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husbandhoshi · 10 days ago

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title: royally screwed [m]

pairing: joshua x f!reader

wc: 30.8k in total; part 1: 15.4k, part 2: 15.4k summary: between remembering last night’s party and pleasing your unrelenting family, you think being a princess is hard enough. then you’re thrust into an arranged marriage to royal darling joshua hong—straight-laced, infuriatingly obedient, and everything you’re not. pretending to be the perfect couple? impossible. notes: romcom + smut (part 2), modern royalty!au in which yn is the princess of cotria/joshua the prince of acros (both fictional), enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, quarterlife crisis/coming of age, very very slow burn. lots of swearing, lots of alcohol, lots of feelings. very special thanks to @meiozis for all their help with worldbuilding and @wuahae for bearing with me through the endless drafts, scene changes, second guessing, horrible word choices, etc. you are the only reason this got done, and i love you to the moon and back <3 [read part 2 here!]

Here, in the dark, there is just you.

The strobe lights press into your skin with all the brilliance of the sun, there's half a Modelo running down your leg, and you think you kissed the stranger behind you last week, but if you close your eyes, it's just you. No rules, no five second curtseys, no talk about the throne or whoever's ass happens to be keeping it warm at the moment.

Here, you're nobody, and it's perfect.

"I'm getting more champagne," Somi says, her voice careening over the music. "You sure Jihoon doesn't want any?"

You glance back at him. He's flattened up against the back wall, holding your purse, like a raccoon caught going through the trash. This is one of the many trials he's forced to endure for your entertainment, but it's his job–not as your closest friend, but as your legally employed bodyguard.

"No, he's on duty."

"Right," she slurs. "Sometimes I forget you're a literal princess."

If only it were that easy. Five drinks in and you think you can still feel your mother's vice grip on your arm and all the little white crescents of her french manicure.

You love this song–at least, you think you do. You're too drunk to tell, but it doesn't matter. The dance floor is muggy, sardine-packed with one warm body after another, and it's heaven. The crowd moves, and you move with them. Shakira waits for no one.

Somi must have secured another bottle of Cristal already. Soonyoung, your other partner-in-crime, hands you a flute and you take it, the glittery foam already bubbling over the lip.

"Cheers." Out of his too-drunk mouth, it sounds like a new word altogether, but you bring your glass to his anyway.

Tomorrow, you have a meeting with your parents. This, unlike all of your other involvements, is actually important, they said, and their voices had wound around you like a snare.

When it gets late, Jihoon will sling your arm over his shoulders and haul you back to the palace, still tipsy and holding your stilettos to your chest like a shield. Tomorrow will come, and it's then when you'll have to try to be good. It's a useless, stupid affair, but you'll go through the motions anyway.

But tonight, there is you and the music and the wonderful laughter of your friends, and you don't have to be anything at all.

"Cheers," you tell Soonyoung, and you drink.

There are four large topiaries in the palace garden: all lions. They stand tall in their planters, majestic and hairy with French lavender. Today you notice that the rightmost one's nose has been pruned off by accident, and he stands, snoutless, staring at his green brothers and sisters.

You know this because this is the view from the study, and it has never changed. There is only one study in the east wing, and it is small and useless and the perfect room for your parents to sit you down and remind you that you do not, in fact, own a single thing about your own life.

There is nothing new about this ritual. Even as a child, when you were more desperate to please, you could never be the right kind of daughter to your parents or princess to your country. Again and again, you landed yourself here, in trouble once more.

So you stopped trying–you would find these four walls anyway, no matter what you did. Why not enjoy your Fridays instead?

By now, you’ve memorized the carvings on the armrest of the chair you’re in (a knobby column, then underneath, the whorl of a seashell). There are thirty-four terracotta stones on the way to the fountain, all spaced perfectly apart, sanded down to the millimeter.

The scene remains unchanged. Your mother now stares down at you over the bridge of her nose, with that tight-lipped frown you've gotten so used to. Your father paces near the window, either wondering why you can't be softer, more pliable, like your older brother Jeonghan, or, alternatively, why one of the lions is missing a nose. Maybe both.

"Enjoy yourself yesterday?" your mother asks.

"Yes," you reply, out of other answers.

"Wonderful. Then our early morning briefing with PR was good for something. You should be grateful last night's pictures won't make it out of the darkroom."

Her voice, bitter and incisive, makes the hangover bubble up in your stomach. You and the tabloids weren't exactly on good terms, but it wasn't your fault so many people seemed to care about what you were wearing or who you were out with.

"What did you want to meet about?" you ask, hoping to change the subject.

You can't put your finger on it, but there's a cloying, heavy energy hanging on you. You feel as though you're on the precipice of something, although that could just be the consequences of all that Cristal ready to reintroduce themselves to your digestive system.

Your mother clears her throat.

"We have arranged for you to marry someone."

And all at once, it seems as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. There's a sharp pain lodged somewhere between your chest, your stomach, and your unhappy liver. The larks sing emptily in the garden.

"What?" Your voice sounds like it's unraveling somewhere in your throat. Quickly, frantically, you grasp at the faraway possibility that it can't possibly mean what you think it does. Marry? You can’t even remember the last time you thought of going on a second date with someone. Now you might actually throw up.

"Prince Joshua, of the Hong family. The crown prince of–"

"Acros. I know," you interrupt, the words jumping out of you in shock and anger.

Of course you know who Joshua Hong is–Acros is a tiny, unremarkable country nestled into the border of your much bigger one, and Joshua their crown jewel. If you were the nation's problem, he was their darling. A bland thing to coo at when life got boring, the walking embodiment of a media training session. Smile and nod, smile and nod. He might as well be AI generated.

You wouldn't last a day with him. Not with your impatience, your opinions, or that loud mouth your parents always scold you for. Your mind swims with the mental image of the two of you on a gaudy parade float, doing that stupidly slow wave everyone seemed to insist on.

"Wonderful. So you'll pack a bag? The Hong family will be thrilled to meet you tomorrow," says your father.

"Why?" you ask. Your voice wobbles, treading over that childlike waver you never learned to control. "Is this to punish me?"

"My dear, your brother will be ascending to the throne soon," your mother answers, looking you dead in the eyes. "It’s his face that needs to be on the front page, not you in another abomination of a swimsuit. The Hongs will keep enough of an eye on you.”

She's right. She's always been right. Maybe not about the swimsuit, but you haven’t exactly been the PR princess your family needed you to be. If anything, you would think it made Jeonghan look better by comparison, but you know that your parents would prefer you to make appearances in something other than Deuxmoi’s Sunday Spotted. But the royal charade never fit you well either; it clings and sticks and bunches up at the seams like a cheap Halloween costume.

"The Hongs thought their country would benefit from our money. It was an easy decision, really," your mother finishes, as if that makes you feel any less like a silly, bikini-clad pawn in a game of chess you never asked to play.

"Does Jeonghan know?"

"He sees its purpose,” your father says simply, like that was all that mattered. “You will too, in due time.”

He nods solemnly, which is how he closes every conversation–just another turn of the silent knife. As your parents turn to leave, their silken garbs trail behind them like ink in still water. Business as always, especially with you.

"Your brother will be coming home from his press tour this week," your mother says on her way out. "You mustn't ruin this for him. The car leaves for Acros in the morning."

There's a mean, barbed feeling in your heart. You don't know whether to scream or to cry, so you do what your mother taught you to do. You sit, stilled by a feeling of hopelessness, and let yourself be emptied.

When you were thirteen, you learned how to ride a horse.

Not the impractical, side-saddle way drilled into you when you were a little girl, with your skirt billowing over the fender and catching in the stirrups, but how to really ride a horse.

It was on a night much like tonight–indigo and starless. Your brother had climbed up the marble trellis, his teenage, noodle body a perfect fit for scaling the lattice, and threw a stone at your window, just like you had seen in the movies. Jeonghan was still young, then, rebellious and unchanged by the throne.

It was him who laced up your riding boots, hoisted you on your first horse, and pressed the reins into your palms. You remember the unforgiving hold of the leather saddle, not yet broken in. You were so sore the next day, you were bed-bound–truly a punishment worse than death, if not for another reminder that everything you do ends up hurting you a little.

"It's great," Jeonghan had told you, breathless and haloed by the moonlight. "You can just ride. nowhere to go and no one to answer to."

You had spent the summer this way. Every night, you learned the sound of the forest at twilight, chasing Jeonghan's mud-splattered palomino. In the mornings, breakfast consisted of rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and whispering about whatever misadventure you had found yourselves tangled in the night before.

That was before he had come of age. Before your father gave him the Throne Talk, and before he was whisked away into endless meetings and etiquette lessons and parliaments. Your inside jokes became foul, overripe in his newly coached mouth. He even learned to play golf, and he hated golf.

Past August, you don't think you ever got your brother back.

You slide the oaken doors of the stables open, feeling your arms squeeze underneath your riding shirt. Here, it’s always quiet after sundown.

It hasn't changed since the day you first snuck in with Jeonghan. You let the green scent of the hay fill your lungs, the sleep-stir of the horses like music to your ears. Dokyeom has left the tack room open by "accident" once more, likely to avoid catching you picking the lock with a bobby pin like he had a few months ago.

"Hey, you," you whisper, coming to the stall of your own horse. Astrid, a bay thoroughbred, was Jeonghan's gift to you on your 18th birthday, a wistful reminder of a summer now past its prime. "No surprise here, but I had a really, really bad day."

Astrid, oblivious, noses at your palm in search of a nonexistent sugar cube. Somehow, this brings the anxious chatter of your mind to a crescendo—would Astrid come with you to Acros? When would that happen? More importantly, when were you moving? You think of a too-warm summer morning, the ridiculous, oversized brim of one of your mother's sunhats, and a moving truck. That, and a country ready to delete you from its ranks.

It's now, with the bridle in your fists, that you hear the wheedling groan of the stable door as it slides open. Without thinking, you quickly push out the first excuse you have. "I apologize, I was—"

"It's me."

Jihoon.

You would tease him about his fear of ponies—perhaps it's because he is quite literally the same size as them—but you think hearing another person tell you off would officially push you over the edge. You don't want to be dramatic, but you don't even know if Acros even had horses.

That, and somehow he's both the first and the last person you want to see. The guilt feels a bit heavier when you know his life is about to change too, in no small part due to your own failings.

"Jihoon, I…" you start. There’s an apology that’s been sitting on your tongue, one you haven’t quite learned to spit up yet. You don’t know who it’s for—yourself, or everyone else—but Jihoon interrupts you before you can finish your thought.

"You forgot your jacket," Jihoon replies.

For once, you can't read him. You wonder if he's thinking about if he'd get along with the other bodyguards, but, more likely, he's probably pitying you. You're the last person in the world that should be in an arranged marriage, and even someone who kills people for a living could tell.

"I'll be in the foyer."

You don't exchange any more words. Jihoon knows that there is nothing he can say that will erase what's about to happen, and like always, he is right.

After you saddle up, Astrid takes you to the forest like usual. Honestly, you've lost count of the times you've come out here to cry, usually about a boy you don’t even like, or, worse, Jeonghan declining your weekly Facetime session again. But now, you think you both know this time is very different.

"Astrid," you groan. "Joshua looks like a Ken doll from hell. He probably pronounces tomato like tomahto and has a closet dedicated to his tweed collection. I can't marry him."

Astrid is none the wiser. You wish she was human for a moment so you could show her the crater-sized hole that "prince joshua google images" left in your browser history.

"Do you think he only listens to classical music? I think a Kim Petras song would kill him instantaneously."

The mental image of Joshua Hong being struck down by the first ten seconds of Throat Goat makes you laugh, but you still don't feel far away enough from the truth.

You remember your 21st birthday, a balmy spring Friday. Jeonghan had been helping out at the local youth theater, and the opening night of their production was coincidentally the same day. Jeonghan had never been one for theater (last time, he had fallen asleep during Mamma Mia, of all musicals). You knew the press turnout was expected to be huge, but the whole thing felt like one big charade to you.

So you had planned your big birthday bash—you only get one 21st, after all—that day. The paparazzi fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Unsurprisingly, drunk, hot girls made for a better story than Greek theater.

You remember the raw, stinging look Jeonghan had in his eyes the next morning. He didn't even have to say anything, but you knew. The memory carves out an abyss in your chest. You knew you should have done better for your brother, but he didn’t even feel like your brother anymore.

Still, actions have consequences, and this was a hell of a consequence. Even out here, the inconvenient reality of it seems closer than ever. but you're out of time. The night fades fast, especially ones like these.

So you press your heart to Astrid's mane, the pale moon high over the both of you, and you ride.

Late spring is kind to Acros.

The tulips push their bright heads out of the dirt, winking and blazing in the daylight, and the green fields stretch so far they look like water.

You had spent the car ride with your nose pressed to the window, watching all the sun-bleached buildings zip by. You mustn't ruin this for Jeonghan. It spins around in your head like an old pair of shoes in a washing machine.

Now you stand in the grand foyer, your parents on either side of you. Jihoon hovers behind, holding the overstuffed duffel bag you had rushed to pack this morning.

A hushed arrival such as this was unbecoming of your family, but it was necessary. your parents had stressed that the arranged part of the deal was not meant to be public knowledge because it was bad for optics. To you, the arrangement was actually the entire deal. That, and you and optics never exactly got along.

Waiting for Joshua and his parents gives you a moment to observe what could be your new home, although you’re still waiting for the miraculous plot twist that will save you from your fate.

That being said: you’ve set foot in plenty of nice places, but if HGTV ran segments for castles, this would certainly be the blueprint. It’s smaller than the palace in Cotria, but you like that—it’s cozier, less cold-seeming.

The filigreed ceilings vault dizzyingly high, and the chandelier above the muraled walls is set afire with the noontime sun. the blushing azaleas cascade from their pots, and they line the hallways with joyous pops of white and pink. breaking the spell is the distant staccato of several sets of footsteps on marble, and you straighten your back, as if by divine command.

Three figures approach you: Joshua and his parents. Even from a distance, you can see the trained walk of royalty, their shoulders straight enough to hold water. You’ll give credit where credit is due—they look even less thrilled to meet you than you are to meet them.

Unfortunately, up close, Joshua is more handsome than the cameras would betray. He's taller than you had imagined, too. without trying, it looks like he jumped out of a shitty Disney movie, one where the prince says two words and still gets the girl. More than that, you notice how his face is like glass—unwavering, cruelly still. One wrong move, and you'd break him.

"Your highnesses," you say, lowering your head in a pronounced curtesy.

Joshua bows in response, like clockwork. He reaches for your hand, then brings it to his lips to kiss the back of it.

At once, you feel your hackles jump up, even though many a man has done far nastier to you. You can’t tell what pisses you off more: a, the fact that he smells like a hotel lobby, or b, that he managed to get his mouth on you in less than five seconds.

"I'm elated we have the privilege of welcoming your daughter into our home," Joshua's mother says. Like him, she is staggeringly elegant and even harder to read. "She's beautiful."

Fortunately, she has picked the one compliment that your parents can agree on without lying through their teeth. You watch them laugh and titter amongst themselves, and it's now that you notice Joshua has been looking at you this whole time.

You think look is too kind of a word, though. It's something colder than that, more clinical, and you really don't like it. Your stylist had spent upwards of two hours today in front of your vanity this morning, mostly in a losing battle with a pair of fake lashes, and you wonder if one of them is crooked. That, or Joshua is similarly wondering just how he will endure a life wedded to you.

"Joshua, please," his mother chides, and you watch him almost immediately pivot towards her, like he’s on wheels. "Where are your manners? You should show the princess around. Get to know each other a bit before press tomorrow."

Press. Of course. Your least favorite word. You vaguely remember your parents mentioning it in the car this morning, but it must have gotten lost among all the other terrible things they'd told you.

Your head starts to hurt. Joshua keeps smiling at you, empty, doll-like.

"Yes, I'd love that," you say, feeling like a deflating balloon. You were hoping his company will be better than watching four grown adults fall all over each other, but you're starting to doubt that.

Joshua offers you his arm, and you take it anyway.

"We'll be off then," he chirps before bowing once more. His freakishly shiny shoe nudges yours to remind you to do the same. Begrudgingly, you listen, watching your shellacked, angry expression in the patina of his loafers.

Not a good start, but what did you expect?

You tamp down your irritation and let him lead you into the Great Hall. It's a shiny, golden tunnel, studded with glossy oil paintings of his parents, his grandparents, then the next set of old people before them. Their eyes stare at you, pools of hazy paint in their moon faces. You briefly imagine your painting up there, with Joshua's hand hovering meekly over your waist, unused to being more than two feet away from a woman his age.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Joshua says. "I think I've only seen you in pictures."

He's referencing the one of many “encounters” you've had with the paparazzi, a la yesterday night. They take trashy photos, overexposed and grainy from the camera flash, with your ass most likely in the frame.

You choose to let it slide—you have no choice, really. At least you have an ass.

"The pleasure is mine," you reply. "I believe you were at the cricket championships a few months ago, right?"

"Correct. Do you watch? I don't believe I saw you."

"No, but my brother was there." Your footsteps echo against the marbled walls. "Just trying to think of your last public appearance," you offer unhelpfully, since you and he both know those are few and far between.

"That's right. He mentioned you were busy," Joshua replies. "Glastonbury was that weekend, was it not?"

He's right. It was, but you don't like the insinuation he's making. You weren't at Glastonbury anyway—your parents wouldn't let you attend, and Jihoon was unwilling to come up with a cover story for you. Because you would rather watch paint dry than attend another cricket game, you instead spent it with takeout and reruns of Rupaul's Drag Race.

"Can't recall," you answer. "Doesn't matter. I'm not one for cricket, anyway."

"Didn't know you had a choice."

You watch Joshua halfheartedly gesture to the Great Hall. The seemingly mile-long dinner table is empty now, save for a gratuitously piled fruit bowl.

Your country frequently hosts guests, but the Hongs are notoriously insular. You imagine the four of you, crammed together at one end of the table, making horrendous small talk every morning over wilted danishes and raspberry preserves. Somehow, your mood worsens even more than you thought possible.

"Can I see the library?" you ask in an attempt to pivot.

"Of course. Do you enjoy reading?"

"A normal amount." You pass by another set of windows and take note of the rose garden outside, verdant with the May sunshine. Astrid has a bit of a penchant for eating roses, which would definitely complicate your plan to smuggle her in. No matter—you’ve done worse. "I studied political science at university, so I got a healthy dose of it."

"Didn't we all?" Joshua chuckles.

He pushes the door open to the library, which is just as lavish as the rest of the palace. You wonder how well-worn it is, how many spines have creases in them, how many dedications were speckled with a funny annotation or two. But judging by first impressions, you wouldn't be surprised if all the books still had their dust jacket on.

"I mean, I read an insane amount of Dan Brown," you reply. "Not many of us can say we've solved the Davinci code, you know."

You hoped this would crack a laugh out of him, but his grin is thinner than an eyebrow from the 2000s. Truthfully, you would compare this conversation to a death by a thousand papercuts, but somehow that feels preferable to the guillotine of discussing the terms and conditions of your rapidly impending marriage. You feel as though that would be violating some rule you aren't yet aware of, and you're unwilling to endure the patent leather consequences of another faux pas.

"I've heard of it," says Joshua after much thought. "My parents were shuttling me between meetings and private lessons, so, unlike some, I was quite busy during university."

You're not about to explain that you were equally as busy as him. Something tells you that he'd be too prideful to believe you anyway.

"How difficult. Surely you were able to have some fun," you say, your voice betraying your distaste. "Or were you too good for that?"

Too far.

"I did what my position allowed," is Joshua's terse reply, and you know you've crossed a line. Still, it dazes you that the man standing next to you may have never done anything for himself in his life. Even Jeonghan did, before your parents really tightened the reins.

The air buzzes with a silence sharp enough to make you bleed. You wish literally anyone else was standing next to you, but you realize there are no more horses or emergency cabs or Jihoons to rescue you from this one.

"How about I take you to our room? I hope you'll find it comfortable."

You glance to your right to catch a glimpse of Joshua. He smiles, a dutiful press of the lips, and you watch it ripple.

"Jihoon, it is so much worse than I thought."

You sit on the plush carpeting of your bedroom floor, amongst your small disaster of things. Jihoon examines you, one eyebrow raised, as he leans against the bedroom door.

"He's not around, right?"

Jihoon shakes his head.

"I don't get it," you sigh. "I go out. I get drunk. I have a little fun on the weekends. I don't see how any of this makes me a bad person."

"You know how traditional your families are." Jihoon bends down to pick up a hair bow that jumped ship from the vanity. "It's just how it is."

"He treats me like some high school delinquent. I tried, but he has no sense of humor. No joi de vivre. I think he would actually explode if he knew I went out two days ago."

"Give it time," Jihoon supplies unhelpfully. "I don't know French, but he can't be that bad. You just met him."

“Yeah. Usually that’s a good thing. I’ve fucked people i know less about.”

Jihoon shakes his head and laughs, one of those little cackly ones he reserves for your company.

"Well, you have been with worse," he tuts. "Definitely worse."

"Jihoon, be serious. This is the rest of my life we're talking about."

“I know." He draws his lips into a line, likely searching for the right thing to say. "This sucks. I wouldn't be good at this either."

"You're talking to me. I don't think there's a single royal thing I can do right."

He's out of words, so he bends down to awkwardly pat you on the head, which, in all your years of knowing him, is the most affection he can muster. This is why you prefer horses to Jihoon for therapy, although you appreciate the effort.

"I'd stay, but they want me to go to some meeting," he says, jerking his thumb towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

So he leaves you, desolate and linen-covered. Back to square one.

The room seems to echo with how empty it feels. The bare walls are painted champagne, a rich, indifferent color. They soar to an arched ceiling lined with baroque crown moulding. There's a large window facing the garden, framed by deep green velvet. Atop the vanity cradled to the wall, the ivy of the wrought mirror curls at the edges, as if escaping. The chandelier hangs low, fat and pear-shaped, and its crystals douse the room in gauzy lamplight.

At least the canopy bed looks comfortable. It's the one thing keeping you from calling this place a veritable jail cell, which still seems like an understatement. For once, you miss your own bedroom. Granted, it didn’t look much different on the surface. but despite all the paneling and the heavy velvet, you still like to think it had some personality. You still keep your pillow pet on your bed (a horse named Robert). The back wall is chipped from a Gossip Girl poster your mom made you take down.

Before you’re able to get too sentimental, the unwelcome sight of your future husband steals you from your thoughts.

"Evening," Joshua says, stepping into the room. He's so quiet, it takes you aback. "Still unpacking?"

"Sorry." You gesture around you. "I underestimated my ability to overpack."

"You should have told the staff," he says, surveying the damage. "Do you need help?"

"No," you insist. Somehow the prospect of him getting on the ground to sort out all of your things upsets you, even more than him touching all of your unmentionables. "No. Please. Just ignore me."

"Alright."

Joshua seems to take no issue with that, gratefully. He takes a seat on the chaise at the foot of the bed. He's got a copy of Anna Karenina under his arm, probably to weigh the pros and cons of cheating on you. You don't blame him—in fact, maybe it would make your doomed marriage exciting enough to be tolerable.

"PR event tomorrow," you start, folding up a nightdress. "Bet you're excited for that."

“As excited as one can be before announcing their arranged marriage," he replies dryly. "But surely you have enough experience with the press for the both of us."

So that’s how he wanted to play. Fine. You wouldn’t let him walk all over you a second time.

"Well, I'd hope all those classes you took would be good for something."

"That's rich, coming from the case study on bad media training."

"Oh, please," you snap. "At least I know how to have a good time."

"I was having a great time before I was informed this was happening."

"Forgive me. I had no idea you were so invested in my personal life." You huff as you heave an oversized armful of clothes to the closet. “Think TMZ has any job openings?”

"Very funny," he retorts. Joshua holds up a skimpy black dress that's fallen from your pile, one well acquainted with the midnight grease of one too many nightclubs. "You dropped this, by the way. I don't really think the nightlife here will be quite to your taste, though."

"Oh right, because this is where happiness goes to die, huh?" You snatch it back from him, feeling the knot of anger in your gut flare.

The room seems to pulse with an uncomfortable silence, red-hot with unsaid words. You recognize the all too familiar way Joshua sets his jaw back, and you're transported all the way to the study in the east wing, snoutless lion, terracotta steps, and all. He’s not any different from anyone else, so you’re not sure why you expected anything else.

You do the only thing you can do—bite your tongue.

"Look," you finally say, gathering the wherewithal to call for a truce. "I know that we didn't ask for this."

Joshua laughs. Actually, it's the first time you've heard it since you've met, and it would be an otherwise tolerable, even nice, sound if it wasn't directed right at you.

"Right, because who doesn't want to have to babysit someone for the rest of their life?"

You take a hard swallow. You've both done enough damage for tonight, although you'd love to see his expression when you call him the live-action version of Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Maybe another time.

Instead you think of Jeonghan, stuck in his meetings and sunk into this new, starched form of himself that you find difficult to recognize. Still, he's your brother, and you'd hate to see him suffer for it.

"Stop. I'll be good," you say. "I promise. I know there's a lot at stake for the both of us."

You can hear Joshua's long, drawn exhale. The furrow dug between his brows flattens out, and he seems to be reminded of everything they taught you both in Conflict Resolution 101.

"I apologize. I got out of line," he says. You watch the cogs turn on that unfortunately pretty face of his. You hope he finally reveals that he has a much better, kinder personality that he was waiting to debut, but he doesn't. Instead he picks up yet another fallen item from your stash and hands it to you (this time, a much more presentable blouse).

"I know we don't like each other—" You hold up a hand to interrupt him from lying to you. “—but we can do our best for the cameras. Because that matters. Hate me all you want in private."

"Okay." He gives you a defeated look, which is all you suppose you'll get out of him today. "Deal."

That night, there are no more backhanded compliments, quips, or mean-spirited attempts at sarcasm.

You sink into your side of the bed, a damask-woven vat of quicksand, and watch the spears of light dance on the ceiling. If you had known your last outing was the one a few days ago, maybe you would have drank a little more, stayed out later. Maybe you wouldn't have even gone home.

Joshua has been reading on the other side of the bed, which seems like oceans apart. The metronomic turn of his pages would have put you to sleep if it wasn't for this new fear, a black, trembling one, that's now taken residence in your chest. It feels like you are further from yourself than you've ever been, and you don't know how to get back.

"Is it too bright for you?" Joshua's voice, now tempered by the stillness of the evening, pulls you out of your thoughts. "I can turn the lamp off."

"It's ok," you groan. "Can't really sleep. Don't worry about it."

He doesn't say anything. Instead you hear the oiled pull of the bedside nightstand before he places something on the bed beside you.

It's a book. Specifically, one of those trashy romances that they only sell at the airport because no one would be brave enough to read them anywhere else.

"It's no Dan Brown," he says. "Hopefully still to your liking."

You sit up against the headboard and flip through the pages. The prince of Acros owning a book with the words "juicy", "mewling", and "best friend's brother" in the first fifty pages are enough to tide you over for the night. Probably the next week, to be honest.

"Yes, indeed, your highness. Of the raunchy summer fling."

Joshua smiles, and this time, you think it's a real one.

You hate mornings.

You thought this one would be different, probably due to the fact that you would soon be standing in front of a few too many cameras to announce your tragic fate to the entire world. Unfortunately, it's like all your other mornings—rushed, nauseous, and now with all the added anxiety of a semi-non consensual public appearance.

"Five minutes!" you holler as best you can, a hair pin wiggling in the corner of your mouth. Rule number one of a hard launch: don't be caught looking complacent. Even if the other half of the launch would rather be with anyone other than you.

Joshua's in the attached bathroom doing his hair. Like everything else he does, it is painfully calculated. He might be the only person in the world who takes "pea-sized" seriously as a measurement tool.

But even as he so carefully measures his pomade, pump by pump, you don't miss the way his eyes skim over your figure as you lean over the vanity chair to apply your lipstick. Maybe it's because your ass is practically vacuum sealed into your sundress, or maybe he's just looking for another fight to pick. Either way, there's a small part of you that takes pride in this, even if just a little.

"Ready?" Joshua asks, switching off the bathroom light. You hate to admit it, but he looks good in a sports jacket. You remind yourself that you had to literally rock-paper-scissors this morning to use the vanity mirror because you fogged the bathroom up after your shower. "It's not a pageant."

"Shush. You are so rude. Never interrupt a girl when she's getting ready."

In the mirror, you watch Joshua huff behind you. Then he procures a little black box from his pocket, and a crazy sort of feeling washes over you before you remind yourself to be normal. Ten-year-old you would have cried and threatened arson if she knew this is how you would eventually be proposed to, but you have no choice.

You're sure Joshua feels the same. He was probably hoping for something classic with all the works, and instead he's got a pissed-off Jihoon and you, internationally renowned harlot. Funny how things turn out.

"Any minute now," bitches Jihoon from the other side of the door.

You close your compact and turn around to face Joshua, who's still fumbling with the box.

"I'm sure this is not what you anticipated," he says, finally cracking it open. “But—"

"No speech. Just put it on." You stick your left hand out, still glittery from last week’s manicure. "Not like it means much anyway."

"Yeah."

And just like that, it is done. You feel the shock of Joshua's huge hands over yours, then the unceremonious bite of the cold band. He doesn't linger.

You hold your newly engaged hand in front of you. The ring must have looked better in the box—on you, it seems out of place, gaudy, yet another thing you can't quite fit into. It squeezes your finger a bit, but it'll do.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Let's get this over with."

If romance wasn’t already dead, then it died here, today, in your prison cell bedroom.

You have no time to lament this, as Joshua’s already half out the door. Quickly, he seems to shed his foul, argumentative inside personality and slip into a second-skin, one that is more poised, gracious, and luminous.

