#but it’s been like *just living my life*

[markrosewater]

I want to speak out against the whole push towards DEI. I feel that ever since you made the push to make identity the forefront of a character it has hurt the stories you tell. Captain Sisay's race was never the focus of her character and she was a complete badass! And I fear if you did it over again Gerrard would be trans, black and disabled just because. It also cheapens the stories of world devastation when characters worry more about their gender than Bolas destroying everything.

The reason I started this blog is so we can have frank conversations about things, so please let’s talk about this.

Imagine if every time you turned on the TV or watched a movie, no one looked like you. For some of us, that’s never happened. We see ourselves constantly, so it’s hard to truly understand what not seeing yourself represented in media is like.

I do have a personal window to this experience. While I am white and male, there’s an area where I am the minority - my religion. Jews are just under two and a half percent of the US population. I have had many experiences where I’ve been in situations where everything is geared towards a group I do not belong to, and zero consideration is given that not everyone at that event is part of the majority.

You just feel invisible and like an outsider. It’s not a great feeling. And I just experience it a tiny portion of time, only things that are geared specifically towards something religious. Most minorities have this feeling all the time, whenever they’re outside their personal community.

Now imagine, after years of not seeing yourself ever, you finally see someone that looks like you, but nothing about the character rings remotely true. They don’t sound like you, they don’t act like you, the facts about their day-to-day life are just wrong. It’s clear whoever wrote the character didn’t truly understand the lived experience of the character, so the character feels fake.

You bring up Sisay. Michael Ryan and I didn’t technically create Sisay (she played a small role in the Mirage story), but we did do a lot to flesh out her character as the creators of the Weatherlight Saga. We turned her from a minor character into a major one.

And while I’m proud, in general, of our work on the Weatherlight Saga, I don’t think we did justice to Sisay as a character. Neither Michael nor I have any knowledge of what it’s like to be a black woman. Nor did we ever talk to someone who did.

And if you’re someone like us that has no knowledge of that experience, you probably didn’t notice. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Imagine if we made a movie about your life, and we just made everything up. We invented people you never knew, we gave you a job you never had, and we had you say things you’d never say. The movie might even be a good movie, but your response would be, but that’s not my life - that’s not me.

Now imagine we put the movie out, and people that never met you assumed that was what you were like. When people met you for the first time, they assumed things, because, you know, they’d seen the movie.

That’s what misrepresenting people does. It not only makes them feel not seen, it falsely represents them, spreading lies, often stereotypes, making people believe things about them that aren’t true.

Our move towards diversity is just us trying to better reflect the world and the people in it. We’re trying to do to everyone else what a certain portion of people get every day without ever having to think about it.

But why are we “making it the forefront of their character”? We’re not. We’re making it a part of their character. But in a world where you’re not used to ever seeing it, it feels louder than it is. Things that are a natural part of the world that you’re used to feel like the background of the story because you understand the context to it.

If a man kisses his wife before going off to a battle, that’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing a husband might do to his wife when he leaves. It’s not the forefront of his character. It’s just part of his life. But you’ve seen it hundreds of times, so it feels normal.

When someone does something that isn’t your lived experience it pulls focus. It seems like a big deal, but only because it’s new to you. It’s just as mundane a thing to that character as the man kissing his wife is to him.

Even the turn “pushing” implies that it’s unnaturally here, that we’re forcing something that naturally shouldn’t be. But why? That thing exists naturally in the real world, and it doesn’t make the real world any less. Maybe you’re less aware of it, but is making you aware of how others live their life “pushing” something on you?

How you live your life is represented constantly, everywhere. Why isn’t over-representing your experience at the expense of everyone else’s “pushing” it? Why is media only being the experience of those in power the “proper way”?

Having more depth and variety doesn’t lessen stories. It makes them deeper, more rich, more nuanced. In short, it makes them better stories. In my former life, I was a professional writer. I took a lot of writing classes. One of the truism of writing is “speaking truth leads to better stories”.

There’s another famous quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” You’re used to being over-represented, so being a little less over-represented feels like something has been taken from you. But really it hasn’t. Having a better sense of the rest of the world comes with a lot of benefits.

I’ll use food as an example. Let’s say all you were ever exposed to was the food of your heritage. Yeah, that food is really good, but sometimes isn’t it nice to eat foods of other nationalities? Isn’t your life better that you have a choice? Isn’t your exposure and access to the food of other nationalities a positive in your life?

Exposure to variety is a positive. It allows you to learn about things you didn’t know, experience things things you’ve never experienced, and get a better sense of understanding of your friends and neighbors.

Our actions are not to harm anyone, and if you think that’s what we’re doing, please take a minute to actually absorb what I’m saying. You’ve spent your whole life metaphorically eating one type of food, and we’re just trying to show you how much you’ve missed out on.

And while this might not impact you directly, we’re making a whole bunch of people felt seen. We’re bringing joy. Think of it this way. We make a lot of cards. Not every card is for you. But if it makes someone else happy, if they get to include it in a deck, and it makes Magic better for them, how is it harming you that we include it? You have so many cards that you can play.

To this poster or people that share their viewpoint, the narrative that a gain for someone else is an attack on you is just not true. As I just pointed out above, you play a game all about personal choice, about players getting to choose how they play and enjoy the game. Why should life be any different than Magic?

Thanks for reading.

[catcrumb]

after 5 years of running this blog, i've made the decision to open up a patreon!

my life circumstances are changing, and patreon will greatly help me make ends meet and pay rent. nothing about this blog will be changing - i'll still be posting a cat doodle every day, same as i always have.

i have a $3/month tier and a $6/month tier - both work as tip jars, with the latter being if you feel especially generous and can afford it.

right now i have transparent and/or higher-resolution PNGs of certain catcrumbs that i've used for redbubble up for members, if anyone wants to make emojis or such. i'll also be taking requests for drawings to be transparentized and/or put on redbubble. in the future i may start offering additional rewards - bonus art, requests, maybe physical stuff - but my life needs to settle down a bit before i do anything like that.

your money is of course yours to do with as you see fit (and there are many many good causes out there that i urge you to donate to), but i hope that if my little drawings have given you joy over the years and you have the room in your budget, you'll consider supporting me!

i also have a kofi and redbubble if you'd rather support me that way!

no matter what - i genuinely appreciate all the kindness i have been given. i try very hard to keep catcrumb a self-driven art exercise - just one cat a day, doesnt have to be perfect or even good, just has to be a cat - but i couldn't have kept up the hobby without so many people's joy. it's been a genuinely incredible experience for my silly little scribbles to have positively touched people's lives - in-jokes between friends and partners, a gentle reminder, tattoos and baby clothes, something to look forward to... it's really been a flood of human kindness.

thank you all so much for all the joy - here's to more! :~D

[crimeronan]

with the pain scale poll making the rounds on chronic illness tumblr, i DO want to add the caveat that you Generally Should Not use that scale with unfamiliar doctors.

like, if you gotta go to urgent care or the ER for something related to your illness. Do Not Use A Reasonable Scale.

on the scale i wrote, a 5 (exact middle of the scale) means, "i am actually crippled from this pain and unable to live my life normally, BUT i retained the ability to drive here and walk inside unassisted."

PEOPLE WITHOUT CHRONIC ILLNESS REPORT THAT AS A 10.

for the majority of people without chronic pain, ANY pain that's significant enough to go to urgent care counts as a 10. i've been reliably told by EMTs and paramedics and nurses that they often get answers of "11" or "700" when asked to rate between 1 and 10.

when a doctor hears you say 5, they think, "ah, so this pain is mild and not distressing. it's just a little annoying." ie: about a 2 on the scale i wrote.

always, always, ALWAYS up your estimate by 3 or 4 points when you're interacting with a new doc. you MUST communicate, "this is urgent and needs urgent attention."

assume everyone else gives a 10 when they've badly pulled a muscle in their lower back. adjust your estimate around that.

[suntails]

i want the vanrouges to go on a trip TOGETHER

[headspace-hotel]

This year has, so far, been for me a series of rapid realizations of what I have been unlearning.

I went to the library. This was a couple weeks ago. I knew I needed to read a book, fiction. I hadn't done so in over a year and it was the longest period of time I had ever gone without doing so. I made a rule: I would only pick books I had never heard of, by authors I had never heard of, and I would not do any preliminary research or even bother to look at what the book was about. I would make my decision on whether to read or not purely on my impression of the title, cover and opening lines.

The book was The Connoisseur by Evan S. Connell. It was kind of a random selection. I sat down with it in a corner of the library and straight up devoured it. I tore through the book within a few hours, without taking a single break. I was captivated. I couldn't put it down.

It is a book about a guy who buys a Mayan figurine in a knickknack shop while he's on a business trip. and becomes obsessed with pre-Columbian sculptural art. There isn't really much of a plot apart from this. He goes to sketchy antique shows, has conversations with museum curators, wealthy art dealers and forgers, and seeks to learn how to distinguish a genuine pre-Columbian piece from a fake one. It was written in the 1970's, so the views on Native Americans are antiquated and sometimes offensive, and there is the troubling thread of the very concept of looting another culture's treasures and treating them as collectibles, though the book is not without commentary on this.

All the same, it was a completely intoxicating read. The vicarious experience of becoming fascinated with a topic and having it unfold a whole world for you was ferociously gripping, and so was the intrigue of the art collecting world itself. The frauds, forgeries, smuggling, museums, academics, aristocrats, auctions and seedy flea markets. Will he ever be able to tell if a piece is "real?" Does it matter if it's "real?" Why does he want to own and possess a piece of art, and how does its "realness" affect that desire? The book leaves you not knowing what to think.

It is a book about curiosity, portrayed in the narrative as a totally unreasonable lightning bolt that strikes a man who has never been fascinated by anything and changes him forever. Why? Why does a Mayan figurine, in particular, speak to him? Why does any piece of art, or any fascinating thing in the world, speak to anyone? It is unknowable.

I went to the library again. I picked a new book using the same rules. This book was Fragile Beasts by Tawni O'Dell. Just like the last time, I was totally captivated. I couldn't put it down.

Did I have a couple major problems with the portrayal of some important aspects of the story? Yes. (It would make the post much longer to discuss.) Was I completely captured by and invested in the story for the time I was reading it? Also yes. The book braids together several very different strands-- the story of a legendary Spanish bullfighter and a wealthy American woman that he loved, two brothers stuck in an ugly family situation after their father's death in a car accident, and a rich old heir to a Pennsylvania coal mining fortune and to the sinister underbelly of her family's business.

There was a lot about baseball, which I know nothing about, and bullfighting, which I know nothing about, and I certainly don't know anything about being a teenaged boy who resents and mistrusts his estranged mother, or an aristocratic old lady who lives in a mansion and eats fancy Spanish food. It was fun to experience so much unfamiliar stuff and to care about things I wouldn't normally care about. Once again I couldn't stop reading until I had finished it.

I don't know that either book was "good," though I thought they were both well written; I just know that reading them was like being hooked up to an IV of something essential and life-giving and feeling it reanimating my body.

It had been a year since I had read any fiction, but it had been much, much longer since I had loved to read. As I became an adult I had become picky and critical about books, and developed a highly sophisticated sense of my taste and the books I considered good- which were very rare. My taste in books became so sophisticated, eventually, that I didn't like books at all anymore.

I had almost withered away from deficiency of that essential nutrient known as STORY. I'd almost crumbled myself into dust from pretentiousness! I may have been terribly wrong about the kinds of things I liked to read, on top of it. And I certainly hadn't realized that story was such an essential nutrient.

"Just entertainment" the pretentious sorts of people might say of a book they think is useless-- but what is entertainment but to absorb your mind in something, and what is absorbing your mind in a book but to experience things you would never have experienced? It expands you and makes you more complicated. It is the study of human existence itself.

Now all I have been able to think about today is finishing my work and going to the library again...

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch7. if u wanna get groceries

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 7/x

ᰔ words. 10.3k

a/n. hiii my ihm darlings!! i don't have much to say in this beginning author's note haha but i have some author's notes at the end if you want to read them. but anywho hope you enjoy this chapterrr :)

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Ovulation is a very scary thing.

You can imagine many great women have had their lives greatly affected by this phenomenon. 

This biological release of an egg into the fallopian tubes, simply desiring to be fertilized.

Women who have had their hearts set on their dreams, aspirations, full speed ahead towards the finish line on the other end,

Only to be dragged back by–

You shudder to even mention.

Attraction to a man. 

So horrible.

So insane.

So humiliating.

And yet so–...

So natural.

Unfortunately.

You’re pretty sure Sabrina Carpenter has a song about it.

This is what you think of as you lean over the kitchen island, perched up on your elbows as you eat a peach, staring straight ahead at a certain fake husband who is seated on the couch. 

He’s looking at the TV, watching some SNL skit he didn’t get to finish last weekend, tilting his head side to side with his grey sweatpant clad legs stretched out onto the coffee table in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He’s got a can of Celsius he’s swirling around with a loose grip, his elbow up on the cushion for a more lax resting state (which unfortunately also flexes his bicep very sexily from the positioning), and he doesn’t really seem particularly amused by what he was watching. And for some reason, it was hot.

You tilt your head to the right, watching him like a predator from across the hall, chewing down on a particularly juicy piece of peach that bursts its juice in your mouth, and you curse the fact that all you can think about right now is sex.

Sex.

When was the last time you had sex?

You postulated a little over a month ago when you and Choso were still together.

Granted, you’ve been too busy and overwhelmed and overstimulated with all the recent happenings of late to provide your own self with any sort of relief.

And God, it was showing.

Showing in the way that, no matter what, you can’t seem to shake the idea of wanting to sit in Gojo’s lap and be the second reason he never gets to finish watching that SNL skit. 

Maybe it will help.

Maybe sitting in a man’s lap right now would heal you.

You set the now naked seed of peach down on the counter before straightening yourself up and walking around the kitchen island towards the living room. Gojo’s eyes don’t flicker to you until you’re well in his periphery, and when he looks up at you, he straightens himself up on the couch with curious wide eyes and drags his feet off the coffee table to plant his feet on the rug.

You pull your grandma nightgown up to your knees so that you can sit in his lap, surprise evident on his face as he watches your every movement before you’re comfortably seated on him with your hands on his shoulders.

“Fuck me,” you tell him.

“Wh–” he stutters, “I’m sorry, I could’ve sworn you just told me to fuck you.”

“That’s exactly what I said.” The heels of your hands press into his chest further to the point where it has to hurt. 

“Is this a prank,” he asks as his hands fall to hold your hips on reflex.

You sigh, shifting around on his thighs. “Can you just do it already before I change my mind?”

“Wow. That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

You roll your eyes. “Alright. I’ve changed my mind.”

You push off of his shoulders and stand up on one leg, ready to get up and away from him to find some other way to satisfy your desperate desire for a penis, but he reaches out to grab your wrist.

“Heyyy wait wait wait,” he says, pulling you back into a seat on his lap. “Why do you want to have sex all of a sudden?”

You exhale slowly, twiddling with your thumbs as you look at him. “You said it yourself the other day,” you say, “good way to relieve stress.”

“And you’re not gonna kill me afterwards?”

“Umm no promises?”

“Look, as much as I’d like to take you up on the offer, a part of me thinks you’re making a…rash decision here.”

“Oh my fucking god who cares if I am?? Maybe I just wanna fuck for the sake of fucking?? What’s the big fucking deal??”

“The big deal is that, knowing you, you’re not going to speak to me or look me in the eye for three weeks if I let you go through with something you’re not a hundred percent on.”

Your shoulders sulk a little. You thought this would be an easy yes, where he tears your nightgown off and then ravishes you whole on this couch with every primal caveman instinct that’s encoded in his XY chromosome DNA. This was supposed to be spontaneous and sexy…not a candid conversation.

The thought flashes through your head that maybe he thinks that you’re just trying to use him.

“I want to have sex with you,” you clarify. And then a pause. “I think.” You pause for a moment again. “I’m, like, pretty sure.”

He slides you back to where you’re sitting closer to his knees than to his groin, and then fully leans back onto the couch before tucking his hands behind his head like he was physically putting himself in cuffs to prevent himself from touching you any further. “Tell you what. Let’s circle back in an hour, and if you still want to, then sure.”

“I cannot believe how diplomatic you’re being about this.”

“Well isn’t this whole thing between us a diplomatic agreement? That’s what you said to me when we got fake engaged.”

“That–” you blink at him, not expecting those words to eventually be used against you, “...whatever.”

“Also, what happened to the no sex rule?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grins and leans forward, both of his elbows settling onto the top of the cushion behind him, and you’re proud of yourself for only staring at his biceps for 0.000034 seconds before meeting his line of sight again. 

“Are those rules just suggestions?” he asks with a stupidly teasing look on his face. 

You purse your lips together, skin feeling warm suddenly as you try to push him away by a palm to his sternum. But then you realized something. A fundamental rule of biology. The woman never chases. 

You smile at him, cheeky in a deceptive way that’s meant to scare him, and it does seem to alarm him when you push him back onto the couch rather forcefully. His hands fall to hold your hips again as he looks at you with round eyes, and you scoot forward on his lap, to where you’re almost sitting right above his groin. 

“Hey–” he says, like a warning. 

Like some awful romantic comedy, you’re drawing the tip of your nail down the front of his chest seductively, leaning forward so he catches the faint scent of the perfume you spritzed onto your skin in the morning, and you can tell it’s working from the way he tips his chin up in interest. You innocently “shift” in his lap to get comfortable, and see his throat bob when he swallows hard from the feeling. The finger that’s been running down the soft linen of his shirt trails up until it runs through the hair at the back of his neck, and he’s pulling you closer to him now by a rough grip on your hips. His breathing picks up, eyes somehow wild yet calm as he looks at you with a set jaw, and you try your best to maintain a sultry expression as you tilt your head down at him while strongly fisting at the longer strands of his hair that fall short at the nape of his neck. He shifts underneath you, sinking further into the couch, his breathing fast enough to where you can see the rise and fall of his chest, his gaze finally dropping to your lips as he parts his own, and he briefly runs his tongue over his bottom lip before–

Before the doorbell rings. 

You both blink at each other.

You don’t even realize how close you two were to making out until you realize you can’t even see the tip of his nose anymore. 

“My, uh,” he starts, voice sounding gruff so he has to clear his throat, “my wood just came.”

“Y–” you glance down at his lap, “your wood just what?!”

He leans away from you, sinking his back into the cushion and pointing over his shoulder with a thumb towards the door. “The cedar planks I ordered to finish my woodworking project. Pretty sure they just got dropped off.”

You blink at him, releasing the grip you still had on the hair at the back of his head, your arms moving to weakly rest on his shoulders instead. “Oh.”

“I’ve gotta go sign the delivery.

“Okay.”

“Sometime today, preferably.”

“Alright.”

“Can…can I head to the door? Is that allowed?”

“...I suppose.”

His fingers that were still resting under your butt in a strong grip push up gently on the flesh to prod you off of him, and you (reluctantly) swing your legs off of his lap then slump down onto the couch indignantly beside him, twiddling with your thumbs as you watch him get up off the cushions with a small grunt from the push of his palms on his knees. And then he heads to the door.

Continuing to assess your cuticles with the tuck of your chin towards your collarbone, you hear Gojo talk to whoever was at the door. Another masculine voice. Sounds younger, probably younger than you. Delivery boy. Gojo makes easy conversation with him, some buddy-buddy diction that’s entirely lost on you, and you hear the other man laugh. And the fact that you feel equally as possessed to want to fuck the delivery man makes you realize you need to put yourself in a cage the next time you feel like this.

You hear the door close along with the metallic click of the lock, and you peak your head up over the top of the couch to look at Gojo, who is leaning a giant cardboard box that looks really heavy against the wall. He then exhales, dusting his hands off and he’s stretching his neck from side to side again.

He glances over his shoulder to find you still looking at him.

“You woodwork?” you ask him.

“Yes.”

“Wait. Is that the noisy thing you do at six in the morning while I’m trying to sleep after a night shift?!?!”

“It’s not that noisy,” he says, leaning back onto the wall and crossing his arms. Then he grins. “Want to see what I’m working on?”

“No.”

“Oh come on.” He jerks his head towards the kitchen leading out to the screen door of the backyard. And then he’s shuffling his feet off into that direction. “Humor me for once.”

You slide off the couch onto the floor, grumbling something to yourself before you stand up onto your feet and shuffle your feet across the hardwood floor to follow him, the hem of your nightgown sliding across the surface.

Gojo pulls the screen door back and you step out into the pleasant afternoon. It’s sunny, with crisp air that settles on your senses, the casted shadows of clouds that slowly pass over the grass reminding you of your childhood, or perhaps of simpler times.

You step into the flip flops you see near the shoe mat, and they are nearly twice the size of your feet. Gojo opts for the dustier pair located behind the grill and then he walks across the grass of his backyard towards the shed tucked away near the side of the house. You’ve always been able to briefly see this shed from one of the windows in your house, but you could never see what went on inside. 

He unclasps the metal lock on the wooden door of the shed and pulls it open with a creak. You peer inside, the smell of wood shavings and some other rather comforting chemicals hitting you almost instantly. You also sneeze. And then sneeze again.

“Bless you,” he says, and when you glance at him, he’s smiling at you before he takes a step inside. You cross your arms and rub your elbows, feeling feeble in your ditsy nightgown as you step into a space that looks far too industrial for you. 

“See?” Gojo says once you’re fully inside the shed with him, drawing your gaze from the dusty ceilings towards the covered structure in the center of the workspace. He pulls the blue tarp back, revealing something square-looking. “It’s a coffee table.”

Your eyes widen slightly as you tilt your head to assess it. “Oh. It’s–...it’s actually quite nice.”

“Yeah.” He knocks on the surface with his knuckles. “It’s pretty sturdy. I’ve been looking to replace what I’ve got in the house for a while now. And–” he straightens himself up again, pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “That wood I just got delivered is black walnut. Stunning stuff. I’m going to use it to finish the corners and the cabinets.”

“Ahhh,” you say, expressing interest. I mean, you were intrigued by his many strange hobbies. How can you explain this…you suppose after many years of working, sleeping, eating, and taking care of your mom, it's somewhat pleasantly disorienting to find yourself in the middle of a normal person’s life. Someone who has time to woodwork in his free time. Endearing. It was kind of endearing. 

“I’ve gotta flip it over though,” he says with a sigh, “I fucked up and forgot to build the base first.”

You lean back on one of the cabinets behind you that was level with your hip, and you watch Gojo for a moment as he bends down to assess all angles of the table before he grips the underside of it with his hands, the strength of his grip evident in the strain of the veins running up his arms and disappearing into the short sleeve cotton of his shirt. 

But he glances up at you before moving it. “Can you stand over there?”

“Huh?” You blink at him.

“Don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Oh,” you say, and realize you were standing in quite literally the exact zone of potential danger. You make a mental note to work on your survival instincts. 

You lean off of the cabinet and step off to the side. 

You watch as he begins to lift up on the table, his biceps flexing with the movement, oh and that grunt that leaves his lips once he’s got it at the angle he wants hits you somewhere you wish it didn’t. The sight of him leaning over, letting out a slow exhale as he slowly sets the table down on its side over the cushioning mat had you in a trance. 

Once he’s satisfied with wherever it’s at, he steps away from it and dusts his hands off. “Alright.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Got an hour to work on this.”

You nod at him.

He glances over at you. 

You stare at him.

He stares at you.

“Did–...did you wanna watch?”

“Nope,” you say, shuffling your slippers to the other side of the door. Because you fear that catching the sight of him all sweaty and disheveled from woodworking would get you into serious trouble today. At least you know when to call it quits.

In the hour that Gojo spends doing god knows what sort of manly sorcery in that shed, you get dressed into something that wasn’t a cozy nightgown much to your dismay, and head over to your house next door. You figure you could use this time to clean up the place a little so that you can take pictures for the house on Zillow. 

When you step inside the house, the nauseating smell of medication hits you. It’s a smell that you can only know if you’ve lived with it for years. Something artificial, something that smells–...well, sick. It’s a scent you associate with sickness. It hits you randomly sometimes with the patients that you treat at the hospital. Patients that smell just like your mom does. Something akin to a pill closet. You’ve always cursed the human tendency to assort semantics to certain senses, because then it only takes away all the healing you thought you had gotten through.

You walk down the hall towards your mother’s bedroom. You figured you’d start here first, since it would be the most difficult to clean for you. Her bed is set up neatly, exactly as you left it before she left for hospice three weeks ago. 

Her well-worn rocking chair sits near the window with the old knit blanket she made over twenty years ago draped over it. It faces the window instead of the inside of the house, which was a habit she always had throughout her life. Maybe as an art teacher, she always felt that whatever was outside was more intriguing than within. 

You run a hand by the sturdy wooden dresser covered in dust and scattered medications, along with all of your mother’s draped headscarves. She liked to change them every day, the pattern of each of them aggressively absurd and somewhat hypnotizing, but it fits for her age–that sort of clothing. Your mother used to have beautiful hair. It was something all her friends had always been jealous of. She made the decision to shave it all off rather than watch as it slowly detangled from her hair from chemo, and she claims to have stashed it away somewhere, but you know that she likely donated it instead.

When you make it to her desk, you see paint splattered over it with a rusted easel holding up a blank canvas. But there were swipes of paint across the palette, as though she were trying to find the perfect blend of colors, but failed before she could put brush to canvas. Beside her little art setup, you see a little sticky note with scribblings on it.

Morning tea

Medications- Gabapentin 600 300

Today is Thursday. Oct 16th

800 432 5555 call Dr Johnson 

Turn off the stove

At the very bottom:

- daughter. Nurse. She loves you

You suck a deep breath in, releasing it slowly.

This was an impossible task.

To stuff all of this away into boxes. 

All of this life.

You slowly peel the sticky note off the desk, folding it neatly before placing it into your pocket. Then you start with the canvas, the easel, the paint. Exactly as is, without cleaning anything at all, you stache them away into boxes. You wanted to preserve what you could, even if it was all for show.

By the time you finish cleaning out her desk, you feel winded from emotions. You decide to take a break and try to clean whatever was upstairs instead. Before you leave the room, you see another sticky note written behind the door.

remember ! wear your sweater, it’s cold today

And that’s when you start crying. 

.

.

.

