#from hospital to front row

[girlwithapinkhelmet]

News from the summer break of ‘24 (probably):

“During the summer break 17 drivers of the grid will undergo appendectomy. “🤷‍♀️

[averagelonelypotato]

ok but they could never fake zura’s death because if they held a funeral and someone was saying a speech and called him zura, he would stop fake sleeping in the casket, sit up dramatically and yell “ZURA JANAI, KATSURA DA!”

[kitasuno]

with you, i'm first | miya osamu x reader

in which miya osamu is used to coming second to his brother. but with you, he's always first.

wc: 1113 | gn!reader | fluff

Miya Osamu is used to coming second. 

It starts with Atsumu, like most things do. October is cold and gray and Atsumu comes first, a small body with a large presence that fills the warm hospital room. His cries are loud and he’s a little underweight, but with him comes the sun. 

Atsumu is born under a partly cloudy sky but the nurses swear he was shrouded in sunlight. 

Osamu comes twelve minutes later. His parents are crying and his Ma is close to passing out. If he thinks really hard he can almost feel her warmth, Atsumu’s sobs, and a mumble of prayers that October has safely brought Atsumu and then Osamu.

He asks Grandma one day what the weather was like when he was born. She says, with confidence, it was foggy.

Atsumu doesn’t get along with his classmates. He is too loud and too rash and lacks social cues, and Osamu is angry because Stupid ‘Tsumu cares too little: and he wants everyone to know Atsumu like he knows Atsumu.

They fight and they yell and they argue until Atsumu says, 

‘Samu, I don’t care about ‘em. Why do ya care so much? 

And Osamu throws him across the room. The argument ends there, he says sorry, and Osamu lies awake that night thinking about his brother. Atsumu is hotheaded. And an idiot. A loud snorer, too. But he turns on his side and curls into a ball because he knows it was sunny when Atsumu was born and all of a sudden he really wants to be his brother. 

Atsumu dyes his hair first: it’s a shitty box dye from the pharmacy down the street, and it looks terrible. It’s a little yellow and a little neon, and Osamu laughs until his sides hurt when Atsumu shows him. 

But Atsumu is proud, and he is confident, and he goes to school with a hundred watt smile and a group of girls trailing after him. 

Osamu goes to the pharmacy that night and buys a box of gray, cloudy dye. Atsumu helps him bleach his hair under their bathroom sink with the faulty tap and tells him he looks like the moon.

His Ma says that Atsu is hot and Samu is cold after the two have a particularly bad fight. Atsumu is gleeful and smug as he gloats that he was born to be hotter and warmer and better, and Osamu punches him. 

He remembers his Ma sitting on the porch, an arm around his shoulders as he pouts. 

“‘S not fair,” Osamu had said, his chin in his palm. “Why’d ya name Tsumu that?” 

His Ma had laughed, quietly, leaning her weight into his side. And she had held his cheeks between her palms and told him with a fire in her eyes that Osamu means To Rule. 

He meets you for the first time in February. 

You were standing in front of him, a little sheepish, with a box of chocolates in your extended palms. He remembers feeling something heavy in his chest. Because, yeah, Atsumu was definitely going to accept your confession. 

You had said, IReallyLikeYou, and Here’sSomeChocolates, and Please Accept Them. 

You were shorter than him, and your hair was done nicely, and you were blushing and nervous. And you were really fucking cute. But Osamu is used to coming second, so the only thing that comes out of his mouth is, Why? And then, Tsumu’s in tha next classroom ov’r. 

He doesn’t remember what happened next, only Atsumu’s laugh and the slap echoing through the halls. You leave with his cheeks stinging and hot. And Atsumu had teased him the next day, behind his mountain of chocolates and confessions, because Osamu’s face was still red twelve hours later. 

He sees you a lot the year after. 

You’re in the same class as him and ‘Tsumu, and you smile every time you see him. You sit two rows in front of him and you’re not very good at tying your uniform. Every lunch, Osamu watches you pull out the same gray bento with a wrapped onigiri on the side. He tells you one day that he really likes onigiri. And then, Osamu watches as every lunch, you pull out the same gray bento with two wrapped onigiris on the side. 

With you, it’s always Hi Osamu, first, and then, Hullo Atsumu. With you, it’s an onigiri dropped on his desk when the lunch bell rings. With you, Osamu thinks back to a conversation with his Ma on a porch. 

Osamu means To Rule.

The menu is this: Tuna mayo on Mondays and Thursdays, Ume on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Friday is plain. You don’t ever bring onigiri for his brother. 

He asks you, on a hot night in June, what your favorite type of weather is. You had your knees tucked to your chest, a sparkler in hand, and then told him cloudy. Cold. Foggy. Winter. Snow is nice, too. You say it all with no hesitation. 

Osamu kisses you for the first time that night. 

It’s New Years and you’re cooking Ozoni on the stove. The curtains are open, it’s snowing outside, and Osamu wakes to the smell of miso and the sound of carrots on a chopping board. He gets out of bed, padding to the kitchen with half-lidded eyes and a stifled yawn, and then he thinks his heart stops when he sees you. 

Because what Miya Osamu is not used to is this: coming first and having something unequivocally his. 

But you’re bent over the counter, fiddling with the oven as you read the instructions on the back of the packaged Yakimochi you bought the other day. And you’re wearing his shirt, it falls right below your thighs, your hair is still messy from using his chest as a pillow, and you look beautiful. 

“Mornin’ ‘Samu, come help me with this.” You say, looking back at him with a smile, pointing to the fresh pot of rice on the counter. “You’re in charge of onigiri.”

He hugs you instead, his arms around your stomach with your back to him. 

“But I like yer onigiri,” He says, his chin on your head. His eyes are watering and it must be from the steam of your boiling dashi. 

“‘Samu,” You complain, giggling as he presses kisses into the crown of your head. “I made enough for ya in high school.” 

It’s cold outside and snowing, and Osamu knows he’s going to make the onigiri. 

He also knows that if his name means To Rule, he’s okay with coming second if it means you’re by his side.

[moonjxsung]

Lost in Translation

Copyright Ⓒ 2023 by Moonjxsung

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner. Doing so will result in a legal takedown per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is subject to legal action.

Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader

W/c: 26.5k

Warnings: accidental nudity, hospital visit, mention of masturbation, use of pet names, breast/nipple play, clitoral stimulation, unprotected sex, bulge kink, sexual asphyxiation, breeding kink, creampie, oral sex (male receiving), brief mention of pregnancy

Synopsis: The older brother of the boy you babysit is an enigma, in every sense of the word- and you’re determined to figure him out.

[this work was based off a request by @antoniorhinothethird - thank you for requesting!]

18+. Mdni!

•

The idea of babysitting isn’t some brilliant proposal you conjured up in a day- but it’s not exactly a choice, either. The idea isn’t even yours, in fact, the advertisements you published on the colorful inquiry site at your mother’s behest. But “college courses are virtual these days” and “you’ll be a mother at some point in your life,” according to her. So two months into the semester, you’ll now spend the majority of your time in a new place you’ll call home, just 30 minutes out at the Lee Household.

The Lee household is considerably larger than you’d originally anticipated it to be, spanning a sizable amount of grassland and standing nobly tall at 2 stories high. The exterior of the flashy home is surrounded by paved gravel driveways, lining the neat rows of bushels and vines that surround the off-white architectural build. Giant glass windows reflect sunlight in nearly every room of the house, with the exception of the dimly-lit library on the second floor, which flaunts colossal cherry wooden bookshelves that line the walls and cover most of the smaller windows.

“Joon is usually very mellow in the daytime,” Mrs. Lee tells you as she walks you through a tour of the garden. “You’ll only have to worry about his feeding schedules, which I’ve already written and posted on the refrigerator.”

She pivots in front of you, stopping for a moment and gesturing to the stone fountain by the rose bushes. “Do you like it? It was a gift from my husband. When he’s not running the furniture business, he works in restoration a lot. This was his first project.”

“Wow,” you say, your lips parted at the sight of the koi fish and the cascading waterfall from its lips. “It’s very beautiful.”

Mrs. Lee smiles at you in response, turning on her heel and continuing to the iron gates in the front.

“Do you have any other questions?” She asks, clasping her hands together and shooting you a saccharine smile. She’s intimating, not because of her personality, which you quickly clock as rather warm and inviting. But rather, because she’s so elegant, her navy silk dress perfectly complementing the chunky pearl earrings she wears, making her look like a character from an old film. You’re not sure you’ve ever crossed paths with such an interesting woman before.

“I think that covers everything,” you say finally, giving her a small bow. “I’ll be sure to provide updates throughout the day.”

“Oh, no need,” she says quickly. “Unless it’s an emergency, l know you’ll have your hands full doing your work while watching Joon. Feel free to just give us a little summary when we’re home for the evening.”

She shoots you a little wink when she finishes speaking, clasping her hands together again and smiling down at you.

“We’ll see you tomorrow for your first day!” She exclaims warmly, opening gate doors as you make your exit out of the garden. When you begin down the paved road, Mrs. Lee suddenly gasps, calling out to you again in a frantic manner.

“Oh! Y/n, wait please!” She calls, pulling the skirt of her dress up to her ankles to jog over to where you’re standing.

“My other son will be home from school in the afternoon tomorrow. Don’t be alarmed if you hear him moving about the house. He’ll just keep to himself.”

You ponder the words for a moment, a little frustrated when you realize there will be two kids in the household instead of one, like she’d previously mentioned. But you just nod and smile at her, seeing yourself out of the driveway once again and beginning the journey back home to prepare for your first day here tomorrow.

*

This castle-at-end-of-the-road is eerily quiet when no one’s home, a once lively sight of rose bushes and marble statues appearing like something out of a horror movie when you’re by yourself. At every corner you turn, your brain runs rampant with paranoia, placing shadowy figures and silhouettes of people where there are none- except for when you’re in the presence of Joon.

At just a year old, Joon is considered one of the cutest ages, only being able to babble incoherent noises and flail his little hands around when he wants something. His closet is full of matching neutral tones, per his mother’s styling, and his sparse black hair is combed neatly to one side.

Mrs. Lee is right about him- he doesn’t cry. Nor does he ever make a fuss, really. He simply sits quietly, in the comfort of his crib, or his high chair, and he curiously peers at the world around him. You’re certain he’s taken a liking to you already, judging at how he smiles when you spoon-feed him mashed carrots and mimic airplane noises. And he only cries briefly once in the day, stopping almost immediately when you put him down for his nap.

This may be an easier gig than you thought.

While Joon naps, you take the opportunity to get some work done in the library, settling comfortably on the velvet armchair in the corner and running through a few of your online class assignments for the week.

Although you’ll be babysitting here for the next few weeks, you’re also completing your final year at university this year, your last semester being completely remote. Which gives you time to take on the babysitting task as a side hustle, and hopefully save enough money to travel a bit after university like you’ve always dreamt of.

At half past noon, Joon is still peacefully asleep in his crib where you’ve left him, the ambient sound of waves echoing softly from his baby monitor as little snores emit from his curled lips. He looks like an angel when he sleeps, and you can’t help but feel your heart swell to twice its size at the sight of him.

The gentle breeze of the October wind travels through the open windows of the library, sending chills up your spine when you sit down to work again. You get up from where you’re sitting on the armchair to latch the windows shut, making sure to lock them, before turning around to take your seat again- quickly startled by the figure standing in the doorway.

“Jesus,” you yelp, one hand clutching your chest in fear as you nearly drop your laptop.

The figure- or man, rather, says nothing, scanning the room like he’s searching for something, before turning on his heel and exiting the room once again.

He’s tall, with a slim yet muscular build, honey tanned skin complementing his chocolate brown tresses. He’s also dressed rather casually in a pair of light-wash jeans and a black top, a black leather jacket thrown over his broad shoulders and left unzipped.

“Sorry, did you need something?” You call out, perplexed by his demeanor. You can’t remember if the Lees warned you of potential visitors, but you’re suddenly panicked for Joon, remembering you left his door open.

“Nope,” the man calls out over his shoulder, not turning around to face you. And then you see it- a black backpack, slung over one shoulder and seemingly filled to the brim with textbooks.

Their other son.

This must be the son Mrs. Lee warned you would be making appearances in the afternoon. But you had assumed him to be much younger, especially considering he’s definitely old enough to be watching over his own brother.

Before you can gather your thoughts to introduce yourself, he’s gone again, disappearing down the hall the same way he so mysteriously appeared. And you wonder, briefly, how he can be so much colder than his own mother.

*

The first day of your new job is a success. When Mrs. Lee returns home for the evening, she pays you in cash, true to her traditional style, and sends you home with a tin of shortbread cookies as another ‘thank you’, though she’s already voiced it a million times. But the second day is rougher than the first, reminding you of why babysitting isn’t always an easy task despite what it may seem.

Joon is particularly antsy today, flailing his arms around when you try to spoon feed him and whining relentlessly when you pick him up. He needs several diaper changes in just your first few hours of working, and when you finally do get him clean, he’s a crying, screaming mess.

Fortunately, he still goes down for his nap at noon, which means you have a narrow window of time to complete your work for the day and get freshened up. The windows in the library are propped wide open again, a cold breeze coming through as you settle in your new favorite spot and open your laptop.

There are a myriad of assignments to complete today, and you’re briefly panicked that you won’t be able to complete the necessary few pieces if Joon suddenly wakes again. But still, you try, skimming through textbooks and typing away as much as you can to make steady progress. And at the hour mark, Joon begins to cry. Rather he wails, loudly, from the other room, startling you when you’re already in deep concentration working through a practice quiz.

You make your way down the hallway and to the right, where Joon’s room is, approaching the crib and catching a glimpse of his anguished state. His face is a robust shade of red as he wails loudly, bubbles of saliva forming at his nostrils and his eyes squeezed shut. You guide him out of the crib and into the safety of your arms, shushing him gently and rocking him back and forth the way Mrs. Lee taught you. And Joon calms instantly, hiccuping through tears as he locks his gaze on yours and fists at strands of your hair.

“That’s okay,” you coo at him, grazing your finger along his chin and cleaning some of the drool that dribbles from the corners of his lips. “I’m here. Look at you! You’re okay,” you continue, giggling at him when his quivering lips pull into a small smile. He softens in your arms, smiling and babbling with hushed sounds, clutching tightly on strands of your hair as you balance him in your arms.

“You want to come do some work?” You ask, nodding your head as if to coax an answer out of him. “That’s a good baby, huh? Let’s go do some work.”

And you travel back to the library with Joon in your arms, giving him gentle pats on his back as you hoist him tighter into your embrace and balance your laptop with one arm.

When you’re starting on your last task of the evening, you’re interrupted again today by Mrs. Lee’s eldest son, who pokes his head in the doorway and observes as you coo down at Joon’s sleeping figure while working on your computer with one hand.

“Do you want me to take him?” You hear from the doorway, and you crane your neck to look where he’s standing, his hands shoved in his pockets and his backpack slung lazily over one arm.

“I’m okay,” you respond, typing out a word with one hand. He furrows his eyebrows at your failed attempt, approaching you and reaching out his arms to take Joon from your embrace.

“You can’t work like this,” he says, as he peacefully transfers Joon to his own arms. “He won’t wake up if I put him back, I promise.”

“Thanks,” you reply, taking note of his features now that he’s at a closer proximity to you for the first time. He has large round eyes, and long eyelashes that make even you jealous. His nose bridge is sharp and straight, and when he chuckles softly at Joon, you notice his skewed front teeth, ones that make his smile seem sweeter- softer.

As he begins out the doorway, you try to think of what to say to him, not wanting to have another awkward run-in with him like your last one. But nothing comes to mind that won’t be just as awkward as the encounter itself, and you settle on painful silence once again.

As you unlock your laptop, continuing on to your last assignment, you hear the faint noise of Mrs. Lee’s elder son putting Joon back to sleep.

Except he sounds different than he has during your two previous encounters. He’s laughing, babbling, even cooing at Joon as he puts him back to sleep. And though you really shouldn’t intrude, you make your way to the doorway again, where you peer down the hall to listen in on the endearing noises he makes.

“Are you sleepy?” He asks, his voice two octaves higher than usual. “Let’s sleep now, okay? No, you can’t have my shirt. That’s mine, remember? Let’s have good dreams now. I love you!”

You hear Joon giggling from the end of the corridor and you smile to yourself, wholly moved by the tender little moment he shares with his baby brother. He might not be his full-time caregiver, but he certainly knows what he’s doing. As you stay pondering his behavior for a moment, you don’t even notice when he exits the room again, turning to watch you standing around the doorway. Your ear is still leaned into the corridor, clearly having listened in on the private moment.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, straightening your posture, a wave of embarrassment quickly washing over you. “I was making sure Joon got to bed okay.”

He just nods once, looking you over briefly before meeting your gaze again.

“Minho,” he then practically mutters, averting your gaze as he waits for you to speak.

It’s his name, you realize, barely even having registered what he said to you. He’s telling you his name.

“Y/n,” you respond quickly, giving him a small bow and smiling nervously.

And Minho says nothing, pivoting on his heel to exit the corridor and disappear all over again.

*

For two weeks, your job runs smoothly, no glaring problems or hangups. Joon remains fond of you, obedient at mealtimes and when he’s put to bed. And the system of completing your college coursework goes smoothly, being able to get through several assignments a day while Joon takes his afternoon nap. If anything, you might be more productive than you were before this job, despite balancing it between university.

It’s an overcast Tuesday afternoon, and you’ve spent most of your day working in Joon’s nursery on the rocking chair next to his crib. He’s been a little fussy today, but you find that he calms down a little at the repetitive clicking noises of your laptop keyboard. Once you’ve confirmed he’s asleep, little snores emitting from his lips, you gather your belongings and sneak away to the library again. Only this time, it’s not vacant.

Minho sits in your usual spot today, his legs propped up on the footrest in front of him and a book in his lap. He doesn’t even notice you in the doorway, strands of hair hanging loosely in front of his face as he scans the page of his book. He also looks significantly more casual than other days you’ve seen him around, wearing a plain black t-shirt and gray sweats, a pair of round wireframe glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

He feels your gaze on him, shuffling about suddenly and closing his book.

“Sorry,” Minho says. “I was just… reading.”

He realizes how awkward he sounds, verbally conveying his actions to you like this, but he’s too caught off guard to form a more coherent string of words.

“It’s okay,” you say politely, setting your bag down on the floor and occupying the chair across from him.

“What book?” You ask, cocking your head at the small red novel he clutches in his lap.

“Hm? Oh, uh… it’s Love and Limerence. By Dorothy Tennov.”

You nod in response, studying the cherub painted on the cover, wielding a bow and arrow.

“Big romance fan?”

“No,” Minho says, chuckling at your words. “It’s a required read for my class.”

“How neat,” you reply. “What class requires romance novels these days?”

“My philosophy course,” Minho says, running the pads of his fingers over the raised text on the cover. “The psychology of emotion.”

“PHIL 105,” you say, knowing very well the course he speaks of.

“Yeah- you’ve taken it?”

“No, but I had a friend who did in freshman year. I’m in my last semester now- my remaining classes are virtual, though.”

“It’s my last semester, too,” Minho says with a little smile, fiddling with the lobe of his ear as he talks.

“Well best of luck to you in the final stretch,” you reply, shooting him a small smile back. “I hope it all goes smoothly.”

Minho gives a half nod, and then furrows his eyebrows together, like he’s just remembered something.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he says suddenly, sitting up and gathering his belongings.

“Oh, I really don’t mind-”

“Catch you later,” He interrupts with a nervous tone, almost jogging out of the library and back down the corridor.

And just like the first day you met him, you maintain the same idea of him- he’s such an enigma. Appearing in and out of the household, not one to voice his thoughts or his opinions, no eagerness to know the stranger sitting in his house watching over his baby brother. But somehow, like the rest of the household, you can’t help but have a lingering curiosity for Minho, too.

*

“My husband and I might be late getting back today,” Mrs. Lee says one morning as you feed Joon his breakfast. His tongue dodges the plastic spoon, dribbling mashed food out from the corners of his lips and laughing when you go to dab his face clean with a napkin.

“That’s alright,” you reply, loading up the spoon with more food. “I can wait until you’ve arrived.”

“You will?” Mrs. Lee asks, a kind of sparkle in her eyes as she speaks. “That would mean the world to us. It’s just that my husband has an auction to attend today. And sometimes these events run longer than they’re meant to.”

“No problem at all,” you say, smiling at her as you turn your attention back to Joon. “Joon and I will just hang out a little longer today. Isn’t that right?”

He babbles something in response, a string of saliva trailing from his lips, and Mrs. Lee laughs at the sight.

“He’s really taken a liking to you!”

As she fixes Joon’s hair, Minho enters the kitchen, dressed for the day with his backpack already slung over his shoulder.

“Minho,” his mother says in a scolding tone. “No gum for breakfast. Have a fruit.”

“Can’t,” he replies curtly. “My philosophy exam is today.”

“What does that have to do with depriving yourself of food?”

“It’s bad luck to eat before an exam,” Minho retorts, coming around the granite island to kiss her on the cheek. “Besides,” Minho continues. “I’m ditching my second class, so I’ll be home a little earlier.”

When he turns around, his gaze meets yours, and he instantly stiffens.

His gaze turns cold again, his hands shoving in his jacket pockets as he says nothing to you. He just bows, once, and then turns to exit like he’s suddenly in some rush.

“Bye,” he calls out, and you’re not even sure who he’s addressing it to at this point.

“I should get going, too,” Mrs. Lee says to you. “I’ll call you when we leave the event tonight. And please, feel free to make yourself comfortable after Joon gets put to bed. There’s cash on the table if you want to order something for dinner, and extra blankets are in the upstairs closet if you get sleepy.”

“Thank you,” you say to Mrs. Lee as she gathers her car keys and handbag. And the house is quiet again when you’re all alone, with the exception of Joon’s heavy breathing as he stares at you curiously.

“It’s like a mansion here,” you say to your best friend as you balance Joon in your arms and crane your neck on your shoulder to hold the phone against your ear. “Mrs. Lee is so nice. I thought she’d be stuck up or something, but she’s like a second mother.”

“You hit the jackpot,” your friend voices on the other end of the line. “Any idea how long they need you around?”

“Not sure,” you reply, wiping the granite counter with a rag as you finish up the dishes. “Probably until their son is done with the semester.”

“Son?” She says excitedly. “Is he cute?”

“Please,” you echo, rolling your eyes. “His looks mean nothing considering he doesn’t say a word.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly that. He just doesn’t talk. We go to the same university and it’s like pulling teeth trying to figure out something as simple as what his major is. I think he despises having me around.”

“I mean, to be fair, I wouldn’t love someone in my space 24/7. It’s probably a territorial thing.”

“He’s not a cat,” you respond, laughing lightly. “He’s a grown man. I just get the feeling he doesn’t like me.”

“Well I highly doubt that,” she says, and you can hear her shuffling about on her end of the line.

“Hey, I have to go,” she chimes in. “But I’ll talk to you later. Good luck with baby Joon and the cat man.”

“Thanks,” you reply, chuckling to yourself.

As you hang up the phone, you turn around to gather the last of the dishes, stopping in your tracks when you’re met with Minho himself.

He’s standing in the kitchen, popping a bubble of gum with his teeth, his gaze locked coldly on yours as he observes the place.

That’s right- he did say he would be home a bit earlier after his exam today. Was he standing there for the entirety of your conversation? You can’t recall how long the phone call lasted, or even the specifics of what you said. But you do know it certainly wasn’t good.

“Hi,” you say nervously, scanning his expression for a hint of what he’s thinking. But he provides you none, kicking off his boots and making his way up the stairs again.

The guilt is still eating away at you two hours later- Minho hasn’t descended the staircase once since the incident, and you can hardly focus on your school work at the thought of what he’s thinking of you.

Here you are, complaining about him seeming “cold” or “off”- the whole time you’re the one talking about him behind his back and stirring up drama. If he hated you before, he definitely despises you now. And if he's as close with his mother as he seemed this morning, you could be out of a job by tomorrow.

In reluctant steps, you ascend the wooden staircase, clutching a small mug of coffee and a stack of buttered toast. You remember Minho saying he’d have breakfast after his exam, a task he wasn’t able to complete due to your impolite conversation earlier. And while you’re not even sure he’s going to give you the time of day anymore, it’s worth a shot to try.

At the top of the staircase, you realize you’re unsure of which room even belongs to Minho. There are rows of doors down the corridor, which you peer into, looking for any sign of him.

A closet, another closet, the laundry room… it feels like a futile task at this point- not to mention, the sinking feeling that you’re intruding, poking into every room in the house like this.

But at the end of the hallway, just across the staircase from Joon’s room, lies one more closed door you haven’t tried yet, and you’re sure this one has to be his.

With a deep breath, you balance the mug of coffee on the plate you’re carrying, bringing your free hand up to knock, just once.

No answer.

You pause for a moment, debating whether to just leave and drop the idea of an apology altogether. But you don’t, instead forcing yourself to knock once more this time, a little harder than the first.

And after muffled sounds of shuffling about, the door finally opens again, Minho standing with a confused expression on his face. He has a pair of earphones in, one side pulled out to hear you, his glasses sat on his face and a number of textbooks on the bed behind him.

“Is Joon okay?” He asks, looking down the hall in panic as you meet his gaze.

“What? Oh! Yes, he’s fine. He’s sleeping.”

“Oh. What are you…”

“I… made you some breakfast. I know you didn’t have any before your exam this morning. And no, gum isn’t a breakfast food.” You chuckle lightly as you hold the items out to him, and Minho looks down at them, blinking a few times before speaking.

“Oh. Uh, thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s no problem. Should I leave them with you?”

“Oh, you can put them on the desk over there,” Minho replies, and it’s then that you notice his hands are full with papers. He steps aside to let you in, gesturing to the desk with a piece of paper, and you oblige, clearing the space of a few scattered items and setting down his breakfast.

When you turn around to look at the place, your lips part in awe at the sight of the grandiosity of it. Minho’s room has bigger windows than any of the others you’ve seen, concave around a crescent-shaped seating area that boasts tall ceilings and large glass windows. There are books lining the floors, the desk space and even the window sills, many of them left bookmarked or lying open where they sit.

His giant wooden bed frame is almost hidden behind a hanging curtain, and his desk is nearly inhabitable at the amount of university paraphernalia that lives on its surface.

“Wow,” you say, craning your neck to look around the room. “It’s really nice in here.”

“Thanks,” Minho says awkwardly, toying with a loose hem on his pants.

“You really like reading,” you comment, taking note of the books he has lying around. When you say this, Minho seems to stiffen a bit, shutting some of the books and lining them on their spines along his shelves.

“Yeah,” he mutters, dropping a few books and kicking them away from him.

You nod at him, pursing your lips, well aware that you’re in the midst of yet another awkward interaction with him, but wanting to fulfill the reason you came up here all the same.

“Listen,” you begin. “I wanted to apologize. I don’t know how much you heard of that, but I assume it was enough to be hurt by it. And you’re justified in being hurt. It was totally uncalled for of me to say those things- and sure, you might be a quiet person. But that doesn’t make it okay for me to go around airing it out like it’s my business. In fact I shouldn’t even be on my phone on the job. I’m here to watch your brother, and I get paid for that service, and it’s completely unprofessional-”

“It’s cool,” Minho says, an unchanging expression on his face.

“Oh, um… I mean, if you want to fire me I totally understand.”

Minho chuckles softly, and then shakes his head. “I’m not going to fire you. I am quiet. It’s cool. Really.”

“I mean, I totally get that-”

“Unless you want to be fired?” He inquires with a half-smile, and you chuckle softly in response.

“I really don’t. I love watching your brother.”

“Good,” he replies. “Then we’re all good.”

And although you want to say something else to him, you don’t, feeling as though you should be satisfied with the state of the conversation. You apologized, he forgave you, and you haven’t lost your job. And he’s still quiet, but that’s just who he is.

When Joon wakes from his afternoon nap, it’s nearly 3pm. He’s a crying mess when he’s up again, flailing his arms around to beg for a bottle, which you promptly prepare for him after a diaper change.

With Joon in your arms, you get some chores around the house finished, including vacuuming the rugs, dusting off the furniture and tidying Joon’s toys that are usually scattered about his nursery.

Doing chores wasn’t an agreement between you and Mrs. Lee- in fact, she usually urges you to focus on your schoolwork and take breaks when you’re not caring for Joon. But you want to, feeling compelled to take care of the space as much as you care for Joon. Although tensions are still somewhat present between you and Minho, the Lee household feels comfortable to you by this point, almost like a second home now.