Today's objective is supposed to be simple: friendly, premarital pictures to accompany a written statement to the public announcing your engagement. No paparazzi, no journalists. Still, you're starting to see why your parents decided it was a good idea to stick you with this guy.

In the foyer, your families await you. It's as if their gaze can slow time—at least four people approved your outfit, and still, the weight of their eyes on you, ever appraising, is crushing. Immediately, your mother starts rearranging the strands of hair on the top of your head and fiddling with the sleeves of your dress, like you're some sort of doll.

"Come, come," a member of the PR team urges. "Everything is set up. We'll be quick."

There's a frenetic, tense energy over the palace. It's clear that this marriage is a gambit no one is happy with, and today would make it very, very real.

Outside, there is a lone photographer. The sun, morning-ripe, reflects off his camera lens like a third eye. The lawn, freakishly green, sprawls out around you, and the blue spruce frames the scene, perfect by design.

"I just need you to stand next to each other and smile," he says. "That's all, right?" he directs this towards your PR team, about seven too many for a task like this. One of them whispers something in his ear. Your parents watch from the shaded doorstep like wax figures in a museum.

You and Joshua stand shoulder to shoulder, yearbook photo style.

"Bit closer," the photographer calls out, and you smush yourself against his arm, close enough that you can appreciate he's got some muscle on him. "Alright. Hold still."

Click. You've always hated the flash, but you root yourself obediently to the concrete. Your cheeks hurt from smiling. Click.

Your mother interrupts her conversation with a staff member—likely haggling over the minutia of the statement—and says, "Look happier," as if you're in some dystopian advertisement for a new car.

"She's talking to you," Joshua says through the grit of his fake, pink smile.

"Right, because you're such a peach."

You just want to go back inside and have breakfast.

You place a tentative hand on Joshua's bicep and turn to him, beaming like you would at a hot bartender when there are five other people waiting for a drink.

There's a glimmer of surprise in his expression before he matches you. You can see why people dote on him so much—his cheeks get round, and his eyes magically gain the sparkles that people pay for on Facetune. God really seems to have wasted a perfect face on him.

"Move your hand up so we can see the ring." You obey, feeling the firm cord of his arm underneath you, and you wonder where the gym is in the palace. Joshua was certainly gatekeeping it from you. "Perfect."

You stand there, living your America's Next Top Model nightmare, before the photographer hits you with, "A kiss for the camera, yeah?"

All the blood drains from your face. You think you actually say Huh? aloud. Joshua opts to turn to his parents to intervene, which would be funny in literally any other scenario except this one.

"You heard him," his father replies. "Act like you're actually engaged."

Honestly, it was a fair request. No one wanted to take any chances. Plausible rumors of an arranged marriage would backfire spectacularly. Jeonghan wouldn't see the front cover of anything ever again, and the entirety of Acros would wonder just how deep in the shitter they were that Joshua was forced to marry you.

Your parents were already so far into the conspiracy, you overheard them talking about using unpublished paparazzi pictures and rebranding them as times you snuck off to see your unfortunate lover. Point taken.

"Okay, okay," you laugh nervously. "Of course."

You face Joshua, steeling yourself, and lean in. The world seems to fall away, but not how you like—it feels as though you've been sucked out of your own body and dropped into a new one that doesn't know what a kiss is or how to do it.

He's just like anyone else, you tell yourself. You're at the club. They're playing Everytime We Touch by Cascada.

Soon all you know is the heat of your cheeks, the shaking flat of your palm over Joshua's shoulder, and the wet pressure of what feels like a pair of lips, soft but also very unwilling.

Click. Click. Then it's over. Everyone huddles around the camera, like animals to a watering hole. Shame, hot and heavy, seems to drape itself over you.

"Can we get one more?" the photographer asks.

Fuck. Your stomach drops. You can't even glare at Joshua.

"Sure thing," Joshua says easily, unaware he was the reason it went so badly in the first place.

You take a deep breath. You imagine a good Kylie Minogue song and a tall stranger with pecs that could fit into a bra, and your eyes flutter shut.

You decide to go for it this time. Unfortunately, you and your inept partner are on entirely opposite pages again, and you almost miss each other by a mile. When you do get it right, it's messy, two teenagers fumbling in a closet with the lights off.

Once everyone sees this massacre, it seems they resign themselves to the same conclusion you had long ago. Someone throws a thumbs up above their head, and everyone clears out so fast, it's like nothing ever happened.

Soon, it's just you, Joshua, and your mother with a red pen and the manuscript. Your heart is still buzzing in your chest, even though you and Joshua are now standing at a distance that makes you believe in the cheese touch again.

"Now that wasn’t so bad," she says, before escorting the two of you back inside. Perhaps lying cushions the blow of a bad decision, but you're already in too deep. The script, the cameras, even your mother's glossy words—your life is starting to feel like a permanent movie set, and you don't know how to clock out.

The first thing you do is take off the ring. It's starting to look more and more like costume jewelry on your untrained, bumbling hand. Even still, you can still feel its ghost on your finger, see the glare of the camera flash in the laser-cut facets.

Worse, you watch Joshua shrug off his sport jacket, likely wondering how exactly that went so wrong, and you can feel that same sensation, still warm, right over your lips.

"Save me, red wine, save me."

Home, sweet home. You're back in Cotria for the rest of the week. This morning's stint was the only thing you had on the schedule, and you told Joshua you had some business to attend to at home.

Said business was a Niçoise salad and half a bottle of wine, but no one had to know that part. Your struggle meals were your own business, and you think you will actually disintegrate on the spot if you have to sit through another conversation about World War II with Joshua's dad. The one you had at dinner last night was plenty.

The restaurant you’re at is a familiar haunt, but not too familiar. The ass-kissers and the groupies have gotten good at keeping their heads on a swivel, and you’re not exactly planning on another encounter with a camera. But here, the crowd is quiet enough, the food good enough, the service fast enough. It’s enough, which you’ve come to prefer.

That's the other thing about Cotria—there’s an overabundance of everything. Department stores, parlors, dog cafes, polished bars with overpriced cocktails. It’s almost a rarity to find a place like this, quiet enough to actually talk.

"You must be in the fucking trenches," Somi says, shaking her head. "When's the press release getting published?"

"Next week," you groan. "The good news is that they want us to go to the derby afterward."

"Okay, miss horse girl," Somi says, clinking her wine glass against yours. "You betting this year?"

"No, I shouldn't." You shovel another forkful of leaves into your mouth. "But I really hope I get to watch it instead of pretending to like a guy the whole time."

"I didn't see you pretending in uni," Somi says, cocking an eyebrow up at you. "And those guys are ugly. This guy isn't."

"Okay, wait," you protest. "Ugly cute. Don't get it twisted. And they don't act like sentient wet paint. This guy sucks."

You're reminded of the moment before you left the palace this morning. Joshua saw that same black dress that he used against you make its way into your bag, and he gave you the dirtiest stink eye you'd ever seen.

I'm not above tattling. They were the first words he'd said to you after The Incident.

Good thing you won't have to, you replied. He didn't even see you out because no one was standing around to clap him on the back for being a good fake fiancé.

"Whatever." Somi picks a tomato off your plate in exchange for some of her fries. "I wouldn't mind it, is what I'm saying."

"You slept with the bouncer to get into Annabel’s."

"Fuck off. He was actually really good. Club entry was just a bonus," she laughs. "That reminds me—you're coming to my birthday, right? Or do you have wifely duties now?"

"Of course I'm coming!" you insist, feeling the word duty hit like an actual bullet to your chest. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Just making sure! You know I gotta have my people around."

You had known Somi since you were in diapers. She's the cousin twice removed of a baron, or a count, or maybe even a viscount–you never were good at keeping track of those kinds of things. Even though you had seen her at countless brunches, coronations, and garden parties, you don't think you actually became friends until you ran into her at a college party in Mykonos. She sidled up to you, smelling like strawberries and the bleachy sting of hair dye, and handed you a cucumber margarita.

The beer here sucks, she had whisper-shouted to you, right over the shell of your ear. Wanna dance? You were inseparable ever since.

"It's going to be huge. There are, like, 200 people on the guest list right now. Soonyoung rented a villa, There's gonna be a champagne tower, and the music won't suck. Guaranteed."

"That sounds perfect," you sigh. "Please tell me there's gonna be a pool. I need to show off my new swimsuit."

"Duh." Somi rolls her eyes, glittery under her extensions. "The perfect opportunity to show the world that their hottest bachelorette is a bachelorette no longer. Also, we invited Pitbull.”

“Shut the fuck up. Wait, is he actually coming?”

”Dunno. Wouldn’t be very Mr. Worldwide of him to flake, though.”

Pitbull or not, you think of the heat of the strobe lights, the electric trill of the too-loud speakers. You're dancing in a dress that looks like a chunk of the moon, with the little neon ties of your bikini top peeking out the sides. There's a peach highball in your hands and no one is telling you what to do, how to do it, or that you're doing it wrong.

Then you think of Joshua. Maybe he'd loosen up after a few drinks. Maybe he'd dance with you, put those hands to use on your hips and kiss you like he should have earlier today. Maybe he'd even be good at it. The thought makes your cheeks sting.

“Should I invite Joshua?” Somi says, wrinkling her nose at how you immediately grimace. “What if he’s actually a blast?”

"No! No. Absolutely not."

“What if he’s—” Then she drops her singsong voice to a whisper. “Hung? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen those pictures of him in the Galapagos.”

Unfortunately, you have. A lurid, glassy image of your soon-to-be-husband in a sleazy pair of swim trunks comes into vision. You push past the smile, the unfair pecs, and remind yourself of that horrible, self-righteous twist of the lips that he always has.

Yes, that’s right. That’s the Joshua you know.

You grab the wine from her and drink it right from the bottle.

–

Of course it had to be the one time you’re not late to an event that you forget you had swapped everything in all your purses around. You double check your bag—empty.

You’re already down by half of your worldly possessions (still at home, your real home), and you probably left the other half on Joshua’s bathroom counter. Yesterday, you got derailed mid-task by Joshua lighting the grossest candle ever. You never thought you’d ever fight over candles of all things, but you couldn’t let him walk away from that conversation thinking wet dirt was a normal, socially acceptable, scent for a bedroom. (—It said moss on the label! —So, dirt. —Moss is not dirt. Maybe you need to go back to school.)

You fling open the bathroom door, still checking the pockets of your handbag, before you collide into a big, sopping wet wall.

“What the—?” You look up. The wall is not a wall. No, in fact, it is your fiancé, bare fucking naked.

Your heart jumps up to your throat. It feels like you walked right into a porno, and you can hear Somi’s self-satisfied, witch cackle right in your ear. His dark hair seems to fall into his eyes just right, a nice change from how he normally gels it up, and you watch the beads of water from the shower, torturously glittery, run down his jaw, the hollow of his neck, right onto his chest.

Men should not be allowed to have bigger boobs than you, at least, not dowdy Joshua Hong, who normally has the sex appeal of an eraser. And God forbid your eyes travel downward and confirm Somi’s sick and twisted hypothesis, past the washboard abs, the v-line, the trail down his—

“Sorry, did you need something?” You blink again and Joshua suddenly has a towel wrapped around his waist. And he’s eyeing you like you ate a million cloves of garlic and then proceeded to spit on him. “Or are you just going to stand here and ogle me?”

“I wasn't—no!” You start snatching things off the counter, anything really, and throwing them into your bag. “I just needed to grab stuff for my… my thing. You’re in the way.”

“Right, because you need four q-tips and my razor to read a children’s book,” Joshua replies, plucking the offending items out of your purse. “It's almost 12:30, by the way.”

“Shit. Fuck,” you stammer. You can’t glare at him anymore because you know where your eyes will end up and it is not on his face. “Stop distracting me. Whatever.”

“Have fun,” is the last thing Joshua tells you before you close the bathroom door, that portal to hell, right back up.

What you can’t do is return the image of what you saw back to where it came from, the wicked, glistening form of Joshua and his B cup tits. He looked so good, it makes you angry.

Later, on the walk to the library, you reach for your lip gloss. Instead, you pull out q-tip number five and get mad all over again.

–

The car ride to the derby feels like your own personal Saw trap, if Jigsaw wore a ridiculous hat and was actually your mother.

Your engagement was announced to the public just a few days ago. It came with no fanfare, no warning. You were sitting on your bed, making your way through the smut Joshua called a novel, when the news app on your phone kindly notified you that you were now a taken woman.

To some degree, the media uproar fascinated you. The idea that people with actual journalism degrees were writing headcanons about your honeymoon when you hadn’t even seen Joshua since The Bathroom Incident was surely entertaining, to say the least. But, like everything, the unsaid pressure of being a perfect princess, now part of an even more perfect couple, hangs heavy over you.

You remind yourself this is supposed to be fun. A real couple would be pawing at each other in the backseat, perhaps pregaming with champagne or fan-casting their pick for Spirit the horse. Instead, you’re stuck rehearsing your pitch to the reporters when they inevitably ask you about how the hell this happened. You wish you could tell them you’re not quite sure either.

Silently, you look at Joshua. Joshua looks out the window. The world rumbles under you.

[10:15 am, race 1]

The air seizes, swirls with clay-colored dust in the morning sun. The clubhouse is already heady with the low buzz of conversation—you watch the freckled sunhats and oily toupees bob up and down in the swell of the crowd, deep in the morning’s small talk. You wonder how many of them are talking about you, given how recently the news hit. You’re used to people ignoring your media appearances, not celebrating them.

Someone, tipping their head down to greet you, hands you a program. Joshua elects to tuck his in his back pocket. People don’t come to the derby to watch the races. Instead, it’s an excuse to gossip, day drink, and gamble, which would ordinarily be a good time for you if you weren’t overly invested in the racing circuit.

All the way from the entrance to your seats, you were met with a tidal wave of camera flashes, all hungry for a glimpse of your first public appearance as a couple. Alongside this, a decidedly worse flurry of congratulations paired with an overly familiar touch to the shoulder or a limp handshake. Joshua is quick to respond with either a smile or some trite platitude. Your least favorite: We couldn’t be happier. Now he’s just lying for sport.

“We should find the reporters doing interviews,” Joshua says the second his ass touches the chair, unfazed by the onslaught of perhaps a million different people. “The Sun probably wants to talk to us.”

You’re not listening—you can’t let on that this whole ordeal is mildly terrifying for you. He has enough reasons to dislike you, and stage fright wouldn’t exactly be a good addition to the list.

The racehorses have lined up at the track, their manes catching the daylight like holy fire. You like the one on the end. He looks like Peanut, Jeonghan’s stubborn palomino.

Joshua says your name insistently, curdled with the annoyance that you’ve now become acquainted with, and you catch a stray camera flash from the stands. You have an audience, and the audience demands a show, even if they’re second-rate journalists like the scum from The Sun.

“Darling,” you reply flatly. “Relax. Let's enjoy the races.”

The horses stretch their long legs, anxious for the thunderclap of the starter’s pistol. Joshua raises a tired eyebrow before the same realization dawns on him.

“Absolutely.” He clears his throat. “Darling.”

You wrap a hand around his arm—somehow he makes hand-holding seem like third base—and watch his shoulders sink with a sigh, like you just popped him.

Likewise, your highness. Likewise.

A shot crackles through the air, and you’re off to the races.

[12:43 pm, race 2.]

"I just have to know—how did you guys meet?"

You know the duchess of Pemarlia to be beautiful and unashamedly nosy, and she has yet to prove you wrong on either account.

The last time you saw her was on the beach at Lake Como last year, where she spent the entirety of your conversation asking if Jeonghan was single (and peeking into your bag to see what brand of lipstick you were wearing). Like everyone, she always seems to have a look of appraisal on her face. What makes her different is that she never really bothers to hide it; instead, she wears it like an en-vogue accessory.

She eyes you with an intensity, sizing up your dress, your tawdry sunhat, your ring. You wonder if she’d agree that marriage didn’t look good on you, but any shorter of a dress, your mother would call you a stripper. And God forbid you leave the house hat-less.

Now she’s no minotaur. This shouldn’t be much of a problem, save for one very small issue: you actually hadn’t planned your answer to this. You had quibbled over it briefly in the car, but you were too focused on your interview pitch to worry about minor gossip.

"Well," Joshua starts. Through his smile, you can hear the warning edge of his voice. ��It was quite ordinary.”

"Actually," you cut him off. Not only would his version of this story be boring, it would also be horribly out-of-character for you. You did not come this far for your cover to be blown by Joshua’s lack of imagination. "Josh's parents hosted a—"

"Brunch," Joshua finishes. Whether his teeth are gritted because he's grinning or frustrated is none of your business. “It was Easter brunch, wasn’t it, sweet pea? Four years ago?”

The pet name makes you want to puke. Now he’s just trying to piss you off, but you know this is his attempt to play along. He's annoying, not dumb.

"Yes, we sat across from each other.” You playfully dig your elbow into Joshua’s rock-hard side. “He was giving me the eyes the whole time.”

You watch your hapless victim giggle, her spidery lashes wide with intrigue. Joshua is a little less pleased.

“If you could call it that,” he replies. “I think you had chocolate on your nose.”

“Which you so kindly wiped off for me, dear.” You try to peek around the flaxen billows of the duchess’s blowout to watch the horses behind her, but to no avail. “After a morning of staring, we had to do an Easter egg hunt, planned by Joshie himself. I had no idea he loved silly little games like that.”

“It's because people like the princess get so competitive,” Joshua says, with his laser beam grin boring into your eye sockets. “I believe I found you rummaging through the trash for eggs, like some kind of animal.”

“Oh my goodness,” the duchess laughs. “How...charming.”

You feel your eyebrow twitch. Only you’re allowed to ruin your own reputation, but you suppose that’s just another thing your horrible fake fiance gets to take from you.

“Not as embarrassing as seeing Joshua leer at me from behind the corner,” you retort. “He was so enamored that when I invited him to join me, he got right down on his knees to look through the trash together.”

“Well, did you find anything?”

“Yes—”

“No—”

“Well—”

Fuck. Luckily, the duchess is either stupid or wildly entertained by the clown show playing out before her. Maybe both.

“Cute,” she coos. “You must have been too smitten to notice.”

“Absolutely,” Joshua says, as if there is a gun held to his pretty head. “Among all the garbage and the girl next to me, I suppose nothing else really mattered.”

“If that isn’t love, what is?” she asks blithely.

If only she knew.

[3:45 pm, race 3]

The sun descends on the stadium, swollen and yellow with the afternoon.

Last year, you and your friends had a betting ring set up during the racing circuit. Obviously, you had won—not too hard when your competition included Soonyoung, who only bet on horses named after food (sadly, it was not Tater Tot’s year). Somi was no better, and your brother thought every horse deserved a participation award.

This time around, things aren’t so simple. But you’d hate to say that you spent a whole day at the track and didn’t bet on a single race. Life could afford you at least one win for today.

Again, the horses take their positions at the starting line, wound up like a line of rubber bands. The air heaves with bated breath.

“Joshua,” you say, folding your hands in your lap as you find your target. “I'd like to propose a bet.”

“You must be a glutton for punishment.”

You bite back a laugh as you watch your favorite horse, the palomino, ripple in place. Fans would call her a charity case, but you know better.

“Pick a horse. Mine is number Three, in the blue.”

“And if mine wins? What’s in it for me?” he asks. Still, he leans forward, corded forearms on his thighs. You watch him squint as he surveys the field with renewed interest.

“You pick,” you reply. “Choose wisely. I personally cannot wait to call in a favor from you.”

“The chestnut one. Number Nine.” So he is competitive. “And likewise. Perhaps I'll hold it over your head until the wedding.”

Before you can reply, you hear the starting pistol rip clean into the air. The racehorses surge forward, as if a silken ribbon through air.

“Nine makes sense for you,” you say, eyes fixed before you. “He's flashy, the crowd favorite. Spotless pedigree.”

“I'm picking your punishment already.”

“I didn't say he would win.” You feel the lilt of your voice rocking upward, the tremulous beat of your heart against your ribs. “You see, Three’s had a rough season. There she is, passing Four right now.”

“Nine is still first, though.”

“It’s not about that,” you reply. “She does this, she starts all the way out back and then flies up. No one suspects anything—it’s like she likes proving people wrong. The first couple races of the season, she was just stretching her legs; they were small, small fry. It’s this one that matters.”

The saddles are just blurs on the track now. To the march of the hoofbeats, Three lunges past Five, Six. The crowd roars.

“This will be her first win. I'm counting on it. She’s come really close before.”

Joshua doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of your eye, you see his gaze has shifted. You feel it land somewhere near you, but you’re too engrossed in the race to investigate further. Perhaps he’s admitted defeat preemptively, wisely so.

“You know your stuff,” he murmurs, the clamor of the audience almost burying him.

“How can I not?” Three coasts past One and Ten like she’s flying, until it’s just her and unlucky number Nine. “Oh my god. Go, go, go!”

You and Joshua rise to your feet, as if drawn by a string, now wholly invested in the race.

“Still beating you, you know.”

“Not for long! Come on!”

You watch your darling number Three, against all odds, pull past Joshua’s number Nine, burning a trail past the inevitable finish line.

From somewhere inside you emerges a joy that you hadn’t felt since this whole ordeal started. You turn to Joshua and clasp his hands between yours, somehow less wooden now, and so, so human. The crowd cheers; they come alive.

[4:50 pm, races 4 and 5. mainly, the reporter from the sun.]

The smaller races take place shortly after the headliner, for better or for worse. This forces you to finally face the music—the music being a dull-eyed, greasy journalist ready to sink his teeth into the public’s new favorite topic.

Joshua is a good sport about it, or at least, he’s good at pretending to be one.

“It was great,” is his answer to a question you didn’t hear. You’re busy going over the parts of the script that you remember. Your media team spent the better part of the morning repeating it back to you, which was helpful until it wasn’t. You weren’t sure how to tell them you’ve actually never been good at speaking to the press, since you had spent the better half of your life doing the exact opposite.

“And what did the princess think? It’s not often we catch you for an interview, you know.”

The eye of the camera seems to pierce through you. You can see your shellacked figure, long and distorted, in the reflection.

“I—um,” you swallow hard. God. Pull it together. You can already hear the lecture you’re going to get on the way home today. “Yeah, big day today.”

“She’s had to really rein in her excitement, you know,” Joshua adds, chuckling.

Briefly, you feel his hand brush against yours. Ordinarily, you’d pass it off as a fluke, but you feel the steady, insistent warmth of his palm again, first, to the inside of your wrist, then lower still. Before you’re able to really process what’s happening, he then takes your hand in his all at once, as if to say, I’ve got this. I’ve got you.

You figure he’s cashing in his favor early–he’d much rather leave you out to dry, let you flounder a bit so you learn to read the PR memorandums the night before. I told you so, he’d say. That’s what everyone else would say, anyway.

“The races are sure exciting, but I'm sure you’re even more excited about your upcoming wedding.” The reporter grins at you, as if he smells your fear. His hair looks like it’s glued to the top of his shiny head. “If I'm going to be honest, you were one of the last people we’d expect to tie the knot this year. We are all dying to hear more.”

What? You force yourself to breathe, feel the air fill your lungs, to avoid making an expression you’ll regret.

“Well, yeah, I'm sure it looks like it all happened quickly,” you answer, feeling your tongue trip over the words. Mostly because it did, in fact, happen quickly, but you can’t let them know that. “But Josh and I feel strongly about, uh, this whole thing, and—”

“Please, don’t spare us the details.”

Telepathically, Joshua squeezes your hand. This, you understand. He’s telling you to lean on him, and you trust that.

“Hold your horses,” he cuts in, almost too quickly, which makes the corners of your mouth twitch upward. He was definitely looking for an opening, but you, bizarrely, don’t mind at all. He turns to you and smiles. “What's the fun without a little mystery? It's been a wild ride, but I'm loving every second of it.”

It’s this one, the lamest and most embarrassing dad joke of them all, that gets you.

You laugh: a real one, big, loud, and unafraid. It's here, caught in the glare of the camera flash, where you find yourself hoping, even just a little, that this wasn’t just a favor, that this was a sign you could actually survive this arrangement.

You’re not asking for love—just a little bit of like. and, right now, you think you like Joshua Hong.

—

In the evening, you find yourself in the oaken parlor nestled away in the back halls of the Acrosian palace.

There's a piano there, gathering dust. It's a Steinway, spindly and chestnut, almost identical to the one you have at the palace in Cotria.

You and Jihoon had been unpacking your hodgepodge of things (unsorted, since the act of sorting would have forced you to stomach the fact that you were actually moving), when he had found your old lesson books.

You should break in that piano, he had said. Either that, or wait for your fiance to find you. He seemed ok at the derby today.

I guess.

What Jihoon hadn’t seen was all the photographs you had to take after your interview with The Sun, where Joshua decided to remind you that you were supposed to hate him. By that, you mean that he managed to make every single one unbearable. (A tap of the foot: Stand up straight. A careful brush of the elbow: Let’s link arms. A discerning, tactful glance at your chest: Pull up your dress. That, or he was no better than the average man.)

You and he hadn’t talked much after that. Hopefully, he’s fled to your cold, dark dungeon of a room to read, so he can finally leave you alone.

“Remember when your parents invited all their friends over and asked you to play?” Jihoon says, perched on the loveseat while he sorts through an old jewelry box.

“Yeah, and I literally forgot everything?” you laugh. “Freaking Jeonghan had to check on me because I locked myself in my room for 24 hours straight. And then he had the nerve to laugh at me.”

You thumb through the fattest book of the pile. The binding is soft; the pages now yellow and fuzzed over by time.

On page 5, Chopin's Waltz in A-flat major. three four time or whatever, you had scrawled in defiant red ink. Page 37, a thick black line through Debussy's name on Arabesque No. 1. This is because you would always laugh at it during lessons, and you wanted to save yourself the trouble.

“Do you want to keep this?” Jihoon holds up a choker that resembles a jock strap. “When did you even wear this? It looks like a cat toy.”

You ignore him and start to play. You were never excellent—competent would be a better word. Still, it was enough for you. Soonyoung would ask you to play during drunk karaoke, and you could still keep up with Jeonghan when he played one of his overcomplicated duets.

Your hands remember the velvet thud of the keys, the glide of the pedal. When you turn the page, there’s a scrawled in BITCH! next to a heavily circled allegro. Piano was one of the only things that your parents forced you to do that you actually liked. The kicker was that it didn’t even do you any good. You weren’t as talented as your parents would like you to be, meaning that, to them, you weren’t talented at all.

It’s then that your fingers slip, and you miss a chord. In your defense, you have a fresh manicure. Always blame the nails. Your mom hated when you kept them long, even more than your hardass tutor.

“The prince is helping with the theater production this year, right?” Jihoon holds a single earring up to the light. You think you lost the other one in Ibiza last year. “You gonna help out again?”

“Maybe.” Another wrong note. You’re losing steam trying to read all the ledger lines and your smeared, illegible writing next to them. “I don't know. He probably won’t even want me to. I'm choosing a different piece, by the way. Bored of this one.”

The truth about your 21st birthday was that you did actually intend to spend it at the youth theater. It was your idea before it was Jeonghan’s idea, but, at the time, you both still were a package deal.

You were on piano; Jeonghan was on whatever else he pleased. He'd always been indecisive like that. At the bench, you’d hoist the little ones on your knee and regale them with the classical version of the opening song from paw patrol. Jeonghan stole prop masks from the back, mostly to hide behind the curtains and scare people, you included. You’d both stay up late, paint spackled on your palms, trying to Michelangelo a backdrop with the combined artistic talent of a TI-84.

The production became your thing, just you and him, no cameras, no press releases, no parents. But like everything else, neither you, Jeonghan, nor anyone else was able to keep those inevitable truths apart. The set pieces were repainted in Italy, the finger-painted fields turned luminescent with varnish; the pins and needles in the costumes swapped with mother-of-pearl; and, finally, you, replaced by a classically trained pianist from Juilliard. At least he was hot.

Everyone knows the rest of the story—the red carpet, the empty seats, and the puffy pink balloons outside the mansion in Saint Tropez.

“Oh please,” Jihoon wheedles. “You and I both know he wanted you there.”

“Then maybe he should have fought harder.” You flip to a random page, this one marked up in pink gel pen. You remember it bled through all the pages behind it, making it a pain to read but awfully funny during lessons. “It doesn't matter. There’s probably wedding stuff i gotta deal with.”

Jihoon lets you play this next piece uninterrupted. It’s not that it’s a sensitive subject for you—there were plenty of other things that filled the wedge between you and your brother—but it certainly didn’t help.

You let your fingers wander over the stubborn keys. It feels good to play, even if you’re almost unforgivably rusty. You reach for the page, when you hear Jihoon again: “You know, you’re allowed to come in, your highness.”

Immediately, your hands freeze. Like a scolded child, you become aware of how your fingers teeter over the keys, the stumbling, awkward clacking of your nails, the one or two missed quarter notes from the last measure.

You turn to face the door, where Joshua stands, leaning against the frame like a sleazy model from an Abercrombie catalog. He probably came from the gym. Seeing him dressed down is still very weird, mostly because you can’t decide if it’s because he looks good or if it’s because it reminds of seeing your teacher at the grocery store.

“Anyone teach you manners?” you ask, unsure if your hackles should be raised.

“No, I was raised in a barn, just like those horses you like so much,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to interrupt. You’re not bad, you know.”

“Thanks.” You eye him skeptically. “Thought you were gonna comment on the nails.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Preferably not, but it’s not like you‘d listen to me anyway.” You look for Jihoon’s reaction, but he seems to have conveniently disappeared. “Let’s play a duet. I’m cashing in my favor.”

“Sure,” Joshua replies. “I'm no good, though. Might be more of a punishment for you.”

You slide over on the bench, and he sidles up next to you. He smells like Le Labo and sweat, the sting citrusy and bright, close enough to linger.

