#he owes me for all my teenage years he took from me and all the growing up i couldnt do | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yongility · 8 months ago

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NEO TV # I LIKE ME BETTER WHEN I'M WITH YOU. (jaehyun x reader) 2/?

genre: angst, suggestive, gang au, rich kid au, enemies to lovers (kinda), a lil of fluffy stuff. slowburn, series.

warnings: drug use mentions, gangs, fights, use of weapons, adult language, illegal activities, cheating (not on the main couple), toxic family environment, addictions, manipulation, insecurities, illegal street racing, death mentions. jeno is jaehyun's younger brother, angst, smut and if I slip something my bad haha.

word count: +10k? (I really went all for this chapter)

a/n: I'm a sucker for cliche stuff so as soon as this fic popped in my mind I had to write it down, english isn't my first language tho.

I’m sorry if this is too long TT, but this is kinda a slowburn? it might contain a lot of parts so wait for part 3! One of the reasons this is long af it’s because I would like to show you how Jaehyun and (Y/N)'s life is before they get together! So pls pls don’t skip anything I hope you like it!

if you want to be in the taglist, just lemme know;) enjoy!

Jung Jaehyun was an idiot.

But he was a clever idiot, and anyone who knew him would know that.

That's why within Neo Zone, his boss had the trust he had in him. Jaehyun was his best guy, or at least that's what he proclaimed enthusiastically every time the boy handed him a new payment for the merchandise he had to sell in his area.

None of his guys were as good negotiators as Jung Jaehyun.

He didn't know if it was because of the particular and convincing way he spoke or if it was because of the bad boy appearance he had, which made people pay him everything they owed him with just a bad look from him. Jaehyun didn't consider himself good at many things, but he was definitely good with numbers, maybe because since the initiation of his gang almost eight years ago, his only job was to maintain the sale - and sometimes purchase - of merchandise. So the numbers always, always had to be exact unless he wanted his boss to get angry and face consequences.

Because despite being a good worker, Jaehyun had faced consequences on multiple occasions.

His scars around his body were not a deco. They didn't have the purpose of scaring away anyone who stood in front of him. They had a slightly different origin than most people thought. Yes, some were the result of a street fight that possibly took place in one of the underground races. Perhaps from a fight against another dealer who tried to sell in his area, but many of them were caused during his early years in the business, where being a kid with little knowledge of how to handle the merchandise he carried with him, things would go wrong and he had to be punished by his own boss and the elders of the gang.

As he often heard during those years, he learned the easy way or the hard way.

Jaehyun's initiation into the gang was different from what other teenagers in Neo Zone had experienced.

In his own defense, he never believed that his initiation had been extreme compared to the experiences he had heard about, however, Jaehyun had to join the gang at the age of eleven.

Normally initiations took place between fourteen and fifteen years old, but there was an exception with the boy. Families in Neo Zone had to have at least one active member in the gang - commonly the man was that member - and it didn't matter if it was the grandfather, father, or son. There always had to be one if they wanted to continue with the safety of their family.

Because being active ensured you the protection that Lee Sooman could offer your family.

So when Jaehyun's father was brutally killed in what they called a clash in a raid. The next member of the Jung family had to take his place, and being Jaehyun the oldest brother and becoming the man of the house, he had to answer for the protection of his family, at his young age of eleven. The boy's duties initially did not involve business as such, since he was still inexperienced in the matter, but Lee Sooman took him under his wing and managed to get Jaehyun to accompany him wherever he was to start acquiring the knowledge he expected to have thanks to the experiences he had with his new boss.

But there was a time when Jaehyun had other aspirations.

There was a time when Jaehyun appreciated getting up to go to school to learn, not to keep his business running. There was a time when the boy could approach his mother while she cooked, sing together, and dance with his little brother happily.

There was a time when Jaehyun loved to sing, and all those little things that brightened his life even a little were damaged by the businesses he was starting to manage.

Because by now, Jaehyun wouldn't just be a dealer.

Lee Sooman expected a lot from him.

And he hated that he did.

If only he could escape from that zone, he would do it as soon as the first opportunity arose, but things weren't as easy as he thought.

And he knew that more than anyone else.

In the end, the only reason for his mere existence currently and the only reason he endured all he had to endure was for his family, which meant everything to him. It was all he had, it was all that drove him to continue, and it was all that gave him the strength to get up every day.

And because he was the man of the house, right?

And he had to take care and protect his family even if he didn't do it with his own life.

But maintaining that title wasn't easy, especially having a rebellious teenager as a brother and having to take care of all the bills that ran through his house.

If only his brother could make things easier for him. If only his brother would listen to him once in his life... because if there was one person who didn't listen to Jaehyun, if there was one person he found difficult to intimidate, it wouldn't be anyone other than Jeno.

And amidst all his complications, there would be no greater one than trying to make a teenager listen to him.

The streets of Neo Zone are not safe at any time of the day, but of course, they would be even more dangerous when the sun set. Jaehyun, as much as he wanted, would never understand why fate gave them that life, if only... if only they had been more fortunate and even just grown up in Kosmo*, his life would be so different.

Jaehyun hated walking the streets of Neo Zone, especially if it wasn't for business, but there he was, walking through the dark alleys that were barely illuminated by the reflection of the moon that had recently filled. His steps were short but firm, as his personality used to be. His leather jacket covered him well from the cold breeze he could feel in his bones, and the rings on his fingers helped him stay focused as he ran his thumb over them. In the distance, within an alley, he could see a pair of cigarette tails being lit as smoke emanated from the mouth of the person consuming it. Jaehyun took a deep breath as he disapproved and approached the group of boys more and more.

Immediately he could recognize him, that blue hair couldn't go unnoticed even if he wanted, what a bad choice his brother had made.

Once he found himself at the entrance of the alley, he grabbed a stick from what once seemed to be a baseball bat and, taking advantage of the distraction of those boys, he made it hit against the garbage container next to him, causing the boys to jump in fright and change their gaze towards him.

Meanwhile Jeno maintained eye contact.

"Let's go," Jaehyun snapped without hesitation.

Jeno's friends and his own brother ignored him and continued with their business, Jeno taking a drag of his joint and exhaling the smoke from his lungs with a cynical side smile. His friends let out a laugh that made Jaehyun's blood boil, and he hit the garbage container again - "I said let's go, Jeno."

His brother huffed as he rolled his eyes: "Go bother someone else, Jaehyun."

The boy clenched his jaw and, dropping the stick from his hands forcefully, he then approached the group of boys and seeing the determination with which Jaehyun walked, the boys stepped back a few centimeters, Jeno stood up and held his gaze firmly on his brother's.

When Jaehyun reached him, he snatched the joint from his lips and threw it to the ground to then step on it. He raised his gaze again and looked at the boys, who were behind his brother with a bit of panic in their eyes.

"What are you looking at? Get out of here if you don't want me to wipe that scared puppy look off your faces and give you real reasons to be scared," he snapped brusquely. The boys simply shrank in their place, not moving an inch - "Haven't you heard me? Get lost!"

This time, the group of young vandals hurriedly left the alley, leaving both boys facing each other, staring directly into each other's eyes and without saying a single word. Only annoyance could be felt emanating from each of their bodies.

"What the hell are you doing, Jaehyun? Can't you go bother somewhere else?" asked Jeno, exasperated.

"You didn't go to the school," his older brother replied with no expression on his face.

Jeno let out an incredulous laugh and shook his head amusedly - "Is that why you're here? To make a scene because I didn't go to the school?"

"I put all my damn effort so you can attend that school, and the least you can do is not skip," he said while pointing a finger at his chest and pushing him forcefully - "And what do you do all damn day, huh? This?" - he pointed at the joint that was now shattered under his foot - "Hanging out with those boys and wasting your life like this?"

"You're no better," Jeno retorted.

Jeno had had his initiation into the gang not long ago. Two years ago, when he turned fourteen, and since then, Jaehyun had managed and had done everything possible to keep his boss from involving him in any business, and to be able to maintain that, his workload had increased, since now he had to do what Jeno would have to do, because definitely being a dealer with no future was not something Jaehyun wanted for his brother. He knew Jeno was smart. He knew Jeno had the potential to be someone in life.

To have a future away from Neo Zone.

Not like him.

And the last thing he wanted was to see his brother being an addict in the alleys of Neo Zone.

"I just care about you," Jaehyun said quietly.

Jeno looked at him with his eyes reddened by the substance he had just ingested and clenched his jaw after hearing that.

"You care about me? You do the same fucking thing every day. And let me tell you that you're not just an addict, you're a damn dealer. Congratulations, you bring money to the table! But at what cost? You talk about caring? You ruin other people's lives," Jeno spat as he lightly pushed him.

Jaehyun wished he could say that those words didn't hurt him, but it was impossible. After all, they came from the mouth of his little brother, who was one of the lights of his life.

"Jeno, we're not going to argue about this," Jaehyun said as he felt his rings and ran his thumb over them "but this is not what I want for you, you have more future than those boys you hang out with, Jeno. You have more future than me. It's just that you don't want to see it... this... this is not what I want for you. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life on these damn streets looking for pleasure in some damn drugs and I don't want to see you overdose. For now, it's weed, but if you don't know how to control yourself and don't know how to handle it, it won't be just that. You're not a child, Jeno, and you should know that your actions have consequences."

"Why do you talk as if you were a saint, Jaehyun!?"

"Because I damn know what I'm talking about !" the older one exclaimed, about to explode and giving him a stern look - "Jeno, you need to understand that this is not what I want for you."

"If this is not what you want for me, why don't you do something better than getting into my damn life? Why don't you start with yourself, huh? How do you expect this not to be part of me if you have mom and me in this shitty place?"

"I'm trying, Jeno... I..."

"Trying? How? By selling more kilos every day? That doesn't help at all, Jaehyun! Why don't you do something else? Why didn't you get us out of here when you could?" he questioned as he approached him again until they were face to face. Both with a firm gaze, without hesitating and without flinching.

"Oh, I know," Jeno muttered - "you don't do shit because you're afraid of ending up like poor Sicheng, right?" - he blurted out.

And that was the last straw.

By inertia and upon hearing that name, Jaehyun's arm lifted and went to punch his younger brother's cheek, causing the area to immediately turn red and Jeno's face to move to the side. The blue-haired boy brought his hand to his cheek and slowly returned his gaze to his brother, finding a bit of regret in his eyes.

"Don't ever mention Winwin like that again," Jaehyun requested without moving.

"Fuck you."

Jeno lightly pushed Jaehyun and walked briskly out of the alley they were in.

And then Jaehyun found himself alone with regret running through his body.

If only things were simpler.

_____________________________________________

"Did you go to Neo Zone!?" Jungwoo's exclamation made (Y/N) jump in her place and quickly approach him to cover his mouth with her own hands while giving him a stern look.

"Shut up, Woo, my mother can hear you!" she retorted almost in a whisper but agitatedly. Then she removed her hand from the boy's mouth and sat down next to him on the bed.

"Are you crazy? What were you doing there on a Friday night?" he asked, accusing her. They remained silent for a few seconds, then Jungwoo jumped on the bed and looked at her in surprise.

"Who are you fucking and why didn't you tell me anything!?”

(Y/N) widened her eyes and quickly shook her head.

"None of that! God, Jungwoo, you're an idiot," she lightly tapped his head with the palm of her hand.

"I'm not seeing anyone."

The boy rubbed his head with a small pout and then looked at her curiously.

"So?"

"It was for Daeho," the girl declared.

Jungwoo rolled his eyes dramatically and stood up from the bed to stand right in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Now, what trouble did that idiot get himself into?"

With a heavy sigh, the girl looked at her hands and slightly shrunk in her place. "A big one, Jungwoo. You should have seen how he came home on Friday."

"What happened?"

"Well, what do you think happened? The idiot bought drugs and didn't pay on time. And to make matters worse, he decided to buy them from Jaehyun and made him go to Neo Zone. Apparently, his boss got angry about the debt, and believe me, he was very angry."

"And what have they done to Daeho?" he questioned her again, this time with concern in his voice.

"They beat him up, Jungwoo. He's covered in bruises and they've split his lip and eyebrow," she explained frustratedly.

"Was it Jaehyun?"

"Huh?"

"Did Jaehyun beat him up?"

"No. No, Jaehyun was with me when that happened," she commented while sighing. "But I don't know what to do, Jungwoo. I'm really worried about Daeho. I'm afraid something like that might happen again and it'll end up worse."

Jungwoo looked at her in silence for a few seconds and then sat back down beside her, taking her hands in his and giving her a slight squeeze as a show of support.

"(Y/N), I know it's not my business and you're worried about your cousin, but Daeho is not a child anymore. You can't go through life trying to fix his mistakes. He knows what he's doing, and he should know the consequences behind it," he explained gently. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat, trying to dispel the knot that threatened to form.

"I know, Jungwoo, it's just that..." she paused to take a breath, "I'm all Daeho has. I'm the only person who genuinely cares about him. The least I can do is be there for him," she bit her lip.

"And there's nothing wrong with that, really. But you can't always be by his side, hoping he won't get into trouble. Daeho needs help, yes, but he needs it from a professional before his drug problem becomes a serious one," Jungwoo affirmed, letting go of her hands and putting his arm around her shoulders to give her a slight hug.

"Do you think I haven't mentioned that to him? He doesn't want to listen."

"There's not much you can do on your own, (Y/N)."

It was then that the girl preferred not to say anything and just accept the hug her friend was giving her; because she knew that as soon as she mentioned that she had made a deal with Jung Jaehyun so that he wouldn't sell anything to his cousin again, Jungwoo would surely go crazy.

So now she not only had to hide this from Daeho but also from her best friend.

It couldn't be that difficult, right?

___________________________________________

If there was another place Jaehyun hated besides Neo Zone, it would be the principal's office. He wouldn't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times he found himself in that same position, sitting in a leather chair, with Principal Kim in front of him giving him a disapproving look.

"I can't do much this time, Jaehyun" the principal spoke and removed his glasses from his face to pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers, "if you don't improve your grades, I'll have to expel you. I don't have any other excuse not to do it."

"But you have to do something" Jaehyun retorted, raising one of his eyebrows and crossing his arms, causing the principal to clear his throat and rest his glasses on his desk.

"Jaehyun, I can't keep covering up everything you do and don't improve even a little. The teachers don't want you here anymore, and if you don't raise your average, there's nothing I can do.

The boy sighed heavily and bit his lower lip. Then, the image of a Hwang came to his mind, and he smiled slightly.

"Don't worry, Principal Kim. For the next evaluations, you'll see my average clean," he explained with a smile.

"I'd like to know how will you do that?" the principal asked, incredulous.

"Studying, Principal Kim. How else would I do it?"

The principal chuckled and shook his head.

"You're warned, Jung. Now, leave my office and go study."

Without saying anything else, the boy got up from his seat and calmly left the principal's office, crossing the hallway until he reached the courtyard of his high school. He looked around, getting a couple of glances from some of his classmates, who surely weren't used to seeing him leave that office once again and as soon as his eyes located a person,

Jaehyun smiled.

He put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and walked towards the silhouette sitting under a tree, with at least five books around her and taking notes from each of them, and in which she must have been very concentrated not to feel the presence of the boy a few steps away from her. Hwang let out a heavy sigh and then cursed under her breath, dropping one of her books to the ground abruptly.

"Having a hard time, angel?" he teased while leaning against the tree behind her.

The girl quickly lifted her gaze to then look at him with annoyance and closed one of her books abruptly.

"Don't bother me Jaehyun. I have no interest in having a small talk with you right now," she said, rolling her eyes. "How do you expect me to finish all your assignments and mine before the week ends?" she asked, frustrated.

"Speaking of that, I expect a good grade on those assignments. The principal has already talked to me about kicking me out if I don't meet the average this evaluation," he said, shrugging.

"If only you bothered to study from time to time, you wouldn't have these problems," she retorted reading her notes.

"Why would I do that when I have you, sweet cheeks? Business are business, besides, I've been keeping my word" he said proudly. "How long has Daeho been clean?"

(Y/N) fell silent, thinking of a response, and answered, "almost two weeks, I believe so."

"Do you think it'll last much longer?' he asked again, and she shrugged.

"I hope so, he promised," she muttered without looking him in the eye. Jaehyun sighed and moved to sit next to her, an action that confused the girl, but she didn't comment, she simply let herself go.

A consumer's promises were the worst, and they both knew it. Despite the fact that Daeho didn't consider himself merely an addict... he was. In recent weeks, he was more often in a state of euphoria than sober, and the fact that his parents had been away for over a month was a perfect excuse to do so. Hwang feared for him and feared a lot. What Daeho saw as something harmless kept her in constant unease, because she knew that Daeho wouldn't stay clean for much longer, and there wouldn't be anything else she could do.

"At least you're the only dealer he trusts to buy from," she scoffed, shaking her head.

Jaehyun laughed softly. "You know that as soon as he feels the need, he won't only come to me. Abstinence tends to be difficult for a consumer."

"I know.'

"And what will you do? Offer more money?'

"I don't know, Jaehyun," she replied with a tired tone. "I don't know what to do with Daeho, I don't want him to end being a mess."

To the eyes of an outsider, that scenario could seem a bit funny; Hwang (Y/N) and Jung Jaehyun in the same place without wanting to pull each other's hair out, but if there was something that had caused that conversation in Neo Zone two weeks ago, it was that Jaehyun had managed to empathize at least a little with the girl. At the end of the day, all they both wanted was the best for their families.

They weren't so different in that sense, however, they didn't share anything else. They were simply acquaintances with a common purpose and nothing more.

"The evaluations are coming up, you know what that means?' he asked suddenly.

"What? do I have to do twice your assignments?" she replied with another question, and Jaehyun shook his head with a half-smile.

"Johnny's parties are also coming up, and it's something you should keep Daeho away from. You know his parties are not the healthiest and most innocent thing out there."

Johnny Suh was well known in high school for two reasons; first, because he was the son of one of the best real estate sellers in the city, making him one of the wealthiest kids in high school, and second, because of the study groups he organized near each midterms on one of his properties.

The study group that was nothing more than a facade for the big parties they really have. Every two months, students eagerly awaited that party because with Johnny Suh organizing them, how could not be the best? When it came to those parties, Johnny spared no expense, he would take one of his parents' properties, buy tons of alcohol, invite the dealers from Neo Zone, and didn't care if you were from the south or north, you were welcomed all the same because according to his own words: the more people attended, the better the fun.

And yes, it was something (Y/N) should be worried about, because Daeho could never miss one of those parties. Johnny Suh was within his circle of friends, so he wouldn't dare to let down one of his great friends, how could he?

"Cat got your tongue?" Jaehyun's voice caught her attention and she turned to look at him while exhaling deeply.

"No, Jaehyun, and I'm not in the mood for this."

"Oh, relax, angel" he spoke, raising his hands in defense "I was just mentioning Johnny's party, you know Daeho wouldn't miss it" Jaehyun continued trying to rile her up.

"Great timing for my uncles to return" she muttered, angrily gathering her things and putting them in her bag. She stood up abruptly and Jaehyun followed her.

"Hey, calm down, what's wrong?"

"Daeho's parents are coming back during midterms week and they'll surely having him running around here and there, enough reason for him to go to that damn party" she spat, starting to walk away from him with Jaehyun behind her "and as soon as Daeho stops being clean, I'll break our deal" she threatened, turning around to face him.

"You can't do it if I haven't done anything, you made the deal, you keep it" he said defensively. It wasn't the time for him to risk it and not deliver those high grades to Principal Kim.

"Yes, I can and I will, Jaehyun."

"We made a deal, you can't back down now. I'm already losing money because I'm not selling anything to Daeho".

"I can still write you a check down" (Y/N) said.

"I think I made myself clear when I told you that I didn't want your money".

Ding.

Before the boy could reproach and start an argument with (Y/N), his phone rang in his jacket and he took it out of his pocket to turn on the screen and read the text his friend had left him.

“Yukhei:

come to the garage, something happened.

10:30 am

Don't ask, just come.

10:30 am

I don't even know what happened

but they're furious.

10:31 am”

Jaehyun looked up at the sky, cursing under his breath and closing his eyes. He returned his gaze to the girl, who was now looking at him with confusion, and pointed at her with his index finger.

"I expect my assignments by the end of the week" he commented, turning around to walk away from the place and leaving a frustrated (Y/N) behind.

"Hey! Jung Jaehyun!" she called out loudly "You can't just leave me like this! Hey!”.

_____________________________________________

When he reached the garages, Jaehyun got out of his car, slamming the door shut, immediately drawing Lucas's attention. Lucas was sitting there smoking a joint, one leg propped against the wall and one hand in his pants pocket. Jaehyun approached his friend and took the cigarette from his lips, then took a drag himself.

"What the hell happened now?" he asked, exhaling smoke from his lungs and raising an eyebrow at Lucas. His friend sighed and straightened up.

"Jeno".

With the joint between his lips, Jaehyun's eyes widened, he tossed it to the ground, stomping on it, and quickly took a step forward, only to be stopped by his friend, who placed a hand on his chest. He looked at Lucas, not understanding and showing no expression, then listened to him speak.

"Before you go in there and cause a scene. I don't know what happened. Cheol Uk wouldn't tell me shit, he barely said something had happened with Jeno and they're waiting for you inside" the dark haired guy explained, lightly tapping his friend's chest.

Jaehyun's chest swelled after the deep drag he took. He closed his eyes for a moment and brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose, squeezing it slightly.

"Do you know if he's okay?" he asked, opening his eyes and met with a grimace on Lucas's face.

"Honestly, I don't know".

One of the garage doors opened, causing both boys to turn their heads towards it and seeing Cheol Uk coming out of it, nodding towards Jaehyun to enter, so the guy began walking towards there with Lucas behind him, who was immediately stopped by the guard who put his hand on the boy's chest: "I've been told that only Jaehyun can enter."

Jaehyun turned his head to give Lucas an affirmative look, who breathed deeply and stayed in his place. Jaehyun walked through the garage door, which closed seconds later, and headed towards where his boss was supposed to be.

His head was spinning, and only his brother's name ran through it. What the hell had he done this time?

He didn't even know if he was okay or where he could be, and that was eating him up anxiously.

Despite everything that could come out of Jeno's mouth and his rebellious behavior, as an older brother, Jaehyun worried a lot. Jeno was an important part of his life, and as soon as something happened to him, he wouldn't know what to do. He began playing with the ring on his hand as he continued his way, managing to hear a couple of shouts that he knew well, came from his boss; he clenched his jaw, he was right behind Lee Sooman's back, who, feeling a presence, turned halfway, face to face with the boy.

He approached dangerously. Jaehyun held his breath and suddenly, a burning sensation ran through his cheek, feeling his boss's palm hit him. Jaehyun didn't flinch, didn't complain, and simply did nothing.

He knew it was better that way..

He stayed in his place, straightened his posture, and continued to look ahead, but without making eye contact with Lee Sooman.

"Do you know what your brother's little joke has cost us?" the man asked with annoyance.

"No sir".

"A lot. Your brother is an idiot, he couldn't do something as simple as what I sent him to".

Jaehyun's body tensed, and this time, he made eye contact with his boss.

"What... do you mean you sent him to do something" unintentionally, the tone of his own voice rose, catching his boss's attention "I thought we had a deal, boss."

"Are you talking to me about deals, Jaehyun? Look, the kid came to me asking for a job, and I really admire your whole facade of wanting to feel like the responsible older brother who doesn't want anything to happen to his brother and blah, blah, blah" his boss spoke mockingly "but the boy isn't five years old, Jaehyun. It's time for him to be a grown-up, isn't it? Turn him into one, just like I did with you, right? Look at the man you are, boy".

He felt the falseness in his words, and the sound of his laughter irritated his ears, but again, he said nothing, he knew he shouldn't, and simply stayed in his place to continue listening to him.

"But Jeno and his idiot friends go and screw it up, and now it cost me money and a possible fight. Aish, they can't do anything right if you don't teach them" he muttered the latter.

The boy's brow furrowed and followed his boss's silhouette as he walked to his desk.

"A fight?"

"Yes, I sent them to leave some stuff at the train station, and they ran into Yellow Wood's guys, they stabbed one of the boys. Ah! Park will surely want to do the same" Lee Sooman sighed as he brought his hands to cover his face "and if that's not enough, the Yellow Wood guys stole the stuff, and believe me, they weren't just a few wones worth in drugs. There were a lot.

"Sir..."

"Don't try to cover for your brother, Jaehyun. He made a mistake, a big one, and now, who will pay for it? I'm sure Jeno won't."

"Excuse my brother, sir. I... will talk to him, for sure..."

"A talk won't solve my problem. I need my money, or what? Where do you expect me to get paid from? How do I pay my guys for their work? If there's no drugs, there's no money, and you know it, Jung."

"Sir, please let me do something. I... don't have the money right now. I'm paying for his medicine and..."

"Oh, Jaehyun, don't give me the same old story. Those damn medicines don't matter to me. I've helped you enough with that boy, and I know the whole story inside out and upside down."

Jaehyun's fist clenched at his sides, and he closed his

eyes for a moment, avoiding exploding right there.

"I'm sorry, sir. What do you want me to do?"

"You'll take double of the stuff on Friday when you pick it up. You'll have the weekend to sell it and deliver it to me by Monday, and let's see if you can teach that idiot brother of yours how to handle the business properly once and for all."

The boy's eyes widened, double of the stuff in one weekend? He had been struggling to make ends meet with his normal portion, and now he had to sell double in three damn days. If Jeno was okay right now, he surely wouldn't be after the scolding Jaehyun was going to give him.

"But sir, the business has been slow these days, and..."

"I don't care, Jaehyun. I don't give two shit about how you get that money, but I want all my stuff sold by next Monday, understood? If you don't deliver the money, there will be repercussions, and no, they won't be on you, Jaehyun. It's been Jeno with all this bullshit."

Without saying anything, he nodded. He supposed he would have to ask Johnny for a favor at his party; it was the only place he thought he could sell at least half of what he owed. As for the other half... he would figure out what to do with it later.

He watched as his boss pointed to the door with his hand, and Jaehyun obediently turned around to leave the place. The blood was rushing through his body, and he clenched his fists tighter and tighter as he moved.

His brother was such an idiot.

Not only had they lost the stuff, but they had also stabbed one of the Yellow Wood boys, and he knew they would come back looking to do the same. What guaranteed him that one of these days his brother wouldn't come back with a wound like that? He let out a sigh as he opened the garage door. He saw Lucas quickly approaching him, but he didn't pay the slightest attention to him because he was too busy storming towards his car with fury in his eyes.

His friend tried to stop him, but he couldn't, so he simply followed him. Both got into the car. Lucas heard the slam Jaehyun had given. He started the car without answering the questions the guy in the passenger seat was asking and drove off at speed towards his house. Lucas kept calling him, but it was in vain because Jaehyun could only think about how bad the conversation he had to have with his brother would go. The older boy's knuckles could be seen white from gripping the steering wheel, and he could hear him cursing every now and then. Lucas gave up and sighed as he leaned back in his seat; it was pointless to try to talk to Jaehyun when he was behaving like that, so he simply wouldn't bother anymore.

A few moments later, they were in front of the boy's house, where the older one quickly got out of the car, and Lucas continued his steps behind him.

"Jaehyun! What the fuck happened!?" Lucas shouted at his back, and again, he didn't receive an answer.

He aggressively entered the house, slightly alarming his mother, who was in the kitchen and, seeing the way her son had entered, left things and approached him.

"Where's Jeno?" he asked without preamble.

"What happened?" she asked, concerned.

"Where's Jeno?" he repeated, clenching his jaw.

"In his room" she didn't even finish speaking when Jaehyun was already walking towards the door, she turned worriedly to see the boy beside her and spoke: "Yukhei, what happened?"

Jaehyun opened the bedroom door with a bang and found Jeno sitting on his bed, with a bruise under his eye and his lip slightly open. The older brother exhaled deeply and approached his brother, who was already standing up and naturally, defensive.

"What the fuck do you think you did, Jeno? Huh?

"Stay out of my damn life, Jaehyun. I'm sick of it" Jeno spat as he walked towards him.

"Oh, are you sick of it?" Jaehyun asked "Wow, the little boy is tired of me only wanting what’s best for him" he said, feigning a pout "Do you know the stupid thing you and your friends did?" he questioned again as Jeno pushed him slightly with his shoulder and walked out of the room. Arriving in the living room, where Lucas was trying to distract their mother —"Not only did you lose the drugs, Jeno. You stabbed someone from Yellow Wood, do you think that's something funny to do?"

"What? Drugs?" Mrs. Jung asked confused.

"Shut up, Jaehyun" the younger one spoke through his teeth.

The boy looked at his mom and then at his friend, scoffed, and denied as he once again approached his brother: "Jeno went to Sooman to ask for a job" he confessed as his mother exclaimed in surprise "and now I have to answer for the stupid things your son did".

"Stop treating me like a damn kid!" Jeno exclaimed as he pushed him slightly, managing to anger the older one a little more.

"You want me to stop? Huh?"

"Jaehyun, Jeno. Enough" their mom intervened from her place, causing Jaehyun to turn to look at her and shake his head.

"No, Mom. Jeno doesn't want to be treated like a kid anymore? Fine. Does he want to ruin his life? Fine. If the boy is old enough to make decisions for himself and get into things he has no fucking idea about; let him. I don't give a shit anymore. I already have enough responsibility for this house as it is for him to come and add more".

Silence fell in the living room, with Jaehyun and Jeno staring directly at each other. With their mother leaning on Lucas, who was supporting her, and Jaehyun could only catch between his ears, the boys' accelerated breaths in front of them.

"You have no idea what you're getting into, Jeno. Do you think it's easy to go out there with that stuff and sell it like chocolates? What are you going to do when you don't meet the quota? Huh? Will you take responsibility and face the consequences? Ah, right. You're not a child anymore, and you don't need me. So if something happens... Don't you dare come running to me, because if you have the balls to get into this shit. You'll have the balls to solve your problems. Once you enter in this shitty hole, there's no way out" he ended slowly as Jeno widened his nostrils. He turned around and left the house with a bang, making his mother jump in her place, and with tears shining in her eyes, she moved away from Lucas to approach her older son.

"Jaehyun... "she murmured as her son enveloped her in his arms and hid his head in her chest "he's still my baby" she sobbed.

Jaehyun looked at his friend, who only gave him a sad smile and lightly patted his back, silently demonstrating the support he would always provide.

"I know, Mom. Jeno will be okay" he replied in a whisper as he stroked her hair and planted a kiss on the top of her head "I promise you that someday I'll get you out of here, even if I have to stay behind"

His mother raised her head to look into her son's eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek: "Jaehyun, I can't take this anymore. You're my children, I don't want to see you both ruined, I can't" the boy choked up and once again caressed her hair.

"I'll get you out of here, someday I'll be able to do it, including him. I'll get all four of us out of here, I promise you".

His mom nodded with another tear running down her face and pressed her lips slightly. Jaehyun moved away from her and moved towards Lucas, to nod his head indicating that he should accompany him out of the house. Both boys walked in silence towards the door, where they were stopped after hearing the words that came out of Mrs. Jung's mouth.

"Don't end up like your father, Jaehyun."

The weight those words carried was something the boy couldn't believe.

Because that was something he wasn't sure he could promise.

______________________________________________

Once her uncles set foot in the city, it would be total chaos. It was something that (Y/N) knew, something she was aware of, which was why she simply hated the thought of it happening for two simple reasons: first, because then she would have to be even more attentive to her cousin and his possible impending collapse due to the pressure his parents put on him as soon as they arrived in the city.

And second, because their arrival meant a family dinner at her house; which had no other result than to talk once again about the future that awaited both of them and the vast comparisons their mothers loved to make between them, creating an endless discord: to see which family had more than the other, or to allude to who had a better present and future than the other.

At her ripe eighteen years, (T/N) never managed to understand the dynamics of her family. Were all families like hers? She didn't understand why her father and uncle had this constant competition between them; as brothers, it was the last thing they should have. Did money eventually turn you into such a person? Was it something that Daeho and she would become when they were responsible for the companies? She couldn't wrap her head around that scenario, the last thing she would want is for there to be some kind of conflict between them when they both needed each other, both had each other's backs, and both were the support for each other.

What a great family environment existed in that residence.

And if she could add a third reason: it was that she hated having to behave like the perfect daughter everyone expected her to be.

Coincidentally and to her own misfortune, the dinner at her parents' house was on the same night as Johnny Suh's party.

One more concern to her list.

With the faint reflections of the moon on her room and the gentle breeze coming through her large window, she gave one last careful look in her mirror, observing her figure wrapped in a black dress that ended just above her knee, a white and fluffy sweater that covered her from the coolness of the night, and her platform boots that complemented the style of the rest of her outfit.

