#have an ordinary job with a routine and get paid enough to get by and save a little

[princesskenny1998]

Big Mouth | Judd Birch x female!preppy!reader ~ Babysitter, PT.1

It was a breezy Saturday afternoon, and you were babysitting Nick Birch and his best friend Andrew Glouberman at the Birch residence. You had done this a few times before, and each time, it had been pretty uneventful. Nick and Andrew were quirky, sure, but babysitting them was easy enough. The Birches paid well, and their house was a nice place to hang out—large, clean, and quiet, except for the occasional outburst from Nick and Andrew about some ridiculous debate they were having.

You were sitting in the living room, absentmindedly flipping through a magazine as the two boys argued over which superhero would win in a fight—Superman or Thor. Their bickering was loud but not unexpected, so you just tuned them out and nodded along whenever one of them tried to pull you into the conversation. After all, it was just another typical babysitting job.

Until it wasn’t.

You heard the front door open with a soft click, and the sound of footsteps echoed through the house. You didn’t think much of it at first—Nick’s parents sometimes came home early, or maybe it was just Nick’s older sister, Leah, back from her day out. But then, out of the corner of your eye, you saw him.

Judd Birch.

You had heard about him before—Nick had mentioned him a few times in passing, describing him as a bit of a loner, someone who kept to himself and had a darker edge. But you’d never seen him in person, never really thought about him at all.

That changed the moment you laid eyes on him.

He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with an air of casual indifference. Tall, dark hair that looked like it had been hastily tousled, a leather jacket thrown on like he hadn’t given it a second thought. He had a smirk that screamed trouble, and his eyes—sharp and dark—seemed to pierce right through you.

Your breath hitched in your throat.

Your Hormone Monstress, who had been lying dormant until now, suddenly stirred to life. "Oh my God," she purred in your ear, her voice low and sultry. "Would you look at him? What a man! Forget babysitting, sweetheart, we’ve got ourselves a real treat right here."

You felt your cheeks flush, heat creeping up your neck as you tried to maintain some semblance of composure. Judd’s gaze flickered over to you for a split second, his expression unreadable, before he turned away and disappeared down the hallway without a word.

But that was all it took. One look, one fleeting glance, and you were completely hooked.

You tried to focus on Nick and Andrew, who were still in the middle of their superhero debate, oblivious to the internal chaos you were experiencing. But it was impossible to concentrate. Your heart was racing, your mind was swirling with thoughts you couldn’t quite control, and your Hormone Monstress wasn’t helping.

"*He’s so brooding," she sighed dreamily. "You’ve gotta get him alone, doll. Just imagine what he’d be like…"

You blinked, shaking your head as if that would help clear the thoughts. "Stop it," you muttered under your breath, feeling a mix of embarrassment and frustration. You couldn’t believe you were getting all worked up over some guy you barely knew—Nick Birch’s brother, no less.

But your Hormone Monstress wasn’t having it. "Oh, honey, this is no ordinary crush. This is destiny. You need to get to know him. Now."

You sighed, knowing that there was no reasoning with her when she got like this. But honestly? You weren’t entirely sure you wanted to reason with her. Because the truth was, Judd Birch was… different. He wasn’t like the boys you normally hung around, the preppy, clean-cut guys who always seemed so safe, so predictable. Judd was a mystery, and you couldn’t help but want to unravel it.

The rest of the afternoon dragged on, with Nick and Andrew eventually settling into their usual routine of playing video games and trading awkward jokes. But your mind was elsewhere. Every few minutes, you found yourself glancing toward the hallway, wondering if Judd would reappear. Wondering if he had noticed you at all, the way you had definitely noticed him.

Finally, when the boys were thoroughly engrossed in their game, you decided to take a walk around the house—under the guise of checking on things, of course. You wandered down the hall, trying to act casual, but your pulse quickened with each step.

You weren’t sure what you were hoping for. Maybe to bump into him again, maybe to exchange a few words—anything to break the strange tension that had been building inside you since he first walked in.

As you passed by the open door to one of the back rooms, you froze. There he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, fixing something on his leather jacket. His back was to you, but you could still feel the pull, that strange magnetic energy that seemed to surround him.

You hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not you should say something. Your Hormone Monstress was already screaming in your ear. "Go in there, babe! Now’s your chance! Ask him for help with something, anything. Just get him to look at you."

You swallowed, your palms suddenly sweaty, and before you could second-guess yourself, you knocked lightly on the doorframe.

Judd turned his head slightly, his eyes catching yours. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked at you with that same unreadable expression. It was like he was sizing you up, trying to figure out what you wanted.

You cleared your throat, trying to sound casual. “Uh… hey. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay back here.”

Judd raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching into a smirk. “Everything’s fine. Why? You babysitting me too?”

Your face heated up, and you cursed yourself for blushing. “No, just, um… making sure.”

There was an awkward pause. You could feel your Hormone Monstress practically vibrating with excitement, urging you to say something—anything—to keep the conversation going. But your mind was blank.

Finally, Judd shrugged, turning back to his jacket. “Well, I’m not a kid, so you don’t need to check on me.”

You winced inwardly. Great, now you probably just looked like a nervous wreck. “Right,” you said quickly. “Sorry. I’ll, uh, let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

As you turned to leave, Judd’s voice stopped you. “Wait.”

Your heart skipped a beat. You turned back around, trying not to let the rush of adrenaline show on your face.

He was looking at you again, his eyes dark and intense. “What’s your name?” he asked, his voice low and smooth.

You blinked, taken aback. You hadn’t expected him to ask that—hell, you hadn’t expected him to care. “Oh, um… it’s [Your Name].”

Judd nodded slowly, as if testing your name on his tongue. “You’re that girl who babysits the little twerp, right?”

You nodded, unsure where this was going. “Yeah, I’ve been babysitting him for a while now.”

Judd smirked, his gaze lingering on you for a moment longer than necessary. “Huh. I’ve seen you around, but I didn’t think you’d be the type to hang out with little kids.”

You felt your pulse quicken again, and your Hormone Monstress was back in full force. "He’s noticing you! He’s noticing you! Say something cool!"

You swallowed, trying to think of a response that didn’t make you sound like a complete idiot. “Well, Nick and Andrew are… entertaining, I guess,” you said with a small laugh, though your voice felt shaky.

Judd’s smirk widened slightly. “Entertaining, huh? That’s one way to put it.”

There was another pause, but this time, it didn’t feel quite as awkward. You felt a strange connection between you, something unspoken and electric. You didn’t know what it was, but it was there, and you couldn’t deny it.

Finally, Judd stood up, his tall frame looming over you as he adjusted his jacket. “Well, I’ll let you get back to babysitting,” he said, his voice casual, though there was a hint of something else in his tone. “Don’t let the little nerds drive you too crazy.”

You nodded, still feeling a little breathless. “I’ll try.”

And with that, Judd walked past you, his shoulder brushing yours for the briefest of moments. You watched him go, your heart pounding in your chest, and you knew—right then and there—that you were in deep trouble.

Because Judd Birch wasn’t just a crush. He was a problem. A problem you didn’t know how to handle, but one you weren’t sure you wanted to solve.

Your Hormone Monstress, of course, was ecstatic. "Oh, sweetheart, this is going to be fun. Buckle up, because we’re just getting started."

And she was right. You knew it, deep down, that this was just the beginning of something far more complicated than you’d ever expected.

But for now, all you could think about was how you couldn’t wait to see him again.

[circeyoru]

Their Twist In Time

[Time-travelled Human!Alastor x Time User!Reader]

You were the only child born into this generation’s time masters. The pressure was always on you to do this well and do that well. Even more so when you had to hide your time-travelling powers. You mostly travel to the past and only for a short while so you don’t disturb the timeline and whatever nonsense your parents drilled into your little child mind

Perhaps you should have paid attention

The lack of siblings to carry the burden with you means all that power solely rest on your shoulders. Lose control and well, you can have dire consequences. This time being you bringing back some rando with you to the present

Big oops

So here Alastor was, strolling in the Bayou when suddenly, he was now in another place! People hold black metal things and something in their ears as they walk along. Oh, and the giant metal that would travel in the streets! Almost as big as a house, if not 3 times bigger! People gave him weird looks and he had to hide in an alleyway to wake himself up

Back to you, you were panicking. You obviously brought back someone, who? Probably a small time fry. But either way, you need to find them. Just your luck that your powers weren’t working, but there was enough residual to locate the person that was out of place or time

Double luck because you couldn’t exactly contact your parents or anyone else to ask about your situation until it was that period of the year (something like a witching hour but even rarer and is cater to time masters). You were on your own for a while, long while

First things first. Locate the target. Technology was on your side at least, there had been posts and pictures of a man out of the ordinary sighted around your area. How could you not notice this man behind or near you? He was holding a hunting gun, or shotgun? For crying out loud! 

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Your voice boomed as you went forward and grabbed him by the wrist, nudging him to follow. He’s stronger than he looks, given his skinny build. “Friend, are you still upset we can’t play that new game?”

“What on Earth are you talking about? Release me or I’ll be forced—”

“I’m trying to get us out of the spotlight, so just follow along, I’ll explain things once we’re somewhere private.” You whispered as your eyes darted to the nosy people with their phones out. The man got the message and came up with some story on the fly, going along as you requested

Safely the two of you made it back to your rather secluded home and you sighed, exhausted. The man more so physically and you mentally. Before you could even move from your spot, the barrel of the man’s gun was pointed in your face, him threatening you for answers

You raised your hands and explained, there was honestly no way around it, you had to tell him that you accidentally brought him to ‘the future’ in his perspective with your powers over time. When he demanded you do the same in reverse, you shamefully and embarrassingly admitted you were still inexperienced and had to wait for your parents to teach the method to you

“Why can’t you do it now?”

“They’re dead and I need to wait for that time of the year to contact them.”

“...My condocenses.”

“Thanks.”

The first few days, after the introductions and the living situation was settled, the two of you avoided each other. Only talking when the man, Alastor, wanted to know where he could find things and the like while you were still busy with your college life

Both of you were glad you didn’t have to see the other majority of the time. Since you were outside with school and part-time job, Alastor had the place to himself. Your place was big, by modern standards, and he had plenty of space to roam around. All but your room and study were off-limits to him

Unspokenly, there was a routine. Alastor would have made food by the time you were back and you’d have restocked the necessities. Then there was Alastor’s constant checking of whether you found a way to bring him home on your own and your answer was always the same ‘No, sorry’

It took one minor incident to connect you two and start opening up: Home invasion

One reason or another, the burglar thought you were an easy and perfect target since you were the only one in and out of the house, plus your place was big

The burglar forced open your door when you were entering and pinned you to the door since the two of you were inside, a hand covering your mouth to avoid attention. Your nearest neighbour was far, still better safe than sorry, right? “Give me all your valuables and money and no one gets hurt.”

Your home was your sacred place, there were traps and spells all around to ensure no one would find out your family’s secret. In fact, why Alastor was allowed to just stay at your place alone when you were out was because of your charms and traps. Any suspicious action made, you’d know and it would be dealt with

Before you could activate one, however, the burglar’s eyes rolled to the back of their head and their hold over you loose. You were grabbed by the wrist and yanked away before the unconscious body of the burglar flattened you. You looked up to your rescuer, shocked to see Alastor with his gun

“You didn’t kill him, right?”

“Only knocked him unconscious, dear.”

The process was slow, but eventually you two were enjoying meals together instead of up in your respective rooms, Alastor even followed you out and stayed around your campus to explore while waiting for you to be done with your activities

You also learned about his fancy with radios and his job as a radio host in his time, again you expressed your blues about his situations, but unlike before, now he seemed happy. What made you blush was his flirtatious words, “My dear! I call it a lucky accident! If it weren’t for your mistake, I’d have never met a gal such as yourself. You’re truly one of a kind, dear.”

In modern times, you’d rarely hear these cheesy ‘dear’ or ‘darling’ name callings, it was mostly for dramas and novels. In a way, it suited him. If he wasn’t calling everyone (girl/lady) he met that, you’d have been head over heels for him

It puzzled the Radio Host to no end, his feelings towards you. He was going to watch and see if you could defend yourself against that burglar, not rescue you like a knight in shining armour. But something ached in his chest and heart when he saw you getting manhandled like that. He needed to put that no-good crook in his place

He didn’t even realize he took a hold of his hunting gun or what he did until he had you in his arms. You were supposed (and is) to be all-powerful. You control time for heaven’s sake. A trainee time master, but still powerful in your own right. You were no damsel and you deserved some misfortune for what you did to him

Yet he still protected you and held you close. Was it because you offered the best hospitality you could offer? Bring him meals with your hard-earned money? Buy him new clothes and daily necessities because he didn’t want to share yours? Catered to his wishes when you could have ignored it all? Maybe those play a part. But what took the cake was your efforts to correct your mistake behind closed doors

He noticed late into the night the noises from your room connected to the study. You were keeping quiet, but his trained hearing could catch you rummaging around to find anything to help your/his situation. The next morning, you’d have food ready for him and give him a smile to leave for school and work

Ah. It was that smile that slowly got the better of him. That’s why. A familiar smile to hide the troubles of the mind

Note: There's part 2~ Hehe ᕦ(ò‿óˇ)ᕤ

Will be updated to Masterlist when part 2 and the random moment is out as well~! Enjoy my other stories until then! Happy reading!

Circe Y.

MASTERLIST

[writingdevil]

Ripples That You Make

Warning-Violence,death,kidnapping!

Part One of Three

You are the owner of a pub,and you fucking hate it.

Not the work,mind you.In fact,after awhile,you come to find the whole routinely behaviour calming-cleaning up spills,collecting plates, and taking orders-that was the sort of monotonous action that kept you from wanting to walk into the nearest fire.

No,it was the people aspect that you couldn't stand.

You lived in a village just bustling with interesting and lively creatures.Even during the early hours of the day,a group of orcs would stroll in,demanding beer at nine a.m after having a friendly brawl between each other.

You don't know what's more annoying-the fact that you have to serve beer at nine a.m,or the fact that these orcs were up and about with smiles on their faces at that time.

All day and night,you would be the host to any and all magical creatures-from werewolves that devoured ten plates of food in twenty minutes,to people who looked normal but you could definitely tell that something sinister had moved in upstairs, but they never caused you any trouble so you just took their order with a fake smile.

Also,it paid really fucking well,which was why you kept doing it,even if you'd rather be somewhere with more space,more silence and the ocean staring at you.

But that's what this job was for,to make enough money so that you could get to that place that made you happy,something you haven't felt in a long time.

You just needed enough money that could let you travel to the farthest part of the world,away from all the assholes and the manipulative rulers,and live the life that you want to live,no matter how many people told you it was 'pointless' and a 'waste of your natural talent'. Fuck them.

So you keep dealing with all these colourful customers,and their specific needs,because it gives you money,and that's always a reason to wake up in the morning.

You are not a people's person,if that wasn't clear enough.

People,no matter the race or title,are just kind of awful.Everyone lies,everyone bites,everyone will fight to get their way,and won't even blink an eye at the hurt they cause the people beneath them.

You've seen it happen one too many times-to yourself,and to innocent people who deserved better,but never got it.

Everyone is awful,including you,but you just don't bother to hide it anymore,because what difference would that make?

Like,for example,two months ago.

It had been an ordinary day of serving people,when suddenly,seconds before you closed for the night, these trembling humans burst in,with hoods over their faces and armed with a mixture of daggers and chains.

There were at least ten of them,and despite the bitterness and rage that runs through your veins, you were quickly outnumbered.

You never liked the feeling of being caught.You never liked not having a clear escape route.

You felt your skin crawl as chains wrapped around your whole body,pinning your hands together in front of you and wrapping an excessive amount of chains around your ankles,as if scared of what could appear at any moment.

They gagged you and threw a sack over your head for good measure,and all you could do was struggle and scream muffled swears into the night,as you were dragged out.

They didn't take you far,thankfully,and when they yanked the sack off you,you could tell that you had been taken into the forest that surrounded the village.

You were in the middle of a circle of humans,with one standing directly over you,fear and horror in his eyes as he held a shaking dagger over his head.

"You tricked us,"was what he said,voice deathly low and serious,even though you recognise none of these people,"we thought you were someone we could trust,amongst all the grotesque animals around us."

At that moment,two things dawned on you.

One,that your kidnappers were shitty humans that hated magical beings.

Two,that they found out that you weren't human, and that you needed to die,apparently.

A little explanation is needed,perhaps.

Usually you keep yourself pretty composed throughout the day-you refuse to be weak in front of anyone-but you always need at least one break a day,to retreat to the back,when your skin is on fire, and you feel your throat itch for salt and blood.You feel your real self pushing at this weak,dry form, begging to be released,until you finally hurl yourself into a tub of water,and all is well again.

You are a siren,and all you long for is the serenity of the waves,and your own happiness.

Nothing gives this little fact away when you're out of water though,looking as human as could be,and you could see how all it would take is for somebody to peek through the door to discover your true form.

So these assholes had decided to gut the fish that had so cruelly tricked them.

But the thing is-the fuckers never got the chance.

You laid there,glaring at the pitiful man and his rusty dagger,half hating yourself for getting captured so easily,and half wondering how many others had been slain in the night,all for being born the way they were.

You vowed to scream as loud as you could when the dagger eventually plunged into your chest,to make your death as ugly and horrifying as could be, all so that the memory will haunt these people for the rest of their lives.

He raised the dagger,staring into your eyes,before he shot up into the sky with a scream.

You froze,watching in shock as the man just-flew up into the sky,flailing and shouting all the while,and then one by one,the rest of the humans shot into the sky.

You sat up,twisting your head in bewilderment as each person flew up,until they were just wriggling dots amongst the night sky.

"Are you okay?"You flinched and backed away at the quiet voice,trying your hardest to bare your teeth through the gag,glaring at the source of the voice,until the stranger stepped into the moonlight.

She walked out of the shadows of the trees, cautiously yet urgently,face full of worry as a surge of pure,dark power overwhelmed you,making your already frazzled mind dizzy.

You knew her.You knew who this was.Sorta.

She was the librarian across the street,a reserved, introverted person that rarely left her library,and you only saw her a handful of times at the pub.She never drank,but always looked weary and anxious as she ordered dinner,sitting all by herself as she ate.

She was one of the few people who didn't annoy you,and you actually often wondered what types of books were hidden in her shelves,and you always craved to discover the knowledge behind those doors.

But you had assumed that she has been human, and that the large bat you would see through her window was just a pet.You've definitely seen weirder things.

But seeing her standing in front of you now,with her black pointy hat that had a star dangling off the end,and a dark staff clutched in both of her hands, it was blatantly obvious that she was a Moon Witch-someone who harnesses the power of the moon for magic,duh.

"I'm so sorry,Sweetheart-my bat-kept screeching and tugging me outside,and then I heard you screaming,and I couldn't not do something!"she rapidly talked while waving her staff at you softly, and then suddenly the chains were slowly being unwrapped from your body.

Even though your head was filled with relief,shock, even lingering fear,the emotion that was at the forefront of your heart was bafflement,because it sounded like she was apologising for getting in the way,and not just that she was rescuing you.

You sat up,and just stared at her,which only made her more nervous,anxiously twisting the staff in her grip.

"I didn't know you were a witch,"was the first thing you ended up saying,not 'thank you for saving my life' which it really should've been,but alas.

She kept her eyes trained on the grassy floor as she said,"I try not to use my magic in public."

"Why?"

She gulped,and you could see that same heaviness in your heart,reflected in her eyes.This world took a stab at her too,it seemed,and for whatever reason, this Moon Witch wanted to keep to the shadows.

You understood that.God only knows how many times you swam to the bottom of the river where you resided,curling yourself underneath a rock and hoping the current would have mercy on you and take you someplace better,someplace that you could feel free.

But neither you or this witch were there yet.

So you sigh,rubbing your wrists that still ached from your binds,and quietly said,"Thank you."

It was all she was getting,because it was all you could give,but it seemed to be enough for her,who smiled in relief at you,and it suddenly seemed like the very shadows around her framed her body,as if in a dark,loving embrace.

"But could you do one more thing for me?"

"Oh-uh,yeah!What is it?"

You stared her right in the eye as you pointed up in the air and said,"Kill those fuckers for me."

Then-then,you saw a glint in her eyes,a glint that you recognised whenever you looked in the mirror.It was a glint of a dark promise,a desire to rain destruction down,just to express yourself in any way you could.It was a glint that promised a quiet chaos,and to sweep every poor fool up in it.

"Of course,"she grinned in delight as she replied, then raised her staff up,a shimmering crescent moon made of rock on top of it,and she slammed her staff twice on the ground,like the deafening beat of a drum.

For a second,all you could hear was the gradual sound of panicked screaming,before a symphony of breaking bones filled your ears,and you cackled.

[boedah]

How to think out of the BOX

Chapter 1: The Cycle of Routine

For many people, daily life revolves around a structured routine - waking up, commuting to work, spending hours in an office from 9 AM to 5 PM, and returning home exhausted. This cycle repeats itself day after day, often leaving individuals feeling drained and uninspired. The question arises: is this truly what they need, or is it merely an expectation imposed by society?

As human beings, we cannot escape responsibility. Bills need to be paid, families need to be supported, and personal needs must be met. Many people continue in their daily routines not because they love them, but because they have no other choice. Financial struggles often push individuals to remain in jobs they dislike, simply to maintain stability and security.

Some of my friends have told me they are so tired of their routine, and they often ask myself why I still cherish everything I have. I said to them, "I won’t sit in the same chair for more years. Because we are tired of seeing the same spot for many years. It feels like something needs to change, but we don’t know where to start.”

We as humans sometimes forget to enjoy our hobbies, take time for ourselves, and even work with passion. But change is necessary, we need to break the rules every now and then. Instead, we get caught in the daily routine, simply working to pay the bills and cover expenses. Husbands, in particular, feel the pressure to maintain stability to support their families.

The cycle of routine is relentless. Wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, and repeat. Days blur into weeks, weeks into months, and before we know it, years have passed. The spark that once fuel our ambitions and dreams fades under the weight of responsibilities.

But is this the only way to live?

While some individuals find fulfilment in structured work routines, others feel trapped. They may dream of pursuing their passions, starting their own businesses, or exploring creative ventures, yet financial constraints and social expectations keep them bound to conventional jobs. The challenge lies in finding a balance between necessity and passion - determining how much risk one is willing to take to break free from the cycle.

Though responsibilities are inevitable, small changes can be made to prevent burnout and dissatisfaction. Seeking alternative career paths, developing new skills, or setting long-term goals can gradually create an escape from an undesired routine. While it may not be easy, challenging the status quo is often necessary for personal growth and fulfilment.

A daily routine is not inherently bad; it provides structure and stability. However, when it leads to unhappiness, stress, or a feeling of being stuck, it may be time to reevaluate one's choices. Understanding that responsibilities are unavoidable, yet exploring ways to align work with passion, can lead to a more meaningful and satisfying life.

What part of your morning routine are you thankful for?

What part of your morning routine are you thankful for? Is it the quiet before the rush, the warmth of your first coffee, or the simple act of getting out of bed? But what if, instead of feeling gratitude, you feel trapped? like you’re just breaking out of the same repetitive cycle every day? If that’s the case, then maybe it’s time to turn the page and keep reading.

We, as humans, sometimes need to pause and reflect. Why are we here? Why do we follow this daily routine, and why does it feel so ordinary when deep down, we crave something extraordinary? Life can feel harder than it should, but maybe that’s because we’re meant to break the rules - to step outside the cycle and redefine what life means for us.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about habit development is that you need accountability to stick to a major goal. It’s not enough to make a personal commitment. Willpower alone fades, but having someone or something to keep you on track makes all the difference. Whether it’s a mentor, a friend, or even a written plan, accountability pushes us beyond the moments when we feel like giving up.

Change begins with a single step, but the hardest part is knowing where to start. Too often, we get stuck in the routine of life, convincing ourselves that tomorrow will be different—but change doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when we take the time to understand ourselves, our needs, and the reasons behind our desire for something more.

So, how do you take the first step toward change?

Start by spending time with yourself. In a world that constantly demands your attention, make space for self-reflection. What do you need? What areas of your life feel stagnant? Why do you feel the urge to change? The answers to these questions won’t always come easily, but the more time you invest in understanding yourself, the clearer your path will become.

Personal growth isn’t just about making big life decisions - it’s also about appreciating the small things that shape who you are. Look at the moments when you feel the most alive. What are you doing? Who are you with? Often, the things that bring us joy, whether it’s a hobby, a passion, or a simple daily ritual, hold the key to our personal growth.

People grow because they allow themselves to explore, to learn, and to adapt. And you can do the same. Your hobbies, interests, and passions are not just ways to pass the time - they are windows into what excites and fulfil you. Whether it’s painting, writing, running, cooking, or something entirely different, every hobby teaches you something about yourself. It reveals your patience, creativity, discipline, or even your ability to embrace challenges.

The first step toward change isn’t about having everything figured out - it’s about being willing to start.

[cigvrettedvet]

sohee had been on this mission for a while now, settling into an almost comfortable routine that put her at ease. while sohee enjoyed the thrill and the danger that came with her job more than the money itself, she could admit that she could get used to the quiet normalcy of life. one that seemed to surround theresa. if it it wasn't for the fact that sohee had researched every aspect of theresa's life, she would've thought she was an ordinary woman and not a dangerous mercenary sohee needed to put down as soon as possible. realistically, sohee should've killed her weeks ago but she was growing a little soft. unfortunately. spending all that time watching her before making her move one night several nights ago at a club, it made sohee feel a little . . . attached. it's even to the point that sohee was going all out, even deciding to pick theresa up so she wouldn't have to be alone. or go on the dirty bus. granted, theresa had called her and sohee had been waiting for her call for a while. she shows up with a grin, eager to play the role of theresa's knight in shining armor. "mm, no problem. it'd be a shame if you ended up in jail before i got to know you better." but sohee was being paid to put her six feet under so . . . "ah, i knew you were fun. we can go back to yours and share it together," sohee offers. she wouldn't be that stupid and bring the older woman to her place. and seeing as she knew where theresa lived, sohee actually felt curious enough to want to go inside.

𝐖𝐇𝐎: So-hee / 「 @cigvrettedvet 」

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: Spring / 2024

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: Bus station

Planted in front of the law office was a bus station that people rarely utilised considering the public transportation was unspeakable in this town, not only because of the crime that ran rampant at night but also the certain smell that persisted on the bus following the yellow route. Theresa had seen it day in and day out, always three stops a day, usually an elderly person in tow, and always from what little safety the front desk and a sheet of glass provided.

