#but you should be able to read them both without reading the other

[whoreiorcats]

can you talk more about gemma and helly/helena being narrative foils 🤲

ok at first this started with "yes i can" but now im not so sure this is my third attempt at answering this question but LETS GO

I think i'm just very struck with how the same they are, which on its surface does sound kind of insane because they are different but at the same time they're not at all.

Writing The Stone had made me confront the way all versions of these characters compare and contrast to each other so I have a lot of thoughts.

Helly and Gemma have been directly paralleled in their escape attempts, their little drawings; this tiktok actually makes me insane the way their hair flip is EXACTLY the same and cut to Mark who is looking at both of them the same way WTFFFFFFF

Helena and Gemma have been paralleled in their self/externally imposed restricted diets, exercise, and severing. This being pointed out was what actually like unlocked Helena's character for me. I have always been obsessed with Helena (especially even when she really repulsed me) but I didn't like or sympathize with her until I made the Gemma connection.

Helly and Ms Casey are actually the most contrasting characters, really, even though they should have the most in common out of the quartet. They just have such polar opposite reactions to their circumstances (see: exports hall Milchick scenes vs everything Helly has ever done).

Ms Casey's personality most closely resembling not the woman she has the most in common with (Helly), or the other half of herself that she's been severed from (Gemma), but HELENA ON THE SURFACE IS SO BUCK FUCKING CRAZY.

Helenacasey fucking save me. Save me Helenacasey.

Mark only completed 25 files and there are 25 testing floor innies so really I don't buy that Casey is refined at all (I think Cobel calling her unsophisticated, synonym of unrefined, might be a hint at that who tf knows) and thus refining can't be the reason she is like that.

So: Helena's innie's personality closely resembles baseline Gemma. Gemma's innie's personality closely resembles baseline Helena; and by baseline I just mean pre-severing not like, innate personality (I don't even think "innate personality" is a useful concept in this arena).

When Helena was severed all of the fire and fight was finally able to spill out of her, she was finally able to express herself without the context of who she really was.

When Gemma was severed she is suddenly muffled and reserved; without a context for herself Gemma is curious but incredibly cautious and stiff.

Yes she probably went through a crazy orientation but idk walk with me here.

When people say Helly is just Helena without the expectations or trauma or that she is Helena's true personality, idk that never really does it for me. What does any of that even mean? And like, did we not fucking listen to Petey? WE CARRY THE HURT WITH USSSSSSS!!!!!

So Helly is still reacting to and informed by the trauma already wrought on Helena, she is just also gaining new traumas and learning new lessons that Helena can only barely eke out without literally going down to experience them for herself.

Until all of those experiences, the "Helly part" of Helena was buried pretty deep down, but it was there and in turn there is a Helena part of Helly that we see emerging ("Don't you mean Helly E?")

So like what part of Gemma is Ms Casey, guys. WHAT PART??? I've thrown out a racial reading of this before, which still makes sense to me.

The severance universe has something akin to real life racism which means Gemma has grown up as an asian girl/woman in a racist world. We see that Gemma values her cultural identity ("Chomolungma", "Chikhai Bardo") and we see that she is a confident, vibrant lady. Even down on the testing floor where every measure possible has been taken to beat her down and strip her of autonomy, she finds whatever ways she can to maintain a level of defiance (half-answering Mauer's questions, breaking his fingers, attempting escapes).

The world has told her to be one thing many times and she has repeatedly resisted becoming that, she has, against all odds, stayed true to herself. She is likely painfully aware of it the whole way through and maybe that's even a motivator. Maybe she sees the obvious racial undertones of what she's being made to do and that only fuels her righteous anger more.

Ms Casey has none of that context. Ms Casey doesn't know she is asian as much as Britt has said Helly doesn't really understand that she is a woman (in the sense that she doesn't know why she has to dress so differently and less comfortably than her male coworkers).

Ms Casey has no built up defenses against the way she is repeatedly encouraged to view herself: as an object, as expendable, as only valuable insofar as she is useful to others, as off-putting, as annoying, as cold, as stupid. She has no idea how loaded these ideas are, she has no idea why she has to feel this way when others don't, she has no idea it's wrong (IT IS WRONG! MARK SHAKES HIS HEAD NO WHEN SHE SAYS SHE IS VEXING! KILLLLLLL MEEEEEEEE NOWWWW)

The only time we really see her push back against the way someone else is treating her is when Dylan is hitting on her; that is the singular form of discomfort she simply can't tolerate (HMMMM FUCKING HMM I WONDER WHAT'S GOING ON WITH HER OUTIE RN?! YALL I THINK SHE IS CARRYING THE HURT WITH HER)

It feels weird comparing Helena's scifi cult baby trauma to real life racism, don't think I don't see that, but idk this is just what I'm feeling (as an asian "woman" myself).

Helena's entire context seems to be an attempt to shape her into something she really isn't, or wouldn't be left to her own devices. The testing floor is a literalization of that! Skip all the pesky abuse, just make your women pre-traumatized refined!

"She's easy to like" being a statement we could apply to Helly as a character for most audiences, while Helena is a tough pill to swallow. "She's easy to like" actually kills me so bad. The whole point of Mauer's experiment is to turn her into 25 people she's not, who are as little like her as possible, and then to kill her. "She's easy to like" I could chew fucking glass "She's easy to like."

AND THEN Jame, after so deeply fucking up Helena's upbringing and psyche, to then meet the version of her that doesn't fear him in the same way, doesn't respect the principles he forced upon her, and to decide that he prefers her actually and is probably going to essentially kill Helena in favor of...

CANT YOU SEE HOW THEY'RE THE OPPOSITE YET THE SAME!! IN ALMOST EVERY CONCEIVABLE WAY!!! Every time, Hellyna and Gemmacasey prove to be inverted images. It's so fucking bananas y'all. THEMMMMMMM!!!!

Sorry if this feels rambly, maybe one day I will write that more organized essay but this is what yall are getting right now.

[nofilterwaterfilter]

@thesilliestguy the in depth classpect explanations!

kris - heir of breath

susie - rogue of rage

ralsei - knight of space

(link to the art i did of these)

under the cut to save people's dashboards but without further ado!

ralsei is the easiest here. all three of them i think do in some way embody their opposite aspect, but if i had to nail him down into one it would be knight of space. he's an interesting one in terms of knights, bc like... so often this one just boils down to low self esteem and believing you exist to serve other people and like... yes, that's obviously true for ralsei. but that's not actually how i got there? this is the first time i've come to the conclusion of knight because he's a passive witch (passive in the classpect sense)

i know that pair was never confirmed but i definitely believe it and it's the most universal headcanon of the unconfirmed class pairs. both are manipulation classes, you have great power when working with what's in front of you, but you can't create your aspect from nothing. we also have two canon definitions for how one can differentiate between active and passive. the first, which is the one that's almost always relevant when it comes to knight/witch, is the idea of active classes exploit their aspect to benefit themselves, passive allow their aspect to benefit others. but it's the other definition i actually want here, which is that active classes' abilities are about asserting your own will on your aspect, whereas passive classes can only let the aspect enact its own will through them

ralsei does not so much manipulate space as he is manipulated by it. space (as a concept in homestuck) is about the big picture, about patience and the overarching narrative and letting things flow the way they need to. the specific details that makes up any given timeline, that's time's prerogative, but the foundation is and always will be space. which if you look at a character like jade (in the moments she gets to actually act), she changes the very essence of the story

ralsei can see the whole picture and he wants to act to change it, but all of the will required is going the wrong way here. he's too bound by the prophecy (and therefore the narrative) and so he lets the story change him

--

susie! so most people i've seen have put her as a hope player, and i totally get why - it's the same thing i'm feeding off of with my allocation

but if you actually read the descriptions of hope player vs rage player, she's not the former. she is unequivocally the latter

so how does a rage player (which should by all rights cause hope's destruction) end up being the only source of hope in the narrative? well the thing about classpects is that aspects tend to exist on a spectrum from one to its opposite, the pairs easily masquerade as each other. it's the class that nails down exactly how their aspect manifests

rogue is one of our confirmed passive classes, defined as one who steals their aspect for the benefit of others. and if you look at how roxy's abilities manifest, she has the aspect of nothingness, but is able to create, by specifically stealing away the nothingness from unrealised concepts

the way susie gives hope to her party isn't by being an independent beacon, she doesn't know how to do that. she is manifesting hope by stealing away hope's opposite.

rage is an element of chaos and destruction, and while susie herself has plenty of that, she is not going to let the people she cares about destroy themselves in front of her

---

and then there's kris

so how i generally classpect people, particularly since we got the extended zodiac (it was a lawless land before then), is their aspect describes them as a person, their class is how that aspect relates to their role in the story

aspects due to each having an opposite also essentially come in six pairs, with a spectrum from one to the other. a lot of people have been putting kris as heart bc heart as an aspect can also relate to souls, but really in the context of homestuck the heart-mind spectrum is the spectrum of identity. that's what dirk and terezi's entire characters are there to explore. which isn't really kris' problem? they know who they are, it's just being written over

im instead much more inclined to put them on blood-breath, the spectrum of freedom and connection. we will narrow down exactly what side of that in a second

as far as class goes! while there is some controversy as to how those pair up, i generally see heir as the active counterpart to page - they're classes of inheritance. we know from john and jake (and various explanations in the comic) that heirs get access to the power of their aspect long before they really know what it is or how to use it, and they have to come to terms with that inheritance to gain control. pages we are told can do almost nothing until they truly understand their aspect, and then they become the most powerful in the game

kris has had a lot of things forced on them, that for a variety of reasons aren't really theirs yet (we don't know yet what they'll need to do to gain control but i have a feeling they at least have a theory). and also they just have heir vibes, i've seen a lot of people put them as heirs of various aspects so i think we can agree on that one

but then we hit a problem when it comes to aspect. see, kris does outwardly match the description of an heir of blood. blood is an element of connection to others, their power increases through bonds they have with their friends. and kris was given friends! and also their 'unique power' in the early chapters is [ACT]ing, they get access to those because their soul can shine a light on the people around them

it's not anywhere near as simple as that, though. because a) that power is textually coming from the soul, and b) whether it's them making the friends or the soul doing it is so muddled up at this point it's hard to really call it their power?

what we know about kris as a child (pre-soul stuff) matches the breath description much better. they're independent, they definitely follow their own path in things, noelle at least looked up to them but i'm not sure they ever realised, ramb saying kris is someone who seeks freedom without even knowing about what kris is dealing with atm. but these days? how can we give someone a classpect that translates to inheritor of freedom when they're trapped from every side?

well for that i have a quote from calliope to go back to. when she's explaining how classpects work, she says that player abilities often manifest in opposition to their aspect if the player is resistant to their true calling or corrupted by an outside influence

that last part. kris manifests as an heir of blood because we inverted their aspect!

(and that's before you even get into all the fun parallels with john and the piano)

[freakaz0ido]

seven devils

duke!choso x reader

previous • interlude • next

summary: Choso Kamo, the most recent Duke of Devonshire in his line, is the oldest of nine. Despite his efforts to guide his newest brother Yuuji on the proper path, he finds many obstacles to overcome. The greatest one being you. [wc: 6.4k]

cw: mdni (18+), bridgerton!au, angst, fluff, enemies to lovers, explicit and non-explicit mentions of abuse, choso is trying his best, yuuji doesnt know anything (lovingly), eventual smut

art: @//_MEME17 on X

════════════════════

Choso wishes he could give his Father one final kick in the arse.

It’s a damned shame he’s as deceased as can be. While Choso is forever grateful of that fact, he was not expecting to be left with such a parting gift.

The Kamo family is an old, ancient line with many connections to the royal family. Choso’s Father, the Duke of Devonshire, was a cruel man with a penchant for violence. Once he passed, the title was swiftly transferred to Choso. He hated his father with a flaming passion, loathed his cruelty. 

He’s grateful for one thing granted to him by his Father, and one thing only. This gift, one which he did not ask for but is elated to possess, being his eight brothers. Choso adores each and every one of them, and dotes on them accordingly. Makes sure they’re all taken care of, studying as they should be, and making their transition into workdom for the royal family.

What he’s less grateful for, much to his very strong dismay, is the hidden illegitimate son that his Father kept secret until the reading of his will. He couldn’t even have the decency to provide for the boy while he was alive.

There is nothing Choso hates more than a man who rejects familial values.

Alas, Choso is taking it in stride. He prides himself on being a good older brother, and a ninth is nothing in comparison to raising the others. No matter his legitimacy to the Kamo family, this boy is Choso’s brother, and he will treat him the same as all the others. 

It’s a shame that this one happens to be the most rambunctious, carefree, and utterly mindless of them all. 

Choso is getting too old for raising more children.

“Holy shit! This is where you live?!”

“Yuuji. Do not speak with such crass language, you are of nobility now.” Choso scolds, giving his youngest brother a stern look.

He’s never thought too much about the wealth or abundance of property he now possesses at his fingertips. To him, it serves as nothing more than a means to care for his siblings. 

For many others, the Kamo estate is a sight to behold. The manor is large and foreboding, everything prim and proper. No guest would ever be able to find even a speck of dust lingering on the premises. His father made sure it stayed that way. By habit, Choso ensures the same.

Much of the Kamo affluence was gained by both participation and donation to academic achievement. More specifically, the furtherment of scientific advancement for the Kingdom of England. Choso himself is an academic, studying towards doctorate status before the passing of his Father. He was required to take over the business ordeals from then onwards. To this day, it still fills him with a sense of bitterness. He had expected this as the eldest son, but had hoped selfishly to be able to pursue his passions for a time longer.

The majority of his brothers are studying abroad for that very reason. It often becomes lonely for Choso without them present, but he has an inkling that emotion will soon dissipate with the entry of his wide eyed little brother.

Choso expects Yuuji to follow in these same footsteps as the rest of his family.

While watching him scarf down his food at the dinner table like a wild animal, he realizes he has a long way to go to reach such a goal.

“Yuuji. Fix your posture, and refrain from eating so…ravenously. The food is not departing.” He corrects, and Yuuji immediately stands straight.

“Sorry, Choso! S’just so good.” He groans, speaking with a mouth full of lamb.

Choso cringes, but decides against scolding him further. The boy is new to this way of living, after all. He must remain patient.

“Tomorrow you will resume schooling. I have enlisted a private tutor to guide you. At eight in the morning sharp, you will meet with the tutor in the library. This is to continue until you reach the age for University.” Choso says, taking a bite of roasted vegetables.

Yuuji raises his hand, and Choso resists the urge to chuckle at him.

“You do not have to raise your hand to speak, Yuuji.” He says, lips upturned.

“Right. Choso, you said resume schooling?” Yuuji starts, confused.

“Indeed. Academics are important. You must study hard.” Choso confirms.

“Right, right. So, let’s say, perchance, that I didn’t go to school. What then?” 

Choso nearly chokes on his food, a rough cough leaving his throat. He stares at the boy across the table in abject surprise, waiting to see if the young boy just had an odd sense of humour. He doesn’t.

“You… never received any forms of education?” Choso prods, eye twitching.

“Nope.” Yuuji says, popping the ‘p’ sound, “Grew up with just Mom and the rest of the maids. Mom died when I was little though, so really it was just me and the maids. They took care of me, and they were really nice, but I mostly was just a servant I suppose.”

On one hand, he’s livid that education is so inaccessible for the lower class where Yuuji was raised. On the flipside, Choso is disturbed at the thought his younger brother is this far behind, and will begin child’s learning at the age of five and ten.

Choso, head in hands, is coming to the realization that yes, he does have a very long way to go.

—

“Choso, this is boring!” Yuuji pouts, head on Choso’s desk.

Choso leans back in his leather chair, the floorboards creaking under his movements.

“It is not boring. These are things you must know. I know you can do it.” Choso encourages, flipping through papers.

While Yuuji completes the homework provided by his tutor, Choso watches over him, providing help occasionally where required. It is no detriment to him, as both learning and teaching have always come easy to the eldest son. After all, he’s been doing this since the birth of his first brother.

Choso believes that everyone has a capability to learn, and there is intelligence in every person, regardless of the subject of study.

Much to his dismay, Yuuji is testing that belief. 

He had hoped that, after some time settling in, Yuuji would take to academics as the rest of his family has. It’s not happening, and Choso doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s an obstacle he has not faced.

“You really have to know this stuff?” Yuuji whines, face planted on the dark wood in front of him.

“You do. Yuuji, this is merely elementary work. You still must properly catch up to your age group from this point onwards.”

Yuuji groans, running a hand through his hair. Much to Choso’s relief, he begins to work again. He scribbles down various notes on the page. Choso signs his name on a few documents, and reads through another before his little brother speaks again.

“Choso! Let’s play football!” Yuuji chirps, throwing his pencil on the desk.

Choso sighs, taking off his reading glasses to rub his eyes.

“I have work to tend to. Additionally, I do not play sports. I find them irrelevant and an unnecessary distraction.” Choso says flippantly, brushing off Yuuji.

He goes back to his paperwork, intent on finishing everything that needs to be done. The clock on the wall ticks, filling the cold and empty room with its repetition. The quiet is unusual. Choso looks back up in response to Yuuji’s silence, and his heart squeezes at the sight.

