#but honestly who's going to say no to a five year old asking you in french | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

luvdsc · 1 month ago

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barbie girl.

if life is plastic (and therefore, nonbiodegradable), then it’s so not fantastic. honestly, who came up with that? regina george really should’ve googled about the new plastics economy.

or alternatively, pretty girls rule the world, and you find out that he’s (not) all that.

pairing :: na jaemin x reader genre :: comedy, fluff, angst ⋮ makeover + college au word count :: 24,618 words warnings :: body issues, body image, weight mentions, insecurities, beauty is a social construct, [spoiler] did something bad, people being literal scum, so much gaslighting that you can start a wildfire and j*ke gyll*nh*al should take notes, “if a man talks shit then i owe him nothing” playlist :: pretty boys (romi) ⋆ you can’t sit with us (sunmi) ⋆ i just wanna know (katherine li) ⋆ lie to girls (sabrina carpenter) ⋆ look what you made me do (taylor swift) ⋆ leftover feelings (regina song) ⋆ number one girl (rosé) + extended playlist here. author’s note :: she’s all that is one of my most favorite rom coms ever, but i’ve always been ///: at the whole makeover idea and decided to write my own version !! the idols mentioned in this fic are just characters, and how i portray them in this fic do not reflect how i actually view them or their irl personas. as always, much love to miss lana and miss moon for being my biggest cheerleaders ᥫ᭡ ↳ part of the 𝔯𝔢𝔭𝔲𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 collaboration series.

i. hiya, barbie! hi, ken!

Na Jaemin does not know that you exist.

Good looking, charismatic, and popular — it’s his world, and you’re just living in it. Or something like that. You’re decently smart, somewhat funny, and not pretty enough to stand out, but not exactly hideous according to societal standards (source: those beauty quizzes in Seventeen magazine that you used to be obsessed with when you were thirteen and in desperate need of flirting tips). If he was the main lead, you’d probably be Extra #6, maybe Extra #2 on a good day.

By your calculations, the two of you should never cross paths, like two parallel lines. Wait, scratch that, you would probably never be aligned with anything that has to do with this guy. You saw him standing outside of the door of your shared accounting classroom during your fall semester, and he spent twenty five minutes editing his picture for Instagram and ended up late for the lecture. And he probably already spent even more time selecting the final photo to edit before you arrived to class and noticed him. Absolute idiot. Absolute handsome idiot, but idiot nonetheless. A grade A himbo with a grade C in financial accounting.

Okay, so scrap the parallel lines theory, maybe skew lines are a better way of explaining it. Yeah, that seems about right, the two of you are from completely different dimensions, never meant to interact or run parallel with each other. And once again, by this logic, your paths should never cross.

“Y/N!”

You stand corrected.

Na Jaemin does know that you exist.

You suddenly remember that there was that one small group presentation in that very same aforementioned accounting class, and you were assigned to the same group as Jaemin. Armed with this rediscovered memory, you are going to revise your earlier response and say that the correct descriptor for your relationship is perpendicular lines. That sounds right. Final answer. You’re locking it in.

Your paths should have only intersected once, the two of you should be going in different directions, and even though you’re in another class with him again for spring semester this year (since all freshmen with a business major has to take the same Gen. Ed. classes), not once have the two of you had a proper conversation with each other (He asked you to pass a note one time, but that barely counts). Jaemin should have forgotten you by now, and you should be continuing on with your side character life that you’re very much content with.

So then why on earth is he shouting your name like you’re old friends and causing what feels like every person within a one mile radius to stare at you?

He’s unknowingly giving you your main character moment, and you very quickly realize that you do not feel like the Y/N in any one of those Gojo fanfics you read religiously at three in the morning when you should really be studying or sleeping.

Instead, you feel like a bug watching its impending doom as a Doc Marten boot starts to descend at an alarming speed and you can’t even try to scuttle out of the way to avoid it. Frozen in your spot, you can only watch as your university’s it boy skids to a stop in front of you after running across the grass and flashing you his million dollar smile. “Hey, Y/N, right? We have ECON 13 together.”

Starstruck, your mind to mouth filter is completely shot, and all you manage to let out is a very uncool “Uh huh.”

He laughs a little breathlessly, and you feel like all the oxygen has been knocked out of your lungs, too. Sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, Jaemin tilts his head to the side slightly, the sunlight catching his profile perfectly, and your breath hitches in your throat once more.

“I know this is gonna sound really, uh, forward since we barely know each other and all, but—”

You’re barely listening to him, your heart pounding in your chest and the blood rushing to your ears. It’s pretty embarrassing to see how a mere stranger with a pretty face can affect you this much. You really thought you had a much stronger willpower than this, but it’s so goddamn unfair how this boy standing in front of you has the most perfectly sculpted face you’ve ever seen. Plus, his eyelashes? Why the hell do boys always get the prettiest, thickest, and darkest lashes?

Meanwhile, you’re out here struggling to force your perpetually straight, stubby lashes into a curl that ends up lasting only a couple hours, even when you use waterproof mascara. You still end up with flat lashes and you have to feverishly scrub your eyes to remove the blasted makeup and lose a few cherished lashes in the process.

“—with me?” Jaemin finishes, and you belatedly realize that you did not catch a single word that he said, too caught up in your inner monologue and too busy ogling. However, your heart flutters in your chest when you catch the last part of his question. Not to be too presumptuous, but it sounds like he’s asking you out. Why else would anyone randomly stop you like this and talk to you for this long? You’re positively giddy at this revelation. This is your moment, the one you’ve been waiting for your whole life, like Rapunzel waiting in her tower for the one to come and save her from her horribly mundane, repetitive life.

“Oh! Um… yes?” It’s a 50/50 chance between yes or no, and you hope that’s the correct answer he’s looking for.

Jaemin’s face immediately brightens, and he turns his smile up another kilowatt, nearly blinding you. You grin back at him, squinting a little. This must be how Icarus felt when he flew towards the sun.

“Oh shit, really? You’re really agreeing to tutor me? Hyuck—you know, our class’s peer TA—said I was a hopeless cause, and I would need way more one on one lessons outside of his hours and all that if I wanted to pass. And yeah, I know I could probably bitch at him until he caves since we’re kind of friends, but he would also hold this over my head, but he said you had the highest score on last week’s practice midterm, so I thought, ‘hey, why not shoot my shot?’” He directs another smile your way, pausing for a quick breath. Your mind is racing a mile a minute, and his smile isn’t helping whatsoever as your heart decides to join in this race as well until it sinks when you finally process his words.

“Wait, Donghyuck said that about me?” you manage to get out, a little dazed, and Jaemin confirms before eagerly continuing on with his chatter, but all you can do is stupidly nod as the word “TUTOR” spins around and around in your mind in bold, italicized, underlined mocking red letters in Times New Roman font, size 12, double spaced, MLA format, the whole shebang.

Of course, he only wants a tutor. What made you think that a boy like him would look twice at a girl like you? The only other time a guy has ever expressed interest in you is to share homework answers for Calculus back in 10th grade (For the record, all of his answers were completely wrong, but Sungchan was a cute distraction. Actually, the two of you became very good friends once you very quickly got over the fact that you were firmly placed in the friendzone. He’s even dating one of your best friends now).

“Anyways, can I have your number? I can text you to match our schedules and figure out the times to meet up for the next couple of weeks before our next midterm.” You remain wide eyed, gazing at him like a deer caught in the headlights and still attempting to fully understand everything that has just happened.

Jaemin looks at you expectantly, his hand outstretched towards you with his phone tucked between his fingers. The device dangles there for an additional ten seconds that probably isn’t socially acceptable. Grab the phone, you scream at yourself silently, but your body doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. You blink slowly once. Then twice.

“Or, I can just… uh, type in your number if you tell me,” Jaemin says awkwardly, his smile wilting slightly as he shifts from one foot to the other under your unwavering gaze and slowly retracting his hand. Finally, you come to your senses as you quickly spring into action and snatch the phone from him, tapping in your digits and adding in your name and shared class before saving your contact.

“Here,” you mutter, returning his phone, and he gives you a relieved grin. You clutch onto the strap of your backpack a little tighter, cursing the way your heart skips a beat. “I should be free most weekday afternoons since I prefer to take all morning classes, but let me know when you’re free and we can work something out.”

“Awesome! Thank you so much, Y/N, you’re a life saver.” Jaemin beams at you, touching your shoulder briefly and you feel that very same place on your body erupt in flames as your face heats up in a similar manner. “I’ll text you tonight, yeah?”

You can only numbly nod, subconsciously raising your hand and waving at him, and Jaemin chuckles, flashing his pearly whites at you again, before he saunters off and blends into a group of other equally pretty and popular students, a few of whom look over at you with vague interest before turning their attention back to the boy who just joined them.

What have you gotten yourself into?

ii. you want to go for a ride?

“I’m getting sus vibes from him.”

Flicking her long dark hair over her shoulder, Lana takes a long sip of her wintermelon milk tea with honey pearls, a spitting image of that one infamous Starbucks meme of your school’s alumni, Hyungwon (His picture can still be found floating through discord chats, and you’re ninety percent sure your school used it in one of their recruitment brochures at one point). She’s sprawled out on the beanbag in the corner of your shared apartment’s living room, her HP laptop covered in sailor moon stickers balanced across her thighs (She swears HP is the best laptop brand, but you don’t trust electronics advice from anyone who can’t even use a toaster properly).

“Have you even spoken to Jaemin? How exactly are you getting sus vibes from him?” Moon jumps in, glancing over the top of her MacBook as she takes a quick break from her latest coding project regarding polynomials, matrices, and a bunch of other math terminology you rather not think about. You left all that arithmetic jargon back in high school after you got a 5 on both AP calculus exams and got to skip all required math classes for your accounting major (Sungchan wasn’t so lucky).

“He’s a fratboy finance major.” Lana rolls her eyes.

“Point taken, but weren’t you into that senior, Jaehyun? He’s one of them. You called him your soulmate,” you interject, and she splutters for a few seconds before putting her hand up in protest.

“Listen, I was going through a perpetual mental breakdown at the beginning of this semester. It doesn’t count. You try being a pharmacy major. Thank god I switched out to English. My mental state was compromised, and I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“What do you mean not thinking straight? Lana, you literally chose the straightest, most heterosexual man out there.” Moon jibes, closing her laptop now with an air of conceding defeat. You have to give her props for trying to work on some assignments, but you already knew no one was going to get any work done tonight. It’s a Thursday night anyway, which means you have until Tuesday to get all the homework assigned today done. You can always work on them on Monday night and inevitably curse yourself for not getting it done earlier when you end up pulling an all nighter and show up to your 8 a.m. international marketing tactics class with raccoon eyes.

“This is bullying, and we are on an anti-bullying campus,” Lana complains, giving the two of you the stink eye before leaning over and lightly shoving the snoozing boy sprawled across the floor next to her. “Wake up, Yang. Moon and Y/N gang up on me when you’re not awake to absorb all our gentle bullying.”

The boy in question sits upright, bleary eyes and the drying ink from his notes now decorating his cheek, a lasting reminder of the makeshift pillow for his impromptu nap. Yawning, he stretches his arms, rubbing his face and making an even bigger mess of smears. “What’d I miss?”

“We were just discussing Lana‘s tragic crush on Jaehyun last year,” you say, and she makes a strangled noise next to you. “Were you up late sewing again?”

“Yes,” Yangyang grumbles, “You would think Kaneki would be so easy to cosplay since he wears all black, but the mask is taking forever to make.”

“Can’t one of your sugar daddies buy one for you?”

“What sugar daddies? If I had one, I wouldn’t be stuck in here trying to balance equations,” he moans, crumpling up another sheet filled up with scribbles and his latest attempts at answering the second to last problem for organic chemistry.

“My bad, I thought you would have some from your cosplay account.” Moon shrugs, rummaging through her large soccer mom purse for a snack and triumphantly pulling out a box of green tea Hello Pandas. “You have like 100k followers on there.”

“My audience demographic is weebs.” Yangyang deadpans. “How many weebs do you know who are rich enough to send five thousand dollars every week to a struggling college student?”

“Wait, we’re going off topic right now. What do you know about Jaemin, Yang?” Lana cuts in, and Moon nods in agreement (You try not to look too interested, but fail miserably, no doubt).

“Jaemin Na? I’ve never talked to him personally, but there’s always stories about him and his friends. Jeno is on the baseball team and notorious for his body count. He’s the one that takes up like 30% of our university’s anonymous confessions Twitter account. This is his insta, but he’s not really active on social media.” Yangyang passes his phone around for the three of you to see Jeno’s Instagram. There’s a whopping total of fourteen posts, and every picture of him with someone of the opposite sex features a different girl. Instant red flag.

“Lia is pretty big on Tik Tok,” Yangyang continues, grabbing his phone to pull up her account to show all of you. “She’s pretty and is actually really good at singing, but she's basically trying to be the next Addison Rae. Jimin models, and she’s going by Karina nowadays. I heard she tried to trademark that name or something. She posts dancing Tik Toks. She and Yeonjun collab a lot. He walks for New York fashion week and has a Tik Tok for dancing, too. I’m like 70% sure they’re only dating to boost their views. Somi is the most popular one out of them. She’s the blonde one. She’s pretty talented and I heard she signed onto the same company as the Blackpink House. She’s even done a makeup video with Vogue recently.”

“And Jaemin has a pretty large social following. He takes decent pictures, and that’s what he insists his insta is for, but let’s be real, the majority of his followers are there for his face. You should see his TikTok. He literally just recorded himself looking at the camera and put some generic caption, and he racked up like seven hundred thousand likes,” Yangyang grumbles, pulling up his account to show you all the video in question. “Like literally, what the hell is this? I have to put in so many hours making my outfits and editing my videos and all he does is smile and paste ‘Don’t have a valentine again… hope this will change soon’ on top, and the preteens are foaming at the mouth.”

“Wow, jumpscare warning next time you show me him please.” Lana wrinkles her nose at the repeating offensive clip. Yangyang merely shoves his phone even closer to her in response, and she flips him off.

“Hey, you’re the one who asked about him. Why are you suddenly interested in him? Is this your Jaehyun 2.0 phase starting up?” Yangyang grins, and Lana flicks his forehead in retaliation.

“Shut up, when are you guys gonna let that die? Besides, it’s Y/N who’s interested, not me,” Lana retorts, and immediately, the spotlight is back on you. You cough awkwardly, feeling a bit uncomfortable with all the attention.

“Uh, he just asked if I would tutor him…”

“And you said yes?” Yangyang sounds scandalized and utterly betrayed. “Why would you willingly fraternize with the enemy like that?”

“What enemy? I didn’t even know he knew I existed until this very recent development occurred.”

“Influencers like him are instant enemies to me, and as my friend, he’s your enemy by association. I can't believe you’re helping the competition,” Yangyang sniffs.

You don’t have the guts to tell them all that the only reason you accepted his tutor proposal is because you got ahead of yourself and despite all the odds and signs, thought Jaemin was asking you out. You know your friends won’t make fun of you (too badly), but that is completely humiliating, and you will be taking that to the grave.

“It’s just tutoring, don’t be so dramatic,” you scoff, making a face at him. “He texted me yesterday, and we’re meeting up at the library later today, and I reserved a private study room for two hours.”

“Oooh, so it’s a study date?” Moon teases, and your cheeks betray you with the amount of heat now emanating off of them.

“Shut up, it’s literally just tutoring. We’re going over supply and demand curves.”

“No, back up, he texted you yesterday and you didn’t tell us about him until today?” Lana interjects, holding up her hand and putting on a faux offended expression. “What kind of friend are you? We’re supposed to tell each other every nitty gritty detail about our love lives! Like Sungchan texts Moon good morning texts at eight in the morning, and by 8:30 a.m., we’re already getting a play by play about it in the group chat!”

Moon turns pink and opens her mouth before deciding against it and quietly shuts it. Yangyang silently laughs next to Lana, his shoulders shaking (You decide that you shouldn’t tell them Jaemin actually asked you in person to tutor him three days ago or else, Lana will chew you out even more).

You protest, flailing your arms around slightly in exasperation. “There’s literally zero development in my love life! I have nothing going on in it, and I can guarantee you that he does not see me in that light whatsoever.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.” Lana looks wholly unconvinced, and your two friends look back and forth between the two of you like two kids watching their divorced parents fight. “So… Do you need help picking out an outfit for tomorrow?”

“… Yeah.”

iii. sure, ken. jump in!

“Hey, Y/N!”

Jaemin loudly whispers a little breathlessly as he drops his bag onto the table and slumps into the chair next to yours, his chest heaving slightly. Startled, you jerk up in your chair, heart skipping a beat when you realize he’s here. You were supposed to be in a private study room, but there was a group of boys already in there, and as the most non-confrontational person to walk this earth, you decided to cut your losses and take a table nearby.

“Did you wait long? I got caught up outside the library when Somi stopped me and completely forgot,” he says apologetically, pulling out his textbooks, and you shake your head, giving him a shy smile.

“No, it’s alright. I was already here anyway, and I got some extra studying done.” You gesture towards the papers and notebooks strewn across the table’s surface, covered in your notes from today’s classes. “Should we start with today’s lesson? How much did you understand in class today?”

“Maybe the first five minutes of it only.”

You pause, glancing over at him. “Professor Hwang was ten minutes late to class.”

“Exactly.” Jaemin nods, and you stifle a laugh. He grins at you. “I don’t think you realize how much of a hopeless cause I am when you agreed to tutor me.”

“We can start from the beginning then. You have four weeks until the midterm, and we can go through every lesson we’ve had so far. I’ll make up a study schedule if you give me yours. And if you continue to go to Donghyuck’s tutoring hours too, you should hopefully be able to catch up and do well on the midterm.”

Jaemin wordlessly pulls up his class schedule on his phone, and you plug them into a Google calendar that you quickly share to his email. “So, I color coded your classes in green, and my classes are in pink. Do you have any other things that we need to work around?”

He peers over at your screen, scanning the contents. “I have my weekly frat meetings on Tuesday nights and mandatory events on other nights.”

“Alright, you can put them in and we’ll figure out meeting times,” you say, pushing your laptop towards him and he starts to add in his extracurricular activities.

“Party from 8 pm to 1 am?” you read skeptically, your eyes scanning over the event he tacked in under this week’s Friday.

“Yeah, can’t miss it,” Jaemin says, typing in more events and making sure to color code them in blue. “Don’t you have things to do on Friday night too?”

“Uh, maybe grab a poke bowl from the dining hall to go and watch another Banana Fish episode,” you say awkwardly, fiddling with the small Gojo keychain you have attached to your pouch.

Jaemin stops, looking over at you. “You watch Banana Fish?”

Your cheeks grow warm. “… Yeah, why?”

His eyes light up and he asks eagerly, “Did you see the latest episode? When Golzine leaves Arthur in charge?”

The two of you continue discussing the plot as he finishes up adding in his schedule for the next four weeks, finally nudging the laptop back towards you. “Do you need to add in your stuff too?”

“Mm no, it’s fine. I already put in my classes, and I’m not in any clubs or sororities,” you answer, making sure to input Donghyuck’s tutoring hours as well before scanning over the calendar and pinpointing areas where he’s free for at least one to two hours. “Okay, should we start with meeting three times a week?”

“Huh, you memorized Hyuck’s hours?” Jaemin notes, giving you a sly smile as he moves closer to look at the schedule.

“Huh? No, don’t you always know your professors’ and TAs’ office hours?” you ask, looking up and are immediately startled after underestimating the proximity between you and the beautiful boy next to you.

“No, I’m not a nerd,” he snorts lightly, and you laugh awkwardly, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction and put a little more distance between the two of you before you go into cardiac arrest, “Right, yeah, well, anyway—”

“You were also interested when I said Hyuck mentioned you before,” Jaemin says suddenly, sitting up straight before a wide grin spreads across his face as he loudly exclaims, “You totally have a crush on him!”

“Quiet down!” You immediately shush him, the tips of your ears burning as everyone within a 40 feet radius in the library is now staring at the two of you. You’ve never received this much attention before, and you very quickly realize that you absolutely hate it. You loudly whisper-protest, stumbling over your words in a panic, “I—I don’t have a crush on him!”

“Oh, come on, your face is getting hot and you’re stuttering. You do too like him,” Jaemin laughs softly, propping his elbow onto the table and resting his chin on the palm of his hand as he gives you a once over. “I could totally make you into his type.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask hotly, cheeks burning even more when you feel his eyes graze over your figure.

“Oh, it’ll be so much fun. We can go to the mall and pick out some cute clothes for you, and then swing by the hair shop. You’re definitely using the wrong conditioner and shampoo,” Jaemin continues, eying your hair for a quick second.

“Wait, wait, we’re just here for tutoring, what are you even talking about?” You ask, bewildered before grasping a stray strand of your hair between your fingers. “And what do you mean I’m using the wrong shampoo?”

“And conditioner,” Jaemin pipes up, picking up his phone to search up some better brands he would recommend. “What have you been using? 2 in 1 Head and Shoulders?”

“No,” you huff softly, your ears growing even warmer at the accusation. “I just use whatever my mom buys in bulk at Costco.”

“Okay, well, you should use this instead,” Jaemin says, showing his phone screen to you, and your eyes widen slightly when you note the price tag.

“I cannot be forking over nearly seventy dollars on shampoo and conditioner,” you say incredulously, pushing his phone back towards him and waving your hand dismissively. “And there’s no way I’m going to spend even more money on new clothes.”

“Okay, fine, I think I have some unopened bottles from sponsored deals that I can give to you,” Jaemin sighs, opening up his text messages to find his friends’ group chat. “Or my friends would have some good ones, too. Maybe we can get you some of their free clothes from sponsorships, too.”

“You guys just get free clothes?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, glancing over at you. “On second thought, Karina and Lia aren’t the same size as you, so you won’t fit them. We can just order some basic pieces online or something for starters.”

“We—We aren’t doing this,” you loudly whisper back to him, hyper aware of the other students around you who keep glancing over at Jaemin. “Let’s just focus on making this schedule and helping you pass your midterm.”

“Oh, please, doll, it’d be fun. Just think of it as a payment for your tutoring,” Jaemin persuades you, scooting closer to you and pressing his thigh against yours lightly. Your breath hitches in your throat at the pet name and his touch. You’ve never been this close to any boy before, let alone one as attractive as Jaemin.

“You’ll look so pretty, I know the perfect outfits to make for you. And I can teach you how to get Hyuck’s attention, too,” he continues, nudging you lightly, and you’re still dazed, unable to get over the fact that he’s impossibly close to you, close enough for you to count the pretty lashes framing his even prettier eyes. You wonder what it’s like to be that beautiful, what it’s like to have people falling at your feet, what it’s like to mesmerize everyone the second you walk into a room.

Honestly, if Jaemin asked you to jump, your only response would be “how high.”

“If I agree to this, will you finally pay attention?” you sigh, and Jaemin instantly brightens up, nodding and giving you another one of those smiles that makes your stomach flip flop. Your Achilles’ heel is one very persistent boy who goes by the name of Na Jaemin, and he has hit you with a direct bullseye.

“Yes, I’ll be a model student, doll.”

You hesitate for a split second before relenting. “Okay, fine, deal.”

iv. i’m a barbie girl in the barbie world.

Jaemin is easy on the eyes, but currently proving to be very difficult for your nerves during your fourth tutoring session. Your wardrobe has increased in style and size by now, and you’re dressed in a pretty lilac top that wraps around you and accentuates your curves and hides what needs to be hidden perfectly. Your jeans may dig a little more than you’d like into your stomach, but it’s your fault that you chose to wear your photo jeans instead of your sitting jeans. Also, your hair has never looked better, all thanks to the boy seated next to you.

“No, when there is a low supply, there’s a high demand. They directly affect each other,” you try to re-explain to the boy next to you, drawing out the line graph once again. He stares down at the familiar graph before looking at the written practice problem in front of him. Professors must have an insane amount of patience, you silently think to yourself.

You sigh. “Let’s put it this way. You and Jeno want to buy the same shirt, but there’s only one left in the right size. So that’s two people who are demanding the one shirt. And the store only has one shirt in its supply. So how would you describe this situation?”

“Oh.” The look of realization flashes across Jaemin’s face as your example easily snaps the puzzle pieces into place for him. “There’s a high demand and low supply. Too many people want the shirt, but there’s not enough shirts.”

“Yes, you got it!” You cheer quietly, mindful of your location at one of the library’s tables. “Now try reading through the practice problems and draw the appropriate supply and demand graphs for each one.”

“And when I’m done with this, we can take a break, and I’ll teach you how to do makeup. My friends will help,” Jaemin says idly as he reads through the first problem again.

Your stomach lurches slightly at that, and you hesitate. “Your friends?”

“Yeah, you know, Jeno, Karina, Lia, and Yeonjun. Somi, too, but she’s been busy. I can teach you basic skincare and makeup, but the girls will have to help you with the rest,” he says casually, scrawling down his first answer and the corresponding graph.

You swallow hard, your voice croaking slightly before you hastily clear it. “Are you sure? Do you think they’ll like me?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, doll. You’re like a puppy, and everyone likes those,” Jaemin mumbles idly, eyebrows furrowing as he rereads the second problem.

“A puppy?” You don’t know whether to be offended or not yet.

Oh, you know, just that you’re cute and all,” Jaemin laughs lightly, starting to write down his next answer, and your heart nearly stops in your chest. You force yourself to breathe regularly again.

“Oh, I see,” you start to answer coolly, but stuttering on the last word, internally cursing your tongue at the last stumble. You try to sit calmly and relax for the rest of the tutoring session as Jaemin slowly makes his way through the practice packet, but the knot in your stomach continues to tangle even more, growing ever bigger. Maybe you should just tell Jaemin that lunch didn’t agree with you and cut this meetup short.

But that means less time spent with Jaemin. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Jaemin is nice, so his friends should be as well, you reason with yourself. There’s no need to be nervous. Even if they’re all incredibly beautiful, hot people with the most unapproachable aura you have ever encountered.

Like honestly, how is someone like Karina even real? Her face could start a modern day equivalent of the Trojan War. She is literally the face blueprint for every main female character you play in your otome games.

Turns out, Karina is even more gorgeous up close. Ridiculously close with the way she’s inches from your face as she swipes on some blush on the apples of your cheeks. You never thought you’d see the resident it girl here for you, standing in the middle of your dorm room, let alone have an actual conversation with her that extended beyond a polite hello when she stops by for Giselle. It’s already been 45 minutes, and your nerves still haven’t calmed down.

“You just need to apply a little bit here and here on both your cheeks,” she instructs you, pointing towards your cheekbones and carefully applying the rosy powder to the same areas. She pauses in the application momentarily so that you can type out a few notes into your phone covering her directions. “You can go heavier if you want the cute sunburn, Sabrina Carpenter look, but if you do too much, you’ll end up looking like my ex.”

“What?” You’re startled, glancing over at her and nearly getting blinded once again by her lethal face card. She laughs lightly, giving you a slight smile. “A clown.”

“Oh, got it,” you chuckle, albeit nervously, shooting her a quick smile. “I’ll make sure to not do that.”

“Relax, it’s easy. Just a bit of makeup here and there, and you’ll be fine. All I do is some mascara, falsies, and a good lippie when I’m lazy, and I’m out the door in ten minutes,” Lia jumps in, holding several different tubes of lip tints.

“Are you sure? That’s really it?” You ask hesitantly, glancing over the various makeup products strewn over your desk. It looks a lot more complicated than what she had just described.

“Well, maybe you might need a bit more, like concealer and foundation. And some bronzer and heavy contouring. But just stick to the skincare routine and it’ll help lessen it,” Karina sighs, dabbing some highlighter to the tip of your nose before seeing the uncertain look in your eyes, adding hastily, “But it’s so worth it, trust. You’ll look so pretty, and it comes with so many perks. Girl math is knowing you can go out with no money and just your face card.”

“Hey, you’re friends with Yangyang?” Lia pipes up, noticing the photo strip you have pinned on your corkboard, nestled between the various Mystic Messenger Seven fanart and Zorro art prints.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I am. You know him?” You answer, and she nods before leaning in and evenly applying a thin layer of periwinkle tint on your lips. “Yeah, we’re in the same German class. Do you know if he’s seeing anyone?”

Well, you definitely can’t tell her about the raging heart on he has for his best friend, but it’s not like he really is seeing anyone either. You do vaguely remember Yangyang saying Lia was pretty and talented during his quick 5 minute minute class to Jaemin and his friends, so it’s not like he hates her either.

“No, he’s not,” you answer, hoping you made the right choice, and Lia’s face visibly brightens. “Oh, really? That’s great.”

“Okay, we’re done.” Karina announces, stepping back and holding up a mirror for you. “Not bad, right?”