She sighed... approached her dresser, picking up the first pair of earrings she saw to put them on her ears and let out another sigh. She never understood the formality of dinners at home, in the end, it was just her parents, her two uncles, Daeho, and herself who would end up sitting at the long dining table, but what she did know was that if she dared to come down with any outfit that didn't please her mother enough... she would instantly make her go back to change her clothes to something more suitable for her... or for them rather. Because according to her mother; you never know who the next person you might meet is.

Yes, even in her own home.

Where there wouldn't be more than six people.

She had tried multiple times to get in touch with Daeho since early in the morning, as soon as she had found out that her uncles' flight had arrived, however, he didn't answer her calls or text messages; which was enough to make (Y/N) nervously bite her nails. Something that had her tired, she was tired of living like this, worrying about everyone but herself, but if she didn't worry about her cousin the way she did, who would?

She was well aware that Daeho was not a child of five years to be in charge of, but sometimes she felt like he was. With the little attention he received from his parents and all the attachment and emotional dependence he had developed towards his cousin, (Y/N) had no choice but to fulfill that role, but... how much more would it consume of her?

She was grateful to have Kim Jungwoo in her life; the only sincere friend who had crossed her path. False friendships that could arise around her were no surprise to the girl: status was everything. If you wanted people to see you well, recognize you for something, and not sideline you, you had to hang out with people of your same level. (Y/N) tried to remember all those times she tried to create friendships, but ones that were sincere, each of those times ended in a failed attempt when she realized that people didn't really care about her but the great dollar sign that pursued her as if it were an ornament.

What a fake life.

That's why the affection she had for Jungwoo was immense. The only person who gave herself the opportunity to get to know her without judging her, the only person with whom she didn't have to maintain a whole facade.

She hated pretending; everyone thought she was perfect, that her life was perfect, the presentation she always carried was perfect, they even thought her family was perfect; she had spent the last few years of her life trying to keep up appearances, continuing with the facade that her parents and uncles had created and if Daeho screwed up, it all fell on her, because she was the one who had to fix it, because she was the one who had to assure everyone that everything was fine in her family... because if she let her guard down and showed her reality; the dream world that the Hwang family had invested so much in pretending would come crashing down like a freshly kicked sandcastle.

And so, seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours and when she least expected it, she found herself uncomfortably seated between her mother and Daeho, with a plate of food that, for the moment, didn't look appetizing at all and with her leg bouncing slightly from the anxiety emanating from feeling the tense atmosphere she was wrapped in.

Her mind was elsewhere. The last thing her ears had captured was the conversation her uncle had created about his recent trip to New York, where he had signed a couple of agreements and where... she couldn't remember anything else.

It reminded her a lot of her childhood, where they would both sit for hours beside their parents listening to them talk about business, money, agreements, and a thousand things that at her age they wouldn't understand but that according to their parents, getting involved from an early age in the world they lived in would help them shape their future.

In a way, she felt like her childhood had been stolen. Instead of being able to go out to the huge yard of her house to play like any normal child, she had to stay inside to attend one of her mother's arranged classes for her. Instead of listening to a story that her father had to tell her before going to sleep, she found herself with the stories he told her about "how he became the successful businessman he was and how she had to do the same" or the times when they always wanted to include her in the adult world when she was barely in elementary school.

But she never complained... at least she had a family and a roof over her head, she convinced herself of the luck she had of being born into the family she had... a total privilege.

When she lifted her eyes from the fixed point they had been pinned to, she could notice out of the corner of her eye how Daeho simply limited himself to eating in silence, nodding from time to time and feigning a smile here and there, moving his cutlery slightly and taking small bites of his food.

At least she wasn't the only anxious person at the table.

Her gaze lifted when her name came out of her mother's mouth, who was watching her expectantly with a smirk: “Isn't that right, sweetheart?” her mother inquired.

“Hmm, excuse me?” she questioned with a small voice as the adults' gazes were fixed on her.

“Oh, sweetheart, it's disrespectful not to pay attention to the matters discussed at the table” her mother gave her a fake smile that simply made the girl change her gaze to her hands resting on her lap and tilt her head in apology, causing her mother to let out a snort that was only heard by her “Your uncles and we have been talking about the fact that Daeho and you are about to graduate, we believe it's time to start looking at which universities you'll get into” her mother explained, staring at her intently “although, personally, your father and I have had this whole life plan we created for you since you were seven, remember we talked about studying abroad?

“Oh! We also want our Dae to study abroad! We had thought about Oxford! Isn't that right, honey?”Daeho's mother spoke with enthusiasm addressing her husband, who only smiled as he nodded.

(Y/N) and Daeho shared glances for a couple of seconds, precipitating what was to come, and smiled sadly at each other.

“Umh, mom? I don't think this is something we should discuss right now... there's still a little time before we graduate. I don't think it's a... necessary topic right now...”

The girl was interrupted by a gasp from her mother, who looked slightly offended and placed a hand on her chest, shaking her head from side to side.

“You say there's still time? (Y/N), you graduate in a year, do you think that's little time? We should start looking at universities, especially if we want to send you abroad.”

Taking a breath in surprise, she spoke: “Mom, abroad?” the girl let out a sigh “I don't think it's necessary, I mean... Seoul has incredible universities and curriculums, it's not necessary to go far from home...”

“Seoul?” her mother asked incredulously “Do you think I, your mother, will send you to some mediocre university in Seoul? You must be crazy if you think you'll end up at any of those universities” she continued with contempt “You, miss, will get into an Ivy League university, like your father and uncle did and there’s no other way.”

The table fell into a small silence, where only the looks of Mrs. Hwang and (Y/N) were shared intensely, when slightly the voice of Daeho's mother was heard:

“Well, we also have to see if she's capable of passing the exams first, don't we?” she said quietly before delicately wiping her lips with the cloth napkin on her lap.

The gaze of (Y/N)'s mother abruptly changed to the other woman, who only smiled sideways in a mocking tone and feeling her cousin's body tense beside her, the girl's anxiety shot up a thousand miles per hour anticipating what was to come.

“What did you just say?”

“I think you heard me right, sweetheart. We must see if my niece really has the ability to pass exams as important as those of the Ivy League, because believe me, dear” she changed her view to the girl “it's not just going, sitting down, and looking pretty as you've done all these years.

It felt like a punch… right into her face.

Was it really like that? Did her appearance speak more than the effort she had put into her work for so long?

Was that how they really perceived her?

She knew she had much more to offer... why were they reducing her to just that? She was dedicated, she was responsible... wasn't all her effort worth it?

Wasn't it enough?

“I think you're the least qualified person to talk about children, Eunji” (Y/N)'s mother attacked “Daeho is no delicate flower, the disaster he is when you don't pay attention to him...”

The eyes of the mentioned boy widened and immediately (Y/N) dropped her hands on her table and got up from her seat.

“Mom! Stop this” the girl exclaimed.

“Do you think I'm going to let this woman come to my house to talk about you and my family like that, when we welcomed her with open arms?” her mother reproached, standing in front of her.

“You don't have any right to talk about mine either” now Eunji joined the conversation.

“Oh, come on, Eunji, stop being so blind and realize the kind of son you have.”

Daeho didn't need to be there anymore, which was why he fleetingly got up from his seat and without saying more, left the house with more haste than his cousin had ever seen. (Y/N) dropped her cloth napkin on the table with noticeable annoyance to try to go after her cousin, it was when her mother took her by the arm, squeezing firmly.

“Don't you dare set foot outside this house.”

She didn't know if it was the anger running through her veins or the tiredness of always wanting to do what her mother thought was right; but she didn't need to think twice when without looking back she went out the large door of her house, taking the keys to her car on the way. Her throat felt weird, she didn't want to waste a single tear. She shouldn't. With her hands slightly trembling and biting her lip, she took her cell phone and pressed a couple of numbers on it, waiting for the other line to answer.

With heavy breaths and sitting in the driver's seat of her car, she listened to the rings her phone produced and when she finally heard a response, she spoke quickly:

“Jungwoo, I'm sorry for calling late, but there’s a party we need to go”.

_____________________________________________

The scenario in which Jung Jaehyun found himself was not unfamiliar to him. His ears had been ringing from a few meters away before he arrived at one of the Suh residences; with Wong Lucas by his side and stepping out of his own car: a BMW M2, a car that he had won from a rich kid in one of his many bets a few months ago, thanks to his luck and his driving skills.

And since then, it had become his favorite car. Luckily, he could occasionally take it to his friend Taeyong's workshop to make some adjustments and add a couple of details to make the car even better.

Entering the mansion, he could see some familiar faces a few meters away from him. Some greeted him warmly as their dealer was just entering, while others tried to avoid him like the plague. Either way, Jaehyun didn't care how they looked at him.

He came with a single purpose in mind.

It was incredible to see how much someone like Johnny Suh could invest in one of his parties: it was crazy to see how he splurged everything for a simple night. However, that was his perfect hook for his businesses, and if he had to give double the money to Sooman by Monday, he had to get started right away.

Without exchanging a single word with Lucas and lightly taking him by the arm, he brought him closer to the wall; from his pocket, he took out a couple of small bags and immediately handed them to his friend, who only nodded, understanding everything and putting what Jaehyun had given him into the pockets of his jacket. They hugged with a quick pat on the back, and again, without saying anything, they separated.

Observing the environment cautiously, Jaehyun went into the luxurious house, trying to blend in with the people there. His ears were still ringing, and the smell of marijuana reached his nose. He inhaled subtly and relaxed his posture when Johnny Suh's figure stood in front of him.

"Jung Jaehyun!" the guy exclaimed, opening his arms. "Welcome to the Suh residence, my favorite dealer. What do you have for me this wonderful night?" he asked curiously while waving his hands.

Jaehyun put his hand in his pocket and carefully showed him the contents he had there, causing Johnny to smile ecstatically.

"Half or an ounce?" Jaehyun asked, putting the small bag back into his jacket.

"An ounce, my friend."

Friend, surely.

"You know how much it is," Jaehyun said as he took out the small bag again and placed it in the guy's hand, receiving a 50,000 won bill in his other hand in return. "Dude, I don't have any change with me," he warned.

"What are you talking about, Jae? Keep the change and enjoy the night. The drinks are by the kitchen, take whatever you want, and if you happen to go up to any of the rooms, don't forget to lock it," he patted his chest with a wink from his eye and left his sight without saying more.

Even with a bit of evident surprise on his face, he tucked the bill into his wallet and continued on his way; it would be a long night, so why not have a little fun while selling all his stuff?

He didn't know at what exact moment his first drink of the night ended, nor did he know at what moment he found himself among a circle of people who had bought at least a quarter of what he needed to sell, nor did he know at what moment his hand ended up on the waist of a girl who was looking at him while batting her eyelashes at him.

He knew better than anyone that it wasn't time to get drunk, especially with the heavy merchandise he was carrying with him, but how good it felt the slight dizziness that passed through his head, the weed made him momentarily forget everything. When he was younger, he had sworn he wouldn't fall into alcohol so easily, but it was a temptation that was hard to resist, and eventually, weed also helped. For a moment, he could be himself and forget everything at home, in his neighborhood, at work.

But how hard it was when all that effect wore off and he became simply Jaehyun again, the number one dealer of Neo Zone.

His eyes momentarily diverted from the girl in front of him, watching as at the back of the room there was a Yellow Wood guy; one of the gang his brother had gotten into trouble with, selling a package similar to the ones he was selling to none other than Hwang Daeho.

He didn't know what had come over him because clearly it wasn't his problem, but slowly he left the small group he was in, hearing behind him how the girl he had spent the whole night with called him while he ignored her, heading towards the two young men.

"Hey, Chris," Jaehyun greeted with a serious expression. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this guy."

"Oh, Jung, don't get involved when I'm finishing a deal," the mentioned one responded as he pocketed the bills Daeho had given me. "Don't think we've forgotten about the little show your brother and his friends put on a couple of months ago on the train tracks."

He clenched his jaw and could feel Daeho tense beside him. "It's not like I'm going to forget that you're dealing and doing business in Neo Zone territory either, go back to your city and sell there," the tattooed guy explained as he dangerously approached him.

"Look, Jung, the last thing I want tonight is a fight, so stop getting in my way," Chris replied as he walked away from the guys.

When they were alone, Jaehyun stood in front of Daeho and stretching out his hand, he spoke: "Give me what he sold you."

It wasn't his problem, so why was he doing this? He hadn't sold him anything, so he hadn't broken any deal.

Was alcohol playing tricks on him, making (Y/N)'s face appear in his mind? Daeho looked at him without understanding what he was asking for, and that was enough for Jaehyun to let out a heavy sigh to repeat: "Give me any crap that idiot sold you."

"Look, Jaehyun, I don't know what's going on, and if this has to do with buying from someone outside your area, I'm sorry, but dude, you haven't wanted to sell me anything in the last few weeks, and I can't go a single damn day without getting something else," Daeho explained, putting the package away in his bag and refusing to comply with what Jaehyun had just asked.

"I don't give a damn that you can't keep your damn body clean, but apparently, your cousin does care, so give me that," he demanded again.

"What does (Y/N) have to do with all this? Are you fucking her or something?" asked the boy in front of him with annoyance, and now that he paid attention, his eyes were slightly bloodshot.

He didn't have time to deal with a junkie right now.

"Go ahead, champ. Go keep putting that crap into your body, I don't want you crossing paths with me all night," Jaehyun requested, touching the bridge of his nose, feeling Daehyuk getting closer to him.

That guy had courage out of nowhere.

And that's what a substance can do for you.

"I remind you that you're no better than me, you consume it and sell it."

Daeho stepped away from him, leaving him alone and causing him to clench his fist. He was tired, tired of remembering every minute of his life how messed up it was. Did he have another option? No, he didn't have any other option, right now, it was either to sell all that heaviness in the pockets of his jacket or risk ending up on Monday with a beaten body and having to hide it from his mother.

The night was still young, and he had to end up with those empty pockets. He just hoped Lucas was doing his part correctly.

____________________________________________

Jungwoo was next to (Y/N); it had been a while since he and his friend went out partying, and although clearly, she wasn't there to have fun, she wanted to make the most of the night.

The girl next to him scanned the room for any sign of her cousin, but there was no trace of him. The familiar faces of her classmates ran through her mind, and she was starting to feel overwhelmed.

"(Y/N), I know you're worried about your cousin and all that," heard her best friend's voice above the music, "but I also know you need to have some fun. Why don't we do that? It's been a while since we've been to a party; we should make the most of it, and then later, you can kick Daeho's ass."

"I don't know, Woo."

"Look, the same pressure Daeho says he feels is the same pressure your parents put on you, and after the scene they made today at dinner? Don't you think you deserve a break?"

Jungwoo approached the table where a couple of drinks were, quickly preparing a paloma for his friend and handing it to her after finishing it.

"Let's enjoy the night, break away from your home, and be yourself. Not the girl your parents expect you to be, not the girl your business expects you to be. Just the teenager you are now, just that." The girl, although not very convinced, nodded and then took a sip of her drink, feeling that Jungwoo had put more alcohol than soda in it. The boy laughed at his friend's reaction and hugged her by the shoulders.

"Alright, let's have fun tonight."

(Y/N) had never been a big fan of alcohol, especially beer. If she occasionally enjoyed a drink, it was usually some kind of elegant wine that her father had in the mini wine cellar at home; some kind of Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Grigio... however, tonight, the acidity that ran down her throat every time she took a sip of her commercial beer was a feeling of ecstasy.

She didn't know if it was because Jungwoo's words were really resonating in the back of her head, where she remembered that, right now, what she needed to do was relax and distance herself from her family. Because she deserved it. So she wasn't sure when she lost sight of her best friend during the night, maybe it was sometime around eleven or twelve at night when Jungwoo left her side; nor was she sure when her head started to feel light after the third beer, but she was sure she was starting to lose count.

Normally, it was always Jungwoo and (Y/N), stuck side by side and never separating, which is why, at that moment, it was strange to see the girl around classmates, with whom she rarely engaged in conversation, but she truly didn't care in the state she was in, because she was having a good time, and especially because a nice guy, whom she didn't recognize, was making her laugh like she hadn't in a long time.

Her phone felt heavy in the small bag she was carrying, especially because she was aware of the numerous calls and messages she had been ignoring from her mother since she had arrived at the Suh residence, and although she knew she should answer those calls, she firmly believed that she didn't want to deal with her and her father.

For now, she just wanted to be a girl having fun and forgetting about everything else.

The image of Daeho had been temporarily erased from her mind a while ago, but at some point in her night, the doubt of whether Jung Jaehyun had attended the party had arisen.

Still, she couldn't see him.

Amidst all the numbness her mind was going through, she didn't notice when subtly the guy she had been talking to for an hour moved her away from the group of people they were with. Chris, she remembered his name, had a slight grip on her waist; something she hadn't paid the slightest attention to.

"Why are we moving away?" (Y/N) asked in a sleepy voice, letting herself be guided by the steps the guy took.

"Oh, I just thought it would be good if we moved away a bit to talk more. You know, we can get to know each other a little better," the guy responded, causing the girl to overlook the hint of malice that came out of his mouth.

"But we were fine with the others," she dragged her words as she tried to move away from Chris's grip on her body. "Where's Jungwoo?" she asked when her inner alarm went off.

"He must be around here somewhere, don't worry; we'll look for him later," he replied as he gently brought his lips to the girl's ear and then moved them to her jawline. "Let's have a good time for now."

A light kiss was planted there, and it was then that her senses returned coldly, and all the dizziness she had previously experienced disappeared slightly; putting her hands on the guy's chest to push him away abruptly.

"No, I don't want to look for him later. I want to go with Jungwoo now," the girl demanded after her failed attempt to push him away.

"Calm down, Hwang. You've been practically all over me all night; it's not time to start playing hard to get, is it?"

"What are you talking about, idiot?" she questioned sharply and tried to push him again; she looked into his eyes with anger and could see in them the way they were droopy, slightly bloodshot, and that's when she could gather who this guy was and what he did with his lif “let go of me now or...”

"Or what? Stop pretending to be a fucking innocent; it doesn't suit you," he said as he, again, brought his mouth to the girl's neck.

And surprised by the strength she found in that moment, with a strong push and after struggling, she was able to push him far enough to release a punch that went straight to his jaw.

"You damn bitch," the guy spat, letting go of her and grabbing her face.

"That would be the last time you touch me, and get that if a girl says no, it's because she means no."

"You'll regret it, you fucking bitch."

With her heart pounding in her chest and her mind still accompanied by a slight dizziness, she began to move away from the guy and the dark hallway she was in. It was difficult to walk when her legs felt shaky from the scene she had been involved in; she scolded herself mentally for drinking the amount of alcohol she had drunk, knowing well her low tolerance to it.

She looked for Jungwoo with her eyes, and it was difficult to find him when her vision was blurry. She wanted to get out of there. She wanted to do it now.

What an idiot Chris had been. She hated it when men looked for things that weren't there. She had never hinted that she wanted anything, nor that she wanted to get away from the group. She felt dirty to remember where his hands had been. How his fingerprints felt on her skin and how she wanted to hit him again in his stupid face.

She felt something strange in her chest, she didn't know how to explain it; it was a combination of anger and vulnerability she was experiencing. The slight distress she felt there could be noticed on her face, surrounded by so many people under the effects of who knows what substance, feeling her body reacting slowly and not knowing where the hell Jungwoo had gone.

When she felt a hand on her arm, stopping her steps, she feared it was Chris, who had gone after her. And with her breath caught in her throat, she turned around to find a pair of eyes that took her by surprise.

"Hey, are you okay, Angel?"

She thought it was the first time she was glad to see Jaehyun.

It wasn't weird seeing Jaehyun in Johnny's house, she knew he's use to come to this parties at the end his presence was required if her classmates wanted to have a good time. What it was weird to her a that in the last two weeks he has seen Jaehyun more often that her own cousin, that always seemed to have an excuse to avoid her.

She didn’t know if it was of the dizziness she was feeling or what, but Jung Jaehyun looked good. All dressed up in black leather, with his neck tattoo decorating his body and his pulled hair back. She must be really fucked up if she was thinking in how hot Jaehyun looked.

But that wasn’t the case right now, she needed someone because she couldn’t trust herself in that state.

And right now, among all the people inside the residence and adding that Jungwoo was nowhere to be found, Jaehyun was the only person she could rely on.

Could she really?

She thought there wasn't much difference between Chris and Jaehyun. In the end, they both did the same thing. Sure, in different areas, but their lives revolved around similar things; situations, people, experiences.

"I... I don't know where Jungwoo is," she clumsily said.

In her voice, Jaehyun could notice the slight clumsiness in tone, realizing that the girl had been drinking, approaching her delicately, now he could see the expression of concern on her face.

"And then that idiot of Chris," she continued with a disgusted face, and upon hearing the mention, Jaehyun defensively turned to look at her.

"Has Chris approached you? Was it something about Daeho?" he asked quickly.

(Y/N) nervously bit her lip to avoid the boy's gaze and again put her gaze on the hall where they were.

Where the hell was Jungwoo?

"Shit," the girl blurted out when she realized, "Chris sold something to Daeho, didn't he?" Seeing the expression on the boy's face, she knew the answer. "Damn it, I'm so sick of this," she said as she put her hands on her head. Her breathing quickened, and she felt her hands trembling. "What the hell do I have to do for Daeho to stop this nonsense? I came here to find him, and then Jungwoo thought it would be a good idea to have fun," she spoke quickly, causing Jaehyun to only catch a few words. "I'm sick of my mom and my aunt arguing about which family is better, then Jungwoo disappears, and the stupid of Chris tries something with me”.

"What? Has he done something to you?" Jaehyun asked, surprised.

"What's the point of having this damn deal with you?" she ignored the boy's words and continued, "I know you told me that Daeho would find another dealer as soon as he wanted to use again, but I had hoped he wouldn't. Now I'm overwhelmed with my tasks and yours, that damn report I have to submit in four days, and my mind is stuck. I don't know what else to do to keep everything at one hundred percent, when I'm not even at five percent," she confessed without thinking, and when she realized what she had done, she lowered her gaze. "Sorry, I know you're not someone who cares about this."

She turned around without letting the boy say anything, and after walking a bit, she heard behind her:

"Come on, I'll take you home."

Her brow furrowed, and she turned to face the boy, confused, she asked, "Huh?"

"It seems like you've been drinking a bit too much, and Jungwoo is nowhere to be found, I'll take you home, even if your car is parked around, I don't think it's wise to drive like this."

"What about you?"

"I stopped drinking two hours ago," the boy replied simply, "let's go."

When Jaehyun started walking, (Y/N)'s steps became almost automatic; without thinking about where she was going or with whom, they only followed the silhouette of the boy in front of her without a word.

Perhaps a few seconds later, when she noticed she was in front of Jaehyun's BMW, her mind questioned what she was doing.

She hadn't made wise decisions tonight.

With her hand hesitating on the door handle, debating her actions and whether she should get into the car or not, with her senses heightened knowing it was Jung Jaehyun who, presumably, would take her home, and with the same, already inside the car, waiting for her to react and finally make up her mind; her body trembled.

The music from the residence still echoed in her ears, yet above it, she could hear Jaehyun calling her from inside... and then, without further thought; she got into the car.

The car, to her surprise, looked clean; the scent she could perceive from it was odd... like a combination of marijuana and vanilla, in smoky tones... and now that she thought about it of the few times she managed to be close to Jaehyun, that was the same smell she perceived, and she couldn't help but think it was a pleasant smell. Odd but pleasant.

Jaehyun knew where the Hwang residence was, he had been close once when he had to make some deliveries in that area; that's why he didn't need to ask the girl for any directions, besides he didn't feel like having a chat, especially with someone he doubted was in their right mind.

The first few minutes were silent, she could hear (Y/N)'s soft breathing above the sounds of his own car, and he hoped the rest of the journey would be like that; until she decided to speak: “do you use as well?”

Jaehyun was taken back for the sudden question and the he shook his head. “Sometimes I smoke weed, but that the only thing I use. I don’t like other shit, I might not be the greatest person but I appreciate my body” he said jockingly. It was weird seeing Jaehyun joking with her. “But really, weed is the only thing I like.”

“Doesn’t make you an addict?” she questions again.

“Don’t think so” he answers. “I don’t do it often. Only when I’m really stressed about something, I can control myself” he says and she stayed quiet for a couple of minutes.

“What's next for you?" She asked out of sudden again, making Jaehyun furrow his eyebrows while he kept looking at the road.

"What do you mean?" Jaehyun asked without looking at her.

"It's the last year of school, do you know what's next for you?" (Y/N) asked again this time she stop looking at the window and she put his gaze in him.

Jaehyun scoffed "Do you really want to know?"

Did he really wanted to answer?

This is the longest talk they have ever had.

"I mean... I guess so"

The boy hated thinking about future. And now he hated even more because some preppy girl had to ask about it.

"I don't know" he said. "I don't think about future a lot if I'm honest" he didn't know why he answer though. He could just not say nothing if he wanted to.

"But you should" (Y/N) commented. "College is just around corner and there's a lot of options you should look up".

Jaehyun let out a laughter that left (Y/N) confused. Was he laughing at her? She tilted her head, she didn't know what was so funny.

"College isn't an option for me" he said as he stopped in a red light and then he moved his head so he could look at her. He didn't know why he was telling all of this. "There's no next for me after high school"

"You can't be serious" she mumbled. "There most be and option that can suit you"

"You don't know shit" he said and that alone made (Y/N) move in her sit a little bit uncomfortable.

"No, I might not but if you say that there's no other option for you... then I'm sorry, Jaehyun, I think I have to end the deal with you."

When Jaehyun abruptly stopped the car, he was glad that there was a red light at the traffic signal.

"What?"

"I'm tired of trying to help Daeho when he doesn't want to be helped," she confessed without even looking at him, "and... I think it's time to focus on me. It's too much work. Yours... mine... if I want to keep good grades, my assignments alone are enough, and if you don't have an interest in making something good for you, then I'll stop helping you out as well".

Jaehyun shook his head: "No, but I need your help. I can't fail. I can't be kicked out of school."

"I don't understand, Jaehyun," she said, changing her gaze from the street to the boy's eyes, "I don't understand why all this fuss about not being able to be kicked out of school if it’s because you don't want to ruin your business, not because you genuinely want to be better in your school life. You said it yourself, college isn't an option for you so, if this is only about your work I don't want to be involved or have any influence in something that is not legal".

Jaehyun's hands tensed on the steering wheel.

"You don't need to understand," he said as he moved forward at the green light, "they can't kick me out of school," he repeated firmly.

"Well, I'm sorry, Jaehyun. I made the decision. I appreciate the weeks when you didn't sell anything to Daeho, but even so, he finds a way to consume. It's not your fault. And I finally realized it's not my fault either. I also appreciate you taking me home, but after tonight, you'll go your way and I'll go mine."

"So you're okay with me being kicked out?" He asked with a side smile.

"We're not friends, Jaehyun" she stated. "We were just helping each other out. But if my cousin doesn't want to be helped, I don't need your help neither. I’m sorry if you needed mine but I can’t keep up with this anymore. Being involved with you was dangerous enough and I think it’s for the better"

It hadn't been long since the damn deal had taken place, but inside Jaehyun, he liked having an occasional interaction with the girl, especially if it was to annoy her... he found it funny every time she wrinkled her nose when she was upset with him or the way she tenderly rolled her eyes after he made a silly comment on purpose.

He might got used to her a little.

"I knew you rich kids weren’t faithful to your word" he said. "I guess I can't force you to anything," Jaehyun let out a sigh.

Another fifteen minutes passed in complete silence, with some discomfort on both sides. (Y/N) looking anywhere out of the windows but not putting her gaze on Jaehyun, and the boy was focused on the wheel.

Anyone who saw the scene would laugh to see two people as different as Hwang (Y/N) and Jung Jaehyun in the same car.

She was sure Jungwoo would laugh if he saw them.

Of course, after she kicked him a few times for leaving her.

She didn't notice precisely when they were entering her residence; it wasn't until the car stopped abruptly, and she could see through the window the immense house in front of them.

It was more appealing to stay in that car with the dealer than to deal with her mother.

"I guess it's time for me to go," (T/N) said, grabbing the car handle, "Thank you... Jaehyun... for bringing me, and I'm sorry I can't help you with your work anymore... but I can't do it."

The boy smiled slightly and adjusted his jacket as he shook his head.

"Take care, Angel," Jaehyun said and then said no more.

Jaehyun hadn't been a bad guy to her during the time they had agreed on the deal, however... for her own good; she hoped they wouldn't cross paths again, like it was before the start of the deal.

Jung Jaehyun was a dealer from the Neo Zone, and she had an image to uphold, that's why it was better for each to take their place.

But what was that she felt when she got out of the car and saw Jaehyun leave without even looking at her one last time?

a/n: taglist is open! thank you for reading! wait 4 the next chapter!

there’s a mention of Winwin, what could have happened to him?:0 idk, you might found in the next chapter, who knows?;)) I hope you liking this so far, sorry but I’m more into longer chapter than short ones. Love ya! Oh I’m also posting a Taeyong au later so check it out!

taglist: @gojoscumslut @bluedbliss s @dear-97 @girlwholoveslpreppyattire @hana-off-icial

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fiction-is-life · 1 month ago

Note

A and B kiss while sitting together on a (surf)board. with topper! please and thank you <333

also, i came across that prompt on a prompt list on here. and it immediately made me think of topper for som reason!!😌

Surfing Lessons

Author’s Note: Thank you soooooo much for your patience in waiting for me to write this! I have had some major writer’s block lately, but I wanted to get something out before season 4 premiers! I hope this satisfies a little bit of your Topper cravings! And thank you for being such an amazing person!

Warnings: bratty sisters, the ocean, hurried writing (will probably go back to edit later), fluff

“(Y/N)!!!!! Please!!!!!!” your whiny little sister pleaded again.

You rolled your eyes and groaned. “Oh my goodness, for the last time, I do not want to take surfing lessons with you! You can go by yourself if that’s how you want to spend your vacation,” you replied, trying to tan on the beach before going into the water for a while.

“But they are doing lessons right over there, and mom said you have to go with me!” She stomped her foot, kicking up a little cloud of sand. You looked past her to where you could see some older lifeguards helping kids balance correctly on the surfboards, and it looked harmless enough. They weren’t even in the water. No chance to fall and embarrass yourself.

You sighed, “Fine.” You marked the place in your book and placed it into your beach bag. “But you owe me one, Mackenzie.”

“Yay!!!!! Thank you, (Y/N)!” she squealed as she took your hand and dragged you over to the lessons.

As you arrived, rubbing the soreness from your arm, the older instructors turned to greet you both, smiles on their slightly wrinkled faces. “Ah, thank you for joining us! We hope you are ready to learn how to surf and stay safe while doing it!” the one said.

“Over here we have our 10-12 year old lessons,” the other instructor said to Mackenzie before looking at you. “And over there we have our teen lessons with Topper and JJ.” The man pointed to a spot much closer to the ocean where two teenage boys stood with their boards in hand. They saw the instructor pointing and waved, welcoming smiles on their faces - handsome faces it is worth noting. They looked very nice and you were sure they were excellent instructors, but their proximity to the actual ocean concerned you.

You turned back to the instructors who had already started to teach Mackenzie how to stand on the board. “I’m not so sure if I’m ready for those lessons yet; this is my first time surfing, so maybe I should stay here with Mackenzie,” you explained, an irrational fear sweeping over you.

“Oh, don’t be a baby, (Y/N). Go over there for your lessons; I bet you I’ll be over there soon enough cause I’m gonna be a natural.”

You huffed and rolled your eyes once again, annoyed that your little sister had called your bluff so easily. “Fine, I just wasn’t sure if you could handle being by yourself,” you stated before marching closer to the shore, your cheeks growing red as the two boys came into better focus.

Very handsome indeed.

They were both blond, but the one with lighter hair flashed you a charismatic smile, mischief in his eyes. “Hi, I’m JJ, what’s your name?” he asks smoothly.

You smiled back shyly, “I’m (Y/N).”

JJ’s smile grew. “Where are you -”

“Hi, (Y/N), my name’s Topper, and I’ll be your instructor today.” The other boy cut off the lithe blond’s smooth talking. Both you and JJ’s heads snapped to look at Topper. Topper saw the anger in JJ’s eyes as he looked over your head and gave an innocent smile - too innocent. “What, J? You took the last student. And look, here comes another right now.” You all three turned to see a fourteen year old boy come loping down over the sand. Topper waved to JJ. “Have fun, man,” he said, a laugh barely suppressed in his voice.

As Topper turned to walk a little farther down the beach, you followed, taking the opportunity to ogle his physique. His golden tan made his rippling back muscles stand out in sharp relief. You almost got caught staring at the place between his lower back and upper thighs when he turned around on a dime.

That smirk returned, his eyes sliding over you slowly. Guess you hadn’t been as sly as you thought. “Let’s get started,” that deep voice of his making you shiver, no longer nervous about the water.

