#founders' love languages

[talk-danmei-to-me]

They're in love your honour.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Wakasa: We’re going to have to split up, like in Scooby Doo. Wakasa, to Shinichiro and Takeomi: You guys are Scooby and Shaggy. You can search the bathrooms. Wakasa, to Benkei: Velma, you get the spooky looking fridge in the basement. Benkei: What? Why am I Velma? And why do I get the… dubious looking device? Wakasa: Because only Velma would say “dubious device”. Benkei gets the spooky fridge in the basement. Takeomi: And what does that make you, Fred? Wakasa: Bitch, I’m Daphne.

[pollizu]

i picked out some random words in swedish. swedes, d🤢nes, and norwegians don't get to vote

apparently it wasn't obvious, but im swedish and i know what these words mean

[midnightdirective]

i don’t go here this is just a valentines day gift for my girlfriend ☺ @domoz

[soggypotatoes]

unrelated but Im reading this book about the language of cults rn and it's fascinating

keeping in mind that 'cult' is not an exactly defined term and doesn't *necessary* mean something bad.. I can't wait to finish this so I can really think and examine my experience in mental health circles with this context

honestly, everything I've read so far relates so hard to DBT - and I'm not against DBT, it was quite helpful, but the things that were helpful about it were not what was on the surface and I'd love to have the language to understand it.. cause man, DBT has all of the points this book has been making so far

[aeide-thea]

my tolkien revisitation has involved many big thoughts but my small thought from tonight's grocery-run-by-bike is: WHAT is up with that one 'hive of ants' simile. like. my guy. i am very sure hives are for bees. ants have hills, or nests maybe, or like, a group of them is a colony. but gandalf at the council of elrond is all:

I came to Buckland and found it in uproar, as busy as a hive of ants that has been stirred with a stick.

i mean. radagast would never!!

[justaboutsnapped]

Why you shouldn’t support the upcoming game Black Myth: Wukong

Simply put, the creators behind Black Myth: Wukong are raging misogynists.

Founders and creatives of the studio have:

Joked about former female employees hypothetically doing prostitution

Used suggestive/objectifying/derogatory imagery & phrasing in their hiring flyers (under the cut), e.g. “In addition to hookup buddies, we promise to provide more thoughtful services” , “fatties fuck off”, etc.

Written entire think pieces on how video games don’t need female players or developers, how women are biologically inclined towards “softer” modes of gaming than men (there’s also a bit of homophobia mixed in through language such as “fuck sissies”), how some things should just be made for men, etc. “Fuck sissies, fuck tragic love stories, fuck moon-lit peach blossoms and flute-playing scholars! You don't need the reverse motivation of female players, you don't need to take care of those worms who just want to date chicks. Some things are just for men, their depression, their anger, their pain...”

Made numerous sexually explicit (& honestly incel-like) comments including ones about a female character in Black Myth: Wukong, e.g. “once you get used to this [character design] you can jerk off to it”, etc.

Boasted about how they’re losing followers, who must be women

To no one’s surprise, when people criticise the studio online, they’re met with vitriol about how they’re hypersensitive feminists, too politically correct, etc.

Chinese women have been YELLING non-stop on social media about how bad it is so it’s pretty depressing to see that a lot of non-Chinese gamers, even after reading an IGN article covering the situation, are apathetic. I get that a lot of people are excited about the novelty of a soulslike game based on Chinese mythology, but do you really want to support a studio that actively contributes towards and benefits from misogynistic gaming culture?

Talking about separating the artist from their art is bullshit if you're financially supporting them. Boycott! Pirate!

Here are some sources if you want to see detailed translations, learn more about the situation as well as the misogynistic gaming culture at large China:

[esperderek]

Hbomberguy did a pretty good job pointing out how Somerton has tried to take up the air of modern queer creators, stealing the works they made to little or no money or exposure, and using them to bolster his own fame. It's a truly reprehensible act.

But I feel like it's also important to briefly touch on what he stole from the past.

The Celluloid Closet is a backbone text on queerness and cinema. Like, if you're at all interested in the subject, please read the book, and watch the doc. Yes, the language will be outdated. It was written in 1981 and the doc published in 1995. Language evolves. I was fortunate enough to both read the book and see the documentary in the early 2000s, when I attended university.

It was written by Vito Russo, who held a Masters in film and a desire to fight for queer rights after witnessing the Stonewell riots. The Celluloid Closet was first a live lecture presentation, then a book. He would try to get the book made into a documentary in the early years, and after he died, others picked up that torch to carry on his work and to pay respect to the man.

Vito Russo was also one of the co-founders of GLAAD. He was a co-founder of ACT UP. You may have, if you've watched documentaries or seen news stories about the AIDS crisis, seen parts of his speech, Why We Fight. He protested, advocated, and educated even as people he knew and loved died, and he himself was dying.

As Hbomberguy notes in his doc, he would go on to pass in 1990. This was a man who fought his ass off, even while dying, for a better tomorrow and better representation.

The fact that Somerton stole his work is beyond insulting to the queer history, and queer film history, that he purports to give a shit about.

[gael-garcia]

PALESTINE FILM INDEX

Palestine Film Index is a growing list of films from and about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation, made by Palestinians and those in solidarity with them. The index starts with films from the revolutionary period (68 - 82) made by the militant filmmakers of the Palestine Film Unit and their allies, and extends through a multitude of voices to the present day. It is by no means a complete or exhaustive representation of the vast universe that is Palestinian cinema, but is only a small fragmentary list that we hope nontheless can be used as an instrument of study & solidarity. As tools of knowledge against zionist propaganda and towards Palestinian liberation.

The century long war against Palestinians by the zionist project is one waged not only militarily but also culturally. The act of filmmaking, preservation, and distribution becomes an act against this attempted cultural erasure of ethnic cleansing. The power inherent in this form as a weapon against the genocidal project of zionism is evidenced in the ways it has been historically & currently targeted by the occupation forces: from the looting & stealing of the Palestine Cinema Institute archives during the siege of Beirut in 1982, through the long history of targeted assassinations of Palestinian filmmakers, journalists, artists, & writers (from PFU founder Hani Jawharieh, to Ghassan Kanafani, Shireen Abu Akleh, Refaat Alareer, and the over 100 journalists killed in the currently ongoing war on Gaza).

It is in this spirit of the use of film and culture as a way of focusing & transmitting information & knowledge that we hope this list can be used as one in an assortment of educational tools against hasbara (a coordinated and intricate system of zionist propaganda, media manipulation, & social engineering, etc) and all forms of propaganda that is weaponized against the Palestinian people. Zionist media & its collaborators remain one of the most effective fronts of the war, used to manufacture consent through deeply ingrained psychological manipulation of the general public agency. Critical and autonomous thought must be used as a tool of dismantling these frameworks. In this realm, film can play a vital roll in your toolkit/arsenal. Film must be understood as one front of the greater resistance. We hope in some small way we can help to distribute these manifestations of Palestinian life and the struggle towards liberation.

This list began as small aggregation to share among friends and comrades in 2021 and has since expanded to the current and growing form (it is added to almost every day). We have links for through which each film can be viewed along with descriptions, details such as run time, year, language, etc. We also have a supplemental list of related materials (texts, audio, supplemental video) that is small but growing. We have added information on contacts for distributors and filmmakers of each film in order to help people or groups who are interested in using this list to organize public screenings of these films. The makers of this list do not control the rights to these films and we strongly urge those interested in screening the works to get in touch with the filmmaker or distributors before doing so. This list was made with best intentions in mind, and in most cases with permission of filmmaker or through a publically available link, but if any film has mistakenly been added without the permission of a filmmaker involved and you would like us to remove it, or conversely if you are a filmmaker not included who would like your film to be added, or for any other thoughts, suggestions, additions, subtractions, complaints or concerns, please contact us at palestinefilmindex@gmail.com. No one involved in this list is doing it as a part of any organization, foundation or non-profit and we are not being paid to do this, it is merely a labor of love and solidarity. From the river to the sea, Palestine

[ryanseslow]

NEWYAWK T-SHIRTS ARE BACK!

Experience the epic saga behind the NEWYAWK t-shirts brand, a story etched in the heartbeats of New York City itself! Born amidst the legendary streets of the Big Apple, NEWYAWK is not just a brand; it’s a vibrant symphony of multi-sensory soulfulness that pulses through the veins of every true New Yorker.

Picture this: The bustling 1970s, 80s, and 90s, a time when the city was an evolving kaleidoscope of cultures and dialects. New Yorkers didn’t just speak; they orchestrated their own language! “Walk” metamorphosed into “WAAWK,” “talk” became “TAAWK,” “coffee” was no longer just coffee—it was “CAAWWFEE.” And “three” wasn’t just a number; it was “TREE.” These linguistic quirks are the very heartbeat of NYC’s vibrant culture.

As our founder journeyed through these bustling streets, he discovered the magic of graffiti and stencil art, a transformative love that birthed the unique tag: “newyawk.” This wasn’t just a tag; it was a revolution in lowercase, a cardboard stencil masterpiece that evolved into a hand-painted marvel for screen printing. And then, the pièce de résistance: a classic car image, symbolizing movement and the relentless drive of New Yorkers.

The journey of NEWYAWK is one of passion, creativity, and an undying love for the art of silk screen printing. This technique didn’t just create prints; it immortalized them, preserving the hand-painted charm that makes each t-shirt a timeless piece of wearable art.

Today, NEWYAWK isn’t just a brand—it’s a grassroots phenomenon. These t-shirts, born from a heart full of NYC pride, have taken the world by storm. They’re not just worn; they’re celebrated, cherished, and adored by those who wear their love for New York on their sleeves.

Join the movement. Embrace the story. Wear the legacy. Discover the NEWYAWK t-shirts brand and become a part of this incredible journey.

Explore our collection and feel the heartbeat of New York City at https://newyawkteeshirts.com/ – The brand name is NEWYAWK, and we promise you, this is more than just a t-shirt—it’s a piece of NYC history, ready to be worn by you.

Feel the energy. Live the legend. Wear NEWYAWK.

Grab yours now from our Shop!

[jexnkookie]

The Law of Attraction (Lawyer!Jung Kook x Reader) [Part 1]

Story Synopsis: Throughout his life, Jung Kook has only ever loved one girl. Despite her being out of his league and of an elite class that he wasn't born into, he fell hard, keeping his feelings a closely guarded secret. When they parted ways, and Jung Kook pursued his law career, he did so with the intent of moving on. But when she unexpectedly arrives back into his life, Jung Kook finds himself once again face to face with his own insecurities, and the girl of his dreams.

Story Rating: M (18+) [Language, sex, depression, alcoholism] Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut

Characters/Pairings: Lawyer! Jung Kook x Reader (feat. Jimin x Reader)

Chapter Word Count: 2.6k

Authors Note: I have this listed as "part one", because I may want to continue it in the future! This is just an idea that I've had floating around in my head, and I really haven't been inspired to write more of my other story lately, so why not put this out? If you'd like more of this story, please let me know and I can possibly continue it, if it's something y'all are interested in!

(It got another part)

Next Chapter

Series Masterlist

New York City is always bustling on a Monday morning. Crowds of people piling onto the sprawling connection of subway, buses and sidewalks on their way for another week of hard work. Jung Kook was among them, wearing a discounted, freshly pressed suit, and a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee in his hand. AirPods in his ear, he let the newest pop playlist cover up the sound of the crowded street on his way to his new office. There was a little, barely noticeable pep in his step, hinting at his excitement for his first day. 

His office building was rather large, even by his own metrics. Coming from Seoul, Jung Kook was no stranger to towering buildings, but this fresh law office had something glistening about its structure. As he entered through the front rotating tour, scanning the pass in his lanyard to be let in, any seasoned attorney would quickly recognize the wide-eyed young man as an ambitious rookie. 

“Jung Kook!” A voice called out from across the lobby. Jung Kook stopped walking and looked up, scanning the room to see Mr. Kim Namjoon, one of the best defense attorneys he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting, greeting him with a dimpled smile. 

“Good morning, Mr. Kim!” Jung Kook responded, quickly making his way over to greet him. 

“Aish, Jung Kook. Call me Namjoon.” He smiled shyly. “We’ll be working together as partners, I won’t be just a mentor to you anymore. I want you to feel comfortable around me.” 

“Right, of course.” Jung Kook grinned. “Thank you for bringing me here, I’m really excited.” 

“That’s great to hear.” Namjoon’s voice was warm and sincere. “I wasn’t sure how’d willing you’d be to leave Korea, but I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Yeah, it um…” Jung Kook pauses, thinking to himself for a moment for the right words to say. “It was a move that was for the best.” 

Namjoon kept a smile on his face, but furrowed his brows just briefly as he read into the younger man’s explanation. Not wanting to press too much, he motioned Jung Kook to follow him to the elevator. They walked together with comfortable conversation, questions about Jung Kook’s move to the city and his commute. As the elevator took them high above the rest of the city, Jung Kook’s finger absentmindedly tapped on the coffee cup he held, jitters taking over. 

“We had a case come in that I think you’ll be perfect to help me with.” Namjoon said, leading Jung Kook to his new office overlooking the city. There was an unorganized set of case files already on the desk. “You can put your stuff here, please make this space your own. The case is centering a Korean family, actually, so I thought maybe the two of us could connect with them on that level. Wealthy family, they’ve been doing business in the States a long time. But the son of the founder just recently inherited the company, and he’s being accused of defrauding investors. I need you to look over the case, and tell me what you think.” 

Jung Kook nodded as he took his seat at his desk, opening up the file to read the defendant’s name, Park Jimin. The name sounded oddly familiar to him, but he brushed it aside as he read the details of the case. 

“…Coaxed into investments using fraudulent and misleading data and projections…” Jung Kook read out loud, under his breath, before looking up at Namjoon. “So, he allegedly massaged the numbers into looking bigger than they are, leading to an increase of investments.” 

“Hm.” Namjoon hummed, leaning against the door frame. “Then when the actual numbers came in, and they were nowhere close to what he had projected, he didn’t have the money to pay out. Now it’s our problem.” 

“Yeah, ok.” Jung Kook nodded. “I have some ideas but I’d like to ask him some questions.” 

“Perfect. I’ll give you his contact info, but he should be flying into the city tomorrow. He wants to meet with us anyways, he just needed a little time.” 

“For what?” 

“He recently got engaged.” Namjoon responded nonchalantly, scrolling through the contacts in his iPhone. “She comes from a wealthy family from Busan, apparently. Their fathers knew each other, since they’re both from the city..” 

“Oh, they’re both from my city, I knew his name sounded familiar.” Jung Kook acknowledged. “Since her family is wealthy, maybe I’ve heard of them, too. What’s her name?” 

“Aish, I can’t remember…” Namjoon thought for a moment. “Mr. Park mentioned her, and now my mind is blanking.” 

The two startled when Namjoon’s phone rang. Namjoon apologized before stepping out to take the client’s call, leaving Jung Kook with his case files to further review. The rest of the day passed for the new, young lawyer, buried in a mountain of papers and taking notes. Namjoon peeked into his office on occasion to bring him coffee, or chat, or ask him about the case. But it was a slow, calm first day. 

As was the next day, and the day after that. Jung Kook got into a routine as the weeks passed, feeling a growing sense of familiarity with the way that he was able to bury himself in his work. It was a nice way to briefly consume himself and chase away the loneliness of the last two years of his life. 

He slowly made friends at his new firm. Never the extrovert, he was shy at first and afraid to open up. But knowing Namjoon for several years gave him a foot in the door, and allowed him an entry way into conversations that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. They asked about his life back home, and never dug too deep when he gave vague answers. He appreciated that, and his colleagues grew to like the handsome young lawyer. 

Finally, on a Friday, as the week was winding down and Jung Kook was thinking of possible weekend plans, Namjoon quickly walked into his office after a brief warning knock to his door. 

“We have a surprise meeting with Mr. Park.” Namjoon explained. “He just flew in from Seoul with his fiancé, and called me to say they want to meet with us. They’ll be here in a few minutes, so grab your notes and meet me in the conference room.” 

Jung Kook’s eyes widened and he responded with a quick “ok”, before gathering up his collection of papers into a manila folder, and walking to meet Namjoon, stopping momentarily only to grab another quick cup of coffee to make sure he was alert. Being his first client meeting since joining the firm, he wanted to make sure he was at his best. 

Settling into the conference room, Jung Kook looked over his notes, and made sure to have a pen to write down anything he may need later. He could see a light reflection of himself in the wall of windows facing the rest of the office, which he used to make sure his hair and suit looked presentable. He was hoping that with the money he made off of this case, he could buy a new, nicer suit like the one he saw in a shop window that he passed by not long ago. 

His thoughts of a modest suit however were quieted by the presence of what he knew immediately to be his client walking down the office halls, nearing the conference room. Dressed in a luxurious, designer black suit and Louboutin loafers, Park Jimin was striking at first glance. He hid his eyes behind black sunglasses despite being indoors, and his dyed blonde hair complimented his glowing complexion and lush, pink lips. He looked expensive, the textbook definition of an heir. 

The woman by his side looked gorgeous, Jung Kook thought. She was also beautifully dressed, in a sharp, maroon pencil dress and heels, with sunglasses also covering her eyes. Her Chanel bag dangled off her shoulder, her head was down, and her hand was intertwined with Mr. Park’s as they walked.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Park.” Namjoon greeted with a bow as he opened the door for the couple. “How was the flight in?” 

“It was excellent, thank you. Please, call me Jimin.” Jimin responded, taking off his sunglasses, before turning his attention to Jung Kook. “Hello, I’m not sure we’ve met.” 

“Jeon Jung Kook. I’ve just recently been added to look over the case.” Jung Kook smiled, standing up from his chair to bow. “It’s a pleasure.” 

“Park Jimin.” Jimin introduced himself. “And this is my fiancé, Y/N.” 

Y/N. Jung Kook repeated in his head, his eyes widening. It’s not possible. 

You took off your glasses before bowing to Namjoon, and raised to meet Jung Kook’s eyes. Your expression matched his own, recognizing the man instantly. 

“Jung Kook?” You smiled warmly. “Jeon Jung Kook? Oh my God, what a small world!” 

“You two know each other?” Namjoon asked with a raised brow. He looked over at the young lawyer, who was staring at you with large eyes and parted lips. 

