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mauesartetc · 1 year

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Thoughts on Helluva Boss 206 ("Oops")

Holy shit, is this episode... kind of okay? It still has issues and weird quirks that hold it back from being truly good, but I'd say this is one of the better Season 2 entries. At least it's good enough that I have a sufficiently-sized, dedicated "pros" list again. Let's get into it.

Pros:

-FINALLY, we have an mlm couple worth rooting for in this show. Fuck that Stolitz bullshit; Fizz and Ozzie are where it's at. ("Fozzie"? Yeah, that works.)

They're actually kind and caring with each other, they're playful and know how to laugh together, and they treat each other like equals rather than one partner fetishizing and sexually harassing the other. Hell, Ozzie even tends to Fizz's wounds at the end of the episode, and it's powerful to see a high-ranking demon in this society show tenderness and concern for a lowly imp. In a previous post, I expressed my doubts that Fizz and Ozzie's relationship would be any good, but I'm glad to report I was wrong.

-I liked seeing a glimpse of what one of these characters outside of the IMP team does for a day job. Approving designs at the dildo factory? Ehh, it's a livin'. (Though this once again begs the question of why demons live in a capitalistic society nearly identical to that of the US in the human world. Why do they need money to reinforce the social hierarchy when the larger, more powerful demons have special abilities and can just crush the smaller ones like bugs?)

-The heart-shaped flames in Ozzie's fireplace were a nice touch.

And they actually referenced Asmodeus' traditional fire-breathing ability at the end. Neat!

-Oh wow, one of the characters is finally floating the idea of Blitzo using an Asmodean crystal for transportation instead of the grimoire! THANK you!

And at the episode's close, Fizz permits Ozzie to give Blitzo a crystal, meaning he won't be dependent on Stolas anymore. Possible plot progression? How will this affect Stolas and Blitzo's relationship in the future? Would they still be in each other's lives even when the book isn't a factor? I hesitate to get my hopes too high due to the worrying possibility of Blitzo's crystal getting lost or damaged and forcing him to use the book again (though as to why he can't just steal a crystal and use that, I haven't the faintest idea). But I'm cautiously optimistic.

-I liked Stolas getting a chance to show some brain power in helping Ozzie negotiate the contract. This also gave us a nice tidbit of worldbuilding that states any contract signed by one of the Seven Sins is eternally binding. Is this foreshadowing? Will this information come up again in the story? Probably not, but it's fun to dream.

-It was interesting to see Blitzo, Fizz, and Striker have a conversation about each of their relationships with Hell's upper class, though it had potential to be SO much deeper and more authentic (which I'll get into momentarily).

-This is where I learned the white bits on Blitzo and Fizz's skin are actually burns. I always thought Fizz was wearing face paint and Blitzo had some form of vitiligo or something, but the reason he's burned on that side of his face is that it's where the explosion hit him. And Fizz's entire face is white for the same reason, except for his nose, since he was wearing a fake clown nose at the time. It's nice that they kept those details consistent in the flashback.

-Look, I know it's a low bar for most shows, but I appreciated how the story actually gave Blitzo a chance to apologize and redeem himself at the climax rather than making Fizz just forgive him apropos of nothing.

-Oh hey, one of Blitzo's relationships has actually progressed. He and Fizz, after hating each other for years, have made amends. I really hope this friendship doesn't revert to what it was before, like Blitzo and Moxxie's relationship did. But I don't think that'll be the case since Fizz isn't the story's designated whipping boy.

-It was nice how Fizz and Ozzie's respective interactions with Blitzo and Stolas helped them grow and change. I mean, Ozzie still isn't comfortable with anyone outside the palace having definitive knowledge about his romance with Fizz, but baby steps, y'know?

Cons:

-So Crimson's aware he just showed his face to an extremely high-ranking demon, right? He comments that Ozzie is the "weakest" of the Seven Sins, but he's still goddamn royalty, and Crimson is an imp. What's stopping him from sending someone to wipe out Crimson's entire gang after getting Fizz back, or doing it himself like it's implied he did with the lawyer? Crim really couldn't have disguised his voice and stayed in the shadows? Rookie mistake.

Come to think of it, Striker was in that video too, and it never occurred to Stolas, "Oh shit, that's the guy who almost killed me"? Again I have to ask, why isn't Stolas sending people after him? He's a prince, after all, and canonically commands multiple legions of demons. Why the fuck are you allowing this guy to run free, dude?

-I was kinda looking forward to seeing Crimson again, but his reintroduction would have been much more emotionally powerful if it involved getting revenge on Moxxie, which is what the ending of Exes and Oohs implied he now wants. And I know I've said before how going too many episodes without a mention of Striker diminished his menace, but did he have to show up just two episodes after his last appearance?

In general, Oops feels like it has too many returning "guest stars", if that makes sense. Fizz, Ozzie, Crimson, Striker... that's a lot to pack into one episode. Maybe instead of Crimson and Striker, we could have a new villain holding Blitzo and Fizz hostage.

-Speaking of the villains, MAN are they shoveling handfuls of Stupid Pills into their mouths. When Fizz sings his little distraction musical number, they just stand and watch instead of, oh, I don't know, trying to capture him?! Like damn, Crimson and Striker used to be credible threats. This is just embarrassing.

-Also, I know they need to keep Fizz alive until the ransom money comes through, but what reason do they have not to immediately waste Blitzo? Striker hates him for thwarting his assassination of Stolas, and Crimson hates him for crashing his son's arranged wedding. Are they trying to get Stolas to cough up some dough as well? Because that's a pretty major plot development that the script should have made clear to the audience. Basically, the only reasons Blitzo lived through this ordeal are that he has main character plot armor and the villains are being uncharacteristically dumb.

-As expected, in Stolas' subsequent appearance following Western Energy, he's out of the hospital. But I didn't predict he'd be completely recovered from his wounds. Seriously, not even a limp.

Stolas getting hurt was a consequence that impacted absolutely nothing outside of that episode. Are we going to see any scars later on, or perhaps Stolas getting uncomfortable at the sight of knives? Because of how wildly inconsistent this show's continuity can be, I'm guessing no. (And since we don't know how long it normally takes for demons to heal from angelic weapon-inflicted injuries, it doesn't help us get any sense of how much time has passed in the story.)

-Actually, if a royal fucking an imp is such a taboo in this world, why did Ozzie agree to meet with Stolas at all, let alone act so hospitable toward him? If Ozzie's so concerned about his own image regarding imps, wouldn't allowing a known imp-canoodler into his home raise a few eyebrows? More importantly, why in the actual hell does he have a giant, sexy painting of him and Fizz on display in his office where anyone can see it?

And that brings up another question: Why is Ozzie's relationship with an imp being covered in the tabloids, but Stolas' relationship isn't? You might think, "Well, he's a lower-ranked noble, so it's not as newsworthy" but if that's the case, why was there a crowd of reporters snappin' pics when he arrived at the hospital?

"Well y'see it's not really the imp-fucking that's frowned upon; it's the imp romance!" Then why did everyone at Ozzie's club make such a huge stink about Stolas coming there with an imp? The club is located in the Lust ring, where romance is seen as disgusting, so we can safely presume the vast majority of the couples at that club are just fucking. It would be bad form to take someone you're openly romantically involved with to a Lust ring establishment (lookin' at you, Moxxie). Therefore, the patrons and Ozzie himself had every reason to presume Stolas and Blitzo were having sex, and just happened to be right. (Also, if nobles fucking imps were actually no big deal in this world, Stella probably wouldn't have an issue with it either.)

The worldbuilding's an inconsistent mess, is what I'm saying. And Beelzebub's relationship with a hellhound is also strangely unaddressed, making that episode feel even less connected to canon than it already did.

-Man, Stolas is kinda oversharing here, isn't he. It'd be fine if a character who's already been established to let their mouth wander were doing this, but Stolas hasn't previously shown any signs of that.

He reveals he has feelings for Blitzo, to the ruler of a ring whose culture frowns on romance. And... he just expects him to be cool with that, for some reason. At this point he doesn't have solid proof that Ozzie is in love with Fizz; those are just rumors. So this is an extreme lack of tact he's displaying. Also, Ozzie ain't your therapist, dude. And as far as we know they're just acquaintances, not close friends. He could have just skipped to requesting the favor; Ozzie didn't need to know his reasons. Sure, tell him if he asks, but he didn't ask. Or maybe just hint at Stolas' feelings through subtext: His expressions, body language, and all the words he can't say. Visual medium, people.

-For that matter, why is this seemingly the first thing on Stolas' mind right now? "Oh, y'know, I'm going through a very messy divorce and my wife sent a hit man to kill me, and he's still on the loose, probably killing other people as we speak, but can you do this wittle favor for my fuckbuddy, pwease?" We could have just had a quick scene outside Ozzie's office where Stolas communicates with one of his lieutenants regarding updates on the search for Striker. And the reason he's not searching with them? He's still recovering from his injuries. Give him a wheelchair, a cane, a cast, just something to show he's not physically up to it yet. Without this information, where in the actual fuck are his priorities.

-"I know your demons are some of the only ones who can traverse freely and legally." Y'know... This is Hell... Why is legality even an issue in this setting? I think I touched on this for Exes and Oohs, which revealed the existence of Hell Jail. But why is there a Hell Jail? Why are there (presumably) Hell Cops? How does any of this make sense in an environment that thrives on chaos and discord? Oh, and Hell Lawyers are apparently a thing too, because of course. This is why you don't want to build your fantasy world with too many elements that exist in the real one unless you have airtight logic for it.

-When Ozzie tells Stolas Fizz hates Blitzo, his response is, "He does?" The fuck do you mean, Stolas. You were at the club. You witnessed Fizz point out Blitzo in an effort to humiliate him, call him a "total disgrace", and refer to his love life as a "pile of shit". You should already know he hates him. Sure, Stolas doesn't know why yet, but this is why you need editors to cut the parts of your dialogue that don't make any sense.

-I'm not sure what this show's actual stance on the ultra-wealthy is. Fizz tells Blitzo, "Sounds like you just hate him for being a prince", as if princes are a group that's commonly discriminated against-? Sure, a person has no control over being born into extreme wealth and privilege, but they can control how they use it. And when they don't use it to make society better for everyone (opting instead to hoard all the resources for themselves), that will naturally breed resentment in the lower classes.

Another odd thing I noticed about this conversation: You know that one rule in the Bechdel-Wallace test that states a work of fiction's female characters must talk about something other than a man in order for that work to pass? This instance makes me think we need a similar media test regarding class, because here we have three lower-class characters talking only about rich people. Not the societal systems and personal histories that led them to rely so much on rich folks just to get by, but about the rich folks themselves. Hell, Blitzo even says "Royal demons don't give a shit about guys like us", clearly more concerned about wealthy people's opinion of him than the untenable situation their complacence and wealth-hoarding has caused for countless imps. In this scene, the "haves" are very much at the center of the have-nots' universe, and it puts me in mind of a male writer who assumes the only things women discuss with each other are their relationships with men.

Now let's talk about Striker. Time and time again the show has painted him as unreasonable for hating royals, and while his methods are extreme, there's probably a rational explanation for why he holds the views he does (at least if he's being written in a thoughtful, realistic way, which is a MAJOR stretch for this show. But for the sake of this discussion, let's say he hypothetically is). The average imp in this world would have good reason to hold a vague dislike for the royals, but hatred? Passionate hatred? That comes from a deep, personal place. At least one "blue blood" must have done something unforgivable to Striker specifically, and I wish the show would properly explore his motivations. Maybe drop some hints about his backstory once in a while, perhaps in this very conversation? Because this show's villains are really hurtin' for some nuance, and Striker's the one with the most potential for it.

It feels like the writers were trying to say something about real-world issues here, but the message got muddled. Part of it seems to be "don't make broad generalizations about people", which... Okay, nice thought, but if Stolas isn't using his power to improve life for all imps, not just Blitzo, Blitzo has no reason to believe his affection is genuine. For all he knows, imps are still just a fetish to Stolas, and he's only acting nice to keep him around. His love, to Blitzo's mind, is entirely conditional, and until he sees evidence that nobles contribute anything of substance to society, he's not wrong in thinking they don't care and "They're all the fuckin' same". Maybe he'll change his mind if Stolas calls off their deal and offers to hang out with no sex and no strings attached. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

-Also, this was an unintentionally-hilarious gem:

CRIMSON: Hey, hick-for-hire! I said watch 'em, not fuck 'em!

STRIKER: (Immediately leaves)

Great watchin' there, bud. And Crimson is smiling despite Striker going against his orders-? I mentioned in the Exes and Oohs review that there was a disconnect between Crimson's dialogue and what was actually being shown on screen. Old habits die hard, I guess.

-"Everlastingly binding", Stolas? You can't just say "eternally binding", which has the same meaning and would flow more naturally? Under normal circumstances this would feel like a nitpick, but Stolas' phrasing was weird in Western Energy too. He told Blitzo he was "stolen" when "kidnapped" would have been more fitting, seeing as he's a person, not an object. (Hell, he could've just said "spirited away" if they wanted to be fancy with it.) This is a character who's supposed to be well-read, being written by someone who thinks this is how bookish people talk. An abundance of syllables doesn't equal eloquence.

-So if we take a closer look at what Blitzo is holding in the flashback, we see he has a flower and an envelope sealed with a heart sticker, with "For Fizz's eyes only" written on it. This implies he was about to confess his love for Fizz. And in Fizz's flashback, we see Blitzo's dad handing him a card that says "Wish You Were My Son", which I guess is what upset Blitzo and made him storm off, causing the fire.

But those important details are very "blink-and-you'll-miss-it". I didn't catch the card at first, so Blitzo's angry reaction left me very confused. It looked like he saw Fizz being happy on his birthday and just left in tears for no reason. Yes, a good show trusts the audience to piece things together themselves, but we shouldn't have to pause the episode and play it back to see if we missed some crucial element that flashed on screen for two seconds.

-Also, like... Why does romance need to be a part of it. These two have known each other and worked closely together since they were kids, so isn't that kind of like Blitzo having a crush on who was essentially a brother figure? I don't know, it just felt shoehorned in, like Blitzo needs some kind of flirtation or dalliance (or good ol' sexual harassment in Moxxie's case) with every single man in his life except his dad.

-I'm getting tired of these flashbacks dialing the angst and trauma levels up to 11. "This kid was horribly burned... ON HIS BIRTHDAY!" "This kid's best friend was horribly burned... AND HE LOST HIS MOM!" For fuck's sake, it's like these writers are brainstorming what the grimmest possible outcome could be in a given situation, and using that to ostensibly wring some tears out of the audience. Here's the thing, though: We never knew Blitzo's mom. We never saw what her personality was like or what their relationship was like, therefore we can't get nearly as sad as the writers want us to be when she dies.

Think back to past animated stories that did this right. You know why the deaths of Bambi's mom, Littlefoot's mom, and Mufasa were all so heartbreaking? Because we got to know them. We saw how joyful they were in life. How strong, how wise. So it stung all the more deeply when we knew what their children lost.

Blitzo's mom isn't even a character, really. She's a prop the writers are using to exploit the audience's emotions, which is even more unfortunate when you realize that's what Moxxie's mom was, too.

So let's say you're a writer and you want a character to feel guilty about a horrible accident they caused, so horrible that it almost killed their best friend. Okay... It almost killed their best friend. That should be more than enough to make anyone feel guilty, right? Well apparently the Spindle crew felt the need to heap even more guilt onto Blitzo by making that accident also kill his mom. Why wasn't Fizz enough? Why did yet another nameless female character have to lose her life? If Blitzo needed something to distract him from Fizz's pleas for help, you'd think trying to put out the massive fire would suffice, but apparently not. It's all just so forced and manipulative.

-"You're all I had left, Fizz." Wow, so Barb's just chopped liver, huh? Jesus, Blitzo. No wonder she hates you.

-This drawing of Striker's face foreshortens his snout way too much, making it look a lot shorter than it really is.

And for those who haven't seen the episode, this is a held frame, not an inbetween or smear or anything like that, so there's really no excuse for it to look like this. Let's try to suggest more length and structure in the snout, and eliminate the tangents in his smile while we're at it.

I know drawing characters with long snouts can be tricky in a front view like this, but that's what turnaround sheets are for.

-What's ironic about the song "Look at This" is that it's a perfect analogy for how this show uses slick, flashy animation to distract its audience from the amateurish writing. Just an observation.

-Fizz goes on WAY too long about how big Ozzie's dick is. Yeah, great, we get it. Move on, show.

-"Why is it always a sex thing?!" I'm with Striker on this one. Almost every queer male character on this show is preoccupied with sex to an unreasonable degree. I mean Fizz is boinking the actual embodiment of lust and has had sex robots made of himself, so the horniness kinda makes sense for his character, but Blitzo? Stolas? Even Moxxie had his moment where he said "Harder..." to Striker, though that was just to get his guard down. Still, though. It's excessive, guys. It's tired. Come up with some new material.

-FIZZ: You blew me up again, you fuckin' prick!

BLITZO: I did. But this time I stuck around.

Ehh, feels like those lines would have been much stronger if Fizz said them both. Here it sounds like Blitzo's just defending himself, as if he saved Fizz not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he wanted to score brownie points with him. Just feels a little manipulative of him, and out of sync with the more genuine moments the episode showed us earlier. Maybe something more like this:

FIZZ: You blew me up again, you fuckin' prick! (Blitzo looks down, ashamed. But then Fizz realizes something.) But... I'm glad you stuck around this time. (He smiles and hugs Blitzo.)

Allowing Fizz to come to that conclusion on his own is so much more powerful than Blitzo spoon-feeding it to him. Oh, and by the way...

-"Would it fuck up the moment if we made out right now?" Yeah, Blitzo. Yeah it would. Much like how this show can't allow an emotional scene to breathe without making a joke. It's not quite as bad as the tone whiplash with Crimson's wall dildos, but it does spoil the moment a bit.

Overall, not the worst Helluva Boss episode. Not the best, but not the worst. I fully expect the next one to be pointless filler that doesn't advance the story, though, so I might skip it. The problem is, this show's quality boomerangs from bad to okay to bad again in the span of a few episodes. One episode might get my hopes up, the next might dash them, and then there's this morbid curiosity in wondering if the next one might be the one that I finally love. I wanted to like this show so badly (gotta support that indie animation and all), but dear God, this writing.

It's still possible the series could evolve into something great, but my patience in waiting for that is very nearly worn out. Maybe (and that's a GIGANTIC maybe) I'll stick it out to the end of the season, but if the finale sucks, I'm done. Anyway, I need a palate cleanse, so here's more Fizz and Ozzie to end this on a positive note.

#helluva boss #helluva critical #review #critique #writing #rewrite #long post #worldbuilding #redline

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presiding · 4 months

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Another question regarding the fic. I wanted to make it short but couldn't word it this way

I liked how you choose lethal elimination of Breanna in your monster in the hull fic. Was it done from Emily's character perspective or do you think that Ashworth is a lost cause herself?

Personally,i always felt conflicted on that matter. She's too dependant on Delilah.

Her whole freedom is about running away from an unwanted marriage with an old man to relationship with a woman.

And yet,was she truly free in a witch coven or Delilah made her a caged bird? I think that Breanna's feelings are genuine but they became twisted with time.

DH2 (to some degree) makes me feel as she could've had a normal life. She became a curator of conservatory on her own before Delilah started communication with the coup through the void.

And still...she returned to her again once she got an opportunity.

Such an interesting character and there surely something is up with Delilah's arcane bond.

BREANNA!!! BREANNA ASK WOO

tysm you're so kind 😭♥♥ you sent me another ask with a fantastic analysis and i'll publish that as soon as i can work out how to add spoiler warnings but! YES! YOU GET IT!

talking about breanna in canon - yeah i totally agree! yes yes yessss

i think breanna's feelings for delilah are 100% genuine. to put it entirely in metaphor, i can't see her as being a caged bird, i'd describe her as trap-happy instead! though --- she viciously defends her cage from anyone who gets too close. i like that she's dependent on delilah and i would argue she likes it too.

the main thing that bothers me is that in low chaos/canon, breanna, after losing her powers, seems to immediately give up. from memory she says deliiah will have no use for her now.

i know that's meant to reflect more on delilah, and breanna's deep understanding of what drives delilah as well as her acceptance of it (😭), but i can't help but headcanon that she wouldn't give up on delilah so easily. whether its, as you say, a return to some semblance of normal life (aka biding her time), or an obsessive hunt for delilah, i also don't think she'd ever get over it really.

the lengths breanna might have gone to find delilah again, are really interesting to think about!

(from a gameplay perspective i see why they wrote it so that she just gives up - it's a convenient low chaos ending for her to stop being a threat to the protagonist.)

talking about the monster in the hull - generally when i choose the fate of a character in a fic, my primary concern is, what am i trying to say with the piece of writing overall? as opposed to how i feel about the character specifically. i have been accused of being ruthless before when it comes to character deaths, but i don't like making anyone miserable unless there's a reason for it. i'm a softie who, unfortunately, loves themes ™ so sometimes i have to pick whose story i'm exploring, and how am i doing that, and then pare back from there.

though the monster in the hull is a Dishonored 2 rewrite, i wanted this to be primarily about meagan foster, and secondarily, emily's relationship with meagan (with a few other running commentaries/themes as well - namely monsterhood, power, guilt/regret, family).

i wrote it a year ago so my memory's hazy but the main things that made me decide on a lethal approach for breanna, was:

emily at the halfway point in the fic is a loose canon, and even if she has taken a genuine shine to meagan foster she still needs to be a threat

loose canon as distinct from high chaos - her heart is in the right spot but she's still lashing out. and she's still behaving fairly self-centredly - she wants to do the right thing but hasn't gotten her new powers under control.

all emily's attempts to crack meagan's facade... have come to nothing. meagan is keeping her mouth shut. so finding out the hard way that meagan DID have a relationship with emily's greatest enemy - delilah painted her! - and all this time she's said nothing - she's so pissed off she fumbles a mission that technically she could have ghosted through.

and by the time she gets back to the boat, she's eerily calm about it - which is why i went with the canon dialogue.

billie's prior relationship with the witches means she has a high investment in the outcome of this mission. but! she knows she was a coward by choosing to not say anything to emily beforehand!

so to find out that emily has been ruthless, and yet is acting like she's fine, is really to twist the knife of fear. meagan's been wondering this whole time what she's gotten herself into, and she just found out - not even breanna, who was both powerful and meticulous, was able to save herself from emily

but of course... there's still the assassin beneath her meagan mask, so they are both concerningly detached in a way.

not to mention! the implied jealousy <3 as a treat!

oh and from memory! i think later on sokolov was absolutely roasting emily for having killed breanna. you know you've fucked up when sokolov is the voice of reason.

there was a delilah plotline i was considering, but i ended up cutting, in which breanna would have played more of a role, but i realised it was going to blow my word count estimate out of the water. funnily enough every time i draft up something with delilah in it, she takes over really quickly. very on brand!

thank you SO much for the kind words again and thanks for letting me ramble in response here, its really really really nice to see that people are still reading the fics that held me hostage so it's super lovely of you 💓💓💓thank you for making my day!

#dishonored #breanna ashworth #delilah copperspoon #billie lurk #emily kaldwin #sorry for adding the character tags i just assume there's like. 5 of us or so still around talking about the dishonored gals #and was wondering what others think about breanna and delilah also #tysm skemford always so nice to see you on my feed <3 #pres writes essays

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tiffanylamps · 1 year

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Tag game to better know you

Thank you @katierosefun and @ettelwenailinon for tagging me! You're both so sweet to think of me for this :) what book are you currently reading? i suck at sticking to books, but at the moment, I'm making my way through Vermeer by Norbert Schneider. Vermeer is one of my favourite artists, so I enjoy reading about his work. (The Milkmaid is my favourite painting of his).

what’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? i don't thiiiiiiink I've been to the cinema this year. But my favourite film I've seen this year is The Merciless (2017).

what do you usually wear? during the hotter months, it'll be shorts and tank top, but only if I'm at home. Outdoors, I tend to wear high neck tops, trousers, skirts, dresses, and a jacket (if it's not too hot). I much prefer cooler months because I like to hide behind an oversized jacket/coat lol. Basically, smart casual, nothing short or too low cut.

how tall are you? 5'10", baby!!! Sometimes a bit shorter, sometimes taller. It depends on... idk... stuff. things.

what’s your star sign? do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? i'm an Aries (with a Leo sun and Gemini rising 🙃🙃). I share my birthday with Bette Davis and Hayley Atwell, so not too bad. Ah! I also share my birthday with my granddad. As for historical events, it mainly involves historical figures returning home, the Mayflower returning to England, Europeans discovering Easter Island- things of that nature. But an actual cool one is that the first performance of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony in D took place in 1803 on me birthday

do you go by your name or a nickname? my nickname. I HATED my name when I was a child and I wouldn't let anyone refer me to do it. The only person who has consistently called me by my actual name is my sister. I'm now over the reasons why I didn't like it back then. My only gripe with it now is that it sounds very similar to a more popular name, so people mishear my name all the time.

did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? nahhh. When I was about 3 or 4, my sights were on becoming a dog in my future... I am yet to figure that one out without putting on a fursuit or committing crimes against god, man, science, and one's own good taste.

are you in a relationship? if not, who is your crush if you have one? i am. it's mine and my boyfriend's 9-year anniversary at the end of the month. i do have many crushes, which are mainly for every pretty woman i see lol

what’s something you’re good at vs something you’re bad at? i think i'm pretty good at analysing and dissecting things that interest me, it can be a piece of media or a topic of debate/conversation. i am bad at maaaaaany things, one of them is being a friend to myself

dogs or cats? both, duh!! i have a cat at the moment, but i do wish to have a dog in future (and maybe 3 cats in total lol)

if you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year? probably the entire second chapter to my vampire fic. yeah, sorry, i can't pick out a particular line, i like the whole chapter ngl

what is something that you’d like to create content for? i'd like to finish my beyond evil projects 😭 and maybe write something for the merciless. (i do have gifs for the merciless that are just sitting in my drafts, waiting for me to feel confident enough to post them lol)

what’s something you’re currently obsessed with? playing the sims 4 and listening to the rotten mango podcast as i play. that's how i spend most of my evenings lol

what’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? jfc i was about to say something so emo. i'll go with more light-hearted examples instead. uhm, the f1 drivers' and constructor's championship standings (it's not over yet, but it's pretty obvious who is going to win 😒). the new taylor swift + hayley williams song. the final season of ted lasso (i love that show, but the ending was a bit naff).

what’s a hidden talent of yours? hm, it's too rude for tumblr

are you religious? nope! i grew up as a jehovah witness in a pretty strict household. although now that i'm older and i look into other people's experiences within that cult, i can see that i got lucky with my parents. they let us kids do things that were against the rules, but that still didn't stop me from sustaining a bit of religious trauma and internalised homophobia 😤 i'm still salty about my religious upbringing.

what’s something you wish to have at this moment? money, direction, a different place to live (preferably nicer/bigger), and for my cat's x-rays and blood work not to come back with anything too serious

anyway, i hope my answers weren't too boring haha. much love! no pressure tags: @l-tyrell @loisroo @hanjuwonsupporter @sensazioneultra

#tag game #thank you <3 #i tried my best to resist rambling on about unimportant details #gotta give myself a big pat on the back for that one lol

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animebw · 2 years

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Short Reflection: Call of the Night

Genuine question: is the Monogatari series still relevant in today’s weebdom? I know when I started getting into anime back in 2017, it was still hot on everyone’s mind. But now that it’s finished airing, I wonder if Shaft’s decade-long arthouse supernatural romantic dramedy still holds the same pull it used to. Will weebs of today and tomorrow still hold it in high regard, or are we leaving it behind for greener pastures, preferably pastures with at least 90% less child molestation? Perhaps only time will tell. But one thing’s for sure: as long as longtime series director Tomoyuki Itamura is still putting out new work, the spirit of Monogatari will never truly die. And if you’ve been missing that magic in your life, then Call of the Night is here to fill the hole left by its absence. A vampire story set in the supernatural underbelly of ordinary society that’s sort of but not really about romance? Check. Dialogue that crackles with the snap of a writer perhaps a little too impressed with himself? Check. A trippy, gorgeous visual aesthetic that paints the normal world like you’ve never seen it before? Check. Problematic elements up the wazoo? Oh, you better believe that’s a check. Monogatari may be gone, but Call of the Night is proof that its spirit will live on for quite some time to come, for better or worse.

So, the story. Ko Yamori is an average fourteen-year-old kid, does well in school, gets along with people, perfectly normal and content. Until one day he just... isn’t. Suddenly, that normalcy he built his life around starts to feel suffocating and unbearable, the mores of normal life a prison he yearns to break out of. So, he does what any rebellious would do: he stars going out in the dead of night, wandering the empty city streets that were so full and bustling in the day. In this weird nocturnal universe, both familiar and alien, Yamori finds an escape from the pressures of society, a place where he can just exist. He also finds vampires. Or rather, he finds a vampire: the flighty, snarky Nazuna Nanakusa who eagerly pulls him deeper into the night’s siren call. She’s as much of an awkward mess as he is, albeit in different ways, but the two of them find an extremely powerful comfort in each other. And Yamori, feeling more alive at night than he ever did during the day, decides to become a vampire himself, an eternal denizen of the early AM alongside Nazuna. The catch? In order to become a vampire, Yamori has to be in love with Nazuna when she sucks his blood. And there are few things that Yamori feels less of a connection to than romance.

