muttered, his nose slightly bumping the back of your ear.

"Yeah. Thank you Shua," you replied, snuggling in his embrace.

"Here to help," he whispered before pressing his lips on your hair.

The rest of the week went smoothly.

Joshua had taken a liking to texting you when you least expected him to. Sometimes, he'd ask random questions, just to taunt you and make you blush. As if he knew the effect he had on you even without interacting with him in person.

[18:23 PM] joshua: are you free tonight princess? [18:23 PM] joshua: wait don't tell me [18:23 PM] joshua: you're working

You had been keeping him at bay all week by telling him you have to outline book two of your trilogy. Which was true, you unburied some old drafts, but decided that given the fact that book one underwent a lot of changes, book two would have to adopt those changes too.

But the reason why you made yourself busy was to keep yourself away from him. You were too nervous to face him again after that Tuesday night—in which you purely hung out together, no sex.

You let out a sigh.

[18:24 PM] you: I'm free tonight  [18:24 PM] you: Why?

It was now Saturday. You hadn't expected to see Joshua that night, since he usually had something planned during the weekend.

That being said, you totally weren't expecting a call from him.

"Yes?"

"God, you might be an old lady. Who answers the phone by saying 'yes'?" you heard him laugh.

"I'm hanging up," you cooed, trying to hide your smile.

God, how can he get you this flustered already?

"Wait, wait," you heard a giggle. "What are you wearing right now?"

"Really? Really, Joshua?" you gasped.

"No, wait I mean—don't hang up. I'm picking you up in an hour. We're going out," he told you, and you could tell that he was walking hurriedly, his breath hitching up as the buzz from the street filtered through the phone.

Your stomach dropped. "What, where? Jesus, give me some warning next time," you stood up from your desk and went to your bedroom.

"I am giving you a warning, right now. We have a gig tonight and it's a big thing for me. I want you to be there," he spoke in a lower tone, as if not wanting anyone else to hear.

"Well, I'm in my pyjamas. Hope that's fine with you," you joked. You were in fact not wearing pyjamas, but comfy clothes.

"The bunny pjs?" he inquired in a lower tone, but you could tell that he was smiling. "Oh no, sweetheart. I love to see you in that but I'm afraid that's not going to do."

"Well that's what you're getting," you smiled despite the blood rushing to your cheeks.

"Come on, baby. Wear something nice for me?" he purred into your ear. 

You sighed in pure delight and felt lucky that he wasn't there to see that you were aroused already.

"What do you want me to wear?" you almost mewled, not caring about how lewd you sounded.

"Whatever you want, princess. You look good in anything," he muttered.

"I'll wear something cute," you responded, your voice high and almost sweet for him. "And I'll wear something underneath for you only, if you want."

"Fuck, I'm getting hard already," you heard him sigh.

Your eyes widened. "Really?" your voice rose an octave higher. "Why?" you asked innocently.

"Just thinking about you gets me hard," he groaned, but you could tell he was smiling by the sound of his voice.

"Joshua! You're in public! Don't say those things aloud," you chastised him, but couldn't ignore that hearing that made you instantly wet and your core flutter in excitement at his words.

"I just got to my car, princess. Calm down," he laughed faintly. "No one can hear me here. Or see."

"Well, in that case, I'm really, really wet for you right now," you muttered with a sigh as you sat on your bed and slowly lied down.

"Fuck, baby. I love hearing you say that," he purred in a raw tone.

"Yeah? What else do you love hearing me say?" you dared ask.

Maybe your newfound confidence was due to the fact that he wasn't present in your bedroom right now. Your heart was thumping hard against your chest, and your face felt hot at the daring words that were escaping your mouth.

But you didn't care, all your focus was on the voice in your ear.

"I love the way you say my name," he confessed almost sheepishly, as if he was almost admitting that to himself.

"Shua?" you asked, playing dumb. 

"No, no. That's not my name, baby," he muttered in a tone of false reprimand.

"Joshua," you smiled.

"Mmm yeah. I love hearing you say my name. Love it when that's all you can say while I fuck you silly," he admitted, his voice dangerously low.

"Mmm, yeah?" you echoed as your free hand sneaked beneath the band of your sweatpants, burying itself beneath your soaked panties.

You let out a mewling sound when your fingers found your already pooling core.

"Are you touching yourself, princess?" he asked after he heard you sigh in pleasure.

"Yeah," you admitted. Your wet fingertips had already started rubbing circles around your swelling clit. "Wanna come and see for yourself?"

"Fuuuck," you heard him sigh heavily. "I'm a bit far away right now. But I'd love to be there, princess."

"Can y-you talk to me?" you asked with a tiny voice then bit your lip to avoid moaning louder, feeling your legs starting to tense up.

"Are you touching yourself with your fingers?" he asked and you said yes. "God. I'd love to see that one day."

"Yeah? Why?" you asked with a frown.

"I think it's really fucking hot. I want to see you play with your toys until you're spent," he sighed and you imagined him smiling. "I want to hear you say my name while you do it, too."

"You think that I think of you when I touch myself?" you dared ask again as your fingers gently swirled around your sensitive bud.

"You don't?" he bit back.

"Yeah, I do," you admitted despite yourself. "How did you know?"

"Just a small hunch," he sighed, is he smiling?

"I always think of you when I come. I imagine it's you that's making me come," you blurted.

"I'm right next door," he groaned. "You know you can just tell me and I'll be there."

"But what if it's super late?" you pried.

"I don't care,"  he confessed with a low groan.

"Are you touching yourself too?" you asked with a high pitch whine.

"I can't. Not unless I want to be charged for public indecency," he muttered and you could tell he was smiling.

"Are y-you hard?" you asked as your fingers pinched your swollen and slick covered clit.

"Yeah, baby. I am," he sighed. "You've been ignoring me a little this week," he laughed.

Your heart clenched and a moan escaped your lips as your fingers toyed with your clit. "Y-you're not seeing other people, then?"

"You're asking me right now if I'm fucking other girls?" he muttered with a groan that didn't denote his arousal anymore. "Why would I want to do that?"

"I dunno, I figured-"

"You're the only one I'm fucking. I haven't been with anyone else since you," he muttered reproachfully. "We've talked about this before—does this get you off, baby? Do you like to hear that you're the only girl I want?"

"Yeah," you admitted, shutting your eyes close as your body responded with a wave of heat at the sound of his words, you groaned and twitched in your bed a little.

"Is my pretty girl possessive? Is that it?" he muttered again, and in your inner eye you saw him grinning like an idiot.

"Yes, I am," you gasped as your fingers pressed on your clit and massaged it in the only way you knew would get you closer to your sweet release.

"Oh, you greedy, greedy little thing," he tutted. "Are you close, baby? By the way you're breathing I can only assume that-"

"Yes, 'm close, Joshua," you whimpered, your fingers working faster on your clit.

"I wish I could see that right now," he replied. "You don't know how much I've needed you this week."

"Fuck," your legs twitched and a moan coiled in your throat.

"I'd have you every day of the week if you let me, baby," he let out a stressed sigh. "Don't think I would rather have someone else before you."

"Joshua-," you muttered in a broken moan, trying to bite your lip as you came on your fingers, gasping and whining as the wave of pure bliss washed over you, making your jaw go slack and let out his name in low whimpers.

"I know, baby," he muttered as he heard your moans: "I know."

Your body went limp after a long minute and you slowly came back to your senses.

"God, that was embarrassing," you sighed to yourself, moving your hand out of your pants.

He giggled. "Why?"

"I—never mind," you rolled your eyes. "See you in a bit?"

"See you in a bit, bunny," was the last thing he said before you hung up.

The cold shower you had afterwards served two purposes: a cold slap back to reality and a reflection on your crazy toxic behavior.

Joshua was not your boyfriend. So what if he were fucking other people? Even if he were, you didn't have a say in it. You were just fuckbuddies.

You decided to wear something you thought never would, something you bought on a whim. A little black dress that hugged your body in a flattering way and accentuated your beautiful body, it showed some cleavage, but you felt confident enough to wear it now.

You waited in your living room for Joshua, tapping your fingers impatiently and checking your phone every now and then until you heard him knock, and you ran to get your door.

Joshua pushed through the door, grabbing you instantly by the waist and pushing you to the nearest surface where he could sit you down. The table felt cold against your ass when he set you down harshly, making the skirt of your dress fly up as he slotted himself between your legs.

"I'd take you right here on this table if we didn't have to be somewhere else right now," he said in a low tone, grabbing your chin with his fingers.

"Please do," you urged as his lips locked on yours chastely. "Fuck me, please Joshua, please."

"I think it's your turn to wait now," he muttered with a grin.

"But I need it, please," you whined, wrapping your legs around him.

"Touching yourself an hour ago wasn't enough, baby?" he lifted your chin to angle your head for him to press his lips to your own.

"No. You know it wasn't," you mewled. "I want you to fuck me. Right now," you moaned with a sigh.

Your fingers hooked on the hem of his black jeans and pulled him toward you, sliding his zipper down and undoing the button in one move.

"Fuck baby," he muttered in awe at your wild behaviour as your hand slid beneath his jeans to find him already hard beneath his underwear.

"I need you," you whined, ignoring the awe-struck look on his face.

He grabbed both your wrists and pulled them out of his pants, firmly clasping them together, his hand was large enough to secure them together in his fist as the other hand grabbed you by the jaw gently.

"You have some nerve after ignoring me all week," he muttered darkly. "Now you'll have to wait baby until I say so. Can you do that, sweetheart?"

You looked at his lust-lidded eyes bore into you and his smile slowly appeared on his face as you nodded.

"I can wait," you replied with an innocent tone.

"That's my girl," he cooed and sighed into your lips as he captured them with his own, giving you a heated kiss.

You broke the kiss abruptly and brought up a finger to caress his lower lip that was covered now with your saliva.

"You can fuck me raw now, Joshua," you whispered with a soft smile, almost kicking your feet in the air as you still sat on your table.

The audacity that possessed you to say that was totally new to you, it showed up in your crazy outbursts of assertiveness every time you were near him. Maybe you felt confident enough to be like that with him.

He shuddered slightly, but it was enough for you to see. "We're never getting there if you keep going, princess," he pressed his forehead against yours.

"So you're going to?" you asked, your voice dropped to a whisper.

"If that's what you want, baby," he muttered.

He was already breathing hard, his hands had dropped on your bare thighs, where he had started to knead on your skin anxiously.

"I want to," you replied instantly. "I need you to."

"You're killing me right now," he laughed softly before fixing his pants. "We need to go now, or we'll be regrettably late."

"Fine," you sighed. "Let's go."

He grabbed your head with his hands before crashing his lips with yours briefly but heatedly.

"Let's go," he muttered.

The ride there was longer than you expected. Joshua told you beforehand that his bandmates were already at the location where the event was going to be held.

And as he drove there, he started to get more and more jittery: anxiously licking his lips and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Are you okay, Shua?" you asked. "You're quiet."

He sent a look your way, but focused on the road ahead. "I'm okay. Just a bit nervous."

You gave him a reassuring smile, although he didn't get the chance to see it. "It's going to be fine. You'll see," you tried to comfort him by placing a hand flatly on his thigh.

He gently grabbed your hand and took it to his lips, pressing them on your knuckles. "Thank you, bunny. That's why I'm bringing you with me tonight."

Your heart fluttered a little. "Yeah? Why is that?"

"You give me good luck," he smirked.

You snorted, trying to play it cool. "You're so corny," you muttered.

He flashed you a downturned smile, briefly looking your way. "Shut up, I'm trying to flirt with you."

"Why? You're driving, there's not much we can do," you laughed, but then your laugh fainted. "Unless you want me to do something for you."

He blinked slowly as he let out a soft laugh. "Are you suggesting to blow me, baby?" he asked incredulously, glancing your way.

You shrugged. "Mmm, yeah. I thought that's where this conversation was headed."

"God, you are terrible at flirting," he said with a low chuckle, but you couldn't ignore how he leaned his head back and shifted on the seat a bit.

"Yeah, shocking," you smiled.

Joshua frowned, but didn't press any further. "I'd accept your proposition," he smiled slightly. "But we're arriving in about two minutes."

"I feel like there's a joke to be made here," you muttered with a smile.

His jaw dropped slightly. "Oh, no. Don't," he laughed.

"I just need one minute," you burst out laughing by the end of the joke.

He rolled his eyes briefly, but his smile was the biggest you've seen. "You have the humor of a child," he said while shaking his head.

You collected yourself, feigning to brush a tear from the corner of your eye.

"Are you done?" he asked, looking torn between amused and disappointed by your bad joke.

"Come on, laugh a little," you pushed his shoulder slightly.

Your joke wasn't even remotely funny, you knew that, but Joshua was still smiling when he parked in a large parking lot There were a lot of cars around and people gathering and walking in groups towards the entrance of a park.

"Where are we?" you asked as you unclasped your seatbelt.

Joshua appeared to be in a hurry, probably reverting back to his state of anxiousness after being distracted successfully by you. "Come on, bunny."

He jumped out of his large jeep and went around it to get your door.

"Oh, what a gentleman. Thanks," you smiled as he offered you a hand to climb down.

"Here," he muttered as his hands clasped on what appeared to be an access pass, which he put around your neck.

"Oh? Thank you, Joshua," you grabbed the tag to read that it was an all access pass.

"Don't mention it," you looked up to see a light smile on his face. "Follow me."

He led you to the side entrance which was fenced off, a sign at the entrance reading "AUTHORIZED ONLY" and you practically followed him through the maze of sound and lighting equipment carefully arranged on the floor.

There was a lot to be on the lookout for as you tried to keep up with him. There were rows of cables taped or secured to the ground that you almost tripped over.

Joshua seemed to notice your struggle and reached out to grab your hand firmly. "Careful, princess," he showed you a downturned smile, jittery eyes glancing down to his large hand grabbing yours. "Is this okay?"

You felt your heartbeat on your throat as you could only muster up a nod. "Yeah," you breathed, holding onto his hand.

The place he was walking through and to which he was practically dragging you with him was a large tent with long tables, people gathered around, chatting and drinking.

The smell of weed and tobacco permeated the air, laughter and the hum of the crowd with that of the music in the distance filled your ears.

"There you are, Shuji—oh, I see why you're late," Jihoon politely nodded your way and waved.

"Hi," you waved back shyly.

Joshua released your hand gently, smoothly using it to fix his dark hair with a labored sigh. "I thought I was on time," he frowned. "Isn't our go in an hour?"

"Yes, but we were asked for our instruments for soundcheck half an hour ago," the drummer shook his head nervously.

"And?" Joshua smiled playfully. "Did you need me to do that?"

"No, I don't need you, I'm just—forget it. In thirty minutes we go backstage for them to mic us up," he informed, just as jittery as you saw Joshua some minutes ago.

"Got it. Thanks Jihoon," he nodded and then turned to you. "You get drinks and food with your pass. I have to stay here, but you're free if you want to explore the festival," he tugged at the access pass hanging on your neck.

"Right, okay," you pressed your lips into a smile.

"We can meet back here once our gig is over," he offered. "Or I can join you where you are."

You looked up at his doe eyes. "You're going to do great, Joshua," you smiled reassuringly.

God, you wanted to kiss him so bad. In front of everyone, you didn't care who saw. But you also felt pathetic, anxiously eyeing his plump lips then back at his curious eyes.

He read you well. With a soft smile, his hand slid in the nape of your neck to hold you in place as he dipped his head to kiss you sweetly, one peck, then another. A sigh falling on your parted lips as he tenderly slid his lips in between your own.

"I'll be in the crowd," you promised with the faintest voice.

"I'll look for you," he smiled slightly at you, meeting your gaze with such fondness that you almost forgot where you were.

"I better be there then," you smirked at him, trying to contain your eagerness.

"Look at you being flirty with me," his smile grew and you almost died inside when his eyes turned into two crescent moons from how happy he looked.

"I–that wasn't flirting," you stuttered. "I'd better get going so you can get ready," you pulled away awkwardly.

Your heart sank as the smile on his face slowly faded.

Joshua looked at you the way he always did when he figured you out, but just nodded with his head, if he had anything else to say, he kept it to himself.

"See you in a bit?" he asked with a playful smile.

"See you in a bit, Shua," you smiled back and turned around and followed your way back through the crowds of artists and crew men and women and into the actual music festival.

The sun had already dipped, the chill of the air in the beautiful park surrounded by tall trees seemed to be setting in despite the huge crowds of people amassing around the stages, those which were three in total.

In your little exploration around the merch and food stalls, you found out that Midnight Haze were presenting on the main stage, two bands before the headliners. So that's why Joshua looked reasonably anxious: this was hugely important for a local band such as his.

You thought that this could prove an opportunity for them to be scouted for plenty more gigs. And you hoped that would be the case. You honestly wished for his band to have more recognition, they deserved it.

You explored all the food stalls, not feeling really hungry but yet indulging in what appealed to you the most. Everything was free for you, having an all access pass circling your neck, but you didn't feel the need to overuse it.

Except for strawberry mojitos, you were sipping on the third one by the time you circled back toward the big stage, showing your pass to security and they pointed you to the VIP section, directly in front of the stage where Joshua's mic stand stood.

Behind the mic stand the stage crew rolled a platform with Jihoon's bright red drum set, surrounded by a number of large cymbals. The crew expertly made a brief soundcheck and left. Your stomach tightened in excitement for the members of Midnight Haze, not just Joshua.

It seemed they had a plan, Jihoon stepped on the stage first, walking to the platform the crew had set with his large drum set. He sat on the stool and shifted a bit, finding his preferred way of sitting.

You spotted Vernon's bass guitar carefully placed on a guitar stand. It was white and had stickers all over it, some of them had washed over around the pickup area. When he picked it up and threw the red strap around his shoulder he also seemed to shift and get ready.

The crowd pushed you softly around as the people around you moved to get closer to the fences. Even if you stood in the VIP section, it was completely packed, the murmur of the crowd rose, some people whistled loudly impatiently.

When Joshua stepped under the stage lights, the crowd went completely insane. The large screens framing the stage showed the full stage, now complete with the lead singer as he grabbed a white guitar, lifting the strap to place it on one of his shoulders.

Joshua turned around and you saw him nodding his head at Jihoon, who returned the gesture at him to then raise his arms in the air to clash his drumsticks three times before starting off with a loud bang.

The booming sound of the towers of speakers filled your body, vibrating in your insides and making your bones feel the energy that instantly ignited the crowd, including you.

Midnight Haze started their set with one of their songs you liked the most. And you were pleased to see that Joshua smiled as he sang to the lyrics of the song.

The electrifying presence of the lead singer was so mind boggling to you, for a second it didn't seem like you were seeing your next door neighbor singing and playing his guitar as he danced side to side, banging his head slightly to the beat.

People screamed and applauded as the first song came to its end and Joshua bowed his head politely. Then he paused to remove one of his in-ear pieces to listen to the cheering of the crowd properly. He approached the stand, wrapping one hand around the mic.

"How's it going Rock Fest?" his voice boomed with excitement, a small chuckle came out of his plump lips when the crowd responded with wordless screams.

"We're Midnight Haze and we're really excited to be here," Joshua spoke into the mic, his starry eyes lost in the sea of faces, marveling at the sight of how extensive the crowd was.

"I want to see you all singing and dancing. Come on!" he screamed energetically just as the music swept in again.  

You cheerily sung along all of the songs in their set list, swaying your body mindlessly from side to side, looking over at the stage where Joshua also sang and played his guitar.

He looked devastatingly beautiful. His big eyes closed briefly, his brow furrowing slightly in focus, the vein in his neck popping up as he sang his lungs out.

The stage lights bathed his face with red and pink lights as the music wrapped him in a moment for his guitar solo, he looked hypnotic to you, almost heavenly.

You were so attracted to him you felt like a moth flying straight into the flame. You simply couldn't contain your urge to grab your phone and snap a photo of the moment.

God, you're screwed for life, you realized as you watched him.

Their setlist was about to come to a wrap after another one of your favorite songs ended on a strenuous note and Joshua's eyes went through the sea of faces. The stage lights danced around and pointed at the crowd at the same time his eyes zeroed on you, his brow relaxed and he smiled slightly.

"We've come to our last song," he spoke into the mic, his smile broadening when the crowd responded in wordless discontent. "We thank you for being here and for being such an amazing crowd," he paused, seemingly enjoying the roar of the sea of people in front of him. "We were Midnight Haze. Thank you, Rock Fest!!"

They started playing what their last song was, which was a song that you didn't know yet and apparently was a new song, since no one around you seemed to sing along with Joshua, who kept his big smile throughout as he sang and danced around the stage with his guitar.

He looked at you once as he strolled with his guitar directly in front of you. The people standing behind you screamed in your ears and you smiled at the sheer commotion he caused just by stopping by.

You twiddled your fingers at him, which he caught immediately and nodded his head at you, smiling tiredly with his tongue dangling between his chapped lips.

"He's so fucking hot oh my god," someone said with a raw voice from screaming, you turned and you saw two girls holding each other in excitement from the brief exchange.

It was amusing to think that you weren't the only one subdued by the beauty of the lead singer. It was also somewhat amusing that you were exhilarated at the fact that he singled you out from the crowd, but obviously no one around you knew that.

Joshua returned to the mic to sing the last verse, to then thank the other two members of Midnight Haze and say goodbye, promptly leaving the stage as the crowd screamed and applauded for them.

You quickly made your way out of the VIP section and found the nearest entrance back to the tent where you last saw Joshua. There were still some people hanging out in the tent, though admittedly not as many stuck around, possibly enjoying the festival and the food.

When Joshua came back, he looked a mixture of euphoric, tired and happy. As he spotted you, he opened his arms in excitement and you threw yourself in his embrace, lifting you in the air as your lips met briefly in an affectionate kiss.

"You were amazing," you told him, looking at his face briefly before he returned you to the ground.

Then you slowly came to your senses and stepped back from him slightly.

"You think so?" he asked, unaware of your sudden change in behavior. "Cause that felt amazing! That was the largest crowd we've ever performed for."

Your heart swelled at seeing him so excited, he grabbed you by the shoulders and shook you and you laughed at the crazed energy he still had from the stage.

"Come with me," he grabbed you by your hand as he led you out of the tent and to an even larger tent that was more crowded than the one you just left and right behind the stage.

It looked somewhat like a private party, the people in there, the majority of them, looked already intoxicated. The atmosphere was one of fun and a bit of mischief, however, you couldn't help but think that the energy of the packed room wasn't exactly inviting. Despite being hand in hand with the lead singer of one of the bands that had just come off the stage.

Your innate shy behavior kicked in, and you partially hid yourself behind Joshua, lowering your gaze as people not only looked at him, but also noticed you.

Joshua finally found the rest of his bandmates, who were already drinking a beer and talking about the very fresh experience. Jihoon, naturally, was retelling everything that just happened to a couple of faces you've never met before.

"Ah, there you are, Josh," one of them said, which was a woman. "We were wondering about you."

"Sorry, I had to go collect her," he nodded towards you. He then introduced you to the couple of strangers by name. "They're Chaewon and Taewon, from Wilted Willows."

"Hi," you waved at them, pressing your lips into a shy smile. You briefly saw the last bits of their performance, which was very unlike Midnight Haze's.

Chaewon's dark eyes scanned you up and down, making the hairs on the back of your neck prickle.

"Is she your new girlfriend?" she asked bluntly, her eyes moving from your face to Joshua's face.

"Oof, this is going to get weird," Jihoon muttered beside you and sipped from his can of coke zero.

Joshua released your hand. "No," he responded flatly, clearly setting a boundary between him and Chaewon. Then you felt his arm sliding on your shoulders, pulling your body into a tight side hug. "Not yet, at least."

Your stomach dropped, your gaze met his and he immediately winked an eye at you, a thing for your eyes to see only.

"Mmph," the girl flipped her luscious blue hair aside. "When you get bored of that, you know where to find me."

It happened fast: Chaewon took a step forward, her lithe fingers reached out to Joshua's chin, and he instantly pulled back with a flinch, his arm pulling you closer to him as an act of instinctive protectiveness.

Looking deeply startled and just about when he seemed like he was going to tell her off, she left and her bandmate had no choice but to leave with her after the deeply alarming exchange.

Joshua released a labored sigh. "Seriously, Jihoon?" he dropped the arm from your shoulders.

"What, they came to me," he shrugged. "I didn't know she was going to pull all that."

"Who is she... is she your ex?" you asked, trying to appear fine and controlled.

"No. God, no," Joshua shook his head furiously. "She's just really self-absorbed."

"She is also obsessed with Shua. Crazy stalker level of obsession," Jihoon explained briefly.

"Ah," you frowned.

The only reason why you thought she might've been Joshua's ex was because of how comfortable she was to attempt to put her hands on him.

Even if she were his ex, she overstepped by trying to touch him like that.

"Fucking hell," Jihoon muttered to himself, spotting something in between the groups of people. "Vernon's getting fucked up again."

Jihoon left abruptly, towards the direction of the bassist. Leaving you and Joshua alone. 

"I'm so sorry about that," Joshua's face had contorted into a frown. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," you smiled calmly despite yourself, trying to not let your anger show. "That was unsettling."

"Yeah, I agree. Really disturbing," he sighed again, running a hand through his dark hair.

"I'm sorry you have to deal with that, Joshua," you offered with a downturned smile.

"Don't be," he shook his head. "I'm more worried about you, she undermined you and I couldn't say anything about it."

"But I'm unaffected," you countered. "Her problem is not with me, that much is evident."

He flashed you a relaxed smile. "Sorry about the girlfriend stuff, I panicked."

A sudden painful feeling made you almost flinch. "Don't worry, Shua. I would've panicked a little too."

But you were thankful that he was being honest. He still looked agitated from the unfortunate exchange, but his shoulders went slack when you reached out to grab his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Hey, don't let that ruin your night," you told him encouragingly.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine," he frowned.

"You want me to fuck her up?" you asked bluntly.

His doe eyes widened. "What?!" then he understood you were joking and laughed hard, almost bending over with laughter. "Where did that come from?"

You broke your act and smiled at him. "I wanted to make you laugh. It worked," you shrugged.

"You fighting... now that would be fun to see," he admitted with a smile. "Fun and weird. Can't imagine you doing that."

"Well, don't try me," you quipped.

He chuckled again, brushing a tear from his eye.

A bunch of people stopped by to say hi to him and you stood idly by, watching Joshua expertly navigate through small talks, compliments and questions. And though you mostly didn't get attention within these exchanges, you were happy to be there, experiencing him.

"You are famous," you pointed, impressed by the amount of people that came to say hello and even take pictures with him.

"I'm not famous, bunny. This is kind of a network, everyone here knows everyone," he explained, but the tip of his ears were red.

"Right," you scoffed. "I don't see a lot of people asking others for their photo."

He rolled his eyes. "Shut up, it makes me feel weird."

"Are you blushing?" you gasped dramatically. "The Joshua Hong is blushing?!"

He arched his pierced eyebrow at you. "Don't make fun of me," he muttered shyly but you just couldn't help but laugh at how cute he looked when flustered. 

"Aw, baby boy is shy?" you pouted at him.

He blinked slowly, biting his lower lip to attempt and stop his smile. "This is the last time I bring you to something like this."

You simply continued. "Can I get your photo, Shua? Joshie, can I get your autograph?" you laughed as his smile grew, rolling his eyes at you again.

Joshua nodded at you once, letting out a breath through a smirk. "Having fun?"

