#but not all asexuals are sex repulsed and tagging like this assumes that they are

[aheathen-conceivably]

The BOLD THE FACTS tag by @helenofsimblr

The Rules are simple! Tag people and name a character you want to know more about! If you want to let the person you tagged decide who to showcase, then don’t name a character and they can pick somebody. The person who is tagged will then bold the remarks below which apply to their character &, if they want to, include a picture with their reply!

I was tagged by @akitasimblr for, of course, her fav:

🌸Zelda Darlington🌸

[ PERSONAL]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor (no club, no money, it’s 1930 😬) / in poverty

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other (unemployed, unmarried expat??)

✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other (umm, early 20th century middle school graduate? 😅)

✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes (gunna assume working in a speakeasy, being in an illegal relationship, and knowingly lying on her daughter’s birth certificate counts as “major”…) / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY]

◒ Children: has children / has no children / wants children

◑ Relationship with Family: very close with sibling / not close with sibling(s) (without Rosella or her parents, baby girl is no longer very close with her family 😔) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent / not applicable

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

♦ disorganized (especially in her own mind) / organized / in between

♦ close minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable (often to a fault) / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between (more that she’s both? Like she’s very cautious and afraid, but because of that often jumps headfirst into situations without thinking)

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved (again, often to a fault) / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between

♦ optimistic (and sometimes delusional 😂) -left this one exactly from Akita because SAME / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between (more that work is only a means to an end, and not her priority)

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ BELIEFS]

★ Faith: monotheist (Zelda gives me strong believes in a generalized Creator vibes ) / polytheist / atheist / agnostic

☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know (I feel like this would fit into Zelda’s worldview best, but I don’t know the historical accuracy or possibility of her doing so) / don’t care

❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know (mostly because someone tell me the ideas toward aliens in the 1920s 😂) / don’t care

✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal (I think Zelda has a strong spiritual streak but is not actively religious, especially not in a way that follows any type of dogma) / in between / not religious

❀ Philosophical: yes / no

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral (only because I don’t see Zelda being very sexually motivated outside of a relationship) / sex favorable / naive and clueless

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable /naive and clueless / romance suspicious

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive (giving her this one as she’s only had one sexual partner, and I think views sex and sexuality as so entwined with her own romantic proclivities that she’s naive to other approaches) / inexperienced / curious

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good (thanks to her parents Zelda is the most practically skilled of all our main characters right now) / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / Alcoholic

☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / Chain-smoker (literally all of them lol)

✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions (some of them cigarettes ain’t just tobacco babes) / sometimes / frequently / addict

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions (it’s New Orleans. Somebody was eating a beignet from time to time you know) / sometimes / frequently / binge eater

$ Splurge Spending: never (I don’t think Zelda much likes spending money or overvalues luxury) / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

♣ Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes (I mean I DID have an illegal gambling den behind the club 😂) / frequently / compulsive gambler

I’ll tag @mccoppinscrapyard @that-fannerd-with-the-glasses @greatbritishsimchallenge @sasaofastora @swiftviolets @applesaucesims (which please feel free to ignore!) plus anyone else interested 🤗

[web-novel-polls]

Aroace-spec Character Winners' Tournament

[Please vote for who you believe has the most canon evidence to be aroace-spec, not the most popular. It will never be acceptable to post "anti-propaganda" in this tournament or invalidate a suggested identity because "they're not aroace enough." You will be blocked unless it's clearly a genuine mistake / misphrasing.]

Propaganda underneath the cut

Shen Qingqiu from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Submission 1: Gay Asexual

I mean have you met the man? "Assuming you're straight because you feel nothing towards either sex but you have to be the default, right? before realizing you're romantically attracted to someone but not realizing you're romantically attracted to someone because it doesn't feel like sexual attraction which is how allos explain what love is until the romantic attraction hits you like a sledge hammer" is both a common ace experience and absolutely his story arc. Also I would have submitted him sooner but I thought he was a shoe in

Submission 2:

Asexual, somewhere on the aro spectrum - I would have submitted him earlier but based on the tags I assumed I wouldn't need to and didn't want op to be spammed with too many submissions ;_; anyhow he's here now!

Mod Propaganda

Was completely okay with not marrying anyone (because all the women in the world “belong to the protagonist”)

So fucking weird about sex. He has to mentally contort his brain seven ways to Sunday to even IMAGINE fucking someone (earning him the title of “most homophobic gay person”)

“He’s not gay, Binghe is”

Reads bad erotica and then complains about the plot inconsistencies

Accidentally wife beams/romances pretty much every single character he meets

Liu Qingge from Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Submission 1: Gay Grayace

He spends most of his life with one interest and that's fighting and then when he falls for a man he's confused by it and proceeds to flirt in the most awkward way possible. Also he has the grey-white-sometimes purple colour scheme

Submission 2: Aroace

The idea of him being asexual is presented right there on the page and you can't take that away from me. Yes I think he is in love with sqq yes I also think he is aroace. He can be both!

Submission 3: Asexual/Ace-spec

I think he’s sex repulsed given his icy or horrified reactions when sexual topics are discussed. He was also once forcibly aroused when hit by an aphrodisiac, and he responded in a way that implied he had never experienced that before. Additionally, his instinct was not to do anything sexual, but to commit acts of violence.

Mod Propaganda

Canonically not interested in romance by word of God

MXTX: “[Liu Qingge] isn't interested in Shen Qingqiu. He isn't interested in anyone. He's only interested in fighting. He wants to be the strongest and the best.” (Source)

Canonically had no clue he was sexually aroused in the Succubi Extra / interpreted it as “wanting to fight” (which isn’t the same as not experiencing sexual attraction, but that’s also not a trademark of allosexuality)

Speaking of, he never specifically seems interested in Shen Qingqiu romantically or sexually - he’s usually shipped with him bc of his devotion, not a clear desire for romance. Though that’s pretty much just up for personal interpretation

[stickmanprobably]

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Boo!!!!

Hi, I am StickmanProbably (or Stick!!)

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This is my introduction - you dont have to read this or look, this is just general information and i doubt people will take the time to read it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I USE THEY/THEM , IT/ITS PRONOUNS

I am 15/16 (16 in a month..)

My birthday is on the 7th of February!!

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I don't care who INTS unless you're like, racist, homophobic, a pedo, etc.. just basic DNI shit really??

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Random information! :

✰ I make up silly words often (e.g. swar, pebis, benis, etc) so my speech can be confusing..

❥︎ I draw a lot but am very slow with it

AND I am very excitable about my ocs, things I'm interested in, and characters I care about (so be warned, i am overwhelming sometimes!)

- and i most likely will info dump, or overshare a lot without realising, so if i am too much PLEASE TELL ME.

✰ I do need people to use tone tags, but if you don't want to use them that's fine, though I will ask you what your tone was if I cant tell straight away, or if I assume and respond rude you have full right to correct me!

❥︎ I also probably will only post every few months to whenever i can actually remember or be bothered, so not often!!!

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Some extra TW's for some people:

- i make obnoxious sex jokes, (please DO NOT make too far jokes about me, i am a sex repulsed asexual and it makes me feel icky when you do!! - im ok with it with my friends sometimes, but if you're just a moot or I don't talk to you often, please don't try!!)

- Sometimes i make self deprecaiting jokes, or create joking insults, but i try to use tone tags as much as much as I can.

- i like drawing blood and gore (sometimes) - i dont usually share it though, i just have an interest in body horror

- i type in all caps a lot (im not shouting at you, i will make it known when i am!!)

- I SWEAR A LOT LMAO..

- I'm British??

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That is all for this shitty introduction, bye bye now :3

(i will probably delete this and make a better one eventually..)

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[internetgiraffekid1673]

Hey giraffe! Saw you reblogged the post about random asks to get to know you better, so I thought I’d ask ☺️ (if it’s too personal, I won’t be offended if you don’t want to answer): When did you realize you were ace/aro, and do you identify with any micro labels?

Thanks for asking! Not offensive at all!

First off, yeah, I do use microlabels. I'm sex-repulsed or apothisexual and romance-indifferent or icularomantic. That basically means I want absolutely nothing to do with sex and wouldn't touch it with a 39 and a half foot pole, but I'm chill with romance. I don't actively seek out a romantic relationship or anything, but I'm not upset or weirded out by the idea of being in a romantic relationship.

I realized I was ace and that I was aro sort of separately, and I don't think I really had a single "AHA!" moment for either.

The first time my orientation really even crossed my mind was my sophomore year of high school when a girl in my orchestra class pulled me aside randomly one day and asked what my sexuality was. I had never had a crush or any sort of feelings for anybody before, but I kind of just assumed it would come at some point. Before that moment, I would have just said I was straight, but something about how she asked the question made me pause and think about it. I eventually told her, "I don't know. I've never felt that way about anyone before."

It kind of went to the back of my mind until my junior year when I started watching Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube. One of the main content creators there, Red, is openly asexual. That was the first time I had ever heard the term or heard of someone else who'd never had those feelings, and I found I related to a lot of her experiences. I think, over the course of that year, I slowly started applying the "maybe I'm ace" mindset, and it really did fit. It felt right, and by my senior year, I was just like "yeah, I'm asexual."

The thing is, it wasn't really important enough for me at the time to go digging on everything that meant. I had a word to explain how I felt, and I didn't really feel the need for anything else at the time. It didn't help that my religion is queerphobic (I'm not. Most individuals I know are not, but the policies as a whole are, and it's a thing that drives us all crazy. You can find more information about it on the queerstake or tumblrstake tags). I lived in a very small rural town that was pretty much all that religion too, so between those two things, nobody really learned about queer stuff unless they were queer and went looking or had queer friends who talked about it. And since I wasn't super close with any other queer people at that point and didn't know much about the queer community in general, I wasn't really aware that aromanticism and asexuality were two separate things.

It wasn't until sometime in the summer after I graduated that I was made aware of the distinction. I didn't feel the outright repulsion to romance as I did sex, but I had also never felt romantic attraction and had no desire for a romantic relationship, so I wasn't really sure where I was with that. Like, I knew for sure I was ace, but I didn't know enough about the arospec to really know how I felt about identifying that way. So I adopted "grayromantic" for that period of time.

When I went to college, I suddenly met a LOT of queer people, and was online a lot more. This meant I had the opportunity to be in a community of aspecs for the first time, and I ended out finding a YouTube video that went over the intricacies over the arospec and some of it's microlabels. But I also wasn't out to anybody yet, so I felt like I could take my time coming up with a label that fit me better.

Finally, I got a roommate second semester who was bisexual and who I talked to a lot. Eventually, I had a conversation with her about my aromanticism, and she was like, "Honey, you've never had a fictional crush. You ARE aromantic." And I was like, "Huh. I guess you're right."

So I've been actively identifying as fully aroace for about 5 months now, which is also coincidentally when I started using Tumblr, but I actually just found my microlabels 10 days ago! I made a long rambling post (like I do) about how I experience love, and was given some suggestions by the lovely @aroacemagicstar! So all the thanks to them!

Again, thanks for asking me!

[kimkhimhant]

Sorry x

I stumbled across your post while trying to learn about ace experiences (partly because I'm questioning atm for various reasons). Youtube videos on the topic are repetative and don't give as much insight into actual experience, just rebuttles to assumed questions being asked (I had literally no expectations or questions in mind other than my friends as frame of reference and 'Am I ace?').

I still feel conflicted about it all and the mutually shitty tone allo and ace people persistently use with each other. Belittling the validity of everyone's experiences. I don't like how both allonormativity and a lot of ace discourse cordons off or ignores the nuances of human experience.

I've always been literally socialy isolated and hated to the point of people throwing stuff and physically attacking me on the street for existing as I am (autistic) anytime I leave the house, and I've never related to any character that's shared any of my identity with me (stuck to non-fiction because fiction books were like reading the perspective of my bullies). I may not know exactly how you feel and whether I do or not you are still valid.

I was excluded from allonormativity on the assumption by everyone around me that I was ace specifically because of both the conflation of autism and asexuality and the ways both are dehumanised by wider society. People assumed I was ace and were blatantly aphobic and ablist to me. I know aphobia from experience despite not being ace. Nothing I said in that reblog was an attack.

(I'll shut up now)

hi, i appreciate you taking the time to send a message. i had already received some anons over the post i made and it made me extra sensitive, so your tags in particular, with the "complaining about sex on tumblr is like complaining the sky's still blue" or whatever rubbed me the wrong way and felt like it was invalidating my feelings on the matter. thank you for reaching out to correct that.

i'm also autistic and i definitely understand what you mean – the lack of true representation is incredibly alienating and isolating, especially when that isolation is already our lived experience.

i know you saw my response before i deleted it – i don't have issue with there being a lot of allo rep and sex in fandom; my main frustration is that often when there is ace rep where an ace character is sex-repulsed, touch-adverse, whatever, it's depicted as a shortcoming that that character should be trying to overcome. i'm sure you can probably relate, what with autistic characters needing to become "less autistic" to get their happy ending in a lot of media 🙃 it's like there's always something about us that needs to be fixed to suit other people's wishes, and it's exhausting.

i hope you find peace with your own personal identity journey – i know with the asexuality spectrum, it can be really difficult to figure out where you land. (i have known i was on the aroace spectrum since i was 14 and i'm 26 now and still unsure if there even is a label that fits my experience)

anyway, thanks again for reaching out

[icharchivist]

I agree, while I HC Lucilius as aroace he probably isn't sex repulsed as much as he doesn't care. He's repulsed by Belial though

I like that most characters' sexualities are kinda up in the air, but yeah, Gabby is super lesbian (so is Europa) and Lucifer is either gay or demi sexual or something in that general area. Not that it fully matters

But I'm claiming Belial and his crimes for the bisexuals, even if he might as well be pan or omni and it wouldn't slow him down at all

I agree that Bubs ultimately probably doesn't care about gender as long as you just submit to him

They're all so progressive despite being assholes <3

YESS THAT'S THE MOOD.

exactly my feelings yes.

Like yeah Lucilius, AroAce but not specifically repulsed, just uninterested outside of the scientific approach. Might have tried once or twice but mostly it's a waste of time and doesn't really consider it something he'd do regularly or anything. But yes Belial would repulse him because Belial takes it a tad too far.

Agreed most sexualities are kinda up in the air, but it's just like... when some of them are obvious, they're obvious lmao.

Gabriel keeps flirting with Europa, or talk about the beauty of the woman form to Halluel and Malluel so often, while never mentioning anything about men whatsoever. and her feelings for Europa are extremely romantic loaded. So by all account we have proof she's attracted to women, but none about being attracted to men. Maybe down the line she would, but so far all we know really is that she's attracted to women, and it's something both romantic and physical for her.

Lucifer and Sandalphon are in this situation where they're in love with one another. So it's just easier to HC sexualities that would work on how they end up being in love with one another. They don't seem to care about anyone other than one another, and the sexual tension in between them is up for debate for anyone who would interpret them, so like. It's godspeed on whatever people decide to HC over them. my only argument would be that they're mlm, any others details is up to the player.

Claiming Belial for the Bi is totally valid. The only thing about him is that he canonically is DTF literally everything in the skies, and is in love with one man (and possibly would develop feelings for MC so it means any gender). however you decide to read the nuance over it is then free game as long as it's a multiple gender attraction and that it informs you on how he's still allosexual, and is more likely either alloromantic or demiromantic. But then? Bi is good still. And just appropriating him for the Bi is 100% a valid reason to get him there.

and yeah Bubs is progressive only because it means he can be on top of everyone. that's so cool.

and like i added in the tags let's not forget Lucio who loves to be the object of desire and attention, who flirts with Sandalphon openly, and also who openly said he doesn't believe in the gender binary anyway. And with Shalem, his other half, being all about how sex is the most normal thing ever, i assume Lucio doesn't have anything holding him back on this. So i doubt he's monosexual, and i doubt he's asexual in any way. Anything else is free game.

it's so fun bc hc'ing for GBF is often like "well idk what THAT is but that's not heterosexual", even when it's for dubious reasons like this.

love them all so much for this <333

[opinated-user]

I heard in this blog that lily is aphobic, Could I see how? since she's now mention sex repulsed people and asexuals in her anti kink discourses

if you had read this blog then you'd know why already, but assuming this is still being asked in good faith. off the top of my head: -disrespecting canon ace/aro characters. Elethyn is an ace character that Lizzy made and LO comissioned to have SA by dogs behind Lizzy's back. she ships Lilith from the toh with Hooty, a bird like demon creature. see a pattern of her putting these ace women in sexual situations with non human creatures? -for years she didn't tag her nsfw content until she was nagged enough to do it. for years she has openly spoken about her sex life, her sexual practices and kinks without any warning. three times this woman was stripped on youtube without a proper warning. even after supposedly getting over her kinks because of the miraculous work of her supposed therapist, she still talks incredibly gross and vomiting inducing sexual jokes involving underage characters. this is the same person who said she wanted her brownfacing avatar to be sexualized while she talks about cartoons for children. this is not a woman that has ever cared about people uncomfortable with sex or didn't consent to be a witness to it. -the only ace character in pokemadhouse that doesn't represent a real person is G. G, the character that has been call out countless times for taking advantage of a sleeping child as a full grown adult, a pedophile in fact, only to later keep chasing that child into adulthood to reciprocate her romantic feelings despite being turned down multiple times. LO wrote this pedophilic groomer and then, to try to downplay it, said this same character was an sex repulsed asexual all along as if that it's meant to make the grooming and pedophilia any better. do i need to explain how terrible that is? -the fiasco romancegate. LO attempted to scam her audience into doing free labor for her as usual, asking for a very specific kind of story she could have commissioned if she wanted to, without any mention of an actual prize. when people started questioning what were exactly her expectations, it quickly became apparent that LO was only interested on a very specific kind of identities to be represented. not non binary women, not trans women and definitely not ace or aro women. she made people with these identities feel like they weren't good enough and she has never owned up to it. -the only times she even talks about ace/aro characters is to say that representation isn't good enough... without ever bringing up "good" ace/aro characters as any alternative, either because she actually doesn't know or doesn't care. in any case... why does she even think she has any authority to define for ace/aro people what is good representation for them? -(allegedly, i wasn't there for this so take it with a grain of salt) she went to stream to claim that another youtuber was lying about being LGBT, despite never claiming as such, and about only ever feeling attraction towards his wife because, quote, "everyone wants to fuck."

i'm sure there are more examples someone else can bring up, but these are the one i can immediately remember.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Alright it's still early but I have learned some things from the tags on this post:

Number one: this is one of the two things that I knew would happen, my dry sarcastic nature has pissed some of you off. That is ok with me, it's a mistake I was prepared for people to make it's partially my fault, but I am actually offended by the person who said f*** you. Tell me to go fuck myself like a normal person. I promise I'm not judging you for your lifestyle choices to not have sex or do drugs I'm just confused by them. I am however judging you for your lifestyle choice to sensor your own swearing on Tumblr.gov.

Number one and a half: some of the people assuming I'm judging instead of just curious because I talk like an asshole have assumed I don't have a lust for life without drugs. This is not true it is my lust for life leading me to have drugs and do sex. I'm not an addict I'm an experimentalist. I want to experience as many altered states as possible. We're sensation seeking over here.

Number two: this is the other one i expected, the asexuals are a bit peeved with me. I should have clarified if you are ace and sex neutral to repulsed please only answer for your not doing drugs choice. Sex positive asexuals (sex positive for themselves not as in agreeing with the sex positivity movement) can answer as normal if they have never had sex unless you would rather have your reason be I'm ace. Sorry I should have put that caveat up in the first place.

Onto the things I've learned that I did not expect

Number three: I think some of you are answering that you just don't want to when there is in fact a dare officer living in your head. Like I am not pressuring you to drink here do whatever you feel safest doing but some of you seem very sure you'll get addicted to alcohol from getting drunk once and I don't think that that is how it works. Perhaps I should have said anxiety instead of severe anxiety I just know for me the anxiety would have to be debilitating to stop me from doing whatever I wanted so that's why I phrased it like that. (OP is somewhat critical of the medicalization of addiction, yes addiction is a disease but so is shit life syndrome, you understand, do not accuse me of saying you can overcome addiction with willpower because of this aside. I think a secret third thing)

Number four: people who avoid substances because they are stinky. Girl I agree alcohol tastes like shit that is why I drown it in as much sugary liquid as I can. I am stomaching that shit because being drunk is fun. It is not as fun as being high and the comedown is so much worse.

Number 5: the person who said that they don't even drink coffee you are so right you and me are of the same opinion on caffeine we are just opposite ends of the do drugs/don't do drugs spectrum. You were like caffeine is drugs and I wish to live a sober life so I shant drink coffee and I was like caffeine is drugs so I might as well try meth

Anyway listening and learning. You live in a way that I cannot conceive of and I'm just trying to figure out why not trying to be judgemental. I just want to understand why I see the celibacy gif on every poll that's all. I wish everyone who chose the second option (i.e. want to but no one will fuck me and I cant get the good stuff) a very get laid get paid.