After chores, the library calls out to you again, evening beginning to fall over the neighborhood and painting the sky with vibrant hues of an autumnal sunset.

The windows are still rolled open from earlier, and your velvet couch looks particularly inviting at this hour, beams of sunset setting it aglow and luring you to choose a book from the cherry wood shelves around you.

So you do, selecting a children’s book about animals, comfortably sprawling out on the chair with Joon in your arms. He eyes the book curiously, spreading his short, chubby fingers over the cover and tapping repeatedly, as if asking you to read to him.

And you do, setting the book on your knee to angle the pages toward him, as you begin to vocalize the choppy sentences to him.

“A is for apple, hanging from a tree,” you say, caressing his stubby fingers as he pouts in focus. “B is for buzzing bumblebee.”

Joon’s lips curl into a smile, making his best attempt to clap as you point out the colorful images to him.

“C is for crab, walking in the sand… D is for dolphin, swimming toward the land!”

Joon laughs hysterically now, clapping his little hands and rocking back and forth in your lap. You laugh, too, at his darling reaction, and give him a little kiss on the head as he fiddles with the cover of the book.

It’s moments like this that reaffirm the notion for you that this job was the right idea, after all. You’re inexplicably happy alongside him like this, seeing the world through his eyes and rediscovering things you would otherwise take for granted, like silly picture books or doing chores with him in your arms. You feel so protective of him, eager to make his mom proud and provide a safe, nurturing environment for him as his babysitter- not because you’re paid to do it, but because he now holds a special place in your heart.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startles you from the doorway, and you look up to find Minho standing there, an amused smirk tugging at his lips.

“Did you… want something to eat? I was going to order takeout, unless you wanted something else.”

“Sure,” you reply, propping Joon up a little closer to your chest. “Anything’s fine with me.”

“I’ll get Chinese, then,” Minho says nodding. He averts your gaze a little, but you can tell he’s just a little awkward when he’s face-to-face with you like this. And perhaps your best friend is right- perhaps it’s not unusual of him to feel territorial over his household. After all, you are here almost every hour of the day, making yourself comfortable in almost every room, tending to the chores here and eating food from their kitchen. You suppose you would be irritated at the thought of it, too.

As Minho leaves to place an order, you take Joon back to the nursery, where you gently put him to sleep for the evening and program his baby monitor to play calm ocean noises again. It’s like clockwork- he’s out like a light, and the minute he leaves your arms, you’re exhausted, too. The stress of watching over him while balancing your school work might finally be getting to you now- you’re undoubtedly tired, your limbs aching from sauntering about this big house all day with Joon in your arms. And although you’re on a good track, you can hardly remember which assignment pertains to each of your classes these days.

When Minho returns almost an hour later, he holds a thin plastic bag in hand, his other one clutching a fistful of cutlery and two plates. He gives you a small nod when he enters the library, and you put away your laptop to join him on the floor in front of the coffee table.

For a moment, he says nothing as he prepares a plate for you, sliding a cup of wonton soup toward you and dividing portions of chow mein and tofu with wooden chopsticks.

You watch as he breaks a spring roll in half, holding both sides up and comparing to make sure they’re even.

“You’re very precise,” you say with a soft laugh, and a breathy chuckle emits from his lips, too.

“I’m trying to make sure it’s even.”

“However you cut it is fine,” you respond, pleasantly surprised at how polite he is.

When he’s finished dividing your portions, he slides a plate to you, setting a plastic fork down on the napkin beside you and ushering to the food.

“Enjoy,” he says, shooting you a small smile.

And the two of you eat in silence, the room quiet, aside from the sounds of slurping soup present between you two. Although it’s quiet, it feels comfortable, having him keep you company like this. It’s a change of pace from your usual days babysitting in the Lee household.

“How is your school work?” Minho interrupts your thoughts, and you’re momentarily taken aback by him initiating the conversation first.

“It’s good,” you respond, poking at the vegetables on your plate with a chopstick. “It’s on my own time, so I mostly just have to make sure I’m staying on track. But I’m finding it easy to get through despite watching Joon in the daytime.”

Minho nods in response, keeping his gaze set on the bowl of soup in front of him.

“How did your exam go?” you ask, and Minho cocks his head a little. “I got full marks,” he responds after a moment of silence.

“That’s great! I guess you were right about skipping breakfast having something to do with your academic success, then.”

And Minho laughs for the first time- not a chuckle or a giggle, but a laugh, holding one hand up to his mouth as he does. His laugh is gentle and melodic, filling the room around him with its sound, and you can’t help but laugh, too.

“I suppose,” he responds. “I also go nowhere without those philosophy books, so I have them memorized like the back of my hand.”

“Philosophy major?” you voice back, and Minho nods.

“So Love and Limerence is like second nature to you at this point.”

Minho gets a little awkward at this, his smile fading a little as he pokes around his chow mein. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “You could say that.”

And fearing you’ve somehow offended him, you change the subject again.

“Well I’m a business major,” you chime in. “So we don’t get interesting reads at all. And I’m not lugging around a six-pound textbook about returns on investments in my backpack.”

He laughs again, and you feel satisfied at the motion. Making him laugh feels like an exciting feat, like you’ve succeeded at something after trying so hard to. And considering how hard you’ve been trying to break down his walls these days, maybe it is an exciting feat, getting to know the stranger you’ve been sharing a home with for one month now.

“Business is a great field,” Minho says, slurping down the remainder of his soup. “Your parents must be really proud of the direction you’re headed.”

You shrug in response. “They’re indifferent. I don’t have a great relationship with them. They mostly just want me out of their hair once I graduate.”

“You have any post-college plans?” Minho inquires.

“I finished an internship before this whole babysitting gig, actually. I want to travel a bit after graduation, and then I’ll really settle down for the whole 9-5 working life.”

“Where are you hoping to travel to?”

There’s a glint in Minho’s eyes as he presses you for answers, like he’s genuinely interested in what you have to say. It makes you feel all warm inside- not many people usually care what you’re up to these days, your family trying their hardest to send you away to work another job and your most of your friends having drifted apart when you began university. Even the friends you do have are more distant these days, considering their classes are still in person, and you don’t have a need to be back on campus anymore. It’s a bit of a lonely life you lead, so being here beside Minho feels different, but pleasant.

“I’m not sure,” you say with a smile. “I’m not really sure where I belong yet.”

“Hey, I don’t know where I belong, either,” Minho echoes. “So that makes two of us.”

When the two of you are finished with dinner, Minho takes your plates downstairs, despite you offering, and you’re briefly left alone in the library. It’s much later than usual now, nearing 9:00, when you’re usually home by 7. The house also has a different vibe to it this hour, many of the rooms feeling much dimmer despite the same lamps being on, and the corridors feeling much quieter and more haunting. You feel a wave of sleepiness wash over you, and though you don’t want to be asleep when Mrs. Lee arrives, you can’t help but shut your eyes for a few minutes. You can still make out the shape of the bookshelves behind your heavy eyelashes, trying your best not to close your eyes completely, but your mind has already wandered off to slumber, and inevitably, your body follows shortly after.

You’re somewhere between sleep and consciousness when you feel Minho enter the room once again, looming over you like he wants to ask you something. But he says nothing- instead, he unfolds a knit blanket above you, sprawling it out over your legs and pulling it up to your torso. And you hadn’t realized how cold you were before he did, because you’re almost instantly with a wave of warmth and comfort over your listless body.

It feels almost uncharacteristic or Minho to carry out an action this polite- but as he takes his seat across from you, watching as you doze off peacefully, you think he may finally be coming around to you.

*

“I’m ditching my second class again today,” Minho announces the next morning at breakfast. He doesn’t eat much, you notice, as he bites into a single apple and hoists his backpack further up his shoulders.

“I’ll be home a bit earlier,” he then continues, eyeing you a little, and you give him a little nod.

“Then help with lunch,” Mrs. Lee says, gathering her own briefcase for work. “Y/n shouldn’t do it all by herself when you’re here.”

“Oh, it’s no worry at all,” you quickly chime in, not wanting to be the reason Minho refutes his mother’s words. “It’s what I’m here to do, after all.”

“No worries,” Minho says back to you. “I’ll be home around noon and we can prepare something together.”

For some reason, your heart flutters a little at the implication of doing something alongside Minho- something so planned and seemingly intimate. You normally just take the days as they come, so having a commitment hanging over your head like this is a little nerve-racking. And in all your worrying, you don’t respond to Minho, realizing only as he’s exiting the house with his apple in hand.

“I might be late again today,” Mrs. Lee turns to you, snapping you out of your trance. “But Minho can stay for the remainder of the time. I’ll still pay you the full amount like I did yesterday-”

“I’m happy to stay again,” you reply to her. “Like I said, it’s what I’m here to do.”

She smiles in return, clasping her hands and gesturing to the food on the table.

“I can’t get Minho to eat for the life of me, but help yourself to whatever you’d like. And thank you again, for staying.”

You’re reading to Joon in the living room when Minho arrives home from school. He kicks off his shoes dramatically, tossing his bag on the floor and breathing out a heavy sigh while you thumb through the pages of a new picture book.

“Hi,” Minho says first, his expression remaining stoic and unchanging.

“Hey,” you reply, hoisting Joon a little further up in your arms. “How was school?”

“Terrible,” he responds, making his way around the granite island to collect another apple.

“Why’s that?”

“Professor Kim,” he says curtly, polishing the apple on his button down shirt before taking a generous bite. “A three hour lecture on a Friday really wasn’t a smart choice. ”

You chuckle a little to yourself, adjusting your position on the floor and trying to balance Joon in your embrace. Minho takes notice of your struggle, abandoning his apple on the counter to come take Joon from your arms.

“Thanks,” you say, dusting off your legs as you stand again. “I’m going to get started on something for Joon to eat if you want to wait around. Unless you’re sticking to this exclusively-apple diet.”

Minho chuckles to himself and shakes his head. “I’ll help. We don’t have much prepared right now and I really need to go grocery shopping.” He secures Joon in his high chair, cocking his head toward the fridge.

“Could you just grab his orange juice? It should be the blue bottle on the right.”

And you comply with his request, promptly locating the blue sippy cup and handing it to Minho.

“Thank you,” he says, setting it down on the white tray in front of Joon and twisting it open. “This should be enough to hold him off until we can whip something up with the few ingredients we have. I want to do something with those sweet potatoes, they’re reaching the end of their time.”

Joon is a little fussy as he reaches for his sippy cup, flailing his arms around and sliding the cup across the tray to the edge. The cap seems to loosen as he does, tilting dangerously to one side.

“I got it,” you say to Minho, as you approach Joon. You retrieve the cup from the edge of the tray, twisting off the cap again to secure it properly. And as you do, Joon lets out a particularly loud yelp, knocking his hand toward you and letting the bottle fall off the tray entirely.

As you realize what’s happening, you bring two hands up to push it away from you, but you’re too late- the entirety of the bottle’s contents are spilt onto your shirt, completely soaking you and dripping onto the floor with loud, wet noises.

Minho doesn’t see what happened, but he turns around at the sound of your loud gasp, his eyes widening at the sight of you. Even your hair’s gotten wet, stringy pieces falling into your face, damp with the tangy scent of orange juice and dripping down your shirt. His mind races with guilty thoughts, feeling as though he should have stayed watching Joon, being the one to have been caught in the crossfire of his tantrum instead. Joon’s always fussy before meals- he knows this very well. As his mind races with the urgency to grab a towel, a rag- something, his eyes graze to your t-shirt, and he practically freezes.

Your thin white t-shirt is soaked like the rest of you, painting a clear outline of your black bra as the cold contents drip down your chest and torso. The see-through fabric sticks to your body like a cellophane wrapping, outlining every inch of you, every curve and every raised goosebump as you shudder at the sensation. Minho’s eyes remain locked on your dampened breasts for an embarrassing amount of time, taking careful note of the way your hardened nipples practically protrude through the thin white fabric, almost appearing increasingly noticeable with every passing second. The delicate curves of your stomach are accentuated with your skin-tight shirt, even your navel now visible.

A shake of your hands finally snaps him out of his trance, and you wrap your arms around yourself in a futile effort to cover yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you utter to him, at a loss for words at the notion of being so exposed to him. And Minho is quick to shake his head, now scrambling for a towel.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, pulling a towel off the oven handle and sliding it to you. “Here, use this and I’ll go get a larger towel from upstairs and a change of clothes.”

You want to deny the offer, feeling shameful for having already intruded this much on the Lee household and still needing more from them. But as you look down at your t-shirt, you know you don’t have a choice, the fabric now feeling cold and uncomfortable as it sticks to your flesh.

“Thanks,” you say to him, giving a small nod and not moving your hands from your chest.

And Minho retreats upstairs quickly, trying his best to avert his gaze as you remain in the kitchen.

As Joon babbles incoherently next to you, you can’t help but feel stupid, a sense of shame and embarrassment replacing the excitement you had to be preparing lunch alongside Minho for the afternoon. You’re in disbelief he’s practically seen you half naked like this, and you feel inadequate at not being able to stop Joon from committing the incident in the first place. As you run your hands up and down the raised goosebumps on your arms, you do your best to hold back tears, hoping Minho won’t think less of you for being caught in such a humiliating accident.

Minho is gone for a little while, and you blot at the wet patches on your shirt as you wait, Joon now laughing at your messy state. You can’t help but laugh a little, too, admittedly amused at what a disaster the afternoon has been- and you haven’t even begun the cooking part of it yet.

When he returns, he tosses you a large white bath towel and a gray t-shirt, still keeping his gaze on the floor instead of on yours.

“Here,” he says simply, his veiny arm scratching the back of his head. “I can also get a sweater if you’re cold.”

As you observe the t-shirt, you realize it’s one of his, not one of Mrs. Lee’s. For some reason, you’d assumed Minho would opt for a woman’s clothes as your change, but the t-shirt has clearly been pulled from his closet, and you blush a little at the idea of wearing his clothes.

“This is fine,” you reply, wrapping the bath towel around your body and excusing yourself to the bathroom.

You peel the sticky clothes off your body, crumpling them into a pile and changing into Minho’s t-shirt. It’s a bit large on you, but it’s much more comfortable, hanging loosely off your body and covering every bit of you that was previously exposed. His shirt smells like him, too, a pleasant scent of laundry detergent and his musky cologne.

When you exit the bathroom, you gesture to the change of clothes, your wet crumpled clothes balled in your hand. “I kinda look like you now,” you say, and Minho chuckles.

“You can keep it,” he responds, giving you another once-over and nodding shyly. “It looks better on you, anyway.”

He holds his hand out to you for the wet clothes, which he kindly takes from you to put in the wash. As he does, you go to the fridge to retrieve more orange juice for Joon- except there is none. You desperately search for milk, orange juice- any form of a snack that will keep him busy until his mealtime. But the kitchen is void of anything he can consume, and you begin to panic a little, knowing Joon hasn’t eaten in a good while now.

“That was the last of his orange juice,” you say to Minho when he returns. “And there’s not much else for him to snack on.”

Minho searches the kitchen too, digging through cabinets and moving around jars in the fridge to check for expiration dates. But he quickly realizes you’re right- the fridge is even more sparse than he’d assumed it to be.

“I guess we’ll have to make a trip to the store, then. How do you feel about strapping him into a car seat?”

“I’ve never done it,” you reply nervously.

“I can show you,” Minho says, grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter and spinning them around his index finger. “We can do it together.”

*

The nearest grocery store is just 20 minutes out from the Lee household. Minho drives a fancy black SUV, and he guides you through how to strap Joon into his car seat, which you carry out with no issues. He drives with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting casually on the center console as you chat with him about your university courses. For the first time, you notice how Minho seems much more comfortable around you now, cracking jokes occasionally and smiling at your stories about your afternoons alone with Joon. When Joon chimes in from the back seat with his excited babbling, you and Minho babble equally in response, sharing laughter at the ridiculous exchanges among the three of you.

You opt to carry Joon inside the grocery store while Minho walks alongside you, checking off a list he routinely uses to stock up on all of Joon’s favorite foods. And the atmosphere around you is homely, instilling the same sense of comfort in you as your afternoons alone with Joon. One that reminds you why you’re doing this job in the first place- you feel respected here, like your efforts don’t go unnoticed, and like you belong. It fills the lonely void inside of you with the sounds of Joon’s laughter, Minho’s tales of his classes and the trivial tasks of grocery store runs and learning to maneuver a baby car seat.

“I think that’s it,” Minho says as he checks the list one last time. “Milk, juice, bread…” he reads the items one by one again, and then nods affirmatively when he’s ensured they’re in the basket.

“That’s it,” he repeats, shooting you a small smile. “Let’s go pay.”

An older cashier gestures you to her lane at the registers, beginning to scan your items as Minho places them down on the conveyor belt. And then she gives a little wave to Joon, who curiously stares back at her.

“What a beautiful baby,” she says, pausing from scanning with a jar of mashed carrots in her hand.

Joon smiles in response, a trickle of drool escaping his lips.

“And what a beautiful family,” she continues, looking back and forth between you and Minho. “It’s not easy being young parents, but I can tell the two of you are doing a fine job at it.”

“Oh,” you say, chuckling lightly. “We’re not-”

“Thank you,” Minho interrupts, placing an arm around your waist and pulling you a little closer to him.

“We don’t get told that very often.”

You almost freeze at the contact, butterflies erupting in your stomach as he keeps his hand on the small of your back. This woman thinks the two of you are a couple- and worse, Minho is playing along with it. You can’t figure out why he’d entertain such a blatant lie, but you don’t interrupt him either, curious to see where he’s taking this little bit.

“People can be so unfair,” the cashier replies, shaking her head. “As long as the child is cared for, your status shouldn’t matter.”

“Exactly,” Minho replies, throwing his hand in the air like she’s making a point that pertains to him. “You know, when we got married, everyone told us it would never work. And now look at us- our child just turned 1 and we’re already making plans for a second honeymoon.”

“That’s amazing!” The woman says, clasping her hand over her heart like she’s touched by the bogus story.

“It is, isn’t it honey?” Minho says, turning to you.

Thoughts swirl your mind about this performance he’s putting on, but you’re undoubtedly entertained by the whole thing, stifling laughter as you nod in response.

“It is amazing,” you say finally. “We eloped and had a shotgun wedding- booked it to Italy right after and now we’re thinking of taking the little one to Paris for a real ceremony.”

The older woman removes her glasses now, wiping her eyes and shaking her head in disbelief. You can’t help but feel bad for her, seeing how easily she’s falling for your blatant lies, but Minho shows no remorse, grinning ear to ear and keeping his hand on the small of your back.

“Well I’ll tell you what,” the woman says, putting her glasses back on and shifting her eyes around the store.

“Since you guys just made my day, I’m going to provide you with our senior discount. It’s not everyday I see a young couple so beautiful raising such a darling little child.”

“Oh, you really don’t-” you start to say, and Minho interrupts you before you can finish.

“That would mean the world to us,” he says in an exaggerated voice, giving the cashier a little bow. “It would help us out a ton.”

You want to protest, to slap Minho in his pretty little face and ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing lying for a discount like this, but you’re afraid the cashier will see right through your whole stunt and reprimand both of you. So you just nod and let Minho take the lead again.

“Thank you,” you echo back to her,” holding Joon’s stubby little fingers as the woman types a lengthy code into the computer.

And Minho smiles at you, shooting you a little wink as he gathers boxes of cereal and jars of food in his arms.

“What was that?” You practically yell as you exit the store, balancing Joon in one arm and a bag of groceries in another. “You totally lied to her.”

“I didn’t lie,” Minho says. “I told her a different reality.”

“That is literally what a lie is,” you echo back to him, securing Joon in his car seat and lining grocery bags on the floor. Minho slides into the driver's seat again, putting his keys in the ignition but not yet starting the car as he waits for you to get in, too.

“I mean, that was like a 10% discount,” you continue, huffing frustratedly as you wait for him to speak. “How is that worth telling someone a whole list of lies?”

“You know, there’s this really cool theory called the anthropic principle,” Minho begins, looking straight ahead through the windshield. “Suggests the existence of a multitude of universes.”

“What?”

“So,” he continues. “Philosophically speaking, maybe in one of those we're married, and we have a child, and our honeymoon was in Italy.”

You stay quiet for a moment, pondering his words, completely unsure of if he’s flirting with you or teasing you right now.

“And maybe,” he chimes in again. “In one of them, we robbed the store and killed the cashier. And in another, we don’t even know each other.”

“What are you getting at?” You say, narrowing your eyes in confusion.

“It’s not lying,” Minho says with a smile as he finally starts up the car. “We just told her about a different reality.”

“So it’s lying,” you say with a smile, unable to hold back the giggle that escapes your lips.

“A little,” he finally says. “But it was fun, right?”

And you start to say no, but you can’t get the words out, aware you’ll be lying twice today if you do.

Minho takes your silence as confirmation, a grin plastered on his face as he rests one arm behind your headrest to pull out of the parking lot. And you can’t help but smile, too, the spontaneous thrill of lying to the cashier admittedly being some of the most fun you’ve had all week. And the conclusion stands- Minho’s a little odd. But he’s great company.

*

Mrs. Lee is late again tonight, the second hand on the clock ticking in slow intervals as it nears 10pm. You yawn for the umpteenth time tonight, exhausted from having done so much today, wanting nothing more than to sleep in the comfort of your own bed at home and mentally recharge for another day of this tomorrow. But you’ve promised to wait for her, always eager to wait it out until the last second, because Mrs. Lee always expresses her sincerest gratitude when you wait for her.

“Sorry, she’s really late today,” Minho says as he lowers the volume on the television. You completed a few more chores around the house after dinner while Minho powered through his schoolwork, putting Joon to bed before settling on the sofa and watching old cartoon reruns. Now you’ve been in and out of sleep for the better part of an hour, Minho remaining close by watching infomercials again, peering at your tired figure and feeling guilty that you’ve been here so long.

“It’s okay,” you reply quietly, letting out another yawn. You cross your arms over yourself, still dressed comfortably in Minho’s t-shirt, and do your best to keep your gaze on the television.

Tonight Minho is stuck on an infomercial for artificial plants, the dull narration lulling you to sleep even further as he checks the time on his watch and glances nervously at the front door.

Minho cranes his neck at your figure again, not missing the way gray bags hang heavy below your eyes, your lashes half-lidded as you feign sleep and force your gaze onto the infomercial.

“Don’t you have an early exam tomorrow?” You say to Minho, another yawn escaping your lips as you speak. “Don’t wait up on my account. You should get some sleep.”

Minho shuts off the television, standing up from where he’s sitting and dusting off his pants.

“I’ll take you home,” he announces, fishing around on the table for his car keys.

“It’s okay,” you reply, not wanting to inconvenience him anymore than you already have today. “I can walk to the bus stop.”

“You’re not walking,” Minho retorts, scoffing as you sit up and rub your tired eyes with the back of your hand. “It’s pitch black outside.”

“It’s fine,” you say, gathering your book bag and rushing to put your shoes on. It’s a race between the two of you now, Minho scrambling to locate his car keys while you get ready to leave for the evening.

“It’s really not a problem- where are my keys?” Minho mutters to himself, patting the pockets on his jacket and rearranging stacks of papers on the coffee table.

“I’m fine, really.”

“No, I’ll drive you,” Minho says, still tossing aside the mess he’s made to locate his keys.

“I’ll walk,” you reiterate again, and Minho finally exhales frustratedly.

“Then I’ll walk with you,” he finally announces, ditching the car keys altogether and stopping to look at you. He looks tired, too, evident bags under his eyes and his hair tousled from running his hands through it frustratedly.

“Minho, I really don’t want to burden you-”

“It’s not a burden.”

As he speaks, you hear Joon’s baby monitor alerting you that he’s awake for the evening, wailing loudly when he realizes that he’s alone. It’s perfect timing, too, Minho already having planned to wake him up so he can walk you back.

“Wait here,” Minho says to you as he begins toward the stairs. “I’ll get his harness.”

The dim street lights illuminate the dark paved roads, a crisp chill in the air as you walk alongside Minho with your hands in your pockets.

Joon sits comfortably in his harness against Minho’s chest, curiously taking in the atmosphere around him as you walk in silence to your bus stop. It’s not a long walk, only 20 minutes from Minho’s, but you feel admittedly much safer with Minho by your side, his and Joon’s presence feeling homely even at this hour. For nearly the entirety of the walk, the two of you say nothing, too tired to engage in conversation, but still comfortable in the presence of each other, and not needing to say anything. Joon babbles saliva every now and then, Minho bringing a finger up to wipe his chin, and the only other sounds are that of crickets and the gentle sway of the trees.

“This is me,” you say to Minho when you reach the familiar blue bench of your stop.

You sit on one side of the bench, slinging your book bag over beside you and crossing your legs. And to your surprise, Minho occupies the other side, one hand resting gently on the back of Joon’s head while the other pats his back gently.

“You don’t have to wait,” you tell Minho quickly, and he just shakes his head silently in response.

The silence between you remains, Joon toying with the collar of Minho’s shirt as you wait for the bus. There’s so much you want to ask Minho, so much you still want to find out from him. You’re well aware that you haven’t quite figured him out yet, but you’re undoubtedly sure that he is a nice guy, after all. From lending you his t-shirt, waiting up for you on late nights, even walking you to your bus stop and waiting for the bus with you. You think briefly back to his little joke at the grocery store, smiling to yourself when you remember he’d chosen to pretend you were a married couple for no other reason than to make you laugh after having had such a rough day. And his innate fascination with looking at everything through a philosophical lens, the passion for his favorite subject so robustly present wherever he goes.

“What’s that theory again?” You ask Minho as your thoughts verbalize amidst the silence.

“Hm?”

“The one about the universe.”

“The anthropic principle?” He questions, and you hum in response.

“Yeah, that one. Do you think there are like, a million versions of us right now, just…sitting here?”

“Sure,” Minho replies. “But the conditions would have to be just right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the theory states that conditions have to be just right for us to coexist in the universe we’re in right now. It’s sort of like a coincidence that this one evolved so that we could thrive in it. So there might be other versions of us, just not as definitive. We might be rocks, or bugs. Or maybe there’s a more advanced version, where we’re still on our honeymoon in Italy.”

“Or the one where we killed that cashier,” you chime in.

“Exactly,” Minho replies, a small smile tugging at his lips.

You ponder his words for a moment.

“Do they all follow the same timeline?” You ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“Do they all last forever? What if we got divorced? Would we part ways in every universe?”

Minho stays quiet for a moment, thinking back to the philosophical theories tucked in the back of his mind.

“I don’t know,” he finally replies. “I’d like to think some versions have a happy ending, but maybe some of them don’t.”

As silence falls over you again, your bus finally turns the corner, making its way down the street toward your stop.

“That’s me,” you say, getting up and gathering your belongings again.

Minho stands up, too, saying nothing as the bus finally halts in front of you, the brakes screeching to a stop with the loud exhaust of the doors as they open.

“Thanks,” you say to Minho before getting on. “For walking me.”

“It’s no problem,” he replies, shooting you a tired smile.

Minho watches as you board the bus, taking your seat toward the back. He scans the aisles momentarily, making sure you’re sat somewhere safe, away from anyone he might deem sketchy at this hour. And when he feels confident you’ll make it home okay, he brings Joon’s hand up in front of him, giving you a little wave as he watches you smile back through the tinted windows, sending him off with a wave back.

*

From then on, things shift between the two of you. Minho is a constant, always offering to walk you home on late nights to engage in discussions about your university work or his favorite theories. When he’s home early from his classes, the two of you enjoy cooking for Joon together, making trips to the grocery store where the cashiers are now fully convinced you’re a married couple. On late nights, the two of you often engage in lighthearted philosophical debates while you wait for Mrs. Lee to get home for the evening. When he’s walking you home for the night, doing homework alongside you or just passing by, Minho indulges you in all his favorite philosophical questions, and you entertain them, using the opportunity to get a better glimpse into his mind and how he thinks.

It’s exactly this that tears down Minho’s walls, you find- he, in all his philosophically-educated glory, sharing his perspective while you poke holes in his arguments and reach a conclusion together. Sometimes you’ll reach a stalemate, the argument fizzling out with no clear answer. And sometimes he can change your mind almost instantly, the arguments leaving his lips like second nature, always quick to persuade you in the opposite direction and provide clear reasoning. He’s very skilled at his work, and you quickly realize why he’s so passionate about philosophy in the first place.