Yuuji is quite obviously crestfallen by Choso’s words, his face scrunched up while he does his work. Choso immediately feels guilty for shutting him down so roughly. His other brothers are used to his lack of tact, but Yuuji has not experienced it yet. He stutters a few times, trying to find the words to say to Yuuji to make the expression on his face disappear.

“Yuuji, I…. I apologize. I did not mean to be so rude. You must ask Eso after your homework. I’m positive he would be more than happy to oblige.” Choso offers.

A smile graces his brother’s features again, bringing great relief to Choso.

“Sure!”

Yuuji seems motivated to complete his work following the conversation. Choso watches him with a smile. He’s animatedly scribbling, tongue peeking out with concentration. He’s so full of life. So joyful, views the world with so much hope.

So… simple. Not in a demeaning way. Choso is glad Yuuji is left without burdens despite his less fortunate upbringing. He wishes he could say the same. Desires to be as free as Yuuji.

“Choso?” Yuuji asks.

“What is it, Brother?”

Yuuji pauses, lips pursed. Turmoil burns behind his eyes, his body language doing a complete switch from how he was moments prior.

“...Why did you take me in?” Yuuji murmurs, the question barely reaching Choso’s ears.

Choso stiffens, his arms that were once crossed falling to his lap.

“Pardon?” Choso asks, bewildered.

“I mean, you could have just left me there. I would’ve been fine. I don’t… I clearly don’t belong here. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not even really your br-”

“Enough of this nonsense.” Choso barks, shooting out of his chair.

Yuuji jumps, his jaw dropping open as Choso storms around his side of the desk. He kneels down, placing a firm hand on Yuuji’s.

The look in his eyes is fierce. Unyielding. Displays every ounce of loyalty that his brother must know he has for him.

“You are my brother. In every way. I exist to ensure all my siblings are well cared for, you included. You are welcome here. This will always be your home, no matter the words of others.” 

Choso does not take kindly to people insulting his brothers. This includes when they speak ill of themselves. It’s a line that Choso will not allow anyone to cross.

Yuuji nods in reluctant acceptance, grabbing Choso’s hand back. 

Choso realizes, then, that maybe he had the wrong impression of Yuuji. His expression is plastered with fears that have been lingering under the surface, afraid to come out. He mentally kicks himself for not noticing sooner.

Of course he’d be fucking scared. Yuuji has been uprooted from his home, taken from anything he ever knew. Placed him in a new environment with no preparation, left him to explore a frankly gargantuan manor that is barely filled with material items let alone souls. In his mind, he’s alone. He’s afraid.

Choso has taken the wrong approach.

It’s not easy to fix the mess he’s found himself in. This was not how Choso was raised. Not how he was taught to deal with these kinds of situations. Emotions were not his greatest strength. He shows his care not with words, but rather actions.

He ruffles Yuuji’s hair, and sits back in his chair. 

“Postpone the homework for tomorrow day, Yuuji. Go, enjoy yourself.” He says, trying his best to seem as relaxed as possible.

“Really?!” Yuuji exclaims, jumping up.

Before Choso can even reply and inform him that it’s a one time ordeal, Yuuji has already thrown the door open, his heavy footsteps running down the hall. His brief call for his other brother is heard, and Choso chuckles at the sound.

—

Choso’s laxness with Yuuji has become a curse.

He’s finding it increasingly hard to say ‘no’ to him. He has such a way of convincing Choso to give him anything he wants, really. It’s already hard enough for Choso to not give into any of his brother’s every whims, and the addition of Yuuji to the household has not helped.

Yuuji has been skipping his tutoring sessions. Repeatedly.

Sometimes he won’t even show himself in the first place. He’s off, running around doing god only knows what. While Choso understands that learning doesn’t come easy to young Yuuji, he isn’t even trying to use any of his potential.

Choso has had both maids and butlers out looking for him all day, and no one has reported back with any sightings. Until now. Choso grits his teeth, heels clacking off the styled marble while he marches to the family dining room. The least he could do before running rampant was have the decency to let Choso know he’s safe. 

Choso throws open the double doors, the wood hitting the walls with a loud ‘bang!’ that makes the three brothers present freeze. 

Eso and Kechizu, his remaining brothers at the estate, stare at him wide eyed. Choso isn’t focused on them. He’s zoned in on Yuuji, who, by the state of his face, absolutely knows that he’s in deep trouble.

“Chos-” 

“Where were you?” Choso grits out.

Yuuji looks down, embarrassed. He stays quiet, and Choso reiterates.

“Yuuji. I asked you a question.”

Eso speaks up, defending Yuuji.

“Brother, give him some leniency. He’s young. He’s allowed to act like it.” Eso points out, pleading for his brother’s case.

“Young he may be, but he has responsibilities that he must take care of. I have only asked one thing of him. To show up.” Choso argues, unwilling to give up this time.

All eyes are on the youngest now. Bashfully, Yuuji twiddles his thumbs. Choso waits in the doorway, arms crossed. 

“...Sorry, Choso. It won’t happen again.” He mutters.

With a deep sigh, Choso relents. He sits in his chair at the head of the table, rubbing his temples. He can feel the migraine forming already.

The kitchen staff bring out the day’s spread of supper, a mouth watering collection of different meats and roasted vegetables. While his younger brothers dig into the meal, Choso pokes at his food, his mind elsewhere.

“Yuuji, what is the book you have there?” Eso asks, pointing beside his plate.

His eyes light up, excited. 

“A fantasy book! The lady next door gave it to me, she’s super nice.” Yuuji exclaims before taking a large sip of wine.

“A fantasy book.” Choso deadpans.

“Yep! It’s super interesting. Lots of dragons and awesome fights.” 

Choso feels his irritation building, but pushes it down.

“Is that where you have been? Speaking with the Viscountess next door?” Choso asks, trying to not lose his cool.

“Not the Viscountess, the daughter! She’s really cool, she does a lot of painting and reading. She lent me the book.” Yuuji replies.

Choso has only met the family next door in passing. He’s not one to interact with many in public, despite how closely the two families live together. The Viscount has been involved in various business ventures, but he knows next to nothing about his daughter. 

It makes him wary. Who is this girl, influencing his brother and filling his mind with nonsense? Taking him away from his studies, his responsibilities?

He won’t let this pass.

“While I am pleased you are making… friends, Yuuji, I would much rather you read textbooks than some fictional story.” Choso points out.

“Yes, Choso.” He murmurs.

Eso, trying to disperse the awkward tension in the air, continues to chat with Yuuji about his various escapades. It continues until the end, where Choso leaves first, bidding his siblings good night.

That evening, Choso can’t sleep. He often finds sleep does not come easy, but it especially escapes him tonight. He stares out the window, watching the trees blow in the wind, wondering how he can fix this. How he can convince Yuuji to be set on the right path.

He decides to get an outside opinion.

—

Nanami Kento is a reasonable man.

The Nanami family has only recently entered into the Ton. They worked their way up from lower class through international trading dealings and business. They are the first family in a very long time to do so, the Queen granting them Baronship.

Choso respects Nanami. He’s a hardworking man with good family values. He also is aware of both ends of life in the Ton, both high class and impoverished. It’s why Choso decides to meet with him for advice on the matter of his youngest brother.

“I am at a loss for how to approach this. He’s wild, untameable. He doesn’t listen. No, refuses to.” Choso says, staring at his cup of tea.

Nanami sits across from him, stirring sugar into his earl grey tea. 

“He likely just needs time. This life is vastly different from the one he was brought up in.” Nanami points out.

“I have provided him time. I have given him every resource I possibly can muster. What if he never adjusts?”

The thought fills Choso with dread. The idea that no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries, he will fail his brother. That Yuuji will be led astray, leading an improper life. He would not be able to forgive himself.

Choso’s jaw clenches. He takes a sip of tea in an attempt to calm himself.

Nanami hums, thinking of his next words carefully. 

“It’s possible. You cannot control him, My Lord. From what you’ve relayed to me, it seems like he’s just living as any young boy outside the Ton does. You must realize that while this situation is new to you, it is much more of a monumental change for him.” 

Choso sighs. He calls the maid over to refill the teapot.

“I cannot understand him. We are too different. I was raised in the Ton my entire life. I do not know how to make him more comfortable, nor give him that sense of belonging.” Choso admits.

“Perhaps you should tutor him personally.” Nanami suggests.

“Me?” Choso parrots, surprised.

“Indeed. If he will not attend tutoring with another, it is feasible he may partake if you are the one doing the teaching.”

Choso mulls on his words. He has been extremely busy these days with the workload, constantly having his head in papers into the late hours of the night and early sunrise in the morning. Would he even have time for such a thing?

As if Nanami knows what he’s thinking, he says the words that put the final nail in the coffin for Choso.

“I understand you are a busy man. The boy might appreciate you taking time for him. It could bring you closer.”

And Choso wants nothing more than that.

He stands up, offering his hand out for Nanami.

“I appreciate you taking the time to come and provide advice. I will take this into consideration.” Choso says, a new determination filling him.

Nanami shakes his hand firmly.

“It is my pleasure. Do keep me updated. I would like to know how it goes.” He replies.

Indeed, Choso would like to know as well.

—

It doesn’t go well.

Well, that’s a bit of an over exaggeration. At first, it was pleasant. Yuuji was attending tutoring, finally, with the promise of spending more time with his older brother. He seemed to be catching on well, with Choso taking different approaches in his teaching, finding one that finally seemed to make sense to Yuuji. The boy just needed a more hands on approach is all.

Choso would be lying if he said he wasn’t also enjoying it. It was a fantastic destressor from his everyday duties, and he found Yuuji’s company quite enjoyable. He believed they were finally understanding each other. 

At least, they were at one point.

Yuuji is skipping again.

Choso takes another glance at his watch, realizing that Yuuji is now late by almost an hour. He stands up out of his chair, leaving the library swiftly.

He checks every room he can possibly think of. Each of his brother’s bedrooms, the common room, every study. Hell, he even checks the kitchen and maid’s quarters, knowing that Yuuji has a penchant for bothering the wait staff.

After scanning the house, he finds that his younger brother is nowhere to be seen. He steps into the gardens, taking in the fresh air and sun. Choso closes his eyes, basking in the rays on his pale skin. Patience, he’s finding, is his greatest virtue to be learned from Yuuji.

Choso hears distant laughter.

One voice is coming from a woman he does not recognize. The other is definitely his younger brother. Stupidly, he did not check the one place that Yuuji has said he visited repeatedly. One place he has often used to escape the clutch of his studies.

Next door.

He walks across the gardens in the direction of the voices, shoving his way through hedges and bushes. When he enters the property of his neighbours, he sees them.

Sees you.

“What on Earth is going on here?”

—

Being raised as a woman in the Ton is not easy. Perfection is expected, and your parents provided you the resources to behave as such.

As the daughter of a Viscount, this expectation was amplified tenfold. 

Your great grandfather was the first Viscount of your line, leaving your father as the third. As the only child, a daughter nonetheless, the name will not be passed down to any sons. Many nights, you find yourself wishing you could take on the title yourself, at least to stop the disappointed glares you’ve received your whole life from your father.

You walk down the halls of your childhood estate, nervously toying with the silks of your gown. Your parents summoned you urgently, which is never a good sign. 

You slide on your gloves to hide the paint staining your fingers. Despite your inclination for the arts, and your parent’s urgency in your partaking in womanly hobbies, they would throw a fit to see you so unkempt.

You hear your parents before you see them. Your mother, pamphlet in hand, is discussing the latest gossip in the newest Lady Whistledown paper released that very morning. Your father is entirely uninterested.

“Can you believe it? A bastard, from the esteemed Kamo family. I truly cannot believe they allowed that stain into their household. What must be running through the new Duke’s mind?” Your mother rants, appalled.

“Hm.” Your father replies.

“What a nightmare. I would never allow such a scandal to occur. Maybe the gossip will finally run that hermit and his hooligan brothers out of town.” She scoffs.

Your mother turns to you, waving the pamphlet in the air.

“Dearest, did you hear the latest news?” She asks.

You quietly roll your eyes, taking a seat on the expensive blue furniture.

“I now have.” You reply.

“The Kamo family, finally showing their true colours! Don’t you agree, dear?” She asks your father.

“Indeed.” He flips the page in his book.

Unwilling of any more of your mother’s negativity, you pipe up.

“I think it rather kind of the new Duke to shelter his newest sibling. It is a great testament to his character.” You chirp.

Both your parents gaze at you now, disapprovingly.

“That boy is not a Kamo. They should have left him to rot. Inviting him into the family is a mere testament to his foolishness, nothing more.” Your mother says sternly.

You sigh, resting your head on your hand.

“Why did you call for me, Mother?” You ask, unwilling to argue.

She places the pamphlet on a nearby table, mood suddenly shifting to a more positive note. She stands, sitting beside you. Your mother takes your hands in her own, looking at you earnestly.

“My dear, it is time.” She says.

Her cryptic words leave you feeling both uneasy and confused. 

“...Time for what, Mother?” 

Your father places his book on his lap.

“It is time to open yourself to the Ton. This season, you will be presenting yourself to the Queen as a show for your availability to marry.” He replies, voice devoid of emotion.

Your heart drops.

Marriage?

“B-but, Father, is it not too early? I am still young as of yet, surely we can wait a while long-”

“It is not up for discussion.” He commands strongly.

Your mother takes your chin softly, smiling down at you.

“Dearest, this is something to celebrate! You should be grateful. Marriage is the greatest honour bestowed upon a woman. We have been preparing you since you were a wee child.” She grins.

You push her hand away, standing out of your chair. Your chest heaves with how heavy you breathe, feeling the walls closing in on you. The thought of being married off to any man who pleases to have you makes you feel like one of the cattle grazing in the countryside, mindless and easily manipulatable.

The greatest honour? What a joke. To think that the only honourable purpose you have in this world is to belong to a man. It makes your stomach clench, nausea rising. 

Of course you knew it was coming. If your parents had their way, you would have already been out last season. Successfully, until this point, you’ve managed to put off any betrothals your parents attempted to lure you in with. 

Your luck has run out.

“I don’t want this! Do neither of you care to listen for what I desire?” You shout, appalled.

“You dare speak to us that way? Lower your tone!” Your father shouts.

His voice booms throughout the room, your maid jumping at the sudden increase in volume.

“Don’t be so selfish.” Your mother scoffs, “This is what you were meant to do. What you were always meant to do. I have done it, as has every woman in our lineage. Fix yourself. You are unseemly to gaze upon.” 

A shuddered exhale leaves your body, and your fists clench at your sides. It’s not fair. It never has been.

You hate them. Hate yourself even more for being so compliant. Some things never change, no matter how grown you become.

“... As you wish.”

You storm out of the common room, maid chasing after you frantically.

You fight the tears beginning to make their appearance.

—

The weather, much to your pleasure, had been warming. The grass once covered in frost is now soft under your fingertips. You thread your fingers through the blades, attempting to ground yourself and stop your mind from racing.

Your parent’s words have been on your mind for days. The fear, the dread, the anxiety. It’s overwhelming, and you’ve often found yourself outside to escape the stifling air indoors. A book sits on your lap, untouched. You can only read a few lines before your mind starts to wander.

Thankfully, your maid has allowed you a moment of peace to be by yourself. 

You attempt to begin reading again.

It works briefly. You engross yourself in the words, flesh out the storyline in your mind. It’s rather entertaining.

An object flies over the hedges bordering your estate, landing with a loud ‘thump’.

You stare at it.

A… ball?

The bushes shake, heavy rustling making their way through. A boy, who can’t be older than eight and ten, forces his way through the greenery, branches sticking out of his pink hair. His eyes lock in on the ball, a hearty grin stretching across his face.

Only when he obtains the leather ball, tossing it between his hands, does he notice you sitting on your bench.

Silence.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to intrude! I was just…” He stammers, gesturing to the ball in his hands.

You stifle a snort, closing the book in your hands.

“Do not fret, all is well. I understand completely.” You reassure, lips upturned.

He sags with relief.

Before you can speak again, he struts over, plopping himself down on the bench beside you. His complete lack of nervousness in the presence of a complete stranger both confuses and intrigues you. 

You scrunch your nose at the smell of sweat from the young boy. He must have been playing for a while.

“My name is Yuuji! I just moved in next door. What’s your name?” He asks cheerfully.

You tell him your name, and only then do you realize who exactly is sitting beside you. 

This must be the illegitimate son your mother was speaking of mere days ago. He isn’t quite what you expected. You had assumed he would be more… Kamo like. Reserved, quiet, socially uncomfortable. He’s the exact opposite you’ve heard from any rumours of the mysterious family.

Yuuji is quite literally sunshine encapsulated.

“You’re my neighbour, right? That’s awesome! I haven’t met anyone here yet. People are kind of mean.” He pouts.

“Indeed. The members of the Ton are not always welcoming to new individuals.” You chuckle.

“That’s an understatement. You seem nice, though! It’s not like I had many friends back home anyways. There weren’t many kids around. Only maids. Not that they weren’t fun to be around! What are you reading?” He rambles.

It’s a breath of fresh air to speak with him. Someone so untouched by the prim and proper expectations of nobility, free from lifelong scrutiny. You’ve long since abandoned laxness, trained to carefully say what words in what specific scenario.

“It is a fiction novel. A fantasy, to be more specific.” You tell him, showing him some of the fake maps illustrated at the beginning.

“A fantasy?” He inquires, looking over your shoulder.