“No good?” You pick up another fat book from the stack atop the lid: The Joy of Duets. “Me neither.”

“You have no idea,” he chuckles. “And trust me, I tried.”

“I’ll do top?” you announce.

Joshua snickers, and you kick him under the bench (really, just a tap of your foot).

You spend the next two minutes tripping over a Schubert piece. Terribly, this is endearing to you. You make somewhat of a couple—you, with your horrible form, and Joshua, now squinting at the key signature like it’ll make it easier to read.

“Buddy,” you exclaim. “Left hand goes here.” Laughing, you reposition his hand mid-chord to an octave below. You feel it tense beneath you before yielding to proper technique.

“Aw, what?” he whines. “See, I told you I was no good. Give me a second.”

You watch him puzzle over the next few lines, pretty brow furrowed. You conclude that Pajama Joshua is decidedly better than Prince Joshua. He’s funnier, kinder, warmer. Even his hands feel softer.

“Also, about earlier today,” you start. The words are starting to dry up on your tongue, but you figure Pajama Joshua is an easier target than usual. “I didn't know they trained you in stand-up comedy.”

“We laugh in this country too, you know.” When Joshua says this, he grins, bumping into your shoulder like you’d been friends for a long time. For once, it feels easy, natural.

“Well, thanks anyway.”

“I couldn't leave my fiancée out to dry.” The word must sound ridiculous even to him, because he laughs just the same as he did when he unloaded his ridiculous puns onto the unassuming world. “No really. We’re in this together, unfortunately. It’s my duty.”

Duty, both the knife and the wound. You can’t say you’re surprised he’s only nice to you out of obligation. So is everyone else, and you don’t know why you thought it’d be any different, especially coming from him. It’s not like you’re wearing your ring now either; you suppose you’re just as guilty.

“You cross over here,” you tell him, changing the topic. You slide your hand over his, and it bends to you. “Thumb under. Sorry, I couldn't help but notice.”

“It's ok,” Joshua replies. “I only learned piano because I had to. When I stopped going to lessons, I forgot everything. Now I feel like I put this piano to shame.”

“Really? Not to stroke your ego, but you strike me as the type to be good at everything.”

“No,” he chuckles. “Only when I have to be. I actually wanted to learn how to play guitar.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. I wanted to have one of those woven guitar straps, get a little pick collection going, be able to play any song from the Beatles discography. All the cliche stuff.”

“Well, why can’t you?” you ask. “Minus the Beatles thing. Pick better music.”

“Back then, it never occurred to me. We all learn piano.”

“That's silly,” you blurt out. “Who cares?”

“That's a little rich coming from you.”

You frown, feeling all the usual unpleasantries bubble up through your skin.

“That's not really fair.” You absentmindedly play a few keys, all disjointed. “Taking guitar lessons doesn’t make you a problem child.”

“It's not about that, though,” Joshua says. He's avoiding your eyes. “It's everything, together. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and be someone else.”

“Someone else? You mean you? The real you?”

“Yes,” Joshua presses. “That's the point. I can't just do whatever I want. Sometimes the real you is more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Someone’s dramatic. If you do everything the same, nothing will change. Maybe getting into a little trouble isn’t such a bad thing.”

“Forgive me,” he says, mid-chuckle. “You wouldn’t call this trouble?”

He’s got you there. Childishly, all your pride hardens to a lump in your throat, one you’ve never learned to swallow.

“Your family needed our help too, remember?”

“Yeah, and you think I don’t think about that every day? How, maybe, if I had done something different, then we wouldn’t be here?”

You feel stung. You don’t know how to tell him that you’ve been trying to figure out the same thing your whole life. If you were a better daughter, you’d have spared everyone the trouble. Unfortunately, you’d gotten it wrong so many times, you stopped trying.

What's worse is that he doesn’t even sound mad—you watch his fingertips ghost over the keys of a C-scale, rhythmically, methodically. Piano scales, this marriage, everything: just things to do on his never-ending list.

A hesitant knock at the door interrupts any possibility of you coming up with anywhere close to the right thing to say.

“Prince Joshua, the king and queen need to speak to you.” It’s an aide, probably sweating bullets deciding when and how they should intrude on this wonderful conversation of yours.

“Right,” says Joshua, and when he gets up from the bench, he doesn’t look back.

—

“You ready to get stuffed?”

Good fucking morning to you—Somi’s voice, fluorescent through your phone speakers, seems to be enough of an alarm clock for you. Joshua, in the doorway dual wielding a coffee cup and the morning paper, raises a tired eyebrow.

After the events of last night, you’d wondered if he would somehow disappear at nighttime in an effort to avoid his eventual fate (you). Instead, you found him on his usual side of the bed, drinking his usual mug of chamomile tea, in his usual silence.

You've heard that couples shouldn’t go to bed angry, but no one said anything about indifferent. Then again, you and Joshua are hardly a couple.

“Ew,” you laugh. “No. Maybe? Should I be scared?”

“Absolutely. You’re eating your weight in food today because I need your opinion on catering.”

Smushing your phone between your cheek and your shoulder, you watch the mirror as your wavering reflection puts on a layer of mascara.

“For your party?”

“Yeah, although on second thought, maybe it’s a bad idea to bring the girl who’s gonna puke everything up anyway.”

“My IBS is none of your business. Besides, the real food critic is Jihoon,” you reply. “Sometimes I feel like that’s the only reason he still works here.”

“You’re coming in an hour, right?”

You check the clock. No, you are not. You’re only halfway through a full beat and if you don’t get any caffeine inside you within the hour, you will commit a crime.

“Nope.” You pop open your compact. “I have to change, and I desperately need to locate a coffee. I will suck a fucking bean off if i need to.”

“I'm hanging up on you,” Somi whines. “It's too early for you to be gross and late.”

“As if you weren’t talking about getting stuffed.”

“Whatever.” Click.

At this point, you feel like Somi’s party is both the proverbial and literal light at the end of the tunnel. No expectations, no rules, and no semi-arguments between you and your doomed fiance.

Then you notice that Joshua’s disappeared from the room—he probably couldn’t stand listening to your end of the conversation. Briefly, you wonder where he is. Off running an errand for his dear parents, perhaps, or maybe at the gym you still haven’t discovered yet. Even from the hefty distance he keeps you at, you can still appreciate a man who looks like he’s touched a dumbbell.

It's only when you’re halfway out the door, almost an hour later, juggling your purse and your phone and the distinct absence of a caffeinated beverage, that you find him.

“Come to ruin my day?” you ask, maybe three-fourths joking.

“Don’t give me any ideas,” he replies. Under the bluebird sky of late morning, lips upturned and eyes bright, Joshua may be a sight you could get used to. Someday. “Brought you a coffee. I can’t have you sucking off a bean—the reporters would go crazy.”

Jihoon, hovering by the car, chokes on his water.

“Oh!” The surprise knocks the sound out of you. “Thank you. Really.”

“Gladly,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

He holds all your stuff as you clamber into the car, before handing it back to close the door for you. You’ll admit it’s nice, but as Jihoon starts to drive, you feel a familiar twist in your chest.

“Interesting,” he remarks. “Didn’t know you were on a coffee order basis.”

“We’re not,” you answer. You pop the lid open. It's a cappuccino, made the classic way, milk foam bubbling out the top. Not your favorite, but it’ll do.

More than that, it’s an olive branch. Yesterday did get weird, but you’re getting the impression that it’ll always get weird. Undoubtedly, there is someone out there who’ll get Joshua. His schedules, his straight-backed obligation, the polished photo ops and the cappuccinos made to a perfect one to one to one ratio. You know this because this is the world you came from, one that should be home to you.

Instead, you circle each other in an unsure, clumsy dance. You can’t quite get it right. It's all the same now. The bite of a horse saddle not made for your body, the glow of your heirloom ring, now cheapened by your graceless hand, Joshua’s lonely, reaching palm as he disappears in the rearview mirror.

—

On your arrival home in the evening, you return with two things: a few extra kilos and an absolutely horrendous copy of the Daily Mail, courtesy of Somi, who saw it at the grocery.

"Great showing from the couple of the year," you say, shucking your copy at Joshua. "It looks like we're in Shark Tale."

Even from a distance, the cheap ink-spackled cover shows more than enough. LIP LOCK FLOP!, it reads, although you wouldn’t really call it a lip lock.

It was at the derby—Quick, they’re looking at us, you had said. Then what you would call a nun’s version of a kiss: you, already halfway out the door, and him, lips hesitant and pursed, as if he was asked to smooch his withering, dusty great-grandmother.

"I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that," Joshua answers, voice level. "It's not that bad."

He puts his book down to pick the magazine up, holding it at a distance like the image will jump out of the page and bite him. You see his expression flicker, and that's all you need to confirm your suspicions.

"Ok, it's a little bad." He places it on the nightstand next to him face-down. "It'll be alright. It's not like the wedding will be called off over one bad picture."

"You know that's not the issue." You sit on your side of the bed, about a full meter away from him. You kind of want to look again just to see how bad it is, but you're sure it'll be inescapable by the morning.

"Since when did you care what the press thought of you?"

"Since it mattered." You stare at your lap, eyes fixed on the too-new, wiggly hem of your pajamas instead of him. You can tell he's still looking at you, though–you think those big, watery eyes have some sort of flashlights in them, and you don't like it. "It seems wrong if our mistakes take up space."

You hear him make a small noise of agreement. Joshua still won't admit that you're right, but you suppose you like that a little. At least he'll be stubborn about something, even if it's about clearly not liking you.

"What do you suggest?" he asks, putting his book down. “We didn't choose each other, so I'm not surprised there's no attraction."

"Ouch." He's right, but you'd rather be the one saying it. "I'm a good kisser. You aren't."

"I'm just not good at kissing you," he retorts.

"Evidently." You shimmy towards his side of the bed, where the sheets are cooler under your thighs, the pillows still neatly arranged on the headboard. "What I'm saying is that we should at least try to look more realistic. Like–"

"Are you saying we should practice?" Joshua looks at you over the frames of his glasses, incredulous.

"Yeah," you say, now too far in it to back out. "Like exposure therapy. For unwilling couples."

The room gets quiet, as if it wasn't unbearably so before. You watch Joshua pick up his book again. He puts the bookmark in, two-thirds from the spine of the book so as to not ruin the binding, and places it over the doomed tabloid.

"Okay." To your surprise, he turns to face you. The lamplight catches the lens of his glasses and makes his eyes look warmer than they truly are. "How should we do this?"

The way Joshua's gaze settles on you makes you feel like you're being evaluated. An exam in Kissing 101, except the test would rather not have anything to do with you at all. For the first time in your life, you let your eyes wander to his lips, rosy and full, and you feel the pit of anxiety in your belly grow wider. Somehow he's managed to take all the fun out of one of your favorite activities, but you'll be damned if he walks away from this thinking it's you who's the problem.

"Just...let me lead," you say quietly, now leaning closer to him. You have to ease yourself into it. You let your body respond, feel the skip of your heart, a heady flush wash over your cheeks. He smells like spearmint and clover.

You've kissed a lot of people. None of this should feel new to you. His eyelashes skim against your cheek, and you can hear the breath he takes, quivering, gentle.

Despite all this, the first kiss is no better than any of the other ones. his lips meet yours, hesitant before they start moving. He's shy, and it would almost endear him to you if he wasn't so annoying. But then the charade is over. His nose clocks yours and it startles you both enough to draw away, ever so slightly.

"Not my fault," you murmur. You're so close, you can see your reflection in his pupils, glassy and dark.

"Thought this was practice," responds Joshua, unfazed.

So you lean in again, giving it another go. Two is better—sweet and succinct. a first date type of kiss. You can taste the berry of your lip balm on him.

Then again, except this time it's him who goes in, chases your lips.

The scary thing is that you thought this would be much harder. You had stood in the bathroom, looked yourself in the mirror, and psyched yourself up to do the impossible.

But the moment you meet him, now so close there's no room to breathe, you feel an impenetrable, unshakable desire crawling up your bones. Your palm finds the flat of his chest. Even under the silk of his ridiculous pajama top, you feel the heat of his skin, the restless quick of his heartbeat, and your stomach flips.

Four, five. You're losing count. Joshua's hand trails up your arm to cup your cheek, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't feel your breath catch in your chest.

He's warm, so warm. When your other hand finds the back of his neck, he makes a small sound in his throat and you like it.

It's at this point you realize there is no point in pretending. Maybe you don't want to kiss Joshua at any other moment during any other day, but you do now. You really do.

When your tongue meets the seam of his lips, it feels all too natural. At first, predictably, he buffers a bit. For a split second, you envision him pulling away and saying you've gotten more than a lifetime's worth of practice in.

But he doesn't. Instead, an arm winds around your waist and that's all it takes for your body to stop listening to you altogether. Lips still connected, you lift yourself to straddle his lap, right over the folded up covers, and his hands, devastatingly strong, find your hips to keep you rooted there.

You're starting to think he isn't such a bad kisser after all—maybe he really was holding out on you, but there's something weirdly rewarding about him waiting until he liked you just a little more. Whatever that means.

You learn that his hair is soft, really soft, at the base of his neck. You learn that he likes when you bite his lips and you learn that his spearmint mouthwash does, in fact, taste as good as it smells.

You also learn that you, paradoxically, might not know how to love Joshua Hong, but you sure do know how to kiss him.

--end of part 1--

[part 2 -> ]

#mine #joshua x reader #joshua x you #joshua imagines #joshua scenarios #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #joshua #joshua hong #seventeen smut #joshua smut

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lisired · 10 months ago

Text

pretty little weapon

pairing: undercover cop!mark x (f) reader

genre/warnings: smut, organized crime, cop x criminal, graphic depictions of blood and violence, mentions of death, smut, choking, oral (f receiving), biting, a pinch of angst, mentions of pregnancy-related death, unprotected sex (dont b silly, wrap ur willy!), vague mentions of sexual assault

summary: A lifetime worth of adversity had brought you to Bloodlust. You joined them to escape your history, but with Mark Lee - an undercover narcotics agent with a secret to keep - comes the threat of being forced to confront your past. Old wounds are opened, but scars heal.

word count: 25.7k (…i have nothing to say for myself.)

a/n: inspired by PLW by leon thomas, bad news by kehlani, and perfect crime by tinashe! bon appetite! I did this on a whim. read this with the 2 baddies styling concept in mind. as always, feedback is appreciated!

You were going to be absolutely livid if Yuta didn’t up your pay.

After a long night of work, you anticipated crawling into your sheets. Then waking up to a large sum of money deposited into your account in the morning as courtesy of your hard work.

That never happened.

“This was not in the job description,” you complained to your boss. Though there was technically never a clock for you to be on, you had already firmly clocked out. And when he invited you on this escapade, you were inclined to deny. But he was nothing if not unrelenting.

Yuta smirked and brushed you off. “You do stone cold murder for a living, baby. This is what you signed yourself up for the moment you killed somebody.”

God, you hated when he was right. Sometimes all you ever wanted to do was argue with whatever he said. Moments like this when he began cutting down on your downtime.

Soaring through flocks of people, you kept very close to Yuta’s side, his arm firm around you. People knew not to mess with him, and thus anyone considered his associate. That was one of the beauties of working for Bloodlust, you supposed. As long as you were loyal and faithful to them, you were guaranteed total protection and discretion against anyone.

The tale of how you secured a job of this nature in the first place was relatively simple. You were scouting the streets as usual, given it was the only home you’d known. Violence was absolutely nothing new to you as you had been in your fair share of street gangs prior to Bloodlust. But one thing led to another and you had blood on your hands in an act of self defense. Specifically the blood of your own fellow gangster.

Just your luck, Yuta witnessed the scene. He was a stranger at the time, some shady man offering help that looked like nothing short of trouble. You found yourself surprised that you even took his deal, but you weren’t left with any alternatives. Going back to the gang was not an option; there was no telling how the leader would respond to the blood of your superior being on your very hands. There was no mercy there.

Yuta vowed to cover for you, but you would perpetually owe him in return. You were expecting something more lewd when he informed you that you would be working for him, though you did nothing of the sort. Yuta took you under his wing and handed you a job as a contract killer.

And the rest was history.

You hurdled closer to his chest, pursuing warmth. Given the hour and the season, the outdoors were becoming frostier. You exhaled and saw your breath condensing in the air.

“Stay put,” Yuta said. As if you would run off anywhere. You were tempted, though you weren’t stupid. And though you would never admit it to his face, you loved the street races.

After you nodded, Yuta parted without having to worm his way through the crowd. They respected him, though most of it was out of pure fear. They made way for him whenever they saw him approaching.

You eyed the roads while you waited. The street races were one of your favorite aspects of the gang. They were orchestrated by Yuta and were a great source of profit overall. But watching them was the part you were fond of.

One of the cars before you caught your eye - a neon green Porsche. You had barely laid a finger on the exterior before you were forcibly knocked backwards, your face slung to the other side.

You held your cheek in your palm, adrenaline pumping through your veins. There was no immediate pain. You didn’t even feel like you were in your body. You could only stumble as you grasped to process what happened.

A visibly upset man - one of the racers - was waving his fist at you, screaming this profanity and that, but from the looks of it you hadn’t left as much as a scratch on his car. And if he thought he was going to intimidate you, he had another thing coming. Brutal adrenaline came over you and you socked him square in the jaw. Harder.

The racer was knocked to the ground by the force. “You’re gonna regret that,” he growled. You merely laughed. It was comical and you almost took pity on him. This guy clearly had no idea what forces were on your side. Not until he noticed Yuta and Johnny beginning to rush in his direction and he bolted.

The gang had very simple rules and even simpler consequences. If you disobeyed, you died. They were so simple that if you violated them, they read it as an act of defiance. The most obvious rule was to respect the high-ranks and their associates. The second was to comply, or your punishment would be fatal.

Another man came to your side and lowered you to the ground for inspection. This one you didn’t recognize at all. “Yo, are you okay?”

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” you said, moving your fingers from your cheek to your lips. When you glanced down at them, you saw blood.

The stranger handed you a napkin. “Here.”

You took it and wiped your mouth, and thus the blood at the corner of your lips. That was one hell of a punch. Rather than feeling pain, you were in a state of immobilizing shock.

“Thanks, uh…,” you squinted your eyes, running his face through the facial recognition system installed in your memory. But you came short. Which was surprising, because you always remembered the faces of the regulars.

“Mark,” the stranger finished. Then he flashed you a smile. “It’s nothing. You should get that checked out, though. Make sure nothing’s broken or fractured.”

You nodded. As a result of uttering any speech, you noticed that your jaw slightly ached when you spoke. For fuck’s sake. None of this would have happened if you were in your bed.

Then Mark disappeared. And you had no time to think before you heard a piercing noise.

Gunshots rang in the distance and you weren’t at all surprised to see Yuta and Johnny return with sinister looks on their faces. Yuta helped you to your feet and asked, “You good, Scar?”

Scar was the alias you’d been granted after Yuta noticed the scar on your stomach. Rather than finding it odd, he was astonished by it. Which was so utterly Yuta of him. The alias served no other purpose than maintaining your confidentiality, but Yuta always thought it had a nice ring to it.

“Not the first time I’ve been punched. I think I’m gonna be fine,” you assured him. The gods had blessed you with an unholy pain tolerance, which all your tattoos were a testament to. You remembered the matching one you got with Yuta and subconsciously smiled.

Friends like Yuta were, needless to say, rare.

All of the evil melted from Yuta’s face and he chuckled. “You’re a tough woman.”

“You love it.”

“I do.” Yuta curled his arm around you again. You were certain he was going to cuff one of your hands to his arm and never let you out of his sight again. “I was surprised that you didn’t finish that guy then and there. You took a pretty mean punch, babe. Must’ve been too shocked.”

That you were. But he was taking a nice load of bullets to the head before you even got the chance.

After the races were over and the roads were cleared out, you followed Yuta to his car. You suddenly had a thought once you hit the road.

“Yuta, do you know someone named Mark?”

Yuta furrowed his brows. “Nah. Why?”

Your heart sank. “Fuck.”

He glanced at you for a split second before returning his eyes to the road, but asked, “What’s wrong?”

“There was this guy at the race. He helped me and gave me a napkin to wipe the blood off of my face, but I didn’t recognize him. He told me his name was Mark.”

Yuta was alarmed. Just as you expected. It was one thing if you didn’t recognize a person at one of the gang’s events, but not Yuta. He had to ensure the attendee’s identities were closely monitored for everyone’s sake.

“Fucking hell?” Yuta handed you his phone and said, “Call Jaemin for me and tell him to look into the records. Maybe it slipped my mind. Let’s not jump to any conclusions, okay?”

You nodded your head and did as told, pressing his phone to your ear. Jaemin told you that he was AFK but would run a search as soon as he got back to the headquarters. Yuta dropped you off promptly and assured you that he’d call you with an update first thing in the morning.

Which only left you to wait.

In the morning, Yuta called you into his office, and you were immensely surprised to see not only him but Ten and Taeyong waiting for you in the room. Technically, you didn’t work for Bloodlust as a whole. There was a team of hitmen that worked specifically under one high-rank, though you were Yuta’s subordinate. Thus, encounters with other high-ranks were rare. Especially the leader.

Taeyong was the leader and the one at the helm of the entire gang. He inherited the title by succession to the metaphorical throne through descent. Yuta was his right-hand man, though given Taeyong rarely stepped out of the shadows unless absolutely necessary, Yuta being perceived as the leader was a popular misconception to outsiders and law enforcement. Which was completely deliberate. The less law enforcement knew, the better. It also made the task of differentiating interlopers from legitimates much lighter.

Ten was the gang’s personal spy. Their eyes to the other world. Just like any other high-rank, he directly supervised an entire branch of people pertaining to his title. Essentially, he was the leader of a team of criminal agents.

None of that explained why they were here, though.

As it was in your best interest, you greeted the three of them very politely. Though Yuta had a threatening position, you were close enough to be informal. Those freedoms didn’t apply to Ten and the leader. They might have been as good as strangers, but considering their influence in the underworld, they could have ended your life and career in an instant if they so pleased.

Glancing at Yuta, you said, “You called me, Boss?”

Yuta resisted a smirk at your attempts to be formal. You never called him ‘Boss’. “I did. I had Jaemin follow up on the Mark guy. We found something recent about him in our records.”

Ten interjected, “But I had a buy-off of mine’s confirm his real identity. He’s a Lee Minhyung. An undercover narcotics agent once tasked with tracking down a drug empire, and now that he shut them down we believe he’s moved on to attempting to infiltrate our ranks.”

Your blood ran cold. Frozen over in your veins. Forever grateful were you that you were excellent at maintaining your composure. Otherwise you would have panicked.

Taeyong stood at the far end of the pair. You had heard numerous things about him, but you were left gasping for air every time you saw him in person. If looks could kill, you would’ve been six feet under. Taeyong continued, “I’m sure you can guess why this is an urgent problem for us. It is my direct responsibility to protect the identities of those that put their faith in this gang and ensure their confidentiality. Now that we have a cop meddling in our affairs, that complicates things.”

That was to put it simply. The police infiltrating their territory was a direct threat imposed to the future of the empire. The moment the diplomacy was dismantled, so was the entire gang. Bloodlust in itself was intended to be an enigma. The purpose of hiring hitmen and establishing them by individual aliases was to deliberately make it difficult to link crimes to the gang. In return, your genuine identities were concealed. There was too much at stake to remain idle.

You supposed it made sense that Mark was kind to you. That made it easier to gain people’s trust. Though in the underworld, it made you look suspicious. Which led you to another question; if he was benevolent to you, did that mean you were specifically targeted?

You leaned forward in your chair and asked, “What does he know about the gang?”

“That’s where we hit a dead end,” said Ten, frustrated thoroughly. Whatever information they were relaying to you was everything they knew themselves. “Since he engaged with you, we considered that he might have a lead on you. If that’s true, most likely he’ll interact with you again given the opportunity.”

That didn’t alarm you. For most of your life, you’d lived on the edge, and that was especially true when you were a member of those prior street gangs. If your old friends sold you out, you wouldn’t be surprised. Yuta informed you early on that Bloodlust could keep your future under lock and key, though not your past.

But you were very suspicious. They wanted something out of you, that much was clear. Something significant. There was no other reason why the leader himself was before you. Though what?

“With all due respect, I don’t understand my involvement in this.”

Taeyong was straightforward. “We want you to play along.”

You nearly gawked. “Excuse me?”

He wasn’t the least bit bothered by you and continued, “The best way to fight fire is with fire. If Lee Minhyung wants to use you as his means of conveying intel, then let him, but lead him astray while doing so.”

In short, they wanted you to give Mark false information. Which steered far from your line of work. Why they chose you for the job in spite of having people actually equipped for the task was a mystery. Yuta was not kidding when he said that you signed yourself up for additional labor the moment you killed somebody.

Frowning, you tried to stave them off. “You’re just gonna send a girl with no prior experience into the wild?”

“Must I remind you that we have full access and authority to all of your history stored in our records?” Ten sneered in amusement. “Think of it as a resume. It’s been a few years, but yours was very memorable. This wouldn’t be your first mole job.”

That was true. Anyone recruited to work for the gang was required to give a complete rundown of their history. Even recruits like you that didn’t respond to them directly. They made it very clear that lying would have put you in an early grave; Bloodlust had eyes everywhere.

“And you wouldn’t be uncompensated. I’ll triple your pay,” Yuta added.

That had your undivided attention. “I’m listening.”

Yuta fought a snicker. He expected nothing less. “We know that this isn’t what you usually do, but the job is very simple. It’s expected that he’ll try to extract information from you, so give him the wrong info. At the same time, try to figure out what he knows and what he wants. There’s a motive behind him targeting you and until we can confirm otherwise, we have to assume you’re his prey and he has valuable intel in his possession.”

“Why not just kill him upfront?”

“He might be valuable,” came Ten’s reply. “Whatever he knows, it’s safe to assume that he isn’t the only one.”

“We will be closely monitoring the entire empire for any turncoats, but he’s not alone. He has a partner,” warned Taeyong with a hefty stare. “So you have to be cautious about what you say to him.”

Ten began to get impatient and said, “So, do we have a deal?”

Tapping the arms of the office chair, you pretended to mull the proposition over although you had already made your decision. If their motive in collectively ganging up against you was to make you feel pressured into agreeing, you were almost inclined to decline the offer out of pure spite. But the genuine interest you had in the assignment discouraged you. There was too much at stake to play games.

There’s no good reason to decline, you decided halfway through the offer. Exposing yourself to law enforcement might’ve seemed too risky, but law enforcement potentially exposing you was even riskier. And you were no stranger to games of deception. Devising devious stratagems was one of the first skills you acquired.

You feigned indifference and replied, “Fine. I’ll play make-believe with the boy with a death wish.”

Yuta failed to resist his snicker this time, but it was true. Bloodlust gained its name for a special reason. For over a decade they had climbed their way to the top and were successful because they had no mercy for those that crossed them. You had faith that this was going to end with Mark having a bullet put through his brain.

After all, he wouldn’t be the first. Just another casualty.

Ten smiled, satisfied. His smile was alluring though likely deceptive, although you expected nothing less from the head of Bloodlust’s criminal agents himself. You had a feeling he was the one that suggested cornering you. “Good. You’re probably already aware that I administrate the spy squad. You won’t be working for me per se, but Jaemin and I will serve as your resources.”

Jaemin was another high-rank, the hacker and leader of their general technology team. If you ever thought you had hid a file or record from him; think again. In all your years of working for Yuta, you had never even caught a glimpse of the man’s face in person. He could only be spotted somewhere with a signal yet caved away.

You left that room with a mission. Jaemin had ID’d Mark’s partner and sent you a full report on them. Lee Minhyung, twenty-three, one of the youngest in his division and yet one of the most accomplished. He had spent merely three months undercover to overthrow a drug empire, and now he was scouting the big shots. Lee Jeno, twenty-two, and fresh out of the training program. There wasn’t much on him, obviously, but according to his evaluations, he had ambitions and was following in Mark’s footsteps.

Frankly, you were impressed. The reason neither of them had been detected until now was because they signed up the rightful way. No one suspected anything was amiss because their department created fake ID’s and hid their authentic ones. Nothing that Jaemin couldn’t find, though.

Needless to say, you had your work cut out for you.

The next time you saw Mark Lee was at another street race event. According to Jaemin, Mark and his partner were fresh recruits and had only been present for a few days at best, though he had quickly decided that the races were his favorite hunting grounds.

For a cop, Mark was remarkably easy to spot in a crowd, but he was playing the criminal role well enough. He had red hair that burned brightly and dressed the flashy part. You had yet to see him without a Cuban link.

You approached him and greeted, “‘Sup, Markie.”

Mark raised a brow. “Markie?”

“Do you not like it?” you asked, smiling innocently. You inched in on him, but left a safe distance between you two. The last thing you wanted was to make him uncomfortable by invading his personal space. “How about Marco? Or Markus? Even better - Little Red Riding Hood.”

Mark snickered. “Markie is fine. Thank you, Tony Stark,” he quipped.

“MCU fan?”

“You bet.”

He genuinely piqued your interest at that. Maybe pretending to like him wouldn’t be so hard. You breathed, “I love you already.”

He laughed. Then concern washed over his face. “Hey, your face okay?”

“Yup,” you replied, giving him a thumbs up. “I got it checked out like you said. Nothing broken or fractured. It’s a little sore, but I’ll be good as new in a couple days.”

“You’re a tough cookie,” he complimented.

You chortled. “So I’ve heard.”

With a broad smile, Mark continued, “That was one hell of a punch you landed on that dude, though. Knocked the guy flat on the ground. Where’d you learn how to fight like that?”

Here came the invasiveness. You decided to be as vague as possible about your past - and current - gang affiliations. You shrugged. “The streets. Polished my skills in the fighting ring, though.”