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

”Hey,” you say as you walk back into Gojo’s house in the early afternoon, holding up a digital camera that you found in the attic in your hand. “The upstairs of my house is cleaned out now, and I’m almost done with the downstairs part…just waiting on finishing one room. Can we start taking photos to put the listing up online?”

Gojo glances up at you from where he’s stood in the kitchen, tugging at his sleeves, and you just now notice he’s dressed up in a dark navy suit with a white shirt underneath. No tie. “Uhh yeah I can help you with it, I’ve just gotta go run a few errands and then we can do it when I get back?” He ruffles his hair a bit and you see that it’s slightly damp like he just took a shower.

“What errands?”

“Gas, amazon return, Costco. Maybe get a donut if I’m feeling like being a bad boy.”

“Ew. Also, why don’t you get gas at Costco?”

“It’s a little cheaper at Sam’s Club.”

You gasp. “You have a Sam’s Club membership??”

“Yes.”

“You’re a traitor.”

He rolls his eyes as he pushes his shoulders back to get better settled into his suit jacket. “I have a Costco membership too.” 

“Can I come?”

“What? For–...for the errands?”

“Yes.”

He blinks at you from the other side of the island, brow furrowing slightly. “Uh. Sure?”

You know it sounds silly to say, but not having to take care of someone twenty-four-seven has left you with little to no sense of purpose, and an even more intense feeling of loneliness. And as much as Gojo gets on your nerves from time to time, you’ve noticed that you’ve been…craving his presence lately. Or maybe a presence might be more accurate than any one specific person, but you can comfortably admit it to yourself that you’re a somewhat codependent person that enjoys being largely implemented into someone’s life. You’ve even started borderline nesting in his home. You bought two new fluffy throw blankets for his couch, set up a bowl of fruits at the center of the kitchen island, and stocked up on laundry detergent, even though he already had two backup boxes. It was driving you crazy. This feeling of having too much free time and personal space than what you knew what to do with.

And it had been a while since you went to Costco. The holy land for all adults. 

“Can I get this? Ohhhh what about this? Can we get this too? Wait. Wait. Brown sugar boba mochi?!” You hold the packet up into the air as if it were baby Simba in the Lion King, and then you turn to Gojo, clutching the bag to your chest. “Please?”

He exhales, leaning over the handle of the shopping cart and levels his gaze with you. “...no.”

You sulk your shoulders and sigh as you put it back.

He begins to push the cart down the aisle again. “You do realize that you have disposable income too, right?”

You trail after him. “No. I don’t. I’m in six figures of debt.”

He nods. “Fair.” And then he grabs a stray bag of brown sugar boba abandoned on top of the instant rice boxes then places it into the cart. 

You watch as Gojo makes his rounds around Costco, very diligently aligning all the items in his shopping cart and assessing the quality of each thing he crosses off his list before deeming it worthy of purchase. Much different than your usual Costco run, which involves a lot of chaos and sweat. And he feels very husband material like this. Breaking no sweat to put the garden fertilizer in the cart shelf meanwhile you would’ve pulled your back out trying to do the same if you were on your own.

As you two make your way through the store, you get stopped by the post-office man, and then the local judge, and then the elderly couple that runs the church's weekly Bingo nights. All greeting you politely with a quick exchange of words and usually a sweet regard for your mother’s health before passing on by. You keep having to introduce Gojo as your husband, and many of them already know who he is, despite the fact that he’s only lived here for a year, which royally pisses you off to great extents, but he’s a social whore so it makes sense. And then all of them coo sweet things like wow, what a beautiful couple and you’re so lucky to have each other and my oh my he’s very handsome and at this point you would pay someone twenty bucks to say something like well she’s a looker! good for you! to Gojo because you’re sick of him always getting the ego boosts. When asked where you guys went for your honeymoon, you both say “Greece–” “Maldives–” at the same time in typical unrehearsed fashion. One of the town locals even asks when the two of you are going to have a baby, and you almost snort your free sample of San Pellegrino out your nose.

Perhaps the only thing that keeps a little pep in your step is the fact that everyone greets you first before they catch the familiar sight of Gojo too. It’s a small thing to celebrate, but when you’ve lived in the same town your whole life, it becomes somewhat of a prideful and wholesome thing when the town librarian, local mechanic, and farmer’s market lady all stop you in your lovely little Costco stroll. It was all in a day’s work.

“Jeez, you’re hella famous, y/n,” Gojo says as he continues to push the cart down the aisle after you just got done catching up with the volunteer Fire Chief.

You toss your hair over your shoulder at him. “Yes. I am somewhat of a princess in this town.”

“Does that make me your prince?”

“No. You’re my filthy peasant.”

“Alright…I like where this is going…”

“Get your nasty degradation kink away from me, you perv. This is Costco. It’s the holy house of God.”

Once you two make it to the wine section, you stare at bottles of dessert wines and hear Gojo talking on the phone off to the side.

“Hey, Sana. I’m at Costco right now. Do you guys need anything? I already got Juno’s muffins,” he says into his phone as he places two containers of blueberry muffins into the cart. You eye the raspberry cream cheese strudels. “Huh? Cornstarch?....If I tried to look for cornstarch at Costco, I’d be here for three hours.”

“Satoru,” you say to him once he gets off the call, tugging at his sleeve, “could we get those Haagen Daz ice cream bars? They’re so good.”

“No,” he says, pushing the cart down the chip aisle before he grabs a bag of tortilla chips. “We can’t get anything that needs to be frozen or refrigerated. I’ve gotta go prep a house that’s in the area since we’re out this far. I’ve got an evening showing.”

“What?!” you exasperate, “I thought we were just going home after this!”

“I never said that.”

“I can’t believe this. I had been dreaming of grabbing those ice cream bars since you mentioned the word Costco back at home. You could’ve brought your little cooler thing that you keep in the garage.”

“Well, I didn’t know that you wanted to come with me,” he says. “My original grocery list had seven non-perishable items on it.” You both glance at the cart, which was almost entirely full of things that you put in there. Things that nobody ever needs. Like a bladeless desk fan and an electric wine opener.

“Ah,” you say.

He smiles, leaning over the cart handle again and pushing it forward again away from the chilly air of the cooler section. “Retail therapy?”

You pout a little. “I haven’t had the chance in years.” You glance at the cart as he pushes it. “I should probably take it all out now.”

“It’s fine,” he says, “I’ll get you your bladeless fan. And whatever the fuck those other things are.”

You stop walking, blinking blankly at his back as he continues to wordlessly push the cart forward. There’s about a five second delay before you finally start trailing after him.

By the time Gojo finishes loading everything into the trunk of his car as you merely stand by for emotional support, and then he comes back from the long trek of returning the cart, you’re absolutely winded. You’re not sure why, because again, you haven’t really done much all day. But God damn, you forgot how exhausting it is to be a regular functioning member of society that contributes to the economy on the weekends (you didn’t pay for anything).

Gojo wordlessly takes off from the Costco parking lot and just when you think he’s going to get back onto the freeway to get to this house of his that he needs to prep, he jumps into the parking lot of a small shopping area before he parks his car in front of a smaller grocery store. 

You give him a puzzled look.

“Hold on,” he says before clicking his seatbelt off, “gotta go get that cornstarch.”

“Wait—” you say, reaching out to grab him by the sleeve of his suit jacket as the most intense sensation of FOMO you’ve ever felt in your life overtakes all of your senses. “I’ll come with.”

He quirks a brow at you. You’re not surprised at his confusion. After all, you’ve been acting like some drug addict in withdrawal of social proximity to him all day long. But you’re at least glad he doesn’t express any further bewilderment and allows you to follow him inside the store like a duckling.

As Gojo veers off in the direction of likely corn starchiness, in a confident manner that would suggest he’s been to this store many times before, you meander about the aisles at your leisure. You get lost in the bustling colors of produce stacked neatly on top of one another, such that they could rival the great pyramids of Egypt. Not to mention, processed foods lining the wall right next to it. This was what suburban life is all about. Matter of fact, this is what dreams are made of. 

“y/n?”

Oh, fuck. That voice is definitely not what dreams are made of.

The opposite, actually.

Nightmares.

You hear that voice in your nightmares.

You turn on your heel to find none other than your ex boyfriend, he who shall not be named (Choso Kamo), standing right behind you as he holds a grapefruit in his hand, blinking at you dumbly with surprise apparent on his face. 

“Wh—” you briefly stutter before the automatic scowl settles onto your face. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m buying fruit.”

“For what?”

“What do you mean, for what? To eat, obviously.”

“I don’t know. I’m not convinced you wouldn’t try to fuck that grapefruit. Given you have low standards for what you stick your dick inside of.”

“Uh?…I’ve stuck my dick inside of you plenty of t—”

“Shut it!!!” you yell at him, then turn away with a wince on your face. “I didn’t think it through before I said it.”

“As usual?”

“You’re being a jerk. You know who I meant when I said that.”

“Okay. So, you don’t think things through before you say them. And I continue to deflect said things. Let me know when anything’s changed between us, y/n.”

You cross your arms at him menacingly and unwaveringly glare at him as a meek mother pushes her young son by the shoulders away from the two simmering adults having their savory conversation within the produce aisle. You’re about the snark out another comment but then the automatic water sprayers interrupt your flow. And also a scrawny employee drops a giant box of eggplant onto the ground before placing them onto the produce shelf.

“What are you doing on this side of town? You’re never out here,” Choso says as he sets the grapefruit back onto the stack.

“I don’t know. What are you doing here?”

“This is my new go-to grocery store.”

“Why not go to the Trader Joe’s that we always used to go to? It’s way closer to you.”

His shoulders sulk slightly at that.

Oh.

Oh.

So, he’s been driving an extra thirty minutes each weekend to go grocery shopping on the other end of town,

Just so he doesn’t have to run into you anymore.

“Look…y/n,” he starts, “it’s not that I don’t want to see you—”

“Choso—”

“It’s just that you accuse me of fucking inanimate objects everytime I do see you.”

“I literally do not care if you do or don’t want to see me.”

He narrows his eyes at you, his gaze flitting downwards to your crossed arms, something catching his eye.

You glance down at yourself, and you catch the glimmer of diamond underneath bright fluorescent light.

“Oh come on,” Choso grumbles, “don’t tell me you actually wear that thing twenty-four-seven.”

“I’m a married woman, Choso. It’s what married women do.”

He clenches his jaw at that, tense enough to cause a vein strain in his neck, his brows narrowing into contempt, but just before he can say anything else, an arm wraps around your waist and you’re being pulled back into a broad chest.

“She’s pretty, huh?” you hear Gojo say and you blink up at him with your chin tilted towards the ceiling, and you yelp as he possessively pulls you in closer to him as he establishes jarring eye contact with Choso with that same old easy grin on his face. “Thank god I’m the one married to her.”

Choso almost blows a fuse at that. “I know she’s pretty,” he says through gritted teeth, “for six years, I was the one that got to f—”

“Ahh!!! Sale on tomatoes!!!” you interrupt the crass and ridiculously toxic masculine energy in the air as you wiggle out of Gojo’s grip then run over to the pristinely stacked romano tomatoes, picking some of them up and holding them like precious commodities. “Maybe we can make some tomato soup with grilled cheese tonight, honey???” you say with a forced smile towards Gojo as you now hold fifteen tomatoes in your arms, a couple of them falling to the floor with a bounce as they roll away.

“HEY!! LADY!!” the scrawny eggplant stacking employee from earlier yells out at you. Some late teens kid with acne speckled across his face and shaggy brown hair scattered over his forehead, somewhat slick with either gel or grease. “I just set those up!!! YOU SQUASH ‘EM, YOU BUY ‘EM.”

“Sorry,” you squeak out, putting the tomatoes back onto the display somewhat haphazardly before grabbing Gojo’s arm and tugging him towards the exit. “Let’s get out of here, please.”

“Huh? I’ve still gotta pay for the cornstarch though,” Gojo says, hardly budging despite your best efforts to womanhandle him.

“No time for that, we leave now. They don’t have cameras here, anyway. I already checked.” You continue to tug on his arm, your body leaning at an almost forty-five degree angle towards the exit as you struggle to get some drag to his feet, but again, he doesn’t budge.

You don’t know exactly why you so adamantly want to restrict Gojo from interacting with Choso, but maybe a part of it was embarrassment. You didn’t want Gojo to find out what Choso did to you and what an absolute fool he had made out of you. It would hurt your pride.

“Isn’t this guy a cop?” Gojo asks as he points his thumb towards Choso. “And you’re telling me to shoplift in front of him?”

“Can you just be on my fucking side for one second?” you grit at him, yanking on his sleeve so hard you almost tear the cuffs out of the holes, and he finally sighs before relenting into a gait towards your general direction.

As you hug Gojo’s arm tightly to keep his momentum towards you, you walk backwards and send Choso a nasty glare. His eyes are wide, studying you and Gojo together as you get further and further away from him. And for a brief, brief, brief, ever-so-slight fleeting moment of love and familiarity and the sight of his dark hair curling at the nape of his neck and the memory of warmth when he used to hold you in his arms in bed on cold winter mornings, you find that you miss him a little. But only a little. You swear that it’s only a little.

Gojo still makes a pit stop at the register much to your pleading dismay, but as always he has zero regard or interest for your melodramatic outbursts, but at least he shoves the extra change from the purchase into his pocket in a somewhat timely fashion so that you two can head out the door in your artificial haste.

In the car, you quickly click your seatbelt on and then have to watch Gojo as he takes his time clicking his back into place and enter some address into his car. You see the ETA on the GPS, and how it shows that this address is roughly thirty-four minutes away.

Once he gets onto the freeway, your mind begins to wander back to seeing Choso at the grocery store and how the sight of him rattled you. You twiddle with your thumbs in your lap nervously, shift around in your seat, chew at the edge of your nail, and Gojo seems to notice this.

“You know, having lived in this town your whole life, I would think you’d be used to the discomfort of running into people you don’t want to see,” he says.

You sigh. “Yes. In theory. But with Choso, it’s–…it’s different.” You hesitate.  “It’s just that—” you try again before worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, “it’s just that, sometimes I don’t get him.”

Gojo is silent for a few seconds as he stares straight towards the road before he responds with, “What do you mean?”

“Like, he avoids me like the plague, and then begs me to go back to him, and then he pretends like I’m just a nuisance to him, and then when he sees me with you, he acts all—…I don’t know…all—”

“Jealous?”

You sink into your seat. “Something like that.”

“Hm. Yeah, to be honest, I don’t know. But you’re not wrong to find it strange.”

Feeling strangely validated in your feelings, you sit there twiddling with your thumbs and then glance out the window. There’s a silence that lasts maybe ten seconds before you say,

“Thanks for interrupting back there. Although, you don’t have to try to deliberately make him jealous anymore. Even though I know I literally asked you to do that. Which makes me a woman of severe psychiatric ailment. Of which I am slightly embarrassed about at the moment.”

“Nah,” he says as he turns the right onto the freeway entrance. When you look over at him, he has a smile on his face. “I like it. It’s never boring with you.”

Unsure if that’s a compliment or some shade of insult, you say, “and that’s a good thing?”

He shrugs, releasing one hand from the wheel and curling the other in a tight knuckled grip at the top of it as the car drives steady down the freeway. He rests his right elbow on the storage console. “Well, it’s different from what I’m used to.”

What are you used to? You so badly want to ask him.

But a flashback to his childhood bedroom at his parent’s house comes back to you.

Yearbook signatures, trophies, and photos abandoned underneath a bed.

You almost don’t even want to acknowledge that he has lived a life before you.

Was that self centered? Or perhaps childish? Or perhaps all in human nature?

You decide not to respond, instead directing your attention to the world outside the car window. The blades of grass dance across the shoulder of the road, all greenery following suit in the same swift motion. You watch as the land slowly turns from developed to more and more remote, yet still cozy and charming. Fields of green, vineyard arrangements, a wooden sign for a winery, a picturesque red barn house, a small cattle farm, an old town church with a bronze bell, hills of empty acres that are just begging to be touched by some great idea or civilization.

You’re privy to change in texture underneath the wheels as Gojo makes a turn onto gravel road about two miles after getting off the freeway. He drives up a hill, maybe a forty-five degree angle, with the crunch of rocks rubbing against the tread of the tires and you see a more distinct, purposeful arrangement of short decorative trees that line the properties of this narrow gravel road. They were large houses, sitting on slightly slanted hills that were all a part of a bumpy landscape that extends for miles. Some had formal fences, some had chain links, but all had expansive yards with no clear distinction of boundary, where the backyard could be the front yard too if only you had the imagination for it.

One house in particular catches your eye. It’s a pretty two story house with a detached garage or perhaps shed, painted in a dusky auburn with dark wooden paneling and structure. It sat near the top of this hill, the front yard being a steep upwards slope of grassy terrain that stretched for the full length of the property, about a hundred yards. The backyard dips behind the back of the hill, downwards into some territory you cannot set eyes on. But it’s stunning. It was gorgeous. Serene. With views of lush green surrounding its every corner. Intimately located, yet open enough to fresh air in which you almost feel one with the world. And in the early evening light, it looked like heaven.

You let out a slow exhale as you take in the sight that looks like a painting to you. There was something so romantic about a home. For as long as time, humans have enjoyed personifying objects, such as boats or planes or cars or  trains. But what could feel more of a living thing than a home?

You hear Gojo click his seatbelt off beside you and you glance over at him. You click off your own seat belt and open your door, stepping out onto the gravel road.

Gojo comes around the car and approaches you, holding a folder in his hand with papers you can only assume have information on the property listing. You also hear the jingle of keys in his pocket as he pushes his hand into it. 

“Got about,” he glances at his watch, “twenty minutes to prep. Oh, and if my clients ask, I’ll just introduce you as my assistant. And we’ll pretend that we have some sort of inappropriate workplace relationship. Just to intrigue them. It’ll make the house more memorable. Sound like a plan?”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever gets food on your table.”

You watch as he pushes a copper key into the rusted lock that was clipped onto the chains holding the fence together, guarding the property. He yanks it down once he’s unlocked it and then pulls the fence apart, opening the way to head up the house. It borders on a feeling of trespassing, but you trail closely behind Gojo as he makes his way up the grassy hill, reminding yourself that he has the clearance as a realtor.

You glance around the property a bit more. There’s a small pond in the dip of one of the smaller hills, fuzzy with moss and some small fish you can see snapping at the surface of the water. Off to the right of it, there are similarly moss covered stone benches, small and antique. Perfect to sit there and watch the sun set behind the house. And towards the left, a small gondola with arranged stained glass stepping stones. 

“Charming, huh?” Gojo says over his shoulder at you, and you realize he’s caught you staring at everything in awe.

Gojo makes it to the veranda after lengthy strides across the broad concrete steps that lead to the most stunning hardwood door you’ve ever seen in your life. He turns around to glance at you when he realizes you’re still stuck at the bottom of the steps, digging your heels into the ground underneath you.

“It’s–” you start, looking across the landscape while melancholy washes over you, “...I just can’t believe that someone gets to live here someday.”

He pushes his hands inside of his pant pockets, silent for a few moments. “Is everything alright?”

You look up at him, the question threatening to make the rawness in your throat burn even more. “Yes, I just–” you scoff at yourself a little before turning back to face the little pond, now further in the distance, “I just realized that I’ll probably never be able to afford a house in my life, so I’ll never really know what it’s like to have a realtor show me around a home I could potentially one day call my own. It’s something that sounds so surreal to me.”

There’s a silence that lasts for three seconds, and when you look up at him, his gaze is soft.

“Alright,” he says, jerking his head towards the direction of the door with his hands still lax in his pockets, “let’s take you on a tour of this one, then.”

You blink up at him, heart beating a little faster. “O-...Okay.” And you hop up the stairs to meet him at the top. The fragrance of wild roses and lavender brush past your senses as the leaves sway with the breeze. 

The moment you enter inside, you’re greeted by a faint trace of vanilla lingering in the air. The foyer is warm, inviting, with soft oak floors that creak ever so slightly with each step you two take forward into it, proving the life that it’s lived. To your left, there’s a spacious living room that glows with the golden light of the early evening sun that has started to gently make its descent from high up in the sky. Filtering through sheer curtains, touching your skin from afar, you glance down at your arm and the glow of heaven that’s been imprinted on it. 

Gojo walks further into the living room, pulling the curtains back a bit and then opens one of the windows by pushing up on it. A small draft reaches you as you walk towards him. Off to the right in a corner is a fireplace, the mantle adorned with wilting candles and creased old books.

“Is it wood-burning?” you ask Gojo.

He nods his head. “Can easily convert it to gas if that’s something you’d like better.”

There’s a sense of joy in your chest at the way he continues to play along, pretending as if your opinion truly matters–as if, just for now, you were a serious contender to make this place your home. 

“No,” you say, tracing a finger over the dark wood of the mantle, collecting withered dust. “I like it better like this.”

As he leads you into the kitchen, set your eyes on the marble countertops that meet soft sage cabinetry, the window behind the sink overlooking the rolling landscape of the backyard. You stand on your tiptoes to get a better view of what’s down the hill, and you see a small trickling creek that flows down the valley. Your gaze diverts towards the countertops and you see an elegant collection of mismatched china.

Spinning on your heel, you find Gojo leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest as he watches you inspect every inch. “When were these appliances last updated?” you ask, running your hand across the oven handle.

“About fourteen years ago.”

“Ah, they’re a little old.”

He smiles at you. “So the tolerance for vintage charm ends with kitchen appliances?”

“Charm is cute,” you say, a little cheekily as you move on without him towards the staircase, “but not when the house burns down because of an oven gas leak.”

He hums from behind you as he follows you, and you can hear the smile on his face through the sound alone. “You’re looking out for the right things.”

The staircase, with its dark wood railing and white balusters, curves gently upwards into the second floor. Just like your own home, the third and first steps creak beneath your feet. You always loved the sound, although you know most people attempt to fix such things in a house. For you, it felt like each step had a story, and some were very vocal about never being forgotten. 

The upstairs hallway is lined with more windows, filling the space with the same golden glow that now dances across the soft, tapering wallpaper that has begun to peel around the edges slightly. Your feet wander on their own with a sense of grace that seems to have taken hold of you. 

The first bedroom you stumble across is small, but still enchanting. The bay window has a small reading nook with cushions piled up on the surface, inviting the image of lazy afternoons spent lost in books as the world beyond the glass panes flutters in the wind. The queen-sized bed in the center of the room is minimally dressed and faces an oak dresser that was leaning slightly away from the wall in a crooked fashion. 

The room across from the first bedroom appears to be a study. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are bolted to the walls and a vintage writing desk sits by another window where the changing light of day turns the room into a living painting. Your mother crosses your mind. And how much she would’ve loved this window. You could picture her setting up her easel and canvas here, painting away with strokes that could threaten even the beauty of the view outside the window. You think about how much joy that would’ve brought to her. 

In that same trance, you walk down the hall to the end with Gojo following behind you. You push through the set of double doors that lead into the master bedroom. It was spacious, yet intimate, with vaulted ceilings and a four-poster bed draped in airy linen curtains. Sitting across from it is another fireplace surrounded by two picturesque little chairs. One with a square backrest colored a dark burgundy, and the other with an oval backrest colored a pinkish opal. Between the two was a small table that had a stack of a few books. 

The attached en-suite bathroom appears timeless, with a clawfoot tub resting beneath a wide, arched window that offers the view of the rolling hills in their entire glory. The marble vanity has vintage brass fixtures that reflect the soft glow of the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling, one that takes the shape of the roof of the house. 

You hear tapping on the window to your right, and when you glance over there, you see a tree branch bothering the surface due to the wind. 

Your eyes also catch the faint bordering corner of wood beyond the frame of the window.

With wide eyes, you turn to Gojo and point in that general direction. “Is that…?”

“The balcony,” he says, then nods, “it’s connected to this room.”

He leads you out onto the wooden platform, the floorboards warm under your feet from the early evening sun. It stretches out about ten feet and wraps around the entire back end of the house, with easily the most breathtaking vantage point you’ve seen thus far. An entire view of the creek that disappears into the valley, the image of dancing wildflowers on distant rolling hills, the sun that continues to glow in the distance, and a gentle breeze with the faintest hint of salt, as though from a distant ocean. It felt like its own quiet little world. A place where time slows, and you can just be as you are. It was difficult to put into words, but you had never felt more at peace in your entire life.

Gojo leans over the sturdy yet worn railing as he glances down at the grass near the foundation of the house. You come up beside him, loosely curling your hands into a grip around the rusted metal.

You see him turn his face to you in your periphery, but you continue to stay staring ahead.

“So…what do you think? Can you picture yourself living here?” he asks you as a soft brush of breeze passes by. 

“Well–” you start, but then a sobering thought flashes through you, “wait, Satoru, what happened to your clients?”

“Oh, yeah,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket to glance at it, “they texted me about ten minutes ago that they weren’t going to make it.”

“You should’ve told me. We could’ve left.”

“Well, you seemed like you were in some sort of trance while you were looking around. I was scared to interrupt it.”

You breathe in deep and then let out a slow sigh, your shoulders dropping slightly. “Mhm. The house is beautiful. And, yes, I could picture myself living here.” 

More than just that. It was like a dream house. The one that a person would see in fleeting memories right before they pass, as it holds all of their most beloved ones. That ethereal, it was. 

He hums softly. You look over at him and find him blinking slowly. The wind brushes through his hair, ruffling it up gently, to where you could see the blueness in his eyes a little more clearly. That, too, was ethereal. 

“Satoru,” you say.

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

He continues to stare at the horizon. “Sure.”

“Where did you live before you moved here?”

“New york city,” he easily tells you.

But the answer surprises you. “R-Really?”

“Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“Really long.”

“Mm. You don’t seem like it.”

“Like what? An asshole from the city?”

“Mhm. Just a regular asshole.”

He laughs. You feel the rumble of it from the way your shoulder was pressed up against his arm. 

“Do you ever miss it?” you ask him. But the question was not one that you had thought to say. Rather, it felt as though it was placed on your tongue by someone else.

You feel his shoulders rise slightly with the deep breath he draws in as he leans over the railing a bit more. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I still own a place there in downtown Manhattan,” he says, “but I don’t really plan on moving back there ever. So I was thinking of selling it and getting something out here instead.”

“Oh?” you say, “like what? Where?”

“This,” he says, pointing to the wooden panels you two were standing on, “this house.”

You blink, caught between surprise and something deeper. “This house?” you echo, your voice quiet. 