It’s not something Minho’s used to yet- having a companion like this, one who actually cares about anything he has to say. Someone to come home to, somebody to bask in the simplicities of life with and affirm that he’s not completely incapable of making real human connections. And admittedly, maybe he loves playing house with you, coming home to your home-cooked meals and caring for the baby together.

Maybe this version of the universe deems you a babysitter, and he, just an outcast. But sometimes Minho swears he can see different versions where you’re so much more than that to each other.

In late November, you take your first week off, leaving on a small family trip to a city just a few hours out to go see extended family.

You tell Minho of your little excursion the week prior, and he pretends to be disheartened, but you know deep down he must be relieved to have some space to himself again. Of course you’re not able to watch Joon, and Mrs. Lee has a friend watch him in your absence, but you’re surprised at how much you miss the Lee household when you’re not there. The trip to the city is filled with repetitive questions from family about your major, your internship, your potential salary in an entry-level position and general university questions. And yet all you catch yourself thinking about is Joon, and Mrs. Lee and especially Minho.

You wonder what he’s doing in the comfort of his grand room all by himself, surrounded by books and tall windows. Minho once told you that he can go a whole day without talking when he’s not having philosophical debates with you over coffee. You wonder if he’s talked today, or if he attended his classes or how his exam on Tuesday went. Thoughts of him plague your mind every waking second- whether Minho would like a certain food, if Minho would agree with this statement, even what the people around you would think if you dragged him along and played house with him like you do back home. In this version of the universe, maybe he’s reading a book or watching a movie, but in another, he could be right here, telling his string of lies to your extended family.

On the last day of your family vacation, you find yourself in an old bookstore, and all you can think about is Minho. He’d love it here, you think, grazing your fingertips along the old cracked spines and yellowing pages. And as you scan through the philosophy section, several of the books already piquing your interest, you spot it.

The small familiar crimson book, just barely larger than your hand, delicate to the touch and painted with the same Cupid depiction as the one you know so well. A first edition copy of Dorothy Tennov’s Love and Limerence. You can’t help but smile to yourself, scanning the book’s contents briefly before closing it again and bringing it up to the counter. It’s not like you’re trying to worsen this little developing crush you have on Minho, but he seems to be everywhere you go- and candidly, you just want to have him figured out.

*

When you return to the Lee household from your vacation, the atmosphere is calm, sunbeams shining through the large glass windows and illuminating the house with a romantic glow. Joon eats his breakfast well, downing his orange juice and causing you little trouble throughout the day. And Minho arrives just after 3, his backpack slung over his shoulder and a book in hand.

Your heart beats erratically to see him again, trying your best to avert his gaze as he enters through the front door and kicks off his shoes. When he makes his way through the kitchen, you attempt to look busy, wiping down the counters with a kitchen rag and balancing Joon in your arms.

“Hi,” Minho says, a little shyly as you keep your eyesight on the granite counter below you.

“Hey,” you respond, pretending like you hadn’t noticed him enter the room, when in reality, you’ve been well aware of his arrival since he parked his car out front.

“How was your trip?” Minho asks, setting down his backpack and loosening the collar of his sweater.

He’s dressed for the chilly weather outside, a simple black knit sweater paired with blue jeans.

“It was good,” you reply, folding the rag with one hand and setting it aside. “I kinda missed it here.”

Minho smiles at you nervously, toying with the hem of his sweater as he hears you speak.

“It was pretty quiet without you here. I think Joon missed you.”

“Did he?” You question excitedly, poking at Joon with your finger and cooing at him. “Is that right? You missed me?” And Joon giggles excitedly, smiling between the two of you.

When the room falls quiet again, Minho clears his throat like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, instead keeping his gaze fixed on yours. The room is teeming with awkward tension between the two of you, two hearts clouded in desire to act on this conflicting emotion of fleeting lust and a mutual understanding of each other, but neither one of you say anything, letting it die with your silence and circle your minds aimlessly again.

“I got you something,” you say suddenly, and Minho’s heart quickens a little.

“Me?” He questions, pointing to himself as if you need clarity of who he speaks of.

“Yes, you. It’s in my bag upstairs.”

And you begin your ascent to the staircase, motioning for Minho to follow you as you bring Joon with you.

“Close your eyes,” you tell Minho when you‘ve entered the library again.

“Should I be scared?” He asks, a soft chuckle escaping his lips.

“Close them!” You exclaim, and he finally puts his hands out in front of him, shutting his eyes, a big grin plastered on his face. You place the book in Minho’s palms gently, making sure to position it so that the cover is facing him properly.

“Now open.”

When Minho opens his eyes again, he doesn’t even need to read the words before knowing what it is. He’s immediately familiar with the first edition of Dorothy Tennov’s Love and Limerence he holds in his hands, uniquely characterized by the contrasting art style to his, and the much older, yellowing pages.

“My book,” Minho says, biting his lip as he holds back a bigger smile, one that will most definitely point to the incriminating fact that he’s smitten.

“Your book,” you echo, leaning on the wall across from him. “It’s a first edition. The bookkeeper said they’re pretty rare to come by.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“Don’t worry about it,” you reply, fixing Joon’s hair and averting Minho’s gaze. You’re afraid if you make eye contact with him, this whole nonchalant front will crumble down in front of you, because you’re embarrassingly smitten with him, too.

“Thank you,” Minho says, thumbing the raised gold-foiled cover outline of Cupid. “I’ll go put it with the rest of them.”

And he disappears down the corridor, his book tucked in the endeared clutch of his hands.

While Minho adds his book to the rest of his collection, you put Joon down for his nap, gently placing him on the soft blanket in his crib and adjusting the baby monitor. He blinks up at you a few times, his lips pulling into a shaky smile as his lashes finally flutter shut and a wave of sleepiness washes over him. You exit the room quietly, closing the door just halfway like you always do, and then make your way down the corridor to Minho’s room. The door is left ajar, but you hear him shuffling about, and you enter after giving a gentle knock.

Minho seems startled at this, jumping up from where he’s standing, in front of his bookshelf with Love and Limerence held open in the palms of his hands. He shuts it quickly, shoving it on the top with another stack of books, and then almost shields his bookshelf as he turns to face you.

“I didn't hear you come in,” he says, nervously shifting his eyes to more stacks of books on his window sill and nightstand.

“I put Joon down for his nap,” you reply, cocking an eyebrow as he stands there awkwardly. “Is… everything okay?”

“Yes,” he says quickly, blinking nervously when he sees you peer over his torso at the bookshelf.

“Where’d you put it?”

“Can’t remember,” Minho says, a breathy chuckle emitting from his lips as he tries his best to avoid talking about it. But you catch on- and you’re certainly not going to let him evade the subject.

“What are you hiding?” You finally ask, eyeing him with a small smile. Minho’s face drops a little, sighing once as he steps aside and grants you full visibility of his bookshelf. There’s nothing out of the ordinary- books of all colors and sizes lined neatly on the shelves, some of them left open or bookmarked. A good amount of them appear to be philosophy books, which doesn’t come as a surprise to you.

“It’s just your books,” you say flatly, and Minho scratches the back of his head before he speaks again.

“Love and Limerence isn’t a required read for university.” He says in a low voice.

“Oh,” you reply, unsure of why it should really matter to you.

“None of them are,” he continues. “It’s just my personal… collection. Of romance novels.”

And then you finally understand.

Minho- the stoic, otherwise quiet being, in all his philosophical studiousness and awkwardness, is a sucker for romance. Once the cogs begin turning in your head, they don’t stop, everything about him now making a little more sense to you. Why he stays locked up in his little tower all day reading book after book, why he’s so hopeful when he speaks of the human condition and of love, why he loves taking care of people so much. He’s just a big softie underneath it all.

“There’s nothing weird about that,” you chime in. “In fact, it’s really cool.”

“Yeah right,” he retorts.

“I’m dead serious. I’ve never met someone with so many copies of Thorns and Roses before.”

Minho shakes his head, moving to sit on his bed with his palms tucked under his legs. His gaze remains locked on the floor, an expression of shame still visible on his face. And when you see him exhale deeply, like he’s been nervously holding his breath all this time, you feel bad for him. If there’s anything you’ve learned about him since meeting him, it’s that he’s really a bit of a dork. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him look so vulnerable before.

“Which one’s your favorite?” You ask, skimming your finger along the neat row of spines.

He shrugs. “Pride and Prejudice, maybe. But these days it’s Love and Limerence.”

Minho’s voice is trembling, just above a whisper as he reads off his list of favorite novels to you. And you chuckle softly in reply, pulling the little red book out of its respective home on the shelf and tossing it to him.

“Read me your favorite passage.”

He furrows his brows a little, like he thinks you might be making fun of him. But when you take a seat next to him on the bed, wide-eyed and gesturing to the book in his hands, he realizes you’re genuinely asking him to.

“Go on,” you say, gesturing to the book once more.

Minho opens the book to the middle, flipping through yellowing pages with small font. Most of the pages are littered generously with blue sticky notes, Minho’s messy handwriting annotating all his favorite passages. When he finds the page he’s searching for, he eyes you cautiously, as if waiting for permission to begin reading. And with a deep breath, he begins, his voice shaking a little as he finds his footing.

“Now by these presents let me assure you that you are not only in my heart, but my veins, this morning. I turn from you half abashed--yet you haunt me, and some look, word or touch thrills through my whole frame--yes, at the very moment when I am labouring to think of something, if not somebody else.”

At the last words, his gaze meets yours again, eyelashes trembling as he waits for your reaction. He waits for you to laugh, or to dismiss the words, or leave altogether. But you just stare back at him, your heart beating erratically at the poetry he utters, completely in awe with him.

He feels otherworldly at this distance, this intricate fascination with love and human connection. The way his brown tresses fall loosely in front of his big eyes as he speaks, his plump lips pulling into a nervous smile to reveal the row of skewed teeth you find a home in every time. He’s like the passage reads- thrilling your whole frame, consuming you whole and filling your mind with thoughts of him, and his poetry and his kind demeanor. You find yourself a little closer to him, your eyes darting to his lips and then back to his curious eyes, fantasies of him running rampant in your mind.

And Minho keeps his gaze locked on yours, too, leaning in a little closer to you, the book closing on its own as his hand slips away from holding it open and onto the bed beside you. The implications are there, the atmosphere around you heavy with desire and uncertainty, and just as you wield the courage to bring your lips a little closer to his, you’re promptly interrupted.

“Minho-ah!” A voice calls from downstairs. You quickly clock it as Mrs. Lee’s, who must be home early from work.

“I’m home early!” She calls again, confirming your theory, her footsteps getting louder as she makes her way up the stairs.

You sit up promptly, smoothing down your shirt and standing to bow when Mrs. Lee pokes her head in the doorway. Minho stands up too, making the whole situation look unbearably obvious, and you pray she can’t tell what’s going on between the two of you.

“Y/n,” she says with a warm smile. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you I would be home a little earlier today. Joon has a doctor’s appointment.”

“No worries at all!” You voice back, bowing again as she smiles. “I was actually going to leave early today. I have a bit of a headache.”

“Oh, do you want a cup of tea?” She asks, heavy concern present in her voice.

“No thanks, I think I just need some sleep.”

You turn to Minho, who’s standing with his hands in his pockets, looking a little disappointed as you give him a small bow.

“Take care,” you say to him, pivoting to head back to the library and gather your things.

Minho hears his mom see you out of the front door, chatting briefly with you about your trip and sending you off with a little wave.

He shuts his bedroom door and locks it, sprawling out on the duvet of his bed and running his hands over the book still beside him.

He’s not sure what happened- whether you were about to kiss him, or whether it was just wishful thinking. But every way he interprets the encounter, Minho swears he can feel your yearning for him, too. Is he crazy to think you might feel the same? Maybe he, too, finds it laboring to think of something- if not, someone else, besides you.

*

Joon is a particularly picky eater in afternoons, making a big fuss of foods he usually devours in the mornings and evenings. He skillfully dodges every spoon, every bite and feigns his interest in even his favorite snacks and desserts. And while you’re usually patient with him, today you’re frustrated, having mentally scolded yourself several times since yesterday’s events.

A part of you wants to ditch all of this, reminding yourself that you’re here to work a job, not lust after the son of the person who hired you. But the other part of you can’t help but imagine how things would be different if you just let yourself fall gracefully into him- he’s so much more than a fleeting thought to you. You want to understand him, having challenged yourself to figuring him out from the moment you came across him. But maybe you want him to understand you, too. You want him to understand that you feel at home whenever he’s around, his philosophical discussions and this game of house you play making you feel like you belong here. You want him to understand that although you know he feels like an outcast, none of his odd quirks matter to you when he’s reading his favorite love stories across from you in the library, catching glimpses of you when he thinks you’re not looking. And that maybe this universe conditioned itself just right so that you took up this job and crossed paths- and that has to mean something bigger.

There’s nothing different about the afternoon following yesterday’s, except for you spending a considerable amount of time on your hair and makeup, the anticipation bubbling inside you at the idea of seeing Minho again. You have no definitive plan, no script of how it’s going to go when he arrives from school. But you also know there’s something in your throat that wants so desperately to get out, and you won’t let it. As Joon toys with the cereal in his bowl, he looks up at you with big, curious eyes, and you wonder what he’s thinking, if anything. He doesn't know anything beyond the simple tasks of eating and sleeping, living with the comfortable knowledge that he’s being cared for. And although it seems much easier, you can’t help but sympathize. What a gift it is to feel- what a gift it is to carry emotions so deeply they eat away at you like this.

You’re infatuated with Minho- that fact stands true. And whether or not it benefits you to do anything about it, you’re determined to do something with all of this feeling, lest it slips through your fingers like he almost did.

You don’t hear Minho come home when he does, busy in the garden tending to Mrs. Lee’s plants when the usual alert of his car pulling into the driveway passes you by. So when he wanders the corridors searching everywhere for you, you don’t take notice.

Minho’s desperate, hoping to ask you to stay just a little bit longer tonight, having also had the epiphany that he’s completely fallen for you, too. And what he hopes to do with it, he’s unsure- but he does know that every romance novel on his shelf would refute the idea of letting this feeling dissipate. Kiss her, tell her, do something. Anything.

He strides down the halls with purpose and vigor, a nervous smile pulling at his face at the thought of seeing you again. It’s all he’s thought about today, having had just two hours of sleep as he sorted out what to say to you. And while he’s not well-versed in the practice of confessing his love, he feels his whole life has been devoted to the very purpose of being here and finding you. The debates you share, midnight walks to the bus stop, the book- he’d be a fool not to reciprocate what you yearn for. And when he doesn’t find you, Minho feels the familiar pit of worry form in his stomach. He’s not accounted for a change of plans, or even what might happen if you reject his admission. He wants to believe so badly that the answer is yes, risking everything just to say something.

20 minutes after he’s been home, Minho receives a phone call, answering in a rush while he checks the upstairs rooms for you.

“Hello?”

“It’s Sujin from class,” the phone at the other end says plainly. “I’m here for our project.”

And Minho freezes, remembering very well that he has a project due very soon, and his partner is here tonight to work on it with him. He sighs heavily into the line at the change in plans, knowing he’ll have to bottle his emotions another day and act on them tomorrow when he can get you alone.

“Oh, right,” Minho responds, making his way to the stairs and jogging down them. “The door should be unlocked.”

He stuffs his phone in his back pocket, making his way to the door to meet Sujin, and as he passes the sliding door to the backyard, he finally sees you. Knelt on the ground in a white sundress, your hands tainted with soil as you tend to the tomato plants and hum to yourself. Minho smiles at the sight of you, the urge to tell you right now stronger than ever. But before he can call out to you, Sujin’s already made her way inside, peering curiously around the place and clutching her purse in hand.

“Wow,” she says, chuckling lightly. “You didn’t tell me you were rich.”

Minho scratches the back of his head awkwardly as she grazes a marble sculpture with her fingers. His eyes remain on you through the glass door, transfixed by the way you tuck your hair behind your ears and pat your dress as you stand up again. Sujin takes note of Minho’s evident distraction, briefly glancing out the window and back to him.

“Where are we working?” She asks, pursing her lips together.

“We can work upstairs,” Minho explains, as you finally make your way inside.

At first you’re confused at the sight, Minho looming over a girl much prettier than you, her long hair styled neatly over one shoulder and a matching formal two-piece hugging her curves beautifully. And then as you see her begin up the stairs in the direction of Minho’s room, you finally understand.

Of course there’s another woman.

Of course there was a catch to all of this, because why else would things condition themselves so perfectly that you’d win him over?

And suddenly everything feels pointless- confessing to him, feeling any ounce of emotion regarding all of this, even working this job. He has a girlfriend, and she’s much prettier than you are. And he's trailing behind her after giving you a shy nod, likely embarrassed at the fact that you’ll be here tending to his household while he fucks her in his upstairs bedroom.

You can’t help but think that perhaps something got lost in translation, because Minho evidently never liked you, and unless this version of the universe magically conditions to work in your favor just once, it’s going to remain that way.

*

When the tears begin to prick at the corners of your eyes, they don’t stop. You can’t feed Joon without hiccuping through a hot rush of tears that fall from your cheeks onto his tray below him. Joon seems to sense something is wrong, pausing the task of dodging his food to observe the way your face contorts as you wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. And when you do stop to look at him, all you can see is Minho, his eyes and lips resembling exactly that of his elder brother’s.

The chores feel like a futile task now, and you let them sit there for the remainder of the evening you’re working for. In fact, the only thing you do complete is the task of getting Joon to bed when the sun begins to set, marching carefully upstairs to not interrupt Minho’s time with his girlfriend. And the word makes you sick, to think that he’s been stringing you along all while having a girlfriend- a fact he so conveniently left out.

Joon goes down without a fuss, and when he’s finally asleep, you escape the confines of the second story to lock yourself in the downstairs living room and complete your school work. How much of that is spent crying instead, you can’t quite remember.

It’s just after 9 when Sujin leaves for the evening, but you’re not awake to take notice when she does. You wake to the familiar sound of infomercials playing quietly on the television in front of you, Minho sitting on the floor in front of the sofa you occupy. His head hangs as he holds a book in his lap, probably some cheesy romance he projects onto him and his girlfriend, and his thin wireframe glasses rest on the bridge of his nose.

The dull narration on the television advertises jewelry tonight, and you let out a sigh as you feel your swollen eyes adjust to the bright screen in front of you. At this, Minho turns around, giving you a sheepish smile as you try to shut your eyes again. But it’s too late- he’s already seen you awake for the evening.

“Hi,” Minho says for the first time today, bookmarking his page and lowering the volume on the television. “She’s late again today, but I saved you some takeout.”

“I’m not hungry,” you reply quickly, sitting up and reaching for your bag. “In fact, I need to go home.”

“Oh, sure,” Minho replies, a little hurt at your rushed tone. “I can walk you-”

“No need,” you say to him, pulling on your sneakers and doing everything in your power to avert his gaze. He furrows his brows a little, knowing you never reject his offers to walk you home.

“Is everything-”

“Fine. I just need to get home,” you reiterate, finally sitting down and smoothing down your wrinkled dress.

Every part of him is annoying you right now, your mind teeming with the reminder that you’ve been wasting your time trying to know him better while he’s been entertaining a whole girlfriend these past few months.

“Y/n, wait,” Minho calls, still intent on telling you tonight, while the feelings remain stronger than ever. But you’ve already crossed the room to the front door, where you avert his gaze so he won’t see you begin to cry again.

“Bye,” you call to him, not even looking back before you’re turning the knob and seeing yourself out. “Tell Mrs. Lee it was an emergency.”

And he wants to ask if it was, but he can’t, staring at your rushed figure jogging down the street as you distance yourself from him before he can string you along any further.

*

Thus begins the game of avoidance.

It starts through keeping your conversations with Minho as short as possible, not engaging him when he tells you about theories he’s studied this week or what his days on campus were like. When he asks about your day, you give him one-word responses, muttering a simple “fine” before turning your attention to Joon again.

When Minho asks to go to the grocery store, you pretend you have a headache- for three days straight. So he makes the trips solo, balancing bags on one arm and telling you about how the cashiers have begun to ask where his pretend wife’s been. You give him no reaction, nodding as you feed Joon his dinner and glance at the clock for the umpteeth time, desperate to get away from him.

And the mystery woman remains, marching into the Lee household in afternoons like she owns the place, already having memorized the path to Minho’s room as she makes her way up the stairs and doesn’t acknowledge you. She’s beautiful everyday that she’s here, short skirts and long ponytails you can’t seem to look away from. And she’s even more hypnotic when she’s in the presence of Minho, the two of them as a couple certainly a sight for sore eyes. If they were a married couple, you’d reckon they'd be much more distinguished than you and Minho would.

“Do you want a coffee?” Minho peers into the library one night to ask you. You keep your gaze locked on the computer in front of you, trying your best to keep your guard up as he waits for a response.

“No, thank you,” you say coldly, continuing to work on your essay.

When he realizes you’re not going to say anything else, Minho enters the room reluctantly, his hands shoved in his pockets as he leans against the doorframe and gives you a once-over. You say nothing, still, holding back your emotions so as not to cause a scene. And Minho can tell something’s wrong in the way that you shift your eyes to him briefly and shake your head as if scolding yourself for doing so.

“Did I do something?” Minho finally asks, his voice a little shaky.

“No,” you say quickly, skimming the same sentence on your laptop screen over and over again.

“Are you… sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He fiddles with a loose thread in the pocket of his pants, keeping his gaze on the floor and thinking about your differing behavior toward him the past week.

“We just haven’t talked much. And you never really leave here anymore. I wanted to make sure I didn’t overstep any boundaries-”

“Overstep?” You interrupt, scanning your eyes over the screen of your computer. “There’s nothing to overstep. I get paid to watch your brother, not hang out with you.”

You feel guilty the minute the words leave your mouth, but you feel even worse knowing he’s just been stringing you along with a girlfriend this whole time. The atmosphere feels akin to when you first met him, awkward and cold, and with tensions high like this, you don’t feel at home in the Lee household anymore.

“Sorry,” Minho says, nodding. “You’re right. I guess I’m overstepping by asking.”

You only look up at him when he leaves, his shoulders sagging as he leaves you alone once again- only this time, you have a feeling he’s going to stop making an attempt to rekindle things anymore.

And you’re right- Minho stops trying entirely. There are no more offers to walk you home, no philosophical debates over coffee or grocery store trips where you act as a married couple. You’re still covered in knit blankets when you fall asleep accidentally on the couch, but Minho doesn’t stick around watching his infomercials to wait up for you anymore. And he still saves you his takeout when he orders, but he leaves it neatly packaged for you in the fridge instead of bringing it up to you like he used to.

You’ve gone from a mutual infatuation for each other to complete strangers once again. The house feels lonely and cold like it once did, your only real human interaction occurring in the few minutes you have with Mrs. Lee at the start and end of the day.

Minho doesn’t talk to you at all, locking himself away in his room like he did when you first started caring for Joon. And when you see him in passing at late hours of the night, he looks indifferent, sagging his shoulders as he averts your gaze with a book in hand and disappears down the corridors again. At some point, you begin to see his girlfriend less- in fact, his stoic composure makes you wonder if something’s happened between them. But as time goes on, you start to realize this is less about his girlfriend- and more about you.

What a gift it is to feel- but also what a curse. To let something consume you so entirely you can barely breathe without it. It’s laboring to think of anything else, of anyone else besides Minho and what he means to you. And as you replay your last interaction in your head for the nth time this evening, you think back to the day you started here. You knew the fundamentals of caring for a baby, having trained just enough to land a job doing it. All you wanted was to be liked by Mrs. Lee, and by baby Joon- and by extension, Minho. This household quickly became someplace you felt like you actually belonged in. But your purpose here has completely diverted from its original path, having prioritized Minho’s complexities and his feelings toward you above what you were hired here to do. You’ve experienced a roller coaster of emotions trying to understand him, and just when you thought you’d cracked him, you realized his heart belongs to someone else. So with the comfortable knowledge in mind that perhaps the universe isn’t, in fact, conditioned for you to mean anything more to him than just a babysitter, you understand it’s time to stop forcing any other version of it.

*

There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary two weeks into your avoidance of Minho.

You still haven’t talked, he still keeps his distance and you get paid to perform the job you’re here to do. But one afternoon before Minho’s even home from school, Joon refuses to eat. It starts with a tantrum he throws at breakfast time, which you consider typical as he knocks his cereal onto the floor and waves his hands around restlessly. You can only spoon feed him a couple spoons of yogurt before he’s put down for his afternoon nap. And when you wake him for his post-nap meal, he’s just as fussy. He seems to be bothered by something, crying loudly as you offer him different snacks and try your best to calm him down. But nothing seems to work, and when he begins refusing his bottles late into the afternoon, you start to panic.

Mrs. Lee isn’t home for a few hours, you’re unsure of when Minho gets home and you don’t have any way of getting to a hospital right now. The guilt and the fear eat away at you as Joon cries loudly, his face turning a bright shade of red as snot dribbles from his nose onto his shirt. He must be hungry, and clearly uncomfortable by something, only you’re entirely unsure what. His pacifier doesn’t calm him, nor does his favorite stuffed animal or his favorite television program. When his crying reaches the 10-minute mark, you feel hopeless, well prepared to drag him onto the bus to the nearest hospital yourself, fully convinced you’re going to lose your job. And as you begin to cry, too, the front door opens, Minho walking in with his backpack clutched casually in one hand and his car keys in the other. His girlfriend is with him this time, her head hanging as she uses her phone, completely oblivious to the atmosphere around her.

“Minho,” you call helplessly from the kitchen, and his head snaps instantly to look at you. Your eyes are nearly bloodshot from crying, your sleeves drenched in tears from wiping your eyes and your voice shaky as you speak. It’s the first time you’ve said his name in weeks, you realize, feeling your heart race as you call for him.

“What happened?” Minho asks when he turns the corner, throwing off his backpack and approaching a very fussy Joon.

“He won’t eat,” you reply through hiccups, wiping your tears with the sleeve of your sweater again. “I’ve tried everything. He won’t stop crying.”

Minho takes Joon in his arms, rocking him gently back and forth, to no avail; Joon starts crying even harder now, dribbling snot onto Minho’s sweatshirt and hitting his chest repeatedly.

“I’ll have to take him to the clinic,” Minho says in a rushed tone, fishing his car keys out of his pocket and making his way toward the door.

His girlfriend finally turns the corner into the kitchen, putting down her cellphone and huffing frustratedly.

“What’s going on?”

“Sorry,” Minho replies, shoving past her with Joon in his arms. “I have to go. We can work on our project another time.”

Your heart drops at the words- project. Project, as in a project for his university. With a classmate.

You want to cry more now, for being so stupidly angry with him over nothing, but you still have to help Minho take Joon to the clinic. Sujin doesn’t protest, quick to exit without so much as a goodbye as Minho scrambles to fetch Joon’s car seat.

“I’ll get him in the car seat,” you say, pulling your sneakers on as he balances Joon in his arms.

“You’re coming?”

“Of course I’m coming,” you scoff, already taking Joon from his arms and ushering him outside. “Go start the car.”

*

“Lee?” A nurse calls, holding a clipboard close to her chest as she scans the waiting room.

You and Minho both stand up, Minho balancing Joon in his arms as the nurse gestures you to the door.

“Please, follow me.”

Both of you walk side-by-side down the corridor as she double-checks papers on her clipboard, making a sharp right and leading you into a private room.

Minho sets Joon down on the examination table, holding his arms to steady him, and you stand beside him as you wait for the doctor.

“She’s just reviewing the results,” the nurse says, referring to the x-rays Joon took earlier. “She’ll be in shortly to discuss them.”

Minho nods silently as the nurse leaves the room, leaving the two of you alone once again. You say nothing, unsure of how to break the awkward silence as Minho wipes a string of drool from Joon’s mouth and avoids eye contact with you.

You feel awkward, embarrassed and so, so stupid, for having treated Minho like absolute scum because you assumed the worst of him. It breaks you to see him avert your gaze like this, treating you the same way he did when you first crossed paths. He has his guard completely up again, and you’re not sure he’s ever going to let it down around you. As you lose yourself in doubtful thoughts, the door opens, Joon’s doctor sauntering inside and wiping her hands with the strong scent of hand sanitizer.

“Hi there,” she says cheerfully, giving you both a warm smile. “Are we here for baby Joon today?”

“Yes,” you both say in unison, and she laughs a little.

“You two are very synced. They say it happens in the first year of marriage.”

“We’re not married,” Minho chimes in quickly, and you turn to look at him, feeling a pit in your stomach all over again.

“No?” She questions. “My apologies. Is mom here today?”

