#dramatically crying face emoji

[yanxidarlings]

what r u working on rn bro how many requests u got

i honestly keep getting distracted by other fandoms 💀 but rn i have a few things in the drafts such as an aph axis ask from a few years ago i really need to finish (finished writing it then made the mistake of using emoji's in the tags which deleted my unsaved progress), just some general poly slytherin still thinkin of a topic, the theos™ with an oblivious darling (might try and get to this done soon as an experiment with one shots instead of just headcanons), aph romano and prussia sharing and aph russia, belarus and ukraine sharing.

as for my actual requests, hooo boy, i did go through and remove some of the asks i know im never getting to but here is a summary of the rest sorted by fandom. so to answer the actual question i have 32 requests give or take

HETALIA

axis: blind and deaf, oblivious

misc: poor, spouse, potus, communist, hate

vs: austria and germany

general: japan, france, england, canada, austria, china, spain, sweden, poland, latvia, belgium, hungary, vietnam

HARRY POTTER

poly: theo and tom, mattheo and enzo, the theo's finding out m darling is gay, the theo's forcing darling to become death eater, bully mattheo and draco, harry and mattheo

misc: slytherin and ravenclaws react to being darling's boggart

general: cedric, enzo with cruel darling, fleur with f slytherin darling

bot: tom riddle

THE WALKING DEAD

general: rick, merle, daryl, governer

this, on top of the mountains of ideas i have circulating in my head.

[monzamash]

easy to please lando norris x you rating – mature (sexual themes, coarse language) blurb for ✨monzamusings✨

thinking about u, the text read. above it, there was a photo – dark, a little bit blurry, possibly a figment of your weary imagination. a hand pressing down on black cotton, tanned and veiny – a hand you immediately recognised. fingers too, gripping the thin material and an outline that had you sitting up in bed, lazy smile slipping across your flushed cheeks as the picture came into focus. lip bitten. baby, was all you sent in reply. your eyelids fluttered shut momentarily, loosing the battle to sleep until you felt your phone buzzing, resting in your slack hand. they were coming thick and fast and bringing you back into the present. your fingers tingled from the sensation when you held it up and nearly dropped the bright screen on your squinting forehead. don’t baby me i miss u can i call please???? winky face emoji.

you sighed sharply into the plush pillow beside your head, wondering whether or not you had the energy for it. the appetite was always there. hell – all you could think about was him; even in the mundane moments, he was everywhere you looked – your work, your friends, the cheesy rom com that made you cry before wrapping yourself up in a blanket and falling asleep. you missed him. the back and forth, the will they won’t they bullshit nearly sending you into a spiral of complete and utter confusion. the future was uncertain; the distance between where you were and wherever he was in the world unbearable but what you did know was that you loved him, missed him. and he was yours.

heartbreakingly so. alright romeo but make it quick always am hehe. dickhead.

the phone call connected after one, maybe half a ring – there was no pretence anymore with you and lando. this was routine now, the late night calls across oceans, and it was always the same. whispered, i miss you's and i love you's, strangled moans, hands frantically chasing the high of what you knew felt like heaven together, by whatever means necessary, the best dirty talk you could ever imagine, barely tiding you over until you could be close enough to feel each other again.

“hi pretty girl.”

“hi boyfriend”

“ugh, i love it when you call me that. say it again…”

and you did, over and over until the late night giggles took hold and lando couldn’t breathe – the goofy smile scrunching the corners of his dry eyes, fatigue and exhaustion lingering in his hoarse voice.

“you should be sleeping.”

“i would be if you were here,” he stated matter of fact, not even a blinking, “i think i got used to having you with me over winter break… spoiled me too much and now i'm ruined for life.”

“so dramatic.”

“i’m being so real,” he yawned and by the soft grumble on the other end, he was definitely stretching out his sore, weary muscles like cat. there was a beat and a click of the tongue before lando spoke again, the ominous silence already making your eyes playfully roll.

“so… what are you wearing right now?”

“unbelievable…”

“you cant blame a man for asking, especially in my hour of need… show me pleeeeease” lando whined, toothy smile no doubt lining his chapped lips.

“what if I’m not wearing anything?” you taunted, snapping a quick photo and sending it through without a second thought.

lando quickly peaked, side-eyeing the screen sneakily and sighed when he realised you were pulling his chain, “i'm wearing some shirt you left behind because it’s hotter than satan's asshole here in london at the moment.”

he groaned more to himself than to you, eyes scanning your curves under the thin material, fixated on how unconstricted you were under the shirt he recognised, breasts pert. lando was restless and you really did deserve more than the desperado ‘what are you wearing’ pick up line but god, he wanted to know, no, he needed to know because if he didn't find out, he feared he may never recover.

after all, it was you that had him sick in love. and perpetually horny.

“think i might like you in my clothes more than naked…"

“you’re a sicko.”

“mmm you make me like this… and no bra, like are you trying to kill me?”

“always.”

you cupped your chest over his shirt and took another photo, teasing the gorgeous man waiting for your every move with bated breath. he’d sucked in his bottom lip, you could hear by how shallow his breathing had become, reminiscent of a panting dog – the sound alone quickened your heart rate. the image of him sitting in a hotel room alone, hand pressed to his aching cock thinking about you, parched to the point of a sleepless night was dizzying.

and it was easy with lando, the familiarity of his voice and the rhythm you effortlessly fell into. all remnants of consciousness melted away with him.

“wish i was there with you baby,” he whispered and you nodded, smiling, even though he couldn’t see how happy it made you to hear him say it.

“me too,” you sighed, relaxing into the stillness until your loud, obnoxious doorbell shook you from the peaceful silence.

“fuck!” you cursed, frozen in place.

“what?” 

“someones at the door…”

“what time is it there?”

“like 11pm… should i ignore it?” you were already grabbing the cardigan you'd thrown over the end of your bed and halfway to the door, curiosity winning out.

“nah, nah. you’re on the phone with me – answer it,” he encouraged, “i wanna make sure it isn’t your side piece coming ‘round when i’m not there.”

“ha-ha, actually my other boyfriend is already here, i've been trying to get you off the phone this whole time...”

"hmm, lucky cunt." he mumbled.

lando made you brave, stupidly brave so you swung the door open without hesitation, locked and loaded with a line of interrogating questions for the person interrupting the precious time you had with the man you love.

but you were hearing double as you held the phone to your ear and looked up – you knew that mess of frazzled curls and tired eyes anywhere, peering back with a smile the size of the moon curling at the corners of his lips. he was bundled up in a hoodie, one you knew would feel warm to the touch and smelled like him.

you had to be dreaming.

“better go tell your other boyfriend to pack his shit and get the fuck out of our house.”

“lando…” tears welled in your eyes as you lunged into his open arms.

“hi pretty girl…” he chuckled, picking you up without hesitation and hooked your legs around his waist, carrying you over the threshold.

“why didn’t you say you were coming home?”

“surprises are sexy, no?” he asked, voice deliciously low. he knew your answer.

“very sexy.” you moaned and pressed firm, fiery kisses into his strong neck, “you’re so sexy – all of this is sexy… god, i love you.”

“love you too sweetheart – let’s go to bed.”

“to sleep?” you asked, with doe-eyes and a devilish grin.

“yeah, i flew eleven fuckin' hours to just sleep… oh and by the way," lando narrowed his eyes and pointed to the crinkled shirt hanging from your shoulders, you looked a mess.

"i want my shirt back right now.”

you hummed and twirled down the hallway, “you’re gonna have to pry it off my cold, horny body, norris…”

“mission accepted,” lando confidently stated, chest puffed as he started stripping his hoodie from his body and inched closer and closer to where you were stood and all you could do was admire the gorgeous man stalking towards you.

oh, and blink a few times to make sure you definitely weren't dreaming, "i can't believe you were sexting me in the back of a cab."

“i know," he chuckled, "it was getting a bit much by the end there, so i walked the last couple of blocks to calm myself down."

you couldn't suppress the moan building in your throat at his touch and his confession – your mind was running wild, "that's so hot."

"you are." he quipped, hands slowly tracing your sides and cupping your chest in his warm palms.

"this is way better than phone sex.”

lando shrugged as you ran your hands down his toned stomach, thumbs circling the indents just above his hips, “i’ll take anything with you – it’s all good to me.”

“you’re easy to please.”

“well, you make it easy – god, look at you,” he exhaled, brushing the loose strands of hair from your face and all you could do was smile.

“i’m glad you’re home, ya goof. it doesn't feel right without you here."

“me too, baby. meee too.” lando smiled and planted a longing kiss to your pouty lips.

more writing...

bit of backstory with this blurb; it was originally going to be a follow up to another fic i wrote called lost in japan and then got buried in the wip graveyard. somehow it resurfaced in my doc folder right when i needed it and i feel like it still kinda fits in the lost in japan universe - selfishly i love those characters. anyways, i hope you enjoyed it 💋

[ajortga]

cute and absolute

pairing: jenna ortega x actress!fem reader

word count: 1.8k+

summary: it doesn't go unnoticed that you are one of the only people that jenna lets her walls down with.

based off request!

-

Where Jenna only accepts r's touch ??? Tyy

-🥝

-

Jenna is squirming in the car, screaming at her friend to drive faster so she can eat. 

“I’ve been on set since 6 fucking AM! It’s been 10 hours and I’m hungry! I skipped breakfast for this damn shit! What the hell do you mean you can’t get a burrito right now? All I want is a damn burrito and you’re telling me that we have to pick up Y/N, our friend, and first buy the book you wanted because it’s closer? CLOSER?” She screams, gripping her knuckles that were already white enough.

Jacob, one of Jenna’s friends laughs hard, a little threatened but not enough to be stopped. “It’ll only take 15 minutes at most! It’s more convenient, the bookstore is along the way and closer to our location, then we can just buy any burrito you want aft-” 

“CLOSER? YOU KNOW WHAT’S CLOSER?” Jenna throws her arms up in dramatic effect, huffing, “Me going insane! My sanity is at 10% right now, and if I don’t get my burrito this instant, I’m going to crash this car and fucking run to the nearest place that has a burrito. DON’T touch me!” She yells, smacking her friend's arm away because she cannot think properly at this moment.

“I’m STARVING, and I’m a woman who needs food to survive in this film ECONOMY! Can’t you drive any faster?-"

Jenna suddenly hears your voice outside from the slightly opened car window. She peeks her eyes out, her hands holding the glass. She suddenly sees you, looking sweet, happy, and perfectly sane as you come out of your driveway. “Hi, Jenna!” You exclaim, completely unaware that she was just ballistic for a burrito 5 seconds ago.

Her frustrated demeanor melts off suddenly, a goofy grin on her face as she sees just how happy you are. She brings her hand up, waving. “Hi!”

She just forgot how hungry she was and the person she just was less than a minute ago. Why was she so upset that she had to wait longer so Jacob could pick you up? She stopped feeling the need to bang her head on the nearest wall. 

“Jacob was telling me that you had a long time on set, something about how I had to save him because you were going crazy, so I got you some snacks.” You pull out a bag filled with goodies from your pantry.

The man that was driving stuttered as Jenna slowly turned to him, “I did not say it like that.”

“Oh yeah?” You ask, grabbing your phone and swiping and squinting. “It says here, “Please save me from this woman, she’s acting like a toddler that just shit her pants. SOS, crying crying emoji..” Um, oh and here. “This girl is so dramatic, complaining about not getting her burrito, she's wailing in the back seat. Please save her.” Don’t lie to me.” You state with a grin as Jenna munches on chips.

He rolls his eyes, grumbling. 

Jenna interrupts, “Okay, Jacob, you traitor.”

“You cannot be talking, slapping my arm away when I try to calm you down but Y/N being some sort of angel and making you all cuddly.”

The fuming brunette slowly turns back to normal as you slither your arm around hers, laying your head on her shoulder. “Glad to know you love me. How was filming without me?”

Jenna sniffs, letting you ruffle her hair, “One of the directors was trying to show us how the scene should play out, the popcorn in the microwave caught on fire.”

You nod, awkwardly as you look around. “Was it your popcorn?” You guess.

She huffs and sinks into you, “Yes, and now I'm starving."

-

Aliyah is losing her mind. First, her father was fixing the doorbell, and now it seems to be ringing on its own. Now, her older sister won’t cooperate as she tries to steady Jenna’s legs that are in the air. The brunette shrieks, causing Aliyah to pull away and make her tumble.

Aliyah groans, “This is the thirteenth time already! Let me make this clear, you asked me to help you do this random one handed handstand, but you won’t let me even touch you so I can get you into the right pose? You’re so weird.” 

Jenna shrugs, her head on the floor as she hangs upside down from the couch. “I am letting you touch me!”

“No you aren’t! You start shrieking and then falling face flat when I do! How the hell are we going to make this work if you won’t cooperate?”

The two siblings hear some shuffling as you crawl through the dog door, fitting yourself in. They blink, staring at you as you wiggle yourself through and throw a hand in the air, showing that you brought food. “Burritos!”

“Y/N! What are you doing? Go through the back door you doofus! You could’ve just knocked!”

You finally manage to squirm your way in as you stand up, brushing some leaves off of you and throwing them into the trash. You flip your hair, crawling through doggy doors were one of your talents. You signal her Jenna to hear you out as you put up a finger, “First of all, I was ringing the doorbell like, five thousand times, then I knocked, and no one was answering! I’m not letting the food get cold.” You pause, looking at Jenna who is currently staring at you upside down and hanging from the couch. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Trying to do a one handed handstand.” 

“Oh, wait. Oh! I know how to do that!” Happily, you hand her sister the bag with burritos and tacos, before collapsing to the floor.

There was awkward silence as Jenna and Aliyah stared at each other, “Um..”

Jenna always knew you as the silly girl across the block. Even after 5 years of friendship, she thinks you’ve just gotten sillier.

“That wasn’t it, I haven’t done it in a year. Hold on.” You position yourself, slowly doing a handstand. Jenna can see your shirt slowly rising up and showing your stomach as you keep yourself steady. You lift an arm off and hang it up. “Did I do it?”

Jenna giggles and flops down the couch. “Yeah. I think so.” She crawls behind you and picks up your body that was upside down.

“Hey!”

-

“Okay, slow and steady..” You say softly, squinting and holding Jenna’s legs, making sure she was in the right position. “Aliyah, try steadying her while she puts one arm up.”

“No way, nope.” She argues, eating her taco, “She literally kept shrieking when I tried to and starting kicking and squirming.”

“She’s not shrieking right now?”

“Well you’re just different I guess, you’re her best friend, so..”

You raise your eyebrows, a smile tugging on your lips as you tickle Jenna and make her fall on you. “You just love me, don’t you!?” You giggle, hugging her as she squeals and nuzzles against you.

-

It was late in the evening as you got changed into pajamas and flopped onto your bed. Nights like this always felt better, where you would switch on a show, read a book, or call friends. You decide to check some emails, looking over some asking for you to star in movies, replying to companies that want you as their ambassador, you click out of the tab. 

A small ding sounds on your phone as you see that Emma had texted you. 

meh meh myers: LMAO look at this article i found about u and jenna: https://hypotheticalsofcelebrities

y/n: okay my own researcher and detective, or should i say pippa fitz amobi? u get me?

y/n: lemme go check it out

meh meh myers: yus ily

y/n: ur the pip to my ravi 🥺

meh meh myers: corny

You laugh at yourself as you open the link, the article named ‘Escalating Relationships, Cute or Absolute?’

You roll your eyes and scroll down.

Fans say that they’ve picked up on the actress’s behavior, scooting away from castmates who’ve gotten too close during interviews and only staying close to one or two close ones. Not that she’s uncomfortable, taken from the way she seems unfazed most times. But, it is noticed that she seems like a bundle of happiness with individuals. A clip right here shows her with a fellow castmate, Y/N L/N, both starred in the famous series, Wednesday. It is caught on how Ortega was silently making sure that her friend was okay during an interview that had turned a little more uncomfortable for the other girl, squeezing her hand and clinging onto her. It seemed to have worked, for how the girl began to relax. What a friendship they have!

The tiny moments of comfort and physical touch occur in other interviews too, as well as cute Instagram comments on each other's posts that come off as playful flirting. Some comments are pasted here.

Jenna Ortega commenting on Y/N’s post of a photoshoot press for Wednesday last year in September:

jennaortega: That’s my girl

Another one on a post of the girl just doing an Instagram photo dump this year in March:

jennaortega: if you squint closely you can see me doing the dishes for my wife in the third photo

jennaortega: i will take your last name if i have to

jennaortega: my woman, i love you

Y/N L/N commenting on a post for Jenna’s Adidas campaign last year in November:

y/n_l/n: i will be the only one applauding the longest for u

y/n_l/n: tis is why i got adidas merch

Fast forward to Christmas with a dump of Jenna’s favorite people (Y/N included) in December last year: 

y/n_l/n: I love you this is why I wanted to bake the turkey

y/n_l/n: merry christmas to my favorite person

Another one to a selfie of Jenna posted this year in April:

y/n_l/n: oh i’m interested, what’s your number?

y/n_l/n: sign my contract to be with me forever? comes with a long time of house wife chores!

-

What do you think? Are they just really good friends with the cutest flirting? Or secretly dating? Answer us down in our poll, cute, or absolute?

Final vote with 20K votes

Cute: 24%

Absolute: 76%

—

carrots4life: but like, their relationship is both cute and absolute! why aint that a option?

mangofrosties: they are def dating istg i’ve never seen them both this happy unless they are together

-

You smile, looking away from your laptop as you kick your feet. You do feel like Jenna had a soft spot for you, she always hugged you first, tried picking you up, falling asleep with each other on set. But she was just your best friend, you would all say to interviewers.

The door slightly creaks as you turn, smiling. “Hey baby, I think you should see this.”

Jenna flops on the bed with you, letting you cuddle her as she kisses you and reads your screen, a goofy grin on her face.

“I guess they caught on that we might be more than friends. I mean, it's not a lie that we are best friends, girlfriends is just a small little detail."

“Cute and absolute.”

[wrioluvr]

coming out to + confessing to belobog men. ⋆⋅♡⋅⋆

note: wanted to try my hand at writing more cute stuff <3 also there are like ZERO posts in the luka x male reader tag my baby deserves more. happy pride my beloved readers!!! i wrote this like 6 months ago and coincidentally just picked it back up in time for june! i don't even play hsr anymore... crying emoji content: male reader, fluff. luka, sampo, gepard

sampo (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

would 100% know before you even told him

"hey, [name]! heard you got something to tell me, don't worry, your good pal sampo's all ears."

"sampo... uh.....i like... guys...."

"oh, is that it? i thought it was obvious..."

"HUH????"

"i meant- thank you for trusting me enough to tell me. your secret's safe with me, hehe." placing his hand over his heart in a dramatic gesture, he promises sincerely. despite his initial reaction, he really is touched. not many people trust him, so your willingness to share something so personal made him feel special.

"oh, and one more thing....."

"what is it? you got a secret boyfriend you didn't tell me about?" he asks teasingly, not expecting the bomb you're about to drop on him.

"...i like you."

his eyes go wide. "now that's a surprise."

even though he'd scam people without a second thought, some calling him cruel, he can't bring himself to be indifferent to you. here you were, pouring your heart out, with such a nervous expression on your face, how could he maintain his usual sly demeanour? in all seriousness, he knows he's a bit scummy, so he would be a bit hesitant about getting into a relationship for your sake. he's always running about, chased by the authorities, he doesn't want you to be involved into all that. but if you're willing to accept him and his slippery ways, he'll be sure to put an equal amount of effort. he hates owing favours, after all.

"oh, how could i refuse such a an enticing offer? of course i'll be your boyfriend, [name]." he can't help the grin that appears on his face at your expression, simultaneously shocked and overjoyed. "seriously, you're too precious.... c'mon, let's go on a date!" throwing an arm around you, he squeezes your shoulder excitedly.

"wha- like right now?? and you accepted my confession just like that???" you're at loss of words as he drags you along to who knows where.

"what are you waiting for? let's go, pal! wait- should i call you pal now that we're dating? how about buddy? hmm... still too friendly. how do you feel about sweetheart?"

જ⁀➴

every time he appears at your door, giving you a sheepish grin as he explains how he needs to lay low for a bit, it always comes with a kiss, or several, along with a heart-shaped box of your favourite chocolates. he might go missing for a few days at a time on "business" (probably some illegal trading), but he always makes sure to update you on his whereabouts so you don't worry, sending a bunch of heart pom-pom stickers to let you know he misses you. if anyone were to ever make some snide comments about your sexuality, his first instinct would be to drop every job he's doing and comfort you, followed by using his various contacts to deal with that person swiftly. natasha and seele can't believe he actually got someone to like him, much less get into a serious relationship, but nevertheless, they make sure to look out for you to ensure he doesn't break your heart. he vows not to ever hurt you though, it's the last thing he'd ever want. his promises are often fickle with his clients, but with you, they're always sincere.

luka (૭ ｡•̀ ᵕ •́｡ )૭

would definitely being overenthusiastic about being an ally

"[name], hey! you wanted to tell me something? i hope it's about training with me...."

"sorry, luka, it's not about that.... i.... i just wanted to let you know that i'm gay."