You scoot slightly away from him to increase your distance, knowing what your parents (or anyone, for that matter) would say if they saw the boy so close to an unmarried young lady. Yuuji, obliviously, slides over to follow you.

You smile at him.

“A book about adventure. Knights, princesses, dragons. I rather enjoy a good fiction story. It is… a good distraction from my own life.” You murmur, running your hands along the spine.

“I can understand. Choso doesn’t want me reading fiction. He says I should be focusing on academics. So boring.” Yuuji whines.

“Choso?” You ask.

“My brother!” He chirps.

You don’t know a thing about the new duke besides his title. The previous duke was rather reserved, and his son was even worse. You’ve seen him in passing. Always in a refined black suit with a rich purple cravat. His appearance was much talked about in gossip. A bizarre hairstyle, his eyes bleak and tired with heavy dark circles. The alleged dark scar across his face.

It makes you sad to think the boy is so restricted from his creativity. Surely his brother could stand to be a little more lenient with him, no?

You reach out, offering the book to Yuuji.

“Take it. Read it, tell me what you think of the contents. I am curious to know.” You say.

Immediately, he perks up, glee evident.

“Really?!” He exclaims loudly, surprising you.

He takes the book, about to flip through the pages when his name is called in the distance.

He gawks, rising from his seat and running in the direction in which he came. He yells over his shoulder, waving wildly.

“Thanks! See you soon!” He grins, shoving his way through the hedges once again.

You smile, waving back.

Something tells you that this definitely will not be the last you hear from young Yuuji.

—

And it wasn’t.

Yuuji had continuously come to visit every day since. Some days he would chat your ear off about anything and everything that crossed his mind. Others, he would lay beside you in the grass while you read him the book you lent him.

You have yet to tell anyone of your encounters with the youngest Kamo, least of all your parents. You know it would be a scandal, and anyone in society would agree that it is unseemly. 

Despite this, you’ve realized from your encounters with Yuuji that you’ve been achingly, desperately lonely. You have no siblings. Your parents rarely converse with you under the pretense that they have more important matters to tend to. Any acquaintances you have had left during the off season for the countryside.

Yuuji is like the little brother you never had. You enjoy caring for him, simply lending him company at the simplest of times. In addition, Yuuji has proved to be a great distraction from your impending inevitable betrothal.

From time to time, Yuuji will convince you to play various games with him. On this particular occasion, it’s an intense game of Pall Mall. 

Yuuji lines up his mallet, focusing in. Cicadas ring in the distance, the heat making you sweat. You watch him in anticipation while he winds up for the hit, landing the swing with a loud ‘thwap’! The ball goes flying through the second hoop with ease.

You cheer, clapping profusely. He jumps up as well, laughing loudly.

“Yuuji! I was not aware you were so proficient in sports. You should have warned me before I agreed to such a losing game.” You tease, poking him with your mallet.

He blushes, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

“I’ve played sports my whole life. It was all I could do, really.” He says wistfully.

You place a hand on his shoulder.

“It is a great talent indeed. You should feel proud.” You tell him softly.

He smiles sadly. At his sudden silence, which is so unlike him, you prod further.

“Yuuji? Are you quite alright?” You ask.

He purses his lips, thinking about his next words carefully.

“I… yes. I am just missing my old home.” He mutters, rolling his mallet in his hands.

“Oh Yuuji…” You say, glancing at him woefully, “Perhaps you should visit. I’m sure you can spare one afternoon away from your studies.”

“Maybe. I don’t want Choso to think I am… ungrateful. I’m not! I actually am very thankful to him for everything he’s done for me. I just…” He sighs loudly, “I can tell I am not what he anticipated I would be. That I am not living up to his expectations.”

He walks over to his ball. You watch him, letting him express his frustrations.

“In truth, I never wanted this. I was happy, truly, despite not having anything to my name. I didn’t ask to be thrust into nobility. It’s hard to have so much resting on my shoulders. I am the opposite of all my brothers, especially Choso. I just wish… that I belonged.” He trails off, face forlorn.

You think of what to say. You raise your mallet, hitting your ball. It lands just short of the hoop. Walking closer to Yuuji, you tell him your honest thoughts.

“It’s possible you are different from your brothers. I cannot truly say, for I do not know them as you do. What I do know, however, is that belonging is not a matter of difference. Possessing differences is what constructs us as human. Belonging is the individuals you surround yourself with. I am certain that your brothers would say you belong with them, as would I.” 

You place a hand on his shoulder, smiling.

“You are one of a kind, Yuuji. Do not change yourself to fit into society. You will find your community, and there are people here who already adore you just the way you are.”

His lower lip trembles.

Lean arms wrap around you, entrapping you in a close hug. You hold him closer, shushing him gently.

“Thank you, Big Sister.” He whispers.

Against your wishes, a wide smile crosses your face.

“Big Sister?” You tease, his arms still wrapped around you.

While you may tease him, your heart squeezes at his vulnerability. Perhaps you were meant to have a sibling after all.

“Shush.” He says, voice muffled by your dress.

You laugh, pulling away and patting him on the cheek.

“Come, Yuuji. Let us finish the game. You must hurry and win to spare me the humiliation for much longer.”

To your greatest pleasure, he beams.

—

Yuuji disappears for a few days after that. While you miss his presence, you understand that he has much studying to do, and is conversing with his brothers. You hope that, after your conversation the previous week, he is focusing more energy on spending time with them, not withheld by the fear of not fitting in.

You yourself have been quite busy, regardless. Your mother has taken to preparing you for the upcoming season, much to your dismay. Many public appearances, many trips to the modiste for fittings and tailoring gowns.

This is excluding the near constant meetings with tutors and distant betrothed female cousins alike. Your parents are making it abundantly clear that you will be married off this season, regardless of your feelings on the matter.

“Mother! I am going to relax in the gardens!” You yell out, grabbing your kit of paint and a small canvas.

You don’t wait up for her distant reply, and your heels make a soft tapping noise while you run outside. 

Your brushes softly scrape against the canvas. The azure ink seeps in, leaving behind a picturesque landscape. There is no plan when you start painting, really. It’s rather cathartic to let your hands guide you. To feel the sun on your skin, the serenity of silence, and just be.

In your art, there is no pressure. No desire for perfection. None of the constant lingering eye society casts upon you. 

It’s perfection in a small, colourful palette of pigment.

“What are you up to, Big Sis?”

“Yuuji!” You exclaim, mood suddenly much lighter.

He smiles cheekily, his attempts to sneak up on you a failure. He’s dressed down rather casually, simply donning a loose linen top and red slacks. He looks calmer. More at peace.

When he sits beside you, you pat him on the head.

“It has been too long. How have you been?” You ask him, placing your brush on the easel.

“Good! Choso has been tutoring me. I’ve been taking in what you said as well, just focusing on becoming closer to my brothers.” He smiles, fiddling with your cup of brushes.

“I’m glad to hear it.” You tell him earnestly, “Come, paint with me. I happened to acquire another canvas just in case.”

You find that, much like yourself, Yuuji is a very messy artist. A very talented one, but one that leaves the task covered in various streaks of pigment. You chuckle while the two of you catch up, seeing his focus and the smear of green across his face.

“How is it tutoring under your brother? Is he behaving patiently enough with you?” You ask.

Yuuji sighs.

“Yes, he has. It’s much better than being educated by a random stranger. It still doesn’t make me any more interested in what I’m learning, though. Especially mathematics.” He pouts.

You laugh, dipping your brush in water. The white paint ripples through the jar like smoke.

“I’ve never been much of a fan of mathematics myself. Too much thinking required for such menial tasks.” You muse.

“Tell me about it.” He groans, dipping his small brush in the yellow pot of paint.

When he wipes the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand, another streak of paint is left in its place. You stifle a laugh.

“Yuuji, are you painting the canvas or yourself?”

“Huh?” He asks, confused.

You pull a small mirror from your kit, showing him his reflection. His cheeks burn red, and you cannot hold in the giggles any longer.

“Shut up! You don’t look much better!” He grins, pointing at you accusingly.

It’s true. You are wearing the gown you generally sacrifice for such activities, stained with various colours. You flick your brush at him at his cheekiness, the spatter painting his ivory skin orange. He gawks, flicking back in retaliation.

You gape at him in fake outrage, moving to give him another flick of paint.

It becomes a full blown paint fight, the pigments meant to be placed onto the canvas now scattered on clothes, the stone underneath you, and the table. Screams are exchanged, faux arguments laced with fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Briefly, in the back of your mind, you imagine the picture the two of you create. You’re lucky no one will see you like this.

“What on Earth is going on here?”

════════════════════

a/n: reposting this and continuing it from ao3!! i had writers block for this fic for months but im revved and ready lol

[phoenixeclipse-lmkau]

You know, my butt in any of the yandere Shadowpeach x reader au’s would probably just accept my fate pretty easily. I can’t outrun them, I can’t fight them, and I can’t verbally assault them forever (though I would try but keeping anger is exhausting).

However, what the two probably will soon come to find out is that even though I may be their wife(or husband), doesn’t mean I won’t ever stop being petty.

That means if I can’t go somewhere, like a lake or the orchards to relax by myself, good luck finding me in the entire palace or house because I will hole myself up in the most tiny place that the two massive monkey demons could not go and where I should never have been able to fit into.

If they keep me in their nest for too long, I will find a way to perch above their heads. How I got there will be a mystery that neither servant nor guard will ever know.

If they want kisses, they’ll have to earn them by doing what I want for once. If they don’t like it, well, I don’t mind being quiet for a few months.

Again, I’m petty but not heartless. So cubs will easily make me cave, but not for long.

Anyways, wanted to give you a chance to write reader in any of your aus as petty.

Tiny space

Ooh! I like this!

You found it when you were looking through the walk in wardrobe they had made. There were many nooks and crannies in it, all designed to house all kinds of clothing from silk to straight up armor. So when you found a small box empty with just enough room for you to huddle in you found yourself doing just that.

It was cozy with just the right amount of space, hidden in to corner where you couldn’t see unless you were purposefully looking. Not to mention as you calmed your breathing and took out a book to read you found it to be the perfect reading nook!

Of course it wasn’t as peaceful when the duo ran through the room looking for you.

“How the hell did you get in there!?” Wukong shouts in shock as he stares at your comfortable spot.

You just grinned as Macaque joined his mate, pouting when they realized it was too small to give you cuddles in. Wukong would have dragged you out if not for Macaque shadow portalling you to their bed.

No kisses

“What do you mean no kisses!?” Wukong gawked as you crossed your arms over your chest and looked away.

“Just that, there will be NO kisses until you earn them,” You responded with a fierce determination on your face. Both of the demons looked at each other and then back at you with the most adorable pouts on their faces.

However, it didn’t sway you and you quickly turned around and crossed your arms, refusing to acknowledge their attempts at getting your attention. No, you were going to let them simply suffer.

The duo would absolutely hate that you are doing this, especially if it’s after they’ve already gotten kisses from you.

Wukong might even sneak a kiss on your cheek just to rile you up and make you mad at him.

Macaque would probably get some cubs to help him rather quickly, he knows how much you like cubs. After all that’s why you helped him and Wukong all those years ago. You wanted to save them as cubs so they would use this to their advantage without much thought.

[aparticularbandit]

so. haven't technically added another chapter to the dr1 end rewrite fic but.

i did go back and separate out the hallucination chapter. basically moved the ending of that chapter into its own chapter (it will be the end of that, so i will need to expand and add on before that) and then expanded and added a new ending to the old chapter.

so right now i have thirteen chapters of this fic.

eleven of those chapters are roughed out.

then there's the one i have the ending for but need to write the rest of.

and then the chapter after that is a remnants chapter but i would like to finish dr2 before writing that one (i have an idea of what i want them doing and how i plan to implement, say, kazuichi - but at this point, i want to wait until i find out what's up with izuru and hajime before roughing that chapter out).

and then the next thing i want to write in the sequence is the first chapter of that memories fic i mentioned that interlocks with this fic. and then back to the fic proper, i think.

we'll see?

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Just for your consideration, characters don't have to be siblings/family to each other to be able to participate in nonsexual/nonromantic intimacy.

[classyrbf]

um...ugh... um... anal with professor!nanami... teaching you some respect yk... yeah... in his office, scolding you while prepping on his fingers... yeah...

love your works please be happy🫶

PROFESSOR NANAMI #2 — NANAMI KENTO

SYNOPSIS...after unknowingly having sex with your professor before the first day of college, you find yourself avoiding him in attempts to save yourself from embarrassment, but when you fail your first quiz, he’s quick to see you after class

INFO...professor!nanami x fem!reader, anal, first time, nanami is a little mean, rough sex, degradation, clit rubbing, spanking, creampie, no p in v, overstim, panty ripping, fucking in his office, possessiveness (?), not proofread

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

read the first part here

it’s been weeks since your first interaction with professor nanami. You were surprised that he hadn’t noticed you or even called you out for being his student. Maybe he just decided to ignore it all together and move on with his life to save both of you from embarrassment. If so, thank god. There’s no way he’s gone a month without grading papers and seeing your name, let alone just seeing you in the crowd of students. It’d be a miracle.

But he does notice, he’s noticed since day one when you tried to sneakily hide your face at the end of class, rushing out the door. Was he shocked? Of course. You never said you were a college student, especially at this college. But what are the odds he’d end up being your professor? He finds it funny. Lately, he’s been finding every excuse to talk to you without making it look suspicious and thankfully for him, you failed your first quiz.

He’s calling down students to his desk to give them their papers, finally landing on yours, a big fat ‘F’ in the corner of it. “Y/n,” he calls out, waving the sheet. Your figure enters his sight, carefully walking down the lecture hall stairs. Slowly, he lifts his head, glasses hanging low on his nose. “See me after class.” He hands you the paper, an expressionless look on his face.

If the ‘F’ in the corner of your paper immediately caught your attention and you felt like you wanted to collapse right then and there. Really? You flunked your first quiz? And your professor, who you accidentally fucked, now sees how dumb you are? Life couldn’t get any more worse. “Okay,” you murmur, walking back to your seat with shaky hands while he calls another student.

An hour passes, and everyone else is gathering their things to head back to their dorms or their next class for the day. Your eyes tread on Nanami carefully, hoping if he’s distracted enough, you can sneak away. He tidies up the papers on his desk, pushing his glasses up. You attempt to blend it with the crowd, leaving, slinging your backpack over your shoulder.

“Miss y/n,” his voice rings in your ears, making you stop in your tracks. “Please, come here.” He folds arms across his chest, leaning against the front of his desk as he intently watches you walk towards him, barely able to look him in the eye. The last student leaves, the lecture hall completely empty, nothing but silence. “Into my office,” he orders, squinting at you.

You thickly swallow, your mouth dry and your heart pounding against your chest as you follow behind him. He shuts the door behind you, the click of the lock making you even more nervous. The smell of his expensive cologne wafts past you, the same cologne he was wearing the night you two met. “You think I haven’t noticed you hiding away from me?” He steps towards you, making you step away in return. “I’ll admit, I was a little shocked to see your face in my class of students,” he chuckled, trapping you between the wall and him. “I feel like some type of pervert. Fucking one of my students in my car? I should feel horrible, devastated even.

“I’m…I’m sorry, I should’ve told you I was—” You can’t even finish your sentence, your nerves making you stumble over your words. How are you so shy around him now, but you weren’t too shy to fuck him?

“Everytime I look at you in class, all I think about is that night. You know how fucking hard it is to try and not get a hard on in the middle of class?” He grits his teeth. His grips your jaw, forcing you to look at him, his dark eyes boring into hours. He takes your hand, allowing you to feel his semi hard cock through his slacks. “You feel that? That’s what you fucking do to me.” The warmth of your hand makes him shudder.

“It was an accident, that night was just supposed to be a one time thing,” you tried to argue, but deep down, you never wanted it to be, not with how hard he made you cum while whispering such dirty things in your ear.

“No, no,” he shakes his head, smiling. “You’ve been a bad fucking girl lately. Ignoring me, failing your quiz, what were you thinking? You need to be taught a lesson,” he huffs. His larger hand yanks you over to his desk, a smell yelp escaping your lips when pushes down, holding you there. He lightly traces his fingertips against your skin, goosebumps appearing. He pushes up your skirt, getting a good view of your ass, and the cute lace thong you’re wearing underneath. “Is this what you wear to class?” He question, pulling back the fabric and letting it snap back onto your skin.

A crack in the air breaks the silence, his hand smacking your ass, making you jolt forward. “Ah!” You whimper, your skin stinging from the contact. He wastes no time to swat his hand over your ass again, hitting the same spot. “Mmmph!” You bite down on your lower lip.

His broad chest presses against your back, his lips ghosting against your ear. “You ready to be a good girl yet?” He spanks you again, the sting making you squirm beneath him. “I’ll take that as a no.” He smack the other cheek three times back ro back, a muffled cry escaping from your lips. His eyes wander down to your pussy, noticing the wet spot on your panties. “Is that what you’re expecting? Expecting me to fuck this pretty little pussy today? You got it all wrong. Bad girls don’t get fucked in their dripping cunt.” With ease, he rips your panties off, discarding the fabric to the floor.