Seeing it up close and personal for the first time made her stomach churn, a reaction caused, also in part by her car dying right after she got off her shift, leaving her stranded. It was getting darker now, and she could not call for a taxi, or ask a coworker, so instead, she went with the next best thing. This led to the internal words about whether someone she had met in the bathroom of a club and later took home was the best thing? Perhaps not, but as a car rolled down the street, Téa stood up from the bench and ducked her head out of the bus shelter as she waved for it to come to a stop. "Thank you for not having me rely on the kindness of strangers, I did not feel like ending up on Dateline tonight, though I'm hoping it would be a semi-curious episode. If you don't have plans, do you want to grab a a drink, or something to eat? On me, as a thank you? Or... I have this," Grabbing the bag from her shoulder, the older woman beamed as she pulled out a joint.

[chemicalreal]

My personal take on Mia Winters' background and development

Mia Winters is the second most neglected character in Resident Evil Village (and in the franchise in general) after Donna Beneviento, and to add insult to injury, half of the time it's just her being possessed or someone else completely (yet she manages to be blamed for that too). So here are my considerations on this mysterious character that can't help but honor her name most of the time...

Very little is known about her past, even her complete name is unknown for that matter despite being such a pivotal character in the current arc. Considering that everything is headed towards the company that is actually the root of all her misfortunes, it's probably time to finally get to know about her and finally form a proper opinion.

She likely wasn't a scientist at all, but a more ordinary agent dealing with weaponry and other stuff delivery to other companies. Her official cover is "working for a trade company" and is known to travel so that sounds incompatible with a researcher position. In that case she probably wouldn't need a cover at all.

She seems skilled enough in combat and weaponry management (from what was shown in RE7). That implies that her deliveries aren't often supposed to be peaceful routine, and a high risk of injuries. Weird bruises on her body and prolonged time far from home is likely what led her husband to be suspicious of her real occupation.

She doesn't seem to occupy a high rank in Tentsu/The Connections. As soon as Eveline loses control she becomes an extension of the experiment the company is supervising from afar. Hence a disposable employee (for unknown reasons), but paid very well I suppose.

It is unknown how Mia ended up working for Tentsu, but as we know with corrupted organizations, it's not easy to get out of them. It's also unknown how they bribe people into working for them.

Becoming Eveline's handler is a fairly recent job and likely a promotion from her boss, considering the package's higher status. From Mia's last videomessage before the incident it could be implied that she was promised a long break afterwards or she intended to leave.

Another good question being raised here is how did she get away with suddenly being a babysitter. Could be covered with the claim that she was temporarily looking after a superior's kid while being on the job, very common trope in works of fiction.

Zoe and Mia have been in friendly relations since the Baker incident (trauma pack/deluxe version), despite the latter is technically responsible for what happened to the former's family and she is aware of it. Documents in the Baker house prove they have been in an active collaboration since Mia's arrival.

Mia immediately releases Ethan from his obligations as soon as she realizes she is infected. She isn't expecting any kind of help and silently accepts her destiny.

Silence and secrecy do not make Mia a devious character, rather a flawed human who prefers to keep her burdens to herself under the perception of protecting others. Obviously a partial feeling of shame (she is aware at this point that she is not working for the good guys) and fear of losing her loved ones. While revealing her job could actually harm her husband, her keeping an extremely low profile in Village is actually a result of those feelings too.

The game shows Mia as a naturally good spirited character (when in her right mind), probably what led her to be assigned as Evie's temporary mother. Not treating the girl as a chore (in contrast to the kid's life in isolation) is what made Evie obsessively attached to her later on. At the same time she tries to save her coworker and prevent the Bakers from being infected by the bio-weapon.

Unpopular one: It's highly unlikely she knew Ethan was a corpse revived by mold. All she could know was him being a very unusual infected person, who only gained regenerative skills without losing his mind. It is impossible to actually establish his real condition since his vital functions are the same of a human person.

However, considering she starts looking upset after their sudden relocation in Romania, she must have sensed something wasn't right about it, but couldn't explain it to Ethan without telling him the rest of the truth, including his infection and her own history with bioterrorism. That explains why she states with confidence she isn't worried about Rose's medical exams, as Ethan erroneously assumes.

Her experience with The Connections is probably why she kept her knowledge about Ethan a secret. In RE's universe even apparently good organizations eventually get corrupted or hide shady activities. That was the case with FBC, and ultimately BSAA itself sending bioweapons on the field.

The reason why she doesn't tell Ethan (but actually she is shown trying to get to the point) is a more personal one, probably not to ruin the safe bubble they managed to create after those years, and affecting Ethan's own mental state. That doesn't mean it proved to be the right choice, but that at least it came from a reasonable place.

Ironically, Ethan becomes paranoid as soon as Mia gets kidnapped and replaced by Miranda. Both Ethan's and Mia's behaviour in the first cutscene and the subsequent flashback is inverted, showing that something changed between the two scenes, seemingly clashing with one another.

She had nothing to do with the events of house Beneviento, that's all a distorted reality created by Ethan's own projections on Mia and his own fears. The phone from RE7 should be enough of a hint that it's all an hallucination (not just a reused asset). As explained above she never seems to be concerned about Ethan and Rose as 'mold creatures', rather as targets of companies working with bio weapons. (Also, there's no way half of the Winters' furniture ended up in Donna's basement in such a short time, they clearly don't live near the village.)

The picture portraying both her and mother Miranda doesn't mean she knew her or they used to braid each other's hair. Alan, her supervisor during Eveline's shipping, is also present, meaning it could have been taken right before sailing. That's more like your average team picture, and probably a nod to the most inattentive players that it's the same lab from RE7.

That was my short breakdown on Mia Winters, a character with good narrative potential despite the short time she was given. For once, I find it interesting how she confidently addresses Ethan (and likely even Rose) as a special person when he is actually infected with mold and she witnessed and experienced in first person how it can corrupt the most honourable of men. Yet she never questions Ethan's nature and only informs Chris about it when he is about to leave him behind under the assumption that he is dead.

[persimmonteas]

take a good look

4 times you gaze at him + 1 time he gazes at you

fic cowritten with @shinaus​, art by @annypuff​ <3. you can buy mel a coffee and anny a coffee. please support them! their work is banging and i love them 🥺 

pairing: vampire!shinso x f!reader

word count: ~4.5k

genre: slice of life fantasy (a tinge of coffee shop!AU), fluff, mutual pining, smut

cw: dom!shinso, size kink, daddy kink (inspired by toshi anon), praise kink, some degradation (he says slut 3x), fingerfucking, nipple play, choking, hair pulling, mirror sex, mating press, hickies everywhere, a cunt slap, overstimulation

first time: the coffee shop incident 

Of course your favorite coffee shop is swamped. This place is the only good thing about waking up close to dawn, with drinks always better than what your office has to offer and not to mention the pastries they make fresh.

Letting out a small groan, you decide to wait it out in the line and do your best to hurry with your breakfast before heading into work. Thankfully, you always leave yourself with enough time to actually sit and enjoy whatever you decide to buy that day, opting for it over greasy break rooms or stuffy smoking areas. 

Once the warm mug is in hand, you make quick work to try and find your usual spot only to find it occupied. While you won’t act possessive over a public seat of all things, losing the chance to enjoy glancing out the window and munching down your croissant seems to screw with your brain. 

You act without thinking, making a sharp turn to go sit somewhere else only for your knee to make contact with the underside of another table. Shit, you think to yourself, hearing the clatter of their cup. You helplessly watch liquid run down the table and into the person’s lap. 

You expect them to flinch, dart up from the table or, hell, even yell at you for your carelessness. He doesn’t yell at you and you don’t expect to see the colour of the liquid running down the table onto the floor to be red. Blood red. Fuck. A vampire. Hopefully, one who doesn’t eat you for your stupidity.

Just as you feel your heart sinking down to your stomach, your eyes flick up to meet the man whose day you likely ruined. You don’t see a hint of anger on his attractive features. In his defence, it’s probably because he’s busy looking at the way you’re gawking at him.

His unkempt hair and the deep eye bags adorning his sculpted face somehow make him look all the more endearing. It even looks like he’s wearing the smallest hint of eyeliner. Or are his eyes just naturally like that? Hard to tell. 

You’re pulled out of your thoughts (and staring session) by him breaking eye contact with you to clean himself up, before rising to his feet and doing the same to the table. It makes you come back down to Earth, and thereby remembering your clownery

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—” you start, but are met with a hand held up in front of your face. You furrow your brows in confusion, having assumed his lack of aggression would mean he’d be more understanding but nope.

“No issue,” he grumbles in response, giving his trousers one last wipe down before swiftly weaving through the others in the coffee shop, flipping his hoodie up and taking his leave. Now, you’re even more confused. 

Sure, you spilled something over him and the table, but you would have bought him another one? Paid for his dry cleaning or something maybe? Yet, off he went, moving so quickly you couldn’t ever hope to catch up to him. Fucking vampires, man, you shake your head.

The confusion eventually fades but not completely. You help one of the baristas doing the last of the clean up before settling into the strange vampire’s seat and letting your mind wander as you eat your breakfast. 

second time: gawking at the gym

It’s a common occurrence for you to make it to the gym right as the rush of 9-5s ends, the perfect time in your opinion. Nobody hogging any of the ellipticals, the water cooler always left unoccupied and nothing but time for you to get through your usual routine.

With this in mind, you can confidently say that nothing out of the ordinary ever happens at the gym. Well, could say. 

Carefully bringing your leg around to meet the other on your way off of the exercise bike, you're momentarily distracted by the sound of a nearby treadmill whirring so much hard that it sounds as though it may break. 

Lifting your towel and water bottle, you make your way over in curiosity. It almost seems as if whoever is on the treadmill moves even faster as you approach. Once you make it there, you’re met with the man who seems to be continuously haunting your surroundings. 

Despite his unruly purple hair in a band and all-black gym attire, vamp man still seems out of place. The athletic wear is a complete change of pace, considering the hoodie and leather jacket he was wearing during your first encounter. 

You rid yourself of any wandering thoughts about the man and focus on him being the reason that the treadmill is about to be on its last legs. You can’t bring yourself to look away from him; the sheer speed of his legs is mindblowing.  And a little ridiculous looking if you’re honest with yourself.

The moment is short lived when he slows to a stop, probably thinking the same thing that you are about the poor machine not being able to last another mile. He looks like he’s barely broken a sweat. Fucking vampires, you repeat to yourself.  

Just your luck, he notices your presence as he dabs the side of his not-even-sweating face with his towel. He begins to smirk at your eyes on him. 

“Little rude to stare, isn’t it?” he wonders aloud, voice much deeper and more luxurious than what you remember. Getting caught fills you with deep embarrassment. You stutter out a quick apology before making your way over to another machine. 

Even with your back facing away from any passing people as you continue your routine, you can practically feel his eyes boring into you.

A few minutes is all it takes for you to turn to check if your suspicions are correct. You’re met with his shameless stare. He’s not even making an attempt to hide his gaze either, leaning on one of the back walls as he watches you, large arms crossed over his broad chest somehow making the skin-tight shirt he’s wearing even tighter. 

This is torture, you think to yourself as you give him a polite smile, only to hear him chuckling at your strained smile.

“What? So you can stare but I can’t?” he tries, fully getting your attention once more as you stop what you’re doing. Sighing and smacking your machine, you come off of your machine and make your way back over to him.

Your confidence about approaching decreases as you see the full height difference between you two. You’re a fair bit smaller than he is. He looms over you even with his back still leaning against the wall.

“If you’re trying to stalk me, you’re doing a bad job. It should be me, after all. I’m the predator,” he lightly mocks you. 

You almost stomp your foot. “I am not stalking you!” you protest. “It isn’t my fault that you apparently go to the same coffee shop and gym as me.” 

He levels you with a delighted look. Humans usually don’t take his teasing well but you seem so much fun.

Throwing an annoyed peace sign at him, you make your way out of the gym.

third time: literally just that scene in the first twilight movie without edward doing donuts in his car into the lot

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing out at this time?” The low voice comes from your side, making every muscle in your body suddenly jolt. You just left your friends. Why do creeps seem to have a radar?

Even as you pick up your pace and ignore the question, it only seems to egg him on more. Right as he starts talking to you again, he’s swiftly cut off.

Feeling a small gust of wind at your back despite the calm night, you turn in confusion. Where did the creep go? Your question is answered when you watch him get slammed against the nearest storefront’s shutters. A much taller figure overshadows over him, hand around the creep’s throat. 

Even in the darkness, you can see the purple hair, unruly as ever starting from the collar of his coat. You stride over and pull on Shinso’s coat sleeve in hopes of ceasing his threatening actions—no matter how much the creep deserves the vampire’s ire. After all, you don’t want Shinso to end up with a track record after, like, a century (you’re guessing) without one.

“Shinso,” you say, eyes pleading as you look up at him—unaware of how much he enjoys hearing you so naturally say his name. He meets your stare briefly then rolls his eyes and releases his hold, watching the man scramble away. The chuckle that leaves him at the scene makes you wonder if he’s a sadist. 

Before you can wonder much more, he grips your hand tightly in his own as he leads you farther down the street. The clasp strangely comforting to you despite his freezing skin.

“You really need to stop being so irresponsible,” he tells you, tone almost mocking as he (somehow) takes every right path to your apartment building. There’s no point in questioning how he knows this. After all, for some reason, the world keeps leading you to him in an array of coincidences that are starting to feel less and less coincidental. 

When you let out a scoff, his hand seems to tighten further and you reflexively try to yank your hand away. He just stops in his tracks and turns to face you. There’s a look in his eyes you don’t question, especially since he speaks up before you do. 

“Don’t make me have to watch your every move to keep you out of trouble, I’d like to have a social life too, you know,” he grumbles, before turning to walk away. It leaves you a little dumbfounded to say the least, since you’re not exactly stopping him from having a life. Y’know, with, how totally unplanned these encounters are and all.

fourth time: the confrontation

Apparently, not one thing can be your own anymore. Not that you’re complaining, of course, but the sheer number of coincidences between you and Shinso is extraordinary and only seems to escalate. You keep running into him even in places so busy that you think there’s no chance of running into anybody you know. 

Now that Autumn is in full swing, the nights are colder and the leaves are dappled in brown and red shades. The perfect time to start going on walks through some of the bustling parks you live near. 

You love the scenery, especially the large lake that lies in the middle of your favorite park. As dusk rolls around, you take the chance to get a walk in to enjoy the now barely visible sunlight and to ponder a certain vampire. 

Not even one lap into walking around the lake, you catch sight of the colour that’s been plaguing your thoughts in your peripheral. 

The deep indigo colour is hard to miss, especially when it’s on the head of the vampire you keep running into. Though this time feels a little different since you finally catch him when he’s unaware of you.

Sitting on one of the benches facing the water, he’s wearing his typical hoodie and leather jacket and is holding what looks to be a book. What kind of book a vampire reads is beyond your imagination. 

All you know is that you finally have the opportunity to take the upper hand. Every time you see Shinso, he worms his way out of your questions. Or he leaves in an ominous distinctly vampire fashion.

There’s no reason for him to be everywhere you go, unless ... You want to confirm your hypothesis. 

The plan is simple. You’ll act like you're still out on your casual walk and you’ll walk up to the bench and sit down in a non-suspicious way. You nod to yourself. Perfect, flawless plan. 

It shockingly works … his book must be really good. You get all the way up to the bench without him acknowledging you. Since he’s only taking up one side, you don’t wait for verbal permission to sit down alongside him.

He still makes no indication that he notices you. His eyes never leave the book he has in his hands. You fixate your eyes on the silver ring on his index finger as he flicks through the pages. 

You lean in close and try to keep your smugness about finally startling him from bleeding into your voice when you speak. 

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re conveniently everywhere I go on purpose.”

For the first time ever, he’s the one caught off guard. Shinso flinches away from you and brings his eyes to meet yours. Without his signature smirk or witty comments, he simply gets up to take his leave. 

Well. This certainly isn’t going the way you want.

After your many encounters, you can pick up on his overall mood through his reactions to you. Though, he’s never reacted like this. At least not since the incident at the coffee shop.

The dismissal ignites irritation in you. Why is up to him whether or not you interacted? Taking the opportunity while you still have it, you follow him. 

It isn’t until he passes a large tree just off of the main path that you completely catch up to him. You realize he’ll easily slip away if you don’t move quickly. So you do, hand coming up to hit the tree trunk and essentially blocking his way. 

His eyes widen at you. However, he makes no attempt at escaping. 

“Why do we keep running into each other?” you ask with exasperation, eyes still on him as he moves to lean against the tree. You don’t move your hand, using it to grasp some control of the situation.

“You’re everywhere I go, it doesn’t matter where or when. You’re always there.” The rant is far from needed for him, he knows this already. But, you keep going. 

“What is this? Were we lovers in a past life or something? Do you have some unresolved feelings?” The way you’re rambling makes you impossibly endearing to him. His classic chuckle slipping out stops you in your tracks.

“Nothing of the sort,” he curtly replies. You cross your arms over your chest at his usual demeanor returning. “No such thing as reincarnated soulmates, at least with what I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Though, the feelings department…” As he continues, he leans closer to you. So much so you can almost feel his breath on your face and smell his warm, spicy cologne. 

“Is there a problem if I do have feelings for you?”

You blink at him. What? You don’t think you’ve ever been so caught off guard.. Feelings? Is that what this has all been about? 

Every previous encounter begins to run through your head and you start picking out small things that back up his statement. The lingering stares, teasing words, protective nature. You groan and drag your hands down your face. Man, you didn’t pick up on any of his hints. He must think you’re an idiot. 

Before you can give him an answer, he pushes off the tree, standing over you at full height. Assuming he’s about to attempt to leave once more, you’re surprised to see him turning back in the direction of the bench. When you make no effort to move, he reaches out and pulls you by your coat until his hand is in yours. 

“I’ll take that as not a problem.” A smirk still on his face due to you indirectly feeding his ego. 

Although, now walking beside him, you don’t miss the way his free hand reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. A gesture you recognise as one of his nervous tics. Did you do that to him? You grin at the idea that you make the great vampire feel that way.

“There’s a scooter rental place down by this side of the lake.” His voice brings you out of your thoughts, realising he’s been trying to hold eye contact with you. “I’ll make a deal with you, if you let me take you out on a ride around the lake, I’ll answer any questions you have, deal?”

The way he’s practically bargaining with you makes you want to laugh, but you keep your face neutral as you agree to his offer. Who turns down taking a romantic scooter ride with a hot vampire? Nobody. 

Of course, he takes any opportunity to tease you, so he rents a smaller scooter so you have to cling onto him.

You don’t complain though. How can you as you enjoy feeling his back muscles flex? Not to mention, he keeps his promise and answers any and every question you have about himself or his past. And, wow, he has an interesting and long past. 

As the sky turns dark and drips stars, you’re left with a feeling rising in your chest that you certainly don’t reject and with the hope of meeting him again—on purpose, this time. A planned event seems likely as you clutch the torn-out blank page of his book with his phone number scribbled across it in your fist.

one time: he gazes at you

“Hitoshi. You already have better night vision than me. This is so extra!” you protest, stumbling through the dark apartment as your vampiric boyfriend maneuvers you to ... his room, you think. 

Hitoshi just rubs soothing circles on your back and you just know the fucker is smirking. You hear the light click on. 

“You can take the blindfold off.” 

Tugging the blindfold off, you stare at the new object Hitoshi bought for his room. 

“Baby, this is a mirror.” 

He nods while leaning against his bed, looking infuriatingly pretty per usual. 

“You can’t even see yourself in a mirror. Why?” You arch an eyebrow in Hitoshi’s direction, trying to explain your absolute bafflement at his purchase. 

“In case you’re here and want to check yourself out.”  

You see nothing but innocence plastered on his facial expression but did you trust it? No. 

A mindblowing second later, he stands in front of you, caressing your face with calloused, cold hands. A nice contrast to the sweltering temperature in his room he set for you. Hitoshi leans in to kiss you, gentle but firm. Your hands go up to fist his shirt as he intensifies the kiss. 

He slides his hands down your cheek to stroke your lip and then slowly skims down your body.  

“It would be a great idea to take this off,” he whispers, playing with the hem of your shirt. 

You eagerly nod as he strips you out of your shirt and pants. Awareness of his plans finally clicks when he turns you to face the mirror. 

The remark on the tip of your tongue dies when Hitoshi rolls your nipples through the thin lace of your bra. You arch into his touch as he gently pinches and pulls them. God, your panties are already drenched and nipples hard. 

“Fuck,” you moan as Hitoshi slides your panties to the side. Letting you lean against his corded chest, he hitches one of your legs off the floor. 

“Go on, spread yourself open. Let me see how wet your slutty cunt is,” he murmurs into your ear. 

You hard swallow as you spread your glistening lips open for him, strands of your arousal clinging to your fingers when you pull them away. Hitoshi digs his hand into your thigh.

“Did I tell you to stop?” He sounds amused as he uses his other hand to pull your hair by the roots.

“No, no, daddy, I’m sorry,” you apologize and move your hand back to where it belongs. 

“Good girl, look at yourself. Wrecked without even being fucked.” You stare at yourself in the mirror with a half-lidded gaze. He’s right. With your heaving chest and puffy, soaked pussy, you look like you’ve been railed. But instead, you continue to spread open your aching pussy for your fully clothed boyfriend.

“Daddy, daddy, please touch me,” you plead as you grind against his hard bulge, desperate for any kind of friction. 

“Are you going to be a good girl for me?” If you were any more lucid, you’d have smacked Hitoshi for his lilting tease. 

“Aren’t I always a good girl,” you whine, hands clambering at his thighs. 

He chuckles at that, kissing your head before somehow gracefully crumpling to the ground with you in his lap. In a blink, he has you spread out in his lap as he plays with your clit. He slides a thick finger inside your tiny cunny as he grazes your shoulder with his canines.

“Look at you,” he coos. “You look so good like this, my darling little slut.” 

You don’t even have a retort, too enraptured by the sight of Hitoshi fingerfucking your sopping cunt with his invisible hand. The way your cunt opens for him and gapes in the mirror spellbinding for both of you.

You moan as your hips jerk up. There’s not much more he loves than how your lips part and your legs shake at how he strokes his finger inside of you. 

“More,” you beg. How can he resist your dazed expression? 

“Such a needy baby,” he tsks as he scissors you open with another finger. 

Another strum of your clit and pinch of your nipple and you’re gone, eyes squeezing shut. Your juices surely ruining his pants as you writhe in his lap. 

He cradles your cheek and then grips your chin to turn you back to the mirror. 

“Look at yourself, pretty girl. Such a fucked out mess.” 

You gaze at the bruises blooming over your shoulders and down your neck and shudder, pleased. The aftershocks of your orgasm leave you warm as you languidly suck your juices off Hitoshi’s fingers.  

“Toshi!” you squeal as he gently deposits you on his bed and pulls his clothes off. The bed is purely decorative and for you considering he doesn’t sleep. Although, even with a bed, you guys still fuck over every surface in his apartment. 

Your sensitivity protests fall to deaf ears as he bends your knees to your chest. This time, Hitoshi is the one to spread you open. He slaps your cunt and you claw at the sheets. Pumping two fingers slowly in and out of you, he uses his other hand to roughly pull down your bra.

His chapped lips wrapping around your nipple and cold fingers groping your other breast feel overwhelming. Hitoshi cages you in, sucking wet kisses over your tits, leaving you no room to evade his overstimulation as you squirm to get away from his fingers fucking up into you. 

Your sore nipples and cunt get a moment of reprieve as he moves down to concentrate on marking bites all over your plush thighs. Instantly, you miss being full. 

When he passes your empty, clenching cunt for the third time to suck bruises on your inner thighs, you burst. 

“Daddy, please, please, fuck me!” 

Hitoshi trails kisses up your heated skin to your throat, laving over the hickies he left.

“Beautiful,” he croons as he finally positions his tip against your hole and pushes in. The praise and stretch make you whine. He stills as your tiny cunt clenches around him. Your warm, drenched walls wrapping around his cock makes him toss his head back in pleasure. 

“My patient good girl,” he groans, pulling at your nipples. 

“Fuck—more, daddy, more,” you curse as you squirm, your hips rocking up to meet his shallow thrusts. He doesn’t reply and grazes his fangs over your pulse point as he holds your hips down. 

Your breath hitches—and he abruptly pulls back.

“Did my baby think I was going to bite her?” Hitoshi gives you a lazy smirk as he keeps his vexingly slow pace, watching his cock drag in and out of your creaming cunt. 

His large hand wrapping around your neck makes you squeak and suddenly tighten around him. Your favorite necklace. Knowing he’s using an insignificant fraction of his strength to please you makes your eyes roll back as your breath stutters.

“That’s it, cum for me, pretty girl.” Hitoshi starts a punishing pace as he strokes your clit with his free hand. His dark eyes never leave his hand wrapped around your throat, your ravishing lightheaded face and your bouncing tits. Hitoshi’s furrowed expression as he drags his tongue over his canines in concentration makes you whimper. 

You buck against him, gushing around him and crying out his name.

The way you cum so prettily for him has Hitoshi hissing your name in your ear as he thrusts deep into your spasming cunt, chasing his own release. Intertwining his hands with yours, he presses you into the mattress to pin you down. Before long, his orgasm washes over him. 

You gaze contentedly at Hitoshi as he pulls out, feeling empty already—and then you realize. 

“Hitoshi! I swear to god if I look like a grape again,” you threaten as you try to stand up to head to the bathroom. 

You don’t even take a step before he whisks you into his bathroom, laughing at you and kissing your forehead. 

Well. You suppose looking like a grape isn’t that bad.

[palbabor-writes]

oh my god! your writing is amazingggg. may i please have a creepy! shiggy, dabi or hawks whichever one is easier for you where they really like the reader so they do yk normal creepy stuff like stealing her underwear and humping her bed and one day they get caught and they thought she’d be disgusted but she’s lowkey into it and she’s just super sweet and praising and a HUGE SERVICE TOP. I think they just need some good pussy 😔 if you decide to do this then THANK YOUUUU

｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡ you’re too nice nonnie & tysm. i’m glad you’re here!

warnings: general degeneracy, masterbation, handjobs, SMUT, panty sniffin’   

You make a point to leave your room unlocked.

Oh, you’ll switch it up, every so often, just so he has something to work for, but  you prefer to pressure him with a time crunch instead of a locked door. It’s always so much fun. You make a show of dashing up the steps, feet thudding heavily on the warped wood. Then, right when you’re on the threshold, gosh, how could you be so daft, so thoughtless! You’d left your supplies downstairs, again! You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders. Silly, silly, silly.