"oh! like seele and bronya!"

"i mean- i guess....?" your nervousness was immediately replaced by a comical surprise at his response, you had to suppress your laughter. he was so genuine, it was endearing.

"don't worry! if any thugs give you shit for it, just tell me. i'll deal with them right away... i've been itching for a fight anyway." he immediately gets into a fighting stance, throwing a few punches in the air to get his point across. he ended his little show with a wink, causing your stomach to fill with butterflies. you decided to tell him then and there.

"and uh, luka. i like you."

"aw, thanks! i like you too. you're a great friend, [name]."

"like, in the romantic way..."

"that works too! that way, i can protect you easier." without missing a beat, he flashes you a grin and a thumbs up, seemingly unfazed by your sudden confession. but the slight dust of red on his cheeks let you know your words did have an effect.

"wait... you know this means we'll be boyfriends?" your head's reeling at how easily he accepted your feelings. did this man really not think about anything but training and beating up thugs??? not that you were complaining, his drive was one of his charming points, but still.

"yeah, i don't mind. with someone like you by my side, i'm sure i could take on any enemy. thank you for giving me this opportunity."

જ⁀➴

even though he puts on a strong front, secretly, he's deathly afraid of becoming a burden, especially to you. one of his favourite pastimes is training and working out with you, or he'd be content for you to just watch him train and cheer for him as well. as long as he has the reassurance that you know he's getting stronger, allowing him to shield you from the dangers of the underworld. if he ever gets injured, a simple persuasion won't work, you'll have to physically hold him in place so that you can treat his cuts and bruises - no matter how much he protests and insists he's fine, he does appreciate it. a lot. he enjoys the little things, the way you run your fingers along the cool metal of his arm as you ramble about your day, or the enthusiastic whoop you give every time he knocks an opponent out at the fight club, or the scent of the freshly cleaned towel you bring him to dry his sweat. you help him realise that there's time to relax, his self-imposed training schedule being so intense and demanding. getting him to not be so hard on himself would be a treat. if you ever get derogatory comments about your sexuality... trust, he'll personally teach them a lesson, and ask natasha not to treat them once he's done. after all, you give him another reason to continue training to be the strongest. he has to be there for you.

gepard ( •̀ - •́ )

dense cutie... wouldn't get your hints until you told him explicitly

"my apologies for being late, [name]... you had something you wanted to tell me?"

"no problem, gepard... i just wanted to tell you that-" taking a deep breath, you prepare youself for his reaction. "-i like guys."

"oh? me too, i'm quite fond of the guards under my care."

"i mean that i'm gay..."

"oh, that's what you meant. are you telling me this because you've faced some form of discrimination lately? don't worry, belobog has strict laws in place to prevent-"

"no, gepard- i'm telling this because i like you..."

"oh."

જ⁀➴

congratulations, you've courted the sweetest man in all of belobog! initially, he was slightly worried that your newfound relationship would interfere with his duties as protector of the people, but much to his surprise, making time for you is easy. or more so, it's because you always make the effort to stop by whenever he's out patrolling, so you end up spending a lot of time together anyway. his face might get red when you blow him a kiss behind the rest of the silvermane guards' backs, but he always makes sure to let you know how much he appreciates your guidance. he's a little self-conscious about his lack of romantic experience, so be gentle with him! don't tease him too much. while he is fully devoted to his duty, he's not above slipping away for a few minutes when you text him to meet in a back alley, to gift him some flowers you may or may not have stolen from belobog's florist. the next day, he would return the favour by holding out a bunch of your favourite flowers, home grown (an attempt was made) in his very own garden. hey, even if they're slightly wilted, it's the thought that counts, right? don't look at him with that affectionate gaze! he's embarrassed. it would be quite funny if you had criminal tendencies, gepard would be absolutely torn between lecturing you and turning a blind eye simply because his lovely boyfriend had made lunch for him earlier in the day. especially if you're friends with sampo, the little shit would threaten to snitch to you everytime gepard almost catches him. or.... perhaps.... he let you off the hook because of that one time you pinned him against some alley wall (when he was supposed to be patrolling! blasphemous.) and kissed him so hard his legs gave out. you've become one of his weaknesses, but he doesn't mind it. at all.

pic credits to dailysampo, dailygepard and dailylukaa on twt!

[explicitred]

In streamer au male reader was self aware and teases some of the characters like when he doesn't come home they'll receive a message from him saying "better luck next time "insert reader emote""and maybe can come out of the game and many chaotic things

Genshin Impact Streamer AU (Self-Aware Reader)

letss gooo?? omg what a hot new character!!! woahh... and they're reading these words...???

You slyly smiled as you dodged those pesky pink and blue wishes. They looked more like meteorites the more you practically danced above the clouds, the little wishes becoming faster and... more desperate? ...Hah. They must be the one spawning these things, hm? How cute. Perhaps it'd be fun to tease them a bit. After all, now I know how needy you are for me <3 (im sorry)

"Better luck next time~!" They literally slam their desk, dramatically crying as they lose their pity to someone else. NOOO- PLEASE! THEY SKIPPED SO MANY OTHER CHARACTERS WAITING FOR YOU!! (And so many sacrificial rituals-) They just need to get you so they can stare at you for hours in the game! Their chat spams them with crying emojis and encouraging words, while others laugh at their misery, finding them amusing. Wait, wait wait. You winked? You spoke? ...Wait, was that a new feature? OH GOD THAT'S SO HOT- TEASE THEM MORE- Kaeya, Childe (only skipped other characters to stay loyal to you. he's a good wife! and only reason he's crying is because you keep purposely dodging his wishes even after he was guaranteed getting you! mans has enough money to keep at it anyway), Kaveh (prolly starved to get you lmfao. HE ATE CAT FOOD), Lyney, Venti, Heizou

Just stares at you as you tease them, saying to them "Better luck next time~!" Theories are going through their head... The math is mathing... The brain is braining... Hmm... 🤔 Albedo, Alhaitham, Heizou

Takes a billion screenshots of the textbox, repeating to themselves again and again "better luck next time" with a happy smile, taking this as you noticing them. They think nothing of this "new feature", thinking that Genshin just slid this in without telling anyone. I guess they're too happy to be properly teased...? Ayaka, Childe, Thoma

Not surprised but still crying their hearts out. RIP the sacrifice of their wallets. Mona, Bennett (platonic).

Now, when you literally get out of the screen...?

Oh, my! Who's this fine person? Wait, it's you? Sheesh, you look better up close! WAIT WHAT- (internally freaking out but very blushy blushy) Childe, Xiao, Diluc, Wanderer, Lyney, everyone.

Just straight up gets on one of their knees. They've had dreams about this moment. They've written fanfics about this moment. And who cares if this is an hallucination or dream? They're going to make the damn most of it! Taking out their carefully crafted and customized wedding ring, that they bought just for this fantasy, they propose to you. "Will you... marry me?!" Albedo, Yae (She's written and published actual fanfics of you), Childe, Itto

They pass out. That's it. I guess you're just that hot, huh? You might have to help them~ Ayaka, Itto, Kaveh

Literally so embarrassed. They're just in their pajamas, slightly messy hair and all. Regardless or not this is a dream, they have to look good for you 24/7! Ayaka, Cyno, Neuvillette, Xiao

You look around, seeing their room filled with merch of you. Blankets with your face on them, towels with your face on them, posters, figurines, shrines, etc. And... And... IS THAT A POSTER OF JUST YOUR ABS-!? And a f*cking CAT named after you!? Oh god. Get me out of here. some people...

A few days later...

They've adorned you with the softest, coziest pajamas! They're now currently trying to convince you to sleep with them in their bed. Maybe sneak in a few cuddles or two... "Let me love you and show you how special you are <3" Childe, Ayato, Alhaitham, Albedo, Diluc, Neuvillette, Wriothesley, Kazuha, etc...

Not afraid to show you to other people, even though they have a literal fictional character with them. "Hey! Here's my hot lover!" "Wha-? ...I might have to steal them from you. Ahem! Oh, do they like cosplaying or something?" Alhaitham (knows he can get away with just saying that you cosplay a lot), Albedo ("oh? they just like cosplaying."), Childe ("don't care, lol. anyway, look at my hot spouse-"), Ayato ("cosplaying."), Heizou ("just say that you're cosplaying!")

Constantly trying to hide you. After all, they have a literal fictional character who came out a game! Who knows what people will do if they know of this?! Sucrose, Wanderer (he just doesn't want people to look at what's his), Diluc, Ayaka

Panicking and blushing hardcore every time they see you. Oh, goodness... Do you even know how perfect you look everyday?! How perfect you are each and every second?! They blush so much just from looking at you... How are they going to survive with you living with them from now on?! Everyone.

INDIVIDUAL STORIES: CHILDE, XIAO

AGGHHH! STOP DODGING THEIR WISHES!! THEY LITERALLY SPENT THEIR LIFE SAVINGS FOR YOU 😭😭😭

Wait- Life savings? Pfft, nah. That's just some spare change. Childe sighs, dramatically slumping in his chair as he loses the 50/50. The chat was currently going wild on him, making fun of him for getting the wrong character.

"LLLLL" "💀💀💀" "can't believe he lost 😭" "wait, why is everyone reacting as if he doesn't have over 9999 wishes?" "lmfao"

The ginger man pouts, whining cutely. "Chaaattt~! Stop making fun of me! I'll get them this time! It's guaranteed anyway!"

"...Huh?"

Childe blinks, seeing your splash art... move? ...Huh. That's weird. Did Genshin add this new feature? Usually, the splash art doesn't move when on the initial summoning screen.

"Huh??? Is this a new feature?" "Damn, you really are Genshin's golden child..." "omfggg step on me this new chara so hot" "love this new character, i'll be yo baby mama trust"

Childe huffs, seeing a text on his screen, a bit confused, but slightly amused nonetheless.

"Better luck next time~! <3"

"Hmph, just you wait, darl- comrade! I'll get you!"

Xiao's face reddens on stream, clicking onto the wishing screen, seeing your splash art. God, he wants you so badly. Too bad he's not guaranteed you since he won his last 50/50. He just hopes he'll win this one too. ...My, you're still as hot as ever! His chat seemed to agree.

"AHHHH WE'RE ACTUALLY DOING IT" "I WANT THEM TOO" "marry meeeeee new chara"

Well, here goes his primogems... Down the drain it goes!

Click.

Please, please, please- He loves you so badly-

He'll get on his knees for you! Just come home!

His breath hitches, seeing a golden star appear on his screen.

He's all entirely yours! Just please-!

After a few clicks, hurriedly rushing through the three-star weapons, Xiao's eyes land on Keqing.

Xiao frowns, returning back to the initial summoning screen after a couple more clicks, wistfully staring at your splash art. Great. He didn't have anymore primogems for you.

He suddenly chokes, jolting slightly in his chair as he sees you winking at him, mouthing the words "Better luck next time~! 😘" as a textbox appears with the same exact words.

Damn. Now even his love a fictional character was teasing him!

Bonus: (aka my drafts)

"Aggghh... I spent so much money!!" Childe huffed as he kept clicking the 10-pull button repeatedly, staring at his screen as if in a trance. "...Oh, right. I'm rich!" His chat exploded with comments such as:

"Bruh you FORGOT that you're rich??" "rich people problems" "dude lost the 50/50 LMFAO HELP" "MY GUY YOU HAVE A BILLION INTERTWINED FAINTS WHAT YOU ON ABOUT 💀💀💀"

Childe thought out loud, thinking to himself. "Oh, but maybe my darling will appreciate it if I do another ritual and sacrifice-"

"What, you're going to push another fictional cat off of Liyue's dock-?"

bonus bonus: (another scrapped draft!)

merch. merch. merch. Your face on a hoodie? Wallet out. A rip-off figurine version of you when you're doing the fisheye meme? Bank account out. Doesn't matter. If your face is on it, give. Their fans think that they're too obsessed with you, but they don't see your true beauty!! Literally browses and buys merch of you on stream. "Hey, chat, which item do you think looks better? I think this potted plant version of them looks nice, but maybe we should buy them as a smegsy raccoon-" Wha...? We don't have anymore money...? JUST SELL THE HOUSE-

me when my partner doesnt do his part and its worth 50 percent of our grade

[yongbokology]

part dos of ‘don’t accidentally beat your dick to your best friend’

part one

black coded reader <3

warnings; smut

an: you asked, i delivered 🧞‍♀️

eren is a mess. a complete utter mess.

after realizing he’s been jerking it to you for the past few months, he becomes a nervous wreck around. oh it was bad.

his first encounter with you after the realization, literally happens the day after.

you were running late for work and your car was currently in the shop so you sent a rather urgent text to him with multiple crying emojis, asking him to take you to work.

without even seeing the message, he begins to panic just seeing your name pop up.

did you somehow use your woman tuition and found out he was fucking himself to you? it plagued eren’s mind for a few seconds, his hands clammy as he grasps his phone.

he lets out a sigh of relief once he reads the message and instantly responds.

‘yeah ofc, see u in a bit’

‘thx ren, you’re the best!’

oh eren feels like shit.

he felt like a pervert. like he wasn’t supposed to see you in your nakedness, pleasuring yourself for thousands to see.

“.. ren, are you okay? you’re awfully quiet today.. i’m sorry if you were busy-”

he immediately shakes his head “no! i wasn’t doing anything. i don’t mind at all.. just a bit distracted is all.” he clears his throat, eyes fixated on the road. not sparing you a single glance.

you stare at the side of his face, picking him apart in your brain. all these years the two of you had the pleasure of knowing each other, you knew eren’s mannerisms, his nervous ticks and more.

something was definitely up.

…

“god not this again. connie could you maybe not be so open about the porn you indulge in.” reiner is fed up with the porn talk, just trying to enjoy this sunday afternoon with his friends.

“okay but bro i’m telling you, this girl is fire. i’d def buy her only fans if she had one.”

eren isn’t too interested in the conversation. his head’s in the clouds. lately he’s been fantasizing about you. a lot actually.

breaking you in half. fucking your brains out in every setting possible. this was new to say the least. before, eren hadn’t had such thoughts about you.

i mean yeah he did sometimes think about what it’d be like if the two of you were together. would the two of you be good partners as you are friends? but he never thought about you in such obscene ways.

it is this next part that has eren almost falling out of his chair.

“[your user]. never heard of her?”

both jean and reiner shake their heads.

eren on the other hand feels his skin run cold, eyes bulging out his head at the username. it was your username.

connie is now pulling out his phone and eren quickly catches on that he is about to pull up your page. with frantic eyes and haste, eren waits for connie to unlock his phone and in the split second that connie rotated his screen towards the three men, eren yanks it from his grasp and dramatically let’s connie’s phone fall face down on the concrete.

“yo what the fuck man?!” connie yells, mouth ajar as he looks between eren and his phone that is definitely not working when he picks it up.

“i-i um. i’m sorry.. it slipped..”

both reiner and jean silently blink, throwing glances at each other.

“oh it fucking slipped? my five year old nephew could put on a better fucking performance.”

“i’m really sorry man. i get paid tomorrow, i’ll pay for it. i swear.”

…

“i really needed this, thanks for hanging out with me ren. karina has been more bitchy than usual.” it was no secret you hated your boss. you often ranted about her to eren, so much so that he hated her as well and doesn’t even know what she looks like.

“of course. you want some more popcorn? bowl’s almost empty.”

you nod and eren gets up from his spot on his bed and retreats to the kitchen to refill the bowl.

you shift your eyes to the tv, ‘bad boys’ currently at it’s thirty minute mark.

you feel a buzz under your butt.

with furrowed brows you shift and pull out eren’s phone that you had no idea you were sitting on.

his phone screen comes to life, him and armin in the background of the notifications that fill the screen.

there were a few from twitter and growing curious as to what eren’s twitter feed looked liked, you unlocked his phone and hit refresh.

your jaw unhinges when you pop up on his screen. fingers knuckle deep in your cunt.

you’re in shock like you literally didn’t film this a few hours ago and hit post. you just weren’t expecting to see yourself on your best friend’s timeline.

you stare at yourself, at first unsure how to react to this knowledge but then the thought of eren touching himself to you skates across your mind and suddenly you’re clenching your thighs, bottom lip caught between your teeth.

the thought arouses you.

eren comes back with the bowl filled to the brim and his smile is wiped off his face once he sees his phone in your hands.

“eren,” you start. your voice is low but sweet. “is there something you want to tell me?”

he sucks in a breath, pupils shaking as you lay the phone on the bed. he sees what you were looking at clear as day.

“y/n.. i-i can explain.”

your plump lips turn upwards into a grin. mischief writes all over them.

“come here.”

it’s a command that has him hesitantly obeying.

he sits down on the bed, farther than where he originally was.

you sigh and close the proximity by climbing into lap, the popcorn bowl being discarded to the side.

eren feels hell fire creeping up his neck. his mouth his dry and he can suddenly hear the thrumming of his blood.

“how many times have you fucked yourself to me. hm?”

his lips tremble. “a few times..” it almost comes out as a mumble.

your smirk widens at his blatant lie.

“oh eren, you and i both know that’s not true.”

you push him until his back is flat on the bed, your thighs on either side of his hips. you splay your hands on his chest and fully plant your clothes pussy on his crotch.

he could literally just cum right then and there.

“you know what i hate more than liars?”

once eren realizes you actually want him to respond he shakes his head.

you lean forward until your lips are grazing against his ear. your tits mushed against his chest.

“i hate disobedient boys,” you lean back up and eren looks dazed. aware but dazed. “are you a disobedient boy eren?”

…

needless to say, he’s not. he listens to your every command which is why he was currently whimpering, hands pressed against his chest, trying his very best not to touch you.

your mouth works wonders on his cock, it weeps in all it’s 8inch glory, precum finding it’s way onto your tongue.

you pull him out of your mouth with a lewd ‘pop’, eyeing eren as you pump his aching length. “you close?”

tears form in eren’s eyes. everything feels fuzzy. his brain is scattered but he still manages to give a slight nod. he looked so fucked out and god what a sight it was.

“you gonna cum for me pretty boy?”

the nickname makes eren whine.

“eren, answer me or you don’t get to cum.” you grit, your free hand taking hold on his throat, clenching your dainty yet powerful fingers around it.

“y-yes! yes. m’gonna c-cum.” he chokes out. his pupils becoming dilated as you speed up your hand around his cock.

you smile at this. “i want you to come in my mouth ‘kay? and you can touch me now.” your mouth is instantly on his cock after finishing your sentence.

eren props himself up on his elbows, the iron grip you still have on his neck combined with you sucking the everlasting life out of him has eren cumming in no time with a cracked moan.

“fuh-fuckkk.” tears are streaming down his face now, jaw unhinged as you lap up the messy head on his cock.

“got anymore for me?” you don’t expect him to answer, instead you squeeze on his balls and one last spurt of cum falls onto your shiny lips.

this has eren falling back flat on his back, panting heavily like he’d just finished running a marathon.

you lick at your lips and hum at the taste of him. salty, as expected but not overbearing.

“you did so good for me ren.” you smile, crawling up beside him. resting a hand on his naked chest.

eren lazily turns his head towards you, his cheeks tear stained. he looks utterly broken and it ignites something within you.

“this stays between us ‘kay?” he nods slowly at that, too tired to speak.

what in the world did he just get himself into?

.

.

.

tag list: @hellavile @animeloverzx @starlightmid @gobblethiskitty

[estellesdoll]

﹢﹒𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝑺𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉﹐𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔 𝑺.

pairing: bsf!chris x bunny!reader

taglist • navigation • masterlist • pinned post

“Pleeeaase,” I whined softly, glancing at the brothers with wide, watery eyes. “I always play Fortnite and your games—even though I don’t like them!” My nose scrunched as I crossed my arms, sinking deeper into my pout.

My lower lip trembled, a tiny sniff escaping as I peeked at them, hoping they’d agree to the new Roblox tycoon I’d been dying to try.

Chris noticed immediately, stepping closer and taking my hands in his gently. “Don’t cry, bun. We’ll play whatever you want,” he said softly, his voice soothing as he glanced at his brothers for confirmation.

Nick rolled his eyes but smirked. “Didn’t we already play Hello Kitty World yesterday because someone begged us to?”

My cheeks flushed pink as I buried my face against Chris’s shoulder, leaning into his warmth. “I liked yesterday,” I mumbled shyly. “But this time, I wanna be on Matt’s team.”

Chris froze, pulling back slightly. “Wait, what? Matt? Not me?” His voice pitched higher, his expression comically alarmed.

I whimpered softly, tugging at his sleeve to bring him closer again. “Chris…”

“We’re the best team, bunny!” he argued, his lips forming an exaggerated pout.

“You… you always run away when someone attacks us!” I murmured, fidgeting with the hem of my sleeve. “Then I’m left to fight them alone and lose everything!”

Chris gasped, sitting back with his arms crossed. “Fine. Go be with Matt. Or maybe I just won’t play at all.”

The brothers’ laughter echoed as Matt and Nick headed off to start their PCs, leaving Chris sulking dramatically on the couch.