It’s certainly a unique take on the vampire mythos: what happens when a supernaturally beautiful undead and a confused aromantic delinquent decide to start hanging out? And while Call of the Night is certainly a horny show- if you’ve seen Monogatari, you know exactly the kind of lavishly detailed body part fanservice you’re in for- I appreciate how low-key it keeps most of its sexual elements. Sex is part of the equation, but rarely in a distracting way; the real appeal comes from the complicated emotions and relationships that grow among its cast. Nazuna and Yamori aren’t the only ones awake at night, after all, and as the show goes on, we meet a wide cast of characters with their own reasons to shrink from the light of day. Stress at work, alienation from classmates, the thrill of a new experience, wallowing in misery... the night in Call of the Night is at once a fully fleshed-out setting and the thematic crux behind its ruminations on society. Night is where people go to be free, to escape, to leave everything behind and start fresh. But it’s also where people go to sink, to succumb, to stagnate in an entirely new way. Sometimes, it’s all of those things at once. Who’s to say what drives people to leave the waking world behind?

And Call of the Night is at its best when it’s leaning into that ennui. As a grand metaphor for societal alienation, there is so much powerful and captivating about, well, the call of the night. It’s a beautiful portrayal of the myriad of reasons we seek to leave the familiar behind, and the unexpected discoveries we make when we step into the unknown, for good or ill. It’s wandering a place you’ve never been before and letting yourself just happen upon whatever comes your way. It’s discovering a new subculture and finding a community there among like-minded weirdos and outcasts. It’s the unexpected rush of danger when you realize that this new, exciting world has problems just as terrifying as the one you left behind. And it doesn’t hurt that the character banter is uniformly fantastic, the music is a lo-fi-beats-to-relax-to masterpiece, and the gorgeous color palette makes for the single most alluring nightscape I’ve ever seen. Seriously, the way Itamura brings life to the empty 2 AM streets and overexposed city lights is some absolutely mind-expanding shit. It makes me want to wander a city’s streets at night myself, experiencing the same entrancing pull as any of these wallpaper-worthy shots.

But like I said above, it wouldn’t be in the spirit of Monogatari if there wasn’t some cringe-ass problematic content amidst all this artistic genius. The most obvious issue is the giant, raging Oedipus complex this show has; it reeeeeeally likes to build sexual tension between the fourteen-year-old protagonist and the very adult vampire women in his orbit. It’s never specified exactly what age all the immortal bloodsuckers are, but they definitely all read mature in an often fetish-y way, Nazuna included. Which, you know, there’s always gonna be some unavoidable issues when you’re writing a story about a human in love with an ageless being who can live for hundreds of years, and vampire fiction isn’t exactly new to this territory. So on the one hand, I can’t really blame Call of the Night for wearing its onee-san kink so proudly on its sleeve. But by the time you reach the final arc and there’s an actual human woman putting the moves on Yamori, it starts to feel like author Kotoyama has some serious childhood issues he needs to work through.

That said, there’s another issue here that’s a lot more subtle, but also makes me a lot more uncomfortable. Let’s cut right to the chase: Call of the Night has a weird habit of bringing up something sexist and predatory that men do to women, but writing it in a scenario where it’s kind of the woman’s fault. The gyaru vampire has a stalker who literally tries to break down the door of the karaoke both she’s in, but he quickly realizes his mistake and it’s portrayed more as the gyaru’s fault for listlessly going through relationships and not giving them that much thought. There’s a subplot about someone taking sneak photos in a changing room, but it turns out it was just one of the girls taking photos of herself to try and boost her online popularity. The final arc kicks off with an attack from a savage vampire that has some very loaded imagery of him attacking and menacing Yamori’s female classmate Akira, but he’s dispatched with a peaceful goodbye and it’s implied he was led astray by a female vampire who turned him into a monster. Time and again, this show sets itself up to comment on misogynist attitudes and actions, but backs off from it and makes it all about some girl’s mistakes leading to this point. And I’m genuinely not sure if Kotoyama was doing this intentionally, didn’t realize the implications, or wanted to explore this theme but chickened out. Either way, it’s a weird noxious undercurrent that isn’t immediately obvious, but becomes impossible to ignore once you’re aware of it. I’m not asking the horny vampire show to be some grand feminist statement, but it would be nice if it didn’t feel so dumb about gender roles, especially since a big part of its finale explicitly calls attention to the limits of gender roles and the importance of moving beyond them, Kind of a mixed message, that’s all I’m saying.

But you know what? if I could stomach the worst of Monogatari’s missteps to enjoy that show on its own terms, I can stomach this. Call of the Night may have its missteps, but it’s one of the most engrossing shows I watched all season, as eclectic and singular as its older sibling before it. It’s a deliciously captivating look at what inspires people to throw off the shackles of conformity, and what new questions one finds to ponder after crossing to the other side. It’s an alluring show about the nature of allure itself, and it mesmerized me like few anime ever do. So why not answer its call yourself? You might just find something beautiful waiting beyond the boundaries of the ordinary. And I give it a score of:

7.5/10

Next time? The big masterpost of all the other anime I watched this season. See you then!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #call of the night #yofukashi no uta #summer 2022 anime #summer 2022 sr

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watching-pictures-move · 1 year

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Movie Review | Diplomatic Immunity (Maris, 1991)

I've admitted elsewhere that the possibility of making a joke review has definitely influenced my decision to see certain movies. And if I can let you in on a secret, that was the case here. You see, the title of the movie is a line from a buddy cop movie many of you have seen, and I was gonna make a joke to that effect. Here it goes:

*Marge Simpson voice* "We have Lethal Weapon 2 at home."

There. Now you know. See, when you read my reviews, you don't just get my thoughts on the movies, but a little insight into what makes me tick, and what goes into the process of writing these up. Please don't hit unfollow. Now, because I'm long winded, you're gonna get a few more thoughts about this one, because quite frankly it would be a little sad if that terrible joke was all I got out of it. So like Patricia Charbonneau in Call Me, I'm going to squeeze some more juice out of this movie. See, more insights into the process. Please don't hit unfollow.

Now, as you can guess from the title, the concept of diplomatic immunity figures heavily into the plot. The hero's daughter has been killed by some scumbag who happens to be the son of a Parayguan diplomat, and thanks to the concept of diplomatic immunity, he's able to get off scot-free, inspiring the hero to fly down to Paraguay to get his revenge. This falls in the tradition of action movies who take a certain legal concept and shape their entire worldview around it. In Dirty Harry and any number of policiers, Miranda Rights are what's on the mind. Here, and in Lethal Weapon 2, a substantially better movie in every respect, it's diplomatic immunity. The movie even takes a minute to explain the concept, making the assumption that the viewer hasn't already seen Lethal Weapon 2 and probably rented this one by mistake.

Now, the biggest problem with this movie is that the production values don't allow for the kind of thrills one would hope for given the premise. Some of the fun of movies where characters go to shoot up third world countries is that A) you usually get to spend time in a halfway exotic locale (usually a politically friendly country standing in for the real or fictitious country the movie is set in) and B) you get a pretty respectable body count with all the enemy soldiers getting blown away by the heroes. Here, you get some uniforms that look like they might be foreign, but none of the locales glimpsed in the movie suggest they ever left the continental US. Lots of scenes running through alleys, hallways, nondescript streets, and lots of low energy chases and shootouts. And the obvious low budget means that only a handful of henchmen stand in the way of the heroes in any given scene. The sky high body counts of Commando, Rambo, McBain or even a Cannon Films production are not within the movie's grasp.

This might have been a non-issue had the movie gone all in on the sleazy angles of the material, but this is a case where the movie was probably made a decade too late. I'm a fan of Peter Maris' earlier film Delirium, which moves fast and has a nice grimy, exploitation texture. This lacks such qualities, and feels silky smooth when it should be coarse like sandpaper. This isn't due to the lack of sleazy elements, however. The scumbag likes to torture women and take their pictures as he kills them so he can use their faces for his fucked up paintings. He also uses the faces of his mother Meg Foster, with whom he has a creepy relationship, and his mistress, who explains Fabiana Udenio, who explains how he's into BDSM in his personal life, and despite his hankering for torture, is actually a submissive. I believe that makes him a switch, if we're using the proper parlance. She also explains the concept of BDSM to the hero, and like with the earlier explanation of diplomatic immunity it leads me to believe that the screenwriters kept a dictionary handy throughout their process. I should note that she does this after trying to taze the hero while she has on a gimp mask, although the rest of the movie is nowhere near as sexy, especially as it has the veneer of a TV movie. (I should note that the mistress also has a strained relationship with her father, making parental issues something of a recurring theme in the movie.)

Now, if you're still gonna watch this, I should note some of the casting makes this a bitter better. Billy Drago as an arms dealer who decides to help the hero is easily the best part about the whole thing, as he brings an unpredictability to the material thanks to his normally villainous casting. You get the sense that he's not helping the hero out of the goodness of his heart, but because he likes killing people and is awful good at it and won't turn down a chance to kill some more. Sadly, he's not in nearly enough of the movie, for reasons I assume had to do with availability. (Although...it's not like he's an A-lister. He can't be that busy.) And Meg Foster is effectively icy in her creepy as hell role as the villain's mother, staring him down on multiple occasions with her impossibly blue eyes. (On that note, if there's a movie where Foster shoots laser beams from her eyes, please let me know.) And you get Robert Forster as a shady CIA guy (although I guess the adjective is redundant in most cases) and Ken Foree as a sympathetic bartender, although neither has enough screentime. As the lead, Bruce Boxleitner is... fine, but despite the movie's attempts to convince me that he was a super deadly black ops guy, his whole vibe was "your friend's dad who's having a midlife crisis so he bought a leather jacket." Honestly, if you made this a decade earlier and swapped him with Forster, this would be at least fifty percent better. There, I've fixed the movie.

#film #movie review #diplomatic immunity #peter maris

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fallenmonsters · 2 years

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let the secret out.

summary ➳ you’re a delinquent, who’s actually scary and intimidating unlike gwinam. cheongsan is a normal student. there shouldn’t be any connections between you two... right?

pairings ➳ lee cheongsan x delinquent!male reader

warnings ➳ fluff, foul language, mention of fights, secret healthy relationship, sparkles of jealousy, mention of gyeongsu’s death, nayeon throwing herself at reader, use of weapon (knife), blood, reader and cheongsan having sexual tension the entire fic lmao

“How about you, Cheongsan? What do you think of (Y/n)?”

The said male looks up from the foods in front of him to his friends, catching their curious gazes.

They had been talking about (L/n) (Y/n), the most feared delinquent on campus who actually doesn’t seem that much of a delinquent because of high grades and the lack of involvement in bullying. You were quiet and did nothing but to mind your own business in class, occasionally talking back against teachers that called you out for being late or skipping classes, and sending death glares to everyone who tries to get close.

You were an odd delinquent; involving yourself in fights only when necessary, accepting the teachers’ call for help, aggressively helping people who tripped in front of you, only minding your own business, and not minding people who accidentally spilled their drinks on you. You act how a delinquent shouldn’t, and it seems like you’re only called that is because you’re not afraid to speak out your thoughts no matter how hurtful it is, you’re intimidating and scary, and you beat up people.

His friends have stated their own opinions about you, mostly positive and only a small amount of negative, while Cheongsan continuously ate his food with his head hung low, since he didn’t want to partake in it. Though, he should’ve known his friends would not miss a chance to hear everyone’s opinion.

He looks at the table three rows away where you sat quietly alone, eating your favorite food and reading a book. That’s also one thing that makes you so unlike from other delinquents.

You look handsome like this, sitting in a way a delinquent would with all your focus fixed on the book. It’s almost as if you’re a godly, unrealistic being painted on a canvas by a professional and perfectionist painter.

Cheongsan didn’t understand why everyone found you so intimidating and scary; in all honesty, he thinks girls should be screaming, squealing and freaking out over you like those girls in cliché romance anime with handsome main character from how insanely and unbelievably attractive you are. But, in all honesty again, he would be irritated and annoyed if that actually happens.

“He seems fine to me,” Cheongsan answered Gyeongsu’s previous question with an unenthusiastic one as he forced himself to look away from your figure.

An unsatisfied look appears on both Gyeongsu’s and Suhyeok’s face as the others groaned at his lack of cooperation in sharing a throughout opinion, clearly disappointed. “What the fuck is that answer, you moron? There should be more to it like gossips about him and how you think of him.” Gyeongsu complains, smacking his arm.

Cheongsan raised his brows at him before his lips forms a pout, something that always happens when he’s thinking.

Unbeknownst to him, your eyes shifted from the book to his direction, a subtle smirk spreading across your face at the sight of his pout. You took out your phone and opened the camera, zooming it on his face with slight difficulty from how far he was. You then pressed the shutter button, successfully capturing him into picture as you opened gallery to save it in a specific folder.

Gathering his thoughts, Cheongsan finally opens his mouth to speak. “I think he’s handsome,” All of his friend’s jaws dropped. They did not expect that answer. “And I also think it’ll be fine to sit next to him or be close to him as long as you mind your business just like he does and if you don’t bother him that much.” He shrugs, taking one glance at you to see you’re on your phone instead.

“Have you tried sitting next to him?” Suhyeok asked curiously.

“No,” Cheongsan shakes his head. “But I’m not scared to try.”

Gyeongsu looks at him incredulously. “How are you not scared or intimidated? He’s scarier than Gwinam, and that says a lot.” Suhyeok nodded while pointing at Gyeongsu to show his agreement.

Cheongsan only shrugs at his question.

Since the beginning, he was never intimidated by you for unknown reasons. You were just so handsome, so attractive, and so godly that Cheongsan forgot to be scared. Though, your straightforwardness, honesty and the ability to speak out your thoughts without hesitation no matter how brutal or hurtful it’ll sound intimidated him a lot.

He assumes that’s probably why so many people are intimidated. No one can be completely honest and truthful nowadays in fear of being hated or disliked by others.

As his friends began talking among themselves after getting bored, Cheongsan looks at you once again only to catch you already staring at him. He makes sure his friends aren’t looking and smiles, subtly waving his hand to acknowledge your presence. He sees you nod, covering the smile that appears on your lips with your phone so no one can see it.

Cheongsan goes back to eating his food with butterflies filling his stomach and heart beating rapidly against his ribcage.

Perhaps, everyone being intimidated by and scared of you isn’t so bad when he’s the only one who can do things like this.

Shit, what the fuck.

Cheongsan panicked internally after escaping the zombies that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the cafeteria, alongside Onjo. The two of them managed to escape in a room filled with survivors; Gyeongsu, Wujin, Jimin, Nayeon, Hyoryung, Isak, Minji, and Joonyoung. However, the person who Cheongsan hoped to be here was nowhere to be seen.

He rushes over to the windows to search for you outside, but all he was met with was total chaos, people running everywhere for their lives as zombies chase after them.

Someone banging on the door catches his attention and he turned around to see white-covered Daesu being let into the classroom by Wujin, who almost closed the door on him. That settled an uneasy feeling within Cheongsan and his stomach twisted, making him nauseous as worry clouded every bit of his being.

He saw you exit the cafeteria before the outbreak happened and haven’t seen you ever since, which only worsened the awful feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Were you bitten? Did you turn? Where were you?

“What happened to your face, huh?” Wujin’s voice snapped Cheongsan out of his thoughts, looking at Daesu who looked like he’s been slapped with a powder or something.

“I don’t know, some crazy jerk sprayed me with fire extinguisher.” Daesu answers while wiping his face with a clean towel he found hanging by the drawers. Onjo avoids eye contact at that. She was spraying fire extinguisher to keep the zombies away, she didn’t know Daesu’s there.

Gyeongsu raised his brows, “A fire extinguisher?”

“Yeah, damn it.” The bigger male pants, resting his hands on his knees after wiping his eyes. “What’s happening?”

“Who knows?”

“Trains.” Cheongsan stated as he approached them, “Train to Busan.”

“The movie?” Daesu gives him a puzzled look.

“Aren’t they zombies? It’s the same thing.” Everyone looked at each other, contemplating whether what Cheongsan’s saying added up. It was crazy, but he kinda has a point. “Watch this, it’s true.” He pointed outside to convince Daesu before pulling him towards the windows when he still doesn’t believe it.

Gyeongsu also tries to walk over, but was reminded by Joonyoung of the door and went back instead to hold it close, curiosity plastered on his face.

“Shit, what the hell?” Wujin curses upon seeing the chaos.

All three of them flinches with a curse when a hand slams on the window in front of them, only to see it’s Suhyeok. They quickly help him get inside and he turns around to hold his hand out to Namra, who you helped rush up the ladder. You were next to climb up quickly as Suhyeok and Namra helps you get inside, barely missing the zombie-turned teacher from getting your leg.

Suhyeok breathes heavily and drops on the floor with his eyes wide in shock, adrenaline wearing off. “It’s that, isn’t it? Zombies.”

You sighed, turning to look outside.

For the first time, you learned minding your own business doesn’t apply to all situations. You would’ve been bitten by those nasty zombies if it wasn’t for Namra — your only actual friend in the campus — coming over to drag you away along with Suhyeok, because you were ignoring people who ran and screamed thinking they’re just playing childishly. She knew you wouldn’t spare anyone a glance, so coming to save you was a right choice.

Cheongsan came to stand beside you while making sure nobody would see your mouths moving. “Are you okay? I was worried.” He said barely above whisper.

“I’m fine, and they can’t get close to me anyway.” You replied, giving him a side-eye. Cheongsan scans your figure to make sure you were saying the truth, before he was annoyingly interrupted by a female body getting herself between you and him.

“Are you okay, (Y/n)?” Nayeon questioned, feigned concern lacing her tone as she pulls your arm to turn you towards her, beginning to run her hand all over your body to check for any injuries. “Are you hurt? What took you so long to come? I texted you.” She pouts.

Irritation quickly bubbled within Cheongsan’s chest at her attempt of making herself look cute and adorable. He forgot the rumors about Nayeon liking you.

With an uninterested look appearing, you quickly grab her wrist to keep her from further harrassing your body. “Keep your hands to yourself, Lee. Can’t you see I’m not bleeding? If I was hurt, there would’ve been blood on me. It should be obvious. And I was too busy reading a book to notice your text.” You waved your hand dismissively as your straightforwardness once again causes everyone to wince.

“That’s gotta hurt for a girl who has a crush on him.” Joonyoung mutters under his breath.

Your eyes shift to Cheongsan’s direction after feeling jealousy radiate from him, and he catches the look that they said— I’m glad you’re here.

That’s right, you don’t care about anyone but him.

“Who the hell does she think she is?”

This class couldn’t get any worse. You thought while sighing deeply as your back leaned on the seat, head thrown back with closed eyes.

This argument between Nayeon and Gyeongsu is a complete nonsense that Nayeon started to get on his nerves for no apparent reason. Giving a fuck is an irrational thing to do when it comes to this stupid girl who does nothing but to whine for others to start doing something. She doesn’t want to save anyone, she wants to be saved.

Talk about self-centered narcissist.

You opened your eyes when Gyeongsu let out a scared yell all of a sudden as the sound of door opening echoed throughout the room, pushing your head forward to look at the person that entered.

“Coach Kang.”

Rolling your eyes, you threw your head back again to stare at the ceiling, finding it more interesting than anyone or anything right in this moment. The Coach is your least favorite person; he’s a fucking egotistical jerk that thinks women are men’s toys. He thinks he’s hiding it well, but you can see it from a mile away.

“Are you guys okay?” Coach Kang’s trembling voice asked and he sighs in relief after Gyeongsu nodded together with everyone else.

Gyeongsu approaches him, albeit hesitantly. “What about you? You weren’t bitten?”

“No. Of course, not. I’m— I’m alright.”

Your brows furrowed. Something’s odd. He shouldn’t have this much difficulty in breathing. Even if he ran all over the campus, his breathing would’ve just been heavy or out of breath. His voice shouldn’t shake this much, as if he’s trying to hide something.

“Hey, guys. Let’s block the door first. Get moving, hurry!” Coach Kang starts to lead the students as they began to help moving the seats to block the doors, attempting to stack them high.

You stood up from the chair but remained in your place, watching him move around and instruct the survivors. There’s a wave of negativity in your gut, like something’s not right, that you shouldn’t trust him too easily. You scan his body thoroughly, until your eyes froze at the nasty bite on his arm.

Your breath hitches. This motherfucker’s gonna kill everyone.

As Onjo and Isak moves to help, you quickly grabbed both of their arm to keep them in place. They looked at you surprised since this is the first time you’ve ever approached anyone by yourself. “What’s wrong?” Onjo asked, and Cheongsan stops after seeing you holding them.

“Don’t get close,” You warned, voice low and whispering. “He got bitten on his arm.”

Their eyes widened and almost instantly, looked at the Coach’s arm to find out you’re telling the truth. But then again, you never lied.

“Coach Kang. Your arm.” Onjo doesn’t hesitate to speak. You gently squeeze her arm in encouragement and praise. Being honest saves everyone, believe it or not.

“What are you doing? Come help us!” The Coach yelled.

“You have a bite mark on your arm!” Onjo raised her voice, causing everyone to freeze and look. Wujin flinches backward when he noticed the bite mark as the others began to feel fearful once again.

Coach Kang sees his own arm and begins to panic. “I wasn’t bitten. No, no. I—” He quickly rolls his sleeve down, “I— I wasn’t bitten.”

“It’s a bite mark.”

“I said it isn’t. Don’t talk back to me, okay?” His voice gets aggressive. You stare at him intently. He shouldn’t get close.

It was Isak who spoke next. “It looks like you were really bitten.”

Coach Kang seems to get angry at that as he raised his voice, “I wasn’t! How many times must I tell you?”

Isak felt you squeeze her arm as well. You wanted her to stand up for herself and her classmates. “Then why the hell are you hiding it!? Just show it to us!” She raised her voice and stepped forward as you went beside Onjo, sharing a look with Cheongsan. You knew she’s important to him.

“I think you should leave now.” Isak quietly said.

“What?”

“Get out of here immediately.”

“You want me to go out there?” Kang pointed at the door, “After all I did to get here? You want me to go back out?”

“You were bitten.” She doesn’t back out. Standing up against teachers is scary, but getting bitten by zombies and turning into one is terrifying. She thanks you internally for encouraging her. “Come on, get out. I SAID GET OUT NOW!!”

“Cocksucker!” Kang yelled. “How dare you yell at me like that?”

You scowled, glaring at him, pulling both Onjo and Isak behind you when Kang steps forward. Your protectiveness usually only kicks in when Cheongsan is the one in danger, but right now, he wasn’t the one that needs protecting. This girls, who can easily be overpowered by the coach.

“You little... Get over here. Come here.” He was showing his true colors at this point, and you clenched your jaw in anger. “NOW! You won’t come? Hey.” He makes a move to advance and you stepped in front of the girls as they quickly hide behind you.

Everyone stops when blood starts to run down Kang’s nose as he turns his back to wipe it.

“Onjo, don’t—!” Onjo ignores your warning, smacking a backpack against the back of his head. You cursed and pulled her back behind you again, watching as Kang turns around and shoots her a glare. Cheongsan immediately rushes over to you, realizing you might get involved in Kang’s rage.

“You fucking bitch.” He cursed, raising a hand and steps forward only to drop on the floor.

You ignored everyone’s gasps and mutterings, turning around to push Cheongsan, Onjo and Isak away knowing he’ll turn. Cheongsan grabs your hand that was pushing him and pulls you so you wouldn’t be close to Kang. The crunching of bones filled the noisy air together with Nayeon’s fearful beg to get Kang out of the room.

Soon enough, a growl erupts from Kang and he launched himself onto Minji, pulling her down on the floor, unfortunately getting a bite of her face. Daesu rushes over to hold zombified Kang back, throwing him on the lockers. You all looked to see a chunk of Minji’s skin beside her mouth gone with blood coating the place.

While Daesu’s in shock, Kang stands back up with a growl and advanced towards Wujin and Suhyeok, who both fortunately avoided him as the latter attempts to fight him off. Cheongsan grabs the table right on his side and uses it to trap Kang against the wall, struggling to do so due to Kang continuously shoving to get a bite out of him.

“Cheongsan!” You and Gyeongsu both yelled as he runs to help and pushes the table more on Kang.

“Shit.” You muttered when Minji begins to turn after getting kicked by Nayeon, feeling the survival folding knife through the fabric of your pants in your pocket.

Using it to kill them would probably make everyone mistaken you for a murderer or perhaps, even torturer, but was that really important when all of your lives are at stake? You don’t give a fuck about everyone except Cheongsan, anyway. But won’t he judge or hate you for bringing a knife at school? Won’t he be afraid of you just like everyone else is?

You thought carefully, before Daesu’s struggling voice snapped you out alongside Cheongsan’s and Gyeongsu’s grunts.

That doesn’t fucking matter. If you don’t kill them with whatever you have, everyone’s gonna be dead, even Cheongsan.

“Whatever,” You sighed. “Fuck this.”

You quickly ran towards the two and pushed them away, ignoring Gyeongsu’s “what are you doing!?” thrown in your direction. Holding the table with one hand, you used the other to whip the knife out and press the two buttons on the handle, the sharp blade instantly making an appearance. Everyone widened their eyes in shock as you don’t hesitate to stab Kang’s head repeatedly with your knife, its force causing his blood to stain your uniform and a small amount of your face. You only stopped when the growling and struggling died down, dropping his completely lifeless body and the table on the floor.

Everyone flinches when you turn around, finding the unbothered and casual look on your face unsettling.

They watch you twirl the knife as you shifted your gaze on Daesu, who was holding zombified Minji that tried to bite him. You cock your head to the side. One slit on the neck should be enough.

Your stare was enough to force Daesu into throwing Minji on the floor as you don’t waste time to grab her hair and stab your knife deep into the side of her neck, before slitting it by sliding the knife towards other side with great force and fast movement. Blood splatters on the floor as she goes limp.

It didn’t even take you thirty seconds to successfully kill two zombies. Maybe you’re more terrifying than those cannibals, everyone thought in sync.

You walk over to the towel that Daesu used to wipe his face with and begins wiping off the blood on your knife, leaning against the lockers. Cheongsan approached you — shrugging Gyeongsu’s alarming hand off his arm — and he sees your body tense almost immediately.

“Did they get to you?”

You look up in surprise at his caring, concern-filled voice.

He gives you a comforting look, having an idea on what you’re feeling right now. You neither regret nor feel guilty about killing them, but you were afraid of a possibility that his thoughts about you might’ve suddenly changed. After all, you’re aware of how even the slightest action can change a person’s thoughts about anyone. Let alone as big of an action as murdering a zombified teacher and classmate.

You silently shake your head, pressing the buttons to make the blade disappear into the handle.

“Then, that’s great.” He smiles, gratitude plastering his face.

“Thank you, for saving us.”

You dropped on the floor as soon as the door of recording room shut behind you, knees growing weak and tears stinging your eyes.

Gyeongsu’s gone. Nayeon did it.

He was Cheongsan’s bestfriend and to think that the girl who liked you was the one who killed him? It fucking made you feel shitty. Guilt devours you from the inside, spreading all throughout your veins and blood as you taste the bitterness in your mouth. There’s no fucking excuse to what she did; Gyeongsu was trying to help and she went all out accusing him of things that didn’t happen — and then goes on killing him without remorse just to prove her point when he didn’t turn.

“You did the same thing to Coach Kang and Minji!” Her voice bitterly haunts your ears.

You did kill them, after they turned into zombies. She wiped a zombie’s blood on Gyeongsu’s hand purposely to make him turn. There’s a big difference. You never wanted Kang and Minji to turn, even though the former pissed you off to no end. No one deserves to be a zombie.

She probably thinks you’re a hypocrite now, maybe even others who stayed quiet the whole time Namra was confronting Nayeon. They must be terrified of you yet they haven’t left you alone to die or kicked you out. Come to remember, they didn’t stop Nayeon from going out on her own.

A knock sounded from the window and you look up to see Cheongsan staring at you worriedly, gesturing to the lock. Unlocking the door, you let him inside by scooting away and watched as he sit beside you after locking it again, leaning both of your back against it.

There was only silence while you two stared blankly at the wall of recording room, grieving over a bestfriend— in your case, a classmate.

“You didn’t do the same thing to Coach Kang and Minji, you know.” He suddenly spoke, breaking the silence. He shifted to face you and also make himself comfortable. “You killed them because you had to, otherwise we would all be dead. Nayeon didn’t have any reason to kill Gyeongsu. Everyone agreed on that.”

“Really?” Your eyes finally met his.

Cheongsan nods with sincerity coating his face. “They understand, and all of them are actually thankful you were brave enough to kill those two. No one thinks you’re the same as Nayeon.” He takes your hand in his and rubs it comfortingly, to which you responded by squeezing his hand back.

You play with his fingers, tracing them and tangling them with yours as you avoid eye contact. “I’m sorry about Gyeongsu...” He frowns at the look on your face. “I noticed something’s wrong with Coach Kang, but I didn’t notice anything when it came to Nayeon. I feel like I should’ve, specially when I’m the one who usually notice small things in this group, and I can’t help but think it’s—”

“It’s not your fault.” Cheongsan immediately interrupted, voice firm and unwavering. “None of us knew what was gonna happen. In fact, I think we’re the ones at fault because we told Nayeon to come here and apologize to Gyeongsu when that was probably what she wanted us to do. You tried to stop us, but we didn’t listen.”

You look up at him, seeing guilt and sadness in his eyes. You intertwined your fingers and Cheongsan doesn’t waste time to hold your hand back. “It isn’t your fault, either. We all carry the burden of not being able to save him, don’t beat yourself up.”

“It’s just—” He sighs. “I’m his best friend. Well, was. I could’ve done something more.”

“But you did, Cheongsan. You kept him from hurting you.” Cupping his face with one hand, you smile to reassure him. “I’m sure the last thing Gyeongsu wanted was to hurt his bestfriend and end up turning him.”

Cheongsan sighs and leans on your touch as he closed his eyes. It feels warm. He believed your words— even you knew Gyeongsu is a kind person who would never dare lay a hand on anyone he treasures. He was poor, but he had the richest heart among all people. Which is why what Nayeon did is even more unforgivable and frustrating.

Why does kind people have to always be the target to cold-blooded people? They might be easy to manipulate, but you still didn’t understand. Why was the world so cruel?