The display does what you need it to, namely, giving him the chance to slink away. He’s always whisper quiet when he creeps into your space, it’s a miracle you’d caught him. But, even super-villains find themselves on the back foot sometimes, and boy, was he clumsy about this. 

It wasn’t like him. That was the slip up. No, his one, original, mistake was a simple one.

He’d left evidence of his arousal, of his lewd, heated, heart thudding, want. It was tacky, sticky, absolutely dripping with the milky residue of him. He’d tried to bury it deep, pressing it down into the bowels of your hamper, likely praying that it would remain hidden and you wouldn’t question it further when you did stumble upon it, hopefully weeks later.

You didn’t like to leave your hamper open and you certainly never, ever, left it beside your bed. It had been another long day and, at first, you’d only given it a swift glance, replaying the events of the night before. Maybe you’d lugged it over, too tired to pace the small distance? You had been in a rush. It was plausible.

Kicking your boots to the floor, you raise a hand to lower the lid of your plastic hamper when you spot the cascade of clothing. Again, it’s a tiny, tiny, fragment, but he should know better. It’s your job to notice the small, the obscure. Retcon is your bread and butter and this is too much, too tempting to ignore. 

Fingers follow the hollowed space his arm has left behind and you hit the panties, seconds later. They’re warm, wet, and you clutch them into your palm and pull.    

Fuck.

The lace is soaking. Fresh lines of cum run in thick rivulets, falling down your upturned hand and along your wrist, dribbling onto your bare feet. For a moment, you can’t seem to process the image that’s before you, your mind whirring through the possibilities, the faces. Who...no...which one of them did this?

The next morning, you’re quiet. It’s not unnatural. After all, it’s freaking 7 am, no one at the bar is talking. As you sip on your chilled, canned, coffee, your eyes carefully size up the men who are lounged around you. 

Shigaraki is perusing a newspaper, the pallid hand of father obscuring his face, but you can still catch sight of the red glint of his eyes. He looks bored. He hadn’t even looked up when you walked in, his back bowed and head down, engrossed in his search.

Dabi is perched on one of the dilapidated couches, his long legs curled under him, flicking a bashed lighter, open and closed, open and closed. Like Shigaraki, he hadn’t lifted his gaze to you at first. He had, however, answered a question. Just the one, when you’d asked him if he had found any newbies, any potential recruits. He’d snarked his reply, his cerulean irises latching onto you with a cruel sharpness. No was his answer and you hadn’t pressed for any further elaboration.

Compress was shuffling a deck of cards. Spinner was ticking through his phone. Twice was chittering with Toga. Nothing was out of the ordinary. You finish your breakfast and tell them that you’re heading out. 

No one replies.

******

Unsurprisingly, it happened again. 

It’s a different pair of panties but the glisten of the cum is the same. So is the lowered placement, the bevel of the clothes, and the position of the hamper. However, it’s a little more calculated this time around. The lid is closed and there are no traces of his entry, no cuts or nicks on the door handle or key hole, no scattering of your things, no dip on your bed. There’s nothing. 

Alright. Two can play at this game. 

The hamper is moved, strategically maneuvered into the bathroom that your room holds. You’re careful to leave the lid propped. It looks haphazard, but it takes a precise click of the plastic to lock it into that position. You’ll be able to tell if it’s been moved. 

You tug your panties out of your dresser and count them, noting the colors, patterns, the imperfections in the lace. If you’re going to do this, you need to know what you’re working with. The inventory must be precise, each variant recognized and tallied. 

Every day, it’s a rinse and repeat process. Yank the flutter of fabrics out, spread them across your sheets and count. It’s tedious, bordering on annoying, but you wanna know. It’s like an itch. It sits right where you can’t reach and it tickles at the back of your mind. Besides, you’ve always liked a good puzzle. Although, this isn’t quite what you had in mind, you’ll take it and you’ll solve it, if it’s the last thing you do. 

Two days after you start this mind-numbing task, four pairs go missing. 

******

It’s late when you stumble back into the hideout, padding past the darkened bar and up the steps. The mission, despite its lower ranking, and pay, you think bitterly, had taken almost three days. Thankfully, the information you’d gleaned was worth it, but you’re exhausted. You’re wiping a sleepy hand across your face when you notice your door.

It’s ajar.

Instinctually, you fall to your haunches, tip toeing toward the crack, eyes narrowed, fingers curled into fists. The room is pitch black but there’s something, no, someone, in there. You can make out their outline. It’s a jagged cut that sits upon your bed and you can hear the tiny hitches and groans that they’re gasping out.

As your eyes adjust, you can see more. Your knees fall to the floor, digging into the wood and you steady yourself against the wall, eyes wide. He’s propped along your pillows and his hand is working over himself, using the friction of another pair of your panties to rub himself to completion. You can’t make out the exact shape of his cock but from the rapid fire tugs of his fist you can tell it’s long. It must be thick too, since he needs to adjust his pulls toward the tip.

He’s quiet, but you can still hear the catches and moans he’s making. Your name slips out too and the utterance makes your mouth go dry. So that’s who it is. Well, wonders never cease. 

In the months that you’d known him, he hasn’t paid you much mind. Even through the haze of this strange obsession, he hasn’t altered his day to day routine, hasn’t broken character, hasn’t spoken to you unless the situation absolutely called for it. 

Damn. It’s too much, it’s way, way...no. No. It’s not that it’s too much, you think, mesmerized by the sight that’s splayed across your sheets. It’s nowhere near enough. 

You want to march in there, yank your soiled panties off his dick and hear what kind of noises he would make for you then. Would he shove you off, or would he welcome your notice? Either way, he’s too close now.

His hips have started to rut upwards, unable to resist the rhythm he’s created. The moans have drifted into hisses and his back arches when he cums, those familiar ropes of white splashing across the pastel of your lace. He’s careful to catch the drops, pinching the end of his cock and shuddering at the overstimulation. As he sits up, you cautiously rise, unsteady on your wobbling legs. 

You’re halfway down the stairs when your door shuts. His footsteps recede down the hallway and you can hear him as he thuds into his own space, the click of his lock reverberating in your ears. 

******

Thus, the game of cat and mouse continues. 

Outwardly, neither of you reveal your hand, keeping your cards close to the chest, out of each others line of sight. Your door locks, unlocks, and you keep losing more panties. You’ve marked the one that will make the difference. It’s your new, favorite, pair. You haven’t worn them yet, but they’re a lush item, expensive, luxuriant, an excess that you don’t usually allow yourself. You’d purchased them the day after you’d finally caught sight of him. You couldn’t help it. 

Most people, you reason, would be horrified by this situation, but not you. Oh no, you’re so turned on you can barely sleep. You start to masterbate in the early evening, when you know the others are moving around, your fingers trailing past your dampened curls, a careful fingernail pricking along your clit. You’ve even left your door open, cracked, welcoming the attention of anyone passing by. Once, you could have sworn you’d heard him. The whisper of that gasp, imagined or not, had bowled you over, your thighs clamping around your wrist, your cunt pulsing around nothing, hungry, slathering, desperate for more. 

You want to just toss those panties on your bed and provoke the interaction. Goddamnit, how much longer is he gonna make you wait?

****** 

Not even 24 hours later, they’re gone. 

He’s getting reckless, too. Your hamper is knocked over, the dresser drawer that holds your underwear is a crumpled mess, and he’s deliberately left a vacant hole where the panties used to lay. It’s screaming for your attention and you can feel your heartbeat thrumming against your breast. 

Finally.  

The next mission you’re assigned is easy, too easy. It’s mid-afternoon and there’s no reason for you to be back this early. Well, that’s an oversimplification. There is a perfectly excellent reason for you to be back, you’re just hoping the sliver of intel that was dropped for you will pay off. 

Apparently, while the rest of you were out pounding the pavement, he’s elected to stay behind. He had something he needed to take care of. 

“It sounded important,” Toga informed you, her voice lilting, rising with that sharp toothed smile of hers. 

“Why are you telling me this,” you’d asked her, biting your lip and crossing your legs, soothing the throb that’s pricking in your core. 

“He just told me to tell you, didn’t ask him anything more. You know how he is. He can be, prickly,” Toga winks, popping her head to the side, bouncing her golden locks. 

“Alright,” you reply, adding a mask of disdain and disinterest to your performance. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” 

Lies, lies. 

So many fucking lies, but he must know that you realize, that you know. Why else enlist Toga? He hated having to lay things out. No, he must know, he has to.    

The bar is empty and the upper floors are deathly still.

Your door is sensibly shut but you can make out his jerks, his gasps, and those choked whimpers that echo past the flimsy wood. Your hand catches against the knob and you take one, last, steadying breath. 

Here we go.       

When you swing the door open he startles upward, his white hair curtaining the flush of his cheeks. Those vermillion irises land on you and he vaults away, nearly tumbling off the side of your bed. His pants are still bunched around his thighs, so that hinders him from making a true getaway. As he’s fumbling with the dark material, you don’t miss the shake of his hands and the spread of that lovely blush.

Oh, this is too perfect.

Before he can finish tucking himself back in his pants, you’re dashing across the top of your bed, ignoring the discarded panties, ignoring the dark glare that he gives you, ignoring everything but that heated bulge that’s giving him so much trouble. 

Impatient, your fingers curl around his wrists and you use the millisecond of surprise that your swift action has gifted you. With a low gasp, he falls forward, his knees sinking into the softness of your mattress. One hand lowers to brace himself, but he’s careful to keep a finger arched away, preserving the permanence of your bed. Before he can get his bearings, you’re pressing him onto his back, straddling his lean hips and lowering those dark pants back down. 

His cock, badly concealed by the upper line of his boxers, springs out, curving proudly toward his muscled stomach. For his part, Shigaraki squirms under you, his scarred lip set in a forbidding scowl. His deadly hands lower to yours, but you ignore his unspoken threat, knocking his trembling digits away. Your  fingers lace around his cock, squeezing at the heft of him, stroking up the spidery veins and grooves until he’s dropping his defiant head back against your sheets. 

“Wh-what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he growls, his raspy voice halting over the question. 

“Who? Me?” you laugh, tugging a few more gasps from his shaking lips. There’s a pale strand of precum that’s leaking from his tip and you brush your thumb over it, gathering it against the pad and using it to ease your motions. His hips buck up and he shoves himself into your fist, a long string of curses slipping through his clenched teeth. 

“I don’t think you get to ask that, dear leader,” you tease, leaning over his prone form. You’re glad he’s forgone wearing that creepy hand. It hadn’t even come into your calculations of how all of this would go. “No, not with the way you’ve been behaving.”

“I-I didn’t...fuck–” 

“What? Didn’t think I’d find out?”

“You’re not supposed to be here. I sent you on that– ah– that mission for a reason,” Shigaraki bites out, shifting away from your close inspection. You smile at his discomfort and cup your free hand around his chin, yanking him back to you, forcing him to look up. 

“That’s too bad, cus’ I finished early. Looks like I’m just that good, huh?” 

He’s seething up at you, his eyes gleaming in the low light of your room, but he’s not making any attempts to leave. He may want to, but it seems his body has other plans. His cock is swelling as you pick up your tempo, your fingers clenching and releasing as you go, edging him along. 

“You ever fucked a girl?” you ask, leaning back to admire the tense enjoyment of the man under you. The muscles of his stomach, coil and writhe, flexing each time you hit his tip and relaxing as you make the swift pass back down. 

“N-no,” he moans, jerking his hips up, silently demanding that you pick up the pace. 

“Did you want to?” you whisper, lowering to his face again, letting your soft lips trace along his temple. His skin is rough, but you like the contrast. Shigaraki seems to enjoy it too, his eyes slipping behind his eyelids as he turns toward you. When he doesn’t answer, you slow the hand that’s passing over the strain of his length. Shigaraki hisses at the shift and his eyes pop open again. They burn as they blaze up at you, clearly echoing his displeasure. 

“Asked you a question,” you scold. He’s quiet for a long breath, but, after a few tense seconds, he lowers his eyes and nods, his jaw tight. “Should I take that as a yes?”

“I want you to fuck me,” Shigaraki grumbles, flashing a quick glare your way. “Was that clear enough for you?”

“Yes, sir,” you reply, one delicate eyebrow arching at his disgruntled expression.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he huffs, grimacing as you lift your hand from him, freeing yourself to yank your shirt off. 

“What do you want me to call you?” you ask, unbuttoning your jeans and easing them down the curve of your hips. 

“My fucking name.”

“Shigaraki?”

“No. Tomura,” he replies, his voice falling into that deep rasp again. He’s watching you closely and you grin down at his frank assessment. 

“Alright, Tomura,” you begin, testing out the unfamiliar acknowledgement. “Let’s make this good for you, hmm? What are you wanting to try first?”

He’s silent and you can hear the grinding of his teeth. “What’s better for you?”

Oh. Well, that’s not a question you were expecting. “For me? Uh, I guess I prefer to be on top. Let’s me control things and–”

“So do that,” he shrugs, finally peeling those dark pants off his long legs. He leaves his shirt on, but it doesn’t matter, if you’re riding him it’s not like you can’t tuck your hands under the tattered fabric.

“After acting like such a creep, you’re being pretty nonchalant about all of this,” your fingers wander along his sides and he shudders again, his neck bowing off the bedding. 

“You’re one to fucking talk. Think I didn’t know what you were doing?”

“Ha! Well, well. No wonder you took my bait so easily. When did you figure me out?”

“That night you sat outside your door and watched me,” his hands raise to your hips and he urges you to hurry up, grunting when your dripping cunt traces over his tip. “Then you left your fucking door open. Not just once, either, no, you did it for days. It was a whole fucking week of that shit. Didn’t even need to steal a pair of your slutty little panties to smell you then. You reeked. I could smell you from my room.” 

You laugh, helping him to press up and he glides into you, stretching you, radiating a satisfying ache along the slippery heat of your walls. His legs lift and his hands fall from your hips. Once you’re fully seated, your pelvis flush with his, you give him a few gulping breaths. 

“Ahh, fuck, oh– fucking damn it. Ohh, this feels nice. God, you feel so fucking good,” he mumbles, his voice falling into a hysterical edge. You bite your lip and raise up on your knees, making sure you grip him tightly as you go. Another mantra of obscenities drop from his lips and his feet brace against the bed, his hips rutting blindly as you begin that slow lift and lower.

“How’s that?” you query, moaning when he returns those broad hands to your hips. His reply is a sharp thrust and you’re tipped forward, forced to sprawl over him, fingers digging for purchase in his dark shirt. He grunts at the weight of you but he keeps his pace up, using the bed as leverage. 

You’re so close to him and you can’t help but reach for his face, suddenly desperate to feel his lips against yours. He doesn’t fight your hold, but he does let out a long groan when you tentatively kiss him. It’s slow at first and you’re very conscious of those dangerous hands of his. They’re still braced against your hips, but the four digits are starting to dig into your skin, sinking into the vulnerable dips until you’re whining. 

He’s unsure, so you help him along. 

You suck and nip at him, teasing him until he’s raising his head for more. Finally, one of those powerful hands detaches from your waist and he snatches at the back of your neck, insisting that you let him explore you further. After a time, you need air more than you need his lips, so you shake yourself free, pulling away and grinding your hips down as he ruts into you again. 

“Not bad,” you tell him, grinning when he swipes his tongue over his swollen lips, his eyes lifting to peer up at you curiously. “Want me to take it up a notch?”

“No,” he replies sharply. “I like this.”

You snort at his blunt response and give him what he’s asked for. You keep the drags of your lifts slow, enjoying how he throbs and swells inside you. Each time you rise, you roll your hips and he sighs at every minor clench that your pussy does. After a time, you can’t ignore the pulsations of your impatient clit, so your fingers trail downward, delicately rolling and grinding against the bud. 

Tomura tilts his head at this and his hazy vermillion snags your attention. “Does...does that feel good?” 

For a second, you’re unsure what he means, but when his hand ghosts over yours, you realize. “Mmhm,” you gasp, giving yourself a quicker tweak, delighting in the widening of his eyes when your cunt flushes another wave of arousal around him. It slicks between your thighs and pools around his pelvis, gleaming against the dark curls that rest there. 

“Lemme try,” he demands, batting your hand away and replacing your fingers with his own. He’s clumsy and he’s not expecting it to be that slippery, but he’s a quick study and he watches your face expectantly each time he tries something different. 

“Y-you’re doing so good, Tomura,” you praise, lingering on his name, pleased that he reacts so positively to it. “Just a little bit...oh fuck...yeah, right there is perfect.”

You’re not being facetious either, he’s honestly killing you with those earnest looks and careful prods. Each time you gasp, he presses just a fraction more, testing out his new skills and expanding on them. As a reward, you keep the positive reinforcement coming, calling out his name as you fuck him into you, loving how he keeps pulsating and groaning each time you sink down. 

A thin misting of sweat is beading over both of you, but you ignore the heat, too close to care that you’re starting to falter a bit in your rhythm. Tomura is panting also, losing some of that focus as he races toward his own release.

“Harder, ride me fucking harder, (Y/N),” he commands. The sight of him gasping and groaning out your name gives you an idea. You acquiesce to his demand but as you start those quick pumps your fingers reach behind you, searching for something that you think he’ll like even more. 

Ah-ha!

It’s an older pair, not as frilly as the one’s you’d saved for him, but you’ve been wearing them all day, so that scent he was complaining about should be nice and ripe. His eyes have winced shut, so the flop of your lace panties startles him. He tenses for a second, but once he notices what you’ve given him a wicked smirk curls his lips. Instantly, his hand leaves your clit and he presses the fabric to his face, huffing heavily against the crotch. 

“You fucking tease,” he groans, his tongue tracing along the seams, lapping at the thin residue that you’ve undoubtedly left behind. “Ahhh, yes. I think I would have rather had you sit on my face, but this will work, for now.” 

The threat in his voice makes you shiver and you rock forward as you lower, snagging the sharp edge of his pelvis against your clit. Tomura takes in another deep breath at the sensation, his hand still holding your saliva filled panties to his lips. Just a little bit more. Your fingers tweak and pull, rolling the way you need. The heavy sting of Tomura’s cock is helping too and your pussy greedily begins to tighten around him, earning you a sputtered groan from the man beneath you.

“D-do that again,” he sighs, shifting your panties down his face so he can watch you. Obediently, you flick at your clit again and that stimulation, plus the heady knowledge that Tomura is watching, memorizing every move you make, hurtles you over the edge and you can’t help but slump forward as your orgasm crashes over you. Tomura lets out a guttural moan, flinging your panties away and yanking you to his parted lips. His kiss is frantic, nonsensical, more bites and slurps than any kind of caress, but you fall into his arms, overwrought and too turned on to think. 

Once he’s had his fill of your lips, he resumes that steady pounding, his powerful hips canting into you, peppering you with jagged thrusts that leave you gasping. 

“What’s the matter?” he taunts, his voice a wild rasp in your ear. “Can’t take anymore? Am I too much for you?” 

You don’t trust yourself to reply, already seconds away from another shuddering release. All it takes is the feeling of him swelling and the heat of his cum to reduce you to a gasping mess again. This time, a thin line of drool escapes your lips. Delighted, Tomura snags his hand in your hair, tugging until you’re hovering over him. Gluttonously, he laps at your lips, sucking until you’re not sure who’s making the bigger slob of themselves. 

When he’s finished, he rolls you off of him, splaying you out on the bed. As the world falls back into focus, you catch sight of him, leering over you, his white hair cascading around the two of you. 

“I don’t think I’m done yet,” he grins, one hand cupping under your jaw. “Besides, you could have given me this weeks ago. I think you owe me a few back payments. Don’t cha’ think?”

notes: ahaha. this is basically a full fledged fic. whoops. 

did i have anyone wondering if i was gonna pick Tomura or Dabi?        ��                               

[get-shiggy-with-it]

*°:⋆ₓₒCollab Masterlistₓₒ⋆:°*

Pairing: All Might x Gn!Dom!Reader (Theme for this month was sex work au!)

Word Count: 6.2k

Warnings: 18+ this is a dark fic, both dubcon/noncon, straight up, forced submission, bit of mind break, dom/sub dynamics, sub!All Might, dominant All Might later in, dark All Might, violence against reader, bodily harm, face fucking, spanking (for Toshi), thigh riding (for Toshi), blackmail, minor mentions of blood, bondage/rope play, reader is gender neutral, no pronouns used

Summary: You work as a popular dominant for pro heroes who need to give up control once in awhile and Yagi Toshinori is one of your best clients. But when word gets out to the media about your involvement with pros, you decide to take matters into your own hands. Though you quickly discover All Might does not take kindly to anyone who threatens his reputation. 

It was all about the exchanging of power. 

About the relinquishing of control—about letting go and the freedom that came with it.  

And you?

You were just there to facilitate, to take over, to release all those bottled up years of stress that the camera’s weren’t supposed to see. 

But you did. 

You saw all of it. 

It was about trust too. Trust in you to give them what they need and trust in them to do exactly as you instructed. And most of all, trust that everything stayed confidential. That the things said through tears and whimpers and sighs were kept quiet. Trust that they would show you the same respect and privacy you showed them. 

You took these rules very seriously. They were the foundation your business was built on and it had earned you quite a lot of credibility. You prided yourself on it, as you should. Professionalism was key in your line of work. It made the clients feel a bit more comfortable—counteracted the sense of taboo that was usually associated with people like you. 

People in “your line of work,” was the common way of referencing it. But you preferred to be clear and upfront, not skirt around the edges as though your job was something shameful.

Language was important too. 

“Client,” “session,” etc...all added a buffering degree of separation for those you serviced. It was a crucial part of the balance which has allowed you to be so successful. They needed to be able to remove themselves from who they became once you were alone together. You’d learned that some amount of plausible deniability was key to achieving the complete relinquishing of authority. They had to be able to convince themselves after they’d walked away, that the crying, begging mess they’d become wasn’t who they really were—wasn’t actually a part of them, just something you’d done.

And by them, of course, you meant the heroes you served so dutifully. 

And by serve, you meant completely and utterly dominate. 

Contradictory to most common misconceptions, your job wasn’t always about sex—though it could be and was at time—but truly, it was about release. 

And above all, it was about power and who got to hold it. 

When that structure was broken—when the rules were strayed from—that’s when things got murky. But you were good at what you did, so luckily, that hadn’t been much of an issue. 

What more could one expect from someone whose services are sought out by the Symbol of Peace himself?

Hm. 

You really ought to get that put on your business cards. 

***

It was late when he came to you, though that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Occasional hero work coupled with a teaching schedule and numerous media appearances left one very little free time. Fortunately, you conducted most of your business during the small hours of the morning, so Yagi Toshinori showing up at your door as the clock ticked its way past two wasn’t a shock. 

You fell into the usual rhythm of things easily. 

Toshi was one of your newest, but most favorite clients. You came highly recommended from many of his coworkers, and after an initial meeting over drinks to discuss his needs, you struck up a routine that worked for the both of you. 

Of course he paid you handsomely for your time. 

Constantly being in the public eye, acting as an unwavering representation of hope for the future was tiring. You were more than happy to take the weight off his very broad shoulders for once. 

And bend him over your knee instead. 

“Five,” he panted, whimpers of thanks and your name spilling out around his loose tongue as your hand connected sharply with the meat of his ass again. 

You always asked to be called by name, no frilly titles to get in the way and complicate the dynamic. When they walked into your space, they set aside their hero personas and you afforded them the same intimacy. 

Names meant something. Names were power and so they mattered, particularly in this game you played together. Equality had to be achieved before domination. 

“Good boy Toshi, you’re doing so well,” you cooed and brought your palm down twice, watching the skin on the backs of his thighs bloom pink like sakura in the spring. 

“S-six, seven,” there was a wet spot forming under his mouth on the sheets and on your lap where his cock was bare and leaking. “Ah, please—harder!” 

You raised your brow as he turned his head to look at you with those teary, dark eyes and you could never resist a look like that. 

“You want it harder, why’s that?” you wound back and smacked roughly over the raised welts that made him hiss and sob. “Is this what you deserve for being so weak?”

He may have been thin now, skeletal compared to the face he showed the public, but you didn’t mind. He trusted you enough to let his guard down, and his weight was still thick and full across your legs. It was invigorating to see a man like All Might, reduced to this. Whatever pent up guilt he carried inside, you were here to help let it all out in the best way you knew how. 

“Yes!” Toshi cried and buried his face into the plush fabric of your comforter as you delivered the last three harsh blows of the punishment he paid you for. “Fuck yes, I’m weak and I’m a failure and I deserve this—!”

“That’s right, you’re a piss poor excuse for a hero and you haven’t earned your title,” you wrapped two thick locks of his hair around your hand and yanked hard till he craned his neck to face you. “What would the world say if they could see what a sobbing mess you are when no one’s looking?”

He opened his mouth to speak, hips twitching and grinding uselessly against your thigh. The second that plush pink tongue dipped past his lips, you were rearing back to spit straight between his teeth. 

Toshi’s face was always priceless in these moments. You’d almost be willing to do it for free if you only got to see the way his brows shot up and those red rimmed eyes blew so wide as you steeled yourself and looked him dead on. 

“Now, swallow like the little bitch I know you are.” 

And he did, of course he does, because behind your bedroom door Yagi Toshinori was your good boy. So you got to watch his throat bob as your spit slid down and he moaned so pretty at the awful things you said to him. 

Your palm kneaded against the red, raw flesh of his ass and you watched how he squirmed at the sting. The room was filled with the scent of sweat and expensive cologne. Your head was spinning from the smell alone and the high of the control you wielded over this man. His hands fisted hard in your bed sheets and you let him helplessly rut against you a few times before running your free hand up the graceful curve of his spine. 

“Oh, you really are so disgusting Toshi,” you mused as your nails dig into the planes of muscles to drag angry red lines over the skin. “Did you really get that hard from me slapping this tight little ass of yours?”

He groaned pathetically and nodded, not bothering to hide how his dick had been oozing obscene amounts of precum every time you etched a new welt on his skin. The blush that crept up his chest and painted his cheeks had spread between his legs too. The unfairly massive cock that Toshi sported was flushed a dark angry red at the tip and you couldn’t help but have mercy on him. 

Well, only a little bit. 

You weren’t here to be nice tonight, even if a part of you might have liked to be. 

“Do you want to cum, Toshi?” you asked, lacing your voice with the false sweetness you knew he loved. “Have you been aching for it all night?”