“Oh, wow,” you suck in a breath, nearly gasping in surprise as you peer at the glass. You almost don’t recognize yourself. The contouring lifts up your face, slimming it down, and the blush gives you a pretty pink hue that makes you look sun kissed. Your lower lashes have nearly doubled in length with the mascara, giving you a pretty babydoll look. Karina had perfectly applied a set of falsies for you, framing your eyes delicately, and the shimmery eyeshadow and soft winged eyeliner accentuates your eyes even more. Your lips are the prettiest shade of pink, tinted and glossy.

You can’t believe it is your own reflection staring back at you.

“Now put this outfit on,” Lia says with a knowing smile, placing a shopping bag in your lap. “Jaemin picked it out.”

“Oh, really? Alright,” you manage to mumble out, dazed and still admiring yourself in the hand mirror. Karina laughs softly, nudging Lia before moving towards your door. “We have to get to a sorority meeting now, but I hope you like it, doll. And make sure to practice.”

“I love it,” you say breathlessly, grazing your fingertips against the cool glass, still in disbelief. “And I definitely will practice.”

“Mm, good, text us if you need any help! And send progress pics! We want to see how it’s going,” Lia answers, waving over her shoulder before the two of them exit your dorm. Sitting there alone, you stare at your reflection for a little longer, admiring yourself. You feel so pretty.

You finally remember the paper bag on your lap, and you immediately dig into it, pulling out a flowy floral sundress. It’s beautiful, and you quickly tug off your jeans and tshirt before going to your drawers to dig around for the appropriate bra for the dress. You manage to find it, snapping on the bra around yourself from the front before twisting it until the clasp is against your back. You hastily push your arms through the straps, tugging on either side until it’s on perfectly. You suck in a quick breath, internally preparing yourself for the battle with the next piece of clothing, a.k.a. your worst enemy: spandex. You’ve familiarized yourself with the awkward jig you have to do around your dorm until you’ve wriggled into the tight elastic enough so that it sits in the correct spot and sucks in all the right places.

At last, you won the war, but you feel sweaty now, flopping back onto your bed for a quick break. You flap your hands in front of your face, thanking whoever decided to invent setting spray. You grab your deodorant spray and douse yourself in a heavy dose of it before picking up the sundress and slipping it over your head. To your great relief, it slides on perfectly, and you quickly shuffle over to the full length mirror hanging on the back of your door. You straighten out the dress and quickly pat down any strand of hair knocked askew from your latest struggles before giving a smile to the mirror.

Dare you say it? You look pretty.

You’ve never looked this pretty before.

You happily take out the dainty gold heart necklace you had carefully tucked into your top desk drawer, struggling for a few seconds before you manage to clasp it around your neck. You quickly pull the pendant towards the front before slipping on the strappy sandals you left next to your desk. You grab the cute purse you bought last week, now packed with the perfect essentials, and give yourself one last once over.

You have nowhere to go, but you decide to take a walk to the dining hall. After all, you’re dressed up so nicely, makeup done so perfectly, you can’t waste it on another night stuffing your face with hot Cheetos and rewatching the first season of Haikyuu!!. Opening your door, you step out and nearly run into someone.

“Oh, finally, you’re done, doll. I thought you died in there or some…”

His eyes widening in utter shock, his next word dies on the tip of his tongue when Jaemin sees you standing in front of him. His mouth falls open slightly before he quickly closes it to swallow harshly, his throat running dry. He’s never seen you like this before, never imagined that you’d be this pretty. He inhales sharply, stiffening slightly as his eyes rake over your figure, seeing how the dress perfectly accentuates your figure, and settles on your face.

“Jaemin? What are you doing here?” Your eyes widen slightly before your cheeks grow warm when you notice his stunned reaction.

“Um,” he croaks out, voice cracking before he quickly swallows again, silently cursing when puberty decides to make a belated appearance. “Lia texted me that you were done, so I wanted to see how it went. You look… wow.”

Your cheeks heat up even further, and you laugh a little nervously, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “R-really? It’s not too much?”

“No!” He immediately blurts out before his cheeks flush carmine. “I—I mean, you look really good. You should dress like this more often.”

You can’t stop the smile spreading across your face, and Jaemin’s heart flip flops in his chest. “Really? Thank you, I will then.”

“Of course, really. I picked the dress myself after all,” He tries to joke before hastily clearing his throat. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

“Oh, no, I don’t. I was just going to go to the dining hall and grab some food,” you answer awkwardly, shifting your purse over your shoulder slightly and tightening your fingers around its strap.

“Let me take you out for dinner.” Jaemin blurts out, a little high pitched, mentally facepalming at how he sounds. “I mean, we can go over some of the harder problems in that packet since I probably need more studying anyway, and I’ll teach you a couple more dating tricks.”

“Sure, okay, that sounds good.” You give him a wider beam, and Jaemin feels his heart beat a little faster. Maybe you don’t need that much teaching from him after all. Seems like you’re a quick learner.

v. life is plastic, it’s fantastic!

“The only thing you’re fucking is stupid.”

“Shut the hell up, Yeonjun. At least I’m not sticking my dick in crazy.”

You watch the light argument going on between Jeno and Yeonjun in amusement. You and Jaemin had just finished your ninth tutoring session two hours ago, and you think he’s getting on track to actually scoring a decent grade for the next midterm. You were initially going to head towards Lana and Moon’s dorm for your weekly anime show marathon, but Jaemin insisted that you stop by the Alpha Sigma Psi house for a small party. Giselle and Karina are both part of that house, so you figured it couldn’t hurt to make a quick appearance. Good thing you spent some time touching up your makeup before today’s tutoring session.

“Hey, doll! Join the photo,” Jaemin calls out to you, gesturing you towards the area he and the rest of his friends are standing. You see another really pretty girl—Minjeong, was it?—standing on the side, holding up a phone and preparing to take the picture.

“Oh, no, it’s okay, I can just take the photo instead,” you laugh awkwardly, extending your hand out towards Minjeong, but Jeno gently nudges you forward, “No way, you never take pics with us. Just one, come on, Y/N.”

“Yeah, join us!” Jaemin says brightly, tugging you towards him and you stumble slightly, falling forward into his chest. You quickly catch yourself, hands suddenly pressed against his chest, and the blood rushes to your face.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” you start to babble, trying to push yourself away before Jaemin quickly wraps his arm around your waist. “Nope, you’re staying here, it’s just a few pics, please, doll?”

“I—I mean, I don’t really—”

You start to say before Minjeong’s voice cuts through the air. “Okay, I’m taking it in five seconds now. So get ready and pose or be ready to live with the consequences on Insta forever.”

Everyone immediately shuffles around, and you’re squeezed even tighter against Jaemin, and you just know that he can feel your heart pounding rapidly against his chest.

“Smile, doll,” Jaemin laughs gently, squeezing your hip lightly and you inhale sharply at that, your heart rate spiking and increasing exponentially. You muster up a few shaky smiles as the flash starts to go off.

After a few more pictures, you manage to untangle yourself from the group and hurriedly go towards Minjeong. “I can take the pictures, you should join in.”

She immediately brightens up at that, giving you a kilowatt smile as she hands you the phone and slips into your original position in between Jaemin and Karina. “Oh, thanks, Y/N.”

You wait a few moments for everyone to get readjusted before you begin to snap some photos, having already mastered this from the previous hang outs you’ve joined and knowing how to take the best angles for everyone, including all the 0.5 zoom out ones. After taking some additional group and solo photos for the girls, you’re finally free of your duties. Your eyes widen when you check the time on your phone, and you hurriedly make your way over to Jaemin.

“Hey, I need to get going now. I have to get to Lana and Moon’s dorm, so I’ll see you later,” you say quickly, already beginning to brush past him as the realization sets in that it’s been over an hour when you told your friends that you would only be fifteen minutes late.

“Wait, what? Hey, hold on, doll.” Jaemin reaches out to you, but you slip past him, calling over your shoulder. “Sorry, I’m late!”

He strides over, soon matching your pace as you speed walk back to the freshman dormitories. “Can’t you slow down a little bit? It’s not like you all haven’t seen these episodes before, plus we watched a few of them together after our last tutoring session.”

“Yeah, but I’m over an hour late,” you stress, slightly frazzled now as you hurriedly type out an apology to send to the group chat.

“Just breathe, okay? You’ll be fine. They’re your friends. They should understand,” Jaemin reassures you, grabbing your hand and you freeze slightly. He notices your stop and teases lightly, “I said slow down, not stop. What’s wrong?”

“N-Nothing,” you stammer out a little too quickly, your heart thumping wildly in your chest. He’s holding your hand. Na Jaemin is hand in hand with you, fingers intertwined. You almost want to pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming.

“Well, alright then, come on, let me walk you back,” Jaemin laughs before tugging you along. “You can help me pick out which pictures to post on Insta along the way, too, yeah?”

“Oh, sure,” you say breathlessly, your heart rate quickening to an embarrassing speed when he squeezes your hand gently, and you nesrly trip over your own feet.

“Perfect, so what about this one?” He holds up his phone to show you the picture you had taken for the group earlier, and you falter slightly. Why are you feeling a little disappointed with his choice?

Jaemin notices your hesitation and says a little softly, “I know you’re a private person. So I thought you’d prefer if I posted the group photo you took. You always take the best pictures for me, too. You know my good side the best. And it’d be weird if Hyuck saw, too, right? But did you want the other photo? I mean, if you really want it, I can..?”

“No!” You hurriedly say to reassure him, squeezing his hand lightly. “No, you’re right. I don’t want my picture out there. And um, yeah, that definitely wouldn’t be good if Hyuck saw.”

Jaemin gives you a relieved smile. “Yeah, exactly. You’re not upset, right, doll? We still have that fun pic of us and our homemade pizzas from earlier that I posted on my finsta. I didn’t know making pizzas would be that easy.”

“Of course not, don’t worry about it,” you laugh softly, continuing to walk back to the freshman dormitories, and Jaemin swings your joined hands between the two of you freely.

“Mm, I’m getting free cooking and tutoring lessons in exchange for dating tips. Two for the price of one is quite the good deal for me, right?” Jaemin teases lightly, and you let out another laugh.

“You’re right, it is. You better step up your game then.”

“Oh, just you wait, you’ll get dating tips and a boyfriend, so we’ll be even,” Jaemin chuckles softly, squeezing your hand, and the butterflies erupt in your stomach once again, and you muster up the courage to say something a little more teasing.

“Is that a guarantee?”

“Well, you have a demand, and I must supply, right?”

“…I don’t think that’s how it quite goes, Jaemin. Maybe you need a few more tutoring sessions.”

“All I hear is that you want to spend more time with me,” Jaemin laughs, giving you the prettiest smile, and your cheeks warm up even more, heart stuttering in your chest. Speechless, you let him continue on, his chattering filling the air as you listen with quiet content, your hand securely tucked in his for the remainder of the walk back.

vi. you can brush my hair.

Jaemin sits on the edge of his chair across from you at the table in the dorm common area, anxiously tapping his fingers against the flat surface. You are down to the last page of the mock exam packet, carefully going over his work with a red pen. You made minimal marks on the papers, a stark contrast to the very first practice exam he had worked on near the start of your tutoring. At that point in time, he didn’t even get to the end of the exam.

“Amazing.”

You say in awe, scanning through the last problem Jaemin had completed before tallying up his final score and calculating his results. “I can’t believe it. You got an 87.”

“No fucking way,” Jaemin is wide eyed, staring at you in disbelief, and you give him a wide smile, sliding the packet over to him, so that he can look over the exam and notes you’ve written for the problems he missed.

“Yes fucking way.”

“Holy shit, this is insane,” Jaemin breathes out, carefully reading through each page, and to his utter amazement, he understands every note and explanation you had added next to each incorrect question. He looks up at you, beaming, “I really got a B+?”

“You did,” you confirm, smiling back at him. “And who knows? It might become an A if the exam gets curved.”

“Oh my god, I owe you my life,” Jaemin chuckles, staring down at the graded exam in front of him, still in disbelief. “Seriously, doll, thank you so much.”

“Oh, of course, anytime,” you laugh sheepishly, twisting the rings adorning your fingers around nervously before averting your attention elsewhere, standing up to go towards the adjacent communal kitchen and carrying your filled tote bag with you. “A—Anyway, I brought some things to celebrate a job well done so far.”

“And how did you know I would’ve done well? What if I completely bombed that exam?” Jaemin teases you, standing up and following after you.

“I don’t know, I guess I just believed in you,” you stutter out, cheeks warming up as you set down your tote bag on the counter, unable to look him in the eyes, and he freezes, mulling over your words silently.

You believe in him? Someone who’s a hopeless cause? He honestly didn’t even believe in himself, he thinks to himself, his chest constricting uncomfortably, a foreign feeling making its entrance known to him, constricting around his heart. He inhales sharply, shoving it away with an easy going smile. “Is that so? Well, thanks, Y/N. And what are we doing now?”

“Making pancakes,” you answer, busying yourself with pulling out the ingredients from your tote bag. “You need to be well fed before the midterm. Your brain needs food. And the class is at 8 am, and neither of us are not morning people, so this is as good as it’s gonna get.”

“Pancakes?” Jaemin echoes after you, glancing at the various items strewn across the counter’s surface. “Does it really take this many ingredients? Isn’t it just the box mix and water?”

“That’s the short cut way. We’re making pancakes from scratch,” you laugh softly, taking out a mixing bowl and whisk along with the measuring cups and spoons.

“But why? It’s so much easier the other way.” Jaemin whines softly, and you chuckle lightly. “Trust me, it’s worth the effort.”

You hand the one cup measuring utensil and bowl to Jaemin and nudge him towards the flour. “Help me measure out two cups of flour.”

“Alright,” he sighs, opening the bag of flour and carefully scooping out the first cup, scraping off any excess before dumping it into the bowl before repeating the process. “What next?”

“Four tablespoons of sugar,” you answer, handing him the sugar and appropriate measuring utensil before working on measuring four teaspoons of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda. You pour those to the mixing bowl as Jaemin quietly measures the sugar and adds it in as well before waiting for your next instructions. You quickly drop in half of a teaspoon of salt before pushing the bowl towards him. “Now whisk this together gently, please.”

Jaemin busies himself with combining the dry ingredients as you take out half a stick of butter from the fridge (The one labeled with your name, of course. You’re no food thief, unlike someone who’s been stealing other people’s leftover takeout). You microwave it to get four tablespoons of melted butter before making your way to Jaemin’s side.

“Okay, now make a well in the center of it,” you say, and Jaemin clumsily makes an indent in the dry mixture before looking towards you for approval.

“Perfect, now add in two teaspoons of vanilla extract and crack the egg into it there,” you instruct him, and he obediently follows your directions. You measure out one and three quarters cups of milk and add it to the well before also pouring in the melted butter.

“Do I just whisk it together now?” Jaemin asks, picking up the whisk again, and you nod.

“Yes, mix it all together. It’s fine if there’s a few lumps, but it should be smooth overall.” Your eyes trail over his face, and you stifle a small laugh. “You got a little something on your cheek.”

“What?” Jaemin looks up, pausing in his whisking and you can’t help but giggle, staring at the flour dusting his cheek. “There’s flour on your face.”

“Oh, really? Can you wipe it off for me?” Jaemin laughs softly, attempting to brush at it with his shoulder but failing to reach that high.

“Oh, s-sure,” you stammer slightly, your hand quivering slightly as you outstretch your fingers and gingerly brush your fingertips against the apple of his cheek. His sun kissed skin is warm beneath your fingertips, and your breath hitches in your throat before you gently wipe away the remaining residue. You can feel his gaze searing into your face, but you refuse to look him directly in the eyes.

“There, all done,” you murmur, hastily pulling away and taking a step back. Jaemin lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in. He clears his throat, setting down the bowl. “I think this is all done, too.”

“Oh, great, that’s great,” you say, immediately focusing on the bowl before carrying it with you towards the stove, turning it on. “Let’s set this to medium-low heat. And I’ll add some butter to the pan, so the pancake won’t stick.”

Jaemin hands you the leftover butter and pan for you to set onto the stove. You use the spatula to move around a pat of butter, coating the pan nicely. Once the stove is ready and the butter starts to sizzle slightly, you pour a quarter cup of the batter onto the pan, expertly flicking your wrist to rotate the pan and cause the batter to form a perfect circle. You pull out a small container of blueberries, sprinkling some of them on top.

“Woah.” Jaemin watches you, impressed. “Teach me how to do that.”

“This? It’s easy,” you laugh softly, checking on the pancake until its underside is golden and small bubbles start to form on the top. You quickly move the pan, flipping the pancake onto its other side. “You can try making the next one.”

“Yeah? Will you wrap your arms around me and give me the one on one experience?” Jaemin jokes lightheartedly, and you nearly choke. “I mean—I don’t think that's completely necessary.”

“Relax, doll, I’m just kidding,” he laughs softly, nudging you gently, and you let out an awkward laugh. “Oh, totally. Just a joke.”

Once the pancake is golden on both sides, you carefully slide it onto a plate Jaemin pulled out from one of the cabinets. Your heart rate finally returns to its normal state, and you manage to say calmly, “Maple syrup and whipped cream are in the fridge.”

Jaemin takes out the aforementioned toppings, generously slathering on some butter before pouring the syrup and spraying whipped cream onto the pancake. He cuts out a small piece and quickly spears it onto his fork before taking the bite, nearly moaning in delight at the first taste.

“Holy crap, this is so fucking good.”

“My secret recipe,” you say proudly as you start to pour the batter for a second pancake, evenly spreading it on the pan. “Was it worth the effort?”

“Yes.” Jaemin swallows, almost immediately going for another bite before he gazes at you, giving you a genuine smile, and your heart rate again increases to an alarming speed.

“Definitely worth it.”

vii. undress me everywhere.

You finish the midterm in forty five minutes, being the first one to turn in your completed exam. This means you finished twenty minutes before the class ends and consequently, either failed it spectucularly or knocked it out of the park. You really hope it’s the latter.

Despite being rather preoccupied with other matters a.k.a. your suddenly thriving social life, you managed to cram in some studying here and there because your mother would absolutely kill you if you lost your provost scholarship. Gifted kid burnout? Who’s that? You never heard of her before (Just kidding, you’ve had plenty of breakdowns and cry fests over calculating bond values and stock prices).

Now outside of the classroom in one of the open study alcoves, you drop your Longchamp bag on the empty chair next to you before tugging at the back of your jean skirt before carefully sitting down. You make sure to readjust your bra straps, tucking them under the ruched fabric of your white shirt. Tapping your fingers against the scratched surface of the table, you briefly admire the shimmery gold ombré manicure adorning your nails that Jaemin had chosen last week. You pull out a compact from the inner side pocket of your purse, carefully checking your makeup to ensure it is still in pristine condition before quickly swiping in another layer of your Buxom plumping lip gloss in the best shade: fir royale.

The flurry of text messages pinging across your screen quickly catches your attention, and you tuck your mirror and tube of lip gloss away before scrolling through them, letting out a quiet scoff at Karina’s latest melodramatic outburst in the clout chasers group chat:

[ 11:46 a.m. ] karebear ✨: guys, gals, and yuckjun

[ 11:46 a.m. ] choi YJ 🦊: what tf ??? why are you calling me out

[ 11:46 a.m. ] karebear ✨: shut up or else I won’t make out with you anymore

[ 11:46 a.m. ] choi YJ 🦊: 🤐

[ 11:46 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: are you that touch starved bro

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: anyway as i was saying

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: this skank in my marketing class has been copying my outfits and posting them on her insta and she has like 10k followers now

[ 11:47 a.m. ] princess lia 👑: time to tear a bitch apart

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: like look at this shit

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: sent {10 images.jpeg}

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: my followers are gonna rip her apart

[ 11:47 a.m. ] karebear ✨: she’s downgrading my brand

[ 11:47 a.m. ] princess lia 👑: dw girl i’ll do a response video so my followers will see too

[ 11:48 a.m. ] princess lia 👑: she can’t get away with this

[ 11:48 a.m. ] karebear ✨: loved a message

[ 11:48 a.m. ] somi amor 💋: idk… they’re similar styles but that’s what popular rn

[ 11:48 a.m. ] karebear ✨: it’s gonna be song jia 2.0 watergate

[ 11:49 a.m. ] karebear ✨: just say you’re broke and go

[ 11:49 a.m. ] karebear ✨: if she’s gonna plagiarize me, she better do it right like bffr walmart version

[ 11:49 a.m. ] somi amor 💋: you have proof they’re fake?

[ 11:49 a.m. ] karebear ✨: i mean fake bitch fake bags right

[ 11:49 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: idk she’s kinda hot

[ 11:49 a.m. ] karebear ✨: shut up jen be like your hairline and fall back

[ 11:49 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: HELLO ?! back me up yeonjun

[ 11:50 a.m. ] choi YJ 🦊: um

[ 11:50 a.m. ] choi YJ 🦊: 🤐

[ 11:51 a.m. ] choi YJ 🦊: if you wanna be fucking stupid then knock yourself out

[ 11:51 a.m. ] karebear ✨: loved a message

[ 11:51 a.m. ] karebear ✨: hey my place tonight jun 🥰

[ 11:51 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: are you gonna listen to your own advice yj

[ 11:51 a.m. ] karebear ✨: excuse me ????

[ 11:51 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: 🤐🤐🤐

[ 11:51 a.m. ] jenaur 🤺: proverbs 26:11

“Hey, doll, what’s so funny?”

Jaemin appears next to you, and you let out a startled squeak, jumping in your seat, and he laughs, quickly placing his hands on your shoulders to steady you. You look at him wide eyed for a few seconds, his question not yet registering in your mind, and he waits patiently for your answer.

“Oh!” Your eyes light up, and he smiles at the endearing sight. “Just Karina ranting about something and Yeonjun being whipped.”

“Ah, so the usual?” He reaches for your bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and you stand up, pulling your skirt down once more to ensure you’re covered. The two of you start to make your way out of the Langley Hall.

“Yep. How was the midterm for you?”

He brightens up, opening the door for you and you thank him. “It wasn’t too bad at all! I actually understood like 90% of the questions and for the others, I was able to narrow down the answers between two choices, so 50/50 chance, fingers crossed I picked the right one.”

You beam when you hear that, and he returns the smile, eyes crinkling in the corners, and you pretend to wipe away faux tears. “I feel like a proud mom.”

“I think my mom actually will be proud,” he says, eyes scanning the cars parked on the nearby street before finding his. He grabs your hand, tugging you along. “C’mon, we gotta go celebrate that our misery is over until finals week. Plus, we gotta prep you when you talk to Hyuck.”

“Wait, what?” You abruptly stop short, and he nearly loses his grip on your hand. “When am I talking to him?”

“This Saturday. You’re coming with me to the Nu Chi party, right?”

“Since when? I don’t go to parties,” you protest, “They’re too loud and noisy, and beer is gross and—”

“You went to the Alpha Sigma one a few weeks ago though?” Jaemin interrupts, and you shake your head. “That was a small party though. This one is the party of the semester. What if I embarrassed myself in front of the entire school?”

“Parties are the prime time for meeting people and getting to know them because alcohol makes everyone friendlier and people don’t stay within their friend groups,” Jaemin interrupts. “Do you really believe that you’ll get him to like you by, I don’t know, one day, your eyes will meet across the classroom, and he’ll fall madly in love with you? This isn’t one of your fanfics, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you grumble, letting go of his hand on purpose, and he frowns, bottom lip jutting out in a pout before reaching out for your hand again. You swiftly dodge him, and he whines, quickly snatching your hand up and lacing your and his fingers together.

“I hope this isn’t how you’ll treat him on your date. Thank god we’re doing a trial run right now.”

“A trial run?” you echo him, and he nods, flashing you that favorite smile of his that never fails to make you weak in the knees.

“Well, we have to make sure your first date goes perfectly so there will be a second, right? Practice makes perfect,” he says matter-of-factly, and you nod slowly in agreement. The logic makes sense somehow.

“Okay, so where would you pick for a first date?”

“Maybe a cute cafe? Oh, there’s that one place: Cloudy with a Chance of Boba!” You brighten up, thinking about that boba shop’s menu you spent a good half hour scrolling through on Yelp last night.

“Mm, the most popular place right now is that ramen place on the end of Maisie Street. It’d probably be best to go there,” he muses, tugging you along via your intertwined hands. You nearly stumble in your heeled sandals but swiftly catch yourself.

“O-oh, okay, so are we going there now?”

“Nah, let’s do the ice cream place next door to it. Not really feeling noodles at the moment.” He stops to look over his shoulder at you, and you run into his back, causing him to let go before quickly reaching out and grabbing your arms to steady you. “Woah, be careful.”

“Sorry.” You’re flustered, your cheeks now growing hotter than a furnace. Jaemin reaches forward, his finger carefully swiping at the smudged lip gloss on the corner of your lip. “Where’s your lip gloss? You should reapply this.”

Eyes widening, he then shifts and peers behind him, craning his neck to the side in all attempts to look at the back of his shirt. “There’s not a mark on my shirt, right?”

You quickly rub off any shimmery residue. “It’s fine, your shirt is dark blue, so you can’t see it anymore.”

“Oh, good. Wait, where’s your lip gloss?” You fish through your bag, pulling out the tube and handing it to Jaemin. He uncaps it, giving you the lower half of the gloss before gently grasping your chin with one hand. He leans forward and tilts your head towards him, his eyes focused on your lips. The butterflies in your stomach erupt in an instant. You try so hard to stand still, fidgeting with one of the rings on your finger behind your back.

Jaemin’s face is so close to yours that you can count every single long dark eyelash that frames his pretty eyes. His lips are the prettiest shade of carmine, and you wonder what it’s like to be Aphrodite’s favorite child. How lucky you are to already be basking in the attention of her favorite; imagine how much luckier he is to be her favorite.

The beautiful boy in front of you carefully applies the gloss for you, fully concentrating on coating your lips with a pretty sheen once again. When he glances up, he’s almost blown away by the way you’re looking at him.

You look stunning, pretty as a picture in VOGUE magazine. Not quite the cover page, but you’re nearly there. A swell of pride runs through his veins, like an artist admiring his latest masterpiece on show in MOMA.

“Anyway,” he clears his throat, handing back to you the lip gloss. “Let’s go. We’re almost there.”

“Alright.” You follow behind him like a lost puppy, and he reaches back to grab your hand and interlace your fingers. Your heart nearly skips a beat as your cheeks grow warmer once again, and for a split second, you wonder if he feels the same way.

“We’re here,” Jaemin announces, letting go of your hand to open the shop’s door, the bell above it jingling faintly as he gestures for you to go inside.

You enter the pretty shop, marveling the clean and simple interior with circular white tables and matching garden iron chairs surrounding each one. There’s bright greenery and plants decorating the edges of the shop, and the wall is covered in mismatched frames of paintings and pictures in various sizes and colors. The cheeky neon sign displayed near the front read, “It’s not gonna lick itself!”, and you laugh softly when you see it. The display of different colorful ice creams at the front are absolutely enticing, and you’re already struggling to decide which two flavors to pick.

You finally decide on a Vietnamese coffee and honeycomb swirl, accepting it from the cashier before you start to pull out your wallet. Before you can even pull out your card, Jaemin taps his phone against the screen, paying for both yours and his.

“Never pay on the first date,” he chides you lightly, picking up his ice cream. “Always let the guy pay for the first date.”

“Oh, but shouldn’t we at least split it?” You ask sheepishly, walking towards a table near the back that he gestures towards. He follows behind you, picking up some spoons and napkins.

“If the guy is so broke that he can’t pay $7 for your ice cream, then he shouldn’t be out dating anyway. He should be getting a job,” Jaemin retorts, tugging your chair out for you before sitting across from you and handing you a spoon and napkin. “Don’t you watch that Shera lady? Sprinkle, sprinkle and all that jazz. Maybe you can split for the future dates, but if the guy has any basic decency, he would pay for the first one.”

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind,” you sigh, taking a hefty scoop of your ice cream and having the first bite. It’s delicious, and you make a mental note to buy a pint and bring back to your dorm to share with Giselle later.

The two of you continue to discuss various appropriate topics to broach on a first date (“Hey Jaemin, you like cheese? My favorite’s Gouda.” “… Please do not ask that.”). You quickly jot down bullet points in your Notes app, your fingers flying over the screen as Jaemin instructs you on good conversational starters and body language.

“So you just need to touch him on his upper forearm and then pull away. Stroke his ego and say he’s funny or some shit like that. At least you don’t have to force yourself to laugh with him though because Hyuck is naturally funny anyway. And he’s good at keeping up the conversation and a people person, so it won’t be awkward even for your first date,” Jaemin continues as you nod, rapidly typing what he says.

“And at the end of the date, touch his shoulder again, glance down at his lips for a brief second before making eye contact. If he’s bold enough, he’ll go for the first kiss. But then just immediately smile and say you had a great time before he can lean in. After that, he won’t stop thinking about that moment, and it’ll drive him crazy, and he’ll be texting you for a second date within the next day.”