“(Y/n)?” Concern instantly plastered your face at how his voice trembled and he cleared his throat, feeling tears gather in his eyes.

“What is it, love?”

“You’re not gonna leave me, right?”

Cheongsan was afraid. You could easily tell. He was afraid of losing you like he lost Gyeongsu, of seeing you turn into those cannibalistic monsters, of seeing you die. You’re the only thing that kept him sane in this apocalypse. If he lost you, he would have no will to survive anymore.

You frown, wiping off the tears that spilled on his cheeks with your thumb. “I would never leave you, Cheongsan. It’s not gonna happen no matter what. I’ll stay by your side until we can be safe together, okay? Don’t cry, baby.” Bringing your other hand to cup the other side of his face, you gently pulled him to press a kiss on his forehead.

Cheongsan felt butterflies filling his stomach. Even in this zombie apocalypse, you never fail to make him feel loved and tinglish.

No one would probably believe you’re actually this soft and gentle when it comes to your lover. People always assumed you were rough and aggressive, and that you’re far from boyfriend material type. Little did they know you make sure everyday that he knows you love him, even though you can’t be close to each other in school.

You look into each other’s eyes before Cheongsan wrapped his arms around your neck and pulled you close to capture your lips in a lingering kiss.

It’s a life or death situation — feeling each other’s presence and kissing each other’s lips mattered more than hiding your relationship. Nothing should matter anymore than you and Cheongsan, and how you would live knowing the grim reaper can suddenly knock on your door anytime.

Right now, you just wanted to focus on the feeling of Cheongsan’s lips more than the zombies probably lurking outside the broadcasting room.

Gathering around the bonfire created by Namra’s lighter, everyone shared their own stories that no one has heard before. Hearing Namra open up made you smile, knowing she never got to do it with anyone up until now because no one bothered to befriend her. It’s actually why you two got along, being the black sheep of Ms. Park’s class.

You didn’t join them on bonfire, only listening to them share their own life stories as you leaned on the railings with both elbows rested on the surface. After dealing with so much crap and Gwinam going for your boyfriend’s head, you needed a well rest and a smoke to calm yourself, as well as to make the stress dissolve even just a bit. Though, dealing with zombies is honestly much better than dealing with school full of shitty students and teachers.

At some point, their conversation shifts from life story to crushes and you resist the urge to chuckle. Talking about crushes is probably the most mundane yet comforting thing to do in the middle of zombie apocalypse because it gives everyone a feeling as if they went back to a time when everyone wasn’t eating everybody. It reminds them of what they were doing when this apocalypse wasn’t a thing.

“How about you, Cheongsan? Do you have a crush?”

Their question made you puff a smoke as your thoughts wandered. Cheongsan can choose whether he’ll tell them or not, you suppose it doesn’t matter now since practically everyone in Korea is a zombie and not many would care anymore if two men are dating each other. Besides, you also wanted to care for him openly without worrying about someone finding out.

You assume Cheongsan nodded in reply due to various noises of curiosity leaving the other’s lips. He, too, probably doesn’t care anymore.

“Really? Who is it?” Onjo asked with surprise and tease lacing her voice, looking at him and waiting excitedly for his answer. Everyone anticipated it as well, some even growing impatient.

Cheongsan doesn’t say anything, instead points at you, who had your back turned to them.

All of their eyes follows the direction his finger pointed at and as soon as you entered their visions, their jaws drop in sync. Joonyoung looks at his finger and you back and fourth as he also pointed at you, mouth moving but no sounds coming out. Suhyeok had his brows raised, shock evident, staring at Cheongsan in disbelief. Hyoryung, Jimin and Daesu all covered their mouths, while Wujin, Onjo and Namra looked at him dumbfounded.

“You have a crush on (Y/n)!?” Wujin was the first to break everyone’s shock, beginning to look at you and Cheongsan back and fourth.

“How come you didn’t tell us? We shared our opinions about him in cafeteria, but you didn’t say anything about liking him.” Suhyeok shoots him a look, betrayed that Cheongsan hid it from them while they were idiotically telling what they felt and thought about his crush.

“Well, I did say he’s handsome.” Cheongsan defended himself. You subtly shake your head with a smile, realizing he must have said it so his friends would take the hint. “And to be honest, it’s not a crush anymore.” He shrugs.

Confusion is next to appear on everyone’s faces at his words, but Cheongsan stands up before they could ask what he means.

They watch as he walks towards you, and couldn’t help but notice that you immediately faced him as soon as his footsteps entered your ears. You inhaled one puff of smoke and threw the cigarette on the concrete floor. As if on instinct, Cheongsan steps on it to put it out. Your interaction was so natural that had everyone thinking if you often do it when you’re together.

“What’s up, Cheongsannie?”

He doesn’t respond, instead brings his hand up to tug your uniform with a pout. It’s a gesture he always does when he wants you to kiss him.

Without hesitation, you slip your hand on his face and leans forward to capture his adorable pouting lips in a kiss as Cheongsan closed his eyes, fist gripping the fabric of your uniform. You heard few of them gasp before you pulled away and ruffled your lover’s hair.

“Satisfied?” You smirk, licking your lips.

Cheongsan smacks your hand away and grumbles about you ruining his already ruined hair, red tint on his cheeks unfortunately visible. His heart pounded rapidly against his chest at first time kissing in front of people.

“Don’t worry, darling. You still look handsome with ruined hair and blood all over you.” Throwing him a teasing compliment, you leaned forward again to kiss his forehead, something that became a habit of yours after you started dating him.

“Fuck you,” Cheongsan playfully curses while pinching your side and shoving you away, though the smile on his face betrayed him.

You scoffed smugly, “You wish. We’re still in the middle of apocalypse, moron.”

“(Y/N)!!”

You laughed, avoiding his hand that tried to smack you over the head and runs over to the bonfire when Cheongsan starts chasing you, using Daesu as a shield. Now, all of them were shocked of how playful you are — a big contrast to how you are in school everyday.

“(Y/n), stop hiding behind Daesu.” Cheongsan panted as he glared at you playfully.

You childishly stuck your tongue out, which made Cheongsan roll his eyes while amusement crosses everyone’s face. “Only if you can make him move away.” You said smugly, knowing no one can force Daesu to move.

Your boyfriend gives you a look before shifting his gaze on Daesu, “Can you move, please?”

Much to your displeasure, the said man scoots away without hesitation and chuckles when he hears your gasp of betrayal. “What the— You traitor!” You smacked his arm quite strongly, causing him to wince and hold the arm that you hit.

Everyone laughs; it feels weird to see you be childish and playful when you’re usually calm, collected, cold and quiet, but they were happy nevertheless because you finally showed a side that you never did. However, they find it also sad how this is the only time they got to see you be playful, when they have just little chances of surviving. They regret fearing you just because you look intimidating. You may have a resting bitch face, but that doesn’t mean you hurt everybody on sight. They should’ve figured that out before.

Cheongsan comes to sit beside you (after successfully smacking the back of your head) with a yawn, exhaution finally showing itself on his body. Your eyes softened as you tugged his arm and Cheongsan let himself fall to your side. His head softly lands on your lap, facing the night sky, and you immediately bring your hand to massage his scalp. Cheongsan sighs in content, closing his eyes.

“Rest, darling. You need it.” You softly say. Everyone can’t help but stare at how gentle you are with Cheongsan.

“You need to rest too,” Cheongsan mutters with eyes still closed. “You and Suhyeok fought those zombies off more than we did.” He feels you shake your head.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re all the same in terms of exhaution.” You take his hand in your unused one to press a kiss on his knuckles. He opens his eyes, feeling butterflies clouding his stomach again. “And besides, I have to protect you from Gwinam. He’s after your head, who knows when he’ll come back.”

“He’s actually after my eye, but you don’t need to protect me all the time, you know.” Intertwining his fingers with yours, Cheongsan looks at you with worry in his eyes. “If you keep thinking about me, you’ll eventually forget to protect yourself. I don’t want you to get hurt or bitten.”

A smile spreads across your lips.

He might be right and it’s probably too dangerous to think about your boyfriend before yourself when zombies can grab you anywhere and anytime, but knowing he’s worried made you feel happy, warmth spreading from your heart outwards.

Cheongsan notices your smile and lightly hits your shoulder with his free hand, pouting. “Why the hell are you smiling? You rarely smile yet you’re smiling at the possibility that you could die protecting me. It’s not funny. Stop that.”

You only let out a chuckle in response to his scolding.

The others can’t help but smile when they heard the sound of your laughter for the first time as Cheongsan continues to simultaneously threat and scold you at the same time, refusing to stop until you swear you’ll look after yourself too. They found yours and Cheongsan’s couple interaction cute and entertaining, some even feeling as if they missed an opportunity to tease the two of you when zombies didn’t exist. It made them feel sad, but at least they found out before it’s too late and could still have an opportunity to tease.

“If you really—”

“Relax, sweetheart.” You interrupted, giving his hand a squeeze. He opens his mouth to object, but you beat him to it. “If you really think I’m going to forget about myself, then protect me instead. That way, we could prevent the worst from happening, hm? How does that sound?”

Cheongsan goes silent as he thinks about it for a while, then squeezed your hand back to let you know he settled his mind. “Okay. Sounds good enough.”

You grinned, leaning down to kiss his lips before petting his hair after pulling away. Greatly satisfied with your suggestion, Cheongsan closes his eyes to get himself to sleep, his free arm wrapping around your torso as he snuggled closer to you, wanting to feel your presence as much as he can. Shrugging your blazer off, you laid it over him to serve as a blanket.

“This is our first time seeing you smile,” Suhyeok spoke when silence fell. You look up to see a soft look plastered on his face. “I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but you should smile more.”

The others nodded their head in agreement. “You look good smiling.” Jimin compliments, receiving another nods of agreement from everyone.

You shrug, “I naturally don’t smile that often. He makes me laugh everytime, though. If you want any reaction out of me, just bring Cheongsan and let us talk. You’ll get a smile or laughter.”

“That’s probably because you trust him more than anyone else.” Onjo smiled, eyes soft. You nod while smiling, gently playing with Cheongsan’s hair.

“You don’t trust anyone that much.” Claimed Joonyoung. “So seeing you be freely yourself around us, it made me think how we gained it over the times we’ve spent together in this zombie apocalypse. Thanks for, you know... Trusting us.”

You flash them a smile. “Thanks for trusting me, too.”

Maybe letting your secret out wasn’t such a bad thing even before the apocalypse, with an exception of those gangs you beat up that may or may not use Cheongsan as hostage to get back at you.

Nonetheless, you were glad that your boyfriend had revealed everything out in the open — you’ve gained not many, but enough support. You’ll forever cherish this day, even if there’s little hope left to survive.

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nationalharryleague · 4 years

Text

Two for the Show

Summary: Jeff plans for Harry’s new opening act to be more than that.

Genre: Famous Fake Dating!

Word Count: 17.1k!

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A/N: Hey babes!! This is something I’ve been working on since December now and I’m so fucking proud of it and how it turned out!!! It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written and I’m so so so excited to hear what everyone has to say!! Giant thank you’s go out to the incredible soph (@theharriediaries) and Lu (@meetmymouth) bc this never would have come to fruition without them and their help!! Please let me know what you think!! More of my writing can be found in my masterlist!! Happy reading y’all :)

***

Keeping appearances in the public eye is a delicate balance.

If Y/N was being honest with herself, everything Full Stop Management had ever suggested to her had worked, and very well. When they suggested her music took a more pop direction, they set her up with a team of fantastic producers and her music sales and popularity skyrocketed. And when they set up an appointment with a celebrity stylist to figure out her signature style, it worked; they turned her into the 1970’s inspired goddess she had always dreamed of being. Even the hours of media training that she had been put through worked, helping her learn how to bob and weave even the most intrusive of interview questions.

But this time, she thought they might be going too far.

“Jeff,” she began with a sigh and a doubtful shake of her head, “I don’t know about this one.”

“It’s just a few months before and during the tour,” explained the man sitting across from her at the long conference table. “You’ll be seen in public a few times to drum up publicity for the tour and your album, maybe do an interview or two together, and some light PDA.”

His expression was honest and earnest. In the time he had represented her, he had never done anything to her that didn’t help her succeed. It was not hard for her to believe that he just wanted what was best for her and her career.

But something kept holding her back.

“I just got my heart broken in the most public way,” she said softly, absentmindedly fiddling with the base of her ring finger where an engagement ring once sat. “Isn’t it a little too soon to be seen jumping back into a whirlwind romance?”

“I don’t think so. If anything, it will make James look even worse than he already does after what he did to you.” She had to admit the idea of a little revenge did perk her ears up a bit. “And it doesn’t hurt that Harry is so universally loved and known for being such a good guy.”

That was another reason she was skeptical of this entire plot. This was Harry Styles they were talking about; Harry fucking Styles. She had only met him once or twice while working out details for her to be the opening act for his upcoming tour, but she had been a big fan of his and idolized him since she was a teen. Just meeting him threw her inner 16 year old self for a loop, let alone trying to pretend she was in love with him.

In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t be too hard on her end once she got over being starstruck; she wasn’t so sure she still wasn’t kind of in love with him, or at least the version the public saw.

“Listen,” Jeff began again, his voice taking on a bluntness, “no one cares about the opening act. No one bought tickets to see you; they’re there to see Harry.” His words stung but she knew it was the truth. “But if they think you are a part of Harry’s life, they care about you too. And they will keep on caring about you after they leave the show.” Her apprehensiveness must have been clear on her face when he put on a gentle smile. “He’s a really nice person. I promise.”

“I know,” she breathed, a small pout finding its way to her lips. “Fine,” she conceded after a moment, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically to signal surrender. “I’m in.”

A triumphant grin spread across his face. “Thank you. I’ll go call Harry and tell him you’re down.” She watched as he got up from his chair and came towards her, pressing a brief and friendly kiss to the top of her head. “You won’t regret this, Y/N.”

“I better not, Azoff,” she chuckled while shaking her head slightly.

Soon she was alone in the conference room, basking in the light from the floor to ceiling windows that sat before her.

“What did I just get myself into?” she mumbled quietly to herself.

***

The answer to that question came two weeks later when she was sitting across a table from the Harry Styles at a small outdoor brunch spot in LA. Their meeting place was strategic, a small restaurant, not too flashy so it didn’t look like they were seeking attention, but outdoors where anyone could see. It was only a matter of time before he was recognized, and the sighting was almost guaranteed to be trending on Twitter only minutes later.

She couldn’t say that she wasn’t nervous. The inside of her mouth had been chewed raw and the bags under her eyes showed she had been having trouble sleeping in the nights leading up to their first appearance together. By the end of the day, she would most likely have countless articles written about her and possibly have millions of angry fangirls coming after her; even though their “relationship” wouldn’t be officially confirmed for a few weeks.

If all went to Jeff’s plan, she would become an A-lister overnight.

She stood in front of her closet for over an hour, trying on and taking off outfits before finally settling on her favorite pair of bright red corduroy flares and a crisp white textured halter top. She paired the outfit with a new pair of heeled leather boots. They were a flashy pair that were split down the middle, bright yellow on one side and white with yellow stars on the other, hoping Harry would appreciate the bold colors.

She meticulously did her makeup, sure to match her lipstick color exactly to the shade of her pants; and spent far too long in front of the mirror fussing with her hair, praying it would lay the way she wanted it to.

She knew that she was going to be photographed in some way shape or form, and with the fashion icon himself. She had to look good. He had been on the cover of Vogue for god’s sake.

When she finally arrived at the cafe, Harry sat quietly across from her. He looked casual, or as casual as Harry Styles gets. A yellow t-shirt, that was tight enough to look as if it was painted on, showed off his muscular chest and arms. His iconic tattoos illustrated his arms and she hoped he wouldn’t notice as she covertly tried to examine closely. He uncomfortably ran his palms down the legs of his high waisted denim flares that had been paired with his signature pearl necklace and ratty, but well loved, white vans.

And she couldn’t forget his rings. His signature gold ‘H’ and ‘S’ looked back at her as he gently grasped his flute filled to the brim with a mimosa, bringing it to his pink lips that were surrounded by the short stubble he had been wearing lately.

The pair sat in a slightly awkward silence, both seeming to down their mimosas quickly just because it was something to do with their hands and could occupy their lips so they didn’t have to talk.

To say she was panicking, wouldn’t be too much of an over exaggeration. She was sitting across from one of the world’s biggest stars, and as one of his biggest closeted fans. The things he could do for her career were astronomical and it was hard to ignore that, but she also had a hard time getting over the way his hair seemed to fall into perfect tousled curls and his dreamy green eyes.

She had been in love with him (or at least the idea of him) since she was 16. She couldn’t help it.

But the bottomless mimosas helped to break her anxiety, and apparently his as well, as they both began to feel a slight buzz.

“So how did Jeff end up talking you into this?” Harry eventually broke the silence, the alcohol lowering his naturally shy inhibitions just enough to kick off their conversation.

She let a playful eye roll take over her face before she began. “Oh Jeff,” she said jokingly, letting out a long sigh. “I was convinced somewhere in between ‘it’ll make your ex look bad’ and a stern ‘no one ever cares about the opening act,’” she chuckled, while sarcastically wagging her finger in the air, dramatically re-enacting his scolds.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth, letting out a dramatic ‘ouch.’ “He’s not always gentle, is he?” matching her chuckle.

“He knows where to hit you where it hurts,” she laughed, while nodding in agreement. “How did he convince you?”

“Coincidently, he also took a low blow involving my ex. I believe his words were ‘You wrote an entire album about her and haven’t dated anyone since and it makes you look kind of pathetic.’” He dramatically used air quotes and did his best impression of Jeff’s American accent. She couldn’t hold back the giggles that erupted from her.

“Oh my goodness,” she let out through slightly buzzed giggles, “you definitely win.”

From that point, their conversation began to flow more easily, easing her anxiety as she learned he was generally easy to talk to. He laughed at her jokes, and she laughed at his. He really did have the calming and disarming quality that people always said he had, like could melt down any walls and convince you to be honest with him, even if you didn’t really want to be. She was shocked to find that she wanted him to genuinely be a friend to her so badly. He was just so nice and such a good listener.

Their conversation took a turn when Harry’s super power of knowing when his picture was being taken kicked in. “Give me your hand,” he said to her, diverting from the pleasant conversation they had been having about their families. “Don’t look but there’s someone across the street taking photos of us.”

His instructions brought her back to the reality that they weren’t really friends and that all of this was for show.

She brought her hand up to meet his, strategically resting on the side of the table that faced the street, giving the camera the best view. The cool metal of his hand full of rings felt good against her skin that had been baking in the hot LA sun and he passed his thumb over her knuckles with faux affection.

She couldn’t help but feel a dishonest weight pulling on her heart. She knew everything was going to plan and this was all for the best, but it also felt slightly wrong. She played with her small heart shaped earring to distract herself from the sinking feeling.

“Harry,” she began, knowing the people across the street were out of ear shot. Her voice brought his attention from her hand back up to her eyes. “Does this feel wrong to you at all?”

“How so?”

“It just feels dishonest, like we’re lying to millions of people, our–well, mostly your fans.” She couldn’t help but correct herself.

His eyes softened at her words, like he was taking in the innocence she still held onto after only being in the industry for a short time, compared to his decade in the spotlight.

“I try not to think of it as lying,” he spoke slowly after a moment of thinking. He nodded along softly to punctuate his words. “When you think about all this as lying, it starts to weigh pretty heavy on you as a person. I try to be as honest as possible in my music and daily life, but that’s not always what people want to see. They want a show that will entertain them, and it is our job to give it to them.”

“I see,” she mused.

They sat together for another hour or so, allowing their small mimosa buzz to wear off enough for them to drive the short distances to their homes. The pair eventually found their way back to a comfortable conversation, but Harry’s comment about being in the public eye still weighed on her.

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if all of this was worth it. Y/N was a master at dodging a question and turning the charm to 10 when it was needed, but she wasn’t a liar and she definitely wasn’t an actress. She hoped she (or Jeff) hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew with all of this.

Harry eventually walked her back to her car that was parked a few blocks away, and while she was sure he was doing it for the cameras, she didn’t doubt that he would have done it even if they weren’t there. He just seemed like that kind of guy to her; caring and trustworthy.

“Thank you for a very nice date, Harry,” she said, winking and chuckling along with the extra emphasis she put on the last word.

“My pleasure,” he smiled down at her. He moved along with her as she walked to the driver's side door, opening it for her like a perfect gentleman. The two stood close, his body hovering over her’s as they stood inside the open door. Her heart rose to her throat as he leaned down to her and pressed a gentle kiss to her burning cheek.

Y/N looked back up at him with rosy cheeks and a tightlipped bashful smile. She watched as he walked backward carefully, taking her hand that had been locked with his until he was too far and let it fall back to her body.

She situated herself in her drivers seat and was ready to leave when she heard a knocking on the passenger side window that startled her. Harry had bent himself over and was motioning for her to roll the window down. When she did, he leaned himself in, an honest look in his eyes.

“Before you go,” he said gently. “A word of advice from someone who had been in the public eye for a long time,” he spoke with a tender yet serious tone, eyes locking with hers. “When you go home today, don’t go on social media. People are mean, and it’s just going to hurt.” She nodded along with his words and watched as he pinched his bottom lip. “And when you inevitably can’t resist, text me if you need to talk about it.”

***

They must have done a good job putting on their show because within an hour of her returning home to her apartment, they were all anyone was talking about. Their names were trending worldwide #1 on Twitter. Streams of Y/N’s debut album were up by 800%, and even Harry’s streams had taken a considerable jump. Y/N had gained 40,ooo new followers and views on every interview she had ever done were steadily rising.

All was going according to Jeff’s plan.

Harry’s words circled her brain for hours. “Don’t go on social media,” she heard him say over and over again as she paced her apartment, only stopping to look at the phone sitting on the kitchen counter every so often.

She had taken a shower, done her hair, tried to watch TV, cooked herself dinner, and even tried to sit down and write a song; it all got her nowhere fast. The unknown was eating at her inside.

Y/N broke when she heard the small ding signaling she had gotten a text message. She had all but sprinted to see who it was, reunited with the outside world through her touch screen. Unsurprisingly, it was from Jeff; the message sent to her and an unknown number she assumed to be Harry’s.

Good job, kiddos., was all it read but there was a photo attached to the message. Her heart stopped while she waited for the photo to load, cursing her slow wifi in the process. After a few breathless moments, the photo came through.

It was a screenshot from the website of one of the biggest entertainment magazines in the country. A picture of him kissing her cheek was the front page of the website.

Harry Styles and Y/N Y/L/N Rumored To Be Music’s New Power Couple Ahead of Tour

She was honestly speechless. This was huge.

She would like to say the sheer shock blurred her judgement, but the curiosity just got the better of her. Harry’s words repeated over and over again in her head, telling her not to, even as her finger connected with the icon of the little blue bird.

She was the most talked about topic in the entire world, her name hovering in bold letters on the trending page. She did everything she could to not click on her name, but her fingers did it all on her own.

The first few tweets were nice. Someone said they liked her style and that they looked cute together as a couple. Another said that they had always enjoyed her music and that they were happy for them.

But as she scrolled, it became harsher and just mean. People commented on her weight, said she couldn’t sing, and criticized her personality as seeming fake and forced. Her eyes were locked on the screen, unable to look away, as her heart began to break and few tears began to roll.

It took one final, and the most painful, tweet for her to consider deleting her account completely. She swiped out of the app fast, but the words were still burned into her brain.

Y/N is using Harry, just like she used James before he got rid of her and found someone better.

The words knocked the wind out of her, pouring salt on an open wound that had yet to heal.

She also had the little blue bird for that heartbreak as well. When she opened the app two months ago, the first thing she saw was pictures of her (former) fiance, James, with his tongue down some girl’s throat. At the time she had been devastated, her heart broken beyond repair.

It felt like no one else in the world could understand the way she was feeling. If she was in this position because of another person, they must get it too. The text to Harry was already sent before she had time to think it over.

I looked and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry that I didn’t listen.

His response came only seconds later.

Don’t be sorry. It’s hard not to. Are you alright?

She had to think about his question, unsure if she knew the answer. Tears were still running down her face and she felt like she was a target the entire world had decided it was open season on. Logically, she knew these people never thought she would see these awful things, but it didn’t excuse the hurt she felt when she did.

I don’t know. I just don’t understand how people can be so cruel.

She felt like she was bothering him, even though he had offered to be there for her. He wasn’t her best friend, or a close confidant; he was her fake publicity boyfriend. He had real friends he wanted to talk to or maybe even a real girlfriend underwraps somewhere. Her body was wracked with guilt as she thought it over.

People are just mean on the internet, okay? They think they can say whatever they want without repercussions. I’m so sorry that you are being targeted because of me.

Before she got a chance to think through a proper response to him, her phone dinged with another text. It was from Jeff again.

Really good job, kiddos.

Y/N was confused. They hadn’t done anything else but be seen together today. Her sick sense of curiosity got her again before she opened Twitter again and looked up Harry’s name. He had tweeted for the first time in six months only a few moments ago.

@Harry_Styles: We treat people with kindness.

***

The next time she saw him was two days later at yet another public meet up Jeff had arranged for them. Unfortunately this time, she had become just as famous as Harry seemingly overnight, the flames of her new found fame growing even larger after he had sent that tweet.

While the fame had grown, the hate had calmed since his statement, which most had taken as an official declaration of their relationship. Now, that was not to Jeff’s plans.

She had to fight her way out of her apartment complex, wearing a pair of massive dark sunglasses with circular lenses and shielding her face with her hands the best she could. But she did have to admit that the electric orange fabric of her jumpsuit probably didn’t do much to help her blend in and avoid the attention of the paparazzi that had now found out where she lived.

Harry was sitting at the table by himself facing the back of the cafe when she arrived, two cups of coffee waiting before him to be drank together placed delicately on the table. He had his head down, buried in a book, before she startled him with a hug from behind. Her cheek connected with his warm neck where she buried her head into him and she took in his dizzying cologne.

She felt him jump beneath her as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing a dramatic and cheesy kiss to his cheek, feeling his light stubble prick her chapsticked lips. “My hero,” she joked, trying to bring at least a little humor to the man who had just about jumped out of his skin at her touch.

It felt like she was crossing a boundary, and she was pretty sure she was, but she just needed to thank him and a hug felt like the best way to do that while in a semi-crowded coffee shop. Also, playing up that they were madly in love didn’t hurt.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, a hand flying over his chest in surprise to feel his racing heartbeat. “You scared the shit out of me.” Once he settled for a moment, his arm moved across his chest to rest on her arm. His touch was gentle and soft, holding her there gently like he didn’t want her to release him from her grasp. She tried not to think about it too much as she slipped her arms off of him, making her way to the seat that was clearly meant for her across from him.

“I’m sorry that I scared you. A little jumpy today?” she teasingly questioned.

“Hey, watch it,” he playfully threatened. “I believe you called me your hero about thirty seconds ago.”

“I guess I did,” she quipped over the mug she was bringing to her lips. It was sweet but not too sweet, with cream but not too much, and still piping hot; just the way she liked it. “I don’t think it’s too far off,” she smiled before turning back to the coffee. “Good coffee,” she mused. “Just the way I like it.”

“Good. I texted Jeff for your order,” he informed her, the gesture being so thoughtful and sweet she could have melted into a puddle right there and then. “And I think ‘hero’ might be a bit much,” he tacked on.

“Don’t be humble, Harry.” While her voice was still light and held a jesting tone, she meant her words. “You made the entire internet leave me alone, for the most part,” she clarified as there were definitely some nasty messages still floating around Twitter, “in five words.”

“It was the least I could do,” he said while shaking his head slightly, seeming to deflect her words.

“You could have done absolutely nothing.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hand in hers like they had staged at the cafe a few days earlier; but this time, it was an honest gesture, not one for a role they were both meant to be playing. Her words were serious, punctuating each with a gentle nod of her head. “I mean it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His eyes held the same truthfulness and honesty she hoped she was mirroring in her own. “I know all of this,” he paused and gestured between them with his free hand, “is for publicity, but I consider you a friend. It was hard to watch it all go down like that. You’re a good person and you didn’t deserve all that. I had to do something.”

There was a warmth that flooded her chest. He called me his friend, she thought to herself, fighting back a big toothy grin. She had been under the impression that all of this was just work for him, something he was doing just to drum up publicity, with no personal connections at all. But him calling her a friend meant so much to her. It meant she was not alone in all this terrifying and overwhelming attention.

“I’m glad you think of me as a friend,” she said, still holding back her smile. “You’re my friend too.” He matched her close-lipped smile that had fought its way onto her face at her words.

They sat in silence together for a few moments. Harry returned to his book and Y/N answered emails; but their hands stayed connected across the small table. This silence was very different from the silence on the day they first met. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence that sat on your tongue, begging you to break the quiet; it was peaceful and safe.

Their silence was broken when a young woman wearing a jittery smile and nervous eyes approached their table. Her voice squeaked out a mouse-like “Hi,” towards the both of them, bringing their eyes up to meet hers and instinctively breaking their hands away from each other.

“I’m so so sorry to be a bother,” she began, cheeks red and hot. “But I’m a really big fan of both of you and I would never forgive myself if I didn’t say hello.” She rambled excitedly, mostly looking at Harry, as she held her slightly shaky hands up to her chest.

“Hello,” Harry said with one of his million dollar smiles. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Emma,” she breathed.

“Well, it’s so nice to meet you Emma.” He spoke gently with her, clearly sensing her anxiety, extending his hand for her to shake. “Thank you for all of your support.”

Y/N watched closely as he spoke with her. He spoke to her like she was the only person in the room, giving her his whole undivided attention, and repeatedly thanking her as she flooded him with compliments about how his music and message of kindness meant so much to her. She was so entranced that she nearly didn’t hear her own name being said as the girl turned towards her.