Ok so I've seen so many polls going around that are like "how old were you when you first had sex/got drunk/smoked weed etc." and the answer that wins is always the boring one so for those of you who are straight edge and celibate, which I know is the largest segment of this website:

[hencity]

Friendly favour - L.DH.

In which you're a curious virgin with touch repulsion and a very devoted friend.

genre: fluff, angst, smut, college!au, best friend!Donghyuck, pining

word count: 20.9k

warnings (aka spoilers): touch repulsion, anxiety, daddy issuess, protected sex, loss of virginity, i guess no sub-dom energy, fingering, vaginal penetration, alcohol consumption, and mentions of: sexual abuse, masturbation, asexuality and college struggle; inconsequent narration and my writing skills (that's a serious warning)

taglist: @hyucks-things @count-your-shadows @wownajaemin @riemshyuck @resceluwu @lauraneuuh @tyongpoetry @subhyuck @ukiyolixx @angel-hyuckie @jiye0n0 @readers-posts @junglewoos @nanas-gf @ddontyoumind (I'm sorry, for some reason tumblr won't let me tag you)

a/n: sorry for the delay, i had to edit it twice (since tumblr didn't save it for the first time) therefore the second time it was a bit rushed. Hope you'll enjoy it anyway. Feedback is welcome (:

You really try to not show how bothered you are with a specific Bridgertons episode playing on the TV. A young girl lying in bed pleasuring herself in a dimmed bedroom, moaning. Her pants echoing in the room, expressions suggestive making you uneasy.

“Yo, do you remember your first orgasm?”

Apparently Donghyuck does not feel awkward at all. He slouches on the other side of the couch looking at you with curious eyes. His words hang in the air causing you to pent up as if getting ready for the conversation your friend starts.

“You’re assuming a lot by asking this question.” Not sure what to do with yourself you decide to just keep nibbling popcorn from a shared bowl.

“Assuming what exactly?”

Your lips are twitching as you hold back the nervous smile. Your eyes are avoiding his, staring at the padded out masturbation scene playing right in front of you.

“Well, first of all, you assume that I've ever orgasmed.” You clear your throat and steady your voice so it sounds strong and confident above moans and gasps coming from the speakers. “Second of all, to orgasm you have to either have sex or masturbate. In case you forgot, I'm not fond of physical contact.”

You indirectly indicate your virginity - you know Donghyck knows, even though it was never really said out loud.You’re not fond of the proximity with others and need wide personal space.

Because of your touch repulsion and Donghyuck’s liking for it, you two had a serious fight at the beginning of your friendship. When you first met at the start of the college, you quickly clicked, enjoying each other's company; talking for hours, fitting into almost every subject even if not agreeing about the topic, both of you ready to dispute.

That’s why naturally affectionate Hyuck freely hugged you a few times and impulsively touched your hand during heated conversation. When your calm cautions weren’t working you snapped, which made him hurt and you unnerved, you two not talking for almost a week before it took Renjun to convince both of you to talk out the miscommunication.

That actually brought you two even closer as you worked out how to balance each other's needs. Hyuck worked on withholding his touch impulse towards you while you learned to accept his affection when he asked to. After a year, Hyuck’s endearment became so familiar that sometimes it was you who came to him for a hug when you felt down, the fact he didn’t make a big deal out of it - as it was natural for him to be touchy with others - made you at ease.

“I admit, I assume that as a twenty year old person not having sex you touch yourself and - for your sake I hope - you are able to make yourself cum. So, do you remember the first time you came?”

You bring your knees closer to your chest, placing feet on the couch. It’s not the first time you talk about sex. Sometimes even you started the convo, being confused and asking Hyuck about intimate stuff you didn’t understand. It never felt personal like this one, though. You could say you didn’t remember but he knows when you lie - he once straight up told you your emotions are written all over your face and he can read you like an open book. If you didn’t reply that would mean you remember but are too chicken to answer.

“I do.” You say too loudly considering the small space, late hour and quiet noises coming from the tv. “Um...I’m going to get more popcorn. Wanna something to drink?” You ask, as if he’s not holding a bottle of water in his grip.

“Why are you dodging the question?”

“I do not. I already told you I do remember. That’s what you asked about.”

He frowns. “But I want you to tell me how was it.”

“Why?” you whine.

“Because I'm a curious creature.”

“But it’s embarrassing”

“It’s not. Masturbation is normal. I jack off too. Besides we talked about stuff like that earlier and you were fine with it.”

You make a sound to let out your awkwardness and frustration with Hyuck’s insight.

“It’s embarrassing for me as a personal experience, not a discussion topic.”

“Oh, now I’m intrigued. Tell me, please”

“No. I wanna treat my eyes with those absurd costumes so let it go.”

“Y/n.” He whines. “It can’t be worse than my first orgasm.”

You glance at him, suddenly you liking where this was going.

“You’ve never told me so I can't tell whether it was worse or not.”

Poor boy doesn't even hesitate.

“I jacked off after school because I popped a boner when a girl I had a crush on sat on my lap. It was the first time and I was so shocked when I saw how far my sperm shot. And then my mom came with the laundry”

“Oh.” Your eyes are wide open, you turn to the screen to hide your warm cheeks. “That’s interesting. Now that I know I can tell that mine truly wasn’t that bad. Thanks for the info though.” And just like that you put popcorn into your mouth.

“Hey! Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn on what?”

“Tell me about your first orgasm. I told you about mine”

“But we never discussed story exchange. You told me yours willingly for free.”

“Yeah, but… I thought…” He stutters. “Couldn't you just…” The boy falls back blue into his end of the couch. “Why are you like this?” he mutters.

There’s a shadow of betrayal in his voice so you risk a glance in his direction. He’s sprawled on the long couch (which he dragged to the flat specially for your personal space liking and got scolded by his roommate Johnny for cluttering the space) with a frown on his face, eyesight absently laid on the screen. Sight of the kicked puppy presented to you as evidence of hurt.

You sigh defeated.

“I came with one touch.”

“You what?”

“You wanna hear it or not?” Your confidence wavering slightly nonetheless you continue as he gives you an attentive look waiting for you to keep going. “I guess it was at the beginning of high school. I remember lying in my bed ready to sleep but I couldn't because I was really pent up and didn't know why and I heard that women masturbate too but back then it was weird for me and I didn't want to… touch myself down there. But it felt nice when I touched my thighs and abdomen and when I actually… you know.” He nods and you avert your eyes embarrassed. “I came right away.”

He processes your words for a moment before speaking up.

“How did you know that was it?” He asks with furrowed brows. “Like it’s easy for guys because you have visible evidence but how did you know what you felt was an orgasm?” Mother and daughter, the boy has more questions. “Well,” you take a deep breath. “I was confused at first. Really confused. It was literally electrifying and I know it sounds corny but that’s exactly how it felt. Like you know how fresh and ozon smelly the atmosphere is after the rainstorm? Like the air feels lighter and cooler? That’s how I felt. Am I too descriptive now? Stop me if I'm talking too much.” He shakes his head. “Okay... So when I touched myself again it hurt and then I was even more puzzled. It took me a few minutes to figure out that I must have came.”

Your friend looks lost in his thoughts. Although it’s not rare between you two you just shared a very intimate experience with him and feel slightly anxious about the prolonged quietness he’s giving you.

“Say something.” Donghyuck takes a long sip from the bottle he’s holding and then puts it back on the coffee table next to the couch. He makes himself comfortable, resting his back on the armrest to face you.

“So. I know it might be silly question but I’m not a sex spec either, especially when it comes to the women poit of view. But. Isn’t it usually and i’m saying usually because i don’t know for sure and i’m trying to get to know now and now when i think about it it’s rather a one time thing to know it so it’s not really measurable. And it probably depends also on the size of the thing but my point is that you said you came with one touch but I thought that it’s painful when you put something bigger than a tampon in your vagina for the first time and I'm confused right now.”

“I don’t know.” You cover your face with your palms, hiding blush from your friend when you realize how detailed this convo is. “I’ve never put anything there. I don’t use tampons. And when I said I touched myself once and came I didn't mean inside just… ugh…”

“Your clit.”

“Yeah.”

“So since that time you get off only by playing with your clit?” He asks surprised.

You groan embarrassed but don't deny nor correct and at that his back straightens up as he moves his arms onto his lap, fidgeting.

“You’ve never had anything inside your vagina like ever?” Donghyuck clears his throat and you just wanna leave the room to go find a ditch you could crawl yourself into. “I’ve basically just said that. Do you need a detailed description of how I masturbate?”

“Well, you gave me quite a pretty description of how your first orgasm felt. It doesn't hurt to ask.” You groan but feel slight relief when Donghyuck stays quiet after that. You turn your attention back to the screen in hopes of getting a grip of what's happening in the plot.

“Have you though…” Hyuck probs cautiously. Apparently the conversation hasn’t ended for him and it still had quite a potential to use up. “I’m sorry for this question and you don’t have to answer this one if you don’t want to.”

“Just this one?”

“Have you ever considered opting to have sex with anyone?”

“That’s a peculiar way of wording it, Donghyuck” You furrow your brows, tightening your hold on the bowl. “Why do you even ask? I thought you understand - at least partially - that I’m not physically able to do that, that's once. Second, It would have to be someone who I trust or at least like enough to want to… spend the required time with them. And with my social skills you know that might be a problem too.”

“That's doable though.”

You look at him unamused. “Not sure if I wanna hear the rest of this idea.”

"I'm just saying I think you're capable of making close relationships with people and being okay with people touching you,” he explains kindly.

"Hyuck…" you sigh. “What's your point?" Why the hell was he so persistent on proving you wrong?

"I just think you're a precious human being who deserves to feel loved.”

“You do know that people have different love languages, right? Like quality time or acts of service.

“Yeah. I am reminded of those every time I'm with you.

You frown at that "Quit fake flirting, Hyuck.”

“But I wanna know.” He wines, drawing slightly closer to you but still staying on his side of the couch. “I wanna understand. I get you don’t like physicall contact but it’s generally not only sexualy though so that doesn’t make you asexual, does it? Like we established that you masturbate so you feel sexual desire. Do you feel attraction towards other people? And like... what is going on inside your head?”

You exhale slightly irked with his proning. “If i admit I’m intrested in sex but not able to do it will you let it go finally?"

“Not really,” he says mildly. “I wanna understand you so I can be a better friend”

“But I feel like a research object” you curl up under the blanket hugging your knees.

You feel examined and even though it bothers you to some point, you’re curious just like Hyuck and the longer you think about it he’s the person you feel most at ease with. You do wonder about sex as it’s a closed book to you that you’re not able to read on your own. And you know your best friend has at least the basic experience. What’s more he never bragged about his sexlife, he was just casual about it - considering sex as a human thing. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to carry on this conversation?

You take a deep breath. “I do feel sexual desire and I do feel physical repulsion. It’s hard to get past it. Also usually I am not fond of people.”

“That I noticed when you bark at randoms who barely did you any harm.”

“Not funny. Anyway when it comes to feeling atracted to people I know when I see someone pretty but it does not mean i think about having sex with them. I guess my sexual needs are mostly impersonal.”

“That’s pretty much reasonable. So like you get horny when you see sex scene but you don’t get aroused at the sexual though of particular person?

“You could say so.”

“I could say so?” His eyebrows high above his eyes. He knows you’re not telling him everything but won’t question it. “I’m asking again just to be sure: If you were able to, you’d like to know how the real sex feels like, right?”

Your face is absolutely red when you weakly answer “Yes… But I’m not expecting it happening anytime soon and i doubt anyone would like to have sex with me in my thirties when my body will start to wrinkle so i’m kind of accepting living till death as a curious virgin.”

“I might have a solution to that.”

You look at him thrown-off.

“As I already said you’re able to do it. Just think about it. You don't have a problem with my touching - well, at least most of the time - and we’re best friends." his voice showing slight hesitation in the last words.

Your mouth feels dry and your head feels hot and whatever sound comes out of your mouth is undefinable. “Are you proposing me a sexual service or just stating facts trying to prove that the problem exists only in my head?”

He scoffs at your words. “I’m gonna interpret your rudeness as liking in peculiar foreplay.”

You both give each other attentive looks.

“Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m making it weird?” You ask in disbelief.

“I just wanna say that if you would wanna know what it feels like and if you trust me enough to touch you in that way, all you have to do is ask.” he says and his voice is sincere, not mocking, not even playful. It leaves you dumbfounded and he turns to the tv changing the subject.

***

It takes you a week to make up your mind. You do a list of pros and cons then shred it thinking it’s useless. This repeats three times. Meanwhile you attend your classes as usual, meeting with your friends between periods. This included Donghyuck, who acts as if nothing happened, which makes you feel like you’ve dreamed about this whole abstract-like midnight discussion. He greets you as always, talks to you as casually as ever and keeps his physical affection with you at the same level which meant always asking for permission for a hug and being cautious to not touch your bare skin when it wasn’t necessary.

That's why you throw out the first list, thinking his offer never had a place.

Two days after that night, you are having lunch with people from your group project who give fallacious ideas and reject yours without even seriously considering them. Fed up, you end up just sitting at the side doing notes while chewing on your food.

“What’s up” you hear Hyuck’s voice right before he’s not so gracefully placed on the chair in front of you.

“Hi. I’m busy” you growl and put another spoon of noodles in your mouth.

“Y/n. Didn’t I tell you that barking at people doesn’t make you seem like an approachable person?” He nags playfully, making you choke on your food.

Oh. So he remembers.

You take a moment to breathe and use it to get a grip of yourself.

“It was in the context of strangers, though. I didn’t know I needed to pretend I’m nice around my friends too.”

“Don’t limit yourself, y/n. Think out of the box.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to but you’re covering my notes, you wing sacher. Don’t you have classes right now?” you know he does. “I do." He glances at the watch on his wrist. “But I was passing by and saw you sitting here alone sulking and decided to say hi and ask for a daily fix of affection from you. High five?”

You put your hand flat on his not making it clap and hold it for a second. He smiles, when you don’t cringe as you usually do.

“Have a nice day, y/n.”

“You too, Hyuck.”

When he leaves the hall you pull out a sheet of paper and write the second version of your pros and cons list.

Another three days pass and you are being more and more convinced that you wanna take up on Hyuck’s offer. Also, your ovulation being right around the corner made you unbelievably horny.

You are in the middle of your art classes, standing in front of your easel, naked model facing the wall. Sketching the nude on your paper sheet you think His back is nice. The proportions are so symmetrical and the bright light makes it cast dark shadows emphasizing the muscles. It looks fine. Wonder if Hyuck has nice shoulder blades.

Your mind is silent for a moment.

Oh crap. Did I really think that?

Later that day you meet with your friends at Johnny and Hyuck’s place.

As usually on a wednesday evening you gather at your themed meeting. Every week one of you comes up with a word which becomes a subject for the next gathering. It could be whatever comes to your mind. Poppy. Vienna. Or Misanthropy. It was a key word which meant that for next wednesday everyone had to prepare cultural references but if it felt too indirect or you doubled with someone you were out, the rest of the group made you do some kind of dare. The winner of the game - which was a person who lasted till the end - was the one who picked the theme for the next week.

And even though usually you had lots of fun, today you were distracted ever since Hyuck greeted you in a hallway with a permitted hug. You place your arms around him, feeling his taut back muscles. Oh shit. You clench your fists feeling awkward with laying them flat on his body.

“You okay?” He steps away feeling you tense.

“Perfectly fine”

But you’re not even close to fine. The seed Donghyuck left in your head almost a week ago is growing and it’s making you go insane. After the fourth time he catches you staring at him you start to avoid his eyes at all cost which seems even more unnatural. Everyone, except you, is surprised when you lose the game in the third row.

“Looks like we get to know your weak spot, y/n.” You hear Jaemin say and get all hot at the thought he might have noticed you gazing in Hyuck’s direction. “You suck at geography. Especially it’s not hard to find info about Monaco, you know”

“Oh, no.” You exhale relieved. “You misunderstood my intention. I win so often I decided to back away this time so you’d have a chance to not be the last at least once.”

“Sure.” Jaemin gives you a grumpy look. “I dare you to not make a sound, starting from now on.” That's how you’re doomed to spend the rest of the evening in the corner, silently following the game, yet your eyes way too often dart to Donghyuck’s frame, espying his movements. The way his neck moves when he speaks, the natural movement of his chest sinking slightly when he sits, his fingers playing with the hem of the sleeve. The curious look with wide eyes and raised eyebrow that he sends your way.

You blush and your heart drops, heavy with realization that you’re indeed attracted to your best friend.

***

Next day, you head back home after your classes finish, taking your usual way passing by Hyuck’s place. >Hi. u home? (3:43 p.m.)

Lee Donghyuck >> Yup. y? (3:45 p.m.)

>Can i pop in? (3:45 p.m.)

> it won’t take long. Just a sec (3:45 p.m.)

Lee Donghyuck >> door’s open ;) (3:46 p.m.)

You knock on the front door to announce your arrival. When you open it you’re met with Renjun sitting on the couch.

“Oh. Hi.” you say baffled.

“Hello, y/n. How are you?”

“Fine. What are you doing here?”

“Math project,” he sighs, motioning to the notes scattered on the table. “At least I’m trying to.”

“Oh, that one for the contest?” You remember Donghyuck mentionig it last week. Their professor chose Donghyuck and Renjun to take part in a contest in which the winning team was provided an internship.

“Yeah but it’s so complicated,” he whines. “Like I don’t even know if the meta-system is still math.”

“There are people who say the universe is math and math is the universe,” you point out.

There's a loud noise when Donghyuck appears in the kitchen door frame. “Welcome, my dear.” He smiles at your furrowed brows and Renjun’s gagging sound.

“You could have told me you're busy. I can come another time.” “But you said it’ll be quick and it sounded urgent. I didn’t think you’d mind Renjun.”

You look up at him troubled. “Well, I don’t though I wanted to talk about... stuff.”

He knits his eyebrows clearly confused but before you can retreat he directs you to his bedroom. “Food is on the counter, Renjun. Give us a moment” he says before closing the door.

“What’s up?” He rests his butt on the little space he found on his desk and since the chair is occupied with clothes, he offers you a seat on his bed

You clear your throat ignoring his pointing arm. “It's about Friday.”

“Like tomorrow?”

“No. Like a week ago.”

“Oh.” He smirks. “This explains why you need another room.”

“Donghyuk.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll be good from now on,” he promises, hiding his smile.

“Thank you.” you take a breath. “So I was thinking about your…proposition. ”

“I’m listening.” Donghyuk looks back at you expectantly, as you stay quiet gathering your courage. He straightens up. “Remember that I'm the one who made the suggestion and I won't judge you whether you accept it or turn it down.”

“I wanted to ask you…” you start cautiously. “You offered to have sex with me. And I understand this is a friendly favour, but if we decide to actually do it, I would like to know if you... would actually enjoy it.”

He’s avoiding your eyes with a blush on his face. Mother and daughter, this is awkward. He stays quiet and you bite your lip, getting more and more anxious.

“I would.” “You sure? You can be honest on this one. I don’t want you to pull the wool over my eyes.”

“I know what I’m saying” he states.

“You can also call it off if you changed your mind.”

He lets out an exaggerated gasp. “Excuse me, I feel committed to fulfill my proposal.”

“That’s what I mean. I don’t want you to feel obligated. To anything” you explain.

“I won’t feel obligated as long as you won’t be awkward and uncomfortable about it.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” You force yourself to shrug, hoping it looks nonchalantly.

“Then I don’t feel obligated.”

“Great.” You clear your throat. “Are you free on saturday then?”

His brows raise high to his hairline. “That’s in two days.”

“Is it too soon?” You hesitate. “I’m sorry, you might have plans already...”

“I’m free on saturday.” He gives you a wary look. ”Are you sure though? You don’t have to take up on an offer now. It doesn't have an expiration date.”

“I thought this through.” You nod assuredly. “Now that we established that we’re doing the deed we need to set the details.”

At that Donghyuck smiles incredulous. “Of course you have it planned.”

You ignore him, used to his teasing.

“Are you okay with doing it at my place? My roommate usually leaves for the weekend.” You nibble on your lip trying to not look around the room and ignore empty red-bull cans covering his desk, clothes draped over furniture, books and notebooks piled up on the shelves, windowsill and floor. Donghyuck's room is a five-star mess. “And I don’t want to intrude.”

He licks his lip, thinking. “I'd rather do it here if you don't mind. I have a bigger bed.”

“We need that much space?” Your face is hot and you know your cheeks are probably crimson red.

“Well, you never really know,” he shrugs. "It will be more comfortable, for sure." “And I can ask Johnny to have a place for ourselves.”

“I don’t want to make a big deal out of it though.”

