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thisgirlnamedblusy · 5 months ago

Note

Hello! Is it alright if you could write GP! Donna and how, in the beginning of the relationship, she was nervous to have sex with the FEM! Reader because of her GP? It’d be cool if the reader found out about her GP by accidentally pressing on her erection.

Thank you!

Yesss!!! Thank you for your request!!! I hope you like it and sorry if it's too long, and about the language mistakes!!!!

Everything about you

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Reader

Warnings: G!P Donna, smut, Minors DNI, insecurities, angst, fluff, first time

Word count: 6,746

Summary: You just wanted to know why she’s always hiding…

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting for yours :))) I love you all!!!

“You’ve came...” the woman in black sighed when she opened the door.

You smiled at her soft voice and nodded, amused.

“Of course I’ve came. We have met, right?” You said, getting a little closer to her and putting your hand on the black cloth that covered her face. “Hey, Donna, aren't you forgetting something?”

“What?” She asked confused. You waved your hand to move the black fabric and she laughed sheepishly. “Oh, I... I'm sorry,” she said, putting her hands on her veil, ready to take it off.

“Wait, keep it just for a moment,” you interrupted, picking it up and leaning down to kiss her under the black cloth fabric. “I love doing this...” You whispered. “It reminds me of our first kiss.”

“Yes, I...” She said, removing her veil completely. “Forgive me. I'm still not used to it.”

“Well, get used to it,” you whispered in her ear, amused. “To hide that beautiful face of yours is a crime, Donna.”

“You always say those things...” The woman in black murmured, stepping aside so you could enter the house.

“I say what I think, you know me,” you said, raising an eyebrow.

She responded to you with another of her dazzling smiles.

Living in that dark village had been a problem for you since you were a child. You were not comfortable. You didn’t share Mother Miranda's sermons. You were almost a hermit, refusing to please this strange cult you lived in. But it's not like you could get out of there, so it was better to get used to it.

You got so used to it that you ended up falling in love with one of the priestess's Lords, according to the villagers, the most dangerous Lord, Donna Beneviento.

Crazy, disturbed, sick, evil... All of those were adjectives that your neighbors said without basis. She was not a normal woman, she had problems and, like you, she was a hermit but you didn't see anything resembling those words about her.

From the moment in which, after one of Miranda's speeches, your gazes met, there was no turning back. It might seem like you suddenly became devout, but your excursions to church had little to do with Miranda. You were looking for Donna. You were looking for her among the people. And she, she was looking for you.

Shortly after starting those strange chases, meeting in unusual places and starting something resembling a conversation thanks to the Angie doll, everything else was just a matter of time.

Love seemed impossible in that place, but you, oh, you found it.

“Well, so...” You said hanging gently on her neck, making her shyness come to light with a slight blush. “What are we doing today?”

“I was thinking about taking a walk,” Donna responded, putting her hands on your waist, without taking her gaze away from yours.

You slyly rolled your eyes. Two months of relationship and that was the only thing you did: walk, have dinner, read, have tea. You couldn't complain, you didn't. You loved her and that was the most important thing but... A few weeks ago, your body began to get tired of shy kisses and innocent caresses.

“A walk? It’s cold out there,” You said, exaggerating a shiver. Donna rubbed your arms lovingly and stepped away from you, sighing and knowing that you were making excuses to stay home, again.

“Okay, (Y/N), what do you propose?” She asked tenderly, running a hand over your cheek, making you bite your lip involuntarily.

“Well, I don't know...” You sighed, pretending to think about the possibilities. Laying on the bed and making love to each other was definitely not something you could say loud and clear. Donna was excessively shy and she never made the slightest hint of taking the next step.

You assumed it was due to her loneliness. It was no secret that she lived alone, she was always alone. She herself told you that you were the first person who loved her, with everything that statement entailed. You were never a heartbreaker either. You had only played to be girlfriend with or kiss with or sleep with. You had never felt the need to prolong a relationship. None of the girls you met were really worth it, just Donna. Donna was the love of your life and you wanted everything with her.

“Maybe…. Maybe we could watch a movie,” you proposed, deciding that the best environment to carry out your desires was a dark room. You were also shy, but a little less. It was much easier for you to express your feelings and that could be an advantage.

“Oh, fine,” she said, smiling widely before kissing you quickly. “Why don't you go down and choose one? I'm going to make some tea.”

You nodded and obeyed, keeping your hand on hers for a moment longer, making her laugh softly again, with that smile that said how happy I am to have met you.

The room was dark apart from the light coming from the projector. It wasn't your first afternoon of movies and tea, but it was a special one, more romantic than usual. Your head rested on her shoulder while her arms made you feel like you were on a cloud, forcing you to think about other things, about forgetting your lustful desires. From time to time, there were knowing glances and tender and unbearably soft kisses on your forehead.

You leaned a bit closer, kissing her on the lips slowly, getting closer to her body. She smiled at you and obliged your wishes, just for a few moments before her head turned back to the bright white screen of the bookshelf.

“I'm very comfortable with you, Donna...” You sighed, lowering your head to her chest. She laughed softly and brought a hand to your chin to bring it up before kissing you softly again.

“Me too, (Y/N),” she said with a low voice. “I would spend my life looking at you…”

“I love you so, so much, my love! Come on, give me a kiss!” A shrill and unpleasant voice interrupted that moment. Of course, it had to be mentioned that Angie doll was always present on your dates. Sometimes she just kept an eye on you, in case you dared to hurt Donna, other times she spent the time making fun of you.

“Angie...” Donna whispered, annoyed by that interruption. “Please, behave.”

“Behave yourselves. It's going to give me a diabetic attack just by looking at you,” the doll protested, climbing onto her owner's lap and pushing you away with her ridiculous strength.

“Oh, if it bothers you that much, why don't you leave? I'm sure you have better things to do,” You said, crossing your arms in resignation.

The puppet laughed triumphantly, having taken away the comfortable position you had in your lover's body.

“Yes, of course. What you want is to be alone with my Donna,” the doll said, pointing at you with her hand.

“Well yes, that's what I want, to be alone with my girlfriend,” you said, fighting with Angie again, as was customary.

“Your girlfriend?” Donna asked, abruptly, looking at you.

Well, her expression was not surprising. In all that time you had never talked about what you really were. Lovers? Sure. Anything else that involved more commitment? It seemed like it, but it was never something that was said.

“Yes, well... We are girlfriends, right?” You asked, red shyly appearing on your cheeks. It was a bad idea to ask, since for a moment and due to her confused expression, you thought that maybe it wasn't so clear to her.

“I... Well... Of course. I... I didn't know if you wanted to...” The woman in black stammered, nervously playing with her hands in her lap.

“Donna, what do you think we are then?” You asked amused, enjoying her innocent disorientation.

“I, I don't know... I'm sorry, you know I'm very clumsy,” she said, embarrassed but with a shy smile appearing on her face.

“Well, then girlfriends, right?” You asked, slowly approaching her, ignoring Angie's fuss. Donna nodded before kissing you again, this time more passionately.

“Disgusting,” the doll protested, getting off her owner's lap. “Okay, I'm leaving.”

With the doll out of the picture and your kisses not wanting to stop, naughty ideas returned to your mind. Your hands rested on her chest as you settled on the couch, leaning slightly towards her.

“(Y/N)...” Donna murmured among kisses, putting her hands on your waist, pulling your body slightly. You, on the other hand, went down her jaw, down her neck, causing tremors in her body.

That was the perfect situation to strengthen that small commitment. You should thank Angie.

The atmosphere suddenly heated up, becoming unbearable. The kisses didn’t stop. The caresses wandered lower and lower, until your hands reached her legs. Everything seemed to be going according to your plans, but a hand on your wrist prevented you from following the erotic path of her leg upwards.

“Wait, tesoro...” Donna said, scared, nervous about something.

You stopped kissing her and looked at her with bright eyes. The lady in black moved away from you a bit, as if she had seen a ghost, as if something was bothering her.

“What's wrong? Are you alright?” You asked, worried by her terrified look. She nodded with a fake smile. Yes, she had never been with anyone. Donna was terrible at pretending.

“Yes, yes I...” She stammered, avoiding looking at your face, with her fists clenching tightly against the fabric of her dress. “Oh, but look at that… The tea is gone. I'm going, I'm going to go get some more,” she said hastily, making a useless attempt to get up.

Your hand on her arm stopped her, sitting her down on the couch roughly again.

“What are you talking about? I have my cup almost full,” you said, a mischievous smile on your face, biting your lip.

Donna looked at the small coffee table, closing her eyes, trying to control her nervousness.

“Surely it’s cold...” She said, thinking that such a horrible excuse was going to work.

“I like it cold,” you counterattacked, leaning over her again and attacking her neck without mercy. Her hands on your chest prevented you from getting any closer.

“No, (Y/N), you said that you were cold and...” Donna said, avoiding your kisses, pathetically running away from your touch.

Well, that was enough. The subtlety is over.

Taking a deep breath, you cupped Donna's face in your hands, forcing her to hold her gaze.

“Donna, I want to make love,” you said with a clear voice, leaving the shame you had aside, knowing that you were the one who had to act, the one who had to be less shy.

“Fa... Fa... Fare l' amore...” She stammered nervously.

“Yes, that's it,” you said, sure of yourself, crawling across the sofa so you could leave the woman in black with no escape. “I want to take that step with you, Donna…”

“I, I...” The lady in black said, freeing herself from your hands on her face, unable to stop your kisses, which resumed immediately, making her gasp at your touch.

Your hand returned to her leg, cornering Donna to the edge of the small couch. Your hands caressed the black fabric of her chest. It seemed like you were finally going to get it, or so you thought.

When you moved to position yourself on top of her, she became even more nervous, jerking you away from her, causing you to fall back into the seat.

“Donna...” You sighed with a sad voice due to that rejection.

The woman in black hurriedly stood up, touching the fabric of her dress, as if she was searching for something, or rather, as if she was trying to hide something.

“I, I'm sorry, tesoro... I don't, I can't,” she said with a broken voice, as if she really wanted to do it but for some reason, she wasn't able to. Fear of the first time, that was the explanation you found.

“Why? Are you okay?” You asked, standing up to grab her hand. She dodged you gracefully, heading towards the door, turning her back to you.

“Yes, yes I... I'm... I'm going to get that tea, okay?” She said, without stopping touching her dress.

“Okay...” you sighed, rolling your eyes. She had made it clear, you weren't going to insist. “Do I help you?”

“No!” She shouted abruptly, turning partially to make a gesture with her hand, emphasizing her refusal. Her face relaxed a bit and she closed her eye embarrassed by that out-of-context yell. “No, I... Stay here, will you?”

“As you wish,” you said with a frown, crossing your arms and letting yourself fall back onto the couch. Donna almost ran away and you shook your head. “What's wrong with you?” You sighed, picking up that cup of almost iced tea.

Despite that small awkward encounter, the rest of the afternoon passed normally. But there was something you kept thinking about: what the problem was? Her gaze, her eager kisses, her caresses wandering over your body. Those weren't symptoms of a person who didn't want you. You heard her gasping. You could see how her face was blushing but... But something stopped her from continuing.

Was Donna afraid of the first time? Probably she was, but there was something, something that didn't quite make sense in your head. If she wanted it so much, why did she run away like a coward? And most importantly, why did she look scared?

Little by little, as the days went by, your insinuations increased. You didn't want to pressure or force her to do something she didn't want to do. Donna’s mental health was quite delicate and she was a very sensitive woman. You didn't want to overwhelm her, or make her so nervous that she would forget to speak your language. No, you didn't want that.

But what you did want was to know what she was really worried about, what she was afraid of. You asked several times and the answer was always the same: I can't, a simple answer lacking arguments. Always the same scared attitude, always hands going to her black dress and always, always disappearing from your sight almost without explanation. What was going through her head? What was it that embarrassed her so much?

Donna wouldn't tell you, she never would. But your desire increased every night you came home, every time you heard her shy laugh, her eager gasps, every time you felt her hungry kisses on your skin.

“Tonight you are...” She commented while you were having dinner, one of the hundreds of romantic dinners you had. Her gaze had long since been lost in the corners of your new dress, one that you bought especially for that dinner.

“What?” You asked, hiding your smile behind a glass of wine.

“You look, you look beautiful, (Y/N),” Donna said, with that look of real love that only she knew how to convey.

“Wow, thanks, Donna... Do you like the dress? It's new,” you said amused.

You really didn't mean to insist that night, there was something special in the atmosphere, something that made you forget your carnal whims and enjoy Donna's innocent love.

“Yes, I, I like it. It frames your figure quite well,” she said, drinking from her own glass, still smiling.

You laughed at those words.

“Does it frame my figure? That’s a very… Professional opinion,” you joked, raising your eyebrows. She laughed with you, playing with the fork on the plate.

“I guess I can't help it,” Donna said, amused. “I would like to make you a dress, one much better than that one,” she whispered, observing your clothes with a different look. Sometimes that she diverted attention away so easily was maddening, but hey, you were used to it and you didn't mind at all.

You pretended to be indignant, opening your mouth with a gesture of surprise.

“What is wrong with it? It hasn't been cheap at all,” you said ironically, looking down at your new article of clothing.

“Hasn’t it? Well… I'm sorry to tell you that they have deceived you,” the woman in black commented, wiping herself with a napkin. “Look at those seams, they look weak.”

“The seams?” You asked amused, finishing your glass of wine. A heat suddenly came to your face. You looked at the Regina Rose bottle on the table and felt a bit embarrassed. You had perhaps drunk a little more than necessary.

“Mmm,” Donna agreed. “Surely they will break at the slightest touch.”

“Okay, are we here to talk about dresses and sewing?” You asked, sighing, putting the empty glass away so you wouldn't be tempted to fill it again.

“No, I...” Donna said, embarrassed, blinking in confusion.

“Hey, it was a joke, Donna,” you said quickly, grabbing her hand that was already clenching nervously. Fortunately, she relaxed almost instantly. “I would love for you to make me a dress…”

The woman in black smiled, running her thumb over your skin, caressing your hand in a way that gave you shivers, pleasurable shivers, of course.

“Ugh, everything was delicious,” you said, dragging the chair back.

“I'm glad you liked it, tesoro,” Donna, responded, pleased.

She got up to clear the table and you, of course, intended to help her.

“Wait I'll help you...” The familiar sound of fabric tearing made you sit still, red rising up your face and a knot in your stomach threatening to kill you with shame.

A shrill, shrill laugh filled the room. Of course, Angie was the first one to notice that your dress had torn down the side.

“Look, Donna, silly (Y/N)'s dress is torn. Silly, silly!” The doll hummed, pulling the black dress of its owner, making her look right at you.

“Shut up...” You said embarrassed, trying unsuccessfully to join the two parts of the dress. “Shit…”

“Don't say those words...” The lady murmured shaking her head and putting the plates back on the table. “You already know that I don't like it when such a beautiful girl talks like that...”

“I'm sorry, someone is forcing me to do so,” you hissed, glancing at Angie, who was writhing on the floor, laughing and pointing childishly at you with her hand.

“Let me take a look...” Donna said softly, leaning down to look at the tear in your brand new, pitiful dress. “You see? I’ve told you. Poorly done seams…”

“You're enjoying this, right?” You asked with an amused voice. She looked up and nodded triumphantly.

“Me? No, I’m not...” She whispered, amused, running her hand along the seam, concentrating. “Don't worry. I can fix it for you.”

“Oh, yeah... I wouldn't want to go with this hole out there,” you said, to which Donna nodded again, sitting up.

“Okay, come on, tesoro," she told you, sitting at her desk and taking sewing materials out of a drawer. “Oh, well, I need you to take it…”

You didn't give her time to finish the sentence. You, discovering this new opportunity to put your girlfriend on the ropes, slid her dress until it fell down your body, leaving you in your underwear in front of her dazed face.

“What? I'll have to take it off so you can fix it, right?” You said amused, walking slowly with the dress in your hand.

“Yes, well I... You could have gone to the room for it,” Donna commented, blinking nervously and taking the cloth with trembling hands.

“What difference does it make?” You asked, hands on your hips. “Are you uncomfortable?”

Donna shook her head, looking away from you and searching for a thread the same color as the dress.

“No, I... I, I like looking at you like this, I mean, your body is... I mean...” She stuttered before closing her mouth in case she said something stupid. An even wider smile spread across your face, enjoying her discomfort.

As she began to fix your dress, you sighed, leaning on the desk with your hands resting on your face, watching as Donna struggled not to look at what was in front of her, at your breasts barely covered by your bra.

“You're looking at me,” she said confused, swallowing.

“Oh, yes, I like watching you sew. It seems like you're very good at it,” you said with a provocative voice, blinking seductively. A shy smile spread across her face. She was still unable to look at you.

“Well, I learned when I was very young,” she commented with a slightly calmer tone, but with the nervousness still visible in her hands.

“I see,” you murmured, reaching out your hand to caress hers. She stopped instantly. “You have very skilled hands… I wonder what else they can do.”

Donna laughed sheepishly, moving her hand for you to remove it. You didn't know if she was the most naive woman in the world, or if, on the contrary, she was avoiding your hints with unusual mastery. The first option was the most likely one.

“Hey, since you know so much about fabrics... What do you think of this one?” You asked, with a more casual tone, pretending it was an innocent question. It wasn't, you were pointing at your bra, forcing poor Donna to give in to temptation and look at you.

Her eye fell on your cleavage immediately and her mouth opened, but she was unable to utter a single word.

“I... Well, I guess...” The doll maker stammered, staring at your breasts shamelessly, which made you bite your lip.

“Do you see something you like?” You asked in a whisper, leaning further into the desk.

Donna nodded involuntarily, shifting nervously in her chair, stopping her sewing.

“Touch it. I think you'll like this fabric,” you said, taking her hand and bringing it to your chest, making it gently pass through your bra.

Her breathing became even more agitated and her face began to have that same scared expression, you knew that she had gotten excited, but that she wouldn't do anything, as always. Seeing her confused look, and letting herself run over your naked skin, you decided to give her a break, since with her other hand, she was about to finish tearing your dress.

“Sorry, I'm distracting you,” you said amused, approaching just enough to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

Donna remained motionless for a few seconds until she took a deep breath and continued her work, now with your tempting body away from hers.

“Okay, I think, I think it’s done,” she finally said, looking at you out of the corner of her eye, probably blaming herself for being enthralled with your body.

“Great, thanks, Donna,” you said sighing, picking up your dress again and kissing her briefly.

“You're welcome,” she said, nervously, without stopping moving in her chair.

“Hey, can you help me with the zipper?” You asked, this time without ulterior motives. You were feeling a bit cold.

“Me?” Donna asked confused, quite reluctant to get up from the chair.

“No, I’m talking to Angie,” you joked, rolling your eyes and turning your back on her. “Help me, Donna, come on.”

After a few seconds, in which it seemed to you that Donna was murmuring something incomprehensible, finally, you heard the sound of the chair moving against the floor and you felt her breathing very close to you.

The zipper went up slowly and you closed your eyes at the feeling of having her body so close to yours, but so distant at the same time. You were having a good night and Donna was having a bad time, because of you. It would be better to give her a truce.

“Thank you,” you said kindly, taking her hand and kissing it softly. “Well, what do you want to do?” You asked, separating yourself, bending down to put your shoes back on.

“I... I don't know... I have to clear the table first and then, then we could...”

“Ah!” You shouted, losing your balance as you stood on one leg to put on your shoe. You fell back, right where Donna was, being picked up by her arms.

Your body hit hers, keeping you very close, so close that you could notice something strange, something that was pressed against your body...

“Oh, wow...” You said nervously, knowing exactly what that lump that pressed against your body was, immediately understanding the reason for Donna's strange attitude when you hinted at a bit of intimacy, the reason for her cowardly escapes, the reason about her hands playing with her dress when you were too close to her.

Donna didn't move immediately, and neither did you, you were still processing what had just happened and on the other hand, you were fine with her body pressing against yours.

“Donna...” You sighed, moving slowly, moving away a bit, just a bit from her body. “What is…?”

Before you could continue with your question, you heard a sob, which matched the beginning trembling of her body. You turned around slowly.

Her face was broken, embarrassed, tears were beginning to run down her cheek as she was unable to move or say anything.

“Hey, hey, my love... Don’t, don't cry...” You said nervously, caressing her cheek. “Come on, Donna, calm down, it's okay...”

“You haven't stopped until you've achieved it, right?” She said with her voice broken by crying, pushing your hand away unpleasantly and darkening her gaze.

“What? No, I didn't mean to...” You said with a soft tone, the tone that those situations, in which Donna lost her temper, required.

Normally it happened to her for no reason, and that was easy to deal with but... That time it was not the same, that time she had a reason to lose her mind. You had discovered the secret she was hiding from you, a secret that embarrassed her terribly.

“Why did you have to do it? Why?!” She shouted nervously, slowly letting herself fall to the floor, with her back leaning on the desk, hiding the tears and shame with her hands.

“Shh, hey, come on, calm down, Donna...” You said with a calming, somewhat complicated tone, you were also nervous. “It, it was an accident... I’ve tripped and...”

“Say it,” Donna said, making sure you couldn't take her hands off her face. “Say it once and for all!”

“What, honey? What do you want me to say?” You asked a bit scared. You've never seen Donna so out of her mind.

“Say... Say that you don't love me... That I disgust you...” She said through clenched teeth, bringing her knees to her chest and balancing on herself.

“No, Donna. That's not true I... Listen, let's talk, okay? Let’s talk calmly,” you said, putting your hands on her shoulders, trying by all means to get her to look at your face.

“There is nothing to talk about, (Y/N)... I...I...” She said, a bit calmer, but shaking her head.

“Hey, come on, it's okay... Everything's fine...” You whispered, resting your forehead on hers.

“No, nothing is fine. I, I have... I have a...” The lady in black stammered, trying to confess to you a truth that terrified her, the reason why she always ran away from your caresses.

“You have a penis, right. I've noticed it, so what?” You said, sure of yourself, making her stop crying instantly, looking at you surprised.

“So what?” She asked, pushing you away and standing up, now more furious than embarrassed. “So what, you say? Do you realize what that means?”

You, ready to deflect any stupidity that Donna accidentally said, put on a cocky pose and a superb look, raising your eyebrows and stamping your feet on the floor impatiently.

“Enlighten me, what does it mean?” You said with the same superb tone.

She looked confused for a moment, but then shook her head nervously.

“It means that you... That you... You can't love me...” Donna whispered, letting out the air that her anger forced to retain in her lungs.

“Well, I'll tell you something, Donna... I love you,” you said, approaching her, preventing her from running away again, grabbing her by the waist. “I don’t care…. Nothing can prevent the love I feel for you.”

