#he perfectly matches into my type

[cheeriochat]

I am so in love with vergil it's crazy.

He's just my little guy I put in my pocket and carry around

He's my sweet pookie girlfriend wife

He's the guy I chew on and shake around like a dog

[roadkill-punk]

WHY DOES TYOUR BANNER HAVE SUCH HUGE BOOBS?! GYATTT!!!

Sisyphus ultrakill he's the most beautiful gorgeous man ever to ever exist ever and I would do violent and heinous things for him to be real . He's the most the perfect man ever and I love him lots. Big boobs because he's a big man, so much person to love and adore. Flawless man. Pretty pretty man. I love Sisyphus Ultrakill. I spent so many many hours painting that paint because he's so pretty and I love all his details. I'm normal and sane about Sisyphus Ultrakill.

[asahicore]

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin. 

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off. 

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior. 

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her. 

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life. 

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me. 

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you. 

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes. 

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace. 

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department. 

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him. 

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains. 

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. 

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself. 

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore. 

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now. 

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon. 

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.” 

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?” 

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser. 

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing. 

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated. 

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder. 

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together. 

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing. 

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.” 

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest. 

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing. 

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever. 

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer. 

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style. 

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning. 

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

--

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center. 

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?” 

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal. 

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown. 

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.   

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned. 

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it. 

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face. 

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it. 

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café. 

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice. 

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.” 

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.” 

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.” 

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, ��You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.” 

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.” 

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree. 

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks. 

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later. 

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack. 

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t. 

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you. 

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

--

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had. 

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner. 

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone. 

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends. 

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met. 

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love. 

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart. 

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all. 

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted. 

That was his first mistake. 

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”). 

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least. 

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game? 

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?” 

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long. 

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.” 

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority. 

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over. 

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him. 

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal. 

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure. 

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute. 

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too. 

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger. 

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.” 

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.” 

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly. 

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?” 

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner. 

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down. 

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper. 

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?” 

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance. 

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his. 

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.” 

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain. 

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months. 

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-” 

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in. 

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.” 

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

--

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all. 

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego. 

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth.  He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind. 

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you. 

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had. 

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner. 

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month. 

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely. 

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

--

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you. 

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex. 

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was. 

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there. 

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

--

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well. 

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere. 

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

--

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you. 

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment. 

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away. 

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?” 

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there. 

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm. 

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck. 

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern. 

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you. 

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace. 

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

--

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public. 

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party. 

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it. 

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything. 

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends. 

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep. 

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy. 

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point. 

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention. 

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes. 

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. 

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says. 

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently. 

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

--

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment. 

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.” 

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper. 

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

--

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside. 

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?” 

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing. 

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you. 

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours. 

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history. 

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?” 

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

--

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears. 

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

--

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

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[sistertotheknowitall]

Some guy finds Red Hood annoying.

Masterpost

All Danny wanted was one peaceful day. That was all. What does he get instead? A 6’ foot, jacked, vigilante crime lord. (Anti-hero, is that what he is? Danny wasn’t sure.) Now Danny’s not gonna say that a tall, built, hot as hell morally gray bad guy isn’t always unwelcome. It was just this one. (Unless, apparently, you’re Jazz. “Seriously?” “Look I don’t need saving but if he wants to come to my rescue, who am I to complain.”) They have gotten into many fights since Danny first moved to Gotham. ( He had chosen to live in a crime alley despite being able to afford slightly better. The money from his college fund was dumped entirely into said school and the money he earned went to bills and groceries.) Said screaming matches weren't even really fights; they were closer to the squabbles he’d get into with Jazz as an annoying way to express concern for each other. (A habit they, unfortunately, learned from their parents.) So having these types of arguments with said morally gray crime lord had Danny wondering if it was too late to cancel Jazz’s flight. (She boarded an hour ago.) He didn’t want them meeting, actually he’d like to keep her as far away as possible.

That’s why it was really inconvenient for these guys to kidnap him today. He had to get his sister from the airport and now he had to deal with Red Hood? Really? Other than Dickwing, Red Hood was the last person Danny wanted to see in a kidnapping situation. At least the others didn't make him feel like he was disappointing them. Only Jazz was allowed to make him feel the sting of disappointment at being reckless (and occasionally Sam and Tucker). Now, Danny thought he had decent common sense (“Shut up, Jazz.”), but he would gladly admit that he didn’t have Gotham common sense. He wasn’t afraid to go out at night just because the Riddler got out of Arkham. Honestly, he didn't see why he had to be afraid given any time of day. Danny was pretty sure he was basically immortal. (“Immortality is not dying and coming back as a full ghost.” “Then what would you call it, Jazz!?”) This seemed to frustrate Red Hood to no end as Danny lived in his part of the city and Danny was prone to finding trouble. (It actually seems to find him, Danny’s not actively going out and looking for it. He’s just trying to get on with his life.)

Anyway, yeah, Jazz was flying in for the weekend and somebody had kidnapped him. A perfectly normal Thursday. So, in perfectly normal Thursday fashion, Spoiler and Red Hood had swooped in while Danny was in the midst of a really intense staring contest with the kidnapper across from him. (“You know the staring is flattering when Tim does it but you make me feel icky.” The man didn't move and his hard stare barely wavered. “Alright, but I warn you I’m really good at this game.”) A flash of purple and the goon was no longer standing. Red Hood had come in guns blazing and made quick work of the other two kidnappers as Danny waited patiently to be untied. He could have phased through the chains he was hanging by but he didn't see a reason to. Just because they knew he could turn invisible didn’t mean they needed to know about everything else. (“That’s gaslighting, Danny.” “Technically, Sam, I think it’s lying by omission.” “Tucker.” “Right, not helping.”)