“Jung Kook is an old classmate of mine.” You explained to Namjoon and your fiancé. “We went to the same university ages ago, when we were still living in Busan.” 

This was Jung Kook’s worst nightmare unfolding right before his eyes. Here you were. You. Just as warm, beautiful, and personable as ever. Just as clueless as ever. It was amazing how you could be such an angel, but put him through so much pain, and not even know it. 

“How have you been?” You asked with an innocent, bright grin. “I haven’t seen you in so long!” 

“I-I’ve… been good.” Jung Kook stuttered, causing the other men in the room to look at him with growing suspicion. 

“Honey, I don’t know that you’ve ever mentioned a Jung Kook.” Jimin said in a sweet tone directed at you, while his eyes judgmentally looked Jung Kook up and down. Namjoon nervously watched the interaction, waiting to bud in at any opportune time. 

“We just had a couple classes together.” You explained. “Jung Kook, wasn’t it um…” 

“History.” He finished your sentence, quicker and more deadpan in his tone than what he meant to. “And our political science class.” 

“That’s right!” You nodded. “I remember you were always so smart, I guess it makes perfect sense you practice law now.” 

“We’re happy to have him on the team.” Namjoon interjected, walking over to Jung Kook’s side of the table. He noted how Jimin still seemed unsure of Jung Kook’s mannerisms, and wanted to press on with the meeting. “Let’s get started, I’m sure the two of you have plans for the evening.” 

Everyone took their seat, and Jung Kook stared at the blank notepad in front of him. He could feel Jimin’s eyes on him, but pretended not to be bothered. He scribbled down the date on the paper, desperate to not meet the client’s gaze. 

“So, we reviewed the case.” Namjoon began, seeing how Jimin’s death stare didn’t shake from Jung Kook as he spoke. “We think that we have an excellent shot at winning, and to be completely honest, we’re expecting the judge to throw the case out.” 

“That’s great news!” You said excitedly. “Honey, you’ve been so worried about this.” 

Jimin looked at you, his eyes softening and a soft smile appearing. He rested a hand on your thigh, and looked over towards Namjoon. 

“That is great news. Thank you, Mr. Kim.” 

“Jung Kook has been reviewing the case for several days now, and he put together a couple arguments that we’ll present to the court, and have this ordeal finished, so you can move on.” 

“Y-Yeah, so um…” Jung Kook started, the weight of everyone’s stare feeling heavy and thick in the air. He was careful to avoid your eyes in particular, sure that his reaction would be less than professional. “First of all, the numbers allegedly presented to investors were never your numbers, Mr. Park, they were the numbers that your father had supposedly projected. The suit is filed against you, not the company, so we can argue that you cannot be held personably liable for any losses. A-Also, there’s no um… There’s no physical evidence of these exact projections being shown that the plaintiffs presented so um… We could argue insufficient evidence.” 

If Jung Kook were brave, he’d look up from his notes to see the way you grinned at him with the same, beautiful smile he used to see walking across campus every day. If he were brave, he’d tell you how beautiful that smile, and the rest of you, have always been to him. 

If he were brave, he would’ve told you that a long time ago. But Jung Kook has never been brave. Not then, and definitely not now. Not when his client is shooting daggers at him from across the table, and a sparkling 24k gold and diamond on your finger reminds him of the thing he’s always known; you’re too good for someone like him. You deserve more. 

“I think that sounds like an excellent plan.” Jimin said calmly, eyeing the young lawyer up and down, before turning his attention to you. He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. “I think Mr. Jeon has this whole thing figured out. What do you think, darling?”

“I agree.” You blushed at your fiancé’s uncharacteristic public affection. “He’s always been so smart.” 

“It seems so.” Jimin responded. “In that case, I believe we can wrap up this check-in meeting. I’d like to take my love out to dinner tonight. It’s her first time in New York City.” 

“Is it?” Namjoon’s voice was pleasant but quick as he spoke. “Well, let’s not keep you two waiting. Thank you for coming in, and we’ll be in touch. Please, Mr. Park, don’t be afraid to reach out to either of us if you need anything.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jimin said, getting up from his chair and helping you out of yours before bowing to the lawyers. 

“Jung Kook, it was so nice to see you.” You said, waving at him while Jimin placed a hand on your back to lead you from the room. “Thank you for working on this for us.” 

“O-Of course.” He bowed. “You two have a nice night.” 

With that, Jimin led you away from the room and down the office, and Jung Kook watched as he took your hand in his and caressed your skin with his thumb. It amazed him how even after all this time, seeing you with another man makes his chest ache. 

“So….” Namjoon’s irritable voice said, leaning against the table. “You want to tell me what the fuck that was about?” 

“It’s nothing.” Jung Kook responded quietly, cleaning up his papers to avoid making eye contact. “Just an old classmate.” 

“Nothing?” Namjoon asked with a scoff. “Our client just burned a hole through you with his glare the entire meeting, and you want to call that nothing?” 

“I want to go home.” Jung Kook said with growing frustration. “I promise, it’s nothing. It’s just been a hard first few weeks, ok?” 

Jung Kook was headed out the door quickly, when Namjoon grabbed his arm to make him stop for a moment.

“If something is going on with our client’s fiancé… if there’s a history there or whatever, you need to let me know so we can manage this. We can’t lose Jimin as a client, we’d both be out of a job. He brings in too much money.” 

“What, does he get into this type of shit a lot or something?” 

“What do you think?” Namjoon asks. “It’s part of the job, dealing with rich clients that have more money than sense. They didn’t teach you that in class? Or were you too busy ogling her?” 

“It’s really nothing.” Jung Kook said, this time more calmly through gritted teeth. “I just need to go home.” 

Namjoon sighed as Jung Kook left the room, and cursed his luck with the obvious situation under his breath. 

[love-belle]

mi corazón mi alma mi amor !!!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which their relationship is finally in the light.

or

for when you find your soulmate. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

social media au // carlos sainz x fem!reader

warnings - language

author's note - pretty big carlos fic coming soon!! i hope u like it, thank you for reading, i love you <3

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by lewishamilton, carlossainz55, carmenmmundt and 799,415 others

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7,628 comments

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≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

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carlossainz55 dias de verano y amor ( summer days and love )

7,927 comments

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*liked by carlossainz55*

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username not a driver snatching my girlfriend like the fuck.

fernandoalo_official carlos call me right now.

-> carlossainz55 uh

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-> fernandoalo_official both of you actually, i'm setting up a zoom meeting.

username NOT A ZOOM MEETING TAKING PLACE

username NANDO'S ABOUT TO SQUARE UP WITH CARLOS OMG

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by ihearty/n, f1wags4ever, sainzsaints111 and 56,826 others

paddock.club formula one driver, carlos sainz jr. and y/n alonso, businesswoman, activist, philanthropist and model spark dating rumor after being seen together in monte carlo. these two were seen on alonso's yacht along with a few of their close friends including charles leclerc, pierre gasly, kika gomes and others. this is not the first time rumours flew about the pair as at the starting to this year's season, y/n was seen at the ferrari garage, a change from her usual spot with aston martin. we wonder what fernando alonso, y/n's father and a fellow driver of carlos thinks about this pair. click on the link in our bio to know everything we know about their relationship.

2,278 comments

username OH MY GOD

username no bc they'd be so cute together

username y/n lives to give her dad grey hairs and i love her for that

username im already in love with them hello????

username no bc the way they both talk about each other

-> username "he's like such a nice person that you can't help but feel comfortable around him and he's always making you laugh and making you smile and he can make your day better by just his presence and i love that about him"

-> username "she's like this ray this sunlight that everyone desperately needs, she's everything and im so grateful to know her cause she's truly a blessing"

username THEY'RE SO PRETTY

username alr sainz me and u mcdonald's parking lot. u need to pay for stealing my wife

username i would give ANYTHING to know of nando's reaction to this omg

username quick! everyone act shocked!

username we been knew 🥱🙄

username nando on a mission to kill carlos after seeing this like

username IM CRYING THEY'RE SO PARENTS 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

username gone died dead deceased six feet under decomposed decaying

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by carlossainz55, fernandoalo_official, lilymhe and 897,627 others

yourusername mi corazón mi alma mi amor ( my heart my soul my love )

tagged carlossainz55

8,628 comments

username OH MY GOD

username i mean we knew but OSHAHAJAJAHAKA

username THE CAPTION IM DEAD.

username MY HEART MY SOUL MY LOVE

lewishamilton so glad the secret's out!! so happy for you guys 🤍🤍🤍

-> yourusername we love u lewis 🤍🤍🤍

username RUE WHEN WAS THIS ⁉️⁉️⁉️

username idk who to be more jealous of

charles_leclerc get a room

-> yourusername we ARE in a room and ur on the couch sir please move

-> username not charles being in their room 😭😭😭😭

username i need nando's reaction to this

username no bc the way im scared for carlos like

fernandoalo_official happy for you both ❤️ but tell carlos to remember what we talked about on zoom

-> yourusername im pretty sure u traumatized my bf

-> carlossainz55 i will never be recovering

-> username I CAN'T GET OVER THE FACT THAT NANDO SET UP A ZOOM MEETING FOR HIM AND THESE TWO

username my man really wifed up the only daughter of a fellow driver and then exposed their relationship and i respect that so much

lilymhe he better not be taking you away from me

-> yourusername im always yours gf

-> carlossainz55 oh

-> alex_albon well this is awkward!

username the caption has me on the floor and sobbing and crying my heart out

username HER INTERVIEW YESTERDAY WAS SO CUTE I DIED

-> username OH MY GOD I MISSED THAT WHAT HAPPENED

-> username basically the interviewer asked about her relationship status and instead of confirming or denying anything she just said "im in my happy place with someone who makes me the happiest and that's all i could ever ask for"

-> username STOP OH MY GOD

carlossainz55 el más afortunado de ser amado por ti ( the luckiest to be loved by you )

-> yourusername eres dueño de mi corazón ( you own my heart )

≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱

liked by yourusername, landonorris, fernandoalo_official and 898,728 others

carlossainz55 yes she stole my pancakes but it's okay cause she's REALLY beautiful

tagged yourusername

username the way BOTH of my parasocial relationships are in shambles rn like

username need someone to be my bf rn i swear i'll feed u cookie dough

username MOTHER OH MY GOD

username she's so pretty im

carmenmmundt the most gorgeous person 🤍

-> carlossainz55 i agree

username where can i get a carlos??? asking for a friend :)

username mother is mothering as always

username can u fight.

username SHE'S SO AHHSJSJSJSJKSSK

username just one chance pls 🙏🙏🙏

landonorris gross ❤️

-> carlossainz55 we don't care ❤️

username they're my parents your honour

username i just know that nando regrets introducing these two

username someone a man is having a breakdown over his daughter dating his colleague ⁉️⁉️⁉️

username they're such a GORGEOUS couple like

danielricciardo when u smack the shit out of me for eating your food :///

-> carlossainz55 she's an exception of course

-> yourusername my love ❤️

-> danielricciardo brb need to throw up

username the difference in their captions is WILD

username LITERAL PARENTS

fernandoalo_official one wrong step and she'll be using a brush to sweep you off the ground

-> carlossainz55 noted

-> yourusername papá stop threatening my boyfriend

-> carlossainz55 boyfriend 😏😏😏😏😏🔥🔥🔥🔥😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

-> charles_leclerc what the fuck is he doing?

-> yourusername he does this every time i call him my bf, it'll pass

username carlos is down SO bad and it's SO understandable bc i would be too if y/n was my gf

username pretty gf 🤝 obsessed bf

yourusername i hate u for choosing the second picture

-> carlossainz55 you hate me huh? that's not what you said last night

-> landonorris just gonna leave now fernandoalo_official

-> yourusername NORRIS

-> fernandoalo_official sainz run.

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 22 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF, some angst, mentions of drugs (including descriptions of harmful use), very plot-heavy chapter, SLOW BURN

words: 18k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 22 ► if you want an enemy, i’ll be the last one that you ever meet

Jungkook marvelled at how quickly he got used to the peace he felt with you in his hotel room. It was strong, too, this peace. Stable. It seemed to him, as you slept on the bed right by his side, that nothing could disturb the walls of his room.

Sid’s Instagram post had been nothing but a picture. Neither of you interacted with it, nor did you respond to him—although, like a true pest, he continued to message you both throughout the night.

The picture remained as it was: largely anonymous, because Sid, in his petulant haste to post it, had not tagged you. And, from the looks of it, he had not realised he hadn’t tagged you.

The people in the comments—Jungkook checked, after making sure you’d fallen asleep—tried to guess what was happening. Most of the comments, with usernames that made Jungkook chuckle, seemed to recognise him (well, a few people did, and others jumped on this bandwagon with a heedless excitement that brought another smile to his face—they were thrilled to find him in this seemingly random picture, and he was thrilled by their thrill), but no one could understand the context.

So happy for you, Sid’s caption read. But happy for what? Happy for whom?

You’ve both decided to raise this issue with the band before the concert tomorrow. There was very little you could have done this late at night anyway. All the staff had a day off, and you did not want to disturb them over a personal problem that had escalated into something bigger than you.

Jungkook was delighted by your choice to stay in his room. He interpreted your decision to wait until morning as a confirmation of your deeper desire to prolong your time together. He preferred to believe that this was the reason, rather than the circumstances, that allowed you to stay.

And since you were sleeping next to him right now, your chest rising and falling gently under the covers, it was all too easy to give in to this belief.

When Jungkook woke up a few hours later, the room was bathed in a golden glow. The sunlight filtered through a gap in the curtains that he must have overlooked last night.

You weren’t next to him.

Panic seized him almost instantly, and he realised that the peace he had felt last night with you beside him was not quite as stable as he had believed. Now you were awake, and you were not here.

He flipped on his back and pushed himself into a sitting position. He even searched under the bed in irrational desperation—as if you had decided to play hide-and-seek and give him a heart attack for breakfast. And then, as soon as he threw back the covers and scanned the room, he heard your voice—a lifeline, really, amid his suffocating thoughts.

You were still here, in the bathroom, either talking on the phone or to yourself. Honestly, that part did not really matter to him, as long as he knew you were here.

Outrageously relieved, he collapsed back onto the pillows and buried his face in his hands, a ridiculous smile spreading beneath his fingers as his heart continued to race in his chest.

He realised that he was a little out of his mind.

You were on the phone, as Jungkook would later learn, with the founder and CEO of Jett Records, Christian Jett—or simply CJ, as he insisted you call him, even though you’d only spoken to him once in your entire time at the company: right now. You figured one of the reasons he insisted on the abbreviation was that his full name could have worked incredibly well as a Christian rock band name.

If Jungkook had known who you were talking to, his panic might have resurged. Your hands were shaking, too, as you clutched your phone to your ear and took in CJ’s rapid news.

In just one breath, CJ shared his thoughts on Rated Riot’s reception in Europe and outlined his vision for the coming months. He also surprised you with some good news, and you tapped your fingers on the hotel sink, eager to tell the band.

Then, CJ, your new best friend by the sound of it, turned the subject over to you.

“Here’s what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” he said, speaking so quickly that you barely had time to react. By the time your stomach clenched in anticipation, he had already informed you of his plans. “I’ve personally put together a team, just a couple of execs and someone from HR, to recruit support staff for you. We’re thinking two people should suffice for now.”

Your pause seemed incredibly long compared to his—which was virtually non-existent, and CJ opened his mouth to keep speaking.

“I was also thinking that—”

“I—sorry, uh,” you interjected, finally finding your words, “w-what support staff are you referring to, sir?”

“Assistant managers,” CJ replied with a chuckle. “I should’ve started with that, you’re right. You’ll have a team. Naturally, you’ll be promoted to Head of Management.”

You needed some time to process that. It was the “naturally” in particular that confused you because none of this seemed very natural.

When you woke up and saw ‘Christian Jett’ on your phone (the device even vibrated differently, almost nervously), you immediately assumed the worst: Sid had done irreparable damage to the band’s reputation by hard-launching a relationship that no one at the label knew about, and now you were going to be fired because you had not contained it.

That was the only thought you had when you took the call. But you were actually being promoted. Naturally.

Did he even know about Sid?

“That—that’s great,” you managed. You sensed CJ’s anticipation for a more effusive response and he grumbled in mild disapproval when you did not offer one. “I am very happy to hear that.”

“Yeah?” He chuckled again. He sounded like a train veering off its tracks when he laughed, which was very odd, yet somehow felt comforting. “You don’t sound much like it.”

“Oh—m-my apologies, I’m just surprised.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be,” he said. “Others are trying to scout you for their own bands—fucking Reconnaissance, of all people—so, of course, we have to promote you.”

Your fingers stilled on the cool porcelain of the sink.

He said they had to promote you: as if it was a decision forced upon them by some foreign threat, rather than your efforts and the unprecedented growth of the band.

It would have made sense to expand your team eventually—when the tour ended, for example, and everyone could see how far Rated Riot has come. But now, apparently, your career would abruptly progress just because you received an offer from another band.

“Respectfully, sir,” you said, avoiding his nickname, “may I ask how you came by that information? I was under the impression that the offer from Reconnaissance wasn’t official.”

“It’s a small industry,” CJ replied. “We consider any offer aimed at our talents official.”

He gave no further explanations. You had questions, of course, but did not know how to say What the fuck is that supposed to mean? in Corporate.

Instead, you said, “I see.”

“I’ll send one of my assistants and a couple of people from our legal team to go over the new contract with you in the next few days,” he informed you.

You wondered what time it was for him, wherever he was, because here in London, it was far too early to talk about legal teams. The magnitude of the situation made your empty stomach churn.

“Your new contract won’t be much different,” CJ continued. He sensed that the mention of lawyers had unsettled you, and his tone softened. “Bigger pay, a few extra tasks, a more defined division of labour. Your assistants will handle the routine chores, allowing you to concentrate on promoting and advancing Rated Riot. That’s the direction we’re moving in right now, and that’ll be your main priority.”

“I understand, sir,” you said, although you understood fragments.

They could have hired a marketing specialist instead of two assistants for you if they wanted to focus on the advancement of the band. Rated Riot did not even have their own publicist right now. There was one at the company, but she juggled several bands and rarely ventured beyond arranging an occasional interview for Rated Riot if someone contacted the company, and not you.