“Don’t worry about it. He asked me that many times and I won’t give him any details. Is this set then?”

“Okay.” you say quietly and then repeat more clearly. “Okay. I need to work on my sculpture on Saturday too, so is it okay if I come around five?”

“I’ll make dinner then.” “Oh. So you wanna hang out before we get to the point?”

“We’re definitely hanging out first.” He says slightly taken aback. “First of all you'll need to eat after a day in the atelier. And I know you’re probably planning it in your head already but I want you to let me take care of it okay?”

“But I need to know,” you whine. You hate surprises. You have everything planned anything unexpected isn’t welcome in your schedule

“Isn’t it enough that you know I prepare something? Believe me that planning out the hook up point by point kills the mood.”

You grump but don’t question it. “FINE. Just remember I don't like mushrooms and seafood.”

“Wow,” he exclaims. “You really expect me to flex.”

“Duh. And one last thing. Could you … ugh. Take care of… protection? I’d do that but I have no idea which condoms…” “I’ve got this.” His voice is mild and slightly hurt, matching the solemn look on his face. “You don’t need to handle every detail. I promise I’ll do my best.”

“That's not it.” You quickly shake your head at the misunderstanding. ”I trust you. I just don’t wanna mess up my part.”

He sighs deeply. “You won't, okay? There’re no expectations of you so there’s no way you could not leave up to something that doesn’t exist.”

You smile softly at this caring side of Hyuck, not aware of the mood killer he's about to throw on you.

“Y/n”

“Hmm?”

“Is there anything specific you wanna try out?”

You gasp outraged. So that would be it when it comes to serious Donghyuck.

“You're literally the one who told me not to plan everything.”

“So you did think about it.” He grins smugly “Does my naked body look good in your imagination?”

"I'm leaving,” you huff, opening the bedroom door.

“Took you long enough,” Renjun says to the two of you. “Food is on the counter” he mocks Donghyuck. “Give us a moment.”

You look apologetically at him, heading to the front door. "You know how long it takes to deal with a baby."

"You might wanna call me that on saturday.”

"What's on saturday?” you hear Renjun’s voice, muffled by the food he's chewing.

Hyuck winks at you. "Kinder party for best babes only.”

You snort and roll your eyes, while putting on your shoes.

When the door closes behind you, Donghyuck turns to his friend.

“Dude.”

“What?”

“Can you dance?”

Renjun raises his brows not looking up from the notes. “For my and your sake - I don’t.”

***

You have been in the atelier since the morning, working on your midterm sculpture. Although trying hard, the work you’ve been doing so far was rubbish.

You’re a mess, mindlessly dragging fingers through moldable dirt. Chest heavy with guilt, mind obscured with doubt, mouth full of curse words directed at your phone. The damn phone call. Stupid, frickin stupid.

And the text Dongyuck sends you makes you let out a helpless sob.

Lee Donghyuck >> Can u wear a dress tonight? pretty please👉👈 (3:58 p.m.)

A shaky breath leaves you and you just stare, a sense of obligation landing hard on you when all you long for at the moment is comfort.

Lee Donghyuck >> I know it’s out of blue. It doesn’t have to be formal. The most comfortable dress you have will do great as long as it’s a dress (4:05 p.m.)

Lee Donghyuck >> And if you have dirty thoughts about it stop it immediately! It’s for pre-dirty time actually ;) (4:06 p.m.)

You numbly dial his number and he answers right after the first signal.

“Yo. I’m sorry I kind of surprised you with the dress, especially at this hour. But like i said it doesn’t have to be fancy. Actually I'd rather not have it fancy at all. “ You hear him shuffling something in the background.”I’m gonna spoil that I'm wearing a jumper so imagine how the simple dress would fit perfectly. Oh no, don’t break down now” He whines. “Anyway, why are you calling? I thought you’d be getting ready at this hour.”

You clear your throat. “I’m still in the atelier”

“Oh.” He gives you a surprised sound. “So you're not coming back to your place before you come here?

“I was planning to. Something just came up and I'm a bit delayed.” you say leaning your forehead against the cool wall. “ I’ll try to be on time though”

“It’s fine, just text me on your way so I'll heat up the food. Are you okay though? You sound upset.”

Maybe the call wasn't the best idea.

“I’m just a little tired. No big deal.” you assure, trying to steady your voice.

There’s a long silence on the line and you know Donghyuk is sensing your mood. You anxiously scrub out the dry clay from underneath your nails. “We can cancel today if you don’t feel like doing it” He states. And you close your eyes because at the moment you don’t feel like doing it at all. Yet you think about the fuss you made about the whole thing. Hyuck's planning and preparations - something he never really does. Even the fact he basically threw Johnny out of his own flat. Backing off now would be a dick move.

“No. I want to do it.”

“Shut it, y/n. I don’t need to look at you to know you’re not okay. Whatever pressure you feel to have sex right now is absurd. Let’s call it off.”

“But you’ve prepared. I‘m not standing you up.” Donghyuck can be an ass. At the same time he’s also the most devoted and caring friend you ever had and you won’t disregard his effort just because he puts your needs over his own.

“I didn’t say we’re not hanging out. We’re just skipping the sex part. I’ve spent three hours browsing the net for the perfect recipe, you picky eater. I’m not throwing it away. That’s unethical.”

“Indeed, utterly unacceptable.”

“I’m glad we’re one the same page now. Just come over.”

“Is the dress still required though?”

It takes him a while to answer. “It’s not. Just wear what you’re most comfortable with. Except your sculpting pants. I don’t wanna clean the carpet out of clay or plaster again”

“You know it’s weird how you claimed the dress is not part of the dirty stuff yet it gets canceled collectively.”

“Shady, isn’t it? Remember to text beforehand.”

“I will. And Hyuck?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I messed up”

“What do you mean? As far as I’m concerned we’re still having a pleasant evening today.”

“Right.” You smile. “See you soon.”

***

“This is literally the healthiest food you’ve ever cooked.” You point out before stuffing the pasta in your mouth.

“Duh. The amount of tags I excluded is unbelievable. No mushrooms. No seafood. No fish. No olives. No eggplant. No meat. No beans and stuff. No heavy food.”

“You’ve made pasta, though”

“It’s not just pasta! Those are zoodles. To be more specific it’s called grilled ratatouille linguini and it took hella lot of time to prepare.”

And turns out it was kind of wasted. You clear your throat awkwardly. “Is this all you've been doing all day?”

“I mean I tried to work on a project. Renjun left me some work to do. But we’re stuck” he slurps a zoodle between his mouth. “So bad Renjun doesn’t even believe we could actually win, but we put too much work into it already. And this idea we have has so much potential, even the professor said so, it’s like disgrace to waste it. “Can’t you ask the professor for help?” you suggest. “Like not for a solution but maybe for a tip?”

He shakes his head and swallows the food. “We didn’t really want to do that but we were desperate so we did and he sent us back to the library for references. Renujn was upset because he thought he didn’t want to help but in my opinion he didn’t know the direct answer either. Like he’s usually pretty chill so I guess he’d tell us straight up if he could help.” He shrugs.

“You two need help in the library? I could help if you need extra eyes.”

“Sure.” He sends you a very doubtful look. “I appreciate it but I can barely understand what I’m reading while having at least basic knowledge in the meta-system.“ He sets aside his plate on the coffee table and leans back on the couch. “Besides, you have your own work. How is your sculpture by the way?”

“It’s okay,” you murmur. “Not really the way i want it but I’m working on it” you scrub mindlessly in your bowl. “It’s just a reproduction exercise so it has to be perfect and the longer you work on it the more shortcomings you see and the less imbued it appears. Usually working on a real life model allows you more creativity.”

He hums looking at you attentively. “How come you’ve never asked me to pose for you?”

“Guess it just never came up” you shrug. “Now it does.”

“You want me to draw you right now?”

He nods “Why not?”

“I don’t have my sketchbook.”

He raises his eyebrows at your weak excuse.

“You left one here two weeks ago and it’s collecting dust on my desk.”

“Oh. Glad I’ve finally found it.” you say cheerlessly, picking your plate.

“You found it?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, not having strength to keep up with the joking tone. “I’m not in the artsy mood, though.”

“Why is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t push you if you don’t want to talk about it but just know that i can be serious for a moment if you need me to”

“Oh.” you act like you just remembered a very obvious thing. “You wanna explain the dress right?”

“That's not what I said. And why are you so hung up on it?”

“I’m curious. You planned something - for you it’s equivalent to… I don't know what but for sure something big.” He shakes his head. “And I know I'm the one who ruined it.”

“You didn't ruin anything.”

“It’s rude to interrupt,“ you nag him. “Anyway it won’t be a surprise, so can you just tell me? Pretty please?”

“Not really. I could still use it later on.” he resists.

You’re confused for a moment “On what?”

He gets flustered at your surprised reaction.

“Oh.” he says slowly. “I mean I thought…. maybe i shouldn't assume that… but i thought that we’re only rescheduling today.”

“So you still want to have sex with me?” “Why wouldn't I?” He asks just as surprised as you. “I mean only if you’re still up to it.” he adds tentatively and then clears his throat, leaving the subjects hanging in the air. “Anyway we could make a deal. I can explain the dress in exchange for your mood killer.”

“You said you won’t push” you complain.

“I’m not. I’m offering a deal. Feel free to dismiss it.” he ensures, grabbing from you an empty plate and gets up from the couch.

“What a tease” you huff under your nose and follow him to the kitchen.

“Oh girl, if only you knew”

"Eww."

“You're ewwing me now? At one mild sexual innuendo?” his eyes widen in disbelief.

You ignore him, hopping onto the counter next to the sink.

“Okay, deal. What was the dress for?”

He laughs and for a moment you fall for it’s sincerence. He puts the washed plate on a washer-dryer and starts to scrub the greasy pan. “I’m not gonna let you trick me again. You go first and then I'll tell you the purpose of the dress.” “But you probably expect me to tell you something interesting and thrilly but it’s not,” you sulk.

“Dress isn't exciting either,” he heads up making you roll your eyes at his stubbornness.

You grab a washcloth, trying to busy yourself with something

"My dad called me today."

“And you were upset? Isn't that a good thing though? ” He inquires, still semi focused on the dishes.

“The whole phone call was absurd. Like it already started badly. My phone screwed up and didn't show my fathers name when he called. I didn't know who's that so when I asked who's calling he got all offended claiming I don't respect him.”

"You didn't recognize his voice?"

You shrug in an attempt to hide how much it actually bothers you. "He was drunk."

You glimpse at Donghyuck to catch his reaction. His face doesn't show anything and he isn’t speaking up either.

“Either you’re asking me something or we’re moving on because I'm not gonna dwell on the subject if you don’t have any interest in it.”

“I’m just trying to be considerate.”

“That’s new.” It’s not, but he lets it pass, used to your harshness in your defending mode. Sure, Hyuck teases the fair amount out of you and your friends but he knows when the conversation is serious and always acts respectful, knowing someone might get hurt.

“Was he right though? I mean you rarely talk about your father and I can't tell how you feel about him.”

“I don’t know myself. I know I should respect him, but I've witnessed too many situations ripping humans off of respect and ninety percent of those moments he was drunk. Then he straight up asks me this question in this exact state and says I know you don’t respect me. I don’t know why, and it sounds like it’s entirely my fault.”

“But why did he call in the first place?”

“To discuss the transport of my painting. You know, that big one.” You pause, reminded of the self doubt you felt a few hours ago. “He asked if it’s necessary. If I really need this since I won't do anything with it ever again and it’s not worth the fuss.”

“Just to make sure - we’re talking about the one for the exhibition?” You nod. “Maybe he didn’t mean that? As you said he was drunk”

You remember all those moments when you tried so hard to prove your father wrong every time you did something for him hoping for appreciation or waited for him to approve your accomplishment. To make him regret all the harsh words that shrinked your self confidence toward insecurity. All your plans are a failure. Nothing you do is decent. You ought to do something useful for once. You are bad mannered. Don't be so loud. And then you contrast it with him stumbling from the stairs, breaking dishes with uncoordinated moves, struggling to find restrooms, puffy red face, body stinking of digested alcohol, the stench filling up the room. Sometimes everyday. Sometimes a few times a week. Rarely once a few months. Making you wary of the look of your dad holding a beer, hoping it’s just this one, being anxious about asking friends to come over and panicking when family members were close by, even though your mom and sister were around no one felt like there’s a need to handle the situation and stop your dad from embarrassment and judgment.

“He does that when he's sober too.” You shrug. “I don’t even know why it upset me so much. I should get over it at this point.” The dishes are forgotten, piled up on the washer dryer. You just sit on the counter with a slouched back and blank stare. “ I don’t know, maybe I hope like a fool he’d be proud of me at some point.”

You stay quiet on how alone and doubtful you feel after talks with your dad, not letting Donghyuck know any of that.

“Just because your father doesn’t tell you he’s proud of you doesn't mean he’s not. Maybe he’s just bad at expressing it.” he suggests, wiping his hands.

“Nah, he can be very expressive when he needs to.” I hope the next child won't be born with a personality like yours. “I just miss him from the time when I was a little kid. When he was fun to be around. God, I feel like shit for slagging about my father like that.”

“You know that not everything he says is true right? Just now you’ve felt sorry for bad-mouthing your dad, but honestly there are a lot of people complaining about their parents but not really feeling bad about it. It's not easy to show respect to people who drag you down when they are supposed to support you.” he’s leaning on the counter opposite of you and for once you wish he was closer.

You wonder if it would be okay to ask for a hug. For the firm embrace, giving a sense of stability, so different from the playful hugs he tends to throw around. The one you’d come for with a tail between your legs seeking his affection.

You say nothing, not wanting him to pity you.

"I don't wanna be supported by default though. I want to earn it. It's like you won’t bet on a horse who's got no chance to win. Even if it's your own. You actually might not buy it in the first place… ” You pause. ”Am I a bad horse?"

"No. Some people are just bad gamblers." His voice is tender and it strikes you how sympathizing it sounds.

“The dress” you change the subject.

Your friend looks sorry for a mment, before shaking it off. He turns around exiting the kitchen and you follow him to the living room. “Hey, you promise…”

He interrupts you, noisily moving the enormous couch to the side of the room.

“What are you doing?” you ask, a little taken aback.

“Well” Donghyuck sighs from effort and pushes back the hair that fell into his eyes. “I thought... “ he grabs his phone from the coffee table and connects it with the speakers. “... that if the surprise won’t be surprising anymore as the reason for someone’s stubbornness and curiosity I might as well show you? If you don’t like it we could watch a movie later since i didn’t really plan anything else”

“Okay.” Your barely audible voice gets drowned out with the soft music. Realization hits you the moment you hear fancy tunes of trumpets and oboe.

“You did not” you gasp in disbelief.

“May I ask for this dance?” he approaches you and bows slightly, offering a hand.

“But like…. How do you know how to dance a viennese waltz?” He gives you a stern look so you obediently accept his hand.

“The orchestra won’t play for us forever. You shall make up your mind a little faster.” He moves an arm on your shoulder blade and the left hand to support your right, moving his feet to the fast rhythm.

“How did you know?”

“I might have eavesdropped once you told Renjun how you’d like to dance to Shostakovitch one day. Found it peculiar because: one, didn’t think you were such a helpless romantic” you open your mouth to argue “U-um. It’s rude to interrupt. And secondly to obvious closeness. But I thought that if you were okay with even more intimacy required to have sex with me then you’d most likely be okay with dancing. At least I hoped so.” he ends sheepishly.

You look at the now shy boy who’s scanning the room to make sure not to bump into any furniture, leading you on the floor, holding you steady in his arms but making you feel like you’re floating.

“I am very okay with dancing with you” you smile and squeeze his hand to affirm your words. “Do you have a tuxedo hidden in the closet too?”

“What a spoiled woman!” he exclaims jokingly, addressing your teasing and then swirls you around. When you look up in his face again he’s already ogling at you with a smile. “I didn’t want to make it too sophisticated. Like I said, jumper and plain dress.”

“Yeah, but jumper and jumper would work just fine.”

At some point you don’t even focus on your steps getting so used to the moves of the dance you feel like flowing with music. Being led by Donghyuck was a little uncoordinated at first, now it feels like your bodies are molding into each, both your arms being extensions of the other. The longer you two dance the more at ease you two become and you find him looking at you more often than around the room. Dance so easy and enjoyable you keep going dance after dance till the playlist full of Strauss and Chopin waltzes interlaced with some modern composers gets more mellow tones and your silhouettes let go of the pent up and proper posture. You allow yourself to get lost in solemn music, his smooth movements, comforting embrace.

He brought your intertwined fingers close to your bodies as his extended arm started to feel numb long ago and you lay your head on his shoulder to relieve your strained neck. Whatever you dance right now, looks nothing like the fancy waltz you started with, yet is just as - if not more - pleasant.

“Did I tire you out?” he teases mildly.

“No” you yawn, negating your own words.

He gently tries to back off.

“Just one more composition, please. It's so nice.” you plead mumbling into the soft fabric of his shirt. You're so relaxed and comforted, feeling all fuzzy with his strong arms embracing you, not really wary of his answer. So grateful for him just being, you'd be happy even if he told you he had enough of dancing. “The last one I promise.”

He stays as you ask, tightening his grip back on you. “You're the best Hyuck.” So thoughtful and caring. You wonder when and where did he learn to dance and if it was especially for you.

He really strived his best to make the evening special but not ripping you off comfort and homely ambience. You take a deep breath, filling comfy anchored to Hyuck’s side. His solid arm muscles under your fingers, familiar scent filling your nostrils.

You look up at him to check on his mood. Is he tired? Bored? You search his face for any wrong signs but you find nothing, just pensive eyes. You let your head back down on his shoulder and give yourself a moment to gather up the courage. “Hyuck”

He hums to let you know you’ve got his attention and keeps swaying to the soft music.

“So...” you start tentatively with a quiet voice “... does your offer still stand?”

You feel him tense for a moment but it’s so quick you wouldn’t catch it if your bodies weren’t molded.

“Yeah,” he nods subtly. “But it’s a long term proposal. Just because I offered it now doesn’t mean you need to accept it this week, month or year.” He’s quiet for a moment and then ads with a faint voice. ”And I’m sorry if by suggesting it I made you feel like your pushed to ever have sex with anyone. I just thought…. I don’t know… That maybe...”

He stops feeling you shake your head and then you squeeze his fingers reassuringly.

“I do want to have sex. With you.” You can tell your face is tomato red by how hot you feel, your heartbeat mirroring his racing one.

“Oh.” By the tone of his voice you know he’s smiling. “So you say I seduced you.”

“Duh. No one with a sane mind would want you. Only tricks work for you.”

He just grins, thinking the conversation is over but for you it’s not. You look into his brown eyes to ensure yourself in what you’re about to say.

“I want to have sex with you.”

“I know, I heard that.”

“I want it tonight.”

He stopped dancing and now you just stand in the middle of the room. He looks at you, quiet for more than a while.

“I don’t know what to do with this information.”

“Well, I think that’s pretty obvious,” you say, slightly wounded by his response. “What exactly is unclear to you?”

“I feel like I coaxed you.”

“I’m not that easy to manipulate, you know” you puff. “Stop it, Hyuck. We already established that I am sure and that I made this decision on my own and that I thought this through. We were about to have sex anyway tonight. So what happened?” You try to step away but he holds you tightly by his side. “Just a moment ago you said the offer is still on the table and now you don’t know what to do? Why are you so misleading, confusing, twisted, chaotic…

“Kiss me then” he says, but the bold tone is far from the soft looks he was giving you seconds ago. His eyes are examining, daring.

You know he’s testing you. Verifying if you truly want this, if you’re comfortable with intimacy.

“Don’t move.”

You lean up to peck his cheek and when you back off you manage to catch a small smile on his face before he swiftly hides it.

“I told you to kiss me.”

“I just did.”

“Do it properly.” He raises an eyebrow at you. “On the lips.”

You lick your lips nervously and his eyes dart down to catch the movement. You draw yourself closer moving your chin up, your arms on your sides - fingers entwined but chests not touching. You're so close you can feel his breath on your cheek and when he’s involuntary leaning toward you, you back away terrified of what ifs. What if he won’t like it? What if you have a smelling breath? Or your lips don't feel like they’re supposed to? What if you’ll mess it up by not doing it right? What if you won’t like it?

“Why won’t you kiss me?” you ask “I’m sure you’d do it better”

“I won’t kiss you first” he states and you stare at each other for another moment before you give in and lean up once more, this time more certain but hang right before his lips again. He squeezes your hands - it's gonna be fine. So you place a peck on his lips, not expecting them to be so mellow and warm enough to radiate heat all over your body.

He smiles widely and you involountery do the same, embarrassed by your first kiss.

“Hope you’re happy now.” You try to hide your face with your hand but he doesn’t let go of it so you bring them both up intertwined and use your forearm to cover your hot cheeks. “Gonna show me how to kiss properly now?”

