#but i just needed to move on with it or i'll never finish this fic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

highvern · 4 months ago

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When in Rome

Pairing: Choi Seungcheol x f!reader

Genre: fluff, smut, angst

warnings: alcohol consumption, cheating, nudity, mentions of drug use, explicit sexual acts (unprotected sex, dirty talk, oral, swallowing)

Length: ~24k

Note: excited to have this for the @svthub world tour collab! thank u to @gyuswhore for helping, @wonuvs for fact checking my shitty italian, @the-boy-meets-evil for making sure i actually finished this fic bc i live to torture her and everyone else who contributed to this over the months it took me to finally write it!

this is from cheol's pov which was a new challenge but i loved it (i will never do it again). i'll be out of town when this goes up but can't wait to read everyone's feed back!!!

Summary: After months of no contact, Seungcheol isn't sure what to expect when he sees you again at Jeonghan's wedding. He's prepared to apologize, to grovel, to bear the weight of a cold shoulder. Whatever it takes to have you back, his best friend since diapers; or whatever will ensure the last third of your trio has the best day of his life. But when he overhears the most recent development in your relationship, he must come to terms with something he was never prepared for, or risk losing you for good.

m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

There are fewer places Seungcheol hates more than airports. Dentist offices, his grandparents’ house during the holidays when they ask about grandkids, and even the time he ran into his elementary school science teacher the first time he was buying condoms at the pharmacy, all were more favorable than the hustle and bustle of an international airport.

Seungcheol likes to be straightforward and direct. Something that becomes seemingly at odds with the average person traveling because at the one place everyone has somewhere to be, they act as if they have all the time in the world.

But the simple thought that it's all temporary, that his personal ninth circle of hell is the only thing standing between him and a week in Italy is enough to grin and bear it.

On the other side of the terminal, his best friends are waiting for him. It’s not as if they haven’t seen each other for long; Jeonghan and Sofie were at bar trivia last week as their last hurrah before tying the knot. As usual they wiped the floor with everyone, rousing several allegations of cheating that Jeonghan deserved. But Seungcheol is about to watch them get married and it makes him a little misty around the eyes because he loves his friends more than anything.

The only concern, which is less of a concern and more of a titanic size anchor sinking in his gut, is that you’re one of Sofie’s bridesmaids. And you haven’t spoken to him since New Years when you revealed you were moving to New York with your boyfriend, Johnny.

Another place Seungcheol dreads, right next to the airport, is anywhere Johnny happens to be. He’s everything you aren’t: abrasive, arrogant, catty, disorganized. And those are just the traits at the front of the alphabet.

You had a plan. A list of criteria he had to listen to over and over again after each failed date. Even the guys Seungcheol set you up with after carefully vetting didn’t seem to make the mark. It was respectable, commendable. You wouldn’t settle for anything less than “perfect.” Whatever that meant to you.

At a bar, three years ago, Johnny approached you. Seungcheol watched from across the table as you mentally ran over your checklist. Johnny met the physical ones: tall, good hygiene, well kept appearance. The other things would need more investigation. What did he do for work? Was he close with his family? Kids? Opinions on cheating at bar trivia?

The more Seungcheol learned about Johnny after your detailed debrief from a few dates the more confused he became. Johnny worked in banking. You hated finance bros and called them scum of the dating pool. He was an only child and only talked to his parents on holidays and birthdays. You had grand dreams of close grandparents and houses full of cousins. He didn’t want kids. You did. He didn’t think bar trivia was that serious. Seungcheol watched you threaten Jeonghan’s life on more than one occasion over the use of Shazam during the music round. Johnny was everything you said you didn’t want.

And then you followed him across the country after two years of dating cut with three breakups.

It didn’t make sense.

When Seungcheol pulled you aside after you announced you’d be moving, trying to figure why you thought living with the man who once asked if you really needed to wash bath towels if you only use them when you’re already clean, you told him to mind his business. Later that night, after enough drinks to make everything blurry, you two got into a screaming match on the sidewalk with your shared friends attempting to play referee. It was the last time you two spoke.

In over twenty five years of friendship, founded on the backs of elementary school shenanigans under a reign of terror of one Jeonghan Yoon, you and Seungcheol’s real fights can be counted on one hand.

The sixth grade field trip where you and Jeonghan left him out, senior year of highschool when the girl Seungcheol took to prom argued about his parents taking more pictures with you than her, and junior year of college when Seungcheol caught you making out with his frat brother after ditching him under the guise of having a stomach bug. That was it. Three fights, all of which were resolved within a week because as stubborn as you both are, you’re best friends.

Five and a half months of not speaking, except when you called Seungcheol in the middle of the night without leaving a message and when he tried calling you back in the morning you didn’t answer. Not until a month later when he finally swallowed his pride and texted a half hearted apology to which you responded with a quarter of forgiveness. That was it.

But Seungcheol won’t dwell. He refuses to make things awkward for Jeonghan and Sofie during the most special week of their lives. Knowing you, you’ve probably already come to the same resolution. The only person you’re closer to than Seungcheol is Jeonghan with Sofie a close second. If there is anyone you two will agree to put aside an argument for, it's them.

The sun has already begun setting when he makes it through customs and out towards the Arrivals, painting everything in buttery yellow.

“SEUNGCHEOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!” Sofie screams, hands cupped around her mouth.

She’s half outside the cherry red sports car. An Intermeccanica Italia Spyder because Seungcheol knows three things in life: expensive watches, expensive whiskey, and expensive cars. Sofie’s family happened to have plenty of the last and Seungcheol assumed the first two as well.

When Sofie became his study partner in law school she ended up following him on Instagram. He assumed from the way she carried herself, perfect posture with tailored clothes and an ‘air of society’ as you called it, that she was well off. But then, during a late night gossip session, you and he did a deep dive and found out Sofie wasn’t just well off. Her family had more money than God.

But everything on the surface was a contrast to who Sofie really was. Heiress to a fortune but studied more than anyone in their class just to graduate second. Perfect posture and tailored clothes are a stark contrast to her favorite bar where she’d outdrink anyone, and cheer when the prize for trivia was cheap plastic margarita glasses.

Or right now, where she belts Seungcheol’s name again like some drunk frat boy while sitting in a car worth more than his life.

Seungcheol jogs to where she waits, already smiling.

“I would have brought a ‘Welcome back from rehab’ sign but my mom thought you’d be embarrassed,” Sofie says as she hugs him over the console.

“At least make it ‘welcome home from prison’ so people won’t walk in my way.”

“I’ll make sure Jeonghan remembers you have a preference,” she calls over the wind.

Technically, the house (which is really a mansion) is almost an hour from the airport. With Sofie’s driving it only takes twenty minutes in which Seungcheol thinks he might need to start going to church.

The pebbled driveway crunches underneath the tires as they approach the imposing building he’d call home for the weekend.

In the evening light, the house is more daunting. An imposing stone facade rises from the ground, akin to a small castle than an actual home. Smooth stone with detailed carvings, windows with huge shutters, and on the top floor, a balcony, fenced with wrought iron, juts out.

Even after years of seeing pictures, Seungcheol still can’t believe his friend grew up here. He can’t believe it actually exists and isn’t some set from a historical drama.

Sofie throws the car in park right in front of the door before jumping out.

“By the way, there were some issues with one of the rooms.” Sofie drops her voice, “My aunt and uncle are fighting again, so I hope you don’t mind sharing?”

Seungcheol knows most of the guys coming to the wedding. Worst case scenario he’s stuck in a twin size bunk bed with a weird cousin. And with how busy he’ll be as best man, his room will be for sleep and not much else. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Perfect! Just leave your stuff, everyones out back.” Sofie pushes him as hard as she can manage which isn’t much at all given she’s five foot nothing.

The garden is filled with bodies upon bodies crowded together, some old, some young. Seungcheol recognizes a few faces in the mix: Soonyoung, Joshua, Seungkwan. More friends from law school. Jeonghan’s sister waves from across the way. Everyone seems to be paying attention to whatever is happening at the iron garden table.

And then, like a scene in a movie, everyone parts for a second and time freezes.

Seungcheol would recognize you anywhere. Even if he can’t see your face, he knows it's you. The curve of your shoulders, the tilt of your head. The bark of laughter as your chin drops forward. He knows it's you and the weight in his stomach lightens and leadens in an odd cycle.

He missed you.

Then everything comes back into real time. Wine and cards. Then he sees the chips on the table, your stack to the side significantly higher than anyone else's.

Months of ruminating over what he’d do when reunited fly out the window. Seungcheol doesn’t waste a minute as he approaches, hand on the back of your chair as he peeks over your head to sneak a glance at your hand.

“Who let you talk them into poker?”

You’re already smiling when you tilt back to look at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Oh, how he missed you.

“She said she didn’t know how to play,” an old man grumbles from the side.

Seungcheol doesn’t recognize him but he’s got the same expression as all the people you’ve sharked before: mildly impressed and slightly murderous. Two other guys sit at the table, one old enough to be his grandfather looks almost proud. Seokmin fills that last seat, head in his hands at being swindled so easily.

“I said,” you start, throwing your gaze to him. “I hadn’t played in a while.”

You look back up at Seungcheol for some kind of support. Eyes round and innocent in a way you both know you’re not. Pool, cards, darts, any game a man a few drinks in could beat you at was easy fodder for your con. Usually it ended with free drinks, sometimes money, but mostly it’s Seungcheol playing referee for the disillusioned guys you swindled while wearing a bright grin.

Tossing a few chips towards the three men at table with a smart ‘don’t spend it all in one place,’ you rise and throw your arms around Seungcheol like everything is normal.

“Hi,” you whisper into his neck.

Seungcheol’s hands are already curled around your waist, pulling you in tight. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

Seungcheol doesn’t think to question the sudden rush of familiarity after months of silence. Every fight in your long friendship ended this way; you both stew and stew until one day things snap back to normal. It’s how it’s always been.

“I see that you can’t even greet your best friend.” Jeonghan coughs from the side.

Seungcheol squeezes you tighter at the jab. It’s Jeonghan’s wedding but Seungcheol saw him last week when dropping the couple off at the airport to come here. He’s far more interested in dragging out his reunion with you as long as possible. “I’m in the middle of that actually.”

He scoffs in response, walking away. “Whatever, I see too much of you anyway.”

There’s glasses of wine waiting when you break apart. Seungcheol keeps closeby, not that you seem eager to go anywhere. His staring is obvious but he doesn’t care. You’re really here and the cold shoulder he expected to find is nowhere to be found.

Another two hours of celebrating, filled with drunken toasts and more card games with Sofie’s family that only end with you digging into their pockets even deeper, fly by before the exhaustion of a day starting in one continent and ending in another catches up to him. You’re too busy arguing over if Jeonghan cheated in the last round to notice Seungcheol slipping away from the table and towards the door leading inside.

Sofie is in the kitchen just beyond, another bottle of wine sloshing in hand as she talks animatedly on the phone. “Okay, look. I am on vacation. I’m about to get married. I literally left notes for everything I'm not working on during my wedding week. Figure it out. Bye.”

She hangs up without response, tossing her phone on the counter before taking a swig straight from the bottle.

“Good?” Seungcheol asks.

“Oh, you know, just the usual. I leave and suddenly no one knows how to do their job.” Sofie rolls her eyes. “What’s up? Need another glass?”

She raises the same bottle and the thought of more wine nearly turns his stomach.

Seungcheol brushes her off, moving to the sink and rinsing his glass with finality. “I think I’m gonna crash for the night.”

“Really?” she asks. “But the party just started!”

“For you maybe, some of us have been cramped on a plane all day.” He feels it. In his back and knees. The cramp in his neck from passing out halfway through and waking up bent at ninety degrees. And the hours he spent agonizing through emails with the inflight WiFi because even on vacation he can’t sit still for more than one minute. But now it’s a ticking time bomb before he curls up in a chair and passes out until morning.

Sofie snatches his glass before shooing him away from the sink and taking his place. “I forgot you’re an old man now.”

“You’re the same age as me?”

“Anyway,” she sings. “I know we promised you’d have your own room but—”

“That’s fine. I really don’t mind rooming with one of the guys.”

“Well… you and Y/N were the only ones not sharing and she said she wouldn’t mind for the weekend.”

“Huh?”

“I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal! Seokmin and Kwan agreed to share and room with Josh so things are pretty tight but I can see if we can switch things around and—”

“No, if she’s okay with it then it's fine.” Seungcheol says. “We just haven’t talked since, you know?”

Sofie seems to soften at that. “I know. But it looked like everything was fine outside.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol sighs. “I missed her.”

“I know she missed you too.”

“She said that?”

“Oh please, neither of you have to say anything, you’re both pathetic,” she says while pouring another glass. “But I think this weekend will be good for you guys! Like old times.”

Old times. Before the fight. Before you moved away.

“Yeah, just like old times… At least we aren’t sharing a bed, right?” He jokes.

“Actually,” Sofie grimaces.

The one solace Seungcheol is gifted is the bed is massive. Almost the entire room is dominated by the plush mattress, a dresser, and a chair in the corner. He considers sleeping in that instead for all of a minute before realizing you probably wouldn’t let him and the absolute torture it’ll do to his neck.

At least the forced proximity won’t be awkward since you’ve silently agreed to leave the past behind you. He can’t imagine Sofie would consider this solution if you were still mad at him, even if it was her wedding week. The realization lightens the weight on his shoulders an ounce more.

Seungcheol throws his bag down at the foot of the bed. It’s no big deal; sharing a room with you. Childhood sleepovers had been the norm, a few nights in college you’d shared a clunky old twin bed when you both were too drunk to find your ways home separately. Your first apartment together, when you two had to share a mattress on the floor for the first weeks because all your money went into paying rent, flash in his head. Old times.

Thirty minutes later, freshly showered and in clean clothes, Seungcheol heads back downstairs for a glass of water before bed.

He remembers where the kitchen is after Sofie’s short tour, trapezing through the huge house easily. Behind different closed doors he catches glimpses of pre-sleep conversations: couples spitting harsh whispers to each other, a few cartoonish voices reading bedtime stories to an audience of childish giggles. But when he reaches the threshold of his destination Seungcheol stumbles into an entirely different atmosphere.

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“No. I didn’t feel like the kind of thing to say over text,” you whisper.

“Well you could have called him!”

“And say what? ‘Hey Cheol, I know we haven’t talked in months because we got into a huge fight about my boyfriend but Johnny and I–’”

Seungcheol strains his ears to hear the rest of your sentence but fails to decipher anything before Jeonghan’s voice cuts in. Whatever ‘it’ is, you seem keen on keeping it a secret.

“Just tell him.” Jeonghan says through a mouthful of something. “I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

His mind races with a million possibilities, all related to Johnny, all things you wouldn’t have told your best friend of over twenty years because of some stupid fight. Something you don’t know how to tell him over the phone, something you need to tell in person.

The realization strikes like lightning.

You and Johnny are engaged.

Thirst forgotten, Seungcheol turns back the way he came. He thinks through the new information as he stumbles up the stairs.

How could you not tell him? How could he make you feel like you couldn’t tell him? How long have you been hiding this? And why did Jeonghan and Sofie know before he did? Was everyone in on the secret and he was the odd man out?

You and Johnny weren’t even that serious when you moved away; or, that's what Seungcheol thought. In all honesty he fully believed it was some joke when you told him. A drunken practical joke taken too far but you didn’t laugh when he did. There was no punchline to share. The boxes were packed away and then the moving truck came and you left with it.

Everything else hits him in the seclusion of the bedroom. Your shared room. He doesn’t even have the luxury of coming to terms with your latest surprise in private.

Seungcheol isn’t happy. He is, but because you’re you, argument aside. The past few months are the longest you’ve ever gone without each other and seeing you again lifted a weight off his chest he’d come accustomed to in months of silence.

It’s an easy decision. If Johnny makes you happy enough to tie your lives together then Seungcheol can bite his tongue. You’re his best friend and by default he’d never think anyone was good enough for you but if you loved Johnny, if you were this serious about him, then Seungcheol would support you.

Even if it meant there would always be a Johnny sized ravine between you.

Seungcheol wakes far before the sun breaches the horizon. The room still washed in the shadows of early dawn grants him some peace to think over his own conflicts with the news, your quiet snores a backing track from across the bed.

On your side facing him, Seungcheol gets the first good look at you in what feels like forever. Even with the size of the bed barely a foot of space separates your bodies. You hand twisted in the hem of his shirt like even in your sleep you can’t stand to be apart more than necessary.

You look ridiculous; hair a mess and limbs splayed. But your face is soft in sleep, eyelashes fanned on your cheeks and lips in a pout.

There’s an odd flutter in his stomach. He wasn't lying when he said he missed you. But now things are complicated.

He hadn’t slept at all last night; mind constantly replaying the conversation he heard in the kitchen, formulating his reaction when you finally let him in on the ‘surprise.’

Perhaps under different circumstances he wouldn’t struggle with news. Seungcheol wants you to be happy. Johnny is the problem in the scenario. They never got along, barely spoke outside of the few times forced circumstances required them to. Seungcheol was polite. Johnny was polite.

Seungcheol wanted to kill him and he’s certain Johnny felt the same.

Relationships naturally take priority over time but Johnny seemed to creep in and choke Seungcheol out of all the places he’d been firmly planted for years. Another reason he isn’t happy.

Monday night Bachelor? Canceled, because Johnny plays beer league softball with his friends and you started going to that.

No more sleepovers at Seungcheol’s after a night out because ‘it makes Johnny uncomfortable.’ Fair complaint. Seungcheol wouldn’t appreciate his girlfriend sleeping over at a guy's house after drinking if the roles were reversed. But Seungcheol isn’t some guy and you were his best friend before you were Johnny’s girlfriend.

Traditions at Christmas felt hollow without you. The first one you spent meeting Johnny’s family in Minnesota you texted Seungcheol the entire time about how cold it was, how they were a 5k on a holiday type family despite the fact there was three feet of snow outside.

All small details that mean everything to Seungcheol, never meant as much to you.

And that’s why he doesn’t like Johnny. Because he made Seungcheol realize that.

It’s not that you and Johnny didn’t work. Seungcheol just couldn’t wrap his head around why you wanted to overlook all the glaring differences to make it work.

But pointing that out left him with a cold shoulder lasting six months so he plans to keep his mouth shut.

You tried talking to him before bed but gave up when he pretended to be asleep. It took everything he had not to give in and talk into the early morning. Six months was more than enough ground to cover for you two to catch up; he was promoted, you had an entirely new life in another city that he wanted to hear all about. His insane neighbor from across the hall, who you both are sure sells drugs, is actually a preschool teacher (mysteries of the universe). And he knows you probably have kooky neighbors of your own in New York.

But, in all honesty, he didn’t want to hear stories with Johnny’s name attached. Wasn’t ready to hear you say you’re engaged. It’s one thing to know it. But the second the words leave your lips then it’s real. Then Johnny is here to stay and it's only a matter of time before you two are arguing again.

Especially when everything said months ago was still fresh in his mind. Words he’d stand by no matter what. But Seungcheol has figured out that there are conversations he’s allowed to have with you and ones that should never see the light of day if your friendship is to survive. Johnny is one, the other is a memory from college that remains vivid no matter how hard he tries to forget.

But this weekend wasn’t about you and him, it's about Sofie and Jeonghan. If Seungcheol can dive into focusing on them, maybe he’ll survive.

Today is the one day reserved for sightseeing before ‘the inevitably disorganized shit show of an Italian wedding’ as Sofie puts it.

Seungcheol has already seen some of the big things thanks to his study abroad in undergrad: the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon. So for today, he'll stick by whatever you want to do. You’re the building nerd architect.

When he finally finds the willpower to roll away, carefully extracting your grip on him before ducking from the sheets, you stir enough to release a sleepy whine in protest before burying back under the blanket.

It’s odd but he notices you’re not wearing a ring. Seungcheol looked closely if you took it off before bed but nothing stands out in the bathroom or on the dresser. He assumes you took it off to make the weekend about Sofie and Jeonghan rather than yourself. It’s something you would do. Or maybe it’s at the jeweler’s for repairs. Maybe Johnny had gaudy taste and bought a ring so flashy you refused to wear it.

Seungcheol doesn’t know but it strikes him as strange.

The kitchen is already bustling with life even at such an early hour. Family and friends trickle in one by one, joining Seungcheol at the table with cups of coffee and munching on fruit and biscuits as their hangovers ebb. Quickly, the peace he preserved in the early quiet melts into loud laughter and a million buzzing conversations.

You melt into the chair beside him, eyes barely open as you snag his cup and scowl after finding it already drained.

“Coffee?” you mumble.

Seungcheol pushes his plate of unfinished fruit and a half finished pastry you way. “Sofie’s mom is brewing more. But it’s strong.”

“Oh trust me, I know,” you say around a mouthful of jam and dough. “I drank a full cup the first day I got here and felt like Sonic.”

“That’s how you know it’s good.”

“You’re insane.”

“What are your plans for today?”

“So there's this church, the Santa Maria Sopra della Minerva. It’s near the Pantheon!” you ramble, peeling another orange. “It’s just beautiful and it's got a statue by Michelangelo next to the altar and the design is incredible.”

Seungcheol can’t help but laugh at your enthusiasm. A city filled with ancient buildings and history is right up your alley.

He remembers how you pouted when he came back from his trip in college after yours to Venice was canceled due to ‘not enough student interest.’ The only thing that managed to quell your anger was all the pictures Seungcheol took with you in mind. Close ups of the tiniest details about ancient designs tour guides pointed out to disinterested business majors but he knew you’d care if you’d been there. If you were there then you’d probably be leading the tour yourself whether the guide liked it or not.

“Mind if I come with?” he asks over his fresh cup of coffee.

“Duh,” you roll your eyes with a smile. “I waited for you to get here to go.”

Sofie’s uncle, the one not under threat of murder by his wife, agrees to drive you both out. He drives at full speed from the second he hits the gas pedal. With the windows down. The breeze is as nice as a wind tunnel and cuts off everything Zio Berto tries to point out except for his screams at other drivers.

On the other side of the back seat, you’re turning green. Seungcheol is glad the window is already down because if you get sick, he will too. And Sofie would refuse any payment for the cleaning fee, Seungcheol is morally opposed to ruining such a nice car with vomit.

The city whips past outside the windows, cobblestone streets slowly growing more crowded as the car edges closer to the center city. Berto finally slows down to avoid pedestrians and mopeds but only by a fraction. He doesn’t seem to share Seungcheol’s concern about body fluids clashing with the car design.

Finally, after what feels like a century, the car jerks to a stop. You don’t even pretend to be polite and exit immediately, hands on your knees while dry heaving for air.

“I’ll be around. Have fun!” Berto calls from the driver's seat. “Call me when you’re ready to head back.”

Seungcheol waves him off and when he turns back where you were standing, you’re already gone; circling the elephant obelisk in the center of the cobblestone courtyard.

“Isn’t it so cool?” You gush, snapping photos.

The exterior of the building is unassuming. Flat sandstone brick without much detail but you see the things that are important. In a few minutes you’ll be in tour guide mode, pointing out the smallest crack no one would see unless they already studied the church's history in depth.

“Soooo cool,” he jests. He appraises the statue with you, turning his head this way and that.

You slap his shoulder, “Don’t be a jerk!”

“Okay, okay. Give me the tour.”

“It was built on the ruins of a temple of Isis.”

“Okay, and why the elephant?”

“The obelisk was taken from the Church of San Stefano del Cacco down that way,” you point. “It's originally from Sais in Egypt but got moved all the way here. The elephant was commissioned by the pope to display it based on a book that was popular at the time.”

“Interesting.”

You point at the inscription on the plinth before continuing, “that’s from the book.”

Sapientis Aegypti insculptas obelisco figuras ab elephanto, belluarum fortissima, gestari quisquis hic vides, documentum intellege robustae mentis esse solidam sapientiam sustinere.

“Whoever you are, who sees here the figures of the Egyptian wise man carved on the obelisk carried by the elephant, the strongest of wild animals, understand the symbolism to be that a strong mind supports firm wisdom,” you translate.

“I didn’t know you read latin.”

“I don’t. It’s in English on the other side,” you laugh. “But I do know, the guy who designed the statue made it look like it's farting because the pope told him to change the design from what he originally wanted.”

“Really?”

“Yep. He said having it stand on four legs was dangerous so the sculptor added the saddle and a cube at the base, but he also made its butt face the convent so the friars would have to see its ass every time they came out.”

“Wow.”

Seungcheol circles the statue and sure enough the tail is angled to look like it's blowing wind.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a lie but I’d like to think people were that petty hundreds of years ago. Now all people do is subtweet and post vague Instagram stories. I want someone to hate me so much they design an entire statue just to minorly inconvenience me each morning.”

You’re fully of facts Seungcheol would never know. It’s one of the best parts of visiting places with you. It’s not just some building or some random statue. You give the architecture a new life.

Seungcheol’s mind flashes back to the first time he accompanied you and Johnny to a monument back home. In the five minutes you’d been there, he realized Johnny truly did not care about your interests.

The look on your face that day told him you realized Johnny didn’t care either.

It’s the same pact everyone that moves to D.C. makes to visit all the museums and monuments and landmarks. Good intentions with zero realistic goals. Except you’re stubborn and the drive to say you did something means Seungcheol has tagged along to thirty out of the one hundred and fifteen on your list. Johnny missed most either from work trips or some other excuse and the one Seungcheol missed had been the only one Johnny came to because of the flu.

Safe to say the first time visiting together was a shit show. Johnny didn’t pretend to evaluate the ‘important’ parts, didn’t ask questions or bother reading the placards detailing events of significance, raced through the entire thing to leave you and Seungcheol behind. It’s not like you or Seungcheol were overwhelmed with beauty and needed hours but Johnny finished his round after less than thirty minutes and told you to text him when you were done.

So Seungcheol did the only thing he could to get back at Johnny without upsetting you: walked as slow as possible, pointing out things he knew you’d know more about, and dragging things out so Johnny was stuck waiting in the frigid winter wind outside to suffer.

You knew what he was doing, obvious from the way you hook your arm through his and give an affection squeeze. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes but you both pushed through.

Thank whatever powers be that Johnny wasn’t here now.

“See the windows?” you ask, pointing to the three different sized circular windows hanging over the main doorways.

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Well you can’t tell from here but they’re rose tinted.”

Seungcheol tries to see what you’re talking about but the windows are dark and covered in some kind of lacquer that makes them look gray and dusty rather than pink.

“And why is that important, Professor Y/L/N?”

“Because it’s the only medieval church in Rome like that!”

You continue rambling off facts, talking a mile a minute as your point at different things and walk Seungcheol around the exterior. A few other people's ears perk up as you go on about how the details had been done over and over; first Romanesque, then Gothic then, some guy named Carlo Maderno added Baroque designs inside, and friars who put in stained glass windows.

By the time you take a breath, the crowd has taken a closer interest in the windows and the elephant statue due to your brief history. A few look at the flood plaques which are some of the best preserved records the city has.

Seungcheol hangs onto every word. He doesn’t care about the old church, it’s an interesting bit of history sure but he could be outside any church in Rome and have the same reaction. He cares about the church because you care. And your passion about old windows and flood markers make it the most interesting place in the world right now.

“Go stand on the steps so I can take your picture,” you demand.

“Do I have to?” Seungcheol jokingly complains.

“Just go.”

Seungcheol poses as you direct, flashing a few silly poses you laugh at. He manages to wrangle you into taking a few photos as well. Ones that will probably be sent to your mom and never see the light of day other than her Facebook. Your Instagram is reserved for, in order: buildings, animals, food, and the rare picture of you with friends at some sort of occasion (wedding, graduation, the time Jeonghan broke his leg drunk on a city scooter and ended up in the ER).

You’re in the middle of pretending to hold the Leaning Tower of Pisa when someone approaches Seungcheol.

“Would you like us to take your photo?” an elderly woman asks. She is a quintessential tourist: fanny pack, camera around her neck, sun burnt around the ears. A man in a matching shirt approaches with her, donning the same gear and pink tinge. Seungcheol recognizes them from a few minutes prior when you gave your lecture about elephant butts and petty sculptors.

“Sure, thank you.”

He hands over his phone and joins you on the steps. You both pose like normal adults, smiles plastered on your face while Seungcheol gives you bunny ears and you pull his hair.

“Beautiful couple!”

“Oh, we’re not…” You both object.

“We’re on our second honeymoon.” The man croons at his wife, chuffed when she rolls her eyes and focuses on the camera screen. “You two?”

“We’re here for a wedding.”

“Wow! Married in Rome,” the wife gasps. “How romantic.”

It isn’t the first time you two have been mistaken for a couple. Anytime you’re with him or Jeonghan someone assumes you’re dating. Occasionally, you’d play it up, make an entire story about how you met, how long you’ve been together, biting your tongues the entire time as each detail is more ludicrous than the last.

Jeonghan takes the cake as the most ridiculous. Two tornado chasers that ran into each other ten years ago and never let go. Him and Seungcheol, not you. Which really threw the waitress off. Never mind the fact you all were sophomores in college, high as kites and stuffing yourselves full of hashbrowns in a greasy spoon diner for Seungcheol’s birthday.

“Did you two meet here?” the husband asks.

“Oh no, we actually met in a competitive bowling league,” you fib, wrapping your arm through Seungcheol’s.

What the hell?

“Romantic!” The wife belts like she actually believes nothing could inspire love like sharing shoes with countless strangers and cheap beer.

Seungcheol would take the piss under any other circumstances. Except this time you’re actually engaged and the last time you two pretend to be a couple was when you fake proposed to him in a fancy restaurant to score free champagne and dessert to celebrate the end of law school.

“Would you mind taking a few of us?” the man asks.

You snap a few pictures on the wife’s phone and after more coos of ‘romantic!’ and a few thank yous they melt into the crowd.

“Alright, let's go inside.”

“Lead the way.” Seungcheol feels more awkward than before, cheeks red but not from the sun beating down

Upon entering the church, he discovers the inside is much more interesting than the outside. Holy water stoups are held up by marble. Two statues flank the entrance. There’s more things to see than Seungcheol’s brain can handle but he follows behind you, mind lingering on the scene outside.

“‘My husband’?” Seungcheol asks.

“What? We won’t see them again. Who cares?”

Probably your own fiancé but just as Seungcheol opens his mouth a priest silences him with a sharp, “SHH!”

Passing through a high stone archway, you enter the nave. The ceiling, cobalt and gold with motifs of biblical figures and cherubs, rises high above.

“Look!” you whisper. “Isn’t it cool?”

Your point at a marble Jesus wearing a bronze loin cloth.

Cool isn’t the word he’d choose but he goes with it.

“Michelangelo started it but two other people had to finish it for him.”

“Oh.”

“But people still call it Michelangelo’s statue because it’s more impressive. Besides, he did most of it before his apprentice took over.”

He observes the paintings and statues, the stone work that bulges from the walls like they’re trying to come alive and escape their immortal capture. There’s even a tomb and shrine with incredible detail.

It takes two hours to see everything and another thirty minutes to make your way out of the church because you both keep catching missed signs or there's some tiny piece of the ceiling with an odd detail.

He missed this.

Outside, you open your phone and look at the message from Sofie. She made the recommendation to come down here and gave an extensive list of everything else to be done in the area. There’s so many options it would take at least a week to see half of them.

“This hotel has a rooftop restaurant that’s supposed to have a good view of St. Peters,” you say.

The restaurant would have a great view of the city, if it wasn’t shut down for renovations. The staff don’t even let you near the elevator before you’re both swept outside and back on the street.

“Well…” Seungcheol starts.

“Should we call Berto?”

He doesn’t want to. Partially because Berto’s driving might kill him and also because he doesn’t want to end his time with you just yet. One of the things he missed about you living in the same city was weekends in museums for hours. Now that he has it again, he hesitates to cut the time short.

“Wait, I think we’re near one of the parks we visited when I came in college.”

“Oh my god,” you gasp sarcastically. “Did you study abroad? I never knew!”

“Shut up.”

Seungcheol pulls out his phone and dials Berto’s number. “Hey, Berto. No, we're good, everything is fine. But I was wondering how far away is Villa Borghese from us? Oh really? Would you be able to come drop us off? Awesome. Thanks man.”

“Well?”

“He’ll be here in five.”

Five minutes turns into fifteen and in that time Seungcheol burns out. Jetlag and the dull thrums of city streets make him sleepy. You sit in front of him on a bench outside the church. He thought he was better at hiding it but he’s pretty sure if he sits down, he’ll fall asleep.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” you ask once Berto arrives. “We can go back to the house if you want.”

There’s an unofficial official itinerary for today.

Anything before four is fair game. After that there is a welcome cocktail party at a fancy restaurant in the city one of the De Luca’s family friends own.

If Seungcheol doesn’t go home now then it’ll be a close call to nap and shower in time. Not that Sofie is exceptionally punctual about things like that but Seungcheol is.

“I don’t want you not to see stuff just because I’m tired.”

“Cheol, I’ve been here all week with Sofie and Han. I promise this was the only thing left on my list of stuff to do. Anything else would have been a bonus.”

“Only if you're sure.”

“We can always come back again. I’m pretty sure Sofie’s mom is decorating a room for me.”

Yeah, because most men are fine with their fiancée taking international trips with another man. Not that you’d listen or Johnny has the balls to say something about it. But Seungcheol knows the chances of coming back here together, like this, are slim to nonexistent.

“Alright. But you can’t bring it up in an argument.”

“I can and I will.” The corner of you mouth twitches as your head shakes before opening the back seat for him. “Now get in the car, old-timer.”

Seungcheol falls asleep on your shoulder in a blink. Berto is quiet (or the open windows drown him out enough that Seungcheol can pretend) and the heat of your body next to his lulls his heart. It’s not a peaceful rest and his neck is killing him by the time Berto pulls into the driveway, but it’s nice.

Seungcheol beelines for the bathroom while you slip into the kitchen. Something about centerpieces or napkins or tablecloths; he isn’t really sure but Sofie’s mom says it's urgent so he goes upstairs alone, showers in record time, and dives under the covers.

His dreams are filled with blue and gold elephants, He wakes to the sound of your voice blended with the sound of water.

You’re singing. More so humming some off key melody that bounces off the shower tiles and echoes straight into his brain. It drags him in that liminal space between waking and dreaming where anything is possible. Maybe he’s still dreaming. Of you and him, back when you shared an apartment and things weren’t so complicated. When there weren’t secrets and omissions and he didn’t have to bite his tongue.

His eyes stay closed, refusing to budge until the last minute.

The shower turns off but the humming continues, louder now that you’re out of the bathroom and collecting your things.

You must think Seungcheol is still asleep because when his eyes slit open, only enough to decipher your hazy silhouette, you’re in nothing but a towel. A very very tiny towel that hides nothing but the necessary bits and even then only barely.

He can’t wake up now. Not when you bend over to look in your suitcase for Seungcheol closed his eyes just in time. But it doesn’t stop his brain from latching on to every sound in the quiet of the room; the humming tickling across your lips, the wet thump! of your towel on the ground. Oh god, now you’re not even wearing a towel.

Seungcheol won’t be that friend. He never has. Or has always tried not to be. But teenage hormones make a young boy’s brain untamable so it’d be a lie to say he’s never thought of you like that. But despite his feelings, Seungcheol has made sure they never became a factor in your friendship.

Even though there is a peace of his soul that will always belong to you.

So he pretends to be asleep, forcibly controlling his breathing while you shuffle around the room none the wiser to his rising predicament.

Finally, you disappear back into the bathroom to change and Seungcheol’s lungs stretch with air until they burn.

You look pretty. Objectively. You glow in the late afternoon sun pouring in from the window, a ditsy floral print dress of orange and cream that hugging your figure; delicate collar bones on display under the flimsy straps and the column of your neck bare save for the necklace you’ve worn everyday since your parents bought it for your sixteenth birthday.

“C’mon sleepy head,” you whisper.

Seungcheol is thrilled his gawking is easily disguised as jetlag.

He changes in the bathroom. Taking a moment to grip the sink, his reflection stares back in the mirror. It’s the exhaustion and dehydration making his brain muddle. Nothing to do with you or him.

It’s fine. Everything is perfectly fine.

The downstairs foyer is in complete chaos but Sofie commands the room like she always does from the top of the stairway.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Are you ready?” She yells like a WWE announcer.

Cheers rise up from the gaggle of adults. Cousins, friends, parents, aunts and uncles. Most of them Seungcheol has never seen before and is pretty sure neither have Jeonghan or Sofie but it’s fine. The more the merrier.

Except when different cars end up filled to the brim and you end up sitting on Seungcheol’s lap instead of a seat.

His heart leaps with every bump, yo

ur hair flying into his face and leaving the sweet smell of perfume to flood his senses. Seungcheol can’t even think about that because Sofie’s Zia Linda puts her husband's driving to shame.

At some point you nearly fly out the open window–Why does no one believe in keeping the windows up?– and Seungcheol is forced to wrap an arm around your waist to keep you from ending up a part of the cobblestone road.

“Sorry,” you say. The squeeze at his arm tells him your thankful at least something is stopping you from becoming roadkill.

“It’s fine.”

If you notice his strained breath, you don’t say anything.

The rooftop restaurant is gigantic but with everyone it feels small and crowded. Below, all of Rome spreads out. Lights twinkle in the distance and the moon is heavy overhead, ready for a night of revelry. It’s a welcome party so things are casual, finger foods and drinks flow heavily while everyone mingles.

Sofie and Jeonghan laugh at their own table, holding court with family and friends that flood in and out with congratulations. They’re good at it. Jeonghan ventures on the more introverted side but Sofie could have a meaningful conversation with a pile of rocks.

You're off at another table, talking with Soonyoung and Seungkwan, a second glass of wine in hand. Laughter rings out and he feels drawn to it like a siren call. It was foolish to worry that the scar from Johnny wouldn’t heal over eventually. All you two needed was time.

Seungcheol barely leaves your side during the party. You dance and drink and dance some more until you’re both left in a heap at the same table by the dance floor. Soonyoung and Seokmin provide ample distraction, taking to the floor to do…something Seungcheol hesitates to call dancing because it resembles a child's idea of a circus.

Dancing, food, and wine leave him feeling loose and sleepy. You’re not much better, head on his shoulder and hand tangled with his across your knees.

“Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

His shirt is unbuttoned, sleeves rolled high. In the back of the car on the ride home, you trace the muscle of his forearms draped over your waist until it lulls him to sleep.

Back at the house, you, Sofie, Jeonghan, and Seungcheol throw out sleepy goodnights and I love you’s before retreating to your separate corners of the house. Jeonghan is technically staying in a room in the same wing as you two (Sofie’s house is big enough to have an east and west wing which still shocks him). Something about family tradition and bad luck for the wedding but Jeonghan follows his fiancée like a shadow to her room at the opposite end of the house without theatrics.

And then there’s just you two.

You lean on each other the entire walk up, like you need the other support or you’ll crumble to the floor and sleep there. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea. Seungcheol has slept in worse places.

The stairs present their own challenges. You go first, Seungcheol right behind in case you fall backwards which has happened enough times that it’s become a habit to walk this way when alcohol is involved. But it doesn’t solve the issue of you tripping up.

Which you do with an effortless lack of grace on the last step.

“Oh, shit!” you giggle.

Seungcheol laughs so hard his knees buckle and he flops on the floor next to you like a dying fish.

“Shhh!” you slur, finger pressed to his lips. “People are sleeping.”

But you're cackling now and he can’t breathe from the painful quaking laughter rooting in his belly. He’s on his back, and you prop up on your arm to loom over him. Twin smiles breaking your faces, eyes watering with drunken mirth.

You go silent first, tracing his features silently like they must be committed to memory. Seungcheol does the same. You’re exactly the same as the day you left. Except for the vacation glow from being here for the past week. He recognizes all the parts of you he’s known for a lifetime. The silver scar on your chin from learning to ride a bike and crashing into a tree. The color of your eyes. The blush of your mouth.

The finger pressed to his lips traces along the plump flesh, then his chin, then it circles the back of his head and you’re ducking down.

Alarms go off in Seungcheol’s head screaming:

DANGER! DANGER! THIS IS NOT WHAT FRIENDS DO! DANGER!

“Wow, it’s late,” he laughs horsley as he rolls away and to his feet.

You jump away, dazed for a second before laughing as well. “Yeah, let’s um…let’s go to bed.”

He can’t quite read your expression. Several emotions swirl across your face but Seungcheol can barely look at you without feeling his face heat so he doesn’t linger.

Seungcheol takes the bathroom after you finish, rushing through his night time routine in sober silence.

You're drunk. That’s the only reason you’re trying to kiss him. Or he had something on his mouth and you can’t find the words to tell him. It was a mistake. A momentary lapse of judgment that didn’t mean anything.

It wasn’t even a fraction of an almost kiss. Your noses barely touched, it doesn’t count.

When he comes back into the room, you’re curled up on the bed in your pajamas asleep.

Seungcheol circles to the other side, slipping under the covers and getting comfortable. The room feels smaller after what just happened. But it wasn’t a big deal. Nothing happened. You both were drunk and missed each other. You never would have kissed him.

Despite the fact the first, and only, time you two kissed was in very similar circumstances.

Rolling over, you find him and cuddle into his chest. Seungcheol opens his arms for you on instinct.

“Did you have fun today?” you ask into his collarbone. The vibration of your voice tickles but it’s dulled from Seungcheol’s heart thudding wildly.

“Yeah.”

His hand smooths the back of your hair, down your back. You readjust, throwing a leg over his own and pulling him in tight.

“Good,” you say around a yawn. “Me too.”

Seungcheol tamps down the piece of him that wants to indulge in this. Just holding you, pretending things outside the door don’t exist and it’s just you and him and no one else.

But he can’t do that.

“You know,” he starts. “I’m happy for you no matter what, right? You and Johnny…I’m happy for you.”

Seungcheol waits for a response that will never come because you’re out cold, snoring against his chest.

You’re still asleep when Seungcheol wakes around noon. Sometime in the night you shifted to the far side of the bed, taking the blanket with you. He doesn’t try to wake you, still confused at exactly what happened last night.

Seungcheol isn’t naive. He knows what women look like when they want to be kissed, when they're thinking about how his mouth will feel against theirs. Usually he revels in it; loves the flare to his ego, the chance to tease before giving in.

But to see the expression on your face sent him into a panic. He’s seen it once before, indulged in it, and it ruined his life for the better part of college. Lips parted, eyes glassy as you stared. All the telltale signs were there: the lift of your chin, hands twisted in his shirt, eyes drooped low.

And the worst part was you did all that despite having a fiance waiting back home none the wiser. Even if Seungcheol couldn’t stand Johnny, he’d never do that. Never allow you to do that.

Even if he wanted nothing more than to feel your lips on his.

He heads as far away as he can. Turns out it’s down stairs for breakfast. Sofie is at the kitchen table, typing on her laptop.

“Morning,” Seungcheol croaks.

“You look like shit. Wild night?”

“Just some old timers thinking they’re twenty one again.”

“What assholes.” She laughs. “How's Y/N?”

Seungcheol freezes like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Sofie couldn’t know what almost but certainly didn’t happen in the hallway last night. “She’ll probably need an exorcism but she’ll survive.”

“By the way, I meant to give her this last night but everything was crazy. Can you pass it off? Jeonghan and I have to take my grandma to lunch and she’s already called twice sooooo…”

“Yeah, go. Have fun.”

Sofie is up and out before he can blink, a tiny piece of cardstock left in her place.

Kira Long

Artisan Jeweler

Her social media and number are at the bottom but Seungcheol doesn’t need more information.

He hides around the villa most of the day. Catching up with the guys around the pool, feigning fatigue when you come out to join. The gardens are big enough for him to disappear into for a few hours before he needs to go and get ready.

Unfortunately, that also means you are getting ready.

A leg.

That’s all Seungcheol sees when he opens the door.

Your leg specifically, propped on the dresser while you apply lotion in nothing but that damn skimpy towel designed to torture him.

“AH!” you shriek, shocked by his sudden entrance.

“I’m sorry!” he shouts.

The fabric unravels around your chest and suddenly you're naked and Seungcheol is not looking.

“What the fuck? Have you ever heard of knocking?”

He’s not.

“Why are you naked?”

The ceiling is very interesting.

“Because I wanted to scare you.” you scream sarcastically. The door to the hallway is still open. Seungcheol either stays in with you or goes back out because it can’t stay open much longer. He makes the fatal mistake of locking himself inside with you. “Because I thought you’d knock, you fucker! Jesus fucking Christ, turn around.”

Seungcheol saw you naked.

He hides in the bathroom like a wimp until it’s time to leave.

—

It’s a short walk to the church down the street for the rehearsal ceremony. It’s all a blur given the million and one things flying through his brain; most of them you. You in your towel. The fact you’re engaged. You looking at him like you’re dying to be kissed. The fact you’re engaged. How everyone has assumed you’re a couple this entire weekend and you’ve played along. The fact you are engaged to a man that isn’t him and Seungcheol can’t help but feel bitter about it for a completely different reason than he ever thought he would be.

Luckily, the ceremony is only planned to last less than an hour. He knows he isn’t subtle but he tries to grin and bear it for his friends. He can see the same sentiment in you. Your smile doesn’t quite fit but Seungcheol can’t think about what it could be about.

“Do you take this man…”

Was it his rejection? It wouldn’t make sense if it was. You’re his best friend but not even that dictates cheating. You weren’t the type; in your own words cheating was more pathetic than ghosting someone as a form of break up.

He doesn’t get it.

“I always love you even though you sleep like a princess, my love,” Sofie gushes.

“And I’ll forgive you for snoring like an old man, love of my life.” Jeonghan fires back.

They’re saving their real vows, the one Seungcheol helped Jeonghan with, for the ceremony. Even with all the confusion swirling in his head, he can’t wait for Sofie to hear what Jeonghan has in store.

The priest is less than impressed but moves forward like he can’t wait to have them out of his congregation as fast as possible.

“Okay, and you two leave and the wedding party follows…”

Seungcheol offers his arm to the Maid of Honor, Maria, guiding her back down the aisle where Jeonghan and Sofie bicker. You follow with Seokmin, break away the second it's polite with some excuse about needing the bathroom before you dissolve into the crowd.

The dinner is back at the house. The outside is lined with chairs crowded around tables covered in exploding bouquets and candles. Family members and friends weave to and fro, drinks and food flowing heavily.

You’re talking to Seokmin in the corner of the courtyard, a glass of wine already in your hand as you laugh along to whatever the other man said.

“So Sofie said you’re a lawyer?” Maria asks.

“Yeah, that’s how we became friends. I actually was the one who introduced her and Jeonghan.”

“Wow, so you’re a lawyer and a matchmaker.”

Seungcheol laughs at the compliment. Introducing Sofie and Jeonghan had been a complete accident with unintended consequences. “I wouldn’t say that. I thought Sofie would strangle him the first time they met.”

“Oh, I heard all about that. When Sofie told me they started dating I thought she must’ve meant a different Jeonghan.”

Maria makes good company through the first rounds of drinks before dinner is served. She takes his focus away from you, how your leg presses against his under the table. She grew up down the road, went to school with Sofie all the way through undergrad. Her boyfriend, Jihoon, is a surgeon back in Seattle while she works in marketing. Unfortunately getting time off for a second year resident verges on impossible so he couldn’t come to the wedding.

“You two are so cute together, how long have you been dating?” Maria asks before taking a swig of her drink.

“Oh we’re not together,” Seungcheol corrects swiftly.

You give a tense nod of agreement.

“Really?”

“Yep. We grew up together. She’s like my sister.”

He sounds like an asshole. The words are bile but there can be no room for incorrect interpretations. This weekend had been nothing but confusing so far. Seungcheol needs to set himself straight on where he stands with you.

“Oh,” Maria nods. “Okay. So Y/N, are you dating anyone?”

“Actually I—”

Your response fizzles out because Jeonghan’s dad rises from his seat for a speech.

“I want to take a moment to express my deepest appreciation to everyone here this weekend to celebrate Sofie and Jeonghan. I remember the first time he told us about her, how happy he was and thought ‘oh this poor girl doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into’.” There’s a smatter of laughter throughout the room. Sofie leans into Jeonghan’s shoulder and he places a kiss on her temple. “But then I met Sofie and I can say, without a doubt, there are very few people more perfect for each other than those two. Sofie, welcome to our family.”

Dinner passes, course after course and more wine until Seungcheol physically can’t have any more. You and Maria hit it off, rambling about Jihoon’s two cats and the abandoned kitten that hangs out around his work he’s trying to bribe into coming home. You barely look at him during the conversation but he prefers it.

Dessert comes with coffee and then everyone dissolves. Some stay around the tables to chat and drink and laugh, others help clean up. But Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and the groom's party head for the back gardens, Seungkwan already queueing up the song for one last practice.

It’s tradition, in southern Italy at least, for the groom to serenade his bride-to-be the night before their wedding. Seungcheol couldn’t believe Jeonghan was planning to go through with such tradition but he’s seen the man do more for Sofie than he thought he was capable of so it shouldn’t come as a shock.

The warm summer air does good for his mood, as does laughing with the guys when Soonyoung and Seungkwan get into a wrestling match after debating if they step-shuffle for three or four counts. But they all agree with four because it’s easier to remember.

The top floor balcony at the front of the house turns out to be Sofie’s room. The light floods out of the open doors, and two sets of giggles pour down to where they stand.

Jeonghan cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “Juliet, Juliet! Let down your hair!”

“That’s not the saying.” Seungcheol corrects.

“Shut up, I’m talking to my wife.”

“That’s not the saying!” Sofie laughs from above.

You and Sofie peek over the side of the iron terrace, grins already splitting your faces. You knew what was happening. It’s why you whisked Sofie away with whatever distraction you could think of while the men gathered outside for a quick last minute dry run. Something about broken heels and needing to borrow a pair of shoes.

“Sofie Cosima De Luca, you are the love of my life.” Jeonghan yells. He’s drunk on love (and a lot of champagne). “I can’t wait to marry you tomorrow. I just hope after this you still want to marry me. Hit it!”

The obscenely large speaker Seungcheol carried out starts humming the instrumental to Sofie and Jeonghan’s song. The very one Jeonghan drunkenly serenaded her with in a dingy bar, back when she didn’t believe he could handle a serious relationship and he was hopelessly wrapped around her finger.

“I’ve got sunshineeeeeeee on a cloudy day…” Jeonghan croons.

“Oh my god,” Sofie cackles.

Everyone else joins in, harmonizing in the back along with the choreo Seungkwan and Soonyoung came up with. A simple side step with occasional jazz hands (much to Soonyoung’s tipsy dismay). “I guess you’d say what can make me feel this way?”

“MY GIRL,” Jeonghan belts his line, smiling dumbly.

You’re watching the shenanigans unfold, smiling as well. But while you're looking at everyone else, the only person Seungcheol can look at is you; the way your eyes gleam in the moonlight, your chin tipping back to laugh when Jeonghan’s voice cracks. You’re breathtaking. For a brief moment, barely a passing thought in the roaring river of his brain focused on his cue to sing and side step when needed, Seungcheol imagines what it would be like if you two were the only ones around.

Chalking it up to the moment, Seungcheol thinks about anything else as they finish the performance.

The music dwindles away and all that's left is Jeonghan staring up at his future wife as the rest of the group takes exaggerated bows. Other guest peek from windows or the edge of the drive way, cheering loudly.

“Bravi! Bravissimi!” Sofie cries as you both clap. “Can I make a request?”

Jeonghan nods like an eager puppy in response.

“Sing the Thong Song!” you both request through giggles.

“That's for after the wedding.” Jeonghan winks.

Time for Seungcheol to do his best man duties and prevent Jeonghan from making a complete ass of himself. "Alright Casanova, let’s go.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Jeonghan calls over his shoulder, fighting against everyone ushering him away.

“Don’t be late!” Sofie demands.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

After returning Jeonghan to his room for the night, Seungcheol heads back to his completely unprepared to see you again. Too many feelings swirl in his head. Feelings he thought he finally left back in college.

He remembers only a few key events of his early childhood. When he lost his first tooth, when he broke his arm for the first time, and his soccer game at four years old when Jeonghan and he rubbed dirt in each other's faces and rolled in the grass instead of playing. But other than that, his life has been distinctly divided into two parts: before you, and after you. He remembers when you marched into the first day of second grade with a sparkly blue bookbag much too big for your little body. You went to the front of the class, introduced yourself loud and proud, and then looked around the room like you were daring anyone to say something back.

And like any other childhood friendship is made, you sat at Seungcheol and Jeonghan’s table and asked if they wanted to be your friend. Without even considering the options, they both agreed. From then on out you’d always been Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and YN. Friends in elementary school, all through middle school, and even into the far reaches of highschool when Seungcheol played sports all year while you and Jeonghan did theater. It never occurred to any of you to be apart. Until Jeonghan stayed home to attend university in your hometown. And then it was Seungcheol and YN. Jeonghan came to visit when he could and vice versa. But at university it was you two against the world.

The first time Seungcheol realized he liked you was in third grade after you dumped chocolate milk on Jeonghan’s head because he put a bug in your lunchbox. He married you on the playground and made mud pies to celebrate. And then in high school when Seungcheol realized you weren’t just a girl but a pretty girl and the hormones of his teenage body latched onto that fact and plagued his dreams with the information.

And he never did anything about that crush because he knew it wasn’t worth losing you to act on those silly notions. They passed just like he thought, melted away as time went on and you both dated other people.

But that night freshman year of college…

It doesn’t matter.

Because you have a fiancé and Seungcheol is happy for you.

The sound of running water echoes from the bathroom as Seungcheol enters your shared room. At least it delays the inevitable awkwardness.

Or he thought it would.

“Hey, Cheol?” you call from the door.

“Yeah?”