Evidently, they chose to promote you to Head Manager and Publicist instead of hiring a different person for that job.

“You’ll stay with the band and work on location,” CJ said. “That arrangement seems to bring the best results, especially regarding the band’s schedule. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” you replied, recognising that CJ probably had the authority to teleport you out of London immediately should you disagree with anything he said.

“Excellent,” he said. “I’d like to move forward with this while the band is still on tour, so you could train your assistants as soon as you are back. From then on, you’ll focus on effective representation and the strengthening of their brand, marketing strategies, bigger shows, more advertising—well, you know the drill.”

“Right,” you said. “Of course.”

You chose not to point out how far these new duties deviated from your original job description. You were already doing all that anyway, even if you weren’t, technically, required to. And they clearly seemed to think that your extra work came without saying—of course, you’d do everything. When have you not?

“And mostly everything else on the contract will remain as it is,” CJ finished. “The legal team will go over the rest with you. It’s the same things: compensation, conflicts of interest, obligations, bonuses, the whole bunch. You know. You’ve done it before.”

You haven’t done it before, actually. When Rated Riot hired you, the company emailed you the contract, you skimmed it, understood about half, and e-signed it without any meetings with HR, let alone the legal team.

Nevertheless, you responded obediently, “I understand. When can I expect to meet with them?”

“Let me check your schedule,” he said. You heard the faint clicking of a laptop mouse and assumed he had Rated Riot’s schedule at the ready. “Alright, you’re in London for the next few days, then almost a week in Paris. How about one of the days there? My assistant will email you later with a more specific time and date.”

“Okay, that sounds perfect,” you replied. “Thank you for taking the time to personally inform me about this, CJ. I—I’m very excited to start this new chapter with the band.”

“I’m excited as well,” CJ said, glad to finally hear your use of his name, even if you wavered while saying it. “Let’s keep this discreet, though, yeah? For now. I’ll mention the changes in management and the band’s upcoming promotions at the executive team meeting next week. Namjoon will update you on how that goes. Until then, let’s keep this within our circle.”

“I—of course, sir,” you replied. CJ allowed you a moment of thought and did not interrupt your silence this time.

You worried that his strong emphasis on discretion indicated his knowledge about something else. And even if it didn’t, you thought it would reflect badly on you later if you did not mention Sid right now, when you had the perfect opportunity for it.

“I’m—I would also like to address the recent speculation online regarding the, uh—bathtub picture,” you said, trying to choose your words without sounding like a three-year-old imitating a businessman. “I want to assure you that—”

“Oh, yeah, no—Namjoon called me earlier. He filled me in,” CJ said. “I hadn’t even seen the picture before he mentioned it. That Sid’s a weird character.”

Your heart jumped over a beat, chilling the blood in your anxious veins.

“Uh—yes,” you played along, wondering all the while where Namjoon was, and what he had done on your behalf. “He is.”

“I trust you’ll ensure no one else leaks the band’s album covers in the future, though,” CJ said. His words sounded like a demand—half a step away from a threat—but you could not recognise your reflection in the mirror all of a sudden and could not reply. “Maybe reset your systems or something.”

Namjoon had called CJ. He had deflected from your relationship with Jungkook and shielded you from what could have happened if someone discovered who the people in the picture were.

Sid leaked the album cover.

You took a fractured breath and leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for a moment.

“Yes—yes, of course,” you finally managed. “We’ll take every precaution to make sure these incidents are avoided in the future. Th-thank you, CJ.”

You could no longer tell if you were still coherent or just trying to be. CJ’s unusual pause seemed to indicate that he sensed your unease, but he chose not to comment on it. He thought you just felt uncomfortable that the album cover had leaked.

“Alright, happy to hear that,” he said. “Talk to you soon. Keep up the good work.”

He ended the call before you could voice any more platitudes about looking forward to hearing from him again. You weren’t. You were looking forward to finding Namjoon and possibly offering your soul to him to repay the debt.

Namjoon had resolved the issue that Sid had caused—the issue you considered personal, because you were keenly aware of the causal relationship between Sid’s post and your relationship with Jungkook: if you hadn’t spent so much time with him on this tour, if you’d kept your professional distance, if you’d closed the damn door in that hotel bathroom, there wouldn’t have been any picture at all.

However, there was more for you to fix. Namjoon had helped you now, but Sid was still at large, wild and unpredictable.

And as you glanced at your phone, you also remembered something else that CJ had said about your contract: conflicts of interest.

In your initial contract, you had declared none, despite already knowing that Jungkook was in the band. You hoped you could carry on quietly enough—as though you had never met him, really—and no one would mind. That more or less worked out, up until this point.

Now you wondered if you could still claim no conflicts of interest without any consequences. Was that what your relationship with Jungkook was, in the eyes of the company?

You took a deep breath and decided to ponder this elsewhere because the bathroom was getting stuffy and the clothes you’d worn for a comfortable film night suddenly felt suffocating against your skin.

Stepping out of the bathroom on the tips of your toes so as not to wake Jungkook, you turned the corner and locked eyes with him right away.

“Hi,” he murmured, the edges of his morning voice hoarse and groggy as he watched you from the mess of sheets on the bed.

Despite hoping to find him still asleep so you could slip back into bed and have the morning together that had been stolen from you, you didn’t feel disappointed that he was awake. He had a lazy smile on his lips. His hair was dishevelled and he kept bringing his hand through it.

There was a glow over your face as you approached the bed. “Hi.”

“I thought you’d left,” he said, his eyes following your every movement as you settled back next to him.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, tilting your head to the side, closer to him. He wasn’t sure if you were even aware you did that, it seemed subconscious, but it prompted his hands to reach for you.

He touched your cheek, running his fingers over your jaw before leaning in to press his lips to yours—quickly, just to remind himself that he could. And to steal just one breath from you.

“No,” he said then. “Never.”

He saw your eyes soften and your smile grow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He traced his thumb over your lower lip before pulling away to sit up on the bed. “Who, um—who was that on the phone?”

The question was expected, but you didn’t have an answer for him personally—you’d planned to explain everything to all of Rated Riot later today.

“Uh,” you leaned against the headboard of the bed, “the label.”

“Yeah?” he encouraged.

“The CEO, actually,” you added briefly. “But I should probably discuss this with the whole band.”

Startled, Jungkook gripped the sheets in his hand. He was worried—rather obviously—that this was about Sid or still about Reconnaissance, and he couldn’t decide which he dreaded more. He was absurdly quick to convince himself that the CEO had told you something so serious that you didn’t even see the point of talking to him about it.

“Did something happen?” he asked, feeling the tips of his fingers grow numb.

You recognised the concern on his face with half of a glance. “Yeah, but it’s something good.”

Relief, excitement, and curiosity replaced the previous anxiety in his eyes at an impressive speed.

He shifted on the bed with a newfound energy, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “Well, tell me!”

“We’ll have a meeting—”

“That’s fair,” he said, moving closer. “But tell me now.”

You were too excited to dwell on the fact that this was the precise conflict of interest that had unsettled your mind earlier—this perception of favouritism, this special treatment that others might assume Jungkook received because he was in a relationship with his manager.

“You’re doing festivals next summer,” you said, pausing for emphasis, “and they’re extending your tour. We’ll be going back to at least five countries in Europe for encore shows.”

You still had to confirm the dates with the venues and perform several additional bureaucratic tasks so your team could stay in Europe longer, but all of that seemed irrelevant in light of this news.

“Ah,” Jungkook replied—happy, but not nearly as exuberant as you’d hoped. “That’s cool.”

You realised quickly that he must have misunderstood.

“No, Jungkook,” you said. “In arenas this time—with a capacity at least three times larger than we have right now.”

Instantly, his eyes ignited with the flames you’d looked forward to before.

“Oh,” he said and now the tingle of adventure was finally there, glistening fervently in his burning eyes.

But he looked at you again, and he thought there was something you hadn’t told him yet. It was the way your lips curled—smiling, but not quite.

“But you look—was there something else you talked about?” he asked.

You were surprised. You had hoped—naively, you now realised—that you could continue to talk about the promising parts of all that CJ had told you, leaving the more questionable parts to wait until the rest of your thoughts had cleared.

“They’re, uh, holding interviews for assistant managers and promoting me to Head Manager,” you said. Jungkook raised his eyebrows, but you continued before he could interject, “they’ll send people to Paris for me to sign the new contract.”

“To—oh, shit. Fuck.” His shock turned to laughter. Just moments ago, he was worried you’d have to leave the band. Now you were signing a new contract to stay. “Oh, but does that—does that mean we will see less of you? Is that why you—why you don’t seem very happy about that?”

“No, it’s—I am happy,” you said. “I’ll stay on-site with you guys. But the focus is—they’re saying we’re focusing more on promoting you and ‘strengthening your brand.’ That was cool, by the way. Your brand. I liked that part. But, uh—that will be my main priority, apparently. I guess I’m not really sure how that’s going to go.”

That wasn’t the only reason for your apprehension, but you did not want to mention Reconnaissance and the unexpected impact that Nick’s offer had on your sudden promotion. You preferred to see Jungkook smiling at you from across the bed—even more so when he was smiling right next to you.

“Well, what will you have to do?” he asked. “I mean, exactly?”

“I guess I will be making phone calls the whole day,” you replied, hoping secretly that this would not turn out to be all you’d have to do. “It also means that none of us will be going home longer than it takes for you to record a new album.”

“Oh.” Jungkook attempted to control his facial expression. For him, this arrangement—album, tour, album, tour—sounded almost ideal. “Well, that’s honestly fine by me.”

You knew he would not mind. But you minded. You had not said anything about your own workload to CJ, but you were prepared to use any threats necessary to ensure that Rated Riot had enough time to breathe.

“You say that now,” you pointed out, “but it will eventually get tough, being away from home for so long.”

“I have you,” Jungkook said. “I am home.”

He said that like it was the most obvious statement in the world—the grass is green, the sky is blue—but subtle magic was laced in every letter of every word. When he closed his eyes, when he couldn’t see the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel room, his senses recognised the warmth of your presence as home.

Unfortunately, the darkness in his thoughts was unforgiving, and he had to ask you something else—but then he lost his resolve momentarily when he met your soft gaze and realised that you’d placed your hand on his.

“I, uh—” he tried, but several more moments had to pass before he sobered, “he—did he say anything about Sid?”

You exhaled. “Yeah.”

Jungkook nodded contemplatively and took a breath, bracing himself. Although it was difficult to imagine what the label could have said about Sid, considering the abundance of good news, he knew better than to expect something positive.

Another book his grandmother had read with him when he was young suddenly returned to his mind, the dark cover with thick red lettering vivid in his memory: Something wicked this way comes.

The book had been sinister, completely unfitting for a child of his age at the time. Just like Sid.

“What was it?” Jungkook asked.

“That picture he posted,” you said, “is apparently the cover of your upcoming album.”

“It—oh.” He looked away, puzzled, suddenly, by the shade of the wallpaper behind the bedframe and the questionable events that had led the label to that conclusion. He tried to say more and managed a very successful, “ah.”

You lowered your head, tugging on the edge of the duvet. “Namjoon, uh—he took care of it before I got the call from CJ, so I don’t know much about what he said to him.”

Jungkook was not sure if he should have been relieved that Sid’s damage had been neutralised seemingly so effortlessly. He could never know with Sid; his refusal to give up rivalled only Voldemort’s immortality. Only Sid’s horcruxes were, apparently, pictures and videos he used to manipulate others.

“It’s a good photo for an album cover,” Jungkook finally said.

“It—it is,” you agreed. “And it’s also—well, you know. A good explanation.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll inform the label about us before I sign the new contract, though,” you decided. “I’ll talk to them. I thought maybe this could wait, but they’re sending over lawyers, so it’s—”

Jungkook’s breath got lodged in his throat and he had to cough several times to clear his airways, interrupting you.

“H-hold on,” he said. “You need lawyers present when you tell them we’re together?”

“They’re coming for the contract,” you explained. “And I’ll have to talk to them before I sign it because I figure you might be my conflict of interest.”

A sudden surge of very different emotions made Jungkook purse his lips. He found himself wondering if there was any term starting with “my” you could have used to describe him that he wouldn’t have liked. My boyfriend. My source of headaches. My biggest nuisance. Ultimately, all of that still meant that he was yours.

Reasonably, however, he did not like the sound of this.

“Huh,” he mused. “Doesn’t work as a pet name. Call me something else.”

“Yeah.” You chuckled. “I don’t like that one, either.”

You did not look particularly troubled. Everything was going to be fine, you were sure of it. You just weren’t sure how soon, and what this “fine” would look like.

“Come here,” Jungkook said before you could begin thinking about the possibilities and the risks.

You moved closer, happy to relish in the warmth of the room for a few more minutes as he wrapped his arms around you.

This was the morning you were looking forward to. Everything else could wait.

The second you stepped out of Jungkook’s hotel room and headed towards yours to pack for the day, Maggie startled you by calling out your name in the otherwise empty, echoing corridor. She appeared a little worried when you turned around, and that was so unbecoming on her normally laid-back face that you took an instinctive step back.

“Is—are you okay?” you asked.

She seemed surprised to see your surprise.

“I slept the whole day,” she explained. She was carrying something in her hands, but she kept it behind her back. “Feels like I was out for a week, actually.”

You smiled. That was hardly anything new.

You remembered the fright of your life that Maggie had given you the first time the two of you went out together. She had an alcohol tolerance that should have been outlawed, so she always drank more than Jungkook could ever handle (though he would argue otherwise, of course). By the time you got her back to your apartment that night, she was already barely conscious.

She had collapsed on your bed and when you brought her a glass of water about three minutes later, she was already snoring. And she’d slept—you counted—for twenty-two hours and thirty-three minutes. You had spent the last eight hours keeping watch over her, periodically checking if she was breathing, with your finger hovering over the emergency number on your phone.

To your amazement, she woke up the next morning without so much as a hint of a headache, perplexed by the concerned look on your face. She looked a bit like that now.

“Yeah,” you replied, a little jealous of her dangerous, but seemingly foolproof ability to avoid hangovers. “Maybe we should have stopped before the tequila shots.”

“Hmm.” She scratched her forehead. It was hard to tell what she was feeling; hesitation flickered in her eyes when she looked at you. “Was, uh—was Jungkook in my room yesterday?”

“He—oh, yeah,” you recalled. “I asked him to check on you.”

“Oh.” Relief washed over her face, adding some vibrancy to her cloudy features. “Okay. So I didn’t hallucinate that.”

You smiled again. “No.”

“I took your jacket,” she said, revealing the item she’d been clutching in her hands. “I don’t remember doing that.”

She seemed to remember even less from last night than you did, which was not uncommon for Maggie. She had a terrible memory in general—she took notes and then forgot she took notes—but this time, you could not help her remember, either.

“Thanks,” you said, taking your jacket from her. It still smelled faintly of your perfume and too much liquor. “Jungkook told me you had it. I still have one of your shoes.”

“Yeah, I—I have yours somewhere, too,” she said. “I assume you have my phone, too, then?”

You looked up. “Why would I have your phone?”

“Hm?” she asked as her heart began to pump blood a tad more effectively than necessary; you hadn’t even properly answered her yet. “But—you—didn’t you put it in your bag last night?”

You stilled and the surprise inside your stomach grew large, floating inside you as if it were a heavy, helium and anxiety-filled balloon.

“I… I had my bag with me?” you asked very slowly, but Maggie still did not understand the essence of your question. She looked around as though she’d just realised she was accidentally having this conversation in a language she did not speak, and she needed someone to translate it for her.

You were baffled. You knew you’d left your phone in your room before you went out with the girls, it was entangled in the sheets when you woke up the next morning. But you couldn’t remember whatever happened with your handbag; you had assumed it remained in your room as well.

“I’m pretty sure you had it with you,” Maggie said. Your heartbeat sped up, matching the frantic rhythm in your friend’s chest. “You took our orders on my phone because you didn’t have yours. And I assumed you put it in your bag after that.”

You turned around, frightened goosebumps rising on the back of your spine as your trembling fingers fumbled with the lock on your door.

“Jungkook said I didn’t have my bag with me when I got back,” you said as you entered the room, your gaze sweeping the space with an ever-mounting sense of panic. “I assumed—I thought I just didn’t take it with me. Nothing was missing. I had my keys in my jacket—I took them out at some point, before the jacket ended up with you—a-and my phone was here.”

You attacked the room, lifting suitcases and inspecting empty closets. Since you hadn’t fully unpacked, there were not a lot of places where your handbag could have been. Maggie tried to help you by holding up furniture for you to check underneath—just in case, she’d said—but it became increasingly clear, with every nook and cranny you searched, that the bag was simply not here.

“Okay, shit,” Maggie finally concluded as the two of you knelt side by side on the floor, the room in disarray around you.

Among the useless clutter, you found a lot of dust, someone’s phone charger, and a forgotten USB flash drive under your nightstand.

“Wait, so—wait, wait.” You stood up, stumbling slightly as your knees cracked. “So, you don’t have your phone?”

The question was redundant, but Maggie didn’t mind repeating herself. She was just as confused as you were. And the handbag was the least of your problems: you did not carry a lot of cash with you when you travelled, so if you didn’t find the bag, all that you’d lose would be a travel-sized container of hand sanitiser, an old tube of lipgloss, and a package of tissues. It was Maggie’s phone that you were worried about—you couldn’t even remember putting it in your bag.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes seemed even wider than they had in the corridor. Her hair fell in chaotic curls over her face. “I couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried Find My iPhone today, but it didn’t show anything. Maybe the phone’s dead? I don’t know. I didn’t check right after we returned to the hotel, because I was sleeping. And then, this morning, I thought, well, of course the app won’t tell me where my phone is. Because you have it, and you’re right next door.”

You clenched your jaw. “Okay. Okay, I-I must have left my bag at the club. Or someone took it. We have to call them.”

“Call them?” Maggie repeated, standing up, too. She glanced around your room once more to make sure your bag had not decided to grow feet and return on its own. “What will we say?”

You did not mind the pointlessness of her question, either. Evidently, now was the precise time for stupid questions.

“That I lost it. I don’t know,” you said. “Let’s just see. Maybe I left it there.” But you hesitated as soon as you pulled your phone out. “Shit. Do you remember what the place was called?”