He keened, crying your name and rutting his hips harder against you. It sent a rush of warmth between your legs despite your better efforts to remain unaffected. This wasn’t about you, this was about ownership and his pleasure. 

“Mhmm,” his voice was little more than a rasp, “wanna cum so bad, please!”   

You laughed, but it was a cruel thing and you knew he could feel the rumble of it in his scarred chest. 

“You did so perfectly taking your punishment,” you raked your nails over the raised handprints again just to hear him cry out. “I suppose I’ll let you cum, but you’ll have to work for it.” 

Toshi’s breathing was ragged as you helped him up to straddle one of your legs. His swollen cock rested on the plushest part of your thigh, the tip nudging your hip and drawing choked gasps from the man towering above you. 

He stared down at you, confused when you didn’t move to stroke him. 

“Go on, then,” you smiled up at him, resting your weight on your palms so you could lean back and watch the show. “I said you’d have to work for it, didn’t I?”

You punctuated your question with a bounce of your knee that rocked his length against the fabric of your pants. It didn’t take long for him to catch on, eyes squeezing shut against the waves of shame and embarrassment that just made it so much hotter as he slowly began to ride your thigh. 

He might be paying you to be ruthless, but Toshi was kind to a fault from what you’ve learned of him and he ke[t most of his massive weight held on the balls of his feet so you weren’t crushed below him. Under any other circumstances, you might have actually enjoyed that quite a bit, but his face—cherry red with spit-slicked lips held parted with the force of his pants—was enough for now. 

His cock was so heavy you almost couldn’t believe it was real. You nearly didn’t the first time he’d stripped for you, but even just the drag of it through your clothes was delectable. It was so long and thick you needed both hands to wrap fully around it, and he gushed like a fucking gieser when you got him under your metaphorical boot. 

With every rock of his bony hips, his length was forced up against the curve of your stomach and he whined at the glistening strands of slick that connected his tip to you.   

“Come on, Toshi,” you clicked your tongue disappointedly at him, letting a hand fall to the puckered skin at his waist, squeezing harshly. “I know you can do better than that.”

He was beyond words now, you could tell by the way his jaw was loose and his teeth clacked with every thrust, but he did gasp out a long, high pitched moan that made up for it. The speed of his humping increased, becoming erratic as he hunched on the bed, hands beside yours. He loomed over you but anyone could tell just by the composed, serene smile playing at your lips—and the absolutely wrecked noises spilling from Toshi—just which one of you was really in control. 

“You’re so close, aren’t you?” 

You knew he liked it when you spewed filth to him right before he boiled over and you were more than willing to oblige. 

“You’re gonna cum like a fucking teenager humping his pillow, isn’t that right?” you snarled the words up at him and he really did cry then, big fat tears dripping down onto your shirt. “All Might, the number one hero is gonna cum all over my lap like the slut he is.”

He nods frantically. You know his balls were tensing up as he sobbed and spluttered—completely ruined. Just the way he needed to be. 

“Then cum.” 

You finally wrapped your fist just around his aching tip and he exploded into your palm. Rope after rope of sticky, white release coated your arm and dripped onto the bed. He kept grinding his hips, working himself through the climax, cock still pulsing and leaking in your grip. You didn’t mind the mess. 

He always tipped a bit extra if he left stains anyway. 

Such a gentleman.

When the last wave of his orgasm had petered out, Toshi collapsed to the side with his face buried in your pillow and his long legs still strewn across your lap. He didn’t usually ask for much in the realm of aftercare, preferring that you cleaned him and let him rest for a bit before he suited up and rushed off into the night. 

You gave him a minute before you got up to wet a warm cloth in the sink. He looked so destroyed, you couldn’t help but admire your handiwork. As you palm his ass once more, fingers spreading him so his pink hole was on display, you slipped your phone silently from your pocket, and snapped a few shots of the nasty red hand marks and smears of cum as he groaned deeply at the touch. 

His voice was lower as he grunted and you could tell he’s coming out of the subspace you’d thrust him into hours before. Quickly you slid the device smoothly away before lifting his legs from you and settling them gently on the bed to work on tidying up your mess. 

You didn’t feel particularly good about keeping this kind of collateral, but as much power as you hold in the four walls of your bedroom, you were frustratingly weak once you left them. These men you worked with, while generally professional, were also top heroes. Top heroes who really didn’t want their embarrassing private lives getting out. Top heroes who thrived off reputation and who would willingly throw you under the bus in a second to protect that. 

You liked Yagi Toshinori. 

But you didn’t know him. 

Smacking someone’s ass or stroking their cock every few weeks didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. 

So you kept your personal insurance that would be there should one of your clientele decide to forsake you in favor of their public image. And you would never use it unless you absolutely had too. 

After all, this was about trust and power and the exchange of those two things. Or at least it was supposed to be. Trust was quite a subjective thing. 

The general citizenry trusted All Might to protect them against the growing evil in Japan’s underground. But behind the scenes, you knew his failing health had caused him to seek you out as the intense guilt of his lie came crashing down on him.

Toshi trusted you to relieve his pain and indulge in his degrading fantasies, and you hadn’t failed him yet. 

But your trust was not easily bought, and none of your customers ever paid much mind to whether your perceived belief in them was genuine. 

After so many glimpses into the messes of pro-heroes personal lives, you knew you’d have to be your own protector. Hence, the photos remained in a locked folder hidden away as you sat yourself down next to the dozing hero and wiped away as much evidence of your meeting as you could. 

“How are you feeling?” you asked quietly, lathing the warm cloth between his legs and softening length. 

“Good, all things considered,” he responded, voice returned to it’s normal, deep baritone. 

“I sincerely hope you won’t have to do much sitting tomorrow,” you quipped and it earned you a chuckle. 

“I’ll manage.” 

You rolled him gently and finished clearing the rest of his spend from the flat expanse of his stomach. Toshi mumbled his thanks and you gave his thigh a friendly squeeze before retreating from the room to shower and change yourself. 

He’d be gone by the time you got out, notification of payment on your phone and a sizable tip left on your dresser as a parting gift. 

And as long as Yagi Toshinori was just as good a boy on the outside as he was here, then the world would never need to know what their Symbol of Peace got up behind your closed doors. 

***

“All Might! Mister All Might, sir!” 

The grating voice of that shithead reporter echoed through the speakers of your headphones over and over again. Your hand shook as the train stuttered to a halt and a wave of passengers burst out onto the platform. 

“All Might, are the rumors true!?” 

Your stomach sank as the reporter shouted your name above the ruckus of microphones and camera flashes and roaring bodies. Their voice was like chalk on your tongue, dry and cracked and clamoring to know whether the Symbol of Peace was involved with the recently revealed ‘seedy’ and ‘scandalous’ sex ring between yourself and multiple top ranking heroes. 

You’d been out having a relaxing lunch with friends in the city when everyone’s phones blew up. It wasn’t that you hid the general details of your job, but by the looks on their faces were enough to make your face burn. The judgement was clear—what you did was abhorrent, disgusting and by extension, so were you. Reporters had caught you on camera with a certain second ranking pro and very quickly deduced exactly who you were and what services you offered. 

The tabloids took it and ran, dragging your reputation behind them. 

Call after call and text, dms on your social media pages, all from news outlets requesting interviews or quotes or hero fans calling you a ‘shameless whore’ for going after pros—hell death threats had even begun to fill your inboxes. 

Hero fans really were ride or die, you supposed, although the ‘die’ in that scenario seemed to refer more to you than themselves. They would never believe their precious big boy crush had ever associated with the likes of you, had ever willingly kneeled for you—had ever enjoyed it. 

They couldn’t understand the things you did, all they saw was some false emasculation.   

And if it came out that Toshinori had any contact with you, his career would be ruined. 

You had hoped from the little you’d learned about him in your sessions, that he’d simply deny knowing you existed at all. That he’d have mercy on you, treat you like the thousand helpless civilians he pulled from burning buildings or whatever the hell heroes did these days. 

But you’d been right before to say that you didn’t know Toshi. 

And now you certainly didn’t like him either. 

“Are you one of the pros involved?” the reporter hounded again as All Might’s massive form panned into frame. 

“As your Symbol of Peace, I certainly do not partake in such degenerate behavior,” his words rang out, deep and resonating. “I would never associate with someone who’s actions border on criminal.” 

The dark, soulless pits he called eyes stared mockingly from your tiny screen as his signature laugh reverberated through your ears along with the train’s clacking breaks. You ripped the headphones from your ears and closed out of the app, ducking your head and pushing towards the door. Everyone’s eyes were drilling into you, worming deep under your skin and making you squirm like so many of those heroes had done on your silk sheets. 

Rationally, you were aware not many people would have seen the story yet. Tabloid trash took a day or two to disseminate into the general social media outlets and for people to take notice. Your friends only knew because your name stuck out to them, but you were hardly recognizable in your typical citizen attire. Even still. 

Your life, your work, all of it was on display. 

And he’d called you a degenerate. 

The infallible All Might had taken your name and tossed it in the guttered, likened you to a villain and single handedly destroyed everything you’d built in the process. 

Years of effort and crawling your way up the ranks of society all for nothing.  

All so some washed up hero could keep his fantasy of success going for just a little longer. Toshi trusted you with his secrets, his weakness, his body, and you’d defended that at every turn. The only thing he had to do was pay a small fee for your time and discretion. 

But no amount of money could fix your toppled character. Nothing could reverse your place as a disgusting slut in the eyes of literal millions of people. 

Bold of Yagi Toshinori to underestimate you so thoroughly, to think that you’d sit back in the rubble as he rescued cats and little kids and lived his delusion of perfection.

This was about trust and power. 

When those lines were crossed, that’s when things got messy. 

And you’d make sure to leave so big a mess, Toshi would never dream of coming back from it. 

***

Your apartment building was thankfully free of any press when you arrived home. It had been a few days since All Might instigated your public slander, but the mass media hadn’t managed to track you down after you went into a short period of hiding. 

You needed time to let all your other clients involved in the scandal play their cards. 

There would be no use in condemning one just to have them warn the rest of their equally impending doom. That way you could be assured they’d all come crashing down with you. Especially the blonde poster boy of hero society himself. 

His would be the sweetest fall. 

It had been long enough now that you could start compiling. You locked the door behind you, shrugging off your coat and settling on the couch. The plush cushions sank as you fell back, pulling out your phone and scrolling through your contacts. Toshi was there, two red and blue hearts on either side of his name. You pulled up his text thread. 

You’d thought about going public of course. 

Of course you had.

Your entire career had been trashed, you’d been shamed by the number one hero himself and your personal life was blasted over social media. 

But you were human, so you were weak. 

And you had liked Toshi. 

Well, you hated him now—a deeply dark, burning resentment—but before that, he’d been so sweet to you in a way that most were not. Respectful and nice and you were unused to it. So, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to eradicate his credibility in the same outright manner. 

No, you had decided you’d give him a chance.

Because you were better than him. 

A chance to atone, come clean, apologize the way you’re sure he would if his public image wasn’t so goddamn important to him. So you didn’t reach out to any of the media outlets that had been hounding your socials for the past week, and didn't offer them the inside scoop quite yet. Instead, you stared at the handsome contact photo of your hero client and slowly typed him up a message he couldn’t ignore. 

It was short and sweet, polite but firm. You acknowledged he most certainly did not want to speak with you—in fact, you weren’t very inclined to speak with him ever again either—but you happened to be in possession of some fairly compromising photographic evidence of your time together. And if that evidence were ever to, say, end up in the pocket of the exact scandal rag that sent voice clips of All Might all but denouncing you as a whore to the nation, well. Things would certainly not end well for him. 

But, you were nothing if not professional. 

He knew that. 

You never wanted to use these, but he had forced your hand. Of course you were more than willing to work out a deal with him. 

He was your favorite client after all. 

In any case, he knew how to reach you, and he had a generous 48 hours to give you an answer to your proposition. 

Oh and you were kind enough to provide a little snapshot of just exactly the type of evidence you meant. 

Your thumb hovered over the little blue arrow to send. The phone clacked against your nails as it shook in your grip, slick from sweat and frayed nerves. You couldn’t quite tell if you were anxious or angry or some awful combination of the two, but your heart was in your throat as you shut your eyes and pressed send. 

There was no going back, and if this all came tumbling to the ground, you promised yourself that you would shatter gracefully. 

Letting the screen go dim, you stared in silence at the small check mark confirming the message had been delivered and your fate sealed. You pulled yourself to your feet and made your way to the bedroom. 

He’d get back to you soon, or maybe he wouldn’t. You couldn’t know for sure whether or not Toshi would simply ignore your texts and be blindsided when the deadline passed and you destroyed him all over again in a far less enjoyable manner than you used to. But whatever the case, it was out of your hands for now. 

With aching feet and tired eyes, you stripped slowly and stumbled towards the bathroom. Turning the water to just below scalding, you did your best to scrub away any pesky remaining guilt that clung to you in a thin, suffocating film. 

You told yourself that there was no other choice. That you would have found another way if there was one. That this was how business often went. You had seen it before when you first entered in the field of sex work and you’d see it again. So you scrubbed yourself raw and let all your doubts trickle down the drain. 

Tonight, you would sleep restlessly, but it was a fair enough burden to carry for your honor. 

You were foolish to believe the cost of revenge wouldn’t bear a heftier price. 

***

You woke slowly, trapped momentarily in the strange limbo between sleep and consciousness that fooled you into thinking the strange tightness at your wrists was nothing more than a leftover side effect of a dream. 

The reality was so much worse.

It wasn’t until you felt the blunt, radiating sting of knuckles backhanded against your cheek that the haze of sleep fell away, and you could truly appreciate the scene before you. 

Which was to say, you could take the opportunity to scream before Yagi Toshinori’s fingers were shoved down your throat to muffle the noise. He was large, shirt seams full to bursting, and sporting an expression you’d never seen before. His eyes, while always dark, were like holes now and they filled you with an unfamiliar sense of dread. 

He’d called you a villain before, and now he was looking at you like one too. 

“Oh no,” Toshi hissed. His voice was impossibly deep, reverberating against your ribs painfully, “I don’t want to hear anything out of you.” 

One quick bout of struggling made it very apparent he didn’t want you moving either as your wrists had been bound behind your back and your ankles were similarly immobilized. The fingers in your mouth pressed hard on your tongue, his thumb pushing below your chin to make you choke and splutter. 

“You really let all that power get to your head, didn’t you?” Toshi’s voice was buzzing in your ears and mingling with the pain in your jaw. He put one massive knee on the mattress and hooked his fingers behind your teeth, forcing you to sit up from the bed.

You could feel your face burn as he looked down at you, drool slipping passed your lips and coating his fingers. The straining bulge in his pants looked even bigger than you remembered now that he was no longer the slip of a man you’d come to know as Yagi Toshinori. 

No this was All Might, the Symbol of Peace. 

And you got the feeling that whatever was about to happen, it was not going to be peaceful for you.  

He had you tied and trussed like a piece of meat, and he would treat you like one. You’d seen this before, you’d tied these knots—he’d been where you were now, but he’d asked for it. The loss of control was never something you’d delighted in on a good day, and now the rising pressure in your chest and the sensation of walls closing had panic coursing through you.  

“Did you really think that I’d come back here willing to grovel at your feet?” he jeered, the trademark smile on his face more snarl than grin. 

He shook your jaw violently in his grasp, listening to the joints pop as they tried to stretch around his thick fingers. Your name left his mouth in a mock coo, just as you had done to him so many nights before. “Remember, you might get to call me a bitch but it’s only because I let you.”

Your hands trembled violently against the bonds which tore the delicate skin and rubbed it raw. Toshi’s free hand traveled along his thigh to rub himself through his pants, his knuckles brushing your nose as he bucked into his palm. 

“But now you’ve stepped out of line,” he mused and clicked his tongue as though you were a student who’d done poorly on his latest exam. “And I’m going to make sure that whore mouth of yours never utters my fucking name again.” 

Eyes wide with horror, you watched as Toshi’s fingers fumbled with the button and zipper of his slacks until his cock had sprung free, monstrous in length and girth, dripping onto your forehead. 

You’d seen it before, but it seemed bigger now. So big that you’d never been able to take it, and Toshi had been staunchly against you ever trying lest he quite literally split you in two. But any kindness he’d shown you before was clearly off the table. His fingers pumped in and out of your throat as if preparing you somehow to take the stretch. It wouldn’t help. You knew that. He knew that. 

Toshinori smiled as he removed his fingers in favor of digging the spit slicked digits into the joints of your jaw, ensuring you wouldn’t bite down on him as he pressed the spongy tip to your lips. The panic that had set in—making your blood rush and your limbs shake—was constricting your chest and the pressure of Toshi’s dick pushing past your teeth made your breathing even more erratic. 

You whimpered loudly, trying to wrench your head away as the strong salt and musk flavor of his pre cum spread across your tongue, but that only made him thrust forward harder. His length quickly hit resistance back of your throat as you gagged and tears burned at the corners of your eyes. 

The ache in your jaw was already unbearable and your bottom lip was being rubbed raw by warm spit and the friction of Toshi roughly fighting to sink his dick fully into your mouth. 

“Mm, that’s it,” he groaned as you inadvertently licked over his tip, trying to force him away. “You look so much better like this.” 

He ran a falsely sweet hand across your cheek, collecting the stream of tears and using the moisture to slick the rest of his length. Your chest heaved in a mixture of gags and increasingly violent sobbing. You were stretched painfully wide as he rolled his hips again, pushing the thickest bit of his cock into your mouth and forcing your teeth to dig painfully into your upper lip. With the next thrust, he was able to sink another excruciating inch deep into your throat. Blood rushed from where you bit yourself and caused crimson streaks to form as Toshi fucked slowly into your mouth. 

Your mind was slipping. 

You’d had so little time to process the encounter, so instead your brain had secluded most of your consciousness into a precious little box, away from the intense burning in your throat as Toshi finally sank all of his innumerable inches completely into you. Your throat bulged and protested, tightening in an attempt to force him out. 

It only made him moan loudly and dig his fingers into your hair. 

“See?” he huffed, pulling out at an agonizing pace only to ram his length in roughly to the hilt. “I’d never lie to my public, you really are just as much of a slut as they say you are.” 

You shrieked around his cock, though it was muffled so badly by the lack of air and the wet slap of his constant thrusting that no one but you could hear the screaming in your own head. The pain was unbearable, this awful friction burning sensation that had your stomach churning and your chest wracked with stifled cries. Your bound legs kicked and your fingers grasped useless at the sheets as Toshi fucked your mouth reckless abandon. 

Time blurred along with your vision, whether from the lack of oxygen or the tears you weren’t sure. 

And most horrifyingly of all, was the pleasure that grew as your mind drowned the pain in darkness. You felt as though you were floating, disgusted but euphoric and the slide of him against your lips became delicious. Heat rose in you and built between your legs accompanied by a distant and unfamiliar ache to please, to be touched, to taste him, to obey.

You wondered if this was how he felt when you forced his mouth on you. If he slid into this strange space where your mind was a separate entity and the only thing that mattered was the pain and the pleasure and the release. 

Because somehow, in the midst of your struggle and revulsion, he’d made this strange, incorporeal part of you enjoy this. 

All the fight had drained out of you, letting your jaw hang slack and your tongue flick up to catch his tip on every backstroke. Your eyes flitted up to look at him through the haze of tears and sweat, hoping strangely that he’d be pleased with you. And the groan you earned yourself was delectable. 

You gave in, then. Let yourself be swept away by the rushing of blood in your ears and the rhythm of Toshi tearing you apart.  

At some point, you could distantly feel his thrusts becoming more erratic, turning into a rough grinding in your mouth. 

You couldn’t even taste it when he came, his cock was too obscenely deep in your neck, but the warmth of it burned your bleeding throat and filled your belly with a hot finality. 

You weren’t even afforded the dignity of spitting his seed onto the floor where it belonged, ignoring the searing voice in your head that revealed in being rewarded with his essence. 

When Toshi finally pulled out and tucked himself away, your head fell limply to your chest. A series of violent coughs erupted from you as a thick, viscous mixture of blood and spit and cum dripped from your tongue. 

Those impossibly large hands gripped your chin once again, forcing you to look up into those piercing black eyes. 

“Now, you’re never going to speak about me again,” he wasn’t asking but you glared up at him as his hand fumbled in his pocket, pulling out his phone. 

The device was comically small in those hands of his as he aimed it at your ruined face and snapped a picture—the flash blinding you while he reached around and roughly undid the knotted rope keeping you in place. 

“Because if you do, I’ll make sure those reporters know everything I said about you was nothing but the truth.” 

The loudest part of you wanted to scream, to punch and bite and tell him it wasn’t. That you were a professional, with self-respect and dignity and you were good and your job, but— 

But when you opened your sore and aching jaw to shout, nothing came out. 

No sound, no yell, no words. 

Just this awful rasp that made your throat feel like pins were sticking into the abused flesh. 

“Well, looks like I might not need this after all,” Toshi dangled the phone in front of your face before pocketing it once again. “Looks like you won’t be saying much of anything for a good long while.”

And then Yagi Toshinori left. 

He turned on his heel and walked out as you toppled off the bed behind him, trying so hard to scream despite the pain and the ripping in your chest—whether they were curses or cries for him to stay, you weren’t sure.  

But there was nothing either way. 

So you sat and screamed in silent agony at his retreating form until the sound of a door slamming rang out through your home. 

It seemed that in all your years of playing this game, you’d finally been toppled off your tightrope. 

Because you were good at your job, so you knew. It was all about the exchange of power, and yours had just been thoroughly stripped away. 

[jj-babebank]

Camp Willowdale / JJ Maybank AU / PART 8

Synopsis: Camp Willowdale is buzzing with new campers. It’s Caroline Windsor’s first year as a camp counsellor after attending the camp as a camper for ten years. Little does she know that this year Willowdale Lake is going to be a little different from what she is used to it being…

Warnings: future chapters may include curse words, mentions of drugs, mentions of alcohol, mentions of sexual activities, mentions of death.

Pairings: JJ Maybank x fem OC Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3 ; Part 4; Part 5 ; Part 6 ; Part 7

Masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 8 –

49 days of summer camp left

Caroline sat in her bed, hugging her knees against her chest. Her and JJ had the afternoon off and despite his attempts to lure her into hanging out, and her infatuation with the boy, she’d turned him down, wanting to spend a few hours alone with herself to compose her thoughts. It had been exactly two weeks since the night Madison disappeared. No one had bothered to mess with the campers since then, the bonfire area hadn’t been touched and no dead animals were found in anyone’s suitcase. To the rest of the camp, this seemed like victory; to Caroline – it seemed like the calm before the storm.

During their first day at Camp Willowdale, all of the counselors had been given a Willowdale-branded set of items they’d have to use during their stay. It came with the obvious STAFF t-shirts, sweaters and hats, but it also consisted of other things – such as the thermoses Caroline and JJ were still using to sneak whiskey into their daily routines, and notebooks in which they were advised to plan out their group’s daily schedules. Caroline however had been using her notebook for other purposes. She’d become so obsessed with Madison’s case, that every little thing that happened on camp grounds and seemed even a little out of the ordinary, immediately became a clue to her, which she’d hastily scribble down in her notebook. It had only been two weeks since the disappearance of Madison Hague and Caroline had already filled about a quarter of the pages of her hefty notebook with potential clues and leads. She kept rereading her notes, trying to think of something – anything – that they could do to help them solve the mystery, however nothing was coming to her. Ever since the dress incident, Caroline and her friends hadn’t found anything else that could relate to Madison, though Caroline was glad that none of them had given up on their mission.

Caroline was so deep in her own thoughts, she nearly jumped at the sound of a sudden knock on the door. She quickly closed her notebook and tucked it under her mattress and went to open the door, revealing a panting JJ leaning on the doorframe.

“Hey, C,” he breathed.

“JJ, what’re you doing here? I told you I -”

JJ cut her off by pushing past her and walking into her cabin, “Yeah, yeah, you wanna be alone, I know,” he sat on her bed, taking his snapback off, “but I was thinking… you’ve been so busy with the kids and with the whole Madison thing, and believe me – I really appreciate you for being like that, but -”

Caroline crossed her arms, “Where are you going with this?”

JJ sighed, “You’ve just totally forgotten how to have fun, C,” he said, “The primary reason that we all came here was to have fun and look at you �� you barely eat, or sleep, or do anything other than your counselor duties and this whole Madison investigation thing…” JJ sighed again, looking at the hat in his lap and playing with its adjustable strap, “All I’m saying, C, is what if Madison really did go home and you’ve just wasted all this energy on nothing…Thing is,” JJ looked up into her eyes, “I miss you, the old you, and I know that that you’s still somewhere in there, it’s just this whole Madison thing blocking it.” he placed the hat back on his head and stood up, walking towards Caroline, “Hang out with me now,” he said, stopping directly in front of her and lifting her chin up so that she was facing him, “And I promise we’ll think about Madison later,”

Caroline couldn’t really process what was going on. JJ was touching her and standing in such an intimate distance from her, that she could basically feel his breath on her face. For a second she forgot all about Madison, and the dead owl, and the bonfire area. All she could think about was JJ Maybank, who had just told her that he misses her and wants to “hang out with her”. Caroline stood there, lost in thought. What if he was right? What if Madison really did go home and that dress never even belonged to her? What if it was Jenna Kinley’s all along and Sarah had just gotten the perfume wrong? What if JJ really did miss her because he liked her as more than a friend? No, no, that couldn’t be it. But what if –

“Um, Carrie?” JJ’s voice suddenly broke her out of her trans, “So d’you wanna do something together or -”

“Yes!” she said, a little too excitedly for her own taste, of course I’d like to hang out with you, JJ, she thought, “What do you want to do?”

JJ’s face immediately lit up at her words, “Well I was thinking perhaps a picnic?”

Caroline raised an eyebrow, “Don’t picnics require food? We don’t have access to anything unless it’s mealtime,”

“Yeah, but we do have whiskey,” JJ winked with a mischievous look on his face, walking towards the storage room of the girls’ cabin where they still had a few bottles of alcohol left.

Caroline rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless – this was going to finally be her first date with JJ Maybank. Well, sort of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The afternoon sun was low in the sky, casting a beautiful orange reflection onto the peaceful water of lake Willowdale. Caroline and JJ had taken a seat on the lakefront, drinking their whiskeys and admiring the sunset, reminiscing the days when they were kids again.

“D’you remember that one summer when Rafe Cameron got food poisoning and ended up barfing on stage at the Will-all-hail banquet?” JJ laughed at the memory.