“Mm, okay, I think I got it,” you mumble absentmindedly, engrossed in writing down the last few bullet points and Jaemin leans over to take a closer look at your phone, his eyes flitting over the screen.

“So for the last point, do I have to deny the first kiss then? Smile and walk away before he leans in and…”

You start to ask until you look up, and your breath hitches in your throat at the close proximity, your and his noses almost brushing. Jaemin is so pretty, even prettier when you can count the few freckles dotting his face, can clearly see the mesmerizing golden flecks dotting his irises, can admire the way his lips look so soft and curve into the picture perfect smile. Your heart thumps wildly, nearly falling onto the floor along with your jaw when you glance up from staring at his lips and see that he’s already looking back at you with the softest expression on his face.

“You don’t have to,” Jaemin murmurs, and your heart stutters in your chest as he moves in closer, his lashes brushing against your cheek, and suddenly, his lips are pressed against yours. They’re pink and soft and slot perfectly against yours in a way that has your heart skipping beats and stomach doing cartwheels.

Eyes widening, you freeze up, letting out a quiet squeak of surprise, before he pulls away, giving you an amused smile. The lingering warmth on your lips makes your cheeks heat up, and you have to break eye contact, stammering over your words as you gently graze your fingers over your lips in wonderment.

Jaemin laughs softly as he leans back in his chair. “We’ll have to work on this too then. You’re kissing like it’s a Park Shinhye kdrama.”

You’re still dazed, cheeks growing even warmer as you avoid his gaze, fiddling with the loose thread on the hem of your skirt. “That was my first kiss.”

Jaemin pauses at the realization, his cheeks flushing slightly before he clears his throat, giving you a half smile and a light chuckle, “Oh, really? That’s cute, doll. Well, I’ll teach you some tips, so you’ll be better at it by the time you ask Hyuck out. At least you got a decent first kiss, right? No big deal.”

“Yeah, no big deal,” you echo softly, your heart still racing at breakneck speed. You pretend to focus on the remnants of your ice cream in the bottom of your paper cup, fingers gripping around the container tightly.

Jaemin was right.

You don’t think you’ll be able to stop thinking about this moment anytime soon.

viii. come on, barbie, let’s go party!

“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

Moon asks worriedly, helping you with your makeup as you sit, perched on the edge of your bed. She uncaps your eyeliner as Lana fusses with your shirt, smoothing out any of the wrinkles. “Actually, I can’t do it. You do it, Yang. You’re an expert at this.”

“Alright, give it to me.” Yangyang comes over, grabbing the eyeliner and expertly draws on the wing above your right eye. “Years of cosplay have finally come in handy. Although, I still can’t believe you’re putting in all this effort for Jaemin.”

“I need to look pretty. He usually does my makeup for me, but he’s busy right now,” you mumble, twisting the ring around your finger anxiously. “It’s my first time going to a party. I can’t embarrass him when he’s a ten.”

“Yeah, in rupees,” Yangyang scoffs, and Lana frowns at you, stopping in her tracks. “Don't talk about yourself like that. You’re already pretty, and if anything, you should be embarrassed to be seen with that slime ball. I can’t believe he doesn’t even have the decency to pick you up. Why are you the one going to his place?”

“He has some frat meeting right now,” you answer, glancing down at your newly manicured nails. The pearl color shimmers under the light, and you can’t help but admire it even more. You wish they were a little shorter, but they really do look quite pretty.

“What meeting? We’re in the same frat. Also, hold still,” Yangyang huffs, holding your chin as he draws on the left wing over your eye. “We need them to look like twins, not cousins twice removed.”

“I don’t know, he just said there was some meeting,” you mumble, holding perfectly still until he finally finishes. “Maybe it was a one on one meeting or something, who knows?”

“I still think he’s shady,” Lana grumbles, and Moon nods as well. “Yeah, like the first kiss thing?”

“It’s no big deal,” you wave your hand dismissively, hopping off of your bed and taking a look at yourself in your mirror. “Better to get it over with, right? I mean, imagine being this old and not having your first kiss yet.”

“Is that what he said to you?” Moon huffs, affronted, and you shift in your place uncomfortably. “No, of course not. It’s just—everyone gets their first kiss when they’re like fourteen or fifteen, right?”

“That’s not the point,” Lana says indignantly, tucking your hair behind your ear carefully. “You wanted it to be special, didn’t you? It just feels like… he took something away from you.”

“He didn’t. I wanted this,” you answer loudly, ignoring the way your stomach flip flops as you try not to think back to that moment. He kissed you, he really does like you back, he might have not said it out loud, but he knows how much it means to you (Wouldn’t he?).

“Okay, as long as you’re happy,” Moon gives in, and she and Lana exchange a worried look that goes unnoticed by you. But what can they do? They can continue to try convincing you, but it will never work when it falls on deaf ears.

“I am,” you insist, avoiding your friends’ gazes and staring at yourself back in the mirror. Moon attempts to lift the mood again, offering you a tentative smile in the reflection. “This whole thing is like a whole emotional rollercoaster, and Yangyang is definitely not tall enough to ride.”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m literally almost six foot tall,” Yangyang shoots back, and you laugh, relaxing once more as you watch your friends start to bicker again.

“Listen, you can’t be delusional and short. Pick a struggle.” Moon counters, and Lana agrees, handing you your phone to tuck into your pocket. “She’s right. You carry yourself with the confidence of a much taller man.”

You smile fondly as the bickering between your friends continues. You miss them, you realize with a jolting pang of regret, you haven’t been hanging out with them as often as you used to. In fact, the majority of your weeks are spent with Jaemin and his friends.

It’s your first cold dose of reality, and you’re hit with a startling truth. You haven’t been a very good friend lately.

—

Lana drove you to the Nu Chi Theta house, and you felt like a kindergartener being dropped for her first day of school. Your face feels hot as a wave of embarrassment rushes over you as you notice the amount of glances you receive from the insanely pretty girls and boys already on the front lawn and streaming out from the front door. You quickly exit the vehicle, hurriedly waving good bye over your shoulder before making your way into the house, almost tripping over the raised walkway.

You wander around the house, searching for Jaemin and quickly sidestepping a through the couples and other students dancing around, nearly getting bowled over by someone you recognize from your school’s football team. He gives you a quick once over before offering a half apology, eyes set on another girl on the other side of the room. You take a deep breath before pushing your way into the next room, finally spotting Jaemin with his friends, minus Jeno and Somi, by the staircase and letting out a sigh of relief.

“Hey,” you say breathlessly, squeezing through two couples busily making out in the doorway and wincing slightly when you jostle both of them, causing them to give you dirty looks before resuming their activities.

“Oh, hi, Y/N!” Karina says brightly, giving you a perfect smile and reaching over to squeeze your arm gently. “We didn’t think you’d make it.”

“My first frat party? Of course, I wouldn’t miss it,” you laugh, tucking a stray strand of your hair behind your ear nervously before fiddling with the hem of your shirt. Jaemin gives you a small smile, and you return it with a slightly shaky one, your eyes flickering towards the fading pink, glossy lip mark staining the collar of his shirt. The color is much too dark to be Jaemin’s, and your stomach churns slightly.

“You look so pretty, Y/N, I love the confidence,” Lia chimes in, gently pinching the fabric of your skirt between her manicured fingers. “I love this, you’ll have to let me borrow it sometime.”

“Oh, of course! You can borrow it anytime,” you agree quickly, flashing her a slightly forced smile before glancing over at Jaemin again, unsure what to do.

“Where do you shop?” Yeonjun asks, glancing over at your outfit. “The shirt is nice, too.”

“Oh my god, yes, we have to go shopping together sometime, and you’ll have to show me all the good places,” Karina cuts in, nudging you gently before letting out a sigh, looking over at Lia. “God, I’ve been feeling so fat lately, like freshman twenty might be getting to me.”

“No, same, I’ve been extending my gym sessions and doing Pilates,” Lia huffs softly, and you remain silent, switching your weight around on each foot, glancing over at Jaemin helplessly.

“I need another drink. You coming, Y/N?” Jaemin finally speaks up before brushing past Yeonjun, and you hurriedly follow behind him, careful not to fall behind or get swept away. He quickly pushes through to the kitchen, finding a spot next to the counter covered in various bottles of cheap alcohol and stacks of red solo cups dispersed in between.

“You want one?” Jaemin asks, extending a shot of vodka he just poured out towards you, and you shake your head before he gives a wry smile. “You sure? It’ll help with the nerves. You were shaking back there.”

Your cheeks grow warm. “You noticed?”

“Everybody noticed,” he snorted, handing you the cup, and you wince slightly before holding your nose and downing it in one go. “Give me another then.”

“Atta girl,” Jaemin hands you another shot and you take that one just as quickly, making a face that causes him to smile subconsciously. As he pours himself a cup of beer, he spots Donghyuck by the pool out back, and a knot settles in his stomach uncomfortably. He almost doesn’t want to tell you, and he doesn’t know why. It’s just because he worked so hard to make you look this good, and his loudmouth friend gets to reap all the benefits, he tells himself, taking a swig of his drink, Donghyuck doesn’t know how lucky he is.

Ignoring all the stop signs and whistles going off in his head, he gestures towards Donghyuck outside, clenching the red cup in his hand a little tighter than normal. “There’s your chance. Gotta do it before the alcohol wears off.”

“Oh, um, actually, I wanted to talk to you,” you stammer out, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear again (It’s one of your habits when you’re nervous, and he thinks it might be his favorite). He pushes down the growing knot in his stomach.

“We’ll talk later, yeah? You can’t miss this,” Jaemin insists before nudging you in the direction of the pool outside despite your soft protests.

“W-wait, I jus—” you say desperately, but Jaemin merely waves you off before disappearing back into the party inside. You let out a sigh, shoulders sagging slightly. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him after all the effort he put in these past four weeks.

You’ll tell him later.

—

“Oh? Where’s your little Barbie doll, Jaemin?” Karina simpers as she lazily taps her pretty manicured nails against the half filled red solo cup in her other hand when Jaemin returns to his original spot. “Have you gotten bored of playing with her yet?”

“It’s not like that,” Jaemin answers hotly, “She’s… fun. She makes me laugh.”

“How? By looking at her?” Yeonjun snorts, chugging his own cup before crinkling it in his fist. Jaemin wants to throw up. “We thought you just did this because you’ve been having a dry spell and were bored. Where is she anyway?

“She’s talking to Hyuck right now,” Jaemin mumbles meekly, shoulders slightly hunched over as he stares into the depths of his own solo cup.

“Really? I mean, is she even his type?” Lia asks skeptically, straightening up in her spot to see if she can spot you or Donghyuck anywhere. “If anything, I thought her friend—the pretty English major one—would be his type. How is she anyone’s type?”

“Hey, he turned her from a four to a solid eight. She might even go up half a point once you introduce her to an exercise and diet plan.” Karina says offhandedly, raising her cup towards him in mock salute before taking a sip.

“Yeah, how are you going to do that? It’s not like you can even sugarcoat it for her because then she’d eat it too,” Yeonjun throws out with a smirk, and Jaemin feels sick to his stomach, the nauseating feeling growing exponentially and gnawing at him as his friend continues, “I mean she’s probably already on the seafood diet because she sees any food and just eats it. How can you even stand her, Jae? The way she just follows you around like a puppy. Isn’t it annoying?”

“God, I know, the way she basically chases after us like a lap dog is so pathetic. At least she takes good insta pics for us though, so she’s somewhat useful. But we had that one really good group photo at that last party, and she totally ruined the picture. You can’t even crop her out because she had to stand next to you, Jae,” Lia complains, rolling her eyes, and Karina laughs, taking out her phone and scrolling through her photos.

“Oh my god, I know the exact photo you’re talking about. It’s this one, right? She practically threw herself into your arms,” She flashes her screen towards the group, and Jaemin wants to shrink and crawl into a hole somewhere and die. Was it the best photo of you? No. Was it the worst? Maybe close to it. You’re standing sideways and still taking up more space in the photo than the others, and the flash photography did not do any favors for you. You stand out even worse than Will Smith in the sunflower costume meme. He cringes inwardly, noting the way your skirt had rolled up and you’re smiling a little too widely. He makes a mental note to help you practice better, more flattering poses later on.

“You know that famous baby hippo? Moo Deng? I think we found her twin from the future,” Yeonjun barks out a laugh, reaching over and zooming in on you as Karina smirks before putting away her phone. Lia giggles and glances over at Jaemin, scrutinizing his reaction before a sly expression makes an appearance on her face, saying coyly, “You have a crush on her, don’t you?”

Jaemin flushes, embarrassment coating his cheeks, and he immediately snaps, “Shut up, I might be lonely, but I’m not despera—”

“Oh, Y/N!” Lia says loudly, effectively cutting Jaemin short. “How did it go? Are you and Hyuck gonna be the new couple on campus?”

Immediately, his heart drops even further to his stomach, and Jaemin whirls around to see you standing a few feet away. Did Lia know you were there? How long were you standing there? Did you hear them? Did you hear every horrible thing they said about you?

“Oh, Donghyuck said he wasn’t interested, but he was nice about it,” you say, offering a vague smile in Jaemin’s direction, and he nearly breathes a sigh of relief as his heart starts to slow back down to its normal rate. A part of him is glad that Donghyuck rejected you, and he nearly misses what you say next, too caught up in this unfamiliar feeling.

“I think I’m going to head back to my dorm. I’m a little tired. Thank you for inviting me.”

With that, you turn away and walk off, but something still doesn’t feel right to Jaemin. It’s a split second decision but for once, he puts his heart over his mind and chases after you, ignoring the increasing whispers from his friends and their eyes searing into his back.

ix. raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by na jaemin.

Jaemin is right on your heels the entire time you walk back to your dorm. All he receives is stony silence from you that he fills with babbling nonsense, asking you what’s wrong to no avail. When you finally enter your dorm, you turn to him at last, and he perks up. However, the two words that come out of your mouth have him deflating faster than Yangyang’s ego when Alice called him a shitty kisser with too much saliva (“You’re supposed to make me wet down there, not up here. Honestly, dude, if I wanted to drown myself, I would’ve jumped into the ocean.”).

“We’re done.”

You decide to bite the bullet.

After freeing your feet from their pointy death contraptions, you peel off each layer of clothing one by one, unzipping the mini skirt and kicking it away before tugging at the spandex, unleashing the breath you’ve been holding in since 8 a.m. to fit into it. There’s still indents marking the dips in your waist and your thighs, a lasting reminder that stays like an embarrassing stain. You fling that abhorrent piece of elastic elsewhere, and it falls near the end of your bed, out of sight behind the pile of textbooks you haven’t touched for the past three days.

“Hold on, what are you talking about? We made so much progress. You wanted to do this,” Jaemin protests, following after you and picking up the discarded garments you threw haphazardly. He waves around the skirt like a white flag. “You wanted to be in the popular crowd, and you got it. You’re this close to dating Hyuck. Yeah, he might’ve said no now, but we’ll come up with a new plan—You can bounce back from this! Why are you quitting now?”

Removing the off-the-shoulder pink top that restricts your arm movement, you quickly slip on an oversized sweater before reaching back and unhooking the strapless bra whose underwire has been digging into your ribs for so many hours, a sigh of relief escaping between your teeth. You toss it onto your chair without another care in the world, and it lands next to the shirt in a heap.

“Because this isn’t me. This isn’t what I like.”

“Of course, it is. This is still you: just new and improved,” he insists, frantically attempting to hand you your discarded shirt and pleather skirt. You ignore them, opting to pull out and put on your favorite pair of stretched out gym shorts from middle school that you had shoved in the back of your closet to make room for all the flashy clothing Jaemin picked out for you. “We’re having fun. You’re popular and pretty now. You’re almost dating Donghyuck. You have everything that everyone wants. You’re the girl the boys want to be with, the girl all the other girls want to be.”

You shake your head, reaching for the packet of makeup wipes near your sink. “It’s not what I want.”

Jaemin scoffs, “Don’t be ridiculous. What are you talking about? This is what you asked me to do.”

You throw him a scathing glare, and he takes a step back. “God, Jaemin, for once in your life, take off the stupid rose colored heart shades, and you’ll finally see all the red flags around you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaemin asks defensively. He thought everything was going according to plan; he’s going to pass macroeconomics, and you got to talk to Donghyuck and are this close to scoring a date with him. People notice you wherever you go, the two of you receive compliments, his friends like you, everyone likes you.

“I have to pretend to like things I hate and hate the things I like. I have to do things a certain way, act a certain way, pretend this is all effortless. I don’t know if people are being genuine or pretending like I am. I hate this—this fake version of me.” You spit the words out like fuel to a fire, and you stand there in all your blazing glory, ugly uniform shorts and all.

“My thighs keep chafing. My feet have blisters everyday from these boots. This foundation makes me break out even more, and I can’t type up my notes in class or write fast enough because of these nails, and my grades almost took a plunge. I’m basically freezing my tits off out there in a shirt I don’t like. The lashes make my eyes itch, and this skirt is so short that I have to keep pulling it down every five seconds before I end up flashing someone.”

You don’t recognize the girl in your mirror anymore. You pluck off the falsies lining your eyes, scrubbing furiously at the layers of expensive brand name makeup covering your skin. You wipe off every inch of it until your bare face stares back at you, slightly puffy, blemishes, faded acne scars and all. You feel like you can breathe a little better now.

“Did you really think it’s easy being one of us? Do you think people will notice you if you show up in sweats with Cheetos stains?” Jaemin stares at you incredulously. “This is how it is. I don’t get why you’re throwing it all away like this.”

“And yet, you were all for it when I threw away everything before.”

“Because you asked for it! You asked me to—to make you into someone Donghyuck would date!”

“You don’t get it.” You whirl around on your heels to face him instead of the mirror, and the anger and intensity laced in your voice nearly blows him away. “I like myself the way I am. I never hated myself. I may be insecure about how I look sometimes, but who isn’t? Yeah, I like wearing cherry lip gloss and mascara sometimes. It’s fun trying out new hairstyles and clothes and learning to do better makeup. I like getting dressed up for special occasions. I like doing these things on my own terms. But this? What I’m doing to myself right now? This isn’t the same. Am I supposed to keep up this charade for the rest of my life? If I do eventually go out with Donghyuck, am I gonna have to keep lying to him? To everyone? I want people to like me for me. To actually know me.”

“If this is how you feel, then why would you keep doing this?! If you hate it so much, then why?” He’s frustrated, carding his fingers through his hair as he can’t wrap his mind around the fact that you’re angry over this. You look gorgeous, so what’s the problem?

“Because I liked spending time with you!” you burst out, “I never liked Donghyuck—I liked you. I wanted it to be you. It was fun at first, I did like it at first, but I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending to be someone I’m not. I can’t be friends with someone who’s ashamed of me.”

There’s a jolt in his heart when he hears your confession, but the second jolt comes quickly afterwards at your last words. Denial is the first stage of grief, and he pales at your final declaration. “What are you talking about? This whole thing is so that Dongh—”

“Oh, please. You can drop the act. This isn’t about Donghyuck anymore. This is about you being too embarrassed to be seen with someone who doesn’t fit your aesthetics.” You air quote the last word for emphasis, and his jaw tightens at that. “You’d rather drop dead than go out with a four like me, right?” You smile sardonically at him. “I may be a four on a seafood diet, but my ears work perfectly fine, Jaemin.”

You heard it all, and Jaemin feels like he is going to throw up. All he can do is scramble and grasp for the last remaining straws, protesting vehemently, “I wasn’t the one who said any of that!”

You laugh humorlessly, “Is that supposed to make it better? You’re better than them because you didn’t say it out loud? You didn’t deny it or defend me either, so what’s your point?

His mouth goes dry, and he opens and shuts it several times. Swallowing harshly, he barely manages to croak out a weak reply. “That’s— I didn’t mean—I only really thought that before I knew you.”

“And that’s just it, isn’t it? You already judged me before you even knew me based on how I look. Even now, you still judge me.” He starts to open his mouth again, but you merely shrug as if you’ve accepted this for all your life, and he closes it meekly, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably, unable to meet your eyes

“That’s okay. I’m used to it. That’s how it is for people like me. I know I’m not someone people fall head over heels for immediately. I’m the one who reaches out to people first. Guys don’t fall over at my feet, wanting to carry my books to class for me. The pretty girls ask me to take their Insta pictures for them. I don’t get free drinks at the bar or invited to all the parties. I’ve never been asked out by a total stranger, and no one writes their number on my cup of coffee,” you say matter-of-factly, a resigned smile on your face, and it has him curling into himself internally, his conscience slowly eating away at him.

“And you know what?” you continue, “That's life. That’s okay because I’m happy with who I am. I like who I am. If I have to give myself up to get Donghyuck or you to like me, then he’s—you—are not the one. I shouldn’t change who I am for a boy—or anyone for that matter.”

“That’s not—We were doing this for you. You wanted… you wanted this makeover. You wanted this.” He’s desperately clutching onto the end of the rope, and you’re holding the scissors to cut it off. You show him another half smile, one that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“It stopped being about me. It started being about what you wanted, what you liked, what you wanted me to be. I was your charity case, your little Barbie doll.”

You tilt your head to the side, studying the boy in front of you and he silently squirms under your scrutiny. “Tell me one thing, and be honest. Did you even know I existed before Donghyuck mentioned me as a tutoring option? Before you needed me for a grade booster? Would you have liked me then?”

Would you have liked me then? Your question echoes in his mind, and Jaemin freezes, dropping the clothes in his hands. You know. You know he likes you, and the embarrassment creeps up on him in the form of carmine dusting his ears and cheeks, like spilled wine on white linen.

“There are over one hundred students in the class,” he objects. “Sorry for not fighting my way through all of them to find you and have a crush on you sooner.”

Jaemin seems to not realize that he just confirmed his feelings for you aloud, and perhaps, if he had told you this a few weeks ago, you would have been ecstatic and called up Lana and Moon the second he was out of earshot. But this is now, and you’ve grown exponentially since then.

You give him a wistful smile, and as the dread piles up in the pit of his stomach, he knows this is the start of his downfall (or perhaps, he’s already been falling this entire time). He slipped from the pedestal already long ago, and it’s only a matter of time before he hits rock bottom. The higher the pedestal, the harder the fall from grace.

“I sat in front of you diagonally. You asked me to pass notes to my friend. You know, the girl who sat next to me? Alice? The one you asked out and went on a few dates with at the beginning of the semester?” You state the facts calmly, and his eyes widen at that. “It’s okay. But you must’ve remembered that we were in the same group for a presentation last semester, right?”

Jaemin stays silent, and you have your answer. It’s one you’ve known deep down in your heart all this time, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt any less. After all, someone can announce they’re going to punch you, you can even see the strike coming to your gut, but simply knowing doesn’t do anything to ease the painful aftermath.

You chuckle humorlessly, fingers uncurling and recurling into fists as your nails press moon shaped crescents into your palms before you look him straight in the eyes. “I don’t fit into your cookie cutter life or match your rose colored Instagram filters. I don’t have the perfect model figure or the perfect face. I don’t look like the girl of your dreams, and I know that it just fucking kills you inside that you fell in love with me.”

Jaemin flinches, curling in on himself when he finally meets your gaze and finally sees the absolute hell fires of fury and repugnance ablaze in your eyes. You know that he loves you, and he’s ashamed that you’re right. You’re absolutely right.

Why is he so afraid of loving you?

He loves how smart you are, how witty you are, how funny you are, how genuine you are, how you understand every obscure Haikyuu!! reference he makes, how you laugh at his jokes, how you dm him the funniest memes on Instagram, how you wear your purple scrunchie around your wrist during every exam for good luck and how you let him borrow it too. He loves how you treat him as more than just a pretty face, how you actually listen to him and make him feel like what he says matters, how you make him feel different—special—like he doesn’t have to compete with all the other Barbies and Kens out there. He’s much too vain, much too superficial, much too selfish, much too proud to admit it out loud, but he’s in love with you, and yet, he can’t bring himself to love every single part of you.

And the truth of that matter is the ugliest of all.

But there are standards that he has to uphold, why can’t you understand this? He lowered his standards for you, and you still couldn’t meet them. You have the personality already, you are this close to being the ideal girl, and well, you both have to make changes. It’s the prince and princess who live happily ever after, not the prince and the pauper, or god forbid, the ogre (No offense, Shrek). This is real life, and society has unspoken rules. He sacrificed so much for you, he put his reputation on the line, so why couldn’t you do this for him? After all, love always has some sacrifices.

Right?

But when Jaemin looks at you now, there’s everything, but love staring back at him. You look at him like he’s a repulsive piece of chewed gum stubbornly stuck to the bottom of your Steve Madden heel. It strikes a nerve and completely eats him to the core, but he pulls himself upright because nobody talks to him like that, nobody looks at him like that, certainly not someone like you. He invented you, he made you into the next Princess Mia, the next Cady Heron, the next Serena van der Woodsen, and this is how you show your gratitude?

“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me. You act like I’m the first person to judge first based on looks. Everyone does it. Am I supposed to strike up a conversation with every girl on the off chance she’s everything I want? Do you think anyone would fall for you immediately when you looked like that? The saying is ‘love at first sight’, unless you’re one to believe in the whole ‘love is blind’ idea, which you clearly do,” Jaemin snaps, sneering as he eyes you up and down. His heart and mind are screaming, crying, begging for him to stop, but his pride dropkicks him headfirst into the hole he dug for himself, raging for him to get the upper hand again.

“How is it my fault for not knowing you’re the whole package when the wrapping doesn’t match the contents?”

The unfiltered words slip out of his mouth, and he immediately regrets it, closing his eyes, but it’s too late. He sees the instant look of devastation that appears on your face, and it hits him like a boxer’s punch to the chest. He starts to backtrack to no avail. You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

“I am never going to be enough for you, am I?” you whisper, your breaths stuttering in your chest as your initial sarcasm turns into quiet truths now that eat away at him. “I’m either too much or too little. There’s always going to be something you’ll want to change, something you want to fix.”

“Y/N… I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. It was an accident. I just—”

Jaemin can’t continue on, his voice trailing off as he doesn’t know what to say. He wants to keep apologizing, he’ll do anything it takes to take back what he just said, but the damage has already been dealt. He’s always known he’s an asshole, sure, but this is beyond anything he’s ever said or done in the past. He just secured the seat of honor in Dante's ninth circle of hell, and there’s no return ticket.

“You just what? You thought it would be okay to say anything to my face just because it’s not up to your standards?”

Jaemin’s face pales. “N-no, I—this isn’t how it's supposed to go, I just—It just slipped out, can we start over?”

A public rejection from any boy or girl would hurt infinitely less than the words Jaemin spat in your face. The things that his friends said before within earshot? You could take it because you couldn’t care less about them at the end of the day. But this? This was coming from someone you trusted, someone you care about, someone you lov—No, you don’t even want to think about that.

Jaemin never loved you. He never even liked you. The harsh reality slaps you like a cold shower in the middle of a winter night, and you want to curl up into a ball under your covers and cry until you fall asleep.

And yet, you will not let him humiliate you any longer. The spell has been broken. Cinderella is back to her rags, and her Prince Charming is nowhere to be found. She’s stuck as a toad that’ll never change. Eyes watering, you inhale sharply, laughing quietly in disbelief before you straighten up and your face hardens.

“Are you actually listening to yourself? You think we can start over? You treat people like they’re disposable, like they’re nothing, and once they don’t match with your theme of the week, you toss them even faster than the time it takes for you to choose an outfit.” Your chest is heaving, and the tears threaten to fall, but you push on, swallowing the lump in your throat. He reaches out for you, and you take a step back, shaking your head.

“You can’t hurt people and expect them to just let it go. I get it, I know I’m not the thinnest, or the nicest, or the funniest, or the smartest, or the prettiest. I know that I’m hard to love. I get it, Jaemin. I’ve always known that.”

You choke on the last sentence, swallowing hard to stifle the hiccup that bubbles up in your throat. “But that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like shit.”

Rapidly blinking back your tears, you march over to your door and throw it open with such force that the doorknob could have left a dent in the wall. You don’t want to cry, you’ve always been an angry crier, and you desperately want the tears to stop. You refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry and hearing your confession. He doesn’t deserve any of that. Jaemin doesn’t deserve your tears, and he certainly doesn’t deserve your love.

“Get out.”

Jaemin stares at you, mouth agape like a fish on land. You gesture heatedly towards the outside, choking slightly. “What are you waiting for? I said get out.”

“Y/N, I—”

“Am I a joke to you?” you quietly ask, and his eyes widen.

“No! No, Y/N, you’re not, I jus—”

A single tear manages to escape despite your best, frustrated efforts, and Jaemin instinctively reaches out for you. You swat his hand away, angrily swiping away the stray droplet with the sleeve of your sweater. His heart wrenches in his chest as his hand dangles limply by his side. You’re crying because of him. He caused that, and he feels like the biggest piece of shit in the world.