Palms up in the air right before Hyuck’s face when he places a quick peck on your knuckles and forces it down, pressing to your sides.

“Keep practising.” He shrugs, not moving a bit.

“Hyuck” you whine.

“Yes?”

“Can’t you do it now?”

“Why won't you?”

“Because i’m shy”

“Since when?” He draws you to him by your hands, pressing your chests together. “Keep practising,” he repeats.

You sigh and give him another peck.

“Close your eyes,” he orders as if he is not inspecting you with his own.

“Ugh… I’m scared I will miss your lips.”

“So cute, '' he mutters. “You know..” he kisses the tip of your nose “... there are other…” you feel his lips on your cheek “... places to kiss…” his mouth on your eyelids forcing them close and you don’t pray them open when he stops milimetres from your lips. “Keep practising.”

So you do. One peck, then another and another. They are simple and short, as you're not sure how exactly to move your lips but Donghyuck lets you, patiently waiting for you to get familiar with the act, slowly ease into intimacy.

As you yearn for more, all the small kisses mold into one and he finally breaks. His palms let go of yours to grasp your face and he kisses you fiercely. First rushed movements show his impatience but moment later he balances his actions, lips confident but gentle, licking on your slightly parted ones, his thumbs stroking your cheeks tenderly. The act is so intense you move away to take a breath.

“Damn you, Hyuck. Took your sweet time didn’t you?” you pant.

He just grins in response and dives back in to kiss you.

You try to pay more attention to what he is doing, and not how lightheaded it makes you feel. Confident enough you lick the side of his upper lip, making him come back right after, hastily catching your mouth.

Your lips are swollen, cheeks rosy, pulse crazy and damn, why is this so hot in here?

Donghyuck nibbs on your lower lip and you instinctively part them, his tongue slipping inside takes you aback. You pull away startled and pray your eyes open to look at your friend with ragged breath. He looks troubled yet your knees go weak at the sight of his flushed cheeks and ruffled hair.

“I’m sorry. If it’s too much…”

“No, no. It’s not, you just caught me off guard.”

He rubs your sides soothingly and looks at you with those big eyes, pupils wide from desire yet his gaze is tender.

“Tell me if you want to stop.”

“I don’t.”

“But if you will...”

“I won’t”

“But…”

You peck his mouth and then place your lips in the corner of his and then another on his jaw. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah.” He affirms with a raspy voice.

You rush to trail your lips along his jaw, under his ear, his neck, oh so pretty neck. You’re definitely gonna draw him later. A kiss. His Adam's apple bobbing when he swallows hard and you feel him pull your face up to kiss you fervently. You kiss him back and when you feel his tongue once more on your lower lip you open it up and lick at his tip.

Bodies fused together, hands more urgent, kisses more heated. When his fingers softly brush against the side of your right breast, your breath hitches.

“Are you gonna invite me to your room like a gentle man,” you pant tired of waiting for him to move things forward “or you intend to fuck me on a couch in a living room?”

“Geez, women these days.” He rolls his eyes playfully. “So impatient and straightforward. No need to be vulgar, my lady.”

You pull at his hair to get back at his teasing, he hisses and then takes both your hands in his, guiding you to his room.

“Wow,” you say as soon as you enter it. “You cleaned up”

“Of course I did.” He sits down on the bed tapping his lap for you. “Though it’s a shame I’ve cleaned up the candles already.”

You stop dead just right above him.

“You're kidding, right?” But you sound sceptical. It’s not really like him to be into romantic stuff but after the dance he prepared you can't be sure of anything.

He just smiles, pulling you down to straddle his lap. You hasiate for a moment before letting yourself sit down.

"Yeah. Didn't want to overwhelm you with my thoughtfulness and generosity."

You mirror his smile and meet him halfway in a playful kiss. His palms slowly slide up your thighs, squeezing lightly at your hips eliciting a surprised gasp from you.

"Want this off" he breathes to the side of your neck, when warm fingertips graze your ribs and dip of the spine.

"It won’t disappear on it's own."

At your permission, he tugs at your shirt, undressing you. Mesmerized, he’s sliding fingers on your soft skin not covered by comfy bralette. Donghyuck looks you in the eyes and you shy away, hiding yourself in his neck. He pampers your neck with kisses, licking it occasionally, making you want more. You breathe hard and impatiently move your hips against Donghyuck’s. He mewls at the friction, grabbing your hips and guiding them closer to his again and again.

You feel so hot, your panties sticking to your folds every time they brush against Donghyuck crotch. He wanders his hands over your body, leaving burning paths on your skin and a tingling sensation in your chest.

“Touch me, Hyuck, please.”

He turns around laying you back on the bed. He looks into your eyes, placing a kiss above the hem of your pants and pulls them down together with panties.

“What do you want?” He asks, trailing his lips down your navel. You stop him before his mouth gets lower.

“Yours… Can you use your fingers?” You whisper, your heart pumping against your chest, hoping it doesn’t sound awkward.

He traces his palm against your body, feeling up your abdomen, hips and inner thighs. His lips move up, tracing dips and angles on your shoulders and neck.

“Donghyuck,” you say impatiently. “Just…” Your breath hitches. Simple touch of his fingers on your centre so intimate, so pleasurable you’re not able to think about what’s to come.

Your friend looks at you attentively, reading your face as he gently caresses your folds and circles your clit with his thumb. You’re caught up in his eyes and tender touch, as he slowly pushes a finger into you and it’s such an unfamiliar sensation your jaw drops in surprise. Your walls are tight around his digit, scorching compared to his fingers which moments ago were leaving burning paths on your skin. Finger moving against your walls and you breathe heavily, getting used to the feeling. Donghyuck pampers you with kisses and keeps checking on you when he slowly puts another digit in. You knit your brows and hold your breath at the stretch, making Hyuck withheld to give you a long and reassuring kiss. He doesn’t say anything - no comments nor praises- which you’re grateful for. You don’t need sugarcoating, especially not now.

Your eyes are locked when you’re bucking your hips, stretching around his fingers and he curls them, speeding up. You grab his shoulders tight, steading yourself, looking down at his movement you see veins on his arm and taunt muscles, his fingers disappearing in you. Your eyes roll back when he hits a spot inside you that makes your toes curl.

“Oh,” you let out astonished with the feeling.

“There?” His voice raspy, fingers aiming at your spot again.

And you just nod rapidly feeling a familiar knot in your stomach. He can feel your walls tightening, knowing your high is close.

Hair on Donghyuck's nape rise up as you dip your nails into his back. He's shivering when your breath hits his hot skin. Nonetheless he keeps his fast peace, supporting himself on the right elbow with fingers entangled in your hair, his thumb caressing your temple.

When you release, you release hard. A hot wave going through you, your muscles tense up, bending your body in half to the point you’d sit up if not Hyuck’s body hovering over it, keeping you down. Your chest is pressed against his side, his fingers prolonging your orgasm. Your back falls down on the sheets, buzzling in your head making you twingle, feeling soft at little pecks your friend leaves on you.

“How are you feeling?” He murmurs into your skin, tracing his nose against your collarbones, high up your neck. His voice sounds like it’s coming from behind the invisible wall - an effect of high blood pressure.

You just nod weekly not feeling a need to waste energy on actual words.

“Do you want to continue?"

You nod again and feel him smile against your cheek.

This motivates you to get yourself together. You push him off of you, shoving his back on the bed.

“Can I get on top?” you ask, slightly taken aback at how grainy your voice sounds.

Your legs are still wobbly and he helps you straddle him again with a little pout on his face. “Did I not make you feel good?”

“You just straight up strive for praise don’t you?” you tease weakly.

“I mean, that would be nice,” he says looking up at you, his hand hovering over your tights moving up to your hips.

“Sorry for neglecting that. You just gave me a mind blowing orgasm and i’m not mentaly alert.”

The blush emerging on his cheeks is so adorable it reminds you he's your best friend. What you’re doing now is a favor from him in order to make you expirience how the sex feels like. This intimacy you have now probably won’t occur in the future and your heart stings a bit when you realize how happy and gratified you feel right now. The sex, that for so long seemed so abstract and unreachable for you is so easy, effortless and unconstrained with Donghyuck. Every touch, every move is so natural and welcomed you let yourself enjoy the moment and make the most of it. You lean down to kiss him deeply. “Let me return the favour. Tell me what you need me to do.”

“Whatever you want to.” He kisses your cheek. “I’m all yours.”

As much as his words make you flutter you’d rather not let them affect you too much not wanting to put more meaning into them than he intended.

“Why are you still dressed then?” you pull up his shirt and gasp. That's a sight to see, when the outline of his abs move while he’s throwing the clothing on the floor.

He catches you staring and smirks smugly. “I know, right?”

You suppose you should look away but his naked body is so captivating.

“When did you get those?” you exhale, moving your hand to touch him mesmerized.

“Johnny has been dragging me to the gym for the last few weeks. Hey, stop drooling.”

His teasing calls you back to reality.

“Aren’t we talking too much?" you ask.

“No. You’re the one who’s talking too much. I’m just answering to be polite.”

You frown at his words.

“Stop worrying. I’m gonna tell you if I won’t like it.”

Tentative at first, you start to roam your palms on his skin, focused on his reactions. Shivers when you touch his nipples, breath hitched when you trace your fingers right above the hem of his jeans. His neck is your favourite, extra responsive as you pamper it with kisses, caressing his muscles and angles with your fingers. Perfectly visible, reacting to every movement. You sight mesmerized and kiss above his collarbones and he wraps his arms on your waist protectively.

It’s only this one time when you're this close and the small possessive part of you can’t bear the thought that you’re not the only one touching him this way. That he’s not anticipating affection the way you do, as it’s innate for him. You get greedy, fully aware you're gonna regret this later you whisper.

“How does one give a hickey?” Donghyuck tightens his fingers on your sides “You don’t need to show me. I just thought that if we’re at that already I could ask? You can just tell me if you don’t want me you know…. to do it.” you stumble.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” he affirms. “Do you want me to demonstrate?”

You nod.

“Let me sit up”

You get off his lap for a moment, just to let him lean on the head board and pull you on him again. Your naked centre right next to his, you can feel his hard member against your tight. He leans up and places soft kisses on your chest, stopping at the exposed mound of your breast sucking lightly and licking the spot. When he’s done he moves his lips up your throat to the ear and whispers “Now you” nibbling on your earlobe.

So you get to work, tentatively at first leaving small hickeys on his chest and shoulders, careful not to mark him in any visible place. The heat makes you move your naked hips onto his, fabric of the jeans, making delicious friction on your clit. Hyuck emits a whine sending pleasurable chills down your spine. You lay your hand on his belt.

“May I?” He nods eagerly. When you unbuckle it, the action itself makes you feel powerful and small at the same time. Embarrassed at the dark spot you left on his crotch, you quickly tug down Donghyuck’s pants together with boxers to avoid him noticing how wet you are, not looking at him at all.

“Y/n”? His voice a bit shaky, as he’s now fully naked beneath you.

“Yeah?” You heavily let out.

“You can look at me, you know?”

“I don’t wanna be indelicate”

He engulfs your face in his palms, caressing your cheeks “I know you’re tactful but you make me feel insecure not wanting to look at me, I’d rather have you not being able to take your eyes off of me”

“As if. You’re too full of yourself to feel insecure” you pant, feeling his member slightly pressed to your center. You’re dripping, your walls are clenching and you try hard to comprehend your thoughts but you can't think. “What… what are we doing now?”

“It depends” he kisses you. “As for me, I'd kill to feel you right now. I’m so hard it hurts.” His voice low and hoarse, hand trailing down, thumb slipping between your folds and you buck your hips, gasping into his mouth “But it’s up to you what actually we’re going to do now.”

“I want to…” You drop one of your arms from his shoulders and hover it above his erection. “I want to feel you inside me.” He nods encouraging you. You awkwardly start tracing fingers down his shaft and Donghyuck’s body almost melts under you, he lets out a whimper as you move it back up to his tip, pleased with his response.

“Oh shit” he hisses. “Please, just…”

You nod eagerly “Condom.”

“First drawer” He instructs and you reach his night stand. Watching intently how he rips the package with his teeth and then handles himself pumping a few times before putting it on and rolling down his shaft. Sight of him handling himself makes you gulp, red head slipping between his fingers, you can feel yourself dripping down on his thighs.

“You sure you wanna ride me?"

Yes, you are. There’s no way you’ll just lay on your back and wait for your friend to put his meat into you, willingly depriving yourself of control. And even though you feel like you're groping in the dark, it’s not as awkward as you were worried it might be. Hyuck’s affection and understanding make you know that he won’t judge you. He gives you freedom in this unfamiliar and straining moment and you hope he won’t mind the whim of the little control you want. You look at him nervous but determined.

“If you let me.”

Your friend looks up at you, his gaze seems so preoccupied you wonder if he heard you. He places a kiss on your lips soft like a whisper.

“Be my guest”. His right hand slides down to his shaft, steading it for you when you raise your hips to move onto him.

When you feel his tip between your folds, at the entrance to your vagina, the realization hits you like a cold shower. You’re about to be penetrated and it’s definitely gonna be more than two fingers.

You look wide-eyed at Hyuck, and for once you're grateful he can read your every emotion. The hand from his member moves to your backside supporting you, while the other grabs your tightly intertwining your fingers as you use it as leverage. Your free arm wrapped around his neck keeping your chests close to each other as you slowly slide down.

You both maintain eye contact keeping check on each other. Sure, you’re the one having a dick inside of you for the first time but you’re in control which makes you obligated to make sure Hyuck is okay too. Even if you are not - and right now you’re definitely not feeling okay, stretching badly around him you keep moving down scared to draw back. When you placed yourself on him to the point you felt like you’d burst you hide your face in his neck breathing unsteady. You felt so extremely full and so overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that Hyuck is soothing you, knowing you’re uncomfortable - all you could think about was the pain you felt in your lower half. So invasive and unnatural, you let out a broken sob before you could stop it.

Donghyuck goes rigid at the sound of raw pain. “What’s wrong?” He immediately wants to slap himself because he clearly knows the answer.

“I’ve got your giant phallus inside me and you’re babying me,” you say defensively with a shaky voice.

“You want me to stop?” he asks worried, halting movements of his fingers gently rubbing your skin. Missing it immediately, you shake your head no.

“You can veto me if you want.” He places soft kisses on your neck up to your ear. “You can veto everything if you want.” You merely shake your head again and he kisses behind your earlobe “You’ve got an oil paint in here. Blue.”

Distraction, not sugarcoating.

“I’m sorry” It’s too loud for the moment, making you even more tense. Donghyuck kisses you again on the stain and moves down your throat.

“For the stain? It’s enchanting. For being mean? It’s titillating. Sitting on my penis? It’s welcome. Being in pain? It’s not something you control.”

He seems to not mind. He seems like he doesn't even notice how much of a giver he is when you only take and not give in return. He’s so good with you you feel like there’s no way you could give him back his kindness, patience and caringness.

So you're gonna give him what you can. If you got comfortable, even impatient and eager for his touch, familiar with his arms around you, fingers intertwined with yours, lips on your skin, then you can get comfortable with him being inside you. You are gonna make this as good for him as you can, screwing your idiosyncrasies.

When he covers your shoulders in kisses replacing the cold aggressive shivers you felt with warm and pleasurable ones, you push through the unwelcome sensation of being full. Stretching subsided significantly, you place a peck on Hyuck’s pulse as a little heads-up. Then you slightly move your hips up.

The moan he elicits startles you but nonetheless encourages to keep going. Even tough you barely move, moderatedly draging yourself up and down his shaft on your trembling legs, you know your friend doesn’t care for now, as he wshispers breathless “fuck”. He rarely swears in your presence as he claims himself old fashioned and refuses to curse in the lady's presence.

His lips move hastily to your cleavage and you begin to feel a layer of sweat on your skin.

“Hyuck” you pant. “I feel hot”

“You are hot, sweetheart,” he murmurs. Lips occupied, nibbling around the strap of your bra.

You just shake your head at his lame response, in too much hustle to address it. “Take it off.”

He eagerly croons, moving his fingers from your ass to the fastening of your bralette, you smile at him trying to struggle with it one handed since he refuses to let go of your hand to make it easier.

“I’ll give it right back” you assure. Your hips grind against his as you give your thighs a little break. He gasps at the movement and lets you unclasp your bra. He pulls it down right then, devotedly kissing the swell of each of your breasts.

“So beautiful.” Your movements halt, shy with adoration yet you feel sting in your chest. Paying extra attention to your every little reaction, Hyuck recognises your doubt right away. He finds your gaze. “I mean it.” Arms around each other. Deep kisses. Intertwined fingers. Your movements get more confident and precise. God, feels good. When your legs start to tremble, Donghyuck bends his knees for support, making you lean back. With another sway of your hips, he’s hitting a spot inside you and has you moaning. His hips buck up at the sinful sound you made.

Your movements speed up, your friend sits up to cover your chest in kisses, caressing your breasts with free hand. Thumb over your nipple sending strong shivers down your spine and when he places his mouth on it, your fingers squeezing his other palm tightly. Wary of your response he tentatively gives your bud a lick and then sucks lightly making you head spin. Your body arching, fully displayed for him to worship.

You’re both covered in sweat as your walls start to tighten around him, he moves his hand from your breasts down to rub your clit.

“Wait, wait, you say abruptly, forcing yourself to grab his forearm immediately making him halt his movement. “I’m gonna come,” you whine.

“Yeah, that’s the goal,” he whispers with a raspy voice, looking into your eyes and keeps working his fingers on you. It’s so pleasurable you feel your high so close your hips start to move involuntarily and you come clashing hard. Clenching on him, you drag out a groan from him. Your body convulsing, pleasurable shivers not only running through your body but running in it. Your head goes blank for a moment, you mewl a weak “Hyuck”.

You feel like you ascentended from your body, only aware of your friend because of your intertwined fingers and his soft rubbing on your clit. Although you still feel your high wearing off you move his hand away from your centre and weakly try to move your hips but now even grinding is too much for you.

“Hyuck” you start, sounding broken. He’s twitching in you, your walls pulsing around him and you’re hopeless. “I want you to come but I can’t feel my legs,” you whine apologetically and he hums trailing kisses up your neck. “Are you… even close?"

“Oh God,” he sighs needy in your skin. “I swear I’m about to come. I could simply jack off but…” his shaft twitching in you.” Can I take over, please?”

You just nod, eager to satisfy him. He helps you move from his lap, whining at your strained muscles and carefully lays you down on the soft sheets.

When his hips are settled between your legs, fingers above your head once again intertwined, he starts to rock against you. His thrusts more pinpointed than yours, dragging his member against your walls, quickly speeding up. His moves are almost desperate, grip on you firm as if he’d never wanted to let you go.

You shiver.

His mouth so close they steal your breath, swallowing the air you let out. His body between your legs, pinning you down, your skins sticky with sweat. The amount of stimuluses from another body is triggering. You freeze, unable to react, scared your slightest move would make you touch him more.

Though it doesn't make him disappear from above you, from inside you.

You feel shackled and you bite your lip to stop yourself from wincing.

Donghyuck is your best friend, the person who cares for you, the person you feel the most at ease with. The person who understands you or at least takes his time to get to you - if you’d ask him to stop he’d do it without questioning, putting your comfort over his.

However, him being your favourite person, makes you want him to feel as good as he made you feel, therefore you fight back your repulsion, shut down a screaming need to run away. You focus on his face, showing so many emotions you could spend days trying to comprehend the amount of passion this man’s heart can carry. He meets your eyes and slows down as if sensing something is wrong.

“Are you okay?”

You nod and avert your gaze, doing your best not to tremble when you bring your lips next to his ear

“Come, Hyuck.” your whisper is a little broken, begging. “Please, come.”

And he does with the next sharp thrust, letting out a sweet moan, you feel his seed filling up the condom. His hips erratic, breath heavy as you let him ride out his high.

He places the softest, most tender and caring kiss on your temple and although you longed for his kisses minutes ago, now, when you feel trapped underneath him, the lovely act suffocates you.

You want to get up, you want space. The need to tear off your skin in places where it touches him seems unrealistic but rational at the same time. There’s not enough air to breath.

You don’t mean to push Donghyuck off of you. He’s spent and you know he needs a moment to recover but you don’t trust yourself to stay like this any longer. “Let me go” your voice is strained, when you aim for it to be calm.

He worriedly gets off of you, careful when he pulls out and takes the condom off. You roll on your side, close to the edge of matters, preparing yourself to get up, feeling better at the cold air hitting your skin. So free. Open and vulnerable laying completely naked on your friend's bed with slight aching between your legs. You force yourself to shower but the moment you get up, your trembling legs give up, your knees bending as you slump to the floor.

“Careful” you hear Donghyuck. Your body gets alert when he grabs your arms to support you. Feeling your body stiffening in aversion, he pulls away sitting you on the bed for a moment.