“There’s a fighting ring?”

“Oh, no wonder I’ve never seen you around these parts before. You’re a total newbie,” you laughed, shaking your head.

“It’s only my fourth day out here,” Mark told you. Which was the truth. You were very unsurprised to find he was taken under the drug trafficking operation, which was ran by Jisung. “Yo, I never caught your name.”

You gave Mark your name, although you had a feeling he already knew. Jaemin and Ten were actively working together to uncover everything the unit had on you and the gang.

“I can show you the ropes,” you offered. Given where he stood, you knew those words alone had him hooked on you. It was safe to assume the drug empire was his primary, but offering him the gang’s additional means of money-making on a silver platter would have any officer’s mouth watering. “Take you on a tour. The gang has plenty of places to kill time while simultaneously making hella cash off of them.”

Mark’s eyes gleamed with intrigue. “Smart business. I might just take you up on that.”

“Bloodlust is all about smart business,” you remarked. Then, you began to do some prying of your own. It wasn’t all that risky to give up some of their territory, but everything came with a price. “Say - who did Boss put you under?”

“The Jisung guy. Drugs.” Mark shrugged. “Nothing major. They don’t trust newbies directly with the hardcore shit, and for good reason. But he told me that it’ll pay well, and if I stick around long enough, I can work my way up.”

Of course, it paid very well. No matter how low-ranking the position. They were trafficking illegal drugs and substances. It was one of their most lucrative branches.

You also hadn’t failed to notice how Mark mentioned that if he stayed long enough, he could work his way higher. That was common knowledge, though you doubted he was unaware of how problematic leaving a gang was. He had the prior experience, and even on his last mission he didn’t vacate the syndicate until he successfully seized the ranks. In other words, he wasn’t withdrawing until he had shot the entire gang down by its very heart and core.

Which was the inner circle.

That was a pressing reminder to keep your guard up. Though Mark seemed likable, it was very intentional. You knew he wouldn’t hesitate to persecute you to the highest extent of the law and you would maintain that same lack of mercy.

You played along, bobbing your head. “Met the boss yet?”

Mark shot you a wince. “Not formally. And I’ve heard around that the less I see of Lee Taeyong, the better. What’s up with that?”

“Taeyong likes to deliver his messages up close and personal,” you cautioned. “He only comes out if absolutely necessary. Getting a personal message from the big boss only happens if you’re going around wreaking havoc.”

“No warning?”

You smiled, but the sinister undertone in your voice was very evident, “If he sends anyone else but himself, that is a warning.”

You didn’t feel pressured to make your insinuations very subtle, because you were Mark’s only hope. The gangsters weren’t exactly inviting. They were very cynical, tight-lipped, and kept small circles because another one of the most important rules was confidentiality and they dreaded facing exposure.

For the most part, people who received direct messages from Taeyong didn’t make it out alive. For that reason, you did not underestimate Mark, but you were certain he had underestimated the gang. Even if you hadn’t discovered him yourself, they would have in approximately the same amount of time.

Mark showed no fear and kept the conversation light-hearted, but the glimmer in his eyes suggested he took that as a challenge. “Then, I’ll make sure to be on my best behavior.”

Liar, you scoffed. He was very much going to wreak havoc. He already had.

“You better. I’d hate to see a face like yours gone so soon,” you flirted, to which Mark grinned and cocked an intrigued brow. He was handsome, you had to give him that. Then, you decided to change the topic. “You like cars, Markie?”

He pretended to frown. “Is it obvious?”

“As far as I know, you’ve spent at least half your nights at these races. There has to be a reason,” you said, then resorted back to flirting, “Unless, you just come to look at me all night.”

“You are quite the extravaganza,” Mark played along, matching your energy. Much to your amusement. “I’m more of a bike guy, but I like anything shiny and nice.”

“We’re gonna get along just fine,” you quipped. “Wanna race?”

“For real?”

“For real,” you repeated, smiling. “They start in a little bit. You strike me as the type of guy that likes all things thrill and exhilaration.”

Mark broke into a tiny snicker. “Lucky guess. You any good?”

You shrugged. “Dunno. Guess that’s for you to figure out,” you teased. Then, began to make your escape. Granted, you knew he wouldn’t let you slip away so easily.

Mark, tantalized, trailed behind you. Hopping in a speeding car with someone as good as a stranger seemed rash, but he had a feeling that you knew what you were doing. Absolutely none of this was foreign to you.

Boy with a death wish was an apt description for Mark.

Upon your last-minute entry, you took him to the garage to pick up your ride. To say the least, Mark nearly dropped dead. The sight of your bright red Bugatti Chiron positively made him gape. “Holy shit,” he exhaled.

You giggled. “She’s hot, isn’t she?”

“Like hellfire. Aren’t these like, hella expensive?”

You bobbed your head. “She’s hell to repair. But my baby deserves the best.”

Mark continued to marvel. “Dude, you gotta let me drive one day.”

You laughed, amused, but for a completely different reason. Like hell you would let a cop take your car for a spin. It was outrageous enough that you permitted him to take the passenger seat.

Eventually you both went to line up for the races. Mark was still completely astonished, glancing around your two-seater with total awe and wonder. If you knew that you didn’t have to kill him, you would have found it very cute.

Yuta came by and stuck his head through the window aperture. Which were each rolled down as a safety measure. “You’re racing?”

“Yup,” you sang, smiling wildly. It had been a minute. And you figured that you needed some thrill in your life (unbeknownst to you, Mark was exactly that). “Meet my partner. Mark, meet this guy.”

Yuta rolled his eyes, then droned, “You two have fun.”

“Oh, trust me. Fun is guaranteed with me,” you replied with a wink.

Yuta glanced at Mark and quipped, “Run while you still can.” Then, he ran off.

“You can’t run now,” you said, making eye contact with Mark through the rear-view mirror. “We have a race to win.”

Mark grinned mischievously.

The flagger came into vision, preparing to launch the first race of the evening. You and Mark fastened your seatbelts, then you braced your hand on the steering wheel.

“Ready?” you asked, glancing to your side.

Mark bobbed his head. He seemed relatively relaxed for a first-timer. Honestly, you were beginning to wonder what all he had done in the name of the law. “Born ready.”

You revved the engine, watching the flagger count down with bated breath. Everything felt light. Adrenaline made your blood pump faster, your heart threatening to leap out your chest. This was it. That feeling that made life worth living.

Three, you muttered under your breath. Two, one. You gripped the wheel tighter. Then every nerve in your body chanted, Go, go, go!

And you slammed on the gas, bolting the car forward like lightning.

You sped like the devil. You were going nearly two-hundred miles per hour in a matter of ten seconds. The car roared underneath your fingertips and you knew you were driving a beast, one that had risen from the dead.

“Goddamn,” Mark raised his voice, speaking over the vicious winds that tousled your heads of hair. He was smiling, clinging to his seatbelt for dear life.

You shouted, “Hang on!” And you both accelerated.

You laughed, so carefree. Nothing else mattered when you were on the road and you quickly lost grip of everything that wasn’t the steering wheel clenched firmly between your fist. The road was the only thing capable of holding your attention, and you even occasionally forgot that Mark was beside you until you heard his exhilarated laugh. Every single thought you had left as quickly as it came. Moments were exactly that - moments. No fears, no worries, no nightmares. Just making it across that sweet finish line.

The feeling surging through your veins was inexplicable, but you knew that you weren’t alone in it. Mark could feel it, too. The rush overpowered any sense of threat and adrenaline made you forget what it felt like to breathe. At that moment, it was like breathing on the moon. Almost as if you didn’t need any air.

You wedged past this car and that, until you had made a great distance in front of them all. They were left in the dust.

“You feel that, Markie?” you asked, chest heaving out of pure, unadulterated fever. You could see that typical untamed gleam in his eyes, but heightened.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. And then he began to crack into a fit of hysterical laughter himself. “Yeah. I can feel it.”

The corners of your lips were in an unfaltering curve. “Let’s win this damn thing.”

Mark was grinning from ear to ear. Never had he ever felt so alive.

The climax of the race was your very favorite. Time lost its meaning and speed became inexhaustible. Air became scarce, as if there was no more left on earth. The tension throttled you and swallowed you whole. And heat reduced you to sweat and fighting breaths.

All you had was momentum, but that was of little threat to you. And Mark.

The distance between the car and the finish line decreased more and more and more. There was practically no one around you, but that didn’t ease your resolve. Resting was not an option until victory was yours.

Mark chanted, “Come on, come on.”

He wanted it as badly as you. If not more. There was nothing for him to gain out of this except experience and yet he seemed immensely content with that.

From the moment you crossed the finish line, time became a blur. All you knew was that you had won and you could feel the achievement in your veins. You only noticed that you were panting when you stepped out of the car, and the crowd flocked towards your vehicle.

“So, what do you think?” you asked Mark, sitting on the hood of your car. “Am I any good, Markie?”

Mark wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then replied through thick breath, “I think you just gave me the time of my life. Thank you.”

You chortled. Damn right. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Someone cleared their throat and you turned to make eye contact with Lee Jeno. He looked directly at you without hiding his scorn when he spoke, “Sorry to interrupt, but Markie has to go now.”

You didn’t break eye contact with the boy, either, retorting, “Tell your dad that you don’t wanna go, Mark.”

Mark stifled a laugh. “I’m sorry, but I have to,” he said and hopped off the hood of your car. “Thank you for tonight, though. I’m holding you to your word from earlier.”

“I’ve never broken a promise,” you said. Then, you waved. “See’ya.”

Mark hugged you briefly, then bid you goodnight and faded in the crowd with his more than obvious partner.

And you went to pay yours a visit.

Given the hour, Ten was not pleased when you barged into his office, but before he could run his mouth, you shushed him with your finger.

Ten mouthed, “Did you just shush me…”

You removed an object out of your pocket and rested the item flat on his desk. It was a tiny, black wiretapping device. Clearly, somebody thought he was slick, though even in your fit of ecstasy, you were not off-guard.

From the expression he sported, Ten was highly amused by the flagrant audacity of this boy. There seemed to be a telepathic communication between you two, but just to be safe, he mouthed, “Play along.”

Ten said your name and began, “You’re late. Did you hear the news?”

You almost rolled your eyes, but very audibly pulled in the opposing chair to give the impression that you were here for a long, scheduled conversation. Then, you blew out a sigh and replied, “Yeah. Yuta told me Taeyong is considering shifting the gang to China. Damn feds too close on our tail.”

“Don’t fret. It’ll be a walk in the park. China makes up our secondary income - the ascendancy we have there is enough to start fresh.”

The little tale made you smirk. Bloodlust hadn’t branched out in China very much yet.

“I know, but Korea is the only home I’ve known,” you groaned.

Ten was very good at playing along with your bullshit and told you, “That was how I felt when I came to Korea from the States. Listen, you’re gonna be homesick as a bitch. But you won’t be alone and that’s what matters.”

If this was a genuine conversation, you would have been touched. “Thanks, Ten.”

Ten drummed his fist against the wall to mimic the sound of someone knocking on a door, then rose and said, “That must be him. Come on.”

The two of you stepped into the corridor. Where, obviously enough, nobody awaited either of you. Ten shut the door and moved a great distance away from his office before he decided you were both in the clear.

As soon as you were in private, both of you began to giggle. Ten quipped, “Sure you don’t wanna work for me?”

You snickered. “I’m more than content with Yuta, thank you.”

“I have to commend you for your performance back there,” Ten told you, sincere. “Most people wouldn’t have even caught that they were bugged. That could’ve been bad. It’s impressive.”

“Likewise,” you replied. It was in your best interest to steer Mark’s team off course, if possible. They’d learn one way or another to mind the business that paid them.

Ten grabbed a tiny stick-like item from his pocket and pressed a red button at the bottom end of the device.

You furrowed your brows. “What’s that?”

“Bug detector. Jaemin made it for me,” he told you. Then, a red light beamed from the device, and Ten scanned you from head to toe. After a brief moment, he said, “You’re in the clear. I’ll take care of the bug. Did you learn anything else tonight?”

You nodded. “He knows Taeyong is the leader. I let him ask most of the questions tonight, but I’ll have my turn later. I’m posing as a friend that’s going to show him around.”

“Take him where you want.” Ten glanced at his watch. “I expect more from you by the end of the week.”

“Yes, sir,” you replied. Obviously, he had somewhere to be. “Goodnight.”

Throughout the week, you and Ten continued to use the wiretapping bug to your advantage. Faking conversations, making up false plans about the future of the gang. It was, more or less, a taunt.

Just as Ten expected of you, you had additional information to deliver by Saturday morning. Mark was no easy task, but where his partner was concerned, you learned things easily. For one, most of your identities were definitely known. Jeno was not sparing with his disdainful glares whenever he came across high-ranks.

Much less you, for that matter. Which made you wonder exactly what role you played in this situation, but that was still inconclusive. You assumed it was because you had direct ties to the second-in-command, but you merely did his bidding. Which had nothing to do with the trafficking of illegal drugs.

And Yuta never let you in on the affairs of the gang. It simply never came up. It was none of your business and you didn’t care. As long as they protected you.

Either they had no clue what they were doing, or they were looking to make a very big bust.

The following Monday, you marched straight into housing clad in dolphin shorts and a white t-shirt and knocked on Mark’s door. Very relentlessly given it was two in the morning.

Mark yelled, “I’m coming!” from somewhere across the apartment. When he opened the door, he squinted, half-awake. But positive that he was dreaming. “How the hell…”

You snickered. “You aren’t very hard to find, Markie. This is where the newbies that don’t have their own place live - I would know. Boss gave me access to the housing info.”

“Stalker,” he snarled insincerely, voice husky. It did something to you, but you would never admit it.

Instead, you rolled your eyes. It was very ironic, all things considered. He was going out of his way to investigate you and your boss’ friends. “Yeah, yeah,” you said, inviting yourself in. “Hurry up and get ready. We’re going to the ring.”

Mark’s eyes widened. “Shit, right now?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Shit. Let me go brush my teeth and change.”

Glancing around the apartment, there was nothing immediately suspicious or out of the ordinary. Just slightly messy. It looked very lived in.

Less than fifteen minutes later, you and Mark were out the door and on the road. The late night and early morning breeze was very comforting. Just traveling lightly on the road while the sun was still down was one of your favorite things to do.

Mark spoke teasingly over the radio, “Do you barge into people’s houses and homes to go fight very often?”

Unabashedly, you giggled. “No, actually. But I am very notorious for walking around like I own the place. You’re lucky enough that I had no choice but to knock.”

“You mean, beat the door in.”

“Did not,” you countered.

“No, you did,” he said. “You probably woke up everybody else on the same floor.”

You smarted and retorted, “Please. They should come watch me kick your ass.”

Mark was very amused by your confidence. “I’m gonna make you eat those words, doll.”

“Hit me with your best shot.”

He took the challenge. “Loser buys breakfast?”

You grinned smugly. “You’re on.”

The road led you to some bar with an enormous flickering neon light that displayed the name of the establishment. Despite the late hour - and how shady the exterior of the building appeared - the parking lot wasn’t empty.

With your finger, you signaled for Mark to follow behind you and entered the bar. Much to Mark’s surprise, your attire fitted right in with the lack of crowd. Most were sweaty and gulping glasses of water at the bar.

Mark cocked a brow and said, “I thought we were going to the ring.”

“We are,” you responded, fighting a smile. The bartender didn’t spare either of you a glimpse when you led him behind the counter and through the double doors.

You were met with a tiny hallway. There was a kitchen door on one end, but you brought him towards the other. It seemed much more exclusive than the others, no double doors or easy access. You placed your finger on the biometric lock and it clicked open.

“Woah,” Mark gasped.

You giggled and went into the empty room with a ring in its center. In contrast to the others, it was dimly lit by beams of neon red lights. There was another bar at one end and chairs and tables arranged elsewhere. “The private fighting room,” you announced. “It’s only used by higher-ups and their associates.”

“I just thought of at least eight Fight Club jokes I could make right now and half of them have something to do with Tyler Durden.”

You shook your head. “You’re insufferable. You’d lose your mind if we owned a movie theater.”

Mark smiled bashfully. “Can I talk about this place?”

You glared. But ultimately couldn’t resist bursting into laughter.

“Come on,” you gestured, stepping inside the ring. And he followed suit.

After you both warmed up, you asked, “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Mark replied without hesitation, eyes burning with sheer confidence. “Gotta warn you, though - I have a blackbelt in taekwondo.”

He wasn’t lying. You remembered seeing something like that in his profile.

“Good for you. I have a blackbelt in kicking Mark Lee’s ass.”

Mark taunted, “I would like to see you try.”

You got into position, holding your arms in a prepared stance. “Don’t go easy on me, Markie. If you couldn’t tell, I like things rough.”

As usual, Mark merely gave you a grin of unadulterated mischief.

The first round played in your favor. It ran more like a practice round if anything - Mark was more focused on becoming accustomed with how you fought than winning. As a result, you knocked him clean out.

Though Mark decided in the next round that he wasn’t playing any games. He had taken mercy upon you before, going easy on you in spite of what you told him, but you knew by now that Mark had a penchant for challenges and loathed losing. You thought that you had him right where you wanted him, but by the end of the match, he had you right where he wanted you.

“I was wrong about you, Markie,” you gasped after tapping out and accepting defeat. “You striked me as a Mama’s boy. The ‘I’d never hit a girl’ type.”

“I love my mama,” Mark grinned. “And of course, I’d never. But you asked for it.”

Mark helped you to your feet and you lightheartedly threatened, “I’m snitching.”

“Whatever you say,” he taunted. “I see why they call you Scar and not Punch.”

In a flash of anger, you lunged at him, but Mark caught you by your wrist promptly. He cocked his head and said smugly, “Cheater. The final round hasn’t started yet.”

The way he stared down your soul unnerved you. It wasn’t typical of you to show fear - and you didn’t - but saying that you were unaffected by his every move would be a blatant lie. Though there was absolutely nothing sinister about Mark. Maybe it wasn’t him that you were scared of. Maybe it was how he made you feel.

That was more dangerous than any threat.

When the next round initiated, you fought like a beast that had emerged right out of hell. There was no way in hell that you would go down without a fight.

This final round was all the more intense. You were convinced that if you had any spectators, they’d be completely exasperated by the suspense. The both of you kept bouncing shy of one another.

It was akin to a seesaw of action. When Mark landed a hit, you landed one harder. When you were above, suddenly Mark knocked you back down again.

“This isn’t over until one of us taps out,” Mark said.

You shrugged. “I can go all night.”

“So can I.”

Neither of you were backing down, that much was clear. It seemed preposterous - getting worked up over an unofficial game - but you were competitive and Mark was ambitious. The most minuscule of things were still another bridge to be crossed to people like you, no matter the size.

You either won or you lost. It was one to one. This was the tiebreaker; the round that made or broke the game. You didn’t mind buying him breakfast, but there was also a part of Mark that was so goddamn insufferable and you would rather not satisfy that insatiable desire of his.

“If you want your victory, come and get it,” you taunted.

“Say less,” Mark said. Then swung.

Courtesy of your agility, you were able to move out of the way. It was better than giving him the opportunity to lay his hands on you, even if you blocked the hit. You learned very quickly that Mark could make you think he was doing one thing and wound up doing another.

You took your chances, not permitting him the chance to realize what you were up to before you danced around his figure and tackled him to the ground.

You straddled him and smirked, pinning his arms firmly above his head. You were very aware of what kind of position you were in, but you weren’t complaining. It felt like you were at your throne at the very top of the world from above Mark.

Mark eyed you down. “Someone’s been doing her homework.”

You clutched even tighter around his wrist the more he spoke. To which Mark grimaced and quipped, “Are you trying to crush my bones or jump them?”

You teased, “Is that what you were dreaming about before I woke you up, Markie?”

“Not quite,” he replied with a chuckle, then switched on a dime. He flipped you over, hovering over you as you lay flat on your back. Instead of pinning your hands above your head like you’d done to him, he went for your throat.

His grip was strong. It wasn’t tight enough to cause you any genuine harm, as if he didn’t intend to hurt you, but you felt as if he could have bruised your throat.

The worst part? You didn’t thoroughly despise the feeling.

Mark leaned directly into your ear, then growled, “Tap out and I’ll let go.”

Resisting, you brought your fingers to his arm, though you swore his grip became firmer the longer you stood your ground. Mark merely stared into your eyes as you began to gasp for air, holding onto breath for dear life.

The way he looked into them, it was almost as if he was searching for something. You supposed Mark wallowed in the look of vulnerability in your eyes, or the life leaving them, but it couldn’t have been as prominent as the bliss etched onto your face. “You’re enjoying this,” he remarked, showing even less mercy with his palms.

When you were on the verge of unconsciousness, you tapped Mark’s arm with your fingers. And only then did his grip loosen.

Mark shook his head when you began to laugh. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Chest heaving, you replied, “I’ve heard that one before. Try harder.”

“You’re a fucking minx,” Mark taunted, voice dropping another octave. “But you know that too - don’t you?”

A provocative smile crept across your face. “I swear I don’t do it on purpose, Markie.”

There was a whirlwind of thoughts rippling around your brain as Mark leaned dangerously close to you. Heat flared through your body in place of your typical cold blood. You seemed to internally debate yourself, but it wasn’t as if you ever had very much of a conscience.

“Do it, Mark. Do it,” you chanted. From the pensive expression he sported, you were confident that half the thoughts in his head were temptingly screaming the same thing.

Mark steered out of his tiny reverie and began, “That guy - Yuta. He’s not your boyfriend?”

You burst into laughter that was on the brink of hysterical. “You’re kidding,” you said. But when Mark showed you no sign of toying, instead stern, you added, “Please. I love Yuta and I’m forever indebted to him, but I’d rather choke on my own blood than date him.”

That was all Mark needed to hear. “Say less.”

In the time that it took for him to close the tiny gap between the two of you, the last of Mark’s reluctance met its end. His mouth crashed against yours in haste, and you moved in a heated sync, swallowing each other’s tongues.

The taste of him drowned out the rest of the world. You forgot that Mark was a predator and you were his prey. You forgot that you were supposed to hunt him down. Each of your limbs tensed tautly with want and your will for pleasure made light work of your senses. You were enthralled by how well of a kisser he was.

Someone you used to know once told you that sex was a tool, love was a poison; combining the two was a one-way ticket to death. All of which slipped your mind completely as you involuntarily began to rasp your hips against his.

Mark grunted so lowly that you were at the brink of succumbing to insanity right then and there.

It was like Mark existed solely to tease the living hell out of you. Being a thorn in your side was what he thrived on. He kept slithering his hand up your thigh, just shy of where you needed him, and you did not miss the smug little grin on his face when you groaned in complaint.

You pulled away from his lips and warned, “Don’t tease me.”

Predictably, Mark was not alarmed. Your threats were of little substance to him. “Dunno, doll. It’s kinda fun to watch you get all worked up.”

Deciding to take matters into your own hands, you grabbed Mark’s wrist and slipped it down your shorts. You made a tiny noise when his fingers brushed over your clothed cunt, then purred, “Feel that, baby? Could be all yours if you stopped playing games.”

And with that, Mark was sold.

The both of you ran suspiciously out of the bar. You willed yourselves not to touch each other in front of anyone’s prying eyes, but the way you rushed out said enough.

You decided on going to Mark’s place. There was nothing to hide at yours because you refused to bring work home with you, but your address was sensitive information. Sleeping with someone never prevented them from betraying you and nor did it invoke an unbendable bond to be broken in the first place.

But the moment you stepped inside Mark’s apartment, it was game over. You couldn’t stay away from one another, stumbling over his belongings as you made out while stripping along the way to his bedroom and leaving a trail of clothes in your wake.

You wondered exactly how long this desire had been pent up. Maybe you suppressed it out of priority for your jobs, but it had expanded into something unignorable now. The tiny sparks became a full-fledged forest fire.

Mark pushed your naked figure against his mattress and gave your now-naked body a once-over. “I never realized how many tattoos you have,” he rasped.

There was also a huge scar on your stomach. He had caught glimpses of it during your fight, but the full sight made him curious. Alas, now wasn’t the time to ask questions.

“Mm,” you hummed, stifling a giggle. “If you do a good enough job, I might tell you the stories behind them.”

“Then, I hope you’re ready to talk,” he said confidently.

You arched a brow. “You talk a big game, but aren’t showing me what you’re made of.”

Mark gripped your thighs apart and at the sight of your dripping cunt, he growled, “Just watch. You’re going to be a mess by the time I’m done with you.”

Before you could offer another retort, Mark pushed his head between your legs and began to have at it.

A little sigh eased past your throat when you felt his tongue lap at your folds. His mouth was warm against the flesh, heat spreading in waves throughout your body and core. You willed yourself to keep your reactions to a minimum, not wanting to give Mark the satisfaction of seeing you at your very worst.

Eyeing him from the bed, you basked in the sight of him devouring you like a five-star meal. Your arms were propped by his pillows very comfortably. You watched him swallow you whole, his veins becoming taut as his grip on your upper legs became ruthless and his wavy red hair tickled your plush thighs.

You were in heaven, needlessly to say. Mark sucked at you without a shred of mercy. No matter how much you liked a boy, you never tended to keep your expectations as high as your standards when it came to bedroom performance and going down on you, but Mark was full of surprises. True to his word, you were somewhat certain that at this rate, you would be a mess by the time that he was finished with you.

“Fuck,” you mewled when he started to lick and suck at your clit.

Mark smirked against your folds. He was going to be the death of you.

Each of your attempts to remain quiet were defiled by your more than loud moans, though you couldn’t bring yourself to be bothered. It was as if Mark knew exactly how to push your buttons (and which buttons to press).

Meanwhile, Mark’s mind was ablaze with thoughts of you. The sight of your body would be indefinitely etched behind his eyelids. Your intricate tattoos that told various tales across your perfect skin, and your plush thighs that tensed whenever he brushed your clit.

You could feel your pulse throbbing in your core. Your thighs trembled, your hips involuntarily moving against Mark’s mouth to derive as much pleasure as possible. It seemed desperate, but you were reduced to fire and bones in no time at all. All you knew how to do was ravage everything in your course to feed your flame. And Mark was hellbent on ravaging you.

You clutched Mark’s hair and cried out, “Mark.”

He seemed to rejoice in how utterly responsive and reactive you’d become, unable to defy your body’s demanding urges. It was impossible. And your reactions only fed him, spurring him on to milk you completely dry.

You swore you felt nothing but sheer thrill. It was comparable to the high you received from racing. The way nothing else mattered, and all your focus was so centered on one particular thing that you couldn’t think of anything else. You were enticed by danger and entrusting Mark with power over your body was a great enough threat.

Mark was way too attracted to everything about you. Tasting you and watching you lose your grip of control on his tongue only amplified that allure with the addition of arousal. To hell with his job if it meant that he could spend one more moment with you in his mouth.

Maybe he was attracted to danger, too. You and danger tended to go hand in hand, but so did danger and his lifestyle. There was a reason why he wasn’t afraid of you.

“Just like that, baby. Oh my god,” you moaned, angling your head back. For the sake of your pride, you tried to desperately cling to whatever remained of your sanity, but Mark was resolved on unraveling you.

Your sounds became louder and Mark discerned that you were on the verge of release. If you hadn’t awakened his neighbors when you gave his door hell earlier, they were certainly now contemplating filing noise complaints.

Mark separated himself from you ever so briefly and growled, “Come on, doll. Do it for me.”

The little pet name never invoked much thought from you. You assumed he wanted compensation for the nickname you’d dropped on him, and thus let it slide. But in that moment, it made you weak - and you loathed pet names.

This was going to bring it home. Every nerve in your body was tense and uptight. Your fingers and toes tingled with the threat of release, heat spasming in your core and the palms of your hands.

You climaxed in a fit of unadulterated pleasure, tightening your grip on Mark’s red locks and convulsing by reflex. You practically curled in on yourself, every bit of you clenching emptily as fervor shot through your body. Mark didn’t grant you the mercy of letting you ease through your climax, unrelenting as he continued to suck and lick at your pussy ruthlessly.

Mark brought you to a second orgasm in half the amount of time it took to achieve the first one, and only then did he crawl away and let you breathe. You heaved shallow breaths, blinking through the rise and fall of your chest. Never had you felt anything so intensely. You were milked completely dry.

Mark didn’t comment, but his words were heavy through the signature glimmer in his eyes. And smile tugging the corners of his lips. “So, am I getting that bedtime story?”

You replied through heavy breaths, “Take your pick.”

He snickered.

Mark licked his lips and thus your arousal from his mouth. You shot up and straddled him, wasting little time in sucking at his neck. Mark shook his head. “Jesus, woman. Do you rest?”

Stifling a laugh, you purred, “I regenerate quickly.”

That didn’t surprise Mark in the slightest. He could have guessed. “Good to know.”

Pressing kisses to his neck, you began to rock against his hips, feeling his hard cock through the confines of his underwear. You anchored yourself on his shoulders and teased, “Shouldn’t we do something about this problem of yours?”

Mark angled his head back. “Fuck, yeah,” he groaned.

You pushed his chest down in a successful attempt to knock him backwards and his back met the mattress. But the kisses never ended, and you found it nearly impossible to tear yourself from his skin. Until you felt him involuntarily thrust against your hips, needy.

“Patience,” you sang. Granted, you didn’t have much of your own, either. The way he brought you to another world and back only moments ago had you desperate to recreate the feeling.

You lifted your purse off of the nightstand not too out of reach from you and retrieved a condom. For good reason, you figured Mark wouldn’t have any.

Mark cocked a brow. “You keep those on you?”

Of course, you did. You preferred to be safe over sorry. Not to mention that your hookup who shall not be named tended to forget them. Deliberately. You subconsciously smirked. “Mind the business that pays you,” you murmured, dragging his underwear down his ankles. And fitting the condom over the head of his cock.