“Sooo,” Spoiler sang once Danny was free. “Who’s Tim?” You know what? Maybe it was Spoiler he should have been dreading. Red Hood made his way over, “yeah, kid, you got a boyfriend you didn’t tell us about?” Mm no, he regrets being in both their presence. Danny waved their questions away as he turned in a slow circle looking for the door. He wasn't quite sure of the time, but he was positive he was late to pick up Jazz. He answered as he made his way to the unconscious body of the guy who lost the staring contest, “a friend, well, a customer - a regular really. Nice guy, cute, has a staring problem.” Danny stooped down and started digging through the guys pockets, “do either of you know where the exit is?” Thankfully the guy was the one with his phone, he didn't want to search all the kidnappers. Turning it on, Danny saw that he was late and Jazz had already caught a taxi back to his place. The text had got increasingly more panicked the longer he hadn’t responded along with an alarming number of missed calls. 

Danny shot her a quick text as he followed Spoiler out of the building. Sorry, got kidnapped, am fine now. Please don't call. Will explain later. Love ya <3 He quickly added a selfie that Spoiler photo bombed over his shoulder holding up a peace sign. 

The screen immediately lit up with a facetime call. Danny turned it off and stuffed it in his pocket. He really didn't want Jazz meeting Red Hood.

He turned to face his “saviors.” “Okay, this has been fun. Thanks for the rescue, sorry I can’t stay and talk but I am needed elsewhere.” Throwing a quick salute he started down the street. After a block and a half he stopped at the opening of an ally. “You know I hate it when you all just stalk me from the shadows, it's very Babadook of you.” Hood appeared first behind Danny, “what's Babadook?” “A gay icon,” Spoiler drops in front of Danny. “Very true,” Danny high fives her as he hears Red Hood sigh, seeming to mutter to himself, “this is going in the folder.” “Okay,” Danny says, addressing both of them, “you don't need to walk me home.” Red Hood crossed his arms, “you’d rather your ‘Tom’ walk you?” Danny really really didn't want Jazz to meet Red Hood. Danny sighed, “His name is Tim and he’s just a friend and I’d rather nobody walked me home, I’m a fully capable adult.” “Capable huh? That’s what you call last week’s fiasco?” Last week’s fiasco being an incident that may or may not have involved a cult trying to sacrifice him. (He was insulted that they were trying to sacrifice him to a low level demon. He was the king of the infinite realms and they were using him to summon Craig? Really? Not that they knew any of this but still. Rude.) Spoiler placed her forearm on Danny’s shoulder to lean, as if he wasn't a few inches taller then her. “Not to mention tonight's kidnapping.” Danny shrugged her off. “And you two saved me,” he started slowly backing away into the alley behind him, “so, danger avoided.” Red Hood's hand shot out and grabbed Danny by the back of his shirt collar, “uh-uh, you're not pulling the disappearing act tonight.” Danny had indeed been intending to disappear and fly home, now he was being scuffed like a kitten. In hindsight he had pulled that move fairly often with Hood. Crossing his legs Danny refused to be set down on his feet so Red Hood dropped him. “Ow!”One peaceful day, was that too much? (Luckly, they didnt follow him into his building and just watched him enter. Unluckily, he had a worried and very annoyed older sister to face.) (“A selfie, Danny?! Really!?” “I wanted to assure you it was really me!”)

Part 7

[4unnyr0se]

❥ timeskip! haikyuu captains matching with you on tinder | tetsuro kuroo

warnings: timeskip! kuroo, fem! reader, reader is his secretary, riding(?), unprotected sex, rough sex, implied multiple orgasms (f! receiving), reader acts innocent but is actually a slut, implied size kink, kuroo is rich asf argue with the wall

MDNI | 18+ content

word count -> 904

Sports promotions was an easy job once you knew what you were doing and who you were working with. Kuroo, being a former captain of a powerhouse team, already knew the trade fairly well. His division of volleyball promotions worked closely with people he once had games with, it was always a treat to mess with them over an expensive dinner that his company would pay for. There weren’t many women in that field, so whenever one was hired it caused a stir. Kuroo thought that the stir you were causing was stupid, but that was before he saw your pretty face.

You were behind a desk, typing away at your computer. You looked so innocent, humming a little tune as your tiny fingers typed away. He approached your desk and offered you a smirk, introducing himself. He noticed how you blushed when he looked at you, like a fawn being spotted by a wolf in the forest. Fuck, Kuroo thought that was so fucking hot. But he couldn’t do anything about that, he had too much respect for you. You were just so innocent, how could he defile you?

Turns out, you weren’t as innocent as he thought. Kuroo was mindlessly swiping on Tinder when your profile popped up, displaying your curves that were barely concealed by a little red clubbing dress. ‘Only on here for some fun <3’ was all your bio said, and that made Kuroo practically jump out of his bed. His finger slid right on the phone screen and the two of you matched, causing his cock to throb in his sweatpants. Finally, he had a in. 

