#but in reference to that post: I wasn’t even gonna turn it in bc it was so late

[psychoticwillgraham]

HELP MY NOTES ARE LIGHTING UP BC OF THAT HISTORY CLASS POST!!!!!

[pinkaditty]

Who's Passing NNN? Tokyo Debunker Pt 2

this is SO cliche i know. please. let me... have this...

a/n: 2 posts in less than 24 hours!?!?! yes!!! enjoy, please. im kinda proud of these. not even gonna tell y'all how i am bc u already know. quick disclaimer that i write these under the assumption the tokyo debunker boys are at least 18 years old. they appear to be present at a university considering there are professors and a chancellor. not to mention the boys drink, smoke, gamble, and refer to themselves as adults. summary: part 2 of the whole 'who out of the tokyo debunker boys is passing NNN?' thing. pretty self-explanatory. cw: fictional men jorking it!!!!!! MINORS DNI!!!!!!!! not really proofread i fear Frostheim || Vagastrom || Jabberwock || Sinostra || Hotarubi || Obscuary || Mortkranken (jabberwock already written yea currently working on sinostra)

MINORS DNI AS USUAL! THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING MY BOUNDARY!

Vagastrom:

Alan Mido: Fail

NOW! Before you jump me! He failed by accident. Forgot it was November. Needed to get his rocks off after everything pissing him off for a while. Sometimes though, he manages to hold out for a while. 

He’s working on a car right now, laying on the car roller, fixing it up after an unfortunate accident while dealing with an external anomaly. He lets his thoughts wander as he fixes the car. So many things had pissed him off this week. Ishibashi needing to meet at ridiculous times, Leo being unreliable, even his grades slipping. This car was just one of them. Maybe he needed to blow off some steam. Maybe he could go for a drive? No, not enough. Spar? No, he’d already taken enough of Sho’s time. Maybe… a different way? 

A sudden itch makes itself known just as he thinks that. He stiffens under the car, clenching his jaw. None of that. He was in the garage. He had to hold it together. He shakes his head and continues working on the car, ignoring the itch. He tries to come up with other ways to blow off steam. Studying, exercising, anything. The itch grows stronger. He sighs angrily and forces his attention on the car. He was in the garage, for fuck’s sake. The itch continues and then grows into a twitch. He presses his thighs together on impulse, before realizing how that may look and coughing, spreading his legs apart again. He bites his tongue and continues fixing the car as the twitching persists. His face becomes flushed and his composure cracks just a little. He couldn’t ignore his twitching cock forever.

And, maybe it’d be a good way to blow off some steam… 

Shohei Haizono: Pass

Well. As much as it seems like he may have a crazy sex drive, and as much as I would like to subscribe to that idea, I just don’t think it’s true. He doesn’t have a strong one. That said, he hardly goes a month without masturbating. He manages, but when he goes so long without it, it can get kinda frustrating. 

There were far too many customers today, he thinks. He’d gone several days without being able to wind down, since his food truck had been so busy. He’s glad for the success, but it’s become so time-consuming. The feeling had come out of nowhere, but since the last few customers and all throughout cleaning up, he’d been feeling a little pent up. His half-hard cock pressed insistently against his pants as he wiped down the counter, ensuring it was clean before he let out an exhausted sigh. The cool night air responded with crickets chirping and some owls hooting. 

Well… There wasn’t anyone around. 

Before he knows it, he’s turned off the lights, tucked himself underneath the counter where he wouldn’t be visible, and has eagerly pulled his cock out. He can’t be bothered to care about his surroundings as he starts, biting the sleeve of his uniform to prevent himself from being heard. Unfortunately, some light, breathy groans escape through the fabric of his shirt, but the noise mingles well with the pap pap pap sound of his hand over his cock and the shuffling sound of his legs opening and closing, overwhelmed with pleasure. His body shakes as he releases, careful to catch it in his palms, not wanting to have to clean again. When clarity finally hits, he sighs and shakes his head, observing his mess. God, how many sanitation laws did he just break?

And… did he remember to close the window?

Leo Kurosagi: Pass (Miserably)

Had to be clear. Yes, he passes, but barely, and miserably so. He’s doing it for clout and he’s posting about it, too. He’s letting his fans run wild with speculation at his announcement and letting them make all the claims they want when he successfully completes it. However, I’m quite confident that the second it was December 1st, Leo couldn’t fucking stand it anymore.

November 31st, 11:59pm. He lays on his bed with a half-hard cock pressing unyieldingly against his boxers and his phone in his hand with a drafted post congratulating himself for completing NNN, ready to be sent the moment that clock hit December 1st, 12:00am. He keeps his eyes fixated on the time, letting his hand drift downwards and hold himself through his pajama pants. The time still hasn’t changed. He gives himself a light squeeze, and is shocked at the needy sigh that passes through his lips. Fuck, he just needed this time to change. He just needed this time to change. He bites his lip, keeping the pressure on his cock as he gently strokes through his pants. He shifts his legs around, progressively getting more and more antsy as he stared at the time. 11:59 still. Who knew a minute could last so fucking long? He continues stroking gently, getting himself to full mast, twitching the entire time. 

Just as he’s about to give up, the time changes. 12:00am at last. He hurriedly presses “Post” and practically tosses his phone to the side, reaching inside his pajama pants and boxers to wrap a hand around his stiffened cock. He wastes no time in stroking, surprising even himself with his needy whines and unintelligible phrases and throaty moans. He spreads his legs apart and grips his thigh with his free hand, speeding up his pace. He moans through gritted teeth before his eyes roll back and his jaw goes slack, yielding a strangled moan as he covers his hands and pajamas with his release. He allows his legs to collapse on the bed, and picks up his phone again, checking his post. 

1k likes, 200 comments. It was 12:01am. Sheesh, that didn’t take him long at all…

a/n: wowee! i spit this out at 2am yesterday and fine-tuned it 2day so enjoy. eat this. i will be back 2 post jabberwock's soon, hopefully.

note that, as per usual, i enjoy likes, comments, and reblogs!! please tell me how much you enjoyed my work!

[sweetnergirl]

No bc like… just imagine plug!connie and you being his bsf sister.

“S-stoppp…CONNIE PLZZZ!!”you cried out in the most whiniest voice you’ve ever made

“Shhh, baby you non’t want you’re brother to here how much of a slut you’re being for his best friend.” He rasped in your ear as his fingers moved in and out of you as he curled them on that spot that he knows make you crumble under him. “B-b-baby plz, I’m gonna cum if you keep doing that”, you said as tears that you were holding finally came sliding down the sides of your face.

“Aww you gonna cum, come on. Go ahead come for me”. Connie whispered in your ear then sat up on his hind legs and smirked(his bottom diamond grills shining) as he watched that chubby tummy of your’s that he loved so much(the reader also has a hello kitty belly piercing), quiver as he watched you fall apart. You couldn’t take it as his fingers continued to move and his thumb rubbed that swollen little nub of yours…So you tried to push is hand away by grabbing his wrist. “Nahh this what you wanted right mamas, what happen to you being all big and bad when you was teasing me wit them lil as shorts tryna show off to my friend” he stated in a firm and slightly aggressive tone while never slowing down.

Though you could only respond with a string of whiny and pornographic moans from him just playing with your pussy like it was nothing. You knew exactly what he was referring to, you didn’t know ony was going to have company over you had just woken up from a nap and taken a shower by then throwing on a plain cropped wife beater w/hello kitty shorts that you’ve had since you were nine and yea they had gotten shorter and tighter over the years… But HEY! They still fit. You walked out of your room welcomed by the strong smell of weed and the three boys in the living room smoking(Eren, Connie and ony).

While Connie’s eyes stayed on you roaming up and down your body as if he could eat you along w/the stare of Eren Yeager. “Aye y/n, look at you all grown up it’s been too long we should hang out together just like old time’s” Eren tells you while also eyeing you. “Nah she’s still annoying, the only reason she used to hang out w/ is because she would beg me to and if I say no she would be a little snitch”. Ony complains as I roll my eyes and strolled to the kitchen. “Yeah but she cool now right y/n?”Eren asked taking a puff of the jay and Turing his head to look at me in the kitchen eating a fruit roll up, “yepp I’m cool now… right Connie?” I questioned as I walked over the the side of the sofa Eren was sitting on and taking the jay from his hand then taking a puff. “Earth to con, you good bro”,ony asked while waving a hand in his face. “Yeah I’m good just, just thinking”.

As time went on me and Eren just talked while ony and con did they’re thing but even then I noticed Connie staring the whole time with dark eyes filled w/lust and irritation rolling his eyes any time i laughed at ren’s jokes or touch his arm or me showing him my fresh nail set when he asked.

By the end of the night I was high out of my mind from all the smoking and decided it was time for me to go back in my room and probably go back to sleep, which is when Connie shows up in my room during the middle of the night confronting me about whatever he called “the situation” which was just me catching up w/ an old friend. It wasn’t that big of a deal to me.

“Shut the fuck up I’m sick of hearing you mouth, matter of a fact turn that ass around im bout to tear that ass up”.

THIS WAS MY FIRST POST SO GO EASY ON ME AND GIVE POSITIVE FEEDBACK.

[goldsainz]

FRIENDS INTO LOVERS — one shot.

pairing: lando norris x reader

MASTERLIST.

request: “Hi, could I request a childhood sweethearts with lando please and thank you 🫶🫶”

NOTE: so i did a social media au for this, hope that it's okay! let's pretend for the sake of the story's timeline that olivia is slightly older 😁 i changed the request format thingy bc the gap it left bothered me… if you check my other requested works you’ll know what i mean

liked by mickschumacher, conangray and 301,796 others

lando.jpg Day 61. Road trip with the one and only yourusername

view all 4,527 comments

yoursername my passenger princess <3

⤷ lando.jpg 😐😐😐

⤷ danielricciardo Don't even try to deny it

landofan1 literally love y/n sm

landofan2 i want a friendship like theirs

ynfan1 LANDO BEING A PASSENGER PRINCESS IS NOW CANON

liked by yoursername and 8,139 others

user1 when are they gonna get together!!!

maxfewtrell Still can’t believe I wasn’t invited🙄

⤷ yourusername this wouldn’t happen if you had other friends!

⤷ maxfewtrell Rude! I’m gonna tell Lando about this.

liked by landonorris, irisapatow and 2,643,197 others

yourusername All Of The Girls You Loved Before is out now in all streaming platforms!!! 💗

view all 39,648 comments

landonorris So so proud of you! Everyone will get sick of me playing this all the time

⤷ yourusername you’re fr my #1 fan

⤷ landonorris And what about it? 🤨

landofan21 this 100% about lando no doubt about it

oscarpiastri New song for the McLaren playlist

liked by yourusername and 17,923 others

ynfan21 if this isn’t a confirmation post + the comments… then idk what is

ynfan22 “i wanna teach you how forever feels” when will it be my turn😭

landofan22 THE BEHIND THE SONG INTERVIEW??? if this song isn’t about lando idk what’ll do…

⤷ user21 what did she say?

⤷ landofan22 “It’s about loving someone so much you don’t really care that they’ve been with someone before you, just feeling grateful you’re getting the best version of them.” that is so about lando idc what anyone says

⤷ ynfan23 don’t forget about: “I wrote it thinking about how maybe there’s someone that’s always kind of been there, and you didn’t notice or the timing wasn’t right, but now that it is you don’t think about anything else other then them.”

liked by carlossainz55, team_quadrant and 1,857,426 others

landonorris May I introduce my lovely girlfriend, Y/N! She’s been my friendfor more years than I can remember (17 if we’re being precise) and there is no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with. Thank you, for being my best friend all this time and letting me love you ❤️

view all 27,861 comments

ynfan31 OMG??? I WASN’T EXPECTING THIS TODAY

sebastianvettel Congrats you two! Nice to see you both finally came to your senses

⤷ landonorris Thank you, Seb!

⤷ yourusername 🫶🫶🫶

landofan31 i’m gonna need 3-5 business days to recover

landofan32 THAT TWITTER USER WAS RIGHT???

ynfan32 words can’t describe how i’m feeling rn

mickschumacher Glad I don’t have to keep this a secret anymore!!!

⤷ maxfewtrell Same here, mate! It was killing me

ynfan33 all this time they were together😭😭

user31 love is actually real

liked by pierregasly, jackchampion and 2,903,645 others

yourusername i guess hard launching is the only way! i’ve loved this man for more years than i’d like to admit, as a friend and now as my boyfriend!! wherever you stray, i follow 🤍 (shoutout to user3 on twitter your thread was scarily spot on)

view all 43,554 comments

landofan41 the willow lyrics😭😭

ynfan41 your honour i love them

lilymhe you’re still my wife, right?

⤷ yourusername forever and always, baby

⤷ alex_albon Crazy to see how people forget they have boyfriends at home…

ynfan42 THESE ARE NOW MY PARENTS!!

ynfan43 i guess being delulu works out in the end

landofan42 he’s the king of her heart (i’m sorry but i had to make the taylor reference)

francisca.cgomes now we can finally go on double dates!!

⤷ yourusername we could always go on a date alone

⤷ landonorris I think we’ll stick just with the double date

ynfan44 they’re officially the best couple on the grid

[mingirn]

only lovers alive

song mingi x reader

synopsis: you return back home after graduating college to a new relationship you have to navigate with your childhood best friend

warnings: smut, a lot of mentions of sexual acts, drinking, insecurities, jealousy, dirty talk, phone sex, sort of (very brief) exhibitionism, gender neutral reader

word count: 20,3k

notes: hello. i’ve had this sitting in my drafts for 1-2 years and saw a tweet that said ”i’d pick you up from the airport in every universe” and decided to let this out of jail bc of that. although the fic itself is inspired by this song. fic title comes from this song. i’m gonna schedule this to post while i’m asleep because i’m terrified to post after not being on here for such a long time. please be gentle with me >:(

It’s dark outside your window, but the streets are lit up by countless glimmering lights. Even though the day is turning into night, there’s still plenty of traffic. Beaming headlights join the streams of light from street lamps, and it’s just your apartment that is missing a glow from a lamp on its windowsill. You’ve got all yours packed up and sent away already, and you’re taking in the city for the last time.

”Are you going to miss it?” Mingis's voice is soft on the other end of the phone. You’ve got him on speaker, lying right next to you.

”I guess, yeah. It’s been nice, even though I haven’t spent much time exploring or enjoying the city.”

It’s true. You’ve just finished your last semester and finally graduated after moving hours away from your hometown to go to your dream school. It feels like eons since then, when you had to say tearful goodbyes to your friends and family and settle down in a cramped little dorm room. You’d been lucky enough to get student housing in your last year, a bigger place where you’d been living for the past two semesters. This city wasn’t just a stark difference to your hometown, it was the definition of complete and total opposite.

The town you grew up in was the type to hide, not really forgotten, just barely there. Small and tucked away between long stretches of forests and fields. You’d be blessed to live there your whole life, yet lucky to get away. You’d go home to visit during summer break and just bask in how simple life was back home, but beyond all, how it was still home to all the things you held most dear. Top of that list: Mingi.

”You’ll always be able to go back, maybe we can go during the summer and you can take me to that Chinese place you’ve talked so much about,” Mingi says. He’s starting to sound a little sleepy, and it’s a reminder that you should probably get to sleep soon. You’ve got an early flight to catch, then it’s just a span of a few hours separating you and Mingi. He’ll be coming to pick you up, so you suppose you better let him go too so he can get some sleep.

”You know I’d love that,” you smile, and slump down on your bed. ”I think we should head to bed though, maybe we should leave this future talk for some other time.”

He hums in agreement, and the line goes quiet for a minute. You can hear his breathing through the speaker, slow and steady. When you close your eyes it’s almost like he’s here.

”Hey, uh,” he begins, and he swallows audibly. ”Do you think it’s gonna be weird?”

Ah, there it is. You’ve almost been waiting, expecting, him to ask it.

”No, I don’t… It’s not like we haven’t seen each other since I moved away. We’ve spent almost all of the last three summers together, right?” you reason. It’s not really what Mingi is referring to, but you have to start somewhere. Soften him up, reassure him.

”Well yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just different because we weren’t doing those things then, and now it’s… well, different.”

”Mingi,” you say with firmness in your voice. ”It would only be different if you said and did all those things just because it was over the phone. If you didn’t mean any of it.”

Mingi takes another moment of silence, and you can imagine that he’s probably chewing nervously on his bottom lip. It makes you a bit nervous as well, the fact that you can’t see him. You’d always been so good at reading his face and figuring out what he was thinking. You need that more than ever now, the ability to read him, because so much has changed.

”I’ve meant every word I’ve ever said,” he says, and something about the words feels so heavy and serious, and he seems to realize it too. ”I really, really want to fuck you, not just over the phone.”

Mingis voice is normal when he says it, not a hint of underlying desire or desperation, but the words themselves send a flash of warmth through your body. It’s become regular at this point, this shift in your friendship. The first time you guys crossed over that invisible line had been under the influence of alcohol, you had come home drunk from the bar after celebrating good test results with some friends and Mingi had been celebrating getting a new job with your mutual friends back at home. It just sort of happened, you dialing his number and gushing about how much you missed him. The conversation went on for half an hour when you started trying to undress from your bar clothes and Mingi had asked what you were doing. He’d asked about what you were wearing, and what color your underwear was, then he informed you that he was just in his boxers, and for some reason you found yourself telling him about how sexually frustrated you had been lately in hopes that he’d offer help. And he did.

That first night it was quick and needy, neither of you initiated it, it just happened in perfect symbiosis. You checked the call log the day after and saw that you guys had been on the phone for hours, the last of which you had both eventually fallen asleep on call until your phone battery died. Tentatively, you had called him during the afternoon and asked him if he had any recollection of yesterday night's events. His voice had been raspy and breathy, throat raw from drinking and moaning, and you can still remember every inflection in the tone of his voice when he asked if you had liked it. That had been the start of it all, of an almost full year of phone sex, sexting, and swapping pictures.

”I’m glad to hear that,” you say, trying to sound just as casual even though you can feel butterflies swirl through your stomach. ”I really can’t wait, Mingi. Can’t wait to fuck you and can’t wait to see you, I’ve missed you so much.”

”I’ve missed you too… Get some sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow at the airport, just look for a handsome tall guy!”

You fall asleep with Mingis laugh ringing in your ears.

The next day, your plane lands at a far emptier airport than the one you’d set off from. It’s early in the day and the sun is high in the sky, occasionally passing behind weak and thin clouds. The air is so different out here than in the big city. The sounds are clearer, the people are kinder, and everything feels so much more simple here.

You sit on a hard airport bench and wait as your phone connects to the internet after having been turned off, seeing all your missed messages coming in. You’re just about to type up a response to Mingis ’You there?’ when a call from him pops up on the screen.

”Yeah, I’m here!” you chirp into the phone.

”’Here’ where? I’m just walking around and-”

”Mingi, you idiot, turn around!” you call out loud enough for him to hear it on the phone and in person, though he’s quite a distance away from you. You could recognize the back of his head anywhere, even though it’s short and bleached blond right now, it’s undeniably Mingi.

He spins around and spots you right away, making eye contact with you across the big, open space. Seeing Mingi in person for the first time in months washes away all nervosity, all the same as it stirs up a new sense of anticipation. You jump to your feet and you're both rushing towards each other, crashing together in a tight hug.

You find yourself closing your eyes, tucking your head into his chest, and inhaling his scent until it makes you lightheaded. He smells just like your Mingi, that same cologne he’s worn since he was 15, the same laundry detergent, and he smells faintly of sunscreen. It’s not the first time you’ve hugged him, not by a long shot, but it feels like the first time you’ve held him like this. Your arms around his middle, taking note of how big he feels in your hold, and you’re thinking about every little detail you’ve missed out on by being away from him. His warmth, his touch, his size, his voice.