“But, but I...” Donna murmured confusedly, being interrupted by a passionate kiss, the most passionate kiss you had ever given.

“Shh, don't talk anymore...” You whispered, moving her arms so she hugged you too. Her gaze was still disoriented, but her tears stopped sliding down her cheek.

“I'm sorry,” she said, ducking her head and burying it in your neck. “When, when Mother Miranda adopted me… My body…. My body changed and…”

“Shhh, I said don't talk,” you insisted, putting a finger between her lips. “I don't care, Donna. I don't care what happened to you, I don't care about your body... I care about you, your smile, your caresses, your words of love... I care about the time I spend with you...”

“I'm not what you're looking for...” The lady murmured again, caressing your cheek, looking at you as if trying to discover your lies.

“Of course you’re not, Donna...” you said, taking the hand that was caressing you. “You are much better…”

“But, (Y/N)...” She whispered very close to your lips, without that shyness that made her not be so close to your body.

“Come with me, Donna,” you said, grabbing her hand and gently pulling her toward the elevator.

“What? Where are we going?” Donna asked, almost stumbling as you pulled her along.

“You know what? I'm very tired of waiting,” you said amused, pressing the elevator button. “You won't escape me tonight, tesoro.”

“Wait, wait,” she said, standing in front of the metal bars. “Do you want? Do you want to…? Even knowing...?”

You nodded with an amused smile.

“You no longer have anything to hide so... Why don't we stop repressing ourselves once and for all? I want to love you so much, Donna…”

“I... I want it too...” The woman in black admitted embarrassedly, running a hand over your chest.

“Go first, in case you try to escape,” you said amused, whispering in her ear. She smiled nervously, but she ignored you, entering the elevator.

Once in the bedroom, you sat Donna on the bed and sighed, waiting for her to make the first move. She didn't do it, obviously.

“I've never done this... I don't know, I don't know what to do,” she said shyly, playing with the sheets. “I just, I'll just make a fool of myself...”

“No, don't say that... I'll help you, okay?” You said sitting next to her and holding her sweaty hand. “Why don't you start by taking off that dress and lying down? I will do the same.”

“Oh, well I...” She said, nervous but somehow, excited to finally feel free, to know that nothing could stop you from loving her.

She slowly undid the buttons on her top and, after a few moments in which you decided to leave her alone, you did the same. You just looked at each other, you didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. Although you were also new to what was to come, at least in that way, you decided to take charge of the situation, taking her hand and settling on the bed.

“Your body is beautiful... Did you know that?” You whispered as your hands roamed over her bare skin, partially covered by the two clothes you swore revenge on. She shook her head, stroking your back, playing with your hand.

“You're just saying that to make me feel better,” she said in a whisper, her face blushing as you forced your legs to intertwine.

“Do you know what would make me feel better, Donna?” You asked, getting closer to her lips. “Kiss me…”

Her reaction was not long in coming and hot, intense kisses were the only sounds that filled the room. You pulled on her lower lip as you let yourself be carried away by desire, by that desire that you had been living with for a few weeks.

Donna was passionate, she felt liberated and calm, and that was evident in her caresses, in her kisses... Nothing could stop her from placing her lips on your collarbone, from running her hands over your legs, your breasts, all those places where she refused to touch on other occasions.

“I love you, I love you so much...” She whispered in your ear, making you moan at the seductive tone of her words while her hands surreptitiously went to the closure of your bra, undoing it in milliseconds. “Nothing makes me happier than looking at your entire body…”

You smiled, letting the fabric disappear from your body, suppressing the stupid urge of your hands to cover yourself. No, you couldn't be ashamed, that night was for her.

Donna climbed on top of you, with her legs on either side of your hips, running her hand over your chest, over your belly, as if wanting to save the best for last, as if she didn't dare give in to her desires, your body.

You looked at her curiously and took her hand, running it slowly over your skin until she reached one of your breasts, which caused you to moan involuntarily. Feeling the softness of her hands on that part of your body was like an electric current passing through your entire spine. The delicacy with which she explored your skin, the tenderness of her innocent caresses in a place that was not innocent was wonderful.

Her kisses returned to your lips, wet kisses that camouflaged the pressure of her hand grabbing your breasts, the soft pinch of her fingers on your nipples. Your hands wandered aimlessly along her back, through her hair, across her waist. You wanted to keep her warm body on top of yours. You didn't want her warmth to leave you.

Taking advantage of that confusing mix of kisses and gasps, you unclasped her bra, not causing any shy reaction from your girlfriend, you imagined it was because she was too distracted filling your body with kisses and caresses.

With a slightly less discreet gasp, you decided to turn the tables, having her body under yours.

Your kisses traveled across her pale, hot, trembling skin. You kissed, grabbed and adored her chest as if it were almost a miracle, as if that beauty that she denied so much was incomprehensible to your eyes.

Your hips swayed with a calm rhythm, making her erection more and more evident, making her hands travel to your waist so not to lose that pleasant contact.

“I think there's something dying to come out...” You said amused, making Donna stop in her caresses, looking at you embarrassed by that naughty joke.

“(Y/N)...” She protested with a nervous laugh, being immediately silenced by your wet, eager lips, as your hands moved down to her underwear.

Donna gasped as she finally freed herself from the garment that was pressing down her, freeing her throbbing, quivering penis before you. You laughed amused, looking out of the corner of your eye.

“Don’t, don't look at it that way,” Donna asked you, biting her knuckles out of embarrassment at being completely exposed to you.

“Why not? I like it. I like everything about you, Donna…” You murmured, running your hand gently over her erection and moving to lie down next to her.

“Un, undress yourself too, please...” Donna whispered in your ear, intertwining your legs again and filling the skin of your neck with kisses and small bites.

“As you wish,” you said, moving to fulfill her wish.

Now naked, totally free of any barrier, your bodies moved in a dance of hugs, kisses, licks, caresses... The tension was unbearable, but passion reigned everywhere, in each of your moans, in each of your caresses, in new places that you had just discovered.

“You're so good, Donna... Such a good woman, so beautiful...” You sighed, tense from those caresses, from that hand that went down your belly to your moisture. She was soft, delicate and respectful, quite the opposite of your previous relationships.

She didn't respond, she seemed focused on making you enjoy, moving two fingers in circles, massaging your clit carefully, just like you needed it.

With the sudden feeling of injustice, you lowered your hand to her hips and stroked her erection up and down, making her shudder with an involuntary moan.

“Keep doing that...” Donna murmured anxiously, trying to ensure that the pleasure that your hand was giving her didn’t overshadow the soft movements that her fingers made inside you, curving, adapting to your body in a terribly pleasant way.

After a few moments of silent pleasure, of your hand grabbing her penis, hugging it, going up and down slowly, causing less shy and more natural moans, made the situation become dangerously hot. No matter how much you wanted to, and no matter how close you were to releasing yourself with just her fingers, you refused to do so and even more so when you felt that her length was also trembling with eagerness.

“Enough playing, Donna,” you said, removing your hand and bringing it to her face, gently pushing her against the mattress and climbing her hips again.

“(Y/N) I...” The brunette murmured when you placed yourself right above her sex, rubbing it, without touching it.

“Tell me you want this...” You whispered, leaning down to kiss her while with your other hand you lined up her penis right at your entrance. You noticed how she nodded eagerly.

“Yes, please, please...” She said in an almost pleading tone while you began to go down little by little, feeling how it made its way inside of you, how it stretched your walls in a way you had never felt.

You had to hide a small wince at that intrusion. The pleasure was much greater, but your body was certainly not used to her body and needed a moment to adjust.

“Black Gods... You're... Oh, how good it feels...” Donna moaned, making her words serve as a signal to you to move, riding her slowly.

“Yes, my love... You feel so good inside of me...” You whispered, closing your eyes and forgetting about that little prick. The pleasure of feeling her inside of you eclipsed everything else. “I feel you so much…”

She also closed her eyes while you took care of bringing yourself to the pleasure itself, of moving in the way that her moans indicated, looking for your own pleasure, looking for your body to embrace her in that way so intense that it made you almost explode.

“I, I'm sorry, tesoro...” Donna whispered, also moving her hips, letting the rhythm be harmonious, coordinated just like your moans.

“What are you sorry about, my love?” You asked curiously, without stopping moving, without letting her body leave yours. “You are perfect… My body takes you so well…”

“No, I...” She said, moaning more and more, squeezing her eye tightly to avoid looking at you, to avoid what both of you knew was coming. “I, I can't… I can't hold myself anymore...”

“Good, because I don't want you to do it... I want you inside me...” You said nervously, suppressing your own cramps, your own need to tense your muscles and scream loudly.

In less than a second, your movements became uncontrolled. There were no words anymore, only moans, grunts at the speed of your hips. Donna gasped suddenly and her heat flooded you, causing, in that same instant, your orgasm to pass through your entire body.

You gasped exhausted. You were still on top of her, caressing her hands, with your gaze fixed on her face, on her sweaty forehead and her breathing becoming slower and calmer.

“(Y/N) I...” Donna said, looking away and carefully getting out of you, noticing how some of her seed left your body. “I’m sorry about that…”

“Shh,” you said quickly, moving up her body to her lips, kissing her tenderly, calmly, saying in that way that you had liked making love with her, that nothing could stop you from loving her more and more. “Not a word, Donna. You're perfect…”

“That's not true,” she said amused, placing your head on her chest, letting your body relax little by little.

“You are perfect for me. You always will be.”

#donna beneviento #donna beneviento x reader #re8 donna #re8 village #requests #oneshot

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unactive-shroom · 3 months ago

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I have no idea what to title this tbh <3

Summary. Inumaki Toge brings you out for coffee to make up accidentally spraining your nose during training - but don't worry, you get your revenge

Warnings: like one swear, nose bleed mention, tide pods

The smell of fresh bread and pastries danced in the air as you and Toge took your seats inside the cute café on some Tokyo side street. It was a sunny Saturday morning, and Toge had insisted on dragging you here to make up for accidentally hitting your nose during training the evening before, resulting in a nose bleed that lasted at least 20 minutes. You looked around your surroundings carefully, trying not to disturb the bandage that sat precariously on your nose in a vain attempt to hide the obvious swelling.

It was definitely a cute café - the cosy amber lighting and brick walls welcoming many other couples to the comfortable cushioned seats that lined the walls. Toge tapped your arm, signing a quick I told you it was a nice café. You scoffed at him, shaking your head. “Not nice enough to warrant a broken nose, though.”

He groaned and slumped on his arm, signing a lazy I’m sorry! But at least you get a cute bandage on your nose now.

Sighing at the daggers you shot him, he finally signed exactly what you’ve been hoping he’d say - I promise you can get me back for it, okay?

Grinning, you leaned forward. “In any way?” you questioned excitedly.

With a sigh and a slight look of regret, he answered simply with a dejected “…tuna.”

You hummed happily and handed him one of the menus propped against the wall. “And I’m assuming that you’re paying, right?”

“Tuna, tuna”

You smiled to yourself, still scanning the menu as Toge put his back already. Both of you always got the same thing, generally speaking, but you always thoroughly read the entire menu before ordering. Admittedly, you did feel bad about teasing Toge so much, but hey, he’s usually the one teasing you. And you’re like, 90% sure that he’s using Gojo’s card. But it’s the thought that counts!

The waitress soon came over, giving a warm welcome and asking if you’re ready to order. You recited your usual order, and asked for a pastry too, before looking at Toge. “And an iced matcha as well, right?” He nodded, and leaned over to point at a pastry on your menu. “Oh, and a pistachio croissant, please. Thank you!”

After the waitress had left, you turned to Toge with a thoughtful hum. “So, what do you think of the new first years? Not Megumi, the other two… Nobara? and Itadori? Do you think that they’ll all get along?”

He shrugged in response. Well, they don’t really have any other option, since it’s just the three of them. So hopefully! You nodded in agreement.

Our year definitely lucked out though. I mean, I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t met you. Maki probably would’ve killed me by now. He signed casually, his eyes crinkling in a smile behind the scarf covering his mouth.

“Awwww, Toge, you can be so sweet sometimes!”

He clutched his heart dramatically before signing Only sometimes? I’m always sweet and kind and hilarious and-

You grabbed his hands with a laugh to stop him from reciting every positive adjective he knows. He smiled fondly at you before the waitress returned, carrying your drinks.

“Oh, thank you!” you chirped on behalf of the two of you, while Toge simply nodded.

The waitress hesitated before carrying on - suddenly blurting out “Um, do you mind if I ask you guys a question? It’s totally okay if it’s too personal, though!”

“Uhhh, I mean sure, go for it! What’s up?”

“Um..” she fidgeted with her hands before continuing. “Is your boyfriend mute?”

Confused where this is going, your first instinct is to passive-aggressively ask “So what if he is?”, but sensing no ill intent from this girl, and remembering how Toge said you could get him back, you’re struck with a wonderfully devious idea.

“Nah, he did the tide pod challenge a few years back, messed up his throat. He can’t say more than like, two words a day. That’s why we’re talking in sign.”

Silence. Absolute silence stretched between the three of you, but you could see the cogs turning in Toge’s brain, realising that you were getting your revenge. He groaned and covered his head in his hands, which were resting on the table.

“Oh- Oh my god. Okay. Um, I’m really sorry about that- That really sucks. Holy shit.” She regained her composure before continuing. “Uh, I was just wondering because I wanted to learn sign for my friend. Would you be able to tell me where you learned it?”

You handed over the name of the book that you both had used to help learn it, as well as a youtube channel that had helped greatly.

As she left, Toge groaned, looking up at you with one eye open. “Don’t look at me like that! You’re the one who said I could get you back!”

He sat up, shaking his head, and took a long sip from his drink, before bursting out in laughter. I can’t believe you told her that! What the hell, y/n! He signed between fits of giggles.

You giggled alongside him, sipping your own coffee. “well, at least she’ll have a fun story to tell after work.”

You had begun to get weird stares, unsure if they were from the non ceasing laughter from the two of you, or from the fact that you loudly said your boyfriend had eaten tide pods. Regardless, you decided to ask the nearest waitress (not the one who had asked about sign, thankfully) to get your things to go.

Stepping out into the sunshine, you giggled once again, slipping your hand into Toge’s.

“Thank you for bringing me out for coffee. And sorry that I started rumours about you, babe.”

Toge temporarily tried to look mad, letting out half an annoyed “Okaka” before erupting into giggles once more. There’s no way that he’d be able to stay mad at you, not when you were smiling at him like that. He pulled on your arm, clumsily signing arcade? at you, trying to hold the pastries and coffee in one hand. You nodded and grabbed his hand once again, happily making your way toward the arcade, yapping on about the new gacha machines they installed there.

a.n Yapper gf! y/n x listener brainrot bf! Inumaki 4ever idc idc. Alsoo not making fun of the tide pod challenge that was lowkey really insane and dangerous and it goes without saying to not!!! eat!! tide pods!!!

#inumaki x reader #inumaki x you #inumaki jjk #toge x reader #toge x you #toge x y/n #inumaki x y/n #toge inumaki x reader #toge inumaki x you #toge inumaki fluff #inumaki fluff #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x reader #cw small blood mention #inumaki jjk x reader #jjk inumaki x reader

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mr-jack-letterman · 7 months ago

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HELLO HI

God I love the Submas fandom, all of you are so nice <3

In any case, I have a silly Au for y'all to munch on.

Allow me to introduce you all to Covalent Twins :]

Covalent

Adjective

- Relating to or denoting chemical bonds formed by the sharing of electrons between atoms.

Or in this case, the sharing of Emmet between 2 Ingos from different timelines NSNDNNDDD.

This Au is essentially the answer to the question: "doesn't being sent to the distant past inherently mean you are also now long dead in the future you just left?"

The answer is yes and no btw

The explanation for this involves a lot of time nonsense that I'm very bad at explaining but the Tldr is basically this:

When Ingo gets sent to the past, this creates a connection between the past and the future. This makes time get all fucky and split into two separate timelines (Timeline A and Timeline B)

Timeline A:

Time in this timeline runs parallel to the future as long as Ingo stays within it (essentially, if Ingo stays in the past for 2 years, then 2 years pass in the present).

Due to this connection, Akari (aka Dawn) gets sent to this timeline (But not Timeline B) and the game events of PLA play out (+ a lot more Ingo bonding because uncle Ingo supremacy)

Akari manages to get her and Ingo sent back home with the power of Arceus, causing both timelines to merge back together again into one cohesive line with only the events of Timeline B being remembered by history.

Ingo and Emmet get their happy ending.

This Ingo got sent to Hisui when he was 29, stayed there for 2 years, and went home when he was 31.

And Timeline B:

This timeline was created as a cannon fodder timeline so Akari and Ingo can keep doing time shenanigans in Timeline A without disturbing the space time continuum even more.

This timeline is therefore not connected to the future the same way Timeline A is.

The Ingo of this timeline (Nicknamed "War" or "Warden" for simplicity.) lives through the PLA game events but with Rei taking the place of Akari.

War doesn't bond with him the same way Ingo does with Akari because Rei isn't a faller.

The events of the game are the exact same (minus the Arc phone, Rei taking the place of Akari, and catching Arceus).

Despite Rei calming the nobles and catching Palkia and Dialga, he is still not the chosen hero. Warden is unable to go home or regain his memories.

Warden lives in Hisui and serves as a warden for the Pearl Clan for a total of 7 years before dying alongside his partner pokemon, Gliscor (nicknamed Nimbasa), while protecting Lady Sneasler from a Zoroark attack at the age of 36.

Warden drifts as a ghost for many years, with only Nimbasa the Gliscor as company. He watches his friends grow old, and eventually die. They pass on to the afterlife, but Warden stays on earth, wandering the Alabaster Icelands and Mount Coronet, searching for people from a life he can't remember even in death.

Warden watches as Hisui changes into Sinnoh. Jubilife Village becomes Jubilife City. Pokemon species die out and new ones are born.

As the world slowly becomes more and more familiar, the great Sinnohs, Palkia and Dialga, take pity on the lost warden, and decide together to lead him home.

It may take 150 years, and many miles of travel, but Warden is pulled by an unknown force towards the Unova region. Though he is unable to touch anything or speak to anyone, it's all so painfully familiar.

He is pulled towards Nimbasa city, (ah! That's where he got the name from!) and eventually to an apartment.

There, he is greeted by a young girl, barely 17. A man in black, who looks exactly like him, give or take a few years and a few scars.

And a smiling man in white. The man he has been searching for for over 150 years...

And they're staring at him, truly staring at him, not through him.

Why is the man in white crying?

*evil laughter.mp3*

So yeah! The twins have an older brother now :D

I mean he's dead and also Ingo just 5 years older and from a different timeline but still!!!

If you've made it this far I believe you deserve a gold star ⭐ and also some art for your troubles.

So here's War and Nimbasa ↓

And some fluffy interaction between War and Emmet as a bandaid.

If you guys have any questions regarding how this Au works, or are interested in seeing more of it, don't hesitate to shoot me an ask :D

I hope I enjoyed reading about my silly Au, even if it was a bit long lol.

*fades back into the void of Submas fics.*

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ddejavvu · 1 year ago

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hiii, hope you’re having a good day! Could you do a request with animagus reader and marauders just being out and r is in Sirius’ bag or smth and a dog spooks her and she ends up running away panicked and they just start to run after her. tysm!

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9 / part 10 / part 11

"Let me make absolutely sure that I am understanding you boys correctly." The stern tone of Professor Mcgonagall's voice never fails to chill the blood of those who hear it, but James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin are quite accustomed to the chill by now.

"You tore through the school's vegetable garden," She begins, "Then you trampled the roses. Then you tracked mud from those trampled roses through the Great Hall, interrupting a session of O.W.L.s that non-participating students were given plenty of warning not to disturb."

"Professor-" James starts, but Minerva snaps her gaze sternly to him.

"I am not finished, Mr. Potter, and you will not speak until I am."

He has the good sense to nod instead of giving a verbal response.

"Then. You went on a mad goose chase around the castle, that included not only breaking into faculty-only spaces, destroying art hung on these walls longer ago than you've been alive, but jumping from moving staircase to moving staircase?"

"I didn't mean to smash through that painting," Sirius offers earnestly, but when she whirls towards him, he's almost worried she'll strike him.

He knows she won't; she's like the mother he's never had, not the one that he does have.

"Fine! Fine, since you seem so eager to speak, tell me now: Why? Why was any of this necessary? Why did the three of you suddenly lose all sense?"

Sirius is rather surprised she hasn't yet noticed the lump beneath his sweater, but he's more than happy to tug at the neckline of the knitwear, "I was running after my cat, professor."

You know you'll be the only one to save them now, and you try appearing as endearing as possible as you stick your head out from Sirius's sweater, your furry ears brushing at his chin as you mewl plaintively at Professor Mcgonagall.

She blinks.

It's all she can do, because the boys in front of her are a permanent headache, and she asks, voice dangerously calm, "Why was your cat running, Mister Black?"

"She had a run-in with a wild dog," Remus explains, because if Sirius was left up to the task, he'd probably use adjectives like 'misunderstood' and 'unwillingly aggressive'. "She was tucked into Sirius's bag while we took a walk over the grounds. She likes to get out, but Sirius keeps her in his bag to be sure she's safe. But the dog must have smelled her, and he came out of the forest to charge for her. She startled and ran, and I can't say I blame her, Professor. Sirius was just worried for her, that's all. We would have really liked to avoid the chase as well."

A tense silence falls, and four pairs of eyes watch as Minerva Mcgonagall pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers and sighs. She neglects to tell Remus that it doesn't matter whether he'd have liked to avoid the chase or not; there's a hundred fifteen-year-olds mourning the loss of their exam time.

When it's unclear what her position is on your morning escapade, you slip out of the bottom of Sirius's sweater, and pad over to sit at her feet. Sirius draws in a breath, keeps it locked tightly in his lungs as you meow up at her, and when you have her attention, your tail flicks idly behind you.

"I don't like dogs either," She laments in a voice far too exhausted for ten in the morning, "Mister Black, if you or your friends ever treat this castle like a jungle gym again, I will make you scrub out the cracks in the stone dungeon walls with a toothbrush."

He tries not to grin, because his luck is far too strained, but he nods eagerly, "Yes ma'am. Thank you, Professor."

"Do not thank me," She glares warningly at him, "I am still tempted to feed you to wild dogs."

The boys stand, nodding at their professor as they file out of her office, but when Sirius calls you with open arms, she peers over her nose at him.

"Leave the cat," She instructs, and at his curious head tilt, she adds, "I had to listen to Mr. Filch tell me all about your antics this morning. At the moment I deserve better company."

#sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #sirius black scenario #sirius black oneshot #sirius black one-shot #sirius black one shot #sirius black headcanon #sirius black headcanons #sirius black hc #sirius black hcs #sirius black fanfiction #sirius black fanfic #sirius black fic #sirius black blurb #sirius black drabble #sirius black dialogue #sirius black fluff #sirius black x reader fanfiction

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rrxnjun · 1 year ago

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dancing in my backseat ✲ l. donghyuck

pairing. film student! donghyuck x film student! fem! reader starring. uchinaga aeri genre. college au, acquaintances to lovers. fluff, comedy, suggestive warnings. mentions of alcohol and weed, swearing, sexual innuendos word count. 24k (24.047) a/n. please dont hate me for the fact that this does not have any expected smut in it i tried and it felt too awkward i just COULDN'T. also this fic doesn't fit the image of it i had in my head at all but i actually kind of prefer this version over the prev idea i had anyway <;3

playlist. marvelous - wallows / crash my car - coin / test drive - ariana grande / streets - doja cat / no manners - superm / feather - sabrina carpenter / AEAO - dynamicduo / wet tongue - thomas headon / car crash - eaj / delicious - the boyz / but i like you - boynextdoor

there are only a few things in which men value their social status; one of them being the number of girls in their bed, the next one their rank in league of legends, and lastly, their cars— or— where you would never fuck a guy without a driver's licence.

✲ PART 3 OF THE SIMPLIFY ROMANCE SERIES ✲

If anyone asked you about your relationship with Lee Donghyuck, you’d scoff at them and simply state that the resident gemini was your moral enemy. Was that true? No. No, of course it wasn’t– there was nothing this man has done in his life to get on your bad side, and you truly don’t feel any hatred towards him, but at the end of the day, it’s always easier to say this than to explain the exact feelings you have towards the male without sounding at least a bit overly-dramatic.

See, you don’t hate Lee Donghyuck; you don’t think he’s your enemy either– you just find him absolutely, excruciatingly annoying.

And it’s not his personality, no– although you do admit that the way he carries himself and has such high mind about himself is quite alarming– the way your toes curl and the hair on your body stands up, all alert in sheer ick and disgust, has nothing to do with his ego and everything to do with your experience with the man.

The first time you find Lee Donghyuck intensely annoying is when you get a text one day (having acquired his phone number from one of the class group chats, since the two of you major in the same program), at 9 in the morning, approximately 15 minutes before you have to leave your apartment to get to your fist class of the day. The man picked the wrong time to bother you, since it was Monday, of all days– the beginning of the week always manages to rile you up just because it exists in the first place– and you could give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it wasn’t his fault at all and you woke up grumpy already, but the events that happened after made you so deeply disturbed and annoyed to your core that there truly wasn’t any other word left in your vocabulary to describe Lee Donghyuck than the adjective already mentioned – annoying.

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – hi im in a crisis lee donghyuck (film theory class) – can u pls throw some toilet paper lee donghyuck (film theory class) – we ran out and my roommate already left for class lee donghyuck (film theory class) – pleaaaaase

Staring at the texts appearing on your phone screen in a hurry, you stop in your tracks and furrow your brows at the contact name in confusion. The truth is, you haven’t spoken to Lee Donghyuck that many times– you just know that he’s friends with your friend Lee Yangyang from high school and you two meet occasionally at the said friend’s gatherings. Plus, you had a discussion or two about the beauty of Quentin Tarantino movies when you met at orientation in freshman year, and that's also when you learned that he’s your neighbor; in fact, the window to his flat's bathroom and his very own bedroom face yours. But that’s about as far as it goes when it comes to your closeness. You’re not familiar enough with him to text each other or to think of each other in a time of need, so to have his first texts to you be about him being out of toilet paper is a thing to really dwell on to fully understand the extent of the bad impression this man had on you.

you – what the fuck

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – just open the window and throw me some lee donghyuck (film theory class) – i am good at catching

you – im in a hurry rn. gotta get to class

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – SO DO I why else do u think id be up this early lee donghyuck (film theory class) – so PLEASE throw me the damn toilet paper so im not late today

Shaking your head in disbelief at the conversation you’re currently having, too confused and tired to deal with it so early in the morning, you walk up to your room and look out of the window. Right opposite of you, not being further than 10 meters, if you’re being absolutely exact, is Lee Donghyuck’s head popping out from the bottom rim of his bathroom window, seemingly still sitting on the toilet. The look in his eyes is desperate as he clasps his hands together and mouths “Please!” at you, his face forming into a truly humiliating scowl that makes you wonder if he's truly done with what he'd been doing on the toilet only a few minutes prior.

Sighing, you turn on your feet and escape your room– not noticing the absolutely disturbed and mortified face Donghyuck’s pulling behind your back, thinking you abandoned him and took off for class– and you truly can’t believe yourself when you walk into your own bathroom and take the half-used roll of toilet paper off the stand, murmuring a silent “Fucking hell” under your nose as you walk back to your bedroom and open up your window wide. Donghyuck’s eyes light up now, as if he was a kid under a Christmas tree about to receive a gift from Santa.

“If it falls to the street, I’m not getting it!” you yell after the boy, seeing as he eagerly nods and ushers you with a wave of his hands.

“Just throw it and I’ll be sure to catch it!” he nods, waiting for you to start your career in the new twist on baseball– a sport you’d call a toilet roll throw against the street. His eyes seem focused, knowing this is his only opportunity at wiping his ass this morning (why neither of you thought of suggesting to use the shower instead, you don't know to this day– perhaps it was too early in the morning for such complex strategies), when you surprisingly do your best at aiming for his window– thank god you both live on the same floor– and throw the roll across the alleyway, the paper unwinding only slightly before it lands on the floor of Lee Donghyuck’s pearl white bathroom.

“Thank you so much, you are my savior!” he yells, his head disappearing from the window, leaving you alone in your room to watch the commotion. When nothing happens for a while, you only shake your head in disbelief once again, deciding your job here is over and you can finally take off for your dreaded lecture.

“I’ll get going!” you scream into the void, scratching the back of your neck, aimlessly.

“Mhm! See you later!”

Nodding to yourself, you sigh, closing the window and doing a double take as you’re about to leave your flat for class, hopefully still on time. In disbelief, feeling the second-hand embarrassment seeping to your bones, you put on your shoes at the entrance and swear to yourself that you’re never gonna answer any of Lee Donghyuck’s texts ever again.

The previous scene already established that you’re no stranger to second hand embarrassment. I’m sure all of you have experienced it before– seeing someone desperately flirt with your friend, knowing that they’re not interested… Watching a drama and being absolutely grossed out with the script, wondering how the actors got convinced to take on the role… Hearing someone say an absurd answer in class… There are many, for sure, and the list could just keep going. You saw it with your own eyes as well, when your friend Choi Beomgyu tried hard to impress a girl at the skate park and managed to fall off his skateboard mid-trick, tearing his jeans in the crotch area in the process. Or when your roommate Aeri got tipsy at the club and who she thought was a very fine gentleman to flirt with was actually her ex boyfriend. The list goes on and on.

What about first hand embarrassment, though? You’re sure you experienced it before as well, but if anyone asked you, you’d tell them you don’t remember any embarrassing stories. If it’s because you just don’t want anyone knowing about the shame in your bones or if you really hated those experiences so much you chose to bury them and extract them out of your memory, you won’t tell. You just won’t let the shame haunt you for any longer than it has to, that’s for sure.

So when you walk home from the hairdresser one afternoon and you’re met with your roommate Aeri looking at you with lips pressed together, yet the corners tugging upwards in what you assume (and fully know) is her trying to hold back an amused laugh, you admit that your suspicions were indeed correct when you saw yourself in the mirror at the salon and you’re going to have to live through another embarrassing moment. One that will take days and weeks to outlive as well, since your hair doesn’t grow back overnight– and when you look into the mirror again, you’re terrified.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing, it’s just… you look… well, you know, it’s just…” she mumbles, before she finally breaks into a loud laugh, standing behind you and examining the state of your hair in the mirror of your entrance hall with you, hands coming up to play with your strands and hold them up and down, brushing your bangs out of your face and ruffling the top– trying everything possible to find a single good hairdo with the haircut you have going on right now. “Oh babygirl… what did the do to your beautiful hair…” she mourns, the tone of her voice still amused, but now also kind of considerate.

“I told her I only wanted a trim,” you say, voice weak in what you realize is you holding back your tears and suppressing a mental breakdown, “how the fuck am I supposed to show my face to the world tomorrow?”

Your roommate sighs at you, spinning you around so you no longer can see the disaster on your head, a pout forming on her face as she lightly shoves you deeper into the apartment. “At a second glance, it’s really not that bad, you know–”

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better,” you cut her off, annoyed at her soft eyes.

“I don’t?” she looks at you, shocked irises hardening when she realizes you no longer need her sympathetic words. “Okay, thank god. Man, she fucked you uuup, leave a bad review like, right now. I’d cry myself to sleep if I got a haircut like that–”

“I take it back, I liked your lies better,” you roll your eyes at her, walking over to the kitchen to fix yourself a glass of water to calm down your racing heart. The mental breakdown is still right around the corner and you realize you have to do everything in your power to stop it, because you already have a fucked up haircut– you can’t afford to show up to class tomorrow with puffy eyes and stress-induced pimples as well. Gulping down the cold liquid, you decide to hop into the shower (and avoid looking in the mirror at all costs, which is kind of difficult, since there's three of them just on your way to the bathroom).

Meeting the encouraging eyes of your roommate once you come out of the shower, hair tied up in a towel so you don't have to think about it any longer, Aeri's words reach your ears in the living room. “Come on, I’m sure we can manage to do something with this tomorrow morning,” she smiles, “at least you have a pretty face. You can pull off everything!”

And the truth is, even though Aeri is nice, she’s not always right. You’re met with the fact the next morning as you watch your reflection in the mirror before you both leave for your shared Film theory class, standing next to each other defeated; one breathtakingly beautiful and one looking like the main character from Chicken little. You'd be fine with it if it was only you who was aware of your disastrous image, you would be able to deal with the shame and insecurity silently– but that's not what happens as you’re only reminded by the fact that other people, sadly, do perceive you, against your biggest wishes, throughout the whole day.

You’re reminded by the fact that your haircut is fucked up when Ji Changmin, the guy you share an Animation class with, sees you in the corridor and does the yikes face at you and his friend Sunwoo hides his face from you as they turn the corner. You’re reminded by the fact again when you see Jisu, the ever-so-sweet girl that majors in Finance, the girl that’s friends with everyone in this school, look at you with a considerate look, patting your shoulder when she passes you by before you enter your Film theory classroom.

And most importantly, you’re reminded by the fact when you finally sit down– at the very back of the classroom, which is both valid and understandable, considering your current state– and you’re met with a thud of a backpack to your left, a figure sitting down on the usually vacant spot. Clenching your jaw and looking up to see its owner, mentally preparing yourself for the teasing that’s about to come, you meet eyes with a tall, sleek man, shirt tucked into his black jeans and a sigh of relief escaping his throat as he sits down on the uncomfortable chair. Lee Donghyuck waves at you in greeting when he notices you there, running his hand through his neatly styled hair.

“Hi there,” he breathes out, “can’t believe I made it on time. My alarm didn’t go off and my roommate couldn’t be arsed to wake me, even though our morning lectures start at the same time, so I had to run and my usual seat is taken already… hope you don’t mind me sitting here– woah.”

And here it is again– the feeling of absolute humiliation as the man scans you up and down, eyes bearing into yours with an unreadable look on his face. Is this how he felt when he texted you to throw toilet paper through his bathroom window? Or was he immune to the shame?

“Did you get a new haircut?” he asks, squinting his eyes at you in question.

“Shut the fuck up,” you sigh, already annoyed with his antics– because frankly, you know what will come next.

“That’s an interesting answer to a yes or no question,” he muses, chuckling to himself, “I’ll take it as a yes, though, but it seems like you’re not satisfied with the new look…”

“Woah. You should work with the FBI or something,” you mumble, averting your gaze from him and looking straight in front of you, praying for the class to start fast so you don’t have to interact with your neighbor any longer and listen to him make fun of you for your new look.

“Why? It doesn’t look bad at all,” he says, the tone of his voice fakely considerate, making you want to punch him in the gut, “It’s interesting. I like it. It shows off your eyes and your forehead more, since your bangs are way shorter now,” he says, putting emphasis on the fact that your bangs truly are half their original length– which wasn't your original plan at all– only riling you up more.

“Only thing left to add is that I have a massive forehead, isn’t it?” you ironically smile at him, and the male takes your word for it as his eyes focus on the exposed part of your skin, furrowed eyebrows and all, as he examines your features.

“Not massive, but it’s a little… like, I wouldn’t say–”

“Just don’t say anything, okay?” you sigh, cutting him off and folding your arms at your chest in a poor attempt at defending yourself.

“Geez, why are you so snappy? I was complimenting you, y'know,” he says, and if you were more stupid, you’d even believe him– the tone of his voice still sounds genuine, but that’s just the way your neighbor likes to deceive people, and you know that; you’ve seen it happen multiple times before. “It adds character.”

The comment makes you roll your eyes, all words taken off your tongue– you simply think there’s no use defending your atrocious haircut now (not that you tried defending it before, even you aren't that oblivious). Your gaze is focused anywhere but at your seatmate, counting down the minutes until the class starts and you're taken out of your misery for at least an hour and a half. Your Film theory professor is almost never late and now is the only day you’re content and happy about the fact, because it means you won’t have to listen to Lee Donghyuck for more than approximately 2 more minutes until the small, hunched over frame of your professor strides through the door.

Still, you feel his burning gaze to the side of your face, and despite your best intentions, you snap your head towards him and bite at the annoying gemini.

“Take a picture, it will last longer,” you spit, scoffing at the male.

“Can I really?” he asks, and before you have a chance to disagree, his phone is shoved into your point of view and the shutter comes off, making you lounge after the man in a poor attempt at taking his phone away and deleting the first picture of your new hair ever taken. (Well, except for the one you took crying last night, with a peace sign and your tongue darted to the side against your mirror. You don’t need any more traces of your current haircut than that one.)

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – hi neigbor whatchu doin lee donghyuck (film theory class) – u have a car right

Squinting at the next text conversation with Lee Donghyuck, the first one since he asked you for toilet paper 3 weeks ago, you feel nothing more than pure confusion at the strange questions the man asks you in the middle of the night. It’s Friday evening and your roommate went out with a guy named Eric she met four weeks ago in the gym, and even though you were slightly concerned when she texted you to say she was staying over at his house for the first time, you only showed her support as you went to lay down with no other plans for your evening. Falling asleep to your midnight playlist playing in the background (thanking God for the smart feature that makes the music shut off after 30 minutes), it's completely understandable and predictable that the noise of an incoming text annoys you when you hear it only a few minutes after 2 in the morning. The fact that it’s your neighbor texting you, out of all people, only makes the fury in you bigger as you click your tongue and shoot him a quick text back.

you – what do u want

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – neighbor!!!!! lee donghyuck (film theory class) – you do have a car

Staring at the text that just appeared on your screen, you sigh and decide to spill the truth, preparing for whatever request that’s about to come after you admit to the fact that you do, indeed, have a perfectly functioning vehicle parked behind the building.

you – yes

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – perfect lee donghyuck (film theory class) – do u hav sm time on ur hands

you – im sleeping

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – veryfunny youre replying rn tho lee donghyuck (film theory class) – come on itsa simple request

Breaking your back just to decipher the words through the amount of typos Lee Donghyuck’s making, your annoyance only grows bigger. Has he always been a bad texter? You don’t remember him struggling as much when he was sitting on the toilet three weeks ago– his texts were absolutely clear and with 0 mistakes back then. Maybe he was in a more desperate situation back then, after all…

you – what do u want hyuck its late

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – can u drive me home

And here it goes– in the back of your mind, you somehow knew it was coming. There were only a few reasons why someone would ask if you owned a car, and judging by the fact that it was now 2 in the morning on a Friday night, your neighbor wasn’t trying to sell you a new vehicle just in case you didn't have one yourself. Getting a drive home would be the only logical request from someone asking if you owned a car– it would only be more logical if the person asking you was your friend, and not an acquaintance at best.

Staring at the screen of your phone, counting down from 10 to not snap at the ridiculous request, you watch as the device lights up with an incoming call. You don’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who’s calling, and despite your best assumptions, you pick up with no more thought given, waiting for the person on the other side of the line to speak first.

“Y/N,” he says, voice breathless.

“Lee Donghyuck.”

“Can you please drive me home?” he asks, tone of voice lazy and tired, something about the dragging of his words hinting you that there’s more to the request than you’re grasping right now.

“Are you drunk?” you ask, right off the bat, to clear out any confusion.

There’s a short silence on the other side of the line, one that hints that you’re completely right in your assumptions, but you still want to hear it from the guilty man himself. “Maybe a little,” he admits, snickering, “I was over at Yangyang’s and then he kicked me out and I… my legs hurt too much to walk home.”

Sighing loudly at the man’s antics, you shake your head in disbelief and clear your throat. “I don’t see how that’s my problem?”

“Oh, come oonnn,” he drags out, “it’s not that far.”

“Yeah, so I don’t see how you can’t walk back, then?” you mutter, rolling your eyes at the demanding tone in your neighbor’s voice. If it was anyone else, maybe, just maybe, you’d be on your way already. You never decline your friend’s requests for favors, since you know they’d do the same if you asked, but you don’t really see how Lee Donghyuck, a man you’re not even close to in the first place, could repay the favor. What on Earth was he thinking in the first place when he called you? Were you his last option? Is he out of his mind?

“Because my legs hurt, if you were paying attention, you’d know that I told you before–”

“I don’t really care,” you mutter, “this is not my problem, I’m ending the call now, goodbye!”

“Y/N!”

The tone of his voice is desperate. Laced in agony, even. Still, you don’t care as you cut off the line and close your laptop that's been your source of music during the late night, settling deeper into your sheets. This is not your circus, not your monkeys, and frankly, you don’t really care what happens to Lee Donghyuck on his way home from Yangyang’s house, no matter how drunk or high he is right now. The man has done nothing but annoy you in your short, 23 year old life, and you’re not going to change out of your pajamas just to drive a few miles to get your dumb neighbor back home.

You’re not going to lose your beauty sleep for this. No, not at all.

Still, your eyes only close when you see the light in Lee Donghyuck’s room go on and the shadow of his slouched figure safely hits his bedsheets, another smaller frame coming to close his door and shut the blinds off, turning the light back off.

The next Monday, you find yourself sitting in your Film theory class alongside your roommate Aeri that’s currently snoozing in the middle of the lecture. You can’t really blame her, since she only got home from her romantic retreat (read as: hanging out at Eric Sohn’s house the whole weekend and having sex possibly on every surface of his little flat downtown) on Sunday evening, and you can only imagine that she didn’t have much sleep during her stay there.

And the class was boring, to add another reason for your roommate's nap. It’s not like you weren’t interested in the theory behind every movie, like the topic itself wasn’t interesting– you quite enjoyed wondering about all the special details in each movie that complete the story and make the atmosphere pop just in the right way– but the professor currently standing at the very bottom of the auditorium is old enough to be there when the Lumiére brothers showed the first ever movie to the public back in the 19th century, and his age only matches with the monotonous style of his teaching. Which means that his voice is mellow, but close enough to a lullaby, and with the amount of issues you have when paying attention in general, the lack of focus caused by this only feeds your distraction during the lectures, resulting in you not really being the top of the class in this specific subject.

So when you hear the professor mutter something under his nose about a project in pairs you’ll have to submit until the end of the semester, you feel your heart drop down to your stomach, all alert. Suddenly, you’re 100% present, brain racking about all the possible solutions and ways you could go around this just so you could pass the subject this year.

Because frankly speaking, at the moment, you’re failing the class. And if you don’t manage to get a good grade on this final project, you’re going to have to retake the class next year– and trust me, another year listening to the monotonous lectures won’t make you pass easier, since you can only imagine the boredom will only grow once you’re in this class the second year in a row and you'd already heard all of the lectures once before.

“What was that?” Aeri mumbles under her nose when she notices you staring at the front of the classroom with wide eyes, an expression close to one you'd wear after seeing a ghost (with the age of your professor, you might as well have). She often tells you you look like a deer in the headlights when you get shocked or stressed-out, and you can’t say that comment doesn’t make you insecure. Still, you can’t quite control it when you sigh and turn to your roommate with a distressed look on your face.

“We have a final assignment to do,” you mumble, “in pairs.”

“Amazing, we’re doing it together, then,” she yawns, stretching a little before slumping over the desk again, ready for round two of her nap.

“Fuck no,” you quickly dart, looking at her with furrowed brows.

“What do you mean, no?”

Sighing, watching as she opens her eyes and looks at you with an offended expression on her face, you shake your head in disapproval and lower your voice, careful to explain yourself. “Look, girl, I love you, you know that,” you assure, “but we are both failing this fucking class. And I can’t afford to do badly just because the both of us suck, because I am not retaking this atrocious class ever again, so I suggest that the both of us find someone with good grades to leech from and get this over with.”

Aeri squints at you, seemingly lost in thought– more so contemplating your master plan– before she leans back in her chair and cautiously looks around the room. “You have a point there.”

“See? It’s nothing personal,” you chuckle, seeing as your roommate nods to herself.

“Okay, I’ll flutter my eyelashes at Shotaro,” she turns to you, eyes bright with the newly made plan, “we’re both Japanese, so he’s not legally allowed to turn me down.”

Rolling your eyes at her comment, you only nod in approval to her idea. Shotaro was one of the best in this class, so you can imagine that working with him would satisfy your professor enough to let Aeri pass the class this year. The only thing left to do was find the culprit to your own plan– you needed to team up with someone good enough to at least make you get a D on your final. And since half of the class was just as good as you in this particular subject, there weren’t many candidates left.

Eyes scanning the crowd (thank god you chose to sit in the back again), your gaze lands on a particular man sitting a few rows under you, a little bit to your right. Helplessly searching through the flood of your classmates currently occupying the auditorium, you sigh to yourself in realization, already dreading what’s about to come when the class is dismissed and you hurriedly walk over to the only person that can help you now, before he escapes the university grounds and you’re going to have to shamefully text him or ring his doorbell this afternoon.

“Donghyuck! Wait!” you yell after him, legs taking you closer to the man in question, now standing still in the middle of the moving crowd, watching you in curiosity.