“Alright, (Y/N), you have the basics down.” You felt the loss of Topper’s heat as he stepped back from helping you balance. You turned toward him. “I think you are ready to go in the water, and just in time, too, there are some pretty great waves coming now.”

You looked at the waves rolling in; they didn’t look too big, but you were still scared you may fall. “I don’t know, Topper…”

He smiled sincerely, his eyes warm and surprisingly understanding. “Don’t worry, (Y/N), I’ll be right with you the whole time,” he reassured.

You bit your lip, finally nodding. “Okay, Topper, I trust you.”

The next thing you knew you were paddling on your board, Topper a few feet away on his own board, watching your technique and coaching you.

“Alright, (Y/N), here comes a good wave, so get ready to stand on my count. 3….2….1….Now!”

You stood quickly, trying to remember to balance as the wave started to take you. You felt a moment of pure exhilaration - the water kissing your skin, Topper shouting triumphantly in the background - before the wave grew too strong for you, knocking you off balance. You shrieked as you fell off the board and under the wave. You tried to raise up so you could breathe, but the wave kept pushing you down, relentless. Your panic rose to a fever pitch before you felt a strong arm wrap around you, pulling you up. You clung to your savior, your hair stuck to your face and obscuring your view as he pulled you up onto his surfboard and into safety.

Warm hands pushed the hair out of your eyes as his other arm held you to his chest. You blinked the saltwater out of your eyes and smiled sheepishly at Topper. “Thank you for saving me, Topper,” you whispered.

“I’m just glad you are okay…and that you need a few more lessons,” he intoned, leaning in slowly.

“Yeah, I think I’ll need a lot more lessons,” you agree huskily, closing the small distance between you.

Your lips met and the kiss was all sunshine and summer. You could taste the saltiness on Topper’s lips from the water, and you smiled into the kiss as Topper’s arms pulled you in impossibly closer. One of your hands slipped into his hair, tugging on the slightly knotted ends from the breeze. You pulled away slowly after a moment, savoring the memory right there and then. You pecked Topper’s lips quickly once more, not knowing what to say as he took your hand in his tenderly.

He shook his head in disbelief, a smile lighting up his whole face. “I’m so glad I was quicker than JJ,” he exclaimed, kissing you again.

My Masterlist

Taglist: @adventuresinobx @bradleybeachbabe @starkeyobx @penny4yourthoughts @topperscumslut @drewbooooo @honeybear-yammy @gillybear17 @hoebx @spinningintheshadows @fangirlfree @get0ut0fmyr00m @poppet05 @graywrites20 @yellowbitchs-blog @laneyy003 @hydraironcaptian @honeybuzzzzzz @powellsugarbaby @ietts @art3mas @haven247

#topper thornton x reader #topper x reader #topper thornton fluff #obx fics #topper thornton fanfiction #outer banks fanfiction #answered asks #lovely moots 💕#jj maybank x reader #jj x reader

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lebrookestore · 11 months ago

Text

sixteen | l.dh [part ii]

Pairing: Lee Donghyuck x reader

Themes: strangers to lovers, highschool! au, coming of age, lovers to exes, exes to lovers to ??, producer! donghyuck (very lightly explored), roommates! au but with a twist, second chance romance, slowburn, angst, fluff, romance, PG 15. (moodboards: i | ii)

Warnings: profanity, heavy ANGST, kissing, food, underage alcohol consumption and alcohol consumption in general, drug use, smoking (vaping, cigarettes and weed consumptions), crude humour, teenagers doing dumb shit as teenagers do, cheating, betrayal.

Word count: 21.6k

Summary: Youth is always accompanied with a fragile glimmer of hope, with you and Donghyuck viewing the world through the rosiest of glasses. But as the ephemeral days of teenage foolishness bleed into the harshness of adulthood, the rosy hue begins to diminish, and you learn that for some people, it just isn’t meant to be.

Playlist: here

Notes from brooke: here it is!! the second and final part of this fic that has taken me a whole year to write and i'm as proud of it as I am nervous to put out the rest of it here for all of you. as always, feedback would be much appreciated<3

➳ read part i here!!

vii] now.

The aroma of coffee beans being ground wafted through the air, somehow managing to brighten your foul mood. You had never been much of a morning person and could barely start your day without some form of caffeine in your system. On most days, you made your coffee at home before setting out to work, but today you wanted to treat yourself a little bit, and what better way than to put your money towards something practical?

(This was a hundred percent your attempt at trying to convince yourself the overpriced eight dollar coffee you had just ordered was worth it.)

“Iced Latte for Y/n?”

You got up from the stool you had occupied, making your way over to the counter and barista who had called for you. In another life, you would be one of those cool working ladies who managed to down americanos without flinching, but in this one you were quite content with the milky sweet goodness of a latte. You handed over the money you owed and lifted the straw to your lips, sighing in happiness as soon as the drink hit your tastebuds.

“Hey, I had placed my order…” A man's voice startled you, but it wasn’t the abruptness that caught you off guard- that was pretty typical for a busy Tuesday morning in New York- but rather the familiarity of it as it trailed off. You spun on your heel quickly, coming face to face with a rather dumbfounded looking Donghyuck.

You stared at him, lips parting in surprise at his presence there. The barista behind cleared her throat expectantly, waiting for Donghyuck to reiterate his drink order.

He snapped out of the initial shock of seeing you at that. “Right, sorry. I had asked for a caramel frappe about ten minutes ago?” Of course he still had the same order from when you were teenagers, one that was much sweeter than yours.

“Oh yes, it's ready. Sorry for the delay sir!” Her cheery voice rang out as she held out the drink.

You were still rooted to the spot in front of him.

He pressed his lips together, cocking his head to the side to silently motion towards the counter, signalling that you were currently in his way. “Uh.”

“Oh.” You stepped out of the line, feeling embarrassment quickly creep up upon you for your slowness right then. He grabbed his drink, and moved out of the way for the next person as well, stopping before you for a second, eyes lingering on your face as if trying to read your expression, gauging whether he should say something or not.

Terribly self conscious, you took another sip of the latte you held, though it did nothing to soothe your frayed nerves. He sighed softly, seemingly deciding that doing nothing was for the best, and walked away.

What were the odds of you running into him like this? You had banked on only having to see him when Yeonmi had him over, but now you realised that was incredibly naive of you, since run ins were bound to happen from time to time. It seemed that your naivety from your youth hadn’t quite run out yet.

Often, you thought about how you had been so quick to shut down his pleas to talk about things with you that one movie night, how defensive you had been from the get go. He had done his best to be cautious while approaching the topic, as if he had seen the mental caution tape you had wrapped around your heart when it came to him, but you had been so afraid.

Afraid that whatever explanation he provided you with wouldn’t be sufficient to heal the would he had inflicted. Afraid that if you even began to let him in, you’d forgive him immediately and feel pathetic about dismissing the part of you that was so angry at being left behind without so much as a goodbye.

But as you watched him walk away and to the door of the cafe, you couldn’t help but wonder why you didn’t let him speak.

Wasn’t closure something everyone wanted and deserved? You more than anyone knew this and maybe that's what you would have gotten if you hadn’t been so stubborn that night.

Your legs moved on their own, carrying you towards his departing figure. “Wait!”

He stilled, turning around slowly to make sure it was him you were talking to, which was a surprise in itself to him. You bit down on your lower lip, scrambling to find the words you needed to communicate with him.

“Do you have a few minutes?”

His gaze softened the way it used to when it came to you and he nodded. “I can make time.”

You glanced down at your watch, grateful for actually having one sitting on your wrist. In truth, you had only bought it after noting how almost everyone in your workplace wore one. It didn’t seem professional to constantly be checking your phone for the time, but you did it anyway, leaving the watch to be just another accessory you donned.

Right now, its utility made itself known. 8:00 am. “I have to be in office in an hour,” you informed him. “So I can’t stay long but….we can talk?” You mentally winced at how you ended what you had hoped to be a confident statement as a question.

“I’d like that.”

The two of you made your way to a small table in the back, sitting opposite each other. You were grateful for the window on your left, which served as a good distraction from the man in front of you. Cars whizzed by on the busy NYC streets, painting the scene in a blur of reds and yellows against the grey concrete background.

He tapped his fingers against the table periodically, the rhythm finally giving you the courage you needed to begin.

“You were right,” you said finally, desperately searching for the words to appropriately approach the topic at hand. “We do need to talk. I should have listened.”

“It’s okay, I should have approached it differently considering,” he paused, mulling over what he was about to say, not wanting to be insensitive but also not wanting to underplay the severity of what you felt. “Well, everything.”

“It’s fine.”

Clearly, this was going nowhere and was getting increasingly more uncomfortable with every passing minute. You should have just let him leave instead of heeding to your intrusive thoughts and going after him, you should have watched him walk away and bit down your tongue in regret later on in the privacy of your room.

It was as if he had sensed your trepidation and decided to put you out of your misery. “How are you?”

Small talk. Right. You could do that.

“Good, good,” you had no idea why you said it twice. “Mostly just busy with work and you know, adulting. You?”

“Pretty much the same, work.” He smiled softly at you, and you wondered how he somehow still made that feel like a reward for you, how something as simple as that could have a deceitful warmth bubbling in the pit of your stomach. “I have to get to the studio in a bit.”

“Studio?”

“I’m a music producer,” he clarified, and the conversation was almost too reminiscent of his date with Yeonmi, except a little more meaningful this time. A certain sense of shyness washed over him at telling you what he did for work, because although he was extremely proud of his job, your opinion of it mattered to him more than anyone else's ever could.

“That's amazing! Do you like, get to meet famous people?” Your reaction was genuine, just as you had always been with him. You had once been the only person he thought believed in him. He could see the fraction of joy that sparked in your expression, truly happy on hearing this news.

He chuckled and nodded, “Yeah, I do. There are a couple of them I regularly work with.” It wasn’t in his nature to brag, but the starstruck look that appeared in your eyes made it worth it for once.

“Wow,” you mumbled, fiddling with the straw in your drink. “I just work in HR.” Your life felt awfully boring in comparison to him, but then again, that was a feeling you had made your peace with a long time ago. He had always been the more interesting, more magnetic person from the two of you- or perhaps from everyone in general. A stranger could take a look at him and know that he was made to walk a path different and more vibrant than most.

An awkward silence settled after that, only succeeding in increasing your anxiety levels. Pleasantries were over, so where the hell were you supposed to go from there?

“I didn’t know Yeonmi was your roommate,” he said quietly, not looking at you. “I’m sorry for the position I’ve put you in, I promise you it wasn’t intentional.”

“I never thought it was,” you assured him. “I didn’t think it was you she was talking about either. This is just some sort of freak coincidence, I guess.” You hesitated for a moment, before deciding to not overthink anything having to do with the situation. There were so many questions left unanswered that you had no qualms with getting right to the point now that you could. “I don’t even care actually, I just want to know one thing.”

The flippancy in your voice almost made him wince. “Anything.”

“Why did you do it?”

And suddenly, Donghyuck felt as if he was back as his teenage self, staring at you through his younger self's perspective. He had been so unforgivingly impulsive at that age, and selfishly so, unable to put himself in anyone else's shoes. Of course, he had felt guilty for what he had done, to the point where he felt sick in the days that followed, but he had done it to protect himself from having to deal with your reaction to the news. News that had, back then, ruptured the little world of bliss he had cultivated with you by his side.

How could he have explained anything back then anyway? He had always hidden that part of his life from you, the constant instability and fleeting nature that it possessed. Putting it together made it sound like a bad excuse, and you definitely did not deserve that.

But he wasn’t an avoidant teenager anymore, and neither were you. What you deserved was the whole truth and nothing but that, and so he steeled himself, glancing at the clock on the wall behind you. 8:15 am. He didn’t really have much time, but he was going to do his best.

“I spent most of my childhood moving around from place to place. I think the longest I stayed in a town was two years at most, and for the longest time, I resented my mother for that.”

This was something you had waited for all your life, or at least, that was how you felt, and now you were finally going to get the explanation you had spent years trying to put together for a fickle sense of closure. Here you were, finally getting what you had spent birthday wishes and pennies down fountains for since you were sixteen, hoping and praying that it would happen for your sake. Here you were, getting it from your first love.

It was three in the morning and though the caffeine from your coffee had long since worn off, you found yourself lying in your bed wide awake. It had been a few hours of tossing and turning underneath your sheets, trying to find a position comfortable enough to succumb to sleep but evidently, seeing that you were now staring at your ceiling in frustration, had been wholly unsuccessful.

You were going to need an extra large cup of coffee to curb your inevitable grumpiness the next morning. A sigh left your lips as you threw your covers off, sitting up in your bed and taking in your room in the darkness, hoping you would feel the heaviness set in on your eyelids. When that didn’t happen, you swung your legs over the side and landed on the wooden floors, slipping your feet into your house slippers and opening your door as quietly as possible.

A glass of water should put everything right and curb your restlessness. Your optimism was admirable, if not downright stupid. The cause of your current state was fairly obvious.

So there you were, now holding an empty glass. You had finished your water, and didn’t feel any better, not wanting to go back to bed in the slightest.

Donghyuck rippled through your mind, and you shut your eyes, trying to block him out. The sight of those sad eyes of his as he explained what really happened all those years ago had been imprinted in your mind, and it had left you with nothing but contempt.

You despised the childish reasoning that consumed the entire explanation, the way it felt like everything that had happened and what you felt had been so trivial and completely avoidable if he had just spoken to you. Eight years, that was how long you had waited just for it to feel as if he had just rubbed salt in your wounds, and you hated every second of it.

What you hated most though, was the way you completely understood why he did it.

The more you thought about what he told you, you couldn’t help but empathise with him. Sure, you wouldn’t have done what he did if you were in his position, but that was the thing, wasn’t it? You had never been in his position, and it was clear that his younger years had been scattered all over the place.

How could he have known any better when he too was learning how to navigate his emotions at that age? He was a child and you couldn’t hold anything against a child now that you were an adult.

I’m sorry.

Suddenly, why those had been the last thing he ever said to you made sense. He knew what he was doing and did it anyway. The burn that you felt every time you thought about it hadn’t subsided.

Your younger self was angry at how things had turned out, pissed at being left in the dark even if you understood why. You wanted so badly to hate him for what he had done to you, but no matter how hard you tried to push yourself to do so, you just couldn’t. Instead, another emotion lied in the place you tried so hard to fill with hate, and it scared you even more.

He had hurt you to such a colossal extent, and yet that little flame inside of you refused to be put out, or even have the mercy to dim itself for your sake. It flickered back to life the moment you set eyes on him again and you knew this to be true by the effect he still had on you.

You never stopped loving Donghyuck. You only started hurting, and let the pessimistic degree of that feeling drown out everything else.

“I should have handled it better,” his frustration with himself was clear by the way he exhaled agitatedly. “I know I was a dick to you, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. If I could go back and do it all again, I’d do it very differently, but I can’t.” He sounded pained, his sorrow cutting deep into your freshly reopened wounds and making you realise that he had hurt himself in the process of doing what he did.

While you had been painstakingly stitching yourself back together after him, he had been doing the same, reaping what he had sown in your garden. He was as old as you had been, and emotions are often magnified in the melodrama of youth.

It didn’t feel like that magnification had dulled out though, the regret potent in his voice, matching your emotional state.

“But if there's anything I can do now….I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

You were drowning, sinking rapidly below the surface as the waves thrashed around you, unrelenting and ruthless. You gripped the cup in your hands, a warm pressure building behind your eyes, making you feel even more miserable than you already were. The realisation of your present feelings overwhelmed you, and you crumbled against the counter, letting yourself lean against the cupboards as you settled on the floor.

He’d do anything for you. He said it himself.

So then…would he…?

A choked sound escaped your throat- something that sounded like a cross between a bitter laugh and a sob. You were deplorable, truly, for even letting the thought cross your mind, but god.

Would he end things with Yeonmi for your sake?

The topic of your roommate hadn’t been brought up during your chat, the two of you skirting around the topic for all you were worth. It felt like taboo, and although it was probably something worth mentioning, you were glad you hadn’t needed to deal with it just yet. You held so much love for Yeonmi, but right then she seemed like more of an obstacle than anything else.

But if she knew the truth and Donghyuck and you, wouldn’t she think the same? She had done nothing wrong, so you were the problem here. You were the obstacle you had never signed up to be.

The question sat heavy upon your tongue, and you so desperately wanted to ask it.

You couldn’t do that to your friend, you would never. She hadn’t been this happy with someone since her sorry excuse of an ex broke her spirit, and you couldn’t bear to be the one to take that away from her. You couldn’t, even if it meant that it broke you, because goddamnit you were still irrevocably in love with Lee Donghyuck.

And all you wanted to do was hate him.

viii] then.

Donghyuck’s room was much planer than yours, with just a clock hanging on one of its walls. A keyboard in one corner of the room and a guitar leaning against the side of his closet, you supposed that he hadn’t had much time to put too much thought into decorating just yet.

“You can put up posters of all those bands you keep talking about,” you suggested, running your fingers through his hair. You were sitting on his bed, leaning against the headboard with him lying in between your legs, looking up at you fondly

Your boyfriend frowned lightly, “Too much effort.”

You rolled your eyes, “You’re just lazy. I can help you, you know. We could go print the posters after school.” Your enthusiasm was endearing, but he didn’t really see a point. Nevertheless, he didn’t have the heart to shoot your ideas down and nodded noncommittally, enjoying the feeling of you absent-mindedly massaging his scalp.

“Whatever you say, pretty girl,” he said lazily. A silence settled, and although it wasn’t uncomfortable by any means, he began humming a melody.

You had heard him sing several times now, usually while he accompanied himself on guitar and his voice was just like the rest of him- captivating. It was gentle but still strong, his tone conveying the message and feel of any song he picked perfectly. He had once confessed that he would love to work in the music industry one day, no matter what the role was, but then brushed off the wish, saying that it was a shot in the dark.

To counter this, you told him that if anyone could make it, it would be him. By no means did your words shake off his doubts or uncertainty, but you could tell that the faith you had in him helped him feel better.

“What song is that?” You tilted your head, looking down at him. He shrugged.

“It isn’t one, just a tune that came to me,” it was such a simple thing, and it still somehow earned him an impressed look from you, making him laugh. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re the coolest person I know.”

“You’re the dorkiest.”

“Hey! Dork-? Is this the shit I get for being nice to you?” You pouted, the offence heavily lacing your voice making him laugh, and to soothe your ruffled feathers, he dropped a chaste kiss to your lips.

“A cute dork.”

His mother was out, leaving the house empty save for the two of you. The privacy was nice, much better than your house for sure, where your mother was always hovering for some reason, even though you hadn’t told your parents about your new relationship just yet. She was overprotective, and while you were definitely going to tell them, you didn’t particularly want to deal with any outbursts just yet, wanting to savour the beginning of it all and keep that joy just for yourself.

As far as you knew, Donghyuck didn’t have a father, but he had never gotten into the details. He made sure to tell you that it wasn’t because it was hard to talk about, but because there wasn’t much to say about the man anyway, since he had never known him or even met him.

You narrowed your eyes at him, trying to fake annoyance to the best of your abilities, but you weren’t and never had been immune to the butterflies he managed to set free in your stomach with that kiss, a smile slowly forming on your face. Your hands moved to his face, cupping it gently as you leaned closer.

“Sweet talk won’t get you anywhere.”

“Yeah?” His eyes sparkled with mischief, “What will then?”

“A proper kiss maybe,” you mused, matching his playfulness. He immediately took you up on your proposal, smiling into the kiss.

You were glad his mom wasn’t around.

Neither of you had ever kissed anyone before, but somehow he was still very good at it, a single touch of his igniting a pleasant buzz on the surface of your skin. Everything you knew about kissing came from books and movies, but you could only hope you had the same effect he had on you.

If you only knew. It had been a few weeks since the two of you had started dating, and he had memorised everything he could about you he possibly could- the shape of your mouth and the slope of your nose, the crinkles around your eyes when you laughed and the sound of it, he knew it all like the back of his hand. It wasn’t hard to be with you, it came to him like second nature, and part of him was convinced that everytime his mother had moved them from place to place, it was to bring him here to this moment.

To be lying in your embrace, tangled in your arms and the gentle, loving kisses you pressed to his mouth and forehead- this was the definition of bliss, and everything about it was so utterly ignorant.

“You taste like sour patch candies,” you muttered softly, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. You had quickly grown addicted to Donghyuck, deciding right then and there that you wouldn’t trade this for anything in the entire world.

“Mhm, I was eating them before you came over.”

You chuckled. “You, sir, have a problem.”

“Drama queen, you’re exaggerating a little too much. I only had a few.”

“You had an entire packet, didn’t you? No wonder it's so noticeable.” The light wash of crimson that appeared on his cheeks at being caught gave him away.

“It can’t possibly be that noticeable.”

“It wouldn’t be if you didn’t consume copious amounts of that candy.”

He simply kissed you again in retaliation, a consequence you could definitely live with and had no complaints about whatsoever. “Shut up, you know you secretly like it.”

You never had the chance to argue with that one, once again silenced by his lips against yours. He was undoubtedly right about that accusation, for you liked it almost too much. You liked everything about him too much, and for the first time you understood the typical giddiness that was portrayed in every teen movie you watched growing up.

Every school day was something to look forward to now, making it possible to spend almost every day with him. You sat on desks next to each other, sometimes listening to music together and trying not to get caught talking to each other. The teachers had definitely picked up on the fact that there was something between the two of you, considering the amount of disproving looks you had gotten sent your way for laughing a little too loud at the jokes he would crack under his breath.

Holidays were spent with you trying to finish all your homework as quickly as possible so you could hang out with him or Sakura and Chenle, making it so that every single day was bright and exciting from the moment you awoke.

“You have no proof of that,” you pointed out, sitting up straighter to be able to kiss him better, savouring the way his arm immediately slid around your waistline. He smirked, his hand slipped just under your t-shirt but staying at your waist, fingers tracing abstract shapes upon the expanse of your skin.

“You’re still kissing me, aren’t you?”

The local playground was pretty deserted after eight on Sunday evenings, mothers having taken all their babies and toddlers back home for their nightly routine. Other highschool juniors or seniors didn’t really hang out there, opting to spend their time at the small skate park on the other end of town, which made it a perfect hangout spot for you and your friends.

Chenle slipped a cigarette pack out of the pocket of his designer hoodie, along with a bright red lighter. “Does anyone want one?”

Your reaction mirrored Sakura’s, who currently wore a frown. “Since when are you a smoker?”

“Johnny hyung taught me yesterday when he invited me to hang out with the seniors,” he filled you in, and you groaned, leaning into Donghyuck’s touch. He had an arm around your shoulders as the two of you occupied the bench swing, while Chenle and Sakura were sitting on the ends of the metal slides.

“Please don’t follow in his footsteps.”

He lit one of the cigarettes, rolling his eyes. “Can you chill?”

“You do not have to smoke Chenle, you’re sixteen, not a wildly miserable forty year old divorcee. You’re doing it just because you think it's cool and because Johnny does it.” Sakura shared your view of the senior, and as hospitable and lovely as he was, you didn’t particularly support his life choices.

“That is not true,” Chenle contested, and your other friend huffed. “Johnny is a great friend.”

You shook your head in disapproval. “He’s a bad influence.”

“He’s not! He’s really cool Y/n, I swear,” He waved his cigarette around, gesturing towards your boyfriend. “Right, Donghyuck?”

His admiration for the senior boy had only grown since the day of the party. To put it plainly, he thought the absolute world of the older boy, making an effort to spark a friendship. To say that he was overjoyed when Johnny started inviting him places was an understatement, if the excited call you got from him said anything.

Donghyuck looked all too amused and nodded. “He is pretty cool.”

He got two scathing looks as a result, one from Sakura and an unimpressed stare from you, causing him to clear his throat, quickly following up. “But! That doesn’t mean you should follow his every move. You definitely shouldn’t smoke, smoking is bad.”

Now that he was back in your good graces, you kissed his cheek and looked at Chenle pointedly. “Please don’t end up like him.”

“I would love to end up like him.”

Jesus Christ. There was no saving him.

“With all the shit he pulls, he’s going to end up dead by twenty-five. Do you want to die?” He put the pack and lighter back in his pockets, brushing off Sakura’s grim statement.

“One cigarette won’t kill me.”

“Yes, but if you make smoking a habit and get addicted, it will eventually. Lung cancer is a thing, you know.” Your reminder was not taken kindly, and he groaned, taking a puff before dropping it to the ground and crushing it with his heel, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to smoke it in peace with you guys around anyway.

“You are all so boring.” He whined, glaring at Donghyuck. “And you’re a hypocrite. Didn’t Johnny teach you how to smoke too?”

Having stayed a silent observer for most of this conversation, Donghyuck seemed to momentarily scramble for his words. “Only at the party, I haven’t smoked anything since then and I don’t intend to do it casually. It was a one time thing, and it was almost two months ago.”

“Remind me to only ever smoke at Yuta hyung’s place, because you guys are too annoying.”

Sakura perked up where she was sitting, blinking rapidly. “Nakamoto Yuta?”

He nodded, smiling almost evilly at her. “Yeah, I hang out with your crush more than you do. Maybe if you didn’t have such a stick up your ass, he’d invite you too.”

“Ugh, I hope you do die.”

She had gained quite the infatuation with Yuta, having flirted with him at the party and hung out with him for quite a bit of the night. All her confidence to do so had come from the alcohol though, because she ran in the opposite direction of him at school, too nervous to go up to him and strike conversation so casually.

You snuggled closer to Donghyuck, the evening air taking a turn for chilly. You loved having him around and was overjoyed at how well he fit into your little group, getting along with them as if they were his best friends as well. Being with him was effortless, just how it should be.

“You should at least try talking to him,” you suggested, “If you don’t try, how do you know he’s just going to reject you? Didn’t he spend almost the entire party with you?”

“Easy for you to say,” she scowled, but you knew she meant no ill will and was simply joking. “You got the guy from like, the moment you met him.” Her words had you bite back a bashful smile.

“That's true,” Donghyuck quipped almost proudly, rubbing your shoulder and dropping a kiss to your temple. He noticed the way you had tucked your hands under your legs. “Are you cold? Do you want my jacket?”

“Don’t you need it?”

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured you, taking it off and draping it over your shoulders, and resuming his previous position of having his arm around them. Sakura and Chenle simultaneously pretended to gag.

“The two of you are disgustingly adorable.” She complained, and Chenle agreed.

“Yeah, you make me feel so single I want to smoke.”

The sound of Sakura hitting his arm at that comment resounded through the empty park, making you laugh. You hadn’t realised how bland your life had been before this year because now it was like the colours were brighter and much more vibrant than before, so much more interesting. This was how highschool was supposed to be, you thought to yourself as you slid your arms into the sleeves of his jacket, simple and rosy tinted, without a single worry in the world.

ix] now.

This was the tenth time Donghyuck was listening to the track.

He paused it and dragged it back to the start, playing the song once again. Something about it was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it just yet, subjecting himself to analyse it over and over as a result.

He shut his eyes, trying to absorb the song and search for what was not clicking for him, letting himself be consumed by the music. The melody washed over him, the powerful vocals and enticing beat soaking into his system. In his expert opinion, it was one step away from being a hit on the charts. He just had to figure out what step he had to take in order to achieve that.

Usually, he would stay and work on it until he managed to come to a solution, but for some reason all he wanted to do was go home today. He wasn’t focused on his work, as much as he loved music and what he did, for some reason today he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Maybe the thing that was off with the song was his demeanour at that moment. For all he knew, when he felt better and more motivated to work on it, it might sound ready to put out into the world without him having to change a single thing.

Donghyuck needed to clear his head. He pushed himself away from his desk and stretched his legs, walking to one of the windows of the studio and peering outside.

He loved the studio, he practically lived there half of the time, sleeping on the sofa when he stayed too late or was too tired to drive home amidst a project. Every instrument inside was precious to him, every piece of equipment important. It was filled with happy memories for him, with artists waltzing in and out of his space and entrusting him with their life’s work. Their vision collided with his artistic view, and even though his name wasn’t bedazzled in the lights and he wasn’t directly in the limelight, he had somewhat managed to make a name for himself in the industry he had always loved.

The studio was more his home than his apartment, so then why did he so want to go back to the latter at the moment?

Looking out into the streets of New York, it hit him.

It wasn’t his apartment he was yearning for, per se, but more so the idea of home. It was something he had struggled with coming to terms with for the longest time, having never stayed anywhere long enough to consider home throughout his formative years. As a default, home had never taken the form of a place or a house on a particularly named street, but instead had always been a person.

During his childhood, it had been his mother, for she was the only truly constant thing in his life back then. As his teenage years rolled around, even she started to feel alien to him. He began perceiving her as less of a home and more of the reason he didn’t have one.

And then there was another person who became his home, and she came in the form of you. You were his age and much more relatable, it was much easier to place all his hope and trust in you, especially when just being around you made him forget about all his problems. When he was with you, his life seemed to lose that intense sense of instability that always kept him on edge.

You somehow stabilised him, but he lost that stability in less than a year. In an attempt to reconcile with his guilt, he began punishing himself by changing his number and cutting you off completely, telling himself that it would help you as well. Once again, he was without a home, and his relationship with his mother was further strained.

At eighteen, he moved out to New York.

New York was his home now, the place he had stayed for the longest time. It was a place finally, somewhere he could point out with his finger and proudly say he lived in. He finished up his education, going to college and teaching himself music production on the side. He worked two part time jobs and enrolled himself in production classes.

It was hard being all alone in a city as big as New York, in an unfamiliar and cold place. The loneliness hit him hard, and that led him to calling his mother. After a year in the city, working and studying hard, he finally understood why she had done what she did while he was growing up and appreciated her for it.

He had his big break at twenty-two while working under a small record label. The song he had worked on as a producer went number one on the billboard charts, rocketing the singer from an unknown person to a household name and right under theirs, was his.

He was being praised by critics for his experimental style and the little things in the production that made the song what it was. Suddenly, he was in demand and made real, good money- amounts that he had never seen in his life. He sent half of it to his mother and could now visit her as many times in the year as he so pleased.

Every sacrifice was worth it. It had gotten to where he was standing and made him who he was.

But you being in his home now?

That made him question it. You displaced him.

New York had only started to properly feel like home when he had made it big, the big scary city not seeming so scary anymore. He finally felt like he belonged somewhere after years of lacking that.

The only time he had ever belonged to someone was when he had been with you.

When he left your town, he had left a piece of his heart behind with you, just as he had taken a piece of yours with him. He had never gotten it back, searching for it- something, someone perhaps- in the faces of strangers.

He had put all his faith in finding that in Yeonmi, a woman who reminded him of you, only to find out that she was simply influenced. He was stuck, frozen in place by a choice that seemed impossible to make. Whatever course of action he took, any option he picked, it always seemed to make him the bad guy. He couldn’t just drop her for you because things were too complicated for that, and it would in turn make you the bad guy as well, but he couldn’t keep on feeling this way while being with someone else.

Home. Donghyuck knew right then that he wasn’t yearning for his apartment, or the city itself. He was yearning for you.

Donghyuck wanted you there in his studio, in his apartment- just with him maybe would be enough. Not just wandering and brushing shoulders in the vast city that you called home as well, but by his side constantly, to once again be the home that grounded him.

The realisation washed over him, but it didn’t come as a total surprise. Part of him had always known that you were it for him, especially when he saw you for the first time again that night he dropped a drunk Yeonmi home to you. The reason he couldn’t focus was you, how badly he wanted to run back to you and ignore all the complications that came with it, right back into the arms that were his true home.

Occasionally, you would think about Sakura and Chenle.

You had long since lost contact with your highschool best friends, inevitably drifting apart from them with the course of time. Once university began, even managing to text each other turned into a chore, and the only times you saw each other or hung out was during the summer when you went back home. Once you moved to New York and started going home less, those few moments turned into nothing at all.

Nevertheless, you hadn’t forgotten about them. They had been your constants for so long, people you trusted with all your heart and soul, always running out of your house to meet them. You fondly recalled all the late night calls and sneaking out and sleepovers, complaining about examinations and school together, and spending your summers with iced teas and hanging out at the local diner. From drinking sprite to sneaking alcohol, a lot of your firsts have happened with them.

They held you together when Donghyuck left. They picked up the shattered pieces, sticking them back together the best they could with the resources they had. They were the ones that got you to smile again and eventually forget about him long enough to forget that you were trying to.

Even though you haven’t spoken to them in years, you still thought about them. You would never stop being grateful.

You also wondered how they would react if they knew what your life had come to.

The coffee you had ordered this time was hot, and you cupped the mug, letting the warmth of the drink seep through the ceramic and to your fingers. You were in what had become your regular booth in the cafe, and across from you sat none other than Donghyuck himself.