“I’m sorryyy,” you whine, hips wiggling in hold as he spreads your ass to get a good look at your holes. Your pussy is glistening, tempting him, reminding him of how warm and tight you are, but he shouldn’t reward you with what you want. He can’t. You gasp, feel his warm spit drip onto your asshole, a foreign feeling to you. Was he seriously going to fuck you in your ass right now? The pad of his thumb rubbed in his spit, his free hand undoing his belt and unbuttoning his pants. “Please, Professor Nanami,” you whimper, looking over your shoulder to see he already has his cock out.

He smears his precum against your ass, slapping the head of cock against it, growling at the sensation. He spreads your ass again, prodding his cock against your hole. He lifts one of your legs onto his desk, trying to stretch you as much as possible. You’re a whining, dripping mess. He spits once more on your puckering hole, slowly pushing himself in. “Ahhh, fuckkk,” he groans, his tip pushing inside.

“Nnnghh! Slow! Slow!” You cry out, reaching your hand back in attempts to stop him, but he just keeps stretching you open with his thick cock, letting you feel every inch without stopping. If it’s hurts so bad why does it feel so good? He’s already so deep inside you, his pelvis pressed against your ass, letting you feel his throbbing cock against your walls. “Oh my god, I can feel it,” you moan, bewildered by the fact he was actually inside you.

He pulls his hips back all the way, before fully thrusting back into you. “So fucking tight, hah…shit,” he pants, hooking his arm around yours, and holding them in place as he pounds into you. “Look at the fucking ass,” he grunts, smacking it before groping the burning flesh in his palm.

Your eyes roll to the back of your skull. You never knew getting fucked in the ass would feel this good. Though, it was still torture. Your pussy was still dripping, eager for any ounce of attention. Each thrust has your mind turning into mush by the second. It’s hurts so fucking good, you’re confused whether to moan or be on the verge of tears. “Please, please, I’m sorry!” You cry out. The duality of this man was beyond you. He so easily can go from whispering praises in your ear to treating you like a complete whore.

“Shh, shh, just take my fucking cock. This is what you get when you don’t behave,” he rasps out, pulling you back on his cock, leaving you no room to run away from the intense pleasure.

“Ah! Ah! Fuckkk! I can’t, I can’t!” Tears prick the corner of your eyes, your hand balling into fists, nails digging into your palms. His cock rams into your ass, you poor pussy clenching around nothing. Your brows furrow in pleasure, completely awestruck by the pleasure. Your skin is hot to the touch, that familiar pit forming in your stomach. “Mmph, I’m…I’m gonna cum!” You whimper.

“Don’t you dare cum. You don’t deserve to fucking cum for acting the way you did. Hold it,” he barks in your ear, breath fanning against your skin and sending a shiver down your spine. He’s completely unfair, his cock still fucking you so deep, making it harder for you to keep control.

You shake your head, jaw falling slack as the pleasure builds and builds, ready to spill over the edge. “Please! I’m gonna cummm!” You cry out, looking back at him, desperation written all over your face. “Ah! Ah! Please, Professor Nanami,” your eyes flicker down to his lips. “Let me cum, please,” you beg and beg, hoping he has a sliver of mercy. He smirks at your attempts, his hand reaching between your legs while you’re distracted and rubbing your swollen clit just make you break even more. His rubbing in messy circles, putting just enough pressure to make your brain fuzzy. “No, no! Oh my god, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cummmmahhh!” Before you know it, you’re spasming on his cock, body writhing beneath him, your eyes rolling back.

Nanami is completely aware you couldn’t hold back, he knows you had no other choice but to fully let go and feel the intoxicating high of your orgasm. So he keeps rubbing your sensitive clit while fucking your tight little ass, your body falling forward on his desk. Your pussy drips with your cum, creaming around nothing while you drool over his scattered papers. He hold your head down, fingers entangled in your hair watching the way his cock stretches your hole open. “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?” He snarkily says, shaking his head at you.

Incoherent babbling is all that you muster, heavy eyes barely blinking open. You were being fucked stupid in real time. His cock was all that you could feel and think of. So sit there, taking his cock, trying to right your wrongs and be a good girl for him while he uses your ass. You notice his thrusts growing sloppier and harder, hips smacking against your ass and echoing through the room. “Shittt,” he tosses his head back, licking his lips. He halts his movements, slowly sliding his cock out. You whine at the loss of feeling, looking back at him with pleading eyes. He spreads your ass, taking a look at your gaping hole, pulsing for him. “Your ass looks so fucking good stretched from my cock, baby.” He chuckles, smirking to himself like he’s proud of his work.

You lazily smile at him, biting down on your lower lip as you watch him spit on his cock, easily sliding back into your ass. “Ohhhhh,” your eyes roll back when you feel full of him again, his bruising grip on your hips pulling you back on his cock. “Yes, yes,” you huff, whining and whimpering when he starts sloppily thrusting into you again.

He looks down at you, his glasses slipping down his nose in the process, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. “Be a good girl and take all my cum in your ass, baby,” he moans, his hand now squeezing the plump flesh of your ass. “Shit, I’m so fucking close,” he breathes, chest heaving up and down with every labored breath.

“Cum in me! I’ll be your good girl, Professor! Want you to fill me up so badly,” you mewl. His abs flex, hips jolting when he pushes every inch of his cock deep inside you, settling there as hot spurts of his cock fill your ass. “Ughhh yesss!” You smile, his moans and grunts making your pussy tingle. His cock throbs inside you as he slowly pulls out, some of his cum dripping out and down to your cunt. “Mmm, fuck,” you giggle.

He spanks your ass multiple times, making sure to give each cheek equal treatment. “I think you learned your lesson,” he gruffly said, pulling you up towards him and pressing a slow kiss to your lips. “That pretty ass is gonna remember the shape of my cock forever, you understand? It’s mine.” He grips your jaw, forcing you to face him. You meekly nod your head, biting the inside of your cheek. “Good.” He pecks your lips again. His eyes wander down to his watch, looking at the time. “Ten minutes till my next class. I need to freshen up.”

“Um…I have no panties,” you blurt out, reminding him that he had ripped them off of you earlier. “I can’t go to my next class with your cum dripping out my ass, Professor. What would everyone else think?” You smirk, sitting on top of his desk.

“Fuck,” he whispers, running a hand through his hair. “Listen, stay in here until my class is over and don’t make a sound.” He gives you a warning look, raising a brow at you. “I’ll drive you back to your apartment after.”

“Fine.” You smile, pecking his cheek.

“I have to run to the bathroom, okay? Behave,” he orders, glaring at you.

taglist:

@sleepykittyenergy @ravenbc @yharnam-prophet @screechingbasementprincess @avaredava @mxrxlxy @lordchula-thagrandrula @akiyhara @palestrawberrycollection @bijuu-naginata @jeansblit @jabulile @aemyuo @springismss @fmlalexis @gradmacoco @phob1cc @kousweet @saoirses-things @ineedtofeedmycat @voidofryomen @bbyrugou @suguru-nugget @monkeyjjk @zxnxy @loserrrluvvverrr @satorupied

feel free to support me <3

[belovedcloud]

One Bed

pairing: leon kennedy x fem! agent! reader

✎ synopsis: who knew saving the president's daughter was so tiring? only you and leon knew the treacherous steps towards the hotel room that was supposed to rejuvenate you both. only for him to open the door and to see one bed.

✎ notes: omg hey everyone. it has been months since my last post and thank you so much for the love on 'such a sweetheart'. i needed a hiatus from writing and i hope you guys love this one bed trope! it's not proofread so sorry if there are mistakes but i am way too lazy to read over it all. love you guys.

➤ WC: 5K

➤ CW: you helped leon save ashley, one bed trope duh, touch starved leon, kisses, petnames, cowgirl, tired sex, p in v, unprotected sex, leon cums on you.

Who knew saving the president's daughter would be so exhausting? The whole ordeal was strenuous to your muscles and mental state. A good nights rest was what you needed after the catastrophe you just encountered. Luckily, you were able to squeeze a shower before getting to the hotel. The idea of mud, bodily fluids and blood was too much to handle for any longer than necessary. Though, if it wasn't for Leon - you probably wouldn't be around currently. Being mission partners with him allowed you to understand his perspective on bioweapons and whatnot.

Without a doubt, he hated them. Despised even. This was a common viewpoint, but his hate went far beyond the normal eye.

It was best not to pry. You couldn't class yourselves as friends, just work partners. Agents who fought the living dead and anything else that came in your way. The undead was a sensitive topic to Leon. What could he have went through?

Leon's life was one of pure terror ever since he was victimised to Raccoon City. The first day on the job completely different to others who joined for the first time. Unlocking padlocks were for survival, not for fun. Reading notes left from other officers who already found their fate was disturbing. The scribbles on the paper led him out. To safety he had hoped. No. Safety was not an option that day - his welfare was tarnished every second.

Now being forced into the workforce of the government wasn't any better. Probably even worse. Time and time again Leon would feel the cold metal pressed against his temple, shakily holding the gun to his head. The index finger aching to snap the trigger to blast his brains out. Yet the same reasoning withheld him from doing so. What if another incident like Raccoon City happened in the near future? He was hired to help others - to dispose of the horrors of the world without alarming the population.

Having you as his partner was a struggle and a blessing.

His communicative state from when he was 21 was now gone. A rookie turned agent against his will led him to be colder than others. Leon kept to himself most of the time, here and there giving you a few pointers on how you can effective pop a flash grenade or what to do in a sticky situation. You reflected how he was 6 years ago. A 21 year old who was excited to start at a police department - you were an agent who was motivated to save others. Your actions held such kindness to him. No prying or none of those snickering comments he would get from the other agents at base.

Just peace.

So mentally speaking, he didn't mind having to share a room with you in this crammed hotel. It was a Saturday so it was expected. Though, other patrons would be coming here to have a one night stand or a relaxing time away from their family... you both just needed rest.

Sluggish movements paved their way to the door number, 012. You and him clinging onto your duffel bags silently. It was an awkward silence, a silence that hung below you both as he fumbled with the key card in his hand. Scanning it through to unlock the barrier between you both and the comfort of the beds that laid inside.

Beds. Or... bed?

Your eyes scan the room. Continuously trying to seek out the other bed that should be here. You examine the footing of it, seeing that it's a double bed instead of 2 singles. Great. The dumbfounded look on your face is almost laughable as the situation dawns on you. You were in a room with Leon and it only consisted of one bed for the both of you.

There were a few ways to go about this. You either both sleep in the same bed together or one takes the bed and the other finds another place to rest. Looking around, it appears that the only viable option would be the cracked leather arm chair, resting solo in the corner. Thinking about it, you were willing to give yourself a crick in your neck to save yourself from the embarrassment of sharing the bed with the other agent.

Leon thought otherwise. The brisk movement of the gear belt slung over the armchair with his duffel bag smacked down in the centre. He was tired, over the bullshit that he just fought - he couldn't care less if he had to share a bed.

"Looks like they forgot a bed huh?" He joked sarcastically, stretching his limbs. The strain of his muscles was visible, undoubtably attractive. Leon carried himself enchantingly, you wanted to learn more about him as every second passed. A sigh leaves his throat whilst he sat down on the bed, continuously stretching. The shirt riding up slightly, giving you a chance to avert your eyes to the uncovered skin. His v-line was on show, the dip down soon stopped by the fabric of his cargos. The shirt he was wearing was a tight fit, letting the muscles of his biceps become visible to the naked eye and the shape of his pecs becoming more noticeable the more you looked.

At least you had a bed in the room? That was the only positive you could find from this when removing your gear off your body. Slinging it into the corner of the room alongside your bag. You both are exhausted from the long day, so you were thankful there's at least a bed to share.

"I'm gonna hop in the shower real quick..." His movements are swift, already gripping onto his shirt he reveals his back to you - throwing the shirt on the floor beforehand. Multiple scars are littered faintly around the skin but the more distinguishable thing is his muscles. Leon's toned body calls out to you as his shoulder to waist ratio is insane. A slim waist, broad shoulders, it all speaks to you. You can feel your body speaking back as you look at him a little longer than expected.

Your little fangirling sesh is over when he shuts the bathroom door behind him - you let a breath you didn't know you withheld. Well, all you could do was wait for him to finish his shower before you could have one. The pitter patter of the water hitting the shower floor is heard before it dies down - giving you a mental note that Leon was now cleaning himself. Why are you even thinking about this?

Leon lets out a sigh once the hot water hits his body. An instant relieving feeling flowing through him as he just stands there for a minute. Soaking in the greatness of water before grabbing the washcloth and shower gel nicely provided by the hotel staff. Squeezing the bottle, a dollop of soap smothers the cloth before he runs it across his body.

Humming can be heard whilst he cleanses his body, ensuring to dispose of all the sweat and dirt from their recent mission. Reflecting back on the situation, he started to feel a bit nervous having to share a bed with you tonight. You were pretty, very pretty to him. He mentally scolded himself whilst he ran the cloth down his chest - his mind returning back to you. A soft moan elicited out of his lips made his hand smack his face. Leon wasn't sure why he was feeling this way. Instinctive movements of him washing himself in motion, his fingers manoeuvring the washcloth on autopilot as his mind focused on you. He can't help but think about you some more, remembering your cute smile when you would hand him a cup of coffee at base. Or your simple gestures of making sure he was comfortable and how you reserved yourself around him made his heart skip a beat.

It had been a while since he thought about someone romantically, his job stripping him of any personal life as the thought of the multitude of viruses around the world was increasing each day. But now, deep down... he could feel an attraction to you. Leon wasn't sure if it was sexual or genuine love - it would be too soon to tell. However, this feeling was deep rooted within, his mind wanted to show you love. His heart longing for someone.

A sentiment he had not felt in a while.

Trying to calm his heart down from going into cardiac arrest, giving himself a mental pep talk - trying not to think about you too much. He shuts off the water soon after and grabs the white towel neatly folded on top of the counter cabinet. Rubbing himself dry and wrapping it around his waist - tightening it slightly. He doesn't want an accident to happen.

Your mind shuts off as you hear footsteps in the bathroom. He was out. Okay. Do you look away when he opens the door? Leon doesn't give you time to think as the door creaks open, revealing himself into the main room. His bare chest and hair still damp for show. Jesus Christ. His damped skin looks good in the dim light, as if he had displayed himself just for you. He notices you sitting tensely on the bed, his body approached you. Blue eyes instantly drifting to your body and lingering for a second before he snaps out of it.

"I needed that..." He groans out, sitting beside you. You mentally slap yourself as you snap your thoughts back to the present.

"Yeah I bet, I already had a shower before we got here so I'm alright." Your response is meek, but at least you had something to respond with.

The man next to you raises his eyebrows at you in slight surprise, he wasn't expecting you to have already taken a shower - but by the look of it, you did look super clean compared to him before. Perhaps you had it when he was getting questioned at base for the report of the mission. Leon tries to keep his eyes focused on your face and not your body. "Oh lucky you," he replied with a smirk.

"I couldn't stand all the random liquids on me, it was disgusting." A chuckle leaves you when you remember looking at yourself in the mirror. Gross... but at least you could laugh at yourself for getting in such a mess? "You were subjected to most of the mess to be honest." Leon chortled out, reminiscing on your reaction when you had novistador blood all over you.

Your conversation with him was cut short when you both recalled the situation laid opened to the two of you. One bed, two agents. It seemed childish that you couldn't think the both of you could share a bed - it was just awkward. Really awkward.

"I can take the floor if you want?" The sound of your voice cuts through the silence, Leon replayed the question in his head before shaking his head. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm not letting you sleep on this cold ass floor." His eyes averted to the hardwood floor, indicating that your question was out of order.

"You want to share the bed then?" This question to Leon was better, he really didn't mind another person next to him whilst he slept. Recalling past moments, he's slept through worse. "We're both adults here. We can share the bed, it won't be bad." A calm response from the agent. What more could you expect?

Your reluctant nod allows him to get back up to look through the wardrobe in the hotel room. A couple extra blankets stored alongside some pyjamas that the workforce provided for both of you. You two were granted a pair of sweatpants and black top - your eyes brightened up, realising you weren't having to sleep in fresh gear wear.

"I'll go in the bathroom to change, you can change here." An authoritative tone left him, not giving you a chance to speak back before he returned back into the bathroom. Scurrying over to the open wardrobe, you hand picked your pyjamas - undressing yourself from the imprisonment of your current clothes to something a lot more baggy and comfortable. A sigh let loose from you, your body mindlessly walking over to the bed and plopping down on the edge. The mattress aiding in soothing your back from the hellish ride you attuned escaping the island.

A yawn seeped through your lips, hazily looking at your phone screen at the time, 01:24... It really was time to rest. Though, the thought of Leon couldn't leave your mind. He plagued your brain - a part of you didn't complain.

A sound of a door creaking open embarked into your ears, Leon had changed into his nightclothes. The tank top fit snugly on his body however, the pair of sweatpants seemed a little baggy. Clearly a little too big for him since they were hanging dangerously low on his hips. He was plain exhausted. His limbs gradually moved him to the bed that you two were about to share. Sinking his body into the mattress as the sheets hugged his frame.

Minutes passed, a silence rose in the room. Leon's back laid restfully whilst scrolling through countless media apps to pass the time. His mind wandering back to you. The heat emanating his body contradicted with the cold expression on his face. Why was he so hard to read? You couldn't tell if he was even comfortable with the idea of sharing a bed with you. Your body laid on it's side, staring at him brazenly. Forgetting that your eyes were peering at his body, Leon's gaze averted to you - an eyebrow raised on his face.