“I love your music as well,” she grinned, clearly more comfortable after her short conversation with Harry. “And your jumpsuit is just incredible.” Her nervous giggle was contagious, Y/N releasing one as well at the compliment as her cheeks heated slightly. She was shocked she even knew any of her music, clearly being the less popular of the pair.

“Thank you so much, Emma. It means a lot.”

Emma took a few quick selfies with the both of them (that would be everywhere within a few hours), said goodbye and went to leave the two, but not before she paid them one last compliment. “You two are really cute together. I’m rooting for you.”

Both of their cheeks warmed as they looked back at each other. They were quiet for a moment, unsure how to respond, before Harry turned his attention back to the girl with a coy smile. “I am too,” was all he said.

***

The next three weeks passed in a blur of tour rehearsals, fittings, and public meetings with Harry. And then all of a sudden, it was the night of the first show.

Y/N had never been so nervous in her entire life. She would be the first face seen by just over 19,000 people, tasked to warm up the crowd and prepare them for Harry, which was enough pressure. And then there was the chance that they all hated her guts.

She stood behind the curtain, listening to the loud and inpatient crowd as she paced back and forth. She white-knuckeld her guitar, trying to keep her violently shaking hands from being too visible to the crew around her. Her stomach swirled and her palms were clammy, constantly having to rub them on the pants of her icey blue jumpsuit. It fit her like a glove, the wide legged pants and slight shoulder pads, creating a perfect hourglass silhouette; the only thing she was confident in at the moment was how good she looked in it.

Her heart leapt out of her chest and she almost hit the ceiling when a small voice appeared over her shoulder, whispering “You’re going to do great,” in her ear. If her heart wasn’t about to give out before, it was now. She swung around to face him, almost hitting Harry with her guitar, letting out a small breath of relief when her eyes met his own. They always seemed to calm her down a bit.

“I’m kinda freaking out, H,” she anxiously babbled, using the nickname he had told her to call him. “This is the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of, and they probably all hate me because they think I’m dating you, and I have to make sure I do a good job so they start listening to my music; and I just…” she trailed off for a second, uncomfortably scratching the back of her neck, “I just can’t let you down.”

His face softened at her words, seeming to take pity on her. “Y/N,” he began, resting his hands on her shoulders and looking so deep into her eyes she felt like he could probably see her soul. “We picked you to open because people love your music and the way that you perform. You just have to go out there and do what you do best: sing your heart out and put on a good show. It’s only 25 minutes. I know you can do it.”

Every word that left his lips was laced with honesty and encouragement; just enough for Y/N to relax her furrowed brow and give her lip a break from her constant chewing. “I can do it,” she softly repeated back to him, still not breaking contact with his striking green eyes.

A stage manager passed by them, running to some other important task, but not before tapping her shoulder. “You’re on in 30 seconds,” he spoke, just as she heard the roar of the crowd begin, signalling the dimming of the lights in the arena.

“Go kick some ass,” he winked, stepping backwards from her and releasing her from his grasp. “I’ll be watching.”

Walking on stage, she wasn’t met with ‘boo’s that had plagued her nightmares, or mean looks from the audience, or rotten tomatoes thrown from the crowd.

They were screaming in excitement, screaming for her.

From the second she started playing, the crowd had her back; the ones that knew the words to her songs sang them along with her, and the ones that didn’t, happily danced to her voice. Before long, the smile she had forced onto her face was genuine, and her set passed by with ease. When her 25 minutes were up, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to get off the stage.

She took her final bow as the crowd roared, running off of the stage into the wings, looking for one person in particular. And when she found him, she threw herself into Harry’s open and waiting arms. “I told you that you were going to do great!” He spoke excitedly into her ear and he held her close to his body, his arms wrapped around her waist tight.

She liked the way it felt to be in his arms.

Pulling away from him, she saw the massive grin that he wore for her, noting how adorable his dimples were and how the excited look in his eyes made him look like a little kid. But there was more to his face than excitement, he looked proud.

“They were so nice to me, and they knew my songs, and they were screaming so loud for me, and it just went so well. I can’t believe it!” Her previous anxious chatter had become an exhilarated rambling and she felt on top of the world.

“I can,” he grinned, looking down at his watch quickly. “I have to go get changed.” If she wasn’t so amped up, she might have noticed the disappointment that flashed over his features. “Promise me you’ll watch the show?”

“Pinky swear?” She stuck up her little finger in the air.

“Pinky swear.” He kept their pinkies locked for a moment too long, then released her hand and ran backstage to get dressed.

She kept her promise and watched with excitement as the building shook when Harry took the stage.

She had never heard something quite so loud, sure her ears would be ringing when she snuggled into her bunk on the tour bus that night. Watching him perform was mesmerizing; he knew how to work a stage in every way and make every person in the arena feel like he was singing just for them. He was larger than life while performing and his little dances and mannerisms only got more pronounced the more comfortable he got on stage. He messed with Mitch, who she had only met a few hours ago (he was very nice), and constantly praised Sarah on the drums behind him, while he looked over to Adam and sent him smiles often.

Everyone in the building came for a show, and boy, did he give them one. It was amazing to watch. There was a reason she was a fan.

Bouncing off the stage, full of adrenaline and in a post-show high, he came to find her. It wasn’t hard, as she had never left her spot on the side of the stage, unable to rip her eyes away from the man before her.

“Oh my god, Harry! That was incredible!” she said with delighted amazement.

“I’m glad you liked it.” He was smiling down at her with a big toothy grin, a hand running through his sweaty hair and pushing it off his forehead. “They only get better from here.”

***

He was telling the truth. The shows only got crazier and more exciting as the tour went on, and so did their “relationship.”

About five shows in, Jeff had Harry given her his “H” ring to start wearing. Harry didn’t seem too phased by it all even though she thought it might be too much, saying “it’s like a friendship bracelet.” But it was too big for her fingers, not because she had small hands, but because Harry’s were absolutely massive. She wore it on a chain around her neck from then on and made sure to always be seen playing with it.

Fans took notice and loved it.

A little after that, Jeff sent them off to get matching manicures. Both had a melting rainbow of oranges, pinks, and browns on their fingertips, which looked amazing in the paparazzi photos of them walking around with their fingers intertwined.

The fans loved that too.

But when she “accidentally” posted a photo of Harry on her story, the entire world lost it’s shit. In the photo, he laid sprawled across a bed in only a white hotel robe that was creeping dangerously high up his thigh. He looked sleepy and slightly sweaty, in a post-fuck haze, and clothes that looked very similar to ones she had been seen wearing in public only days before were strewn across the floor. The caption read “I love getting to love you.”

The photo had strategically only been up for about 30 seconds, but by the time it was deleted thousands of people had seen it and screenshots had been taken. They quickly circulated the internet, creating a bit of scandal. But more than anything, people began to love the two of them together even more. Harry looked genuinely happy in the photo, and for most of his fans, that was all that mattered.

They were creating a fairytale love story for an audience, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying her role. She quite liked being his “girlfriend.”

Harry and Y/N had a way of clicking as they grew closer–quite literally as they were crammed together on a tour bus most of the time. They seemed to be able to finish each other’s sentences and always beat the other to the punchline of a joke. The pair had begun to pick up on the other’s mannerisms and habits; Y/N always teasing that Harry was going to rub his nose off one day if he kept rubbing it while he was thinking and Harry always knowing when she got enough sleep by whether or not she had put on eyeliner that morning. They swapped playlists back and forth in their bunks as they tried to doze off and always grabbed a cup of coffee for whoever had decided to sleep in the next day, now knowing the other’s order by heart.

There was only one thing she didn’t know about him that she longed to discover: what his lips felt like against her own. She could never think too hard about it though, or she may just explode.

He had become a calming presence and was currently helping her keep her cool, even though she knew the pair of interviewers across the table were getting ready to grill the pair for every detail they could get. His hand had settled on top of her knee to quell it’s nervous bouncing, but remained after she had stopped, even though no one could see his touch under the table. She watched as his thumb ran itself back and forth along the leg of her flashy orange and yellow patterned overalls and she had a hard time pulling her gaze away when the radio host across the large table began to speak.

“So Harry,” the bald man began. “Fine Line has been one of the biggest albums of the year and I just have to say I love it. It’s truly incredible.” She listened as the man continued on to sing Harry’s praises, going on to list his grammy nominations, sold out world tour, and other accolades. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched his cheeks tinge pink with the praise. She knew anyone watching would pick up on her adoring look and people fawn over it, but she knew her gaze was nothing but truthful.

“Thank you very much,” he said shyly, shaking his head slightly as he spoke into the microphone suspended in front of his face. “You’re too kind.”

“Stop being humble,” she teased him, playfully tapping him on the arm. “All of his music is fantastic,” she said turning her attention back to the man across from them, “especially Fine Line.”

“And there’s Y/N, being the supportive girlfriend,” the man chuckled.

“I support him in everything he does,” she smiled back, not having to embellish the truth at all. “He is an amazing talent and I think Fine Line shows that.”

It wasn’t hard for her to gush about him. It was actually quite easy. She absolutely adored him, as an artist, a friend, and the focus of her affection. She felt an equal warmth in her cheeks as she watched his get even pinker with her compliments.

“That’s actually something we wanted to ask you about,” the blonde woman sitting next to him piped up, a mischievous glint in her eyes that sent nervous butterflies flying around Y/N’s stomach. “One of the songs on Fine Line, Cherry to be specific, actually features the voice of Harry’s ex, Camille. How does that make you feel as his new girl?”

Y/N did her best not to gag at the woman’s question, gritting her teeth as she plastered on a polite smile. “Well, I think Cherry is a really great song and her voice at the end adds a lot,” she spoke as smoothly as she could, refusing to let on that the question rattled her. Harry’s light squeeze on her knee signalled to her that she had answered the question well.

“It’s also been three years since the song was written,” Harry cut in. “Things are obviously a lot different now.” He connected their eyes for a second while he was leaning back into his seat, sending her a short smile, but she knew him well enough to know it was genuine.

“Oh, definitely,” the woman eagerly agreed. “You’re in a great new relationship with a beautiful girl on your arm.”

“Y/N,” he emphasized her name as the woman had referred to her as a possession of his for a second time, “and I are very happy. Thank you.” To an onlooker, he was calm. To her, he was visibly uncomfortable by her words.

Y/N began to notice a clear pattern as the interview went on. Harry was asked exclusively about his music and the tour, while Y/N only became relevant to their interviewers when they wanted to mention their relationship.

When the man asked Y/N if she felt uncomfortable playing to Harry’s mainly female fanbase every night that are “so obviously jealous of her,” something snapped inside of her, sending all her hours of media training out the window. “I’m not uncomfortable at all,” she said curtly. “His music is great and he puts on an awesome show. I don’t think the audience’s gender really has anything to do with the music.” She watched the man’s face fall before she decided to go on. “And I would like to think that at least a few of them are there for me too. You do know I make music too, right?”

An indignant smirk found its way to her lips as the man stammered out, “yes, of course.”

“Okay. I was just wondering since you have only asked me questions about our relationship since we got here.”

She knew Jeff wouldn’t be happy, but at the moment, she couldn’t care less. They may not have really been dating, but the interviewers didn’t know that. All of their dismissal of her and her career was 100% real.

She had been so worked up that she didn’t even realize Harry’s hand had left her knee until it found its way to rest on her back. She leaned into his touch as he rubbed her back softly while she crossed her arms in front of her.

The interviewers looked at the two of them across the table, jaws both lying on the floor. It was quiet until Harry nonchalantly spoke. “She has a point.”

The last few minutes of the interview passed in an awkward blur that felt suffocating. She felt like she could finally take in a deep breath once they were in the back of a massive SUV being driven away from the studio.

“Jeff is going to have my head,” she mumbled under her breath, nose stuck into her phone as she scrolled Twitter to see what people were saying about her outburst. But before she could read any opinions, Harry's tattooed arm blocked her view as he gently pushed her phone down onto her lap.

“Look at me,” he murmured, beckoning her attention to the other side of the back seat. When she connected her eyes with his, his usual calming aura took over her, softening the stressed crease between her brows. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Harry, I just blew my career up into smoke because I couldn’t deal with a rude interviewer,” she huffed at him.

“No,” he disagreed softly, moving the hand that rested on her arms to interlock his fingers with one of hers. “You stuck up for yourself to people who were ignoring your work and whittling you down to your relationship.”

“But it was rude.”

“It was necessary.”

The car ride to the venue for that night’s concert was quiet, but Harry never let go of her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles in a comforting touch. She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted him to let go.

***

It was the early hours of the morning by the time the pair returned to their tour bus and went to crawl into their bunks.

Her performance had gone well and Harry was mesmerizing (as always). He was truly hypnotizing to watch while he performed and she hadn’t missed watching him yet, even as they drew close to the end of the tour. It was the best part of her day and she would miss it dearly after the last show.

She was almost asleep, curtain drawn and cuddled under a pile of blankets, when her cell began to ring. Her heart sank, knowing only one person who would know when she had a sliver of free time (even though it’s debatable if sleeping counts as free time). She was going to get scolded like she was a little kid in the principal's office and she knew it.

“Hi Jeff,” she answered with a sigh as she pulled the curtain back and slid from the bunk, the cold air of the tour bus nipping at her legs.

Her gaze was met by a snuggled up Harry wearing a concerned face across from her in his own bed. He never closed the curtain, not even when she asked politely to muffle his snores, always saying something about how it made him claustrophobic. He sent her a tired smile and mouthed “good luck,” extending a hand for a fist bump as she passed. Knocking their knuckles together put a brief smile on her face before she buckled in for the chewing out she was about to get.

Harry watched her intently as she paced up and down the front of the tour bus as she spoke to Jeff, too far away for him to listen in. Her face gradually turned from anxious, to surprised, to something that would have probably been happiness if she wasn’t so tired.

“Alright, thank you for everything.” She spoke softly when she finally returned to be within earshot for him. “Goodnight Jeff.”

“So?” he murmured groggily at her, brows raised in question at her.

“People loved it,” she said shocked, like she didn’t fully believe it herself. “They think I’m some kind of badass for shutting down a sexist. Which is, like, a lot,” she spoke with a disbelieving chuckle, unable to find the right words in her groggy state. “I don’t really know what to make of it.”

Harry seemed to spring up from his spot in his bed, smacking his head on the top of the bunk in the process, prompting them both to dissolve into a puddle of giggles.

“Don’t get too excited for me,” she laughed. “I cannot be the reason that you hurt yourself and have to cancel a show.”

“I was just too excited to say ‘I told you so,’” he smirked, now rubbing the side of his head through his curls.

“Cocky bastard,” she sarcastically murmured under her breath while dramatically rolling her eyes.

She watched with confusion as Harry left his bed, and after a short and frantic search for his pajama pants so he wouldn’t “offend her eyes,” he moved towards the front of the bus. Her eyes trailed him as he bent down to the small mini fridge and pulled out two beers.

“We have to celebrate.”

It was 2 AM and she had been so ready for bed after a long day. But she knew she could never say no to him. She thanked god that they had a day off tomorrow.

After retrieving her massive and lovingly worn Grateful Dead sweatshirt to protect her from the chilly air, she nearly ran to the front of the bus. His painted pink fingers moved with skill as he popped the bottle caps off with one of his rings, handing it to her and gently nudging his bottle against hers.

“Cheers,” he murmured softly as he looked down at her with a kindhearted smile.

“Cheers,” she seemed to whisper back to him, a flutter in her stomach reminding her how badly she wanted to reach out and connect her lips to his. Instead she slid into the small booth across from him, taking a long sip from the bottle as she watched him do the same.

“I want you to know that I was really proud of you today,” he said as he put his beer down on the table. “Rude interviewers are never easy and you handled it like a champ.”

“Thank you, H,” she nodded, suddenly bashful and unable to make eye contact with him. Her cheeks burned hot as she put all her focus into tracing the rim of the bottle with her finger tip.

“Hey,” he called for her attention and her eyes snapped up to meet his. “I mean it, Y/N.”

“I know you do,” she gently nodded at him. “I’m just really happy they didn’t ask about my ex,” she chuckled as she took another sip. “That would have gone very poorly.”

“Oh yeah, I was a little annoyed they brought up my ex but not yours,” he teased. “Not fair if you ask me.”

“Well, then I’m glad no one asked you.”

“Can I ask you?”

“What?”

“About your ex.”

She should have been prepared to talk about it with Harry at some point. Half of this plan had been devised to get back at James anyway. She should be able to talk about it by now, especially with someone she had grown so close to.

“I guess so,” she shrugged, trying to seem casual like the mere mention of him didn’t still hurt her heart a little bit. “What do you want to know?”

“As much as you’re willing to tell me.”

He looked soft like this, eyes slightly sleepy with a tenderness in them as he looked back at her. His hair was unruly and puffy and he was wrapped in the powder blue blanket that lived on the tour bus’ couch. She would have told him anything that he ever wanted to hear if he kept looking like this.

With a deep breath, she began to recount everything that went down.

“I met James while I was still working as a waitress. I recognized him from his movies and started a conversation, and then–to my surprise–he asked me out on a date. I had been in LA for three weeks and this insanely famous actor is asking me to go out with him, so I obviously said yes.” She paused to take a swig of her beer, before mumbling under her breath, “I should have said ‘fuck no’ to that.”

A smile ghosted over her lips as she listened to Harry’s laugh across the table. She swore that laugh could cure cancer.

“But I didn’t,” she continued. “He introduced me to the right people and helped me make the right connections in the industry, which I guess made me feel indebted to him. Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Harry nodded, eyebrows furrowed and listening intently.

“I should have broken up with him after I signed with Jeff and the label, however awful that sounds. But he just always knew the right things to say to make me feel special and like I was the most important person in the world. Even after I found out he was talking to other girls, he was somehow able to talk himself out of it.” She shook her head as she recalled it. “You wanna hear something fucked up?”

“Always,” he said with a gentle smirk.

“He proposed to me using lines from a romcom he was working on.”

Harry nearly spit out his drink. “Holy shit, you’re kidding!”

“I wish. I didn’t find out until I went with him to the premier a few months later and the proposal scene sounded surprisingly familiar.”

“What a dirtbag.”

“I know, right?” she laughed. “Then a few weeks after that, he got papped with his tongue down another girl’s throat. That finally knocked some sense into me and I ran for the hills.”

“Fuck,” he sighed as he finished his beer. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she breathed. “I don’t even feel hurt by him anymore, ya know? I just feel angry at myself for trusting him.”

“I understand but it’s not your fault he was a piece of shit,” he said as he rose from his seat and traveled to the mini fridge once again. “Another?” he asked, holding the bottle up about his head.

“Fuck it,” she shrugged. “Sure.”

She watched him skillfully pop off the tops again using just his rings, making a mental note to make him teach her how he did that, before he flopped back down in his seat.

“At the risk of sounding like a Facebook mom, ‘you grow through what you go through,’” she chuckled, taking another long sip as she finished her first. He matched her high pitched giggle across the table and she nearly drooled beer down her front from smiling so wide.

“Amen, sister,” he agreed, raising his beer in the air.

“Oh, that was awful.” She shook her head as she descended into giggles. “Please never say that again.”

“Noted.”

“Anyway,” she began again after another sip of her drink, “I was well prepared to get my heartbroken by untrustworthy men after you, Styles.”

“I’m offended–tell me more,” he spoke quickly, his signature narcissistic smirk settling onto his features.

“I need you to know that Zayn leaving was my first real heartbreak.”

“Were the rest of us chopped liver?”

“You weren’t Zayn, I can tell you that.”

“Ouch!” He let out a loud belly laugh.

“Put yourself in my shoes for a minute, H. So first, the hottest-”

“Rude-”

“-I’m speaking. So the hottest one leaves, and then the rest of you are all like ‘we’ll be back in 18 months,’” she mocked him in a high pitched impersonation with a wave, “and then 6 months later you all mysteriously have solo careers.”

“I do not see you complaining about my solo career now, ya fame leetch.” He spoke with such humor and charisma, she couldn’t have even wished to be offended by his joke.

“Absolutely not, sir,” she said sternly, giving him a dramatic salute. “Deepest apologies from the fame leetch.” The two collapsed into giggles, laughing until their sides began to ache.

“Wait, I have a question for mega superstar Mr. Harry Styles of former One Direction fame,” she announced.

“I believe that’s me,” he bowed his head and raised his hand into the hair. “Shoot.”

She barely could get the question out, laughing too hard at her own joke. “Is Taylor Swift a good kisser?”

“Oh god,” he exasperatedly threw his hands in the air, chuckling while rolling his eyes dramatically before grinning wide as he thought over his answer. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he finally smirked.

“Wait, I have another!”

“Watch it, smart ass.”

“You think I’m smart?” she teased as she feigned flattery. “Have you ever heard of a song called ‘English Love Affair?’” He narrowed his eyes at her, a knowing smirk crossing his lips as he shook his head at her. “Also, when do I get to meet Gemma?”

“I’ll consider it when you stop bringing up her sex life, perv.”

“We’ve been dating for a few months now,” she teased as she continued to prod, emboldened by the liquid courage running through her veins as she was now half way through her next beer. “I think I should be allowed to meet the family soon. They seem delightful.”

“They would love how you have decided to rip into me like this,” he said with a cheeky smile, dimples on full display.

“Rockstars have to get knocked down a peg every once in a while.” She sarcastically shrugged. “Consider it a favor.”

She couldn’t help but think about how right this felt. Their back and forth flowed so smoothly, the banter falling from their lips without effort. Their laughter joined together in a delightful melody and she imagined they could go on this way all night.

Spending any amount of time with him made her so fucking happy; and time spent teasing each other over beers caused her to nearly explode with joy. How much she was enjoying herself was too hard to put into words.

He was safe and he was kind and he made her laugh no matter how bad his jokes were.

He was her best friend.

And for the first time, she was willing to admit that she was in love with him.

“Harry,” she hummed softly as their laughter died down to a comfortable silence. “Thank you for everything. You’ve changed my life forever and I can never repay you.”

“Just remember me when you get famous.”

“Oh shut up, I’m being serious,” she playfully scolded before letting her tone drop back into honesty. “You’re a very good person and I’m eternally grateful for you letting me be your opening act and then agreeing to this whole relationship charade.”

“I didn’t ‘let’ you be anything, Y/N. I picked you myself.”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I listened to your album when it came out and fell in love with it,” he shrugged, his casual tone contradicting the surprised raise of her pulse. “When I found out Jeff also managed you, I knew I had to have you on the tour.”

Y/N was honestly stunned. She had always assumed that the tour was Jeff’s doing, a careful arrangement pairing Full Stop’s new up-and-comer with their most famous and established talent. Being offered the tour had been the biggest opportunity and honor she had ever been presented with; but she had never considered Harry himself being behind it.

“Oh,” was all she could manage to get out.

It was now his turn to be confused. “What’s so surprising about that?” he asked, reading the shock on her face like she was an open book.

“I just,” she stammered, trying to find the words in her slightly hazy state. “I never would have thought you knew who I was or listened to my music.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she trailed off. “You’re you, and I’m just... me, I guess.”

He didn’t respond right away, just looking at her intently and slightly amused, sea glass eyes boring into her with a pink lip held between his teeth.

He scanned her frame, from the way her hair sat messily on top of her head and the way the massive sweatshirt swallowed her body enough to where she had pulled her knees up to her chest underneath it. Her shoulders were slumped slightly, making her appear smaller as she held her legs close to her torso and her eyebrows were knitted together in worry, slightly nervous under his intense gaze.

She downed the rest of her beer in an attempt to forget his intense attention. It didn’t work.

“You really don’t know how incredible you are, do you?” he finally asked, the corner of his lips twitching into a small smile.

She felt her whole body burn with his compliment, wanting to shrink into herself and disappear completely from his view. She finally shook her head slightly in an attempt to deflect his words, breathing his name under her breath as if to scold him for being too kind.

“You are,” he insisted, ignoring her objection. “You’re so talented and your music deserves all the attention that it gets. I am honored that I get to play a part in helping expose the world to you and what you have to offer.”

“Thank you.” Her words came out as a whisper.

“You’re welcome, love.”

His pet name made her stomach turn in a nervous excitement and a wide grin involuntarily came to her lips.

“I like it when I make you smile like that.” His words only made her beam further. “You look very pretty when you smile.”

“Stop it,” she said softly, cheeks burning hot and having a hard time making eye contact with him.

“Stop what?” He feigned innocence as he lightly teased her, smirk still prominent on his features.

“Are you flirting with me, Styles?”

“Just practicing.”

His words rang through her mind long after they had left the table and crawled back into their bunks for the night. She wished she could see inside his head to understand whatever thoughts were running around his brain.

But for now she could just peak at him through the gap she had purposely left in her curtain, wondering if she ever popped into his dreams as he slept.

He was always in hers.

***

There was a sadness mixed in with her usually thrilled mood as she took the stage for the last show of the tour. While there was an element of relief as she looked forward to some well needed rest, the adrenaline and joy of being in front of a crowd was something that she would miss dearly. She had grown into a real performer over the last two months as they zig-zagged across the US and this period of time would have a special place in her heart long after it had ended.

But there was another reason why she was so sad to see this chapter come to an end. As far as she knew, a staged breakup was not far away and the thought of being without Harry was heartbreaking. He had become her person and soon their feux falling out would be on the front page of every magazine. She wanted nothing more in the world than for their relationship to be real, but it would be forced to end before it had even truely started.

She got choked up as she sang her final song that night, letting a few tears escape as she took in the thousands of people singing her lyrics back to her, flashlights swaying in the air to the beat of the music. Taking a move from Harry’s own playbook, she took her mic and directed it to the crowd to sing as she cried. The vibrations of the drums and bass behind her nestled it’s way into her bones and the chorus of singing voices in the crowd surrounded her in a bittersweet melody.

The past two months she had been on top of the world, and as soon as this song finished, it was the beginning of the end.

She took her final bow, watching as the small tears fell forward onto the dusty stage below her. She waved and blew kisses to the crowd, then nearly ran off the stage looking for the only person she wanted to see.

Harry was right where he always was, just out of view behind the curtain, holding his arms out for her to fall into.

“Awe, babe,” he hummed sympathetically when she settled her head onto his chest, surely ruining his crisp white t-shirt with her now wet makeup. “It’s okay. Final shows are always tough.” He rubbed her back gently, in a soothing rhythm.

He smelled so good. He smelled like home.

She tilted her head up to connect her glassy eyes with his. “I just don’t want this all to end.” She knew she wasn’t just talking about the tour.

“Neither do I,” he said as his lips curved into a devilish smirk that sent her heart into palpitations. “That’s why I have one last surprise for you.”

“Oh, Harry,” she sighed while wiping the remaining tears off her cheeks. “What have you done?”

“You said you liked surprises!” he defended.

“Not surprises in front of 20,000 people!”

“I promise you’re going to love this one, okay?” His voice was softer now, encouraging and supportive. “You’re going to come out and sing an extra song with me during my set,” he revealed.

“Sing what?”

“That’s the surprise.”

“Do I even know the words?”

“You definitely know the words,” he chuckled.

“I just finished sobbing. I can’t go out there like this.”

“You can fix your makeup. I believe in you.”

“What am I going to wear?” she asked, grasping at straws at this point, doing anything she could to get out of this.

“I had Lambert put something together for you.”

“Of course you did.”

She peppered him with a few more questions, but he had a smooth and charming answer to every single one. He had thought every detail out, and as always, she couldn’t say no to him.

“Fine,” she finally exasperatedly agreed, immediately met with his excited and dimpled smile that she had fallen head over heels for.

“Perfect,” he breathed. “I have to go get ready and so do you. I already put everything you need in your dressing room, okay?” She nodded, still biting her lip anxiously. He held her by her shoulders, lowering his head to match their eye level as he leaned in close, before he spoke. “You’re going to have fun. I promise.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

Seconds after they locked their little fingers together, he pressed a quick and protective kiss to her forehead that set her whole body ablaze before running off in the direction of his dressing room. She remained stunned and frozen in her spot for a few moments trying to process what it felt like to have his lips on her for the first time since that very first day they had met.

There was no audience to perform it for or an act to keep up behind the curtain. He kissed her because he wanted to.

She was finally snapped out of her daze when a stagehand bumped into her by accident, prompting her to begin the short walk back to her dressing room. But the ghost of his lips remained on her forehead, an incessant tingle placed there by his touch.

The dress she found waiting for her was one of the most beautiful gowns she had ever set her eyes on. Made of a light purple chiffon, the wrap dress’ long sleeves and floor length skirt flowed freely. A belt cinched the wispy fabric close to her waist and a deep-v exposed her neck and chest. But the most dazzling part of the dress were the red sequined hearts that dotted the fabric and reflected the light of the dressing room like a million little mirrors.

Slipping into it, the light fabric was soft against her skin, opaque enough but still slightly sheer to let light through and show off her legs and the bright red shiny pumps Lambert had left for her. She felt the most beautiful she had ever felt in this dress, boosting her confidence and quelling her nerves about whatever the hell Harry was planning.

“One minute to curtain,” was announced in an ominous voice over the arena’s backstage speakers as she finished fixing her makeup and she all but ran to make it back to the stage in time. She only had one more chance to watch him perform and she refused to miss a second of it.

Harry dazzled as the lights focused in on him, his deep blue and fully sequined suit reflecting the light and turning him into a human disco ball. He stood close to the edge of the stage as the beginning notes of the first song began being played by the band, but he made no move towards his mic stand to sing. His eyes were closed and his arms were outstretched to the audience, taking in every scream, every tear, and the thunderous shake of the building; but also giving himself to them.

Then the show began. As usual, he was electric, but tonight was like he had turned himself up to eleven. Every note he sang was full of his heart and every dance move was done with his entire body, even his bad jokes seemed funnier tonight.

She was so mesmerized she almost forgot about his ‘surprise.’ Almost.