“I forgot my clothes. Can you bring them to me?”

“Ugh, yeah.” Seungcheol scrambles for the pile of clean pajamas at the corner of the bed, snatching them up and stepping closer to the door that separates you. “Here.”

Mind caught on other things – like not remember that he caught a glimpse of you make last night, barely a second, no real detail except creamy skin and details his brained filled in on its own accord to his own chagrin – Seungcheol trips over his own feet and slams into the piece of wood head first.

The only thing stopping the door from flying straight into the wall is you.

“Shit!” you exclaim following a ricocheting ‘thump.’ “What the fuck, Cheol?”

Clutching his forehead, Seungcheol is oblivious to the tangle of limbs you’ve both collapsed into.

“Fuck, sorry.” He blinks against the stark brightness of the overhead light. You’re clutching at your face, hands cupped around your nose and eyes filled with tears. “Here let me see.”

Your eyes crack open enough to glare at him, narrow and rimmed red. As if he didn’t feel awful enough.

Without a second thought, he strokes across the curve of your knee soothingly. “I won’t touch it, I just wanna make sure it isn’t broken.”

A hand shakenly falls away to unveil your perfectly fine nose. Seungcheol tips your chin up, moving in for a closer look just in case. But everything is fine. You’re not even bleeding, just a runny nose that definitely hurts worse than it looks.

The initial rush of panic ebbs only to be replaced with awareness. Seungcheol is kneeling between your legs, your towel is definitely too short, and the beads of water caught on your collarbone are down right taunting him. He needs to get away.

Now.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, moving back.

Your face morphs into horror at his tone. “What?”

“You’ve got a huge bat in the cave.” Seungcheol rises to his feet, offering you a hand up while ignoring the way your chest struggles against the tie of the towel as you come to your feet as well.

“Fuck you,” you laugh, pushing him away. “Give me my clothes and get the fuck out.”

Seungcheol does just that. As the lock latches back he’s left alone with nothing but thoughts of you.

He remembers. That night you two have never spoken about. And probably would never discuss even under the threat of life and limb. A drunk kiss, in the stuffy bar that didn’t care if your IDs were fake as long as you had money.

Seungcheol remembers the way you felt in his lap, the taste of your mouth, the breathy whine against his lips when he first pulled away from the kiss. Maybe that last detail was a hallucination but it felt real. The heat of your body haunted Seungcheol for the week after it happened.

Not even Jeonghan knew about it.

And he’d rather die than open that can of worms. The first time Seungcheol had a crush on you in high school, he swallowed those feelings and never let them see the light of day. Because you’re his best friend, his longest friend, and if it was between the risk of losing you from his feelings (that he was certain would fade eventually despite the fact they never have) or keeping you in his life, then he’d stay silent if it killed him.

It’s your turn to disappear the next morning. You’re side of the bed is long cooled by the time Seungcheol’s alarm goes off, a piece of him gone with it.

His dreams hadn’t helped. A faceless woman, not even sounds or sights or tangible things he could identify. But he knows the feeling. That alluring warmth of a body firm against his own, the kind that leaves him aching when he wants up. Seungcheol knows it's you. It’s the same images that have plagued his subconscious since adolescence when he’d wake up to messy boxers and the inability to look you in the face for days after.

Feelings he’s long suppressed came out last night. Seeing you in the window, in the bathroom, it’s all too much. And now it chases him into sleep; the one place he thought he might have peace.

Luckily your absence means there's no awkward explanation of why he’s hard. The trip to the bathroom is more of dejected desperation than eager need. Seungcheol hops into the shower and takes care of it, careful to keep his thought as abstract as possible or risk you popping up in his fantasy. Dreaming about you is damning enough. He doesn’t need to add to the guilt weighing on his conscience.

The rhythm of the water lulls his brain into a cycle. He can’t do this. He can’t go another minute

He can’t even survive Jeonghan’s wedding. How he will sit through yours with a grin will be a true test of his acting ability.

But that is future Seungcheol’s problem. Right now he needs to get through today and then tomorrow and after that he’ll be on a plane back home where he can ruminate in the isolated confines of his apartment.

He just needs to focus on one thing at a time.

Right now, it’s getting downstairs in the next ten minutes or risk losing tee time with Jeonghan and the other groomsmen.

There’s only two people he’d ever turn to in a time like this, except he can’t talk to either of them because one is the problem and the other is getting married in a few hours. The last thing Jeonghan needs is to hear about an issue between his two best friends.

Which is why he’s the first to pick up Seungcheol’s mood.

“You look like shit,” Jeonghan greets.

The other mill about the kitchen, snagging leftover pastries and fruit. Usually Seungcheol is the first to show up, not the last. But Soonyoung still seems to be missing.

“Thanks.”

“Rough night?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Well if you’re tired you can always join the girls at the spa.” Jeonghan offers. “Sofie said they’re doing mud baths.”

The wedding isn’t until this afternoon leaving the entire morning free. So the boys play golf while the girls go soak in mud.

“That sounds…horrible.”

“I know,” Jeonghan nods. “Alright gentlemen, let's head out.”

Seungcheol eats shit the entire morning. He usually scores around seventy five but he’s destined to break well over a hundred today and even Jeonghan pretends he doesn’t notice.

“Do you ever think about why nothing happened between you and Y/N?” Jeonghan asks right as Seungcheol prepares to swing.

Kicking a man when he’s down is more of a guideline for his best friend rather than something to avoid.

Seungcheol’s shot flies wide, straight into a fairway bunker a good thirty yards behind everyone else’s ball. He watches for another solid minute, deflating. “No.”

“If you’re gonna lie, at least make it believable.” Jeonghan chides, setting up his own tee.

“I’m not lying.”

“Humor me. It’s my wedding day and I’m trying not to freak out.”

“You’re freaked out?”

“Dude, of course I’m freaked out. We’ve never gone more than a few hours without talking since we started dating and I haven’t seen her since last night. So just let me focus on something else,” Jeonghan sighs.

Seungcheol thinks about his next words wisely. Jeonghan can smell bullshit a thousand miles away, and playing mind games right now feels a little unfair. “I don’t wonder why nothing happened anymore.”

“Lying again but whatever.” Jeonghan grabs for his drive and lines up the shot.

“Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know. Everyone thought you two would end up together eventually and then you didn’t. I’ve got a lot of people asking and I wanted an official response because you’re not exactly subtle and she isn’t stupid.”

Jeonghan’s shot lands square on the first cut, fifty yards ahead of Seungcheol’s ball.

“Yeah, well.” Seungcheol huffs. “If she noticed, she never said anything.”

“Okay but did you ever say anything?”

Jeonghan hands his club over to his catty before they start towards their respective zones. Seungcheol and his friend trailing behind.

Seungcheol argues. “You just said I wasn’t subtle?”

“You aren’t,” Jeonghan snorts. “But Y/N is about as impressionable as rock.”

“Did you think something was gonna happen?”

Seungcheol reaches his ball first. All the other guys are further ahead but Jeonghan sticks by.

“No.” Jeonghan says. “But I know you kissed her.”

Seungcheol turns to the other man, mouth gaped in shock. “How the fuck did you know that? Did she tell you?”

“I KNEW IT.” Jeonghan points at him like a little kid tattling on his friend. “ I fucking knew it! Sofie owes me fifty bucks.”

“What?”

“Y/N is a better liar than you, I’ll give her that but I knew something was off that first week I came to visit. I knew you didn’t have the balls to sleep with her so I must have been something else.”

Jeonghan asked you if you remember the kiss. Jeonghan and Sofie know you kissed. You remember the kiss. But you never said anything. If that doesn’t solidify Seungcheol firmly in the friendzone then nothing else would.

“You made a bet with your fiancée on whether your best friends kissed or not?” Seungcheol shakes his head in disbelief.

“You’ll understand when you have a successful relationship.” Jeonghan touts.

The catty hands over Seungcheol’s driver. He looks about Seungcheol’s age, maybe younger, and by the look on his face he’s trying very hard to pretend he isn’t listening to the unfolding drama.

Another person to witness how hopeless he is. Great.

“It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake.”

“You never know,” Jeonghan shrugs, following his catty further up the fairway and ending the conversation.

Back at the house, you’re nowhere to be seen while Seungcheol showers and changes. It’s for the best. No sleep, a horrible golf game, and now all the feelings that returned over the weekend have left him with nothing but a foul mood.

Every step is dragged out so he doesn’t have to pretend you two are fine. He can’t afford another blow out right now because today is meant to be for Jeonghan and Sofie. Even if Jeonghan thought he should talk about it, Seungcheol couldn’t do it anymore. He wouldn’t do it anymore. But the time it takes leaves his head spinning out of control.

You’re pretending nothing is wrong. Cuddling up to him, calling him your husband. You nearly kissed him. You would’ve if he didn’t stop you. You always said cheating was worse than heartbreak but now here you are, capitalizing on his feelings for whatever satisfaction you selfishly crave; using Seungcheol to hurt your fiancé in secret. Who you seem dedicated to pretending doesn’t exist.

It’s a nasty cycle. Feeling used, disbelief of who you’ve turned into in months away, that piece of him that always craved something more with you flowering only to wilt because it’s not real.

You don’t want Seungcheol.

You never have.

The wedding party gathers outside the church. Sofie is tucked away in a private room until her grand entrance. She wanted everyone to be surprised, leaving her bridesmaids to mingle with the groomsmen until it was time to for the ceremony to start.

The lavender bridesmaid dress is nothing special. A tie at the top keeps the entire thing up, the front void of any details. The open back adds a flash of skin but other than that there isn’t much to it. But you’re wearing it and Seungcheol can feel his heart jerk as the fabric flows around your curves. The universe is taunting him with what he’ll never have.

He doesn’t stare despite the fact that every time he blinks his gaze automatically searches for you. It’s hard to ignore the only person he sees in a crowded room. Even if he’s pissed at you.

You excuse yourself from Seokmin, creeping over to where Seungcheol stands with a grin. “You clean up nice.”

“Thanks,” he nods.

“Is something wrong?’

A shot of annoyance flashes through him. Now is not the place. Last time he felt like this, you two got in a screaming match on a snowy sidewalk. “No.”

You shake your head, hand coming to rest on his arm in an act of comfort. “Are you sure? Because you’ve been acting weird.”

Betrayed by his own body. Half of him wants to get on the next flight home and block your number so he can forget all of this. It wouldn’t work. The times tried anything remotely of the sort only leave him in circling thoughts day and night.

The other half of him wants to wrap you in his arms and take whatever you're willing to give him. The half that could act like Johnny didn’t exist, at least not in this little bubble where nothing else exists but you and him. Because he's selfish and he’s been in love with you for years and he would never expect something in return for his feelings but he can’t take it any more.

But he can’t pretend anymore.

Pretending he’s never been jealous of your boyfriends, and that the night in college when you kissed meant nothing. That it didn’t flood his brain everytime he looked at you; that it didn’t leave more questions than answers. He’s been pretending everything has been fine, that seeing you asleep on his chest doesn’t make his heart hurt, and that he was stronger than the temptation to kiss you last night.

He remembers that night with clarity despite how drunk he was. Thought it meant you felt the same way he had for years.

“Cheers to finally being adults!” you scream, tequila shot raised over head.

Seungcheol laughs. Nothing is that funny but he’s nineteen and drunk in a dingy college bar with his best friend . “Adults!”

Someone passes by and knocks you forward, straight into Seungcheol's chest where you keep laughing as you look up at him.

You’re close. Closer than ever before. He could count all your eyelashes if there weren’t four of you floating in his vision. But Seungcheol doesn’t need to see clearly. Not when you’re already kissing him.

He’s kissing you.

It’s sloppy and drunk but his brain doesn’t think in big picture. It’s all feeling. Your hand in his shirt, a sweet sigh against his chin when you break away for a second just to come right back. Your mouth tastes like alcohol and lime and he’s never had anything better sweep across his tongue.

Thank god for the booth because you’re in his lap now, grinding against the seam of his jeans until he’s hard and when you finally realize you say his name.

And then Seungcheol pulls away, turns his head, and vomits before blacking out.

He hates that he thinks about it. He thinks about it all the time. What if? But there’s no more what ifs. There's only right now. Just you and him and the widening space in between that's become unnavigable.

“I’m acting weird? I’m not the one rubbing herself all over me, calling me her husband to strangers, and trying to kiss me.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t believe you would do something like this. Why would you put me in this position? Do you think it’s funny?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m happy for you, really. I just think it’s best if we don’t talk for a while. I think you need to sort things out with your fiance.”

Now that seems to get your attention. “Seungcheol, what—”

The music swells from the organ inside, cueing the ceremony and effectively silencing your questions.

Good. It’s better that way. Seungcheol is weak for you in all the ways that matter and he knows if he had to stand there for another minute then your hurt expression is all it would take for him to fold and pretend he never said anything.

You join the other bridesmaids and Seungcheol ducks inside the church after the wedding planner opens the doors. One by one the other groomsmen walk in: Joshua, Seungkwan, Soonyoung, and finally Seokmin. Each line up further down Jeonghan’s side. Then the bridesmaids follow.

Sofie’s cousin, who Seungcheol met once, glides down the aisle followed by another taller cousin who looks nearly identical. Then it’s Sofie’s roommate from college, Mona who Josh had been trying to get with all weekend.

You walk up the aisle, a smile plastered on your face but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You won’t look in his direction.

Everything is slipping through his fingers and you both have to pretend they aren’t.

Everyone turns to watch Maria, and then Sofie. But the only person Seungcheol is paying attention to is you.

The ceremony flies by. Sofie cries, Jeonghan cries.

Sofie cries even harder when Jeonghan recites his vows in Italian. It’s odd, watching his two friends who usually are the couple laughing in the corner, be so vulnerable. Declaring their love for each other in front of a few hundred people.

“Sofie, sin dal primo momento in cui ti ho incontrata, sapevo che ti avrei voluta nella mia vita per sempre. Che tu mi amassi o odiassi, per me andava bene, perché significava che avresti pensato a me tanto quanto io pensavo a te. Mi hai dato il privilegio di chiamarti mia, e non posso aspettare di farlo per il resto delle nostre vite.”

Six months of using Seungcheol as practice, along with Sofie’s cousin, and he sounds decent. Jeonghan wouldn’t win any awards for his language skills but everyone’s faces melt around the room. Even the people that don’t know a word of what he’s say can feel the earnest dedication he has to Sofie. Even Seungcheol gets misty eyed.

“Io, Jeonghan, prendo te, Sofie, come mia sposa e prometto di esserti fedele sempre, nella gioia e nel dolore, nella salute e nella malattia, e di amarti e onorarti tutti i giorni della mia vita.”

“I, Sofie, take you, Jeonghan, as my husband and promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in pain, in health and in sickness, and to love you and every day honor you, for the rest of my life.”

Then they kiss and Sofie screams something along the lines of “we’re married, bitches!” much to the priest demise before exiting the church.

From there it’s chaos.

The entire wedding party is corralled for endless pictures while everyone else heads back to the villa for the reception. You don’t look at him and Seungcheol refuses to acknowledge you until your parents are forcing you two together for awkward pictures like its high school prom.

By the time it’s over and he gets to the reception, the party is in full swing and the sun is setting.

Dinner is a blur. He makes his toast, short and sweet like Jeonghan told him to. The night progresses and people flood the cleared area serving as a makeshift dance floor in the center of the courtyard.

Seungcheol sips his wine. Three glasses in an hour because he isn’t sure what to do with his hands when his obligatory dance with Maria is over and he’s avoided being dragged on the floor by one of Sofie’s more zealous aunts because she herself demands a dance.

“How does it feel to be Mrs. Yoon?”

Sofie turns to watch Jeonghan twirls her great grandmother. Or more like Nonna Cosima leads him. She’s surprisingly spry for someone pushing triple digits. “I think he’s gonna be a great first husband.”

His gaze settles on you, Seokmin leading you across the floor in a ridiculous fashion. The younger man is trying hard to make you laugh and it seems to be working.

“She thinks you’re mad at her,” Sofie says.

“Maybe I am.”

“Care to share with the class?” She prods but Seungcheol doesn’t break, using the ending of the song to find a table at the edge of the makeshift dance floor. “Fine, but I feel like if you’re gonna pout at my wedding I should at least know why. Especially because I owe Han fifty bucks because you can’t lie to save your life.”

Seungcheol is mad. But mostly at himself. For tricking himself into thinking maybe, just maybe, there could be something more. That in all the improbable universes you returned his feelings, this would be one.

And he did all that knowing you’re dedicated to someone else who is so entirely wrong for you.

“What did she tell you?” Seungcheol asks.

“That’s not how this works. No pay, no play.”

He studies Sofie for a minute. She’s good at keeping her cards close but she knows about you and Johnny. It wouldn’t be a far leep to assume she knows about everything else.

“God, you sound like Jeonghan.”

“Have you and Y/N talked? Like, really talked, since you got here?” There's a weight at the end of that sentence but Sofie doesn’t elaborate.

“Care to be more specific?” he asks, grabbing for another glass.

“I’ll take that as a no then.” Sofie takes the seat beside him.

His chest tightens. This is it.

“About her and Johnny?”

“So she did say something…” Sofie fishes.

“No she didn’t. But I heard you guys in the kitchen the night I got in.”

“You did?” she gasps. “And you didn’t say anything to her about it?”

His jaw ticks in annoyance. “What’s there to say? ‘Congrats on your engagement, you’re too good for him’? I don’t think that's what she’d wa—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Sofie throws her hands up, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. All around the party continues. “You think Y/N is engaged? To who?”

“Johnny! Who else?”

Her drink sloshes over the sides of her wine glass, narrowly missing the white gown and falling to the cobblestone. “Oh my god, you’re an idiot!”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s not engaged, you dipshit,” she goes on. “Oh my god, you’re both so stupid. I told Han, I told him we should’ve said something.”

“What?” he says quietly.

Sofie continues as if Seungcheol hasn’t spoken at all, “I can’t believe she hasn’t told you.”

“Told me what?”

“She broke up with him!”

She broke up with him. She (you) broke up with him (Johnny). You and Johnny are done. It’s like he’s hearing the news from underwater.

“She broke up with him.” He repeats dumbly.

Someone cheers and then applause follows but Seungcheol is lost in his mind. You and Johnny aren’t engaged. You two aren’t even dating. Haven’t been.

“When?”

Sofie’s face softens. She knows. The first time he introduced you to Sofie she assumed you two were dating. She didn’t like Johnny for a lot of the same reasons Seungcheol did, but also because she thought you two were meant to be together. “A week after she moved.”

That phone call the week after you moved. It must’ve been something to do with you and Johnny. But why didn’t you answer messages the next morning? Why would you break up with Johnny and then refuse to tell him? Why would you let Seungcheol think he was being used as the other man?

“So this entire week…”

“She was supposed to tell you. I told her to tell you months ago but does she listen to me? Nope.”

“Do you know why?”

“Now that is something she needs to tell you.” Seungcheol looks where you're dancing with Seokmin. Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes but you laugh when the man dips you almost to the floor and struggles to lift you back up. “But first you need to apologize.”

“Is it that bad?”

“When I imagined someone crying at my wedding it wasn’t because of you.”

Seungcheol winces, “She cried?”

“Yep. You owe me a nice ass wedding gift for that one.”

“Sofie, I’m sorry I—” he tries to apologize.

“Cheol, don’t worry about it.” She pats his arm. “It was actually a nice distraction from the insanity this week.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It really is.” Sofie rises from the table, snagging a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my husband owes me a dance. And Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

“You should tell her how you feel.”

Seungcheol takes his chance at Sofie’s departure. With the change in music Seokmin bows out and you're left on the dance floor alone. Cast in the soft glow of garden lights and candles, you’re tragically beautiful. Soft around the edges in a dreamy haze. Seungcheol feels like he’s intruding by approaching you but he needs to apologize before you both return to your separate corners of the country tomorrow night.

“Hey,” he greets.

You look at him apprehensively, eyes dark, before speaking. “Hi.”

You’re just as petty as Seungcheol so he knows if you’re speaking to him then there's some kind of hope he hasn’t completely ruined your friendship. But it could also mean you’re about to rip him a new one in front of everyone for not the first time in his life.

Hopefully, it’s the former.

“Mind a walk?”

“We’re at a wedding.”

Jeonghan and Sofie curl tightly around each other at the center of the courtyard. It’s clear from the way both their faces soften, lax grins reaching their ears, that the world has stopped spinning just for them.

“I’m pretty sure we could light them on fire right now and they wouldn’t notice. Besides, Sofie gave me her blessing,” he jokes but you don’t laugh.

“Fine,” you say before stalking towards one of the paths leading to more secluded parts of the house.

People drape across different parts of the villa as you two walk in silence to find some privacy. The gardens are full of chatting elders, kids running around in the dark or falling asleep in some adults' holds. After ten minutes with no luck at seclusion, Seungcheol has half a mind to go back to your room and talk it out but he doesn’t. The idea itself freezes his blood.

It’s not until you're deeper into the maze of shrubs and bushes that the voices and music fade. The silence is so tense he might shatter under the pressure.

You whip around to face him, still five paces ahead.

“What did you want to talk about?” you deadpan.

Seungcheol thought through every thing he wanted to say, all the questions and whys and what ifs he’d collected during this trip but they abandoned him now that they have the chance to be answered. Instead, all that comes out of him is a shaky, “I’m sorry.”

You wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. He’s apologizing for more than he could put in words and he’d list them off until the sun comes up if he starts now.

“Okay. Is that all?” you ask.

“Sofie told me about Johnny.”

You blanche. “She did?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“What did she tell you?” your arms draw tightly around your center. Like you’re holding your heart from spilling out your chest.

Seungcheol regurgitates the limited facts Sofie shared, which is that Johnny hasn’t been in the picture for months and you never deemed him worthy of that information.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I tried. But you didn’t answer your phone and I felt so stupid afterwards and… I just couldn’t do it.”

It hits a nerve deep in his heart. How could it have been easier to spend months pretending he didn’t exist then tell him your relationship ended? More anger slips through. The nasty kind that makes him say things he doesn’t mean but Seungcheol tries to reign it in.

“So you just ignored me and thought that’d solve all our problems?”

“No!’

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I moved cities for a guy I didn’t even like that much! I changed my entire life for him just to prove a point. Because you were right about him and I was wrong and only took a fucking week to realize that after I screwed everything up. I should have listened to you but—”

“So you lied to me because you didn't want me to say ‘I told you so’?” Seungcheol fumes. “Are you serious?”

“I didn’t lie to you!” you object.

“Yes you did! You stopped talking to me for months! Months. I can’t even remember we went a week without talking but you dropped off the face of the planet,” he rants. “I thought you were happy in New York with Johnny but apparently I’m the last to know anything. If you had just told me I wouldn’t have said anything. I would have gone up there and moved you back home myself.”

“I don’t want you to fix my mistakes!”

“Then what do you want? Because from where I’m standing I have no idea. All week you’ve been acting weird and because you didn’t tell me I thought you were using me to cheat on your boyfriend. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“I didn’t mean to. Things just kept happening and I got swept up before I could tell you.”

Seungcheol was nothing more than a meaningless distraction, a rebound.

“So it didn’t mean anything to you?” he asks.

“No!” you cry. “I was just distracted.”

“Distracted? Are you serious?”

“You know what? Forget it. You don’t want to listen to me, you just want to be mad and yell.”

You’re right. Seungcheol does want to be mad and yell and pull his own hair out because what you’re saying isn’t helping untangle the knotted mess of his brain. It’s making it worse. Your confessions are watering that seed of hope in his chest despite the fact he knows nothing will ever happen. Even with Johnny out of the picture.

“Why did you break up with Johnny?”

“I—” Your eyes close. Pulled tight like you’re finding the courage to tell Seungcheol some dark secret. “He…” you swallow. “I broke up with him because…”

Seungcheol tenses, prepared for the absolute worst. You moved your entire life for the guy and broke up with him a handful of days later. There had to be a reason. “Because why? Did he do something?”

“No!” you correct. “I wish he did, I probably wouldn’t have felt like such a bitch but he didn’t do anything at all. I just realized we didn’t work.”

“You didn’t ‘work’?”

I told you so, indeed.

“Yeah. It’s kinda difficult to be with someone when you're in love with someone else,” you reply.

Suddenly, Seungcheol wishes he never brought it up. Another guy. One that isn’t him. Again. He’s the other man. Those gut feelings, the nagging voice at the back of his head that reminded him time and time again you couldn’t feel the same has its own ‘I told you so’ moment.

But that’s not what makes him feel horrible. He’d suffer from overthinking as long as needed just so you wouldn’t look so ashamed.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Seugncheol waits for you to elaborate. More silence except for the crunch of your shoes across the stone walkway. A bench comes into view and you slip into one of the spots before speaking again.

“I…I always wondered why those dates never worked out. Like, I would like someone but then they didn’t want the same things or they’d want the same things but I didn’t want them. And I guess Johnny was my last ditch effort because maybe if I knew from the beginning things weren’t gonna work out then I’d never be disappointed.”

Seungcheol isn’t sure what to say so he stays quiet.

“And I thought I could just live with it. Knowing I didn’t have what Jeonghan and Sofie have. Like who actually gets that in their life? But…”

“But?”

“But then I realized that there was only one guy my whole life that’s actually been everything I wanted and I was comparing everyone to him.”

“Who?”

“You.”

Him. You’ve compared every guy you’ve dated to him. He’s the person you want, the man you’ve measured everyone up to and found them wanting.

You’re in love with Seungcheol. You broke up with your boyfriend for Seungcheol.

You love him back.

“It’s fine, if you don’t feel that way about me. I’m okay with it. I wasn’t planning to tell you because I expected anything. I just… part of the reason I didn’t say anything is I know you don’t think about me like that but this week I thought— I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”

“You…what?”

“Let’s just agree to pretend this never happened, okay? We should get back to the party.” You move to rush past him but Seungcheol hooks an arm around your torso, light enough you could break through if you really wanted to but you stop all the same.

There is no way in hell you drop that bomb on him and leave him to deal with the aftermath alone.

His voice is unrecognizable to his own ears. “You broke up with Johnny because of me?”

“Yeah,” you swallow. You refuse to look at him, focusing on the neatly clipped grass your heels sink into.

“Because you’re in love with me.”

You flounder. It isn’t a question. It’s a fact.

“How long?” Seungcheol presses.

“What?”

“How long have you been in love with me?”

“It's always been you.”

Seungcheol’s heart detonates into a million pieces.

“You?” His pulse is sprinting. You’re in love with him. Have been. Maybe as long as he’s been in love with. Impossible for it to be longer because there's no moment in time when Seungcheol didn’t carry his feelings for you like an old friend. “You didn’t say anything.”

Your eyes are wet again, more tears he wants to brush away but he can’t do anything but stare. “I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he whispers back.

“What's supposed to mean?”

Your nose brushes along his, eyes soft as you glance at his mouth.

Seungcheol won’t let himself kiss you yet. He can’t. The first time he feels your lips on his in years has to be in private because he shakes at the idea of it, a part of him chips away from just imagining even the most chaste brush. But mostly because he’s terrified that once he starts, he knows he won’t be able to stop.

“Do you remember that night in college?” he asks. You’re stunned speechless by the abrupt shift in topic but the words fall out of his mouth before he can think of a better way to say what needs to be said. He continues, “when we did a million shots and you kissed me?”

You snap back, slapping a hand on his chest and nearly teetering to the ground. “You bitch! You kissed me!”

“So you do remember!”

“Of course I remember,” you declare. “I thought you didn’t remember.”

You remember. You remember how his mouth tasted, how you ground into his lap, the feeling of his hands on your ass. All of it sticks with you like it stuck to him.

“Trust me, I remember.”

“Well, why didn’t you say anything?” you huff.

“I was going to but you told me you started dating whatever-his-name before I could.”

“Because I thought you didn’t like me back!”

“I’ve liked you since the first day I met you.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“You should’ve said something.” The admonishment means nothing. Not with the way you smile at him. It makes his heart soar, hope bursting at the seams.

“I didn’t even know you realized I was a dude until college, why would I say something?”

“Trust me, I knew you were a guy way before college.”

“And we’re back to the original question: why didn’t you say anything?”

It's ridiculous. Utterly comical and unimportant of who said what when because they’re being said now and Seungcheol never has to pretend he isn’t hopelessly in love with you ever again.

You cozy up into his chest, fingers tracing the collar of his shirt. “Wow, barely five minutes we’re already fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.” His lips burn the word into your hairline, arms wrapping around your frame so his fingers can finally, finally, trace the bared skin of your back.

“Oh really?” You laugh. “Then what are we doing, oh wise one?”

“We’re having a spirited conversation over the fact you kissed me and never said anything.”

“And now we’re fighting over whether or not we’re fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“You’re exhausting.” Your eyes roll. He can’t see it, not with how you duck into his neck, but he knows you did it. Because Seungcheol knows you better than anyone else.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“And you kissed me.”

“Well then there's only one way to settle this.”

“Which is?”

Seungcheol doesn’t answer. If Jeonghan could be lit on fire and not think of anyone but his wife, then the world could fall to dust and the only thing on Seungcheol’s mind is the way your mouth feels against his.

It’s light at first. Airy because you’re both still laughing over arguing if you’re fighting or not. But then Seungcheol loses his balance and you help by curling a hand around his shoulder but refuse to stop kissing him and the world blinks out of existence for a second.

All the cliches start making sense. Two halves of a whole, puzzle pieces slipping together, all the things poets could say in a million more eloquent ways than him.

But Seungcheol feels at home for the first time in his life.

It’s not easy maneuvering a full grown woman up and into his lap. It’s especially not easy because you’re you and you’re more stubborn than anyone he’s met in his life which means you object to every step, huff and puff at a brief second of broken contact, but the second he spins you around and drags over his lap you melt.

Your tongue glides along his, sending a tsunami of want through his bones. You whimper. Or maybe he does. Seungcheol can’t tell what's up and what's down right now. He finds the open back of your dress and relishes in the arch of your spine, the choppy breath he can feel beneath his palms.

The silk bow holding your dress up teases his hand as Seungcheol traces the notches of your spine. No one would see. No one except him and the moon and the stars who’ve all stopped to watch. He wants to. God, he wants to but he doesn’t.

You tug at his hair and your name floods his tongue like a curse.

Draped across his lap in nothing but thin satin, you can feel all of him. How his cock hardens against the back of your thighs, shaky breathes in his lungs wrecking into your own chest. You're not wearing a bra. None of that tape or the sticky thing you’d leave hanging in the bathroom when you lived together. Seungcheol knows because he thumbs over the soft swell of your chest and you respond with a rock of hips that leaves his mouth watering.

The last time he kissed you, that fateful night freshman year of college, Seungcheol thought about it every night for months. He thought about it in the shower, in his bed. His mind would wander towards the memory during class and when he walked around campus.

Now he’ll think about this for the rest of his life.

A shrieking laugh almost sends you to the ground in haste to break away, but Seungcheol catches you in time.

“Um…” you choke. Your lips are swollen, eyes a little dazed.

“We should go back inside.”

“Yeah.”

“Just, give me a minute.”

“Why?” Your smile grows steadily as you press more firmly into his predicament.

“I have an issue right now.”

“What kind of issue, Cheolie?” you stare at him through your lashes, finger tracing down the front of his shirt until you reach the button of his pants.

“Oh God,” he grunts as the heel of your hand rocks into him. “You’re actually evil.”

Your lips trace over his jaw, sucking and nipping at the lobe of his ear until he shudders. “Don’t you want me?”

“I do,” he breaths. “Shit.”

His hand squeezes across your ass, your breasts, mindful of how much freedom you’re giving him. To feel you like this, to touch you the way he’s wanted to for years.

“Then have me,” you moan.

“Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to fuck you right here.”

“But I do want you to fuck me.” Your hand is in his pants. “Right.” A tight squeeze on his cock. “Here.” He ruts into the next one.

His insides spark with a hot kind of electricity at the idea of you jerking him off where anyone could see. But he wants to touch you. And that he doesn’t want anyone else to even imagine. He’s shared you enough with the world.

Seungcheol wants a piece of you that's just for him right now.

“Fuck, okay. Stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re going back inside.”

“Oh?”

Seungcheol doesn’t give into your obvious goading. It’ll just waste more time. Give you another chance to wring him out to dry and he knows if you get his pants down far enough it’s game over for the both of you.

He rushes you through the garden, all but dragging you behind him in his haste to get you somewhere secluded. He’d settle for a broom closet at this point. Anywhere he can have you alone.

But you won’t go down without a fight.

You slow to a near stop, whining, “My feet hurt.”

Seungcheol leads you back over another stone bench, immediately kneeling and grabbing your ankle. The pebbles of the path dig into his knee but the slit of silk revealing your bare legs is a good distraction.

“Alright, Cinderella. Let’s get these off,” he jokes. The buckle is delicate and keeps slipping from between his fingers no thanks to your help.

“I can do it myself!”

You try to kick him off but Seungcheol catches your calf easily. Instead of focusing on the teasing stretch of skin, he watches the way your nose wrinkles indignantly after thwarting your attempt to catch him off guard. You’re cute. Probably because he’s in love with you and the rush from knowing you love him back has him feeling a million miles tall.

“Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

Pulling your foot into his lap, Seungcheol brushed his fingers against the knob of your ankle. The tiny buckle that refuses to come undone. Your shaking doesn’t help much.

“Cold?” he asks.

You nod furiously. Warmth hangs in the air but Seungcheol won’t assume your comfort; the silk you're wrapped in doesn’t provide much coverage against the elements. It doesn’t provide him any protection from a wild imagination fueled from years of pining. Without a thought, he shakes off his jacket and hands it to you before moving back to your shoe.

Looming over him, Seungcheol feels your breath hit his forehead. He wants to look up but you’re too close. Too tempting.

He finally undoes one shoe, then the other. But you don’t say anything and neither does he from his spot between your legs. It’d be easy. So easy to bunch your skirt around your waist, part your legs, and make you cum on his finger. Then his mouth. Then his cock.

You’re thinking the same thing. A hiccup of breath rustling the hair on his forehead, your hands stroking the muscles of his neck give you away.

But when he starts, he knows he won’t be able to start. He’ll want nothing less than all of you. Give all of himself to you. If you’ll have him.

But a hard stone bench isn’t the place to worship your body the way you deserve. He’d be a gentleman. Even if it killed him to wait any longer. You were worth waiting for. Seungcheol would wait a million more lifetimes if he got to feel like this again.

No shoes means he’s carrying you the rest of the way. He’s done it before and you’re not that heavy but he’s been drinking. And then there's the matter of all the blood in his body heading south, so he struggles more than usual.

“You’re sure you’ve got it?” you cling on for dear life when he nearly stumbles under the first step.

“Sorry, I haven’t been carrying a lot of full grown women around lately.”

“I thought you were looking a little small,” you goad.

“Small?” he objects.

“Yeah, small.” You squeeze over his biceps and his chest like you two aren’t sneaking around a packed mansion where anyone could stumble by. His resolve slips further out of reach at the dig of your nails. “Been skipping the gym lately?”

He feigns dropping you, laughing when you scramble for hold under threat of falling flat on your ass.

“Asshole!” you laugh.

Things fizzle back to comfortable silence. Your companions are far off laughs and the loud music from the courtyard. The garden is all but abandoned, not a single soul in sight. It makes it all too tempting to find another bench and take up what was interrupted earlier. The heat of your breath against his ear with each giggled whisper didn’t help. Neither did the warm weight of your thighs in his hold or the firm press of your chest against his back.

It’s a mistake to look over his shoulder. Your eyes shine in the moonlight as you stare back, a smile lifting the corner of your lips.

Seungcheol focuses back on the hallway, double checking for any passersby. There’s nothing indecent about a man giving a woman a tipsy piggy back ride.

But there is something entirely inappropriate about how hard he is while doing so.

And Seungcheol knows you know. Or if you don’t then the universe has a personal investment in his suffering. Every step is more difficult than the last because your thighs squeeze around his torso, and your hands find their way down his chest, and then there’s the giggling every time he back tracks because a drunken guest stumbles by on the way to their own room.

You’re sneaking around like two idiot teenagers and it might kill him from lack of blood to his brain.

But Seungcheol wouldn’t have it any other way.

He pauses at the last staircase to catch his breath. There’s no reason you’re still on his back other than the fact he doesn’t want to let you go and the position is the only reason he hasn’t found a dark corner to do whatever you please yet.

“Awww poor Seungcheol, tired already,” you coo.

Your teasing tone makes his blood boil, worse how you readjust your hold with more squeeze and stretching that leaves him with nothing but horribly inappropriate thoughts of what you’ll do after he gets up the stairs.

Finally, the hallway housing your room appears and he can’t get through the door fast enough.

You're pressed flat between the door and his body in a blink, fully at Seungcheol’s mercy as he kisses you again.

“Wait,” you mutter.

Seungcheol sucks along your bottom lip. You pull him closer, arching into his chest. Your stomach is soft against the gentle grinds of his cock. He doesn’t want to wait anymore.

“We—hmmm,” you sigh. “Need to talk about this.”

Seungcheol pulls away from your mouth, trailing scorching kisses down your neck that leave you shivering. “What about it? I love you, you love me. Feels like that's all there is to it.”

The second he says it, Seungcheol knows he’s wrong. But he doesn’t want to think about the fine details. He’s never done long distance but you’re only a train ride away.

“Cheol.” You prod a finger into his collarbone until he dips back.

“I mean it’ll suck being in different cities but it’s not forever right? We’ll figure it out.”

You dip your chin. “I’m not staying in New York.”

“Oh. That’s—” he cups your cheek, pulling your gaze to his. “I’ll go wherever you need me.”

You smile up at him and everything goes blank. In that moment, he vows to do anything you ever ask if it means you’ll keep looking at him like that.

“I’m moving back to D.C.” You kiss the words into his palm, eyes never leaving his.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “Sofie’s friend needed a roommate and my job agreed to let me go remote so…”

“When do you move back?”

“Two months. They want to wait until the busy season is over.”

“But then you’re back. For good?”

“For good.”

It feels like you're promising a whole lot more..

You have Seungcheol for good too. As long as you want him, he’s yours. Probably for long after too.

He’s so happy, it burns across his skin. It can’t be contained. This is all real. He fights the urge to pinch himself because not even in the wildest of his dreams did he think this was possible.

"When you come back home.” Home he thinks. Home with him. Where you belong. “We're going on a date. And you're going to let me pay, and woo you, and take care of you because I love you. Okay?”

Your hands twine around his shoulders before you respond with a nod, “Okay.”

In the privacy of your room, you’re the one that tugs the knot holding your dress up. The silk slips down your chest revealing inch after inch of what he’s only dreamed off. When it pools around your waist, Seungcheol almost falls to his knees.

You shiver in the cool bedroom air. His eyes drink in the way your nipples peek under his gaze. Every inhale shakes in your lungs and he thinks this might just be enough for him to die peacefully. The silk trickles like water down your figure until you're left standing in nothing but skimpy panties.

“Fuck,” he curses.

Your hands flash to cover your chest, “What?”

“No, don’t,” Seungcheol reassures. His hands find yours, tracing along your thumb. “You’re just…”

“Just?” you ask.

“Wow.”

“I’m wow?” you laugh.

Seungcheol takes another step into your space. And then another and another, your dress crumbling to the floor and leaving behind nothing but the thin band of your underwear for him to remove. Your knees hit the mattress and he follows you down into the cushion.

You're soft and warm like afternoon sunlight on a winter day under his wandering hands.

“You’re wow,” he responds, angling your chin so your mouth can meet his, noses grazing against one another.

You don’t have the patience to hear Seungcheol ramble about how perfect you are. Instead, you drag him into a desperate kiss, tongue teasing his. He’ll wax poetically later. Right now he wants to give you whatever you demand.

More kissing, the prickle of your teeth along his lip, and Seungcheol is pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life. It’s humbling and exhilarating all at once. Ready to crumble into nothing from some light petting.

He takes his revenge on the curve of your shoulder and it turns out to be extra sensitive. Every nip and suck along your collarbone leaves you panting, hands scratching up his back for some relief. He wonders what else is sensitive.

He laves against your nipple in maddening slowness. You torture him as well, ankles locking at the base of his spine while you grind against him and make more noises he’ll commit to memory forever.

“God,” you whine when Seungcheol finally breaks and rocks down into the tempting heat of your core.

He needs more.

“Do you think about this?” he grunts with another torturous press. He could come like this. You could come from this. Two adults, reduced to dry humping like horny teenagers.

“I think about you all the time,” you gasp.

“What do you think about?”

“You.”

Seungcheol snickers, “More specific.”

“Touching me, kissing me. Anywhere. Everywhere.”

A swell of neanderthal pride blooms in his heart. The image of you, touching yourself with his name on your lips breaks another piece of his self control that wants to savor this.

“Here?” he kisses the swell of your breast, waiting for a nod to move on.

“Here?” A suck on your nipple again until the bed sheets threaten to rip from your hold.

“Here?” A bite at your hip bone.

His fingers part your core, wet at first contact even over your panties. “What about here?”

“Everywhere. I’ve thought about you touching me everywhere.” You sound like you might start crying if he doesn’t fulfill that fantasy soon.

But he’s dying to know every little thought you’ve ever had about him. If you think about him a fraction as much as he thinks about you. Not just like this, but when he sees a building he’d never think twice about and know you’d have something to say about the construction of the window arches, or when he walks through the park and sees two dogs meeting for the first time and can hear your voice whisper ‘best friends!’ like you’re right beside him. You’re in everything. Every part of who he is.

Your panties come off and he licks between your legs slowly, savoring every part he can while you twitch and curl beneath him.

“Cheol,” you whine.

There's no need to elaborate. He feels it too.

Your back bows under his touch, and Seungcheol watches you touch yourself with rapt attention. You grab your breasts and squeeze, nipples visible between fingers.

He sucks your clit, tongue lashing at the sensitive nub. A million times Seungcheol thought about doing this and never did his brain imagine the sounds you’d make, the way you taste, the rough tub at his hair. You're hot and wet under his mouth and all Seungcheol wants is more, more, more.

“Tell me how it feels.”

“So good—fuck—it’s so good,” you gasps as he fucks your opening with his tongue, collection your flavor.

His finger wedges inside your tight walls. You angle your hips, sinking them deeper. Seungcheol pauses for only a moment before giving you a second one. The sting across his scalp from your frantic tugging leaves him straining against the zipper of his slacks.

He cups your ass, dragging you closer to the edge of the bed where he kneels. Your legs spread wider to grant him the space to savor the pink of your folds under his tongue without obstruction.

Your pitch rises, moaning through a third finger joining the mix and a rough lap of his tongue that has you kicking the sheets.. He can feel it; your end just over the hill. A few vulgar flicks of his tongue and its release in long waves that make you keen his name horsley.

You melt into a boneless heap. Occasional twitches of muscles flooding with pleasure the only sign of life.

Seungcheol mouths up your stomach, sucking a nipple between his teeth for a second before moving on to your mouth. If all you want to do tonight is kiss and let Seungcheol worship your pussy, then he’ll oblige. But the way pull at his clothes hints at what you want. He draws you back into his lap, your body hot against his, mouth coaxing yours open.

“Good?”

You giggle against his mouth. “I can’t feel my toes.”

He can’t stop touching you. Probably won’t ever stop now that he knows what it means to call you his. To know your body. You’re no better. Your hands rake through his hair, goosebumps erupting as you tug him exactly where you want.

The soft lines of your throat, the intoxicating taste of sweat and perfume flooding his tongue. It’s better than anything his sorry excuse for an imagination could come up with.

You tug at his shirt, up and up until it’s forgotten on the floor. Your bare chest against his lights an inferno of want. Seungcheol pushes apart your limp thighs, making space for himself to grind against your sensitive core through his own trousers.

Seungcheol remembers a crucial fact as you slip a hand in his pants and tease his leaking cock.

“Wait,” he mutters into your jaw.

You don’t stop, slowly jerking him off, teeth cutting into the vein on his neck. “What?’

Seungcheol savors your touch before responding, thrusting through your first with blind want. “I don’t have condoms.”

“Oh.”

“I can go and try to find some but I—” he rambles.

“Cheol.”

“—everyone is probably still at the party so—”

You shut him up with a hand over his mouth, “I’m on birth control and I’m clean.”

“Oh.”

Oh. Seungcheol’s brain swims with lewd imagination; you stuffed with his cum, pussy stretched and worn from his cock. Feeling you raw, again and again until your helpless sweaty messes.

“Unless you want to use them then that's fine!” you hastily supply.

He cups your face, smiling as you ramble about how okay you are with using condoms. Your face is warm, eyes avoidant while you enthusiastically declare you want to do whatever makes him comfortable. Which is an entirely new problem because if your goal is to make him comfortable, then neither of you will be leaving this bed for the foreseeable future and at some point people will start looking for you.

Seungcheol rolls over. You take advantage of the opportunity for free command of his lap, forcing his pants down until he’s as bare as you. He preens under your wide eye stare, ego flaring under your wide eye stare. Leaning back on his palms, he grows cocky from your silence.

“Like what you see?” Seungcheol goads.

Your gaze cuts to his, eyebrows arched in your own challenge. A flare of fear zaps up his spine.

He loves it.

Seungcheol is accustomed to taking the lead in bed. Some girls want him to be domineering, others prefer to sit back while he naturally takes the reins.

But you’ve butt heads with him in every aspect of life, hopefully this would be no different. He’s hoping you might even try telling him exactly how you want him.

“You’re so hard for me,” you whisper. Your hand reaches out, thumbing at the leaking head of his cock with seductive confidence.

Seungcheol nods in agreement at a loss of words under your touch.

Your head cocks to the side curiously, empty hand slipping between your thighs, making space for the head of his cock to nudge against your clit. “Do you wanna fuck me?”

He nods again.

“Good,” you smile. You hide in his neck, nosing along the tense muscles straining to break out from his skin. “I thought about you fucking me like this. When we were in high school. I thought—I wanted you to be the first.”

“Really?” he asked dazedly.

Your first. Not Stoner Ricky from Calculus. But him. You wanted Seungcheol to have you first, possible be the only one for each other. It’s a lie if he didn’t think of you in the back of his mom’s car while Tiffany Something took his virginity. Your lips, your voice instead of her nasally pornographic sounds, when he came it was only because he closed his eyes and thought of you.

He tells you that and earns a deep bite on his shoulder.

You continue, “I’d watch porn or read those smut books, and I always pictured it was you.”

“God.”

You sink on his cock, pussy stretched on his length, stars flaring across your vision. There's not enough air in the room to breathe through the tight squeeze wrecking your guts. You’re in the position of control but Seungcheol can already see submission gaining control. You won’t admit you can handle his cock but pride warms his veins at how much energy it takes for your stunted rhythm.

“Fuck,” you curse.

“Yeah? Feels good having your pussy stuff with my cock?” Your nails bite into his chest in response. Pink lines flare in their wake, one he hopes are still there tomorrow.

Seungcheol drags you into a kiss, a dirty culmination of teeth and tongue and your satisfied sighs and his needy grunts. You suck at his lips, focused on that rather than riding him.

“Taping out already?”

You ignore the dig. It takes the barest twinge of his arm and you’re rolling on your back, legs spread in invitation. He sinks into the space reserved just for him, sliding deeper than before. Now he’s the one that needs a moment. Squeezed to death between your walls is the sweet torture he’s ever experienced, the wet sloppy drag of your cunt, bare for him and him alone.

It’s an act of bravery to pull out for the sake of thrusting back in. If he was confident enough you could get off without his hips sinking deeper then he’d never do it, content to keep his cock wedge inside you and play with your clit and tits until you cry from the pleasure. But he really wants to fuck you.

“God, feels so good.” You break. He keeps his pace steady, building you up until you muster a way to squeeze him tighter and his skins on fire.

He hoists your leg up, a deeper stretch that leaves him muttering about how good you feel. The wet slap of your cunt grows louder, sloppy clashes of his pelvis against yours.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, stomach caving. The urge to cum is nipping at his heels but Seungcheol is better than that. Better than a quick fuck, at least for this first time. He wants to hear more of your sounds, fold you in every position he can imagine.

“More,” you grunt. “Fuck me harder, baby.”

He gives you what you ask for; plowing you into the mattress until the headboard slaps against the wall. “You like that?”

“Love it—shit. I love it.” You prop yourself up, shoving a hand between your bodies to swipe messy strokes across your clit. Seungcheol collects more sounds from the back of your throat, rough growls and stuttered squeaks. His cock is heavy in your guts, soaked with your arousal and his cum.

Your mouth finds his. Panting breath and loose tangles of lips. It’s a race against time with his vision bleached white. Your stomach caves with effort to meet each stroke with one of your own.

“I love you,” he groans.

You clench at his words, growing wetter if possible. Flailing against the bed, he hooks your other knee under his elbow and presses flat, pinning you down under his mercy. “I love you,” you whine back. “I-I—”

Your orgasm floods your veins, brain fuzzy and disconnected from anything beyond Seungcheol. He takes over the circles around your clit. Calloused fingers providing sick friction until you can’t take anymore.

“Wanna feel you come, Cheolie. Please,” you beg.

Something snaps and he’s rushing to pull out, jerking off over your stomach with your hand to help.

Rope after rope shines in the dim moonlight. He can’t even try to pretend the thrill of cumming inside isn’t on the forefront of his mind as the drips of his spend stare back at him. But you look like a fantasy come true cover in his cum, skinned flushed, eyes glazed and chest heaving. His own Venus come to life.

He pushes back in, spent cock sensitive to the squeeze of your cunt. Seungcheol doesn't want to be anywhere else. Now that he has you, he can't imagine a moment without you.

Sinking the weight of his hips, your legs lock him in. A combination of cum, sweat, arousal, and a few tears sticks between your sweltering bodies. Neither of you care, too enamored with cataloguing every bare inch of skin with in reach of your mouths.

‘Ugh,'' you groan. “I need a shower.”

In the bathroom, where so many horrible dangerous thoughts have plagued Seungcheol since the start of this trip, it’s peaceful. The thrum of the shower drowns out any sound beyond your sleepy huffs and his hums of content.

As the water heats you press him into the edge of the sink, kissing him as if there's all the time in the world to do just that. That seed of need that has been growing steadily in his gut since he kissed you in the garden comes alive again. You seem to ignore the prod at your thigh though so Seungcheol ignores it too and shepherds you into the stall.

He washes your back with soapy hands and you coif his hair into a shampoo mohawk and it’s feel right no matter how ridiculous he probably looks. You twist every time he touches your waist, shrieking in laughter because you hate being tickled.

Seungcheol is happy. It floods his veins, shoots through the tips of his fingers tracing your hip, forcing a content grin on his lips despite the fatigue of the day. He rests his forehead against your own and takes his first deep breath since New Years.

“I don’t want this to change anything."

“What?” you pull away.

“No!” Seugncehol shouts, wincing at the voluming. “Not—I didn’t mean that I just meant…I-I want you to feel like you can tell me anything. No more secrets. Okay? No matter what changes between us you're still my best friend. If I'm acting like an ass I want you to tell me. If you change your mind then-"

You watch him, features softening. “I won't."

You distract him with your own touches; it’s nice at first. Then it’s nothing short of blissful agony. Teasing nails across his stomach and sides, firm against his body in a way that leaves him weak and wanting. His heart thuds sporadically under your lips as his cock swells against your stomach.

“Y/N,” he sighs.

You kneel in front of him, smirking at how easy he is. You rub his cock with a slick grip. Your mouth comes into play slowly; kissing his hip, then his thigh, your tongue drags up the side until you suck the head between your lips and Seungcheol almost collapses.

You hold his thighs, guiding him further down your throat until there's no more space and you gag. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands but it doesn’t matter because he’s cumming. Fast.

Without missing a beat, you swallow everything he gives you.

“Oh god—fuck.”

“Good?” you ask, still licking against the head of his cock.

Rather than answer the obvious, he pulls you to your feet with a gentle kiss to your forehead. He’ll make it up to you back in bed. For right now, you curl into his chest, tracing shapes into his collarbone as the water slowly turns cold.

He pats you dry, ruffling your hair in the humid bathroom with all the time in the world before dragging you back to bed. You snuggle under the covers, still naked. Seungcheol joins immediately, rolling on top of you and caging his arms on either side of your head.

“Hi,” you smile from underneath him.

He can’t help but grin back. “Hi.”

You make love slowly this time. Your back to his chest, Seungcheol curled around you like a second skin, whispering his adoration in your ear until you lurch and cum with a cry. Then he does it again. And one more time because nothing is better than the taste of his name on your tongue.

This time, when Seungcheol finishes, it’s inside you. And when he tries to pull out, you protest with a sleepy threat before slipping into the land of dreams.

“Well, well, well,” Jeonghan tsks from the foot of the bed. “What do we have here?”

You’re still curled in Seungcheol’s arms, bare skin on bare skin only obscured by the blanket he had half a mind to drag over your two in the early hours of the morning. He’s still inside you for Christ Sake.

And yet Jeonghan and Sofie stand like two cats who caught the canary; unperturbed by the state of things. More like they’re delighted.

It might go down as the shortest honeymoon in history because Seungcheol is going to murder them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a boat in Greece somewhere?” Seungcheol croaks, pulling you closer and forcing the blanket overhead. Maybe if he ignores them long enough they’ll go away.

“We were just leaving and wanted to say goodbye since some people decided to ditch our wedding. Now I see why.”

“Jeonghan,” you croak.

Jeonghan preens smugly. “Yes, whore?”

“Get out or I’ll show Sofie that video of you from Halloween.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What video from Halloween?” Sofie asks.

“Jeonghan,” you warn. You’ll do it. The video of Jeonghan sobbing in a party city wig about how much he liked Sofie before they started dating is one of the few pieces of blackmail against him.