“Oh, yeah, I have the directions open on my pho—” She stopped tapping the pockets of her jeans, realising. “Oh, shit.”

“Fuck.”

It took you less than a second to find the solution to your new problem.

Luna and Taehyung’s room was just down the corridor, and Luna opened the door as soon as you knocked, almost as if she had been waiting for you to require her immediate assistance in this crisis.  

She could not remember many details of how the three of you got home, but she readily supplied the name of the club. Then she joined you and Maggie in your room, where your friends tried to reconstruct the events of the previous night and you dialled the number of the club, your shaky hands and frazzled mind leading you to hit all the wrong keys on your phone.

Finally, the call connected, and a cheerful, young voice introduced himself as, simply, Tom, barkeeper—although your frantic mind interpreted that as Tom Barkeeper initially, which, honestly, seemed like a fitting government name for someone tending the bar.

“Hi!” you said, your nervous voice nearing a screech. Luna and Maggie stopped talking and turned to you. “My friends and I were at your club on Wednesday night, and I seem to have misplaced my handbag. Is there any chance I left it there?”

“Let me check, miss,” Tom Barkeeper replied. You heard the faint sound of his footsteps in the background. “Could you describe it for me?”

“It—well, it was black,” you said, your palm pressed against your forehead. “With a large grey metal zipper, and sort of a—a little chain on the—”

“Er, actually, no, we’ve got no handbags at the Lost and Found,” he interrupted. “Got five watches, though.”

He chuckled lightly, and you looked up at your friends. There was a frown on your face that they immediately took to mean danger, and moved closer, settling on either side of you to listen.

“Uh, right,” you said distractedly, putting the call on speaker. “Are there any phones, by chance? There was a phone in my bag.”

“We had a couple of phones left here, but both have been picked up by their owners,” Tom B. replied. “Sorry.”

You turned to your friends, silently asking them what to do next.

“Perhaps you left your bag somewhere else?” the barkeeper suggested over the phone. “A taxi?”

Maggie, who remembered glimpses of your taxi ride, shook her head.

“Hmm. Or it was stolen,” you speculated.

Tom Barkeeper seemed surprised by this and he stuttered for a second—he had a thick accent, and even his, “well, er—I’d—uhm—” sounded really quite elegant—until he finally composed himself.

“Well, it—it does get rather busy here,” he admitted, and his voice sounded even younger all of a sudden. “I—er, was it very valuable? You could try filing a report, then we’d get our security here and rewind the CCTV footage.”

You glanced at Maggie. She shook her head again. She doubted they could find her phone in time if it really was stolen; you’d be leaving for Paris soon. She was embarrassed, too. There was nothing she could tell the police if you filed a report.

When have you last seen your phone, miss?

I have no idea, officer. I was shitfaced the whole night.

“I think we—no, that, um—we’ll try to see if there are any other places where it could be first,” you told Tom, trying to come up with a logical plan on the spot. “And then I’ll—”

“Yeah,” the barkeeper cut in, sounding relieved. “You check and call us back if you haven’t found it.”

“Yes. Thank you. Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s alright, miss,” he said. “Hope you find it.”

You ended the call with a disheartened sigh and turned to your friends.

“Well, they don’t have it,” you declared, as if they hadn’t heard everything.

“That’s great,” Luna observed. She glanced around the chaos inside your room. “And it’s definitely not here?”

“You can go ahead and look,” you said, stepping back to gesture at the piles of clothes. “I don’t know where else it could be.”

“Okay, well, Maggie and I both remember you having it with you on our way to the club,” she said. She tapped her chin and, because she had her glasses on and wore a sweater with a long white dress shirt underneath, she looked a bit like a heroine from an old Agatha Christie novel. “I remember the pins on my dress getting caught on the chain on your bag in the taxi.”

“That’s right,” you said, pointing at her, although you weren’t sure if you remembered the moment under discussion, or just the way the three of you had laughed about it later that night.

“So maybe you left it there before we even got to the club?” Luna suggested.

“No, but she still had it with her in the club!” Maggie interjected, frustrated. Her hair kept growing wilder the longer she stayed here, tousling it nervously every few seconds. “When she took our drink orders! My phone and her bag were both there.”

You and Luna both groaned, realising Maggie had already mentioned this. You were aware that the three of you had turned into a mess after just one night of drinking. Perhaps the next time you went out, you should consider bringing a chaperone, because this right now felt a lot like the blind leading the blind.

“Right,” Luna mumbled. “Sorry.”

“It’s starting to seem,” you said, “that either I left it in the taxi at the end of the night, or someone grabbed it at the club.”

Maggie nodded, agreeing with these options, even if she did not know what to do with them. You didn’t, either. Was there a Lost and Found for items accidentally abandoned in taxis? Should you have filed a report with the police, after all? Surely, they dealt with drunk people losing their belongings all the time. And maybe they could search for the phone even if you were across the strait.

Then you noticed that Luna was biting her lip, seemingly lost in a recurring thought.

“What are you thinking?” you prodded. She did not react. “Luna?”

She looked up from the floor, surprised to be addressed.

“Nothing,” she said, hesitating. “It’s sort of a conspiracy theory more than it is based on actual facts. But, um, you did mention seeing Sid and Jude at the club.”

You watched Maggie pull on her hair so hard that a few strands stayed in her grasp when she let go. Neither of you liked how plausible Luna’s not-fact-based theory was.

“You think they took my bag,” you surmised. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Luna replied. “Why does Sid do anything?”

Your frown deepened. She had a disturbingly solid point. Sid was diabolical.

“That’s…” you faltered, thinking. “Well, he could have—although I didn’t even have anything in my bag except for Maggie’s—oh. Shit.”

Your sudden realisation—and the subsequent horror flashing across your face—surprised both girls. Maggie stepped closer to you.

“What is it?” she asked.

You pulled out your phone and opened Instagram.

“Sid posted a—he posted the picture,” you explained, scrolling down your feed, then abandoning this decision and going directly to Sid’s profile. “The one Maggie showed us at the club.”

You found the post and turned your phone towards the girls. The expressions on their faces made it very clear that Luna’s hypothesis was not far-fetched at all. Maggie looked delightfully murderous.

“Jungkook thinks Sid got it from his phone,” you said, “but what if—wh-what—”

“My phone was in your bag. He could have downloaded it from my gallery,” Maggie concluded, staring at the screen.

She wasn’t just angry about her stolen phone or the filter Sid had put over a perfectly good picture. She was also angry about him using a photograph that she was proud of to stir up trouble.

“That fucking loser,” she said. “That massive fucking piece of shit. Fucking good-for-nothing rat. Motherf—”

“Yeah, Mags,” you interjected, knowing she might not stop for a while. Last week, she had kept mumbling curses under her breath for forty minutes straight after Jimin ate the last pack of tomato ketchup crisps that she’d brought with her on tour. “We agree with you.”

Luna continued to bite her lip until it took upon an angry shade of red. She did not want to be responsible if she’d just led you in the wrong direction. Maggie already seemed prepared to crush your phone in her hand as she stared at Sid’s post.

Luna tried to reason, “we don’t know if that’s really what happened, though.”

“No, but it makes sense. You have to be right,” you insisted, glancing at the clock above the door. “Fuck. I—I have to—I have to get the band together before their soundcheck, but after that, I’m—I’ll talk to Minjun.” You brought your hand through your hair, angrier at yourself than you were at Sid right now. “We should have left the club right after I talked to Jude. It was a shitty call to stay there. But we’ll find your phone, Mags. And if Sid was really the one who took it, he’s—well, he’s not going to be taking shit from anyone anymore.”

Some of the tension in Maggie’s posture eased at your words.

“Well, we couldn’t have known they’d do something like that when we decided to stay,” Luna said, her voice comforting. “If they indeed—”

“Alright,” Maggie interrupted, taking a deep breath and returning your phone to you. “Let’s kill him.”

The room fell silent. You did not know if Maggie was aware of the undeniable resolve in her voice. She’d said that like she would have said, “let’s get lunch,” while already holding boxes of take-out in her hands.

“Or, you know,” she added in response to your and Luna’s expressions, “let’s beat him up. That’ll work, too.”

You glanced at Luna and the smile spreading on her face made you lose your calm, too.

“We’ll do that,” you promised Maggie, grinning as you wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned your head against hers. “If we can’t come up with anything better.”

“Hell yeah,” Luna agreed, joining you on Maggie’s other side. “He’s got a few teeth left, right? We can start counting who knocks out more. Jungkook is in the lead right now, but I don’t like losing, so—”

You and Maggie burst into laughter so loud and sudden that Luna flinched in surprise. Maggie even had to clutch your arm for support as she bent over, struggling to breathe in between wheezes. Her laughter was so infectious that Luna couldn’t keep a straight face much longer, either.

You were convinced that you would fix everything.

You’d find Minjun and ask if he had talked to Sid or Jude since Wednesday. If not, you’d get to the two of them yourself. Maggie would take care of them if they had your bag. And if, by some lucky chance, they would turn out to be innocent, you’d go to the police to find the real culprit.

You gathered the band—and Namjoon, of course—in the changing room of the venue before the soundcheck. Mindful of your limited time, you started by sharing the updates from CJ – the festivals next summer, the arena tour, and finally, the strategic shift that Jett Records was planning for Rated Riot, including your promotion and the expansion of the management team.

Once the cheers and the high-fives died down, you asked the boys to settle down for one last thing.

“The opening act,” you said, scrolling to the very bottom of the meeting agenda you’d prepared on your Notes. “Ren is still recovering from his broken foot, so we—”

“Because Ren is a whiny baby,” Jungkook chimed in helpfully. He was leaning against the wall instead of sitting around the table like the rest of his bandmates.

You gave him a look that was not particularly grateful but lacked any real threat. He grinned.

“So, Poison Tongue might be out for the rest of the tour,” you went on. “We’re talking to several other bands that might join you instead. Ivy will continue to support you on the upcoming shows in London and Paris.”

The band members nodded. They’d grown accustomed to Ivy’s presence—she used to be a tattoo artist and brought her equipment with her when she travelled, which everyone on tour appreciated. You and your girls personally found it wonderful to have another girl around.

“Alright. That was the last thing on my list, but it—there’s something else we have to discuss,” you paused, glancing around the room to keep your voice steady. Jungkook gave you a firm nod of support from the back of the room, no longer fooling around. “Uh, there was a picture posted last night. I’m sure you’ve all seen it. Namjoon took care of it; he informed the label that it’s the leaked cover of your upcoming album. But I want to emphasise that it doesn’t have to be the cover of anything. We can say it was one of the options, but we settled on something—”

“I like it,” Taehyung interjected. “The picture, I mean. I think we could use it as the cover for our next single, at least. It fits, right?”

“It does,” Yoongi agreed. You felt a tingle of unease creeping down your spine. “The lyrics match the picture very well.”

That was understandable, given the subject matter of the lyrics, but you were grateful that Yoongi did not elaborate further. You felt Jungkook watching you from across the room and your skin was burning.

“And it fits in with the rest of our album covers, too,” Hoseok joined, solidifying the consensus.

The decision had already been made, so Jungkook only shrugged when your eyes slid over to him.

“I say we use it,” he said. “It’s a great shot.”

For the first time since you joined Rated Riot, you genuinely worried that you might not keep your composure.

Every person in this room—and many people in the corridors, working on Rated Riot’s show—knew that you and Jungkook were the people in the photograph, and they all agreed to help you hide your relationship in plain sight. Aching discomfort and heartfelt gratitude fought a fierce battle inside your chest.

“Well, then, alright,” you said, your voice quivering slightly on the last syllable. You fixed your gaze on the white table. “That’s, uh, settled, then. Thank you, Namjoon, by the way. That was great quick thinking on your part.”

“No problem,” Namjoon replied. Hoseok leaned back in his chair to pat him on the shoulder and Namjoon gave him a smile before explaining, “I didn’t mean to jump the gun, but—”

“No, no,” you cut him off. “You did great. It’s—well, it’s good PR, claiming he just leaked the cover art. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Maggie’s the one who took a great picture.”

Hums of agreement filled the room, and you nodded, too. Maggie had always been a field photographer. She felt claustrophobic in a closed photo studio, she needed the space, the action, the emotion. And she knew how to capture it all. It was a great picture. It was a shame what Sid was trying to do with it.

“She did, yeah,” you said before noticing the time on your phone. “But, uh, anyway, that—that was all. Any quick questions?”

No one spoke, and the momentary silence in the room felt a little disconcerting. These were the loudest people you’ve ever met, so you did not enjoy feeling like a teacher, asking for volunteers to solve an excruciating equation. Actually, you did not enjoy standing here at all right now; pins and needles chased each other all across your body.

“In that case,” you locked your phone and set it down on the table, “go out, and get ready for the night. It’s going to be a good one.”

Someone cried out, “fuck yes!”—it was hard to determine who, due to the immediate shouts of agreement that followed—and the boys tumbled out of the room, making as much noise as they could. Right away you felt a little better. Everyone had already been excited about the concert tonight, but the news about the extended tour and bigger venues only amplified their emotions.

You ended up watching each of the boys leap over the threshold of the door for no reason whatsoever, just to see who could jump the farthest—until Jungkook smacked his head right into the top of the door frame.

Pouting, he walked over to you after everyone else had finished laughing and left. You fixed his hair, trying to bite back your laughter, and he pulled you into a hug, groaning in disapproval when he felt you chuckle softly against his chest.

“Is your head okay?” you asked, the humour in your tone undeniable, despite your attempts to suppress it.

“No,” he said, tightening his grip on your waist until he heard your quiet gasp. “Oh, now it’s a little better.”

“Oh, it’s better,” you retorted, evidently taking up the challenge. “I see.”

The force of your grip was nowhere near as strong as his—although it was very impressive, he had to admit; he did lose his breath for a split second—but you felt his smile spread as he leaned his head against yours, and that was good enough.

He hummed against your neck, swaying with you in his arms, and you realised that you could not think about Sid’s picture or Maggie’s phone now that it was just the two of you in the room. That was good. You wouldn’t have wanted to speak to Jungkook about any of that right before his concert anyway.

“Now it’s okay,” he whispered. “Fifteen more minutes and I’ll be good as new. Maybe twenty.”

You smiled, but one of your hands had stopped drawing soothing patterns on his back.

“You have to go, though,” you reminded him reluctantly. “Jin will rip you a new one if you’re not on stage in two and a half minutes. He and Jimin got into an argument with one of the local sound engineers earlier today, so he wants to finish the soundcheck as quickly as possible.”

Jungkook groaned, releasing you, but keeping his gaze on yours.

“Can I just tell him I hurt my head,” he asked, “so I deserve special treatment?”

“Not sure,” you replied. “I think that only works with me.”

His laughter was loud and unapologetic. Before you could say anything else, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back into his chest again, resting his forehead against yours.

“What are you doing?” you whispered, concerned about his poor time management and the relatively open space that you were in. The door was closed this time, but not locked.

“Nothing,” he replied softly. His lower lip brushed against yours as he spoke. You felt dangerously light. “If you say I’m late.”

“Well, n-not yet... You have about,” your breath hitched momentarily when he pressed a gentle kiss just under your jaw, “a minute and forty-five seconds left.”

“Well, then,” he lifted his eyes to look at you again, but only for a moment, “I have to make the most of my,” his lips touched yours slowly, but firmly, “one minute and,” his quick kiss gained more force, “thirty seconds.”

You were laughing by the time he kissed you again, and he could not stop himself from smiling, too. He knew he was running late, but he kept his lips on yours, the kiss focused, lingering, and locked your taste in a separate part of his brain—a part so full of you that it was beginning to overtake other, much less important parts.

“I love you,” he whispered, pulling away.

His lips glistened slightly from your gloss. Your heart, having already finished three laps around the venue, had now taken up parkour in the crevices of your chest.

“I love you,” you replied. You ran your fingers down his cheek, forgetting yourself, almost, when he leaned into your touch. Then you pulled back and nodded at the door. “Go now. I’ll see you after the show tonight. There’s, uh—I have a plan I want to discuss with you.”

Jungkook was about to object—you couldn’t remove your hands from his skin so abruptly, there was a certain procedure you had to follow to ensure he could still breathe when you were no longer touching him, similar to replacing nicotine patches for someone trying to quit smoking—but then he realised what you were saying.

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow and stayed still despite your utmost attempts to push his shoulder to get him to turn around. “About Sid?”

You nodded. “Yeah. But I’ll explain later.”

You expected him to question this, to try to find out what the plan was right now, but he did no such thing. He felt happy and optimistic—kissing you might have helped with that—so he did not need to know more. You could have said that you were taking all of your staff to Argentina to escape Sid, and he would have grabbed his sunglasses.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in, either way. Operation Cobra-Rabbit.”

“Operat—” You scoffed, suddenly remembering your conversation after the film yesterday. “We’re not calling it that. It’s not a secret operation, it doesn’t need a name. You’re going to your soundcheck now, and then we’ll—”

“How about Operation: Escape from London?” he suggested, dragging his feet as you pushed him towards the door. “Since, you know, we’re in—”

“No,” you said. “Go.”

He didn’t protest this time, because Seokjin’s angry, hurried footsteps were already reverberating down the corridor, and Jungkook did not want to piss him off more. Still, he paused again by the door, giving you one last overly dramatic nod over his shoulder as if he were in a spy film. Then he left with a triumphant fist in the air after finally earning a chuckle from you.

You shook your head as he shut the door of the room behind himself, leaving you alone—not for very long, however.

Less than a minute later, as you returned to the table that Hoseok and Yoongi had dragged to the centre of the room for your meeting, you heard the door open again. You lifted your head, ready to scold Jungkook, and saw Namjoon instead, peeking inside sheepishly.

“Hey,” he greeted, hesitating in the doorway. “Didn’t want to interrupt your meeting, so I, uh, waited until it’s over. Do you have a minute?”

A knot tightened in the pit of your stomach. There were too many things that already took you by surprise today. You were not sure how many more of them you could take.

“You wouldn’t have interrupted,” you said, mustering a smile. “You’re part of the team. Come in.”

Namjoon slipped into the room without any sound at all and took a moment to close the door, his hand lingering on the engraved knob.

“Yeah, uh—I just want to have a quick word with you,” he said, turning around. “About why I called CJ in advance.”