”Hi there,” he murmurs, and his voice is so different up close. It’s deeper and darker, it reverberates through his chest. ”Was the flight okay?”

Something about the conversation he’s initiating makes you feel like now is the appropriate time to pull away, and that in turn has you questioning how appropriate that hug had been on your part. Mingi, however, feels cool as ice when he grabs hold of your bag and slings his arm around your shoulder to guide you out of the airport.

”Uh,” you begin, feeling a bit stumped. You continue, ”It was as good as you can expect, but the food sucked, I can’t wait to get home and eat my mom's cooking.”

”Tired of ramen and takeout?” he asks, chuckling.

”You could say that.”

You try to move on past your own weirdness. Mingi is normal and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be as well. Still, there’s a sort of buzz igniting under your skin from being in Mingi's presence again. You suppose it’s always like that, this initial excitement of seeing each other again and getting to update each other on all the things you’ve been up to while knowing you’ve got all the time in the world to hang out. But there’s this nagging voice at the back of your head that is frantically going through all the conversations you’ve had with Mingi on the phone. Late at night, underneath your covers, with Mingi moaning and speaking filth on the speaker. It doesn’t match up with the Mingi in front of you, the Mingi that has been your closest friend for years, and it makes you feel electric.

Mingi pops his trunk open and you load your bags into his car, then get inside and start the half-hour drive back to your hometown.

You only dare to steal little glances over at him. Watching him in the rearview mirror, seeing the sun set his brown eyes ablaze and paint his skin golden. His fingers strum along to the song on the radio on the steering wheel, he’s wearing a single ring on his right hand and his skin is already tanned even though summer has just begun. It’s almost like you’re meeting him all over again with the way you’re soaking in every inch of him, yet it’s forcefully clear to you that none of this is new. Perhaps that would have made it easier if he had just been a stranger where the slate was clean, but this is Mingi and there are things you’re both gonna need to navigate.

You’d foolishly expected that he’d lean in and steal at least a kiss but perhaps more right away, when you were still parked at the airport. More accurately, you had hoped so. It’s all you guys had been talking about for the past months, all the ways you’d want to ravage each other when you finally were face to face again. Apparently, Mingi thinks that can wait.

So you turn your head away, try not to look over at him or imagine his hand holding your thigh instead of the steering wheel. Instead, you focus your attention on the trees outside, and Talking Heads on the radio.

”Do you still like this song?” Mingi asks you. He takes a turn, and this is where the road gets lonesome and there’s more nature than buildings. The song playing is ’This Must be the Place’, and you know Mingi is asking because you’d been the one that bought him this CD for his birthday.

”I could never outgrow Talking Heads, you know that,” you smile at him. You’re starting to settle in now. The fields and the trees are so familiar, the air smells like your childhood, and Mingi is humming along to music you’ve listened to for years. You can do this, it’s not going to be weird, it’s still your best friend Mingi.

The ride back home starts to fill up with idle chatter. You’d think that you’d have run out of topics to talk about by now, seeing as you’d talk on the phone almost every day, but you still find new things to bring up. He parks his car in the driveway outside your house and helps you carry your luggage, all while giggling and joking with you.

It’s only been a year since you’ve been home, you hadn’t been able to come during Christmas, but that’s the longest stretch of time you’ve spent away from this very house. Not much has changed, your parents have kept your room exactly like you had left it, but something just feels different. It feels smaller, or you feel bigger. You catch a glimpse of Mingi in your doorway as you start unpacking your bags and for a second your abdomen flutters when you notice just how much of the door opening he can shield with his body. He has filled out a lot, and this shouldn’t be a surprise because you’d noticed it plenty of times before when you came home to visit. You suppose it’s not a surprise, but it’s the first time you’ve felt appreciation for it.

Of course, you had fantasized about his body since you entered his whole thing, and he had sent a lot of pictures that had helped you out with that, but seeing it in person is an entirely new ordeal. You feel your face heat up as your mind flicks through memories of pictures he’s sent you of himself naked, knowing what he looks like underneath his clothes. You have to wonder if Mingis mind is running in the same circles, if he’s as hyperaware of your skin as you are of his, and how he’s able to contain himself as well as he does if that’s the case. You hardly can’t.

”So,” Mingi begins. Your stomach lurches and plunges every time he pauses between words, fearing what may come next. Maybe this is when he breaks your heart and tells you he can’t do what you’ve been speaking about, that it’s just not the same when you’re face to face. You try to seem unbothered by your racing thoughts and decide to hear him out first. He continues, ”Uh, what now? Do you need any more help?”

”No, I’m all good, Mingi,” You’re rifling through clothes and belongings, lining them up on your bed. You can physically feel him behind you in your room as if he’s radiating this electricity and warmth that has your skin tingling.

”Maybe I should get going then. You know, to let you settle in.” You can hear him shift his weight between his feet. It suddenly feels unbearably awkward and strained between you two, and you know that if you keep your back to him it will only get worse. You need to face this head-on, cut through the tension, or at least pretend like the heavy atmosphere isn’t weighing you down.

You don’t want to let Mingi leave like this, without either one of you addressing things. If he leaves like this, with things unspoken and forgotten, the next time you see him it will be like nothing has ever happened. He’ll be right next to you but somehow further away than ever.

You guess you shouldn’t have expected to jump each other's bones the second you saw each other. Maybe that was unrealistic, but it had just felt that way on the phone. You suppose this is more natural, maybe you just have to stick it out until you’re used to being in the same room.

This Mingi in front of you is an entire world different than the one you’d grown up with. Despite the fact that everything is the same, that he’s in your childhood room and the sun is shining through the window just the same. The beam of light illuminates him directly, making his tan skin radiate.

You’re admiring him when he steps forward and closes the distance between you. Only the birds are singing outside your window, but in the total silence of your room, you can hear Mingi suck in a shaky breath before he leans forward and kisses you.

Time stills, the earth feels like it’s tilting or tipping, as if the very makeup of the universe is now irreversibly changed. Mingis mouth is warm and gentle but he’s keeping a pressure that has your mind whirling, just the way he’s kissing you with so much intent. You’re both breathing heavily and the air escaping his nose is so sweet that you can’t stop yourself from inhaling as much as possible, dizzying yourself to consume every bit of him that you can.

He’s already close, but he shuffles even nearer without breaking apart from the kiss. You can now feel his body against yours and Mingi moves his hands up to hold each side of your head, keeping you in place as he kisses and licks into your mouth. For some reason you’re so very present inside your head, thinking about each little detail of the way he kisses, reminding yourself to remember this moment forever.

You can feel when he starts to pull away so you chase after him, deepening the kiss for another second before he parts from it entirely. He’s just as breathless as you are, and there’s something in Mingi's eyes that you’ve never seen before. He focuses on your lips and leans in for another kiss that ends a moment too quickly.

Mingis hand ruffles your hair up, and his voice is laced with a laugh when he says a drawn-out ’bye’ and leaves your room.

You can feel your heartbeat in your throat, can hear the blood pumping and wooshing from it all the way through your body, throughout each delicate vein in your ears. Your lips are tingling when you reach up to touch them, almost in disbelief at the fact that Mingi had just been kissing you right there. Your mouth is slick with his spit, and your finger moves cardinally to gather it up and plunge into your mouth so you can savor it.

You fall down on the bed, staring up at your ceiling, and close your eyes to relive the kiss as you imagine what it will be like the next time you see Mingi.

Almost a full week passes until you see him again. Your family practically swarms you for the first few days, your parents being overjoyed to have you back invite your grandparents to welcome you home and your favorite aunt comes to see you with your two young cousins. You get unpacked quickly enough, when you manage to find time between family visits and long drawn-out meals, and before you know it five days have passed. Mingi stays busy too though, he sends a few occasional texts about work and though he lives right across from you, you never even catch a glimpse of him.

Sometimes you lay in your bed at night and feel your heart race up at the thought that there is only a few yards of grass and asphalt road between the two of you. It’s a massive change from the last three years when you had been miles and miles apart. Now, it feels almost like you can sense him. Just across the street, breathing and shuffling in bed. You can picture him so well, long eyelashes resting against his cheekbone, his skin flushed from sleep, his long limbs tangled up in a thin blanket. Your hand slips inside your underwear with a hot fire fueled by embarrassment and insecurity burning in your stomach.

Your imagination moves between recollections of words he’s spoken and pictures he’s sent, to the image of him in his bed right now. He’s so very close, but so very unaware of how much that precise fact affects you. Each day away from him only tightens the strings in your body and you grow more frustrated that you haven’t actualized any of the promises you’d made on the phone. At the same time, you find yourself quietly thankful for the imposed distance. Mingi isn’t even here, but he still has such an impact on you that it has you rushedly getting yourself off with your face buried in your pillow to keep quiet.

You’re so deeply affected by all this, while Mingi is fine. You’re the one busy, but when Mingi comes home from work and has some downtime he doesn’t even text to see if you can spend time. Seemingly, he doesn’t care to find out when you can see each other again.

On day six you’re sitting in your garden with your mom and aunt. Your cousins are playing in the grass in front of you and calling for your attention. The sun is high and hot in the sky, and Mingis car has been home for a few hours. You’ve checked your phone multiple times to make sure it’s not on silent, or if you’ve somehow missed a text from him, but it’s been quiet all day.

Then, a car pulls up to Mingi's house. You recognize it in an instant, it’s Yunhos old Camaro that he had inherited from his dad when he got his license, the same car he’d posted a thousand pictures of on social media. He had even let you drive it for an entire block two summers ago. The paint job has sparkles of blue in it that glimmer in the sun, and you somehow feel like it’s taunting you. The front door of Mingis house opens and he emerges in a pair of short shorts and a t-shirt that he has cut the sleeves off of, and he’s got a pair of sunglasses sitting on his face. A feeling worse than rejection rushes through you when Yunho rolls down the window and waves to you, finally prompting Mingi to also notice you sitting there.

Mingi raises his hand to wave but the movement is cut shorter than Yunho's enthusiastic full-bodied gesture. Mingi gets in the car and the engine roars as Yunho drives away. The warm air feels bittersweet when it’s filled by the smell of exhaust fumes.

That night you’re lying in bed and you’re inching close to sleep when your room lights up for a second. In the haze of sleep, you assume it to be the headlights of a car, but it happens again until the stream of light persists entirely and you finally get up to look outside your window. It’s clear instantly where it’s coming from because Mingi is hanging halfway out his window with a flashlight in his hand.

Though he’s quite a distance away, you can see him well enough to tell that he’s shirtless and his hair is messy, but your focus is pulled from that to trying to decode what gesture he’s making with his hand. You shrug, and he disappears from his window for a few seconds before he pops back with his phone and starts pointing to it.

You search for your phone and open it to find 4 missed calls from Mingi. His contact picture pops up on your phone and you hurry to answer.

”What the fuck, Mingi?” you whisper into your phone.

”Were you sleeping?” he chuckles, and you can see his shoulders shake with laughter. Every little bit of this makes you want to hang up, or scream, or march right over to his house and have a go at him. How dare he go days without speaking to you, then call you up in the middle of the night and laugh as if you haven’t been in agony this past week? How dare he kiss you breathless in this very room and make no attempts at reliving it?

”No, I was just about to fall asleep!” you huff.

”Why are you whispering?” Mingi asks.

”Because my parents are asleep, dumbass.”

”Hm,” he ponders. ”So that would be a no if I asked you to sneak out and come over?”

You hope he doesn’t hear your breath hitch at the thought that he wants you to come over in the middle of the night.

”Of course, it’s a no! My mom is already peeved because of Yunho coming by earlier today. She hates how loud that car is. She’s gonna think you’re a bad influence, riding around in that and making me sneak out.”

”Imagine her reaction when she finds out you drove that car before you got your license, and I wasn’t even there. It was all Yunho,” Mingi jokes.

”Shut up! God, my mom has been warning me about him for years. She used to be convinced I was going to end up with him and it was her biggest nightmare,” you say. Your window is cracked to let in some air now that it’s cooler outside. The night is quiet, and all you can hear is Mingi breathing at the other end of the call. It’s quiet for a moment, and you can see that Mingis face is scrunched up.

”You and Yunho?” he scoffs. ”Why would she think that?”

”I don’t know, it’s not like she had any reason to. She’s just weird like that, you know how my mom is.”

It’s silent yet again, Mingi just sighing.

Your stomach does a somersault when a thought strikes you and you have to ask, ”You’re not jealous, are you?”

”Jealous? Of- of Yunho?” Mingi laughs breathlessly. You just hum, and you can’t take your eyes off of him where he’s sitting in his window. Mingi sucks in a deep breath and regains his voice, ”I have no reason to be jealous of him when I’m the one with your nudes in my phone.”

Something about that makes you curl up on yourself, suddenly feeling very shy that you’re only in your underwear and a thin old tank top. It brings up another thought that has plagued you. The pictures you’d sent were all meticulously posed and manipulated to be as appealing as possible. It had been your body, yes, but the most perfect version of it possible. Here, in your pajamas with your skin glistening from sweat, hunched over yourself, you hardly think Mingi can find any resemblance between the picture-perfect version and the one in front of his eyes.

”Oh yeah?” you murmur. You can’t let him see you falter, can’t let him call your bluff. You straighten your back and pretend to be more interested in something under your nails. ”You could have a lot more than just pictures, you know.”

Mingi lets out a noise that’s somewhere between a moan and a breath, just audible enough for his phone to pick it up.

”Fuck, look at me,” he says, and you do. You just do.

Mingi stands up, keeping his phone pressed to his ear with one hand while his free hand moves in a long, slow caressing motion down his upper body. It’s your turn to feel jealous now, stupidly jealous of Mingis own hands for getting to touch him. His fingers reach the waistband of his boxers and you nervously stop breathing as you imagine them dipping inside. His hand moves just a bit further down though, where Mingi wraps his entire palm around his dick.

”Can you see that?” he asks. He uses his hand to move his hard cock under the light material of his underwear, making sure to jut his hips out towards the moonlight so you can see every second of his show.

”I can see you, oh my god. Are you out of your mind? Mingi, what if-”

”No one’s around, no one’s gonna see except for you,” he assures you. You lick your lips, thinking back to what Mingis mouth had tasted like.

”You’re crazy,” you whisper to him.

”You make me crazy,” he says with a smirk. ”Would you lift your shirt up for me?”

Your fingers have dug into your thigh without you noticing until now that Mingi is directing attention to your body. There’s so much tension inside your body that your breathing feels labored as if there are coils fastened inside you and everything Mingi says and does tighten up every bit of your internal structure. He has you feeling lightheaded with words alone.

Sensing your hesitance, Mingi speaks again. ”You don’t have to, I just really want to see you.”

The last sentence has you moving without thinking, getting up on your knees on the seat under your window. You take a quick glance around the street and in the windows of nearby neighbors. The whole world is asleep, only you and Mingi are awake.

You use your free hand to pull your tank top as high as possible, exposing your stomach and chest to Mingi who has stopped touching himself and is keeping razor-sharp focus on you.

”You-… Thank you, you’re gorgeous, do I ever tell you that?” Mingi’s voice is low and hushed. Until now he has sounded loud and confident, and if you didn’t know any better you would think that Mingi has gotten shy. He probably didn’t expect you to follow through with his request.

You haven’t spoken in minutes and you’re not sure if you could make any noise without it coming out as a whine, but luckily Mingi speaks up once more.

”Can you get into bed? I’m gonna lay down, please join me, please, would you touch yourself with me?” Mingi pleas. He waits a second for the words to register, for you to spring into action before he does so himself. Part of you wants to stay and keep drinking in the sight of his body, but the expectations of what he’s going to have you doing has you obeying his words.

”I’m in bed now,” your voice is still hushed, and there’s a layer of excitement in it that brings on a wave of embarrassment.

”I am too, I’m gonna- I’m taking my underwear off. It’s been so long, I just need to…” Mingi trails off. His end of the call is muffled, and a little distorted, and you can hear him shuffling to get his boxers off.

”It’s been so long since what?” you ask to clarify.

”Since we last did this, since I last came…” he answers. Fuck.

”Have you not been cumming since we last had phone sex?”

Mingi quiets down for a second before he lets out a breathy laugh.

”Have you?” he asks with a tone in his voice you can’t make out, but it has your cheeks heating up and your entire body running ice cold.

You turn silent now, but it’s clear from how Mingi is laughing under his breath that he doesn’t need an answer from you to know the truth.

”Oh my god. Well, tell me then, how many times have you made yourself cum since our last call?” Mingi asks. He sounds so cocky, so full of himself that you don’t know whether to roll your eyes or shove your hand between your legs and revel in this stupidly hot version of Mingi.

”Maybe two or three times,” you mumble, hoping that he doesn’t catch it.

”Let's just pretend I believe that. What have you been thinking about?”

You whine, feeling your entire body surge with shame and humiliation. Despite all of it, you’ve bunched up your blanket between your legs and without thinking about it you’ve started rutting against it slowly.

”Mingi, please…”

”Tell me.”

”I think about you. I always do. I’ve been thinking about that kiss, and-…” Your thought is interrupted by a sound on the other end of the line, along with Mingis soft hums. ”Mingi, are you jacking off to me telling you I fantasize about you?”

”I’m jacking off to your voice,” he says so matter of fact it knocks the air out of you. He continues, ”The fact that it’s about me only makes it better.”

”Oh my god,” you sigh, closing your eyes and letting your hand move where you need it most. Mingis voice is sweet and gentle as he moans with each stroke, and his phone is so close to his mouth you’re tricked into believing he’s right next to you, breathing and huffing.

”I wish you were here right now,” he says, sort of under his breath, a little quiet. It feels a little secretive when he says it, like when you were younger and he would have you turn your back to him as he did the same. With your backs pressed together, he would tell you all his deepest secrets, and when you’d turn around again you would both pretend like nothing had happened. It’s a memory you have replayed a lot more recently than ever before, just due to how similar it feels to this arrangement you have with Mingi. As long as you aren’t faced with each other, as long as your backs are turned you can do and say whatever you want.

Instead of sulking about it, you force yourself to play along.

”I do too, I need you so bad,” you whisper, and none of it is a lie.

”Need to see you cum for me, fuck, I need you to make me cum,” he moans. It echoes through your entire head, that moan and those words, and it has you rolling onto your back and pulling your underwear down your legs so you can touch yourself properly.

”You’ll make me cum just by saying that, Mingi,” you say, pathetically so. Something about Mingi has you reaching the edge faster than anything else.

”Fuck, me too. Just hearing you say my name is enough to make me cum right now. I’ve never felt this fucking good,” Mingi groans.

”Mingi,” you let out again, out of pure instinct. ”Mingi, please give me permission to cum, I need it, please!”

He does, in a string of words and breathless moans he allows you to cum with him. Your orgasm rolls through your entire body in a blinding flash, and by the time it’s over you can’t gauge if multiple minutes or just a few seconds have passed. Your phone is pressed so tight to your ear that pearls of sweat coat the screen.

”You there?” Mingis voice is raspy, all fucked out.

You come to, clearing your throat, ”I’m here, sorry. Holy shit.”

”What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks. You don’t have time to feel overjoyed or even finish your train of thought (of oh, fuck, it’s finally happening) before Mingi continues, ”Yunho’s throwing this… thing, at his house. There’s gonna be a barbeque, we’re gonna get drinks, and he says it’s going to be chill but you know how he is. It’s gonna end up being a party by the end of the night.”