“Fine. But when I’m back next month I want an explanation.”

“What video from Halloween?” She asks again as Jeonghan pushes her out the door.

“I hate him,” you say.

Seungcheol hums his agreement against your shoulder, tracing the skin with his lips until you shiver. “Me too.”

“Now, are you gonna do something about that,” you rock back into his pelvis, a tight squeeze around his cock he bucks into. “Or can I get up?”

“Roll over.”

Seungcheol fucks you for the nth time in so few hours. You whine and whimper and melt into the mattress under his weight, face buried in the pillows in an effort to stay quiet. He doesn’t care that the sun is heavy in the sky and half the house must be able to hear the way he groans around the syllables of your name.

He doesn’t care one bit.

Seungcheol has seen you in plenty of relationships, been in several of his own, but he’s never been in a relationship with you.

Turns out all the daydreaming and what-ifs couldn't come close to reality.

It’s better.

Most things are still the same. You two still bicker about everything. He finds your hair all over his apartment. His clothes magically disappear from his closet only to turn up at your place. You call him a stubborn jackass and he calls you a drama queen (both in regards to how he loads the dishwasher).

And he loves that even while dating you two refuse to change.

But Seungcheol also loves all the new things. The firsts you get to share.

The first time you visit home as a couple, your mom spots him kissing along your knuckles as you approach the house and she starts crying. Loudly. He spots his dad hand his mom twenty bucks but not before your dad hands over another ten.

Apparently, everyone was waiting for this to happen.

His dad claps him on the shoulder and your dad shakes his hand and suddenly he’s no longer Seungcheol, childhood best friend who lived down the street. He is Seungcheol, boyfriend. He’s known your parents since he was in elementary school and his mom texts you more frequently than her own son.

But none that matters because, at the ripe age of thirty, you two are banned from sleeping over during the visit for the first time in your lives.

He’s got a suspicion it’s because none of them know how to handle their kids finally dating. You and Seungcheol have never been normal but they’re trying.

Even if he sneaks out like he’s a teenager and climbs into your window in the dead of night. Now that's a fantasy come to life.

Back in the city Seungcheol discovers more ways things have changed.

You spend almost every night at Seungcheol’s apartment. When your sublease ends after four months there isn’t a big production about moving in with him. You had a key since he moved into the place years ago. Your stuff ends up in his spare room, which becomes ‘your’ room but you both call it the guest room and it's a new level of domesticity he’s never had.

In the mornings, you find him in the bathroom if he forgot to drop a good morning kiss on your forehead (something he’s started doing on purpose because you totter in with your eyes still closed and pajamas wrinkled, diving straight into his chest and grumbling incoherently until he gives in). It’s enough to make his heart squeeze even after the hundredth time).

Or how you constantly find a reason to touch him. Curled around his back while he makes dinner, shimmying under his arm when he’s reading case files on the couch. A hand through his hair while you cuddle in bed. Your shared bed, in your shared apartment. Which he is embarrassingly giddy about but you are too and that makes him feel better. You meet for lunch, at either of your offices, and he can see the instinct to drop into his lap making your fingers twitch but only because his own flex with the urge to pull you in first.

The first time you go to a baseball game together and end up on the kiss cam and he doesn’t have to pretend to not notice or awkwardly wait for the cameraman to catch the hint, because you’re kissing him until his ears grow hot and the crowd hoots wildly.

In the best way possible it’s weird. He doesn’t know how to date someone he’s been in love with for as long as he can remember. A lot of it feels like being friends. Like whatever was there before is the bones and all the new things filled in the empty space between.

There isn’t really a guide or set timeline but you’re figuring it out.

And Jeonghan helps. In his own Jeonghan way.

“You guys have been softcore dating since highschool. Just think of it like dogs. You’ve dated for a year now, right? That's like seven years for your guys.”

Seungcheol will tell you later tonight, after you’ve said yes, how the last part of your trio gave his blessing. How Sofie helped him pick the ring (which was really Seungcheol picking the ring and her providing moral support via muzzling her husband).

But for right now, he watches you across the table, laughing at something the waiter said, the weight of the velvet box burning a hole in his pocket.

And he knows the next first you have together will be the best one yet.

Taglist: @tomodachiii @cvpidyunho @miniseokminnies @ddaengpotate @arycutie

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sehnsuchts-trunken · 6 months ago

Text

What Happens in Cars, Stays in Cars

dbf!jake seresin x fem!reader 9k words

summary: After a month-long deployment, Jake is finally coming back home. Well, not home home. You're too desperate to wait until you've actually got him home. But who needs home when there's a perfectly good car anyway?

a/n: porn with plot. a lot of plot. and a lot of porn. 18+ obviously. reader is twenty-five in this, jake is forty-seven. as always, a list of things to watch out for:

nudes. mentions of masturbation. pet names used in an unholy way. the word 'brat' is dropped twice. safe sex (yess they still have a condom!!! i feel like i deserve a round of applause for not forgetting it). car sex, so a tiny smidge of exhibitionism. dom!jake. a lot of begging, as always. a tad bit dry humping. first finger sucking, then fingering. any more, uh....? i don't think so. there's not much space in a car for anything else.

top gun masterlist | dbf!jake seresin masterlist

(the gif has nothing at all to do with the fic, but tell me that's not dbf!jake working out in his backyard knowing you're watching him istg)

It's a one time thing. That's what they told him. A one time thing.

He isn't supposed to do these anymore. He's supposed to be stationed permanently, sitting in his office and doing what an admiral does. Important work, surely. It's a high honour and he's proud, of course. But office work... Office work has never really been his thing. And if they'd deployed him for this mission four months earlier, he would've been thrilled.

He's the best of the best. The navy knows. He knows. Which is why he's an admiral by now. And also why they want him coaching the new hotshots for a month, halfway across the country.

And, yes, he would've been thrilled - four months ago.

Four months ago, when you'd not yet moved back home. Four months ago, when he hadn't yet met you. Four months ago, when he hadn't known what it was like to hold you, to touch you, to miss you.

His phone chimes and momentarily distracts him. It's not that he didn't mute it - he's standing in front of a bunch of twenty-something year olds who he does try to be a role model for - it's just that you'd tampered with it once and ever since then, you've had a personalised ringtone that still somehow works even when everything else is muted. (He could totally turn that off if he wanted to, though. Definitely. Ab-so-lu-tely. He just... doesn't.)

His jaw clenches and he has to restart his sentence, but other than that, he manages to pretend nothing happened. Nonetheless, he has to glare at the snickering wannabe-pilots in the first row, who remind him very much of a young version of himself.

You're three hours ahead of him and probably just got off work. It's likely nothing but a sweet "having a good day?" message or maybe a photo of you all dressed up, ready for dinner with your friends like you'd planned.

Either way, knowing your message is sitting unopened in your chat has him talking quicker. He finishes his lecture half an hour early and fishes his phone from his pocket before the first of his pupils have even got up from their seats - which turns out to be a horrible, horrible idea, because the photo attached to "don't know how long i'll stay out, have a nice night, admiral" with the winky face emoji is not one of you all dressed up for a night out with your friends, but one of you in just a pair of panties in front of the mirror. The mirror in his bedroom.

Fucking god-

He seems to let out some kind of choked up groan or something of the sort, because a few of his pilots turn to look back at him. One even has the audacity to ask if he's alright, which he certainly isn't. But that's absolutely not their problem.

So he grumbles something about how they should all use their free time to go to the gym instead of bothering him before he collects his things and flees to his room. One of the many advantages of being an admiral, of course, is that he doesn't have to bunk anymore, which is always the greatest nuisance for anybody who's ever looking for privacy. The times he's had to listen to guys jack off a foot away from him- fuck, the times they'd had to listen to him.

No, right now he is incredibly thankful for the privacy of his bedroom as he locks the door behind him and opens his phone again. Goddamn, why were you in his house? His fingers hover over the call button for a few seconds, but then he decides against it - you're going out with friends for the first time in months, he doesn't want to bother you.

He's popping the button of his jeans and sitting down on his bed right as you come online.

"Like the pictures, baby? I've got more"

And before he can even respond, you've sent a bunch more selfies, half of them in front of his mirror, the other half on his bed and none of them decently clothed. Fucking hell, in one you've got your fingers down your panties and Jake is really thankful for the privacy of his room then because he groans so loudly that a bunkmate would definitely have heard.

"Are you still at dinner?", he asks, his fingers flying over his keyboard while he tugs at his zipper with his left hand.

"Yeah, won't be home soon", you write back. "Sorry"

"Don't be", Jake responds, as quickly as he can, because he definitely does not want to make you feel bad for spending time with your friends. "Have fun"

"Have fun with the pics", you send. Jake can picture your grin, sitting all dressed up in a restaurant and ignoring your friends to text him. "Thought those could maybe make up for no phone call tonight"

He swallows hard as you log off, leaving him with those pretty pictures of yours that certainly improve his night by a lot. Hell, he's already moving his briefs out of the way and clicking on your photos again. Just seeing you half-naked in his room - fuck, the thought of you sneaking over there only to do a goddamn photoshoot... You're really unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. And he can't wait to get back home to you.

...

"I miss you", you mumble into the phone, blinking at the alarm clock on your nightstand. It's eleven thirty, not nearly late enough for you to feel as exhausted as you do.

"I miss you too, darling", you hear Jake drawl on the other end of the call. "I'll be back soon."

"Not soon enough", you whine - god, you sound pathetic and miserable to your own ears already, you must sound ten times worse to him. You fall back onto your pillows and let out a deep sigh. "Would it be rude to say I hope the mission gets cancelled?"

Jake chuckles. Fucking hell, you miss that chuckle so much. You miss him so much. You miss cuddling up to him under the covers and tucking your head under his chin. You miss running your fingers through his hair and having your hands on him. You miss seeing him, standing in the kitchen or working out or tinkering in the backyard or fresh out of the shower. Shit, you even miss sneaking around with him, because at least then you'd gotten to watch him from a distance, maybe steal a kiss when your parents hadn't been looking or spend a night at his house pretending to be at your friend's.

Now he's halfway across the country and absolutely, completely out of reach. You'd barely gotten to see him at all - twice it had worked out to video-call during a lunch break, once he even managed to show you around his office after work. The camera quality is hardly any good, of course, which means video-calls aren't all that great, plus the connection never seems to really be stable, so with a few exceptions, you've only seen Jake in pictures over the past two and a half weeks.

His deployment would take another one and a half and then, finally, he'd be back home. Back home with you.

"I won't answer that", Jake says, and you can almost hear him grin. "But I wouldn't mind either if they moved the mission up."

You have to bite down on your lip to hide a smile.

"So you think you're good to go?", you ask softly, not wanting to bring the mood down further, instead opting for the non-classified work questions. You've already been bringing down the mood enough back here at home - you don't need to fill the few minutes a day you get with Jake with your whining as well. Your parents already hear enough of that. Of course, they don't know why you've been in such a bad mood ever since Jake left. And they can't know, either. You can't tell them. You can't tell anyone.

You can't tell anyone because no one knows that you've been sneaking around with your dad's best friend for the past three months. So you resign yourself to moping around and keeping out of everybody's way as much as you can. For one and a half week more, one and a half...

...

Exactly one and a half week later you're standing at the airport in your best heels and a little yellow sundress and are positively buzzing with nervous energy. Jake's plane would get in at half, he'd said, when you'd last spoken to him six hours earlier. Then the plane had taken off and so had his wifi.

You're playing around with a strand of your hair and doing your hardest not to start chewing off your nails, which proves more difficult than you'd thought (even though you'd put on nail polish).

You're just so excited.

It's been a month since you'd last seen him. A month. And at the early stage of your... relationship, if you could call it that, that's basically half a year. God, how long it's been since you've run your hands through his hair, since you've felt his arms around you.

You miss him so much.

Your phone chimes and you fish it out of your pocket with trembling hands, only to be disappointed when it's not a message from Jake. It's not like you'd told him to text when he'd landed, just... A part of you is kind of scared you're waiting in the wrong place. Maybe he's on the other end of the airport - it's not a particularly small one. It'd take you hours to find each other if you were waiting in the wrong place.

Then again - maybe the plane is late. Maybe he's had to wait for his luggage.

You check the time, just to be safe. It's 11:46. For all you know, Jake is still in the air. Or less than a door away.

You bounce on your feet, nervously shifting back and forth before checking your phone again. The text you'd gotten is from one of your friends, who you text back only to distract you. It barely works anyway. You can't put it away again quickly enough.

It's not even that you don't want to distract yourself. You just physically can't pay attention. You've been a nervous wreck for the past three days, ever since you'd made the plan to pick him up from the airport. Which is probably why you almost don't spot him.

Almost.

He walks through the opened doors with his suitcase rolling behind him, his backpack slung over his shoulder and at least five other people rushing past him.

He sees you before you see him.

But then, then when you see him-

You're already sprinting towards him before your mind even tells your legs to move. You can't control it and you can't be bothered to. Why would you?

You don't care about the people glancing at you with raised eyebrows. You only care about Jake, about Jake who's standing there, pulling his hand from the handle of his suitcase and grinning at you. Grinning at you as you run at him and throw yourself into his arms.

He catches you effortlessly and steadies you as you cross your hands behind his neck and press your lips to his.

God, how you've missed him! How long you haven't kissed him!

His palms flatten against your back and he holds you tight, so tightly to him. You push even closer. He's here. He's back.

You don't realise you're crying until you taste the tears.

That's when Jake pulls back.

"I've missed you", he mutters, raising a hand and brushing the tears off your cheeks. You lean into the touch and tighten your arms around his neck. You're really touching him. He's really here.

"I missed you too", you try to say, but you're choked up and crying and it somehow comes out a blubbering, stuttering mess that you're not quite sure Jake can even understand. "Missed you so much."

He smiles one of those gorgeous smiles that you haven't seen in far too long before he leans down and presses a soft kiss to your forehead. Your eyes flutter closed as you lean into him, your fingers trailing up the nape of his neck. His breath mingles with yours as he draws you in again and catches you in another kiss, tugging gently at your bottom lip as if he has all the time in the world to do it - slow and languid and real. Finally real again.

He pulls you in by your waist, his hands splayed wide and so, so big against your thin sundress. Your nails scratch against his neck and he lets out a groan and suddenly, he's got his hands on your thighs and you're wrapping your legs around his middle and tightening your arms around him and his lips are working against yours feverishly, heavily, messily. You're crossing your feet behind his back when one of them hits something hard. You've flinched away from him even before you can hear the dull crash of his suitcase kissing the airport floor.

There's blood rushing in your ears and you're sure if someone measured your heart rate right now, you'd be sent to the ER immediately. You probably look like a tomato with all the redness in your cheeks. But Jake stares at his suitcase silently for two seconds too, breathing heavily as his grip on you tightens further.

As much as he likes having you in his arms, his suitcase reminds him that you're still very much in the middle of a well-used airport. So he turns back to you and lowers his voice.

"I think we should get out of here, darling."

Your lips tug up into a grin and you lean in to give him just one last, quick kiss.

"Yeah", you breathe, carefully jumping back down onto your own feet. Jake lets go of you only reluctantly - if this wasn't a public airport, he'd never have let you go again. But it is, so he swallows hard as you brush your palms down your dress and blink up at him with a smile.

You're wearing heels. You're still shorter than him by quite a bit.

His amusement melts into a frown when you grab the handle of his suitcase.

"I've got that", he says, reaching his hand out to take the suitcase from you, but you're already maneuvering it away from him and starting to walk in the direction (you think it's the right direction) you'd parked your car in.

"I want to do it for you", you hum.

"Sweetheart, you're already doing enough for me", he says, and he really does mean it. You've driven all this way to come pick him up, you'd watered his plants while he'd been away, you'd even cleaned. That one mostly because you'd desperately needed something to do and Jake's house had always smelled like him, but still.

"Doing enough to you, you mean." Your grin borders on lewd as you dig your teeth into your lip.

"Yeah, that too", he sighs, but he has to grin as well. You're absolutely unbelievable. Instead of trying to argue (he knows it'd be fruitless anyway), he wraps an arm around your back and pulls you into his side, his hand resting on your waist again.

You glance at him.

"I'm not letting go of this suitcase", you warn, even as you lean into his side and swallow. God, he looks so good. And he smells so good. And he feels so good.

"Got it", he chuckles, brushing a kiss to your temple and pulling you even closer into him. He can't have you close enough. Does this fucking airport not have an end? He just needs a little more privacy, a little more space-

"This way", you say and point right. Jake smiles at you as you guide him down the halls. He can't help but watch, can't help but stare at you, at your dress in that soft shade of yellow and your matching heels. Autumn doesn't seem to have caught up with you yet. Then again - autumn hasn't caught up with this place yet. And he's used to Texas heat, he likes that it doesn't get cold here. Also, those sundresses... Yeah, he certainly isn't complaining about the weather.

You speed up when you finally catch sight of the doors, dragging him along with you, almost falling into a jog. The suitcase rumbles against the airport floor, the wheels click-clacking over uneven ridges and bumps and then, thank god, you feel the sunshine on your skin. His hand tightens around your waist.

"Home sweet home", you grin as you take the first step onto concrete. You swivel around and steady both palms against the handle of his suitcase behind your back, bouncing on your heels and looking up at him. "After about a three hour drive."

Jake chuckles and looks back at you with raised eyebrows.

"You'll drive?", he asks. You hum.

"Maybe", you grin as you turn away again and walk over to your car, parked only three rows away for whatever holy reason. You'd been incredibly lucky. And you'd almost run over a grandma. "Or maybe not."

Jake follows you with another low chuckle that sends a pleasant tingling sensation down your spine. It's been so long since you heard that chuckle behind you.

He's next to you again within a few long strides, reaching out for you and you slow your steps to intertwine your fingers with his.

His hands are so big. He's holding onto you so firmly. Fuck, you've missed him so much.

You squeeze his hand and walk a little quicker. Car, home. Car, home. That's it. Then you've got him all to yourself. You can see the car glinting in the sunlight already - and then it's three hours. Three hours next to him in an enclosed space before you've truly got him back.

You stop and let go of his suitcase to fish the car keys out of your pocket without dropping his hand. You push the unlock button and open up the trunk before you turn to Jake and grin at him.

You want to say something, really. It's on the tip of your tongue, still running through your mind, but you've completely forgotten it when you look up at him.

Because while you'd been dragging him to the car, he'd pulled his sunglasses out and put them on and for whatever reason... That kind of does it for you. Holy shit.

"Are those new?", you ask hoarsely and swallow hard, the car keys digging into your palm as you tighten your fist around them. Maybe it's just that you haven't seen him in a month. Or maybe it's the way the sunlight catches his hair, slightly longer than when he'd left. Maybe it's just that with the sun behind him, you've got no choice but to squint at his broad shoulders.

"The other pair broke", Jake explains, letting go of your hand only to wrap his arms around your waist. Fuck, you're just standing there, doing absolutely nothing and he already can't keep from touching you. He has to touch you. He's got to put his arms around you and pull you close. "Why? Don't like it?"

You steady your palms against his chest and let out a breath as your eyes drop to his lips - he's got that cheeky look on his face that's not really a grin but not really not a grin and that nobody but him can do.

"I do", you counter, because it's the truth, and there's no way you can lie to him. "I very much do."

"Very much?" Jake does grin then, raises his eyebrows and pulls you fully against him. "That's more than just a yes."

Your fingers fist his shirt, the car keys digging into his chest just as firmly as they're digging into your palm now. He doesn't seem to be too bothered. He really isn't too bothered.

"They look good on you", you mutter, pulling him even closer. It's been too long since you'd pulled him close... And he feels so good, smells so good, looks so good. Fuck, he's so big and broad and-

"Thanks", he mutters, his grin all cheeky and self-assured and god, is it really this hot? Do you just feel this hot? Because you feel really, really hot. Your skin is burning. How the hell are you supposed to manage a three hour car ride?

"Jake", you whimper, without even meaning to. It's barely above a breath, barely above a whisper, and still too much of a whine to sound anything close to appropriate. A sort of grunt leaves his lips before his arms tighten around you, before he slots his mouth over yours hard. His thumbs drag circles against the small of your back, catching on the fabric of your dress. Your fingertips dig into his shirt, into his chest.

The sun beams down on you, warming your thighs and your arms and every exposed inch of skin, brightness behind closed eyelids as you push further and further into him. He's so sturdy, all hard abs right in front of you, broad arms around you.

You don't even notice the breathless moan that escapes your tongue. You can only feel the heat boiling inside of you, the desperate heat inside of you crawling up your body, every inch of you burning. Burning with want for him. With need for him. Fuck, he's been gone for way too long.

And then he pulls back.

You need a few seconds to even blink yourself back to reality.

"Home?", he suggests, even though it's less of a suggestion and more just a fact. He's getting you home. Now.

"Please", you whine, already halfway through pulling back and dropping the car keys into his palm. Three hours. Three fucking hours, you... You simply won't manage to sit down behind the steering wheel with your skin crawling and your underwear soaked through.

You'll barely manage sitting in the passenger seat.

Jake presses another kiss against your temple before he grabs his suitcase and leaves you standing there, trying to pull yourself together. He's breathing hard and his muscles are tight, his jaw clenched as he heaves his suitcase into the trunk and drops his backpack into it right after.

You force your legs to work, to carry you to the passenger side, force your arm to raise and your hand to close around the handle. It's heavy and hard work. Your body feels leaden, entranced. You let yourself collapse onto the seat and close your eyes.

Fuck.

You'd forgotten how much... how easily...

"Seatbelt, darling", Jake reminds you as he climbs into the driver's seat and adjusts it. You swallow hard and strap yourself in, trying to even out your breathing and pull yourself back to reality while you fumble for the confirmative click.

"Three hours", you remind yourself breathily.

"Three hours", Jake agrees lowly and turns the key in the ignition.

You settle back in your seat and close your eyes, clenching and unclenching your jaw as the radio starts playing and the car rolls out of the parking lot. You just have to relax. Just relax. Relax.

So you breathe out deeply and open your eyes again. Jake glances over at you as you lean forward, flick through the radio channels and then adjust in your seat - it's touching too much, too little of your skin, and the way you're rubbing against it somehow doesn't help in the slightest.

Before you can tuck one of your legs under the other and press the heel of your foot against your core, Jake puts his hand against your thigh. Against your bare thigh. His big fucking hand against your bare thigh.

You bite down on your lip and look up at him.

God, he looks so good. His features are chiseled, his hair that sunny, beachy kind of blond-

"Stop that", Jake grunts, his eyes trained on the road in front of him. It takes you two seconds to even realise he's talking to you. You'd kind of lost yourself in staring at him there.

"Stop what?", you ask, voice hitching as his fingers tighten on your thigh. Damn it, he needs to stop that. He's hardly been driving five minutes, he can't already be teasing you.

For once, actually, he doesn't even mean to tease you - not that you know. He just can't help but touch you, not when he hasn't touched you in a month, not when you're sitting so deliciously, tauntingly next to him.

"Stop looking at me like that", he says, taking his hand off of you to change gears before grabbing even tighter onto you again. "Or I'll have to pull over."

You brush your fingers along his wrist. Your chest feels tight, so tight. It takes everything in you not to push his hand further up your thigh. And you'd actually thought you'd manage a three hour car ride.

"I'll stop", you breathe, even though pulling over doesn't seem like the worst idea. "If you want me to."

A muscle twitches in his jaw.

"Don't do that", he warns, his voice staggering into that indecent gruff of his that has you clenching your thighs together, trapping his fingertips between your legs.

"Don't do what?", you ask, trying your best to sound somewhat innocent while you continue this little taunting game, not as though you're deliberately riling him up. You aren't, really. It's more just a reflex.

He turns his head to you then. His eyes are narrowed and his jaw is clenched and honestly, the way he's meeting your gaze all serious, as though he's trying to reprimand you just by looking at you - for no more than three seconds, of course, before he drags his eyes back to the road - has your lips tugging up in a teasing grin.

"Jake", you whisper, drawing your nails slowly up his arm, all the way from his wrist to his elbow. "Baby. You've been away for so long. You know how lonely I've been, right?"

Jake glances at you again and grunts his agreement, eyebrows raising as he starts to realise what you're doing.

"You can't blame me for looking at you", you go on, digging your fingertips into a spot right above his elbow and drawing one, two circles there. "Or for touching you."

Then you shift in your seat, spread your legs a little and run your fingers down his arm again. You grab his hand and brush his fingertips against the soaked spot on your panties.

"Or for being this wet", you whisper, your breath hitching from the sting in your stomach. He lets out a low curse. "I've just missed you so much."

He sucks in a breath then and trails his fingertips up your panties once, just once, before he jerks his hand back and clenches it hard around the steering wheel, so hard that his knuckles turn wide. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck! You're driving him crazy. You're driving him fucking crazy.

He's supposed to be responsible here. Somewhat responsible. You're young, you've got that risky twinkle in your eyes that he knows so well because he'd seen it in the mirror himself for over twenty years. He knows the thrilling buzz that's running through your veins. He still feels it whenever he's in the air. And he feels it around you.

Which is why he's not responsible, not when it comes to you. Not when you're sitting next to him in that pretty dress, with no shorts on and completely fucking soaked through.

You grin to yourself as he pulls off the highway and bite down on your lip, shifting in your seat once more, fighting the urge to trail your own fingers into your panties.

You haven't even asked how his deployment had been.

But goddamn, you'll have enough time to do that once you've got home. Or got off. Or got him off. At this point, you don't fucking care.

He pulls into one of those parking lots that mainly trucks use, one of those where there's hardly ever a toilet and if, then one that hasn't been usable since the last century. Right now, there's two trucks right at the front that Jake just brushes past. He parks your car at the far end and turns the motor off.

The silence is heavy.

Your breath comes much too quickly. Your eyes are fixed on him. And every inch of your skin is crawling with heat. But you don't move. You can't move.

He rolls his seat all the way back.

"Jake-", you whisper, catching on his name when he looks up and meets your eyes. There's a ghost of a grin on his lips, but... Maybe you're wrong.

"Yes, darling?", he asks, raising his eyebrows and leaning back in his seat. You have to strain your neck to keep looking at him. Instead of an answer, you just softly shake your head. You're suddenly unsure of what to say. His eyes weigh you down. You're painfully aware of every inch of your skin under his watchful gaze.

"Come on", he drawls, the grin that's growing on his lips more obvious now. "You were all eager to talk just then, baby."

Your teeth catch on your lip as you let out a breathless sigh. Your fingers hover over the buckle of your seat belt. Can you? Or...

"I missed you", you whisper, letting your fingertips glide over the hard plastic. "Can I-"

You swallow.

"Can you what, darling?", he repeats, grinning widely now.

You chew on your lip as you push down and unbuckle yourself slowly, your eyes still trained on Jake, who simply watches you with raised eyebrows.

"Can I touch you?", you whisper, your breath disappearing into the thick air of the car, the seatbelt still caught between your fingers. The corners of his mouth only tug up further.

You look angelic with your wide eyes and rosy cheeks, so obviously desperate to feel him - but still you don't move. You sit there and wait for him to tell you what to do. To allow you to do something. Anything. It's almost endearing how well behaved you are in moments like this.

"Go on, darling", he drawls. "Come here."

Without hesitation, you reach over the centre console and grab onto his shoulders, steadying yourself against him as you throw one of your legs over his and climb into his lap. His hands find your waist, grab onto your sides, hold you softly against him. Your teeth dig into your lip as you sink down, your fingers trailing along the outline of his collarbones over his shirt, your dress riding up and pooling around your hips. You suck in a breath when your panties drag against his jeans.

Fuck. It's been so long. It's been way too long.

"Jake", you mutter as you lean in, pressing your lips to the corner of his mouth, brushing your nose against his cheek. "You look good."

He lets out a breathy chuckle, his grip on you tightening.

"I know, darling", he can't help but say with a grin. "Thanks."

You giggle onto his skin as you trail your lips down his jaw. Sometimes he's incredibly unbelievable. I know. How cocky. Not that he shouldn't be - goddamn, he should be! You can't even fault him. And confidence is sexy. Especially on him. Though, then again, anything on him is sexy.

"I've missed you", you mutter, pressing another open-mouthed kiss against his skin, this time against the spot between his neck and his ear. "Missed looking at you. Missed touching you."

"Yeah", Jake breathes, digging his hands into your hips and pulling you harder onto him. "I've missed you too."

He's missed you so fucking much that he's hurting, straining against his jeans so hard that he feels like he might combust. And you're kissing down his throat, pressing your lips against his skin, wanting, needing to touch him, to feel him-

A month away from each other. A month too long.

"I need you, Jake", you whimper into his ear, all breathy and desperate, rocking softly back and forth in his lap and letting your eyes fall shut.

"You need me, baby?", he echoes, grabbing you as tightly as he can and dragging you against him, his head thumping back against the seat.

A filthy moan slips past your lips as your hips roll against his, finally, for the first time in weeks. God, yes, you need him so badly. You need him now. Here and now, in the driver's seat of your car.

"Please, Jake", you breathe, steadying one palm against his chest and grabbing one of his hands with the other. You wrap your fingers around his wrist and tug it off of you, but before you can drag it down to your panties again, drop it between your legs and beg him to fuck you, before you can do any of that, he's turning your grip around and taking your hands in his instead.

"You're getting ahead of yourself, baby", he chuckles, settling your hands against your thighs. He's painfully hard by now, yes- But that doesn't mean you can just drag him to where you want him. "Seems like you forgot your manners."

You're already shaking your head before he can finish. No, you haven't, you haven't, you just need him so badly... and you can feel him, you can feel that he needs you too, so why doesn't he just take you? Why doesn't he-

"I haven't, Jake, I promise", you whisper, looking at him and forcing yourself to still on his lap. It won't help you if you move. It definitely won't help you if you move.

"You haven't?", he asks with raised eyebrows, looking all but amused at you. You keep shaking your head no, no, no. "So if I'd told you to stay in your seat and wait, you would've?"

You bite down on the inside of your cheek and look away. He's grinning. He knows. He's not even really asking. But if you've learnt anything, anything at all about him, it's that he doesn't like to be ignored. If he asks a question, he wants it answered. So you'll answer.

"No", you breathe truthfully, because you most definitely wouldn't have managed a three hour car ride next to him. There's no way you would've managed a three hour car ride next to him. No fucking way.

His grin widens.

"No", he repeats lowly. "No, darling? You wouldn't have listened?"

"Couldn't", you correct, fighting the desire to rock against his thighs that's growing with every passing second. He looks so fucking good. He smells so fucking good. He feels so fucking good. And he'd fuck you so good, you know that, if he'd just finally get to it.

"Couldn't", he echoes, his fingertips rubbing circles onto the bare skin of your thighs. "That desperate."

It's just that he's that desperate, too. Desperate to feel you wrapped around him, desperate to hear you whimper and moan. He needs you as much as you need him.

"You want me to fuck you, baby?", he asks, all smooth and casual and your fingers dig into your thighs to feel something, anything. It's unbelievable how easily something so dirty slips off his lips.

"Yes", you gasp. "Want you so bad, Jake. Please. I'll be so good for you. I'll be perfect."

A muscle ticks in his jaw.

"You are perfect", he breathes, even though that hadn't been his plan at all. But he has to say it. He has to tell you. You've got him wrapped around your little finger, even if you don't know. And he's not all that sure you don't know anyway.

Your teeth catch on your lip, your hands dig harder into your skin and-

And Jake's thumbs trail along the inside of your bare thighs, brushing up naked skin, drawing a shallow breath from your tongue. A shiver runs down your spine as you clench your legs around his and force yourself to keep still. He's touching you. You have to remind yourself of that. He is touching you. There's no reason at all for the urge to defy him, to pop open his jeans and just sink down on him. He's touching you, he's touching you...

Yeah. Barely.

"Let me feel you", you beg, drawing your hands away from your thighs and trying to put them against his chest - but before you can, he's pulled his hands away from your thighs as well and grabbed your wrists. Again.

"You're not in charge here, darling", he chuckles, pushing your hands back down. He grabs for your waist again. "If you can't behave, I'm gonna put you back in the passenger seat and keep on driving, got that?"

You nod.

You want to be good for him. You will be good for him. God, there's no fucking way you could have managed the car ride already, and if you had to sit through it now, after this- No. You'll be good for him. You'll be so good for him.

He flashes you a grin and goes back to dragging his thumbs along your thighs.

"Ask nicely", he says. "Maybe I'll-"

"Please", you blurt out, your hips involuntarily bucking into his touch. "Can I kiss you?"

His eyes drop down to your mouth then.

"Yeah, baby", he mutters, his thumbs catching on the hem of your dress. "You can kiss me."

He expects you to jump at him, to slot your lips over his and lick into his mouth eagerly - but you only steady your palms carefully against his chest and lean in, your eyes focused on his, your breath meeting his skin. You kiss him softly, lightly, with your lips just so grazing his and your eyes fluttering shut. His fingertips run down the soaked spot on your panties.

That's when your teeth catch on his lip. You sink them into his skin gently and tug, your heart missing a beat as he groans into you. He hooks his fingers into your panties and pulls them to the side just like you'd hoped, just like you'd begged for.

Jake's right - you're not in charge. But that doesn't mean you don't know what buttons to push to get what you want.

His fingertips trail through your wetness for the first time in a whole fucking month. It's long overdue. So long.

You moan into him, pressing your chest right up against his and fisting his shirt, and push closer. You need to be this close. You need to be even closer. You need him to fuck you, now, not only to drag his fingers up to your clit.

But he's too focused on you, getting too drunk on the feeling of you. He's finally got you here again, finally on his lap again, finally kissing him again, finally eager for him again. He's finally touching you again. And he has to touch you.

You're so fucking wet. You're soaked. He wants to take his time to notice that. He needs to take his time to notice that. He needs to touch you, to feel you. He doesn't even mean to tease you. He doesn't even realise he is teasing you. Not until you rock into his hand and let a whine slip into his mouth.

You really don't intend to. It's an accident. You don't want to rush him. What you want is to be good for him. But you can't help yourself.

And he knows you can't.

Which is the only reason he doesn't pull back and leave you high and dry. Well, that - and his desperation to have you.

So instead, he pushes two fingers into you and catches the languid moan you let out. Fuck. You sound so sweet. You feel so perfect. It's been so fucking long.

"Jake", you whimper, just because it's also been that fucking long since you've whined his name into his mouth. Into the low-quality mic of your phone, yes. But with his lips on yours? With his fingers thrusting inside you so precisely, hitting the right spot immediately? No, that's been too fucking long.

It's dirty. Not quick, like the other times neither of you had been patient enough to look for a better spot to have each other and had opted for the car instead. No, it's just dirty, with his fingers pumping in and out of you, his tongue running along yours and your knees rubbing against the seat.

Maybe it's because the radio had turned off alongside the car, or maybe it's just the long month you'd spent apart - either way, all sounds are louder than they should be, your ears ringing with your moans, your wetness around his fingers and his lips against yours.

Goddamn.

He's working magic. You don't know how he hits the right spot again and again and again, his fingers curling, his thumb catching on your clit - but he has you clenching around him, warmth pooling in your core, wetness dripping down your thighs and onto his jeans within minutes.

You pull an inch away from him, your eyes still squeezed shut, your palms flattening against his shirt, and the only reason he knows he isn't just dreaming of you again is because you're warm and wet around his fingers. Everything else about you is unreal.

You're gorgeous. You're so damn stunning, rocking your hips back against him and moaning his name, your lips parted and your skin sweaty.

"Fuck", you pant, your chest rising and falling so tantalisingly that his eyes drop right down to your cleavage. "Just like that."

He has to grin to himself, but he lets it slide, if only because you're looking so pretty holding onto him as he pushes his fingers into you and circles your clit - just like that. Again and again, until you're digging your nails into his chest and catching your lip between your teeth and moaning his name, Jake, baby, fuck, fuck, fuck, until you're clenching around him and shuddering in his arms, until you're reaching your high not on your own, but on his fingers for the first time in four full weeks.

"Attagirl", he mutters, straining so hard against his pants that it hurts. "I've got you."

You press your lips against his jaw sloppily as you come down, your breath shallow, your skin burning, just needing to get your mouth on him. You can feel your heart beating, every thud, thud, thud against your chest. God. You hadn't come like that in a month. You'd come, sure, to the low rumble of his voice over the phone, calling you all sorts of sweet names and telling you just how to get off for him. But nothing could ever possibly beat the way he works you.

And still - even as you come down from your orgasm, you already crave the next, long and lust and hunger for him inside of you, not his fingers, but his cock.

"Jake", you mewl, slotting your lips over his and desperately dragging your tongue over them before you draw back an inch, your breath meeting his. "Fuck me? Please?"

He pulls his fingers out of you and raises his hand and before you can even really realise what you're doing, you're parting your lips and watching as he grins and presses his fingertips down on your tongue. God, he fucking tastes like you. You suck his fingers into your mouth obediently and lick them clean, looking at him out of lowered, half-lidded eyes and he fucking grabs at your waist with his other hand like his life depends on it.

Goddamn, it's been too long since he's watched this. Since he's had this sight in front of him. And holy mother of hell, what a sight that is.

Your cheeks hollowed out, your gaze caught on his, your lips wrapped around his fingers. His jeans are too tight. Too fucking tight. He needs relief. Now.

So he pulls his fingers out of your mouth with a low grunt and fumbles with the button of his jeans, quick and hurried. He's barely popped it open before your hands slip between his and push them out of the way. You drag down his zipper, reach into his briefs, finally, finally, finally! and he lets you, steadying his palms against your thighs and watching you tug your lip between your teeth.

"Condom", you breathe, then you glance up at him and blink - once, twice, thrice to get yourself back to reality. Condom. Condom, fuck, you're sure you've got one, you know you've got one, somewhere-

Jake takes his hand off your thigh and reaches for his pocket, pulling out a condom before you've even finished thinking.

You grab it from him almost reflexively, your fingers closing around it, tearing it open - quick and frenzied now, because you're not sure how much longer you can hold out. How much longer you can manage without having him.

You glance up at him before you roll it onto him, waiting, checking, if you can, if he'll let you- And how could he not? Fuck, he's got to clench his jaw and grab onto your waist just to hold back, to stay still. He hadn't meant for it to be like this. He'd meant to fuck you back at home, slow and steady, preferably in bed where he could really see you, where he could see every inch of you, not in the front seat of your car that he'd probably have to get cleaned tomorrow. But he can't fucking help himself. He can barely fucking wait until you've rolled the condom onto him, already grabbing at your bare thighs, slipping his hands below your dress, grasping at your stomach.

You steady your palms against his chest and breathe out a whine as his fingers slide across your boobs, pushing the fabric of your dress up, up, up, circling your nipples and damn, you've missed him. You've missed him so fucking much. It's been so fucking long. And you're so fucking desperate.

So you slowly sink down on him and let out a moan, rolling off of your tongue so filthily that he has to groan. Shit, shit- You hold yourself against him, drop your head against his shoulder and an open-mouthed kiss onto his skin.

"Fuck", he grunts, his fingers working frenzied circles onto your boobs, trying, desperately, no, needing to touch you, to feel you. God, you feel so good around him. Finally around him again. You take your time sinking down on him, catching your breath and pressing your lips against his neck, your eyes squeezed shut. Inch by inch, you take him - and the only way he can keep from bucking up into you is by trying not to concentrate on the way you feel around him (so, so fucking perfect), but instead do his best to breathe. Just... breathe. It's been too fucking long. And you're too fucking pretty. And he'll go fucking crazy.

"Jake", you mewl, your lips dragging against his jaw.

Instead of an answer, he turns his head and catches you in a kiss.

You whine into his mouth, your legs clamping around his, stilling as you adjust, your tongue running along his lips, his teeth, your hands fisting his shirt, clenching and cramping and pressing against his chest.

"Go on", he urges, pulling away no more than an inch, his breath shallow, mingling with yours. "Take what you want, darling."

"Fuck", you breathe, arching into his palms and steadying yourself against him, your teeth catching on your lip as you move - up, slowly, steadily, then down, faster, quicker, and again, and again. Holy hell. Moan after moan rolls off your tongue. He feels so fucking good. You're so fucking full of him. You find a rhythm, then that spot inside of you. Your head tilts back, your fingers clench into the collar of his shirt, your nails scratch against his skin.

He watches you, every inch of him tensing. You're gorgeous, so damn gorgeous, bouncing in his lap like this. You're stunning, your dress pooling around your hips as he drags his hands back down to your waist, thumbing at your stomach, circling and drawing against your skin. He's touching you. Now, here. It's not just a dream. It's not just his imagination. It's you, you, wrapped around him, moving up and down him, your palms against his chest, your eyes fluttered shut, your teeth digging into your lip.

"Just like that, keep going", he encourages, all low and deep, smooths his hands down your body and can't help but grin as you let out a soft mewl. It's been so long since he's heard you whine for him - so long since he's heard it without hundreds and hundres of miles between you, without the microphone ruining what have to be the sweetest sounds he's ever known. "Feeling good, baby?"

The air is heavy, heavy and sticky. It presses down on you, pushes against your skin, settles on your body and flattens your breath. Every single one of your nerve ends is on fire.

"Yes", you gasp, your eyes fluttering open to take him in, him in all of his very, very real glory right in front of you. He looks so handsome, so fucking handsome. Your thighs tighten, clench. You can feel yourself growing closer and closer and closer with every stroke, with every time you sink down on him. Fuck, he doesn't just feel good, he feels heavenly. He feels like everything you need. "So good, Jake."

The grin on his lips sends sparks through your body. It's confident, self-assured... Yeah, you're on top of him, you're moving, you're taking what you want - but he's in charge, you can see it in his eyes. He's in control. It's in the way he breathes, in the way his hands grab at your hips, in the way he palms at your skin. If it weren't for the red on his cheeks, for the sweat beading on his forehead, you wouldn't even have guessed he's all that affected. But he's hard, he's hard as a rock, and it's taking everything in him not to just buck up into you and come right on the spot.

He prides himself on his stamina. In all his years, he's always prided himself on his stamina - on how he can keep going long enough to make you come twice, thrice. And he'll hold out now, too.

But you're gorgeous. And you feel perfect. And you're close, you're clenching around him as you lean in to press your lips to his, to slot your mouths together and kiss him with all your might.

So you're not making it easy for him. Not at all.

He brushes his hand down to the inside of your thigh, leaves a trail of tingles on your skin before his finger finds your clit. You breathe out a whine that he easily catches on his tongue, your nails digging into his chest as he draws circles on your clit, on that sensitive bundle of nerves that has you melting, your eyes squeezing, squeezing, squeezing shut.

Fuck, fuck, you're close, you're close-

Just for a fleeting second, Jake debates pulling his hand away again and leaving you there, on this edge you're teetering on. Not forever, only until you'd got home or so. But he's too desperate to come, too wound up already, too close himself, and there's a much bigger part of him that wants to just fill you up in the driver's seat of your car, in this random parking lot, a month after he'd last had you. The part of him that will revel in knowing that you'll be sitting in the passenger seat for the next three hours with soaked panties, probably leaving behind a wet patch when you'll get out, the evidence of two orgasms right there-

"Fuck, Jake", you gasp and your head rolls back, your lips parting as your entire body clenches, every single muscle cramping and tightening at once, your nails digging hard and harder into his skin, your eyes squeezing shut. His finger on your clit doesn't still, just keeps drawing circles, keeps guiding you through your high, through the foggy haze you're swimming in as your body writhes and tingles.

Jake is too entranced, too enamoured, too captivated by you to even realise he's spilling inside the condom, coming as you do. He can't feel, can't see, can't touch anything but you - his hand grabs at your hip, it palms at your thigh. Anything to feel you. Anything to be with you as you unravel.

"Jake, fuck", you breathe, a lot more softly now. Your grip on him loosens. He'd barely noticed how your nails had still been digging into his chest, but now that you're pulling them away, stretching your fingers and steadying your palms flat against him, he can't help but miss them. You blink at him with the sweetest smile, your lips plush and kiss-swollen, and the view of you is so disarming that he can just so resist opening his mouth and letting those final three words roll off his tongue. But it's too early, it's way too early, even as you're sitting in his lap, even as you're squeezing his cock, even as he draws his finger away from your clit. He's never been the type to say it early. He won't now.

No, instead he raises his hand and rests his fingers against your lips. Once more today, you part them obediently and wait until he's pushed them onto your tongue. Then you close your mouth around them - he still tastes of you faintly - and suck, slathering them in saliva in that sloppy, messy, dirty way you know he likes, your head bobbing as you clean them off. You pull back just far enough to dig your teeth into his fingertips and bite down on them playfully.

Your lips tug into a grin as he draws his hand back, eyebrows raising, his gaze settling on you - still so very heavy, so intense, so fucking full of sex.

"You're a brat, darling", he chides, but he's already brushing strands of hair out of your face, tucking them behind your ears and then wrapping his arms around you to pull you even closer, even tighter to him. Your grin only grows as your fingers clench into the collar of his shirt.

"Maybe", you laugh breathily, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his lips, one that's so addicting he thinks he might need to stay in this car, in this parking lot for the rest of eternity. "But you love it."

Jake chuckles as he chases after your lips.

"Such a brat."

#x reader #dbf!jake seresin #dbf!jake seresin x reader #jake seresin #jake seresin x reader #dbf!jake seresin smut #jake seresin smut #jake hangman seresin #top gun #top gun x reader #hangman x reader

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slvttyplum · 7 months ago

Note

random share but you know the "depressed geto who just needs you sooooo bad to feel better" fic trope? (me and my friend eat that shit up lol). i had a revelation of a related prompt: "geto who is no longer in a depressive ep and his drive is thru the roof" 🤪

suguru was wearing you the fuck out, you losing your breath and him tying his hair in a bun as you try to catch your breath, the same thing has been happening every single night and even twice a day if he felt like doing extra work.

suguru hasn't been doing the greatest the last three months, and you tried your hardest to help him, but he just needed time, and he got it, a random week he was back to him, feeling better and wanting to do different things, that including you, and he wasn't playing when it came to that.

his sex drive was through the roof and him jerking it wasn't helping shit, he needed your pussy sliding up and down on his every second, he didn't even want to slide out not to cum inside of you, he was disconnected to you and never wanted to disconnect, he didn't realize how much he missed you until you finally laid the pussy on him.

his eye twitching when he first had you slide onto him, that's when he realized he needed you every second of every day. suguru even took days off just to fuck you, he couldn't help it, it felt too good to just stop and pick it up at night, he was going to go on for hours and take advantage of the time he had with you.

“you're the one who took off, not me. i have to go to work.” a pout on your face as you stare at him moving in closer with a sly smirk on his lips as he takes his arm, wrapping it around your waist and moving in for a kiss, his other hand around your neck. he needed you so bad he could barely think, his dick pushing out his sweatpants, you could feel his bulge press against you.

“i'll pay you double what you would've made this whole week. please? i need you.” kissing you again before you toss your bag on the floor and him pushing you into the bed, wasting no time stripping off his sweatpants and getting to work. there was nothing else on his mind beside you, the only thing flashing throughout his head was your pretty smile and the nasty shit he was going to do to you.

those seven days he tore your ass up, you couldn't even form sentences in between what he was doing, your pussy still tingling even after he was thankfully out of you. his cum leaking out of you as you tried to catch your breath, his hands still rubbing over you as he laid in between your legs and played with you, your eyes going blurry from the tears that were forming in your eyes, light moans slipping out of your mouth, you could barely breathe.

your whole body covered with hickies and your knees bruised from you kneeling on the ground from suguru face fucking you, and some of his cum still in the back of your throat from before. it was like he was trying to test hard far he could get away with doing things before you finally told him to stop, but you never did, you just let him keep doing things because it felt too fucking good not too.

even though he was tearing you down and thrusting into you s hard you could barely breathe and tears were sliding down your pretty cheeks, it still felt good to have him inside of you, his dick stretching out your walls over and over again or his dick sliding on your tongue and his cum leaking in the back of your throat.

this was better than anything you've ever experienced and both you and suguru wanted to savor the moments where his sex drive was so high he didn't care he had to pay you back double the amount you would've gotten paid, he just needed you, or he was going to breakdown, you and only you.

your pussy tightening around him every time he finished inside of you, his dick still sliding in and out, the stimulation of how wet your pussy was and his cum mixing together to make lewd sounds, it drove him crazy. sweat forming on his naked body, falling onto your body with every thrust, his body still moving as he ties his hair up so that he can see your pretty expressions to everything he does to you.

pushing into you over and over with no care in the world if the neighbors hear or not, all he knew was that he wanted to be buried inside of you forever and always without a care in the world. his cheeks flushed red from staring into your beautiful eyes and your pussy squeezing around him tightly every time he said something.

his hand on your cheeks, his fingers pushing open your mouth as he slammed into you, gathering his spit and having it slip into your mouth slowing. the feeling of his warm spit sliding into your mouth made you roll your eyes and jerk with pleasure, shortly after closing your mouth with his. his tongue sliding over yours.

“ i love you so fucking much, you're mine.” his eyes piercing into yours as he slams into you once more, his cum leaking into you again, filling you whole.

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tinystarbites · 2 months ago

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accidents pt. 1.5 | Spencer Reid x Reader

Okay so, WOW. I am completely blown away by the response to my first fic on here, 120 followers in 6 days are you guys okay? Because I am definitely not :,). While accidents pt. II isnt quite finished just yet (thank you so much for being so patient with me<3 uni is kicking my ass already rip), I thought I'd give you all a small sneak peek, aka the first 800-ish words of the second part. I hope you enjoy and thank you all so so much for the generous feedback so far!! <333 I'll go rewatch my genetics lecture now yippie :,,,,)

here you can read the entire first part, please head the warnings! Same ones apply here. also, if you wanna get tagged in pt. II, let me know in the comments!

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Spencer’s never sprung from his bed faster in his life before.

His heart is a jackhammer in his chest, chipping away at his ribs one bone splitter at a time because-

It’s you. In front of his door. And Spencer is so hard it hurts but- he can’t just-

“Spencer?”

He sucks in a haggard breath, hands reaching up and messing up his hair even more. His thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at once and he just needs to- needs just a moment to-

“Uh, yeah, just a second!”, he calls back, voice scratchy and used from the- the moaning Jesus Christ because he was about to come with your mental image and he somehow, magically, managed to apparently conjure you up in front of his door with his pathetic pining and oh god-

He has to- ugh- has to wash his hands and make it go away and –

“Okay, I’ll just…chill with that weird plant here.”

An overwhelmed whimper slips past his lips and he just, stands there for at least another five seconds before something in his mind snaps back into place and he rushes to the small, adjacent bathroom of his room.

After he thoroughly washed his hands, his erection has flagged off enough so that it’s not the first thing greeting you when he opens the door and thank god for that.

And oh- seeing you after doing that actually knocks the wind out of his lungs because you are just so goddamn lovely it makes Spencer want to do stupid, stupid things like cry or kiss you or spontaneously combust into a million pieces.

For once, he does something okay-ishly sensible though.

“Hi.”

You look at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement or scepticism, he doesn’t know for sure. Your eyes hold mirthful sparkles in them when he finally manages to meet your gaze, so he settles for the former of the two options.

You’re not wearing your work clothes anymore. Rather, you went for a cozy looking, oversized sweater and funkily patterned leggings. Your fashion sense outside of work always reminded Spencer of Penelope’s.

“Hi to yourself”, you chuckle, ��Can I come in or are you too busy reading ten books at once?”

Spencer feels himself flush under your gentle teasing.

“Only seven books. But, yes, of course you can come in.”

He turns out of the way, creating room for you to pass him into his room. As soon as you are inside, you don’t hesitate to jump onto his bed and flop on your back with your arms spread wide.

Spencer’s breath hitches and he has to do some very extensive mental gymnastics to supress all the inappropriate thoughts from escaping the box he banished them into. Controlling his body’s response to seeing you in the same bed he was just jacking off in is… a different story. He pulls down the hem of his shirt as discreetly as possible, as he takes a seat next to you. Making sure that there is not too much distance between you two as to raise any suspicion and make it obvious he’s trying to get some distance between you, but also enough space so that he isn’t enticed to do anything unwise. Like, reach out and feel your warmth underneath his fingers. Or the softness of your skin. Or anything else really.

The more seconds tick by in which neither of you say anything, the more nervous Spencer becomes. He starts fiddling around with his fingers, aborting more than one move to steal a glance at your face to see what you’re thinking.

“Spencer”, you then finally say, voice kind of pout-y and if that didn’t make Spencer whip his head around to face you, the next thing you say for sure does. “Do you hate me?”

“Wha-“, he sputters your name, “No- no! Of course, I don’t- whe- why would you think that?”

You let out an exasperated groan, moving around until you are lying on your side, head propped up on your arm and frowning up at him. “Because you’ve been acting hella weird these last few days and you won’t tell me whyyyy”, you drag out the last syllable, pout on your lips and Spencer has to look up at the ceiling or else he’s just going to confess everything without second thought and that will definitely not happen.

“I haven’t been acting weird, really, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You remain silent again and Spencer feels the judging glare you send his way without having to look at you. Yes, he has been acting weird, he knows that, but you can never ever know the reason why tha-

“Is it because you saw my nudes?”

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oh spencer, you weren't quite as subtle as you thought. rip my boy. also whooops another cliffhanger? haha my fingers must've slipped my bad

tags: @sebastiansstanswhore @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx

#tinywrites #spencer reid x reader fanfic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader smut #criminal minds smut #are you still reading these #tinywrites:accidents

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pinievsev · 11 months ago

Note

Hi I saw you added sweet home to your list, could you do Any fic or something where the reader hurts his ankle or something and hyun soo and his monster are being overprotective please?

BOTH SIDES

Cha hyun-soo X GN! reader

Warnings: mentions of injury, S2 spoilers,kinda comedic

A/n: I know this is probably not exactly what you had in mind but I wrote it in school. Again.