“What’s up, neighbor?” he asks with a lazy smile, the tug at his lips only making your blood boil and your insides tighten into a bundle of nerves. Everything about him was ticking you off, the slouch in his shoulders making you want to stand behind him and fix his bad posture and slap the back of his head so you no longer have to look at him standing like a hermit crab, the glint in his eyes making you want to curl your fingers into a fist and slam your hand against a wall. The seemingly strong emotions of annoyance run through your veins whenever you interact with Lee Donghyuck, it seems, but the senile voice of your professor keeps repeating itself somewhere in the back of your head throughout the whole interaction, and so you choose to take a deep breath in and out before you smile at the man and prepare your best speech– you can't afford to be picky with this any longer.

“Who are you doing the project with?” you ask innocently at first, trying to get some info out of him.

He offers you a suspicious look, but replies nonetheless. “I’m not sure yet,” he sighs, “I was thinking of chasing down Haknyeon, but you stopped me in my tracks…” he shakes his head at you, teasing.

“Hmm, I see,” you mumble, more for the effect than for anything else, “well, what if we do it together?”

There aren’t many instances in which you could catch Lee Donghyuck completely silent. Now is one of them, though, as he watches you with wide, surprised eyes, furrowed brows and his plump lips slightly agape, breathing in a few times before he shakes his head as if to reset the system, snickering to himself. “Us two?”

“Yeah, why not?” you peep, shrugging.

“Look, respectfully,” Donghyuck starts, and you brace yourself for the impact, “your grades in this class aren’t as good as mine, and even though I’d love to do it with you, I don’t wanna be the one doing all the work and–”

“I’ll help!” you snap, maybe too urgently for your own liking. “I promise. I’ll do everything in my power, I just really need your help with this,” you plea, looking at him with what you pray are your best puppy eyes, seeing as the man in front of you chuckles at the expression and averts his gaze from you for a heartbeat, signaling that you were most likely unsuccessful at the attempt.

“Sorry, Y/N,” he shrugs, shaking his head at you, even going as far as taking one step away from you, “see, if you hadn't declined my call on Friday, maybe I’d take this offer as a way to repay the favor, but you know…”

“I threw you toilet paper before, Donghyuck, you can’t be shitting me right now–” you feel your blood boil at the note, the ever so familiar annoyance seeping back into your bones.

“That was nothing–”

“You seemed pretty desperate back then.”

“That was the past, sweetheart,” he chuckles, taking another step away from you, somehow overthrowing your annoyance with pure, embarrassing desperation as you chase after him and stop him with a swift motion of your hand, catching him by his wrist. He stares at you with a shiteating grin on his face, one he always uses to get a reaction from you, and somehow, you know this is all a game for him, a stupid tug of war, but you can’t help it– you are in a desperate situation. So if you need to say please to the man and humiliate yourself in front of him just to pass this class, then so be it.

“Please, Hyuck? Just this once, I swear I’ll make it up to you. Literally, say anything, I’m gonna do it, I just really need to pass this class,” you mumble, a pout forming at your lips as you clasp your hands together– much like he did back when you two communicated through the window of his bathroom– and you swear you can see the gears in his brain turning when he calculates his next move and tells you his answer.

“Anything?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” you nod, hoping that Lee Donghyuck still has some dignity in him and wouldn’t ask for anything that would make you uncomfortable. He’s annoying, sure, but he’s not a dick, after all.

“Okay, then,” he nods, tone of voice airy, underlined with laughter, “be my personal driver for the entirety of the project, then. I’ll do it if you drive me places,” he grins, and that’s when your composure falls.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well then, say goodbye to the grade!”

Putting your arm around the passenger’s seat headrest, twisting your whole body as you look back and reverse the car into the parking spot in front of the mall, you see the figure next to you still in its place, eyes alert and staring at you. “If you’re so terrified of me driving, why did you want me to do this in the first place?” you sigh, finally turning back to the front and turning the engine off once you're standing straight between the lines, satisfied with your job.

“That’s- that’s not it,” he clears his throat and gulps nervously, shaking his head. “Anyways, let’s go,” Donghyuck says, slapping his thighs like parents do when it’s time to leave a family gathering, grinning at you widely as he waits for you to get out of the vehicle.

“What do you mean, let’s go? I drove you here, I can go now,” you glare, not satisfied with the way your Wednesday afternoon was going. You only agreed to the deal on Monday, and Donghyuck already made you drive him home after class twice and also asked you to drive him to the school this morning. Having him constantly leeching around you and making you drive him places wasn’t exactly fun, since he always asked weird questions and made fun of your bored face at every red light, so you really, desperately, needed him to be gone already so you could head home and scream into your pillow to unwind the nerves.

“Well, how am I supposed to get back when I’m done shopping?” he innocently asks, pouting at you. “My hands are gonna be full with bags and you’re gonna have to come pick me up, because that’s the deal, and I can’t afford to wait with my hands full until you get back here, so you might as well stay and come with me, so it’s convenient.”

“Nothing about this is convenient for me,” you mumble, but comply with his orders nonetheless. “Why don’t you get a car? Or take a bus back?”

“Buses smell and I don’t have a license,” he mutters, “besides, I have you now to be my personal taxi driver, so I don't need a car,” he shrugs, walking alongside you to the mall.

His confession startles you, makes you halt in your step as the boy looks at you with defeated eyes, already knowing what’s next. This scenario has happened to him multiple times before– he’s best friends with Huang Renjun and Liu Yangyang, he’s in for a teasing at every single action of his that goes just slightly wrong– but to hear it from you will surely feel more humbling to the man. Closing his eyes as if to not see the grin overtaking your features, he sighs. “What?”

“You don’t have a license?” you tease, snickering. “For real?”

“No.”

“Why? You failed the test?” you ask again, catching up to the male and falling in with his quick pace, enjoying the fact that you now have the upper hand on him for once.

“Never really tried getting it in the first place,” he mumbles, shrugging.

“Why?”

“I dunno,” he shamefully ducks his head, “it seems scary,” he adds, making you snort out at his confession.

“Fucking hell dude,” you laugh out now, swatting his shoulder in a teasing manner, “that’s so embarrassing, it’s not even really that difficult in the first place–”

“I don’t know what’s more embarrassing,” he cuts you off, tone of voice laced with frustration as he realizes you are a bit too amused at him admitting to one of his fears, “is it me not having a license or you driving me around because you're failing a class… Hm?” he asks, locking eyes with you, lips pressed shut into a straight line, and suddenly, your composures exchange. He won. Again.

“Anyways, let’s get going!” he smiles, dismissing the previous discussion as he tugs you by your hand into one of the stores right in the middle of the mall.

You should’ve already predicted that shopping with Lee Donghyuck would be exhausting. Not only did he demand to know your opinion on every single thing he tried on, he also wanted you to pick up something for him to try– as if driving him here wasn’t too much work for you as it was. All you wanted to do was walk back to your car and get away from him as soon as possible, but with the way he teasingly poked your sides every time you weren’t paying attention and turned to your phone to entertain yourself with some mindless scrolling on social media, you weren’t able to escape even mentally, no matter how hard you tried.

“Why don’t you try something on?”

“I’m not in the mood,” you glare, walking out of the last store in the whole entire mall, the sky behind the glass doors already dark from how late it’s gotten. You’re pretty sure it’s gonna close soon, but checking the time on your phone, you’re relieved to learn that you still have enough time to get boba from the stand at the entrance of the mall. You deserve a little treat after involuntarily hanging out with Lee Donghyuck the whole day, after all. Call it your girl dinner, or something.

“Taro milk tea with coconut jelly, please,” you smile at the tired barista behind the counter, noticing the way Donghyuck stands next to you and looks at the menu. You expect him to order a drink for himself as well, and surely, he doesn’t disappoint as he smiles at the girl, the tone of his voice sweet and considerate– so far away from the way he speaks to you on a daily basis– as he asks for his own drink.

“Will you pay together or separately?” she asks.

“Separate–”

“Together,” your companion cuts you off, grinning at you when you glare at the man, sighing at his antics.

“Come on, I already drive you everywhere, do you think gas is cheap? Now you want me to pay for your boba as well?” you whine, reaching for your wallet as you frown at the male, his confused eyes bearing into yours when he slightly nudges you from his way, offering the girl behind the counter his card instead. The action shuts you up, making the gears in your brain turn faster as you watch him in the action, and it doesn't fully register yet, but you're left feeling a bit taken aback and sheepish when the cashier hands him the receipt.

“I was gonna buy it for you as a thank you for the nice day, but now you’re making me look like I felt pressured to,” he sighs, shaking his head at your little tantrum. His actions still don’t register in your brain, though, his words resonating all the way through your ears to your Wernicke’s area and right back, hanging everywhere in the air of the mall, shock making your body still. Then, it hits you.

“Ah,” you gasp, feeling the tips of your ears burning with shame at the fact that you managed to ruin his nice gesture, your eyes scanning the space in a poor attempt to not look at him or the cashier still watching your exchange.

“Get your drink and let’s go,” he nudges you instead, rolling his eyes for good measure as he walks out of the mall, nearing your car in the parking lot.

“Look at this, look! Isn’t it funny?” Donghyuck hovers over you with his phone in his hand, giggling to himself as he tries to make you look at the screen. You don’t really know why he’s trying to get a laugh out of you, honestly, but he’s currently doing everything but that as you’re sat in his living room, legs plopped up onto the sofa and crossed in front of you, waiting patiently– but also kind of boiling on the inside out of frustration– for him to pay attention to you.

“Hyuck, I didn’t come here to watch Tiktoks with you,” you say, eyes sharp, tone of your voice cutting like razors– efficiently making him look up from his screen and meet your gaze with an amused grin, “I’m not really sure if you forgot, but I came to discuss the project,” you mutter, sighing.

“Jeez,” you see him roll his eyes, the energy around him still not shifting as he maintains his casual and unfocused composure, but you know that on the inside, he's enjoying the view– your angry face seems to be his most favorite thing to stare at recently, “didn’t know you lack a sense of humor.”

“What?” you look at him, confused, quite frankly, before you shake your head in disbelief at the comment. “You know what, just put the phone away for 5 seconds and finally talk to me about the project, smart boy, or else I’m not wasting my time here any longer and I’m leaving.”

“You’re acting as if you’re the one putting in work,” he mumbles, snickering.

“I will be putting in work when you tell me what to do!”

At your sentence, Donghyuck finally puts his phone back at the coffee table and shifts a little in his seat, facing you and scratching the back of his head, seemingly lost in thought. You let him, convinced that if you speak up and cut off his train of thought, the poor boy wouldn’t be able to get back to it again, waiting for him to be done with his brain weaving so you can pick up on them and ride them out, seeming at least decently smart (or not completely stupid). When he finally speaks up, he licks his lips and shrugs.

“We just gotta pick a theme and do our best portraying it with no words in a 3 minute clip, right?” he asks you in reassurance, as if you were the most reliable source of information when it comes to this class and its assignments.

“Yeah,” still, you agree.

“Well, then we just gotta pick a theme and the rest will be easy,” he nods to himself, reaching back for his phone, which you swiftly take from his hold and hide behind your body.

“Hey–”

“We’re not done talking about this! I’m not letting you use your phone, because you’re just gonna scroll on Tiktok instead of thinking about this,” you squint at him, twisting and turning in your seat as his hands try to sneak around your sitting figure and take the device out of your grasp.

He seems determined as his arm lands on your elbow, a victorious grin smoothly swiped off his face when you sit on his phone and flash him a wide grin. “I’ll give it back when we have the theme down!”

“That’s an invasion of my privacy,” Donghyuck mumbles, and you roll your eyes at him, pointing a finger to his shoulder.

“That’s not what an invasion of privacy means, but whatever floats your boat…” you mumble, watching him sit back in his seat, defeated as his shoulders slouch and his gaze is glued to the wall in front of him. You’re not sure what’s so interesting about the white paint, but at least there’s not the noise of his phone filling your ears right now– you’re more than okay with silence, since you don't get to hear it often when Donghyuck is present. You would like it better if he spoke up and talked to you about the assignment, but if you had to choose between him being annoying and him being quiet, you think everyone knows which one of the two you’d prefer.

“So?” you test the waters after a while, seeing if your project partner decides to finally comply with your request and discuss the important matters.

“So? Do you got any ideas?” he teases, watching you with challenging eyes.

Clearing your throat, caught off guard at the request– you assumed he’d tell you exactly what to do and you just have to do it and follow his lead, essentially not putting in much effort and still being sure of passing the class– but it seems like Lee Donghyuck won’t let you off that easily. You should've expected it. Being difficult is his favorite hobby, after all.

“Well, you’re the smart one here, so…” you shrug, trying the method that always works on men– and that is praising them.

“So you’re saying you’re stupid?”

“If it works in my favor during this conversation, then sure,” you nod, smiling at him in irony. Hyuck gives you a defeated sigh, shaking his head at you before he clicks his tongue at you and finally gives in.

“Okay, so, I was thinking we should pick a theme that fits the current social struggles, but after hearing this, I don't think feminism is our best choice,” he mutters.

“Like you’d know anything about feminism–”

“What do you have me for?” Donghyuck sharply glares at you, clicking his tongue at you in pure offense. “I am a fan of Little women, I'll have you know, of course I’m a feminist.”

“Well, you must be a fake fan, since everything about this deal is just me majorly girlbossing,” you point out, trying really hard to prove your point.

“Are you even being serious right now–”

“Anyways,” you cut him off, “what were you thinking?”

The man sighs and shakes his head at you in disbelief, but still speaks up again nonetheless. “I was thinking, well, maybe we could pick something that would really play into the old man’s feelings, you know, so we get him all sentimental and moved to tears…” he starts off, tone of voice now completely serious, making him sound kind of smart– startling you in the process, “that leaves us with a few possible options. We could do something with the 18 hundreds, or… fishing? I heard he’s into fishing. Or we could do something more abstract and shoot something about youth, since he’s very old and this could get him nostalgic. Or!” he suddenly perks up in his seat, eyes wide and a disturbing grin sitting at his lips, “we could include nudity! He’s a man, after all… wanna shoot porn? We don’t need words for porn.”

In absolute disbelief, you stare at the man with eyes wide open, blinking a few times and taking a few seconds to yourself to process the monologue you just listened to. You knew he was absolutely insufferable, but you didn’t know he was this much of a dumb freak.

Taking your silence for disgust, Donghyuck just nods to himself and purses his lips.

“Youth it is, then… I mean, nudity would be difficult to present in front of the class for sure–” he admits, pouting.

“Yeah, like that’s the only problem with that idea…”

Afternoon classes aren’t your favorite ones of the week and although you absolutely despise waking up early and having to commute to university while you’re still half-asleep and absolutely irritated, there’s nothing that infuriates you more than knowing you could be done with the day already, sitting at home and watching your favorite TV show, only if it wasn’t for the responsibility of having to stay at campus and sit through another hour and a half lecture on a Thursday afternoon, way too late for your brain to be working in those hours.

This is one of the only classes you don’t share with your roommate Aeri– which makes the lecture that more excruciating, since you don’t have anyone with you that you could gossip with about your classmates or friends from back home when it gets too boring and you can't bear sitting in silence and forcing yourself to focus anymore– but there is one person from your circle that you do share this class with, and yes, you already guessed it; it’s Lee Donghyuck.

You don’t know when you’ve gotten so close to the point where he sits in the vacant seat right next to you almost immediately, followed by his friend Ju Haknyeon who you’ve never even spoken to before, but he still does so nonetheless, every Thursday, just so he could annoy you with his only half-funny remarks to every other sentence that comes out of your Animation class professor’s mouth.

“What are you doing this weekend?” you hear Haknyeon ask the devil sitting on your left, and trust me, you don’t really like listening to other people’s conversations (that’s a lie, you live for gossip. You just wish you knew the least amount of information about Lee Donghyuck as possible, because sometimes you learn fun facts you wish never joined your brain), but you can’t really help it this time, can you? Haknyeon doesn’t know what whispering is, and you’re convinced Donghyuck would love everyone to hear him talk and give him attention anyway.

“Not really sure,” Donghyuck replies, “Renjun bailed on me, said he’s going to the shelter with his girlfriend again, so I was thinking, right? You know, I’d looove to go on a road trip, and it’s crazy, you know, because–”

The words coming out of his mouth instantly make you alert, snapping your head around to make eye contact with the man that’s already staring at you with a shit-eating grin on his face, knowing you’re listening to them talk. “Lee Donghyuck, I am not going on a road trip with you–”

“See, Y/N here is my personal driver for the semester, so she can’t really say no–” Donghyuck continues, enjoying the way your face distorts into a pained scowl, your hand coming up into your hair to tug at the roots in frustration.

“If you make me do this, I’m going to open your door while we’re going 120km/h on a crowded highway and throw you out so you die under the wheels of someone else and I don't face the consequences,” you propose, shaking your head in disbelief, your voice shushed due to you still not wanting to be heard by the whole classroom, but still loud enough for both of the boys to chuckle.

“Come on, I bet you’d have fun. I have the best playlists for road trips, you know,” Hyuck teases, poking you with the tip of his pen, to which you click your tongue and move a bit further away from the male.

“The last time I drove you somewhere that was more than a 10 minute drive, you had Céline Dion on loop, so I don’t know just how believable this claim is.”

“That’s disrespectful to the legend Céline Dion is, dear Y/N, and I’d take it back before her ghost comes to haunt you at night.”

“Is she even dead in the first place?” you squint at him, at disbelief of his words.

“She’s not,” Haknyeon chimes in from the side, shaking his head at the both of you before he chuckles, “you two argue like a married couple.”

“I would rather die than to marry him–”

“See, Hak, Y/N just hasn’t realized she’s in love with me yet,” Hyuck adds, clicking his tongue at his seatmate, “but she’s gonna realize it somewhere during our 5 hour long road trip, I’m sure. Just wait, it’s gonna happen soon.”

The class gets dismissed somewhere in the middle of the argument, and as you’re gathering your things to go, you hear the two of them talk among themselves, not really including you in their conversation anymore (which you’re glad for, frankly).

“Are you going home after class?” Haknyeon asks.

“No,” Donghyuck shakes his head in disapproval, and there it is– the shit-eating grin appears on his face when he initiates eye contact with you and snickers, “Y/N and I are actually getting fried chicken at this place downtown, since I got coupons– well, Renjun got coupons for free chicken from his uncle last week, but he doesn’t like chicken that much, so I stole them from him–”

“Huh?” you scowl at him, wondering if you heard right. “I’m not getting chicken with you.”

“Of course you are,” Hyuck announces, “the coupons expire tomorrow, so we gotta do it today. I know you’re not busy, come on.”

“I’d rather choke than to spend any more time with you than I already have today, Donghyuck. Go with Haknyeon,” you say, pointing to the clueless senior staring at the both of you in wonder.

“Yeah, go with me, man,” he shakes his head, “I like chicken.”

“Unfortunately, this offer only applies to people that have a working car that could drive me there, so in case you wanna get your shiny BMW fixed in the next 24 hours, I can save the coupons for you,” Hyuck chimes, smiling innocently at his friend.

“What are you even talking about?” you mutter, tone of voice pained.

“Look, do you wanna get out of the road trip on Saturday, or not?” he stares at you, his gaze flaming as you sigh more for him to hear than to get out your frustration– you learned long ago that it does nothing to calm you down, worse, it makes you even more infuriated.

“Woah, Donghyuck!” you exclaim, fake excitement written all over your features. “Chicken actually sounds so good right now!”

That’s how you appear in one of the fried chicken places downtown, your car parked in their tiny parking lot, with Donghyuck excitedly skipping towards the restaurant with the bunch of coupons in his hands. You don’t really know why he insists on spending time with you– he could get a bus here or drive with one of his other friends that own a car, and you’re certain you are not the only one on his list– so the whole interaction makes you slightly confused. Still, you enjoy the free meal– like any other broke college student would– and when Donghyuck eats, his mouth is usually shut, so you don’t find that many negatives in this whole thing, after all.

“What are you thinking of doing for the project, by the way?” you ask, wiping your greasy fingers on one of the napkins Hyuck had offered to you just a few seconds prior after noticing your dismay at the state of your hands. You don’t like it when you get dirty with food, but you’d rather not eat at all than to eat fried chicken with a fork, so you guess this is the price you have to pay.

“You keep talking about the project,” he shakes his head, chuckling, “don’t worry about it. I have it covered.”

“What do you mean, you have it covered? This is supposed to be teamwork. Just because I drive you around, it doesn’t mean I won’t put my hand in– you’ll complain too much if I don’t,” you mutter after you swallow, rolling your eyes at him. He keeps saying the same thing each time you ask him– you’re suspecting that he has zero idea at all, and he’s just bluffing to make you feel more comfortable. Hell, you might even fail while working with Donghyuck and your whole plan is going to be ruined, for all you know.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, grinning, “we got the theme, so half the work is already done. We’ll just have to take one day to shoot some scenes on a field or something, and then I can edit it and put some sad music over it, and we’re sold. Trust me, I am a straight A student, I know what I'm doing.”

“You are not a straight A student, Lee Donghyuck,” you glare at him, not believing a single word that's just came out of his mouth.

“Okay well,” he shrugs, taking a sip of his coca-cola that he got for free with the order, “maybe I’m not. But you can count on me with this, hon.”

Sighing to yourself, you shake your head at him. “Don’t ever call me that ever again.”

“Hyuck,” you call for the male, nestling a little in your seat and scratching the back of your neck in frustration.

“Hm?”

“You said we were going to work on the project today, am I correct?” you ask, watching as the male walks up to you from the kitchen area of the room, a bowl full of popcorn in his hand as he plops on the sofa next to you (on the only area that allows you to lay down comfortably and still face the TV, also known as the spot you’ve already laid on, making the two of you almost uncomfortably close in the small space), a bottle of coke situated under his right shoulder.

“Correct,” he nods, reaching for the TV remote he spent approximately 15 minutes searching for in between the cushions of the sofa when you arrived, screaming at his poor roommate for losing it again as the shorter boy just grimaced at you and escaped the flat to hang out with someone you heard him call RJ! y/n.

Humming to yourself, you nod. “Okay, then… why the living fuck are we watching Hunger games right now?” you ask, tone of voice laced in frustration.

Donghyuck doesn’t reply to you for a while as he fumbles with the TV remote (and frankly, you don’t really know why he’s so focused, it doesn’t take much to just press play), but when he looks back at you and sees your gaze impatiently glued to his forehead, he shrugs. “We gotta find some inspiration first, you know,” he innocently states, “Hunger games is a movie about youth if I’ve ever seen one.”

“We’ve both already seen Hunger games, Hyuck,” you whine, but take a hand-full of popcorn out of the bowl that’s currently sitting in his lap.

“How do you know that I have seen it already?”