You’re staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Mingi helped you set up when you were 15, and the answer is so obvious you don’t have to think about it.

”Yeah, I’ll go with you,” you respond.

”Well… I’ll take you, but maybe we shouldn’t make it too obvious when we’re there. All of our friends will be there, maybe it’s best to lay low?”

You clench your eyes shut. It makes you want to scream so loud it’d pierce your wall and travel across the street and through to his bedroom. A week ago he had been so concerned about things turning weird between you two and you’d written it off as a worry about your friendship, about how things would change after all the words and naked pictures you had exchanged. You hadn’t considered for a second that Mingi would be concerned for his reputation.

”Yeah,” you mutter. ”No, yeah, you’re right.”

”Okay then,” he says, so cheerily that you feel shame wash over you. ”I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five then?”

You hum in response and swap goodbyes before he ends the call and the beeps ring through your ear.

Your sleep that night is weighed down by a worry you can't dispel even after you wake up. You hardly feel rested, and your parent's voices barely register when they speak to you at breakfast. A lot of thoughts linger in your head, unshakeable doubts about whether things with Mingi are really going to be as okay as you had thought when you were in school.

Things had felt so much simpler then, like this steadfast belief that it would be just as it had always been. You had returned every single summer and were able to pick back up your friendship with Mingi with no trouble, despite all the months you had spent apart.

At least you would get to see all your friends again. Summer being in full swing would mean that everyone would be at their happiest, most free, possibly stupid, and risky behavior.

The day passes by sluggishly, you're merely counting down the hours. You try to read a book while lying in the sun in your backyard, but find that the words just flow together. You check your phone and see the half-hour call in your log from yesterday night, you’re just staring at Mingi's name and contact picture. It's just letters and numbers on a screen, but it's also a journal of your entire relationship. You can go back and see every single one, remember where things had started and where things had escalated. It took you weeks to send the first suggestive pictures to each other and they had been modest back then. A picture of your dark silhouette in the mirror, and Mingi replying with a blurry picture of his thighs in the dark of his room.

It's just another reminder that what you've got with Mingi is all contained in this piece of technology you can fit in your hand. Nothing is real or tangible, except for a few minutes of kissing. That's all you've got that counts as something; Mingi kissing you in your childhood bedroom for a few very good minutes before departing and ignoring you for days.

The kiss lives vividly in your head as you shower and get dressed.

You're sitting on your windowsill and watching the clock tick closer to five when the front door of Mingis house opens and he walks outside. He's got a pair of sunglasses on that he lifts off of his nose to peek up at your window, and when he spots you he waves and motions for you to come down.

You float down the stairs and out your door. The air is light and breezy outside despite the way the sun has been beaming down all day. Mingi is dressed in yet another shirt that shows off his arms, the slight tan line from his work t-shirt that he tries to even out is obvious to you up close and you squeeze his arm to tease him for it.

Both of you sit down in his car. The windows are rolled down to let air flow through and Mingi sets the car stereo to a low volume so you can faintly hear Tears for Fears play in the background. The engine hums pleasantly in comparison to Yunhos Camaro when Mingi starts the car. You watch his hands, waiting for him to shift the stick into first gear, but it doesn't happen.

Instead, time moves in both directions, very slowly but all too quickly as he wraps his hand around the back of your head and pulls you in for a kiss. Every single thought that has plagued you throughout the day vanishes the second his lips are on yours. It's replaced by the fact that these same lips had moaned your name less than 24 hours ago, that he had sounded so desperate when he told you he wished you were there.

Mingi deepens the kiss this time, letting it go on for longer than last time. When you have to part from it to take a breath Mingi trails his kisses from the corner of your mouth to under your ear. The kisses are chaste, barely there, but every single one leaves your skin tingling.

He doesn't return to your lips, he pulls back and regains his breath and his smile is so cocky when he reverses the car out of the driveway. You can't help but giggle then, and Mingi turns up the volume to let the music blare through the entire car. This is the Mingi you've missed, the one that drives through your neighborhood and ignores all the grouchy people who turn around and stare disgruntedly. He sings along too loudly, straining his voice to hit notes that sound awful even though you know that he's a great singer.

Everything feels as it always has when you pull up to Yunhos house and there are cars parked up and down the street. Mingi parks and as you're unbuckling your belt you see him look in the rearview mirror, grooming his hair and then wiping his mouth to remove your lip balm. It stings for a second but you don't let it persist. You just get out of his car and the two of you walk towards Yunhos backyard.

There is a voice in the back of your head that reminds you of the distance Mingi puts between you, this very conscious measurement that would leave no doubt for all your friends that you're strictly platonic. You push that away too, and make way towards all your old school friends instead. Seonghwa is the first to pull you into a hug, and it's all you need for the bubble to burst on all your worries.

Soon enough you're all laughing, the backyard is quickly filling with people and Yunho is having a hard time keeping up with all the people demanding a burger. The afternoon air smells just like high school, and the cheap alcohol mixed in the punch is just like the one you used to drink back then. The only difference is that everyone looks so much older, and the conversations have switched from homework, crushes, and drama to future plans and jobs.

"So what now?" Seonghwa asks you when a few hours have passed and the sun is setting. It's not getting dark, the sun is just changing from blue to lilac. You turn to him, feeling the way the alcohol has affected your vision, the way it's swimming a bit.

"What now?" you ask.

"I mean, are you back for good? Are you gonna settle down, get a job, do the whole small-town thing?" he jokes, but the question he poses is a valid one.

"Hm," you ponder for a second, looking up at the sky as if an answer is gonna rain down on you. "I guess I don't know. I need to get a job, but I'll give myself the summer to figure it out. It feels like the last one before things truly.. you know.."

"Change," Seonghwa interjects. "Before we truly grow up."

The conversation quiets for a moment before you both burst into laughter.

"Jesus, we always get so somber, don't we?" Seonghwa laughs.

"Remember prom? We went out for some air and you couldn't stop talking about the universe because you looked up at the stars for a second," you say.

"I don't remember that, I just remember Hongjoong going off on me because I teared up and ruined the makeup he spent an hour doing on me," Seonghwa recollects. You could remember that. You also remembered the eyeshadow Hongjoong had smeared across Mingis's eyelid, the messy dark brown he had lined his eyes with because Mingi refused to stay still for too long.

None of you had brought any dates that night, your entire friend group had decided to just go together and spend the night dancing with each other. When you had gotten a dance with Mingi towards the end of the night his makeup had started running and you had brushed your thumb under his eye. Nothing about that action or the dance, or the night as a whole, had been close to romantic. He had just been Mingi, the same Mingi as always, he walked you home that night with his arm around your shoulder just like he had every day after school.

It's only with the wisdom of hindsight you can identify little actions to speak otherwise. You can't recall what Sans eyes had looked like when you danced with him, but you remember in great detail how the lights had twinkled in Mingi's irises. All you remember from your dance with Wooyoung is that his hands had been too sweaty to hold, but you can go back in your memory to when Mingi had leaned his head on your shoulder and sang along softly to the song that was playing.

"What is it like when you talk to Mingi?" Seonghwa pulls you out of your thoughts. You don't know when your eyes close, but when you open them again the sky is starting to burn a vibrant pink.

"Well... I don't know. It's good. We talk about all sorts of things," you try to sound matter of fact, very casual. Reminding yourself of Mingis words, lay low.

"Yeah, you must," Seonghwa remarks, a chuckle sounding through his voice. It has you turning to him, eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

"Meaning?" you question.

"Just that there must be substance to your conversations, seeing as Mingi excuses himself from every night out when you call," he says.

"Yeah," you attempt to brush it off as a meaningless piece of information, but it feels like a lot more. You didn't know Mingi would rush home to talk to you.

Seonghwa hums, and your eyes are pulled to the ground where you've been digging your heel into the grass.

"I guess you guys have always been closer than the rest of us. Living across from each other, being childhood friends, all that," he says. There's no hidden meaning or intention behind his words, you know Seonghwa well enough to deduct that, but it still feels like he's trying to catch you out.

"Yeah," you repeat, absent-mindedly. "Suppose so."

Seonghwas mouth twitches a little as if he wants to say something else, but he keeps it shut. You're thankful, because even if he can read between the lines of your and Mingi's strange relationship, the fact that he doesn't say it out loud serves as reassurance to you. It's the same thin veil that you and Mingi drape yourselves in. Unspoken meaning unchanged.

A friend comes over and offers to top off your and Seonghwas glasses, and you decide to get up on your feet and move on from the sudden gloom that took over.

The music is loud and the air gets chillier as the clouds twist amongst pink and orange. You’re talking to Yunho and telling him the story about your mom's disapproval of his car when he notices your shoulders quiver with the drop in temperature. He fetches one of his flannels for you, helping you thread your arms through and telling you that you need another drink to warm up. Yunho makes you something stronger than the diluted punch, and it goes to your head with haste.

It does warm you up, and it pulls you from reality a little. It’s easier to laugh along with Yunhos jokes this way, without thinking about the tension between you and Mingi. It feels good and safe to just be worriless, to feel the wind in your hair and be surrounded by the sound of your friend's voices mixing together.

Your legs are getting wobblier, but Yunho catches you before you fall and he lets you stay posted against him.

You’re just watching the conversation your friends are having without joining in when you feel two hands on your waist. You don’t have to look back to know that it’s Mingi. The smell of his cologne is familiar enough to alert you.

”I think I better get them home,” Mingis voice is warm and round behind your ear. For a second you feel a little bitter, you kind of want to shake his hands off of you and scoff at him because he’s intervening just when you’re truly starting to enjoy yourself without spending a single thought on him. Is that not what he wanted? You’re keeping the secret, you’re not drawing any eyes towards you two. He’s doing that all on his own.

Had it been three years ago, you think your friends had been protesting your leave. You’re all grown up now though, and everyone is understanding when Mingi wraps his arm around your waist, and you both wave goodbye.

Mingi helps you into his car. Tears for Fears is still playing when he turns the car on and starts driving, and you feel a sort of agitation that you can’t place. He doesn’t speak a single word for a minute or two, and the mood inside the car is unbearable.

”I don’t think anyone could tell,” you say. Mingis face is bare of emotion, and you find yourself with an urge to placate him. ”We did well, don’t you think? I didn’t make anything obvious.”

You don’t know what response you expect to get from Mingi, but there’s a palpable shock within you when he pulls the car over to the side of the road and turns to you.

”What?” you ask. Mingis eyes soften when they flick over your entire body, to then end up at your face.

”Did you really.. worry about that?” Mingi wonders softly.

”Huh? I thought-… Yes, I worried about it, because you did. I mean, you told me we needed to lay low.” You’re starting to get thoroughly confused and frustrated.

”I know, but I didn’t think you’d drink so much and cuddle up to Yunho because of it,” Mingi says, his tone quickly working up to a sharpness you’ve never heard in him before.

”Drink so much?” you gasp. ”I was just having fun! It had nothing to do with you! Not everything is about you, Mingi, or about us. I don’t worry about it as much as you do. Believe it or not.”

”I don’t worry about it,” Mingi sounds accused.

”Clearly you do though. You take me to this party and give me instructions on how to behave, then spend the whole time ignoring me. Just like you did all of last week. Clearly, you have to feel ashamed, or- or…” you trail off, feeling your voice crack. Mingi sucks in a deep breath and leans closer, putting his hand on your knee.

”Please,” he urges, and there’s something in his voice that breaks your heart. ”Please, don’t think I could ever be ashamed of you.”

”Then what, Mingi?” you ask quietly, starting to feel yourself break now. Tears are starting to well up and cloud your vision. You continue, ”Do you just not want me? I get if it’s different when we’re face to face, I know it might not be what you expected, I understand if you don’t find me-”

”Stop it!” Mingi is almost shouting now, startling you. ”It’s nothing like that, you have to believe me. Stop saying these things.”

His hand lifts from your knee to hold your face where he wipes away a tear from your cheek. You don’t know what to say, even though there’s a part of you that wants to keep insisting. Mingi isn’t offering any kind of explanation or even an excuse, he’s not saying anything to quell your worries, and his hands on you are not enough.

”Kiss me. Please,” you whisper. There’s more you want to say, like prove it, prove that you want me. Kiss me and mean it.

”I’m not going to kiss you when you’re drunk and I’m sober,” Mingi says, offering up a solemn smile.

”I’m not though,” you argue. This entire conversation has been sobering. You’re still tipsy, your head feels a little heavy and your vision is still floating but you think you can blame it on your tears as much as you can blame it on alcohol.

”Well, you’re drunk enough that I don’t feel comfortable kissing you.” Mingis thumb strokes over your cheek to comfort you. It’s enough to calm you a little, because that you can take. You don’t think you’d want to kiss him either if the roles had been reversed.

”Okay,” you mutter. ”Are you sure it’s not because you don’t want me?”

Mingi sighs, ”We’ll talk about it tomorrow when you’re not-”

”I’m not drunk, Mingi.”

”Okay, okay. But I still want to do this tomorrow, when we’re both thinking clearly. We’re just misunderstanding each other, and this isn’t how I wanted it to go,” he tells you. He leans forward and kisses the top of your head instead, just above your hairline. It must be calculated on his part, to kiss you where your skin can’t feel the warmth of his lips.

”Okay,” you say again. This time Mingi lets out a little laugh at your dissatisfaction.

He starts the car back up and takes off to go home, leaving his hand on your thigh throughout the drive. When he pulls up to his house and you get out of the car your legs feel like jelly, and you realize you’re probably not as sober as you’d like to believe.

”Mingi?” you ask. He rushes to your side to hold you up, though that’s not what you meant. ”Can I sleep here tonight? You know how my mom is, she’d flip if she saw me-”

”I wasn’t planning on letting you go home like this, don’t worry,” he laughs.

So, with his arm around your waist, Mingi guides you inside and up the stairs to his room. It’s dark and you have to remind yourself to be quiet to not wake Mingi's family. While he leaves the room to fetch another blanket you sit down on his bed and look around his room.

It’s been a while since you’ve been here but not much has changed. You know for a fact that Mingi is still just as entertained by his action figures now as he had been at 13. It makes you laugh to see them all lined up on his shelf, right next to a couple of books that you had gifted him. He had forced his way through a couple of them and called you to complain about every choice the main character made.

You’re comforted by how much of his room remains the same. This is a place where you can remember and picture Mingi. By his big stereo, switching CD’s. Cutting out pictures of his friends to add to his collage wall.

Mingi comes back to his room with a blanket and a pillow that he throws next to you on the bed.

You’re watching his every move. When his eyes land on you he lets out a sound you can only read as disgust.

”Of course he gave you that,” he complains, more to himself than to you.

You can’t help but follow his line of sight though, finding that he’s looking at Yunhos flannel shirt.

”What’s so bad about it?” you wonder. Being under Mingis gaze always fills you with a sort of insecurity that has you twisting and turning.

”It's like, his move. Lending out his shirt. And then letting you lean on him like that..” Mingi mutters.

”Why would Yunho ever pull a move on me?” you ask incredulously.

”For the same reason I would, I assume,” he says. ”You’re really hot.”

A heat rushes to your abdomen and you can’t meet Mingis eyes anymore. Today has left you feeling anything but desired by him, but you don’t think he’s lying right now. He wouldn’t lie about finding you hot just minutes after refusing to kiss you.

”It wouldn’t matter what Yunho thinks of me. Like you said last night, you’re the one who has my nudes. Right?” you say.

Mingi sits down next to you, looking at his hands in his lap instead of at you.

”What if he wanted more than just your nudes?” he asks. This, too, feels like he’s asking himself the question. And you don’t know what to answer.

You don’t think Yunho poses any threat whatsoever, he’s just friendly and flirty by nature. But you let yourself think about what Mingi is implying for a second. What if he - or anyone else - would want more of you than Mingi does? Someone who could offer you a relationship that wouldn’t require secrecy. Someone who would bring you around his friends and hold your hand for everyone to see. Someone who would properly date you and want a relationship, as opposed to dirty phone sex at odd hours of the night.

You realize you’d always pick Mingi above all that, no matter if you had to have him only partially. If he was never yours.

You open your mouth to respond but shut it again when you can’t find the right words.

Mingi looks over at you. He speaks, ”Can’t you take it off?”

”Take it off of me,” you whisper back.

His mouth twitches into a small smile.

”It’d be a lot sexier if I wasn’t taking Yunhos clothes off of you the first time I undress you,” he still sounds displeased, but his hands work the shirt off of you anyways. He discards it to the floor, as far away as it can come.

”These are all mine,” you say, meaning the clothes you have on. ”You can take those off.”

Mingi lets out a drawn-out breath, something to collect himself. His hands pause at the hem of your top even though you’ve already given consent, waiting for you to nod until he starts pulling it over your head.

Silence permeates in Mingis bedroom as he continues undressing you. It’s just the wind rustling his curtains that disrupts the quiet. He guides you to lie down so he can unbutton your shorts to take them off. His hands are so gentle and his touch is soft, when he has finished taking your socks off and all your clothes are on the floor except for your underwear he leans down and presses a sweet kiss right above your knee.

”Take yours off too, please,” you say softly. He’s not quite as delicate with himself, he doesn’t make a show of it. You can’t help but stare though, trying to really commit this to memory since it’s the very first time you’re seeing him strip for you, even if you know it won’t be followed up with all the things you’ve talked about on the phone.

Your eyes flick all over him, down his toned arms and up his torso as he pulls his shirt over his head, across his broad chest. You watch his fingers work the button on his shorts open, revealing his dark underwear. He’s not hard, at least not fully, and it’s strangely intimate to be so close to his dick for the first time but not in a sexual manner. Everything about it makes your heart feel heavy, you’re somehow aware of each pump of it, how it’s speeding up at the mere sight of Mingi.

Mingi, your Mingi, that hasn’t ever been yours. Not really, not properly, but still somehow.

You want him on top of you so bad, to finally feel him in the ways you’ve dreamt about for a full year. Instead, Mingi climbs in bed with you and pulls you close.

He is soft and warm in all the spots your bodies are connected and intertwined. You fall asleep to the sounds of his breath coming out slow and steady.

You wake to a breeze of air over your face. At first, all you can hear is the chirps of birds outside and the distant noise of cars driving around. You don’t need to open your eyes to know that it’s the middle of the day, the sun is bright in that midday way, bright enough that there isn’t a total blackness even when you screw your eyes shut further.

You just turn around and try to escape from it by burying your face into the pillow. The texture of the pillow feels strange and unfamiliar, and the more you come to you realize it also doesn’t smell like your bedding. It smells like Mingi, you realize, and shoot up in a startle.

You don’t have time to wonder why the bed is empty next to you, because you can hear steps on the stairs and seconds later the bedroom door creaks open. Through a squint you can see Mingi in the same state you remember him falling asleep. In just his underwear he walks up to the bed and sets down a glass of water and a plate, before petting his hand over your hair.

”Good morning,” he greets you, smiling big.

”Mm, yeah,” you hum back, still drowsy. It’s far more comfortable to let your eyes close again and just lean into Mingi's affection.

”You okay? Are you hungover?” Mingi asks.

”Yeah, but not from drinking,” you murmur. ”It’s from you yelling at me.”

”I wasn’t yelling!” There’s an undertone to his voice, an actual worry and fear that you’d be feeling a certain way today after last night's conversation.

”I know you weren’t, Mingi. I’m just messing with you, I remember every bit of that conversation,” you assure him. He lets out a sigh of relief, his thumb stroking over your temple.

”That was going to be my next question,” he tells you. ”So you remember the whole night then?”

You nod your head under his hand.

”Do you want to talk about it?” he asks you.