Note: bold: hyun-soo monster side.

Normal: hyun-soo

Italics and (): (hyun-soo in his head )

Bold, italics and (): (hyun-soo monster in his head )

You ran after Ah-yi, who had decided she'd ran off to chase some kind of monster while hyun-soo had gone to look for necessities.

She slid under a tall metal fence, you definitely didn't fit under that. You made the drastic decision to jump over it, and as you landed, you twisted your ankle.

"Fuck." You groaned and stood up with difficulty. "Ah-yi?!" You called for the young girl you had been chasing. She appeared from behind a tree, running towards you.

"Yes?!" She asked, her adorable smile on her face. You've been calling out for her for the past half an hour. Yet that's all it took. You inhaled sharply to compose yourself.

"We need to get back home, hyun-soo will be back soon too" you tried and to your surprise she agreed fairly quickly, she yawned and made grabby hands at you.

You sighed but picked her up, hissing at the pain that shot through your ankle in the process.

It took some time, and the kid had fallen asleep in your arms but you made it. As you neared, you made out hyun-soo's voice, looking for the both of you.

You limped your way up the stairs, careful not to wake Ah-yi up. "We're here." He immediately rushed to you. "Where have you been?" He whisper yelled at you.

"She ran off to chase something." You explained handing him the child.

He carefully took her to the small room behind him and tucked her in by the corner. You followed him slowly, closing the door behind you. You sat down in the opposite corner, a groan escaping you as you felt your ankle stinging.

"Are you okay?" Hyun-soo asked, moving to sit by you "I'm fine, just hurt my ankle it'll heal." He reached out to examine it but you pulled back "let me see?." He asked as calmly as possible

You shook your head "I'm okay, really."

"Let me see." You looked up, his eyes now a piercing blue colour unlike his usual calm dark eyes.

You threw your head back, resting it on the wall "Fine." You said gesturing to your ankle.

He checked your ankle, once you Looked back down, his eyes where back to normal and he was wrapping it with some gauze and tape.

"You should be more careful out there." He noted turning to look at you once he had finished his job.

"I'm sorry I was trying to get to Ah-yi. My ankle was the least of my worries at that moment." You defended yourself.

"I understand, but if something happened to you i-" (we.) "We don't know what we'd do."

You chuckled at the "we". You'd gotten used to his monster, you treated him like a friend and You never kissed hyun-soo while he wasn't in control.

You smiled and hugged the boy "I'll be more careful then. Promise." You assured. You felt him peck your cheek, then he leaned back, eyes closed and leaned in to kiss you.

You placed a finger over his lips "open your eyes." And he did. Just as you expected they were blue. You raised an eyebrow, and in a second your hyun-soo was back.

You pecked his lips and messed his hair a bit.

(Just once!) (Actually, shut up.)

#fanfiction #sweet home netflix #sweet home imagines #sweet home x reader #sweet home #cha hyunsu x reader #cha hyunsoo #cha hyun soo

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godslino · 6 months ago

Text

IN BLOOM | jisung first date series. second chance lovers.

pairing: jisung x fem!reader word count: 13.2k genre: childhood friends au, angst, fluff, songwriter!jisung, florist!reader warnings: swearing, minor character death, grief/loss (nothing to do with any of the members!) summary: it's february. the tulips are in bloom. jisung is back.

a/n: *taps mic* hello?? is this thing on?? oh good. yes. hi. hello! it's been a while, as most of you can tell. thank you all SO MUCH for sticking around. if you've been reading my asks you'll know that march and april were rough months for me personally. shout out to my anons and mutuals who kept my spirits high and made my days brighter. uhhh, this was originally supposed to be a stand alone fic but i figured hey, what the hell, and made it into jisung's first date chapter. it's pretty heavy stuff. lots of feelings, lots of love. i hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as i did writing it! again, thank you so much for waiting for me. i'll be back soon with more updates! all the love <3

also thank you kenzie for being such a light during all of this. i hope all my screaming in your messages was worth it!

“All of these had to be pulled.” Hyunjin huffs, dropping a few crates just past the doorway.

“Again?” you ask, hands on your hips as you stare at yet another wasted supply. “I don’t understand, they sold so well last year.”

Hyunjin gives you a sad smile. “It’ll pick up eventually, don’t worry. I mean the holidays just finished and business usually slows down in the months after anyways.”

He’s being sincere, you know that. But there’s a part of you that also knows it’s a lot more than just the usual ebb and flow of sales. He’s being nice for your sake.

“Maybe we could try coming up with other ideas?” he suggests, because Hyunjin is nothing if not kind. Always willing, always finding a way.

He moves past you to grab a fresh pair of gloves. The ones he’s wearing are dirty, pollen-stained and ripped at the edges.

“You’ve always been really good at basket arrangements. We could try to make some for Valentine's Day. Different sizes, maybe? The big ones will probably do well for online orders since they’re more optimal for things like office deliveries and stuff like that.”

You hum in approval. “True. I mean, I was kind of worried we would have to skip out on deliveries this year since we don’t have the manpower to handle all of that, but I think Jeongin’s been looking to pick up hours around here again. He said something about his program giving them a month of independent study, so he’ll be home for a bit.” you say, scribbling down a reminder in your notebook. “I could ask him to help with driving the truck in his free time?”

Hyunjin lights up– he always does when Jeongin is mentioned.

It’s been a lot quieter ever since he left for college. There were so many tears and so many hugs that were met with countless 'you guys are dramatic's in return. But it’s hard to not feel sad when people leave town; when they decide the borders lined with apple trees and rice fields aren’t enough to stop their dreams from blooming into more than what’s capable of being pursued here.

That, unsurprisingly, is something you know all too well.

“Can’t believe he’s driving.” Hyunjin laments as he wipes his floral scissors with a rag. “I used to spend my days changing his diapers and spoon feeding him redbulls– but now? Driving? My baby is all grown up.” he fake sniffles. “By the way, I’m gonna take my fifteen after I’m done snipping these tulips.”

You snort, bending down to take the crates of wilted flowers to the back for disposal. Hyunjin moves to help but you shake him off.

“Sounds good. Also, don’t let Innie hear you say that. I’m about a thousand percent sure he has the strength needed to throw you into the dumpster with one arm now.”

“My baby would never do that to me!” Hyunjin calls out as you round the corner, bumping open the back door with your hip.

February brings a lot of rain in Jeju. Today is no different; fat drops landing on your head as soon as you stumble out into the alley behind the shop. Footsteps heavy on wet brick, you curse under your breath as you run as fast as you can to the dumpster.

There’s still a few supply boxes from yesterday’s shipment laying around. You meant to bring them in, but you were so exhausted that it slipped your mind while you struggled to make sure everything inside the shop was figured out.

Scrambling, you haul them in one by one, shoes squeaking against the floor as you alternate in and out, soggy cardboard pressed against the front of your apron.

Hyunjin’s on break. A necessary one at that. You can’t bother him, especially not when he’s done enough by taking on more responsibility both as a physical worker and a newly actualized business partner recently. A few stacks of boxes and wet hair seem like a fair trade off for what he’s had to sacrifice in the past year now.

“Idiot,” you mumble, cursing yourself for carelessness. Your slip ups have been more frequent lately, evident in the way you constantly forget things and can’t seem to push away the haziness clouding your mind.

If it weren’t for the timing of it all, you’d blame it on the weather. The gloominess. The overcast skies probably have some sort of hand in your lack of clarity. Shrouded.

But it’s February. And in Jeju— it rains.

By the time you make it back inside, you’re drenched.

“You look like you just got dunked in a pool.”

You frown, ringing your hair out into the trash bin by the door. It’ll definitely take time to dry off, both your hair and your clothes are soaked through.

Hyunjin watches with an amused look, arms crossed as he leans his back against the counter.

“Might as well have. It’s insane out there.” you sigh. “How was your break?”

You look up to find that his face has gone unreadable.

“Yeah, about that…” Hyunjin trails off, voice suddenly smaller than before.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s just–” Hyunjin chews at his bottom lip.

You push past him into the supply room to switch out your apron just as he says, “Do you mind if I leave a little early today?”

You scoff, turning to face him. “Hwang Hyunjin,” you scold, lips twitching when he visibly startles at your tone, “You don’t have to ask me that. We’re partners now, remember? We run this place.”

He shifts on his feet, still unsure.

“Besides,” you huff, tying a knot behind your back, “We were friends way before that, too. You don’t have to be all proper with me. Of course you can leave early. It’s slow today, I can take care of it.”

Hyunjin sighs after contemplating for a second. “Are you sure you’ll be okay, though?”

When he stares at you for a moment too long, you know the real reason for his hesitation. It makes something twist deep in your gut.

Guilt, maybe, amongst other things.

“Of course.” you shrug, doing your best to seem nonchalant.

Hyunjin’s ability to read people is kind of intense, a little scary at times. You happen to be one of his favorite subjects in that regard.

“Have fun. Tell Minah I said hi.”

He pales, sputtering around words as he struggles to say something. It’s cute, his plump lips opening and closing, eyes wild.

“I’m not going to see her! I’m–it’s just a movie! How did you—God, you’re so annoying. I should’ve made you trim the tulips. Hah!”

You giggle. “It’s funny that you think I wouldn’t know, especially with the way you love to actually make yourself look busy whenever she stops by to say hi.”

“I am busy.” he mumbles, looking away. “I just emphasize it a lot more when she’s here.”

“Sure,” you roll your eyes, “Let’s go with that.”

He whines a couple more times, trails after you around the shop and laughs when you swat him away with a rolled up newspaper that’s used for wrapping vases.

It’s loud. Easy. Hyunjin is a gentle reminder that normalcy still exists in your day to day, even if it’s hard to find.

When he finally decides to leave, he lingers for a moment, triple checks that you’ll be okay. You roll your eyes for what feels like the millionth time today, but deep down you’re grateful.

“Love you,” he says, one foot out the door. “Call me if you need anything.”

You shake your head, ignoring him. “Love you too.”

And then he’s gone, a skip in his step as he heads down the sidewalk, leaving you with nothing but freshly-trimmed tulips and the sound of rain.

“Herb snips, shears, tape…” you mumble, scanning the supply shelf.

There’s not much to do in-shop right now. Almost all the arrangements have been tended to by Hyunjin already, his specialty being his keen eye. That’s why he handles the appeal of the shop, leaving you to figure out all the logistics. Learning it all was easier said than done.

In reality, it was never your intention to take over the shop at all.

“When I die,” your grandma would always say, ignoring the way you groaned and begged her to stop bringing it up, “Sell this place. Use the money for something worthwhile. A trip to Greece, maybe?”

“Nana,” you would scold, glaring at her where she stood next to you, trimming a batch of roses.

Wrinkled hands that still held all the skill of youth. Fingers moving at a speed others could only ever dream of having– you included.

Your grandma handled flowers with the same amount of care she did everything else. It’s no wonder that when they grew they would lean in her direction, drawn to her like they would be the sun.

“I’m not selling this place. It’s too special, too important. A vacation only lasts so long, Nana. This is forever.”

She would smile, turn petals over in her hand. Sometimes the marigolds would match the glow in her eyes, a testament to the belief you harbored as a child that she had the ability to sprout blossoms from her fingertips.

“The one thing you shouldn’t do, my dear, is rely on forever. Because that, too, is uncertain.”

You wish you hadn’t been so hard headed. Wish that you would’ve believed her, taken the time to listen, cherished the moment a little bit longer instead of relying on the promise of tomorrow.

I’m sorry for your loss.

Your grandmother was a wonderful woman.

She’ll be with you in your heart, forever.

Oh, what a lie forever is.

The shop stays empty for the rest of the day. There were a few passersby, all of whom simply stopped to scan the arrangements along the windows before giving a polite nod and carrying on their way.

Realistically, the shop has no problem with attracting customers. It’s a sight to behold: mid-floor to ceiling windows with various displays, hanging baskets of winding greenery, countless arrangements that fill the shelves and add a pop of color, and a wide assortment of flowers for each season.

The real issue lies in your inability to sell. Most people regard the place as being good for nothing more than window shopping and the usual photo-op.

Business has slowed since your Grandma passed; since you took over as the sole owner and were suddenly face to face with the task of making decisions in the shop’s best interest– both integrity wise and from a business standpoint.

“I know, I know,” you say around the pen cap between your teeth, “You used to be the brains around here, not me. I’m not creative enough for all of this, you know? No matter how much I try to be.”

You look up from where your notebook lays open, dozens of scribbles for arrangement ideas and planning. The picture on the wall stares at you, unmoving, eyes as bright as marigolds.

“Don’t give me that look.”

She stares. A gaze that holds all the answers while also saying nothing at all.

“Ugh.” you groan, leaning your palms on the desk.

You allow your head to hang forward, defeated, exhaustion flooding your bones.

Just as you’re about to speak again, to complain about yet another thing that probably has her rolling around in her grave, the bell at the front counter dings.

The clock on the desk reads 6:55pm, five minutes until close. You hadn’t even heard anyone come in.

“Be right there!” you call out, rushing to grab your apron from where you’d thrown it on one of the chairs.

In your haste, the box of seed packets you’d been inventorying goes tumbling to the floor.

“Fuck,” you mutter, bending down to pick everything up. One more thing to add to the list today.

Off-kilter. Disoriented. Exhausted.

You sniffle a few times, blinking against the sting behind your eyes as you stand up to put the box back in its place.

One deep breath, a shake of your shoulders. Just enough to chase it all away until later.

“Sorry about that,” you say cheerily, pushing past the hanging beads that separate the front of the shop from the back. “How can I help you?”

There’s a stranger, his back turned, attention focused on a batch of tulips. Freshly cut. White, blue, purple.

You realize, belatedly, that you’d forgotten to grab your apron in your haste to clean up the seed packets. Another slip up. Nana always prided herself in her apron, wore it like a badge of honor, raised you to do the same.

Just as you spin around to grab it, the stranger says, “It’s okay. I just, um, I wanted to say hi.”

You freeze. There’s a long moment where his voice rings loud in your ears, reverberates against the walls of your brain until it travels through your blood, the feeling like wildfire in your veins until it settles deep in the pit of your stomach.

Slowly, you turn, heart clamoring in your chest, threatening to stop altogether as soon as you come face to face with the one person you never thought you’d see again.

Because there, at the front of the store, is Jisung.

Jisung, with wide eyes and parted lips. Jisung, with hair that still curls at the ends and falls in shags around his face. Jisung, broader, more actualized, now grown into his features but still undeniably soft around the edges. Jisung, with thick framed glasses pushed up his nose and silver hoops dangling from his ears.

A stranger. But undoubtedly Jisung.

“You look…nice.” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly with his free hand.

Three words is all it takes. Ice turns to fire. The blood that had drained from your face returns with the blaze of a thousand suns, anger burning your throat.

You reach forward, grab the remote for the neon Open sign and click the power button. Jisung watches in confusion.

“The shop is closed.” you manage on a shaky breath.

Jisung sighs, something heavy. “Listen, I’m—”

“The shop–” you try again, louder, “–is closed.”

Jisung stares. His eyes are still the same velvety brown; big and round and just as you remember.

There was once a time where the sight of Jisung in your Grandma’s shop made your heart sing. A soft tune, the thrum of a thousand harps, a song only for him.

His heart-shaped smile as he helped her hammer some of the shelves onto the wall. The sound of his laughter whenever you’d enter a sneezing fit from accidentally rubbing your face with a gloved hand. His rosy cheeks, burnt from the wind whipping past his face as he ran on foot to make sure you were okay the one time an angry customer smashed a vase on the floor and you called him crying.

But now, seeing him here, a stranger in a body you once knew like the back of your hand— it feels wrong.

“I…” he trails off, registering the way your fists are clenched at your sides.

“Okay,” he resigns, licking his lips. “I, uh– have a good night.”

He gives you one last look, bottom lip pulled tight between his teeth, and then slips out the door. You watch his retreating figure through the glass panel, dark gray skies muting the sound of your rattling heart.

It’s February. The tulips are in bloom. Jisung is back.

And in Jeju– it rains.

There’s an apple tree in the middle of town where Jisung told you he loved you for the first and last time.

Off the corner, a few minutes down the road from where your houses stand a mere five hundred feet away from one another.

Your grandparents were farmers. Your grandma started her floral business a few years before you were born, a dream she always had that your grandpa urged her to pursue once he decided to sell the animals to a younger, more capable couple that could take care of them.

Jisung’s parents, new residents on the island, looking to settle down and start a family.

That’s how it happens. Yours and Jisung’s story, two authors of the same book, destined since the start.

Jisung was born on the same night your mother left you at your grandparents’ doorstep. One note, an apology, is all you’ve ever known about her. Your grandma never cared to indulge you. You’re glad in a way. She provided more than enough love to make sure you never felt an absence in her wake.

The townspeople used to say you and Jisung were soulmates. Something about the heavens knowing he would need a friend, hence why you were delivered that night. From that moment on, the two of you were inseparable.

Attached at the hip, you and Jisung grew up together. First steps, first birthdays, firsts for everything under the sun.

Jisung was there in the morning to walk with you to school and he was there at night when the two of you tucked into bed, sleepovers a regular occurrence, both of you counting the pale green stick-on stars dotting his ceiling until you fell asleep.

Jisung was always around. He held your hand and walked with you to the nurse’s office the first time you got stung by a bee. He wiped your eyes when the boy you liked told you he only ever saw you as a friend, your first rejection. He sat with you under the stars the night your grandpa died, your face tucked into his neck as you stained the collar of his shirt with tears until you were too tired to cry. In the years that followed, he took care of you and your grandma like the two of you were his own.

Jisung, for lack of a better word, was your first forever.

“You could come with me, you know.”

Under the stars, real ones that time, Jisung had turned to you and offered the world.

The air was cold. The apple tree was bare.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll be together, we’ll experience new things. I can do music and you can study all that history stuff you like to learn about. You know, nerdy things.”

“They’re not nerdy things, Ji. Don’t you know everything we have now is because of what’s happened before us?” you’d asked. “Doesn’t it make you wonder? Learning about the past helps us better understand the present, and ultimately the future.”

Jisung had hummed softly, an agreement. “I don’t care about the future, though.” he’d said. “I care about right now. You, me, this.”

When you turned to look at him, he propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at you from above as the moon casted a halo around his head.

“I love you,” he whispered, “And I want you to come with me.”

Jisung, with all the stars in his eyes and a heart full of dreams. Jisung, with the world at his fingertips and the ambition to make it his own.

You, with all your hopes stuffed tight into a suitcase and chained to a boulder, thrown into the ocean. Sinking and sinking until it hit the bottom.

“I love you too,” you whispered back.

Images of marigolds flashed behind your eyes when you closed them, a tear rolling down your cheek. Jisung’s mouth was soft when he kissed it away, salt on his lips. Burning.

“But I can’t.” you choked.

Under the apple tree, Jisung told you he loved you for the first and last time. He promised that the distance would be no match for him, that he would traverse oceans to find his way back. He promised forever.

It was February. The tulips were in bloom. Jisung left to pursue his dreams with a guitar on his back and your heart in his hands. Your understanding of forever was shot at point blank. The bullet passed clean through you.

And in Jeju– it rained.

“I think you should talk to him.”

The sun is out today. Perfect weather for another field harvest. The distributor had called you early in the morning to ask if you’d be willing to accept a drop off even though it’s the weekend. You’d agreed, calling in your most reliable help for the job.

“And I think you’re not helping.” you huff, snipping the head off another hyacinth.

“Agreed,” Hyunjin parrots from beside you, currently in the middle of putting together an arrangement, “This guy sounds like a total dick.”

Chan sighs from behind the two of you, his knees knocking against the legs of the desk when he swivels back and forth in the chair.

Besides Hyunjin and Jeongin, both of whom moved into town after you’d already graduated, and of course, Jisung– Chan is your oldest friend.

Chan was also a neighbor of yours. Three years older than you and Jisung, he was the one who acted as a role model for the two of you when growing up. Nowadays he helps his parents run the largest orange grove on the island during the day and DJs one of the clubs in the tourism hub at night.

“Jisung’s not a dick, he’s just–”

“An asshole.” you finish, smirking when Hyunjin cackles.

Chan sighs. Again. “Yeah okay, I’ll give you that one.”

“Listen, I know I’ve never met him, but isn’t it weird that he just, like, showed up?” Hyunjin asks, setting down his scissors. You continue trimming the hyacinths, listening halfheartedly.

“I mean, think about it. Dude disappears to pursue music, right? He’s gone for what– three years?”

“Four.” you correct.

“God, even worse.” he grimaces.

“But yeah, okay, four years. And then boom! He just strolls in through the front door without so much as a word during the time he was gone? No letters, no phone calls, not even a damn visit. Nothing! All so he can pop up and go ‘oh, you look nice’? Come on.” he scoffs, crossing his arms.

You wince, caught off guard because you’ve never really heard it phrased as bluntly as Hyunjin put it just then. It’s no surprise that he’s annoyed, having only just heard the full story thirty minutes ago. He’d been shocked, partly because you never told him and also because he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Okay, yes, he was wrong for that. But isn’t part of you even just the least bit curious as to why?”

You pause mid-snip, mulling Chan’s words over in your head.

The most frustrating part about it all is that you are curious. You wish you weren’t, though. Not when you’ve spent the past four years trying to convince yourself that you don’t need to know what Jisung’s been up to, don’t need to know if he’s been okay since he clearly held no concern for you in that regard anyways.

“What?” you ask when you realize that both boys are staring at you.

“Well?” Hyunjin pushes. “Are you?”

You shrug. “No, not really.”

There’s a total of five seconds that pass before Hyunjin is stomping over and hauling Chan up out of his chair, pushing him towards the front door as he protests.

“Out! Out, out, out, we have important business matters to discuss.”

“But we were supposed to get lunch—!”

“We’re taking a rain check!” Hyunjin fights back, shoving him out of the shop before he has a chance to answer. He drops the shade to cover the glass, Chan’s sad figure left alone on the other side.

You gape at him. “What was that for?”

Hyunjin scoffs. “You think you’re convincing? Think again.”

He hops up on to the counter and gestures for you to do the same. When you do, he pulls you closer, grabs your hand in his, and pushes your head down until it’s resting on his shoulder.

“Tell me the truth now,” he says, soft. “I know there’s more to it.”

Hyunjin’s warm to the touch. The heat seeps through the fabric of his shirt, igniting the skin of your cheek until you feel like you’re standing too close to the sun. A star. Hyunjin is a light in your tunnel.

“I am curious,” you start, “About him, I mean. I’ve– I don’t know. It’s been so long. I tried to pretend I didn’t care when I saw him, but the minute I looked into his eyes it was like I was eighteen again. Eighteen and happy and looking at someone that I always thought would be there, you know?”

Hyunjin hums but doesn’t say anything. He squeezes your hand once, a signal to keep going.

“I’m scared, though. Part of me doesn’t want to know.”

Hyunjin takes a deep breath. “What are you scared of?”

Through the gaps in the beads you can see into your office, the picture of your Grandma hanging on the wall. She stares at you, unblinking.

“What if he tells me that it’s true?” you ask, lifting your head to look up at him. “What if he says that I was right, that he didn’t care? That he left and didn’t want to call because it no longer mattered to him? That he loves his life there and only came back to clear his own conscience?”

“Oh honey,” Hyunjin soothes, pulling you into his chest. You hadn’t realized you were crying, that the anger and fear had bubbled over until there were tears falling down your cheeks, wetting the fabric of Hyunjin’s sweater.

He lets you cry for a while. It’s nothing new; Hyunjin has seen you break down countless times. He’s been there through the worst of it, held your hand even in the aftermath. He’s picked you up off the floor more times than you can count, has grounded you when you felt like the world was gonna open up beneath you and swallow you whole. Salt of the earth, returning you to its core.

Once you’ve quieted into nothing more than shallow breaths and a few scattered hiccups, Hyunjin speaks again.

“Can you be honest with me?”

You nod, the hair stuck to your cheek with tears rubbing against his shoulder.

“Do you love him?”

It nearly knocks the wind out of you. This concept, so foreign to you now, shoved to the back of your mind to make room for the things that matter most. Hospital visits, labor cuts, wage increases— none of it left any room for love, let alone the thought of someone else. Especially someone as all-consuming as Jisung.

Slowly, you inhale, breath shaking on the exhale. Hyunjin squeezes your hand to remind you that he’s there.

“I don’t think I ever stopped, Hyune.”

The silence stretches thin. The realization is dizzying. Years of suppressed emotions, of telling yourself and everyone around you that it wasn’t a big deal. The sad eyes of the townspeople whenever they’d see you sitting beneath the apple tree. The gentle touch of your grandma’s hand when she’d find you on the front steps alone, staring at the stars. The soft hum of the radio in the shop, set to a playlist of all the songs he’s written, the only reminder that somewhere out there he was doing well.

The final crack in the dam, its water pushing until it gives way.

“Then you owe it to yourself,” Hyunjin says. “You owe it to your heart to get an answer. Free yourself from this pain, love. Don’t let yourself suffer forever.”

Forever. That word again. No matter how many times you’ve tried to escape it, it always comes back.

“It’s gonna hurt.” he sighs, tightening his grip when you sniffle. “It’s gonna hurt so fucking bad, babe. But you can take it. You’ve got people who love you enough to stand in front of you and soften the blow from time to time. But you’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”

He hops down from the counter and moves to stand in front of you, right between your legs. Placing both hands on your shoulders, he pushes until you’re sitting with your back straight and lifts your chin.

“You deserve an answer.” he says, with conviction this time. “Okay?”

He lets his thumb swipe beneath your eyes, smiles softly. Unconditional— that’s what he is. Hyunjin burns brighter than any star in your sky, the heat wrapping its arms around you like it’s too scared to let go, to watch you freeze and die out like so many others.

“I don’t deserve you, though.” you say, laughing wetly when he rolls his eyes.

“Shut up,” he chuckles, pulling you in for a hug, “You deserve everything and more.”

When Jisung comes into the shop two days later, you’re ready for it.

Chan had talked to him. No surprise, really, not when he’s been letting him crash in his spare room ever since he figured out that he was holed up in one of the hotels out in the tourism hub.

If there’s one thing about Chan, it’s that he’d rip the shirt off his back to clothe anyone in need. Housing a friend is nothing, especially when that friend is Jisung.

“I don’t know how much of a consolation this is,” he’d said nervously, watching as you regarded him with an expectant look, “But he’s pretty cut up about you not wanting to see him. Which, I know, is stupid. He is the one who fucked up. But I just– I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this, I guess.”

It’s not a consolation, not really. Knowing that Jisung is struggling is far from anything you want to hear.

Sure, there’s anger present. Anyone would be stupid to not feel the least bit frustrated with what’s happened. Years lost, time stripped away. But you’ve long since come to terms with it, the anger turning to sadness in the meantime.

“Also, he leaves tomorrow.” Chan smiled sadly. “He really wants to talk to you before then.”

Hyunjin left early again today to give the two of you space. Not before making a show of his own though, threatening to incite violence with his arms that are supposedly ‘shredded’ from years of lifting boxes filled with petunias.

The shop is slow again, not many sales nor a lot of foot traffic. Usually when the sun is out there’s more to do; people to see, smiles to give. But there’s nothing, just the chirping of birds and the sound of cars rolling by.

Maybe the world knows that this is what you need. The calm before the storm.

Five minutes until close. You’ve spent most of the day pacing back and forth. Waiting. Anticipating.

Chan had said Jisung planned on stopping by, trying again. You’d told him that was okay, and his eyes lit up. Too much hope, maybe, that something might come of this.

You’re seated in the back office, staring at marigold colored irises when the front door opens. You hear it this time, ears fine tuned, waiting.

Slowly, you stand, make your way to the front. You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until you pull back the beaded curtain and Jisung’s figure comes into view.

He looks the same as he did the other day: curled hair, thick glasses, parted lips. His sweater, fluffy and striped, hangs off of his shoulders in a way that boxes off his tapered waist, one that you know is hidden beneath all the layers. The sleeves are way too long judging by the way it curls over his fingers.

“Hi.” he breathes out, watching as you step into full view.

You blink. “Hi, Jisung.”

His name feels weird on your tongue. Bitter. It’s been years since you uttered it, forbidding yourself from the luxury out of fear that it would make his absence more real. Talking about him in the past tense always scared you off before you could even get the chance.

“How– How’ve you been?” he chews on the inside of his lip.

You want to scold him, tell him to stop the habit just like you always would in the past. He’d make a joke then, tell you to kiss him so that he had something else to do instead. You would laugh, feign disgust, but in the back of your mind you’d wanted it more than anything.

You’d waited for it, the day you could kiss him without warning and melt into his touch as he kissed you back. Another stupid bet on forever; the belief that you had all the time in the world for things to get to that point.

“I’ve been better.” you say, taking a deep breath. “What about you?”

Good, you think. He’s been good. He looks good. He doesn’t need this place.

“Me too.” he says instead. “I’ve been better.”

You don’t know what to say to that. Silence fills the room, heavy on both your chests. The anticipation feels like it might kill you before anything else does.

“I’m sorry that–”

“Is that all you came here to say?” you cut him off.

“What?” he asks, confused. “No, I– no.”

“What, then? What is it you want to say, Jisung?” your voice is firm. He winces when his name leaves your mouth. “Because, honestly, I’ve waited all this time to hear literally anything from you, and if all that comes out of this is that you’ve ‘been better’ I might actually lose my fucking mind.”

The words tumble out faster than you intend. You can’t help it, not with the way anxiety has been bubbling over in your chest since the moment you woke up this morning. You could barely sleep last night, not when you were playing out every possible scenario in your head, the anticipation of it all making your sheets feel scratchy against your skin and the lumps in your pillow more discernible.

“No, no, of course I wouldn’t do that.” he says quickly. “It's just that I didn’t know where to start. I don’t know how much you’ll allow me to say, what the boundary is here. I didn’t want to just barge in and demand you listen to me. You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe me anything. Not after what I did.”

What I did, his voice rings loud in your ears. He’s aware of it, of the pain he caused.

He takes a step forward, and then another, again and again until he’s right up against the front counter, an arm’s length away.

Your breath catches then, when you see him up close for the first time in four years, see the way he’s grown and changed with your own eyes.

Stubble dotting his chin, laugh lines around his mouth, the dip and curve of the bow above his lips that you always loved. Brown eyes, soil and stardust.

“Tell me what your conditions are,” he says quietly, “And I’ll give you every explanation I have.”

The sincerity on his face is blinding. Your stomach twists at the thought of hearing what he has to say, that same fear brewing in the pit of it. You take a deep breath, feel the phantom ghost of a hand squeezing yours and a crescent moon eye smile.

“I waited four years for you.” you say.

“I know.”

“I trusted that you’d be back. That you would keep in touch during the time you were gone.”

“I–” his voice cracks. “I know.”

“You lied to me.”

Jisung tips his head back then. Swallows down a lump in his throat. Blinks rapidly at the ceiling, veins of ivy crawling along the expanse of it.

“I know.”

“So you owe me everything. I deserve that. I deserve answers.”

When he brings his head down to look at you, it’s unreadable. A mix of emotions that you aren’t familiar enough with anymore to decipher. Fear, guilt, sorrow. Hope, too. Maybe.

You stare at him head on, fully letting your eyes meet for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He holds your gaze, unwavering. Determined. The sight makes your heart clench.

“Okay,” he says after a beat of silence. “Okay. I can do that.”

Despite the ever-growing mountain of things to address, you decide that the first thing you want to hear from Jisung is about his time in Seoul.

You’re only human, after all.

Best friends from the start– you can’t stop yourself from wondering what life has been like for him. Jisung’s always been good at storytelling, animated in his features and gestures to the point that you’d be rolling around and clutching your stomach from laughter. It’s one of the things you missed the most, just talking and being present in one another’s lives.

The two of you end up at one of the diners down the road. The owners, an elderly couple, coo as soon as they catch sight of you.

“My flower girl,” the old lady, Mrs. Kim, greets.

“Mrs. Kim,” you beam, moving in for a hug. When you pull away, Jisung is behind you, hands clasped behind his back and feet together like he has his tail between his legs.

“Halmeoni,” you say, gesturing at him, “Do you remember Jisungie?”

His eyes go wide at the nickname, and you try to ignore the heat creeping up your neck, avoiding his gaze and instead watching as Mrs. Kim blinks in surprise.

“Oh! Oh my goodness, our Jisungie? Honey! Honey, look, Jisung is here! Oh you crazy boy,” she scolds, rushing forward to hit his shoulder and pull him in for a hug. “Where have you been? It’s been ages!”

Jisung lets out an oof! as her body slams into him, all of his anxiousness dissolving into laughter as he hugs her back.

“Hi Mrs. Kim, how have you been?”

“Me?” she asks, pulling him away to hold at arm’s length, “Nevermind about me! I’m old! How have you been?”

Good, you think again, a mimic of earlier. Jisungs eyes flit over to yours for the smallest of moments before he answers.

“Better,” he says. “I’m doing better.”

Once both Mr. and Mrs. Kim are done doting over the both of you, they seat you by the window.

The island is always beautiful on sunny days: trees swaying, golden rays painting the rooftops in hues of pink and orange, the indigo shimmer of the ocean off in the distance.

“So,” you say, catching Jisung’s attention, “Tell me about Seoul.”

He hums. “It’s busy. Stinks. Lots of people.”

“Dream come true, yeah?” you joke, taking a sip of your water.

Jisung chuckles. “You could say that, I guess.”

“I mean, it was yours.”

“It was.” he sighs, looking down at the table. “I don’t know. It’s nice. I met good people, made even better connections. I live in this one bedroom studio apartment just outside of Itaewon, so I’m close to where all the foreigners hang out. I’ve learned a lot, gained a lot of inspiration for my music.”

You follow along, staring at him intently. His mouth, still heart-shaped, twitches when he catches you in the act.

You clear your throat, glancing away. “Yeah, I’ve– uh, I’ve heard some of your songs.”

He raises his eyebrows, almost like he hadn’t expected you to say that. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I hear them on the radio sometimes.” A lie. “It usually takes me a second to realize that it’s you.” Another lie. “But they’re good, you’re doing well.”

Pink dusts the tops of Jisung’s cheeks as he turns back to the window, clearing his throat.

He looks younger like this, like he’s still the same boy who would sit across from you all those years ago. Cherry-stained lips and a smile so bright it put the sun to shame.

He talks a bit more about his music, about how he’s with a good company that gives him creative freedom and enough support to pursue more if he desires.

His eyes light up when he tells you about his studio, a small room on the fifth floor of a building in the middle of the city where he does all of his writing. It’s equipped with an entire soundboard, full of instruments that he says he’s been able to get signed by artists that come in and out. Most notably, his guitar, the same one he left with.

Slowly, like a flower blossoming, petals opening one by one, you feel yourself falling back into step with him.

Everything is so familiar: the curve of his smile, the tilt in his voice when he gets excited, the rumble of laughter when he recounts an embarrassing run-in with an A-list celebrity in the company’s cafeteria. He shares stories that fill your heart as the two of you fill your stomachs.

But with the ease comes something more, something you recognize as longing. You hadn’t realized how much you longed to be there through this part of his life, how you wished you’d been the one to answer a video call as he showed off his apartment the first day he moved in, his company badge when it was newly issued, every moment of happiness that you’d been absent for just as much as he was absent for yours.

He seems to share the same sentiment then, when he sets down his fork and stares at his empty plate.

“You run the shop now,” he says, “How’s that been?”

You purse your lips, nodding your head slowly. You knew this conversation would happen, that it was coming.

“It’s good, I guess. Been almost a year now since, uh, it was left to me.” you shrug. “I’m not alone though, Hyunjin is a big help. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Jisung noticeably bristles. Eyebrows pulled together, staring more intently at a crumb on his plate. It looks like there’s a lot he wants to say, like he can’t find the words to say them.

So, naturally, you do it for him.

“I assume Chan told you so I wouldn’t have to, by the way.”

He looks up then, as if he wasn’t expecting you to address the very obvious elephant in the room.

“He did, yes.” Jisung says after a while. His voice is quiet, gentle, like he’s walking on eggshells. “I– I didn’t know how to bring it up. I assume you’ve heard it all already but– I really, really am sorry to hear about Nana.”

The way her name sounds coming out of his mouth turns your mind to static.

Suddenly you’re in the hospital again, monitors beeping, hands as soft as petals cradled in your own and wishing that you could bury your face in a familiar neck as you cried and watched the marigolds wilt.

“I don’t need an apology for that.” you croak, blinking back tears. Jisung is somewhere in your periphery, your vision blurry around the edges.

“It wasn’t sad. Her life, I mean. It was full. Of love. Of light. She left this place happy. That’s what she told me, at least.”

You take a deep breath. “So don’t be sorry about it.”

Jisung sniffles, and the sound shoots straight through your chest.

“I know. I just– I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I should’ve been. I had no idea that–”

“Nobody did, Jisung. Don’t punish yourself for that.”

He sees it then, when you finally meet his eyes, the acceptance. You’ve come to terms with things a long time ago, have fought tooth and nail to come out on the other side of all the guilt and resentment and grief alive. Scathed, but alive nonetheless.

“You’re right.” he sighs, wiping at his eyes quickly. “She’d probably yell at me for saying that.”

You laugh, suddenly, the noise startling him. Jisung looks at you like you’re crazy.

“I think she has a lot more to yell at you for than being sorry that she died.”

The bluntness punches a chuckle out of him, and you giggle at the thought.

Your grandmother was always such an outspoken person. She always said what was on her mind, speaking it loud. There’s no doubt that if she was here she’d be berating Jisung, smacking him upside the head before pulling him into a hug and cooking his favorite meal. Tough love, but still, love.

“She would’ve loved to be able to see you.” you say once your laughter dies out, the air a bit lighter between the two of you. “She always wondered if you’d grow your hair out without her around to nag you about keeping it short.”

He reaches up to run a hand through his curls, the strands falling around his face in a way that has your heart stammering in your chest.

“Well, clearly I don’t know how to listen.”

“No, you don’t.”

Jisung smiles softly. “Maybe I’ll cut it now. You know, since I’m here. And because I know she’d want me to.”

You watch him carefully, searching his eyes. For what, you don’t know. All that’s in them are stars.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “You’re here.”

By the time the two of you leave the diner, stomachs full and enough bags of extra side dishes hanging off of your arms to last you at least two weeks, courtesy of Mrs. Kim, the sun is almost fully set.

The ocean is calm, the evening breeze just barely brushing the surface of the tide. Jisung walks in step with you down the street, one side of his face cast in a glow from the sun’s fading rays.

“Do you think you’d maybe want to stop by the arcade that Old Man Park runs? Just for a little?”

You snort. “Why? So I can embarrass you?”

“Hey!” he puts a hand on his chest, offended. “I’ll have you know that I let you win all those times.”

“How do you let someone win after spending hours practicing while I worked at the shop?”

“I was being nice!”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t believe me?” he grins. You try not to look, afraid of how bad your blood pressure might spike from the sight.

“I’ll have you know that I’m one of the best Kart Rider players in the PC Bang scene back in Seoul.”

“Jisung,” you scold, “That’s a computer game. These are coin-ops. There’s way more skill needed.”

“No there isn’t!”

He knocks his shoulder against yours, tucking his chin to his chest to hide his smile when you try to fight back.

It’s easy. Nice. There’s a soft melody echoing in the dust-covered chambers of your heart. You still know all the chords.

Old Man Park’s arcade is a few doors down from the shop. You stop there to drop off the food, spare a glance in the mirror hanging in your office to fix your hair.

Your grandma’s picture stares at you from the other wall, eyes bright.

“Love you,” you say, kissing the skin of your fingertips and pressing it gently against the frame.

Jisung is toeing at a few rocks on the sidewalk when you walk back out. He doesn’t see you, too busy with his eyes casted down at the concrete, hands shoved into his pockets.

It’s still hard to believe that he’s here. Flesh and bone. For a long time it felt like he was nothing but a distant dream, someone who only existed in the memories that you kept locked deep within your heart, the key somewhere on the streets of Seoul.

“Ready?” you ask.

He looks up, his glasses moving when his cheeks round into a smile.

Something passes across his face– a myriad of emotions in just a fraction of a second. Hesitantly, he holds out his hand. Long, delicate fingers.

You stare at it, swallowing roughly around the butterfly wings flapping inside your throat.

The one thing you shouldn’t do, my dear, is rely on forever. Because that, too, is uncertain.

Forever isn’t promised. But even then, there are things you know for sure:

It’s February. The tulips are in bloom. Jisung is here. Living, breathing, in the flesh.

So you take his hand, watch as relief floods his features, and let yourself feel.

The wind in your hair, the calluses on Jisung’s palms, and the warmth radiating out of the smile that threatens to split his face into two.

And with that certainty, the two of you start walking. A silent agreement to focus on the now.

You. Him. This.

“God, I can’t believe everything is only one coin.”

You laugh, watching as the multi-colored lights cast a glow on Jisung’s face.

“Stop acting like you don’t remember this place.”

“I don’t!” he argues, smiling. “We stopped coming here, what, in middle school? Once Chan hyung started driving? We would always ask him to take us to the other one out in the big town!”

Chan’s first car was an old Camry with leather seats and enough room for the three of you to pile into after school. Used, but still with enough juice to satisfy three young kids who felt like they were on top of the world.

You used to sit in the back, the wind whipping your hair every which way while yours and Jisung’s hands lay side by side in the middle seat, pinkies brushing but neither of you willing to take it further.

“Oh, shit!” Jisung gasps, letting go of your hand as he runs up to the space invaders machine.

“Here we go,” you sigh, following after him. He’s like a kid in a candy store, face filled with innocent wonder and joy.

“Aren’t there, like, I don’t know– things better than this in Seoul?” you ask as he shoves a coin into the game.

Jisung turns to look at you with a devilish grin. “Obviously,” he says, “But I can’t beat anyone’s high score over there. Here though? Ha! This place is ancient. I can finally be at the top of the leaderboard in something.”

“We’ll see about that.” you mumble, the noise of the game booting up drowning you out.

Jisung sticks his tongue out when he focuses really hard on things. It’s cute, the way the end of it sits between his lips, spit-slick and parted just a little bit.

He’s glowing, probably because of the lights, hues of red and green and blue flashing across his face. But then again, Jisung has always shined brighter than anything.

The game beeps to signal that he has one life left. He grunts a few times, his fingers tapping the buttons madly as his other hand handles the joystick in a frenzy of movements.

When it ends, he groans, throws his hands up in defeat..

You shake your own head knowingly, watching his eyes bug out of their sockets as soon as the leaderboard appears on the screen, the 8-bit letters blinking at him.

“You’re joking.” he laughs in disbelief, turning to stare at you. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

There, on the screen, is your name. The highest score. Jeongin and Hyunjin’s names sit just below you, respectively.

“What was that again about finally being able to be at the top?” you mock him, smirking.

“Since when did you get good at this?”

You shrug. “Had to find something to do in my free time.”

“No,” he says, rolling up his sleeves. “Nuh-uh. No way. This is not happening. I will beat you.” he holds out his hand for another coin, to which you roll your eyes and place one in his palm.

“You might as well give up now. We’ll be here all night.”

“In your dreams.” he scoffs, assuming his position as another round loads onto the screen.

Jisung has always been competitive. It’s one of his more hidden characteristics.

It persists still, you realize, as you watch him burn through the styrofoam cup of coins that Old Man Park had given the two of you. Free of charge for old time’s sake.

Fort-five minutes. All he’s managed to do is bump Hyunjin down to fourth.

“Ugh!” he groans, kicking the machine lightly with his foot.

“Look at you throwing a tantrum.”

“I’m not throwing a tantrum.” he pouts. You raise an eyebrow.

“Okay fine. I’m throwing a tantrum.”

“Thought so.”

“Can you blame me?” he asks. “This is, like, our first date. And I’m sucking. Hard.”

“Our–” you stop, eyes wide. Jisung mimics you, almost like he didn’t mean to say what he did.

Heat rushes to your cheeks. Your mind goes blank. But the world doesn’t end. Time keeps moving. Jisung is still here.

“I didn’t–”

“I like the sound of that.” you say quickly. “Of this being our first date, I mean.’

He smiles. Slow and sweet like molasses. Blinding.

“And the fact that you suck.”

The moment is shattered, his resulting whine echoing throughout the arcade.

“Come on you big baby,” you laugh, grabbing his hand. “I know a game you can beat me at.”

He lets himself be pulled, pretending that he’s upset, but you can see the smile tugging at his lips when you lace your fingers together.

The feeling is still new, this ease you have with him. The wounds you sported all those years are still healing, some more fresh than others. But with each laugh that comes out of Jisung’s mouth and shared glance, every note that your heart sings, you can feel them beginning to fade. A balm to soothe the burn.

The Pac-Man game is situated in the back corner of the arcade, right next to the jukebox. It used to be your favorite, because Jisung would always use his own coins to play songs for you while you tried to score higher than twenty-five thousand points.

When you get there, he frowns. “The only game you think I can beat you at is Pac-Man?”

“I don’t think,” you say, grabbing a coin before shoving the cup into his chest. “I know.”

The game boots up instantly, and you smile softly to yourself when Jisung moves wordlessly behind you, slips a coin into the jukebox.

“Play something good, Jisungie.”

He freezes. Out of the corner of your eye you watch him stare at you for a long moment. And then he smiles. Stardust.

“You got it.”

In a matter of seconds, Lovers In A Dangerous Time by Bruce Cockburn rings throughout the arcade, the speakers on the ceiling fighting past the static.

An old song. The same one your grandparents would dance to in the mornings, eggs on the stove and love in the air.

Your grandma used to say it was written for them, because when they fell in love the war was at its peak and she didn’t know if he’d ever come home.

After he passed, she still played it, except those times it was Jisung who twirled her around and painted a smile on her face as you watched from the same spot you grew up in. Always there.

Jisung, Jisung, Jisung.

When the game starts, you try your best. It’s hard. You’ve always been terrible at anything involving quick decisions. Focusing on everything at once isn’t easy for you, that much is still true.

“Shit.” you mumble, the top right corner of the screen reading ten thousand points as the ghosts run into you.

Jisung lets out a low whistle. “Harsh.”

“You wanna go back to space invaders and waste the last of our money?” you raise an eyebrow.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Go ahead.” he says, holding the cup out for you to take another coin.

You try a couple more times, failing each and every one. You can tell that Jisung is growing more and more amused with every attempt, and the smugness radiating off of him is starting to rub you the wrong way.

“If you’re so good,” you say after a particularly sad attempt, turning to glare at him. Jisung has his lips pulled tight to stop himself from laughing. “Then why don’t you try?”

He chuckles then. “I’d rather help you, if you’ll let me.”

“How are you supposed to do that? We only have one coin left.”

Jisung doesn’t say anything. He puts the cup down, the last coin held between his fingers. You watch as he slips it into the machine, move to get out of his way once he’s done, but he stops you by grabbing your hand and spinning you back around, his fingers placed over yours on the joystick.

With your back flush against his front, caged in by his arms on either side, Jisung takes a deep breath.

“This okay?” he asks right next to your ear, the curls on the side of his head brushing your cheek when he leans down to get a better look at the screen.

Warm. He’s so warm. The material of his sweater only worsens the heat, and the faint scent of vanilla makes your head swim.

It’s more than okay. Great, even. It’s Jisung. Everything and more.

“Yeah,” you say, letting him control your hands as he flicks the joystick. “It’s okay.”

The hair against your cheek moves when he smiles. “Good.” he says, and then hits the start button.

The game begins but you’re barely processing what’s happening, too aware of the feeling of his body pressed against yours.

A firm chest, different from what’s observable on the outside, what with the fluffiness of his sweater and soft features. His arms too, encasing you, the bulge and flex of his biceps every time he moves.

It’s all so intoxicating, so much so that you don’t even realize you’ve beaten the highest score in the system by the time he loses his last life.

“What?” you blink. “What the hell?!”

You laugh, spinning to face Jisung who’s grinning from ear to ear. In your excitement, you jump, flinging your arms around his neck. He’s surprised, but catches you nonetheless, circling his arms around your waist.

“Holy shit how’d you do that!” you squeal while he swings you around, feet off the ground.

“Magic, I guess.” he chuckles.

The closeness of his voice brings you crashing back down, suddenly aware of what position you’re both in. You pull back quickly, clear your throat, and watch as his face falls from the loss of contact.

It’s been a long time since you hugged Jisung. The thought transports you to that day four years ago, standing under the apple tree, the future uncertain. Forever promised.

Things are different now.

“Sorry,” he backtracks. “I didn’t– um, I wasn’t trying to–”

You cut him off by throwing yourself at him for a second time. Intentional. Breathless. Tired of running and acting like it’s not the thing you want most in the entire world.

Jisung doesn’t react until he feels your face against the skin of his neck. On instinct, he hugs tight, hands around your waist, breathing in the smell of your hair.

“Hi.” you whisper against him.

One word. Simple. However the weight of it sends a chill down his spine. It feels like home.

He tightens his hold. A silent understanding. The two of you never had much of a need for words anyways.

“Hi.” he whispers back.

The apple tree is much bigger now.

Long, thick branches, a wide trunk, a slight tilt in its shape.

It’s bare. The season is long gone. But it’s okay, because it means that the view of the stars isn’t blocked when you and Jisung lay beneath it.

It’s the same but it isn’t. There’s gaps– periods of time where the two of you grew separately. There are moments and memories tucked away that neither of you know about, whole lives to discover.

But even so, it feels right. His arm wrapped around you, your head on his chest. The stars and the moon. You and Jisung.

It’s nice. Perfect, even. But there’s a conversation that needs to be had. One that can’t be put off any longer.

“Ji.”

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Jisung shifts beneath you, tightening his hold. The grass is damp. Neither of you care, too caught up in each other to stress about whether or not it’ll stain.

“Of course.”

“Am I ever gonna see you again?”

He takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

“You said that last time.”

“I know.”

“So what makes this different?” you ask, sitting up. He watches you carefully, eyes trained on every movement like he’s scared you’ll get up and run away.

When he realizes you’re waiting for an answer, he sits up too, pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs.

He doesn’t say anything, just wordlessly reaches into his pocket. Silently, he hands whatever he grabbed to you. A guitar pick.

It’s white, a marbled design. Golden flecks infused into the lines. There, on the front, is a singular marigold. When you flip it over, you’re met with a tulip.

“Do you remember that one time, when you called me crying at midnight because Nana told you that she didn’t know if she’d be able to afford school in the city?”

You nod silently, still turning the guitar pick over in your hand.

It was one of those nights where the rain was relentless. Monsoon season always tagged on to the tail end of the school year, bringing with it a more intense gloominess than usual.

You’d been angry. Stressed. Irritated that other kids at school were making plans to go to the mainland for college and you were stuck helping your grandmother trim foliage and wrap vases in newspaper.

“You told me that you couldn’t do it anymore.” Jisung whispered, staring up at the sky. “That you were tired of being here. That you needed to get out.”

You remember. Jisung had walked through the rain to show up at your window. Had climbed in with muddy shoes and sat on the floor of your room with you until the downpour stopped and your tears dried.

“And I said that I would make it happen, that I would invent a way to live amongst the stars so you could be as far from here as possible.”

“So what?” you ask, looking at him. “Did you finally do it, then? Is that why you came back?”

“Don’t be like that.”

“No, Jisung, I’m gonna fucking be like that.” you scoff, rising to your feet.

There’s a fire in your veins, stoked until the embers are burning hot against your throat. Too good to be true. You should’ve known that there was no explanation left for him to give.

Jisung scrambles to his feet. “It wasn’t like I wanted to–”

“Oh like hell you did.” you say, turning to face him. “Four years, Jisung. I waited four years and you just– you come back and decide to tell me about some make-believe bullshit to save yourself and feel less guilty about the fact that you left.”

“It wasn’t make-believe to me,” he argues. “It was real. Everything I said was real. I left and I tried for years to make something of myself so I could come back here and get you.”

“Oh so it’s my fault? I made you leave, is that it?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“So then say something else!” you yell. The stars rumble, threatening to fall out of the sky. “Say something else, then, Jisung. Why didn’t you call? Huh?”

“Because I–” he stops, licks his lips. “God. Fuck. I couldn’t face you if I had nothing to show for myself, okay? It wasn’t fair to you for me to leave you behind just so I could fail.”

“Ha!” you laugh, running a hand through your hair in disbelief. “So you decided to go radio silent instead? Decided to not only leave me alone but let me suffer and wonder about where you were because that’s so much better than telling me that you were struggling, right? Great choice, Jisung. Really.”

He blinks a few times, watching as you pace back and forth in the grass.

Anger bubbles deep in your gut. This whole time, he knew. It was a conscious decision. Jisung deliberately didn’t contact you because he chose not to.

“Did you ever even love me?”

The words tumble out before you can stop them. Jisung’s entire body goes rigid, his face falling and eyes hardening within a fraction of a second.

“Watch what you say.” he says, his voice low in his chest.

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just be honest.”

“I’m trying.” he pleads. His eyes are glossy. Big and round behind his glasses. Illuminated by the moon.

“I fucked up, okay? I prioritized myself and the way I felt over you and fucked everything up. But I tried. I tried so fucking hard. And I’m sorry it took me so long but I wanted– no– I needed to make sure that I had everything figured out before I came back. I promised I would.”

“No, Jisung, you promised me that–”

“I’m not talking about you.” he says then, taking a deep breath. “You weren’t the only one I made promises to back then.”

Before you have a chance to speak, Jisung says, “I promised her. I told her I’d get you out of here. That I’d give you a life that you deserved, because she knew she couldn’t.”

You drop to your knees when the first sob hits, the force of it racking your body so hard you feel like you’re drowning. Jisung catches you on the fall, holds you up, lets you bury your face into his neck like he had so many times before.