“Since tonight is unfortunately our last show,” he pouted. “I thought I would do something special,” he spoke to the crowd as they roared, but quickly connected his eyes with her’s in the wings. By the smirk plastered on his face, she knew she was in for it.

“I recently found out that someone very close to me was a very big fan of…” he trailed off as he dramatically pretended to search for the right words, “my previous work.” He finished with a smirk and his words prompted the loudest reaction since he had been on stage.

“Now, I told her that she would be coming on stage to join me tonight, but I didn’t exactly tell her what we would be singing and I haven’t performed this song in a very long time, so cut us some slack if we mess up. This is very unrehearsed.” He kept sneaking glances back to her, as her eyes grew wider at the stunt he was currently pulling. “But I know for a fact that she knows all the words. I listen to her sing them in the shower quite often.” He wore a cheeky dimpled grin as he looked back at her once again.

The building was shaking due to the suspense he was creating, and looking down at her hands, she realized she was to. She gripped hard onto the mic a stagehand had just shoved at her, pleading with her hands to stop their tremors.

“Now, I would love it if you could all give another warm welcome to one of my favorite people on the planet, Y/N Y/L/N!” He turned his body to her for a final time, extending his hand out for her to take. Her legs felt like jello as she walked out into the bright lights towards him, interlocking her fingers with his as a way to keep her on her feet.

The audience’s screams were deafening at seeing the two of them together and she thanked god she had her earpieces in to protect her ear drums or they would have surely burst. She could only imagine the articles that would be written about this and the thousands of tweets that were probably already being sent.

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” she mouthed at him threateningly, but she couldn’t even get through the sentence before his dazzling smile began to quell her anxiety.

“The look on your face is 100% worth getting my ass kicked,” he answered smoothly before turning his attention back to the audience. “Everyone, sing along if you know the words,” he commanded their attention. “This is Ready to Run.”

Her jaw dropped and the crowd roared as the band behind her began to play the first few chords of the song she loved and knew so well. She had admitted it a few days ago that it was one of her favorites of his ‘previous work,’ but apparently he already knew that from the few showers she had taken on the tour bus.

“There’s a lightning in your eyes I can’t deny,” he began by himself, her brain still too shocked to jump in yet. He sang the first few lines to her with a giant grin plastered on his face, hand still holding tight to hers. His eyes had a playful glint in them that seemed to say ‘just have fun.’

“There’s a devil in your smile, it’s chasing me,” she finally began to sing, Harry fading his voice out so she could take the next few lines by herself as he admired her.

He did have a devilish smile, but it was one she loved with her entire heart. As she began to sing, she felt her muscles begin to relax into the song she had sung to herself so many times before, letting her body begin to bounce to the growing rhythm as her dress flowed around her.

The stage vibrated as Sarah beat her drums to introduce the chorus. “This time I’m ready to run, escape from the city and follow the sun,” the pair sang together, eyes still locked as their voices combined into the most perfect tune. “Cause I wanna be yours, don’t you wanna be mine?” they continued the lyrics. She felt herself meaning the words leaving her mouth more and more as they went on. She did want to be his, she couldn’t deny that. “I don’t wanna get lost in the dark of the night.”

Her apprehensiveness eased further as the music picked up and the hook went on, finally allowing herself to have a bit of fun. “Wherever you are is the place I belong,” they insisted towards each other, leaning in close before Harry grabbed her hand to dramatically spin her, the beautiful shining fabric of her dress splaying out around her. The next line was mumbled through giggles by both of them, but their laughter only added to the perfect moment they were having.

They danced across the stage together like there weren’t 20,ooo pairs of eyes watching them, both singing their hearts out to each other. It began to feel like they weren’t even there. It was just Y/N and Harry, serenading each other to one of her favorite songs.

“There’s a future in my eyes I can’t foresee,” she sang to him to start the second verse.

“Unless, of course, I stay on course and keep you next to me.” Harry grabbed her by her waist and pulled her into his side as he sang the words, prompting more giggles from her. She loved the way he smiled so wide as he sang, never breaking his eye contact with her and emitting pure joy. His eyes looked honest as he sang, like he meant every word just as much as she did.

The pair made their way through the rest of the verse and second chorus, flawlessly moving around the stage like they owned it. Y/N selfishly decided to let him have the bridge all to himself, needing to hear the way his beautiful voice hit the high notes. “This time I’m ready to run,” he sang passionately, executing the downward moving riff perfectly. “I’d give everything that I got for your love,” he pointed across the stage towards her, beckoning her back close to him. She quickly skipped to him at his request.

Like she had blinked, the song was already nearing its end.

“Cause I wanna be free and I wanna be young, I’ll never look back now I’m ready to run,” they belted the last lines out to each other. The band fell quiet on their last chord and the crowd exploded, but their noise fell on deaf ears as the pair stood so close their heaving chests were almost pressed up against each other. His eyes stared down into hers and she watched as his eyes flickered quickly down to her lips.

The world ceased to exist when he pressed his mouth to hers, even if it only lasted a second. It was nothing more than a peck, but it was everything to her. Her body igniting with heat and eyes full of shock, she looked back at him in simultaneous confusion and adoration, before realizing they had been staring at each other for too long. She needed to get off the stage so he could continue with his show. She walked back slowly towards the wings, letting the hand he had still been holding fall to her side. She waved and smiled to the crowd the best she could in her clouded mind.

“Thank you everyone!” she shouted into her mic as she moved out of their view. She shoved her mic into the first set of hands that would take it as she wobbled her way over to a table with water bottles. She nearly choked as she tried to suck one down, hoping it would ease the dizzy feeling he had created with his lips. Her lips burned just as her forehead had earlier in the night.

He had kissed her. He had sang a love song with her and then he had kissed her. She couldn’t decipher if that kiss was a confirmation that he shared the same feelings for her or if it was just another act for the cameras. But his mouth felt so right against hers. They fit together like a pair of puzzle pieces. She tried to suppress the optimistic hope that rose in her chest, but it began to swallow her whole.

When she heard his next song begin, she made her way back to the spot that had become hers at the side of the stage. She watched him perform the rest of the show in a loving haze, doe eyed and hypnotized, lips still buzzing from his contact.

He gave it his all. By the last song he was out of breath, drenched in sweat, and looked like he was about to pass out at any second. The crowd applauded for minutes after he left the stage and they were still cheering when she finally caught sight of him again. His curls were stuck to his forehead and his skin was shiny and flushed. He was panting, still trying to recover from his workout of a finale show; but he was beaming. His smile seemed to turn him into a beacon, emitting a light and positive energy that drew everyone backstage towards him.

She was so transfixed on Harry as he thanked the crew and accepted congratulations from all around that she just about jumped out of her skin when Jeff slinked up behind her and whispered ‘boo’ in her ear.

“What the fuck, Jeff,” she chuckled as she caught her breath, resting her hand on her chest and feeling her racing heartbeat.

“I just wanted to congratulate you on being half of the best fake couple out there,” he teased. “That kiss was perfect. People are losing their minds over it.”

“Oh,” she said softly, feeling every emotion she was distracted from while watching Harry rush back into her. Her heart sank as she remembered all the questions that continued to haunt her since she got off stage. “Thanks,” she murmured, plastering a smile onto her face. “I’m glad we could make you proud.”

“If you two could convince me, you can convince anyone.” Jeff walked off moments later, leaving her to sit in her confused thoughts as he disappeared into the hoards of bodies waiting for their minute with Harry.

She knew that she didn’t ‘convince’ Jeff of anything on her part. Everything she did with Harry was authentic and truthful. Including the thrilled grin that appeared on her face when she finally made eye contact with the exhausted man across the room. She gave him a shy wave that he sheepishly returned, biting back a shy smile. He pointed in the direction of his dressing room and mouthed “meet me in 15.”

She could never say no to him.

Fifteen minutes later, she was knocking on the large wooden door that had a single piece of paper that read STYLES haphazardly taped onto it. When it finally flew open, she was met by a soaking wet Harry with a towel hanging dangerously low on his hips. Her eyes trailed down his body without permission, taking in the toned torso that was decorated with his beautiful tattoos. Her eyes hovered over the two ferns that sat on his pelvis, too fascinated with the dark ink to pull her eyes away just yet.

She had obviously seen him in various states of undress before. They lived together on a tour bus without much space to exist with privacy, but this was different. He wasn’t rushing to get dressed or quickly changing his outfit. And he wasn’t moving away from her gaze at all.

If she hadn’t been so entranced by him, she would have noticed he was looking her up and down in the exact same manner.

She had changed since she had seen him last. The skin-tight black velvet romper she had brought along for the afterparty now fit her snuggly and held her every curve. The dark fabric was tight and appeared almost painted on, a rainbow racing stripe making its way down either side of her chest. The short shorts of the outfit exposed nearly all of her legs and the deep neckline put much of her chest on display as well. It’s long sleeves were her favorite part, as a strip of fringe dangled from below her arms any time she moved.

“You look great,” Harry finally choked out, his voice pulling their eyes back up to the other’s face.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, slightly awkwardly. “You too.”

“Well, I’m hopefully not going to the after party dressed like this,” he chuckled before stepping aside and ushering her into the room.

His dressing room was much larger than hers and she settled herself on the brown leather couch in the corner as she waited for him to get ready, sneaking glances up from her phone often. She chuckled as she watched him spend far too long fussing with his curls in the mirror, but was quickly distracted by the way his back and arms flexed when he reached up to muse his hair. Once he was satisfied with the way it fell, he disappeared into the bathroom at the back of the room. When he emerged, he was finally dressed, allowing her to take a deep breath and to focus on something other than his bare skin for the first time since he had opened the door.

The black satin suit was simple for him, but the tight white tank top that sat underneath hugged every muscle in his torso. She knew as soon as he got in the hot club, he would lose the jacket, and she would be devastatingly distracted once again.

The narcissist took one final look at himself in the mirror before turning to her and extending a hand. “Ready, darling?”

“You just spent 15 minutes exclusively on your hair and you’re asking me if I’m ready?” she teased as she took his hand, weaving her fingers between his as they exited the room together.

He leaned down close to her ear as they walked down the now mostly empty hallway, lips brushing over the hollow of her ear as he spoke. “I could have done it faster, but you were so obviously enjoying the show.”

“Relax yourself, Magic Mike,” she muttered indignantly, but hung her head in a way she hoped he couldn’t see how flustered he made her. Was she really that obvious?

They walked hand in hand out to the parking garage, now caught in a back and forth about whether or not Harry could be a male stripper. He said yes. She said no, although she did admit at one point that he worked his mic stand like a pole.

“Hey Jeff,” he called when they finally reached the parking garage where Jeff and Glenne had been waiting for them to head to the club. “Do you think I could be a stripper?”

“I think people would pay a lot to see it, but they may be disappointed in your dancing skills.”

“Come on,” he playfully whined. “I have some moves.”

“You have one move,” Y/N cut in with a chuckle, “and it’s the wiggle.” She brought her hands up near her chest, tilted her head back while dramatically biting her lip, and swayed her arms by her sides, earning a chorus of laughter from the people around her.

She hadn’t even realized she had done the move without releasing Harry’s hand first, dragging his arm into her dance as well, until their manager commented on it. “You know, you two don’t have to be holding hands all the time and keeping the show up back here,” he said with a slightly suspicious quirk in his eyebrows.

Her smile had been in the process of fading, like they had been caught doing something wrong, before Harry answered smoothly. “We know. Just practicing.”

There were those words again. Just practicing, she thought over to herself. But was he practicing anymore? How many flirty comments, heartfelt compliments, and warm touches did it take to cross the line of practicing to the real thing?

She wasn’t sure about Harry, but she knew that she wasn’t just practicing anymore.

She knew that the way they sat nearly on top of each other in the large SUV on the way to the club felt more than friendly. And the way he hadn’t stopped touching her in some way since they left his dressing room insinuated far more than something with business-like intentions. And the way he looked at her everytime he caught her eye the entire way to the club, always with a bright smile and adoring gaze that she always returned, pulled at her heartstrings far more than they should have if this was all an act.

A sloppy and cheeky grin settled almost permanently on his features after he had a few drinks in him, his arms moving in a lazy and fluid manner as she took in his many tattoos that he had exposed when he ditched his jacket (just like she knew he would). His butterfly was visible through the tight ribbed fabric of the white tank top and the little birds that peaked out from underneath seemed to be inviting her even closer to him in her now inebriated state.

All she wanted to do was to connect her lips with his as she watched him make conversation with someone from his management, entranced by the way his perfect mouth moved as he spoke. She once again craved the shocks of electricity that were created between them at the contact and could not stop thinking about it no matter how hard she tried. The protective hand that had settled onto her hip and continued to hold her close to his body just wasn’t enough anymore.

The pair had been drinking far too much; martinis turning into vodka sodas that had turned into straight tequila shots. She believed it was tequila shot four that did her in. The last thing she remembered was licking the line of salt off the back of her hand, downing the shot, and being entranced by Harry’s eyes as she bit down on the slice of lime he held carefully with his jeweled fingers.

***

The next morning, Y/N woke up in a hotel room that she didn’t recognize with a pounding headache and a swirling gut. It felt like she had been hit with a truck and she could barely pick her head up off the pillow.

She had so many questions about what had happened the night before. Where was she? Who let her drink that much? Whose clothes was she wearing? But most of all, what the hell happened after that fourth shot?

But she realized the worst was yet to come when she heard soft snoring coming from beside her. She knew that snoring well. It was the snoring that kept her up half the night for the last two months and the one that had almost driven her to suffocating her bus-mate in his sleep; the snoring that matched the crumbled black suit she just noticed in a ball on the floor.

It took every ounce of strength in her body to pull herself from the pillow and turn around in the bed to have her suspicions confirmed.

There he was.

His dark long eyelashes were fluttered down across the tops of his cheeks and his hair was going in every direction, skin clammy like his body was trying to rid itself of all the poison he had ingested the night before. The crumpled comforter was pushed down his stomach, his bare skin holding a sheen that helped define every dip or curve of his muscles and the tiniest bit of the band of his boxers peaked out to assure her that he at least wasn’t fully naked next to her.

Why were they in bed together? And why did he look so good? Oh my god, she thought as a possibility dawned on her. Did we sleep together?

“Harry,” she murmured softer than she intended, voice scratchy and mouth dry. The soreness at the back of her throat clued her into the copious amounts of screaming she must have done last night. He didn’t stir at her gentle coaxing, the light streaming through the windows making him look angelic as it covered him in a blanket of soft light while he continued to sleep.

It was a hard nudge to his chest that finally made him open his eyes, immediately releasing a groan she was sure she made when she regained consciousness too. He looked at her puzzled, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he propped himself up on his elbows. He took an equally confused look around the hotel room before looking back at her. She watched as the gears slowly turned in his head until his eyes opened wide and he spring up into a sitting position to mirror hers.

“We didn’t,” he whispered hopefully. “Oh my god, did we?” he asked, a look of horror crossing his face that matched her own.

“I have no idea,” she anxiously replied. “I was hoping you would know!”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“The last thing I remember was doing tequila shots with you.”

“I remember those.” He rubbed his eyes hard like it would somehow jog his memory. His eyebrows knit together, buried in thought as he searched his brain for a timeline. “I can follow the night up until we did karaoke.”

“We did karaoke?” she repeated incredulously and was met with a somber nod. “Do I even want to know what we sang?”

He shook his head slowly, shame clear on his face, before he finally mumbled. “We did ‘It’s Raining Men.’”

“Oh my god, no,” she whined, holding her head in her hands and rubbing her temples. There were surely videos of them sloppily singing on top of a bar circulating online and she wasn’t sure how Jeff would be able to spin that one in a positive light.

“Where’s your phone?” he asked, a hopeful glint in his eye as he reached for his own. “Maybe there’s something on there that can clue us in.” It took her a moment but she finally spotted it on the ground in the corner of the room. She said a silent prayer that it wasn’t dead or broken.

Forcing her heavy limbs out from under the covers she made her way towards the device, but not before she heard a confused sound coming from Harry. “How did you get my clothes?”

Looking down at herself and taking in the red lettering that read But Daddy I Love Him across her chest, it clicked that the t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts were his. But how they hell did she get into them?

“I think we’ve established at this point that I don’t know anything that happened after about midnight, Harry.” Her words came out laced with slight frustration. She hoped he knew she wasn’t annoyed with him, just their situation.

“Just a question, princess.”

She ignored his quip and began to search through her texts, call history, and photos, hoping to find anything at all that could help trace their steps through the night. She found nothing but a few selfies of them still at the club. One was the pair casually smiling, the next was one of him kissing her on the cheek that made her skin warm, but the final one made her snort out a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I have a picture on my phone of you with two martini olives shoved up your nose,” she spoke through hysterical laughter. “Definitely birthday post material if you ask me.”

“Let me see,” he demanded with an adorable scowl.

She passed her phone over to him, still letting a few chuckles fall past her lips. “I’m gonna change your name in my phone to ‘Olive Nose Styles.”

“You're cruel.”

“You’re the one that put olives up his nose and then posed for a picture!”

“Whatever,” he grumbled, turning attention back to his own screen to continue his investigation. “There’s nothing of use on my phone either.”

The two flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling in the frustrated confusion. There was so much of their night that had gone up into smoke, completely unaccounted for with no clues as to what they did. Each traced their steps over and over again in their heads as they hoped desperately for a single detail that would lead them down a path to bigger memories, but it never came.

“Are we going to have to call Jeff and ask him what happened?” she finally murmured.

“I think so.”

“He’s going to put us both in client timeout, isn’t he?”

“We’re probably already there,” he groaned as he picked up his phone and hit Jefe Jeff-e in his contact list, putting the call on speaker and resting it on his still bare chest. The man on the other end picked up almost immediately.

“Morning Sleeping Beauty, I was wondering when I was going to hear from you.”

“Hi Jeff,” he groggily started then stopped, searching for the words that would make this all less uncomfortable. “Y/N and I have some questions about last night.”

Jeff let out a strained chuckle. “Yeah, that doesn’t really surprise me after last night’s bar bill.”

“Um,” Harry hummed, stammering but unable to form any real words.

“You sing about sex for a living,” she hissed at the man next to her before yanking the phone off his chest. “Jeff,” she started, taking over the conversation for them both. “Do you know if we slept together?”

“Probably not. You both were pretty unconscious when I put you in the hotel room.” His words prompted a massive sigh from both of them, looking to each other to share a relieved smile.

“Oh thank god,” they mumbled in unison.

“Jinx,” he smirked under his breath, prompting a ‘shut up’ from her.

“How did I get into Harry’s clothes?”

“I stopped by the tour bus when I realized you two probably shouldn’t be trusted not to roll out of your top bunks. I got you some clothes to sleep in before we took you guys to the hotel.”

“But why Harry’s?”

It was Jeff’s term to get squirmy. “I felt weird going through your things.”

“But you were perfectly fine with going through mine?” Harry asked, only half joking.

“Absolutely,” he deadpanned. They were all quiet for a moment before Jeff began again. “You two really don’t remember anything else that happened?”

“Everything after about two is unaccounted for,” she confessed.

“Oh,” Jeff chuckled. “So, you don’t remember when you stuck your tongues down each other’s throats on the ride home?”

Fuck.

Her eyes raced up to Harry’s from the phone she had been staring at like it held all the secrets of the night before. His easily readable features displayed all his emotions that surely matched hers. His pupils had grown in surprise, taking over nearly all the green in his wide eyes, and an embarrassed blush tinted his cheeks in a red hot flush that had reached the tips of his ears. His eyes flashed to the blank wall in front of them, running a stressed hand through his curls, like if he wasn’t looking at her, he would be able to focus better on the newly revealed information.

She couldn’t say that she didn’t relate. Her mind often went blank when she looked at him too. But right now, it was racing, occupied by anxious thoughts and intense emotions she couldn’t quite place, but felt with her entire being.

Her inevitable downward spiral was interrupted when Harry stiffly cleared his throat. “Uh,” he started, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. “We’ll see you later.”

“Sounds good, love birds,” Jeff replied, a clear snark apparent in his voice. Neither of the pair dignified his teasing with a response, Y/N quickly ending the call.

Silence hung heavy in the air and she let her eyes hover over the phone for too long when she settled it down on the bed, unwilling to connect her eyes with his just yet. Harry always had a way of staring into her and revealing all her cards to him before she even knew them herself. She wanted to hold them close to her chest for a moment, protecting the heart that longed for him more than anything else in the world.

There were no words exchanged between the two for a while as they silently took turns in the bathroom and occupied their hands and thoughts by their phones. They walked on eggshells anytime one neared the other. A tension like this hadn’t existed since the very first day they met, the first day they had begun to pretend.

Maybe that's why Harry was being so quiet. Maybe he never wanted to cross that line of pretending like she did. Maybe she had been blinded by his generally friendly personality and tricked herself into thinking there was anything more than a charade between them. Maybe last night really was just a drunken mistake, no matter how much she wanted it to be more.

“Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t remember what happened last night,” she finally murmured from the opposite end of the room. She rested the side of her still heavy head and muscles against the wall, arms crossed in front of her as if they could keep her safe from the tension they had created. Her fingers nervously played with the hem of his t-shirt she was still dressed in.

“Why is it a good thing?” he almost immediately responded from the chair on the other side of the room he had settled himself into, running his hands along the satin pants of last night’s outfit he had put back on during their awkward shuffling around the room. He had even put physical space between them since they found out what happened, causing her heart to feel as if it was teetering on the edge of disintegrating.

“Well,” she stuttered, refusing to look at him and continuing to pick at her nail polish. “We’re just pretending so it would be weird if we really remembered it.”

“I don’t think it would be weird.”

“I don’t know,” she tried to maneuver her way around his response. “It might just be embarrassing to think about it.”

He let out a long and frustrated sigh, running his hands down his face. There was so much going on behind his eyes and she wished he would say something, anything, to break down the wall that hadn’t existed between them in months that was slowly reappearing.

“Do you regret it?” he asked bluntly, the abrupt question shocking her body to attention. “Do you regret any of this? Any of us?”

Did she regret drinking too much? Yes. Did she regret making out with him in front of their manager? Yes. Did she regret denying her feelings and pretending they didn’t exist for so long? Of course. But, did she regret falling in love with him? Never, not even for a second.

“No, I don’t,” she let out with a gentle shake of her head, no louder than a whisper.

“Neither do I.”

The words had barely left his lips before he crossed the room and crashed them into hers. The same fire she had felt on stage returned ten times over as his lips moved smoothly over hers, every neuron in her body lighting up like a switchboard. Her fingers reached up to curl into his hair and pull his lips impossibly closer to hers as her heart hammered in her chest with a passionate love she had kept under wraps for so long.

He tasted like the spicy peppermint toothpaste the hotel stocked in the bathroom and smelled like the tiny bottles of shampoo that rested on the side of the bathtub; but there was so much else about him that was completely unique–wholly irreplaceable and indescribable. He was just Harry.

Teeth clashed, lips were bitten, and hair was pulled as they took in every sensation the other created. His lips had been the only thought that captivated her mind since they were on stage the night before and her return to them did not disappoint. If her head wasn’t dizzy and her lungs not screaming at her for air, she would have stayed in that moment forever

When they finally disconnected, they stood against each other in a heaving and disheveled mess of heavy breathing and adoringly dazed smiles. She swore she could feel the pounding of his heart under her fingertips that rested on his chest.

“That was nice,” he eventually murmured down at her through heavy breaths, a love drunk grin finding its way onto his swollen lips.

“Yeah, I agree,” she hummed breathlessly, her anxious thoughts quiet and calm for the first time she could remember since she met him.

“I’m kind of disappointed I don’t remember doing that the first time,” he chuckled softly at her, shaking his head lightly in embarrassment with his pink tinged cheeks on full display.

“That’s okay. We were ‘just practicing’ then, right?” A giggle left her lips as she used the words against him. The same words he had used every time they let a glimpse of their true affections for each other slip past their guarded and friendly facade.

His dimples were exposed when he smiled a giant grin and let out a knowing huff, piecing together that she had caught onto his trail of excuses. “Yeah, just practicing,” he repeated softly, before his tone turned sincere and genuine. “I don’t want us to pretend anymore.”

“Good,” she said softly as her fingers slid up his neck to beckon his lips back down to hers. “I never was.”

“Neither was I.” She watched a soft smirk appear on his lips as they hovered over hers. “Do you want to keep not practicing?”

“Depends,” she quipped, lips brushing over his as she spoke. “Am I better kisser than Taylor Swift?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!! REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK MEAN THE WORLD!!!

An extra for our babies can be found here!

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hwaflms · 3 years

Text

❛ ⩩ nct dream as boyfriends !

✿ — mark. honestly more of a best friend than a boyfriend. calls you 'dude' so much that you forget you're in a romantic relationship together. if you think he gets made fun of by the dreamies now, wait till they find out he has an s/o. he would be so trusting of you, and he would hope you would feel the same. deep talks with him could be a little awkward, so he prefers to show you his love for you in different ways, like just simply being there for you. prefers being affectionate when you're not in public, and he's so mf cute when you're alone. he's more of a listener, so if you were upset and just needed to rant – mark is the best boyfriend to have. he would also think of you while singing love songs with his guitar, or base romantic lyrics on you <3

✿ — renjun. he would be shy around you initially. when he warms up, the two of you would be so close. a relationship with him would probably be more chill. definitely gets you matching couple things, but more low-key stuff like rings or earrings. imagine him being all shy when gifting them to you, like "um, i got these for us, if you don't like them, you don't have to wear it of course, but yeah, i thought you'd like it..." :( the closer you get, the more playful the relationship would be. he would definitely call you an idiot but in the most endearing way. there would be so many lazy days spent with him just vibing together or painting each other, listening to music and just being in each other's company.

✿ — jeno. the bestest boyfriend ever. he'd be so protective of you, not in an overbearing jealous way (although he can be a bit jealous sometimes) but in a more caring, genuinely worried for you way. he is the epitome of "little things count". whether it's getting you coffee in the morning while he's getting one for himself or helping you get something off a high shelf or lending you his nice smelling hoodies whenever you want, jeno does these small things that always make you happy. also the kind of boyfriend who would try to learn whatever topic you're doing for homework so he can help you with it!

✿ — hyuck. he'd be so endearingly annoying. your relationship would be very playful, he would ALWAYS be calling you names or making fun of you jokingly. he would never go so far as to actually make you upset because through all his teasing, he loves you madly. he's the kind of person that cares deeply for you, but wouldn't say it straightforwardly to your face, but you still know it. one huge factor of your relationship would be skinship. hyuck needs to be touching you in some way all. the. time. it could range from holding pinkies under a desk to him making you full on sit on his lap, but he just likes to be touching you. i see him as the jealous type also, but more because he wants to be around you all the time. he's just happy that you're his s/o, why wouldn't he want to be around you ?!

✿ — jaemin. another bestest boyfriend. he would definitely tease you just because he thinks you're cute when you're mad. i don't know, he just gives me the biggest boy next door vibes?? even after you begin dating, he still acts like before, being overly flirty and sending you lame pick-up lines even though you're literally already dating. he would also be protective, and would for sure get jealous. if he sees you giving all your attention to someone else while he's there, he'll become all sulky and pouty and won't talk to you till you attacked him with kisses and attention. fights don't happen much, but when they do, he's always the first one to apologise because he feels so bad when you're upset. he would randomly just stare at you and when you question him, he just says, "you're pretty and i like looking at pretty things."

✿ — chenle. another boyfriend who also gives off best friend vibes. the two of you would be going backwards and forwards insulting each other playfully, never wanting the other to get the last word. he would be protective in the way that he would get very angry if someone talked badly about you, he would always stick up for you. he wouldn't hesitate to call you out if you were in the wrong, but that being said he would still be so supportive and would give you advice if you wanted it. he would also be very comfortable around you, he'd treat you like a friend he's very close to in that sense. chenle would also be buying you things 24/7, and not in a showy-offy way, it's just because he sees something he think you might like, so he buys it.

✿ — jisung. he would be so so so shy at first. like, even if he just wanted to hold your hand, he would have a whole internal debate about it. you might have to initiate a lot of the skinship in the beginning, but sung would slowly get more and more confident in being physically affectionate, that now he just leans over and kisses your cheek without even thinking about it. he loves comparing your hands, or just seeing the difference between his hands and you. we know he has huge hands, and he loves just placing your hand against his and seeing how small and cute yours looks next to his. he also loves cupping your face with both his hands and seeing how they're bigger than your entire face. he definitely would do stuff to try and impress you (sometimes failing on purpose to make you laugh <3).

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spice-chan · 3 years

Text

Legally Incapsulated

yandere!Bakugou Katsuki x darling!reader

In a different, dystopian world, yanderes are allowed to run rampant and they make up 15 percent of the population. It gets a little interesting when Bakugou, a protective yandere falls for you, a taken darling.

warnings: dystopian society (ig?), yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, reader has a bit of an early stockholm syndrome kinda thing, blood and near death, captivity.

also hi, i came back from the undead with an update.

.........

Bakugou laid on the ground, bleeding profusely, cold and alone. The red liquid soaked through his clothes, painting him as an ugly manifestation of destruction and death. However, he did not welcome the latter yet, clinging to-hanging tooth and nail to the threads of life.

What cruel irony. To be dumped somewhere so public, yet at a time when no one would bother to come. To have the Hero hanging onto the hope that someone would visit the park at three in the fucking morning.

A brutal fight between him and a particularly vicious villain ended in Katsuki suffering not only the humiliation of defeat but injuries that will do him in soon enough from blood loss. All alone, with no back-up, Katsuki suffered possibly the worst defeat of his life, for it might cost him that very same thing. Fucker attacked him after he finished his night shift too when no reporters or anyone would be around, knocking Katsuki out and dumping him in a public park just for the mockery of it.

His head felt light and doozy, and he was starting to succumb to the feeling sucking him in when he heard a gasp amidst the fog.

With what little stamina he has left, he turned around, sharp red eyes spotting a petite woman heading towards him.