The harsh cracking of Kuroo’s hand against the supple skin of your ass filled his penthouse apartment, acompanied by the squelching noise of your pussy struggling to take his massive cock deeper. You had barely managed to get the tip inside, using all your strength to hover yourself above his lap. Kuroo leaned against his padded headboard, the same smirk from earlier adorning his face as he watched the lewd display in front of him. You had talked a big game in your earlier messages, so why were you struggling now. Perhaps you had bitten off more than you could chew when you decided to swipe right on his profile. “What, you’re having trouble taking all of me inside you? C’mon now baby, don’t be like that. Getting all shy again?” his words were laced with sarcasm as you shook your head, feeling your quivering legs about to give out. “I-I can take more, promise!”

Kuroo shook his head in disagreement, shifting his hands to they rested on your hips. “You looked so fucking slutty in those photos,” he teased, slamming your hips down further onto his cock. He gave you no time to adjust to his girth of length, breathing in your wanton and painful cries of pleasure and pain. “Gonna fuck you like a slut now, okay princess? Making me do all the work, typical.”

His hands slammed you up and down on his length, using your body like his own personal fleshlight. Your head was thrown back as your eyes focus on the ceiling above you, the chandelier sparking in the candlelight of his bedroom. Your tongue rolled out of your mouth, saliva dripping onto your swollen tits that were so carefully marked with Kuroo’s teeth. Just enough that you could still wear revealing clothes to work, showing the tiniest bit of cleavage.

His cock hit your G-spot perfectly each time, your sobbing cunt pulling him in deeper with each thrust inside of you. “Fuck, you’re fucking milking me baby,” Kuroo groaned, smacking your ass once more. “You want me to fill you up, huh? It that it princess? C’mon now, lemme hear you beg for my cum. Can you be a good little slut and do that, yeah? Don’t keep me waiting.” he punctuated his sentence with an incredible thrust, a wanton moan falling from your bruised lips.

“K-Kuroo! Wan’ your cum, fuck! P-please, please!” you patheically cried out, fingers scrambling for purchase in his mess of black hair. Your moans were so pretty and wet, how could he refuse his adorable little secretary? His release painted your insides with a roar, the warm sensation filling your stomach. He stopped bouncing you on his length, hands falling limp against his sides.

“Fuck,” was all that Kuroo could muster, smiling to himself as you collapsed onto his chest with his cock still nestled deep inside your creamy core. “I never knew you would be such a slut, you know? Thought you were a virgin or something.” he chuckled, kissing the side of your cheek.

“I might as well have been one, you’re fucking insane,” you mumbled against his skin, lifting your face up to look into his golden eyes. Your mascara was running and your hair was a damn mess, but Kuroo thought you had never looked as pretty as you do now. “You gotta give me some mercy next time, okay? Most girls aren’t used to your massive fucking cock.”

“Oh? There’s gonna be a next time?” Kuroo smirked and wiggled his eyebrows at you, causing you to roll your eyes in mock annoyance. 

“Hell yeah there’s gonna be a next time, that was the best sex I’ve ever had.” you smirked, playfully nipping at the cartilage of his ears.

“I can’t wait.”

[icypopz]

holding their hand ♡

↬ notes ; sakura haruka, suo hayato, togame jo, umemiya hajime x gn!reader

↬ from ice ; no one asked for this HAHAHA but i really wanted to write for my silly boys <3 they're literally so fun and cute, this is my first time writing for windbreaker though so i hope the characterisation is okay! a little short & it's drabble style but hope you enjoy :)

↬ warning(s) ; none

please reblog ! it helps a lot :)

[ sakura haruka ! ]

with haruka, you're usually the one that has to initiate physical affection. he definitely wants to hold your hand, it's just that whenever you slip your palm into his and he feels how warm you are, his face turns so red he looks like one of the tomatoes umemiya's growing on the roof. at least that's what suo always loves to tease him and say, which only serves to make haruka threaten to beat him up in the middle of the street. but then he'll remember that you're beside him and he'll settle for giving suo the most intense death glare ever, only to give you a small smile as he turns to you and squeezes your hand ever so gently. haruka always treats you like you're a fragile flower, so he holds your hand with the utmost care and pride, because he's really proud to be able to call himself your boyfriend.

more content utc !

[ suo hayato ! ]

hayato thinks he's so cool. he's so suave, always slipping his fingers between yours when you're walking together until your hands are intertwined without you even realising it. and if you get embarrassed, he'll only smirk and tease you about how you look so cute when you're flustered. he's the type to confidently walk about town swinging your hand with his, telling everyone who asks that you're his partner. i feel like hayato would also wear matching rings with you, and whenever he caresses his ring before a fight it's like he can feel the sensation of your hand in his, and that reminds him that he can't injure his hands or he won't be able to hold you, so he's always extra careful ever since he started dating you.

[ togame jo ! ]

togame likes taking things slow instead of rushing through life, so whenever he holds your hand, you somehow end up feeling like a precious gem that he treasures with all his heart. that isn't actually too far from how he views you, because the way this man holds your hand is so incredibly gentle. even though his hands are rough and calloused, he'll slip his hand into yours and it feels like he's really savouring the moment, enjoying the way your hand fits in his like two puzzle pieces slotting together perfectly. he's sometimes worried that you won't want to hold his hand when his knuckles are bloodied or scraped from fights, but just a press a kiss to his battered knuckles and togame will be putty in your hands.