You refuse to let any more fall, glaring at him through the unshed tears and entirely disgusted with the boy standing in front of you. “Don’t touch me. I’m not crying for you. I’m crying because I’m so angry I wasted all my time on someone who never cared about me.”

That’s not true—I love you, he wants to say, but his mouth refuses to form the words because his pride won’t loosen its grip on his heart. He loves you, he’s in love with you, why can’t you see that?

You steel yourself, taking one shaky breath before looking pointedly at the door and repeating yourself, “Get out. Leave me alone.”

Numbly, he makes his way over to the door, ears ringing. You glower at him, the intensity searing and digging into the side of his face. When he stands outside of your dorm, he struggles to turn around and face you helplessly. Your eyes soften for a moment, and it shoves the dagger deeper into his chest when he recognizes that look. It’s the same look he wore when he first saw you, and the shame that emerges nearly chokes him. The mixture of pity and disappointment painted across your face revolts him entirely, and he feels like he’s going to vomit. Jaemin is utterly humiliated.

Your gaze intensifies once more when you stand up to your full height, stare unwavering and chin raised up. Gripping the doorframe tightly, you drive the final words into his heart like a stake.

“I am too good for you, Jaemin, and I will never love someone like you. I deserve better.”

And for a split second, you almost convinced yourself when you said that.

You shut the door in his face.

Jaemin calls your name through the door several times, desperation ringing clear in his tone, but it falls on deaf ears. Apologies are a fool’s best friend, and you’d be a fool yourself to believe them. Holding your breath, you wait until you hear his footsteps echo down the hallway, until the solitude greets you like an old friend. And at last, you drop the facade and let yourself cry. Back pressed against the door and head bowed, you finally let go until all the tears are gone and you’re gasping for breath, the quiet hiccups and sobs bursting forth and breaking the silence in the same way he broke your heart over and over again.

You love him.

There’s no one to blame, but yourself. In the end, it’s all your fault that you were in this mess. How can you be so stupid? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it would still be a pig. Built up insecurities will bubble up to the surface no matter how much mascara and blush you apply. The warning signs were all there in flashing technicolor, but they were all tied up with shiny ribbons and deceiving perfect smiles. They lit up your usual drab life of blacks, whites, and grays, and you were blinded by the glitz and glamor— blinded by him. It is hard to see the red flags and stop signs through the rose colored Instagram filters. You trusted him and gave him your heart when you should’ve known it’d end like this.

You got greedy and tried to steal the spotlight, and you received it, front and center. You are the joke. You are the punchline, the comedic relief, the center stage of a slapstick comedy show. This is what you get for going off script.

Because you love him.

You were supposed to continue to delude yourself into thinking that you don’t want to find love, that you enjoy being on your own, that you enjoy being single, that you are perfectly content with never experiencing romance instead of facing the cold harsh reality head on: no one sees you as desirable or dateable. And when your friends tell you that you’re not missing out on anything with dating, you were supposed to nod and agree, when secretly, you desperately wish you can experience that for yourself instead of living vicariously through your friends’ love lives or the 3 a.m. scrollings through cheesy romance fanfiction on Tumblr. You’re been fine all these years, haven’t you? You were doing so well living on your own.

But you love him.

It’ll come when you least expect it, that’s what they tell you every time, but what are you to do when you can’t help but expect it your whole life? What are you to do when you so desperately want to know what it feels like to be loved in that way? God, when is it going to be your turn? When is it your turn to daydream about someone and know that they’re daydreaming about you too? When is it your turn to have someone walk you home? When is it your turn to hold hands with someone? When is it your turn to feel the giddy butterflies and experience a good night kiss? When is it your turn to be kissed in the rain? When is it your turn to experience the romance you can only dream about?

How much longer will you have to be patient? How much longer do you have to wait, living in denial over the soul crushing reality of it all? How many more stars do you need to wish upon until you learn to accept the painstaking truth? You weren’t meant to be loved in this lifetime.

God, you love him.

It’s embarrassing when it shouldn’t be. You just want to be touched by hands that care, loved by a heart that beats for you, desired by someone who thinks you are enough. It’s the way you would give up ten years of your life in a heartbeat to experience being the prettiest girl in the room just once and have people look at you. The overwhelming shame washes over you when you never had your first kiss until now with a boy who never cared about you, never went on a date before, never had a boyfriend before, and you have to lie and say it’s by choice when it’s not. It’s not. You have so much love to give, you have so much space in your life to share, you have so much time to spend with that special someone, but the grains of the hourglass are spent waiting and longing for a stranger who will never come.

The thought of it all just makes you sick. It makes you sick that you wish so terribly that someone would just look in your direction for once. For once, you want to be looked at in that way like all the female protagonists experience in the movies. And you know your value shouldn’t be based on desire and objectification, you absolutely know it, but it still hurts when you go out with your friends and you’re the one dancing alone or sitting back and watching the purses. You’re the one standing there by yourself, while every single one of your pretty friends is being approached by someone. It still hurts so fucking bad when you try to put yourself out there, but guys have already moved past you or don’t even acknowledge your existence simply because of your face or a number on a scale. And when he came into your life and gave you one measly ounce of attention, you ran with it when you should have run away. It’s absolutely exhausting, leaving you out of breath and on the verge of throwing up, to chase after someone who never even looked at you, to chase after their attention, praying to god that they’ll one day make you feel like you are worth it, that you’ll finally feel some sort of value.

Forget ever being loved, you weren’t even wanted.

There is no such thing as happily ever after’s for the extras. Girls like you don’t get to star in love stories. Why did you ever think it would end differently?

You love him.

And he ruined you. Even worse, you let him.

You wish you never met Na Jaemin.

x. i can’t go out tonight. *fake coughs* i’m sick.

You would like to give a formal apology to Bella Swan for not understanding why she was so depressed over Edward leaving her for six months and making fun of her. In your defense, you were like nine years old when the movie came out, and you were more interested in Barbies back then (Plus, you were Team Jacob because you wanted a pet dog at the time).

You didn’t even go through a break up, but it sure as hell feels like one.

You probably would continue to wallow in your misery for weeks, clutching onto the only two men you could ever trust in your entire life: Ben and Jerry’s while watching every iconic 90s and early 2000s rom-coms on repeat if it weren’t for your best friends. But enough is enough, and you get that you shouldn’t be spending weeks crying over a boy who hasn’t even spent one second thinking about you. It’s just hard to take that first step back up again when you feel like you tripped and fell all the way down to rock bottom.

And so, you finally let your friends into your shared dorm room, and you definitely do not miss the poorly disguised look of disgust and shock when they see the giant mess on your side of the room (You’re very grateful that Giselle has been staying at her boyfriend’s place for weeks now). It’s an intervention at this point—one that you desperately need, and you know it.

“Okay, give it to me straight,” you sniffle, still wrapped up in your comforter like a giant burrito and clutching onto the ice cream carton like a lifeline. You know that your friends will just rip it off like a bandage, and you have mentally prepared yourself for it. Your voice comes out wobbly still from the tears, and you hate it. “I know I was stupid for letting a guy walk all over me like that. I know if any of you were in this situation, I’d tell you that you’re better than that and to get over him, but it’s just so hard to do it.”

“He who shall not be named is a scumbag, and I’m gonna kill him the next time I see him,” Lana states, pursing her lips together. “I hope he has a bad hair day every single day because I know he’d be screaming, crying, throwing up if he could never get a perfect selfie ever again.”

You choke back a sob, giving her a watery smile. “That would destroy him.”

“Good. Fuck him. Metaphorically, not literally. Why should you care if you are the girl of his dreams or not? Be the girl of your dreams. You’re gorgeous, smart, and funny and he’s just some guy who still doesn’t know how to use the correct ‘your’ in an Instagram caption.”

You can write down a thousand and one reasons why he was the most horrendous, most awful, most vile person to ever grace your life. But at the end of the day, why does it matter? What good would it do? You still love him, and that’s the worst pill to swallow.

“I just—I’m having a hard time believing that.”

“Y/N, if you believed that Jaemin wasn’t a shitbag for the past four weeks and all the time before that in his life, then you can believe in yourself right now for two minutes and listen to me,” Lana says firmly, clutching onto your shoulders and forcing you to look her in the eye as she continues on, “Remember the Barbie movie? He’s just Ken. Ken doesn’t have a good day unless Barbie looks at him.”

“Yeah, like channel your inner Gina Linetti. Listen to Chelsea Peretti. ‘Men used to hunt.’ What’s Jaemin doing? He’s pushing twenty and doing aegyo on camera,” Moon chimes in, and Lana nods furiously in agreement before elbowing Yangyang in his rib not-so-subtly. “Contribute to the conversation, Yang.”

“Hold on, I’m thinking,” Yangyang says, pausing in the middle of your room and placing his hands on his hips.

“Oh congrats, I didn’t know you could do that. But stop because you’re not good at it at all,” Moon says, completely ignoring the dirty look he throws at her immediately. The little exchange brings a small smile to your face and it feels nice to laugh. You’ve forgotten how to do that. You miss your friends. You’re grateful for them for not giving up on you when you already have.

“Come on, let’s go see ‘Crazy Rich Asians.’ It’ll be fun. We can watch Lana fangirl over seeing her favorite actor,” Moon encourages you, and Yangyang nods in agreement. “Yeah, she picked a better man after the Jaehyun fiasco.”

“Oh my god, let it go. I didn’t like him that much,” Lana huffs softly, grabbing one of your spare pillows and launching it square into his face in retaliation, and he lets out out a high pitched shriek that makes you giggle.

“Weren’t you gonna go see it with your best friend, Yang?” You ask, glancing over at him and he shakes his head, a slightly sour expression on his face. “Nah, she’s going with Dejun already.”

“So unfortunately, we’re stuck with him now,” Moon says solemnly as Yangyang immediately throws her a dirty look. The look on his face makes you laugh, and it makes you feel a little better and your heart a little lighter.

You shouldn’t have to beg someone to love you; the right person will never make you beg. The right person would never chip away at you, erasing different parts of you, until you fit their picture perfect mold, until there’s nothing left of you. You would never have to call your friends at 4 am, drunk and crying for their validation, praying to whatever higher being is up there for them to take you back. Your friends have never looked at the scars and freckles dotting your skin and suddenly deemed you as unlovable. Your best friend wouldn’t call you fat and point out every single one of your insecurities. You are not unlovable because you decided to eat a third taco or decided to not wear makeup today or didn’t shave your legs. You may fight with your parents and siblings, but never once have you felt unloved by them. Never once did you have to get on your knees and plead for them to love you back.

You know you are worthy of love because your friends and family make it look so easy. They have shown you what love is really like time and time again. You’ve been a shitty friend these past few months, prioritizing a boy over the ones who really matter. They’ve been so patient with you this entire time, and with an open heart, you realize that it is time you finally start properly loving them and yourself too.

You are loved.

xi. that’s so not fetch!

Jaemin slinks out of the lecture hall, noting the dirty looks your friends have sent him from the other side of the room. He’s been standing outside of the classroom before the session starts for the past few weeks in hopes of catching you, looking like a complete creep (and definitely feeling like one). But what’s he to do when you wouldn’t return any of his texts or calls? It’s humiliating, and he feels smaller than an ant under a microscope.

He pretends to leave class early, staking out in the bathroom across from the classroom. Counting down the minutes, he sees the first wave of students pouring out from the classrooms and finally spots you. His heart jumps to his throat, and his hands begin to grow clammy.

You’re back to wearing your loose jeans and basic t-shirts, your favorite purple scrunchie wrapped around your wrist and an old Jansport backpack slung over your shoulder, decorated with pins of all those familiar characters from his favorite anime. Your face is bare, aside from tinted lip balm, and you’re smiling. You’re laughing at something your friend next to you says, and with a sinking heart, Jaemin realizes that perhaps maybe you are pretty in the slightest way.

He finds himself taking one step towards you, then another, maneuvering around the other students rushing to leave. He’s getting closer and closer, if he called out your name, you would hear him. But you wouldn’t stop for him this time. He knows that.

Jaemin is getting closer, just a few more steps until he can just stretch his hand out and tap your shoulder, and his heart is pounding so hard in his chest until a pretty manicured hand grabs his upper arm lightly.

“Jaemin? What are you doing here?”

He pauses, turning around and seeing Somi staring back at him in surprise as she continues, “I thought you don’t have any classes at this time.”

“Yeah, I—” he hesitates, glancing over at your retreating figure and Somi follows his gaze, her eyes softening as she lets go of his arm.

“Oh, were you waiting for her? Sorry about that,” she apologizes, pulling away and he shakes his head, shrinking back. Maybe it was for the better that you got away. It’s probably a sign from the universe telling him to let it go.

“No, it’s okay. She doesn’t want to talk to me anyway,” Jaemin admits at last, starting to slink off, and Somi furrows her eyebrows, a puzzled expression gracing her face as she hurries slightly to catch up with him, matching his pace. He exits the building, crushing the graded economics midterm with a red 89 circled at the top in his fist and shoving it haphazardly into the side pocket of his backpack usually reserved for his water bottle.

“What are you talking about? The two of you are practically glued at the hip. She adores you,” she laughs softly, tilting her head slightly as she glances over at him. He ignores her look, continuing on his way off of campus and towards his safe haven: a small dog friendly boba shop snug in between a bookstore and a 24 hour laundromat he frequents more often than he likes to admit.

“I honestly thought you’d ask her out at some point.”

Jaemin winces at that, her light response rubbing salt into his open wounds, stitches torn and bleeding, and he spits out the next words defensively, his pride rearing its ugly head again. “No way. I never liked her like that. She’s not my type at all. Have you seen her?”

“What is wrong with you?” Somi frowns at him, stopping in her tracks, and he halts, unable to look at her and throwing out a dismissive “What?” In her direction.

“Why are you talking about her like that? I thought you liked her,” she answers, staring at him in disbelief, and he curls his fingers into fists, gripping tightly as a multitude of conflicting emotions war inside of him. He starts to walk again, barely glancing over at Somi.

“She was just my tutor. I passed my midterm, so I don’t need to be around her anymore.” He responds weakly, uncurling and recurling his fingers into fists as he desperately tries to stay calm.

It was so much easier to pretend around his other friends. Aside from Jeno, they always took his words at face value, never one to pry. And Jeno would never push him, knowing that he would eventually come to him at his own pace. But Somi? He’s forgotten about how she can be after she’s been so busy with her schedule, missing out from the majority of hang outs for her social work and events, and their class schedules never overlapped. She can spot a lie a mile away. She actually cares. In a way, she reminds him of you, and he can’t bear to meet her gaze anymore.

“She’s your friend,” Somi retorts, following him into the boba shop, briefly stopping to pet the adorable Samoyed wagging its tail near the entrance. “You spent more time with her than any of us, except maybe Jeno. And you weren’t just studying in the library. I’ve seen her on your finsta and close friend stories.”

“Okay, and now she’s not. She’s not my friend anymore,” Jaemin answers sharply, punching his order into the self service machine. “It happens. People stop being friends. So back off, Somi.”

“Jeez, what is your problem?” she snaps back, following him towards the back, settling on a pillow in one of the comfortable nooks converted into a small seating area across from him. “I caught you following Y/N, and now you say you’re not friends?”

Jaemin hesitates, fiddling with one of the decorative pillows in his lap. “We got into an argument.”

“Yeah, but friends fight. You can apologize, right?”

Jaemin is silent.

Somi stares at him, and he wants to curl into himself. It’s the very same look you gave him before you shut the door in his face, and he feels the bile in his throat already. Her voice is quiet. “Jaemin, what did you do?”

“I—,” he whispers, breaking off and clenching his fists. He is already replaying that moment in his head, seeing the look of utter devastation on your face, and he wants to run away. The ugly truth is front and center, and he is unable to ignore it any longer.

“I fucked up, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” Jaemin bursts out, burying his face in his hands and unable to face his friend. He closes his eyes, sucking in a deep breath. “I said some shitty things to her, some really fucked up stuff.”

“Like fucked up as in messy drunk thoughts or fucked up, fucked up?” Somi says softly, hesitantly, as if she doesn’t want to believe her friend is the worst of the worst. Jaemin’s heart sinks even lower than rock bottom as he continues to hang his head low.

“I…” Jaemin’s voice is less than a whisper as he finally confesses the horrible truth to someone for the first time. His voice cracks as he recalls every single disgusting thing and insecurity he flung back into your face.

“I said that it would be stupid for her to believe in love at first sight, that she wasn’t up to my standards, that it’s her fault, that I was ashamed of her, ashamed that I even liked her because of the way she looked.”

The silence is deafening, and Jaemin feels the same wave of humiliation wash over him as it did on that very night. Somi is speechless, and he can’t bear to look at her, one hundred percent knowing that there would be a raw look of utter disgust and horror on her face because that is the exact way he would look at himself. He sits there in silence as the guilt and shame pile up even higher; he is past the point of wallowing in self pity, already drowning and gasping for breath.

“Jaemin… she was your friend,” she murmurs, gazing at him, mouth agape as the shock finally settles in, and he flinches slightly at the past tense. “She actually cared about you. She made you happy.”

“I know,” he says softly.

“She was the best thing that ever happened to you.” Somi continues quietly.

Jaemin sucks in a sharp breath, biting his bottom lip. “I know.”

“Then why?”

Because I was stupid, he thinks silently, Because I am a coward. Because she embarrassed me. She made me feel small. She made me feel insignificant. She made me look at myself in the mirror, and for the first time in my life, I absolutely hated what I saw staring back at me.

“I don’t know,” Jaemin whispers, staring down at his lap in resignation and unable to swallow the truth.

He knows.

xii. you can’t sit with us.

You continue to avoid Jaemin in Macroeconomics, choosing to slip into class at the very last minute. You see him waiting in front of the classroom every session for the past three weeks, searching for you, but you opt to go to the professor’s office hours every time before class and end up walking with her to class as she answers your questions about the assigned readings and problems. Alice saves you a seat in the front row, and you never told her but you’re grateful when you realize she must have asked her other friends to sit around the two of you, effectively barricading Jaemin from any attempt at sitting next to you. Finals week comes and goes with the winter break following suit, and you think he has finally given up on any attempt at reaching you.

But life has an unfortunate penchant for bringing up things—or people—you wish to forget when you least expect it. It was supposed to be an ordinary Thursday four weeks into the spring semester, and you’re exiting your last class of the day, tucking your laptop into the cute tote bag you bought from the New York Strands bookstore as you walk across campus.

“Y/N.” Jaemin appears in front of you, and suddenly, all the air in your lungs seem to have been sucked out. It’s almost embarrassing how two months of self progress can be toppled over as easily as a house of cards. Your brain says to hate him, but one glance at him still has you weak in the knees. You take a deep breath, counting to three before walking around and ignoring him entirely.

“Please, can we just talk for five minutes? I’m sorry.” He desperately reaches out for you, and you can see some people starting to take note of the two of you, their gazes on your back.

“Leave me alone, Jaemin.” You continue to walk away, hiking up the strap of your bag higher over your shoulder, desperately trying to quell the stupid colony of butterflies in your stomach that have laid dormant for so long. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Please, just five minutes—three minutes—and I’ll leave you alone forever. Listen to me,” he says in a quiet tone. It was an order, a request, and a plea all at once.

You pause, scrutinizing him for a few moments before grabbing his arm and dragging him away from prying eyes. You stop on the secluded side of the building underneath the magnolia trees before dropping his hand. “You have two minutes. Talk.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“Good to know you’re self aware. You’re finally experiencing some character growth.”

Jaemin grimaces at your stony expression. “Okay, that was deserved. I truly am sorry, Y/N. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have lashed out at you, and I’m an asshole who took advantage of you. You do deserve better. You deserve someone better than me. But I want to be that person. You make me a better person.”

You stay quiet, and Jaemin fidgets around. “Is that… is that okay? I know it’s selfish of me, but—”

“You’re right, that is selfish of you.”

Jaemin falls silent at that, face flushing before he speaks up meekly, “Can’t we start over? Try again?”

In that moment, you truly pity the boy in front of you. The lost expression on his face tells it all as he desperately clutches onto whatever lifeline you’re willing to toss out. But he’s causing you to drown, and you need to cut the cord and put yourself first for once. Maybe you can change him. But you can’t do this to yourself again.

You take a deep breath and pinch yourself, reminding yourself that this is the same boy who broke your heart because it wasn’t pretty enough for him. “There is no trying again. You never tried, and I’m done trying for you. Jaemin, you don’t love me. You’ve never felt that way towards me.”

“Yes, I have! I do! I really do,” he protests, and you shake your head, taking a step back. He starts to take one step forward towards you and hesitates, staying in his original spot. Your gaze is cold, and he finds himself wishing that you would look at him in the way you used to.

“You love the idea of me: the one you built up in your head,” you say, tone growing quiet. “But I’m nothing like her. To some degree, I think I might be the first genuine connection you ever made with a girl. You liked the way I felt about you and how I acted for you. I changed everything about myself for you, I would’ve followed you anywhere, I would’ve done anything for you, and you took advantage of that. You took advantage of the fact that I love you.”

You may not truly know what love is, but you know it’s something he never gave you. It stings, knowing that even after all of this, you still secretly, desperately long for the type of love you know will always be out of your reach. A part of you wants to believe him, but this time, you listen to your mind instead of your heart.

Jaemin’s head shoots up at your confession, eyes widening in belated realization, and you curl your lips inward, biting your lower lip. You love him. You love him, he now knows, and to your surprise, it didn’t hurt as much as you thought it would. Three steps forward and two steps back is still one step in the right direction.

“One day, you’re gonna find someone who’s finally enough for you—someone who’s worth making pancakes for,” you say wistfully, pausing for a minute before gathering the courage to continue.

“And you’re gonna fall in love with them. Like really love them. You’re gonna love them so much that you’ll try your hardest to be enough for them. You’re gonna try so fucking hard to be the one they want, the one they love, that you’ll do anything for them. You’ll even change yourself for better—or for worse.” You grip the strap of your tote bag even tighter, a dull pang in your heart making its appearance, and Jaemin winces, lowering his eyes as the regret and guilt pools into his stomach.

“But sometimes, it won’t be enough. It’s not going to be enough,” you continue, swallowing hard. “And it’ll never be enough for them. You’re willing to move heaven and earth for them, but they won’t notice. Or maybe they don’t even care. No matter how hard you try to love them, it won’t matter unless they want you. Unless they choose you. And it’ll hurt like hell. It’ll hurt every single time you see them, every time you hear them, every time you think of them.”

Your voice softens, shaking slightly as you take in a wavering breath before pushing forward. “And when it hurts, you’re going to think of me. You’re going to remember me because that’s when you’ll understand what it feels like. That’s when you’ll know how I felt. How it feels to not be enough. How it feels to have your heart ripped to shreds by someone you care about—someone you love.”

His heart drops, and you give him a wistful smile before it quickly disappears, and your expression schools into one of indifference. You continue to walk forward confidently, brushing past his frozen figure. You see your friends waiting for you on the other side of the lawn, and you look over your shoulder at Jaemin one last time, taking a deep breath and steeling yourself.

“And you know what? I hope to fucking god it hurts you as much as you hurt me.”

The world continues to spin, you keep moving forward, and he remains rooted in his spot, unable to look away from you. There are so many Barbies and Kens out there, so many more Na Jaemins who will come into your life and sweep you off your feet, and you’ll make them feel special and more than a pretty face, he belatedly realizes, he’s disposable and so easily replaceable, but there’s only ever going to be one you.

As he watches you walk away, Jaemin thinks he is starting to understand.

EPILOGUE.

Life likes to play cruel jokes, and the senior year gives you the most hilarious one of all in the form of your final capstone project. Last you heard about Jaemin, he had switched his major to pre med (which was ironic to you since that field would require him to care about other people, which he clearly proved to be incapable of). However, your university decided to implement a cross collaboration between the various schools, and it’s just your luck that you find yourself paired up with Jaemin. Giving him a tight smile as you take a seat across from him in the library room he reserved, you take out your laptop.

Jaemin had asked earlier if you wanted to request a new assigned partner, but you highly doubt any professor would switch up a pairing on account of one person being guilty of being the greatest asshole to ever exist (Plus, you’ll come across many guys like him in your field of work, so you might as well start building up your tolerance now).

It is the final time you will meet up with him before the big presentation, and the two of you work together in silence, only breaking it to discuss the project topic. It is neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, settled somewhere in between—kind of like a purgatory for relationships. You’ve stopped thinking about him a while ago already, but seeing someone who once was a part of your life always brings back memories, whether wanted or not.

“I met someone.”

Jaemin breaks the ice, unable to hold it back any longer. He feels like he’s going to explode if he doesn't get this off of his chest. There is a slight pause in your writing before you resume, but he knows you are listening.

“I met her after… after our…” He trails off. He doesn’t know what to call it—what the two of you had. An almost relationship. “… After us.”

You continue to write, taking note of several points to be discussed based on your slide. He puts down his pen, clasping his hands together as he fiddles with one of the rings wrapped around his fingers.

“I made her blueberry pancakes.”

You sharply inhale for a brief millisecond before you jot down another bullet point. One, two, three, four, five bullet points until you can breathe normally again. You’re twenty two years old, but you suddenly feel like you’re eighteen again. You sometimes loathed your younger self, but because of her, you learned so many things (Forgiveness is one of them).

“I don’t know what else to do, except keep making her pancakes.” Jaemin sits there idly for a few moments, entirely unaware of your inner turmoil, before he laughs derisively, “She’s in love with my best friend. She never told me, but I can just tell.”

There’s another pause from him. Staring down at his notebook, he swallows hard, the lump in his throat never fully going away. His voice cracks as he whispers out his question:

“Does it ever stop hurting?”

Your pen stops moving across the paper, dropping to the side. There’s a black scribble from where it fell. You still continue to look at the index card, focusing on the college ruled lines until they become a mosaic blur of blue, black, and white.

“Eventually.”

Your tone is impassive, and his head snaps up at your reply. You pick up the pen again. You don’t look at him, but you know he’s staring at you, an unrecognizable expression in his eyes.

Perhaps, it would have been different if you had met the present day him back then instead. Perhaps, it would’ve worked out. Maybe he would have made another girl fall in love with him, broke her heart, and come out unscathed. Or maybe he would still be the same as his past self if he hadn’t met you. It’s the butterfly effect; you don’t know what would have happened, but you don’t care. Not anymore.

By now, you have mourned him for longer than you have loved him.

“Y/N, you were never hard to love. I was bad at loving. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

And this time, you know he truly means it—that Jaemin truly understands. It is good that he has learned and tried to become a better person. You just wish it didn’t have to come at the expense of you.

Your first love teaches you what love isn’t.

The threads holding the pieces of your heart together these past three years have always been so fragile. Just one tug at the heart strings, and everything unravels so easily, like grains of sand slipping through your fingers. You’ve nearly forgotten what heartbreak feels like, the old wounds opening up for a long forgotten friend that you had prayed you would never meet again.

You discover that it hurts even more the second time around.

“I wish I fell in love with you back then.”

His tone is forlorn, a silent resolution wrapped in happenstance. You continue to write down more notes for your part of the presentation, the soft scritches of your pen against paper almost masking your quiet response, and Jaemin nearly misses it.

“So did I.”

993 notes · View notes

veltana · 1 month ago

Text

The winter rebound

✦ Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Fem!Reader

✦ Word count: ~3,6k

✦ Rating: Explicit

✦ Warnings/tags: Avengers!Bucky, alcohol consumption, fluff, pwp, smut, oral (fem receiving), piv sex, safe sex, dirty talk.

✦ Summary: You go with your friend to Stark's holiday party

✦ Note: This was the first thing I wrote and published when I got back into the marvel fandom, so it's a super self-indulgent piece! But I hope you like it anyway! As always, please comment and/or reblog! Asks are always welcome!

Masterlist | AO3

It was Friday. You watched yourself in the mirror and told yourself that you would have fun tonight. Forget about your ex of five years who broke off your engagement a month before the holidays, whom you had spent the last three weeks crying over.

Tonight you were accompanying your best friend to the annual Stark holiday party, and you would not think about him once during the night, while you danced and drank yourself into a stupor.

Standing outside the huge compound made you anxious. Maybe it was too soon to meet the real world without him. No! Don’t think about that asshole! You cut yourself off before your thoughts started to spiral.

“Come on!” your friend Lily laughed. Her genuine smile was contagious and you returned it, squaring your shoulders and forcing every dumb thought down before you took her arm as the two of you made your way down the gold and red carpet. At the end, two large glass doors were opened by life-sized mechanical nutcrackers.

“I sure hope those don’t spring to life and ruin this party too,” you mumbled. Lily giggled, “Don’t worry, I helped with the software, unless Mr. Stark went a completely different direction there should be no worries.” “So there is a possibility,” you joked as the doors closed behind you.