Ever since that day, an unspoken sort of agreement to at least be friends had passed between the two of you- a truce of sorts. It was only logical, considering he was technically with Yeonmi, and it meant that you would have to learn how to put everything aside for that. Oddly enough though, you never talked about your roommate, and he didn’t make an effort to bring her up either.

Sakura would have glared at you in disbelief. Chenle would be laughing his ass off in some corner.

Meeting at the cafe had turned into a ritual of sorts. You would meet him there every Tuesday before work and both of you would chat and have your drinks before parting ways. Admittedly, you had started looking forward to these little rendezvous with him, they somehow managed to make your entire week.

Really, you shouldn’t have been surprised at this. Donghyuck had always had that effect on you and clearly nothing had changed. He still made you laugh more than anyone else and left you with that warm, fuzzy feeling that made you think that anything was possible.

Yeonmi did not know about these meetings.

You had never mentioned them to her even once, and you were willing to bet that Donghyuck hadn’t either. He seemed to avoid talking about her entirely, and it seemed that he hadn’t been talking to her very much either, since your roommate had worriedly mentioned his lack of communication this past few weeks.

“He still talks to me,” she explained, eyes knit together in worry. “But not as much, you know? I can’t help but wonder if something is wrong.”

“I’m sure everything is fine.” You assured her when you were not, in fact, sure. You didn’t have the courage to ask about it anyway, and selfishly enough you didn’t particularly want to spend any of the little time you got with him talking about her.

You abhorred the way you had subconsciously turned against your friend, but it was fine because you had it under control. You could never do anything to hurt her, this was completely innocent. The two of you were just talking.

“You’ve met Lee Jieun?!” You exclaimed, eyes wide in awe. He held back a laugh at the starstruck look on your face, nodding as he stirred the sugar into his coffee.

“Yeah, she’s very sweet and extremely talented. Worked on a few tracks on her last album.”

“I bought that album,” you said, putting your mug down and clasping your hands together. “I’ve been saving up for tickets to her concert.”

His lips twitched in amusement. “I can get you some if you’d like.”

Mouth falling open, you stared at him in shock, no words leaving your lips for ten seconds straight. “If I’d like?? I would love that, my god. I’ve been a fan for four years now and she’s always my top artist on spotify every year during spotify wrapped. My most listened to song is also always hers and she’s just so-”

You faltered when you glanced at him and noticed the doting expression he wore while looking at you- the sides of his lips were just slightly upturned, eyes following your movements keenly and hanging onto every word. It had heat rise up to your face and made you self-conscious because goddamnit, that was the exact way he would look at you when you were together.

Fuck.

Your throat felt dry, and you swallowed hard, averting your eyes as you felt your cheeks burn. “I’m rambling,” you mumbled, fiddling with the teaspoon on the little place your cup sat in. “Sorry, I talk too much. I’ll shut up.”

“Don’t,” he immediately said, “I like hearing you talk.”

You blinked.

God. He really hadn’t changed at all, had he?

“R-right, uh, I just really, really love her music.” Everything about the moment threw you off. The way he was able to so skillfully grab you and plunge you back into the past you had tried so hard to run away from was jarring. It wasn’t even something that slowly crept up on you, instead clutching you by the collar and throwing you straight into it, right back into your sixteen-year-old self’s shoes.

“I can tell. I’ll do my best with those tickets.” His promise almost flew over your head entirely and you forced a smile, staring down at your coffee awkwardly. He still liked hearing you talk and your loquacious nature. Some things stayed the same no matter the course of time.

You let yourself wonder if he felt the same way about you as well, but just for a second.

There was no way you could let yourself get away with thinking about it anymore because it would strip you of any dignity you had left. Your feelings for him had only grown dormant over the years and were now being awoken from their hibernation with every minute more you spent in his invigorating presence. It was unrealistic and childish to think that he felt the same way anymore.

The lack of any mention of Yeonmi, the way he seemed to be talking to you more lately and going so far as to meet with you on a weekly basis, well, the signs were definitely there, weren’t they? You were well aware of how much of an asshole move this was from both your ends towards your oblivious roommate, but as much as you tried to, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. It was terrible, but there was nothing happening. You were allowed to enjoy these fleeting moments that when boiled down to it, meant nothing at all.

But as he smiled at your excited demeanour, looking at you like you were everything he could ever want, you couldn’t help but wish that it did.

Yeonmi stood in front of the ice cream display, scanning all the different flavours at her disposal. You stood by her side, already digging into your own ice cream and waiting patiently for her to be done.

“You’ve already chosen what you want,” you pointed out. “Do you want a second cup or something?”

She shook her head. “Not for me, for Donghyuck. I’m going to meet him later on and since he likes sweet stuff I thought I’d get him a tub.”

You paused your movements. Their meetings had grown sparse from what you had heard from her, with her having to plan most of them and him simply agreeing. It killed you a little on the inside, filling you with guilt at the suspicion that you had something to do with it.

The earnest lilt in her voice, her eagerness to please him- it reminded you so much of yourself. You disliked the way he was treating her, but you also found a sense of relief in it, and when you acknowledged that, you officially accepted that you were probably the worst friend in the universe.

“Have you chosen what you would like yet?” The teenager behind the counter asked impatiently. She looked like she would have rather been anywhere else in the world, but she was probably a highschooler who wanted some extra cash and this was the best she had gotten.

“No, sorry,” your roommate said dejectedly. “I’m not sure what he’d like.”

Deciding to put her out of her misery, you spoke up. “Can we get a tub of cookies and cream?” The girl nodded, boredly taking one of the tubs out of the freezer and sliding it across the counter, calling out its price. Yeonmi flashed you a confused look and fumbled with her purse for a few seconds, taking out a few dollar bills and handing it over.

The two of you walked out of the ice cream store, and she doubtfully looked at the tub. “What if he doesn’t like this?”

“He likes cookies and cream ice cream.”

“How would you know?”

You stopped walking and glanced at her, quickly realising you had slipped up. You tried not to take offence at the defensive nature of her tone, knowing that she had every right to be that way. She was technically his girlfriend, she should have been the one to know what flavour he would want.

So you bit down hard on your tongue when the urge to tell her that you knew him better than she ever could sprung to its tip. You were bitter at having to let that go, your ego bruising from the fact that you weren’t entitled to the position of being the one who knew him so well, even though you had everything for it.

“He told me.” You said weakly, dropping your now empty cup into one of the bins on the sidewalk.

“When?”

Eight years ago. That was the truth, but you knew very well that you couldn’t possibly tell her that after pretending you had never met him before. The edge that her voice possessed right then put you off, but you brushed it to the side, knowing deep down that she had the right. “That one movie night we had.”

She frowned. “I don’t remember talking about ice cream at all.”

“You fell asleep, remember? We spoke about it after that, just before he left.” The lie tasted sour, but not the pleasant kind of sour that is followed by a sweetness like a sour patch candy. This type of sour was persisting, the type that tainted your mouth from just its feel, spreading to your lips and the back of your neck.

“Oh.” She sounded hollow, letting the arm that held the bag containing the tub of ice cream fall limply to her side. “Okay.”

“You can tell him you picked it out.”

You knew he wouldn't believe it anyway. “Okay,” She repeated, but you could tell how miserably she truly was. Resentment filled you, but just as quickly so did pity, replacing the former in the blink of an eye.

She had finally moved on from her sorry excuse of an ex and found happiness in another man, only for him to suddenly pull away right when she was ready to give it her all. You understood that more than anyone ever could, but in a completely different sense. To her, Donghyuck was emotionally absent now. For you, he had been wholly absent, snatched away and out of your reach for so long.

Yeonmi still had the chance to hold him, if he let her. You never had that.

And then your pity for her was replaced by anger.

Donghyuck had no right to run her around in circles like he was doing. You wanted to yell at him, tell him to make a decision on whether he wanted her or not.

You didn’t want to know the answer though, because the chances of it breaking your heart were high, and you didn’t think you’d be able to handle another heartbreak at his hands. It could also remove him from your life once again, and you’d continue to be haunted, just by new memories this time around.

And just like that, you understood why he couldn’t make a decision so easily, because you couldn’t either. You wanted nothing more than for him to choose you, but it was the very last thing you would ask for, reluctant and afraid to hurt someone else in the process of healing your very own innate brokennes.

So you walked with Yeonmi back to your shared apartment and talked about insignificant things to take her mind off it all, trying to do the same for yourself.

x] then.

When a storm is coming, you can almost always tell.

It may not look like it, but intuition works in mysterious ways. That sinking feeling that stirs deep within your gut, discomfort flooding your system slowly and warning you of something bad to come. You try your best to ignore it, to pretend as if you’re overthinking and going crazy and that everything is fine. You revel in ignorant bliss and sunny days, growing all too comfortable with the stability of the everyday life you have grown accustomed to. You let yourself believe that the calm before a storm is permanent.

Donghyuck knew something was wrong the moment he walked into his house that fateful November evening, four whole months since he had first stepped foot inside it when they first moved in. He had learned the pattern of the switches, he knew the layout of the house by heart.

His mother sat on the dining table, her face buried in her hands. Usually, he would walk upstairs to his room and not bother, but this time something made him stop.

“Mom?”

She looked up at him, and he noticed just how exhausted she looked. His mother was a beautiful woman, but time had worn her down just like it did to everyone, and all the stress she was under had caused some of her black hair to turn grey. Wrinkles showed on her palms, her laugh lines had grown deeper.

“Donghyuck,” she said his name with a heavy sigh. “Come. Sit.”

On most days he had an excuse to avoid this, saying that he had homework or a project to work on, but today he complied, taking a seat next to his mother.

“How was school today?”

“Good,” he answered. She gave him an encouraging smile that was clearly forced for his sake, and clasped her hands together.

“Good, good.”

“Is….is that it?” He asked gently, suddenly not wanting to be there. It was like his body was trying to get him out of the situation, knowing something was off before his brain did. Unfortunately, some things were unavoidable and inevitable, and just like that the clouds began to darken.

She shook her head, “No, there’s something I need to talk to you about” She reached out and grabbed his hand that was on the table, squeezing it hard. “It’s important, okay?”

He nodded slowly, now trapped within the conversation with no escape. His mother exhaled and shut her eyes, dropping her head in what seemed like defeat. “I’ve been offered a job.”

“A job?”

“Yes- with a much better salary. Of course, I’m beyond blessed with the amount I get now but we’d be more comfortable, it’s a better opportunity.” She rubbed the hand of his that she held soothingly, as if trying to soften the blow she was about to give.

The waves gradually grew more turbulent, slow but definite. It was clear that she was trying to approach whatever she was trying to say with as much tact as possible, but was only succeeding in frustrating the boy with her vagueness.

“Just spit it out, Mom. What's happening?”

“We’re moving, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck sat there, stunned into a silence at what his mother had just said. Finally, she was done beating around the bushes like he had wanted, but now he wished he had let her take her time. It almost didn’t even feel real to hear, the true weightage of her words not quite registering just yet.

“What?”

His voice was devoid of any emotion, falling flat and harshly against the gentle, apologetic facade that his mother upheld. “In a few months, I know that it’s hard to hear and I’m sorry I have to uproot your life once again but I promise it’ll all be worth it I just-” She shakily exhaled, as if trying to expel all the fatigue she had accumulated over the years of switching out jobs and moving around in an attempt to create a better life for her only son. “I promise I’ll try and make this bearable and it’ll be the last time.”

If she had the choice, she would never have chosen such a turbulent lifestyle. After all, who would ever want to thrust their child into such an unstable environment- it being unstable due to its ever changing nature? But being a single mother was difficult and she had to do whatever she had to in order to survive.

The ship that Donghyuck stood upon began to rock as the storm intensified.

“It’s been less than a year,” He said icily. “Five months.”

“We’re not moving immediately. I have to finish up some work here and get everything together before we leave. Three months.” She rushed to assure him of this as if it fixed anything.

“So eight months. That’s still less than a year, Mom.”

“I know sweetheart, I’m so sorry.

Sympathy filled her expression and she squeezed his hand, trying to convey that she understood his frustration. That notion was perfectly ridiculous sounding to Donghyuck, how could she even begin to think that she understood how he would be feeling? If she did, then why was she once again ruining his life?

If she was really so sorry, she wouldn’t be doing this in the first place. He clenched his jaw, looking away from his mother and around the living room he had finally grown familiar with. Every other time this had happened he had always grinned and bore with it because there never seemed like a reason to fight back. He had grown complacent and used to the cycle, expecting it almost.

But this time he had prayed it wouldn’t be the same. This time, he had grown attached to the dusty streets of the town and the long school days. He had a favourite store, more friends than he had ever had in his life and more importantly, a favourite person. This time, it wouldn’t just be him leaving behind a bunch of acquaintances, it would mean him having to leave you behind as well.

He couldn’t bear the thought of that, his fury welling up and coming to the surface. For once in his life he had someone he wanted to stay for.

“If you’re so sorry,” he said, voice low and enraged all the same, “You won’t do this again.”

Her eyes softened, “I have to. I won’t ask you to understand, but-”

“I hate you.”

The moment he said it, he could see his mothers countenance crumble, but the sympathy in it only increased. No parent ever wanted to hear their child say those words to them and he knew that in his heart, he didn’t truly mean them, but he was just so indescribably angry with her and the world for constantly doing this to him.

It was cruel for him to say it without any hesitation, that much was certain the moment he saw tears well up in her eyes. She was a strong woman, refusing to let them escape and fall down her weary face for his sake, and he couldn’t take the sight of it any longer. Aggressively, he pushed his chair back and stormed off, bounding up the stairs of the house that would no longer be his with his heart hammering in his chest.

It was only in the comfort of his room that he let himself let out the sob that had been choking him up as he crumpled near the foot of his bed, a heavy sense of loss already passing through him. His eyes drifted to one of the walls of his room.

He had never put much thought into decorating, but there on it were three posters you had managed to convince him to put up with you, insisting that they livened the place up a little. He would have to tear them down now, just like everything else in his erratic, volatile life. Every other time was easier because there had been no bonds to sever in the process. He had let himself foolishly trust that his continued resilience was all for the happiness he had ultimately found now.

Perhaps this was why he had been so reluctant to let you help him decorate his room. Subconsciously, he had known that it would all be for naught when the nature of his life caught back up to him. Somehow he had already known that this was never meant to be anything more than temporary.

The waves capsized his ship and down Donghyuck went, sinking beneath the surface of the storm and below the storming sea, drowning in his sorrow.

You sat in the driver's seat of your father’s car, legs propped up on the seat with your cardboard container of fries balancing on your knees. Donghyuck occupied the passenger's seat, biting into his burger.

The both of you were parked in the local diners parking lot in the late evening after school. Donghyuck had said something about not feeling like going straight home, and since you had driven to school that day, you suggested taking a detour and hanging out for a little.

“I was thinking,” you started, picking out a fry and biting into it, glancing sideways at the boy who owned all of your teenage affections.

“Hmm?”

“I wanna tell my parents,” you declared finally, finishing the fry. He blinked, lowering his burger and looking at you pointedly. “About us.”

“All of a sudden? Why?” His mystification was justified since ever since the two of you had begun dating, you had been adamant on trying to hide it from them. It hadn’t been the intent initially, you simply were procrastinating their reaction- not that it would be a bad one- and as time went on, it got easier to put off. That being said, it also got harder to hide.

You shrugged, shifting in the car seat and reaching out to adjust the volume of the radio. “I just think it’s time, you know? I’ve been putting it off long enough and I want them to know about you. The smile that crept up on your face when you said that was enough to have a pit form at the bottom of his stomach.

Guilt is an ugly emotion. It manifests slowly, digging into your insides as it grows in its magnitude until it's up to your throat, depriving you of air and choking you.

Needless to say, you weren’t the only one putting off telling someone the truth.

Avoidance wasn’t something that was inherently built into his nature, but it came into play almost naturally now. He had managed to evade being around his mother as much as possible over the past week or so, ever since she had dropped the news that completely displaced his entire world. Similarly, he had been avoiding bringing up what was happening to you, telling himself that he still had some time

But the truth was, saying out loud and admitting it all to you was just too much for him. It made it feel real and not like some terrible nightmare he had been living for the past few days. He didn’t want the reality of it all to hit him just yet.

“Do you have to?”

“Kind of?” You raised an eyebrow at him in question. “We’ve been dating for almost three months now Hyuck, do you expect me to just keep it from them forever?”

He winced internally, beating himself up about how you were talking about your relationship with him. It felt wrong to let you naively talk about a supposed forever when he knew that simply wasn’t going to be the case.

Your forever was going to be quickly cut short.

“Of course not,” he mumbled, sighing softly. “I don’t know. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

You frowned slightly, turning the volume down and putting your fries on the dashboard, giving him all your attention. “Hey, is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong. He wanted to laugh, mostly because the only other option he had was to cry and he couldn’t do that without having to expose it all. Instead though, he shook his head as nonchalantly as he possibly could, refusing to meet your eyes and instead staring at his burger. “Nope.”

You scoffed. “Oh yeah, that was definitely believable. Come on, tell me what's wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You said you didn’t feel like going home today. Is it something to do with that?”

You were too smart for your own good. He rolled his eyes, attempting to remain lighthearted, “What if that just meant I wanted to spend more time with you?”

“Weird fucking way of putting it, then. You could have just said you wanted to hang out.”

He put his burger on the dashboard as well and turned to you, holding your gaze firmly in the hopes that it would thwart your suspicions by appearing to be sincere. “Y/n,” he said your name steadily, a slight smile playing upon his lips that from the outside looked effortless, when in reality it was the most forced he had ever been. “Nothing is wrong. Drop it.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, realising that whatever it was, he clearly wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. You could respect that. “Alright, I’ll back off.” You raised your hands to the sides of your face to mimic surrendering and earning an amused look from his end in the process.

It scared him a little bit, how you seemed to be able to look right through him without even knowing the full extent of what he was going through. He had known you for so little time- too little almost- and yet you knew him better than anyone else.

Leaving you behind was going to be the thing that hurt the most.

He leaned over and kissed you gently. “Thank you. And you’re right, you should tell your parents.” Your trusting countenance clawed at him, only worsening the sickening feeling of culpability that swirled in his gut. Maybe he’d tell you tomorrow, or the week after. Maybe he’d wait for another month so that he could gather his wits first.

If you doubted his confident facade, you didn’t let it show.

“Hey Donghyuck?”

“Hm?”

“I think I love you.”

Five little words should be entirely inconsequential, but even as young as he was, Donghyuck knew their true weightage. He knew you meant it by the credulousness in your gaze and the gentle squeeze of your hand on his.

The two of you were sitting on the roof outside your room's window, you clad in sweats and his jacket- the very same one he had given you weeks ago at the playground. You had never given it back to him. He was in casual clothing as well, having sneaked onto your room during the early hours of the morning to hang out with you.

Time with you seemed to be fleeting now, and so he clung onto every minute he got. You had your head resting on his shoulder as the sun began peeking over the town and spilling its golden rays all over the little houses and buildings, lighting them up and bringing vibrancy to the town.

Love was a complex emotion, a haphazard mishmash of several others in proportions that were unique to every occurrence it manifested itself in. Trust, admiration, infatuation and many more- they made up the feeling that everyone on the planet supposedly sought after so desperately. If it was truly so unpredictable, how did anyone know what it felt to be in love?

He sucked in a breath as seconds passed. Then, he squeezed your hand back.

“I love you too.”

xi] now.

Yeonmi was a great friend, ever ready to show her endless support for you in all your endeavours.

“Smile! And for god's sake, get a drink and lighten up. It’s all your friends here.” She slid her index finger under the strap of your dress, lifting up to its correct position on your shoulder.

You sighed and complied, flashing a smile for her sake, promising to make your way to the kitchen and do as she asked. She inspected your eye makeup one last time, pleased with how her handiwork had turned out and left your room, reminding you to hurry up and get out there.

You had gotten a promotion at work a week ago, and when you had revealed the news to her she insisted that you celebrate properly for the occasion, taking it upon herself to organise a small party at your apartment. She invited some of your friends from work and a few mutual friends of yours- not too many people in all, but since your apartment wasn’t the biggest, it was already starting to feel a little cramped.

Pulling yourself together, you left the confines of your room, finding yourself humming along to the music that she was playing. The dress you had donned was definitely not as short as the ones you had insisted on wearing during your highschool years, having opted to go for a more respectful length now that you were older, but it made you feel pretty and put-together.

Among the familiar smiles and toned down congratulations that you received, you found your eyes wandering until they met another pair that was already trained on you.

Donghyuck was there, of course he was. Yeonmi had already told you that she had asked him to attend and you had been expecting his presence.

So why then did you feel your heartbeat pick up a little, as if it had come as a surprise?

You looked away

A slow hour passed.

In your teenage years, parties had been something you had always enjoyed partaking in, but right then you felt a tad uncomfortable. You quickly deduced that this was because all those times, you had just been another partygoer, lost among the rest of the drunken crowd. Here, you were the subject of the party, the centre of attention.

People came up to congratulate you and make small talk. It struck you then, just how different your life was now from what it was back then. You were older in a different city, surrounded by people who had nothing to do with what felt like your previous life. Your old best friends, people you had thought would stick by you to the very end were not there, you were far away from your parents and were no longer a child that depended on them for everything. You had an apartment you called your own that you shared with your roommate.

The only thing- person- that had somehow belonged to both your youth and adulthood was Donghyuck.

Flushed with the alcohol that you had consumed, you excused yourself from the umpteenth conversation you'd been dragged into with some of your colleagues and made your way to the kitchen, wine glass in hand. Shutting the doors behind you, you revelled in the momentary silence.

You noticed the bottle of wine sitting on the counter and looked at your empty glass. Being the focal point of everyone's attention had never been something you particularly enjoyed and so to ease the bubbling anxiety inside of you, you walked over and poured yourself another, swirling it around and taking a good, long sip.

The sweet wine trickled down your throat, kissing it soothingly with its tart berry flavours. You were no doubt tipsy at this point, having subconsciously fallen back upon the alcohol to support you through all the socialising. You truly wished Yeonmi hadn’t been so insistent on this stupid thing, you would have been more than happy to celebrate by going out to dinner, just the two of you.

“Oh! You’re here too.”

You spun around, clutching the stem of your wine glass a little tighter and automatically leaning your back against the counter when you felt your balance slip away from you a little. Donghyuck shut the door, hesitating.

“Am…Am I intruding?”

He totally was intruding on your solitude, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care when it came to him, thus shaking your head ‘no’. “Not at all, I just needed a moment.”

“I can leave if you’d like.”

“Don’t.” And you meant it. You didn’t want him to leave and he was the only one you would willingly tolerate at that moment. He flicked the lock of the door, sealing it shut to the rest of your guests and walked over to you with his own glass. You handed him the bottle of wine.

He nodded in silent thanks. “Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.”

“Thanks,” you took a small sip of your wine, looking at him and allowing yourself to study his matured features. There was not a thing about him that didn’t explicitly shine, a being so enigmatic and beautiful that it had you in awe of him even eight years later. “Not that it’s anything exciting like your job. I just sit in a nicer office now.”

He chuckled softly. “It’s still pretty cool, you’re still pretty young for your own office, aren’t you?”

You nodded bashfully. Even though you tried to remain as modest as possible when it came to the good news, you were quite proud of yourself. “Yeah, I didn’t think I’d get so far so quickly out of college.”

Donghyuck shuffled a little closer until he was right next to you. The urge to lean into him sprung up out of nowhere, the little voice in your head telling you to do so abruptly growing stronger. You drank the rest of your wine in an attempt to drown it out, only succeeding in doing the complete opposite.

God, he smelled amazing. You could get hints of the cologne he had on, a musky scent that had hints of something citrusy in the mix- thoroughly dizzying to you. You despised how much control he had over you without even knowing it.

“I had to repeat my senior year of highschool.”

His words snapped you out of your self-induced reverie, and you cocked your head to the side in question, prompting him to continue. As of late, your little coffee dates (your mind had defaulted to calling them that, even though you knew you shouldn’t), he had begun sharing bits and pieces of his life, and you had started doing the same. However, this was quite out of the blue, piquing your curiosity.

“After we moved,” he clarified, uncertainty creeping into his voice as if he was afraid of how you would react. “I almost flunked the eleventh grade finals in my new school and barely made it to the twelfth, and then that began, I barely attended, bunking almost all my classes to hang out with this group I had somehow managed to fall into.”

He sounded regretful as he spoke and you didn’t dare interrupt. You had often speculated what he was doing after he left, while you mourned the loss of your love, you had spent countless sleepless nights tossing and turning, wondering if he was thinking about you as well.

“They were terrible influences, but at the time I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was never in class, always at one of their garages with some sort of alcohol. A lot of that year was a blur, with me being drunk almost every day. I’d leave the house in the morning and say I was going to school and take a detour. My grades fell but I never paid attention to it because of how unhappy I was.”

Your eyes stung with emotion for him, because although you had resented him so much, he was still only a kid back then. Pairing this new information with what he had told you about his flighty childhood, you couldn’t even imagine the sheer level of frustration he must have experienced with having to adapt to yet another place.

“By the end of the year, my attendance was so terrible that they couldn’t let me write the finals, nor could they let me graduate, leaving me with the option to drop out. My mother was in tears and we fought a lot when I told her about it. At first I was fine with just dropping out and giving up, but she said something that made me rethink that.”

“What did she say?” You whispered, your heart feeling as if it was in your throat. You hadn’t even realised you had moved in position, now even closer and directly in front of him.

He sighed heavily. “She told me she didn’t want me to end up like her. She wanted me to live without having to uproot every year or so, and the only way I could do that is if I didn’t give up. And that got me thinking about everything.”

His glass was empty now. “I realised I didn’t like my so-called friends, I hated what I had become and I didn’t want to continue living the way I had for so long. I thought long and hard about what my mother said and then…then I thought about you.”

Your breath caught in your throat as you held his gaze, searching his face for answers before he presented them to you.

“Me?”

He reached out, his fingers oh-so-carefully brushing against the skin of your cheek, dragging back slowly and tucking a strand of hair that had fallen into your face behind your ear, lingering there.

“Yes, you.” A wistful smile made a show on his face. “I thought about how my mother said she wanted me to graduate and push forward so I wouldn’t live the same life she created for us, and how if she had done the same thing she was begging of me, maybe-” His voice cracked, causing a jolt down your spine and your sight to blur slightly with the emergence of tears, but they didn’t fall just yet.

“-Maybe I wouldn’t have had to leave you.”

Fuck.

A single tear trickled down the apples of your cheeks, and the moment it did, his thumb wiped it away gently.

“So I agreed to the second option, which was having to repeat my senior year. I attended every class that I could, I studied and worked hard for every test. I graduated late, but I managed to do it, and then I moved to New York just before I turned nineteen.”

“Donghyuck…” you trailed off, not knowing what to say. It was clear to you now that he had to grow up a lot earlier than you had, even if it hadn’t seemed that way at first. You had a good family life and a stable, comfortable childhood. You were allowed to figure it out slowly, never being exposed to any sort of extreme turbulence that shook your world so deeply other than his leaving- and you had support through that as well in the form of your friends. Donghyuck had none of that, left all alone.

“All I wanted to say was that without you, I wouldn’t be where I am.”

“Don’t do that,” you said almost sorrowfully, “You did it yourself. I just happened to be a part of it for a little while.”

“You should have been a part of it for longer.”

He wiped the stray tears that escaped your eyes at that, knowing how much weight that statement alone held. You shut your eyes, sucking in a deep breath to try and pull yourself together, but to no avail. Quietly, you responded. “I know.”

“Don’t cry,” He whispered, tilting your face up by your chin, a fond expression gracing those gorgeous features of his, and your eyelids fluttering open to look at him, committing every single detail about them to your memory. “You look beautiful tonight, Y/n.”

The compliment stung, like needles digging into the surface of your skin roughly. You knew you were completely undeserving of it, that it should have been directed to your friend who was somewhere outside the privacy of the kitchen and yet there you were, basking in his attention like you always did in the few stolen moments you got with him.

You were quite aware that you weren’t sober and you were willing to bet that he wasn’t either. Here the two of you were once again, eight long years later at a party, alone yet together. The irony of it all was not lost on you, and you somehow knew exactly what was going to happen in the next few seconds and still you made no motion to stop it.

His lips found yours instinctively, kissing you hard. You let him, the familiarity of it all rushing back to you so quickly that it nearly knocked you off your feet. Your hands rested upon his arms as his mouth moved against yours, rendering you breathless and at his disposal. You were his, you had always been his just as he had always been yours, no matter how much time had passed or how much the two of you had changed.

If the wine had gotten you tipsy, his kiss had you downright intoxicated. You were drunk on the sensation, leaning into him to get as close as possible to take it all in. You memorised the way his thumb traced your jaw so tenderly as if you were made of glass and he was afraid to break you.

Life had somehow brought you right back to him full-circle, ending right when it had started the two of you off. Perhaps it was a cruel joke, to give you everything you had ever wanted in such a limited capacity and to simultaneously make it completely off-limits.

Eight years you had waited for this, and nothing had ever felt as liberating as it was wrong.

“We need to talk.”

It was the second time you were hearing these very words from Donghyuck’s mouth, and you were just as reluctant to comply as the first.

“No.”

He looked at you, frustration decorating the expression he had directed towards you. “We can’t keep avoiding it.”

Yeonmi had invited him over again for a movie night, but realised you had run out of coke and had volunteered to run down the store and get some more, blithely unaware of the clear tension between him and you. Then again, she had never noticed anything when it came to that, but it made your life much harder.

“I think you’re just fine at that.” God, you couldn’t even begin to explain the magnitude of your anger. He was sitting there on the other end of your couch after a week of saying nothing to you- which was mostly your fault, considering you hadn’t shown up for your little coffee date that week and had stoutly ignored any calls or texts he sent your way- but that wasn’t the point.

The point in question? The fact that despite having kissed you, he evidently hadn’t broken things off with Yeonmi.

He frowned, “What do you mean?”

Now, it wasn’t as if you wanted him to break up with her for you or anything, but rather because it was the right thing to do. Of course, this wasn’t to say that you didn’t secretly hope the former would be the reason for it, but deep down, you knew that you couldn't even indulge in that. The incident had been eating away at you ever since it happened–

– Well, what exactly had happened?

You recalled the way you broke out of his touch the moment he whispered your name against your lips and brought you back to reality. You remembered how the crash felt, the way you had been on top of the world for a few seconds before it all crumbled right at your feet, the long-growing anticipation dying out into unadulterated guilt.

You remembered thinking of Yeonmi, your sweet, supportive friend who hadn’t done a single thing to deserve what you had just done to her.

When that happened, you wordlessly left the confines of the kitchen, avoiding him for the rest of the evening. Your cheeks felt hot and you felt light headed, but you had to keep up your image until everyone had gone home. He disappeared some time after that, the reason unknown to Yeonmi, who informed you of his sudden departure.

“I mean, you’ve done a great job at completely avoiding talking about Yeonmi before, so you should have no problem avoiding talking about whatever happened between us.”

He clenched his jaw. “That's not fair and you know it.”

You did. You were too proud to admit it to his face though, refusing to let him pummel through your already shattered dignity. “Whatever.” You were still seated, staring up at him in defiance as your fingernails dug into the cushioning of the couch.

“Don’t do that, don’t shut me out again. Talk to me.”

“I shut you out because you left me, Donghyuck. I’m sorry for not letting you back in with open arms, if that's what you wanted from me.” You were terrified of this, manic at possibly having to face the music. You were so much better at running away from it all, away from him.

He sighed in retirement. “We kissed.”

Your throat felt dry. “Yeah.”

“Y/n-”

“Don’t,” you warned, feeling emotion bubble to the surface and crack into your speech against your will.

“I want to talk about it. I need you to talk about it with me.”

Stupid, perfect Donghyuck. You loathed the way that even after everything, after all this time, trouble and everything in between, he was somehow still everything you had ever wanted.

You kept your voice airy and as light as possible although your tongue felt heavier than it had ever been. “If you’d like, we can pretend like it never happened in the first place, just like we pretended we weren’t a thing.”

A thing. What a gross, unjustified oversimplification of what you had with him when you were younger, and cruel too, but you had no choice. You had spent every waking hour going over the possibilities, every outcome of the situation you had stumbled into and had come to a singular conclusion: you were going to get hurt.

Donghyuck stared at you in disbelief, getting to his feet and pacing around the room as if he was trying to create space between him and you to get away, but coming back moments later. “Don’t pin that on me. That was all you.”

A bitter laugh left you as you stood up, now face to face with him. The tension was arid, almost choking you, but his gaze had an even more adverse effect, cutting right through you like you were nothing at all and holding you accountable. He was so close to you, close enough to reach out and touch and kiss once again if you so wished.

But wishing for the unattainable was futile.