[ umemiya hajime ! ]

umemiya adores you. it's evident to everyone, from the students at bofurin to the townsfolk, and it's especially obvious in the way that he looks at you. when you hold his hand, his eyes light up like a million stars, and he narrowly refrains from actually jumping up and down like a little kid (hiragi convinces him that's a little too undignified for bofurin's leader). he always ends up unconsciously squeezing your hand when he's excited, or when he's deep in thought, or anytime, really. he just needs that reminder of your presence and it feels like he'll be able to solve any problem that comes his way. whenever he walks you home, umemiya will also always kiss the back of your hand like he's a prince courting a suitor and give you a dramatic goodbye, it's just one of the things you love about him too.

✧ thank you for reading ! if you have a request, feel free to send it in 🌠

© icypopz 2024. do not repost or modify in any way.

[bluemoon-fever]

The First Time

pairing: ari levinson x fem!reader

summary: it's your first time with ari.

word count: 1.87k

prompt: ari levinson + "Tell me your favorite way to cum so I can satisfy you the way you deserve."

warnings: fluff, light angst(?), allusions to anxiety/low self-esteem, smut, unprotected sex, mentions of oral sex (f receiving), fingering, overstimulation kink, D/s undertones, soft!dom!ari, size kink, aftercare, pet names, creampie, choking, MINORS DNI

a/n: this is my entry for @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420 for their Cum Together: Community Revival Extravaganza. this is my first work in a minute (i have WIPs, but i'm still trying to figure out how i want things to go). i'm exciting to see what everyone thinks and i hope you enjoy! (also this isn't edited and don't steal or repost this)

You feel utterly ridiculous. You’ve washed your hands for what felt like ten minutes, trying to hide the clamminess of your hands. After your fifteenth cleanse, you dry your hands and resign to the fact that your nervousness would not subside until you got this over it. Ugh, fine, you muttered under your breath as you succumb to your nerves.

Before you go out, you give yourself a once-over in the mirror. You had your hair perfectly curled for your date tonight. The cute blouse and jeans that fit your hips and ass perfectly was in the hamper. You wore a short, pink silk nightie with matching lacy panties. You recently bought them for tonight and hoped they would work in your favor. You looked beautiful, but why did that not calm your nerves? Why was it not enough?

You felt bad for leaving Ari waiting, and he was so understanding. When you told him you needed to freshen up a bit, he softly kissed your forehead and lips before telling you to do whatever you need to do. It helped quell your anxieties a little, but as you got closer to the impending moment, your anxiety heightened.

You whispered to yourself in the mirror.

You got this! It’s just sex. If it doesn’t work out, it won’t be in the end of the world. You tried to rationalize despite every cell in your brain feeding into irrationality and fear. You hadn’t been this nervous to have sex since your first time, so for you to be an adult and panicking over doing it with your new boyfriend felt extra silly.

It had been a while since your last encounter… a long while. After the end of your only serious relationship, it had been hard to let anyone new in until Ari Levinson waltzed into your life. Even though he was patient, he was persistent. You wanted him, and he wanted you. But you were so scared of being hurt and alone again. 

He worked to prove to you that he wouldn’t do that. He showed you that he wanted you, wanted to cherish and take care of you. Pretty soon, you were falling for him and he claimed himself for you. He was waiting for you to do the same, and for Ari, he would wait however long he needed. You were worth it to him.

And so you let Ari Levinson into your life, and you’ve been the happiest you’ve ever been. For the duration of your time together, you and Ari had only made out and cuddled. He spent the night at your place and you at his, but there was no sex. He never pressured you, which you were grateful for, but you were scared to begin. You weren’t the most experienced. The sex you had with your ex was decent, but you didn’t want that. You had desires, some you were scared of sharing with Ari, but you knew you could trust him. He wouldn’t judge you for that, but you were worried. What if you weren’t good enough? What if it was so bad he left you?

Ari didn’t seem like the type to leave you because the sex sucked, but looking at him, you couldn’t help but feel out of his league. He was sex on legs, undeniably handsome. You’ve seen the way women and men alike look at him, hell you look at him the same way. Could you even keep up?

Before you could go further in your spiral, a soft knock brought you back to reality. “Babe, is everything alright in there?”

“Yeah! I’m about to come out!” Holy shit. It was now or never. You fluffed up your hair, quickly gargled some mouthwash, and gave yourself a last minute pep talk. You are a goddess. You got this! If you can survive half the things you have, you can have sex with your boyfriend.

You walked out of bathroom, but instead of inching towards Ari, you leaned against the doorframe, trying to look like the gorgeous actresses from the movies. Ari was laying across your bed, still fully dressed. He licked his lips as he eyed your form, looking like a predator about to devour his prey. Your body warmed under his gaze and a wetness begin to pool in your panties. 

“You like?” you ask in a sultry tone. Ari nodded and rose up. He towered over you, and though you hadn’t said it, you loved that his body was bigger than his. His arms traveled up your body before he grabbed your head in his hands and pulled your mouth into his. Immediately, he began to dominate you with his mouth. Your tongue attempted to fight for dominance, but Ari easily overpowered you. You could feel him guide you away from the bed and towards the mirror hanging above your dresser. Before you know it, he abruptly pulls away from you and spins you around to where your back is pressed firmly against his chest and growing bulge.

In the mirror, you see how swollen your lips are. Your face was red with passion and so was Ari’s. He wrapped his arms around your center and began caressing your body. “Honey,” he begins. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”

“Nothing,” you stutter, failing to hide your true feelings. Despite experiencing the most amazing kiss of your life, your mind was still running a mile a minute. Ari shakes his head, and you immediately tense. “I’m sorry!”