You and Mark let out a simultaneous noise of bliss as you rolled onto him. His hands found purchase at your hips while yours pressed featherly against his stomach. You took him inch by inch, leisurely making your way down as your cunt opted to easily swallow him whole.

Mark nearly lost his mind being engulfed by your heat. His fingertips dug almost painfully into your waist for mental anchor, supporting himself with all his might. For goodness sake, you were so tight. It didn’t help that you still leaked with arousal from your previous two orgasms, even more sensitive from them. The moment you were snug around his cock, he felt you clench.

“Mm, Mark,” you moaned, rocking against him at your own pace. You took the lead, following your own rhythm and Mark didn’t have it in him to stop you. Hell, not that he wanted to.

This was, for lack of a better word, a very bad idea. But neither of you seemed to care. It felt forbidden - doing as much as even thinking about each other so lecherously, but that was half the fun. Neither of you could restrain the lascivious thoughts that ran rampant through your minds when you caught a glimpse of your naked bodies or heard a lewd noise.

The other half, of course, was the actual fucking.

And when Mark heard you call out his name, it took all his willpower to not finish himself right then and there. Not Markie - Mark. He steered dangerously close to release at the mere sound of your honey-like voice.

Mark found it in himself to tease, “Enjoying yourself up there?”

“Like a queen on her throne,” you retorted.

He certainly made you feel like royalty, that was for sure. You felt worshiped by his tongue. Now, you were at reign over his body. And all Mark could do was lie there and behold you as if you were a royal immortal deity.

There was a moment that passed where he considered throwing it all away for you without a second thought. You were a lethal weapon of temptation; that Mark knew, yet he was disposed to capitulate to you. As if you’d lulled him into a fatal trance with the very grace of your body alone.

Though your every move was unpredictable, Mark didn’t know what to expect when you leaned closely to his neck. But it certainly wasn’t for you to bite at the skin. He let out an embarrassing whine at the feeling of your teeth leaving marks and tiny remnants of you on his throat.

You arched a brow. Then, teased, “Whine for me again, Mark.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled.

Your lips brushed ever so gently against his and you tauntingly whispered, “Make. Me.”

As aforementioned, Mark was comprised of surprises. His hands rose from your waist to your bouncing tits and he thrusted up, achieving a whimper of surprise from you.

He smirked at the way your face tensed with pleasure and your fingers grasped his biceps for dear life. “Holy fuck,” you cried, clinging to him as if you’d sink into the pits of the earth otherwise. He kept fucking you from below, watching you intently as he admired his handiwork with complacency.

He sneered, “Whine for me again, doll.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you hissed.

Mark snickered. Now where had he heard that before?

The softest of moans parted your lips as Mark fondled with your breast and his hands eventually rose, fingers clawing around your throat. He missed seeing that look in your eyes. The one of air depleting itself from your lungs and the blood circulation ceasing to flow and the pleasure sparkling a tiny gleam.

You satisfied his urges, face blanching the longer he held his grip. And the tighter. Mark very much could have done as he pleased with you, but you knew he’d never let this go too far. Just enough to have you at the verge of blacking out.

Although you were remotely dizzy when he released you from his clutch, you liked it. You never quite noticed it before, but there was a fiery gleam in Mark’s eyes when he choked you. Something sinister. There was an animal in him that had gone dormant for far too long and you’d finally aroused the beast.

And you were the only one to date that had seen it and didn’t flee.

The two of you were dangerously close to climax. With how close in proximity your bodies were - combined by every thrust and grind - there was no way on earth either of you couldn’t tell. You began to rasp your hips against his cock in a vigorously synchronized motion, desperate for the heat of the friction that made you tingle. Piece by piece, you were breaking into rupture.

Mark was no better. Just looking at you had him dangling over the edge. Dangerously. It would only take one little slip before he fell depthlessly into a pit of you that seemingly had no top and no bottom. Just you, only you.

“Let go for me, doll,” Mark ordered softly, trying to coax you into an orgasm. “You’ve been doing so good for me.”

His mouth and hands knew no boundaries when it came to your body. They roamed you, his tongue slithering around your nipple and his hands roughly finding purchase on your ass. You were also very sensitive in areas where your tattoos lived, he learned, and used that knowledge to his advantage. Mark was single-handedly going to destroy you.

“Let go,” he sang again, gentle and tempting.

You began to tighten around him involuntarily. It was coming. “I’m…”

Mark held you firmly. “Cum for me, baby. I’ve got you.”

You saw stars when you came for the third time, orgasm hitting you in full force. It was nothing short of intense. You clamped around Mark, walls tight around him as well as your grip on his biceps. Your thighs shuddered with climax, and a shrill cry erupted from your lips.

Mark grunted, “Fuck.” The feeling of you pulsing around him undoubtedly sent him down a similar fate. His hands fell to your hips and held them to the point of bruising.

After you rode out the rest of your high, you slacked. You lied against his warm chest, feeling him breathe rapidly as you desperately clung to your own breath.

“Do you feel okay?”

“I feel great,” you heaved. “Do you wanna stop?”

Mark faintly smiled at how much endurance you had. “Nope.”

You rode Mark until sunrise.

When both of you roused again, the clock had already ticked past noon. You made room for another, much lazier round, and settled for brunch instead of breakfast.

Then you split and went your own separate ways. You waltzed straight into Bloodlust’s headquarters. Given you were channeling all of your focus into this Mark mission, your schedule was indefinitely clear of all else. Which left you with leeway to choose someone to vex.

You stepped into Yuta’s office without knocking, yet before you could get a word out, he barked, “Did you come here to tell me that you’re sleeping with the enemy?”

Blinking, you resisted a frown. And said nonchalantly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Lying to a high-rank. Wrong move. And also impossible to get away with.

Yuta shook his head, scowling. “Jisung said that he saw you both running out of The Lion’s Den. Disorderly. And something told him it wasn’t because of a fight.”

Park Jisung, when I get my hands on you, you bristled inwardly. You never did get along with that boy. On more than one occasion, you had to be separated so that you wouldn’t kill each other.

You rolled your eyes and sat across from your boss. With light humor, you replied, “Please. If anything, I have Mark right where I want him.”

“Don’t walk into a trap,” Yuta warned.

Traps were laid by people like you, not the opposite. You were many things and stupid was not one of them. Just another casualty, you told yourself. That’s all Mark was. You refused to allow him to become anything more. “If you’re done, I have something. Mark thought that I was your girlfriend - what if that’s the connection? He’s using me to get to you.”

“That’s possible,” Yuta sobered. “But he would have to know that you wouldn’t snitch on your lover. I’d kill both you and him with my bare hands.”

“Terrifying,” you deadpanned. “Has Ten or Jaemin been able to get in?”

Yuta gave a shake of his head and drawled, “Nope. They’ve got that unit on lock. Apparently drugs are super sensitive information.”

Blowing out a breath, you turned pensive. They were hiding something, obviously. You were half-tempted to march up to Mark and demand he tell you everything he knew, but it was too risky of a move. Though it wasn’t like he had gotten many leads through you, and there had to be something keeping him joined at your hip.

But what?

At first, you considered that maybe you’d given away more than you realized, yet nothing you told him was incriminating enough to arrest anyone with a drug trafficking charge. Hell, if that was the case, Jisung would have led you all to demise already.

“I can hear your gears turning. Stop thinking,” Yuta quipped, steering you out of your reverie. He could never stay mad at you - or serious - for very long. “Listen, babe. Just keep him at bay. If we make no progress, we’ll bring out the extremes. Everything will be perfectly fine.”

You nodded. “Perfectly fine,” you repeated.

Everything was not perfectly fline.

During the past couple of weeks, things had taken a sharp turn between you and Mark. You intended to leave him for dead after that first hookup, yet the more time you spent together, the more each of you burned with lust.

And so it happened again. And again. And you lost track of how many times you’d slipped away to fuck Mark and suck on his tongue.

Of course, the quality of the sex never declined. You were both pleased and enraged at the fact that Mark had range. Every time you both hooked up, the only thing that stayed consistent was the want that shot through your core. For fuck’s sake, he just had to be a man of variety.

In a nutshell, you were completely fucked.

There was an event at the gang’s casino and you snagged Mark as your date. As if anyone else would risk it. You were the only one crazy enough to personally involve yourself with a cop.

Which, you tried to erase from your memory. There would come a day where he’d try to send you away in cuffs. And you’d have to kill him before he got the chance.

You shivered at the thought.

“You clean up nice,” you commented when you came to pick him up.

Mark was dressed very pleasantly. The red hair was a stark contrast to the fancy black suit and trousers he sported, though given the semi formal occasion, he abandoned the frivolous style and opted for a neater hairdo. You were approximately three seconds away from forgetting about the goddamn casino altogether.

Similarly, you wore a red gown that flowed down your legs, hair styled elegantly and your face beat. Casinos were very much not your scene, and underneath the dress you kept an armed and poised gun resting ungrudgingly inside of the leather holster at your thigh.

“Thank you, m’lady. You’re very beautiful,” Mark replied, taking hold of your fingers and kissing the back of your hand gently.

You grinned. Then began to snicker when you noticed your heels gave you a couple more inches of height on him.

Mark cocked a brow. “What’cha laughing at?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Obviously, Mark didn’t believe you in the slightest. Though he said nothing, instead leading you to the elevator. “I’m driving,” he told you, leaving absolutely no room for argument.

You furrowed your brows when you saw your keys in his palm. “When the hell did you get those?”

Mark grinned smugly and jiggled the keys. “You should pay more attention.”

You were absolutely affronted. There was no way in hell Mark Lee had caught you off-guard. You folded your arms across your chest and Mark snickered, then pressed a little kiss to your neck to placate you.

As you slipped out of the elevator and into the lobby, you quipped, “Make sure to drive the speed limit and not the speedometer limit.”

Mark opened the door for you, yet retaliated, “You’d know a lot about driving over the speed limit, wouldn’t you?”

“Shush,” you mumbled, fighting a smile.

“I believe the correct answer is ‘Thank you, gentleman.’”

You hardly leaned off of your heels when you swayed towards Mark, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips and purring, “Thank you, gentleman.”

Mark clamped his arm around your waist and said, “Much better.”

There was a grand casino connected to the hotel that the gang owned. They never invested in anything unprofitable. The building was sky-scraping and vivid in the dimming indigo night, its gold exterior oriented to attract the attention of men and women of means. Courtesy of the supplementing hotel, it had valet parking.

As expected, the sight was nothing short of breathtaking. A large glimmering chandelier hung at the front entrance. There were even tinier ones the further you voyaged across the long red carpet, hanging on the sunken ceiling. You were surrounded by tall pillars and arrays of staircases and even the air felt different inside the casino. It was more or less a very marvelous labyrinth of money.

Mark whistled. “Snazzy. You know what this reminds me of?”

“What?”

“Vegas, baby. Vegas!”

You narrowed your eyes. You didn’t want to know what his Letterboxd account looked like. Or introduce him to one, for that matter. Leaning into his chest, you asked, “Ever been?”

“Once. It’s very beautiful.” Just like you, he was tempted to add, but he didn’t want to come off cheesy. “I should take you there one day.”

Mark was a little too good at toying with your heart for your liking. Both of you knew very well that a future with you together did not exist.

And yet your mind blinked with images of you and Mark in Las Vegas. Him showing you around the sin city. Wandering the streets in each other’s arms, laughing and marveling at its beauty with heartfelt awe. You saw his dumb face and his stupid smile and knew that you were over.

After a bit of walking, the two of you finally found yourselves amongst the rest of the gang. The occasion was nothing special; for the most part, they were discussing deals with other groups and further things you didn’t get paid enough to be concerned about. You saw Qian Kun and knew to make a run for it. He saw everything from a business perspective, which was great for the gang - and your paycheck - but agonizingly boring.

And then, you ran into Park Jisung and instantly knew that you should have stayed home.

Sternly, you greeted, “Jisung.”

“You,” Jisung icily greeted, less than pleased to see you.

“I have a name, you know,” you reminded with a scowl.

Jisung didn’t hesitate and shot, “And I’d rather not stain my tongue by saying it.”

“You son of a…”

Mark growled in your ear, “Behave.”

Jisung raised his brow when you switched on a dime and rather quickly composed yourself. Where was this guy when he was having a heated quarrel with you for the umpteenth time? Shutting you up on command? He doubted even Yuta had that kind of power over you.

Worst of all, he didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.

“I have to speak with her,” Jisung said, refusing to say your name. Then added, “Alone.”

Mark angled towards you. “Will you be okay?”

Absolutely not. The last time you had a one on one conversation with Jisung, one of you nearly died. It was certainly not a great idea to leave you alone together.

But something told you to nod.

Mark, skeptical, pressed, “You’re going to be good, right?”

“Very classy,” you retorted, despite wanting to be literally anywhere else. You hoped whatever Jisung had to say was of significant value. For him to willingly speak to you, it had to be life-threatening. “I’m going to have a civil conversation with my peer like the two adults that we are.”

“Okay,” Mark replied with scrunched brows, still hesitant. “I’ll be over there with Jeno.”

Throwing both you and your less than lovely coworker another glance, Mark parted and left you to fend for yourself.

As soon as Mark was a safe distance away, Jisung immediately said, “I wouldn’t trust him if I were you.”

Your face immediately puzzled. “What makes you think I trust him?”

Jisung laughed in your face. “Are you for real? For one, you’re fucking. Don’t deny it because I saw you running out of The Lion’s Den, and I know what people who eagerly want to fuck each other look like. I see the way you look at him.”

“Are you worried about me, Jisung?” you quipped. You refused to pay any heed to what he was insinuating. Let alone accept it.

Jisung scoffed, “No. I’m worried about you jeopardizing the future of this gang.”

“That’s rich,” you said, crossing your arms. And trying to identify the cleanest way to insult him. “It wouldn’t be a singlehanded error. You’re literally incriminating us by having him under the drug branch in the first place. You guys let two cops in and didn’t even notice. The only words I should be hearing from you are ‘thank you.’”

“Stop. You’re deflecting, as usual,” he sighed. “Just like the brat mouth you are.”

Instead of giving him a seething response, you gritted your teeth. And bit your tongue. Literally. At some point, you decided he was no longer worth your wasted breath.

Which Jisung noticed and added, “See? I can tell he has a heavy grip on you. This is the first time you’ve ever held your tongue talking to me.”

You had an argument ready to fire, but stopped dead in your tracks when you realized that he was right. Why hadn’t you told Jisung off in vulgar terms yet?

No. It didn’t mean a thing. There was absolutely nothing to it other than you coming to your senses and realizing that bickering with Jisung was - and always had been - utterly pointless. He was obstinate and even after hours of debate, you wouldn’t be anywhere much further than where you started.

Never had you answered to anyone. In spite of working for other people, they knew that you marched to beat of your own drum. There were some traits of yours that were nonnegotiable and they’d either have to accept it or cut you loose.

Ever since you were an infant, you’d carried a reputation. Hell, maybe even before then. You had been called many things in such a short lifetime and an untamable lost cause was likely the least hurtful of them all. Nobody ever believed that anyone as wild as you could be salvaged from the destruction you’d inflicted upon yourself. And hence you began to believe it yourself.

This was the only life that you’d known. It was one where you had no option but to fend for yourself and isolate yourself from the world out of self-preservation. How the hell were you supposed to know how to react to someone sneaking their way inside and making you see life through a different lense?

You had seen so much in your years that you falsely believed that you were numb to fear. But you had never been so scared of something before; change.

You forced yourself to say, “Have a good night, Jisung.” And made a beeline for Mark. The walls of the enormous building were suddenly beginning to close in on you and you felt as if there was no air in a room full of space.

“I need a breather,” you said to Mark, interrupting his conversation.

Mark gave Jeno a glance, then took your fingers in his and asked, “Where to?”

“The rooftop,” you replied lightly, feeling drained and you’d only just got here.

The two of you stopped by the bar and downed a glass of hard liquor before you made your way to the rooftop. There was an elevator with calming music that brought you to the very top of the building.

You decided that you preferred the rooftop as soon as you stepped onto the terrace. It was lit by purple neon lights and void of people, and the air felt fresh and inhalable. Like a breath of fresh air. There were sofas with tiny tables crammed in between scattered about the floor and even further were glass railings that overlooked the entire shining city.

Even at night, the city was never dead, busy with bustling roads and brightly lit structures. You were certain that that was when it came to life.

Mark embraced you in a back hug and you swore time slowed down. But did your heart always beat this fast when he touched you?

“Talk to me,” Mark exhaled, breathing tickling the back of your neck.

You let his touch warm you. It was a great contrast against the chill breeze that swept over the roof at this elevation. “About what?”

“Anything. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

I like you, you said to yourself. And I’m scared because I don’t know what to do.

You shook your head. “How about I kiss you instead?”

“You could have just said that you want to kiss me,” Mark murmured.

Lightheartedly, you admitted, “I want to kiss you so bad, Mark Lee.”

Mark laughed and whirled you around, pinning you against the nearby wall and meeting his lips to yours. It all happened so fast - just like everything else between you two. Everything lasted both for a second and in perpetuity.

He kissed you until you were stripped bare and empty of every last thought. It felt like magic. How he gained the remedy to instantly put you at ease was a mystery, but you didn’t wonder. You just kept sipping from his poison and inhaling the toxins. There was no hope for you anymore. Mark was withering you away and you were simply letting him.

This was wrong on so many levels and yet you never let that stop you. There were no boundaries. You both took what you wanted and you took what you needed without giving any fucks about who didn’t like it. Desperately did you want to believe that nothing would come between you two.

You bit Mark’s lip and he groaned, nails digging into your waist. Which then prompted a tiny noise to part from your own lips. You were a parallel set of actions. It was strange; you didn’t fight for superiority, you fought to be even and equal.

There was something different in the kiss after you bit Mark. As if he’d been injected with an animalistic venom. The tempo increased and you fought to keep up with his every move, moaning into his lips as his tongue let loose inside of your mouth. His grip got even tighter, as if he was holding you to keep you to himself and himself only. There was no where else that you would run. As ironic as it was, you felt safest in Mark’s arms. He was the haven you never had.

Then, you heard a noise. You discerned that Mark heard it too, because he pulled away instantly and caged you behind him defensively. And your heart warmed at the gesture, though you needed no savior.

You sighed and pulled your gun from your holster, calling out, “You’ve got until the count of five to come out because if I have to find you my goddamn self, I’ll blow your brains. One. Two. Three…,”

At the third count, Jeno emerged from behind one of the chairs, gun drawn.

You began to snicker and waved him off. “Oh, put that damn thing down. Hit the road, Jack. And don’t let me catch you again.”

Jeno begrudgingly made a move for the door, not failing to cast you an ugly glare before his glance shifted to Mark, who started at his partner bemusedly. He left without a word.

You glanced up at Mark. “Why was your friend spying on us?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Mark said, tone full of genuine perplexity.

You furrowed your brows. If Jeno was spying on you and Mark without either of your knowledge, what did that mean?

Maybe he didn’t know what was happening between you and Mark.

With a shake of your head, you grabbed Mark’s hand and led him to the glass railing. And he followed you like a moth to light. You propped your arms against the cool glass and called out, “Mark.”

“Hm?” came Mark’s response from right beside you.

You reluctantly tasted the words on your tongue before you asked, “What was your childhood like?”

“I was born under a bridge,” Mark deadpanned. To which you snorted and nudged his side. “But nah. I didn’t have much growing up. My mom got hooked on drugs real bad and she couldn’t take care of me and my brothers, so we moved in with our aunt. She did the best she could to make ends meet, but you know how that shit works. Whole time, my cousin was on the streets. Made a gang. I followed in his footsteps close enough.”

“What happened for you to wind up here?” you asked, listening with interest.

Mark’s face was impassive. “He’d kill me if he saw me right now.”

As vague as that answer was, you understood perfectly.

There was irony in his story. He was a gang member, then became a cop? Though you were aware that he could have legally lied to you as much as he so pleased, you believed that he was sincere. You learned by now that Mark’s eyes said more than his words ever could.

“What about you?” Mark asked. He wasn’t looking at you, eyes trained to the big city before him, but you knew his ears were ready. “How’d you get here?”

“Fasten your seatbelt,” you joked. Mark had already heard bits and pieces of your life via the stories of some of your tattoos, but this was full screen. “I think I’ve been a demon from hell before I even walked the earth. According to what I’ve heard, my family was against my mother having me. There was a huge stigma that came with having a baby at a young age and without a present father figure. She died during the delivery.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark said sullenly.

You shook your head and continued, “Water under the bridge. It doesn’t get better. I’ve been called a killer since the day I was born. It only made sense that I became one. They said that’s all I was, so I ran and turned to the streets and found a new home. I was in and out of gangs and had several sketchy jobs.”

Mark bobbed his head, listening intently.

“There was one gang I thought I would last in. The one I was in before I joined Bloodlust. I even dated one of the members, but he got violent on me one day. I killed him out of self defense. And I got scared, because I knew I couldn’t come back to the gang after that. The leader would kill me.”

“Is that when you joined Bloodlust?”

You bobbed your head. “Remember when I told you that I’m forever indebted to Yuta? That’s because he saved my life. Took me under his wing and gave me another job and somewhere safe to stay. That’s why we’re so close.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mark said, taking it all in. “You’ve been through hell and back.”

“You’re telling me,” you groaned.

Peace was not a word of any value to you. You’d never known what it felt like. The only thing you knew was survival. It was kill or be killed; hunt or be hunted. Life, in your definition, was a series of bad options and choosing the one that was the least loathsome.

After all, you did what you could to live another day. It was never easy, but you learned everything you knew about survival through those everyday choices. You fought for your life every goddamn day and knew nothing different.

It was a battle of strength that required all of your willpower to not succumb.

You blinked when Mark pulled you into a hug. He enjoyed talking to you. Life as either of you’d known it was a bitch, but getting to know you and all you’d been through brought you closer. And all he wanted to do was hold you underneath the moonlight and ease the pain of your scars.

For the most part, the inner circle knew your history, though not from an emotional perspective. The only people you’d ever given an emotional account to were Yuta and now Mark. Yuta was firm on assuring you that yesterday would no longer matter if you worked for him, but Mark made you feel less alone.

Mark was clawing you out of your armor and defenses. You were stripped bare and vulnerable. There was still so much left unseen and for you to explore in this life.

The two of you chatted the night away below the depthlessly starry sky and above the bustling city. You talked about everything under the sun and moon while being sure to share a kiss or two in between. It made you realize that in such a large world, you and Mark were simply two people with a story to share.

But as the time ticked away, the kisses became more frequent and more passionate. You became less interested in the casino and more enamored with Mark. Somewhere along the line your self-restraint snapped into two, and you found yourselves calling it a night and reserving a room at the hotel.

It wasn’t any less lavish than the casino. Especially not the suite you booked. There was a hot tub in the room and a balcony extended out the side with yet another picturesque view of the city.

Plus, it was a one-bedroom with a single bed.

Mark sat at the edge of the mattress and you wasted no time in straddling his lap and meeting your lips to his. It felt like an adventure. The wild and reckless and lethal type.

You could savor him on you even after. And it was the burning longing to taste Mark again that ultimately brought you three steps forwards and two steps back.

Mark pulled away, guilt-ridden, and reminded, “I’m a cop.”

He didn’t know how he expected you to respond, but you didn’t flinch. Like you already knew and you couldn’t care less. You offhandedly replied, “I know,” and endeavored to kiss him again.

Mark held you in place. His expression turned stern and you blew out an exasperated sigh. You were lightyears away from being ready to have this conversation. “So, you’re sleeping with the enemy.”

“I know. But so are you.”

“I know,” Mark said. Lord, did he know.

“Then,” you began, moving for his neck instead and uttering your words in between tiny pecks and nibbles. “We have nothing to talk about.”

Mark angled your bodies and pinned you down - as if that would stop you - and countered, “We have a lot to talk about.”

Frustrated, you incredulously groaned, “You want to talk about how I’m gonna have to put a round of bullets in your brain in the near future while I’m trying to fuck you?”

Mark scoffed, “You mean, I’m gonna have to hand you in cuffs to the police.”

“I’d like to see you try,” you taunted. It would have been in your best interest to be very careful about what you wished for, though you knew Mark would never. You refused to believe that.

Mark shook his head, laughing. As if he’d read your mind and wholeheartedly agreed that the thought was absurd. “You know I’m crazy about you, right?”

“Prove it.”

Mark leaned down to kiss you for a half of a second, then whispered in your ear, “I will.”

Then, he switched on a dime, and all of the heat and passion of his desire overcame him again.

You were fucking with a Leo; you should have known that you were in for the most wild ride of your life.

Void of patience, Mark clawed at your clothes roughly. You had the whole night, but he stripped you away as if you had only minutes to spare. The whole time, your lips locked in an impassioned kiss as you tried intensely to keep up with the other’s rhythm.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Mark growled. He spoke his mind. It was the first thing he thought every time he laid eyes on you.

The tone of his voice had you seeping with arousal, and to hide your desperation, you flirted, “Fuck me then, handsome.”

Mark grunted. He couldn’t wait anymore. “Do you have a condom?”

“Yes, but I have an IUD,” you added, hoping he’d catch your drift.

Mark blinked in realization. “Fuck. You want me to…”

“Yes,” you groaned, growing more impatient by the minute. “You’re clean, right?”

“Squeaky.”

“Then, hurry up.”

So much for not seeming desperate.

Mark shed his remaining layers of clothing and you licked your lips at the sight of his cock standing at full height against his stomach. Making out with you always got him hard like nothing else on this planet.

You eyed his movements with anticipation. Your body was burning for him to fill the void that he’d created. Like you weren’t complete until he was buried deeply inside you.

Your heart sped as he neared your hole. Mark was nothing if not a tease. He damped himself in your arousal and only pushed in when he heard you whimper, smiling smugly to himself. The first thrust was agonizingly slow. Mark took his sweet time to fit his cock into you, watching your face twist and your breath slow as you took him inch by inch.

There was something about the first thrust that was inexplicably magical to you. Being filled to the hilt with thick heat for the very first time. You held your breath every time.

Then, Mark pulled back out altogether and on cue, you let out an immediate noise of displeasure. “Mark…”

The man in question was firm on reducing you to ash and bones. “Beg,” he growled, leaning low into your ear.

You laughed. As if to tell him he sounded insane. “I don’t beg.”

Mark didn’t blink when he told you, “You do today.” His face was void of all humor and he glanced at you expectantly. He dragged his length on top of your pussy, steering just shy of where you needed him. And it was very intentional.

God, did you try to resist, but Mark had grown familiar with your weaknesses in such a short span of time. Every bone in your body ached for him to fill you. To make you complete once more. It begged to be unabridged and tell him your body’s every secret story. And your pride was a fair compensation.

You stifled a groan and said faintly, “Please.”

“C’mon, doll. You can do better than that,” Mark chided playfully, evidently dissatisfied.

You exhaled a sigh and inhaled your pride. “Please, fuck me, Mark. I can’t wait anymore. I need you.”

Mark teased, “Now, was that so hard?” And before you could provide any commentary, he was burying himself inside you yet again.

It wasn’t very long before you were content again. You let out a sigh of relief when Mark filled you once more, and another when he thrusted out and pushed back inside. His rough hands gripped your hips and he watched the way your cunt swallowed him whole, as if you simply couldn’t get enough of him.

Fuck, you felt like heaven. The way you clamped around him - warm and wet and tight - always set off something animalistic inside of him, but bareback? There was no way in hell he would last.

Mark was only slow to tease you. The moment he exhausted his self-control, he set an uptempo pace. He eyed you like a preying hawk, thinking about how beautiful you were. It was an unshakable thought; you were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Eagerly taking his cock like you were made for it or not.

Everything felt so natural with Mark. Nothing was learned nor taught, it was simply second nature for your body to respond to him with ardency and abidance. It came naturally.

“You feel so good,” Mark groaned, giving your thigh a little slap as if to punish you for bringing him to ecstasy. And smirking a little when you let out a tiny cry. “Why do you feel so good?”

You playfully retorted, “‘Cause I’m a goddess.”

Mark nodded. “I believe you.” He brought one of his hands from your hips and ventured your perfect body. Perfect in his eyes. Every spot and curve and scar. And the bruises he’d left, of course. “My Aphrodite.”

You lifted your head a little to clench your teeth into his neck and Mark leaned into you, biting at your shoulder to smother his sounds. Which made you giggle. It always amused you that he was so sensitive to your every touch.

Gosh, you were so goddamn close; skin on skin. Fire wafted over your body, fueled by the flames of his sweltering skin. Sweat beaded at your skin and heat shot through every muscle of your body. The way Mark was pounding into you mercilessly only made you scorch even more. It was impossible to breathe and you loved it. There was no greater feeling than being suffocated by pleasure and arousal.

You locked eyes with Mark and swore you couldn’t feel your pulse. Missionary wasn’t something you did with Mark very often, but you loved to watch his face tense with pleasure. And making prolonged eye contact caused your heart to swell with something unfamiliar. Something vicious and strong that made your entire body ignite with warmth.

The sex was rough and fast, yet intimate. Mark was just the right amount of all three.

Mark loosely gripped your throat and growled, “Tell me you love it.”

You bowed your body into him, moaning, “I love it so much.”

That was the right answer. Mark continued to love you all over. His body never neglected any part of yours, showering you with warmth and pleasure. Like he had nothing but depthless appreciation for you.

The longer Mark fucked you, the less you could think of anything other than him. You forgot about the huge city right outside the balcony. Everyone and everything else melted away and it was only you and Mark chasing the satisfaction of each other’s bodies and love.

Love. You were beginning to accept it. There was nowhere to run and no escape; not when Mark was overwhelming you with heated fervor and passion. He was suffocating you with that forbidden four-letter word.