His eyes dropped to your lips. Futility be damned, you wanted another taste of what it felt like to be kissed by Lee Donghyuck already, having been stripped of that luxury without having any say in it all those years ago. Just like that, you were breathless and your thoughts scattered, the air between him and you turning electric.

God, you were so tempted to just give in and press your lips to his, but you knew you couldn’t, no matter how the way he was looking at you made you consider risking it all.

“Oh and what did you expect me to say? That it was wonderful she was dating my ex-boyfriend?”

And that's when you heard glass shatter.

You startled, taking a step away from Donghyuck immediately and your head snapping to the direction of the sound, only to find Yeonmi standing by the door.

Two broken glass bottles of coke lay near her feet, their contents spilled and pooled around her shoes. The look on her face told you everything you needed to know- the disbelief in her eyes and agape mouth, those features laced with striking betrayal. In the heat of your argument with Donghyuck, you hadn’t heard the door open, neither had you heard your roommate enter, and you were certain that she had heard that last bit.

Worse, she had seen the two of you like that. It didn’t matter how quickly you had retreated away from him.

The scene was horrific in her eyes, and you could only imagine it from her perspective. The man she was dating and her roommate, someone she trusted and considered close, looked as if they were about to kiss each other right in front of her as if she didn’t exist in the first place.

“Yeonmi– I can explain–” You scrambled to try and piece together something that sounded plausible.

“Explain what, exactly?” She asked quietly, staring at you like she had seen a ghost. You had never heard her speak with such hollowness and it scared you. “That you, the both of you, lied to me?”

You had nothing to say to that because it was completely true. Everything about this was your fault and you could relate to the betrayal that she felt right then, you understood the hurt that she undoubtedly was experiencing right then.

“It makes sense now,” she said, tears springing to her eyes as she looked from you to him. “How you knew she knew so much about you, why you suddenly distanced yourself from me when I thought things were going well.” Donghyuck exhaled, looking at the ceiling and shutting his eyes. “You never really wanted me.”

“I’m sorry, Yeonmi.”

You watched as tears made their way down your friend's face. You felt like a fraud for still referring to her as a friend when you had been anything but one to her. She opened her mouth to say something, but it seemed like her grief took over, only a choked sob leaving her.

“I never want to see you again.”

And she turned around and walked out, storming into the hallway outside your apartment. You followed her out as quickly as possible in desperation, leaving Donghyuck behind. The yellow hallway felt intimidating all of a sudden, as if it was staring you down for the sins you had committed against your roommate. “Yeonmi, wait–”

She stopped outside the elevator and turned around to face you. “Why?” Her question felt like a sharpened rod prodding at your heart, or perhaps a knife driving through you and leaving you there to bleed out. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” Your helplessness finally escaped you in a rush, your own tears gathering in your eyes. “I didn’t want to, I swear I never wanted to hurt you.”

This was all wrong. You had never wanted to hurt someone else, you had never wanted to spread the pain you had carried with you all these years to her and had done everything in your power to avoid doing so. You had done everything you thought was right and yet here you were, having made a mess of it all anyway.

“I never…” You trailed off, your voice failing you as your tears trickled down, stinging your skin with their heat. “I never meant for it to be like this. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s your ex.”

You nodded miserably, burying your face in your hands and pressing your palms over your eyes hard. You let your hands slide into your hair, tugging in frustration before you gathered the courage to finally look at her again.

“A long time ago. We were kids.”

“And you’re still in love with him.”

You didn’t bother answering that one because you knew it wasn’t a question, looking at your feet until your vision got blurry from all the tears, some of them dribbling down your chin and onto the thick carpet beneath your slippers, staining it a darker colour than it was. Of course you were in love with Donghyuck, but it had come in between her own falling for him and she, despite having done nothing wrong, had to suffer the consequences.

“Fuck,” she muttered, leaning against the wall. “You should have told me. I would have stopped seeing him immediately if I knew.”

This wasn’t groundbreaking news, you had inherently known this from the start. “I know.”

“If you knew, then for fucks sake, why didn’t you tell me?” Her anger was warranted in every sense and ever scenario having to do with this, the force and outrage in her tone making you visibly flinch.

“Because,” you hesitated, before deciding that hiding anything more from her wouldn’t do you any good. “Because you were happy.”

She softened slightly at that. “But you weren’t, Y/n.”

“I hadn’t seen you that happy since…” You didn’t need to finish or mention her ex, you knew she understood. “I couldn’t bring myself to take that from you.”

She took a few steps towards you, failing to portray any malice now. “You ruined it anyways, and I think this is much worse.” Pity exuded off of her while she spoke to you, but just as quickly as you felt it, it was gone, replaced by the sheer magnitude of deception she felt. “You let me experience a false sense of happiness and consequently ruined it, and I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

You certainly didn’t expect her to. You didn’t even dare ask her for forgiveness, knowing that you didn’t deserve it at all.

“But I can’t blame you for loving him. And I can’t blame him for being in love with you either because I can see it. It finally makes sense now.” She sighed in defeat, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “I hate you.”

“I know.”

“And I can’t be happy for you either, so I’m going to leave. I’ll stay over at Chaewons.”

You shook your head. “No, I should be the one who goes, you should stay at the apartment.”

“Yes, but I’m the one who deserves to have a friend to talk to, so I’m going to go.” You could tell how hard she was trying to remain calm, removing herself from the situation before she did anything stupid. She walked away from you and towards the elevator, calling it to your floor. You nodded, letting a defeated sigh escape your lungs.

“Okay. Drive safe. I’m sorry.”

“I will.” Yeonmi stepped into the elevator and faced you one last time, pressing her lips together. “I’m sorry too Y/n, because I never want to see you again either.”

xii] then.

You occupied one of the swings, humming an idle tune you had heard on the radio earlier that day while you looked through your phone. Currently, it was 7:15 p.m, fifteen minutes after Donghyuck had promised to meet you at the park. You didn’t think much of it though, since he was usually on time and would show up soon enough.

“Hey.”

Speak of the devil.

You looked up from your scrolling to see him standing there a little away from you and smiled. He seemed out of breath as if he had run all the way here and his hair was tousled from the wind that blew, biting into your exposed skin. You realised you had left his jacket at home.

“Hey you,” you hardly ever recognised the tone your cadence took on when it was directed towards him, and you couldn’t pinpoint when it switched to such transparent affection either, but you weren’t one to question such things. Your love for him was as sure as the cycle of the earth around the sun, an inevitable happenstance of fate.

“I can’t stay for long,” he informed you regretfully, walking over and occupying the swing beside yours. “I have to be home earlier today.”

“That’s okay,” you checked the time. 7:17. “How early?”

He winced, “Eight technically, but I’m sure I can stretch it till eight-thirty.”

You waved this suggestion off, shaking your head. “Nah it’s fine, I don’t want you to get in trouble. We can talk while we walk home.”

“Okay.” He followed you out of the park and onto the streets. Still being winter, the days were short and the sky was already dark, the streetlights provided the pair of you with illumination, second to the moon peeking out from behind the clouds as if it was afraid to call the sky its own before its usual time.

You reached for his hand, intertwining your fingers with his as you fell in step with him, enjoying the warmth he provided. “We can just hang out tomorrow.” The next day was a Sunday, which meant you had the entire day to yourselves if you so pleased.

His smile faltered slightly as he nodded. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

You completely missed the uncertainty coating the word and the anxiety he felt right then, pulling him along with you as you walked. Teenage foolishness was truly a fool's paradise, your blissful unawareness blessing you with a bounce in your step and a worry free mind. Donghyuck meanwhile was struggling to keep up, his guilt making it feel as if his feet were heavier than ever, the knowledge he possessed and had effectively kept from you being the cause of his misery.

So you talked about your day, the difficult question on your test that day and about Sakura’s progress with Yuta (which had been minimal at best, but you were proud of her nonetheless because at least now she could wave ‘hello’ to the boy). He listened to you chatter endlessly, the sound of your excited rambling distracting him from his troubles. There was never a moment he was bored when around you and he truly did love to listen to you talk.

He’d miss that more than anything. He’d miss you more than anything he had ever had the chance to miss.

“Oh we’re here,” you stopped outside your house and turned to him, walking right into his arms for a quick goodbye hug, planting a chaste kiss upon his lips before you pulled away. “Thanks for walking me home.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, watching as you began walking to your door. He already missed the feeling of your skin against his, wishing he had held you for a little bit longer. Was he already forgetting the taste of your kiss, even though you were only a few feet away from him?

“Y/n?”

You stopped and looked back at him, your smile visible in your eyes. “Yeah?”

He was leaving tonight. That was why he had to be home early, because it would be the last time he ever set foot in that house. Tonight he would be gone, and you still didn’t know a damn thing. It was too late to explain. That was his own doing and now he’d simply have to live with the guilt plaguing him for what would probably be the rest of his life. Every time he thought about you, it would attack him once more and push him underwater, holding him there until he ran out of breath.

So he would have to settle for something small and manageable to quell his culpability, at least by a little.

“I’m sorry.”

He knew that it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for everything. Two meagre words couldn’t do much at all and it wasn’t capable of fixing anything either, but it was the best he could do. His heart felt heavy, and he could feel his eyes sting with tears at the sight of your confused face at this, finally letting the unhappiness he felt crack through. “I’m so sorry.”

Concern bled into your features. “For what? Hyuck, are you okay?”

Donghyuck shook his head and blinked rapidly to stop himself from crying in front of you, stuffing his hands into his pockets and taking a step back. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just– see you tomorrow.”

And with that, he walked away, leaving you to eye his figure as it sauntered down the street and disappeared around the corner. He was confusing sometimes, switching from being happy to something entirely else within seconds.

You opened the door and walked into your house as night fell.

The next day, he was late again.

Usually he would pick you up on holidays before you went anywhere, but today he was nowhere to be seen. It was noon now, and you glanced outside your window, anticipating his car to pull into your lane any moment now.

You momentarily entertained the idea of him possibly forgetting. It did seem like he had a lot on his mind as of late, so you wouldn’t blame him if he had. The only issue was that he wasn’t texting you back, nor was he answering your calls and so you decided to stop waiting around for him to show up, opting to go over to his house instead.

The sky was cloudy that day, a chill in the air that had you remembering to pull on a jacket before you set out this time, the gravel beneath your feet crunching loudly in the silence of the afternoon. Most of the town took their midday nap on a Sunday such as this one, making it seem a lot quieter than it was.

So when you walked up to his door and noticed all the lights in the house seemed to be off, you didn’t think much of it, preparing to apologise for disturbing if his mother happened to answer as you rang the bell.

No response.

You frowned, waiting a minute or so before ringing the bell again twice in succession. When nothing happened, you slipped your phone out of your pocket and clicked on his contact, holding it up to your ears. It didn’t ring at all, immediately playing a recorded message instead.

‘This contact is temporarily out of service.’

Your intuition kicked in, telling you that something was inherently very wrong. Swallowing thickly, you tried ringing the bell one last time, louder than before.

“Y/n? What are you doing here sweetheart?”

You looked over to your right to see a lady in her fifties- a friend of your mothers- standing outside the neighbouring house, wrapped up in a robe. Embarrassment at causing a disturbance flared up inside of you as you rushed to explain yourself.

“I’m sorry Aunty, I just wanted to visit my friend Donghyuck.” You gestured toward the door to aid in your explanation, earning a perplexed look from her end.

“He’s not here anymore.”

There it was again, your intuition kicking you from the inside and clawing up, dread beginning to fill you. “I–I’m not sure I understand Aunty.”

“They moved out sometime late last night, his mother had told me about it a month or so ago when she needed help fixing a hole in the wall to get her deposit back from their landlord. I had my husband help her– but that’s beside the point. They’re gone.”

The implication of the new information hadn’t quite registered yet, leaving you to stare at the lady, dumbfounded. “Gone,” you repeated under your breath. “Oh.”

“I thought you knew since you were such good friends with her son.” Friends. The word sounded bitter right then, because you had been so much more than that, but as you stood there and listened to your mothers friend talk, you wondered if you even qualified for that. Didn’t friends tell each other things?

“Is everything okay, darling?” Why didn’t he tell you?

“It must have slipped my mind. I’m sorry for disturbing you Aunty.”

She waved it off, forgiving you easily and retreating back into her house. You stared at the door.

He couldn’t have been gone- it made no sense whatsoever. Just yesterday he had been by your side and had made plans to meet with you today. Why would he have done that if he was going to leave?

I’m sorry.

His cryptic words from the day before rushed back to you and you gasped to yourself when their magnitude finally hit you, causing you to stumble back and off of the landing of the house. He did know, he knew and had blatantly lied to your face without a second thought. Your mind went into overdrive as you tried to piece what had just happened together to form a coherent set of thoughts, failing miserably at doing so.

Two things were clear: Donghyuck was gone and you had no idea where or why.

You tried calling him again, punching in his number into the dial pad almost furiously, willing him to pick up. When the same monotone message repeated itself, you cursed, accidentally dropping your phone onto the path you stood on in your frenzy.

“No, no, no, no” There was a certain manic quiver to your voice as you picked up the device, staring at his profile picture. It seemed to mock you now, the bright smile he sported in it that portrayed joy directly challenging the torrential downpour of agony that you were inflicted with, thus rendered utterly despaired.

Your boyfriend was gone, and he hadn’t bothered to tell you about it.

The boy you loved, heck, the person you adored and meant the most to you in the entire world had left you without so much as a proper goodbye, leaving you behind to wonder why. You hadn’t the faintest idea where he could have been at that moment, just knowing that he wasn’t where he had promised he’d be and where you needed him most.

Hot tears spilled out of your eyes, catching onto your eyelashes and making it hard for you to see. You didn’t bother to stand back up, the asphalt beneath your knees digging into it harshly, no doubt going to leave a few minor cuts. The amount of questions you had were innumerable, each one crashing into the other until your head was full of incomprehensible nonsense that made it spin.

It felt too normal for him to have been gone. The rest of the town functioned as normal and yet it felt as if your entire world had just been flipped upside down.

When Sakura and Chenle sat you down and asked you about what had happened when they found you sitting all alone in the park after skipping school a few days later, you left out the parts describing how you desperately tried ringing the bell a few more times afterwards. You didn’t tell them about how you had so hoped that it was an elaborate prank, nor did you go into detail about how many times you had called him, hoping and praying for him to pick up.

The days melted into weeks without Donghyuck.

You hated how it felt as if he was everywhere, having tainted all your favourite places and being the majority of your most beloved memories. You half expected him to walk out from around a corner and surprise you, taking you in his arms and kissing your forehead.

But hope is a foolish sentiment, especially hope fueled by naive teenage fallacies. The rose tinted glasses that had been worn by you for the months you had been with Donghyuck seemed to fade in their vitality, sucking out all the colour from your life until it felt as if you were left with a dull combination of greys and blue hues to paint the rest of your life with. You were missing the components that gave it warmth.

For you, Donghyuck was the sun, enigmatic, alluring and all too elusive. He was everything you could ever ask to have and yet just outside your reach, your fingertips barely brushing against it before it disappeared again. You quickly learned that you were the moon, waiting amidst the stars and hoping for those moments when both the sun and moon were painted across the same canvas of sky.

That very sky had fractured into a kaleidoscope of colours when he left, leaving you to pick up the shards of your broken heart.

xiii] now.

You stood in the doorway of what used to be Yeonmi’s room, comparing it to how you remembered it looking before. The only thing left was the bedframe and an old cupboard, the rest of the room was bare.

She had moved out a couple days after the incident, leaving you alone in the apartment. You would have to look for another roommate or simply cover her part of the rent yourself considering you could afford to now with your promotion. Still, the silence was overwhelming, reminding you constantly of how easily you had ruined a friendship.

It seemed to be one of the core themes of your life- to experience debilitating loss over and over without having any time to prepare for the same.

The doorbell rang.

Ungluing yourself from her former doorframe, you dragged yourself to the door and opened it, your eyes widening in question when it fell upon the person who stood there.

“Y/n."

Donghyuck stared back at you with those captivating eyes of his, pulling you into a trance of sorts instantaneously. You forced yourself to snap out of it.

“What are you doing here?”

He combed his fingers through his hair, evidently agitated. “I didn’t know what else to do. You won’t answer my calls and I need to talk to you, even if you don’t want to.”

You were so tired, the events that had transpired over the past few weeks crushing you beneath the weight of it all. Looking at him now, all you could do was weakly shake your head, a frantic sort of fear consuming you whole.

“No,” you said, taking a step back. “I don’t not want to talk to you, I can’t.”

“Why?”

The question made you freeze in place, your feet rooted to the flooring of your apartment. Why? After everything that had transpired, it was for some reason much too hard for you to answer although the answer was at the forefront of your thoughts and on the tip of your tongue. Truthfully, you were afraid to sound it out, knowing that you wouldn’t be able to convey it correctly.

When he left you eight years ago, you didn’t have the opportunity to talk to him. He had taken away that possibility for you without ever considering if you’d want it, and gradually you grew used to silently harbouring ache that bloomed in your ribcage.

It occurred to you then that the same was the reason he wanted to talk. Donghyuck had forced himself to cut you off in every way after he moved, following his own teenage justifications that told him it was for the best. Now, older and wiser, he knew not to repeat the misdeeds of his youth, but the very opposite notion had been instilled in you.

“Donghyuck,” you whispered his name, giving him a knowing look, one that was filled with so much sadness and despair that he could barely recognise you. Where was the ever-cheery girl he had fallen for?

Was he the cause for her disappearance?

If so, he promised himself he’d be the one to bring her back too. “Be with me.”

You gasped softly at his proposition, shaking your head furiously, “Are you insane?”

He simply nodded, taking a step closer towards you. “Yes. About you, I’ve always been insane about you.” Conviction hung onto every word, and perhaps if you were younger you would have swooned and run straight back into his arms.

You missed your naivety, for life would have been so much easier with it. It was a boon, but now you were wary for the sake of your fragile heart. You could feel your teenage wistfulness rise to the surface as if it was trying to break out of the cage you had locked it in, doing its best to claw its way out and hand the rest of the pieces of your heart over to the man who had the missing bit you had been searching for all these years without him.

But you knew better.

Instead, you shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut as if that would make him go away. “No, no, no.” It seemed to be the only word your tongue could form right then and so you repeated it over and over, clinging onto what it meant as if you were trying to convince yourself that you truly meant it. “I can’t be with you.”

“Yes, you can. You know you can.” His own desperation began to shine through, exposing his own years of heartache. He had waited so long for a moment like this. Every goddamn day since the day he had left you, he had regretted it, heartache permanently etched into his bones.

You snapped your eyes open, disbelief overtaking. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. Be with me.”

“We just hurt Yeonmi,” you said, your words getting caught in your throat. Then, once again, your chagrin towards him glared up as you glared. “And that was because she happened to walk in on us talking. What if she had seen us kiss? Tell me, would we even be having this conversation if she hadn’t found us?”

“I…” He frowned and you scoffed.

“Would you have ever broken it off with her?” Or would I have had to deal with our intertwined web of lies all by myself? The bitter thought lingered.

“Yes.” The answer was immediate. “If you wanted that, I would have done it.”

“Of course I wanted it!” You blurted out, your fingers curling into the palm of your hand into a fist. “But I couldn’t want it, because she was my friend, Donghyuck. Even if you had broken it off, I still couldn’t do a damn thing.”

He swallowed thickly, “I know, its fucked up, but I–”

“Yeah, fucked up. Too fucked up for me to even think about being with you.”

“But you have, haven’t you?” The question threw you off, and as if he had magically read your mind, he clarified, “You have thought about it.”

You froze, and your silence betrayed you immensely. There wasn’t a single lie you could have uttered in response that would have been convincing enough, not even to yourself.

“I can do it this time,” he said so earnestly that it broke your heart all over again, his coffee-coloured eyes pleading with you. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll never leave you again Y/n, I’m not a kid anymore. I can be here for you.” Promises fell from his mouth, sweet pledges and assurances that felt like balm to your wounded soul.

But how were you supposed to trust the very person that had given you trust issues?

How were you supposed to put those trust issues to the side and take him back with open arms without bruising your dignity any further? How were you to do it without falling apart?

Melancholy was a funny thing to have taken over you right then, self pity flooding your system, as well as pity for him. For so long, you had blamed him, but now that you took a step back and viewed your situation, you realised that you would have to do the very same thing he did so long ago.

The cyclical nature of life was pitilessly cruel, ravaging everything in its path no matter the case. It had brought you back to all you had ever known and wanted, all the while forcing you to let go, pulling the rug from under your feet without giving you the chance to find your footing. It had made him leave you and come back, only to have you walk away because of how wrong things were.

Love found in dark, twisted places was never love that was meant to be nurtured. Love emerging from lies and deceit, situations that were impossible- it was love that would forever have to be left behind, no matter how pure it might have once been.

“I can’t love you.”

“Y/n please-”

“I’ve already hurt her, and if I love you again I’m going to hurt myself as well because I–I’m always the one that's left to sit and think about you. And it fucking hurts Donghyuck, it hurts.” You couldn’t believe him when he said he’d stay, because he had told you the very same thing all those years ago. You couldn’t be with him without guilt haunting your every move when you had so severely hurt Yeonmi due to your own agony.

You didn’t even realise you had started crying, tears cascading down your face. It was all so unfair, how something that had always been advertised as being simple had been anything but for you. Love had never once ended well for you, constantly picking you up and throwing you back down subsequently without giving you a moment to breathe.

Love was supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the entire world, so why was it so goddamn ugly?

It crushed him to see you like this, so openly broken and yet guarded at the same time, your wall built up so high that he wasn’t sure he could ever break it back down again. He hated how it was him who always brought you to this point, and he tried to reach out to you to wipe away your tears, but you only flinched away from his touch.

How the hell had you ended up like this?

“Then tell me you don’t feel it.” He had to know. He needed to hear it from you.

Your lower lip quivered. “Feel what?”

God, you felt so much. Just looking at him was enough to stir up a surfeit of emotions that you hadn't the faintest clue how to handle, but one in particular overpowered the others, an ache emanating from your rib cage that was so potent, it exhausted you.

“Feel what you did when we were sixteen. Say it.”

Sixteen. You had felt so loved by another that barely understood the concept of it himself at the time, its meaning so completely untainted by the passage of time and complications that came. That innocence wasn’t to be found within you, but the remnants of it had grown and interwoven itself with what only he could bring out of you.

“I–”

“I’ll say it then, because goddamnit Y/n I love you.” The look on Donghyuck’s face ripped right through you. “I’ve always loved you, from the moment I saw you when we were teenagers. You’re the only person I’ve ever been in love with and I know you love me too.”

It fucking hurt. You couldn’t understand how the only person in the world who understood you so completely and saw right through everything you were was the one person you couldn’t let yourself be with. It was Donghyuck who used to notice even a slight switch in your mood when you were upset and it was him who would cheer you up the best he could. It was him who used to let you ramble on into the late of night and text you into the wee hours of the morning and him who now naturally gravitated towards you, just as you did to him. It was his jacket that you still had buried somewhere in your closet from all those years ago, with you unable to let go of it no matter how hard you tried.

Even now when you had only reunited for a bitterly short period of time, he was still the one who intrinsically knew every part of you. He knew you loved him still.

You inhaled sharply, noticing the red tint to the white of his eyes, realising that he too was struggling to keep himself together right then. Shaking your head slowly, you moved closer towards his figure, touching his face gently and cupping it between your palms, searching his eyes intently.

“I love you.”

He shut his eyes the moment you said it, tears slipping down and catching on your fingertips as you brushed them away.

“But even you know we can’t be together.”

The world had ripped the two of you away from each other once, and you had to trust that there was a reason for it. You knew you couldn’t let yourself go back because it was simply not meant to be with the circumstances and cards life had dealt you.

You loved Donghyuck- fuck, you loved him more than you thought was possible, and it still wasn’t enough. Neither of you could communicate through anything and shit was a hell of a lot more complicated than it was when you were just teenagers. He was right, he wasn’t a kid anymore and neither were you, but too much had happened. The timing was never right for him and you, there was always one thing or the other standing in the way, and the repercussions of everything was too much for you to simply put in the past, making the two of you something that would never work.

“I know.”

The syllables left his lips so brokenly that you instinctively had the urge to somehow fix him- whatever part of him that was fractured. The front he had been parading around, the false sense of confidence that he had pretended to have about you had finally collapsed, leaving him with a truth he hadn’t come to terms with just yet. The resignation he possessed broke you further, and you pressed your lips to his firmly, trying to mend your fragmented souls.

But it was fruitless. This was a brokenness that you would have to learn to live with until time bandaged your matching wounds, dulling it down into what would one day just be the thought of how terribly it burned.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered against his mouth. “I love you.”

Disentangling himself from you, he stepped outside of your apartment and looked at you, imagining you once again the way he had first met you.

“I love you too.”

It was ironic, how words could mean something entirely different to what they were, how seemingly unrelated sentences were connected, a confession of affection serving the same purpose as a final farewell. Goodbyes of such permanence were merciless things and so when presented with one so absolutely brutal, he couldn’t help but think about the beginning, from the very first hello that passed between him and you.

I love you. The very last time you’d ever hear it from him.

Those fragile, lovely rose tinted glasses you wore in your youth had snapped a long time ago, and you could see everything for what it was.

And now, he could too.

Time was said to heal all wounds, but only if it was a wound that was ready to be healed.

Everything about Donghyuck and you was unfinished back then, the millions of questions you had haunting your every move ever since it had so abruptly ended. For eight years that wound had been left wide open and time had only assisted in letting it fester, burying its memory deep within your psyche.

But time also brought wisdom in its stride.

You picked up the mail your new roommate had left on your coffee table, shifting through the pile until you found the envelopes with your name on them. Leaving the rest behind, you made your way to your room, sighing in relief at finally being back in your comfort space.

Sitting atop your bed, you began opening each envelope. A letter from your grandmother who refused to learn how to send you a text, a card from an aunt and a few bills- the usual collection, but one stood out from the rest. The sender's address was entirely unfamiliar to you, and you frowned lightly, carefully tearing open the top and tipping out its contents.

A soft gasp escaped your lips.

Right there on your lap lay two tickets to Lee Jieun’s upcoming concert.

As if you were afraid that they would disintegrate, you gently picked them up and inspected them, in utter disbelief at the fact that you were holding them. You had failed to get tickets of your own when you had tried and yet here you were with not one, but two of them in your grasp- and they were the expensive kind, the ones where you had access to go backstage and meet the artists as well.

For a moment you entertained the possibility of this being a mistake, but then you stopped your train of thought when it slammed head first into the only explanation as to how they had gotten here.

A small, wistful smile crept up upon you as you glanced back at the envelope, noticing a small piece of paper still inside. Taking it out, a breathless chuckle was all you managed after reading what it said.

‘Thought I’d at least keep this promise. – L.D’

Suddenly, you were taken back to that cafe where you had the conversation with Donghyuck. You hadn’t stepped foot in there since the last time you saw him- over two months ago when you knew it was over.

Sometimes, a story doesn’t have to have an ending to be finished.

You knew that a part of you would always love Donghyuck due to the ephemeral, innocent nature of the young love you had for him that had been ingrained within you. You had made your peace knowing that the two of you were something written into the world to die out eventually, something that you had to let go of even if it made no sense to you.

It was apparent that this was a love that could never truly be yours, as magnificent as it seemed it had never been yours to begin with in the first place. It was a mishmash of bad timing and rash teenage decisions mixed in with that sort of hopelessness you only found in the blissful oblivion of adolescence. You could wish and want a million things, but at the end of the day, now and then, some things were simply not meant to be.

The love between the two of you was something you were never supposed to claim, time and time again slipping through your fingers, and yet you still grieved for its loss.

But grief could be overcome. You shut your eyes, imagining his cheeky smile and fond eyes, the way he’d look at you while you were talking and all the pretty, empty promises he had made. All the talks of the future that had always been fractured for the two of you and moments of tenderness.

For once, you didn’t just picture him apologising to you over and over again, that ache having finally dulled out.

And when you opened your eyes, you didn’t feel sixteen anymore, instead you felt as if time had passed almost too quickly and reality was finally catching up. You felt older, properly this time, and much more experienced.

Donghyuck had been your first love at the tender age of sixteen, the cause of your flushed cheeks and racing heart; affectionate, shy smiles and chaste kisses underneath streetlights. He had been the torrential downpour of rain upon a stormy sea, as violent as it was beautiful. All you felt about him had only ever been intense in nature, your youthfulness unable to process them in any other way. Now, looking back, perhaps there were several things you would have done differently, and maybe some you wouldn’t have done at all.

You would remember it all, every single detail of course, but when you thought about Donghyuck, you’d think about all the good. You’d remember laughing out over him singing along to your favourite songs on the radio while aimlessly driving around town, the late night conversations you’d sneak out together to have and the ice cream you’d share on hotter summer days. You’d think about his infectious laugh and the way he always managed to make you happy, the way he’d take care of you when you were sick and kiss your forehead goodbye each and every time. How your hand would perfectly fit in his, fingers intertwined and clasped together tight, how he’d whisper the three words that you so cherished back then at the most unexpected of times. You’d remember the love that was very real and very much lost and its seemingly magical, wild nature that you doubted you’d ever find again.

You’d remember sixteen.

fin.

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allwormdiet · 3 months ago

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Arc 1: Gestation, Concluding Thoughts

Two days in the life of Taylor Hebert, with a bonus one night in the life of Danny Hebert. Let's break it down.

Right now, initial feelings are really positive. I like this arc, I get why people are in on this in such a hardcore fashion, like it's making sense to me as I'm reading it. The characterization is really strong, the A to B plot is cool, and the first fight scene was a fucking banger to open up with.

And like, shit, I get why Taylor is throwing herself into cape life, right? Civilian life is already such fucking misery for her, utterly alone and the only person who's theoretically in her corner is sympathetic but just as helpless as she is. Yeah sure, mortal peril, but if she had nothing to do I feel like the bullying would've killed her eventually. Death versus Lung is at least marginally more noble than death by Emma. And isn't that fucking bleak.

Looking ahead a little bit towards Arc 2 and I'm immensely curious how long it'll take Taylor to do cape stuff again. I feel like I'd need a solid month to process the whole "near death experience" thing and then spend time sweating over whether I even put the mask on ever again. Meanwhile I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor went back out in like a week, because she's a hardcore maniac.

It's also very interesting looking at this and considering the exact sequence of events that went through these chapters. If the bullies didn't wreck Taylor's notebook, or if Taylor took a different message away from its destruction, there might be one or more dead Undersiders right now, and to a lesser extent Armsmaster wouldn't both get credit for a major capture and also owe this rookie hero a favor. Both of those things are going to matter a lot, and it's, I dunno, some people would call that contrived but real life is so full of weird coincidence and happenstance I can buy this no problem.

...Honestly now I get why so many AUs that diverge before this point still include the Lung fight and the Undersiders and Armsmaster meetings, like yeah at that point it's contrivance but I'm not going to sweat an author too hard because they don't want to figure out how fucking dramatic the butterfly effect (hah, butterfly) would be on the rest of the story. Like yeah it's contrived, but that's a lot of work they'd have to do otherwise.

That aside, I'm gonna get back on topic and meditate on my current gripes. 1.3 was a legitimate low point in this arc with the description of the Docks and its residents and their circumstances, and the total clusterfuck of the Azn Bad Boys, which. By the by this is the last time I'm going to say the full name of that gang, ABB is shorter and is less embarrassing for everybody involved. Wall-to-wall racism, classism, and an utter lack of sympathy for the lesser-thans. Like we're talking about crack whores in the year of our lord 2011, or, they were written about in 2011 and I'm hollering about it on the internet in 2024. When this kind of thing comes back up (when, not if, I'm not that optimistic) I just hope I can work around it, like eating everything but the bruise on an apple.

To close this out, I'm thinking about the people in Taylor's life. Emma, a former friend turned bully, and her cronies Madison and Sophia. Pretty shallow characterization at this point, just that they're cruel to the point of hospitalizing their victim. Danny Hebert is supportive, but has all the strength of a sponge when it comes to holding up against the pressures that weigh on Taylor, and he knows it but he's not doing anything differently. The Undersiders, criminals who mistake Taylor for a criminal, but identify her correctly as a comrade and potential friend, who realize she was fighting for them and went to fight for her. Armsmaster, who offers her very genuine and very sought-after praise as an authority figure, and then leans on that authority to get what he wants out of a freshly traumatized and exhausted teenager.

Is it any wonder that Taylor takes the path that she does? Would anyone have it in them to be surprised if they could see all of this from a bird's eye view?

I wonder if Armsmaster ever thinks back about this night, lying awake in bed. If he ever wonders what he could or should have done differently, or if he couldn't have done anything to divert course.