"You alright?" His question caught you off guard; no you weren't okay. Not when he was so close to you, the faint smell of him seeping into your senses. You genuinely couldn't be okay in this situation.

"Mhm, m'alright. Just tired." Leon's eyes glanced at you and his eyes shamelessly roamed over your body before he forced himself to look back down at the device in his hand. 'What the hell are you doing?' The question rung in his mind over and over again as he thought about you. There was no denying the fact that he found you incredibly attractive - but for you to be his work partner... It was unprofessional for such thoughts to occur in his mind. Shakily putting down the phone in his grasp he spoke. "You should get some rest, it's getting late."

Like rest was an option. Turning your head towards him, a twinge of irritation was mixed in with your voice. "I know, it's just.. it's hard to sleep right now." The idea of you and him so close was making your head foggy, especially now since he rolled onto his side - discarding his phone on the bedside table. He now faced you, noticing the tone of your voice. Was there something bothering you?

"Why's it hard?" It was starting to click in Leon's head that them sharing a bed may have made you nervous. Scared perhaps. Analysing your expression, he was observant in your body language. A hint of worry trespassed his vision whilst he watched you silently - waiting for you to continue. His head in his hand, inaudibly taking notice of how pretty you look. Completely captivated from your features, he shook his head to clear his mind.

"We're sharing a bed, now I know there's nothing between us but it's just... weird? No offence! Like you're not weird you know that I just-" Realising you were rambling, a heavy sigh left your lips. It was hard trying to compose yourself, particularly because Leon was looking at you. He didn't look confused nor grossed out.. just enamoured. Lovesick eyes boring into yours when he heard you ramble for a moment.

A slight chuckle was brought out from him when you mentioned the closeness between the two of you, a small idea crossed his mind about how your body was mere inches away from his. He swallowed before speaking. "None taken, I get it. Sharing a bed can be kinda intimate huh?" He found it rather cute that you were so antsy. "But I'm glad we have a bed..."

Leon was right, you convinced yourself nothing was weird - staring at the cream coloured ceiling. A light huff was let out of Leon's nose. "Just try and relax," he mumbled, unsure on how to comfort you. Watching you snuggle under the covers, a slight smile spread across his face.

"Cute."

Leon surprised himself that he mumbled it out loud, his body tensing from the fear that reigned his body. Mentally face palming himself, rapidly looking away from you. Reprimanding himself for being so stupid to let it slip out.

After a moment, a lower voice was heard from him. "I mean- Ugh, sorry I didn't mean to make this so awkward." Shifting himself further from you, feeling ashamed of himself - you stop him from almost falling off the bed. "No no, it's fine!" Your efforts of comforting him didn't help him as it was clear he was still embarrassed. Leon's mind kept recalling the scene, shouldered with how attractive you were.

"I meant it." He stated. Leon had no clue where this confidence in him was coming from, but he hoped it wouldn't run out any time soon. The look on your face made him feel less nervous. A shocked expression plastered all over you - stuttering not knowing what to say. He found you to be the prettiest woman he had ever seen, the kindest too. Looking back at it all, he registered all along he had a little thing for you. You respected him, valued his need for privacy and want to be unjudged. Not many knew of his situation and Leon's involvement in Raccoon City. You didn't even know, you never pried.

Shamelessly, a fat smile shone on your face. Leon's expression softened as he found himself in awe. His body itched, craving your touch. Your love. This renowned love blossomed within him.

"You're cute too." That one sentence could make his heart stop if he really went into deep thought about it. Leon never really found himself to be that attractive, yeah his muscles were good in some aspect in his eyes. He did train well, he gave himself that. After all, he was the one many depended on to save the abundance of sick problems this once calm world faced.

Another silence was shared between the two of you - not one of awkwardness but one of solace. Leon didn't feel distressed, he felt calm. You brought out a side of him which he believed was gone. The side being the young man who wasn't scared of the future. A time where he was happy within himself and oblivious. All he could picture was you. You and him happily being each other's bridge.

Each other's home.

"I'm glad we got that out of the way." A breathless voice cut you both out of your trances. Leon flickering his view on you. Your face, those beautiful eyes staring into his own. The soft lips of yours calling out to him. Your bare neck, a blank canvas for his kisses and bites. His eyes then averted to the base of your neck, your chest covered by the black shirt you wore. Feeling his stare, the burning sensation in your cheeks rose. "What... what now?" The scary question was imprinted in your mind. It was obvious you both had a thing for each other, yet what were you going to do about it? Perhaps a relationship could happen between the both of you; would you both just stay work partners?

"Can I.. can I hold you?" Vulnerability was present in Leon's voice. He craved to touch your skin, his fingers twitching slightly from the excitement. Touch starved. That was the true definition of Leon's love life right now. He hadn't involved himself in relationship matters for years and now that the chance popped up with you, he would take what he could get.

You didn't even say yes, your body spoke for you. Wrapping your arms around his chest - you could feel his heartbeat. Rapid pumps thudded into your ear. Strong arms hugged you back clearly stating silently that Leon couldn't let you go. You'd be surprised if his shirt didn't have an imprint of your face since you were so close against him. Breaking free slightly, your head popped up - looking up at him. You were presented with his Adam's apple, slowly bobbing up and down as he swallowed looking down at you. The rough bump alluring you in whilst your hazy eyes lingered on the skin of his neck. Moles sparsely speckled all over his skin. God had crafted Leon himself, you were sure of it.

Moreover, the heat from his body lingered around you. Creating an invisible fortress of affection and love as both of you stared at each other.

A shaky hand pressed against the skin of your cheek, calloused pads caressing you. "You're so pretty." Leon mumbled, shifting a bit. Your touch to him granted him a sense of warmth, he even leaned into it a little - subconsciously seeking comfort. You brought out the 'weak' side of him, it felt nice for him to let down his guard and be himself around you. He let out a pleased hum as he cuddled you, the hold over you was tight. To you, it seemed like he was starved for physical contact and was finally getting the human touch he deserved.

What happened next was a blur, to both of you anyway. The stare-off between his blue eyes and your own turned into your faces being so close together; guaranteed to kiss. An eskimo kiss shared with him, the tips of both your noses touching. Lips hovering over his, your whisper snaps him out of his daze. "Thank you..." Your gratitude granted you a chuckle from Leon but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

Leon continued to stare at you but to pinpoint, he was eying at your lips. They looked so soft, the mere sight of them making his heart race more. He swallowed hard, his mind clouded with the vision of kissing you. An overwhelming sense of desire passing through him - it was need. But at the same time, he knew he couldn't just go in for a kiss; not without consent. Yet he craved to feel his lips against yours.

"Can I kiss you?" His mumbled whisper echoed through your ears. Were you hearing him correctly?

Kiss? You?

Besides, it's not like you were going to straight out reject him. That wasn't even possible in this situation with him; pressed so close against you that you could feel his rock hard boner pressing against your thigh. A nimble nod from you responding to his question was all he needed.

Leon's lips are soft, softer than you would expect. Sweet little kisses are shared, melting you into him. His hands now run down your back, rubbing your skin through the cotton shirt. He hums, tilting your head slightly back to get a better angle. It feels messy as saliva is shared between the two of you. A soft whine escaping you when Leon breaks away. Reining you back in, he gives you another kiss. Pure passion and love interweaved in it.

Kisses soon turn into touches as your fingers manoeuvre around his torso, slowly digging your fingers into him - eliciting a groan out his mouth. His touch on you becomes possessive, kneading your skin in his hands. Leon holds you close and after a few minutes, you find yourself on his lap. His hands automatically went to your hips, gripping you tight as his eyes locked onto yours. Those blue eyes of his roamed your body shamelessly whilst he held you against him, taking in the view of your straddling his hips.

You could feel the hard-on beneath you, begging for some friction. Subconsciously, your hips start to rock slightly, Leon takes full control as he guides you. There was no way he could stop right now, not with how his body was aching so badly and having you on his lap like this. "Can we take this slow? We're both... really tired." A yawn escapes you mid sentence, you can feel yourself getting tired and wet.

"Yeah, we can take this slow. Anything you want love." The nickname shoots desire right into your veins, the rasp in his voice concocted with a tired sigh as he watches you grind on him is heavenly. Shuddering from his touch, Leon brings you down to lay on him - adjusting you on his lap. Your foreheads touch, all you can see is love in his eyes. Leon's fingers tug on your shirt, a breathless chuckle leaving him before he asks the question. "Can I take this off?" He can't help but want to see you, feel you - caress the smoothness of your skin on the pads of his fingers. Hearing you say the word "yes" made his hands work in a fast fashion as your torso was soon left bare.

"So beautiful..." He sat you back up, feeling your flesh mould in-between his fingers. Leon ached for you, he wanted to have more energy to give you the proper fucking you deserved. However, the past mission and the strain it had on both of your bodies exempted him from treating you the way he wanted. So he had to settle for soft, gentle sex. Just like you wanted.

Rapid breathing contradicted the mellow touches shared between you both, your hips continuously rocking slowly before he lifts you up slightly - removing the same sweatpants that were already dangerously low. You're face to face with his boxers, a clear wet patch showcasing the pre-cum that leaked out of his tip.

"See what you do to me?" Leon groaned out, palming himself slowly - your eyes following his every movement. He was enchanting nonetheless, alluring you in with every pump he did to himself. Leon's mind was fogged with you, the view of you turning every cell in his brain insane. He seriously couldn't get enough of your watchful eyes scanning his hand; viewing the pornographic sight in front of you.

Although once again he did think to make this the best sex he's had in a while, it was obvious you both were too tired to even do anything remotely crazy that night. So plain ole cowgirl it is.

Quick work was made for your sweatpants as they were easily tossed to the floor, your panties being the the second piece of protection between you and Leon's boxers straining his dick in place. His hands guided you still, the subtle movements rocking back on forth bringing both of you a sense of release you both needed. Silken kisses bringing out a wave of passion. Playing with the band of his boxers - a dark look appeared in his gaze.

"Impatient?" The mere one word question could've left you astonished if you weren't so hazy from being aroused. Of course you were impatient. He was the embodiment of seduction. "Well, yeah." A laugh escaped both Leon and you, your eyes boring into his.

"Shouldn't keep you waiting should I?"

Sliding your panties to the side; pulling his boxers down, it was easy for his cock to slide in. Eliciting a deep moan from the both of you as kisses were shared once again. Leon couldn't believe how good you felt, he already felt pussy drunk. The two of you shared tired eyes and low whimpers whilst your hips rocked back and forth.

"You're so pretty..." Leon mumbled out, dazed out of his mind looking at how your body synchronised with his. The way his dick was slipping in and out of you, pressing into that sweet spot of yours. How were you so pretty? And how did you already make such a mess? Glancing down, his eyes followed to the feeling of wetness coating the base of his cock - your inner thighs glistening from how wet you were. Completely mesmerised, Leon looked up at you with pure love and lust.

You couldn't talk, not when all your throat could conjure was the moans and low screams as his hips started to jerk up slightly - thrusting himself further in you. Holding onto the bedframe keeping you both afloat, your mumbles tried to alert him from the upcoming orgasm reaching you. "Mmph... L-Leon, I..." was all you could muster. It was the only coherent thing he could understand before feeling you tighten up.

"That's it baby, keep going." The softness in his voice juxtaposed the way his hips were snapping up and down, Leon couldn't help it. Your pussy felt too good wrapped around him. He had to put in the last of his energy to making you feel good at least. Lazily, his hand slowly reached your clothed clit - his fingers slowly rubbing the fabric of your panties. The perfect amount of friction to make your bundle of nerves become overstimulated whilst being stuffed full.

Your tired eyes locked with his, feeling yourself getting closer to seventh heaven. A small smirk plastered on Leon's face, watching you breathlessly whilst his dick twitched too.

"Gotta pull out..." He murmured, his fingers making you reach the pinnacle of your orgasm. "L-Leon!" All you could do was shudder on-top of him, feeling the remaining energy in you seep out alongside your orgasm. Collapsing onto him, Leon subtly slipped himself out, painting your clit and lower stomach with his cum. A low hum leaving him as he kissed the nape of your neck. "You did so well."

Panting heavily, your moan responded to his words. Chuckling to himself, Leon held you close whilst sitting up. Grabbing a few tissues in the box to wipe your tummy.

"Come on, let's get cleaned up."

likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated! thank u for reading :)

-> masterlist

[a-soft-fluffy-girl]

TL;DR: Steam just made library sharing so much fucking easier and so much fucking better. Instead of login-trading, it's just a simple goddamn invite.

Read this. Really. It's a good read. Because it shows that, full-stop, Valve isn't just doubling down on their stance to make sure that people can and should be able to share their copies of digital goods as easily as they can physical ones, but they're making it better and easier than ever.

But you know how Steam allowed you to, with either friends or family, link accounts with another person to be able to establish an ability to share game libraries with one another? The general gist of Steam Family Sharing was that, with a limit of five people plus you (six in total) on a limit of ten computers total could share account access to willingly mix your libraries. You could play theirs. They could play yours.

This was a huge boon. It was meant to emulate sharing a physical copy of a game. A way to allow children to play games their parents or siblings had bought without having to fork over double the cash to buy it a second game. But it had some major limitations and drawbacks, and was archaic to use.

If a person did not share the same computer, you had to manually log into that computer to give it and the accounts on it access. This wouldn't be a problem if both accounts were used on the same computer, but many households (and astronomically more family and friend groups) had multiple computers, all used by different people.

If that computer, at any point, was hard reset to any point before the sharing occurred, you lost access. And had to do the whole process again. This was also an issue with computer transfers. The whole kit and kaboodle needed to be redone on upgrades. On top of that, the old computer is now just dead weight that you may not realize you have to manually revoke access to.

Putting your account information on another person's computer opens up security issues. They could, intentionally or accidentally, land themselves on your account if the login information was stored. Which could easily lead to purchases or bans you did not want to happen.

If anyone was, at any point, playing any game on their own library, you had no access to their games. Even if it was a totally different game, you had to wait your turn as if waiting for their computer to be freed up to sit at. (Admittedly this is kind of like the "mom said it's my turn on the xbox" meme, but hey, kinda archaic.)

You could not choose whose library you accessed a game from. Not at all. It always prioritized the first library it gained access from, DLC access and multiplayer be damned. If another friend you were accepting games from had more DLC? Too bad.

And yet here we are. Steam Families Beta fixes EVERYTHING about the above issues. By just going through Settings > Interface > client Beta Participation and clicking onto Steam Families Beta? You get:

No more login sharing. No more computer links. You can now choose which person's library you borrowed from. And you can play any other game from someone's library, even while they're in-game. It just needs to be a different game than what they're playing.

Pick five people. Invite them to your family. And now everyone has access to everyone's library. My goddamn library went from 150-ish to almost a goddamn thousand in ten minutes of setup.

Account sharing and password sharing are dirty words that "lose" billions of dollars. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Max. They aren't game storefronts, but they still allow you to access massive libraries and scream like you murdered their firstborns for daring to share your password with your mother after you moved out.

Microsoft tried pushing to demonize and undercut used games sales and borrowed copies of physical games. Remember the first attempt to reveal the Xbox One? People forget, but these vultures tried to make an always online console that checked to see if you were the account that owned the game, even if you had a physical disc, and prevent access to the disc's contents if you weren't the original downloader.

Valve walked the fuck up. Valve tapped the mic. And Valve dropped the fucking thing right onto the ground with one feature's revamp.

About the only issues I can see with this are twofold:

If someone sharing your library gets banned from a game's servers... so do you. No one else in the family does, but the both of you do. This is... rather unpleasant, because banhammers can be dropped quite frequently by mistake. I'd urge Valve to rethink this one, but I see the logic: don't cheat and effectively bite the hand feeding you. Still making me side-eye that, though.

If you leave a family you've joined? You have to wait a YEAR to join a new one. It's to prevent people form jumping ship to another group and screwing over who's in the former one in the process, but a YEAR? OUCH.

Problems aside, though... it's probably the biggest fucking power move I have ever seen a media distributor make in the current economic climate. It's the kind of thing that would let so many new games be available in a way that's easier than ever. Just a few clicks to send or accept an invite, and bam. Permanent access to dozens or even hundreds of new games with so much more freedom than earlier drafts of the system.

It's the kind of thing that slaps you in the face with positivity after so many Ls from the games and media industries. And I'm all the fuck for a W like this.

[cupcakedieabetes]

Speedrunning romance Part 2

"It seems so weird looking at him giggling." Steph muttered, "But understandable too."

Jason kept on giggling as he texted his phone, having gotten the boy's number.

"Yeah, I would have kissed him in the mouth for having done Joker, but too bad Jason got to him first." Barbara sighed.

"By the way, you haven't said anything much, Damian." Tim looked to Damian, who was quietly reading a book.

"What else is there left to say?"

All of them were ignoring Dick and B arguing with a Jason who wasn't listening shit to them. Dick was defending Jason while Bruce was protesting about Jason going after a guy who killed Joker.

"What do you mean by that?" Steph looked at Damian, who sighed, as if it was common sense.

"Jason was given the head of his enemy, a fitting gift if one should want to court him." Damian replied.

PING!