“Did I hurt you?”

He sounds worried and you can’t brace yourself to look at him, so you just shake your head.

“How are you feeling?”

You tighten your lips because you wanna tell him how extatic the whole experience was. You felt loved and adored like you’ve never been. Perfectly accepted in your whole being. But then it stomped onto you. You lost grip on the situation and overreacted.

“Good,” you whisper.

He knows you’re not.

“Look at me,” he says.

You couldn't, ashamed of your selfishness. You wanted to run and rushed him to finish, when he was so affectionate and devoted to you.

“Please,” he asks again, lowering himself on his knees to your eye level. He reaches a hand out to you but you instinctively withdraw yours avoiding his touch. You look at him apologicately and immediately regret it, seeing his hurt gaze. You know you should grab his hand and hug him, yet knowing how to appease him, doesn’t make you do it. Right now you can’t bear the thought of touching him. You close your eyes.

“Can I use the shower?” you ask, itching to get yourself clean. At this moment being dirty and still feeling someone’s touch on you clouds your mind to the point you can’t possibly care about anything else.

He doesn’t respond immediately and when he does, he’s voice sounds strange, absent-minded like he’s disbelieving.

“Do you have clothes to change?”

You don’t. After all, all of this was cancelled.

You watch him get up, pulling out a long-sleeved hoodie from his closet and handing it to you. You put it on you when he’s grabbing other clothes for you.

“May I?”

At your nod he helps you up, cautious to grab you only by your covered forearms; he walks you to the bathroom leaving you at the door frame, handing you fresh clothes.

You only left him with a formal “Thank you”, before locking the door behind you.

***

Since the morning you’ve been working on your sculpture to busy yourself with something and keep your mind away from overthinking. Which didn’t really work.

Renjun showes up in the atelier in the late afternoon for your drawing practise, but the only thing his presence changes is the target of your nerves.

You frown displeased at another sketch you’ve made today. Messed up proportions, uncaptured movement of the body, wrong composition and clear anatomy confusion. Basic mistakes you’ve been making the whole day.

“What’s up with you today?” Renjun asks, clearly noticing your bad performance.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I'm not shaming but your work looks like shit. It’s like your first time with charcoal in hand.” Words not kind but fittingly describing your drawings.

“I’m just… having a bad day.”

“Bad day, huh?” Renjun gives you a side eyed look. “You know who else has been having a bad day for the last four days?”

Donghyuck, of course. The last few days have been like a constant feeling of guilt and uncertainty since what happened between you two on saturday.

You knew you messed up. You shouldn't distance yourself and push Hyuck away.

He made sure you enjoyed the evening and felt comfortable, fully adapting to your needs and wants.

Whatever you want. I’m all yours.

He made the whole night about you when you couldn't make it to stay with him for aftercare.

Don’t overthink. Donghyuck is just a very devoted and caring friend. It doesn’t mean that affection and kindness he showers you with is distinctive to you. It’s natural for him to treat his friends this way.

And even though shower did calm you down, cleared your thoughts, and purified that heavy, dragging-down feeling, you pushed Donghyuck away and now you should apologize and make up for it.

However when you came back to his room, standing in a doorframe uncertain how to begin an apology he was staring blankly into space lost in thoughts. You've made your way to the bed, quietly sitting on the edge.

Tentatively you slid your arm on the covers, but be withdraved his fingers before you could reach them.

It had never crossed your mind that he might reject you.

He never ever denied you affection, even when you were fighting. He never questioned your plea for touch, always happily welcoming it. So what happened now? Was it because you ran away so abruptly? Would you really hurt him that badly? Or maybe you’ve mistaken the whole situation? Maybe he didn’t expect aftercare since you're not exactly lovers? His sudden coldness in such a contrast to the loving demeanour he had just moments ago, made you feel so inappropriate.

You glance at him. He didn't look at you, his eyes blindly staring at the wall in front of him. You were out of place. Feeling of being unwelcome consuming you, but you didn’t really want to go, scared that if you leave now, you won’t be able to talk things out, making you two stay this awkward. Yet you knew it’s your fault, and you didn’t want to do more harm, therefore you were ready to leave if that’s what your friend wished for.

“Do you…” you cleared your throat after hearing your hoarse voice. “Should I leave?”

His lips formed a fine line, as you waited for response. He only spoke up when you numbly got up, looking for your clothes.

“Don’t go,” he muttered. “Just… just go to sleep. It’s late.” he said dispiritedly, standing up and disappearing behind the bathroom door.

Confused and lost, you cautiously laid down hoping tomorrow morning you’d be able to talk it out. But the morning wasn’t easy either. You both had bad sleep, laying for hours side by side on a bed too small for two people avoiding contact with each other. An awkward and heavy silence swallowing you as neither wanted to start the conversation out of fear of being dismissed. The night was long, as the feeling of guilt and uneasiness laid on your chest, taking your sleep away. You only napped a bit before the dusk, tired from overthinking and lulled by Hyuck’s steady breath.

He got up a little before you - the bed empty but still a little warm when you woke up. His absence caused a small sting in your chest.

He was in the kitchen, pouring milk into the bowl of cereal, when he spotted you in the doorway. Wearing your own clothes, bag on the shoulder, ready to leave. The awkwardness basically pushing you out of the flat.

He gauged you. “I suppose you're not staying for breakfast?” He had dark shadows under eyes, hair messy, his usually energized posture now slouched.

“I should probably get going. It’s late and I’d rather avoid running into Johnny.”

He just nodded.

“I…” you started, not really sure what to say. He didn’t want to talk. But you didn’t want to leave like this. “I’ll see you around then?”

He looked back at the milk in his bowl. You couldn’t see his face but wanted to kick yourself for how hurt he seemed when he gave you a weak “Sure.”

You left with a heavy feeling in your chest, doors closing behind you louder than ever.

Now you look up at Renjun, anxiety filling you up.

“Did he say something?”

“So it is about you two.” he says smugly, gathering his own drawings into a folder.

Oh. So he didn’t.

“Donghyuck just keeps saying it’s not my business when it clearly is. We’ve got to have shit done for the project and he's been sulking since sunday,” he complains. “What happened between you two?”

“None of your business.” You collect your pencils and tie them up together with rubber to keep them from scattering in your bag.

The boy pouts. “Could you at least talk it out? I really need him at his best right now.”

Sweet Renjun, always so selfless.

“Not really. He doesn’t want to talk to me.” You put on your jacket rushing up the boy with a firm stare.

“No way.” He gives you a doubtful look, but obediently puts on his coat. “Boy is such a simp for you, I won't believe he’s giving you the cold shoulder.”

He might have meant it in a playful way but his words hit a nerve. “Hyuck is not a simp. Especially not for me.”

Renjun raised his brows high. “You do realize he bribed me to teach him waltz the whole Friday, right? I wonder who he might do that for.”

“He’s a very good friend and has an interesting personality with a charming attitude,” you state, holding the door for Renjun and you get pulled with it by the strong wind.

“Sure.” He looks at you unapologeticaly. “Honestly, you two are sulking and it doesn’t do any good for either of you. You look like two miserable rolls of sadness.”

You sigh. Hyuck was a constant element of your life for the past two years and you didn't realize how it would look like without him. Of course, it’s not like you talked every day, at times when one of you would go to visit family or for a weekend with friends, you were perfectly fine with catching up after a few days. But this was different.

Then you knew there was an option to text him all call when you needed it, you knew that he was gonna come back and you’d spend hours talking your ears off.

Now? Even though you’ve seen each other on campus in the past days you’d barely acknowledge the other.

“Believe me, if only I could - I’d fix this.”

“So you’re the one to blame? If you’re ready to apologize, why can’t we just make him listen to you? Maybe if he knows you’re sorry he’d forgive you whatever you did.”

The problem is Hyuck has this pro-people personality, which means he’d rather avoid the problem than resolve it and risk that confrontation might do more harm than good. You sigh again. Sweeping the problem under the rug doesn’t resolve it.

“The thing is that considering what I think I did that he’s hurt about forcing him to anything wouldn't be fair.”

“You’re not sure what you did to hurt him?” Renjun asks, puzzled.

“Kind of?” Because you know - you neglected him. Though this was never the reason for him to dismiss you. “The thing is that when I wanted to fix it he rejected me.” Your voice breaks at the end. Talking about it with Renjun - even briefly - somehow made it seem more like a situation that actually happened, not just a dream you and Donhyuck miraculously shared.

When you stop at the crossroad you face Renjun and try not to squirm under his scanning gaze. “I know I screwed but he won’t even look at me,” you say with a shaky voice.

Why is he avoiding you? It can’t be just because you left. Did he regret he had sex with you? Was the whole experience bad for him or was it just you? Is it possible for your impressions to differ that drastically? You felt ecstatic when he thought it obnoxious? Would that be the reason he would treat you like that? Because he felt sorry for you? But it’s not like him…

“Hey.” You hear Renjun’s voice and notice his hand waving before your eyes to catch your attention. “I believe there's a way to make things right. Donghyuck isn’t okay with this silent treatment he gives you either. Besides, he likes you too much to let you go so easily.” His words are comforting but his voice strict, matching his next words “So either you two just need a moment to sort things out or you’ve hurt him like hell, and I swear if you did, I’ll dig a grave for you with my own hands.” he declares, making your heart heavy with guilt. “Now, let’s go. We’re already late.”

“I’m not going to guys today.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t think Donghyuck wants me there.”

Renjun gasps in fake outrage. “Thanks. It’s not like I want you to come. Or Johnny. Or Jaemin. Or Mark. Or… “

“Okay I got it.” You stay silent for a moment, nonetheless following your friend. “But what if it upset him?”

“I don’t care and I don’t know what happened but avoiding each other instead of talking it out seems to make it worse. Honestly, if you won’t come you will add fuel to the fire.”

“Didn’t you just say that we need a moment to sort it out?”

“For days is a hella long moment, for my liking,” he judges. “Stop scrutinizing.”

“I’m just humbly trying to follow your inconsistent guideline.” You shove your hands deep in your pockets to protect them from the cold.

***

When you arrive at the guys’ place there’s a lot of noise coming from inside and Renjun knocks at the door twice to finally hear footsteps approaching the door.

The thought of being dismissed by Donghyuck, unnerves you and you instinctively grab for your friend's hand to settle yourself, only to feel repulsion and disappointment. It’s not Hyuck, you realize - his fingers are longer and pleasantly warm, skin much softer, contrasting with yours dry from clay. You quickly let go of Renjun’s hand apologizing.

“It’s okay,” he affirms in a low tone. “I get it.”

You hear Johnny’s voice and then Hyuck opens the door. His smile falls at the sight of you.

“What’s up?” chirps Renjun.

Donghyuck just stares at you coldly.

“I didn’t know if you’d come today.”

These are the first words you hear from him since Sunday morning and you are slightly taken aback by how unfamiliar his voice sounds: hollow as if washed out of emotions.

It hurts but guess you deserve it.

“Why wouldn't I meet my friends?” you clench your jaw. “Just because you overlook me doesn’t mean I should ignore them.”

Okay that wasn’t nice either. Renjun subtly shoves your foot. Be kind. Didn’t he mention something about adding fuel to the fire?

You watch Donghyuck’s Adam’s apple move as his gulps, silently shifting his full attention to Renjun. It affected him - good. At least he’s not staring blankly at you anymore.

“Hay, man.” he forces a smile on his face and you get thrills at how sincere it seems. “Guys are in the living room. We’re having a drinking night today.”

You raise eyebrows in surprise as he lets you in. It’s the middle of the week so there is usually no alcohol at the gatherings.

“We have beer and vodka if you’re interested but if you want something else you should probably pop to the store before it closes.”

“Why so abruptly? Couldn't you text us?” asks Renjun, taking off his coat.

“Jaemin broke up with his girlfriend.”

“So we’re mourning or celebrating?” you inquire.

Donghyuck only shrugs, not even looking at you and walks back to the living room.

And as if you’re not feeling shitty enough, Renjun looks at bewildered and whispers “What the fuck did you do?”

For the rest of the night you’re dismissed by Hyuck which seems to not go unnoticed by your friends. No one addresses it though and the elephant in the room is eventually forgotten in conjunction with consumed alcohol and lazyly played out game.

Today’s theme is butterfly, chosen by Mark last week, because apparently “they’re both pretty and creepy”. The first round goes quite fast; people give the easiest references to use it up before others.

Mark starts with a Butterfly Effect movie with Ashton Cutcher and at that Donghyuck said “Butterfly effect, but the real one, according to chaos theory - Edward Lorenz’s Butterfly effect.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Johnny. “You don’t need to remind us how smart you are.” He takes a sip from his drink. “Butterfly effect by Travis Scott.”

Renjun and you enumerate art pieces with butterflies and when you run out of Dali you proceed to Kush and Hirst.

Jeamin drops out first as he’s the most wasted and can’t pay attention to actually compete.

“Why - and I mean why - among plenty of insect superheroes there's none turning into butterflies? Spiders, ants, freaking vasps….”

“...ladybugs and papillons,” you interfere cheerily. “Miraculous Ladybug for my turn.”

You have to admit you liked this state. You were the joyful drunk type, booze making you giddy and loosening your tongue. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t drink often. You’re scared you might lose yourself in this carefree mood and get stuck, never drinking to the point when you weren’t aware of the amount of liquor you’ve been pouring into yourself. The fear of not being able to control your body and behavior creeping on you, effectively keeping you in check.

“Then I’ll go with Barbie Mariposa'' says dreamly Johnny. “She’s soo cool. I wanna have her sparkling wings. They would leave a path of glitter wherever I go. So spectacular.”

“Dude, you’re too heavy even for whale wings” Mark points out after drowning down shots with Renjun.

“Whale’s wings are fins and they have totally different functions.” frowns Renjun.

“Duh. That’s why they call it homologous organs.”

“Not really, arms are homologous actually, wings are…”

“I wanna be a fairy!” whines Johnny.

“Then maybe stop bulking up,” advises Mark.

Johnny firmly shakes his head with tight lips, displeased. “No, no. No. I succeeded in earning Hyuck abs. If I gave up now I’d lose the accomplishment.”

“You’re shitting me,” exclaims Renjun. Even Jeamin props himself up from the floor to have a good look at boys. “I want to see.”

“Excuse me?” Donghyuck nearly chokes on the beer he’s been sipping since you came.

“Why won’t you show off your muscles hmm?” taunts Jaemin. “It’s just us.” He maneuvers his hand around the room and stops at you. “Oh, right. Our prude can close her eyes if she minds the sigh of a human body.”

You huff.

“You still haven’t got a dare right?” you ask, bitter at the memory of the Saturday night. “It was really nice not being able to talk last week, so have fun with that.”

The boy frowns and lies back down on the floor hiding his head on the elbows. “Buzzkill.”

“Hush. Jaem. You’re not allowed to speak,” says Donghyuck, not looking at you. “It’s my turn.”

And this is how the game goes. Songs and books are being cited, Johnny and Mark lost one by one, failing to properly cite Papillon book and its movie adaptations, passing the turn to Renjun.

“Butterfly waltz,” he says.” By Brian Crain”

Your body weighs down with a sour reminder of sweet dances with Hyuck in the living room. You want to look at him, check if he thinks about it too. You restrain yourself. You’d be hurt if he wouldn’t and it would be awkward if he would. Instead, you glance at drunk Renjun who quickly catches it and winks at you before shifting his eyes back to Donghyuck.

“So?”

“I don’t know,” answers the boy with a distant voice. “Pass”

“It’s a dare then” Renjun claps his hands joyfully. “You know, Johnny really intrigued me with those abs of yours. Mind taking off your shirt?”

Hyuck clenches his jaw displeased but nonetheless complies, grabbing the shirt on his back and tugging it through his head. You avert your eyes, trying not to stare when Mark whistles softly. “Nice job, Johnny.” “I believe you mean muscles,” says Johnny, collecting Hyuck’s shirt like a trophy and putting it rolled under his head. “God knows, hickeys are not mine.”

You look mortified at Donghyuck. His skin is stamped with fading - but still visible - marks you left on his chest in places you thought no one would see. Guess you were wrong. You look up and meet his expecting eyes. His gaze hurt but distanced as if saying Are you proud of yourself?

You stand up, too frantically - you get light-headed. Your friends joke around as you go to Donghyuck’s bedroom to grab him something to wear. There’s no trace of tidiness from a few days ago. Pencils scattered on the desk along with open books and notes spread out on the floor. You grab the only folded clothing in your eyesight from beside the unmade bed, recognizing it as the hoodie he offered you the last time you were in here. It looks just like you left it on Sunday morning and your heart shrinks with the sorrowful feeling.

You come back to the living room, handle Donghyuck the clothing which he accepts grudgingly, shivering as the goosebumps cover his skin. He’s met with loud protest from the guys when he pulls it on.

“Shut up,” you nag them, averting your gaze from his body. “You dared him to take off his shirt not to freeze off his ass.” You sit back at your place on the floor next to Renjun. “Moron” you murmur angrily.

“You won’t believe it but I have a theory why you two are on not talking terms.” He adjusts to your undertone letting guys unconsciously cover it up with their loud antics. “I think you’re jealous…”

“I’m not jealous,” you protest.

“...Then I think you’re mad at Donghyuck for getting laid. Though it has a bunch of missing points - like shouldn't you be the one giving him the silent treatment then? Nevertheless it still seems more likely than the other theory in which you two finally slept with each other but it didn’t end up well.” He takes a sip from his drink.“But this one has one hella big black hole which is you having sex.

You clench your jaw, irritated at your meddling friend. “Alphonse Mucha’s Dance from 1898,” you say, trying to drop the subject, however Renjun just stares at you with a tilted head, a drunky-curios look on his face. Then he raises his eyebrows hiccuping.

“Pass.” He gives up the game letting you win. “So, tell me the truth. You did it, didn’t you? I know you’ve been hanging out together on Saturday.”

“And how does it differ from other times we hang out together?”

“I don’t remember. It made sense in my head just now.” He furrows his brows trying to think past his drunken state. “Oh. Johnny mentioned Hyuck wanted a flat for himself at that time.”

“You’re wasted.” You reach for the cup in his grasp..

“But…”

“No. You’re barely sitting straight.” You flinch at how uptight you get as you start to sober up. You hate mothering your friends but you don’t want to see them puking their own clothes. “You’re gonna have a massive hangover tomorrow.”

“Not cool.” He pouts. “You restrict my liberty.”

“Have fun then.” You give him back the cup and get up. “Sorry for suffocating you.”

You sigh tiredly leaving the room to hide in the kitchen, knowing the boys are drunk. Usually you play along with your friend’s teasing and understand social aspects of alcohol but it takes its toll on you to be around hammered people. Some levels of intoxication were giving more harm than fun.

You close your eyes. You mean well. It just doesn’t end up as intended so maybe you shouldn’t interfere? After all you’re all adults and you believe your friends can keep a level head. Yet somehow Donghyuck cares for their friends and still manages for people to not see him as prude and up-tight. You cover your face with palms, sighing. “What is wrong with me?”

“Y/n?” you hear his mild voice and look up. He’s standing in the doorway, keeping you at distance, nonetheless his eyes wide with concern.

Apologize. He’s here waiting for you to speak up. Say you’re sorry.

“I…” you hesitate, as he meets your gaze. You miss him. Your talks and nights spent together on the couch with a movie playing on the tv. You miss his brilliant insight and playfulness. For the past few days you were missing his touch - something you’d never think about before. You were feeling like the moment he’ll speak up to you, you’d ask for his daily hugs for all missed days. Though now when you’re standing with him one on one, his presence is enough. In fact it’s more, so much more you don’t want to let it go, not daring to stampede him by bringing up that night. “... just wanted to grab some water.”

He stays silent, gauging you as if figuring out. He doesn’t say a word yet you feel small under his gaze.

“I better head off.” You place a random glass in the sink, pretending you just emptied it. “How are guys?”

“Wasted. They won’t even notice if you’ll go”

“I don’t want them to … misunderstand it.”

He hums and thinks for a moment. “I didn’t hear what Renjun told you but I’m sure he’ll regret it when he sobers up.”

“It’s not only him.” You shake your head. “Jaemin is right about...”

“Tonight he’s extra mean to everyone.” Donghyuck points out with a calm voice. “But if you really want to, I'll excuse you. Is your roommate coming to get you?”

You wrap your shoulders around yourself. “Yeah,” you lie.

He raises eyebrows and straightens up. “For sure she is.”

You frown. “But I’m not drunk anymore.”

“Irrelevant. It’s the middle of the night and that's highly irresponsible” he huffs at you, heading to the door to grab his jacket.

“Stop it. I’ve been coming back home at night by myself plenty of times,” you remind him. “I’m going alone. If you walk me you’d be the one coming home by yourself and that’s ridiculous.”