He nods, his fingers tapping lightly against the railing. “Yeah. Although, I still show it to people if they’re interested. It’s been on the market for over three years though.”

You let your gaze drift over the balcony, the way the light softens against the weathered wood, and suddenly, the house doesn’t feel the same. Like it carries more weight somehow. Like it feels more real, more alive. And maybe that’s what makes a house a home–the intent to belong in it. 

"You see that greenery over there?" he asks, his arm stretching out as he highlights an area in the distance with his hand, "aaaaall the way down there?" Now pointing at the creak.

"Mm," you squint, "uh-huh!"

"Believe it or not, those are all avocado trees."

Your eyes widen and then you look at him. "No way."

He smiles. "Yeahhh. Three-point-four acres of 'em. And they're all a part of this lot."

Your smile matches his equally as nerdy one. "Wow I bet you loooove that.

"I do," he grins, and then gratuitously sights, "all I can eat guacamole 'til the day I die."

You snort.

"Yeah, anyways, that's why no one wants to buy this house," he says, "guess how much it costs to water them per month.”

"Mm, per month?" you look up to the golden sky, "a few thousand?"

"Try a hundred-and-fifty thousand."

"What–...I beg your finest fucking PARDON?!?!"

He laughs. "Yeah that's usually the reaction I get when I end a tour of this house on that note."

“That’s so insane…what’s the point of buying the house, then?”

"Avocados are hard to grow, they can be finicky, but all the land on this lot is extremely fertile," he says, "and if you can import the produce, it actually ends up being pretty lucrative." He points across to the dip in the hill behind the creak. "You could turn that place over there into some kind of ranch, too. Or a wedding venue, and rent it out. I don't know. The property has a lot of investment value. But the house itself is a bit dated. Would need some work."

"Like a fixer-upper on HGTV,” you offer for the conversation.

"Yeahhh. Something like that."

"Mm," you hum.

"Y’know, I was on HGTV once."

"What?! There's no way."

"Yup. House hunters."

"Bullshit. I would've known. I have seen every single episode since I graduated college."

"Oh, well, this was back when they still had Design Star on. I was like twenty-four or something. Fresh new realtor."

"Oh right. I was still in college then. I forgot that you're ancient."

He gives you an irritated side eye.

"So...will you be fixing up this house?" you ask him. His hobby of woodworking starts to make a little bit more sense.

"Maybe. I don't know if I'm too young to be thinking about retirement yet...but that's kind of what I was thinking of turning it into. A dream retirement home."

"You're definitely not young. Don't worry about that."

He gives you another irritated side eye.

"What happens to your other house, then?" you say. "The one next door."

“Hmm," he muses, "I'll probably stay there another year or so and then rent it out eventually."

"You don't want to settle down there? Raise your kids there?" you blurt out. You immediately wince a little at the forward question, but wasn't that something people thought about when thinking of a house? Do they not imagine filling it with their own hopes and dreams? Do they not picture their spouse sitting on the porch outside, swinging with the wind? Do they not picture their children's laughter down the hallway? 

A shiver runs down your spine. You glance over at Gojo, who continues to stare forward towards the horizon, His brow furrowed ever so slightly as he's deep in thought staring out into the landscape as the golden sun begins to turn purple in the sky, casting a dimming glow on his face.

And you wonder. You briefly wonder what a home must mean to him, after having to witness his parents perish in the flames of the one that housed his childhood. 

"It's a nice house," he finally responds to you, "but a part of me wants to live faaaaar away from everyone and everything someday." A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, like he can already tell how contradictory you find that sentiment to be. Mr Grew Up In New York City wants to live in a quaint little cape-cod-esque agriculture farmland property miles away from major civilization? what was it about the city that changed him so much? “Just be at peace, you know. Plant a million more avocado trees out here in the middle of nowhere, and not have to worry about their devilish spawns dropping all over my cute neighbor's herb garden.”

You flutter your eyelids, the comment catching you off guard, before your entire posture softens. "Satoru...it's ok. I'll move my herb garden."

"Oh, you thought I meant you? I was talking about seventy-four year old Barbara to my right."

You sulk your shoulders and roll your eyes, turning away from him to face forward towards the landscape again.

He laughs. "I'm just teasing."

You glance over at him again, and there's that same distant stare he casts over the greenery in the distance. 

"I can't believe your dream in life is to become a farmer," you say.

"Ehhh. It's honest work." he exhales slowly. The sun is now sitting on the hilltop. "It's just a dream, anyways. Just a dream. I'm still allowed to have those, right?" It was asked with genuine curiosity. 

"Why are you asking me for permission?"

His eyes hood ever so slightly, a dip in his expression you can't quite discern. but it's evident in the way his gaze off across the horizon dampens. "Hm. I don't know."

You shiver a little as the evening wind brushes past, and Gojo catches sight of the movement. you mentally curse yourself, because you know that you've just cut this moment short.

"It's cold," he says, "let's get inside."

You try to think of ways to stay here. Ways to lengthen this moment. Ask him for his jacket and make some teasing comment about how he's not a gentleman. Or lie and say that you're not cold at all, that you run warm when you know all your life you've always had cold hands and feet. Or just tell him that you don't want this moment to end. Tell him you want to see the sun through its sunset. Tell him how you never want to step foot off of this house ever again.

"Okay," you whisper. 

And he leads you back inside, down the stairs, and as you stand out on the veranda, at the grassy hills towards his car, you implant this memory in your head, this feeling of standing on this home and dreaming as if it were yours. Before all it becomes is exactly that, 

Only a dream. 

.

.

.

.

.

[end of ch.7, ‘if u wanna get groceries’]

songs of the chapter:  groceries by mallrat  margaret by lana del rey

a/n. thanks so much for reading! this was a fun chapter to write, especially the house sequence. i think it’s mentioned in the chapter somewhere, but yeah…i just think there’s something so romantic and melancholic about a home :’’) i guess that’s a recurring theme in ihm, with reader’s childhood home holding the memories that her mother has lost of her, and then ihm gojo losing his parents to a destructive house fire, and also him being a realtor, and also reader planning to sell her house, and then the dream house in this chapter. it’s been fun breathing a bit of life into these different settings themselves. ah i also decided i want to include little “song(s) of the chapter” to the end of these! just as something kinda fun to do. i’d say these are songs that inspired me to write certain scenes within the chapter, or songs that i listened to a lot while writing the chapter, or songs i could picture playing during the ending credits if this were a tv show xd. but yeahhh!! also just a way to share music bc i love music lol.  big thank you to my beta readers mirl, leni, and ayelin for helping me out w parts of this chapter n giving me motivation to write it <33 i appreciate you guys sososo much!! i really attribute a lot of my writing motivation towards them, as i’ve been really busy but been able to write these lengthy chapters bc of their support.  i did kinda rush parts of this chapter just because i wanted to get it out on the weekend, so i apologize if there are errors or mistakes of if anything’s a little confusing or sudden. tbh i did want to spend a tiny bit more time on it but, that’s ok. fuck it we ball also! i just wanted to say a quick thank you to all of my readers and those that have stuck around for so long with me or maybe newer readers who have interacted or become invested w my works recently… i know that i am so slow w updates and sometimes inconsistent w it as well, life just gets so crazy for me and it’s a struggle to find proper time to sit down and write, and i wish soooo badly to put out chapters faster, but yea easier said than done haha. but all of my readers who continue to engage with lil ol’ me even despite all of that really means a lot to me, more than i can say :”) i still face self doubts so often w my writing, i’m halfway convinced i’ll never be satisfied w my craft, but the little interactions i have w everyone really make my day and push me forward to write even when it’s hard and i realized i haven’t really said a proper thank u to u guys for that as of late. plus i know jjk manga has ended and also i took a hiatus n also tumblr has lowkey been fuckin me over on the algorithm too lol etc etc i definitely have noticed i’ve lost some readers n engagement along the way, which i understand is natural n just a part of being a long fic author however daunting that may be, but i just really wanted to say a thank you to those who continue to be here irrespective of all of that. i appreciate everyone who sees value in my works enough to read them, follow up w them, interact w them, share them, like them etc. especially w ihm bc sometimes i feel so bad for the slow burn and the yap haha i’m sure some of you may be privy to the fact by now that this story will be very long and also so much more than just the romance. but…i find confidence from you all to follow my vision and i’m really grateful for that.  very likely that the next chapter is in ihm gojo’s pov :0 very exciting and makes me a lil nervous. for some reason i find his pov somewhat intimidating to write for loool. but hopefully i’ll pull it off.

much love!! there will be a delay in getting this chapter up on ao3 and also adding it to the masterlist etc bc i'll be away from keyboard when this posts from my queue, but everything should be updated by the time i'm back home tonight :) see you all in the next one <3 -ellie

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taglist is closed

[checkeredflagggs]

Money Bags

pairing: sugar relationship!charles leclerc x fem!reader

summary: everyone is pretty sure charles has a sugar baby girlfriend — why else would she be posting so many photos of gifts?

a/n: the start of my week of romance! This was requested by a lovely anon and I hope you like it!

a/n2: I don’t know any actual shops or restaurants in Monaco so generic names it is! Please pretend it’s those exclusive places for the rich and famous. I also don’t know what type of Ferrari it is 🤷🏻‍♀️

Masterlist | Taglist

Bluesky

user1: …so it’s definitely charles and his girlfriend right?

↳user2: honestly they might as well as posted their faces

↳user1: Right? Like it’s so obvious

user3: you know you can just write their names? It’s definitely leclerc and his new girl

↳user4: it’s hilarious to me that they think it’s a secret?

↳user3: seriously! It’s been nonstop photos of gifts and trips and fancy dinners since they got together

user5: you mean charles and his gold digger?

↳user6: usually I wouldn’t promote that kind of language but in this case…

↳user7: I agree — she’s gonna drain him dry and move on to someone else to do the same

user8: don’t be coy deuxmoi — just say its the gold digger and charles leclerc…

↳user9: 😂😂

cl_gossip

liked by user, user, user and 982,349 others

tagged: charles_leclerc, yourusername

cl_gossip: shocking absolutely no one — this Valentine’s Day is going to be a bank-braker. This massive bouquet was seen heading into Leclerc’s apartment building

view all comments

user10: 😂😂😂 god just keep roasting her

user11: honestly how long does she think it’ll last when she blows his money so fast??

user12: … 😱 …🙄🙄🙄

user13: what a slut honestly.

user14: my money is she moves on to max next…

↳user15: oh same

↳user16: ohh that would be an ideal threesome…

↳user15: seriously?

↳user16: am I wrong?

↳user14: …no I guess not

user17: tagging them though…

↳user18: right? I could never…

↳user17: I hesitate to even comment sometimes and they’re just out here tagging them on a post that’s dragging his girl…

↳cl_gossip: sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do

cl_gossip

liked by user, user, user and 992,184 others

tagged: charles_leclerc, yourusername

cl_gossip: continuing with the apparent theme of the day — Charles and y/n were seen Bijouterie Jewelry Store, which is one of the most exclusive jewelry stores in the continent

view all comments

user20: wow…a new way to spend Charles’ money

↳user21: Jesus leave them alone

↳user20: we’re just calling it like we see it

↳user21: you’re just being a bitch

user22: oh to have a boyfriend like Charles to spoil you…

↳user23: right? Ignoring everything above — she’s got the jackpot. He’s so attractive, kind, seemingly caring, and rich?

↳user22: I’m so jealous

user24: man I’ve always wanted to go to Bijouterie Jewelry Store…

↳user25: same! I’ve seen pictures but I just know the aura of the place is unmatched

user26: leave the drivers and their personal lives alone challenge FAILED

↳user27: oh thank god I’m not the only one to think that

↳user26: they’re famous yes but we don’t need to know everything about their personal lives — and they have the right to privacy!

cl_gossip has posted a story, yourusername has posted 2 stories

[I don’t even know where to begin with this one…that is a mega yacht —not one of Charles’…][ today is only the best ♥️ | what a lovely lunch with charles_leclerc ♥️♥️♥️]

user28 replied GOLDDIGGER!

user29 replied god leave them alone

user30 replied what a bitchy move

user31 replied Charles please RUN

charles_leclerc replied Mon soleil, aujourd'hui a déjà été le plus beau jour de ma vie...My sunshine, today has already been the best day of my life...

↳yourusername Attendez, car ce n'est pas encore fini! Just you wait then because it's not over yet!

↳charles_leclerc mon soleil…my sunshine

↳yourusername 🥰🥰🥰

francisca.cgomes replied you guys are setting the bar absurdly high…

↳yourusername of course 🥰

↳yourusername but just say the word and we can run away baby

↳francisca.cgomes 🤯🤯🤯

pierregasly replied stop trying to steal my girlfriend

↳yourusername never

↳pierregasly 🙄😑

user32 replied jealousy activated oh my god…

user33 replied i want your life…

user34 replied please post some more photos of Charles queen!

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, francisca.cgomes, pierregasly, and 2,923,91: others

tagged: charles_leclerc

yourusername: a new car and still a passenger princess 👑

view all comments

charles_leclerc: Je ne le ferais pas autrement, mon soleil. I wouldn’t have it any other way, my sunshine

↳yourusername: 😍😍😍

user36: RUN CHARLES

this comment has been deleted

user37: a whore and a gold digger…

this comment has been deleted

lilymhe: the prettiest passenger princess ever

↳yourusername: no that’s you!

↳alex_albon: why must you always flirt with our girlfriends?

↳pierregasly: i know

↳francisca.cgomes: 😘

↳yourusername: stop having such babes for girlfriends then? liked by lilymhe, francisca.cgomes

↳alex_albon: 🙄🙄

user38: he bought her a BRAND NEW FERRARI???

↳user39: I’ve never been so jealous of a bitch in my life

user40: ok but is anyone gonna say anything about the FUCKING HUGE ASS pile of gifts?

↳user41: I KNOW! Like damn…

↳yourusername: spoiling is the name of the game girlies…

↳user40: are you guys looking for a third? A maid? A dog? liked by yourusername

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri, and 3,128,183 others

tagged: charles_leclerc

yourusername: a last minute trip with my baby…

view all comments

charles_leclerc: ♥️♥️♥️

↳yourusername: my love 🥰

user42: leo!

↳user43: always a good day with a leo leclerc picture liked by yourusername, charles_leclerc

oscarpiastri: have a good trip dad!

↳charles_leclerc: thank you son!

↳yourusername: …yeah no. Thanks though osc! liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri

maxverstappen1: Air Max is still better

↳yourusername: stop being jealous!

↳maxverstappen1: 😑

↳charles_leclerc: mon soleil…

user49: god imagine being so entitled that you demand an expensive trip…

↳yourusername: lol

↳charles_leclerc: 😂

↳user50: ok but what does this mean…

charles_leclerc

liked by yourusername, arthur_leclerc, pierregasly, and 2,723,183 others

tagged: yourusername

charles_leclerc: Mon soleil, tu as mon cœur et mon âme depuis le jour où je t'ai vu pour la première fois. Je t'aime infiniment, avec ferveur, vraiment. Votre beauté, votre gentillesse, votre générosité sont exceptionnelles. Merci pour cette journée si merveilleuse aujourd'hui. Je n'aurais jamais cru qu'être gâté était si agréable.

My sunshine, you have my heart and soul and have since the day i first saw you. I love you endlessly, fervently, truly. Your beauty, your kindness, your generosity is outstanding. Thank you for such a wonderful day today. I never knew that being spoiled felt so good.

(Also stay mad and stay jealous but mon soleil is not the sugar baby in this relationship ☺️)

comments have been restricted on this post

yourusername: Charles my love…

yourusername: you cannot imagine how happy you make me everyday

yourusername: meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me

↳charles_leclerc: Mon soleil…🥹🥰♥️

yourusername: oh and to those judging us? Definitely stay mad and jealous

Taglist

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[sheepispink]

lt simon riley x puppy hybrid!reader in which you're forced into his life and he cant handle it, ignoring your existence until you talk to inanimate objects to make up for it. angst ofc

sorry if this is lowkey bad, my writing has been flopping rn, alsp insp by this (it said mdni so i didnt tag, sorry bro i read the summary and was like woah)

Ghost hated it, hated everything that related to the thought, and he made sure everyone knew that. Still, somehow, he ended up with a pretty little hybrid on his couch when he came home. He didn't think twice before walking straight past you, ignoring how you reached your hand out to greet him and locked himself in the bedroom. “Price, I told you—”

“She’s a rescue, just needs a place to stay for a little while. You’re a lieutenant so you’re technically qualified, it won't be long.”

“I’m not the only lieutenant.”

“You’ll have a budget for food and clothing, just let her stay till I can find another.”

Ghost hangs up right there and then, incredibly pissed by anyone and everyone who decided this was a good idea of any sort. But what he hates more is the way you’re sitting outside his door when he opens it again, wide eyes trying to entice him to your outstretched hand. Though unfortunately for you, he just closes the door again.

For the first week, you tried over and over again. He didn't seem to want to talk to you at all, let alone acknowledge that you were in his house. The only instructions he ever spoke was to not leave the house nor damage anything inside the house. It wasn't like you’d attempt to test either rules on purpose anyway. Instead, you tried to be useful by cleaning up where you could, even if you couldn't help but get distracted by how fun sliding across the freshly mopped floors were. Plus, blanket forts were so fun to make, what do you mean they made more mess? You switched to cooking soon after, attempting to make him breakfast except every time you tried to wake up early, he was always already gone. So, you wake up extra, extra early, finding out he wakes at five and so you wake up at four the next day. You decide on sizzled meat rashers, a fried egg and a toaster waffle because you don't really understand how the oven works. It’s not your fault he has so many funny buttons.

Unfortunately for you, his hearing is almost as good as yours, or perhaps he just never sleeps properly. That’s why he walked in just when you were nodding off in a bowl of cracked eggs, the time too early for a young pup like you, even if you were well into your twenties. He left the house with a slam that day.

After that you stopped trying, noticing it to be clearly obvious that he didn't want anything to do with you in the slightest. He didn't even glance at you, or ask if you wanted to eat anymore. The only reminder that you actually lived here were the remnants of your fur on the fluffy pillow that was your bed, and your name written on your pre-bought meals since he didn't trust you in his kitchen anymore. Questions were left to hang in the air, soft whines echoing around the empty room each night and only the dim TV for company.

Ghost had returned early today, a problem in base had left the place in slight disarray and the task force thought it’d be better if they just packed up for the day, maybe do paperwork at home instead. He clicks open the door, surprised to actually hear noise in the usually silent flat, though he’s already dreading whatever mess you’ve cooked up. As he enters the hallway, the noise becomes clearer, sounding like a voice, your voice, actually. “This is a super secret covert meeting, alright everyone? No one can know!” You squeak, and he’s raising a brow, mind already jumping to conclusions of you being a double agent sent to spy on him. He should’ve known they’d pull a dirty trick like that, especially with how Graves has been acting, there’s bound to be others to follow.

But to infiltrate his own home is something that brings him great anger, making him all the more silent when he sneaks around the house, mind running through potential ways he’ll interrogate the information out of you. He's thinking torture if you end up being a little too problematic, maybe even a shock collar if worst comes to it. It's not like he ever like you much anyway, he's almost glad for every neglect he's caused so far. He saved the entire militar--

A double agent was far too much credit. You were just a silly puppy who was sitting on the sofa opposite a tatty teddy bear, a pillow with a messily drawn paper face stuck to it and one last t-shirt that you had draped over a pillow, the cartoon cat staring back at you. They have mugs in front of them, albeit not full of anything apart from your own mug of tea. “Just kidding, let’s order then we can start.”

You hum, pretending to take a list from the bear though it’s actually those takeaway menus that come through the letterbox. He watches carefully as you pick up one at random, eyes squinting as you attempt and almost fail to read the text. Facilities never bothered with educating their hybrids, only intent in teaching them the arts of being loyal and desirable so they’d get their pay. 

“Men….u? St.. art…eer?” It’s near impossible to understand any of it, and eventually you have to put it down, huffing out a complaint. “Okay fine, i can't read at all.” Frustrated, you pull off the t-shirt, leaving the pillow to fall on the floor. You’ve watched countless videos, only with the help of the voice recognition function on the remote control, and have attempted daily for this whole week. “So what have you guys done this week?”

He notices now that you have the tv displaying an episode from those random TV series, you probably don't even know the name of it. You’re almost attempting to recreate the same scene of the friends sitting around the table, eyes flickering at the TV as you eye how they sit. You mimic a squeaky voice, holding the teddy bear by the scruff as you move its head around. “I went to the park with my handler.”

Somehow your eyes light up despite the fact you had made that up yourself, clapping your hands together. “Wow, I love the park! I wish I could chase the squirrels…” Your expression falters for a second, eyes drooped until you shake your head, moving to puppet the pillow in the middle instead. “I went grocery shopping with mine, and we cooked a meal together.”

You smile again, retracting your hand and placing them on your hips. “A meal together?? Um.. It doesn’t matter what I did. We should do something together, but it has to be something easy.. and not too fun because if we leave a mess Simon will be mad.” He almost feels bad, but it’s not his fault, you will make a mess, and he’s already tired enough as it is. What he hadn't expected was what you’d say next.

“I don't think we’ll be able to do these meetups anymore guys.” You mumble out, frown growing on your lips as you puppeteer the bear. “What, why?”

“I-i think I’ll be getting kicked out soon. Or maybe I should just run away.. Should I? I mean, it’s not a totally bad idea and Simon won't have to deal with me!”

You stare back at the two fake people in front of you, the silence hanging heavy in the air until you reach forward, plucking the paper smiley face off the pillow and sticking on a sad face instead. “I know, I know— running away is bad and I'll only get hurt. What else then?”

The silence is long again and for once Simon can feel the distraught look on your face as you clench the hem of your loose sweater, nose wrinkled. It’s clear you’re not feeling too good, especially if you’ve resorted to talking to your own stuffed animals about running away to make him happier. It’s a pitiful sight to say the least but he can't blame you either, he’s purposefully ignored every single one of your feeble attempts to talk to him. It’s not like it helps that you’ve been cooped in a house for two weeks straight, not able to talk to anyone else. Now that he’s forced to notice, forced to think about it, it’s clear he’s torturing you, in some sick unintentional way. You’re locked away, a prisoner, a ghost— someone no one even knows exists despite how much you cry and beg for a sound to be made. 

The small shuffle of your steps is sad, the way you put everything into position perfectly in case he gets annoyed, not that he’d ever express it anyway– sometimes you wish he just would say something, anything. But he doesn't, and you take the tatty teddy bear, hugging it to your chest. Not even your tail can bring you much warmth, the matted fur rough against your skin as you’ve failed to upkeep it’s maintenance the more miserable you grow. 

You wont stay here for long, you’ll be moved elsewhere and grow older, less ‘desirable’ as you look at your puppy cuteness until you’re finally left on the streets, scavenging bins for food like your parents did. A cycle that only repeats for you.

[nayeoniiz]

WEBCAM PERV! (2)

REBLOGGING HELPS A TON, LOUD SUPPORT IS THE BEST SUPPORT!

pairings ❥ heeseung x fem!reader

genre ❥ smut

point of view ❥ third person, omniscient

synopsis ❥ you meet heeseung on omegle and quickly hit it off until you accidentally disconnect. feeling at a loss from not being able to find him again, you give up and live life as if it never happened. unbeknownst to you, however, he turns out to be a hacker who hacked into your camera, resorting to watching your secretly from behind the screen… until he didn’t.

warnings ❥ stalking, voyeurism, fingering, oral (both receiving), raw sex (wrap it up!), missionary (reader is flexible), big dick heeseung, slight degradation, ass eating, backshots, facial (omg no cream pie?!?!)

word count ❥ 11.7k

Webcam Perv! (1)

author’s note: tbh guys i ended up rewriting a lot of stuff because i wasn’t satisfied with my work & also ended up also i had writers block so sorry for that, i just didn’t like how it turned out at the time. not proofread so beware.

taglist: taglist: @rayofsunshineeee @strayy-kidz @d-dilemma @kkamismom12 @cinnawonbabe @innocygnet @planetmarlowe @jakeswifez @river-demon-slayer @yoonglestangies @yangjungwonnie @norihoyeon @ch4c0nnenh4 @heephile777 @azzy02 @s0nnyang3ls @friedtalong @m3wkledreamy @mheretoreadff @vegahrid @ttulixia @heesexual74 @immelissaaa @heeseungssidechick @toffeehee @lavxndxrsworld @miuwonis @freaky-enhamadswriter @yohanabanana @jaeyunsbimbo @siimplestar @slut4hee @chobitos @isagistar @starry-eyed-bimbo @511rkive @skzenhalove @diorfmu @liafterhours @millis-diary @ki2rins @asscoups17 @ravenslocked

“i miss fine shit…” y/n sighed dramatically, her chin resting in her hand as she stared off into the distance. her thoughts seemed to be lost in a world far removed from the present lately. despite the fact that it’d been almost two weeks since the scandalous video call with heeseung, her mind remained fixated on him.

natty, on the other hand, had heard more than enough. she had sat through all of y/n’s endless rambling about it for these past couple of days, initially nodding along while the girl swooned, but her patience was running thin now. it wasn't uncommon for y/n to develop crushes, but this one? in natty’s eyes, it was foolish, exaggerated, and unreasonably intense. she spoke so highly of heeseung in a way that felt odd given the scenario in which they met. she couldn’t let y/n continue living in a fantasy.

“i’m sorry girl, but you don’t even know him for real,” natty words were low, her voice flat as she glanced up only briefly from their shared computer screen, where they were working on a class project. her response evoked a frown from the girl.

“maybe not,” y/n agreed, but her eyes remained distant as she was still lost in her daydreams of the boy. “but i do know that we at least live in the same country. you never know, i could bump into him,” she added with a quiet conviction, unwilling to acknowledge the more obvious reality of the situation which was leaning toward him being nothing more than a chance meeting. compared to natty, who’s had a long list of lovers, y/n didn’t seem to have luck when it came to men. she wasn’t exactly looking for that kind of attention anymore because of that fact. what she did with heeseung was completely out of character, he made her feel alive that night. she wanted to keep chasing that feeling. she had to.