“You just said so, you dumb fuck,” you mutter as you roll your eyes, watching the opening credits start. You can do nothing else than settle deeper into the sofa and watch the painfully long movie with your annoying neighbor now, and you despise the fact.

Well, you could do something else. There are many things, to be exact– you could either protest so much that Donghyuck finally gives in and turns the movie off, focusing his efforts into actually working on your project. If that doesn’t work, you can fight him for the remote, but you can’t really know if that wouldn’t make him pettily give you the silent treatment, which is exactly the opposite of what you’d like to be doing right now. Or you could just give up– seeing that you’re not gonna get much work done today– and stand up and go home. It’s not like you live that far away anyways…

But still, you stay and watch the movie with him. You’ve seen it at least three times already, having watched it recently with Aeri when the movie had its second wave of fame on Tiktok, so you’re pretty sure that if you tried hard enough, you’d be able to recite the script alongside the actors, word-for-word, 100% correct and exact, right on time. You stay and watch Hunger games with Lee Donghyuck– why exactly, you still don’t know– and you find yourself enjoying the experience. It’s not as boring when you hear your neighbor annoyingly comment on each and every little thing that happens in the movie, his nasal voice cracking jokes and jumping into the conversations as if he was a part of the cinematic universe. Somewhere along the way, you join in with him, laughing and giggling when your roleplay gets too silly, and before you know it, the movie is about to end and you’re finally going to be free to work on the project with him.

Donghyuck gets unusually quiet towards the last part of the movie. You turn your head to him, ready to crack jokes at the tears you’re expecting to see in his eyes because of the emotional outro– Katnis and Peeta’s berry scene got you the first and the second time you watched the movie, the third time not so much, since Aeri kept pausing the movie for pee breaks, ruining the full effect– only to witness the man’s head falling to your shoulder the exact second you try to lock your gaze with him; your neighbor having passed out somewhere in the middle of the movie. You foolishly jump just the slightest bit at the contact, opening your mouth to say something to him that could wake him up, your instincts telling you to move away from the already uncomfortable closeness of your bodies and give yourself more space.

But as your lips part and you’re about to protest, you notice his own lips apart in a small pout, his cheeks appearing softer now that one of them is smashed against your shoulder, his long eyelashes fanning over the bones of his cheeks. The blue hue of the TV paints his cheeks rosier in the dim light, making you notice the moles on his face for the first time– leading you to count them and mentally create constellations between them as your gaze focuses from all the different places of his face to another. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shut your mouth and awkwardly make yourself look away from your annoying neighbor, cracking the knuckles of your hands that have been resting in your lap; but when the credits of the movie roll and you have nowhere else to focus your gaze on, you find yourself scanning the man up and down again, orbs catching every detail of his suddenly so pure being.

He is wearing gray sweatpants, the fabric hanging low on his waist, a plain black tee adorning his upper figure. He doesn’t often look this casual when he comes to class, opting to wear jeans or pants more formal, so you foolishly admire the cozy fit he has going on, not quite used to seeing Donghyuck looking this homey. His clasped hands resting in his lap catch your attention next, the soft skin adorning his slender fingers looking way too inviting right now as you subconsciously want to glaze your fingertips against the surface of his palm, just to see if your suspicions are right and his skin is just as gentle as it seems to be to the eye, and you almost do it– for scientific reasons, of course– before you catch yourself and almost mentally slap yourself for being so foolish.

What the hell is going on with you right now? You should wake him up now– the movie is already over, there’s no use in you staying over any longer if he’s asleep and won’t work on the project with you anymore– but you find yourself freezing each time your eyes focus on the creature sleeping against your shoulder, so soft and comfortable it makes your insides squeeze in warmth. It’s a strange sensation, and even a stranger one to feel for a person that annoys you the most in this world, and you can't bring yourself to do anything else than to overthink the simple fact.

He can sleep for a few more minutes. You don’t mind. He must be tired, you think– he deserves 10 more minutes, maybe even 15– you won’t disturb him. The silence is strangely comforting, after all.

He can sleep for a few more minutes, you think– but the exact moment those thoughts roam around your head again, the front door to Donghyuck’s apartment opens and his roommate stands still in the doorframe of his living room, gazing at you with suspicion in his gaze. You quickly jump away from your project partner when eye contact with Huang Renjun is made, feeling the tips of your ears heating up in shame as you scatter to your feet and scramble for your things. You feel like you were just caught red-handed, doing something you shouldn’t have been doing, and you can’t bear the thought any longer. You need to get out.

A dissatisfied noise leaves Hyuck’s mouth as he wakes up to the impact of your movement, squinted eyes watching you as Renjun just laughs at your antics, shaking his head as if to tell you that he knows something you don’t. You don’t wanna hear it.

“Where are you going?” Donghyuck asks, voice laced with sleep.

“Home,” you snap, running your hand through your hair as you move through the door frame that separates the living room from their entrance hall. “We can’t work on the project if you’re asleep, so I might as well just go and not waste my time here any longer!” you offer him, making sure to save your face by putting just enough pretended frustration into the comment as you put on your shoes and don't look back at him– however inviting the mental image of him seems in your brain– before you shut the door after yourself and leave.

dongfuck – drive me to mcdonalds

you – well hello to you too you – no.

dongfuck – >:( dongfuck – please

you – its 2am dude

dongfuck – your point..?

Sighing, scrambling for your things as quietly as possible to not wake up your sleep deprived flatmate, you get dressed in comfortable sweatpants, throwing a hoodie on to shield yourself from the chilly air. The walk down the stairs doesn’t take you more than a few minutes before you’re standing in the parking lot of your apartment complex, already seeing Donghyuck’s figure leaning on the side of your car, almost looking like he owns it– he does act like it lately, to be fair.

“I knew you’d come,” he snickers as you roll your eyes at him, pressing the button on your car key to unlock the doors, watching as the man swiftly opens the driver’s side for you and then jogs towards the passenger’s side to get in, an excited stride in his step.

“I’m only here because I haven’t eaten dinner and chicken nuggets sound absolutely amazing right now,” you mutter, “don’t get too ahead of yourself. None of this is for you,” you grin, fastening your seatbelt and adjusting the rearview mirror just the slightest before turning on the engine and driving off the parking lot.

Donghyuck only shakes his head at you, a bright grin playing with his features. “Of course,” he hums, “wouldn’t want me to think that you actually want to hang out for once.”

“Of course,” you nod, “because that would be a lie. My goal is chicken nuggets, nothing else. And if I manage to get them out of you for free, that’s even better.”

“Who said I’m paying?”

“The gas station clerk did when I last went to get gas, actually! He told me I’m using twice as much gas lately because I’m driving a certain dumbass around, and I’m paying for all of the gas myself, can you believe it?” you shake your head, teasing him as you turn right on the main road, already seeing the McDonald’s in the distance.

“That’s a strange way to talk to a customer,” Donghyuck squints his eyes at you, watching as you slow down when getting into the food chain’s parking lot, ready to drive up to the drive-through window and order your late night snacks.

“At least he’s looking out for me,” you shrug, teasing the male. “I better order a hefty meal, since you’re paying and all…” you mumble, looking over the poster to your left, tapping your chin, trying to look lost in thought.

Hearing the man next to you scoff– already satisfied with how frustrated you’ve managed to make him– you pretend to look over the most expensive parts of the menu. “I’m starting to regret my decision,” Donghyuck adds, but the tone in his voice is light.

After a few more minutes of picking out your menu, you both order your meals and wait for them at the window. It doesn’t take long, since you’re the only ones in the whole place, and before you know it, Donghyuck is pressing his card into your palm, nudging you to pay for both of your meals. The gesture should be expected– you pretty much plastered him into doing this with how much you teased and complained– but it still shocks you when he does it with no other annoyed comments, watching as you offer it to the cashier and smile at him in thanks, taking the bags of food and driving off into the very back of the whole parking lot, turning the engine off and settling into the dark.

You tug your feet up to your seat, sitting crossed-legged in the small space as you face your companion, watching as he offers you the bag of food and digs into his own fries as well, scanning you from the corner of his eye. Now is the time you finally get to admire his attire for the first time the whole night– you never knew you had a thing for guys in sweatpants and oversized jackets, but the way your breathing almost catches in your throat at the sight of Donghyuck dressed so cozily again should be enough of a warning for you to the future. Forcefully taking your eyes off the male next to you, because you’d rather not think about the way you find yourself eyeing him lately, you eat your chicken nuggets– the ones you’ve dreamed of the whole night– and listen to the sound of your neighbor chewing on his burger.

Feeling his eyes on you, you glare at him. “What are you staring at?”

“No take a picture, it will last longer this time?”

“I learned my lesson from the last time,” you laugh, reminded of one of the first interactions you had with the male. “I hope you deleted the pictures, by the way.”

“No, I stare at them every night before I go to sleep,” he says, “so I’ll dream of you,” he sing-songs, laughing at the way your face distorts in discomfort at his words.

“Ah, so annoying,” you roll your eyes at him, but can’t battle the way your heart jumps a little at the sound of a laugh escaping his throat. Your eyes automatically trace his movements, noticing the way the far standing lamp post illuminates his face in just the right way, casting orange shadows over his features, making his eyes glimmer when they catch yours. Clearing your throat after being caught staring at him, you avert your gaze and finish the last of your fries, noticing the male done with his meal as well.

“Now what?” he asks.

“We go home, what else?” you laugh, shaking your head at his question.

“But I don’t wanna go home yet,” he whines, and you already know what’s coming– pursuing, weird ideas, absurd arguments just to make you stay longer. And you’re immune to them on most days, but it’s too late in the night, so you have to cut yourself some slack. So what if you don’t want to come back yet either? It’s not a crime to want to spend some time with Lee Donghyuck.

“What a shame,” still, you tease, waiting for him to come up with a bright idea that you could use as an excuse to stay out longer.

“Oh come on,” Donghyuck mutters, “you always ruin the fun. Teach me how to drive, what do you say?”

Shocked at his preposition, you turn to him again, wide eyes and mouth agape. “What? Absolutely not.”

“Why? The parking lot’s empty. I can’t possibly be that bad that I crash your car into nothing. Come on!” he pleads, going even as far as pouting at you– not really knowing that the expression has you shamefully stare at his lips for a split second, insides heating up– and realistically, you should have warning signs blinking at you from everywhere in your brain, an alarm going off to tell you that this is not a good idea at all, but you’re too stunned to come up with another plan for the rest of your evening, and, well, you may be getting a little weak for the annoying gemini. He's right, though– what could possibly go wrong?

So you only sigh in response, opening the door and getting out of your seat, watching as Donghyuck excitedly mirrors your motions and jogs to the driver’s seat, ready to possibly ruin your evening and your car at the same time. When you’re back safe inside of the car, you quickly fasten your seatbelt, a sign of your sense of self preservation still working well, watching Donghyuck move your seat further back so he can comfortably reach the pedals. His focused face is in your full view as he adjusts all the mirrors possible, and only then is when you notice him chewing on the inside of his cheek– in either nerves or concentration, you can’t really tell right now– and the sight makes you halt him in his motions before he manages to start the engine.

“Have you ever done this before?” you ask, watching as he turns to you with wide eyes, shaking his head in disagreement.

“No,” he peeps, laughing to himself, “Yangyang declined me the last time I asked.”

“Yeah, because he has a working brain,” you whisper under your breath, still in disbelief of what you allowed to happen, “so… can you reach the pedals?”

“I can.”

“And you see the whole back window in this mirror, right?” you ask, pointing to the rearview mirror, watching as Donghyuck nods.

“Positive.”

“Great. So… start the engine now, I guess?” you say, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you see him nod and reach for the keys, turning them. The car instantly comes alive right in front of him all while Hyuck seems absolutely clueless, looking at you with big, adorable eyes, and you take it as your cue to instruct him on his next moves.

“Now press the clutch– the far left pedal– and move the gear stick into the first gear,” you say, watching as the boy slowly does as you say, reaching for the device and moving it to the desired place. “Good. Now, keep pressing the clutch and slowly start pressing the accelerator– the far right pedal– while also slowly letting go of the clutch until you get to the point where the car starts moving on itself. That’s when you don’t let go of the clutch, but keep it at that same exact spot, and put a bit more acceleration until the wheels spin like, once or twice. Only then can you keep your leg off the clutch.”

“You’re kinda hot when you tell me what to do,” Hyuck mumbles, but the flirting doesn’t quite come through when his face is focused at the road and his composure seems shaken, too stressed out to actually mean the words coming out of his mouth.

“Shut up and do what I said,” you snarl, seeing as the man nods and tries moving with the car. It takes him some time, but it seems that he is a natural– the car moves without the engine dying, and suddenly, you find yourself cheering him on. “Good! Good! You’re moving!”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Don’t panic!”

“I’m not panicking!” Hyuck hums, nodding to himself as he turns the wheel and makes a circle around the parking lot, grinning to himself with confidence. The car moves painfully slowly, and you, despite your best interest, find yourself enjoying the view– although you should probably be more worried about your own safety than you currently are. That's when you decide to challenge the male further.

“Okay, then we can shift into the second gear, it’s gonna go a little smoother,” you muse, seeing as the male nods.

His eyes stay focused on the road, though, so you take it as your cue to instruct him again. “Press on the clutch then, and move the gear stick straight down.”

“Mhm,” he hums, and presses on the clutch, but the struggle comes next as his hand flies all over the car, not quite used to the placement of the gear stick yet. Stressed, eyes glued to the road in front of him to not run into any possible obstacles in your way, he refuses to look away for even a second, and the whole sight makes your heart race in anxious agony as you reach for his hand and grip it, guiding him towards the stick and placing his palm on top of the device.

Your hold on his hand doesn’t loosen up as you guide his movements further and do it for him, just to make sure the stick really gets to its designated place and doesn't get stuck in neutral, which would make the engine die with the next press of the accelerator. His skin is soft under your touch, just like you imagined it to be, and you find yourself growing hotter the more your skin is in contact with his, the touch so innocent yet still sending you to overdrive.

“Now let go of the clutch,” you order, eyes glued to the side of Donghyuck’s head as he nods, listening to everything you say. The car now goes more smoothly and you watch him take another lap around the parking lot before you realize your hand is still gripping his on the gear stick, the information making you jump slightly in your place, clearing your throat in the awkward, tense atmosphere you managed to create for yourself.

“Okay,” you announce, “the trial is over, it’s time to press the brake– the middle pedal, if you haven't figured that out so far– and get out of my place,” you say, hoping the tone of your voice sounds as light as usual.

The car comes to a strong halt, since Hyuck doesn’t really know how fast the brakes react yet, and if you weren’t buckled in, it’s certain that you’d go flying in your seat and smash your head against the dashboard. Breathing out when the car stills, you finally feel yourself relax, having been alert this whole time, as you squeeze Donghyuck’s hand for the last time, amidst selfishly, before you let go of it and turn towards the door, opening it and thanking the chilly air of the night for slapping you to your face. You really needed that wake up call.

Do you really need to drive a fucking manual?

hyuck – can you drive me to yangyangs at 8

Staring at the text message on your phone, sighing to yourself at the weird discomfort in your stomach when it appears and registers in your brain, the sound catches attention of your roommate Aeri currently getting ready on the floor of your room, pressed almost uncomfortably close to the mirror. She should really wear the glasses she was prescribed.

“Donghyuck again?” she asks, staring at you through the mirror, a mischievous grin sitting on her face as she asks the crucial question.

“How’d you know?” you roll your eyes in irony, walking over to your closet and picking out your tonight’s outfit.

“Well,” she shrugs, “one, he’s like, the only person that ever texts you except for me, and two, you had that disgustingly doe eyed look on your face.”

“I so did not–”

“You so did,” she notes, putting another coat of mascara onto her long eyelashes.

“You know what? I regret telling you about this,” you mourn, scrambling for your things around your room and putting them into your bag, practically already ready to leave the apartment alongside your roommate slash best friend. When you came home last week after the McDonald’s run at 4 in the morning, you decided that sleep really wasn’t worth it anymore– as if you could fall asleep after the hotness in your whole body despite your window being wide open– and so you took a cold shower and decided to stay up in the living room, watching Netflix (more like having the show in the background as you tried hard to not have a mental breakdown at the newly found information about yourself). Aeri found you like that at 6 in the morning when she woke up to get a glass of water, and even though she was sleepy and groggy– which was probably why you decided to spill the beans so quickly– she interrogated you about the weird look on your face and it’s been a running joke between her and herself for the whole week.

“It’s really not my fault that you find our neighbor hot,” she notes, shrugging to herself.

“When did I say that? When did I say that!”

“Well, you said you came home all flushed and that you imagined making out with him when you dropped him off back home, so that’s basically the same thing.”

“I did not say I wanted to make out with him!” you defend yourself. You didn’t say it. You thought about it, that’s for sure, but your roommate really doesn’t have to know that. Unless she can read your thoughts, of course.

“Yeah, whatever. You and I both know it’s true.”

Sighing, deciding that you’re ending the conversation with your roommate as long as the topic is your annoying neighbor, you turn to your phone and finally reply to his text message.

you – can’t

He replies almost instantly, as if he was waiting at his phone for the last 15 minutes, and the predictableness of his message almost makes you chuckle.

hyuck – why

you – cuz im going you – and i wanna drink you – so i cant drive

hyuck – ok that changes things then hyuck – my original mission was to get you to go there with me but this has to do i suppose hyuck – see you there ;)

Yes, you admit that you reread the messages a little too many times for your own liking. Trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind his words, you swear your brain is running a thousand miles an hour, and realistically, this is the part where you reach for your girl best friend and ask her what exactly is happening in the chat with you and the guy you’re talking to, but after the endless teasing you’ve already heard from her side, you decide against it and just turn off your screen and put the phone into your bag with the rest of your necessities.

“If you mention something about this tonight in front of Donghyuck, I’m locking you out of the apartment.”

“Ay ay, captain!”

The journey to Liu Yangyang’s house isn’t long. He’s the only one that still lives with his parents, but you can’t really blame him– the house is huge, and they are hardly ever home, because they are always on business trips in Taiwan. Half the time, it’s like the guy owns the place, and he also acts like it too, since half of the parties you’re invited to in a year are taking place at his house.

When you get there, it seems that everyone was already there– at least the usual group, you suppose. You don’t know who else is invited, but when you arrive to Yangyang’s basement– the part of the house where he usually hosts the more chill, laid-back parties, with low music in the background, laughter resonating through the place and alcohol being passed around between people drinking straight out of the bottles– your eyes instantly zero on Donghyuck, dressed in a light bomber jacket and skin tight jeans, you decide that burning your throat with alcohol is the best thing you can do instead of audibly moaning at the sight.

Taking one of the opened bottles of Bacardi off the little camping table situated near the corner of the big room, you take a swig, not really caring about the people who have drank out of it before you– because the pandemic has taught you nothing, it seems– when you finally walk over to the group and say your greetings. Deciding that avoiding the object of your desire for the whole evening is the best plan how to survive without doing something you’re going to regret, you engage in conversation with pretty much everyone else, completely unaware of the way your neighbors eyes are burning a hole through the side of your skull, kind of offended that you haven’t come up to him first, since as far as he’s concerned, out of all the people present in the room, you spend the most time with him in the first place (with the exception of Aeri, of course, but you two live together, so it doesn't really count). In his opinion, you didn’t need to be talking to Na Jaemin right now– you’re not even friends with the man.

But still– drinking beer out of a bottle Lee Jeno passes you somewhere in the middle of the night before he disappears with his best friend to dance with them under the cigarette haze (pretty embarrassingly, you may add) – the only thing resonating through your brain is that you got this, you’re not gonna give him a single glance, you’re not gonna think about how attractive he looks in all black.

You guess that everything about the way this evening has been going is the prime example of every single college kid’s usual Friday. Sitting in a basement of Liu Yangyang’s house, your vision cloudy with a bit of alcohol and also the sweet, piney smoke of the joint that’s been passed around the room only a few minutes prior, music lowly plays in the background, adding a relaxed, yet exciting and bubbling atmosphere to it all– it’s the epitome of the experience you imagine before you go to college when you’re 15 and gazing longingly outside of your window, wondering if life when you’re older will be better and more fun.

And while you don’t necessarily think life is better now– you do have a shitton of assignments to do and stress eating up your insides– you do think it’s kind of fun. Everything is more bearable when you have a group of friends by your side, and while you wouldn’t call every single person in this room right now your closest friend– a friend for life, even– you’d say everything is better than being stuck in your house on a Friday evening, mourning the break up of One Direction one more time as you watch This is us again with spoonfuls of ice cream shoveled into your mouth, figure cuddled up under the blanket with your roommate by your side.

The fun only lasts until a round of Truth or dare takes place, though. You must admit that it’s the fundamental part of the whole hang out, and yes, it’s the thing you always see in the movies. It adds a bit of spice to it all and it’s twice as fun to play when you’re a little intoxicated, but still– you’d like to think you’re too old for the game now, even though your friends believe otherwise and never fail to bring it up again.

This time, it’s Jaemin who brings it up. You shoot daggers to his skull, annoyed eyes and all, but you don’t think he notices as he continues to excitingly sway his arms in the air when he repeats the submission over and over again, finally heard by his roommate Jeno that’s just come back from the weird dancing session with his best friend that he’s very obviously pining over, and grins at his roommate in agreement, starting the game.

“Not again,” you whine audibly, because frankly, if you wanted to survive the evening with no embarrassment and no weird thoughts about one of the party guests, you don’t think a game of Truth or dare is your best move. Your disgust makes your own roommate– that’s suddenly glued to your side, too tipsy to even walk (you heard her exclaim that her legs are too heavy to be used)– giggle, already familiar with your thoughts on the game. And frankly, that makes you even more terrified– because when Aeri is drunk, she talks even more than she does when she’s sober, and well, there’s no promising that all of the information you’ve ever shared with her will stay truly confidential when she’s under the influence.

“Don’t start again,” she says, shaking her head, “you always say you hate it, but you always end up playing it anyway.”

She’s right. It’s not like anyone is pressuring you, but you kind of feel like the situation calls for you to join in– because what else are you supposed to do, watch them? There’s no fun in watching if you’re not involved, and you’d feel like an intruder if you just watched them do all sorts of dares while not being in on the game.

“Yeah, because you’d all whine if I didn’t,” you say instead, taking a sip of your drink, letting the bitter taste of beer slide down your throat as she rolls her eyes at you, nudging you in your side with her elbow.

“Just say you end up having fun,” she snickers, “nobody would think that’s weird, you know.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” you shush her and pet her hair, taking advantage of the fact that you’re very obviously less tipsy than her, as you turn to the middle of the circle and wait for the game to start.