“I’d rather…”

He’s interrupted by the sound of shattering glass and Johnny's theatrical call “We have an emergency, nurse!”

“Looks like you’re more needed here.”

He tightens his lips in a firm line.

“Oh, fuck! Now it’s actually an emergency.” you hear Mark’s high pitched voice.

You raise your brow.

“Just... let me know when you’ll get home.”

You put on your own jacket. “If I won't forget.”

“I’ll call you in twenty minutes and if you won’t pick up I’ll start searching through ditches.”

“I’d already be dead, it would make more sense if you’d wait ‘till morning.”

“Y/n,” he demands sternly.

“I promise I’ll text,” you assure. “Night, Donghyuck.” You close the door behind you, shutting down yells coming from the living room.

***

After you leave Donghyuck goes back to the guys to get rid of the shattered glass and wrap up Jeamin’s fingers.

“You suck at it.” Mark comments, truthfully - Donghyuck does it messily, his hands shaking when picking the glass from broken skin.

“Yeah, I’d rather have a pretty nurse treating my wounds.” Jaemin pouts. “Where’s y/n?”

Donghyuck clenches his jaw. “You were a dickhead and she went home. Stop. fucking. wincing.”

“I wasn’t more of a dickhead than you. You’re just jealous I got balls to call her pretty, asshole.”

“I swear I’m going to push those pisces further in if you won’t shut up.”

“To be fair,” interferes Mark - the only person besides Donghyuck sober enough to care about Jaemin's state. “You both acted like jerks. And y/n would take care of it more thoroughly and way faster, actually”

Donghyuk huffs. “Great. If you hurry you might catch up to her before she gets kidnaped on her way home.”

“Hey, you're not the only one worried she's coming back on her own,” oposses Mark. “Maybe if you weren't ignoring her the whole night she'd stay.”

Donghyuck's phone vibrates in his pocket and he quickly pulls it out to read your message.

Stoneheart softie ❤️>> I’m home. (1:49 a.m.)

“Oh God,” exhales Mark, looking over Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Stoneheart softie with a heart? How smitten with her are you?”

Stoneheart softie ❤️>> are guys alive? (1:50 a.m.)

“I am not. Back off, will you?” Donghyuck raises eyebrows at Mark, ignoring the knowing look he exchanges with Jeamin.

> a little too alive for my liking. Don’t worry and go to sleep. (1:51 a.m.)

Stoneheart softie ❤️>> hope you’ll manage them. Night (1:51 a.m.)

Donghyuck puts down his phone and shifts his gaze to meet his friends’ suggestive looks.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Mark exhales. “Just... don’t screw it up.”

“Because from what we’ve seen today you’re fucking nailing it,” adds Jeamin and reaches out his wounded palm back towards Donghyuck.

***

Two days later, on Friday afternoon Donghyuck is knocking on your front door. He knows you’re home even though you’re not answering - he’s seen the dimmed light in your window from outside of the building.

The idea of meeting you makes him nervous since he’s not sure how to act around you. Even though you talked two days ago, he knows that tip-toed conversation won’t fix this awkward mess you’re currently in. And although he knows that this distance between you two is mostly his fault, it's initiated by you, which for him is a big question mark on how you see this relationship.

He knocks on the door again, anxious at why you’re not answering. Did you really not want to talk to him? Every time he’s seen you on campus this week you’ve been avoiding his gaze and even though you seemed fine, your smile faded and the shadows under your eyes got more visible every day. Donghyuck supposed he didn’t want to talk to you either and yet here he was. He was mad and hurt you ditched him that night but he missed you too much to give up on you. He wanted to talk to you, experience your coltish playfulness and wit, listen to your exuberant rants about art and again feel familiar to you.

You were a very closed up person and the last few days were a cruel reminder of it. You were way more open and free-hearted around him than when you two were among your friends. Not being able to experience your unrestricted self made him feel left out. He couldn’t stop thinking about artists you discovered this week, books and articles you’ve read, anecdotes you gathered and small jokes you’ve made through the day.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath. What was he even thinking when he offered you sex? Was he really that greedy that suddenly the time spent with you wasn’t enough? If he knew how it’d turned out he would never bring up this stupid idea.

He hears quiet shuffling behind the door and looks up.

“You know I can hear you, right?” he says feeling silly talking to the door. “And I see you through the peephole.”

“Why are you here, Donghyuck?” your voice is muffled.

“Why are you pretending that you’re not?”

“Can you come some other time?” you suggest.

Donghyuck is taken aback by your response. He knows he’s been cold to you lately but is it really that bad that you don’t want to let him in?

He sighs and looks down at the album he's holding. “Renjun sent me to give you back this book about Abakanowicz.”

“It’s Abakano-vitch, not Abakano-witch.” you correct him reflexively. You clear your throat awkwardly. “Couldn’t he come himself?”

“He dodged me when I asked that.” What exactly happened was Renjun throwing the book at Donghyuck after he let out another sigh that afternoon. His friend, wanting to work efficiently, lost his patience and shoved him out of the flat with curses and instruction to “give it back to y/n and don’t you fucking dare to come back until you’ll get everything done.”

You’re both silent, waiting for the other to let go.

“I’m gonna open the door. Can you just leave it on the console?”

He clenches his jaw. “Sure.”

He hears you unlocking the door and subduing footsteps as you move away. He enters the flat and places the album on the furniture standing by the wall, looking around but can’t see you in the room. At least you still trust him enough to let him into your flat, he thinks bitterly.

Out of spite, he opens the front door once again as if to leave but he closes it right away, staying in the flat and waiting for you to come out from wherever you’re hiding.

After a moment you waddle out of your room, faltering at the sight of him standing across the living room. You’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket you got from Hyuck after your first fight to make you “get used to hugs”, hood tied on your face leaving out only your puffy eyes and red nose.

“I thought you left,” you stammer.

He feels his features soften at your cracking voice, sounding like a bad recording.

“I wanted to check up on you,” he lets himself give you this half-truth, because that was the plan... initially.

“Well, I’m alive” You turn away from him, hiding your red face and taking down your hood in an attempt to look decent. You take a deep breath. “Thanks for caring though.”

This… is bad. Donghyuck never saw you crying and looking at you right now feels wrong. No matter what happens you just don't cry - you didn’t when you’ve been writhing in pain when you had acute appendicitis nor when your rat died.

Your friend’s perturbed by your tears, standing frozen and trying to figure out how to handle them. He does a quick math to ascertain your mopey state is your upcoming period doing. He knows how down you tend to feel when your hormones are having a party in your body, as you decline his offers to hang out and stray from your hobbies - those are situations he knows how to deal with. This is just way harder.

“Do you need to talk?”

You stare back at him with a hurt face and he doesn’t dare to look away.

“I do.” you nod. “About Saturday.”

Donghyuck licks his lip nervously. Is he dreading the conversation - yes, but he also feels slight relief. You’re a problem solving person, therefore you wanting to talk it out means that you care and that whatever is happening with your relationship bothers you too.

“I understand you feel resentful towards me as I owe you an apology,” you start, and Donghyuck is slightly thrown off with your formal tone. “What I want to say is that… There’s actually a lot to say. But I want you to know that I am sorry I ran away and I regret it so so much because it was inconsiderate and selfish, especially that I acted this way towards you,” you confess.

He’s staring at you, displeased by your described apology. He doesn’t doubt your sincerity - he’s just hurt at how filtrated and thought-through it feels. You keep him at a distance like you’d want to forget you spent the night together. Like you want to erase your friendship back to where it was months ago.

“But you’re very important to me therefore I need you to know that you didn’t deserve to be treated the way I acted” your voice wavers. “And I hope you forgive me.”

Conflicted, he shifts his gaze away from you - your glossy eyes pacify the rage caused by your words and cold demeanor. He wants both to scream at you and engulf you in a hug.

“I think… that if you still want us to be friends, it would be best to forget about it.”

Your lips part slightly as you stare at him, bemused by his harsh response.

“I will go now. Sorry for barging.”

You need a second to collect yourself before you rush to the door, stumbling on the long blanket, to block his way out.

“No. You don’t” you frown at him stubbornly. “You stay here until we talk it out. Miscommunication is the most common reason for ruined relationships and I’m not letting ours go because you wanna act like nothing happened. I know you’re not telling me something. There’s no way you don’t care at all.” you sigh heartbroken. “I’m so lost. I tried to understand but I can’t comprehend this. How could you be so tender and caring and next moment you’d barely acknowledge me. Was it an act? So I would feel loveable for once?” You stop dead and Donghyuck can see on your face how you're trying to rebuild the walls around yourself, gathering back the emotions you just let open for him to see. “Can you be honest with me, please? At least I wanna know what you actually meant that night.”

He looks at you disbelieving how you can doubt him. The puzzled and broken look on your face proving you’re not aware how he feels about you makes him lose his patience.

“I got hurt,” he simmers, looking at you intensely. “I adore you and I felt delighted that you decided to be intimate with me. Everything I said and did was sincere. I would never act on that. God, I don’t even think I could,” he exhales, taking a step back. “If anything, I let myself be more frank than I ever had around you. And you… You were so intimate and exposed I felt like I experienced raw you - open up down to the core. The tenderness behind your adamant demeanor, dedication behind persistence, tactfulness behind harshness. Your pursuit for the best being your whole… I let myself believe that perhaps you might like me a little bit more than a friend.”

He swallows hard, thinking how you showed him another side of you he didn’t know he wanted to know - the loving kisses you bestowed him with, tender touch on his skin, attentive eyes scanning his body like it’s an artwork. How he’s the only one you’re comfortable with touching and you let - you wanted - him to touch you everywhere. Maybe it wasn’t that meaningful to you, maybe those were just hormones? “One moment we were making love and the next you were backing away and flinching under my touch. At first I thought I hurt you. However you simply walked out and locked yourself in the bathroom. Dismissing me like a damn toy.”

You look into his eyes, an unconscious pout forming on your face. “I freaked out,” you say quietly. “And I didn’t want you to see it. That’s why I ran away.” You rub your face and hold your palms over your cheeks. “It was so… intense. Both mentally and physically. And when you… when we… “ a blush emerges from behind your fingertips.” Um… at the end the feeling was everywhere inside and out and it was so absorbing. You were so close, I felt you and I couldn’t move. Actually I could hardly breathe and my body was getting numb…” you sigh hopelessly. “I didn’t know how I'd react and didn’t want to snap at you.”

“Why didn't you stop me?” he asks, letting out a trembling breath. Your behavior now seems abstract-like considering the fact that he was violating you causing your panic attack.

“I didn’t want to.”

“What the hell, y/n?” he whispers bewildered. “I abused you”

Your eyes widen at Donghyuck’s conclusion, stumbling after him as he moves to the window, opening it to let in the col air. His head and chest are boiling and he wants to throw fists at himself for hurting you. It didn’t matter if you asked him to sleep with you. He knew you well enough to know you’re too prideful and stubborn to back away even if you’re disturbed.

The fresh nighty air cools your raging bodies. He feels your presence right next to him, not even looking at you. You’re standing too close but now even if you’d move to the other side of the room Donghyuck would feel like he’s invading your personal space.

He takes a step back.

“It was like... running, I guess?” your voice is barely audible. “You know, when your body revolts yet you wanna keep running anyway because you just know that that’s what you want.”

“Are yo seriously comparing sex with me to running?”

“Well,” you shrug. “I really like running - you should be flattered.”

He gasps, unbelieving how you can be joking right now.

“This is serious, y/n. I violated you…”

You shake your head firmly. “Donghyuck. Donghyuck, look at me.” Your voice is more demanding, making him commply. He looks up at your determined eyes.

“You think someone could take advantage of me? You’re right. But you’re also foolish to think I’d let that happen again.”

He furrows his brows, confused.

You lick your lips nervously. “When I was in high school I used to travel by train a lot for my pre-exam painting course. One Saturday I was waiting at a railway station after classes, watching a movie on my phone. It was a minor station so even though it was the middle of the day it was mostly empty, only a few people sitting across the track. As I was waiting there, a man approached and sat on the other end of the bench. Like I said there were no people so I was puzzled why he didn’t sit on one of the free benches. Nonetheless I said nothing because he looked slightly… abandoned by people and lonely and I didn’t want to be rude.” Your voice hangs for a moment. "I was watching a movie with my earphones on so it took me way too much time to notice he was jacking off, staring at me, objectifying.” Donghyuck is distraught by your words and what you say next makes him feel sick and angry. “He didn’t even touch me - his obnoxious moans, hollow sound of his hand pumping his erection, lustful and piercing gaze made me despise myself for not reacting earlier, for letting him use me without me knowing, for being so freakin oblivious.” Your voice loses stability for a moment as you reconstruct the memory.

He opens his mouth.

“Wait, I’m making a point here.” You exhale, your breath shaky. “You made me feel a lot of things. Passion, desire, easement, acceptance... I’m not saying this is how you feel about me - this is how I felt - so loved it overwhelmed me but so good I wanted you to feel as close to this as possible. And I’m sorry it turned out like this but believe me you did not do anything i didn't want to nor harmed me in any way.”

Donghyuck swallows hard trying to find the right words to say, as you stare at him biting your lip waiting.

“Are you still angry with me?” you ask in a low tone.

“God, no.” His voice mild yet tired as he compulsively takes a step toward you. “No. And I’m sorry for rejecting you that night. I shouldn’t have jumped into conclusions…”

“Then can we hug?” you plead.

“Oh, yes.” He exhales, weak for any form of affection you’re willing to give him. “Yes, please.”

He strides towards you, fitting in your tight embrace. Wrapping his arms around you, embossing, he feels your pulse and heat radiating from you, even though your palms carry their usual coldness. Donghyuck contently tightens his grip and feels you squeezing him back.

“I missed this.” your voice cracks at the end.

“Stop crying, crybaby. We’re all good,” he murmurs in your ear.

“About that." You squeeze his sides, snuggling your head in the crook of neck. “Do you accept refunds?”

“Excuse me?”

He feels you smile against his shoulder, pleased with his offended tone. “I mean your performance was just fine, though adverse effects were beyond distressing.” “Oh.” He lights up at your scheme. “I’m sorry, miss, but you ought to lodge a complaint within twenty-four hours from the end of the service. However, for special clients, we do offer compensation.”

“Hmm. And what does the compensation include?”

“It depends on the agreement between contractor and customer.” “In that case, I remember my compensation including movie night with the contractor.”

He nods. “I believe there was also section about hawaian pizza and ice creams.” You cheer, excited at the idea. “For the contractor of course to make amends for the commute.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Duh, you’re to picky to have sex with just anyone.” He grins and you roll your eyes with a soft smile appearing on your face.

“Oh, the way you compliment yourself at my expense.”

“See what a self-sufficient man you got for yourself? I don’t even need other people to receive compliments.”

You sneer and pull back out of his grasp. “We’re watching a movie. Some action or thriller? We need heavy stuff to get rid of your growing ego polluting the air. There’s no oxygen to breathe with. ”

“Titanic then?”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yeah” he confirms, throwing himself on the couch. “Is a drowning ship with hundreds of people on the board not heavy enough for you?”

You shake your head at him “You’re the worst.”

He is. And he feels over the moon to have you back with him.

[acespec-ed]

The survey results!

I finished compiling all the results to that survey I made and here’s the link to the spreadsheet that has all the responses, sorted into categories, with charts at the bottom. (A few of the charts have words like “sex” and “masturbation” in size 20 font so you might wanna wait on clicking that until you’re in an environment where it wouldn’t be awkward.)

Now, to address a couple things before I get started.

I would first off, like to thank the person who pointed out the fact that I was technically asking minors sexually-explicit questions. By the time I saw their concern, I was up to 60+ answers and it was too late to start it over, so I had to quickly jump in and edit in a note telling minors not to answer certain questions. (I swear, that was an accident! I was debating on whether to include them and then decided on including them, then immediately forgot I made them a demographic as I went on to making the other questions.)

I am also sorry that I didn’t include options under certain demographic questions. I wanted to keep things simple. And to be honest? If I were to redo this, I’d put in a “write in” for gender, a “write in” for orientation. And then, have a required question asking if you were on the ace spectrum, not on the ace spectrum, or questioning. And a similar one for aro. Because that would have made my life 10x easier and you would’ve gotten these results half a week ago oh my god.

Additionally, I don’t want to see any nitpicking on what responses I put where. I’ve had to redo/recount categories several times because I realized I had somehow missed a huge chunk of people who fall under that category. And there’s been responses that I sat on forever trying to figure out where to sort them and in the end, just... gave up. This project has taken up a majority of my free time for the past week and I just want to move on with my life.

Now onto the results, under the “read more.”

There were a total of 745 respondents! (though like six of them showed up blank?) I put their results into categories that you can see on the spreadsheet. Aces, not aces, aros, not aros, alloallos, aroaces, alloaces, aroallos, strictly asexual, strictly aromantic, strictly aroace, gray area aces, gray area aros, demisexuals, demiromantics, graysexuals, grayromantics, aegosexuals, aegoromantics, and questioning. 

I do not have the mental energy to go through every questions with every group, so go check out the spreadsheet itself. I’m just going to go over what I found interesting, and explain why I asked some of what I did.

For specific aspec labels, I only made categories for demis, grays, and aegos. Because they were, unsurprisingly, the most common identities (aside from asexual and aromantic). You can see the numbers below.

I’m surprised at the amount of aroflux people though. And aceflux too. The Tumblr tags for them are mostly inactive which made me think they were more on the rare side.

People assume aces are sex repulsed or averse. And they make up the majority of aces. But 9.8% of aces are sex-favorable towards doing the deed, and 15.7% of them are sex-favorable towards sexual content. People assume allosexuals are usually into sex. But 1.8% of allos are sex-repulsed by doing the deed, and .9% of nonaces are sex-repulsed towards sexual content. What about aros? 22.9% of aros are romance-favorable in terms of themselves, and 2% of nonaros were romance-averse. 29.7% of aros were romance-favorable in regards to romantic content, which turns out is the majority opinion among aros!  While .7% of nonaros were romance-repulsed towards romantic content.

I asked questions about the environments people grew up in. To see if I could debunk any myths about aces being from sex-negative households. It turns out, there were more aces who grew up in a sex positive household (26.7%) than a sex negative (20.7%) one. It was most common for them to be mixed though (33.2%). Interestingly enough, in the not-ace category, 23.7% grew up in a sex negative household while 22.8% grew up sex positive. It’s a close enough difference to chalk up to coincidence though. 41.6% were mixed. It turns out more demisexuals grew up in a sex negative household. 26.5% vs 25.5%. That’s only one percentage off, which meant the tie break came down to one or two people. Overall, since the majority of everyone answered “mixed,” and the sex negative/positive responses were so closely tied, I think it’s safe to say that in most cases, the views one grew up hearing doesn’t mean much in terms of if someone is ace or not. But it is interesting to note that those who are “strictly” ace, have 28.7% in sex positive households and 17.2% in sex negative. So that’s something.

Aros, it seems, grew up with a lot of pressure to be in a romantic relationship. 33% had that pressure, whereas only 19.4% grew up where being single was seen as an okay thing. 37.8% had a mixture of both. Those who aren’t aro, 24.8%  had that pressure and 24.8% grew up in a “being single is okay” environment. No, I did not make a typo. The numbers really are identical. 37.8% were mixed. As for alloallos- 31.9% grew up where being single was okay, vs 21.2% being pressured. Aroaces- 32.3% were pressured, 18.7% were not. Alloaces- 26.1% pressured, 21.1% okay. Aroallos- 39.4% pressured, 19.7% okay. Very interesting stats here. Looks like aspecs, arospecs in particular, are more likely to grow up feeling pressure to be in a relationship. (Then again, kinda makes sense.)

Time to bring up masturbation. The majority of nonaces do it several times a week at 38.4%. The majority of aces also do it several times a week! (But our percentage is 25.5%.) Aces and nonaces don’t have any particular preference when it comes to what they do it to. Most of both categories had that as the majority. However, reading materials come in second for aces whereas nonaces prefer visuals. I was mostly curious about aegosexuals though. 45.7% of them go at it several times a week. 35.8% vary in what they use, but 28.4% go to reading materials, 17.9% use their imagination, and 11.9% go for visuals.

As for libido? The majority of both aces and nonaces are on the weaker side. Not a single person, out of 745, answered any higher than “slightly strong.” More aces have it weak than nonaces, but the fact still remains just as many nonaces have it weak too. Only 10.8% of nonaces answered “slightly strong,” though only 5.1% of aces have it “slightly strong.” 40% of those who are strictly ace have it weak, 38.3% very weak. So aces are unsurprisingly more likely to have a lower libido. But, 2.9% of them have it slightly strong.

Do my alloaces want some depressing news? 20.7% of alloallos see sex as “very important” in a romantic relationship. 20.7% of alloallos see sex as “slightly important.” They are tied for the majority of alloallos. But do not despair, for 13.4% of them say they can go without. So alloallos willing to forego sex do exist, at least. It is a shame though, given 70.5% of aces can go without.