“that doesn’t mean you know where he lives,” natty countered, her voice laced with softness in her tone as if she were trying her best to let the girl down gently. “he could be hours away, hidden somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”

y/n shook her head slowly, her belief unshaken. she was certain there had to be a way. “then i’ll just manifest running into him. this time, in person.”

her word make natty cringe as she let out a long, exasperated sigh. “you’re crazy,” she muttered, a hint of disbelief in her voice. she knew her friend was stubborn, but never to such an extent over a boy she only knew for a couple of hours.

“oh, girl, if only you could have seen what i saw in him,” y/n sighed, a smile tugging at her lips. images of heeseung flashed through her mind. the way he spoke so smoothly, the way he said her name, his smile, his smirks, the way he was so attentive to everything she said. she craved it all. with another content sigh, she spoke again. “you’ll understand when you see him.”

natty didn’t respond this time, realizing that y/n was too far gone to be reasoned with. this fated little fantasy had already settled into her mind, and it was clear there was no pulling her away from it now.

heeseung, on the contrary, was doing just fine. in fact, he had already grown accustomed to the unrestricted access he had to y/n’s devices, marveling at everything she did. from the way y/n spent countless hours searching omegle for him, and the way he found great pleasure in reading the messages between her and her best friend natty talking about how he was the one that got away, and of course that camera access had completely shifted his jerk off sessions each night as he finally had a face to openly fantasize about.

besides his endeavors, heeseung’s focus had shifted to something far more calculated—her routine. with the help of his hacking system, he managed to piece together most of the tiny fragments in her daily life: the café she frequented, the public library she studied in, the late-night convenience store she occasionally visited every now and then. but none of these places provided him with what he was looking for. there was never a specific time she went to any of them. he needed something more reliable, something he knew would guarantee their reunion.

while stalking wasn’t new territory for him as he had dabbled with brief obsessions in the past for the thrill of it, never taking them too seriously. this was different. this was y/n. for the first time, he was prepared to go further than everything he had before, to put in the effort, and asking for advice even if it meant bending the truth along the way.

that evening, heeseung entered the kitchen, where sunghoon sat hunched over his laptop absorbed in a research paper. the rhythmic sound of the keyboard came to a brief halt as heeseung pulled out the chair opposite sunghoon, the legs scraping gently against the floor.

“yo, can i ask you something?” heeseung began, leaning forward, resting his chin in his hand, his expression serious. his fingers lightly tapped against the table as he waited for his roommate’s acknowledgment. and sunghoon didn’t look up immediately, but the edge in heeseung’s tone piqued his interest.

“what’s up?”

heeseung hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing his words. he realized he should have thought it out before jumping straight in. “so, i went to this coffee shop a few days ago, right?” he started, his voice softening as he imagined the scene he was about to start painting. sunghoon nodded. “and i swear, i saw the most beautiful girl i’ve ever laid eyes on.” his gaze turned unfocused as he imagined her face, the nervous mannerisms she had shown, and the way her lips parted when caught off guard. “i just can’t stop thinking about her.”

sunghoon laughed, finally glancing up at him. “damn. she got you that down bad?”

“worse,” heeseung sighed, his hand running through his hair in frustration. “i’m convinced she’s my soulmate, man. but here’s the thing… i’ve only seen her once. she hasn’t shown up since, and i have no idea how to find her again.” technically, none of this was a lie, though he conveniently omitted certain details.

sunghoon leaned back in his chair, processing this. “why don’t you just go there every day? eventually, she’ll show up again.”

heeseung frowned. “dude, that place is expensive. i can’t keep buying overpriced coffee for no reason.”

sunghoon rolled his eyes. “who said you had to buy anything? just sit there, pretend to study, or work on something. they’re not gonna kick you out for existing.”

heeseung clicked his tongue, unconvinced. the idea of sitting in a café for days, hoping for a chance encounter, felt unreliable. she was unpredictable—her schedule too scattered, her habits too inconsistent. there was no definite timeframe it’d take to catch her. he was already going crazy these last few days, his thoughts, his actions, his dreams all consisted of her. he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.

“might take some time,” sunghoon added, stretching his arms overhead. “but if she’s a regular, she’s bound to show up eventually.”

heeseung hummed, a sense of doubt clouding his thoughts. “yeah… i doubt that’ll work.”

sunghoon shrugged, uninterested in offering more advice. “that’s all i got. take it or leave it.” his suggestion was weak, but perhaps it didn’t need to be perfect. he could make it work, he just needed to ensure their paths crossed by his own doing.

heeseung sighed, pushing himself up from the chair. his mind was already spinning with plans and possibilities, each more elaborate than the last. that’s when the bell rang in his head and he decided to install a live tracker on y/n’s phone.

before this, his access had been limited. he could only observe the traces of her movements when she shared her location with others or after purchases were made when the receipts would land in her email. but now, with the tracker in place, everything would change. he would have real-time access, no more waiting, no more gaps in his knowledge. it almost made him chastise himself for not having done it sooner, but in a way, this felt better.

enough time had passed to make their meeting seem more like fate than manipulation. what harm was there anyway? y/n had been looking for him too. just the thought alone sent a rush of excitement through him. she wanted to see him just as badly as he wanted to see her. even if she didn’t know it yet, their mutual longing was proof that something far deeper than chance was there. they both craved each other’s connection.

once the program was fully operational, his heart was almost pouncing outside of his chest as her location flickered onto the screen. heeseung’s eyes narrowed as he observed the information. she was at a university. not just any university—sunghoon’s university. his pulse quickened, but he forced himself to remain calm. there wasn’t much he could do with this information yet, so he could only store it away for later. instead, he switched to her messages, scanning her most recent conversation.

y/n: coffee, then my place?

natty batty: ok lemme finish this last slide first, im almost done

y/n: yes ma’am 🫡😁

y/n: coffee coffee coffee

natty: girl.

y/n: sorry

heeseung smirked, a sense of satisfaction washing over him. bingo. he quickly switched to her camera feed. he watched as she picked up her phone and slipped it into her pocket after a few minutes. he couldn’t see her face, buy he didn’t need to. he knew exactly what she looked like in this moment: eager, giddy, and blissfully unaware of how much better he was about to make her night. his mind raced. the university was only 15 minutes away from the coffee shop while his apartment was 25. he had to move and he needed to move now.

he looked down at his outfit realizing he was nowhere near ready to be seen by her yet. cursing under his breath, he shoved himself away from his desk and rushed into the kitchen where sunghoon was still sitting at the table, this time his headphones on as he typed away at his laptop. heeseung wasted no time.

“bro, i need you to drive me somewhere,” heeseung said, his tone urgent as he pulled one of the earbuds to the side so his friend would hear his plea.

sunghoon blinked up at him, confusion evident on his face. “why so sudden?”

“no time to explain,” heeseung said with a barely suppressed a grin. “i just have a feeling i’m gonna get lucky tonight.”

sunghoon squinted, still not understanding the sudden change in plans. but after a moment, he shrugged. “whatever, man. get your shit and grab my keys.”

heeseung darted to his room, quickly yanking on a gray sweater and black sweatpants. he grabbed a tub of mousse and raked it through his hair, styling it as quickly as possible. usually, he would take his time, making sure every strand was perfect, but tonight, he didn’t have the luxury.

that’s why having sunghoon drive was ideal; it gave him those extra minutes to prepare. as soon as the two of them jumped into the car, sunghoon pulled out of the driveway while heeseung sat in the passenger seat, his hands moving frantically in his hair as he tried to perfect his appearance. he didn’t even bother with a seatbelt. his mind was too focused on the task ahead.

when they arrived at the haven brew, heeseung was the first to step out of the car. he scanned the entrance, but there was no sign of her yet. “go find a table,” he ordered sunghoon, barely glancing at him. “make it look natural.”

sunghoon rolled his eyes but complied, making his way toward an empty table while pulling out his laptop and to make their presence more convincing, he ordered a couple of pastries and set them beside his notes.

meanwhile, heeseung made a beeline for the bathroom. he pulled out his phone and opened the tracker. y/n’s location was getting closer, only two turns away. his fingers trembled as he watched her dot inch toward the café. she was coming. the thought sent a shiver through him, the energy rushing beneath his skin. the idea of seeing her in person, after everything, was overwhelming. his body felt electric with anticipation, but he had to stay calm.

he inhaled deeply, shook out his hands, then left the bathroom, moving toward the table where sunghoon sat. “what do you want to drink?” he asked, keeping his voice light, forcing himself to sound normal despite the excitement rushing through his body.

sunghoon didn’t even glance up, too focused on his work. “uh… caramel macchiato.”

heeseung nodded and stepped into line. the place was busier now, the line stretching long, winding through the café. good. it gave him more time. every time the doorbell jingled, his heart lurched. was it her? was she here? where would she sit? what if she sat near him? would their drinks be ready at the same time? what if she hear his name when they call it? would she look at him and just knowㅡ?

“hello, sir. what can i get for you today?”

heeseung snapped back to reality, his gaze shifting to the barista who he now stood in front of. she was smiling politely, her presence a stark contrast to the storm of thoughts in his head. he forced himself to focus, quickly rattling off his order, swiping his card, and returning to the table.

he pulled his phone out one last time, he checked the tracker. y/n had arrived. she was inside, but he couldn’t see her—not yet. the line was still too long and the building was overcrowded. his fingers curled around the edge of the table, his pulse hammering in his ears. the game had finally begun and heeseung was more than ready to play.

near the middle of the line, y/n and natty stood talking about heeseung, to no one’s surprise. the café was lively, the hum of conversation blending with the faint whir of espresso machines, yet y/n could only focus on the topic that had been consuming her thoughts for days.

“i really feel like i’ll actually see him soon,” y/n cooed, rocking on her heels, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag in excitement.

“and why’s that?” natty gave her a tired and mostly unreadable look, already growing numb to her rants. y/n tapped the side of her head with a knowing smile, her expression smug as if she were about to drop some great wisdom.

“law of assumption. look it up.”

natty sighed deeply, rubbing her temple in an attempt to ward off the headache that was beginning to make its way. she had heard enough about this so-called manifestation to last her a lifetime. it was like y/n fixated on every topic she thought of as of late. “if you want a boyfriend so bad, why not go for jake?” she asked, her tone flat, as if simply humoring y/n at this point.

y/n’s nose scrunched in immediate distaste. “jake? as in the one in our musical theory class?” her voice carried a mix of disbelief and mild horror, as if the mere suggestion was absurd. he was one of the students they both agreed was insufferable. he was a know-it all, ass kissing teacher’s pet. and just straight up rude as hell, always looking down on anyone who he felt wasn’t on his level of intelligenceㅡ and both girls had caught their own respective strays from him. natty nodded, humming in confirmation, but y/n only scoffed.

“hell no! he’s a total bore and an asshole.”

natty shrugged, adjusting the strap of her purse as she considered the argument. despite the way he behaved as a person, it was easy to forget on the rare occasion when he‘d look you in the eye. “a hot one, though.”

y/n wasn’t swayed. her expression remained unimpressed as she pursed her lips, leaning in slightly. she lowered her voice as if confessing a secret. “well, my fine shit had the looks and the personality.” her words softened at the end as her mind drifted back to heeseung’s effortless charm, the teasing tilt in his voice, the confidence he carried himself with when he spoke to her.

natty rolled her eyes. “well, jake has something heeseung doesn’t.”

y/n turned to her, brow raised in challenge. “and that is?” there was nothing he could offer that heeseung didn’t. the only thing saving jake from weirdo status was his face, it was his best and only positive attribute.

natty barely hesitated before deadpanning, “hm,i don’t know.. maybe the fact that he’s accessible and this heeseung guy isn’t?”

y/n let out an exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes before shifting her gaze across the café. she was more than ready to tune natty out, but just as she was about to dismiss the conversation entirely, her breath caught in her chest, and it tightened. she even felt as if her heart nearly stopped. across the room, standing near the merchandised cups, was a familiar face toting a gray sweater.

“oh my god,” she whispered, her voice barely above a breath.

natty groaned. “no. don’t ‘oh my god’ me,” she warned, already sensing where this was going. “i’ve been listening to you talk about this man nonstop for days. you need to be realistic—”

y/n grabbed natty’s shoulders and spun her around so fast that natty nearly stumbled. “that’s him! that’s fucking him!” her fingers dug into natty’s arms, grip tightening as excitement coursed through her, adding a jump in her step.

natty frowned, still skeptical. “girl, where?”

y/n’s voice was ecstatic, but she tried to contain it. “i can’t point, but he’s near the cups. purple hair, gray sweater…. oh my god, bitch. manifestation is real.” her entire body buzzed, it felt unreal. her mind couldn’t fully process that this moment was actually happening.

she had spent days thinking about this. dreaming about this. and now, here he was—standing just a few feet away.

natty, however, wasn’t as convinced. her arms were still locked in y/n’s grip, but her expression remained doubtful. “are you sure?” she squinted, trying to get a better look. the odds of this were ridiculous, impossible even. y/n had met some random guy online, obsessed over him for days, and now, he just happened to be in the same café? for a brief second, natty wondered if she should be worried. she was concerned the girl’s obsession had rendered her borderline delusional. y/n was already lost in her own world, eyes locked onto heeseung, thoughts swarming im her head.

“i will fucking go up to him right now, bro. swear,” y/n let go of her death grip on natty’s arms and attempted to push past her, but natty grabbed her wrist before she could follow through on the impulsive declaration. “okay, chill. let’s order first?”

as they stepped forward in line, y/n could barely focus. her hands felt clammy, heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. the café around her blurred into the background, her senses narrowing in on one thing, and one thing only. a barista‘a voice called outㅡ “heeseung!” and y/n’s stomach flipped. her head snapped toward the employee so quickly she nearly gave herself whiplash. she glanced near his area and realized he was coming this way. now, it was her turn to order, but her mind was so blank. she needed more time.

“i need a second to think,” she said hastily, voice unsteady. natty shot her a look, but let it slide. she believed it now after hearing his name. and she couldn’t fathom how everything truly seemed to work in her friend’s favor, but she was somewhat happy for her nonetheless. though, she still wasn’t sure if her man of choice was the best.

heeseung was seemingly oblivious. he grabbed his cup first, then sunghoon’s, fingers wrapping around the sleeve as he turned to leave, doing everything in his power not to scan the line for his muse’s face. but y/n’s pulse skyrocketed upon he was leaving. he was finally right there in front of her, and he was leaving. before she could second-guess herself, her hand shot out, fingers curling around the sleeve of his sweater.

heeseung froze. his body tensed at the sudden touch, breath hitching as he slowly glanced down to where her hand clutched the soft fabric. the warmth of her fingers seeped through the material, faint but noticeable.

and for a brief moment, everything around him ceased to exist. the café, the noise, the people—it all faded, leaving only this. his gaze lifted, meeting hers. and in that instant, it all clicked like a puzzle piece falling into place.

y/n swallowed, her grip loosening as her fingers dragged slightly against the fabric before letting go. “hi, i’m so sorry, but i know you.” her voice was quiet, hesitant, yet certain all at once.

the sweater was soft. softer than she expected. and suddenly, she wanted to know more. she wondered if his skin was softer, how his hands would feel in between her fingers, how his lips would feel against hers, everything. she wanted to know everything about him now.

heeseung swallowed hard, forcing himself to find words to say. he had an array of scenarios that their first physical encounter would go and yet nothing could have prepared him for this. he never considered that she could approach him first. everything he knew about confidence, his charm, his certainty, all of it left him. “y/n?”

oh. his voice.

it was even better in person, smooth and warm, like a melody lingering in the air long after the last note had been played. it wrapped around her, wrapped her in something almost intoxicating. made her feel safe. made her feel wanted.

her breath caught. “yes. heeseung. hi.”

his lips parted slightly before curling into a slow, almost disbelieving smile.

“hi.”

they just stood there, staring at each other, taking in every detail, every feature. it felt like time had stopped. y/n’s eyes traced the shape of his face, the sharp cut of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the slight crease between his brows as he studied her just as intently. it was strange meeting someone she had only ever seen through a screen. yet, in this moment, nothing about it felt unnatural, like they had always known each other.

“do you guys mind? other people need to order,” a customer behind them huffed, shattering the moment.

heeseung blinked and turned to the man behind y/n. both of them muttered apologies, though neither of them had fully detached from the high of finally seeing each other in person. heeseung hesitated for only a second before asking, “would you… maybe want to sit with me?”

y/n’s first instinct was to glance at natty as they had already made plans. they were supposed to head straight home after getting coffee and study at her place, but y/n felt like studying could wait. in fact, everything else could wait. she exhaled, shaking her head as a slow smile spread across her lips. “we were gonna go home and study, but fuck that. this is a celebration.”

heeseung chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. “you’re right.”

as they walked over to the table, sunghoon barely acknowledged them at first, reaching for his drink absentmindedly. then, he did a double take, eyes flicking between heeseung and y/n, taking in their body language, the energy between them. heeseung had talked about her before, mentioned her like she was just another girl he had met online. but now, seeing them together, sunghoon could tell it was different. heeseung met his gaze, giving a small nod. this is her.

introductions were given, natty and sunghoon exchanging brief conversations. but it barely mattered. because y/n and heeseung? they were locked in. their conversation flowed without pause or much of any effort. it was like they had already skipped past the awkward phase of getting to know each other and landed in a space that felt comfortable. natural.

sunghoon stirred his drink, watching them. curiousity piqued, and he wondered why this was so easy for them. “so… how exactly did you two meet?” he asked, his tone casual but inquisitive.

heeseung and y/n exchanged a glance, amusement flickering between them. y/n was the first to answer. “omegle,” she said, like it was her greatest achievement: meeting him by chance. she was almost sure it was, too. she’d never felt this accomplished.

natty groaned, already dreading hearing the story again. sunghoon, however, only frowned. “omegle?” he repeated in an effort to make sure he heard correctly.

heeseung leaned back in his chair, relaxed. “yeah. i went on there when i was bored the other night, wasn’t expecting much. but then y/n popped up, and we just ended up talking. for a while.”

y/n nodded. “hours, actually.”

heeseung’s lips quirked up slightly. “yeah. until you disconnected.”

y/n huffed. “i didnt disconnect, my dumbass laptop died.” heeseung didn’t argue, just shook his head, amused. he already knew that much. sunghoon, however, still wasn’t convinced.

“so let me get this straight. you met on omegle,” sunghoon repeated slowly, “and now, a few days later, you just so happen to run into each other here?” something wasn’t adding up. they claimed they met by chance, but how could that be true when heeseung’s previous mentions of the girl were allegedly in person? if the latter wasn't true, how did he know she’d be here? no one just stumbles onto someone’s location like that—especially not a stranger.

y/n nodded with a grin, nudging natty. “see? i was just telling her i’d find him again.”

natty gave her a look, unimpressed. “yeah, but you have to realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

“sure, but i know better than to question fate,” y/n said with a smirk. and heeseung absolutely melted over that response. she didn’t question things, never overanalyzed. it made it all the more easier.

sunghoon, however, still couldn’t bring himself to let it go. he watched them, his mind running. he watched as y/n and heeseung continued to chat, their faces lighting up with the kind of easy conversations. heeseung had a way of downplaying things, but sunghoon had known him long enough to know when his friend was lying—or at least not telling the whole truth.

the way heeseung had flipped his story, so effortlessly, about how he truly met y/n felt so odd. it didn’t add up. and sunghoon had seen his friend fixated on something before, but this felt different. the way he was acting now as if everything had simply fallen into place, wasn’t how he’d been when they were first talking about this girl. something was off, but sunghoon couldn’t figure out exactly what.

his stomach churned as a weird feeling crept up on him. he didn’t want to be suspicious of his own friend, but something about this didn’t sit right. for now, though? he said nothing, just went back to finishing off the last pieces of his homework.

it had been a few hours now that the group had sat, chatting away at their tables. sunghoon had finished his work and put his suspicions in the back burner while he focused on being engaged in the conversation, still situationally aware in case heeseung had slipped up again. but things had gotten tame by now, and it was getting late. he didn’t say much as he packed up his belongings and put them away.

heeseung and y/n paid him no mind as they were still too deeply involved in their own conversation, and heeseung was delighted to say the least. y/n was completely different in person than she was online. her once timid demeanor has shifted into that of a devoted lover in his eyes. she was outwardly engaged, her focus was solely on him, and only him. she hadn’t even said much of anything to natty since she sat down, disregarding the times where the girl would speak to her first.

“here,” y/n said, pulling out her phone and handing it over to heeseung. he looked at it wide-eyed for a brief moment before quickly cooling his expression, tilting his head as he studied her curiously. she opened her apps section, clicking on instagram as she went to her search bar.

“i need your instagram. or would you prefer to give me your number?” she tilted her head, eyes searching his face, and when he didn’t respond right away, a small pout formed on her lips. heeseung blinked, momentarily thrown off. she was more forward than he had anticipated. too bold and it wasn’t that he didn’t like it—he just hadn’t expected it. in his mind, he had already mapped out how this would go, how he would lead the pace, dictate the push and pull, and savor every second of the chase. but in reality she was the one making the first moves. and if he was being honest, it kind of messed with his rhythm.

“unless you don’t want to..?” her voice was low now, almost being drowned out with the vibrant chatter that still boomed through the cafe. heeseung bit his lip, fighting to hold a smile. there it was. that insecurity, that approval seeking. his eyes met hers as he shook his head, grabbing the phone and exiting off of instagram and going to the phone app to dial his number. if she was going to make the first move, then he’d just have to take the control right back.

“sorry, i blanked,” he murmured, his tone dipping into something lower, smoother, as he let his charm do the work. his fingers moved over the screen, inputting his number, but his gaze never left hers. he let the moment stretch just long enough, let his words sink in before flashing her a slow, lopsided grin. “i’m just not used to a pretty girl making the first move.”

the way he leaned into it, he let the words settle between them like a challenge. and when y/n’s breath hitched, he knew he had her right where he wanted. “i don’t want to be the party pooper,” sunghoon’s voice sliced through the air of their moment, bringing everyone’s attention to him as he slung his back over his shoulder. “but i gotta hit the hay, i have AM classes tomorrow, can’t afford to be late.” he shot heeseung a look that ultimately was saying ‘let’s go’, to which the boy only pursed his lips as he handed y/n’s phone back to her without a word.

for a moment, her eyes flickered back and forth between the two boys, an uneasy feeling rising within her chest. she didn’t know what came over her before she blurted out. “do you really have to go?” her question was directed toward heeseung who was still gathering his belongings, completely ignoring sunghoon’s presence despite him being the one to speak up. heeseung almost swooned at her reaction. she truly did not care for anyone’s presence but his. he wondered how he had gotten so lucky to find a girl like her. so desperate, so eager to be around him.

“i mean, he’s my ride,” heeseung replied, his words devoid of sadness. it was evident in his tone that he had expected her to beg, wanting to see how far she would go just to not see him leave. he waited for her response as she pursed her lips, eyes wandering around the room as if she were finding the right words to say and the courage to voice them. when she finally spoke again, it was as if everything had fallen back into alignment of heeseung’s expectations

“i have a car. maybe you can stay for a while as i study, and i can drive you home afterward,” y/n suggested, her words sounding more like a question than a statement, as if she felt foolish for saying them. inviting a stranger to her home and promising a ride home? she had to be crazy. and natty seemed to think so, firmly kicking y/n’s shin under the table and shooting her a wide-eyed, warning look.

heeseung glanced at his friend sunghoon, who merely shrugged before turning on his heel. “do what you want, man.” he couldn’t care less at that point; it wasn’t his decision to make. the two of them seemed perfect for each other—young and reckless. maybe that’s what his friend needed.

“i do still have work tomorrow, so i can’t be out too late,” he chuckled, grabbing his cup as he got up, the two girls doing the same.

“oh of course, just let me know!”

and with that, they made their way to y/n’s car where y/n had offered heeseung passenger seat as courtesy while natty sat in the seat directly behind him. the vibe from there had changed. though y/n and heeseung were able to keep the chat going, natty refused to engage, ignoring every attempt y/n made to include her. instead, she scrolled through her phone in silence—until she sent a message that expressed everything she couldn’t bring herself to say aloud.

natty batty: are you fucking crazy? i understand you like him but there’s levels to this. you don’t even know him, y/n. this is dangerous.

y/n, focused on the road, didn’t see it. but heeseung did. his gaze flicked to the notification popping on his phone, his expression darkening for a split second before he forced it back into neutrality. it was a shame, really. he had hoped natty would warm up to him, but she was already resisting. that left him at risk if y/n listened to her best friend over him. and heeseung didn’t like obstacles. he needed to take control.

the drive was only fifteen minutes, but with the tension hanging thick in the air, it felt like an eternity. when they finally pulled into the driveway and made their way into the house, natty was lagging behind, every step she took a protest to the situation. she wanted to go home. she didn’t feel safe being here with heeseung, a complete stranger that she and y/n barely knew, but it was also the very reason she had to stay. she couldn’t bear the thought of leading y/n in harm’s way by leaving her alone with him. it was a dilemma. and if something happened, she’d never forgive herself.

so she settled onto the loveseat, keeping her distance while y/n and heeseung took the couch, sitting too close for her liking. she kept her eyes on her phone, but her ears were trained on their conversation, which seemed to flow endlessly.

heeseung didn’t know if it were the change in scenery or the close proximity he had to her, but y/n’s demeanor had transformed. she was no longer the playful, assertive girl from earlier. now, she was quieter, more reserved. the version of her he had first seen through that screen. he liked it.