You quickly got to his spot beneath a tree, crouching down and inspecting him, your warm eyes becoming horrified at the blood pool.

“Oh no, what happened here?! No matter. I’m going to call an ambulance. You’re going to be ok.” You reassured, or tried to, for the words coming out of your mouth could only be taken as self-assurance when one notices the dampness of your eyes. He tried to concentrate on what you were doing, but the next time he was aware of what was happening around him was when you clutched his hand tight with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“You’re gonna be ok.”

He sure hopes he will be now.

“What’s your name?”

Despite the haze covering, his red eyes zeroed on you, calmly taking you in despite the battered state he was in. You froze.

You stammered, heart hammering as you finally had another person's attention for once. It should’ve made you really ecstatic, but it just made you feel like you were naked on live TV.

“It’s um-“ you nibbled on your lip as if unused to your name, Katsuki just got lost in the dainty, delicate sound of your voice.

And when you said your name, as if testing foreign words on your tongue for the first time, he couldn’t help but think it suited you.

So pretty.

Honestly, if the sight of you is the only thing he’ll see before dying, he’ll be content. Your hand remained in hold his, your warmth travelling to his frigid hand and warming his very soul.

But the sound of ambulance sirens broke him out of his trance, and you too, it seems. For you broke away from him in fright, he had to hold back from grabbing you and keeping you close. He would, had he not been injured.

“Whe-where are you going?” He asked brokenly, desperate to keep the angel that saved him close. You shook your head, frightened and frantic. Looking at the time, and seemingly getting further and further.

“I’m sorry-I—I’ve got to go. I’m gonna late, I’ll get punished if I’m late.”

His heart sunk with every syllable you uttered, feeling a pain he had never felt before, something not tangible enough to be compared to injuries and not comprehensible enough for a man like Katsuki to express.

You’re a darling.

You’re someone’s darling.

By the time the ambulance rolled in and took him, you were long gone…

But not for long.

……………...

Katsuki Bakugo: Yandere.

Classification: Protective

Darling: Unregistered

In a world where yanderes are allowed to go rampant with their love, an ordinary citizen doesn’t know when they’ll become trapped by a person who claims to ‘love them unconditionally’. Thus making them a darling. And from the moment that label is put on them, the law ceases to help them and they become entirely at their yandere's mercy.

Yanderes are often separated into their schools and housed in their specified yandere classification ranging from obsessive, possessive and protective, and if a person overlaps two during their classification test they get reign into which house to go to. At UA, the houses are split between those three types and are equally split.

Katsuki, who scored rather high in both protective and obsessive traits, chose to go with the protective unit where he met Kirishima, who’s currently blabbering on about nothing in Katsuki’s hospital room.

“You barely made it man, I still can’t believe it. One can never be too careful these days.” He said, for the hundredth time. Katsuki was topless, the nurse having just finished bandaging his wounds. The stark white stood out against his chiseled, muscular front, it had every nurse swooning but he only had one thing on his mind.

You.

Where were you? Who were you? Did you really have a yandere? How can he take you away now?

No, he doesn’t like you. He’s just curious.

He’s survived this long without a darling. He doesn’t need one, contrary to popular societal belief.

When babies are three, they undergo tests and scans to see whether they have OLD, obsessive love disorder, which is something about 15 percent of the population suffers from.

They go to their own schools and such, but their identity as yanderes won’t be revealed to the general public, making it easy for yanderes to take their darlings by surprise when the grand reveal comes.

Katsuki himself attended a yandere oriented hero school, but what the public doesn’t know is that the acceptance rate is so low because only yanderes are accepted. Yanderes rarely, but not never, go for other yanderes so it poses as less of a distraction.

And so, the talented in the 15 percent of Japanese yandere are carefully picked and honed.

And the separation only proves something. That darlings are a distraction. He won’t be like other wanderers, he’ll get a hold of himself.

…………..

Y/N L/N: Darling

Under yandere of classification: Obsessive

Yandere name: Nagisa Mura

Katsuki ground his teeth, red orbs staring viciously at his computer screen. Hypothesizing and being faced with the fact that you do belong to someone else. The distraction, unneeded angel who fell from heaven just to save him.

Poor you, he bets that piece of shit doesn’t treat you as good as he could.

After looking further into you, he found several allegations of sexual assault made towards Mura that got completely dropped after he captured you.

A flash of searing pain made Katsuki jerk back, narrowly missing scorching his screen to smithereens.

He...he hurt you. The fucker hurt his angel, his princess...he hurt you, he hurt you, he hurt you.

He thought of your pretty, kissable lips, making unsure, clumsy movements as you tried to vocalise your name.

No, Katsuki has to have you. He needs to save you. It’s the only way for both of you to be happy at this point.

And this, spurred on a thorough check at your yandere, and Katsuki delved so deep that when he found what he wanted, he couldn’t help but break out into a lopsided, sinister grin.

………………

Nagisa burrowed his face in your neck, breathing in your scent while you sat still and rigid, not wanting to move away and risk his sanity flying away.

“Did you enjoy it?” He asked softly, suddenly attentively look at you with his cat-like, loving, sick eyes. Your heart palpitated in fear for a second before you nodded.

“Oh, where did you go? You...didn’t talk to anyone right?” Your heart erratically hammered, thinking that he might’ve somehow found out you did, and even told him your name. You shook your head at the speed of a sewing machine, then thought that might’ve perhaps been too aggressive to be convincing.

“I didn’t. I walked to the park and came back home.”

He sighed in satisfaction at that, moving his dark bangs back to stare at you with his green hues.

“I knew night time was a better idea. There would be no one around at this time that you can’t deal with with pepper spray. Fewer people to talk to, fewer people who see you” he was smiling, not breaking eye contact once, and with each syllable, his soft voice seemed to get more sinister and sinister.

You only nodded, pliant as a lamb in his grip as he twisted you however he wished. He buried his nose in your hair, inhaling the scent of you as if smelling a rare fragrant flower.

“We’ve gotten so far since the days in the orphanage when you refused to share your dolls with me when we were five.”

Memories. Something that should fill one with nostalgia, only filled you with an unbearable sense longing to a freer, more easy time. When you only had to worry about Nagisa bothering you during breakfast, lunchtime, movie time, sometimes worship time and wash time.

Desperate for a sense of normalcy, you hugged him back, feeling icy cold in his embrace.

“Nagi, what are we having for dinner?” A twinge of regret pierced you as you lowered your guard for a second. His hold became stiff, and he didn’t bother to swipe back his bangs as he flashed you a blank face.

“You’re thinking about dinner while we hug?”

But you knew how to deal with him better by now, deflecting his anger and turning it into something more malleable.

“Oh no, it’s just that I feel a little dizzy. I don’t think I ate or drank well those past few days.” You paired the lie with a yawn for extra measure, and the ice of his face melted to reveal a familiar worried expression pouted lips and widened greeny eyes.

He carefully put you down, bundling you in a blanket before he rushed to the kitchen to prepare you some food.

The worry he harboured for your well being should’ve filled you with warmth, but instead, you were left twiddling your thumbs and rocking yourself back and forth, an unexplainable feeling of doom filled you.

The feeling of a hand touching you caused you to spring out of your reverie in fright, but the sight of the green hues staring back at you only calmed you a fraction. He put the food in front of you, which he brought back with some vitamins because he can’t have you getting sick.

“Thank you…” you murmured, feeling incredibly stupid and useless.

He insisted he feed you and that you go to bed early.

But as you laid in bed, thoughts of strange red irises and their bewitching beholder swarmed your thoughts along with the fatigue. You hope he’s alright…

You wanted to check on him, but if you asked or even implied to Nagisa that you met someone, let alone a man albeit injured or not, that he will opt to not let you out for a year again, or possibly longer this time.

Even in his injured form, there was something undeniably feral about him, as if ready to pounce any second and gamble his chances at life if the situation called for it. It frightened you.

You shook your head, willing comfort to return to you through the soft duvet and sheets enveloping your body. You better sleep before Nagisa comes to bed and finds you awake…

…….

Finally, Bakugou has the best reason to get that fuck arrested. And you? Poor you, you’re going to have your yandere taken away, and you can’t *just* be let free. You didn’t earn it after all. Well, you would have, had there not being a perfectly suitable yandere for you to be rehomed with.

Heh, to think of it, you might hate him a little for this...but he’ll show you that he can treat you better, in no time, you’ll be wrapped around his finger like he’s shamefully wrapped around yours.

Bakugou’s thoughts come to an abrupt halt when the L-word is mentioned, not noticing when his thoughts spiralled to that degree. His deranged obsession with you had been planted the moment you saved him, but Katsuki didn’t notice when he lost the wheel of his rationality to his heart.

Yeah, sure, he did background checks on you, felt a twinge of pain when he realised you grew up in an orphanage, felt a tornado of anger when he saw the assault charges that went nowhere after that obsessive fuck captured you. Yeah, ok, he felt proud when he saw that you were the valedictorian. But… where did the stone hearted Katsuki go? Where did the one who was afraid of getting close to anyone in case his true nature shows and distracts him from his dream go?

But then, he remembered your glassy eyes, staring at him in worry that no one ever showed towards him before, fumbling with his phone to dial the ambulance while holding his hand. Telling him he’ll be ok.

The moment Bakugo looked in the mirror, he knew he lost.

His cheeks were flaming hot.

Whatever, he better start preparing your room.

…….

It felt like preparing the room of a newborn baby, Katsuki bought enough stuffed animals and plushies to make it resemble a fluffy asylum, along with pastel pink sheets. Your name was also put on the wall, with cursive pink letters that had butterflies surrounding them.

Not to forget a dresser filled with all kinds of things you could ever desire. But his favourite was filling the closet.

Besides adding some of his own shirts, he stuffed it with all kinds of pretty dresser and cute clothes that he can’t wait to see you wear.

Bakugo dusted his hands, taking a sigh and looking at the finished guestroom, previously a spare but now your own room, it looked as if a sparkly fairy vomited all over it. Hopefully you’ll like it…

He wishes you were here to see it…

An unfamiliar sense of isolation invaded his heart, perhaps it was the realisation that he just finished a room to a person who doesn’t even live with him *yet*, or knowing what he’s missing out on with you, but he knew he desperately wanted you here.

He wanted to protect you from the bastard who has you in his clutches

……..

A day later

You sat on the sofa, munching on some popcorn while you sat on Nagisa’s lap, watching anime.

A rough knock sounded out, the sound so aggressive is sounded as if the wood itself was gonna break under the aggressive force. Nagisa tensed up, he wasn’t expecting any guests, in fact, he rarely invites anyone over. He disassociated the both of you from any acquaintances from the orphanage, and you weren’t allowed to mingle with anyone.

He saw your curious look, even without any verbal question, but he opted to simply kiss your forehead and put you on the sofa.

He quickly went to answer the door, but not without grabbing a dagger and hiding it somewhere discreet.

He turned the knob, feeling his chest tighten painfully, as if sensing a near, imminent loss.

Three aggressive, toned cops welcomed his sight as soon as the door was open. They forced their way inside, cuffing him and telling him things, words that were spoken too fast and went over his head as the only thought that went through his head aas you.

He turned around to where he left you, but you were suddenly standing besides one of the officers, not allowed near him. No…

“According to our database, you are a yandere who has a darling. This means that she will be permanently taken away from you and handed to an eligible yandere as part of your punishment.”

He swallowed, his gaze, which always seemed morbid to you, now looked panicked and morose, gaze moving like a boomerang between you and the officers, as if not processing what’s happening.

“Nagisa, what have you done?” He couldn’t answer you, he couldn’t speak a word. You were leaving him, and there’s nothing that he can do.

“Eligible yandere? But as far as I know, there’s no one after her besides me.” The thought comforted him. Maybe he’ll recapture you after he serves whatever sentence he has, even though he’ll have to do it on the down low now. It’s illegal for a yandere who had their darling taken away to go after them again.

“Well you thought wrong. Scum”

Bakugou felt like the star of the show, coming in to rescue his damsel and finish his quest, with you as the prize.

Your mouth was agape, the little hope that simmered in you that you might possibly be free is now crushed, confusion coming full force in place of it. His face was all too familiar, it was the face of the man you found on death's door only a few days ago.

Nagisa’s face blanked, turning to you with bloody accusations in his eyes, which made your vision narrow to only focus on him, afraid to make eye contact yet afraid not to. You almost felt the bile rise up your stomach as goosebumps covered your entire body at his familiar, haunting stare.

“(Y/n)...how does he know you?”

“I-“ you swallowed, unable to answer. Who is he?

The dots were starting to connect in Nagisa’s head, however, instead of his chilling rage, all you got was a sad, nostalgic smile.

“Very well (y/n), it’s ok.” You couldn’t feel relieved from his ambiguous tone. Your very gut screaming at you that something was wrong.

And your gut was right.

“It’s ok, I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I’m sure of it but I’m sorry because if I can’t have you then nobody can.” In the blink of an eye, Nagisa charged at you with a dagger, with speed you didn’t know he possessed, while you were frozen in place in fear.

However, before he could reach you, the blond, brawny man moved like the wind, catching the hand that threatened you, firing an explosion at the wrist in a show of wrath, probably giving Nagisa third degree burns, then twisting his arms behind his back and pushing him harshly into the floor. The level of strength between them was visibly imbalanced to the blondes' favour, Nagisa was by no means fit or sturdy, not at all when compared to the wall of strength in front of you.

The officers, novices who should have expected this turn of events by all means, have proven to be useless until the very end of this spectacle, thanking the blond the blond profusely while handcuffing the hysterical Nagisa, who was taken kicking and screaming by one of the officers while one stayed behind.

“Miss (y/n), I believe? Sorry we couldn’t prevent this unsavoury turn of events, that criminal will be locked for good, you don’t have to worry about him.” The officer tried to reassure the frightened lady in front of him, disappointed that a yandere would try to kill the person he loves. That was one of the most prohibited laws, though what can he expect from a criminal?

“You don’t have to worry about your safety though, as it turns out, you will be rehomed with Mr Dynamight. This will serve as both a punishment for the offending yandere and a way for darlings who haven’t earned their freedom to stay with their next eligible caretaker.”

You nodded shily, overwhelmed by the influx of information directed at you. It didn’t help that you barely spoke to anyone besides Nagisa in years.

The officer took your agreeableness in stride, scramming quickly as he physically felt the burn of Bakugou’s stare.

Now it was just him and you.

“You ok?” He managed to mutter, not sure how to start a conversation with you now that he had you.

You nodded, not facing him. Are you ok?

You felt the moisture gathering in your eyes, making your eyes seem like gleaming crystals.

Of course you weren’t ok.

You just had the person who, for years, claimed they loved you, stole you against your will and forced you to adapt to a lifestyle that suited them try to kill you. You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry but apparently your body did as it broke into a sob.

Your shoulders shook in failing effort to try to hide yourself from him-Mr Dynamight or something, but he felt his heart clench when he heard you sniffle.

You heard him kiss his teeth, and you had a half mind to apologise, having unfond memories of the sound, but he instead, to your surprise, brought his beefy arms around you and embraced you warmly.

Your crying halted, head turning up to fave him with a ‘deer caught in the headlights’ look in your eyes, making him blush and turn away from you with another kiss of his teeth.

“Stop crying.”

Why did his simple gesture stop your tears? Why are you not trying to make a run for it?

Most importantly, why do you feel something warm blooming in your chest instead of hate?

You looked at him, trying to channel all the hate you harbored for Nagisa for this newfound captor of yours, but all you could think about is when he saved you from Nagisa’s sharp blade— how strong and capable he was, really, shouldn’t you be thankful?

At that moment, you experienced something that never happened to you in your years of being with Nagisa.

You blushed.

……

You stepped through Bakugou’s house, already having an idea of what kind of lavish place it is from the exterior, but you were nevertheless impressed.

The place is something out of a movie, extremely different to the small and cozy apartment you lived in. Everything seemed up to date and costly.

You didn’t notice Bakugou preening in pride at the impressed look on your face. He tried to appear nonchalant, but he was seconds away from grabbing your hand in excitement as he tours you around the place.

Still, he wanted some form of contact with you, so he opted to put a hand behind your back, excusing it as you being too slow when you turned to him with a quizzical look.

His hand felt warm on your back.

“This is the bathroom nearest to your room, but there’s one in your room as well.”

Your room. It felt strangely delighting to have something be your own, when previously everything was ours with Nagisa. Everything was happening so quickly, you didn’t know whether you should try to pause to catch your breath or pick up your pace.

“And uh, this is your room.” This time you did notice Bakugou’s redness, it was quite hard not to when his entire face was red. Of course it would be.

The room looked like it was something out of a barbie house. Soft, pastel rugs paired with baby pink curtains. Plush, stuffed dolls littered the place, some small and some big enough to engulf you. You slowly stepped inside, unsure how to feel about this interior, until you felt your bed. It was also a gentle pink, but the catch was how featherlight soft it was, it felt silky, and the mattress reminded you of when you’d dream of sleeping on a cloud.

“Like it?” He asked, not taking his eyes off your blessed face. That’s the first he’s seen this expression on you. He feels almost cheated, like he would have seen way more of you and learnt way more than he already knows if that piece of shit let you out.

You hummed to him in response.

“Good, ‘cuz it’s your nap time now.”

“Huh?” You straightened your back, looking at him in protest.

“But, I still have things to ask you! Plus, I don’t need a freaking nap-“

“Sleep now, questions later.”

The sun was starting to dip, giving the room a warm, orange glow which did make you feel somewhat lethargic. Bakugou closed the curtains, and shut the door, but surprisingly didn’t leave your room. He pulled the covers back, gesturing for you to slip under. You were afraid for a moment that he was gonna slither his way inside as well, uninvited. But he merely sat besides your supine form.

“Um-?”

“I’m gonna stay here ‘till you fall asleep.” You nodded mutely, not finding a point to objecting anymore. You never have a say anyways. But, this wasn’t so bad. He put his large hand on your head, caressing it and admiring its texture, and how amazing it feels beneath his fingers. You felt his touch to be invasive at first. Who does he think he is, touching you when you don’t even know him?

But you don’t speak. You instead relax and let the stress you built up melt away, and you welcome sleep.

…..

Your eyes slowly fluttered open to the feeling of someone lately shaking you. You were disoriented, glancing around the fluffy place in confusion, your eyes looking adorably lost and confused.

“C’mon dumbass. It’s time for dinner.”

Oh, right, you were living with him now.

“I put the clothes you’re gonna wear on your bed, and here are your slippers.” You glanced on the bed, seeing a comfy looking white, silky pyjama dress slippers at the foot of your bed.

“Ok.” You nodded, “I got it.”

He gave you one final final intense look leaving your bedroom.

…….

In the dining room, Bakugou had already set everything up. He made your favourite food, lit up some candles and sat down, anxious glancing at the door and waiting for you to appear. Will you like it? Will you ask him questions? Do you enjoy living with him so far?

If the answer to some of those questions is no, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He does know that you aren’t going anywhere though.

You quietly walked in, feeling the tension increase with each step you took.

You spied the contents on the table, salivating at the smell of your favourite food like a starved ogre, not even bothering to grimace at the memory of Nagisa’s poor attempt at making it.

Bakugou was salivating as well, but for different reasons. He couldn’t look away from your exposed skin, staring creepily as if he’s never seen a leg before.

The meal was consumed with awkwardness, neither party breaking the ice. You were afraid of confrontation, of asking too many questions and receiving nothing but anger and resentment in return. He seems so much nicer than Nagisa, you didn’t want him to hate you.

The silence reigned, and the dishes were cleared away and being washed by Bakugou, who insisted you stay near him but also insisted you stay unoccupied.

Every moment that passed felt like a moment lost, and you kept summoning your courage, but the words just wouldn’t leave your mouth. Maybe you should build up to what you really wanted to ask instead of jumping straight to it.

You saw his red eyes sneakily glancing at you, rapidly leaving your form when you noticed him, causing his ears and face to flush.

“So um, what do you do?” he quirked an eyebrow, looking at you strangely while his movements didn’t pause.

“You-you don’t know?!” he exploded, looking at you in disbelief. You just shook your head like a deer caught in headlights.

Oh, that shit must’ve not let you watch TV much.

“I’m a pro hero.”

Your eyes widened in wonder, the decadence of the place suddenly making sense.

“Cool! What’s your quirk?” he ditched the dishes, excitedly showing you his quirk and explaining how it works, delighted at your cute smile and interest in him. The air felt charged and lively, and maybe that’s what led you to ask the questions that have being nagging at you.

“So um, how did you-uh, how did you even find out anything about me?”

Your heart dropped when you saw the excitement on his face disappear, his usual scowl in place of it.

“You told me your name, that’s all I needed to know. I never stopped thinking about you ever since I saw you, I tried but I couldn’t. If even someone as strong as me can end up on death's door, then what would happen to you? I couldn’t just leave you.” At this point, he was caressing your face, looking at you with love stricken eyes. You were reminded of who you were talking to, you were talking to a Protective yandere, who took you.

You didn’t have to ask anything else really, pandora’s box opened, and everything you weren’t previously privy to is now made obvious to you.

“It sickened me though, knowing you actually fucking belonged to someone else. So how could I leave you? I had to save you like you saved me.” he had both of his huge hands on your face, looking at you with pure insanity, love, adoration and bloodthirst swirling and mixing in his irises. He was a yandere, he was the person every ordinary person should fear, he has you in his clutches, you should be trying to escape and regain your freedom, you saw first hand how easily capable of hurting you he could be if he wanted… So why weren’t you scared?

812 notes · View notes

peachsayshi · 3 years

Text

Chapter 13 - Spinning

Tags: Friends with Benefits, Smut, Angst

Summary: You and Gojo are caught up in your feelings and he unintentionally breaks another rule.

A/N: (18+ / minors and ageless blogs dni) New chapter! This is a bit of a filler chapter but I am working up to some dramatic things (smut and angst coming up!) plus revealing some of the secrets that happened in the timeline 👀 I hope you enjoy it! And as always comments are appreciated ☺️

- - -

Sitting cross legged on your bedroom floor, you proceeded to fold the fresh laundry into perfectly neat piles. Music enveloped your room, the bass from your speaker bouncing off the walls as you mindlessly hummed along to the track that was playing. This is how you were choosing to unwind after a long work week, by organizing and cleaning up your apartment. There was something completely cathartic about resetting your space and you found yourself having plenty of free time on your hands recently.

Gojo has been exceptionally busy. At first there was an itch when you began seeing less of him, the two of you would plan to get together but that consistently kept getting cancelled. Eventually those plans transitioned to you agreeing on catching up with one another once things settled. Now it seems the only time you managed to hear from your friend was with sporadic phone calls and random text messages that he would send you at weird hours. The itch slowly turned into an ache, that familiar knot in your stomach making its presence known more often than usual.

There was something about the way he managed to fill the silence. You always gave him a hard time about talking your ear off but realised that he actually entertained you with some great conversations.

Even though half the time he was talking about ridiculous subject matters…

You had to hand it to Satoru though, he always spoke with such enthusiasm he would make the concept of paint drying seem fascinating.

He was fascinating.

Eight years of friendship have taught you that but you were smart enough not to feed his ego. Despite the two of you being close, Gojo still never fully let you in. You couldn’t deny that you were intrigued by him, curious to know more about the strongest sorcerer who seemed totally unphased by his own title whenever he was around you. You wanted to know more about how he fought off curses and protected people from the evils that seemed to be invisible in your eyes. Although he consistently evaded your questions, he did slowly open up about other things. You particularly loved the way his face let up when he talked about his students and it made you realise that if there was anything Gojo Satoru had committed himself to, it was his role as an instructor to the next generation of sorcerers.

Still, you usually tried to pry information out of him when the two of you would get lost in deep conversation, noticing the way Gojo would drift in his own thoughts whenever the subject seemed to focus on him.

Clearly there was an extent to which the man loved talking about himself.

There was a point when he spoke where you saw his face grow pensive as he brought up an old friend. He referenced him in passing but the way his mouth fell pained you just as much as it seemed to hurt him. Your question was on the tip of your tongue, eager to learn more about the people within his own circle, but Satoru immediately shifted the conversation onto something else.

That wall, much like his infinity, is impenetrable.

Unfortunately, the dynamics were in his favor. You wished that you could conceal your own emotions as easily around him but it was impossible. Gojo had the capability of knowing exactly how you were thinking and feeling at any given second. His incredible perception was his advantage, that’s why he is able to gauge your reactions so well.

You smiled subconsciously to yourself, goosebumps floating up to your shoulders when you realised how much you wanted your arms wrapped around his neck, your body pressing into his chest while breathing that spicy, sweet cologne…

Stop it.

You paused your action, the jeans on your lap in a mid-fold as you froze in place and your brain instantly turned off those dangerous ideas.

You swallowed your own emotions, your abdomen tight when you realised that you had just spent the last ten minutes having intimate thoughts about Gojo.

You really shouldn’t but there was something about the way he acts around you that made you the slightest bit curious as to what he was thinking and how he was feeling.

How often did you cross his mind and did he even miss you as much as you did him?

At some point the two of you were going to have to stop this little game you were playing. Even though you weren’t seeking it out at the moment, you do want to settle down eventually with somebody you love. Satoru made it perfectly clear where he stood on relationships. He had no desire to get involved with anybody and the concept of marriage was something he completely rejected.

You recalled having a conversation with him about:

“Are you really telling me that you’re okay living as a bachelor for the rest of your life?”

“Happily, actually…” Gojo replied, while you both continued your heated debate on the prospects of love.

“But why are you so against it?”

"I have my reasons,” he replied with a shrug.

Satoru always seemed to have a reason for everything but he was not willing to share it with you, leaving you in moments like this to analyze the little things he says to try and put the pieces together yourself.

Truthfully, you don’t want to stop as you found yourself fixated on this new…friends with benefits-ship…

Everything about it felt so good that you couldn’t even remember what things were like before you started hooking up.

How could you go back to just being friends after he’s seen you in your most vulnerable state? How were you supposed to pretend that his hands haven’t unraveled you into submission time and time again? How could you sit next to him without thinking about kissing him for hours on end? How were you supposed to listen to him talk without remembering the moments where he would whisper angel in your ear?

How the hell did you manage to keep your hands off him before this even started?

There was always the unspoken fact that you found each other attractive but since this new dynamic has started the two of you were like magnets whenever you were in close proximity to one another.

Well, you were able to keep the barrier because you were in a happily committed relationship with Haru, you interjected and suddenly you found yourself slumping your shoulders.

Haru was in love with you. He gave you the companionship you needed, he filled the silence with mindless conversations and was the one who held you when you needed him. He was the one to swallow your cries with soft kisses, that made you laugh in hysterics when you needed to boost your mood…

Your heart stopped, realizing that you were seeking out what Haru gave you with Gojo. Your gut wrenching at the idea of you using your friend to fill the emotional gap that Haru left. This ache that knotted your insides meant nothing and you were letting your thoughts confuse you into thinking that you were missing Gojo.

All you needed was to get your distraction back.

After all, Gojo is just your friend.

You had no reason to think anything else could come of this and burned any other thought about Satoru from crossing your mind for the rest of the evening.

If you even thought for a second that you might be falling for him, you would cut ties immediately. You weren’t going to put a strain on your friendship because you’re silly ideals were getting in the way of your agreement.

The two of you were just fucking.

Nothing more, nothing less.

***

Gojo studied the woman before him, acknowledging the fact that she is one of the most stunning individuals he had ever laid his eyes on. She was older than him by ten years but if it wasn’t for the age on her online profile, he wouldn’t have been able to tell.

She was tall, meeting his own towering height, give or take a few inches. Her long, pin straight hair flowed to her hips, accentuating her curves and covering her supple breasts. Her face could strike down any man that looked at her with those deep eyes and he was tempted to nibble on her full lips. Seeing her in person made Gojo realize that her price was high for a reason and totally justifiable.

Anyone would pay extra to fuck a goddess.

Somehow, he wound up here thanks to his own frustrations. His desire for you was driving him wild and his own hands weren’t enough to solve this problem. He still respected the rules that were unbroken and knew that as long as he didn’t go too far with Ami, he was fine. He wasn’t going to have sex with her but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t help him out with his current predicament in other ways.

Besides, you did tell him that he was allowed to see other people. However, that didn’t stop his stomach from twisting at the thought of climbing into bed with someone other than you. He couldn’t quite figure out what this awkward sensation was or why he was bothered by his own decision to meet up with Ami in the first place.

Gojo stripped down to his boxers before sitting on the edge of her satin covered mattress. She was admiring him with amusement, the tempting smile on her lips telling him that she was also enjoying what she was seeing.

“You paid for a full hour but said that you might not be here for that long. Did something urgent come up?” she questioned, her voice sensually low and sending a shiver up Gojo’s spine.

My she is dangerous, he thought to himself, knowing full well how this entire experience would go under different circumstances.

The circumstances being, well, you.

“I don’t plan on sticking around too long...” he explained.

“I’ll have to adjust your pay accordingly then,” she replied, taking a few steps forward until she was standing in front of him.

“I don’t mind paying for the full hour,” Gojo teased with a grin, his free hand moving to touch her silky hair as he rubbed it between his fingers.

She smiled, nearly taking his breath away as she brought her finger to the blindfold covering his eyes.

“I don’t like accepting money for free,” she stated, tracing her touch down his chiseled jawline. “I bet you’re handsome but I am guessing you don’t plan on taking this thing off to show me what you really look like.”

“Yep,” Gojo smiled as Ami proceeded to slide across her bed next to him. "And you guessed right, I’ve got an exceptionally pretty face.”

“Cocky too,” she purred, “there’s a special way I treat guys like you…”

Gojo hummed, switching his position so he was lying back against her pillows. Ami crawled her body over his lean torso, her hands rubbing up and down his thigh as she glanced in his direction.

“Oh, yeah? I would love to see how...” Gojo insisted, his breath growing heavy as she guided her hand all the way to his mouth.