Caroline frowned, thinking about it, “Beats having Rafe Cameron as your counselor by a mile,”

JJ turned to look at her, eyebrows raised, “Rafe was a counselor here?” his tone almost sounding amused.

Caroline nodded, “Oh yeah,” she smirked, “For the same reason as Sarah – too stuck up for his own good so their dad shipped him over here as a punishment,”

JJ snorted, “I mean that family is pretty far up their own ass,”

“They have a sister too,” said Caroline, “I haven’t seen her around here though, so we at least know that one of them must be doing something right,”

The pair laughed at the thought of their spoiled friend and her older brother.

“Man, I missed this place,” said JJ suddenly, leaning back on his elbows.

His tone sounded different as he looked at the horizon and Caroline could sense that something wasn’t right, “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask -”

“Parents got divorced,” JJ quickly explained, “And unfortunately for me, my dad got custody,” he sighed, “Somehow my mom was deemed ‘incapable’ of taking care of me because she couldn’t financially afford to. Load of bullshit, if you ask me,”

“But my mom -”

“Yeah, they still talk,” said JJ, knowing what Caroline was about to say, “I still see my mom every other weekend, you know, it’s not the end of the world,” he smiled at Caroline reassuringly, “It’s just living with my old man meant working for my cut at home, which also meant summer jobs back in Kildare,”

“So that’s where you’ve been all this time…” whispered Caroline, mostly to herself, however JJ heard her.

“Yeah,” he responded, “Now that I’m old enough to be a counselor here and actually get paid for coming to summer camp I thought why not? Besides, your mom did tip mine off that you’d be here too,” he winked at Caroline, making her blush.

“Yeah, about that,” she said apologetically, “My mom likes to yap a lot, I wouldn’t take most of what she says seriously,”

“Well you are here, aren’t you?” said JJ, his face slightly leaning in towards Caroline’s.

Holy shit, this was it. Caroline was about to kiss JJ Maybank after a decade of fawning over him. Shit, shit, shit, she hadn’t really kissed anyone since that idiot from her class planted one on her at prom. What if she was a bad kisser? What if she’d forgotten how to kiss? As JJ closed his eyes and leaned even closer, Caroline decided to push the doubtful thoughts to the side as she closed her eyes too, leaning in towards him too. Their faces were inches apart, hearts pounding in their chests and, just as their lips were finally about to meet –

“There you are!” Sarah’s loud voice came from the hill behind them, startling them and making them both jump and immediately pull apart and straighten up. John B stumbled after her.

Caroline coughed awkwardly, trying to cover up the shame and embarrassment she was currently feeling, “Sarah… what are you doing here?”

With a knowing smirk on her face, Sarah put both hands on her hips, “Nothing,” she sing-sang, obviously finding the whole situation hilarious, “I’m sure it can wait,” she winked down at Caroline, while John B was waving around frantically behind Sarah at JJ, mouthing the words “DID YOU BONE?!” quite obviously.

JJ groaned as he stood up, helping Caroline up as well, “We’re all yours now, Sarah, what’s up?”

“Well me and John B had the afternoon free as well, so we went out front to his van and you’ll never believe what was taped to the door,”

“Wait, why’d you go to his van in the first place?”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “That’s beside the point now, Carrie, look” she shoved a piece of paper in the girl’s hands.

As Caroline unfolded the paper, the group gathered around her to look at what was written on it - 41° 56’ 54.3732” N, 87° 39’ 19.2024” W.

“I have no idea what that means though,” confessed Sarah.

“Looks like coordinates to me,” said JJ.

“Hey, that’s what I said!” gasped John B, “But Sarah didn’t want to believe me,”

“Does anyone know how to read geographical coordinates?” JJ looked at his friends.

“Do I look like Google Maps to you?” asked Sarah.

“You’re right,” Caroline said as an idea sparked in her mind, “We can’t read coordinates, but I know someone who can,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

“I’m just saying, Miss P,” JJ spoke confidently once the group was inside Pricilla’s office, “Now’s about the best time to host the traditional yearly treasure hunt,”

Pricilla squinted up at JJ through her pink glasses from where she was sat at her desk, “Keep talking, Maybank,”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that it’s already been two weeks and none of these kids can read a compass yet?” continued JJ, earning a slow nod from the camp director, “Think about it, Miss P – Willowdale ain’t Willowdale without its treasure hunt,”

As JJ spoke, the rest of the group were silently praying behind him that his charismatic way with manipulating will work on Pricilla, giving them an excuse to ask her to decipher the mysterious coordinates they had gotten their hands onto. The old lady leaned back in her old leather chair and looked at JJ skeptically for a while, adding to the already built up tension.

“Give me a few days to map out the course and set up the coordinates,” she finally spoke, causing everyone in the group to silently cheer behind JJ. As they thanked her and turned to leave, she spoke up again, “Oh, and Maybank,” she called, everyone turning to look at her, “No funny business,”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Finally some normal camp activities. Thank you for reading so far, I would greatly appreciate you letting me know what you think about the story and the characters xxx

tags: @k-k0129 ; @hayleyy-l ; @marvellover04 ; @dumbasscorn ; @thrown-off-her-rhythm

[mrepstein]

The Beatles Book Monthly (No. 5, December 1963)

‘A TALE OF FOUR BEATLES’ by Billy Shepherd

PART IV (PART I // PART II // PART III)

Part IV opens in June, 1961 and charts Brian Epstein's early involvement with the Beatles.

And so the Beatles, with two experience-garnering trips to Germany behind them, got back to Liverpool. A swingin’ scene... and they were very much a part of it. It was the end of June, 1961.

But though they liked having more money to spend, they hadn’t the foggiest idea of just how much they were worth. The offers came in. Anything between £6 and £14 was the pay-packet, to be shared between Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and drummer Pete Best.

“We just didn’t know,” admits George. “We loved the work, the excitement. We didn’t realise we were often being exploited. But it was hard work and somehow we didn’t seem to have much money in the kitty after we’d kept our equipment up to scratch...”

July, 1961, could go down as a summit meeting in Merseybeat history. A steamy, summery, shimmery night at Litherland Town Hall. A young promoter named Brian Kelly announced his attraction: The Beatmakers.

George Harrison was on lead guitar. Paul McCartney on rhythm. John Lennon on piano. Drummers were Pete Best and Freddie Marsden. Les Maguire operated on saxophone, Les Chadwick on bass guitar - and Gerry Marsden nipped on and off behind a big grin to take the vocals.

Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Beatles had linked up. For one night only and for a fee which is the smallest fraction of what they’d command for such a show now.

It led to friendships between the group members... but it didn’t seem to be leading to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the Beatles.

Says John: “We went on knocking ourselves out night after night but somehow there was a bit of frustration creeping in to it all. It didn’t seem to be leading anywhere.”

But the audiences were greatly appreciative.

Says Paul: “We started accepting dates further south. We got pretty near London on some of them. No change of material for us - still the stuff that went down so well in Germany. But we were veering away from the leather gear. Don’t make this sound big-headed, but the fact is that a lot of other groups were copying the way we looked on stage. So we changed to more ordinary clothes for a while.”

But in September, depression set in. Paul and John took themselves off to Paris for a holiday. They remember being flat broke. Remember having to search through every pocket to rake up enough francs for a Coke. Now, of course, they can go where they please and not count the cost.

And George and Pete stayed on in Liverpool, virtually lost to the Beat scene. Ray McFall, owner of the Cavern Club remembers seeing Messrs. Harrison and Best around the lunch-time sessions but they seemed dispirited. They took a lot of persuading even to join in on the impromptu roar-ups.

Let well-known Liverpool show compere Bob Wooler fill in the background to this black spot in the Beatles’ history.

“I’ve known the boys since the early days. I’ve been a long-time admirer. What they really needed was a manager in those far-off days. They seemed content not to argue about the fees they were offered. And they didn’t seem to realise that they were pulling in crowds on the strength of their own name and performance.

“After all, they had to live. They had to look after their equipment - and they often had travelling expenses to pay. It’s all very well being popular and enjoying your work, but you should be paid what you’re worth as well.

“Ray McFall at the Cavern was different. If the crowd was good, he upped the fee. That’s why the boys have always been so loyal to the Cavern. But you can understand them being puzzled at the lack of hard cash from their other venues where they were so often doubling the attendances.”

Paul and John were meanwhile spending a lot of time on their song-writing. You’ll see how much they’d already achieved in this direction as the story pushes on to the first recording days.

John and Paul could never sit down and simply write a song to order. They admit: “We have to wait for the ideas to arrive. It can happen anywhere. On a bus, or a train, or backstage at a dance-hall or theatre. Sometimes the title suggests itself first. Then we get going on the words and music. Sometimes we’ve finished a very successful seller in less than an hour.”

But their most pressing need was for a manager. Paul has told me “When we first started on paid jobs, we honestly thought we weren’t manageable. We thought nobody would want to bother with us. We were a pretty off-beat bunch of characters, to say the least. And we had a sense of humour which somehow involved us all and which was hardly in the interests of discipline. So, for a long time, we just didn’t take any notice of the advice that we should be properly handled. ‘Who’d WANT US,’ was the way we thought...

“And that’s where we were wrong...”

A MANAGER. Liverpool man Allan Williams took on the chore for a while... he now runs the Blue Angel Club on Merseyside.

But the man who was to make show business history with the Beatles knew nothing about the group in that September of 1961. That man, of course, was Brian Epstein, one-time drama student, member of a family which owned a chain of furniture and radio-TV stores in Liverpool.

He was not exactly WITH the beat scene. But he WAS in touch with the public taste through his work in the record department of the stores. He’d been there for five years, building up the business, enlarging the staff roster and increasing the turnover.

And in September, 1961, he was a puzzled man. Fans kept approaching him with: “Have you any records by the Beatles?” Brian mused. Pondered. Wondered. One young lad was particularly persistent in his demands. Brian dug deep into the record-lists. And found reference to that “My Bonnie” single, recorded in Germany, on which the Beatles played a strictly supporting role to guitar-star Tony Sheridan.

“I became Beatle-conscious for a while,” he says. “I always tried to work on the theory that the customer was right - and if they wanted the Beatles, well... I’d do my best to supply the Beatles. Eventually I traced the source and ordered some 200 copies for the record-stores. They sold quickly...

“Then out of the blue I heard they were Liverpool boys, had a rapidly-growing following - and were actually playing in a club near the store. It was a place that I’m sure I’d visited before, a sort of teenage gathering-place, but I really didn’t know much about it.

“After a while, I thought I’d better pop down there and see what all the fuss was about.”

Brian Epstein went to the Cavern. Met the Beatles. And things really started happening for the ambitious but not-too-sure group.

There are two ways of looking at this near-historic meeting. Brian Epstein’s. And the Beatles’ viewpoint.

Beatles first. Said George: “He started talking to us about the record that had created the demand. We didn’t know much about him but he seemed very interested in us and also a little bit baffled.

“He came back several times and talked to us. It seemed there was something he wanted to say, but he wouldn’t come out with it. He just kind of watched us and studied what we were doing. One day, he took us to the store and introduced us. We thought he looked rather red and embarrassed about it all.

“Eventually, he started talking about becoming our manager. Well, we hadn’t really had anybody actually VOLUNTEER in that sense. At the same time, he was very honest about it all - you know, like saying he didn’t really know anything about managing a group like us. He sort of hinted that he was keen if we’d go along with him...”

Brian, quite honestly, thought that the Beatles looked a mess. He wondered what exactly they thought they were trying to be. Their strange jackets, the rather scruffy jeans, the hair-styles, which could only have been styled on something called “chaos.”

“But there was something enormously attractive about them,” he recalls. “I liked the way they worked and the obvious enthusiasm they put into their numbers. People talk about the Liverpool sound but I sometimes wonder what exactly they mean. These boys put everything into their routines but they didn’t use echo. That struck me as being a very good thing.

“It was the boys themselves, though, who really swung it. Each had something which I could see would be highly commercial if only someone could push it to the top. They were DIFFERENT characters but they were so obviously part of the whole. Quite frankly, I was excited about their prospects, provided some things could be changed.”

And Brian told his friends: “This could easily turn out to be the biggest show business attraction since Elvis Presley.” It’s a tribute to his foresight and intuition that that is precisely what has happened.

Brian decided to get the boys together at a round-table conference at his store. A time was fixed and the boys agreed. But Beatles are not always the easiest of people to organise. Brian sat waiting... and waiting... and waiting. He was trying to cope with the vastly complex figures of Christmas orders for the store and minutes were precious to him.

Eventually THREE Beatles arrived. George, John and Pete. No Paul. Story goes that Brian got George to ring through and see what had happened to the left-handed guitar-star. And that Paul admitted he was still in the bath... but wouldn’t be long!

Brian was rather on his high-horse. He felt it was not the right thing for someone who wanted to talk business to be kept waiting. He pointed out that Paul, the cherubic one of the four, would be extremely late. “Yes,” said George, forcing back a grin. “But he’ll also be extremely clean.”

Says Brian: “That sense of humour is invaluable. You could hardly feel annoyed at their lack of business ability. They were just four individual and off-beat characters.”

Prior to Brian taking such an interest, there was great concern among Cavern people that there was a chance of the Beatles packing in all thoughts of show business careers. Bob Wooler had tried hard to get BBC television producer Jack Good interested in the group. Jack had produced beat shows, like “Six-Five Special” which had been the stepping-stone to success for artistes like Cliff Richard. But Jack was also in demand in the States... and he’d gone there to further his own career long before Bob could get any decision from the telly-folk.

Brian, having eventually assembled all four Beatles in the same room, put his propositions to them. He went through a process of brain-washing, though he did it all very tactfully. He didn’t like their manner of dress. Wasn’t knocked out by the unruly hair-cuts. Was singularly unimpressed by the way they casually drank tea on stage while in the middle of shows.

He pleaded with them rather than ordered them. He knew they were a valuable property and he was knocked out at the way their personal following was growing through the Merseyside area.

Said John: “He’d tell us that jeans were not particularity smart and could we possibly manage to wear PROPER trousers. But he didn’t want us suddenly looking square. He let us have our own sense of individuality.”

He added: “We respected his views. We stopped champing at cheese rolls and jam butties on stage. We paid a lot more attention to what we were doing. Did our best to be on time. And we smartened up, in the sense that we wore suits instead of any sloppy old clothes.”

It was a master-plan. A long-term plan if necessary but it was aimed at making the most of four young men who clearly had that star quality in them... even though a recording contract was still more than nine months away.

Obviously, Brian Epstein’s main job was to get the group on record. He knew the strength of their popularity in Liverpool and he felt it wouldn’t be a hard job to interest some of the London companies. But that was where Brian was wrong.

He even delayed any sort of action until the results of the 1961 “Mersey Beat Poll” were announced. That came up at the end of the year. And the Beatles were high and dry in top place in this important survey of how the public felt about the myriad groups operating in the scene. Said Brian: “I thought this was the ‘Open Sesame’ to the recording scene. I felt that Liverpool was important enough to have London executives falling about to sign the boys. I was wrong...”

Brian, though technically still in charge of important parts of the family business, threw himself into the job of getting the Beatles known nationally. He had the backing of the Beatles’ parents and it was to be no holds barred for the major break through.

He started visiting London. Hopefully. Optimistically. But record executives showed an alarming tendency to register non-committal gloom. Brian had to keep reporting apparent failure to the boys - by now riding higher than ever in popular acclaim in Liverpool.

Cont’d next month in No. 6

[darkdevasofdestruction]

Queen of Masks ~ Alfie Solomons

Life as a woman, in any country really, isn’t the best, unless you score a jackpot with the most gentle, sweetest man and you become his housewife and agree to be some kind of baby factory and a maid, should he not have enough to provide for one, and a chef, nonetheless.

However, there are enough ambitious women who have enough spite in their veins to trample over anyone standing in their path of success, and would spit on graves and crush cadavers under their heeled boots that they wear with much pride and conviction.

That is exactly the case of Y/N, a gorgeous woman who won against all odds and became a Veterinary Physician in London, Camden, to be precise, and had to work under an older man who had a clinic - But it was fine, she got to learn loads, and interacting with animals on a daily basis was enough to keep her going and not to answer to any provocation from her male colleague who was far inferior to her, intellectually and intuitively speaking.

And one day, after tending to a gorgeous black race stallion, a tall and broad man walked in with a Bullmastiff boy who, upon seeing her, managed to snatch away his chain leash and jumped on her, trampling her to the ground and licking her all over her face.

The man jumped in shock, trying to pry away his pet from the poor woman, only to notice she was laughing and that he face was bright like the sun, as she tried to wipe away all the slobber from her face.

“I’m so sorry, aye, he’s never done somethin’ like this before. Here, let me help you up, right.” the man extended his hand for her to take, helping raise her up, then reprimanded his dog. “Don’t worry, mister, it’s quite alright. I kinda like when animals act so affectionate, it makes it feel as if I’m doing something right. What’s your name, darling? Let’s get you up on the table...Arghh...What a heavy baby...You’re gonna break every bone in my body...” the woman sweet talked the dog, struggling to hold him in her arms like a baby so she could put in on the table to examine. “He’s name’s Cyril, I got him last year. ‘S just a routine check up, but I think there’s a bump on his neck, yeah, right here.” the man explained, letting the girl palpate his dog and continuing to sweet talk him to calm him down. “Thyroid Carcinoma.” the male doctor spoke, which made the girl whip her head to him with a disturbed look. “Thyroid Cancer? Surely, you must be joking. Have you even been to Vet school?!” Y/N protested, shaking her head in protest at his sudden diagnosis. “What else could a bump in the thyroid area mean? Don’t play smart, just be humble and accept when you’re wrong.” the man rolled his eyes, not lifting his head from his papers. “First of all, even if it IS a tumour, it doesn’t HAVE to be cancer, it can still be completely harmless, thus, benign. Secondly, out of all tumours a dog can have, thyroid cancer is the least common one, the percentage going to maximum 2%. Therefore, NOT cancer! Besides, it could be hyperthyroidism, if you want to go over the top, but again, it could just be something the owner felt because something got stuck in his neck and-....Oh.” the girl then carefully touched the neck area, and smiled widely, looking down, nodding to herself. “What? You shut up ‘cause you finally realised I was right, despite your useless statistics?” the doctor grumbled in annoyance, not caring, obviously. “Wanna bet 100 pounds that it’s not cancer?” she asked, kissing Cyril’s head and playing with his floppy ears, action which made the dog bark playfully. “Ah, sorry, mister, I didn’t ask for your name and whether you find it insensitive or not for us to bet on a diagnosis.” she smiled awkwardly, extending her hand towards the bearded man who was watching the interaction carefully. “Alfie Solomons, lass, but call me just Alfie, right? So, yeah, ‘s fine, bet all you want, just make my boy better, eh?” Alfie shook the girl’s hand, seeing her cunningly going to the other doctor and spitting in her hand to shake and make the bet go through.  “Okay, Alfie, you might want to step to the side a bit...If you value your shoes, that it. They look pretty new.” she chuckled softly, signing him with her head to move to the side, and so he did, as she made the dog vomit, and thus, revealing a small ball. “Oi, I can’t believe it! You stupid dog, Cyril, aye, how could you manage to swallow your own toy, yeah?!” Alfie gasped, his brows furrowing from shock. “Weirdly enough, dogs, especially big ones, are prone to swallowing little things, just like human babies are. It was small enough to just make him cough, but it’s a good thing you got him here in time.” the girl started quickly cleaning up the floor as she explained everything, as the Jew was still staring in shock at the idiocy of some animals. “Well, lass, thank you for solving the mystery, yeah, of whatever the hell this was, right. So, then, tell me how much I have to pay you for this consult, aye.” Alfie asked, which made her snap her head upwards, looking up at him, her eyes wide in shock. “No, God, no, nothing, it’s on me! I mean, if it weren’t for you...” Y/N smirked, reminding Alfie of a vixen, as she twirled around and went to snatch away the hundred pounds banknotes from her employer’s hand, who was looking at her with anger and bitterness. “I wouldn’t have been paid more than I’m paid in 3 months in just one day! It’s the least I can do to thank you...And to also see Cyril again, because I think it’s a connection. Right, Cyril? You’re such a sweet baby boy-....ARGH, GODS, NO-...!” but before the girl could compose herself, Cyril jumped on her torso, knocking her down again, coating her face in yet another sleek coat of drool from the lickings. “Damn it, Cyril, you’re impossible! Let the poor lass live, eh? I know, I know, she’s pretty, but leave her alone, alright?” after he finally managed to pry away the canine, he helped the girl up, who, once again, was laughing. “Let me make it up to you, yeah, for all the trouble this prankster’s been giving you, right. I’ve this bakery, y’know, the one nearby, so, anything you want, yeah, anything, you ask for it, you say my name, right, you say Alfie owes you a favour, and it’s all on the house, eh. How’s that.” he spoke, and he could see that her overly confident and extra demeanour shattered in an instant, making her look down, her beautiful, long hair hiding her features, as she was most likely blushing and smiling. “O-Oh, then, if that’s your bakery, means I’ve heard of you, you’re THE Alfie Solomons. Yeah, I’d love that, if you’d have me, but I told you, you don’t have to. I used you to get money worth of about 3 months, or more, so really, I should be thanking you somehow, but I don’t really have anything else to offer, other than to pay for the consult myself.” her serious, boastful voice turned very soft and shy, as fast as the flick of her fingers, as she walked him out of the clinic, so only he would hear. “Your boss there...He seemed kinda...Angry, eh. Are you gonna be fine dealing with him, lass?” he asked, bending down a bit, speaking to her tone level. “I guess. What’s the worst he can do, anyway. Besides, I care more about this conversation right now, and...About this.” she smirked softly, showing off the rolled pounds from her coat’s chest pocket. “So, Mr. Gangster, is there any specific time you’d be okay with me coming by the bakery? Maybe...Under the pretext of yet another regular check up on Cyril? Or...The smell of freshly baked cookies just captured me enough to find myself senselessly walking into the place?” she asked, diving her hands into her pockets, waiting for an answer, too timid to look him in the eye. “Ahhh, I see you’ve heard of me. Well, lass, I guess I can’t pretend to be some ordinary man, right, but maybe we can still enjoy a nice chat once in a while, eh, it would be nice, right?” the corner of Alfie’s mouth turned upwards, extending his hand for her to shake. “Y/N L/N, it’s great meeting you, Alfie. And yeah, it would be great. I’ll be seeing you around, alright? Hope I’ll see you soon and maybe we can have a nice cup of tea and anything that you’ve baked. I’m looking forward to that.” she shook his hand, smiling brightly at him, gesture which he turned. “And I’ll be seeing you as well, sweetheart.” with that, she kissed Cyril’s head once again, before waving Alfie goodbye and walking back into the clinic. “And I’ll be seeing you too...Y/N.” the gangster muttered, grinning at his dog and praising him with a few pats on his head. “Cyril, my boy, you’re my lucky charm.”

A week passed, and Y/N walked into the bakery - However, it wasn’t the front up, the bakery shop that smelled heavenly - It meant the gangster warehouse where Alfie would usually conduct his business meetings. And, of course, it was shocking to him when heard the click of heels and saw a beautiful, slender woman, dressed in high-waisted pants, with a black turtleneck tucked in her pants, beautiful brown leather boots with heels and a black trench coat that elegantly, yet imposingly hung from her shoulders, as if she was some kind of mafia Queen - Elegant, but deadly.

“Hello, Alfie. I heard you have a job around this place. Not sure what it is...Medic? Secretary? Dog-walker? Maybe you could fill me in.” she asked, her hands in her pants, fidgeting in her spot. “Where’ve you heard about this...Supposed job, eh, lass? And why’d you quit your job from the clinic, eh?” he asked, his fingers intertwining as he leaned forward, elbows rested on his desk. “Ah, well...Y’know...I got my medical license pulled, so I need a way to make money, and you’re the only one that I trusted not to treat me like garbage, so here I am. I know there’s no job, but I had to try my luck and be comedic in a way. It’s probably about the only thing I’m good at, sort of. It’s fine if you don’t want to give me a job, I mean, you can’t trust me with your business info after just speaking to me once, I can imagine, and - “ she kept on ranting, until Alfie raised both his hands in the air to calm her down and stop her speaking, before he raised to his feet, getting in front of the desk and leaning back on it. “Well, I did owe you a favour, right, so, sure, you’re hired, right, I’ll find you something. While we’re at it, can you, yeah, can you fire a gun?” he asked, with a mix of seriousness and playfulness in his voice. “Is it...In the job requirements?” she asked, looking around the place with a fake kind of curiosity. “There’s no job seeking, yeah, so, therefore, no job requirements. I was just being curious, alright, y’know, I have to know what everyone around is capable of, okay.” he explained, which made her smirk and turn on her heel to look at him. “That’s only fair. After all, now that you know that I’m particularly incapable of defending myself against people in general, you’ll just have to be extra careful to keep me safe, right, Alfie? We wouldn’t want Cyril to grieve over me, would we?” she chuckled, extending her arms to her side in a dramatic manner. “Haha, yes, lass, I s’ppose you’re right. Can you handle more than one job, eh? I can hire you as a physician, right, but we don’t always have wounded men, yeah, so, you’re a smart woman, alright, I’m sure you are very capable of reading, writing, doing calculus and other stuff that involves using your head, right, so, I don’t know what name will this job have, but, maybe an assistant of sort, eh? Ollie here helps me out a lot, yeah, but he can’t do everything, he ain’t some God, y’know.” Alfie gesticulated, pointing towards Ollie, then tried to explain to her that things are serious, and not to be taken lightly. “Guess this is gonna be the thrill of my life, huh? I’m in, Alfie. At least I can get along with you without fearing having my license pulled-...Oh, wait, I have nothing to fear about anymore.” she chuckled in a self-deprecating way, making Alfie cross his arms to his chest. “You never told me what happened. Go on, tell me. I’m sure you didn’t kill a dog, or somethin’, you’re too smart a doctor to fuck up.” his curiosity got the better of him, as he saw her turning to look at him, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly agape, and he could almost see her brain gears moving, trying to think of a witty answer. “Didn’t you say something about freshly baked goodies and tea? I bet that’s gonna be a much more...Hospitable way of chatting with your new employee, wouldn’t it? Or better said, friendlier? I mean, this place is so...Ugly and humid...Only good for gangster business. The echo here, if you shout, can intimidate anyone, I’m sure. Come on, show me the actual bakery...And you better have a gramophone. I like music.” she smiled up at him, hooking her arm to his, pulling him in a random direction to urge him to guide her to the bakery, where the beautiful smell of bread and cookies mesmerised her, and she playfully swooned in her chair. “I see you’re enjoying this place very much, eh. Well, can’t say I expected you coming today, so I didn’t bake them myself, yeah, but I’ll make it up to you. Sure you want tea and not rum or somethin’?” Alfie asked, a bit awkward staying at the cute little table, with a cute, little cup of tea in his bear-like hands. “Yes, I’m quite sure, Alfie. But it’s fine, you don’t have to drink what I’m drinking, I won’t think of you any differently. In your home, you do as you please.” she chuckled at him, watching as he nodded solemnly, only to down that tea in one go, small droplets of liquid embedding themselves in his beard. “Right, right, I understand, y’er a people pleaser, you want everyone to like you, unless it goes against whatever scheme you have. You’re smart, alright. Very smart, and you’ve sharp eyes, and are cunning. I need someone like you around, yeah. But tell me, how’d you manage to lose your dream job in a week?” Alfie asked, extending his hand to gently grab her chin, pulling it so he could peer right into her gorgeous, vixen-like eyes. “Remember the bet I did when you came around with Cyril? Well, apparently that jerk got mad at me for, to quote, steal his money, so he filed a malpractice lawsuit to get his money back, 5 times more, and pulled away my license, to get revenge on me for humiliating him in front of a customer...Allegedly. Very petty, I know, but, as they say...C’est la vie. Not much to do about it, really. Now I’m seen as a con-artist thief who kills animals, so I have no way of getting a job anywhere anymore, hence why I’m here. Lovely, innit?” she snorted as she took a bit of the cookie, closing her eyes to savour it’s flavour. “And now, I think I died and went to heaven, ‘cause this is the best thing I’ve eaten in my life.” “You’re so hired, lass. Did ya pay the 500 pounds?” he asked, propping his jaw on his hand. “Yeah, thankfully. And by that, I mean I to sell my apartment so now I’m using my saving to stay at a cheap hotel, but, y’know, life’s life. At least I know I won and I was right. Maybe if I had the right connections, I could have won 10 times what I lost...But what do I know. I don’t really know how non-legal things go by.” she chuckled softly, scratching the back of her head in a playfully guilty manner. “Y’know, Y/N...I think we can solve that fairly quick, yeah. Tell me the name, and I’ll make sure things are sold. In the meantime, I’ve a nice, warm room where you can stay, right, and surely, Cyril’s gonna love your company.” Alfie smiled at her, signaling for her to follow him.