I crawled closer, wrapping my arms around him and nuzzling into his neck. “Don’t be mad at me, Chris,” I whispered, voice soft and pleading. “I’ll always be on your team. Promise.”

Chris’s arms finally circled me as he sighed, his pout melting into a teasing smirk. “I’m not mad, bunny. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

﹒◟send me your requests and use an emoji if you want to stay anonymous. 𓂃

@estellesdoll

[runningfrom2am]

requiem // part four

summary: according to coriolanus snow, his best friend had the most beautiful voice in all of panem. she had been training her whole life constantly to get where she was; being up for a residency at the most elite opera house in all of panem. singing was her passion. her true love; and when that got stripped from her in a second, his world became a whole lot quieter. he loathed every minute of it.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.3k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: opera singer!mentor!reader (blink and you'll miss it), she's kind of a prodigy!! p cool imo, mute!reader, bestfriend!coryo, friends to lovers trope ooo, mentions of graphic violence early on (particularly the prologue) but after that it's pretty safe, depictions of ptsd/trauma, mental illness and minor suicidal ideation but at least she's not entirely alone, descriptions of minor medical treatments and use of medication.

a/n: fighting for my LIFE trying to sort out my student loans rn. also i'm sick. butttt i did just finally get my hands on hogwarts legacy so that's eating up all my time. anyway that's a small update on my life.

also, reminder to follow @runningfrom2am-library and turn on my notifications there to join my taglist for this series!!

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist // pinterest board

three months earlier

"You could write her a song." Clemensia suggests with a shrug, tapping her pen against the inkwell, hardly looking up from it.

Coryo scoffs, shaking his head. "Don't mock me, Clemmie. I'm serious."

"So am I!" She laughs, facing her palms up against the table and looking across at him now. "She likes music, it's like, the only thing she likes. It would make her happy, I'd bet. Is that not the whole point?"

In the face of something so juvenile as asking his best friend to go to their graduation gala together, Coryo is stumbling. You were his best friend, yes, he could just outright ask- especially considering nearly everyone had already just assumed that the two of you would be attending together, but something about that didn't sit right with him.

Other girls were getting special things. Flowers, jewelry, notes, and love letters that he had genuinely heard that, on a couple of occasions, brought tears to their eyes. Not that he wanted you to cry, but... He wanted you to feel that he cared. It was important to him that you knew he really cared.

"It is." He grumbles, rubbing his forehead.

"Okay, then-"

"I'm not writing her a song."

Clemensia sighs, rolling her eyes. "It doesn't have to be any good. Maybe it's even better if it's bad! She'd get a good laugh out of it too."

"Yes, and then I'd never live it down." He says, pushing his hair back out of his eyes and trying to put his focus on the assignment they were supposed to be working on. "Besides, I didn't ask for your advice. I don't need it."

"Yes, you do." She insists with a teasing smile, reaching over the table and poking him in the shoulder with her pen. "You wouldn't have told me otherwise. You were just too scared to ask directly."

Coryo lets out a deep breath through his nose, shaking his head in quiet denial, but she can easily make out the pink tinge on his cheeks.

"Coryo, you know she'll say yes no matter what, right?" She adds, her voice softer this time.

"That's not... that's not what I'm worried about. Necessarily, I mean."

"Ah." Clemensia hums in response, taking the end of her ink pen between her teeth. "More like... you just don't want her to get the impression that she was a last resort?"

"She's not." He defends quickly.

She raises her hands defensively, a short and quiet laugh falling from her lips in the library. "I know. I know that. I'm just clarifying that you don't want her to get that impression."

When he doesn't respond, pretending to pour all his focus into taking notes again, Clemensia lets out a dramatic sigh. "I don't know, just ask her. She knows you well enough that I really don't think it matters. Just... when's the next time you're hanging out?"

"Not sure." He mumbles, scribbling down some notes that he knows are hardly legible.

"Well, what about after class today? See if she wants to go get coffee or something."

"She's coaching until seven."

"Tomorrow?"

"Rehearsals."

Clemensia lets out a huff. "This weeken-"

"Orchestra practice." He cuts her off this time.

"Panem that girl is busy." She sighs. "How does she even have any friends at all?"

"We make time." He shrugs nonchalantly, as if it didn't bother him that he hardly ever saw his best friend this late in the academic year. That was common for you, though. Usually come summer and fall you had more free time to share with him. And he was happy to wait- it wasn't like he didn't get busy during exam seasons too.

"Okay, well, now is the time to 'make time'." She exclaims sternly, leaning closer across the table and lowering her voice to a whisper. "Because I heard rumours that Sejanus Plinth was intending on asking her, and you and I both know that she is far too kind to say no. Even if he is District."

Coriolanus' jaw tenses at that and he grips his pen just a little bit harder. "Have you done question fifteen yet?"

He had already been thinking about that for weeks, and he would torture himself for another week before he finally took Clemensia's advice and "made time".

You had seen him since that conversation he had had with Clemmie, but that didn't mean he could ever get himself to actually bring up graduation outside of asking you casually if anyone had asked you yet. To which, the answer was always an unbothered "no", and a shrug that allowed you to mask the sadness behind your smile.

He didn't exactly "make time", though. His plan was quite the opposite. Knowing you had morning practice, he got to the academy early and shoved the folded up paper in your locker and practically ran down the empty halls to the library. No taking it back now.

'A note? That's so stupid! She's your best friend! Just ask!' His thoughts race at him, but that's exactly why he did it this way. He couldn't back out again now.

"Coryo," Your familiar voice says as you slide into the seat next to him, hair perfectly styled and uniform ironed flat despite the early morning you must have had.

He looks over at you, eyes slightly wide out of nervousness. "Uh, hey... How's, um... How's your morning?" He asks, trying his best to play it casual.

You smile, sliding the folded up piece of paper you had found in your locker back over to him. "Good." You answer, already going about taking out your books. "Yours?"

"Good." He nods, mouth dry as he stares down at the paper, looking between the sheet and you.

Silently, you nod for him to open it, a small smile on your lips.

He hesitates before opening it, the conscious effort it takes to not tremble taking over his nerves.

He curses himself for his own fears about what it would say, blinking a couple times before reading the note.

'Want to go to the grad gala with me? -Coriolanus'

And then in small, flawless handwriting, a swift and smooth print that lacked any hesitation, there was a new line underneath.

'Yes :)'

"I only tried on fifty different dresses to decide on the fit and style of what I wanted." You say with a slight laugh, unzipping the garment bag that held your dress.

Coryo was sitting on your bed, like he often did, hands fidgeting in his lap. Fifty dresses to him seemed unnecessary, certainly you looked just fine in the very first one all the way through to the very last. But he did understand how seriously your family took your dresses, for both your performances and events like the one you would be attending together.

"That's... that's a fair few dresses." He laughs with a small nod, gazing into your closet and away from you for just a moment, trying to get a glimpse at your performance gowns you had stashed in bags and lining the wall. It's a wonder you had room for everything, he knew you had never tossed or re-worn a single one- all large in either sheer poofiness and volume, or bright colours and patterns that drew the eye and held them hostage in your form. Sometimes both. Coryo was never sure if it was the intent to make you look like a princess from a fairytale, but a few times a year he got to see you look just like one. What he imagined them all to be, anyway, when recalling the storybooks his mother read to him and left on the untouched shelves in his should-have-been baby sister's nursery.

"Yes, well, I wanted it to be perfect." You hum, pulling the dress out of the bag and turning to him, holding it up against your chest. "Thoughts?"

Coryo nods in response, swallowing hard. The dress was stunning, and the colour was rich- it would compliment the tones of your skin and hair beautifully. He had very little technical knowledge of fashion, but what had trickled into his mind from Tigris would lead him to believe it would be complimentary to you.

But he had no idea how he would match that.

The last of his father's salvageable dress clothes was that shirt Tigris is working on for the reaping ceremony in a couple of months, and he couldn't possibly wear that twice. If she could even salvage it. Maybe he should ask her to prioritize making it into something that would better match your dress, or just wear it plain white with the black stripes to the gala instead, so he would at least feel worthy of standing at your side. Then he could wear his academy uniform on reaping day, and claim he forgot the occasion. Would that be believable?

No, of course not. That's the day the Plinth Prize will be awarded.

Hopefully to him. Definitely to him, he had to pray. He was never a religious man- no one really was anymore, but reading about it in pre-Panem history textbooks, he couldn't deny the temptation to beg some higher power for help.

The prize would solve everything.

"You like it?" You ask, drawing him from his internal panic and he nods, smiling.

"Yeah, yes. Wow. It's lovely." He nods, clearing his throat.

"Thank you." You grin, looking down at the dress and smoothing it against your leg a bit to try and get another good look at it yourself.

You let out a soft sigh of contentment before hanging it back up. "Anyway, do you want to do like a matching thing, or is that tacky?" You ask, turning to face him again.

Coryo purses his lips in thought, drumming his fingers on his lap. "I'm not sure. Are other people matching?"

You knew about his situation, of course, though he wasn't fond of talking about it. Obviously not, who would be? It never bothered you, at the end of the day he was still your best friend- even if he never let you come over to the renowned Snow penthouse unless it was some kind of emergency. Regardless, as far as the two of you knew, you were the only one outside of his family who had any idea. And you both intended to do everything you could to keep it that way.

"I think so, I heard some of the other girls talking about it." You say with a shrug. "Just something simple like a matching tie or something, we don't have to go crazy with it."

"Right." He nods, thinking it over.

"Here," You say after a moment, reaching into the bottom of the garment bag and pulling out a much smaller plastic bag with fabric samples in it from when your dress was made. "I asked for more extra than they would normally give for fabric samples, in case we wanted to match. I was hoping we could ask Tigris to make a tie or a pocket square or something, or maybe cover your cuffs with it." You suggest, sitting on the bed next to him and holding out the bag.

His heart aches as he reaches out to take it from your soft hands. It's hard to place, almost- whether or not it's gratefulness or loathing of the fact you had considered such a thing at all. Attending an event with a Snow should not include the accommodation of whether or not they could afford to dress accordingly.

The bitterness fades and settles into thankfulness for you, and all you do for him. Silently. Without discussion, without real, significant thought.

You could be friends with anyone; the girls with wealth enough to bathe in like your own, Sejanus Plinth, even, whose family quite literally bought their way into the Capitol. But you chose him.

Granted, when you chose him, you didn't have the slightest clue of the financial state of his family name, but even when you had stumbled across that fact, it didn't deter you. Coriolanus often wonders why, but who was he to question it? Hell, sometimes he wonders if the roles had been reversed, would he have been so gracious?

"Thanks." Coryo mutters, clearing his throat and nodding. "I mean, she's the expert, so I'll talk to her about what she thinks will work best."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." You agree with a soft laugh that makes him smile by instinct alone. He couldn't help it.

"Um, I meant to ask," Coryo says after a moment, tucking his feet up on the bed and sitting back a bit, getting more comfortable. "Did your coach agree to let you change your song for the year end gala? The one you pitched to her, that was really good. You did amazing. At least, in my opinion but I don't really know what I'm talking about."

"Thank you." You reply through a sigh, laughing slightly as you flop back on the soft cushioned duvet next to him. "But, yes and no. Yes she's letting me do something other than 'Never Enough', but it's not that song I showed her while you were there. She said it was too long and would disrupt the entire schedule, which, in hindsight does make sense and I wouldn't want to do that to everyone else."

"Well, what is it?" Coryo replies, eager to hear something new from you. It was special, he knew that it was. He had seen first hand how badly you wanted to do something else.

You smile, looking up at him as he leaned back on his hands next to you, blue eyes searching yours as if they could somehow portray the answer sooner than your lips- despite you knowing it would be a song he's never heard or even heard of before.

"I decided on something else. It's gonna be a surprise." You answer with a small, almost sly smile while you prop yourself up on your elbow, gazing up at him with your chin in your palm. "But you're gonna love it, I think."

You really hoped he would, at least.

While Coryo protests, tries to squeeze the information out of you in the light-hearted way only a best friend could, you don't budge. The song in title and content reminds you far too much of him; of his pretty face, and electric soul.

no taglist this time around!! my fics usually get over a hundred requests to be added to the taglist so instead i made a library! follow me over on @runningfrom2am-library and turn on notifs to get updates when i post new parts!!

[ramblebramblefun]

The back pieces of Dynamight's mask tilt this way and that like some kind of weather vane, as the wind picks up before the storm.

Red sky at morning. Hero's sure warning.

He looks... Well, he looks like Kacchan always does, just with dramatic lighting. Backlit by the red rising sun, he looks like a villain's sure warning, with his lips pulled down in a familiar frown and the knowledge Izuku has of just what he's capable of.

Kacchan's amazing.

... He doesn't do well in the rain though.

Kacchan is scowling at the clouds on the horizon like the weather is conspiring to personally offend him.

That's not very likely; Izuku has been dutifully checking the weather each time Dynamight and Deku are scheduled to patrol together, and learning a little about how weather forms while he's at it.

(If Kacchan's still going to call him a nerd, he might as well live up to it.)

High pressure systems, low pressure systems, convection currents, latitude, the jet stream, the water cycle, rain shadows-

Izuku could tell you all about the weather, but Kacchan would probably tell him to shut up and drag him away to do "more important things."

Patrol is very important, but somehow Izuku doesn't think that's what Kacchan means.

For example, if Izuku were to attempt to inform Kacchan all about the weather, he has the sneaking suspicion that Kacchan would just let him. Kacchan's eyes might glaze over and he might practically fall asleep on his feet, but he would grimly continue on in his Kacchan way, trying his best to give Izuku his full attention.

And then blow up someone else.

Kacchan's been like that since the war. Izuku can do almost whatever he wants, and Kacchan will pretend that it's fine.

It's not fine, though.

Izuku almost wishes sometimes that things would go back to the way they used to be, when Kacchan would blow up at him and assert his boundaries so that Izuku knew where not to step next time.

It had been awful, but by the end of middle school Kacchan had actually been a lot better than he had been at the beginning, the Incident notwithstanding. Or, rather, Izuku had gotten better at squishing himself into the little box that Kacchan demanded that he inhabit.

Izuku doesn't even want to tell Kacchan about the weather. He can tell Ochako, who will laugh at his enthusiasm, or Shouto, who will respond with a thumbs up and a smiley face emoji. That's his thing, lately.

But if Izuku wanted to tell Kacchan about the weather, then Kacchan would let him, even though he really did not give two shits and would probably rather do anything else than stand on a rooftop listening to Izuku ramble on about how in the southern hemisphere the winds are so strong that they call them-

Anyway. That's not the point.

The point is... The point is, Izuku can never really be sure if Kacchan actually wants to hear Izuku talk about things-that-are-not-the-weather, or if he's just humouring him because Kacchan's just weird like that now.

Like, yeah, Izuku and Kacchan are friends now, and that's amazing, Kacchan's amazing, but...

But. They are standing on a rooftop, taking a break, and Izuku has no idea what to say to him.

Hello? The weather looks crappy?

How are you? Do you think you'll be okay?

Are we okay? How do I talk to you? What do you like to talk about? Because you will not throw me off this building if I open my mouth, but that doesn't mean you care about what I have to say? I'm not fucking fragile? I won't cry if you tell me to shut up? Or at least pick another topic?

Izuku could explain Kacchan's own quirk back to him in a way that makes his eyes narrow in intrigue, but he cannot, for the life of him, tell what's going on in Kacchan's head.

He used to have a pretty good read on him. Izuku used to own the dictionary to Kacchanese, and every time Kacchan did something, Izuku would know why.

Izuku does not know why Kacchan is standing on a rooftop next to him, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

He's been doing that a lot lately, too. Looking at Izuku when he seems to think Izuku won't notice.

That's silly. Izuku always notices. It's Kacchan. If Kacchan's looking at him-

Then Izuku is looking right back.

Kacchan doesn't even startle when he realises Izuku has caught him in the act. The old Kacchan might have blustered something about Izuku being the one staring at him all the time, but new Kacchan...

New Kacchan just raises an eyebrow.

A challenge.

Izuku can do challenge.

He lets his lips pull up in the start of Deku's signature smile.

Dynamight grins right back.

And then they're off, and they're going to have to talk, one of these days, about how Izuku is supposed to talk to this new, quieter, overly permissive Kacchan and how all that crap in middle school doesn't mean that Kacchan isn't allowed to have boundaries now and how maybe they should both see a therapist like how Tsuyu told him last week, but for now, today, jumping off a skyscraper-

For now, Izuku has a race to win.

First one to the scene, first one home, first to reach number one- The rest of their lives, chasing each other, just like this.

Bring it on.

[glitchyq]

My headcanons on how scps would text:

079: leaves everyone on read except 682. Usually short responses and straight to the point. Occasionally uses internet terms and doesn't use emojis- uses text-based emoticons instead.

682: accidentally leaves caps lock on and doesn't realise. Will get in heated arguments with you. Never uses emojis and just sticks to text. Sometimes gets weirdly philosophical.

035: will spam you with texts until he gets your attention. Over dramatic and frequently uses emojis. If he is left on read he becomes aggressive and insults you. Would send you memes.

049: doesn't understand how to use phones and is often too focused on his work to reply. If you text him about anything remotely medical based prepare for a paragraph-long, detailed ramble.

173: sends you a menacing picture of its face with nothing else.

106: doesn't text but instead sends you threatening images. Will send you pictures of his food for some reason. Will accidentally send you a picture of himself looking like an old person's pfp on Facebook. Accidentally face times you 10 times a day.

096: doesn't respond with anything except crying emojis.

[eoieopda]

aphelion (knj)

aphelion (n): the point in the orbit of a comet at which it is furthest from the sun.

Kim Namjoon was as perfect when you lost him as he was when you found him.

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x AFAB!Reader Type: Flashback Prequel | Genre: Fluff & Angst, Smut | Rating: M (18+) AU: Strangers ⇢ Lovers ⇢ Exes, Lacunaverse (aka Lacuna!AU) Word Count: 19K Content Warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST; gratuitously autobiographical; POV switches; Namjoon and MC are both musicians but not envisioned as "idols"; emotional support producer!Yoongi; self-insert!OC, jinseo; panic attack implied (crying, rapid breathing, chest tightness); depressive episode implied (lack of self-care, lack of appetite); a relationship dying in slow motion (ouch.) Smut Warnings: Vaginal fingering, lil bit of biting, implied unprotected sex, reader rides it like she stole it. A/N 1: This is the prequel to Lacuna and its sequel, Redamancy. It takes place over the course of two years (2020 to 2022 — we’re pretending COVID never happened, btw) and will have month/date info. at the top of each vignette. You can read the series chronologically (starting here) but I definitely recommend reading in the order it was written (Lacuna ⇢ Redamancy ⇢ Aphelion) because I think dramatic irony is fun and sexy. A/N 2: Endless thank you's to my emotional support moots, @jihopesjoint and @here2bbtstrash for beta-reading this unabashed entry from my diary. A/N 3: To my "Namjoon" — You were the best thing I didn't get to keep. I hope you found the sun. Suggested Listening: Spotify Playlist. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors and ageless blogs will be blocked, on sight. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

2020/7/18; 18:23

As awful as he knew it sounded, Yoongi was grateful to have someone in his life who was equally riddled with social anxiety. That flicker of dread he felt in the pit of his stomach was easier to digest when there was a hand — metaphorical, mainly, because the real thing was the tiniest bit sweaty — to cling to whenever he had to feign extroversion. Before you popped up into his life, perpetually on vibrate mode in the way that he was, he’d ventured out of his studio even less than he did now.

With you, there had always been a silent understanding: neither of you ever wanted to attend the company events that appeared simultaneously on your calendars; neither of you ever successfully shook off the feelings of guilt and obligation that prevented you from bailing altogether; and neither had ever — would ever — consider attending without the other. Co-dependence at its finest, you wore each other like a backpack and held on tight.

One of the terms of this unspoken social contract was that, when it came time to rally for one of the aforementioned, godforsaken label parties, Yoongi rushed over whenever you put up the Bat Signal. Instead of a cartoonish symbol in the sky, it always came in the form of a text — usually with a minimum of six (6) very urgent emojis — declaring a fashion emergency. No questions asked, he showed up on your doorstep every time. Yoongi never had any valuable input to offer, but he could tell you when you looked nice.

You always did, but he tended to keep that part to himself.

When Yoongi finally arrived at your apartment this time, he didn’t bother knocking the way he used to. By now, he knew that part of your pre-party panic included unlocking your door for him whenever you sent out your SOS. So, he let himself in and left his shoes at the door. Immediately, he heard a relieved sigh waft out from your bedroom down the hall.

“Oh, thank god!”

He waited for the blush in his cheeks to fade before he continued his journey to you, willing his standard poker face back into existence before it ratted him out. 

“Do I need to call in a helicopter evacuation?” Yoongi called out to you as he padded off in your direction. “How bad is the avalanche?”

Before he could get halfway to your bedroom door, you poked your head out through the doorway. You had those pink, plastic cylinders in your hair — the ones that looked spiky and uncomfortable, but that you somehow never complained about — and half your makeup done. Even in that cactus-printed bathrobe, Yoongi wouldn’t have been surprised if you wound up with a spread in the next issue of Nylon.