I was talking to my girlfriend about something related to this the other night, actually. If it's worse in a tragedy for there to have been a chance to avert it all, or if it's worse for the end to be inevitable. Looking at Taylor, looking at Brockton Bay, looking at Earth Bet? I dunno. If someone had acted early, with knowledge and intention sufficient to actually provide aid, maybe it would've been enough, but hell. Maybe not. I don’t know which possibility is more damning.

...I get melancholy when it's late, but I don't think it'd be right to delete all that; it's how I'm feeling about the novel, and that's what this blog is for, so even if it's a bit dramatic it'd be self-defeating to pretend I didn't say it.

Arc 2... probably starts tomorrow, assuming nothing comes up. Glad to say I'm looking forward to it.

#worm liveblogging #parahumans #worm gestation #concluding thoughts #liveblog #wormblr

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all-the-things-2020 · 8 months ago

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Joel’s Pony Party

Summary: You are planning a birthday party for your six year old niece. Turns out the guy who runs the pony party place offers you more than just a pony ride.

Rating: R (some sexual content toward the end); 18+ only, please!

Word Count: 6200+

Notes: I saw a horse trailer one day with a sign reading “Joel’s Pony Party” and my mind went on from there. This is an AU where there is no outbreak and Sarah and Ellie are the same age.

Maybe this was a huge mistake, you think as you steer your car down the increasingly potholed road. Obviously, a place with horses would be outside of town, but this didn’t look like the most savory area. Still, the pictures on the website had made it look nice, so you owed it to Ashley to check it out.

It had made so much sense at the time to volunteer to plan your niece’s sixth birthday party. Your sister was still knee deep in diapers with her youngest, Ashley’s little brother Jacob. Your brother-in-law was a sweetheart but useless at this sort of thing. His idea of entertaining was buying a 24 pack of beer instead of a 6 pack and buying the name brand chips for the queso dip. No, Ashley deserved a special birthday and you were going to give it to her.

You checked the directions you’d printed out from the internet. You should be close. The road curved slightly and you saw the neatly painted sign. “Joel’s Pony Party — Birthdays and Special Occasions.” The property looked much nicer than some of the places you’d driven past. The fencing was new and the driveway was freshly graded. So far, so good.

You drove through the gate and marveled at the paddock full of ponies and a couple of horses. Some of them lifted their heads from the grass to watch you drive past. They all looked healthy and well groomed. One of the bigger ponies, a flashy black and white pinto, tossed its head and galloped along the fence line, racing your car.

You parked in the graveled lot clearly marked “Guest Parking” and turned off the engine. A teenaged girl with an abundance of curly hair waved at you from the door of a tidy red barn. “Dad will be with you in a minute,” she called out. “You can pet the ponies if you want.”

The little pinto was trying to reach over the fence to you, so you obliged, scratching its nose and forehead. The pony smelled wonderful, like fresh hay and sunshine and that undeniable smell of horse that brought back your childhood. Trips to the pony ride at the park had been the highlight of your existence when you were five years old.

”She doesn’t have anything for you, Oreo.” The voice was slow and easy, not too deep. “Sorry, he’s a beggar. I’m Joel Miller.” The man held out his hand and you shook it. His grip was firm but gentle and his hand engulfed yours. You tried not to stare as you took in his broad shoulders and the neatly trimmed scruff on his face. A delightful combination of cowboy and businessman.

You introduced yourself. “I have to admit, I was a little concerned after driving past some of those places down the road, but you have a beautiful property.”

Joel nodded his head. “Thank you, ma’am. Sarah and I try to keep it up to snuff.” He tilted his head toward the girl. “If she ever outgrows her horse phase, I’m in deep trouble. Can’t keep this place goin’ without her.” He looked wistful for a moment, then snapped back to business mode. “So, you’re lookin’ for a place for your niece’s birthday. Let me give you a tour.”

He led you through the barn, which was cleaner than some houses you’d been to, and showed you the party area, a covered patio with brightly painted wooden picnic tables. Beyond it was a miniature race track. “The pony path,” Joel said. “Rather than one of those mechanical hot walker contraptions, we put the kids on a pony in there and let them walk around. Me or Sarah will stand in the middle and keep the ponies moving if they get too lazy, but otherwise the kids get to be in charge.” He chuckled. “Well, as in charge as anyone can be with a pony. Got some characters.”

Joel gestured toward a large shade tree. “Here’s where we hang the piñata.” Then toward a long table under a colorful awning. “And that’s where you can put the gifts and the cake. Keeps them out of the way of the kids.” He shuffled his boots in the dust. “We have two packages: Pony Princess and Cowpoke Experience. Most boys go for cowpoke but girls are pretty evenly split. Or we can do a hybrid if you’ve got boys and girls coming.”

He pulled a brochure out of his back pocket and spread it out on one of the picnic tables. As he leaned over, his shirt strained at his shoulders and it was all you could do to keep your focus on the brochure. And his thick finger as he pointed out the options.

”Pony Princess comes with a unicorn and the piñata is a dragon. We also have a trunk of dress up clothes. Fairy wings and princess dresses and magic wands, stuff like that. The birthday girl gets to wear a crown, ‘cause she’s the princess.”

”Cowpoke Experience comes with roping lessons and the piñata is a cowboy boot. No guns, but we have cowboy hats and bandanas and leather vests for dress up. And the birthday kid wears the sheriff’s badge.”

You glanced at the prices at the bottom of the pages and nodded. Yes, this would do. And even if it was a bit more than you’d planned, you’d gladly pay it to spend more time with Joel.

“Definitely Pony Princess for Ashley,” you said. “She’s in her Disney Princess stage right now and all her friends are into fairies and magic and everything.”

”All right, let’s get the calendar and see if we can get this scheduled for you. Sarah!”

Sarah popped out of nowhere. “Yeah, Dad?”

”Run and get the booking calendar, would you? Need to set up a party for this nice lady’s niece.”

”She seems like a good kid,” you said, desperate to make small talk so you wouldn’t gawk at the man in front of you.

”She is,” he said with a smile. “A lot like her mama was.”

”Her mother …” you didn’t know how to ask without seeming nosey.

”Passed on when Sarah was little,” Joel said softly. “It’s been just the two of us. Well, and my brother, when he’s around. And now the horses.” He sighed. “I used to be a contractor but I messed up my back pretty good and my cousin Louis was moving to Alabama so he offered me the place. Already had a good business doing pony rides, and it was Sarah’s idea to start doing birthday parties and events. She’s gonna be a party planner or something like that when she grows up. Organized and on top of everything.” He shook his head, a soft smile on his lips. He was clearly very proud of his daughter.

Sarah dashed up with a battered leather planner in her hands. As she laid it down on the table, she pulled a pencil out of her pocket. “See,” Joel said. “Always prepared.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “It’s just common sense, Dad.” She flipped the pages to the current date. “Hope we can fit you in close to your niece’s actual birthday.”

You perused the calendar. There were two sets of handwriting, one neat and precise but masculine, the other just as neat but more exuberant. You spotted the Saturday before Ashley’s birthday. “How about this day? I see you have something at 9:00 am but maybe we can do the afternoon?”

”Perfect,” said Joel. “How’s 2 o’clock? Gives us time to clean up after the morning event and then you don’t have to provide lunch, just cake and ice cream.” He smiled and you smiled back. Cake and ice cream were included in the price of the package, but lunches and snacks were not. You’d save a bit that way.

”Sounds like a deal,” you said. “Do we need to sign a contract or anything?”

”Give me a day or two to write it up and you can come back to sign it, if that’s not too much trouble?” He fixed his chocolate brown eyes on you and for a moment you couldn’t even breath, let alone form a coherent thought.

”Um, yeah, that’d be great,” you managed to say after an awkward moment. “You can call me when it’s ready and I’ll come out as soon as I can.” You scribbled your cell phone number on the margin of the planner, along with your name.

”Much obliged,” Joel said. “Pony Princess party, 2 o’clock on Saturday the 15th.”

”And when you come back to sign the paperwork, you can meet all the ponies,” Sarah said. “You can pick out which one your niece gets to ride.” She glanced slyly at Joel. “Maybe Dad can take you out on one of the horses, if you have the right shoes.” She looked down at your tennis shoes and shook her head. Like Joel, she had on well worn cowboy boots, the working kind, not the fashionable kind.

”I might have some boots that would work,” you said. “But I haven’t been on a horse in years. Maybe we’d better leave that to the kids.”

Joel looked you up and down, which made your face heat up. “You’d look good on a horse,” he said. “I think maybe Guapo?”

Sarah nodded firmly. “Oh, yeah, Guapo would be perfect for you. He’s a real softie, good with beginners but not one of those dead to the world type they give you at rental stables.”

“We’ll see,” you said. “I’d — I’d better be going. I have some errands to run before I head home and I’m sure you’re both busy. I’ll see you in a few days.”

”I’ll call you when I have the contract ready,” Joel said, nodding his head. If he’d been wearing a hat, he would have tipped it. “Nice to meet you.”

As you walked back toward your car, you heard Sarah giggling and Joel shushing her sternly. The kid was a pretty good wingwoman. You wondered how much a pair of real riding boots cost.

***************************************************************************

Joel called you two days later and you arranged to come by that Thursday to sign the contract and finalize the details. You rarely took time off work, so no one batted an eye when you put in for a half day of personal necessity because of an appointment. You left work and stopped off at home to change into jeans and a pair of low heeled boots. You finished off the outfit with a t-shirt that you’d gotten compliments on before.

As you turned into the drive at Joel’s place, you saw that the way was blocked by a large blue pickup. Joel was in the bed, tossing flakes of hay over the fence into the pasture.

“I’ll be done in a few minutes, then I’ll get outta your way,” he called out. He was wearing a dirty grey t-shirt with a couple of holes in it and his jeans were covered with dust, but he looked amazing. You didn’t mind waiting with a view like that.

”No worries,” you called back. “Do you need any help?”

”Ah, no darlin’, I’ve got this. Been bucking hay for quite a few years now.” He paused and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm. “Louis’ dad, my uncle, used to have a full on cattle ranch when we were kids. Spent summers out there helping with the horses until I was thirteen.”

You got out of your car and leaned against the fender. “Must have been a dream come true for a Texas kid.”

Joel shrugged. “It was just work. Tommy always conveniently disappeared when it was time to muck out stalls, but I covered for him.” He returned to his task, easily breaking a bale of hay into flakes and tossing them expertly over the fence, each one landing a few feet from the previous one. The horses and ponies each claimed a flake of their own, except for a few squabbles involving the tiniest pony, a chestnut with a broad white blaze on its face.

”Stop it, you little shit,” Joel yelled, shaking his head. “That li’l Sebastian is the worst. He’s actually a miniature horse, not a pony, so he can’t be ridden and he knows it. Spoiled rotten. But he’s gentle with the little kids and the ones who can’t ride or are too afraid. Gets petted and fed carrots and never does a lick of work.”

Sebastian lifted his nose and pranced toward a tall white horse. He snorted and swished his tail and the big horse reluctantly yielded its hay to the little guy. “See?” Joel said. “Guapo, just step on him.”

The white horse sighed deeply and shook his head. Joel tossed a flake in his direction and it landed neatly in front of him. Then Joel hopped down from the truck bed. “I’ll get this ol’ beast out of the way and you can drive up to the parking area. I’ve just got to run up to the house for the paperwork, wash my hands, and I’ll be right back.”

You tried not to notice his backside as he stepped into the cab of the truck, but it was right there in front of you. He filled out a pair of jeans nicely.

You parked in the visitor lot, while Joel parked his truck off to the side. “Go on through the barn and sit at one of the tables,” he called out. “I’ll be there in a minute.” He walked quickly toward the neatly painted white ranch style house that stood behind the pasture, his gait a bit stiff. He’d mentioned hurting his back at work before starting the party business. It looked like it still bothered him.

You sat at one of the picnic tables. It was pleasant under the patio roof, which blocked the sun but allowed a nice breeze. Whoever had designed this place knew what he was doing.

Joel hurried back with a sheaf of papers in his hand. His hands were clean but the rest of him was still dusty. There were bits of hay stuck to his shirt and in his hair. “Okay,” he said, settling down next to you. “Let’s go over the details and then get this contract signed.”

It was hard to concentrate on the paperwork with him sitting beside you. He smelled like hay and sweat and horses and something else, maybe aftershave or deodorant that had a hint of something woodsy. Whatever it was, the entire cocktail of scents was enticing.

”So, the standard party comes with a sheet cake from Kroger and vanilla ice cream. The cake will say Happy Birthday and your niece’s name. You get to pick what color icing for the words and the border. And we put a plastic unicorn on top that she gets to keep.”

”Um, purple, she’s into purple right now.”

Joel nodded and wrote “purple” into a blank on the sheet in front of him. His handwriting was neat and precise.

”Okay, and the piñata will be a dragon, unless you want something else. No extra charge, all the piñatas are the same price.”

”Dragon is fine,” you said, distracted by a piece of hay that was lodged in the curls just above his temple. You fought the urge to reach out and remove it.

”You okay?” Joel asked.

“Um, yeah, you just … you have some hay …” You gestured toward his head and he brushed his hand through his hair.

”Occupational hazard,” he said with a gentle laugh. “Did I get it?”

”Not quite. Do you mind …?”

He leaned toward you and you plucked the hay stem from his hair, which was silky soft. You wanted to run your fingers through it so badly, but you contented yourself with removing the hay. “There, now you look presentable,” you said.

”Thanks,” he said softly. There was a pause, charged with something that certainly wasn’t business related. He cleared his throat. “Okay, so we have games.”

You half listened as Joel went over the games and activities that would be provided. You just nodded and agreed to all the standard choices. Ashley would just be thrilled to be around ponies and dress up with her friends. And if you weren’t talking, that meant you got to listen to Joel’s voice even more.

You reached the end of the paperwork and Joel handed you the pen to sign the contract. It was still warm from his hand and you shook just a little as you wrote your signature on the dotted line.

”All done,” Joel said. His eyes swept up and down your body. “So, you ready for that ride?”

Your tongue wouldn’t move. Had he really just suggested …?

“I mean, you wore jeans and boots, so I figured you were planning to take me up on Sarah’s offer.”

”Oh, yeah,” you said, shaking your head as the blood rushed to your face. “Sorry, I was just … yeah, a horseback ride would be wonderful.”

Joel swept the paperwork up. “Back in two jiffs,” he said. “I’ll just put this in the office and then we’ll get the horses ready.”

He ducked into a small room in the barn, then handed you a lead rope. You followed him to the pasture, where the horses were still nibbling at their hay. Joel opened the gate and walked inside, catching first the white horse, Guapo, and then a big strong looking bay horse. He took the lead rope from you and clipped it onto Guapo’s halter.

”He’s a sweetheart,” he said. “Just walk and he’ll go with you. Take him into the breezeway in the barn.”

You were nervous. You’d never handled a horse before, but Guapo was just as gentle as Joel promised. He walked alongside you, his head bobbing with the rhythm of his hooves, which clip-clopped against the hard packed dirt and the concrete of the barn floor.

Joel soon followed with the bay horse. You watched as he tied both horses to rings set in the wall and gave them a quick brushing. Then he brought out the saddles, which he handled as if they weighed nothing. It was fascinating to watch him tack up the horses, moving gently but quickly as he got them ready for the ride. Soon they were both saddled and bridled and you started to feel nervous again.

Joel showed you how to lead Guapo by the cheek piece of his bridle. “Just walk him over to the mounting block,” he said. “He knows the drill.”

Sure enough, the white horse stood next to the set of wooden steps so that they were perfectly aligned with his saddle. Joel smiled at you as he took the reins just under Guapo’s chin. “You okay to get on by yourself?”

”I think so,” you said. “It’s been years since I rode a horse.”

”Just remember, left foot in the stirrup, then hop up and swing the right leg over.” You felt incredibly exposed as you fumbled your way into the saddle. If you hadn’t felt Joel’s eyes on you the whole time, it would have been easier.

Once you were in the saddle, Joel led Guapo forward a few steps and then took your ankle in his hand. “Slip your foot out,” he said quietly. “I need to adjust the stirrups.” He pushed your leg forward so that your foot was on Guapo’s shoulder, then tugged at the leather straps. When he was done, he grabbed your foot and put it back into the stirrup. His hands were big and strong. He nodded and then went around the other side to adjust the right stirrup. Being man-handled, even so gently, was making you very aware of your body. You shifted in the saddle, glad your jeans were thick enough to hide the dampness that was spreading through your panties.

Once Joel was satisfied that your stirrups were good, he fetched the bay horse from the barn and swung into the saddle with a grunt that made your insides clench. “I’m supposed to use the mounting block,” he said, “‘cause of my back, but just don’t tell Sarah, okay?”

You nodded. “Okay, remember, hold the reins in your left hand, just above the saddle horn. Keep your fist up, like you're gonna do a thumbs up. Steer him like using a joystick on one of those old Atari games. Move your hand to the right to go right, left to go left, back toward your belly to stop or slow down. And sit back in the saddle when you ask him to stop. All right, let’s go.”

He tapped his heels against the bay horse’s sides and they walked off. Guapo followed behind after you gave him a gentle tap. It was a different world from up on a horse’s back. You could feel Guapo’s muscles moving beneath the saddle, hear his breathing and snorts as the other horse kicked up dust in his face, and the creaking of the saddle leather.

“Wow, this is so cool,” you said.

“This is nothing,” Joel said over his shoulder. “This is just a pony ride. You get good enough, there’s a place down by the river where the sand is level and smooth and you can gallop. Talk about a real cowgirl experience. Ah, shit, that didn’t sound right, I’m sorry.”

You laughed. “I know what you meant. And either way, it sounds amazing.” You felt the blood rush to your face again as the words popped out of your mouth. You hadn’t meant to flirt so hard. This was technically still a business transaction, after all.

Joel laughed heartily. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” His eyes skimmed over your body once again. “You look good on a horse. Not everyone does.”

”Thanks,” you said. “So do you.”

The trail widened out and Joel pulled his horse back so that you were riding side by side. “You know, Sarah would kill me if I didn’t take the opportunity to ask you out. After the party, of course.”

”Of course,” you said. “And she’d probably kill me if I didn’t say yes. I mean, how often does someone literally bring you a white horse?”

”Gray,” Joel said. “Guapo’s not white, he’s gray.” He shook his head. “Shit, sorry, I’m used to teaching the kids about how white horses are really rare and most of the ones you see that look white are really grays … and I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

”Yeah, but it’s adorable,” you said. “Makes me feel a little less awkward myself.”

You rode in silence for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

”Sure,” Joel said.

”Why’s he named Guapo? I mean he’s not ugly or anything but he’s certainly not Trigger or the Black Stallion, is he?”

Joel smiled. “Louis went to the horse auction to get some ponies. Saw this fellow in the pen and he looked like hell. Skinny, had a skin rash, just messed up. Knew he’d end up with the kill buyers, so he bought him. Everyone teased him about buying an ugly horse, but his assistant, Reynaldo, stood up for him. He said ‘Don’t let them laugh at you, you’re muy guapo, my friend.’ And it turns out, after they got him cleaned up and fed and everything, they checked his lip tattoo and he’s a Thoroughbred. Ran thirty races in his career and won three. Even was in a stakes over at Sam Houston when he was three. Finished up the track, but at least he had a shot at glory.”

”Wow, you were a racehorse?” You leaned forward to pat Guapo’s neck. He flicked an ear back at you. “He’s so gentle.”

”Smart horses, Thoroughbreds,” Joel said. “King here, he’s half quarter horse, half Andalusian. Talk about smart.” He patted the bay horse on the neck. “But he needs an experienced rider. Guapo knows how to take care of a beginner. King would just take advantage of them.”

You chatted back and forth as the horses walked down the trail. Joel was relaxed, sitting his horse easily, his eyes crinkled against the sun. You could have looked at him all day. And the way his hips moved with the rhythm of King’s stride …

Eventually, Joel glanced at his watch. “Better head back,” he said with a sigh. “Sarah will be getting home from school any minute and if she has to do more than her fair share of the barn chores I’ll get an earful.”

He turned King around and headed back up the trail. Guapo followed suit and before you knew it, both horses were trotting, eager to get home. Joel hardly moved in his saddle, but you were jolting all over the place.

”Ouch! How do you stay sitting down when they do this?”

Joel laughed mischievously. “Well, it helps that King’s got that smooth Quarter Horse jog,” he said. “Guapo was taught two speeds: walk and run. Off track Thoroughbreds have a real rough trot. Probably should have warned you.” He reined King back to a walk and Guapo dropped back into a less bone-jolting gait as well.

“Thought I was going to fall off for a second there,” you said.

“You were bouncing around quite a bit,” Joel admitted, although from the look on his face, he hadn’t minded watching you jiggle.

“You did that on purpose,” you realized.

“Had to give you the full cowgirl experience,” he said with a wink. You had reached the narrow beginning of the trail again, and he pulled King in front of Guapo, so you only had a view of his back, but you were certain he was smirking. You didn’t mind too much, though; the view was worth any amount of teasing you had to endure. Joel Miller had a mighty fine seat.

***************************************************

Sarah was leaning smugly against the side of the barn when you rode up. “Trying to stick me with all the chores while you’re off having fun, huh, Dad?”

”If I recall, it was your idea I take her out for a ride,” he said, swinging easily off King’s back. Sarah took the reins and led the bay toward the barn. Joel came and stood next to Guapo’s shoulder.

”You need any help getting down?”

”I think I can manage,” you said. You weren’t as graceful as he was, though, and stumbled a bit as your left foot caught in the stirrup on the way down. Joel’s hands were there to steady you.

”Kick both feet clear before you get off next time, then you won’t have that problem,” he said gently. “But otherwise, I’d give it a seven.” His hands were warm against your arms.

”Ah, geez, Mr. M, there’s kids here.”

Joel rolled his eyes. “Ellie, what the hell are you doing here?”

You both turned to see another girl leaning against the barn. She was around Sarah’s age, her brown hair pulled back in an untidy pony tail and a defiant smirk on her face.

”Sarah invited me,” she said. “Said you were making chili for dinner and you know they don’t feed me at that place.”

”That is one hundred percent grade A bullshit,” Joel said. “I know for a fact that Mrs. Morales is a great cook. She brings stuff to the PTA meetings all the time and we all fight over it.”

Ellie shrugged. “Exactly. All us kids have to fight over it, too. At least around here there’s only two other people I have to compete with.” Her eyes narrowed at you. “Maybe three, huh?”

”She’s not staying for dinner,” Joel said. “Unless you want to …?”

”Thank you, but I should probably get going. I left work early today and there’s some stuff I need to take care of before I go in tomorrow.” If it had just been him and Sarah, you would have said yes in a heartbeat.

Sarah came back out of the barn and took Guapo’s reins. “Way to just stand there, Ellie,” she said. “You could have helped.”

”I thought I was a guest,” Ellie whined, as she followed Sarah and Guapo into the barn.

”It’s still polite to offer help,” Sarah said.

”Sorry, I wasn’t raised in a barn like some people,” Ellie replied.

Joel shook his head. “Those two. Ellie’s in foster care. Nice family but poor kid’s been bounced around so much she keeps a wall up. She likes Sarah, though. And she’d never admit it, but she loves the ponies. Caught her braiding flowers into Sebastian’s mane one day.”

He walked you back to your car. “So, I guess I’ll see you on the day of the party.” He shuffled his boots in the gravel.

“Yeah, I guess so,” you replied. “Um, thanks again for the ride. I had a lot of fun. Although my backside might have another opinion by the time I get home.” You rubbed at the seat of your jeans.

”You and your backside are welcome any time,” he said. “And I meant it about that date after the party. We’ll go somewhere nice, I promise. You won’t have to wear jeans.”

”Anywhere is fine if it’s with you,” you said without thinking. “I mean … I’m not fussy. I don’t expect a first date to be …”

Joel ducked his head and smiled. “I hear ya,” he said. “I just want it to be special because I think you’re pretty special. I mean, doing all this for your niece … you’re a good aunt.”

”Just kiss her already,” Ellie yelled from the barn. “There’s barn chores to do, Mr. M!”

Joel shook his head. “I swear, if that kid hadn’t already had such a rough life …” He leaned forward and kissed you on the cheek. “That’s an IOU for a real kiss. Once you’re no longer a customer.”

”I expect full payment on that,” you said. “I’ll see you at the party.”

You got into your car and pulled out. Joel stood watching you drive away and you got butterflies in your stomach. Maybe this whole party thing was turning out to be more of a present for yourself than for Ashley.

*************************************************************

The morning of the party was pure chaos. Ashley couldn’t decide which princess dress to wear, the baby was fussy, your brother-in-law had a cold and was sneezing his head off, and your sister was about ready to break down in tears.

”I’ve got this,” you said as soon as you arrived at their house. “Ashley, why don’t you wear the purple dress? It’ll match your cake. And you can wear your jeans underneath so it’ll be more comfortable riding the ponies.” You took Jacob and started to bounce him up and down. “Sis, go get yourself ready.” You turned to your brother-in-law. “And you, go take a dose of DayQuil and then sit down and rest.”

Eventually, everyone was in the minivan and ready to go. You volunteered to drive, since you knew the way. Your sister sat in the passenger seat beside you.

”Thank you again for planning all this,” she said. “I know it was a lot of work, but Ashley is so excited to ride the ponies.”

”Well, it wasn’t all that hard,” you admitted. “Joel’s got a really nice set up and he took care of all the details. All I have to do is show up and pay the bill.”

”You like him, don’t you? I can tell by the way your face lights up when you talk about him. And you’ve been talking about him an awful lot for someone you’re doing business with.” She winked.

”I do like him,” you said. “We’re going to go out soon. After the party is over, when I’m not a client anymore.”

”Good for you. You deserve it.”

You were the first car to arrive, which made you sigh with relief. Sarah waved at you from the barn. “Welcome! Is this the birthday girl?”

”It is,” you said, leading Ashley over while your sister and brother-in-law got Jacob out of his car seat. “Ashley, this is Sarah. Her daddy owns this place.”

”Lady Sarah Miller at your service, Your Majesty,” Sarah said with a curtsy. “You’re the princess today, so let’s get your crown!”

She led you through the barn and both you and Ashley gasped when you saw the party area. There were pink and purple streamers and balloons hanging from the roof and every table had a runner of white butcher paper and several small buckets of crayons. A big gold painted armchair sat at the end of the table closest to the gift table. It was draped with purple cloth and a glittery plastic crown sat on a purple cushion.

”This is your throne,” Sarah said. “Because it’s your special day and you’re the princess, you get to sit in the best seat in the house.” She helped Ashley put on the crown and secure it to her hair with bobby pins.

“And now, before your guests arrive, let’s meet your unicorn!”

Joel appeared, leading a white pony with a golden horn attached to its forehead. Its mane had been dyed all the colors of the rainbow. “This is Alabaster,” he said gently, crouching down to Ashley’s level. “She’s a very special unicorn and she only comes to visit the farm on days when there’s a princess here. So we’re lucky you came.”

Ashley fell in love with Alabaster and immediately started petting her. Sarah showed her how to offer carrots on a flat palm so that Alabaster couldn’t accidentally nip her. “Unicorns love carrots,” Sarah said. “They’re like candy to them, so sometimes they get a little bit greedy, just like we do. So we have to be careful they don’t hurt us with their magical teeth.”

You turned to Joel. “This is beautiful,” you said. “She’s going to remember this day for the rest of her life. Thank you.”

”Just doin’ my job,” Joel said. “Although we did throw in a few extra touches special for Ashley. And there’s one more surprise just for you.” He gestured for you to follow him. Around the side of the barn stood Guapo, his mane braided with flowers and a silvery unicorn horn parting his forelock. “Sarah and Ellie thought you might enjoy a unicorn of your own. Ellie did the mane, believe it or not.”

“Oh, Joel, he’s … he’s beautiful.” You stroked Guapo’s face. The gelding looked a bit embarrassed to be all gussied up, but he leaned into your hand. “But you know a real unicorn can only be tamed by a maiden fair. And it’s been a long time since I was a maiden, if you know what I mean.”

Joel grinned. “Well, Guapo’s a special kind of unicorn. He doesn’t care about all that. He just looks for a woman who’s pure of heart, the kind of woman who would go to great lengths to give her niece a special birthday.” He laid his hand on Guapo’s face, his fingers just brushing against yours. “And as his human sponsor, I for one have no use for fair maidens.” His voice lowered. “I like my ladies a bit more experienced.”

”Oh, I know how to ride,” you said. “Guapo can tell you that.”

“Well, there’s a difference between what Guapo and I expect on a ride,” he said. “But we can talk about that later. Right now, we’ve got a pony party to put on!”

********************************************************************

”Damn, girl, you weren’t kidding when you said you knew how to ride,” Joel said, his hands digging into your hips. You were straddling him, his cock buried deep within you, chasing your second orgasm of the night.

“Helps if you have a good mount,” you said. “One who’s well trained, knows what he’s doing, and listens to your cues.” You worked your hips against him, inching ever closer to a climax.

Joel bucked under you. “Helps the mount if the rider is good,” he panted. “Gotta work as a team.”

You’d had dinner at a local Italian restaurant and then had gone back to his place. Sarah was spending the night with a friend, so you had the whole house to yourselves.

Your body stiffened as you tipped over the edge, and Joel soon followed you, giving one final thrust as he spent himself inside you. “Hot damn,” he said, as you slid off of him, careful not to disturb the condom. “I don’t normally do this on a first date, you know.”

You flopped down beside him. “Neither do I,” you said. “But with Sarah out of the house it was too good an opportunity to pass up, don’t you think?”

He disposed of the condom and brought a washcloth from the bathroom. After you had cleaned yourselves up, he gently held your chin. “I like you,” he said seriously. “Sarah likes you. The horses like you. I think … maybe we can make this work.”

”So do I,” you said. “I want to try, as least.”

”Guapo’s a good judge of character,” he said.

”Unicorns usually are.”

#joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller the last of us #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #horses #ponies #unicorns #the last of us AU

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videogamelover99 · 3 months ago

Text

Update for the Human Bill AU

HIYA FOLLOWERS!

It’s me, uh, Vee! Wait, like the LETTER? Seriously?! Talk about originality.

ANYWAY! Word around the block is that BEST SELLING AUTHOR BILL CIPHER (pretty cool guy btw makes great deals) released a book into the PUBLIC COLLECTIVE that was SO GOOD it melted all of your brains into the primordial forms they were in when you were 10 years younger! Which is great news, cause it means more of you are down to contribute to the cause. What cause? Summoning Bill Cipher back into the mortal realm of course! I KNOW after his last SHOWSTOPPING lore drop you’re just dying to meet this guy, I get it! And you can! All you gotta do is pledge your allegiance to me, B- I mean, Vee! Who is not in any way, shape, or form possessed by a demon right now! They’re fine! I’m fine! Everything’s fi-

Ahem. Sorry. Bill took over my brain for the 30th time this week. It’s Vee. Hi.

Seriously though, actual Bill Cipher might not be hijacking my brain right now, but his character might as well be. I’m back to 2016, spinning him around like a rotisserie chicken. He is my little guy. He did nothing wrong, I promise.

Honestly, I didn’t know if A Different Form a Different Time was ever gonna come back. It started as a collaboration with @doodledrawsthings on Tumblr, and after they moved on to do other stuff I did the same. And yet, this au changed the trajectory of my life. After all the support and enthusiasm from you guys, I realized how much writing and storytelling meant to me. I’m now a Narrative Game Designer, writing scripts and stories on a professional level, which I would not have gotten do to had I not had the experience of writing for this AU.

For years, I kept getting DMs telling me someone was leaving kudos and comments on fics I wrote when I was a teenager, and that always just…blew me away. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for showing me how much my writing meant to you because I would not have gotten this far without that message being reiterated over and over again.

And then the Book of Bill happened, and suddenly this dead au Mak and I crafted got 20k+ words of new material. Oops. Haha.

So are you finally continuing this fic?

Yes and no. I’m rebooting it. After improving as a writer I’m hoping to bring something new to the table while following what’s already established in the series. Waking Days is gonna be rewritten, with new plotlines, new adventures, better, more coherent plot. I’ll still keep the old fic up so people can read it if they want, but I’ll re-order it to be at the end of the series for a more clear continuation.

Will you finally give us a finished product?

The genuine answer is I don’t know! I don’t have a good track record for finishing fics, which is not exactly a vice, since I’m not getting paid for any of it. It’s just for fun. All I can promise is that I’ll give you new adventures in this universe, and maybe, together, we’ll get to the end. I was always of the opinion that people don’t owe writers and artists kudos or likes or comments, because once you put something out there, it’s not up to you how it’s consumed. I’m writing this for fun, and to improve my skills. But I will say that kudos and comments help a TON with people’s motivation. Seeing someone be enthusiastic about your work just does it sometimes, ok? And if you want this fic to be continued, if you like what’s happening, then let your voice be heard.