A shiver ran down your spine. "A bit, if I'm honest," you admitted, but were actually more excited about his sudden change in attitude.

"Alright, princess. Let's have fun," he muttered, clasping his hand around yours to drag you once again through the crowd of people and outside the tent.

"Joshua!" you squealed, your smile had since vanished from your face as you looked around to see that he was dragging you towards a line of parked bus trailers.

You assumed that there was no one around since Joshua confidently shoved your back against the side of a bus trailer, making you gasp at the sheer force he used with you.

His eyes widened in disbelief when you smiled at him deviously. "You wanted this," he realized. "Do you enjoy this, baby?"

"I do," you nodded, breathing hard in anticipation already as Joshua closed in on you.

His fingers grazed your chin. "You want me to toss you around, pretty?" he asked, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.

A shudder ran through your body. "Yeah," you sighed. "I want you to do whatever you want to me, Joshua."

Joshua looked at you in pure fascination, he even let out a soft sigh that brushed your face slightly.

"You..." he breathed but stopped, seemingly at a loss of words.

His head dipped and you closed your eyes, blindly grabbing his head with your hands as he kissed you hard on your lips. 

"I want you, Joshua," you whimpered into his hot mouth, the words felt urgent as you uttered them. "Now."

"What if someone sees?" he incited, his voice low and raspy.

"I don't care," you confessed, the statement shaking deep in your bones.

The fleeting confidence in you stirred something in your brain, telling you to act quick.

It was your turn to push him against the bus trailer behind him. He gasped in surprise as his back hit the metal wall, his eyebrow raising a bit.

You clasped your lips with his, earning a low groan from him that reverberated in his chest and against your hands that were sliding down to the belt of his pants.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his hands stopping you.

You faltered instantly. "I-I want to suck you off," your eyes read his face. "Can I?"

His hand released one of yours to cup your chin. "Why?"

You frowned. "Why, what do you mean, why?"

He nodded briefly. "Tell me you're not doing this because you feel bad for what happened earlier in the tent."

"I want to pleasure you," you explained, then you quickly relaxed, understanding the situation. "Don't think I'm doing this for any other reason than just for you."

His eyes scanned your face, his other hand released you to graze your cheek with his knuckles, the features of his face relaxing. "What's our safeword, bunny?"

You blinked slowly, showing him a smile before giving him your safeword.

"Fuck," he let out a puffy breath as your fingers resumed undoing his belt, to then get the button of his black jeans.

"You're so hard already," you cooed softly, and eyed him as your hand felt him over his underwear.

Joshua was biting his lower lip, looking strained already. "All for you, sweetheart."

You smiled at him sweetly. "Such a sweet talker," you tilted your head as you rubbed his hard cock through his underwear.

You stuck your hand through the slit of his boxers, grabbing his hard cock firmly and effectively pulling it free from the stretchy and wet fabric of his underwear. 

"You're being so naughty, princess," he chuckled at you faintly but he faltered completely as you lowered yourself to your knees before him.

The ground was hard against the soft skin of your knees, the thin layer of your stockings was not enough to protect them. But you knew you wanted to see the bruises by the following morning.

"Fuck," he muttered again, shuddering visibly when you kissed the tip of his cock, to then press your tongue on the slit to lick his precum as you locked eyes with him.

One large hand cupped your cheek, his eyes trained on you as your tongue gave a few strokes to his shaft, feeling the vein that marked in the underside, tracing a long line with your tongue until you wrapped your mouth around his cockhead.

You heard a low guttural groan leave him when you took him deeper in your mouth than you could before, your tongue lapping on the length of him as you moved your head back and forth. 

Darting a look at him, Joshua leaned his head back on the wall behind him, eyes closed and swallowing hard as you bobbed your head back and forth on his throbbing cock, swirling your tongue around his cockhead.

"God. Your mouth feels so, so fucking good, baby," he moaned faintly, his hands grabbing a handful of your hair.

The back of your mouth had started to hurt already from the intrusion each time you tried to take his cock deeper in your mouth. But you didn't care, all focus was in getting more sounds of approval from him. Sounds that were also making you aroused. 

Drool had started to drip down from the corners of your lips and onto your chin, wet sounds coming every time you pulled your head back, hollowing your cheeks to suck hard on his cock just as if it were a lolly.

"Fuck," he exhaled. "You don't know how much I needed you, baby."

A moan coiled in your throat, your walls throbbing desperately at the sound of his words. Your chest swelled proud when you felt his fingers tense up on your hair and you heard him moan faintly, cussing and muttering incoherently about your mouth and how good it felt.

"Fuck, fuck—I think someone's coming," he whispered but didn't make an attempt of stopping you, so you didn't.

Voices echoed in the distance, but you couldn't make out if someone actually saw you and Joshua. There was no actual acknowledgement towards what you were doing, but you felt euphoric all the same.

Being on your knees for him, sucking him off for anyone to see made you moan on his cock. You sneaked a look at Joshua's eyes, that were trained on you while your head bobbed back and forth, committed to the act of pleasuring him.

"Someone just saw you giving me head," his voice sounded raw. "You like this, don't you? Like taking my cock in your mouth for anyone to see."

You moaned a sound of confirmation, making the smile on his face grow just a little. He let out a weak sigh, the tension in his beautiful features showing that he was close.

"I'm close," he sighed and threw his head back a bit. His hand tightened on your hair slightly when you sucked him harder. "Fuck, baby. D'you want me to cum in your pretty mouth?" his thumb brushed your cheekbone gently, as if calling for your attention back to him.

You blinked at him, moaning the same sound again.

"Can I move, princess? You think you're ready for that?" he asked, his face and voice both strained.

You nodded with your head as you pulled your mouth back to suck on his cockhead, blinking an adoring look up at him.

"Tap my thigh if you need me to stop," he grabbed your head firmly and started thrusting his cock on your mouth.

Sloppily at first, almost as if he wanted you to adjust your mouth to his pace as he started to push his cock down your throat faster. You lifted your eyes to see his face deep in focus, probably containing himself to avoid hurting you by accident.

The feeling was so deeply arousing that you were tempted to sneak a hand between your legs and start touching yourself. But you were rendered immobile, not by his hands precisely, but by the sight of him fucking your mouth.

"Fuck, baby—I'm cumming. You're gonna take it all, right baby? Gonna swallow it all?" he groaned, revelling at the sight of you taking his cock, your eyes brimming with tears, your chin dripping with your own drool.

You were gagging loudly on his cock, but managed to get the slightest of nods.

"Yeah, you are," he cooed faintly when he saw the way you responded to his words.

Then he threw his head back, his face contorted in pure pleasure and you almost swore you could come from the sight alone. 

"God, fuck," his voice was a mere whisper as his cockhead bumped on the back of your mouth, his cum spurting down your throat and you instantly swallowed it.

Joshua groaned through clenched teeth as you swallowed the last drops of his cum, he screwed his eyes shut, exhaling elatedly at the same time that his hands gently released your hair.

"That was insane," he muttered slowly, appearing to come to his senses.

Gently, he pulled out of your mouth, a string of saliva falling out of your mouth and landed on your chin. He fixed his pants quickly before grabbing your hands that were previously resting on his thighs.

Joshua helped you stand up and immediately wrapped you in a tight embrace. Bringing a hand up to clean your face from your drool and tears.

"You did so good, bunny," he muttered in your lips after kissing you chastely. "So fucking good."

"'m glad you liked it," you smiled in his lips.

"Let's take you home, princess. I want to make you feel good too," he gave you small pecks on your lips. "Is that okay?"

"Can't you take me here? Right now?" you whined jokingly.

"No, baby," he whispered into your lips. "As much as I'm dying to do that right now, I don't want to risk anyone seeing you."

"But you didn't have an issue with it five minutes ago," you quipped.

"Yeah, but that was different. You were fully clothed and the person who saw us didn't see our faces," he pointed. 

"So the problem is that you don't want anyone to see me naked?" you pulled back to meet his gaze. "In that case I can keep my dress on." 

The conversation had shifted between you, and you could tell that he was no longer trying to keep you aroused—he didn't even look like he just got blown. You didn't know what it was, but it troubled him.

Joshua looked up at the night sky, seemingly looking frustrated for a second as he looked for words to say.

"What if I'm a little possessive too?" he asked, meeting your eyes.

You physically recoiled in his arms in a mixture of excitement and uneasiness. "W-what?" you blurted in disbelief.

"What if I don't want anyone seeing what I have with you?" his eyes searched your face. "Even if you kept your dress on, I don't want anyone seeing how good you are for me."

Your heart dropped, pain sinking into your chest. This was totally not what you expected to hear from him. Even if his possessiveness was entirely revolving around a sexual aspect, you weren't ready to hear it.

"Joshua-," you started.

"I know I said that I'd fuck you anywhere but I just can't give you that right now," he smiled, seemingly ashamed of his words.

"No, it's alright," you frowned. "It's just really confusing hearing you say this."

"What, you don't think I'm capable of feeling a little jealous too?" he asked. "You don't like the idea of me seeing other girls, I don't like the idea of someone seeing you."

Was this something you needed to talk in more depth with him? Totally, yes. Were you going to ask him to do so? No, probably not ever.

"Fair," you muttered, mustering a smile to him before capturing his lips with your own. "Take me home, then."

Joshua took your hand again, making your tummy flutter with nervousness that only intensified when he led you back to the tent.

As you both pushed through Joshua's friends and unknown faces, you swore that everyone looked at you differently; not in a bad or good way precisely, just different. As though everyone knew why you and Joshua disappeared, and judging by the fact that someone saw you, they probably did already.

Joshua kept you close, almost as though wanting to make his point across—he felt possessive of you. And you didn't want to know to which extent he felt like this over you. 

But you knew one thing, whatever it was that made him look this deeply troubled, paired with your unspoken feelings for him was starting to taint your already messy relationship of fuckbuddies.

Joshua drove faster this time around, keeping a hand on the wheel and the other placed flatly on your thigh.

"Did you enjoy the festival?" he asked, his thumb had started to draw invisible circles on your thigh.

"I did," you smiled. "Drank mojitos and ate corn dogs," you told him, looking at his large hand. You resisted the urge to grab it and lace your fingers with his.

"Mojitos?"

"Strawberry mojitos," you added. "I took some photos too, of you, on stage."

"You did? Will you show me?" he eyed you excitedly.

"Of course," you smiled at him.

"So you got a good spot to see me?"

"Yeah I got to see you throughout the whole set," you saw him smile faintly.

"I saw you singing along," he seemed to remember suddenly. "You've been listening to our music."

"Yeah," you admitted. "Almost everyday. Does that make me your groupie?"

He chuckled. "I'm convinced that you don't know what a groupie is, bunny."

"Shuddup," you smiled.

"Hey, but it's not fair—you can listen to my music but I haven't read your book," he frowned.

"I'll lend you the hardcopy of my manuscript," you promised.

"I actually looked for you, do you use a pen name?"

Your heart sank. He took the time to search your books using your real name?

You told him your pseudonym and he repeated each name silently and nodded. 

"Yeah, I might've confused the lady at the local library," he laughed.

"You went to the library looking for my books using my real name," he nodded and you laughed. "You should've asked me first."

"You never answer my texts on time," he reproached. "Well but I wanted it to be a secret, actually."

"Why?" you frowned.

"I wanted to impress you," he shrugged.

"You don't have to, Joshua," you told him sincerely.

"But I want to," he pouted cutely. "And now that I know you've been listening to my music, I feel like I have to catch up with you."

"I like your music. I'm not sure if you're going to like my books," you warned him.

"Let me decide that," he smiled at you.

Joshua parked his car expertly with one hand, his other hand still resting on your thigh. He had stopped rubbing circles through the thin fabric of your stockings, but your skin felt hot at his touch nonetheless.

Your fingers fidgeted nervously with the hem of the skirt of your little black dress as you stepped on the elevator, Joshua stood closely behind you.

"Are you nervous?" he asked in your ear, leaning closer to you.

"A bit," you breathed, turning on your feet to see his face.

"Why?" he slowly smirked. "We've done this before."

You were lucky that no one else was in that elevator, but you still waited until you got to your apartment to continue that conversation.

Joshua gently pushed you against the wall as soon as he closed your apartment door.

"Mm? Why are you nervous, bunny?" he asked in a soft tone.

"I've never been fucked raw," you confessed, fighting the blush that crept immediately on your face.

His eyes searched your face briefly. "We don't have to do that tonight, we can use protection."

"No, don't get me wrong—I want to... do it raw," you breathed, your hands fidgeting with the collar of his meshy black shirt. "I'm just..."

You bit your tongue. You felt excited to try new things with Joshua, and what really got you feeling that way was that you were trying these things with someone you were actually falling in love with.

"What?" he egged you on, his curious eyes still trying to read your face.

You licked your lips anxiously and shook your head, reluctant to continue.

"We can take it slow, if that's what you want," he offered.

"No, do-don't hold back," you stuttered. "I want everything."

"I got you. Don't worry," he muttered before placing two fingers to grab your chin and leaned to kiss you.

You melted into his lips, feeling every nerve in your body respond at his touch when he slid his other hand on your waist, giving it a soft squeeze.

"I almost forgot to tell you," he breathed after pulling back from your lips. "You looked beautiful tonight, baby."

"Did you like my dress?" you darted a look down to your little black dress.

"Thank you for wearing it tonight," he grazed your cheek. "I liked it very much." 

"It's a good thing I didn't wear the bunny pjs then," you smirked though your blushing face.

He laughed faintly. "Yeah, good thing," he echoed dazedly, leaning to kiss you again.

God, if you could only just ask him. Does he feel the same way too? When your mouths join, when you breathe against each other, moaning and gasping at the slightest of touches against each other's skin.

Your fingers started undoing the buttons of his shirt, your hands sneaking between the split of his shirt to feel his hard chest, the defined muscles of his pecs.

Joshua moaned into your lips, his hands sliding from your waist to find your hips. His hot mouth placed open mouthed kisses on your chin, groaning in approval when you tilted your head back for him to kiss on the underside of your jaw.

Your back was pressed against the wall as his hands searched for your thighs and expertly lifted you up from the floor. You let out a squeal in surprise, your arms instantly locking around his shoulders.

A laugh in sheer joy left your lips when he carried you to your room. "We could've walked here."

"Shh, let me do nice things for you," he muttered as he let you back to the floor of your room and you got to the lamp on your nightstand.

He grabbed you by your waist, pulling you to his body as he sat down on your bed, leveling down to see eye to eye with you. His large hand slid on the nape of your neck as his lips found yours, tenderly locking you into a kiss.

Joshua was still wearing his shirt on his shoulders, the split parting as your fingers caressed the defined lines of the muscles on his abdomen, and then he moaned on your mouth when you reached his lats, that being a sensitive area for him.

"How do I get you out of this?" he smiled sheepishly when his fingers searched on your back and then on your sides.

"It's a slip dress," you explained, smiling too.

Your fingers grabbed the shoulder straps, sliding them from your arms and the dress simply fell from your frame, leaving your body with the light pink lingerie set you chose for tonight.

"Do you like it?" you asked sheepishly when he seemed unable to look back at your eyes.

Joshua swallowed hard, tearing his doe eyes from the lacey fabric barely covering your body and found your expectant eyes. "Yeah, baby," he released a breath through a weak smile. "I love it."

Your hands went to grab the clasp of your pretty bra, but he raised a hand from your waist.

"No, not yet," he muttered. "I want to take it off myself. Is that okay?"

"Yeah. More than okay," you sighed, repurposing your hands to remove his meshy black shirt from his shoulders, caressing his beautiful skin in the process.

His large hands busied themselves exploring your bare skin too, what your thigh high stockings didn't cover, caressing your bare waist as he leaned to press wet kisses down your chest, to the swell of your breasts.

"So beautiful," he muttered, as if to himself.

"Joshua," you moaned with a sigh as his hands circled on your back and slid down to cup your ass with a low guttural groan from his part.

"Don't rush this," he muttered against your skin, then glanced up to meet your eyes.

"Okay," you breathed, your skin already prickled and covered in goosebumps.

He smiled, his fingers reaching up to graze your chin. "We have all night, you don't have to rush anything."

"Oh, so you're going to fuck me all night?" you quipped with a grin.

"If that's what you want," he replied with a small shrug.

"I do. But what do you want, Joshua?" you retorted.

His gaze darkened as it met yours, he seemed to struggle with his words for the second time in the night, something that did not go unnoticed by you, but you decided not to make a big deal of it at the time.

Joshua didn't reply to your question verbally, instead he stood from your bed, your eyes following him now that he regained his natural height, now his frame towered over you.

He pushed you to sit on the bed, wordlessly making you understand that the roles were reversed for now and you resumed to undress him. Undoing his belt and button from his black jeans, hooking your fingers to push his jeans down on his legs for him to step out of them, socks included.

It was your turn to swallow hard at the sight of him nearly naked. He was hard already, as you could see the bulge in his underwear, your hand instantly rubbing his hard cock through the stretchy fabric.

"Lie down, princess," he muttered, nodding to the bed.

You scooted back on your bed covers and lied down as Joshua climbed on top of your body.

"Are you okay?" you asked, your voice laced with a bit of concern.

"Yeah," he breathed, pressing a kiss on your lower lip. "Never better."

He grabbed your legs and you wrapped them around his body, pressing down on his hips to join them with yours, earning a soft moan from him.

"Joshua?" you breathed when his lips trailed from your mouth, pressing wet kisses down the crook of your neck.

"Mm?"

"Ca-can I be on top?" you asked.

"Do you want to ride me, baby? Is that what you're asking?" he asked with his sweet voice.

"Let me be on top," you muttered, lowering your legs from his body.

He laughed against your skin. "Okay," he sighed, rolling over so his back was fully against the bed and you followed his body promptly, straddling him.

You wasted no time, leaning your body to press your chest against his, burying your fingers in his black hair before capturing his lips with yours.

His hands caressed your back, the pads of his fingers tracing the line of your column and stopping only to unclasp your pretty bra, his hands removed it completely, you heard when it landed on the floor.

His breath hitched when you pressed your tits against his hard chest, moving your lips to kiss his chin, then under his jaw and  down the crook of his neck, essentially mimicking what he does when he's on top of you.

"Can I mark you?" you asked shyly, darting a look to his face.

A small groan fell from his lips as he nodded with his head. "Yeah," he whispered with a light smile.

You returned the smile as your head dipped on the crook of his neck, his hands kneading on your hips as you landed love bites on the crook of his neck, his throat and finally reaching his toned chest.

Joshua was sensitive. It made you feel so stupid to realize it this far into your countless sexual encounters. He so rarely let you touch him during sex or kiss him that you never knew just how sensitive he actually was.

His hands were going to leave marks on your skin, you were sure of it. Kneading on your ass and hips, fingers digging harshly on your skin as you took your time marking his chest, marveling at the sight of his toned pecs.

"Fuck," he breathed softly, his eyes were closed tightly, so he never saw you smile at his downright restless behaviour. You and him had that in common, at least.

You couldn't ignore how big and hard he felt under you, so you started grinding on him to maybe help him release the growing tension on his cock.

Then you wanted to try something—you ran your tongue on one of his sides, feeling his toned lats, tasting cologne in his skin.

"Mmn—fuck!" his body hardened, his fingers threatening to pierce your skin.

The tip of your tongue traced a circle around one of his nipples to then press your wet lips and repeated the same actions on his other side, earning similar reactions.

A groan bubbled in his chest and suddenly you were being flipped to your back, startled you looked at his dark eyes. Unable to say a word, his mouth was already clashing with yours, kissing you fervently.

"Are you going to tie me up tonight?" you asked shyly.

His pierced eyebrow arched slightly. "Do you think you deserve it, pretty? Have you been bad?"

"Mmm, maybe a little," you admitted.

"Mmm yeah, I remember that you were, baby. Do you like being bratty? Do you like being tied up?" his fingers hooked on the thin fabric of your thong, pulling his body back to slide the thong down your legs, leaving your stockings on.

"Yeah, I do," you breathed, your eyes trained on him as he pressed soft kisses on the softer side of your thighs.

"Then I won't tie you tonight, princess," he smiled deviously to then run the tip of his tongue on the sensitive side of your thigh, dangerously close to your core.

You let out a soft whimper, your body tensed up and your legs instinctively closed a bit, one of your legs bumped with the side of his head.

"Maybe I'll get restraints for your legs too," he quipped, laughing softly. "Would you like that, baby?"

You swallowed hard, closing your eyes when he continued placing loving and soft kisses on your mound. "Mm, I think so," you muttered clumsily.

He used his hands to splay your thighs open for him, dipping his head on your mound to place wet kisses on your soft skin, sighing in the process of kissing your pussy lips, groaning softly with you when he heard you moan and whine.

"Joshua," you called softly when his tongue swiped a line between your folds, humming in response at the taste of your arousal.

One of his hands slotted in your lower tummy, while the other one remained holding your thigh. His face was practically buried in your cunt, slowly licking every inch of it, dipping the tip of his tongue on your entrance to make you cry out and moan his name.

You held onto his hand that was on your tummy when his tongue swirled around your clit a few times. "Oh god," you whimpered

The bed underneath you groaned when you sank your body, completely subdued in pleasure. Your fingers clenching on his fingers, the other had found the soft strands of his black hair, pulling softly when he started flicking your swollen clit with the tip of his tongue.

"F-fuck—Joshua," you breathed, screwing your eyes shut, trying to remain still on your bed but couldn't help but writhe slightly when he switched from flicking your clit to sucking at it lightly.

You propped yourself with your elbows on your bed to see him practically making out with your cunt. The sight of it alone made you almost climax—his dark hair between your fingers, his hands holding you still for him as he lifted his eyes to find yours.

A moan coiled in your throat, your fingers tugged his hair as you felt your orgasm drawing near, and he seemed to know it from the sounds you were making, so he started sucking your swollen bud harder, moving his head up and down slightly.

"Joshua, 'm close," you breathed, your body trembling slightly. "Fuck! Don't stop, please. Joshua!"

You threw your head back, your jaw going slack too as raggedy breaths broke in your chest, twitching and groaning lewdly on your bed. You moaned loudly, your hand pressing on his head as your orgasm continued to wash over you, the waves of pure bliss left tingles on your limbs and face.

You eased your body back on your bed, your chest heaving embarrassingly hard, soft moans spilled from your lips when Joshua's mouth left your throbbing cunt after showering it with tender kisses.

"Feel good?" you heard him ask.

You opened your eyes to find him still between your thighs, smiling fondly at you.

"Amazing," you sighed weakly. "I love how you eat me out so much."

He laughed. "I love eating you out, princess."

"Oh, yeah?" you breathed.

Joshua climbed back on top of you. The dim light from your lamp let you see the pretty features of his face, you reached to wipe your arousal from his chin and he smiled as he pressed his chapped lips with your own.

"Yeah," he answered and you were reminded of how much you liked it when he said that.

He got on his knees to take his sweet time taking your stockings off, his hands caressing your legs in the process, his lust-lidded eyes locking with yours as he did so. 

Then he lied on his side, using his elbow on the bed to support him as his other hand slid between your legs, his pointer finger slid between your pussy lips, playing with your wetness as his eyes searched your face.

Your eyes shifted to the finger disappearing inside your cunt, pumping in and out a few times until you were ready for another finger.

"Joshua," you whimpered pathetically when his two fingers massaged your walls, but really what had you on the verge of insanity was his doe eyes trained on your face.

"Mm?" his eyebrows arched slightly. "What's wrong?"

"I want you so bad," you breathed, your hand cupping his cheek to pull him into a needy kiss, nibbling his lower lip with your teeth when his fingers scissored inside you.

"You think you're ready for me, sweetheart?" he muttered, his voice strained with tension.

You nodded a bit too eagerly.

"No, I don't think you're ready, baby," he replied, introducing a third finger inside you.

"Joshua," you whined, knowing that he liked hearing you beg. "Please. I waited all day. Please take me,"

He smiled, immediately telling on your little game. "Yeah, you waited all day for me princess, after ignoring me all week. Why should I give you what you want?"

"Because you want it too," you replied boldly. "I know you want me as much as I want you."

"Mmm, yeah baby, you're right. I want you but I wait for you," his doe eyes locked with yours. "Can you say you do the same for me, baby? You like having fun by pushing me away, so why shouldn't I have fun too?"

"You're being mean, Shua," you frowned. "I didn't push you away, just–"

"Careful, princess," he warned, the corner of his lips twitching. "I don't like when you lie to me. You know that."

You moaned then he pressed the palm of his hand on your sensitive clit while still pumping three fingers in and out of your wet walls.

When you gave him no response nor explanation, he smiled. "So you were pushing me away. Again, baby?"

You remained quiet and looked away from his darkened gaze.

"Why do you do that?" he pressed, his voice sounding soft, alluring.

You groaned and bit your lip as he continued to massage your walls with his fingers, his palm stimulating your clit slowly toward another orgasm.

"Joshua," you sighed, closing your eyes. "Joshua, I'm cumming."

"No, you're not," he muttered softly, pulling his fingers out of your cunt when your walls had started clenching harder.

You gasped in frustration. "Joshua!" you whined. "I was close."

He let out a breathy chuckle and pressed his lips against your cheek. "I know, baby."

"Then why..? Why did you stop?" you asked.

"You're cumming when I want you to," he replied shortly.

You sighed your frustration, not caring how childish you were being. "You're mean," you pouted.

He laughed softly when your fingers hooked on the band of his underwear and yanked it down, his hard cock slapping his lower abdomen as he lifted his hips for you to tear off the last piece of clothing he wore.  

"And you lied to me, again," he countered as he climbed back on top of your body, pressing loving kisses to your cheeks and chin, each kiss seemed to leave a trail of tingles on your skin.

"I'm s–"

"Sorry?" he muttered, kissing your jaw.

"Joshua, please," you moaned weakly. "I'll be good, just—fuck me. Do whatever you want. Punish me but please, fuck me."

His eyes glinted with awe, and you remembered that he liked it when you begged. "You'll let me do anything I want, sweetheart?"

"Yes," you breathed. "I'm yours."

Joshua cocked his head to the side ever so slightly. "Say that again," he whispered, giving you another soft kiss now on your lips. And another.

"I'm yours, Joshua."

He hummed in satisfaction. "You're mine," he repeated, savoring the statement with his sweet lips.

"Only yours," you echoed dazedly.

"Oh, you cruel thing," he said darkly. "You know what you're doing, don't you?"

No response came from you. If he wanted answers, that was the best you could give him right now. And for a moment, he appeared to know that too.

A shudder invaded your body when Joshua grabbed his cock on one hand, dragging his cockhead on your wet folds. A soft breath spilled from his lips when he felt you, skin on skin.

"Ready?" Joshua searched your eyes again.

You nodded. "Ready," you breathed.

A low whimper coiled in your throat when he slowly eased himself in. Your hand held onto his shoulder, your eyes brimmed with tears from the pain of how big he actually felt without the extra lubrication that the condoms provided.

But you also moaned at how insanely good he felt raw. It was so good to finally feel him, every naked inch of him inside your walls, that you swore you would climax from just having him like this. 

"Breathe, baby," he whispered, kissing your moans with such tenderness that you almost broke.

"Joshua," you whimpered, your fingers digging on his shoulder.

"It's okay. I know, baby," he frowned slightly. "Do you want to stop?"

"No, no. I'm fine. Please," you begged, although you didn't know what you were begging for.

He released another breath when he finally bottomed out, your walls throbbed desperately around his length and he pressed his forehead against yours.