You grimaced. “Admittedly worse than the holiday party, but nowhere near as bad as the Great MAMA Catastrophe of 2017.”

“So…” Yoongi teased with a tilt of his head, “Yes to the helicopter evacuation, then?”

He didn’t have time to emotionally or physically prepare for whatever awaited him on the other side of your bedroom door because you grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him inside as soon as he was within your reach.

Oh, good god, kid.

Yoongi opened his mouth to express how impressed — terrified? — he was by the explosion of outfits littering every surface of your room, but he quickly realized that no words would do it justice. He opted for a trademark, flat-line smile and a quiet grunt. You grimaced a second time, knowing full well what he hadn’t said out loud

Scurrying around him, you tore like a tornado through the immediate area to clear a path for him. You were clumsy enough to trip over every stray shoe but had reflexes — shockingly — quick enough to right yourself before your stumbling could send you to the ground. Once the carpet was sufficiently visible, you gestured to the small opening on your bed with a platform boot you’d unearthed somewhere along the way.

“You can, uh —” You continued waving the shoe in the direction of your bed, searching for the rest of your sentence. Yoongi watched in real time as your train of thought left the station.

More than a little endeared by your scattered brain, he offered, “Sit?” 

“Yes!” You snapped your fingers and pointed a finger-gun at him with a sheepish smile, “That. Do that while I try to find my vocabulary. It’s gotta be somewhere in this blast zone…” 

Voice already petering off, you wheeled back around to your regurgitated wardrobe.

Yoongi dropped into the only open spot on your mattress and leaned back to rest his weight on the palm of his hand. Settled into his usual space and routine, he fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time, as if the answer to that question would make a difference. 

It was half-six.

Ugh.

As always, the pair of you would wind up late; and, as always, that would still somehow mean that you’d be the first to show up. No matter how hard you tried to avoid it — leaving later and later for every party — you were perpetually, dreadfully guests numbered one and two.

“I never know what to wear for these things,” you whined, once again a disembodied head appearing in a doorway. 

When did you even sneak off into your closet? How were you physically able to reach it?

The rest of you reappeared underneath your head. You were clutching a dress in one hand and a skirt in the other, looking like your will to live had been hung up in their place. Worse, you had that little anime pout on, which didn’t bode well for the schoolboy crush Yoongi was secretly harboring, but you didn’t say anything. You just kept looking at him, eyes all pitiful and sparkly.

“Do you want me to ask him about the dress code?” he offered, unsure if that was what you were after but otherwise at a loss for solutions.

The look of mild-to-moderate panic washing over your face caused Yoongi to sigh. He knew you were thoroughly starstruck — he’d heard you gush over Namjoon and his new release for hours by now — but maybe he’d underestimated the extent. Your relief was immediate when he waved you off and said, “I’m not going to tell him that you’re the one asking.”

Yoongi [18:30]: on a scale of sweatpants to tuxedo, how hard do i have to try?

While he waited for an answer, Yoongi glanced back up to check your status. You’d once again disappeared in the few moments he’d glanced down at his phone screen. So damn sneaky. There was a significant amount of shuffling coming from the depths of your closet. Something shifted, then you yelped.

“You okay?” Yoongi called out, primed to get up and dig through the presumed rockslide for you.

Meekly, you popped back into view with one hand rubbing gingerly at the top of your head. You frowned. “I found my snow boots.”

“Sounded like your snow boots found you, kid.”

Yoongi’s phone buzzed in his hand. He ripped off the velcro-grip gaze he held on you and blinked down at the screen.

Namjoon [18:34]: Hyung, since when do you give a fuck about trying? lol

Yoongi chewed the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t sure what information to divulge: that he wasn’t asking because he gave a fuck; that you were the one who did; or that the only reason Yoongi was having this conversation at all was because you were the one that asked him to. He settled on something vaguely truthful.

Yoongi [18:37]: fuck off, joonie. since i’m bringing someone special and i want you to meet her.

The reply was immediate and three-fold:

Namjoon [18:37]: Call me Joonie again and see what happens 🤔 Namjoon [18:37]: Wear jeans in case I gotta chase you down for that. For real, though, it’s casual. Namjoon [18:37]: Also 👀

Yoongi shoved his phone back in his pocket without bothering to reply. He wouldn’t know what to say if he did, anyway. You weren’t the kind of person he knew how to summarize in a quick text; so he’d have to let your presence speak for itself. It always did.

When he looked back up from his hands, you reappeared in the closet doorway in a flouncy little dress. He had to stop himself from asking if you’d wear it to his funeral when he inevitably dropped dead. Once he succeeded at that, he swallowed thickly and focused on the two pairs of shoes you were holding, one in each hand.

Your face scrunched up while you mulled over your options. Without looking up, you asked absently and borderline shyly, “Did he respond?”

It took a beat for Yoongi’s brain to catch up; sundress season truly was the silent killer. In the pause, your inquisitive eyes flicked up to see if he’d simply ignored your question. He fumbled, pointed to the chunky, heeled sandals in your left hand, and then shot you a thumbs-up.

You rolled your eyes with a snort and knelt down to slip into his choice without further comment. As you did, you triple-checked that the ankle strap was secured and Yoongi didn’t have to guess why: the last time you wore them out, you hadn’t buckled yourself in properly. The thick tread had snagged on a curb; and your shoe didn’t come with you when you stepped up onto the sidewalk. You waited on one leg, the other foot bare in the wind, while Yoongi returned to the street to grab what you’d lost.

When you finished your ministrations, you stood back up to your full height — now with fifteen added centimeters — and brushed your hands against the back of your dress’ skirt. The expression on your face was somewhere between exhilarated and vaguely nauseous.

You clapped your hands together suddenly and sighed, “We doing this, Yoongs?”

He rolled his eyes so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea. He was endeared by that stupid nickname but unwilling to let you know as much. Still, he followed when you led him out of your bedroom; when you grabbed a laughably tiny and arguably useless purse off your hallway console table; and when you skipped out of your front door.

“Who’s driving?” Yoongi glanced over his shoulder at you as he hit the lock button on your door’s keypad. He didn’t need to ask — you had the alcohol tolerance of a newborn baby and couldn’t assume the wheel after more than two drinks — but he knew it made you feel better when he did.

Sheepishly, you pursed your lips.

He sighed with a microscopic grin, “Garage gate wouldn’t open, so I’m on the side of the building.” Then, he shuffled towards the elevator with you in tow. Even with the added height of your shoes, your short legs still struggled to keep up with his pace. 

As soon as the elevator doors re-opened on the ground floor, you threaded your arm around his and handcuffed him to you with your elbow bent. Before he could make a joke at your expense, you raised a manicured finger and said, “Do not start with me, Min Yoongi.”

So, he didn’t. He simply opened his passenger door for you and closed it once you’d slid into your usual place. As soon as he slid into his and pressed the start button, your phone automatically hooked to his Bluetooth stereo; and he couldn’t even whine about that fact because you’d already queued up some song he’d never heard in a language neither of you knew well. True to form, you didn’t let that stop you from singing along as loudly as you could — all the way to the venue.

It didn’t take long for Yoongi to find a spot or to parallel park in it, much to your amazement. It did, however, take ten minutes of silent sitting for either of you to say a word.

“Do we have to go in there?” you asked, damn near inaudibly. 

Where you sat, your left knee bounced at a speed almost imperceptible to the human eye. Yoongi only noticed because his knee was doing the same. He exhaled the breath he’d unknowingly held hostage and glanced at the time displayed on his car’s touch screen. He grimaced. “Shit started an hour ago. How much do you wanna bet that we’re still the first people here?”

You unbuckled your seatbelt. “Even if we are,” you started as you pushed open the passenger side door, “I’m not waiting to start the clock until guest number three arrives.” You shot him a pointed look as you slid out of the car. Adjusting your dress once you’d made it to your feet, you added, “One hour of kissing hands and shaking babies, then we’re out of here, right?”

Yoongi clamped his mouth shut, but it did nothing to ward off the laughter that made his shoulders shake. He nodded firmly, let his feet hit the pavement, then let his car door shut behind him.

“Compensatory lamb skewers, as usual?” He asked once he rounded the back of the car to join you on the sidewalk. On instinct, you threaded your arm through his to keep yourself on your feet, and your feet in your shoes. “But not from that place you picked last time. I’m ninety-nine-percent sure they clean it with a garden hose at night.”

You grumbled something about never being allowed to pick the restaurant before reaching for the door handle and petulantly jerking it open.

The second your respective feet stepped over the threshold, you both froze. It was the social equivalent of rigor mortis, the pair of you standing with locked limbs and gawking at the sheer number of people inside the hole-in-the-wall venue Namjoon had chosen. Clearly, he’d intended this to be as quaint as possible. Even more obviously, management hadn’t given a shit or fuck about that goal.

“This is,” you inhaled deeply as if you’d never get the chance again, and on the exhale, you wheezed, “So much. Oh my god.”

No matter how many times his shaking eyes scanned over the crowd ahead, Yoongi couldn’t find a single person he recognized, let alone wanted to spend an hour talking to. He snapped to look at you in the same moment you turned to him.

“What an hour this minute has been.”

“Lamb skewers?”

“Yes, please.”

Just as quickly as you’d entered, the pair of you turned to head out the door. Yoongi couldn’t grab the handle before a loud voice rang out from behind, “Hyung!”

A hand clapped Yoongi on the shoulder, spinning him around and leaving his emergency exit out of reach.

“So glad to see a familiar face,” Namjoon’s grin took up his whole face, but his mouth didn’t move with his words. They were forced out through gritted teeth, pleading the way his eyes were: If you leave me here, I’ll kill you.

Yoongi glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. He would’ve asked you — not with words, anyway — to make up some excuse to get you both out of there, to grab take-out and watch Naruto on his couch, but you couldn’t answer. Your starry-eyed gaze was aimed above you, and he’d venture a guess that everyone in the room had disappeared.

Everyone but Namjoon.

Damn it.

Somewhere, somehow, Yoongi heard a record scratch.

“Oh, shit,” Yoongi coughed, suddenly aware of his obligation as a mutual friend. Gesturing languidly between you and Namjoon, Yoongi reported for duty. “Joon, this is —”

Namjoon finally seemed to realize that you were standing there with Yoongi. He tilted his head to look down at you, and as soon as he did, Yoongi watched in slow motion as Namjoon’s eyes grew three times their usual size. Your name barely cleared Yoongi’s lips before Namjoon was extending a hand for you to shake.

Somewhere, somehow, the music seemed to swell.

Am I having a stroke?

The next minute that passed felt like an hour, too, and nobody said a word. It was you looking at Namjoon; Namjoon looking at you; and Yoongi’s eyes flitting back and forth between his friends with a kind of bemusement he couldn’t fake if his life depended on it. He’d crashed-landed in the middle of a drama, and he didn’t know what else to do, so he cleared his throat and said, “Uhh — shots, anyone?”

The next hour flew by in sixty seconds, and Yoongi couldn’t wrap his brain around how that could be. He’d lost faith in the concept of linear time, he knew that much. The two people he sat next to were meeting for the first time, but there was a familiarity present that he couldn’t put a finger on. Like you were both saying hello in this life after saying goodbye in a previous one.

Throughout the conversation, Yoongi couldn’t keep his attention on the words being tossed back and forth; not even the ones he was offering up. Huh, he thought, so, this is what it looks like when people meet who they’re meant to.

“Listen —” You smacked your hand down on the tabletop, swallowing down a laugh as you faked incredulousness. You pointed directly at Yoongi, causing him to choke on his whiskey. “I don’t care if I have to read translations on an app, Nas’ lyricism is unparalleled —”

“Facts,” Namjoon chimed in with a tip of his glass. 

The way your eyes sparkled in response wasn’t lost on anyone.

Yoongi rolled his. “Okay, but from a production standpoint, we all know that —”

Simultaneously, you and Namjoon sucked in breaths. The arguments you let loose didn’t match in words, but the sentiment was the same, downright seismic in its intensity.

“Don’t you dare bring Kanye West into this!”

“Hyung, I swear to God, if the next name out of your mouth is Kanye West, I’m leaving my own fucking party.”

The eldest raised his hands defensively. “Fine, fine, fine,” he conceded. Yoongi slumped a little lower in his chair, accepting defeat. He glanced down at his phone to check the time — as if that wasn’t a lost cause — and when he looked up again, you and Namjoon had deviated down some winding tangent about the core of hip-hop being poetry.

It was odd, the way Yoongi’s stomach flipped then. Not jealousy, but fondness. Hunger, too, though that was secondary to the weird glimmer of pride he felt watching a bridge he’d unknowingly built link two spheres of his life together. There was a strange sense of clarity, to top it all off; one that changed all the question marks in his head to periods.

You and Yoongi would be friends. 

Yoongi would be at peace with that fact. 

The slightly sweaty hand that pulled you through that event wouldn’t be his; and he would be at peace with that, too.

Yoongi would grab lamb skewers on his way home and wait for your call tomorrow to hear how the rest of your night had gone without him.

With a signature, flat-line smile, Yoongi slid off his stool and slid his empty glass towards the bartender. Then, he clapped a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder. The younger stopped mid-sentence with a start and blinked up at Yoongi, whose smirk immediately dropped, deadpan.

He glanced at you and confirmed that you were too busy ordering another drink to overhear. Then, he leaned down towards Namjoon and whispered, “Don’t fuck this up, Joonie.”

Namjoon gulped. Yoongi could hear it as he turned away, letting that smirk reappear once his back was to Namjoon.

He won’t.

2020/7/18; 21:06

Namjoon’s face hurt.

There was a telltale ache in his cheeks that confirmed it: he hadn’t smiled that much, that completely, in a long damn time. At the rate things had gone over the last two hours, he wouldn’t be surprised to catch his reflection in the bathroom mirror and find wrinkles demarcating just how crinkled his eyes had been. It was a wonder he’d been able to see you at all with the way his laughter leaked over his lash lines. Then again, your grin was burned into his brain already. Given the way you lit up, he was convinced that he’d see you — just you — even in the dark.

“Stop laughing at me!” you whined with your hand covering your mouth. Though you tried to hide it, Namjoon could still see you grinning, even with your mouth full. “I feel very attacked.”

He snorted. “Not an attack, just an observation. Can’t say I’ve ever witnessed someone order a beverage they don’t like just to eat the garnish.”

Quickly, you skewered another blackberry with the end of your straw and guided it under the hand covering your mouth. When you placed the straw back in your drink, the fruit was gone; your eyes were sparkling.

“Are you just jealous that you’ve never thought to do it?” You tilted your head to the side as you chewed. The little flex of your eyebrows made his stomach flip, so he swallowed hard and wondered if you noticed.

“Honestly,” he started with a sigh. He slumped down in his seat, looking as pathetic as possible while he eyed the remaining fruit in your glass. “Yeah. Little heartbroken, too.”

“Oh?” You pouted and Namjoon was on the brink of passing the fuck out.

The hand over your mouth dropped. You shifted on top of your stool, grabbed hold of your blackberry malt, and leaned in as you scooted it across the bar to Namjoon. The smile tugging at your lips was petal soft, though the flash of bright white teeth hit him like high-beams. He was a deer; he was frozen; and he didn’t give a shit if you ran right over him.

Elbows against the bar, you leaned even further. This time, when you tilted your head to the side, your hair gave way and left your bare shoulder in his line of sight. For the first time in his life, Namjoon finally understood why something as innocuous as a short-sleeve or exposed ankle was deemed pornographic a century prior. In the year 2020, he was losing his mind over an acromioclavicular joint and some — smooth, touchably soft — flesh.

“Because I haven’t offered to share?”

Jesus Christ.

He was seconds away from biting down on his fist to keep from groaning. That coquettish, candy-coated voice of yours was a problem in and of itself, but when you looked at him from under your lashes like that, Namjoon was ready to call in a bomb threat to his own party. He couldn’t simply fuck off with you, though — not without an excuse he could sell to Bang Si-Hyuk later.

Namjoon needed an out, now. Unfortunately for him, all he could think about was biting down on that shoulder, following the curve of it with his —

He needed to get a grip. Fast.

Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat. “Exactly. Rude.”

You smirked; he winked. To keep his mouth occupied, Namjoon grabbed the spare straw from your drink and speared a blackberry for himself. Holding his prize out in salute, he nodded his head with a smirk of his own. “Geonbae!”

You smiled sweetly again as you watched him pluck the fruit off the end of the straw with his teeth; but you grinned with all you had when the whiskey-drenched berry hit his taste buds like a punch. Sour, unbelievably potent after steeping so long high-proof liquor. Every part of him clenched at once, prompting you to laugh with your whole chest.

What a perfect fucking sound.

“Shit,” Namjoon sputtered. His face unpuckered and gave way to a grin that likely rivaled yours.

“How are you not tanked right now? Seriously, I’m twice your size and can handle my liquor. That —” He waved his hand towards your glass, “— nearly knocked me on my ass.”

You opened your mouth to respond — to tease him mercilessly, he hoped — but you were cut off by the horrendous sound of Namjoon’s phone vibrating against the bar and his own empty glass. The cacophony rattled in his rib cage. Both of you flinched at the sudden interruption, leaving him to wonder if you also forgot that anyone else existed.

Namjoon glanced quickly at the illuminated screen, then back up to you. He would’ve ignored his texts in a heartbeat — indefinitely, without hesitation — but you squeezed his hand as you slipped off your stool to your feet. With your promise that you were headed to the restroom and would be right back, he gave himself permission to look back down at his phone.

Yoongi [21:43]: you tell her about that comet thing? she’s an unrelenting nerd like you. she’ll be into it.

If he could have, he would’ve kissed Yoongi through the phone for two reasons. The first of which was that, in the time he’d spent talking to you, Namjoon had completely forgotten about the one thing he’d talked about incessantly for the past month: the upcoming appearance of Neowise. The second was that, once again, Yoongi had come in clutch with a reason to bail on a social obligation.

Namjoon [21:45]: You’re a lifesaver and I love you. Yoongi [21:46]: ew

Namjoon was still chuckling when, unexpectedly, he felt playful fingertips trail across his shoulder blades. You, he quickly realized as you walked behind him and sat back down on your stool. He shivered, even after the trace of your touch was gone.

“All good?” you asked with a soft smile.

Yeah, he thought, really fucking good.

Namjoon grinned automatically. He picked up the spare straw he’d used earlier and harpooned another blackberry, not having learned his lesson last time. The whiskey hit his tongue, burned beautifully on the way down, and emboldened him.

Without hesitation, he asked, “Do you wanna get out of here? There’s something I want to show you.”

Your wide eyes blinked back at him, then they scanned the room to confirm that, yes, it was still packed with people — up to and including executives from the label. Yes, he did just offer to ditch all of them for you, consequences be damned.

“Yes,” you responded, as if that was the easiest decision you’d ever made.

Namjoon got to his feet and held out his hand to you. “Not afraid of heights, are you?” His smirk all but dissolved when your fingers interlocked with his.

“Not if the fall would be worth it.”

He didn’t know what to say in response to that statement — one so simple, made so easily as if it was a thought you repeated to yourself often. You’d stunned him, really, and Namjoon was uncharacteristically lost for words. So, you both fell into a comfortable silence as he led you out of the venue, ignoring every wayward stare on the way out. 

Even after he opened his passenger door for you and slipped himself behind the wheel, he couldn’t get over what you’d said. It took root in the back of his brain. In all the years he’d been in this industry, he’d determined that there were only two types of people: the ones who jumped without thinking and the ones who only ever did the latter. You, it seemed, were neither.

Not if the fall would be worth it.

As he drove, you hummed along to whatever played on the radio, gaze taking in the city lights. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the neon from roadside signs wash over your face as they passed. Pretty in all colors, he thought, in every light.

Five minutes passed before he realized that you hadn’t even asked where he was taking you. Maybe you’d made an assumption that you were headed back to his place, which, while true, still wasn’t entirely accurate. Or maybe you simply trusted him. Determined that he was one of those calculated risks worth taking.

Namjoon was warm all-over when he finally reached his parking garage and turned into his assigned space. By the time he rounded the back of his car to open your door for you, you were already standing and smoothing down the skirt of your dress.

God bless sundress season.

“Didn’t realize you were a fan of his work.”

He froze. Oh, fuck. 

Swallowing down the embarrassment of broadcasting his thoughts out loud, Namjoon shrugged. The corner of his mouth twitched, threatening to ruin his nonchalance. “Credit where it’s due, you know?” 

He then glanced down at his watch and confirmed that he was running out of time. When he looked back up at you, you were visibly puzzled but you didn’t question him. So, he questioned you:

“You didn’t develop a fear of heights on the drive over, right? Fall still worth it?”

Your response didn’t come in words. To his surprise, you held out your hand and stared expectantly — sweetly — at him until he took it. 

You didn’t have the key code to operate the elevator or any idea where you were headed, but you tugged Namjoon along after you as you crossed the parking garage. It was then that he noticed the sheer height of the shoes you were wearing and how carefully you moved in them. Not like heels were foreign to you, but with deliberate steps as if you expected one or both of them to make a break for it. He made a mental note of it.