The question stabs at something inside your sternum. Of course, you want to talk, in reality, there are a thousand times you’ve held yourself back from saying to him and there would be nothing more freeing than telling Mingi all of it. There’s just never a time and place for it though and you’ve come to terms that there never will be. It would take astronomical changes to allow you to say what you want. Yes, Mingi, I’m in love with you and probably have been all my life. Mingi, it took us sexting to make me realize you’re the only one I could ever picture myself with.

You had of course let yourself fantasize a couple of times, but the details of any imaginary and hypothetical relationship between you two would quickly obscure, and Mingi was often a perpetrator in that. It would present itself on days when you lived in the afterglow of a nighttime call. You’d walk on clouds with the memories of Mingi moaning your name, then check social media and be greeted with photos of him with his arm around your lifelong friends and strangers you would get nauseous picturing Mingi talking to. Your name wouldn’t even come up in conversation, he’d appear single to them because after all, he was.

So you wouldn’t often entertain the idea of being something more. You’d just treat it as a passing thought, boil it down to what it was, a neuronal connection gone to grief.

You guess you had hoped to see something in Mingi to completely deny these thoughts. Like, a first kiss that you wouldn’t be able to break away from. Or the moment you finally have sex for the first time and it being this out-of-body experience that ends with both of you crying and confessing your love. Like a scene out of a movie.

You could even have survived the opposite. If the first kiss had gone sour and the spark died before it even ignited. At the very least, you would have an answer to all your questions. Instead of being tethered to this middle ground where there’s an undeniable passion and need for each other, but a considerable distance keeping you apart.

Though there were things you’d want to say, there are none you could verbalize.

”I don’t think there’s anything to talk about,” you say, finally. To convince Mingi of this, you open your eyes and roll onto your back so you can look at him. He looks unconvinced, so you continue, ”I think I was just confused and upset. I don’t know why. Maybe because you’ve barely spoken to me since I came back home. I had just… expected more.”

You find yourself surprised that you’re telling the truth. It’s not what you had meant to say, but it’s true and innocent enough. Mingis hand rests on the side of your face, where his fingers fiddle with your hair, and for a second his eyes focus on that, before coming back to yours.

”I don’t have any excuse,” he says. ”I guess I could say that I kept seeing your relatives show up at your house and I thought it’d be rude to whisk you away from all that just to fuck you. But I think the more time passed, the harder it got to..”

”Yeah,” you agree. ”To fuck.”

He smiles at your choice of words and nods.

”Have you not happened to notice I haven’t initiated a single kiss between us, Mingi? I’m nervous too. It’s different in real life. It was much easier on the phone to just do things,” you say.

”Would it make it easier if I told you I’d really like to kiss right now?” Mingi asks.

There won’t ever come a time when the prospect of Mingi wanting to kiss you won’t send a jolt of electricity through each and every vein in your body. Nor will there ever be an instance where you won’t act on that will, especially since it seems that there will be a finite number of them. As you prop yourself up and lean in to kiss Mingi you realize that, along with this being the very first time that you initiate a kiss with him, you’re also one kiss closer to the last kiss you’ll ever have with him.

Because there will be a last time. If you keep going like this there is no other possible outcome, there will simply come a day when Mingis's eyes set on someone else and your arrangement is concluded. There’s not an if, it’s simply a when, and every kiss from now on is going to lead up to that last one. You can’t decide if you should hold out and stave off that last one for as long as you can or fit in as many as possible until then.

All these thoughts disperse when your mouth meets Mingis and he kisses you back. It’s hard to think of anything other than his warm lips or his tongue softly licking against yours. It’s more playful this time compared to the last two, today you’re both feeling each other out and learning what to do, what feels good.

You find yourself out of rhythm at times, the position you’re in is a little awkward, and you fumble through a few kisses to lean closer to Mingi. You feel your stomach swirl when you realize that none of this deters Mingi, that you can in fact feel him smile and breathe out something between a hum and a moan every time you come crashing against his mouth. His big hand comes up to your jaw, long fingers curling around the back of your head to deepen the kiss.

Things get heady so fast with Mingi, he works you up so incredibly quickly, and it’s obvious from the sounds he’s making that he’s just as affected. He doesn’t pull away for a second, his hand keeps your head in place and he continues to clumsily kiss you as he guides you down onto the bed.

The air in Mingi's room is hot from the summer sun shining through his window. It’s not until now you realize that the only thing separating you from Mingis body has been his thin blanket. He starts peeling it away, and it’s then you remember that Mingi had undressed you the night before. A jolt of panic shoots through you now that Mingi can see you, entirely nude except for your underwear, in the warm, bright light of his room. You find comfort in the fact that he’s undressed too, but with Mingis eyes taking you in it’s hard to feel relaxed.

Mingi leans in for a long, passionate kiss, and against your mouth he muffles, ”You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Your head is swimming, Mingi keeps on kissing you, getting softer and more careful as he moves down your neck and continues to lavish you with compliments. So pretty, kiss, gorgeous, kiss, breathtaking, kiss. And if you had any doubts, he squashes every single one when he kisses from your collarbone, over your chest and down your stomach, all the way down to your hips.

He plants his hands on each of your thighs, not grabbing or putting any pressure, but you can still feel the weight of them.

”Is this okay?” he asks quietly. He kisses just above the waistband of your underwear, and at the same time, his hands nudge your legs apart. Your breath catches in your throat and you can only nod and let his hands move your legs to where he wants them.

”What about your family?” you ask him, suddenly realizing the reality of where you are.

”No one’s home. It’s just us,” he says. ”So don’t hold back on me please.”

His shoulders are big and broad between your legs. The sun illuminates him so prettily, his tan skin glows, and every little hair on his body is lit up by the sun. The heat has left a thin layer of sweat on his skin and it highlights his muscles in just the right way. He’s just glowing, near angelic, and you’re moved with the need to worship every part of him.

Mingi is still so tender with all his kisses, there’s no sense of rushing as he takes his time by really letting his lips linger. His mouth trails along your entire thigh, stopping now and then to lightly suck your skin into his mouth and have a taste of you. He only falters when he gets to the junction of your thigh, to where your skin is covered by the fabric of your underwear.

You’ve been short of breath for a while now, but when Mingis fingers dip into the waistline of your underwear you cease to breathe entirely. Your head is rushing, watching as Mingis hands pull your underwear down your legs, leaving you completely naked. You’ve sent him pictures before, he knows what every little inch of your body looks like, but Mingi looks at you as if it’s the very first time.

A thousand thoughts whirl through your head between the seconds your underwear hits the floor to when Mingi springs into action. A thousand worries now culminating, whether he’ll realize that it was better over the phone, if he’s disappointed by what he’s seeing, or if he’s repulsed by how aroused you already are.

”You’re,” Mingi begins, stopping to press a kiss at the seam of your thigh. He adds, ”Beautiful.”

His eyes aren’t even on yours, he’s single-mindedly focused on what’s right in front of him. His breath is fanning across your entire crotch, tickling your inner thighs, and as you feel it get closer and closer you instinctively close your eyes and let your head roll back when Mingi finally puts his mouth where you need it most.

He’s still so gentle, using his tongue and lips to tease you and explore what you like best. It feels like hours pass of Mingi lightly sucking and pressing wet kisses all over you, he’s really and truly taking his time and you have to believe it’s for his own sake because he’s only building up a frustration within you.

”Mingi,” you whine, reaching down to grab hold of his hair. It’s an objectively insane feeling, to have his hair in your hand and head between your legs, after all this time of dreaming of it. It’s enough to have you getting close, even though Mingi is still lapping carefully at you, and it's nowhere close enough to what you crave.

When you start bucking your hips against his mouth it’s like he releases all restrain and just goes for it. His hands wrap around your legs at first, pressing them towards his head, to then wedging underneath your ass so he can get all of you into his mouth.

Mingi moans out ”You taste so good” with a mouthful of you at the same time you tell him how good he is with his mouth, prompting him to smirk against your pelvis. It really doesn’t take long for him to learn what gets you closest to the edge, just where he should put his tongue and where to apply some pressure.

”So good, Mingi, you’re so good. Oh my god,” you sigh. You tug on his hair hard enough for your fingers to cramp, and Mingi only moans against you. Every sound you make seems to spur him on further, Mingi only getting more eager with the way he’s circling his tongue around you.

His tongue is getting you closer and closer, your stomach is splitting in two to hold onto the edge and trying not to cum. You’ve been waiting for this for so long that it feels a shame to cum just minutes after Mingis mouth is on you, but there’s no holding back. His hands grip your hips, pulling you flush to his face, and the second you lift your head to look down at him between your legs you start orgasming in his mouth.

He understands what’s happening before you do, applying enough pressure to get you over the edge before letting up and licking you slower to help you come down. All while he keeps his eyes on yours, letting your fingers scratch his scalp. Mingi listens to every little noise you make and stops the second your heavy breathing turns into an overstimulated hiss.

”Mingi, Mingi,” you whine. His cheeks are flushed a deep pink and his lips are slick with his own spit and your cum, and you can’t stop admiring him. All you can do is pray that Mingi looks into your eyes and mistakes your all-consuming love as the afterglow of a great orgasm.

He pulls himself up enough to crawl on top of you, and though he’s just spent minutes between your legs, this feels a lot more daunting. He hesitates for a moment as if he’s unsure if he’s allowed to kiss you, so you wrap your hands around the back of his head and pull him towards you.

Mingi is breathing heavily from the effort he’s just put forth, and instead of letting him catch his breath you only grow more desperate. Your hands clammer onto his shoulders, pulling him against you, then down to his waist, and finally around his ass so you can pull him against your core. He’s got his underwear on, but you don’t let it stop you as you grind up against him. He’s hard and you’re still wet with spit and cum, it doesn’t take long before you’ve soaked his boxers and the barrier between you both is practically nonexistent. You can feel every bit of him against you.

”Mingi,” you moan into his mouth. ”Fuck me, please.”

He pulls away and sucks in a deep breath.

”Don’t you want me to… uh, prepare you?” He sounds small and insecure. You watch his brows burrow and his eyes flick across your face, and you’re struck by how much he looks like Mingi. Your best friend Mingi, who you’ve built up in your head as a confident sex god, even though you’ve always been aware that he’s more careful and vary than any other person you know.

You suppose you’d just assume that that version of him would disappear in the bedroom, that he’d be the same as he is over the phone when he’s telling you all the different ways he wants to fuck you.

”I’m- I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m so worked up you could just slide inside me,” you tell him, and Mingi moans in response.

”Are you sure?” he asks. You pick up motion again, sliding yourself against the entire length of his dick.

”I’m not just sure, I’m begging,” you plea. You hook your fingers into his boxers, trying to tug them down even though you know the position you’re in won’t allow you to undress him. You just need him to act, now, you can’t wait any longer.

It happens fast, Mingi pulling his boxers off and getting back on top of you, to then lining up his dick to enter you.

”Fuck, I forgot how big you are,” you mumble. The sight of him in comparison to you, lined up against you, is enough to make you cum untouched.

This is what you’ve been dreaming about for a whole year, this very moment. For Mingi to push inside you, hook your legs over his shoulders and fuck you until you can’t see straight. Actually being here, with the tip of his dick against your hole, it feels much different. It’s not the actual sex you’re looking forward to, it’s the fact that he’s finally going to be inside you. It feels like you’re claiming him, that the moment is finally here and he’s going to be yours.

”Are you okay? Are you ready? Can I-?” Mingi asks, searching your eyes for uncertainty.

”Please,” you nod.

He starts pushing inside, watching his dick slide with ease until he’s got the entire tip in. The stretch feels amazing, you could take all of him in one go but the fact that he stops and leans down to kiss you as he slowly thrusts his entire cock inside is way better. And god, he kisses you as if he’s not currently buried inside you. His lips barely brush against yours, and the kisses are short and sweet. Finally, he pulls back to watch himself bottom out.

The sun is shining on the side of Mingis face, and this is just not at all how you had pictured it. In your fantasies, there had always been a dark bedroom and Mingis body had been on top of yours, only distinguishable by faint lights outside the window. It was quick, rushed, and dirty, maybe Mingis hand would be clamped over your mouth to keep you from making any sounds since it would have to happen at one of your homes. Sometimes you’d imagine it happening in his car, parked somewhere secluded at night, it would be bumpy and awkward and sweaty and the focus would just be on both of you cumming as soon as possible.

You hadn’t pictured it like this. Like, Mingi looking at you as if he’s seeing you for the first time.

His hair is messy from your hands grabbing it, and the sunlight lights it up like a halo. Time feels unmoving, you’re drinking in the sight of him and trying to memorize every small detail.

He starts thrusting carefully and slowly. His back is upright, leaning away from you so he can watch his cock go in and out of you. You can’t stop watching him though. He’s so beautiful, his hair is a mess, and beads of sweat are starting to trickle down his chest. You reach your hands up, caressing his skin.

You wonder if you’re breaking some sort of unspoken rule. The two of you hadn’t discussed or set any boundaries, but when you slide your hands over Mingis chest and stomach, you wonder if you should have. This isn’t just fucking, you’re worshipping him and looking at him with intense adoration. He’s going so slow too, really taking his time. You’re not fucking, this is making love.

”I’ve never felt this good, you feel so good,” he moans under his breath. He curls his hands under your ass, picking you up so he can get better leverage to thrust as deep inside as possible. The new angle makes him groan, ”Fuck, you were made for me, weren’t you?”

It has you sobbing with pleasure. Mingis fingers are digging into your flesh, and he fucks you at this torturous pace for tens of minutes. You can truly feel the drag of his dick inside of you, when he bottoms out all the way inside to when the tip of his dick is at your entrance.

”You’re so good, oh my god! So good, you’re so handsome, Mingi,” you praise him, causing Mingi to pick up the speed.

You’re grabbing at his arms and shoulders, trying to pull him down, to get him closer. He lets you down on the bed and leans down, coming chest to chest with you, shoving his arm under your head instead. Your bodies are flush with each other now, Mingis pelvis rubbing against you and getting you close to cumming again stupidly quick.

His mouth is right by your ear, pressing a few sloppy kisses to your neck and temple. He is moaning your name and though his voice is hushed and strained you can still feel it reverberate through his chest, right against yours.

It’s precisely that which has you cumming, the sound of his voice calling your name over and over, telling you how good you feel. Your ears start to ring when your orgasm rolls through you and Mingi only picks up the pace to intensify it. You can faintly hear him, somewhere far away now, this otherwordly being showering you with so much affection it has tears forming in your eyes.

”You’re so perfect,” he’s telling you, fucking you faster. ”Just for me, all for me, you’re all mine.”

Somewhere through it, you realize he’s picked up the speed because he’s close too, but he wants to make it good for you before he pulls out. His eyes are on you, watching your breathing return to normal and feeling your hands unclench from his shoulders, and only when he’s certain that you’re coming down from the orgasm he leans back and pulls out. He only manages to get his hand around his cock before he cums all over your stomach, cumming so hard he shoots all the way up to your chest.

Mingis other hand is grabbing your waist and you can’t stop looking at the way he’s marked you up. There are red marks on you from the tips of his fingers, and little marks from his nails all over your hips, and you’re covered in his cum. Just seconds ago he’d told you that you’re all his, and in this moment you feel it.

”Fuck, that was…” Mingi is the first to speak. ”Shit, let me get you cleaned up.”

He scrambles for his underwear, starting to wipe his cum from your stomach.

You’ve managed to blink away the tears that welled up when you came, but there’s still a sob within your chest that you’re fighting to choke down. Everything about what just happened was about a thousand times more intense than you had ever dreamt of. Had he not pulled away you think you might have confessed to him right then and there.

”How are you feeling?” you ask him, clearing your throat and hoping Mingi reads it as just being fucked out.

”Very good,” he responds, without a hint of hesitance or a second of stalling. There’s a faint laugh in his voice, and he’s starting to smile. Nothing about him looks like you currently feel.

”Oh,” you say, struggling to find words. It’s not like you had expected him to just bare his heart and pour out confessions. You’d just expected something more to follow, after all of that. You had made love. There’s no other word for it.

Mingi leans down and kisses you once, so chaste you barely have time to kiss back.

He gets up and pulls out a pair of new boxers from his dresser, stepping in them.

”Fuck, I made you breakfast earlier and forgot all about it,” he tells you. You look over at the nightstand, where your breakfast sits forgotten.

”Oh,” you repeat. Your head drops back down on Mingis pillow. You speak again, ”I think I’d rather have a shower.”

It’s all so thoroughly strange. Mingi clasps his hand in yours and pulls you up from the bed, and you feel perturbed. You’ve seen Mingi greet Yunho with more affection than the way he helps you up on your feet. At least he joins you in the shower, but you feel weirdly disconnected from him. Even when he jokes and suds up his hair into silly hairstyles you can only manage halfhearted laughs.

Your body aches to have him closer, to feel him pressed against you and to have his lips back on yours again. The kisses he’s giving you now feel cheeky, as if he’s kissing you just because he can, and not because he truly wants to.

You suppose there’s reason to feel thankful, because at the very least Mingi hasn’t rejected you. His casualty is worth a lot more to you than the possibility that he could have pulled back and realized that everything about this was a mistake. He ruffles your hair after the shower, and it stings, but each second you continue to remind yourself that this is how things are supposed to be.

He lets you have one of his shirts after the shower, and he cooks you a very late lunch, then Mingi has to leave for work. Your legs are still unsteady when you make the walk back home to your house.

You prepare yourself to be ignored again. You busy yourself with cleaning your room, reading a book, cleaning out weeds in the garden, sending out job applications, anything you can to make the hours go by. You don’t want to check your phone, but your fingers itch to see if Mingi has texted you.

Nothing.

It’s not until late that night when you know Mingi's shift has ended that he calls you.

”Hey,” you answer, walking over to your window. Mingis car is in the driveway, but you can't see him in his room.

”Hi there,” he greets you. ”Busy day?”

”Oh you know, the usual,” you say. ”Mom wasn’t too happy with me spending the night but she was very relieved to hear it was with you.”

You’re still dressed in his t-shirt, and throughout the day you've been bringing the collar up to your nose to smell him on it. You find yourself doing it now too.

”Her head would explode if she knew what you were doing at my house this morning,” he teases you.

”Good thing no one will ever know then,” you joke, though it is the truth. It was always meant to be a secret.

”Right,” he says. ”So, do you think maybe you could come over tomorrow? My parents will be gone, I start working in the afternoon again, I was thinking maybe-”

”Yes,” you interrupt him.

Mingi laughs, ”Okay. Uh, do I sound desperate if I say that you can come over as soon as you wake up?”

”A little, but I like it,” you giggle.

”Good.”

”I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

You sleep so much better when you know that you’re seeing Mingi tomorrow. You wake up feeling completely rested, and you’re giddy as you sort out your bedhead and get dressed.

Mingis parents aren’t home, and there’s a spare key resting atop the frame of the front door that you use to let yourself into their home. It’s still early, early enough that you know that Mingi is probably fast asleep in his bed. You try to keep your steps light as you trudge up the stairs and into his room. The curtains are drawn, only letting in a stream of sunlight that lights up a sliver on his bed. The orange morning sun is casting a few inches of light on his thigh, so you let it lead you.

It’s where you first press a kiss. He smells of sleep and Mingi, you inhale the scent of his skin between kisses you trail all over his thigh and over the front of his underwear. Mingi sighs softly in his sleep, hips twitching when your lips kiss the tip of his dick through the fabric of his boxers. You’re looking up to watch his face, but when he’s still asleep as you mouth over his entire cock, you crawl up and kiss his lips.