“I’m just his babysitter,” you say quietly. “This is his brother.”

“I see,” the doctor says, eyeing you both. “Well you may notice I’m fairly calm, and that’s because there’s no terrible news I have to share. Baby Joon is just suffering from a little mucus buildup. He’s probably feeling the impaction, and the discomfort has caused a loss of appetite.”

You feel a weight off your shoulders instantly, relieved that this isn’t a more serious matter. He’s going to be fine, you think to yourself. He’s going to be his normal self as soon as this is over.

“… Just be sure to use a syringe to drain the mucus a couple times per day, and make sure he gets plenty of sleep.”

As the doctor writes Joon a prescription for his saline syringe, you catch Minho’s gaze briefly, shooting him a relieved look. He gives you a small nod in response, as if to say he’s glad you came along. And he is, he just can’t say it out loud.

*

“I think he’s finally sleeping,” Minho says, patting Joon’s back gently as he stands up from his chair. The two of you have been sat in the library for nearly two hours since getting back home, in complete silence as you read your books and wait for Joon to fall asleep. You take breaks every now and then to drain Joon’s mucus, alternating roles between holding his face still and using the syringe on him. And when he’s finally comfortable again, he dozes back off to sleep, little snores escaping his lips.

Minho leaves the room to put Joon to bed, and while he’s gone, you take the opportunity to pack your stuff and prepare to leave for the night. You feel guilty, not having said much to Minho this evening, especially with the newfound knowledge that this mystery woman was just a partner for his project. But you’re not sure what to say, well aware that he’s probably already decided you hate him, and there’s not much else you can do to fix things.

“He’s down,” Minho says as he re-enters the library.

“That’s good,” you reply with a solemn smile, packing your laptop in your bag and slinging it over your shoulder.

“I should get going.”

“Do you… need me to walk you?” Minho asks a little shyly, and although the offer is tempting, you shake your head no.

“I’ll be fine. It’s really not as unsafe as you’d think.”

Minho just nods, understanding that you still don’t want to be close to him. And he gives you a little bow, before he exits the room and makes his way up the stairs to his own.

As you begin to leave, an object left on the chair across from you catches your eye.

It’s Minho’s book- the first edition copy of Love and Limerence you gifted him. You take the small book in your hands, scanning its contents briefly and examining the pages. He’s already annotated several of them, despite having read the book numerous times now, and you can’t help but smile at his scribbled notes circling all his favorite quotes and underlining them twice. You know it’s valuable to him, despite coming from somebody he probably despises right now, but you decide to take it up to him anyway, not wanting him to lose it.

When you’re outside his door, you give a small knock as it’s left ajar, and Minho hums in response.

You enter quietly, holding the book out to him and shooting him a small smile.

“You left this downstairs,” you say, and Minho reaches for it quickly, embarrassed you might’ve seen some of his annotations.

“Thanks,” he replies, setting it back on his bookshelf of romance novels.

He takes a seat on the edge of his bed, patting the spot next to him, and you join him at a comfortable distance as he keeps his gaze on the hardwood floor.

For a moment, no one says anything. And then he sighs deeply, before finally speaking.

“I’m sorry. If I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you’re quick to reply.

“I clearly did,” Minho retorts. “And I know I’m quiet, and I kind of shut myself off from the rest of the world. But I never meant for it to affect you.”

“It didn’t affect me,” you reiterate.

He scoffs lightly in response.

“Why won’t you just say it? You haven’t talked to me in weeks. You don’t even look at me. I clearly did something to push you away.”

You don’t reply immediately, pondering what to say. And ultimately, you let your emotions speak for themselves.

“I was jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Of the girl. The one who’s been here almost every night.”

“Sujin?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay? I don’t know who she is or what she is to you-”

“My project partner,” Minho interrupts. “One who hates my guts.”

“Project partner,” you continue. “It doesn’t matter who she is- I like you, Minho,” you finally emphasize, turning to meet his gaze. His lips are parted in shock, his eyebrows furrowed as he hears you speak.

“I’m fucking infatuated with you, and it drives me crazy. I can’t go on vacation without seeing you in the books at the stores, I can’t sleep at night without your stupid theories replaying in my head. And I jump to the worst possible conclusions when you’re even near another girl. I’m going crazy trying to be liked by you- trying to look at everything through the lens of your romance theories or your book quotes, or whatever. But it’s so scary to like someone this much.”

Minho says nothing for a minute, collecting his thoughts as you let go of the breath you’ve been holding. He’s not used to people liking him- let alone being this intrigued by him. And especially when it’s in the form of reciprocation, from the one person he’s infatuated with, too.

“Why is it scary?” Minho questions, facing you now, his eyes darting briefly over your lips and then back up to your worried gaze.

“Because I’m here for a job. I’m not supposed to be feeling all this. You’re not supposed to be part of this.”

“How do you know that?” Minho retorts, leaning in a little closer to you now.

“I just…”

“You’re allowed to feel, y/n. You’re allowed to want this.”

And before you can protest his words, his lips are on yours, kissing you passionately like he’s pacifying the arguments before they can come to fruition. Your heart beats erratically in your chest, your mind racing with a million thoughts about what you’re doing, and what this whole thing even implies, but you shut them out with the rest of your concerns, pressing your thighs together as he brings two hands to your face and cups your chin gently. His lips work against yours so beautifully, so effortlessly, like the two of you have done this several times before. And maybe you have, in all his alternate universe theories- on your honeymoon, on the run from the police- right here in the comfort of his grand bedroom, his hands snaking up to pull off your cardigan as you tug desperately at the fabric of his t-shirt. Minho says nothing between passionate kisses, afraid if he talks you might realize what’s happening and leave. But you won’t leave, especially not when you’ve been dreaming of this, too.

When your cardigan is off, Minho moves a little closer to you on the bed, letting one hand guide itself onto your waist and trace the gentle curve of your body there. He’s delicate with his movements, careful not to startle you with his touches, but he’s also admittedly thought about this for weeks. The thought of you confessing was never something that crossed his mind- he was so sure he’d driven you away after that night. Never in his wildest fantasies had Minho considered the possibility that you were this smitten with him, too. But he did have thoughts of your lips on his, thoughts of your hands intertwined with his and ungodly visions of you under him, right here in his bed. Visions of his mouth on your breasts after you’d accidentally exposed yourself to him in the kitchen and he was forced to give attention to the massive erection that grew in his pants. And after you’d gifted him his favorite book, attentive to the details he’d indulged you in which he never otherwise shared with people, visions of making love to you ran rampant in his mind, filling you up over and over again with remnants of him as a form of saying I’m infatuated with you, too.

Minho’s kisses become needier as your words replay in his head, darting his tongue out to dance against yours with the sounds of exchanging saliva present between your plump, eager lips. He pushes you back gently so that you’re now lying on his pillow, the angle so intimate, the view of his room from here like something you’re not supposed to see. The ceilings appear even larger when you’re flat against his bed, the curtains that drape over his bedpost seemingly miles high.

Minho’s kisses trail down to your neck now, eagerly peppering your flesh in wet kisses as your hands reach up to tangle in his hair, holding him closer to you and letting him graze his lips wherever he desires. You can’t help but feel guilty having him all over you like this when you remember how you’ve treated him these past couple months- criticizing his tendencies to be quiet, intruding on his space and pushing him away because of a girl you’d assumed to be his girlfriend. But you also know most of it has been because you want him to mean more to you- perhaps you’ve just been trying to change things so that in this version of the universe, he’s not just an enigma to you. You want all of this- his lips on yours, his body pressed into you and to give yourself completely to him.

“Just so we’re clear,” Minho says suddenly, pulling away from you to hold eye contact with you. “I’m crazy about you, too. I really like you.”

And you can’t help but smile back in response, pulling him in again to press his lips on yours. He smiles into the kiss, too, satisfied you’re both on the same page. And although your now eager movements imply something more is about to happen, you don’t have to verbalize anything, his fingers snaking up your shirt serving as answer enough.

“Is this okay?” Minho asks, grazing your flesh with his big hands as he toys with the hem of your shirt.

You nod in response, sitting up a little and completing the task of pulling it off over your head and discarding it beside you. You waste no time on your bra, either, reaching around to unclasp it and rid yourself of the fabric without him having to ask. His eyes widen again at the sight, having remembered every curve of your body since that incident in the kitchen. But now in front of him again, he feels his cock swell in his pants, desperate to act on the urge. In nimble movements, his hand cups the mound of your breast, kneading it gently and sighing at the sensation of your soft skin against his. His mouth finds yours again, indulging you in a slow, passionate kiss, and then he trails down until he meets his hand at the mound of your breast, pressing a chaste kiss to your flesh before finally latching his lips around your nipple.

He starts with gentle kisses while your nipple rests between his lips, a string of saliva dribbling down to coat your hardened bud. And then he takes it between his lips with more force, beginning a gentle sucking motion as he gives your other nipple attention with his free hand, circling the tip with his thumb in tender movements.

You sigh beneath him, the sensation sending a shiver up your core, your nipples hardening even more in his touch, now eager for him to give your soaking core some attention. But he takes his time stimulating you, moving to your other breast to take your nipple in his mouth and leave a trail of saliva. Your body shivers when the cool air grazes your wet nipples as he pulls away, and he meets your lips again to kiss you passionately.

While he kisses you, your hands now toy with the hem of his shirt too, signifying for him to take it off. And Minho reciprocates with a little nod, finally pulling his shirt over his head and revealing his bare chest to you. It’s a marvelous sight to see more of his honey-tanned skin, his toned muscles and his broad pectorals practically begging for you to touch them. And just above his stomach, a horizontal pale pink scar, one that he eyes momentarily and then gives you a shy shrug.

You run your fingers along the scar briefly, tracing it in its entirety and bringing your hand up to caress his face.

“I didn’t think I could be any more attracted to you,” you say to him sheepishly, tracing the scar again. “You look like the poetry you’re so obsessed with.”

Minho feels an involuntary smile pulling at his face as he leans in to kiss you again, this time intent on giving himself fully to you the way you deserve.

Your kisses both grow hungrier, needier, as your bodies tangle into each other, and Minho loops a finger into the hem of your panties, tugging them down so that he has access to your sopping cunt. As your hands tangle further into his soft brown hair, his finger traces down the length of your stomach, dipping into every curve and over every inch of flesh he only got a brief sight of. And when he finds your mound, you arch up into him, parting your legs slightly to give him access. Minho doesn’t waste another second, attaching the pads of his fingers to your clit and working you in circular motions as he kisses you. Little gasps escape your mouth as he does, breathing heavily into his kisses and grinding your core closer to him as he quickens his pace, smearing your arousal around your aching clit and circling two fingers around to massage you gently. His cock is now fully erect against his abdomen, prodding into your upper thigh as he trails his kisses down your neck again, but he’s patient, forgiving with his movements, eager to pleasure you first.

As his kisses graze your neck, you tug his boxers over his cock, pulling them down so you’re equal parts undressed. Minho winces a little at the sensation, a bead of precum already dripping down the head of his cock, and you feel yourself clench around nothing at just the sight of him hard for you.

When he takes note of your anticipation, he glances down at his own erection, locking his gaze with yours again as if to confirm again that this is okay. You nod in response, reaching your hands around to loop them behind his neck and pull him a little closer. And then your gaze falls to his cock again, waiting for him to make the next move.

The two of you say nothing as Minho’s hand finds the base of his cock, pumping himself gently before leaning in to kiss you. He lets himself hover closer over you, until his cock is kissing your entrance in the same gentle, wet movements as your lips. You lift your leg up slightly to grant him access, and then in gentle movements as your eyes remain shut, you feel him push his tip inside of you, stretching you out around his girth and causing you to gasp. He’s bigger than you anticipated, even the dripping arousal of your cunt having trouble taking him wholly. But he brings his fingers down to your clit again, massaging you slowly to ease the pain. And it works, your body relaxing around him as he pulls back a little and thrusts in again, this time pushing further until he’s completely bottomed out inside of you. You let out a fervent moan at the sensation, his cock pulsating inside of you as he holds it there, feeling every inch of you clench around him and take him so well now. And then with a gentle kiss to your lips, he begins to move, his hips pulling back slowly to thrust back inside of you.

You feel so full of him, having him exactly as you’d always imagined him- circling your thoughts, hovering over you and finally inside of you, his cock brushing against your cervix so delicately with every thrust. Your labored breaths become one as you pant into each other’s mouths with overwhelming pleasure. Minho steadies himself with one hand on the mattress beside you, quickening his pace a little as he feels his cock twitch inside of you in response to a particularly pornographic moan of yours.

“Fuck,” he breathes, shutting his eyes as he continues to slip in and out of your soaking cunt. “You’re so full of me, aren’t you?”

He brings his lips to your neck again, nibbling the flesh between his teeth and letting it bruise as you moan beneath him.

“I’ve thought about you everyday,” you respond, angling his lips to yours again as he fucks you. “I’ve thought about this so many times.”

“Yeah?” Minho says with a satisfied smile, working circles back onto your clit.

“Yes,” you breathe back, toying with his hair as your arms wrap around his neck. “I wanted you to fuck me like the characters in your romance novels.”

Minho feels his cock twitch again, wincing and slowing his pace so as not to finish just yet.

“I can’t help it,” you whimper underneath him. “I think about you all the time. I think about you fucking me all the time.”

Minho intertwines his hand with yours, pressing it down on your abdomen and letting yourself feel when his bulge fills you up at every thrust, the motion visible beneath your palms.

“Feel that, baby?” He asks between kisses to your drooly lips. “Feel how good I fuck you? Is this what you imagined?”

You gasp at the sensation once you feel it, the bulge of his cock protruding against your palm with every pump inside of you. You nod breathlessly, almost unable to reply to his words now.

“I imagined it, too,” he says, picking up his pace now. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to bend you over the couch and fuck you right there the moment I met you.”

He groans a little as you clench around him and moan in response.

“Minho,” you say breathlessly, not missing the way his cock twitches inside of you once again. “Will you finish inside of me?”

He pauses for a moment, scanning your expression for a sign of whether or not you’re being serious.

“Please,” you beg, as if reading his thoughts. “I’m on birth control. Just want to feel your seed inside of me.”

He shuts his eyes briefly as you wrap your legs around his waist and pull him in a little closer.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Minho asks, locking his gaze on yours again. “I want to, but I want you to be sure about it.”

“I’m sure,” you say quickly, the last syllable hitching in the back of your throat as he hits a particularly sensitive spot. “Please, just wanna feel you fill me up.”

He thrusts harder into you now, the room teeming with the squelching noises of your pussy taking him so effortlessly.

“You like it when we play house like this, huh?” He says, wrapping a hand gently around your throat. “You like imagining me as your husband, don’t you? Fucking you like we’re married?”

And it doesn’t take you more than a second to think before you’re nodding desperately at his words. You do love it, this sense of belonging when you’re in the Lee household. But you also get aroused at this second life you lead alongside him, caring for the baby like it’s one of yours and being fucked by Minho when no one else is around to hear your lewd moans.

“Yes,” you reply, your response muffled by his grasp on your throat. “You make such a good dad.”

“We’d make such good parents,” he emphasizes, kissing you breathlessly. “What do you say I fuck a baby into you and we find out for real?”

You feel yourself contract around his girth at the words, not having considered it seriously, but turned on at the idea of carrying a child just for him.

“Is that what you want?” Minho asks, nearing his orgasm as he thrusts even faster into you now, panting into your mouth above you.

“Yes,” you reply with a whimper. “Want you to fill me up so bad.”

“Yeah?” He cuts you off, pressing your abdomen harder with his hand. “I’m gonna cum, baby. Want you to feel it.”

Your senses hone in on the feeling of your palm over his bulge, pulsating rhythmically as he nears his orgasm.

“I’m cumming, fuck, I’m gonna finish,” Minho says, shutting his eyes in pleasure as he moves at his fastest pace now, his grip around your throat holding you steady as you lose yourself underneath him. He’s never finished inside someone before, but he has no intention of pulling out now, the conversation of impregnating you sending him over the edge as he reaches the cusp of his release.

You contract around his breathlessly now, eager to take his load, never having taken someone’s either, but desperate for Minho to be your first.

And with a few more harsh thrusts, Minho’s cock twitches once inside of you, finally letting out a generous load of his cum inside of you, the gush of his release filling you up so fully, the warm sensation of his milky white release thrusting deep inside of your pussy as he fucks the rest into you.

He feels his head spin, his eyes shutting instinctively at the sensation as he lets go fully inside of you, no urgency to pull out or stave off his release like he usually has to. And it takes a while before he’s begun to soften again, the knowledge of giving you his cum almost rousing him again and lengthening the period of his release inside of you. Minho already knows he’s going to be addicted to finishing inside of you from here on out- and he doesn’t want it any other way.

The warm feeling is all it takes for you to finish in mere seconds, contracting around him as he fucks you through his orgasm, your release mixing with his and dribbling down the side of your thighs as he begins to slow down. Minho doesn’t pull out immediately, instead caressing your face to gauge your reaction as he softens inside of you.

“Was it okay?” Minho queries, tucking sweaty strands of hair behind your ears and loosening his grasp on your throat.

“It was more than okay,” you say breathlessly, tears pricking the corners of your eyes as he smiles down at you. “I feel so full of you.”

Minho kisses you sweetly, rubbing his thumb along your hand soothingly as he pulls out of you, a string of his cum connecting to you still and dribbling onto the sheets as he rolls over to lay on his side.

For a moment, the two of you say nothing, your chests rising and falling as you catch your breath and ponder the day’s events. It’s not what you expected was going to happen when you saw yourself up to his room again, but it is what you’d hoped would happen eventually. And the atmosphere feels much lighter around you now, completely void of the lingering sexual and emotional tension that’s plagued you for so long.

“Minho?” you say quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Philosophically speaking, how many versions of us do you think are lying next to each other like this, right now?”

Minho thinks over your words for a moment, and then he chuckles lightly.

“Well if the universe was conditioned right, I’d hope for an infinite amount. But considering how long it took us to get here in this version, I’d say just one.”

And he sits up, leaning in for another kiss as two fingers tuck his arousal further into you, holding his release inside of your still-sensitive body.

*

“Have some bacon, honey,” Mrs. Lee says to you as she scrambles to get her things together for the day. “I made a lot, so help yourself.”

“Thanks,” you reply, strapping Joon into his high chair and smoothing down your skirt.

Ever since that evening, you and Minho have been inseparable. The two of you wait until Mrs. Lee is gone for the morning, desperately grabbing at each other and giggling between kisses until Minho has to leave for his classes. And when he returns, it’s much of the same, the two of you helping put Joon down for his afternoon nap before escaping up to his bedroom and making love until Joon wakes again.

Minho is completely and utterly obsessed with you, the same way you are with him, but you both know this game of house you play can’t go on forever. Mostly because you feel the guilt eating away at you day by day, every waking minute you’re tending to your duties as a babysitter or conversing with Mrs. Lee. It’s hard to be in the same room as Minho when she’s around, the urge to just confess even more present when she attempts to facilitate conversation between the two of you and you’re forced to act like he’s still a mystery.

But you have him more figured out than you ever have before, memorizing the freckles on his body like the back of your hand, reciting his favorite quotes like prayers and replaying the melodic giggles that escape his lips. You don’t want to be apart from him, but the point still stands- it’s scary to like someone this much. He consumes you more than he ever has before, filling every waking second of your life with remnants of him. You love when he reads romantic philosophical theories to you, or when he cooks you and Joon dinner after a long day. But you feel guilty when you’re alone with Joon again, hoping he can’t somehow tell that you’re only thinking of his brother when you’re preparing his bottles or feeding him. You hope Mrs. Lee doesn’t notice when your hair is a little too tousled to have just been from a nap, or the time you had to cross your legs to keep Minho’s release inside of you when the two of you had finished just in time for her to make it home. It’s selfish, and it’s unfair. And with no sign of this fling stopping anytime soon, you don’t see any other option to be fit.

“I’m leaving,” Mrs. Lee finally says, grabbing her car keys off the kitchen table and pulling her heels on. “Make sure to get Joon his medicine!”

The two of you watch as she shuts the front door behind her, and then you wait until her car starts, holding your breath as she pulls out of the driveway and begins down the street in what feels like an agonizing amount of time.

The minute she’s gone, Minho turns to you again, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you lean back against the counter.

“Morning,” he says with a shy smile. He wastes no time leaning in for a romantic kiss, which you reciprocate, wrapping your arms around his neck and smiling into him.

When he pulls away, the two of you say nothing, holding each other in a comfortable embrace as he rubs little circles into the small of your back.

“I guess it’s just mom and dad home right now,” he says, pressing a chaste kiss to your neck. “I’ll ditch class right now if you want me to fill you up again.”

And his offer is tempting as he presses his erection into you, working more kisses down the nape of your neck and trailing his hands up your skirt.

“No,” you finally say, pushing him away and collecting your thoughts. “You need to get to class. I have a lot of stuff to do. I’m working, in case you forgot.”

“Okay, okay,” Minho says, holding his hands up in surrender. “I digress.”

He pulls back to caress your face with a visible smirk as your eyes graze his thighs, so beautifully sculpted under the fabric of his jeans. You’re not sure you’ve ever been so sinfully tempted by somebody before, like Eve to the apple, like a moth to a flame- he’s intoxicating, but you know you shouldn’t be indulging this while you’re here to fulfill your role as a babysitter.

“You should go,” you say to him, swallowing nervously as his hands trace the outline of your lips.

“Yeah,” Minho replies, a hint of disappointment present in his voice.

And without another word, he gathers his car keys off the table, sending you off with a little wave as he disappears for the day.

You may have Minho mostly figured out now- his fascination with romance and philosophy, his soft interior under the stoic exterior he presents everyone else with, his astounding levels of emotional intelligence and unwavering kindness for the people he loves. But now that things have become a little more complicated between the two of you, you fear all of this will come to an end as fortuitously as it all began.

The reality is, this isn’t one of Minho’s romance novels- you’re both real people, with emotions and convictions and reservations. And though you want this fleeting thing to last forever, you’re well aware that things don’t work that way, especially when you’re just a babysitter at the end of it all. Sure, Minho sees you as much more than that- but you were hired to be here in the Lee household, paid to fulfill your role here, and once this comes to an end, your relationship with Minho likely will, too.

… and thus, the decision to quit your job isn’t one you take lightly. It succeeds hours of thinking, weighing your options and planning out exactly what you’re going to tell Mrs. Lee when she asks why you’re leaving so suddenly. You want to do another internship, you decide on telling her, hoping she doesn’t poke enough holes to get the truth out of you- “I think far too much about your eldest son and it’s eating me alive.”

*

All day long, you try your best to shut Minho out of your thoughts, focusing on your online courses and caring for Joon like you used to. But it feels futile, this task of pretending things are the way they used to be. They’re not- you’re sneaking behind Mrs. Lee’s back and hooking up with her eldest son. When all’s said and done, you’ll be right back in your own home, with your parents desperate to send you elsewhere once again, and your own life to tend to. This double life you romanticize isn’t real, nor is it attainable anymore.

Your phone call with Mrs. Lee to announce your decision doesn’t set anything in stone yet, her words urging you to speak with her later this week when she has some free time. But you know once you do speak with her, you’ll only have a few evenings left with Minho until this is all over. And you don’t have the heart to tell him just yet, but if things go anything the way they did when you first brought it up to him, you know he’s going to be heartbroken.

When Minho arrives home that evening, he can already sense something is wrong. You’re sat in the garden, where you typically don’t go, your legs crossed neatly over one of the sunlounger chairs as you let your thoughts consume you. Mrs. Lee’s koi fish fountain stands nobly in front of you, a robust stream of water trickling from its lips and into the concrete bowl below. You’re mesmerized by it as you always are, the steady sound of water coupled with the birds chirping in the sunny greenery around you as peaceful as ever.

“Hey,” Minho says, sliding open the screen door and stepping outside to meet you.

“Hi,” you reply, holding a hand up over you to shield your eyes from the sun. You’d forgotten how divine he looked today, his white button up now folded up at the sleeves and exposing his veiny forearms to you.

“How was your day?” Minho asks, pressing a small kiss to your temple as he occupies the spot beside you and stares at the fountain.

“Okay,” you respond, though you’re lying through your teeth. “Joon went down about an hour ago.”

Minho nods, and then he furrows his brows together as he speaks again.

“Why are you out here?”

You shrug in response, keeping short with your words as he pushes you for answers. And you want to tell him it’s because you made the most painful decision to call Mrs. Lee and forfeit all of this, but you know it’ll only hurt more, so you divert from the truth.

“It was stuffy inside,” you voice back, shooting him a small smile.

Minho seems to relax beside you, his shoulders sagging a little as he takes notice of your calm demeanor. He doesn’t have reason to believe anything’s wrong, judging by the way you converse so casually.

“You want me to cook you something?” Minho asks, placing his palm up next to you, and you let your hand intertwine with his.

“Will you read to me?” You ask, eager to indulge in your favorite activity alongside him.

“I can read to you,” Minho echoes back, pressing a chaste kiss to the back of your hand. “Which book?”

You’re both in the cozy atmosphere of the library later that evening, Minho sat on his favorite velvet armchair as you occupy a spot in his lap with his arms wrapped around you. The book is positioned in front of him so you can both see, his fingers holding open the thin pages as the poetry leaves his lips, pausing in between lines to press kisses to the crook of your neck when he’s reminded of you in his favorite characters.

And you hold back tears in the moment, wanting so badly to tell Minho that you’ll be letting go of all of this, running back to the monotony of your old life, one where Minho doesn’t exist and you don’t have to balance the complicated feelings of liking someone to this degree. But you bite back your words, careful not to ruin the intimate moment you share while he loves you in an ignorant state of bliss.

“The pleasures of love are always in proportion to the fear,” Minho begins a new chapter, grazing your neck with his lips.

He trails a bit lower to graze your shoulder now, pressing a small trail of kisses as he pauses his reading. You giggle softly in response, feeling his fingers find the strap of your tank top to pull it down your shoulder so he can pepper kisses there, too.

“Minho,” you say softly, writhing in his embrace as he tickles every inch of your skin with his kisses, now shutting the book and setting it on the arm of the chair.

“Can’t help it,” Minho responds, shutting his eyes as he snakes his hands up the back of your tank top. “You look so beautiful right now.”

As you adjust in his lap, you can feel he’s now rock-hard in his jeans below you, his thighs flexing underneath you as he wraps two hands around your waist and runs them up and down your sides. You take the hint, turning around in his lap to face him, and let your arms wrap around his neck to steady yourself.

“What are you thinking about?” Minho asks, bringing his lips to yours as he feels his hardened cock graze against the fabric of his jeans, eager to pleasure you.

You want to express your fears, your doubts, to tell him the truth about what you spoke about on the phone with Mrs. Lee earlier today. But you can’t, not when he looks so tantalizing in front of you like this, his bulge perfectly outlined in his tight jeans and his veiny arms flexing below the fabric of his collared button-up. You’ve been roused for him since he left in the morning, his offer swirling your mind coupled with his appearance, like something out of a wet dream.

“You,” you voice back, whimpering pathetically into another kiss and rocking your hips gently over him so that he’s practically whimpering for you, too.

Neither of you have to say much, knowing already where the evening is headed, as you unzip his pants and palm his erection through the fabric of his boxers. Minho watches as you slide off his lap, dropping to your knees in front of him and tugging the fabric of his jeans. He complies with your urges, pulling them down to his knees and freeing his erection from his boxers, exhaling deeply as the cool breeze of the room grazes his leaking tip.

Without a second to waste, you take him in your mouth, letting your saliva coat his shaft as you kiss his tip tenderly and then guide him down your throat, the base of his cock just barely meeting your lips as you struggle to take him fully. Minho groans at the contact, bucking his hips off the chair to guide himself further into you, feeling his cock twitch when you gag a little at the contact. You stay like that for a good while, bobbing your head in rhythmic motions up and down his hardened length, your saliva allowing you to graze his shaft with ease.

Minho’s thighs contract desperately below him, trying his best to stave off the orgasm he’s been longing for since the moment he saw you this morning. His hands find your hair, pulling your locks into a makeshift ponytail and gasping as you take him a bit deeper now, pulling back again to pepper the tip of his wettened cock in drooly kisses.