After typing in his access code to summon the elevator, Namjoon gazed down at you. Trying to hide his smile again would’ve been an exercise in futility, so he didn’t bother. Without thinking first, he mused, “You know, you still haven’t asked where I’m taking you. That’s a lot of trust.”

“I mean, if my untimely end comes at the hands of Kim Namjoon of all people, my ghost will have a really interesting story to tell.” 

Your snicker made his knees wobble. You stepped into the elevator as it opened, leaving him to stand starstruck outside the doors. 

“Coming?”

When Namjoon finally regained use of his limbs and joined you in the elevator, he pressed the button for the top floor, overshooting his own by three. With every second that passed as the two of you ascended, the centimeters slipped away — overcome by what Namjoon could only assume was a gravitational pull. 

He’d orbit you if he could.

“This way,” Namjoon instructed. He gestured to the door at the end of the hall with a sign that promised roof access.

You stayed close, your hand so near to his that he could’ve grabbed it and held it a thousand times before you reached your objective. He held the door for you and watched you duck under his arm as you stepped through, damn near salivating at the way your perfume lingered in your wake.

The door in question opened to something halfway between an exposed patio and a fire escape. If Namjoon had to venture a guess, none of the other residents knew this place existed; it was exclusively for maintenance staff who needed to access the electrical meters contained in the locked room in front of you. Your eyebrows furrowed as you stared at it, understandably struggling to figure out why Namjoon had brought you to a place like this.

Sensing your confusion, he nodded his head towards a steep metal staircase which led up to the building’s roof. Staircase was a generous description, really. The only difference between those steps and a ladder was the presence of handrails and a slightly more forgiving angle.

When you caught sight of them, your confusion dissolved into surprise. You paused. Anxious eyes darted down to your heels as you shifted your weight from one to the other.

Weighing your options, Namjoon figured. Bare feet or twisted ankles. 

He offered a third and crouched down in front of you, glancing over his shoulder with a smirk. “Coming?” He quoted.

You looked at him in disbelief, like he couldn’t possibly be offering to take you up those steps on piggy-back — but he was, and he was dead serious. He said as much, and you had to bite down on your lips to keep your shy smile to yourself. As had been the case all night, your reciprocal offer was intrinsic trust.

Once you secured yourself on his back, you looped your arms gently around his neck. A quiet giggle immediately flooded his ears. Namjoon peeked at your face hovering over his shoulder and smiled when he saw that you were, too. Your laugh was music, more than anything else.

“This feels like that scene in Twilight.”

Because Namjoon has a sister, he automatically knew what you were referring to, as embarrassing as that was to admit. It was worth it, though, when he bought into your bit. You beamed like the fucking sun when he warned, “Hold on tight, spider monkey.”

He kept one hand on the railing and the other secured over your crossed forearms as he took the steps slowly. When none were left, it was just you, Namjoon, and an uninterrupted expanse of orange and pink. 

“Holy shit,” you gasped, squeezing his bicep.

He took your silent cue and ducked back down so you could return to your own two feet. 

“Beautiful, right?” Namjoon kept his voice low as if he were in a place of worship. 

In a way, he was.

You wobbled, not because of your shoes, but because you were staring straight up, spinning slowly in your spot while you drank in a fleeting, tangerine sky. As the sun continued to sink, bright white stars popped up to take its place. You seemed intent on counting them, but they couldn’t hold Namjoon’s attention — not with you fawning underneath them.

“Reminds me of home, kind of.” You matched his tone like this mattered as much to you as it did to him. “The buildings are always in the way here. After a while, I stopped bothering to look up.”

It felt natural, the way you reached out for his hand to keep you tethered. The same was true when he tugged gently and pulled you closer. You tucked yourself under his arm, nestled into his side. There was heat rising from his chest to his cheeks, but he still shivered.

Trying to keep his focus on the point of all this, Namjoon glanced down at his watch to confirm that the sun’s interference would be gone within minutes. Softly, he dropped his arm so he could place his hands on your waist. You let him turn you until you stood with your back to him; then, you followed his pointed finger with your eyes.

“Keep your eyes on the Northwest, alright?”

Playfully defiant, you turned your head to smirk up at him instead. “I’m admittedly shit at directions.”

Namjoon wouldn’t have noticed if the stars above him disappeared. For all he knew, they’d relocated to the dilated black of your pupils. There was a hint of a challenge twinkling there, too. He wasn’t known for backing down.

“This is the southeast.” Namjoon covered his fondness with a feigned frown and tapped your left hip bone with the pads of his middle and ring fingers. “The sun’s behind you.”

“I know it is,” you acknowledged. Despite that fact, you were still gazing over your shoulder at him. 

Oh. 

His eyes widened when he caught your meaning; yours crinkled at the corners. Namjoon didn’t have a single clue how you could smile that warmly without using your mouth at all.

It’s decided, he thought. Wherever this night takes us, I’m down for the ride. You lead, I’ll follow.

There was a distinct drop in his body temperature when you eventually — belatedly — followed his directions. Instinctively, Namjoon pulled you even closer so he could properly wrap his arms around your waist. Your shoulder blades pressed into his chest as he leaned down to your ear.

This time, you shivered.

“See that up ahead? Under the Big Dipper.”

You were quiet for a moment, likely searching for whatever secret he was pointing out to you. There was no room for doubt when you finally did see it because you gasped for the second time. 

Breathless, you asked, “What is that? A meteor?”

Now visible against inky black, Neowise burned on the horizon. 

“A comet,” he gently corrected you. “A new one — well, one we didn’t know about until March. It’s just now coming out of perihelion.”

At the forefront, its bright white mass led a slow charge down the sun’s gravity well. The tail was smeared behind it as if someone had dragged a paintbrush through the cosmos. Once-in-a-lifetime wasn’t scientifically accurate; and heavenly felt pretentious. Namjoon couldn’t think of a word in any language to describe the way he felt in that moment, but he prayed it would last.

You were equally awestruck. For a while, it was simple, silent wonderment as the two of you kept your eyes on the horizon. Peaceful, despite the faint blare of car horns wafting upwards from the streets below. Namjoon might venture far enough to call it perfect.

“What happens now?” You eventually asked. He glanced down at you when your voice cut through quiet, though your starry eyes didn’t register his movement. Thoroughly transfixed, you stayed still.

Namjoon felt himself frown. The answer was scientific fact, but it sounded like an unhappy ending. 

Like leaving. 

“Aphelion,” he sighed. “It’s headed for the point in its orbit that’s farthest from the sun. All that light you see right now comes from gas made by solar heat, so… it’ll grow colder the farther away it gets. Then, it’ll get so dark that it’ll be more or less invisible.”

You repeated that word quietly to yourself like you were testing the weight of it in your mouth. Aphelion. There was an undeniable heaviness to it. Namjoon wondered if you felt it, too.

He continued, “Not sure if or when it’ll ever be like this again.”

2020/7/18; 23:12

If you could have, you likely would’ve stayed on that rooftop until morning. 

The back of your dress would be even dirtier from sitting down on the concrete the way you had; and your elbows may ache a little more after additional time spent leaning back onto flattened palms, but it’d be a small price to pay. Calm like that was invaluable. Until you stared at that uninterrupted sky, talking through every thought you’d ever had with someone who understood them all, calm like that was foreign to you.

You never had the opportunity to sit still, much less settle. Never got to be quiet, never got to linger. On that rooftop, you received a necessary reminder that your universe was bigger than a schedule full of obligations. Bigger than hotel showers, each less user-friendly than the last. Bigger than drinking boba tea alone in an airport, letting life carry you like a dandelion seed all over the map. 

It was endless.

You wished that moment had been, but the news helicopter hovering nearby had said otherwise. As it turned out, television coverage of the comet was more important than your personal enjoyment of it. The loud chop of propellers against air had been bad enough; the gusts of wind those propellers kicked your way were even worse.

Even though he’d been sitting right next to you, Namjoon had to shout for you to hear him. You’d squinted as if that would make sense of the shapes his mouth had made — it didn’t. You’d heard his voice but not his words.

I need to learn to read lips, you’d thought. The problem with that realization was that the harder you’d focused on his, the more you wanted to nibble on them. And then the urgency you’d felt no longer had anything whatsoever to do with the aircraft. You hadn’t gotten the message until Namjoon stood up and offered his hands to help you stand, too.

Through the climb back down to the door, the walk up the hallway, and the elevator ride to his floor, Namjoon hadn’t dropped your hand. Now, it was taking longer than you imagined was usual for him to unlock his apartment door because the thumb of his dominant hand was still roaming over the back of yours.

“Finally!” 

His sigh was half-exasperated, half-relieved, all swoonworthy when the key — at long last — did what he’d been begging it to do. Namjoon pushed the door open. This time, neither of you had to urge the other to come along.

The second your shoes crossed the threshold into his apartment, you damn near crumpled on the ground they occupied.

Holy shit —?

Less of an apartment and more of an archive, Namjoon’s space was artfully curated. In the literal sense. Everywhere you looked, there was some painting, some exquisite sculpture. All of it was breathtaking — and shockingly breakable, which made you wonder how they’d survived ownership by someone so endearingly clumsy.

He chuckled sheepishly when he saw the way you gawked, open-mouthed, at his collection.

“You didn’t tell me you lived in a museum!” You were dizzy. “I swear, you’re going to have to get security to escort me out at closing time. I’ll stand, and ponder, and muse all day; and I’ll never leave.”

In hindsight, that sounded more like a threat than a warning.

Suddenly rushing so that you could explore more fully, you moved to bend down and undo the ankle straps of your heels. That was, coincidentally, the moment Namjoon attempted to address his own shoes. Your heads collided with a thud that made you both hiss and retract.

“You good?” Namjoon frowned apologetically. As he did, he lifted his hand to run his fingers gingerly over the bump likely forming on the crown of your head. You were too busy vibrating to do much more than nod.

Is one touch all it takes? This doesn’t bode well for you.

As if his goal was to kill you where you stood, he dropped his hand slowly, caressing the side of your jaw with his knuckle and a touch that was barely there. Deep brown eyes smoldered as they focused on you. Then, that husky voice completed the attack combination.

Knock out! Game over!

He tapped your chin with the pad of his thumb and said, “Stay here.”

As if you’d want to be anywhere else.

Before you could wrap your brain around the turn of events, Namjoon knelt in front of you. His right foot remained planted on the ground, leaving his thigh parallel overtop. Thank god for his black jeans. If you drooled at the sight of his quadricep straining against the denim, no trace would be left.

Knees wobbling, you followed his cue and shifted your weight to one foot. The other was guided up to rest against his thigh so he could address the ankle strap for you.

Is your mouth hanging open? Why is it so dry?

Your body shouldn’t have clenched the way it did at something so innocuous. Really, he was being polite. Self-preserving after your eagerness nearly left him concussed. But he must have heard your heart hammering against the wall of your chest because he looked up at you and — no, there was nothing polite about the way his eyes trailed over your body.

Nothing innocuous about his low voice wrapped in velvet saying, “You look like an angel when you look down at me like that.”

It was a miracle that you didn’t break skin with the way you pinched your bottom lip between your teeth.

You must have blacked out after the first shoe was discarded; you weren’t mentally present to notice the other one’s removal. When your soul re-entered your body, Namjoon was back to standing at full height — and he was significantly taller now that you stood barefoot on his doormat.

Incapable of eloquence, you simply peeped, “Hi.”

Either you were going insane, or there really was a faint buzz of electricity humming in the few centimeters between Namjoon’s body and yours. Something was conducting through every nerve of your body, tingling.

“Hi.”

His little half-smile made your stomach flip. You didn’t know what to say next because the only thought in your head was something between a prayer and a plea.

kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me

When the tip of his tongue broke through the seam of his lips to wet them, the only conclusion you could draw was that he’d read your mind. He didn’t listen, but the glint in his darkening eyes confirmed it: Namjoon knew exactly what you wanted and he was holding back. Instead of his mouth, he gave you his hand. 

Not bad for a consolation prize. 

His fingers slotted between yours like they were the reason those spaces existed in the first place. 

That’s the thing about magnets — they attract what they’re meant to. You didn’t need to look for him to find him. Unpaired electron that you were, you knew it intrinsically when someone was spinning in the same direction you were. Even though it’d been the furthest thing from your mind in every moment leading to the present, you couldn’t deny it now: 

You found someone that clicked.

There was static sparking in the air when Namjoon led you from the foyer into the living room. Every breath was charged, even the one that caught in your chest when you saw the full extent of his collection.

“I feel like I’m walking barefoot through the Met,” You hummed, eyes flitting from portrait to portrait. Traditional, contemporary, modern — all of it chosen thoughtfully and displayed the same way. “What’s it like to live in it?”

He paused and you paused with him. He looked shy for the first time all night. “Like I’m not alone with my thoughts, if that makes sense?”

Perfect sense.

“You’re not coming home to an empty apartment if you’ve got a piece of Yoo Youngkuk’s mind on the walls.” You gestured with your free hand  to a painting hanging to your right. It filled the otherwise neutral space with bright blues, greens, and yellows. “Gotta have some enrichment in the enclosure, or the fishbowl we live and work in will drive us crazy.”

When you glanced back at Namjoon — who was silent and completely still — he looked as if your words had punched him in the chest. Not like he was in pain, but as if the wind had been knocked right out of him. He was silent, though his mouth was slightly parted, and he blinked slowly back at you. You didn’t know what that look in his eyes meant, but it was a far cry from the lust in them before you started rambling.

Now, you had to worry about whether you’d offended him somehow. Fuck. You’d done it again, piggy-backed off someone’s statement to add the two cents no one asked for. Have you ever kept a single thought to yourself? 

You quickly pointed to a different painting.

This one, unlike the abstract pieces you’d examined so far, was earth tones in oil paints. Sitting in the center was a young woman in white, staring down at her bare feet as if one of them had stepped on something sharp.

“What’s her story?” You asked.

Namjoon cleared his throat to reactivate the vocal cords you’d seemingly paralyzed earlier. “That’s Eurydice on her wedding day. She married Orpheus, if his name rings any bells.”

It doesn’t.

“She got bit by a snake on her wedding night, which is — uhh, admittedly not ideal.” Namjoon visibly struggled to hide his smirk when you snorted in response. He continued, “She died, which is even worse, but Orpheus went to the underworld to save her.”

“Did he?”

Namjoon grimaced. “Orpheus was not great with rules.”

“Did Orpheus leave his own reception to chase a woman?” You teased with a raise of your eyebrow.

You watched his eyes darken in real time. Viper quick, he tugged at the hand he never let go of and led you right back to him. To keep yourself from colliding fully with his chest, your free palm flattened against it. His pulse raced at your touch, but you couldn’t pay attention to anything other than the searing warmth radiating off of him.

“I suppose he did.” He leaned down, nose tip nearly bumping yours. “There’s an important distinction here, though.”

Namjoon’s hand left yours, lifted up to rest with his fingers under your jaw and his thumb above it. You were sure that your shallow, useless breaths were fanning over his chin, given how close in proximity his mouth was to yours. His breath hit your lips and left them tingling.

The best you could do was whisper, “And what would that be, Namjoon?”

“Orpheus went home empty-handed.”

You didn’t mean to growl in response the way you did, but he’d awakened something feral in you, and there was no turning back. No caging it in. Just your hands gripping tight to his shirt, pulling him down to kiss you the way you wished he had hours ago. That was primal, too. All teeth and tongue with his fingers threading through your hair, and —

And he laughed. 

His shoulders shook just enough for you to notice. It was the quickened exhale of breath through his nose that gave him away, more than anything else.

“Is something funny?” You questioned him when you pulled back breathless. His eyes were crinkled, swimming with mirth. 

Tease. 

You and your now-unoccupied lips changed targets, dipping down to assault the exposed underside of his jaw. Mumbling against his skin, you urged, “Share with the class.”

He opened his mouth, and for a moment, he seemed to be on the brink of answering. Whatever words he might have found were lost again in an instant when your teeth nipped playfully where his neck met his shoulder.

“All those blackberries you ate — oh, fuck.” Namjoon groaned, even more so when your tongue flicked over the faint indents you’d left behind.

After leaving an opened-mouth kiss on his collarbone, you looked up at him from under a curtain of lashes. His head was thrown back, but he sensed your stare; half-lidded eyes fluttered down at you, transfixed. It was a look you felt everywhere, downright pulsing as it shot straight to your core.

You weren’t ready for the hands in your hair to migrate, and that fact was made abundantly clear by the tiny gasp he stole from you in the process. He reveled in it; the corner of his mouth twitched triumphantly upwards. His left hand resettled on your hip while the knuckles of his right hand brushed over the space just below your belly button.

Namjoon must’ve known he had you spellbound because his smirk was full-fledged when he pinched the fabric of your dress between his fingers. Gently, he tugged what he’d claimed, causing the hem to flutter against the tops of your thighs. You were left damn near liquified. More puddle than person, dripping dizzy under such a torturously soft touch.

He didn’t know you were kerosene until he struck the match.

“If your kiss tastes like blackberries...” He trailed off, head tilting to the side. His right hand dropped further. It hovered, red hot, just millimeters away from your core. “How sweet is the rest of you?”

You erupted in flames when his fingertips finally made contact with your clothed cunt. Clenching your desperate thighs together did nothing to extinguish the blaze, nor did the arousal that slicked the innermost parts of them. Swallowing down the whimper building in your chest, you did your best to keep cool. 

Eyebrow arched, you whispered, “Asking questions won’t get you answers, Namjoon. You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

The intention might’ve been to wind up in his bedroom at the opposite end of his apartment, but the execution was short-sighted. The farthest your lip-locked staggering got you was the adjoining, open kitchen — more specifically, the kitchen island. The chilled, marble countertop forced a hiss out through your teeth when the undersides of your legs settled on it. With Namjoon’s hands scorching the tops of your bare thighs, though, you were far from frozen.

Fingers raking through his hair, you let him kiss you stupid — until you couldn’t remember how it felt not to. Whiskey-laced and wanting, you licked into his mouth with a stifled whimper and came to two irrefutable conclusions. They spun pirouettes in your brain as his fingernails scratched up your thighs and under the hem of your dress.

Kim Namjoon was made to be kissed.

Up, up, up, his hands moved slowly until you felt his index fingers hook over the waistband of your underwear. He didn’t have to ask for your help; automatically and eagerly, you dropped your hands until your palms flattened against the countertop and lifted your hips. Down your thighs, off your ankles, tossed carelessly over his shoulder, gone — accomplished with his bottom lip kept as a souvenir between your teeth.

Kim Namjoon tastes like blackberries, too.

He was panting when he finally broke away. Large hands slid under your knees and pulled you forward. Now sitting at the very edge of the counter with Namjoon’s body between your thighs, you could feel him throbbing behind too-tight jeans. You were seconds away from reaching out to touch him, but he was the quicker draw.

The tip of his middle finger slid through your folds, wading through the slick that had pooled there. He moved slowly from the button of your clit to your entrance. That teasing filled your head with static and the silence with obscenity: you cursing under your breath as your forehead dropped to rest against his shoulder; you gushing, though he’d barely begun to touch you.

“All for me?” He hummed. Namjoon’s eyes were locked on your face, as if he was collecting mental snapshots of the fucked-out expression he’d put there. “Sweet thing.”

His lips connected with the underside of your jaw in the exact moment his digit finally slipped inside of you. You were sure he felt the way your mouth fell open, even if neither of you heard your breath catching in your throat. It didn’t take much effort on his part to coax it out of you, though; just a few slow pumps, and then you were whimpering near his ear.

You had to rely on your arm around his neck to keep you tethered. If you let go, you weren’t sure where you’d end up — floating off to join Neowise in its orbit, or crashing down into a heap at Namjoon’s feet. But then he added his ring finger, and you clung to him so tightly that you might’ve wound up in his rib cage instead.

“Oh, s-shit,” you keened as his fingers curled upwards. He’d found his target and attacked it slowly, forcing you to walk towards your orgasm rather than sprint — the way you needed to. The way you were willing to beg for. “Namjoon, please. I n—”

You felt the curve of his smirk against your skin. Before you could finish asking, he murmured low in your ear, “Say less, beautiful.”

The kiss he placed on your temple was the last thing you remember before his increased pace lit the fuse waiting deep in your abdomen. His thumb pressed against your clit, winding quick spirals, and he didn’t let up until he blew your mind sky-high.

When the smoke cleared and your pieces fell back into place, you had to blink to get the stars out of your eyes. “You should’ve warned me,” you panted. Namjoon was puzzled, which only made you beam. “You didn’t strike me as the dexterous type.”

The feigned shock on his face didn’t stick for long; it was quickly replaced by a shit-eating grin that made you tingle for an entirely different reason.

“These hands are good for two things, and two things only.”

You snorted, flexed an expectant eyebrow. “Breaking shot glasses, and…?”

Namjoon shook his head. His fingers were still shining with your orgasm when he brought them to his lips. It was ridiculous how he could still look pensive with you dripping down to his knuckles.

“Making you cum, first and foremost,” he corrected you matter-of-factly, like it was an undeniable truth dictated in one of the many books you’d seen littered around his apartment — and really, it should’ve been. 