“Oh. You don’t have to explain that,” you said. “It—that was a good decision. Thank you for thinking of it. You might have really saved—”

Namjoon started to speak in the middle of your sentence as if he hadn’t heard you.

“I was with Yoongi in his room, working on the song, when we saw Sid’s post,” he said, clearly battling his guilt about the extra attention the picture had gained because of him. He wanted you to know that he had no bad intentions. “It was about four in the morning when we—well, actually, a fan sent it to Yoongi, and asked, “oh my god, is this the cover of your new album?” Obviously, Yoongi and I thought that was impossible; we haven’t even decided when we’re releasing this new song. We could tell that Sid was just trying to mess with Jungkook, and that it had to be you in that picture with him.”

Self-conscious when he gave you a questioning glance, you brought a hand over your neck. “It is.”

“Yeah. So, I called CJ right away,” Namjoon continued. “I don’t think I even had a clear plan of what I was going to say to him or what time it was for him. But he picked up, and I just blurted out, “our album cover leaked,” because that was what that fan had assumed. And why not, you know? If the fans think that’s what happened, why not utilise that to eradicate whatever Sid was trying to do? The picture’s really good. Might as well use it for—for a good cause, instead of whatever Sid was hoping for.”

“Right. Yeah. Exactly,” you said. The more words you used to agree with him, the clearer it became that you still wished you could have escaped this situation. “And now Sid’s caption makes it seem like he’s just—”

“Congratulating them,” Namjoon finished for you. “Happy for you, he’d said. Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you allowed for several quiet moments to pass, lost in your own thoughts. Namjoon shifted his weight to his right leg and tucked his thumb into his belt loop.

“I, um—I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, though,” he said, looking up. “I knew things might get… weird if I didn’t do anything. The picture itself might not have caused any harm, but given the speculation surrounding it, and your upcoming promotion… I thought that using the picture as an album cover was just safer.”

“Yeah, it—no, I—I’m glad you did that, really,” you said, a little thrown off by the mention of your promotion. “I don’t know if I would have thought of a solution like that.”

Namjoon believed you would have come up with a similar plan quite easily. The problem was that you did not want to draw even more attention to the picture.

“Y-you said—um,” you added, “did you know that CJ was going to call me?”

His pursed lips turned into a timid smile.

“I heard some things…” he admitted.

You arched a surprised eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I hear a lot of things you wouldn’t want to know.”

You nodded. You were fortunate to work with many amazing people, but you had heard their stories. You knew what this industry had been like to them before they reached this point. And you felt very blessed that these same people now shielded you from the negativity that they had not been able to escape themselves.

“Alright,” you said. You were glad, all of a sudden, that CJ had not elaborated on his decision to suddenly promote you. “That’s fair enough.”

You returned to your belongings, sliding your phone into your pocket, and Namjoon observed you in silence for a second, only moving to assist you when you began to push the table back to its original place by the window.

“So,” he said, once the room was restored to its former order, “how come you look so worried? Head Manager! That’s great.”

“Oh,” you said. “It is great.”

Namjoon knew there was more. The two of you hadn’t had many chances to have private conversations during this tour, but usually, you were the person he came to talk to about the problems in his job, and he expected the same from you.

He gestured towards the couch next to the table and waited until you took a seat before sitting down next to you with an expectant look on his face.

“It—well, really, this is great,” you said, clasping your hands together as you rested your elbows on your knees. This was standard, Namjoon knew. You needed a minute to admit what was bothering you. “I’m grateful. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now. Nothing I want to trouble you with, but, uh, this promotion feels… well, it feels like my work had very little to do with it. They found out about Reconnaissance and just decided to promote me. I’m happy, of course, but I wish they had waited until after the tour, so I could say, with confidence, that this was due to everything I’ve achieved with Rated Riot. And not just because Nick Zhou called me one time.”

Namjoon appeared to be highly interested in one specific crack in the floorboards.

“But this is because of everything you’ve achieved with Rated Riot,” he said, not looking up. You wondered if he did that on purpose, to make you feel less like you were talking to a specific person, and more like you were just talking—so you would not feel bad about sharing your troubles. “You took the abstract concept of a European tour and brought it to life. And then Rated Riot got on stage, and the whole Europe fell in love with them. But you brought them here. You looked after them. And the staff. And, actually, their personal belongings. Sorry about Tilburg.”

You smiled, recalling the Lost Laptops of Tilburg.

“It’s nothing. I was just doing my job,” you said. “And everyone on this tour looks after one another. That—well, that’s the whole point, I—”

“No,” he disagreed, finally giving you a look. “You’re never just doing your job. You’re always doing more. You earned this. Accept it.”

Namjoon had used a very similar tone to defend you from bitter, middle-aged men who had a problem with your promotion after CJ’s assistant had brought it up at the last Zoom meeting with the executives at the company. Their issue was your young age. Namjoon did not think a person needed to start balding to be awarded for their great work.

“CJ actually didn’t even give me the option to refuse,” you said, your smile turning wry. “He just told me I’m getting promoted and I felt like I had to go along with it.”

Namjoon nodded knowingly. He had several similar experiences with Christian Jett before. He had even played tennis with him once and called him Chris—not CJ—by accident. Luckily, he managed to duck before a tennis ball came hurling at his head. Namjoon knew CJ did not give suggestions; he gave orders.

“Would you have refused, if he’d asked?” he asked you.

“No, but…” You spun your ring around your index finger and settled back against the couch. “Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I am—honestly, I’m also worried about my relationship with Jungkook,” you said.

Namjoon noted that this was the first time you brought this up to him without encouragement. Despite his surprise, however, he did not want to let the awkward silence take over the room, so he coughed politely into his fist and tried to reply, not particularly smoothly.

“What do you—what are you worried about?” he asked, even though that was obvious.

“I talked to Jin the other day,” you said. “He said that as long as the band makes a profit, no one’s going to care—which is true enough. But with this happening, with Rated Riot growing more and more popular, with my promotion… they will have to care. Our relationship has, obviously, never been strictly professional. And now it could hinder their plans for the band.”

Namjoon mulled over this for a minute, his gaze drifting to the expanse of the empty room. He had obviously had similar thoughts as you when he made the call to CJ, but now he realised that this was only half the picture.

“If they’re promoting you,” he began, his voice steady against the subdued air in the room, “that obviously means they want to keep you in the company. So, when they learn about your relationship, they definitely won’t immediately decide to fire you. I suppose they will ask you to end the relationship, or they won’t care about it at all. Those are the only two logical possibilities, right?”

“Right,” you agreed.

“If they tell you to end it,” Namjoon continued, “I think you’re in a position to present them with a similar ultimatum. Tell them that you will leave if they won’t accept your relationship. That is risky, I’ll admit. But they need you. And, from what I hear, they know you have other options.”

There was a quality about Namjoon that you really admired. Often, when people wanted to make someone feel better, they said things that they knew would lift their spirits—you appreciated that as well, just in a different way. Namjoon, on the other hand, managed to offer comfort tempered with rationality.

You took a deep breath and stretched your legs.

“Yeah,” you said. “Negotiate, is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. More or less,” he confirmed. “But, of course, you have to decide what, uh—what you will do if they refuse to do it your way.”

You shook your head.

“I’ve already decided,” you said. The smile on your face was as sad as smiles could be. “If they will tell me it’s one or the other, I won’t choose to stay at the company. I’ll choose him.”

Namjoon nodded and hung his head. He hoped you would think he did that in solidarity, but, really, he was trying to hide his smile. Of course, he was a little worried about the label’s reaction. But he was also happy for you and Jungkook.

Not to mention, he had been roped into joining the bet about your relationship backstage—Seokjin was very loud, and Namjoon embarrassed very easily—and now he might have been the first to find out that he’d won.

He couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “I—are you guys, um, back together, then?”

“Honestly,” you said, snickering at the absurdity of your position, “at this point, it feels like we never even broke up.”

Namjoon’s smile was too big to hide it. “So, you are, then.”

“We are. And, it’s—you know,” you said with a shrug that was not one bit nonchalant, despite your best attempts to make it seem so, “I’d love to still be able to keep working with you guys despite that, but, uh—I’ll deal with whatever happens. If they will think this is unacceptable, I’ll leave.”

“It may not come to that,” he said, his tone reassuring, yet grounded. “There’s still a good chance that the label won’t care. I mean, Taehyung is in a relationship.”

“Yeah,” you gave him a skeptical look, “but Luna isn’t working with him.”

“True,” he acknowledged before pursuing his point further, “but that relationship only has a positive impact on the band. He’s relaxed when she’s here, her presence helps him cope with the stress of the tour… on and on this list goes.”

That was a great observation, of course. Not to mention, you enjoyed having Luna around, too. But you knew that there was more to the story.

“I had to fight for that, though,” you said. “Jett Records didn’t think we should allow any girlfriends, friends, or relatives on tour. I had a different opinion.”

Namjoon did not know this, but his surprise quickly turned to pride.

“Oh,” he said, beaming. “But you won, though. They allowed our loved ones to join. You got your way.”

“Yes, but that could be because they didn’t think the tour would be this successful,” you countered. “Sure, most of the dates sold out before we came here, but it—that’s the minimum requirement. You know that. So, alright, the label already knew that Rated Riot would gather two or three thousand people every night. But they didn’t realise there’d be another thousand waiting outside the venue in every city we visited. Their attitude might change now that they know about the level of interest in the band.”

Namjoon noticed a tentative smile tugging at your lips. Despite your concerns about the future, the fact was that this tour—with all its mishaps and accidents—had already surpassed everyone’s expectations. Rated Riot were on a clear path to success and the unexpected crowds at each venue made it impossible not to feel excited, no matter what happened next.

“That’s just the thing, though,” Namjoon said, his eyes kind. “When you came to manage Rated Riot, they were still playing in bars and restaurants. All they had was potential. But with you, they’re starting to live up to it. Not to mention... there has to be a reason why Nick wanted to scout you for Reconnaissance. The label knows they need you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in such a rush to promote you without even asking if you agree.”

You realised you hadn’t thought of it like that. But Namjoon was right. Everything he’d said to you was true.

You loved your job, and you were good at it. It was just this one hiccup in your otherwise excellent performance as the band’s manager that made you doubt everything you’ve done for them: you were dating the lead vocalist.

But you listened to Namjoon now, and you realised your thoughts weren’t fair. Your relationship with Jungkook did not—and never would—impact your ability to do your job, and do it well. It was not an indicator of the quality of your work. It was not proof of your lack of effort or motivation.

You were learning, through agonising trial and error almost every day, that these two roles—manager and girlfriend—could co-exist. You did not need to relinquish one to succeed at the other.

Namjoon noticed that your eyes seemed brighter, your shoulders were less hunched and you no longer averted your gaze when he looked at you. The melodic strains you heard as the band finally started their soundcheck likely helped you calm down, too.

“I realise,” you admitted, “that I am nervous about big changes. About multiple big changes, concurrently.”

Namjoon had to lean in closer to be able to hear you—Hoseok pounded his drums behind the wall as if his life depended on it.

“I think that’s normal,” he noted. “Who wouldn’t be?”

He hoped to remind you that it was very easy to get lost in your feelings and experiences, and convince yourself that you were going through them alone—but you weren’t. And you saw that very clearly today.

“And it’s okay,” he continued. “I can’t make decisions for you, but you’re—you have us. We’ll always have your back. We won’t sit idly if we find out the label made you resign.”

You took a breath and finally allowed the gratitude in your heart to really settle.

“Thank you,” you said. “For everything. I really liked your advice about standing my ground. I think I’ll try to follow it.”

Namjoon smiled at this and nudged your shoulder with his. Smiling in response, you nudged his right back.

You’ve found your family when you met Rated Riot. They made bets about your relationship, they teased each other at nearly every possible moment, they complained and argued, but they supported each other with unwavering loyalty. And you were prepared to fight, if it came to it, to stay with them.

You were convinced that CJ had put a hex on you, because you had to spend the rest of the day on your phone, arranging interviews, giving comments about the band’s plans for the future, and pacing in the corridors of the venue. You could not even return to the hotel to pick up your forgotten laptop, you had to do all the work on your phone.

You still had to figure out what happened to Maggie’s phone, but you resolved to track down Minjun and ask him about Sid and Jude later, after the incessant calls stopped. For some reason, everyone demanded to talk to you in Dutch or Swedish or something that sounded vaguely German, and all you could gather from their speech was ‘Rated Riot’ and a questioning tone at the end of the sentence.

You still hadn’t finished by the time Rated Riot began their set on stage, so you had to return to the dressing room for some silence, no matter how much you’d missed hearing the way the audience responded to the band. Thankfully, you only had two more calls to get through—both in Swedish, much to your enormous joy.

After you left the changing room to finally join Luna by the stage, you heard a peculiar sound—a soft, conspiratorial shushing from somewhere in the corridor backstage, like someone trying to beckon a cautious cat.

“Psst. Psst. Pss—hey!”

You did not immediately realise that this was aimed at you. Stopping, you looked around warily until you finally spotted Minjun’s head peeking out from behind the corridor wall. He was trying not to attract too much attention to himself, so he did not use your name.

“What’s going on?” you asked, approaching him. “Why—”

“Come with me.”

“Wh—” you began, but Minjun’s hand darted out from behind the wall, joining his head, and he seized your wrist.

He pulled you down the corridor with an urgency that made your heart drop to your knees and he refused to stop no matter how much you struggled to watch your steps.

“What’s going on?” you demanded, altering between genuine fear and irritation.

“Jude’s here,” Minjun said and tripped over something as soon as he did, forcing you to stumble, too.

“Jude—with Sid?” you asked, your insides stirring with newfound horror.

Jude never went anywhere alone, and you did not like this rush that Minjun was in to get to him. You tried once more to stop running, or slow down at the very least, but Minjun was a train, running late on schedule.

“No,” he said, his grip on your wrist firm, his eyes frantic. “Alone.”

“Why?” you pressed.

He did not reply until he brought you to a halt outside the door at the far end of the corridor, leading to what appeared to be either a utility closet or an unusually small dressing room.

“Come in,” he said then, without any explanation, and held the door open for you.

You pushed the door further.

Jude stood before you inside the room. He looked more transparent than he had at the club the other night, and you weren’t sure if this wasn’t just a hazy memory. He was holding your handbag in his hands.

You wished you were back on the phone with the impatient Swedish journalist from before.

“Hi. This is yours,” Jude said awkwardly, extending your bag towards you.

You stood in the doorway and did not move. “How did you get that?”

Minjun had to gently push your arm with his shoulder so he could enter the room. Jude appeared very small as he held out your bag and tried to find his words.

“I, um—after I talked to you at the club,” he said, “I told Sid that I saw you, and he—he made me hang around and wait until you weren’t paying attention. I told him I knew which table you and your friends were at, and he thought—h-he wanted your phone.”

He waved the handbag, his alarmingly thin arms growing tired, and you finally took it from him. Maggie’s phone was inside, snug among scattered receipts.

Luna had been right—not that you doubted her for a second. And it made sense now, why Jude had lingered that night: he was waiting for Maggie and Luna to pick a table.

“I ju—I just had to wait until you all went dancing,” Jude continued, his voice unsteady. “A-and I was supposed to grab your phone. Sid was—he was desperate.”

Your posture was rigid, your eyes locked on Jude in a way that stopped him from breaking eye contact, and even Minjun felt a little uncomfortable. He knew more of what happened, after all; Jude had to explain it all to him to persuade him to find you. Minjun did nothing to interfere now, however. Jude was the one who wanted to talk to you, so he should have been the one to convince you to listen.

“Why?” you asked finally, your voice cutting through the tense silence, and slicing into Jude’s fragile confidence.

He glanced at Minjun, who gave him a small nod. Encouraged, Jude rubbed his hands together and began to speak. He could taste bile at the back of his throat, but the bitter sensation had been there for a while.

“He was looking for something to use against you and Jungkook,” he explained. “He hoped to find an old picture or video of the two of you together. When you were—when you dated. He wanted t-to cause a little trouble. If he couldn’t find anything, then h-he would have called Jungkook from your phone to, um—to give him the wrong idea.”

You gritted your teeth, reminding yourself that Jude was the accessory and the messenger. Your desire to slam someone’s face into a wall was not aimed at him.

“This isn’t mine, though,” you said, nodding at the phone inside your bag.

“Well, wh—it doesn’t matter,” Jude dismissed it with a shrug that seemed to propel his whole body backwards. “There were a lot of pictures from backstage in the gallery. Sid thought that was good enough.”

You wished Luna or Maggie were here with you right now, maybe both. Granted, Maggie might have attacked Jude—and you weren’t sure if you would have tried to restrain her, given your own urges—but at least you wouldn’t be standing here alone, trying to make sense of what was happening. Minjun’s quiet presence in the corner of the room did not offer much comfort. He was poised to intervene as if he was waiting for you to throw a punch.

“And why are you here?” you asked Jude.

You noticed that he was leaning slightly to one side despite standing firmly on both feet, and you wondered if this was a sign of how accustomed he was to standing on Sid’s right. Or maybe he was just drunk or under the influence of something stronger.

“Because you—you don’t owe me anything,” Jude replied, and you felt even more confused. His eyes looked watery, the edges of his pupils blurred. “You hate me, actually. And you have that right, I haven’t—I haven’t been very nice to you over the years. But you—you’re the one who told me to be careful. And Sid—I was—he left me for dead when he got bored later that night.”

You frowned, meeting Minjun’s brooding eyes across the room. He knew about this, you could tell. But he wanted Jude to do the talking.

Jude continued, “it started with a nosebleed. Then, I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Sid tossed me another bag of ice as if I hadn’t already taken enough.”

You were slow to grasp that “ice” did not mean frozen water in this case, and you wondered how many different ways to describe meth Jude knew at this point.

Then you needed another second to stop your heart from overexerting itself. Your initial plan for Sid paled in comparison to the new one burgeoning in the dark depths of your mind.

“A-and then he left the hotel between my third and fourth wheeze,” Jude finished. “He said he didn’t have time for this shit.”

You allowed Minjun to give the appropriate reactions to the story—and he nodded empathetically every few seconds—while you were only half-listening.

This happened in their hotel room, then. And Jude had said, another bag.

How many bags of methamphetamine did Sid keep in his hotel room in a foreign country with possibly very strict drug regulations?