“Fuck,” Minho breathes out, clutching the arm of the chair so desperately. “Baby, stop, I don’t want to finish yet,”

And you release him with a gentle pop, knowing exactly what it is he wants so badly. You never deny it, sitting back up again to position yourself over his cock you intertwine his hands with yours. He uses one hand to tug your panties to the side, and then in one swift motion, you guide his cock inside of you, sliding down the slick of his length and bottoming out with ease. You take him so well now, always able to adjust to his girth instantly as your cunt is always dripping in anticipation when he’s near.

Minho’s hand moves to push your tank top up, taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking harshly as you begin to bounce on him with gentle movements. The room fills with sounds of panting, sucking and desperate moans as his cock fills you fully with every thrust, brushing against your cervix as he moves to your other nipple and kneads your breast desperately.

“What was that quote again?” You ask in labored breaths as he comes back up to kiss your lips.

“The pleasures of love,” he begins, breathlessly working his lips against yours as you clench around his length. “Are always in proportion to the fear.”

Minho feels his cock twitch inside of you, always nearing his finish much faster when you make him recite all his favorite quotes and book excerpts to you.

Except this one speaks much louder to you, directly aligning with your present-day emotions, circling your mind relentlessly as he fills you. Maybe this is what his book speaks of- the pleasures of love, being filled so fully and lovingly by Minho, two pieces of one whole like you’re both made for this, to make love into the late hours of the night while he recites poetry to you.

And all of this in proportion to the fear- this constant fear that he’s just a fleeting entity, that you’re both naive to play house like this and pretend it’s anything more. The fear present while you’re sneaking behind Mrs. Lee’s back, letting him fuck you like he’s married to you and indulge you in all of his deepest secrets, as though you’re the only one allowed to know him this intimately.

The love and fear and indeed in proportion to one another- you love him as much as you’re afraid of loving him.

“I love you,” you say suddenly, bringing him in for another kiss before he can respond. But the way his kisses work against yours, hungry and passionate, there’s not a hint of reluctance in his response when he pulls away to speak again.

“I love you,” Minho breathes back, working his kisses against yours as his cock pulsates inside of you, desperate for release. “And I hope every version of the universe is conditioned for us to be right here.”

You smile into him, slowing your movements as you feel him contract inside of you, and then his thighs flex as he finally finishes inside of you, shooting hot white ropes of his cum into your still-clenching cunt, his release already beginning to dribble back down his length as he feels you slow down over him.

You bring a hand between the two of you, gathering his cum on the pads of your fingers to circle your clit in gentle movements, stimulating yourself to your release, too, as you contract desperately around him and breathe labored kisses back into his mouth. Your juices mix with his as you catch your breath, keeping him inside of you as your chest rises and falls with gentle movements. But the two of you say nothing, pressing your lips together to indulge in more passionate kisses for the few minutes you have left before Mrs. Lee makes it home for the evening.

*

The garden is particularly beautiful the next afternoon, teeming with the sounds of birds chirping and trees swaying in the gentle autumn breeze. Mrs. Lee let you know she’d be home a little earlier to have a chat about your decision to leave, and when Joon is put down for his afternoon nap, you receive the call that she’s in the garden waiting for you. You enter hesitantly, worried Minho might catch you and question what you’re doing out here. But he’s not home from school yet, you remind yourself, glancing around the tall grass and neat rows of potted plants for Mrs. Lee.

“Y/n!” A voice calls from one of the patio chairs. “Come, sit!”

Mrs. Lee sits with her back facing you, a large white sun hat atop her neatly styled hair and complementing her matching white jumpsuit. Her gaze remains locked on the koi fountain you’re always transfixed by, too.

“Hi Mrs. Lee,” you say, giving her a small bow as you take the seat next to her. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

She nods with a smile. “So good to see you when we have a little more time. I’m sorry I’m always such a mess in the mornings.”

You shake your head quickly, brushing off her words. “Not at all! It’s always nice to greet the family before I start my day.”

She just smiles in response, turning to nod at you, and then she turns back to the fountain.

“I was a little surprised when you called the other day. I hope things are going okay.”

“They are,” you interrupt quickly. “They absolutely are. Joon is so pleasant, and the job is great. I really love it here.”

“I hope everything at home is okay,” she moves on to say, and you quickly reassure her.

“Yes, everything is fine! Everyone is doing great.”

“I understand,” Mrs. Lee says, eyeing the ground before turning to face you now. “You’ve done so much for us, I’d be lying if I said I’m not going to miss having you around here in the mornings.”

You shoot her a sympathetic look, feeling a pit form in your stomach, too. You feel the same, probably tenfold, at the idea of leaving behind the household you’ve called home for so many days.

“I’m going to miss it here, too.”

“And I know Joon is going to be heartbroken,” Mrs. Lee says with a chuckle.

You chuckle too, giving her an understanding nod.

She pauses briefly, furrowing her brows together, before continuing her speech.

“You’re such a bright young woman, and I know you’re destined to do amazing things. If there’s a way I can help in this transition, please don’t hesitate to let me know, okay?”

You nod at her words, and watch as she smooths down her top before standing up. She seems to wait for a moment, as if hoping for you to say something, and when you don’t, she begins to make her way back inside.

“Well, I’ll let you go for the evening. Thank you again, for everything. And you have my phone number if-”

“Mrs. Lee?” You call out suddenly, catching her before she can get much further. She turns around at the worry present in your voice, her face shifting into that of concern.

Without having to voice anything else, Mrs. Lee sits down again, waiting for you to continue. But you can’t, your heart beating wildly in your chest at the thought of even bringing up the topic of Minho. I’m in love with your son, you want to say to her. I’m so in love with Minho and I hope you understand I don’t have a choice but to leave this all behind me.

“You know,” Mrs. Lee interrupts your thoughts, breaking the silence that fills the air. “This koi fountain was my first gift from Mr. Lee.”

You nod at her, remembering when she introduced it to you on your first day here.

“We weren’t married yet. It was his first restoration project, and my dad hated him. So he had a lot of trouble getting it over to me.”

You chuckle lightly, amused at her story which seems to calm you down a little.

“Luckily his parents adored me,” she continues. “And they offered to house it in their backyard until we married. For the 15 years we dated, my koi fish lived in their garden. And when we did marry, they rented a big truck to help haul it over. It was such a project! But it’s my favorite part of the garden.”

You shoot her a saccharine smile, well endeared at the way she speaks of Mr. Lee. You can tell she’s in love with him, even this many years later.

“Sometimes I wondered why they would do something so nice for me. But as I grew closer to them, I learned not to question what was meant for me. They loved me, as did Mr. Lee. And I wasn’t going to run from any of that, no matter what I felt I deserved.”

Your head snaps in her direction at her last words, realizing how they apply to you. But she doesn’t know about Minho- at least not to your knowledge, or Minho’s. She gives you a sheepish smile as you furrow your brows, and then she takes your hand in hers, giving it a little squeeze.

“I hope you won't run from what you deserve, either.”

You nod a little bit at her words, finally understanding the weight of them, and then you look back at her with a confused expression.

“Mrs. Lee, are you talking about…”

“Minho?” She finally says, with a warm smile. She takes your other hand in hers, too, tilting her face to yours so that she’s making proper eye contact as she speaks.

“I had wondered why he was so happy these days. Minho’s always been a bit of an outcast. But I haven’t seen this spark in him since he started his obsession with all those romance novels and philosophy studies of his.”

You chuckle lightly, a weight off your shoulders as she finally speaks of what circles your mind so heavily.

“But how did you…”

“I knew it when I saw it,” she says. “I knew it, because he had the same look in his eyes as when I met his father.”

You feel your heart swell in your chest, your shoulders relaxing as she continues to speak.

“He speaks of you like poetry,” she tells you. “And for that alone, I’m thankful for you. Now what you choose to do is your decision- but I hope you know you will always have a home here with us. Not just as a babysitter, but as family.”

When Mrs. Lee finishes her speech, she gives your hands a little squeeze, smiling at you and back at the koi fish fountain. It feels much more sentimental to you even now, the beautiful waterfall that cascades serving as a reminder of its permanent restoration rooted in the infatuation Mr. Lee had for Mrs. Lee. And watching it stand so beautifully like it did all those years ago, you’re reminded that love can be a lasting thing, no matter the circumstances. The universe can condition itself to make things last, affirming the philosophical notions Minho’s always told you. And that perhaps you do deserve this, a sense of belonging here in the Lee household, right here alongside Mrs. Lee and Minho, and even baby Joon.

As you watch the fountain together, the sound of the sliding door makes itself known behind you, and you turn around to find Minho entering the garden, baby Joon sitting comfortably in his arms as he makes his way over.

“Hi,” Minho says, coming around to give Mrs. Lee a kiss on her cheek. “What’s going on here?”

He looks visibly worried, his eyes darting back and forth between you and Mrs. Lee, as if to silently ask you what she’s told you.

But Mrs. Lee just smiles at him, as she gets up from where she’s sitting and smooths down her jumpsuit.

“We were just having a girl chat. I’ll leave you two alone.”

And she disappears behind the screen door again, shooting you a little wink as she does, her anecdote circling your mind, still.

“What happened?” Minho asks, settling down next to you and balancing baby Joon on his knee. Joon fists at the fabric of his shirt, babbling incoherently as you smile down at him.

“Nothing,” you say, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his lips. You refrain from saying anything about leaving, not wanting to interrupt the tender moment you share with Minho and Joon in the sunlight of the garden.

“You have a really cool mom,” you settle on saying, smiling at Minho as he chuckles softly in response.

*

The afternoon sun beams through the glass windows of the library as you lie comfortably in Minho’s lap, his book positioned in front of you as he presses a small kiss to the back of your hand before turning the page.

Outside, the birds chirp songs of early spring, the steady stream of Mrs. Lee’s koi fountain audible as you peer down at the garden.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee sit in the tall grass, fiddling with a box of tools as Mr. Lee repairs a new project for Mrs. Lee. This one’s a much larger fountain, one he’d told you would take several months, perhaps even years. But Mrs. Lee sits beside him, relishing in stories of his restoration process and laughing with him as he works. You can’t help but smile at the sight, her stories about him playing in your mind whenever you catch a glimpse of them together.

“Do you think they could be us in another universe?” You ask Minho, turning to face him as he peers out the window, too.

“I hope so,” he says with a smile.

You settle closer to him in his lap, pressing a small kiss to his hand as he continues reading.

“And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

At his words, you hear baby Joon cry out, having woken from his afternoon nap.

“I’ll get him,” Minho says, shutting the book and setting it aside to go tend to the baby.

And as you peer back out the window, the sound of Mr. and Mrs. Lee’s laughter filling your ears, baby Joon’s voice calling to you, Minho’s philosophy book perched on the chair beside you and the sun beams shining their light through the windows, you know that this is belonging, this is love.

[cute-little-crow]

A seemingly innocent text message leads to a chain of events that turns your entire day upside down… who could have anticipated that?

Hey baby… I’m having the worst day at work. Everyone is really grouchy and I’m struggling to concentrate. Really wish I didn’t have to put up with this today. Sorry for being a downer, I hope your day is going better than mine!! Love you 💞

feat: Rafayel, Sylus, Xavier & Zayne (separately)

tw: female reader, fluff, suggestive, roleplay of kidnap (reader is in no danger), mentions of bomb threats (not genuine and not condoned in the slightest), bratty behaviour (mostly Raf), faked medical emergencies, sorry if I missed anything, Zayne being the most rational of the bunch (obvs)

an: I’d be happy to flesh out and expand any of these if there is interest (especially Xavier’s cause his was real fun 😏) 💖

His phone pinged from across the studio, a sound he could never ignore, especially when it was the tone he used only for you…

With a paintbrush tucked behind his ear, he leapt gracefully from his stool and wiped the dusty remnants of dried paint from his fingers onto his trousers. The white shirt messily—although he might say, artistically—tucked into the waistband was already streaked with the hue of colours making up his latest creation, and a purple smudge darkened the tip of his nose.

Rafayel smiled when your name emblazoned across the screen, but it faltered as he hastily scanned the neat little rows of text. He was full-blown frowning by the time he finished, mood darkened by the idea that there were people in the world that could allow you to feel so badly.

Didn’t they know you were better than they were? That you hung the moon and the stars. Made the tides rise and fall. Without you, their world would be devoid of colour—how mundane.

He wouldn’t stand for it, he couldn’t.

For the next thirty minutes he planned out his strategy. Scribbling ideas down only to angrily score them through when he realised how ridiculous they were. He needed something simple, and most importantly, believable.

A sudden idea popped into his head and he set off before he could change his mind… poor, poor you.

~

You wish you had been exaggerating when you sent off that earlier message, but today truly had been a total clusterfuck. It was barely noon and already you longed for the clutches of sleep that would come when you were tucked up in bed tonight.

The sour mood of your colleagues was rubbing off on you more than you would like, and the dark cloud of negative energy only grew bigger and more dense until it was impossible to see an inch in front of your nose.

Tapping your pen against the edge of your keyboard, you stared where the words should be occupying your screen. A blank document stared back—mocking you. With a frustrated growl, you sank forward with your head on your arms.

“Oh, there you are! Why are you still here?”

The frantic voice of your boss took you by surprise, peering up before jolting upright in your chair.

“Where else would I be?” You asked tentatively, mentally wondering if you had somehow missed a meeting.

“The hospital!! Your boyfriend is in reception bleeding all over the desk! He’s refusing an ambulance and says he’ll only go to the hospital if you take him. Come on, hurry!”

Panic froze your heart. Terror turning your blood to ice in your veins.

Rafayel came into view and immediately, you knew. You were going to kill your dumbass boyfriend for pulling such a ludicrous stunt. What was he thinking and why couldn’t anyone else smell the overwhelming scent of strawberries from the syrup he was claiming was blood?

“My love… at last. I don’t know that I can hold on much longer, please, take my hands,” he enthused, rivalling the most hammiest of actors.

Your lips pursed, and his eyes widened. Despite it all, you played along if only to get the security guard and receptionist to calm down. Taking his sticky strawberry fingers into yours, you cooed in your best impression of genuine concern.

“I can’t believe you didn’t go straight to the hospital, Rafayel. You might have bled out in my office reception, let’s get you out of here. Does it hurt? No, no… I’ll manage,” you reassured the ashen looking security guard whilst squeezing Rafayel’s fingers in a death grip.

He squeaked out a groan of genuine pain, but he deserved it for causing such a scene at your workplace. His bottom lip stuck out in a petulant pout that was only visible to you, corralling him along until you were in the staff car park and able to shove him bodily into the passenger seat.

You kept up the pretence until you were out of sight of the building and any security cameras before pulling over into a side street and cutting the engine without saying a word.

“I was—”

“Trying to get me fired?” you supplied, turning in your seat and pulling wet wipes out of the glovebox by the fistful.

Rafayel continued to look petulant, but the sticky mess smeared on his cheek and neck as well as covering both his hands and the cuffs of his shirt were too ridiculous for you to stay mad.

You giggled, and he side eyed you—cautiously. “You look… good enough to eat, baby. Smell good too.” Leaning close, you licked through the mess of syrup streaked over his hammering pulse point and heard his breathless little hiccup.

“It wasn’t my best plan ever, but it got you out of work, right?”

It was hard to argue with that. You conceded with a nod, starting the engine once more and peeling back into traffic.

“Mhm, true, and you brought me dessert. It’s a good thing that strawberry tarts are my favourite.”

Sylus welcomed the distraction of his phone vibrating from the pocket of his trousers. He had spent the better part of his morning listening to those with more money than sense, bumble through negotiations he had no intention of seeing through to fruition. But even so, he liked to dangle the carrot and see how high he could make them jump. Call it an entertainment of sorts.

“This meeting is over,” he intoned flatly, quickly rereading your message a second time whilst his frustration tried valiantly to leak outward.

The room emptied hastily—much to everyone’s relief—and once alone with his thoughts, Sylus let out a long aggravated sigh. His nostrils flared. His fingers drummed a war song against the enamel of his desk.

He supported your independence with his whole heart but there were times, like these, that he wished you would simply quit and join him in running his growing empire. Whilst he understood your reservations, and he certainly knew that he would be rather indulgent with your time if you worked side by side, he was not purely driven by his dick—only sometimes.

“Luke. Kieran. Get in here,” he called out.

Mere seconds later the brothers appeared, inquisitive though it might be hard for some to tell given the masks. Sylus leant back in his chair, debating his course of action and whether or not you might just explode when he pulled the trigger, metaphorically speaking.

“Yes Boss?” The brothers said in almost perfect unison, mischief evident in their voices.

“I need a favour, and I want you to make it convincing…”

~

This meeting was akin to listening to nails being scoured down a chalkboard, and that was about the most polite way you could put it.

You chewed on the end of your pen, anything to distract from the presentation being blasted at you from the large projector screen on the conference wall. Around you sat your colleagues and superiors, most looking equally bored, although a few opted to sit straight backed and bright eyed—the kiss asses—as you referred to them.

The hands of your watch seemed to move at half speed and you couldn’t believe there was another full hour ahead before you could find some solace during your lunch break.

An alarm pierced through the monotonous voice of the presenter on screen, you and your colleagues glanced around in confusion as it sounded unlike any fire alarm you had been present for. You sat up in your seat, twisting around to see people scurrying past the frosted glass windows until someone crashed into the door as if they had run flat out to get here.

“We’ve received a report that there’s a bomb in the building! Everyone out. Now! Don’t be stupid,” the man who you assumed was a part of security yelled at the nearest girl who had asked to go back to her desk to grab her bag. “Exit quickly and calmly. Don’t go back for anything!”

For someone advocating calmness, he sprinted away looking the absolute contrary to his guidance, but you didn’t have time to muse on it when everyone started to push and shove out of the doorway.

It wasn’t long before the panic and hushed conversations behind hands from the meeting point nearly a block away died down to be replaced by angry tuts and speculation over what might have happened.

There was a growing sense that the call had been a hoax which put nobody in a good mood, and you couldn’t blame them. Your car keys were back at your desk so you didn’t even have the option to leave.

Thankfully, you had your phone and whilst you had been scrolling social media—which was blowing up with the bomb threat news—a message popped up…

Need a ride, kitten?

You glanced around, eyes narrowed for the telltale flash of crimson but found none.

Maybe I do… maybe I don’t. Y’know, I’m surprised you’re not more concerned.

Concerned? Why should I be concerned? There’s no bomb. Keep walking this way, sweetie, you’re getting warmer.

You stopped in your tracks, mind whirring with the implication of his words. He didn’t… he wouldn’t. Fuck, he absolutely would.

Did you call in a fucking bomb threat?! You’re insane!!

Your steps had taken you closer to the mouth of a side street, it was shadowy and you didn’t so much as see Sylus, as you did sense him. The hairs on your neck stood to attention and for all your storming anger, you couldn’t deny the desire and affection curling around you.

“No,” Sylus purred into your ear from behind, looming out whatever blind spot he had stalked you from to rub a hand up your arm. “I didn’t call it in…”

“So it was Luke and Kieran, those two pests probably laughed themselves sick once it was done.”

Sylus tsked gently. He drew you carefully into his chest and kissed the crown of your head, happy to be reunited, even if it was the result of foul play. “Let them have their little fun, kitten. You wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t.”

It was impossible to stay mad, it was really was. Instead, you stood on your tiptoes and cupped his cheek until you could claim his lips, slow and deliberate.

“I hope you won’t pull these kind of stunts when we’re working together…”

His breathing stalled at your quip. Vermillion eyes searching yours for deceit or misplaced humour and finding nothing but truth. Sylus smiled…

“That’s a promise I can’t make, sweetie. But, I can promise you won’t regret your decision for a single second.”

Boredom was not something that Xavier handled well. He needed the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline of the fight or the total blankness of deep, uninterrupted sleep.

So, perhaps it was serendipitous that you should text him at the precise moment he was ready to tug on his hair with the lack of activity. His smile was short-lived as he read the message, wishing he could somehow help.

Is there a way I could help, my starlight?

Xavier stared at his phone for a few seconds, willing the little bubble to appear that signalled your imminent reply, but after a little longer, he tossed it away and closed his eyes.

A ping made one eye crack open.

Not unless you know someone willing to kidnap me from this hellscape. Lol! Don’t worry about me, I’ll survive 💪🫰

He laughed. What a silly notion. Unless… why was the idea growing on him the longer he thought about it?

Did it make him depraved to want to fulfil that role, safe in the knowledge that not a hair on your head would be hurt in the process because he would be the one pulling the strings?

I mean… never mind. Lemme know if you change your mind. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do today. See you soon, pretty…

~

Your fingers flew across your keyboard, and to the casual observer it would seem like you were deeply engrossed in your work. The truth was that you were gossiping with a work friend over the IM chat feature.

Stretching your arms overhead, you tilted your neck from side to side until you heard a satisfying pop. It was going to be a long afternoon of very little to do. Maybe you needed to pace yourself if the workload was going to continue being this light?

You decided that some soda might cheer you up, so you took the short trip to the break room and happily procured the last can of your favourite flavour. It wasn’t until you were resettled at your desk that you notice the pink post it note on your screen.

Come to the supply closet. I have something for you.

The old adage of ‘curiosity killed the cat’ seemed to be lost on you as you trotted the short distance to the store room in question, wondering if maybe your friend wanted to continue your conversation without the fear of it being tracked. It didn’t even raise alarm when you discovered the small room in complete darkness.

“Tara? Are you in here?”

You tiptoed to the shelves in the very back, turning when you heard movement, only for solid lead to plummet into your stomach as a hooded figure dressed from head to toe in black stalked forward.

The lower half of his face was covered by a mask and the hood pulled low enough that you couldn’t see his eyes. You wanted to scream, to run or do something but your fight or flight failed to kick in. Instead, you backstepped right up against the faraway wall, watching as the man cocked his head and tightened his gloved fist.

You were inching around the perimeter of the room, closing in on the door and he was letting you. It was as if he were toying with you, waiting for you to make a move before he reacted. There was something unsettlingly familiar about his stature and the way he moved… but you didn’t have time to question it, it was now or never.

Lunging for the door, you made your move but he was faster and stronger. One arm wound around your middle whilst the other hand came up to cover your mouth, the scream in your throat trapped. His body was radiating pure heat whilst you thrashed to escape.

“Calm yourself…”

Only half aware of the words, you more heard the voice and confusion blanketed your thoughts. Your struggling lessened and you thought you heard him chuckle in response.

“You wanted to be kidnapped… right?” Xavier teased, carefully removing his palm to listen to your panting breaths.

“Xav—”

“Ah ah. Hush now. You’re not going to struggle. You’re going to walk with me to your desk, grab up your things and come with me without making a scene.”

Why were you so flushed? Why were your legs trembling from something other than fear? Did your heart have to pound quite so loudly? It might have been a joke earlier but somehow being kidnapped by Xavier had become one of the hottest things to ever happen in your life.

You nodded your agreement, accompanied by a soft whimper and he pulled you back against his body for a moment before releasing you. It was long enough that you could feel the growing bulge in his black sweats. The thought of keeping him in here flitted through your mind, but he was nudging you forward before you could let the lewd thoughts slip past your lips.

“Once we’re out of here and no one is watching…” you purred, letting your hand graze down the length of his stomach and stopping deliberately at the waistband of his trousers. “I’m going to make a break for it, I hope you’re ready to chase me.”

Xavier chuckled, dark and predatory.

“I won’t stop until you’re struggling beneath me, my starlight.”

For the first time in what felt like years, Zayne had a scheduled day off on a day you were due to work. You assured him that it would fly in if he simply allowed himself to relax, but here he was… staring at the wall.

It was barely 10am and every chore Zayne could think of had been taken care of. He even had time to start some dough for a fresh loaf of bread, the batch slowly proofing beneath a dish towel in the kitchen.

He had half a mind to go into the hospital and put his time to better use. At least he would be able to achieve something instead of sitting here, wishing you were beside him. Empty hours wouldn’t feel so bad if you shared them. He never felt bored when you were here.

Zayne’s phone thrilled from the coffee table and one glance told him the message was from you. Expecting a cute little reminder message that he was to rest and relax, he was not anticipating what he read.

It wasn’t like you to complain unnecessarily, especially because you genuinely enjoyed your job, so he knew that it had to be rough for you to send that message.

Can I help?

When you didn’t reply, he went to check on his dough to distract himself from thoughts of you, miserable and feeling demotivated.

I don’t think so, but thanks for the offer. Might skip movie night if you don’t mind… think I’ll go to bed when I get home.

Well now, that was simply unacceptable. Zayne knew from experience that denying your emotions never solved the issue, and clearly he needed to remind you of that.

~

There was a knock on your office door. It jolted you upright from where you were slumped over your desk feeling defeated. A courier peeked inside with a sheepish smile and confirmed your name. Once he was satisfied, he produced a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a frosted glass vase.

“These are for me? Are you sure?”

“It’s your name on the card and on the order slip… so yep! Enjoy your flowers, miss.” The man gave a short salute and left you to admire the beautiful blooms.

Your fingers stroked the velvet petals of midnight pansies and silvery lilies. The smell was gentle and sweet, much like the smile adorning your face for the first time today.

You didn’t need the little card tucked into the display to know who they were from and immediately you pulled out your phone and pressed the call button.

“Do you send flowers to all your patients, Dr Zayne?”

Zayne hummed, thoughtful for a second. “Only the ones that have captured my heart.”

Your grin only widened, he was so sweet.

“I don’t know if you realise how much this has brightened my day, you darling man,” you admitted with a soft sob.

The sound of traffic on the other end of the line caught your attention, and you wondered where he might be if not at home. As if sensing your question, Zayne provided the answer unprompted.

“Then I guess taking you out to lunch might be considered overkill?”

“Wait, what?”

“Look outside,” he cooed.

You nearly stumbled out of your chair in your rush to approach the window that looked down on the busy streets below. From your vantage point you could make out a man with a head of midnight hair leaning casually against the trees in the courtyard. Your breath hitched when Zayne glanced up to where he knew your office was located and tipped his coffee cup in your direction.

“Oh, Zayne…”

“Yes?”

“I’m not going to want to come back after we eat,” you grumbled honestly.

“That’s fine. I planned on you having a minor allergic reaction that will require personal treatment. I already have the story planned out when I call your boss in an hour.”

This man thought of everything and right now, you were eternally grateful of that. Smothering your laughter behind your palm, you started to stuff your belongings haphazardly into your bag.

“Y’know what? I love you and every immaculately planned out thought inside that big wrinkly brain of yours.”

“… I love you too?”

“That was a compliment,” you assured him hastily, practically running for the lift.

“Oh. Well, thank you, darling. I’ll see you in a minute so I can return the sentiment correctly.”

[no-144444]

red flag- o.piastri

===========

===========

summary: you get in an accident on track.

pairing: oscar piastri (no.81) x fem! driver! reader

===========

“Red flag, red flag, safety car coming on track to retire all cars, too dangerous out in sector 3, drive with extreme caution,” his race engineer called over the radio.

“Is everyone alright?” Oscar questioned, slowing the car, the other drivers behind him doing the same. 

“We’re not sure, Y/l/n crashed in sector 3 and hasn’t gotten out of the car just yet. We’ll keep you posted.”

What? You’d crashed and you weren’t out of the car yet? What the fuck? He knew you, he remembered what happened back in f2, back when you’d had the worst crash of your career and you jumped out of the car with a broken leg. Then, you’d at least gotten out of the car. Now? You were in the fucking car. Still. Minutes after your crash. 

“Race is off, conditions are too dangerous.”

Fuck. 

As he pulled into the pitlane, he jumped out of his car, following the other drivers to the briefing room as they all pulled off their soaking suits and damp helmets. 

They sat, waiting for news as none came through. All they knew was that you had to be pulled out of your burning car and airlifted to the nearest hospital. Which meant that you weren’t conscious when you got out of the car. Which meant fucking terrible things. 

Time passed and nothing really happened, so they were all sent back to their hotel rooms. 

“Hey Osc, you want us to come with you? We don’t want you to be on your own right now,” Logan smiled softly, standing at the exit to the McLaren motorhome. Beside Logan was George, Lando, and Alex.

“Thanks guys,” he mustered up some half-smile and they shared a car, then hung out in his room for a few hours. 

Oscar’s phone rang after about an hour, an unknown number. Usually, calls like these would go ignored, especially at a time like this, but something told him to pick it up. 

“Piastri speaking,” he asked quietly. 

“This is Oscar Piastri? Y/n Y/l/n’s emergency contact?” a female voice asked. 

“Yes, yes it is,” he blurted out, grabbing the attention of Logan, Alex, George, and Lando beside him. They held their breath. 