Mingi huffs and puffs, twisting underneath you. You continue to kiss all over his sleepy, confused face. He cracks an eye open, transforming from a groggy confusion to a content smile.

”Morning,” he mumbles happily.

”Hey,” you whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth. ”Can I suck you off?”

He lets out a drawn-out moan that tapers off into a sigh, nodding fervently. His hands are weak and his fingers fumble to find purchase in your hair when you pull his underwear down his legs and take him into your mouth right away.

He sounds so lovely, all raspy and deep from his sleep. Even though he’s just come to consciousness, Mingi makes sure to tell you how good you are making him feel. He moans your name, over and over, giving you so much praise it’s making your head swim.

It doesn’t take him long to get close, so you choke out permission for him to cum in your mouth, and Mingi listens eagerly. Even as he cums he’s vocal, talking you through it and reminding you to breathe all while he praises you for how well you take it. He’s so gentle it’s making you moan as you swallow, and when you pull off his dick you scramble to get his thigh between yours.

Mingis hands guide your hips over his thigh, setting the pace for you to hump him. He keeps the praise coming, and when he feels you getting close he pulls you down for a numbing kiss. You cum on his thigh while deep in a kiss, and Mingi holds you close to his chest as you come down from it.

Somewhere in the post-orgasm haze, you both fall asleep. It’s peaceful and quiet, Mingi lulls you to sleep with the sounds of his breath and his fingers drawing patterns on your back. When you wake up again it’s in a sweat. His little bedroom is swarming with heat, so you decide on a shower, where Mingi has your chest pressed against the white tiles while he fucks you until you’re cumming a second time, this time while full of his cock. He bites down on your shoulder to keep from cumming until he knows you’re fully satisfied, and only then does he pull out and let himself cum on your ass.

When you’re pulling his shirt over your head 10 minutes later while he cooks you lunch, you catch sight of marks on your shoulder. His teeth had dug hard enough to bloom bruises on your skin, and your mind reels at the fact that he has marked you up.

Mingi has you coming over the next morning too, after you’d spent the previous night sending him pictures of the bruises his teeth left on your skin. His responses had been sporadic as he focused on work, but it didn’t stop you from going into detail about all the things you want Mingi to do to you.

It’s like all the limits have finally vanished, neither of you are held back by the fears and worries of before. It’s just like it had been before you moved back, when you only had phone calls to rely on. Back then, the comfort had come from the fact that you didn’t have to actualize all the things you spoke about. You had time to feel each other out and discuss what you want, all without having to put yourself on the line for possible failure. Now, you’ve found reassurance in the fact that you do have a physical relationship.

You know each other in your bones. You can read all the queues his body gives you, and you know what every little expression on his face means. You can sense differences in his sighs and you know what his voice sounds like when it’s getting to be too much. There’s no room for doubt when Mingi is in front of you, you just intrinsically know what he needs.

The two of you fall into a routine. When morning comes, you skip over to Mingi's house and usually he’s still asleep, tired from his shift the day before. You wake him up with kisses or gentle touches, and if he’s hard by the time you get there, Mingi loves to wake up to you already taking care of him. Some mornings you simply lay beside him, tracing his face with your finger. His hair sticks to his forehead so you brush it back, giving soft kisses to the side of his temple. Your pointer finger follows the contour of his nose and lips, feeling the warmth of his breath exit his nose.

Even though he’s asleep and unaware of your worship, you can’t bring yourself to stop. It’s in these moments you can be fully truthful with your affections. Letting your hands linger on his chest for a moment longer, focusing on his heartbeat underneath your palm. You whisper things to him you’re too afraid to say when he can hear you, just to release yourself from the need. It satiates you enough, like this airing out of your system, enough to keep you going until the next morning when you once again get overwhelmed with the sight of his sleeping form blanketed by sunlight. There is only one thing you forbid yourself from saying, three words that you vow to never let yourself speak.

A full two weeks pass of this. Every day you explore something new, things you’ve spoken about on the phone over the last year. With Mingis parents working daytime, you have full freedom to be as loud as you want. Mingi also takes full advantage of a free house. One morning he bends you over the kitchen counter while breakfast is still cooking. His mouth is always right by your ear, moaning and telling you how bad he needs you, despite fucking you upstairs in his bedroom just an hour earlier. Another day he has you ride him on the couch right before he leaves for work. You love it most when Mingi randomly decides to go down on you, whether it’s in the shower or he makes you lie down on the kitchen table. When he’s got his mouth on you he’s possessive, making sure to mark up your thighs and hips. It happens so often that he sometimes ends up darkening the hickeys he left a few days earlier.

Then Mingis schedule changes, and he has to work in the mornings. It doesn’t stop you, but it puts a damper on things as you know them. You have to meet in the afternoons instead, and with Mingi's parents home you end up sitting through long dinners with his parents, reminiscing and talking. It makes sex a little difficult, and Mingi hates the fact that you have to be quiet. He picks you up in his car a few times, but quick head while parked at the edge of the woods is a harsh contrast to the hours of sex you’d been able to have a few weeks earlier.

You’re caught by surprise one day when your phone calls and you rush to pick up only to find Yunhos voice at the other end. You’re so surprised that you pull your phone away and check the name on the screen, and sure enough it’s Yunho's contact name.

”Hey,” you reply, trying to play off the shock.

”Not happy to hear from me?” he teases.

”Shut up, you know I am!” you joke back.

He laughs in return and makes some small talk, telling you how much fun it was to see you and asking you how you’ve been.

”But, hey, uh,” he interjects. ”You ended up leaving with my shirt, is there any chance I could get it back?”

”Shit,” you curse, squeezing your eyes shut in embarrassment. ”You’re right, I totally forgot. Uh, do you want me to bring it by today?”

”That’d be perfect, thanks!”

When Yunho hangs up the phone, you chew nervously at your lip. Getting the shirt back to Yunho wouldn’t be an issue, it’s just that it’s in Mingi’s room somewhere, and asking him to locate it would probably lead to another weird moment where Mingi says something petty. You’re pacing around your room when your eyes land on his driveway and you remember that Mingi is at work. You’re just about to call Yunho and tell him today’s gonna be impossible, before the solution hits you.

Mingis mom opens the door to their home when you knock, and beams at the sight of you on their doorstep.

”Sweetheart! Hi there, Mingi is at work right now, I’m afraid,” she tells you while wrapping her arms around you for a hug. She always does this, even though you’ve been spending a lot of time over at their house recently, Mingis mother hugs you every time she sees you.

”I know, it’s just that I left something in Mingi's room that I need to get if that’s okay?”

So she lets you run up to his bedroom. You feel a little bad while rummaging through his room, but it doesn’t take you long to find Yunhos flannel shirt bunched up halfway underneath Mingis dresser. Mingis mom tries to convince you to stay for dinner, but you tell her you have to get going, and within moments you’re in your car on the way to Yunhos house.

It’s another picture-perfect day outside, the sky is a pristine blue and the wind is blowing just enough to bring some relief in this heat. Yunho is outside in his front yard, with the rear of his car jacked up.

”Hey, you!” you call, getting out of your car. ”Car trouble?”

You can tell by the fact that he has picked apart the entire wheelhouse that it’s not just something routine, but Yunho shrugs his shoulders.

”Not something I can’t fix,” he smiles. ”Dude, you’re quick. I called you, what, 30 minutes ago?”

You nod, sitting down on the tire Yunho has removed.

”Honestly, I was losing my mind at home. I’ve been doing jack shit for days now, I think I might die out of boredom,” you complain.

”Oh, so you’re saying you left the minute you got my call just because you had nothing better to do? It’s not just because you love me?” Yunho quirks an eyebrow, wiping grease from his forehead.

”Can’t it be both? And anyway, I had to go over to Mingis to get your shirt, so I didn’t leave ’the minute I got your call’,” you say, sticking out your tongue at him.

”It was at Mingi's house?” he asks.

Something comes over Yunhos face that you can’t pinpoint.

”Yeah.. I left with him during the party, and we went to his house afterward.” You hope he buys it as a reasonable enough explanation, it’s at the very least true. Just not the entire truth.

Yunho shrugs, and his eyes lose the edge they just had. He smiles, ”Leaving in one man's shirt to go to another dude's house, all in one night.. Impressive, I’ll give you that.”

”Fuck off!” you huff, kicking Yunhos shoe.

He laughs, slapping down a greasy hand on your knee to let you know that he’s just joking, even though you already know that.

”Although…” you trail off. ”Mingi did say that it’s your move.”

”Oh yeah, it is. I wasn’t expecting you to fall for it, though.” Yunhos's voice is still teasing, but not in the same way that Mingis usually is. You can tell that Yunho is just friendly, that there’s no flirting laced in his words or tone. It makes you miss Mingi.

”I don’t fall for things like that,” you retort, but quickly find your mind going to all the shirts Mingi has let you borrow these past weeks. You wear them all day, every day, even when you come back home after spending time with him. You even sleep in them, and you frequently bury your face in the collar to smell his laundry detergent. The few times he gives you a shirt he’s already worn you end up getting so worked up about it that you think you’d be getting yourself off while smelling it, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mingi now has you cumming at least twice a day.

So, perhaps you do fall for tricks like that. But only when it’s Mingi.

Yunho goes silent, and you can see that he’s chewing on the inside of his lip.

”What’s wrong?” you ask him.

His eyes flick over to yours for a second, then he looks at his hands. You’ve never seen Yunho this deep in thought outside an academic setting, and something about it is making you uneasy.

”You know,” he begins, but the words die as quickly as he says them.

”Yes?” you try again.

He pauses, looking up at you.

”You know that Mingi is my best friend,” he says. ”And I love him, I do, but sometimes he acts like an idiot. And I can’t- I just hate seeing it, you know?”

”Okay,” you mumble, only growing more confused with every word Yunho says.

”I don’t think it was right how he came here with you, then spent the whole night talking to everyone but you. But, he just gets so weird sometimes, right? And like I said, I love him, he’s my best friend, but- we just thought it would be different when you came back home. So, Wooyoung and I decided to see what would happen if I lent you my shirt, and-.. Yeah.”

”What… What are you saying?” Your voice is getting quieter. The cheery happiness from before has retired, and there’s something strange in the atmosphere now. You can’t understand what Yunho is getting at, but there’s a part of you that wonders and wishes. A part of you that can read between the lines of what Yunho is too afraid to say out loud.

”It’s not my place to say,” Yunho says, looking everywhere but your eyes.

”At least tell me what you intended to do with this shirt.” It’s still in your hands, his flannel, and your fingers are tightening around it.

”We just figured that maybe he needed a push,” he tells you, sounding so sheepish.

”You wanted him to get jealous?” you finally say it out loud. Yunho doesn’t meet your eyes, but it’s a clear enough answer. So you ask, ”What do you know about me and Mingi?”

”In all honesty? I don’t know anything. And it used to hurt me because Mingi is my best friend and I’ve known him since we were kids. But that’s what clued me in because I know for a fact that he would have told me if you were dating,” Yunho says. You’re holding your breath while listening to him. He continues, ”I, uh, I accidentally saw the preview of a text you sent him once. Something about.. well, that’s not important. But, I realized it then. We all thought it was just a matter of time, and that you’d make it official when you moved back home.”

You’re hearing every single thing Yunho is saying, but the words just won’t stick. You’re becoming more aware of the birds singing and the sound of the wind among the treetops.

”Mingi is in love with you,” Yunho says. At last. The rest of his words blur together. He has been, a long time, doesn’t know it. Yunhos mouth is moving, and you know what he’s saying, but the rational part of you that knows this can’t be true has stopped listening long ago.

Mingi is not in love with you. He’s just not, that can’t be true.

Yunho scrambles towards you, hands landing on each of your knees. He looks so concerned and his mouth is still moving.

”-you okay? What’s wrong?” You hear once your brain stops blocking your ears. You’re crying, tears falling from your cheeks down onto your hands.

”What did I say?” Yunho asks frantically.

And the confessions start rolling. You tell Yunho about everything, from that first night to everything that has happened since you returned back home. You tell him about the weird moment when Mingi drove you home after the party.

”Don’t you hear it though? He’s in love with you! My god, I think he always has been,” Yunho says.

You scoff, ”He ignored me for four whole months during my first semester away. He’s not in love with me, this is just.. out of comfort, it’s just easy.”

”You’re both in denial. You know what I’m hearing? That Mingi was so heartbroken when you moved away that he couldn’t even be a good friend. That didn’t just extend to you, by the way. He barely hung out with us during that time, and it only changed when you came home for Christmas,” Yunho tries to lay it out for you.

”You’re wrong. You’re wrong-”

”I can’t tell you what to believe,” Yunho says. His hand squeezes your knee, leaving dirty marks of grease on your skin. It’s a gesture of comfort, and you appreciate it for what it is. ”You need to talk to Mingi. Maybe disarm him by telling him that you’re in love with him first.”

The air feels different when you drive back home. It feels heavier, somehow. Yunhos words bear an incredible weight and no matter how many times you run them through your head they don’t get any easier to process. It would be different if it had come from Seonghwa or Hongjoong, who would say practically anything to comfort you. You don’t think Yunho would sweeten his words like they would, or even at all.

You sit through a quiet lunch with your mom, unable to get your thoughts in any other direction than the conversation you just had with Yunho. For some reason, you feel absolutely stuck there, and you can’t see a way for things to work. It feels as if time has been suspended in wait for your next move. The hours tick on though. You lay in your bed and watch the numbers on your alarm clock change. Seconds turn into minutes, and then hours, and your mind is still stuck in the same place as it has since you left Yunhos house.

You don’t realize when the clock indicates that Mingi is ending his shift. The numbers are just ticking, hypnotizing you. You startle when your phone calls and the pit in your stomach grows when you know that it’s probably Mingi.

Your fingers move on pure muscle memory as you pick up your phone and swipe to answer the call, then raise the phone to your ear. Through the phone, you can hear Mingis car running.

”Hello?” Mingi asks. ”You know, it’s usually the person who picks up the phone who speaks first.”

”Sorry,” you croak. You don’t even recognize the sound of your voice.

”Are you okay?” Mingi sounds so concerned it makes your stomach twist. It’s still the same Mingi you have known all your life, and he’s the same man you’ve been fucking the past weeks, but something feels as if it has fundamentally changed. You try to listen to his voice, read it for any hint of tenderness you’d have previously missed. You can’t make out any, it’s the same Mingi as always.

”It’s been a weird day,” you settle for.

”Then what do you say about changing into your swimsuit and we go to the lake? It’s so hot out, I can’t stand to be home. And maybe it can take your mind off of things?” he suggests.

”Yeah, sounds good.”

”I’ll pick you up in 5, better hurry!”

Mingi hangs up. Your head feels all fuzzy and distant, but you pull yourself out of bed and get changed. While putting your clothes over your swimsuit you realize you’re in one of Mingis t-shirts. Every single bit of this feels like a divine punishment. To be dressed in Mingis clothes and have marks in the shape of his mouth decorate your chest and the insides of your thighs, to be so thoroughly claimed by him but yet not be his, is agonizing.

You’re aware that Mingi would park in your driveway and come knocking at your door, wanting to impress and appease your parents at every turn. You just can’t deal with that today, so you hurriedly make your way down the stairs and out your door to wait for him outside. You’re just in time, because Mingi is making the turn up your street and it’s only half a minute before he’s pulling up to your house and you’re getting in his car.

”Hey, I missed you!” Mingi sounds cheerful, sporting a smile so big it’s splitting. You hate the way that time and space curl around Mingi each time you see him as if he presents to you in technicolor and slow motion. Your eyes pass over each feature, trying your best to handle what just seeing him does to your body.

Mingi keeps a pair of extra sunglasses in his car for you, and when you’re sat down he leans over to place them on your face. The gesture is enough to make your breath hitch, but he uses it as an opportunity to lean in for a swift kiss, and you feel as if you’re floating.

Today, Mingi has Fleetwood Mac playing softly throughout the car.

You’re just looking at Mingi with this pit in your stomach, this sense of impending doom sitting heavy in your abdomen. The world feels slow and strangely saturated. The seconds stretch on infinitely, allowing you plenty of time to watch the sunlight adorn Mingi's skin.

You’re aware that you can’t stop staring. When Mingi parks the car and you start making the short walk through the trees to get to the lake, your eyes are always set on him. From the towel slung over his shoulder to the sweat that has broken out and is trickling down the nape of his neck. You’re trying to make sense of the sight in front of you, the same Mingi you’ve made this walk with a hundred times, the only difference being that he’s had you in the most intimate and tender ways now. It forces you to rewrite history, the memories of your childhood innocence are permanently changed. If only you had known then, while sitting on the big rock and throwing pebbles out to break the still surface of the water if you had only known that the boy handing you rocks would end up being the man you fall in love with fifteen years later.

Your stupid, stupid heart. Sometimes you think the ribs, flesh, and muscle containing it won’t be enough to keep it in place. It beats so hard and fast it billows from your chest, through your arms, and out to the very tip of each finger. You have to flex them to stop that lovesick tingle from numbing you.

The water is beautiful. The lake looks just like you remember it, the wind is blowing slight ripples upon the surface and the trees are swinging lightly. Besides the gentle hum of nature, the place is completely undisturbed and it’s just you and Mingi here today.

You're placing your towels down and undressing in silence, barely glancing at each other. You sneak little glances at him in the corner of your eye, wondering what he’s thinking. Yunhos words are still echoing through your head, getting louder and more unbearable for every minute that passes.

Mingi is wading into the water before you know it, covered up to his knees, then thighs, then his waist, and eventually he points his arms and dives in entirely. He erupts back through the surface with a shriek that echoes over the lake, and you can’t stop yourself from laughing.

He rushes back up to where you’re laying on your towel, shoulders bunched up in reaction to the cold water. Mingi shakes his head above you to force droplets onto your bare skin, laughing loudly when you yell in protest. Things feel so extraordinarily regular, it’s as if you have transported back ten years in time. Even when Mingi gets down on his towel and leans over to kiss you, it still feels so normal. It just feels so right with Mingi, like this is what you’re meant to be doing.

Mingis's mouth is cold and wet from his dip in the water, and his hair continues to drip onto your face, but you find it hard to care when he wraps you up in a long, passionate kiss. He’s on his stomach on his towel now, as close to you as he can get. Your heart beats with a discernible nervosity at the fact that you are laid out in the open with Mingi making out with you. There would be quite a walk for anyone else to get here, and you would probably be able to hear branches breaking or even a car parking way before anyone could walk upon the scene and spot the two of you. The risk of getting caught here is low, but you still feel like you’re on display.

Mingis cold fingers wrap around your jaw where he keeps you firmly as his tongue enters your mouth. The kissing goes to your head very quickly, dulling all your senses as all your thoughts are replaced by what Mingi is doing with his mouth. He knows you so well that he pulls away seconds before you lose your breath, letting you regain it while he kisses the corner of your mouth softly. His hand trails over your chest and down your stomach carefully, feeling the way your ribcage heaves as your breaths get steadier.

Mingis eyes follow the path of his hand before he abruptly stops by your knee.

”What’s that?” he asks you. You have to crane your neck to see what he’s looking at. Not much remains of it, but there are still faint marks of dirt and grease on the top of your knees. Just on the outside of your leg, there’s an unmistakable fingerprint.

”Oh,” you mumble. Mingi detaches himself from you with a quickness that makes you lose your breath, and you scramble to get up too.

”I don’t- I feel like I don’t even need to ask who left that on you,” Mingi says.

”It was Yunho,” you rush out, wanting so badly to resolve this before Mingis thoughts spin and twist so bad that you can’t untangle them. It’s clear from the look on his face that your words and their haste only have the opposite effect.