If she answered you didn’t hear because you were too busy taking in the amazing winter-themed party. The waiters were also dressed as nutcrackers and there were dancers in amazing outfits performing all over the floor. Music played in the background and some were moving to the beat while others stood around and talked.

Honestly, you had expected more people, like at least two hundred but there were only about fifty in the huge hall. Not only the regular people, like your friend, who helped with software, hardware, management, and the day-to-day running's of the compound, but it was impossible not to notice the heroes also in attendance.

Not all of them were there, no sign of Thor or Loki, or the Guardians, but this was your first time so close to any hero ever, you would take what you could get.

“Come, I’ll introduce you to everyone,” Lily said and started to pull you along while you gazed at the shifting decorations adorning the walls, obvious to the blue eyes that followed you with interest from the bar.

Too many names spun through your brain, accompanied by the alcohol your friend had been plying you with.

Everyone you had met so far had been incredibly nice and friendly and hadn’t minded when you asked all the dumb questions about working at such a place.

Finally, it came down to the big event, meeting Mr. Stark and maybe the rest of the Avengers currently there.

Lily stepped up to her boss and greeted him and Pepper Potts like they were friends rather than her superiors and then introduced you. Not a lot of people got to shake hands with Iron Man and Pepper Potts but now you had, and it was totally normal.

“Interesting hair color,” Tony Stark pointed out. “Is it meant to look like that?” It was such an old man thing to say you could only laugh as Pepper elbowed him in the ribs. “I am sorry,” Pepper apologized but you waved it off.

“He is paying for everything I drink, so if he wants to make fun of my hair, it’s fine.” Pepper gave you a relieved look and was about to say something else when a voice interrupted.

“It looks like the Aurora Borealis.”

Bucky Barnes had appeared out of nowhere, like the skilled assassin he had been trained to be. It was like he had materialized out of thin air at your side and you jumped when he spoke.

Before you knew what you were doing, you reached out, slapping your palm against his hard chest, and said “For fuck’s sake,” while your other hand rested over the heart trying to work its way out of your chest.

Then you realized what you’d done and pulled back your hand quickly, covering your mouth. Bucky stared back at you, mouth slightly open, while Lily and Tony both cackled in amusement. “That’s what you get Barnes,” your friend pointed out.

With a crooked smile, Bucky just said, “How about I buy you a drink to make up for it?” and held out his arm. “As long as it’s crazy expensive since the old man made fun of my hair,” you shot over your shoulder at Tony as you took the offered arm.

Your friend winked at you before she returned to her conversation with Natasha Romanoff, whom you would just have to say hello to some other time.

Bucky led you the short way to the bar and you eased your way on to the chair, making sure not to get tangled in your long dress, as Bucky leaned over the bar and asked for the most expensive champagne they had.

“I’m Bucky,” he said. “I know,” you smiled at him before introducing yourself too.

In no time there were two flutes in front of you, he offered you one, saying cheers before you took the first sip. The unabashed moan that left you wasn’t meant to be sexual but Bucky stopped his glass halfway to his lips to just stare at you. It cracked you up, “Sorry,” you said, “I’ve never tasted champagne this good before.” He also took a sip, his eyes widening a little, and when he’d swallowed all he said was, “Wow.” “I could get used to this,” you took another mouth and closed your eyes.

When you opened them again you found him looking at you and it made a shiver go down your spine. For the first time in a long time, you felt desire pool in your lower belly. “Will this make up for Stark’s comment?” he asked. “It will absolutely!” you promised. “I think your hair looks great and I’m like twice his age so…” he trailed off.

“My friend, Lily, has told me about these crazy old super soldiers, but you look spry for your age,” you winked at him. “You can only imagine,” he flirted back, and your cheeks heated. You had forgotten about this, about the utter intoxication of flirting with a man and having it returned to you.

After several weeks of drought, your body suddenly knew what arousal was again and flooded you with it, making your heart beat twice as fast and your skin flush. “Oh, you want me to think of everything you can do?” you asked with a raised eyebrow. “Anything you want, doll,” he leaned forward, “But I’m sure your imagination won’t hold a candle to the real thing.” “Are you going to show me?” “If you want to,” he smirked and you felt yourself grow wetter by the second.

You leaned in too, unable to resist him and not wanting to either. You wanted to get lost in him for as long as he would have you. He finished off the rest of his champagne like it was a shot of liquor.

“Come on, I have just the place,” he smiled, holding out his hand. Not even second-guessing yourself for a moment you finished your glass and let him lead you away.

Bucky took you through a side door, into a corridor that led to the heart of the compound which was now deserted, and finally into a large room with a domed ceiling.

It looked like a cinema almost, except the screen was the whole ceiling, and in the middle of the floor was an enormous sofa-like thing that easily fit several people.

After Bucky pressed something on a side panel the room lit up with the Aurora Borealis.

You let go of his hand, staring with huge eyes at the display. Maybe you had misinterpreted his intentions and they were actually pure, not at all the filthy things you had thought this would end up being.

Never had you been happier to be wrong.

This time when he appeared out of nowhere he didn’t scare you, he gripped your waist with the vibranium arm and spun you into his chest, before using his other hand to pinch your chin between his fingers.

“I’m going to kiss you, tell me if I should stop,” he breathed. Instead of answering with words you surged up and crushed your lips against his, wrapping your arms around his neck, and pulling him impossibly closer.

It was almost like he expected you to be timid or something because, for a few seconds, he didn’t move, but then he rushed into action, moving his lips and kissing you like a man starved.

Desire flooded you, making every one of his touches feel like fire even through the fabric of your dress. He moved you backward until your knees hit the oversized sofa, and you laid down.

Bucky’s face was burning with desire as he looked down on you, before he could move or say anything you grabbed your skirt and pulled it up until it bunched around your waist so that you were able to spread your legs without restraint.

The growl erupting from his chest made you smile and you crooked your finger toward him. He knelt between your legs, grabbing your thighs to spread them even more before he leaned down over you to capture your lips again.

The action made the hard cock in his jeans brush against your heated core, making you moan into his mouth.

He pulled back, eyes wild, “Your sounds make me fucking crazy.” he groaned, moving his hands down your naked legs, caressing them and gripping them, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be rough or gentle.

“Hope so,” you smiled and started to tug at his suit jacket, needing to see his body. He obliged by sitting back and ridding his upper body of clothing. As soon as you could your hands splayed out across the expanse of his naked torso, feeling the hard muscles under the soft skin.

Your eyes grazed over the scars on his left shoulder but didn’t pay it any mind. The man had trauma, that was no secret, but tonight you didn’t need to delve into that. Instead, you sat up, kissing the skin you could reach and licking at his nipple, making him moan most deliciously.

He reached around you to unzip your dress and you whined when you had to move away from him to let him pull it off you. Now you were almost completely naked with the super soldier, except for the thong you wore that did little to hide anything from him, and your heels.

Without another word, he stood up and unbuttoned his pants, peeling them off and kicking off his shoes in the process, before he was back over you. Now it was his turn to taste your skin and when he closed his mouth around a nipple, using his vibranium hand to pinch the other, you released a high-pitched mewl you never heard from yourself before.

That only spurred him on, alternating between sucking and licking at you, squeezing or pinching your sensitive buds. The pleasure was too much, like you would implode or maybe even come from just him playing with your tits. You fisted the fabric under you, pushing your chest even more into him as moans and words tumbled from your lips.

“Bucky, please!” you tried forming a coherent sentence but failed. “What do you need, doll?” he asked, lips shiny with his spit as he looked up at you. “Touch me, make me come, please Bucky,” you didn’t want to wait another second for the pleasure you had missed for a lot longer than the weeks since your break up. This temporary connection with a stranger was already better than what you had experienced over several years.

“Can I taste you?” his voice was husky, filled with restrained want. “Yes!” you smiled and raised yourself on your elbows.

You watched as he kissed his way down your form, pulling off your thong and throwing it away. He grabbed your thighs and spread them wide before letting the thumb of his vibranium hand slowly drag up, separating your folds, groaning, almost whispering “Fuck, your pussy is perfect,” and leaning in to carefully lick up your spread lips. You fell back, staring up at the beautiful display as Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, one of the Avengers, ate you out with perfection.

Every move he made sent sparks through your entire body and pulled cries from you. Your hands tangled in his hair, not pulling or pushing, just needing to anchor yourself on something. Nothing would hold a candle to this for the rest of your life you suspected, because even though you had just met, Bucky Barnes took his sweet time, caressing his hands up and down your sides, down your legs, and back up again, using his tongue and lips to make your body blaze.

Your crescendo built steadily, as did your voice, the closer you got the more you pleaded and begged, even though he was doing exactly what you wanted him to. When two fingers on his right hand breached you with no problem your back bowed, the pleasure rushing through you, and when he crooked them and moved them inside you, it was everything the dam needed to break and the coil inside you snapped.

You screamed his name as the orgasm hit you like a freight train. What was even better was that he worked you through it, coaxing every last drop of pleasure out of you before you had to instead beg him to stop.

"Too much," you whimpered when the uttermost tip of his tongue gently floated across your clit. "No, darling, not enough. A man could get addicted to hearing you scream his name."

You whimpered again, your body rocking with overstimulation at every pass of his tongue. It was wonderful to hear him say those things but you needed more.

"Please tell me you have a condom so you can fuck me," you groaned and that made him stop, staring at you from between your legs before kissing up the side of your thigh to sit back on his heels before he got up. He freed himself from his underwear before he bent down to grab his pants and pulled a condom from a pocket and that gave you a chance to admire him. His cock was hard, glistening, and a lot bigger than what you were previously used to, but that only sparked more excitement in your lower stomach.

"Hands and knees, baby," he smiled and made a twirling motion with his fingers. You wasted no time rolling over, and getting into position. His flesh hand slapped your ass playfully when he knelt behind you and when you moaned he chuckled. "You like that huh?" he asked as the tip of his cock started to press into you.

He was big, you whined and whimpered with every inch he pressed into you. Maybe why he took his time eating you, because he needed you to be as aroused as possible for it to fit. You clawed at the fabric, feeling like you were having an out-of-body experience with how he filled you.

"So good, taking it all," he praised when his hips were finally flush with your ass. Trying to answer him with words was out of the question, instead, you rocked your body, feeling his cock press against everything inside you, giving you the most delicious sensation you probably ever felt.

His hand landed on your ass again and that spurred you on, starting to move a bit faster. "Look at you, fucking yourself on my cock," he sounded a little breathless and you wished you could see him. "Do you like it, darling? Do you like my cock filling you to the brim?"

Fuck, Bucky Barnes had a mouth on him you had not expected. He grabbed your hips and helped you along, starting to fuck you deep and hard, pulling almost all the way out before shoving back in again.

With every move, you cried out in sheer ecstasy. Bucky kept on telling you how good you sounded, he didn't mind at all that you were loud.

The pace was hard but not hurried, he seemed to like taking his time, not rushing through the action just to get to the finish line. But it was driving you mad, it felt like you were at the precipice constantly, ready to tip over but needing something more to do it.

Then he grabbed you around the waist and pulled you up until you were flush against his chest, his pace never stopping. "Hi, sweet thing, enjoying yourself?" he wasn't even winded and you were a panting, whimpering mess, feeling like you were about to lose it.

"Yes, Bucky, please touch me, make me come again." He kissed your shoulder, "My pleasure," was his answer and his left hand descended on your aching clit.

A shudder and a scream passed through you when he started to rub small circles over it. Suddenly you were so close to the edge you could almost taste it, and Bucky knew it too.

"That's right, come on my cock, doll. Can you do that for me? Be good and come for me?" he said between kissing up your neck, moving the arm around your waist up to grab your jaw, and turning your head to the side. The kiss was sloppy but delicious, and with the aid of his fingers and so full of his cock the orgasm took you by full force, making you shake in his grip.

He released your mouth and let the sounds you made fill up the room, pressing his mouth to the side of your head and telling you over and over again how fucking good you felt coming around him.

If he hadn’t held you up, you would have collapsed no doubt, but Bucky had no problem keeping you up as he found his own release, pressing his forehead against your neck and mumbling obscenities, his hips stuttering against your ass.

Now he was breathing heavier, holding you tight against him with both arms, letting his fingers draw random patterns on your skin.

You were in a post-orgasmic haze, only existing in that moment with no past or future, only his warm body, and a sated need. "Gonna need to let you go now, darling," he said in a low voice "Lay down." His arms loosened around you and you braced yourself with your arms and eased yourself down on your side.

Bucky got up, probably to dispose of the condom, before laying down behind you. You hadn't expected him to want to cuddle, but he draped his arm across your side, pulling you flush against him.

"You okay?" he asked in a whisper. "Fan-fucking-tastic," you answered with a small laugh and felt a million times lighter all of a sudden.

After a few minutes of laying there, you felt like you'd been gone from the party long enough, but judging by Bucky’s heavy breathing, he had fallen asleep behind you.

He didn't wake as you gathered your things. When you found the thong, you looked at it, looked over at his gorgeous form laying there, and giggled as you found his pants and stuffed the thong down his pocket.

With the help of some items in your clutch, you patched up your make-up and fixed your hair before slipping out and closing the door behind you.

It was a small miracle that you could find your way back to the party but you did and immediately went to the bar for a drink.

Lily found you minutes later and she just raised an eyebrow, you shrugged and tilted your glass towards hers, clinking them together, and then you both burst out laughing.

Monday rolled around and it was hard to work because you kept getting lost in the memories of Friday night.

His eyes, his scent, his voice as he said those things to you. You squeezed your legs together and stifled a low moan.

Suddenly your phone chimed and pulled you back into the real world. A text from Lily.

[So, Bucky Barnes just came by and asked for your number. I gave it, of course, just so you know!] [Okay? Did he say why he needed it?] [Apparently, you left something(????) here on Friday and he wanted to return it.] [Hmm, okay, thanks!] [What did you leave?!?!?!?] [Don't be so nosey, go back to work!]

Your stomach did a flip when the next message was from an unknown number. It had a picture attached, your thong tangled in his fingers, and the text [You left these.] For a second you imagined him using them as he got himself off. You bit your lips as you responded. [Keep them or throw them away, I have more, don't worry.] even added a little wink-emoji.

[I want to return them, personally. Are you free this afternoon?] His response was quick and very to the point.

A wonderful shudder traveled through you at the thought of seeing him again. You had meant for this to be a one-time thing, something to get you back into the world and learn to exist without your ex but there wasn't any harm in seeing where this could go, and hopefully, you would have a lot more amazing sex on top of it.

[Sure, I get off at five.]

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes smut #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x female reader #bucky imagine #bucky fanfic #bucky fic #bucky smut #veltana writes

702 notes · View notes

astonmartinii · 2 months ago

Text

day three: mistletoe and whine | george russell social media au

pairing: george russell x albon fem reader

it's a christmas classic - a bah humbug girl and a christmas obsessed king

christmas song: mistletoe and wine - cliff richard

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, landonorris and 209,504 others

tagged: georgerussell63

yourusername: it's hard being a bah humbug girl dating all three wise men in a trench coat

view all comments

user1: the way he's literally wearing a trench coat as well

yourusername: i wasn't lying in the caption - how do you think he's so tall?

user2: now you mention it 🤔

georgerussell63: can you stop telling this joke? my niece just asked me where my two friends are under my coat? in public! people thought i was a predator :(

yourusername: lol

georgerussell63: i knew i was dumb when i thought albons would stop being mean to me when we started dating

user3: i love how opposites attract work - holiday edition

user4: y/n is like an old blue collar man who grunts at christmas lights and george is essex girl winter wonderland final boss

user5: i actually NEED to see george at winter wonderland @yourusername please take one for the team

yourusername: i will never go somewhere that will charge me over £7 for a hot chocolate

user6: your bf is a millionaire?

yourusername: it's the PRINCIPLE

georgerussell63: i don't know how you don't lOVE christmas :(

yourusername: i like it but just not as much as other people !

georgerussell63: you slammed the door in the face of carollers and pulled the curtains after flipping them off?

yourusername: i mean carollers are the worst

yourusername: AND IT WAS NOVEMBER 29TH???

georgerussell63: they were trying to spread cheer ??

yourusername: well they can spread it elsewhere - not while i'm watching i'm a celeb

georgerussell63: heartless

user7: tbf carolling before december even starts is harrowing

yourusername: THANK YOU

alexalbon: george, y/n will never change, you're lucky you even got her to wear that ugly ass christmas jumper last year

yourusername: literally, i am so generous

georgerussell63: you two are as bad as each other

alexalbon: 👯‍♀️

alexalbon

liked by maxverstappen1, lilymunhe and 402,307 others

tagged: yourusername & georgerussell63

alexalbon: is it really december if you don't receive five mayday texts from y/n after george reveals his christmas chart

view all comments

user9: he has a christmas chart ???

user10: why are yall shocked it's GEORGE RUSSELL

user11: i'd honestly be worried if george wasn't making a christmas chart

yourusername: it's a struggle bus

alexalbon: yeah i couldn't tell from the 13 999 messages i got from you

yourusername: he has me on peeling duty ....

alexalbon: YOU WITH KNIVES ???

yourusername: exactly !!!!

yourusername: it's a punishment for not wanting to watch nativity

user12: well he kinda has a point there tho

yourusername: but i wanted to save it - it's like one of the only christmas films i like i didn't want to waste it on december 2nd

alexalbon: okay george i think you're being a little tyrannical with the christmas chart

georgerussell63: we're a two man team !!! someone is always going to get something they don't like

yourusername: YOU KNEW I WANTED WRITING THE CHRISTMAS CARDS THIS WAS PURE PETTINESS

maxverstappen1: not to say i told yall so...

alexalbon: erm max this is albon business

georgerussell63: and russell business ?

alexalbon: no it's albon business - you're an albon

yourusername: babe if anyone is dropping their name it's YOU

alexalbon: albons 4 ever

user13: can george drop the christmas chart template please

georgerussell63: at least some people appreciate my chart

yourusername: i appreciate it a lot when it's not being wielded like a weapon babe

georgerussell63: fine... i'll take you off peeling duty

yourusername: thank you xxx 😘

georgerussell63: you're lucky i love you

yourusername: eh i guess so (i love you too)

georgerussell63

liked by alexalbon, danielricciardo and 583,428 others

tagged: yourusername

georgerussell63: she loves it really

view all comments

user14: i think she loves something else ...

user15: somehow i think we might be getting a sneak peek into the reward y/n gets after doing anything remotely christmassy

user16: i mean i too would also decorate a christmas tree to get george like that

yourusername: but you'll never get the chance :P

alexalbon: GEORGE WE SPOKE ABOUT THIS NO WEIRD PHOTOS WITH MY SISTER TO BE POSTED WHERE I CAN SEE THEM

georgerussell63: but i gotta show the people how i'm winning

alexalbon: well you'll never win on track again if i have anything to do with it

georgerussell63: with all due respect alex, what are you doing from back there

yourusername: george... remember who my loyalties will lie with

alexalbon: i'm sure i have buddies at the front who won't mind doing some community service

georgerussell63: you wouldn't ...

maxverstappen1: I WOULD

user17: max verstappen beef does not stop for christmas

user18: he just pops up in george's business now

user19: qatar gonna haunt george forever

yourusername: i don't love it, i love you

georgerussell63: i love you too

yourusername: you love me so much you post soft core porn of us to get your ass beat by my brother?

georgerussell63: yes i love you that much

yourusername: then i love you so much i'll only let alex get one lick in

georgerussell63: huh? defend me?

yourusername: rules are rules babe and if i have to follow the christmas chart... well alex is allowed to set any punishment he sees fit

georgerussell63: i guess so

user20: this couple cracks me up

user21: how did we go from declaring their love for each other to letting people beating them up

user22: i wouldn't expect anything less from y/n albon

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, landonorris and 278,304 others

tagged: georgerussell63

yourusername: mistletoe is the only good thing about christmas

view all comments

user24: i mean... if my bf was george russell mistletoe would be a permanent fixture in my house

user25: i'd climb that man like a beanstalk

user26: so real like give me one chance

yourusername: i will not hesitate to block you all and then block yall on george's account as well

user27: people might say this is cringey but like i'd crash out if i saw how f1twt spoke about my boyfriend

alexalbon: all you do is mistletoe and WHINE

yourusername: you think you're a real comedian don't you

alexalbon: yes i like to think i'm a funny guy

georgerussell63: OMG LIKE THE CLIFF RICHARD SONG

alexalbon: ... yes

yourusername: oh baby ...

georgerussell63: just because you guys have that weird sibling connection that means you get every joke

user28: am i the only one who also got it immediately

user29: no babe it's pretty obvious

georgerussell63: right. i can deal with the bullying from alex and y/n because they're my bestfriends

yourusername: you also like when i bully you

georgerussell63: yes too much

alexalbon: ????

georgerussell63: ANYWAY, that does not mean every random guy and his dog can get in on the joke :(

user30: i have learnt... a little too much about george russell today

alexalbon: you and me both

maxverstappen1: i'm going to stop going at this guy in the media if he's getting off on it FREAK

georgerussell63: no it's just y/n you're safe

yourusername: you're not pretty enough sorry not sorry mr verstappen

maxverstappen1: excuse me?

charles_leclerc: don't listen to them max

alexalbon: how did we get to this point?

user31: tbf i would also whine about mistletoe if my bf was that freakishly tall

yourusername: exactlyyyy

georgerussell63

liked by lewishamilton, landonorris and 629,044 others

tagged: yourusername, lilymunhe & alexalbon

georgerussell63: merry christmas from our family to yours

view all comments

user32: wait the way 2/3rds of the 2019 rookies are literally family now

landonorris: my invite was clearly lost in the mail

alexalbon: the way you told us you 'didn't want to be around you lovesick fools i have a family that will let me actually be the centre of attention'

landonorris: eh that doesn't really sound like me...

yourusername: you also put it in writing in the group chat

landonorris: YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN THAT GROUP CHAT

georgerussell63: oh i show y/n everything !

landonorris: WHAT?

yourusername: and he means everything ... stop putting mistletoe in your pants i did not need to see that rash

landonorris: Y/N NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

user33: once again these fools need to stop oversharing on the internet

yourusername: lando needs to stop oversharing on my wifi bill

landonorris: george !!! y/n just called you broke

yourusername: best christmas ever, i love you all xxx

georgerussell63: no one i'd rather spend my christmas with

yourusername: and i'll hold my hands up, the christmas chart was worth it :(

georgerussell63: any house with george russell in it will have an efficient and effective christmas

yourusername: it was very efficient but almost too much because why were you yelling at alex to 'hurry up with unwrapping his gift'

georgerussell63: ummmm because i wanted you to open the ones from me :(

yourusername: you're so fucking cute

user34: the end of the 2024 christmas chart saga ... you will forever be remembered

user35: and when george turns up in brackley in february with a season chart...

kimiantonelli: i'll kill myself

georgerussell63: EXCUSE ME? ON MY CHRISTMAS?

alexalbon: what a lovely couple of days... i need to detox from being in such close proximity to you two

yourusername: we're literally not that bad

alexalbon: HE SHOUTED AT ME TO HURRY UP SO YOU COULD UNWRAP THE CHRISTMAS THEMED LINGERIE HE GOT YOU

yourusername: well he knows how to make me like the holiday 🤷‍♀️

georgerussell63: just because i thought of it first ...

yourusername: you snooze you lose, i love you baby

georgerussell63: always the best for you my love

fin.

note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and happy day three of astonmartini-mas to you all. this is a PSA that i shall be going on holiday so this is likely not to be updated until next week! enjoy the previous days and my masterlist as you wait! much love xxx (also my tip jar is at the top of the post if you wanna send me a birthday coffee xx)

#f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 instagram au #f1 x you #f1 #f1 social media au #george russell fluff #george russel imagine #george russel x reader #george russell imagine #george russell instagram au #george russell x reader

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pumpkin-cake · 5 months ago

Note

begging for ANYTHING fix it related for the most recent season !!!

five x reader and they are married?? it would be nice if the reader had a more relaxed job in comparison to five in the CIA (the reader used to also work for the commission but wanted a calm life)

like maybe working in a daycare or flower shop?

i’m honestly begging for anything sweet please if you’ve got the time !

THIS HAS ME IN A CHOKEHOLD. YES, I WILL WRITE THIS FOR YOU <3 I ALSO HATE THE WAY THEY CHARACTERIZED FIVE IN THE NEW SEASON. This will be very domestic :3 And it's been a while since I've written Five, I hope he's not too out of character, let me know if you have any pointers :3

The door to your apartment creaks open and heavy footsteps enter, the jangling sounds of house keys hitting the ceramic bowl reaching your ears with a sigh following.

"Good evening, Jerome." You coo.

"I did not pick that name, quit calling me it." Five huffs as he shrugs off his suit jacket, entering the living room. He looked tired, but he was okay with that. He didn't want to settle for some repetitive job he'd be bored as hell at. Even if they gave him stupid aliases like Jerome.

"You could have at least asked. That's embarrassing, telling people your name is Jerome. What about...Ethan? Or even something that's close to Five. Like, Finn, or something." You answered with a chuckle, while Five crumpled on the couch next to you.

"There isn't any point. It's not like you need to go around calling me that name." He said, taking off his tie and laying it across the arm of the sofa. "Anyway, how was work?" He asked, taking off his brown Oxfords and laying them nearby but out of the main walkway. He reached over to the stack of papers on the coffee table and looked at the first page. "Jesus, this is the sloppiest handwriting I've ever seen."

"Ah yes, because children who still have shitty motor skills are going to be writing in perfect print. That's why they only have to write their names, not write full-fledged essays." You said sarcastically, plucking the piece of paper from his hands. You looked over the assignment your kindergarteners were given. The instructions were to count the different types of bugs on the paper. There were no more than 9 of each bug. 4 butterflies, 7 caterpillars, 1 beetle, 8 spiders.

"I was never that dumb." Five said a little snarkily, pointing to the answer spot that said there were only 5 caterpillars.

"Don't be such a prick." You huffed, getting out a blue pen. You didn't like to use red, too harsh. You circled each answer wrong, not making any corrections.

"How are you even meant to teach them this? It's basic counting." Five asked, sort of actually curious.

"We'll just go over it in class tomorrow. Everyone will count together."

"Then what's the point of the homework?"

You groaned. "We are not having this conversation anymore, old man." You pulled out a pack of stickers, putting one on each sheet of paper.

"You're just as old." He countered with a smirk, leaving you to roll your eyes and continue 'grading' the papers. He did shut up and drop the subject, letting his hand stray to your hand that wasn't busy grading papers. He wasn't ever one for physical affection in the past, but ever since getting to this place? He was more lenient. He was never hanging off of you, but his touches were gentler. Each contact of skin was a small way of saying 'I love you', because it was hard to say it out loud after years of isolation.

The biggest way of him saying he loved you was twisting the ring that nicely fit on your finger like he was doing right now. Like he was making sure you were aware of its presence and meaning.

You finished the papers in less than five minutes. You did not envy the fourth-grade teachers who had actual homework to grade. "Your dinner is in the fridge." You told him, taking his other hand and playing with the black band that adorned his ring finger.

"Not hungry." He said shortly, like he was offended you'd ever assume he wanted to do something aside from this. He wouldn't ever say that out loud, of course.

"It's sushi. Made by yours truly." You added, holding back a chuckle when he sucked in a deep breath, very torn between the options. It was weird, able to sit and think about something. He wasn't rushing home to eat and go to bed, he got to do domestic shit with you and fuck did he love it.

"..." Five stayed silent like a brooding teenager.

"I'll come with you." You reasoned, and he reluctantly sat up. You smiled and got up with him, the two of you traversing to the kitchen. He opened the door to the fridge and grabbed the small Tupperware of delicious looking sushi. You were not a fan of Commission cafeteria food, and you took pride in buying the best ingredients for you and your spouse. You were already grabbing him a pair of chopsticks, sitting with him at the kitchen island.

"...thanks." He said after eating a roll. He was stubborn, but he really did appreciate you taking the time to make more for him when he got home late. It was so nice to come home to a homemade meal. It reminded him of Grace.

"Of course, honey." You smiled, sitting in silence while he ate. He savored every moment. After being in the apocalypse for forty years, he really grew to appreciate the things he didn't have. He swore he would never take this life for granted.

He never questioned why, because the whole reason was sitting right next to him.