“Well, Y/n was in an accident on the track and she suffered extreme internal bleeding from a broken rib, one that broke during the early laps of the race. She passed out from a lack of oxygen, and crashed into the barrier at a very high speed, meaning that she has a few more broken bones and issues. We'd ask you to come to visit her, she’s been asking about you non-stop since she woke up.”

“S-she’s awake?” 

“Yes, Mr. Piastri, and she’s refusing to take any medication unless you come down here.” 

“I’m on my way,” he hung up the phone without questioning and grabbed his coat and shoes, as the boys followed. Oscar didn’t even bother putting on his shoes as he ran through the hotel and out into the pouring rain. Logan hailed a cab as the other boys tried to get him to calm down. 

“You need to slow down,” George soothed, getting a grip on Oscar’s shoulder. It was strange for them, seeing this much emotion from Oscar. He’d always been so level-headed, so calm. Well, it wasn’t strange for Logan to see it. He was there in f2 when Oscar started crushing on you, and when you two got together. Every summer break you three (and a few other ex-f2- current f2 drivers) go on a week-long trip, just to stay in contact, Logan got a front-row seat to Oscar’s devotion to you. It was sweet, and it brought Oscar out of his shell. 

“She’s refusing medication, if I don’t get there fucking quicker, George, so no, I don’t plan on calming down-” he cursed, brushing his hand off his shoulder. 

“Hey! That was shitty, apologise Oscar. Everyone’s fuckin’ stressed right now,” Logan called back as the taxi pulled up.

“Sorry George,” Oscar added and George nodded, unaffected by his comment. 

The car ride was tense, all of them wanted to get to you, needed to get to you. The hospital came into view, and the boys ran out, George paying the driver and following the rest of them into the foyer. 

“Oscar Piastri, I’m here for Y/n Y/l/n?” 

“Oh yes! Are you family?” the nurse behind the desk asked. 

“I’m her emergency contact,” he replied. 

“Yes, but are you family?”

“I’m her fiancé?” he answered. 

“What?” Lando gasped. “You two got engaged?”

“During the summer break,” Logan answered. “He was planning on telling you after today.”

“All her family is in another country,” Oscar explained. “I’m the closest thing- we’re the closest thing.”

The nurse nodded and handed them visitor badges, and led them up to your room. 

“You go in first,” George nodded to Oscar. “You’ve got this.”

Oscar tried to look positive, but it was difficult when the love of his life was in a hospital bed behind the door in front of him. He pushed open the door and when he saw you, he wanted to scream. Hooked up to machines, but you were awake and bothering the nurse about him. Who gave a shit about him? You were important, you were the most important thing on the planet. 

“Baby, take the meds please,” he barely whispered, but you heard it and almost cried at the relief. She administered the drugs and left you to be. Your engineer left the room to give you privacy, he’d gone in the helicopter with you and had been the first to notice something wrong with you during the race. 

Oscar listened as the nurse explained your condition before she left. They suspected that you’d broken a rib during the first few laps, but it had punctured your lung, and you’d passed out in the car. Then you went straight into a barrier at almost 250 km/h. You broke 3 more ribs, 5 vertebrae in your back, your right hip, your right leg, your left arm, and you fractured your collarbone, as well as all the bruising and cuts you’d gotten. He felt sick to his stomach. The nurse left to inform the others.

Oscar stood at the end of your bed. “What were you thinking? Why would you refuse medicine?” He asked, his voice tense but calm.

“I wanted to see you,” you shrugged. “I needed to talk to you.”

He looked up to see you. The bruising, the cuts, the bandages, all of it, it was almost too much. 

“I lost the ring,” you admitted, choking up. “When I woke up it was gone. I’m so sorry Osc-”

“I dont give a fuck about the ring baby, I care about you. I care that you’re alive, alright?” He sighed, moving closer to your face. “I’ll get you another.”

You started crying as you held him close. It was all too much, the pain, the stress, thinking about what would happen after you got out, wondering if you’d ever be in an F1 car again, it was too much. Oscar always seemed to calm you down, to settle you, not this time. You’d never seen him this stressed, no one had. It was unsettling, unnatural, and it made you more worried, it made you think more, and it made everything too real. Every sob that left your body caused another surge of pain through your back and chest, god, broken ribs were no joke. You kept crying and he kept holding you, pleading with you to stop because he knew how painful it was, and he knew you’d pass out, and he’d be alone again. 

You passed out in his arms and the nurses ushered him away and back to the boys. 

“How is she?” Alex asked, standing from his seat.

“She passed out,” Oscar answered. “She’s in so much pain.”

Logan clapped a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll pull through. She’s the strongest person we know.”

Oscar nodded as tears filled his eyes. “This is so fucking unfair,” he cursed. 

“We know mate,” Lando agreed. “We’re fucking livid.”

“Did she at least take the meds?” George asked. 

Oscar scoffed. “Yeah,” he rolled his eyes. “She wanted to talk to me because she lost the fucking ring I gave her. Like I’d ever fucking give a shit about a ring over her.”

Logan chuckled softly. “Well, that’s your Y/n for you. Loyal.”

They all cracked a smile, even Oscar (kind of). 

“She’s going to be ok, alright?” George reminded him. “She’ll be back in that car in no time. She’s a fighter.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep going if she doesn’t,” Oscar answered. The weight of his confession sobered the other three to the somberness of the moment. 

���Well, it’s a good thing she’ll pull through,” Alex said. 

===========

navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

[astonmartinii]

you gotta look out for the quiet ones | oscar piastri social media au

pairing: oscar piastri x fem musician!reader

a surprise appearance from y/n in the formula one paddock raises some questions, but the rumour mill will never guess who she's there to see...

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR

note: olivia rodrigo is the face claim but i'll be pulling from her music as well as taylor swift!

f1

liked by oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc and 2,439,677 others

tagged: yourusername

f1: there's paddock guests and there's paddock guests, y/n y/ln is here for the bahrain grand prix!

view comments

user1: MOTHER WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?

user2: this is not what i expected to see this friday morning

user3: okay i've only ever heard of y/n y/ln through others but like she must be dedicated to be there for friday as well

user4: certified y/n superfan here! y/n has always said she's a massive fan of f1 - she hasn't been asked about it recently but when she was last asked about it she said she grew up loving jenson button!

jensonbutton: @yourusername i see you have amazing taste

yourusername: how could i not love the playboy of f1?

user3: okay she knows what she's talking about, i guess it's time to have a little listen to her music

user5: okay so what garage is she going to be in?

user6: ferrari 🤞🏻

user7: did we not just see this ^^^ she's clearly going to be in the mclaren garage

user8: if she has any sense she'll be in the mercedes garage with sir lewis hamilton

user9: what about the literal world champions?

user10: shut the fuck up (i would like to see max blush and stutter tho)

user11: i love how y/n said she's taking a year off of music after her tour and we're immediately seeing her here, there and everywhere

user12: living her true sports nerd life and i love that for her

landonorris: i promise that mclaren have the best hospitality xx

user13: oh brother are we about to see some lando norris snapchat u up flirting?

alexalbon: this is tragic

georgerussell63: make sure you don't tell her about the massive poster you had of her that you practiced kissing on!

georgerussell63: whoops!

landonorris: i am in your walls george

user14: well.. that was something, i don't think we'll see her in the mclaren garage anytime soon now

logansargeant: @oscarpiastri i hope you brought your vinyl to be signed

oscarpiastri: i didn't want to risk it on the plane, it's limited edition 😔

user15: wait so oscar is also a y/n fan ???

user16: not this mclaren battle for y/n's attention

user17: lets be real, there's no competition here - there's no way she wouldn't choose lando

user18: i'm tired of you people sleeping on oscar (pun intended)

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 21,309,784 others

yourusername: i had so much fun the first time round, i thought i'd come by again

view all comments

user25: okayyyy i thought the girlies on twitter were delusional but the second race in a row ... i fear there's another incentive

user26: once again, she's been a massive fan of the sport and has a ton of disposable money why wouldn't she go to a load of races?

landonorris: can't wait to see you again this weekend, i'll get you that win i promised

alexalbon: nurse he's talking to himself again

georgerussell63: this is crazy thirsting to do in front of 21 million people

landonorris: i assure you i'll be the one with the last laugh here

maxverstappen1: sure you will buddy, it's good to see you so confident

user27: are they gentle parenting lando?

user28: bro is about to get his heart broken they're actually being good friends

user29: idk i think he's still the one in the paddock with the best shot

user30: i gotta get this delusion all lando fans seem to have

carlossainz55: i think you'd look great in red ❤️

charles_leclerc: oh gosh....

carlossainz55: they don't call me the smooth operator for no reason, just sit back and watch the magic

maxverstappen1: you fucking morons do realise you're proclaiming this in a PUBLIC instagram comment section that everyone INCLUDING y/n can see?

user31: this is a mess ... keep going!

oscarpiastri: i celebrated my win here in 2021 with the release of sour - i know you're on a sabbatical but any chance of a surprise single?

user32: yall getting on lando and carlos for their bad flirting when oscar is stinking up the gaff with his attempts

yourusername: i'm so sorry to tell you this but no surprise single, but i can show you some demos?

oscarpiastri: please, please, please! good 4 u is my scream in the car song

user33: i just know oscar was streaming traitor when his DRS failed for the ten billionth time

oscarpiastri: it went platinum in my car yes

yourusername: i imagine it's even better at 200mph

oscarpiastri: i'd be happy to show you anytime

yourusername: carpool karaoke x hot laps when?

oscarpiastri: name a time and i'm there

user34: why is oscar trying so hard bro she's not going to choose you

user35: and yet he's the only one she replied to ... makes you think

user36: you guys are miserable because i'd literally do anything to see them singing in a car together

oscarpiastri

liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername and 832,988 others

oscarpiastri: jeddah you were okay i guess

view all comments

user37: holy soft launch

user38: and right after flirting up a storm with Y/N Y/LN

user39: first of all, oscar is a fan of y/n so it could've definitely been from a platonic point of view

user40: it has to be platonic cause bro had no chance to start with and has a gf ???

landonorris: i'm sorry what is this ?

oscarpiastri: an instagram post, would hope you would know what that is if you're already on the app

landonorris: don't get smart with me mister

oscarpiastri: you got smart first 🤨

landonorris: what happened to my sweet rookie?

oscarpiastri: he's still 23 years old ?

landonorris: i need to meet this mystery woman who has seemed to give you all this sass

user41: prema girlies know that this sass has always been here

user42: but i'm glad it's coming out in f1

yourusername: okay i guess? you slayed mr piastri and i won't hear anything less than that

oscarpiastri: okay it was a bit of a slay

yourusername: a bit?

oscarpiastri: a big slay then

yourusername: stop talking down on yourself otherwise you'll have me to deal with

oscarpiastri: that is not the threat you think it is

yourusername: it's not a threat it's a promise x

user43: excuse me what the fuck was that ^

user44: i can't tell if they're flirting or if y/n just feels sorry for him?

user45: they did get coffee like once this weekend so maybe they're just friends

user46: they have to be because there's no way that is y/n in this soft launch

user47: there's no way oscar piastri could woo the y/n y/ln idk why people are even suggesting it

user48: and i think even flirting with her is a bit weird considering his teammate has made it so obvious he likes her

user49: oscar doesn't seem to be the type to step on toes but we'll see

logansargeant: if that's who i think it is i am going to fight you for not telling me straight up

oscarpiastri: i'll meet you in the parking lot i guess

logansargeant: be there or be square

user50: what does logan know that we don't ???

f1tea

liked by user52, user53 and 11,209 others

f1tea: now she's attended THREE races in a row, i think it's okay to start the conversation about her being with one of the drivers... so here's our theories!

lando: he's been on this train the longest and has the old thirst tweets to back it up. he's been spotted talking to her numerous times at races and has been camping in her comment section since bahrain

carlos: he has also been in her comments since bahrain and has been seen with her in the paddock - less than lando but y/n has worn red a couple times in the paddock so??

lewis: y/n was blushing up a storm when they were spotted together and i honestly think if the age gap wasn't so big they would be so cute together

liam: an outside shout but this guy was stuck to her side the whole time she was at red bull

charles: they have spoken a lot in the paddock, i don't think it's him but omg imagine them together

view all comments

user54: not this oscar erasure - i.e. the only driver she's actually interacted with online

user55: if it's oscar i will literally streak across the track at the next race

user56: admin snuck liam in there like we wouldn't notice

user57: idk why they think that liam is a better shout than oscar

user58: i think all the fangirling from oscar defo put him straight into the friend zone

user59: idk about you guys but i've actually listened to y/n's music and her album after her last breakup suggests that she might like someone who appreciates her craft and publicly supports her

user60: yeah but she also deserves a boyfriend that's on her level

user61: oscar is a literal f1 driver?

user60: yeah but he's not cute enough

user62: to YOU

user63: omg just say you have no taste and bounce gosh

user64: how did lando become a frontrunner in this?

user65: i think because he's liked her the longest? and has been the most insistent

user66: i hate to say this but just because you like someone and said it first, does not mean you are entitled to actually date them

user67: i will laugh my ass off if she's not with any of these fools

user68: bro took a year off of music to have some fun and now is linked to everyone and their mum

user69: unfortunately this is the way it goes although if she does become a wag (tho be real, whoever is with her is the wag) i shall be enjoying her paddock outfits

user70: carlos vs oscar i think i've seen this film before

user71: oh trust me off track there is no competition

user72: you people are so mean

user73: oscar will win again, mark my words. i'm not sure if carlos can cry to the fia about that tho

yourusername

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 23,874,093 others

yourusername: getting the real aussie experience down under

view all comments

user74: AHHHHHHHHHH A MAN

user75: who the fuck wears jeans on a hammock she needs to run away from this man he's clearly a psychopath

maxverstappen1: you went to see quokkas without me??? does our friendship mean nothing ???

yourusername: it's not considered normal to invite friends to a date

maxverstappen1: boring. i will remember this when you try and get some red bull from our hospitality

yourusername: nO PLEASE

maxverstappen1: no, for this you must suffer through the piss they put in monster cans

this comment was deleted

maxverstappen1: well you should've thought more of our friendship :P

yourusername: you are impossible. no more limited edition merch for you

maxverstappen1: WHAT

user76: for all this love life speculation i am loving this max and y/n friendship

user77: but... the monster comment... it has to be lando right? monster sponsor mclaren

user78: i think this is the most confirmation we're getting right now

user79: they're so cute

oscarpiastri: i am glad the homeland is treating you well :)

yourusername: i've only had one scary insect encounter so win!

oscarpiastri: we'll have to get you some real australian delicacies this weekend

yourusername: i've heard of grandma's baking so i'm excited!

oscarpiastri: we've got a tupperware box with your name on it

yourusername: ugh i love you guys

user80: the monster comment pointed to mclaren but there's only one of them in the comments...

user81: i mean this is a soft launch so it would make sense that lando wouldn't comment if they're trying to throw people off of their scent

user82: the mental gymnastics you people are doing is insane

user83: literally just admit that your driver just doesn't have the sauce like that

user84: and oscar piastri does???

user85: STOP SLEEPING ON HIM HE'S LITERALLY GETTING HER HOME-BAKED GOODS

oscarpiastri

liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername and 2,349,761 others

tagged: yourusername

oscarpiastri: home win means more than you could ever know. and you can stop theorising now, i may be a nerd but i've still got game.

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user89: HHAHHHAHHAHAHAHHA THAT'S MY AUSSIE

user90: stunting his stunning gf on all these delusional fangirls

yourusername: now i can finally say it: I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU

yourusername: and i'm proud of you

yourusername: forever and always

oscarpiastri: maybe i was so fast because i knew there was a literal angel waiting for me back in my garage

yourusername: oh so the other races i came to i just didn't look good enough for you to win :(

oscarpiastri: NO NO NO you're always the most beautiful woman in any room

oscarpiastri: but this time you're wearing my jersey and my name

yourusername: i guess i'll never take it off again

oscarpiastri: you might not take it off, but that doesn't mean i won't

yourusername: ehhhehehhehheeh hurry up in debrief :P

user91: oscar piastri i am so sorry i was not familiar with your game

user92: i for one had complete faith in that bumbling fool

yourusername: as you should, he may have stuttered through the lines, but he's one smooth operator

carlossainz55: that's my nickname? please stop rubbing salt in the wound

yourusername: it was better than your attempts. and better than whatever the fuck you've been doing on the track - keep your dumptruck away from oscar

user93: y/n defending oscar, consider me moved

user94: okay fave celeb couple just dropped

landonorris: HOW LONG HAS THIS BEING GOING ON? HOW LONG HAVE YOU LET ME FLIRT WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND? HOW DID I LOSE TO YOU?

yourusername: watch your tone.

landonorris: sorry???

oscarpiastri: we've been together nearly a year. i didn't 'let' you flirt with my girlfriend i tried to tell you but you ignored me at every turn. you didn't lose to me, there was never any competition.

yourusername: best year of my life 🫶 and lando i tried to tell you, maybe listen to oscar for once 😭

oscarpiastri: awwwwww i love you 😘

yourusername: i love you too osc xx

user95: not them dancing on lando's dead body 😭

logansargeant: I FUCKING KNEW IT YOU SON OF A BITCH

oscarpiastri: never doubt me again eagle boy

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc and 35,609, 451 others

tagged: oscarpiastri

yourusername: if you saw me ugly crying on live tv - no you didn't. i'm so proud of you osc, my beautiful boy.

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user96: i think y/n was all of us

user97: absolutely screaming at all of the y/n fans on twitter having a meltdown and trying to figure out how f1 works

user98: this was me, am i really going to learn about tyre compounds because y/n is dating a driver? yes!

maxverstappen1: i am very happy for you both but enjoy the win while it lasts oscar i have a score to settle after being ABANDONED on the quokka date

yourusername: once again it was a DATE which is for the two people in the relationship, not the weird third guy with attachment issues

maxverstappen1: well jokes on you i do have attachment issues and now i've latched onto you and oscar which means you're contractually obligated to come to every race now

yourusername: ok?

oscarpiastri: it's okay max with our combined powers, y/n will have to stick around she hates making us sad

yourusername: it's true :(

user99: not lando fumbling yet another lead

yourusername: he never had a chance to begin with

oscarpiastri: 😆

user100: this is another level of teammate psychological warfare

landonorris: i am a victim of a smear campaign

oscarpiastri: smear campaign being you flirting with my girlfriend after she told you she had a boyfriend

landonorris: I DIDN'T HEAR HER

yourusername: i said it multiple times 🤨 and SOFT LAUNCHED OSCAR AND YOU STILL TRIED

georgerussell63: looks like it's back to the poster now lando

yourusername: and for the record ^^ this is very creepy

landonorris: THAT WAS LIKE TEN YEARS AGO

alexalbon: that's what you want us to think ...

user101: i am screaming at them rubbing it in lando's face

user102: kind of deserved LOL but funny nonetheless

oscarpiastri: all things aside, i'm so glad you could be there for my first win! i love you so much and can't wait to spend there rest of my life with you, even if it means my teammate flirts with you everyday

yourusername: i love you too osc, i'm sure you'll win so many more

oscarpiastri: i'm counting on it ;)

landonorris: I AM SORRY HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY IT

yourusername: you gonna let oscar have the upgrades first?

landonorris: no?

yourusername: then i will guilt you at every corner 🤨

fin. i know, i know. guilty as sin is coming but i just wanted to get this out. i had to come home from silverstone early cause of a mechanical dnf (foot stopped working and had heat stroke and a cold at the same time). but i had a great time while i was there and met a load of drivers with lando and alex signing my hat !!!!!

[irishbreakfst]

God is punishing me for going to a club with my friends for literally the 2nd time ever (1st time I was freshly 21 and visiting my friend who bullied me into it) by giving me a very sore throat and making me do bad in a job interview. Owie balls cough drops do your job please

[luvnami]

olympics men's volleyball team captain ushijima is so real to me

“ushijima wakatoshi.”

not even his mother calls him by his full name, damn it. 

ushijima swallows the brick in his throat. he purposefully avoids your burning stare by fiddling with the straps of the gym bag in his hand, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. even though he’s much taller than you, he feels awfully small right now. 

it’s almost comical that you in your pink pyjama set, arms crossed over your chest, and bits of sleep still stuck in your inner corner is enough to make ushijima wakatoshi, captain of japan’s olympics men’s volleyball team, cower in fear. 

“you are running a fever. you are not going to today’s training,” you say firmly.

you stand between ushijima and the front door. if he tried, he knew he would have little trouble breaking out of the house. he figures that he could fireman lift you over his shoulder and dump you on the living room sofa. 

“it’s barely a fever, i’ll be fine. it’s not right for the team if the captain doesn’t show up.”

ushijima regrets speaking up. the look you’re giving him right now could kill. 

“what if you spread your fever to the other players? what if you pass out on court? who’s going to carry you to the hospital, ushijima? your face is red and you’re sweating. you’re going back to bed right now.” 

a pang of pain shoots through his heart. not even wakatoshi? come on! 

he sulks. it’s not obvious, but ushijima’s shoulders slump ever so slightly and he gives you a disgruntled look. 

“fine,” he mumbles. 

usually, your fiance doesn’t need reminders to take care of himself or the house. he cooks his own healthy meals, doesn’t let the dishes pile up in the sink, and reminds you to take your daily vitamins when you forget. however, even ushijima has his own shortcomings. he hates throwing out old items as long as they’re usable (you had to toss all his underwear that was worn through while he wasn’t home) and can be utterly stubborn when he’s sick, just like today. 

you march ushijima back to bed like a prison warden. you take his temperature, shove the numbers 38.2°C in his face, and tuck him in like you would a baby. 

“there,” you huff. “now rest.”

ushijima still wears an unhappy face. he hates it when he’s sick. it’s the one thing in the world that renders him helpless, and makes him more upset than when a player blocks his spikes multiple times in a row. 

he didn’t want to miss out on today’s training. but his head was throbbing when he woke up this morning, and he barely made it to the front door despite his knees buckling twice. ushijima lets his heavy eyes fall shut and his sore body relaxes, headache throbbing in the back of his head. you’re right. he should rest. 

ushijima just doesn’t want to admit that he feels weak.

[textmel8r]

[ DRABBLE + SMAU ] 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐑 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘 ! ( seventh installment ) in which you find toji fushiguro’s number off a sugar baby site .

୨୧˚ part; one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine. ten. eleven.

୨୧˚ incl; toji fushiguro

୨୧˚ cw; sugar mommy! reader , sugar baby! toji , masturbation , angst , profanity , descriptions of violence , toji being a pathetic little sicko :D

୨୧˚ an; sorry this part is on the shorter side😅😅 it’s more of a filler chapter but i still like it!

It’s well past midnight when Toji slips his way back into his motel room. It’s dingy and drab, the once-white walls twinged a sickly yellowish tint from chain smoking guests. Ugly bedspread details different flowers that Toji couldn’t name, the same aged pattern clinging to the drapes that were pulled shut over the front window, never to be opened. It smells of heady sweat and open wounds, though maybe that’s just him. No, it definitely is him. He’s hyper aware of the grimy layer of filth that acts as a second layer of skin. It’s gritty and uncomfortable.

The bathroom cubicle is claustrophobic; if Toji were to stand in the center of the room, he could easily touch all four walls that boxed him in. He sits on the closed toilet seat lid, staring at his hands. They’re huge, intimidating. Trembling, spattered in blood that’s long since crusted into a dark concretion, cracking at the hinges of his fingers. His hands that took the lives of two innocent men just hours prior. Toji didn’t want to kill them, but they wouldn’t cooperate. Oh, how they shrieked and hollered for their lives as he dragged them into that alley. They just kept fucking screaming. 

“Fuck…” The man sighs grimly, letting his head dip forward to rest in the cups of his filthy palms. His bangs feel matted and crunchy with remnants of sweat. Disgusting self-pity blooms at the base of his hollow chest, and suddenly Toji has the urge to ram his skull into the drywall. Or dislocate his finger. Or do anything to punish himself for that feeling of defeatism. The nerve to possess such a shameful victim mentality, as if he deserved sympathy. He’s a killer; the best he deserves is a fucking electric chair.

Toji showers. A long, scalding shower that singes him to the bone. Water stained red cascades down the rippling wall of muscles that was his body and swirls down the rusty drain. These post-slaughter showers used to be blank canvases of his life. Ones where Toji’s brain would shut off and try to forget the atrocities committed by his hand. He would scrub his flesh raw, scrub scrub scrub mindlessly until he ached all over. But now, he only thinks of one thing.

You.

Maybe it’s some sick coping mechanism, turning to thoughts of you in times like these. In a pathetic form of self comfort, he reminisces. Your hands holding his face, your know-it-all smile, your way with words. God, your fucking way with words. 

“My sweet boy,” Toji whispers under his breath, touching himself. As if he could replicate the delicate way in which you spoke to him. His eyes shut, desperately clinging onto the mental image of you beneath him in his bed. Your arms outstretched, reaching for him like you want him. Like you love him. “My sweet…” Toji tries to fade into the warmth of the spray, imagining it to be your body heat encapsulating him instead. But the water is far too hot, it hurts; you wouldn’t hurt him like this. He tries so damn hard to disassociate into the pleasure, as if his hand would magically dissolve into yours. Yeah, right. His hand is too big to ever compete with yours. Too fucking rough and gritty and mean.

The flat of his palm finds the greasy tiles of the shower wall. Toji fucks himself with all the roughness he deserves, lower lip staked between two rows of teeth to cease its quivering. He’s going to cum. Your face appears in his psyche once more, but this time, it’s from the first time you visited him in the hospital all those months ago. He can see the picture so vividly, it scares him: you seated at his bedside, poking and prodding over his obliques, muttering a stream of concerned questions. But you were never upset or angry. No, despite the worries, you were still smiling. At him. 

Fuck, he’s really going to cum.

Toji grits his teeth, climaxing with a harsh shudder and a broken gasp of your name on his lips. Small jolts force him into a twitchy state, and he leans forward to rest his forehead against the tiles beside his hand. Semen paints the wall below, too far to the left for the shower spray to rinse it off. He doesn’t bother to clean it off. He’s too repulsed by himself to do much of anything. 

The plasticky sheets stick to his skin. Sleeping in just a pair of boxers was probably a stupid idea, bed mites were a real cause for concern, or so Shiu had told him. But it’s hot. He’s hot. And restless. And uncomfortable. He always had trouble falling asleep in foreign beds. Lidded eyes peek over to the alarm clock perched on the side table, its cherry digits splaying 2:47am. You were asleep. 

He reaches for his phone anyway, wracked with guilt all the while. The tension in his thighs still persisted, still succumbed to the aftershocks of his orgasm he fucked himself to with your face in his mind. He’s fucking gross. This is gross.

She’s sleeping, jackass. Don’t wake her up because you’re lonely.

Be a fucking man and lick your own wounds. That’s what his father would say.

He texts you anyway.

He presses the call button. It only gets through half a ring before the line cuts on and he hears a groggy “hey” filter through the receiver. How long has it been since he’s heard your voice? Not that long, only three days and yet it feels like it's been three lifetimes. And that’s truly the moment when Toji knows you’ve fucked him for life, because when did he start thinking such sappy shit like that?

“Hi,” he answers, melting back into the stiff mattress. His gaze wanders along the waterlogged ceiling, tracing the abstract damp stains that have settled in its popcorn surface. He thinks offhandedly that one of them vaguely resembles a rabbit. “Sorry for waking you.”

“You already apologized, silly. I told you it’s okay.” There’s a pause. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

It’s nice to hear yours, too. “Go to sleep.” 

“Yeah, okay.” The sound of sheets stirring crackles, Toji assumes you’re tossing in bed. “You’re sleeping now, too, right?”

He paws at his stomach, the pads of his rough fingertips tracing the gutters of his abdominal plates before he sinks his blunt nails into his own flesh. “In a bit.”

“Soon. It’s late, Toji.” You order him to bed like a mother would her child.

He nods as if you could see the gesture. “Soon, then.”

You bid him a good night, turning once more into bed before settling back into the depths of the slumber Toji had interrupted. He clasps his cell between his ear and shoulder, basking in your gentle breaths. It’s the same sounds you made the night you fucked him. He slept upon your chest, head over your heart, listening to its beats. You drooled on his pillow, he gave a quiet scoff at the memory. Are you drooling now?