”Yunho?” he questions, getting quieter.

”It’s not all what you think. He called me about that shirt he let me borrow a few weeks ago, remember? I went to his house to give it back and we got to talking. You know, just.. stuff, about life. I ended up getting emotional and he comforted me. I was crying and he put his hands on my knees, that’s all.” You read Mingis's face for any changes, but nothing happens. He only looks at you, taking in your half-truth excuse of an explanation.

”What is it that Yunho can comfort you about, but I can’t?” Mingi asks, his eyes staring into yours with so much intensity you feel like crying. You had expected everything but that. You’d rather Mingi accuse you of getting intimate with Yunho, that you’re lying and it’s a terrible cover story you’re spinning. You could defend yourself from all that, but not this.

”That’s not… Mingi, it’s not like that. I didn’t just choose to go there for comfort. It just happened, I just started crying, and that’s it,” you urge.

Mingis legs are drawn up to his chest and his arms are wrapped around them. He looks so small and vulnerable. His eyebrows are starting to furrow together, and you’re finding it hard to tell if it’s anger or sadness that is starting to show on his face. Both possibilities terrify you equally.

”Why?” he wonders, simply. ”Why did you cry?”

You can physically see the restraints he’s putting on himself to hear you out, to not race away with his worries. You wish it means what you want it to mean. That Mingis vulnerability was an act of love instead of self-preservation. He’s probably sat there worried at the threat of Yunho taking you away and replacing his role. That the fun you’ve had the past weeks, and the year before that, would be over, just like that. You wonder if he views it as a hindrance more than anything. Mingi has finally scored a way to have sex on the regular, without the commitment or worries of starting with someone new. What you have is a lot of comfort, and you suppose he doesn’t want to lose that.

Still, even this feels like a lot more than you deserve of him. If you can’t have Mingi in the ways that you want, you’ll have to do your best to preserve the arrangement you have now.

”It’s not important,” you mumble. You know it’s not a good enough answer.

Mingi lets the word hover in the air for a moment, pondering on whether he should let it go.

In the end, he decides to speak. ”There’s nothing you can tell me that would scare me off. You know that, right?”

”That’s not true,” you whisper, so quiet it’s almost a hiss. ”There is something I can’t ever tell you.”

Tears start to fall down your cheeks and it’s now a conscious effort to keep your sobs contained within your chest. The lake is still breathtaking, the wind is still and the sun is bright in the perfect blue sky. It’s a beautiful day to get your heart broken, at the very least.

Mingi stretches his fingers and you watch the tendons twitch and flex. You’re brought back to what you were doing earlier, shaking off your nerves.

”What if I say it first?” he says. You look up at his eyes.

”What?”

”That I love you,” he tells you. His eyes are big and dark, brimming with tears of his own. ”If I say it first, will you say it too?”

”Mingi-”

”I do love you,” he begins. ”It’s stupid, looking back, because I think I’ve loved you since before you left. I loved you that first night, I already knew it, and I felt so stupid when I woke up the morning after. Doing that with you when I was drunk out of my mind made me feel like shit. And then I felt even more like shit, because- because, it made me realize that it hadn’t been the way I wanted it to be. So I took comfort in the fact that it was over the phone, and I still had time to do it right. To start right, with you, I mean. I wanted our first time to be perfect. I knew I loved you when I kept thinking about it. But then, when you finally came back, it truly clicked. For a while, I had figured that I’d know how I felt about you when we had sex for the first time. But I was wrong because all it took was me seeing you to know that I’m in love with you.”

”Mingi,” you whisper, again, over and over. It’s all you can bring yourself to say, like a prayer, before you crawl over to him and press your lips to his. It doesn’t matter that it takes him a beat to respond, you don’t care at all anymore about how things get awkward or strange. You continue to kiss over his mouth until he’s ready to kiss you back, when time finally catches up to you and it dawns on you both that this is real.

You can’t stop kissing him, breathing out his name every time you part.

”I love you,” you mumble into his mouth. ”I’m so in love with you.”

Mingi smiles into the kiss. Your senses are overwhelmed with the taste of both your tears and the fact that you’re both now smiling and giggling, repeating ’I love you’s until the words merge.

He pulls you into his arms, tumbling over into the grass. He stops kissing you to just look at you, and you watch him too. Your Mingi, in the grass by the lake. Finally, your Mingi.

[winniefrezcomics]

You got that jimtim crack bro?

Oh shit uuuhhh- fuckin- hang on- (frantically flips thru notes app)

Here’s a shitty phone doodle and a Drabble that I wasn’t gonna post bc it’s kinda boring abswbfndjcjdj, unfortunately I don’t have any more competent JimTim on hand rn but hope these suffice, chief 🫡

(This is more implied JimmyTimmy than anything, the focus is on Jimmy meeting Timmy’s siblings lmao)

A teenage Jimmy Nuetron steps through an interdimentoinal portal, looking around at his surroundings and his own hands

“Okay… this looks right…”

In the background, Teen Timmy Turner takes out an earbud, and turns from his desk

“JIMMY!” Timmy leaps up in excitement, scurrying over to his friend

“Greetings, Timmy! Hate to drop in like this, but there’s been-“

Jimmy is interrupted as Timmy BEAR HUGS him, lifting him off the ground for a second

“how ARE you man? It’s been forever!”

Jimmy sighs, hugging back briefly with an awkward pat before stepping back-

“Yes, yes, good to see you too, sorry I’ve been so busy…”

Jimmy’s face suddenly hardens into a serious scowl, activating his wristwatch to project a hologram of a weird little bug man

“Listen, Turner- I wouldn’t drop in unannounced if it wasn’t a DIRE situation. ZIM got into the base. We don’t know how, or what he took, but we need ALL hands on deck to ensure he doesn’t-“

Jimmy looks over to see Timmy texting in his phone

“-aaaand you’re not listening”

Jimmy sighs with exasperation

“Yeah yeah yeah, important multiverse stuff- just a sec, this is important too!” Timmy continues to text excitedly

Jimmy sighs, tapping his foot impatiently “aaand, what exactly could you be referring to that’s more important than-“

Jimmy jumps slightly as all the lights in the room suddenly go out, darkening it completely despite it being visibly midday outside moments prior

Timmy however is unbothered, grinning as a SPOTLIGHT flicks on from nowhere to illumiate him

��Jaaames Neutron, I’d like you to meet-“

Jimmy reflexily raises his watch-lazer in alarm as a purple POOF of smoke fills the room,

Jimmy COUGHS, glancing down at his wristwatch with alarm when it beeps to indicate that another person, and some undefinable other lifeform, have suddenly teleported into the room with them

The smoke slowly disperses to reveal GIGANTIC BLOCK LETTERS have also appeared, mirroring Timmy’s excited shout of

“myyyy SIBLINGS!!”

Timmy runs over to one side of the gigantic “SIBLINGS” block letters and hits the dab

Jimmy blinks with confusion, eyes darting all around the strange scene- after the un-ignorable letters, Jimmy notices a human silhouette, about Timmy’s height, step forward out of the fog with a friendly wave, and flashing her gap-toothed grin

“Hi! I’m Chloe Carmichael!”

Timmy looks up from his silly pose and sighs with disappointment-

“Chloeeee, you didn’t dab with me!”

“Oh, sorry? Was I supposed to?”

“Poof poof!”

Jimmy immediately directs his gaze and watch upward, locking eyes with a toddler-aged Poof, who waves excitedly with the hand not holding his rattle

Timmy approaches Jimmy and nonchalantly lowers the wrist watch for him

“Easy, tiger- that’s just my fairy god brother! His name’s Poof!”

Jimmy blinks with confusion, then laughs to himself- “ah, of COURSE! I almost forgot all about your holograms! This must be a new model! An awfully cute one…”

Jimmy notes with amusement- poof floats closer, and Jimmy gives his chubby tummy an experimental poke, making him giggle adorably

“Oh heyyy, you must be that scientist Timmy thinks is cute!”

Timmy RUSHES over to cover Chloe’s mouth, hissing through his teeth- “CHLOE!! WHY WOULD YOU TELL HIM THAT?!”

“Cause you’re not GONNA!” Chloe responds with a grin

Jimmy doesn’t even hear them arguing, he’s too busy scanning poof with his watch, and squinting at the screen with interest

“How odd… according to my sensors, your holograms appear to have biological components…”

Jimmy looks up at Poof, smiling awkwardly- “Heey, little guy- ‘poof’, was it?”

“Poof poof!” Poof nods with a big smile

“Iiii don’t suppose you’d mind if I, uh- ran a few tests on you?”

Poofs face falls into one of fright, and he teleports to hide behind his brother, who looks up with alarm upon hearing the word ‘tests’

“OY! Put that mad scientist-ass face AWAY, J-Bird! That’s my baby brother you’re talking about!”

“Baby… brother? How exactly do you have a familial relation to a hologram? And weren’t you an only child last time I was here?”

Timmy suddenly looks mildly uncomfortable, clearly u are how to explain- he looks at Chloe for help, who just shrugs

“Well- uh- ya see- the thing about that is-“

“HANG ON-“

“Oh thank god”

“My sensors are picking up something…”

Jimmy squints at his watch, before his eyes go wide, suddenly shouting

“EVERYONE, GET DOWN!!” JUST as the wall to Timmy’s room has a gigantic HOLE blasted into it

Timmy tackles Chloe out of the way, and poof transforms into an umbrella for a moment to shield them from debris, but reverts back to his fairy form with a gasp of excitement when he hears a familiar voice-

“Just WHAT do you think you’re DOING in here, TURNER?!” FOOP demands, floating through the hole he made to survey the scene, pointing accusingly at the portal when he spots it

“A-HA! I KNEW IT! You ARE opening Interdimentional portals!!” Foop suddenly turns to Poof, looking hurt-

“And you DIDNT invite me?!”

Poof Floats over to comfort his frenemy, ‘poof poof’ing gently at him

“What. Is THAT.” Jimmy deadpans from where he had ducked for cover from the blast

“Oh, that’s just Foop.”

Timmy sighs, walking over to clasp Jimmy’s hand and help him up (tho doing so makes Tim blush a bit)

“That… doesn’t answer my question…”

“Yeah, he sucks. Do as many tests on HIM as you want.”

Jimmy starts to grin with excitement, but Chloe steps between Jimmy and the toddler fairies with her arms outstretched, looking offended

“Hey! No way, mister Science guy! Step AWAY from the babies!”

Jimmy deflates with annoyance at being stopped a second time, Timmy pats him on the back.

[seventh-district]

Dying Star

In the back of your mind, you recall something you once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can still see a star that's already burnt out, because its light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

You remember Sam's words, once whispered to you on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

You think about dead stars.

You think about time.

- - - - - - -

Sam’s words have been weighing heavy on your mind ever since you discussed your shared future and the various forms it could take. You didn’t realize just how heavy they were until it all came spilling out of your tired mind on a late night spent together beneath the stars.

Pairing: Sam x Darlin' / Reader

Word Count: 4,053

Contains: [angst] [a dash of humor] [a hint of chubby!Sam bc i like 'em strong and soft] [crying] [cuddling (dub-con cuddles with Quinn in the past & consensual ones with Sam in the present)] [emotional hurt/comfort] [implied/referenced dub-con sex (nothing graphic) (in the past between Darlin' and Quinn to be specific) (refer to my Ao3 notes for further explanation)] [mentioned Quinn] [not quite Dissociation i guess but Darlin' does zone-out/get lost in thought more than once] [pet names (Darlin' (obvs.) and honey)] [Reader is Darlin'] [Sam wears a cowboy hat bc i said so] [some passive suicidality from Sam if you squint (hell, maybe you don't even have to squint)]

A/Ns: Well, well, well, here I am, the person who said they wouldn't write any Redactedverse fanfic. I recently felt a mighty need to expand upon the blurb I wrote in this post, and I'm braving my fandom anxiety by sharing it here. pls be nice 2 me abt it

Timeline-wise, this fic takes place sometime after the ‘Talking About the Future With Your Vampire Mate’ audio but sometime before their presumed eventual departure from the house that William gave Sam, given that they've already had the 'turning' discussion but are still on the same roof in this fic.

This is a songfic, inspired by and quoting verses from 3 songs. Those being:

‘Dying Star’ by Ashnikko feat. Ethel Cain

‘Fix What You Didn’t Break’ by Nate Smith

‘No Plan’ by Hozier

The roof of Sam’s house is far from a ‘cushy’ place to relax. But as you lie here next to him under the stars, a knowledge settles within you that you wouldn’t trade the rough shingles beneath you for the softest mattress in the world. Not if it meant there’d be anyone other than him lying next to you.

Some people might counter that it’s an easy thing for you to say, given the number of nights you’ve thrown a balled-up shirt onto one end of a worn-out couch and called it a bed. But some people don’t know you as well as they think they do.

You’ve known luxury. Quinn might’ve been just as content taking his fill on a seedy motel bed as he was wrapped in silks at a Hilton, but he knew how to play up the luxe when it served him to do so. And in the early days as he worked to lure you in, it did. Plush sheets and expensive drinks helped to soften the preordained blows and dull the imminent pain that your nights with him held.

Once you’d latched onto the bait though, he let the act drop one piece at a time, like props collapsing on a stage. After all, what was the point in all of those frivolities when you both knew what you really came to him for? It wasn’t to be wined and dined, it wasn’t to be dressed up and shown off, and it wasn’t even to be slowly stripped of it all, laid out across the rolling clouds of a pillowy mattress.

It was to be used. Tranced. Restrained. Bitten. Drank from. Choked. Hit. Edged. Denied. Made to writhe and whine and bleed and plead. Plead for more, for less, for nothing, for anything. Anything to quiet your mind and fill the ever-expanding void inside you where you suspect love was supposed to live.

That’s what you both really wanted.

At least, that’s what you told him you wanted.

That’s what you told yourself.

You only got what you asked for.

To your right, Sam stirs, stretching gently with a yawn. The soft noise he releases as he does so reminds you of where you are, and you trace back through your thoughts to find how you got so lost.

…Right. Luxury.

While your relationship with Quinn certainly changed over time, you never forgot what it felt like in the beginning. 

You remember nights laid next to him, body sore, mind quiet. Quinn’s idea of aftercare was lacking to say the least, but you had nothing better to compare it to at the time, and you’d take what you could get. At least your head felt empty, and the bed was soft. Exhaustion would pull you under soon enough.

The mattress, sheets, and pillows enveloping you were likely worth more than you even made that past month. ...Or several. You found that display of luxury hard to be impressed by though, when it wasn’t the type of comfort you’d been seeking.

As Quinn shifted in his presumed sleep, pulling you in tighter, you didn’t fight it. You found yourself unwilling to fight anything he did, like his mere presence was enough to drain the fight right out of you. You told yourself that you were okay with that. Because you wanted it.

Lying there with your head on his bare chest, you took a deep breath and told yourself that you liked the stench of cheap cologne, poorly masking the cigarettes and alcohol on his breath. You silently told yourself that you liked everything. You liked the pain that he chased with hints of pleasure. You liked the loss of power, the way you couldn’t fight back if you wanted to once he looked you in the eyes. You liked all the things he said, no matter how much the truth might hurt.

He was right, you supposed. Your desires, the things you craved, the depravity that you so enjoyed, wasn’t normal. It was uncommon, unusual, and in the eyes of some, unfathomable. To possess such dark desires, there must be something truly broken inside you.

How lucky you were, to have found someone willing to indulge you. Someone that could give you everything you wanted, and be so kind as to keep it a secret too. He promised that word of the things he did to you, the things you let him do, would never get out. You remember the way he held your hand as he told you, falling for the guise of sincerity in his eyes. You remember his warm smile, and his razor sharp teeth.

You remember seeing that exact same smile on his face through one-way glass as he sat across from Sam and told him everything.

You stood in that room and thought back to those nights of luxury. To the feeling of his nails ghosting over the freshly healed punctures in your neck. To the way he held you against him. You remember laying there, lifeless, feeling like prey playing dead. Afraid to move, afraid to disturb him. But why? He hadn’t threatened you. He never told you that you had to stay. He never said that you couldn’t move, or pull away. So why did you feel that way?

As you stood, helplessly witnessing hours of his slander in that interrogation room, you understood. Your rose-tinted glasses had long since shattered, and you saw that smile for what it was. It was the smile of a man playing a dangerous game, brimming with satisfaction, thinking he’d won.

The radio near you begins to crackle, static obscuring the hosts voice as they announce the upcoming song. Sam doesn’t even open his eyes, just raises a hand and reaches out, blindly adjusting the antenna of the old device.

You’ve teased him for holding onto it for so long, as he is wont to do with damn near all of his possessions. But as you watch him deftly extend and angle the antenna with practiced care, the response he once gave you proves itself true once again.

“I don’t wanna replace it, Darlin’. It’s not broken. It just needs someone who knows how to make it sing again.”

The static clears, and music flows through the radio’s old speakers once more.

You watch Sam return his hand to its prior position beneath his head, acting as a makeshift pillow of his own. The way he’s lying has his hat pushed forward, and it’d be doing a damn good job of shielding his face from the sun if it weren’t somewhere around midnight at the moment. Still, it suits him somehow, despite its lack of any practicality. All he’s missing is a stalk of wheat between his teeth and a tree to lean against and he’d be the spitting image of the cowboy he swears he isn’t.

His other hand rests on the soft curve of his stomach, rising and falling again as he breathes. He’s the image of peace in moments like these, and you’re drawn to it like a moth to flame. Maybe one of these days you’ll find some of your own, but for now you’re more than content to bask in his.

As you admire him, he takes a slow, deep breath and you mirror it on instinct. The grounding practice helps you leave your mind and return to your body, if just for a moment. In doing so, you realize just how tense your ruminations have made you.

You relax your hands, releasing the blanket beneath you from your iron grip. You brush your palms over it, worried that you’ve torn the fabric once you realize that your nails had halfway shifted to claws. You don’t fret much over damage to your own possessions, but this blanket is Sam’s and you’d hate to ruin it. Though, you suppose he doesn’t prize it too much or he wouldn’t have laid it out here across the roof in the first place.

“If I buy somethin’ it’s because I wanna use it. Now quit frettin’ and get over here.” You recall what he told you earlier as he patted the blanket next to him in invitation, and you smile.

Doing a small stretch of your own, you release the tension in your shoulders, turning your attention back to the stars above you. For a while, you let the soft music wash over your tired mind.

“I asked him not to kill me politely. He drained my magic core, bottled up at the source. I washed up on the sea glass shores. I’m nobody's captive.”

In spite of your best efforts to relax, you’re still subconsciously futzing with the loose threads of the old blanket beneath you.

You’re made aware of it when Sam reaches a hand down, gently laying it over yours and effectively stilling your anxious motion.

“Burning like a dying star, invasive weeds rooted in my heart, set in a crooked trajectory. The journey here was hard, I was almost pulled apart. Trying to leave his orbit took what’s left of me.”

You flip your hand over beneath his so you can hold it properly, lacing your fingers together.

For reasons beyond your understanding, emotion tightens your throat, the threat of tears pooling in your eyes.

…You must be more tired than you thought.

As minutes pass and one song fades into another, your gaze dances across the blurry, scattered points of light in the dark sky.

“You were the star in the pitch black, shine the way on the way back. Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers.”

Sam’s always been so much better at identifying stars and finding constellations. But as the music plays, you begin to see one of your own.

“Picked up the towel that I threw in, took in a heart that was ruined. Showed me the past ain’t a tattoo, loved me even when you didn’t have to.”

“Sam.” You squeeze his hand to get his attention.

He squeezes back in acknowledgment. “Hm?”