#x reader #gn!reader #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #fluff #aidan gallagher #umbrella academy season 4

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bunny-jpeg · 2 months ago

Text

heirloom tomatoes

simon "ghost" riley

tags: smut/pwp, farmer!au, romance/intimacy, size difference/kink, proposal, fruits and vegetables, sweet & gentle sex, slice of life

a/n: i've been playing too much stardw valley... (there may be more to this)

wilby port was there you got sent to. you had been living in england for some time now, but you were used to the hustle and bustle of london. the constant grind of the day to day. and now you were grabbing your two suitcases off the bus to the small harbour town.

the little house near the edge of town was your new home after your great aunt passed away. you know you could've sold the house and the land around it. but, after years of working so hard in the city. the idea of an escape felt exciting. so you took it as a chance and ended up in the quiet town.

that was where you met simon riley.

the first spring in the town, you had to figure out how to kill time. you had tried a few hobbies here and there, but with the season in bloom. you wanted to try gardening. and while you could've planted strawberries or even some peppers. you decided on heirloom tomatoes, and with poor internet connection in the town and an excitement that left you with little patience.

you had to ask those in town.

johnny shrugged, "i'd say go to ghost." he placed both hands on the bar and leaned forward to look at you, "he lives closer to the river. i'd say be careful. he likes to bite." the snapped his jaws playfully before he laughed.

"ah, ghost." price said when you asked him, "yeah he'd be your best bed." as he had the cleaver in one hand, "quite man, but if you're direct in your questions he'll give you everythin' ya need." then chopped at the meat on the table.

kyle replied when you asked him while he was doing research at the beach, "i'd say ghost, honestly. he has some kind of green thumb that i couldn't imagine. you know it's possible to kill a cactus." he laughed as he got more of the sand into the test tube, "your best bet would be him. ghost."

it left you with one question, who the hell was ghost?

it took a little while before you found ghost's house. you don't know why you expected to find a haunted house at the end of your adventures. something to match this so-called ghost. but instead you found a small farm house, crowded with various plants.

while it was in abundance, every plant looked healthy and well maintained. this looked like someone who would know how to grow heirloom tomatoes. you knocked on the door and when the door opened, you took a step back from the man who answered it.

he stood over six feet, he was broad all over. he was in a red long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up. as a result you could see his arm full of tattoos. it made you swallow as you tried to maintain eye contact with him.

"can i help you?" he asked as he eyed you up and down.

you swallowed, "um hi! i was wondering if ghost was here?" it sounded weird in your head but you straightened up a little, "i was told by others that he could help me grow tomatoes."

the man looked intimidating. he was curly blond hair, dark brown eyes, his nose was crooked probably from multiple breakages. he had tattoos and scars that lined his body. his voice was a rumble as he replied, "name's simon. no need to call me ghost." then held out his hand. you smiled and shook it.

what you thought would have been an easy few tips turned into a pretty hard-core lesson about not just heirloom tomatoes, but all tomatoes. you tried to take notes on your phone, but ended up having to go old school and writing everything down by hand with a notebook and pen that simon gave you.

"no one usually listens this long." he chuckled a little as he took a sip of his water, "likes of johnny get bored after about five minutes." he crossed his strong arms and you felt something quiver inside of you.

you replied, "well, i want to do it right. it's not fair to the plant that i kill it." you tapped the pen against the paper, "so what was that about cherry tomatoes." and you watched him smile a little.

while you didn't have a huge piece of land like simon. but you had enough to build your little garden. it felt weird rewarding as the seasons changed, it grew warmer. and simon came to visit you more often to check on the plants.

johnny made a joke that simon was your shadow now, even referring to him as "the shadow" and you tried not to think too hard about it. simon was just a good friend.

when simon caught wind of this, he had to be a little more forward. over the time you had spent together, he had grown fond for you. so one sunny summer's day, he picked up flowers from the local shop and went to your house.

when you answered the door, you looked at him. and he looked at you. you were in a purple checkered apron with flour on your face.

"what are you doing?" he asked as he looked past you into the house. he could see the mess in the kitchen and the smell of cookies wafting in the air.

you looked at the bouquet of tulips in his hand, "what are you doing?"

"i was bringing you flowers.. to ask you out." "i was making cookies... to also ask you out."

you both looked at one another in the eye before he handed you the flowers and you looked at them then him again. you felt a leap in your chest and felt a heat in your cheek.

in unison you both said, "will you go out with me?"and then both of you smiled at one another. simon gave you that quiet smile he had and you broke into a wide grin. next thing he knew, you were pulling him into the house just as the timer went off for the cookies.

they were your attempt at shortbread cookies in the shape of hearts. but simon thought they were delicious. especially when you sat in his lap and chased every bite of a cookie with a kiss. simon soon learned that he loved your kisses.

"how does it taste?" you asked as you leaned in a little closer.

"perfect." he placed his large, rough hand on your soft cheek and leaned in to kiss you on the lips. you melted a little at the feeling. you felt comfortable with simon.

he was a protective force in your life. he didn't make you feel small, in a bad way. there was an obvious size difference so you were physically smaller. but simon would never make you feel weak. after that, simon was over every day.

he brought vegetables and fruits from the farm. sometimes he'd bring wild flowers from around the property and on weekends eggs for breakfast.

"simon! simon!" during the middle of a warm summer, you called your boyfriend frantically. he instantly was on high alert from your tone. when he asked you what was wrong, you replied, "the tomatoes! they're here!" and as soon as simon hung up the phone, he instantly was getting his boots on to head to your home.

you waved him over when he got there and he saw them. he saw the heirloom tomatoes, his eyes went wide at the sight of them before he pulled you in close to him. you two looked at each other before you leaned up towards simon and kissed him deeply on the lips. you held onto the front of his black t-shirt .

you pressed your face against his chest soon after and said, "thank you so much, simon." you felt heat radiate through you, a deep love for your partner. simon held you close and peppered your face with more kisses.

the kisses got a little deeper and simon held you closer. you smiled against his lips before you pulled away. he looked as red as the tomatoes you were trying to grow.

he swallowed, "as much as i would love to make love to ya out on the grass. i don't think ya want grain stains on everything."he chuckled as he held you face once more in his large hand. he watched you shift a little before you got out of his grasp and took hold of his hand.

once again you were leading him into your home. and simon barely had time to kick off his work boots before you were kissing him passionately on the lips. his arms wrapped around you as he pulled you up against him. your hands in his t-shirt as you both tried to navigate through the small house towards your bedroom.

eventually you pushed you much larger lover onto the bed and he hastily took off his shirt. you had seen him nude before. both in intimate photos he sent, and also when he'd walk out of the shower with just a towel around his waist. but to see his heavy cock one he got his bottoms off and exposed his heavy cock to you.

you licked your lips at the sight of it and got out of your clothes. before you could get onto the bed, he placed a hand on your lower back and pressed his scratchy cheek against your middle. he sighed, visibly relaxing.

"so soft." he said, as he groped your ass. you giggled and combed your fingers through his curled hair. eventually you ended up on top of him in bed. you helped remove his clothes as well, his socks and t-shirt. and you ended up in bed with you. his broad hands mapped your body perfectly, he wanted to feel every inch of warm soft skin.

you looked beautiful when you eventually ended up under him. your head in the pillows and simon was between your legs. his hefty cock was at full attention as he gazed lovingly at your figure. how could a woman so beautiful want to date a man like him? but,he realized a long time ago not to question you. if you wanted to date him, then he'd happily accept your love.

but only if he could give it back in a tenfold. he rubbed his achy cock up against you. it was painfully stiff and he loved the sight of it up against your smaller slit. he was so big compared to you, a fact that turned both of you.

simon had to admit as he sank into you, he liked feeling like a protector. to know that you were safe because of him. that nothing would hurt his darling girl. it made him feel a tug of pride as he slotted himself into your cunt.

the feeling made him shudder for a moment and the stretch made you arched your back a little. he watched your nipples grow hard which only made his cock twitch with lustful want.

he placed his hand over your chest for a moment, but didn't apply much pressure against you. his palm over your heart as he said, "your mine and i'm yours. you, me and all the tomatoes." he smiled down at you before he leaned in further to kiss you square on the lips. his words made you core feel gooey, you felt his love for you in your blood, raising the temperature of it.

he kissed you as he put both hands on your hips and moved against you. he was cautious about hurting you, causing you pain as his cock nudged against you. you moaned against the heated kiss, you shifted a little and he pressed further into you.

when the kiss broke, you looked at one another while the air in the room grew warmer. you felt the heat between your legs as he moved. his gaze was hungry as he moved against you. he admired every inch of skin he could. he couldn't deny it, he never could, but you were the most beautiful woman he ever had the pleasure to love. he wasn't known for being a lady's man, but to know that he had you. he didn't need anyone else.

when perfection was in front of him, he'd never waste you. the pace continued as did the pleasure. the heat between you two as he moved against you. you tightened your legs around him and reached out for him. you were soon chest to chest with simon making sure that he wasn't crushing you.

the last thing he wanted was to hurt you. it would be like crushing a flower, it would break simon. but you soothed any anxiety as you held his face and kissed him passionately with each of his movements.

the pleasure bloomed through both of you as the two of you continued to move against one another. you started to pick up his pace and the kisses became deeper. it felt amazing, you felt like you were on cloud nine thanks to his pleasure. there was something undeniable about him. there was something heated and needy about his movements as you pushed up against him.

"glad i fit." he remarked, "was worried for a moment that she wasn't gonna fit me." he patted your middle for a moment, the action made you squirm and clench around him a little tighter his heart hammered in his chest the more he moved against you. there was a slice of heaven under him and he wanted to make sure his girl felt good.

you giggled a little, "you're not that big. nothing i can't take. i'm strong enough." and let out a sharp moan when simon pressed into you further which made you feel snaps of pleasure in your head.

he chuckled and held onto you a little tighter, he pushed himself further into you and let himself enjoy the sweet, tender feeling of his beloved. he loved you, it was clear from the moment he asked you out. his affection for you only grew with time, he needed you daily. he was constantly around because you made him feel needed and wanted. you were perfect for him.

he kissed you once more and continued his hold on you. he rocked against you sweet cunt and felt the wraps of pleasure in his core. he loved the feeling, being so close to climax with his beloved under him.

you deepened the kiss and threw your arms around his shoulders. he thrusted up into you, his pace steady but not too rough. once again, the idea of hurting you, even by accident, pained him. he never wanted that, he only wanted your sweet moans in his ear and your smiles to brighten up his day.

you two moved against one another, the pleasure continued to course through you. the two of you made love on your creaky bed, but enjoyed each other's gentle company. you tensed up a little bit as you felt the heat of climax was over you. you moaned into the kiss, and quietly said 'i love you' under your breath as orgasm took hold. the thump in your chest made you feel hot all over.

"i love you too.' he said softly as he continued to move against you. you clenched onto him and he loved the feeling of your nails against his skin. he felt extremely hot as he bucked his hips against you. the hammering in his chest only fueled his want for you.

he soon climaxed and felt the shudder through his body. the blossom of heat in his core as he finished inside of you. with a few more heavy thrusts, he slowed his pace to a stop to catch his breath. however that was made hard because you pulled him in for another searing kiss.

you both got under the covers and kissed deeply with one another. you felt connected to him, so close to him. so loving for him. you moaned into the kiss and simon cuddled up against you.

you said i love you to each other many times as you laid comfortable in each other's arms. the love flowed between you two. simon knew and you knew that you'd be together for a long time.

simon looked at you as you laid there comfrotably. you looked like someone special to him. you looked like the future mrs. simon riley.

it was a hot summer day two years later, you had come by to visit simon and found him working away at the blueberry plants on the farm. eventually you got him back inside his home. you moved around the kitchen like it was your own home.

you were giving simon a stern talking to while you got him a glass of water to help cool down. simon just watched you from his spot at the kitchen table.

"and you know what happens if you don't drink water! i don't need you passing out and crows peckin you-", when you turned around you noticed a small box on the table. the glass of watr almost fell out of your hand as he opened it. shock marked your expression and he chuckled.

he took a hold of the velvet box and opened it with a smile on his lips. your scarred, famer's tan having boyfriend with a love for heirloom tomatoes, was proposing to you.

"will you-"

"yes!" you squeaked before you quickly put the glass down and went over to him. he grabbed you and seated you on his lap. you held his face for a moment to look into his brown eyes before you laid a kiss on his lips.

he only pulled away to slip the ring on your finger (it was a big too big, but that could be fixed). you looked at the emerald in the ring and felt tears in your eyes. you kissed him once more.

you had everything, a home, a husband and heirloom tomatoes. <3

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literaila · 11 months ago

Text

keeping secrets

gojo satoru x fem!reader

summary: you and satoru avoid each other

warnings: actual fighting, sad everyone, hurt/little comfort (sorry)

last part | next part

year four.

"did megumi give you a permission slip?" you ask satoru, leaning against the side of the couch, peeking at his phone. "it's for a field trip, but i haven't seen it. he says he set it on the counter."

satoru glances at you. then back, and shakes his head.

"he didn't give you anything to sign?"

"not recently."

you sigh. "i don't think he lost it."

satoru's lip quirks. "you think i'm hiding it?"

"i don't know. did you accidentally eat it?"

his eyes roll. "i have better taste than that."

"well, can you help me look for it?"

satoru sighs, head hanging back for a moment, then he throws his phone down, groaning as he stands up. after he stretches, he half-heartedly moves a pillow, pretending to look under it.

you snort.

but satoru doesn't look back at you, and moves to the table, to look at the stack of papers there.

and, admittedly, things have been a bit off.

you tried to ignore it at first--ignore the way satoru avoided your eyes, or kept himself five feet away from you at all times. you tried to pretend that it wasn't happening. that he wasn't giving you short responses, or only joking with you in dire moments (like when something you say goes over both of the kid's heads and they stare at you weirdly).

honestly, you hadn't even noticed anything was wrong until you'd realized that it'd been a week since he fell asleep with you. since he even bothered to come out of his room after putting the kids to bed. a week since he tried to squeeze you to death, or grossly kissed your cheek.

and... it shouldn't be weird.

no rule says that he has to spend a specific amount of time with you, or cuddle in your bed, or smile at you, or... do anything that your best friend probably shouldnt do.

but it's weird.

it's strange because your relationship with satoru has stayed relatively consistent, an upward slope for the past six years. you've grown closer, but never farther.

and, in the depths of your mind, usually when you're lying awake at night, you recognize that there's one single moment when it switched. that everything changed a specific morning, and you haven't been able to rewind it. to take it all back.

and you could just blame the alcohol for your confession, you probably should.

but then you'd also have to blame your sixteen-year-old self, the girl who'd been attracted to satoru in the first place. the eighteen-year-old who agreed to tie her life to his and take in the kids, or you now, still cursing yourself for falling in love with him.

it's not like satoru made you.

if intoxication is to blame, so is your heart, your soul, for starting all of this in the first place.

you'd decided to not blame anything at all, in the end. everything's fine.

"find anything?" you ask him, a bit cold in the room, feeling that same tension that's been there. those unspoken words, infinite amounts of distance.

you try to ignore it, really.

"just the receipt for tsumiki's violin."

"tsumiki's what?" you ask, blinking at him.

"i didn't tell you about that?"

"satoru, you can't just buy them things on a whim--"

he holds a hand up, stopping you. "she said it was for school," he says, giving you a quick grin. "plus, she's pretty good."

"there's no way she's good."

"you'll see," he says, "when we go to her recital."

"what?"

satoru shrugs, then he turns around, organizing the piles of papers into neat stacks. it almost makes you want to check him for a spider bite, a fever, remnants of poison. no way your satoru is doing that.

not that he's yours. he hasn't been yours in years, hasn't been your anything ever.

"oh, here," he says, eventually, handing you a paper which he already signed--of course--and shaking his head. "museums," he grumbles.

but he doesn't give you the chance to respond, turning to walk down the hall--towards his room--before you can even chide him for forgetting about it.

so, yeah. things are fine.

"where's gojo?" megumi asks, as the two of you walk through the door.

the house is empty without satoru there. colder, dimmer. and, of course, there's no one to irritate the boy right when he walks in.

you try not to wince at the question, or spiral into your own question of 'where's gojo?'

"uh," you lock the door, then unlock it. then lock it again. "he's on another job."

"again?"

you give megumi a bland smile, taking his backpack from him. "guess they think he needs more practice," you say, trying to tease.

it falls flat.

"did he get in trouble?"

"i don't know," you shrug. "probably."

honestly, it's not like you would know anyway. satoru doesn't tell you anything these days.

it's probably what bothers you the most, because if he's not saying anything, then neither can you. you can't ask him what he thinks about tsumiki's new friend, or if megumi should be eating more, or if you're just making everything up, probably going insane--

"when's he going to be back?"

"he said probably tomorrow. maybe the day after if it takes longer. i can't remember where they sent him..."

megumi looks mischievous. his eyes are bright. "so we can make those miso brownies? since he's gone?"

you laugh, ruffling his hair. "sure, when tsumiki gets home."

he nods, satisfied, and turns around. then he looks back at you, eyes trailing over your expression.

megumi looks at you quizzically, like he knows something you don't. "do you miss him?"

you roll your eyes. "do you miss him, megumi?"

he doesn't even think about it. "true," he says, then walks into the kitchen, grabbing something from the fridge.

maybe you miss him, you think, but only a little bit. it's not like he's been gone long.

just, you know, forever.

"hey," you lean against the desk in the office. satoru must be filling out a report, which should make you blink twice, but really it's him being out in the open that surprises you.

most days he goes to hide in his room. he locks his door and makes sure that you wouldn't dare to walk through. that you have no means to interrupt his solitude.

"oh, hey," satoru answers, not bothering to look up at you. his voice is low, familiar, and creates goosebumps on your skin.

seriously, why is it so cold in this house?

"i'm surprised those haven't gone missing yet," you gesture toward the papers, trying to be casual.

he snorts. "yaga said that if i lost them again, i was fired."

"he said that two years ago."

satoru nods, still scribbling. you want more than anything to just see his eyes for a moment, for him to look at you and grin like you're used to.

but you know he won't, so you tap your fingers against the desk. "do you have a second?"

"sure. what's up? megumi do something?"

"no, the kids are fine, i, um--" you pause. it feels ridiculous to have to ask him this, to not know the answer. it feels ridiculous to be nervous around satoru. you haven't felt anxious, or worried about asking him anything since you were sixteen and realized that it didn't matter. "shoko texted me about that work 'meeting' that's happening on friday. do you want to go to that? i just need to know so i can tell her..."

"meeting?"

your smile is teasing, not that he's looking. "i think she meant party."

"on friday?"

"yeah. she said that the booze is free, and i think nanami's going, so i thought..." you hint, not even sure what you mean.

i thought we could talk. i thought we could go together and maybe everything would go back to normal. i thought that we were friends, if anything, and that you cared about me--

satoru hums. "what about the kids?"

"tsumiki has a birthday party that night, and megumi likes the sitter from last time," you wince at your accidental mention of that night. "or he can come, i guess, but he'd probably hate it."

satoru snorts, nodding in agreement. you watch his hands freeze, then resume.

he's thinking the same things you are, you know. he's thinking about how stupid you are, how ridiculous it is to imagine him being in love with you, caring about who you are or how you feel.

you just know it.

"so..." you whisper, after a second. "do you want to go?"

you feel like you're standing on uneven ground. how can this be the only real conversation you've had with satoru this week?

how can you miss him this much when he's literally right there?

"i don't--" satoru makes a face, finally looking toward you. he sets down the pen. "i don't think so. but you can go and i can stay here with megumi," he suggests easily like he's not rejecting you. "we can have a guy's night."

"megumi hates guy's nights."

satoru has a cheeky grin on, but it's half-hearted. barely there.

like a glimpse of him in a peephole, a moment where he's not hiding completely from you.

he doesn't say anything, though. he doesn't even bother to come up with a better excuse.

it's clear as day that he just doesn't want to hang out with you, even in a crowd of people.

"that's okay," you hum, eventually, trying to keep your voice steady. "i don't really--"

"no, you should go. you haven't seen nanami in a while. you can have a night out," he says genuinely, but it sounds more like i need a break from you.

"yeah," you try to laugh. "i--um, okay. if you're sure."

he nods, looking away again. he hasn't touched you in weeks. your skin is almost molding, going completely stale. "i'm sure. we'll order dinner, so you don't have to worry about the brat complaining."

"okay."

"okay," satoru answers, but it doesn't mean anything.

and it's not okay.

the two of them walk through the door, and megumi looks... pleasant. he's got the makings of a smile on his face, a little jump in his step.

it's one of the only times you've seen him look like the ten-year-old he is, instead of someone who's concerned about economic collapse.

it makes you smile a bit, even if just the sight of satoru sends pangs down your chest.

"hey," you say, hand on his head as he lingers by you, eyes meeting yours in greeting. you look to satoru, who's pretending to wipe away a smudge on his glasses. "where were you guys?"

"we were--"

"gojo took me to that old hospital by my school," megumi says, "there were cursed spirits hanging outside. he let me and my divine dogs deal with them," he says this almost excitedly--as excited as megumi gets--and you can see it in his eyes. that little twinkle of pride.

your eyes widen, but you smile, trying to be genuine. it's difficult because you've been lying for weeks. "really?" you ask, trying not to look over at satoru accusingly. "how'd it go?"

"good," megumi, moves to the sink, washing his hands. "they're getting better at scenting them out. it didn't take long."

"that's great."

"megumi didn't need any of my help," satoru adds, giving you a short glance. "he's got good intuition."

megumi looks at satoru with a glare in his eyes, but you can tell that he appreciates the compliment.

you can tell that he's completely fine with this, that the two of them are going to act like it's normal, but you can't.

you try to ignore it when megumi looks between you and satoru, a slight furrow in his brows. he knows something wrong, you know. but you're not going to admit that.

you swallow. "do you have any homework you need to finish, megs?"

"uh..." he pauses. "i think so. reading?"

you smile, hand on his back as you lead him out of the room. "okay, how about you go work on that? i need to talk to satoru real quick."

he nods immediately, looking eager to leave--both the room and the tension.

as soon as he's gone, you turn to satoru, narrowed eyes as you observe him. he's already smiling because he knows that he's in trouble. because he knows that you're angry.

because, even if he hasn't actually spoken to you in weeks, satoru has always read you so well. he's always known what you're going to say before you say it.

but you can't care about it. it doesn't mean anything to him.

“you can’t do that,” you say, almost whispering. “not without asking me.”

“i knew you’d say no.”

you laugh, looking away from him. “exactly.”

“he’s fine,” satoru reassures. he shrugs, because why should he care about your concern? “he did good, and there’s not a scratch on him. i’m sorry for not telling you but—“

“no buts, satoru. you can’t take megumi out on missions like he’s a student. he’s not. and you definitely can’t do it without even telling me," there's a burning in your chest. your head is clouded over with anger.

just looking at him--at his ridiculous smile and stupid perfect face--makes you clench your fists.

how can he stand there and act like you're a team?

“it’s not a big deal. i was there the whole time—and he didn’t need me.”

“i don’t care!”

satoru rolls his eyes, his arms crossed. “i think you’re overreacting.”

“i’m not," you say, trying to get him to look at you--actually look--but he won't. it makes your chest hurt even more. "you’re not telling me things—fine, whatever, keep whatever secrets you want, gojo. don't bother talking to me. but you can’t keep secrets from me about the kids.”

“secrets? i’m not—“

you shake your head, hands in the air, trying to clear all of it away. you want the past month to go away, the past six years. “megumi’s just a kid. he’s ten. he can’t be going on missions, not until he’s ready.”

“i think i’ve already proved how ready he is.”

“well, maybe i'm not ready. he’s a kid.”

“yeah,” satoru says, obviously. he scoffs. “yeah, he’s a kid. but he’s also a jujutsu sorcerer. you can’t separate the two.”

his voice is all-knowing and his stance is firm. you know that you won't convince him otherwise--know that he's right, to some degree, but this isn't about megumi.

this isn't about cursed spirits or jujutsu.

“yes, you can," you say, clenching your jaw. "he doesn’t need to be seeing that shit right now. not until he decides he wants to. practice his technique with him all you want, but you can’t just take him to exorcise a curse with you.”

“like i said, he’s fine.”

“it’s not about that! it’s about you doing something reckless—again—and acting like there aren’t any consequences to your decisions. he’s my son,” you hiss, “he shouldn’t be going anywhere i don’t know about. you shouldn’t be making decisions about him behind my back.”

you shouldn't be pushing me away, you shouldn't be ruining this--

“so you want to lock him up here?" satoru asks, laughing at you. his teeth are sharp and he is still. "you want to take away his ability to defend himself?”

you scoff. “are you kidding? you think me saying i don’t want you to get him killed is equal to me—“

“he was fine. if anything—anything—had been there that megumi couldn’t handle, i would’ve taken care of it. i wasn't going to let anyone touch him. that’s why i was there! and he didn’t even need me," he's boasting, swearing to you--you can feel it as he rolls his eyes at you.

“you know what he needs, satoru? he needs you to treat him like he’s a little boy and not some experiment for you to play with.”

“i would never—“

you cut him off, “bringing him out into the open, where anyone could see him, could hurt him, and making him deal with your cursed spirit is not okay.”

“i didn’t make him deal with anything," satoru swears, chin up.

you snort. the two of you are standing in front of each other, arms crossed, head guarded. your muscles are tense like something is about to attack you. “oh, so he asked you to go?”

“well, no, but—“

“then you made him! you put him up against a monster and treated him like a student, like a 16-year-old, and not your son.”

the words feel nice to say. some version of the truth that's much better than whatever this version is. if satoru won't talk to you, you'll talk for him.

you'll make every assumption, every bad perception (because he's supposed to keep you from worrying, he's supposed to be there to calm you down, to save you from that spiraling). but if he's not going to try, neither will you.

satoru’s eyes grow hard. “what?”

“why can’t you just let him be a kid? why do you have to push him into these things—“

“we talked with megumi about who he is,” satoru grinds, “he knows about the privilege of his strength, and the fact that he has to work to use it—“

“a ten-year-old shouldn’t have to work for anything!”

he laughs at you. you can't see his eyes, but you watch his face as he tries to hide his expression, trying to keep his voice low. the kids are still in the house, so you shouldn't be yelling. but you can't bring it in yourself to really care.

“what do you think the point of him living here was? why do you think we took him in?”

you gape at him. “are you kidding?” you ask. “are you serious? we took him, and tsumiki, in because you’re responsible for killing their father! because they didn’t have anyone else, and that’s your fault.”

“you think i don’t know that?”

“well, i thought you did," you say, stepping away from him. some part of you wants to push him out, make him leave. the other part desperately wants him to stay--to say he's sorry. "but you just said that the only reason megumi is here is so you can teach him! when i agreed to this i thought you were facing the consequences of your actions, doing the right thing for those kids because you could. i thought you wanted to take care of them! to keep them away from our awful, messed up world.”

satoru is staring at you with his jaw clenched.

you continue, without consideration for the consequences of your words. “i didn’t think that you only wanted to keep megumi here so you could train him, like a dog.”

“that’s not what i said.”

you shake your head, a bitter smile on your face. “well it’s what you meant, and clearly you have no regard for his feelings or the way that curses might affect him—“

“don’t act like i did it just to mess with him," he interrupts, harshly. "it’s not a joke. i want him to be strong, i want him to be able to take care of himself—“

“and i want him to have a dad who isn’t so selfish!”

“what?”

“did you even think about it? what about the nightmares he’s going to have?" you wonder, rhetorically. "what about the fact that he’s different—that he’s already struggling to relate to other kids in school? what about him, satoru? why is it only about you?”

what about me? you don't say.

“i didn’t bring him for me—“

“you want a replacement. you want someone else to deal with everything, while you sit back and watch. i know what you’re trying to do—“

“really?" he points at you, the other hand clenched in the air. he's laughing again. "you can read my mind? you’ve already been let in on my plans—“

“don’t you wish that you’d had the opportunity to be just a kid?” you demand. “don’t you want that for megumi?”

he shrugs. “sure. but it’s never going to happen.”

“well, clearly, because you won’t let it.”

“he gets to be a kid every day. god forbid i take him to see one curse, to understand how to use his powers, to protect himself, and you treat me like i wanted to kill him.”

you laugh. your mind is a minefield, and everything he says ruins another part of it.

all you can think about is him, him as a teenager, him with you, telling satoru you love him and him having nothing left to say--

but you scoff again, shoving yourself further away from him. “do you know how many times i’ve wanted to go back to when i was ten and just got to live my life? do you know how often i think about how everything could’ve been different?”

“this isn’t about us."

“yes, it is. it is, satoru, because i didn’t get that chance and neither did you. and you just took away megumi’s chance.”

“i didn’t take anything away," he says, softly, like he's trying to convince himself.

clearly, you've struck a nerve.

“he’s never going to be able to look at the world normally, but he doesn’t need the burden of saving people before he’s even in middle school.”

“why is being strong so bad?” satoru asks you, demanding something more. why am i so bad? “why do you treat it like it’s a curse? like it’s going to hurt him?”

“look at you!” you respond. “look at suguru, and me, and shoko! look at any jujutsu sorcerer and ask them if being strong is worth it—is worth screwing your life over.”

satoru looks taken aback. he steps away from you.

“god, it’s like you think that we’re a different species," you tell him, never having felt like it's more true. "you’re human, satoru. you might be the strongest, but you’re still human, and you still have nightmares like all of the rest of us.”

he shakes his head at you.