“I-I remembered you, sud—suddenly,” Jude stammered when you did not respond. You looked up, surprised by the weight of your presence in his memory. “You told me to drink water. I drank a lot that night, but it—it obviously wasn’t water. Water was—it’s not what we usually drink. I didn’t—but there was half a bottle in the room, so I finished that. I could see a little clearer after that. Or so I thought. I went to the sink, and—and drank as much tap water as I could bef—before I threw up.”

“You might have overdosed,” you observed, studying his appearance again. His bronze complexion had taken an unsettling, ashy pallor. His hands were shaking and he kept rubbing them together. He looked cold, but beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “Are you—”

“I don’t—it’s not my first time taking a bit too much,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow after he sensed your scrutiny. You blinked and looked away. “I’ve never really—never thought I would die before, so that was new. B-but I don’t think that I—I didn’t overdose. I think I just lost track of time because I was—I was waiting to steal your bag. For Sid.” His right hand trembled so awfully that he had to clutch it with his left to steady himself. “I’m really sorry.”

“Jude, I’m—”

“He left me for dead,” he reiterated before you could suggest calling a doctor. “You were right. He doesn’t care. I-I could have—I was de—dehyder—”

“Dehydrated,” you supplied.

“Yeah. That,” he affirmed, pausing to give you a grateful smile, then looking at Minjun for approval. Minjun did not move. Jude lowered his gaze again. “A-and he thought I was being a nuisance. He thought another dose would help me, and he just left.”

“And are you sure you don’t need help?” you finally asked. Your tone was strict, but Jude was touched by the sentiment so much that he swayed slightly on his feet. “You look like you could use some.”

He cast a pleading look at Minjun, and you feared that he was teetering on the verge of tears.

“Shit—y-you see,” he said, though it was not clear if he was addressing you or Minjun. “That’s what I mean. I don—I am—I’m fine now. I’m—I’ll be fine. I’m going home. I won’t go back to the hotel.”

Your surprise was quick and obvious, prompting Jude to launch into a hurried, almost fanatical explanation. He was eager to break through the formidable barriers of his usual reticence, which felt awkward and embarrassing now that Sid wasn’t here to tell him to keep quiet.

“I don’t want shit—I don’t want to deal with his shit anymore,” he said. “I’m flying home. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that. Y-you don’t even—you didn’t have to say anything to me, especially after all that I’ve done, but you said that, you told me to look after myself, a-and I don’t know. You might have saved my life that night. And—and you’re—y-you want to help me now. I’m—I’ll be okay. I’m just—I’m sorry.”

You winced at his exaggeration about your conversation at the club, but Minjun was the only one who’d noticed it. Jude was oblivious in his fervent need to get the words out, to explain, to apologise, to tell you how thankful he was.

You thought his gratitude was misplaced. He would have realised what to do in that situation anyway; he’d said something similar had already happened before, even if it hadn’t been as severe. He knew he had to drink if he took substances that could lead to overheating—you just happened to repeat it to him at a convenient time.

But just as you prepared to reply, the words died on your tongue.

You realised you could use his gratitude and guilt.

“Jude,” you said, breaking the rhythm of his laboured, frantic breaths. “If you really are okay, how—how would you feel about getting even with Sid for treating you like that?”

He stopped breathing for a second, confused. “W-what do you mean?”

Your gaze shifted to Minjun, whose initial surprise quickly melted into a realisation that lit up his features. He nodded enthusiastically.

“I have this idea,” you continued, returning your attention to Jude, who remained anchored against the back wall of the room, resembling a child caught drawing on the walls with a permanent marker. “But I would need you to stay in London a bit longer. Just a day or two. Could you do that?”

“That would be fair, I think,” Minjun added hastily. Jude hadn’t even processed your request yet. “It’s the least you can do after she practically saved your life—which she really didn’t have to do. I mean, you stole her bag.”

“I—but Sid asked me to do that!” Jude protested, panicked once more. He looked at you, his brows knit in an expression of profound desperation. He genuinely felt indebted to you, and he was dying to make it right. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t want to. You’ve never done anything wrong to me.”

“Well, exactly,” Minjun continued before you could respond. He could tell that Jude’s abnormally energetic apologies troubled you. “You kind of owe her, you know?”

Jude knew. You could tell he knew because he began to rub his hands together faster, his fingers restless, agitated as they ran over his calloused skin. He looked frightened. He looked like half of a person.

You felt the first threads of remorse coil around your mind for taking advantage of him in a state like this.

“Well, I—I—o-of course, I guess,” Jude acquiesced, though his compliance seemed strained—much like the rest of his actions, really. He needed to lie in bed for a week or two. “W-what would I have to do?”

You turned back to Minjun, who appeared to be waiting for you to give Jude any command whatsoever. Jude, in turn, appeared willing to comply with any command.

It occurred to you that perhaps Jude’s obedience to Sid did not stem from a specific attachment to him. Perhaps Jude had simply chosen to surrender his free will, and now he gravitated towards anyone who could make decisions on his behalf—as long as he could justify it to himself: a decades-long friendship with Sid, or a perceived debt he owed you.

Jude—as Minjun had suggested before—just didn’t know any better. And it was so easy, so very simple for him to just let someone else take the reins. To float down the stream instead of fighting it.

“Just keep spending time with Sid like you used to, okay?” you instructed. “Act as if nothing happened between you, like everything’s alright. Yeah? And we’ll be in touch with you.”

“Yeah,” Jude replied slowly. It took him a few seconds to grasp what had been said to him. You wondered if he’d always been this way, or if this was a lingering effect of all that he had to endure in the past twenty-four hours. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“That’s great,” you said. And then, because he continued to look smaller than his shadow, you added, “I, um—I understand you’re not a fan of hospitals, but how do you feel about pharmacies? They have a great selection of supplements I think you should try.”

You handed Minjun your handbag and he watched, in bewilderment, as you led Jude out of the room. You gave Jude step-by-step instructions—in excruciating detail that Minjun thought Jude did not deserve—about what to say at the pharmacy, which vitamins to seek, what nutritional products to consider, how to drink water, what fruit to buy on the way back to the hotel, and what to tell Sid if he asked questions about any of this.

Jude wrote it all down on his phone—a process that consumed an additional twenty minutes outside the venue—before he finally thanked you, apologised another dozen times, and walked away, leaning against the side of the building for support.

When you rejoined Minjun, you felt like you had just finished teaching six kindergarten classes.

“He’s gone,” you announced, sinking into the only armchair in the cramped room. Your foot came to rest on the handle of a discarded broom. You still weren’t sure what the purpose of this room was.

“Why’d you do all that for him?” Minjun asked, handing you your bag and leaning against the wall.

“Because I don’t want Rated Riot’s opening act to be Jude dropping dead,” you retorted. “He’s severely malnourished. Does he even eat when he—anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with his nervous system, he was shaking the whole time he was here. I don’t—I’m not Sid. I can’t stand to talk to someone half-dead without trying to do something.”

“Yeah,” Minjun said, still a little amazed at your lack of hesitation when you walked Jude outside. Jude had certainly never been as terrible as Sid, but he was still Sid’s closest friend. Yet, you were eager to help him feel better, when even Minjun had given up. “You’re not Sid. That’s what got us to this point. But you, um—you still didn’t have to go to such lengths for Jude. He… he’s always had withdrawal issues. He’s going to take something as soon as he goes back to the hotel, and he’ll probably be fine again.”

You exhaled. Probably was a very heavy word to carry on your shoulders everywhere you went.

“Yeah, but at least now my conscience won’t keep me up at night,” you said, stretching your arms over your head. “Besides, we’re kind of using him, so we obviously need him alive.”

“True…” Minjun faltered, his eyes shifting to the only minuscule window in the room and squinting. He could not see anything beyond the thick glass, obscured by rain residue. “It, uh—it’s great that Jude can be our man on the inside. I’m glad he realised what a fucking bag of shit Sid is. But, honestly, I’m not sure we can trust him if we send him straight back to that hotel. He might have a change of heart.”

“I know,” you admitted. Even if Jude felt indebted to you and demonstrated that by returning Maggie’s phone, his gratitude could prove temporary. Sid had an exceptional talent for coaxing good people into bad deeds. “That’s why I’m not telling Jude anything else we’re going to do.”

Minjun turned back to look at you, intrigued. “And what is it that we’re going to do?”

“I need to do some research first,” you said, your thoughts speeding a hundred miles per minute. “Did Sid reach out to you at any point over these past few days?”

“No.”

“Alright, so it’s just Jungkook, then.” You leaned forward, considering this. “I-I don’t get it, to be honest. I mean, I get that Sid is the spawn of the devil, but really, why is he—why does he care so much? Because this isn’t some prank. He’s digging up old videos, posting pictures that could have serious consequences for us, and he’s—he made Jude hang around the club to steal my fucking bag. That’s so stupid and over-the-top that I’m not even—I mean, does he really have nothing better to do?”

Minjun did not seem to share your confusion, and your shoulders slumped in disappointment. Clearly, Minjun did not think this was out of character for Sid at all.

“Well, yeah, he doesn’t have anything else going on,” Minjun said. “He doesn’t have a job. He has money and twenty-four hours in a day. Might as well torment people. Besides, he feels wronged. He won that bet he had with Jungkook, but—”

“No, I get that,” you interrupted, your gaze drifting to the same window that Minjun had attempted to look through before. “He’s always done this. But it makes no sense to me. Fucking with people just because he thinks they’re not miserable enough. That has to be some sort of a latent inferiority complex, this need he has to prove to everyone that he’s better than them. But I don’t—he’s going to have to take his insecurities elsewhere. He’ll have to fuck off. We’ll leave him no other choice.”

When you did not succeed in seeing past the thick fog over the glass, you turned back to Minjun again. He was grinning, for some reason, his bright smile standing out against the sombre atmosphere in the room.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.” He chuckled, excitement twirling in his eyes. “I’m glad you and Jungkook are back together.”

You looked away, pensive.

“Come on,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “Let’s go defeat evil. I’ll help with your research.”

Minjun ended up providing fantastic assistance, and by the time the two of you had exhausted all the keywords in your Google search, you had a rough outline of what you’d do with Sid. You and Minjun both agreed that you needed Jungkook’s input, so the three of you would need to meet sometime later to finalise your strategy and set it into motion.

In the meantime, you had to find your friends, return Maggie’s phone, and update them on everything that had happened since you’d last seen them.

When you entered Rated Riot’s dressing room, the walls were pulsating with the beat of an old Arctic Monkeys song, blaring unapologetically from Yoongi’s Bluetooth speaker. You had thought you felt completely drained from this day, but the sight of everyone celebrating as they always did—as if it were the final show of the tour, the venue filled with their laughter, the floor wet from their spilt drinks—lifted your mood and your energy levels immeasurably.

Maggie was the first to catch your eye in the crowd of people. As soon as you returned her phone, a tipsy Yoongi interjected affectionately, “you find everyone’s lost eletornicks!”—which was almost an actual word, so you figured he still had room for more alcohol. He drifted away before you could say anything else, moving his shoulders to the rhythm of “Snap Out Of It” and joining Hoseok by the drinks table.

Luna noticed the slight commotion and approached you. As soon as you finished telling the girls what happened to your handbag, she broke into a surprisingly graceful, but very, very drunken performance of flailing her limbs and singing, “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” while Taehyung watched her from the doorway with unmistakable fondness. He had genuinely never looked more in love.

Then Maggie caught you off guard by wrapping her arms around you—as if you’d crossed Middle Earth and battled Smeagol for her phone—and you realised how safe, happy, and comfortable you felt here. It was such a stark contrast to the unease you had felt in Jude’s presence that you found yourself laughing, your chest feather-light.

Someone behind you suddenly cleared their throat—with such force that it sounded like they coughed up half of a lung—and Maggie pulled back, allowing you both to turn around.

Jungkook looked like he had been waiting for you to notice him for a while. Your friend snickered and hugged you once more before taking an intentionally ostentatious step back and bowing.

“She’s all yours if she wishes,” Maggie proclaimed to Jungkook, who turned to you, his eyebrows raised.

You nodded. “She wishes.”

Chuckling, he pulled you close. He was still high from the concert and just as lively and animated as everyone else in the room. The second he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face in your neck, he refused to let go, finding that only fair since you had ended up missing his show tonight.

You realised, while fighting for breath in his suffocating grip, that the two of you did not look strange or inappropriate to anyone who noticed you, despite standing almost in the middle of the room, wrapped around each other. You expected to feel anxious about the public display, and were surprised to feel comforted instead.

No one cared.

Unbeknownst to you, the bet backstage had ended, and now that everyone here knew that you and Jungkook were back together, they were no longer invested. They won their money—or lost, in a few cases—and moved on to make bets about whether Taehyung, who was too prideful to sing without his bass, would start singing along to Luna’s playlist on Yoongi’s phone.

No one cared.

Surrendering to Jungkook’s touch, you abandoned your other plans and relocated with him to the far corner of the room, separated from most of the dangerous festivities—Seokjin and Hoseok had bumped foreheads while dancing just as you walked past them—by a heavy rack of clothes.

Jungkook lied down on the couch with his head on your lap, recounting how he had accidentally turned off his microphone in the middle of his break during the encore and had to yell his speech at the audience because he couldn’t turn it back on.

“I’m glad your throat is alright,” you remarked. The warmth of your touch and the lightness of your tone filled him with something that tasted like honey on his tongue. “The rest of the guys also sound like they just got off the tallest ride at the amusement park.”

Jungkook’s laughter was soft, laced with a lingering echo of the concert that still reverberated in his mind amidst the lively chatter and the music in the dressing room.

“After the show,” he said with an unusual gravity in his tone, juxtaposed against the serenity in his eyes while you ran your fingers through his hair, “someone asked Yoongi and me about our new music. They asked if the picture on Sid’s account was a leaked album cover. We said yes. So, that—that’s confirmed now.”

Your hand stilled, and Jungkook lifted his head. He did not like the emotion he saw in your eyes when he looked at you and he felt melancholy, all of a sudden, for the moment you’d just shared. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

“Oh,” you replied. “That’s good.”

But it didn’t feel good. He couldn’t shake the memory of the way you’d looked after the band had unanimously decided to use the picture as the cover art for their next single. It seemed like the fact that everyone knew about your relationship was physically weighing on you.

He hadn’t said anything to you earlier, not wanting to exacerbate your anxiety, but he couldn’t keep this to himself now.

You’d promised each other communication.

“I—uh,” he sat up properly and you felt an odd ache inside when his head was no longer resting in your lap, “I know you’re not comfortable with us using the picture for that, um—for that particular purpose. And—and I get that. I just, uh—I just wanted to ask if y—if the actual problem here is that others know about us.”

The look on his face was an echo of your conversation last night. It threw you off balance, this statement, not even an actual question, and you were all the more aware of the loud beating in your chest and in your head. The music drowned out any chance of others overhearing your conversation, but it also muffled your thoughts.

You took a deep breath, so you could explain everything.

“No,” you said. Then once more, to make sure he heard you, “no. That’s not it. I don’t want—my problem is that we barely had one day together, you know? I would have liked some time alone with you before it all exploded. But Sid posted that picture, and now—now everyone in this room knows we’re definitely together. I mean, they already suspected it, since we’re not as discreet as I liked to think. But, uh, still. I am learning to be okay with others knowing, though. And I want you despite that. Despite others. Despite everything. I want to be with you. I just wanted to reveal our relationship to the public in our own time. Not Sid’s.”

Jungkook was not sure if you said anything else after I want you, because he certainly had not heard a word.

Frankly, he didn’t care about any public pictures. He wouldn’t have cared if a hurricane swept through the place, tearing down buildings and leaving debris that spelled out your names in the shape of a heart. But he knew you cared.

And yet—I want you despite everything.

He was crazy. Positively mad. A raving lunatic, really. He wondered if there was any medicine to subdue his symptoms because he did not think this was good for his health.

“Okay,” he said, looking down to get his feelings and his thoughts together. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re good,” you said. “It was—a lot of things happened today, and I was—I feel like I’m losing my head a little bit. But you and I are not—we’re not one of the things I’m confused about.”

He gave you a concerned look as he settled back on the couch. “What happened?”

You took a breath and recounted the story about Maggie’s missing phone, Luna’s observation—manifestation, almost—and Jude’s visit, which sparked the idea to include him in your plan to retaliate against Sid.

Jungkook spent a minute nodding, rubbing his chin, and moving his eyebrows up and down and sideways.

“Okay, that—that’s a lot of—and, uh—” He leaned forward, feeling a bit like the two of you had lived through an entire decade in one day. He could not summarise it all in one word. “What’s your plan?”

You took another breath. You and Minjun had checked and double-checked everything, so you were sure you had this part of your research right. The challenge of your plan came from the parts that couldn’t be researched in advance—the parts where you needed Jungkook.

“Did you know,” you started, “that the penalty for methamphetamine possession in the UK is up to seven years in prison? Apparently, it’s a class A drug.”

Furrowing his brows, Jungkook gave a slight nod of his head. “Uh… okay.”

“Right. Well, see,” you were sitting on the very edge of the couch, restless suddenly, “Jude mentioned tripping on ecstasy and speed that night I saw him at the club. And now, while returning Maggie’s phone, he mentioned Sid casually giving him a bag of meth. Just there, in his hotel room.”

“Mmhm, he—wait.” Jungkook straightened. “W-what are you saying?”

Someone jostled the rack of clothes next to your couch, causing a few hangers to clatter to the floor. You heard an excited shriek, followed by laughter, as two pairs of hands scrambled to pick up the clothes and hang them back in place.

You lowered your voice and moved closer to Jungkook on the couch. “You know what I’m saying.”

“I’m—”

“If a penalty exceeds twelve months,” you continued, “a person may be deported. That also sounds alright.”

Jungkook paused to listen to the sounds inside the room: the clothes rack had now been pushed back, shielding you from the rest of the room again, but limiting his view. He could hear Taehyung singing along to “Do I Wanna Know?” by the drinks table while Luna and Maggie waved the flashlights on their phones dreamily for extra ambience in the dimly lit room. He could also see, most unusually, the way Hoseok and Jimin seemed to be exchanging money right behind the two girls.

Jungkook leaned in even closer to you.

“You want to deport Sid?” he asked. You could feel his warm breath on your cheek when he spoke. “A-and lock him up?”