At that time, she had no idea this was actually his home, but when she did find out, she was more than grateful, if not, a bit awkward, for  having to rely so much on his kindness. However, just as he promised, Alfie managed to get that jerk of a doctor to pay her 10 times the money she paid him, and thus, she would have been able to get a very modern and luxurious place, only for herself, and even buy a dog, a cat, or hell, more of them.

But she refused, and asked to continue staying with him, if she wasn’t too much of a burden, since she really enjoyed spending time with him, and she had no idea, other than working 200% of her capabilities for her job, whatever that was, at the moment, and, of course, she would have missed Cyril too much.

It didn’t take long for Alfie’s people to realise the obvious chemistry between the two, and Ollie kept trying to convince him to ask her out, but things are always so difficult, aren’t they? Business and logics are much easier than subjective emotions.

It became sort of a routine for everyone around to see their boss writing and reading documents at his desk, while Y/N would sit on the desk, her legs resting on his chair’s back rest, as she would write on her clipboard whatever relevant things she thought were worth noting down, and would occasionally express her opinions regarding ideas that Alfie had, or some businesses that he was dealing with at the moment - All that, with, of course, the frequent witty comments they would exchange - And it was never anything hurtful, or reproachful jabs, only playful and domestic comments that always made her laugh.

“You never told me why you always look down when you interact with people, y’know, and by that, I don’t mean when you’re being some dramatic Queen, but when you’re being yourself. I mean, I haven’t seen women who let their hair so long these days, right, so I was curious about you. You do things much differently than most people, y’know that, don’t you?” Alfie asked, raising his head to look up at her, only to see, once again, trying to think of how to explain things that don’t rely on rational and objective behaviours. “Ah...Well...Uh...Y’know...I’m...My face is very expressive, y’know. So, like...I get embarrassed easily, or...Uhm...When I lie, or something, I tend to grin or laugh. I’m a messy failure who can’t do a pokerface, like, ever, so, since most people are taller than me, if I let my hair cover my face, they won’t see the truth. Or, well, y’know, at least that’s what I hope. I can’t look at them while hiding, so I’ve no way of telling whether it works or not. Contrary to me being flashy and dramatic, I’m kinda shy and terrible around people.” she chuckled awkwardly, looking away from him, bringing up her clipboard to cover half of her face. “Ahhh, I see, I see, so you go to real great lengths, yeah, to get what you want, and so far, you’ve done really well, eh. Is there anything you can’t do, lass? You’ve been doing this job for over a year, and business has improved with...Uh...Lemme see, how much did you say...Ah, yes, here, it says 23%.” he had his glasses on as his eyes scanned the documents on his desk. “I...Can’t socialise, I guess. And I can’t relax. I don’t know how to have fun. Uhm...I can’t human, I guess? I don’t know what to call it, but I think you get what I’m saying. Anyway, we have business work now, so read this paragraph here, I think we have to talk threaten Sabini a bit, he’s over his head now with power, someone has to humble him, give us a better percentage of his business, and -” Y/N tried to quickly redirect the conversation, hating when she had to talk about herself, but obviously, she couldn’t say no to the man who was always so kind and sweet with her, could she? “Nahhh, it’s fine, Y/N, let’s take a little break, right? We’ve been working since early morning, it’s evening now. Ollie, go make tea and bring those treats made today, eh. Now, lass, why don’t you tell me how did you get around to practicing medicine? I’ve always been curious by that, you know, you don’t see many women unafraid of stuff like that, yeah.” he pointed out, letting himself fall down on his chair’s seat, looking up at her. “Y’know, Y/N, you say you can hide your emotions when you hide your face from people taller than you, yeah? But what happens when they look at you from below? Gotta say, Y/N, sometimes, your worried face is rather pretty...Better now, let me look at you when you speak, yeah, we’re equals, when you go all meek on me, you make me feel like some kind o’ merciless boss or somethin’.” he chuckled, raising a bit to put her hair behind her ears, revealing a soft blush coating her cheeks, and god damn, he could feel his heart beating a bit faster. “Uhm...Okay, fine, sure, I owe you that much. Uhm...My dad was a medic too, so it became a family business for a while. And, uhm...Dad was recruited as a war medic, and went with my brother, while I and mum continued to take care of the people and animals from our city. When it was all over, I decided to get to London to practice properly, get more money and provide for my family better. They’re getting old and they need someone to take care of them, somehow.” she explained, but her eyes were darting around, and he could feel she was still hiding something because of her hesitance, but he wasn’t sure what exactly was it that she was trying to hide.

But before either of them could say anything about it anymore, a loud bang echoed through the warehouse, somewhere from the entrance, which made the girl jump in her place with a mouse-like squeak, slapping her hands over her ears.

It’s true, any person would get frightened by a gunshot that resounded so loudly through that place - And yet, this one looked like a panicked, scared fawn in the headlights - And Alfie, of course, noticed that and came to a few conclusions for himself.

However, before he could say anything, a man entered their field of vision, and he could feel Y/N tensing up, her face showing shock and disgust at the person who she clearly recognise. She turned her head to look at Alfie, and with pleading eyes, mouthing a few simple words that may or may not have shocked him.

“Let me kill him” she tried to say, but this mystery man spoke out faster than expected, and it was clear she was getting more and more angry and embarrassed by the moment. “Y/N, darling, what are you doing here? Whoring around with other men, getting into illicit business, thinking you’re superior to men just because you have some over the top ambitions that are completely unreachable, and now you think you can get rich by staying around wealthy old men, huh?” the man kept speaking, igniting an infernal fire into her eyes. “Alfie, I pride myself with my never ending patience, but I swear to God, if you don’t let me kill him...I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” Y/N muttered between her gritted teeth, shocking Alfie since he never saw her as the violent type. “I’m not doing any business with him, alright, do what you feel like doing, Y/N, he’s all yours.” Alfie sat back in his chair, his fingers intertwined over his stomach, watching with interest whatever she was going to do.

Y/N jumped off the desk and slowly prowled around it, her head hanging low, before she snapped it up, glaring lightnings at the man.

“Fuck off. Now. Or you’re dead. Do you understand this simple language, or do I need to put it in words that even a monkey would understand?” she crossed her arms, spitting poison at him. “What, can’t I be angry at my own girlfriend for being a bitch and leaving me alone? I mean, you really fucked up, y’know? You left me when I needed you the most, how tragic is that?!” he yelled at her, but she only rolled her eyes, scoffing. “Yeah, I left you ‘cause you were abusing me. The way I see it, you’re the one who sucks, not me. Now get the hell out of here. Before I do something you will regret.” her voice went an octave lower, threatening him the same way she learnt from Alfie over the time of business making. “Woaw, Y/N, woaw, that’s pathetic, even for you. You’ve never been able to even raise your voice at anyone. You were nothing more than a crybaby who couldn’t step up to anyone, and then you went to war, and what, you think you changed? You didn’t! Underneath this dumb, tough facade that you’re trying to pull in front of everyone else, you’re nothing more than the frightened little girl who needed to have everything in control and grasp a bit of power to feel superior to others after you got beaten up and had a gun pointed at your head by the Germa-” but he couldn’t continue speaking for, in the blink of an eye, she pulled out a gun for her trench coat and shot him in the head, his blood and brains shooting everywhere, all over her, on the walls and floor. “Well...Ask me anything and I will provide you with an answer that is completely honest this time. But, uhm...Take of your shirt, will you?” she had a solemn, pissed off expression as she threw off her coat before hurriedly taking off her shirt, nonchalantly cleaning up her face, then pulling it into a ball, throwing it on the cadaver, then stepped in front of a very shocked, yet impressed Alfie. “Go on, take off your shirt, will you? It’s clean. You promised I’ll never have to shoot a gun, and yet, I did, therefore I need a clean top, right? So, while I tell you the truth, don’t let me stay like this in front of you, okay?” extending her hand in front of her, while her other arm was over her chest, trying to cover her pretty white laced bra, it took a mirthful laugh out of the Jew for him to finally take off his shirt and put it around her, not caring that he was the topless one now. “Will you ever stop impressing and surprising me, lass?” Alfie asked, petting her head as a way to say she did well. “Once I stop shocking myself, sure. Until then...I believe you want to say something, don’t you?” she asked, slowly stepping in front of him, looking up at him as she properly put on his shirt that looked like a dress on her. “Yeah, lass, I think I did.”

With a gentle smile, he cupped her face, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on her lips, one hand stroking his fingers through her beautiful long hair, while the other caressed her soft visage. The tender look in his blue-green eyes felt like the safest, warmest haven she ever felt, and with an impulse decision that her heart made, she leaned forward, her arms slowly snaking around his torso, her head resting on his shoulder, and closing her eyes, she could finally feel her heart calming, for the first time in her life.

“It was you who went to war, wasn’t it?” Alfie muttered in her hair, holding her tightly. “Yeah. I don’t have a brother. It was me who went with my father to war, but he died, so I had to be the backbone of the troops. When I got home, my mum was devastated and she died of grief. I left that place to get rid of memories...And get rid of that fuckass. War left me with traumas, but it also made me strong enough to face up to who I am and stop taking everyone’s shit just because they think I’m lesser than them. Sometimes...When you talk about your time as a captain...I remember my time there...And...I realise how much I respect you...And also, how different you are from all the people I had contact with there.” she explained, her grip tightening around him, her heart quivering from the deep emotions she was feeling. “You’ve been through quite a lot in your life, haven’t you, lass? And you managed to make a life all for yourself, from the scratch, right, so, I think you’ve been doing great. France?” he asked, guiding her to a more private room, much warmer and cozier, while Ollie was to find him another shirt. “Yeah, France. Thing is...You went through all that, and it was worse for you, since you were a Captain, and you must have felt responsible for every death from your troops...And yet...Ever since we met, you’ve been sweeter than anyone has ever been, and that includes my own family. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them, but maybe...Maybe I’m just a bit softer than I let others think. And you managed to hit the right spot, in the good way, I mean. War changes everyone, and yet, you’re...I have no fitting word to describe how much I appreciate you, Alfie, but here...This thing here feels it, and I think you can feel what I’m feeling too.” she explained, resting her head on his shoulder once they sat down on the sofa, as he pulled her closer to his side, kissing her temple lovingly. “You know, Y/N...You’re not wrong. I tried not to think about my time there and the horrors I’ve seen, yeah, so, maybe it doesn’t come off as anything fantastic, and I still don’t think that being a decent person, right, to people who are close to me, is a big deal. But maybe sometimes we take things for granted, don’t we, so, maybe, you’re right. But that guy has no excuse for being a bastard. You’re safe now, Y/N, and when some day, when we’re done with this gangster mess...We can go to Margate and live a normal life there, eh. You, me and Cyril, and the sandy beach and the waves, right, and maybe, if we get bored, we can shoot those damned seagulls, yeah? They’re so annoying, I’m telling ya!” Alfie chuckled, which, in turn, made her grin at him lovingly. “I’d love to go to Margate with you, Alfie, and have seagull shooting contests together, and run barefoot on the shore, and if it’s enough light from the moon, we can swim a bit. Sounds like the perfect life if you ask me.” Y/N kissed his cheek, lovingly caressing his face before hugging his side. “That’s what I like to hear, lass. I’m sure Cyril would bark like a mad dog from happiness if he was hear, right. S’gonna be fun when we get home, eh.”

[bangtann-bangdamn]

Summary: Your assignment is clear; observe and do not interact. But you’ve done enough jobs to know what’s going to happen. Except nothing about your current assignment is normal.

Pairing: Jungkook x gender-neutral reader/shapeshifter reader

Genre: Sci-fi (I guess), action, mystery.

Prompt: “Without a name to myself, I still revolve around you.” (134340)

Word count: 1.4k

Warning: The whole premise is that YN is sent to kill Jungkook (well, eventually anyway). There is a gun at the end, but it does not get used. It’s kind of implied that things could get violent but it’s left open-ended. But yeah, feel free to skip this one if you don’t like guns.

The objective was clear; observe but under no circumstances interact.

It should have been easy. After all, this wasn’t the first time you had this brief. You would follow your target from the rooftops, place cameras in their home, listen to how they interacted with others. You would learn everything humanly possible about your target. It was supposed to make the second part of your job easier, but it never did.

It was a lot harder to kill someone when you knew them inside out.

But that was what you had been born to do. You had been created to be the ultimate spy. Implanted behind your right ear was your Genetic Variant. It was the only one in existence and it allowed you to change your appearance with relative ease. You would then assimilate their lives until your brief changed. Then you would acquire whatever information or object your boss desired before booking it.

But this time was different.

You were given a name and an address. They told you that he lived alone, so a photo of the guy wasn’t required. That in of itself wasn’t unusual. Many of the male targets you had had were single. They were older men who were married to their jobs, and thus settled for paid entertainment in the evening.

You had broken into your targets apartment with ease, the security surprisingly lax for someone with his tax bracket. His top floor penthouse apartment had none of the extra security measures your other targets were fond of equipping, so you had let yourself into his sparsely decorated suit through the service entrance and planted your surveillance equipment in every nook and cranny you could find.

Then you had settled into your hotel room and waited for him to return.

That was when you realised your target wasn’t like the others.

For a start, the man was hardly an adult. If you had to guess, he was barely in his twenties. He lacked the usual suit and tie of your targets, settling for a more relaxed grey tracksuit. He had entered the apartment slightly red in the face, a light sweat dusting his brow. He pulled his earphones from his ears as he started his warm down stretches.

Normally you would observe your target for a few days before reviewing their online profile. You found it helped keep your mind clear of any stereotypes and allowed you to naturally develop a sense of what they were like before the intricate details were introduced. But considering the man before you were a good forty years younger than your other targets, you thought you should read up on him.

Jeon Jungkook. Twenty-two years old. Born in Busan, had made his wealth while still in school at the tender age of thirteen when he had created an app that was a glorified scavenger hunt. The user needed to find the right location for a riddle to appear that would lead them to the next spot. The world had gone crazy with the idea and Jungkook had made a tidy sum of forty-three million when he sold the software to Microsoft. He had then started working on numerous other projects, including a tracking system used by NASA.

It was an impressive feat for a man so young. You watched as he finished his stretches and moved through his apartment to his kitchen. He fluttered about as he slowly readied his own meal.

He continued to surprise you from there. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and yet he had no security, no maid or cook or any form of help in his life. He did everything himself. Every single day, he did the same thing.

He would wake up at dawn for a swim in his private pool, shower before making himself a light breakfast. He would then retire to his home office to work silently for several hours before his phone would ring at precisely 11 AM. He would speak to a man named Namjoon, smiling fondly as he swivelled in his chair for the few minutes they spoke. He would then promise to take time away from his desk before putting the phone down. Stretch and then it was on to lunch. You would follow him at a distance, watching his dark head as he moved through legions of people without a care in the world. He would enter a deli that was a twenty-minute walk from his apartment, greet the workers with warm familiarity before ordering a sandwich. He would then take the sandwich and eat it at the park across the road. Slowly, he would make his way back to his apartment where he would work in his office until the early hours of the evening before heading to see his personal trainer. He would spend a few more hours working out before finally retiring to his apartment where he remained until he went to bed.

It was like clockwork his routine. You studied him for months, could recite his lines word for word with warm familiarity. Jungkook was a nice guy. Unlike every other target, he was polite and soft-spoken. He smiled at children, took time to help anyone in need regardless of their age. He held doors open and kept dog treats in his pocket for when a dog greeted him (with their owner’s consent, of course). He had all the money in the world, and no inclination to spend it on frivolous things.

He was an enigma to you. You could not find a reason as to why your boss had hand-selected him as your target and you had no way of finding out why, as was protocol for these missions. You were on your own, expected to follow and observe until your brief changed. And so that’s what you did. You changed your appearance every day you followed him, making sure to take a variety of faces of all ages and nationalities so he wouldn’t grow suspicious of you tailing him. He was none the wiser that anything out of the ordinary was happening.

Which was why you didn’t expect it.

He was on his way home from seeing his personal trainer. You tailed him easily enough, keeping an eye on him as he wandered four people ahead of you. You knew his route home well, you didn’t need to keep an eye attached on him. Which was why, as you were briefly distracted by a commotion on the other side of the street, you didn’t expect him to disappear on you.

You turned away from the commotion, moving to where you had last seen Jungkook standing. He was nowhere along the street that you could see, but he had stopped in front of an alleyway. You eyed it sceptically, glancing up and down the street to make sure no one was watching you. When you were certain that everyone was still distracted by the commotion, you entered the dark alleyway.

You scanned every nook and cranny as you walked, hoping beyond hope that Jungkook had been knocked out rather than kidnapped. You were never going to be able to explain what had happened if he had been kidnapped. The alleyway was a dead end and Jungkook was nowhere to be seen. You shook your head and was about to give up and try to locate him using one of your other means when you heard the sound of the hammer of a gun being pulled back.

You held your hands up as you turned slowly around, coming face to face with Jungkook. The kindness you were so used to seeing was no longer on his face.

He held the gun steady to your face as he took in your appearance. “Why are you following me?”

You made yourself look meek, cowering at his gun as your mind raced to find a way out of this that didn’t involve getting your brains blown out. “I-I was just looking for my - for my cat,” You whimpered, lowering your eyes from his in an attempt to appear weak.

“Bullshit.”

Your eyes flickered back to his as he calmly studied you.

“I know you’ve been following me for months now. I found your cameras.” His head cocked as you slowly straightened yourself to your full height. There was clearly no need to pretend anymore. “Who are you?”

You kept your hands up in an attempt to settle him. “I have no name,” you replied softly.

“Then what do you want?” He practically spat the words out.

You hesitated, studying him carefully before settling on telling him the truth. “I’m here to warn you. My boss wants you dead.”

BGW Drabble Master List

Master List

[lastbluetardis]

Chemical Reaction (17/22)

Summary: Though their chemistry class is now over, the chemistry between James and Rose is just getting started. Together, they navigate the highs of new love and the lows of coping with past trauma to forge deep and unbreakable bonds of love and commitment. Part 2 in the Catalysis series. Tagging @doctorroseprompts

This chapter: ~8400 words, explicit (for one small scene). Here we are folks! The culmination of the feels of the last several chapters. Enjoy xo.

If you like my stories, consider leaving me a tip? I know these are trying times, but if you are able, I would really appreciate it xoxo. And as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated as well.

AO3 | FF | TSP

Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | Ch11 | Ch12 | Ch13 | Ch14 | Ch15 | Ch16 | Ch17 | Ch18 | Ch19 | Ch20 | Ch21 | epilogue

April was usually one of James’s least favorite months. The weather was wet and cold, and with it being the last month of the semester, it was always busy with exams and projects. This year, however, he had the pleasure of knowing it was his beloved’s birth month; even though he didn’t know the precise date, that made it all the more fun as, day after day, he greeted Rose with a “Happy Birthday” snog.

Yet every day, she giggled and said, “Not today.” He wasn’t sure what he would do on the morning she kissed him and replied instead with, “Thank you.” Despite his brilliant, magnificent brain, he was stumped on a way to make an ordinary day extraordinary for her.

Though she said she didn’t want anything for her birthday, he couldn’t help but preemptively get her a simple gift: a silver necklace with an infinity heart pendant. The heart was studded with blue zircon—one of his birthstones—while the infinity loop was studded with small diamonds, her birthstone. Cliché, he knew, but the design had caught his attention. He hoped Rose would like it.

James had been carrying it around with him since the start of the month to be presented to her on her date of birth. Whenever the hell that was.

The weeks seemed to fly by, and still it wasn’t her birthday. He had several chilling moments of panic that maybe he somehow missed it, but then resigned himself to the fact it must be at the end of the month. Her so-called hint to him had told him it wasn’t the first or last day of the month… Rose would be cheeky enough to call that a hint if it turned out her birthday was the second to last day of the month. Nevertheless, James was having fun with their little game and worked to make the month special for Rose.

Though he knew she had been teasing when she’d suggested they make love every day so that she would wake up to birthday sex, they nearly met that goal, thanks to Rose staying overnight at his house more often than not. They were both growing to love the routine of cohabitating; James would drive them into the university in the morning, they would attend their respective classes, then they would meet up at the end of the day for him to drive them home again. Even on the days when one of them started earlier than the other, they drove in together, regardless.

While James’s main goal was to make April particularly special for Rose, he found himself realizing that even if it wasn’t her birthday month, he wouldn’t have done anything differently. It was a happy coincidence that the month happened to be filled with a multitude of romantic date night opportunities.

He had surprised her with tickets to the play put on by the university’s theater program, and had told her they would make an entire night out of it. He had dressed in a suit and tie; she had donned a gorgeous evening dress. Reminiscent of their Valentine’s Day plans, they’d had an early dinner out at a nice restaurant before driving to the university for the show. And when they’d gotten home, they peeled the other out of their nice clothes and made sweet love until midnight.

And when he took her to the cherry blossom festival in Washington, D.C., it wasn’t a birthday surprise, either. He would have wanted to tour the capital with Rose and bask in the beauty of the cherry trees no matter the month. There was nothing more romantic than walking hand-in-hand with Rose beneath the pink and white trees while the soft petals floated down around them. Nothing made him happier than seeing her face light up with awe as she took photograph after photograph of the scenery. Though the cherry blossoms weren’t as stunning as typical years, thanks to a warm snap in February followed by an arctic blast that killed some buds in mid-March, the scenery was stunning nevertheless.

They’d had fun exploring the various museums and historic sites in the city as well, but James’s favorite part was watching Rose scribble furiously in her sketchbook when they got back to their hotel room each night. She filled over a dozen pages during their four-day trip; she shared every single one with him, including the portrait of him she’d drawn one morning when she had awoken before him, and had occupied herself with sketching him asleep in the nude. Unlike her previous nude sketches of him, she did not cover his nether regions with a sheet, or simply not draw them at all. No, she had drawn every naked inch of him, down to the morning erection he had been sporting (which had also prompted her to draw a caricature of that very piece of his anatomy, making him howl with laughter when she eventually showed him the picture of a very prominent, very erect penis on a teeny tiny little person). 

Playing tourist with Rose was one of James’s favorite things to do, so even if it had not been Rose’s birth month, he would not have changed a thing. It was a mere bonus, pure happenstance, that they managed to go on so many romantic dates that month.

As the month plowed on, bringing him ever-closer to Rose’s elusive birthday and to the end of the semester, another date idea came to him. And this time, he intended to make it double as a birthday gift.

With only a week and a half left to go in the month, and Rose’s birthday falling somewhere in that time frame, James woke up one morning to an email from the student life office at the university. They were advertising discounted tickets to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game at the end of the month. Perfect! He loved showing Rose more of the state she lived in, as well as the culture of America. And honestly, what was more American than a baseball game?

Rose was still asleep as James read the details of the email, though their alarm was due to go off in a few minutes. He silenced it on his phone and instead gently woke Rose up with a series of kisses to any part of her face not smooshed into her pillow. She grunted and buried her face completely into the pillow.

Chuckling, he tried again, this time pressing the long expanse of his body into hers. He shivered when his hips rubbed into her upper thigh; he woke up hard nearly every morning, and today was no exception. Some mornings, he didn’t feel a pressing need to do anything with it; others, when he snuggled up against Rose, his heartbeat concentrated into a dull, throbbing, insistent pulse between his legs. He was experiencing the latter, and hoped she would be in the mood to make love with him.

“Rose,” he murmured, nuzzling his nose into her hair. He wriggled down a few inches and tucked his nose into the join of her neck and shoulder. He kissed her there and smiled when she shuddered. “Rooooose.”

“M’sleepin’,” she mumbled, but she tilted her head to free up her neck for him.

“Oh? Well, I guess we can’t partake in any morning activities I might’ve had planned,” he lamented, though he pressed slow, open-mouthed kisses to her neck. Goosebumps spread across her skin and he could hear her breathing going ragged the longer he kissed her.

She moaned softly when he scraped his teeth across her ear lobe. Finally, she stopped pretending. Turning her face out of her pillow, Rose slung her arm around his shoulders, hauling him closer for a proper kiss.

“Got another date idea,” he breathed between kisses.

“Don’t care,” she answered, chasing his lips.

“I’d like for it to double as your birthday gift.”