Usually, a couple of rounds pass before your name is called. You enjoy the tension– it feels like you have time to prepare to do whatever task their hazed minds come up with or answer whatever question that’s been burning on their tongue, yet, it also feels like a buildup before the big thing– a strange sense of climax, if you will.

This time, it’s no different. A couple of minutes pass as you watch Yangyang lick the bottom of Jaemin’s foot– because Jeno always likes to come up with the nastiest, most worrying dares of them all– followed by the sight of Shotaro kissing the forehead of the most attractive guy in the circle (Renjun wasn’t happy with the wet peck left on his skin). The guys almost always pick a dare, and you think that’s an advantage, since before it’s your turn to finally participate in the game, they run out of ideas for dares that are possible to do in the weed-smelling basement of Liu Yangyang’s house and you can safely choose truth instead. It’s not like you’re not brave enough to choose dare– you did so many times before and never once backed away from the task, not even when you were dared to kiss the person on your right (that was the night you learned Kim Sunwoo wasn’t all that, because the drunken peck he pressed to your lips wasn’t all that appealing) – you just simply tried to pick the safest strategy for the game.

Another kissing dare could suggest that you kiss the person you find the most attractive in the room right now. Or they could ask you for a lap dance on one of the guys. The possibilities are endless, and even though choosing the truth isn’t that much safer, since their questions could vary all the way from ‘What’s the color of your underwear right now?’ to ‘What is your favorite sex position?’, you’re trying to comfort yourself with the fact that you could just lie. You know it’s kind of prohibited, and that it also defeats the whole purpose of the game, but still– you’re not planning on embarrassing yourself tonight, and you were always a pretty good liar when it came to words. Actions? Not that much.

Sinked deep in the stained light orange fabric of the sofa, eyes half-lidded, you await Jaemin’s question as you tell him you did indeed pick the truth. And you were right, there are no protests coming out of the boys’ mouths this time around, seemingly tired of coming up with original ideas for their dares.

“Come on, man, we don’t have the whole day,” Renjun nudges the boy into his ribs, annoyed with the lack of words from his friend.

“Actually, we do. I don’t see the issue-”

“Just ask something already!” Shotaro whines from his position on the floor, his back pressed against the side of the sofa.

“Fine,” the man straightens up in his position, as if struck by a newly found sense of clarity, the look on Na Jaemin’s face reeking of insanity, “I've got something.”

The room cautiously looks at the platinum-haired boy sitting on the floor, his back resting against an armchair in the corner of the room as he blinks a few times, seconds passing, yet there’s still nothing coming out of his mouth.

“Are you gonna say something, or will you continue to act all dramatic…?” Jeno snickers, making his roommate roll his eyes at the jab, finally breaking the silence.

You’d argue that he just forgot what he wanted to say– with how Jaemin gets when he’s drunk, it wouldn’t be half surprising– but it seems like his roommate knows him better than you do, because the man speaks up fast, and suddenly, you take back all your impatient thoughts that urged him to ask you something already, because the question takes you by surprise and leaves you in shock, staring wide eyed and speechless.

“If you had to have sex with anyone in this room, who would you choose?”

You no longer wish he took longer to ask you the question. No, you wish he would’ve sent it to you telepathically, so you could prepare your answer beforehand. You’d save yourself a lot of trouble– being met with the gaze of everyone, looking at you as they await your answer is truly not helping you with the difficult task of responding to the truth, when in reality, you don’t think you can manage to even say anything.

Because truthfully, if you were asked this question at any time prior to the weird situation you found yourself in with Donghyuck– who’s, just by the way, still present in the room, but more quiet that usual, which you shamefully notice and worry about on your insides, but don’t mention out loud– you’d think that you wouldn’t have sex with anyone in this room. It may be hard to believe– even though the men in this room aren’t the sexsymbols they often think they are– but that's the sheer reality.

But now? You feel like the truth is written all over your face, you feel like everyone can see right inside of your head and read the words straight out of your brain. It’s embarrassing. You feel ashamed.

Looking around the space, shiteating grins meeting all of their expressions, you shrug and finally get some words out, hoping they satisfy their needs for an answer.

“No one,” you say, praying you sound confident.

“Yeah, no-”

“Oh, come on-”

“That’s a lie-”

Multiple voices cut into your confession, all in disbelief. If this isn’t the proof of their impressively big egos, you don’t know what is. All of them now staring at you with furrowed eyebrows, not believing a single word that’s just came out of your mouth, you start to wonder about how to convince them that you are, indeed, telling the truth, even though you’re obviously aren’t, so you don’t have to take a shot of whatever liquid the host of the party has hidden in the closet of his basement as a punishment.

“I’m serious! I’ve never looked at any of you and thought, ‘yea, I’d let him get it’,” you shrug, taking a nervous sip of the beer in your hold again.

“Okay, but if you had to? Like, imagine someone is holding your mother captive and telling you they’re gonna kill her if you don’t have sex with anyone in this room. Who are you choosing?” Jeno squints at you, and you’re starting to believe that the man just wants you to pick him.

“I’d have sex with Aeri,” you muse, pointing a finger to her as she’s leeching to your right shoulder, snickering.

“That’s a cop out!”

“Look, man, I don’t find anyone here hot, okay?” you shake your head at the commotion, grinning to yourself to seem more believable. And with how they roll their eyes and sigh to themselves, you think it’s working. There’s a premature feeling of relief in your insides, thinking that you’ve done it, you haven’t exposed yourself, before you hear your roommate mumble from her slumber, making your heart drop deep down into your own fucking asshole.

“Not even Hyuck?”

Slowly spinning your head towards her, the tight smile on your face suggesting that you’re going to kill her in under approximately five seconds if she doesn’t take back what she said, you’re painfully aware of the fact that everyone’s staring at you now, grinning to themselves with a look that says they believe that Aeri knows something they don’t– she’s your best friend, after all– and you realize that you’re going to have a hard time getting out of this one.

You should’ve expected this the moment you saw her drink that much. Maybe you should’ve stayed home today. The information about Lee Donghyuck was still too fresh in her brain to not mention when she has some to drink– you understand, in a way. At least, you’re trying to understand.

“Fuck no,” you grunt out, furrowing your eyebrows in the best acting performance you’ve managed to put on since your theatre kid days. You don’t think you’re convincing anyone, though. You’re not even convinced.

“Was that my name I heard?”

And again, your heart drops at the familiar tone coming from the place straight opposite of you, the place that’s very obviously in your point of view, yet you’ve been successfully avoiding the whole evening to not seem as obvious to everyone that the very man has been occupying your every thought for the last week or two. You realize this is the first time he’s spoken to you this evening, if you’re not counting the text messages you exchanged before you got here, and something about the fact makes you shiver.

Meeting his eyes, because it’s the natural thing to do when someone speaks to you, you mentally curse and feel your heartbeat quickening at the grin sitting on his face. Eyes roaming his body– all against your will– you notice the comfortable way he’s sitting on the armchair in front of you, legs parted wide and his thighs on full display, hair a little messy and eyes glossed over and blown out, since he smoked just a few minutes prior to the game, making you realize just how painfully he resembles someone who just had a long make-out session; the thought automatically leading you to think of the fact that you’d like to have a make-out session with him right now, and wow, his thighs do look inviting to sit down on.

“You wish,” you spit instead, still wanting to save the situation. Averting your gaze from him to keep yourself sane, you choose to focus on the floor instead, heat rising to the tips of your ears.

“I mean, it seems more like you do,” he grins, the whole group snickering at the sudden quarrel in between the two of you. Your conversation suddenly reminds you of the ones you had with him before the two of you started properly talking, and something about the confident smirk on his face makes you remember just how annoying you’ve always found him whenever you encountered him at this very place. You’re back to square one for a minute, with your defensive remarks, similar to the way you used to quarrel with him before, and the familiarity engulfs you like a warm blanket.

“Your confidence amuses me,” you bite back, choosing to look at him as you say it to add more impact to your words; your decision seems to only worsen the things for you, though. The conversation admittedly sounds a little too much like flirting, and the way you notice him clutching the can of beer in his hand only makes you more flushed under his gaze.

“You don’t seem amused.”

“That’s because the idea of having sex with you makes me want to leave this room,” you grunt, shifting uncomfortably in your seat.

“I’ll take you home if you’d like,” he winks at you. Alarm sound goes off in your mind, your hands clammy as you run them through your hair, and suddenly, you’re on fight or flight. And if you can’t escape the situation, you decide to choose the latter– throwing him the most jabbing remark you can think of at this moment, fighting to keep your dignity.

“On a bike, or something?” you snicker. “As if I’d let a guy without a licence fuck me. You know that’s below my standards, Hyuck.”

An amused gasp is heard in the room when this remark leaves your mouth. The main source of the noise is Liu Yangyang, the host himself, since he likes to laugh at times when it’s the least socially acceptable.

Now, you know that there are only a few things in which men value their social status; one of them being the amount of girls in their bed, the next one their rank in League of Legends, and lastly, their cars. And while Lee Donghyuck is known to be quite the player when it comes to the first thing in the list of social ranking between guys (or at least you’ve heard so from the girls in the locker room in the past years. Not like you were listening to their conversations whenever his name was mentioned… you just have very good hearing) and he was known to be the one that carries the team whenever any game on Yangyang’s PS5 is played in the dimly-lit basement on nights much like this one, there was something always setting him back in the neat ranking, and that something was the state of his car.

Why? You guessed it– he doesn’t have a car. Or a licence.

To be quite frank, by the expression on Donghyuck’s face– all wide eyes and mouth agape in shock– you hit him right when it hurts, the grin falling off his face when he takes a sip of the beer in his hand, seemingly to chase down the taste of being put in his place and to have something to do to not seem as awkward and embarrassed as he must be feeling right now.

You feel victorious, in a way– you managed to mask your very obvious sexual frustration caused by the man, while also managing to rile him up with your comment, which is definitely a first in your dynamic– adrenaline rushing through your blood as you look at him with expecting eyes, awaiting his response. The rest of the crowd laughs at your remark, only fueling the joy you feel when he suddenly averts his gaze from you, licking his lips for only a millisecond (yet it doesn’t get unnoticed by your eyes) before he snickers again, shrugging.

“Okay then,” he grunts, pressing the tip of his tongue to the inside of his cheek in annoyance, “you won.”

You know what? Once he admits to it, the feeling of victory quickly fades. Watching his frustrated face, eyebrows furrowed as he looks everywhere but at your face, suddenly, you choose to drown yourself in the rest of the beer in your bottle, relieved when you notice the game progressing without you.

You won, he says, but you don't feel like you did. Quite the opposite, actually. You feel a tad bit defeated.

You managed to lie to the crowd, but the very obvious pit in your stomach reminds you that you can’t lie to yourself– and now, bear with me as I say something cheesy, yet true– because even though Lee Donghyuck can’t drive, he’s still very successful at driving you crazy.

You feel like the universe is punishing you for every little, smallest thing you’ve ever done wrong in your life. You feel like whatever force is there that’s making this world go around, absolutely, completely, wholeheartedly hates, despises you, and won’t have mercy on you as you’re left dealing with the text message shining on your phone screen four days after the party, at 8 in the evening.

hyuck – drive me to a date hyuck – please ig

Sighing, one, two, three times, you chew on the bottom of your lip as your eyes scan over the messages, and something about the very few words makes your stomach turn and twist in an emotion you’d describe as a weird mix of disgust and shock as you mentally try to come up with a reply. And it’s hard.

It’s difficult, because you hate it, you hate it, you hate it– the way Lee Donghyuck just managed to score himself a date only four days after your ever so growing sexual frustration has started to see the light of the day, you hate the way he’s asking you to drive him there– as if to show you that he still has it, that you’re wrong, and that even though he has no car and no license to boost in front of other girls, they still want him and you’re about to witness it as you drive him there.

And you hate it so much you start to think you’re going to chew on your own fist and throw a rock through your own window, but you strive hard not to show it. And is there a better way to seem unaffected in this situation than to comply with him? If you weren’t so jealous about the whole thing, you’d surely just make fun of him and do it, no questions asked– a friendly favor, or something. And so you do it. Like it’s nothing.

you – ok text me when you’re ready

After a few minutes, you end up sitting in your car, hands on the wheel ready to turn (and run into the nearest car out of pure rage, possibly), waiting for Lee Donghyuck to appear on the passenger’s seat, all dolled up and dumped in cologne, presumably– and that’s exactly what happens when the door swings open and your nose is filled with his usual smell but somehow amplified, and you catch a glimpse of his leather jacket and the shirt tucked into his black jeans. You don’t outright look at him– because you’re still trying really hard not to show all of your inner thoughts on your face– and so you only turn on the engine and hum at him, already making your way out of the parking lot.

“Where are you going, then?” you ask, tone of voice completely unbothered and not too stingy or tight. “And I’m just dropping you off this time, right? Because I won’t sit there and watch you have a date and wait to drop both of you back,” you say, playing with the car radio and trying to find a station that would both satisfy your need to tune out your thoughts with a good song and the need to do something with your fingers to seem occupied.

“Of course not,” he snickers, “wouldn’t do that to poor you. And just go the way I tell you. Now turn left at the end of the street.”

Sighing to yourself at his orders, you do your best at driving your neighbor to his date while trying to ignore just how ridiculous this whole situation is. You should’ve said no back when he first asked you to be his personal driver for the semester– failing Film theory class doesn’t seem like such a bad thing in your eyes now, when you look at the situation in retrospect.

“Can’t believe you have to be dropped off at your own date and you still pull bitches,” you shake your head in disbelief, hoping, praying you seem annoyed because of your duties and not because you’d much rather have him staying in so you could catch a glimpse of him in his window, crouched down in the blue light of his room (yes, he has neon lights in his room. Yes, you teased him about it countless of times before) as he plays League of Legends or stays up on a discord call with his friends, playing Minecraft.

“See? You’re missing out,” he chuckles, shrugging to himself.

“As if I’d ever go on a date with you,” you huff, moving to turn the volume of the radio higher so you don’t have to make small talk with him anymore, agitated, yet completely ignoring the fact that it was you who brought it up in the first place.

Hyuck moves his slender fingers along the knob of the radio and tunes the volume back down, and you’re eager to repeat your previous steps just to anger him and also so you don’t have to listen to his sneaky, egoistical remarks for any longer, when you hear him tell you the next directions and you realize that you still indeed need to hear Donghyuck’s voice, or else you’re not gonna be able to drop him off at his destination and drive away as fast as humanly possible.

The terrain around you starts to look more stranded. There are more trees than buildings in your sight, lampposts decreasing in amount as you drive further away from the city center, and only when you pass the sign that tells you that you just left the town you speak up again, now truly concerned.

“Where the fuck are you taking your date, man? To the middle of the woods?” you huff. “Is she meeting you there?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he laughs, shaking his head at your furrowed brows. Something about his casual composure makes your nerves tick off and goosebumps appear all over your body, as if you were sensing danger, when you sigh out heavily in frustration and turn to look at him for only a split second, eyes meeting with his.

“Or are you making me drive to another fucking state, you fucker? I don’t have that much gas right now, you dumb ass–”

“We’re almost there, don’t worry,” he rolls his eyes at you, pointing somewhere into the distance again. “Just turn right there and drive up the hill.”

“Up the fucking hill?” you repeat, concerned.

“I told you to not worry about it,” Hyuck hums, settling deeper into the car seat, letting you battle your own thoughts as you follow his orders and drive up the hill for him, praying no deer decides to jump onto the road and total your car right now.

“I worry about the girl that agreed to go on a date with you, Donghyuck,” you mutter, “I’ll tell you that, she clearly doesn’t have everything alright in the brain, because this is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he swats your worries away with a swing of his arm, pointing towards a place that extends out of the main road– if you can even call it that, since no cars are passing through the hill ever, much more in these hours of the day– and tells you that you can park the car there.

And you do as you’re told, despite your never-ending complaining– that’s the dynamic you have with Lee Donghyuck, it seems.

Stopping the car out of the main road, your car shielded from one side by a row of trees, you step on the break and look at the man to your right in question, the engine still running. “Is this it? Is this the place?”

“Yeah,” he nods, a grin slowly starting to play with his features. Something isn’t right– you feel it in your bones and see it in his eyes, but you can’t quite put your finger on it, still utterly confused and in the dark about everything. “Come on, get out of the car.”

He wastes no time in unbuckling his seatbelt and hopping out of the vehicle, his figure circling the car as he leans on the hood, turned away from you and seemingly waiting for you to follow his actions. Confused, figuring that you can’t do much more about the situation right now– where the fuck is his date? Why are we on the top of a hill? Will his date show up? – all swimming around your brain, you hop out and find his warm being, standing one step ahead of him and staring at him with stern, frustrated eyes.

“Look, isn’t it pretty?” he asks, pointing somewhere behind you. It takes everything in you to turn and gaze at the sight in front of you, your heart still weak and angrily beating against your ribcage, but you do as you’re ordered, eyes bearing into the view.

The whole town is stretching out right below you. Now that you’ve turned the engine off and your headlights have gone out, you see the lights even better, shielded by a blanket of stars glimmering above the horizon, and you can’t help but gasp out in the beauty of it all. This place makes you want to take a picture, so you can remember how you felt while standing here and admiring the city forever– so you can remember how you felt while standing next to Donghyuck, heart foolishly drumming against your ribcage– and you suddenly realize just how badly you despise the fact that he showed this to you just to send you off while he waits for his date, as if to show you everything you could have if you went out with him, even though the question was never even on the table in the first place.

Clearing your throat, you turn to him, eyes glazing his side profile. “Where’s your date? Is she turning up? I don’t think it’s safe to make her–”

“My date’s already here,” he hums, nodding to himself.

This does nothing to clear out the fog of confusion from in front of your eyes. “Huh? Where?”

“Here,” he repeats. The word has you wearily looking around yourself, furrowed brows and all– and that only makes the man chuckle at your antics, low voice cutting out of his throat making its way straight to the bottom of your stomach. “There’s no one else here. Just us. And no one else is coming, so will you chill out and enjoy our date, finally?” he asks, locking his gaze with you in a lazy, yet attractive manner that has your hands shaking and your brain instantly panicking.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you process his words for a few seconds, doing mental acrobatics and racking your brain in thought. Nothing helps. “Our date?”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah, no,” you giggle out in awkwardness, feeling unarmed and like somebody’s just dunk a bucket of hot water over you. Shaking your head, you try hard to mask the way you’re feeling on the inside right now, because what are you even feeling right now? As you do some unreadable gestures with your arms as a way of declining and canceling everything that’s happening right now. “Us? A date? Yeah, not happening–”

You mumble out, ready to escape the situation as fastly and as efficiently as you can while you try to make your way back inside of the car, not really thinking of the journey home you’re about to have to make with him on the passenger’s seat, when a hand grips your wrist, making you stop in your tracks. You take a few steps away from him nonetheless, and the man soon follows you before your body is swiftly turned against your car, the small of your back coming in contact with the driver’s door. Your breathing is quick when the man hovers above you, and you don’t feel danger– you just feel a bit panicked at the way tonight’s playing out. A date? You wouldn’t have thought of this in your most insane dreams.

“Why are you trying to run away?” he asks, his hand still holding your wrist, his fingers firm, yet gentle on your skin.

“Because– um– because-” you stutter, eyes instantly meeting his– regret pooling in the bottom of your stomach when you realize the proximity of his gaze, something tense bundling up in your insides, “this is ridiculous, Donghyuck, you can’t just–”

“I can’t just?” he tempts you, eyebrows rising to make you continue.

“You can’t just lure me into a date with you, that’s not how this works–”

“Would you go if I asked, then?”

“No, of course not!” you shake your head at him, tone of voice a few octaves higher than usual. Your eyes scan over your companion, his face reflecting the moonlight, and you find yourself counting the moles on his cheeks and noticing his sped-up breathing, automatically matching it despite not realizing it yourself.

“Why? ‘Cause I don’t have a driving license, or because you’re just scared to admit that you’re attracted to me?” he challenges you, quirking up his brows at you in tension.

Something about it makes you lose all the air in your lungs. He’s so close now you swear the scent of his cologne has made you drugged up, since you can’t seem to take your eyes off his lips for the next few seconds, completely in trance and electrified, and before you know it, you’re a blubbering mess, too lost in everything that is him to come up with something coherent. “That’s- that’s just not-”

He laughs at you, he snickers, as those words escape your mouth, not even a full sentence. You bet it’s enough of a confirmation for him that you’ve officially lost all control– you can’t seem to get out a teasing remark like you usually can, no smart words calculated and thrown his way to scatter down his ego, and you think he realizes that he won. You’re defenseless, you’re weak, and you really want to make out with him right now.

Which he might have sensed out of the way you’ve been yearningly staring at his lips the whole exchange. Still, he mumbles out a small “Stop me now if you don’t want this,” just to be completely sure.

And you don’t. You don't stop him when he leans in and captures your lips with his. You’d be a fool to.

His lips crash against yours with a fever-like pace, the tension that’s been building up between the two of you making itself known in the hurried motions of your lips. His kiss is deep, hands cradling your cheeks as he angles you to lock your lips with his better, not a hint of shyness or hesitance in his motions. Your fingers shakily grasp at the front of his shirt, trying to steady yourself when each motion of his mouth against yours leaves your knees weaker and weaker, your body pressed harder against the car door.

He tastes of mint, making you suspect he planned this and chewed on a gum before meeting you, and when his teeth gently pulls at your bottom lip, eliciting a gasp from you, his tongue is left exploring the inside of your mouth, making you grow hotter and hotter under his ministrations. Your hands occupy themselves as they finally let go off his shirt and sneak around his small waist, pulling him closer, and you swear that you’ve never experienced a kiss that would leave you so eager for more before, a kiss that would leave you so weak and open for anything that’s about to happen– as if you were already naked and bare, a puddle in his palms.

You’re soon left out of breath, gasping for air when he pulls away from you, and his kisses turn into pecks left on your lips, open mouthed kisses slowly trailing to the corner of your mouth and down your jaw, lips hungrily attaching to your neck, his nose glazing the soft skin as if to smell your scent and ingrave it into his memory. Something inside of you unties and makes you lose all of your control, finally falling fully into the sensation of the novelty of making out with Lee Donghyuck against your car, and you find your hands tying themselves into his hair, tugging at the roots when he finds the soft spot on the crevice of your shoulder that makes you squirm, and you suddenly know what all the girls in the locker rooms were talking about. Each action of his has you gasping for air, eyes pressing shut in the blissfulness of it all– the bites he leaves on your neck, smoothing them down with kitten licks each time surely leaving bruises, making your insides light up with the acts of possession.

“Hyuck–” you gasp, his mouth sucking into another spot on your neck, your head instantly moving away from his way to give him more space to work his magic.