“She told me you believed in forever. She wanted me to give that to you. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Jisung lets you cry. He holds you through the storm, your wails as loud as thunder and tears as heavy as rain. Four years in the making; the sky and the earth colliding until the dirt and layers of sediment give way to the molten core that’s been hiding beneath the surface all along.

Pain. Grief. All of it pent up and leading to this moment.

“You should’ve told me.” you cry, beating a fist into Jisung’s chest. “You idiot. You fucking idiot. You should’ve told me.”

Jisung pulls you in closer, takes each hit as long as it means that it’ll soften the blow on your heart. He whispers apologies in your ear, runs a hand through your hair.

When it quiets again, the worst of the storm gone, he shifts so that your head is in his lap, his legs crossed and tucked beneath him. A few stray tears wet the fabric of his jeans, your eyes focused on the field of flowers across the street.

“I won’t ask you to come with me.” he says after a long while, when your breathing has evened out. “I know that things are different. You have a life here that you’ve made for yourself, responsibilities to bear as well.”

He pauses to push a few strands of hair out of your face. His fingers are gentle against the skin of your cheek.

“But I promise it’ll be different. I spent too long away from you, was too selfish for my own good. I won’t disappear again. I’ll call every day. I’ll visit. You’ll get every part of me that I kept away from you all this time, and I’ll get every part of you in return.”

Your heart thrums. The thought of having what you’ve wanted for so long. Of having Jisung.

“And when you’re ready, when you feel like you can’t do it anymore, there’ll be a place for you.”

His voice is firm. Confident. More sure than he’s ever sounded before in his life.

When you turn to face him, he’s already staring back. Jisung, with all the stars in his eyes and a heart full of dreams. Jisung, with the world at his fingertips and the offer to make it yours.

Under the apple tree, Jisung leans down and kisses you for the first time. Twenty four years in the making, soft and slow, his lips a perfect fit against yours. A starboy and his flower girl. His glow is so bright it makes blossoms sprout from her fingertips.

Soft curls tickle your eyelids when he pulls away to rest his forehead against yours. You reach up to run a hand through them, smiling softly when he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“I love you.” you say first this time.

He reaches out a hand, closes it over your fist that’s still clutching the guitar pick. A marigold and a tulip, both working together to make a perfect harmony.

“I love you, too.” Jisung whispers back. “Forever.”

Jisung stops by the shop early to say goodbye.

There’s less tears this time, less of a reason to be sad. But still, when he wraps his arms around you, vanilla filling your nose and curls against your face, you feel your composure crumble.

“Every day.” he says, repeating the same thing he did all night. “I promise. Morning and night. Also at lunch. Oh, and on your days off. Matter of fact, you can call when you’re on the toilet too.”

The last part earns him an elbow to the ribs, his laughter bubbling up and out of his throat as he tries to dodge any and all subsequent attacks.

He kisses you stupid before he goes, Chan rolling his eyes from his car out front. You flip him off blindly, Jisung’s lips still attached to yours, earning a loud honk in response.

When he leaves, the shop is quiet, the only sound being the buzzing of your phone as Jisung blows it up with text messages the second the car pulls away.

You’re too busy replying, giggling to yourself when a slew of cute emoticons start appearing one by one, that you nearly fall over out of your chair when Hyunjin bursts through the door.

“Jesus Christ Hyune, did you have to–”

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, breathless.

“Uh,” you blink, glancing round. “Working?”

“Is Jisung not on a damn plane right now?”

“I mean he’s on his way to the airport. Chan is–”

“Chan hyung told me that Jisung wanted you to go with him.” Hyunjin says, brow furrowed.

You sigh. “He didn’t want me to go with him. Well, okay, he did. But I told him I can’t just pick up and leave. He knows that. Nana left this place to me and–”

“You are so stupid.” Hyunjin sighs.

“Excuse me?” you ask. You stand up, crossing your arms as you walk closer to the counter.

“Come on. We have to go.”

“Go where, Hyunjin? I’m not leaving to–”

He cuts you off, places an envelope on the wooden surface. “And I am not letting you stay here and pretend that this is what you want.”

“What is that?”

“A plane ticket.” he says, pushing it towards you. “To Seoul.”

Your mouth opens and closes, lost for words. Hyunjin is already moving around the counter, pushing past you with an expression the most serious you’ve ever seen on him.

“Hyunjin I– I can’t– where did you even…?”

“Chan hyung has a friend.” he mumbles as he begins pulling stuff out of the office. Your planning notebook, your apron, the picture of your grandma off the wall. All of it thrown into a small box he managed to snag from somewhere off to the side.

“His name is Seungmin or something. Met him out in the tourist hub. Dude’s super rich with tons of miles and apparently owed Chan for a drunken night where he needed to be escorted to his hotel. So thanks to him, you’re leaving.” he explains as he grabs the box with both hands and starts walking towards the door.

“Wait.” you stop him, watching as he turns to regard you with a look that says his patience is running thin.

“I told you I can’t leave, Hyunjin. This place is where I need to be.”

He huffs, places the box on the ground in front of him. His hair falls in waves around his face, a shimmery dark brown beneath the rays of the sun poking into the room.

“Can you be honest with me?” he asks.

You nod, slowly.

“Do you love him?”

Hyunjin watches you with careful eyes. Reads you like a book, something he’s always been good at. You don’t doubt that it’s written on your face. Star-kissed cheeks and eyes as bright as marigolds.

“So much that it hurts, Hyune.”

Hyunjin smiles, eyes watery. “Then you deserve to go. You deserve your chance to be free. Don’t worry about this place, I’ll take care of it.”

The familiar sting of tears sits behind your eyes. Your heart swells full of love for this friend, this light, this beacon of unconditional love in the shape of your best friend.

“I don’t have clothes.” you manage to say around the lump in your throat.

Hyunjin shakes his head, tears spilling down the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll send them to you.”

“There’s a lot to do around here for just one person. What if you need me?”

“I’ll manage.”

You round the corner quickly, throwing yourself into his chest. He catches you with ease, wraps his arms around your body as the both of you cry into each other.

“I’ll miss you.” you say weakly.

Hyunjin’s throat bobs against the top of your head. “I’ll always be here in our little corner of the world.”

The two of you stay like that for a while. Hyunjin’s warmth seeps into your skin, lights you ablaze. By the time he pulls away, his hands on your shoulders, you feel like you’re floating. Unreal.

“I don’t have a way to get there.” you say quickly, glancing at the clock.

Jisung’s plane leaves soon. The airport, the only one on the island, is a thirty minute drive. You’re at a disadvantage the more time you spend not moving.

“Don’t worry,” Hyunjin chuckles. “I’ve got that taken care of.”

You open your mouth to ask him what he means when you’re cut off by the sound of honking from outside. Confused, you run to the door, your jaw dropping as soon as you realize who’s waiting for you.

“Hurry up people we don’t have all day!” Jeongin calls, his upper body hanging out of the window. He’s parked outside in a beat-up truck, arms waving wildly when he spots you.

“Innie!” you scream, pushing through the door to run at him. He jumps out of the truck just in time for you to barrel into his chest, laughter loud in your ears as he spins you around.

“You’re here! Oh my god I thought you weren’t coming for another two weeks.” you say in disbelief once he puts you down.

He looks older, more sophisticated. His hair is rusted and falls past his ears, the ends just barely touching his shoulders.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs. “I figured I’d show up earlier. You know, see you before you leave, catch up with my parents, help Hyunjin break into your house. The usual.”

“Help Hyunjin break into my what–” you say, but you stop when your eyes fall on the small suitcase in the backseat. Your own bag, the one that’s been sitting in your closet untouched for years now.

“For the last time,” Hyunjin says from behind you, carrying the box in his arms. “It’s not breaking and entering if I have a key. Which, by the way, I told you would come in handy one day.”

He sets the box down next to the luggage and dusts his hands on his pants. When he turns to face you, he’s smiling, eyes disappearing into crescent moons.

With tears threatening to spill once again, you stare at the both of them, your heart bursting at the seams. “I love you guys.”

Jeongin grimaces, opts for getting back in the driver’s seat as you laugh. Hyunjin rolls his eyes and ushers you inside of the truck.

“Yeah, yeah. Save it.” he says. “Right now, you have a plane to catch.”

The airport is crowded.

There are tons of people everywhere, some saying hello and some saying goodbye. Hyunjin explained the gate system to you before you left him and Jeongin on the curb, and you keep glancing down at your ticket to make sure none of the information has changed in the past thirty seconds since you last looked.

Thankfully, your gate isn’t far. With twenty minutes to go until boarding, you can feel the sweat building up beneath the hand that’s curled around your suitcase handle.

It’s scary thinking about the fact that this is it. That you’re finally leaving.

It’s bittersweet, too. There’s an excitement in the pit of your stomach as well as a feeling of dread in your chest, both of them meeting in the middle somewhere.

You let your eyes scan the crowd, searching for wavy hair and thick-rimmed glasses. However, the first thing you see is the familiar neck of a guitar, strapped right on to a back that you would know and recognize anywhere without warning.

Jisung is seated near the gate, his eyebrows furrowed and lips set in a pout as he glares down at his phone. You realize that he’s probably wondering why you won’t answer, why all of his emoticons are going ignored.

Quietly, you come up behind him, reach into your pocket, and say, “Excuse me? I think you dropped this.”

Jisung startles, his eyes falling on to the guitar pick being held out in your hand. Slowly, he lets his gaze follow upwards, wide-eyed and shocked.

“What– what are you doing here?” he asks.

You place the pick in his hand. “I'm on my way to Seoul. There’s a guy there that I’ve been trying to find for a while.” you say.

Jisung catches on quickly. “Oh, really?” he asks, moving over so you can sit beside him. “This guy must be pretty great if you’re leaving for the mainland.”

The rain starts hitting the tarmac outside right as you sit down. “Hm, yeah. He is. He really likes the stars. He says that he found a way for me to live in them, too.”

He laughs, the sound making your stomach flip. “Sounds like you’re excited.”

You nod. “I am. He promised me that we’d do a lot together, experience new things. Apparently he’s gonna write songs and I’m gonna be a nerd.”

Jisung snorts and reaches across to link his hand with yours.

“He’s really lucky.” he says, leaning over to plant a kiss on your lips.

You smile into it. “So am I.” you whisper into his mouth, your heart stuffed to the brim with flower petals.

And when Jisung smiles back, his other hand coming up to cup your cheek and give you another kiss with the force of a thousand suns, you feel the key you’d been searching for finally click into place.

Salt of the earth. Soil and stardust. A boy who glows so bright that his girl sprouts blossoms from her fingertips.

Forever isn’t promised. But then again, with Jisung by your side, there are things you know for certain:

It’s February. The tulips are in bloom. In Jeju– it rains.

And no matter what, despite all odds, you and Jisung will always find your way back to each other in the place where marigolds grow.

[tags: @skzstarnet @snowyquokka @palindrome969 @summergirlsmj @n1staytiny @drhsthl @strwbrrychannie @shays-library @giuliadesu @iknowyouknowminho @linocz @pynchkilledme @jisunglyricist @itsgghowitsgg @alician87 @skzms @meloncremesoda @ilychee08 @allaboutsan @legally-lixs @stayceebs97 @candyquokka @chans1aptop @liknws @realrintaro @beeracha @vxllxnsworld @feelikecinderella @caitxx1 @lilac13 @sebastianswhore13 @classiclitandmemes @hyunverse @linosazuna @lastgreatamericandynasty1 @bubbly-moon @cookiesandcreammy ]

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shellshocklove · 22 days ago

Text

brat four: everything is romantic | joel miller

pairing/au: joel miller x brat!female!reader – no outbreak

summary: joel's brat summer has come to an end.

warnings: this is an 18+ fic so mdni! age gap, enemies to lovers vibes? swearing, drinking of alcohol, smoking of cigarettes, use of pet names, angst, fluff, smut, brat tamed? reader, dom!joel, a hint of sub!joel? manhandling, oral sex (69-ing), cock worship, pussy pronouns, a little dacryphilia, degradation (whore, slut), multiple orgasms, squirting, creampie, some sub space territory, unprotected sex (don’t do it!), one (1) use of the word 'daddy', no use of y/n

a/n: here is the final chapter! thank you as always to @dustydaddyyy! 💚 without her i don't think would've been able to finish this.

main masterlist / series masterlist / ao3 / playlist

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 this account stands with palestine. the creator of tlou is a zionist, and the second game is largly based on israel/palestine. please, everyone who interacts, educate yourself about the genocide happening right now, and support/donate.

He was used to being listened to, your father, his voice weighty although every word he spewed was superfluous. You watched how his jaw moved, up and down, up and down, almost like he moved in slow motion, the spit splattering in big drops.

"–I need you to smile with your eyes this time– the social media intern told me a lot of people on twitter said you looked like you didn't want to be there… are you even listening?" he spat.

Never in your life had you wanted to roll your eyes as much as you wanted to now. Something ripped deep inside your heart, at a wound that had never really closed. You were used to the feeling; a quiet rage simmering under your skin at yourself for feeling it still.

"Dad, I already told your secretary weeks ago that I can't be there–"

"I don't fucking care–" he cut you off, "I tell you to be somewhere and you'll be there, understood? Don't forget your place, now."

The threat didn't sting as much as it had a few years ago. What used to scare you in the past, now only managed to make you angry. You had packed your bags already. The summer was over, your last year of post grad was waiting, along with your new internship, you couldn't just miss the first few days because your father needed you to stand behind him and smile (with your eyes) at a fundraiser.

It was ridiculous.

Oh, how stupid you'd felt when he'd arrived at the house, thinking he was there to say goodbye, to be a father for once.

Turns out you were ridiculous.

"Or else?" you spat out so quickly you didn't have time to regret it.

His eyes hardened, eyes growing cold as he dug them deep into you. The words you'd spat out had hung over your conversations with your father for years, but never had you spoken them aloud. He made you feel so small, he'd always made you feel small, and you were done with it.

He stepped closer, the kitchen island the only thing separating you now, and raised a finger at you. "What did you just say?"

Behind your ribcage your heart beat out of your chest, pumping your rage throughout your body. Images flashed before your eyes, a supercut of your childhood, of the countless times he'd stood over you with poisoned words.

"I said: or else? You need a hearing aid or something?"

Your father stepped around the island, and a fear gripped around your throat, your legs backed off on their own accord. He froze then, a pleased smile tugging at his face, ripping it apart. You felt sick to your stomach.

"Or else…" he started, "I'll cut you off. If you're gonna be an ungrateful bitch like this, I ain't giving you a penny– I'll have you removed from my will, I'll disinherit you, you understand?"

"You wouldn't dare," you tried to argue back, but your voice lacked bite and your anger.

"Oh, sweetie, I'll do it with a smile."

Looking at your father, how pleased with himself he looked, you felt your whole body deflate. How could the man who gave you life, who put you on this earth have so much hatred in his heart for you? What was it about you that was so hard to love?

"It would be a relief," he continued, but his voice sounded far away, "to finally be rid of you."

"'m sorry to interrupt y'all talkin'," Joel's drawl cut through the room, "we're finishin' up out here 'nd we need your final approval."

Joel was looking straight at you, but it was hard to interpret his face. Something dragged across it, like he fought to keep himself in check, but softening at the edges as he looked at you.

How dared he? How dared he look at you like that?

“I’m paying for this nonsense so I’ll be the judge of that,” your father huffed, pushing past you to slip out into the backyard, leaving you alone with Joel.

Suddenly, the room felt awfully stuffy, something heavy growing between you and Joel. He must've caught the end of you and your father's conversation. A mix of anger and embarrassment simmered at the bottom of your stomach at the thought.

You'd done exactly as he'd wished; you'd slipped quietly out the door at the wedding and left your dignity behind. The summer never wanted to end, and seeing him day in and day out, working away in the backyard stung more than you'd ever admit out loud.

So you'd kept your distance, leaving early to mill about downtown, trying to fill your days with anything to keep you from thinking of him. Joel wasn't worth the energy. Joel was a bug under your shoe to crush.

(Joel was all you ever thought about.)

At night a childish desires would plague you. The dark conjured them forth, made your mind lenient with hope, hope that he'd storm into the house like some love interest in a romcom to beg for your forgiveness, or he'd kiss you, or fuck you, or everything all at once.

When morning came, and you caught his eyes as you slipped out the house, you were reminded of the coldness in his voice, and not the warmth of his touch. What was the real Joel? Maybe it didn't matter? Joel had been fun until it wasn't anymore, a fling for the summer, nothing more– never anything more, because you didn't fall in love.

Love.

What even was love? Was it the way Joel looked at you right now as he stepped closer?

No.

You hated him.

Tears pushed at the back of your eyes, a lump building in your throat as you held them back. How could you ever love someone who'd treat you like that? You needed to leave; you'd rather die than Joel see you cry. Your father you could handle, that old wound would never close and the pain was numbed long ago, but Joel was like a wound to the gut that wouldn't stop bleeding.

"Hey," Joel's hand wrapped around your wrist, holding you back from leaving, "You okay?"

This motherfucker.

"Why do you care?" you bit back through your tears, because why did he? Why did he care? He'd been pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with you. "You didn't sign up for my antics, don't you remember?" you tore at your hand, and you slipped between his fingers.

Pushing through the door, you ran up the stairs to your room. Joel didn't bother with a reply, and you hated how it stung in your chest. The door slung shut behind you, and you collapsed on the bed. Swallowing around the lump in your throat, you wouldn't let your tears fall. Instead, your curled your knees to your chest, and focused on your breath.

Breathe in, slowly, steady, and then out again.

Again, and again.

Breathe in, and out.

Again, and again.

A knock at the door startled you, and you couldn't tell if you'd fallen asleep or lulled yourself into a false sense of peace. Sitting up, you wiped at your eyes, before jostling to your feet when the door opened.

There he stood, Joel, in the doorway of your childhood bedroom, rough jeans clasped in by a tool belt. He didn't belong in here, you didn't belong in here – not anymore. He didn't say anything, only looked around the room, like he was looking for you. Maybe he was? This was where you'd been born – the girl who felt like a complete mess – the disguise masquerading like a brat.

"What do you want?" you spat.

A frown pulled at Joel's face, and his eyes tried to catch your gaze, which you desperately avoided.

“We’re all finished up out there,” he told you, fingers twitching at his side, “We’ll be out of your hair in a couple of minutes.”

Why was he even in your room? Your dad had been out there, he’d talked to him, probably gotten the okay from him. Everything was taken care of… so why was he here?

“Okay, that’s fine,” you nodded, keeping your voice cold and devoid of any emotion. Joel cleared his throat uneasily.

“... your dad, uh, left.”

His tone was difficult to read, something akin to pity legible between the lines. You gave him a dry, sardonic smile.

“Of course.”

You scoffed, wrapping your arms around yourself as you turned your back on him, looking out the window. Of course you weren’t even worth a goodbye. You wanted it to hurt, but you’d been rejected by him your whole life. Never ever did you want it to happen again, but now you braced yourself for Joel’s rejection, of the sound of his footsteps getting quieter and quieter as he walked out of your life.

“Goin’ somewhere?” Joel said quietly, and you couldn’t hold back your head from looking past your shoulder. His eyes had found your packed bags left by the door, the bags now fuller than when you’d arrived at the start of the summer.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” you countered. You wished your voice was harder, more accusing, but it just sounded meek.

“Looks like you’re leavin’ for good.”

“I am.”

A frown pulled at Joel’s face. Confusion and sadness? You couldn’t tell what it meant, couldn’t understand him– and maybe you never had. Maybe you’d just gotten ahead of yourself, put meaning where there wasn’t any. Confused attention with adoration.

“Then it’s my business,” Joel said, almost angry. “If you're goin' away for good then I’d like to know 'bout it.”

“Why?” you snapped, your voice biting, “So now you don’t like it when I disappear quietly? You should make up your damn mind, Joel.”

Your words seemed to stun Joel into a surprised silence. If he wasn't going to leave you alone, you'd be the one to walk out instead. You didn’t have to stay here any longer and listen to him pretend to care, not when he’d made it so clear he didn’t.

The thought gnawed at you, simmering down your anger and draining you of any substantial fight. You didn’t need to re-hash this. Tonight you were going home, to your real home, and you'd never see him again. What was the point in making this harder than it had to be? You’d always thought you were tough, you are tough, and maybe all this pain had its benefits; you'd built up a bit of a callus. You were tough skin where nothing could pierce through to the core.

“Look, I don’t need to go over this again, okay?” you let out, your voice a strange mixture of anger and defeat, “I got the message, loud and clear, now can you fuck off?”

This was the first time you’d sworn at Joel like this. You wished your voice was angrier, or cold and calculated, like how his own voice had sounded when he kicked you out the door at the wedding. Instead, there was a raw undertone in your voice, a hurt you hadn’t intended for Joel to hear.

Joel's silence rubbed at you, rubbed your skin raw. You wanted him to scream at you, raise his voice and say something entirely too hurtful. At least then it would feel okay, you could leave with a good conscience. It just didn't work out. When Joel didn’t move, your jaw clenched, nose drawing an irritated breath.

“Fine, I’ll go.”

You turned towards the door, managing two or three furious steps before Joel spoke.

“Red,” he said suddenly.

It was just one word, but it was that word. Your word, our word. It stopped you in your tracks, turning to look at him with shock on your face.

“What did you say?” you asked him, and for the first time today, Joel gave you a look you could entirely decipher: he looked sad, almost in a desperate way.

“Red... “ he repeated, and you watched how his fist clenched by his side, “‘means stop, right? Can we just take a second and stop this, please?”

When you said nothing, he continued, “This ain't how I want us to be leavin’ things.”

“Us?” you echoed incredulously, “I’m pretty sure you made it very clear there was no us.”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Joel let out in an exasperated breath, "Look… I should've never said those things to you, especially when–"

“Don’t,” you said, your tone and gaze full of warning.

Don’t bring him up.

This was not a topic of conversation you were open to having with Joel.

"No, listen to me," he commanded, "D'you realize the situation you've put me in? You're the governor's daughter– d'you think I haven't seen him on TV? Seen his ads, and the pamphlets, and all his 'family values' politics? But I had you all wrong… How was I s'posed to know this was how he treated his daughter?"

Joel shook his head in anger, gathering a stuttering breath, "You don't deserve that shit, no one does. You're good, I can tell– even when you put on that little act that makes me want to fuck the daylights outta ya."

You fought it with every fiber of your being, but you felt something inside you soften as your eyes moved to meet Joel’s, the corners of his mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile.

“You were an asshole to me,” you told him, trying to save any of the resolve and anger you had left.

“I was, and ‘m sorry 'bout it, 'nd I wish I could take it all back,” he told you earnestly, “But your behavior wasn’t perfect either... next time you want to be my date to somethin', at least give me a chance to ask you first, princess.”

“Next time?” you questioned, and you couldn't help the raise of your eyebrows.

"Well, at the risk of soundin' like a kid still in high school– I like you, okay?" Joel confessed, and you felt a heat coat your cheeks.

Joel was right – this felt like high school.

"Are you asking me to go steady with you?"

You couldn't help it, you had to push at him, but the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth made it worth it. His laugh sounded like home, and you felt yourself slip under.

Again, and again.

"Not yet," he answered, taking a step in your direction. "I wanna get to know you first, take you on a date. There’s something special ‘bout ya, I’ve seen it.” He took another step.

"You do know me," you told him.

Joel shook his head, closing the distance, "I know a brat with your name, but I know she ain't the real you." A large palm cupped your cheek, making your eyelids flutter at the touch.

"Stop hidin' from me," he whispered.

Inside, you felt something crumble as a tear made a river down your cheek. You felt yourself frown at the feeling, surprised by your own reaction. Joel's thumb rubbed over it, catching it, catching you.

"I don't know how," you confessed. The words tasted acrid on your tongue, and as you let them settle another tear ran down your cheek. Once a tear had broken free, you couldn't stop them.

"Oh, sweetheart," he cooed, your tears wetting Joel's hand as he wiped at your cheeks.

"Please don't, Joel," you begged through a shuddering breath, "I don't want your sympathy."

"It ain't sympathy. I fuckin' care ‘bout you– there's a difference."

His words hit you in the chest, knocking the breath out of you. I fuckin' care 'bout you. No one had told you something like that before; no one had cared for you or about you before. More tears streamed down your face, and this time you couldn't hold back your sob. Joel's arms were around you in a second, pressing you tightly to his chest, as a comforting palm held the back of your head.

"I didn't know," you whispered into his chest, staining his t-shirt with your tears.

"I know," he whispered back, pressing a kiss to your temple, "It's okay, princess."

His lips were so soft against your skin, so gentle, and warm. Tilting your head back, you caught his eyes, watched the deep whiskey color seeping with warmth. Without thinking you leaned forward, brushing your lips over Joel's in a kiss, a first kiss.

What his lips would taste like, you'd daydreamed about before; mint-y, sugary sweet or deep like embers? Joel didn't taste like either, he tasted like Joel, like a comforting hug, like the ecstasy of an orgasm, like a home. When you pulled away, you kept your eyes shut, not wanting to let go of the feeling of him just yet.

"Listen…"

The deep bass of Joel's voice soothed your eyes open where they stared right into Joel's. His voice had sounded steady, but his eyes gave his worry away.

"At the wedding–" Joel's voice stalled.

His eyes rested at something behind you, dancing back and forth as he searched for his words. With a shake off his head he let go of your body, taking with him the soothing safety he exuded. Looking around your room for a moment his eyes settled on your bed. He looked so out of place in your room, your mattress giving way for him where he sat at the edge.

Joel let your words sit between you, as his teeth caught on his lip, chewing. "Do you…" Joel trailed off, before he drew a deep breath. "I need ya to be honest with me now, no more games–"

"Okay…" you breathed out, your heart drumming in your chest.

Joel chewed on his lip again, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown as he searched for his words. "What was all this to you? That night at the club I thought you were pullin' my leg– why in the hell did you approach me?"

This time your face scrunched in a frown, "Why are you asking me this?"

"Just humor me, please."

Taking a deep breath you grabbed the back of your vanity chair, turning it to face Joel before you sat down. "Well, if I'm gonna be honest…" you started, "I was just looking for someone to buy me a drink. You were sitting there all alone so I thought why not. I liked that you made me work for it, it was fun, and hot, and I really wanted you to fuck me."

It was hard to interpret Joel where he sat, nodding his head with his eyes glued to the floor as he listened to you speak. "Why?" he said, looking up and finding your gaze.

"Why?" you couldn't help but chuckle, "Are you serious right now? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror– looked at your dick?"

A shy smile coated his face, and you swore you saw the apples of his cheeks flush pink. "I've looked at myself in the mirror, princess, and I ain't as young as I used to be."

"Is this why you're asking? Because you're older than me?" you wanted to know.

"I'm askin' because I'm old enough to be your daddy." In his eyes you could see a glimmer of something like shame. It was contagious, snaking its way into your chest where it squeezed around your heart.

"Are you ashamed of me?" This time you needed him to be honest, but still, you couldn't help but feel a nervousness trickle through your body as you awaited his answer.

"No," he said quickly, "It ain't that…"

"What is it then?" You almost didn't want to ask, your head swimming with answers before he could utter them.

"I'm ashamed of myself," he confessed, you felt the words run ice cold down your back. "I get that everythin' is different now– with datin' 'nd all. Nothin' wrong with a one night stand… but I'm too old to be someone's fuckbuddy. I can't be that guy for you."

"I d-don't want you to," you rushed, surprising yourself as you stumbled over the words.

The corner of his mouth twitched, a small smile telling you he didn't believe you.

"Well, you tell me nothin'. The little persona you put on is fun for sex, but it ain't fun when it has repercussions in real life. When you showed up at the wedding… I panicked, okay? For you it's all fun 'n games, but for me that's my family. What was I s'posed to say if they saw you, huh? Tell 'em that's the girl I'm fuckin'? Pretty sure my daughter would have a fuckin' aneurysm."

Joel shook his head as a shaky breath sifted through him.

"I shouldn't have said all that shit to you– I shouldn't have used that tone, but I couldn't let it continue like that… I don't want casual with you– I ain't got the energy for that sorta thing. I wanna know where I stand, I don't wanna keep guessin' what you're thinkin'… I can take your attitude, but at least be forthright with me." Joel's eyes found his hands folded in his lap.

"Okay…” you hesitated for a moment, “I think I might be falling in love with you," you confessed. The words fell out of your mouth before you could think them through, and you let them. Somehow, you weren't afraid anymore. You'd already lost the people who were supposed to be closest to you, supposed to be your family. There was nothing else to lose, just Joel, just a love.

He looked up from his lap, "You think or you are?"

Your teeth came down on your lip, chewing at a loose piece of skin as your eyebrows pulled together in a frown. "I am… I think–" you tried, your finger pinching the bridge of your nose, "I've never been in love… I don't know."

The heat rising in your cheeks had you look away from him. Across from you Joel rose to his feet and closed the small distance between you. A heavy palm found your cheek, turning your face slowly.

"D'you wanna find out?" he smiled, the rough pad of his thumb skating softly over your cheek. Joel towered over you, but you didn't feel small… you felt protected. The realization had tears press behind your eyes.

"Heyheyhey," Joel cooed, while his other hand found your cheek, "It's okay."

Drawing a shaky breath, you told him, "It's not, Joel, I'm leaving– tonight." A tear broke loose as the words left your lips.

Joel's thumbs wiped at your tears before he crouched down between your legs with a groan, his knees popping loudly. "You don't need to do anythin', princess. Y'can stay at my place until you figure things out–"

You shook your head as more tears ran down your cheeks. "I'm moving back to California, I was only supposed to stay here for the summer," you told him, "I have one year left of my engineering degree at Berkeley, and I'm starting a new internship job on Monday."

"Oh," Joel let out. If he tried to hide his surprise, he did an awful job at it; it almost made a smile crack between your tears.

"You should check your face Joel,” you told him, your tone as light as you could manage it right now, “I know you're old, but in this millennia, girls can be engineers too," you tried to jest.

He let out an incredulous breath, before he let go of your face, "I know that– but California… it ain't exactly a short drive."

In your chest, you felt a twinge, "And you don't exactly text."

Joel fell silent at your words, head dipping forward, and you swore you could hear the cogs turning in his head. With a groan he stood to his feet, backing up to sit at your bed again.

"Look," he started, his eyes catching yours, "I wanna give this a go, if you wanna give this a go."

"I do," you hurried, and Joel nodded.

"You leavin' makes this a hell of a lot more complicated…" he sighed, "If we're gonna do this thing, I wanna do it right… take you on a date– treat you right."

"I'd like that," you smiled, and you knew it was the truth.

Dating had been a means to an end; free meals in the exchange for mediocre sex for a month or three (or however long it took you to die of boredom). Dating Joel would be different; it would be real. At the start of the summer, you hadn't realized how starved you'd been for something like this, how you'd filled up on emptiness all your life and mistaken it for love.

"I got 'nother job lined up startin' next week, but I should be able to take the weekend off in a month or so," Joel told you.

Inside your chest, you felt like you'd swallowed a bag of butterflies. "You wanna come visit me?" you asked, a genuine smile tugging at your lips.

"'f you'll have me, princess."

Rising from your chair, you crossed the space between you on eager feet, slotting between his spread legs. Cupping his cheeks in your hands, you let your thumb run over his beard, the thick bristles tickling your skin. His face softened in your hands, and inside you felt the wound torn open by Joel, start to close up.

There wasn’t a chance in hell you’d give up the opportunity of being with Joel, but there was one condition…

"Only if you promise to never treat me like that ever again. I'll stomp on your fucking balls– is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Joel said, a grin tugging at the side of his mouth.

Pleased, you climbed into his lap, locking your arms around his neck as you felt his large palms settle at your hips.

With your face only inches from his own, you commanded, "Say that again."

"Yes…" he grinned, his hands sliding lower to grip your ass, "Ma'am."

Pressing your lips against his, you felt something heavy fall off your heart. A weight so heavy if Joel's hands weren't on you, you'd float away. Joel licked into your mouth, deepening the kiss and exploring your mouth. Your fingers threaded through his hair, pressing him closer and closer to your body. You wished you could meld with him, become one, something strong and resilient.

When your hips started to grind against the hardening bulge in his pants, you mumbled against his lips. "One last time for the road?"

His laugh tasted sweet like honey, and you tried to lick up every sugary breath of it. His hands on your ass tightened as you rolled your hips again, his fingers making dents through the rough fabric of your jeans.

Pulling away, the sound of your wet lips smacked against the walls. Joel's grin looked infuriatingly cocky as he took in the state of you; your lips rawed and sticky with spit, and your eyes filled to the brim with lust.

"I ain't fuckin' you again until I've taken you on a date," he told you with a light smack against your ass.

"You can't be serious," you whined, head tilting as you pushed your lip out in a pout.

"Oh, I'm dead serious, princess. I'm gonna do this right, 'n that means you gotta be a good girl f'me 'n behave." Joel's voice dropped an octave as he whispered the last words in your ear, and a shiver ran down your back at the promise.

"But not too good," you told him, a smile coating your lips.

"No, I like you a little bratty."

"When does you flight land again?"

Propped up in bed, fluffy pillows soft against your back, you pressed your phone to your ear. A month had never passed as slowly as these past weeks. The new internship and settling into your new classes might've had something to do with it – you'd been overwhelmed with work – but the promise of Joel at the end of it had you longing.

"Five thirty– I already told ya yesterday, princess."

He did, right after he'd guided you towards a shaking orgasm just from his words. Joel had promised to text, but he was awful at it. You know he'd tried, replying to your texts sporadically throughout the day, but you'd quickly given up on anything substantial from him in that department. When he'd suggested a phone call before bed you'd grimaced at the thought, but hearing the deep bass through his drawl every night had you convinced without a fight – especially when you'd managed to tease him into spilling filth down the line.

"I know… but in my defense I was a little out of it," you reminded him.

Joel's chuckled, a deep rumbling laugh that dripped like honey in your ears. "Really? I couldn't tell," he teased.

"Shut up," you laughed.

"I don't think you want that," you could hear the grin coating his face.

He was right, you didn't want that. What you wanted was to talk to him all night, hear the static bass of his voice in your ear. It didn't matter what he said, what language he spoke, if the lilt was high or low, you just wanted to talk to him. But more importantly you wanted him in your bed – so you told him just that.

"What I want is: you here, in my bed, right now with your cock inside me," you pouted.

Your words pulled another laugh from Joel. "Well, then, you ought to be patient, princess."

"I'm very unfamiliar with that concept," you told him, a teasing lilt covering your words, "I'm used to getting what I want."

"Oh I know… but we ain't doin' this again, princess…" he told you, his voice dropping with sternness, "As a matter of fact, I don't want you touching yourself at all until I can get my hands on you. 's that clear?"

"Do you promise to punish me if I do?" you wondered, your teeth coming down to nibble on your bottom lip through a smile.

"I promise to keep my hands to myself and my pants buttoned for the whole weekend– does that sound like a nice punishment, brat?"

"Jesus christ," you sighed, "I guess I gotta be good until tomorrow, then."

"I'll make it up to you," he promised through a laugh.

"You better," you teased.

Pulling into the parking lot next to your apartment building, his words skipped around your brain. I'll make it up to you.

Now well into September, the days close to knocking on October's door, Joel had been a constant presence in your head ever since you’d left Austin. Your thoughts of him wandered away in your classes, conjuring him forth when you slipped a hand into your panties, and even filled up your dreams.

But the flimsy fantasy version of him was nothing compared to the solid form next to you. In the parking lot the sun slipped beneath the skyline and the golden orange light coming through your car windows kissed Joel's cheek, and bathed him in the last drops of the sun.

He was here, finally, his hand brushing against yours as you led him inside.

"It ain't how I pictured it," he spoke; the leather strap of his bag slipped from his shoulder.

You hadn't realized that you'd held your breath before it released at his words. It was like you'd been waiting for your bubble to burst, that he wasn't really here, forever a static voice speaking down your phone. But his voice was clear, and deep, and real; and Joel was flesh and blood standing beside you in your apartment. You didn't need to hold your breath anymore.

"How did you picture it?" you asked, genuinely curious as you led him deeper inside your apartment.

"I don't know…" he trailed off, his eyes darting through your space, "Bigger, maybe?"

You hummed, following his eyes as he took in your space – the furniture you'd picked out special, and the art you hadn't had time to hang yet – it was a one-bedroom, but it was enough for you. The previous year you'd lived with roommates in a fancier apartment closer to campus. Socially it was great living with your classmates, but they were all boys, and at one point when the apartment looked especially dirty, you'd considered hiring a housekeeper. But the downsides weighed lightly against the upsides, and you’d never felt lonely, not like you'd done home in Austin.

"I don't want that anymore… there's nothing lonelier than a big house." The words settled between you, a comfortable silence while you tried not to think about what Joel was thinking, as you felt his gaze burn at your cheek.

“Come here,” he said, slipping an arm over your shoulders, tucking you close to his chest. “Let’me look at ya.”

The rough pads of his fingers pushed at your jaw, tilting your head to look at him. A soft smile blossomed over his face, his eyes deepening with a soothing warmth.

"You see something?" you asked, your eyes flicking to his lips.

"You ain't lonely anymore," he told you before he leaned closer in a kiss.

The brush of his lips had your eyes fluttering shut, and the press of his lips against yours awakened a burning pit in your tummy – the flames licking at your insides and igniting your want. The words he’d promised you over the phone played like a broken record in the back of your mind.

I'll make it up to you.

Clawing at the hair at the nape of his neck, your desperate hand pulled him closer, eager to fill your tank up on Joel.

“Bedroom,” you mumbled, the word fanned against his lips, "It's been so long and I deserve it– I've worked all fucking week."

"Deserve it, huh?" he hummed, pulling away to catch your blown out and moony eyes.

"Yes, Joel," you whined, pressing your lips against his again. But Joel wouldn't have it, letting you get one good kiss in before he pulled away again, eliciting a pouty whine from your throat.

"Patience," he told you, teasing smile hanging off his mouth while the hand splayed across the side of your face tightened. "I already told ya, I ain't fuckin' you until you've taken me out."

Letting out an petulant huff, you stepped away, crossing your arms over your chest. "So, now I'm taking you on a date?" you asked with the raise of an eyebrow.

A smile tugged at his lips as he regarded you, a teasing glint in his eye. Hooking an arm around your waist, he pulled you closer, "Yes, you ought to wine and dine this old man after a long day of travel."

"Well you could've told me earlier," you moaned, leaning back in his embrace with drama, your arms still wrapped around yourself as you looked at him through your lashes. "All the good restaurants are probably full at this hour…" you trailed off, "let's just get take-out," you said, pleased at your work-around.

His other hand joined the other on your waist, "Nah-uh, princess, ain't a real date until we're eatin' out."

Raising an eyebrow at him, the innuendo wasn't lost on you. With a knowing shake of your head, you told him, "No, you just want me to beg."

Joel's eyes narrowed playfully at you, his head tilting in a playful scrutinized way, "Well, you beg so pretty f'me."

This time you were the one to narrow your eyes at him, your face scrunched together in the slightest frown. Staring at him like that, you tried to break him down, but Joel was used to your antics, and he didn't break.

Letting out another fussy huff, you said, "So… if I take you out to eat, you'll fuck me after?"

"If the foods good," he teased, one hand sliding down to squeeze your ass.

He was insufferable, you thought through a sigh, rolling your eyes at him as you slipped from his grip.

"Come on then, old man."

After a change of clothes and a visit to the bathroom to freshen up, you pondered over your usual 'rule': You didn't fuck on the first date. Sure, you weren't a stranger to a one night stand after a night out, but if a man were to take you out, you wanted to at least give it a shot before you gave it all up.

"Usually, I never fuck on the first date," you told him as the elevator hummed around you. Joel's hand rested comfortably at your lower back, and you found that you liked it– liked his casual show of affection. You didn't know why you said it. Maybe as a last resort to convince him to click the button to your floor and take you back up to your bed?

Joel didn't look at you as a smile that gave nothing away spread across his face. His response was cut off by the elevator dinging, and with his hand at your back he guided you out the elevator.

"Well, too bad for you then, princess," he hummed teasingly in your ear, which earned him a playful shove before you led him down the street.

Blitzes of red, green, and blue danced over Joel's face, the bright neon light tugging at his features in playful shadows. Overhead, the sky had darkened with night over the parking lot. It was empty, safe for the food truck parked by the entrance.

Before you'd moved back home to Austin for the summer, you'd been apartment hunting in this area. It was by sheer luck you'd found it, so close to your internship job with only a couple of blocks away. And when the sun hung high in the sky, this parking lot filled with hungry office workers eager for a well made burrito or taco. You knew because you liked to watch them from up high, the building where you did your internship giving you the perfect view of the small ants. Sometimes one of those ants was you.

The tired wood of the picnic table felt rough against your skin and it wobbled slightly if either of you put too much weight on it. In the background the truck generator hummed away between your bites, but somehow this felt perfect.

"How's your taco?" you asked, a smile hanging off your lips as you broke the comfortable silence that had settled between you and Joel.

"God damn good," Joel nodded, taking another bite.

"Right?" you smiled, a proud warmth settled in your chest. "Looks like I'm getting my dick wet later," you teased.

The laugh that rumbled out of Joel's chest, bubbled up inside you, feeding you more than the tacos. It almost took you by surprise, the feelings he'd conjured forth inside you, stronger now in his presence. Maybe all those #1 hits, and romcoms were right after all?

"We'll see," he winked.

Gulping down his second taco, Joel wiped his hand on a napkin before he wrapped a hand around his beer bottle. He watched you with a smile, how you tried your best to bite into your own taco without everything falling out.

"Too big f'you, princess?" he teased, "Shouldn't be a problem f'you, huh? You've taken bigger than that."

"Ah!" you exclaimed, mouth too full to say anything else. Kicking your foot under the table, you hit his shin lightly in a reprimand.

Joel only laughed it off, before taking a swig of his beer.

“That’s it,” he said, his eyes falling on you playfully, “Good girl.”

You couldn't hold back from letting out something between a snort and a sound. It resulted in an unceremonious amount of salsa to drip out of your mouth and onto the plate, which only made Joel laugh harder as you struggled to swallow down the huge bite of taco.

When you finally managed, you gave Joel a half-pointed, half-amused look, “Asshole.”

“You love it, sweetheart,” he said through a chuckle, and somehow the light words hit a little harder than you'd thought. Could you love Joel? Maybe you already did.

Shaking your head, you tried to rid yourself of your new discovery. “Don't be a brat Joel,” you said in a sing-songy voice, trying to hide your growing smile behind another bite out of your taco.

Joel chuckled again at the inside joke, and a sense of pride grew in your chest. “That a threat, baby?” he returned, raising a single eyebrow as he regarded you.

You gave him a nonchalant shrug as you swallowed down your taco. “Just a warning,” you told him simply, and now Joel’s lips curved into a smirk.

“A warning, huh?” he repeated as his eyes ran down the length of you and back up. He took his time, making sure you felt his gaze over your skin before he uncrossed his arms and leaned towards you over the table, “Thought I was the only one handin' out warnings ‘round here.”

“Roles can change,” you replied simply, your own smirk tugging at the corners of your lips. Joel crossed his arms under himself this time, still leaning on the table as he considered you, twinkle in his eye.

“Yeah?" he tsk-ed, "Y'gonna give me a run for my money, princess?” he asked after a second, his voice a fraction deeper than it was before.

“Shouldn't be too hard,” you told him with your sweetest smile.

Joel only looked at you as a smile tugged at the side of his mouth. The dark brown of his eyes coaxed you deeper, drew you in, like a magnetic force pulled you across the table.

God, you wanted him.

It was an almost overwhelming thought, Joel was too overwhelming. To settle your brain, your cleared your throat, looking away first.

“You, uh–… you want any dessert?” you asked, trying not to act flustered, "Their churros are really good."

“Y’haven’t even finished your taco, princess,” he pointed out with an amused lilt to his voice.

Right.

Continuing your act, you snorted as you picked up your last taco. “I meant after, obviously.” The smile on Joel's face had a hot flush of warmth climb up your neck to your cheeks.

“‘m alright f’now I think,” he said with a nod towards his plate, where he had one last taco left.

As you and Joel ate your last tacos, he told you about the lady he'd been sat next to on the flight. A real southern lady, he told you, "like sittin' next to the mouth of the south." The genuine tiredness in his voice as he talked about it, had a cooing laugh escape you, and you reached out your arm across the table to slot it in his.

When both of you were full and satisfied with tacos, Joel cleaned up your plates while you fished a cigarette from your purse. You offered one to him as he sat down, to which he shook his head, "You know those'll kill ya."

Tilting your head, you rolled your eyes at him with a smile, "I know."

Joel watched you light your cigarette, the flame brightening your face for a split second, before he spoke up, "I've been meaning to ask ya…"

"Hm?" you looked at him, inhaling the first tar-y breath and exhaling away from him through the side of your mouth.

"How'd everythin' go with your…" he hesitated, "Uh, your father."

Joel watched how your face changed at the mention of him, how you looked away from him like the words had stung you.

"I ain't gonna say I wasn't eavesdroppin' on y'all's conversation," he confessed.

Drawing a deep breath, you flicked the ash into your empty beer bottle. "It went like it always does," you shrugged, "He threatened me some more, and then I threatened him back. He's more concerned about his reputation than me, so I told him I'd post the truth about him if he disinherited me… shut him up real quick."

"I'm sorry, baby," Joel said with a shake of his head, "That ain't how you're s'posed to treat your kids."

"Well," you shrugged, taking another drag. "I'm used to it," you exhaled.

A silence settled between you, the only sound the sizzling burn of your cigarette as you took another drag, and the quiet humming of the truck generator. His words settled in your chest, and a curiosity you'd previously strangled resurfaced. Joel had a daughter.

"Was it hard, um…" you struggled to find the right words, pinching your eyebrows together as you searched. Joel leaned his elbows on the table, tipping it towards him, listening intently. "For your, uh, daughter when you got divorced?"

"Divorced?" he questioned, bushy brows pulling together in a confused frown. A second passed as he searched your face for answers. "Oh, right," he chuckled, his face smoothing out as he sat back, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "I was never married to Sarah's mom– I've never been married, baby."

"What?" Now you were confused, sporting the same frown he had, "But you said–"

"Yeah, I know," he cut you off, "But technically you put the words in my mouth, 'nd I didn't know where all this–" he pointed between you, "–was headin' so I… I just let you believe it."

"Oh."

“Sorry,” Joel said after a second as he processed your answer, “Probably should've said somethin' but–”

“No,” you said, shaking your head, “I didn’t really ask, did I? Just assumed.”

Another silence fell over the two of you while you inhaled another breath of smoke. Joel watched you, studied you as he gulped down the last of his beer. Placing the bottle gently down against the wood, Joel continued.

“So no… Never got married, and never got divorced.”

“What happened?” you asked him gently, not sure if he wanted you to ask or not, “With Sarah’s mom?”

Joel looked down at his lap for a second, like the answer laid in his lap before he looked up with a shrug. “There ain’t much to tell, honestly… high school sweethearts, just a couple of stupid kids who made a stupid mistake.”

“But you kept the baby?”

“Yeah,” Joel said through a sigh, “We live in Texas darlin’, and back then it… it just wasn't an option for us.”

Joel shook his head, before he cleared his throat. “Anyway, we convinced ourselves we’d set up our own little family, neither of us would go off to college and we’d just work… I got a carpenter job, she waited tables– it was a total fantasy in hindsight, of course, but we didn’t know it then.”

You listened intently as Joel opened up, and noticed how he avoided your eyes. He played it cool, but you could clearly see from his body language, that this wasn't a topic he spoke about often. The realization felt disjointed, a happiness inside you at being trusted by Joel dulled by the pain hidden behind his words.

“Pregnancy was fine, even the job was goin' okay, but as soon as Sarah was born it all went to shit… we had no idea what we were in for and it was hard. We were overworked, broke, exhausted and covered in poop and puke, it wasn’t pretty.”

“Wow, you make parenthood seem like such a joy,” you told him sarcastically, trying to draw a smile across his face, but Joel only snorted.

“Whoever sells that lie should go to jail,” he said with a scoff, “Let me tell you– there ain’t nothin' harder in this world than raisin’ a child.”

This time you had to look away from Joel, the words tugging at something in your own heart; that wound that never closed. Was that why he hated you so badly? Why she didn’t want to see you? That couldn't be right, they never even tried. But you remembered those who did, the revolving doors of all the nannies who'd held you when you'd cried, blew on your knees when you scraped them, played with you in the tree house, and tucked you into bed. You were half-way through your twenties now, it was time to grow your old wounds – it was time to finally let go.

“It was too hard for her, I guess… one afternoon I came home from work and she’d packed all her bags, left Sarah in her high chair with a note– 'I'm sorry' it said. I never heard from her again, but her parents told me she’s livin’ up in Seattle now. They didn’t hear from her for a while either– almost had the police involved…”

Stumping out your cigarette, you reached across the table for his hand, “What did you do?”

“I was angry first, called her 'bout a million times 'nd got an out-of-service message, which meant she’d dumped her phone already… when it sunk in I wasn’t going to see her again I was scared shitless… here I was, barely twenty years old with a six-month old baby and no freaking idea what I was doin', and the one person I was s’posed to be doing it with had just disappeared into thin air,” Joel explained, before he let out a sigh, “Poor girl probably had some kind of postpartum depression, but we were so overwhelmed with the baby we could barely keep our lives together– 'nd I was so preoccupied with Sarah I never really addressed it… in hindsight, I feel like I failed her, y’know? I should’ve noticed, paid more attention to what she needed… I never wanted to fail my family ever again.”

"So you raised your kid.”

Joel gave you a nod, as he pursed his lips together. “I raised my kid… 'nd Tommy helped me a lot. He was just a kid, 'nd he didn't have to do it, but he moved in– watched Sarah while I was at work up until he joined the army 'nd I could afford a sitter…" Joel trailed off, his eyebrows knitting together as his breath stalled in his throat.

"I remember one night…" he started, "Sarah screamed so loud, kept on cryin' 'n cryin', and I couldn't figure out what she wanted. I'd walked around the whole house, carried her for hours until it felt like my arms were gonna fall off. It would be so easy to just give up right then 'nd there… but as I looked at her, at my perfect little baby I promised myself that I'd never make the same mistake again as I had with her mother– I'd always put my babygirl first no matter what…”

Joel let out a sigh as his eyes finally caught yours.

“I guess that’s why I was so mean with you, when you showed up at the wedding. This is my family, y’know? They mean the world to me, always been my priority, always will be… I didn’t want the decisions that I had made to affect them,” he sat up a little straighter, squeezing your hand before he looked at you intently, “I realize now that wasn’t fair to you either, so ’m sorry ‘bout that–”

You shook your head, biting down on the underside of your lip as you fought the tears that pressed at the back of your eyes. Never in your life had something so rudimentary as family mattered in your life. Family to you was something to escape, a randomized lottery that assigned you to people you had nothing in common with. Not once had it occurred to you that your actions could have had consequences for Joel's relationship with his family – and never did it occur to you that those relationships mattered.

“No, I’m sorry,” you told him, with an embarrassed shake of your head, “When I showed up at that wedding… I– I was only thinking of me and what I wanted, not about any consequences it could have for you… I guess I’m not really used to the idea of thinking about what or who matters to others… especially family.”

The last word died on your tongue as your eyes found your lap. The weight of what you'd said, penetrated through your heart, made you hear it for the first time. Across from you, Joel was silent for a long time as you sat with your confession, digesting it at your own pace.

"I know…" Joel suddenly said with a squeeze of your hand, "I forgive you."

His words had a finality to them you found hard to believe. There was no bite of anger, or falseness hidden behind sincerity, only the truth.

"I forgave you weeks ago, baby, after…” He let the words die on his tongue but you knew what he meant – after he’d seen you with your father. “Let's leave it in the past, ‘nd focus on enjoyin’ these days together.”

Joel didn't give you an opportunity to reply before he stood to his feet, reaching out a large palm for you to hold. Slotting your hand in his, he guided you past the food truck and out onto the street, holding your hand the whole way home.

"I didn't know you wore glasses," you said softly, leaning against the doorframe to your bedroom.

Joel was already under your covers, propped up against the headboard where he scrolled on his phone. He didn't look up right away, so you took your time to study him as you walked closer with slow steps. One graying curl hung over his forehead, his head tipped slightly forward as he tapped with one finger. His tanned exposed skin looked soft like silk, and you wanted to trace your fingers down the graying thatch of hair speckled down his chest.

At the sound of a quiet wosh! he finally looked up from his phone.

His glasses sat low on his nose where behind the glass his eyes rolled over you, and the brand new set of lingerie adorning your body. The transparent mesh was the perfect shade of green, one that complimented your skin so well it might as well have been made specifically for you. The bra was simple with embroidered flowers weaved through the mesh. The same embroidered flowers adorned the thong, barely concealing your mound. Usually, you wouldn't go for something like this, it wasn't your style– too cute, but there was something about it that made you feel so sexy. Maybe it was the mesh, the way the thin string of the thong split your cheeks in two, or maybe it was the small bow at the back.

You knew you looked hot, but you hoped Joel would like it anyway, you’d bought it just for him.

Joel placed his phone slowly on your night stand, a wide grin spreading across his face. Then he leaned forward slightly, scrunching his face together in a playful squint, "So, this is whatcha look like!?"

You couldn't contain the giggle slipping through your teeth. Joel's smile hung loose, and he leaned back casually, silently inviting you into his lap.

"I like them… You look hot in them," you told him, climbing up in his lap.

"I use 'em only for readin'," he explained, taking in the sight of you before him with wandering hands.