His eyelids fluttered closed before pulling his hips back, the feeling of his cock sliding out your wet walls felt good—so good that you were already whimpering and trembling.

"Okay?" he gasped, starting to push in and out of you.

"Yes, more than okay, Joshua," you stuttered, closing your eyes with a sigh.

"You're crying, baby," he pointed, he was still moving achingly slow.

"It-it's big—you're so big," you stammered pathetically.

He paused. "Am I hurting you?" his voice was laced with concern.

"No, it's not bad, Joshua. I can take it," you breathed.

It actually wasn't that bad—as he pushed his cock in and out you could feel your walls easing and stretching around it, adjusting to his size.

Joshua looked tense, he let out a groan when his hips started moving faster on you, then he pulled his body back, making you cry out in pleasure when the position of his cock inside you shifted, pressing on your front walls.

He brought a hand on your lower abdomen, his thumb finding your clit to start rubbing on it.

"Better?" he asked. He was still weary, his big eyes searching your face as he pushed his cock in and out on you, rubbing your clit to ease you from the lingering threads of pain.

"Yeah. Feels so good, Joshua," you sighed, swallowing thickly at the drag of his cock inside your walls. "So, so good."

"Yeah, I know," he replied with a low groan. "You feel good too, sweetheart. Fuck, so good."

You whimpered at the sound of his words, the way he pronounced each one with a tight jaw, his brow furrowing as he pushed his cock inside your walls at a delicious pace.

"So warm and wet, so fucking good, baby," he sighed.

His thumb pressed on your clit, rubbing it and teasing it senselessly, making you moan and squirm. It was too much, your hands clenched on your bed covers when you sensed your orgasm drawing near again.

"Oh, god. Fuck," you whimpered, writhing against your bed as Joshua dragged his cock in and out your clenching walls.

"Fuck," he groaned, his hips buckled for a second. "You're close. Right, bunny?"

You shook your head on your pillows.

Then, his fingers landed a slap right on your clit, making you yelp loudly. Clearly telling on your weak lie.

"Yes! Yes, I'm close, Joshua," you cried out.

He smirked in response, his hands holding your hips a second before he started ramming his cock faster inside your cunt. Your eyes widened at him and bit your lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Fuck," he muttered again before pulling out of you, right as your walls started clenching deliciously near your release.

"Joshua!" you whined, breathing furiously at him.

"Remember what I said," he was breathing hard too, probably because he was resisting his own pleasure only to edge you.

He carefully lowered his hard and wet cock on top of your tummy, you stifled a moan at the sheer size of it and the weight of it too. The reddened tip, the soft marks of a vein along the wet shaft, you bit your lip.

"Shua, please," you pleaded with a desperate sigh.

"That's not my name, baby," he snapped with a dark look.

"Joshua, I'll be good, just-"

"Tell me why I should believe you," he muttered as he moved to slide within your walls again, your heart swelled with a little satisfaction when he groaned in pleasure too. 

"I'll show you," you said weakly.

"Not good enough, princess," he shook his head as he slapped your pussy again, right in your sensitive clit.

"God, fuck!" you yelped loudly. "I'm sorry, Joshua. I'm sorry for pushing you away."

You moaned helplessly when leaned down a bit and spit on your cunt, covering your clit with his saliva to start rubbing circles on your swollen and oversensitive bud.

"Why, do you like to have me at your beck and call? You enjoy to fuck me and toss me away like one of your toys?" he muttered darkly.

Suddenly you regretted telling him to punish you, because he only wanted the truth from you, unlike last time he punished you and you had to try not utter a word while he fucked you into the bed.

But you could see that he was struggling to hold back, swallowing hard, his brow furrowed.

"No! You're not my toy—you're... you're," you stammered. Were you about to confess? Like this?

Your orgasm was threatening close, so you squirmed on your bed, trying to create some distance from his fingers teasing your clit. Joshua understood what you were attempting to do and started caressing it lightly, thinking that he was over stimming you.

"You're close?" he asked, realizing when he heard you sigh a moan.

But he didn't wait for your answer. Joshua pulled out again, his cock landing with a soft slap on your lower tummy. A single drop of cum dripped from his tip, but he wasn't cumming yet, you knew that by the way he was breathing in deeply, trying to contain himself.

If he only wanted the truth, you were deep in trouble. Because you push him away to avoid your growing infatuation over him.

"Joshua?" you called abruptly.

"Mm?" he lifted his gaze to find yours.

"What's your favorite color?" you asked breathlessly.

"What, why?" he frowned.

"Tell me," you pressed.

"Pink," he responded, his brow not relaxing.

"Really? That's cute," you sighed, Joshua's hips retracted from your body and he positioned himself again on his knees, his cock aligned with your core.

"Yours?" he asked with an air of reluctance.

You told him your favorite color.

"Why did I know you'd say that," he replied with a small smile.

"Your birthday?" you asked, feeling utterly pathetic.

He chuckled breathily. "What, why're you asking me this right now?"

"Tell me," you insisted. "Please."

"December 30th," he responded, looking confused.

A loud moan reverberated across your room, so loud that you almost wanted to cover your mouth when his cock sank into your walls again. He thrusted slowly, but then he continued rubbing your clit with his two middle fingers.

"What's yours, princess?" he asked, appearing to be following whatever you were trying to do. 

You told him your birthday through broken gasps.

"Still, I don't get why you ask," he breathed tiredly.

"I want to get to know you better," you told him with a whine.

Joshua smiled sweetly at you and that might've done it for you.

Your walls clenched around him and he groaned loudly, slamming his hips against you, the sound of his skin slapping against you filled the silence that followed between you.

Something you weren't expecting happened:  Joshua seemed to have forgotten about edging you, closing his eyelids tightly, his mouth parting a little. You loved to see when his face scrunched up like that, when he was so close that the muscles around his mouth relaxed, but his frown would deepen sweetly. 

Joshua threw his head back a little, a moan muffled in his mouth, his throat bobbing a little as he seemed to be immersed in pure pleasure. He didn't relent his hard thrusts on you, pushing his cock in and out your sopping walls while rubbing your clit expertly.

"Fuck, I can't—Joshua," you gasped. "I'm close. Please, please. Let me cum?"

Joshua groaned before lowering his gaze back at you. "Where do you want me, baby?"

It took you two seconds to understand what he was implying.

"Inside," you breathed. "Please. Cum inside me."

He nodded before he started ramming his cock in your walls faster, moaning loudly through clenched teeth. You moaned with him and sank your head into your pillows, back arching as the tension in your body only grew more intense.

"Joshua, oh god—Joshua," you called, not knowing what else to say, feeling all sanity slipping out of your mind, coming undone under waves of pure bliss washing over you.

"Baby," he called to you. "Say it again."

You blinked weakly, his words bringing you back to reality.  

"I'm yours, Joshua," you breathed.

"You're mine," he replied with a raw tone. "I'm gonna make you mine, right baby? You want that? Want me to stuff your pretty pussy full of my cum?"

You moaned and nodded desperately, your walls squeezing him hard the moment you heard his words.

"Yes, oh god, yes please," you whimpered.

He cussed and moaned as he came inside you, pushing his hips against you sloppily.

"You're mine," he whispered, his eyes glazing over the sight of you cumming hard with him.

"Only yours, Joshua," you responded wildly.

He groaned, your name spilling from his plump lips, pushing his cum deep inside you with lazy thrusts and came to a stop with heavy breaths.

His head thrown back slightly, his eyelids fluttering shut, his mouth parted. He looked so unreal, ethereal even.

Oh god. What have you done?  

Joshua seemed to come down from his high when you shifted on your bed ever so slightly.

"What was all that?" he demanded in a tone that still denoted his confusion still. "The questions."

"I know nothing about you, Joshua," you explained shyly.

And yet, you told him you were his.

But he blinked slowly and started laughing, his cock was still buried inside your walls.

"Don't laugh at me," you pouted through your hurt ego, though he had no idea why you started quizzing him mid-coitus.

"You couldn't wait till we were done?" he asked and giggled again when you shook your head.

He leaned forward, placing his arms above your head on your pillows and pressed his chest against yours, his eyes looking at you fondly.

"What other questions do you have for me?" he asked.

"I-I have plenty," you admitted meekly.

"Is there a reason why you want to know now? Or can it wait?" he kept his eyes trained on you, you noticed, he was gathering every reaction you showed.

"It can wait," you nodded. "Why?"

"Because you asked me to fuck you all night and I'm in the middle of that," he booped your nose with one finger. "Can you keep your questions until I'm done?"

A sweet smile crept on his face when your core fluttered around him and you groaned in utter embarrassment.

"Is that a yes?" he laughed.

You groaned again and slapped his shoulder slightly.

"I'll get something to clean you up," he muttered with a smile still, pulling his hips from you.

He returned some minutes later with a hand towel, which he had soaked with warm water and he gently cleaned the cum that had already spilled from your entrance.

"I found it in the cupboard. I hope you don't mind," he darted a look at you briefly.

"It's fine," you assured him. "I need to go to the bathroom to take care of everything else."

"Do you want me to carry you there?" he asked, getting up from the bed.

"I'm fine," you sat up on your bed. "Can we shower later?" you asked meekly.

"Sure, baby," he sighed softly.

When you came back to your bedroom, you had half-expected to see him asleep from how tired he actually looked. But he was lying on your bed, one leg crossed over and absentmindedly looking at his phone screen, one arm tucked under his head.

God, he was a sight to see. Chest and throat covered in hickeys, his black hair ruffled slightly, the bedroom eyes when he noticed you walking in.

You climbed your bed and lied on your side next to him.

"You're okay?" he asked after he left his phone on the nightstand and turned on his side to look at you.

"Yeah," you sighed. "Never better."

His fingers cupped your chin softly and you leaned to lock his lips with your own in a tender, hot kiss. Joshua moaned softly in your mouth when you felt his tongue slid in your mouth to mingle with yours.

You gathered in your mind what little and fruitless information you got from your long day with Joshua. Maybe you got it wrong this whole time, and you don't need to know what his favorite color is, although you did want to learn his birthday.

You could no longer hide your infatuation over Joshua Hong. It was becoming painfully obvious, though you weren't sure to what extent he was aware of this. Or if he even cared, for that matter.

There was one more painful realization to all of this, one that you didn't expect and probably overlooked because you were worried so much about your infatuation with him that you didn't care to see him with clarity.

Joshua was lonely.

✮ a/n: i'm sorry

i have nothing else to say.

not really, haha

i love joshua, i loved writing this

if you liked this chapter please show it some love? 🥺

and happy holidays!! ヾ(•w•`)o

READ PART 5

→ join my taglist — to read the previous chapters: navi post

[charmedreincarnation]

Ya bitch got into the void state

Champagne anon here and your mf girlll got in the mf void state and manifested her dream life. This happened a week ago, and I’ve been chilling but I do wanna share my story to help others. Gotta give Thanks to Maya, and so many other bloggers and even anon. Y’all hoes will forever be in my heart, and I’m forever grateful 🥹 also Maya girl you told me when I succeed to get into detail and I got nothing to do for the next two hours so imaaa just share it all here in detail.

I also wanna especially thank all the black creators on tumblr!! I didn’t know there were so many of us using the law. It always seems the world is so against us, and there’s nothing we can do abt it but nahhhh!! we can all live our best melanated lives regardless. Periodt, as we should it’s about goddamned time after everything we’ve been though 😂

Anyways!!!! after reading this: https://www.tumblr.com/charmedreincarnation/717864613626134528/im-your-bubble-anon-but-i-made-this-burner-to success story yesterday I got hella motivated. I read that shit and I thought I posted it on accident because it was everything I had been through, and had been thinking anyways. That anon ate your tumblr habits btw. If y’all haven’t seen my good sis’s sucess post go check that shut out rn, On god it will help.

At the end that anon (my mf dawg 🙏) included that they manifested for everyone. Now ion know if that shit actually work tbh. I’ve seen people say you can and can’t, but tbh the vibes were too high for me to doubt. I was like ight, okay fuck it, ima leave my dream life. Whether it me, that anon, or the devil himself ion give a fuck.

So that’s whatssss a bitch did!!! I just affirmed all day it was very fulfilling. People who hate on affirming are mad corny. I can’t lie that shit works hella fast even if you don’t believe it. Idk if that anon’s void manifesting helped or what but I didn’t do much and after 3 months of trying I entered the damn void state. I’m mad I thought I had to be on some ghandi shit to do this (no hate to him hes da man) but you rlly don’t y’all. BUT LEMME TALK MY SHIT ALL YOU NEED IS AFFIRMING AND PERSISTENCE.

Anyways I went go bed excited asl!! I wrote my script that was like 10 pages long I can’t lie I did the most… but it’s whateva. I woke up in the void state after waking up at 4 am or sum, and i was like oh shityyyt lemme manifest rq and skrttt out this hoe. So that’s what a mf did 😂😂

Anyways the part y’all’s is waiting for. This is what ya girl manifested

Desired face and body. I was in shock how all the details came to life. Y’all im a solid 100/10 it’s giving natural bbl and Aliyah. I swear to gahhh everywhere I go people be trying to peep. I’m not used to being treated like a fucking celeb everywhere I go, whole time it’s just my fat gyattttt

Being the hottest 16 yr old IT GIRL at my school, and having lucky girl syndrome. People call me a mini jayda wayda, but tbh I’m better than her now. No hoe is ever gonna cheat on meee like they did her…bye. She’s still gorgeous as fuck tho

Perfect school life. Your girl is set to be the Valedictorian when I graduate (my school has 4!) I’m also sophomore year President, captain of the basketball team, apart of some volunteer programs through my school, and so much more. My resume and college application is abt to be so fuckin fire in 2 years. As I should Columbia is a competitive ass school 😤😤 that aside everyone always tryna link, I got 3 guys fighting over me (whole damn love square), so many people tryna be my friends, teachers love me, and I excel in everything I do.

My Family being rich assss fuck. My dad got a Wikipedia now and his net worth is 22 million dollars. He owns a hedge fund company now, we love a man in finance 😍😍 AS HE FUCKING SHOULD. He got a material gurlll daughter. Two in fact now.

Fire ass crib. Bro it’s a 9 million dollar penthouse, perfect for ragers. I woke up here and my room is decorated to my personality, pintrest clothes all in my closet, I got an exotic pitbull and frenchie, and the house is just mad clean and fire, I’m obsessed with it. Rarely ever wanna leave now.

My mom not being strict. That bald headed ass hoe use to be mad annoying. Y’all know how Haitians are. Mad annoying as fuck and strict for no reason. Now I go out everyday and come home at midnight and no one gives a fuck. Everyone minds their own business as they should.

Having an older brother and younger sister. I was an only child, because I was a miracle baby bc my mom was infertile. Now she got 3 of us, so she can stop being only in my buisness. I’m just playin I love my mom regardless she’s just hella clingy. Anyways my brother is mad protective but also be wrestling mad aggressive for no damn reason. He gave me a bruise but it’s whateva Ima get my lick back. I also always wanted to be an older sister, bc I’d love to be a role model! My sister is 10 and adores me soo much it’s so adorable 🥹 lmfaooo, she’s mad spoiled by me and my mom but it is what it is.

Successful lip gloss business and being a successful drop shipper. Now you didn’t think a sista wasn’t gonna give herself a career just because I’m young right 🤨🤨 we’ll ya wrong. Ya girl is making 200k-400k a year. I barely even use my money cause I got an allowance from my parents… but still, financial literacy and wealth is so important to me especially as a black woman.

A pookie bae. Y’all know I wasn’t gonna deal with finding a loyal cute and funny guy in nyc. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. Anyways I got me a fine ass boo. I just wrote down all the features I wanted in him like for exampleS finically secure so he can spoil me, handsome as fuck, tall, funny asl, kind, little clingy, deep raspy voice, nice hand, good hygiene and style,yanno yanooo !!! Plus some other shit and whewww the void did me so good. Nowww my boo bear is a lil cracker and I’ve never dated a white boy befuh but my am I surprised. I wake up everyday with some long ass appreciation texts and plans already made ! Y’all know I love me a dominant man who knows what he wants. He’s got some nice ass clothes, nice car and crib, made me a passenger princess and spoils me way too much. He doesn’t complain abt my mood swings and simps in the best way possible. Not to mention he’s fine afkkk he’s giving vinnie hacker. He’s also 6’1 and I’m 5’1 so that height difference is soooo hot I can’t lie I feel so so safe with him 🫣 I could go on all day but in short he’s more than perfect

+ so much more but this is what shocked me the most. Anyways I’ve been living like this for the past week and it just feel so natural. I keep forgetting I got into the void but whateva I’m the only who knows anyways. Anyways live yo best life and neva give upppp. I gotta go but I’ll probably eventually make a blog. My names angela so look out for it. I’m just mad lazy soo idk tho !!!

Angela out 🫡✌️

Girl this was so fun to read, I’m just as excited for you lmfao. I love seeing black women win, and thank you for sharing your methods! Enjoy your best life and come back if it resonates with your life bae !!!

[momtaku]

Thoughts on the Attack on Titan Musical

tl:dr; It's been two weeks but I am still not over it.

When I posted the photo of myself holding the playbill of the Attack on Titan musical the most common reaction was "WHAT???", so I guess some background might be good to start with.

Yes, the Attack on Musical is a thing. It was first performed in Japan in January 2023 with shows in Osaka and Tokyo. When it was announced that a second run of the musical would include New York City, I pounced on tickets.

See, it's real! This is my video of the closing number. We were allowed to record this.

The New York run was at the New York City Center which seats about 2200 people. There were a total of 4 shows the weekend of Oct 12. I attended the Saturday matinee. The style of this production is known 2.5D, and is incredibly popular in Japan. I did some checking and this is the first time a 2.5D anime adaptation has appeared outside of Asia. Did Attack on Titan work as a musical?

Surprisingly yes, although I think anyone who wandered in off the streets would've been thoroughly confused. The themes that attracted most of us to the series translate wonderfully to the stage, and despite knowing the story well, they managed to make it feel fresh. Carla's death, for instance. When she realized she was trapped and facing certain death, her song to Eren and Mikasa was a children's lullaby about survival. That portion of the manga always hit me hard, but the desperation, horror and love set to a lullaby? Damn it musical, you made me cry.

The original scene of Hange leading a Titan Biology class might be my favorite of the entire show. The actor who played Hange was the perfect amount of unhinged and delightful as they dance across the table while the 104th answered a pop quiz. (And yes to "they" since the playbill specifically mentions that the actor in the role was known for her portrayal of nonbinary characters.) It was genuinely hilarious.

The musical covers the first 11 chapters of the manga, stopping in the "Struggle for Trost" arc, where the plan for Eren to plug the hole in the wall was conceived but not yet executed. I remember reading that portion of the manga years ago and feeling that same sense of optimism. So the musical ends on a high. Humans finally have a way to win against the titans, It felt like a strange place to end, knowing what ultimately happens in the story, so I wondered if the intention is for a part 2 musical adaptation.

(btw, the staging of "can you plug the hole" had Eren and Levi kneeling closely on the floor together with a manly shoulder clasp looking earnestly at each other. It had me looking at my very ereri friend with raised eyebrows. It was for sure her favorite moment.) What was the performance like?

The short run 2.5D musicals don't have the polish or production budget of a true broadway musical, but it was still wildly entertaining. Since the director is known for breakdance and hiphop, there was plenty of that. The dance numbers were fun. The songs were catchy.

Rather than try to describe it, here's a TikTok review that shows off the 3dmg, the titans, and that two minute head spin that no one could shut up about.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by mixed feelings (@mixed.feelings)

Also, the cast could not have been for perfect. I mean LOOK AT THEM!

From this tweet

Who was in attendance?

As I mentioned before, this was a first in many ways so it attracted people from all over the world. While I was opening my blind box items, I met a group older women from Japan who'd travelled to New York from Tokyo and had purchased tickets to every single NY performance. Their English wasn't great, and my Japanese is nonexistent, but what surprised me the most wasn't their dedication to the show, but that they seemed genuinely surprised to see me. I don't know if that was because I too am an older fan like them, or if they weren't expecting equally passionate westerners at the show but I tend to think it was both. I suspect the Japanese fandom has no idea how big this series is outside of Japan, or that it attracts such a diverse audience.

My podcast partner Luna was sitting next to two women who'd flown in from California. They knew nothing about Attack on Titan but were fans of the actor who played Eren. Since it was his first time performing outside of Japan, they came solely to see him.

On my flight home was a 22 year old wearing an Attack on Titan musical t-shirt. We started talking and I learned it was his first time in New York, his first time seeing a broadway musical, and his first time traveling alone. He just loves the series that much.

In general the audience was much younger than what you'd normally see at a broadway show and 100% more excited. Plenty of people were in cosplay or else wearing Attack on Titan clothing. The atmosphere was insane.

My merch haul

The mug and t-shirt sold out before the second show so I was glad I was there early to snag them. The playbill is selling on Mercari for almost $50. Sadly my poster didn't survive the trip home. It cracked in about 50 places.

Did you do anything else in NYC

Aside from hanging out with so many of my favorite people, the Kodansha Popup House was going on. It was incredibly cool.

We met up with James from the Titan Teatime podcast. I think the plan is do a joint podcast in a few weeks to get everyone's thoughts . I'll post more about that if it actually happens.

Final Thoughts

Rumor has it that the show's successful New York run could mean it will branch out further. If it goes to London, nothing will stop me from being there. It was that much fun, and I can't wait to share the experience with my European friends.

[weirdmageddon]

ok. let's finally talk about this thing i've been wanting to go public with for ages

so i am not a fan of needing THC to help me curb the embarrassment i have in being happy talking about my real realll special interests, because perceived rejection of my interests feels like rejection of myself since i put so much of myself (my time) into them. i anticipate rejection from others because the stuff i find myself occupied with is detached, abstract, highly technical, or niche, and i'm aware of the surrounding cultural assumptions. some of them, and the level at which i am in involved in understanding them, are really specialized or esoteric, so even opening up about them is like "fuuuck im gonna be made fun of or it’s gonna be too technical that they zone out and dont understand why this is so meaningful to me" ive even posted about that feeling before.

see if i start accumulating too much self-context made in my own mind without sharing it i start to feel more and more isolated from other people around me, that they’re not seeing the full extent of what im seeing myself. i don’t share it, because i fear rejection or superficial judgments in other people’s eyes (probably because it’s happened to me and i’ve seen it happen to others). but at the same time it has to be shared with more people around me or else i feel like i have an intestinal blockage in my mind. what happens is my mental colon explodes from all the shit accumulated over time and vou get a post like this. i’m sorry for that mental image btw. anyway back the point of this post

anything where i can systematize archetypes in real, everyday situations has always been my strong suit. so when people ask me my hobbies im like ... uhhh what am i supposed to say? i analyze stuff about the world and rotate it in my mind. when carl jung wrote there are “as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life” i know exactly what he was talking about.

i’ve been toeing the line to really talk about this thing for two years, so let me tell you about socionics. if you already know what im talking about i love you. if you don’t (or even if you do, keep reading there’s probably stuff you don’t know in here), it is part abstract cybernetic model, part jungian concepts, part philosophy of information exchange. it classifies how people communicate and exchange information. it was created in eastern europe in the late 70s, developed primarily in the 80s-90s by other authors and it’s been an endlessly fascinating, elegant, and reliable tool for me.

usually people dismiss personality typology systems because the mbti became so watered down and pop-culturally saturated that people seemed to collectively take a stance of not taking anyone that genuinely cares about it seriously, or at least that’s the impression i got.

(btw — i need to go on this brief rant — i will never forgive 16personalities for being the big five rebranded and people thinking it's mbti. 16personalities gives you your big five type. they explicitly state on their website that they don’t borrow any concepts from jung. -A and -T don’t exist in the mbti and correspond directly to low and high neuroticism respectively. i figured out myself they mapped each letter dichotomy to the other four measures on the big five: extraversion (I/E), conscientiousness (P/J), agreeableness (T/F), openness to experience (S/N). which is stupid and it’s false advertising. take 16p and a big five test see for yourself how they match up. your personal mbti type can be different from its correlated big five type. the actual mbti using jungian concepts as a base is alright though. oh, and the best neo-jungian mbti stuff is by far michael pierce’d takes on it. if you actually fw that heres a carrd i created a few years ago about the cognitive function axes.)

but i always end up going to the bottom of the iceberg in anything i get really into, and i basically integrate it into my own understanding of the world around me for a while. maybe it was because i had a bad experience genuinely talking about it a few years ago from some people who made superficial judgments about it that made me sort of quiet about my interest in typology systems. i assume it’s because myers and briggs used the tool towards racist ends; it acquired negative connotations, bullshit intuition supremacy, and left the study of psychological types tainted in the united states. even if the individual’s study of the system is neutral, unbiased, out of pure curiosity as a way to classify and relate different personality structures to each other, as was the case with me. in addition to 16personalities being an invalid “mbti” test that bought their way to the front page of google, and rampant superficial information at all levels of study, finding anyone who was into it like me was basically impossible. the reason i have a preferred interpretation of jungian + mbti concepts is because i’ve tried different ones on and sensed how well they conform to reality as a way of describing phenomenon, ditching old ones that werent as clear. michael pierce’s i’ve found are the closest to what i sense jung's intentions were. (actually quite likely this is something i would attribute to being because all three of us are types LIl (and also all infj too, how about that?) brain-to-brain communication LII (carl jung) to LII (michael pierce) to LII (me)). so i felt like michael pierce kept the things that worked in real life and ditched the things that didn’t, leaving behind his elegant integration of the concepts.

anyway, i was under the assumption that anything that could be mistaken for it—which socionics often is at a glance—would be dismissed out of hand, even though it’s entirely different. plus, there’s all the context i’d need to clarify about how “it’s different from the “fun” unserious pop-psych mbti and also absurdly more technical” and what's the point in doing that if they don't respect you enough to hear you out anyway? so it just made me closed off.

they share a common ancestor though. the concepts are still based on carl jung’s book ‘psychological types’ which is why there is some shallow overlap, but the scope, structure, and application of it is different. i feel like this system is a lot more “living” and relevant to real interactions and communication between people in our everyday lives. i am always seeing specific examples of these concepts in play in real life and in characters depicted in media. it’s also been more empirically studied and successfully implemented over in eastern europe, and has gone under constant development and contribution. while since the 50s, mbti had crystalized and become stagnant with diverging interpretations to the point where it’s become basically meaningless to try to talk about because nobody can agree on concepts or semantics; there are virtually no distinctions between “schools” or “models” to differentiate interpretations — (although i have my preference for what i think are the most meaningful and reasonable one; as i said, that goes to michael pierce.) eastern (not so much western) socionics is incredibly more well put-together than mbti or kiersey for squeezing the potential from jung’s original ideas, and goes much deeper. that said, i will ALWAYS advise self-studying typlogy concepts over taking a test. the algorithm of a test can never possibly know you and your individual biases in interpreting the meaning of the words better than the knowledge you just have about yourself. if you learn the theory underlying it you will actually learn about yourself and others and it will actually mean something to you instead of a being an empty decoration for your profile.

here is a comparison chart i translated into english so you can get some idea of where these systems actually differ.