“Hm?” he hums, a satisfied sound cutting out of his throat as his actions get more slow, more lazy, but still just as electrifying. You don’t really know what you wanted to say– perhaps you had no point of calling his name just to say it, and the hazy look in your face is enough of a proof to him when he unattaches himself off your neck and locks his eyes with you, a grin settling onto his face. “Feels good?”

Nodding eagerly, almost a bit fast and a bit too soon to your own liking (but you’ll worry about that later), you watch him lean towards you again, lips locking with yours in need. Your fingers trail up and down his clothed back, his fingers mirroring the same, but up your loose shirt (which reminds you that you didn’t even dress prettily for the occasion– since you didn’t know this was your date you're attending), cold hands against your heated skin. Shivering from the fresh breeze of the night, you feel him grin against your lips before detaching himself from them to speak against your mouth. “Let’s move this somewhere warmer,” he murmurs before he tugs you away from the car and opens up the back door, pushing you inside.

Swiftly getting inside and closing the door behind himself, Donghyuck appears hovering above you, caging you against the uncomfortable seat. Still, you don’t have time to feel any sense of discomfort as his fingers move your hair from the way and his lips are back on yours again, leaving you no time to think of the implications of the whole situation.

“See? Isn’t this much better than arguing with each other all the time?” Hyuck snickers again in a moment of weakness when he pulls back from your face to admire your swollen lips, and the teasing has you pushing him towards the seats, a dissatisfied look on your face.

“Shut up,” you whisper almost hurriedly, climbing onto his lap (not before you admire his sprawled-up legs and the sight of his thighs, though).

“Make me,” he challenges.

“Gladly,” you nod, attaching yourself to his plump lips again, since you can’t seem to get enough of the sensation of them against your weak self, every sweep of his tongue with yours making you feel more heated and impatient as you move against him in his lap, the motion earning you a dissatisfied grunt sent against your mouth as his palms grip your hips with unsaid urgency.

“Don’t start something you wouldn’t want to finish,” he breathes out.

Nodding, you hum. “Who said anything about stopping?” you muse out, grinding against him harder.

You’ll worry about the consequences later.

“Why am I the only one in the shot?” you squint your eyes at the male, watching him as he points his camera to you and tells you to smile and act natural. Donghyuck has on his varsity jacket and his hair is sitting messy, a bit curled on the top of his head, his legs are covered with loose gray sweatpants instead of his usual black jeans– he looks casual, and yet, he looks amazing, you foolishly think as you sigh to yourself and walk across the field, much like the male mentioned a few weeks ago when the two of you ate fried chicken with his free coupons, trying to capture the energy of what youth feels like to you.

“Because you are the main star, honey,” he grins at you, the nickname making you trip over a little on your own feet, before you turn back to him and send him a glare.

“I told you not to call me that,” you mutter, but feel the heat from your stomach slowly rising to the tips of your ears and the tops of your cheeks, your composure slowly crumbling under his gaze. Not only are you watched by his deep brown orbs, there’s also a camera pointed at you now, and if he doesn’t stop with the weird flirting he has going on– especially after what happened between the two of you last week– you don’t know how you’re supposed to contain yourself and act so you don’t look like an utter fool in front of everyone, when the clips will be played in class next week.

“Besides, the project is due next week and this is all we’re doing? Are you sure we’re going to be able to pull this off?” you ask, wary of his confidence. You’re not really sure if Donghyuck knows what he’s doing with this assignment. Why did you even trust him with it in the first place?

“I told you to leave it to me,” he says, “now be a good girl and run down the field, maybe twirl a little like a ballerina, I dunno… Hum a little tune to yourself, do anything remotely interesting and youthful, okay?” he instructs you, and you comply, ignoring the fact that he told you to be a good girl, because after what the two of you did last week, you’re not able to register those two words in a way that would not be mildly sexual in your brain.

You two haven’t spoken about the fact that you hooked up in the backseat of your car after your weird date last week. Truth be told, you two haven’t spoken about anything since it happened, because you felt too awkward and hesitant to bring any conversation topic up. The first time you two spoke was when Donghyuck texted you yesterday about the project, and you told yourself that you simply can't ignore him when it comes to these things, and so you agreed to meet up with him, hoping he won't bring up the events of last week. You were scared. What were you scared of, exactly? You have no idea.

Something in you was almost a bit shameful to admit to yourself that you managed to fall for Lee Donghyuck this quickly. Something in you was a bit embarrassed at the fact that you let yourself be so intimate and so close with the male, and although you don’t regret it, you don’t think you want to talk about it with him (or anyone, for that matter) just yet. Or ever, actually.

And although you could be rational and tell yourself that surely, Donghyuck wanted you in just the same way you wanted him, and there was nothing embarrassing about it, you didn’t feel comfortable with talking about the act with him, because deep down, you know it wasn’t just about the sex for you and you were afraid that it was for him, and you’d rather stay in the blissful unknowingness than to know he only wanted to have sex with you and not try to go somewhere further with your relationship. Did this inner monologue reek of disgusting insecurity?

Yes. Yes, it did. But somehow, you’re not able to do anything about it.

And so you run down the field like Donghyuck told you to, and you twirl and twist and shout and dance around, trying your hardest to act silly and youthful and exactly like he would like you to, because you’d hate to be unnatural around him, and you pray it’s enough for both the project and him included. Turning back to gaze at him from the distance, you notice that he’s not even recording anymore, only watching you with a lazy grin on his face, eyes glimmering under the direct sunlight, and you wonder how you haven’t realized just how beautiful he is when he’s simply just existing all those months ago, and how foolish you feel with the thought and both without it now. Walking up to him, you muse.

“Are we done here?”

“I think we got all the shots we need,” he hums, nodding to your question. There is something reassuring in his smile, and if you were confident enough to grasp at the straws, you would try to talk to him about the events of last week. You lack in many ways, though, and you were never so self-assured as you try to portray yourself to be, and so you don’t.

“Let’s go, then,” you say, shuddering from the cold November wind as you walk away from the man, expecting him to follow you. You drove here, since the place is a few miles away from the city, and the fact that this marks the end of your project didn’t really make you as relieved and happy as you thought you’d feel back when you agreed to be his driver for the semester.

A soft fabric envelopes your shoulders, his varsity jacket hugging you into warmth. You smell his cologne when you shyly push your limbs through the sleeves– a self-indulgent desire, too strong to be fought away– and when you look at him to thank him, he wears a soft look in his eyes that glazes you with such tenderness you feel like combusting from the inside with the strengths of your own emotions. Your heart beats fast in your chest when he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear as you walk towards the car, and when a stronger wind hits your heated face, you think that maybe Donghyuck was right, after all.

You do think this perfectly captures what youth feels like.

“So we won’t talk about it?” he asks, and you turn away from him in fear of your emotions being clearly written on your face. He doesn’t have to name it– you know what he means.

“No,” you shake your head, determined, yet a little scared of his response, “not now.” Not yet, you think. You want to enjoy today a little longer.

“Why?” he asks.

Taking a shaky breath in, sensing that you won’t get to avoid the confrontation like you wanted to, you shrug. “I don’t know if I’m ready to hear it yet,” you bitterly laugh, meeting his eyes with something close to fear in your eyes.

“Hear what?”

“That you… you didn’t really mean anything by it, y’know,” you mumble, “I mean, you probably just did it to stroke your ego, or something, after everything I said at the party, so… yeah, I just don’t know if I wanna hear it.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence after your explanation, and Donghyuck only stares you down with a blank expression. It's not often that you don’t get to clearly see and experience all his emotions flashing through his face, letting you know what he feels even before he gets to speak it out loud. Now is one of the situations, though, and it scares you– it makes you so deeply afraid you’d rather back away from this conversation– damn you for entertaining it in the first place, and so you pretend it never happened in the first place.

“You think I did it to stroke my ego?” he clarifies.

“I- I mean…” you stutter, shying away from his gaze.

“Okay, then,” he mumbles, jaw hardening, his eyes not meeting yours when he circles the car and gets to his designated place on the passenger's seat, “that’s fine, I guess. I’ll try to show you my intentions clearer next time.”

Sitting in class, head resting in your hands as you stare right in front of you, mentally counting down the seconds until the last class of the semester starts, you are only vaguely aware of the things happening around you. You register Aeri talking to you about the new episode of her favorite drama somewhere to your right and you are also aware of Haknyeon and Shotaro sitting in the row in front of you, laughing loudly to themselves about the way their weekend went– yours went terribly, just for everyone’s information, since you decided to drown your feelings in alcohol alone in your apartment, having to be led to bed by your roommate after she got home in the middle of the night from one of her dates with Eric. You don’t really realize it when the class starts, because the monotone voice of your professor doesn’t do much to wake you up, but you are painfully aware of Lee Donghyuck’s body slumping next to yours into one of the only vacant chairs approximately 10 minutes after the class starts, out of breath and slouched over.

Aware of his presence, yet still acting like a scared deer around him, you don’t make any effort into turning to him and greeting him upon his arrival. Still, you sense the smell of his cologne filling your nostrils and making you just a bit more tired and sleepy, your eyes closing on themselves before you’re woken up by the sound of your name coming out of the professor’s mouth.

Scared you’re getting scolded for sleeping in class, you straighten your back and put on your best polite expression, but then you realize your name wasn’t called, just mentioned, and the name of none other than your neighbor was following, when the projector on the wall in front of you lights up and a file named Final projects is opened on the professor’s laptop, each .mp4 file named with a pair of surnames, and two clicks after, your final project is the first one of many presented in front of the whole class. You tried to tell Donghyuck that you could help with the final editing, but the male said he had a vision he needed to achieve, and for that, he wanted to be in charge of it alone, and frankly, out of fear of interacting with him more than was absolutely necessary, you left him to do his thing, resulting in this being your first time watching the final video as well.

There’s a few seconds of silence, a point of complete blankness as the clip starts, and a song played on an acoustic guitar starts playing when the word YOUTH, all capitalized, flashes at the screen.

A clip of you running down the field in your flowy dress starts the video, the camera zooming in on your figure when you twirl and skip around in the tall grass, and then you laugh over the background music, the sound making you gape in surprise. You didn’t know your laugh sounded like that, and with the hazy coloring of the clips and the solemn, youthful atmosphere Donghyuck managed to capture in the video, you find yourself thinking the sound was kind of beautiful.

Then the clip cuts into another one– and you widen your eyes at the sight, because Donghyuck told you he’s only going to include the clips from the field, and you believed him, well, because you never saw him record anything else– as the screen shows you a bunch of moments, all wordless, of you just going on with your life. The very next one is of you arriving to class late, a grumpy expression playing with your features. You didn’t notice Donghyuck filming back then, when he offered you a cup of coffee as you laid back on the desk, and a fit of giggles erupts around the class at your behavior. The next clip shows you laughing at Aeri’s shoulder in Yangyang’s basement– a couple of clips of that night following, capturing you playing beer pong with your other friends, or taking sips of your beer when you sat down on one of the folding chairs in the corner of the basement– each one showcasing you completely natural, unstaged, and raw. You had no idea anyone was watching you, yet alone taking clips of you. Did Donghyuck have his camera with him all those times? Or was he just taking those with his phone, since you never even noticed?

There’s a clip of you showing him the middle finger through the window when he called you late at night one day. Another one of you driving, and frankly, you don’t even know where you were going, but the sound of you giggling breaks through the speakers and you slouch deeper into your seat, shy at hearing the sound. The very next one is of you sipping at your boba through your straw, and that’s when you realize those were taken by his phone– at least some of them– because you attempt to hide from the lens by showing your palm against it. Another clip shows you digging through bags of McDonald’s take out in the driver’s seat of your car, another one lets you remember the time you went to get fried chicken with him, thinking he’s sending the video he took of you to tease his roommate with the free food he got with someone else back then, unaware that he wanted to use it for the project later.

There are a few clips that only last a second. You walking a few steps ahead of him– you think it was the time you two went to the mall, you angry with his antics. Another one of you picking out cans of soda from the rack in the convenience store. A clip of you driving, once again, but now the sky is starry and dark, and you remember the night too well, since it wasn’t that long ago. A clip of you glaring at your bangs in the rear view mirror, another one of you staring into your textbooks at the library.

There’s only one clip that shows Donghyuck as well. It’s one taken without you knowing, much like the previous ones, and how you missed the phone plopped up against the corner of your dashboard, you really don’t know, but the video shows you two in the McDonald’s parking lot, your hand touching his on the gear stick as you show him how to drive. Only then do you notice the flustered look on his face and the nervous laugh he gets out in the clip, the sound making your heart jump in your ribcage.

The last part of the video is of you walking a few steps ahead of him, his varsity jacket hugging you around your shoulders. It’s the latest clip of them all, and it makes you painfully shy to look at it. The video comes to finish with a few last strums of an acoustic guitar in the background, and you come back to your senses when you feel a hand squeeze your thigh under the table, the whole class erupting into claps. The video was beautiful, and you feel moved.

Although you should be more mad about the fact that Donghyuck took videos of you without you knowing, there is something incredibly moving about the fact that somebody was looking at you and felt the need to capture the moment before it went away. The clips were candid, real, raw, showcasing exactly how the memory went, how your laugh sounded, and how you looked through Donghyuck’s eyes. The video was exactly what it needed to be and more.

There’s something about the fact that all of the clips were of you that made you feel weak in your knees. If the video was what youth feels like, does this mean you were his youth?

If you felt beautiful in the video, loved the way your eyes crinkled in joy, liked the way your expressions morphed into the purest form of whatever emotion you felt at the moment, did that mean this was the way Donghyuck saw you with his eyes?

“See?” you hear him whisper into your ear, his hand still resting at the top of your leg. “I told you I had a vision. I did a good job, didn’t I?”

You chuckle, then offer him a nod. “I didn’t know you were recording all of those,” you whisper, ignoring the words coming out of your professor’s mouth– surely evaluating your work right now. You don’t really want to hear it, though– you’re sure you’ll pass. After seeing what your neighbor’s capable of, you have no doubts.

“I wanted it to feel authentic,” he peeps, “to the way I see you, I mean.”

“Is this what you meant when you said you’d prove your point later?” you wonder.

“I mean, the fact that I’ve always had the biggest crush on you was supposed to come across when I liked your objectively terrible haircut you got at the beginning of the term, but yes,” he admits, sheepishly smiling.

“Okay, uncalled for,” you shrug off his hand from your thigh, to which he giggles and captures your limb with his again, interlacing your fingers. He sways your hands back and forth, offering you a soft look that drives you slightly insane. After all of this, you’re really not sure what you were so afraid of.

“How does that roadtrip sound right now?”

“Still absolutely terrifying,” you note.

“Even if I pay for gas?” he laughs.

Squinting at him, admiring the boyish grin playing with his lips, you sigh. “I’ll think about it.”

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shizunitis · 6 months ago

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Luo Binghe & Tianlang-Jun: Origins. And a Bit of Projection.

Disclaimer: This is basically just a collection of quotes from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Volume 3, accompanied by (adjective) thoughts, and then even more relevant quotes listed at the end. If I could, I’d paste the entirety of Chapter 18.

“As expected, I can’t bring myself to hate humans.” — Vol. 3, Chapter 21: Always Together

I will always be conflicted on the topic of Tianlang-jun, and it annoys me. There is so much I could say about him, and so little I can successfully articulate. He is, to me, more confounding, complex and tragic than Shen Jiu.

He’s pitiful and awe-inspiring, wicked and affable, cunning and wide-eyed in his curiousity. He is a compelling, heartbreaking character. He alternates between emotionless wisdom and mournful apathy. I admire how his knees don’t buckle under the weight of his grief, but how he crumbles at the barest hint of hope. How rage claws at him and, still, he can’t figure out how to make it stick.

I empathise with him. I understand him.

But then, in the distance, Luo Binghe's indifferent voice disturbs the silence, causing me to drop my drink onto the floor and this post onto your screen:

“He’s not my father.”

It’s an interesting exercise, exploring their relationship in reconciliation fics. To see them interact (semi-)honestly, watch them take turns filling up the chasm between them. It’s wonderful. Every fic I’ve read centred around them was a delightful read that I still think about.

However. I cannot see Tianlang-Jun, as I understand him, as Luo Binghe’s father. And not just because of the 3rd Novel’s events.

But because Binghe had hoped for something; he did have that wide-eyed wonder. He did hold one last window open, for the sake of an improbability he couldn’t quite, just yet, dismiss.

It’s what (most) orphaned and/or adopted childred do.

Though Luo Binghe had never said a word about it before, Shen Qingqiu knew that he harbored some fantasies about his birth parents. […] In fact, he’d always secretly fantasized about whether his parents might still be alive, and how well they’d treat him, and how they’d never let him suffer the mildest slight. — Vol. 3, Chapter 17: Tianlang

It is the most human thing; to want to be helped, accepted, invited by those given to you. A family is given to you. Whether you believe it an act of the divine, of nature, of coincidence, it isn’t something you fight for. It’s the first and, arguably, only thing you don’t have to fight for in life.

Depending on a multitude of factors, that can be a blessing or a curse; but where there is room for interpretation, questions left unanswered, most childred—Binghe included—will turn to their imagination, and try to make sense of it. Usually, to comfort themselves, to reassure themselves that surely, if their family could, they would have.

And, yeah. Most likely, if the Palace Master had gotten punted into the Sun like he fucking deserved, they would have. But does it matter?

In the face of a bleak reality, what comfort is a could-have-been?

He liked to call Luo Binghe “that son of mine,” but he didn’t seem to possess any concept of fatherly affection. […] Luo Binghe was in fact…someone who was unloved by even his own parents. — Vol. 3, Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum

What use are good intentions to an abandoned child? What consolation is it, to say, They gave birth to you, when that child has seen no evidence of their care? Does it dry their tears, that their mother can’t be here, but she surely would have wished to be? That their father would protect them, if only he knew of them?

(And don’t make me tell you about the visceral horror I felt reading the Origins chapter. I’ve yet to make my peace with it. MXTX, Airplane, whoever: you’ve ruined me.)

The washerwoman was and continues to be, to Binghe, his only mother. And I would argue, that’s healthy. Even independent of his other traumas (Abyss, Shizun’s betrayal, Xin Mo’s influence, living on the streets, etc, holy shit Binghe) Luo Binghe will not accept anyone else as his mother.

“Who is this Su Xiyan?” Luo Binghe asked coldly. “My mother was a mere washerwoman.” — Vol. 3, Chapter 18: Origins.

It may seem callous. It probably even is! But it is a healthy line he’d drawn by his own initiative. It’s what helps him, what he feels he needs to do in order to do right by his mother, and his own heart.

And! Tianlang-Jun doesn’t seem to give much of a shit, either!

Won’t, probably, even in the future, once the dust will have settled. He is exhausted, weary with carrying the corpse of his love, the loss of his nephew. Whatever goodwill he shows, it’s a perfunctory sort, because he can’t afford more.

So. Uhh.

Tianlang-Jun is not a character I can love, nor one I can hate. Usually, I can’t help but be inclined to love complex characters. Like them, too—though that’s more of an action-based thing rather than just said character’s personality.

But with Tianlang-Jun, I’m stuck whichever way I turn. If I want to love/like him, I’m drawn back by Binghe’s pain and disappointment. If I try to hate/dislike him, I’m drawn back by his own history and grief.

In conclusion:

I don't know! I'm not really trying to, like, prove anything. I still love the aforementioned TLJ & LBH fics, I still love their dynamic. I started walking and ended up exactly in the same space. This, perhaps, could be considered a Heavenly Demon Family Mobius Strip!

I'm not really trying to say anything. It just… makes me feel conflicted, and angry, and whenever I allow myself to think about it a bit more, sad.

But.

However!

Alas.

Nonetheless, even.

As a reader and—on my better days—a writer, all I can say is:

As promised/threatened: some selected passages, for your reading pleasure:

So, it looked like neither the father nor the cousin had any intention of acknowledging Luo Binghe. — Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum

He liked to call Luo Binghe “that son of mine,” but he didn’t seem to possess any concept of fatherly affection. — Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum

Tianlang-Jun lifted his hand, took a look at Luo Binghe’s snow-pale face, and commented indifferently, “He looks like his mother.” “His eyes look like yours,” came a chill voice from the side. — Chapter 15: Holy Mausoleum

The faint hopes and dreams Luo Binghe had held in his heart for many years had been mercilessly pulverized into so much dust. […] [Tianlang-Jun] refused to speak a single word of their relationship and had been utterly ruthless back in the Holy Mausoleum. […] To his parents, Luo Binghe was an unwanted child. — Chapter 18: Origins

“If he was my father, why didn’t he bring it up earlier? Why not tell me?” The most Tianlang-Jun had said was that single line he offered while beating up Luo Binghe, devoid of either praise or criticism: “He looks like his mother.” He looks like his mother. What of it? But that was all. There was nothing more. — Chapter 18: Origins

Luo Binghe was indifferent. “He’s not my father.” […] Luo Binghe shook his head. It was unclear what he was stubbornly clinging to, but he repeated, “He’s not my father.” — Chapter 18: Origins

Luo Binghe raised his smiling face, his eyes shining brightly. “Mother was the kindest person in all the world to me.” — Chapter 19: Shen Jiu

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nihongoseito · 3 months ago

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random vocab of the day

nouns:

動揺（どうよう） = disturbance, unrest, agitation

比喩（ひゆ） = simile, metaphor, allegory

つむじ = hair whorl

介錯（かいしゃく） = beheading (in seppuku)

痛感（つうかん） = feeling keenly, fully realizing

さび = rust

顔立ち（かおだち） = looks, features

横着（おうちゃく） = shirking, laziness; brazenly dishonest

立ち退き（たちのき） = eviction

残像（ざんぞう） = afterimage

宿敵（しゅくてき） = old enemy, traditional rival

経験値（けいけんち） = amount of experience; exp (in games)

ドベ = lowest ranking, worst (e.g., score)

verbs:

損ねる（そこねる） = to miss one's chance, fail to do (as auxiliary)

飛び交う（とびかう） = to fly about, flutter about

泣き（なき）はらす = to cry one's eyes out

寄る（よる） = to stop by (while on the way to someplace else), make a short visit

すねる = to sulk, pout

怪しむ（あやしむ） = to suspect

adjectives:

無神経（むしんけい）な = insensitive, inconsiderate

惚れ（ほれ）っぽい = soon to fall in love

最小限（さいしょうげん）の = minimum, lowest

豪快（ごうかい）な = magnificent, glorious

不躾（ぶしつけ）な = rude, impolite

薄暗い（うすぐらい） = dim, gloomy

adverbs/onomatopoeiae:

四六時中（しろくじちゅう） = around the clock (bc 4x6=24)

うっとり = spellbound, with rapt attention; absentmindedly, absorbedly

ぐちゃぐちゃ = in disarray, untidy, chaotic

わしゃわしゃ = tousled, ruffled, disorderly

expressions:

赤（あか）の他人（たにん） = complete stranger

天涯孤独（てんがいこどく） = a person without a single relative

めっそうもない = don't be absurd, nonsense, don't mention it

猪突猛進（ちょとつもうしん） = rushing recklessly

#vocab #japanese #日本語 #langblr #sasha.txt

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slowd1ving · 4 months ago

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I. ON THE TOPIC OF BELONGING.・゜DAN HENG

One of the theories pushed forward in this universe—a common conjecture between scientists throughout the stars—is that there are disturbances in a system that is being observed, versus one that is not. This is astutely named the observer effect. And this situation is the first proper example he’s seen of that. Dan Heng feels that as soon as he takes his eyes off you, you’ll phase back to a space between these dimensions, like some specter there are only myths about. when data nerd Dan Heng finds the forbidden dictionary and masters the hidden art: synonyms male! engineer reader warnings: eventual nsfw, kind of but not really spoilers to dan heng's backstory, amab reader

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

DRINKER OF THE MOON, DEVOURER OF DREAMS MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

NEXT PART

Dan Heng has many words that sum up his existence.