His rough palms over your skin left goosebumps in their wake. You let him touch you, let him familiarize himself with the fabric as you leaned forward and slipped the glasses off his nose.

"You're somethin' else aren't you, princess?" The low timber in his voice had a wetness soil your panties.

"Do you like it, Daddy?" you wondered breathlessly as one of his fingers slipped through the thin band of your thong where it traced the skin underneath. "I missed your birthday… but I hope this makes up for it?" you asked, a lilt of innocence coating your words as you rocked your hips against his.

Joel's smile sat wide and toothy on his face; forming small creases around his eyes. Under you, you felt his hardening cock grow. You couldn't help but rock your hips again, chasing the feeling of him after waiting so long – you needed him now.

"Y'look real pretty, princess… so beautiful– how'd I get so lucky, huh?"

One large palm cupped your cheek and brought you closer to his face. His lips tasted fresh and mint-y when he brushed them over yours in a soft kiss. Under your skin your body buzzed with anticipation. His kiss was short; leaving you wanting more, always wanting more.

"Too bad you don't fuck on the first date," he teased, leaning back and letting his hands fall to your ass where they landed with a playful smack!

Jumping slightly from the impact, a breathy whine escaped your throat, "I can make an exception."

"Really?" he grinned, raising a single eyebrow at you, "Just f'me?"

Pushing out your lip, you gave him an impatient pout. "You promised you'd make it up to me if I didn't touch myself…" you moaned, "And I didn't."

Joel tilted his head in feigned sympathy; his hands on your ass drawing soft circles into the skin. "That's sweet, princess," he hummed before he let out a forced sigh, "I did promise ya, didn't I?"

"Yes," you nodded with a rock of your hips against his hard cock.

"Alright then," Joel said, his fingers finding the bow at the back of your thong, "Let me make it up to ya."

The silk bow keeping the thin strings of your thong together dwindled into scraps with one tug from Joel. Something drew your closer, like something bright and loud inside your chest clawed out for him. This time it would be for real – no more act to play, and no more hiding. The thought bubbled with nerves in your throat.

After discarding your thong in the bed sheets to get lost, Joel's hands cradled your face, bringing you closer. The crook of his nose grazed gently against yours before he pressed his lips against yours.

You let yourself be explored by him, savoring the way his tongue tasted in your mouth, how he took the lead like it was the most natural thing in the world. Inside, you felt like you were about to burst; so many pent up feelings finally breaking free from his kiss. You couldn't help but grind against him; the fluffed duvet in the way of any real friction the way you wanted it, but you craved him either way.

"I know, baby," he hummed against your lips, "That pussy's aching f'me ain't it?"

"Yes," you breathed through a whine, "Please, Joel."

"Alright, princess," he soothed, "So polite for once, huh?"

"Yeah, you better savor it," you teased against him, "Because it's not happening again."

With a breathy chuckle, he pulled away to tap at the thick of your thigh. Twisting your eyebrows together in a confused frown you got off his lap. Between your legs you felt your arousal stick wetly against your inner thighs as you sat back on your knees beside him. Joel pushed the duvet away before he shuffled down the bed, exposing his body, before he laid his head down on the pillows.

"C'mon then," he waved his hand at your expectantly. "Let me take care of ya."

Not moving, your frown grew deeper at his words while your hands collected like a nervous tick in your lap.

"Sit on my face, baby, let me taste that sweet pussy."

Sit on Joel's face?

Your teeth came down to nibble on your bottom lip, as a small shiver of insecurity raced up your back. It’s not supposed to look like that, is it? It’s not supposed to look like that, is it? It’s not supposed to look like that, is it? You shifted on your knees unsteadily, the mattress dipping you forward where his body weighed it down.

You couldn't look at him, so your eyes found your hands in you lap. Why did you need to go through this again? What was his obsession with it exactly? To see you humiliated? And not in the fun way.

"Hey… you okay?" Joel asked, his tone low and soft. He sat up on his elbow, his body turned curiously towards you.

The way he looked at you, his eyes dark and warm and full of… something, had your cheeks filling with a blazing heat. Shaking your head, you tried to will the embarrassment away. You didn't want him to see you like that– it wasn't supposed to be like this, not this time.

"Yes." You pulled yourself together, lips tugging at a teasing smile you hoped would put Joel at ease.

Leaning forward – making sure to push your ass out and arch your back for him – you tugged at the waistband of his underwear where you could peek the outline of his hard cock straining against the cotton. Before you could pull them down, Joel's hand wrapped around your wrist, stopping you. Tilting your head curiously towards him, you could see a smirk coat his face.

"'s that whatcha want?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, and you nodded. "Greedy girl," he tsk-ed through his grin.

His strong hands were around your waist before you had time to think, manhandling your legs over his chest, exposing you and your wet center to his waiting mouth. A panic gripped your heart then, and you sat up with haste, slipping off his body.

"Don't do that, Joel," you let out, your tone laced with an unintended annoyance.

A frown pulled at his eyebrows as he sat up; his eyes bounced over your body and then your face.

"Red?" he asked, concern spilling across his face.

A sigh fell from your lips as a hand came up to rub at your face. When you didn't say anything right away, his hand caught your own, pulling it away while his other soothing palm found your cheek.

"Red?" he asked again, a little sterner – demanding an answer.

You shook your head in his hand, the words on your tongue failing you.

"What is it then, princess?"

The tenderness in his voice almost broke you down, hacking at the crumbling wall shielding you from him. Joel cared about you. He'd told you that, came all this way to make it crystal clear. So why couldn't you let him?

"Do you wanna get your dick sucked or what?"

Shaking off his palm you could feel ashamed later for slipping into your outdated disguise. This was how the sex with Joel was supposed to go – how it always went. But Joel wouldn't have it.

"Well, now I'm sayin' it– Red."

Inside, your heart sunk like a stone in water, and before you knew it you felt tears fight their way forward. You'd ruined it– your perfect day with Joel was ruined. Cautiously finding his face, you expected Joel to be angry, but the tenderness in his eyes as he looked at you hit you like a sucker punch.

"Let's stop for a minute, baby. Clearly there's somethin' botherin' you. I knew I saw it last time– what's goin' on?" he wanted to know. "Tell me," he grabbed your hand, slotting your fingers together as he held your gaze with an intensity that burned. "'n no more hidin', remember?"

No more hiding.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you managed to push back your tears as a stuttering sigh escaped you.

Okay.

Opening your eyes slowly, you gathered your courage. "I feel like I'm ruining everything," you confessed, your voice breaking a little as you told him the truth.

"That ain't true," Joel frowned, "'f you don't want this anymore, we can stop–"

"I don't want to stop," you cut him off, "I want this– you so badly! I've been thinking about it all day– all month long, b-but I…" you stuttered.

"But you don't like oral?" Joel finished for you, his frown deepening in confusion.

You shook your head, "I– um… no, not really."

Joel was silent for a second, eyes boring into you as you tried to avoid his gaze.

This was embarrassing.

“There a specific reason f’that, pretty girl?” he asked you as his hand holding yours tightened just a little while dipping his head to meet your eyes.

Your cheeks burned furiously as you looked at Joel, trying for a nonchalant shrug. “I-It just–… it doesn’t feel good.”

At that, Joel raised a single eyebrow in surprise, considering you.

“It doesn’t feel good?” he repeated, "I seem to remember you enjoyin' yourself last time…" You watched how a frown pulled at his face, his own words sinking in and replacing them with a sliver of doubt. "Or am I wrong?"

This time, Joel was the one who wouldn't meet your gaze, acting surprisingly bashful. Quickly, you shook your head, "No."

Joel's face twisted into a sad smile, and the way he looked at you told you he didn't believe you. "Y'can be honest with me. If I did somethin' you didn't like– you gotta tell me."

"It wasn't you who did it," you muttered, voice low like a whisper, the only way the words could leave your lips.

"You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me," Joel let out in an exasperated sigh, his tone backed up by anger. Squeezing your hand again, he demanded your attention. "Who did then? Tell me, baby– some twenty-somethin’ asshole say something he shouldn’t have?”

Your eyes widened slightly at his words, surprised that he wasn’t even that far off, and the memories pushed their way forward. It’s not supposed to look like that, is it? His mocking laugh echoed in your head. The way he'd licked your mound with a scrunch of his nose as you'd wished you could've sunk through the bed.

Even though you hadn’t uttered a word, Joel had read your expression telling him he'd hit the nail on the head, and now his brows knitted into a frown.

“Baby,” he told you, his voice so tender it made your head spin. One of his hands let go of your palm, bringing his fingers up to graze the pads softly over the edge of your jaw. “We’ll do whatever you want, it’s your choice… but I wantcha to know that I think you've got the prettiest fuckin' pussy I’ve ever seen– the sweetest tastin' too.”

Dropping your head, you squeezed your eyes shut. Joel's hand slid from your jaw to cover the side of your face, the palm covering your ear and half the world disappeared. You were silent for a second, before you took a small breath.

“You mean that?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, princess,” he told you, tilting your head up to meet his eyes, “m’not lying either, you know… it’s the only fucking thing I can think about, only thing I wanna see when I’m fucking ya– wanna see just how good she looks wrapped 'round me.”

You couldn't fight the smile from breaking, your eyelashes fluttering bashfully as you turned your head. "You can't just say that… this is supposed to be a tender moment."

Joel's laugh rumbled through his chest. "I'm a contractor, princess, I ain't no poet. I dunno how to wax poetic 'bout your pussy."

"I don't need you to do that," you told him through a laugh, turning your head back to look at him.

"Good," he smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling.

He studied you for a beat, before he leaned back against the pillows with an inviting raised arm. "C'mon. Let's get some sleep, baby."

“Sleep?” you asked him, the disappointment evident in your tone, “But, I–… I haven’t even sucked your cock.”

“Y’gonna let me eat you out?” Joel returned, and you crinkled your nose.

“Joel,” you whined, dragging out the vowels as your hands covered your face. A small laugh escaped Joel, and quickly his hands came up to gently pry yours away.

“Baby, I don’t wantcha doin' anythin' that makes you uncomfortable, but I also wanna make you feel good,” he told you, “I don’t believe in one-sided exchanges, and if m’honest, the only thing I can think about right now is buryin' my head between those pretty thighs and makin' you scream my name for the next five hours.”

The casual confidence in his voice sent a shudder down your spine where it pooled between your thighs. He did make you come last time, you remembered, and it had felt really really good. Still, that old insecurity at the back of your neck clung to you like a poltergeist. After a second of silence, watching the conflict on your face, Joel drew a deciding breath.

“Tell you what baby,” he said as you felt his hands gently grab at your waist and pull you towards him, “Think I know a way we can both get what we want.”

“Oh yeah?” you asked grudgingly, “What’s that, hm?”

Joel leaned forward and slotted his lips against yours gently, pulling you deeper into a sense of safety. After a second he pulled back, teeth trapping your bottom lip.

“You still have to sit on m'face,” Joel told you with a smirk, “But I’ll level with ya princess, you can do whatchu want, and I’ll make sure to keep ya distracted… promise.”

A beat passed as you let his proposal settle between you. A thought of how you could always say your safeword if you absolutely hated it crossed your mind. He'd established it so early in your relationship, set the boundaries between you clearly and you knew Joel would never force you to do anything you didn't want to do.

Drawing a deep breath through your nose, you let out a breathy, "Okay."

Joel's smile brightened before he leaned closer to press another gentle kiss to your lips, "Attagirl."

Turning you around, Joel helped you swing your leg over his broad chest where his palms settled over your hips. Maneuvering your hips backwards he positioned your exposed cunt to his face.

Afraid to put your whole weight on him, you hovered, your knees digging deeply into the mattress on either side of his head. As reassuring as Joel had been, being this exposed still made you nervous, and you couldn't help the way your body tensed up. Trying to distract yourself from what Joel thought about you, you focused on your distraction; Joel's straining cock hidden away behind the woven cotton of his underwear.

Pulling at the elastic band, you slowly revealed the length of him inch by inch. A pleased smile tugged at your lips as you took him in your hand; his thigh reacting in a twitch at your touch. He still had the prettiest cock you'd ever seen, veiny and thick, and perfectly heavy in your hand. Leaning down, you pressed a light kiss to the skin right above the base; the dark and silver wiry hair tickled your skin as you inhaled the masculine musk of him – of Joel, your Joel.

Joel's greedy fingers dug deliciously into your skin, as his dominant hand glided up your back, pushing you to lay your weight on him. You couldn't see what he was doing, only feel the hot breath of him so close to the core of you.

"She looks so pretty drippin' f'me," his voice rasped, placing a fluttering kiss through your folds, "'n she tastes even better."

You couldn't help the stuttering breath that escaped you, your eyes squeezing shut as Joel licked a stripe from your clit to your hole, tasting you unabashedly with a content hum. His fingers dug deeper into your skin as you whined, holding you firmly against his mouth to keep you from squirming away.

Focusing back at your task at hand, you tightened your fist around his cock, gathering a blob of spit in your mouth and let it slowly drip down the length of him. You watched your spit run over your knuckles before you started to work your hand up and down his length, thumbing over the head to mix your spit with the precum sprouting from the tip as you wet his cock with slick squelching tugs. Against your stomach, you could feel his chest vibrate in a content hum.

Kneading your ass cheeks firmly, Joel spread you apart for him before you felt him spit harshly against your cunt. The spit ran down your folds, gathering at the flat of his tongue where he circled it around your clit. You tensed at the contact, your face pulling together in the slightest of frowns of pleasure.

"Shit," you let out in a breath.

Pleased at the reaction he'd pulled from you, Joel hummed against your cunt, wet and spread open for him to devour. "Yeah? That feel good, princess?"

"Uh-huh," you moaned, your hand stilled at the base of his cock, as he traced circles around your clit with his tongue.

Cocking his hips, Joel reminded you of your neglected job. Pulling yourself together, you tightened your fist around him again. Mesmerized, you lowered your head and dropped open your mouth, slapping the wet length of him against your waiting tongue. Pleased, you hummed at the first salty taste of him, the familiar heaviness of him in your mouth. Enveloping him in your mouth, you closed your lips around the mushroom tip to tease the head with your circling tongue, making him twitch in your mouth at the new stimulation.

The way his mouth had latched around your clit, sucking and flicking it expertly, made it hard to concentrate. So much was happening all at the same time, his tongue devouring you, urging you towards a long awaited orgasm, but judging from the way he started to buck his hips into your mouth, you figured the same thing was happening to him.

Trying your best to keep your focus, you started to bop your head. Relaxing your throat, this new angle made it easier to take the hefty length of him down your throat, and you found that you liked it. Pushing your head deeper, you gagged yourself on him, loving the feeling of how he filled up your throat with each bop of your head.

On his tongue your clit pulsed with need, and you found yourself moaning around his cock, making Joel's hips buck from the vibrations in your throat. Joel ate your pussy greedily, drinking up every whimper and moan your body produced as he coaxed you closer and closer with just his tongue.

You couldn't stay still, even with Joel's fingers digging harshly into the flesh of your ass, branding you as his. With your head clouded in lust, you didn't realize you started to push back against his tongue, chasing the high of the swipes and zigzags of his tongue through your soaked folds. "Feels so fucking good," you mumbled, lips pressed to the side of his cock while your head was clouded in cotton candy bliss.

Choking yourself on his cock again, you pulled yourself under the blanket of tranquil arousal, your head filled with nothing except the way Joel took care of you, and how good his cock felt in your throat. Your desperate hands found his heavy balls, cupping them gently before you rolled them in your hands, earning you a deep rumbling groan.

"That's it– play with my balls, baby– good girl," he moaned into your pussy.

His praise settled in your tummy like a warm cup of tea on a cold day. The wet breath of him against your throbbing clit was almost too much to take, and now you started to grind against this face, fucking yourself against his tongue as you chased your high that just continued to build, and build, and build. His rough hands on your ass guided your movements, and when your thighs started to tense with arrhythmic shakes, he latched onto your clit and sucked.

"Come on baby… that's it– good girl," he hummed, "Come f'me, princess."

Pulling off his cock with a wet pop, your head came to rest over the thick of his thigh as your body started to shake and wither with your orgasm. You felt him grunt against your cunt, his tongue never ceasing to assault your aching clit. He lapped greedily at you, tasting each drop of your blinding ecstasy. His cock sat heavy in your hand, small wet whimpers puffing against the wet skin of him as you rode out your high.

In your chest, you could feel your heart grow larger, bursting out of your chest for Joel, like it reached its hand out to intertwine it with his.

When the tension in your body let go of you and your grinding hips faltered, you sat up slowly, sliding down his chest on shaking legs as you beared your weight on his thick thighs. His hefty cock laid heavy and throbbing against his stomach, smeared and glistening in your saliva. With a curious tilt of your head, you wrapped your hand around him, his hips bucking as you jerked him slowly.

"Fuck," he spat.

Looking over your shoulder, Joel looked a mess coated in your arousal. The coarse salt and pepper hair of his beard glistened in the dimmed light as he turned his head to the side, pushing it deeper into the pillow while you teasingly skated your fingers down the length of him. His moan vibrated through his chest, and a smile followed a pleased prickling feeling of pride in your chest – pluming yourself at having a man like him at your mercy, your eyes found his cock again.

In your hand you felt him throb; the thick vein down the underside of him protruded with need. His hands found the thick of your thighs, palms spreading over your skin like an afterthought before they settled at your hips. Leaning down, you longed to feel him fill up your throat again – finding you liked this new angle.

Placing a pouty kiss to the head, you licked at the pearling precum. Did it always taste this good, or was there just something so obsessively special about Joel? Humming contently, you hollowed your cheeks around the head, before you dropped your jaw to slowly ease him back down your throat.

Joel's hands on you tightened like he was holding on for dear life, as another pleasurable moan fell from his lips.

"Shit– you love that cock don't cha– love sucking cock like a good whore."

His words had you whimpering around him – he was right after all, you loved sucking his cock. You wished you could see him, see the way his eyes squeezed shut as you took him deeper. A rush of arousal pooled in your tummy at the thought, ready to gush over the greying hair scattered over his chest.

Starting up a bopping rhythm again, an obscene gagging squelch escaped your throat at every bop, filling your bedroom with filth. Joel's mouth wasn't any better, rambling degrading praise that only urged you on. When your hands found his balls, slicked up with your runaway spit, his fingers dug harshly into your ass cheeks.

"Stop, baby… I'm so fuckin' close."

Pulling away, you dropped your head to his thighs, laying down gently with your hand still wrapped around him at the base. Tightening your grip around him, Joel's breath stalled in his chest, and you couldn't help but place a soft kiss down the length of him.

"Baby," he said sternly, and a bubbling laugh escaped your lips.

Loosening your grip, his cock slapped against his skin where the head wept onto the skin below his belly button. His hands on your ass pushed at you, and you slid your body off him, your thighs sticking together wetly as you sat back on your knees beside him.

Sitting up against the headboard, a soft groan fell from his lips. His gaze over you was blown out and wide, and his grin wide with teeth.

"Come here," he ordered, the crook of his arm open for your body to slot into.

His other hand fell at the top of your chest, sliding it up around the back of your neck, holding you. The heavy weight of his touch had you pliant and loose in his hands; your eyelids fluttering with desire. He could do whatever he wanted to you in that moment, and you'd let him, but the only scandalous thing he did was kiss you.

He tasted like you, and you as him, and nothing had felt more right. Somehow, he maneuvered you onto his lap, distracting you with his kiss as he positioned you how he wanted.

His leaking cock pressed into your stomach, and if you hadn't been so distracted the visualization would spark a thought of how deep inside you he'd reach, would graze you. Instead, you licked into his mouth, your desperate hands finding his cheeks where his beard prickled your palms.

"You want that cock inside, don't ya, princess?" he nudged between kisses, slipping a hand between your bodies to angle the tip of his cock to rub through your folds, circling it around your aching hole.

The new stimulation had you pulling away from his mouth with a hitched breath, "Please– been so long."

Pressing your cheek into the crook of his neck, a sticky sheen of desperation clung to your skin as you lifted your hips. He slid the bulbous head through your seam where you dripped over him, coating him in your slick arousal.

"Go ahead, baby, sit on that cock, take what you need," Joel's voice rumbled against your skin.

Lowering your hips, the blunt fat head of his cock pushed past your folds and nudged at your opening. He let you take the lead this time, letting you control the pace at which you worked inch by inch of him deeper inside you. The stretch of him always burned deliciously, an aching pleasure that you didn't think you'd ever get enough of.

When you finally eased yourself down on him, your hips flush with his, a guttural moan fell from Joel's lips. Sitting on his cock like this, he reached deeper than he'd ever done before; a heavy pressure poking at the deepest part of yourself. It was almost too much, your thighs clenched as they fought to move back up.

"There you go," he cooed, "So fuckin' tight f'me."

"Joel," you whined out in a heavy breath, digging you face deeper into the crook of his neck.

"'s alright," he soothed, nosing down the length of your jaw, "'s all yours, use it princess– get yourself off on my cock."

You couldn't help the whimper you stuck to his skin as you felt him flex inside of you, your walls fluttering around him desperately as you rocked your hips into him. The wiry hair at the base of his cock nudged against your throbbing clit, the new angle prodded at the spot inside that made your hips stutter.

Joel let you do all the work as you lifted your hips, slowly at first, and lowered yourself down on him. Looking for more leverage, you forced yourself to sit up straight, your hands digging into his shoulders as you pushed back on him at an increasing pace, using him for your own pleasure.

"Such a good girl, keep goin', just like that," he praised from under you, watching how your eyebrows creased as your eyes shut at the increasing pleasure.

Moving your hips at an unabashed pace, Joel's hands found yours to intertwine with. "Come on, baby, don't stop now, ride that cock, bounce on it like a good slut," he encouraged, pushing back against your hands.

Lost in the fog of your own pleasure, desperate pleas and whiny breaths were the only coherent sounds falling from your lips, the feeling of him filling you up repeatedly, too good for words.

When your thighs burned with effort, you slowed down your bounces and fell against his chest to catch your breath. Swiveling your hips between chasing grinds, the desperation in you still chased your orgasm.

"Gettin' tired, princess?" Joel asked, his voice full of faux pity. His hands untangled from yours to fall at your back, his fingers teasing over the band of your bra. "Need me to do it f'ya, huh?"

Hooking his finger under your bra strap, he pulled, letting it smack harshly and quick against your skin in reprimand. You jolted against him, letting out a whine and a "Yes, please," as the end of him poked at your spot at the movement.

Unhooking your bra, Joel cast it aside, getting lost in the duvet along with the rest of your underwear. Cupping your ass, he squeezed a good handful before a hand came down in a stinging smack!

What happened next was nothing short of instinctive. Keeping you steady in his lap, Joel thrusted up into you, setting a brutal pace. Bouncing in his lap, you felt like a rag doll. Rolling your head back, you met every thrust, felt every vein, and every ridge of him, as the fat head repeatedly hit the spot so deep inside you. When your vision started going spotty with pleasure, and Joel's lips spilled filth between his grunts, you were tethering right on the edge.

"Keep goin'– good girl, earn my fuckin' cum."

"Y'want me to fill y'up don't cha? Have it leakin' outta you all night."

"Come on, princess, I know you're close, give m'cock a big squeeze."

The noises spilling out your throat were breathy and whiny, harmonizing perfectly with the deep guttural grunts out of Joel. When his hand reached between your bodies, the flat callused pad of his thumb putting pressure down on your clit, it was all too much.

With an arch of your back, he tipped you over the edge, the pleasure rolling over you like a blinding wave. Your body went rigid for a moment, your cunt squeezing around him like a vice, before the tension released in a stuttering shake.

"There she goes, my good girl," Joel praised, but his voice was far away, like someone had stuffed cotton in your ears, or pulled your head under water.

Prolonging your release, Joel never stopped his thrusts, only slowing them down as he sped up his fingers on your clit. Your mouth dropped in a quiet scream, your face twisted in pained pleasure as a stream of liquid gushed from your cunt.

You didn't notice the surprised look on his face, or the way he groaned out, "Fuck– you're amazin', princess– 'm comin'." But you felt the way his cock twitched inside you, pulsed thick spurts of his cum as he filled you deep and steady with his hot release.

Caught up in his own pleasure, Joel sunk down the bed, dragging you with him. The feeling of his cum filling you up, branding you as his, had you withering with another gush of release over his thighs. Your skin stuck to his, and with this new angle his cock slipped out of you from the force of your orgasm.

Everything was sticky, everything was hot. Riding out the last buzzes of your ecstasies, you could still feel how intensely your clit throbbed as Joel's heavy release dribbled out of you, making a mess over his wet thighs and softening cock.

You didn't realize you were crying until Joel peeled your cheek from his chest, two large palms cupping your head to thumb at the wet tears.

"'s okay, baby, you're okay," he cooed, wrapping his strong safe arms tightly around you, while you clung to him like a koala bear. "I'm here."

It was only two words, but it was just the two you needed to hear.

Joel was here.

"Thank you," you whispered, afraid your voice would break if you spoke louder.

"You did so good f'me," he cooed, as your heartbeats steadied.

Pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head, Joel turned to the side, dragging you with him. Your limbs were coated in your releases, and sweat clung to your skin, but it didn't matter as he pulled you closer. You didn't know how long he held you, how many kisses he pressed against your skin, but you could never get enough.

When he finally pulled away, you whined, your fingers digging into the flesh of his arm.

"Please don't leave," you whimpered, your brain scrambled with vulnerability.

"'m not leavin', pretty girl, but ‘m gettin’ you cleaned up. That sound alright?"

Getting out of bed felt like moving through molasses, but Joel was patient, helping you to the bathroom on your wobbly legs. Finding a washcloth in your cupboard, he dampened it with warm water before he dragged it down your thighs, catching the mix of your combined release where it had started to run down your leg.

"Made a mess didn't we?" he teased with a wink.

Shooting him half of a smile, you only nodded, tiredness pushing at your eyelids. Joel didn't push, only cleaned himself up before he told you to pee while he changed the sheets. When you finally emerged from the bathroom, Joel invited you back in his embrace, curling himself around your body in a safe weight as your eyelids started to droop to the feeling of his soft kisses against your skin.

When you woke, the bed was empty. Looking around the room a coldness ran through you as you started to wonder if last night had all been a dream. But then you heard a low hum of music coming through the open bedroom door, along with the smell of breakfast cooking, and the coldness melted away.

Grabbing your robe off the hook by the door, the music got louder as you padded into your kitchen. Joel stood with his back to you, already dressed as he pushed gently at the eggs frying in the pan. With a look over his shoulder, Joel noticed you and the smile that spread on his face as he took you in in all your morning glory, had a warmth tug at your heart.

"You ain't got no coffee in this house," he told you, turning back to the eggs.

"I usually go down to the coffee shop on the corner," you shrugged, sitting down at the table.

"That ain't real coffee, princess," he clicked his tongue playfully, sliding the eggs carefully onto two plates he'd set aside with two pieces of toast ready.

"Thank you serf," you joked as he placed one of the plates in front of you. It earned you a genuine laugh as Joel sat down opposite you.

"You're welcome, brat," he smiled.

There was something so romantic about the way he said it, all casual and smirking. And when you caught the way his eyes glinted as he looked at you, you found yourself thinking that if this was love, then you thought you could get used to it.

For the first time in your life, you wanted to fall in love.

Again and again.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us smut #the last of us fanfic #tlou smut #tlou fanfiction #tlou fanfic #brat!reader #pedro pascal

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amarmoria · 16 days ago

Text

Blond White Ferrari

Stepbro!Rafe Cameron x Reader

You stayed in tannyhill after Ward's death, unable to leave Rafe to grieve alone.

Notes: this is a test fic I wanted to post abt stepbro rafe, idk if I'll continue this or what but it depends on you guys🫶

You came back to Kildare just a week after they announced your father's death. The funeral was small, only immediate families and of course you, Rose, Wheezie and Rafe— no Sarah. Maybe that was what fueled Rafe even more, but recently, he didn't bring up Sarah that much, not that often compared to the day after Ward's burial, he kept cursing her name and wrecking the stuff in her room, you stood outside until he finished, only coming in to fix her room when he left Tannyhill to snort whites in Barry's trailer.

A week later, Rose and Wheezie left, only you stayed, as much as you hated Rafe, it didn't feel right to leave him alone, no one was, everyone needs someone when grieving, even a person like Rafe.

The next few days after you decided to stay were a blur, constant packets of snow were always littered around, as well as beer bottles and cans, the house was always ransacked after parties. But you were always there to clean up after him, maybe it was a way to cope with Ward's death, or maybe you pitied your brother, either way you didn't like to look back at it that much.

You always had a bowl of water and a rag beside your bed ready the night before so you won't have to go downstairs and wake up the littering people sleeping in.

You always went straight to Rafe's bedroom, it was always open anyways, so you didn't have to disturbed him, or them, most of the time you had to be the one to shoo the girls on his bed, always giving them some spare clothes to go home to, they were always littered around so why not give them away.

Then you go back to your fucked out brother, he will and most definitely always will wake up during noon, so you spend the morning patting the rag on his face, cleaning the left over snow on his snot. You open up his curtains to avoid mold forming in his room, then you clean the house, and repeat the same routine the next day.

You never expect him to reward you, nevertheless thank you, you don't know why you did, or even do it, you're just there, for him, for your brother.

In the afternoon you cook his favorites, you're not that much of a cook, but you try, you leave them on the table, already heated before going to the grocery store, he doesn't like getting pampered by people, especially not by his sister, but he does accept it, only shyly when you're not there, you always go home to an empty dish and the ripped note you leave him.

"You.." his voice fades off as you glance up at him, he was up early, too early, you were in the middle of trying to cook shrimp and grits, still figuring out the youtube tutorial you found.

"O-oh, uh, Good— good morning, Rafe." You smiled at him, setting down the knife and wiping your hand on your pretty frilly apron.

You didn't say anything as you grabbed a glass of cold water, sliding it on the counter beside where he was still standing, he wasn't saying anything, maybe he was still dazed from his sleep, his bed hair slightly more rough today, he hadn't cut his hair in a while, so his buzzed has grown a bit.

You didn't see how his eyes followed you around as you went back to cooking, almost flabbergasted that you were cooking, were you always the one cooking here? Was it actually your food he always eats up everyday?

"The food, you.."

"Y-yup, uh, doesn't look that good right now," you lightly joke, not moving your eyes from the tutorial. "But the key is trusting the.. process.. shit,"

You hurriedly turned the stove off as you tried to salvage the remaining shrimps that hadn't gotten burned, which is.. 3.

"Oh! Uhm," you bite your tongue, out of all the times he has to walk in on you, it has to be this one where you burn the meal. "A-are you hungry? I-I can whip up some Mac i-if you're in a hurry,"

You frowned and glanced behind you when he didn't answer, your eyes caught his longing stare on your apron, then to your hand and to the burnt shrimps.

"I-I'm sorry, it's, I was going to make the cordon blue from yesterday but I really just had to be unique and try, try to cook your favorite the, uh, S-shrimp and grits but, as you can see.."

You hide your hands inside your apron's pockets, too embarrassed to even defend yourself from the incoming.

"It's, it's fine," your eyes widened as you whip your head up, you meet his eyes, his blue, light eyes, and for the first time, you were having a decent conversation with him.

He sees your smile grow wider, wider than it ever has after everything.

"I-I can cook another! Do you want uhm, uh, pasta? I have some leftover sauce, but I can heat it up again if you want!"

His eye twitches, almost amused by watching you. "Right, uhm, yeah, I'd like that"

And for the first time, the atmosphere felt at peace.

"Fuck—!" You hear a crash downstairs, and it doesn't take a second for you to guess who it came from.

"I won't fucking leave until I get.." Rafe's voice fades in the background as he presumingly enters the kitchen, you don't hear the rest of his words as another slam echoes around the house.

"Son of a bitch!" You hear him throw his phone down, his 5th phone of the month. "Fucking bitch I'm gonna.." he stops when he sees you creeping on the stairs.

"Hey.." your lip forms a tight smile, you don't even get a second to look at him properly when he disappears from your sight, then you hear him hurl himself on the couch just moments later, you almost worried if he was gonna throw another useless party again, you liked partying, but Rafe always throws parties here and there that you got tired of it pretty fast.

In any other day you would've went back to your room until he calms down, but you didn't know where you took your courage from when you followed him in the room, you see him slouching on his knees, cradling his head on his hands, almost visibly shaking in anger.

You didn't say anything as you took out a pack of ice cubes, shoving it inside the ice pack before coming back to the living room, your eyes focus on his bleeding knuckles, then to the mirror adjacent to where you were.

And continuing your silence, you slowly knelt down in front of him, he didn't make any moves or whatsoever so you shakingly brought the pack near his knuckles, gently patting them to test the waters , you see him flinch, but makes no effort to stop you, the carpet digs in your knees, but you press the ice further on his bleeding knuckles.

You hear him hiss. "S-sorry,"

His phone rings nearby, but is nowhere to be seen, the ringtone continues to vibrate, you glance at Rafe, rolling your eyes when he doesn't even make a move to get it, biting your tongue when it gets even more annoying, you clicked your tongue and dropped the ice, trying to quickly silence the annoying ringtone when his hand latches on to your arm, pulling you to stand in front of him as he buries his face on your stomach.

"Rafe your—"

"Stay,"

"It might be impo—"

"Leave it."

You shut your mouth, you didn't want to anger Rafe even more, so you stayed there, and at this angle, you can kinda see who the annoying caller was on his phone.

Sofia.

Your eyebrows furrow as you try to remember the familiar name. She wasn't a kook for sure, or you'd definitely remember her, but it was certainly impossible for Rafe to befriend a pogue right..

"Please," you snapped out of your trance as you hear him speak into your tummy. "Rafe—"

"Don't, just... Stay here, with me" your face softens, his arms completely wrapped around your waist, tightly, he pulls you in, your knees touching the edge of the couch, he doesn't make any moves to remove you, only hearing his peaceful heavy breathing.

You don't say anything, your fingers shiver at the thought that passed your head, slowly, you bring your fingers up his head, placing them on it, then steadily, you run your fingers through his hair, little by little, until both your hands are now massaging his entire head.

You hear a soft groan beneath you, the rumble of his voice sending your stomach vibrating. He fists around your top behind you as you take advantage of this moment to freely touch your brother's hair, you can never get near him, not less than 5 meters away, if this was a one time thing only, you'd have to make it last.

What you don't see is the small bulge slowly forming in his pants.

"Nope, jus' send it here— No, I'll be the one dealing with it, no, yes, no! No way you're gonna be sellin' that!"

You hear Rafe pace around his room, then Barry's muffled words, but Rage quickly shuns him out, he's dealing with powder again.

You snapped back to the tray you're holding, balancing the bowl and the juice, you cooked a simple meal, whipping up the leftover rice mixed with cooked salmon and sesame oil.

You hesitated whether to go and give him the tray or just quietly slip back into your room and have it for yourself.

You chose the latter.

"Rafe..?"

His head whips to your direction, he had his hand on his hip, while the other held the phone to his ear, his eyes wander to you then down to the tray you're holding, you didn't have any time to remove your apron so you wonder what you looked like right now.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed of your interruption, you squeak out. "I-I made you.. something.."

You bite your cheeks, shifting on your feet when his adams apple bobs up and down.

"I'll— I'll be right back," he quickly ends the call, shoving the phone in his pockets.

"Whatcha got there?"

You smiled. "Oh! Rice and, and salmon, they're mixed actually! I also added sesame oil, the new one they added in the market, I heard it was very hard for them to get it here, so I preordered them weeks ago,"

"'s that right?"

"Uh-huh, there's also this watermelon I found the uh, Den— densuke watermelon? I think that's how you pronounce it? it's so very good! You gotta try it, Rafe!"

Rafe wasn't even listening to what you were yapping about, he wondered how you got so comfortable around him like this, not that he didn't like it, he loved it, he was droning out of the sound of your voice, carrying the tray up to his room with your cute little apron like it was your right and honor to do so.

Ever since that day, you started noticing the small changes in Rafe, it doesn't look that big but if you compare it to him before, it's a huge milestone. And ever since that day, he too has noticed how you kept buzzing around him like a housewife.

".. it?"

"Wha, huh.." he sees your face slightly frowning. "Do you want to try it?"

"Oh? Uh, yes, yeah, of course."

"Alright!" You excitedly placed the tray on his bedside table as he wits himself on the bed, you quickly handed him the drink which he accepted with a nod, and like a thirsty buffoon, he finished half the glass in one gulp.

"Oh, wow, this is actually very good," he says, his eyes following your every move, you bent down a bit to mix the salmon more into the rice, you didn't want it to get cold and bad.

"Done!" You gave yourself a pat on the back internally. You hear Rafe's chuckle, a low rumble in his chest, and instinctively, your face heats up in embarrassment. "W-what.."

"Nothing bad, don't worry," but that didn't calm your nerves. "I-if you don't like salmon, it's, it's alright, I can—"

"No." He says, his eyes staring you down even if he was the one sitting. "O-okay, but—"

"No buts, princess, now are you going to let the starving man eat or..?" He joked, a small smile back on his face.

You chuckled and approached him with the food, presenting it in front of him like a dog would with a stick to its owner. "Here you go!"

Although he doesn't take it, only placing his large hands on your waist, his fingers playing with the drawstrings of your apron from the back, pulling you in between his legs, then he opens his mouth with an 'ah'

Oh! Does he want to be fed?

You flashed him a big grin before scooping a generous amount on the spoon, you heard him chuckle again, his eyes straying on your face.

It made you chuckle too, then you raised the spoon up near his face. "Ahhh"

He quickly engulfs the whole spoon, and as his mouth leaves, his tongue leaves a playful lick at the spoon, making 100% sure you saw it.

And indeed you did, because your face heats up once again, biting your cheeks as you shifted on your feet.

"Something wrong, princess?"

"N-no! Nothing.."

He smirked, now he knows why Kelce loved teasing his girlfriends.

"Now, now, isn't it a bit rude that the cook wouldn't even eat her own dish?"

"Oh, uh, y-yes, but I made it for y—"

"Ah ah," he shakes his head, gently taking the spoon from you, scooping another from the bowl and draws in near your face.

"Say, ahh"

You frown, but follow him, an ahh leaves your mouth as the spoon enters, he doesn't waste any time and takes out the spoon hastily.

"H-hey!" You grumble, your mouth full of rice.

"Uh-huh—"

You heard his phone ring.

"Shit.." he rolls his eyes, visibly fucking irritated at the thought of someone fucking interrupting the moment. He declines the call, then proceeds to look up to you again.

"Now, where were we—"

His phone rings again.

"Fucking—!" You don't flinch when the phone flies off behind you and smacks on the wall. "That motherfucker has to be kiddi—"

Ring.

"FUC—" He exhales, gripping his head and abruptly standing up.

"Sorry, Princess I have to—"

"It's fine" you smile, "The dishes needed washing anyways."

And before you could hear his reply, you quickly suttered out his room.

#stepbro rafe x reader #step bro rafe #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x innocent!reader #rafe cameron x reader #rafe outer banks #rafe x reader #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey #drew x reader #obx x reader #obx season 4

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osarina · 9 months ago

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ᡣ𐭩 SNEAKIN' A PIC (ATTEMPT: FAILED)!

FEATURING: fyodor dostoevsky

SUMMARY: you never get to see him like this. is it really so awful that you want to capture the moment eternally? evidently to him, it is. (wordcount: 1.4k; sfw; fem!reader)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: i'll never not make fun of that one panel of him sitting at his computers with his greasy ass hair even if he does look like a pretty princess in every other panel he has. my obsession with naps is being translated into my fics, i already posted a nikolai one posted and also have a dazai one in the drafts HAHA

When you wake up, you feel a weight on your bicep. Your brows furrow a bit in confusion, glancing to your right to where your arm is extended across the bed, but then your eyes fall upon Fyodor, fast asleep and using your arm as a pillow, and you can barely stop the small smile that rises to your lips.

Your arm is numb, but you don’t dare move in fear of waking him up—the clock on your nightstand reads nearly eight am, and you wonder when he finally came to bed last night. You know that he’s been pushing himself day and night to finalize the last parts of his plans, denying himself both sleep and food as he sits at his computers dealing with meetings and preparations 24/7.

He hadn’t even changed into a pair of pajamas before falling into bed with you, nor had he bothered to get beneath the covers. a part of you wonders if he even meant to sleep, or if he’d just pushed his body too far and only barely made it to the bed before it gave out on him.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

You bite back a sigh as your gaze traces over the stubborn man—he always looks delicate in his sleep, in a way that he never does when he’s awake with his eyes shut and his long, dark lashes brushing his cheeks. His expression is the picture of serenity rather than the cold and unapproachable face he wears when he’s awake.

You think that he’s pretty all the time, but there’s something special about being able to witness Fyodor Dostoevsky in his most vulnerable moments, knowing that you’re the only one he allows to be with him in them.

You’re half-tempted to reach over to your nightstand with your free hand to try to grab your phone and snap a picture of him. You look over, wondering if you can reach it without jostling your other arm around, but before you can even consider your chances, you hear: “Do not.”

Fyodor’s voice is still thick with sleep. you glance over at him, surprised, but his eyes are still shut, and he hasn’t budged an inch. You wonder if you imagined it, but then his eyes crack open, thin slivers of purple glaring at you.

“Just one for me?” you ask quietly. “No one else will see.”

“No.”

You pout softly but roll back to look at him. He still looks exhausted, the bags beneath his eyes are dark and heavy, and he can barely even hold his eyes open. You reach out, cupping his cheek gently and watching as his eyes slide back shut, a soft exhale spilling from his lips as he lets the side of his face sink back into your arm, dozing back off.

You smile lightly, shifting forward a bit to press your lips to his forehead, stroking his cheek lightly with your thumb.

“I need to get up,” he murmurs, but his eyes are still shut and his voice is thick with sleep. “I need to finish-“

“You will not finish anything adequately in this state,” you chide gently. “If you get proper sleep, you’ll be much more efficient and effective.”

Fyodor looks as if he wants to argue, brows furrowing at your words even with his eyes shut. You only jostle him a bit closer, watching as he shoots you an irate look, but then settles down when he realizes you’re only dragging him closer so that he can rest his head on your chest—a place far more comfortable than your arm.

“Wake me up in an hour,” he finally orders, and you agree absently, knowing that you absolutely will not.

You think, as Fyodor lets himself doze off on your chest, that it’s hard to remember he’s quite literally one of the most dangerous men on this planet. That if he so pleased, he could activate his ability and kill you without a moment’s warning. That he’s a man who is so terrifyingly intelligent that it sometimes comes across as prophetic, and you can’t help but wonder if he speaks the truth when he claims to be led by the Hand of God.

Your hand smoothes across his back in steady circles, tilting your face down to press your lips to the top of his head. His hair is a bit oily, as he usually lets it get when he deprives himself of basic necessities while he works. You’ll have to convince him to take a bath with you when he wakes up, but you figure it’ll be a battle because you already convinced him to sleep in a little longer, he’ll not want to waste any more time.

You almost want to pinch him, wondering why everything with him has to be a war when it comes to taking proper care of himself. He rarely even remembers to take his iron supplements on the daily without your prompting, and he knows if he doesn’t take them, he’ll be prone to dizziness and fatigue. For all of his intelligence, you feel like sometimes that you’re a mother dealing with a stubborn child, not your lover.

“Stop that,” Fyodor sighs, shifting a bit to get comfortable. “Dim your thoughts, dusha moya. I can feel you getting yourself wound up.”

You scowl. “You know, Fedya, maybe you should just drop the whole terrorist plot and become one of those preachers on the radio who pretend to be prophets. Build yourself a cult, make some money. You already seem to know everything, wouldn't be too hard."

Fyodor tilts his head up to look at you, expression so deadpan and unamused that it nearly makes you snort, but you only dip your head down to kiss between his eyes.

"Sleep,” you say, voice softer. “You need it.”

Fyodor doesn’t respond, and when you tilt your head to the side to look at him again, you find that he already dozed back off again, shoulders rising and falling steadily underneath the arm you have wrapped around him.

You smile lightly and you tighten your arms a bit as Fyodor lets out a puff of air in his sleep, turning his head to lay the side of his face on your chest. In this position, you can see the way his eyes flit beneath his eyelids rapidly, his brain still running rampant even in sleep.

You bring your fingers to his hair to card them through the dark locks, slow and soothing in the way you know he likes, watching as his eye movements slow and his body relaxes into yours.

Your smile widens a bit before it abruptly falls, laying your head back against the pillow as you finally begin your next challenge: drawing out a battle plan for convincing Fyodor to take a bath with you when he wakes up.

You sigh to yourself heavily, knowing well that you're about to be facing the most difficult argument of your life with the most stubborn man alive. You can already feel the headache, and you think that you deserve a new picture for your lock screen from how much trouble Fyodor gives you on the daily, but as you side eye your nightstand again and try to calculate whether or not you can reach your phone without waking him up, you feel fingers wrap around your free hand.

You gape in disbelief as you look down to see Fyodor grab your hand in his sleep, as if he knew what you were planning even when not conscious.

Unbelievable, you think bitterly, plan entirely thwarted, but your gaze softens at the sight of him fast asleep on your chest, clutching your hand with one of his.

Maybe you don't need a picture, you realize, because you think there's no way you'd ever allow this image to fade away from your mind.

Still, you think he should severely reconsider his line of work.

Even more so now, in fact, because there is something entirely abnormal about his seemingly perfect foresight, evidently flawless even in his sleep too.

#ᡣ𐭩 carina’s archives #fyodor x reader #fyodor fluff #fyodor x you #bsd x reader #bsd fluff #bsd x you #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs fluff #bungo stray dogs x you #fyodor dostoevsky x reader #fyodor dostoevsky x you #fyodor dostoevsky fluff

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happy74827 · 7 months ago

Note

Can you make more Joe Goldberg? You did such aan amazing job on the first one that I NEED a second one. Just please consider. Thank. Love your fics btw 💖💖💖

Lily of the Valley

[Joe Goldberg x Female!Reader]

Synopsis: Coffee might not be his favorite, but things can change when it involves a person like you.

WC: 659

Category: Fluff

Fortunately, I already had this small idea in mind for our lovely stalker man and this request really just put the icing on top of the cake. Hopefully it fulfills your needs 🙌 (also you’re too sweet… thank you so much for the kind words 💞)

『••✎••』

Coffee. The hard, hot, and bitter drink that is the reason many people get out of bed each day and the reason why some people stay up until the early hours of the morning. He never understood the appeal.

But that didn't mean he didn't enjoy the smell of coffee beans roasting, the smell of fresh ground beans being poured into a filter, and the smell of the finished product. He didn't understand how something so bitter and disgusting could have such a calming and comforting smell.

Joe had been sitting in a booth in a coffee shop for the past few hours, watching the world outside go by, sipping a small mug of tea, and his current read, "The Woman In The Window" by A.J Finn, in front of him. His eyes were trained on the people going by, not really taking much of anything in. He was on autopilot, a default setting he slipped into whenever his mind was full of something else.

It was only when a waitress with a short, black pixie cut walked over to his table that his eyes come back into focus, and his thoughts began to slow down. She didn't look like she belonged in a coffee shop. With a long, floral dress, combat boots, and a cardigan, she was far too pretty and too interesting to be serving lattes. She was a rose in a garden full of daisies, a peacock among chickens.

Then, like a snap to reality, the sound of his name pulled him away from her and onto… you. The whole reason he was here in the first place.

If he thought the waitress was a rose, you were a whole bouquet.

"Jonathan! Are you going to order anything, or are you just going to keep sitting there, scaring all our other employees?" You said a laugh in your voice.

He hadn't even noticed the waitress had already left, and now, you were standing by the table, holding a coffee pot.

Yeah, he needs to stop letting his thoughts take over.

"No, no, I was just, uh, reading."

"Reading a book, or reading her?" You said, cocking your head to the side, indicating the waitress who had moved on to another table.

"Reading the book."

"Mhm, sure." You said, not at all convinced. God, he just wanted to kiss the smirk off your face. Those pretty lipstick-covered lips moving against his.

You shook your head, smiling.

"You want a muffin… or something? On the house, since you're a regular and all."

He looked down at the book again, then back up at you. Unlike the waitress, you were dressed for work in a black, collared shirt tucked into black pants and a black apron tied around your waist.

It told him a lot about you, like the fact that you were a rule follower organized. The other waitress played confidence to stand out. You wanted to blend in, but still, he noticed.

How could he not notice you?

"Sure."

"Blueberry, right? Your usual."

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'll be back in a second."

You had just turned to leave before you spun on your heel and stopped.

"And, Jonathan,” you paused. "That book in your hands? Wonderful read."

As you walked away, he realized how his heart had started to beat faster, and he couldn't stop the grin on his face.

A bouquet? No, you were something far more rare and far more beautiful than that.

You were an orchid.

And when you returned with that perfectly shaped muffin and that award-winning smile, Joe decided this would be the last time he ever chased a woman. Because this one?

You?

It was as though you were a mix between all his past loves and yet someone entirely new.

You were that new orchid in the greenhouse, the lily of the valley, and he wanted to nurture you and make you grow.

It's time to stop blending in; he would bring you out to bloom.

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ahgasegotarmy116 · 8 months ago

Text

Just Take It | Jeon Jungkook | Part One

Summary: Some of your closest friends betray you and somehow push you into the arms of someone unsuspected. Pairing: Inexperienced f!reader x Best Friend's Dad Jungkook (20 year age gap) Word Count: 5.7k Warnings: Mentions of cheating resulting in pregnancy and explicit language...I think that's it lol (Barely edited per usual lmao) a/n: You guys seemed really excited for this fic so I'm gonna make it a miniseries since even the poll results were so close so anyways I hope you enjoy! Requested by the lovely @kkusadmirer 💜

"Is everything ready?" I ask my best friend Jina for the hundredth time today. "Yes y/n calm down. This party is going to be perfect don't worry" she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, making me even more apprehensive but decide it's best to just take her for her word instead of digging deeper.

"You're right, I should probably just go back upstairs and get ready huh?" I say and start heading upstairs to take the curlers out of my hair and finish up my makeup in her old bedroom. "Let me know if you need help, I'll just be putting the finishing touches on everything in the meantime" she calls after me and I respond with a quick 'okay' before running up the rest of the steps I had been ascending.

I walk down the hallway lost in thought and am stopped in my tracks when I find myself bumping into someone, almost falling over but he luckily catches me before I even have a chance to stumble back more than a few steps.

"Careful there" he teases and I look up and apologize immediately. "I'm sorry Mr. Jeon I wasn't watching where I was going" I say quickly and he smiles at my flustered state. "It's okay darling don't worry about it" he says in a deep tone that has always gotten to me. I take a quick step back to create some much needed distance and to cover up the awkwardness that had settled in.

"Thank you again for letting us hold our engagement party in your home. Are you sure you still don't mind?" I ask him as well for the hundredth time as if we had time to change things with mine and my fiancé's relatives already on the way.

"Y/n if I minded I would've said no a long time ago. Don't worry, I'd do anything for you, since you and Jared have been such amazing friends to my daughter. It truly means more to me than you know" he says placing his hand on my bicep to aide in showing his sincerity.

"Of course Mr. Jeon. Moving to a new state in the middle of your Sophomore year of college has gotta be difficult for anyone so I'm just happy we could be there for her" I say smiling up at him. He stares at me for a second, studying my features before breaking out of the slight trace he had caught himself in to continue the conversation.

"I'm sorry you're probably wanting to finish getting ready and I'm holding you up" he says taking his hand off of me and stepping aside so I can walk down the hallway to my intended destination.

"Don't worry about it. We've got plenty of time as it is so I'm in no rush. Thanks again Mr Jeon" I say, quickly wrapping up the conversation and walk into Jina's room. Before I'm able to close the door though he makes it a point to remind me of something I've always forgotten.

"Haven't we agreed upon calling me Jungkook? Mr. Jeon makes me feel so old" he teases and we both laugh at his words. "Thank you, Jungkook" I say and he smiles, satisfied with the change. "You're welcome" he replies with an heir of sensuality that leaves my brain buzzing and I close the door before either of us has the chance to say another word.

He's always made me nervous but why does today feel different? It's not like his playful nature is anything new. He's acted like this since the first day I met him and when I had brought it up to Jina she just said he was being friendly so I never really gave it a second thought.

There's no denying he's a handsome man and from what I can tell him and his ex wife had Jina when they were quite young so he's not anywhere near old enough to make it seem a bit strange but I tend to just deal with the butterflies by ignoring them as much as I can.

He makes sure to be respectful when Jared's around and he hasn't crossed any lines to my knowledge so I don't mind it. It makes me feel confident more than anything and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I shake off those thoughts and finish getting ready before I start to panic about being late and end up finishing up a lot sooner than I had planned and as I'm putting on my heels I hear a faint knock at the door.

"Come in" I call out and my fiancé pops his head in from behind the door. "Aw I thought I would catch you while you were changing" he says with a fake pout leaving me smiling and shaking my head at him. "You'll get to do that plenty of times once we're married you pervert" I tease and he scoffs playfully.

"You know, now that I think about it I kind of am a pervert aren't I?" he says while stalking towards me, making my breath hitch and my adrenaline start pumping but I have to tell myself to calm down before I do anything stupid. "After the wedding I warn and he backs off like he always does.

I smile and get up from the bed I had been sitting on and give him a quick kiss but he holds onto the back of my neck, keeping me there for a little while longer and deepening the kiss. "You look gorgeous" he whispers against my lips and I smile before giving him a quick peck and pulling back to look at him.

"You don't look half bad yourself" I taunt and he scoffs before granting me a sarcastic 'thank you'. "I'm kidding baby you look handsome as always" I say and he smiles at that and places a quick kiss on my cheek before taking my hand and leading me downstairs to where we're met with a few of our family and friends having already arrived.