“should we watch a movie?” he inquired, his doe eyes meeting hers as he titled his head. god, he was so damn handsome under the warm-toned lights. he looked too perfect to be real. but he had to be because he was right in front of her. y/n nodded, tossing him the remote before getting up to turn off the lights.

as the movie began playing, the soft glow of the screen casted shifting shadows across the room. y/n reached for the blanket draped over the couch, unfolding it with care before settling back into her spot beside heeseung. she threw it over herself, a good half of it falling on top of him as well.

and while they watched the screen, he couldn't help but get lost in the warmth from her body being near his. the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the small blanket enveloping their heat, it was intoxicating. a new kind of yearning settled in his chest. his hand moved beneath the blanket, fingers searching until they found the smooth skin of her thigh.

her fingers twitched at the unexpected contact, but she didn't pull away. heeseung hesitated for a moment, then let his hand linger, gently rubbing slow, soothing circles against her skin. it was then that he noticed that her hands were the skin he made contact with, her fingers brushing against his. without thinking, he took a hold of them, intertwining their fingers like it was the most natural thing in the world. and she wavered at first but then squeezed his hand in return, a silent confirmation. this was okay. this was wanted.

everything with y/n was effortless. she made it so easy for him to get close, to break unspoken boundaries without pushback. it made him wonder what made her this way. why was she so trusting, so soon? more than anything, though? he was grateful for it.

before long, their quiet hand holding turned into a more cuddling-like state. y/n inched closer, her body molding against his until she was laying on him. heeseung shifted to make room, one arm wrapping around her shoulder, and embraced the added heat from her thighs that she had thrown over his legs. the movie played on, but neither of them were paying attention now.

as y/n nestled closer into heeseung's embrace, his fingers traced lazy circles against her thigh, each circle inching higher. not too fast, not too slow, but just enough to keep her on edge. she tried to focus on the glowing screen, but the way he touched her made it impossible. every breath he took, she felt. every soft, raised movement of his fingers sent a ripple through her. it was overwhelming in a way she didn't expect, and she swore she could hear his heartbeat against her ear as she rested her head on his shoulder. she wondered if hers was just as loud, if he could feel how consumed she was in this moment.

across the room, natty glanced up from her phone. at first, the sight made her stomach churn. she wanted to be mad. she wanted to march over to y/n, drag her away and slap some sense into her. but as she watched them cuddle, something in her almost softened. maybe y/n was right. maybe she shouldn't question fate. so with a quiet sigh, she turned back to her phone, choosing for now to let it be.

heeseung, on the other hand, was losing himself completely. she didn’t even deny him access when his hands finally grazed her clothed cunt. she only silently spread her legs to give him more access. the small action made his grip tighten just slightly around her. all mine. the thought crept into his mind before he could stop it, and once it was there, he couldn't let it go.

she didn't know it yet, but this was already far beyond a casual moment for him. he had no intention of letting this be fleeting. he wanted her, in every way possible, and he was going to make sure she felt the same.

y/n shifted in his arms, adjusting herself to get more comfortable, and the movement snapped him out of his thoughts. he began pressing his thumb against the thickness of her jeans so she could feel him rubbing her clit. he looked down at her, watching as her lashes fluttered, her lips parting slightly as she let out a soft breath before biting her lip. the action, albeit not being much, felt so, so damn good.

"you like that?" heeseung murmured, his voice low, almost teasing. he maneuvered his fingers under her pants and panties in a swift motion, shoving his fingers down past the uncomfortable tightness that engulfed him. she nodded against his shoulder as his fingers finally made contact with her bare clit. he smirked, leaning down slightly, his lips dangerously close to her ear. "good."

his voice sent a shiver down her spine, but before she could react, he pulled back, his focus returning to the movie as if he hadn't just sent her heart into a frenzy. now, y/n wasn’t the type to admit when she wanted something, but the moment his hand left her, she felt the absence like a chill against her skin.

she huffed, shifting slightly, adjusting the way her legs draped over his lap to graze against the growing erection in his pants. he barely reacted, but she could see the way he stiffened. she scooted just a little closer, her knee raised before brushing against his stomach, an unspoken demand for his attention. still, nothing.

her frustration simmered, and she shifted again, more deliberately this time, grabbing his free hand and putting it on the button of her jeans, an intense stare in her eyes as if daring him to ignore her.

“getting comfortable?” he didn’t know whether to be more amused or aroused. he knew exactly what she was doing, and the boldness surprised him. he didn’t think she was the type to seek sexual pleasure in the presence of others, but it was just another way the two of them were alike. she only hummed in response, making him chuckle.

he let the silence stretch, waiting. then, with a smirk, his fingers found their way down again. he struggled to unbutton her jeans, so she moved hers down to swiftly unbutton them for him, letting him drag the zipper down as she lifted her ass slightly. once his fingers met her cunt, she shuddered. his touch was light at first, but the way it spread warmth across her skin, combined with the slow massaging on her nub, was so stimulating.

heeseung made sure to leave no areas untouched. dipping two fingers into her folds, he almost groaned at how soaked she already was despite his movements being little to none. y/n tried to keep her eyes on the screen, pretending to follow the movie, even as his fingers made their way inside, curling slowly as he thrusted them into her. she bit the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to stay still, doing everything in her power not to react.

natty was still right there, although absorbed in the movie, y/n wasn't about to give herself away. but heeseung wasn't making it easy. his thumb met her clit, pressing down just enough to make her breath hitch. she masked it with a cough, casually shifting her weight as if she was just getting comfortable, but she only wanted more.

"you good?" natty asked suddenly, eyes flicking toward y/n who looked like a deer caught in headlight. y/n nodded, her expression nearly failing to be perfectly composed.

"yeah. just stiff from sitting."

she could feel heeseung smirk beside her, his fingers scissoring her insides, testing her poker face. she refused to give him the satisfaction. so she kept her face neutral, eyes on the screen, and pretended she wasn't losing her mind.

heeseung could tell she was forcing herself to act unaffected, keeping her face blank like she wasn’t even paying attention to him. and maybe at first, it was amusing—watching her fight to stay composed, but the longer she kept up the act, the more it got to him. he pressed his thumb down a little firmer, moving his finger in slow and deliberate circles, the way he knew would make any girl melt. but still, nothing. she didn’t even spare so much as a glance his way. her eyes only stayed glued to the screen with an unreadable expression.

his jaw tightened. so that’s how she wanted to play? fine. he shifted, using one knee to lift her up, the other forcing her legs more open. he adjusted his hand, his touch becoming just a little more purposeful as he picked up his pace. he curled his fingers, shoving them as deep as he could until they brushed against that elusive spot deep within her that made her breath hitch. a barely there twitch in her jaw, a slow inhale she tried to contain. he smirked. got her.

now, he knew exactly what would get to her. slow, hard, calculated, and unrelenting thrusts. again, the tiniest reaction slipped through. a soft moan was cut short as she bit down hard on her bottom lip, though her body still responded to his every movement as he continued.

he chuckled, leaning in slightly. he murmured just low enough for her to hear, “you can keep pretending, but we both know you’re losing it.”

y/n’s fingers curled into the blanket draped over their legs, her poker face still intact—but he could see the way her shoulders tensed and the way her breath came just a little quicker. he had her right where he wanted.

and heeseung was relentless. his touch stayed slow, but each movement served its purpose, making y/n swallow hard. all she could focus on was him, the way his fingers moved inside her cunt, the way his thumb still circled ever so slowly around her clit. he was dragging it out just to mess with her.

her hips buckled upward, just enough to press closer, hoping he'd realize the silent plea she was making. but instead of giving her more, he eased up pulling his fingers out almost as quickly as he buried them inside. he was barely touching her now, only offering clit action to keep her in an aroused state.

"heeseung," she whispered, her voice so quiet it barely made a sound. he heard it loud and clear, and almost wanted to pretend as if he didn’t, but the look on her face made the blood rush to his already painfully hard cock. he couldn’t ignore it. but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feign innocence.

"hm?" he hummed, acting like he had no idea what she was calling him for.

her fingers moved under the blanket, grabbing at his hand each time he’d move it from her, frustration bubbling under her skin. she knew he wanted her to say it, to admit that she needed more. but she wasn't going to.

she tried again, thrusting as subtly as she could into his hand, pressing into his touch, silently begging him to just do something. but his lack of reaction was all she was met with.

“please,” it was almost a whisper yell at that point, and she was thankful for the tv’s loud volume because if natty were to hear, it would be over. her breath came out shaky as her patience wore thin. she hesitated for only a second before finally whispering again, "faster."

his lips curled into a smirk. thatta girl. "what was that?"

she shot him a glare, barely holding it together. "please," she gritted out, her voice so soft that only he could hear. "please go faster."

satisfied, heeseung finally gave in, fingers wasting no time to dive right back inside of her cunt as if it were their rightful place. the quickness of it all made her body jump as he picked up the pace, just enough to make her whole body tense and her pussy to clench around his fingers.

"good girl," he murmured. it was hell for him to only be able to sit there and work his magic, he wanted to feel all over her, kiss her neck, leave hickeysㅡ he wanted to hear her moan out his name, hear her beg aloud. but for now, the sight of her facial expressions, eyes squinting with lips parted only slightly as she tried to fight back any noises her body so desperately wantedㅡ no needed to make. it was enough for him for now.

y/n was barely holding it together. every nerve in her body was burning as that oh so familiar knot started forming in her stomach. she was getting dangerously close, her body betraying her despite how hard she tried to keep still and stay quiet. her breaths were coming out uneven as she gripped the blanket tighter.

her head tipped back slightly, her lips parting just enough for a shaky breath to slip out. she bit down on the inside of her cheek, trying to hold herself together. but heeseung wasn’t making it easy.

“so quiet,” he murmured, barely above a whisper. he was finding it hard to contain himself as well as he thrusted his hips into her thigh, his cock wanting so badly to be put to use. “thought you were watching the movie.”

she wanted to rebuttal or at least snap back with some kind of sassy retort, but she couldn’t trust herself enough to speak because at this point it would give everything away. natty was still there, completely unaware at how much of a desperate slut her best friend was being. she didn’t even want to think about how the girl would react if she got caught up.

she shifted slightly, trying to get more. her nails found refuge as they dug into her palm, her body wound so tight she thought she might break. just a little more, just a little closer, her hole was now throbbing around him, everything felt hot and she was sure she’d come undone with a few more thrusts.

her whimpers were becoming more audible as his speed slowed to a more rhythmic pace, her orgasm crashing almost seconds after. she threw her hand to cover her mouth as he continued fingering her through her high, biting hard into her palm’s skin.

heeseung smirked at the sight of her. by now, his tip was leaking a pool of precum through his sweats. he didn’t know how much longer he could hold back. he pulled out and brought his fingers to his mouth, licking up her juices before pulling them out with a loud pop.

now his eyes were dark, filled with something primal as he watched her. he could barely restrain the desire burning beneath the surface. "lay down," he growled, his voice low, rough with lust.

y/n hesitated for only a second, her eyes flickering towards natty, who paid them no mind, before obeying. she scooted downward, allowing the blanket to engulf her as her head disappeared underneath the fabric. heeseung’s eyes followed hers. hovering the blanket, his gaze traced every inch of her like he was memorizing the sight of her beneath him as she looked up at him with bedroom eyes. the movement alone made his dick twitch.

slowly, she helped him push his sweats down while he lifted his hips to aid the process, his cock springing up and smacking his lower belly region. she gawked at the sight of it, it was even bigger than what she had seen on their video call. it was intimidating almost, how did he expect her to fit all of that? his hands found the back of her head, grabbing a chunk of her hair to push her mouth onto his tip. she complied, opening her mouth to take it in as she kitty licked it, not breaking eye contact for even a second.

heeseung let out a sharp exhale, his jaw clenched, and his composure slipped just a little as he let out a choked up groan. it was like a reward, the way her mouth moved at his cock’s head, bobbing as she hollowed her cheeks. he sucked in a breath, biting his lip as he pushed her head lower forcing her to take in the entirety of his length, not caring for the gags she let out from not being able to handle all of his size.

“aw, fuck,” he praised, voice thick with something almost dangerous. heeseung's grip tightened in y/n's hair, his breathing ragged as he thrusted his hips upwards, fucking into her face. she could only look up at him, a knowing glint in her teary eyes, as she let him continue hammering her throat. the sensation burned, but that made it feel all the more rewarding.

his control was slipping with every second. it felt so good, she made him feel so good. the sounds filling the room were obscene, his low groans mixing with the wet, muffled squelching noises beneath the blanket.

lost in the moment, he sped up, chasing the high that was coming dangerously close. he whimpered, biting his lip, ignoring the way y/n punched on his thigh for a breather. neither of them had noticed when natty finally turned her head. a sharp gasp cut through the air like a slap.

"are you guys fucking serious?!" natty's voice shrieked, filled with disbelief and absolute disgust.

y/n froze, her entire body going stiff as shame crashed over her. she was glad she couldn’t see the scene unfolding in front of her, but she knew exactly how it looked. heeseung cursed under his breath, helping y/n pick her head up to save face, but the damage was already done.

natty shot up from the couch, snatching her things with loud, unexaggerated gags. "you're so disgusting. you are actually so disgusting, y/n."

y/n’s face burned, her heart was pounding against her ribs. she opened her mouth, searching for something—anything to say, but what was there? an apology? for something she could have easily chosen not to do? for something she didn’t regret in the slightest?

the door slammed behind natty as she stormed out, the sharp sound lingering in the heavy silence her absence left behind. shame settled between them, thick and suffocating, but y/n barely let it sink in as she sat up, peeling the blanket away.

her eyes flicked to heeseung as she pursed her lips in thought. for a moment, she debated, then shrugged. grabbing the remote, she switched off the movie before turning to him with a playful grin. “so… do you wanna take this to the bedroom now?”

heeseung blinked. the shock was clear on his face as his mind scrambled to process her words. confusion flickered in his eyes, but beneath it was something else. something darker, something intrigued.

he watched her carefully, still trying to understand the way she brushed everything off so easily. natty had just stormed out, disgust practically dripping from her words, and yet y/n sat there like nothing had happened. he raised a brow, leaning back against the couch. “you’re not gonna go after her?”

“it’s not like it would change anything,” y/n said as she stretched her arms above her head, rolling out the tension in her shoulders before meeting his gaze with another shrug. “she made her choice, we’ll talk it out later.”

heeseung didn't bother responding. words felt pointless when the only thing running through his mind was her, the way she sat there, so shameless, so unbothered. maybe she really didn’t care. or maybe she just refused to let it show. either way, he found himself even more drawn in.

without warning, he leaned in, crashing his lips against hers, his hands immediately finding their way to her waist and pulling her onto his lap. y/n let out a muffled gasp, but she didn't resist. if anything, she melted into his touch, matching his tempo, her fingers slipping into his hair and tugging just enough to make him groan against her mouth.

the kiss was messy, desperate. all teeth and hunger, like they were both chasing the same high. heeseung's hands roamed her body, gripping at her as if to reassure himself that she was really there, really his. not only in the moment but forever. when he pulled back, his breathing was jagged while his forehead rested against hers. "bedroom. now."

and y/n didn't hesitate. she slid off his lap, grabbing his hand and tugging him toward the hallway, her smile never fading. as soon as they made it into the bedroom, heeseung barely gave her a chance to steady herself before backing her up against the door. his lips found hers again, deepening the kiss as he bathed in every sound she made.

y/n breathed out a moan as he pressed closer, his warmth a great contrast against her skin. her fingers curled around the hem of his sweater, tugging impatiently. heeseung smirked against her lips but didn't make her wait, he pulled it off in one swift motion, letting it drop to the floor before reaching for her in return.

the air between them was thick, charged with the desire that neither of them cared to hold back anymore. his hands found the edge of her shirt, his fingertips skimming her skin as he leaned down, voice low against her ear. "you really don't feel bad about natty leaving?"

y/n shivered at the way his breath ghosted over her skin, but she only smiled, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. "i have better things to focus on."

his gaze darkened, a quiet chuckle slipping past his lips before he closed the distance again. his hands found the small of her back, lifting her to wrap her legs around his waist. they were firm as he guided them backwards, their lips never breaking apart as he stumbled toward the bed.

as heeseung hovered over y/n, his gaze softened, but the intensity in his eyes remained. he looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the world, like she was something delicate yet untouchable, a dream he had finally been granted permission to hold. his fingers traced the strands of her hair, admiring the way they fanned out against the sheets, the way the warm glow of the bedside lamp reflected in her eyes.

he wanted this moment to be perfect. he needed it to be. everything about y/n consumed him, embedding itself so deep that he wasn’t sure he could ever get rid of her. not that he wanted to. she was meant to be his, and he wanted to make sure she felt that—make sure she never doubted how much he wanted her, how much he needed her.

his fingertips ghosted over her cheek, trailing down to her jaw before brushing against her collarbone. he took a seat next to her, his touch never leaving her skin.

y/n’s breath hitched. she had never wanted someone the way she wanted him. her entire body felt like it was on fire under his gaze, his touch leaving trails of heat wherever it lingered. she had imagined moments like this before, but none of them compared to this—to the way he looked at her, to the way he made her feel like she was the center of his universe.

her fingers twitched, aching to reach for him, to pull him closer, to feel more of him. she didn’t care that they had only just met or that everything about this was reckless. all she knew was that she wanted him, desperately, completely, and genuinely.

heeseung’s lips curled into a small smile, as if he could sense her thoughts, as if he knew exactly what she wanted. he leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper, laced with possessiveness. all he needed was her word.

“tell me what you want, y/n.” his fingers traced down her arm, sending a shiver through her. her lips parted, her mind hazy with longing, with desire, but the words were caught in her throat.

“please don't make me beg.”

heeseung chuckled, low and sensually, before capturing her lips in his once more. “oh baby, i think you’ve earned it now.”

y/n bit back a smile, as he dipped his head in between her legs. he licked up a stripe, and it felt like magic. every suckle on her clit, every time his tongue dipped deep between her folds, it sent shivers through her body. he could taste the sweat she had worked up from their endeavors on the couch. he savored the salty flavor mixing with the sweet juices leaking out of her.

she held herself up by her elbows and could only watch with hooded eyes as she stared down at him. there was something about the way he effortlessly held eye contact, as if he wasn’t nearly sucking her soul, that almost made her eyes roll back. she was in awe at the sight of her slick covering his nose, lips, and chin. he was gorgeous.

he began leaving a trail of wet kisses amongst her thighs as his fingernails unintentionally dug into her soft skin as he smiled against it. oh, he was gone. and he lost himself even more the minute her fingers slipped into his hair before grinding against his face.

heeseung was the perfect mix of rough and gentle. everything he did left her wanting more. as he lay sprawled out on the bed, his legs subconsciously lifted and started swinging back and forth.

he was having a time. at that point he wasn't sure if he was eating more for his own pleasure or not as he buried his face deep into her cunt. his hips bucked into the satin blanket, though it did nothing to ease the ache he grew from being so hard for so long. and there was no need for fingers when his tongue and nose were an even better substitute. she was getting every form of stimulation from his face alone.

her grip on his hair was harsh as she threw her head back with a loud moan. he let out a combined and muffled whimper-moan against her cunt, tongue fucking her. then he moved to suck on her clit. she couldn’t hold it back, her body had only given her a subtle warning before an orgasm crashed over her.

“fuck!” she exclaimed as she gripped her breast. arching her back into his face, her hand forcefully held his head in place as she rode her high out. not that he wanted to move anyway, she was literally cumming inside his mouth. he would stay here forever if he could help it.

and it took her a second to pry him off, immediately tongue kissing him when she did. she tasted as much as she could of herself and heeseung found it so sexy. he deepened the kiss, grabbing the back of her head and pulling her closer with roughness.

when he finally pulled away for a breath, his eyes lingered on her like he was afraid to look away, as if she might disappear if he did. they held so much love, admiration, possession. he had never felt this way before, he’d never knew he’d need someone like this.

he was desperate for her in a way that scared him, in a way that felt like he would never be the same without her. she had slipped into his lifeㅡinto his mind so suddenly, so effortlessly, and yet it felt like she was always meant to be there, in his arms, under his touch.

he pressed his forehead against hers, his breathing uneven, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that matched hers. his hold on her head softened, his cheeks burning red while he held gently onto her like she was his lifeline.

"fuck, y/n, i want you so bad." his voice was raw, almost shaky, thick with emotion and something deeper, something unspoken. his lips hovered near hers again, not quite touching, just close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath. he searched her eyes, desperate to see the same hunger, the same longing reflected back at him.

"then have me," she murmured, voice barely above a breath, but it was all he needed.

his lips met hers, rushed and deep, without failing to pour every unspoken word, every hidden feeling into the kiss. he grabbed his cock, lazily lining himself at her entrance and coating his tip with her juices before pushing in. the stretch made y/n’s back arch as she winced in pain, but he kept moving, slowly sliding in until he bottomed out. her nails found their way to his back as she scratched. he slowly started moving after letting her adjust for a moment, each thrust hitting perfectly on her g-spot.

"you don't know how much i've been thinking of you," he murmured between breaths, his chest pressing against her as his lips lingered near her ear, the words coming out almost desperately. "you're mine, y/n. everything i've done, everything that's happened... it's all to show you how much i want you. how much i need you.."

she didn’t hear much of anything he was babbling about because not too long after, he had her legs to her head, penetrating her deeply. her moans were loud and pornographic, echoing against the walls. she couldn’t form any coherent thoughts. her senses were at an all time high and the only constant was heeseung. she could only see heeseung, only breathe him, only taste him. and she was on the verge of tears because of how good he made her feel. her body stiffened before another orgasm shot throughout her body.

he didn’t even try to give her body a break as his thrusts never lost their tempo. he had her whole body shaking, her hands alternating between gripping his hair to scratching his back unsure of where to go as they desperately tried to exude the overwhelming amount of pleasure still brewing.

“f-feels so good,” was all she could manage to get out. “so, so good.” he smirked before pulling out swiftly. he almost came just from hearing those words. but he had to hold back because was nowhere near through with her.

heeseung's grip on her tightened as he guided her into a position where she was on all fours, his touch firm as he did so. he leaned in, placing a tender kiss on each ass cheek.

he took a deep inhale as he licked her asshole, tongue flicking away happily. he pulled back to spit before diving back in, swirling, lapping away. his breath was heavy when he pulled back, his body humming with unrestrained hunger for her as he slammed back inside of her, his fingers digging into her hips to hold her steady.

“and here i thought you were the innocent type," he mused, his voice dripping with amusement. he let out a low chuckle, leaning over her, his chest flush against her back as he whispered in her ear. "but seeing you like this.. so shameless. such a slutty and desperate whore for me—" he exhaled sharply, a groan rumbling in his chest. "it's so much more rewarding."

his hand pressed firmly between her shoulder blades, pushing her face down into the mattress as he moved with deep, relentless strokes. the room was filled with the sounds of their heavy breathing and the faint creak of the bed beneath them, their bodies moving in perfect rhythm.

heeseung's grip on reality was slipping; all he could focus on was the way she felt, how she responded to him so willingly, so perfectly. her cunt clenched around her, letting him know she was close again. her moans were past the point of emitting sound louder than occasional high squeals.

"mine," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper, yet filled with unshakable certainty. "all mine." he could feel himself unraveling, could feel the intensity building with each thrust he managed to get out despite the effort he put into holding back his own climax.

his free hand slid to her waist, holding her even closer, anchoring himself. she was everything he had ever wanted more than he had ever expected. and in this moment, nothing else in the world existed but her. even her backside was sexy. he was enchanted by every part of her.

“fuck, let me cum on your face, baby.” he bit his lip as he pulled out after a few thrusts, replacing her cunt with his hand as he stroked himself. she complied and turned onto her back, gazing up at him with sparkly eyes. her breath was unsteady, lips slightly parted as she stuck her tongue out, waiting for his next move. heeseung’s heart pounded at the sight—she looked so delicate beneath him, completely trusting, completely his. he never broke eye contact as he continued stroking, fucking into his hand.

his hips stuttered as sprouts of his cum painted her face. she caught as much as she could on her tongue, licking her lips as she smiled at him. it was sweet, it was tangy, and it was so deliciously his. he leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling as his fingers intertwined with hers. he never wanted to let her go.

Webcam Perv! (1)

[kashverse]

How does Sukuna react when babykuna gets her first “boyfriend” ? 🫢

middle school. a battlefield.

gone were the days of erasable mistakes and carefree recesses—no more doodling on homework with pencil, no more "do-over" passes when things went south. this was real life now. friendships weren’t just about who shared their snacks anymore; they were about who had the best gossip, who could do the cleanest cartwheel, and who had the best stationery. and worst of all, romance was no longer just something that happened to adults in movies.

naturally, babykuna was in high demand. many a snot-nosed, grass-stained boy had approached her at recess, fumbling over their words, hope shining in their little prepubescent eyes—only to be met with a resounding, utterly devastating “EWWWWWWWWWW!”

and just like that, another tiny heart shattered into pieces. truly, the school had never seen such a high population of grief-stricken, heartbroken little boys, sobbing into their sleeves, vowing never to love again. 

and then came the fastest runner in class.

this kid had guts. confidence. swagger. he marched right up to babykuna, chest puffed out, chin high, and said, with all the bravado of a kid who could run a 4-minute mile in crocs—

"wanna be my grill-fren?"

and for reasons beyond mortal comprehension, babykuna…said yes. and who were the first beings in the house to know of this life-altering development?

not you. not sukuna. not her parents, no. absolutely not.

it was baby the orange tabby, who sat on her lap, idly flicking his tail, completely indifferent to this monumental moment.

and it was mr pickles, the ancient maine coon, who upon hearing the news, let out the deepest, most exhausted grunt known to catkind—his way of saying, “i have lived too long to deal with this bullshit.”

meanwhile, outside babykuna’s room, you and sukuna were both having heart palpitations. you leaned against the wall, gripping your chest. “did she just say ‘yes’?” sukuna, usually the picture of confidence, looked like he had just been stabbed. “she said yes.”

“to a relationship?”

“to a boy.”

your hand flew to your chest. “oh my god.” sukuna paced, running a hand through his hair. “this is not happening. this is a dream.”

“no, this is a nightmare.”

he suddenly gripped your shoulders. “what if—what if she holds hands?” 

your soul left your body. “what if she lets him carry her backpack?”

sukuna reeled back like he’d been shot. “no daughter of mine is letting a little shit carry her backpack.”

you clutched your chest. “we’ve failed her.”

“we’ve failed ourselves.”

inside the room, babykuna, blissfully unaware of the absolute crisis happening outside, scratched behind baby’s ears. “mama and papa are acting real weird today.”

mr pickles, in all his aged wisdom, let out a long, suffering sigh.

[p0orbaby]

Like can we pls pls pls pls pls get a smut where Reader sees alexias new photos for nike (though she had shown to reader some they did had the edit the impact you know) reader getting all hot and bothered and jumps on alexia qhen she gets home like do it everything with me

it’s not smut because i’ve got to save some material for bitter sweet

shameless plug

-

The day is, for the most part, unremarkable.

You wake up at 07:26, which is two minutes before your alarm, which is irritating because you could have had those two minutes. You stare at the ceiling for a moment, assessing your bodily functions—slight stiffness in your neck from the way you slept, residual warmth from the duvet, a faint need to pee but not urgent enough to act on. Alexia is still asleep next to you, her breathing slow and deep. There’s a dent in the pillow from where she’s been lying, a strand of hair curling across her cheek. You could stay here, watch her, but then your alarm does go off, and reality intrudes.