“Don’t care,” she repeated. His head emptied of all coherent thought when she reached down between them and took him in her hand, pumping him firmly. His nerves sparked with pleasure as desire settled heavily in his lower belly.

“But I… oh, blimey… I care… God…”

She nipped at his bottom lip and gave him a small squeeze on the upstroke that made stars burst behind his eyes. “You care more about that than what we’re doing?”

He could hardly draw in breath, so focused was he on the addictive rhythm of her hand. Each drag of her fist up and down his length heightened his need for her until he was certain nothing in the world was more important than being inside her.

But the smirk on her face brought out his competitive nature.

“Well, I’m quite cl-clever,” he choked out, trembling when she tightened her hold around him and picked up the pace. “I can walk and chew gum… talk and have se-ex shit!”

Rose guided him between her legs, nudging the tip of him into her wet heat. God, he’d barely paid any attention to her and yet she was so ready. He swallowed down his impatient whimper when she merely teased him, rubbing him through her folds rather than guiding him in.

“Hmm, I clearly am not doing a good enough job,” she mused, her voice frustratingly steady while he could hardly contain his gasps and sighs.

His brain nearly short-circuited. Not doing a good enough job? It was taking every ounce of concentration and restraint he had to try to hold this conversation with her; he would be done for if she tried any harder.

“The university is sponsoring another trip to Phillies… er, Philadelphia,” he squeaked, squeezing his eyes shut to think past the desperate need throbbing through him.

“Oh?” she asked, voice breathless as she stimulated herself with the head of his erection.

“Yeah, yep.” He cleared his throat, hoping it would stop cracking. “A trip to a Phillies game. Professional base-ball!”

Rose slung her leg over his hip and took him inside of her in one smooth, deep movement. Her momentum sent him to his back. Taking full advantage and giving him no reprieve, she sat astride him and began a brutal rhythm that stole his breath, stole his thoughts.

“Shit!” he rasped when the burning pressure in his belly bottomed out. Don’t come, oh God, please don’t come… Baseball. Think of baseball. Phillies, Philadelphia, bus trip, baseball game, showing Rose the stadium, teaching Rose the game… Rose… Rose… 

Rose was squeezing him from the inside, giving him such delicious friction as she arched her hips hard into his.

Fighting a losing battle, he choked out, “Sorry… gonna come… sorry… shit!”

Rose caught his lips in a searing kiss as he grunted and panted and moaned his way through his release, trying not to be mortified and to instead enjoy the pleasure and love flooding through him.

He was trembling when his ears stopped roaring. Cheek burning, he groaned and covered his face with his hands.

“That was delightful,” Rose said, a grin in her voice as she lightly tugged at his fingers.

“That was embarrassing,” he countered, moving his hands to her hips. “Sorry.”

She slowly pulled off of him and collapsed onto her back beside him. “You do realize I was trying to do that, right? You’re always so damn considerate and attentive. It was my turn to focus solely on you and getting you off.”

“I feel selfish for coming first,” he complained.

Rose shrugged and pecked a kiss to his temple. “How do you think I feel when you pleasure me more than once before you get off?”

“Hopefully extremely satisfied,” he drawled, winking at her.

She rolled her eyes, but kissed him soundly. “I enjoyed doing that very much for you, so shut up about it.”

He zipped his fingers across his lips, though a grin stretched across them. He caught her lips in another kiss as he let his fingers walk down her body, between her legs. She must have woken up as randy as he had been, because it hardly took any time at all before she arched her back and cried her pleasure into their quiet bedroom.

As she panted and trembled beside him, he stroked her hips, her belly, her thighs, any part of her he could reach, and tried his initial conversation again.

“The university is sponsoring a trip to a Phillies baseball game,” he said. “Have you watched baseball? It’s a fun sport. One of my favorites, actually. I probably ought to get my UK citizenship revoked for that, but I can’t get into the football matches. Though plenty of people find baseball to be boring too. To each their own. Anyways, tickets are twenty dollars, and it covers admission to the game and transportation to and from the stadium. It’s on April twenty-sixth. It’s a night game… 7:05 start time. I would like to make this your birthday gift. Well. One of your birthday gifts, since, really, I want to go to the game anyway, to hell whether it’s your birthday or not. But since I’ve only got about ten days left to choose from, I figure that’s a close enough window to claim it as a birthday gift for you. What do you think? April twenty-sixth… does that sound like a birthday gift to you?”

Rose giggled and pinched his side, drawling, “Very subtle, love.”

James pouted. “Seriously? You’re still not gonna give me your birth date? I’ve been patient all month long!”

Rose cackled. “You liar! You have not at all been patient. At least once a day you beg me to tell you when my birthday is.”

“That is me being patient,” he grumbled, though he grinned when Rose laughed at him again. Even though they would need to get up soon, he tightened his hold around her and snuggled closer to her soft, warm body. “Wanna go to the Phillies game?”

“Sounds like fun,” she replied, running her fingers through his hair. His scalp prickled pleasantly, and he could have easily fallen asleep. But alas…

“We need to get up,” he groaned, burying his face farther into her neck. Rose heaved out a sigh, clearly as reluctant to move as he was. “Wanna share a shower?”

“How could I say no to that?”

With a parting kiss, they rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom.

oOoOo

“You know, I’ve never been to a professional sports stadium before,” Rose said as they strolled, hand in hand, away from the packed parking lot towards Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. “Wasn’t much into sports back home, and didn’t really have the money for it.”

James gave her hand a squeeze and watched her out of the corner of his eye. Something was… off. She’d been agitated when he’d picked her up from her flat that morning to drive her to the university. She was short and snippy with him, but insisted she was fine even though she obviously wasn’t, which had only annoyed him in return.

He had nearly called off their date to Philly, since she obviously wasn’t having a good day and he didn’t think he could stomach an entire night of forced joviality. However, after classes, she had met him in the library as planned and was decked out in a red Phillies sweatshirt and matching lipstick, greeting him as though their tense morning hadn’t happened.

“Where did you get that?” he’d asked, fluttering his hands at her top.

“The internet. Turns out everything exists on the internet,” she’d teased, bumping her hip into his.

He had been thrown by her chipper mood, and Rose must have sensed that. She reached up for a hug and squeezed him so tightly, it was as if all the tension that had been settled over his body was suddenly gone. She lightly kissed his cheek and whispered, “Sorry for this morning.”

“What was the matter?” he asked, keeping her in his arms for several more seconds.

“I’ll explain later,” she said. “I don’t really wanna talk about it now. I wanna go watch some baseball!”

It had taken everything he had to not snap at her to just bloody talk to him. Instead, he promised himself he would check in with Rose after the game, or perhaps tomorrow, since it would be late by the time they got home. But he wanted to know what was bothering her, and what had been intermittently troubling her these past few weeks.

That dark day she had had nearly a month ago still niggled at the back of his mind. He wanted to ask her what had happened, but so long had passed that he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject.

Hey Rose! Remember that day you yelled at me in the food court then started crying? What happened?

No, that wouldn’t do. Because what if she didn’t remember? What if nothing at all had happened and she’d had a breakdown over a bunch of little things that didn’t matter anymore? He had been hoping she would tell him on her own time, because he didn’t want to press. And it wasn’t as though he had forgotten about the episode, but he often got too caught up in the present with Rose that he wouldn’t think of it until he was alone again. Part of his brain admonished him, telling him that he could easily have that conversation with Rose through text.

Presently, they scanned their admission tickets at the front gate and stepped through the turnstile into the stadium. James inhaled deeply, catching a whiff of cigarette smoke, fresh air, grass, and greasy food. There was a unique and distinct scent of a baseball stadium that he loved.

Rose let go of his hand and darted forward, her gaze locked on the field in front of them. James followed, smiling to himself. He stood behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist as Rose drank in the sight of the enormous baseball friend in front of them. The grass was lush and verdant, neatly trimmed in the familiar crisscross pattern most baseball diamonds favored. The dirt of the infield looked soft and dry, though the grounds crew were in the middle of hosing it down. The late evening sun cast long shadows across the field while the stadium lights, already switched on in preparation for the night game, created a multi-shadow effect as well.

“Selfie?” James asked, fishing his phone from his pocket.

“Need some help?”

James glanced over and saw a young couple approaching them. The woman held her hand out for his phone, which he handed over. He then wrapped his arm around Rose’s middle. She turned into his side and linked her arms loosely around his hips.

The young woman took several photographs for them, all of them beautiful. James thanked her, then reciprocated the gesture, snapping a photograph of the couple with the baseball field behind them.

When the couple had departed, James took Rose’s hand again and they leisurely strolled around the concourse of the stadium. There was a beer stand every dozen paces, it seemed, and though it was ridiculously overpriced, James forked over the money and bought them a beer apiece. They sipped it as they walked, inspecting the various food stands and merchandise on display.

“What the bloody hell is that?”

James laughed when Rose picked up a plush toy of a furry green creature with a plump belly and elongated snout.

“He’s the team’s mascot,” James answered. “The Phillie Phanatic.”

“What is it?”

James shrugged. “The Phanatic. He’s not really anything, I suppose. He’s his own creature. Don’t knock him, though; the fans love him.”

Rose glanced dubiously up at him, but replaced the toy. James made a mental note to order one for her as a gag gift. 

As they continued walking, James’s belly rumbled with hunger when he smelled the intoxicating aroma of bread, beef, and cheese. 

“If I get a cheesesteak, will you eat half of it?” he asked. “‘Cos I wanna get crab fries too, but I can’t eat both of those by myself. Actually, the crab fries are right over there.” He took Rose’s shoulders in his hands and pivoted her gently, pointing to a concession stand with a giant logo that read Chickie’s & Pete’s. He rooted in his pocket for a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “Will you get us an order of fries? With cheese.”

“Er… okay,” Rose said, blinking. “What the hell is a crab fry?”

James snorted. “French fries—chips—with old bay seasoning. They’re really good, I promise.”

Rose leaned up and pecked a kiss to his cheek. “You’re lucky I trust your taste in food.”

She left him to go get their crab fries, while he stood in the Tony Luke’s line for a cheesesteak. Though the line was nearly thirty-people deep, it moved very quickly. Ten minutes later, he spotted Rose waiting for him in a secluded corner near the ramp they would need to take to go to their second-deck seats.

The university had bought out an entire section in right field, and James recognized many of the students lounging in the seats. He had managed to procure front-row end seats for him and Rose. He allowed her to take the end seat, then plopped unceremoniously onto the hard blue chair beside her.

“Beautiful, innit?” he asked, nudging his elbow into her ribs.

“It’s a gorgeous night,” she agreed. “Look at that sunset.”

“View’s nice too,” James said, leaning forward in his seat to look down at the field. Apart from losing a little bit of vision of the right field playing area directly beneath them, they could see the entire ballfield very well.

There was a half hour to go before game time, so they ate their dinner and chatted mindlessly with each other and with their fellow schoolmates who had come on the trip as well. They posed for a giant group photo that was then shared to all of the university’s social media pages.

James was full and content by the time the Phillies players took the field, and he draped his arm around Rose’s shoulders as he explained the rules of baseball to her.

The game was fairly straightforward, with no tricky calls he had to break down for her. There was a ton of action in the first few innings, with both team getting a few home runs, including a grand slam by one of the Phillies’ stars. The stadium erupted with cheers and the LED Liberty Bell began to ring as the Phillie trotted his way around the bases. Rose appeared to be caught up in the atmosphere, jumping and cheering along with the crowd.

It was fun, James thought, to be sharing this with Rose. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for other discounted ticket specials, even if it wasn’t for the Phillies. A minor league team was based close to the university, and he imagined he could get tickets fairly cheaply, if it would be something Rose was interested in.

During one of the inning breaks, Rose had turned to him, flushed and beaming. She looked breathtaking, with the lights from the stadium glowing behind her and casting her hair in a golden halo around her head. He felt his mouth go dry and his heart kick up a notch.

Rose frowned at him. “What? You all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I…” He swallowed thickly, then smiled at her. “You’re beautiful.”

Her cheeks flushed a deeper red and a shy smile crossed her face. He reached over to brush a stray wisp of hair from her face, but then kept his hand on her cheek. “Love you.”

They moved at the same time, leaning closer until their noses brushed, then their lips pressed together. The noises of the stadium disappeared, lost in the heavy pounding of his heart as he kissed Rose. Her mouth was warm and soft, though felt a little funny with the slightly waxy texture of her lipstick.

He had meant for it to be a quick little kiss, though he should have known better; how often was he able to give Rose only one kiss? Angling his head slightly to the side, James lost himself in her, in the warmth of her hands. One of them was on the nape of his neck, the other at his waist, clinging to his sweatshirt as he devoured her lips. His tongue swept along hers, then trailed across the roof of her mouth. He delighted in her full-body shiver.

Before he could do it again, there was an explosion of noise around them.

“Hey, you’re not making a porno here!”

James wrenched away from Rose, blinking dazedly at the person who had interrupted them. It was one of their fellow students. He nudged James’s shoulder, then pointed towards the giant screen above left-center field.

His own dazed face looked back at him.

Kiss Cam. Oh, dear…

He grinned sheepishly at the camera, then pecked a chaste kiss to Rose’s temple. She looked equally abashed. Blessedly, the camera panned away from them, though the crowd of university students around them continued jeering and teasing.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he murmured to Rose.

“S’not your fault. I wasn’t exactly beating you off of me.” He snorted and kissed her cheek. “You’ve got lipstick on you.”

James licked his swollen, tingling lips. A moment later, Rose cradled his jaw in her palm and rubbed a damp napkin across his mouth. It came away stained red. Her own mouth was smudged with lipstick, and he helped her clear it off, too.

“You are too enticing,” he concluded when they were lipstick free. “How am I supposed to restrain myself from kissing you?”

“Maybe you shouldn't,” Rose drawled, and she leaned up to plant a hard kiss to his mouth again.

Of course, the Kiss Cam found them once again, to the delight of the stadium, and to their fellow students, who didn’t let them live it down for the rest of the night.

The last few innings passed without much excitement and ended with the Phillies winning seven to four over the Miami Marlins. They were exhausted as they traipsed to the charter bus that would take them back to the school.

It was just after eleven o’clock when the bus returned to campus, and almost midnight by the time James pulled up in front of Rose’s flat. For once, he was staying overnight with her, per her request. The climb up to her fifth-floor flat was exhausting, and James wanted to curl up with Rose and go directly to sleep.

“What time is it?” Rose muttered to herself when she unlocked her front door and stepped into her dark flat. She flipped on the lights and glanced in the direction of the stove; 11:42 glowed green from the digital display. “Ooof, gotta wee. Stay here!”

She sprinted down the hall and slammed the bathroom door behind her. James was left laughing and shaking his head at her.

He set his keys and wallet down on the kitchen table, but as he was about to toe off his shoes, an open, hand-written letter caught his eye. He didn’t mean to snoop, but his eyes and brain worked independently of each other and before he knew it, he’d glanced at the end of the letter, where the name Jimmy was printed in a messy scribble.

His ears rang hollowly and his head swam. Jimmy. Jimmy? As in, Jimmy Stone? Jimmy Stone, Rose’s wanker of an ex-boyfriend?

A righteous anger welled up in James; what the hell did Jimmy want with Rose? And how dare he contact her out of the blue after all this time.

Before he was entirely aware of his actions, James plucked up the piece of paper, eyes frantically scanning across the words.

Rosie,

I’ve started this letter half a dozen times now, and I’m no closer to knowing how to say exactly what I want to say. It seems surreal that we’ve been talking again. I’ve missed you so much, you have no idea. It’s like I’ve found a piece of myself I didn’t know was lost. I’m not complete without you, and I hate the person I am without you.

This past month has been the happiest of my life because I’ve been able to talk to you again. I am thankful that you let me apologize, because there is nothing more I’ve wanted to do for the last six months. Getting sober has made me realize a lot of things, but it especially showed me that I missed you and that I want you. The worst mistake I ever made was how I treated you, and I will spend the rest of my life hating myself for it. I will spend the rest of my life (our life?) making it up to you.

I love you, Rosie. I love you so fucking much. You make me feel like I can do anything, and I love how I feel when I’m with you. We were the best thing to ever happen to me, and I’m such an idiot for destroying the perfect, wonderful life we had made together. I think I was scared. I was scared of not being able to support the both of us with my music, and I was scared about how much I needed you. You were a comfort to me, something I knew would always be there for me, something reliable, and it was scary for me to need anything that much. But I’m not scared anymore, and I know I can make it work this time. As you said, we were young, stupid kids and we made young, stupid mistakes. Now we can start fresh and build something even better than before.

I know you’re at school in America (which I always knew you could do! I always knew you were smart enough for school, despite what you said about yourself). I’m happy you’re enjoying your time in America. I want you to enjoy your time there, while you can. I’ll be here waiting for you when you come home. I’ll wait forever for you because you’re worth it. You’re so worth it, Rosie. I would wait a thousand years for you if I needed to. I hope I don’t have to though.

This time we can work harder together to make us work. I know you might not be ready to trust me yet, but I promise I will show you how serious I am. How committed I am. I will do whatever it takes to make this work between us, because I hate the thought of my life without you in it.

In the meantime, texting you will hold me over. I cherish every day, every moment that I can talk to you.

All my love,

Jimmy

James could barely think, could barely breathe. Something was squeezing his chest tighter and tighter until he thought he might suffocate as he read and reread the words of the letter. The love letter. The love letter that Rose’s ex-boyfriend wrote to her after a month—a month?!—of them having texted back and forth.

Acid churned in the pit of his stomach, eating away at his guts and making him certain he was about to vomit all over Rose’s floor. And worst of all, his chest was collapsing in on itself and his heart was breaking into more pieces than he thought possible. An entire month, Rose had been texting her ex-boyfriend—the ex-boyfriend she had supposedly written off and hadn’t deigned to contact in three and a half years.

And she hadn’t told him. A month, and she hadn’t said a single word.

His pulse thundered in his ringing ears so loudly that he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until the sheet of paper was abruptly yanked out of his hands.

oOoOo

It was a relief to empty her bladder after holding it for most of the trip home. She had been tempted to use the toilets at the stadium, but the lines had been impossibly long.

With that need dealt with, Rose washed her hands and then her face. She felt greasy and grimy, and would have preferred to get a shower, but she only had a couple minutes before midnight, and she could finally tell James it was her birthday. She deserved a damn medal for not spilling the beans early—though there had been a few close calls—but she couldn’t deny it had been fun to play with James all month. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to simply look at her identification card, where her birthday was plainly printed in bold. But that was her James, wasn’t it? The smartest idiot in the room.

She rushed to brush her teeth and comb out her hair before she left the bathroom and skipped to her kitchen/dining/living room.

James stood by the kitchen table, a sheet of paper in his hands and a stricken expression on his pale face.

Oh. Oh, no… Her stomach dropped. He was reading the disgusting letter that had arrived from Jimmy out of the blue yesterday afternoon.

She didn’t know whether she was more embarrassed, considering the content of the letter James was reading, or angry that he had snooped through her things and read her mail. The former won, but fueled the latter.

Rushing up to him, Rose yanked the letter harshly out of his fingers. He flinched as though she had struck him.

“What are you doing?” she snapped, folding up the paper and setting it on the kitchen table beneath one of her class notebooks.

“What am I doing? What are you doing? You’ve been chatting with your ex-boyfriend for an entire month?!” 

There was an awful combination of accusation and hurt in his voice that simultaneously grated against her nerves and broke her heart. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to find out about Jimmy like this. He wasn’t supposed to read that letter until she had explained the past couple weeks to him.

No, not merely a couple weeks. A month. It had been an entire month (and a little extra) since Jimmy first contacted her, and Rose hadn’t said a single word about it to James. Shit.

“I was going to tell you,” she said weakly. “I just…”

“Just hid it from me by accident, did you?” he said, condescension dripping from his every word.

Rose clenched her fists and her jaw before coldly replying, “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to talk to anybody, or that I needed to tell you about every person I talk to. Sorry, d’you want to know about the bloke I chatted to while I was waiting for you in the library today? Wanna know about the girl I met at work ‘cos she’d recently broken up with her girlfriend and needed to talk to someone? Wanna know about…”

She knew she was being ridiculous but she couldn’t make herself stop until James interrupted her.

“Of course you don’t need to tell me about everyone you talk to.” Two pink stains spread across his cheeks. “But I would have hoped you would have trusted me enough to tell me when your ex-boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend you claimed to despise, contacts you!”

Rose crossed her arms in front of herself, gripping the fabric of her sweatshirt so tightly that her fingertips began to ache. “This isn’t about trust, James.”

“No? Well, it sure seems like it is. Because you don’t actually trust me, do you? Not nearly to the extent that I trust you. I’ve shared everything with you, Rose. Everything! I told you about the worst night of my life. How it still haunts me and gives me nightmares like I’m a child again rather than a grown man. But you…”

He flapped his arms wildly before letting them fall limply to his sides, clearly out of words. But he didn’t need any more words; the ones he’d hurled at her hit their mark, cracking her heart wide open. He didn’t think she trusted him?

Suddenly wanting him to hurt as much as she did, she met his eye and said, “I didn’t make you share any of that with me. You did that on your own. You opening up to me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to do the same to you.”

It happened almost in slow motion, the way his face crumpled. The way his chin wobbled and his lips parted slightly with a soft, nearly inaudible, “Oh.” The way a crinkle formed between his brows, and beneath them, his eyes grew shiny with moisture. 

Shit. Shit shit shit!

“James, I…” I’m sorry… I didn’t mean that… 

His throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly, then his face smoothed into a mask of a person she didn’t recognize. Even before they became friends, when he was the random cute bloke sitting in front of her in their chemistry class, he exuded more warmth than he did right now.

“How silly of me to expect some level of reciprocity in this relationship,” he said coolly.

“I didn’t mean that, James,” she muttered, wringing her hands in front of herself. “Really. I didn’t. I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t want you to find out like this. I wanted to tell you the whole thing. I was going to tell you all about it, I swear.”

He barked out a laugh, and it was one of the worst noises she’d ever heard. “Oh, yeah? When were you gonna drop that one? When we’re old and gray in rocking chairs in a nursing home? ‘Darling, remember when we were first dating? Remember that horrible ex-boyfriend I had? He texted me—ha! Remember when texting was all the rage?’ Exactly when were you planning to tell me?”

Any sympathy she had for him had evaporated and her rage returned with a vengeance. 

“Obviously if you’re acting like this, I was right to not tell you! Why are you being so unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable? Unreasonable?! My girlfriend has been texting the bloke she used to be in love with, and I’m being unreasonable?”

“Yes, you are! So what if I was texting him? What does it matter who I text on my own bloody phone?”

“You’re missing the entire bloody point!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “I’m not angry that you’re texting him…”

“Clearly,” she grumbled, grinding her teeth together.

“…I’m angry that you felt the need to keep it a secret,” he continued as though she hadn’t interrupted. “And I’m upset because why did you keep it a secret? And what on earth could you two have been talking about if he sent you this… this…” James flapped his hands uselessly to the table and the notebook under which Jimmy’s letter sat. “...this love letter?! For all I bloody know, you could be wanting to get back together with him and…”

“No, don’t you dare,” Rose hissed, voice trembling. Tears of fury and heartbreak burned behind her eyes, blurring her vision. “Don’t you fucking dare accuse me of that. After everything I told you about Jimmy—and don’t tell me I haven’t told you anything. Just because you seem to have selective memory doesn't mean I never told you about his drinking and partying, and how he stopped paying his half of the bills, and how he manipulated me to always feel badly about myself. After everything I told you, how could you even think I would want to go back to him?”

A flash of guilt appeared in James’s eyes. He blinked and lowered his gaze, staying silent.

“Even if he hadn’t treated me like shit, how could you take away everything you and I have done together? Everything we’ve built together? How could you think I would leave us behind for someone I fell out of love with years ago?” She sniffled as her tears finally fell, streaking down her cheeks in hot, wet rivulets of grief and misery. “Do you think that little of me? That I would willingly go back to a relationship like that when what we have is so wonderful? Do you think so little of us?”

James scrubbed his fingers through his hair, making a tousled mess of the limp and somewhat greasy strands; they were in dire need of a wash.

“No. No, of course I don’t…”

“You just said so,” she argued, impatiently wiping her face dry. “You just said…”

“I didn’t really mean it. But you have to understand… relationships are so new to me. You’re the longest relationship I’ve ever been in, and we’ve only been dating for four months. Christ, teenagers in school manage to have longer relationships than this. How pathetic am I for being so illiterate when it comes to love and romance? I barely know what I’m doing half the time, and God knows if I’ve been mucking this all up but you’re too nice to tell me…”

Rose’s head was spinning as her heart fought to beat its way out of her chest. She’d heard this before… she’d heard this all far too many times.

I didn’t mean it; I just drank too much…

You’re remembering wrong, I didn’t say it like that…

You’re being ridiculous. Calm down and maybe we can talk like normal people…

I was so drunk I don’t remember doing that…

I’m the worst piece of shit, Rosie, and I’m sorry, please forgive me… 

She shook her head as though she could physically shake Jimmy’s voice out of her ears. Instead, she tried to focus on James’s words rather than map them on top of Jimmy’s.

“This is me telling you now that you are mucking this up…”

But James continued on as though she hadn’t spoken. And with how dry her mouth had become, she wasn’t sure if her words had been audible.

“...And you could be wanting to be in a relationship with someone who’s got a bloody clue as to what they’re doing. Why wouldn’t you prefer to be in a relationship with someone else…?”

“Because I love you, you stupid fucking arsehole!” Rose yelled, which caught his attention. He met her eyes and blinked slowly, as though confused. As though she were revealing a secret he’d never been privy to. “Yes, I love you, but you knew this! At least, I thought you did. I love you so much but you are breaking my heart, James. Haven’t you believed me these last four months?”

His mouth worked wordlessly for a few long and agonizing seconds.

“I… yeah.” His tone suggested otherwise, though, and she nearly began crying with frustration. All this time… all these months… Had none of it been real? Had he been pretending this whole time?

“Thanks for that vote of confidence.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until bright lights burst behind her closed lids. “Thanks a lot, James.”