Букалов, А. (2019). On the advantages of socionics over other post-Jungian typologies. Socionics, Mentology and Personality Psychology, (6), 5–7. Retrieved from https://publishing.socionic.info/index.php/socionics/article/view/2603

for me it’s been super insightful applied to real life. it is like a toolkit for interpreting why some people just rub me the wrong way and our communication feels disjointed. or why some people pass my vibe check to enter my personal inner circle and i feel like talking with them is easier and not an uphill battle. who i feel drawn to and want to get to know better. to deconstruct why i and other people interpret information in the world the way they do, and how that explains the kind of people i end up curating in my life. it has put into words the concepts i haven’t been able to find the words for beforehand, and thus enables me to retrospectively pinpoint exactly what unconsciously makes people feel more at ease or why communication is just easier with some and why it’s harder with others, regardless of any other factors. there are other factors of course, that are the result of unique circumstances—nurture, culture, and upbringing—and i of course account for those, it’s not as pertinent to me as the framework that provides the skeletal structure regardless of those individual variations that are simply already a given for me. that was actually the whole point of its creation.

the system gives me a common language to communicate these ideas with, at least to the few people i talk to who have learned it, but i can adapt the concepts in how they relate to specific circumstances and convey it to a lay audience. i’ve been doing just that to explain why, of the people who have been made aware of the hs rarepair john-aradia, i have seen no one object to it, and instead, everyone i saw found it intriguing the more they thought about it, even when they initally thought was “so random”. and i realized, “hey wait! i know how to explain that!”, but that's in another post i've been working on.

[i was actually originally writing this post in the middle of said aradia and john analysis but i felt like there was way too much i wanted to talk about as its own thing. i figured people are going to be reading that post for john-aradia explanation, not public updates about my mind. i just didn’t want to rewrite this to account for the context because the point i made was still relevant]:

but now i’m thinking okay… i’m talking to a bunch of homestucks. why am i prostrating myself here? why am i so defensive? they’re probably creaming their pants at the idea of another symmetrically divisible system of classification to get their hands on. homestuck itself is founded upon a bunch of ideas with symmetrical divisions and classifications (divisible products of 2). aspect dichotomies, quadrants, cards, black-white, yin/yang and literally countless other abstract systems. if there is a common word to refer to these sorts of things, please let me know.

but in socionics terms, all of this sort of stuff i’m refering to would be within the domain of extraverted/black intuition (Ne) information, and classifying or positioning someone within those frameworks would be introverted/white logic (Ti). you can read more about these “elements” here. homestuck has familiarized you with notionally irreducible aspects present in everything, dual yin/yang forces permeating everything, so if you understand all of the sorts of abstract classification systems in homestuck you’re basically already 75% the way to fundamentally grasping model A socionics. it is way more structured and stable than the typologies in homestuck though. but you will perceive there to be similarities in the need for archetypal/thematic sense skills.

if you want to learn socionics, for the love of god start here. there are many weak places out there to start out with that will set you up with a faulty and loose understanding, but school of classic socionics is the best foundation to start with. i saw it emerge from the beginning when it was founded, having been part of it since late 2022.

this is an introduction to SCS, what makes it special, and and how differs from other socionics schools. i find SCS to be the most comprehensive, and i’m active within a side discord to discuss theoretical constructs related to model A. i’ve helped find the links between some concepts in model A that weren’t fully substantiated in augusta’s original works, specifically the importance of the asking/declaring reinin dichotomy, how it fits with regard to the rest of model A’s structure, how it underpins the ring of social benefit (which was missing from her writing), and how it can be used as an information element charge just like positivist/negativist can (i.e. all process types have positive asking Ne (+Ne? and all result types have negative declaring Ne (-Ne!). i’m still working on transfering my essay on that to a document.)

i know the intricacies of this system like the back of my hand but yeah i never post much about it because it’s so niche and i dont know who would even want to hear it besides people who i already know would, like in that small specialist group, but they actually been quiet lately even though i’m still active in there sharing things i realized. and i even feel alienated in most casual socionics discussion groups, especially larger ones. i need people who can match my freak about it.

because i have nowhere else to talk about it i’m starting to feel guilty yapping my friends’ ears off about it when i deconstruct everything i come across in light of this system like i’m being annoying about it. but at the same time when im doing that i am constantly reinforcing the merit of the system in successfully finding some dynamic i see in the drama of real life in connection to some idea from the model. i can immediately lock on to the core principles that are at play in any situation, validating the patterns that have been observed by others. by what measure do these people / characters / groups relate to each other, how do we define the specific “feeling” of the energy between them together? i could do a socionical analysis for anything that captures my interest.

it’s also been incredible for self-insight. i can now accurately explain my thought process.

i can change my perspective of the scope of my thinking on different levels. depending on the urgency of a situation developing around me and my respect for other people’s time, i can expand my reasoning from splitting hairs at the smallest pedantic specifics—although i prefer not to, to the most holistic global hard binary 0/1 (no/yes) judgment.

it’s fractal-like; once i know how to classify and compare the features of something to another, everything else with overlapping logical relationships instantly rises up in the same way, which of course is what leads to me having insights that reinforce the potential inherent in the things around me, because my way of thinking is isomorphic. i also experience strong animated mental imagery accompanying my conscious thoughts about these systems, minimalist shapes or lines of the barebones motion happening. i feel like my mental activity and what i actually write down is trying to capture what im seeing in my head.

i prefer to be brief, but that requires sharing contexts with someone. once i've established similar ways of talking about the same thing with someone so that we’re on the same page, our messages basically become exchanging code words with each other. all of the potential densely packed into these efficient little terms.

the effect is that i am reducing the amount of time and energy i have to spend trying to explain things to someone. i just want to communicate easily and be understood by the people i talk to so that i can enjoy my time with them. this is why i felt like such a long, clarifying, in-depth post was necessary, which would rip the bandaid off and pull it all up at once, instead of on a private, individual-to-individual level. i had to have it engraved somewhere i could just point someone to instead of repeatedly having to explain the same thing over and over cause that’s a waste of time and energy.

in fact, that revelation i had about myself just now can be explained by model A too! my own type is LIl and this type’s id block houses the information elements +Te! → +Ni?, which aushra describes as “The quality of deeds and actions and the efficient expenditure of energy in work—only performing for what is truly necessary—leads to peace of mind in the future.”

or, for example, coming at it from another angle, here is an older post i made before i was even aware of socionics. i was already talking about my experiences, patterns of thinking and self-awareness in a way that was so on the nose for a socionics analysis.

is that not the clearest example of phase 2’s sensitivity (for me it is information about sensorics)? -Fi? → -Se! superego block, anyone? and did you see how much i gave attention to the time i spend working; +Te! -> +Ni? id block? [information element descriptions here]. you could also derive the progression of the information metabolism stages in my own psyche (phase 1: Ethics -> phase 2: Sensorics -> phase 3: Logic -> phase 4: Intuition).

(from The Characteristic of SLI)

so through socionics it’s like i can find an explanation for just about everything i observe in others and myself just because i’ve extrapolated the logical relationships from that system and can isomorphically apply them to anything.

and i don't say that lightly! i'm not saying anything in this post lightly. like i have a degree in biopsychology from an honors college (ncf; yes, the liberal arts college desantis got his soulless hands on because it was “too woke"). having taken courses in statistics, research methods in psychology, and others, i know all about proper research design (and designing them myself). and of course i ended my four years there with my undergrad thesis, examining temporoparietal synchrony in autistic individuals when working alone and together, where for months on end i was doing nothing but reading and interpreting the validity of research papers. i even deconstructed poorly designed psychological constructs commonly used in autistic research in mine.

i also took personality psychology as a course during my time there. i got a birds eye view of most of the popular paradigms and still felt like i was more knowledgeable in the discourse behind some of the topics we glossed over since the course material was more of a broad comprehensive thing than an in-depth one for anything specific. in totality, all of the models i read about in relation to each other seemed so fragmented into different cuts and perspectives in trying to understand and find the patterns in people’s mental life. and yet none of the models i read about hold as as great of an everyday explanatory power as socionics does for explaining ways of thinking, people's proneness to certain tendencies, and the energetic tension that happens between certain people.

people can say otherwise that it’s pseudoscience. even though there are numerous studies built on real-world observations, the large-scale statistical data like from victor talanov. there's school of system socionics who emphasize its practice. it would be impossible to add all the evidence i can to support my claims to this post but you can see for youself - there are still countless new articles being published from different authors. regardless of that, even if it isn't accepted within the rigors of “scientific canon” i really dont give a fuck since it absolutely does indeed have explanatory and predictive power, and that’s all i care about. i’m confident in this not only through firsthand experience, the ability to frame what i know to be true about the real world within it and have it successfully describe those things, as well as talking to other people about my observations.

additionally, i see people make conclusions about interpersonal dynamics where they unknowingly repeat information that can be derived from socionics concepts.

something i noticed a LOT and ive repeatedly thought about and come to the same conclusion multiple times is that i think i naturally might "embody" the most optimal ways of interacting with other people for myself. it gives me insight into the nature of the personal relationships that i already procure in my life, but it’s not really a self-fulfilling prophecy because i dont use socionics to prescribe who i "should" be friends with. that's silly. thats a silly thing to do because people do have idiosyncracies that don't perfectly align with a system if you rigidly adhere to it, so you're bound to be set up for failure if you try to force that and you will be disappointed. it's better to let these feelings happen naturally without pretense, because that's where the observations that fuel my insight comes from.

i have a subconscious sense for who i will be able to get along with in the long term almost instantly without the need for any kind of system, just based on their actual mannerisms and “vibes”, but that alone is not good enough for me, i want to know why. socionics just gives me tools to figure out why so that i know what im dealing with and its not just ineffable energies, but i can put a name to those energies to think and talk about it and compare and discover patterns in what ive curated in my inner circle over my life, what i feel drawn towards. and indeed i do find plentiful amounts of recurring patterns. the simplification and abstraction is not to destroy the soul and expression of individuals but to wrap my head around them and understand them deeper in relation to everything else, including myself.

i am aware it can be confusing for many people which turns them away. but if theres any questions you have or youre confused about any concepts i can answer them

but yeah um, i’ve really only scratched the surface of this cognitive cybernetic tool. if you are genuinely interested in what i have to say and want me to talk more about it please openly tell me since i’m not a mind reader! i assume disinterest by default.

anyway if you got to this point thanks for reading. i wanted to just put it out there for context about any posts i make in the future. just stating my honest thoughts and whats been occupying my mind for the past two years.

be on the lookout for the john and aradia analysis soon where i’ll use it in practice to deconstruct some things about those characters. and if you’re coming to this post from that analysis after ive posted it, i’m sorry this post is so long in the middle of an already long-ish post. i just thought the context was important.

[palenutbasement]

(all scenes are depicted as platonic)

So every Inktober I try to do something more challenging, and this year I thought I would make a short comic/fanfic. I think I got the idea for this one a year ago but I was already wrapped up with another Inktober. Eventually I solidified the idea by making my own prompt list some time ago.

This comic is split into three parts with 10 days focusing on each of them, 30 in total, everything is compiled here. I wanted to post them after October in case I wanted to change anything.

This first part takes place in the summit.

The comic is basically all improvised, that means no planning for the composition, plot, or sketching any drawings. The most planning I did was write a few scripts ahead of time within the month to save me some time but most of them would be changed last minute anyways.

As for the plot, I won't go too deep into it because I don't want to talk too much, so you'll just find commentary on the making of the comic and stuff.

This first part is a little gimmick-y compared to the next two, with new elements appearing almost every day. It’s because I relied a lot on the prompts (dog, milk, etc.) to keep things happening, eventually I move further away from them.

What is surprising to me is how much the art changes as the days go by especially within the span of one month. I did refine a few things to keep it more consistent but this is nearly indistinguishable from the original drawings.

I should also mention that my favourite aspect of this project was adding references to the game and subtle details (if you can find it all, awesome!!) This may have been done quickly but I like to have those things and put at least a bit of effort into the dialogue.

Part 2

Eventually I figured that drawing the same setting for 30 days straight would drive me insane, hence why this comic is split like it is. I’m glad I did because it makes the story a little more interesting, seeing the characters have different attitudes in different places and whatnot.

This one takes place in the cave directly after pt 1. Admittedly I do better drawing outdoor settings, it's what I'm used to, but the cave wasn't so bad to figure out.

I remember these two days I was streaming drawing the comic to my friends, so I kinda zoned out while we were talking lol

One of the prompts was about napping, so I made Dwarf sleep. I believe I was tired that day too and it was therapeutic to draw and include that. Also they look cute, I think.

18 & 19 have some of my favourite drawings in the comic. The campfire lighting is what we'd get if I had a bit more energy each day, and I like the perspective in the first panel of 19.

I find this last section interesting, because of all the 30 days, it’s the only one in Dwarf’s POV. I felt like it was fitting to do something like that at the time.

Part 3

Since we were approaching Halloween, I wanted to have a special part for it. It’s related to the other two parts but it takes place some time after. I’m really sorry it’s out of season, if it were up to me I would have had this post out earlier (thank my midterms for the delay)

Out of all the other parts this one is my favourite. Maybe because it’s more recent I’m inclined to think that way but it has some of my fave moments that I've written here.

Other than that I don't have much commentary for this part. More thoughts at the end!

I was caught up everyday atp, but I didn’t have much spare time to prepare for the ending (I wrote it the morning of that day). I think this is a decent conclusion though.

I intend on coming back to this story, maybe next year to make a continuation but we'll see what happens. There are definitely things that I want to come back to someday.

Thank you for making it this far btw. It's been an eventful month for me beyond this (Untitled) comic, but there wasn't a single aspect of this that I didn't enjoy doing. It's a silly project and I care about it.

Also, I'm not going to neglect the 31st of October! That day will get an illustration, where I will pick my favourite panel and redraw it. I want to take my time with this one so it's not out yet, but hopefully I can finish by Christmas.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for making my ex taking medication as a bargain chip for us to get back together?

This happened a while ago but I saw some posts about the right of someone to go unmedicated and now I feel bad and wonder if I was shitty 💊🧘‍♀️ mentions of death, pet endangering, pet death, untreated mental illness and if you call them a narcissist I will steal your left socks. Also not disclosing their diagnosis because you guys can't be normal about mentally ill people.

So me and J (about 25, I was 22 at the time. Name changed for privacy. Both of us is NB) had a extremely quick developing relationship where in 5 months we went from dating to living together. Don't judge me okay I was 20 when we met and I needed a place that wasn't my parents house. Sorry, this will need some context. J convinced me to drop college due to mental health and to move out of my roomies house for privacy reasons.

So three days before my 21th birthday, J lost her brother due to an accident, and we moved together anyway. One month after her brother passed her cat also passed away. That made the grief way worse and about 10 months into the relationship she tried to choke my cat because she peed in the wrong place. I told her I was going to leave her and in result she slitted open her arm with a box cutter.

Later she admitted to be hurting our two cats when I wasn't home by choking and almost drowning them.

By december of the same year I came out as aromantic and she was extremely shitty towards me from deceiving her because she thought I actually loved her but that was all a ruse. So we broke up for real this time but kept living together because well, it was unfortunately what we had and we couldn't move to our separate paths due to our income. That was january with until march/april more or less when she noticed i was pulling guys like no one and hooking up constantly (that was self harm but that doesn't justify it. In my defense I told her just because she would ask me repeatedly if I was hooking up with guys and always wanted to know where I was going). I also went back to college and started hanging out with other people that seemed to actually like me!

Keep in mind all this time she was unmedicated and when I tried to bring up she need therapy and medications she would shut me down, even before the break-up.

And then, by may she was crawling at my feet because she wanted me back. And I cared a lot about her. So I put in my conditions that unless she was medicated and on therapy by the end of july, I would never consider going back to her. And would you look at that, it actually worked because before june ended she was both medicated and on therapy and I said well you did your part, and went back to her, with her now.

Btw for all that matters I am 25 and broke up with her again from almost 2 years now but last time I talked, she was still on therapy and medicating herself, making a bitter remark on how "that's the only way people can stand her, that no one can stand her true self"

So, AITA for making my ex take care of her mental health before I considered going back to her?

What are these acronyms?

[rottenr0ckets]

hi! im a sss, but i think other sss can learn a thing or two.

first of all, dont fucking send death threats or wishes of death, sss. its fucking weird??? second, dont be such a stuck up bitch if people support wilbur. there has literally been no proof yet (im supporting shelby because i go by support victims until proven wrong, but you guys do you!:3) third, dont post nsfw of TEEN WILBUR or wilbur at all?? thats fucking gross. dehumanizing a man for alleged abuse is gross and makes you just as bad if hes guilty. fourth, sending hate and rape threats is also gross. what the fuck?? so apparently its okay if you do it but not when wss do it back? hows that make any sense. fifth, and i know this one is hard to understand guys, BUT PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN DECISIONS. crazee ik. sixth, if you are mad about someone listening to lovejoy and saying "their music sucks" save it. because didnt you like it not even a year ago? are you admitting you were a fake ass fan? like, im a shelby supporter but even i still listen to lovejoy because their music is good. just because i dont particularly like the guy who is the lead singer for his actions, A; theyre in the past and hes getting therapy. B; i still like the music. and C; as much as i dont like to admit it, their music and his streams saved my fucking life. so quit being stuck up assholes about this. the sss is honestly looking worse than wss because of how blatantly toxic it is here. if you have even the slightest doubt for even one fragment of shelbys story youre told you are a fake supporter and told to kys. if you believe it all, youre told you are so easily gaslighted and told that you shouldnt trust everything on the internet. if you dont believe any of her story, youre told to kys, support victims, and that they wish you were raped.

SHELBY SUPPORT SQUAD, YOU GUYS ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. YOU ARE NOT HELPING, YOU ARE CAUSING MORE UNNESSASARY HARM. DO BETTER. SHELBY WOULDNT WANT THIS.

anyways, i hope you guys (wss) have long and happy lives even if i dont agree with supporting him:) btw can i be 🍊🦢 anon?:3

-🍊🦢

THANK YOU OH MY GOD

They need to be sat down and told this in loop so they understand this shit. Most wss I've seen also used to support shebly or be sss until they were given reason to turn to wss (which is our case) I wish they'd realize as a fandom they represent shebly and her as a CC and that their actions can have effects on shebly. From how people view her to how in some places its by law, ccs gave to take responsibility for their fans' behavior if it gets out of hand and they haven't done anything to try and stop it. I barely see any sss actually supporting her. Barely any veiws, no happy birthday wishes no nothing. They just either made caput edits then tell tell wss to kys

It's always nice to have nice sss come on every now and then feels refreshing^^

[cloudlessly-light]

Hi I was wondering if you could do a fic where they’re away on a case and emily sneaks into aaron’s room cause no one knows about them yet. Then the next morning the team discusses how there was a really loud couple and then somehow they find out that it was Emily and Aaron. I really hope that made sense.

I love all you’re writing btw you’re amazing ❤️

A/N: Posting the last chapter early because I’m going away for a little bit and I wanted to finish this before leaving. Thank you to everyone who’s read and enjoyed this story, you guys all make me so happy! Especially thank you to everyone who's encouraged this story even when our idiots truly have been IDIOTS haha

Title: Love like mine (12/12) Chapter title: Baby, you’ll never find a love like mine Summary: He wasn’t a cheater. Until her. Word count: 2,5k Rating: Explicit   Warnings (for this chapter): Smut, oral, fluff, feelings

She’s running late for a day of shopping and lunch with Penelope and JJ. She’s running late because Aaron had kept her in his bed for longer than necessary, both of them enjoying their free Saturday before Haley would be dropping off Jack. And now she was rushing to get her things together. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t look through the peephole at the sudden knock, something she usually always did. But not this time, instead she swings the door open and comes face to face with Haley, the other woman looking just as surprised as she felt.

They had been good at avoiding each other, something Emily hadn’t wanted but understood why Haley didn’t want to see her. They had been divorced for six months, Aaron and Emily had been together for close to two now, and Haley had made her feelings clear about the situation. Not that either of them blamed her for feeling the way she did.

“Haley.” She says and she hears Aaron’s steps pick up.

“Hello.” She shifts Jack on her hip, hugging him closer even as he squirms. It’s tense, the two women caught in a stare.

“You’re early.” Aaron is suddenly there, breaking the silence and Jack immediately reaches for him.

“Daddy!” He squirms out of his mothers’ arms and runs to Aaron who picks him up in a hug.

“Hi buddy.” He kisses his son’s head and puts him down.

“Hi Emmy.” The three year old immediately pads over to her and she squats down to be at eye level.

“Hi Jack.” She smiles and Jack grins back before throwing his short arms around her in a hug.

Haley watches the whole exchange with a sinking feeling. She knew that Emily had been around her son, her name being thrown around in the midst of Jack’s talking. Logically she knew that the other woman was good with children, that Jack wasn’t in any sort of danger, but the pang of anger in her chest as her son happily reached for the other woman made her heart hurt.

When Emily stands back up she feels the hate directed towards her, something she wished wasn’t there but knew she couldn’t change. What they had done to Haley was wrong, to some something unforgivable. All she could do was to wish that somehow Haley would find some way to accept Emily in Jack’s life. And that would take time.

It was strange, thinking of herself as part of a family, something she just a year ago wouldn’t even have dreamed off. Something she had wanted but never dared to hope for and instead she had stuck with flings and one night stands. But now she was with Aaron, the words love constantly on the tip of her tongue but something she hadn’t said out loud yet.

“Well. I should go.” Haley’s mouth turns into a thin line as she looks between the two of them.

“You don’t have to go, I’m on my way out.” She says, knowing that Haley and Aaron usually spent some time together to talk about next weeks schedule and playdates when she dropped Jack off. “Please stay.”

Haley sighs heavily, about to decline but Jack’s voice stops her.

“Mommy stay.” The three adults look down at the child who’s happily playing with his toy truck on the floor, too young to understand the complicated relationship of his parents, too innocent to feel the awkwardness in his home.

“Okay I’ll stay.” She hangs up her jacket and leaves her purse on the side table. She ignores the way Aaron squeezes Emily’s hand as she tells them bye. Most of all she ignores the feeling of Aaron having found the woman he would spend the rest of his life with. She silently wonders if either of them had realized the same thing.

*

After that first meeting things had gotten slightly better. Haley didn’t avoid Emily the way she previously had and Emily relaxed a little when she was around Jack and Haley together. It wasn’t easy, but they seemed to find some sort of middle ground of acceptance.

“Jack loves you.” He says as they drive off, having just dropped him off at Haley’s after another weekend spent with them.

“Really?” She rolls her head to look at him with a smile and his hand squeezes her thigh.

“Really.” He smiles back and he sees the way her cheeks heat slightly. “How could he not?”

“You’re so cheesy.” She rolls her eyes at him but has to bite her bottom lip to keep from beaming. There was something about the way he was looking at her, like she was something fragile, something worth protecting, that made her unable to look away from the darkness of his eyes. She knew it was coming before he said it and she readied herself for what she would say, words that she still haven’t said out loud but knew she wanted to tell him.

“I love you Em.” He watches as she draws a breath, the sound almost shaky and her hand lands on top of his on her thigh.

“I love you too.”

To them, that was everything.

*

They’re in Oregon, another case closed but unable to fly home due to bad weather conditions. It forces them to stay another night, which in turn forced Emily to sleep alone in her room. Only, she couldn’t seem to relax, her body and mind craving the man just three doors down the hall. They had a rule, she knew that, and yet she didn’t care when she slipped on a sweater that was his, way too big on her and then knocked on his door.

“Emily, what’s going on?” He drags her inside quickly, eyes moving through the corridor but finds that she’s alone. He didn’t care much if anybody saw her, but it was her decision to wait to tell the team and he wanted to respect that.

“I-” She stops herself from continuing, suddenly feeling silly. She wasn’t needy, she never had been before, but then he looks at her with an arched eyebrow and a small smile and she chuckles. “I didn’t want to sleep alone.”

“I had been thinking the same thing.” He wraps her arms around her the moment she steps into his space. Her chin rests against his chest and he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“We’re disgusting, aren’t we?” She teases and he smiles with a low hum.

“Maybe.” He drags her shirt off her and bites back a groan at the sight of her tiny sleep shorts and pink tank top, one of the thin straps falling off her shoulder. “So this is what I’m missing out on when we sleep apart huh?”

“I can’t very well sleep in one of your shirts in case I need to room with JJ.” She backs away from him, her hand in his as she tugs him along until her knees hit the back of the bed.

“I thought you wanted to sleep.” His voice drops lower as she sits down on the bed, her fingers hooking in his pajama pants and tugging them down his hips along with his boxers.

“Later.” She breathes as she slips from the bed and to her knees. “Right now I just want you.”

“Alright sweetheart.” He groans at the first swipe of her tongue, his hand quickly gathering her hair in a ponytail to be able to look at her face. Her mouth is so hot, so wet around him and he swallows hard.

She gets him hard quickly, sucking his cock until he’s leaking precum and snarling her name through clenched teeth. When he pulls her up to stand she barely gets the gasp out before he’s kissing her, his rough hands pulling at her clothes until she’s as naked as he is.

“On your back.” He breathes and watches with heated eyes as she lays down, legs spreading and showing her already wet center. His knees will hurt in the morning, but he doesn’t care as he kneels on the floor and drags her pliant body to the edge of the bed. When he licks through her slowly she moans and her hips rock against his tongue. Then he flicks her clit and she gasps his name as she leans back on her elbows, head falling back.

“Just like that.” She pants as he continues to lick over the sensitive nub. When he pushes two fingers inside of her and sucks her clit hard she comes with a loud grunt, the sound low and breathy as she trembles for him.

“You’re so pretty when you come for me.” He growls as he lifts her higher on the bed and pushes inside of her before she’s really even come down from her euphoric high.

They fuck hard, forgetting where they are as the bed rattles and moans and groans and grunts are muffled into each other’s skin. He makes her come again, then lets her ride him until she’s coming for a third time. When he pushes inside of her from behind she’s trembling and whimpering, overstimulated and exhausted as he groans his pleasure against her ear, voice thick with unrestrained want.

“Come inside me baby.” Her fingers twist in his hair as she holds his face against the back of her neck. “Make me feel it.”

The deep growl that rumbles in his chest when he comes only a few minutes later sends her over the edge again, the mix of him pulsing inside of her and the sound of his voice forcing another orgasm through her.

She gasps for breath as his hands turn gentle on her body, his lips tasting and kissing the bruise he’s sucked into her shoulder, tasting the sweat on her back as he licks along her spine. When they fall asleep it’s tangled together, sated and exhausted.

She is woken up by the sound of his alarm and she grunts when she looks at the time.

“It’s too early.” She complains and he grunts against her neck, his arm tightening around her middle momentarily.

“You need to get back to your room before everyone wakes up.” He reminds her, voice raspy and thick and she finds herself pushing her body against his in response. But he’s right, and she drags herself out of bed, dresses slowly as he watches her with heated eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She tells him as she pulls the sweater over her body. “Or I’ll end up staying here.”

“I know.” He accepts the kiss she presses to his lips and lets his hand wrap around the back of her neck for a moment, keeping her close. “See you in a couple of hours.”

“Love you.” She kisses him again forces herself to stand back up and head to the door.

“Love you too.” He promises right before she disappears out the door. He doesn’t realize he’s still smiling when he lays back in bed.

*

“Did you guys hear it?”

“It was so loud.”

“Yeah I did not need to know that people were getting it on at 1am.”

Emily walks with Dave towards the team with her overnight bag thrown over her shoulder. Her body was still aching from him, the hickey on her neck covered with make up and a high collared shirt, and she still wanted more, couldn’t wait until they got home so she could have him again.