You were beginning to fall in love with Mark.

If love was a poison, you were sipping to your demise and savoring the taste on your tongue. If combining sex with love was a one-way ticket to death, you’d die in Mark’s arms. There was no place else you’d rather be.

“All mine,” Mark growled, pressing kisses down your collarbone and breast to your stomach. All you could feel were tingles that refused to vacate you. They’d found a new home.

Softly, you replied, “All yours.”

There was no arguing with that. The way your body responded to his touch, it was as if you were carefully crafted for Mark and Mark only. Which, the way he fit perfectly inside of you was a testament to.

Mark made you feel rupture and rapture. They were practically indistinguishable. He broke you into a billion tiny pieces that were held together by unfaltering desire.

Just listening to the mess that you’d both created set you ablaze. The wet, resounding clap of Mark slamming his hips into yours as well as your moans and heavy breaths filled the empty air. Your eyes rolled back at the lewd noises. “Mark, Mark,” you cried out his name, sensing you were only moments away from the edge.

Mark knew that you were close without asking and he was trailing right behind you by nearly nothing at all. His pace was vigorous, positively trying to fuck your brains out.

You only got closer and closer. His thrusts felt sharper and the pressure continued to build in your gut at a rate quicker than you could handle and far beyond your control. Any moment now, you would be at your breaking point.

“Don’t pull out,” you demanded, knowing he wasn’t far behind you. It was written all over his face.

Mark grunted at the mere thought of coming inside of you. Needless to say, he had dreamed of letting his release flood you. “Want me to fill you up?”

“Yes,” you moaned, craving him more than anything ever. “Please.”

Mark clamped his fingers around your throat, knowing it would bring you to finish quicker than anything else. “Let go for me, baby,” he said lustfully.

Just like that, you were convulsing with climax. As if he single-handedly controlled every muscle and nerve in your body. The room reeled as you came, voice as loud as it could be with his hand denying you the privilege of breath. Your nails dug harshly into the flesh of his back as your whole body shuddered uncontrollably with release.

You and Mark stared each other in the eyes as you both came. You watched his lips split in a grunt and his orgasm knocked the wind out of him, flaring down his spine. His fingers dug tighter around your throat and his cum filled you all at once. “Take it all,” he ordered, body coming to a halt. “Every last drop.”

Your body obeyed, still eagerly clinging around his cock. It was like you wanted to bleed each other dry. Him of all of his cum and you of your willpower.

Then, you slowly yet steadily both came to a stop. Mark took his precious time to pull out of you, but watched his seed trickle out of your sweet cunt with adoration. His grip around your neck slackened, and you both settled down to finally breathe for what felt like the first time ever.

It wasn’t like you to be so exhausted after a single round, but that night, you were completely spent. You cleaned up a little, then drifted into sleep within the comfort of Mark’s embrace.

Mark held your sleeping figure closely, taking all of your warmth and replacing it with his. I love you, he thought gently. And I’m sorry.

You fell asleep in Mark’s arms, and after a long night of dreaming about him in your sleep, woke up in them, too. And you had the biggest smile on your face when you realized that some time between when you fell asleep and when you woke up, Mark had removed your makeup.

You were beginning to love Mark so much that you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

Last night was mind-blowing. And not only that, it gave you an epiphany. You wanted Mark in your life. You wanted to wake up in his arms and feel his body on yours. You wanted to kiss him while cuddling beneath the moonlight. You wanted to take over the world with him.

But by doing so, you would have broken one of Bloodlust’s most important rules; disobeying direct orders. The cost? Your life.

All of the warmth of loving Mark you felt for him only moments ago suddenly dissipated into cold unadulterated fear.

You stared at his sleeping face and felt a tear slide down your face. I’m sorry.

Mark’s eyes fluttered open. He wiped your tears with his thumb and asked in his gruff morning voice, “Why are you crying?”

You smiled and shook your head. “It’s nothing,” you lied.

Though in reality, you were so overwhelmed. And borderline terrified. The last time you loved someone, they tried to violate you. Not to mention you knew the inner circle would never approve of your relationship with Mark.

If you didn’t kill him, then they would. And then you’d be next.

“Don’t lie to me,” Mark said. He could see that this whole predicament was doing a large number on you. Even the strongest soldiers had their weak points.

You sighed faintly. Then said, “I’ll tell you later.”

Mark’s hand found yours and squeezed it tightly. “Promise?”

“I promise.” You glanced at his neck, and failed to hide your grin of pride as you saw the pattern of marks you’d left there. Little traces of you flooded his whole body. As traces of him did yours. “Mm, did I do that?”

He shifted his glance down and snickered. “You did.”

You hummed. “I didn’t mean to go that far.”

“For some reason, I don’t believe you.”

You gasped in faux offense. Then, broke into a fit of giggles. The sight tugged at Mark’s heartstrings and the corners of his lips.

That smile was what made your heart beat. You brought your lips to Mark’s in a peck. Or three. Insatiably craving more, Mark held your face and kissed you even longer and harder.

One thing led to another. One second your lips were to his and the next he was lazily fucking you into pieces, moans echoing inside the room in between kisses and giggles.

You were so far gone that there was no redemption.

The weeks flew by at the speed of lightning and in no time at all, you were months deep into Mark. He gave you everything that the narcotics unit had on you thus far, and you were pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t much at all. They had most of the inner circle identified save for Jaemin (not surprisingly), but the relationships were either vague, inaccurate or a combination thereof.

The only reason Jaemin and Ten hadn’t cracked their unit open yet was because of the tight lock they had on all gang-related cases. And they kept their information on physical files. Granted, it was very scarce.

Begrudgingly, of course, you had to give Jisung credit there. Neither Mark or Jeno had caught a glimpse of those imported drugs before in their lives.

Given that you made no attempts to hide your affection, it was broadly known that there was a bond between both you and Mark. You played it off as baiting him; luring him into your trap in order to milk him for everything he knew. Your emotions were kept under wraps when he was the topic of discussion and you fought smiles whenever you heard someone say Mark’s name. They fell hook, line, and sinker.

“They had a hunch that you were Yuta’s girlfriend,” Mark had told you. Now that he was confidently aware that it wasn’t the case, he found it laughable. “I was supposed to use you to move in proximity with the inner circle. The best way to take down any organization is to remove the heart, but obviously I never got far.”

Apparently, their source of rationale were photographs of you and Yuta together discreetly taken. It was a lie you fed into, providing Mark fake intel to feed his dangerously nosy co-workers. As always, the less law enforcement knew, the better.

Your shoulders shook with laughter. “You used to be such a pain in the ass, y’know? I can’t believe you bugged me.”

Mark furrowed his brows. “Huh?”

“Didn’t you put a bug in my pocket?” you asked, arching your brows. “After the race. You know, when you hugged me?”

“My hands were on your back,” Mark reminded, confused. As were you. “That was probably Jeno. But he hasn’t mentioned anything to me about it. I never bugged you, baby - I genuinely just wanted a hug.”

You barked, “The hell is his problem with me? I mean, for an undercover cop he’s obvious as hell. Why send somebody with no prior experience to the danger zone?”

Mark shrugged. He had very little say on the matter. Not that he fought it, either. “They decided that he was ‘the second-most equipped.’ Verbatim.”

“I can’t imagine why. That night on the rooftop,” you trailed off, shaking your head. “I don’t think he trusts you.”

Mark laughed. That was to put it simply. “Yeah, me neither. I told him I was fooling around with you to gain your trust - and at first, I was. But not anymore.”

That went without saying. But you still retorted, “If you’re fucking with me, Mark, I’ll kill you.”

Mark snorted. “I’m sure.”

He wasn’t afraid of you. Like you were a puppy posing as a wolf waving your paws at him with puppy eyes. Mark, threatened by you? As if. You were his fucking baby.

Long nights of feeding Bloodlust intel on the narcotics unit, then coming home to Mark passed by. You’d eventually given him your address and permitted him to go inside. He quite liked your home. It looked and smelled like you. He never knew what to imagine when it came to the interior of your house, but upon seeing, it made perfect sense.

Pictures of you and your friends scattered around the house. None of you by yourself and none with your family. Little plants growing healthily. You mentioned that they were high-maintenance. Your favorite blankets in a heap on the sofa. And a bookshelf brimming with novels. Mark was pleasantly surprised to learn that you were a major bookworm. And a closeted romantic.

It was close to midnight when you heard someone behind you. Very swiftly, you were endeavoring to arrive safely to the garage where your car waited, though you knew that there was no chance of making it in one piece without confrontation. You turned a corner and patiently drew your gun; it wasn’t very often that you ventured into the night alone past sunset, but you damn sure made certain that your gun was tucked to yourself.

There was a familiar negative energy all around you. It was impossible to ignore - far too suffocating and too distinguishable to be neglected.

Not surprising in the slightest, it was Jeno who rounded the corner. With his usual scowl, and an aimed gun.

Narrowing your eyes, you snapped, “What do you want?”

Jeno smiled. It was the first time you’d seen his lips form anything other than a crooked frown, but it still exuded that same level of cold grimness. “I think you know what I want.”

You studied Jeno for a moment. For someone who believed you were the second-in-command’s girlfriend, he showed you no fear, grip on his gun firm as he aimed it squarely at your chest. Apparently, you were a woman that was loyal to no one but herself in the eyes of the law. Which made you all the more unpredictable. “I know that you’re not who you say you are,” you began levelly, inching closer. “I know everything there is to know about you, Jeno.”

“Because Mark told you, right?” Jeno snarled. “I know a lot about you, too - like how you’ve been whoring yourself out to Mark because you know that he’s easy. He was ripe for the picking and that’s why they stuck me with him; because they knew he needed grounding.”

That made you bristle with anger, but you kept a lid over your temper and retorted, “That sounds like a nice little fairy tale. Is that what you’re going to tell the big boss?”

Ignoring you, Jeno continued, “The world will know the truth about you and this whole gang. You’re more than the bitch they pay to secretly do their bidding. Before you were Scar, you were a gang-hopper.”

Seething, you lunged at Jeno with the gun. He blocked the attack - courtesy of your blindness from the rage that ran down your spine - and cocked his gun at you.

And then there was a loud, piercing gunshot.

But you were never shot. Jeno’s grip on his gun slackened and fell to the ground with him. He lay there gaping, a hand over his stomach that bled profusely. And glancing not at you; behind you. When you turned around, Mark emerged from the corner around you and stepped out of the shadows to approach you.

“You should be more careful,” Mark chided. “What if it wasn’t me behind you?”

Though you wanted to smile, you couldn’t. There was a tormenting question on your brain. How does Jeno know about my past?

“Mark,” Jeno choked out, nearly coughing up blood. He raised his arm with all of his strength and pointed with a trembling finger. “Mark is…,”

Mark didn’t let him finish, cutting Jeno off with a bullet to the head. Whatever he was going to say died with him.

Rather than feeling relieved, you were unnerved. Mark killed Jeno to protect you. Love made people do crazy things - that you knew better than anyone else, but Mark seemed colder than you’d ever seen him before. He didn’t waver; unhesitating and unremorseful.

As if this wasn’t his first rodeo.

“You never mentioned telling the team about my past.”

Mark cast you a glance. “That’s because I didn’t.”

You narrowed your eyes and whispered, “Then, how did Jeno know?”

Mark caught onto what you were hinting at and his face swiftly softened. There was no way in hell that he would do anything to hurt you. And he needed you to know that. “I never said a word about your past to him, baby. I swear. I don’t know how he found out, but you need to know that I’d never air out any of your business.”

There were other possibilities, too. Your past wasn’t exactly private - that you knew. He could have contacted your old friends, or heard the gossip of the low-ranks. Any of those roads were open, but it meant more if Mark himself exposed you. That was unacceptable.

You blew out a sigh and reminded yourself that Mark had been in gangs before - he most likely had bodies. As always, you were just paranoid. You believed that everyone was out to get you because the people that were meant to embrace you released you into the cold.

Hiding your gun, you pulled Mark into your embrace and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mark murmured. “Just tell me that you trust me.”

“I trust you,” you told him. No reluctance, no shame. And I love you.

You knew that Mark loved you too. In your heart and bones. He had killed for you.

You called someone to discard Jeno's corpse and went home with Mark. The two of you talked and fell asleep by each other’s side. It was more or less a routine.

But when you woke up, Mark wasn’t there. You called out his name; no response. You looked inside the bathroom and he wasn’t there. The living room, kitchen, and all of his favorite spots inside your house were almost void of life.

Mark wasn’t there and it was downright laughable that that frightened you to your very core, but he never left without telling you. You scanned your memories of last night for any warning and ultimately came short.

It wasn’t the first time that you’d woken up alone, but more often than not, you woke up in each other’s arms. Occasionally, one of you would be in the bathroom or kitchen, but you never left the house without mentioning it the night before or leaving some form of text or note.

Though when you checked your phone, it was empty.

And so, you began to do the one thing you very seldom did; panic. There was no indication that Mark had been forced out of your house, but the depthless list of possibilities unnerved you. You prayed that he was somewhere safe. That at most, maybe he’d simply forgotten. You would have scolded him for getting you wound up over nothing, but at least he would be out of harm’s way.

There was a knock at your front door and hoping it was Mark, you rushed to open it, but you frowned when you were met with the face of a man that you’d never seen before.

The stranger said, “Hi. I’m Huang Renjun and I know you don’t know me, but you’ve got to get the fuck out of here. Right now.”

You blinked. Then, shut the door on him. It was too goddamn early for this foolishness.

Undeterred, Renjun opened the door again and welcomed himself inside. This town wasn’t big enough for two stubborn assholes.

You screeched, “The hell, man?”

Renjun exclaimed, “Do you want to die?”

“I literally do not know who the fuck you are!”

“Yes. I thought I made that very clear,” Renjun hissed, gritting his teeth. “But you do know Alexander Lee.”

In an instant, you were rendered gorgonized like a gargoyle. That name never failed to put you in a borderline unresponsive stupor. Anything regarding Alexander “Lex” Lee plagued your heart and body with crisp fear.

“I don’t want anything that has to do with Lex,” you replied, shaking your head and backing away.

This game of hide-and-seek had kept you on your toes for ages now. You’d spent the last years of your life off the grid to take cover from him and now this? Hell no.

Renjun briefly studied you. For someone rumored to have looked death in the face and blown him a kiss, it was not at all lost on him how terrified you’d suddenly become at the mere mention of Lex’s name. It was a warranted fear - the one that made you tick. “I’m sure. But if you don’t leave this place as soon as possible, he’s going to kill you.”

“And I’m supposed to just trust you?” you whispered, all the bite in your voice demolished by terror.

“Mark sent me.”

You blinked. “What?”

Renjun groaned, though didn’t elaborate. It was no mystery how you and Mark got along. For one, you were both a pain in ass and a thorn in his side. Instead, he drew his phone from his pocket and dialed a number. And put the phone on speaker.

“Do you have her?” came Mark’s voice.

Renjun said exasperatedly, “Let’s try ‘Hello, Renjun.’ Or ‘Hi.’ Most people say that when they pick up the phone, you know.”

“Mark,” you breathed, relieved to hear his voice. He was somewhere out there. But you were hurt that he left you.

Ignoring Renjun, Mark greeted, “Hi, doll.”

Renjun only wished he had time to argue. He would have burned your lover alive for greeting you instead of him, but the clock was ticking. He already had too many irons in the fire. “Hurry up and talk some sense into your girl, Mark. She doesn’t believe me.”

Your girl, he had said. Mark’s girl. For a split second, your heart brimmed with warmth.

Mark began from across the line, “Listen to me, baby. I know this is sudden and I’ll explain everything as soon as I get the chance, but you need to trust me and listen to Renjun. Okay?”

Your heart sank. “What’s going on?”

“No time to explain,” Mark told you curtly. “Just do this for me. Please.”

You blew out a sigh. This was too much too soon. Ultimately, you decided to trust Mark. “Okay.”

Mark blurted, “I love you.”

A pained smile curled your lips. “I love you more.”

“Alright, fun’s over,” Renjun interjected. He would not stick around for your lovey-dovey mess. Especially not when lives were on the line and in jeopardy. “We’ll talk to you later, Mark. You go get dressed and come on.”

Begrudgingly, you did as told, rushing upstairs to throw on an appropriate outfit before you headed back down and got inside a car with a man that you’d known for less than fifteen minutes.

As soon as you were on the road, you reminded yourself that you had no idea what was happening and where you were going, and asked, “Where are we going?”

Renjun replied, “Somewhere safe.”

Vague. You didn’t like that. “Are you a cop?”

“No.”

“Do you work with Mark?”

“Not in the way that you think,” Renjun responded, patiently quickly evaporating into thin air.

You pressed, “Then, in what way?”

Gosh, you were aggravating. In his mind, Renjun was likening you to a child that persistently asked their parents, ‘Are we there yet?’ during long road trips. “Jesus, woman! Would you stop badgering me?”

You narrowed your eyes and faced the window so that you wouldn’t lunge at him. “I just want to know what’s going on. You mention Lex Lee - the man that’s been indirectly making my life hell for the last years of my life - and expect me to not have questions?”

You had him there. Alexander was the devil himself and anyone that had known him for five minutes could most likely back you up. His goons were lightly compensated and offered little leeway, and the worst part was the hierarchy system.

Everyone was inferior to someone save for Lex, and the designated high-ranks were equally crooked. They schemed to get away with stepping out of line directly under his nose, often pinning the blame on low-ranking members to avoid lethal retribution.

That was why you were scared shitless to return that day. Lex and your ex-boyfriend were like brothers. It didn’t matter what you told him happened to you - you’d be lucky if he cared. Let alone believed you.

Renjun heaved a breath. You had a very fair argument. “Lex is looking for you. He’s attacked Bloodlust’s headquarters. That’s why Mark wants me to keep you safe.”

“What?” you shrieked in terror. “I have to go back there!”

Renjun turned onto another street and shook his head, eyeing the roads for Lex’s hounds. “It’s not safe. Do you hear me? It’s not safe. You were scared shitless of anything involving Lex three seconds ago.”

“I don’t care,” you hissed. “This is my battle. I’ll be damned if I let anyone else fight it for me. Yuta saved my life - now it’s my turn.”

Renjun balked, “No, it’s not. I know about Bloodlust. They protect you as long as you do their bidding. So let them do their goddamn job.”

Gritting your teeth, you crossed your arms and stared out the window, watching buildings and signs whirl by in a blur. It was clear that Renjun would not be wooed by you, but you refused to sit and do nothing. Especially when his connection - or Mark’s - to Lex was unknown. There had to be another way.

Recognizing the road you turned onto, you had an idea. It was reckless and extremely dangerous, but you wouldn’t let that deter you. Not when the better half of your life consisted of making life-threatening choices. There was the option to take the hard way or the easy way out.

And you’d be damned if you took the easy way.

Calculating, you counted down the seconds in your head until you could make your move. The moment you were down to one, you moved at the speed of light and swung the car door open, launching yourself out and rolling into an area of enclosed grass.

You grabbed your gun from your purse and aimed squarely at Renjun’s tires, sending him swerving somewhere. He screamed in the distance, “You sick psychopathic bitch!”

I’ve heard that before, too, you thought to yourself with levity. And then, like your life depended on it, you bolted.

Dusting away dirt and twigs, you sprinted and sprinted and sprinted. The street was close to the garages. Obviously, your car wasn’t there, but there were plenty that were.

You bust through the garage and scanned each of the open slots for your unlucky victim. There were several people, most polishing up their cars before tonight’s race. And you swiftly made your pick, not having time to linger.

You snatched one of the racer’s keys and asked breathlessly, “Can I borrow these? Thanks, you’re the best!”

Screams of protest were your less than pleased response, but you had already made a distance on the garage by the time anyone thought to react. The moment you were on a road, you let out a thick, heavy breath.

Forget crazy. You were out of your goddamn mind.

You sped as fast as you could without going over the limit, given you had already committed two crimes in broad daylight. The last thing you needed was a high-speed police chase.

The east side of the headquarters was the closest and you drove like the devil. The closer you neared, the faster your heart echoed in your chest. You hoped Mark wasn’t there, but with his knowledge of Lex, you had aching questions numb you to your love. And you prayed your boss decided to take an off day.

Alas, the building was - metaphorically speaking - ablaze when you arrived there. A grating dissonance of screams and gunshots filled the distant air. Lex had called war on Bloodlust via this ambush, but not knowing who was winning completely unnerved you.

You got out of the car and approached the building through the rear side. Conveniently, there were emergency exits installed in scatters around the headquarters designed for similar occasions. Discreetly, you entered through one, and steered clear of the noise as you stealthily made your way upstairs. It was in your best interest to remain undetected. For all they knew, you weren’t here.

Creeping around corners, you held your breath. As if the slightest sound would have you killed on the spot. The loud halls that echoed with gunshots terrified you, but the eerily silent ones were too quiet to be relieving.

Whirling around the corner, you parted your lips to scream when you bumped into someone, and they clamped their palm over your mouth. “Shut the fuck up,” Jisung growled, looking both ways like a civilian crossing the street. When he deemed the close clear, he released you. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Heaving, you asked, “Have you seen Yuta or Mark?”

Jisung answered you with complete disinterest and disdain, and said, “Yuta’s been unresponsive. As for loverboy, he’s the reason you’re in this mess.”

You realized that you’d blown your cover the second you mentioned Mark, but you didn’t care. For the sake of your heart and mind, you needed to trust and believe that he was safe. You wouldn’t know how to go on without him. How to unlearn everything you’d gotten so accustomed to in his presence.

“What do you mean, unresponsive?” you repeated, lost for words. “And the reason? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jisung pinched his nose and shook his head. “Forget it. Figure that shit out yourself.”

He turned around and walked away, Part of you was tempted to scream after him, though the sight of a man emerging from the shadows behind Jisung - armed with murder on his mind - silenced you. For some reason, everything in your body told you to pick up your gun and shoot. You complied, and shot fire.

Jisung whirled back around in time to watch the man hit the ground, gone without knowing what hit him. He rooted to the spot, gaze rising to your figure and noticing the gun in your grasp. “Did you just…”

“Save your life?” you finished. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Jisung blew out a sigh. He was many things, including your mortal enemy, but he had a moral compass and in that moment he owed you his life. He glanced around once more, then told you, “Mark is a member of The Basilisks.”

You wanted to laugh. “What?”

Jisung made his tone as menacing as possible and added, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But your loverboy isn’t who you think he is. Jaemin followed up on him today. Mark’s cousin is Alexander Lee and he’s been in that gang since a little after you started working for Yuta.”

Your heart sank. You wanted to deny it with everything you had, but it made sense. How else would Mark know Lex? He even mentioned that his cousin made a gang. Stupid, you told yourself. You’re so fucking stupid.

God, you wished the ground would swallow you whole. You wanted to isolate yourself from the rest of the world and rot to bones. Mark had gotten under your skin, reduced you to your true, bare self. He had seen all of the good and bad; the beautiful and ugly. You felt comfortable enough to be more vulnerable with him than you ever had anyone else. Was all of that in vain?

The Basilisk Biker’s. It hurt so goddamn much. You felt so used and betrayed. And empty. Like you had poured your mind, body, heart and soul into loving Mark and had nothing left to spare.

Maybe you did.

Jisung saw the sadness in your eyes and felt a pang of something he had never felt for you before. It didn’t feel right. Your eyes always gleamed with fire, but your flame was demolished. He wanted to hug you, but it wasn’t his embrace that you needed at the moment. He doubted you would want it in the first place.

Instead, he said, “You have to get out of here.”

“I have to find Yuta,” you argued, gritting your teeth.

“What if he’s safe?”

Without missing a beat, you shot, “What if he’s not?”

Jisung had argued with you enough in his lifetime to know that you were headstrong and demanded your way. If you wanted something enough, there was absolutely nothing on this earth that could stop you from chasing it. But he also knew that the moment something happened to you once he left you alone, your blood would be on his hands. “I’m going with you.”

You shrugged and replied, “Suit yourself.” Then, began to make your way up the stairs. The elevators were too risky.

You fought tears and focused yourself on your boss. You’d be damned if you cried while anyone was watching. You had taken a bullet tougher than this. Toughen up, you hissed inwardly.

The long staircase had made you realize just how large the headquarters was. In your head, you had always thought of it as a second home. Now, it was being destroyed by your first one.

When you reached the floor of Yuta’s office, you stepped onto the ground, peeking around and spotting Basilisks. Jisung whispered, “I’ll distract them. You go check his office.”

You nodded. Jisung did exactly what he said that he would, and you set out for Yuta’s office. Just from standing outside the door, you could tell that it was empty. But you needed to see for yourself. You counted down from three, attempting to soothe your rapidly moving mind, and barged inside.

The sight unnerved you. Yuta was nowhere to be found, but the room was completely wrecked. Like he was blitzed and fought like hell against his attacker.

There was little trace of him. No sign of where he was or where he’d gone. Not even traces of blood. Just his belongings toppled over in a heap and his window completely open, curtains blustering.

“Find something interesting here?”

Fear riveted you in place. You took your time to turn around, met face to face with a man straight out of a nightmare.

“Lex,” you exhaled thickly, the wind knocked out of you.

Lex smiled wickedly. There was a gun in his hand. “Long time no see, old friend.”

You shook your head viciously and screamed, “Where the hell is my boss?”

Lex inched closer, closing in on you as if he was going to make you walk off of a plank. You took steps backwards, colliding with Yuta’s desk. “Well, I could tell you, but where’s the fun in that?”

“You son of a bitch,” you hissed.

As if he didn’t hear you, Lex continued, “It wounded me real bad when you left, y’know. Word on the street is that this Yuta fool had you sold in less than a day. Then, I find out you killed Riley,” Lex laughed. “Whew, I was livid!”

“You were going to kill me,” you said, moving around the desk as swiftly as possible. You never wanted to leave. There were people in that gang that you considered family and you missed them everyday of your life. You never wanted to leave them behind.

“Damn right, I was!” Lex shouted. He didn’t sound angry - he sounded insane. That was arguably worse. “With my bare goddamn hands!”

You shook your head, fighting to remain calm. Lex’s weakness was his anger, but so was yours. If you stayed rational, you had a fighting chance at survival. “I didn’t want to kill Riley. You have to trust me on that, Lex. He was trying to push me into things I wasn’t ready for. I didn’t have a choice.”

Pretending to care, Lex crooned, “You have a choice now. Come back home. Let’s be a family again. The girls missed you the worst.”

Or else what? You knew your other unspoken choice was gruesome as they always had been, but you also knew that Lex was full of shit. There was no way in hell that he would let you off that easily.

Or alive, for that matter.

You knew what your options were, because you knew Alexander Lee better than anyone else alive. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A narcissist if you knew one, blind to his flaws. He was manipulative and deceptive, but worst of all, he had not a shred of mercy.

If anyone was going to take your life from you, it wouldn’t be Lex. You refused to grant him that pleasure. And you knew very well that the only reason you were still alive and breathing was because he wanted to kill you with his own bare hands. Nobody would be given the satisfaction of taking your life if not you.

You shook your head and swore, “Over my dead body.”

Then, you leapt out of the window.

And crash landed onto the balcony on the floor below you. You struck the deep trenches of your memory, reminding yourself that Yuta once mentioned that he refused to get a balcony like the rest of the members. He claimed that in times of crisis, he wouldn’t regret his decision. And you chose to believe that that was how he escaped. It was a graceless fall. It hurt like a bitch, but what mattered was that you were still alive. Somehow.

You raced through the floor in case Lex was crazy enough to follow you.

You ran and you ran and you ran for your life. Your legs ached from all of the reckless stunts you’d pulled today, but you never stopped running. The thoughts seeped into your mind, going miles per minute, trying to outmatch the speed of your feet. You thought of your family and felt pain. You thought of Lex and felt fear. You thought of your old friends and felt regret. You thought of Yuta and felt dread. You thought of Mark and felt stone-cold betrayal.

But you also felt love. Your heart hammered like it was trying to wreck its way through your chest. You wanted some kind of explanation for this, one that would make all of the pain fade, but you knew that there was none.

How could Mark tell you that he loved you but work aside the same man that made your life a living hell? Your heart was crying blood. It bled and beat for him all at once.

Adrenaline made you numb to the pain of everything except for your wounded heart. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe there was someone else that would be granted the satisfaction of taking your life. Giving Mark the key to your heart was like handing him a gun and telling him to shoot. Your heart begged for the one person that you were forbidden to have.

Speak of the devil, they say. And he shall appear.

Somewhere in the run for your life, you bumped directly into Mark. He looked relieved and displeased to see you all at once.

Mark grabbed you and whispered, “Baby…”

You swatted his hands away and cried, “Don’t call me that!”

Mark reached for your hand, squeezing tightly. There was no levity in his tone when he said, “I’m not doing any of this to hurt you. I swear on my life. You just need to trust me.”

“No,” you shouted, fighting like hell to keep your tears at bay. They stung your eyes, but he didn’t deserve to see them fall. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time and expect me to trust you? That’s not how that works, Mark.”

“I know,” Mark agreed. “And you have every right to be pissed at me for what I’m about to do.”

Before you had the chance to ask questions, Mark pulled you to his chest and clamped his palm over your mouth, then shouted, “Over here - I’ve got her!”

Basilisks began to fill your vision. They circled you like a shark to its prey, guns aimed. You noticed familiar faces around you, and you couldn’t blame them for any vengeful feelings they felt for you. Mark shoved you in the middle by yourself, like he was presenting his artwork to them, proud of his product.

Lex spoke to Mark, but you tuned in and out, their words being reduced to white noise. You felt so much pain and fear that your body began to numb your senses in self-preservation. It was too much to bear.

This is it, you thought somberly. This is my end. Part of you was satisfied with that. You were so tired. You had worked your whole life and experienced loss to loss with no breaks in between. No breathing room. If you weren’t a sinner, you would have believed that you would finally meet your mother.