Toji never sleeps.

likes and reblogs are appreciated !

tags . • @4imhry @sugurubabe @mastermasterlist1p1 @mikisspeak @fluttershyfangs @iluv-ace @xstom @bratbby333 @mizzfizz @sserafin @wo-ming-bai @maexc @r0semultiverse @r0ckst4rjk @aesukuni @taelattecookie @purple-obsidian @hqtoge @khaothick @saintkaylaa @ya9amicide @crayzyaarna @saiki-enthusiast @haesify @nyamocka @sixxze @lifesucksweswallow @darkstarlight82 @megumisdivinedogs @celestialol @yunho-leeknow @ghostfacefricker6969 @aizawa19 @lupicalbestwolf @nymphsdomain @makuzume

[saistappen]

Paddock guests | MV1

In which you and your class visited Max at the track in Zandvoort.

warning : This is the second part of 'special guest' and you don't have to read the first part first, but it might make it easier for you because of the connections in this part. You can also find 'special guest' on my profile :)

▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄

ALL EYES are on you and your class as you enter the paddock in a row of ducks.

Until now, it has never happened that countless six-year-olds in Red Bull merchandise and paddock passes around their necks have entered the paddock together with their teacher.

But that changes today. Having plucked up the courage a few days ago to save Max's number and thank the Dutchman for a great day in the lion class, you didn't expect the three-time world champion to invite the whole class into the paddock as a thank you.

"It's important that we all stay together. As you can see, the paddock is quite large and spacious, so we all have to stay very close together to get to the Red Bull Garage, okay? ", you look at your pupils one by one with a smile.

You can clearly see the beaming faces of your protégés and the anticipation of the day ahead.

Today is Friday, so there won't be too much happening at the track this weekend, so this is the perfect day for Max to show the six-year-olds where he works.

In a video message sent directly to the Lion class, he thanked them for the great day at school and invited all the students to his garage to take a look behind the scenes.

You're also looking forward to seeing everything up close, so you can hardly wait to walk over to Red Bull and marvel at everything up close.

"Then let's get going," you indicate to your charges with a smile.

As it is impossible to keep an eye on all the children alone in this spacious paddock, you are accompanied by a nice Red Bull employee who introduced himself as Mason a few minutes ago.

You're grateful to Mason not only for helping you keep the kids together, but also for guiding you through the paddock and getting you to your destination.

Because if you're honest, you wouldn't find this way on your own. The paddock already looks pretty big and expansive from the TV, but in real life it looks twice as big, so if you didn't have a clue, you'd be one hundred per cent lost.

Mason starts to run off in front, while the rows of two that the children have formed follow the Red Bull employee and you bring up the rear so as not to lose any children in the hustle and bustle.

Every now and then, a few employees or even drivers cross your path, who give you a big smile and greet and wave to your protégés in a friendly manner.

It doesn't take long before Mason comes to a halt in front of the Red Bull Hospitality and all the children gather in a semi-circle around Mason.

"We've reached our first destination. This is the Red Bull Hospitality. This is where we stay from time to time when Formula 1 is on a break..." While Mason begins to explain a little to the children, you start to take a few photos with your mobile phone to capture today's event not only for you, but also for the children.

"Max has another appointment, so it will be a while before he can show you all round. But I see you've all got rucksacks with you, which must contain your breakfast, right? " the Red Bull employee adds as you walk up the small ramp to the hospitality centre and shortly afterwards the sliding doors open to reveal a large room with countless tables and chairs.

A loud chorus of 'yes' answers Mason, who indicates to the children that they should find a place to have a snack to tide them over while Max has something to do.

You smile gratefully at Mason when the dark-haired man presses a coffee into your hand a few seconds later.

"The little ones are really adorable, " Mason enthuses as he sits down at a table opposite you.

Your students are sitting around you, talking excitedly and eating their breakfast.

" Yes, isn't it? " you smile and wrap your hands around the cup before taking a sip of the hot liquid. " It's really great of Max to make this possible for you. "

"Max is a really warm person, " Mason smiles and shortly afterwards starts to engage you in conversation, which you're really grateful for.

Because it's not just your class that's pretty excited and nervous about what's going to happen in the next few lessons. You are also really nervous and excited, but you try your best not to let it show.

—

"I hope the garage has room for you all," Mason turns to you and your class with a grin as he continues walking backwards.

You all sat in the hospitality centre for about an hour, where you ate breakfast in the back and then the children were allowed to ask Mason a few questions about the team and his duties.

Mason is part of the mechanic crew who look after the car before and after the sessions.

The children have listened attentively to his stories during the last lesson.

But now, the closer you get to the actual destination, you clearly realise how excited your charges actually are.

A smile plays around your lips as Mason starts to walk down the dark blue corridor towards the garage and begins to tell the children that Max and Sergio Perez always walk along this path to get to their cars.

A few seconds later, you finally reached your actual destination. The garage.

The six-year-olds fill the garage with amazement as they see the two blue cars for the first time.

A broad grin appears on your lips as you realise where you actually are. So far you've only ever seen this view from the sofa on your television and now you're actually standing here.

Apart from a few mechanics who have gathered at the front wing and seem to be making a few preparations, the garage is empty.

"As you can see, Max's car is on the left and Checo's car is on the right. Can anyone tell me what makes the two cars different? " Mason looks round with a smile, from which countless index fingers shoot up.

" Max' is faster! " Milan shouts formally after Mason takes his turn. Loud children's laughter from the class fills the garage.

"Milan..." you almost admonish the blond-haired man. Not because it's true, but because it makes you a little uncomfortable that Milan is more or less rubbing salt in the wound, because everyone knows that things aren't going as well for 'Checo' as they are for Max at the moment.

The Red Bull employee begins to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment and seems to be struggling with the words. However, he can't seem to think of a suitable answer, so he looks relieved when Max suddenly appears.

The children happily start shouting the Dutchman's name, who gives each child a high five and then gives you a friendly smile, which you return.

" I'm glad you all came! " Max begins as he stands in front of the children and Mason disappears from the centre of attention and goes back to work. "As you probably already know, you're now in the place where I spend a lot of time. How about we take a closer look at my car? "

With a wave of his hand, Max gestures for everyone to come a little closer so that he can show the children his car in more detail and answer a few questions.

Excited, everyone moves a little closer to the car.

"Make sure you don't get too close to the car, will you? You remember what I told you this morning, don't you? " you ask the group.

"Don't touch other people's things!" your class shouts back in chorus, causing a proud smile to spread across your lips and Max looks over at you.

His lips form a wordless 'thank you' before he crouches down to be a little more at eye level with the children and shortly afterwards he begins to explain everything about the car and answer questions.

—

" Thank you very much for your efforts, " you thank Max as the Dutchman comes over to you.

A few minutes ago, you stood a little apart in the box so that you weren't in the way but also didn't lose sight of your class.

"Always a pleasure," Max smiles as he leans against the wall next to you and you look over at your class and Checo.

During Max's detailed explanations of his car, Checo joins in later and now the Mexican takes over to explain the steering wheel to the children in detail.

Sergio sits on a folding chair with the steering wheel in his hand, while the class sits in a semicircle around him on the floor and listens attentively to his words.

" It's really not a matter of course that you invited us all here. That really wouldn't have been necessary," you begin. You are really grateful for what Max does for you and especially for your class.

"It's nice to see the little lions again. And so I also have a reason to see your great teacher again. " Max winks slightly at you, causing the warmth to start shooting up your cheek.

Embarrassed, you brush a strand of hair out of your face and then slowly raise your eyes to look at the Dutchman.

Max's blue eyes are fixed on your face as his lips curve into a smile.

" I mean that seriously, " he adds.

" U-uh... thank you?" you stammer, almost caught off guard. Max's words were so surprising that you didn't even come close to having a perfect answer.

But that 'Uhm, thank you' didn't even make it any better in your mind.

The Dutchman, however, seemed to take this quite calmly, as a grin appeared on his lips.

"I didn't think I would succeed in making you so embarrassed. " Max takes a step closer to you so that you can clearly smell his aftershave.

Without meaning to, warmth begins to gather in your body, causing a warm feeling to spread through your whole body.

"But you succeeded. " Your voice almost sounds like a whisper, so you're not sure whether Max has understood your words at all, as children's laughter can be heard in the background.

" Max! Come here, you have to take over again," Checo calls out just as the Dutchman opens his mouth and starts talking.

"We'll talk later, " Max says in your direction, before he runs over to Checo and, together with Checo, begins to explain the racing gear to the children and, shortly afterwards, one or two of the children put on Max's and Checo's helmets.

And while Max sinks back into his element and makes sure that the children have an unforgettable day, your thoughts are permanently with Max and his words, which you won't be able to get out of your head any time soon.

—

Countless new impressions and information and a completed first free practice session, which you and your class followed live, the day of your visit to the paddock at Zandvoort slowly comes to an end.

A satisfied but also exhausted smile is on your lips as you watch Max hug each child goodbye and have a few kind words for each of them.

You’ve been impressed all day today by how well the Dutchman has dealt with the children and how much time he has really taken for each of them, even though he has a tight schedule and is certainly quite exhausted.

It's sweet to see how some children wrap their arms tightly around the Dutchman and don't want to let him go.

Even for these children, he takes extra time to talk to them quietly and whisper a few words that you don't understand.

And then the Dutchman is suddenly standing in front of you, while all the children are already waiting with Mason at the exit of the paddock.

"Thanks again, Max. Not just for today but also for the visit to the class. That really meant a lot to us, especially the children," you thank the Dutchman again.

"I was happy to do that," he replies with a smile and pulls you into his strong arms to say goodbye, which takes you rather by surprise.

It takes you a few seconds to break out of your little stupor and carefully wrap your arms around his middle.

"I hope we meet again. You've got my number," he whispers in your ear as he hugs you a little closer.

"We will," you assure him.

A tingling sensation begins to awaken in your body and your whole body is slightly electrified.

But before you can really savour the feeling, the Dutchman has already pulled out of the embrace.

"Then I hope you won't say no to that. "

Confused, you look at Max, who pulls something out of the back pocket of his trousers and shortly afterwards presses another Paddock Pass into your hand.

You frown in confusion. The Paddock Pass in Max's hand looks exactly like the one you already have around your neck. What is he trying to say?

Max must clearly see your confusion, because the Dutchman begins to grin slightly before he starts to speak.

" I'd like to see you in the paddock for the next two days so that we can spend some more time together. But only if you want to, of course. "

He starts to scratch the back of his neck nervously while he waits for your answer.

" I'd love to! " you say quickly as you take off your paddock pass and hang it around your neck.

And if someone had told you back then that it was the beginning of a relationship, you certainly wouldn't have believed a word they said.

[pathologicalreid]

Hello, love your writing, can i request a oneshot for spencer Reid x wife!reader with the plot of the movie taken where she goes on a business trip or something and she gets taken and the team have to work against the clock to get her back. Had this idea for so long and thought you would be perfect to write it. Perfectly fine if you dont but im craving this story.

leave a message after the beep | S.R.

When you go missing under suspicious circumstances on a business trip, the BAU goes to Texas - and ends up in the middle of something bigger than anticipated.

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: kidnapping, blood, guns, reader almost kills someone, hospitals, the securities and exchange commission, typical cm violence, texas, takes place maybe circa season 7 word count: 4.03k a/n: okay anon so like yes i can write this but also i've never seen the movie taken so really i took your request and made it my own! i hope you like it either way!

Tuesday, 2:17 p.m.

“Hey, Spence, it’s me. Shame I got your voicemail, but I just landed at Dallas Fort Worth and I’m waiting for my ride to take me to meet the regional officers. Not sure if you’re traveling, but uh, call me when you get this, I guess. Or when you can. Hopefully, this trip goes better than I think it’s going to… oh, I think my ride is here.”

Tuesday, 6:42 p.m.

“Hey babe, so, the first meeting went fine, they don’t seem very receptive, but people generally aren’t when I’m sent in to change their methods. Wish you’d pick up your phone. Anyway, I’m on my way to the hotel now, I’ll probably try you again before I go to bed. I know my updates are probably riveting.”

Tuesday, 8:09 p.m.

“Well, I’ve definitely stayed in nicer hotels than this one, but I guess I can’t complain about being put up for free. I’m probably just biased because the a/c unit is busted – oh, my room number is 316, I know you like to have it. I opened the windows to let air in but it’s so dry here that I’m not sure it’s helping any. I’ll shut them before I go to sleep, so don’t worry about that. Call me back, I miss you, don’t worry about waking me up. I think that’s all I’ve got, goodnight, I love you!”

There was a collective sigh in the roundtable room, five agents around the room all looked nervously at each other. No one wanted to be the first person to speak. No one wanted to be the first to propose a theory. “Where’s Spencer?” Emily asked, looking through the voicemail transcripts that were splayed out in front of her.

“In Hotch’s office, they’re talking,” Rossi said, eyeing the photo of you that was being projected up on the screen. Most of the time, Penelope just used driver’s license or passport photos in files, but for you, she had chosen a photo from the last BAU O’Keefe’s outing. Your skin was flushed and there was an odd shadow being cast on your face, but your smile was unmistakable.

The official files would have your driver’s license photo, but that picture was for the BAU. Seemingly unable to peel her eyes off of the screen, JJ asked the question that everyone was sitting on, “We’re on this case, right?”

It felt ridiculous, one of their own had gone missing in the middle of the night and they weren’t even sure if they had the jurisdiction to look into it. When no one answered, Morgan looked around the room, “The brass isn’t seriously going to try to tell us not to investigate.”

“No, they’re not,” Hotch said, suit jacket unbuttoned and fluttering behind him as he walked into the roundtable room with purpose. “We’ll debrief more on the plane, JJ and Garcia will stay here, the rest of us are headed to Dallas,” he instructed, nodding at everyone before turning around and walking out the door, the rest of the team following like ducks in a row.

On the jet, the traveling members of the team watched as Rossi held a cup of coffee out for Spencer to take, but the team's youngest member took a moment to even recognize that it was there, “Oh,” he mumbled, “thank you.” Blinking a haze from his eyes, he took the cup in his shaky hands.

A familiar concern flowed among Spencer’s teammates, they all watched as he twisted his wedding ring around his finger – a nervous habit that usually presented itself when he missed you. “Y/N’s boss is en route to Quantico to talk with JJ, the flight’s about three hours, we should get started,” Hotch was the one to speak up, herding the sheep in the correct direction while everything felt aimless.

With his legs tucked beneath himself, Spencer watched the team as they bounced back and forth in a discussion on what you were doing in Dallas and Penelope scoured through your recent communication.

“According to the voicemails and the hotel records, her room was on the third floor,” Emily spoke up, flipping through the file in front of her. “Do we have crime scene photos from the hotel room yet?”

On the video screen, Penelope shook her head, “CSI is still processing the scene, I have an inquiry in with them to send the photos as soon as they can.”

Checking his watch, Hotch looked over at Spencer, still sequestered on one side of the jet, “Make sure they keep the scene undisturbed for when we arrive. Dave and Morgan will meet with the sheriff at the hotel, and the rest of us will head to the precinct to set up.”

If Spencer wanted to be the one to investigate the crime scene, he didn’t protest his assignment, he just continued to spin that gold band on his finger. He didn’t notice the glances exchanged between the rest of his team; he could only think of you.

With the involvement of the BAU, the team had been redirected to the Dallas Field Office. “There was a hole torn in the window screen, the crime scene techs think that’s how they got inside,” Morgan announced to the team, they were all gathering in the conference room.

“On the third floor?” JJ questioned over video chat, she and Penelope sat right next to each other on the screen.

Rossi nodded, “We must be looking at a team. At least two, likely three UnSub’s in order to pull something like this off. They cut the camera feed and broke into the hotel room where she was staying – this was premeditated.”

It wasn’t difficult to deduce that being taken from the third floor of a hotel meant that you had been a target, but the evidence of a break-in settled like a boulder on Spencer’s chest. Someone had intended to take you. Someone had intended on grabbing you from your hotel room in the middle of the night – and they had succeeded.

“Is there any chance she forgot to close the windows when she went to sleep last night?” Emily looked over at Spencer, dark brows raised quizzically as she leaned over the table, skimming through the voicemail transcripts again.

Clenching his jaw, Spencer shook his head, recalling your promise to close the windows before the end of the night. “No, she’d never forget. She knows I worry,” although, after this, you’d never be able to chide him for worrying too much ever again. Sharing a knowing look with the brunette before him, “So, she’s been missing since last night, not this morning.”

The initial assumption had been that you’d disappeared at some point early in the morning, maybe on your way to your first meeting of the day, no one was entirely sure, but this confirmed that you had been missing for at least eight hours more than the first estimate.

A knock on the door garnered the attention of the team, each of them turning to see a field agent, “Uh, Ezra Buchmann is here to speak with you, he said he got a call from your tech girl.”

Hotch nodded succinctly, “That’s the co-worker who reported the case. Morgan, go see if he needs anything. Dave, let’s go check out the office building that Y/N had been working at.”

“Do you think she might’ve been caught up in something at work?” Spencer asked, following his team members with his eyes as they left the conference room.

The unit chief didn’t provide a forward answer, “I’d like to start checking off some possibilities. It’s been fourteen hours with no firm leads.” It wasn’t as optimistic as anyone had hoped, but Hotch shared a look with Emily before leaving the room.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Spencer turned to the evidence board, looking at the pictures of your hotel room, the water splashed around the rim of the bathroom sink, your phone charging on the bedside table, your wedding ring resting on the counter, and if he separated himself from the missing posters, he could almost convince himself that they were just random pictures. Almost.

Frowning at the blown-up images of partial fingerprints and a random CCTV shot from across the street, he recalled your voicemails. “I wasn’t busy,” he confessed to Emily. “When she called me, I wasn’t busy. I was doing other things, but I wasn’t too busy to answer the phone. I assumed that I’d have the chance to talk to her today,” he said, slightly leaning over the oak table, resting his fingerprints on the varnished surface in an attempt to keep himself standing.

Pursing her lips, Emily took a member for responding, “That’s not an outrageous assumption to make,” she tried to reason with a miserable man. “You’d never think something like this would happen.”

“Until it does,” Spencer continued. “We see it happen to people all the time, we’ve made a life of it, but I never thought it would happen to me. To her,” he maundered. If he had a dollar for every time he had heard the same sentiment from victim’s families, he’d never have to work another day in his life. “I did call her back when I got home last night,” he added, though, he wasn’t entirely sure who he was trying to reassure.

In an effort to comfort him, Emily reached out and patted his arm, “We will find her, Spencer.”

Dead or alive? He wanted to retort, but he bit his tongue, holding it in.

As a favor to him, in the hopes of providing him with some emotional respite, Emily had haggled with the field agent whose name was last on the chain of custody of your belongings. It wasn’t entirely proper for evidence to be released to family, but she offered to put her name on it in the interim.

She stayed with Spencer in the conference room, letting him keep your things nearby as she spoke with JJ and went through the information that had been acquired back at Quantico. The team now had your performance reviews at work and, according to JJ, your boss couldn’t say enough good things about you. While it was nice to hear, it didn’t bring them any closer to finding where you were.

Tracing the woodgrain of the table with his fingertips, Spencer eventually tuned the phone call out, instead wondering at what point he was obligated to call your parents. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice your phone was ringing in the evidence bag before him until Prentiss tapped him on the shoulder.

It was an unknown number, but that was a barrier easily blocked by Garcia with a quick search. The rest of the team watched as she blanched on the screen, “Uh, you might want to answer that.”

“Garcia, who is it?” Hotch asked, a hardened look on his face as he looked from the screen to the buzzing cellphone.

JJ frowned at Penelope’s monitor as if she couldn’t believe what she was reading, “It’s the SEC,” she responded.

Swiftly, Hotch answered the phone call, turning on speakerphone so the rest of the team could hear, “Hello.”

“Hello, may I speak with Mrs. Reid?” A male voice came through the receiver, everyone sharing the same wary look.

Focused on the phone call, Hotch shook his head, “This is Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, you can speak with me.” He said, elaborating on the situation and rendering the SEC investigator speechless.

Unable to listen to the conversation any longer, Spencer got up, minding his movements as he walked out of the conference room. He checked the map of the building that was posted on the wall before walking up the stairs, making his way up to the roof of the building.

The dry heat of Dallas was about as miserable as everyone made it out to be, but it was hard to ignore the way it reminded him of home. Maybe he could call his mom – speaking with her usually brought him some semblance of peace. Though, she might have a negative reaction to the situation he found himself in. On the hot rubber roofing, he kicked around piles of dirt before leaning against the ledge of the building, craning his head back and closing his eyes when he heard the rooftop door open.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood for any sort of discussion right now,” he complained, neglecting to spare a glance at whoever was disturbing his quiet – not exactly an Eden, but quiet.

He recognized Emily by the sound her boots made, even on the rubber that had been softened by the relentless sun, “I’d be more surprised if you were in the mood to talk.”

Impulsively, he rolled his eyes, “Did Hotch put you in charge of me?” He was glad his eyes were still shut, that way he couldn’t see the look on Emily’s face when he sniped at her.

“No,” she responded, gathering his attention as he brought his head down, squinting in the sunlight. “I thought you might want to know what just happened,” she nearly challenged, dark hair gleaming in the daylight.

Mentally kicking himself, he nodded for a moment, “You’re right, I just… I’m sorry.”

Taking a moment, Prentiss walked over, standing next to him, “I know.” She sighed, turning around and taking inventory of the surrounding buildings, “She was sent out here to look at some shady dealings of the company – insider trading, that kind of stuff. The main branch has an investigation open with the SEC, and they have been for the last few months. She was supposed to meet with that Ezra guy this morning to try and work something out. Hotch is talking to the CEO right now, he’s claiming he couldn’t tell JJ because it’s need-to-know,” Emily explained, focusing her eyes on the highway in the distance. “The SEC has an office in Fort Worth, they’re sending some people, and they faxed over all of the files.”

Setting his jaw, Spencer was the first to move to the stairs, the air conditioning providing an instant relief as he strode down the steps with Emily trailing close behind.

A field agent was standing in the middle of the office, stirring a cup of coffee, “Would someone really kidnap a woman over an SEC investigation?”

“We’ve seen much worse for much less,” Spencer mentioned in passing, swerving through the office of people until he made it back to the conference room. “Why would Y/N’s boss send her to investigate something that had already been brought to the SEC?” He posed the question to the rest of the team, taking one of the files that Morgan handed him and reading through the pages.

Rossi shrugged, nodding his head in the direction of the evidence board, “He wanted it handled quietly,” he posited. “Maybe he thought she could negotiate a solution and they could call off the securities investigation.”

Understanding where Spencer was going with his question, Hotch watched the board as if it was all coming together, “But, Y/N had no idea there was an open investigation. This was just another assignment to her.”

You had basically said as much in your voicemails, you went in, and you cleaned up fires across the country, and now you were caught in a blaze. “It was a setup,” Spencer concluded.

“And I know just who you need to talk to,” Garcia said over the phone, typing on her keyboard, “Check your phones.”

Ezra’s assistant folded immediately under the threat of being charged with interfering with a federal investigation. She had no knowledge of what her boss was up to, but she did know where the BAU could find him.

On the edge of the city, your company held an old office building that was slated for demolition. With the information from the assistant and some actions of questionable legality from Garcia, the team was able to nail down Ezra’s location and, hopefully, yours.

Letting SWAT lead the way, Spencer, Emily, and Morgan all made their way up yet another flight of stairs, hoping to be able to find you on the third floor. The SWAT commander signaled with his fingers to direct everyone in their respective directions.

There was a clang from across the floor and everyone froze in place, “Fuck you!” Your voice rang out, reverberating through the mostly empty office space. The yelp that followed would have sent Spencer clambering in your direction if it weren’t for Morgan grabbing his arm in warning. “I didn’t know,” you spoke again, your tone less obstinate as the misery you felt crept in.

Drawing their weapons, the team clung to the wall as SWAT gave orders over comms until the team came into view, lifting their firearms.

In retaliation, Ezra pulled you up, keeping a deadly tight grip on your upper arm as he kept you compliant by pressing the barrel of his gun to your temple. “She told me you’d come,” he said, nearly seething with rage like a rabid animal.

It seemed like a ridiculous moment to feel relief, but the fact that you knew the BAU would come for you ever so slightly lightened the weight on Spencer’s shoulders. However, whatever relief he felt was quickly banished from existence when his eyes met yours, you were covered in blood. It leaked in a steady stream from your nose and down your sleep shirt, he hoped that was the extent of the damage that had been done but based on the evidence of a struggle in the hotel room, he doubted it.

“Y/N, don’t look at him, look at us, look at Spencer,” Emily reasoned, noting the way you looked over at your captor, eyeing the gun in his hand.

You didn’t look scared, not to Spencer, though Emily had reasonably assumed that you would be in this situation. “Y/N, don’t,” Spencer said in a warning.

But his warning came too late, you had already swung your bound hands up, grabbing the weapon from Ezra as you kicked his legs out from under him. If Spencer hadn’t been so worried, he would’ve been impressed, but now he found himself in an entirely different situation.

“The safety’s still on,” you chastised as your now shaking hands undid the small latch, settling your pointer finger on the trigger as you stared him down.

SWAT seemed entirely dumbfounded, not sure how to go about the admittedly unique situation, so, it fell upon your husband to talk you down. Slowly, he holstered his weapon and stepped toward you, “Baby, put the gun down.”

You sucked in a harsh breath, “He set me up, Spence”

“I know, darling, I know,” Spencer said breathlessly, holding his hands out to stop any and all movement in the warehouse. “This isn’t the answer though, okay? You know this isn’t the answer.”

Your hands didn’t stop shaking, still bound together by the flex cuffs on your wrists as you narrowed your eyes at Ezra. “He set me up,” your voice broke at the sheer memory of the betrayal.

Distantly, you heard Derek tell people to lower their weapons, convincing the field agents that you weren’t a threat. “This isn’t you,” Spencer insisted.

Blinking as tears fell from your eyes, you gripped the handle of the gun, leaving your pointer finger hovering precariously on the trigger. This isn’t you. This isn’t the answer. This isn’t you. This isn’t the answer.

Swallowing thickly, you looked down at Ezra, who was taunting you, trying to get you to pull the trigger. You fought against yourself, trying not to stare at Spencer because you knew as soon as you met his brown eyes, the choice would be made for you.

“Pull the damn trigger,” Ezra jeered, baring his teeth at you. This was it; this was the end. The FBI had the whole building surrounded. Even if he tried to run, the BAU would follow him, they’d chase him down, and they’d kill him themselves if it came down to it.

Slowly, you moved your thumb, re-engaging the safety before you lowered your arms, handing the gun off to Spencer. As he grabbed the barrel of the gun with one hand, he pulled you in with the other, passing the gun off to Emily so he could hug you tightly.

He pulled away for a moment, retrieving a pocketknife and using it to cut the flex cuffs from your wrists, letting the stiff plastic fall to the ground, and catching you when you practically threw your arms around him.

Your legs gave out from under you, and Spencer wondered how long you had been in this sweltering building without water, likely having used the last of your strength to stop Ezra. “Shh,” he hushed gently, “Let’s sit down,” he spoke to only you as he guided you to the ground.

Closer to you now, he saw more of the damage that had been done, the glazed look over your eyes, your chapped lips, and a bruise on the side of your head. “I knew you’d come,” you murmured dazedly, swaying ever so slightly, “I told him you’d come.”

“I know, I know,” Spencer reassured you, listening to the buzzing of people, hopefully EMTs, around you.

A hiccupping sob almost broke his heart, but he just kept his hold on you, keeping you upright and wishing your nosebleed would clot. “I almost killed him,” you mumbled.

But you didn’t, he wanted to respond. Part of him felt like it would’ve been fine if you had. You’d have gotten away with it, even, but he knew firsthand what it felt like to take another life. He wanted to believe that he had played a part in you turning the safety back on, but even he wasn’t sure.

“How are you feeling? Better?” Spencer asked, sitting on the edge of your hospital bed and taking your hand in his.

He squeezed your hand gently, allowing you to admire the way your wedding ring looked now that it had been returned to its rightful home. “Much,” you assured him, keeping your head resting on the mountain of pillows behind you. You had been cleaned up, stitches on your forehead, and a bandaged cut on your thigh, but the main concern was your dehydration. An IV delivered fluids to you while you sipped on a cup of water, waiting for your stomach to settle enough for you to eat something.

Spencer raised his eyebrows, reaching out and sweeping a strand of hair behind your ear, “Good enough to try something for dinner?”

You nodded apprehensively, “Something light?”

The smile that sprouted on his face was enough to convince you to eat. He offered to go talk to your nurse, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead before he left the room, leaving the door open so you could see him in the hallway.

A small chime got your attention, looking around for the source of the noise, you found yourself digging through Spencer’s bag, retrieving your cell phone from the leather satchel.