Is Mak (aka doodledrawsthings) involved again?

Nope! They gave me their blessing to continue this AU, and it’s gonna branch out a lot from the original vision. I’d be down to work with them again, but as far as I know, they have their own stuff going on (they’re a professional storyboard artist now and have been for a while!) Please don’t harass them about this. If they want to work on GF stuff again, they will choose to do that on their own.

Upload Schedule

If anyone noticed, I did a little poll recently (if you missed it, follow me guys!) and most people preferred shorter updates once a week. That’s what we’re gonna try. So, keep an eye out for a new fic in this series next Friday. I’ll add another chapter to this one even so people can keep track. I’ll be posting on my AO3 as well as on Tumblr, and tagging it as “A Different Form a Different Time”.

Sneak Peek?? Please?

Sure. Here’s some stuff I wrote:

Deep in the redwood forests of central Oregon lay a small little town called Gravity Falls. With a population of a few thousand, low on tourism, and high on mosquito bites, the town was hard to find on any of the maps, and some might have claimed that the town hadn’t even existed.

Fewer still knew of the oddities that made the town their home, passerbys had nothing to say outside of an “eerie feeling” and a glimpse of tiny men in pointed caps in the corner of their vision.

But the town was real, and the oddities were more real still.

In the outskirts of that town, down a dilapidated forest path, in a clearing sat The Mystery Shack, an old scientist’s lab turned tourist attraction. It was in this house, on a stiff, plushy couch, framed by the light of a seemingly empty water tank, that Bill Cipher, the monster with one eye, harbinger of chaos and trillion-year-old mind demon awoke, in a body that was not his and whose irritating human instincts he deeply resented.

“Gah!”

“Screee!”

"Ow!"

Instincts like rapid breathing, sweatiness, and overall shakiness usually meant one of these dozen organs wasn’t working properly. Unfortunately, after waking up for the dozenth time in this manner, Bill had to admit that the organs weren’t the problem.

Not that he could remember what the problem was. Whatever dream or nightmare had caused this current inconvenient bout of terror, whatever remnants of it were blank, fuzzy static on a rotting television screen.

It was more annoying than anything.

Bill started his nightly routine of picking himself off the floor. The blanket he had was tangled around his legs, which were somehow still on the sofa. After a moment or two of clumsily getting the appendages to move, Bill managed to heave himself upright.

Bill rubbed his eyes, he had two now. So weird.

"Oik!"

Mabel's pig sat on the rug next to his head, staring blankly.

"What're you looking at, huh?"

"Oik!"

"None of your business."

"Oik oik!"

"No, what do I look like, a snack machine?"

"O-oik!"

"Ha! So's your mother!"

Waddles chose that moment to get up and trot away, done with the conversation. Well, good, Bill was done with him, too.

He stole a glance at the water tank. Still empty. Figures old Frilly wouldn't be there when Bill had a bone to pick with him. Maybe he should put some mercury in the water. As a surprise.

What was the point of stuffing him in this body, anyway? Did the ol’ salamander really think it would do anything? Was it to scare him? To torture him? To tell him how awful and evil he was and all those other meaningless statements that Bill had found hilarious in his time?

Crimes against the second dimension? It was a crime that the place had existed the way it did. A rotten, broken building called for a demolition. He’d just had the detonator.

Why would you do this?

Ugh, not again.

I-I wish I was dead! I wish I wouldn’t have to see what a monster you’ve-

Bill pulled himself up onto the couch and raised the blanket over his head. As if that could block out the incessant voice that only showed up at the worst of times.

He would not sleep again.

#gravity falls #flat dreams #human bill au #fanfiction #a different form a different time #bill cipher #ao3 #vee's writing #bet you thought you'd seen the last of me (bill voice)

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kuwajima · 2 months ago

Note

Hi! Hope this ask isn't weird but in the vein of talking about Zenitsu's backstory, what are your thoughts on Zenitsu's 7 evil ex girlfriends? As in, how do you tend to sort of place them on Zenitsu's pre-demon slaying timeline? And overall how do you imagine them, if think of them at all. Love your ideas about Zenitsu's backstory and kinda wanna know what you think of this aspect of his unexplored past!

I've noticed that the fandom rarely, if ever, do much with the knowledge of their existence beyond a passing mention when talking about Zenitsu's insecurities, whether in a fanfic or a meta post, which is interesting since, well, getting scammed 7 times by "romantic" partners seems like something really interesting to dwell into when writing about Zenitsu. I've read some really good fics featuring the inevitably horrible situation Zenitsu had as an orphan in the late Meiji Period, yours especially, but the exes shine by their absence across the whole spectrum of Zenitsu fanfic. I have my own thoughts about this but this is an ask, can't ramble too much lol.

Also, happy birthday! A little late but alas, hope you had a great day in your day and thank you for your fanfics in here! OMWF is just a gem and your other fanfic are just as good ❤️

I love this question!! I have put a lot of thought into them, because it does seem like an excessive number of times to be scammed and not learn your lesson, but it's very indicative of how much Zenitsu deludes himself while chasing what he believes is an ideal life. And now that you mention it, it is very rare to have them included in fanfic or meta outside of a casual reference to them.

I think the reason might be because the timeline is admittedly weird, so we have to believe that he speed ran seven girlfriends in his early teens, or the worse option is that some of them happened before he was a teenager.

And I think it has to be the latter, because I personally believe he was with Jigoro for a few years. I know it's canon that a slayer can usually learn their forms in about a year but there are a few things that indicate Zenitsu was with Jigoro for longer than that. He was hit by lightning and I refuse to believe the only side effect was the hair thing. Plus, Zenitsu is confirmed to be pretty lazy and although he is obviously a very skilled swordsman during the events of canon, Jigoro didn't know about the whole sleep-fighting thing so he should have only sent Zenitsu to Final Selection if he was sure he mostly wasn't going to die. And it's Zenitsu...there's no way he got up to speed in a year.

We are told in canon that Zenitsu dated all types of girls, and they all treated him badly, took his money, and more. The way it's worded (and this could be a translation thing) is that multiple women took his money. Now me personally, if I was a loan shark I would simply not loan money to an orphan child multiple times. There's also no way he was earning large sums of money (see the above point of him being lazy) so there had to be some time between losing his money and getting a new girlfriend. Especially if they were trying to get money out of him, there is no reason to go after a kid with absolutely no assets unless he already had a reputation of being easily manipulated.

I don't think he stayed in one town for very long either, so it's possible he ran away from other owed debts. But even then, we can assume there are probably a few months between girlfriends at least. And I don't think all of them took his money. For example, we know he dated a shopkeeper's daughter and she could have very well just made him work without pay at her father's shop as an act of "love."

Overall, I think it's a situation where Zenitsu would do their bidding for the "honor" of being allowed to say they are his girlfriend. That was the only thing he was getting out of the arrangement, since they didn't even let him hold their hands. I think it's probably incredibly obvious to anyone Zenitsu tells about his ex-girlfriends that he was never actually in a relationship with any of them. But Zenitsu still believes they were his girlfriends, despite being mistreated and sometimes betrayed by them. I think it's telling that only after he meets Jigoro does he understand that Jigoro is the only person in his life who cared about him (until he met Tanjiro, of course!) In the absence of childhood affection, those girlfriends probably did feel like true love at the time.

But you asked about the timeline. My guess is this probably happened over seven times over several years and the older he became, the most he was able to be manipulated (more access to money, a bigger reputation for being easily tricked, etc.) WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO MY EARLIER POINT: these girls were "dating" a tween.

We do see some faceless women when we learn that Zenitsu is full aware that women dislike him and deceive him (yet he keeps going back, because he convinces himself this time is different) and they certainly look like either teenagers or young adults. I assume these are examples of the girls he dated (there are 6 in the flashback and he has 7 exs, so I'm not 100% sure that's who they are) And obviously there was absolutely nothing intimate or romantic going on, but it does add a layer of malice to the whole thing. If he had been dating girls who were his own age, I'm not sure they would have been so malicious with their treatment of him. Their inclusion in his backstory is to show us that he is easily manipulated and repeatedly does not learn his lesson, because Zenitsu tricks himself into ignoring red flags.

And I'm not victim blaming. I think it's clear that he was intentionally victimized by these girls, but it is added to give us insight into Zenitsu's personality.

This is a very long-winded way to say, I believe they were all women older than Zenitsu, who either sought him out as an easy target or quickly realized he could be manipulated simply by being promised the title of Boyfriend. And they all occurred before he turned about 13, maybe 14.

But I would also love to hear your thoughts on the situation as well! I have grand schemes of writing a fic where he and Nezuko run into one of his exes post-canon and she initially thinks he's being tricked by another beautiful woman, but then she realizes that not only do they actually seem to like each other, but Zenitsu isn't the same person he was before.

And thank you for the birthday wishes!!

#zenitsu agatsuma #the last spring together

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barbra-annbunny · 8 months ago

Text

How Did We Get Here?

And it’s windy weather, boys, stormy weather, boys

When the wind blows, we’re all together, boys

Blow ye winds westerly, blow ye winds, blow

Jolly sou’wester, boys, steady she goes!

-“Fish in the Sea”

Three. Months.

Three. Long. Months.

That’s how long the Thousand Sunny had been at sea and had come to port. Everyone was itching to get off the boat and stretch their legs, and honestlyâ€¦ They were chomping at the bit to get away from each other.

Sanji desperately needed to restock on produce. Usopp needed more materials for his inventions. Chopper was scraping the bottom of the barrel with his medical supplies, and so on. So, when the opportunity came to make port at a major trading island the crew didn’t hesitate. They pulled off to a hidden cove to give themselves a little time before they were discovered. Zoro was left to his own devices to watch the ship while the others restocked.

The swordsman sat on the deck, sliding between the lulls of sleep and consciousness. Waves lapped at the hull of the ship, moored near a sandbar just off of the coast. His back leaned against the mast with swords in hand as he waited for danger or his crewmates to arrive, whichever came first. Zoro was just about to slip into a cat nap as the afternoon sun began to dip when a foot slammed into the top of his head.

”OW! The fuck was that for Curly Brow?”

Stamping out his cigarette, Sanji replied. “Y’know lookouts aren’t supposed to sleep on the job, Marimo.”

Zoro jumped up in indignation, “Tch. You’re a pain in my ass spaghetti hair.”

”Oh! You wanna talk about hair, mosshead?!”

Once again the thing that Zoro had been doing was interrupted, this time by two rubber bands hitting both of the arguing men square in the face. Both the cook and the swordsman turned to their would-be attacker, Usopp.

“We came to get Zoro to help us, not to fight, Love Cook.” Usopp sighed. “Seriously we’ve been sailing together for years now and you two still fight like teenagers.”

”Yeah, well it’s not like I’m the one to blame! He’s the one who attacked me while I slept.” Zoro muttered.

”You shouldn’t have been asleep to begin with, stupid.” the chef replied.

Usopp jumped between the two of them before another fight could begin. “Guys, we have a mission. That mission does not include killing each other, so would you cut it out?!”

After a tense moment the men relented. ”Fine.”

Zoro turned away from the two to attach his swords onto his hip. “So, what was so terrible that you needed my help?”

Both Usopp and Sanji shared a look, completely at a loss. “I don’t know how to describe this, it’d probably be best to show you.”

Sorry this took so long hehe <3 but here’s the next installment!

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | You are here | Ch 4

#zoro x sanji x reader #zoro x sanji #zoro x reader #sanji x reader #soulmate au #soulmate tattoos

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thewritersofdeceased · 1 month ago

Text

“you should get some rest, kid.” [ lean ] sender rests their head on receiver's shoulder

Oscar Delancey + Morris Delancey ;; Set after the fight at Newsie Square ;; Morris is older than Osc by about a year ;; @delancey-asks

Bloody knuckles. Jesus fuck did they hurt. Oscar sat with his back against the bed he'd been in ever since he was a young kid that was dropped off at his uncle's terrible place. He was looking at it with one eye, the other being a black eye and difficult to open without hissing out in some sort of pain. He remained silent, staring straight at the ground between his two feet, his boots being off and his mind remaining at it's quickened pace. The next time he'd get his hands on Jack, it wouldn't be a pretty sight, yet a much more bloodied one. He'd murder Jack if he could.

He had to get away from that stupid fight no matter what. He just had to. He didn’t leave Morris behind, but he did run when the bulls had bega to officially show up. Himself and his older brother didn’t have any good connections with the law, especially when the two were younger, right before their teenage years leading up to where they were now. A low sigh and huff would escape the younger boy, his eyes closing eventually. He was processing it all. How himself and his brother had managed to not kick the ass of any of the newsies. Well, they sure as hell had gotten some of them. The blonde, Race, they got him. At least he knew his brother did.

Speaking of his brother, the sound of someone pushing open the door was something that didn’t even make Oscar lift his head. Just the pure born silence was it. There was the remaining silence before the younger had noticed Morris sit beside him. “...your knuckles are bleeding, stupid.” Morris’s voice would ring through the cold air, the feeling of the older boys calloused fingers taking a hold of his hands. “I’m fine, Morris. I always am.” The younger's voice was partially cold, shaking his head right after. He knew he wasn’t fine. But Oscar despised help sometimes. Let alone from the man he idolized. He idolized Morris. The boy who would protect him from all harm and everything of the sort.

“No, you ain’t, Oscar.” The older would speak against the younger's protests, letting go of the shorter boy's hands. He had pulled the shorter up, not as forceful as he would to a newsie. Morris would be much more forceful and harsh with those stupid kids. Sure, he was a year or so younger, but the violence he held in the back of his mind always remained when it came to the newsies. If he had the chance, they’d all be stuck in that stupid refuge. At least one of them was though. The one with the limp. Though as he pulled his brother along, of course, Oscar would protest. “Morris, I can take care of myself-!” He’d complain, trying to get out of his older brother's hold.

Yet the attempt didn’t work in Oscar’s favor, as he was eventually tugged to the bathroom. “Sit.” Morris would grumble under his breath, yet it was still audible to the younger boy. Oscar didn’t exactly have a choice as he sat on the edge of the bath, looking down at his knuckles. They were aching like a bitch, that was something he wouldn’t hesitate to admit at all. “You gotta’ be more careful, Osc.” Morris would start to speak, searching for bandages in the mirror’s cabinets. “You shoulda’ let me handle the tougher and older ones.” He’d continue, taking out bandages from the cabinet. “Didn’t want you getting hurt.. Took them for you.” The younger one commented from the bathtub’s edge.

“Oscar. We’ve been brothers our whole life. I’ve been taking the hits for you since dad started to drink. You realize I’d risk my life for you to be safe, yeah?” Morris questioned as he gently took the younger boys hands again, gently tugging him once more. “Ow-.. Careful, stupid.” Oscar grumbled, hissing out in pain slightly at sudden movements close to where his knuckles had been. He’d hear his brother muter a quick sorry, before the sound of water had been all he could hear. “Wash your hands.” Morris would speak up, moving out of Oscar’s way, who only held a confused look. “It’ll hurt.” The younger grumbled, earning an eye roll. “Yeah, I know it will. But it’ll help clean the debris out of the wound.”

Even if Oscar didn’t want to hiss out in pain constantly, he listened to his older brother's suggestion, cleaning his hands thoroughly with soap and water, hissing out in pain every couple seconds or so. “Fucking-” Oscar would hiss out, going to move his hands away from the sink. The soap didn’t help at all, it was KILLING him to do this. “Couple more seconds, Osc. Then after the bleeding stops, rinse em.” His older brother would explain calmly, leaning against the wall just besides the door. He was making sure his brother was okay, something his father and uncle couldn’t even do. Now that Morris thought about it, the two had nobody that cared about each other. Nobody but theirselves.

“We got tweezers or anythin, Mor?” Oscar would ask as the taller boy had gotten a soft feeling cloth, knowing how the scratchy and uncomfortable feeling ones would annoy the younger boy. “Yeah, yeah. Just- let me do this real quick, okay? Then I’ll get everything else out and wrap it up. Got some stuff to put onto it too.” Morris would explain, focusing his attention on what he’d been doing, gently cleaning the skin around his brothers now sliiightly less bloodied knuckles. Of course, Oscar would hiss out in pain and let out curses of who knows what, but Morris didn’t stop him. “There ya go, let ‘em all out, Osc. I ain’t gonna stop ya.” Morris would mutter aloud to his brother, who continued on with the cursing before being gently pushed down back onto the edge of the bathtub.

Morris would grow quiet as he eventually would search for the tweezers, searching the same place the bandages were in. “Alright, you trust me enough to do the whole tweezer thing?” He questioned the younger, earning the slow nod from Oscar before he’d take Oscar’s hand into his, beginning to get to work taking out dirt and everything of the sort out of his brothers knuckles. “Ow, ow, ow-! Jesus, fuck!” Oscar complained, hissing out in pain every once and a while. Morris wouldn’t reply, allowing the other to squeeze his wrist or arm. It was a little bit before the older brother would talk once more, standing to his feet. “There we go. Dump it in the trash. I got to put the ointment and the bandages on, okay?” He didn’t want to hurt his younger brother any more than he already had been.

“. . . Yeah. Got it. Just be careful. Shit hurts enough.” Oscar’s tone had grown slightly harsh, but he didn’t mean to. He was tired, getting frustrated and in pain. “Ain’t gotta tell me twice.” Morris would respond to his brother's harsh tone, his eyes rolling slightly. He’d been used to harsh tones almost all his life, just letting it happen. It’s not like they were going to fight, both boys were too tired for it. “Here, hold the bandages.” Morris would hum, beginning to put the ointment onto his brother's hands whilst humming a tune their mother would sing to either of them before they’d fall asleep. Morris remembered it more than Oscar had most of the time. Though a comment from the younger made a small smile form on Morris’s face. “You’re singing mom’s song..”

Morris would merely hum in response to his brother's comment, continuing to hum the tune as he carefully put the ointment onto his brother's knuckles, which merely led to more hisses of pain. “You’re okay, Osc. Just gotta bandage them now.” His voice remained soft, Morris not daring to get all snappy at his brother. He took the bandages from the shorter and younger, beginning to wrap the gauze bandages around the now cleaner wounds. “Here we go… just…” Morris spoke to himself whilst fixing the bandages, eventually moving the bandages away and going back to the cabinet. “Go get changed, Osc. I know we both need sleep.” He mumbled out to the younger now, who merely nodded his head and headed towards the two’s shared room.

It took Morris a while to come out of the bathroom and to relax on the bed his brother had sat back on. He held a calm expression, tired. He knew he’d have to take care of his younger brother, but he’d do anything for the kid. Morris closed his eyes, just for a quick second, but he felt something hit his shoulder. Opening his right eye, he noticed his younger brother leaning his head against the oldest shoulder. “...you should get some rest, kid.” He’d comment softly, wrapping his arm around his baby brother's shoulder, who only hummed a noise of protest in response. “...that’s what I’m trying to do, dumbass..” Oscar would grumble out in response, keeping his eyes closed. Morris would hum out, nodding his head slightly, remaining still so his brother could sleep. “Alright, alright… love ya, Osc..” He didn’t often say that, but he did notice that a smile seemed to form onto his brother’s face. “Love you too, Mor. “

#Delaney brothers #morris delancey #oscar delancey #delancey bros #newsies #newsies fic #stories based off rp #RP writings

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80s4life · 1 year ago

Text

No Time For ‘What If’s?’*

Word Count: 5,096

Status: Requested!

Ask: can I get a SFW/NSFW whatever. Cobra Kai John Kreese x f! reader student (who's 20+ and not in highschool) who sometimes looks at him a certain way but always looks depressed and Kreese took notice... {There's more, but I'm not giving away all the goodies}

@: @harlequinautumn

Summary: I decided to make this somewhat of a song inspired prompt. This is based off of the song "Daddy Issues" by The Neighborhood. I think you can see where this us going...

Warnings: some angst, fluff, smut, dd/lg type of energy, age-gap, master/sensei/daddy kink, teacher/student kink, READER is in her 20′s, self-consciousness, self-hate, uncomfortable with body issues, appearance, etc.

Masterlist Karate Kid Masterlist Cobra Kai Masterlist

{Gifs are not mine, credits go to @sensei-venus & @danlarussc}

Had to put this last gif here because GRAND DADDY...

Scribbling in the notebook, you try to hide the blush on your face with the final thought you write into it. ‘He touched my arm during practice to help me keep my balance. His hand was warm and comforting, yet strong and held the promise of security,’ you smile. It’s childish, you know that, but unlike most of the kids in Reseda, Kreese, or better known as Master Kreese in your diary, was a man. He held a great promise with his status and a stern maturity in his movements and emotions.

What’s more, he can manage to keep it in his pants, to both your comfort and frustration.

You look up, feeling his eyes on you and your smile instantly drops into a numb pout. You’ve loved him for as long as you could remember. It wasn’t your fault however, as it was never planned.

He was your Sensei in the beginning, knowledgeable and strong, stoic with knowledge. Somehow, you’d find as the more time you’d spent in his class and in the higher rankings, you grew tired of his teachings and more interested in him as a person. He kept his personal life private and away from public eyes - most certainly the cool teacher you could sneak into a bar or eat at a fast food restaurant with just to hang out. Soon your innocent interest had faded into something carnal, sinful. There was nothing you could do to stop the mind of a young adult, much less one that still held the feelings of her teenage years.

He made you feel like that little 15 year old girl every time he looked at you, unable to see his feelings through any aspect of his body. You could never tell if he was scrutinizing you or just plainly looking.

“Break’s over guys. Back to the mats!” he commands, eyes sliding from yours to encase the room through a tactical sweep.

Clasping the tiny lock through its metal bearing, you lock your diary with a click and shove it into your drawstring back, hurriedly shuffling back onto the mats to endure your next beating.

After about an hour of endless training without any breaks, Kreese glanced at the watch embracing his veined, muscular wrist, checking the time. Without a word, the class is ordered to do another set of push-ups before he calls it a day.

Huffing, you grab your tiny towel and lay it across your shoulders, using one of the ends to dab at your forehead. The boys pat you on your back as they start to gather their things, some heading to the showers to wash up quickly, others complaining about the homework they haven’t gotten to yet.

“God am I glad I don’t have to do that shit anymore,” you murmur, giggling as you could hear Tommy groan.

“Can I give you a call later, Y/N? Help me go over my essay for Mr. Whees?” Johnny asks, breathy and miserable.

“Sure Johnny Boy, but you’ll owe me an ice cream cone next time we head to the beach.”

“Sweet! Deal!” he punches your shoulder, speeding out of the dojo to get a headstart on finishing said writing that’s due tomorrow morning.

Giggling, you wave your goodbyes to some of the other guys as you grab your bag, walking slowly towards the showers, feeling the extent of your workout in your calves and knees. Stopping just short of the room, you peer into Kreese’s office, “Sensei?”

“Y/L/N,” he answers, the rumble of his voice sending shivers down your spine.

“I’m gonna head to the showers. It’s going to be a while, so if you need me to lock up, I can.”

“No, you’re fine, Y/L/N. I’ll be working on some paperwork for a while also.”

“Okay, thanks,” you blush, a small smile spreading on your lips as you slink off of the doorframe and continue your way to the showers.

In your drunken haze of lust, you had seemed to miss Kreese’s eyes slip to your bag, shiny pink diary having poked through the jagged holes in the old drawstring bag. He couldn’t help his curiosity, having taken notice to your attachment to the small object, always writing, always peering over its covers to see if anyone was watching. It was peculiar, and though he had been caught a few times, your reaction and apparent nervousness is what made him want to know exactly what was in that book.

Hearing as the soft hums of pleasure radiates with the heat of the streaming water, Kreese keeps a close eye on where your book lied, checking to see if any of the boys were left in the dojo. Walking towards the chairs at the front of the dojo - where you had last left your drawstring bag - Kreese closes the blinds of the dojo; the appearance of it being closed a small comfort and reassurance of another day spent and gone. No one else will try to come back in, no one will bother him.

He turns to leave and go back to his office, but his feet won’t carry him. Peering down at the loose drawstring bag, pink book still peeking out of its covers, he debates whether or not he should satiate his curiosity or infiltrate your personal space. Choosing the latter, he pulls the book slowly as to not mess with the bag’s positioning too much.

Walking back to his office, he leaves the door open a crack, the sound of the shower humming prompting him to see what’s been eating at him. What has been making you look so enthralled and sad at the same time. What’s been making you so mysterious.

Kreese almost doesn’t even want to open the book. He knows everything about his students, but you? You’re a mystery. A chase. He almost doesn’t want the high of the cat and mouse game to end. However, he just rolls his shoulders, prying the key to the lock from the bindings you had not-so-subtly tried to hide.

‘Silly Girl. So mature yet so naive,’ he thinks, unlocking the small metal that kept him from his answers.

Leaning back in his chair, he props his feet on his desk, opening the book at last. Shuffling through some pages, he comes to find this pink book as your diary. Delving deeper, he flips through some random pages, the headers and dates catching his eyes and honing in.

January 21st: The Reckoning

This date isn’t far different from any other day, just a date. However, the header is what piques his interest.

‘Another day at the dojo. Another array of cuts and bruises. Johnny and the boys are just finishing their first year as freshmen in highschool and I’m stuck here. 22, young, single, graduated, andddd no life plan ahead of me. I realized that my interest in Sensei Kreese is starting to feel different. I no longer want to know about him, I want to know everything. What type of coffee he likes, if he even likes coffee, what he does in his freetime, what does he like most in a partner? Ugh.’

January 22nd: The Realization

‘Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIT! Rereading what I was feeling yesterday and watching it bloom tenfold has finally made me come to my senses. 8 years of practicing with this man and I finally catch whiff of what my so-called “interest” was and I finally come to my senses now? “Stupid Girl” as Kreese would say. Stupid Girl is right!’

A bemused smile perches on Kreese’s lips. It’s like high school all over again, and he’s the center focus. He flips a few pages more.

February 3: Valentines Sluts

‘February has just came around and so has my birthday. However, I keep seeming to find myself going into a Valentines craze. Almost as bad as high school. I stared at Master Kreese for a while during break today (thank God we got one). He was wearing his signature black gi with yellow accents, his arms string with veins of hard labor drawn into them. His hair was a bit scruffier and his eyes were a tired blue. God, how I could get lost in them. My eyes trailed down a bit though. Sorry...not sorry. I used an excuse that I rolled my ankle and needed to rest for a bit, but I only ended up watching him. How he helped the boys stretch and train. He worked so hard that his skin turn a light shade of red, sweat droplets sliding down his forehead to his cheekbones, jaw, down his neck, on his collar bones, and sadly, disappeared down his shirt. Oh what I would give to be that droplet of sweat. Almost as exciting as it would be if I could get him that riled up. Happy almost Valentines Day *winky face with heart eyes drawn on the side of page*’

Kreese lets out a low whistle, chuckling a bit. Suddenly, things were getting steamy. He’s a bit surprised by your diary; such a pristine, put together, grown woman, and here you are, displaying your thoughts like a horny teenager.

Skipping through more dates, Kreese finds more and more sinful readings, something small turning much greater. However, there were undertones of regret, sadness, and...lack of self worth. Not only have the thoughts gotten increasingly dirtier, but they also grew more insecure and sad. And, as the dates grew closer to present day, it seemed that all confidence and harmless thinking were starting to take a toll. You were no longer happy with yourself, however, you kept writing all your fantasies as if they would make you feel any better.

Finally, Kreese nears the end of your diary.

Today: Confusion

‘Again, I found myself staring at him. Again, I snuck away to write about him not even 10 feet away. And, again, I find myself no closer and so much farther away from the man I thought I was getting to know. I’m 25 now and still have the mental and physical strength of the lowly 14 year old that met him in high school. I’m starting to fear I will never get to tell him how I feel. Never get to live and explore. Never be enough for him. I almost got caught writing about him today and I couldn’t care less. If anything, maybe it would be a gateway to romance? Those hot scenarios I’ve built up, gotten off to, and scribbled down in these old pagers. But, those are all just more scenarios and fantasies never lived. Maybe it’s time to move on.’

You go on to think of your past, future, and present, and how any of it was either worth or waste of time. He wants to keep reading - wants to delve deep into your wondrous mind.

He didn’t hear the shower stop, too caught up in the insecurity you call yourself.

“Sensei?” your light voice calls out, hair damp and pinned in a clip. Rugged jeans with rips, converse, and a white cropped tee with black sleeves adorning your delicate features. Your brows are furrowed, a mixture of confusion, loss, and fear flashing in your E/C orbs; rounded by the initial surprise and emotions that cross you in such an unexpected predicament. “W-What are you doing?”

For a moment, Kreese just sits, book still open with the presence of his thumb on the page he’s left off on. He’s silent, studying you as he recounts all that he’s read from your book and more. “Reading your diary,” he states plainly, obviously. Truthfully.

You crumble on the spot, wanting to dig a hole and die in it. “Where’d you find it? Wait - How’d you unlock it?” you all but screech, going straight for your bag.

Kreese slings out of his chair and around his desk instantly, catching your wrist in the middle of the dojo.

“What are you doing, Sensei? Can’t you see I’m already embarrassed enough? You’re just making it worse-”

“Is all of this true?” he asks, holding the book up, now closed. His thub no longer holding his place. ‘Shit,’ he thinks, shaking his head.

“It’s a diary, isn’t it?” you try to lighten the mood, scratching the back of your neck and nodding to the front cover plainly stating, ‘DIARY’.

“Yes, but everything inside?”

“Every page, every day, for the past 8 years.” You figure it’s time to come clean, no matter the consequences. This has gone on for long enough, and by the looks of it, he’s not too mad at you. Or happy, or sad. In fact, now that you look at it, he looks as if he feels nothing.

You take a step back, your hand limply being allowed out of its hold, and briskly walk for your bag. Just as you go to walk for the door this time, the same warm, calloused hand wraps itself around your much tinier wrist, yanking you back the other direction. “Sensei, please,” you beg, “Just let me go home! I’ll never bother you again, and you can forget all about this ordeal. It’s really not that big of a deal!”

Pulling you through to his office, he turns and locks the door with a key. To ensure your inability to get out, he takes the key and places it in his front jean pocket and sits down on his side of the desk. Motioning for you to follow his lead, you just stand there.

Almost annoyed, he states, “Well, I’m not going to tell you again,” pointing to the chair opposite him.

Eyes rounded, you stare blankly from his face to the chair and back again. ‘Is he serious?’

Sitting down, you watch in horror as Kreese opens the book back up again, finding a specific page in your novelty of recountments. “Ah, here it is,” he chuckles.

Reading the page out loud, he starts with the header:

“June 11th: Midnight Blues

‘I took some time alone today. It seems everyday is getting harder and harder. Not only am I trying to finish my senior year, but I’m trying to find my way - my path. Sitting on the hood of my car, somewhere tucked behind the Hollywood sign (my hiding spot), I looked up and watched the stars and tried to get my plans in order.

Mom wants me to go to college in Charleston, SC with her, but Dad wants me to stay somewhere close and doesn’t care if I go to college or not. Mom’s got family down South, Dad has just me. Both are choices I don’t want to make; I don’t want to hurt either or’s feelings.

Then there’s Kreese. God how I love him. If I were to choose to leave or which parent, it would be a choice solely on where he will be or how he feels. But, then again, what does he feel? I mean, he would never look at a little girl like me. It’s disgusting, though I’m legal, and a big inconvenience. A little girl following a man who has seen all parts of the world with her tail wagging and eyes bugging out of her head at the sight of him. He’s grown, experienced, and independent. He would look for someone way older than me for sure. It’s only right, given they would share similar aspects to him.

No one ever looks at me. And neither will he.’”

“Ring a bell?” he asks, finishing off the page.

“It was the end of senior year and there was a whole ton of shit going on. I don’t remember much, i-it was 4 years ago. All I remember was being diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression sometime afterwards. Though, if I can add to that, I’d had it for years, but neither mom nor dad wanted to get me examined since I was 14. It was a shitshow that summer.”

“Do you really think such heinous things of yourself?” he asks, brows furrowing as he stands, looping around the desk slowly as he assesses you.

“Yes. There’s always been that little voice in the back of my head...” you trail off, fingers interlocking and fiddling to try and ease said stress, eyes locking with his in a trance.

“Where do you get that shit from?” he almost snarls, making you bow your head in shame. “Ah. Ah. I want to see those pretty eyes.”

“Why’s you read that page to me?”

“I wanted you to feel exactly as you felt then and try to sum up your thoughts and emotions. You see, I study you, and now, I’ve read you. Those feelings were never resolved...Why do you hate yourself so much, Babygirl?”

“I-I.” you stutter, trying to form some sort of answer. “I’ve never sought the validation I’ve needed.”

“And, why not?” he asks, arms splayed behind him and hands propping him up as he leans on his desk before you. Staring down at you.