“Baby, your mind has been running a mile a minute since we got back to your place. There’s no need to apologize, but just tell me what’s going on,” he says as he begins to pepper kisses on your shoulder and up your neck. Your eyes roll back slightly as he begins his light assault, but when you’re quiet longer than he cares for, he stops. You whine, and he gives a stern look.

“I’m just… nervous. That’s it,” you tell him. You look down at your freshly pedicured feet. “I just want to be good for you.”

At that moment, Ari grabs your chin and pulls his lips into yours. The kiss is passionate like the one previously, but there’s a tenderness in this. It’s intimate like the ones you have during your late night cuddle sessions, but there’s an underlying hint of desire when you feel him nip at the bottom lip. Your toes curl, and the wetness in between your thighs grows.

“You are always good for me. You’re perfect for me.” He parts from you, turning your chin back to your reflection. “Look at you. I am so lucky you’re my girl.”

Before you can retort his statement, you gives a light slap to your ass, making you jump. “And don’t question it.”

“Ari,” you begin, locking eyes with him in the mirror. “It’s been a while-“

“I know, baby.”

“I wasn’t done.” He smiles at the little fire building inside of you. “And I’m worried about tonight. But if we can, I do want to try some things.” Your timidness returns, and something in Ari blooms. 

“We can do whatever you want tonight, baby. Can I you do something for me?” he asks. You nod fervently. “Tell me your favorite way to cum so I can satisfy you the way you deserve.”

The sounds of your and Ari’s blended moans fill the air. You lost track of how many times Ari made you come, but all you know is that you were thoroughly fucked out. He had made you cum with his hands, mouth, and cock so many times. You begged to let him suck you off, but he refused. Tonight was all about you.

“Alright, baby. Can you give me one more?” he asks softly as if he hadn’t tore you apart and used your body all night. He kisses his way up your torso, pressing open mouth kisses on your breasts and neck.

“No, I can’t,” you pant. Ari chuckles at your whines. They were the prettiest sounds he ever heard. “Please, no more.”

“Are you sure, sweetness?” he asks as he strokes his cock. His fingers slip between your folds and tease your entrance. He watches as they attempt to clamp down around nothing. “Because she wants some more.”

Ari lines himself up and slides into your channel. He bottoms you out but freezes, wanting you to feel him everywhere. You squeeze around him and cry out. You knew he was big, but you were shocked that he was able to work himself in. He fit deliciously around you. Ari wraps his arm around your neck, something you had asked excitedly him to do. You learned (and prayed for) that Ari was more dominate in the bedroom. And while he had been able to pull the sweetest sounds from your body and take control, you knew he was holding back from his true form.

“Just cum for me one last time, baby. I know you can do it. Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asks giving you a sly smile. While you had disclosed you wanted to try this with a partner, Ari more than obliged at feeding into your desires. He was more excited than you expected. Despite your pleas, you give a small nod.

He begins working into a steady rhythm, starting slow. Before you know it, his pace quickens. He pulls all the way out before he slams back into you. You cry, nearly yell, out as he begins his brutal, relentless pace. His hold around your neck tightens, and you feel yourself growing slicker.

“My pretty girl,” he says. You preen at his words, loving his praises especially when he has so much control over you. “You have no idea how addicted I am to you. Everything about you.”

He picks up the pace, and his hands move to pick up your legs and change your position. You feel him reaching into you deeper and you know you don’t have much longer until you’re about cum.

“Ari, Ari, Ari!” you cry out. “I’m about to c-cum!”

“Cum for me, baby,” he orders. Your toes curl into the sheets, and you let out a scream as your earth-shattering orgasm washes over you. As Ari fucks you through your high, you feel his pace slow and pretty soon he’s roaring as he cums into you. 

When Ari comes down from his high, he sees he fucked you to sleep. He looks down at the mixing of your juices together and smiles. He could never get enough of this. He pulls out softly, missing the feel of you around him. He grabs a towel and cleans you up softly, careful not to wake you even though you whine from the feel through your sleep. Then, he climbs into bed, pulling your smaller body into his chest before pressing a soft kiss to your head and joining you to sleep. You sleep entwined with him, the sounds of your soft breaths lulling him to sleep with a smile on his face that you were his and he was yours.

feedback is much appreciated!

[soobnny]

dating him | hwang hyunjin

❝ i’ve never seen anything quite like you, my love ❞

chan | lee know | changbin | HYUNJIN | han | felix | seungmin | jeongin

hopeless romantic hwang hyunjin

love is beautiful and brilliant hwang hyunjin

yall cannot convince me that he isn’t the BIGGEST lover

romance is in his blood

he is so fascinated by it

so, for that reason, i feel like dating him would be like the love you read about or watch in movies

bc hyunjin would b the type to consume so much of romantic media

it’s where he learned everything from

wow what a dream

he strikes me as the type to fall in love with every little thing too

his eyes is just a lens of romance

and it’s set on YOU

every single love language he has it .. but here are some specifics

love language #1 gift giving

hyunjin is a traveler okay

and in every trip, he always has something to give you

keychains, t-shirts, bags, jewelry, stickers, refrigerator magnets, pins, you name it

even u have to remind him not to go all out sometimes

bc when that boy splurges, he SPENDS

esp for u ? he would spoil u in a heartbeat

he always makes sure he leaves a day of his travels dedicated to u and thinking about u

on that note, he tends to buy u guys matching items

matching phone cases, matching rings, matching scrunchie

whatever u can get that’s matching

he WILL get it

it excites him too

he loves being able to tell the world how in love he is

wait side note

whenever he’s traveling, he’s always just instinctively thinking about you

he buys this bagel for breakfast, oh ???? like hey guys yn loves bagels too

and the boys r like WE KNOWWWW 😭

everything is about u quite literally

ok continuing on

and he gifts u his art too

his art is very important to him

and he has found lately, u are the one person littering his sketch books

oh he’s down bad

i think for ur anniversary, he’d paint the constellations of how the stars looked that night and aligned perfectly

or his favorite picture of you

down bad that he also buys u a shit ton of dresses

and lingerie ………….