He took those glistening fingers into his mouth to clean you off of him; you couldn’t look away from his tongue as it ran down their length. You swallowed hard when he did. Then, he released them with a lewd pop that made you clench around nothing. “And making you cum again.”

You rolled your eyes, as if you weren’t still irreparably charmed by him. Namjoon bit back a grin, like he didn’t already know.

“My hypothesis may be confirmed, by the way,” he mused.

The magnetism you’d felt earlier brought him back to you again. His arms snaked around your waist so easily that you had to remind yourself — over and over — that they were strangers to you, not a home. That this was adrenaline; this was infatuation; this was one night.

You hummed in response, “Is it?”

It felt like home when Namjoon kissed you, softness laced with eagerness. Or like wax pooling on an envelope, the deed now signed and sealed.

“I’ll have to re-run the experiment, of course. Scientific method and all that.” He waved his hand, as if this was obvious. Yours landed a playful swat on his bicep that only deepened the dimple at the corner of his smile. He kissed you again and you let him. Lips still flush to yours, he mumbled, “Your pussy may be even sweeter.”

2020/7/19; 01:04

You should’ve been exhausted. Your social battery — and your physical battery — should’ve been depleted. You, an introvert and a homebody, should’ve been halfway to sleep in your own bed by now, in your own clothes. 

When you left your apartment all those hours ago, you were already prepared to hibernate for twice as long as you’d spent on the outside. That was the way it always worked. A plan you never deviated from; one you never wanted to. But you’d been firmly rooted in the moment — every moment — since you arrived at that party, and you hadn’t spent a second since wishing you were elsewhere.

Your voice cut through the music flowing from the speakers built into his bedroom walls. “I’m not buying it, that’s all I’m saying.”

You twirled at the center of the rug and watched the fabric of Namjoon’s loaned t-shirt attempt to keep up with you. It hung over your frame like a potato sack, leaving a comforting weight as the excess material spilled over your shoulders and landed halfway down your thighs. 

Funnily enough, it fit like the dress it’d replaced.

Pausing to swallow down the last sip of the soju you’d been splitting, you gestured towards him with the empty bottle. From where he sat on his bed, Namjoon raised his hands defensively. That sheepish smile admitted that he knew your offense was justified.

“You’re a musician who is fluent in English. You’re also a human being living in a society,” you huffed. “There is simply no way that you don’t know the words to this song.”

He had to cover his face with his hands to muffle his laughter. Even before he hid behind his palms, you could see the way his mirth made his eyes swim. They sparkled even more in that moment than they had in the thousand other times he’d looked at you throughout the night. Once again, you tried to convince yourself that it was due to the rose-colored glasses you couldn’t seem to shake off. 

A trick of the light.

You were doing it again, and you knew it — conflating relief and hope; confusing the temporary sense of belonging somewhere with the ability to stay anywhere. You weren’t looking for this, weren’t looking for him, because you knew exactly what you couldn’t have. But you also knew that your heart was racing in your chest, and its rhythm was starting to sound more and more like, “maybe, maybe, maybe.”

Apparently, you’d been staring. Looking at Namjoon for too long made your knees wobble more than your sore muscles did, so you had to avert your eyes when you snapped back to reality. Brushing off that odd flutter in your chest, you brought the empty bottle back to your lips, tilted your head back, and belted out the lyrics you knew he knew.

“Oh, wake me! I'm shaking.” 

You took your clumsy choreography to the next level with an exaggerated shiver. Namjoon watched through the cracks between his fingers, unable to ignore the person coming unzipped mere meters away. Undeterred, you threw the back of your hand up to rest against your forehead.

 “Wish I had you near me now.” Then, you wiggled your hips in time with the ad-lib. It was barely audible underneath the chuckling from the audience. “Uh-huh.” 

His hands dropped to his lap as yours shot straight up into the air, where you held them. The expression on his face was indecipherable when he gazed back at you. Whatever it meant, it was quickly morphing maybe into something more hopeful and — terrifyingly — committal.

“Said there's no mistaking —”

Namjoon said it on an exhale, weightless and without any effort. It sounded natural tumbling out of his mouth and into the space between you. It sounded a lot like: 

“I think I love you.”

Without missing a beat, you reeled your arms back down and set the soju bottle onto a nearby dresser. Head tilted to the side, you crossed your arms and smirked. “How sure are you? Enough to wager on it?”

He didn’t seem at all surprised by the way you bought in immediately. You wondered if you truly expected him to be. After all, you weren’t, even if a reasonably well-adjusted person should have been. Perhaps, you thought, you weren’t one of those.

Namjoon’s response came just as easily as his first admission, a perfect volley. “At least seventy-nine percent sure.” You couldn’t see the way you lit up, but you’d have liked to imagine that it matched the way he did. Quicker still, he added, “And yes, I would. All in.”

There’s that magnetic pull again. 

You skipped back to where he was waiting on the bed and crawled over the mattress to settle in front of him. Up close, you could see the sakura tint to his cheeks; it blended perfectly with the faint freckles dusting over the heights of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. You’re beautiful, you thought, and it’s no wonder that the sun found you worth kissing.

Something about his proximity to you made you bold; you didn’t fight it. You simply smirked, “Then let’s make a deal, Joonie.”

Intrigued, he raised his eyebrows but didn’t interrupt. 

“Two years,” you hummed as you tilted your head to the side. Then, with a thoughtful finger tapping at your chin, you elaborated, “If in two years’ time you realize that you were right — and you’re one-hundred percent sure — you’ll win a prize.”

Namjoon nodded firmly. He put his hand out to shake on it, but you sat up on your knees. His gaze followed, leaving him to stare up at you as your fingers slid through his hair. You kissed him to finalize the contract, like all true devils do. 

“Deal,” he murmured against your lips.

It scared you, just a little, how melting into him already felt like a routine. Like you’d done several times already that night, you spilled into his lap with your knees on either side of his thighs. Namjoon’s arms accepted you immediately; they enveloped you, kept you anchored against his chest.

This time, it was you who laughed. 

Namjoon nudged your cheek with the tip of his nose. “What was that about sharing with the class?”

“I just — I’m not normally like this, you know? Completely unable to keep my hands to myself,” you snickered. “Can’t stop touching you.”

To emphasize your point, you removed your right hand from its place at the nape of his neck. Once your fingers were no longer woven through his hair, your fingertips traced light, languid lines, starting at his collarbone. Your eyes followed as your ministrations led you over the slope of his left pectoral muscle, down the bare warmth of his chest. 

“So, don’t.”

When your eyes flicked back up to Namjoon’s face, you got the impression that he hadn’t stopped staring at yours. Right hand trailing further down, you maintained that eye contact and watched his pupils blow when you reached the bulge in his boxer briefs. Experimentally, the pad of your index finger whispered along the length of his cock; you relished the subtle twitch you received in response.

“Is this where you want me to touch you?” You asked.

He was throbbing under your touch, growing hard once again, as if you hadn’t been at this for hours already. That didn’t stop you from driving him further wild. More breath than words, you teased, “Or here?”

With a light hand, you flattened your palm to encompass him more fully and squeezed, prompting him to curse.

“Fuck.” 

Namjoon’s eyelashes fluttered, but he seemed entirely unwilling to let them close. Desperate brown eyes pleaded with you, sending heat straight to your core. 

“Need you, pretty thing. Hand, mouth — doesn’t matter, just fuck me.”

Your fingers slipped away from the base until they resettled at the crown. Even without looking, you could feel the spot where his leaking tip had soaked through the fabric. He groaned when your fingers pulled away, though he stopped in his tracks when he realized where they were headed. 

Namjoon shuddered when your hand dipped under the waistband of his briefs and picked up exactly where you’d left off.

“How do you want it, Namjoon?”

As you stroked him, you pressed your lips to his. Slow, hungry, like you’d die before you’d get the opportunity again. 

To the best of his ability, Namjoon rolled his hips forward with each pass of your fist. And when you redirected that teasing pressure to his balls, he downright jolted, let loose some deep sound from the bottom of his chest. The sound hardly had time to dissipate before you felt the hem of your shirt lifting above your hips. 

Breaking the kiss just long enough to pull it over your head, it was gone in an instant, landing somewhere unseen off the edge of the bed. Ridding him of his briefs was a more concentrated effort. You pushed up on your knees so he could shimmy them down far enough for you to discard them entirely.

“How are your legs, pretty girl?” His palms warmed the tops of your thighs as he massaged his way from your kneecaps towards your hips. 

Dipping his head down, Namjoon nipped affectionately at your earlobe and earned a squeak from you. His low chuckle vibrated through you. He was quick to redirect himself, though the teasing didn’t end at his teeth. 

“You seem to like being bossy, but I can take over if you’re tired.”

You feigned a scowl. “Are you baiting me?” 

The wicked grin on his face answered for him, but it was quickly replaced with wide-eyed surprise when you pressed your hands against his chest and pinned him back against the pillows.

He shrugged, eyes still sparkling with mischief. “Not my fault if you take it, sweets.”

“Never would I ever have assumed that Kim Namjoon is a pillow princess.” 

You pointed accusingly at him with one hand while the other slid into the space between you to line yourself up with his cock. 

Impish grin still locked and loaded, he leaned up on his elbows until your extended finger was centimeters from his face. He kissed the tip of it chastely between his words, like his own tip wasn’t dripping with you, seconds away from obscenity.

“Hook — line —”

You dropped down on his length, and it shut him up immediately. 

Though Namjoon was certifiably, world-endingly thick, you’d acclimated well enough to the stretch of him in your time together so far. He didn’t seem prepared for you to take him to the hilt in one fell swoop, if the way his head crashed back against the pillows could be taken as a hint.

With a swirl of your hips, you grinded down into his lap. Coquettishly, you finished where he left off. “Sinker?”

“Christ,” Namjoon groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut, then followed up immediately with a sheepish laugh. “Feel like I can’t even watch you do this. You’re too fucking good — never gonna make it out of here alive.”

Pride bloomed in your chest at the compliment, even though he was prophesying his own downfall between your spread legs. 

You imagined he could feel it for himself: you weren’t any more likely to survive. Not full of him, with your slick spilling down his cock as you bounced. Definitely not with the sick sounds of your ass colliding with his pelvis, squelching with every thrust. 

There was something blooming below your navel, but this time, it wasn’t pride. A tingling heat coiled tight, desperate to snap again. You needed it, but the burn in your thighs was stronger by far.

“Joonie,” you whimpered, incapable of caring about how pathetic you knew you sounded. Your head, previously thrown back, drooped forward to find him and his flushed cheeks fighting to maintain composure.

God, he looked as fucked out as you felt. 

Namjoon focused on you immediately, attentively, and your heart leapt of its own accord. He curled his finger and beckoned you to lean forward. 

“Come here, pretty girl,” he sighed.

Less gracefully than you would’ve liked, you all but crashed into him, sweat-slicked chest to chest. Arms wrapped around you like they were made for that very purpose.

Anchored.

Dangling from the last, frayed thread of your resolve, you were damn near speaking in tongues. Namjoon pushed up onto his heels and buried himself in you — over and over and over — at a punishing pace, hellbent on unraveling both of you at once.  

Your moan was halfway to a sob. All the words you knew had been knocked loose some time ago, leaving only his name and please. They rattled around your skull, alternating as they spilled out of your mouth.

“Say less, baby,” he panted.

There was a kiss pressed to your forehead, and then there were stars bursting behind your screwed-shut lids.

2020/11/2; 07:22

Namjoon sat across from you at his kitchen island with a mug of coffee in one hand and a book he’d forgotten the name of in the other. He’d started it over an hour ago, though the two turned pages might indicate otherwise. Instead, he’d spent his time attempting to read whatever scrunched-up, pensive expression you had written all over your face.

You hadn’t said much since the two of you sat down, just pushed your sliced fruit around your plate with chopsticks that had yet to pass your lips. Every now and then, you’d hummed in response to the random thoughts Namjoon relayed out loud. Ultimately, whenever you’d realized he said something at all, your eyes widened; and you’d blinked your way out of whatever daydream you’d gotten lost in.

He loved that about you, your internal wanderlust. Even if he didn’t always know where your train of thought was headed initially, he’d board it with you regardless, find out on the way.

Eventually, you plucked a blackberry off your plate and popped it into your mouth. Your eyes were still glued to your laptop when you started to chew. Then, he suspected that the tartness of it truly hit your tastebuds. The lightbulb switched on and you were back, beaming across the countertop, warming him like a UV lamp.

“Hi,” you peeped.

Namjoon loved that about you, too. Infinite hellos sprinkled throughout his day at random; feeling like you missed him whenever you looked away, and that you found it necessary to greet him when he finally stepped back into frame. 

He lit up, too. “Hi. Where’d you go just now?”

You swallowed. Whether it was exclusively the fruit or anxiety, too, he didn’t know. That is, until you claimed your bottom lip between your teeth and mumbled, “Got a weird email from the Overlord.”

The sip of coffee Namjoon had taken while he waited for your answer was a bad idea. He sputtered, nearly spitting it out onto that book he couldn’t care about. The would-be spit-take made your brows raise on your once-crinkled forehead; your amusement was palpable, even if you did him the courtesy of not laughing in his reddening face.

“If Bang finds out you call him that, he’s gonna want it on the nameplate outside his office,” Namjoon coughed. Clearing his throat, he bumped his fist against his chest to shake loose any coffee that might be lingering near his airway. “Weirder email than usual?”

You nodded, then you waved him over to you. It was an odd thing to be grateful for, but he was glad you didn’t just turn your laptop around and scoot it towards him to read. You always took any opportunity for closeness.

When he crossed around the island to you, Namjoon threaded his arms around your waist and ducked down to rest his head on your shoulder. The second he laid eyes on your screen, he was paralyzed. You had so many browser tabs open that none had enough space to display what they contained.

Is this what the inside of your brain looks like?

“Jagi,” he started, breathing in deep to keep from laughing with his entire chest. 

It was bubbling there beneath the surface, he could feel it. Begging for composure, Namjoon buried his face in your hair. Vanilla and honey. Instantly calm, perfectly prepared to nudge you further. “How — how did you even find your inbox?” 

Just to fuck with you, he pressed his fingertips against that secret spot on the right side of your rib cage. It was the one place on your body he’d been able to confirm was ticklish.

Eventually, maybe, he’d learn his lesson. Today was not that day.

You squealed, thrashed wildly in his hold until your elbow wound up on the right side of his rib cage. It was hard enough to make your point, but way too gentle to hurt. Still, Namjoon had to capitalize on it. He sucked in a gasping breath and stood bolt upright to clutch his chest like he’d been shot.

With you watching wide-eyed, he staggered backwards — away from you, away from the kitchen — until the back of his knees hit the sofa in the adjoining living room.

At some point, Namjoon would have to shoot up a thank you to the God of Entertainment. Somebody had clearly been looking out for him when open-concept apartments came into existence. His slapstick would’ve been so underwhelming if there were doorways involved.

Flopping backwards, his limbs splayed out across the backrest and cushions. Whatever parts of him didn’t fit spilled over the edge and dangled above the floor. He froze that way, playing dead with his tongue jutting out of the side of his mouth.

Waiting, waiting, waiting…

“Hope you watered the plants before you died, Joonie,” you called out. You sounded distant, like you hadn’t gotten up from your stool. “If you left it up to me, they’ll be dead soon, too.”

Joonie.

God, the way his heart still fluttered at that. Coming from you, that nickname didn’t sound stupid, or inspire him to choose violence. It wasn’t patronizing, wasn’t followed by some shit-eating grin. It was soft. Made him soft.

Jooniejooniejoonie.

“Actually, for all you know, I’ve got a tab open somewhere with an article on how to keep plants alive.”

Namjoon heard the faint scrape of the stool as you pushed it away from the counter. Then, the soft pad of your slippers coming his way. The hints were lost once you hit the plush living room rug, and so were you — until he felt your knees slotting on either side of his legs.

You settled down on top of him with your cheek pressed to his chest and your hair tickling his nose. Bravely, he didn’t sneeze.

Hand slipping down to the small of your back, he rubbed spirals into the space between the hem of your sweatshirt and the waistband of your sleep shorts. He hummed, “What’s on your mind?”

For more than a few moments, you were so quiet — so still — that Namjoon had to wonder whether his ministrations had put you straight to sleep. If that was the case, he’d keep going, blow off his to-do list for as long as he could just to keep you like this.

This. 

Neither of you had settled on precisely what this was. 

For nearly four months, this something was one of few constants in his life. Yours, too. It wasn’t a secret that needed keeping, but whatever this was felt too important to share. It belonged to the two of you, not anyone else — with the sole exception being Yoongi, who would’ve noticed the massive, tectonic shift whether or not he’d been the one to kick it off. Everyone else, though? Non-factors, as far as Namjoon could tell.

Until —

“Label’s expanding overseas.” It came out muffled, either because your cheek was smushed against his sternum, or because you really had fallen asleep in the pause. You continued, slightly clearer, “Putting a flagship sub-label in Los Angeles to crowbar their way into the American market.”

Namjoon wasn’t surprised, not really. Si-Hyuk had been daydreaming about this leap for as long as Namjoon knew him. It was only a matter of time before he got his little contractual ducks in a row. If anything, Namjoon was surprised that it took him this long to do it — what, with American money and American awards on the table.

But he knew you, knew that you didn’t give much of a shit about executive decisions, so long as they didn’t get in the way of your decisions.

That was precisely why he knew you were bringing this up for a reason.

“The hard launch is at the end of the month, so Bang is hoping to sign some of us over in the meantime. He’s trying to boost the curb appeal, I guess.”

You sighed and Namjoon felt the rush of air leave your lungs.

Namjoon nodded carefully to avoid knocking the top of your head with his chin. He sighed, too. “To water the plants.”

You didn’t say the quiet part out loud, but he could sense your brain working overtime; damn near hear your train of thought as it picked up speed. He half-expected to feel heat seep from your head to his chest while all your synapses fired off at once. 

The warmth came from your eyes instead. You shifted so that your chin rested in the space between his pectoral muscles; and as soon as your gaze settled on his face, the crease between your eyebrows relaxed. Your pupils dilated, too, blown wide enough for him to notice the shift.

So, that’s what love looks like. 

Not merely a neurochemical reaction or some grand, Hallmark-style gesture. Love looked like you, looking at him, while a wave of patent relief smoothed out the worry digging trenches in your features. And if he had to describe how it felt, well… The only word that came to mind was home.

“Is he asking or telling?” 

Part of him wondered; the other part knew there usually wasn’t much of a difference between the two. 

Even more quietly than before, you responded, “Asking — like, actually asking.” 

The wrinkle in the center of your eyebrows reappeared, informing him immediately that you were split between the answer you wanted to give and the one you felt you should. Namjoon wouldn’t dare to make that call for you — to press down on either side of the scale — so he leaned forward and kissed you in the middle, right on top of that conflicted little crease.

“Joonie,” you started in a tone split three ways. Shy, sad, and sparked with a sense of hope that made you wary.

Bang Si-Hyuk wasn’t alone in his daydream. You brought it up considerably less than he did, but Namjoon sensed that this was because you didn’t want your motives to be speculatively linked with the prospect of profit. That would be the furthest thing from the truth. 

For you, it was about your craft — Namjoon felt comfortable calling it that —  and the million ways you could improve it with new collaborators, new ideas, new experiences.

For Namjoon, it was about you; and hoping that when you dove into life head-first, you never touched the bottom. Wanting everything you wanted to fall straight into your hands like confetti. And, if he could remain just a little bit selfish, he wanted to stick around and watch you catch them all. 

If you wanted him, too, the rest of it would fall into place, one way or another. It’d have to, because Namjoon was struggling to remember how his days passed at all without you laughing through them. Maybe he’d have to reacclimate to sleeping without your knee pressed into his back, but he was confident that he could. 

He could wait for you until this detour was over. 

He would wait for you.

Without needing to think twice about it, Namjoon kissed your forehead and smiled with his lips still pressed to your skin. It was routine, as easy as breathing when he said, “Say less.”

You both stayed there on that couch for a while, though he couldn’t guess how long. Simultaneously minutes and months, but somehow — confusingly — it didn’t feel like the clock was moving at all. He could’ve easily believed that the universe has pressed pause on the moment, but you peeped and he had proof to the contrary:

“I’d be there by Thanksgiving.” 

The realization clearly made you a little bit giddy. If your tiny gasp hadn’t given you away, your pulse would have. Namjoon could feel that hummingbird heartbeat against his own rib cage, and — shit, did that fondness squeeze his heart with a vice grip

You sat up, wild-eyed and urgent. “Is pumpkin pie just for colonizers, or are they obligated to share it?”

Fuck, he loved you.

“Joonie, this is serious.” You pouted and it was all he could do to bite back a grin. “I’ve always wanted to try it.”

He nudged your cheek with the tip of his nose and smirked, “Just do what they do.”

“Steal it?” You snorted, devolving into a fit of giggles when he began to pepper kisses down your cheek, then along your jawline.

Eighteen in total, one for every stroke.

Saranghae.

Namjoon hummed in agreement, “Steal it.”