“Actually, I want to wring his neck and use his head to scare off pigeons,” you said. “But that would result in me getting locked up, and I really don’t have time for that right now.”

You watched the corners of Jungkook’s lips twitch as he tried to suppress a smile.

“No?” he teased, unable to resist. “I might like that. Think about all the street cred I’d get with a jailbird girlfriend.”

You snorted. “Yeah? Two one-hour visits every four weeks sound hot to you?”

“Hmm.” He pursed his lips. “No. You have a point, that won’t do it. I need you with me. Should we—should we tell Minjun about this plan, then?”

“Minjun knows. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay? But I—I promise we’re going to teach Sid a fucking lesson,” you said. “And then I’m going to tell the label we’re together, and all will be right in the world for fucking once.”

Jungkook didn’t think he’d ever wanted to kiss you more than he did right then. The air around you felt static, and the bodies behind the clothes rack did not feel particularly corporeal. The side of his chest was pressed against yours and he could feel your heartbeat speed up when his gaze flickered to your lips.

“You know, you can be really evil sometimes,” he remarked, chuckling when you raised your eyebrows. “I love it. Count me in. Sid won’t know what fucking hit him, and I want to be there to see it. Not going to lie, though, it does sound like Operation: Escape from Londo—”

“No.”

You thought you could feel his laughter resonating in your chest.

“Can we do that, though?” he whispered after a moment. “Can we—you know? Deal with Sid? In-between dealing with the label?”

You nodded. You were determined to find your happy ending and, watching the faint lights reflected in Jungkook’s eyes, you thought you could already see it, waiting for you in the distance.

“If we handle Sid,” you said quietly, “we can handle anything.”

Jungkook liked the sound of that very much—almost as much as he liked the song playing in the background while he breathed in your scent, while he allowed it to engulf him, to drown his senses, to annihilate any sanity he had left.

However, he was aware that for a long time before this moment, he had been making all the wrong choices while dreaming of the right outcomes. It would take some time for him to adjust to the fact that he lived a different life now—a life where you were by his side, and his reality was suddenly significantly better than his dreams. He would need to hear you tell him that it was going to be okay just a few more times.

“And if the label says that no, we can’t, actually?” he asked, his tone hushed.

He was very close and you could no longer look at him without your vision clouding. Your head spun so much that your thoughts felt tipsy. You lowered your gaze to his chest, avoiding the sight of him biting his lip.

“I’ll just leave, then,” you replied.

Jungkook pulled back suddenly. “You—but—no.”

You were breathless and slightly disoriented when you raised your head. The room was very dark, and he was very far away.

“We—we’re staying together regardless,” you said, distracted.

He still looked wounded.

“But that’s not fair to you,” he argued.

You shook your head and sighed. The Arctic Monkeys song on the speakers faded, changing to Rated Riot’s “Cursed,” and the room erupted into cheers as if the band members themselves had stood up to perform the song. You shivered under Jungkook’s gaze.

“That—it doesn’t matter,” you said. “I already told you before. If that’s the only way we can work, I don’t mind leaving the company. I’ll miss everyone, but I’m—we’d stay in touch anyway, I’m sure.”

Jungkook was torn. He wanted to tell you not to go—cast a spell or a curse, whichever worked—but his song played in the background, and you were trying very hard to keep a straight face on the couch next to him. It felt like a spell had already been cast.

He didn’t want you to leave, and in this moment, he felt convinced that you never would. You were not meant to.

“At least fight back,” he said, “if these fucking lawyers have a problem with us being together.”

A smile finally broke through your restraints.

“I will,” you promised. “You want me to punch someone? Knock out their teeth for good measure?”

He grinned, too. His black eye had already healed, save for a few stubborn cuts around his cheekbone. The altercation he’d had with Sid seemed a lifetime away—a lifetime that he was not sure belonged to him anymore.

“Please,” he said.

“Hmm.” You leaned in closer, brushing your fingers over the side of his neck. “I’ll see what I can do without joining Sid in prison.”

He felt the way his skin came to life, the way all of his cells leapt up and screeched, as soon as you touched him. He thought that perhaps he had contracted some sort of eye disease on top of his blatant insanity, too, because the dark room had brightened all of a sudden.

He knew he had gone right out of his mind, and he’d never felt better.

“I love you,” he whispered, and his nose touched yours when he said it.

“I love you,” you whispered back, and the happy ending that you had seen in his eyes felt no more than a breath away.

It approached you in silence, dimming the lights in the room, and in the building, and on this side of the world, so it could light the ones in your eyes and your chests.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jungkook whispered, the tips of his fingers tracing tenderly over your cheek. He felt it coming, too. “And I hope you stay.”

You closed your eyes. “I promise I’ll do everything to stay.”

Your lips finally touched his, and he discovered that you tasted exactly like the medicine he needed to halt his descent into madness, to calm the anxious beating of his heart, to clear his uncertain mind, and to dry the ink he’d used to engrave your name onto his soul.

chapter title credits: bad omens, “exit wounds”

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[paulmccart]

We're Not Gonna Take It! And the Story of How We Almost Did

Protesters outside of the PMRC senate hearings.

Are you a victim of rock? Well maybe you aren't, but all the way back in 1985 a group of prominent D.C wives felt that they were.

These women, with the help of Beach Boys member Mike Love and Joseph Coors, the owner of Coors Beers, formed the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center).

Their reasoning for forming as co-founder Susan Baker put it:

"It started because one day my 7-year-old came in and started quoting some of Madonna's lyrics to me, wanting to know what they meant. And I was shocked. I knew that you had to be concerned about movies and TV, but I didn't have a clue that my 7-year-old would be exposed to inappropriate songs."

The goal of the PMRC was to give parents more control over what their children could listen to. As well as implementing a rating system for music with bad language, sexual themes, and anti-Christian messages just to name a few. Eventually the group made a list of the fifteen worst songs, in their opinion and labeled them "The Filthy Fifteen".

(And it also happens to make a killer playlist)

Besides a rating system and lyrics printed on album covers the PMRC had several other goals including:

"...records with explicit covers be wrapped or kept under the counter; that record companies reassess contracts with performers who engage in sexual or violent acts on stage; that broadcasters be pressured to exhibit "voluntary restraint" by not airing offending music videos, which would also be rated."

All that noise coming from the PMRC culminated on September 19th, 1985. When a hearing in the senate occurred. Two musicians were called in on behalf of the music industry, Frank Zappa and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Two of musics most studious and serious creatives.

Zappa and Snider both gave eloquent defenses of what they deemed to be free speech.

But the PMRC had a trick up their sleeves... or so they thought.

They'd also invited John Denver to speak that day, assuming that he would stand with the side of "family values" but they were mistaken.

John Denver's testimony was the most scathing that day. He cited his own experience with having some of his music banned from radio. Even going as far as comparing the PMRC and groups like it to Nazi book burnings.

So what did the PMRC end up accomplishing? You know those tiny explicit labels in the corner of some albums? You can thank the PMRC for those. When they were originally introduced they were called "Tipper Stickers" after one of more outspoken PMRC members Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore).

So while we didn't exactly take it, for a time we almost did. And thanks to testimony from Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snider, we can regularly enjoy any kind of music we want to- even the songs that promote the occult.

Both photographs come from Mark Weiss who photographed the event for Rock Scene Magazine.

[mrsphillipgraves]

Phillip Graves’ loyalty to his wife <3

(prepare for a ton of yapping from Mrs Phillip Graves…)

starting off, it would take a lot for Phillip Graves to commit to somebody in the first place, considering his busy schedule and everything he has going on at Shadow Company, it’d take an extraordinary woman, a woman who he considers his ride or die, it’d take a woman he considers is everything he has ever wanted in life, to get him to commit, because if he’s putting all of that time and effort into a person, he has to know she is 100% worth it, once he determines that he’d never ever find a woman like her ever again, he wouldn’t let go of her even if the whole world was falling apart, it would quite literally be impossible to get rid of this man.

He’d only commit to a woman if he knows she is everything he has ever wanted in life, if he thinks she is worth all of the time, effort and emotional energy, if he thinks she’d be a wonderful mother to his children.

Most people say he’d cheat, but why would he ever risk losing the love of his life for a little bit of pleasure and relief? Graves is really really intelligent, very intelligent, I could go on and on about just how intelligent you’d have to be, to be the founder of a PMC, the CEO and the Commander all at once. He is way way waayyy smarter than the average man. Which also means he thinks and processes things in a very different way too.

He’d never put so much of his time, effort and emotional energy into a relationship/marriage if he hadn’t already determined that this woman is everything he has ever wanted, both, physically and emotionally, because otherwise, he knows it’s a waste of his time. Which also means, if he were to even think of being with other women while he is with his partner, he wouldn’t be with his partner in the first place. When this man loves, he loves, and when he commits, he commits in an extremely serious manner.

One more thing I’d like to note about him being an extraordinarily intelligent man is, he’d obviously have exceptional self control over his feelings and desires, he is not your average military man, he sees the world in a very very different manner, so even if he did have urges while his wife was away, he is way too smart to act on them in a way that’d harm his relationship with her. He thinks with his head, and is very much not driven by his desires. He’d never get with another woman while being committed, I doubt he would even think about that.

He is truly in love with his wife and loves her in the purest form of love. He thinks about her all the time, especially whenever he finds a quiet moment, he thinks about her pretty smile, how she blushes whenever he compliments her, he yearns for her physical affection, the intoxicating scent of her hair and her warmth. If his wife works alongside him in Shadow Company, he’d want her around all the time, never wanting to leave her side. I imagine they’d eat together, train together, sleep together and go on missions together, you name it.

If he gets drunk while his partner is away? he just starts yapping about how much he loves her and how much he misses her, the shadows definitely have a fun time with that, they keep asking him questions because they’re so taken aback by just how emotional their commander is about his wife. It’s definitely not a big surprise to them though, considering they already know just how emotionally vulnerable & comfortable Graves is when it comes to his partner, all because they notice how his body language changes whenever she is around.

He’d also get jealous pretty often, and very easily, even though he is very sure of himself, the slightest thought of another man thinking he has his wife’s attention, is enough to get his jealousy going, he is not overly possessive or overly jealous, but he definitely gets slightly jealous. He 100% is right next to his wife at all times whenever they go out together, he couldn’t be more smug about showing her of.

He is also not one to flirt with women if he is committed, he considers flirting cheating, and would expect the same from his partner.

A lot of people see him as this traitor, an asshole who cares about nobody but himself, but that is just how he behaves when it comes to business, in his personal life, he is a very different man, he is gentle, loving, caring and most importantly, loyal. He demands absolute loyalty from his wife, because he is absolutely loyal too. Loyalty means the absolute world to him when it comes to personal life.

Graves would ofcourse only commit if he saw a future with his partner, he wants a big family, 5 kids, he has always wanted a big family ever since he was young, and that is also one of the reasons why he wouldn’t ever risk what he has with his wife, he would want to build a home with her, he would want to raise the most healthy & happy kids alongside her, he’d be so committed to being a good father and teaching his sons how to treat women right, and to show his daughters how a man should be treating them.

Phillip Graves is a different man at home, a different man when he is in love, and that side of him not many will get to know of, and that is how he wants it to be. <3

I have so much more to say, but I think I’ve already said too much LOL 😭, do let me know if y’all would want to hear more about this though, I love yapping about him. 🩷

[oneforthemunny]

funny bunny |older!dilf!eddie munson x reader|

prompt: a halloween couples costume that's inspired by yours and eddie's relationship, and his special nickname for you.

@eddiemunsons-missingnipple big creds for the older!eddie pic used in the header!!!!

contains: age gap relationship. eddie is 43, reader is 26. everything is consensual. language, drinking, filthy filth ahead MINORS DNI 18+, oral fem receiving v and a, ass play, plugs, fingering v and a, praise kink, p in v sex, creampie. role-play-ish. not really rough mainly just kinky freaky but some aftercare after.

"You look so good!"

You squealed from your place at your vanity, pulling the hot rollers out of your hair.

Eddie pouted slightly, brows creased in a deep furrow on his forehead. Looking down at the Burgundy, velvet robe with black trim, he let out a small huff. "I look ridiculous." He muttered.

"No, you don't." You giggled, running your hands over the silk trim, fixing the collar. "This looks so good. I can't believe how close it looks to the real thing." You grinned, eyes gleaming when you looked up at him. "You look just like Hefner."

Eddie scoffed, shaking his head slowly so his curls bobbed, inked hand rubbing across his beard. "I think that might be more insulting than you mean it to be, bunny." He grumbled, plopping on the edge of the bed. "I'm not that old."

You laughed, sitting in his lap, arms around his neck with a wide smile. Eddie couldn't help but smile back. How could he not? With how your warmth just radiated out of you and into him. Infectious happiness.

"I meant the robe." You reassured, running a hand down his chest. "We're going to look so good tonight. Steve and Nancy aren't gonna know what hit them!" You squealed, smacking your lips to his cheek in a quick, loud kiss before scampering back over to the vanity.

Eddie groaned. It had taken you weeks of convincing for him to agree to this costume. Hugh Hefner and a Playboy Bunny; a classic- well, maybe more for frat boys, but when the idea came to you, you just had to do it. A light jest to the clear age difference in your relationship, a way to poke fun at the obvious, but also a nod towards your beloved nickname Eddie had given you: bunny.

A sweet, innocent little nickname, that had been given to you at a completely un-innocent moment, and it had stuck. You were Eddie's little bunny, his golden girl. His.

"Will you promise you won't post any pictures tonight?" Eddie asked for the tenth time that night. "I don't need Brielle seeing that shit or- fuck- or Gina. She'll probably take me back to court."

You nodded. "Eddie, I promise, baby, I won't post anything. I don't need to get fired over a Halloween costume. You know how those parents are." You teased, looking at him through the mirror. "And I highly doubt you'll be deemed an unfit parent for a Hefner costume."

Eddie nodded, looking down at his watch. "You almost ready? We're supposed to be there at seven."

You sprayed the final spritz of hairspray around yourself, smoothing and setting your styled hair. "I just gotta get dressed." You grinned, slipping towards the bathroom, throwing him a playful wink. "I'll be right back, Mr. Hefner." You dropped your voice to a sultry, low voice, batting your eyes before shutting the door.

Keeping your costume a secret for as long as you did was the hardest part. Eddie had agreed, eventually, but only with some persuasion, bribery. He had been dying to see your costume since you first announced it had come in. While his costume was nice, very close to the replica robe that the Playboy founder always wore with a matching pipe, it was nothing compared to yours.

Black nylon tights that were just sheer enough. Black pumps that Eddie loved on you anyways, he loved how they made your legs look- long and endless, his hands always trailing up your calf, squeezing your ankle. The corset, body suit was risqué. High cut and covering just enough of your ass that it could pass as barely not lingerie. Strapless and low in the front, tight enough to hold your breasts up in just the right way. You'd ordered white cuffs and a bowtie cuff choker to really complete the look, the authentic Playboy Bunny look.

Then of course, what kind of bunny would you be without ears and a tail? Black, silk ears that stood tall and slightly crooked on the headband, adjusted so it bent just barely. The tail, a black, faux-fur attachment you pinned just on your tailbone.

Your heart thumped rapidly in your chest, smoothing your clammy hands over your bodice. You had been so excited to show Eddie just moments ago, but now... you wondered if it was too much. If he'd like it. If he'd yell at you, accuse you of wanting unwarranted attention that wasn't his, demand for you to change, tell you that you're embarrassing him like your boyfriends in the past did. 

"You need any help in there?" Eddie's voice called from outside the door, making you jump slightly, ears falling forward gently.

"No! Just finishing up." You grabbed the hair pin, securing the ears back into place.

You checked your reflection one last time. Hands smoothing down the corset, turning in the mirror to make sure your attached tail was in the right place. Your heels clicked across the tile floors of the bathroom.

"Close your eyes." You called, barely cracking the door before you walked out. Eddie chuckled lightly and you could hear the bed creak, shifting his weight on the mattress. "Are they closed?" You asked, squinting out the small sliver through the door.

"They're closed, baby." Eddie reassured, his voice low and gravely. It made your stomach flip. "C'mon, show me Playmate."

Pulling the door open slowly, the hinges creaking ever so lightly, you stepped on to the shag carpet, steps muted by the material. You walked slowly, hands twisting and wringing in front of you before stopping in front of Eddie. You knew by the way his smile grew, dimples deep in his scruff and lines by his eyes crinkling, that he could feel your presence.

"Ok, open them." You smiled, placing your hands on your hips playfully.

Eddie's eyes opened, brows raising in amusement. "Oh-oh-oh, bunny." He laughed, moving closer, his hands reaching out for yours. You blushed under his gaze, how he roamed over your legs, tongue poking his cheek in a sideways smirk. Eddie looked at the cuffs, took extra time looking at your bodice and collar, calloused hands gliding over you.

"You've outdone yourself." Eddie smirked, looking up at you from his place on the edge of the bed. "Definitely getting the front page."

"You didn't even see my tail." You grinned, spinning and shaking your hips towards him, the attached tail bouncing with the movement.

Eddie groaned, low and deep, but playful. "Jesus, baby bunny, you're killing me. You know that?" He smacked your ass playfully, right beneath the tail, making you squeal. "I don't know if I'm gonna make it to the party with you looking like this."

"We have to go, Eddie." You pouted. "Or else no one will see our costumes, and I worked so hard on them." 

Eddie rolled his eyes, but stood, his hands still not leaving your waist. "I'd be alright with that." He laughed. "You could get me out of this robe and show me why you're called bunny, hm? Ride me all night, how's that sound?" Eddie nipped, tongue tickling the shell of your ear making you squeal and squirm against his hot breath.

You let out a nasally laugh when he squeezed your waist, hands gliding over your hips and tummy on the corset. He kissed right above your collar on your neck. "Eddie," You whined, thighs clamping. "Stop, we've got to go."

Eddie sighed, gently but not angry. He looked at your with soft brown eyes that had you melting. "I promise, when we get back I'll put on my real costume for you." You bit your lips, eyes meeting his, playful and alluring.

Eddie's brow quipped. "This isn't your costume?" He asked, hands trailing down your waist.