look he knows his fashion

he knows what looks great

u can’t blame him for buying what he knows will look so pretty on you

(he’d probably give u his card one time and say “go crazy” like wow he’s packed)

#2 quality time

i think his favorite dates would also be expensive

he just can’t help himself

BUT u know he has a sweet spot for self care dates too

spa days are very important to him

loves being able to relax and unwind with u

he especially loves when u play with his hair and when u paint his nails

one time, u caught him stealing one of your nail polishes

would also be the type to bring some bit of you in his travels

like ur perfume or ur shampoo

anything that’ll remind him of u

tho ur scent is his favorite

hence why he goes for perfumes or soap or shampoos bc u feel closer to him this way

he just loves being with u even if both of u are doing nothing

just like that bruno major song

conversations where u lose track of time

conversations as in talking shit about the people you hate together

😭😭😭😭

i think he’d want to paint with u

he’d be so shy to ask you too

just simple things

that cute date idea where you swap paintings every 5 mins or something

when u showed him that tiktok, he jumped in excitement

he wanted to do it right away

he prepares everything

he has both ur paintings framed in his room

it’s his most prized posession

oh, and he always invites u to game nights with the boys

he is SO competitive at monopoly

he couldn’t give two shits about other games

u don’t know why he gets so worked up with monopoly

“SEUNGMIN DONT DO IT SEUNGMIN!!!!”

it’s actually rly funny

he would be the type to take revenge

“you’re gonna regret buying a house there”

would cheer if his friends go to jail in the game or if they go bankrupt

doesn’t even try to hide it

and if he’s playing as the banker, he’d slip in extra bills for you

#3 words of affirmation

tho usually said when he thinks u’re asleep

he’s thankful that u take care of him when he forgets to

esp when he’s so immersed in his art

he whispers words of love

like poets and authors in books

he is just so full of love i can’t say it enough

physical touch except instead of touch, he loves kissing you

LIPS AND NECK ESPECIALLY

those are his top 2

he uses tongue 😕 sorry to break it to u

and he also leaves hickeys

so don’t run out of concealer okay!!!!!!! bc he tends to leave like a lot

before i end

here r some more dates he loves

botanical gardens

he’d pick a flower and place it behind your ear

now it’s his lockscreen

sunday markets

he loves the domesticity of shopping together

he buys u lots of flowers

every single type

u think he’s given u all types already

there is never a day where ur apartment doesn’t have flowers in a vase

bc as soon as the first sign of death arrives, he’s off to buy u new ones

he strikes me as the type to also go all out for valentines

hyunjin would send u mounts of chocolates and flowers

take u out to the fanciest date

u get to try new food and cuisines bc of him!

might even buy plane tickets so u two could travel together

maaaaaaaan just treasure everything

a love like hyunjin’s is hard to come by

note. credits to user @.luvknow for the layout of this post! let me know what you think! please discuss these with me i’m crazy

[gay-dorito-dust]

More of Dami trying to hide his partner from his family? Like maybe one day he tries to sneak into their house or something?

After the library incident Damian had learnt three things; changing his passcode, and keeping his phone on hand at all times when within the presence of his chaotic siblings, and be aware of who’s in the room when he puts his phone down.

He had to applauds their attempts but he was inevitably several steps ahead of them as usual.

However this time it was a little different as Damian would be spending the night at your house, which is something Damian was downright nervous about, seeing as he wasn’t the type of guy people would usually bring home for an impromptu sleepover.

It wasn’t like he was scared of your parent(s) because he’s met them once or twice before and had gotten along with them quite well, but more so the fact that his father and siblings were patrolling in the nearby area and would likely spot him within a heartbeat. He didn’t feel like dealing with them and their shenanigans, especially not when he was trying to spend a lovely evening watching movies with his beloved, buried beneath several layers of warm blankets and plushies so soft they could’ve been easily mistaken for pillows.

He just wanted this evening with you to go perfectly without his siblings potentially ruining it. He loves them he really does, but not when they could potentially jeopardise your relationship with him. Hell he’d even curse their entire existence if that were to happen and make sure his sword is more than sharp during training just to prove that he wasn’t joking.

‘Damian?’ Your voice drew him out of his thoughts

‘Hmm?’

‘Are you okay? You’ve been kinda out of it this entire evening. Nothings wrong is there?’ You ask, voice showing concern for his well-being.

Truly you were an angel, bestowed to him by the heavens above to be his souls true and equal match. ‘I’m fine my beloved.’ He says as he holds your hand reassuringly in his. ‘While it’s true that I have been out of it for most of this evening, but rest assured that it’s nothing that you should worry yourself with.’