“I just…” He groaned, sounding as miserable as she felt. Good. “I’m so bloody new at this! I’m making it all up as I go and I’m worried I haven’t been doing a good job. I get nervous that one day you’re going to wake up and realize how rubbish I am at this. That you’ll get sick of holding my hand through all of this as I learn. I’m terrified you’re going to decide you’re done wasting your time with me, because you’re wonderful, and you deserve the best and I…”

“Stop!” Rose cried, a sob stealing the air from her lungs. “I don’t want to hear this. You have just… broken everything we’ve been building, James.” She hiccupped on another sob and impatiently sucked in a lungful of air. “We were supposed to be partners… I wanted us to be partners… I thought we were partners. We were supposed to be equals in this relationship. I don’t want you to put me up on a bloody pedestal, or for you to talk down about yourself or make excuses for yourself. I don’t want there to be this… this inequality between us for the rest of our lives. But if that’s always how it’s gonna be… if that’s how you’re always going to see us, as you being somehow lesser than me…” The force of her tears made her entire body shake. It felt like someone had blown a hole through her chest; she couldn’t breathe. “…then I don’t think we can make this work.”

The tears that had been threatening in James’s eyes fell down his pale cheeks. “What? Rose…?”

She buried her face in her hands, willing herself to calm down. But how could she be calm when it felt like the world was spinning too fast? James had been her tether, her anchor, keeping her grounded to the surface. But he’d let go, or maybe she had, and now she was crashing alone through the void. Lost. Adrift.

“You… are you breaking up with me?” His voice was so hoarse that she could hardly hear it. Though that might have been because her pulse was thudding in her ears instead.

Was she breaking up with him?

“I don’t… no… yes? I don’t know. I don’t want to. God, I don’t want to.” She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. “I love you more than I’ve loved anyone. And right now, that really bloody scares me. I fought so hard, put up with so much, to make things with Jimmy work when I should have called it quits long before it all ended. And I didn’t love him nearly as much as I love you. I’m terrified about what I’ll let happen… what I’ll excuse… I can’t do that again, James. I won’t do that again.”

He reached out for her, but she couldn’t let him touch her. She couldn’t feel his fingers on any part of her body. Not right now. 

She raised her hands in front of herself and retreated a pace, nearly tripping over her shoes from where she’d kicked them off at the door.

The door.

With trembling fingers, Rose undid the deadbolt. “I- I want you to leave now.”

“No, wait,” he pleaded, raw urgency in his voice. But he didn’t come any closer to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Rose. I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean anything… I didn’t mean… I didn’t… Please…” 

She’d never heard James, her eloquent, loquacious James, struggle this much for words. His eyes grew wild the longer he went without managing a sentence.

“Please,” he repeated, frantic. “Please, Rose. Don’t do this.”

She drew in a shuddering breath and closed her eyes. It was late, and she was so bloody exhausted. She didn’t want to be having this conversation anymore, but she knew it was far from over.

“I need a break,” she said wearily. “I’m tired, James. I’m so tired.”

“We can’t leave it like this,” he rasped through a stifled sob. “Please.”

Rose met his gaze. Everything was written on his face, his grief and terror and heartbreak. He looked impossibly young.

“We’re taking a break for the night,” she repeated. She paused for a beat, then, scrambling for some sort of comic relief, quipped, “Not Ross and Rachel’s version of a break, mind. A time out, more like.”

James either didn’t process the joke or didn’t find it funny, because he was still staring at her with that stricken expression that made her want to wrap him in her arms and apologize for everything that had been said that night.

But she couldn’t make herself move.

“I love you, Rose,” he whispered.

“I know.” That’s why this is so damn painful. “I love you too.” Maybe too much.

Rose had always thought of their love as a fire. A soft, cozy fire, and together they basked in its light and warmth. But maybe they’d gotten too comfortable, gotten too confident, gotten too close; now they were burning, and oh, God, did it hurt.

“Goodnight James,” she murmured, opening the door for him.

He numbly walked towards it, completely forgetting about his phone, keys, and wallet on her table until she went and picked them up. His hands were cold and sweating as she handed him his things.

“Drive safe,” she said. “Text me when you make it home.”

He made a wordless noise she thought was assent, then he was gone, walking silently down the many flights of steps they’d cheerfully bounded up mere moments earlier.

God, how long had it even been? It felt like an entire lifetime had passed. Rose glanced at the clock. 11:58. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen horrible, heartbreaking minutes was all it had taken for Rose’s world to come crashing down around her feet.

She went to her window and peered down at the dark street, waiting. Half a minute later, James stepped out from beneath the front porch of her building and ambled slowly to his car. He moved as though through treacle, as though he were tugging an invisible weight behind himself.

She continued watching him, but James simply sat there in his car in the dark. The clock switched over to 12:00, ringing in April twenty-seventh. She’d planned to kiss him at midnight, as though it were New Year’s Eve, and tell him that he could finally wish her a Happy Birthday.

All of a sudden, her game of keeping her birthday a secret wasn’t fun anymore, and twenty-two didn’t look as optimistic as it had been.

The distant purr of an engine drew her attention to the street below. James had started his car and was pulling away from the curb, taking off down the empty street.

Rose fully gave in to the sorrow she had been fighting back for the past quarter of an hour. Sinking down onto her couch, she bent double over her knees and sobbed her heart out, grieving for all that had shattered that night, and for the unanswerable question of whether broken things could be ever mended.

[nissakii]

What do Mystic Messenger characters represent in society? [MysMe]

Mystic Messenger which is a game filled with a lot of action, drama and some sort of romance is still really close to our reality.

Especially the characters represent a lot of us and the many different situations people can be in and suffer from, as every and each of them offers us a route in which we can see more of the character and help them to achieve their ending (or not if you are curious to get the bad endings).

Yet what do those characters represent in our usual lives?

Where do we see each and every one of these characters in our society?

In the following blog post, we will see that every character shows us a certain place and piece of our reality that Cheritz put in their game.

Yoosung Kim

Starting with the youngest member of RFA let’s take the one who hasn't experienced the world of work yet.

As an uni student Yoosung is the very representation of someone who isn’t sure where life could lead him after achieving one big goal: getting into university.

Because despite the fact that standing on one’s own feet starts at that phase in life it is mostly the time where many feel lost as they see themselves stuck in their current life.

And Yoosung is one of those many cases that represent those people in Mystic Messenger.

Living alone for the first time and suddenly feeling the overwhelming force of being responsible for his own mistakes, he sees the sudden challenges of life that come with it.

On top of that with the death of his cousin Rika which he loved so dearly, nobody is very considerate of his feelings, depression and sadness that still lingers inside of him despite that they all claim it is understandable.

His dream job as a vet that was closely tied to the death of Rika’s dog is the more unattainable and painful to think about after the events as he requestions the morals and standards of society.

Being in the age of constantly being expected to give good results and succeed in order to become valuable to society’s standards, he starts to realize how unfair the chances in life are as he compares himself to Jumin Han who was born rich and with his future already set.

We already discussed a lot about Yoosung’s insecurities and general character in another blogpost, but referring to it Yoosung constantly sees no value in whatever he does beside in helping the RFA which as well due to the death of Rika became inactive until MC appeared.

When someone stops to value what he does or sees no merit in it, there are always the questions:

Why did I start this anyway?

What is the whole purpose of this?

Maybe it’s not for me?

And with those questions, with the heavy burden of a private life and social circles that also have a place in one’s life, sometimes there is a need to escape them all.

As a student just running away or taking holidays is not that easy leaving a bunch of responsibilities behind, so the next best way to stop thinking about the life around you is, immersing into another life- gaming.

Gaming may be a good coping mechanism but also a big threat for those who want to constantly flee from their reality slowly developing a game addiction without realizing, just like Yoosung slowly started to lose himself in LOLOL.

Studying, sorrow, wanting to flee but also wanting to become someone standing on stable footing.

They are all parts of finding oneself in the process, going through the harsh times of slowly diving into the world of adults and that is what Yoosung represents - the start of a new phase in life, probably one of the harshest.

Jaehee Kang 

Close, but still more experienced would be Jaehee Kang the only female of the RFA next to the MC, a chief secretary at C&R and  also the assistant of Jumin Han.

Jaehee is someone seen as a prime example and role-model, being a stable career woman who achieved a lot in her life and has a fairly high income to support herself.

In society’s eyes she is someone who contributes to success and as she is even an early top university graduate for which she got a scholarship in highschool making her extremely diligent and intelligent since her childhood.

Yet Jaehee gave up a lot to be in the position she is right now, she even cut her long hair and wears glasses despite her good vision since it is part of the demands Jumin made for the job as his secretary.

As she said herself her work contains a lot of tasks which some of them she isn’t even supposed to do and go beyond her ordinary secretary job, yet she does them and doesn’t complain since she gets paid for it.

In Zen’s DVD she tried to find a bit of happiness in her daily monotone routine as she works day in and day out, where she even eats out a lot and until late hours, having to take care of her boss’s cat when asked to.

In one of the chats in which Jaehee and Yoosung are talking about how successful and stable Jaehee is unlike Yoosung who is still feeling lost and doesn’t have that stability in life which she wouldn’t understand.

Jaehee on the other hand responds that despite having a job it’s not really that what she wanted to do and that she is still wondering what it is that she actually wants to do as she mentions that she used to go hiking a lot as her hobby, showing that despite being in a good position in society Jaehee still doesn’t feel fulfilled and rather a bit trapped in her monotone working routine which she basically devoted her life to.

Jaehee represents those of who seem like they have achieved a lot and do have a place in society job-wise but are still not sure what it is what they really want to do as they live in and out of their secure routine which they maintain and people expect them to be satisfied with.

Zen

Zen or how he is called by his real name, Hyun Ryu is one of the few characters that actually went through and made his dream his actual job.

Despite his looks he did not become a model but an actor depicting many emotions and roles in which he loses himself in while giving his best to show the audience the true nature of the persona he is currently playing.

We see Zen being a bit more on the easy-going side and encouraging Yoosung for example to follow his heart and dreams like he did, since it worked out for Zen. Yoosung encounters that Zen has the looks to follow the way he wants to which he won’t deny yet it’s not the only quality Zen bears.

He is a very hard-working person, strict on himself when it comes to working out or dieting and also tends to be a workaholic engrossing himself in constant development to fulfill his dream, which is not tied to his looks. Quite contrary Zen despises the fact that some people choose him a role only fitting for his looks and even worse asking him only to model instead of acting, as he mentions that it is acting that he wants to do and not modelling.

In that way his wishes often get disrespected or disregarded due to his looks, also he is being seen as shallow which may lead to people jumping to conclusions.

We see in Zen’s route what a harsh path he had to take in order to pursue his dream, it took him a lot of sacrifice, patience and work to be where he is and it’s only the start for him.

He ran away from home since his parents did not approve of his dreams, he was not the best at school and also dropped out renting an apartment for himself struggling through hard times to survive.

But despite that he never gave up since his dream was his passion and something he did with much eagerness and seriousness, even though many may call it foolish or risky.

Zen is the best representation of the people in our society who choose to derive from the usual path striving for a stable job and take many risks to achieve their dreams.

Because of those dreams life may get a bit harder and the chances are not high, yet Zen is the best example that it takes time, sacrifices and sometimes harsh circumstances to reach that what you want to do.

He is the hard reality of chasing your dreams.

Jumin Han

More or less in our category of society, Jumin Han is a less common case of working hard to achieve a high status and standard in that sense which doesn’t make him lazy or given everything for nothing, but makes his life sure easier from a materialistic perspective.

Cue materialism the first thing that not only RFA mentions when MC enters the chatrooms in the first days but also a misunderstanding from the start is that Jumin only sees numbers and facts, wielding his money to obtain whatever he desires and living an easy life.

Sure enough, money is one of the most fundamental problems that make life much harsher when it's lacking, also it’s the main cause of many stress factors since education, work and status are all basically tied to money. 

If the world is not about money in a certain sense why are we struggling that much anyways to get amazing jobs and maybe in some cases like Jaehee give up part of our life and identity?

But Jumin is the perfect example that the rich people who exist out there or at least some of them do not rely solely on their privilege of being born rich, yet still work hard to prove their position in society as Jumin still graduated as a top student, being part of MENSA which requires high IQ to become a member of and has a policy of working as efficiently as possible.

In that sense Jumin is a talented, intelligent young man who doesn’t want to simply rely on his background but also showcase his skills as he always strives to get the best results in the company to make sure he deserves the place as the CEO in line.

Since Yoosung constantly nags and complains about Jumin’s background being a bliss and that he had a comfortable and easy life, Jumin does not tell him he might be wrong but that he simply did not decide to be born that way and still encourages Yoosung that he has good qualities which Jumin finds appealing enough to hire him as an intern, showing him that it’s still important which skills someone hones.

Yoosung is just one example of people viewing him as someone who is just lucky enough to be born rich or the unfairness of status by birth, but they do not see the the dark side of Jumin’s life as he never had any stable relationships beside V that he cherishes so much also that people only put light on his status but not the work that he himself put into, visiting lessons since childhood not growing up like a usual kid playing freely without fearing to be kidnapped.

Therefore the concept of love is quite strange for him and beside in the good ending of his own route where he finally starts to learn about it, the box of emotions Jumin holds is always hidden deep within him projecting his own weaknesses on Elizabeth the 3rd who gives him the secure form of love and loyalty.

In any other situation love is not needed in the world he grew up in since facts and cold logic represented as results of success is what the people need to see from him, mistakes are a sign of weakness and incompetence especially him who everyone is constantly watching.

Jumin represents those in society who may seem to have high status, wealth and cozy life yet struggle due to the things that cannot be merely achieved by money alone, highlighting the importance of interpersonal relationships.

Saeyoung Choi/707/Luciel

That the world is not an easy place that can be seen only as black and white shows us the next character who suffered a lot through the dark and hidden secrets that society often tries to brush under the carpet.

Saeyoung Choi and his twin brother who we will examine later, show us the cruelty hidden in a small apartment living with an abusive mother who used to beat them up, verbally abuse them as a consequence of them being the illegitimate child of the prime minister.

Since Saeyoung was the more skilled one from a young age, he was treated badly but not as worse as his brother Saeran, which left him with no choice than using his talent to save his brother.

In order to that there was only one option and it was to leave his brother behind leaving him in the hands of V and Rika to protect him while Saeyoung would study to make sure when comes back he and Saeran could run away together.

And he took that option instead of fearing to be killed by his father one day or even by his mother.

In the end Saeyoung landed in an agency which stripped him of any identity and made him work like a machine even before he turned legal due to his level of skill and intellect.

With no place to escape anymore and the only light thinking that Saeran is safe and protected from some floppy disks he has with some pictures of him, he gave into corruption but not turning bad since his intentions kept him pure.

The RFA were a little safespace for him yet Seven never had the right as he claims for that since he doesn’t even have an identity anymore being neither Saeyoung nor any other person as his jobs demands for him to constantly change names and places if needed, therefore he doesn’t even have personal data anywhere.

He even forgot who he is at some point if it wasn’t for V and the floppy disks leaving him in an identical crisis and no hope to be understood by anyone as he constantly wears a mask and never is his true self.

In his eyes his is constantly extorted by his agency and even in some routes he claims that RFA puts a heavy load of work on his back which he likes to do but there are some endings in which Seven finds out that Saeran is under bad circumstances and even worse the hacker who infiltrated RFA and wanted to get rid of him, leaving him to lose trust in the last person he had, V.

Saeyoung Choi represents those who are mistreated, used and extorted in society, forced to live a life in which they cannot decide for themselves and were left to make choices that led them to an unfavorable position instead of helping them.

He is the one showing us that the shadows exist and fear of losing existence due to being nuisance and eyesore for people who have a more favorable place in the eyes of the government.

Saeran Choi/Unknown/Ray

Last but not least the other part of the shadows, Saeran Choi also known as either Ray or Unknown.

Unlike his brother he is at first not shown to have any special talent and since childhood he was a very fragile and kind boy who was seen as weak due to his nature.

A trait that made him prone to being attacked and mistreated not only by his mother but many other people.

But starting with his mother as he was less free than Saeyoung and even tied him up to avoid that he would roam around freely, his mother used to call him weak, useless and of no value as his brother is far better than him and skilled, at least making him worth to be kept alive.

She even deprived him of food and water at times, beat him up and made sure he would know his place in the world as she describes people like us comparing him to her.

Yet Saeran always looked up and trusted his brother since he was a good-natured person despite the fact that he started to manifest the idea that he himself is useless and a burden.

Even when Saeyoung left he was sure that he had a good reason and blamed himself for being useless, but due to certain circumstances and manipulation he was told that Saeyoung ran away from him.

It took a lot of torture and brainwashing to make Saeran finally give up the idea that Saeyoung will keep his promise and never ran away from him. which he later fueled his grudge with.

Rika who used him for mint-eyes plans made sure to keep him as Ray, the one who knew that he was of no merit or value to the outside world, and the moment he would leave the place he now belonged to would be the moment people would trample him, the weak down to the ground.

She also made sure to make him believe that there is no other place for him since he is someone unstable, someone who can only bloom if he worked for mint-eye and that his skills are not needed beside in here the place that would never betray him.

As we notice in Ray’s chats, the same exact words are used when he speaks to MC as he tells her if he doesn’t succeed he would be thrown away and that the world outside is an unprotected place full of people who are cruel.

Weirdly enough in one of the chats Ray shows MC a photo of two plants that sprouted in the from the same ground, but one was almost dying while the other one bloomed as he referred to Saeyoung and himself,  noticing that the stronger one used the weaker to survive therefore he cut the stronger one and used it as a fertilizer rejecting the idea that in any kind of way the stronger could win over the weaker one even in nature’s way.

MC who can be as nice to Ray/Saeran as she wants to be, he will always bring up the fear of being left behind as he has the stigma of being unstable by himself or unusable if not finishing the job as it’s the only thing he can bring any profit in and that he is no use if he doesn’t fulfill his role as a puppet.

Saeran Choi represents the undermined and discarded people of society who were not give a chance nor an option to show their ability, but were stigmatised or manipulated to act as puppets as they are only of worth when they can fulfill the needed tasks as their weakness is something unsightly and doesn’t have a place in this world.

The weak never survives, it’s the survival of the fittest… which means if there is no merit in what he does there is no need to keep him.

Are there any other characters which you see in society that are also part of the mystic messenger cast?

Do you feel especially tied to one of the characters in one of these aspects?

Until then - I just got a message

Makii

Original Source

[olkapippin]

hard to love | pt.5

pairing - chanyeol x reader x baekhyun

genre - angst

description - Who would want to be married off to a man they barely knew? Who would want to be married to a man who resented your very presence? You didn’t love him, your heart belonged with another, but how could you love someone who had hurt you so much?

series - part 1 part 2 part 3

Everyday you spent with Chanyeol were unbearable. The days were long and monotonous and the fact that he hardly ever seemed to be there didn’t make it any better. 

Every morning you woke up, either to find that he was not there, he hadn’t returned from the night before, or that he had left before you had even woken up. In the evenings when you came back from work you came home to an empty apartment, the food had already been made by the cook who came in everyday, and the place had been cleaned by the cleaner who came in every afternoon. There was nothing that needed to be done, except for work. The situation had given you the opportunity to become immersed in your work, and your thoughts. The latter was not necessarily a good thing. 

Your mind was clouded with emptiness all the time and there was hardly ever any change to you routine. When there was, it wasn’t good change either. 

You had been called out by Chanyeol’s mother several times since the day of your marriage. She was a wretched heartless woman, and stays at the Park family home were even more unbearable than staying in your own apartment. Despite having an army of servants to do her bidding, the awful woman always picked on you. Whenever you went to their house you were expected to dust, cook and clean, apparently it was a coincidence that whenever you went, most of the staff were on holiday or had gone out to run errands. Atleast in your own apartment you could do as you wished, within the certain perimeters that had been set.

You would never be good enough for them. They couldn’t criticise you for your parents’s company, familial connections or wealth, so they criticised you for everything else. They mocked your appearance, lack of close friendships, way of talking, the way you cooked, the way you cleaned and your capabilities. 

You were sneered upon and teased for not being able to get a sustainable, high up job in your parents company. You had been working in the family business ever since you graduated from high school, balancing the university work load and the endless tasks your father’s persistent subordinates gave you. When you had graduated from university you had expected to get a good job in the company, a job deserving of the heiress of the company to have. However, your father instructed for you to be given a useless job, it was a lot of work, a lot of work however the job itself was one that barely paid and could easily be done by someone with minimal skills. 

You had been infuriated when you had received this notice, you were a graduate of Seoul National University, every exam you had taken had been a hundred percent and you were in the top one percent of the entire country. To your fathers dismay, you had inherited his remarkable intelligence and then some. Even if he gave you one of the top positions in the running of the business people couldn’t say it was favouritism or that you didn’t deserve it because you did. But he didn’t, instead you were given a lowly position and were often ordered about by your superiors who were jealous of you for being the CEO’s daughter.

Chanyeol had been given a rather different position, in his own family company he held the role that you had desperately wanted yourself, he was in-charge, the boss, people looked up to him and admired him, he always had his plate full, but in this case, with things that mattered. And if that wasn’t enough, as soon as you had married him he had been given the job of overseeing new business matters in your own parents company, meaning that he was above you in the hierarchy. People couldn’t imagine the humiliation you faced whenever he came into your department, and you, his wife, were obliged to give him a ninety degree bow.

All of this hadn’t been a secret and his family knew about it and they never passed an opportunity to trouble you for it. His sisters were the worst, he had two younger sisters and a female cousin that lived with them. The female cousin was alright, her name was Eunbyul and she rarely ever asked you to do anything. However, his sisters made up for it. They were mean and calculating, one slightly older than you, and the other just a teenager, about seventeen years old. 

Whilst Chanyeol seemed to have inherited his father’s dashing looks, his sisters didn’t seem to inherit anything from their outwardly beautiful mother, apart from her nature. Their appearance wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and they seemed rather plain. You, on the other hand, had rather striking features, large eyes and a beautifully set facial structure, it made people look again. You had been a target of jealousy your entire life but you couldn’t remember the last time it was as bad as this. 

The two sisters felt as if they were above you in every way and could not understand for the life of them why you were more intelligent, pretty and pleasant. Chanyeol went with you once and they immediately stopped, but when they saw how he treated you, they grew bolder and had no problem in troubling you in front of him, and he just turned a blind eye. 

You had felt as if you were all alone in this, you had no friends, your colleagues despised you, your family treated you as if you were dirt, and your husband pretended that you didn’t even existed. How brilliant. You almost felt as if you should end this, but the only way to end it was a truly horrible way indeed. 

People don’t realise how difficult it is to be in a situation like this and how people feel until they’ve done it alone, and it feels as if there’s no hope, the world feels grey and devoid of colour and it feels like no one can help you. That was what you felt like on most days, but there was one person that made you feel a little bit better. 

Chanyeol had previously mentioned that he had a brother who had married a girl against the wishes of his father, you hadn’t paid much attention to this fact until you had actually met her. Her name Seolhyun and she was one of those people that was greatly liked by everyone and made everyone smile. She was beautiful as well. She had previously been an announcer in one of the top news broadcasting companies in Seoul, before she married Chanyeol’s older brother, Park Changsub. She was the one friend you had and the only person who understood what you were going through, well, partly.

Changsub wasn’t like Chanyeol, he had married for love, against his parent’s wishes. He adored Seolhyun, always putting her needs first, making sure she wasn’t violated and harrased by his siblings and parents, that she had the freedom that you were denied. 

Their home was a distant, but stunning riverside apartment, overlooking the Han river. You had visited several times and each time felt like the first. The apartment could not be described as anything less than beautiful, from its high ceilings to its marble floors, it was one of the most lovely homes you had ever visited. It was your happy place, in a world that seemed desolate and hopeless, you often came here.

They had been so kind to you, the complete opposite to the way the other people in the family had treated you. Changsub was polar opposites to Chanyeol, he wasn’t cold and stand offish, but instead, he was compassionate, caring and gentle. He did not at all seem like the jealous older brother you had imagined, you had imagined someone seeking revenge after being pushed out from the line of succession in favour of his younger brother, but no, Changsub had seemed almost relieved. 

You often came to visit them, as much as your schedule would allow. It also felt nice to not be a burden for once. Seolhyun herself didn’t work anymore, it was one of the many sacrifices she had to make, whilst Changsub tried his best to ensure she could maintain her freedom and way of life, there was only so much he could do without being completely being cast out of the company. This had resulted in Seolhyun being left alone at home most of the time, with only the maids for company. This lead to insane boredom, there was only so much shopping one could do, which made her very happy whenever she saw you. She used to have other friends, she had told you, but when she had married Changsub, she had to be cautious about who she was seen with, one wrong move and she would come under severe criticism. She had told you that this lead to her friends becoming wary with her, eventually leading to the break down of most of her close friendships. 

You felt happy that you were both able to forge a friendship with each other but often had to keep it a secret as you weren’t sure how Chanyeol would react. As long as these visits were able to last, you felt as if you might just be able to make it through this. 

———

It was a chilly Thursday evening. The sky was dim and clouds hung low, it was almost impossible to see where you were going and you were just about to call your driver to pick you up. 

That was when you heard the screech of a cars breaks right next to you. You peered inside, trying to make out if it was someone you knew, and were quite startled when the windows suddenly rolled down and you came face to face with the man you had thought was the least likely to care about your whereabouts on a night like this. 

‘Get in!’ he said, stepping out and guiding you to the other side. He flung open the door and gave you a light but still forceful shove inside. He slammed the door shut and made his way back to the drivers seat. He placed his hands on the wheel, gripping the material hard, massaging it with his fingers, as if he was thinking about what he was going to say next very carefully. 

‘There’s a family gathering next week, everyone will be there,’ he paused and frowned at you, ‘My mother told me to ask you to come so you could meet the rest of the family but you don’t have to, like you can say you’re ill or something,’ he finished his half mumbled sentence. 

You knew that Chanyeol wanted you to say no, but you couldn’t help it. His mother would probably be mortified if you turned down her offer, only softening if Chanyeol stuck up for you, which was very unlikely to happen, and also, you did want to meet the rest of his family. You wondered if you find someone else that you could strike up a friendship with, you felt like you needed as many allies as possible in this family. You actually knew about this before and Seolhyun had told you it would be a good idea to go. She herself had never been invited to these gatherings as she and Chagsub were practically outcasted by the rest of the family, she had always wished for the opportunity to go but it wasn’t meant to be. 

‘I’ll go,’ you replied to Chanyeol. You earned a glare from him as he turned back to his steering wheel, starting the car rather roughly and turning onto the main road. 

‘I have to drive the both of us down, it’s nearly five hours away,’ he said, expecting you to change your mind after that, but you were a determined person and had made up your mind now. You knew that he could easily just fly there or take the train, he was only doing this to convince you not to go.

‘I don’t mind,’ you replied calmly. 

He scoffed as he turned back to the wheel, mumbling something inaudible. 

The journey was going to be a struggle, but maybe there was some light at the end of the tunnel.