All of them looked at their phones for the notification. Jason seemed to have posted something online.

Jason Todd: Does anyone have a good recommendation for a taxidermist?

"Jason!" Bruce scolded him.

"What? Was I just supposed to keep his head in a cooler?" Jason argued.

Almost immediately, there were multiple recommendations, and taxidermists jumped at the opportunity to taxidermy the Joker's head.

Many people also wanted to watch the process and clamoured for a live stream.

"Should I learn taxidermy, too?" Tim muttered, which made Steph snort.

"Tim!" Bruce scolded him next.

Then, Alfred came in with a display case.

"Master Jason, could I recommend using this glass dome to display the head?"

Many cheered when it was revealed. Damian approved of it as it was a beautiful glass case.

"Also, a package for you arrived." Alfred handed Jason a package with multiple 'fragile' marks stamped around the package.

Jason curiously inspected it and picked up the letter addressed to him.

Hey, So. Uh. This is the heart. I wasn’t sure if you wanted it, but since I already gave you the head, I thought it might feel incomplete without the rest. Not all the rest, obviously — just the important part. Well, I guess the second-most important part, after the head. I put it in a jar of preservatives, but if you want to do something else with it, sorry. Anyway, I thought maybe you'd want to do something with it. Bury it. Burn it. Play football with it. I don’t know. But the jar is really sturdy, and I tested it with a jackhammer. I guess what I’m trying to say is… I remembered what he said when he thought I was you, and I didn’t like it. So now he won’t anymore. Hope this helps. Danny

Jason just

Swoons

He buried his face in his hands and screamed into them. The others clamoured behind him to read what was in the letter, passing it around for everyone to read.

Steph whistles.

"That's the most awkwardly romantic thing I have ever seen."

Cass nudged Jason to open the package quickly. She looked up at him in anticipation.

Damian just plucked the package and opened it, revealing a heart sitting in a jar of preservatives. He held the heart high above his head to present it to everyone.

"Jason..." Dick sniffled, arms going around Jason tightly who for once let it happen.

Bruce looked at the scene and then sighed. He couldn't be angry at how relieved everyone felt upon Joker's death. He came up to Jason and reached out to squeeze Jason's shoulder. His son, who died at the hands of Joker.

He was so glad that he was able to see him grow up so big.

"I will be paying very handsomely to the taxidermist. You just have to choose who you feel is the best." He murmured.

Tim already stole his wallet from the back of his pocket to take out a card.

"We're using his BLACK CARD!!!" Tim yelled, presenting the card into the air.

Steph wrestled him for the card, and both of them dropped to the ground.

Alfred just side-stepped them to help Dick and Jason to screen for a good taxidermist.

Cass, Barbara, and Damian were just looking at the heart in awe, and they started discussing where the best place is to display both the heart and the head.

Bruce looked at his family. He supposes he should approve of Danny, as this was the first time in so long that everything was peaceful.

"I'M GOING TO MARRY HIM!!!"

Perhaps not....

@tortoiseoffury, @eggonog, @rabidhungryrat, @leafyeyes417, @lurukifennecfox, @craftywyvern, @guppygalaxy, @koolaidkai

[100vern]

ex-conomics | csc

you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.

⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3

You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.

“Um—”

You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”

“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”

Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.

TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)

You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.

That, however, was two years ago.

“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”

Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”

“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”

You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”

Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”

You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”

“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”

“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.

But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”

You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.

You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.

You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.

You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.

You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.

You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.

You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.

So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.

“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”

For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.

A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.

But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.

Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.

You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.

Your stomach plummets to the floor.

You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.

“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.

Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.

The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.

“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”

Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”

She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”

“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”

She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”

You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”

“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”

Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”

Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.

You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”

“And continued wearing it?”

She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”

Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.

So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”

“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”

“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”

Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”

You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.

Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.

“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”

The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.

“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”

She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:

doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄

You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”

“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”

You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.

You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.

And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.

But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.

They never do.

And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.

“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

This time it is an accusation.

Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.

You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.

Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.

Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.

You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.

“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”

You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.

“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”

But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.

“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”

And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.

You cannot go there again.

So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”

Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.

You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.

Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”

He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.

But you did, so it stings all the same.

As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.

You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.

Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.

Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.

He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.

Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”

“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”

“Depends. How long do you have?”

“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”

“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”

You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”

He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”

“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”

You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”

“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”

Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.

And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.

Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.

“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”

He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”

“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.

You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.

You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.

He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—

“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”

“At this university?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”

Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.

“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”

You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.

So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.

Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.

But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.

You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.

Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.

The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.

“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”

He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.

“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”

“Oh—yeah, right.”

You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.

You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.

I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.

Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.

But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.

So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.

“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”

“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”

You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”

She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.

The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.

“Not bad, actually.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”

You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”

You blink. “No, you didn’t.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”

What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.

“They want to know about his girlfriend.”

“His what?”

What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.

But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.

You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.

Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.

“What’s wrong?”

Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.

What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”

Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”

“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”

“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”

“Seungcheol,” you correct.

He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.

They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.

Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?

Seungcheol shared a location with you

You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.

You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.

Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.

Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.

“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”

“Oh. How’s he doing?”

Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”

“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”

You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.

“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”

You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”

Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.

The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.

He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…

It’s the familiarity, you realize.

You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.

“That’s not what I’m say—”

“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”

“Right—not good enough, like I said.”

“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”

You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.

So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.

The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.

Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.

Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.

Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.

“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.

Also fruitless.

You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.

And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.

But it isn’t, and you’re not.

“If you’re not going to listen, then—”

“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

Perhaps he never did.

“What are we discussing, then?”

Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”

You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”

It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.

“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”

He nods.

“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”

The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.

So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.

Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.

Kaori invites you to a party.

Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.

After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.

So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.

At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.

You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.

You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.

You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.

You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.

Seungcheol finds you in your office.

It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.

You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.

So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”

He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”

“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”

You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.

So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.

But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.

Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.

Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.

“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.

You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.

Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.

Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Again.

Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.

She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.

Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.

And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”

Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”

“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”

She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”

“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”

“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”

You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”

“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”

A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.

Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.

You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.

Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?

Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.

Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?

Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.

You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.

L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.

You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.

So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.

She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.

“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”

Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”

You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”

She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”

“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”

You do.

Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.

It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.

You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.

You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.

The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.

There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.

You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.

(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)

One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.

Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.

Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.

You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.

“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”

Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”

Cut to black.

The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…

I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…

You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.

I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?

I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.

So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…

I’m sorry.

I love you.

You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.

The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.

“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”

On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”

“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”

She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”

“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”

After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.

The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.

Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.

You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…

And start recording.

He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.

There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?

He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…

Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?

It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—

And then there it was.

All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—

Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.

I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.

I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.

Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.

Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.

You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.

I love you, too.

—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.

Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.

There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.

He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”

“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.

There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.

Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.

Somehow you taste the same.

Somehow you taste like redemption.

You taste like home.

Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.

When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—

And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.

“I always will.”

(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)

if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭

i would love to hear your thoughts! <3

[yanderenightmare]

♡ TW: nsfw implication, enemies to lovers, kinda bitchy reader,

♡ FEM reader

Thinking about the poor college boy who’s struggling to get used to dorm life and his loud neighbor who isn’t making matters any better.

He has never been shy about telling someone off. People should have the common decency not to blast their infernal music so loud that the entire dorm shakes. And you, whoever you may be, are no exception—he thinks while pounding on your door with his fist. Fuck knows if you can even hear him over your speakers.

But lo and behold and despite all odds, you open up.

“Excuse me, can you turn it down?” His words might be polite, but his voice is anything but—glaring down at you… who quickly turned out to be a girl… 

Yeah, definitely not the idiot ass-hat with the shitty body odor he was expecting. But a pretty girl in a short tank top without a bra and booty shorts so tight and short he would think you’d bought them ten years ago.

“It’s eight?” You raise your brow at him, face otherwise dull.

Okay, so you weren't what he was expecting. And sure, it might make his throat a little tight, among other things. But still, he not going to let it change anything. 

“Yeah, I’m tryna study.” 

That was a lie. He was actually about to go to bed. But he wasn’t about to tell you that. Judging by the way you were looking at him, he’d say you’d just laugh and slam the door in his face. Maybe even turn the volume up to spite him.

Not that telling you he was studying was any better.

“There’s something called a library for that sorta thing,” you drawl.

He’s right—you’re the sardonic type. There’s usually no use fighting with people like you, but still, he must stand his ground and insist, “Yeah, well, I prefer my room.”

You reply in kind, smiling now with a short excuse for a laugh, “Oh, what do you know, me too.”

You’re a little hard to read. That felt like sarcasm, but it wasn’t all that easy to tell. He’s mostly certain you couldn't care less, but at the same time, you’d humored him this long. So, maybe…

“You’ll turn it down then?”

As expected. You just laugh and shut the door in his face.

He stands there for a moment. You must be blowing your eardrums sitting in there. He thinks about knocking again, maybe dropping some of the politeness this time and demanding you turn it down.

But he ends up going back to his room. He decides then to wait another hour, thinking you might come to your senses despite your poor attitude. But at zero point, do you turn your music down by even a single lousy notch. 

Lying in his room, he’s hoping someone else might come by and tell you off. That maybe then you’d listen.

But a couple more minutes later, he realizes he can’t wait for that to happen and decides to test his luck again. Abruptly springing from his bed, he marches over to your room. Doing as he did last time, nearly kicking your door in with his banging.

“Oh my god, dude, what is your problem!?” you bark once seeing him.

And his eye nearly twitches in turn. “My problem? Really? You’re one to talk!”

You gape at him, both glaring at the other. 

“It’s eight-thirty. What? Is it your bedtime or something?”

“No. But I would appreciate it if I could hear myself think in my own room!”

“Oh? Well, maybe you should call your mommy and cry about it!”

Again, all you do is slam the door in his face. However, this time, you skip the laugh and settle for a simple yet efficient grimace that lets him know you’ll not be answering the door again.

Several days pass. He caved and invested in a pair of noise-canceling headphones. But still, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep when he wanted. But suppose that wasn’t all your fault. To be honest, he’d probably be struggling either way, with or without your music. It’s not easy living in a new place. 

It’s lonely, too.

But that can’t be helped. At least not for him. He’s not too good at trying to make friends. And yet, there’s someone at the door. 

Three firm knuckle knocks let him know. But who it might be is anyone’s guess. Still, he begrudgingly answers.

“Oh… so this is you, huh…” 

It’s you—the hot but nasty girl next door, wearing that same pair of shorts he’s been thinking about every day without wanting to. 

You don’t seem too pleased to see him either, even when you’d been the one to knock. 

“Ugh…” You look around, scratching the back of your neck awkwardly before gritting your teeth and finally mustering up enough gall to actually spit out what you’d come there for. “You wouldn’t happen to have a screwdriver or something?”

This time, it’s him who raises his eyebrow. “Or something?” he repeats. “What would that be exactly?”

You scoff then, about to leave, grumbling out, “Never mind–” but he interjects before you’re fully turned around.

“Wait there.” 

It’s to both of your surprise when he disappears into his room.

He isn’t gone long before he’s back with a screwdriver. 

“Here.”

You don’t say anything, just rudely rush to grab it without even looking at him, but when you pull it to yourself, you’re pulled back, stuck to the same spot. He holds onto the other end, looking you right in your shocked eyes.

“You know, it’s customary to say thank you when someone does something for you.”

You look flushed—a little chagrined, maybe—but ultimately, you can’t really argue with it, mumbling out a bitter “Thanks.”

He smiles then, chuckles even. Not nicely. Smugly. 

Admittedly, it’s not his best moment, but who can blame him? You haven’t exactly been so nice yourself. Right now, he can tell you almost feel like rejecting his offer altogether, but that refusing at this point would be too petty so you just have to grin and bear it. 

It’s actually kind of cute.

“Bring it back once you’re done,” he says, then lets go of you, and off you go, nearly stomping away.

He goes back to studying, shaking his head at you. You can’t have many friends either with that attitude. Suppose you have that in common.

Sometime later there’s a frustrated scream coming from the other room. Then, the sound of a door handle roughly getting yanked, someone storming down the short distance of the corridor before throwing his door open unannounced.

“Your useless screwdriver isn’t doing its stupid job!” you yell in a whine, almost throwing the tool at him where he sits by his desk. It lands in his bed next to him instead.

You look utterly disheveled at this point. Dewy-faced and frustrated, hair a total mess and even hotter still. It’s really unfair. How come a bitchy brat like you looks like that, even when you’re a wreck? It shouldn't be allowed.

“I highly doubt it’s the screwdriver's fault. You positive it’s the useless one?”

This time, you just growl without words before turning on your heel, about to stomp out the same way you’d arrived—but again, he finds himself stopping you for whatever reason he still can’t understand.

“Wait.” He gets up from his chair and picks up the screwdriver you’d chucked. “Le’mme have a look.”

You shake your head with a scoff, “No way. I’m not letting you in my room.”

“You didn’t seem so reserved when you came barging into mine.” Ignoring you, he walks straight past you.

“Wait–” you protest, but he doesn't bother. 

He just opens your door and reveals the breakdown you’d had just earlier. Having but one word to ascribe to the scene.

“Wow.”

Suppose you were both in your own right struggling with acclimating to dorm life…

“It’s not my fault I’m not a carpenter or whatever. The instructions said it was simple,” you excuse the mess of planks and screws and bits all belonging to your unassembled wardrobe among all the clothes that are meant to be in it. “They lied.”

He scratches his neck, feeling a little bad for you despite everything. This would take anyone over an hour—probably even more, to be honest. Even if you managed on your own, you’d have a hard time pushing it into place. Not that it’s any of his business. But hey… if he played his cards right, maybe he could get something out of this in the end.

“Alright. I’ll make you a deal,” he says then, folding his arms upon his chest while looking down at you. “I’ll set this up for you.” He leans down, that same smug smile from before plastered on his face as he comes with his condition, “If you promise to lower your music after eight.”

Honestly, with your looks, you could probably knock on just about anyone else's door and ask for their help instead. They probably wouldn’t ask anything in return. But hey, can’t blame a guy for trying.

And to his surprise, you actually seem to think about it. Maybe you’re one of those girls without a clue. You even do this cute thing where you chew your lip in thought, a furrow between your brows. 

You look up at him when you’re finished. “Ten.”

You’re bargaining with him now? He was expecting you to say something like fat chance. But no, you’re really that desperate.

He thinks about agreeing but then doesn’t. No, it might be a little scummy of him, but since he’s gotten this far, he might as well keep the act up and stand his ground. 

“Eight,” he insists.

And you’re face scrunches as you fold, going down to “Nine.”

But no, following the same logic that had worked for him up until now, he still doesn’t budge. “Eight.”

You purse your lips, and he thinks he’s blown it, that you’re just about ready to bark at him to get the fuck out. But you don’t. Instead, you become even cuter. Giving in with a sigh, “Okay, fine.”

He honestly can’t believe it. Though his face shows no shock, he’s dumbfounded on the inside. He can’t believe that worked. Here’s this chick who all but told him to go fuck himself just a few days ago, now all but begging him for his help. Or no, begging is a strong word, but still.

He has to go back into his room and fetch the rest of his toolbox. Turned out you did need an or-something—a drill. No wonder you weren’t managing. But after a little over an hour of tinkering while you lay on your bed reading a magazine—and at some point asking you if it was okay if he removed his shirt before he died of heatstroke, then bothering you for a drink—it was finally finished.

“Alright, all done.” He announced, and after sliding it into place for you, he clapped his hands together and said, “Ta-dah.”

He then takes a look at his wristwatch, wanting to see how long he’d spent, but comes away with another fun discovery.

“My my, would you look at the time?” he grins again, showing it to you. “Just passed eight.”

It makes him snicker. And not expecting a thank you after that comment, he just gathers his tools and slings his shirt over his shoulder, ready to excuse himself. 

“Let me know if you need a cup of sugar, neighbor.” 

He’s just about to open the door when you speak up.

“Thanks, but I'm good on sugar, actually.” 

Your voice is a little different this time—not annoyed, though not chagrined like earlier either—no, something new. Something that makes him turn around again. 

You’ve rolled off the bed, now standing just a short distance away, hips tilted, standing slanted with your arms crossed loosely, wearing those same tight little short shorts he’s never seen you without but could definitely picture on the floor.

Yeah, in his wildest dreams, or so he thought…

“I might need some help breaking in my bed, though, if you’re interested.” 

You step closer, sizing him up where he stands, and then you smile, offering him a small coy laugh. “That is, of course, if it’s not already passed your bedtime.”

He swallows thickly—nearly drops the toolbox to the floor but manages to keep his cool, though just barely.

“No, I think I can help you with that.”

♡ BNHA – Bakugou, Touya, Natsuo ♡ JJK – Sukuna, Nanami, Geto, Megumi, Toji ♡ HQ – Tsukishima, Kageyama, Kuro, Iwaizumi, Sakusa ♡ CSM – Aki ♡ BLLK – Reo, Rin, Sae, Karasu ♡ AOT – Eren ♡ DS – Akaza, Sanemi, Genya ♡ WB – Sakura, Kaji

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[hannieoftheyear]

LUCKY STRIKE [C.VN]

Vernon would never let anything happen to you. But when the time comes, and he's standing at your doorstep, flowers in one hand, and bloody cuts in the other, it's your turn to take care of him for once.

pairing: mafia!vernon x fem!reader

word count: 4,5k of lazy and messy sex for you

genre/au: mafia au, established relationship, smut with the barest plot, a bit of fluff.

content warnings: vernon is terribly down bad, light mafia themes, implied violent encounters, blood, bruises, cuts, minor injuries, reader takes care of his injuries and he gets horny, this is corny, you were warned!! | explicit smut: couch sex, switch!vernon, switch!reader, sucking fingers, they both have a thing for hands and fingers, biting, spit kink, spit as lube, handjob, unprotected sex (don't be stupid pls), cumming inside, nicknames: baby (both).