In terms of needing to be in a romantic relationship, 42.8% of aros can go without whereas 3.5% of them find it important. Meanwhile, it is very important to 15.2% of nonaros. Only 4.4% of nonaros can go without a romantic relationship.

Now, for questions that mattered most to me....

I had a theory that, acepecs who feel sexual attraction rarely are more likely to feel it stronger than allos, since allos feel it often enough to sort of “be used to it.” (I sure feel it comically strong and refuse to believe allos live life like that frequently!) Was my theory correct?

Not really. It turns out, allos are more likely to feel it strongly! Only 3.2% of aces feel it “strong” vs 15.0% for nonaces. To be fair, one of the definitions of falling into the ace spectrum is, feeling sexual attraction weakly. Which means we’ve got weak statistics on our end. 4.4% of demisexuals feel it strongly though- the highest of our groups. However, only 1.9% of nonaces feel it “very strong” vs 3.2% of graysexuals.(Of course, the graysexual category is vastly smaller than the nonace category, but that’s worth a mention.) So, there might still be some truth to my theory.

What about with arospecs and romantic attraction? 2.4% of aros feel that attraction “very strong” vs 9.0% of nonaros. However, 4.5% of demiros feel it “very strong” and 1.5% of grayros. What about just “strong”? 13.8% of grayros, 17% of demiros, 9.6% of aros,  21.5% of nonaros, 23.4% of alloaces, and 23.2% of alloallos.

Ever since I first discovered the ace spectrum, I wondered how many people allos are sexually attracted to. And alloros romantically attracted to. Is there a certain limit of people an aspec is allowed to be attracted to, until they get their ace/aro card taken away?

Nope! 1.5% of aces have it happen regularly, and 1.7% have had it towards 17+ people! Of course, 63% have never been sexually attracted to anyone, and 30.3% have been sexually attracted to 1-5 people. 3.2% felt it for 6-10. So, people of varying levels of sexual attraction have identified as ace. Nonaces, however, 32.4% experience sexual attraction regularly. Upon questioned “how regularly?” I got varying answers, ranging between a few times a year to a few times a month to a few times a week to even daily! And someone even implied that it was weird to keep count of such a thing! (Which was more validating for me than any validation post I’ve ever read, so thank you to the person who wrote that.)

Aros for people they’re romantically attracted to? Only 1.4% have it happen regularly, and 1.4% felt it towards 11-16 people. 4.5% felt it towards 6-10 people and 42% felt it towards 1-5 people. 50.5% never felt it. So, similar enough numbers to aces. As for nonaros? Only 6.3% have it happen regularly! (When questioned how often, many wrote multiple times a month or multiple times a year.) The vast majority of nonaros, 54%, answered 1-5 people. It looks like romantic attraction is a rare thing for everyone in comparison to sexual!

Maybe that’s why limerence is uncommon! 53.4% of all respondents have never felt limerence before. (Limerence here being boiled down to an obsession with someone, often to an unhealthy extent.) 17.3% felt it. 12.2% felt it, but wouldn’t call it “unhealthy.” And 17.1% are unsure. I asked this because, as someone who went through a bad case of it last year, I was curious to see how  many other people shared my plight. I actually threw the question in at the very last minute as an afterthought and, had I known how many people would take this, I would’ve asked for more details from respondents. I was also wondering if any aros have experienced it. And it turns out, 8.5% of those who are strictly aro have been through limerence, proving that it isn’t just an alloromantic thing, although 23.1% of nonaros have felt it.

There were two other questions I asked that I ended up too burnt out to even do anything with. The first was, “how often do you go out in public aside from school/work?” I asked this to see if there’s a correlation between the amount of people one is sexually/romantically attracted to with how often they leave the house. But it turns out, we are 2 years into a pandemic, so obviously, not many people are leaving the house. So that question ended up being useless. The other question was “how often do you seek out new visual media.” I asked that for a similar reason: People who seek out a lot of visual media, like tv shows, are going to see more people than someone who doesn’t. And seeing more people = more targets for sexual/romantic attraction. I can’t answer that one, because, too burnt out. But there’s numbers on the spreadsheet if you’re willing to sort through that mess to find out.

Last, but certainly not least, I asked if there was too much focus on sex in society. And if there was too much focus on romance in society. I wondered if allos felt the same way as most aces and aros in regards to the prominence of sex and romance. And it turns out they do! 37.2% of nonaces answered yes to “too much focus on sex.” 51.7% of nonaros answered yes to “too much focus on romance.” All across the board of all categories, the majority voted “yes.” 46% of alloallos answered “yes” on romance and 36.6% answered “yes” on sex. Of course, aces and aros had much higher percentages on the yeses, but that’s no surprise.

Looking at all of this, how some allos also have low libidos, how some allos can forego sex in a relationship, how some allos don’t have interest in being in a romantic relationship, how some allos also rarely experience attraction, that some of these allos could actually qualify as ace/arospec, right? That is why I ended the survey asking why they don’t consider themselves ace/arospec. One of the most common reasons seems to be, they don’t like using labels, or the label doesn’t fit them because they do feel attraction. A few mentioned they did when they were younger but stopped because it didn’t apply anymore. Meanwhile aspecs identify as such because, they feel at home in their label. It just fits right. 

So I guess, whether you are ace/arospec or allo, comes down to if you’re comfortable with that label. If you’re happy with it. If it brings you a sense of relief. If it describes you perfectly. Or if it’s simply closest thing that fits. There is no, one way to be aspec. There’s no strict, set of rules or criteria you must meet. It all comes down to how that label makes you feel. 

So there’s the results. Thank you to everyone who participated! 

[themagnuswriters]

Asexuality in Fic Roundtable - What We Like

How do I write a convincing asexual character in a fic?  Is there a way to address a character’s sexuality outside the context of sex or coming out?  Can a story feature a character's asexuality aside from exploring the negative aspects of the asexual experience?  It’s usually not too hard to find lists of what not to do when writing asexual characters, but much more difficult to find the opposite.

The asexual members of The Magnus Writers discord gathered to discuss their favorite ways to incorporate the day-to-day details of asexual peoples’ experiences into fiction.  We also discussed depictions that we’ve enjoyed in the past, or would love to see more of.  Note that this isn’t an Asexuality 101 resource, so if you don’t feel familiar with the basics, feel free to check out the resources we will link in the reblog of this post.

This conversation included a variety of ace-spectrum people from multiple countries, including both arospec and non-aro people, various genders, and varying relationships to sex and sexual content.  Just like all asexual people are different, the things that we enjoy reading are far from universal.  Some tropes/details brought up as favorites can vary widely--for example, “innuendo completely flies over their head” vs. “they understand but are completely unfazed by innuendo.”  Additionally, some aces love tropes that others would prefer to avoid: for instance some enjoy discussions of physical boundaries to be included in the fic, and some prefer that to be established as happening in the past.  

The examples brought up in our discussion are also far from comprehensive, and can be seen as the beginning of an endless list of possible ways to write asexual characters.  Some examples given are specific to the Magnus Archives, but can apply to any writing.  Take these as inspiration and a way to broaden your understanding of who we are and what we like to see!

ASEXUALITY IN YOUR SETTING

When writing a story including asexual characters, one of your first considerations may be for how asexuality is contextualized within your setting:  Is it fully normalized and accepted?  Does it reflect real-world stigmas?  How is asexuality treated by the narrative and the other characters?  Contributors showed interest in a variety of approaches on this front, with no single approach being worth more than other:

Fics including negative real-world experiences

These would include fics in a realistic setting, where characters may struggle with internalized acephobia, stigma, social pressure, microaggressions, dysphoria, and so on.  This isn’t limited to just “issue fic,” where the focus of the fic is about examining and confronting a struggle, but rather encompasses anything that includes this consideration in its worldbuilding and characterization.  While brighter settings can be refreshing, contributors described reasons why this kind of fic appeals to them:

Feeling seen: Reading about ace characters whose experiences reflect their own

Feeling validated:  Being exposed to only stories where there are no issues on this front can feel like we’re the only one facing these struggles.  It can be extremely cathartic to read something and think “I thought I was the only person who went through this.”

Exploring improvement/hope:  From ace characters learning to accept themselves or other characters making mistakes and accepting correction, these can be validating and encouraging.

On top of ace readers finding worth in these fics, the act of writing the fic can also be very cathartic for many ace authors.

There is a lot of variety for how these fics can be written, such as:

Stories that focus on the negative experience

Stories where that experience is just part of the setting or characterization

The character(s) getting external support and validation

The character facing mixed dismissiveness, acceptance, prejudice, etc. from different people

The story resolving in a way where the situation is resolved: for instance, cutting off an acephobic relationship, or someone apologizing for a microaggression.

Stories where well-meaning characters are accidentally insensitive about asexuality, but learn better and change their behavior

The character confronting or overcoming an internal struggle

Stories where the issues aren’t fully resolved by the end, such as an insecurity not fully going away.

Negative asexual experiences don’t have to be the focus of a fic to be acknowledged. While “issue fics” that closely examine and explore these experiences are valuable, contributors also described enjoying stories that included them as simply an element of the worldbuilding or characterization.  For instance, a story may reference Jon having bad past relationship experiences; facing assumptions that he’s having sex if he’s in a relationship; having moments of insecurities about his sexuality; etc.

Please note that writing negative ace experiences needs to be handled sensitively; fics of this type should definitely be tagged appropriately.  For brief references, consider including author’s note warnings on the appropriate chapter (e.g. “asexual character assumed to be having sex”).  Having an asexual sensitivity reader--particularly one of a type that corresponds with what you’re writing (i.e. sex-neutral, gray-ace, sex-repulsed, etc)--is very much encouraged.

Fics where asexuality is normalized

In contrast, there is just as much interest in stories that avoid all of these issues, and fully normalize asexuality.  Contributors described how they enjoy stories where ace characters are allowed to just exist, without big important conversations or small othering details that depict asexual identities as less than fully accepted.

These can be included in any type of fic, but a few of the suggested details for how to normalize asexuality in a setting include:

A character being already out and accepted:  For instance, Martin already knowing about Jon’s asexuality from early seasons.

Characters in the fic already knowing what asexuality is without needing it explained to them

Having more than one character be asexual:  We aren’t confined to writing only canon characters as ace!  This not only goes the extra mile in normalizing asexuality, but it gives the chance to include more of the ace spectrum.

If you’re aiming for asexuality to be normalized, please consider whether it makes sense for your asexual character to be anxious about coming out or discussing boundaries.  There is a world of difference between someone responding to an ace character coming out with “I fully support you” and responding with “you’re an idiot for thinking we wouldn’t support you.”  This is a common and easy pitfall to fall into, but the result is often less escapism and more a message of “your struggles aren’t real, and you’re stupid for thinking they are.”

Asexuality in Metaphor

Some contributors mentioned wanting to read settings where asexuality itself is normalized, but the issues facing aces could be explored on a metaphorical level.  This falls somewhere in between the ideas of realistic or idealized settings as regards the ace experience, and could allow that exploration with a layer of distance.  Ideas relating to this included fantasy settings with different kinds of magic.

PERSONALITY AND CHARACTERIZATION

The experience of being asexual isn’t something just limited to a relationship with sex: it can be shown in many ways, such as how a character relates to themselves, other people, media, and society.  Like any other queer identity, it affects many aspects of our lives and informs a great deal about us as people.  These little details don’t even need to be presented in a blunt “this is because this character is asexual” way--they can be little relatable notes for your ace readers, while not coming across in a “this is how all ace people are” way.

We’ve seen the question “how do I write a character as asexual, if I’m not planning on having someone ask them for sex or writing a coming-out scene?” many times.  Our contributors were excited to share a wide variety of ideas for this from things they’ve read, written, or experienced:

Ace confusion

Not to be confused with the infantilizing “doesn’t know what sex is” approach, this could involve things like:

Being confused over what sexual attraction is: difficulty defining what they don’t experience.

Difficulty describing to others what lack of sexual attraction is: this is their default, and it can be difficult to contrast it to what they don’t experience.

Thinking that others describing sexual attraction or interest is just exaggeration

“Wait, that’s what you mean when you say ‘hot’?  I just thought it meant they’re gorgeous.”

“You mean meeting someone and being instantly sexually interested in them is a real thing, and not just a movie trope?”

The Absurdity of How Society Views Sex

The jarring dissonance between asexual experiences and the norms in society and media can cause a lot of alienation and dysphoria in aces, but often it hits a point of feeling like a joke is being played on you.  Contributors offered ideas for how this could be illustrated through a character:

Reading “How to Spice Up Your Love Life” articles out of pure morbid curiosity

Taking the most ridiculous Cosmo sex life article as How Everyone Thinks (and being concerned)

Having an allo friend or partner they can ask about whether any of it is legitimate advice (this one was brought up by a lot of people as a common ace experience)

An ADHD/autistic character getting a special interest or hyperfixation on societal views on sex or sexual practices, and pursuing it as purely a matter of research with no interest in participating

“Why do they keep bringing up ice cubes?  Georgie, stop laughing, I am a researcher and a scholar.”

Needing to teleport out of the room if a sex scene comes up in a movie

Not minding the sex scenes, but needing to make fun of them or point out impracticalities

“On the beach?  But sand is everywhere?  Wait, they think getting sand everywhere is hot??”

Being baffled at what’s considered sexy: for example, Jon being baffled at “wet clothes are sexy,” having grown up by the beach and associating them with being terribly uncomfortable

Of course, asexual characters don’t need to be framed like they constantly need to learn about things from allo people--sometimes the reverse can be a fun twist.  One reversal, for example, could be an ace person helping their allo friend parse whether their attraction to someone is simply sexual or also romantic.

Aces vs. flirting

While not specifically connected to sexual attraction, how a character interacts with flirting can very much demonstrate the asexual experience.  Contributors discussed a variety of their own experiences, and details they’ve enjoyed reading for ace characters:

Having difficulty distinguishing between different kinds of draws to people--is it romance?  Friendship?  

Having difficulty picking up on whether or not someone is interested in them

Failing to realize they’re flirting or being flirted with

Enjoying flirting as just a fun thing to do without any particular goal (a popular suggestion for a Tim ace headcanon)

Casually flirting but then backing off if it becomes “real”

Several examples were given of scenarios these could be used for Jon:

Jon’s dry prickliness stemming from wanting to avoid people thinking he’s flirting or showing interest in them, not being sure where others judge the line between “flirting” or “being nice.”  

Jon deciding he is going to make an effort to be more friendly to people, and awkwardly starts showering others with compliments; some of them interpret it as flirting and it’s very confusing.

Jon (or Martin) being overly dramatic or romantic when purposefully showing interest in someone, drawing from a basis of books or media rather than social experience.

Aces vs. hotness

We might use the word “hot” excessively, but ace people often have their own understanding of the word (and are often surprised to learn what others mean by it).  Contributors brought up the following ideas for this area:

Using “hot” as an expression of “gorgeous to look at,” and being confused to learn that others use it as a sexual expression.

Engaging with “are they hot” conversations based purely on aesthetics, or other impressions like “would they give good hugs.”

Focusing on seemingly random physical details, like wrists or eyebrow shape, over more commonly sexualized ones.

Being confused over the criteria others use for hotness.  Example:  Jon’s reaction to “the hot one” comment.

Finding fictional characters not represented by a real person “hot” (e.g. from books, podcasts, video games with bad graphics, etc)

Using the words “hot” and sexy” for completely nonsexual things.  Several contributors described being told they couldn’t be ace if they called anything hot/sexy, and then doing it more out of spite.

Being completely unfazed by innuendo or sex/nudity:  For example, Jon’s calm response vs. Martin being flustered at Tim stripping

This is also an area where a story can establish the nature of their relationship with those around them: if a character is comfortably out as not being interested in sex, for instance, you can show that others around them support that by making their conversations more inclusive. For example, a “fuck, marry, kill” game with modified categories, or a “who would you have sex with” conversation changed to a “who would you have dinner with” one once the ace character enters.  

Aces vs. sexual humor

Ace people’s reactions to sexual humor can vary as much as the reactions to flirting.  Contributors described enjoying a broad range of these:

Aces who love sexual humor (not limited to sex-favorable aces)

Humor taking an angle of “sex is so strange, glad it isn’t real.”

Aces who are bored with or exhausted by sexual humor

Not finding sexual humor funny unless it’s also clever.  “Yes I know that’s a sexual reference...wait, it was meant to be funny?  Because it’s connected to sex?  ....I see.  Anyway.”

Bonus points if the “is that supposed to be funny because it’s sexual?” ace and the filthy humor ace are friends

It can even vary for the same person from setting to setting: someone may find making dirty jokes with a group of ace friends might be fun (see the “Absurdity of Sex” section above), but be very uncomfortable with someone else trying to twist something they said into something sexual.  There’s also the nature of the joke itself: a silly pun may be fine, but a joke implying the ace person is interested in sex or said something sexual without meaning to may be alienating.

For TMA, the general interpretation of Jon is that he’d be uncomfortable with sexual humor, which is relatable to a lot of asexual people, but contributors brought up other possibilities as well: for example, the idea of Jon liking clever wordplay so much that if it just so happens to include something sexual, it doesn’t feel odd to him--why do the others look so shocked?

Note:  A lot of asexual awareness posts insensitively treat the concept of aces who love filthy humor as more mature, more easygoing, less stereotypical, or otherwise superior to aces who are uncomfortable with sexual humor.  This is a very harmful attitude that looks down on a lot of asexual people, and adds a pressure to push past comfort levels to fit in and “avoid being a stereotype.”  Contributors loved reading stories that include flirty or filthy aces, but not when they take this tone.  A favorite suggestion was to include more than one ace character to depict a variety, while treating them as equally valid.

Somewhat related to this is ace people’s relationship to sexual euphemisms.  Contributors described their experiences or how they might write an ace character responding to these:

Being exhausted by how so many terms are considered euphemisms, or how any comment could be reframed as sexual.

Having a special annoyance when they accidentally stumble into or misunderstand a euphemism

Wanting to decouple euphemisms from their literal meaning: why does “spending the night” or “going home with someone” have to mean “having sex”?

In the same line, being very blunt and straightforward about making sexual references, because why dance around it?

Characterization Considerations

One discussion that is particularly relevant to The Magnus Archives is the idea of the “uptight nerd” ace persona.  It may sound strange to say, but there is some legitimacy in this characterization, but for different reasons than is stereotyped.  Many of us build up this persona while growing up--particularly in adolescence and early adulthood--to fend off uncomfortable social pressure, self-examination, or external criticism for why we relate to sex differently than our peers.  This often involves playing up certain defenses for discomfort for sex or dating:  “I don’t have time for any of that, I only have time for books and knowledge!”  Or, the adult version:  “I don’t have time for relationships, I’m married to my job!”  

Where this departs from the stereotype is that these are generally coping mechanisms or facades rather than the truth.  Asexuality isn’t “of course they don’t have time for sex, they’re obsessed with this or that”--but an asexual person who doesn’t feel comfortable in their environment, such as around work, school, or family, may deflect judgment with similar excuses.  Similar to this, some find it tempting to be antisocial or hostile on purpose to fend off interest in them or avoid sexual expectations.

This is, of course, far from the only way an ace character could be written.  For instance, if you wanted to write a setting where asexuality is more accepted, you could write Jon’s antisocial and closed-off tendencies as a result of being bullied from a very young age, while he is confident and secure in his asexuality.  Or for other characters: you could write Tim as someone who has enjoyed sexual relationships, but just thought everyone was exaggerating on the attraction side of things.

Intersection of Asexuality with Other Identities

Another characterization consideration is how asexuality intersects with other identities and experiences included in the fic.  Below are a few examples of many:

Asexuality and masculinity:  Social expectations of masculinity place a high emphasis on sexuality, particularly heterosexuality, treating sexual activity as a commodity or prize.  One possible reading of The Magnus Archives is Jon’s tendency to have closer and more numerous friendships with women connects to this.    

Asexuality and trans identities:  There is a significant overlap between aspec and trans identities, particularly nonbinary identities.  Based on an October 2020 study by the Trevor Project (see link in reblog), ace respondents were roughly 50% more likely to be trans (including nonbinary) than allo respondents.  Contributors described how they’ve felt things like “is this dysphoria I’m feeling a gender thing or an asexuality thing,” or how figuring out their asexuality helped them explore their gender.

Asexuality and race:  In combination with LGBTQ+ spaces often being white-dominated, people of color often face stereotypes that hypersexualize or desexualize them.  This can have a strong impact on people of color’s experience and self-perception as asexual.  For instance, if you are writing Jon as Indian, you could consider how this may have impacted his experiences in LGBTQ spaces in university.  As there is no ‘one size fits all’ experience for aces of color, we strongly recommend researching for the particular background you have in mind.  We will be adding resource links to our main page shortly, but in the meantime check out the links in the reblog of this post!