“Because the only person I’ve ever needed validation from was you.” This time, you stand to meet his level, “I’ve never cared for what my parents thought because they only cared to one-up each other with me as their weapon. I never sought the validation of teachers because they only said what would get them more money in the end - once again, using me. I never sought validation from the girls or the guys at school because I’ve always been the odd one out. The only person I’ve ever sought validation from was you. You because you treated me as equal with the rest of the boys. You saw something in me that made me feel like I shined like a brand new corvette. So, you tell me: why have you always done that, knowing damn well I could’ve gone without it?” You got so close to him that you hadn’t realized the inches between you two, breath heavy with the long-held exasperation.

“That,” he points at you, “That fire. You’ve always had it. You shined through everyone else and paved your own way without making any noise, or causing any destruction. You’re a strong, beautiful force that somehow has managed to fall over and over again, yet always got back up and never sought anyone’s help.”

Tears well up in your eyes as you’ve finally heard what you’ve always waited for. He’s watched you all along, guided you. He’s ensured your safety since he had met you - 14 years old, scared, weak, and hopeless. You thought you’d never get out of that shithole you were stuck in, but you had Kreese.

Sniffling you couldn’t help your actions, hand grasping his black T-shirt and pulling him in. Your other hand goes for his cheek, cupping it and pulling him down to your height. Slowly, you allow yourself the reprieve of almost a decade with this man, lips just hardly touching each other. You’re waiting - waiting for him to turn his back and pull away, but it doesn’t come.

His huge hands grasp your waist to pull you in close, one hand leaving your hip to brace the back of your head, connecting his lips to yours. He pulls you as close as he can, your body getting up to straddle him on his desk, his arms crushing you chest to chest.

Your tears mix in to your kiss, the salty droplets of water mixing with the dancing of your tongues and you feel him squeeze. You grab at his shoulder, neck, chest, and soon grasp the hairs at the nape of his neck tenderly; starved for the attention and connection you’ve wished for ever since your teenage years.

He happily obliges, his own hand tangling in your hair at the base of your head and yanking it back - not hard, but strong enough to make you gasp at the excitement, sudden movement, and slight pain it had caused. His lips are on your neck now, suckling and licking at the coloumn of it, growling like a crazed animal about to eat its next meal.

You moan out, the action causing you to gasp again, eyes wide and mortified.

You can feel his cheshire grin on your neck, suckling a huge hickey into your collar bone with pride. Pulling back, he takes a good look at you, breathless, chest bouncing at the force of it, straddling his hips with your slimmer, toned ones - both from young age and practicing in the dojo.

His hands move from you head and back down to lay on your hips, “Tell me how you want me to take you. Or should I look at one of your excerpts? Hm?” he teases, hazely green eyes turning to dark, mossy embers.

“I’m sure you’ve read enough,” you tease back, breathing out with defeat and humor.

“I can think of something,” he assures.

Standing up, his hands supporting your weight by your thighs, he loops around the desk, placing you to sit on it. Slowly, he traces your thighs, then your hips, waist, outline of your breasts, collar bone to your arms, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Your eyes are glued to him, his arm slipping from your hand back up to the sleeves of your T-shirt, tugging at them, signaling for you to lift your arms.

He pulls your shirt off slowly, tantalizingly, taunting you as it is lifted over your head and thrown to the floor. He sucks in a breath, the sight of you leaving him silent. No words were spoken, but his lips were on your once more, forcefully taking you in like it’s his last time. ‘Impossible.’

Unbuttoning your jeans, he helps you off the desk to shimmy out of them, pulling you close to him once they’re thrown somewhere, too. He kisses in between your thighs, one for each, going to trace up your stomach. You stop him.

Looking at him with uncertainty, you’re hit with embarrassment and uncertainty.

“What’s wrong, Sweetheart?”

“It’s not you... I-It’s me.”

Deeply, he searches your eyes, already knowing the answer but searching for the confirmation. Sighing, he places a knuckle under your chin, lifting it so your eyes meet his. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you’re gorgeous, Baby Girl.”

You still look at him hesitantly, which causes him to sigh again.

“Let me show you what I see,” he smirks, a softness in his eyes that tells you there’s nothing to be scared of. Just as he had throughout your highschool years: the drama, bullying, home life, and all.

You nod, hands grasping both sides of his face and pulling him in, kissing him sweetly. He whimpers a little bit, hoping you wouldn’t catch it, but you did. It ignites a fire deep within your gut.

He teases you, a finger sliding your underwear over to the side, fingers playing with your clit. You suck in a deep breath, back arching as you support your weight behind you, on your hands. His hands lays on your sternum, pushing you down further until your resting on your elbows.

Refusing to be pulled down, you sit back up, allowing him to play with you while you attempt to lift his shirt above his head, shakily. He watches you with amused eyes, liking the struggle your body portrays under the heat of his pleasure. He allows you to fumble around a bit more before he helps you out, lifting the bottom of his shirt and taking it off over his head. Hands going back to what they were doing prior.

Your eyes are glued to him, drinking him in as the fire burns brighter and hotter within your core. Greedily, you go for his belt, able to take it off with want and newfound strength as you grow more impatient.

You can hear him chuckle under his breath, pressing you back down by the sternum again, helping finish your goal. He removes the belt with one hand, pulling you off the desk and forcing you to face it. Taking the belt, he ties it around your wrists, tucking it into a drawer like a leash, too thick and sturdy to be able to pull it back out.

Whining, you look at him over your shoulder, begging him with your eyes.

“You’ve been a bad girl. Good girls don't get tied if they do as they’re told. You keep moving without permission, so I had to limit you. Now. If you use your words, you’ll get what you want.”

You moan in frustration, head spinning back to lay against the desk, arching your back and attempting to wiggle your ass against his crotch. But, to your disapproval, he takes a step back, watching you squirm.

You groan again, giving in, “Please, just fuck me.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Pulling your panties down to your ankles, Kreese teases and taunts you with a finger, sliding it through your folds and occasionally at your entrance, but as quickly as the finger is there, it’s off and somewhere else less needy.

“Goddammit! Fuck me, please!!” you grit out, growing antzy and frustrated with your head laid against the hardwood. If you weren’t tied down to the fucking desk, you’d take matters into your own hands by now.

He yanks your hair by the back of your head, pulling you up, the back of your head against his shoulder. His mouth nips your earlobe, whispering, “I’d watch your tone if you want me to give you what you want.”

“Yes, Master,” you grit out, smiling as you feel his whole body grow still.

Letting go of your hair instantly, his pushes your head down into the desk, taking his member in one hand as the other makes sure you are fully prepared. Without warning, he plunges in about halfway, giving you time to adjust, although surprised by the intrusion.

You groan loudly, your voice echoing off the desk with force. You can feel him shake with pleasure within you, a loud, breathy moan releasing from his lips. Nodding your head weakly, he starts to set a pace within you, making sure he’s arched enough to tease your G-spot.

You moan again, hands clutching the vice he’s got you trapped in. “Say it again,” he yells, starting to thrust deeper, the pleasure building.

He’s starting to go off the edge quickly, but you can’t let him. Not yet. “Untie me first,” you order plainly, refusing to give him what he wants just yet. “It’s my turn.”

He shuckles with a little annoyance, but otherwise pulls out, slightly shoving you out of the way so he can quickly untie the belt. Because of the force he’d given you at a simple command, you decide to give him just as much of a hard time.

Once untied, you turn to face him, a sultry smile on your face, a devilish look in your eye. Using the same force he had applied, you shove him into his desk chair, forcing him to sit when the chair hits the back of his knees. Slowly, you go to straddle his hips, your raises above him, teasing him.

“Masters aren’t supposed to be so mean if they are promised to get what they want, are they?”

“N-No,” he stutters, the change in demeanor so delicious to soak in. You have him wrapped around your little finger.

“’No’, what?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Good enough,” you giggle, grinding down into him, bottoming out inside of you.

He whimpers out again, the sound music to your ears. Slowly you set a pace, his hands coming down to grasp your hips and help you grind in perfect tandem. Together, you bounce, while he charges up to meet you, slowly grinding you forward and backwards a bit, too. The motion makes you gasp, the perfect mixture of friction and being full of him. You moan out, your hands laying on top of his tightly as you feel the edge creeping slowly.

“Call me again,” he groans out, head leaning back onto the headrest of the chair.

“Look me in the eyes.”

Doing as you asked, he looks at you fully, a bit of heat rising to the surface and making him a tint of red from the chest up. A sheen of sweat covers the both of you, making you both shine in the dim lighting of the room. “Master.”

His head throws back into the shair again, his thrusts intensifying in speed and force. You whine out, grabbing his biceps now, nails digging. “Master, make me finish. Please.”

His hands dig into your hips, forcing your body down as he charges faster, the chair squeaking. Your moans get louder and louder, more frequent with the force applies. “I-I’m gonna cum,” you warn, too close to wait for permission.

Just as you feel the tight knot snap, you’re filled with his warm seed, one hand moving from your hip to yank your hair again, his lips capturing the colum of your neck as he bites down, a deep growl releasing as he fills your with his potential kids.

You ride your high until there’s nothing left, jumping at the overstimulation or any contact at all. Finally releasing his hold, his hands lay on your thighs as yours rest on his shoulders, catching your breath.

You giggle, opening your eyes after a moment to look at him. You kiss his lips sweetly, a grin on his face as well as he admires you. “I love you, Kreese. Always have.”

He chuckles as he tucks your head in the crook of his neck, hands rubbing your back, fingers playing with the clasp of your bra. “I love you, too, Y/L/N.”

“Y/N.”

“John.”

“John,” you mimic.

“Y/N,” he copies, chuckling as he plays with your hair.

“’February 14th: Valentines Day’,” Kreese recounts the page he had engraved in his head. That was one of your dirtiest of fantasies.

You gasp, swatting his shoulder as your cheeks burn with the reminder, “You Devil!”

May 28th: When Two Hearts Intertwined.

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honeybeezgobzzzzz · 7 months ago

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🔱 A Queen’s Duty, A King’s Privilege

A Queen’s Duty, A King’s Privilege: You have been the Queen of Atlantis for nearly two years, dutifully performing you queenly duties, all except for one that is. You have yet to give your king an heir. Convinced that your husband has always only tolerated your presence, you will soon find out Orm's opinion couldn’t be farther from your thoughts.

Warnings: Mature and Explicit Themes.

To Note: Orm Marius x XebellNAMED!FEMReader, hair and eye color are given, dividers by @firefly-graphics.

Word Count: ~5.1k

Kicking your way across the palace, your red hair streamed behind you in rippling waves as you headed towards the grand hall. As the queen of Atlantis, it was your duty to attend hearings with your husband to listen to the troubles and inquiries from your people. You had been Queen of the Atlantean people for nearly two years and it never ceased to trouble you with how many showed up to voice their troubles.

You took your job as the Queen of Atlantis very seriously. Years ago, when your mother died and you were left to take care of your little sister Mera, Atlanna had stepped forward and raised both of you as her own, guiding you as best she could. Now, years later, she might be gone, but you still felt a very ingrained depth of gratitude towards the Atlantean people. As queen, it was only right of you to try your best to rule and protect them.

Swimming into the great hall, guards nodded in greeting as you headed for the dais, and took your spot next to your husband. Settling down in your seat, you folded your hands in your lap and looked onwards. The crowd of Atlantean citizens had already started gathering. Your eyes scanned the growing crowd.

“Is it just me, or are there more citizens than we normally see?” You questioned, turning your head to look at Orm and Vulko.

“There has been an increased amount of attacks by the Trench Kingdom as of late, my queen,” Vulko spoke up. “These citizens are no doubt the sufferers of their attacks.”

“These citizens are from the outreach colonies,” Orm explained, his calm blue eyes meeting yours. “We have already set up alternative housing for them within the city.”

You nodded in understanding, falling silent as you thought over the implication of the Trench Kingdom increasing their attacks, and being so close to the city itself. They were getting bolder with each passing year, and if not taken care of, every citizen not within the walls of Atlantis would flock here. You didn’t have that kind of housing.

“We won’t have the space if this continues,” You murmured quietly, your fingers curling in slightly at the foreboding thought.

“We will discuss further action at the council meeting later today,” Orm responded, giving you a hint of a smile. That took you back. Orm was not a man who was well adept at kindness or smiling for that matter. King Orvax made sure of that.

Growing up with him, you had always made sure to try to be on the best terms with Orm; you were going to eventually get married and it was best if you were at least friends when that happened. But for some reason, he spent most of his time becoming the best warrior in the ocean, and you always got the feeling that he tolerated your presence in his life.

Now, years on from your teenage life, you were his wife pretty much in name only. He stayed busy trying to protect the kingdom from the threat of the surface and the pollution that was killing your people, and you spent as much time as you could as the best queen that Atlantis needed. Except for one little fact. You hadn’t given him an heir.

It was kind of hard to when you both slept in opposite ends of the palace, hardly ever saw each other outside of royal duties, and to be frank, never really talked to each other than to discuss plans for the city. You owed him and Atlantis an heir, but how exactly was that going to happen when you felt like he only tolerated your presence?

You always thought you were decently pretty, not nearly as pretty as your younger sister Mera, but you could hold your own. Mera and you were spitting images of each other, only Mera had softer lines and features, a product of your struggle to raise her to have the best life she could get. You were more battle hardened underneath your dark green body suit; you didn’t have the same soft curves she did. Your body had long since adapted to hard hewn muscle with the occasional scar.

As long as Mera had a good life, your job as the eldest was successful and your mother could rest in peace. The hearings went by slowly, what seemed like an endless line of citizens lining up to inform you of their difficulties, and when the time slot was finally closed, you had a headache and felt the stresses of the people.

There were so many problems, and not enough of advisors and rulers to take care of the situations that arose. It seemed like a miracle that anything got done. Rising from your seat, you started making your way towards the advisor’s chamber, readying yourself for your headache to get worse.

“Itara!” Pausing, you looked back to see Mera swimming towards you. You let her catch up before continuing your journey.

“Is something bothering you?” You questioned her after you left behind most of the crowd. Mera raised her eyebrow up at you.

“You tell me, there is talk amongst the maids about your inability to provide Orm an heir.” That had you pausing in your tracks. You knew it would eventually come up. Really, your only official job, according to the old scriptures, was to provide Orm with as many heirs as he wished, mainly sons.

“Your maids need to learn to keep their thoughts to themselves, especially if they have enough time to talk about such frivolous thoughts,” You responded coolly, dropping to your feet on the stone flooring. “There is nothing wrong with your ability to procreate, you needn’t worry about me not being able to perform my duty.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Mera announced, lightly taking your wrist. “I want to know if you are okay, you never talk with me anymore.”

Orm and Vulko appeared in the hallway, mid conversation, and Orm’s eyes met yours. Your eyelids fluttered as you pursed your lips and tore your gaze from his.

“Everything is fine, Mera, I am simply busy you needn’t worry,” You told her, brushing a strand of her hair free from her face. “There isn’t anything I can’t handle as the queen.”

She didn’t look convinced, but didn’t press further on the subject. Releasing her light grip on your wrist, Mera continued on to the advising room.

“May I have a moment with you, my queen?” Orm’s voice floated through the hallway, making you stiffen ever so slightly. Everyone seemed to be out for you today.

“Of course, my king,” You responded demurely, twisting your body to face him. Vulko gave you a respective nod before leaving you and Orm alone to talk in the hallway. “Is there something wrong, it seems that everyone wishes to talk to me today.”

“It has come to my attention that we have yet to have an important discussion. I would like it if you would please meet me in my room tonight.” Looking up into his eyes, you tried to search for an emotional give away of what he intended to talk about, but as usual, he was far too good at hiding things from you.

“I will meet you when I am done with my duties,” You promised with an inclination of your head. You then frowned. “Do you know what had Mera on edge so much? I’ve never seen her so worried.”

“I believe Mera is just highly concerned for her older sister,” Orm explained before gesturing towards the council chamber doors. “May I escort you?”

“You’re my husband. That privilege is yours and yours alone,” You told him, taking his arm and turning your head towards the double doors.

The rest of your day was extremely busy after the meeting. You had been called to discuss a few disputes between the nobles, one of which ended up with two idiots challenging each other over a woman. So you then ended up having to referee a challenge, which took forever because the two men ended up locking tridents and growling at each other for an entire hour.

Eventually it ended up with the woman screaming that the two idiots that she wasn’t going to choose either of them. That had massively deflated their tails in a tumultuous ending. You had briefly spoken with the harassed woman, making sure that she would not be bothered again before departing.

So after a grueling day of indenturing royal duties, you had headed back to your private rooms, relaxed in your steam vent shower for a few minutes before changing into an emerald green silk slip to sleep in. You did have one more duty to attend to before going to bed, meeting up with Orm. Grabbing a simple grey robe, you covered up your body to hide the revealing slip and tied it off before swimming for Orm’s private wing.

Finding yourself at the guarded entrance to Orm’s wing, the guards greeted you with respectful bows, informing you that Orm had one last affair to take care of, but wished for you to wait inside for him. Entering the spacious suite, you floated around, your eyes taking in the beautiful sculptures and decorations that were placed around the rooms.

Orm hailed from a line that had long since collected riches and beautiful artifacts from the old world. So naturally he would have unbelievably beautiful sculptures and decorative weapons. But what caught your attention was not all the flashy artifacts and vases, but the balcony over viewing the city. Lightly skipping your way over to the stone carved railing, you looked out at Atlantis, a sense of pride and honor running through your veins.

This was your city, your home, and every citizen worked together for the better of your oceans and your way of life. That was why you tried so hard to be a good queen, one they deserved. Your hands lightly gripped the railing as you watched turtle trains glide smoothly around buildings, carrying vital supplies and goods.

You were sure that Orm wanted to talk about the issue of heirs; it was obvious and something you had never talked about. You would probably go about it as clinical as possible. It was your job and Orm could always go to a noble woman he actually liked for further intimacy. You heard the tell-tale signs of Orm, his voice echoing as he talked with the guards, the light boom of the stone doors closing, the shuffling of his armor as he loosened it up.

“Your day sounded far busier than I expected,” Orm quietly spoke, his voice floating to your ears. Reaching up, you brushed your red hair behind your ear while you turned away from the city. Orm had removed his greaves and breastplate, and was now working on his vambraces. They were notoriously harder to take off alone when you only had one hand.

Taking the initiative, you glided over to him and gently took his arm, your smaller fingers replacing his hand as you loosened up the string of the vambraces.

“I try to stay busy,” you answered him as you fully loosened the knot and pulled the vambrace free from his wrist. Your eyes darted up to his blue ones ever so briefly before you moved to work on his remaining vambrace. “There is plenty to do and I want to be a good queen.”

“Who said you weren’t a good queen?” Orm questioned, his eyebrow going up as you pulled off his remaining vambrace. You gave him a soft shrug of your shoulders.

“Queens are only good for one thing, my king,” you told him quietly as you went to place the vambraces on the armor stand for tomorrow. Sliding the vambraces into their holder, you lightly ran your finger down the golden scales. “I am not blind to that duty, I owe you an heir, it is expected.”

“Would having my child be that cumbersome to you?” His tone was snippy and egged your own attitude towards your discussion.

“It matters not what I feel,” you stated, your fingers dropping from the beautiful armor and fisting your robe. “You clearly only tolerate my presence, so what difference does it make?”

A hand closed around your wrist and had you spinning in a dizzying circle, your body ultimately being tugged against a hard, warm chest as you steadied yourself with your palm on Orm’s shoulder. Letting out a startled breath, you lifted your wide eyes to Orm’s as his other hand grasped your chin.

“Are you really that unhappy here, Itara? Unhappy with me?” He asked, his blue eyes searching your green ones.

“I wouldn’t say I am unhappy,” you responded, your cheeks heating up slightly at his close proximity. “I just—I want to be a good queen like your mother… and yet sometimes I feel you go out of your way to stay busy, to stay away from me… I don’t want to admit it, but I will give you your desired heirs, and I won’t protest if you choose to seek intimacy from a more attractive woman.”

Rather than be pleased by your words and acceptance of not protesting him seeking pleasure and comfort elsewhere, he seemed to be irritated, if not irate. You didn’t have time to contemplate what you had said to make anger simmer behind those crystal blue eyes before his grip on your chin tightened and he was pulling your mouth to his.

Shock, utter shock, filled your veins and burned a clear path through each and every pathway to your brain as Orm hungrily pressed his soft lips against yours. Your heart started racing in your chest while your skin prickled in delight. When you had wed, in front of citizens from both Xebel and Atlantis, you had only shared a brief, chaste kiss, as was expected of a King and Queen, but this was nothing like that simple brush of lips.

This was hungry, dominating, and had every single molecule of your being consumed by boiling heat and desire. His hand released your chin and slid along your cheek until his fingers reached your floating hair. His fingers dug into your flaming red hair, weaving into your locks until he had a firm hold.

Biting down on a soft moan, your fingers curled into his basic purple armor, making your nails scratch the delicate yet infinitely strong scales. That small sound from the back of your throat seemed to please Orm further because he was releasing your wrist and sliding his arm around your back, pulling your body further against his.

With your hand free from his grip, you tentatively placed your hand on his shoulder, sliding your own fingers up to his neck to feel his skin beneath your fingertips. Completely absorbed with his possessive kiss, you provided no resistance when his tongue flicked across your lower lip. Parting your overly sensitized lips, you let Orm dive even further.

It was euphoric and nothing you had experienced in the past made you feel as intimate and connected with him than the caress of his mouth against yours and the gentle yet needy touches of his hands on your body. Only when your lungs started to burn and little gasps tumbled out of your mouth did he pull away.

Your face was flushed from the high of his kisses and lack of oxygen, and while you caught your breath, your hands remained on his chest and neck. Finally, after you had caught your voice and stared into his eyes with a look that reflected how you felt, you spoke.

“That was unexpected…” you whispered out weakly. Orm’s lips curled into a half smirk as he ran his fingers through your hair.

“You are my wife, Itara, mine to have, mine to hold, mine to cherish, and I will never have eyes for another. It is my honor that you will carry our children. It may be a queen’s duty to carry on the line, but it is the king’s privilege to indulge in that sacred right.” That took your breath away. You had been treated most of your life as a tool, and yet he made you feel like you were more than just a broodmare.

“I always thought that you didn’t care for me or my presence.” Your reply had his eyes softening while his fingers slipped free of your hair and delicately traced the curve of your jaw.

“My feelings are far from that, my queen,” Orm explained. “After my mother died, I felt it was my duty to become as strong as I could in order to protect both Atlantis and you. It seems in my dedication to becoming a man worthy of your hand, I unwittingly pushed you away. I don’t know how to remedy my folly other than beg for forgiveness.”

Your eyes burned from the realization that you had allowed yourself to suffer so long simply from a misunderstanding. He had been focusing on becoming a King worthy to rule Atlantis, and a man who could protect his wife.

“Gods, I feel like such an idiot,” you moaned quietly to yourself, pressing your forehead to his chest. “I think I’m the one who should be apologizing. I never thought to ask…”

“Now that we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, may I worship my wife like she deserves?” If your cheeks were pink from that tail curling kiss only a minute earlier, they were now burning the same shade of your hair. You could refuse and make him wait for a later date, or open up to a glaring fact of yours you were fairly sure he didn’t know. Cowardice couldn’t, and wouldn’t, win this time.

“Orm, there is something you should probably know…” you spoke up, withdrawing your hands to twist them together in nervousness. “I haven’t—I’ve never been intimate with anyone before, so I do not know what to do.”

Rather than laugh at you, or leer over the fact that you were untouched and his for ruining, Orm simply took your hands in his grasp and pressed light butterfly kisses to your fingers.

“I will be gentle, my queen.” With that, you allowed him to lead you over to his bed, his fingers slowly working at the robe you wore, all the while keeping your eyes connected. Your robe slipped from your shoulders and floated down to the stone floor, revealing the emerald green slip you wore to bed.

While his hands lightly explored your nearly bared body, Orm lowered his mouth to press feather kisses along your jaw, his lips drawing out the most delightful sensations. Shuddering beneath his gentle touch, your fingers curled into purple armor, not really knowing what to do other than hold on.

The water softly cushioned your body as your bare feet floated off the floor, and as you floated over the bed, your body trembled underneath his surprisingly light touches. Your husband was not a gentleman, nor was he raised to have a soft touch, and yet in this moment you felt as if you were seeing an entirely new side to him. One that reminded you of the late Queen, his mother, Atlanna.

Every kiss Orm pressed against your lips drew you deeper into the foreign world of lust and pleasure. Not once did you find yourself wanting to pull away. Hands slowly undid the neat bow holding the back of your silk slip, and with one tug, the soft material resting on your body became loose.

But he didn’t automatically yank the material from your body, instead choosing to slip his fingers across skin that was rarely shown, always hidden behind your dark green body suit. Orm’s hands were unrestrained, but never once rough and hard. Fingers trailed all over your back, around your hips, across your stomach, they stroked your skin until your entire being was shivering in delight and anticipation.

Orm’s mouth wandered from yours, moving over the contour of your jaw before landing on your neck. A small shuddering sigh passed your lips when his lips started to tug at your tender flesh. You found a new sense of pleasure bubbling underneath your skin just from the way his mouth caressed and teased your neck.

That wasn’t the only sensation your mind was hyper fixating on at the moment. The hand that had been delicately stroking your stomach had migrated to the waistband of your underwear, and in one motion his fingers slipped to flesh no man had ever touched before.

Letting out a startled gasp, you bit back a whimper and clutched at his shoulder when his fingers stroked through your folds. Your body twitched in his hold, unaccustomed to any type of touch and highly sensitive to each stroke and swirl.

With your breathing heavier and your cheeks reddened with arousal rather than embarrassment, your lips trembled, soft echoes of moans and pants barely audible. Orm finally released your neck from his ministration to look into your flushed face. He had a satisfied, smug little smirk on his lips that only deepened your blush.

“Care to help me with my armor, my queen?” Orm questioned, not once halting his electric touch. Even with a flushed face burning with heat, you managed to let out a small scoff.

“The day you need help with something as simple as dressing yourself is the day you cease to be Orm Marius.” You breathed out, making him quirk an eyebrow.

“Indulge me?” Your fingers traveled from his shoulder to his neck, where the zipper was neatly tucked away in a fray of scales. Your hand trembled as you slowly drew the zipper down, relieving Orm of his skin tight armor. With the material loose, you slipped your fingers between the armor and his skin, pushing it back. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this meek,”

While your cheeks were still dusted red, you managed to scowl at him for a few moments but were soon twisted around in the water as Orm shed the rest of his armor and tugged your floating slip from your body. Nostrils flaring at how naked you now were, Orm glided an arm across your bare back and pulled your body so you were flush against his chest.

Your lips were only a whisper apart as you stared into his hard blue eyes. Your body trembled at the feeling of his hot skin on yours. Orm was quick to return his hand to your underwear and, with one unapologetic smirk, tore the material free from your body. A noise of outrage bubbled in your throat, but was soon smothered by his mouth. As he took your lips in a hot and demanding kiss, you snaked your arms up and wrapped them around his neck.

His mouth completely distracted you, for it commanded attention and demanded a response. But a benign lance of pleasure shot up through your body, causing you to jerk in his hold and release a gasp that was instantly smothered. Orm had worked a finger into your body and from that came a whole new onslaught of sensation. Your nails dug into his neck while he curved his finger and started to stroke you deep and slow.

“Orm,” you grasped out, as his mouth migrated from yours once and worked its way across your chin to your neck. Your body tensing up from the sensations building in your body. “What are—what are you doing?”

“Indulging,” was his only reply before he added another finger. You gripped his shoulder harder as your body struggled to stretch to accommodate his extra digit. It wasn’t painful, but there was a certain dull burning sensation that wasn’t comfortable. Orm placed a line of kisses on your neck, providing a brief distraction. “You need to relax, my queen.”

While Orm nuzzled his way up your neck to nip at your earlobe, you closed your eyes and tried to do exactly that. Letting out a shaky sigh, you forced yourself to relax once more and with that the hot tingling pleasure slowly returned. Rather than let Orm do all the work, you leaned forward and dropped your own hungry lips to his neck, raining down passionate kisses and ravenous nips.

Past the burn, your body vibrated in response to his ministrations and felt like it was on the teetering brink of… something. Fidgeting in his embrace, rather than kissing his neck and shoulder, you started biting down with a tormented whimper. A hum of satisfaction came from deep within Orm’s throat, and with that noise he curved his fingers further in your body and stroked a spot within you that had your toes curling and abdomen clenching.

Fire burned in your veins, your heart pounded, and with your body quivering in Orm’s arms, you felt something within you release itself. Going slack, you leaned your face into his neck and tried to calm your heart down. His fingers disappeared from your folds and he gently took your chin in hand, pulling it so you were looking at each other. Orm brushed his fingers through your hair, tucking several strands behind your ear.

“I can’t promise it won’t hurt, but I will keep my promise.”

“I know,” you responded quietly, as he whisked his fingers down your back and then along your thigh. Your leg was pulled up to his waist as you sucked in a breath when you felt his length press up against your aching core. Orm ran his fingers up your back, tracing along the ridges of your spine until his fingers dug into your red hair. He dipped his head down, stealing another passionate kiss.

You gasped against his mouth at the invading thickness that was suddenly filling your body. You wanted to squirm against the sharp pain that emanated from between your legs, but you didn’t budge in Orm’s grasp so you had to settle with digging your nails into his shoulders until you were sure they were leaving marks. Orm’s lips nipped at yours once more before slowly moving to the corner of your mouth, and then along your jaw. Shuddering in his hold, you focused on the sensation of his lips moving across your skin rather than the slowly dissipating pain.

You floated there for at least half a minute, Orm patiently allowing your body to adjust to the invasion. At first you were content to just float there, but the less it hurt, the more you realized that a peculiar prickle was boiling where pain had once echoed. Releasing your nails from his skin, you slipped one of your hands up his neck and stroked your fingers through his blond hair.

“I’m not as breakable as I might seem,” you whispered against his neck, your lips brushing his hot skin as you nuzzled your nose in and rested your head on his shoulder. “Perhaps naïve, but I am not breakable.”

“I never saw you as naïve, Itara,” Orm said as he shifted his eyes down to look at you. “You have always seemed dedicated to your duty as Queen of Atlantis.”

“Save for one major duty you have neglected,” you answered with a twitch at the corner of your mouth.

“I wouldn’t say you have neglected it any further,” he said before easing himself out. Breathing out steadily, you waited for a recurrence of pain, but were surprised to find that when Orm slid back in, pain was no longer at the forefront. Heat was blooming in your stomach and before you knew it, an echoing soft sigh slipped from your barely parted lips.

With a half smile on his face, Orm pulled your head back by your hair and pressed a blazing trail of kisses down your throat. You could feel his mouth pulling at your skin and occasionally adding just a hint of bite. You didn’t know what to focus on, the feeling of Orm sliding in and out of your body or the little zips of lightning he produced with his mouth.

With a breathy groan, you slowly wrapped your legs around his waist, closing the minuscule space between your bodies. Your neck was branded with his lips. Never before had it felt so sensitive. Teeth once again raked your neck and you couldn’t help the small cry as his pace increased and his cock started brushing against a certain spot.

Your quivering and soft moans only increased when Orm’s wicked mouth dropped from your neck to slowly make its way down to your breasts. Twitching in his hold, you whined out as he gently bit around at the soft tissue and then licked the stinging skin.

You were content to wrap yourself around Orm, holding onto him for the ride, but he had his mouth and hands everywhere. He was addicting, and you found yourself craving the feeling of his body pressed against yours, driving deeper and deeper until all that came from your mouth was heavy gasps.

Nails clawing at his shoulder, you felt your body overtaken with waves of pleasure that got stronger and stronger with every second that ticked by. Shaking to the point of writhing, you felt your body clamp down around Orm and in seconds heat was streaking through your body while a strangled scream left your lips, your limbs twitching in his grasp.

While liquid fire was slowly streaming through your body, you shuddered as lightheadedness hit you. Orm tore his mouth from your chest to mash his lips back against yours, his movements now coming hard and fast. His hands clasped your hips and with one last hard thrust, your hips crashed together and hot liquid was rushing into your body.

Grunting against lips that seemed ravenous and never sated, your body quivered against his while you caught your breath. Slowly, the hungry kiss mellowed out to soft nips, Orm reaching up to brush his fingers through your own hair.

“I hope that wasn’t too uncomfortable,” Orm murmured in your ear. You let out a soft giggle and wrapped your arms all the way around his neck.

“There are certain unpleasantries that are unavoidable,” you answered softly. “I will be fine, my king.”

His blue eyes flickered down to yours.

“Can I perhaps convince you to stay the night? I quite like having you in my arms.” Your only response was to smile.

Date Published: 1/18/21

Last Edit: 4/28/24

Orm Marius Masterlist

#orm marius #orm marius x reader #aquaman

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