2021/6/19; 04:11

Most people — normal people — were in bed at four o’clock in the morning. You were not most people, though situations like this were becoming more and more normal to you. Unfortunately, you’d been forced to learn that normal and easy weren’t interchangeable. If they were, you’d have gotten used to taking the red-eye by now. 

This was your third late-night flight. Not at all coincidentally, this was your third trip home since you left it for Los Angeles. You’d spent seventy-eight hours in the air, making this trip; flown more than 57,480 kilometers in less than a year.

Seven months, technically, but who’s counting?

The elapsed time seemed to run in dog years, though the calendar maintained that only seven months had passed. At the rate they slipped through your fingers, it felt like seven years of trying your best to take advantage of every break in your schedule. Flinging yourself across a black sky on a semi-regular basis, even if you’d just gotten off a tour of your own. Praying that the odd hours and lack of layovers meant your thirteen-hour trip didn’t steal a second more than was absolutely necessary.

Time, you’d learned, was a luxury you failed to properly budget for. Unable to do much else, you accepted whatever scraps you could afford. Make them worth it, you’d demand of yourself each time you landed at Incheon. Every time, your excuse would follow: I’m trying, I swear, but I’m so tired.

Instead of a bed, you were slumped in Namjoon’s passenger seat, clutching the small bouquet he’d brought you in a hand too exhausted to register the brush of soft, white petals. You’d never lose track of his fingers interlocked with yours, though. His touch was inimitable, and the warmth of it stuck with you long after it was gone.

“Pretty,” you mumbled, gaze zeroed in on the flowers. You lifted your right arm to bring them in for closer inspection. It was futile, mostly, given how bleary your eyes were. You guessed, “Baby’s breath?”

This airport ritual of his combined two of your favorite things: the careful consideration he made in choosing flowers that conveyed messages, and the dimple that appeared on his cheek when you guessed correctly. Gifting you an additional prize, Namjoon raised your clasped hands off the center console. Without taking his eyes off the road for too long, he flashed a sleepy grin at you and kissed your knuckles.

Fuck, you loved him.

He turned onto the expressway, let your hands drift back down between you, and yawned. Automatically, you yawned, too. 

As he drove, Namjoon’s sleep-drenched brain did its best to ask about all the updates you might’ve acquired since your last phone conversation. He asked about the extended play you were writing, the weird leak in your apartment, and the only friend you’d truly made in the time you’d lived there.

“What’s their name again?” He asked, visibly embarrassed that he’d forgotten. “Jisoo?”

With a chuckle, you corrected him, “Jinseo.”

He echoed you firmly under his breath, clearly determined to commit it to memory this time. Word association was apparently part of that process, you realized. Your heart fluttered wildly when Namjoon proceeded to state the first thing that came to mind about her, proving that he did listen when you talked.

“Jinseo’s the attorney who tried to slide into Yoongi’s Instagram DMs,” Namjoon stated, as if he were being quizzed. “He never looks at them. She’s been checking for three weeks to see if he’s even opened it.”

The way he recited this fact made it sound like he’d learned it from a book, rather than overhearing your friend’s complaints directly while he spoke to you on the phone. Still, he glanced at you for confirmation that he was correct. You nodded, proud.

Then, you provided the update he’d been seeking: “For the record, he still hasn’t.” 

You mustered enough energy to laugh along with him, but neither of you was awake enough to keep the conversation going. At least, you hoped that was the case. The alternative — that you’d run out of things to talk about — was worse. It was all you could think about, and now silence crept into the lulls, sitting heavy.

Namjoon was the first to speak again, after a long pause: “It’s lunchtime back home, isn’t it?”

It was an innocent question — a caring one, checking in on you — but it struck like a sucker punch, nonetheless. There might come a day that association didn’t sting, but you knew intrinsically that this wasn’t it.

Los Angeles wasn’t home, even though you’d lived there for the better part of a year. Seoul wasn’t home, either. You had no real roots in either location, continuously jumping back and forth between the two. Namjoon was home, though he was beginning to feel temporary, too.

“It’s so early for you, Joon.” You squeezed his hand. “We can go back to bed, and grab food later. I’m not hungry yet, anyway.”

A lie, but a well-intentioned one. You hoped your stomach kept quiet, kept your secret.

Though he wasn’t looking in your direction, there was a flicker of sadness in his eyes that you couldn’t have missed if you tried. You were sure it matched yours whenever the sixteen-hour time difference made you miss his calls. His schedule lately had made them fewer and farther between.

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon sighed. 

He meant it, and he emphasized as much with a reciprocal squeeze of your hand. It stung, knowing that he was apologizing for all of it, up to and including this moment; and that neither of you was at fault for any of it.

“We’ll be back in sync in no time. I’ll —”

You cut him off with a whisper and your best attempt at a smile, “Pssssst.”

Thankfully, Namjoon was stopped at the only red light that still separated the two of you from his parking garage. Otherwise, the way his alarmed eyes flitted in your direction may have had consequences.

“Say less,” you mimicked, like any of this felt the way it did before. He beamed, but his grin left just as quickly as it appeared. 

Namjoon looked away when the light changed, unaware that your face fell before you could catch it. Something that insignificant shouldn’t have had the power to make you that sad; but it did, and you didn’t know what to do with that fact.

The rest of the ride continued in silence. If Namjoon also felt like that silence was suffocating, there were no hints about it in his expression or his posture.

Does this feel easy to you? Am I the one making it hard?

He had to let go of your hand to park in his assigned space, and he forgot to reach for it again when he finished. You knew it wasn’t intentional, but that didn’t make it hurt less. Didn’t make the tears biting at the corners of your eyes any less embarrassing.

For two people as jet-lagged and otherwise exhausted as you were, it didn’t take long to drag yourselves from his car to his apartment. It took even less time for Namjoon to begin shuffling off towards the bedroom. Halfway there, he realized you weren’t still close behind. 

“Where —?” He turned his head to search for you before he turned his body fully. Ultimately, he found you hovering near the kitchen island. The relief in locating you was quickly diluted with concern. “You okay?”

Are we? Is this?

“I think I left my phone in the car.” You patted down the pockets of both your joggers and your jacket, brows furrowed. Then, you picked up the keys he’d just set down on the counter top. “Gonna run down and look for it.”

Too tired to be steady, Namjoon swayed slightly where he stood. You couldn’t help yourself. That magnetic pull tugged you over to him, pushed you up onto your toes, and demanded that you kiss him until that confused frown curved upwards. 

For a moment, you smiled, too.

“Go back to bed,” you whispered, leaving a kiss at his temple. You hadn’t meant to speak so softly. Your voice was caught wherever your breath was, and they refused to cooperate. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

He nodded, accepting a proper kiss before his bedroom-bound shuffling continued. Out of sight, you heard the thump of his lead limbs collapse back into his mattress. You felt it in your chest, which was tightening by the second.

You turned for the door, ready to run, only to stop dead in your tracks. Just ahead of you, tending to a snake bite, was Eurydice. The sight of her portrait hanging on the wall threatened to rip out the sob you’d worked to keep buried. She was all you could think about when you slipped out the door, and stumbled down the hall.

Maybe Eurydice would’ve lived if she’d never met Orpheus.

Shoulders shaking by the time you reached the stairwell, you shoved your hand into your pocket as you crumpled downward onto the concrete steps. You pulled out your phone and gripped it tight, like closing your fists around it could keep you together, too.

With the extent of your tears, you couldn’t make heads or tails of that bright, white screen. You did what you could, though, like you always did. Warbled voice bouncing off the walls around you, you found a loophole and slipped through it. 

“Hey, Siri —” 

The swirling grey, red, blue, and green at the bottom of your screen looked more like a life-preserver than anything else. Automatically, you pleaded, “Call Yoongi.”

It was a fifty-fifty chance, calling him at this hour.

He’d either be awake because he never went to sleep in the first place, or he’d have just drifted off. Either way, you were already sorry for bothering him. When he picked up on the first ring, that was the very first thing you said to him. 

Immediately, his tone shifted from the grogginess of his initial greeting. Now, he sounded worried. You wondered if you’d woken him up, but you didn’t ask.

“Hey — whoa, whoa, whoa — what’s wrong? Your plane didn’t crash, did it?”

He wasn’t trying to be funny and you didn’t mean to laugh, but you did. Sort of. It was some odd, gasping sound that felt wrong as it came out of your mouth.

“I’m fine,” you kept repeating, as if you could manifest the outcome. “I’m fine. I just — I need someone to tell me if I’m crazy, or just doing this whole thing wrong —”

“Doing what wrong?” Yoongi cut you off. “It doesn’t sound like you’re breathing properly, if that’s what you mean. Can you take a deep breath? Count to five on the inhale and on the exhale.”

You did what he said. It helped with what it was meant to, but hyperventilation had been the least of your concerns.

“Sit on the floor if you aren’t already. If you can, lean your back against a wall and flatten your palms on the ground, okay? That’ll help you feel anchored.”

Halfway compliant, you slumped against the metal railing next to you. You threaded your left arm over the lower of the two rungs and held on tight. Part of you wanted to laugh at this, too. It wasn’t much different than the safety bar on a rollercoaster; the way your stomach dropped was identical.

“I can come get you if you tell me where you are,” Yoongi continued. “That twenty-four-hour place has lamb skewers now. We can eat, and you can tell me what’s wrong.”

You didn’t know where to start. All of it, you thought, it’s all wrong.

The answer you blurted out was, “I love him.”

“I know, kid,” Yoongi sighed, and it sounded like an apology. He didn’t need any further explanation. “I know you do.”

Your voice broke when you continued, splintering painfully in your throat. It wasn’t a question you had any conscious intention to ask. It was simply shrapnel flying out of your mouth: 

“Is loving someone supposed to hurt this much?”

2021/11/13; 14:36

Your fourth trip home felt different than the rest. There was something in the air that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. Whatever it was, it’d kept your stomach in knots from the time you left your apartment until you wandered through customs in Incheon. 

It’d only gotten worse when you finally reached the sidewalk outside the airport. Your first instinct had been to cry, though not for the reason you usually did; you’d swallowed that urge with a hastily taken sip of boba. Just like he had for your three previous homecomings, Namjoon was waiting for you, flowers in hand. 

Flower, singular.

Of the two of you, he was the one with encyclopedic knowledge of floriography. Regardless, you knew enough to understand what that lone, white tulip said. It was an apology; and by now, you were well acquainted with those. Even still, you hadn’t gotten any better about accepting them because he still hadn’t done a single thing to be sorry for.

Sorry.

That word had slowly mutated into a punctuation mark over the last year. It’d wormed its way into every sentence, whether or not it had any business being there.

Hi, sorry, I was in the studio when you called. I love you, sorry. I miss you, sorry. I’m so proud of you, sorry, I wish I could have been there.

You heard it even when neither of you spoke, felt it in every bit of quiet. It sat between you on the drive from the airport to that restaurant you used to like — the one by the lake. It filled your unoccupied hands on the walk in from the parking lot, rested like a centerpiece in the middle of your table.

Neither of you ate much. You wished you’d had some semblance of an appetite, if only to fill the pit growing in your stomach. To distract from the way Namjoon’s eyes went glassy whenever he looked at you, or to keep your bottom lip from trembling.

Silent and sorry, the two of you watched the wind force waves; which, in turn, forced anchored row boats to collide with the dock.

Anchored.

There was that word again.

It’d been sitting untouched in the backlog of your vocabulary for longer than you’d care to admit. You knew its dictionary definition, of course, but it’d never been a word you’d ascribe to yourself. Leading up to last November, it wasn’t a feeling you’d knowingly craved, either. If you were honest, you might have hated it and its synonyms, too. 

Rooted. Tethered. 

They were on the tip of your tongue now, finally yours to taste. It was a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that your resistance to them had always been a coping mechanism. Your amygdala trying to intervene.

Until you met Namjoon, stability had been unfamiliar and elusive. It’d outrun you for so long, there’d only been one conclusion left for you to leap to: You didn’t deserve to catch it.

But you did catch it. You found him, opened yourself up to believing that you were the kind of person who got to have roots. For a year, you tried so hard to nurture them, loved the beautiful thing you’d grown in spite of yourself. 

You earned them, so why couldn't you keep them?

Namjoon noticed your breathing pick up. He knew you well enough to see precisely what direction your brain was spiraling in; and that you needed a gear shift. So, he hummed, “Been thinking about changing up my hair.”

“Oh?”

It certainly caught you off-guard, but you figured that was the point. You weren’t sure if you should have — or why you felt you couldn’t — but you reached up to run your fingers through it. Longer than last time, lighter.

“I’m not sure if the blonde has ever actually suited me,” he laughed. “What do you think? And, seriously, give it to me straight.”

You nibbled on your lower lip as you studied him. No matter how many times you stared at his face, you uncovered some new, favorite feature. Today, it was his irises, warmer than you remembered them being. Namjoon became more beautiful the less you saw him, as awful as that thought felt.

“I do like the blonde,” you mused. His cheeks blushed, just barely, but it squeezed your heart to know that was still a reaction you could pull from him. “But I think it would be nice to see Kim Namjoon as he exists naturally, you know? I haven’t met him yet.”

He smiled — genuinely, with his eyes and all his teeth — and it ached. 

“I’ll make a note of that,” he promised with a laugh. Then, he gestured to your largely untouched plate “D’you want a box for that before we go?”

“No, thank you.” You shook your head. It slipped out before you could stop it. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

The corner of his mouth lifted again, less happily than the last time. You knew as soon as you saw it that his half-smile was an apology, too.

2021/11/25; 19:59

Over the last week, Jinseo Kang had spent more time in your apartment than in her own. The spare key you’d given her at the start of your friendship was intended for emergencies, and while this wasn’t what either of you had in mind back then, that was the only word she could use to describe the state of you now.

In twelve months of knowing you, she’d gathered enough trivia about you to fill a memoir. Of the facts she’d collected, two came to mind immediately whenever Jinseo thought of you. The first was that you were a workaholic to a borderline clinical degree; so resistant to rest that the mere thought of being unproductive gave you hives. The second was that, despite the cursed hours you kept, you were never not in contact with Min Yoongi.

Since you’d flown back from Seoul, you’d done neither. 

Jinseo didn’t have to ask to know what happened; you didn’t need to say a word. In fact, you hadn’t — not that she’d heard — since you touched down at LAX, two days ahead of schedule. The only reason Jinseo even knew to pick you up was a direct reply on Instagram that didn’t look a thing like she’d hoped. Worse, the only way she’d been able to recognize you in her passenger seat was by the signature, mint green headphones clenched tightly in your hands.

Immediately, she’d noted the absence of your smile. That was a seismic shift, in and of itself. As was the case with those pastel headphones, that smile of yours wasn’t something you’d ever be caught dead without. Part of you never got off that plane, she’d thought then. Looking at you now, crumpled on your couch, Jinseo knew better. A piece of you was missing long before you boarded that return flight in the first place.

From your kitchen, she glanced over at the heap of blankets, though she didn’t know why she bothered. You hadn’t moved, hadn’t done much of anything since you shuffled out of bed at two o’clock in the afternoon. Still, she had to check for proof of life. Proof that you were still there, somewhere, even buried.

Illuminated by the television screen and underscored by A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, there was movement. Half-hidden by a pile of knitted throws, she spotted the top of your head. Like it did every other time she saw the tangled bun sitting crooked there, her heart sank. I know you’re in there. I’ll find you, I promise.

In the absence of an instruction manual, she’d have to make one. This was a crash course — what to do when love dies in slow motion — and Jinseo was flying by the seat of her fucking pants. Maybe she didn’t know how to pull you out of this pitfall you were trapped in, but she could hold your hand and refuse to let it go.

So, that’s precisely what she did.

Before making her way to you, Jinseo grabbed the dish she’d been preparing off the counter. Spare fork in hand, she rounded the kitchen island and made a beeline for you. You didn’t react when she reached you, unless you counted the way you hugged your knees a little tighter to your chest. Jinseo certainly didn’t; she would’ve sat directly on your feet if you hadn’t cleared the space.

This close to you, she could see the way your jaw was still clenched. Going on eight days now, it was impressive, in some sick way, that the unrelenting pressure hadn’t left you with a mouth full of dust. See? She wanted to grab your knee and shake it, make sure you heard it loud and clear: Look what you can survive!

She didn’t, though. Jinseo simply held out the plate in her hands and stared at you expectantly until you sensed her gaze on you. Red-rimmed and glassy, your eyes lifted to meet her face and she was not going to cry at the sight of you. Nope. Swallowing thickly, she glanced pointedly at the plate, then back up to you. 

You were unfazed, barely conceding a blink. You didn’t even look down.

Please, sweet bean. Please eat something.

She tried again, nudging your knee with hers. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

For whatever reason, that holiday greeting was the only thing to reach you in a week. Finally, you looked down.

Jinseo hadn’t finalized her expectations prior to this moment, but the short list had included an eye roll, a groan, something. Even if you didn’t reciprocate, she would’ve been grateful for a response of any kind. Her list hadn’t included you bursting into tears over a piece of pumpkin pie, but that’s exactly what she got.

Charlie Brown can go fuck himself. There’s no such thing as good grief.

It was a reflex, dropping that plate onto the coffee table like it’d bit her. With her hands now free, she grabbed your shaking shoulders and pulled your limp body towards her until you all but collapsed in her lap. Even then, she squeezed you tighter.

I will not let you shatter. I will not let you slip away.

The two of you stayed there, just like that, for however long it took you to let go of the tears you’d stockpiled for eight straight days. And when you were finally quiet — finally still — Jinseo thought for sure that you’d finally fallen asleep.

“I think I hate him.”

Your voice was weak from lack of use; so much so that Jinseo could barely register that you’d spoken at all. Once she did, she didn’t know where to start.

Quietly, she asked, “Namjoon?”

With your head in her lap, Jinseo felt it shake. Again, you surprised her.

“Yoongi,” you whispered. God, you sound so broken. “I can’t stop thinking about it, and I know it makes me a bad person, but I’m so fucking angry at him. I went to that party because he begged me to. I wouldn’t have — I wasn’t looking for him.” 

Your voice cracked. “I wasn’t looking for him, for anyone. I’ve lost everything, and I don’t know what to do now. I’m so angry that it hurts.”

“That’s grief, sweet bean,” she corrected you gently. You sniffled, glanced up at her from the corner of your eye. “Not anger. Grief is just love with nowhere left to go.”

At this, you sat up more fully than you had in eight days, albeit looking more hollow than you ever had. Face tear-stained and bottom lip quivering, you croaked, “I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Call Yoongi,” Jinseo hummed as she squeezed your knee. “If you need a place to put all that love you have left, then write one.”

2022/7/7; 00:00

Namjoon couldn’t remember the last time he had a day go the way it was supposed to; and frankly, he was getting sick of his own shit.

That morning had started off fine. 

Scratch that. 

It started off as well as he could possibly expect it to, waking up in an empty bed with no kneecap pressed into his spine. He drank coffee at his kitchen island, alone, and ignored the blackberries he’d unwittingly scooped onto his plate with the rest of his fruit. Dumped them in the trash before he lost his mind over a berry. Read half a book and remembered none of it. 

All things considered, Namjoon was doing just fine.

Unfortunately, things started going off the rails somewhere around sundown. He and Yoongi had wrapped up the last track on Namjoon’s upcoming release; and for once, Yoongi agreed to leave his studio. Agog and aghast, Namjoon dragged his favorite recluse to every sordid bar in that pocket of the city. As he piloted his tailspin, Namjoon repeated one thought, over and over:

Any dive he stumbled into was better than an empty apartment.

As he spiraled, he drank enough to blur the image of you, which was plastered on every television and burned inside his brain — but not too much. Namjoon learned a long time ago that he couldn’t sleep if he went to bed alone, so he made a habit of not doing that. After all, he didn’t have to like himself; he just needed to live with himself.

Whatever her name was, Namjoon only fucked her because she looked like you.

Her presence on your side of the bed might’ve summoned you because, when he finally checked his phone, your name was tied to a missed call. Better — or worse, he hadn’t decided — there was also a voicemail. The thought alone left him dangling precariously between wanting to cry and needing to vomit. Phone in hand, he staggered toward the bathroom before he’d made his choice.

Closing the door behind him, Namjoon leaned back against the wood. Everything was spinning, though none of it could be attributed to the whiskey he’d had several hours prior. This was all you.

You and that gravitational well he couldn’t ever seem to leave, trapped at his furthest point from you and growing colder all the time. Darker, too.

Aphelion, he remembered with a humorless laugh, not sure if or when it’ll ever be like this again.

Fuck!

Namjoon startled himself when he slammed his hands down on the counter, less due to the involuntary action and more due to the fear of breaking his phone. In a panic, he glanced down. It was perhaps the one thing left that he hadn’t shattered.

Typing in the code to his voicemail felt like disarming a bomb, given how urgently his fingers moved. He needed it, whatever it was that you deemed important enough to say to him. Needed you, but this was the closest thing he had, and that was fine.

“Hey, Joonie. It’s me — well, that much is probably obvious, I guess? Uhh — Anyway, Yoongi mentioned that you finished cutting the album today. I just —”  

Namjoon’s racing heart stopped dead in its tracks. You’d paused for so long that he feared the recording stopped there. Thankfully, you started up again, taking his pulse along with you.