"You should've told me they were here sooner" I whisper to him while I wave at them as we walk downstairs. "I didn't want to rush you" he replies, giving my hand a gentle squeeze leaving my heart fluttering at how thoughtful he had been.

"Thank you love" I say looking at him as if he's the only one I need. "For what?" he chuckles, studying my features almost as if he's committing them to memory. "For wanting to marry me" I say and he laughs at my cute sentiment. "Thank you for saying yes" he replies and at that we start mingling together throughout the crowd and thanking everyone for coming.

~~~~~

We part ways after a few more groups of people come in and around the time we're going to bring out the champagne I start to look around to see if I can find him so we can both be ready to make a toast once everyone's gotten a glass.

As I look around and ask a few people where he might be they point toward the far end of the house where not many people had wandered to and so I curiously make my way over to the room I had assumed he would be in but before I'm even able to put my hand on the door I hear the voices of not only Jared but Jina as well.

"We have to tell her" I hear her say and stop short, my heartbeat immediately raising as I hold my breath, waiting for the response. "You told me you were on the pill though. How did this happen?" and at that my heart breaks. "I don't know I guess I forgot to take a couple of them and-" "And so what? You decided that screwing me without protection would work out just fine? Fuck Jina" Jared cuts her off and I hold my hand over my mouth to stop the sobs that I know are sure to come.

"You were the one that said you wanted to stop using them" she defends. "Oh and so now it's my fault. Jina we both agreed to that and you know it" he says and at that the room falls silent for a moment before he speaks up again.

"What are we gonna do?" he mumbles, leaving the choice in her hands. "We need to tell her because I'm not getting rid of this baby. I don't care if you're going to be in our kid's life or not but either way we're telling her" she says, standing firm on what she thinks is right. 'She should've thought about that before she started fucking my boyfriend' I think to myself and wait for the conversation to continue.

"She deserves to know" she says in a hushed tone and they both agree moments later that they'll tell me after the party to avoid both of our families catching wind of it and at that I walk away as quietly as I can, heading to the bathroom across the house to collect myself before I even try to face anyone.

'How the fuck could they do this to me? How could they do this to us? Did everything the three of us did together really not matter? All of this love that I gave Jared and he gave me made me feel like we were gonna last forever but I guess my wants and needs weren't enough for him. He wanted what he wanted and found that in my best fucking friend.

I chuckle dryly at that thought and how ironic it sounds at the moment. The wants to avoid the drama of the rest of the family knowing? Well they don't have that kind of luxury anymore.

I collect myself a few moments later and make my way out of the bathroom to intermingle again until I happen upon my soon to be ex fiancé in the crowd.

"Hey honey" I say and I can see him trying to hold back the guilt at my words and I hold back from ripping his head off for the sake of what I'm about to do. "Should we go ahead and bring out the champagne and make a toast?" I ask and he nods his head agreeing wordlessly.

"Great I'll ask Jina to help us out" I say and I can see how stiff his whole body becomes after I mention her name and he laughs it off and walks closer to me and I hold out my hand for him and guide us both over to where we've placed everything for the toasts.

~~~~

"Does everyone have a glass?" I call out and everyone says yes and Jina makes her way around, filling everyone's glasses but her own. "Okay great Jina go ahead and grab a glass and then if you guys don't mind we'd like to pose a toast!" I say and everyone places their full attention on both Jared and I who are standing side by side.

I watch as Jina tentatively fills her glass half full knowing full well that she won't be drinking any of that but I singled her out as a way to make her even more uncomfortable. Serves her right honestly but it's only just begun.

"Okay everyone, firsts things first I would just like to thank all of you for coming. It is just so wonderful we could all gather here together and the fact that you all made the effort to come and celebrate Jared and I is just something that I won't ever forget so thank you again from the bottom of my heart" I say and hear murmurs of 'You're welcome's and 'Thank you for inviting us' throughout the crowd and I continue on after those die down.

"Another person I would like to thank would be my best friend who I couldn't have any of this without her including being able to host this party in her's and her father's wonderful home so thank you both for that" I continue and I look for Jungkook in the crowd and see him raising his glass to me and I turn my attention to Jina moments later and see the forced smile on her face and I smile back at her and take a deep breath before continuing.

"You know Jina has been such a great friend to both Jared and I and the countless memories we've made together are something that I'll always hold close to my heart. One memory in particular is one that I think we'll all remember for the rest of our lives is one that I would like to share with you all" I say and I watch as Jared and Jina make nervous glances at each other but I hear the room fill with words mentioning how cute our friendship is and how it's nice to have close friends that get along. Oh boy they're about to know just how well we all get along.

"This one actually just happened not too long ago, in fact it was just today wasn't it guys?" I say making eye contact with the both of them and I can see as both of them realize that they've been caught.

"Yeah it's funny I was looking for Jared not too long ago to try to find where he had scurried off to and low and behold I found him and Jina having a cute little chat together just over there" I say and motion to the secluded part of the house where they had been and I see the crowd go from happy to confused.

"They had been talking about how they had a surprise and they needed to tell me after the party but I figured that I would just give them an opportunity to say it now so all of us can hear it together. Would you guys like to share it with everyone?" I ask the two of them and wait a few moments before Jared tries to shut me down.

"I think that's probably a conversation we should have in private right Jina?" Jared says, pleading with her to back him up. "Oh are you guys too shy? Don't worry I can say it" I counter, brushing him off. "Y/n I don't really think that's necessary" Jina now tries to reason with me but I'm way too far gone by now.

"Why not? Doesn't everyone deserve to know that you're pregnant" I say, pausing for the rest of the family to smile at the surprise and some of them start to congratulate her but before they can get too far I continue on.

"Yeah she's pregnant with Jared's baby! Isn't that so sweet?" I say and at that point the room goes so silent you would hear a pin drop and I break it by continuing to rub salt into the wound.

"I know right? It's so crazy isn't it? It was a surprise to me too. Congratulations to the both of you" I say and down my drink while they stand there speechless as does the rest of the crowd.

"So yeah anyways thank you all so much for coming and get home safe!" I say and make an exit into the backyard while Jared and Jina chase after me.

"Y/n, y/n wait. Please" Jina calls after me first, following as I make my way over to the clearing behind the house and away from prying eyes. "Why should I wait huh? It's not like you waited and thought 'Hey maybe it's not the best idea to be raw doggin my best friend's boy friend' or were you guys still fucking by the time you asked me to marry you?" I ask the two of them and they both just stand there in silence.

"You know what, you guys are perfect for each other. The whore I thought was my best friend and the whore who chased after her because neither of you could keep it in your pants. Thanks a lot, have a nice life" I say and storm off into the small clearing behind Jungkook's house, praying they won't follow me.

"Oh and another thing" I say before walking too far, "I'm keeping the ring to compensate for emotional damage you bastard" I spit at my ex and his jaw drops, never having heard words like that come out of my mouth ever let alone directed at him.

"Baby wait I can explain" he says trying a pathetic excuse of trying to get me to get him to hear him out. "Pretty sure I heard everything I needed to hear when you were having your little rendezvous earlier" I say, fully admitting to listening in on their conversation.

"If I never see either of you again it'll be too soon" I say and continue on into the clearing, walking just far enough to be out of their view. "We really fucked up didn't we?" I hear Jina say and soon hear Jared scoff in return. "We fucked up? No you fucked up! You should've been more responsible" he throws back at her and storms off. "What the fuck Jared don't you dare walk away from me" she yells and chases after him, following him back into the house.

After taking a few deep breaths and convincing myself over and over again that this is for the best and I'm better off without them I slowly make my way back into the yard and sit on the bench that's furthest away from everything, hoping no one finds me out here. Luckily it does the trick and I'm able to avoid facing anyone from the party and soon hear all of their cars leaving and the place falls silent.

"They're all gone now if you want to come inside" Jungkook says, walking over to me tentatively, making sure he doesn't do something to make me run off. I look up at him with a tear streaked face and try to smile but ultimately end up hanging my head, hiding what little emotions I've let myself show and he walks over and sits on the far side of the bench I'm on. He doesn't say anything, he just sits with me and lets me ride the wave of emotions I'm feeling but also letting me know he's there if I need him.

I let out a few shaky breath after having let a few more tears fall before collecting myself and drying my eyes. "I'm sorry" I whisper and he turns towards me with a confused look on his face. "Whatever for?" he questions, puzzled as to why I could possibly be apologizing.

"For the show I put on back there. I was just so mad when I overheard them talking and I don't know, I felt like I wanted to humiliate them since they decided to fuck behind my back like how fucked up can you be to sleep with your best friend's boyfriend?" I spout off and then look over and remember who I'm talking to.

"I- I didn't mean. I'm sorry Mr. Jeon" I apologize again and hang my head in shame. I'm met with a chuckle as a response and when I look up at him I can see that he's clearly very amused. "What's so funny?" I question and he continues to laugh.

"I'm sorry darling, just seeing how horrified you looked when you remembered that you were talking shit about Jina to her father was kind of hilarious and honestly adorable" he chuckles and I let out a breath and smile at him, happy he wasn't offended by it.

"I wasn't thinking straight, I'm sorry" I apologize again, feeling so so guilty for bringing all of this drama to his house. "Hey, you have nothing to apologize for" he says softly, placing his hand on top on mine. The one that happens to be sitting on my thigh and I gulp at the sight of his big hand enveloping the sight of my hand and now has his fingers resting high up on the inside of my thigh.

"It's not your fault that they're both fucked up and you got caught in the crossfire okay? So please don't apologize about that again" he says and I nod my head mindlessly, my eyes still focused on the hand that is now squeezing my thigh in reassurance but I can't get past the feeling of having his hands on me like this.

He stands up a second later, taking his hand off of me and I look up at him, almost as if questioning why he stopped and he simply smiles at my cute reaction. "Let's head inside alright? It's gonna start getting cold out here soon" he says and I nod my head, wordlessly following him back into his home.

"Did you want a drink?" he asks and I jump at the opportunity. "Yeah I'll just take this" I say while grabbing one of the barely opened champagne bottles. "Did you want a glass?" he chuckles, watching as I take a big gulp out of the bottle. "No need, this is fine. Might as well not let it go to waste right?" I say and he hums in acknowledgement while poring himself a drink.

I walk around his living room and take in everything about it, reminiscing about all the memories and shared laughter there had been here over the last couple of years and find my mind wandering a bit. "I'm really gonna miss this place" I say, meaning to keep it to myself but accidentally voicing it loud enough for Jungkook to hear as well.

"You're welcome to come back here anytime you'd like" he replies, startling me when I realize he's gotten closer and is now sitting on the couch directly behind where I stand, facing the mantle and looking at the various pictures placed on it. Pictures of Jina, Jared and I over the years, ones that no doubt Jungkook had taken.

"I always hated this picture" I say mindlessly and I hear him get up off the couch so he can see which one I'm referring to. "Oh the one where I took all of you to the beach house a few years ago for your birthday? Why? Didn't you have fun?" Jungkook questions, genuinely surprised with my reaction to it.

"No it's not that, I had a great time. I just feel like I look like a wet dog in that picture" I admit and I'm granted with a little chuckle beside me. "Hey" I whine and glance over at him, my breath hitching when I realize just how close he's gotten.

"You know what? Now that I think about it I don't really like that picture either" he says and I turn my body to fully face him, highly offended and demanding he explain himself. "I didn't like the way that Jared was touching you that day. He couldn't keep his hands off you and I know that it was making you uncomfortable" he says, lowering his voice an octave and causing a shiver to run through my body.

"How did you-" "When a man really pays attention and cares for you he can tell from the slightest change how their woman is feeling. I guess he just never got the memo" he says, glaring at Jared in the picture and how he unashamedly has his hand placed directly on my ass while I'm wearing a swimsuit that I had already felt uncomfortable in in the first place.

My mind goes into overdrive with what those words could've possibly meant. 'Was he paying that close of attention to me that he noticed something small like that? Has he been jealous of Jared? Does he care for me?' are just some of the questions that start swirling around in my brain and before I can register what had happened next he's gone and sat on the couch and is suggesting I come sit down as well.

"You've had a long day don't you think?" he asks and I nod my head and sit on the other side of the couch making sure to keep proper distance between us. "Yeah I guess you could say that" I chuckle dryly and take a drink from the champagne bottle I still have in my hand but end up spilling it on myself.

"Shit" I say and Jungkook quickly grabs a napkin to help clean up having spilled some on the couch as well. "I'm sorry" I apologize, constantly finding more and more reasons to apologize and he shuts me down again. "A little champagne never hurt anybody don't worry about it" he says, brushing it off and leaving me feeling a little less guilty.