She traced his bottom lip with her thumb, a devious mask highlighting her stunning features as she spoke, “Be a good boy and lie back while I take care of you…”

He fully caved, allowing this sultry siren to take control by touching and teasing his body however she pleased. Gojo usually enjoyed relinquishing his power every now and then but for whatever reason it was taking some effort for him to fully immerse himself with what was happening. Ami straddled his cock, before proceeding to press her mouth against his. Her lips were working fervently over his own as she deepened the kiss, but the spark that he needed just wasn’t igniting.

When Ami flicked her tongue over his, he would only think about the sensation of yours. The taste of you in his mouth lingered like an addictive poison. One that he craved every single time you crossed his mind. The sound of your moans played in his ear and the sweet way you called out his name when he touched you between your legs filtered his brain. He was only brought back to the reality that it wasn’t you pushing your body against his, when Ami wrapped her fingers around his throat. He tried to erase you and focus on the woman before him but was persistently failing.

She could see that something was off from how he was responding to her caresses. “Are you sure you're up for this tonight, baby?” Ami teased, whispering into his mouth as she snagged his bottom lip between her teeth. “You don’t seem ready for me...”

“Fuck…” Gojo grunted out of frustration, knocking his head back as he pressed his fingers to his temple. “It’s not you, I’m just distracted…”

“What’s on your mind?” she continued, stroking his broad chest lovingly to try and coax him out of the daze he was in.

“Not what...who…” he responded shyly, his cheeks blushing ever so slightly by his admittance.

“I see…” she cooed, “Wife? Girlfriend?”

Gojo scoffed, a comical laugh escaping him as he shook his head.

“Definitely not.”

Ami pressed her lips together, her nail doodling along his upper body with random figures as she continued to question her intriguing client.

“Tell me about her…”

Gojo froze, his hands digging into Ami’s thighs upon hearing her bold question, “she’s just a friend. There’s nothing to say...”

“Is she beautiful?”

“She’s gorgeous,” Gojo exhaled, his words passing his lips faster than he could process what he had just said. Ami tracked her hands down between her legs, stroking his boxers as she massaged his length.

“Tell me what she looks like…”

He described you in detail, from your sinfully sweet lips to the beautiful sound of your laughter and how soft your skin felt in his hands. She continued tricking him into revealing the intimate thoughts that swirled in his mind when he thought about you. She heard the way Gojo’s voice wavered as he swelled between her hands, the tip of his cock poking through his underwear as the pre-cum stained the material of his boxers. Ami pulled the clothing away from his hips, hands returning to grip his member as she continued stroking up and down his shaft.

“Do you think about fucking her with the other women you meet?”

“Yes,” Gojo revealed through gritted teeth, swallowing hard as she played with his tip by circling his thumb over the slit of his cock.

“How often?”

“Too often,” the sorcerer hissed, his hips bucking into her hands.

“I bet you wish you were fucking her right now, don’t you?”

She saw how turned on he is and how easily the thought of you brought him close to his release. Ami spread her legs, adjusting her stance until she brought the tip of his cock to her entrance. Gojo hesitated, knowing that he needed to stop what was about to happen. This wasn’t supposed to go this far. He was only here for a quick hand job or blowjob, but he couldn’t suppress a satisfied moan as she slid down to take in his length.

“F-fuck, wai-...”

“Shh, baby, close your eyes and think of your sweet angel…” Ami whispered in his ear, making Gojo roll his blue irises to the back of his head as he relaxed into her touch.

She didn’t speak after that, fulfilling her promise of taking care of him but also ensuring that his focus was solely on the mental image of you. The sound of her skin bouncing up and down his length took over the entire room. The way Ami stated that you were his was enough to send him over the edge and it didn’t take long until he climaxed at the thought, quickly pulling out of her and releasing hot ropes of cum all over her stomach but imagining that it was you the entire time. She immediately cleaned herself up after they finished, before giving Gojo some privacy and allowing him to get himself together.

After he got dressed, he pulled out his phone to transfer the payment. He doubled the amount he was supposed to give, totally aware that she didn’t reach her own release and was disappointed in himself that he couldn’t pleasure the remarkable temptress before him.

He slipped on his boots, his mind racing as the guilt rushed right through him. He hated that broke another rule, especially since this particular one was a boundary you set for your own comfort. He was angry at himself that he disrespected that and was annoyed for crossing the line in the first place.

What the fuck is wrong with me?, he thought to himself.

“I told you I don’t get paid for doing nothing. I don't accept money like that, not even from spoiled rich boys like you,” Ami stated, her words stung but she spoke in such a gentle tone that didn’t offend the sorcerer. She was leaning against the wall as she appeared before him, her body now covered with just a pink robe.

“You got me off but I did nothing to reciprocate. I tell all the other girls to charge double if that happens.”

“How considerate,” she mused before arching her brow in delight at him, “but for the sake of my own conscience I feel like I need to give you something in return…”

Gojo stood up from his seat, smoothing out his clothes before approaching her slowly. Even though he got what he wanted out of this arrangement, he was feeling worse about himself the longer he stayed in this room.

“How about a piece of advice before you leave and we can call it even?” Ami questioned.

“What is it?” the sorcerer wondered, hearing her feet patter against the carpet as she followed his footsteps to her front door.

She paused when she reached for the handle, before tilting her face and directing her full attention towards his covered eyes.

“Tell your friend how you feel or cut off whatever it is you’re doing. If you don’t tell her then you’re fucked, plain and simple.”

“Look, what happened just now doesn’t mean anything…”

She raised her fingers to his lips, stopping him from even attempting to defend what transpired.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but you’re easy to read. I have had clients come here trying to forget their lovers and those who come to see me because they can’t resist their own primative urges. I see the ones who are lonely, who only visit me for companionship and nothing more. Then there are the ones who are like you, who will bury themselves in any cunt they see just to pretend that they aren’t in love with somebody else…”

Gojo clenched his jaw, squeezing his hands together as the heat rose up to his face.

“You don't know what you're talking about. Besides, wanting to fuck somebody and being in love are two very different things.”

“True, except those two things are tangled up in one person when it comes to you…”

Gojo pressed his lips into a thin line, unsure as to why her accusation made him so irritated.

“Awww, don’t get angry, pretty boy. It’s unbecoming for somebody as handsome as you are…” Ami whispered, before kissing him on the cheek as she said her goodbye. “It’s okay, I promise that your secret is safe with me…”

***

CHAPTER 14: JEALOUSY

#Gojo Satoru #Gojo Satoru x female reader #Gojo Satoru x reader #gojo x female reader #Gojo Satoru x female reader #Gojo Satoru x you #gojo x you #gojo smut #gojo fluff #gojo angst #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen fanficiton #jujutsu kaisen x reader

145 notes · View notes

timextoxhajima · 4 years

Text

All For A Taste

Member: Sunwoo

Genre: FWB stuff ion know / smut stuff

Word Count: 1.6k words

"Did you see him today?"

"Hm?" You run your fingers through his hair, parting your lips to exhale when he's gently gnawing away at the skin on your chest, the shirt riled up to your collarbones. "No. And I don't think I want to, anyway."

Sunwoo laughs into the marks he's littering all over you. "Why not? Don't you want to look him head to toe and drool over him?"

He finds a sweet spot on your neck now, using his teeth to tug on your skin, his heavy breath igniting goosebumps all over.

“Just because I have a crush on him doesn’t warrant me the need to ogle over him -- like girls do to you.”

You can feel his lips stretch into a sneaky smile under your chin as he finishes and pulls away, cuing you to look down and note all the dark purple spots on your skin. “I thought you’d be more into the fact that you’re hooking up with a popular guy.”

“Assumption is man’s biggest weakness,” Trailing downwards, he starts leaving sloppy kisses while you are left to stare at the ceiling blankly. “And if it worries you, I’m not hooking up with you because you’re popular. It just so happened that you’re popular.”

Sunwoo pauses and sits up, knees on either sides of your calves. He licks his lips with slight contemplation before pulling his black shirt over his head and throwing it in a corner of the room. “Does that mean you’d still hook up with me if I wasn’t popular?”

A frown forms on your forehead as you look down. Sunwoo’s eyes pierce right through yours as he looks his fingers on the rim on your shorts.

“Is that how you see me? Someone who hooks up because they are popular--” The breath is sucked out from your lungs when he pulls the rim down low enough to expose your bikini line, and he takes the chance to provide the soft skin some soft kisses.

“Maybe,” The admittance comes out in a soft whisper against your inner thighs. Sunwoo gently lifts your hips to pull off your shorts, bothering to place it on some surface instead of throwing it to the floor. Your hands travel under the pillow you were lying on, the cool cotton hugging your warmth while Sunwoo’s hands are wandering around your thighs.

They are warm and almost hot, like his breath on your lower stomach.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re my first and last friend that falls into this category.”

Sunwoo shifts back up to your face and doesn’t hesitate to press his lips into yours, tasting like the coca-cola he drank earlier. Feeling the mattress around your shoulders sink, he keeps his weight above you and never once resting on you. It’s become instinct for you to run your hands from the sides of his pelvis, across the surface of his abdominal muscles and to his chest before finally resting on his cheeks when he kisses you.

Sunwoo has the ego the size of an elephant and isn’t really fond of it if you aren’t below him. But you take pride in being under him, because it’s not like he’s completely resistant to your touches on his skin.

He pulls away for some seconds, hand pulling your shirt over your head and helping you get rid of it. “Should I be honored that I’m your first and last friend with such... benefit?”

Sunwoo smirks into the kiss after his question, feeling more force from his weight than before. Your palms cup his jaw, gently pushing him away to trace his bottom lip.

“You should. Because I don’t think I can do this with anybody else.”

Sunwoo’s low hum as a response sounds closer to some kind of a growl in the back of his throat when he moves some inches down to kiss the bruises on your chest. His hand crawls under your back and removes your bra, the cool air caressing you as opposed to the warmth emitting from his torso. By now, he’s positioned himself to have your legs locked apart by his knees.

His shoulder blades and back muscles and spine stick out from under his tan skin and veins, the length of his torso crouched over yours like an animal devouring his prey.

“No strings attached.”

A reminder for the both of you.

Sunwoo doesn’t warn you before he takes the tip of your breast into his mouth and between his lips, harshly sucking on them like he was hungry. Your chin tilts towards the ceiling, back already arching off the mattress but his body above yours an obstacle.

The sensitive tip comes between his teeth while he fondles with the other, kneading them to leave bright red marks around the flesh.

His hair gets tangled around your fingers, struggling to maintain your composure and not become a mewling mess just from all the foreplay he’s providing you. You can feel his tongue flicking the sensitive tip in his mouth and it forces you to bite down on your bottom lip in a bid to contain the intense chills that thrum through your nerves.

His free hand finally releases your chest and reaches down to tug at your underwear, sucking off your breast with a ‘pop’. Lust overwhelms his gaze when he locks eyes with you, already flushed from whatever he’s done -- though it wasn’t much.

Then he has that smirk plastered to his face when he pulls off your underwear to reveal how in need you are. Subtly shaking his head just to put you on edge, Sunwoo dips his tongue straight into you, fingers pressing to your nub.

A gasp runs through your throat when your back abruptly leaves the mattress again, but Sunwoo locks it back down into the cushion in order to continue his work below. You start to feel the throbbing sensation from being all too overwhelmed when he sticks two fingers in with ease -- that’s how lustful you were being.

Soft moans and groans into your core hits you as vibrations instead, your reflexes crumpling the bedsheets in your palms.

When he pulls his fingers out and exhibits his tongue lapping up all that glistening fluid on his digits though -- you know he’s trying to be the little shit he is in bed.

Because he knows he’s good.

“Someone’s horny today.”

Your fingers trace his collarbone, feeling his weight shift about as he struggles to remove his bottoms without detaching his lips from yours. The only thing that Sunwoo would let you have control of was how you kissed: so you don’t pass up on the chance to shove your tongue into his mouth, then biting on his lower lip to evoke the low moans from him.

He keeps you distracted when he lets you dominate his mouth, but you can feel him poking at your entrance, the coat of lust already making it easy for him to push the tip in.

Inch by inch, he pushes into you, pulling an inhumane noise that’s of a mixture between a groan and a whimper from you. By now, you’ve lost concentration on his lips and he naturally takes over, mercilessly drinking the moans that were tumbling out your throat.

“I’m not going to last very long if you’re still this tight, princess.”

“Then don’t, just do what you need to--”

Your sentence was instantaneously cut off by an interruption in the form of your own whimper when he suddenly pulls out, only to thrust back into you fully. The slap feels louder against your skin that in your ears, and you can feel him twitching inside you from the sheer force of sin flowing in both your veins.

Sunwoo dips his nose into your neck, allowing your fingers to dig into his back, drawing bright lines of pink into his skin as he slowly picks up his pace. The force jerks the entire bedframe with every thrust, your thighs being pushed back with every roll his hips make forward.

His grunts are louder when your walls clench down on him inside you, but his moans aren’t doing you any good when his lips are right at your ear, gently nibbling on your earlobe.

But Sunwoo knows the exact spot that makes you tick, so he subtly forces your hips upwards with his thighs to change the angle ever so slightly. The change in your breathing is a prideful fuel for him, so the confidence urges him to pick up the pace in that angle.

Soon, he hears his own name spewing out off your tongue and into his hair, your hands desperate to pull his face into yours so he can muffle all the needy cries. You can start to feel the sweat between your bodies, and Sunwoo’s rugged breathing also hinted that he was reaching his high as well.

Sunwoo curses under his breath between your lips, helping you reach your high first while you tremble and shake and fall apart under him. His sweat-damp fringe is stuck to his forehead as he offers the last few thrusts before he hits his own climax, hurriedly pulling out to release on your stomach.

The huffs from him hits your lips, his forehead pressed against yours but eyes looking down to see both of your heaving torsos. He looks back up at you through his lashes before giving you one more hungry kiss despite the fatigue sinking in, the back of his fingers stroking your cheek as he pulls away.

Taking a deep breath, he licks his lips and gulps. A small smile appears on his face when he sits up on his knees to admire the picture he’s painted on your neck and chest.

“I might just miss this when one of us gets into a real relationship.”

#sunwoo #sunwoo smut #the boyz sunwoo #the boyz imagines #the boyz #sunwoo imagine #tbz #tbz imagines #tbz fanfic #the boyz imagine #tbz smut #tbz sunwoo

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retrogalwrites · 4 years

Text

ex boyfriend!Touya x reader

Title: “ Fool me once, then again and again “ / view on ao3

Pairing: Touya x f! reader

Summary: You are dating Natsuo Todoroki, and you finally get to meet his family, everything was going well. Until you realize you have already met his older brother Touya before.

Warnings: dubcon, slight yandere, manipulation, gaslighting, blackmail, cheating, cuckolding, corruption, mindbreak of sorts, toxic ex boyfriend relationship

Other contents: creampie, rough sex, tit slapping, sub/dom, masochism

words: 6,826

For the longest time, you had believed that those stories of people finding true love were nothing but total bullshit.

After all, in a sea of hookups, uncommitted relationships and one night stands, it was almost laughable to think that anyone out there was going to somehow be the one and only. You went through college with nothing but bad relationships and heartbreak under your belt, things you would've rather left forgotten. By the time you had graduated, you managed to land a job, and were happy living on your own, there were no expectations from you towards love, not at all.

Until you met Natsuo Todoroki.

It was an unexpected meeting, much like out of those same cheesy romantic movies that you had always mocked. You two bumped into each other at a coffee shop, a guy that you had never seen before who spilled his coffee all over you, awkwardly apologized a hundred times, invited you to watch a movie, and the rest was history. You always teased him over it too, how his clumsiness somehow helped him to get a girlfriend. Watching him go all red in the face never failed to make you laugh.

Natsuo was the most wonderful boyfriend you could've asked for, easily topping any other relationship you had in the past. Despite being the son of a hero, and not just any hero but the number one hero of the country, Natsuo was humble and friendly, just living like an average guy and working hard as a nurse at the nearby hospital. Someone that you wouldn't even think had a family with the sort of money and influence the Todorokis were known for.

He also was always so sweet and gentle, funny too, a lovable big guy that treated you with so much care. Even during sex, he only ever made the most tender love to you, like you were a precious thing, a treasure that could break if he was too rough.

And you loved it, truly, you loved him, knew he felt very much the same too. Because he gathered the courage to introduce you to his family officially.

You two arrived at the Todoroki state on a cold Friday evening, just in time for dinner. There you were going to meet everyone and stay for the weekend.

His father, the number one hero Endeavor, was much like what he looked like on television. Big, rough and intimidating, but treated you with good manners. Then his mother, Rei, a soft-spoken woman that welcomed you kindly, she was friendly much like her son. Things seemed tense between them underneath the surface, expectedly so, since you knew from Natsuo that they were going through a divorce. It made their attempts at cohabitation just to make you feel comfortable at least appreciated.

His big sister, Fuyumi, was much like him too, sweet and gentle, a nice girl that made you feel right away at home, so excited to finally meet you. Then last but not least was his little brother, Shouto, a quiet but nice boy who tried his best to do small talk when he had to. You could tell that he at least was welcoming of you, which was good enough.

It was awkward at first, you were nervous to be dealing with them at first but you had managed entire thing just fine so far, much to your relief, as well as Natsuo's.

However, the last relative in the household had yet to arrive, the eldest sibling, and Natsuo's older, Touya. Apparently it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to be so unfashionably late, and dinner would not be put on hold just because he couldn't bother to show up on time, as Endeavor had put it. Even Natsuo seemed to reluctantly agree with his father on that regard.

Natsuo had told you before, about his brother's unruly behavior and a bit on an intense attitude, calling him a hellraiser. He had been only a bit worried that if you met him, you'd be slightly put off. Naturally you assured him it would be fine.

But it was only when you saw the guy that you understood just what a grave mistake you had made.

Only then that you realized that all the cheesy romance, all that stuff from the movies, really came with a price.

Right there, waltzing into the dinning room without a single care in the world, long strides and hands inside his pockets. The raven dyed hair, the piercings, the tattoos, even the smell of smoke and cinders filling your nostrils, it was all familiar, too familiar.

It was your ex boyfriend, Dabi.

Blue eyes fixated on your face almost instantly, stared and burned a hole right through your soul. A knowing look on his features, lips curling into a crooked grin, sardonic and throughly amused, a glint of joy in a face you had hoped to never see again.

"Well, well, well! So this is the girlfriend? Now I see why our little Natsu is so smitten."

Touya drawled, slowly like savoring every syllable, a type of teasing that tasted deliciously on his tongue. Just the sound of his voice,so low and raspy from the cigarettes you knew he always smoked, was making your heart race with anxiety and anger.

Touya took his seat at the dinning table. He deliberately took the chair in front of you just to watch you, of course he would, you had almost expected him to. Eyes still fixated on you, he plopped his elbows on the table and leaned on the surface, and you were so grateful for the table keeping him from getting any closer.

"Where did you even find this hottie, bro? I may just go there and get one of my own."

Heat rose to your cheeks, burning and painting your skin red with something like indignation, but to the others probably seemed just like shy demure. Yet in contrast to your body's temperature, on the inside it was like the blood in your veins had turned into ice, a violent shiver running down your spine that felt like high voltage, you gripped your thighs with both hands just to keep yourself from shaking.

"Touya don't be rude..." Fuyumi grimaced, sighing. This behavior clearly was nothing new to them, it seemed, but it was nothing new to you either.

"This is [Name], be nice." Rei joined the attempt to get the male to behave, probably for your sake.

In reality, you wished they wouldn't be trying to intervene, but you couldn't blame them either for not knowing something you desperately didn't want any of them to know.

Specially not Natsuo.

But you couldn't just get up and run, Touya knew you were trapped.

"Oh? Well, ain't that a pretty name? You probably already know who I am though, right?"

It was so cruelly calculated, every word spoken, a man already set out to make sure you squirmed in your seat.

"I'm Natsuo's big brother, I bet he talks about me all the time! This lil guy sure loves me."

"Oh please, I only told her how annoying you can be." Natsuo scoffed, rolling his eyes with the unconcerned, even if embarrassed, nature of someone who had no idea what was happening beneath the surface.

"But really, I'm proud of our little bro for scoring this high, y'know what I mean, Natsu?"

You looked down, unable to meet his gaze any longer.

"K-Knock it off, Touya." Natsuo grabbed your hand from underneath the table, and you almost jumped from the sudden contact, almost expecting to be burned. But it was cold, your beloved Natsuo's cool touch, and when you turned to look at him, he smiled at you with a gentle, apologetical smile. Probably thinking his brother's banter had caused you to feel uncomfortable. And while it was the right thought, he really had no idea.

Still, his touch grounded you back from the anxious dread that had been growing in your mind so quickly, and you felt like smiling back at him.

You loved Natsuo, you really did.

Suddenly a hand was extended towards you, and it took all of your will power not to flinch. Your attention cruelly ripped away from your boyfriend to stare at Touya's hand, waiting for a handshake.

The dread had returned, you didn't even realize you were staring.

"Sorry, sorry, let's keep the brother talk for later, m'kay?" He smirked at Natsuo, then turned at you to add, hand still out waiting for you to take it, he knew you had to take it.

"It's nice to meet you, [Name]."

You felt everyone's eyes on you, watching you, and resignation was your only answer. Cautiously, you were reaching out to him, held his hand in a hesitant hold.

The moment his rough skin brushed against yours, you felt it, again. A wave of heat spreading through your body like wildfire, just like you remembered from years past, that warm sensation tingling at your nerves, filling your lungs, the pit of your stomach.

It was nothing like Natsuo's cold touch, it was hot, burning, scorching.

"Um, yes. N-Nice to meet you too." You let go of him immediately, stumbling over your words and trying not to glare.

"Yep, really nice to meet my new sister in law."

"That's enough, Touya." The stern, booming voice of Endeavor silenced everyone at the table, specially the eldest son. "We are having dinner right now, have the decency to behave."

Endeavor could be quite scary, but you were much grateful for the intervention. Unlike Touya, of course, who immediately had tensed up, gritted his teeth with brows furrowed into a sour expression for a second, before that carefree look was back on his face, it was so quickly that you wondered if you had imagined it.

"Wait, are they getting married already?" Shouto quipped all of the sudden with genuine confusion, endearingly so.

Almost everyone seemed to be amused by the comment, even Touya, and some teasing looks were thrown at Natsuo, who had turned beet red from the embarrassment.

You found yourself a little embarrassed too, in a much lighter hearted way and that was a welcome change, it almost made you forget that feeling of someone's piercing blue eyes staring at you.

——————

Natsuo would touch your hand or your knee all through the night, smiling at you and gazing at your face with those loving eyes that could melt your heart. And yet, Touya made sure that your attention wasn't taken off him for long. Trying to rope you in conversation that held cruel double meaning, kept only pushing your buttons with sadistic glee.

You had to take a break, urgently, so you excused yourself with the pretenses of going to the bathroom.

You got up from your seat and rushed out the dinning room and into the hallways, not even really noticing that Natsuo had asked if you needed someone to show you were the bathroom was located.

You needed a moment alone to gather your thoughts, get your shit together. So you walked further into the huge Todoroki residence, looking for the nearest bathroom, though finding it was really not all that important in the end. As long as you were away from Touya for a bit, you would be fine.

Touya. A name foreign on your tongue, unlike Dabi. It upset you, and that on itself upset you even more, not only to know what an idiot you had been so many years ago, but that you still cared. But, could you be blamed? Could you be judged? When this jerk had to show up now, of all times, and——

"Hey baby, bathroom is the other way."

You stopped on your tracks, freezing on the spot. Your mouth felt dry and your hands balled into fists. That dreaded voice's hot breath feeling like it was tickling the shell of your ear, but you reacted only when you felt the brush of his warm hand placing itself on your shoulder.

Practically jumping away, you removed yourself from his touch, turning around to face that same amused grin you wished to smack off his face. That same grin that used to give your butterflies.

"Why did you follow me?" You spoke with a voice full of annoyance, bolder and direct, now that the rest of the family was out of earshot, you could at least give yourself the indulgence of expressing your feelings.

"Leave me alone, just...leave me alone, would you?"

Touya laughed. Of course he laughed. You didn't know what else you had expected. He had always done the same thing, laugh at your distress and mock you for it.

"Woah, now! Calm down, this is my house, are you trying to kick me out my own house?"

He jokingly raised his hands, didn't bother to hide his amusement, a broad smile that stretched from ear to ear. You only sighed with exasperation.

"You know that's not what I mean. God, you're still such an asshole."

You shook your head, but he simply shrugged dispassionately, dismissively. You hadn't even taken notice of your clenched fists, knuckles had begun to turn white, anger bubbling inside you just like it used to back in the day.

"Dunno what you got against me, I mean you're the one that came here willingly, remember? No one told you to go date my brother." You could've sworn he almost sounded resentful, but he had no right to be.

"I didn't know. I mean, how could I have? You clearly never told me your actual name Dabi, oh I'm sorry, I mean Touya." He never really told you anything substancial about himself in hindsight, and you felt like an even bigger fool, for having overlooked that along every other glaring red flag he carried around. Your own conflicted feelings made you miss the way something in his blue eyes flickered, tongue running over his lower lip.

"Well, it wasn't a big deal. It's not like it mattered, did it? We had a lot of fun anyway." He chuckled lowly, openly leering at you and making you blush from anger.

"Fun? Seriously, you call that fun?!" You laughed in disbelief, a bitter sound. "After all the crap you put me through, you just ended up dumping me. No, fuck your fun."

His expression turned dark then, a shadow over his eyes that had narrowed just slightly. His amusement had become annoyance.

"The crap I put you through? I don't recall you ever complaining when you begged for my cock like a damn college whore."

"That's not—!!"

"What, not true? Oh but I remember it very well. You'd always be so needy for my cock, letting me fuck you just whenever I wanted, heh, wherever I wanted too. Like a dumb bitch in heat. Come on, we both were on it for the sex more than anything. Now you're acting all high and mighty? Shit ain't cute babe."

It was like a punch in the gut that sucked all the air out of you, it rendered you speechless for a moment, shame and anger inside of you making your body shake. Had it really been like that? No, you did all those things because you were a stupid girl in love back then.

It was exhausting suddenly having to explain yourself to yourself, you didn't have the mental strength for it. You brought your fingers to pinch the bridge of your nose, sighing wearily. It was foolish of you to shut your eyes for even second however, just trying to gather your jumbled thoughts like that, because Touya took it as an invitation to close the distance between the two.

A sudden, familiar feeling of warmth enveloped your body, his arms circling around your waist and pulling you against his broad chest. But it was not a gentle touch, he was squeezing you in his hold to make sure he had you caged. You gasped, every muscle in your body tensing up like a frightened prey in a wolf's grasp. Your body felt hot.

"You're so cold, sugartits. Are you seriously not happy to see me? Not one bit?"

He spoke so softly all of sudden, you knew he was trying to appease you. He rested his chin on the crown of your head as he held you, one of his hands taking purchase of your hair, pulling at it just enough that you felt a slight sting in your scalp. Your lips parted slightly, a moan almost attempting to escape.

"Let me go, and don't call me that." You tried wiggling out of his hold, to push him off you, but he only tightened his grip.

"Call you what? Sugartits? Aww, but you used to love it."

Purring like a cat, you felt the smell of cigarettes and cinders invading your nostrils, bringing back vivid memories of the many times he used you hold you down to smooth-talk his way out of trouble, hold you down and fuck you senseless until you forgot whatever it was that you were mad about.

The thought alone frightened you to the bone, the realization of the sort of memories Touya was pulling out of you so effortlessly. The heat enveloping your body felt like it was burning you, threatening to cremate you with his quirk. It was nothing like Natsuo's cold touch and you hated it.

You couldn't let him keep holding you like that, it was wrong, it was dangerous, and gathering all your strength, you placed your hands on his chest to get him off. It didn't work, he only laughed at your attempt.

"Come on, do you really hate me that much? I just want to talk, honest. Don't you want to talk this out?" Looking up at him, the expression you saw was serious, soft, something you had only seen back when you were with him a few times. Touya was dangling the hope for closure above your head like a dog's treat, and you took the bait.

"What is there to talk about? You dumped me after fucking me for months, just to chase more tail." You a soft murmur from your lips, resignation. You felt his chest heave with a satisfied huff.

"Well yeah, but I tried to call you, you changed your number."

"Because I knew you just wanted to hook up."

"Well, you got me there." He chuckled, completely unashamed and it didn't even begin to surprise you.

"I did really like you back then, you know? And you broke my fucking heart." It was useless to tell him that, and yet you did.

"I liked you too, but you know that I'm a bastard baby, it's just my nature."

You frowned, there was no comfort in his words or even a sense of guilt from him, just the factual reality of things. You had been an idiot for getting involved with him, but it wasn't like you hadn't known that from the start. It still upset you, but the more you thought about it, the more you felt it was necessary to just let it be if you ever hoped to survive the night.

"I don't care what you do, in fact I'd rather we both forget anything ever happened. Just...don't ruin this for me." The plea in your voice was genuine, a heartfelt request, lowered lashes as you looked down before biting your lip. "Don't tell Natsuo about this, please. That's all I ask."

Touya went stiff against you, a hum purring at the back of his throat almost as if he had found your words no short of fascinating. You looked upwards to meet his gaze, he seemed pensive, while your expression was surprised.

"You really love him, huh? Lucky him, to think that used to be me." He chuckled, rolling his shoulders with a sense of light-hearted acceptance, the amusement had returned to that lazy grin. "I wasn't planning on ruining anything for my lil' bro, give me some credit. I just couldn't help teasing you a bit."

Admittedly you hadn't thought of it that way, that maybe even if Touya had no loyalty towards you, for his family he held enough of it to avoid crossing a line like that. It almost made you feel ashamed of yourself, how conceited it probably looked that you had assumed Touya really would care about fucking with you over his sibling's happiness.