You shower, make coffee, scroll absentmindedly through your phone, thumb moving in automatic, practised motions. You see the photos at exactly 08:02.

And that’s when everything changes.

At first, your brain doesn’t fully register what you’re looking at. There’s a moment of lag, like a buffering screen, a stutter in your synapses. Then the full weight of it hits, and it’s like being smacked in the face with a sledgehammer. A very attractive, well-lit sledgehammer.

It’s Alexia. Obviously, it’s Alexia. But it’s Nike Alexia.

Sweaty. Flexing. Half-naked.

Her abs look like they’ve been sculpted by the gods. Her arms—veins subtly pronounced, muscles taut, defined—are a work of art. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on her skin, catching the light in a way that feels almost… obscene. Her gaze is focused, intense, fixed down the lense, like she’s contemplating the meaning of life but also potentially about to fight someone.

You stare. Then you blink. Then you stare again.

Something warm pools low in your stomach, and your grip on your phone tightens. You have seen Alexia naked. Repeatedly. You live together. You have firsthand knowledge—intimate, detailed knowledge—of every inch of her body. And yet, somehow, these photos manage to feel like a personal attack.

Your first thought is: How dare she?

Your second thought is: I need to sit down.

Which you do, heavily, onto one of the kitchen stools. Your coffee is abandoned, cooling rapidly. The world outside continues as normal—birds chirping, distant traffic noise, the faint hum of the fridge—but your internal landscape has been irrevocably altered.

You should say something. React. But words fail you, so instead, you just keep staring, swiping through the photos in what can only be described as a state of near-religious awe. You don’t even realise you’re making a noise—somewhere between a sigh and a groan—until you hear movement behind you.

Then, her voice, still thick with sleep.

“What are you looking at?”

Your soul leaves your body.

You exit out of the app too quickly, fumbling with your phone like a guilty teenager caught watching something they shouldn’t be. Which is ridiculous. You are an adult. You are in a committed relationship with this woman. There is no reason for you to be acting like this.

And yet.

“Nothing,” you say, entirely unconvincing.

Alexia pads barefoot into the kitchen, wearing one of your T-shirts, her hair slightly messy. She yawns, stretching, and your eyes immediately zero in on the movement, the flex of muscle beneath skin. It is unfair that she looks this good first thing in the morning. Unethical, even.

She squints at you, then at your phone. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve seen God.”

You take a slow, steadying breath.

“Not God,” you say. “Just Nike’s new campaign.”

She blinks. Then, the smirk starts, slow and knowing. “Ah.”

“Don’t ah me,” you say, pointing accusingly. “This is your fault.”

“My fault?” She moves to the fridge, retrieving the orange juice. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You posed.”

She laughs, pouring herself a glass. “I did.”

“You flexed.”

“I did.”

“You—” You gesture vaguely, helplessly. “You glistened.”

She tilts her head, amused. “That’s usually what happens when you’re sweating.”

“I don’t sweat like that,” you say, almost mournful. “I sweat like a normal person. You sweat like—like—” You pause, struggling to find the words. “Like a Nike advert.”

Alexia sips her juice, looking infuriatingly pleased with herself. “That’s convenient.”

You exhale sharply, dropping your head onto the counter. “I need help.”

“Probably.”

Silence stretches. You can feel her eyes on you, can hear the faint clink of her glass as she sets it down. Then, her voice, softer now, but with an unmistakable thread of amusement.

“Do you want me to sign one for you?”

Your head snaps up. “What?”

She gestures toward your phone. “A print. I can sign it for you. Make it personal.”

You gape at her, scandalised. “Do I look like the kind of person who would have a signed picture of their girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You have my old Barça jersey framed.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s—” You flounder. “It’s memorabilia. Historic.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So these pictures aren’t historic?”

“Not unless I drop dead from looking at them,” you mutter.

Alexia grins. “Want me to flex for you right now?”

You make a noise that is neither dignified nor human.

Alexia laughs. It’s light, teasing, but there’s something else behind it, something knowing. She closes the small distance between you, leans in, voice low.

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m not,” you lie.

Her hand brushes your arm, slow, deliberate. “You are.”

You swallow. Your mouth is dry. Your heart rate is—scientifically speaking—fucked.

This is fine. This is manageable.

Then, she actually flexes.

And you black out.

Metaphorically.

Mostly.

[dnpbeats]

I feel like dan and phil still kind of play up the dichotomies between them when actually they are soooo similar and I find it rly interesting. Or idk, maybe they don’t even play it up anymore but the vestiges of it are still there. They definitely don’t do it to the extent they used to, and like obviously there ARE differences in their personalities/interests/etc, but I feel like there are also so many examples of the phandom (myself included) assuming something was decided by one of them when actually it was the other

like okay, the song in tatinof. The whole joke within the show was that phil really wanted to sing this song and dan was like 🙄 and dragging his feet until eventually he’s like “okay fine we can sing.” Now obviously this was a bit for the show, but it definitely fit with the personas they presented at the time with phil being all fun and whimsical and dan being the more serious one. The bit felt like a reflection of real life/their personalities as we knew them… and then story of tatinof comes along and dan is like “yeah I was the one who insisted on there being a musical number.” Now idk, looking back i’m not shocked it was dan, but at the time it was definitely surprising yk! Something that had “phil” written all over it (which they KNEW, which is why Phil was the one who wanted to sing within tatinof) was actually dan

but I find myself still today sometimes being surprised by things like this. with the dapc slime video, I (like others) assumed phil was the one who came up with the concept/directed it because phil is the horror guy! And it was somewhat reminiscent of phil’s old school YouTube stuff. like you think of the basket and dapc slime coming from the same person, it checks out. But turns out nope, it was dan who came up with the idea and directed it. And then with the phouse, everyone felt like the style was very “dan” bc there was no color anywhere it and was so sleek and modern and then phil was like no this is my taste too 😭 I think he talked about it once in the context of the living room but he also specifically said the entryway was his idea, even though to me it's something that's very "dan"

of course at the end of the day dan and phil are separate ppl with different personalities and i’m not trying to say they like have no identity separate from each other. Just like. I feel like sometimes I get so caught up in the idea that they’re day/night dark/light grumpy/sunshine etc that I forget they’re also like. idk. two vines that have been growing together for so long and are so intertwined that you can't tell where one starts and the other begins

[wayneskluv]

summary: Your mom—Wonder Woman—just dropped you off at Wayne Manor like a kid because she apparently couldn’t find a “suitable babysitter.” Never mind that you’re a fully grown adult and more than capable of taking care of yourself. Now you’re stuck in a mansion full of brooding vigilantes, chaotic adopted siblings, and a butler who’s already silently judging your life choices.

You survived battles, monsters, and Olympian family drama—but can you survive living with the Batfamily?

word count: ???

pairing/s: platonic!damian x reader (definite, set in stone) and then i’m not sure maybe dick x reader or jason x reader idk atm

warnings: basically none at the moment. damian being a bit of a demon brat. demigod!user.

authors note: um so hi. i’m back! probably. this might be a new sort of fic if anyone is interested.. like just chaos and perhaps a romantic pairing.. i will actually work on the peraltiago fic at some point but life has been HECTIC.

find chapter one here!

WAYNE Manor looms ahead, all gothic spires and looming stone, like something out of a horror novel rather than a billionaire’s estate. You shift the strap of your duffel bag, inhaling deeply. The air here is thick with old books, expensive wood polish, and—oddly enough—gunpowder. Fitting, considering the people inside.

The massive doors swing open before you can knock, revealing Alfred, ever the picture of poise. His expression is unreadable, but there’s warmth in his voice. “Miss. Welcome to Wayne Manor.”

You nod. “Thanks.”

Inside, the house is even grander. High ceilings, walls lined with paintings older than some civilizations, and a staircase that looks like it was built for dramatic entrances.

Bruce is already there, waiting near the banister like some brooding gargoyle. Arms crossed. Stance firm. His usual intimidation tactics, but you’ve faced literal gods.

“You’ll be staying in the east wing,” he says. “Alfred will show you to your room.”

You raise a brow. “No speech? No ‘my house, my rules’?”

He exhales sharply. “You already know the rules. You’re not a guest—you’re an ally.”

Which is Bat-speak for I trust you, but I’ll still be watching you like a hawk.

Then, Chaos.

Dick is the first to approach, all bright smiles and easy warmth. “Hey! Glad you’re here.” He pulls you into a quick one-armed hug before you can react. “Don’t let the gloom and doom fool you—this place is kinda fun once you settle in.”

Jason, leaning against the staircase railing, snorts. “Fun? Sure. If you like near-death experiences and questioning your mortality on a daily basis.”

Tim, slouched on the couch with a coffee in hand, barely looks up. “Give it a few days. You’ll either love it or start reconsidering your life choices.”

“Tt.” The noise comes from Damian, standing stiffly at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed like a tiny warlord. His eyes flick over you, assessing, calculating. “You may be the daughter of an Amazon, but that does not mean you are above scrutiny.”

You smirk. “And you must be the infamous Damian. I’ve heard so much about you.”

His scowl deepens. “I highly doubt that.”

Dick slings an arm around your shoulders, grinning. “You’ll fit right in.”

You glance around at the absolute mess of personalities—grumpy billionaires, reckless vigilantes, over-caffeinated detectives, and a pint-sized assassin with a superiority complex.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

[queerical]

[ID: tweet by chatpile roan that reads, bossman keeps hiring incompetent children at work so i'm putting them all on sticker charts, fuck them kids. attached is a picture of a hand holding several sheets of stickers. it has been retweeted by the OP with a comment that reads, why the fuck is it working /END ID]

so when i was in treatment, for a while i lived in the "boys' house" (long story) and one of the most consistent problems was a lack of cups. becuz the residents would just leave them everywhere, especially in their rooms. and when mealtimes came we had to do a whole thing of collecting them and washing them

i decided to take it upon myself to solve this. i had heard of a trick like this before, so what i started doing was being very stern in checking on whether they had cups in their room or if i saw them about to leave a cup lying around. at first they'd grumble about it, but whenever they brought their cups to the sink, i'd give a big smile and thumb's up and say something like "great job!"

before i knew it, they were bringing their cups without prompting. and when they did, they would eagerly bring my attention to it just to get that positive affirmation. and even after i left the house, they continued doing it

it's such a bizarrely simple life hack, but positive reinforcement truly does work

i literally love when people realize positive reinforcement works like yes its so silly isnt it. but it literally works humans love juice reward too

[jedisupernova]

old school love with choi seunghyun

notes minors dni contains fem reader, non idol au, seunghyun and reader are in their early twenties, always written with plus size reader in mind as i am myself but anyone can read, takes place in the late 2000s (hence the mention of specific phones, references to certain media, songs linked throughout, and party culture,) awkward yet cute first meeting, this very much slice of life, slight angst (a silly misunderstanding during the meet cute, reader brings up insecurities from not being experienced), tooth rotting fluff, a few appearances from jiyong because yes!, mentions of smoking and drinking, reader is inexperienced (never been kissed, never been confessed to; seunghyun is her first love), reader has strict parents which leads to seunghyun and reader having to sneak around, seunghyun and reader are down bad, smut (over the phone, in the car, oral f receiving, dirty talk, foreplay, p in v), and some inevitable typos.

requested? no, this is an original idea! this was initially inspired by the mention of old school love in this song by zayn. i've always heard of the concept, and this is my take on it, told through vignettes of gentle young love. please request something if you'd like, and don't hesitate to check my pinned post. i love this man tenderly. please tell me you see the vision. enjoy!

new year's eve 2007. there's still three hours to midnight, and seunghyun's wondering why he chose to wear a hoodie with long sleeves underneath to a crowded house party. luckily he's got his own corner of the compact living room, standing between two friends he hitched a ride with there—his third being the host—so he aptly distracted himself from how hot it was with their banter as best he could, laughing into his red solo cup before taking a swig of whatever concoction his friend mixed for him in the kitchen earlier tonight. he hid his soured expression over the taste well, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. seunghyun remembers asking for a rum and coke, and he can definitely taste the latter ... but he'd know his enemy smirnoff anywhere ... it was way too stuffy to move, so he humbly took the loss.

"there you fuckin' are!" seunghyun looked up to see jiyong, the one hosting who already looked as if the night had taken its toll. "holy shit, man. i've been looking everywhere for you guys!" seunghyun had to squint to hear him over the loud music. the fact there wasn't much lighting besides a few lamps and multi-colored rotating disco party lights didn't help either. "c'mon. she just got here—in the kitchen." jiyong motioned his head to the left, the trio following him into the crowd. the kitchen was much more well lit and slightly less congested, but seunghyun nonetheless had to put his weight against the fridge to grant enough room to stand comfortably. he offered a polite grin and wave to the friend group mainly comprised of women his age in front of him, the one in the middle introduced as jiyong's girlfriend. you were closest to the counter, the left of everyone, cracking open a hard seltzer you picked from the cooler stationed beside the sink. you grimaced after taking a sip, bringing the can to your eyes to see the flavor that wronged you: lime. "christ, that's horrible." you shook your head, expression soured.

seunghyun didn't overhear, because he was too busy looking over his shoulder in amazement upon hearing one of his suggestions for the party mixtape blare throughout the house. reverting his attention back with a smug grin on his face, his eyes fluttered past you tugging at the collar of your sweater, pulling at it repeatedly for what looked to be air flow. seunghyun wondered if the party felt like an oven to you, too, and if you overdressed like him, because he started fanning himself without realizing.

an hour later, he couldn't take it anymore. "be right back, i'm going out for a smoke." he told a friend sat beside him on the couch. he could not have cared less that it was below freezing outside, or that the leftovers from the snow storm three weeks ago had probably frozen over into patches of black ice littering the deck—he needed to cool off. he closed the sliding door with a relieved huff, the party now muffled. the feet of his sneakers crunched against the snow, hands pushing his hood off his head, fingers brushing through his sweaty hair. "holy shit." he muttered to himself, pulling his sleeves up to his elbows. seunghyun could see his breath when he exhaled, and goosebumps rose along his bare arms, but as far as he was concerned, he would stay out here to ring in the new year if it meant he wouldn't have to suffer a heatstroke inside. he walked to a spot behind the wooden railing framing the entirety of the deck, his hand reaching into his pocket for his marlboros. he took out a cigarette, hanging it between his lips, searching for his lighter next. it was then he looked up and saw you standing at your own spot along the railing some feet away, having looked over your shoulder to see who else had come outside.

it was too late to ignore, or act like you didn't see each other, so he did the favor of making things less awkward. or trying to, as any twenty-something year old hopes: seunghyun took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. "hi," he spoke uncharacteristically quietly. "you're—" thank the universe he remembered her name, because the irrational nerves over making conversation were mounting quickly. "—friend, right?" you nodded. "you're jiyong's?" you asked. he smiled, nodding too. "i'm seunghyun. we met earlier, in the kitchen?" his tone asked if you remembered, his hand gesturing to the sliding door. "yes!" you responded a bit more enthusiastically than you intended to in your head, internally cringing. "i remember, i remember." you said, nodding. you didn't know what else to do. seunghyun must've felt the same, because he nodded at nothing.

you looked away from him, feeling flustered. he mimicked, hands balled up in his pockets. "you—" he cleared his throat. "you liking the party?" "hm?" you didn't expect him to continue the conversation. "yeah!" here you went again, sounding animated to the point that even he, a complete stranger, could tell you were over-compensating. "i mean," you let out a breath, shrugging your shoulders. "its okay. i don't really go to parties often, so i guess i could say i misjudged how hot it'd be to show up in a sweater with a thermal underneath." seunghyun exhaled through his nose, an upside down grin tugging at his lips. "i know." he agreed. "hot as shit in there, bro." you chuckled. "hot as shit indeed."

silence brewed. seunghyun didn't turn away, so you took it as your turn to fill the air. you pulled out the only card you had (bringing up a mutual friend,) even if he'd done so already: "how long have you—" the sudden dryness of your throat was certainly a sign from the universe to shut up, but it was too late to cut yourself off completely. you swallowed, continuing: "how long have you known jiyong?" "since we were kids. middle school, i think." seunghyun doesn't know why he implied he didn't know, because he certainly did. he also wondered why he nodded, again, at nothing. who boldfaced lied when they said your preteen years were the most awkward? because he wanted to curl into a ball right the fuck now. he was usually fine at making small talk, what was the difference now? why couldn't he stop nodding?? "how about you?" oh, great. now his voice was a noticeable octave higher, clearing his throat.

you knew what he meant. "we met each other our freshman year. she was in my first year seminar, and we kind of just clicked." "you go to school around here?" "mhm," you nodded. "the university that everyone we know goes to, it feels like." you quipped, making that upside down grin appear on his face again. "how about you?" "the community college that no one goes to." he answered, voice back to normal. "but i'm in the middle of transferring there, funnily enough." then ushered in another characteristically young adult conversation: your studies. it was standard and harmless. even so, you came across a different reason to break a sweat despite the bitter cold beginning to numb your cheeks, or the sharp, quick breaths through your periodically chattering teeth. seunghyun took a step closer to you in the midst telling an anecdote about the last exam he had before the holiday break, inadvertently putting himself in your direct line of view. you realized not only oh, wow. he's pretty tall, to yourself, lifting your head a little to look at him, but also oh, wow. he's pretty cute, when your eyes met. or when he continued looking at you, because he finished saying his piece some seconds ago, yet you hadn't said anything. the fleeting silence only made you become more flustered, really coming to terms with just how fine he is; all clashing with how you have no idea how to talk to someone this attractive.

"yeah, that sounds fucked up." you attempted to mask the fact that you did not process a word of what he just said with a chuckle, gaze lowering momentarily to your hands, tugging at your sleeves to shield them from the cold, or just to do something. the words felt foreign in your mouth—your inner monologue making you feel like you were trying too hard—though you weren't allergic to profanity whatsoever. seunghyun smirked to himself, his own gaze falling to the snowy deck, until you spoke: "i had, like, three exams all in one day—the day before break." you said, glancing up at him before chickening out, reverting back to your hands which were completely engulfed by your knit sweater. your thumb poked out of the sleeve, nail picking at a fraying thread. "i guess i'm still feeling the repercussions of it." the volume of your voice dwindled somewhat coupled your shy grin, your shoulders shrugging, looking up at him. even through his chuckle with a smile making the corners of his eyes kiss, or his affirming "its brutal. i get that.," you mentally berated yourself: holy shit, is that the best i can do? just continue talking about school? get yourself together!

the next bout of silence lasted for at most ten seconds, but with how you were scrambling, it felt like years; working against an invisible timer. unbeknownst to him, this was seunghyun's turn to look at you. the only word coming to mind was sweet. he was smart enough to put two-and-two together as to why you were, admittedly, visibly nervous as he's had a girlfriend before. he wasn't the type to use that to inflate his ego, but found it charming nonetheless. seeing the curvature of your cheeks when you looked down made his heart soften—his lips molding into that damn knowing grin—and it could've very well been the minute gust of wind, but the glint in your eyes when you looked at him, nodding politely ... he was a little taken aback. you were devastatingly adorable.

your eye caught the cigarette in his hand. "you smoke?" you blurted out without an iota of a thought, so quick that your tone was almost bland—a moment where the subconscious beat rationale. oh my god. you momentarily closed your eyes, shocked at yourself. are you kidding me? seunghyun held in a laugh, trying his best to wipe his smile off his face when you opened your eyes. you mistook it as a sign of second-hand embarrassment. "oh my god. i'm so sorry, i don't know why i said—" "—it's okay, you're good." seunghyun shook his head as further affirmation, waving his free hand. he had completely forgotten he was still holding the cigarette, anyway. "but, yeah. i do. sometimes." his face started to feel warm. not because he felt shamed, or belittled, or judged, but because he caught sight of your eyes again. he could've sworn they'd grown in the last fifteen seconds. "d—do you?" he suddenly became very aware of how deep his voice is. "my voice has always sounded like this." he explained, gesturing to his throat. he knew he was being irrational, but like you before, it was too late to cut himself off. "i'm not like—uh—dying, or anything." he brushed off with an animated chuckle.

you felt like the worst person in the world. the nervous smile on your face didn't move a millimeter. "i don't." you shook your head. "and it's okay! i didn't mean to—i like your voice." your eyes widened. seunghyun raised his eyebrows. "you do?" he couldn't hide his smile. he returned the boldness, even if yours was a slip of the mouth. "i like your face." he meant it. there isn't a timeline out there where that wouldn't be the truth. your surprised expression made him exhale through his nose, an admiring grin on his face. oh, he wanted you. flashes ran through his head: squishing what looked to be the softest cheeks in the world between his palms, pulling you close to his chest to help you warm up; pressing his cheek against yours as a makeshift heater since you've truly made him that flustered, and how you'd react upon him calling you "my girl." sure, he was moving a little quickly, considering he's just realized he never asked for your name, but that's what just crushes do. seunghyun could not help the dream-like state he entered, placing his hand on the railing, the unlit cigarette slipping from his fingers, lost in the grass below. you, on the other hand, were speechless. never before have you ever been flirted with—this was flirting, right? like, you weren't misreading anything, or making shit up? "you ... you do?"

before seunghyun could answer, the sliding door opened, the ruckus of the party no longer blocked out. "seunghyun!" it was jiyong. "it's thirty minutes 'til the ball drop. i need help setting up the champagne." jiyong saw you, nearly cowering at seunghyun's scathing look reading are you fucking serious? "m-my bad, you guys." jiyong laughed awkwardly, putting a hand up in surrender. "seunghyun, just come in whenever." the door closed, leaving you two alone again. you were sheepish out of your goddamn mind, unable to look at seunghyun, content with the fact that your eyes may just stay on the deck forever. "i meant it, by the way." you looked up. "hm?" "i like your face." seunghyun repeated. your full smile that appeared ... his knees might have buckled. "oh," a giggle left your lips. yeah, he was a goner. "thank you. i ... i like your face, too." your voice was gentle. it felt indescribable, flirting back. you weren't sure if you were doing it right, considering you were suddenly really interested in the shape of your pointer finger's nail bed right about now, thwarting this fire-pit of feelings in your chest ... to be desired, chatted up, or pursued like this ... by a fine ass man nonetheless ... after being sidelined for your whole life, watching your friends experience something you wanted so badly too. oh my goodness—maybe your friends weren't just trying to make you feel better when they told you ad nauseam that it comes when you least expect it. because out of everything, and you mean everything you expected to happen tonight, this wasn't even in the realm of the realm of the utmost realm of possibilities.

you warded off wanting to hold his hand by interlacing your fingers together. seunghyun couldn't stop the stupidly big smile stretching across his face if he tried. "cool," he said, nodding. "that's .... that's cool." his hand came up, scratching the back of his neck. "listen, i .. uh—" he gestured to the door. "i gotta go back inside and help jiyong with the—with the champagne. could i get your number? i'll call you tomorrow, if that's okay with you." "yes!" your heart stammered over how he smiled so big his eyes smiled with him. seunghyun gave you his nokia flip phone, letting you type your number in. "call yourself so you can have my number, too." said seunghyun, pulling his sleeves back down. you did so, satisfied hearing your phone ring, pulling it out of your pocket to end the call. "i never got your name." he said, putting his phone back into his pocket. when you told him, he didn't stop his inner monologue from adding his surname. call it a random impulsive thought or whatever, but he was being serious. "i'll see you inside?" he asked, halfway through walking to the door. "mhm!" you responded. "see you inside." seunghyun smiled, disappearing back into the party. you missed his fine ass already . . .

so there you were, the next evening, repeatedly glancing at your phone. you felt fine for a majority of the day; sleeping in after coming home late the night previous, treating your hovering hangover with plentiful amounts of water and falling asleep yet again, but within the first hour of fellowship of the ring (it was your first time in recent years defying your self-made new year's tradition), and hurriedly bringing your phone within eyesight if it did so much as beep. you wondered if seunghyun would actually call . . . it all seemed too good to be true . . . and you hoped that he'd just magically show up, looking over your shoulder and out the living room window for his car (did he even have one?) and walk up to your door (he hasn't the faintest clue where you live) with a bouquet of roses (he doesn't know they're your favorites. well, at least not yet) to profess his undying love to you (working on that too. the to do list is in your head). so when your phone rang after dinner, your hair still very much wet from your shower; the towel having just been thrown behind your desk chair, you momentarily froze. you grabbed your phone from your desk, confused by the unknown number. but then you recognized the area code as your own, realising that in the midst of your yearning, you completely forgot to save his number.

you pressed the answer button, bringing your phone to your ear. "hello?" "hey!" my goodness, it wasn't too good to be true. "happy new year! i wasn't able to find you after the ball dropped. so, yeah. here's me wishing you." he descended into a short, slightly nervous chuckle. he was looking for me!? oh my god!? "happy new year," you said back, closing your bedroom door. "you were looking for me? i left at around two, i think. how about you?" "five, maybe." seunghyun dodged the other question, his face already feeling warm not even a full minute in. "jiyong needed help cleaning up, and kicking people out." "five!?" you exclaimed, sitting on the edge of your bed. "and here i was, fighting sleep all day, whereas you sound unscathed." seunghyun laughed heartily. "i slept in until, like, two today. so i wouldn't say i was completely unaffected." "that's fair." you nodded, despite him not being able to see.