You still didn’t look convinced but dropped the subject for Damian’s sake and kissed his cheek. ‘Okay,’ you sighed as you snuggled yourself back into his arms, resting your head against his shoulder. ‘But you’d tell me if somethings bothering you, right?’ You asked.

‘There’s no one else’s I’d rather shoulder my burdens with than you my dear.’ Damian replied as he kisses the top of your head and getting comfortable himself, when he saw something outside your window through the slit of your bedroom curtains and squinted his eyes for a better look.

Stood atop of the roof of the building next door to you were his siblings and father, all dressed in their easily recognisable costumes, seemingly peering back at him.

However what made Damian uncharacteristically froze wasn’t the fact that his family might spotted him, but more so the fact as to why they were here because if they were here, then that must mean that the person that they were after…

Has been hiding out in your neighbourhood the entire time.

[mrsfancyferrari]

Hiyaaa! I really loved your story about Lando (also love how lengthy it was)!

I was wondering if you could write a best friends to lovers story with Lando where the reader thinks she isn’t Lando’s type (like maybe he prefers blondes and model types but reader isn’t). A bit of angst but hopefully a happy ending.

No worries if you say no though. Thank you!!

My Type

Anon: I was wondering if you could write a best friends to lovers story with Lando where the reader thinks she isn’t Lando’s type (like maybe he prefers blondes and model types but reader isn’t). A bit of angst but hopefully a happy ending.

Song: Friends by Chase Atlantic

Author’s note: Sorry it took so long! Writer's block is a real thing! I had to make it just for you first. Also I haven't a clue about how the process of modelling works so bare with me. Please like, reblog and share this! <3

Word count: 19.6k

The Belgian Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious races in the Formula 1 calendar, known for its challenging track and unpredictable weather. Winning this race is a significant accomplishment for any driver, marking a high point in their career.

Lando's victory at such a renowned event was a testament to his skill and dedication, making the celebration all the more special.

You stood at the edge of the crowded party, your dark hair cascading down your shoulders as you watched Lando, your long-time best friend, bask in the glory of his first-place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The air was filled with excitement and anticipation as everyone celebrated his success.

As the night progressed, you could feel the weight of jealousy settling deep within your heart.

Lando, not just content with his victory on the track, had taken up the role of DJ for the night, surrounded by some of his closest friends. The upbeat music he played matched the electric atmosphere, drawing cheers and applause from everyone in the room.

You watched as he seamlessly transitioned between tracks, his infectious energy captivating the crowd. Each song seemed to elevate the party's spirit, and yet, with every beat, you felt the pang of envy grow stronger.

You had always been proud of Lando's accomplishments, but tonight, the spotlight felt blinding. It wasn't just his victory; it was the way he commanded the room, the way everyone gravitated towards him.

You tried to shake off the feeling, forcing a smile whenever he glanced your way. But the gnawing sense of being overshadowed was hard to ignore.

As the night wore on, you found yourself torn between celebrating your best friend's success and confronting the uncomfortable emotions swirling within you.

You watched as Lando, known for his preference for blondes and model types, engaged in lively conversations with two stunning girls with golden locks and perfectly sculpted bodies.

Their laughter and carefree demeanor made you envy them, as you couldn't help but wonder if Lando would ever see you in the same light.

Unable to bear the sight of Lando being fawned over by girls you felt you weren't his type, you decided to call it a night and leave the party early.

The ache in your heart was overwhelming, and you needed some time to clear your head.

As you stepped outside into the cool night air, you couldn't help but feel a mix of relief and disappointment.

You had cherished the friendship you had built with Lando over the years, but deep down, you always held a secret hope that there might be something more.

Once you arrived home, you slipped out of your party dress and changed into comfortable pajamas, feeling the soft fabric soothe your skin. You wiped off your makeup, each stroke of the cotton pad removing the remnants of the night's emotions.

As you looked at your reflection in the mirror, you couldn't help but wonder if you were destined to always be just a friend in Lando's eyes.

Curling up on the couch with a blanket, you let out a deep sigh, trying to shake off the melancholy that had settled over you. Your phone buzzed with notifications from the party, but you ignored them, wanting to detach from the world for a while.

Despite the inner turmoil, a small part of you still held onto the hope that one day, Lando might see you differently, and until then, you had to find a way to be content with the bond you already shared.

Perhaps, you thought, the next time you and Lando had a quiet moment together, you could share a heartfelt memory from your past that highlighted how much his friendship meant to you. You could let him know how grateful you were for the support and trust you had built over the years, and subtly hint at how your feelings had grown deeper.

Maybe then, he would begin to see you in a different light.

An hour later, there was a soft knock on the door. Expecting it to be one of the girls from earlier, you were pleasantly surprised to see Lando and Carlos standing on the other side. Carlos warm smile instantly lifted your spirits, and a wave of relief washed over you.

"Hey, there you are! Lando wouldn't stop whining if I didn't find you," Carlos said, his voice filled with concern.

Lando had been clinging to Carlos, his eyes drifting around until they landed on you. The moment his gaze met yours, a mixture of relief and something unspoken flickered across his face.

"I was worried about you," he admitted quietly, stepping closer as Carlos gave him a gentle nudge forward.

As Lando stepped closer, your eyes met, and in that moment, everything seemed to shift. The spark that had been dormant for so long ignited, and you found yourself caught up in the intensity of his gaze.

Without hesitation, Lando closed the distance between you, wrapping his arms around your waist. His touch sent shivers down your spine, filling you with a warmth that you had never known before.