“why do you want that for megumi? why push him into this right now?”

“i want him to be able to take care of himself. so that he doesn’t die like our colleagues, so that he doesn’t make the wrong choice like—“

he stops, his voice breaking before he can continue.

and maybe you know what this is really about, but if satoru doesn’t want to tell you how he feels, if he wants to pretend like it doesn’t matter—

fine. you will too.

“it wouldn’t make a difference. he’s already—his life is already messed up.”

satoru looks at you, his eyes ablaze. “don’t you think that if i was him, if i could’ve been stronger, if i could’ve saved all of those people—don’t you think i would do it in an instant? don’t you think i know that because i wasn’t strong enough, people died?”

this is the thing you've feared since you were eighteen, a brand new person responsible for two little lives. you've feared satoru's moral commitment since before you met him. since you saw him destroy a curse in an instant and realized he was different than everyone else.

“megumi isn’t you! he doesn’t need to be taught to take on the responsibility of everyone’s lives—“

“you can’t say that i’m selfish, that i don’t care, and then say that i care too much,” he says, shaking his head, unable to look at you.

he hasn't been able to look you in the eye in weeks.

“you’re both!" you say, almost yelling. "you’re everything. and you don’t think! you haven’t thought for a moment about what megumi might be feeling, who he might want to be—“

“and you have? what about what you want him to be?”

“i want him to be happy! i want him to grow up better than i ever did. i don’t want him chasing a bunch of cursed spirits around on the weekend like it’s a normal thing—“

“it is normal. for us, it’s normal. for him, it’s normal.”

you sigh, a weight on your chest, a burning in your throat. “well, maybe it shouldn’t be.”

you're not going to start crying now. not with satoru watching, not when he gets to know just how much you care.

satoru scoffs. “so you’d just have everyone defend themselves--"

"i don't know how you're arrogant enough to believe that you can save everyone--"

"--you’d just forget that we’re strong for a reason, that we--“

“but you’re never going to be strong enough, satoru. never.”

satoru stares at you. he doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t hesitate, and doesn’t bother to argue.

and after a moment he turns around. you reach your hand out to grab him--hold onto him and keep him here, because this isn't finished, and you're not done with him. you haven't even started.

but you run into a wall. you look down and your hand is dangling idly in front of his arm, stuck in the air.

you can't see satoru's eyes, but you can feel his heart--your heart--as it skips a beat in realization.

but then satoru shakes you off, pushes you infinitely farther away from infinity, and keeps going.

he walks out the door, slamming it shut.

you stand there for a moment, watching. you wait for the door to open again, for satoru to come back, for him to laugh--tell you that everything's fine, that it'll all be fine. that it's okay if you're angry, that he doesn't care.

but after a minute, he doesn't return.

and after another, you have to lean against the counter. your hand burns--but maybe that's just your imagination. you're pretty sure that infinity has no drawbacks, that there's no consequence for touching, for not touching satoru.

pretty sure.

but you still look over your skin, trying to see if he's left some mark. it would be nice to have some evidence of what he's done to you. you clench your fist, but the feeling doesn't go away.

and maybe it's not your hand. maybe it's your chest. maybe it's these weeks of feeling separated, feeling miles apart from him, feeling like it's all your fault that any of this has happened.

you... you can't even remember what you were arguing about.

you feel like a kid again, hiding yourself in your room just so your parents don't have to deal with you. you feel like that little girl who hid in the cupboards, trying to escape the monsters that no one else could see. you feel like that smaller, reckless version of yourself that left home at the first chance, who knew she wasn't allowed back.

are you allowed here? you wonder. is it going to happen again? are these monsters--real and fake--too much for your family to handle again?

you exhale, trying to catch your breath again. none of this feels right, normal, easy.

should you--should you call him? should you wait for him to come back?

is he going to come back?

the slam of the door is still echoing throughout the house when they creep down the hallway, making sure their footsteps are soft, but also loud enough for you to hear.

maybe you've only been standing there, waiting for satoru to turn around, for thirty seconds.

but it feels like an hour.

"mom?" a tiny voice asks, and both of them are turning around the corner, taking hesitant steps towards you.

you have to swallow. you need some water, an icepack maybe, to get rid of the burning feeling in your throat. the telltale signs that you're going to cry--that you've suffered blows to the core, and you can't backtrack now.

but you don't want to cry in front of them. you refuse to. if you didn't want to cry in front of satoru, you won't cry in front of the kids.

so you turn around, swallow again, and fill a glass of water.

you chug it down, wanting it to wash away that feeling, that ache.

you can't say anything just yet because then you'll actually fall apart.

megumi and tsumiki watch you, both of them silent as they wait for your direction. for some solution you should have.

you take a deep breath, then turn, almost faltering when you see the worried look on both of their faces, the concern in their eyes. neither of them should have to worry about this.

god, how could you forget that they were there? that they could hear everything?

how could you make another mistake?

"hey, guys," you say, clearing your throat. you want to be nonchalant, and casual, but you've never been either a day in your life.

"where did gojo go?"

"i, um," you take another sip of water, because that feeling crawls up your throat, makes itself known again. "i think he went on a walk."

"is he okay?" tsumiki asks.

"are you okay?" megumi follows.

"yeah, he's fine. he's good. i--he just needed some space, you know? um... a break."

"from us?"

your eyes widen. "no, no, no. of course not, never you guys. he's... just been busy this week. working a lot. and, i, well, he's good. we're good."

megumi leans on the counter next to you, looking at you very closely. "are you okay?" he repeats.

"i'm good, megs. it's..." you smile. "it's fine. um, did satoru get you anything to eat while you were out? i'm not sure what we've got, but i can make something if you--"

"when is he going to be back?"

you stop, sighing. you shouldn't have taught either of them how to read emotions, or how to eavesdrop. you shouldn't be speaking to anyone, or trusted with anything.

"i'm not sure, buddy. he'll be back when he's ready."

"is he going to stay out all night?" tsumiki asks, worried.

"no, i'm sure--" you stop again. "gojo will be back in time for bed, okay?"

they're both staring at you, waiting for you to say something profound, something to make it actually okay.

but you have nothing. is satoru going to come back? is he going to stay somewhere else? you know he'll exhaust himself just to avoid coming home--

this is why you shouldn't have moved in--

this is why you never should've agreed to this, allowed himself to burrow a hole in your heart, in your soul--

"hey," megumi takes a step towards you. and then, before you can blink the tears out of your eyes, reassure him that it's fine, his arms are around your waist.

he nuzzles his face into your side, squeezing tighter than you thought a little boy could.

theres only a second of this before tsumiki's on your other side, and squeezing just as hard.

your hands fall on both of their backs, and you take a breath that feels more like never breathing again. your lungs won't fill, and your chest is incomplete

but they stand there with you, and eventually, your heart begins to match theirs, and their little hands keep you together.

you can't cry, but you really want to.

satoru's entire body feels different.

he knows what it's lacking, the changes he's made in a short period of time--giving himself no time to acclimate, no pause where he slowly adapts to the differences.

he misses you.

it's been like this before--when suguru left and satoru couldn't bear to look at himself in the mirror, nonetheless you in the eyes--but it's never felt so severe.

because you're right there. you've been there every day, waking him up, making the kids breakfast, laughing when megumi bullies him, smiling at tsumiki's attempts at mediating.

you're there in the morning, in the afternoon, and every night. you're right there for him--and he can't say a word.

he doesn't want this, this thing to be real.

denial is his favorite emotion, and recently, he can't even muster the strength to go through with it.

and now, he feels even more hopeless, lacking, never ever enough.

but he walks through the door because he has nowhere else to go. he has no other home--besides the three of you.

it's dark outside when he comes back, and the door is unlocked, so he knows that you've been waiting. that you had to deal with the aftermath of shouted voices and scared children who he felt lurking behind a wall before he got the chance to think about any of it.

he needs to talk to you. satoru knows that, he really does. but he's not sure what to say.

he could apologize for tonight--could tell you that he won't make any more decisions, that he won't wreck this thing you've built--but it's not enough.

he should probably apologize for the last seven years. for letting himself grow attached to you, and then continue to hold you at arms length. he should probably apologize for being himself, for being less than he could be.

but those words feel too rotten to say aloud.

so, when he walks up to your door, waiting to feel your obvious presence--to see it, like he always does, the wall of cursed energy that you are--he feels like running away again.

you don't even need to know that he's home. satoru could go to bed, and he could probably pretend that nothing happened in the morning and you would follow along.

but he doesn't want to do that. not to you.

and he needs to see you, needs to say something before he figures it all out--should he leave, or stay? should he continue to push you away to protect you? should he tell you all of it?

it doesn't matter, he knows, because he probably won't be able to do any of it.

and for the first time in years, satoru makes sure to knock before he opens your door. just a small repetition of his knuckles, but he might as well be breaking down a tradition.

there's no answer, but he's not waiting, so he creaks the door open, looking for you immediately.

and he sees you, lying in bed.

and he sees your shoulders shaking slightly, with you curled up in the fetal position, and he can hear the sniffle before the door is all the way open.

there's no choice, he knows. he's not going to let you cry yourself to sleep without saying anything. he's not going to leave you alone.

you don't turn around, but satoru knows that you must know he's there. he walks across the floor, sitting at the edge of your bed, waiting for you to turn to him.

and yell, maybe. tell him to leave again. tell him that you don't want to look at him anymore.

but you don't move. your shaking is slightly stifled, and satoru can tell that you're trying to keep your breathing low, to keep him from noticing you cry.

it's foolish, really, because satoru hasn't missed a single detail about you since he was seventeen.

he doesn't say anything, but it's a natural reflex to tap your legs, to stand and slip off his shoes, gently pushing you off of the edge of the bed, towards the middle.

and then he's laying there, curling his limbs around yours, arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you into him.

immediately, there's a release somewhere inside of him. that yearning--that ridiculous need is finally satiated.

satoru swallows. he needs to say something, he knows, but he's not sure what. should he apologize right now? should he tell you that he hates it when you cry--that he never feels more desperate to be more than in moments like this?

should he whisper that he loves you, just to get it off his chest?

but you cough, body shuttering as you relax into him, never pushing him away. and your voice is so small when you say, "you can't leave."

satoru feels the pieces of him crack into even more.

he tries to hold you tighter, but you move in his hold, turning so that you're facing him, and you nuzzle your face into his neck--trying to hide, but making sure that he's there.

your hands cling onto him, leaving marks.

he can feel your tears against his skin, your entire body on overdrive.

"you can't leave," you repeat, voice breaking. satoru feels it against the very outline of his soul.

"okay," he says, quickly. "i won't."

"i can't lose you too."

he pales, body going still. his heart might stop for a moment. "you won't. i'm not going anywhere." he sighs. "i'm sorry."

"i can't--" you're still crying, and you begin to shake again. "i can't do this without you. i won't."

"you don't have to."

"you can't leave, satoru," you say, leaning up to meet his eyes--yours glistening with years full of hurt, a lifetime of secrets and unsaid words. "please don't leave."

"i won't," he repeats, feeling a bit desperate. what can he say to prove to you that he's not like everyone else? that he would trap you within his atoms, if he could? that he would stay in this bed, holding you, even if it meant nothing, forever?

there's nothing, he knows. nothing but the truth. but that doesn't come out--it can't, now. it's not the right time.

so instead, satoru wipes the tears from your face, even though they're replaced immediately, your breath coming in short, short bursts. he wraps his arm around your back, pulling you back to him again.

"i'm sorry," you whisper against his skin, so quietly that he can barely hear it.

"i'm not going anywhere," he answers.

and, just for tonight, it's enough.

he'll fix the rest of it tomorrow.

next part | series masterlist

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itneverendshere · 4 months ago

Note

you going to jj’s little graduation, and you’re giving proud mom. even if he’s towering over you in his cap, and you’re pinching his cheeks, and as always rafes in awe of how much of natural caretaker

i'm a sucker for these three dynamic 😭😭😭😭 so i also added a little kie bc jj deserves all the teasing in the world after he made rafe's life miserable the past year🤭 hope you enjoy!🩵🫂

you've got no reason to be afraid - r.c

pairing: rafe x pogue!reader (bartender!reader universe)

Rafe never wanted to go to this thing.

No, really. It wasn’t even one of those "I don’t wanna go, but deep down I actually care" moments. He genuinely didn’t want to show up.

Because honestly, why the hell was he going to JJ Maybank's graduation?

You dragged him here, and yeah, he was pretending to hate it every second of it, but...okay, maybe he was…a little proud of the guy for making it out alive. Sue him.

You’re buzzing around like a proud mom, and it’s almost hard to look at. Not because it’s annoying—okay, maybe it’s a little annoying—but more because it’s… god, he doesn’t even know. It’s just you.

You can’t help it. The whole natural caretaker thing, how you swoop in and take care of people like you’re born to do it.

Rafe’s leaning against the wall while you’re annoying JJ, pinching his cheeks like he's still that scrappy little kid you saved from his old man’s rage. His stupid graduation cap keeps sliding off his head, and every time you fix it, he grins like an idiot.

The guy's taller than you, but it’s almost like it doesn’t matter.

"You’re not gonna cry, are you?" JJ teases, standing there in his cap and gown like some kinda of scholar. It's hard to take it seriously, to be honest.

You roll your eyes at him, "Shut up, Maybank. I’m allowed to be proud of you." You reach up again, smoothing down the collar of his gown, and it hits Rafe how much you care about this.

He crosses his arms tighter over his chest, trying his best not to look too invested in the scene playing out in front of him. You’re still fussing over JJ, like some proud older sister at her little brother’s first big milestone, and Rafe… well, he’s trying not to roll his eyes for the third time in five minutes.

He pushes off the wall, just enough to glance at his phone, scrolling through his notifications to look busy, like he’s not watching this whole thing happen. He catches a glimpse of you laughing—JJ making some dumb joke about how he can’t believe he even graduated in the first place.

He didn’t get it at first. How could someone who’s been through what you’ve been through still have the energy to care about people like this?

Especially about someone like JJ? The scrappy, no-good kid from The Cut who spent more time getting into fights and drinking than actually passing his classes. But that’s the thing about you—you never gave up on people, even when everyone else had.

"You’re staring," you tease, glancing back at him with a grin, breaking his train of thought. "You okay over there, baby?"

Rafe straightens up, wiping the expression off his face before you can see too much. He’s quick to shrug, playing it off like he’s too cool to care about whatever’s going on. "Yeah, I’m fine," he mutters, locking his phone and slipping it back in his pocket. "Just wondering how long this is gonna take."

"Uh-huh." You’re not buying it for a second, but you let it slide. You know him better than anyone else, after all, “Get your ass here. We’re taking a picture.”

He sighs, letting out a dramatic huff like this is the worst thing he’s ever been asked to do. "You serious?" he groans, but he’s already pushing himself off the wall and walking over to where you’re standing with JJ.

“Dead serious,” you shoot back, giving him that look—the one that always gets him to do what you want, even when he’s trying to act like he’s above it.

JJ’s got that shit-eating grin on his face, the one that says he knows Rafe’s just playing tough. He slings an arm over your shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Rafe’s eyes narrow, his possessiveness showing before he can even stop himself.

“Relaaaax, man,” JJ teases, catching the look. “You’re gonna burst a vein.”

He rolls his eyes but steps closer, standing right beside you as you hand your phone to some random kid to take the picture. The three of you huddle together and you pull Rafe in by his shirt, snuggling into his side like you always do, and despite himself, he can’t help the small smile that tugs at his lips. Not enough for anyone else to notice—he’s too stubborn for that—but you feel it.

You always do.

The camera clicks, and just like that, the moment’s captured—JJ in his stupid graduation gear, you looking like a proud mom, and Rafe standing there like he’s not sure how he ended up a part of this weird little family, but maybe, just maybe, he’s okay with it.

“Alright, picture’s done. Can we leave now?” Rafe grumbles, already half-turned toward the parking lot.

You step in front of him to block his way. “Oh no, you’re not getting off that easy. We’re going to the party.” Your voice has that no-nonsense tone, the one that makes him groan because he knows you mean business.

JJ laughs again, clapping Rafe on the back. “C’mon, man. You can survive a couple hours with us. Plus, there’s free beer.”

He arches a brow. “Free beer?”

“Yep. Keg’s already set up back at John B’s place,” JJ says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Fine,” Rafe groans, but he doesn’t actually mind. Not when you’re looking at him like that—like he’s the only thing you want standing next to you, even if it’s at some ridiculous party in the Cut. In his little sister’s boyfriends house of all places. Sarah and John B’s on-again, off-again thing is enough drama for one lifetime.

“But I’m not carrying your ass home when you get shitfaced.”

JJ smirks, patting his gown. “I’ll be fine, man. I graduated today. I’m an adult now.”

Rafe snorts. “Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts.”

You’re already pulling Rafe toward the car, glancing back at JJ with a grin. “Come on. Let’s celebrate while you still have time to pretend you’re responsible.”

JJ’s talking a mile a minute, the entire drive, from the backseat, already planning out how he’s going to "run the party" and bragging about the free booze like it’s the highlight of his life. Rafe tunes most of it out, too focused on you, the warmth of your hand lingering even after you’ve let go. By the time you pull up to John B’s place, the sun’s starting to set and the yard is already half full with the Pogues. Kie’s there, Sarah too, probably.

You park, and before Rafe can even make a move, JJ’s already jumped out, tossing his cap onto the grass as he heads toward the keg. "Let’s get this party started bitches!" he shouts, and the small crowd cheers in response.

Great.

He climbs out of the car, walking around to meet you on the driver’s side. “You sure about this?” he asks, glancing toward the crowd. He’s not exactly best friends with these guys, and parties in the Cut… well, they’re not really his scene.

But you smile up at him, reaching for his hand and threading your fingers through his. "Yeah, I’m sure. You’ll survive, baby.”

He huffs, but when you start pulling him toward the party, he lets you. He always lets you. You weave your way through the small crowd of pogues, most of whom nod or wave at him but don’t bother trying to talk to him.

You glance back, grinning as you lead the way toward the makeshift party area. “You’re not gonna hide in the corner the whole time, are you?” you tease, giving his hand a playful squeeze.

Rafe rolls his eyes but follows you, his free hand shoving into his pocket. “No promises,” he says, though a small part of him is already resigning to the fact that you’re probably going to drag him into the middle of everything by the end of the night.

Everything's already in full swing by the time you both find a spot near the keg. JJ’s surrounded by a group of people, handing out beers like it’s his personal mission to get everyone drunk. John B and Sarah are off to the side, leaning against the porch railing, sharing a laugh. Disgusting.

You flash him a smile before heading off to grab drinks, leaving him standing awkwardly near the keg, trying his best to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

He’s mid-scroll on his phone again when he hears JJ’s voice call out, “Yo, Rafe!”

Rafe glances up, already preparing himself for whatever shit JJ’s about to throw his way.

“Don’t tell me you’re just gonna stand there like some grumpy old man. You’re at my graduation party, man! You gotta at least try to have fun.” JJ’s grinning from ear to ear, clearly already a few beers in.

Rafe snorts, shaking his head. “I’m here, aren’t I? That’s gotta count for something.”

JJ laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Just didn’t think I’d see Rafe Cameron at a pogue party, y'know?”

“Don’t make me punch you in the face."

JJ grins again, but there’s something a little more genuine in his expression this time. “For real though, man. Thanks for coming. I know this isn’t your scene.”

Rafe’s about to answer with his usual sarcasm, but he catches the sincerity in JJ’s tone and decides to let it slide. He nods, his voice gruff as he says, “Yeah. Congrats, Maybank. You deserve it.”

JJ’s grin widens, and he raises his beer in a mock toast. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it.”

Before he can say anything else, you’re back with two beers in hand, nudging one toward him. “Here you go. Now you’ve got no excuse to look so miserable.”

Rafe takes the beer from you with a half-smirk, but his eyes are soft as he glances down at you. “I don’t look miserable.”

You raise an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. “Sure.”

He chuckles, taking a sip of his beer. It’s cheap, of course, and not exactly his taste, but he doesn’t complain. Not when you’re standing so close, looking up at him like you can see right through all his bullshit. He watches you for a moment, the way you light up around these people, the way you float between them like you’re the glue holding everyone together does something to his heart.

Rafe leans back, his arm draped loosely around your waist as you chat with Kie and JJ, laughing at some dumb story JJ’s telling about getting caught sneaking into class late one too many times. He can’t help but wonder how you do it. The nights you spent bailing JJ out when his dad got too wasted and violent. How you’d sneak him into your place, covering up the bruises and making sure he had somewhere to crash for the night.

“Hey,” your voice pulls him out of his thoughts. “You okay? You’re staring again.”

Rafe blinks, realizing he’s been zoning out, watching you again. “Yeah,” he mutters, clearing his throat. “Just thinking.”

You tilt your head, curiosity flickering in your eyes. “About?”

“How much I love you.”

JJ gags, “Shut the fuck up.”

Kie slaps him in the back, “Shut up, it’s cute.”

Rafe lets out a low chuckle, glancing over at JJ. "Jealous, Maybank?"

JJ takes a long swig of his beer, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Oh, please. I’m not jealous of your sappy shit.”

“Sure you’re not,” He drawls, leaning back with a smirk. “Not like you’ve been drooling over Kie all year or anythin’.”

Kie’s eyes widen, her face flushing just enough to make it obvious, “What the hell are you talking about?” She shoots Rafe a glare, but there’s no real venom behind it.

His grin only widens. “Oh, come on. You think I haven’t noticed? You two have been dancing around each other for what, months now?”

JJ chokes on his beer, coughing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s not—”

But Rafe’s not letting up. He’s enjoying this way too much. “Dude, just admit it. You’ve been into her forever, and honestly, we’re all sick of watching you act like you don’t.”

Kie crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, really? You’re sick of it?”

“Yeah,” Rafe deadpans, “Everyone knows. Hell, even John B probably knows, and that guy’s oblivious to everything except Sarah.”

JJ groans, rubbing his hand over his face. “You’re seriously gonna make this about me?”

“Yep,” Rafe grins, “Payback’s a bitch, huh?”

He knows Rafe’s just messing with him. He’s been down bad for Kie for as long as he can remember, but every time he gets close, something stops him. The friendship, the fear of messing it up, maybe just the fact that he doesn’t think he deserves her. Rafe’s seen it all before.

Kie, for her part, just rolls her eyes. “Boys are so fucking dumb.”

You laugh, nudging Rafe in the ribs. “Stop torturing him. It’s his big day.”

Rafe huffs, a smirk still playing on his lips. “I’m just saying, if I had to deal with all the crap about you and me, it’s only fair he gets his turn.”

“Yeah, well, maybe JJ needs a little push,” you glance between the two of them. “You gonna make a move, Maybank? Or you planning on dragging this out for another year?”

JJ looks at you, then at Kie, then back at Rafe, who’s clearly enjoying every second of this. “You guys suck,” he mutters, grabbing another beer and stalking off toward the keg, leaving Kie standing there, cheeks still a little red, though she’s doing her best to look unbothered.

Rafe watches him go, then turns back to Kie. “He’s a mess, but you already know that.”

Kie sighs, shaking her head. “Yeah, I do.” Her voice softens,“But he’s my mess, I guess.”

You smile, giving Kie a knowing look. “Took you long enough to admit it.”

Kie glares at you playfully, but there’s no hiding the tiny smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Oh, shut up.”

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athenamikaelson · 6 months ago

Text

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader!Soulmate x Elijah Mikaelson PART 10

Word Count- 7.2k

Warnings- Swearing, blood, violence, death, Damon’s ass/Damon BEING an ass, shitty Google translate, spelling mistakes(I'm wayyy too tired to edit this rn)

A/N- some of this is not canon just because I love a character too much and she deserved better in the show.

“Are you just going to keep sulking in here,” I ask from my position in Damon’s doorway.

Damon answers me back with a loud groan mixed with what I believe to be a growl, “Tell me again why you’re here. And why I haven’t killed you yet?”

If I had just met Damon I would be scared of what he just asked me, but after these past weeks of knowing him, I’ve realized most of his threats are half-assed. So I just shrug and walk into his room.

“My mother and brother are away for the week visiting family, leaving me home alone. And, well, I don’t feel like having “he who shall not be named,” come and kill me in my sleep. And you haven’t killed me because you don’t want to. I’ve called you many bad names to your face, and yet I stand here, unharmed."

“Here you stand annoying the hell out of me. Again.”

I roll my eyes and sit on the edge of Damon’s bed. Damon still hasn’t moved from his position under the covers.

“Damon,” I turn over my shoulder to look at him and he lets out yet another groan to acknowledge he’s listening, “I’m going to be honest with you.”

“Nothing new there,” I hear him say under his breath sarcastically.

“You’re kind of embarrassing to watch right now,” I turn to see him fully glaring at me now, “You’re how old? Like five thousand years or something like that? It’s time you grew up.”

“Says the high schooler.”

“Says the man in love with a high schooler,” I bite back which has him shutting up momentarily.

“You don't know anything,” He says as he finally sits up in his bed. His white sheet falling down, revealing his naked chest. I quickly avert my eyes, not because I’m attracted to him but because seeing Damon half-naked would be like seeing my annoying ass distant cousin naked. No, thank you.

“Don’t bullshit me, Demon-spawn,” I point an accusing finger at him resulting in him glaring at me some more.

“I know you have feelings for Elena, everyone and their bloody mothers knows. And as much as I like Stefan, I also don’t think it should be something you need to feel bad for,” I think momentarily and tap my chin in thought, “Well, okay. Maybe a little bad because she’s 17 and you’re like 1,000 and she’s also your little brother’s girlfriend,” I catch Damon’s deadly look and stop rambling, “Moving along…What I’m trying to say is that we can’t control who we catch feelings for. And honestly, Elena’s pretty and nice as hell so I don’t blame you there. But what we can control is how we choose to express those feelings.”

Damon just stares blankly at me and I feel like I’d be better off giving a toddler this speech.

“What you’re doing right now, sulking and getting mad at everyone around you for something that is out of our control isn’t helping anyone. It’s only making things worse. Elena’s my best friend and I know she’s scared out of her mind right now but doesn’t want to say it because it'll cause more stress for the people she loves. What she needs right now is all of us. After tonight is over and Elijah’s elixir brings her back then you can go back to your hissy fits but right now,” I stand up and face him, planting my hands on my hips in a power pose, “You need to get your ass out of bed and get a fucking grip.”

Damon and I hold each other’s glares for a straight minute before he huffs, throws his blanket off of him, and gets out of bed. I have to fight a smirk as I get overly proud of my pep talk.

“I’m really starting to miss when it was just puke coming out of that mouth of yours,” Damon growls as he walks to the bathroom and pulls down his boxers without a second thought. My eyes fly out of my head as I get a full look at Damon’s white ass. I quickly turn around and gag.

“Dude! Seriously, warn a girl!”

---

“I don’t remember you being so…talky,” Damon’s voice yells from over the water of his shower.

I frown as I think about his comment and sit back down on the edge of his bed facing the front door and not the bathroom. Not wanting to get a face full of his behind again, or worse…ugh.

“I…don’t think I’ve ever been talky. There has never been a reason for me to be,” I say back to him not really caring if he hears or not.

A moment later I hear the shower water stop and his footsteps padding around behind me.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean,” Damon says from next to me and I slowly turn hoping he’s at least half decent.

Thankfully, he has covered his behind with jeans and is currently slipping a shirt over his chest.

I think about his question and then shrug my shoulders, “I’ve never really had friends to talk to, and whenever I had tried talking to people they just hadn’t cared. So I never really saw the point in talking.”

Damon stops fixing the buttons on his shirt momentarily to look at me. His eyebrows are drawn together and the look in his eyes isn’t one I think I’ve seen from him before. Something about it almost seems kind of…human. But within another second it’s gone and his lip upturns into a smirk.

“People are a waste of time anyway. The only good thing about them…,” He takes a step closer to me and leans down so he’s in my face, “Is there blood.”

I huff as I stand up and push past him heading towards the door, “And here I thought I could actually have a half-decent conversation with you. My mistake.”

I start walking through the halls toward the living room where Elena, Stefan, and Elijah are. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Damon catch up to me so we’re walking side by side.

“You’re kind of annoying,” He says and I have to fight the urge to not punch him.

“Gee, thanks,” I go to walk faster but he catches up to me again.

“What I mean is…,” He pauses for a moment trying to find his words, “You may be annoying but that doesn’t mean what you have to say is pointless or something that shouldn’t be heard. Screw anyone who tells you otherwise…or just kill them.”

I look at him with a confused look matching the confused feelings I now have, “Thank you? I think.”

“Don’t mention it,” He leans down and glares at me, “Seriously, I will kill you if you tell anyone what I just said.”

I suck on my teeth and then nod my head, “And there’s the Demon we all know and loathe.”

“Right, back at you, Pukey.”