“Morning.” She seems to be interrupting the conversation, three sets of eyes all looking at her.

“Did you hear the couple on our floor too?” JJ asks but before she can respond Spencer starts talking.

“You must have!” When she looks at him he looks close to traumatized and she bites her cheek to keep from commenting.

“I must have been asleep.” She lies and it’s Derek that catches the way her tone shifts just slightly.

“There’s no way.” He tells her. “There’s no way you slept through that.”

Beside her she hears Dave chuckle, but otherwise stays quiet and for a second she wants to strangle the older man.

“Good morning.” The sound of Aaron’s voice causes her to turn around. “What’s going on?” He asks as all of them turn to look at him, different expressions on their faces.

“There was a super loud couple on our floor last night, they were going at it like rabbits.” JJ says and when Aaron’s eyebrows raise in surprise the blonde zeroes in on him. “You didn’t hear them?”

“Uhm, no. I must have been asleep.” He looks between each member of the team, tries to keep his face as neutral as possible but he can feel the way each and every one of them catches on as their eyes start to shift between himself and Emily.

“You were asleep?” JJ smirks at her unit chief who clenches his jaw as he swallows. “You woke up from the sound of Morgan dropping a file once. You’re telling us you slept through that noise?”

“I guess I was tired.” He lies but he knows there’s no point.

It’s Derek that dares to voice it, his eyes boring into Emily’s and when her face flushes he knows and he grins at his friend.

“I knew you were getting some!” He laughs and JJ and Dave join him.

“Morgan.” Aaron warns but the other man doesn’t seem deterred.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Does Strauss know?

“What’s going to happen with the team?”

“Pen, you will not believe what’s happened.”

“I knew it!”

The questions seemed endless, mixed emotions from all of them but they had expected nothing less. At the end though, their team seemed happy for them. It was going to be an adjustment, but later as they watched Aaron and Emily on the plane, no longer hiding as she leaned against him, all of them realized that they hadn’t seen either of them so content before.

JJ smiles as she watches them from across the plane. She knew Aaron better than most people thought, and as she took in the way his thumb traced gentle circles on Emily’s upper arm, she noticed the way he looked happier than she’d seen him in years.

Spencer spent most of the flight back home trying to recount every interaction between them, figuring out that they had started seeing each other before Aaron’s divorce. He has mixed feelings about that, but he wouldn’t judge, not when he saw the way Emily smiles as she looked at Aaron.

Derek spent the flight texting with Penelope who was going insane not seeing the couple with her own eyes. But he sneaks a picture of them to send to Penelope and that picture is the first one that’s ever taken of them as a couple. It will be framed and stand on Aaron’s desk next to the one of Jack.

Emily is asleep against him when Dave comes to sit across from him, a glass of scotch in each hand. He hands him one of the glasses and raises his own in a toast. “It’s about damn time.”

[offtorivendell]

So,..I’ve read two different books that are elriel coded: NALINI SINGH’S Archangel’s Storm and Black Dagger Brotherhood, Lover Awakened. Books that if I’m not mistaken are one SJM’s favorites… Have you read it? It’s interesting that the both MMC are talented singers, scarred, killer and doesnt speak much. Jason, the angel who is a spymaster, shadow daddy and “hears secrets whispered in the winds” is so Azriel. Zsadist, the vampire with PTSD, similar personality as Jason. I saw a mixed of Jason and Zsadist in Azriel.

Their love interests are princess or aristocrat, very beautiful and well etiquette. Princess Mahiya, the angel (Jason’s mate), helped Jason with spying and she has puma eyes. She loves animal and can create a glowing ball of light. Bella, the vampire aristocrat that killed her kidnapper who is obsessed with her. I felt like I was reading Elriel in both books.

If SJM keeps the inspiration from Archangel’s Storm then it would make sense with the “fanged beast” on Elain’s part. I really think Elain may become a shape-shifter like faes from TOG and could create “a ball of light”, like Yrene or because of the starborn ability? (Oh btw, I was wondering if there’s a possibility that Yrene’s powers are connected to Starborn?)

Do you think Elain’s book will be more of beast themed? Something that is connected to Dusk Court… Anyway, what do you know of the first faes on Prythian? Are Starborn faes the oldest group that founded the Dusk Court, possibly migrating from the Erilea? It sounds like TOG faes are the first generation fae and they sort of evolved in Prythian and Lunathion? SJM made Lunathion connected to Prythian and Erilea. So, I’m wondering how Erilea is connected to Prythian? I know Aelin saw Rhys and Pregnant Feyre in KOA, but that’s it.

Ugh.. sorry for so many questions.. 🫣

Hi anon, and thanks for stopping by!

Disclaimer: the following is all theoretical; while I hope at least some of it will come true, we have to wait for SJM to let us know for sure.

Spoilers for the entire Maasverse, as well as parts of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, are below.

I haven't read any Nalini Singh, though friends have recommended her to me a few times, so I really should fix that. I obviously cannot comment on any similarities - though I have heard similar rumours that SJM loves the books (but have never tried to corroborate them) - but @shitwillnotbegiven has posted a comparison of Elriel scenes with passages from 'Archangel's Storm' that is very compelling. I definitely recommend giving it a read. Of course we can't say for sure whether or not it was intentional, but yeah. There are similarities.

That being said, I have read the first five or so 'Black Dagger Brotherhood' books, and yeah. Read them for yourself of course, but there is a lot to notice. It was a couple of years ago now, so they're not fresh in my mind, but I remember being very 👀👀👀 at a lot of the similarities, especially between Zsadist, Bella and Phury with Azriel, Elain and Lucien. The lovely @silverdreamscapes has posted about many of the parallels existing between each trio, though imo it goes even further than shipping.

But first, I would like to state for the record that I do not think having an inner beast or monster makes someone bad or evil. I do think lightsingers could be a race of faeries that A) are related in some way to the shadowsingers - witches? - with whom we are all hunky dory (so no hate from me until proven otherwise), B) may in fact be facing persecution over some sort of un/intentional misunderstanding and/or rewritten history, and C) that the library actually acts as a sanctuary for these persecuted beings, in addition to any other battered women, who are both vilified and attacked for nothing but their species. Of course I could always be wrong, but I am expecting a twist that diverges from the "truth" about lightsingers that Cassian gave us in ACOSF.

But I digress. I've forgotten a lot, but I do remember that there was a character with teal eyes, who had been cursed by a goddess to carry a monster within him... if lightsingers have an inner beast* - and two of our teal-eyed priestesses have been lightsingers - you can see where I'm going (and for some fabulous rundowns on the lightsinger theory, please see posts by @silverlinedeyes and @merymoonbeam).

As I have said before, I suspect that shadowsingers and lightsingers could be more similar than we know. I wouldn't be surprised if they both have the ability to lure, and both have a beast form/some sort of inner monster or being. Because the teal-eyed character, Rhage, carries his beast in a sort of living tattoo... and whose shadows have been described as appearing like twins to the tattoos on his chest? You betcha. It's Azriel, our favourite shadowsinger.

A corner of Azriel’s mouth curled up, the shadows about him sliding over his neck like living tattoos, twins to the Illyrian ones marked beneath his leathers. Shadows different from anything my powers summoned, spoke to. Born in a lightless, airless prison meant to break him. Instead, he had learned its language. - ACOFAS, chapter 7

As for Elain's potential powers, I'm all aboard the shapeshifter train (please see @wingedblooms for some brilliant theories), and I cannot wait to see what sort of light she can wield (if any, of course, but I do think she has been tied to it in a lot of ways). Can she Sing light and dark (light) to See what she must? Or to travel someplace very far away? I also wouldn't be surprised if Elain and her light/s act as an executioner for whatever Valg-type being exists in Prythian, as Yrene did with Erawan in KOA. I suspect that the King of Hybern may have been possessed in some way, and that Elain's role in assassinating him could have purified him such that he could die, thus beginning her parallels with Yrene.

As for which Fae are the oldest, I personally suspect that the Starborn Fae did found the land that would have become the Dusk Court, and that some may have travelled to Erilea, but I haven't looked into it enough to have quotes at the ready so I'll tag in @wingedblooms and @silverlinedeyes - or anyone else who wants to join in - because they have had more thoughts on this than I have. It seems that the Starborn faeries are different to the shifter faeries from Erilea, and that both ended up in Midgard thanks to Rigelus and his machinations (but as to which is the original fae species, if any, it hasn't been explicitly stated).

Rigelus chuckled again. “We shall get to that in a moment.” He went on, “Danika realized that the shifters are Fae.” Bryce blinked. “What?” “Not your kind of Fae, of course—your breed dwelled in a lovely, verdant land, rich with magic. If it’s of any interest to you, your Starborn bloodline specifically hailed from a small isle a few miles from the mainland. And while the mainland had all manner of climes, the isle existed in beautiful, near-permanent twilight. But only a select few in the entirety of your world could shift from their humanoid forms to animal ones. The Midgard shifters were Fae from a different planet. All the Fae in that world shared their form with an animal. The mer descended from them, too. Perhaps they once shared a world with your breed of Fae, but they had been alone on their planet for long enough to develop their own gifts.” “They don’t have pointed ears.” “Oh, we bred that out of them. It was gone within a few generations.” An isle of near-permanent twilight, the home world of her breed of Fae … A land of Dusk. - HOSAB, chapter 73

A few of my friends and I - @psychologynerd, @elrieldreamer and @ladynightcourt3 - think/hope that IF we get a crossover of sorts in Elain's book it may be to Erilea, in the past. @psychologynerd has previously pointed out that a pretty faerie with raw magic (which Elain has as a Made faerie - here and here) once visited Mistward before being invited to meet Maeve in Doranelle, never to be heard from again. It's also possibly significant that Elain has been linked with owls - check out @wingedblooms Blodeuwedd and Suriel theories for starters - and Maeve had a healer trapped in owl form at her beck and call (thanks @ladynightcourt3 for your help with the quotes).

“But,” Luca chattered on, “no one here has any exciting or rare abilities. Like shape-shifting into whatever form they want, or controlling fire”—her stomach clenched at that—“or oracular sight. We did have a female wander in with raw magic two years ago—she could do anything she wanted, summon any element, and she was here a week before Maeve called her to Doranelle and we never heard from her again. A shame—she was so pretty, too. But it’s the same here as it is everywhere else: a few people with a pathetic trace of elemental powers that are really only fun for farmers.” - HOF, chapter 11

“It also explains why Aelin reported an owl at Maeve’s side when they first met,” Nesryn said, gesturing to Yrene, whose brows bunched. Then Yrene blurted, “The owl must be the Fae form of a healer. Some healer of hers that she keeps close—as a bodyguard. Has let everyone believe to be some pet …” - TOD, chapter 65

“Speak freely, Connall,” Maeve said, her faint smile remaining. The barn owl perched on the back of her throne watched with solemn, unblinking eyes. “Let your brother know these words are your own and not of my command.” - KOA, chapter 8

Some pet... as Hunt suggested he was for Bryce?

“I’m sorry,” Hunt interrupted, “but are you implying that I was made by you two assholes? As some sort of pet?” He pointed to Thanatos, then to Apollion. “Not a pet,” Apollion said darkly. “A weapon.” He nodded to Bryce. “For her, whenever she might come along.” - HOFAS, chapter 61

A weapon, just like Elain becoming "the knife in the dark" to assassinate - and potentially purify the Valg from - the King of Hybern?

I've theorised before that Elain might have plant/earth related powers - which ties in well with her reaction to the Hewn City in ACOSF, and what we learnt about Sathia/Flynn's reaction to being on Avallen in HOFAS - and many of us have long thought she may have some sort of healing magic (here and here). So was the pretty faerie Elain?

I would combust.

Anyway, I hope I answered everything, and I'm SO sorry for this response taking literal months. If you do see this, my bad.

[prodagustd]

the road not taken 02 | myg

part two: get up and fall again

Summary: You could count two times when you thought you got over Yoongi and then realized you were wrong (or maybe three times?)

< part one | part three>

—pairing: lawyer!yoongi x actress!oc

—rating: +18

—genre: brother's best friend, one sided pinning (or both?)

—warnings/tags: slow burn,angst, fluff, eventual smut, angst, sexual tension? lmao, use of drugs (just weed), flashbacks, ANGST!! Btw english is not my first language !!

—words: 11k

—a/note: I took the longest time to write this but I'm back!! I'm so happy to finally post this !! fun fact: while I was writing this I listened to let the light in by lana del rey on loop!! and ofc, last night by the strokes !! hope you like it, as always, you're welcomed to discuss this part in my asks. 🥰

series masterlist | teaser | playlist

Four years ago. 

Three weeks before New Year's Eve. 

Ever since you could remember you understood one thing that was going to define the first years of your life: you weren’t your brother. It wasn’t difficult to understand, but it was difficult to remember. 

There was a four year gap between Simon and you, and an abyss between who he was and who you were that people didn’t seem to understand. Even if you had no interest in it, just the idea of competing with the image of your brother was completely pointless; he was the first son of a first daughter, the first grandson, the perfect portrait of your mother’s face, while you were the last granddaughter, the one who came at the wrong time, the one whose eyes could only resemble the sad ghost of your father. 

You spent your preteen years witnessing how your aunts and your grandmother expected you to be the same, as if you were supposed to be as charming or as funny as him, despite the clear evidence that you were a completely different person. Maybe it was the dark clothes, or the black eyeliner you wore everyday, maybe your lack of social skills and the bad attitude in the mornings or just the desperate attempt to be different, while he was the cool sibling, you were seen as the weird one. 

Maybe growing up with that label taped to your forehead would have made you resent him, you didn’t remember when or how, but you managed to separate him from all that bullshit. You loved Simon not just because you were attached to the hip since you were born, but because he was one of the few people who never expected anything from you but to be yourself. He always encouraged you to wear whatever clothes you wanted and listen to whatever screaming rock band you liked at the moment even if he didn’t understand any of it.  And after all it wasn’t his fault that he was tall and handsome and good at basketball, it wasn’t his fault that you couldn’t and didn’t want to be a female version of him. You decided to embrace the difference. You weren’t your brother, and because of that you had to fight your way to find your own self. 

When you found The Alley, or as Yoongi called it, the theater near the park with the weird fountains, you felt it clicked for you. It wasn’t just your theater classes, it was a place filled with people just like you, people who understood you. You didn’t have to explain your jokes there, you didn’t have to think twice before speaking, the image of your brother wasn’t hovering over you when people saw you, it was nice.

For the first time you were part of a community, you spent more time in The Alley than in your home, you knew all the bands who came to practice at the place, you knew the lady who cooked pizza for all the movie nights, you were friends with the guy who sold the tickets and the girl who worked at the bar. You spent all your summers volunteering with your friends, making popcorn, accommodating the seats, writing the plays you were going to perform when October came, it was part of you. 

But when you had to leave for college you knew you had to leave everything behind. It’s been a long time since you outright refused to feel something remotely close to nostalgia. You refused to live evoking memories, to think that a fleeting good moment could make up for all the bad ones. It’s been a long time since you outright refused to live in the past, but tonight seemed to be an exception. 

When your feet turned the corner of the park and your eyes found the Christmas Lights decorating the old theater on the other side of the street, you were hit by a wave of something you knew you shouldn’t feel, something close to relief. A feeling you always seemed to run away from. 

“Should we buy popcorn?” Yoongi’s soft voice made you come out of your trance. You looked at him, waiting for the traffic light to turn red so you could cross the street. 

“We need to get in line to secure our seats first.” You explained to him, feeling a rush of nervousness washing down your body. When you had your last day at The Alley you said goodbye to everyone and never made plans to come back, this was unexpected.

“But what if popcorn runs out?” He asked, as if that could be a possible scenario. “The line isn’t even that long.”

He pointed to the short line at the entrance, which was formed by just five people. 

“Popcorn is not going to run out.” You rolled your eyes. “And even if the line is not long, we still need to get the best seats, they are not numbered.” 

Yoongi stood in his place, understanding your logic, but at the same time wondering how did you know that the seats weren’t numbered in the first place. 

He frowned “How did you know?” He asked. You turned to him, looking a bit confused, but then, a green light lit up his face, the traffic light allowing you to cross the street. You grabbed his hand, dragging him with you. 

“Hurry up!” You exclaimed, quickly crossing the street to reach the end of the line.

Yoongi ran after you, but didn’t demand the answer of his question when you reached the end of the line. It was like both of you agreed not to disrupt one of those rare good moments when you didn’t have a frown on your face, it was so hard to grasp it that he decided to do whatever you said, he even let you make fun of him when you realized he was wearing a dress white shirt under his coat, just for the sake of keeping a smile on your face. 

You touched the collar of his shirt, tugging from it just to annoy him. 

“Ouch!” He complained, but didn’t do anything to pull away from you. 

“My mom is probably thrilled that I’m hanging out with you.” You mentioned, fixing the collar and smoothing the fabric with your fingers like you weren’t the one who messed it up. “I bet she thinks that if I spend enough time with you, you’ll turn me into a lawyer like you.” 

Yoongi scoffed, believing that impossible “I’m not a lawyer yet.” He said, and you knew that, but he wasn’t far from it. “But even if I was, I couldn’t turn you into one.” 

“Of course not, we can’t both be lawyers.” You murmured, leaning on the wall behind you. “Besides, I couldn't be a lawyer… I’ve never learned to lie.” You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, waiting for his reaction, but he just rolled his eyes, sighing. 

“You’re mean…” He hissed. 

But Yoongi seemed to be fine with it, he took all your mean jokes about lawyers like a bullet, accepting his destiny, accepting how different both of you were. 

In times like these, it hurt a bit to notice how kind he was, from the tip of his red nose to the palms of his rough hands, kindness was all he had to offer. The contrast of how hard you struggled to be nice to how easy it was for him was palpable, Yoongi smiled to the skinny teenage boy who checked your tickets and the girl who gave away flyers advertising the next movie night the following weekend and never forgot to say thank you, while you had to constantly remind yourself not to curse every person who crossed your way, at least not out loud. 

Once you were inside the place you forced yourself to shake those thoughts off your head, determined to drag Yoongi across the principal hall in order to get your seats without looking back. 

There were multiple kinds of chairs at the theater, it was one of the things that made it so special. The Alley was never built to be a theater, it was a big old house bought by a group of friends years and years ago. They tore up a few walls and built it to be a place to watch movies, paint, do theater, play music or write poetry. On movie nights they put together different chairs and a projector and it suddenly turned into a cinema. 

You were sure Yoongi didn’t know any of this, it was the first time he put foot in this place, but you, who had plenty of experience, knew where the best seats were. 

The best seats were located in the middle of the room, it was a couple of recycled red cinema chairs. You remembered that Sid, one of the owners of the place, told you that he got them at an auction and that they were vintage, but to you they just looked old and dusty at the time. Of course over time you realized that they were the best place to be, they were located just in the perfect place and they were the most comfortable, but they were only two sets of four chairs, so if you didn’t hurry up you would have ended up at the back of the room sitting on some bleachers. 

Yoongi didn’t understand why you were in a rush to get there, but you were right, you got the best seats. 

“Now, stay here.” You told him “I’m coming back with popcorn.” 

You thought it was only right that if he bought the tickets, you were supposed to buy popcorn and drinks. But then again, you weren’t supposed to think of this as a date at all. 

You rushed to the entry of the room, turning on the corner near the bar and saw the stand of popcorn. As you stood in the line, you realized you didn’t notice how cold it was outside until you felt how warm the place was inside. You guessed that the hurry to get to the seats didn’t give room to think about it at all. 

Almost four years went by and it was like time didn’t pass at all inside these walls. Things in your hometown never changed, and sometimes you liked it that way, but most of the time it was the main reason why you wanted to run away from it. Your mom always said you were a creature of metamorphosis, always changing, and you accepted the title for a while, but now you were wondering if your need to morph just meant that you could never be truly happy with any of the paths that you chose for yourself. 

In no time you bought the popcorn and came back to your seat, a little displeased with the thought, but glad that you didn’t find anyone who could recognize you. You were safe for now, perhaps you could watch the movie and come back home going unnoticed. 

But of course things never worked in the way you wanted. 

“Sorry, excuse me.” You murmured, managing to carry two cups filled with coke and a bucket of popcorn, you watched your step carefully, trying not to step on other people. You raised your gaze, focusing on reaching the empty seat next to Yoongi, who was looking at his phone. 

You took a seat next to him, handing him the drink. He murmured a small ‘thank you’, but didn’t look at you. “What are you doing?” You asked him, burying a finger on the side of his torso, making him jump in surprise.

“I’m trying to prove you wrong, look…” He replied, showing the screen of his phone to you. You narrowed your eyes, trying to focus your gaze on whatever he was showing to you, a website filled with reviews of Home Alone 2. “It has good reviews.”

You snatched the phone off his hands, observing the preview photo and the poster of, what it seemed to be, Yoongi’s favorite movie. You scrolled for a couple seconds, checking if what he said was true. “Three stars' average reviews is not good.” You informed him, but now he looked offended. 

“Three stars is good for a Christmas movie, what are you talking about?” He insisted. 

“What are you talking about? The first one has five stars’ average reviews, if you settle for bad Christmas movies, that’s on you.” You teased him, giving him his phone back. 

He shook his head, scoffing “I can’t believe you think Home Alone 2 is a bad Christmas movie, it has that scene with the pigeon lady!” He kept insisting. 

“Which scene?” You asked, but by doing that, you gave yourself away. 

“What do you mean which scene?” He asked, confused. You opened your mouth, wanting to defend yourself, but then he gasped. “God, Pinky. You have never watched Home Alone 2, haven’t you? 

Your mouth hung open, starting to laugh “I-... I just-”

“No, I can’t believe it.” He laughed, shaking his head in disapproval “You never watched it.”

“I’ve watched the beginning, okay?” You tried to explain. “And I think it was enough for me to decide if it was a good movie or not.”

“Bullshit.” Yoongi said, now a bit offended that you talked shit about a movie that you didn’t even finish.“You can’t decide that if you didn’t even watch the scene with the pigeon lady.”

You laughed even harder, covering your mouth with the palm of your hand. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

He opened his eyes widely. “Of course you don’t, you didn’t watch the movie!” He exclaimed “You just have to stop pretending to be a film critic to enjoy some movies, you know that?”

You rolled your eyes. “C’mon, the fact that I’m here means that I’m willing to try.”

The fact that you were here meant you were irremediably in love with him, a voice in your head reminded you of that, and maybe it was the same thing. 

“For me?” He teased you, making you close your eyes for a split second. That didn’t help at all. 

You sank into your seat, “For you, I guess.”

And that could've been the beginning of the end of the night. You and Yoongi watching the movie and coming back home before it was too late and laying in bed remembering every word he said, like they meant something else, before falling asleep.

But nothing could ever be that simple. 

“You!” A high pitched voice interrupted the silence. You raised your gaze, startled. Your eyes found a redhead girl turned around in the seat in front of you, pointing her finger at you with a big smile decorating her bright red lips.  “I knew I recognized that voice from somewhere!”

You felt your stomach drop.

Minnie. 

“Oh, God, Minnie.” You breathed out. “You scared me!”

Perhaps on the way here you prayed so hard not to see somebody you knew tonight  that whoever that was up there in the sky heard you, but instead of helping you, decided to laugh at you in your face, because sitting directly in front of you was Minnie, one of your closest partners during your theater days. 

And the only person who you ever told about Yoongi. 

“Do I look that old?” She giggled, cupping her face in her palms “It’s only been a few years, but I feel like I haven’t seen you in decades!”

 “Yes…I mean, no!” You pressed your lips together, crossing looks with Yoongi, who looked at you with curious eyes. “I just didn't expect to see you here.”

“Me?” Minnie scrunched her nose, laughing “I didn’t expect to see you, what are you doing here?”

“Me?” You nervously laughed. “I was in town and I- we came to see the movie…” You managed to explain, trying to act as normal as possible, but you were sure that your shaking eyes, jumping from Yoongi’s face to Minnie’s, were giving you away. “This is Yoongi, by the way. And this is Minnie, a friend.” You introduced both of them. 

If any of them realized how nervous you were, they didn’t say a thing. 

Minnie, as expressive as she was, opened her eyes wide open, surprised. 

“Oh, Yoongi, Yoongi?” She asked, emphasizing every vowel of his name.

“Is there another Yoongi?” Yoongi laughed, turning his head to see you. 

You wanted to vomit. 

“Mmm, not that I know of!” She smiled, offering her hand for him to shake. “Nice to finally meet you, Yoongi-Yoongi.” Yoongi took her hand, shaking it three times right in front of your petrified face. “I heard a lot of things about you back in the day.”

Minnie winked at you in a very exaggerated manner, instantly making you freeze in your place. Now you were a hundred percent sure that you were about to vomit, but maybe that would be an amazing scenario for you, you would have to run away to the closest bathroom and wouldn’t have to be in the presence of this interaction.

“Oh, really?” Yoongi smiled, displaying his gummy smile. “What things?”

“You know, all kinds of things.” She raised her eyebrows, clearly amused with the look on your face, that begged her to please shut up. 

“Me and Minnie- we used to come here a lot when we were in high school.” You intervened in the conversation, trying to change the subject as soon as you could without thinking much. 

“That’s right, we were pretty close!” She reminisced “We were always paired up together.”

“Paired up in what?” Yoongi asked, naturally. 

“Theater.” She explained without giving you much time to think about saying something else. “Didn’t you know that your girl had her beginnings here, at The Alley?”

You gulped, and Yoongi, for the first time during the night, seemed to read you just right. He tilted his head, surprised “Well, no. She didn’t say anything.”

“Really?” She frowned, not understanding why, but Yoongi immediately got it. 

“It was a long time ago…” You trailed off, trying hard not to make it seem like a big deal, like it was just a hobby you had when you were a teenager, but Yoongi knew you. He could see it in your eyes, the same look you had when Simon caught you using his legos, when you had to tell your mom you got suspended for getting in a fight in high school, the same look you had when you were caught. It was clear to him that you didn’t want him to see that part of you, whatever it was.

“I mean, she’s always been pretty mysterious, hasn’t she?” Minnie said “It takes a while to figure her out, you’ll get there.”

“I think I’m close enough, aren’t I?” His answer was smooth, almost annoying you. He playfully squeezed your knee and you wished he hadn't done it, because your old friend was now looking at you with stars in her eyes full of excitement. It had been almost four years since you had a proper talk with Minnie, but despite the fact that little to nothing happened between you and the man next to you, you were sure she was convinced you were on a date right now. 

And perhaps it was not just his hand on your knee, maybe it was the fond look on his eyes too, seeking complicity in his jokes, but you were not going to go down that route tonight. You scoffed. “Not one bit.” You said, out of bitterness, because Yoongi knew you as well as your brother, perhaps his only flaws were being dumb and blind, but that came with being a man anyway. 

For your own good, the lights of the room flickered twice, meaning that the movie was about to start soon. “That means I should leave you alone, right?” Minnie sighed,  “But it’s really nice to see you here after so long, sweetheart.” 

You nodded, offering her a soft smile, but you couldn’t help but feel guilty. It was in Minnie’s nature to always offer love and kindness to everyone, but it was hard to hold her gaze when she called you by that name, knowing that you didn’t deserve it. 

 “It’s nice to see you, too.” Was all you could say, despite it being a lie. 

In another universe you would’ve loved to see your old friend and feel something bigger than nostalgia, but you couldn’t, you felt obligated to reject the feeling. You couldn’t live in the fantasy of what could have been. 