Then again, depending on who you asked, she was a sinner too.

“Thought you could run from me,” Lex taunted, clearly amused. “I thought you would have learned by now. No one escapes me. No one escapes their fate.”

He was right. After all, you had nowhere to run this time. Not with over a dozen guns pointed squarely at your head.

All you wanted was for him to make this quick. To put you out of your misery already. Add one more scar to your body in completion.

Lex tilted his head. “Any last words?”

Without hesitation, you spat, “Fuck you.”

Lex burst into laughter. Then, much to your surprise, said, “Mark, finish her.”

You stayed still and held your breath, knowing this was the inevitable end. But you couldn’t look at Mark. It would hurt you too much.

Then, The Basilisks switched on a dime and aimed their guns at Lex - including Mark. Stupidly, you stood there blinking. Lisa - one of your old friends - had to pull you out of harm’s way. She whispered, “You’re safe. Everything’s gonna be okay now.”

Too stunned to speak, you stood gawking.

Lex blurted, “What the hell do you all think you’re doing?”

“This has to end, Alexander. And it ends with you,” Mark began, casting his cousin an unsympathetic glance. “For the past decade, you’ve been making everyone here's life a living hell. How much longer did you think we were going to put up with that bullshit?”

Lex began to stumble backwards, reaching for escape, but one of the Basilisks named Yangyang pushed him back into the circle, then said, “Woah, woah, woah - where do you think you’re going, big guy?”

Realizing he was cornered, Lex turned to stare at his cousin in disbelief. “Really? Your own flesh and blood, Mark?”

Mark let out a remorseless chuckle. “Don’t pretend to have a moral compass now. Here’s the thing, Lex. Everyone here considers each other family and you’ve fucked every last one of us over. You don’t give a flying fuck about blood and flesh; all you care about is power. You like that you can kill whoever - whenever - and our fate lies in your hands.”

“It used to,” Yangyang corrected from the sidelines. “Now, the tables have turned. You get to feel what’s like to be on the other side of torture.”

Another Basilisk - Seulgi - spoke up from the crowd, voice dripping with the bite of venom, “You pay us less than we’re worth to do your bidding and you let those sons of bitches get away with framing us - but impose the death rule so that we can’t leave. We’re fed the hell up, Lex.”

The death rule was simply that. Nobody was allowed to leave. Your only escape was the dark void of death. It was more or less a pre-prison for gangsters.

Unless, you ran away. In Basilisk history, you were the only successful runaway.

You simply watched in amusement, feeling a wound in you healed. Never in a million years would you have imagined a dream like this come true. It was better than anything you’d ever hoped for. It’s over.

“I don’t do last words,” Mark mocked, cocking his gun. “Goodbye, cousin.”

The sound of a gunshot resonated throughout the hall, and Alexander dropped to the floor in vanquish.

“It really is over,” Lisa repeated. Until then, you hadn’t realized that you’d said those words aloud. You were out of your body.

You grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here?”

Lisa cocked a brow. “What about lover boy?”

You gaped. “You know?”

“Oh, please. Mark tells us a lot about you. He acts like we’ve never met you before. It’s hard to get him to shut up sometimes,” Lisa scoffed.

Mark talks about me. That made your heart swell with emotion, but you pushed them aside. “I’m still mad at him. Let’s go before he makes me change my mind.”

Giggling, Lisa told you, “Lead the way.”

You did as told, leading her outside. For now, you pushed your worries away. They would return, but you were simply glad to connect with an old friend for the meantime. A very special one at that.

Hand in hand, you brought Lisa to one of the balconies. The wind whipped through her hair as you both faced the city. The memories were a mixture of pained and blissful. They stung your heart, yet filled you with impalpable joy.

After a moment of silence, Lisa whispered, “You never said goodbye.”

“I know.”

She whirled around to face you, a pained expression on her face. “That hurt.”

“I know,” you said, frowning. “And I’m sorry.”

Lisa faced the early morning city again. Like looking at you would be her breaking point. “You did what you had to do. I can’t hold that against you. I was just scared that you’d forget me.”

You called her name austerely and slightly rolled up your shirt, then spoke like you were delivering a speech, “I carry a piece of you with me everyday. Every time I look in the mirror, I think of you. Pain is temporary, but this scar is forever. It is a constant reminder of you and what our friendship means to me. I can’t forget that.”

Lisa gazed at your scar fondly. She remembered how you got it like it was yesterday. You jumped in front of a bullet to save her life. You were so goddamn stupid, but damn did she love you for it.

She pulled you into a hug. And you smiled.

“I moved on,” Lisa mentioned once she pulled away. “I found someone.”

Your eyes widened, your smile broadened. “Who is she?”

Lisa smiled involuntarily at the thought of her mystery woman. Once upon a time, she smiled at you like that. “Jennie.”

“No way,” you said, jaw dropping.

“Yes, way,” Lisa smirked. “Love always finds a way. Sometimes the one meant for you is the person you’d least expect. It’s ironic, isn't it?”

You groaned, “You’re telling me.”

Lisa studied you. Never in a million years would she have imagined that the two of you would be having a conversation like this, but she was content to hear your voice again. At one point, she thought she’d lost you forever. “You love him.”

It was clear who ‘him’ was. You sighed out, “I do. So much. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Lisa snickered, but suddenly became stern and said, “Mark didn’t do any of this to hurt you. He would never. He was scared half to death when Renjun called and said you’d jumped out of a car to come here. As crazy as that sounds, I’m not surprised. You’re full of crazy.”

You laughed lightheartedly. “I’ve done worse.”

“I know. Like, jumped in front of a bullet,” Lisa retorted, then continued. “Listen, that boy is head over heels in love with you. I would know. What he did back there wasn’t a part of the initial plan, but he’s in control of this whole scheme and we urged him to do what he thought was best. He knew you would hate him for this, but he wanted to protect you from Lex for good.”

The tears were coming back and you blinked them away. “Really?”

“It was hard to keep him from socking Lex in the jaw for talking down on you sometimes. He was ready to risk it all for you. That’s how much he loves you. Don’t punish him for that,” Lisa said, smiling ruefully. Then, she presented you with some levity. “Not for too long.”

You laughed like the two old friends you were. You never forgot what those days were like. To be together with people you considered family, you were happy. And now you were no longer forbidden to see each other.

Lisa patted your back. “Go get him.”

“Right now?” you asked, gaping in disbelief.

“Right now,” she repeated, memories of a morose Mark returning. “Any longer and I think he’ll fling himself off one of these balconies.”

“Oh, brother,” you sighed. “Will you be okay?”

“As long as you don’t leave me for another six years.”

You smiled and held out your pinky finger for her to intertwine with hers. “I won’t. I promise.”

Lisa locked pinkies with you. Then, she let you go for the second time and set you free.

You found Mark somberly glancing into the distance. His mood seemed to instantly lighten when the sound of you slumping beside him steered him from his reverie.

“Hi.”

Mark rubbed his neck. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” you told him apologetically. “I should have trusted you.”

Mark blurted, “What? No. I’m the one that should be sorry. I’ve been keeping secrets from you this whole time. I should have told you.”

“You’re right,” you replied. You switched on a dime, beginning to knock at his chest fiercely. “What were you thinking?”

He was hardly thinking. It was difficult - he couldn’t function knowing that your life was on the line. You being there meant he had to change his plans entirely because he refused to let anything happen to you. His heart was screaming when Renjun told him about the stunt you’d pulled. Above all else, all he wanted was for you to let him protect you. “I’m sorry, doll. Will a kiss make it better?”

You paused. Then, sang, “Not sure. Kiss me and find out.”

Mark shook his head in delight. “With pleasure.”

Mark enveloped your lips in a kiss. He kissed you like he’d never get the chance again. As if this was his last day to love and hold you, but also as if he hadn’t felt your touch in years. It was so indescribably passionate. The only way you could explain was that it felt like love. Until you met Mark, you thought that you’d been cursed with the inability to fall for someone else again.

When you’d both had your fill, you pulled away for good and asked, “But I am curious - you’re a cop and a gang member at the same time?”

Mark had been waiting for that one. He cradled you in his arms and replied smoothly, “My job in the gang is to be their eyes in law enforcement. Alongside the biking, we became heavily involved in drug trafficking. It’s my job to steer the police off course and ensure they don’t go looking into The Basilisks.”

“And that’s how you got here,” you added, the pieces coming together to form one big picture.

“Yup. I was assigned to look into Bloodlust. It’s no secret that this is where you hid and Lex wanted me to use this case to lure you out. At first, I intended to follow orders. But then I fell for you, baby. And I knew that only over my dead body would I let anything happen to you.”

“Romantic,” you purred. Then, you remembered something and your eyes filled with worry. “Have you seen Yuta?”

“He’s fine,” Mark assured. “They all are. They know this building well. That’s their advantage.”

You blew out a sigh of semi-relief. ”We have to come clean.”

Mark blinked. “Now?”

“Now or never.”

Mark slipped his fingers through yours and brought you to your feet. “Okay. Let’s tell them.”

You smiled. You didn’t want to hide Mark anymore. You wanted to profess your love for him from the rooftops. And you knew in your heart that he wanted to do the very same.

That was how you found yourself in Taeyong’s much larger office. Yet again, he stood alongside Yuta and Ten. It was a little frightening, but you wouldn’t let them unnerve you. You were bold in your love.

Lightheartedly, Yuta tried to lighten the mood with levity, “This is the infamous Markie.”

Mark shook his hand. “Dom Toretto.”

You cleared your throat. “Don’t mind him - he watches a lot of movies.”

Taeyong cut to the chase. “You disobeyed direct orders.”

You stiffened, knowing he was talking directly to you. You met his gaze and didn’t falter. “Yes.”

“And you were aware that you were disobeying direct orders - and of the punishment that shall follow.”

“That is correct.”

Taeyong arched his brow, amused by your boldness. It took guts to disobey the king of the empire. He sat and reclined in his seat and told you sternly, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill both of you right now.”

The gun resting patiently on his desk did not go unnoticed by you, but you dug into your heels and held Mark’s arm firmly. You were honest. “I have none. I’ve disobeyed and deceived you while aware of the consequences. I apologize for that, but I won’t apologize for loving him and I won’t let you kill him without killing me first.”

Ten heaved a breath and took off his glasses, massaging his temple. Then, Yuta leapt up and shouted, “Yes! Run me my money!”

You blinked, only able to watch as Taeyong and Ten exasperatedly drew money from their pockets. Then, it hit you and you shrieked, “You bet money on me?”

“Damn right I did,” Yuta replied, not sparing you a glance as he counted his money.

Noticing the ridiculously perplexed looks on you and Mark’s faces, Ten explained, “Yuta’s had a sneaking suspicion that you were lying about the severity of your relationship with Mark. Jisung tried to tell us, but Taeyong and I thought he was biased because of how much you argue. Clearly not.”

Taeyong deadpanned, “Remind me not to make any more deals with either of you where money is concerned.”

Mark pulled you to his chest, smiling. Some things you just couldn’t hide. His love for you was one of them. “So, we’re off the hook?”

“I usually don't hesitate to punish people for defiance, but I’ll make an exception just this once,” Taeyong replied, smiling wryly. “I take it that your cousin’s gang is in your hands now. Don’t cause any trouble and you’re fine in my book.”

Mark nodded. He glanced down at you and knew that that wouldn’t be a problem. “Deal.”

That night, you and Mark danced in each other's arms, refusing to let go. It was like nothing could come in between you. You knew now that your love was worth the battle and the war. Love always finds a way, a dear friend had told you.

You asked over the music, “Wanna do something really crazy?”

Mark looked at you, eye’s screaming, “Yes!” He would do anything for you - give you the world if you wanted it. Instead of borderline professing his love for you and telling you things that you already knew, he asked, “Like what?”

“Let’s go to Vegas.”

Mark chortled. “That is kinda crazy.”

You argued, “Think about it - no one knows us there. It’ll just be me and you in a city full of people. Doesn’t that sound romantic?”

Mark hushed you and said, “Baby, please. I was already buying the plane tickets.”

You snickered. You knew you had Mark right where you wanted him. And it felt so goddamn good.

You and Mark stumbled out of the tattoo parlor. Given the long flight, you were utterly spent when you arrived, but the second you recharged you knew exactly what you wanted to do.

Get matching tattoos.

Initially, you thought it would have been difficult to convince Mark to get a tattoo with you. After all, they were permanent. But he was surprisingly willing and pleased with the results.

“To a lifetime and a half with you,” Mark told you, mounting the bike you’d left at the curbside of the parlor. You wanted to see how well he could drive one.

Grabbing the pink helmet he handed you, you beamed. Happiness made your heart beat and your blood circulate. “To a lifetime and a half with my Markie pooh,” you teased.

Mark rolled his eyes and wrapped your arms around his waist. “Hold on tight.”

You yelped when the motorbike jerked to life beneath you, and then you were soaring down the roads of Las Vegas, carefree and in love. Nobody could tell you anything when you were with the love of your life.

Love was the greatest weapon of all.

#mark smut #nct 127 smut #nct dream smut #nct smut #mark lee x reader #nct imagines #mark lee imagines #mark lee smut #nct x reader #nct #nct scenarios

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 8 months ago

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WIBTA if I tried to covertly exclude one of my friends from game nights ? 🎮🎧📞

tw: disordered eating, self harm

I've got a discord friend group of about 15 people though only 10 or so are regularly active and game nights often are usually around 6 people but they rotate who participates often. We're all in the 20s and mostly nonbinary / genderqueer / trans one way or another. I'm 25 ftm personally (they them) and the friend this is about in particular is 22mtf (she/they).

Friend is really excited to hit the 1 year marker in her transition and loves sharing how excited she is about her progress - how strangers at her job are gendering her correctly more and more often, how her cup sizes are growing, how much weight she's lost, wardrobe updates, getting to learn girl things from their very supportive mom, etc etc etc. It's all very exciting, I remember hitting my 1 year marker and i'm genuinely really happy for her.

The thing is I struggled with disordered eating in the past. Several others in our friend group have as well and it's something we've talked about both in related and unrelated convos to this issue. Friend keeps an excel spreadsheet with her measurements from bust to hips to weight and will update us frequently whether we've expressed interest in hearing the exact numbers or not. Exact Numbers was one of the things I kept track of and hearing her tracking them (for very different reasons) will often set me off and i'll start taking more and more unhealthy actions, falling back into disordered habits.

Friend has adhd and very poor impulse control. She often joins conversations and talks over people, completely changes conversational topics on a dime, or forgets who is in a call at any moment and brings up someone's triggers. She'll almost always apologize if someone mentions a social mistake she's made, but because the weight/food intake/number watching is so important to them as a way to track their transition it's the one thing that keeps coming back and back and back. I and the others have tried talking in voice calls, mentioning in text chats in the group and even DMing her but because of the topic and this group being the friend group she feels safest in (we were all the first to know and hyped them up on the hrt journey) these are some convos she only gets to have here

and because of the topic, i feel rude or embarrassed when I have to say "hey can we not talk about this right now or i'm gonna have to leave". So on most nights if it comes up I'll just deafen / go afk / just zone out entirely until the conversation has passed. If it doesn't seem like it's going to or they are so in depth that it's genuinely triggering a self harm response i'll fully leave instead so she can keep having her fun and get excited

Game nights are different though

I'm usually the host of game night and so can pick when we play our silly little games. Obviously people can and do still hangout and do things together Not on specific game nights, and we all do, but game nights are my thing. We play party games over discord or multiplayer competition games or lately have been getting into games like content warning and lethal company when there's 4 or sometimes 5 of us (either someone wants to hang out but only watch or we rotate around who plays round by round)

Friend is often working in the evenings and so bc this is an online friend group they don't actually know my work schedule. We usually only have about half the total number of participants be around for game night anyways, so I've been thinking of occasionally lining up game nights for nights when she's mentioned being busy by saying i work the other nights - but only sometimes. I do really like friend. She can be so much fun to hang out with, excitingly competitive and with interesting knowledge to share and generally a good sport no matter the actual game we're playing. But sometimes the worry about the triggering and the trigginering itself are too much. sometimes i just can't handle when she does it and knowing i can't leave and asking her to stop expressing her joy makes me feel like an asshole anyways so i don't want to be around it.

To be clear. I do not think they are an asshole. Friend is genuinely one of my friends. I like her and hanging out with her. they do not trigger me (or any of the others w this same trigger) maliciously. this is solely would I be the asshole.

TLDR: My friends way of tracking her transition sometimes triggers my eating disorder. would I be the asshole for planning game nights that I host and cannot leave / tune out conversations during so that she cannot attend as often in hopes that I am not triggered as often?

#aita #am i the asshole #eating disorder cw #self harm cw

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the-au-collector · 1 year ago

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Random Things I forgot to add in my braindump for my Radio AU:

Twilight is Time and Malon’s nephew. I think I’m going to make his relation through Uli, so that makes Uli and Malon sisters in this AU

Legend used to go to college in Mabe City, but moved away after his Koholint Trauma happened. He still has friends there, like Ralph, Din, and Nayru, but he rarely visits

Sun races cars. Not professionally or for sport, no. She’ll just drive at 80mph down some old country road for the hell of it. Sky and Groose often join her

Sky, Sun, and Groose all came from Sky City. That said, they somehow never met until college. They find this very funny and will call each other “strangers”

Legend and Fable’s biological father is Raven, but he was very inconsistent with his job and eventually left them with Alfon, his adopted brother (and I am realizing I need a family tree for this AU😵‍💫).

Time is an orphan. He was never adopted growing up, but he was closest to the Kokiri family. They had a daughter named Saria who he still calls his older sister. She’s an ecologist now

Time secretly spoils Wolfie

Twilight will take Wolfie for “walks” (aka, he will sneak Wolfie into his and Wild’s house despite there being a strict no dogs policy. Revali has tried getting them in trouble before but hasn’t succeeded yet)

Wolfie is the favorite whenever Wild hosts a party

Time has somehow become emotionally attached to these radio kids. He was not supposed to get emotionally attached

Sky and Sun hope to get married sometime after graduation, preferably sooner than later

First is everyone’s favorite when he’s around. That said, he’s still the oldest and most responsible when having fun.

Crimson swears

Ravio has tried reaching Sheerow to talk

Legend doesn’t drive (anymore)

Warriors has the gaudiest car, according to Legend. Legend’s right

Styla and Legend are like BFFs. They also met when Legend did Fashion Design. Styla often makes costumes for the school plays as well

Shadow hung out with a bad crowd in high school. He’s doing better now.

Where are the colors you ask? Four’s genderfluid so he uses them to indicate his gender. Vio = she/her. Green = he/him. Red = they/them. Blue= any, they don’t care.

Vaati is Shadow’s biological father, who married Four’s mom when Shadow and Four were 12. Four’s mom died when they were 14, then Vaati went into prison when they were 15 (they really are unrelated incidents). They began living with Grandpa Smith after that.

Yuga is Ravio and Hilda’s dad. He’s really strict and not a good person. He wants them both to go into business. Ravio is playing his hand until he can be totally independent. Hilda is a high school senior and wants to major in fine art. Yuga hates this. He especially hates that Ravio is completely supportive of Hilda… and also that Ravio never comes around anymore.

Hilda’s started being invited to Legend’s uncle’s house for holidays. She can’t come to all of them because of Yuga but she does come to Thanksgiving now

Alfon refuses to let anyone be alone over the holidays. He will force Legend and Ravio to bring their friends over if they have no one in the area or anywhere to go

Flora and Fauna grew up under a lot of pressure from their dad. Fauna feels it more since she’s older, but Flora definitely feels it too. They’re both perfectionists

Impa and Purah are Paya’s cousins in this AU. Paya’s very shy so they try to get her to go out more. Paya has a huge crush on Wild and is teased endlessly for it

Flora has this huge crush on this one guy in her anthropology class. His name is Tauro

Age and Wild didn’t get along for a long time after the house fire. Wild got his burns and amnesia from protecting Age but obviously doesn’t remember this. As a kid, Age thought Wild was purposefully forgetting everything. Wild honestly feels horrible for forgetting and is trying to get his memory back, but he hasn’t had much luck

Age and Wild are both named Link. It’s a family thing. They go by their middle names. Wilder is Wild’s official middle name. Age’s official middle name is August.

On the other hand, both Flora and Fauna’s middle names are Zelda. Flora’s full name is Florence Zelda Hyrule. Fauna’s name is just Fauna.

^ this is the same for Dawn and Aurora too

Hyrule, Dawn, and Aurora come from a very small town named Mido. Hyrule would play “Knights of Hyrule” with Dawn in the farm fields all around them. It’s where he gets his nickname from

Hyrule’s friends in high school were Bot, Error, and Bagu

#linked universe #college radio au #lu time #lu twilight #lu legend #lu warriors #lu sky #lu four #lu wild #lu hyrule #lu first #lu shadow #lu age

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piracytheorist · 2 years ago

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Damian Desmond, the bully and the victim

I'm prefacing this by saying I was bullied as a kid at school. It was not the worst bullying story you'll ever hear, but that makes no difference in bully victims, cause no amount of "It could be worse!" can heal the life-long scars bullying leaves in you. I'm not saying this to evoke pity or sympathy, but to give context for my point of view in this analysis.

My two most prominent (and persisting) bullies through my school years were two boys, unrelated to each other and in different times (one was in elementary school and one in high school), who both had divorced parents and lived with their mothers. I don't know the full details of what their relationships with their fathers were, but I can easily guess that there were unfulfilled wishes in their lives, and once they found me they were like "That's who I'll burst out my frustrations on". As if I didn't have my own issues at home, but why would my problems matter from their point of view?

The thing with bullies (and abusers in general) is that, for the most part, they don't understand the pain they're causing - and if they do, they think their victim needs (tough love situation) or deserves it. Everyone is a hero in their own story - I regrettably made fun of a classmate a few times, out of my own need to feel superior for once after having been on the receiving end for so long. And I can tell you that my justification for doing so was something like "I am smart and this kid should listen to me, if he does he will become smart too!". It was only much, much later that I realized that didn't hold and the kid was actually hurt by my uncalled-for behaviour. Usually, bullies don't have the empathy, or if they do they simply don't put it to use, to see things from their victim's perspective.

And in all the praise I have to give Endo for writing Anya very realistically as a child, I also have to give it to him for how realistic the bullying is. It starts immediately, uncritically. It persists and the stupid excuse of "Just ignore them" doesn't work at all. Anya gets angry and upset at it, to the point of violent outbursts and tears (though thankfully presented in such a way that the audience doesn't blame her). Combined with his conflicting emotions about her, Damian has found the perfect victim for his bullying; Anya is an outcast (aside from having Becky, thank god), has physical attributes he can make fun of, and because of her wanting to help with Operation Strix she just constantly presents herself to him, when normally she would try her damnedest to avoid him (like Becky always advises her to).

Everything Damian does is an outburst of his own feelings of neglect. I know manga readers know more about the family dynamic, but as an anime only I've also been given enough to understand it's very, very problematic. But that's not an excuse. Having trauma on your own does not excuse thrusting trauma upon others. I mean, you think Anya, the orphan from the lab who didn't have anyone to give a damn about her happiness until she had to manipulate both her ways into getting a father and then a mother, has less trauma than Damian does???

It's not an excuse, but it's a dynamic for Damian to become better. Damian's behaviour problem doesn't only stem from him being neglected; it's also from the fact that he hasn't been taught sympathy. Which, like, makes sense. His father is an ambitious politician who genuinely believes that it's impossible for humans, even relatives, to understand each other, and had no qualms saying this right in front of his kid.

When it comes to Damian's behaviour, it does not matter that those words hurt him terribly. He doesn't have the emotional maturity and empathy yet to understand that he's only perpetuating the same toxic behaviour with his classmates. The fact that Donovan felt so comfortable saying those words in front of both his own son and a total stranger shows that it's something he's used to; and such traits can very easily be passed on from parents to kids without even consciously trying.

Meanwhile, while Anya had a much worse time while being used as a science subject, she was taught the idea of peace; in the first episode flashback, the scientists talk about how they can use her powers for world peace, to justify cutting her play time short in favor of whatever they were doing with her. When Twilight thinks that understanding her will lead to world peace, she immediately starts complying with that. And when she hears his thoughts about how he wants to create a better world, she decides to stay with him as his daughter to help him in the mission, despite understanding the risk and knowing that whether the mission fails or succeeds, Twilight will walk away in the end. She understands the idea of kindness and good. Maybe the way she was introduced to it wasn't the most noble - after all, the scientists were using it as an excuse to practically abuse her - but she still knows and understands enough about what it means for someone else to be happy.

Damian… doesn't. For the grand majority of his presentation he doesn't do things for someone else, in fact, he's so used to others doing things for him that we always see Ewen carry his backpack for him.

I do not doubt that Ewen himself, being the bootlicker he is, offered to carry it, but the fact that Damian never once went like "Nah it's okay man I can carry my weight today" is very telling about how not used he is to doing things for others.

However, his dynamic becomes interesting and receives redeeming qualities because of the times he does show altruism. First when he stops the ball from hitting Anya in the face during the dodgeball game, (though he instantly and openly regrets doing that). And it wasn't from conscious thought - it was an action purely out of protective instinct. Then, when he's the instigator of consoling George Glooman when the latter thinks he'll be moved out of the school. That one he also regrets doing, but it's much more understandable and it doesn't take away the sympathy he showed him.

There is something he constantly does, however, with someone else in mind; he studies hard and tries to excel at school to receive Stellas, in order to get his father's attention. His way of getting that attention has been so messed up by his upbringing that he thinks the only way of getting any positive interaction with his father is by working hard to not be a "failure". And even that hides some personal motives behind it, because the poor kid longs for some affection from his family. Donovan's character and the distance Damian has from him, his mother (when he calls home, he talks with their butler, not her), and his brother all combined do not allow the kid to understand the concept of doing something to make someone else happy, even (or especially) if there's nothing in it for him.

That's not selflessness; that's a neglected kid pushing himself to prove to his abusers that he's deserving of their affection, something he naturally craves and obviously misses from his life. Tough "love" is so prominent in the Desmond family that Damian had no hopes of growing any differently.

He has the potential to become better and has only been held back because of his family's toxic environment. But he needs to develop a conscious understanding of altruism first if his character is to grow into a morally better area.

You can't just give a character a painful backstory and expect audiences to automatically root for their happiness. You need to show your character also has grown empathy because of said painful experiences. We see it with all three mains. Anya was treated as a lab experiment; you start rooting for her when you see that she wants to help bring peace. Twilight went through a war as a kid; you root for him when he says he wants to create a world where kids won't go through the same thing. Yor lost her parents when she was very young; you root for her when you learn that she took care of her brother and gave him opportunities for education and a better future that she rejected for herself in his favour.

So yeah, I do feel sorry for Damian. But right now I only root for him to understand the meaning of making someone else happy — the meaning behind his own protective action over Anya in the dodgeball game and the sympathy he showed George. When he does that, and he realizes he has more in common with Anya than he dares to accept, it's only then that he'll grow from a layered but still toxic bully into a character audiences can root for.

It's also not the responsibility of Anya of all people to take up all the abuse from him and be the one to help him build up some character. It has to be him making the realization, and Anya can choose to be a friend to him as he does that, but in no way can his development depend on her.

(Again, anime only fan here, don't spoil me for the manga)

#yeah uhm this has been in my drafts for like two months #that post I saw made me want to clean it up and post it #the shipping is one thing the whitewashing of his bullying is another #Spy x Family #sxf meta #Damian Desmond #(if you see this in the tag and reblog just to argue with me no you didn't)#(discussion is welcome but pointless arguing is not)

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slugtranslation-hypmic · 11 months ago

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Not entirely Hypmic related, but I did get curious after thinking about it for the Buster Bros. I know that Japanese people tend to refer to each other on a last-name first basis if they're not particularly close, but when speaking to siblings, how would this work? Like "Yamada-kun" for example, could apply to all 3 brothers.

Yeah, you could call them all Yamada-san. I feel like it wouldn't be super confusing in practice because it's difficult to think of a situation where you'd be at "Yamada-san" level with all three of them.

See, name honorifics are one of a number of ways the speaker indicates what they feel about the listener--emotional closeness/distance, respect/admiration, paternalistic warmth--but everyone around the globe adjusts their speech to indicate this too. Japanese explicitly codifies it into language, but even if you speak nothing but English, you can find those same concepts in your ordinary life.