♥︎ thank you to everyone that tolerated me sending clips of vernon on the thunder stages for days ♡ this is for you

🎧: shining star (vernon solo) — seventeen

THIS FIC IS FOR +18 READERS ONLY. I can't control what people read, but I can control who interacts with my blog. MINORS WILL BE BLOCKED

check out my main masterlist ♡

note: i'm a sucker for lazy couch sex with vernon and i won't apologize for it!! i hope you enjoy this silly thing ♥︎

this was, of course, heavily inspired by all the 'happy burstday' concept photos and stages

mafia prompt taken from here ♥︎ dividers here

"Being adopted into the local mafia has its pros and cons."

Pros: You can safely do your 2 am. grocery shopping at the one superstore that's open all night without fearing for your life. Those scary looking men, the ones you'd normally cross the street to avoid, treat you like their little sister. All except for the cutest one of them all.

The gloomy night accompanies the swift movements of the crochet needle between your fingers, tangling the strings of light blue and red knitting wool you bought days ago in a whim. In the search for a new hobby, your algorithm acted out again, and you ended up on the granny activities side, peaking your interest enough to sit on your uncomfortable couch for hours trying to make a usable piece of clothing.

Normally, on a weekend night, the cold wind would be welcomed by your barely covered skin, walking hand in hand with the only guy your self proclaimed body guards allowed you to be in close proximity to. But something, or rather, someone, told you to stay home for the night.

Another pro of being close with the bad guys: they help you avoid confrontations with threatening rival gangs. You're left blissfully out of the mess, but, as you're still able to hear the rounds of loud noises on the streets around the neighborhood, you're also not unaware of the bruises you see covering the guys' arms and faces the next day.

Your forehead hurts from all the frowning you've been doing for the past hour, trying to figure out the pattern you should be following and restarting every few rows.

A soft, unsure knock takes your concentration away, but it quickly puts a smile on your face as you realize who's the only person that'd show up at this hour at your door. The amateur crochet project is left forgotten on the coffee table, the metal needle crinkling against the glass as you get up from the couch.

But, whatever excitement you had, it drops completely as soon as the doorknob turns under your hold, and the door opens to reveal who you were expecting.

Vernon stands at the entrance, with his side smile painting his face as if everything was okay. You instantly know it's not. His lower lip is swollen red, probably from a punch, the neck line of his t-shirt is stretched far more than normal, with a tear visible on the side.

Cons of being adopted by the local mafia: your big bad mafia boyfriend constantly gets hurt on the job.

With one hand busy holding a bouquet of your favorite yellow flowers, he wraps the other one around your waist when you don't move, frozen analyzing his state. "Not happy to see me?"

Vernon's teasing smile so close to you, mixed with his breath fanning your face as he leans in to give you a peck, is intoxicating. His bruised lips are soft against yours, taking seconds longer to feel you on him than normal. One would never guess he's hurt from the way he's pushing himself against you.

"Baby, what happened?" Your hand reaches for his behind your back, the cuts on his knuckles harsh under the pads of your fingers.

He sighs against your parted lips, chuckling lightly before taking a step back and letting himself in into your apartment. "You should see the other guys."

"Multiple?" Your wide eyes follow him as he searches for a vase to put the flowers he brought.

It's natural for him to have his way around your home. After all, he's the only one that you, or your neighborly mafia, ever allowed in. It's your sacred place, safe from the dangerous outside world, the only place where you can be truly calm, be with him with no fears.

While he occupies himself with his gift, you take the chance to escape to your bathroom, wash the dried blood from your hands, and find your first aid kit. The one you've never had to use before.

You were always the one who he took care of, who he protected, made sure you were intact. After so many times he was there for you, it's your turn to take care of him and heal his wounds the best you can.

"Remember I told you to stay in today?" His gaze is trained on you as you sink down next to him. The click of the aid kit opening breaks the silence as he waits for your answer.

You only nod, half hearing him, half focusing on grabbing what you need to disinfect the cuts in his hand. His hand that places itself on your thigh to draw your attention.

"We're okay—I'm okay," his voice is soft, knowing you worry every time he goes out to parts of the town they don't have under their control, "it was just a small payback."

"Baby, you're bleeding," Vernon hisses as you clean the wounds around his knuckles with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, "who did you go with?"

"Mingyu and Wonwoo," your insides burn, feeling his stare, boring holes on the side of your face, "they took on the bigger guys." Vernon jokes.

You shouldn't sigh in relief hearing that, but you do so anyway.

It's a regular occurrence for the guys to tease him for his objectively smaller build, but he counters it with a perfectly learned strategy. He knows how to fight, knows the places that hurt the most being punched, where to kick, poke, slap to make his opponent lose their balance, and ultimately, the fight.

"Let's hope these people don't come back after you."

"Believe me, they won't." He smirks, charging his words with smugness.

You wrap the little bandage you had saved around his hand with care. Not too loose, not to tight. You feel his eyes on you as you leave the aid kit on the table, right besides the mess of knitting wool you alredy forgot was there.

"I have the best nurse ever." Vernon wastes no time, lifting your hips with his, now working, hands, and sits you on his lap, both your legs fitting naturally at his sides as he realizes you're only wearing panties under your t-shirt. "I should come here hurt more often."

"Then you'll have to replace the stuff I use on you!" Looking slightly down to connect your eyes with his, your teasing tone vanishes at the soft glimmer in his eyes. "Please, just… be careful next time."

The side of his face feels warm against the palm of your hand, and he leans into your touch, feeling your care even through the smallest, most mundane touches.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shown up like this." His doe eyes turn glassy, searching for any anger indicators on your expression, but only finding worry. "I just wanted to see you."

You could never get mad at him. Not when you got to know him well aware of what his life was like. Not when he pursued you by showing you he can still be a gentleman despite his shady life. Not when he never gave you any reason not to trust him.

"I wanted to see you too," you reveal as if you didn't constantly wait for him. Sitting on this very couch every night, longing for that knock on the door you always know it's him. "I don't mind taking care of you."

"I should be the one doing that." Vernon's hands fix their grip on your hips, reminding you that they're still there, holding you close to him.

"Well, I'm not the one getting into fights with 6 feet tall buff guys on the daily."

He chuckles, full of endearment, and your stomach tightens. If you could rank every sound you ever heard, Vernon's kinds of laughs and giggles would all be at the top, not a very close race with anything else. It's a distinguishable sound you never want to forget.

Your hand goes down the side of Vernon's neck, his pulse accelerating under your touch as you check to see if he's real, if he's really sitting on your couch with you straddling him.

His focus get lost on your touch now going down the side of his arm, and soon finds your hand with his. He interlocks his fingers with yours as soon as he gets a hold of it, directing your hand to his mouth and leaving a gentle but teasing kiss on the back of it.

"Vernon," you reprimand, but don't stop him as he places peck after peck everywhere on your hand, each triggering a wave of different feelings down your nervous system. He's uncontrollable and always finds the way to get you in the mood with him.

"You look so pretty over me, all worried." His hot breath tickles your fingers that were just taking care of him.

Your thumb swipes gently over his busted lip, raw from his habit of gnawing at them with his teeth and from the fight you're nursing him from. He purses his lips, teasing your awaiting skin, goosebumps waking up all over your body at the anticipation.

"You can't seriously be turned on by this," you snicker to try and hide the very real reactions he's eliciting from you.

His eyes snap back to you at your words, as if a challenge was set.

So quick you barely have time to register it, the hand at your hip travels to your lower back and Vernon's sliding you across his lap, showing off his strength to get you closer to his torso until you're completely against him.

Every part of you is against him. His right hand on your back, holding you electrically close to his growing hard, pulsing against your core. Your hand's held hostage by his left hand just above where your chest flushes against his.

"You have no idea how crazy I am for you." Every word he says reverberates through his chest and into yours.

Gasping is your only answer. You don't trust your ability to apeak properly in your current state of increasing bodily heat.

"When I wake up and you're not next to me," he continues, "my first thought is always to come looking for you." His fingers wander inside the big t-shirt you're wearing, one you stole from him after your first night together.

"Nothing stops you from staying the night here." Your voice draws the smirk back on his face.

"I'd stay here every night if it didn't mean putting you in danger." Longing bleeds through his words, true and hurt.

"But you'd be here to protect me." You're not naive. You know what he means. But that doesn't stop you from wanting to be close to him every second of every day.

Vernon nods in acknowledgment, a silent agreement between the two of you. It's dangerous. Everything about your relationship is risky. But even if he's willing to put himself at risk for the chance of seeing you, he'd never put you in danger. He'd never take that chance.

His lips kissing your hand again catch your attention, every fiber of your body now focused on his next move. Your fingers, cold against the warmness spreading across his face, seem to be the only thing on Vernon's mind.

When he wraps his mouth around your index finger, gently sucking on it with a new admiration, fire expands from your insides and out, taking everything with it, filling you with a new, unexpected want.

"Vern—" Your breath halts at the mention of his name, fueling his need as he dives in further, playing with his tongue around your finger like it was his new favorite toy.

You've never felt anything like this. A hot, sizzling arousal rushing through your veins at the sight of your boyfriend worshiping the fingers that were just nursing him.

A choked up moan escapes you as he sucks another finger in his mouth. Your index and middle finger are now coated in his spit, making a messy, wet toy out of your hand.

The couch moves just slightly as you push yourself against him at every swirl of his tongue, feeling his length hardening with every uncontrolled grind of your hips against his.

Vernon's other hand travels all over your torso, finding you're wearing no bra under the shirt that was once his. He loves making a moaning mess of you, mixing the arousal from sucking on your fingers with the touch you've been craving on your chest.

Everywhere. He's everywhere. His thighs under yours, his hard pressing against your barely covered core, his hand feeling your chest up as your fingers scrape the sides of his mouth.

Every second it passes, you search for more of him, pressing against his chest until he has trouble fondling your breasts.

He pulls your fingers out of his mouth slowly, a string of saliva connecting them with his lower lips stretching until it breaks, undoing the trance you were in while watching Vernon have his way.

"I should be taking care of you," your voice breaks into a whisper, your boyfriend’s dark stare punching away any thought you had.

"Having you on top of me is all I need," your wet fingers trace his jaw as he speaks, and he smirks at the sounds you make when he flicks one of your nipples with his thumb, "making you moan my name when I've barely touched you."

His eyes train on your parted lips, exhaling heavily as he plays with your nipples exactly how he knows you like it. You can only fist the stretched neckline of his t-shirt, making it worse but making it yours.

Your other hand finds the back of his head, his growing buzz-cut threading between your fingers.

"Have I told you I love your hair?" How you find it in you to speak is beyond your knowledge, but he chuckles at your nonsense, and the fire burning at the pit of your stomach spreads down your thighs and soaks your underwear further. "I love it so much."

Vernon's hard groin twitches under the needy grinding of your hips, his throat swallowing with trouble as you break down his facade little by little.

"Let me," you know he won't take his hands off of you willingly. You don't really want him to stop either, but you're focusing on him tonight.

He groans as you push yourself off him, quickly finding the zipper of his jeans. "Baby…" his words trail off seeing you kneeling on the floor against him.

Trying to slip his jeans and boxers down, he gives in and lifts his body to help you. He'd never deny you of anything you want.

You don't restrain yourself, your hands finding the flesh of his thighs and traveling up and up until you're barely touching where he most wants to.

But a hand sneaks under your jaw, tilting it up until you're connecting eyes with Vernon again. "Don't," you barely whisper, a plea for him to let you make him feel good.

"Want you on top," he doesn't ask, doesn't order you, only outers his wish, with his eyebrows quirking in the way that always has you melting for him, "I'd feel much, much better."

You snort with an endearing smile, "I thought you were fine." Even after your teasing remainder, you oblige what he wants.

"Every time you get off of me, I start feeling sick," he coughs a few times to get his point across, "my body needs you to feel well.

Vernon's always been able to make you laugh, even when you're on the brink of tearing all his clothes off. "Then we better listen!"

His bare legs find themselves under your weight again, the skin to skin contact igniting every connecting point of your bodies. You tug at the ends of his damaged t-shirt until he gets the hint you want it off.

Vernon groans as the dampness of your panties rubs against his length, gripping your hips to flush you against him harder, not wanting to wait any longer to feel you all over him. You waste no time, holding his face between your hands and closing the electrifying distance between you.

A moan fights out of him a soon as your lips take his, molding together perfectly, as if they were meant to be connected forever. You can feel where his lower lip is hurt, swiping your tongue over the bruise as he moans on your mouth again.

Your hand caresses the side of his face, not letting his lips go as the other travels down his heaving chest. His muscles tense under the teasing touch of your fingers, nails raking down his skin.

Another moan coming from him is exactly what you need as you sneak your hand between your bodies, wrapping it around his cock that craves your touch.

He chases your lips as you lean back, revealing the state he's in, all because of you. His lips glisten with the mix of yours and his spit, parted and calling for you again as he catches his breath.

The changing shine in your eyes alerts him that you're planning something, an idea planted by the sight before you.

You swirl your tongue in your mouth, gathering as much spit as you can before locking eyes with him and letting it drop out of your lips, falling in a glob until it sits at the tip of his hardness.

Vernon's eyes darken at every one of your moves, his gaze entranced on your lips. Lips that were spilling all kinds of worried words minutes ago, and now are coating his cock with saliva so your hand can glide up and down at your desired pace.

"God, baby," your hand squeezes around him, spreading the mix of spit and precum so slowly on his girth that he's having trouble breathing, "you're so good to me."

The back of the couch holds his head as he leans back with another groan. His neck stretched out, glistening with sweat, calls to you. And who are you not to answer?

Your core traps his erection against your hand as you lean in, leaving wet kisses on your boyfriend's throat, feeling his every sound vibrating against your lips. He mumbles praises into the air, letting his hands wander across your back and squeezing your ass to press your further to him.

The wet fabric of your panties sticks to your folds in the shape of his length, everything pushing your cores together harder and harder. You let the swift rhythm of your hand on his cock and you grinding your covered clit against him take you to another world.

"Feel better?" Your lips graze the sensitive skin on his neck as you half ask half gasp.

Vernon's automatic response is to tighten his hold on your ass, grinding your hips against his with more force, the friction between your cores breathtaking. "I could," he teases.

"Greedy," your hot breath hits under his earlobe, and even you can feel the shiver going down Vernon's body.

His cock twitches as you slow down the pace of you hand. The combining feel of your folds and your hand stroking him almost make Vernon go crazy.

"You feel so good, baby," his eyes close in concentration, every touch of yours too much for him, "can't wait to be inside you."

In the midst of his senseless words and your desperate touches, Vernon finds the way to sneak a hand under you. Between his legs, his digits find the dampness growing at your core. "So wet already, for me."

Another hand grabs a fistful of your hair, detaching your mouth from licking your way up his jaw. He forces you to look at him, eyes full of desire, waiting for your answer.

"Yes—all for you-u," your words break in a moan as two fingers sneak under your panties, collecting your arousal and triggering another wave.

"Good." It is all for him. All because of him. The only one who can have you like this.

Smirking, his eyes lock in with yours, full of fire as his hand appears in your field of view. You don't stop looking into his eyes, the mischievous glint on them keeping you there, all while he sucks your juices off his fingers.

It takes all your strength to get up from the couch again, with only one objective in mind.

Your boyfriend gawks as if you were putting on a show only for him, slipping down his favorite panties, now stained with an unholy amount of juices. He stares with his mouth agape, but he's not patient. As soon as the fabric's off, he's grabbing your big t-shirt and pulling you towards him again.

Lips crash with lust and desperation, messily craving more and more. His teeth nibble at your lower lip, a matching bruise waiting to appear, but you don't care. You moan in his mouth, tangling your fingers with the short hair growing at the back of his head.

His thigh becomes a mess of your arousal, careless about your position as you let Vernon have his way into your mouth. Your tongues dance around the other, slowly melting into each other.

"Spit," you chase his lips as he separates to demand. Seeing his non-injured hand under your jaw, you quickly realize what he's doing.

Your living room's filled with gasping sounds and hot breaths, time stopping as your eyes lock. Vernon's eyes are on you as you let your spit drop into his hand.

You hover over his groin, dripping into his hand as he lowers it down between your cores. The tip of his cock grazes your entrance as he pumps his hard with his spit covered hand, the wet sounds reaching your ears.

Sinking down on your boyfriend's lap, the head of his cock enters you just right, your walls welcoming to mold into his shape.

Your lips stop working as you're filled to the brim, sitting on Vernon's thighs and gasping into his mouth trying to get used to the unprepared stretch.

As you're draped over his torso, he easily finds his way down your neck.

"Relax, baby," he says against the skin of your neck.

Every spot he knows you like, he kisses, whispering encouraging praise that gives you chills. Under your ear, along your jaw, over your pulse point, his lips press and suck at your skin, feeling how you warm up around him.