“I want you to look at something.” You swallow back the emotion that tries to seep into your voice, but it catches his attention all the same.

He leans up and lifts his hat from his head, setting it aside near the radio. He then reaches to turn a dial back, lowering the music’s volume to give you his full attention.

You release his hand, raising yours up as he turns back to face you. You don’t say anything at first, nearly too lost in your own mind to realize you need to actually voice your developing thoughts.

"What—what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Your hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in your line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above you. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow your less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', your pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along your exposed wrist where your sleeve had slipped back, he takes your hand in his again and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." You say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." You nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting you. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

You scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh. "No—no I mean—like... what's another name for it... Oh, it's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but you cut him off before he can start. "But no. No, this isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in your overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Your frown is audible in your voice as you latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at your over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, honey, I promise."

You huff, but begrudgingly shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention.”

Sam’s brow furrows as you continue to explain, realization setting in that you really are being serious.

“I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...And there you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places and people that I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, at Wonderworld, surrounded by the ghost of him. Your warmth, your presence, your aura—even with all of your walls up, you outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me home."

In the back of your mind, you recall something you once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can still see a star that's already burnt out, because its light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

You remember Sam's words, once whispered to you on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

You think about dead stars.

You think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand squeezes yours tight, his urgent tone pulling you out of your thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

You look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, faint shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

You reach out, pulling him down into you. He falters for a moment at the sudden proximity, but quickly embraces you in turn. Burying your face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear your words, muffled against the thick flannel, but his hearing catches them just fine.

"Don't burn out too quickly. Please. I still need you here. I don't—I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

The words feel like a weight being lifted from your shoulders, but with it comes a flood of emotion they’d been holding back. You cry harder into him, and as much as it pains Sam to witness, he lets you feel it, for as long as you need.

Your fear of losing him manifests itself physically, nails curling and sharpening again. When he feels them prick his skin through the fabric of his shirt, he calls your name but doesn’t pull away. Instead, he leans further down into you, letting his weight ground you. “Darlin’, I am right here. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

As you eventually cry yourself out, enough wherewithal returns to you to realize that you should probably release the poor man from your grasp, and the awkward position you pulled him into. When he pulls away enough to see your face, you notice a string of snot running from your nose to his shirt collar. Quickly batting it away out of embarrassment, you cringe, voice thick as you apologize. “Eugh, gross. Uh… sorry. About that.”

He shakes his head, laughing good-naturedly as you wipe at your nose with your jacket sleeve. “It’s completely fine, honey. After all, I’ve been covered in plenty of your, uh… various fluids before. When you come from my line of work, this is child’s play.”

He leans to his right, reaching back and pulling—of all things—a handkerchief from his jeans’ left back pocket. You laugh at his words, and at the sight, but with how congested you are it turns into more of a hacking cough than anything. Accepting his offering, you blow your nose into the black patterned fabric.

As soon as you can speak somewhat clearly, you can’t stop the teasing remark that slips out of you, gesturing with the wad of fabric in your hand. “You know, you really aren’t beating the cowboy allegations with stuff like this.”

He rolls his eyes but his soft smile remains. “It’s a practical thing to have on me, ‘allegations’ be damned.”

You shake your head with a smile of your own, but don’t disagree. As you’re visibly unsure what to do with the dirtied fabric, he takes it from you, setting it aside. “I’ll toss it in the wash when we go back inside. Along with my shirt, and…” He eyes you for a moment. “…that jacket of yours too, given how long you’ve probably been wearin’ it.”

Normally you’d argue that it hasn’t been that long, but come to think of it, you actually can’t recall when you last washed the thing.

Reaching up and rubbing your temples, you already regret your crying fit as a headache begins to set in. “Fuck, Sam... I’m sorry for… whatever that just was. I don’t know what came over me.”

His expression falls into something serious again. “You never need to apologize for feeling. And it certainly seems like… you needed to feel that.”

You nod quietly, but don’t elaborate, prompting him to question you gently. “Darlin’. What was that about? The—the askin’ me not to leave. Are you… afraid that I’m gonna leave you?”

You close your eyes, weighing out your response. “…Not in the sense that you’ll break up with me or something, no.”

His gaze narrows and his head tilts as he rolls your answer over in his mind. “If it ain’t that, then—” He remembers how you mentioned ‘forever’ and cuts himself off as the puzzle pieces start coming together. “Oh. …Oh, Darlin’, no.”

You open your eyes to watch as he shifts from leaning next to you, moving to sit up beside you. “Is this about what I told you, when we sat up here and had our uh… turning discussion?”

You hate to admit it, but you nod in confirmation. “…It’s your choice, Sam, and I never want to take that away from you. I shouldn’t have said what I just did, I—I don’t want to make you feel guilty, or like you have to stick around for my sake. But I’d be lying to you if I said it hasn’t been playing on my mind. The thought of you… leaving. Like that.”

He reaches up, running a hand through his hair. “I… think I maybe should’ve been a bit more clear, when I said that. Because I wasn’t talking about any time soon. I didn’t want to give you the false impression that I plan on sticking around for centuries, but… I also wasn’t trying to imply that I’ve got plans to do it next week either.”

You bolt upright, voice cracking. “Next week?! I sure as shit hope not!” You grab your head, pain flaring and suddenly dizzy from the quick shift in position.

He places a hand on your shoulder to steady you. “I’m not, honey, I’m not. Did you catch the rest of my sentence? I’ve got no plans to leave this world any time soon. I promise.”

You groan, head pounding. “I heard you, I did, I just—fuck, I don’t even wanna think about you leaving so soon. Here I am, stressing, thinking I’ve only got—I don’t know—some odd years left with you, and…” You sigh, trailing off.

Sam stays quiet for a minute, letting the crickets sing.

Eventually, he interrupts their chorus. “…Can I get closer to you?”

You nod. “…Please.”

He closes the gap between you, carefully wrapping a strong arm around your curled shoulders. “You’ve got way more than a couple years. I promise you that.” Your tension begins to ease a bit as he clarifies. “You… you’ve helped me find a life that I actually feel like livin’ again, for the first time in a long time. And I want to experience it with you for as long as I can.”

“…Really?” Your voice sounds so small, so unsure, so… unlike you when you question him that he wants to kick himself in his own ass for the role he unintentionally played in making you feel this way.

“Yes. Really. I mean—” His voice takes on an edge of humor. “If you decide to set your sights on the year 3,000…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know about that. But as far as the 21st century is concerned? …I think I’d like to see it through. For as long as you’re there to see it with me.”

His words cause fresh tears to well up in your eyes, and you sniff in an attempt to hold them back. The sound catches his attention, and he leans forward, thumbing across your warm cheek. “…I’m makin’ you cry again…”

You shake your head, clearing your throat. “No—No, it’s okay. It’s good. They’re… they’re good. It’s… relief.”

He breathes out a relieved sigh of his own. “Yeah?”

You nod, leaning into him. “Yeah.”

As you rest against each other, breathing in the cool night air, you nudge him with your shoulder. “Can we… lay back? For a bit?”

He squeezes your arm in gentle confirmation. “Of course.”

He twists and reaches back to straighten the wrinkled blanket beneath you, before laying out across it himself. The radio crackles as he turns the volume back up a bit. Watching him with tired eyes, you smile at the sight of him patting his chest in habitual invitation.

“Sit in and watch the sunlight fade. Honey, enjoy, it’s gettin’ late. There’s no plan. There’s no hand on the reign. As Mack explained, there will be darkness again.”

Curling up against his side and laying your head on his chest, you release a heavy sigh when his hand comes up to rest on your shoulder. As his fingers press rhythmically into the tense muscle beneath them, you breathe in his scent. Black coffee and wildflower honey… he smells like home.

“Your secret is safe with me, and if secrets were like seeds, when I’m lyin’ under marble, marvel at flowers you’ll have made.”

You reach your hand out across his broad chest, slipping beneath his open flannel and sliding down to rest on his waist. He sighs, relaxing further beneath your touch.

“My heart is thrilled by the still of your hand. That’s how I know now that you understand.”

Yeah, you’ll take this over ‘luxury’ any damn day.

“There’s no plan. There’s no race to be run.”

Laying there with him, listening to the low hum of the radio, the moment grows so comfortable that you almost hesitate to break it.

“The harder the pain, honey, the sweeter the song.”

“…Sam?” You whisper into the night.

His hand sweeps across your back before returning to your shoulder. “I’m here, Darlin’.”

“There’s no plan. There’s no kingdom to come.”

You smile. “I… I’d like to be there, to be here, to see it through with you, too.”

It takes him a moment to recall exactly what you’re referring to, but when it hits him he hums a low understanding tone, clearly pleased. “Then let’s see where it takes us, yeah?”

“But I’ll be your man if you got love to get done.”

He presses a soft kiss to your temple. “We’ve got plenty a’ time.”

A/N: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. You can find my extensive notes and commentary on this fic right here on Ao3. My Sam & Darlin' Playlist My Sam Playlist My Darlin' Playlist My Sam & Darlin' Moodboard My Sam Moodboard My Darlin' Moodboard Header Image Credit: Gage Smith on Unsplash

[internetaddict104]

My live thoughts on Deadpool and Wolverine

* I’m torn between wanting to fangirl over the fight scene and wanting to sing and dance to *NSYNC

* Also I’m crying at the shots of DP doing the Bye Bye Bye choreo cut into the fight 😂

* The Iron Man helmet covering Tom in the photo with RDJ 😂

* Hearing Matthew Macfayden’s natural British accent is so jarring after watching Succession

* Wait I’m so confused on how Wade was interviewing for an Avengers position with Happy on Earth 616 and then it cuts to 6 years later on Earth 10005

* Wambsgans being the villain is insane

* This movie takes place within 3 days?

* DID THEY JUST REFERENCE THE OSCAR SLAP

* The little cgi Logan is so jarring

* *turns around* “I’m Marvel Jesus you dull creature and I-“ *gets bitch slapped by the Hulk and dies*

* HENRY CAVILL WOLVERINE VARIANT HOLY SHIT

* CHRIS EVANS?!?!?!?!?!

* IT IS CHRIS I’M FUCKING CRYING I LEGIT JUST STARTED SMILING

* JOHNNY STORM CHRIS EVEN FUCKING BETTER

* Did he just die

* I knew Wolverine was gonna just slice Sabretooth’s head off but I’m still sad there wasn’t any real fight

* Oh thank God Johnny is still alive

* Wait where’s the rest of the og FF? Where is my Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, and Michael Chiklis???

* Fuck she killed Chris 😭 I knew it was coming but it still hurts

* Why do I lowkey feel like whatever this Logan did to fuck up his world is gonna be something jokey and/or stupid

* Lady in Red playing during Dogpool’s intro 😂

* Also I did not know Dogpool was a girl

* The intro to The Greatest Show on the radio 😂

* There’s a lot of random music in this movie and idk if I’m really feeling it

* I saw a Scarlet Witch statue… 👀

* Oh shit Garner Elektra

* WESLEY SNIPES?!?!?!?! IS HE REAL OR CGI

* CHANNING TATUM GAMBIT ❤️❤️❤️

* My jaw literally dropped for these 3 I’m dead serious

* Oh this is where X23 comes in

* Wait is this Laura the same one from Logan or is she a variant

* So he’s the worst Logan because he went to a bar and the rest of the XMen got killed by humans? That’s so stupid he wasn’t even there like he didn’t lead the humans to them or run away

* Should I know who the purple girl with Cassandra is bc I feel like I should they keep focusing on her

* Should I know the bearded guy in the striped tank top bc they keep focusing on him too and I don’t recognize him

* Wait so Logan did run away when the XMen were attacked?

* Wait Logan betrayed the XMen?

* Huh so the portal was just white anyway it wasn’t an editing trick to hide anything in the trailer

* I know I should know who Pyro is but I don’t 😭

* Did they digitally elongate Emma Corrin’s fingers bc they look way too long

* Cassandra without the coat looks so sickly idk why the coat made her look fuller

* Logan’s disgusted look when Wade and Dogpool reunite 😂

* Oh I was wondering when Ladypool would show up

* I need to know if any famous actor is in the Deadpool Corps

* Logan holding Dogpool as far away from him as possible like a dirty dishrag 😂 he’s so disgusted by this dog

* WAIT LADYPOOL SOUNDS LIKE BLAKE

* Why is Kidpool a girl

* Cowboy Deadpool sounds familiar too who is he

* THE COWL 😭❤️

* I can’t make out what Blind Al says during the Deadpool fight and I really wanna know what she says 😭

* PETERPOOL

* So Logan is gonna sacrifice himself isn’t he

* Yeah I knew Wade would go in Logan’s place over the heartfelt speeches began

* And Wade isn’t gonna die he can’t he’s too popular

* Oh they both went

* Logan’s top disintegrating 😂

* “You look damn good in that suit” “I’m so sorry” I love Peter

* Wait that’s so cute they’re all in the main universe now (or Wade’s universe idk if they’re the same yet or not)

* I need to find the post credits scenes apparently they were leaked online but I can’t find them anywhere please I wanna watch them I read what they are but I still wanna see them myself

[magolandandfriends]

Hello I’m here for the internship?

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆ ⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆ ⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

[ The other two should be joining them soon. I wonder what’s taking them so long… ]

[ Outside of the room. ]

[ Of course. ]

(Would you guys believe me if I said this was supposed to be joke response but I got a little carried away- it was originally going to be Magolor and Marx (jokingly) arguing with each other while Taranza and Susie are ignoring it asking if anon had any references- well this was originally supposed to happen but it wasn’t supposed to cut to Magolor and Marx- we were only supposed to hear arguing turning into a surprise watergun fight- but I like I said- I got carried away- but thanks to this the interview was put on hold and will continue when they give a Call (the call never happened /j)

(Well at least we know distractions tend to calm down the loud thoughts even if it’s only a temporary solution- no this isn’t based off my experiences- sTOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THA-)

(BUT WOWIE A POST WITH EVERYONE :DDDDDDD I haven’t drawn Susie and Taranza in a moment so this was nice!!! I’m still gonna draw Magolor the most bc I love him but I’ll gladly draw these two as well)

(NOW THANK YOY FOR THE ASK- EVEN THOUGH I TOKD MYSELF I WOULD MAKE THIS A QUOCK POST ABD LIED- I WAS TOO SILLY FOR MY OWN GOOD- I don’t know when the hell I’ll get my next post out- because I’m going to college soon and I’m moving in on the 27th we’ll see when it happens- but until then I have a long ask to answer and a comic I have to work on (I might answer a few asks in between if I can respond to them as a text post but we’ll see)

[tiny-flickers]

i actually wrote down all my thoughts as i listened to the sounds of nightmares and i thought they would be funny to share so here (instagram followers have already seen this but.)

all under cut bc i’m just gonna post it all at once (brackets are things i added later)

—————

ch 1: the workers in the walls

“patient number 1220… referring to children by numbers…….” is SOOOO CRAZY LMFAOO 😭 they know what they did there

imagine being named “no one” (noone) bro that is crazy. that’s even sadder than “mono” because at least he is SOMEBODY. like ik that’s not her actual name but the fact that that’s what she chose as her alias…

“otto” sounds a bit similar to “mono” idk [no it does not?? idk what i was going on about here]

i wonder if noone’s nightmare of being trapped inside a giant relates at all to the giant baby that’s going to appear in ln3

i wonder if she’s talking about the wax bellman (who was removed from the games but still has a portrait in the maw) when she describes the guy who appears in that room in her nightmare [she wasn’t btw]

the shadow children???? or glitched remains perhaps

the music & audio is very maw-like

gears?? making a song???? the giant is totally some sort of living music box or whatever. & she keeps describing the area as being made of stone and it’s sort of implied in the ln3 trailer that the giant baby turns people into stone so…

noone distinctly smelling this chained up guy and saying that he smells of sausages gone badly is sooo guestcore

perhaps the world of little nightmares is an alternate dimension which one can access through dreams

the lady??? noone describes her as being the keeper of the stone giant and the world beyond the walls

AND describes her face as being equally old and young

or perhaps the “stone giant” IS the maw [it’s not]

“the ceiling was a white clock face, but all the numbers were wrong” time loop reference fr

oh yeah this is a prison

so it’s gotta be the maw or something similar at least (but it doesn’t seem to be a boat so)

ok when the mysterious lady appears and gets noone’s dream friend the lady attack music from the first game plays which definitely makes me think she is the actual lady. and she’s covered in chains because she herself is a prisoner if you think about it (especially considering the six/lady connection)

and noone describes her mouth as having “blackened teeth inside; hungry for something” which further emphasizes the connection

^^“…something that swelled inside me” she wanted her SOUL fr!!!!!

noone saying that she feels like she doesn’t exist sometimes :( probably why she chose the name

also “water sickness”???? silo??? [silo trilogy reference]

she thinks she’s possessed by bugs or whatever and idk if that will connect to ln3 or what [more like parasites but.]

mutual dreaming bro what if that’s what happened with six and mono

see cuz “cece” kinda sounds like “six” too (i mean i’ve already seen theories about this but)

ch 2: a penance at the bathhouse

“the candleman” has GOTTA be the wax guy [except he’s not…. the name really threw me off here]

noone says she likes moths. there are big moths that can be seen in cages in ln2

noone’s nightmare!!! maw reference!!! she saw an ocean and saw a bunch of boats coming out?? “and from their mouths, plump men and women emerged. faces hidden behind wooden masks” ITS THE GUESTSSSS!!!! are all these “fish-like contraptions” part of the maw then?

also she mentions that they’re going to a “lantern-lit market” which might be what we saw in the ln3 trailer???

“a voice whispered ‘hey!’” LN2 REFERENCE

“gazing into its spiral always gave me relief” no man you are going to be hypnotized!!!! hypnotherapy is a bad idea in the little nightmares world!!!!!!!!!!

noone saying that the candleman wants her to open herself to this world and that he’s been with her all along…… i feel like that sort of connects to the wax bellman’s profession LMAO [HELP]

makes sense that these guests would be obsessed with cleansing and purification considering the masks and the fact that they were likely warped by the signal tower

“i was quite happy surrounded by the dark” six energy

ch 3: the theater of the mind

yippee!! [I FORGOT TO DELETE THIS ONE LMAO]

“in the dark, a hand let go of mine” SIX & MONO REFERENCE

noone being trapped in this big shopping mall is kinda giving fnaf security breach tbh

mannequins…. no……… not again….

the projector shaped like a giant eye??? like in the maw??

THEY CALLED HER NO ONE :(( NOOOOO THATS WHAT HER BULLIES CALLED HER NOO

no wonder she chose that name

“this place had been warped by pain” “even the walls began throbbing” definitely related to the signal tower

“don’t take her. not this one, too” ok but what if that’s like. mono or something trying to get someone to stay with him in his nightmare [it’s not but that would be cool]

ok so noone was on tv probably because of her sickness thing but the fact that tvs are such a prominent thing in the ln world also makes it suspicious….

ok so otto’s professor was like what if there’s other realities beyond our perception guys lol [ln multiverse]

ch 4: two of a kind

oh ok so he kinda does believe that noone is traveling to another reality/world at night not only because of her nightmares but because her body keeps disappearing before his eyes….

guys this would be so crazy for my ln/dracula au [LMAOOO]

she’s going into the upside down fr

guys they’re going on a ferris wheel

is this like the carnival place that’s gonna be in ln3

“it’s nowhere” that’s the world the games are set in!!!

not sure if this means that six & the other characters are just dreaming or if noone is just in a world parallel to theirs

perhaps cece is a previous version of the lady

wait he just said “the ferryman” ????? not the candleman?? like the ferryman from little nightmares???!!! the guy who took six to the maw??!?!?!1!?! [guys no way it’s the ferryman from little nightmares]

ok yes i’m thinking now that the nowhere is a parallel universe

ch 5: a deluge of the inevitable

i guess it would make sense that the candleman/ferryman is the guardian between worlds since he’s sort of like. someone who delivers people between places (like six to the maw) plus the two characters do look similar… the ferryman could totally be the candleman but just wearing a mask [i was too fixated on the wax bellman thing]

noone has a tumor???? wtf!!?? :( is this because of the water sickness or whatever

nome???? ITS A NOME!!!!! THERES A NOME IN THE SEWERS!!!!!