There was a scratch over the screen, but it still worked just fine following your skirmish in the hotel, you opened the phone to find that you had a voicemail. You tapped the message before bringing the phone to your ear.

Tuesday, 10:23 p.m.

“Hey love, I’m just leaving the office now. I’m sure they’ll be more receptive to you as you talk more, you can be very convincing. The weather is very dry in Texas, make sure you keep hydrated, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t answer any of your calls, we’ve been trying to prepare all of this paperwork for Strauss and time just got away from us. I miss you, maybe when you get home, we could talk about taking a trip. We could go see my mom. It’s been a while. Hm… I have to admit, I’m a little bummed you didn’t answer the phone, but I’m glad you’re getting sleep. I love you so much, sleep well.”

[hmmm-shesucks]

Nicky thinks the twins don’t love him, but then they both get ejected from a game for beating the shit out of a guy who illegally hits Nicky hard enough Nicky breaks his wrist.

Nicky thinks the twins don’t love him, but when Eric visits during Christmas, they lock him outside until Nicky stops crying because they fought.

Nicky thinks the twins don’t love him, but when it comes time for Nicky’s wedding, they look at him like he’s stupid because, of course, they are the ones who will walk him down the aisle. Once they are at the end, Aaron shoves Andrew out of the way so he can stand in the best man's spot. Andrew is just about to slam Aaron into the ground before Wymack loudly clears his throat from his spot in the front row (where the parents would usually sit), and they both straighten up. Andrew still kicks Aaron in the shin, and Nicky turns purple, trying not to laugh.

Nicky worries the twins might forget about him, but every week, they hold a group video chat to catch up, and once, when Nicky’s just had an awful day and can’t seem to keep it together, they don’t immediately hang up because he’s started crying.

Nicky worries the twins don’t care about him, but when he and Eric get in a minor car accident that lands Nicky in the hospital for a few days, they fly to him and camp out in his room until he’s cleared to go home.

Nicky worries the twins don’t love him, but Andrew sends him pictures of Neil and the cats, and Aaron sends him photos of the twins and Katelyn.

Nicky doesn’t think the twins love him, but he gets to stand next to Andrew at Aaron’s back when he gets married, and he is put in charge of organizing the not party for Andrew and Neil’s not wedding.

Nicky knows that the twins love him when they stop acting like they hate him and start treating him like they love him.

[chxrryhxrt]

Draw stars around my scars, part 1 - Remus Lupin x Female Reader

Read part 2 here!

Synopsis: Many weeks had passed since the most recent full moon, yet James and Sirius still will not let you see Remus. What could they be hiding?

Warnings: angst, swearing, mentions of blood and injuries

It’s Sunday, four days since the full moon. Sirius and James were still adamant that you could not visit Remus, claiming various things such as, “They gave him the wrong medicine and now his head’s twice its usual size” or that “If you step even one foot into the hospital wing, you’ll catch the most recent strand of wizards’ flu – and that stuff is deadly!”

At first, you were sure that they had Remus’ best interests at heart when they were spouting this nonsense at you, but in all honesty, you were beginning to doubt it. You had always visited him after previous full moons – hell, you had even helped carry him to the hospital wing after some particularly bad nights, so why could you not see him now?

This line of thought is how you found yourself padding along the hallways under the thick cover of night, moonlight pouring through the vast windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, where chandeliers hung down. Paintings lined the walls too, and you could hear murmurs of their complaints behind you as you carried on walking, your wand serving to illuminate your path.

You rounded the final corner to the hospital wing, tentatively approaching the entrance as a shiver ran its way up your spine – you were beginning to wish you had worn a little more than just your pyjamas and cloak, a pair of shoes probably would have made the journey less chilling, but you left in such a rush to see Remus that you had not even considered that.

Lifting your wand up, you held it steadily in front of the lock and whispered, “Alohomora.”

After hearing the tell-tale clink of the door unlocking, you stepped forwards, wrapping your hand around the doorknob, but your thoughts stopped you for a moment. Normally, breaking into the infirmary would be something you frowned down upon and if Madame Pomfrey caught you, or if anyone caught you for that matter, there would undoubtedly be consequences, even if you were just trying to check that Remus was okay. You weighed out the pros and cons, fingers still gripping the handle, before making your decision. You missed Remus and seeing him was worth any punishment you could be given. And so, you twisted your wrist, wincing as the doorknob whined.

Following a slight struggle, you resorted to shoving the door open with the brute force of your shoulder, which you found made the entire ordeal a lot easier, but also a whole lot louder. You finally stumbled into the infirmary, the scraping sound ceasing as the door slowly clicked back shut behind you.

Your eyes flitted around, taking in the numerous empty beds and lit sconces that brightened the room, the shadows of the flames flickering and dancing across the walls. As you wove between the rows of beds you noticed that none of the students were first years, let alone suffering from the black plague, like Sirius had told you – though it was not as if you would believe him, he was an absolutely terrible liar.

Once you had finally reached the far end of the hospital wing, you located Remus’ bed, which was not a massive feat. The curtains were drawn around it, obscuring your view so that all you could see was his silhouette, curled into itself as he laid there.

You assumed that he was sleeping and turned to leave him alone to rest, but before you snuck back out again, you heard his sheets rustling and a particularly pained groan slipped out from his throat.

Concerned, you shuffled back towards the curtains, reaching forward and carefully pulling them back, trying to create as little noise as possible.

As you revealed him, even under the dim lighting, you took notice of the many bandages wrapped around his head; more than were usually there and you frowned, it must have been another bad full moon, the first one in a while.

“Remus?” you questioned, eyebrows knitting together in slight worry when he did not respond. “Remus, are you alright?”

“No.”

You wanted to kick yourself for that one – he had just been locked away in the Shrieking Shack to deal with a full moon alone, what sort of answer were you expecting?

“Well,” you replied cautiously, picking up the copy of The Daily Prophet that laid atop his bedside table and unfolding the pages to reveal today’s headline, “How would you feel if I read you the paper? It says there’s more information on the national goblin strikes – I remember you mentioned being interested in that, Rem.”

“Already read that one,” he grumbled, rolling over so that his back was facing you.

“Okay, how about,” you offered, wandering around to the foot of his bed, taking a seat on it, springs squeaking as you got comfortable, “once you get better and the strikes stop, we can go down to Gringotts, get some money out, and then we can buy some new books together.”

In response to this, Remus said nothing, but instead buried his head further into his pillow, hardly even acknowledging you.

“Remus please, just speak to me alright? I’m here for you,” you pleaded him, your eyes lighting up slightly as he began to sit up, looking at you for the first time since you had arrived. This close, you could really see how torn up he was, with fresh scratches across his face, crossing over the faded scars of older wounds, almost looking like reflections of each other. He still had some blood on his skin around his cuts, though it was dried now, and you assumed that the nurses had not been able to clean it off without worsening his pain.

He seemed to notice your eyes roving across his face and body because he began to pull down the sleeves of his sweater, covering his forearms as an almost ashamed look took over his features.

“Please just leave me alone,” he pleaded, his eyes shut, and brows knitted together – a melancholic sight, and you wished you knew how to help him.

“Rem…” you whispered, leaning in to him, your arm lifting up to cradle his face, “you don’t have to talk to me yet, okay?” Your palm was on his cheek now, you could feel the ridges of his scars under your fingers, the heat of his skin warming yours up, the left-over blood sticking you to him – like some sort of blood bond, you thought, a small smile raising the corners of your lips.

You stayed like this for a moment, a peaceful moment, before you brought your other hand up to rest against the column of his throat, atop the layer of bandages wrapped around his neck and you could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your fingertips.

“I love you, Remus,” you mumbled, as if it were a promise, something to be shared between you two and no one else, a secret.

You found yourself tipping your head forward, foreheads kissing as your palms held his face, his skin feeling damp… with tears? You pulled back and his soft brown eyes stared into yours, unblinking, something changing behind them as he grabbed your wrists and yanked them away from his cheeks, holding them tightly in front of him.

“I told you-” he spat, roughly shoving your hands away- “just piss off.”

Read part 2 here!

[bogleech]

what even is a leech ? /genq

A lot of people don't really know, other than that they're a wormlike thing that sucks blood, because they're not all that talked about and not everyone encounters them! I have a site article that's an overview of them, but here's a video of the giant ones I keep as pets:

Leeches are actually annelids in the same class as earthworms! But earthworms also happen to be the most common prey of predatory leeches, some of which eat absolutely nothing else, so they really are like if earthworms had their own "vampires." GENERAL FACTS:

Most leeches have a sucker at each end of their body

Leeches need moisture but many are amphibious and some live entirely on land! Many rainforests are full of tree-dwelling leeches.

Leeches can be sanguivores (blood feeders), predators of other invertebrates, scavengers of decaying material or all three.

Leeches that feed on blood either do so through a long, thin retractable proboscis, or by making an incision with three tiny jaws at the center of the front sucker.

There are also lots of ocean leeches! Almost all of those are bloodsuckers, a lot of them specializing only in fish blood.

A leech's bite is generally completely painless and mostly harmless, except that their natural anticoagulants will make the blood flow freely from even the tiny pinhole of a bite. It LOOKS very scary and alarming and it can last for many hours; being bit by a ton of them at once would probably be life threatening, but I don't know if it's ever happened.

A bloodsucking leech feeds for about 40 minutes to an hour, then drops off and leaves. The damage is already done by the time it's made the initial bite, so it doesn't actually help anything to remove the leech once it's attached; pulling it off can damage you more so just wait!

They're still used by hospitals, because nothing man-made is anywhere near as simple, painless and effective at draining post-surgical blood clots.

Leeches commonly have tiny little dot eyes, and can have lots of them, sometimes in rows down the side of the head end. Some also apparently have rows of eyes all the way down their bodies and even some on the rear sucker!!

This is the best image on the internet of a leech's eyes, and what their face looks like with the sucker retracted:

[mv1simp]

I love it you last smut with max!!! I would love some more about sucking him off and he film you while he praises you.

Thank you so much💖💖💖💖💖💖

I gotchu anon here u go 🫶🫶

Popular ♥️

Max Verstappen x Enemy Reporter!Reader

money on top of me, money on top of her, yeah, shawty fuck with me ‘cause she know I’m popular

As Sky Sport’s latest F1 reporter, you’re determined to do whatever it takes to stand out amongst the crowd. You’re notorious for your ability to make Mad Max break out of his media trained facade, all your interviews with him going viral. But after his 10th PR debriefing over you, Max has had enough. Next time, it was your turn to be in front of the camera.

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, smut, filming, enemies to lovers , blowjobs, size kink, dom! Max and brat!reader 😼, 4k WC

And there you have it folks, another disappointing 2nd place for Redbull’s golden boy for the 3rd race in a row here in Spa, you say into the microphone with a smirk. Let’s go directly to him now, shall we?

Walking over to the post race media room, you make your way to the primary interviewer position, right on the front row, ignoring the jealous stares from other reporters scattered in the rows behind you. You’re chatting to your cameraman, instructing him to make sure he gets your good side, please, I don’t want to be on Channel 3 looking like a rat compared to these model drivers again when the podium winners walk in. Max Verstappen’s ice blue eyes immediately narrow as they lock onto yours, and he has to resist the scowl that threatens to appear on his face. He fucking hated your boss for always sending you - his most aggravating reporter - to make any bad race Max has even worse.

To the left of him, Charles and Lewis shared an amused glance as they watch their fellow pilot shoot daggers at you, who in turn greeted him with a predatory smile that would put a great white shark to shame. You decide to toy with your food a bit, turning your gaze to the other drivers, welcoming them sweetly and asking how they found the race. The many cameras on Max’s face didn’t fail to pick up how the so called flying Dutchman continued to stare at you brazenly as he contemplated your tumultuous history.

It wasn’t that you were a bad reporter. If anything, Max thought you had a knack for matching your questions to the athlete that you interviewed, and spoke in a charismatic and engaging way that had most of the grid happily stop on a race weekend to chat with you. You always made an effort to get genuine stories from the drivers, compared to many other news outlets, and it had been noticed amongst the grid, who preferred you as one of the reporters they engaged with - making you quickly skyrocket in popularity with viewers and establish yourself as a front row media figure. And it certainly helped that you were easy on the eyes, quickly become a familiar sight in well picked classy but flattering outfits to suit the Grand Prix locations.

Max could still remember the first time he saw you - dressed in a long sleeved, full length crimson dress that flattered your shorter figure, with long, dark curls framing your face and full lips as you laughed at something your colleague had said. He’d noticed you immediately in the media room, a pretty figure amongst the usual crowd, even going so far as to ask his PR manager who you were. But for all your charming media skills or cute outfits, you had made an enemy very quickly out of Max Verstappen the moment you opened your glossed lips and asked him how he felt after crashing into Hamilton’s car, yet going onto celebrate 1st on the podium while Lewis had to be taken to hospital.

It was almost a complete personality switch. While the other drivers got your thoughtful questions, Max was repeatedly hit with the most provoking shit from you. It was like you knew exactly what to say to turn him into that seething, infamous Mad Max, brows furrowed and a scowl on his face as he scoffed out replies to your invading questions. To your credit, you were able to elicit a lot more information and honesty from Max than other reports could, despite his angry tone. And while others backed down immediately when the reigning world champion started to get agitated, you would just lock in with a deceivingly innocent smile and escalate your questions.

Social media absolutely loved it, making endless videos of you interviewing Max go viral, countless memes emerging every post race debrief when you would ask some ridiculous question and Max would respond with something equally ridiculous, often resulting in back and forth bickering. It had gotten to the point where Max had had over ten - ten! - interventions with his own PR team who had begged him to please just ignore your provoking statements, just rise above, don’t engage -

Fuck that. Max Verstappen wasn’t a coward that backed down from a fight - but at the same time, he didn’t want to give in and give you what you wanted. He knew your type - just a clout chaser, going after him specifically as he was the fastest driver on the grid and would get you the most views. He was no stranger to being hated on and antagonised after toppling the Mercedes winning streak. His attention draws back to the present as he sees you finally turn to him, tilting your head coyly as you open those deceivingly sweet lips of yours again. That was some incredible driving out there today, Verstappen you say innocently, making Max narrow his eyes again as he didn’t buy it for a second. Incredibly dirty, some may say - judging by the 5 point penalty the stewards gave you. Why do you think you struggle to race wheel to wheel fairly?

Max felt his jaw clench at your provoking accusation. Behind him, his PR manager sighed and already started trying out a draft Instagram thirst trap that would hopefully do some damage control as Max heatedly dismissed your statements, insulting the steward’s decision in the process. This was going to be a long, long afternoon.

Max sighed, rolling out the tension in his neck as he sank down in the VIP area of the Monaco club, sculling his G&T. Beside him, Lando laughed at the sorry sight the current F1 champion had been reduced to after last weekend’s post race debrief had, as usual, gone viral due to a certain crafty reporter who had played the hotheaded Redbull driver like a fiddle. Mate, you let her wind you up too much, Lando said, smirking. It’s just classic journalist clickbait, you’ve dodged shit like that hundreds of times. Why do you keep letting her get inside your head?

Max didn’t respond, choosing to slam down his first glass and pick up a second G&T. Lando leaned in conspiratorially. Don’t tell me you secretly have the hots for her, mate. Is that why you two are always going at it? Too much sexual tension? She’s pretty fit and all, but you could easily get any hotter chick -

This time Max turns to glare at Lando, his furrowed brows clearly telling him to fuck off. Lando throws his hands up in mock defense, Just jokes, just jokes. But hey, speak of the devil and she shall appear. He says, looking behind Max and letting out a low whistle. And damn, the devil didn’t come to play tonight, that dress should be illegal. I get it the appeal now Max-

Rolling his eyes, the older blonde driver finishes his drink and stands up, telling Lando to come find it when he’s done being a prick. Striding off to the opposite end of the club, he doesn’t bother looking in your direction even once. He’d had enough of your annoying presence on the track to be able to deal with it off it.

Across the neon dance floor, you laugh cheerfully with your friends, cheersing to shots together. Tossing your shot glass back, you reach for another, hoping your friends don’t notice the disappointed flicker on your face when you had heard Lando’s laugh from the VIP section, only to look up and see Max’s wide shoulders disappear off into the crowd, no doubt leaving the club as soon as he saw you.

Honestly, you couldn’t blame him, you thought glumly. You weren’t entirely sure just how the dynamics between you too had ended up so rife with tension. You had been so excited to interview the Dutch champion for the first time, spending ages picking out your most flattering outfit and matching gold accessories, and had even picked the perfect question to let him showcase his empathy. You had a soft spot for the driver racing with the MV33 tag growing up as you related to having strict parents yourself. Seeing Max shine at such a young age against much older, experienced competition had been so cool you’d instantly become a fan. So you had asked him about his infamous crash into the reigning champion, Lewis Hamilton, hoping to give him an chance to share his side of the story about how he was forced to continue the race due to team orders - but instead found yourself at the end of a scathing reply from the older athlete.

It’s always the people who have never been behind the wheel of a race car who have the most to say, Max had replied that day, on live TV with a condescending look, I don’t tell you how to be an influencer and you shouldn’t tell me how to be a driver, okay sweetheart?

You had flushed, too embarrassed to even stutter out a reply, and as another reporter mercifully took over you excused yourself from the room. The memory of your first F1 interview still radiated crystal clear in your mind and brought you back to the present as your friends waved their hands in your face to get your attention. Oh yeah, that’s right - that’s why you hated the cocky Dutch driver, you thought darkly, tossing back another shot. And why you’d never do him the service of being a courteous reporter to him ever again.

Vowing to put all thoughts of your biggest annoyance to the back of your mind, you let yourself be dragged onto the dance floor. For the next 3 hours you drink and dance, celebrating the start of the summer break. You slipped away from the group at one point to go to the bathroom. You’re walking back down the dim hallway to the club when a hand reaches out to tap your shoulder, and you turn around to find a guy you’d seen eyeing you up earlier grinning a bit too sleazily at you, introducing himself as Rossi and asking if he can buy you a drink. Politely rejecting him, you turn back around but he grabs your arm this time, spouting some bullshit about playing hard to get, huh, dressed like that?

You scowl, immediately turned off, and forcefully twist his arm around and push him away, telling him very firmly to piss off. He look startled at your reply, and you roll your eyes at his performance before moving away but apparently this asshole just couldn’t take a hint, cause this time he grabs both your shoulders and pushing you into the wall. You’re starting to get a little panicked now, knowing you two are in a quieter hallway and the shots you had taken earlier have caught up and made you weaker -

Then he’s all but thrown off of you, crashing into the opposite wall in a display of pure strength. I’m pretty sure she told you to fuck off, cunt. Keep your hands off of her.

You’d recognize that deep Dutch accent anywhere. Your jaw drops as you look up to see Max Verstappen’s back, dressed in a fitted white tee, now standing in between you and Rossi. Peeking over his broad shoulders on your tip toes, using your small hands to grasp Max’s bicep and steady yourself on your heels, you see Rossi angrily stalk towards Max, opening his mouth - then close it as he realises he’s much shorter and this was a dumb idea. Max smirks as he watches the other man sulkily storm away. He turns around, an almost gentle look on his face as he asks you okay, schat? Are you hurt?

You stare up at him, a little dazed by how handsome Max looks in this lighting and how hot it had been seeing Max protect you. The driver’s gaze turns to your hand, where your pink manicured nails are still holding onto his large bicep. Flushing, you move your hand and stutter out an affirmation that you’re fine, don’t worry, thanks so much -

Max hmms in response, pulling back from your space and immediately making you miss his warmth. You shouldn’t wander away from your friends all alone, he says, It’s not safe. Especially for someone your size.

His steely blue eyes are raking up and down your petite form, sending butterflies swirling but you’re also annoyed at his condescending tone. I had it handled, you say defensively, crossing your arms and looking away, missing how Max’s gaze flickers to your tits which are now pushed up.

Yeah, I’m sure you had it handled, he snorts. What were you going to do, throw one of your heels at him? Seriously, you need to be able to protect yourself better if you’re going to go out looking like this.

He pointedly glances at the glittery mini dress you had on, with a sweetheart halter neckline, ending mid thigh with matching lace up strappy heels. A perfect club outfit, the gold matching your tanned skin, and brought to you by Versace.

What the fuck, Verstappen you hiss, seething as he immediately ruins the two seconds of tranquility you two had shared. Why do you always have to be so goddamn misogynistic? Blaming the woman’s choice of outfit? Seriously? You’re no better than that creep Rossi!

Your voice starts to rise as you glare up at him defiantly. Suddenly, loud voices make you both look down the corridor as some clubgoers start approaching. Not done with your argument but not wanting another PR fiasco all over Page 6 tomorrow, Max grabs your waist and pulls you into one of the staircases leading upstairs.

You end up on a private, dark balcony overlooking the quiet Monaco marina. The club’s bass vibrates through the walls against where a small sofa rests with an ashtray nearby, designating it as an intimate smoking area.

Max slams the door behind you two, locking it for good measure as you whirl back around, still keyed up. You’re comparing me to that piece of shit? Seriously? Max scoffs, rolling his eyes and resuming your argument. Let me guess, tomorrow morning you’ll conveniently have a new headline about how I hate women and I’m a misognistic pig, blah blah blah.

You glare at his dismissal, stepping closer to back him up into the door behind him. Well, aren’t you Verstappen? What do you expect me to wear, sweatpants? It’s a fucking club, everyone dresses like this! The first time I ever interviewed you, you literally thought I was some random makeup obsessed influencer when I’m an Oxford educated journalist!

I know that now! Max snaps. You just asked me about the one thing I didn’t want to talk about and I got mad. I didn’t realize you were going to bite my head off every interview after that and just use me to to blow up online!

You pause, then begrudgingly mutter that you supposed you’d dragged out the grudge a touch longer than necessary. It was the Leo in you, after all. But Max wasn’t done - Fuck, all I meant was you look good tonight and a lot of guys have been checking you out, so just watch out, okay?

Your eyes widen at the unexpected compliment, as althought you had always found him attractive, you’d never thought Max found you to be. Oh, you say, unable to hold back the blush in your face. Thank you. I owe you one, I guess.

You realize in the heat of the moment you had pushed right up against him, your soft chest up against his toned abs - giving him the perfect view as you calmed down from your heaving breaths. Max’s eyes darkened as you glanced from your chest up to his eyes, realising the compromising position as well and biting your lip.

Well, you could start by apologising to me, he says with a smirk as he pushes off the door, making you stumble back towards the sofa. That’s bullshit, Verstappen. I already said thank you. If you’re just gonna be a dick again I’m leaving, you respond automatically, but you let him continue to gently guide you back.

We both know you could have left anytime you wanted, schatje, Max breathes, bending down to your level as you come to a stop in front of the sofa, his lips grazing your ear and making your pussy throb from how goddamn sexy he sounded. Fuck, you were down bad. He grins cockily, not missing how you gasped sweetly and squeezed your plush thighs together at his words. Your gazes meet heatedly, and he finally ends the agonising tension by tilting your head up and joining your lips in a deep kiss.

You moan into it, his tongue swiping across yours skilfully and sending sparks shooting down to your pussy which was getting wetter by the second. Max pulls back, rubbing the pad of his thumb against your glossed lips. Why don’t you be a good girl for once and apologise to me nicely, yeah?

You refuse to budge. I’m not saying shit, Verstappen you say brattily. Just try and make me. Max smirks as you seal your fate. Let’s put that filthy mouth of yours to good use for once, he commands, and next thing his strong hand is pushing you down to your knees, making you come face to face with a very sizeable bulge. You gasp, looking up at him as he unbuckles himself, the clink of his belt buckle audible even over the thumping bass. His thick, veiny cock bounces out and lands across your pouting face with a smack. He grins as your eyes go wide at his size, jaw dropped as you begin to salivate at the sight. You’d definitely has one (or two) wet dreams like this - not that you would ever admit it to him.

God, you’re such a fucking slut, practically drooling for it already, huh? He teases condescendingly. You moan when he smacks your chubby cheeks with his warm length. I’m not, you whine, Stop being such a bully-mmmfhh!

He shuts up your pathetic whinging by nestling his tip against your pretty pink lips. Go on then, he mocks. You owe me one, right? Help me relax after all the stress you caused me last weekend.

You huff, still glaring at him through your dark lashes but obediently swipe a kitten lick across his leaking cockhead. Mmm, he tasted so good, you could easily see yourself become addicted. You move down his shaft, leaving teasing, gentle kisses and lipgloss marks along his length. He clenches his jaw at your deliberate teasing, telling you to quit it, but you just smirk and suckle on the very end, moving your tongue in circles to overstimulate his sensitive tip. Max moans, his hips bucking forward involuntarily but he quickly regains control and tangles a strong hand through your curls, dragging you forward to nestle in between his wide legs as he settles back comfortably on the sofa. I need to teach you some goddamn manners, huh?

You squeal from the rough treatment, your hands automatically grabbing to those thick thighs of his, opening your mouth in protest but you don’t get a chance to as he slams your plush lips down onto his length, burying himself in one go. Oh, fuck yeah, he moans, even better than I imagined, liefje. You whine and splutter, struggling to breathe at the unexpected intrusion and tap at his legs but he hold you down, blissfully enjoying your tight throat enveloping his cock. You can take it, right baby? Gonna be a good girl for me and keep my dick warm?

His condescending words should be making you angrier but instead you find yourself moaning against him, finding his dominating nature sooo hot. Tightening his hold, he now controls the pace as he jackhammers away happily, without a single care for your muffled squeals. You feel yourself melting at each thrust, looking up at him with starry glazed eyes. He smirks at the sexy sight, using his other hand to fish out his phone and hit record, blinding you temporarily with the flash.

Fucked the brat right out of ya, huh? He teases arrogantly, the camera picking up all the dirty, wet noises you’re making as you deepthroat him. Go on, time to go viral, tell everyone how much you wanted this. You look so much better in front of the camera and not behind it.

He yanks you off his length for a minute, letting you gasp and greedily suck in air as you give in completely to his demands. I do! I do want it, so bad Maxie, you whine. He tuts, slapping your lips with his thick length again and leaving streaks of pre cum all over your face. You can do better than that, sweetheart, you normally have such a way with words.

You whine at his ministrations, instinctively chasing after his tip when he withdraws it, making him chuckle at how cockdrunk he had made you. P-please Maxie, I’m sorry, so sorry for being a bitch, please let me suck you off and make it up to you, please-

Oh, he could get used to the sound of you begging and sweetly moaning his first name very, very easily. Ending your torment, he glides back through your eager lips at an angle, poking through your cheek. He zooms in to capture the filthy sight - tears that drip down your face, messily smudging your mascara and mixing with the trails of precum on your cheeks. Imagine if your boss saw this, huh? Shall I send him a dirty film? He’d lose his goddamn mind seeing his favourite reporter on her knees begging for a dirty driver’s cock.

You bob your head frantically, moaning as your eyes roll back from the intensity of it all. Your lacy panties are glued to your pussy with how wet you are. You’re taking me so well, schat, he pants, cursing, Fuck, it’s like you were made for me. If I’d known you were s’good at suckin me off I’d have you doin’ this after every race. Throwing his head back, he pushes you all the way down, your nose buried into his sweaty abs as he finishes, releasing thick ropes of cum down your eagerly awaiting throat. He holds you there as he roughly orders you to take it all for him, that’s right, just like that. He slides out of you with a wet sound. Open that gorgeous mouth for me, baby.

You obediently drop your lips wide open, tongue poking out so the camera can capture that you’ve swallowed every drop, just like he asked. Satisfied, Max tosses his phone to the side and easily lifts you up with his strong arms to straddle his lap. You immediately grind your desperate pussy against him, hands tangling in his hair as you sloppily make out. His large fingers grip your glittery minidress as he pulls back to grin down at you. Wear this outfit again, he says huskily. In fact, wear whatever you want, anytime. I can fight.

You laugh at his sweetness, heart fluttering at the thought of always having Max by your side to protect you. You know I’m never going to stop annoying you on the paddock, right? You threaten, although you’re smiling. It makes for great content. My boss would never forgive me.

Wouldn’t have it any other way, darling. We have a reputation to maintain, Max replies easily, grinning back at you as he pulls you back in. After all, you two had a lot of apologies to make up for and had found the perfect way to say sorry 💖

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A/N: so I can never just write a short lil quick fic it always has to be an essay apparently?!? Anyways GLAD YOU GUYS ENJOYED THIS THEME EHEHEHE I LOVED WRITING THIS SEND IN MKRE REQUESTS!! 🫶🫶🫶