INTIMACY AND RELATIONSHIPS

One of the topics addressed in our discussion was how a character’s asexuality may impact their experiences with intimacy and romantic relationships. Contributors discussed ways to portray this in fic, whether or not it includes sex or even mentions it.

Physical Intimacy

Intimacy, sensuality, and sex are separate things that may or may not overlap depending on the individual.  Contributors discussed how, for people across the ace spectrum, the relationship between these three tends to differ from common societal frameworks or depictions of intimacy in fiction.

Enjoying physical intimacy without the expectation that it will become sexual: massages, falling asleep on top of each other, bathing together, etc.

This includes acts that would often be expected to “lead somewhere” but don’t, such as lots of touching or nude cuddling.

Craving closeness/touch completely outside of sexual drive

One scenario suggested for this topic is an asexual character discovering that without the worry that an act of intimacy will ‘lead somewhere,’ they enjoy something they used to get anxious about, such as sharing a bed or showering together.

Boundaries & Communication

Stories with an asexual character in a relationship often address physical boundaries within that relationship.  The below are some of the scenarios contributors have enjoyed:

People communicating over their sexual boundaries, rather than assuming what these are as soon as they hear the word “asexual.”

The boundaries discussion being framed as something that any couple in a fictional relationship should have, not just because one is asexual.

In relationships between allo and ace characters, the allo character having boundaries of their own, rather than just the ace character.

Normalizing boundaries discussions for allo couples as well.

Note:  If a boundaries discussion involves a sex-favorable ace character, take caution at the risk of having them sound offended or derisive that the discussion is happening (e.g. “What, I’m not a child” or “Not all aces are like that.”).  Enforcing the idea that people should assume their partner is sex-interested is extremely harmful to sex-disinterested aces.

Some contributors noted that they prefer fics where the boundaries discussion is something that has taken place in the past, rather than run through at the beginning of each fic they read.  In these cases, this past discussion could be illustrated in the interaction itself: a character’s awareness of what lines not to cross, the other’s confidence and trust that those boundaries will be respected, and so on.

Issues of Intimacy Outside of Sex

While aversion to sex is the most well-known dimension of asexuality, there are other aversions and boundaries that could apply to either ace or allo characters:

Ace characters that are kiss-averse and/or touch-averse:  This also works against the “They won’t have sex, but they’ll make up for that with kissing even more!” trope that implies asexual people have to compensate for a nonsexual relationship.

Allo characters with their own aversions or specific boundaries: suggestions included how this can apply to trans characters.

Fluctuations in levels of aversion (note: it is important to not treat increased aversion as “progress” or decreased aversion as “regression”)

In cases of fluctuating aversion, characters developing ways to communicate these levels, and responding appropriately.  For example, “Kissing is not on the table right now, let’s move on to something more comfortable.”

Contributors were excited to discuss how this area could particularly be used for the allo partner of an ace character, such as an allo Martin having difficulties with touch post-Lonely, or discovering that he doesn’t enjoy kissing.

Relationships to Sex (or Lack Thereof)

Asexuality ‘subtypes’ are terms many aces describe their personal relationship with sex and/or sexual content.  These are simplified self-descriptors rather than rigid categories or mini-sexualities, and the terms rarely encompass the full detail of that relationship.  Please note that the below discussion assumes a general familiarity with ace subtypes.

Needless to say, aces across the spectrum and of every subtype want to see their identities represented in fic.  The discussion focused on ways to illustrate those experiences, and details contributors would enjoy seeing:

Non-averse aces trying sex and deciding they have no interest in it: pushing back against the “if you’re not repulsed you’ll like and want sex” idea.

No expectation that “sex-favorable” means always interested in sex.

The pressure an ace person may face to oversimplify their relationship to sex or sexual content out of fear they’ll appear inconsistent or exaggerating:  “If I’m okay with this now, what if I’m not later?  Will I seem picky if I’m only comfortable with something in an extremely specific scenario?”

“Sex repulsion” and “sex aversion” generally are used to describe asexual people who don’t want sex, but are simplified terms for what can be immensely varied experiences.  Someone could be repulsed by physical involvement in sex, repulsed by personally engaging in anything sexual, repulsed by sexual content, repulsed by just the idea of sex--or any variation or combination of these.  There are even repulsions that could be part of more sex-interested subtypes: an ace who enjoys sex but is repulsed by nudity, or an ace who enjoys sexual activities with a partner but not being touched during them, etc.

Contributors discussed how much they enjoy reading simple “I just don’t want sex” approaches to aversion/repulsion, but also look forward to reading explorations such as:

Enjoying one specific type of engagement with sexual content or activity, but having an aversion to others.

Regularly varying levels of repulsion: Days of “please don’t remind me sex exists” to days of mild curiosity, for instance.

Aces with a relationship to sex that doesn’t involve another person, including if they’re in a relationship.

Fluidity between ace subtypes can fluctuate between sex-interested and sex-disinterested in both directions: it can be both “I said I wasn’t interested in this before, but let’s carefully revisit” and “I know we’ve been doing this, but I’m no longer comfortable with it.”  Contributors mentioned never having seen fic with the latter, and expressed an interest in reading stories exploring this.

On this note, it is common for stories of fluidity between subtypes to be only moving in a more sex-interested direction.  Many asexual people, particularly sex-averse aces, face immense pressure to ‘learn how to like sex,’ or have their sexuality erased by saying they’re a ‘late bloomer’ who will learn to like it later.  Depicting this direction should be done with great care and nuance, and we strongly recommend getting feedback from a sex-disinterested sensitivity reader for stories of this type.  It’s possible that an ace reader who isn’t sex-disinterested would miss or not be affected by something that is quite painful to sex-disinterested aces.

CONCLUSION

If you’ve stuck with us for this long, well done! We understand that such a long resource can be a bit overwhelming, but we hope it can show you the depth of variety and enthusiasm ace readers have for more ace content and inspire you further.  One thing we all had in common during our discussion was how excited we were to have a canonically asexual protagonist, and how thrilled we were to see content that explored his asexuality.  In putting together this resource, we hope that you are encouraged to write about characters whose asexuality impacts their experiences and the story in unique, thoughtful, and creative ways.  We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

[bettsfic]

Hey Beth, do you have any advice on how to cope with the discomfort of friends/family seeing your smutty fiction? And what are your thoughts on hiding your extra dirty fandom writing from legit publishers, or from mainstream readers? Thank you!

this is probably a better question for someone with less blurred lines between their writing career and fandom life, but i'll try.

i feel very lucky in that my family affords me a lot of privacy, but i also believe if they take the initiative to read my work, they take responsibility for how they feel about it. i also come from a family of sex-repulsed individuals, so they're also just grossed out by smut and have no desire to read what i write.

still, even if that weren't true, i'm an adult and i'm allowed to write whatever i want.

as for publishers finding your fanfic, i really don't think they care. you'll find editors and agents who are interested enough in you to maybe want to read all your work, but 1) they'll never force you to share your fic, and 2) if you choose to show them, they'll probably be supportive because they are first and foremost fans of your work. they might not get it, but they'll respect it. and if they don't, you don't want to be working with them.

that's one of the reasons why finding the "right" agent and editors for your work is so important: you have to be able to trust them, because your work is in their hands. you have to believe they understand you and have your best interests at heart. if you come across someone who wants your work but you feel doesn't really understand it, it may be hard, but you have to say no thank you and keep looking.

when you find the right people, you'll know, because the way they talk about your work will make you feel good about yourself, and their suggestions for revision will excite you. you want to work with people who want your writing to be the most you it can be.

also i realize now a lot of my answer is shaped by the fact my original fic is significantly filthier than my fanfiction. it just has different reasons for being filthy.

here's a funny story:

so post-MFA, i was visiting one of my professors who is a comic scholar and fanboy. we got on this very topic, fanfiction and publication, and he was like, "can i read your fic?" i think as a way to support his belief that when i said it was smutty he didn't believe it would be that bad. i said sure why not, and he asked for my ao3, so i told him, and he proceeded to pull it up right in front of me. my most recent fic was my tiny dick hux series. he read the tags, went "ohh" and then closed out of the tab.

somehow i wasn't embarrassed at all. i thought it was hilarious. i guess some of my lack of shame comes from being asexual and not seeing sex writing as fundamentally different than any other topic a person may write about. but that's probably a different post.

and i'll never forget the time @millyandprudyandfriends showed up during my office hours one day to give me a 10-page outline rewrite of training wheels.

as far as mainstream readers, if someone reads your book and likes it enough they seek out your fic, they're probably going to like what they find (unless you're publishing middle grade books or something, and then i'd hope your readers don't have unmitigated access to the internet. but still, that's their parents' job, not yours).

when you put yourself out there by sharing your work, either by posting it online or formally publishing it, there's a chance people are going to hate it and you. that cannot be helped. people are going to misunderstand you, talk shit about you in their GCs, write mean reviews on goodreads, and post/tweet about you assuming you'll never see it, or not caring if you do. all of that is inevitable regardless of what you write. you could write the shmoopiest G-rated fluff in the world and someone somewhere is going to be like "FUCK this person." you can publish a book and win a pulitzer for it, and a host of MFA students who have to read it for a class will still be like, "this is badly written and the author should feel bad for writing it." i mean maybe not literally, but the point is, your work is never above scrutiny, nor is anyone else's, and that is something you have to learn to accept. all you can do is believe most of your readers will read you kindly and support your work.

tl;dr people are allowed to have opinions about you, even if those opinions are bad or wrong. and you are allowed to not give a shit. you have one job as a writer: keep writing what you're driven to write, shamelessly and without mercy.

[an-aro-without-an-ace]

LTAI Part Three: Alloaro Allyship

Strap yourselves in lads, this is gonna be a long one. So, you want to be an alloaro ally, but you don't know how to start or what to avoid. Lets talk about it.

This post is going to be split up into two sections. Allyship for Alloromantic Allosexuals (Alloallo's) and Allyship for Fellow Aspecs (Aroaces, Alloaces, Non-Sam Aces, etc). This is also going to be a relatively long post so just keep that in mind. Anyway, lets get started.

Allyship For Alloallo's

So, you're someone who isn't a part of the aspec community looking to be an alloaro ally? Epic, lets get you started on the right track! Being an alloaro ally is pretty easy once you break things down, so here are some base level tips for you to consider.

Acknowledge Our Terminology

Yes, we do have terminology that should be used more often when refering to us. Its common for people to use "Non-Asexual Aromantic" when refering only to alloaros, and while that term is more inclusive of other identities such as Non-Sam aro's, its important to be mindful of when you are using it. If you are refering to Non-Sam, Neu, and Alloaros, the term is fine. If you are refering to Alloaros specifically, its better to use Allosexual Aromantic.

Include Us In General Pride

The aspec community is part of the LGBT community, no matter what some people may think. What this means, is that you need to include us in general pride activism. Simply having the asexual flag on a pride post and not an aromantic flag is not enough. It would be even better if you mentioned alloaro's in general pride post. We are here, and we are a part of the community, so if you are going to advocate for pride you need to advocate for us.

Combat Alloarophobia

Alloaro's are not predatory. Alloaro's are not players. We aren't out to manipulate people into having sex with us, and the idea that sexual attraction devoid of romantic attraction is somehow impure or wrong is extremely alloarophobic. Fight back against any sort of suggestions that alloaros are immoral or dirty or harmful to other LGBT members for their sexual attraction.

Listen To Alloaro Voices

If an alloaro calls you out on something thats made them uncomfortable, don't bite back like its an attack. Listen to us, and work with us on the issue. You might have meant well, but caused a simple misunderstanding, in which case this will be a learning experience. Just because we voice our opinions on representation and issues in our community, doesn't mean we are directly attacking you over something.

Allyship For Fellow Aspecs

So, you're part of the aspec community but not alloaro? Maybe you're Asexual, Alloace specifically? Or Aroace? No matter what you identify as, the next few sections are a good basis for you to start on your track to proper alloaro allyship. Alright, lets get started shall we?

Recognize Aspec Community Attitudes

Lets get the big one out of the way first. If you are going to be an alloaro ally you need to acknowledge the fact that a predominantly sex negative attitude in the aspec community is harmful to us. It should never be assumed that any aspec identity is going to relate to sex negativity or sex repulsion. Its extremely alienating when this attitude is the norm in our community. The best way to address this is to stop ignoring it like it doesn't exist. A good way to do that, is the next suggestion.

Tag Sex Negative Language

Just like how sex mentions are tagged so that sex negative and sex repulsed aspecs can filter them out, sex negative language should also be tagged. Imagine for a second that you're in the shoes of an alloaro. Seeing post after post about how sex is "gross" or bad can really start to make you feel like your attraction is invalid in your own community. Being able to filter out those kinds of discussions would greatly benifit alloaros who don't need to be constantly told that what they feel is somehow wrong or filthy.

Combat Predatory Claims

Just like with above, posts claiming that alloaro's are predatory or that anyone who feels sexual attraction is predatory are extremely harmful. Whenever you get the chance, combat those attitudes. If you see a post talking about how allosexuals are predatory or esspecially about how having alloaros in aspec spaces might be "uncomfortable" for aces or other aspecs, speak out against it immediately.

Include Us In Your Activitism

This seems obvious right? Well, unfortunately despite this being pretty straightforward, its not very common. Lets make this clear. If you are going to make a post about aromantic activism, you need to include alloaros. If you are going to make a post about aspec activism, you need to include alloaros. This doesn't just mean mentioning us either. It is not enough to have a mention of alloaros delivered by lets say, an aroace. You need to actively include us in your planning and leadership if you plan on advocating for us. End of story.

Acknowledge The Differences In Our Issues

If you are going to make a post about aromantic erasure in the community, make note of the differences between aroace and alloaro erasure. There are BIG differences between the two and its far to common to see other aspecs assume that general aromantic erasure is representative of all aromantic identities. If you are unsure of the differences, you can find out by ->

Meeting Us Halfway

We have resources out there. Sure they may be less organized then other aspec identities resources but they are out there. It extremely tiring having to constantly educate others on alloaro issues and terminology and thats something I am sure all aspecs can relate to. Do your research, browse the alloaro tag, TALK to us before you go around advocating for us and talking about alloaro issues.

[dathen]

Ao3 Tags - Asexuality!

I’ve been talking to some fellow writers about asexuality in fic lately, and one thing I LOVE when authors do when writing ace characters is to be up front about the variety of ace they’re writing.  (FYI: this post is in the context of TMA fandom but could be applied to others)

This isn’t always doable--there are tons of fics where it just won’t come up at all, or you may want to leave it more open so that people can interpret what they want.  “Jon goes out to lunch with his friends and makes an ace culture joke” doesn’t beg a “hm....is this sex-neutral or sex-averse Jon.”  A lot of aces don’t even see themselves with a “subtype” and don’t need to.

But!!  If you do have a specific angle in mind, such as a sex-favorable ace, or one who likes kink scenarios but not participating in sex, or a fully averse/repulsed ace, it is GREAT when it’s tagged for (or in an early author’s note if not easily included in a tag):

Over and over I’ve seen feedback like “I was so surprised that Jon was the same type of ace as me!  I’ve never seen it before!”  Knowing that people love reading about sexualities and experiences that resemble their own, this gives them the means to actually hunt that down vs. waiting to stumble across it in the ocean of fic out there.  

The ability to read fic about an ace character in a nonsexual romantic relationship is such a rare and beautiful gift, and the #1 reason I got involved in this fandom.  But it’s getting much harder to find, between the sheer amount of TMA fic out there, and the fact that a lot of lower-rated fic assumes a sexual relationship in the background.  Sometimes we just get that craving of “I want to see people in love/having physical affection and KNOWING that it’s not any less for not having sex.”  Having something we can check tags for or filter by to find this is!!  a godsend I tell you!!

It gives a lovely security blanket for your ace readers for knowing the context of the work.  I do NOT believe that authors have to self-disclose their own identities, and know a lot of allo authors who get sensitivity reading for what ends up as very thoughtful fic, so that’s not the issue. But, for example, if someone is writing a gray-ace Jon without tagging it, it can be a pretty harsh shock to suddenly stumble across a scene of Jon being sexually attracted to someone.  Without tags or context, we may not know if it’s just flat-out erasure, or a purposeful exploration of the ace spectrum!  And like I mentioned above, sometimes you get that craving for a healthy nonsexual relationship--but end up being in suspense through the entire fic over whether a single line will eliminate the possibility.

“Canon Ace Character” is a nice start, giving us that assurance that you’re keeping his asexuality in mind while writing.  But going that step further to tag by variety of ace both helps celebrate that variety AND helps readers find your works that will appeal to them!

[spookykestrel]

Hello!! Hi!!

New about me post because idk the old one was long.

If you follow me for dsmp there’s more content about it on my side blog :) (below)

Pls send asks pls I really love talking to people about anything ever I will answer your silliest questions and listen to your day

I block empty blogs — reblog shit, add a bio, etc. if you don’t have content I assume you are spam!

My hobbies/interests: drawing, writing, textile arts, animated tv shows, music, fiction podcasts, mcyt, animal science (birds, marine life, bugs, pets, etc), driving with my windows down, hot drinks

My favorite music: lovejoy, the happy fits, dodie

Talk to me about: dogs and dog breeds (actually pls though this is the only thing I know about) and music and also my cats (I have so many)

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I have 2 active side blogs!

Check out kestrels-nook for content involving my many fandom related nterests such as: MCYT (the main content), Luca, TOH, and The Bright Sessions

Follow just-kestrel or as much bird related content as you please

I like and follow from my main account (this account).

I also have a secret third blog with my writing and stuff that you’ll never find >:)

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- #suggestive is my tag for posts that may be slightly uncomfy like sexual stuff but nothing on my blog is too graphic (as I am sex repulsed asexual :D )

- If I post or reblog something venty at all it will be tagged with #negative, #vent, and/or #rant please please block those if by some chance I decide to post something like that (rarely)

- please do not be afraid to ask me to tag a trigger! I often find myself wondering how to tag something or if I should so if you see something that needs a tw let me know right away!!

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I try to avoid negativity, politics, news, financial and money related posts on my blog just because sometimes you need a break from all the depressing stuff in the world. its not because I don’t CARE, it’s because I’m trying to keep my blog lighthearted. If I do reblog something political or whatever it’s because I’ve deemed it absolutely important for everyone to know. If you disagree with me then…ok.

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Mutuals feel free to ask for my discord :))

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[time-is-an-allusion]

this post discusses kink in a very abstract way but I’m okay with minors reading it BECAUSE it’s about the future of this blog and whether or not minors should be allowed to follow it, and telling them not to interact with this post would be excluding them from a conversation about them

so I’ve mentioned kink a few times on this blog and I feel like it’ll be mentioned a few more times, but not in a capacity where it’s actual kink content. I’m not even specifying what my kinks are because frankly I don’t care to publicly state them, at least not currently (not because they’re anything problematic/gross/etc., it’s just that due to some experiences I won’t get into but that involve bigotry and to an extent mental health, I have been made to feel conflicted abt All That). 

is this blog not safe for minors if I continue to talk about kink in the (very limited, very infrequent, and completely non-sexual) capacity that I do? any post mentioning that kind of thing would be put under a cut (unless it’s an imagine) and would in all cases be tagged as both “kink” and “minors dni” (so there would be not one but two tags on those posts intended to keep minors from seeing it, assuming said minors are being responsible and blacklisting things that they should blacklist, and if they’re not then that’s literally not my responsibility). I would not, however, tag it as NSFW, because that tag is generally used for actual sexual content, and someone who doesn’t want to see mentions of non-sexual 18+ activities should be taking it upon themself to blacklist “kink” as well as “nsfw”. 

Also when I say that I would write kink-related imagines, I don’t mean writing kinky scenarios but like. one of the posts was gonna be like “imagine telling your f/o you’re interested in kink and they agree to experiment with it with you” and the other was gonna be an affirmation post like “reminder that your f/o is absolutely into your kinks even if you don’t feel like they would be”. 

of course in the event that I do finally feel like openly discussing my kinks in a self-ship setting, I’d make a whole different blog for that from which minors were forbidden to follow, but like...on this blog that is run by a sex-repulsed asexual who, even when talking about kink, NEVER connects it with sex and doesn’t even specify what their kinks are, let alone go into detail...I feel like making two vague imagines, properly tagging and to an extent concealing posts that mention kink in the context of myself (by putting them under readmores), and having it be public information that I obtain atypical gratification from certain unspecified things? I don’t think that alone should make my blog unsafe for minors.

also, in the event that I do become 100% comfortable with expressing my kinks publicly in the context of self-shipping (like writing genuinely kinky imagines), I’ll obviously make another blog for that and probably take all my kink mentions to there, but so far, I’m not at that point, and a whole blog dedicated to that kind of thing is not warranted at this time.