For the first time that night, you felt hopeful, a sigh of relief that left your lips carried away all the weight you had on your shoulders.

"Well, then...thank you." A truthful feeling of gratitude. You even forced yourself to subtly smile at Touya, and you though for a second that his eyes softened at the sight. But then he just waved his hand at you dismissively.

"By the way, I wasn't joking earlier. The bathroom is that door over there. If you still want to use it."

You had almost forgotten about that, and while you had no need to go, part of you still needed some time alone to take in all that had happened in just one night so far.

There was slight hesitation, a feeling in your gut that told you not to. And you ignored it, like you ignored all the red flags in the past.

Nodding at Touya, you turned around and headed for the bathroom, but he called out to you again immediately.

"Wait, let me help you open it, that one door always gets stuck." Not even waiting for an answer he fumbled with the knob for a bit before it opened, Touya stepped to the side to let you in.

And then, just as you were crossing the doorframe, muttering a soft 'thanks', you were pushed inside the room by two large hands.

You yelped, stumbling over your feet and tripping onto a soft surface. The moonlight filtered through a narrow window enough to letting you see that you were not in a bathroom at all, but instead in what seemed to be a bedroom, may a guest room? You had no idea. The soft surface under your knees was definitely a futon at least. Confused and panicking you turned around to try getting up and rush out that room, just in time to see Touya walking in, closing the door and locking it behind him.

You felt the room's temperature go up.

"T-Touya? Touya!" You spoke once in confusion, then in anger. He tricked you, and you fell for it like and idiot, all over again. "Fuck you, I knew you were trying to pull something like this."

"You are really funny, sugartits. Seriously." Slowly, in long strides, he approached you. Completely ignoring your protests. "Saying that you love Natsuo with that innocent look on your face, really? What a comedian."

"What are you—?!"

Getting on his knees in from if you, Touya grabbed you by the jaw, squeezing your cheeks and roughly forcing you to look at him in the eye. That bruising touch you knew so well, it made your chest start tightening and face to burn red.

Looking at Touya in that dim light made you shiver, he had an horrifyingly wide smile, baring his teeth. You could feel the steam coming out of his nostrils, and for a moment you were afraid he'd actually set the place on fire.

"Do you think you can just go saying shit like that when I know just what a slut you are for my cock?"

He laughed mockingly, and yet the condescending tone dropping off his words made you realize it was an statement full of endearment.

"No, I'm not!" You struggled to pull away from him, clawing at his hand around your jaw, but he was just much stronger than you, always had been. "That was a long time ago, I was stupid. That wasn't real, what I have with Natsuo is real."

"So you say." Rolling his eyes, he scoffed. Touya brought his lips to your forehead, giving you a chaste kiss, the softness of his lips and the cold metal of his lip piercings was something you wished to have forgotten, a whine almost left your lips. "But I know you missed me."

"I did not. Let me go!"

"You're so cruel, sugartits. 'Cause, I did miss you lots, y'know?"

It shouldn't have, it really shouldn't, but that statement made you pause, freeze on the spot and look at him confused and surprised. A meek 'what?' came from your lips. Touya took advantage of your momentary lack of resistance to roughly push you backwards with enough force that you were falling onto your back over the futon.

"I'll tell you the truth, even after I kept fucking bitches for a while after our 'break up', I realized that none of them really compared to you." He explained slowly, drawling each word with a raspy voice, your heart beating loudly in your ways almost drowned the sound.

"Turns out no other pussy felt like yours, so good and tight, god...best one I've ever had. Oh, and no one else was quite as much of a whore either to be honest, I mean shit, we used to get all down and dirty, remember?"

He pulled out his phone out of his pocket, and started to browse through it. You should've taken that chance to try escape, or at least kick his stupid face, but your body wasn't moving. The shock of what he was saying, petrified you, as did what you imagined he was doing.

"But you disappeared. So I've only had these to jerk off now and then, trying to imagine your nice pussy around my cock." He showed you the screen of his phone, and it was what you had been fearing the most.

Pictures of you, old pictures that Touya had taken years ago during sex. There were many, too many, you felt the world collapsing around you, as if you hadn't been already laying down, you would've collapsed with it for sure.

"Never thought I would see you again, imagine my surprise when Natsuo just came home with my favorite cumdumpster as girlfriend."

"I'm not yours!!"

You refuted passionately, he could insult you all he wanted, call you all sort of names, but you were not going to let him claim you as his belonging.

You were Natsuo's, no one else's, you told Touya, you told yourself.

You were trying to get back up, but Touya was already crawling above you and shoving the screen of his phone in your face, showing off those lewd pictures of yourself.

Pictures of you doing all sort of nasty sexual things with Touya.

"I wonder if my lil' bro would be thinking the same as you if he saw these though. I mean, you two love eachother right? I guess he probably won't mind..."

"Alright I get it, what do you want from me?"

That quick temper of yours made him huff a laugh, something like fondness in it. Well, you weren't so stupid as to not realize what was happening, what was Touya getting at. Swallowing the lump in your throat you tried to keep yourself from shaking, but having Touya above you like that was leaving you short of breath, heart hammering in your chest.

"Let me fuck you." He said so casually, putting the phone back into his pocket without even breaking eye contact. "Here and now, let me fuck you real good one last time."

You breathed through your nostrils, slowly, taking in the situation you were in. Taking in his outrageous words that gave you chills.

"You can't be serious..."

"I am very serious, sugartits. I just wanna bury myself inside your pussy, for old times' sake. C'mon, you don't even care about my cock anymore, right? It shouldn't change anything to give me one last pity-fuck."

It was surreal, ridiculous, atrocious, the entire thing. Yet, what other option did you have? Even if you screamed for help, it would mean Natsuo would find out about this, find you like this. You parted your lips to ask hesitantly.

"Only once...no more than that, right? And then you delete those pictures, promise me. Dammit, promise me Touya!!"

"Yeah, yeah, geez. I promise, just once, and these pictures will be gone forever." He spoke seriously, a longing look in his eyes behind the cockiness. "So, whaddaya say?"

"Alright."

Those were the words that would seal the deal, and Touya didn't really need any more than that to get started. You felt his lips coming down to attack you with urgency, planting an open mouthed kiss on your shoulder while he nuzzled his nose into the juncture of your neck, inhaling your scent in a big indulgent sniff.

"Fuck, you still using that shampoo with the vanilla? Mmm, it was my favorite." He purred loudly, a satisfied grin and hot breath against your skin.

You gasped, unable to keep yourself from reacting to the stimulation, your body remembering it all over again, squirming underneath his frame as he pinned you down. That sound you made had his cock twitching inside his pants, member already growing hard and throbbing with rushing blood. He made sure to let you know by rutting himself against your clothed pussy, his hardness big enough to poke at your entrance through the layers of clothing. You bit your lips, so hard you could've drawn blood, just too keep yourself from moaning at the friction, your pussy already becoming slick and dampening your panties.

Then he was pulling back, earning a confused sound out of you, which then turned to a cry when a large hand crept up to the top of your dress, pulling it down to free your breasts and let them bounce bare for him. You tried to cover yourself on instinct, but Touya caught both of your wrists and held them down.

"God, I had missed these two. Now I remember why I started calling you sugartits." He chuckled lowly, one hand letting go of your wrist just to grope one of your breasts.

Fingers roughly sinking into the soft flesh before he drew his hand back, and slapped your breast, hard. It made a dry sound only matched by the cry you tried to muffle with your free hand. It stung, it hurt, you could swear that it burned. Then he slapped the other breasts as well, flesh jiggling as the skin turned red and raw, nipples become hard and stiff.

"Fuck, Touya...!!" You hissed through gritted teeth, and he only laughed. "D-Don't do that so suddenly."

"What? You used to love that, don't tell me you and Natsu don't do shit like this?" Of course you didn't. It was so different that being with Natsuo, the heat, the roughness, it was nothing like when he gently made love to you. This was not what you wanted, not anymore, and yet...you felt that familiar arousal in your gut, the tingly sensation in your core as more slickness dripped from your folds.

Touya was soon leaning over one of your tender breasts, mouth latching to the nipple and teeth scrapping the pebbled skin around the puffy areolae, his tongue lapping around the nipple, you could feel his tongue-piercing against the skin. He hollowed his cheeks as he sucked with fervor into his greedy mouth, drool and spit coating your chest.

"Hey wait!! Don't leave marks, don't leave m—oooh!!" He growled against your breast and you felt his teeth bitting at the flesh, your toes curled and you threw your head back with a pitiful whine. That definitely was going to leave a mark, he did it on purpose.

Just like he purposely lifted the hem of your dress and ripped your panties off you like a savage. You hated the memories it brought, of the countless pairs of panties you had lost this way when you were with him, Natsuo never did things like this.

Natsuo was not like this, he was gentle and sweet and—

The abrupt feeling of two fingers breaching through your outer pussy lips and into the heat of your core had your back arching, eyes wide open and tears pricking your eyes because the sudden intrusion. Dabi's long digits slid inside of your pulsating walls, the slippery flesh wrapping around them as you involuntarily clamped down. You moaned, barely muffling the sound using now both of your hands to cover your mouth in a desperate attempt to stop making noises.

"Fuck, baby you are still tight as shit." He spoke with his mouth still muffled against your breast, you could feel the shit-eating grin on his face. "I thought I'd have to prepare you a little more, but you are nice and wet, ready for my cock."

No, you weren't ready. You didn't want to be ready, you were doing this for you and Natsuo, and that was it. Shaking your head, Touya only snickered mockingly, as if he knew better, but he didn't. He absolutely didn't, whatever you two had was in the past, and you didn't want to be fucked by any other man than your boyfriend!!

"Just make it quick, please..."

"That depends on how good you squeeze me, baby."

Touya pulled back, hands unbuckling his belts and pulling down his pants. Your eyes almost bulging out of your head at the sight of his hard cock as it sprung free, bobbing against his abdomen with a pearly dollop of precum dribbling from the supple head, his shaft was as long and thick as you remembered, a pulsating vein on the underside that went from the head to the bushy white hair at his base.

You hated yourself for moaning at the sight, for being so weak. Touya somehow didn't make fun on you for that, he was too busy grabbing your ankles and pulling you down towards him, his own eyes fixated on the sight of your soaked pussy. The look of his eyes was ravenous and absolutely enthralled, his breath had quickened as he stared at the pretty slick flesh, bringing his cock to your puffy pussy lips, sandwiching his it in between them and sliding himself up and down, coating himself in your wetness.

It was driving you crazy with need, a maddening need that was awakening after years. And something you hated yourself for, feeling that fire in your loins in a way you never felt with Natsuo. You hated yourself for wanting to be fucked the way Touya used to fuck you.

"Oh, baby. I'm not even inside and you're already squirming." He grinned down at you, watching you through half-lidded eyes burning with lust.

"Shut up! Please just...just...ohh."

You didn't know what were you were begging for, but it didn't matter when you felt the tip of his cock positioned at your entrance, before the feeling of him entering you slowly, he wanted your every muscle to feel every part of him. A violent wave of pleasure rocked your body, Touya's cock stretched your walls like no one else could, even after years it was like your pussy had never forgotten the feeling and shape of him, welcoming him into your heat and betraying your need to cling to your convictions.

"Holy shit, oh fuck...this is what I was talking about. Best pussy I've ever had." You heard him pant and moan above you, his mouth gasping for air with eyes shut, like he was savoring the best feeling in the entire world. Your fleshy walls were sucking him in like crazy, he shuddered grabbing you by the hips with his large hands. "Hnng, so tight, fuck...it's like you're trying to rip my dick off. You sure Natsuo's been fucking you enough? Can't believe you're still so tight."

"S-Shut up!! Don't...bring him up now...please."

You couldn't stop wishing that Touya would just start moving already, fuck you already, in your heart you apologized to Natsuo over and over, you were doing it for your sakes, you were doing it for him.

"You are right, let's forget about him. Right now, this pussy belongs to me."

Touya pulled out his length until only the head was nudging at your heat, before he slammed his entire cock back in until he was balls deep inside, filling you up entirely. The head of his cock could almost hit the entrance of your cervix, god he was so big, it was different than Natsuo, he reached deeper than anyone you had ever had, you felt absolutely stuffed.

Gasping for air, you clung to his shoulders, trying to remember how to breath. But Touya didn't give you any chance to adjust before he began thrusting himself in and out your pussy, scrapping your walls with his cock following a brutal, bruising pace that had you pinned down against the futon as Touya jackhammered himself into you.

"T-Touya, fuck, fuck." It hurt, it really fucking hurt, and yet your body was craving that pain and heat you had been deprived from for so long, and you hated yourself so much for it, tears started to run down your cheeks.

Touya watched you with furrowed brows, licking his lips at the erotic sight of your bruised tits bouncing like crazy, but it wasn't until he noticed your tears that he felt himself swelling up inside you, cock harder than ever before. He leaned over you, face inches away from yours with his tongue out. He lapped at your salty tears, groaning in pleasure.

"Dabi, call me Dabi...for old times sake...oh fuck" He whispered against your skin, his hand leaving your hip to delve down towards your clit. He started playing with that little bundle of nerves, flickering it until you were just about to lose your mind, dizziness making you feel near to fainting.

"Dabi...!!"

You orgasm ripped through you violently, abruptly, toes curling and mind going black before you knew it, before you could even hope to do anything about it. Your walls were clamping around Touya and coating his cock in your release.

"Fuuuuuuck..." He groaned, you were so impossibly tight around him he almost came in that very moment.

You went limp, exhausted, but he kep fucking you until he reached his own release soon after. His cock throbbed, and you feel the warmth of his cum inside you as he filled you up in a sloppy creampie, and god he came a lot, jets of semen coated your insides until your womb was filled to the brim. You felt his cock softening inside, before he pulled out.

"That was great, babe. I knew you were the best." He sighed lightly and content, smiling shamelessly at the mess he made of your pussy, cum flooding out of your hole. "You didn't even tell me to pull out."

You tried to get up, but your body ached already, so you remained on your back with him still on top.

"The pictures...delete them."

"Nah, I don't think so."

The fact those words only shocked you halfway was perhaps sadder than him playing you for a fool again.

"You promised..." You said softly, weakly smacking Touya in the chest, barely phased anymore.

"I'm a bastard, sugartits. Can't lose my number one slut that easily, not when I finally found you again."

What an absolute douchebag.

—————

Natsuo knocked on the bathroom door, worriedly calling your name.

"Hey, [Name]? Are you okay? You've been gone for a bit."

After a moment, you replied, opening the door and exiting the bathroom. Seeing Natsuo's relieved smile made you so happy, and you smiled back.

"Don't tell your parents but I got lost, so it took me a bit to find the bathroom." You said with an embarrassed expression, voice to match, distress that was in a way still real.

"Oh no, I knew I should've accompanied you." Natsuo sighed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry love, but didn't you see my brother? I told him to tell you where to go if he saw you."

You quickly shook your head. Hoping that the toilet paper you held between your legs would keep Touya's cum from spilling out.

—————

That night, when everyone had fallen asleep. You sneaked out of your room, careful not to wake up Natsuo. You planted a sweet, chaste kiss on his lips, gazed at him lovingly. You were doing it for you and Natsuo. You keep telling yourself.

Hearing a soft knocking sound, Touya smiled to himself. He walked to open the door of his bedroom to find you there, fingers lifting the hem of your dress to show your naked pussy underneath. Folds already glistening with the fluids of your arousal.

You heart was doing it for Natsuo.

But your body would always do it for Touya.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #dabi thirst #tw manipulation #tw dubcon #tw gaslighting #tw cheating #this is the longest fic i've written so far and it wasn't intentional

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free--therapy · 2 years

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Why It's Important to Have High Self-Esteem

By Sarah Vanbuskirk | Updated on February 24, 2021

It's easy to discount the importance of having high self-esteem. However, having positive personal regard can be the difference between feeling good about and taking care of yourself and not.

We've likely all heard the advice to believe in yourself, value yourself, be your own cheerleader, and that you can't fully love others until you love yourself—and all of that is true. But what exactly does that really mean in real life? Essentially, that having high self-esteem is vital to a successful, happy life.

But how exactly do you know if your self-esteem is high enough? Below, we'll take a look at what self-esteem is, why it's important, and how to build yours up.

We'll also break down the negative effects of having low self-esteem, the difference between occasionally being down on yourself and truly having poor self-esteem, whether your self-esteem can be too high, factors that contribute to low self-esteem, and tips for cultivating a more positive self-outlook and self-respect.

What Is Self-Esteem?

In order to have high self-esteem, it's important to understand what self-esteem really is. Firstly, esteem means having admiration and respect.

Self-Esteem Self-esteem is giving respect and admiration to yourself. The American Psychological Association defines self-esteem as "the degree to which the qualities and characteristics contained in one’s self-concept are perceived to be positive."

High self-esteem is not just liking yourself but generally affording yourself love, value, dignity, and respect, too. Positive self-esteem also means believing in your capability (to learn, achieve, and contribute to the world) and autonomy to do things on your own. It means you think your ideas, feelings, and opinions have worth.

In other words, self-esteem is how you feel about yourself (inside and out), encompassing what you think about and value in yourself and how you relate to others. It's also related to how you feel others view, treat, and value you. This is why those in abusive situations or who have experienced trauma (particularly as children) are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, concurrently and in the future, as a result.

Self-esteem isn't dependent entirely on one thing or set of thoughts. Instead, a person's self-esteem is made up of your view of all the things that define you as a person, including your personality, accomplishments, talents, capabilities, background, experiences, relationships, and physical body, as well as how you perceive others see you.

Each person may put a particular emphasis on certain areas that impact self-esteem, such as putting extra importance on your looks, relationship status, talents, or professional accomplishments (or lack thereof), when forming your self-image and how you feel about it.

Self-Esteem vs. Depression

Note, too, that low self-esteem is not the same as depression. While the two concepts overlap, low self-esteem is considered a risk factor for depression (see more on this below) rather than being the same thing.

While depression is a mental health condition that impacts the mind and body, self-esteem describes the way you think and feel about yourself. Additionally, some people have more stable self-esteem, while other's feelings about themselves are more mood- and life event-reactive—and more prone to plummet.

Remember, whether your self-esteem is high or low is influenced by the many factors that make you, you—some of which are in your control, some are not.

Ultimately, what matters most is what you focus on from those many factors and how much grace and compassion you afford yourself with regard to the things you're less thrilled about.

Whether you realize it or not, your self-esteem is the picture you paint of yourself, the parts of you that you choose to emphasize. Essentially, as famed naturalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said, "The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

High-Self Esteem

High self-esteem means generally holding yourself in positive regard. This doesn't mean you love everything about yourself or think you are perfect. On the contrary, even for those with high self-esteem, it's common to be self-critical and have some parts of yourself that you are less proud of or happy with than other elements. High self-esteem can fluctuate depending on the circumstance.

However, if you have high self-esteem the positive thoughts about yourself outweigh the negative—and the negative doesn't make you discount your worth as a person.

Essentially, high self-esteem is a frame of mind that lets you celebrate your strengths, challenge your weaknesses, and feel good about yourself and your life. It allows you to put daily ups and downs in perspective because, at your core, you value, trust, and respect yourself.

High self-esteem also helps you understand that everything isn't about you, enabling you to not take everything personally and not be overly reactive. Strong self-respect lets you see beyond yourself and feel confident of your place in the world.

Interestingly, having high self-esteem does not always align with the circumstances or qualities that you might objectively assume should correlate with feeling good about yourself.

For example, some research shows that physical attractiveness does not predict high self-esteem. In fact, one study showed that teens with "facial attractiveness" scored lower on self-esteem ratings than their peers. In other words, the person who seems to have it all—great job, romantic partner, beauty, fit body—may not see it that way.

Why High Self-Esteem Matters

According to the American Psychological Association, having high self-esteem is key to positive mental health and well-being. High self-esteem matters because it helps you develop coping skills, handle adversity, and put the negative into perspective.

If you have a higher self-concept you also don't tend to put undue focus, blame, self-doubt, hopelessness, or weight on the parts you aren't happy about. You're also better able to cope with stress, anxiety, and pressure, whether from school, work, home, or peers.

Instead, rather than feeling hopeless, stuck, or unworthy due to any perceived "failings," a person with high self-esteem is more likely to look for what they can change or improve upon than to feel like a "failure" or hopeless.

Conversely, someone with low self-esteem is more likely to become entrenched in negative feelings about themself. In fact, research shows that feeling positive and respectful about yourself, particularly as a child, goes a long way in helping you adapt and adjust to the challenges of life.

A healthy self-concept and self-respect can enable you to realize that it's not the end of the world if something goes wrong, someone rejects you, you make a mistake, or you have some faults.

Self-Esteem and Prosocial Behavior

High self-esteem is also linked to prosocial behavior (actions with the intent to benefit others, such as generosity and qualities like empathy), flexibility, and positive familial relationships. In fact, a 2014 study found that college students with higher self-esteem and more loving and supportive relationships with their families were more successful at school and adapted better to the social adjustment of living in a new environment.

Self-Esteem and Stress

How you experience stress is also strongly related to your level of self-esteem. Prosocial behavior (which, as noted above, is more likely with higher self-esteem) is known to reduce the negative impact of stressors on daily life, helping you to manage stress more effectively.9 Studies have also found a positive relationship between positive self-esteem and motivation to accomplish goals, self-efficacy, and self-control. Higher levels of self-esteem are also predictive of greater academic success.

High Self-Esteem Boosts Overall Well-Being

Additionally, high self-esteem is considered to be protective against many mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. In fact, studies show that having high self-esteem is directly correlated to your satisfaction with your life and to the ability to maintain a favorable attitude about yourself in challenging situations.

Research also shows that people with higher self-esteem are happier in their jobs, have better social relationships, and generally, a more positive sense of well-being.

The Risks of Low Self-Esteem

Like many elements of mental health, researchers often describe self-esteem as existing on a spectrum.

Like anything in life, your self-image is prone to change and grow as you mature and live your life, and in response to key life events.

However, it's also true that people tend toward a certain set-point of self-esteem that can be persistent, whether high, low, or somewhere in between. Social interactions, attention, emotional regulation, decision-making, and life satisfaction are all impacted by lower self-image.

Reactivity

As noted above, when you have high self-esteem, you're better able to shake off unfavorable events and the negative judgments or moods of others that may be directed your way. Conversely, when you have a lower self-concept, you're more likely to take criticism or rejection personally and to assume someone else's problems are about you.

This combination can make people with low self-esteem more reactive to day-to-day circumstances and personal interactions. Those with lower self-esteem are also less likely to keep their emotions in check, cope well with challenges, and look at life from a healthy perspective.

Often low self-esteem means small things become blown up into bigger issues that can feel insurmountable, further ratcheting down self-regard.

Feeling Down vs. Poor Self-Esteem

Essentially, low self-esteem isn't just having a bad mood or a bad day. Everyone feels down when negative things happen but these feelings typically pass and, especially for those with positive self-esteem, don't have a drastic impact on self-worth. Instead, low self-esteem is a chronically negative self-image that, while it may ebb and flow with the positive and negative events in your life, for the most part, stays with you over time, regardless of life circumstances.

Your level of self-regard may be, in part, a function of the natural variation in personality types, affect, genetics, and/or in response to upbringing, peers, and life events. However, when self-esteem is particularly low, as noted above, it can put you at risk of many mental health challenges.

Susceptibility to Depression

The link between low self-esteem and mental health conditions is particularly strong. Interestingly, research shows convincingly that poor self-esteem contributes to depression, rather than the reverse. This means that depression doesn't create low self-regard. Instead, thinking poorly of yourself makes you more vulnerable to depression.

Additionally, studies indicate that higher self-esteem offers protection from mental health conditions, likely due to the improved coping skills, higher positivity, and resiliency that comes with this more accepting and affirmative self-talk. Essentially, low self-esteem begets feeling bad about yourself, which makes leading a fulfilling life, reaching your goals, and having positive social and intimate relationships harder.

Critically, studies show that low self-esteem is highly correlated to depression, anxiety, emotional problems, substance use, stress, eating disorders, and suicidal ideation. Research also shows a strong correlation between low self-esteem and anxiety disorders, particularly with social phobias and social anxiety disorder.

Risky Behaviors

Studies also show a link between poor self-esteem and an increased risk of risky health behaviors, particularly in teens, such as drug and alcohol use, drunk driving, self-harm, smoking, and carrying a weapon.19 Essentially, those who value and respect themselves the least are more willing to make more dangerous choices that may impact their health and safety.

Additionally, improvements in self-esteem are shown to be helpful in the recovery from addiction. In fact, studies show that this relationship of low self-esteem and poor choices is particularly evident in adolescents who already are at a disadvantage for decision-making due to their still-developing executive function skills. Research has also found a link between low self-esteem and risky sexual behaviors in teens.

Low Self-Confidence

Research also finds a clear correlation between low self-confidence and low self-esteem, as well as the reverse. Additionally, having high self-confidence encourages self-reliance, self-advocacy, and trust in yourself and your abilities, all factors that bolster high self-esteem—and create a framework for positive mental health and quality of life.

Can You Have Too Much Self-Esteem?

An unrealistic or overly elevated self-concept may be as unhealthy as a negative one. However, it's important to distinguish between healthy high self-esteem and arrogance. High self-esteem is not being egotistical, thinking you are infallible, or better than others.

High Self-Esteem vs. Arrogance and Narcissism

Arrogance is when a person's self-concept veers from reality and becomes the dominant force in their life, and we might assume that too much self-esteem equals an inflated ego.

However, this type of narcissistic self-concept isn't necessarily a natural progression from healthy self-esteem, which values the self but not above all others.

Instead, narcissism or arrogance describes a person who focuses primarily on themselves, considers themselves more important or worthwhile than others, and often, doesn't even think about how their actions impact those around them. Really, it can be argued that what looks like "too much self-esteem" is actually the opposite.

In fact, while narcissists may seem to have high self-esteem, studies show that grandiose beliefs about yourself often actually mask a poor self-image, feelings of shame, and self-directed anger hiding underneath.

People with narcissistic personality disorder are also more prone to comorbid mental health conditions like depression and anxiety, experience feelings of helplessness, and have unstable personal relationships.

Contributing Factors of Low Self-Esteem

While, as noted above, a complex web of influences combine to shape your identity, personality, and self-concept, there are specific factors that predict high or low self-esteem. Namely, factors that impact self-esteem include whether or not you had a supportive upbringing, where your needs, thoughts, feelings, contributions, and ideas are valued. Positive thinking, heredity, personal outlook, your peers, and other role models all matter a lot as well.

Experiencing challenging life events or trauma like divorce, violence, racism, neglect, poverty, a natural disaster, being bullied, or otherwise treated poorly can also contribute to low self-esteem.

The effectiveness of your coping skills, the relative positivity of your personal outlook, and general resiliency, all factors that can be innate or learned, greatly impact the influence negative experiences may have on your self-esteem as well.

Cultivating High Self-Esteem

Cultivating high self-esteem (and resiliency) is no easy task, but it's certainly possible and within your grasp—and can make a huge difference in your life. As noted above, it's key to understand that a significant component of self-esteem is your thought patterns, what you focus on, and optimism rather than simply on objective facts or events of your life.

In other words, it's about what you see (and say to yourself) when looking at your physical self, skills, accomplishments, or future potential.

Building up your self-esteem takes work, determination, and a willingness to examine and counter negative thoughts about yourself—and to actively bolster your self-image with positive ones. It's vital to give yourself grace, to let go of certain things that bother you as well as to work on those areas that you can (and want) to change.

If you value yourself, and have high enough self-worth, you also know that you deserve to take care of yourself, which then can contribute to trying to do things to improve your self-esteem. It's difficult to take care of yourself if you think poorly of yourself.

Studies show that forgiving yourself for things you regret can also help improve self-esteem. Essentially, it's about accepting and loving yourself as you are.

When to Get Help If you have low self-esteem, it can be helpful to work with a counselor or other mental health professional to begin changing your negative self-talk and improve how you see and value yourself.

Ways to Improve Self-Esteem

As noted above, improving your self-esteem takes practice and intention but is well worth your efforts, as there is a clear link between high self-esteem and quality of life. Some strategies that can help you think more favorably about yourself include the following:

Accept Compliments

Notice the urge to deflect praise and instead, hear it and let it in. Interestingly, research shows that difficulty accepting compliments is directly correlated with low self-esteem.

Give Yourself a Break

Forgive yourself for mistakes and squash your negative self-theories and self-talk. No one is perfect or loves everything about themselves. Don't expect that of yourself. When you start on a negative spiral, ask yourself if you're being fair to yourself or realistic.

Love Yourself—Flaws And All

Yes, you may have things you wish were different, want to change, or just plain aren't happy with, but love and respect yourself anyway.

Value the Person You Are

Aim to accept and find worth in who you are right now. Seek out and feel pride in what makes you unique, happy, and valued.

Recognize the Importance of High Self-Esteem

Once you begin to see how your view of yourself impacts life satisfaction and well-being, you may be more motivated to alter your thinking and value yourself more.

Seek Support

Therapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, can help you work on issues that may be impeding your positive self-outlook and help you build skills to disrupt negative self-talk and attain a more optimistic view of yourself.

Start a Gratitude Journal

In a gratitude journal, write down all the positive things in your life, the things you like about yourself, the accomplishments or qualities you are proud of—then read it over whenever you're feeling down about yourself.

Take Note of Your Thoughts

When negative ones arise, actively choose to either work productively on the issues or decide to let them go. When you have positive thoughts, aim to amplify them, particularly whenever less favorable thinking pops up.

Think of Yourself as a Friend

You're likely to be more patient, forgiving, kind, encouraging, supportive, and proud as you assess a friend than you are of yourself. So, next time you're beating up on yourself, step back, shift your perspective, and look at yourself as you would a friend.

Work on Yourself

If there are things about yourself or your life that you don't feel good about, consider what changes you can make. Then, make a plan to put those changes into action.

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