She was about to turn around, but before she could do it, she raised one of her fingers, like she just remembered something. “By the way… Are you still doing theater?” She inquired.

You shrugged, shaking your head “Ummm… Not really…”

She pouted, disappointed. “That’s a shame, because… I don’t know, it’s crazy that I’m seeing you tonight. I know of someone who’s looking for someone just like you, if you were interested.” Her words lingered in the air, but the lights flickered again.  “But I’m guessing I should keep that for after the movie… And Yoongi!” She exclaimed, pointing at him “I’m glad that you finally stopped dating dumb girls, my friend right there was very popular around here. You’re very lucky.”

You almost gasped, immediately turning your head to Yoongi, who just scoffed amused. Before you could even breathe, your friend turned around exactly when the lights went off, starting the movie right away.

You held your breath for what felt to be an eternity, but in the darkness you saw a smirk tugging from Yoongi’s lips, being followed by an outburst of laughter. The sound of his quiet laugh made you freeze in your place, was he laughing at you?

You opened your mouth, trying to find an explanation for your friend’s comment, but he shook his head as if he was stopping you, clearly entertained by the shocking look on your face. “Oh, save it for later.” He whispered, brushing it off. 

You pressed your lips together, sinking in your seat as you observed him focusing on the movie, and you were supposed to do the same, but you couldn’t think of anything else. The only thing you could hope for was that he couldn’t see how red your face was, because you sure as hell could feel it. 

God, you wanted to die, but whoever put you through this whole thing knew that death could only be seen as kindness. 

How come that after years of quitting theater you were still being this dramatic? You didn’t know, but tonight death felt like a greater destiny than the embarrassment you felt. 

In situations like these, you remembered two specific times during the past seven years when you thought you got over Yoongi, but then you realized you failed miserably.

You evoked the memory of those two situations for a special reason, to teach you a lesson: you must not continue to engage with the man sitting next to you. There were three reasons for you to learn from this lesson, because otherwise:

It would hurt your mind. 

It would hurt your heart.

It would hurt your soul.

These seemed three perfectly logical reasons to learn the lesson, but you were never the best student. 

The first memory that always came to mind was the first time Yoongi and Simon came back home for Christmas after going to college. It had been six months since you decided to convince yourself that the last two years you spent being in love with him were just a fever, but when Yoongi walked in the room and you saw that he got a new haircut and pierced his ears, you thought that the plan “get over my brother’s best friend” would not work at all, at least not now. Maybe you could try the following year.

(Spoiler: the following year did not work either.)

The second time was last summer, a few months ago, when both of them came back for summer break and Yoongi invited you to some pool party. You were supposed to go with Simon, but at the last minute he ended up getting sick and told you two to go alone. There was a time when you believed that Simon worked as some kind of barrier between you and Yoongi, hanging out with them meant that now you were a group of three, it reminded you that the only reason you kept seeing Yoongi was because he was Simon’s best friend, nothing else. And when you and Yoongi were alone, well… It was different.

That night none of you were planning to get into the pool, it was a strange house full of strange people and it almost felt like you were crashing the party. You were wearing a black summer dress and Yoongi was wearing jeans, you only went for free alcohol and to check if someone had any weed, you thought you were safe. Of course every little effort you made trying not to think that way about him anymore was ruined when decided to take off his shirt, grab you by your hips and jump in the pool, dragging you with him. 

Needless to say, you were furious.  The only thought that crossed your mind was that neither of you had a change of clothes, but he didn’t care. When you got your head out of the water, you saw him laughing. 

You gasped “Fuck you!” You punched his arm, not caring that everyone around you was observing you, laughing because he did something cute.

He kept laughing “I’m sorry, you looked hot!” He defended himself, grabbing your arms to pull you closer under the water. 

“What!?” You shouted, fighting against his hold but wondering if you heard that right. 

“You looked like you needed a dip!” He clarified, shouting back. His lips stretched widely, showing you a white smile. You wished you could punch that cheeky expression off his face, but you were too busy trying not to sink into the water as he firmly gripped your waist, crashing your body against his bare chest. 

“You idiot, I can’t swim!” You whined, gripping his shoulders so you wouldn’t drown. 

He snickered, hugging you closer. “It’s fine, Pinky, I wouldn’t let you die in front of all these people.”

The moment you realized you had not gotten over Yoongi was not then, it was not when he took off his shirt either, and it was not when you saw him running his fingers through his wet hair, nor when you saw the drops of water dripping down his wide back, no. Not even when he wrapped his strong arms around your body or when he gripped your hips and lifted you up to seat you on the edge of the pool. You realized that you were still in love with Yoongi when he sat next to you, and when he realized that you were not playing, that you were really angry, he cupped your face in his hands and kissed your forehead, whispering “I’m sorry.” 

The heart clenching memory of the look on his face, the sound of his voice and the touch of his lips against your skin were enough to screw you up, but not enough to make you learn the lesson.

Now, sitting next to him, you began to think that you were finally losing your mind when you tried to focus on the movie for the first ten minutes, and then for the next thirty minutes, and the next fifty, but when an hour passed you found out, or you just remembered, that it was useless to focus on something else when Yoongi was by your side. 

You often forgot how impossible it was for you to ignore Yoongi’s presence, even in the most packed and loudest rooms, but the confirmation that you finally drove yourself insane was when you noticed that you just couldn’t ignore his arm laying next to yours in the shared armrest, or your hands touching when you reached to grab popcorn, and you certainly couldn’t ignore his fingers when they reached to play with the fabric of the hem of your sleeve. 

You carefully looked down to the arm rest, observing his fingers tugging the tiny piece of ruffle fabric at the end of your sleeve. He wasn’t trying to get your attention or to annoy you, it was something almost unconscious, a small gesture, very easy to miss, but it was enough for you to stop breathing for a moment. Now, it was impossible to ignore the warmth of his fingers slightly grazing over your wrist. 

You sighed deeply, feeling the failure sinking in your bones once again. The line between what you were supposed to feel and what you were actually feeling was always blurry, but this time seemed to be completely erased, and once again, you were the one to blame for thinking that this time seeing Yoongi could be any different. 

You were screwed up again. 

You could say you enjoyed the last part of the movie, at least the parts where you were zoning out enough to quiet your mind, but when the lights were turned on you remembered that your brain hated you.

Your eyes swept the place, observing the people around you clapping as the credits rolled down. 

“So?” His voice sneaked into the hustle and bustle of your head, making you turn to look at him, but your eyes focused on the almost empty bucket of popcorn on his lap. “Do you like it? I’ve never seen Home Alone on a big screen.”

You grabbed a handful of popcorn from the very bottom of the bucket. “I’ve seen it plenty of times on a big screen.” You said, stuffing your mouth with the food so you wouldn’t answer any of the questions you knew he was about to make, but the second those words left your mouth you realized you gave yourself away.

“Yeah, I imagine.” He scoffed, signaling with his head towards the empty seat where Minnie was sitting a few seconds ago. You were grateful that she disappeared the moment the movie ended so she wouldn’t hear this conversation. “I heard some of it just now.” You huffed, pretending to be tired of him and chewing long enough to prevent yourself from talking. “Is there anything else I should know? Apart from the fact that you have a secret twin who takes theater classes and has friends who are actually nice?”

The only thing that could come out of your mouth was something rude. “Oh, shut up.” You spat, looking at anything else except his face. 

Yoongi shifted on his seat with a shameless smirk decorating his face, getting closer to you. “Don’t! Don’t shut me up.” He laughed, casually grabbing your face between his fingers so you wouldn’t run away from his gaze. “I want to know all about that, like, were you really talking shit about me during high school?”

You frowned, remembering what Minnie said about Yoongi dating dumb girls. Of all the conclusions he could have drawn from that, was that the one he came up with?”

“I wasn’t… talking shit about you.” You wanted to explain “Have you considered that I was just really into gossiping?”

He snorted, “It’s the same thing.” 

“It’s not.” You denied. 

“So you were gossiping about me?” He asked “About the girls I dated?”

“C’mon, what about it?” You tried to dismiss as quickly as possible “I was like fourteen, and in my defense, you never had good taste in girls.” 

Yoongi narrowed his eyes, a bit offended “Why? You really think the girls I dated were dumb?” You bit your bottom lip, trying to suppress a laugh. “That’s not very feminist of you.”

You rolled your eyes “Oh shut up, what do you know about feminism?” You said. “Those were just… facts.”

“Yeah, I’m sure of that.” He scoffed “What I’m not so sure about is that thing your friend said… That I’m really lucky to be with you.” 

“Ignore her.” You tried to cut him, looking away so he wouldn’t notice how embarrassed you were.

“No, why?” He smiled, poking fun at you. “She said you were really popular, but I don’t get it. I don’t know a man who could stand your behavior for more than two hours. Besides me, of course.”

You could be offended by that, but it was the truth. 

“Well, they couldn't,” You said, crossing your arms over your chest. “They just wanted me for my talent.”

“Let me doubt that.” He said “If you were so good, why did you never tell me?”

“Well, it was a secret” You confessed, there was no point in hiding now. “I didn’t want anyone to know, people would think it was dumb.” 

“And when did you care about what other people think?”

You sighed. All the time, you wanted to say, but you kept that for yourself. 

“I just... wanted it for myself, no one had to know.” You explained.

Yoongi waited a few seconds for you to say something else, but you weren’t willing to pour your heart to him just yet. Yes, when you found The Alley you discovered a part of yourself that was completely unique, but that didn’t mean you wanted to share it. It was for you only, and you were happy with that. 

“Well, Pinky.” He sighed, squeezing your knee like he always did. “Even if it was a secret… I’m telling you, you were pretty obvious.” 

“What do you mean?” You frowned, confused

 “I mean, you always liked High School Musical a little bit too much.” He explained as a mocking smirk tugged from the corners of his lips. “At first I thought it was just Zac Efron, but now it makes sense.”

You nudged his shoulder before the frown in your face disappeared into laughter. “High School Musical is the best movie ever, to be obsessed with it was just logical.” You tried to excuse yourself “That and, of course, Zac Efron.”

“I never thought you would have a thing for basketball players.” He muttered, trying to play nonchalant as his eyes wandered towards the corner of the room, circling back to your gaze. You realized he was expecting an answer for that. 

“Kind of.” You waved off, pretending to be laid back about it. “But only the ones who have this internal struggle about their father’s plans for their future and their unusual passion for musical comedy.”

He let out an amused snort. “Very specific, what a shame.”

You stared at him for a second, wondering what game he was trying to play now. 

You tried so hard to keep your face straight, to try to show him that you weren’t phased by any of his stupid jokes. You wanted to remind him that you weren’t like any of those girls who were charmed just by the sight of his eyes, you weren’t like those girls he stopped in the hallways just to make them giggle when you were in high school, you wanted to make clear that you were different — except that, of course, you weren’t. The moment he displayed that specific smirk, you committed the unforgivable crime of blushing. 

But he was quick to dismiss it, he always was. 

And you were obligated to forget about it. 

“So? Why did you leave it?” He inquired, “Were you that bad?” He ignored that the room was now almost empty. Maybe in another situation you would’ve taken advantage of that and told him it was time to go to avoid telling the truth, but why hide now? Maybe telling the truth wasn’t so bad. 

You smirked, rolling your eyes. “I was the best one in my group, you don’t even know.” 

“Yeah?” He moved closer to you with big eyes, showing you how curious he was.

“Of course, do you have any doubts?” 

“Well, yes, a few.” He teased “I’d have to see it for myself.”

“Sure, when they clear the stage I’ll do a demonstration just for you.” You joked, successfully making him laugh. 

“That would be an amazing way to avoid my question.” He pointed.

You felt your chest getting lighter, and if that hinted you that it meant something dangerous, you ignored it. 

“I wasn’t doing that.” You tried to defend yourself. 

“You do that all the time.” He reminded you, and he was right. You bit back a smile, darting him a look for exposing you. 

“Fine, then. I’ll be honest.” You surrendered, maybe Yoongi could convince you to jump off a cliff if he looked at you with those eyes. “I left it when I was finishing high school, I was about to leave for college and… I had to grow up, you know? I grew too attached to this place but I knew I couldn’t cling onto these things forever.”

“Can’t you?” He questioned “Didn’t you like to do it?”

“I mean, yes, but-”

“Then, why drop it?” He interrupted.

You breathed in, wishing that you could find the words to say it in a way that made sense, because you weren’t sure what was right or wrong anymore. 

“Maybe I was on an ego trip back then, I don’t know.” You admitted. “I thought I was genuinely good but I couldn’t do anything about it, like I was stuck here. I had to let it go, for me it’s all or nothing.”

Perhaps you weren’t talking only about theater now. Perhaps you were talking about everything, perhaps you were talking about him. And it was a bit harsh, but it was the truth, or what you decided to be the truth.  Yoongi took one hard look at you, as if he was expecting you to realize how dumb that sounded, but you already knew that, otherwise you wouldn’t be there right now, at home before Christmas because you dropped out of college. You didn’t even know if when you left for college that excuse made sense, you just knew that you were bitter and angry and if you couldn't follow your dreams, you didn’t want them at all. And if you couldn’t be with Yoongi, you couldn’t see him at all. 

You ripped the bandaid off, but three years later it exploded in your face.

“All or nothing?” He repeated, but you just nodded. “But did you try first? Because as far as I know you didn’t.”

You bitterly laughed,“Yeah, right” You got up from your seat, ready to leave “And who would’ve taken me seriously?”

He got up with you, blocking the way to stop you from getting out from the sea of chairs just yet. You raised your chin, finding his eyes. “I would have.” He casually mumbled, but his words echoed in your head, clenching your heart. 

You tried to search in your brain for something snarky to say, but you froze under his gaze. “And If I wouldn’t have…” He continued “If I were a complete prick who doesn’t care about you, you should’ve done it anyway. Even if your mom puts on a bad face.”

You wanted to stop him, to shut him up. But he was right, even if you didn’t need to hear that tonight. You loved your mom and you knew she didn’t expect anything from you but to be happy, she was just worried, you knew that, but you hated that she had to see you trip with your own decisions. 

“Have you ever tried to be wrong?” You asked him, pushing his chest with your palms. “Like, just once?” Walking past him, hearing his laugh behind you followed by his quick steps running after you. 

“Don’t be mad ‘cause I’m right.” He teased. 

“I’m not mad.” You said, walking towards the entrance, hearing music coming from the other room. “Just annoyed that you had to go to college and left me here making dumb decisions.” 

He smiled, happy that you decided to show a glimpse of love for him. “Do I need to remind you that you’re just twenty one and your life is not over?”

“Yes, maybe.” You said “Several times a day, please.”

You stood in the hall, attempting to put your coat back on, but he stopped you, stealing the piece of clothing away from you. “What are you doing?” He asked, smiling. “Don’t you know that we have to dance now?”

You widely opened your eyes, almost completely forgetting that. When you bought the tickets for movie nights, you were also invited to the afterparty that was held right after the movie ended, hence the loud music playing in the next room, the biggest one of the place. You didn’t think Yoongi would be interested in staying. 

“Do you want to dance?” You checked first. You didn’t know if you were interested in staying either. 

“C’mon, I have plenty of experience from frat parties.” He bragged, taking a few steps back towards the room where the music came from. 

You shook your head. “This isn’t like those parties you went to with Simon where they play Shape Of You every three songs” 

“Why would it be different?” He said, slightly offended. Yoongi kinda liked Shape Of You…  

You grabbed his hand, dragging him into the next room as you asked him something very important, “Yoongi, do you know who The Strokes are?”

After entering the room, Yoongi disappeared for a few moments to leave your coats in the cloakroom of the place, leaving you alone to collect your thoughts once again. When you first entered the place to watch the movie you couldn’t wait to leave, and now you were in a dark room under the red lights, feeling excited at the idea of dancing like you were a teenager again. It was time for you to understand that your life was already a mess, nothing was going to change if you stayed at The Alley dancing just for tonight.

When Yoongi came back you were quick to drag him towards the center of the dancefloor, right when the first chords of Last Nite by the Strokes began to resonate in the room, you couldn’t help but feel a rush of happiness running down your body. Yoongi looked at you funny, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. He didn’t expect that you, of all people, would be excited to dance. 

It turned out that Yoongi didn’t live under a rock, he did know who The Strokes were, but barely. You knew that he always preferred hip hop and rap, but the lack of interest he had for other genres surprised you. “I don’t know the song!” He shouted over the music 

“What about it?” You said, grabbing his hands to pull him closer. “You must dance anyway, or they’ll kick you out!”

The look of terror in Yoongi’s eyes made you laugh, but you didn’t pity him, he was the one who wanted to dance in the first place, even when both of you knew that he wasn’t the kind of person who dance at parties, he wasn’t the kind of person who danced at all. 

“How!?” He asked, ignoring the mass of people jumping around him. 

“Just do what I do!” You exclaimed, shaking your head side to side to the rhythm, making the strands of your hair hit your face, and his face too. Yoongi laughed, knowing then that if he didn’t dance he would look like an absolute loser. He was still hesitant to follow you, but when you began to jump, he slowly began to jump too, trying hard to shake his head the same way you were doing as he felt his ribcage shake from his laughter. 

You nodded your head, happily tapping your feet against the ground to the loud rhythm of the drums “Oh, baby I feel so down, oh, it turn’ me off” You sang to him, but he shook his head, disappointed that he didn’t know the lyrics and couldn’t sing the words back to you, but you didn’t care, you were happy enough watching him trying to copy your moves. 

You grabbed his hands, perhaps taking advantage of the situation to tangle his fingers with you, opening your arms with your hands still connected to his, shortening the distance. “I’m not a good dancer either.” You said, maybe way too close to his face. 

Yoongi scrunched his nose, giving you a half twirl to make your back crush against his chest, trapping you between his arms. “Are you saying I’m not a good dancer?” You felt his lips brushing against your cheek, making you shiver. 

You closed your eyes shut, trying to breathe in. “Not all!” You yelled, spinning out of his arms. “But no one’s watching.”

He took the liberty to slide his hands down your torso, gripping your waist and pulling you close to his body. “You are watching.” He said, like he was reminding you. 

“Then, impress me.” 

You were thankful that the sound of the music drowned the sound of your heart, who was threatening to run away from your chest in the exact moment he smiled at you, accepting the challenge. 

You couldn’t count the amount of times Yoongi made you spin in the room, like you were dancing a waltz, before you realized that neither of you were wearing clothes made for dancing, you were wearing a black long sleeve shirt and Yoongi was wearing that ridiculous white dress shirt that made him look like he came out of one of your dreams when he rolled up his sleeves.  As one song ended and another one started, he began to stop caring if he didn’t know the lyrics, it was fine as long as he followed you, but when your hands began to felt sweaty and you felt like you needed air, you decided it was time to leave, but not before you finished dancing Song 2 by Blur, because what other chance would you have to dance Song 2 by Blur with Yoongi? And what other chance would you have to watch him copy every move you made like you were an expert at dancing? And what other chance would you have to be alone with him without feeling like your heart was sinking? It was like the loud music didn’t allow you to feel anything else but joy, or maybe you were already high from all the people smoking weed around you, either way, you were happy. 

You didn’t want to began feeling overwhelmed, the most exciting thing that happened today, before Yoongi, was finding out that your mom’s boyfriend gave her a teddy bear that sang All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey when you pressed its paw, you could blame —or just thank him— for taking you out of your house. Your heart didn’t feel as heavy as it did at the beginning of the night, but you knew it was time to leave. 

As he waited at the door, you decided to look for your coats. There was a line of people waiting to leave theirs, when you were just trying to leave the place. You expected to get in line, wait a maximum of five minutes and then leave, but right at the end of the line you found, of course, Minnie, because it couldn’t be any other way. 

She was alone, holding two purses and a big puffer jacket that was probably not hers. As soon as you stood behind her, she turned around, clearly she wasn’t expecting to see you again. “Oh, hi again!” She greeted you with the same big white smile you saw earlier tonight. “I had to leave when the movie ended, but I wanted to talk to you, where’s your boyfriend?”

You sighed, not wanting to remember what she said to Yoongi. “He’s not my boyfriend, Minnie.” You said. “He’s just… Yoongi.”

“Just Yoongi, huh?” She raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips. “What are you doing on a date with Just Yoongi?”

“It’s not a date, he just invited me to watch the movie.” You tried to explain, but she wasn’t convinced. 

“Sounds like a date to me.” She giggled, completely ignoring what you said. “I remember when you were like fifteen and cried because he kissed some ugly girl at the New Year’s party, and now you’re on a date!” 

You shook your head, you didn't dare to acknowledge what she said. The memory of that night made you cringe, you remembered running to Minnie and telling everything about it while sobbing like somebody just died. She hugged you and told you that she was sure the girl was super ugly, which wasn’t the truth at all, but it was the version she decided to keep. 

“But it’s not a date.” You reminded her.

“If you say so…” She winked at you, taking a step forward to advance in the line. “But anyway! Weren’t you still in college?” 

Perhapsit was the rush of the dopamine in your body, or the fact that she spoke to you as if not a day had passed since the last time she saw you, but you told her the truth. 

“Well, I’m supposed to be in college.” You said, “But I dropped out recently.” 

“Oh, thank God.” She suddenly let out, almost by accident. You looked at her, amused that she dared to say that. “I mean, don’t get me wrong!” She rushed to say “It’s just, you know, it was about time for you to realize.” 

You smiled, feeling your chest getting warm. When you told people you dropped out of college, most of the time they looked worried, like you made a mistake, but Minnie looked relieved, and that made you feel like it wasn’t such a horrible decision. 

“I know, don’t remind me.” You huffed, looking at your feet. 

“I can't help but do it.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest, thinking “I always thought I was going to see you on a big screen someday, I was disappointed when you left for college.”

How cheesy, you wanted to say, but you couldn’t, not when she was the one who believed in you in ways you never did. 

“Well, I’m out of there now.” You just said. 

“So, if you’re not in college and you’re not doing theater, what are you doing?”

You scoffed, feeling like you just got scolded “Rotting in bed until Christmas, I guess.”

“Okay, I can respect that, but what about after the holidays?” She continued to ask. 

You shrugged, “I have to figure that out yet.”

“So… About what I was telling you before the movie started…”

“Yeah, I mean, about that…” You wanted to interrupt her, but she was quick to cut your sentence.

“Yeah, I know what you’re gonna say, you’re out the theater stuff too, I know.” She said, waving her hands in front of your face so you wouldn’t keep talking. “But I’ve got this friend in the city who’s a director, he is working on this project and is looking for a main character, I don’t know, for some reason it reminded me of you. And now you’re here, so it has to mean something, right?”

You furrowed your eyebrows “Why would it remind you of me?” You inquired. “We haven’t seen each other in years.”

“Crazy, isn’t it?” She laughed, “He pitched to me, it’s some gothic dramatic love story, he wanted to know if I knew of someone.”

Was this some kind of joke? You, realizing that you were never happy in college, coming back home, coming back to the theater where you used to dream to step on a stage someday, or Yoongi telling you all that stuff about not even trying to make your dreams come true, and now this? Something inside you moved, you didn’t know what, but you did know why you were home after all. You told Yoongi about this in your garage the other day, you dropped out of college for a reason, you weren’t built to have a nine to five job, but you also weren’t sure what is what you wanted.

You looked at Minnie like you were sorry to turn down her proposal “Minnie, I haven’t been on a play in years.” You told her, already anticipating the rejection of her offer.

“I know that, but I’ve always trusted your talent, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about this.” She replied “Look, I’m not asking you to say yes right now, but if you want to know more you can give me your new number.” You kept quiet for a few seconds. Not knowing what to say, you began to nervously laugh, that sounded crazy to you. “C’mon, don’t laugh! If it's of any use, it's a very well paid job.”

Now you began to laugh for real. “What do you mean it's a very well paid job?” You asked, not believing her for one second. Most plays you used to be part of during your high school days never left a dime. 

“It is!” She insisted “You don’t know my friend, he has rich parents, he doesn't do things for the love of art. I mean, he likes theater, but he also likes money.”

Well, that could’ve made you change your mind right away a four years ago, but still, a few hours ago you came to this place counting the seconds to leave, now you were debating if you should accept a job offer. You shook your head, realizing that the line moved far enough, it was Minnie’s turn to leave her coat. 

She took a few seconds and then it was your turn. You quickly asked for Yoongi’s jacket and your coat and when you turned around, Minnie was still there, not willing to give up. 

“What do I have to do to convince you to at least give me your new number?” She pleaded, looking for something in her mini bag. You observed her pulling a lighter and a joint and putting it between her lips to light it up. 

“What are you willing to do?” You joked, or not. 

“What do you have in mind?” Well, she knew you. 

“I have an idea…” You insinuated, pointing at the joint. 

She let out a cloud of smoke out of her mouth, suddenly frowning. “Really?” She said, trying not to sound annoyed, you nodded your head several times, almost excited.  “You can’t be asking for the whole joint.”

“But I am.”

Minnie shook her head in denial. “I can let you smoke it once, I’m not giving it to you.” She offered instead, but you wanted to make it worth it. If you were going to even consider accepting the job, if you were going to even think about something like theater again, you wanted at least something in return. 

“I’m giving you half my number, then.” You said “Try to guess the other half.” 

She narrowed her eyes, hesitating. Your old friend knew that you weren’t joking at all, and for some reason she really wanted you to consider her offer. You knew you won when she rolled her eyes, giving in. “You never stopped being a little bitch, have you?” She hissed, reluctantly handed you the joint. You happily accepted, taking a long drag before it went out. Minnie sighed, sadly watching her perfectly rolled joint in the hands of someone else. “So? Your new number?”

A devilish smirk appeared in your face as you began to walk backwards, taking long steps towards the entrance as you enjoyed the confused expression on Minnie’s face. “I never changed my number.” You confessed. 

Minnie’s mouth hung open in disbelief, but she made sure that the last thing you saw from her that night was her middle finger up, directed towards you. 

It’s been a long time since you outright refused to feel something remotely close to nostalgia, to live evoking memories, to think that a fleeting good moment could make up for all the bad ones, but it was impossible not to. Instead, you were condemned to live wondering what it would be like to come back home someday and not feel this way, to come to The Alley and not feel like you left a part of you there, to look at Yoongi and not feel like you were going to miss him all your life. 

And tonight wasn’t an exception, because when you came back to Yoongi and he offered what seemed to be the warmest smile in the coldest of winters, you knew it might haunt you forever. 

But maybe, just for tonight, you didn’t care. 

“Why are you making that face?” Yoongi asked, raising a brow as he grabbed his jacket from your hands. 

“What face?” You asked back, innocently keeping your hands behind your back.

He opened his mouth to explain what he meant, but then shut it again, staying silent for a minute as he inspected your face. “Did you just… smoke weed?” He laughed, probably already smelling it. 

A smile appeared on your face as you showed him your right hand. Yoongi observed the joint between your thumb and index finger, and wondering where you got that, he tried to take it from your hands. 

You took a step back, moving your arm away from him so he wouldn’t steal it. “What? Is this not legal?” You chuckled.

“Who gave you that?” He asked, grabbing your wrist, but you raised your arm higher. 

“Are you interrogating me?” You kept teasing him, fighting his hold. “I’m sorry Mr. Min, but I’m not a snitch.” 

Yoongi let go of your wrist, quickly giving up. “Are you not sharing?” He asked, a little disappointed. 

“I don’t know.” You pointed your finger at your chin, pretending to think about it “Are you allowed?” 