“I just wanted to say, congratulations. You’re — I’m sure it’s incredible,” you sighed, “I hope you’re proud, and I hope you’re doing well.”

He was neither of those things. It’d been months, and it still hurt to breathe whenever he thought about you. He thought about you all the time, asleep or awake, no matter what — or who — he attempted to distract himself with. No matter how much of himself he lost track of in the process.

You were all he wanted, all he wants, all he’d ever want.

Namjoon caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Purposefully avoiding his own eye contact, he looked up, just above his crumpled brow. That bleached blonde hair still didn’t suit him, now even less so than when he asked for your opinion that day by the lake. He made a note of what you’d said, just like he'd told you then. It’d been sitting inside his medicine cabinet since the day after his whole fucking world exploded. 

Jaw clenched, he broke the magnetic seal between the mirrored door and that bottle of black dye.

likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

tagging: @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @jihopesjoint @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @bbyorchid @persphonesorchid @quarter-life-crisis2 @zelchena @withluvjm @firesighgirl @whatthefsposts @iadelicacy @chimmisbae @cowboylikeyoongi @sailoryooons @axialitae @ugh-yoongi @minholykingofkorea @kookstempo @gimmethatagustd @Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhintothevoid @yoongiphoria

want to be on my permanent bts taglist? sign up here.

[borntoyearn]

It's loud, too loud for Simon's liking. He's here for you though, so he'll endure it. However, it would be a huge lie if he said he wasn't enjoying himself even a little bit. 

The fair is huge; parents, children, and couples bustle about. You and Simon add to the already massive crowd. He looks hilarious though– a redwood among little willows. 

It's what he feared at first. "I'll look out of place, love. It's not my kind of crowd." You frowned at this, but then had to recognize that pushing him to go to such a noisy and busy place was not a good idea.

Simon reconsiders. If he wants to be a good boyfriend, he has to try and do couple-y things with you. So fuck it, the fair it is.

You both agreed no rides, that would be pushing it. Maybe the ferris wheel would be an exception. Either way, you're so happy. It's night already, you and Simon sit on a bench away from the crowds. His mask is pulled down and he's going in on a churro. He offers you a bite and you take it. A tiny bit of cinnamon sugar blends with his stubble. Maybe it'll taste better on its own, so you kiss it off of his lips. 

It's such a cliché moment. You take in the crowd, the colorful lights, and the 2014 electronic song that sounds too familiar...you want to cry. So you do. 

Your lips quiver and your facial muscles betray you– a frown forms. Tears come streaming down. Happy tears, or nostalgic ones, you're not too sure. 

"What's wrong?" Simon snaps you out of whatever trance this was. He tucks a piece hair behind your ear.

"Nothing, just me being dramatic." He doesn't buy it. For a quick moment, Simon thinks you regret bringing up the idea for you both to come here. I mean he didn't (or couldn't) give you the full experience. A valid reason to cry, maybe even break up with him. The thought leaves as fast as it came when you give him a smile. He flinches a little. It's the same smile that made him fall hard for you. Still, he has to make sure. 

"You're crying though, how come?" He asks, concern written in his eyes. "Not sure," you reply, "I think I'm just really fucking happy right now." He breathes, relieved. The three special words are still a little hard for him to say. He wants to though, so fucking bad. Simon's way is taking your hand into his and kissing your fingers. He places your hand on his unmasked cheek and prays that you feel all the love he has for you. 

Fuck, you're crying again. 

You grab both sides of his face and kiss him. Deep. An action that tells him you feel the exact same way. It tells him that he can do normal things like this with you and it'll make him the happiest bloke on planet Earth. It tells him that no matter what he did in the past, he is allowed to feel love and to be loved. 

-

Your cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. The walk back to the car is one you'll never forget. Simon Riley, Ghost, carrying a massive strawberry cow plush on his back. It's almost as big as he is. He fought for it too, so you guess you'll share the prize. 

You didn't want Simon to win it for you at first, but the balloon pop game was kicking your ass. He's down thirty bucks– five for each set of darts. Every time you miss, his eye twitches. You're determined, he'll give you that. 

By some miracle, you hit the five balloons. You had your eye on the cow since you got there, and now you're gonna have it. You're ecstatic and Simon no longer has to watch you fail miserably at this sketchy game.

You want to cry for an entirely different reason as the stoned worker hands you a poop plush. A fucking poop emoji plush. Simon guffaws. There's no fucking way. 

"Wait no, what about those plushes!" You furiously point at the cows. The teen rolls his eyes, "Sorry lady, you gotta pop fifteen in a row to get those." 

Oh there's no way in hell that Simon is going to stand here and wait until you do that. He snatches his wallet out for the umpteenth time and shoves a twenty-dollar bill into the workers hand. He grabs the darts and swiftly pops fifteen balloons back to back. 

"She'll have the pink one." 

You fucking love him. 

a/n: woahhhh feeling super emo at 2am, what else is new. its also raining so that doesnt help. 🥲 not sure if its a universal feeling but fairs make me soerrrr sad but happy?? i love them. oh if you're wondering, the song that was playing at the fair was 'stay the night' by zedd w hailey williams 😣 need to work on my pacing but literally could care less just eat this damn food pls!!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 135 thoughts

Akasaka seems to have heard me bitching about other characters not getting involved last week because pretty much this entire chapter is focused on outsider perspectives on the RubyKana conflict, which I actually really appreciate. Not knowing how everyone else was responding to this felt really weird and while I ultimately am glad in hindsight Akasaka used the last chapter to focus exclusively on Ruby and her feelings about Ai, it did still feel really weird in the moment. And there's still no Miyako… girl where did you go…!!!

It's also really nice to get a bit of Aqua and Gotanda time, too — I feel like it's been forever since we've had any time focusing on that relationship and it's one of my quiet favourites in the series so revisiting it now was a nice surprise. We're still pretty locked out of Aqua's head but I feel like his dialogue here speaks for itself without us needing to peek in there. And whether or not he means to, I think Aqua says something really, really revealing here about how he's been dealing — or abjectly failing to deal — with Ai's death.

A running thread through OnK that Ruby is finally starting to come around from is the way the twins have both struggled with their idolization and objectification of Ai and ultimately failed to treat her like a human being. Here, Aqua doubles down on that dehumanization, rejecting the idea of Ai ever having complicated emotions about any of the things that happened to her. He flattens her into a caricature of herself, carefree and avoidant and specifically says that he personally never saw Ai crying. Not even once.

Except… of course he did. Because Ai cried as she told the twins that she loved them as she was dying. The anime even takes this a step further by having Ai break down into sobs during this moment and having her tears literally fall onto Aqua's face as he gazes into her eyes. In denying the existence of these tears, Aqua is also to some degree, erasing those words of pure love that Ai poured out with her last breaths. It feels like a confirmation of something I've been suspecting for a while: that in his fucked up attempts to 'grant her wish' Aqua is even willing to desecrate and erase the real Ai.

In a lot of ways, Aqua is deeply stunted in comparison to Ruby. Honestly I kind of get the feeling that Aqua… doesn't want to humanize Ai? Not out of cruelty but out of seemingly necessarily self defense; if Aqua lets himself love his mom as a human person, if he lets himself love her properly and with empathy then he will necessarily have to finally mourn and grieve for her as a human being and I think that would be the start of breaking him.

What's exciting about this talk as well is that it sets up Aqua and Ruby to be in opposition on something extremely central to the movie arc: Ai herself. This sets up the potential for them to come into conflict and maybe even for Ruby to really lay into him about the exploitative way 15YL is making use of Ai's image.

Final note before I move on: whether this was intended or not, I can't help but see a lot of parallels between Aqua's insistence that Ai would never cry over her treatment in B-Komachi and Nino's rant at the end of 45510 in which she reacts with revulsion at the idea of Ai wanting to connect with them. Aqua/Nino parallels aren't what I was expecting for Christmas but the implications are pretty (discord eyes emoji)

Gotanda's response is interesting, too. He claims that he wrote the script by 'listing the events that actually happened' when we know for a fact that there is a huge amount of dramatization and fictionalization at play just out of the necessity of recreating the events in the life of a person no longer here to give testimony. But he also betrays something here: his own lack of real care towards Ai herself. He dismisses the idea that it's worth trying to understand her feelings after her passing and admits that he isn't really making the movie out of empathy but out of a sense of wanting to capture something he failed to before. This movie is his revenge.

And like… fuck, man. It's just so miserable. There has always been this really ghoulish undercurrent to the entire idea of the Movie Arc, of digging up Ai's corpse again, slicing up her private and most personal self and her painful history that caused her so much shame and dressing it up into something pretty and consumable for the public to salivate over. Even in death, Ai can't rest in peace. Even in death, nobody can just leave her be. She has to be bought and sold and swapped and traded until all the value has been wrung out of her. Nobody making this movie really cares about understanding the real Ai at this point, apart from Ruby; not even the director who wants to be able to film her.

That said. man. the scene that followed was pretty sweet. The idea that Gotanda pulled Aqua into his project not just to give Kana a bit of a wake up call but because he was actually looking out for her and genuinely wanted her to have some friends is a really lovely idea and his sense of relief in seeing her having found a place in B-Komachi was also really good. In a lot of ways, the second generation of B-Komachi may be echoing the mistakes of their predecessors but they're also learning to correct them.

kana's face when she takes a bite out of ruby's parfait is like the hardest i've laughed all week btw god bless mengo yokoyari

The Gillian Cut of Gotanda talking so warmly about RubyKana's friendship to the two girls still being cold with each other is framed as a joke but I do think it's supposed to be read as a reassuring moment for the audience. While Aqua puts forth that his rose-tinted idea of fights making friendships stronger only happens in fiction… Oshi no Ko is fiction. Literally the very first words of the story are that verbatim and it constantly uses in-universe fiction as metatexual commentary on its own nature as a story. More than a joke, this feels like a sort of reassuring pat on the back for the reader that the girls will emerge from this rough spot stronger than before.

Aqua's sense of trust for both Kana and Ruby is really sweet, too. They're two of the people he cares about the most in the world — often to the point of him not being able to trust them, out of fear of the supposed repercussions — but here, he not only steps back to let them handle things themselves but reassures Gotanda that he can do the same. Aqua has been pretty cruel to both these girls in a lot of ways over the series so it was nice to see him express some warmth.

And that's the final chapter of this year…! Jesus I can't believe I only got back into the series back in April lol I really feel like I've been following the weekly chapters for longer. Admittedly, I'm starting to get really fatigued with the Movie Arc with how long it's been going but I'm hoping that we'll start to see some more progress on it when we return in 2024 and that Kamiki will do. Something maybe. can you even imagine.

[chocotonez]

white rabbit (hueningkai/reader)

a/n: screaming. sobbing. crying. this was so cute and you’re so cute anon!! hoping you have tons of plushies in your future <3

warnings/genre: fluff, gn reader, lmk if anything else should be tagged!

At least once a month, both you and Kai put away and clear out any event that could interrupt a so-called “date day”.

Date days were date nights, but 24 hours of just spending time with each other! 24 hours of the both of you enjoying time with each other, 24 hours of you doing what you pleased as you both made sure there were no interruptions. One date day, you surprised each other with gifts, and from then on date days consistently had gift-giving involved.

“I got you something really special today :)”

Little did he know, you got something most likely to be even more special. A pricey custom plush doll from a small business, lovingly hand-crafted, a cutesy Molang that was the perfect size for cuddling and holding. You even sprayed your daily perfume on it, so that if you two were ever apart at least he’d have Molang to remind him of you. To be honest, you were a bit nervous, thinking this was much too cheesy, you didn’t want to seem like a crazy partner who always wants their boyfriend to think of them, but it was just such a cute idea.

“I’m going to the cafe now, I’ll text you when I get there.” You texted Kai, and he sent a thumbs-up emoji in response along with a smiley face. He was so effortlessly cute and you had to put your phone down for a second, giggle and smile, and then leave the house.

The Molang plush was safely tucked away in your bag, with a bow around its neck. You dressed your best for the date day because as much as you wished it wasn’t so, these were rare occasions where you could just spend a whole day with the love of your life. Can you even say that he’s the love of your life? Isn’t that too far, too cheesy? What if he doesn’t want to be the love of your life, what if this is just a simple relationship and you don’t need to be so dramatic about how much you love him? Brushing off your dustless coat in an attempt to brush off your worries, you arrived at the agreed-upon cafe.

Only maybe three minutes after you sent him another text notifying him you were there, your giant baby of a boyfriend entered the cafe, slightly bumping his head on a decoration hanging from the ceiling. You watched him scan around the place until his eyes landed on you and the warmest smile appeared on his face.

“Did I make you wait too long?” He giggled, hurriedly sitting across from you.

“Oh, hours,” you retorted, holding your bag to your chest, as he held up a brown paper bag. “Is that your date day gift?” His eyes crinkled up into a smile, as he nodded.

“You’re gonna be a real fan of this one babe. I think— I hope so at least,” he pushed the bag across the table and played with his hands as you gently pushed through the tissue paper to find a pristine Molang plush, a bow around its neck that was your favorite color. Kai was practically holding his breath as he watched your face fall slightly, praying you didn’t hate it. Was it too much to spray his cologne on it? Was that just embarrassing? Did you even notice?

“…Is that your cologne?” You asked as he nodded.

“Was this too stupid? It was kinda cheesy,” he laughed sheepishly. You hurriedly shook your head, pulled out your Molang plushie, and pushed it toward him. He stared at the white rabbit for a moment, his neutral expression slowly growing into a large grin as he let out his signature, loud laugh (bothering an underpaid 9-5 worker who just wanted to get his morning coffee).

You could care less about the annoyed glances from others as he held the plush doll close to him, giggling and smiling wide.

“No way, we know each other so well!” Kai beamed, as you squeezed the plush closer to you. “I love it, thank you so much, babe.” You looked as the morning sunlight illuminated his smile, as he lovingly looked at the Molang plush and you squeezed the doll even closer to you. “We have matching ones now! You like it, right?”

“Of course I do, it's so cute!” You grinned, sappily and you practically had heart eyes at that moment. You could confidently say that he was the love of your life because there’s no way anyone could replace the giant baby and the new plush that he looked at like it was a diamond—And then he looked back up at you, and somehow his eyes brightened even more, smile growing even wider (although it was staying cute, not uncanny).

“I love you so much, y/n.”

[prettyboykatsuki]

fang,, don't feel pressured to answer this!! but how do you think th e blue lock men would react if u bought a mini plushie of them and referred to the plushie as ur guys son 😭😭 like

snapping isagi and rin the plushie posing to looking out the window and captioning it "he misses u. come home"

this is so cute im weeping

i think bachisagi are the most excited about it. kurona is on this list too actually. the sillies fr. they snap you back with their face blurry and a bunch of crying emojis like "NOO I MISS OUR SON. PAPA WILL BE HOME SOON" and it's very ridiculous of them. . bachira calls himself mama instead tho. dont ask.

itoshi bros have similar reactions. rin is SO lovestruck about it but it will not show thru text. he looks very bored when looking at it but he literally thinks he's going to have a heart attack. the one of the plush sitting on ur bed is fine but the one where it looks like ur holding the plush like a baby..INSTANT K.O. he texts back like "ur an idiot. go to sleep." then another text 3 minutes later. "be home soon."

sae is endeared openly and smiles at it for a bit before playing into ur silly little bit and going "kids shouldn't be up past 11. you and baby go to sleep." and ur on the other side simply Losing it.

chigiri is sooo giggly about it skjsds. he's so in love he thinks it's so cute. he also leans into the bit a little but he calls himself dad in the texts and its kind of. Sexy. sends a voice note of himself like chuckling and goes "dad will be home soon enough, promise. get some rest baby." to YOU. and it's like. instant k.o.

kunigami + barou are both very -_- about it. kunigamis only reply is "i'd want our son to look like you more than me." and barous bc he is a spoil sport is "why the fuck do you have that. and why is it so ugly. also brats shouldn't be up past 10 so both of you go to sleep."

nagis response is SO cute jhfsdhs, he sends a bunch of kaomojis and then goes "hows our other son? (choki)" and when you send a pic together he saves it in his phone and smiles looking at it. smiles mostly bc ur hand is in the background holding the plush up and he thinks its sooo lovely.

reos response is also v dramatic and over the top. just a bunch of crying emojis and going "we should buy our son some nice outfits and have a photoshoot" and being absolutely delighted by how much that makes u laugh. he is dead serious tho and is thinking about getting one of u for his travels.

karasu + oliver have very similar sarcastic ish replies about not knowing they were fathers but the play along with you anyways because it's cute. oliver specifically goes "don't need use our kid as excuse to wanna see me baby" and its soo annoying bc he's right.

otoya has a similar response about being a father but the sends u a semi-endearing paragraph about stepping up before saying its under the conditions he's still allowed to hit.

yukimiya is blushing up a STORM and saying it's important you get married if there's babies involved. hiori says something similar and says he should go and buy a house with his check.

[straightupsickfics]

Teacher Anon 💛 💛 💛 💛 💛 💛 omfg my friend!!! Happy 2024! I hope it's off to a great start...

It's only Tuesday...

Ugh.

So how about something with our favorite pirates in their modern Ed is very protective of his hubby in his black cat "imma hover over you" mode. I freaking lost my voice due to a non illness and I'm like how am I teaching tomorrow!?! So like me as an educator...Stede must also suffer a lost voice as a professor 🙃

ahh happy new year, friend! i hope you're feeling better today and did not have to talk tooo much! <3 some sad, soggy stede for you...

***

Stede’s car is a sheet of ice. 

After the world’s longest day, Stede has finally, finally reached his car, and it’s absolutely encased in ice. It’d been raining all day, he’d known that, of course. What he hadn’t realized was how cold it'd gotten, leaving him helpless, gloveless, and scraper-less when it came time to get in his car. 

He wants to cry.

More than that, he wants to scream. Except he can’t, because he hasn’t had a voice since sometime yesterday afternoon, thanks to whatever horrible virus he managed to pick up right at the start of the semester. 

He thinks about calling Ed, but aside from rasping pitifully into the phone, even that feels impossible.  Instead, he takes a picture of his car, adds a few crying emojis and hits send. It’s about all his bone-tired brain can handle at the moment, and Ed will get it.

Ed always gets it. Gets him. 

The thought makes his eyes well up all over again as he heads back to his office to wait for his husband to rescue him. 

Stuffed with books, covered in prints, and full to bursting with a small, plush sofa, and many, many ocean creatures, Stede’s office is extremely cozy, which is a small comfort in times like these. He drops dramatically into his desk chair, thinks about grading some of the papers he has waiting for him, wilts a little, then drags himself over to the small sofa in the corner. 

Better. 

Then, miracle of miracles, his phone buzzes in his hand. 

Edward 💜: Oh, fuck. On my way 😘

Stede: Have I mentioned how much I love you?

Edward 💜: Not today. Frankly, I’m feeling a little neglected, babe

Stede: I love you. x 1,000

Edward 💜: Hmmm, needs a few more 0s I think… 

Edward 💜: Okay, love you, driving now, be there soon!!

With Ed on his way and all his students gone for the day, Stede lets himself droop across his sofa, his eyes falling shut before he can even register how heavy they’ve felt these last few hours. He’s moments from falling asleep when Ed’s voice startles him upright. 

“Aww, Stede,” Ed says. “Y’look fucking shattered, sweetheart.” His voice is so soft and sympathetic that Stede isn’t even surprised when his eyes fill with tears in earnest this time. Ed looks perfect in his black puffy coat, not ridiculous the way he should, the way everyone else looks. His hair is flecked through with rain drops, and he’s looking at Stede like he’d pick him up and carry him to the car if he thought Stede would let him. 

At this rate, Stede thinks, he’d have a hard time even protesting. 

“Hi,” Stede tries to say, but his throat is scraped raw, and he knows he’s barely audible, having wasted the last of his voice on his American Lit seminar this afternoon. A waste, as half the class had been on their phones, and the rest had the kind of zombie-eque, dead-eyed stares that made him wonder why he even bothered. 

How many weeks until spring break?

“Come here,” Ed says, making his way to Stede and offering him a hand to help him up. He pulls him right into a warm, tight hug, rubbing Stede’s back as they stand there wrapped up in each other. Stede would’ve stayed there for hours, face smushed right into Ed's coat... that is, if he could breathe. Between the worsening congestion and Ed’s thick coat, though, he doesn’t stand a chance. 

Stede lifts his head and blinks pathetically up at Ed, wondering how he’d gotten so lucky.

“Made that soup you like, that hot Italian thing? Should feel nice on your throat, even if you can’t taste it,” Ed tells him, dropping a kiss to the tip of Stede’s nose. "Then we'll get in bed, yeah? Fucking 7:00 pm bedtime. Don't let anyone tell you different Stedey, that's living the dream."

“Thank you,” Stede manages. He tucks himself back into Ed’s chest for another long minute. He can’t wait to be home, and warm, and out of his work clothes. Stede had longed for exactly that all day. But now, standing here, Ed wrapped around him, murmuring promises about soup and tea and ocean documentaries, Stede feels close enough to home; what’s another few minutes?