When he shifts his position slightly, his length pushes inside you just a bit more, your walls clamp against him, sucking him further inside in a whine, "That's it."

His husky voice goes through your ear and down to your core, and you swivel your hips up just to elicit another sound from him.

Vernon's hands find themselves gripping your hips again, helping you as you start a lazy pace on his lap. Your teeth sink down on the flesh between his shoulder and his neck, and he moans in your ear at the sensation.

"You'll have to take care of that one too," his breath tickles down your ear, and the vibrations of your chuckle almost make you lose your focus on him.

You kiss on the dent shaped like your teeth, "like you don't love it."

He hums a broken moan, the combination of everything you're giving him finally working like you intended.

Your walls tighten around him just as your fingers find his scalp, short nails raking between his growing buzz-cut trying to have him losing his mind under you.

It's not long before his hips join the fun, thrusting up to meet your pace and making you lose your breath. You feel him up to your throat, every place inside you marked with his name.

Vernon's hands roam all over your torso, indecisive, keeping you close but in the search for his favorite places to grope and touch. Your body's on the verge of giving out, and he knows it.

When he wraps his arms around your back and leans back against the couch, flushing your chest completely against his, you both lose it.

You're not in control anymore, if you ever were. Your knees barely stay at his sides as he thrusts up incessantly, the sounds of your ass slapping against the flesh of his thighs echoing around your living room.

But his groaning in your ear, his rambling words about how good you are for him, are only for you to hear.

Intercalating between lazy and desperate, no matter the time or the place, Vernon always finds that spot inside you that has you seeing stars.

So quickly, it'd be embarrassing if it was anyone else, your body starts quivering, every one of your senses losing focus as your insides get closer and closer to snapping.

"I'm c-close," you manage to form a coherent string of words in between a few merciless thrusts.

"I can feel it—" a breathless whine mixes up between his words, "cum around me, baby." He's as desperate as you.

With everything combined, Vernon's noises on your ear, his arms tight around you, and every spot inside you being abused at once, the world becomes a blur of fire and white light as your orgasm rips through you.

Your body shakes on top of him as Vernon chases his own orgasm, stretching yours for as long as his cock grinds inside you with a purpose. But he's a weak man when it comes to you, and with the way your walls clamp hard around him, making him work for every thrust, it's not long before he's lost too.

You feel the ropes of cum coating your walls, his length twitching as you take it all. All of him inside you as if you were one.

Silence, deep breaths and the smell of sex fill the room as your bodies take in everything you just did.

Only when Vernon's lips kiss along your shoulder, you realize he's still inside you, and you shouldn't rest.

"I have the best nurse ever," Vernon chuckles along his words as you get up from his lap to find your discarded panties.

Everything is still the same. His clothes disregarded on the floor, the flowers sitting on a vase you haven't seen since you moved in.

You turn around to find him putting on his boxers, his eyes a promise that he's not done with you yet, "I don't think a good nurse would recommend this type of cardio after a fight."

"Then I don't trust them."

Chuckling again, and knowing he'll join you later in the shower, you fall between his arms again, laying together on the couch like you've done so many times before.

Now is your turn to look up at him, the fire in his eyes not gone, but now overpowered by endearment.

You don't want to. You really don't want to. But your eyes close with tiredness, and the rhythm of Vernon's breathing is so serene that you fall asleep in his arms.

There, in your couch, everything around you forgotten and replaced by him.

note: thank you so much for reading! pls share your thoughts I'd love to read them ♥︎

[mosaickiwi]

Hey hey !!! Just wanted to say I really appreciate your writing, reading a fic of yours always brings me comfort :D

I was wondering if you’d be okay doing a body swap! AU between Angel and Ren/Redacted. You’re welcome to take whatever approach you deem fit, I’m curious as to what you come up with

thank you !!!

Thank you very much <33 Taking this as a warm up so I can remember wtf i'm doing!! So it's a HC list with a little blurb :3c most of my writing the past four months has been for my own projects/personal use lmao

Also happy day 5 yayyy yippee 🎉

💜🖤💜��💜🖤

Body Swap!!

[REDACTED] in your body?? Thriving

Fascinated and loving it. Since they've been studying you for years he knows all the little physical quirks you have, but now he gets to experience them himself and it's weirdly exciting.

Additionally, NO ONE would realize anything was wrong. Acting like you would be even easier than getting into character for Haruko. Except he might not be able to help himself and do a little friendship sabotaging.

He's being extremely weird in private if you give him permission lmao

A little unsure of physical affection at first because of the self loathing. Of course he still wants it, but being on the other side of things has his thoughts all "that's how my scars feel to you? my hands are really this cold?" Notes for himself to keep plenty of hand warmers in his pockets.

Puts the collar of their shirt over his mouth like he's cold… but it's really just a quick excuse to sniff your clothes outright in public I'm so sorry.

You in his body?? Suffering

You bump your head on door frames, constantly hit your hip on counters, trip in your platform shoes if you're not used to them.

You're tired all the time??? You knew they hardly slept but it was THIS bad? The constant coffee and energy drinks are the only reason you don't fall asleep in the middle of conversations.

Piercings feel weird too if your angel doesn't have them. Constantly touching your tongue to the roof of your mouth, fiddling with your ears, etc. 

Unaware of your new strength. Picking up furniture is surprisingly easy. You probably broke a door lock when turning the key with a little too much force. 

Your friends are dismissive and standoffish with you. Can you blame them? At best he ignores them, and at worst you have to be physically between them (but closer to [REDACTED]) to keep both parties happy.

💜🖤💜🖤💜🖤

"Watch your head," you heard from in front of you. 

You carefully ducked into the doorway to your apartment. It was hard to get used to your new height — and almost as hard to get used to hearing someone else use your voice.

The same couldn't be said of your partner. Not even thirty minutes had passed since the unfortunate incident, but [REDACTED] already seemed at home in your body. As if it was natural to him. 

While you panicked about suddenly swapping bodies in the middle of a hangout with your friends, he calmly made a plan. All you could do was follow along.

You'd observed them, dumbfounded as they perfectly mimicked your personality and mannerisms. He'd excused you both from the carnival early, and gotten you home without a hint of suspicion from anyone. It was unexpected and illogical, but his obsession with you clearly paid off.

No one seemed to notice — or care, since they weren't friends with him — that the pissed off emo their friend dragged around looked crazier than usual as you both left.

The door shut as you stumbled into the living room like a newborn fawn, your now shorter partner hovering at your side. How did he manage to wear three-inch platform boots while this tall? You tripped your way over to the couch with a sigh.

"I'm calling in sick tomorrow," you groaned into the armrest. The couch felt even more uncomfortable in his body. Inviting him over just to let him sleep on the couch one too many times probably warranted an apology. 

"We should be back t'normal in a few hours."

"Is that what WebDR said?" There was no response, but you threw out another question. "I guess we could kill time and watch a movie, what do you think?"

Again, he didn't answer. You heard the faintest sound of your phone vibrating and searched every inch of your outfit. When you found his phone instead, you sat up to look for him. 

The temporary owner of your body was standing just beside the couch, your phone still ringing in their hand, but his thumb hovering dangerously close to the screen. There was an annoyed frown on his face… your face? 

"Leon's calling," he finally said.

"Oh my god." You jumped up to snatch the phone away and hurriedly declined the call. 

Your partner's frown quickly turned to amusement at the situation. "Y'don't trust me t'play nice with him?"

"When you're using my voice? Fuck no." You texted an apology to Leon for leaving early, lied about your throat hurting so he wouldn't call back, then hid the device in one of your many pockets. "Oh wow." 

"What's wrong?"

"... Nothing, I guess."

Staring down at your own face this closely was… off. You reached forward and grabbed their chin, turning it every which way as if something about it would change. 

"You really get to look at me from all the worst angles when you're this tall, huh?" you hummed to yourself. 

"And y'look perfect at every single one, love."

God, he was awful. "Ignoring you."

[sturnsdarling]

'Chris likes girls who don't like him back'

Late night streaming with your best friends turns to a conversation about the boys' type, and Chris gets called out

vibe check: flirty fluffy fun, 3/4 of my favourite f words

1.4k words

A/N: i had this idea literally straight away after what Matt said about Chris' type.........the idea of being Chris' best friend that he openly fancies but you're 'not interested' makes MY TOES CURL BRO LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING anyway I hope you love this. PART TWO IS HERE

love and cigs, merc

"Matt he's right there what the fuck are you doing?!" you scream down the mic, nearly throwing your controller across the room as you jolt back in your chair.

You watch as Matt gets sniped in the head from the back, laughing as he wails on this desk, making the whole stream glitch and nearly crash. Chris is laughing along with you, trying not to make it obvious that he's watching you, and not Matt.

"Matt, bro you need to fuckin' up your game, y/n/n is actually carrying us right now." Chris says as Matt picks his chair up off the floor and sits back down in a huff.

"I always carry when I come on with you boys" you smirk, looking at the tiny square of Chris on your screen.

"yeah because you're a little sweat" Matt chuckles.

The boys had been streaming everyday for over a week now and, after some convincing, they managed to get you to join in on one of their games. At first you were apprehensive, obviously, but they explained that they were trying to diversify their platform and find a more mature audience so, actually interacting with girls on the internet was their first step.

You and the boys had been friends for forever, you met them through Nick in elementary school and had basically all been inseparable ever since, you'd been in some earlier videos but the fans back then made it very difficult to just exist around them so, you took it upon yourself to only exist in their real life, not their online one.

Cut to right now, you're nearly two hours deep in fortnite trios with the boys on stream, everyone was super excited to see you when they announced that they'd be joining and, other than a couple comments that you all ignored, it was going really well.

"Matt, someone asked what our types are" Chris laughed, reading the chat.

"I'm not answering that" Matt dead panned, screwing his face up at the camera

"I can answer it for you both, for sure" you chuckle, "chat do you want me to answer it?"

"yes, yes, yes, yes, omg yes" Chris was reeling off the answers in chat, "everyone wants y/n/n to answer, Matt should we let her?" Chris asked.

Matt rolled his eyes with a smile, "g'head, y/n/n, expose us" He chuckled.

"okay, so" you said, in your best girly gossip voice, "Matt likes nerdy, reader, soft girls" you begin to explain, your train of thought is interrupted by Chris erupting into laughter.

"dude she's so right! you love a girl that looks like she's always buried in a book" Chris wails.

"what are you guys even saying?" Matt complains, the smile etched across his face giving his tone a lot less power.

"you definitely want a girl who will go on a hike with you or some shit, Matt" You say, enjoying this whole interaction a bit too much.

Chris was keeled over in laughter, loving finally being able to talk about this kind of stuff on the internet without everyone going insane.

"I dunno why you're laughing so much, Chris, you're next" Matt states, Chris shrugs in reply.

"i don't give a fuck, call me out y/n/n, gimme the best you got" Chris sits back in his chair, arms folded over his chest.

"hmmmm" you say, exaggerating your thinking, "what is the famous Christopher Sturniolos type" you rub your chin, pretending to be thinking deeply.

A knowing smirk is spread wide across Chris' face as he stares at your face on his screen, tongue prodding the side of his cheek.

"I know Chris' type" Matt adds, a menacing smile on his face.

"g'head matt, you take this one" you gesture to the boy on your screen.

"Chris likes girls who don't like him back" Matts brows raise in accusation towards Chris.

You try and hide the smile forming on your face, attempting to look as focused on the game as possible as your tongue prods at your teeth. Neither of the boys say anything, both of them cheesing, Matt in a teasing and knowing kind of way and Chris more so in a 'I cant say what I wanna say' kind of way.

"damn, Matt, you just called me the fuck out" Chris shakes his head, looking to the tiny version of you on his screen.

You're still quiet, trying to fight the smile on your face and look as focused as possible, you catch Chris looking as if he's looking at you on his screen and shake your head with a chuckle.

"what you grinnin' at, kid?" Chris smirks.

You raise your brows, shaking your head with a downwards smile, "no, nothin', nothin" you say, returning your focus back to the game.

All of the viewers watched the interaction and were blowing up the chat with comments about how Chris definitely likes you, saying things like 'did you guys see that?!', and 'think they're slick look at how they're both smiling!!!!!'. Chris was reading the comments and trying to hide the red blush crawling its way onto his cheeks, Matt was relishing in the fact that Chris was so obviously nervous, and you were just trying not to react.

"Chris, dude, you better wipe that smile off your face, chat's onto you" Matt pokes the bear.

"chat ain't onto shit, Matt, shut the fuck up" Chris says, trying to be serious but unable to push his smile down.

"you know i'm right though, you do like girls who don't want you" Matt pushed on with his joke.

"Matt, shut your fuckin' mouth, dude" Chris rolled his eyes and shook his head, his smile still prevalent.

You couldn't help but laugh, still pretending to not care about the situation unfolding. In hindsight, it probably made it all the more obvious that you knew exactly what Matt was referring to.

"you're awful quiet, y/n/n, you got nothing to say on Chris' type?" Matt extends his joke over to you and your attention is immediately on him.

"nah, you hit the nail on the head, I think" you shrug, stretching back in your chair and adjusting your headset.

"oh really?" Chris replies, brows raised in accusation.

"mhm" you nod, faux innocently.

Chris kisses his teeth, nodding and trying to hide the smile on his face once again.

"yeah, chat, Matts right, I like pretty girls, who don't like me back" Chris says, subtly turning his attention to you and then back to chat.

You roll your eyes with a smile, leaning forward once more to lock into the game.

"you're ridiculous, Chris" Matt chuckles into the mic, watching you shift in your seat, trying not to blush.

The rest of the game went off without a hitch, you guys went on to win multiple times and all the viewers eventually stopped trying to get the conversation back to Chris' obvious crush on you. You played until the early hours of the morning, joking and laughing with the boys' just like old times and relishing in the fact that you were finally able to be a part of their online presence again. When it hit around three a.m you told them you had to sign off, explaining that you had to be up early for college that morning.

"guys, I gotta go, but I'll text you when I wake up" you said, pulling off your headset, and brushing your hair back with your hand.

"alright, y/n/n, thanks for helping us bury kids, its always a treat" Matt grinned at you, shooting you his token boyish smile.

"you know I live to humble kids on fort, Matt" You shrugged, putting on your best boyish persona, earning a laugh from Matt

"okay seriously, I gotta go, bye chat!" you smile, "bye boys" you go to switch off your computer but you're stopped by Chris booming voice.

"bye, beautiful" he says, a cheesy grin on his face.

your eyes roll to the back of your head as an uncontrollable smile finds your lips, "bye, Chris" you reply, switching off your computer.

The whole chat erupts with people losing their minds over Chris calling you beautiful, the boys say nothing, Matt just shakes his head, laughing at the chat as he watches Chris, grinning with pride and completely unashamed of his very obvious crush on you.

taglist: @sturniozalt@mattslolita@shaquilles-0atmeal@blahbel668@sleepysturniolo@le4hsblog @sarosfilms @joemamaaa42069 @2muchofaslvt @seluky10

[olderthannetfic]

For AO3 readers, MUTING is the solution to a problem they may not have come across yet.

I just thought of an extremely functional solution for a problem with AI fanfiction that a friend of mine shared her worries about. You see, she was particularly worried that her experience as a browser and reader of fanfiction will start to decline as AI fanfiction starts clogging the Sort By Recent filter on AO3.

Ok, so it didn't occur to me right away, and that is why I think it justifies this long anon post, but I just remembered that AO3 already has a tool to help you weed out low effort sludge that I have successfully used even prior to the increase in AI works. It does require people to be logged in though.

The solution is Muting, which has been around since 2023. I've even used it before for specifically this precise problem. There is a particular rare pair I like, but the primary producer of fics for that pair is one very prolific author whose fics are egregiously low quality. Like, the author even admitted that she frequently just find and replaces the names of the characters when she moves on to a new fandom.

After muting her, it about halved the number of fics in that tag, which was great, because it relieved me of an irritation and also allowed me to find other works. Muting folk who post AI generated works will have the same effect.

Why this will work: The main problem with AI fics is not that they are low quality, after all low quality fics have always existed - it's that they are both low quality and trivial to produce. Therefore, even one person who feels entitled to produce ai fanfiction could easily flood any particular tag with their works. But each time you mute an ai producer for one bad fic, you will end up removing all of their fics from your view, in any of your tags and fandoms. With a little weeding and upkeep, you should be able to browse contentedly as you always have.

Problem: Not all AI fics are tagged as such. How do you tell if a fic is AI?

The hallmark of a fanfiction author who generates stories with AI will be that they are prolific producers of low quality works. Why? because generating stories with ai is easy. It is much easier to generate a bad story with AI than it is to write a bad story without it. Therefore a person who uses AI to generate fics will have a lot of works.

The problem of false positives. What if you mute an author who is just bad right now but could improve?

My friend, if a person is already a prolific author of bad quality fiction, and they haven't gotten better yet, they probably will not improve to your standards ever. So you haven't lost anything by muting them. The goal here isn't to name and blame people who use AI - it's to make your own personal browsing experience better.

The problem of false negatives: What if you read a story and didn't realize it was generated using AI because it was good and you enjoyed it? You read something that you enjoyed on AO3 for free. This is not a problem.

You can find the mute button on AO3 by clicking the authors name. It will be in the same line as subscribe and block.

--