You walked past him, heading towards the entrance to exit the place. “You’re so annoying.” You heard him say, already knowing he was following you.

Both of you knew that the night was coming to an end, as soon as you stepped foot on the street you could smell the dew on the grass and hear how loud were your footsteps on the empty street. You looked at him through your lashes, observing him lighting up the joint between your lips as with a lighter he found in his pockets. You held the smoke inside your mouth for a few seconds before blowing it on his face, but he just laughed, stealing from your lips. 

You wondered what else you could do to make him stay a bit longer. 

He crossed the desolate street, grabbing your hand to drag you into the poorly illuminated park. It was really cold and you could see your cold breath in the air. Everyone else in the world seemed to agree that it was time to sleep, but you didn’t dare to complain as he decided to take the long way home. 

“How do you know when you’re high?” He curiously asked, eyes locking up with yours as he took another draw. 

It was easy for you to tell, you could get high with only one puff. “I have this thing, I test if my teeth are heavy.” You told him, expecting him to understand right away. 

He laughed, confused. “What do you mean?” 

“Look, if you clench your jaw you can tell that your teeth touch each other.” You explained. Yoongi stopped dead in his tracks, standing in front of you to test it himself. “I know that I’m high when my top teeth are feeling heavy.”

Yoongi snorted, keeping his mouth closed to test it himself. “I don’t know if mine are heavy.” He said “Are yours?”

You already knew you’re high, but you tested it regardless. Closing your mouth, you pressed your teeth together to know “Yes, they are.” You laughed, feeling dizzy. “How do you know?”

It wasn’t the first time you saw Yoongi high, you remembered that time, you were woken up at three in the morning when your brother dragged him into your house after their graduation party because he smoked too much, and Yoongi’s mom couldn’t find out that her son almost died because he didn't know how to use a bong. 

It was the first time that he made Simon look like the responsible friend. Yoongi was seeing shadows before leaving the party and when he arrived at your home was calmer, but still high. He was strangely afraid of going upstairs, so the three of you stayed in the living room watching very low quality episodes of Pinky and The Brain on YouTube. Simon let you stay under the condition of not telling your mom about Yoongi having a bad trip, so you did. The memory of Yoongi laughing at the screen and eating the cake your mom bought to celebrate was still very engraved in your mind.

This version was very different. Yoongi’s hooded eyes were crystallized and there was an awkward smile plastered on his face that wasn’t going away. You could tell he was high in the way he was walking, and especially in the way he was still holding your hand.

The silence lingered in the air for a second. He pressed his lips together, scanning your face. “I know I’m high when it’s hard for me to tell if I’m looking at one thing or the whole picture.” He tried to explain “Like, I can’t focus on more than one thing at once.”

Somehow, you understood. “What are you looking at right now?”

In that moment, Yoongi seemed to be asking himself that very same question in his head, but he already knew the answer. 

 “Your mouth.” He replied innocently.

Someone in the very back of your mind started to wave a big red flag, but on the surface, where an intoxicated version of yourself was laying under the moonlight, you could only laugh. 

“Isn’t it a bit distracting?” You asked him, pulling him forward so he would start walking towards the exit of the park. 

“Yes, very.” he guaranteed “But I don’t mind.”

Yoongi followed you out of the park, and in a team of two you remembered the way to your home. It was like both of your brains had turned off, the conversation didn’t have to mean anything, you didn’t have to wonder why he was there with you at all. 

The clock on your phone said that it was three in the morning, but in your mind time had stopped forever, or at least until next morning. When you turned the corner and reached the end of the street, you knew it was time to say goodbye. But what if you didn’t want to?

You struggled to find your keys, maybe because you were high or maybe because you just didn’t want to remember where the keys were. And when you had to open the door, you leaned against the door frame to say your last words. 

You looked at him with hooded eyes, his pink lips were slightly parted, like they were about to say something but they didn’t. In the haze of the moment you thought it looked just like an invitation to kiss him, but of course you wouldn’t. Of course you couldn’t. 

What you could do, instead, was prevent him from leaving, at least for a while. Was that allowed? You weren’t in your right mind to answer that question. 

You sighed, sleepy, touching the collar of his shirt. “I can’t let you go home like this.” You let out, faster than you could think. 

Yoongi scrunched his nose. “It’s fine, it’s just a few blocks away.” He waved off your concern, but his feet were dug deeply on the wood floor of your porch. 

“It’s not a few blocks away.” You argued “You live like ten blocks away, and you’re still high…”

“I can manage.” He smirked, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear like it was nothing. 

“C’mon, you can stay.” You offered. “My bed is big enough for both of us.”

Your voice came as a whisper, but your words are clearly heard by Yoongi. He scoffed, causing you to start laughing “I didn’t mean that.” You blurted out. trying to correct yourself, but he was already laughing at you. 

“What did you mean?” He was curious. 

You lightly punched his shoulder. “I meant that… You can stay.” You repeated “Besides… There’s still Simon’s old clothes you can wear to sleep.” 

He raised his eyebrows, getting closer to your face, or not, you weren’t sure. 

“What would your mom say?” He mumbled, still in denial. 

“What?” You chuckled “I’ll tell her the truth. I’ll just say you were too drunk to come back home.”

“That’s not the truth.” He said, booping your nose, but you could barely feel the coldness of his touch. 

“Do I really have to tell her that we were high?” You wondered, booping his nose back. 

Yoongi smiled, knowing you were right. “I guess not.” He admitted. 

“So?” You dared to insist.

“I’ll stay…” He said, putting a finger up. “Under one condition…”

“You want me to tuck you in bed?” You said, laughing at your own joke like it was the funniest thing you had ever said. 

Yoongi snorted, covering your mouth with his hand so you wouldn’t keep making loud noises. “No, not that.” He shook his head. “You have to make me breakfast.”

You bit the palm of his hand, making him pull away with a groan. “Is that what your life is worth?” You teased “Breakfast?”

“I’m not gonna die walking ten blocks.”

“What if you enter a bad trip?” You joked “The streets are scary when it’s dark.”

“C’mon, don’t talk about bad trips.” He closed his eyes shut, like he was trying to picture flowers and kittens so he wouldn’t think of something bad. 

“God, Yoongi. Are you staying or not?” 

He sighed, opening his eyes to display his characteristic gummy smile. “Fine Pinky.” He gave in, “Show me how big your bed is.” 

taglist: @kingofbodyrolls @tea4sykes @overtherainbow35 @namin13 @p34rluv @moonchild1 @oukya @yoongisoftface @namgihours @honsoolgloss @idkjustlovingbts @loviyunki @yoongisducky @bangtansmauyeondan @tarahardcore @wobblewobble822 @secfir @ot72025 @baechugff @hopeefulchick @heroinanne @mortal-body-timelesssoul @lizzm98 @hiii-priestess @wii-wii @jungkookies1002 @busanbby-jjk @acquiescence804

[slowd1ving]

II. RIDING HIGH IN APRIL ･ﾟ FRANCIS MOSSES

"Your usual, Mr Francis Mosses?” you repeat with the same inflection. It has to stay the same. A name to a star will not make it any more personal – it’ll remain the same cold distance away, stay the same burning core of amorphous light, in a fixed set of constellations. It has to. But you’ve overlooked the most salient point. Humans are not stars. There's a reason you stuck with this shitty diner job: routine. So, why the hell does that keep changing for you? warnings + general: amab!reader, nsfw, depression, smoking + unhealthy habits, diner au, trauma, military background (made up unit for doppelgangers) so canon divergence, obsession lowkey BTW this is also posted on ao3 so if there are any doubts about me being the author just comment on any of my fics and I assure you I'll reply on there! (but thank you to those who expressed concern it means a lot)

MISC. MASTERLIST

THAT'S LIFE MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

PREVIOUS PART ゜・NEXT PART

‘That’s life (that’s life) I tell you, I can’t deny it.’

It’s a different type of blue hour when it’s thirty minutes before dawn – cleaner than your smoke-filled evenings: filled with hope and a promise of sunlight, rather than a vow of everlasting sin. 

Your lungs burn with the cold air. It seems like you’re drowning, but it’s not the same sensation as three years back. This time, all your cells are clamouring for oxygen; scrambling and twisting, unlike the freezing resignation beneath the rain and viscera. 

You’re dressed casually: sweats and a shirt that’s tighter than your clinical kitchen jacket. Like a never ending hug, it tightly clasps the muscle forced upon you by the Execution programme. You should feel cold. You are cold, but the surge and flush in adrenaline is something that melts your stone heart and body. In your haste to leave at your colleague’s proclamation of an emergency, it seems you forgot your jacket. 

Fatigue eludes you – your breathing is controlled as ever. 

Let’s face it – if it weren’t for your shifting galaxy, you would’ve stayed in bed this morning. 

This is all his fault. 

You’re not sure what you’re doing here, having jogged to the diner getting heckled via landline by your coworker. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t have deigned to answer. After all, the day management of the place is left to your colleague, not you. 

“He’s asked for you specifically.”

You can hear the satisfied grin through the landline. When you press her for more details, she hangs up on you, and you’re left seething with an almost broken cord clenched tight in your fist. 

Who the hell is she talking about?

As far as you knew, the boss had gone and fucked off to somewhere in Scandinavia two years ago. Unless he’s hauled his geriatric ass back here, you sincerely doubt he’s the one requesting your presence. 

But if you’re being honest, you don’t mind this sudden disruption to your schedule. 

Like molasses, sleep would’ve pulled you under – sticky and sweet – for the rest of the day to escape your thoughts. That’s your daily routine: an endless struggle with your mind. 

With this, at least the war in your brain has stilled. It’s a dangerous calm, one that threatens to flow out of control at the slightest ripple. The waters are growing agitated – it’s only a matter of time before you’re pulled under. 

Make no mistake, you will be dragged to the depths eventually. That’s not something you, nor anyone, can prevent. Sleep cannot hope to fight it. You cannot hope to ever escape it. 

Your head aches. 

It’s freezing. You’re slowly becoming more frigid, and your hands are beginning to shake. It was a mistake, coming out here. You don’t know what’s caused the change. 

No, you do know. You just can’t bear to keep acknowledging the catalyst behind it. 

It’s not the run that’s winded you – your breath stops ragged as you fumble in your pockets for the Old Gold that should be there. That small, plastic-wrapped carton should be there, but your pockets are sorely empty. 

Shit, shit.  

Your ears are ringing. Just like the death knell ringing for your friends and subordinates, it keeps ringing and ringing and tolling and tolling. Those reverberations permeated through sinew, through flesh and vessel – only contributing to the staggering tremors attacking your palms. 

That alizarin blue is fading from your vision, and there’s nothing you can do. 

Numbness spreads awful quick through your extremities after all; it hurtles whip-fast through your spine, pressing you against icy, rough brick. 

“Ha,” your breath comes in the form of hoarse, faint heaving. 

You’re not sure what comes next. Once the star begins exploding, it’s eventually reduced to nothingness. It’s theorised that even its very atoms disintegrate eventually.

 What’s going on?

Why aren’t you disappearing like those husks of particles?

You– you’re an empty shell. 

What’s that infernal fire spreading through your arms?

“I’m sorry,” you whisper with the finality of resignation. You’re not falling anymore. You give up. 

“Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

He was nowhere mere moments ago – there was nothing but empty void on all sides. Not a star, not even a singular atom to initiate collision and the chain of energy. He’d been nowhere, but now he’s everywhere. 

That hushed cadence. Those warm palms. That tired look in his eyes, softening as you met his gaze. 

“You okay there?”

Mr Francis Mosses is closer to you than he’d ever been. Each callous on his hands you can feel pressed through your thin shirt, they burn against the permafrost of your skin. 

You’re too close. Those soot-black eyelashes – you can count them individually at this proximity. This distance is infinitesimal; faint traces of his cologne invade your senses, lingering beneath that milky, powdery smell. You shouldn’t notice this. You shouldn’t be like this. You shouldn’t be feeling that feeling in your stomach. 

This is dangerous. 

“Yeah,” you manage to form a coherent syllable. A nuclear fission chain begins in your throat. “I’m alright.”

“Mm,” he acknowledges. His hands are still supporting you, and he’s not letting go. You can distinctly hear each pulse as it sounds out in his ribcage, while simultaneously hearing each breath as it hitches and tumbles in his lungs. At your sides, curled into tight spirals are your fists. 

You’re tense. Anyone can see it – the spring making up your flesh and bones is about to reach its plastic limit. You won’t be able to come back from this. 

The centripetal force making up your galaxy – your routine – is dissipating. 

He’s the cause of it. 

His arms wobble when you go limp, and suddenly you’re in his space – face pressed right into his trapezius, breathing in the temperature of his skin and the woody scent of aftershave. 

That’s new. 

He wraps around you, and you clutch the back of his shirt with enough force to crush a skull. He’s alive, pulse wildly careening through his flesh and sinew like a hummingbird. Furiously, he’s alive. His touch is searing as you press impossibly closer and closer. 

That gravitational pull can’t be from a mere supermassive black hole. 

He’s the origin – the very centre of the universe. All matter wants to be part of it; your cells tear into his, your heart sings out its mournful song, just to be a part of him. 

“Hey,” his breath is scorching across your ear. “You’re here, you’re alright.”

The murmurs are clumsy, tripping themselves up in a rush to escape his torrid lips. 

I’m here.

I’m alright. 

It may just be true. Where your hands connect to his latissimus dorsi through his crisp white shirt, they’ve stopped shaking. 

And you don’t know it, perhaps you never will, but that small, plastic-wrapped carton of gaseous aurum has been stored neatly away in the back of your mind for the past few minutes now. 

A throat clears. 

Your colleague’s face sports an amused expression, while your eyes convey a well-timed fuck you, as the rest of your face is buried in his shirt. 

When you pull back slightly, with her hand now on your back as well, you swear you feel Mr Francis Mosses clamp around your biceps like a vice. Resisting. An unstoppable force. His expression is worried, but when his exquisite brown eyes slide from you to your coworker, you think you can see the hint of a glare in them. You can’t be too sure. 

In the ultramarine light, there might be a hint of red on his face. You can’t be too sure of that either. 

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have called you in if he said he didn’t know you,” she explains sheepishly, but your ears are too full of a roaring heartbeat and your focus is entirely elsewhere. “We’ve been having issues with our milk provider, so we’ve switched to his company. It wouldn’t have been such an issue if our menu wasn’t half milkshakes.”

Her eyes are full of apology, despite her grumbling. She’s known you since your Execution Squad days, operating the calls and speaking to victims. She knows exactly how it feels – the panic, the suffocation, the lingering taste of tobacco that you can never really escape. 

But you can’t focus on that either. 

His thumbs are rubbing tiny, fiery circles onto your flesh – unconsciously, you think, as your eyes observe the slight anger in his face. 

No, wait. You blink in surprise. Since when are you able to discern that face?  

“I’ll wait inside so you can help me with the contract,” she scratches the back of her head, nonplussed when you don’t reply. “Take your time.”

She leaves, and you feel the origin of the universe relax. The molten, rigid singularity sighs – the heavens shift in response. 

“Sorry for taking up so much of your time.” He’s working, yet you’ve taken that away by giving in to your weakness. Shame bubbles in your throat, and you wish you could repeat this morning all over again and do it right just so you could avoid inconveniencing him. 

“Don’t apologise for that,” his voice is low, strung through with a hoarse fatigue. There’s something else clouding it, though, a sort of tightness that reminds you of anger. But he’s not angry, not anymore, you don’t think.

What is it?

He pulls you back into him, clutching at you as though you’re the lifeline instead of him being yours.

What is it?

“Mr Francis Mosses,” you breathe, but your arms wrap around him tightly once more. 

What is it?

“I’d give up all my days to help you like this.” 

The words are hushed, too hushed. They’re not meant to be for your ears, but your senses have been honed to a razor-sharp edge and your hearing is the sharpest blade of them all. 

You’ve identified that strain of his voice, so parallel to anger. 

Worry. 

He’s worried. 

That realisation burns you more fiercely than anything you’ve ever felt before. 

You give in to the torturous exhilaration. 

You lose yourself in the warmth. 

Just for a bit. 

‘I thought of quitting, baby, but my heart just ain’t gonna buy it.’

When he comes in those blue evenings, he brings the stardust that you can never spot in the sky. There’s no sun. There’s no moon, either. There are only the thick clouds that only let the most precocious blue through, and the power lines that cut straight through them. 

Over these three years, the only stars that you’ve seen are the twinkling remnants left in high-rise office buildings in the far city. You’ve seen the glimmers in diamond-encrusted watches, seen the shine on the record-player knobs you polish, seen the glitter in the dirty cents handed over the counter. These are not real stars, however. 

He brings the excruciating stardust, all bottled up in flesh and woven through in his capillaries. 

Today is no different. 

You don’t need the stars that are light-years away. Proxima Centauri, I don’t care about you. Tens of thousands of Kelvin – but they might as well be as freezing as the vacuum they orbit in. They’re cold points to you, dots of light that you can only see in encyclopaedias and the thick books customers bring in on occasion. These celestial bodies aren’t meant to be in a greasy diner – even mere phantoms of them are rare to spot.  

He’s warmer than any star. He’s closer than any star. He’s comprised of the universe itself. 

“What would you like today, Mr Francis Mosses?” 

Your very own galaxy. It appears nightly, much better than those lousy light shows that never appear in the thick fog of this polluted city. 

The panic of this morning has been long-forgotten. All gone, when you look in his mellow eyes. All gone. 

“Your recommendation,” he requests. He’s derailed your routine once more. “And double that.”

For the first time, you’re late in lighting a smoke. That’s not your fault, of course. It’s not. It really isn’t, not when he pulls your arm to sit you opposite him, nor when you let him, nor when you miss the warmth of his hand as he retracts it. 

The steaming food lies as the Rubicon between you. Who will cross it first?

You wait, tongue poised between your teeth. 

His hair is as messy as ever. Briefly, you wonder how it would feel beneath your calloused fingertips. 

There’s no response yet. You watch a little longer: a slight tremor as his throat bobs, lips pulled in nervousness, and eyes that dart to you, to the food, to the wall and everywhere in between. 

You lied about that last bit, by the way. Those tired, glassy eyes are focused solely on you at the moment. His darting eyes are actually your own: focused on him, his tapping fingers on the black reflective table, the steam particles between the two of you. 

“Are you feeling better?” It’s a simple question, devoid of any exhausted hum. It takes everything out of him, as though he’s practised a million ways of saying it and he’s still messed it up. His next breath is deep. 

“Yes?” You don’t mean it as a question, but the rising of the syllable from your larynx belies your confusion. Of course you’re all right – and you don’t mean this in a patronising manner. Of course you’re alright, when the building suffocation was replaced with a suffocation of another kind. 

A balmy, soothing sort. The previous drowning was a struggle; you gave into it fighting, with a snarl on your lips and a shattering spirit. But who wouldn’t ease into the other asphyxiation? In that honey-sweet warmth, you’d readily renounce your soul. 

“Yes,” you quickly repeat. This is a first: considering a customer’s feelings as you attempt to avoid a misunderstanding. “Much better, Mr Mosses.”

You don’t know why you avoid his first name. 

It seems he doesn’t know either; those tranquil brows furrow momentarily, before he gestures to the second portion of food. 

“Will you eat with me?” 

You give in too easily to the deception, especially when he adds your name onto the end of his question. It’s like a challenge, almost. 

“I thought about asking you directly,” he bites into the sandwich. Chews. Swallows. You’re slightly entranced by the movement of his throat. Human windpipes are so fragile, after all, in comparison to the imitation. “Mm, then I got nervous.”

If he was nervous, what were you?

“Don’t worry,” you say blithely, but that’s not your intention at all. You don’t want to be callous, and that surprises you once more. 

He always seems to coax a novel reaction from you. 

“Don’t worry – I wouldn’t refuse you,” you repeat. It’s a little quieter, a little more honest about how your heart sways. You don’t think you’ve ever sounded so heartfelt. 

“You mean that?” 

His tone shifts; a note lower, a pitch you wouldn’t have detected if you hadn’t specifically trained for this. You didn’t think of your response as particularly special, but it seemed he’d taken it as an invitation. 

You don’t mind that. Then again, you don’t mind his actions that should annoy you, had they been done by anybody else. 

“Yes. I’ll eat with you anytime.”

When you take a bite of the sandwich, you finally cross the Rubicon. 

You don’t know anything anymore. The routine, the precious universes you shaped – they’ve all been scattered by the two warm palms of a single man. The object of your rage is sitting in front of you, yet there’s no actual fury filling in the preconceived compartment. 

There’s amiability in one neat box. In the next, curiosity overflows and spills everywhere. Weaving through them all, however, is a strange substance you can’t identify. It’s warm. 

It’s warm, where there had previously only been ice. 

The strawberry taste lingering on your tongue is exquisite. 

It’s odd. Only after the dishes are soaking in the sink do you remember the pack in your apron pocket. Only when you turn around do you realise he’s still in the booth. Only when you spot his face do you notice you’re no longer feeling the same surge of adrenaline right before you smoke. 

You light the stick on the stovetop dispassionately. 

When the crisp blue air greets you, he’s in your shadow. How bizarre. 

It’s even more strange when he doesn’t leave to go to his small, compact van. He… remains. 

No, he does go back to his van. You watch him, sweet plumes hazing from your lips and fingertips. You can see the contraction of his tendons, each muscle moving seamlessly. No, not seamlessly. There’s a bit of a wobble – from fatigue, perhaps. No, that’s not right either. 

Have you always made so many mistakes when reading someone?

There’s a lack of drag that you’d expect. He’s always tired, so the slight pause in his gait is something natural to him. Instead, his feet are hesitant, as though he’s jittery.

This time, he comes back. 

Your mouth opens slightly. 

He’s never done this before. 

That coat from before, he wraps it snugly around you. You didn’t even know you were shivering. He’s meeting your gaze, but his brows are furrowed and he wears a weak smile with it. 

“Ah,” he mumbles slightly as your cigarette falls to the gravel between the two of you. It’s fine – it’s almost been burnt to a stub regardless. You step on it – thus bridging the chasm between you two. At this distance, he’s shorter than you are. You’ve been aware of it, but this is the first time you’ve truly felt it. 

He’s fastening his coat around you, but you can feel the trembling of his hands. 

“You looked cold.”

He’s so considerate, you realise. Even this morning, he went out of his way to help you. Even now, when he’s uncomfortable, he’s thinking of you. 

“What about you?” you breathe out. Your breath condenses in white plumes, and you think it’s a prettier sight than smoke. “Aren’t you cold, Mr Francis Mosses?”

Those warm eyes soften into liquid. There’s a slight crimson in his ears, a tiny hitch in his breath, and a shake in his shoulders. 

“No,” he answers honestly. It must be honest, for though his voice is clear, he looks away bashfully. He’s bared his heart, while yours is still locked away in its box. “I don’t get cold when I’m with you.”

What a coincidence, you want to say. 

Neither do I.

But you’re not him. You don’t get to run words parallel to that beating organ’s desires. 

You look away. 

You shouldn’t be allowed to say that either, you also want to add. 

Inexplicably, your heart is beating far too fast for it to be considered healthy. In fact, it might even be arrhythmia. That’s serious. 

“I–” You begin your sentence, but you hadn’t planned to actually open your mouth. This is new, too.  

“You should take better care of yourself.” The words stumble clumsily from your lips. Not everyone can have that buttery smoothness like he has. This is the universal truth – you’ve always avoided prolonged conversations for that reason precisely. So, why? Why now? Why does your pulse push these syllables from your careless vocal strings?

“I will.”

The weakness in his smile is gone. It’s fond, and you can’t bear it. 

“You’ll catch a cold,” you warn. 

And you won’t be at the diner if that happens. 

That’s strange. Why are you thinking that way?

Right. It’s him. He’s the catalyst. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” His teeth are so bright. When he smiles, he’s got the jewels of the sea in his mouth. Bright pearls – and here you thought he’d only have mastery over the stars. 

“I’m serious.” You let yourself indulge in the smell of him on the coat. Your eyes are closed. You don’t think you could bear seeing his face more. “Don’t get sick.”

“Don’t worry so much,” he exhales – the trip and jump in the sound turns it into suppressed laughter. 

You can’t get sick. You want to say that. You’d shout it for the world to hear, but that would be too troublesome – and like you mentioned previously, you’re not like him. Your heart is small and cold and closed off in a tight box. 

Please, you can’t get sick. 

But for him, you’d do it. 

‘And if I didn’t think it was worth one single try, I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly.’

He’s tricked you. 

Each time you think you’ve fit Mr Francis Mosses into a neat routine with clear expectations and a place in the galaxy, he evades that and tricks you. Then, he tricks you for a second and a third time, for good measure. 

Otherwise, why would you be counting down the hours until he gets here?

When you’re ringing up Miss Mia Stone’s order at half-past twelve, you’re thinking of him and his soft hair. When you’re taking Mr Henryk Jamesons’ money at quarter to five, you’re picturing those molten brown eyes. And when you’re separating the food into two compact takeout boxes for Mr Stephen Rudboys, you’re imagining those soft lips, poised to say the most unexpected things.

That’s also new. Since when did you focus on his lips?

“Thanks, have a great day,” Mr Rudboys waves at you mechanically, and you almost unconsciously reply with ‘don’t get sick’. You feel like an idiot. 

You feel swindled. 

You feel tricked, and it’s all his fault. He evidently has no respect for the labours of a diner worker, if he’s entering your mind while you’re serving other clients. 

Why does everything have to boil down to him?  

It always comes back to Mr Francis Mosses. You think it was a wise decision to be wary of his gravitational pull. If you’re not careful, he might just cause a wormhole and shoot right through you. 

With others, you’re thinking of him. 

Even when you’re alone, you swear you can smell that powdery, milky smell lingering. 

It’s not fair. 

Does he think of you too? When he’s under blue, fog-filled skies like these, does he think of the smoke you exhale? When he’s with others, can he recall your awkward attempts at conversation? When he’s alone, does he imagine you there with him?

Do I occupy your thoughts like you occupy mine?

It’s ridiculous. Really, it’s laughable. You’re a speck on this planet, while he’s the centre of everything. 

That would be your usual train of thought. 

Humans are not stars. 

But you don’t get to think even that, because you can hear the familiar hum of an engine and you know it could only be him that’s here.

And you’re laughing – laughing at yourself, laughing at your foolishness, laughing at just how ludicrous you’re being. To think, he’d made himself so at home in the ordered compartments of your mind that your very capillaries are magnetised to him. 

You’re attuned to him – compass pointing straight. Not north – you couldn’t care less about the ridiculous iron centre of Earth. The arrow points at him.  

For the first time, you’re inside the diner when he comes through – still beaming, hand pressed to your miserable face and wretched laughter ringing flush against the mellow tones of Frank Sinatra. 

He pauses in the doorway. Though you hear him – how could you not – the sounds that bubble up from your diaphragm refuse to cease. 

It’s only when you notice that gaze in his eyes that you stop – warmer, more liquid than anything you’ve ever seen. Those irises are darker, too – impossibly dilated. 

“Mr Francis Mosses,” you greet him. There’s a smile on your lips. You don’t think he’s ever seen you smile like that. “What will it be today?”

Dazed. You can read his face clear as day – and somehow, somehow, that makes you incredibly conscious of yourself, of him and of every minute action between the two of you. 

“I’ll take anything you give me,” he murmurs. His voice is hoarse, and not in the fatigued way, but in the ‘I’m losing my composure’ way. Carmine bleeds into his skin – you can feel the same carmine thrumming ceaselessly through your veins. 