"Why don't I grab you a glass and give you some of my clothes to wear so if we have another little mishap it won't be as big of a deal" he offers and before I can refuse he's already given me a glass and is halfway up the stairs. Gosh my brain really must be working in slow motion already.

~~~~~

After Jungkook gives me a big t shirt and sweats I change into them and tie the drawstring tight to aide in keeping the pants up and look in the mirror of the bathroom I had been changing in and realize how much of a mess I look like right now with smudges of mascara under my eyes and my nose all red from all of the crying I had been doing earlier.

I quickly wash and dry my face and throw my hair up and out of the way since at this point theres no saving this look and just accept defeat, walking out in my now more casual look and find him sporting an almost identical one.

"Feel better?" he asks and I nod my head and walk towards where he's standing. "Come here" he says holding out his arm and pulling me into a hug. I melt in his embrace and almost start tearing up a bit again, but push back a little and softly break apart from his embrace before the two of us sit down.

"I don't know how to feel honestly. I feel angry and sad and betrayed and relieved and heart broken and I don't know. I'm just confused" I start and he nods his head, encouraging me to continue and so I do.

"We've been together since before Jina and I had ever met and things had always been so good between us and then when Jina came along it felt like things had gotten even better if that's makes sense. We had our three amigos group going and whenever we were together it felt like the rest of the world didn't matter. Or I guess at least that's how I felt" I say and take a shaky breath in and out before preparing to say the next part.

"When Jared and I got together, I told him right off the bat that I wanted to save myself for marriage and he respected that. I will admit that we both had gotten close to breaking that boundary I set once or twice but he always backed off when I asked him to and I was thankful for that. Guys my age or guys in general don't really respect that sort of outlook anymore so the fact that he was more or less willing to date me after knowing that gave me hope for us" I say, letting everything off my chest.

I down my glass and pour myself another one before continuing on and I take into account that he's watching my every move. "I figured 'If he had a problem with it and got tired of it then he would've dumped me' or 'He's had really good self control all of these years so that must mean there's something special between us'. So when he asked me to marry him I said yes without thinking twice. I had my knight in shining armor, the one who waited for me and I couldn't be happier" I scoff, taking another gulp of champagne.

"Looks like he waited to have me but got someone else to fulfill his needs on the side" I mumble and down the rest of my glass before pouring another and I can see the concern in Jungkook's eyes growing but I pay no mind to it.

"You know after all that I just can't help but wonder 'Was it all worth it? Was saving myself and in the end losing the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with worth it?' At this point my virginity is becoming more of a hassle than anything and honestly I don't want it anymore" I say, finally voicing how I had been feeling about keeping myself pure for a while.

"I feel like it would be best if I just got it over with and went on with my life you know?" I say, finally looking at Jungkook and I can see how dilated his pupils are and how ragged his breath has gotten, doing a horrible job at concealing it.

"Can I ask you something Mr. Jeon?" I question, leaning towards him, a new gained confidence flowing through me from all the alcohol that I had consumed in such a short time. Downing glass after glass throughout our whole evening. "Jungkook" he rasps and I feel a fluttery feeling building in my stomach.

"I'm sorry, I always seem to forget. Jungkook, can I ask you something?" I repeat placing my hand on his thigh, feeling the muscle tense up at the contact but he nods nevertheless and waits for me to continue. "How old were you when you lost your virginity?" I question, wondering what his experience might've been like.

"Um, when I was about eighteen I guess. It was right before I graduated high school" he answers truthfully and I nod my head, mulling over what I plan to say next.

"It seems like a man of your age has had his fair share of sex am I right?" I ask and see him gulp at my assumption. "I guess you could say that" he responds and leans back a bit when I get closer. "Mr. Jeon do you have a girlfriend right now? Someone you might be seeing?" I ask, making sure that in my tipsy state I won't make the same mistake my hopeless excuse of a best friend and ex made.

"No, I uh I'm not seeing anyone" he says quickly and I nod my head and wait a moment to get my words together. "Do you think you would mind taking my virginity?" I ask and at that his jaw drops, not expecting to be asked something like that straight away but in this state I guess you could say I'm full of surprises.

"I- What?" he asks, confused and concerned as to if I actually meant what I said and not only that but clarifying to make sure he's heard me right. "I'm asking you if you would take my virginity. You said you'd do anything for me remember?" reminding him of his words from earlier in the day.

"Y/n I think you might've had a little bit too much to drink" he says scooting back from me to create some distance but I close that distance moments later. "No I'm fine, I haven't even had that much silly" I say, slowly starting to slur my words but still conscious enough to make them coherent.

"Look I think that's something you should keep until you have a chance to give it to someone special. Someone who you care about and cares about you too" he says, trying to softly reject me but it falls of deff ears.

"I care about you though. Don't you care about me?" I pout and he shakes his head and tries hard to hide a smile but fails. "Of course I care about you darling but I think you're too confused and too drunk to be making this sort of decision" he say holding my shoulders at arms length to keep me from getting any closer to him.

"It's okay Mr. Jeon I know what I'm doing. Oh! I mean Jungkook" I say cutely, leaning in a bit more and his arms give in, letting me get a bit closer so as to not harm either one of us. "Don't worry I won't tell Jina" I say and he clears this throat at the sound of his daughter's name.

"Y/n I really don't think this is a good idea" he says, watching almost helplessly as I place my hand on his shoulder and use it to anchor myself as I climb onto his lap and although his words have said otherwise, his hands are the ones that guide me by my hips to sit on his lap, giving me a boost of confidence in my decision.

"Can you do this for me?" I ask and his eyes ping pong between mine, seeing how blown out my pupils are and notices how hot my skin has become. He stays silent and just takes in all of my features and waits for my next move. I lean in closer to him and run my fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck.

"Just take it" I say against his lips and without a seconds hesitation he grabs the back of my head and smashes his lips against mine.

It's a mess of lips and tongue and teeth, accompanied by the sound of him groaning and pulling me closer and me moaning at the feeling of being desired by someone like him. Someone strong and confident and undeniably sexy. Someone who wants me just as much as I want him but before I can fully grasp what's about to happen I feel myself slipping away and lose control of my body.

"Y/n?" Jungkook questions feeling my body slump against him after I had broken the kiss and rested my head on his shoulder. He smiles at the realization that I had fallen asleep in the midst of it all and wordlessly stands up, carrying me off into the guest bedroom and laying me down to sleep there for the night.

"Goodnight darling" he says, placing a kiss on my forehead before walking out of the room and slowly closing the door behind him.

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woso-dreamzzz · 7 days ago

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Munchkin's Halloween

Beth Mead x Vivianne Miedema x Child!Reader

Summary: The ninth of my Halloween-centric fics

"Oh, wow," Viv coos," Look at-"

"No!" You snap quickly," Mama, no!"

"No?"

"Eyes closed!" You order," Not finished!"

Viv laughs, playing along and covering her eyes with your hands.

It had been a surprise for her to come down for the rest of the week but the surprise had worn off at some point during dinner last night when you told Viv she smelt weird and needed to get in the shower after the hours she spent driving down in the car.

You and Beth spent a lot of time at training with Arsenal, up and out of the house for club Halloween before Viv had even woken up this morning.

That's part of the reason why Viv is playing along right now.

Your Halloween costume has remained a mystery to her with the move up to Manchester. Your life is based in London, at least most of the time.

There's already childcare sorted out down here and while you like coming to City training to hang out with the girls, at Arsenal you've got Laura and Lotte and everyone else who you've known since coming home.

London is home and Viv gets that.

It just means she hears more than she sees when it comes to you during the season.

Including what your Halloween costume is.

She's already got a bit of an idea, from Beth not being able to keep a secret and the glimpse she just got before you insisted she close her eyes.

"Myle!" Viv hears you call. "Myle, here! In! In, Myle!"

She smothers her laughter as the yapping of Myle while you scold her.

"Can I open my eyes now, Munchkin?"

"Hmmm," You hum," Eyes closed, Mama. Mummy! Mummy! Muuuummy!"

Viv keeps her hands over her eyes as the soft footsteps of Beth pad over from the kitchen.

"Yes?"

"Myle not get in the basket."

Beth laughs a little and there's a bit of a rustle before you finally speak again.

"Kay, Mama! Eyes open!"

Viv's heart swells as she looks at you, all dressed up like Dorothy with Myle in a basket like Toto the dog.

"Look at you," Viv coos," Give me a little twirl!"

"That's what Auntie Lolo say!" You say, delighted as you twirl around," And Auntie Laura say I look good!"

"Well they were right." Viv kneels down in front of you, pulling at your dress and petting Myle's head. "You look so good."

"Mummy-Mummy say that I'm from Wiz' o' Oz."

"Wizard of Oz, that's right," Viv says," You're Munchkin like the munchkins and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz."

"Everyone was very impressed with her costume," Beth says, coming back into the living room with some snacks and a little bucket with an even smaller pumpkin face on it.

"Ky-Ky gave lots o' sweeties!" You say, rummaging in your little bucket before dumping it all out onto Viv's lap," Yay! Sweeties! Yay!"

Beth very gently takes one of your wildly grabbing hands before you can snatch one of the Haribo packets.

"Only a few, Munchkin. Remember? We share."

"Share!" You repeat," I share!"

With your free hand, you grab a still wrapped piece of taffy and try to shove it into Viv's mouth.

"We share!" You say to Beth, head bobbing up and down just as Myle escapes from the basket, bounding over to sit in your lap. "Myle! We share!"

Viv grabs your second free hand quickly. "How about we don't feed Myle human sweets? We can give her puppy treats."

"Okay! Puppy treats! Puppy treats, Myle!"

You hurry up quickly, nearly tripping over your Dorothy dress on your way to the kitchen.

"I'll go and help her," Beth says with a sigh," Before she tries to climb the counters again. Can you pull up the movies? I've got a few of them lined up."

"We're letting her watch Halloween movies?" Viv says doubtfully, face twisted in disbelief.

"Kid's movies," Beth corrects," Nothing too scary. I checked. Do you know we've never shown her the Wizard of Oz? I thought we could start there."

"Good idea," Viv says," But I feel like the witch could scare her a bit."

Beth grins, flexing her arms jokingly. "You see these guns? I can protect her."

Viv rolls her eyes. "Go and use those guns to help our kid before she tries to break into the chocolate cupboard again. Then we'll see which one of us she wants to protect her from the scary witch."

#woso x reader #meadema x reader #beth mead x reader #beth mead #vivianne miedema x reader #vivianne miedema #woso community #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso

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starlightxsvt · 1 year ago

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Bloodily Safe | j.ww

pairing ➳ psychopath!wonwoo x fem!reader

genre ➳ psychological thriller? camgirl au(read note below), college au, smut

word count ➳ 18.5k

warnings ➳ toxic relationship, blackmailing, drinking, descriptive domestic abuse, death, manipulation, threatening, fingering, slapping, choking, marking, cum eating, degradation, virgin sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, humiliation kink, pain kink, psychopathic behaviours, very descriptive violence, blood, rape attempt, arson, murder (lmk if I forgot smth)

synopsis ➳ you have a little secret. one you are desperately hiding. yet the boy you have a crush on has figured it out. now a game of cat and mouse has begun. how do you make it out alive?

disclaimer:❗ I am, by no means an expert in behavioural abnormalities so please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction. I tweaked the story and their characteristics to my needs so please don't take this seriously. Also, this fic contains some highly sensitive topics so please read the warnings carefully. Do not interact if you are sensitive to these things ❗

note: reader isn't a camgirl in the typical sense, she basically reads erotica on live.

loosely based on the kdrama shadow beauty

The glaring red light of the camera lens blinks at you as pause for a moment between your reading. Your tablet sits on your lap, glowing brightly in the lowly lit room as 8 thousand viewers watch you live through the lens.

With a sigh, you continue reading in your best teasing voice.

Your mouth hangs open in a silent scream as you feel him release inside you, making you clench. You’re not surprised when he doesn’t stop but continues thrusting inside you, far from being done with you and you feel another orgasm impending. Your pussy hurts in the best ways possible and just thinking about coming once again have your toes curling.

Surprising you, one of his hands move onto your neck, gripping it firmly and applying just enough pressure to make your body curl up and see stars. It triggers your orgasm, multiplying it by hundreds and seeing the godlike man on top of you, reaching his high, his dark, predatory eyes trained on you makes you go off like a rocket. You swear you see God himself as your body completely lets go and you feel like you’re floating in a place of pure bliss. The feeling of him releasing inside you makes you shudder before he slips out and shuffles on the bed, probably cleaning you up but you’re too gone to care.

With a blissful smile and a hazy mind, you let sleep take you.

"That will be all for today guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll be back on Thursday night!" You wave at the camera as soon as you finish and do your signature pose— making half hearts on your cheeks with your hands as the viewers leave comments asking you to stay a bit longer. Sending a flying kiss towards the camera you turn off your live and watch as the screen loads to show you how much you've earned for the two-hour live. Once the number pops up, you sigh with satisfaction and finally, take off the mask that you wear to conceal your identity.

After all, you wouldn't want people, especially your classmates or professors to find out you read erotica live in skimpy underwear and flirt with people to earn some extra bucks.

Well, a girl's gotta do what she gotta do.

Quickly changing out of the uncomfortable lingerie, you put on a comfortable t-shirt and crawl to bed with your laptop to check if the money has been transferred to your account. The camming website takes 20% of whatever you earn from each live yet the amount left is enough for you to make your work worthwhile.

Camming was never in your mind at all, even in your wildest dreams. Yet when your mother fell sick last year and the medical bills started piling up, you knew you had to find some easy way to earn good money. Then, one day, you overheard a couple of girls in class talking about camming and how good the money is.

Simply curious, you visited the website only to be unlocked to a whole new world. Thousands of people did a variety of adult content there but you were not brave enough to get naked from the start. So you opted for a safer option, reading erotica on live while wearing lingerie and flirting with the camera.

The first time you did it was only to test the waters using whatever equipment you had at hand but surprisingly, the response you got shocked you. So it started, you doing lives two days a week and earning enough money to pay for your mother's treatment and your college bills.

nerdycatboy wants to chat with you

The notification appears on your screen, telling you someone wants to talk to you privately on the camming website. You generally block these messages as most of them ask for nudes or send dick picks. Still, you click on it and watch as three dots appear, your fingers hovering over the block option, ready to press it as soon as the sender sends something inappropriate.

Surprising you, the message reads:

[nerdycatboy]: Hello, cherrybaby!

Today was the second time I watched your live.

You have a really beautiful voice.

I don't frequent these sites but I opened an account just to send you tips. Hope you received them.

Somewhat flattered, you type out a reply.

[you]: Thank you so much. I'm flattered to hear that. And yes, I received them.

[nerdycatboy]: You're welcome.

Also, I wanted to tell you something.

[you]: Sure.

[nerdycatboy]: I know who you are.

[you]: Excuse me?

[nerdycatboy]: ______. ______ of the Psychology department, Seoul University.

You're studying on scholarship.

Wanna know something funny?

I am your classmate ;D

Your throat feels something akin to a desert as you blink at the screen, praying for it to be a hallucination. The words, however, don't change and the daunting realization hits you.

Someone has figured out your identity.

Someone knows it's you.

But who?

Shit, who? Who could it possibly be?

You share your classes with almost eighty other people and it's impossible to guess this... stalker.

You're absolutely fucked.

It has only been a month since college started and you are doomed. What if whoever this is, exposes your identity and you are expelled?

Dear almighty, please let this be a dream.

A sudden ping! alerts you about another message, making you jump. Carefully, you open the chat to see what your stalker has to say.

[nerdycatboy]: Come on now, don't leave me on read.

You wouldn't want me to get angry now, would you?

A squeak of despair leaves your lips as your fingers nervously hover over the keyboard.

[you]: What do you want?

[nerdycatboy]: To play a game.

This really isn't looking good.

[you]: Please, just leave me alone.

[nerdycatboy]: Ey, where's the fun in that? Come on now, we'll just play silly little games.

You stare at the screen, your world coming down crashing on you as you wonder in the back of your mind, whether you should stop camming for good. Even if you wanted to, it's not possible.

Who's gonna pay for your mom's bills?

[nerdycatboy]: You there?

[you]: Yes.

[nerdycatboy]: Good. I'll come again before your next live. We're gonna play a little game then, okay?

You stare at the screen in silence.

[you]: Okay.

[nerdycatboy]: That's a good girl. In the meantime, have fun trying to figure out who I am. We see each other every day after all. It's just that you wouldn't know who I am.

You grind your teeth, holding back the urge to type all sorts of curse words you can think of.

[nerdycatboy]: Bye bye, now. Sleep tight.

[you]: Fuck you, loser.

You slam your laptop shut and lie in silence, curled up in your bed. The only way out seems to be to permanently delete your account but that is not an option for you. It is also quite literally impossible for you to figure out who it is. You don't even know if it's a guy or a girl or a goddamn fucking alien.

As the night grows deeper you only start to get more anxious and only when the sun starts to rise in the sky, do you fall asleep, your dreams plagued by the haunting messages from earlier.

II.

"_____? _____!"

The deep voice jolts you awake as you blink around, taking time to realize that you've fallen asleep on your desk during the lecture which now seems to have ended as you see everyone around you packing their bags and leaving.

A man stands next to your desk, holding a few sheets of paper towards you and you blink at them, confused.

"The professor gave us the answer sheet for last week's quiz. You seem to have fallen asleep during class." He says.

Your brain finally starts functioning just enough to realize it's Wonwoo talking to you.

Jeon Wonwoo.

The famous nerd, the genius, the pro gamer, the campus crush, the it boy and...

The man of your dreams.

"Right! Right, thank you," you croak, reaching for the sheets with one hand while trying to wipe the corners of your mouth for any drool.

"It's alright." He replies, as impassive as ever. His expression remains somber as always as he regards you through his glasses. Sometimes you wonder if he's a robot. Even though you have known him since high school, you've yet to see the man smile or shout or show any vivid emotion. He has always been the quiet type, keeping to himself, always studying or doing whatever intelligent people does.

He was the most popular guy in high school, loved by all, even the teachers, because of his perfect and polite demeanor and extraordinary results that got him many awards at the national level. The fame followed him to college too as you have seen in the last two months; with women and even some men flocking around him. You are not ashamed to admit you are one of them too, but not like it matters.

Jeon Wonwoo seems to be living in a completely different world.

"No, thanks, really." You reply, slightly awkward, not knowing what else to say exactly. He nods and slings his backpack over his shoulder and turns around to walk away. He seems to have a thought as he turns his head and asks, "Rough night? I haven't seen you doze off in class ever. You are always on top of your game."

Holy shit, that is the most amount of words he has spoken to you. Scratch that, that's the most you've ever heard him speak at a time.

And more importantly, he has been paying attention to you?? He notices you enough to know that you don't doze off?

Swallowing, you try not to let your face break out into a grin. "Yeah kind of," you mumble. He nods and spares you a glance before walking out of the classroom as you watch his lean, athletic frame from behind, a soft sigh escaping from your lips.

After he's gone, you pack up your stuff, mentally face-palming yourself for falling asleep during class. Not only did you fail to keep an eye out for your stalker but you also made a fool of yourself in front of Wonwoo.

What a great day!

III.

The next Thursday, a delivery from an anonymous person comes to you just a couple of hours before your live. A handwritten note sits on top as you open the package and your gut sinks once you realize who it's from.

Hello there, little cherry!

Please accept my lovely gift. Wear it in your live today unless you want your secret to be out ;)

Also, wear something black with it.

Love, your new best friend!

You crumple the note in your hand as you eye the package nervously, dread filling your veins as your mind tries to conjure what the item might be. Hands shaky, you reach for it to rip it open and then stand in silence as you gaze at it for a while.

The asshole sent you a cat costume.

A sexy cat costume.

More specifically a pair of black cat ears, a cat mask, a pair of paws and a... fucking tail.

Absolutely mortified at the idea of wearing these provocative items on live, you sink onto the floor, an utter sense of despair settling over you.

Sweet lord, this has to be a joke.

Quickly logging in to the camming website you type your new best friend a message.

[you]: You're kidding me, right? Please tell me this is a joke.

The asshole is very quick to reply.

[nerdycatboy]: I see you have received my gift. No, little cherry, I am not kidding.

You grind your teeth, eyes burning holes in the screen.

[you]: I can't wear that on live!

[nerdycatboy]: Why not? You'll look absolutely lovely. The black really goes with your skin tone.

Oh for fucks sake.

[you]: Are you a fucking furry?

There are several minutes of silence.

[nerdycatboy]: You are fucking cute you know that? I don't remember the last time I laughed this hard.

[nerdycatboy]: No, cherry, I am not a furry. I just like cats and you remind me of one. I bet if I touched you, you'd purr real good.

You would never admit how that text sent a jolt of shiver down your spine and made your toes curl.

[you]: Please, can you not do this?

[nerdycatboy]: Come on now, don't whine. It won't get you anywhere.

[nerdycatboy]: I'll tune in later. If you do not do as you're told you know what will happen...

[nerdycatboy]: Ah, I forgot. You don't have to wear the tail during your live. It will be uncomfortable to sit with. Just send me a picture later, hmm?

[nerdycatboy]: Bye now.

Fucking mother of all fucks.

You toss your phone on the bed, groaning out loud in frustration. The cat ears and mask sit next to you on the floor, mocking you in silence.

IV.

"Hello, my darlings! This is your favorite cherrybaby, back with you. Today I'll be reading the second chapter of Sugar & Spice!"

The comments, as you expected, go nuts over your outfit— the black cat ears with the mask, covering the better half of the top of your face, the furry paws paired with a lace black lingerie. Despite your initial thoughts of ignoring them, you decide to address them with their never ending onslaught.

"Everyone is talking about my little props today." You pause for an awkward chuckle. "Well, I thought I would spice things up. Aren't these cute?"

You can hear the stiffness in your own voice. Shaking it off, you read a few comments while waiting for the live to reach your minimum number of tips, which only takes a few minutes today before you start reading the erotica.

Throughout the live, u have no idea if the asshole has joined in and you almost start to think that maybe he has left you for good, that maybe it was a one time prank. However during the last ten minutes of your live, as you proceed to wrap it up you see the notification that bring your eyes to your forehead.

nerdycatboy gifted you 500$.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

As soon as your live is finished you shoot him a private message.

[you]: Didn't think you'd be that pleased to see me dressed up as a cat.

[nerdycatboy]: Oh cherry, I was pleased alright. You were an absolute sight for sore eyes.

[you]: Thank you I guess?

[nerdycatboy]: Welcome. Now send me some pictures. Wearing the tail.

[you]: Can you answer a question first?

[nerdycatboy]: No promises.

You sigh. Here goes.

[you]: Are you a guy or a girl?

[nerdycatboy]: Why? Wouldn't send me the pictures if I was a girl?

You roll your eyes.

[you]: Just trying to narrow down my suspect list.

[nerdycatboy]: Cute. Keep trying. I am a guy. The man straight out of your nightmares, as you will start to find out.

Okay...

There are many many guys in your class, literally half of the total students. It's impossible to figure him out among them.

[nerdycatboy]: Now the pictures, cherry. Don't keep me waiting.

His message breaks your train of thought as you sigh, defeated. Telling him to wait while you fetch the stupid cat tail and clip it on your underwear. You're too humiliated to look in the mirror so instead you place your tripod on the bed with your phone and pose a couple of times or so, one from the front and one from the back.

As you scroll through them, you cannot bring yourself to believe you just took these pictures and let alone you're about to send them to someone. Each of them is equally provocating and humiliating. Before you start to think too much you bite your lip hard and send, watching as he views your message.

[you]: There you go, asshole.

[nerdycatboy]: Only three?

[you]: Take it or leave it. I'm tired.

You reply, not caring to be polite. The frustration and humiliation get to you as you rip the stupid things off your body and toss them away before falling on your bed and lying face down in silence.

[nerdycatboy]: Getting feisty. It's okay, I'm feeling kind today so I'll let you go.

[nerdycatboy]: Until next time, little cherry. xoxo

You watch his messages, a numbing feeling of defeat settling over you as you turn off your phone and push it away.

Even though you desperately want to think of nothing a thought continues to nag you. A shameful, despicable thought that you just can't seem to ignore.

You might be really enjoying being humiliated by an unknown man on the internet. How truly absurd, no? You let out a scream of frustration into the pillow. A faceless, seemingly rich man who has a kink of humiliating you is keeping your mind awake and body restless at night.

How did it ever get to this?

[nerdycatboy]: I've been thinking about your task for tomorrow and finally made a decision.

[you]: Okay...

[nerdycatboy]: Wear a white shirt. Nothing more, nothing less.

[you]: Excuse me?

[nerdycatboy]: You heard me all right, little cherry.

You keep staring at the message as if looking at it long enough will make it disappear. It definitely doesn't. In fact, it gets worse.

[nerdycatboy]: And keep the top two buttons undone. Showing a little cleavage won't hurt. And wear red lipstick.

You keep staring at your screen, wondering in the back of your mind for the nth time just how your life came to be this.

God sure loves to test you.

[you]: I'm not a harlot you know.

[nerdycatboy]: Never said you were one. Besides what's wrong with being a one?

Him and his way with words. You roll your eyes, your fingers pressing the keys on the keyboard angrily.

[you]: If I wear white my tits will show.

[nerdycatboy]: That's exactly the point.

A seething rage envelopes your entire being as you clench both of your fists, inhaling a few deep breaths to stop yourself from smashing something. Ever since you came across this asshole you're realizing you've unlimited anger that you never thought you had in you.

[you]: Whatever, dick.

You reply and shut off your computer in an unsuccessful attempt to block him out.

However, the next day, you do end up doing your live in a plain thin white shirt which of course, makes the chatbox go up in flames.

Within a minute of starting your live, comments about your outfit start flooding in.

Fuck, you look so hot!

The red lips suit you so much!!

Yo, I can see her nipples.

You're getting bolder these days. Love to see it!!!

I'll pay anything for you to take the shirt off.

Swallowing, you ignore the crude comments and start with your usual greeting. "As you can see, everyone, my outfit is a bit risky today. Just thought I'd venture into something new." You force a laugh.

Did she lose a bet or something?

Yes, we need more risky outfits. How about being topless next time?

It's a downpour of all types of comments but you can't let them get to you. So you start reading the erotica instead, reading one or two decent comments every now and then for the next two hours. The view count is insane, the highest you've ever had and the number of tips are also sky high.

A tiny, tiny part of you is thankful to your crazy stalker, whom, you haven't seen in the comments section. You could have missed him, sure, but he was silent during the last live too so you can't rest easy knowing he is watching. You're ninety-nine percent sure he's gonna DM you as soon as the live is over.

Which turns out to be accurate.

Just as you are done taking off your mask and stretching your sore muscles after the live, his message pops up on the screen.

[nerdycatboy]: you looked absolutely devouring, little cherry.

You don't know why those words make you flush. Just a little bit, you tell yourself.

[you]: thanks, pervert.

[nerdycatboy]: this pervert would like some pictures today too.

Oh god. You rub your temples.

[you]: definitely not nudes.

[nerdycatboy]: no? :(

[nerdycatboy]: I don't want nudes, ____. Let us build up to it ;) Just snap some of you sitting on your bed with those pouty red lips. And undo another button of your shirt.

It's humiliating how his orders make you curl your toes and feel giddy all over. Like an obedient pet, you do as you're told, a bit too enthusiastically. You take your time and make sure to appear sexy and get the best angles. Once satisfied, you send them to the anonymous and wait eagerly.

[nerdycatboy]: you're a sight for sore eyes.

[you]: Prof Luther's assignment getting to you?

[nerdycatboy]: Mhmm. These will definitely help me power through.

[you]: glad I could be of help 🙄

[nerdycatboy]: you sure are. until your next live, little cherry. don't miss me too much.

You snort.

[you]: yeah, whatever, sicko.

[nerdycatboy]: Also, I'll be sending you a gift. You'll love it. I already do.

Oh god. Worry begins to bloom as your brain tries to think of the gift. What will he be sending you now? What is he gonna make you do on your next live? More importantly, are you seriously looking forward to it?

Yes, you are. This tiny, fucked up part inside you is excited and all too eager to please and obey a random stranger on the internet.

[you]: Please don't.

You type instead.

[nerdycatboy]: You should receive it within the next three days. We'll talk then.

[nerdycatboy]: Bye, little cherry. Sweet dreams.

And he's offline, leaving you hanging once again.

VI.

True to his words and from your worst nightmares, a package arrives three days later. Once again, you're too scared to open it, just standing there in silence while chewing on your lower lip. Your gut is telling you that it won't be something good which means it can only be something humiliating and freaky.

Taking a deep, calming breath, you start to open the outer packaging to find a baby pink cardboard box. There's a note taped on top of the lid.

I can't wait to see you use this on camera, little cherry.

It's only a line but it has you sweating buckets as you take off the lid with shaky hands.

Your world comes to an absolute halt. For long moments, you just stand rooted to your spot with your mouth agape, convinced that this can't be real.

It is, unfortunately.

The asshole sent you a vibrator.

A fucking vibrator.

It's a huge Hitachi wand and just looking at it gives you shivers.

There is absolutely no way...

You're immediately reaching for your phone to fire a text to the asshole.

[you]: Wtf? Is this a joke?

You type and snap a picture of the device to send it to him.

It seems that he has been expecting you to text as he immediately replies.

[nerdycatboy]: It absolutely is not. I am very much looking forward to seeing you use it.

[you]: Fuck you, dickhead. I won't. There's a limit to everything.

[nerdycatboy]: There's no limit to the games we play, little cherry. In fact, this doesn't even begin to cover it. I have more plans for you.

You can't think of a way this could get any worse.

Holding your breath, you wait for him to elaborate.

[nerdycatboy]: Little cherry, do you want to hear my voice?

What?

Your breath catches in your lungs as you stare wide eyed at the text for a long time.

[you]: Yes but not at the cost of this.

[nerdycatboy]: Hmm, as stubborn as ever. What if I told you I'd reveal myself if you use the vibrator on yourself in live?

It's the second time your breath stutters, a small gasp emitting from you as you cup your open mouth.

Immediately, the gears in your brain start turning. You'd finally get to know who he is and end this misery. Maybe you can come up with some sort of dirt on him and blackmail him in return. The possibilities are endless, truly.

However, more than anything else you're excited to finally see who it is and no matter how much you keep telling yourself no, a teeny tiny part of you is eager to pleasure yourself on camera.

God, what have you become, _____.

With a defeated sigh, you start typing.

[you]: You drive a hard bargain.

[you]: Alright. You have a deal but make sure to keep your promise.

[nerdycatboy]: I vow on my degree, little cherry. You will know who I am within the next forty-eight hours.

The thought sends an exciting chill down your spine.

[nerdycatboy]: Exciting, isn't it?

You roll your eyes.

[you]: Shut up and tell me what I need to do in the live.

[nerdycatboy]: Ah, yes. Nothing that tough really, wear that white shirt you wore last time and play with yourself. According to my instructions, of course.

[you]: Your instructions?

[nerdycatboy]: Yes.

I'll be on call with you throughout the live, giving you instructions.

Your curl your toes and bite your lip, a new wave of excitement rising within you as heat pools in your belly. This is unlike anything you've ever done before and way out of your comfort zone but surprisingly, you're all too ready to comply.

Your hands are shaky as you type.

[you]: Okay.

[nerdycatboy]: You are so obedient, my cherry. It really is great fun to play with you.

I'll call you tomorrow just before your live, then.

You swallow.

[you]: Alright.

He doesn't reply anymore and you think he has gone offline. Just as you are about to log out too, another text comes.

[nerdycatboy]: And remember ______, you follow every instruction of mine. That means you follow how I tell you to please yourself and you come when I tell you to. If you do a single thing without my permission, you're absolutely done for.

Your earlier feelings are replaced with an overwhelming feeling of trepidation and doom in the blink of an eye.

Quick realization dawns on you that you are a mere puppet being controlled by an evil puppeteer and your fate is hanging by a thread.

VII.

The next day, you receive an incoming voice call from nerdycatboy just two minutes before your live.

You are ready with your full setup; you just need to start the live when it's time. The AirPods are also set in your ears for him to guide you through.

At first, your entire body freezes up as your phone starts ringing and anxiety envelopes you as and you fall into a spiral. But when you remember how your entire life is on the line, you pick up the phone just as it's about to stop ringing.

Inhaling deeply, you speak.

"Hello?"

There's a beat of silence on the other side.

And another.

"Start the live, _____. It's time."

The voice is deep, gravelly, familiar yet unfamiliar but you don't get to think long about it because your finger presses the start button and just like that you're on live.

You see yourself on the screen, dressed in a white shirt amidst the neon pink lighting in your room. Today, you've put on a wig— a baby pink wig with two high ponytails and wore a basic black face mask instead of your usual stylish mask that covers the upper half or more of your face. It's obvious you're trying to cover as much of yourself as possible to counter the part that you're going to show.

Oh, sweet lord, you're doing this.

Your greeting and interaction are a lot stiffer compared to other days as there is a sadistic man in your ears. You've also restricted the comment box because you feel it's necessary for today, hence they move slowly as you go through them.

The man in your ears has been quiet but you know he's there, waiting with you, for the view count to reach the minimum. As soon as it does, he speaks.

"Why don't we get started, _____. Introduce your toy to everyone."

You swallow as your panicky gaze lands on the intimidating piece of device right out of the camera frame. You are full of nerves and anxiety and to de-stress yourself just a bit, you take a sip of the wine that you've hidden in your coffee cup.

Then, with a deep breath, you start.

"So guys... I've already said that I'm not gonna be reading today. Instead, I'm trying something new and different. Very, very different." You force a smile at the camera as you pick up the device and grip it tightly in your hand.

"I'm in the mood for...playing tonight and guess what I'm playing with?" You inhale deeply before lifting the device to show it to the camera, moving it around in a teasing manner.

As expected, the people in the comments go insane.

"That's right. I'll be using this pretty toy on me." You give a seductive smile, despite wearing the mask, hoping your eyes coney the expression.

"Good job, little cherry. Let's not waste time now. Turn it on." The man commands quietly and once again you're body acts like it's on autopilot, obeying him immediately.

There's something about his voice, so dangerous, so attractive. Something so powerful you don't dare disobey.

It's insane, really.

As ordered, you plug in the device and turn it on, watching warily as it starts vibrating, your throat going dry.

"Go ahead. Open your legs and put it on your pussy. Don't hold it anywhere too long, though. Tease yourself."

Oh fuck.

The sensible, conscious part of you starts freezing up with fear while the other part lets you only think about how hot all of this is and how eager you are to comply.

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you lean back on your seat and part your legs. Trembling hands reach between them to pull your pink lacy panties to one side, revealing yourself to the camera.

There, you've done it.

Something inside you goes numb as you feel the chilly air on your bare core and from then on, you start feeling like a complete puppet, only here to dance as her puppeteer pleases.

Now there's no going back.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the comments fly by as the view count increases significantly.

Your puppeteer has been silent and you're somewhat grateful for his patience as you slowly adjust to your actions.

With another huge breath, you bring the thrumming device to your pussy and gingerly touch yourself while interacting with the camera, careful to follow the given instructions.

You're so wound up you don't feel any pleasure at the first touch on your pussy.

"You're so tense, _____. Don't make it look like someone is holding you at gunpoint. Relax your body, little cherry."

It proves to be harder said than done.

Still, you try to get yourself to relax and interact with the camera as you once again bring the device to your lips, playing with yourself.

"Good girl, _____. You look absolutely ravishing right now. Just keep following my voice and I promise you'll have the best orgasm you've ever had."

His tone is gentle yet ordering and oh so deep that you close your eyes and just let his words wash over you. The vibrator touches your clit right then making you jolt in your seat, a sigh of pleasure falling from your lips.

"Fuck, you're soaking, little cherry. You can try to act unwilling but deep down you are loving this. This is what you want, what you need, _____." His voice is gravelly as he breathes in your ears and you chew on your lower lip, knowing there is some truth to his words.

"Hold your pussy lips open, cherry. Run the toy up and down your folds."

You do as you are told, holding yourself open to the camera as the vibration goes through your soaking folds, making you whine in need.

"Turn the vibrations up. Just one bit."

The toy thrums stronger against your core and your legs start shaking just the tiniest bit. They have fallen wide open, resting against the armrest of your chair as you play with yourself.

"So obedient, little cherry. And so filthy. You're a real sight." He whispers. Your brain is starting to feel hazy as all your attention hones down to get yourself to release but as you expected, it doesn't prove to be so easy.

"Turn it off. Now."

Despite the serious urge to disobey him, you turn off the vibrator, teeth gritting, your pussy twitching in protest.

"We're you close, little cherry? Too bad, we can't have you cumming so easily. Turn it on again. Stroke yourself with it. Slowly."

And once again, you are eagerly following his words.

"Push it inside your pussy lips, little cherry. Just a bit. Not all the way, though."

Swallowing, you release a shaky breath and slip the vibrating head inside you, just a little bit— not even half of the head and the pleasure significantly increases as you let out a loud moan.

"Feels good doesn't it? Don't you dare slip it all the way in. There's no way I am letting a toy get inside you before myself."

His words make a shiver roll down your spine as you think of his cock and him whispering filthy words in your ear as he takes you. The little, sane part of your brain shakes her head at your deprived thoughts about a faceless man who has been blackmailing you.

"Turn it off."

Just like before, the man seems to know when your orgasm starts to rise. He tells you to shut off the device and much to your reluctance you do so, not knowing how long you can continue this without losing your mind.

"Turn it on to the highest setting this time. Hold it right on your clit. Don't you dare cum, cherry. I wanna see you writhe."

Oh fuck.

It's a really tough challenge, one you're sure you're gonna fail, yet you're helpless. You do as you're told, holding the throbbing device on your most sensitive part as you start to feel like you're gonna lose your mind. Your head falls back as your eyes roll to the back of your head, heavy pants falling from your lips as your legs shake.

"P-please, let me...come."

"You look so fucking hot right now cherry. I want to see you like this, begging for my cock. Tell me, do you want it?"

"Y-yes. Please..." You are so close you can taste the release.

"Turn it off, cherry. Right now."

With a cry of protest, you turn off the vibrator and let it fall from your hands as you slump back in your chair and catch your breath.

This is the sweetest torture.

The comments go wild, some wanting to see you come and some telling you to keep edging yourself. As you watch the number of tips only increase, your toes curl at the indecency of all of this.

"Let's continue, baby. Turn it on, play with yourself."

Hands shaky, you reach for the device again.

This game of cat and mouse continues until you're a crying and begging mess. He finally grants you your release and then rewards you with a short break before continuing. In the next couple of hours, you come three more times and your bones turn to jelly by the end of it. The live reaches its end when he finally hangs up the call and you're all too quick to wrap things up.

When your computer screen goes black and you can see your disheveled state in the reflection, your mind blanks out as you sit in complete silence, the happenings of the evening slowly replaying in your mind.

The money you've earned tonight is more than you could ever imagine and yet there is no happiness or relief bubbling in you. Rather, you feel empty and absolutely numb, the past hours feeling like a fever dream but the ache between your legs tell you they are very painfully real.

The screen of your phone lights up with two notifications, interrupting your trance.

nerdycatboy has sent you 1000$

[nerdycatboy]: a little gift for your hard work

You stare at the screen in silence until it goes black and then some more. It takes a while for you to realize tears are rolling down your cheeks. And then you are full-on sobbing as you hide your face in your hands and weep at the overwhelmingly miserable situation of yours.

When you finally get some sleep it is late into the night and tears are staining your cheeks and your pillowcase.

VIII.

Despite the rough night, you attend your classes the next day, somewhat glad that they are in the evening. You doze through all of it though, tired and way too distracted to pay attention to the lecture.

The tips of your fingers drum continuously against your desk as you wait for the class to be over. Your mind is spiraling; going haywire thinking about the fact that you will be meeting nerdycatboy today.

That is if he keeps his promise.

He hasn't contacted you since last night and given his stalker-ish tendencies, you're sure he knows your schedule. So why hasn't he messaged you yet?

Probably because he played you, silly girl.

You let out a loud sigh, frustrated, exhausted and enraged. How much longer will this match of cat and mouse go on? You have seriously started to consider shutting off your page temporarily because playing this stupid game with the anonymous asshole is proving to be way too much for you to bear.

The lecture finishes at some point while you're stuck inside your head and as you start packing your bags, you receive a text.

It's him.

I'll meet you at the library building in half an hour.

Your head immediately snaps up as your eyes scan the crowd leaving the classroom, a failed attempt to pinpoint him.

Okay, I'll be waiting.

You grab a coffee while waiting for him, your foot tapping the ground incessantly as you come to terms with the fact that you will be seeing him soon. Your misery will finally be over.

Hopefully.

What do you do when you see him? Curse at his face? Hit him? Or say it was nice playing stupid games with you now please leave me alone?

You've no idea. Your nerves leave you feeling jittery and tense as you see the clock hit seven in the evening. Half an hour is almost up so you start walking towards the library building, goosebumps arising on your skin as shivers roll down your spine.

You don't know if it's the chilly evening air or your nerves.

The library closes at six thirty so there is no one around the building now. The sun has long set and the sky is dark now, save for the little bits of orange and pink here and there.

It could be your brain projecting things but the atmosphere feels eerie and you wonder why he chose such an empty place. What does he plan to do with you? He wouldn't have chosen a quiet place unless he had some bad intentions, right?

Stop overthinking, _____. Your brain hisses.

The watch on your hand reads 7:10 now and there's no sign of anybody. Anxious, you shoot him a text, asking where he is and as expected you don't get a reply.

Tired of looking around the area with wide and restless eyes you decide to step inside the building. The ground floor is still unlocked as there are a few storage units here and you make yourself comfortable in the dimly lit hallway, leaning by a small window and focusing on the garden outside to distract yourself.

Seconds pass by with your feet tapping on the tile floor in matching beats. You grow more impatient, repeatedly checking the time and your message to see if it has been read.

Until you hear footsteps.

They echo down the hall as someone enters the building.

You hold your breath and watch the silhouette, your eyes taking a few seconds to adjust to the lighting.

And your entire world crashes and burns.

It's Jeon Wonwoo, walking towards you.

IX.

The first thing you tell yourself is that this is a coincidence, that he's here to get something from the supply closet. But the idea seems less and less plausible as he keeps walking towards you, his strides determined and only stops a few feet away from you.

You gulp, your entire body frozen as you gape at him with wide eyes, waiting for him to say something.

Judging from the upturned corners of his lips, your reaction seems to amuse him plenty. He stands there, his hands in his pockets as he watches you with a twinkle in his eyes and says the words you were still praying he wouldn't.

"Hello, little cherry."

Despite expecting those words, the shock that overcomes your system is enough to make you lose your footing as you stumble on your feet, hands reaching for the wall behind you to support yourself.

Your breath comes out in the form of short pants as small beads of sweat gather on your forehead.

You knew, you knew, you knew.

You knew it!

The second you heard his voice yesterday, your subconscious told you it was Wonwoo. You, however, chose to be ignorant, dismissing the idea just as quickly as it appeared.

There was no way it could be Wonwoo. Except it is.

You should be glad it is him, no? After all the man you had imagined in the place of the faceless man was always Wonwoo. He had been the man of your fantasies for the longest time yet the feeling of betrayal and hurt is overwhelming.

Funny, considering that he didn't actually betray you. If anything, you have been betraying yourself.

Wonwoo stands in front of you, still as a statue, hands in his pockets, his stance calmer than a winter evening. His face is blank but there is a glint in his eyes, something between sadistic amusement and cocky satisfaction as he watches you crumble in front of him.

Where is the plain old nerdy Wonwoo?

"Wo-Wonwoo..." You don't know what you are trying to say as you lose your train of thought, dropping abruptly onto the ground. Accidentally, you scrape your index finger by the windowsill but your brain registers no pain due to the overwhelming shock as you simply sit in silence and stare as little drops of blood ooze out of the cut.

God, this is straight out of your worst nightmares.

Or, your darkest, filthiest fantasies?

Wonwoo, however, seems to spot the drops of red beading on your fingertips which you ignore. He takes slow but determined steps toward you, his footsteps echoing eerily through the empty hallway. When he is right in front of you, he stops before kneeling on one knee as one of his hands reaches for your injured finger.

He watches the little drops of blood ooze through the cut with rapt attention, his dark eyes somehow appearing darker in the dim lights. Then, surprising you, he takes your hand and brings the bleeding finger to his lips, his eyes intently focused on yours as he sucks the little cut. Your breath hitches, half of yourself wanting to yank your hand away from disgust and rage while the majority of you remain paralyzed as the hauntingly mesmerizing scene plays in front of you.

"Be careful now, can't have you getting hurt now, can we, little cherry?" He takes the finger out of his mouth and observes while the corners of his lips lift into an eerie smile that finally manages to bring some heat into your blood as you seize your hand out of his grip.

"Fuck you, asshole! You're fucking sick!" You hiss out the words you never thought you would say to Wonwoo.

Your attack brings an even bigger smile to his lips as he reaches out and gently tucks a strand of stray hair behind your ear. "Oh little cherry, tell me something I don't know."

You swallow and try to scoot away from him despite the limited space. "Did you have fun bullying me, you sicko?"

"Come on now, _____. Let's not twist the truth. I was not bullying you. We were just playing a game. Besides, I should be the one to ask that." He coos at you, his voice so innocent it makes your brain trip. Tilting his head to a side he keeps stroking your cheek with his fingertips and whispers, "Did you have fun being ordered around by me? By being humiliated? Hm, pretty girl?"

Your eyes widen and you swallow nervously, clenching your hands in tight fists to stop yourself from hitting him.

He chuckles. "It's alright. You don't have to answer that." He stands up, puts his hands in his pockets and stares down at you, tilting his head once more as if you're one fascinating creature. "Because we both know you loved it."

"I didn't!" Your protest is immediate as you muster every bit of strength to stand up and get into his face. "I didn't, you asshole. Don't kid yourself!"

Another pleased smile graces his lips. "Really? You didn't like it every time I called you a good girl? You didn't get more wet every time I told you I'd reward you with my cock?" He inches his face closer to yours, leaving just an inch of a gap.

"Do not kid yourself, _____." His voice drops a pitch as you feel the shift in him, goosebumps breaking on your skin. "You call me names but deep down you know you are a filthy slut and you loved being treated that way."

No. No, you didn't.

Or did you?

"Shut up!" You yell, pushing him with all your might as he stumbles a few steps back. There's a little pause in the air before his eyes meet yours as he pushes his glasses over the bridge of his nose.

"You want me to shut up because you know that it's the truth, _____-"

"Stop psychoanalyzing me!" You hiss, a fresh coat of tears blurring your vision. "Look at yourself, you twisted fucking jerk!"

You push past him as you try to stomp away but his hand catches your arm at the last second, tugging your body close to him. He leans down, his breath hovering on your ear as he whispers. "You better watch your mouth, cherry or I'll show you just how twisted I am. And you might not live to even see through it."

A bucket of ice-cold water seems to wash over you as you realize the gravity of the situation. For the first time since meeting Wonwoo, you're actually scared for your life, especially when you gaze into his pitch black pupils and the little flash of teeth peeking between his lips. Even though his grip on your arm is ironclad, you yank your arm away with all your strength and start running away from him, your heart thudding loudly in your ribcage.

You dash straight out of the library and you only stop until you're in front of a convenience store far enough. Falling on your knees, you catch your breath as you pant heavily, eyes scanning around to make sure he didn't follow you.

A new sense of fear and doom settles over you as you start to realize you might have walked into a situation that may not allow you to get out.

Alive, at least.

What's worse is that a part of you is actually excited.

XI.

Sorry guys, I cannot be doing today's and next week's livestream due to some personal problems. Please understand. Thank you!

You post the notice on your camming page and lean back in your chair, exhaling a loud sigh. The past night has been tiring with the constant struggle of being alert and a dreadful paranoia that won't leave you alone. Jeon the twisted Wonwoo keeps reappearing in your thoughts, haunting you whatever you do.

Within minutes after your post, you get a notification of an inbox and you don't have to see it to know it's the one and only, Jeon psycho Wonwoo.

[nerdycatboy]: Must have really scared you, eh?

You stare at it for a while, thinking of something snarky to reply but nothing comes up so you just decided to ignore it.

He doesn't give up.

[nerdycatboy]: Don't be scared, cherry. We've had so much fun until now. You know it deep down.

Why ignore the obvious?

You sigh, rubbing your temples.

You really need a break from all this. From him.

[you]: Can you leave me alone for one day? Please?

He doesn't text back for a while.

[nerdycatboy]: Since I'm feeling kind, sure. I won't bother you for the next twenty-four hours. We'll talk after you've regained some of your composure and hopefully your senses.

[nerdycatboy]: Because deep down you know what you really want and you know that I'm the only one that can provide it.

[nerdycatboy]: Sweet dreams, little cherry.

His message radiates a type of threat the longer you stare at it and your mind starts to go haywire. So you shut your laptop off and lie in your bed in silence, his words repeating over and over in your head like a mantra.

Deep down you know what you really want and you know that I'm the only one that can provide it.

Yes, yes you do know that. And you feel absolutely horrible for it. Who in their sane mind would allow an unhinged, deadly man to humiliate and low-key blackmail them online for some twisted form of entertainment?

You, for sure.

Your issues run deep, girl.

You mentally shake your head at the situation. If you're attracted to a man like that there has to be something wrong with you, no? But what is worse is deep down, you don't want to stop. You want to push and push and take it to the very end, extremely curious to see what is in store for you with Wonwoo.

Nothing dull, for sure.

And as if you needed more proof; you end up seeing the man even in your dreams, where he does unspeakably filthy things to you and you only beg for more.

XII.

Sunday afternoon, when you're done soaking in the tub for a good hour while enjoying a much needed glass of wine, you sit on your robe and do your skincare when your doorbell rings.

You're confused because you aren't expecting anyone. However, when you peer into the peephole your confusion flips into terror and panic as you see Wonwoo standing.

You must be seeing things, right?

No, you realize, once you double check.

What do you do now? Pretend you're not at home? Tell him to fuck off? Call the police?

You're being too dramatic, your subconscious rolls her eyes.

But your emotions are valid because you have been ignoring texts from the man. True to his words he gave you just twenty four hours before starting to send you messages again that you were too overwhelmed and cowardly to open. Now you're realizing what a horrible decision that was.

Shaking off the thoughts you straighten up and square your shoulders, taking a deep breath as you open the door.

Wonwoo stands there, looking unfairly good, dressed in a plain loose white tee and dark blue jeans, his black hair falling messily on his forehead, a few strands lying on top of his steel-framed glasses.

You briefly wonder if you have a glasses kink, if there is even such a thing.

He stands there looking so boyfriend material, it devastates you, making you wonder if this is an alternate universe where you're a 'normal' couple.

Because he definitely doesn't look like a sadistic, anti-social, slightly psycho nutjob right now. And it messes up your brain chemistry badly.

"Hi," your voice is akin to a mouse squeaking as you feel hot all over.

"Hello, _____." His voice is so sinfully deep.

Why is acting so normal? Like he's a classmate here to do an assignment with you?

"I... wasn't expecting you..." You stumble over your words.

"You weren't replying to my messages so I thought I'd pay you a visit. Make sure you're okay, you know? Our last meeting really shook you up."

You really can't tell if he's teasing you or being genuine but the delusional part of you takes it as a genuine effort.

"May I come in?"

"Of course!" You blink, moving to make way for him. He walks past you, leaving a trail of his cologne wafting in the air that creates a sudden urge within you to grab onto him and sniff him like a dog.

Yeah, you have serious issues.

You follow him awkwardly as he looks around your small space.

"Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee...water?" Somehow offering him wine right now doesn't feel appropriate.

"Tea, please. Black."

Why is he being so...nice? So normal? Is this the climax of his games? Murdering you in your own home after sweet talking you? After making you drop your guards? You shake your head at the possibility and watch the kettle as it heats the water, waiting for him to initiate a conversation which he doesn't.

This is suffocating.

When you offer him the steaming mug he murmurs a thanks and then asks, "Where's your setup? I'd like to see it."

Uh oh.

"Uhm," you fiddle with your fingers, suddenly nervous. "It's in my bedroom."

"Mind giving me a tour?" His face doesn't give away any malicious intent but then again, he has always been great at keeping a blank face. If anything, he genuinely sounds curious.

Sighing, you guide him to your bedroom. The room is decent size with your bed on one side and your setup on the other. It's nothing fancy, just your pc and your huge, comfortable chair.

"When I film I put up a screen behind me and turn on some lights, you know," you mumble trying to fill the void. He looks around carefully before casually taking a seat on your bed and sipping on his tea.

"It's pretty. Like you, little cherry." His eyes connect with yours and your skin breaks out in goosebumps.

He's so... attractive. Everything about him. His looks, his voice, his attitude, his low-key psychotic persona.

"Take a seat, I won't bite." He says, his signature smirk finally appearing as you shudder before tentatively sitting next to him on your bed, still keeping a few inches of space.

"How did you find my address?" You ask softly.

He shrugs, drinking his tea, "Did some snooping around."

Not surprising. Not unlikely of him either.

"Have you thought about what I said, little cherry? About what you really want?" He asks, his voice a deep timbre as he sets down the mug on your bedside table.

Oh boy, we're not beating around the bush.

"Are you seriously here to talk about that?"

"Answer my question." The way he says those words make you weak in the knees.

"Yes," you swallow, not breaking eye contact with him. A pleased smile graces his soft pink lips and you're hit with the sudden temptation of kissing them.

"And what is your conclusion?" He asks, leaning closer to you, his scent making your brain hazy. One of his fingers traces over your cheekbone and then past your jaw to your neck.

It's electrifying.

''W-what if I want nothing to do with you?" You whisper. He laughs quietly before whispering in your ear, "That is not an option because we both know that's the last thing you want, little girl."

Little girl. Your insides swoon.

His face is now inches apart from yours, his fingers caressing your cheek oh so softly as he watches you with those dark, seductive eyes of his.

It doesn't take a second for you to make your decision.

"Will...will you kiss me, Wonwoo?" You croak.

He arches a surprised brow before smiling in great pleasure as he leans back to watch you. "You are always a surprise, _____. Only if you say please."

"Please."

"Good girl," he praises and that's almost enough to make you come. He wastes no time, cupping both of your cheeks and pressing his lips to yours. Fireworks go off in your head. Your hands move to clutch his shoulders and a soft needy moan escapes your lips when you feel how solid they are.

Holy mother of gods, you need to get dicked down by him.

Immediately.

Wonwoo's tongue explores every bit of your mouth as his hands grab your jaw and neck tighter, his body shuffling close to deepen the kiss. You become a puppet and let him play with you as you melt in his arms, letting him lead however he wants to.

When you two break apart you're panting heavily. Wonwoo watches you with glinting eyes, his pink lips slightly swollen like yours as his thumb traces over your lips. You subconsciously open them and he pushes his thumb in, making you suck on his digit.

You do so eagerly, not breaking eye contact with him. Heat pools in your belly as his nostrils flare and he grunts. "You're a wicked little minx you know that, little cherry?"

I can be whatever you need, you inwardly purr as you give him a particular hard suck before he takes it back.

"You want my cock? Is that what you're trying to say?" He questions, standing up and tilting your chin to meet his gaze.

You can only nod, breathless with anticipation.

"I need words, ______. You're not mute." His voice is commanding, and scolding, which makes you even wetter.

"Please fuck me, Wonwoo."

He grins. An evil, victorious grin.

"Good girl. Stand up." You do so and he tugs the belt on your robe, making it fall open in a fluid motion. Your hands move to cover yourself but he glares at you in warning, making you stop halfway.

"Don't be shy now." He whispers, letting the material fall off your shoulders, leaving you completely naked. "I've seen this pussy on camera already, no?"

You swallow as his fingers trace between your legs and then easily slips one finger in due to your wetness. You sigh in pleasure while he lets out a satisfied hum.

"Tell me," he cups your pussy, thumb stroking your clit as you shudder. "How many men have touched this before me?"

You shake your head. "N-no one."

He tilts his head, a wry smile on his face. "Are you telling me I'm your first, baby?"

You nod, slightly shaking.

"Fuck, you just made me ten times harder. I'm gonna have much more fun defiling you now."

You gulp, stuck in a trance as you let him guide you back to bed with a hard push. You land on your back and watch Wonwoo take his tee off and boy, is that a sight. Your thighs automatically press together when his sculpted body comes into view and the sight of his broad shoulders makes you clutch the bedsheets in a tight fist.

However, something catches your eye; a patch of scarred skin right on his left abdomen, spreading from the front to his back and if you had to guess you'd say it is a burn mark. You don't get to think about it long because he's distracting you with a kiss.

"Like what you see?" He's cocky.

You nod, eyes settling on the bulge in his jeans, waiting for him to take it off so that you can see the object of your desires.

Alas, he has other plans for you.

"Open your legs, little cherry."

They fall apart on command as Wonwoo gets comfort between them, one of his hands trailing over your breasts and your belly while the other softly strokes your sopping wet core. It's embarrassing how easily he can slip two fingers deep inside you. "So fucking wet, you dirty whore." He muses with a smirk.

God, you love his voice.

Your moans rise in pitch as his fingers develop a rhythm, thrusting in and out of you in precise, perfect movements. Your release is so close you can taste it.

Automatically, your hips rise off the bed as your body tilts itself upward for a little stimulation on your clit. Wonwoo takes notice of it and laughs, "Aw, little whore is gonna come so soon? You want me to do this?"

The brush of the pad of his finger is enough to set you off as you scream and let your release wash over you. Your toes curl as you fist the sheets hard enough to almost rip them, riding out your high while he continues to plunge his digits in and out of you.

Once you finally get to catch your breath, he pulls them out and pops the fingers in his mouth, making a show of licking them.

You shudder, your body preparing for another round as moisture gathers between your legs once again.

"Fucking delicious." He grins, making you heat up all over. There is nowhere to hide, your whole body on display for him and he doesn't mask his appreciation as he drinks up every naked inch of you with a devouring gaze.

"Please, f-fuck me," you're not shy about begging as the need for his cock worsens.

"Oh I will," he promises, taking off his glasses and setting them down on your bedside table. Without much thinking your fingers trail over his chiseled abdomen and then down, over the tent of his pants as you fiddle with the button, trying to open it. Wonwoo amuses you for a while before batting your hand away, glaring at you. "Did I give you permission to touch me?"

You bite your lip and shake your head no.

"That's right." His voice is calm as he watches you for a few beats, hungry eyes trained on your lips before his right hand suddenly comes to wrap around your throat.

Your breath stutters as you watch him, wide eyed.

"Touch me again without permission and you won't be coming anytime soon." He threatens, tightening the grip on your throat as your airflow gradually decreases, making you feel fuzzy. You should be scared for your life, but you aren't, instead, the action only makes you wetter as you rub your thighs and mewl and beg with your eyes to ease the ache.

He listens.

Letting you go, he gets off the bed and takes off his pants and boxers, while your brain and lungs catch up due to the lack of oxygen. You blink and gulp when you see how blessed he is in length and girth, your breathing irregular.

Smirking at your reaction, he gets back on the bed and traps you beneath him, amusement and satisfaction dancing in his eyes. "I don't think you'll need any more prepping," he muses, trailing his fingers to your pussy and dipping one in the collect your arousal. You vehemently shake your head yes.

He laughs. "Hungry for cock, slut?"

"Y-yes." You whisper, breathless, wide eyed, needy.

Wonwoo leans down to nip on your jaw and your neck as he aligns himself with your entrance. Then, a thought comes to you.

"We... don't have a condom..."

"I'm clean, little cherry. Besides, there's no way I'd not take this virgin cunt bare." His words are vile and his smile is diabolical, sending shivers down your spine. It's alarming how attractive you find his insanity.

"Hold on to me. Bite my shoulder if it hurts too much." That's all the warning you get and not enough time to process as he shoves his cock inside you in one go. A loud wail erupts from your throat as tears burn your eyes, your nails digging into Wonwoo's biceps as you cling to him for dear life.

"So fucking tight." His voice is hoarse as he remains still for a few seconds, letting you catch your breath. The pain of the stretch doesn't ease up but the man on top of you isn't too bothered. He starts thrusting, slow, small thrusts at first as you rest your head in the crook of his neck and hold him tight, breathing harshly.

Soon, his pace increases, hitting that perfect spot inside you that makes you see stars and your toes curl. Feeling you tighten around him, he chuckles, "You like that? You like it when I hit here?" He punctuates by thrusting you right there once again and you scream.

"Yes! Harder!"

He scoffs. "Such a slut. How did you survive so long without a dick shoved up inside you, huh?" He leans back, prying your body off of him and grabs both your cheeks in one hand, puckering your lips. "Want it harder? Say please."

"P-please," you manage to utter despite his strong grip on your jaw. Your cheeks ache from how hard he grabs you but you're once again surprised by how much the pain turns you on.

"Open your mouth," he commands, intense eyes trained on you, his pace never faltering. You are not going to last very long, you realize.

You follow his command and open your mouth as he eases his grip and stunning you, he spits right into your mouth.

"Swallow it, little whore." He orders, making your pussy clench deliciously. You once again do as you're told.

"You loved that, didn't you?" He scoffs. "You are a real treat, little cherry. You're fucking perfect." His hands wrap around your throat, almost as leverage as his pace becomes wild, driving in and out of you so fast, the bed starts shaking.

"I'm..gonna come." You whisper. The pressure building inside you is about to burst and you can't hold it any longer. Not resuming his pace or bothering to acknowledge your words, Wonwoo keeps on going while slithering a hand down to your core, where he flicks your clit before roughly pinching it.

You go off like a rocket.

The pleasure is mind-numbing, making you arch off the bed with a wail. It's like a tsunami of pleasure has crashed onto you and it only amplifies when you feel him swell inside you before releasing himself. Your pussy is coated with warm bursts of his cum as your body continues to shake, still riding the wave of your high.

You feel him pull out, his cum trickling out of your spent hole as you still float back down to earth and before you can let out a sigh of relief that it is over, he's spreading your legs as wide as they can go, getting you in a spread eagle position.

"Keep your legs like that, slut." He commands, leaning down to capture your lips in a bruising kiss. It's all teeth and tongue and fierce that once again lights up the fire in your core.

What has this man done to you?

You're insatiable, riding a never ending lust filled high as you watch the insanely hot man on top of you. His hair is messier now and there's a light sheen of sweat on his body that only adds to the appeal.

You don't know if you want to devour him or be devoured by him.

"I'm not done with you yet." He murmurs, watching you with dark eyes as he strokes his cock. "Look at your blood on my cock, little cherry. Isn't that a sight?" He grins, flashing his teeth.

Goosebumps rake down your spine.

"I always loved blood but having you bleed on my cock? This is just incomparable, sweetheart." He pushes a couple of his fingers coated in your blood and his cum and shoves them into your mouth. You're all too eager to lick them clean without a second of delay.

Your tongue dances on his digits, licking them clean and tasting the metallic, bitter flavor before he pops them off your lips. Then, once again leaving you flabbergasted, he slaps you on the right cheek. It doesn't hurt bad but it stings and you're ashamed of how much you liked it.

The evil smile is back on his face. "You like that?" He smacks your other cheek and you nod eagerly. At this point you realize, there's nothing this man can do to you that you wouldn't like.

"You're an absolute fucking piece, little cherry. I'm so glad I snatched you up. Couldn't let any other man have you, could I?"

He kisses your jaw before moving towards your neck, sniffing as he goes. "You smell so addictive. So... mine." He muses as he sucks on the tender spot on your neck, making you sigh in pleasure.

"Please, Wonwoo..." You are desperate and your legs hurt from staying wide open. The plea reaches his ears as he sits back and puts his fingers in his mouth, wetting them before shoving them inside your sore yet throbbing pussy. He plunges them in and out for a while, pushing his cum back inside you and watching with a smirk how your mouth falls open in pleasure.

And then he thrusts himself in. You know this time it is gonna be quick with his extra fast movements as he holds your calves for leverage and pounds in and out of you restlessly. You're on the brink of losing your sanity with how good he feels, unceremonious moans and gasps continuously leaving your mouth.

Suddenly a smack graces you on the cheek, making your body jerk and pussy tighten. It takes a while to realize Wonwoo has slapped you again and once you do so, you eagerly wait for another. Unlike last time, your cheek heats up from the force and you can actually feel the flesh burn but gosh, do you not love it any less.

"Dirty fucking slut. Letting me treat you however I want. You love it, no? You love the pain?" He hisses, brows furrowed as his pace starts to falter. You nod eagerly moving your hips against his, desperately chasing your end.

Two punctuated thrusts on your g-spot and you come without any warning. Once again, you feel like you're launched into outer space as your entire body jerks, leaving you gasping for air. Wonwoo releases himself all over your stomach and tits this time, soft groans of pleasure falling from his lips.

It's addictive.

Everything about this man is addictive.

He is the sweetest form of darkness, here to drag you down to hell with him. And you have no complaints.

That is your last coherent thought before you fall into a peaceful slumber.

XIII.

The next day, Wonwoo sits next to you in class, acting like his usual self, like he didn't blow your back out last night. He stays mostly quiet and keeps to himself, focusing on the lecture and taking notes. However, underneath the desk, his hand holds your thigh in a possessive grip, his fingers dancing over your sensitive flesh.

It is safe to say you don't get to focus much on the lesson.

After the class, you and Wonwoo grab a cool drink and sit on one of the benches laid throughout the campus field.

You are still processing the events of last night and seeing how he hasn't mentioned it even once, you wonder if it was all your imagination.

No, it was all too real to be untrue.

As you sit next to him and chew on your straw, you wonder how you should approach the subject. Wonwoo, who has been silently enjoying his drink suddenly speaks, just as you get your thoughts together. It, however, is the last thing you expected him to say.

"Did I ever tell you about how I murdered a man?"

Your body turns into a block of ice as you whip your head towards Wonwoo, who sits with his elbows resting on his knees, an impassive look on his face. Silently, you blink a few times, waiting, just to make sure you didn't hear him wrong.

He is kidding.

Right?

He tilts his head to face you, a wry chuckle escaping his lips as he shakes his head at your expression. "Come on now, little cherry, don't look so shocked."

You cough and look away, a lame attempt to mask your expression. "I don't want to know anything I should not know." You murmur, looking down at the ground. "Besides, you're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not." He laughs a little, before exhaling loudly. "I also doubt you'd tattle on me. Who would fuck you so good like last night if I went to jail?"

His words make you squirm in your seat.

"Besides, it's a really interesting story. One I've never told anyone before."

Should you feel honored?

Wonwoo seems to take your silence as a yes because he starts narrating. "Once upon a time, there was a man. An alcoholic, pathetic excuse of a man who did terrible things to a woman, my mother. I was very young when it started. He'd beat the shit out of her for every little reason. It would only get worse when he got drunk, which was more often than not. Sometimes he'd lock her up in the basement and keep her naked and unfed. One time, when I was about ten years old, he broke every finger on her right hand just because the dinner wasn't served on time."

You have stopped breathing by now, as you sit in absolute silence, your limbs immobile as if you are paralyzed. You have a very good idea of where this story is going and how it might end. That should make you want to get up and leave but you just can't bring yourself to, as you sit mute and take occasional tentative peeks at the man next to you.

"That was the first time I stood up to him. My mother had passed out from the pain and I yelled at him and pushed him which made him take it out on me too. He hadn't hit me ever before. But that night, he kept on going till the dawn, as if making up for all the times he didn't."

He falls silent for a few moments and you take a chance to peek at him. As always, it's impossible to read him, his face an emotionless canvas and his eyes emptier than a desert, lost somewhere in his dark memories. You can't help but wonder if he feels any pain or remorse as he recalls his traumatic past. If he does, how can he mask it so well?

"Six months after that, my mother fell off the roof of our building. The police concluded it as suicide because they found out she was drunk. But she wasn't."

"The night before, as always, the pathetic loser came home drunk and smashed things around for a while. There was a ruby necklace that my grandmother gave to my mother when she got married. That night, he was asking for it because he needed immediate cash and my mother wouldn't give it. She probably had enough because that was the only night she stood up against him and she protested hard. I remember her smashing a bottle on his head. Of course, he wouldn't let that slide but something was different about him that night. He was more despairing, more evil. He slapped her around a few times before choking her until she passed out. I can still hear his words in my head.

I'll get rid of you tonight bitch.

I'll get rid of you for good."

He then took out a bunch of booze and ordered her to drink them, saying that if she resisted, I'd get the beatings. She obeyed him and I only watched, as I always did and he kept forcing her to drink till she couldn't utter a coherent word or couldn't even remain seated. Once she passed out from all the booze he came to me and patted my head. With the evilest of smiles, he said,

"Go to your room. You don't need to learn everything so early."

"Then he locked me in his bedroom and didn't let me go until the morning. By then the police had come and removed her body. Those imbeciles decided it was suicide and ended the investigation just like that.

I could have told them that it was a murder but I didn't. My mother's death stunned me so much that I couldn't speak for the next few months and the asshole used it to his advantage. He acted like the best father and husband in front of the police but then came and took out all his anger and frustration on me."

He finally pauses to take a look at you and your face must have been an open book because he chuckles, "Why do you look so pale already? I haven't even gotten to the best part yet."

You want to tell him that you look pale not because of the story but because you feel sad for the fucked up man sitting next to you and his fucked up childhood. Even though he has yet to reveal how his father died you have already convinced yourself that he deserved it.

"A year went by like that." Wonwoo continues. "My mother was gone and I was the new punching bag for the asshole. He'd beat me up almost every day but he wasn't that dumb. He would never hit me in the face because I went to school and people could ask questions. I endured it all, in fact, I might have even started to crave it. I started to think I deserved it and so I took it...until one afternoon. I had just gotten home from school. He was sitting in the living room, drinking and watching TV. He seemed to be in an okay mood so I showed him my report card and asked him to sign it so that I could submit it the next day. He was quiet for a while until he saw my marks in English.

He took a bottle of booze and poured it all over my report card, saying a loser like me is better off without one. Something snapped inside of me and I yelled at him. So he broke that bottle on my head and stuffed that wet report card into my mouth and started beating me up.

After he was done he told me to get him a glass of water and go out to buy more beer for him. There was a nearby store that knew us and let me purchase alcohol. At that moment I made a split-second decision. I went to the kitchen, grabbed some rat poison and mixed it in his water before giving it to him. When he passed out I went back into the kitchen and pulled out the gas pipe and turned the knob open, letting it leak all over. I then lit a match and watched as the entire house caught on fire in seconds. I got burned too, as you can tell from the scars you saw last night. I ran out and sat on the other side of the road, just watching the fire spread. The thought of him burning alive in there brought me so much pleasure that I forgot my own pain.

It was right after noon and we lived in a relatively deserted area so it took a while for people to find out and call the police. They never suspected me because why would a twelve year old set his house on fire? The neighbors also testified that the asshole was an alcoholic so the police concluded it as another accident."

He concludes with a loud exhale. Turning his head to face you, he smirks wryly, "And that's how I successfully got away with my first murder."

You are left with a loss of words so you just give him a shaky nod and stare down at your legs, trying to process everything.

A few beats of silence seem to pass before Wonwoo reaches for your chin and uses it to tilt your face up. He smirks, "Scared of me now, aren't you?"

You sigh, gently removing your chin from his grip. "No, Wonwoo, I'm not. You did what you had to survive. It's admirable how you held on for so long."

For the first time, you see an emotion vividly on his face; shock. His eyes widen and his lips part to a little 'o' as he gapes at you, stunned. His reaction evokes some sort of longing within yourself as you reach for his hand and hold it between yours. "I am not scared of you because there is nothing to be. You were a little boy and you had gone through so much. It's fucked up but you did it to survive and you've come so far-"

"I don't want your pity and I don't want you to psychoanalyze me." He hisses, cutting you off as he yanks his hand away from your grip. You can see the fierce anger in his gaze so you shake your head.

"I am not pitying you and neither am I psychoanalyzing you. Trust me, I am in no position to do that. Especially because I believe that that man was an absolute piece of garbage and he deserved what you have done to him, if not worse. I would have done the same, Wonwoo, long ago. You held on for so long. That makes you a survivor, not a bad guy."

Your words seem to sink into him as he remains quiet, watching you with careful yet wondrous eyes. You sigh, realizing that he probably isn't believing you so you decide to give him, and yourself, some space.

Just as you stand up, he yanks you down by your hand, making you fall awkwardly onto his lap. Then, before your brain can catch up, he kisses you, rough and fast.

His lips smash with yours as he holds a strong grip on your neck, angling your face to his advantage. His tongue explores every inch of your mouth, colliding with yours as your body goes lax and you give into him. It's like an aphrodisiac— his kiss, his touch, that makes you lose your guard as you fall deeper and deeper into an abyss.

When he pulls back, you are both panting heavily for air. "Do you realize what you just said?" He grunts, those fox-like eyes staring at you making your toes curl and your insides swirl. In a daze, you hum, "Hmm?"

"You'd make a great accomplice for a murder, no?" He chuckles, his thumb tracing your swollen bottom lip while you keep staring at his lips. All coherent thoughts and senses have left your body long ago as you find yourself swimming in the sweetest poison that is Wonwoo.

"More." You breathe.

He smirks, that evil, confident smirk of his that makes your panties wet. Once again, he starts moving before you can process anything, dragging you behind him and straight to one of the storage rooms in a nearby building. You follow him blindly and as soon as the door is locked, he pins you against the wall and between himself, effectively trapping you. Yet, there is nowhere you want to escape to.

"You are an enigma, you know that, little cherry?" He whispers, trailing kisses down your jaw as his hands work on unbuttoning your top. He quickly takes it off along with your bra before taking a step back and yanking your skirt down. The zipper on the waist lets out a groan of protest that falls onto your deaf ears as you remain too busy ogling the ungodly hot man in front of you.

"Take me out."

Your body is on autopilot as you immediately undo his belt and pull down the zipper.

"Put your hands over my shoulders and hold tight. Wrap your legs around me." He commands as one of his hands holds you below your thigh while the other positions himself on your entrance.

And before you can blink, he's inside you. The initial stretch of the intrusion makes you jolt and let out a loud gasp of pain but it's quick to dull. One of his hands covers your mouth, his dark eyes indicating you to remain silent while he starts to move in and out of you.

Oh boy, is it hard to remain silent.

Especially, when you can feel every delicious inch of him, moving in and out of you ruthlessly, making your body shake from the onslaught of pleasure. Your grip on his shoulders tightens as little squeaks escape from your lips and your legs wrap themselves around his body tighter when you start to taste your release.

"Gosh, you're such a slut, letting me fuck you against a wall, in a store room." Wonwoo grits, a twisted smirk on his lips as his gaze roams over your face leisurely. "What if someone comes in right now, huh? What if they see you bouncing your pretty ass on my cock?"

"Mmph," you try to moan, the image sending short circuits to your brain. Wonwoo chuckles, loving your reaction. "You'd like that, won't you? You're one filthy little slut, my cherry." He grins after giving you a particular hard thrust, that makes your toes curl.

"P-please," you pant, breathless trying to grind your clit against his pelvis. One touch on your clit and you're gonna come. "Please, touch me."

The man only smiles, a cruel, mocking smile as he grabs your wrists in one hand and pins them hard on the wall behind you before thrusting once, twice, so hard that your back starts aching. Though you can't bring yourself to complain because the next moment his release is filling you up, making you moan unceremoniously.

When you think he's now gonna help you get off, the man only releases you and starts fixing himself up leaving you panting against the wall awkwardly, with the worst ache between your legs.

"W-what about me?" You croak.

"Sluts don't get to come so easily." Wonwoo smirks, throwing a look your way before walking out of the storeroom. You slide down the wall, absolutely livid, the urge to punch something growing very intense.

Something like his face.

That goddamn infuriating man!

Maybe you should just get yourself off.

"And don't think about touching yourself without me. I'll know if you do and trust me, you don't wanna make me mad." His head pops back in as he opens the door to warn you before disappearing once again.

"Fuck!" You're screaming now. "Fuck you, Jeon Wonwoo!"

XIV.

Over time, you start to grow close to Wonwoo. Definitely closer than you'd expect to be with a person like him. It also doesn't help that you have a silly little crush on him and every little thing he does makes your heart flutter. Like the way he'd always put the helmet on you carefully before riding on his bike, brush your hair away from your face with soft fingers, and pull you closer to his body when you walk down a busy sidewalk.

Jeon Wonwoo was in no way boyfriend material but his little gestures, which he probably did thoughtlessly made you think he was the perfect man for you.

While things were going breezy with Wonwoo, a new problem seems to have appeared. Jacob Lee, a classmate of yours has been on your tail nonstop for the past few days, acting all friendly and touchy with you when in reality you've never spoken to him before, only seen him around the campus.

And speaking of the devil, he appears, just as you are finishing up your study session in the library one afternoon.

"_____!" His voice makes you sigh exasperatedly. "Hey! I was looking for you!"

You give him a fake smile and instead focus on packing your stuff, knowing Wonwoo will be here soon. He has asked you to stay overnight at his place for a class project but you doubt how much you'll be working on that project.

The thought of his hands all over you makes you embarrassingly excited.

"I sent you a friend request last night, didn't you see?"

Yes, and I'm not interested. You give me the creeps.

Which was the truth. You have heard a few rumors about Jacob, not good things for sure and the way he approaches you, invading your personal space like a bulldozer certainly makes you wary of him.

"Ah really? I'm not quite active these days. Projects and all, you know?" You try to avoid eye contact with him as he takes the seat right next to you, leaning much too close for your liking. "And...I don't really accept requests unless they're my close friends."

"Heyyy," he nudges your arm, a huge grin on his face. "How can we become close friends unless you accept my request?"

Oh god.

You sigh, internally rolling your eyes as you stand up and sling your bag over your shoulder. "You know, I'm in a hurry, actually. Wonwoo is waiting for me-"

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"What?" You blink, albeit stunned.

"Are you dating Wonwoo?" He asks, his tone sharp, as he stands up and steps closer to you, brows knotted in a frown.

Seriously, what is up with this guy?

"Why do you ask?" You question instead.

He rolls his eyes. Instead of answering you, he speaks, "He's a boring dude. If you really need a man you should let me—"

"Yes, she's dating me." Wonwoo interrupts all of a sudden. You spin around to find him standing behind you, a very annoyed look on his face as he glowers at Jacob. If looks could kill he'd be dead by now.

His hand wraps around your waist, tugging you next to his body and you can't help but swoon a little as you melt in his embrace. You rest your face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent and sigh giddily.

The comfort and safety his arms provide are astounding.

"It doesn't really matter if you say I'm boring because she seems to find me interesting enough," Wonwoo says, his tone challenging, dark eyes focused on Jacob whose face now appears grim.

"Since we have established that she's mine," he emphasizes his words by tugging you even closer, "You should keep your hands to yourself and mind your business, hmm? Being nosy can get you hurt, you know."

Jacob's lips are pressed into a thin line as he glares at Wonwoo who ignores him and turns around, tugging you with him as you both walk out of the library.

As soon as you are outside, you step out of his arms and raise a brow at the man. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That? You were like...staking your claim or something."

"I was. You're mine." He says simply.

Heat blooms throughout your face. Butterflies run wild in your stomach.

Damn.

"Whatever," you try to play it cool by rolling your eyes and pushing past him. Wonwoo, however, grabs your wrist and pulls you into his arms and whispers in your ear.

"You don't seem to agree, little cherry. Let's go home so that I can show just how much you are mine." His knuckles trail over your jaw, then down your neck before grabbing it, a predatory glint in his eyes.

You can't stop the satisfied grin from appearing on your face as you scream on the inside.

XV.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about the last day." A voice says from behind you and you turn around to find Jacob standing rather awkwardly.

You are going through your notes in the library when you are interrupted.

Raising a brow of confusion, you blink at him.

Jacob scratches his head. "Uh...I overstepped that day, you know. You're obviously a couple and I was trying to overstep my boundaries. I'm really sorry about that."

Well, that's a development.

"It's alright." You give him a small smile. "And thank you for apologizing."

"It's all good if you've accepted my apology." He smiles. "Also, I was hoping you could do me a favor?"

"Sure?" You say, not quite sure.

"You see, I'm having a bit of a problem with the latest assignment. Could you help me with that, please? Just take a look at my draft?" He chuckles nervously, as if ashamed. "After all, the professor did say that you had the best research paper among all of us."

Ah.

"Yeah, sure I can help you with that."

"Great! Thanks a lot, ____. Could you perhaps come with me to my car? My notes are in there. Just take a quick look and I'll let you be on your way."

You nod as you pack your belongings and follow him to the parking lot behind the library. Once you two are in front of your car, Jacob holds the door open for you, motioning you to get inside. You raise a confused brow at him.

There is a shift in him as he suddenly produces a knife from his pocket and holds it against your stomach. He grits in your ear, "Now be a good girl and get in the car, ______. Try to do anything to attract any attention and ill fucking gut you."

"Jacob, please-''

"Get in the fucking car, _____. And lock the door once you are inside."

Shaking, you do as you are told and watch him get inside the driver's seat.

"Why are you doing this?" You whisper.

"Why do you think, cherry?" He spits. His words dump a bucket of ice cold water all over you as you come to the realization.

He knows. He fucking knows. He knows your secret.

"That's right, _____." The smirk on his face is cruel. "I randomly came across your channel one night. Of course, I didn't know it was you at first. But after a little bit of observing and putting things together, it wasn't hard to figure you out. And my suspicions were fully confirmed when your nerd of a boyfriend found your identity and started blackmailing you."

Oh my god.

A small, devastated gasp leaves your lips, making Jacob laugh. "Yeah. I saw you two that evening. I know everything, little cherry. All your dirty little secrets. But what I hate is that you let him have you, calling that dumb guy your boyfriend and whatnot, but you won't give me a chance? That's not fair, baby."

"You fucking stalker! You son of a-"

"Shut up!" He booms, holding the knife right in front of your eye. "You're going to shut the fuck up and let me have all the fun tonight, hmm? You're a slut, _____. Reading filthy things, showing yourself off on the internet and now you're acting like a prude in front of me? I can't tolerate that baby, I need a taste of you."

Oh god. You're going to throw up.

In a moment's decision, you try to attack him, reaching for his face and poking him in the eye while scratching his cheek. A struggle ensues while you try to writhe and kick out of his grasp but he's stronger, effectively holding you.

"Just go to sleep, little bitch. I'll take good care of you." He snickers, making your heart drop.

Oh no no no...

He smacks you in the back of the head twice with the butt of his knife, making your vision go blurry and your head spin. Your last thought is that you are doomed now.

XVI.

The back of your head is throbbing when you wake up. It takes a good few moments to get your brain and eyes to function and when you are somewhat coherent, you realize your wrists are tied together behind you, as you remain in a half laid position. Your whole body feels sore and taut as if you've been thrown around roughly.

"Finally, you're awake baby." The dreadful voice speaks. You tilt your head, despite the pain, to look at Jacob who is looming over you, smiling, a sick kind of excitement dancing in his eyes.

Your throat which was already parched, goes even drier.

"You're fucking sick." You croak, a jolt of pain going through your ribs as you try to move your body.

A slap lands on your cheek from nowhere, forcing you to fall on your side as you whine in pain.

"I told you to shut the fuck up!" He's yelling. "Do you know how hard it was to carry your body all the way here? I had to put you in the trunk, for fucks sake!" He complains, making you roll your eyes. "It would all have been fine if you'd just shut up and complied with me!"

He then grabs you by your hair, forcing you to turn your head and look at him. "I had to wait for the last hour for you to gain consciousness, baby. Despite my thoughts, I just couldn't get hard when you were lying still."

He says those words with a mock pout as if that's the most unfortunate thing in the world and your blood boils. "Fuck you, dickhead. I doubt your thing gets hard at all."

That earns you another slap, and another, followed by a lot of screaming and cursing from him.

You tune them out, trying to conjure a way out of this hell. The first person you think of is Wonwoo and your heart starts to ache. His classes should be done by now. Is he looking for you? Is he worried? Given his possessiveness, he definitely should be looking for you by now.

You only wish you had your phone somewhere nearby.

You look around the place, trying to spot anything that may distract this sicko and aid you with your escape. Unfortunately, this feels like an abandoned building and the only thing lying around are pieces of wood, splinters and a few metal rods. Which would serve as a good weapon, only if your hands were untied.

An idea forms in your head.

"I need to pee." You grunt, making Jacob raise a brow.

"Well then, do it." He shrugs before smiling. "You'll need to take your pants off anyway for what I'm about to do to you. Want me to help you with them, baby?"

So that definitely backfired.

Jacob approaches you, hands reaching for the button on your jeans as you writhe in protest, trying to crawl away from him. Your sore ribs protest heavily but you struggle against his grip, which only tightens the harder you protest.

You are so fucked.

"The more you fight, the harder I get, baby." He snickers in your ears, making you want to throw up.

Jacob manages to unbutton your jeans and as he is pulling down your zipper, you land a kick on his shin, making him fall on his ass with a grunt. His eyes flash dangerously at you.

"Maybe I should tie your legs too, huh? Just let me take these jeans off."

"Get your hands off of her. Right. Now." There's a sudden voice.

You both turn your head to find Wonwoo, to your utter relief, standing there, a menacing look on his face as his eyes bore into Jacob.

"Let her go." His voice is quiet.

To others, it may sound flat but you know Wonwoo and you know the look in his eyes very well. A shiver rolls down your spine and you try once again to loosen the ropes tying your wrists. If you aren't free soon, things are gonna get messy.

"The big bad boyfriend is here to save the day, no?" Jacob scoffs, swaying the knife around in his hand. "Whatcha gonna do, boyfriend?"

"You wouldn't wanna know." Wonwoo gives him a cold smile that gives even you, goosebumps. You try to mediate the situation. "Jacob, please, listen to me. This doesn't have to be like this. Just let me go and we can pretend this never happened."

"Shut up, you whore! I'm getting a taste of you today and I don't care whether it's next to your boyfriend's rotting corpse!" He screeches, pointing the knife at you.

Mentally, you shake your head.

This really isn't gonna end well.

A grunt echo through the air and it takes a few seconds for your fuzzy brain to realize that Wonwoo has punched Jacob. The latter tumbles onto the floor, groaning loudly, "You fucking asshole! You broke my nose!"

Wonwoo's face remains blank as he repeatedly keeps kicking Jacob's torso, not even letting him get up. When he's gasping for air, he steps back to take a good look at him before walking to the side and picking up a metal rod.

In the meantime, Jacob manages to stand up on wobbly legs and his eyes widen when he sees Wonwoo pick up the weapon. "You fucking psychopath. You really wanna die today, huh?" He scoffs before charging toward Wonwoo, the knife in his hand aiming for his face. Wonwoo dodges it by leaning back and just as Jacob is passing by him, he grabs his other arm, twisting it roughly before clutching the hand holding the knife.

Jacob yells in pain but doesn't back down and there is a struggle as they both try to overpower each other. Amidst that, the knife in Jacob's hand manages to cut a thin line on Wonwoo's cheek, making him release Jacob and take a few steps back.

Jacob chuckles, his smile looking exceptionally evil as blood runs down his nose and coats his teeth. "I'm gonna have so much fun carving up your pretty face, nerd."

Wonwoo watches him with calculative eyes, a wry, slight smirk on his face as he tilts his head on both sides, popping the veins in his neck.

You watch with bated breath, knowing it's gonna get ugly and it does as Wonwoo charges for Jacob, hitting his head in the first strike with the metal bar. Jacob falls to his knees, cupping the side of his head as a gush of blood flows out. Before he can stand back up, Wonwoo hits him again and again and again, three more times on his head before his body slumps onto the ground, passed out.

But that doesn't make Wonwoo stop as he continues with two more hits and you start yelling. "Wonwoo, stop! Stop it! You're gonna kill him!"

He stops and his eyes meet yours. They are absolutely cold and empty, laced with an expression of that's-what-I-was-about-to-do and for a moment you think that he's gonna kill him right in front of you but he doesn't.

Surprising you, he drops the bar on the ground with a loud echo before calmly walking towards you and kneeling down to untie your wrists. You pant heavily, relieved and grateful as your eyes become teary when one of his hand cups your cheek tenderly, his eyes trained on the cut on your lips and the bruise on your cheek.

And to think that this man was being so violent seconds ago.

"Does it hurt badly?" He asks, eyes narrowing on your bruises. You immediately shake your head, not trusting your voice to speak.

You croak, "How did you find me?"

He scoffs. "Little cherry, you should have figured out by now how possessive I am of you." He tilts his head, giving you an isn't-that-obvious look. Yet, you're confused.

"You...you didn't actually put a—"

"Exactly," he smiles, almost proud. "I downloaded a tracker on your phone."

Holy shit. There's a lot to unpack but for now, you are totally grateful. So you just nod and clutch his arms tightly.

Your heart thumps loudly as the man wraps an arm around your waist, supporting you to stand up. The bruises on your body make it hard to do so but you manage with his help and gently he guides you out of the warehouse, picking up your scattered items lying in a corner and putting them in your bag before moving past Jacob's still body.

You turn your head back to observe if he's breathing and you notice the slow rise and fall of his chest, making you sigh in relief.

Wonwoo walks you both out of the compound before coming to a stop underneath a large banyan tree, right where he parked his bike.

"Call a taxi." He says as he hands you your bag. "Go to a hospital. I'll be there soon."

Your heart falls.

"W-what? W-where are you going?" You croak, hands immediately clutching the sleeves of his jacket. His hands gently hold you by the arm, a stark contrast to the look on his face, malicious, ruthless. "You don't leave loose ends, baby."

You almost choke on your saliva.

"Wha-what? No! You-"

His lips press against yours, effectively silencing you. One of his hand cups your cheek while the other laces around your waist, pulling your body next to his. Blindly you follow his lead, wrapping your arms around his neck as your tongue intertwines with his into a passionate kiss. It tastes like temptation, lust and a little bit metallic— from the blood on your lips and even though in the back of your mind you know how wrong this is, it feels like the most right thing of all time.

A while later Wonwoo pulls back as the haze of lust disappears from his eyes, replaced with seriousness.

"Do as you're told, ____. This isn't a request."

It isn't. It's a command.

Yet, as he turns around to head back into the warehouse, you cannot bring yourself to call a taxi. But you also cannot muster up to follow him back inside and watch him finish the job.

Blissful ignorance, as they like to call it.

Besides, there is no crime if there is no witness.

You try to tell yourself that you're staying in case Jacob manages to run away or worse, hurt Wonwoo or in case somebody comes around here.

So you make yourself comfortable underneath the tree and take a seat, even though your sore body protests in pain.

Seconds turn to minutes as they fly by and just like that half an hour is gone. The sky is now overcast with thick clouds, indicating an impending downpour that makes you worry.

There is no sign of Wonwoo yet.

When the first few drops of rain hit the ground, you manage to get yourself up after a little struggle and despite your ribs protesting, you start to take small steps towards the building.

Something must have gone wrong.

But you don't have to go too far because you see a tall figure approaching you from the other end and you realize it's Wonwoo. Your breath stutters as you stay still in your spot, waiting for him to take notice of you and come to you. He seems to be walking while in deep thought as his focus remains on the ground so you call for him.

"Wonwoo!"

His head snaps up as he regards you with wide eyes, standing still for a moment. Then he's running towards you, stepping on little puddles along the way.

"What are you still doing here!" His tone is sharp but you ignore it. Instead, your eyes scan his body for any injuries. He seems to appear fine— disheveled really, but still fine. There is a new cut on his forehead and there are specks of blood all over his face, neck and hands, especially his hands which are completely wet and coated in crimson.

You highly doubt it's his own blood. Still, your hands reach out for him and you find yourself asking, "Are you okay?"

Wonwoo glares at you. "You should have gone to a hospital by now, ____. You're hurt." You shake your head and instead cup his cheek, thumb brushing away the little specks of blood that are yet to wash away despite the pouring rain.

His eyes visibly soften as he sighs and shrugs off his jacket and puts it over your shoulders.

"You're gonna catch a cold." He whispers as his arms wrap around your shoulders, pulling your body next to him.

"J-Jacob?" You whisper.

His eyes go empty for a few seconds before he gives you a small, evil smile, "I took care of him."

Your heart falls and you swallow, the gravity of the situation dawning on you.

"B-but the body-"

"Lot of wolves in that forest.'' He says, indicating the woods right behind the building. ''They'll finish the body."

He smirks, giving you a look. "I believe Jacob came here drunk and passed out and the wolves took him." He pins you down with a look that makes you shudder.

You're now an accomplice to murder.

Gripping your chin with his thumb and index finger, he tilts your head up. "Hey. Nobody will know...unless you tell them."

That's right. Nobody will know.

With a jerky nod, your eyes meet his and even though your limbs are sore, you lean on your tippy toes and pull his lips onto yours by cupping his cheeks. His lips taste like rain and blood, full of danger but oh so tempting. Your tongues dance in a haze of fiery lust and passion and by the time you two separate, you're a little dizzy.

You should really get to the hospital.

"I won't tell anyone," you whisper, stroking the nape of his neck.

"Because I have nothing to tell. Jacob got eaten by the wolves. It was just an accident, after all." You state, surprised at how calm you are.

A grin spreads across Wonwoo's face, evil, satisfied and proud. You can't also help but smile a little as he captures your lips for a quick kiss before murmuring, "You're perfect, you know that little cherry?"

You swoon. "Maybe you can remind me when we are home. After taking a trip to the hospital, of course."

"Let's go." He holds out his hand and you take it as you both walk to his bike. Blood still stains his fingertips but you don't care as they transfer on your hands too. Instead, you let him slowly guide you away from the building, from that sick asshole who isn't breathing anymore, thankfully.

When you look down your hands entangled with his, a sense of odd comfort settles over you.

Sure, this man is completely unhinged and dangerous but he's also perfect.

Perfect for you.

You're both a little unhinged and that's fine.

What matters is that you are safe now. With him.

Smiling in contentment, you bring your intertwined hands up to your lips and press a kiss on his bruised knuckles.

You are bloody, yet safe.

a/n: and hence, I chose the name Bloodily Safe! I know it isn't that good but istg I couldn't think of anything else😭. this is, undoubtedly, the darkest fic I've written yet and somewhere in the middle I started questioning whether it'd be a good idea to release this. but the urge to share psycho Wonwoo with y'all won in the end lol. I blame pledis for this, we need an actor Wonwoo in a villain role immediately!!! I've left it as an open ending so I'm here to announce that yes, I am planning on writing another part of this, something like an extended epilogue where we focus more on Wonwoo. their feelings for each other also remain vague here and I've kept it so purposefully. it's up to each of your own interpretation. if you'd like to hear mine, do send an ask. I'm all ready to analyze and discuss our fav psycho wonwoo. also, I've yet to proofread this thoroughly so there might be some errors. that's it from me for now, thank you for taking the time to read this! have a lovely day!

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