"how about you, hm?" he asked, voice smooth and low, even over the grainy audio. "did you sleep good?" "i did. better than usual." seunghyun smirked, fingers toying with the drawstring cords of his sweatpants. "how about you?" he heard your sweet voice ask. "i slept good, too. knowing i'd be talking to you the next day." you hid your eyes behind your palm, elbow resting atop your thigh. how you were able to get words out, you had no idea. "seunghyun," he could hear that on a loop for the rest of his life and he would die a happy man. "you can't just say shit like that." "why not?" the gentle, yet teasing lilt to his words made you feel dizzy. it was as if the universe finally aligned in your favor. what he would do to see the look on your face right now . . . "what? have you never been flirted with, or something?" he quipped playfully without much thought. "i haven't, no." you answered truthfully. "but you still can't say shit like that, seunghyun. i need a warning or something. it's like my mind stops working." you chuckled, pressing your phone to your ear like its the last thing you'll ever do.

seunghyun's eyebrows flinched in and out of a furrow. "no one's ever flirted with you? what do you mean?" the question aired out before thinking. the realised insensitivity of his words coupled with the unintended belittling tone made him backtrack almost immediately: "that was low of me to say. i'm sorry, that's my bad completely." he shook his head completely. "it's okay!" you shook your head, too. "you didn't know. it's fine." you took a breath. "but if we're being honest . . . no. i've never done anything like that before. i'm more used to seeing it happen to other people than experiencing it, if that makes sense." "it does." seunghyun was quick to affirm, nodding whilst he listening to your words carefully. "yeah," your palm slid up and down your thigh, subconsciously trying to self-sooth. "so . . . last night, when we were talking . . . i thought you were making fun of me. or pulling my leg. but then i realised my brain just wasn't letting me accept that . . . oh, this guy might think i'm cute, too." "i do. i do think that." seunghyun sat up in his bed, determined. "i would never do that. i'm not that type of guy. i don't know who you've met, or made you feel like this, but know i'm not like that."

there was a brief moment of silence from your end of the call. "are you sure you're not just saying that to me to be nice?" "of course not." he said sincerely, tone soft. "of course i'm not saying it to be nice. i mean it. i'll be honest, when i met you last night, you have some of the most kissable cheeks i've ever fucking seen." he pulled his legs up to sit criss-cross. this was serious to him. "how about when you casually mentioned you won an award for a policy paper you wrote about education? i didn't know i'd be at the same party as the future president." "oh my god!" you laughed, face feeling as if it was ablaze. "you're crazy." "look, people have decided to miss out on you, but i won't. are you free on friday? no—scratch that, we're on break until next week. are you free tomorrow?"

for the first time in your life, you didn't feel the need to convince yourself you were worthy of romance, because the universe rooted for you, too. "i am. all day." you said. "i'll take you to dinner. do you want to see a movie?" "i like them, yeah. but . . . i mean, i was watching fellowship of the ring earlier today." just say it. he's right there, on the other side of the line. just say it. ". . . but, i like talking to you. i'd—" you cleared your throat. "i'd rather do that then wait two hours to—uh—do so, if that makes sense." your palm started soothing your thigh again. seunghyun had the stupidest smile on his face. he refrained from hiding his head underneath his pillow. "but we can watch a movie! next time! if that's . . . if that's what you want!" your eyes closed in defeat, hiding your face from no one. "oh god, i'm digging myself into a hole here. i have no idea how to do this." "you're doing really well." said seunghyun. "enough to make my face feel like i have the highest fever ever." "you too." you responded sheepishly. "we'll finish fellowship of the ring on our second date. it's my favorite after return of the king, anyway." you hit the jackpot. "okay," you responded, how fucking sweet you sounded made his heart palpitate. "sounds good, seunghyun. i can't wait."

three months later, you beginning to feel those love songs you've heard all your life were onto something. something you come to terms with would pass you by as a way to cope—but here he was now, bending down onto his knee in the middle of a busy bookstore to tie your shoelace; buying the cds of your favorite artists that you mention either intentionally or off-the-cuff, downloading them to his ipod to listen in between lectures, doing coursework, or storing them into his cd wallet in the center console of his car to listen on his way to pick you up; or spending a lot of his time kissing those precious cheeks ("you're so sweet, you know that? so pretty, too." "seunghyun . . ." "see, that's what i mean.") he's a very smooth talker, doting, and affectionate. primarily because he cannot get enough of the look on your face whenever he makes a move, but also because you breath more life into him when he does so. to seunghyun's fault, however, he can get a little ahead of himself, and forget how shy you can be. so when the tension had been brewing throughout the entirety of your third date, you two sat in bashful silence in his car, him parked some feet away from your house. the music had since been lowered; one of the many cds he's bought since you started dating. seunghyun leaned over the center console towards you, only to retract somewhat when he heard a small gasp. "i'm sorry," he said. "did i—was that too quick?" "no, no. it's okay." you nodded in reassurance. "i just . . . i've just never kissed anyone before. sorry, i know that probably sounds really annoying by now." your hands were in your lap, thumb running over your knuckles to thwart the warmth traveling up your neck.

seunghyun shook his head. "its not. i told you its not." he said sincerely. its true, he has told you that it is and will never be a problem. how he giggles over the phone and presses kisses onto the back of your hand whenever he holds it serves as testament, but that voice in your head can be a bit louder. "i want to." you tell him, eyes meeting with his. seunghyun looked so fine it was almost offensive; his grown out black hair and choppy bangs messily framing his face albeit with effortless charm. he's told you he thinks it makes him look weird, hence how often he wears beanies and puts his hood up, but the moment you muttered "i think it makes you look really handsome," over the phone two nights ago, he showed up tonight letting it breath no problem. "but i don't know how." you told him, shaking your head. "its okay, baby," seunghyun reassured tenderly. it was the first time he called you that pet name, but he didn't think twice as it felt akin to natural instinct to call you that. you, on the other hand, were struggling to keep it together in the passenger's seat. i only have so much strength as a woman . . . you thought to yourself.

"we'll take it slow. just close your eyes and take a breath for me, okay? the rest'll come naturally. i promise." "okay." you nodded, trusting him. seunghyun leaned in again. you saw his eyes glance at your lips before returning to yours, your lids darkening your vision only when his nose brushed against yours. his lips were soft and wet as he had licked them before kissing you. yours were so fucking warm against seunghyun's, making him want to kiss you all the more harder, but he steadied himself, reconnecting gently. the side of his nose nestled against yours. "how was that?" he whispered. the cd had finished playing, so the car was quiet besides you and him. "good." you whispered back. "how did i . . . how did i do?" "good," he nodded, glancing at your lips again. "just . . . try kissing me back. don't think about it," your felt his hair tickle your forehead as he shook his head. "i know you'll be good."

to his delight, you were the one that closed the small gap between you. the kiss was so soft, almost nurturing; all the more intoxicating. you reconnected the kiss, pressing your lips onto his in a way that made his arms feel like tv static. "a little softer." he murmured, half-talking to you, but more-so to himself to come down. seunghyun went to kiss you again, but his lips landed on the corner of your opened mouth. "i-i'm sorry." "no, no. it's okay, baby," he tutted softly. christ, that fucking voice of his was going to end you one day. "come here. come here, baby." he got your lips back on his, but you broke it again, obscenely flustered. your heartbeat was in your temples, your palms sweaty in your lap. "seunghyun," you pleaded in that voice he would go to fucking war for. "you can't just call me that." "i can, and i will." he said. "now, come here, baby."

his hand reached over, holding both of yours beneath his palm. you brought a hand up to his jaw when he kissed you, feeling him hum against your lips in encouragement. seunghyun tilted his head a little to the left, deepening the kiss but not by too much, monitoring your reaction. his muscles relaxed upon feeling your exhale through your nose brush along his cheeks. the kiss ceased after a few moments by you once again, only this time to catch your breath. he rested his forehead against yours, breathless himself. "you're really good at this." he said, heartbeat stuttering when he heard your quiet "thank you." seunghyun blurted out this next question without much thought or reason, since he imagined the moment where he asked this to be more romantic, but he simply could not hold himself back: "can i—can i be your boyfriend?"

"yes, yes you can." you responded. both of your hands now held either side of his face, feeling his hand squeeze your thigh a little. "you can be my boyfriend, seunghyun." a grin tugged at the corner of his lips. "i'll—i'll get you flowers and card, and ask you more properly next time." "its okay, its fine." you nodded against his forehead. your thumb traced his bottom lip, "just kiss me right now. i—i need—" you did not need to tell him twice. seunghyun reunited your lips, hand gripping your thigh when your fingers slipped into his hair.

even though you were well over the appropriate age to start dating, you just knew your parents would freak out if they knew you were running around with a boy. you didn't even think to employ the thought; it just wasn't an option. it would be something about distracting yourself from your studies (your grades were nowhere near subpar), or moving too quickly (hey! you're in college, by the way), or being subject to the ongoing mass, unreasonable hysteria over teen pregnancy perpetuated by national news editorials and shitty reality shows, making parents believe by standing near the opposite sex their daughters will somehow be with child (again, you're in your twenties and in college, and its also not your fault parents around the country treat mtv like its the second coming of the satanic panic of the eighties)—so you saved yourself the trouble. seunghyun understood wholeheartedly and took no issue with it, but that doesn't mean he didn't dare go against the grain.

a week before your two month anniversary, your ringtone rang, slightly muffled atop your duvet. you got up from your desk chair, leaving your coursework behind and walked to your bed, clicking the green call button. "hi seunghyun," your voice was soft. "everything okay?" "hey baby," he said. "i'm good, i'm good." he stuffed his free hand into the pocket of his puffer jacket, shivering. "how was your day, hm? i missed you." "fine," you answered, keeping your phone to your ear by raising your shoulder, flipping your textbook to the next chapter you needed to read to complete an assignment. "just a lot of work to do. you know how sundays are. i missed you, too." "i know, baby." his hand left his pocket, using the side of his thumb to wipe his nose. "you know, i'm happy to hear that you missed me, because i'm outside." you raised your head, alarmed, eyebrows knit in confusion. "what do you mean you're outside?" "i mean that i'm outside." "outside where?" "your window." his laugh was masked with a cough. "shit—it's really cold out here, baby." he muttered, looking around at the street lamps, his car parked some distance away. your room was on the lower floor of your family's home; the window on the side of the house and had some height to it, but not enough to ward off seunghyun's idea. so here he was, acting on it.

you hurriedly closed your bedroom door. "are you crazy!?" you whispered. "it's freezing outside! how long have you been out there?" "about ten minutes," seunghyun's tone was calm, as if it was just another day. "there isn't that much distance between your house and the street, but it took a while because i had to avoid the frozen over snow." "you're insane." you muttered. he smiled even wider. "let me see you, baby. c'mon. i miss you." you hung up the call. seunghyun watched the window before him, his upside down grin showing proudly when the curtains opened, revealing you. the snow crunched crisply underneath his feet, walking up when you unlocked and opened the window. "you're utterly insane," you said, resting your elbows on the windowsill, hearing him laugh. "its almost midnight. we both have class early tomorrow, and my parents could wake up at any moment!" you voice descended into a loud whisper. seunghyun waved his hand dismissively. "what did i tell you the other night? i'll drive you. you don't need to take the bus anymore." he spoke quietly, understanding the circumstance, even if he enjoyed teasing you. "you know what else you did the other night that you could've done now? call me." you retorted, but it was really hard to act upset. "you don't like my gesture?" he asked, not hiding his knowing smirk. "i'm saying you saw me two days ago, and you're seeing me every day before our anniversary." "i'd see you every hour in between, if i could."

you didn't have anything smart to say, so you succumbed to your flustered state. seunghyun, looking so princely in his puffer jacket with no beanie in sight, the distant cast of your nightside table lamp weakly illuminating his slightly reddened cheeks from the bitter cold, stepped closer. "give me a kiss and i'll go, baby. just needed to see you." your knees nestled onto the carpeted floors, your torso leaning out the window. seunghyun grabbed onto the ledge, hoisting himself onto the tips of his toes. it was enough for his head to be leveled with your bedroom, but not for long as his eyes fluttered closed to the feeling of your palms holding his face, bringing your lips to his in a tender, sweet kiss. his chin brushed against the ledge, tightening his grip when he re-connected the kiss, feeling his mouth thaw from the cold and ignoring how his under arms were beginning to burn. "can't last twelve hours without you." he murmured against your lips. "learn to." you whispered, kissing him back. "don't wanna." seunghyun took a quick breath when you kissed him one last time, the soft squeak of your lips parting making him feel light-headed.

he watched you in a daze when you returned to resting your elbows against the windowsill; you were as beautiful as a deity, so effortless with your allure. a content smile appeared on his face, eyes twinkling. "thank you, baby." his voice was smooth, turning his head to kiss your palm upon your fingers fixing his hair. he slowly let go of the ledge, paying no mind to how his palms ached. he glanced below him, "i'm sure if i bring a step stool big enough, it'll be no problem next time—" "—next time?" seunghyun looked up. "what? you don't want there to be a next time?" he asked, that goddamn teasing lilt in his voice. "i . . . i do." you spoke so sweetly, he thought he could muster the strength to jump inside. "but at least tell me ahead of time so you won't freeze to near fucking death."

seunghyun kept his word, because the night after your anniversary, he was back outside your window equipped with a step stool. thus began your very risky sneaking around: his arrival at your window at around 10 pm (or thirty minutes later if you went on a date, giving you enough time to return home without suspicion over where you've been, shower, and get ready for bed; either way, he was waiting for your signal of opening the curtains), speed walking to your window after locking his car, step stool in the other hand, climbing into your room after you opened your window, and settling beside you in bed. you spoke in the quietest of whispers, giggled into each other's shoulders, and shared delicate kisses. other times, you brought out your portable dvd player, snuggling into his chest whilst his arms wrapped around you. "my baby. my beautiful girl." he murmured into your supple skin before planting kisses on your forehead, laying his head atop yours. you two read the subtitles in peaceful silence—not daring to raise the volume—either fighting sleep or keeping awake with each other's lips.

he usually left at around one, but one night on the cusp of four months together, both of you fell asleep. you stirred awake, feeling the dvd player lodged uncomfortably underneath your thigh, gradually turning onto your side. seunghyun was in sound slumber, breaths coming in quiet, but curt whistles. your room wasn't completely dark, squinting at the lamp you forgot to turn off next to your bedside digital clock. you jolted awake upon seeing the time: 4:17 AM. "oh my god—" you murmured to yourself, yanking the duvet off of you and getting up in a panic. you turned to seunghyun's sleeping state in utmost dread, remembering he's a deep sleeper, and its a battle to wake him up. "fuck!" you whispered. you tried to think of something, lifting to the duvet further, spotting his ipod and wired headphones. you grabbed it, seeing it there was still half charge. you turned seunghyun's head upright, lodging the headphones in his ears. you scrolled through his library briefly, turning the dial to amp up the volume. "i'm sorry." you whispered apologetically, clicking play.

he stirred awake, sitting up on his elbows, headphones falling out of his ears. "whhaa—" "seunghyun? seunghyun, baby? its four in the morning." you whispered. he slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes. "its four am?" he mumbled, voice riddled with slumber, sounding lower than usual. "yes, baby," you whispered, the bed dipping next to him as you sat. "we fell asleep. i—i don't think my parents came in. but you have to go home." "i know. i know, baby." seunghyun mumbled, pushing the duvet off his jeans. "just—just give me a moment." "thank you." your hand lay on his cheek, bringing the closer one to your lips. seunghyun puckered his lips, still lost in his lingering sleep, humming lowly in satisfaction when he felt your chaste kiss. he climbed out of bed, leaving his ipod behind, stuffing his feet into his shoes by the window. you unlocked it, hearing him yawn, his palm covering his mouth. "i'll come back at ten." he told you, more awake than before. "okay." you spoke softly, entering his usual embrace, your arms wrapping around one another. "i'll see you then. call me when you get home." "i will, my beautiful girl." his breath was hot against your temple—your height only barely reaching his shoulder—pressing a kiss onto your skin before you lifted your head, bringing your lips to his. his thumb kept your chin in place, kissing you back. "i love you, baby." "i love you too, seunghyunie." with that, he climbed out of your window. he grabbed the step stool, walking to his car. the sunrise peered over your neighborhood, only to be shunned out with the closing of your window and drapes. it wasn't until you tucked the dvd player and his ipod away in your nightside drawer did you realize . . . wait . . . we just said i love you.

weekends are typically reserved for dates which largely consist of getting coffee, taking the train into the city to visit museums (and seunghyun nudging his forehead into your temple shyly whenever you lock your arm with his), or passing time walking throughout the mall; looking through various shops and boutiques with your hand in his (and him keeping his gaze on the kay jewelers for a little longer than he intended), sitting next to you as opposed to across during dinner, and ending the night by making out in the backseat of his car. your hand on his cheek, his on your thigh; tongues in fair play. you broke the kiss to look at the small analog clock on his dashboard, biting your bottom lip when his lips found their usual spot on your neck, barely hiding your whimper. "fuck." he muttered, moving to the other side of your neck. his hands rested on either of your hips, humming in content upon feeling your fingers find his hair. "s-seunghyun," you fought to keep your eyes open. "it's 11:10. i have to go inside." "your parents can wait five more minutes." he said. the feeling of his voice vibrating against your skin made your eyes roll back, thighs rubbing together. a small gasp reverberated through the car when seunghyun started running his tongue repeatedly over a spot of your warm skin, sucking and popping off of it. "i really have to go inside—" "—at least let me finish this, baby. the last one healed too quickly." "o-okay," you let out a shaky breath, holding the back of his head, letting your eyes flutter closed. "don't make it too big." "i won't."

sundays were spent at the university library. you two are in your own worlds, sharing a spacious table with various pieces of coursework, required readings, and notebooks sprawled out in a way that only makes sense to your respective minds—seunghyun with his hood up, wired headphones in and reading glasses on. your pen cap between your teeth whilst you read the third of five passages for an upcoming essay you had due; back and forth between taking notes and highlighting lines. you didn't study together much during the week since your lectures did not align most days. but on the mornings where it did, neither of you having classes until the afternoon, seunghyun came over no matter the time he slept or if he was there the night previous, but neither of you studied. he meant it when he said he would spend every hour with you if he could, because he wakes up early just to be with you. it doesn't matter if its to fall right back asleep in your bed after your parents left for work at nine, he was there.

his personal favorites were early saturday afternoons (bonus points if you were going to a party later that night): him laying on top of you, his temple against your chest, taking a nap. he would fall asleep to the sound of you turning the pages of your book, coupled with the steady rise and fall of your chest. by the sound of his quiet snores, you started to feel sleepy by proxy. you would give in after nearly dropping the paperback book on his head, putting it aside on your bedside table. your hand reached down your side for his hand, fishing it out of the warm duvet to set an hour timer on his watch. you brought the pads of his fingers to your lips, kissing them softly before nestling in for your own nap, holding your baby close to you.

you loved and trusted each other to the point of peaceful co-existence. you and seunghyun were alone in the house one saturday evening; him in your room, you in the bathroom down the hall. you were going to a mutual friend's party to dually celebrate both her birthday and the end of finals week that night. your bedroom door was wide open, seunghyun overhearing the rustling of your makeup bag as his eyes looked through your shelf of cds. songs in a minor, alicia keys .... everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?, the cranberries .... b'day, beyoncé .... parachutes, coldplay .... his copy of pink floyd's dark side of the moon that he lent you a couple weeks ago .... grace, jeff buckley .... until he came across the miseducation of lauryn hill towards the front of the shelf, carefully pulling it out and opening the case. he placed the cd in your player on the shelf below, closing the lid and pressing play. he skipped to track 4, lowering the volume to have it blend seamlessly into the background, feeling content.

"seunghyun?" "yeah, baby?" he called back. he turned around, seeing you at the doorway, holding two eyeliner pencils in your hand. "which one: black or dark brown?" he walked over, taking the pencils from your hands, looking them over his palm. "hm. . ." he pondered with genuine thought. "this one is metallic," you pointed to the dark brown liner. "so it has a little shine to it." "i remember," seunghyun nodded. "you wore this one when we went for brunch a couple weeks ago. it looked really pretty." "thank you." you said quietly, glancing down at the carpet. you still felt flustered receiving his compliments, even nearly half a year into your relationship. "so the brown liner, then?" "mhm." "okay. thank you, my love." your hands reached up to his face, bringing him in for a quick kiss. "anything for you, my beautiful girl." said seunghyun, placing purposeful kisses onto your temple and cheek.

you took the liners from him, your sweet laughter ringing in his ears as his arms made residence around your waist, pulling you close to him. your arms took in his shoulders, giggling at the ticklish feeling of his lips kissing a part of your exposed shoulder from the loose collar of your shirt. "my beautiful, beautiful girl." he murmured into your soft skin, kissing your lips once more. you loved how clingy he could be . . . though he would look like a deer in headlights, melting into a puddle of his own pride if it was pointed out. he loved being called seunghyunie. better yet, add "my" in front of that, and he'll have to take laps around the room. he's buried his head into your neck on many nights he snuck over, or even in his own bed, hiding his bashful state with incoherent mutterings of anything from "i'm going to go into heart failure early in my life" to "you make me lose all reason, and i love it."

you kissed him back, feeling his tongue collide with yours. seunghyun went in again, but you parted your lips, turning your head as a smile stretched across your face, his lips finding the corner of your mouth. "you're my big baby." you said sweetly, looking up at him. "my big, tall baby, seunghyunie. how's that, hm?" you erupted into a fit of giggles when seunghyun's forehead fell against your temple—a tell-tale sign that you hit the right bashful nerve—that, as far as seunghyun was concerned, sounded a whole lot like wedding bells. "baby . . ." he elongated his last syllable, voice so low it took a moment to understand. "see? you're already living up to the name." you said. your arms slid off the back of his shoulders, hands resting atop them as best they could whilst you held the liners, briefly standing on your toes to kiss his lips. "i have to go get ready." seunghyun's arms left your waist, resting on your hips. "i like the nickname." he admitted in a murmur. "i know." you nodded. "and i love you, too." "i love you so much." seunghyun couldn't help himself, lips peppering kisses onto the supple skin of your cheek, planting a final one on your lips.

one thing about seunghyun is he loves parties, but none more than being able to show you off. so when he's sat on one of the stools lining the host's kitchen island, you stood between his legs, your arms wrapped around his shoulders as his are tenderly around your waist; hands traveling your lower back—he feels like the hottest shit because he's got the hottest fucking girl. he will unabashedly pepper sweet kisses onto your neck and cheek if you're talking to somebody, or press his cheek against yours as you people watch together from your spot in the kitchen; giggling amongst yourselves in a way that would make even a pessimist's heart begin to thaw. it tugs at his heartstrings even more-so when you find him later in the night after catching up with your friends, a little tipsy with your red solo cup in hand, making residence on his thigh. seunghyun carefully took the cup out of your hand after the drink sloshed around in the midst of your abrupt movement, setting it on the coffee table before his hands dotingly rubbed the side of your thigh, looking up at the love of his life. he's long past the point of caring when his friends are around seeing you squish his cheeks together, kissing the pout that forms on his lips with an extra loud "muah!" that can be heard in the few seconds between songs. he's actually the one pulling you into the small crowd of people dancing in the living room, swaying together to the music.

to seunghyun, he might have looked awkward dancing—but to anyone else who caught a glimpse either from squeezing their way through the crowd to get to the other side of the room, or if they just looked up: you and seunghyun looked smooth; complementary; on the same wavelength. it was one of those moments they would recall to your mini-me twenty years down the line, opening the anecdote with "i remember when your parents . . ." he brought his forehead to yours—earning him the flustered laugh he could get drunk on—bringing his lips to yours when you pulled him in by the rims of his beanie. you turned around afterward, pressing your ass against him, starting to dance again. seunghyun got the message. he followed your movements, arm wrapping around the front of your waist, leaning down to kiss your cheek upon feeling your hand reach back for his hair.

seunghyun played a large hand in improving your confidence, especially when it came to intimacy of any kind. you've come a long way from your posture stiffening when he put his arm around you in the movie theater; your ghost of a returned grip when he held your hand; or backing out mid-makeout on his couch because your face felt so hot, the movie paused and long-forgotten about, the dvd logo bouncing from one side of the tv to the other ("i-i'm sorry—" "—it's okay. come back here, you were doing so good.") it wasn't as if you were a brand new person, but he nurtured a different side of you to come out; honored he was the one deemed worthy enough to witness it. he fucking loved it when you were stood in your own corner at a party, feeling dizzy whenever yours hands traveled underneath the hem of his shirt and around his waist . . . holy fuck . . . and the way you kissed him afterward, so soft and slow, deliberate . . . you might as well make him a father right there.

the tension brewed over time. you may be learning things as you go, but you would be remised to not pick up on seunghyun's not-so-subtle ways. every time he readjusted his position in your bed, arms holding you, you felt his hand traveled just a little lower down your hip. his lips kissed your cheek before returning his attention to space documentary he picked up from blockbuster before sneaking over, reading the captions on the portable dvd player propped up atop the duvet. he thought he was being slick. but when the documentary inevitably ended, and you inevitably pulled him into your lips to make him stay longer, his hand slipped underneath, squeezing your right globe. he'll never forget your sharp inhale, or how hard you kissed him in return.

or when you were stood in line at the mall food court (yes, you read that correctly), his fingers holding yours. he was being so sweet and flirtatious, looking at you with an admiring grin whilst you read the menu. he went back and forth between laying his hoodie-clad head atop yours, kissing your cheek, or leaning down to press a chaste kiss to your lips. you saw in your periphery how he would stare and stare both longingly and knowingly. you didn't give in, until you couldn't hold it in anymore, failing horrendously at hiding your upside-down grin. "what?" you nudged his bicep with your shoulder, hearing him chuckle. "i'm just looking." he responded, voice smooth. you tsked, shaking your head. "you don't make any sense." his kiss to your temple brought your gaze back to him, looking up when he rested his forehead against yours. "that's because you take all of it from me." seunghyun lined the side of his nose with yours, bringing his lips to yours. he's done this countless times before, but it was how his lips lingered for a second or two that made all the difference . . . how they parted so slowly and deliberately . . . it made you think oh . . . this man may very well want me to have his baby! it wouldn't be far-fetched either, since on your four month anniversary, he told you he was ready to introduce you to his parents after your third date.

then came those saturday mornings . . . or mornings where neither of you had class until the afternoon . . . when you got up from bed, and he sees your shorts have ridden completely up your thighs in your sleep . . . how fucking delectable they look. your back is turned to him as you stretch your arms out and yawn, but seunghyun's stare is unabashed and hard. it starts as a sideways glance, like he doesn't want to get caught. but then he sees how they jiggle with every minute movement . . . he's enamored. he turns onto his side fully, studying how your cellulite adorns your skin so specifically . . . then his palms start to tingle, wanting to reach out and feel you in his hands. but all he does is cast his hand against your crisp bed sheets, wrinkled where you laid just moments ago. seunghyun then notices the slight sheen of your skin when you step into the sunlight pouring in from the window; the remnants of your moisturizer you apply before you sleep, he was sure. this is what makes his teeth rake against his bottom lip, quickly glancing up to see if you were still turned around, which you were. then came those imperfections he wanted so badly to kiss, to linger his tongue over: the small, translucent forever-bruise on the side of your left thigh that never healed; standing in a crowded train after spending the day with each other in the city, temporarily squished against the arm rest of a seat to make room for incoming passengers. your fucking tan line from your go-to denim shorts you wore during the summer jesus christ . . . and how some of your stomach spilled over your shorts, the thick curvature of your body akin to a fucking goddess's. what he would do to be trapped between them . . .