I watch as Damon’s eyebrows furrow as we get closer to the living room and as we enter he speaks up, “Then why are we letting him break the curse?”

I follow Damon into the living room and see Elena and Stefan sitting together on a sofa and Elijah standing before them. Elijah’s eyes lock onto mine and I acknowledge him by sending him a small smile which he just returns with a nod. Okay, Rude.

“We can kill him today. With Bonnie,” Damon says and I realize we’re talking about him. At the mention of him, I begin to clench my fists as a surge of anger rises through me but stop myself since I don’t feel like accidentally cutting myself in a room of vampires. I take my seat on a loveseat next to Elena, who sends me a warm smile before turning towards Damon.

“No. Bonnie can’t use that much power without dying.”

“I’ll write her a great eulogy,” Damon’s words have me turning in my seat and glaring at him. So much for my speech getting to him.

“It’s not an option Damon,” You tell him, Elena.

Stefan sighs, “Alright, how do we break this curse?”

“Well, the ritual itself is relatively straightforward. The ingredients, so to speak you already know,” Elijah answers.

“The moonstone,” Stefan says.

“A witch will channel the power of the full moon to release the spell that’s bound within the stone. After that Klaus, being both a werewolf and a vampire, will sacrifice one of each.”

“And where do I fit into it,” Elena asks him.

“The final part of the ritual. Klaus must drink the blood of the doppelganger…to the point of your death.”

Elijah’s words have both Stefan and I taking deep breaths.

“And that’s where you come in.”

Elijah goes to the shelf behind him and opens a little wooden box, “This is an elixir that I acquired some 500 years ago for Katerina. It possesses the mystical properties of resuscitation.”

“So I’ll be dead..”

“And then you won’t.”

Damon the grouch speaks up, “That’s your plan? A magical witch potion with no expiration date,” He turns to Elena, “You want to come back to life, what…What about John’s ring?”

“Those rings only work on humans. The doppelganger is a supernatural occurrence. Odds are…the ring won’t work.”

“I’ll take those odds over your elixir. What if it doesn’t work Elena?”

“Then I guess I’ll just be dead.”

Damon shoots his brother a look, but knowing Stefan, he’ll go with whatever Elena wants. Even if he doesn’t agree. Damon realizes this too before shooting another glare at the group before leaving the living room back to where we originally came from.

“Do we know if Klaus has everything he needs to do this? Does he have a werewolf?”

“Klaus has been waiting over a thousand years to break this curse. If he doesn’t already have a werewolf my guess is by tonight, he will.”

—

I watch from my position on the couch as Stefan follows his brother outside. That’s going to be a fun conversation.

Elena approaches Elijah, “You’d think he’d understand why I’m willing to do this.”

“Why are you?”

“I’m the key to breaking the curse. Klaus is here because of me. If I don’t stop him, then he’s gonna hurt people. It’s that simple.”

I frown sadly to myself and fight back the watering that has started in my eyes. This isn’t fair. None of this is.

“You know, there’s a possibility this elixir won’t work. I don't want to mislead you.”

“I know the chance I’m taking.”

The tense atmosphere is broken by a door slamming shut and a woman yelling from the foyer.

“Jenna, Jenna!”

“Get out!”

I quickly rise from my seat and go to follow behind Elena to check on Jenna, but a hand grabs my own, pulling me back.

“Wait here,” Elijah’s stern voice says to me as he drops my hand and follows behind Elena. I watch his retreating figure and shake my head. Who tf does this guy think he’s talking to?

I run towards the foyer and freeze when I see Ric standing there. Or Klaus, I guess. My breathing gets faster and I’m debating on whether to swing on him or pass out.

“Jenna, put the cross-bow down, okay? It’s me.”

Stefan joins us and Elijah comes to stand in front of me, not before shooting me a disapproving look.

“What’s going on,” Elena asks the two adults.

“It’s me, Elena, I swear, okay? He let me go. Klaus let me go,” I frown at Ric’s words and look to Elijah to see if he can tell if Ric is telling the truth or not but his face is completely still.

“Prove it,” Damon who has now joined says.

“Okay, uh, the first night you and I spent together Jeremy walked in right when-”

“Ok! It’s him,” Jenna exclaims as she drops her weapon. Ew. Everyone in the room throws glances at each other before turning back towards Ric.

“Why did he let you go,” Stefan asks.

“He wanted me to deliver a message. The sacrifice happens tonight.”

—-

“Katherine was there,” Ric says from his position on the couch. We all moved back into the living room to keep discussing our plans for tonight.

“She’s under compulsion. Damon snuck her vervain but she can't leave until Klaus tells her she can.”

“Where is Damon,” Elena questions, and I get a bit unnerved. Not knowing where Damon is is not an ideal situation.

“I saw him go upstairs,” Jenna says.

Elena stands up and goes towards his room and I go to follow her but Elijah grabs my upper arm, “I need to speak with you,” I begin to argue back as he pulls me into the next room.

“Dude let go of me,” I hiss at him and he drops my arm and stares blankly at me.

“Do not dude me, Elskan,” Elijah says with that stupid monotone voice of his that makes me want to wrap my hands around his throat.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do Elijah,” I whisper yell to him so the others don’t overhear us, “And stop with that stupid nickname.”

Elijah narrows his eyes at me, “You are making it incredibly hard for me to protect you.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” I roll my eyes sarcastically, “I didn’t realize you actually cared, since you’ve been acting like you don't.”

Elijah’s narrowed eyes morph into ones of confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“Seriously! One second you’re making all these promises to protect me and being all nice and stuff and then the next moment you won’t even acknowledge my existence.”

“It would be impossible for me to not acknowledge your existence, Y/n. There is not a single moment where I am not searching for you. This situation,” He gestures between us, “Is not something I take lightly. And keeping you safe is now my most important mission in this life. So I apologize if I have hurt your feelings whilst doing that.”

I’m frozen as I listen to Elijah and he takes a single step towards me. He reaches his hand up and brushes a stray hair behind my ear.

“You have no idea how long I have waited for you,” His words have me frowning in confusion as he brushes his finger across my cheek, “But, I fear that if I let myself get too close then it will only put you in more danger and I would rather dagger myself before ever letting that happen.”

My chest and my brain don't seem to be working properly as I just stare wide-eyed at the man in front of me. I try to think of something, anything really to say but I can’t seem to get my mouth to form a sentence.

A loud bang comes from upstairs and Elijah gives me one more look before exiting. I feel like I’m on autopilot as I walk towards the noise, catching sight of Ric and Jenna running towards it as well. I make my way up to Damon’s room and gasp as I see Stefan with a very big piece of wood through his stomach. Ric tries to grab Damon but the ladder pushes him off him before walking out of the room.

“Okay, Jenna, downstairs in the basement are some blood bags,” Ric tells Jenna who is standing in front of me, “Go get them, now. Go!”

Jenna leaves as Elena rips the wood out of Stefan. I walk over and kneel next to them as Elena holds and tries to comfort her hurt boyfriend.

“I’m so sorry,” Stefan groans out.

I frown, confused, “Why is he sorry? He’s the one who got stabbed?”

I’m ignored for a moment as Elena shushes Stefan until he passes out and with tearful eyes, she looks over to me, “Damon he…he fed me his blood. Y/n, I don’t want to be a vampire”

'My chest practically caves in on itself as I hear my friend's small sobs and shake my head in denial, “No…no. There has to be another way. There has to be Elena,” I stand up and look at her once more, “You’re not going to be a vampire.”

—

I storm through the halls and down the stairs until I see Damon in the living room pouring himself a glass of whatever alcohol he has on hand. That anger from before rises at the idea of what he just did.

“You selfish bastard,” I storm over to him and I see Elijah try to stop me from the corner of my eye, only to receive my hand in his face. And as Damon turns around to look at me he receives my fist in his face.

Damon hisses as my fist flies across his cheekbone and I fight back tears at the pain in my knuckles. I’ve never thrown a punch before but I didn’t realize it would hurt this much. Jesus.

Damon looks back at me as if my punch did nothing to him, which it probably didn’t and I expect him to charge at me, and I’m assuming Elijah does as well because he moves next to me. But all Damon does is stare at me, raise his glass to his lips, downs it, and then exits the living room.

“You’ve never thrown a punch before have you,” Elijah’s voice has me turning my gaze over to him.

I look at him sheepishly, “Is it that obvious?”

Elijah stares at me and from his face I think he's trying to debate whether to be amused by me or scold me, “A bit, but I applaud you for the effort,” Elijah’s eyes dart towards my hurting hand and he picks it up with his own and inspects it.

“You’ll have some bruising but thankfully there appears to be no breakage.”

I let out a pained hiss as one of his fingers brushed against my middle knuckle. He instantly stops and looks at me.

“I can heal you if you’d like,” He asks me and I remember back to when he healed me the first time. It feels like another lifetime ago.

“I’ll be fine,” I dismiss him and he nods but doesn’t drop my hand. He does reach his other hand up and uses his thumb to wipe a stray tear off my cheek.

“I’m sorry about Elena,” I quickly remember why I punched Damon in the first place and go to question about the elixir but he shakes his head as if he already knows what I’m thinking, “It won’t work any longer. Damon made sure of that when he fed her his blood. When Elena dies she’ll wake up as a vampire."

I shake my head in denial and feel the tears reach my eyes again, “No... Elijah. There has to be another way! Please tell me there’s another way.”

Elijah’s features form to one of sorrow as if he can feel the pain I’m in, “I’m sorry, Elskan. I truly am.”

I shake my head and bite down hard on my lip to try to stop my tears. Elijah reaches up his hand though and frees my bottom lip from my teeth with his thumb.

“Come here,” Elijah says as he pulls me into him and wraps his arms around my body. The smell of something masculine, almost smoky, surrounds me as he rests his chin on my head. After everything that has happened, if I were to die like this in his embrace, I don’t think I would regret it.

—

I wipe the remnants of my smeared mascara as I look at myself in my car mirror. After Elijah left the Salvatore’s saying he had some loose ends to clean up before tonight and to not get myself into any more trouble, I went to check on Elena.

She hugged me for about ten minutes straight and I just rubbed her back as she cried into my shoulder. And I may or may not have cried along with her, feeling heartbroken for my friend.

Elena and Stefan then left together to go spend her last day as a human together, which is as bittersweet as it is heartbreaking. And after bidding Jenna and Ric a goodbye I found myself driving to the Mystic Grill. That’s why I am now sitting in it’s parking lot trying to collect myself and trying to keep myself busy for what is to happen tonight.

I open my car door and hold my bruised hand tentatively as I push through the front door to the Grill. I had seen a “Help Wanted,” sign here the other day and if I hopefully survive the night I’ll need a job for the summer. Not being a trust fund baby really sucks ass sometimes.

Matt Donovan sends me a warm smile as I walk past him. I'd never really talked to the guy other than the few times in class where he’d ask to borrow a pencil or if I could help him with some math equation, but he always seemed sweet. Unlike the stupid jock stereotype, I’ve gotten used to seeing in this town. After being told by Elena what happened to his sister and that now he lives by himself as a 17-year-old because his mom’s a deadbeat, I feel bad for the guy.

I let out a low groan as I stop my walk towards the bar which is currently occupied by the demon overlord himself. I debate to myself if I should just turn around, but a hand on my shoulder shocks me.

Ric stands there with his hands raised up in apology, “My bad Y/N. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to check on you and see how you’re doing.”

I look at Ric and sigh, “I’m just glad you’re you again.”

Ric nods his head in agreement, “Ya, me too. I didn’t hurt you while I was Klaus right?”

I shake my head, “No Ric, and even if you did it wouldn’t have been your fault. You had no control over yourself.”

Ric sends me a warm smile and nods, “I feel kind of violated, to be honest.”

I snort at his joke, “I don’t blame you.”

“I need a drink,” Ric says as he walks with me up towards the bar and my knuckles start to burn as I stare at the hair on the back of Demon’s head.

“I’ll have the same as him,” Ric says to the waiter as he sits on Damon’s right and I sit down on his left. The waiter then looks at me for my drink order, “A Shirley Temple, please. And a job application?”

The waiter, a half-decent-looking man, smirks as he pulls out a pad of papers from behind the bar and hands them to me before going back to making drinks.

“Job searching, Pukey,” Damon asks from beside me and I stare forward not looking at him.

“Ric,” I call to him and he turns to look at me, “If Damon’s here who do you think is guarding the gates of hell?”

Rics snorts out a deep laugh and I can see Damon scowling from beside me. The waiter comes back and gives Ric his bourbon and me my Shirley Temple. I accidentally grab it with my injured hand and try to cover the hiss I let out, with a cough.

“How’s your hand,” Damon asks from next to me. I’m surprised that his voice doesn’t sound completely sarcastic.

I turn and glare at him, “How’s your face?”

Damon sends me a smirk and gestures to his unmarked face, “Perfect.”

I roll my eyes and take a sip of my Shirley Temple ignoring whatever the two men next to me are talking about. That is until a voice that has my heart doing a fucking backflip in my chest calls from behind us.

“Gentlemen? Why so glum,” A deep British voice asks and I could’ve sworn goosebumps went up my arms at the sound. What the fuck?

All three of us turn to match the voice to the face and…Holy shit.

A tall dark-blond man stands about a foot length from me. At this distance, I can see the different shades of blue in his eyes and the small freckles that decorate his perfect nose.

I hear Damon groan from behind me and I’m not sure why as I’m too busy ogling the pretty man before me.

“Klaus, I presume.”

I blink. And then I blink again. And then once more as I’m frozen staring at Klaus. The Shirley Temple in my hands starts to shake as I can’t take my eyes off the man.

“In the flesh. Thanks for the loner, mate,” Klaus smirks at Ric and if I wasn’t in total shock right now I’d defend him. But the man I’ve thought of killing for the past week is standing right in front of me and I was counting how many fucking freckles I could see on his goddamned nose. There’s thirteen.

Shut tf up Y/n?!

Klaus hasn’t looked my way once and although I should be glad about that a part of my lower stomach drops at the fact.

Damon stands from his seat and goes to face the man, “Any reason you stopped by to say hi?”

“I’m told you and your brother fancy my doppelganger. Just thought I’d remind you not to do anything you’ll regret,” Klaus’ warning doesn’t seem to sway Damon as the ladder lets out a laugh.

“Thanks for the advice. I don’t supposed I could talk you into a postponement by any chance, huh?”

Klaus lets out a chuckle and I swear my heart just skipped a beat. What the fuck Y/n?!?!??

“You are kidding,” Klaus asks and then turns to Ric, “He is kidding, right?”

“No, not really.”

“I mean, come on, what’s one month in the whole grand scheme of things,” Damon asks and I realize that he’s doing this because he doesn’t want Elena to die with vampire blood in her system.

“Ya, I mean one month is like,” I pretend to count on my fingers, “Like thirty days. I don’t see why you can’t wait that long. You’ve already waited over a thousand years, what’s thirty days?”

I ask the man and this finally has Klaus acknowledging my presence. But honestly, from the way he’s looking at me, I wish I would’ve kept quiet. His eyebrows are drawn together and his lips curve upwards into what I hope isn’t a snarl. Damon must’ve noticed the look too because he moves in front of me blocking me from Klaus’ vision and him from mine.

“Let me be clear,” I hear Klaus’ deep voice say, “I have my vampire, I have my werewolf. I have everything I need. The ritual will happen tonight. So if you want to live to see tomorrow don’t screw it up.”

I catch sight of Klaus’ back as he strolls away.

“Would I be a bad person to say I kind of hope his werewolf was the Jules’ chick,” I see Ric shoot me an “Are you serious” look and I shrug, “Hey, she was the one who tortured me. I still got the little knife scare on my leg to prove it.”

Damon doesn’t say anything as he sits back down and sighs.

“You’re gonna screw it up, aren’t you?”

“You think if I took his werewolf out of the equation she might…get over the fact that I tried to turn her into a vampire?”

“Nope,” I say popping the p.

“I think it won’t matter, because you’ll be dead.”

“But without the werewolf he can’t preform the ritual tonight which means I would have bought her one month before the next full moon.”

Ric shakes his head, “But you’ll still be dead.”

Damon leans into him, “Are you gonna help me or what?”

Ric looks at him for a moment, “What do you want me to do?”

I slurp up the rest of my drink, throw a five onto the counter, and jump up as the two men next to me watch me wearily.

“Alright gentlemen, dream team time!”

Ric raises an eyebrow while Damon shoots me a look of disgust, “I don’t know what the hell that was, but you’re not coming along.”

I frown as I grab my application and follow behind the two men, “Why the hell not? I want to help.”

Damon whips around to me, “Look kid, not happening. There’s already too much shit going down and I can’t be babysitting you, making sure you don’t get killed on my watch. So go back home and we’ll see you tonight. Capiche?”

Damon turns back around and walks to his car. Ric sends me one last smile and a shrug of his shoulders before following behind. I watch the two men drive off and I sigh as I stand in the middle of the parking lot. Anger and sadness building in me, when I realize just how useless I truly am.

—

I try to give Elijah a smile as he opens the SUV door for me. But with the mood I’m in I think the smile comes out more like a frown than anything else. Elijah must notice this too as he reaches his hand out for me to take. I debate it for a moment, 1. Not being a big fan of PDA, and 2. Stefan and Ric are with us and I don’t want them to be angry with me. But then I remember that my best friend is going to die tonight so a little PDA isn’t that huge in the grand scheme of things.

Elijah seems elated as I place my hand in his and he guides Stefan and I through the woods toward the creepy ass witch house where Bonnie, Jeremy, and Ric are.

“The sacrifice is completed in stages as the full moon sets,” Elijah explains to us. I feel his hand squeeze mine in comfort and I squeeze his back, “First the werewolf is killed, then the vampire’ and finally the doppelganger. Once Elena dies, the curse will be broken. Klaus will become a hybrid.”

Stefan comes to walk next to us. His eyes go down to Elijah and I’s intertwined hands briefly before looking back up to me. When I send him a weary smile, he sends me a small one in return calming down my nerves.

“So when do we attack,” Ric asks from behind us.

“Elena’s death will activate his dormant werewolf side. He’ll be vulnerable during the transformation. That’s when Bonnie comes in.”

“And you’re sure Bonnie will survive this,” Stefan asks and I’m thankful at least one of the Salvatore brothers has a heart.

“If she can deliver him to the brink of death I’ll finish the job myself.”

Stefan and Ric nod.

“Could I talk to Elijah for a moment,” I ask the two men who share a look before nodding and moving towards the house.

Elijah turns towards me, “What is wrong, Elskan?”

“Are you going to be able to do it?”

Elijah frowns and shakes his head, “What do you mean?”

“Elijah you’re going to be killing your brother. I know siblings are a pain in the ass,” I think back to Theo and thank whatever higher being is out there that he left town this week, “but even when you hate them…you still love them. I’m not judging you for what you have to do. I’m just asking, are you ready for what you’re about to do?”

Elijah’s face is solemn as he processes what I asked, “Klaus wasn’t my only sibling,” I frown as he continues, “There once was a time when we were all together. But Klaus ruined that when he dumped their bodies in the middle of the Pacific.”

I let out a strangled gasp at Elijah’s confession. His pain evident on his face.

“Elijah…I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Elijah steps forward and holds the side of my face with his free hand, “You’re so good. So…pure. I didn’t want to strangle out the light you have inside you with my demons.”

“Elijah, you’re not the only one with skeletons in their closet. Trust me. But I want you to be honest with me. I need you to be. If this,” I gesture between us, “whatever this is. Is going to work. I’d never judge you. I know sometimes I can be a lot but that doesn’t mean I don’t anything but happiness for you. I don’t know what this means but you make me feel something I’d never felt with another human being.”

Elijah stares at me and something in his eyes tugs at my chest, “What is that?”

“Safe. You make me feel safe, Elijah. And I know I’m not some supernatural immortal and I can’t throw a punch to save my life. But, I want to make you feel that way too. However, I can.”

I start to get embarrassed as Elijah stares at me silently and I really wish I would’ve just kept my mouth closed.

“ᛁ ᚹᚨᛚᛚ ᛚᛟᚡᛖ ᛇᚢ ᚢᚾᛏᛁᛚ ᚦᛖ ᛋᚢᚾ ᛖᛗᛈᛚᛟᛞᛖᛋ, ᚦᛖ ᛟᚲᛖᚨᚾᛋ ᛞᚱᛁ ᚢᛈ, ᚺᚢᛗᚨᚾ ᛚᛁᚠᛖ ᚺᚨᛋ ᛚᛟᚾᚷ ᛋᛖᚾᚲᛖ ᚷᛟᚾᛖ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛁ ᚨᛗ ᚾᛟᛏᚺᛁᚾᚷ ᛒᚢᛏ ᛗᚣ ᛋᛟᚢᛚ. ᛒᚢᛏ ᛖᚡᛖᚾ ᛏᚺᛖᚾ ᛁ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛋᛏᛁᛚᛚ ᛒᛖᛚᛟᚾᚷ ᛏᛟ ᚢ. ᛖᚡᛖᚱᚢᛏᚦᛁᚾᚷ ᛁ ᚨᛗ ᛁᛊ ᚢ,” Elijah says in some old language I can’t place.

“What exactly did you just say to me,” I ask, expecting the worst.

Elijah smiles and places a kiss on my temple, “I feel safe with you as well, Elskan.”

“I’m going now,” Stefan interrupts us and I move away from Elijah shocked.

The sense of warmth and peace I just had completely washed away as soon as those words left Stefan’s mouth.

“You should get inside Y/N. Bonnie needs you,” Stefan says to me making me frown. But I nod as I walk through the threshold of the house. Elijah follows me as I stand next to Ric. After a moment Bonnie and Damon walk up the basement stairs and out the front door. I frown as Ric and I follow them and Elijah squeezes my hand once more before dropping it as he passes through the threshold. Ric and I are pushed back though.

“What the hell?”

Ric yells from next to me, “Bonnie! What is this?”

Bonnie turns back towards us, “I can’t put anyone else at risk. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t do this! What if he goes after Jenna,” Ric asks angry.

“Jenna safe locked in at the Salvatore’s.”

“Damon?”

Damon sends us a look, “Sorry buddy. She’s right.”

I look to Elijah for help but from the look on his face he doesn’t seem surprised.

“You knew.”

Elijah turns to me one last time, “I meant what I said about protecting you. If I have to kill my brother to do that, I will. I’m sorry, Elskan. I will see you soon.”

I watch silently, as he turns his back on me and disappears into the woods. So much for trust.

—-

I watch as my history teacher paces in front of me. Jeremy’s unconscious body lay on the couch next to me and Elena's estranged bald father who looks like Charlie Brown watches us wearily. If you had told me I’d be in this situation a month ago I would’ve called you crazy and set up an appointment for you with my therapist mother. But here I am. Yippee.

I stand up, and both of the grown men watch me, “Just using the bathroom. Wait…Does this place even have a bathroom,” I ask but groan when I get no answer. I’m about to make my way out of the room when a piercing pain slices through my chest.

It only takes one scream from my lips before Ric is at my side. His mouth is moving but the sheer pain I’m experiencing makes it so I can’t process his words. I watch with teary eyes and sobs coming out of my mouth as Ric lifts his hand from my chest and his eyes widen. The crimson liquid coating his hand is the last thing I see before the world goes black.

—

3rd Person POV-

Bonnie screams out her spell as she crushes Klaus’s body. Fire burns around them as the once powerful Original lay in agonising pain. From the shadows, Elijah stalks towards his younger brother.

Elijah stands above him. A mask of anger covers his face as he leans down to stare at the man he once called a brother and a friend.

“Elijah?”

Klaus stares up at the man he once saw as his protector, and for the first time in centuries, Klaus feels true fear.

“Hello, brother.”

Stefan and Bonnie watch from afar as Elijah plunges his arm into his brother’s chest. Wrapping his hand around his still-beating heart.

“In the name of our family…Niklaus…”

“I didn’t bury them at sea,” Klaus’ desperate voice halts Elijah momentarily before shaking off what he believes to be a trick.

“I know about Y/n,” Those four words have Elijah pausing, “I know what she is to you. And I know she's the same to me.”

The hand that was once clenched around Klaus’ heart slacks as Elijah stares at his brother in horror.

“You’re lying,” Elijah snarls.

Klaus shakes his head, “I wish I was, brother. But I’m not. And if you kill me what do you think will happen to her. Are you really going to take that risk?”

Elijah’s once cool face breaks and turns into one of horror as he looks at his hand that is in his brother’s chest.

Stefan noticing this lapse of judgement speaks up, “Elijah, don’t listen to him.”

“Elijah,” Klaus says, “Think of her.”

“Do it and I’ll take you both out,” The Bennet witch threatens.

Elijah looks up to her, “You’ll die.”

“I don’t care.”

Stefan and Bonnie watch in horror as Elijah speeds himself and his brother out of the flames and into the night, leaving only silence and heartbreak.

—

“Why are we going to this again,” My brother asks from the hallway outside my room as I fix my black dress in my mirror. My hands freeze for a moment as they land on the spot on my chest that was bleeding just the night before.

-Flashback-

I woke with a gasp and before I could get a second to breathe I felt someone grasp my shoulders into a hug.

“You’ve really got to stop freaking me out like this,” A soft voice says into my ear.

I pull back and my eyes widen to see Elena with glossy eyes staring back at me.

I shake my head confused, “What happened? Did the ritual happen? Who died? Are you a…,” I pause before finishing my last question.

Elena sends me a smile and shakes her head, “They found another way.”

I feel a smile break out onto my face and I go to sit up to hug her but a sharp pain in my chest stops me.

“Don’t move ok. Just lay still,” Elena coaxes me back onto the coach I’m lying on.

“What happened?”

-End of Flashback-

In Elena and Ric’s spark notes version of the night, about 20 minutes after Stefan, Bonnie, and, Elijah left for the ritual I fell down to the ground in pain, screaming and yelling, and when Ric went to check on me I had blood spilling from my chest. Right above where my heart is. Ric said there was so much blood he couldn’t find where it was coming from but after holding pressure on it for another ten minutes the bleeding had stopped and when he moved his hands from my chest I had no wounds that showed I had been wounded.

Alaric told me he was surprised that I was still breathing after losing the blood that I did. He also told me that while I was unconscious he found Damon slipping me some of my blood. And if I wasn’t as sore as I was I’d have bitched him out. I’ll just put that on the back burner for now. As well as figuring out what the hell is wrong with me. Bonnie said she couldn’t feel any spells or curses on me so at least that’s a plus. I guess. Also, I haven’t seen Elijah in over a day. Honestly, I don’t know if I could face him right now anyway. I’m pissed that he betrayed us, but there’s a part of me that is happy he didn’t kill his brother. A part I’m not telling the public because right now I’m off to a funeral for Elena’s dad who did die.

Elena told me he had Bonnie do some spell that switched his life for hers. And as much as I disliked the guy, I got to give it to him he showed up in the end. RIP Charlie Brown.

“We’re going because Elena’s my friend and her dad died, Theo. Try to not be an asshole for the afternoon please,” I say as I meet my brother at the front door of our house. My mother and he came back early last night because she had to get home for some work thing. Typical. But that also means I get to be with Theo for the day and after almost dying yesterday, I realized that I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to say goodbye to him, and today could’ve been my funeral he’d be going to. A chill runs down my spine at the thought and I fight back a set of tears.

“Okay, I promise. I’m sorry,” Theo says as he notices a tear fall down my face.

I smile at my little brother and pull him into a hug.

“I knew you missed me,” I can hear the smirk in his voice as I laugh into his suit jacket.

“Ya, whatever loser let’s go.”

—

I watch with tear-filled eyes as Elena places a rose on her biological father’s grave and then walks over to her parent's matching graves and places roses on them. Theo stands next to me with a solemn expression on his face, Jeremy is next to him, Bonnie, Caroline, and Tyler stand behind us, and Jenna is on my left as she holds Ric’s hand. I turn to look over my shoulder and I catch Damon’s eye as he stands against a tree. And for the first time ever I almost swore he smiled at me. Damn, maybe he’s dying too.

—

“I’ll be in the car,” Theo says to me and begins to walk away but not before bringing Jeremy in for a bro hug. I watch as my brother safely gets to the car and then I begin to walk over to Elena but see her already crowded with our friends. My gaze goes towards Damon who stands facing the graveyard and I frown.

“I have a bone to pick with you. You can’t just go and put blood into people’s mouths while they’re-” I say as I approach him.

“I’m happy you’re ok, Y/N.”

Damon’s interruption and the sincerity in his voice make me halt as I approach him.

“Wait…I think I’m hallucinating because I could’ve sworn you just called me by my actual name,” I walk up to him and jokingly smirk, “You dying or something?”

“Tyler Lockwood bit me.”

Oh. Fuck.

Translation-

“I will love you until the sun explodes, the oceans dry up, human life has long since gone and I am nothing but my soul. But even then I will still belong to you. Everything I am is you.”

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