Let's pretend you're 17 and one of Jirou's classmates. How would you refer to Jirou? Well, how do you (or did you, if you--the person reading this--are no longer a teen) talk to your classmates compared to teenage strangers? You probably feel more comfortable with them, so your conversation takes on a more relaxed, casual tone than with a total stranger. Maybe you share inside jokes, use slang, use more contractions. In Japanese, you can do all of those things and also say "Jirou-kun" or "Yamada-kun" to show that emotional closeness. Ichirou, then, is your clasmmate's older brother. You probably don't know him very well. People, especially young people, tend to look up to or admire those who are older than them. If you've ever had a cool older friend, friend's older sibling, or friend of a sibling, maybe you wanted them to think you were cool too. You wouldn't use the same inside jokes as you would with a classmate, and you'd probably (at least subconsciously) be a bit more deferential. So, one of the ways you would express that in Japanese is through "Yamada-san" or "Ichirou-san." Saburou, on the other hand, is your classmate's little sibling. Kids and teens don't tend to respect little siblings or younger kids all that much. Not like there's anything wrong with them--they're just young! They lack the same experience you do. They say stupid things because they are yet to be 17 and, consequently, paragons of maturity and knowledge. Duh. Your language choice reflects these subconscious judgements. You might start speaking in a slightly higher pitch or be otherwise a little more patronizing (like, "Oh, you're on the chess club at school? And the science bowl? Wow, that's so cool! Good for you!" *exchanges a Knowing Look w/ Jirou over Saburou's head*). In Japanese, you might also say "Saburou-kun." Let's try another scenario. Let's say you're an unrelated adult facing all three of the Buster Bros. Maybe you're with the orphanage? Either way, you're an adult facing three kids you don't know very well. You can respect them as individuals, but you're still likely to treat them a little differently than you would treat adults. You might use simpler language, or you might be a little jokey or friendly to try to put them at ease. In Japanese, you could also express that like "Ichirou-kun," "Jirou-kun," and "Saburou-kun." (If this is present day Ichirou and you think of him as an adult, he'd probably be "Yamada-san.") Worst comes to worst and you truly are in a situation where all three take "Yamada-san," I feel like it'd be fine to use "oniisan" and "otouto-san" (big and little brother) to differentiate. Or simply use their full names. "Yamada Ichirou-san," "Yamada Jirou-san," etc. I could see that being appropriate for very formal contexts. Sorry for the wall of text, but I feel like there's an aura of mystique around Japanese, especially when it comes to respectful language and honorifics, and I consider it important to not feed into that or the idea that there's something unique or endemic about the mindsets of people who use Japanese. We're all just people! And while it's insulting to erase differences in cultures and personal circumstances, it's likewise dehumanizing to pretend that our communication methods lock us in or out of basic human feelings and experiences. Languages provide lenses to approach the world, and some languages cast a focus on or obscure different elements than others. Still, that doesn't change who we fundamentally are inside, and I consider it crucial to keep this in mind whenever translating or discussing language across spacial and cultural borders. That's why I like to break concepts down to the underlying ideas instead of locking them in one language or another. Hopefully this helps! :)

#not a translation #asks #misc asks

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hero-israel · 1 year ago

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I’m honestly so done with leftists bullshit propaganda regarding Israel, i have my unpopular political opinions about different things, and I’ve done my research to back them up. However I can’t tolerate the b.s. now when it comes to Israel, particularly the recent New York Times article. One minute NYT can’t be trusted and are peddling Israeli propaganda the next they’re actually really news worthy (hospital article) and now it’s back to they are lying about xyz being r-ped. As if sexual violence against women isn’t something that happens. I’m not really sure how to move on however, I’ve been in leftist spaces for so long and I use to find comfort in them but I can’t anymore. I’ve lost friends because I’ve condemned Hamas and said I don’t believe the settler colonialism narrative regarding Israel. And the friends I didn’t lose, refuse to speak to me about this. It’s getting exhausting and I honestly don’t know how you Jews and Israelis are doing it. I’m glad I know the truth about Israel, and I’m glad I have my own opinions, but it’s getting to the point where I want to rip my hair out. Should i just ignore the “Israel issue” or continue fighting? Is it even worth it atp to argue w leftists or are they too far gone? Please help. Thank you.

Thank you for writing this. Any bit of support and understanding we can get is a tremendous help - even moreso from non-Jews.

Losing friends over this issue is a terrible burden, I've had it happen and am always sorry when it happens to others. I do not ask it of anyone, and understand if they choose not to risk it. I am less understanding of people who are afraid to speak up over this issue because they don't want to lose cred amongst anonymous shared-fandom strangers they never have and never will meet.

If you feel like this is driving you nuts and is reaching the level of prolonged agitation from which it is hard to calm down and feel "normal," then it's perfectly all right to detach for a while and focus on other things. But in such circumstances, the fight may still find you - popping up in totally unrelated conversations, as it tends to - and if that does happen I for one would really appreciate it if you would still stand up for us.

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bloatedandalone04 · 2 years ago

Text

Black Around The Edges - Part 8

Series Masterlist

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

Part Eight <3 | Previous Part

July 18th, 1985 - Friday

8:02 PM

You and Nick had been living together for two days now, and to say you were overjoyed would be the understatement of the century. You couldn’t believe how perfect everything felt and how well you both adjusted to living with one another. Granted, he spent a lot of his time at your place back in Shadyside, but it was different when it was now considered both your homes. There was an unrelenting feeling of being wanted and needed, so much so that you could no longer handle living apart from one another.

It was one of those days where you had to work, and Nick had to go to training, but your schedules didn’t line up. You had to work one to eight, while Nick had a late night training session and wouldn’t be home until ten at the earliest.

You were really proud of him. He only had a few weeks of training left (though, tonight could very well be his last night, so he’s told you) before he was able to officially join the police force, something he had been working so hard to be able to do. While you wished you had been there since the beginning, to truly be able to see how far he’s come, you were so grateful to be there to see how this chapter ends, and how the new one begins.

It was just after eight when you pushed open the doors of the hospital and stepped out into the chilled air. It was the middle of summer, though it felt like the beginning of fall. Something you noticed, however, was that it was cold during the evenings in Shadyside, and warm during the evenings in Sunnyvale. It was fitting and made sense. At least a little bit, anyways.

While you were walking back to your car in the dark parking lot, you nearly jumped out of your skin when you felt a hand grab your arm. “Help!” The man said, his grip on you tightening, making you drop your bag a few feet from where your car was. You tried to get a good look at the guy, but his frantic moves made it near impossible. Going off of his voice, you never met him before. “Please, hurry!”

“What’s wrong?” You ask as he begins to pull you towards the back of the hospital.

“It’s my friend,” the stranger said. “He’s totally freaking out! I think he’s choking or something.”

“What?”

“Hurry! Come on!” He pulled you along until the quivering figure of a man came into view.

“Oh, my God,” you say, rushing over to the man.

“Thank God you found someone,” another man said from beside the one choking.

“What did he eat?” You ask as you reach out for the person.

Suddenly, the man was no longer heaving and choking on air. No, he was now turned to you, a sinister look on his unfamiliar face. You back away, brows furrowed as the three men crowded around you.

“What is this?” You tried to keep your voice calm, but you were quickly beginning to panic.

“Awh, little Shadysider wants to ask us something,” one says, his voice dripping with hate.

These three were definitely from Sunnyvale. “I don’t live here,” you quickly say, your back hitting the brick wall. “I just work here.”

“But you used to live here,” the one who faked choking says, his face inches from yours. “And just because you moved to our town, doesn’t make you one of us.”

The tallest one hummed. “No, it does not,”

“I-I-”

“I-I- shut up. You don’t deserve a single good thing that’s happened to you,” the man muttered, his eyes staring into yours. You felt your body begin to shake and fear-induced tears fill your eyes. “You’re nothing. Just another worthless, pathetic Shadyside piece of shit. Just like your brother.”

You didn’t even have time to let out a surprised sob at his words before his fist collided with the left side of your face, your head turning in the opposite direction due to the hard impact.

You could’ve sworn you heard a bone crack as the man grabbed your shoulders and roughly slammed you back into the wall, bits and pieces of brick falling to the ground before you, too, were thrown to it.

It was a blur after that. All you could remember was hit after hit, kick after punch before the metallic taste of blood filled your mouth and your eyes blurred completely.

11:21 PM

“I gotta say, Nick,” James said as the two walked towards the doors of the gym. “You’ve made some real progress in the half year I’ve been training you.”

“Thanks, man,” Nick smiled as he threw his bag over his shoulder. “You were a great trainer. Great friend.”

James grinned, placing his hand on the younger man’s shoulder as they exited the gym. “Your old man would’ve been proud of you, kid,”

Nick, less happy about the mention of his dad, just nodded and forced out another smile. “Thank you,”

“You got any plans after this?”

“No,” Nick says, putting his bag in the passenger side of his car. “I was supposed to get drinks with my brother but I haven’t heard from him all day. Think I’ll just call it an early night.”

“Ah,” James smirked as he opened the driver’s side door of his own car that was parked beside Nick’s. “An early night with Y/n?”

Nick laughed. “No, she’s probably tired,” he said. “She worked today.”

“I see,” James nodded, giving his former trainee one last smile. “Have a good night, kid. You’re going to be good at this.”

Giving him a tight lipped smile, Nick nodded. “Goodnight,”

He watched as James got in his car and drove away before getting in his own. He sat there for a while, the weight of the constant training and fighting finally lifting from his shoulders.

Finally, finally, it was done.

Finally, he could start his life with you and plan a future for the two of you.

His eyes trail up to the polaroid he had stuck to the sun visor. It was of you, your middle finger sticking up as you gave an obviously annoyed face at the camera. It was probably his favorite picture of you ever. It was taken many months ago, when he was bugging you while you were getting ready for a date night, and he had only recently put it there. The photo instantly made him smile, his body aching to return home and return to you.

You were off work now, and had been for hours. Were you waiting up for him? He knew you were. You’d told him many times now that you have trouble falling asleep without him next to you, and he’d never admit it, but he was the same way.

Keeping the visor down, he started the car and began the journey back to Sunnyvale, and back to you.

11:56 PM

You were emotionless as you sat on Nick’s side of the bed, the one closest to the door. Your legs were crossed, your back to the door as a silent tear slipped down your face. With your fingers holding the comforter in a death grip, you kept your eyes glued to the floor on the other side of the bed, the events that took place a few hours prior replaying over and over again in your head.

Your hair was wet and dripping onto one of Nick’s sweatshirts you put on. You were numb and didn’t feel the cold water as it dripped onto your bare legs that were covered in purple bruises and scratch marks.

The sight you were met with when you returned home was horrifying. Looking in the mirror, you stared at the beaten and battered face that once looked like you. Both your eyes were surrounded by purple bruises, black lining each edge. Your lip was split and bleeding onto your chin, and your nose was covered in a dried red. Your lower gums ached, and you knew it was from when your teeth sank into your lip, cutting it deep as your chin hit the ground. The most prominent mark was the dark bruise on your left cheek.

Your body wasn’t any better. Blood, bruises and cuts littered your legs and arms, your stomach being the new home to many large spots of purple and blue.

The shower was one of the most painful experiences of your life, and every minute that passed made you feel like you were reliving the attack you faced not too long before. It stung, and your tears made your eyes ache even more than they already did. The red mixing with the clear water was something you’ve never seen before and it looked like something straight out of a murder documentary.

You had never been more thankful for your studies than you were right now. Having knowledge on injuries and how to treat them saved you from getting any infected wounds. At least for now.

You were sure you were all out of tears when you dressed yourself in Nick’s shirt and boyshorts, covering your upper half from your view completely as it looked worse than your lower half.

When you crawled over and planted your body on Nick’s side of the large bed, you felt numb. Maybe it was because you were staying completely still and letting the scene play over and over again. You didn’t feel a thing, with the exception of a tear falling every once in a while.

You had considered putting sweatpants on and covering your face with makeup, but what good would that do? Your eyes were swollen, and the makeup would surely infect your wounds.

After attempting to put cream and alcohol on your various cuts, you stopped once the pain became too much. So now, you’re just waiting to face your boyfriend.

What would he say?

You had very little time to think about it as the second he entered your mind, you heard the sound of the door closing. The door to the bedroom opened from behind you, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to tense up at the sound. Part of you, however, wondered if it was one, or all three, of the guys coming back to finish the job.

“Hey,” you hear Nick’s familiar voice and instantly tear up. But, you wouldn’t cry. You can’t. “I didn’t know if you’d still be up.”

You were scared to test your voice out. Since the men left you to pick yourself up piece by piece, and since you stopped screaming, you remained silent. Your throat felt like it was on fire and your entire mouth ached with every grind of your teeth. “Yeah,” you winced at the pain that shot down your throat and held back a cry. Your voice was hoarse and barely audible, and immediately Nick knew something had happened.

Something was wrong. “Babe?” You blinked away your tears at the nickname, your heart pounding as you felt him inch closer to you. “Baby, what’s going on? What happened-”

When the side of your face came into view, Nick stopped in his tracks, his bag falling from his shoulder at the sight of you. At the sound of his audible intake of breath, you turn your head towards him and watch as his eyes widen more than before.

His eyes were looking over your entire figure, to your swollen and beaten face, to your scratched up legs. He didn’t want to know what was hiding under the shirt you took from him. “Holy shit, Y/n,” he didn’t know what to say or how to react.

What the fuck happened?

It was like you read his thoughts as your grip on the comforter tightened. “There were these three guys, at the hospital,” your voice broke at every other word, making you sound as pathetic as you knew you looked. “They lied. They said he was-he was choking. I just wanted to help. I just wanted to help him.” Your voice was all over the place, the pitch going from quiet to barely audible.

Nick’s eyes darkened at your words. “Three guys?” He didn’t need you to confirm your words. You were enough proof.

“I just wanted to help,”

Nick stepped towards you, then immediately away from you when his eyes caught sight of the fingerprints that were wrapped around your neck, each finger formed side by side.

His ears were ringing, his face hot as he looked at his pure and fragile girlfriend, covered in the markings of three men. How the fuck could this have happened? When? The gym he trained at was a quick ten minute drive from the hospital, and his heart fell at the very real fact that he was ten minutes away from you when you were being attacked.

What kind of boyfriend was he?

“Fuck,” he muttered angrily, not at all knowing how to handle the situation. He was quickly losing control, and what a sight it was to see.

You had never seen him so conflicted, so livid, during the seven months you’ve known him. You could tell that he was blaming himself, something that wasn’t fair. He had no idea that this would happen to you, and he should not blame himself for other people’s actions. “Nick,” you say quietly.

“Who did it?” He asked, his voice strained and angry.

Your hands were aching to reach out to him, to calm him down. An hour ago, you wanted to be alone, to never face another person ever again and to never show your boyfriend your beaten and bruised body. Now, all you wanted was for him to hold you and heal your body with his warmth and the love he radiated for you.

“I don’t know,” you whimpered. “It was dark and they were so close. I’ve never seen them before.”

“If you saw them again, do you think you’d recognise them?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Nick, please,” you nearly sobbed, making him stop asking questions and stare at you, torn between wrapping his arms around you and going back to the hellhole that was Shadyside and killing the worthless scums that did this to you. “Please, just…come here.”

That made him choose the first option, though the second was still on his to do list. Slowly, he kneeled on the bed, letting you make the first move by wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling his body on top of yours.

It hurt, a painful jolt shooting up your body at the feeling of him pressing against your wounds, but you didn’t care. You couldn’t hurt anymore than you already did.

As the night went on, you talked about what happened a bit more, but not to the point of Nick being able to figure out who it was.

Sleep finds you easily. The nightmares, too. You were reliving the attack on repeat in your sleep, but nothing could wake you up from it. Maybe it’ll help you paint the full picture of what really happened, instead of the bits and pieces you could hardly remember.

Nick, however, couldn’t fall asleep if you paid him. He was wide awake, his eyes burning a hole in the ceiling as he let your even breaths calm his racing heart. In all honesty, he was livid beyond control. He was holding on to everything he had in him to keep him grounded and from going out and searching for whoever it was that marked you up like this.

After his last night of training, he felt like a winner. He accomplished something he had been working towards for years now, and he wanted nothing more than to share his victory with you. Now, he felt like the biggest failure in the entire world.

Of course, the cowards had to do it in Shadyside. Because how dare they taint this town’s reputation. Nick knew that your attackers had to have been from Shadyside. You’d mentioned how they told you how inferior you were to them, and that was all he needed to know.

Nick also knew that he needed to find the fuckers, but how would he do that when he had no clue where to even start? Sunnyvale was full of pricks who had their heads stuck so far up their own asses, it’d take him forever to narrow it down.

The only positive thing that came out of this was that he could now put his combat training to good use once he did find out who your attackers were.

July 19th, 1985

10:35 AM

Your bruises had darkened over the duration of the night, and your eyes could barely open due to how swollen and puffy they were.

In other words, you looked like death itself.

Today was the seventh anniversary of the Camp Nightwing massacre, and seven years since you lost your brother.

It was a tough day for both you and Nick, but at least you had each other, right?

“I don’t want you going today,” Nick said from his spot in the doorway to the bathroom. He leaned against the frame, his arms crossed as he watched you attempt to put more cream on your face.

You didn’t face him, nor meet his eyes in the large mirror that took up a decent amount of space on the wall. “I have to go,” you murmur, not being able to speak in your usual pitch.

“Y/n,” Nick said, frustration lacing his voice as he crossed his left leg over his right. “You were nearly killed last night. There are three psychos out there, walking around without a care in the fucking world. Is this really worth going back to that town?”

“I’d have to go back, anyway,” you say, purposely dodging his question. You, too, were questioning whether or not you’d ever feel safe going to Shadyside by yourself again after last night. Blinking back the tears from the sting you felt when you applied an antiseptic cream to the gash on your lip, you point out the obvious. “I work there.”

“Yeah, I know,” your boyfriend muttered, shaking his head as he gave up on trying to get you to meet his eyes through the mirror. “Maybe that should change, too.”

You shake your head, dropping the container of cream into the basket full of skincare products. Placing your hands flat against the marbled counter, you look yourself in the eye, your shoulders tensing as you take a deep breath. “I can’t be scared of everything that happens to me, not again,” you mumbled. After Tommy died, you were terrified to leave the house and scared of every single person who wasn’t either your mom or dad. You refused to be that scared, defenseless little girl again. “I won’t.”

Nick sighed, his hand coming up to tug on his dark hair. “I wasn’t there for you,”

That makes you turn around, your eyes wide at his words. “Do not blame yourself because of me,”

“It’s not because of you, God,” he grunted. “It’s because of me. I’m the one who wanted you to move here, I’m the reason they targeted you.”

“And I agreed,” you move over to him, grabbing his hands and placing them on your waist, hiding the wince from the feeling of his hands against your bruised body.

“It may not be my fault, but it sure as hell isn’t yours, either,” he sighed, his thumb gently massaging your clothed hip. In the daytime, he had a clearer view of all you endured last night, and he didn’t want to see what you looked like outside in the sun. Your hair was tied up, your finger covered neck on full display, making Nick’s heart burn with hatred.

“I know that,” you assure him, gripping the back of his head and bringing it down so it was close to yours. You press a kiss to his forehead, your lip quivering at the painful action. “I also know that today is a hard day for you, too. Tommy did try to….you know. I understand if you don’t want to come with me.”

“Like hell I don’t,” Nick muttered, shaking his head and moving away from you to get dressed. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

You smile to yourself at his words, watching as he rummages around in his bag for suitable clothing. You hadn’t unpacked everything yet, so your clothing, as well as his, were still tucked away in bags and boxes. Truthfully, you’d rather stay home and unpack every single box that scattered the entire floor of the apartment than go back to the town you no longer felt comfortable in.

For twenty one years, nothing had happened to you, physically. Sure, you lost Tommy, but that was emotionally. You had never been assaulted before, and who says this will be the last time? If you were to stay in Sunnyvale and never leave it, you’d be unharmed and untouched. Who would ruin the reputation just to go for round two with you?

You were scared of the answer, but you didn’t show it as you slipped on a black, sleeveless dress. Since your legs would be seen, you decided that was enough to have on display, so you chose to wear your grey cardigan to hide the hand marks on your arms. You’d have to put up with the heat that came with summer.

On the drive to Shadyside, you fill with dread when you realise you’ll see your parents, and they will completely freak out when they see the state of your entire body.

Your hair was pinned back, the necklace from Tommy sitting on your upper chest. You had very little makeup on, only a smidge of blush on to add some natural color to your purple cheeks. You would’ve done a full face, suck up the pain and get it over with, but removing the makeup later on was a task you refused to do.

When the car came to a stop outside the gates of the Shadyside cemetery, Nick looked over at you, allowing you to move at your own pace. After looking at the gates for a few seconds, your hand reaches for the handle. “Hey,” Nick says, refraining from grabbing your hand in case it triggered something in you. Instead, he leaned over just slightly when you turned to face him. “I love you.”

You smile at him, looking away quickly. God, you were a mess right now, with no control over your emotions. Despite saying the three words to him countless times now, you couldn’t bring yourself to say them now.

It wasn’t that you don’t love him, you do with everything you had in you, it was just that you weren’t in the right state or mind space to feel the love that radiates from him. You weren’t yourself.

And Nick knew that, so he wasn’t mad when you squeezed his hand before getting out of the car, waiting for him from the outside. He knew you needed to hear that you weren’t alone, and that you were loved. He didn’t need you to say it back when it was you who needed to hear it.

He joined you a few seconds later, his hand on the small of your back as you walked through the rows of headstones. As soon as your crying mother saw you, she moved away from your father and her hands were covering her mouth. “Y/n! Oh, my God,” she cried, more tears falling from her eyes as you finally reached her. “What happened to you?”

You shake your head at her tear stained face as you dad stood behind her. “It’s nothing, mom,” you tried to brush off her questions, your fingers wrapping around her wrists when her hands reached up to caress the sides of your face. “We’re not here for me.”

“What happened?” She asked again, this time more sternly. Your dad glared at Nick, his eyes burning a hole in his head as he avoided eye contact. He already felt guilty enough, he did not need to have your dad on his case, too.

Knowing you weren’t going to win this one, you sighed. “I was attacked last night, at the hospital,”

Your mother gasped, her hands covering her mouth once again as your dad stepped forward. “Where the hell were you when this happened?” He asked Nick, making him look up and glare at the older man. You moved in front of your boyfriend, in an attempt to shield him from your father, but really, who were you kidding? Nick was a lot taller, and wider, than you.

“Dad, stop it, it wasn’t his fault,” you defend Nick, pushing against your dad’s chest when he stepped closer to you. At your quiet and hoarse voice, he looked back down at you, his eyes softening. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said before wrapping his arms around you, your mother joined in, hugging you as well.

From over the top of your head, your father made eye contact with Nick. “I hope you find the son of a bitch who did this,”

“I will,” Nick said back, his tone promising enough to make your dad nod before he and your mother stepped away from you and Tommy’s headstone came into view.

“We’ve already talked to him,” your mom said, her voice sad and quiet as she held onto your dad’s hand. “You can say something now, honey.”

You nod, taking the flowers from Nick’s hand and crouching down so you were eye level with the headstone. “Hi,” you say as you place the flowers on the ground next to the ones your parents brought. “Recognise me?” You tried to joke, but your broken voice mixed with the sharp inhale you took at the sting in your lip made it humorless.

Nick looked away, his eyes raking up the rows as a way to give you at least a bit of privacy. Really, he was going over all the ways he could kill a man in his head.

A few minutes pass before you stand up, your arm wrapping around his middle while his gently rests over your shoulders. He kissed the side of your head as you brought your free hand up to wipe away the salty tear that fell from your eye and into the cut on your cheek.

“I hope I’m not too late,” you hear Beth’s soft voice from behind you. When you turn around, her small smile is wiped clean as she looks at your face. Before she could even ask what happened, you step towards her and wrap your arms around her frame. Caught off guard, she hands the single flower she was holding to your mother before returning the hug. One hand presses your head against her shoulder while the other wraps around your middle.

When she felt your tears begin to dampen her sleeve, she glanced at Nick, her eyes accusing and cold. He could only imagine all the insults she was throwing his way in her head, and for once, he agreed with every single one.

October 17th, 1985

7:46 PM

With time, you were able to move on from that night and grow from it.

Sure, you still had nightmares every once in a while, but you weren’t scared anymore.

Still, that didn’t stop Nick from dropping you off and picking you up from work, which sometimes screwed up his own work schedule. You felt guilty, but no matter how many times you told him that you’d be fine, that you’d come straight home, Nick brushed you off. He was still so angry about what happened, and he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t going to let you out of his sight.

It had been four months since that night, and your physical appearance was nearly back to normal. You had a scar on your lower lip that would be with you for the rest of your life, and a few others that were hardly noticeable, but other than that you looked as good as new.

It was nearing the end of your shift, the dreaded one to eight, and Nick was waiting for you right outside the doors. He was currently going against the three “no parking” signs, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care. For years, everyone referred to him as “future police chief Nick Goode” and, therefore, held him at a higher level than most. Who would go up against him?

It was as if someone heard him ask that, as a second later, he got his answer. “Hello, officer,” Nick closed his eyes at the all too familiar voice, and suddenly he regretted leaving his window down. “Funny seeing you here.”

Nick rolled his eyes, opening the door and getting out of the car. He refused to be at a position in which Beth was towering over him. “Why’s that?” He asked as he crossed his arms and leaned against the car.

“Well, you know,” she trailed off, pointing towards the hospital with her thumb. “Seeing as what you couldn’t stop from happening last time. It’s just funny to see you actually looking out for her, like you should’ve been that night.”

Nick tensed up at that. Fuck, he hated Beth.

But, he refused to let her words get to him. He wasted enough of his time on her. “Beth,” he said it like he was scolding a child, and he took pride in the way she glared at him. “Don’t start now. I thought we had a good thing going here.”

She scoffed. “As if,” she muttered. “We were good until I saw what you did to my best friend’s face.”

Nick narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I find it funny that the second Y/n moved to Sunnyvale, she got her face beat in,” she said. “What? You had to take her back to your town to get your way with her? You couldn’t make a mess of her in her hometown?”

She was unbelievable. Of course Beth thought it was Nick who had assaulted you back in July. She was probably waiting for the next bad thing to happen, just so she could twist it around and pin it on him. “Beth, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” he glanced behind her then quickly took his eyes off the doors to the hospital as he said his next words, “I think it’s time we stop acting like this towards each other. It’s not fair to Y/n.”

“I know it’s not,” Beth rolled her eyes.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Looking out for my best friend,” she stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Nick’s eyes flickered back towards the building, his brows raising in amusement when she continued. “Unlike you, I won’t let anything bad happen to her again, especially because of you.”

Nick slumped further against the car, his arms staying crossed over the blue button up that was his work shirt. “So, you’re saying that what happened to her was my fault?”

“Are you stupid? Of course it’s your fault,” she seethed. “You’re the one who made her leave this town. Nothing bad like that ever happened to her before she met you. You’re like this dark cloud that constantly fucks up her life and I’m tired of sitting back and watching you ruin her. You don’t deserve her and you never did.”

“Is that right?” Beth’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head at those words, not because they came from Nick, but because they came from you.

She turned around instantly, her words getting caught in her throat at the sight of you. You mimicked Nick’s stance, your arms crossing over your chest. “Y/n, I-”

“Shut up,” you cut her off. “For once, shut up.”

Beth shook her head, her hand reaching out to you, but you pulled away and walked past her.

“God, Beth,” you said, frustrated and fed up beyond words. “I thought we were making progress here. Why do you have to involve yourself in everything, huh? You know what? I don’t even care anymore. I’m so done.” Bumping your shoulder into hers, you walk around the front of Nick’s car, making your boyfriend stand up straight as he knew you wanted to leave as soon as possible.

“Y/n, wait,”

“Do me a favor and stay the fuck away from us,” you say, opening the passenger side door and getting in. Nick shook his head, a laugh escaping his lips before he could stop it.

Beth glared at him through teary eyes. “You knew she was right there!”

Nick shrugged, opening the door. “Maybe try shutting the fuck up next time,”

8:23 PM

The drive home was brutal. You were so mad and so humiliated at your former friend, and decided that enough was enough. And Nick, after spending the entire drive listening to you go on about how upset you were, and watching you cry over her, he supported your decision completely.

“God, Nick, I’m so sorry,” you say once he stopped the car in front of the apartment building. Your hands grip the sides of his face, angry and embarrassed tears still slipping from your eyes.

“Hey,” he said quietly, using his thumbs to wipe away your tears. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” you whimpered, pressing a tear tasting kiss to his lips before hiding your face in the crook of his neck.

“Y/n,” he sighed, his hand cradling the back of your head. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I do,” you mumbled. “I let her talk to you like that for months.”

“You know I couldn’t care less about what Beth thinks,”

“I know,” your voice was muffled, but he still understood you as clear as day. “I wish I was as strong as you.”

“Hey,” Nick said again, moving your head so he could look you in the eye. “Don’t let her make you feel weak. You’re so strong, Y/n. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. You’re only twenty one and you’ve been through enough bad shit to last a lifetime. And you’re a hell of a lot stronger than me.”

You gave him a look, the tears stopping their descent and leaving your cheeks damp. “That’s not true,” you mumbled. “But thank you.”

The look on your face mixed with the hurt you felt made Nick’s heart pump quicker, the urge to rid Beth from your life once and for all overpowering all rational thoughts. “Hey, I gotta head back to the station for a bit,” he said, making your brows furrow. “Kapinski’s orders. He wants me to go over this case with him.”

“Oh,” you say, wiping your face with the palm of your hand. “Okay. I’ll wait up for you.”

“Okay,” Nick pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Are you going to be okay by yourself?”

“Yes,” you teased, bumping your fist with his in the way you’ve seen him do plenty of times with James. “I’m stronger than I look.”

Nick laughed at your hand movement. “I know you are,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

You press a final kiss to his cheek before reaching back and grabbing your bag from the backseat. “I love you,”

He watched you until you were safe inside the building before starting the car again and beginning the journey to the new and improved Shadyside Mall.

11:57 PM

“Fuck sake, I’m coming!” John yelled as he walked through the apartment. The pounding on the door didn’t let up until he swung it open, his eyes rolling at the girl on the other side of the frame. “What do you want, Beth?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, running her hands up his chest before placing them at the base of his throat. “I miss you. I miss us.”

“Beth, I told you I was done playing this game with you,” John muttered, gripping her wrists. “Breaking up then getting back together three times was enough for me.”

“Shh,” she hushed him, putting her index finger on his lips. “I need a distraction. I fucked up with Y/n again tonight, and she hates me. Please, I need you to take my mind off it.”

John sighed. “What was it this time?”

Beth shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Please, baby,” she whispered. “Distract me.”

With a grunt, John gently pulled Beth into the apartment. “Careful,” he mumbled, guiding her around the various nails and screws that littered the recently dug up floor. “Cam and I are still renovating this dump.”

Beth let John lead her to his room, her eyes lingering on a nearby hammer for a bit too long before she was pulled into his room and pushed onto his bed.

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