“little mushroom fairy” awww

“the first non-hostile being you’ve met that wasn’t another child” oh buddy do i have something to tell you

“you believe this place transformed him?” YES THE SIGNAL TOWER DID IT!!!!

BRO IS GETTING POSSESSED BY THE SIGNAL TOWER LMFAOOOO

ok so otto created this contraption that allows noone’s dreams to be projected onto a screen

but the screen was all blinding and static-y and showed a creepy eye looking at him….

the signal tower’s transmissions are gonna leak into your world bro do you have any idea what you’ve done [it didn’t really but. this would have been an interesting way the story could have gone]

ch 6: the lonely way

she reappeared somewhere that was not her bed?? weird

nawww he’s just using her now

i was wondering why otto was calling the candleman the ferryman but it’s because that’s what cece called him… and that’s what we know him by because of six…

“a doctor’s coat, a pink tutu and shoes, and a yellow raincoat”

THE RAINCOAT BROOO (and ik otto reacted strangely to the fact that it was yellow which is why ppl think cece is six but i’m not sure yet)

“tan trenchcoat” that is SO mono

“a shape in the distance. an outline of a door,” DONT OPEN IT DONT OPEN ITTT!!!!!

“it’s a liquid” it’s the signal tower goop! do not open the door bff!!!!

I KNEW THE DOOR WAS GOIJG TO HAVE AN EYE ON IT GOD DAMN IT DONT OPEN IT!!! THE THJN MAN IS IN THERE!!!

ahh shit the door is creaking open

wait the candleman is behind the door? not the thin man?? maybe this specific door is the bridge between the worlds then (bc noone said it didn’t have a doorknob on it which i’m pretty sure it did in the game)

“where is my sister” wait is cece his sister :00

ohh that’s why noone asked if the picture otto had was of his daughter because she looked so young…. but he just lost her at a really young age

the stairs are going every direction at once?? this HAS to be the signal tower. or some dream-like manifestation of it at least

all the stars noone sees in this place are EYES i KNEW it!!! the facade is crumbling!! it’s the signal tower!!!!!!

the door merging into faces of children… probably the children that were taken to feed the signal tower….

nawww he’s going to start experimenting on another kid now 😭

wait so did the candleman just… take noone away????? I NEED MORE EXPLANATION HELLO??????

wait if it was the lady that was the weird mannequin it would make sense for her to have the raincoat in her chest wouldn’t it because of the pictures in her chambers of (possibly) rcg???

so if rcg IS her daughter then she probably would’ve gotten the raincoat from her

or maybe CECE is rcg….

idk i’m going to have to look up more theories now

[spewing my ‘rcg=flashlight girl and the lady’s daughter’ nonsense]

[trashmouth-richie]

HIH 16

 “Let's have fun tonight, okay?” she begs, “it isn’t every day Eddie’s old decrepit ass turns forty.”  <- I dead ass had a moment of trying to figure out how much of a time jump had passed before reading “he’s twenty nine, Maxine,” 😂

Their cabin home in the woods 🥹

“sorry we’re late, the missus was wrappin’ a last minute gift.” 

Me: Ooh Wayne got himself a lady!

Also me:

“I ain’t here to see you anyhow, came to see my favorite daughter in law to be if you’d just marry her already, didn’t even know it was your birthday you little punk.” 🥹

“I really hope you have liability insurance because Argyle is trying to teach Dustin yoga.”

“Cutting countless heads of hair in the renovated room above Master Mechanic’s, the auto shop Eddie co-owned with Wayne in Bridgeport” YES👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

  “Lady evil at it again,” Eddie teases (Me to Me: UGH REMEMBER HE DEDICATED THAT SONG TO HER AND THEN EVERYTHING WENT TO SHIT??🥲)

He holds his hand on your cheek, sweeping your skin delicately with the pad of his thumb, holding you so gently as if you were made of porcelain, “I’m gonna make you my wife.”  *tears up*

Your fingernails scratch lightly down his chest, skipping over the tattoo of little angel wings and a halo for the unborn child you didn’t get the luxury of holding, matching the one on your inner arm. The date etched below in Eddie’s own handwriting. *FUCKING SOBBING*

Opening your soul to him for the millionth time, spreading its wings and joining with his into that dream land he swore he’d take you to, dancing on the rings of Saturn, bathing in the springs of Jupiter.  <- IT’S BACK😭

ZIGGY!!!!😭 How the hell am I suppose to go through life knowing this series is coming to an end??? I know I’ll gets blurbs and snippets but I just love them so much!😩 I LOVE YOU (AND ALL YOUR WORK). Fantastic as always. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

god you always always ALWAYS give the best reviews.!!

Hahaha the time jump was necessary bc it’s just been so heavy. The blurbs will take place between now and after the trauma. Hahaha max is such a shit I love her.

HA. Listen Karen needs a *man* and Ted just wasn’t cuttin it. Byeeee

Since we were robbed of Eddie and Wayne I always imagine him to be just a little shit with him but also so serious and giving him the worlds best advice when it matters most.

Huffy Steve is my favorite Steve, I love him 😭

They needed to Gtfo of Hawkins and Bridgeport is the made up town reader lives in in twinflames 😭😭 (y’know? That abandoned fic I have) lol

Lady evil and the little tattoo were things I thought about at the very beginning of this story that I wanted incorporated. 😭💕

that line took me so long to figure out, literally added the day I posted it hahaha

The tattoo for the baby 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 breaking my own heart.

To date that Saturn and Jupiter references are my favorite of all time.

B I love you so so much, you have always been a constant since the very beginning of this silly fucking blog. Hypin me up when you were my only follower lmao. I love you bitch. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[gaybd1]

Casually admitting to Islamophobia in my dash? Classy.

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god please be joking

i am gonna respond to this either way bc who fucking knows on this website

i know you’re referring to this post and i am once again asking you to use basic reading comprehension skills

Or if you can’t do that, then imagine

You are six years old and have lived your whole life in a white suburban ultra-Christian ultra-conservative area

You can’t think for yourself because you’re SIX YEARS OLD and also fucking autistic as hell like not even able to function independently so you just. Absorb the opinions of everyone around you, especially people you respect like family members

9/11 happens. You watch the footage of people dying again and again and again for days and nobody ever talks to you about it???

You’re constantly surrounded by people who blame an entire group of people who had nothing to do with it and justify war for no real reason but YOURE SIX YEARS OLD so it must be true

Also everything is so fucking sensationalized in the media and imperialism and Islamophobia is EVERYWHERE including school where you have to watch Baghdad being bombed live when you are 8 because “we are heroes” ????

This just becomes truth and reality at that point

You’re still scared as fuck every time you see anyone visibly Muslim because you’ve been taught that they all kill people

Anyway when you’re 11 you start to get your own thoughts like “I think maybe this war is actually fucked up but I don’t have the knowledge or the resources to articulate why I think that?”

It turns out a kid you’ve known actually most of your life is Muslim. And he doesn’t even “look” like it? And… he’s not dangerous?? So at 11 years old when yOURE FINALLY DEVELOPMENTALLY ABLE TO FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS you start slowly unlearning all that shit you were taught

So I mean, yeah were those thoughts privileged and fucked up? YEAH. No excuses there. And for what it’s worth I’m sorry that I used to think that way. But I think someone who sends a message like this really fails to grasp

How fucked up and imperialistic and hypernationalistic shit was for a while there (I mean did it ever end? Lol debatable but it’s at least a different kind now)

That kids DEVELOPMENTALLY don’t have the BRAIN CAPACITY to form their own opinions about stuff like that?? Like what was I gonna do, read into it in an era when it wasn’t even normal to have a computer with internet??? Fucking dumbass

The reality of how echo chambers and brainwashing still are today. Like. Having information IS a privilege and if you live in a world where EVERYTHING screams one thing at you, it’s really hard to break out of that shit

Like Jesus Christ, cancel me if you want, I’ve been unlearning shit my whole life. I got over my homophobia in a similar way to this in middle school, transphobia in high school, fucking white supremacy in college. I JUST in the last couple months started reprogramming myself from evangelical Christianity lmao like.

People are always learning and evolving and that’s why I fucking HATE this cancel culture or dragging shit up from when someone was an actual child… like hey we are all shitty people who think and do shitty things. What’s important is that we try to get better and grow and are able to move on while apologizing to the people we’ve hurt, and show a REAL desire to change for the better

[ropes3amthoughts]

Long ramble of my thoughts in a diary entry-esque format that felt too ridiculously long to post without a cut before it:

At work (I can’t spend the money btw bc I’m a minor and I don’t have my own credit card or like financial independence so my parents just put it somewhere. I thought they were saving it for college but apparently my mom plans to put it into my retirement fund? Ok this wasn’t what I was going to talk about in my rant at all but I just need to say that sounds like a total scam. Save up like a million dollars for when you’re 62 years old? What the fuck am I gonna do with a million dollars when I’m that old? Buy snacks that’ll kill me instantly? Buy a trip somewhere and then get dizzy in the plane because I’m old as shit? What could a 62 year old do with one million dollars wtf why not just put it in an account with normal interest now so I can like have it for when I need it/want it? What if I die before 62 is my money just wasted? Sounds like a horrible plan to me. I know it’s like to last me but I feel like if I turn 62 years old I’m dying the next day I don’t have a model healthy life style my ass is making it like maybe 70 at most. I feel confident that I do not need a million dollars in my 60’s. I don’t have a million dollars on me by the way I’ve only made like $3000 but with interest my mom said it’ll be like a million when I’m 62 and like man can’t I just like have my money now I could like give it to people who need it now or like use it for college like c’mon now why are we gambling on me needing it 45 years in the future wtf I am scared of even being like 18 years old or like 30 years old like 62 is some crazy fuckin numbers and I told my mom I didn’t want to but she never listens to me so she’s probably doing that anyways smh bruh)

Ok anyways what I was originally saying was at work I was struck with the thought of the Dungeon Meshi fandom becoming one of those notoriously evil fandoms (like Voltron) after season 2 of the anime airs and I felt like Kate from Alpha and Omega when she has that prophetic dream of the different wolves fighting (ok that’s a cringe ass reference but like I was kinda like her in that one scene and it’s so funny to me at least) like oh lord bruh that’s gonna be me fr I can already see all the people getting insane over ships especially since in the latter half of the manga the characters get closer and form new bonds and stuff and it’ll be a mad house with people saying what ship is better and what not dude I can already see like the KabuMisu foot massage scene, the Laicillle Succubus scene, the Marchil marriage scenario thing, the scene where Marcille is longingly staring at Falin in the ice, the scene where Kabru says he wants to be Laios’ friend, etc. etc. like all of those scenes are gonna be like putting an apple in a container of 20,000 meal worms put in 500x speed the people are gonna go mad I tell you and I am afraid

I think what spurred this is I’ve seen a handful of my buddies like diss each other (though it’s not been direct like fighting it’s more like they show a screenshot of one of their posts and be like “yikes” or vague them or stuff) plus I’ve been on Twitter (ok that’s my fault I know I know Twitter sucks) and people were getting into the stupidest arguments about shipping like the one “Laicille is hated because it’s straight” thing getting like 40k likes and people were being like wildly homophobic n stuff and like it dawned on me that once season 2 comes out and like however many thousand people come back plus the new people coming in too it’ll be like that times however many bajillion people and that’s crazy idk if I could put up with that Imma fall to the floor sobbing especially if anybody asks me to like a pick a side or some shit like I don’t even care about ships that much 😭😭😭 Idk if it’s bc DunMeshi has like no romance or if it’s just one of those medias where I don’t ship anything lmao because I’ve gotten in a handful of those like Subnautica and Hollow Knight were games I came out of shipping nothing and DunMeshi was the same for me like after people pointed out ships I was like that one “what the hell sure” meme and just went with whatever but I just didn’t ship anything reading it and I’m not even really attached to anything now and I’m just kinda whatever y’know

Man this is kinda awkward now because this was gonna be like a post post but it’s just like awkward rambling I’d tell my friends but now that I’ve said it all at once and with a bit of a like undertone of me telling it to an audience (a tumblr audience) I can’t really organically share it with my friends anymore so I guess I’m still sharing it with you guys? Idk I feel weirdly share-y tonight that’s probably not a good thing. I’m gonna play a game after I post this I think. What game? Idk imma just look at stuff and figure it out as I go lmao but imma have fun and play uh bye to anyone reading this

[elysia-nsimp]

Oh btw I feel like I should mention that some of my art is meant to be like, fake movie screenshot style??

I use frames from Disney movies for the sketch and poses (like for the base shapes if that makes sense?? am I making sense??) But after the base shapes and pose stuff I turn that layer off and draw the rest of it in my style

I forgot to share the og screenshot from a few of those drawings so lemme do that now lol

^ I struggled heavily with the hand here, so I had to go back and trace that hand in order to figure out the shapes in it. I now have a way better understanding of that hand pose and think I could do it on my own.

Anna is canonically what Comet’s face shape is supposed to look like, so that one cheek line is much closer to the og than Jonah is like, generally. It was not intended to be quite that close to the og—if I went back and redid this one I’d definitely adjust those two things to be more me rather than using the og as a study crutch

^ again I have learned a lot about hands since I made this (which wasn’t even that long ago tbh) and now I’d probably do smthn different with it anyway. The rest is pretty much all good from what I recall

Anyway I’m making this post because I want to be transparent about my Disney references art. They’re NOT my original poses in the slightest! I’m also still learning, so most of this is because I like the Disney style and want to learn more about it. Please lemme know if I missed smthn, and in the future I’m gonna do my best to not forget the og screenshot in the posts so uhhh if I do pls remind me! /gen

Oh also most of my base sketches have been erased and modified bc that’s how I work but if anyone needs pictures or short clips of the sketching process just to be sure lmk

[croissantbae]

May 21, 2023

For some reason these blog posts are my real markers of time (I’m referring to the date stamp). In my job I feel like I don’t pay attention to dates as much. Outside counsel will do that. Or even if I do put in a date stamp it’s just kind of check the box. When I put in the date stamp for these posts I actually register that time has passed, that the year is flying by.

This year everything seems to be starting later (or maybe it’s always this way and I just didn’t realize before? It’s end of May but it still feels like we’re in early to mid spring. I feel like mays are usually warmer than this. Tho I’m expecting june gloom to come. Omg I feel like I’m writing an old timey journal where I talk about weather patterns.

I also feel old timey bc I want to talk about growing vegetables and fruits. Jason and I can’t get over our peach trees. We went out there today to give them fertilizer. Then after dinner we went to dig out some of the compost dirt and I put it on the peach tree that seems to be growing the most peaches.

Anhaya while we were doing that the girls were in the house watching tv but after we come in I was like wait what’s that. And there was a big chunk of poop on the floor. But it looked like someone had cut it off. I looked at Dani’s diaper (she wasn’t wearing pants) and I can see it smeared on her leg and butt and she’s clearly walked in it. I immediately grabbed her and threw her in the bathtub and washed her. Jason did damage control in the living room steam mopping the floor and using the couch water vac cleaner. Ugh!!! It was sooo gross. I was like Dani you need to get poyyy trained asapppppppp.

Then Jason put her to sleep but she really didn’t want to. He put her in the crib and she started crying and crying. And we were trying to put naya to bed. I was saying goodnight. But then I hear Jason go “wait…” and then I hear the doorknob turn and Dani’s footsteps come out. She crawled out of the crib on her own!! It was so shocking. We were all like wait what just happened. Dani was recovering from her crying so she was just like so sad. And Jason wanted me to put Dani down so I was like Dani I’m gonna put you in the crib. But at the mention of crib she starts crying immediately. I was like Dani are you scared? And she replies. “Yes. Skawed (scared but baby talk) of cwib.” So cute. But game changing night…

[hibiscusheir]

Katsuki Bakugo x shy!Reader

a/n: more mha since it's fresh in my brain TwT- also! i have a request I am working on!! if you have any more, feel free to send them to me! i also can answer questions if you have any :]

Genre: Fluff

Pronouns: No specific ones are mentioned, can be taken as fem, masc, or gn :)

Contains: Bakugo x Reader, Hawks x Reader, Dabi x Reader

CW: Cursing, probably very OOC, reader has a bit of social anxiety, bit of overthinking, self indulgent ngl, mention of alcohol

Katsuki Bakugo

Katsuki had invited you to hang out with the two of yours's group of friends, the Bakusquad. Mina and Denki had it all planned out: all of you would meet up in Katsuki's room at six o'clock PM (6pm) and play card games, eat snacks, drink a little bit of alcohol (at least until you all got tipsy), and overall have fun.

"I dunno, Katsu..." You had replied to his 'invite', knowing well you could only handle so much social interaction in one day.

"If you need to leave, just give me the word. I don't care if they'll miss us, you're more important to me. But at least try." His words were soft, not pointed like they usually were. It made you sigh and nod your head.

You all met up and began the festivities that night by playing Uno. The usual events were happening; Katsuki yelling at Eijirou and Denki for supposedly cheating at the game; Mina and Hanta dominating the game; you were watching it all unveil.

You had noticed your anxiety beginning to spike as you spoke less and less as the night continued after the game was over. No one had really taken notice of this, besides Katsuki who held your hand for a moment, looked you in the eyes, and let go, continuing on talking to Eijirou. It wasn't until Mina asked you a question that things began to go downhill.

"Hey, (Y/N)! Do you want a drink? We've got whiskey, tequila, wine... we could probably go find something else if you want?" She tilted her head to the side holding her own glass of wine.

"Uh..." you paused, unsure of what to say. It was a school night, and you probably shouldn't be drinking in the first place. But would they think you were lame? You had known all of them for a few months since you started dating Katsuki, but there was still a possibility. "N-No thanks, I'm alright-!"

Denki scoffed, "Lame!" but swiftly murmured an apology as Katsuki smacked him upside the head. Everyone laughed but you. You were stuck in your own head. Of course, you were lame. How could you fit into this group? You shouldn't have even come, you knew this would turn out badly. You knew-

"I'm turning in for the night with (Y/N). You guys continue," Katsuki announced to the group, standing up and walking over to you. He held out a hand for you to grab and pull yourself up. You did and he led you to the door, still holding on. No one protested and simply said goodbye. "You looked spaced out back there. You probably didn't realize it, but you were shaking. You do that when you're anxious," he didn't look at you and instead keep his gaze forward as you two walked down the hall to your dorm room. "They're annoying as hell. Don't beat yourself up about it, babe."

You smiled and leaned your head into his shoulder. When you finally reached your door, you opened it, pulled him inside, and kissed him softly as you shut it behind you. "Thank you, Katsu. It means the world to me."

He grumbled and kissed you again.

-

a/n: i’m actually so sorry this took so long to post- it’s been sitting in my drafts for like a month and i just had no motivation to write. at first it was gonna be a handful of characters x reader (separate) and then i narrowed it down to three and, again, had no motivation, so i just cut it off to bakugo. i still hope you enjoy this and hopefully it won’t happen next post :) also, refer to my oc post bc i may make a post about them <3