Fuck.

This man, is he your Achilles’ heel? Your hamartia, your flaw above anything.

No, it can’t be. You’re full of flaws – he’s the only good thing about you. If anything, you’re the person who’s sure to drag him down. 

“Right.”

He sits at the counter today, perched on the cerise-red stools and propped up on an exhausted elbow. Yet, his eyes are clearer – sharper – than your usual expectation. They’re honed on you: your movements, your actions, you. He’s watching you, and nobody else. 

“Did someone make you laugh?”

His tone is different from his usual one; it lacks its usual enervation, and there’s a rougher burr to it that you can’t quite place. When you look up from where you’re assembling his wrap, there’s a shadow in his eyes. 

“Yes.” You did. For the first time in years, you laughed. All thanks to your azure singularity – him . 

There’s more he wants to say. Those lips of his part minutely, but you’ll never know what he wanted to say. 

“Hm?” And for the first time, you really want to know the potential: his thoughts before they leave his lips. 

“Forget it,” he exhales, looking anywhere but you. You slide his food over the counter; there’s a tinge of disappointment in your action. Disappointment, huh… 

You wonder if you’ll have enough boxes to sort out these different feelings. 

He doesn’t speak as he eats. It’s only when you slide onto a neighbouring stool with a milkshake for yourself that he looks up in surprise. 

“You…” he murmurs – there’s an eternal question concealed in that singular word. 

“You feeling alright?” you ask in mild concern. 

“What would you do if I said I wasn’t?” he breathes, and you look at him. You study his expression: his wide, sleepless eyes, his tousled hair, his lips pressed together. There’s a faint trembling in his hands. That won’t do.  

“I’d ask about it further, Mr Francis Mosses,” you reply seriously. “If it’s an emotional issue, I’ve been told I’m a very good sandbag. I can listen and take beatings simultaneously.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” his raised eyebrows suggest he’s mildly taken aback, but he presses on. “But there’s one thing you could do for me.”

“Which is?” you prompt. 

He takes a deep breath.

“Call me Francis.”

Oh. 

He always exceeds my expectations. 

“Please,” he almost begs. Who are you to say no to the one who decimated your universe?

“I think I’ll go crazy if you don’t.”

You don’t think you’re meant to hear that last bit – it’s muttered so softly that you think he’s unaware that these are his words.

There’s a maddening rhythm to your heartbeat. You don’t want it to ever end. 

“Francis.” Those two syllables creep out carefully. This is a first – you don’t remember the last time a name wasn’t carefully framed by honorifics and made impersonal. Francis. 

“Yes?” he replies breathlessly. It’s so fucking intimate: his pupils are blown out, bottom lip wobbling with a slight sheen on them, hands shaking around a cheap napkin. All because of you. It’s his name you’re saying, but it’s your lips it’s falling from. Yours. 

You want to turn his thoughts on their head – just like he’s flipped your world upside down. 

“Francis.” It’s almost a whisper – not quite. There’s laughter seeping into the name; rich amusement drips from it. You’re delighted. 

How can one man make you feel so much?

At the sound of your joy, his scarlet flush bleeds into his neck. Before, he’d met your gaze so boldly each time – irises honed right on you. But this – his face is exquisite right now. Those glazed-over eyes evade your stare. He’s looking anywhere but you: breathing spiralling out of control, teeth clamping desperately over those soft lips. 

And you’re grinning, teeth flashing neon and that blue taste on your tongue. 

Have you ever felt so light?

There’s laughter spilling over, and his eyes snap back to yours. 

“Francis,” you rasp. “Don’t ever change.”

Keep surprising me. 

Stay right here. 

When he takes your hand and holds it in both of his, it feels like a promise. It lasts only a moment – but you swear you experience several lives within that singular gesture. 

There’s that blazing flush on his face. 

You hope he’s feeling as warm as you are. 

“I won’t,” he says, and the heavens align themselves once more. 

‘I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.’

Anticipation makes way to expectation.

Francis.

Each muscle, every organ, all of the cells in your body – they’re all waiting. Sure, you’ve waited before. You’ve waited for the next mission, you’ve waited for your paycheck, you’ve waited for your new gun to be issued. 

You’ve waited to tear down doppelgängers.

You’ve waited a long time for revenge. 

But that burning feeling doesn’t feel like the balmy heat that traipses carefreely within your vessels. It’s a dancing, delicate thing. 

You’ve seen the ballet, once. There was a doppelgänger amongst the dancers – movements bolder than any of the others, freer and more unrestrained. Wilder. You almost felt bad about putting a bullet through its eye, but duty called and you weren’t about to abandon the fury within your heart for something as mundane as admiration. 

You don’t know why you’re thinking about it. 

You don’t know why your heartbeat is behaving so intrepidly, but you suppose you’ve lost enough humanity for your body to develop such characteristics. 

It’s strange. Really, it’s so strange you might end up laughing again.

Francis.

He’s got you so easily in his palm. If he asked you for it, you think you’d take the fist-sized organ from its receptacle nestled between your lungs and present it to him on a silver platter. You’d wipe away the congealed blood on his hands with a rough thumb and kiss them better with your poisonous mouth. 

You aren’t a poet. 

You’ve been a soldier and a pawn, so all you know and all you may ever know is the metallic, coppery stench of carmine – it follows in your shadow and stains your footsteps. Your hands are covered in it, and will be forever.  It doesn’t matter – you’d give your body over and over and over and over. Parallel universes will have the same outcome for you. There’s no changing that. 

You’re a soldier, so you’re not allowed to wax poetic about him – any letters you write, any flowery prose will be obscured by the heavy darkness you drag within you. 

But for once, you’d like to try your hand at words. And if your hand is still too stained with that bleeding arterial red, you’ll write it with your body. 

Just once, you’d like your limbs in this universe to be used for something more pretty than killing. Even though it’s an imitation, red is still red and blood is still blood. 

You aren’t a poet, so the most you’ll get is this expectation. You’re a simple creature. Words elude you, but your emotions are too fleeting to be caged in by prose and logic. 

It’s so ordinary. 

It’s all you ever wanted. 

But he doesn’t come tonight. 

Tonight, you’re left with that awful blue fog as your paramour and Sinatra as your entertainment. 

It was foolish, holding on to this expectation. Did you forget already? 

He is one to go beyond them. 

This is one of the few times you’ve ached so sharply. It’s a clean slice through your heart – not like the blunt bang of a pistol, but a masterful cut that draws out the pain better than a bullet ever could. 

It hurts. It really does, and it’s all your fault for feeling hopeful. 

You changed your mindset, and it only came back to pay you in tears. 

But you don’t cry.

It hurts, but the plumes of smoke you exhale taste better than the salt. 

If anything, you’re cherishing the white-hot pain. Maybe you haven't completely lost your humanity. 

It’s long laid dormant, but this agony is sweeter than honey. 

Still, you wish for everything to just disappear. If only for a moment. 

It hurts. Go away, please. Go away. 

You’re an idiot, and when you bury your face in your hands, you barely feel the burn from the cigarette. 

‘I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing.’

You’re unusually sullen the next day. There’s the biting pressure you feel from yesterday, but that’s ridiculous. Francis has no obligation to visit you daily, and your disappointment is your own fault. 

It’s alright. 

You can’t bring yourself to blame him. 

You feel so stupid, though. 

Never have you felt so small. With revenge, the burning consumes you and you don’t feel hopeless. There’s a goal to strive for, after all. But with this, there’s nothing you can do.  

“What will it be, Francis?” 

Your words come out tired. They match the fatigue in his eyes; something you’d normally be noting with wonderment. Today, the excitement doesn’t come. 

No, to be more precise, you tamp down on it harshly before it can come up to the surface. 

“Mm.” He acknowledges your question, but he’s staring you down dazedly and you can’t help but feel slightly wobbly inside. “Something light. I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

Right. You tap the pager unconsciously – it seems him staying away yesterday wasn’t out of his own volition. You don’t know what you would’ve done if it had been otherwise; but then again, you’ve forced those feelings back into a little box, locked tight thrice. Inescapable. Impenetrable. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” You give him a weak smile, and the awkward fumbling of well wishes seems to have done the trick – his soft smile back washes the insecurity away without a trace. 

It’s when you’re cooking that it happens. While your hands drip red from strawberries, you hear footsteps. His footsteps – the ones you memorised. There’s that same gait, that same tired drag of his sole. 

And you force down your smile. 

He’s never done this either.

You’d think he was just walking around the diner to pass the time, but his footsteps get closer and closer, until–

His arms wrap around you from the back. 

You freeze. 

Out of all the things you thought he’d do, this isn’t one of them. His face presses into the juncture of your neck, and he’s breathing you in. He’s warm, so warm, and your heart finally begins its fervent race once more. 

If he squeezed you any tighter, you would’ve thought he was going for a suplex.

His fingers trace from your hips, up your abdominal muscles, before settling on your solar plexus – each digit splayed out as though his palms were the sun and his fingers the rays. How fitting. 

You should push him off. You should, but there’s something about him you can’t resist. 

“Francis,” you whisper, and it’s like that final barrier in the dam finally breaks. You give in to the raging tide of emotions. Let yourself be swept up in this turbulent river. Don’t worry about a thing. 

“Mm,” he hums, lips just brushing against the stiff fabric of your clinical jacket. And you can feel their reverberations echoing to your very bone marrow – you don’t think you’ve ever heard your pulse so cleanly, so clearly. “I missed you.”

The admission takes all the strength out of you. 

I missed you too. 

I missed you, so much I couldn’t bear it. 

Perhaps that’s the reason. Perhaps that’s why you could never push him away. 

Fuck.  

You really are a fool. 

So, why doesn’t that upset me?

‘Each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.’

It’s a sleepless night. Just when you think those sweet molasses are going to drag you under, they slip from your fingers and leave you tossing and turning. 

“I missed you.”

You can still feel his fingers on your body. 

When you close your eyes, you can feel him, pressing his lips against your neck and holding you close to him. 

Back then as a Captain, there were people who needed you. Of course there were – you were a pawn, a soldier, someone who had a duty and kept to it. You were a resource: easily replaceable. In fact, it was a miracle you’d lasted the year. 

But him.  

You bury your face in your pillow. There’s a furious beat to your pulse. You can feel it everywhere: your head, your legs and even your stomach.

There’s no doubt about it. 

You like Francis. 

You like him, so much so that you’re running out of boxes to put your emotions in. 

It doesn’t come as a surprise when you’re haggard at work, even more so than yesterday. The day is both sluggish and hare-like, racing away from you yet constantly disturbing you with its slow crawl. It’s the adrenaline and dopamine; they’re clashing and twisting and dancing against themselves. You honestly don’t know how your hypothalamus manages to outshine itself every time. 

The familiar hum of the engine comes when the fog up in the sky is still white. It’s earlier than usual, but Francis has never been one to stick within the lines you’ve put him in. 

“Francis.” 

The shadows under his eyes are darker than before.

“I’m not here for food today,” he exhales. “Just let me spend time with you here.”

That’s a first. 

You’re a little lost. When the boss trained you on how to deal with customers, he never mentioned the tricky ones like these. 

“Ah,” you mumble. “Sure.”

“I also brought you something.” He’s smiling with his eyelids lowering – it’s not an expression you’ve ever seen him make. Fuck. You can’t resist him. 

He’s already taken up too much space in your universe. 

There’s a small plastic bag he takes out of his coat pocket. It crackles lightly against the glass of a milk bottle. “Strawberry cookies. Made them myself.”

You don’t think you’ve ever received such a heartfelt gift. 

When he places them in your outstretched palm, all you can think about is the roaring heat of his hand. 

There’s a few flecks of sanguine on his crisp white shirt. When he notices you looking, he laughs awkwardly. 

“I cut myself at work,” he explains, adjusting the hazy buttons. That’s a new habit; of course he’s filled with mysteries. Since he’s Francis. 

Gently, you take his wrist and press your lips to the fabric concealing it. 

“What–” he chokes. “–what are you doing?”

“I’m kissing it better,” you reply. There’s something different about you tonight as well. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but it seems you’ve become more bold in the time you’ve met with him. “Do you want me to stop?”

It seems you’ve been intoxicated by him. 

“No,” he stammers. “Please don’t.”

Perhaps he’s been intoxicated by you too. 

It’s only when you’ve placed your lips on the tips of his fingers that you finally pull back and study his face. He’s completely flushed now, with his hair messed up and eyes wide. 

You take a bite out of the biscuit. There’s strawberries on your tongue: sweet, tangy, perfectly suited to the buttery crumble. It’s warm, as if it’s been held close to his heart. The thought makes you smile. 

It’s perfect. 

This man…

When you stand from the stool to brush the crumbs from your fingers, he stands with you. 

When you head into the kitchen area, he follows you. 

When you attempt to move past him after washing your hands at the sink, he stops you by holding onto your wrist. You could break free if you tried, but you won’t. Because it’s him.  

“Francis…” you trail off. There’s a certain look in his eyes – it’s impossibly tender.  

“Tell me you’re feeling the same as me,” he pleads, pressing your palm flat against his heart. His pulse is wild, spinning out of control like that dancer you saw all those years ago. 

Your own heartbeat roars its own feral beat; it’s a careful syncopation with his. 

You didn’t know his human heart could feel that way. 

It’s not supposed to, not like yours does. 

That heaviness – you don’t hear it with humanity. 

Your thumb brushes over those soft lips; that look in his eyes speaks of immeasurable hunger. 

“Please,” he whines, and you surge. 

Your mouth is on his, and he tastes like the strawberries you’ve just eaten. Heady. Sweet. He may have cornered you between him and the sink, but you’re in control – the two of you know it. 

Perhaps that’s why his lips part so easily. 

He’s warm – so warm. You eagerly devour him, pressing a hand to his nape and another to his waist while you take his small hisses in stride. He’s forced to tilt his head up; hands scramble for purchase in the dips of your back, seeking refuge as you roughly press into him. 

He’s intoxicating. Even when the metallic taste enters your mouth, he’s intoxicating.  

Even when you can no longer smell that milky, powdery smell on him. There’s no woody aftershave either. 

Even when you hear the sound of a familiar hum. 

He stands, frozen in the doorway. 

Your lips are on someone who looks like him. 

And you’re looking directly at him. 

Why does he look like that?

His hands are shaking, and he just looks so lost. He’s panting, as though he’s just run here – and his face is covered with small scrapes that can’t just have been from work. 

And why are you feeling this bitter pain?

You knew you could never have Francis – his world was far too removed from yours, and staying with you is dangerous. You’re cursed, doomed to stay in this intransient state. 

“No–” he chokes out. “Get away from that thing!”

Why does it hurt so much?

You thought you’d be alright giving up on him. 

He can’t enter your blood-soaked world. 

He can’t.  

It hurts. It hurts so much. 

Your heart’s breaking into pieces, but you’re still holding onto his doppelgänger and that creature’s lips are still on yours. 

Francis… 

It was nice. This little dream was nice. 

It was nice, but there are tears in your eyes and a wry smile on your lips. 

It’s ending. That fake, brief happiness is crumbling away. 

“Get away!”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” The doppelgänger’s voice finally drops to its natural pitch – low, a harsh hum reverberating through your sternum. “You caught on now?”

No. You hadn’t caught on just now. 

You had a feeling from the very beginning. 

‘That’s life (that’s life) that’s life and I can’t deny it.’

All the celestial bodies will go cold one day. It is simply a matter of waiting for the universe to turn into a graveyard of giants, undisturbed for the rest of eternity. 

There’s a gun in the cabinet behind you. If one examines it closely, you can see distinct initials that match someone working at the diner. But, surely not, right? None of your customers have suspected a thing. 

Faintly, you hear your name being called from somewhere along the periphery. 

“You need to get back, he’s dangerous!”

You pull out your gun, unlocking the mechanism with a swift click. It’s a standard-issue, given to the lieutenant-class and above – a heavy thing, unauthorised to be carried by any civilian. The bullets inside are deadlier than any ammunition used in human warfare. 

You didn’t think you’d ever use it again. 

But today, Francis will be joining the graveyard of celestial bodies. There, he’ll eventually disintegrate – not an atom will remain. 

“Francis, stay right there.” Your words are cold. Don’t you see? This is my world, Francis. 

This is my danger. 

This is what follows in my shadow. 

Don’t come near me. 

“Oh? I didn’t think you were ex-military,” the doppelgänger’s voice rumbles in its chest. “Give up. You’re no match for me. We’ve evolved past puny human capabilities.���

You didn’t think you’d ever do this again. 

Not again. 

Tears blur your vision, but you don’t need to rely on your eyes to kill. 

You need to shoot him. You need to shoot him because you love him, because he’s still alive and this thing is trying to replace him. You need to pull the trigger. 

Francis.

I love you. 

This pain – it’s too much to bear. 

When you squeeze the trigger, you repeat it like a mantra. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry.”

And there’s a smile on the doppelgänger’s lips as you shoot him, like he’s won. 

There’s blood everywhere. Splashed on the pans, coating the griddle, sliding and congealing on the bright neon signs that light up the diner in fluorescent red. Brain matter is cleaved in thousands of pieces, and you resist the urge to throw up.

Red is still red, and blood is still blood. 

When the doppelgänger’s body begins to bubble, you move without a trace of hesitation – sliding across the counter with the agility of an athlete. You’re crying – crying as you take Francis out into the pouring rain.  You’re crying, as you’re covering his body with yours – behind you, the doppelgänger’s body finally blows up and shards of the diner stick to you and maul your back. But it’s fine – he’s still alive. Your universe is living – breathing beneath you. He's warm – a human warmth, with a human pulse and a human smell. 

“You–” he murmurs, drenched in rainwater and the blood covering you. His eyes are widened, but he doesn’t look scared. He’s not scared of you. 

And you’re high, high on adrenaline and the sight of him. 

He’s alive. 

He’s not dead. 

You protected him. 

‘Many times I thought of cutting out, but my heart just won’t buy it.’

The D.D.D will get here eventually. That’s something you’ve come to accept as truth, which is why you don’t care about phoning them when the smoke rising from the place will alert them regardless. 

You pull him into an alleyway near your apartment. There’s a howling storm and a torrential downpour, but you don’t care about any of that. 

He’s warm. He’s warm, and he’s alive. 

“You’re real, right?” you murmur. Your drenched palms press into his face. He’s staring at you, tears gathering on his lash line and a shake in his bottom lip. “Francis.”

“I’m real,” he breathes, and it’s like nothing else exists in the universe. Nothing but him and you in suspended animation, within all the space-time. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not going anywhere. 

Has anyone said something like that to you before?

There’s no fear in his eyes.

What a foolish promise. 

But maybe you’re the fool for feeling the way you do about that vow. 

You’re covered in blood, but he’s looking right past that. 

“Did you know–” he chokes out, looking away. “–that he was a doppelgänger?”

Yes. I knew, and I kissed him despite knowing that. 

Francis, I can’t be with you. 

Those words race through your head, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. You can’t bring yourself to lie, either. Instead, you nod – and you can’t meet his eyes when you do so. 

“Why were you with him like that, then?” His thumb traces your jaw, mirroring the actions of your hands just moments prior. He sounds heartbroken, and you can feel tears blurring your vision once more. “Don’t tell me he’s better than me.”

“Francis,” you plead against the storm, against the deafening wind that presses against your words. “I can’t be with you.”

There’s a pause. Water soaks the two of you, but neither moves. 

“Who decided that?” He steps closer, and you swallow. His arms wrap tightly around you, and his head’s buried against your chest. He’s angry, you realise. He’s angry, because he knows exactly why you decided on that dream. 

He’s pressed skin-to-skin against you – fabric drenched through and ice-cold – and there’s a searing heat that threatens to envelope you whole. Let it, you think. I’ll give in for you. 

“Who decided that?” he repeats, mouth moving against your collarbone. If you weren’t against a wall, you think you might’ve collapsed by now. 

“Francis,” you falter. More. “Don’t you see how dangerous it is with me?” Say no. Be with me despite that. 

You’ve become selfish. 

“I don’t care,” he whispers against your flesh. “You like me, don’t you?”

I adore you. 

Don’t leave me.

You don’t say anything, but he can hear your answer in the wild drum of your pulse. 

“You’ll protect me.”

I’d give my life to serve that purpose. 

“Francis,” you rasp. There’s something coiling within you, burning up hotter and brighter than anything you’ve felt before. It sets your veins and capillaries alight, altering everything within. 

There’s a frigid downpour that freezes flesh and sinew, but you’re sweltering with him pressed against you.

Stardust coats your fingertips when you slide them beneath his chin. Beneath the rain, everything sluices away – the pain, the blood, the worry, and the hesitation.

“Use me to forget,” he breathes. “I’ll be yours.”

Fuck.

Gently, you slot your lips against his, and his eyes flutter closed. He’s hesitant – you can tell from how his hands curl open and closed against your chest. He’s hesitant, yet he presses himself against you like you’re going to disappear any minute. 

It’s funny. 

You’re thinking the exact same thing about him. 

Your fingers dig into his hips – you don’t think you’ll ever let him go.

His lips are warm – humanly warm – and he tastes explosive, like neutron stars merging. He’s divine.  

“More,” he whines into your mouth. “Please.”

With such soft lips parting just for you, who are you to refuse?

“Mm,” he gasps as you deepen the kiss, pressing your tongue into his spit-slicked mouth. Each pretty noise that escapes him snaps one more string of self-restraint of yours, until it’s all gone. You flip him, so his back’s pressed against the cold, drenched wall and your body moves against his front. 

And his hands – they’re clawing at your back and dragging against its valleys. You can feel each nail as you go rougher – eliciting more pain for you, but you couldn’t care less about that . Not when you’ve got him melting like putty as he clumsily moves his lips against yours, not when he’s desperately trying to come closer and closer and closer.  

There’s salt on your lips and copper on your tongue. Tears and blood. You can’t tell who cries. 

“More,” he pulls back from your mouth panting, choking for breath. “Please, I need more.”

Fuck.  It’s getting addicting. 

“You sure?” 

Give in.  You can’t help wanting to lose yourself in that heady sensation. 

“Please,” he begs. 

You crumble so easily. 

‘But if there’s nothing shaking, come this here July, I’m gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.’

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

Midnights is defined by duality: The story of an unreliable narrator and performance art (Part 1)

One year on, I think I've finally figured out what midnights is about. And it might surprise you.

The midnights album has just celebrated its first anniversary. And having listened to these songs for the last 12 months, staying up late to watch live streams of the Eras tour, and at times being unable to escape news about Taylor on every medium, I finally have an idea that makes all of this make sense: This is Taylor's duality era. And she wants us to notice. Join me on the ride if you want to know more :)

I made a post a few weeks ago about how the Midnights aesthetic has the ‘two Taylors’ duology: Private vs public, which is the lead theme that carries over into the music and most recently also into her public image. Midnights had a mismatched visual to it from the very beginning with the depressed 70s look (announcement photo and vinyl covers) and the glamourous midnight blue (cover image and public appearances).

The two Taylors in the Anti Hero mv really drove home the message for me that this album is about two versions of the same story, and Taylor is the writer and narrator. And while I'm sure that these two versions have existed for a lot longer than the midnights era, they have not previously been so prominently next to each other. In fact, the very point of having the public narrative, is to keep Taylor's private life out of the public eye. She has never shied away from providing the 'stories' that her fans want to see in order to relate to her music, and as the girl that made her fame with songs about heartbreak and fairytale princes, that usually meant being seen with a man that these songs could be attributed to. And she made sure people would make the connection, be it with scarves that change ownership, or foxes on shirts:

(Btw you can't deny how effective this was, with just a few photos she managed to hang an entire album on each of these men!)

So, acting is not new to Taylor. In addition to appearing in a few feature films and TV shows since 2010, she's done this public performance for well over a decade now. And she has been vocal in recent years about her intention to go into filmmaking, so we know she's able to tell stories in multiple ways. She's a storyteller first and foremost, maybe the best of our generation. But is she a reliable narrator?

What does 'unreliable narrator' mean?

A story told by a so-called unreliable narrator, is usually a first person narration, where it turns out that the person telling the story was either lying or in some other way unable to give a truthful account of events (e.g. hallucinating or dreaming). That usually means that the audience is left with having to interpret for themselves what really happened and what was real or not real. Famous examples of this kind of storytelling are the 2010 psycho thriller 'Black Swan' with Natalie Portman, or the YA novel 'We were liars' by E. Lockhart. If you like stories that leave you guessing, check those out ;)

So, why is Taylor an unreliable narrator? For those fans that have paid attention to her lyrics, it has long been evident that her songwriting and public narrative don't match up. The most obvious theme being her 17-year run of writing songs about secret relationships and hiding, while she was parading men around in public to be photographed with. But, as we know, most people ignore it because it's just easier than digging deeper into lyrics. But now with Midnights, I'm starting to think she wants people to notice the duality and start to question her narrative. The sheer number of songs on that album that have strong double meaning or draw attention to lying or distorting the truth is astonishing: Right out the gate with track 1 we have Lavender Haze, a pretty loud song about bearding using the very well established queer reference of lavender. (And maybe she leaned out of the window a little too far with that title, because we all know the gaylor uproar was so loud when the title was revealed, that she had to backpedal and hetsplain it.) Immediately followed by Maroon, the song that has probably singlehandedly turned the most swifties into gaylors since Bettygate of 2020... Then on to Anti Hero, the ultimate duality song that also makes mention of lying and scheming, same as Mastermind. High Infidelity and You're Losing Me join the ranks of songs that look like they are about romantic relationships on the surface, but could also be interpreted to be about Taylor's relationship with fame and her fans. High Infidelity is a play on words of the term High Fidelity or HIFI, which is a 90s sound technology that refers to truthful reproduction of sound. High INfidelity is therefore a genius way of referring to both cheating and unfaithful reproduction of sound, almost like someone who makes music that isn't quite truthful... We also know from Aaron Dessner that this song was written following the 2021 Grammys and in the light of the whole William Bowery grammygate situation... I think there is point to be made about this song drawing attention to lying in a big way.

The timing of the release of You're losing me right around the time that her breakup with Joe made the news also feeds the narrative of a breakup song. But in this very 'breakup song' she says You say, "I don't understand," and I say, "I know you don't" and talks about sending signals that fall on deaf ears. Doesn't that sound an awful lot like 'I gave so many signs'? What does she know the addressee won't understand? Is it that when she finally reveals all her lies 90% of her fans will be shocked to their very core? On the exclusive CD version that has this track on it, it also immediately follows Dear Reader which on the track list looks like this:

Dear Reader You're Losing me (Does that look like a message? I think it does...)

By the time we make it to Dear Reader, she's basically told us 'I'm a liar who hides behind fake lavender relationships who charms everyone like a sleezy congressman, I'm the narcissistic Anti Hero you can't trust who schemes like a criminal and plans out everything like the puppet master I am, just so you like me and therefore you shouldn't look up to me, but I know you still will.' If that doesn't scream 'I want you to question everything I say or do' I don't know what does. Which brings us to performance art.

What is performance art?

Performance art is any kind of visual art that involves a dramatic performance aspect. To explain how this relates to Taylor and who she may have taken inspiration from, I refer to the brilliant Kristina Parro on TikTok:

Ok, groundwork is laid, but this is getting too long. Part 2 will be relating this to upcoming music releases and media coverage but that will have to wait til tomorrow.

As always, thanks for humouring me guys!