You shook your head, ears bouncing. "It's one of them, but I have a special costume just for you, Mr. Hefner." You purred, leaning forward so your lips barely brushed his. Eddie growled, tattooed fingers gripping your hips, digging into the nylons.

"But," You pushed back on his chest lightly. "We have to do this first." You lifted a finger towards him. Eddie groaned, head falling back. "Put your hat on Hef, we're late." You grinned, tossing him the captain's hat and slipping on your coat.

***

"Woah-ho-ho," Steve Harrington cackled, leaning in the doorway of his Hawkins McMansion. His amber eyes were wide, amused. "No fuckin' way. Hef and a Bunny?" He laughed, clapping his hands together.

You grinned proudly, arm lacing with Eddie's as you adjusted his hat, straightening it on top of his curls. "His favorite Playmate." You winked, giggling when Eddie's hand squeezed your ass.

"That's a fuckin' classic, holy shit." Steve laughed, shutting the door as the two of you walked in. "Nance, look at this!" He called into the living room where the party rage- well, as raging as a middle aged Halloween party could be. King Steve still did his best, even without the keg, you'd give him that.

Nancy gasped, Robin trailing behind her. "Oh my God, this is fuckin' amazing!" Robin laughed.

"How did you even think of this?" Nancy laughed, looking at the two of you, touching your cuffs on your arms.

You shrugged, biting back a smile when your eyes met Eddie's. "I dunno, just seemed kind of fitting." You laughed. "Brielle and I were actually watching House Bunny and it hie me, honestly."

Nancy laughed, shaking her curls that were piled high and teased. "That's genius, honestly. Way better than the Top Gun idea." Nancy rolled her eyes, glaring lightly at Steve, or Maverick, as he was supposed to be.

Nancy and Robin pulled you into the living room, offering to get you a drink while you chatted. Steve smirked, clapping Eddie playfully on the back. "Munson," He laughed, shaking his head.

Eddie grinned, shrugging as he watched you walk away, little fur tail bobbing with every swing of your ass. Steve snorted. "Hey, you think you can talk to your girl? See if she could convince Nancy to wear something like that for next year?" Eddie laughed, rolling his eyes, following you into the living room.

***

You were tipsy, but not drunk. You'd controlled yourself, despite the flowing drinks that Nancy kept offering you. You had a promise to keep.

You sat on the bench in Eddie's truck, hands in his, thighs touching, sharing small kisses at red lights. His hand cupped your thigh, thumb rubbing small circles on the nylon.

Every passing red light, his grip got tighter on the wheel as they inched closer and closer back to home. If your current costume was any indicator of what was to come, Eddie couldn't wait. He pressed the gas further, fake pipe lying next to his cigarettes in the cup holder, captain's hat resting on the dash.

Eddie threw the gear into park, the truck stopping with a jostle that had you giggling, his hands rough and pressed against your cheeks, pulling you into a harsh kiss. You could taste the beer he'd drank on his tongue, roaming in your mouth, hands moving down your jaw to your collar.

You giggled when Eddie pulled you inside, pinning you up against the door, hands in a tight grip on your waist, his lips on your jaw, kissing just below your ear.

"Wait, wait, wait!" You squealed, eyes rolling back when he sucked on your neck. "Wait! I have to change, Eddie. I have another costume." You giggled, pulling back, your head resting against the cool wood of the door.

Eddie's shoulders fell slightly. "Bunny, this costume is more than enough." He pouted. "I've been ready to fuck you all night."

You rolled your eyes, stepping out of his grasp. "Just wait right here." You scampered down the hall towards his room. "I promise it'll be worth the wait."

And, oh, was it.

Eddie waited for twenty agonizing minutes, hearing thumps and movement from behind the closed door of his bedroom. His leg bounced, hands pressed together. He'd ditched his clothes, well, except for the robe. It was comfy, and if you were going to stay dressed up, he figured he would too.

You beckoned Eddie in, squirming with excitement, kneeling on the edge of the bed. Eddie laughed when he walked in, eyes lit up and excited. "Shit..." Eddie's eyes roamed over your frame, your sheepish smile.

You knelt, waiting in what Eddie thought was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. Black lace lingerie that left you exposed, completely see through and vulnerable. He could see your pebbled nipples through the cups, your exposed slit through the cut middle between your legs. The back was low on your spine, but high cup on the side, resting just above your hips. The best part- the slit went all the way up to your tail bone, leaving you completely exposed.

You finished off the look with two accessories just for him. A pair of matching lace ears, flimsier than the ones of the other costume, but complete with a small veil that covered your eyes, hitting the bridge of your nose. You'd tied your hair up, securing the ribbon underneath the ponytail.

Eddie's eyes traveled down next to you, where you giggled in excitement. Laying on the towel beside you, his real treat. A little tube of lee from his bedside drawer, and a fluffy, black tail attached to a plug- your bunny tail to complete the look.

You knew better than to put it in yourself and deprive him of his favorite part.

Eddie's tongue trailed over his bottom lip, picking up the shiny plug, rolling the cool metal around his fingers. You grinned, excitedly. "What do you think, Mr. Hefner?" You teased, cocking your head to the side. "Think I'll make Playmate of the month? Cover?"

Eddie laughed, deep and dark. "Oh, bunny," He brought the fur part to your now exposed neck, ticking over your collarbones so you shivered. "I think you're close, but you gotta show me you really want it." His eyes darkened, making you blush under his gaze.

"You ready to show me?" Eddie asked. Your head bobbed eagerly, obediently.

Eddie smirked. "That's my girl. Roll over for me, baby. All fours. Stick that pretty little ass up for me."

You shifted quickly, arching deep and low, pressing your hips up and your shoulders flat against the mattress. You could hear Eddie behind you, rummaging through his drawer.

"Gotta find my fuckin' camera, holy shit." Eddie muttered, pushing his socks and belts around in the drawer. "Gotta capture this, bunny. Can't believe you did this for me. All for me, huh?"

Your thighs clenched together, throbbing at the praise. Eyes pinched and you were sure he could see your slick already spreading, the cool air making goosebumps trail down your shoulders and spine.

Eddie pressed the film in, the whirl of the Polaroid starting up. He moved to the front, kneeling on the bed, camera pointed at you. "Look at me, bunny." You lifted your eyes, rounded and awaiting for him. The flash of the camera blinded you for a moment, making you blink under the lace mask over your eyes.

Eddie chuckled to himself, shaking the photo a few times before setting the camera back on his nightstand. "'M keepin' that for fuckin' ever." He groaned, hands trailing over your thighs and hips. "Gettin' that shit tattooed on me right now."

You giggled, arching into his touch on your ass. His hand trailed down your thighs and towards your aching center, gasping when he slid his pointer finger through your slick folds. Eddie hummed, pressing his face forward, licking a long stripe from your clit to your ass, collecting every drop of you and his tongue prodding your tightest hole.

You gasped, low and growling, clenching around nothing, head tilting back. You fisted the sheets, pushing your hips back even further when his touch returned to your aching clit, circling it with just the right pressure and speed that had your head spinning.

Eddie toyed with you, kneeling down with a groan, knees cracking so he was eye level with your sopping cunt. He pushed his fingers in, two pumping slowly. His other hand pulled your ass apart, tongue lapping and sucking at your clit.

You whined, legs trembling and clenching as he sucked and curled at just the right pace. He always had you coming undone so easily when he wanted, like he knew exactly what to do to make you wild. He did, clearly, playing your body perfectly like it was his guitar.

Your high pitched whiny cries floated towards the ceiling, head tilted back so far you were sure you'd just bend in half. Eddie's free hand caught your release on his fingers, spreading them over your ass hole, circling it gently before barely pushing the tip of his finger in.

You two had plenty of experience with ass play since the first drunken night, a favorable past time for the tow of you. Eddie had bought you toys, trained you up until you could finally take his cock. You loved how good he was at it, too good. You weren't exactly sure how someone could be so good at everything, and when you told Eddie that he laughed, telling you, "been around the sun a few more times than you, baby, I've got some more experience than others."

Your eyes pinched, falling face first into the duvet. The lace of the mask over your eyes rubbed against your lids and forehead when you pressed yourself against the bed, writhing and crying out when he pushed you over the edge again. The sensation of his fingers and tongue on both your holes mixed with your previous orgasm had you cumming quick, gushing around him.

Eddie grinned, standing with a low huff. Your knees were falling underneath you, leaving you spread, nearly rubbing against the duvet. "You ready for your tail, lil bunny?" Eddie asked, popping the top to the tube open. The plug looked small enough he could probably have you stretched out with just two fingers to the knuckle and the lube.

You sighed, whining slightly as you shifted, wiggling your still shaky legs back up into position, Eddie's hand on your waist guiding you back up gently. He ran a hand down back gently, pressing a kiss to space of your spine where the lace of the lingerie and exposed skin met.

Eddie squirted the cold lube making you clench. He cooed softly, trailing kisses down the dip of your spine over your hips, finger circling your tight hole. "You gotta relax, remember?" Eddie cooed when you clenched, pressing a kiss to your hips, his scruff tickling the delicate skin. "You need me to loosen you up a little more?"

You shook your head, dazed and hazy, pushing up on your forearms gently, looking back at him. "'M ready, I promise. 'M ok." You muttered, giving him a small smile.

Eddie returned it, leaning forward to kiss you, hard and deep, teeth clashing. "Fuck, bunny, you're too good to me." He muttered, lips still brushing yours, rubbing his nose to yours.

You looked at him, glassy eyed and dazed already even through the veil he could tell that, lowering your back so your ass arched farther, pressing your face to the side of the mattress. You watched him through the vanity mirror, the low lights of the room illuminating his figure.

Eddie pushed his first finger in, slow and gentle, circling you just expertly to get you ready. You moaned, clenching your legs when you throbbed. Eddie grinned watching you grind down, slowly wiggling back for more before he added the second, getting you nice and loose.

Eddie leaned forward, muttering in your ear little praises while he pushed in the plug, his lips against your lace covered temple. Eddie looked back when you shifted, the little puff of fur plugged in you making the cutest little tail.

"Look at you," Eddie cooed, laughing to himself, he kissed you deeply, wiping his hand on the towel you laid out. "God, baby, stay right there, ok? Arched just like that."

Eddie grabbed his camera, the flash going off rapidly. Eddie was making sure his spank bank would be full for a long time, drooling over you. He tossed his camera carefully, before climbing on top of you.

You twisted, his lips crashing and needy into you, grinding yourself down on his bare, inked leg when he wedged it between you, hands moving down to his boxers. You could feel his cock straining against his black briefs, hard and begging to be released to you.

Eddie moaned onto your mouth when you squeezed him through his underwear, your tiny hands expertly rolling and working him through the fabric. You could feel his pre-cum seeping through the material, leaving a wet patch.

Eddie's hands moved up to your tits, palming them through the material, squeezing and rolling your nipples. You whined, grinding down further on his leg. "Fuck, bunny, I gotta get this off you." Eddie muttered, pushing the straps down to your waist, leaving your top part exposed.

He kissed, sucked, bit all the way down, leaving trails of little bruises and red marks onto your skin. Your neck, collarbones, chest, breasts, tummy. He wanted to kiss every inch of you after you'd done all of this for him.

You whined when he turned you over, hovering so you were on your back, the tail of the plug shifting and moving with the duvet. Eddie pulled you carefully by your waist, brows furrowed slightly. "Here, let me help you out of this alright? I'll be careful."

And he was. So caring and gentle, pulling the straps of the lace down your body, until it was a puddle on the ground. You told him he didn't have to be so careful, but your heart was swelling at the gesture, how sweet he always was to you.

You went to move the ears off, but Eddie stopped you, running a hand down the nape of your neck. "Leave that on, please." He asked, eyes dark and lust blown. You just nodded, mouth salivating when he pulled his boxers down, throwing them next to your lingerie.

He pumped himself, pushing himself to the headboard, leaning lazily against it, lip tucked beneath his teeth. You blushed, squirming under his hungry gaze, slick and throbbing, nails digging into your palms as you shifted from foot to foot.

Eddie grinned. "You gonna show me why you're my bunny, aren't ya?" He asked, cocking a brow. You nodded. Eddie moved his hands, cock freeing from his grasp and lying against his tummy.

You grinned when you climbed on top of him, straddling him gently. "You wanna see my tail while I ride you?" You asked, loving the way his Adam's apple bobbed when you did.

"Fuck, please," Eddie groaned watching you shift, moving so you wiggled your ass in his face, squealing when he cracked a hand down on your cheeks.

"You better ride me good, lil bunny." Eddie warned, gripping your hips. "You want the front page, you better show me how badly you want it."

You giggled, looking over your shoulder, pumping his cock in your hands. "I will, Hef, I promise." You sunk onto him slowly, squeezing his dick the whole way down.

Eddie groaned loudly, grip on your hips tightening when you ground against the hair on his base. "Fuck, fuck, just like that." Eddie groaned when you started circling slowly. You always started slowly like this, working him up before you really rode him.

Then you lifted slowly as you bent forward, gripping Eddie's knees lightly when you lifted off of him, bringing your hips up and down over and over again.

"Fuck bunny, just like that, bounce on my cock, baby. You're just so good aren't you?" Eddie sucked in a breath, hands pulling your cheeks apart so he could get deeper.

The scene in front of him was too much, he was ready to bust already. Your little plug, bouncing and moving, tickling his pelvis with extra deep strokes. Your creamy spend smearing over his cock already, excess from the lube mixing with your slick pussy making the room fill with the squelching sounds. 

You could feel his hips meeting yours, squeezing your ass, stroking your tail and moving it so you'd moan deep. You dipped lower, nearly lying between his legs, crouching so you lifted quickly and deeply.

"Fuck, look at you go." Eddie laughed in between a low growl. "You are my little bunny. My perfect little bunny. You just love bouncin' all over my cock, don't you? You'd bounce for hours for me, wouldn't you?"

You whined, his words making you clamp and gush, his cock brushing the sensitive spot deep inside you with the position. "Yes." You cried out. "'M your bunny."

Eddie grit his teeth, coil in his belly getting tighter and tighter with every pump of you around him. "Fuck, bunny, wait," He huffed, chest heaving. "Turn around f'me, ok? Let me see your pretty face."

You stuttered in movements, pushing up with shaky arms, squeezing with him still inside you. You pulled off just for a moment, adjusting yourself carefully so your legs were on either side of Eddie's hips. You lined him back up inside you, sinking down much faster than you did last time.

Your nails dug into Eddie's inked chest, clawing into him when he gripped your ass, hips thrusting up to meet yours. Your mask and ears were starting to slip, you were sweaty on your hairline under the band of the material, but you didn't care. Your hips lifted, slamming back down on him, pressing into his chest with a cry.

You kept your pace, fast and quick, Eddie's hips meeting yours. "Y'a little jack rabbit for me, huh? Bounce and bounce and bounce, look at you." Eddie cooed nearly mocking through grit teeth.

You whimpered, eyes pinching together. You were so close, the coil in your belly growing and growing. "My little bunny just loves to bounce all over my cock, doesn't she? Just my cock, right?" Eddie growled. You nodded, whimpering. Your thighs burned, but the burning in your belly was worse, hungrier. You slammed faster, desperate to chase that high that you were so close to.

Eddie was close, teetering on the edge, but he wanted you to finish first, you always finished first with him. "Look at me." Eddie grit, hand finding your jaw, holding it lightly. He moved the veil up when your eyes met his, seeing your rounded, desperate eyes, glazed over and nearly teary.

"Y'gonna cum? Cum all over my cock? Yeah? Go ahead, you earned it, bunny." Eddie grunted, lifting his own hips to meet yours, punishing pace meeting yours.

You cried when his calloused thumb circled your clit, nearly falling on top of him with how your legs shook. Eddie held your hips, fucking up into you. He didn't mind the burn forming in his lower back, especially not when he emptied himself in you, warm, thick ropes spurting deep inside of you.

Your chest heaved together, his breath, your exhale, sharp and desperate. It was like you were sharing breaths with each other, and maybe you were. Sticky, sweaty skin, hot and molted together. You slid further into his lap, the top of his thighs, Eddie's hands moving to cradle you instinctively.

Your ears were around your neck, still tied but fallen to hang off your shoulder. Your plug was sticky with his cum when he pulled out, wetting the bottom of the faux fur. Your face was on his chest, his heartbeat thumping against your ear, his rough hands on your back.

Neither of you spoke for a while. Small shallowed breaths, deep sighs, little groans. You looked up at Eddie, feeling his gaze on the top of your head. His hands untied your ears, unraveling the ribbon so it fell beside you. He grinned down at you.

You blinked up at him, swirling with emotions and warmth. "Did I make the cover, Mr. Hefner?" You grinned.

Eddie snorted a laugh, stretching to grab the developed polaroids on the bed side table. "You sure did, bunny." Eddie smirked, showing a rather vulgar photo of you, arched with the plug in your ass, pussy shining from the flash, and ears high over your ass. "This right here? This one's the cover."

You laughed, pushing up on his chest, moving so you hovered over him. He looked at you, gooey and lovestruck, pushing a hair behind your ear. "Thanks f'dressing up with me." You smiled.

Eddie gawked lightly. "I think I should be thanking you." He chuckled. "Thank you for dressing up for me." You giggled, his lips capturing yours sweetly.

Eddie pulled back, nose to nose with you. You could see his wrinkles, the grey hairs in his temple and in his eyebrows. His skin showing signs of age, freckles from time in the sun. His beard was scruffy, a little longer than usual but trimmed. You ran your hand down it, trailing your thumb over his bottom lip.

"You're my best bunny, you know that?" Eddie whispered.

You pulled back, raising a brow. "Best? I better be your only bunny, Mr. Munson." You looked at him carefully.

Eddie smirked. "So I'm not Mr. Hefner anymore?" He asked playfully. You shook your head. "Good. That motherfucker wasn't nearly as lucky as I am."

You howled in laughter, blushing and rolling your eyes at the cheesy line. Eddie helped remove your plug, cleaning you up gently in the bathroom, soft kisses and little giggles echoed through the space. You pushed the top sheet off, hoisting it to the laundry room to deal with tomorrow, Eddie bringing in two spare blankets from the linen closet.

He smelled like the cigarette he'd been smoking outside, the comforting scent lulling you to sleep, while Eddie snored beside you, arms wrapped around your waist, heavy like weights on you but comforting.