If you ask the denizens of the Luofu, they’d scorn the likeness he bears with scathing vitriol. After all, his continued existence is an insult to the shared moral codex that all Xianzhou natives and their coexisting long-life species hold dear. The very ship he stands on knows of the sins of Dan Feng; it is intimately entwined with the recent history of the Luofu. Though he can barely remember the hazy memories of his past life, the marks left behind by his clawed hands are still tender; so much so that the phantasmal imprints of his crime pulses beneath flesh like a second heart.

Hence, seditious and traitorous would be amongst their most polite of adjectives used to describe his person.

If you ask the IPC employees whose spaceships he temporarily boarded, they would find it hard to remember such an unremarkable man in the first place. He’s not a criminal when you remove the man from Luofu. He’s simply another unwelcome—though this is concealed, poorly, behind brief nods and strained smiles—passenger, another burden to kick out at the closest planetary cluster. Though, as long as he works hard, he earns his keep.

Hence, diligent would be one of the only adjectives few of them attribute to him. The rest simply don’t remember, or perhaps they don’t care. Both are equally probable.

If you ask the Masked Fools with whom he unfortunately entangled his journey with, they’d remark it a pity that he still had his memory intact from when they tried to wrench it from him. No, they will not elaborate. He’s unlike them, as he is unlike the aforementioned IPC. He’s too solemn. He’s too uptight. He doesn’t smile. His face is as impassive as the alabaster and bronze masks they don.

Hence, amongst a repertoire of appellations that really all mean the same thing, it is serious that is the gist derived from their babble.

All these, when compiled together with pins and red strings on a corkboard, are integrated back into a singular general impression: unapproachable.

He’s left alone in the Shackling Prison; the guards may jeer or insult him, but they never come too close. He’s left alone on the IPC spaceships; there’s just something about him that makes it easy to delegate more menial work unto him, but never to actually connect person-to-person. And he’s left alone amidst the madness of the Masked Fools; though they force him to attend those deranged lectures, there’s no interest other than superficial for him.

Friends he vaguely recalls are shaped in his mind as though someone coloured outside their lines: blurred, messy, and utterly intangible. He has no points of connection that can really describe him at present, therefore he relies on others’ assumptions to gauge his character.

Unapproachable.

In that crimson strand of thinking, you’re similar to the idea of Dan Heng. Though, pinned neatly to the corkboard on a yellow sticky note, it’s not so much as that’s the impression you give, more like the default word attributed to somebody who isn’t present enough for any other impression to exist.

“Where’s your next stop?”

There’s a woman standing before him with vivid scarlet cascading from the crown of her head and down her shoulders like a waterfall. It coils so familiar, yet so different, to the ‘red’ that pursues him in both the waking and dream world. He’s taken aback, blinking with surprise as his gaze focuses and refocuses just past her to spot an erudite man some distance away; the shine of his black-framed glasses glints as though in encouragement.

His first experience with the Astral Express is wholly foreign to the concept he’s been creating of his travels: free, but with an unpleasant weariness that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. There’s a certain flavour, a certain brand of loneliness that comes with always running away from a pursuer as unrelenting as that man.

“...Haven’t decided yet,” he answers carefully. He’s covered with rust; metallic red as obvious as her hair, all from the monsters that he’d slain ungraciously while travelling this star-studded route. Cloud Piercer is still swinging in his palms: a pendulum to decide her fate. Are you another enemy?

Dan Heng is tired.

“Would you like to board our ‘Express’?”

It’s the first time he’s heard of the name. Maybe he’s felt the whispers of the ‘Nameless’ back on the Luofu, perhaps from his alleged genesis in the Shackling Prison as he underwent a partial rebirth, but there’s nothing substantial to hold on to.

He’s silent, though the spin of his spear as it warps back into empty space betrays the cogs whirring as he mulls the question over.

Behind her is a train, rather than a conventional starship. It’s a hulk made from gleaming metal; though that isn’t what captures his attention. There is no carefully-calibrated frequency that melds seamlessly with the stars—but a beating, mechanical heart that whirs with a quality of life he’s never quite heard before. It’s rough, unpolished—a far cry from the almost soundless starskiffs he watched back on the Luofu—but it’s precisely that which captivates him. Later, he thinks the concept of trailblaze rather suits the distinct form of this metal beast. Though he’s been deemed unapproachable by the masses, something tells him that this is an opportunity to lessen the distance he surrounds himself with, through sheer willpower rather than cautious responses.

Dan Heng ultimately ends up going with the woman named Himeko and the gentleman introduced as Welt Yang.

An archivist and a guard. He forms the words in his mouth. Guard tastes familiar, yet archivist is something he’s not quite come across. Regardless of the unpleasant connotation with the former, both represent a change in being a ‘fugitive’ to being somebody with a ‘role’ in this endless universe.

He boards the train, and though both conductor and the floors seep carmine, they too don’t dredge up the haunting echo of his living nightmares. Pom-Pom isn’t particularly surprised by his sudden appearance—it makes him wonder just how frequently the Express picks up stray dogs like himself.

Three existences—Himeko, Pom-Pom, and Mr. Yang—are the only souls he’s seen on the train in his long time of two hours on this train, which is why it’s a surprise when Himeko tells him to greet the fourth and final Nameless. In fact, though they spoke of many trivialities and complexities that surrounded the journey he was about to undertake, this is the first time he’s heard your name being mentioned.

He’s the other mechanic who works with Himeko, Dan Heng reminds himself as he takes cautious steps towards the locomotive. Your room of legend is situated nearby—he says legend and mythical as it’s approaching three hours and he’s yet to feel your presence whatsoever.

There’s a door that must be yours. It’s not confirmed, but there’s heavy music he can faintly feel through the wood; periodic vibrations and bass that is punctuated by either the grating of metal, the rustling of paper, or an incredulous string of curses he can’t quite transcribe. He knows all this as he’s been standing with his hand poised into a fist for the past three minutes, and not one of them has endowed him with the audacity to actually knock. He knows your name, he now knows your voice (though still not much of it)—yet the task of finally coming face-to-face with you is rather daunting now that the last steps of becoming a Nameless are finally upon him.

Before he can finally allow his knuckles and the wood to get intimately acquainted, the door slides open and soft amber light wafts into the dark hallway.

There’s you, looking entirely out of it as you slowly yawn with a spanner clenched tight in your fist. There’s various splotches of tar-like grease on the old hoodie you sport, while your tool shares the same fate. He takes a glance into the slice of room he’s been afforded the view of, and it matches his expectations: crumpled blueprints on a large desk, something large and complicated that he doesn’t even want to attempt naming, and finally the radio that’s currently churning out metal—aptly enough.

As you shuffle slightly closer, he can smell the oil and metal and the acerbic scent of energy drinks emanating from you. He can faintly hear your slow breathing, see the flutter of your lashes as your eyelids fight to stay open. You look past him with a gaze that reminds him vaguely of a cadaver; something half-dead and barely on this plane of existence. It’s unlike the hatred he gets from the Luofu, or the persistent ignorance from the IPC, or even the mockery afforded to him from the Masked Fools.

It’s unlike the warm curiosity of Himeko, the polite neutrality of Mr. Yang, or the concerned amiability of Pom-Pom. It’s so utterly dispassionate and glazed-over that he fights the urge to wonder whether you can even see him. Whether you’re actually breathing or if it’s just a perfunctory rising and falling of your chest.

He knows all this because the time elapsed from the two of you simply standing has just gone past a minute. A minute of silence—though this one isn’t in honour of anybody, it’s just a rather awkward endeavour. In fact, he’s had so much time to become acquainted with this silence that he’s used basically all five senses to commit you to memory. The background music makes it all the more uncomfortable; it’s constantly reminding him of this elevator atmosphere that has yet to dissipate.

“I’m Dan Heng,” he attempts after the quiet becomes unbearable. Introduce yourself then leave. It’s the first time he’s felt so intimidated. He understands, then, the implication that comes with somebody being ‘unapproachable’. It’s not just the distance one feels from somebody else. This is different. This is someone barely tied to this space.

You mumble something incoherent. He cannot, for the life of him, figure out the words, or even the very tone you’re using. Are you asking him to clarify? Are you telling him your name? Are you telling him to screw off and never appear before you again? All are equally plausible.

“The new guard… the new archivist,” he tries once more. You peer at him with such exhausted eyes that he trails off in the last two syllables.

He’s known you for the span of three minutes, but the chess piece you move next in this exchange both baffles him yet entirely fits your character. You nod once in brief acknowledgement, then shut the door back with a neat click.

It’s a final full-stop in this train-wreck of a play. Were the Masked Fools to see this, he thinks, there would probably be a perception shift of him into a poor maddening idiot.

It’s not a particularly good impression, but the easy neutrality with which you act with makes it excruciating to even gauge how well that went.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

Best not to question it.

Dan Heng goes back to where the other three wait—head hanging a bit lower out of shame rather than relief that he’s finally, officially becoming a Trailblazer. It’s bittersweet, but he supposes you just can’t change everything about yourself immediately—and despite the puzzling interaction, that was a nod of acknowledgement, was it not?

“How was it?” He pretends he doesn’t see the knowing glint in Himeko’s golden irises, and outright ignores the light smile on Mr. Yang.

“Fine.” His dry response only elicits laughter from Pom-Pom and the crimson woman; clearly, they are well-aware of both your disposition and his blatant lie.

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite,” she reassures him— as though that’s supposed to be consolation— and hands him a steaming mug of something dark and almost viscous. He takes it, too fixated on her words to actually fathom what exactly is in the ‘drink’. “He’s awake at odd hours, and though the maintenance of the Astral Express is easier due to the influx of technology, he’s constantly planning out updates for it alongside me. So that’s just his normal state during the day, if he even manages to get up.”

Fascinating. The concept of night and day doesn’t exist when you’re constantly plunged in darkness, so choosing to work when everyone typically sleeps feels more intentional than not.

She sighs. “The kid needs to take a break more—but both Argo-I and the Herta Space Station exchange new gadgets with him—and if it makes him happy, what can I do?”

It’s an odd sort of conversation. Though it’s off-putting to talk about you without your presence, he gets the feeling that she’s trying to connect him with you so he can understand you a little better.

That’s decidedly strange.

“I promise you that he’s a sweet–he’s not a bad kid,” she corrects herself, and Pom-Pom doubles over. “He just finds small talk and company unproductive while he’s working.”

None of the others he’s met have attempted to make him understand. But though your eyes aren’t full of the abhorrence he’s grown accustomed to, the utter lack of passion in your eyes doesn’t feel welcoming, either.

He takes a sip of the hot drink, and immediately grimaces.

It’s bitter.

　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 ☾

Dan Heng has a lot of words to encapsulate his experience on the Express so far.

If he had to describe his assigned room, it would be overwhelming. The interstellar lexicon cannot come up with an adjective more apt. That room is much too big, much too disorientating for someone accustomed to only staying temporarily. He supposes it’ll be the same for this part of his journey too.

So, he buries himself in his work to make the most of his impermanent tenure. Quite literally—he sleeps in the data archives, soothed to a restless sleep each cycle by the incessant hum of the computers as they whir and log new information. Dan Heng sees binary sequences—ceaseless 0 and 1s—blinking as soon as he closes his eyelids. And for once, he actually enjoys the work handed to him, as it is wholly his job and not somebody’s leftovers.

If he had to describe the Express in all its grandeur, he’d assign impressive to its impression. It’s massive—so much so that it seems to have its own gravitational pull. Everything on it is impressive, from its facilities, to its technology, and especially its close-to-luminal speed. Never over, but it feels like it sometimes with how many space systems he observes through the parlor windows.

It makes him appreciate just how much work goes into powering something this well-oiled; in his week of being here, there’s been no signs of anything remotely wrong with the maintenance. The Express’ exodus from various nebulae is smoother than even the ships of the IPC, and only Aeons knew how much credits they pushed towards their vessels.

If he had to describe the Trailblazers, there’d be two distinct lines of thought he’d follow. For Himeko, the colours residing within her lines would now include mischievous and erudite. For Mr. Yang, he can slowly recognise the tang of sarcastically humorous and compassionate. And for Pom-Pom, the dictionary has expanded to somewhat intimidating. It’s nothing too scary, but his intuition implores him to not provoke the conductor, no matter how friendly they seem.

That’s the first group. They differ from the second group in the regard that the impressions they give are gradually becoming more nuanced.

The second group contains only the other mechanic.

In all his seven cycles of inhabiting the Express, he’s taken numerous walks through the long vessel. He’s sat in the parlor learning how to play chess from Mr. Yang; he’s observed as Himeko makes her coffee in the kitchen; and he’s taken a glance into the helm where Pom-Pom performs the routine checks in the locomotive.

The point is, he’s interacted with these three individuals more in 168 system hours than he has with the hundreds of people he’s met over the past few months.

Except for you.

You’re not at the helm, you’re not in the kitchen, and you’re certainly not in the parlor.

Your impression remains unapproachable, simply because you’re just not there.

Sure, he pauses in front of your room while he passes through the hallway—in the vain hope that the door might slide open like it did all those days ago—but nothing changes. There’s always some form of music vibrating through the walls, the sounds of clanging and machinery, and the rustling of blueprints.

If anything’s changed, it’s your even more expansive array of imprecations. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard so many various languages learned, all for the sole purpose of formulating long strings of curses that would make even Xianzhou pilots wince.

This continues on into the second week, and a little into the third. At this point, he’s growing frighteningly accustomed to feeling the comforting hum of the train as it speeds through space and time. It’s growing familiar, and he vaguely wonders how long it will be before you show your face again.

It’s been 387 system hours since he’s started living here.

The archives aren’t particularly organised; it makes sense considering how often Mr. Yang and Himeko take calls, holographs and generally administrate the Express. Hence, there’s no one to methodically sort out the extensive reaches of the Data Bank. And though most of it is digital, the information is infuriatingly hard to puzzle through as it’s not exactly uploaded with a set system.

It’s only natural that he spends a good portion of the day marooned in the room stacked high with monitors and computers.

However, he does take the time to have breakfast and socialise with his colleagues. Every morning, he’s chased into the dining car by an insistent Pom-Pom; somehow, you’re spared the intense wrangling, and he can never spot you amidst the faces.

After the meal, he spends a half-hour or so in the parlor, either playing chess with Mr. Yang or discussing the vast plains of knowledge Himeko has. Though both you and her are this train’s mechanics, there’s such a stark difference between how present she is and how absent you are. Sometimes, he wonders whether you’re really corporeal and not just a figment of his imagination.

“He does come out of his room,” Mr. Yang comments, seemingly unruffled by the empty seat next to him at the breakfast table. “Currently, I think he’s collaborating with the Herta Space Station engineers on an agricultural machine for one of the systems we visited a while back.”

Himeko takes a long swill of her coffee. Dan Heng almost misses its bitter flavour. “While I’m typically a part of diplomatic efforts when we make various stops, he likes to help the people recover from the effects of the Stellaron where he can. In this sense, we’re both engineers outside the Express too—one for theory, one for practice.”

Ultimately, he’s gotten used to the routine. It’s a mundanity that feels like luxury compared to the turbulence of his travels across the stars.

“—of course, we’ll take it into consideration after we start—”

“—you don’t entirely trust them, do you? After the stunt they pulled with the steel, where they fucked up its tensile strength and the parts simply crumpled—”

He can only hear snippets of the conversation in the parlor as he makes his way from the archives to the parlor door.

“Himeko, I don’t suppose you know whether Argo-II would be willing to supply us with their bronze? It’s impervious to pretty much anything, but negotiating for it is a bitch and a half.”

Dan Heng freezes from where he’s about to slide the door open. That voice. He’s only heard brief echoes of it; never full sentences. It’s not Himeko’s rich drawl, nor Mr. Yang’s clipped cadence, nor the bubbly chatter of Pom-Pom. It’s rougher, colder, but so utterly complete.

He presses his palm to the wood with bated breath; you’ll dissipate just like that if he walks in, won’t you?

You’re sitting in one of the low chairs around the chess board, idly tilting the white bishop this way and that while you ponder your next move. It’s clear your attention isn’t on the game (nor is Himeko’s, really); by the looks of it, this is ‘damn’ important.

It’s the first time he sees you clearly. Your eyes, which looked so cadaverous in the lowlight of your dim room, hold a lot more depth than he thought he’d see. They’re not shining, exactly, but the piercing glint of them makes them appear so full of resolution that he wonders how he could mistake them for anything but.

Your two rooks are on opposing corners, trapping the king in his crumbling castle.

“After the fiasco with the Migrides Embassy, I don’t think we have a choice.” Himeko eyes the board, then your wavering bishop. It’s still your move, but she doesn’t tip the king to surrender, even with her loss staring right back at her.

“Checkmate.” It’s a final statement—there’s not a speck of gloating nor elation in your tone, only a factual collection of syllables that marks this conversation to a close. Your gaze is still fixed on the pieces: fallen and surviving alike.

“What’s going on?”

He doesn’t expect you to answer. He doesn’t even expect you to look up at him, but you do. Himeko turns towards him, but she’s Himeko and he knows she’ll give him her attention. You, on the other hand—you’re the unpredictable variable he hasn’t quite yet figured out in your mess of 0s and 1s.

“We got screwed over by our new supplier of astral steel,” you summarise laconically; rough burrs rush through the air, rather than Himeko’s . “For the plating on the carriages and the front—like the cowcatcher—and none of the 300-odd parts even come close to the standard modulus that astral steel should be for the G-force we travel at, while the Assembly on Migrides has gone radio-silent.”

Honestly, it’s a wonder his jaw hasn’t unhinged completely.

“Actually, why don’t you bring him up to speed in the entirety while I speak to Welt about a potential visit to both the Argo and Migrides clusters?”

He expects you to reject her proposition, and it seems more and more plausible when you let out a long sigh and drag your hand over your face irritably.

Dan Heng’s feet are already beginning to turn him back to the archives when it happens.

“Sure.” And you surprise him once again.

Himeko leaves with a tenser gait than normal. It’s totally due to that, that he’s hovering awkwardly by her vacant chair—and totally not due to the fact he’s been caught off guard for the nth time.

“Sit,” you invite, deftly setting up the board once more. “Do you play?”

Do you play?— as though you’ve talked to him before, as though the two of you already know each other. He’s struggling to even process the question, let alone your intentions behind asking it.

Forget unapproachable. You’re unpredictable, in every facet of that word.

“I played similar games—” In prison, he leaves out. “—and I’ve been playing with Mr. Yang.”

A wooden piece raps against wooden board— clack, clack. “Your move, then.”

Pawn to e4.

“Standard start,” you note, rolling a pawn of your own as though you’re handing a tool. And, he supposes, you very much are. “I don’t know if Himeko’s told you, but part of her and my job is doing routine updates when they’re called for.”

“I am aware, yes,” he hardly breathes.

“Good,” you comment dryly. Your pawn is set directly facing his own. “The astral steel supplier that we occasionally source parts and raw ore from has been cut off by the damned IPC, about two months ago.”

He silently moves his bishop to e5.

“Welt’s been teaching you by the book.” Your knight is placed in his line of capture, but the solid wall behind it makes it a pointless sacrifice to even think about it. “So we switch our suppliers to the Migrides Embassy, since their reputation is fairly good in terms of ship parts. Then, those bastards send us corrupted astral steel.”

The table creaks beneath your incensed fingers.

“I spent over two fucking weeks painstakingly measuring the strain and stress modulus for every one of those three-hundred and forty-one pieces, before testing it in at the maximum velocity that can be reached by the Express, with some leeway,” you scoff, eyes trailing as he places his own knight to guard his pawn. “All failures. None of my holographs, not a single one of my messages went through to either the Assembly or the Embassy.”

He plays by the book, as you put it, but so do you—matching his pace so he is still allowed room for mistake.

“Our only option left is negotiation with Argo–II for their bronze, which is better than astral steel for its durability—but they’re extremely stingy with it.” You capture his struggling pawn with your queen. The board is a lot sparser than at the beginning. His castle, too, has started its steady crumble.

“Or attempt to buy from the IPC, but like hell I’m walking into a deal with them. Scammers, the lot of them—they’re definitely going to milk their new monopoly for all its worth.”

The game is marching to its inevitable conclusion.

“Is there the possibility that something’s direly wrong on Migrides?” Dan Heng ventures.

“Good theory, but it’s just financial troubles. Their tourism is declining, and so their stockpile of damaged steel was sold to us at regular price,” you sigh. “Trouble is, their receipt had a virus so ridiculously undetectable that it destroyed both it and the copies it made. Mr. Yang could probably reconstruct it easily, but it just goes to show it won’t be easy getting the cash back.”

It’s not exactly the amiability of the other three. Of all his minutes in being in your presence, the largest fraction has been filled with your complaints, while the other tiny proportion is filled with awkward silence and your incoherent replies.

He tilts his king flat on the board.

Surrender.

The first impression wasn’t that great (and if he’s being honest, neither is the second one). But there’s a tiny crack through the alabaster, and it contains small trivia and adjectives like good at chess and quite puzzling and eloquent in his complaints.

That should be in its own special brand of ‘progress’, he thinks.

The bitter feeling subsides, ever so slightly.

　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 ☾

#dan heng #dan heng x reader #hsr #honkai star rail #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #x male reader #x reader #male reader #reader #res ･ﾟ writing

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