"i'll be right back." your voice took him out of his trance, seunghyun looking up to see you opening the bedroom door, walking to the bathroom down the hall. "okay, baby." his voice was gravely, clearing his throat afterward. seunghyun turned onto his back. he lifted the duvet, peeking underneath to see the bulge in his sweats. he let out a disbelieving huff, running his hands over his face. it's not even ten am yet. he thought to himself. it should be no surprise that when you came back into bed, his lips made residence on yours, hand slipping by your hip and grabbing your ass. seunghyun stopped periodically to place kisses on your chest, or moving the strap of your cami to trace the tip of his tongue along your stretch marks lining your shoulder before kissing them, too. "wanna try something new, baby." he murmured against your skin. "okay," you said, fingers brushing his hair back, watching as his lips returned to your chest. "what is it, seunghyun?" "wanna put these in my mouth—'nd taste you."

you nodded, hair rubbing against your pillowcase. "o-okay," your voice fell to a whisper, the birds chirping outside rivaling your volume. "go ahead, seunghyun." he lifted his head, kissing you. "tell me if it's too much, okay?" "i will." you said, kissing him. a shallow breath left your chest as his lips traveled down your chest. he's fondled your breasts before—in the backseat of his car, and when the portable dvd player is mere background noise, but nothing could have prepared him for now your left breast recoiled when he tugged that side of your cami down. it was so perky, so cute; happy to see him. he captured your areola in his mouth, running his warm tongue over it slowly. he's never heard you gasp like that before. "s—seunghyun!" you barely breathed, shuddering oxygen in and out. he quickly detached—"is it too much—" "—no, no! keep—keep going!" you whimpered, pushing the back of his head back down. he sucked with bliss, readjusting himself when you arched your back, his other hand kneading your right breast. he tugged that side of your cami down, showing that nipple less mercy than the other. "f-fuck!" you gasped, hand coming up to your mouth. "yes, yes! oh my god, seunghyun!" your body squirmed, thighs enclosing around his waist. he needed to move on. if he didn't, he was going to ruin his sweatpants.

he popped off of your hardened nipple gently, bringing his lips to yours. you latched onto him with needy fervor, kissing him quickly. "i'm gonna eat your pussy, okay baby?" he spoke against your lips. you whimpered into his mouth, eyebrows turning upward in desperation, hands holding onto the back of his shoulders. "gonna take care of you. tell me if you want to stop." "o—ngh!—okay." seunghyun pushed the duvet off the both of you, making his way down your body, leaving kisses in his wake. he stood on his knees as he pulled your shorts and underwear off, discarding them on his usual side of the bed. his hand slid down your left thigh, fingers running over that small bruise. he leaned down, pressing a kiss. he moved a couple of inches down the bed, settling his knees onto the carpeted floor, propping the upper-half of his body up with his elbows. you separated your legs. his tongue ran over his bottom lip, mouth watering.

he kissed the inner parts of your thighs, trailing where you needed him most. seunghyun wasted no time after that, plunging his tongue between your puffy folds. oh . . . you tasted good. the sensation was indescribable for you—a curt gasp all you could muster those first few seconds, palm covering your mouth as you devoured the unbelievable sight below you. your eyebrows were so deeply furrowed; a choked moan leaving your diaphragm as his tongue explored your divine essence. seunghyun separated your lips with his pointer and middle finger, trying to find that sweet bundle of nerves. he placed his tongue higher than before, taking note of your gasp. he pushed his head in deeper, knowing he was coming closer when your thighs brushed against his ears. seunghyun hit the jackpot when he pushed in a little deeper, arms quickly wrapping around your waist to keep you as still as he could when your body jolted, thighs closing in on him, effectively putting him in a still-moveable headlock. "o—oh m-my god—ngh! hngh!" you moaned helplessly. "s-seunghyun!" you cried, fingers disappearing into his hair, tugging. "feel good, baby? that feel good?" he asked quickly, voice muffled, not liking going mere seconds without you on his tongue. "y-yes! keep—keep—"

you couldn't finish your sentence, but he needed no further instruction. he nursed your clit unabashedly, his hand reaching up and kneading your right breast. "s-seunghyun, i'm gonna—i feel—" your breathing was heavy, eyes squeezed shut. "cum in my mouth." was all seunghyun said. your legs opened abruptly, back arching higher than before as your orgasm washed over your entire body. seunghyun kept working your clit, popping off of your sweet pussy through your delicate moans and mewls. he swallowed whatever you gave him, humming into you in satisfaction, relishing in how you breathily whined his name. he gradually latched off with tongue-led kisses, palming himself through his sweatpants. he left your pussy swiftly when he felt a wet patch, looking down to see that he, indeed, ruined his sweatpants.

then came a week later, when you made love for the first time at eleven am on a fucking tuesday morning. "breath for me." he told you gently, positioning his condom wrapped tip between your soft, puffy lips. "in," he inhaled through his nostrils, you mimicking. "and out." you exhaled together. he kissed your divine lips, hand coming up and holding your cheek. "my beautiful girl," he whispered. "i love you so much." "i love you too." your hands held the back of his neck, kissing him back. "this might hurt a little. we have all the time in the world. we'll take it easy." his lips pressed against your cheek, hearing your gentle "okay." he slowly pushed himself in, stopping halfway when you held tightly onto his shoulders. "f-fuck, ngh! it . . . it hurts." you whispered. "i know, i know baby." he low voice cooed, his hand holding your cheek, bringing the one closest to him to his lips. "keep going. slowly." "i will."

he thrusted slowly with half of his cock inside of you, listening to your every breath. "any better?" he whispered. he sucked in a tight breath, feeling how tight you are. "a . . . a little. try adding more each time." "anything for you." he kissed your temple, following your words. silence filled the room, nothing but the slight creak of your bed frame, shaky breaths, and rustling of the duvet against the linen. seunghyun's ears perked up when he heard a quiet moan, feeling your nails starting to dig into his bare shoulder. "s-seunghyun . . . m-more." "which one? faster or deeper, baby?" "deeper." you said, voice breathy. your eyebrows twitched as you were mostly adjusted, bottom lip captured between your teeth as he stretched you out. "mmf!" you yelped. "does—f-fuck—that feel g-good?" seunghyun was losing himself in you, struggling to keep his mind clear. "y-yes!" you moaned. "g-go faster, seunghyunie. p-please." "god fucking damn—f-fuck, baby!" he mewled, moaning into your ear. "you feel so fucking g-good, oh my god!" the rest of that morning was a haze of grunts, sweat, and chanting each other's names like prayers. to think you were in your intro to international democracies lecture not even four hours later was obscene.

neither of you trusted yourselves to keep quiet when he came over, but that doesn't mean you at least tried . . . albeit, over the phone. "you drive me fucking crazy, baby—fuck!" his phone fell from his ear, his free hand quickly grabbing it, his other showing little mercy to himself. you could hear the wet, slick sounds of his cock from your side of the line, your thighs trapping your wrist between your legs. "the—the way you—hngh!—l-looked at me from over your shoulder, the way you sounded when i fucked you from b-behind." he spoke into the phone lowly. "you looked so beautiful, and felt so f-fucking good. did it feel good baby, hm? did it feel good when i pounded that sweet pussy?" "s-seunghyun—" you sounded so delicate, so fragile. "i—ngh!—i n-need you so bad. i can't take it anymore." he heard your shaky gasp, sure you were close. "tell me, baby. i know you're close, i can hear it." he moaned hearing you whimper at his words, feeling the knot in his abdomen begin to unravel. "t-tell me—s-shit!—i-i'm, i'm close t-too. tell me, baby. you know you can tell your seunghyunie anything, right?"

when that wasn't enough (it never was), you took it to the backseat of his car. it was an unspoken rule; nonverbal pattern of events when he was to drop you home, but that something was in the air and could not go unaddressed—like the night of your friend's birthday party. he unlocked his trunk, folding the backseats forward to allow enough room for you to lay on your back. in your defense, you tried to keep quiet. you really did . . . considering it was well past one in the morning, your house was one measly block away, and your neighborhood was very much a quiet suburb. but the car was shaking, your toes pressed against the rear windshield, and his hand was slipping off the steaming window. if anyone walked by—universe help your neighbor that worked late shifts and walked his dog at this hour—a vague, passive aggressive memo in the neighborhood newsletter would certainly find you.

the torn condom wrapper fell between the seats, lost in a reach-less nook of the car as seunghyun fucked you deep and good. the sound was wet and mind-numbing, the heel of your left foot resting on his lower back whilst he pummeled you. "f-fuck! just like that, just like that!" you gasped, your moan sounding intoxicatingly needy, fingers rummaging aimlessly through his hair. seunghyun was a sweaty mess, his hair sticking to his forehead as he boiled in his long sleeve. but he could not have given less of a fuck. you felt fucking divine. he needed this, every last second, every last drop. your gummy walls and puffy lips were a blessing he would thank whatever higher force that existed out there for the rest of his life. "just like that? yeah?" he grunted, looking down at the scene, watching his cock disappear and reappear. "s-such f-fucking good pussy—fuck!"

there's a digital camera you both share (he bought it for you for your one year anniversary), housing the archive of your relationship. there's tons of photos on numerous sd cards: a photo of you two kissing in front of a mirror, the camera covering your mouths even after seunghyun's hilariously laborious attempts at angling it correctly, photos of you looking so effortlessly beautiful in your bed; elbow propped on your pillow, palm holding your cheek, the glow of the portable dvd player evident on your face, or one you took of him in his bed after you imitated his low laugh which made him laugh even harder, photos of seunghyun climbing through your window with a shy, unexpected smile on your face or looking cool driving his car, lots of photos with friends, and at parties; one in particular of him pretending to eat your cheek and your wide smile, drink in hand. he can hear your laughter whenever he looks at it.

several months after your two year anniversary, seunghyun found himself at the mall. he was free for the rest of the day whilst you were in for another two lectures. but, of course, he was picking you up for dinner that evening. he perused for your graduation gift; settling for a perfume, a book by your favorite author, and two cds of musicians you loved. like clockwork, his eyes found and stayed on kay jewelers. but unlike before, he walked in. he found the engagement rings with ease, even going as far as to tell the consultant that he was thinking about getting married. however, seunghyun didn't walk out with a ring. he figured well, we should graduate first . . . get jobs . . . move in together . . . and then talk about marriage. he's been locked in since your first kiss, but that's besides the point. but there's no harm in starting to save up for that ring, is there . . .

honey's taglist! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა: @gongyoosgf, @infinetlyforgotten

[oceantornadoo]

ch11 something borrowed something blue (mafia!price x simon's sister!reader)

tw: a little piss bc reader is refused a toilet. some light torture scenes and violence.

“Where. Is. She.” Ghost slams John against the wall, his forearm to John’s throat. The man’s snarling, an unrestrained beast in a mask. The world zeroes in on the gaze between them, the terrible acceptance that they have a shared weakness. A shared weakness who is gone, potentially dead. All they can do is beat the rotted carcass of this feeling until it breaks. 

Thirty minutes earlier

For the past two hours, there’s been something vibrating under John’s skin. It was there when he pulled Gaz by his collar in the store, searching the man’s eyes for deceit. It was there when he eventually let him down, satisfied with the steel reflecting back at him. It was there when someone handed him his wife’s phone, the screen filled with unread text messages from him asking to get dinner and talk it all out. It followed him all the way to the Castle.

Gaz relocates them quickly, saying he has more devices back at home. John’s home, your home, your shared home. The whole car ride John’s knee shakes up and down, nervous energy permeating the air. All he does is replay your last conversation over and over. 

“I am trapped, John.”

“No matter how I feel about you now, I didn’t pick this marriage.” 

“I can’t even tell if you like me for me or my proximity.”

“I need to go to work before I say something I’ll regret.”

The words swarm through his head like wasps, picking at the insecurities he hides everyday. The worries that you wouldn’t pick him in a normal world, that this has been pillowtalk to pass the days. If you love something you’re supposed to let it go, but he can’t decide between being noble and hoarding you until you forget what life was like before captivity. And of course, all of these thoughts assume you’re alive. He hasn’t let himself consider the full possibility that Shepherd has hurt you in ways that would defile your mind and your body, never leaving you whole again. It all coalesces into an evil energy, vibrating under his skin as the London streets roll by outside the car.

Gaz leads John into the security room with words not meant for him. Murmurs to the house staff, directions ordered over ear pieces. They blur and buzz in John’s eardrums, these damn wasps becoming parasites. He’s too old to consider hunting you himself, knows that he has to trust his man, but the urge is there anyways. Thoughts of escalating into straight warfare, bombing Shepherd’s home without any care for the innocents within. 

That’s what he’s thinking about when Ghost arrives, dragging in coattails of vengeance and dread.

Now

“Stand down, Ghost. This ain’t helpin’.” He croaks out against the pressure in his throat. Ghost’s eyes flare, soulless black pits that see too much. They search John’s, within and around, poking and prodding at the emotions he’s been holding in for the hour since he learned his wife is gone. Whatever Ghost finds is enough, John deemed worthy not to die by the loosening of Ghost’s grip. They pant as one, wishing they had never let themself love a woman enough to destroy their dynasties for her.

The world resumes as Ghost turns away. No one mentions the threat, the way John would have let the guilt drown him if Ghost didn’t. John should have pushed harder, should’ve accompanied you to the store instead of letting you go in his shirt with a faint goodbye on your lips. Like you knew what would happen and went anyway, just to see how far his heart could stretch until it tears.

MacTavish is murmuring low calming words to Ghost, unintelligible over the hum of computers and screens. In this room, all pretense is given up, one man’s hand stroking the other’s. To have a half of a soul live outside the body is a dangerous thing, even more when attacks come from all sides. If he squints, there’s a flash of your glare in Ghost’s, the same half-tilted frown hidden by the mask. It’s like you’re haunting him, no, taunting him with the fact that he’s lost you and now he has to deal with your ghost. It’s all his fault, but he lets the pity fester inside instead of releasing it on everyone else.

“Update, Garrick?” Another croak, a near two minutes after the incident. This is why Gaz is his heir - all he does is hand John the nearest iPad without a mention as to what happened. John reads the screen fast, a list of possible abandoned warehouses near Shepherd locations. It makes sense but the timing is all wrong. He’d expected this if things had been quiet, but there was another scrap between Price men and Shepherd men last night. This kidnapping must have been calculated by someone separate, someone like Phil with a solo mission. He should’ve killed the man when he found out he was working (almost) alone with his wife.

“It’ll be somewhere symbolic. Shepherd likes to make a statement.” Garrick mentions. John hands the tablet silently to Ghost, an offering of peace. In the corner of his eye, he can see MacTavish conferring with Mare, the head of the weapons team, speaking a language only the two of them know. The man frowns, then shakes his head at something Mare says. “Dinnae work like tha’.” It travels over the distance of the room, confusing John enough that he walks over to learn what’s happening.

“Report?” Mare is a bit skittish but cool-headed in times of need, the reason he hired the first ever woman on a Price Family leadership team. He trusts her and her chemistry degrees, plus her sense of urgency. “Sir, we’ve just received word that the weapons stores have been compromised.” It’s like a pin drop, other conversations falling silent as she speaks. “Meaning?” He asks, toeing the line of impatience. “Shepherd’s men struck last night, around the same time as the street fight. We believe it was coordinated between that and the kidnapping to hide it as long as possible. They cut the WiFi, so we only found out during the shift change. All the guards were killed and the weapons taken.” 

John prides himself on acting like a real corporate boss, restrained and professional. However, this is his last fucking straw. “You’re saying Shepherd took my fucking weapons, then my fucking wife? How the hell does this happen?” Ghost grunts at the word ‘wife’ but John ignores it, too focused on the situation at hand. Instead of answering, Mare’s eyes flit around the room. Since it was converted from two bedrooms, it fits up to thirty people and is currently at capacity. He can read his employee too well, and knows she’s nervous about the many ears around. While he usually trusts his people with his life, it’s been an odd day and he decides to err on the side of caution. 

“Mare an’ everyone related t’ me, this way.” There’s an elevator to the upper floor in the back of the room. Ghost and MacTavish fall in line, but Garrick seems frozen and unsure. “Gaz, that includes you.” They don’t acknowledge the head nod, brushing elbows as John hits the elevator button. Once all five are in, John hits the emergency stop between floors, leaving them in purgatory. “Speak.” He instructs Mare.

“There’s a mole. It’s the only way they could have gotten in. I designed that facility myself, sir, and there’s no way they could have gotten in with the tools and soldiers they have. Unless our intel was wrong, and I don’t think it was, we have a rat.” Her words echo in the metal chamber. She meets MacTavish’s eyes and he nods in confirmation. 

“Price.” Ghost grunts, his first words in a while. “It’s someone in that room. They’d hav’ to be on yer security.” John nods at his words and turns to Gaz. “How much longer to narrow down locations?” The man still seems flustered by John’s earlier words and needs a nudge to the shin to spit it out. “An hour, tops. We’re thinking of an abandoned weapons facility or church. Something about what he stole, weapons or marriage.” John grunts at the symbolism of it all. “I’m the first one there.” He demands. “Sir, I-” John turns to look his second in the eye. “I’m the first there.” Gaz nods. John turns back to Ghost and MacTavish, staring at him with twin glares of violence.

“Right, men. We got a rat t’ catch.”

-

“You don’t know what I’d do to find ya and keep ya.”

John’s words echo through your mind as you eye Phil, standing in the corner with a water bottle. You haven’t peed since this morning, 12 hours ago, and he knows. Taunting words sung with a Southern accent, promising a toilet in return for the weapon codes. He’s banking on your embarrassment, that you won’t want to piss yourself in this hellhole. Too bad for him you don’t like to listen to what men tell you to do.

“C’mon, sugar. Know ya got t’ go. Give me the codes an’ I got a nice lil’ bathroom for you. Even has one of those bidets.” You shake your head, refusing. Your bladder is pushing against your stomach, tension growing with every breath. It wouldn’t be too bad if he hadn’t kept feeding you water. You think you’re on bottle six now, what seemed like a blessing turned into a curse.

“Fine. Time f’ another one.” He unscrews and steps to your side, checking your handcuffs before coming near your mouth. It’s like he’s under orders not to hurt you physically. There’s been no beatings, no threat of knives or guns. He needs you alive, and you’re pretty sure you know why. The weapons require both a code and an eye scan, something you can’t fake with a dead body. Johnny created the code section and Gaz added the eye scan later, his coding skills a thing of beauty. His quick thinking is the only thing keeping you alive.

Water pours down your throat. He presses down your tongue to force you to swallow every last drop. When he leans over you, it’s like rose-colored glasses have been removed. His blond hair is limp, face sweaty with concentration. Gone is the charming assistant, bright and fun. You bet he needs you to stay alive for his own safety, his life relying on it.

As water slips into your belly, the pressure to pee goes stronger. With a dirty hand, he pushes on your stomach, and you whine in discomfort. He shouldn’t be touching you, especially in a place so sensitive. The loss of body autonomy is your biggest fear, whether it be motherhood or this. Only John would understand, you think, berating yourself for being so stupidly stubborn. That’s when you make up your mind, to still have control over the one thing you can.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re fuckin’ disgusting, you dirty bitch.” The piss soaks your jeans and, with enough force, dribbles on his shoe. Phil jumps away in disgust, eyes hardened into flint as he glares at you. “Fuck you.” You spit out. A glob of it lands near his shoe, making him jump again. You almost pity how weak he is enough to torture a woman for a living. Almost.

“You’re gonna be sorry you did that.” He bites back. Phil glances at the mirror and for the first time in hours, you let yourself feel a lick of fear. You’re pretty sure you know who his boss is, someone too violent for the games you’re playing. “You’re pathetic, you know that?” Is what you can muster. Instead of answering, he shakes off his shoe and knocks on the door. When it opens, there’s a person in full PPE, holding a metal tray with a filled syringe. You jolt back, but the chair is bolted to the ground and doesn’t allow you to move.

“Wait, please, Phil-” He’s fast, shooting something into your arm. Everything goes dark after that.

-

Gaz was right. It only took an hour. 

But it takes longer than that to rule out each location. It’s been 24 hours, and they haven’t found you yet.

John insists on checking out every place by himself, as does Ghost. They’re even-keeled enough to split up to make it go faster but insist on Gaz scrounging up more earpieces so they can keep in constant contact. They slept in shifts too, six-hour blocks once it hit midnight, so they weren’t trudging through their search. Johnny stays back to work with the engineers on testing the security system he designed, while Gaz comes along with whoever is searching. The four of them stay on their own radio channel like a task force, acting more military than mafia. 

They start from the inner city and expand outwards. It’s methodical. It’s calculated. It’s the exact strategy Gaz planned months ago when the marriage was proposed. He’s the clearest headed out of all of them but there’s still a bite to his tone, a tension in his shoulders, a furrow in his brow. If John wasn’t so out of it himself, he’d be glad that his right-hand man seems to care for his wife. 

They sweep warehouses top to bottom. John tugs on every alliance he has, every favor owed. They get pledges of loyalty from smaller gangs, who do their own searches as well. It’s so much and yet not enough because John Price does not have his fucking wife in his hands. Your shampoo scent is not in his nose, your laughter is not in his ears, your waist is not in his grasp. You are gone and he is at fault for not protecting you.

“Focus, Price.” They’ve both slept and are now in their third church in the past 90 minutes. It’s abandoned like the rest of them, creaking doors and blown out windows. They’ve gotten into a rhythm now, sweeping the building efficiently. You’re not there. They finish in twenty minutes, Gaz outside on the phone with the rest of the crew. When they emerge, he stands tall at attention. 

“Sir, we’ve got a hit.”

-

“How you feeling, hun?” The world is woozy, half-tilt on a rollercoaster. You sway from right to left, only steadying when firm hands grasp your shoulders. Your eyes flutter, vision blurring in technicolor. You’re somewhere else, with paintings on the walls and carpet on the floors. That’s when you do a body scan and realize you’re not in the clothes you were kidnapped in.

You jerk away from the man touching you. The wooden chair you’re strapped to falls to the floor and takes you with it. He tries to pick you up, moving in a blur of dark grey, but you thrash away like a fish out of water. His touch is poison, and you fear it was him who undressed you, him who saw you naked against your will. “Get away from me!” You screech, vocal cords sore from disuse. The man’s hands are gnarled crooked things, clawing at your shoulders until your chair is straight again. You try to flinch but your miniscule reactions are still slurry from whatever you were injected with. Once you’re straight, you bite back a gasp.

It’s him. The General. Shepherd. 

Square face with a buzzcut. Weathered and old with a cruel gleam in his eye. He sits back down into a chair in front of yours. This one is red leather, squeaking comfortably with weight as he sits down. The man was in the army in a past life, hence the styling of The General. He wears dark slacks and an army-like jacket. The bravado of it disgusts you. A title like that should be earned, not worn like play clothes. You put on your brave face and sneer at him, a cat backed into an alley.

“I see why John likes you.” He looks you up and down like he can see through your clothes. You flinch against your will. “You don’t deserve to say his name.” You bite. He laughs jarringly. “Fucking brat is what you are. Even got Phil under your spell.” That’s news to you. It’s certainly at odds with his behavior. You don’t react, easing your features into a smooth mask.

“I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t have the codes.” He stares at you dead-eyed. “Not necessary. We don’t need the codes.” He’s bluffing. You’re willing to bet your life on the hard work of Johnny and Gaz. There’s absolutely no way, no workaround. That’s when you get an idea.

“Oh yeah? You’re just going to put me in front of the eye scanner and go from there?” He frowns like you’ve figured out his plan. You almost laugh. “Too bad. You’re still missing a step.” That reels him in. Shepherd sits forward, elbows on his knees, searching your gaze for a lie. You raise your brows defiantly. “What, don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out?” He squints harder at your words. 

“My brother’s old school. Doesn’t trust technology, or anybody else.” It’s certainly true. Simon’s well-known for not trusting people. Even the General looks intrigued. “What are you sayin’?” He murmurs. It’s like you’re holding a prophecy in his hands. Men are so easy.

“There’s a key.” He scoffs and looks away. “And I’m Robin Hood.” You shrug, leaning back as much as you can into your chair despite the ropes tying you to it. “Believe what you want. I’m just saying, my brother has more checks than you can imagine.” Another truth to reel him in. He scratches an invisible itch on his knee, then gets up. He pulls something from his pocket, and you flinch, thinking it’s a gun. He laughs at your reaction. “Fucking brat.” He murmurs. Shepherd turns to the corner of the room and calls someone, talking in low tones.

When you examine the room, it sends a shot to your heart. You’re in a church. There’s blood red carpeting with paintings everywhere, but it’s not wellkept. There’s dust and no windows, the lighting frail. Perhaps recently abandoned?

Shepherd is back, knife in hand. He thrives on watching you flinch and thrash as he comes closer. You stop when he’s in your face, knife trailing down the length of your nose. “Where’s the key?” You answer without hesitation. “My father’s grave.” It’s the kind of sick shit Ghost would do, and Shepherd knows it. That’s when the knife slips through your ropes, freeing you. There’s a gun in his other hand pointed straight at your head. “You’ll take me to the key. And if it’s not there, so help me God, I’m blowing your brains out on your father’s grave.” You nod, short and shallow.

It’s only halfway up the dilapidated wooden stairs when you hear it. Pounding footsteps and a low British tone. Shepherd was stupid enough to trail behind you, and even stupider to stop at the noises as well. That’s when your years of self-defense classes with Johnny kick in, quite literally. 

You aim a kick to his head. He dodges, of course, but all that body mass has to go somewhere, and quite slowly. It knocks him off balance, a half-step down, giving you enough leverage to elbow the nose. One of the most sensitive places on a man, as Johnny told you. The door above you opens as Shepherd gets one more insult in as he goes down.

“Fuckin’ bastard.”

-

Yes i was thinking of the 21 savage song snitches and rats

Also sorry for comparing motherhood to torture i just really needed to justify reader peeing LOL

Oops shes a girlboss SORRYYYYYY

-

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