"Looks like my job here is done, goodnight guys," Carlos said, closing the door softly behind him, a knowing smile playing on his lips. You could hear his footsteps fade away, leaving you and Lando in a bubble of privacy.

Lando's arms tightened around you, and you could feel the rapid beat of his heart against your chest.

"Why did you leave?" Lando asked, his voice barely above a whisper, his forehead resting against yours.

You hesitated, unsure of how to explain the torrent of emotions that had driven you away. "I just… I didn't think you would notice," you confessed.

Lando pulled back slightly, his eyes searching yours with an intensity that made your heart skip a beat. "I've always noticed you," he said softly, his gaze never wavering. "I don't want anyone else. Just you."

"Lando…" you muttered, "you're drunk, you don't mean that." His grip on you tightened as he shook his head, determination etched across his face.

"I'm not drunk enough to lie about this," he insisted, his voice steady despite the swirling emotions between you.

"Come on, Lando, let's go lie down," you said, trying to change the subject and ease the tension. "In your bed?" Lando asked eagerly, his eyes lighting up with a hopeful glint.

"No, on the sofa," you replied quickly, leading him towards the living room. As you both settled onto the couch, Lando rested his head in your lap, his arms still wrapped around your waist.

The warmth of his body against yours provided a strange comfort, and you gently stroked his hair, hoping that the peaceful moment would help both of you find some clarity.

"We can talk more in the morning," you whispered, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "For now, just rest."

Lando sighed softly, his eyes fluttering closed as he nestled closer to you. "Okay," he murmured, his voice filled with a mix of exhaustion and contentment.

He murmured, his voice barely audible, "but promise me you won't leave again."

His breathing gradually slowed, and the tension in his body eased, allowing both of you to momentarily escape the complexities of the night.

"I promise," you muttered softly, your fingers continuing to trace soothing patterns in his hair. The weight of your words seemed to bring him a sense of peace, and soon his breathing became deep and even.

You watched over him, feeling a sense of calm wash over you as well, knowing that for now, at least, you were right where you needed to be. . . .

The first light of morning filtered through the curtains, casting a soft glow over the living room. You stirred slightly, feeling the warmth of a blanket draped over you.

As you opened your eyes, you realized you were nestled in Lando's arms, his face inches from yours, still deep in slumber. His steady breaths tickled your cheek, and you couldn't help but smile at the sight of him so peaceful and vulnerable.

Carefully, you shifted to get a better look at him, your heart swelling with a mix of emotions. The events of the previous night replayed in your mind, and you wondered what the day would bring.

Would he remember his heartfelt confession? Would things between you change?

For now, you decided to savor the moment, gently brushing a lock of hair away from his face as you whispered, "Good morning, Lando."

Lando's eyelids began to flutter as he gradually woke from his deep slumber. His brow furrowed slightly, and he let out a soft, contented sigh. Slowly, his eyes opened, revealing a hint of confusion that quickly melted into recognition as he saw you gazing down at him.

A sleepy smile spread across his face, and he tightened his grip around you, pulling you closer as if to confirm that you were really there.

"Good morning," he mumbled, his voice husky from sleep. He took a moment to fully wake up, blinking a few times before raising a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes.

You noticed the way his face softened as he remembered the events of the previous night, and a faint blush crept into his cheeks.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, his tone gentle and filled with genuine concern.

"I did," you replied with a warm smile, feeling the sincerity in his question. "It was one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in a long time. How about you? You seemed pretty peaceful."

Lando chuckled softly, still holding you close. "Yeah, I slept well, thanks to you. I was worried I might have said too much last night, but seeing you here now, I feel like everything's going to be alright."

His eyes searched yours, seeking reassurance, and you could see the vulnerability lingering just beneath the surface.

"Do you… do you regret anything from last night?" he asked tentatively, his voice barely above a whisper.

"What happened yesterday?" you asked, only remembering when you collected him from Carlos.

Lando's expression shifted slightly, a mix of surprise and concern crossing his features. "You don't remember?" he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

You blinked, the memories slowly piecing themselves together. "I do remember picking you up from Carlos, but everything after that is a bit of a blur," you admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed.

Lando's grip on you tightened slightly, as if to offer comfort. "It's okay," he said softly, a tender smile forming on his lips. "Don't worry about it. It was nothing serious."

"Okay," you said, and Lando smiled, propping himself up with one elbow. The morning light cast a soft glow over his features, making him look even more handsome. He gently brushed a strand of hair away from your face, his touch light and affectionate.

"Hey, I was wondering," he began, his fingers still lingering near your hair, "are you going anywhere during the summer break?" His eyes were filled with a mix of curiosity and hope, as if he was eager for your answer.

You paused for a moment, considering your plans. "I hadn't really decided yet," you replied honestly. "I was thinking of maybe taking a trip somewhere relaxing, but nothing's set in stone. Why do you ask?"

Lando's face lit up with a hint of excitement. "Well, I was thinking that we could go home first because my mom has been dying to see you again." He looked at you earnestly, waiting for your response.

"I saw her just last month though," you said with a chuckle.

Lando laughed, shaking his head slightly. "Yeah, but maybe she just likes you a lot. I swear she likes you more than her own son," he teased, giving you a playful nudge.

You laughed softly at his playful jab, feeling the warmth of his affection. "Well, I do have a certain charm," you said with a wink, "but I'd love to see her again. Besides, it's always nice to have a home-cooked meal and spend time with your family."

You paused, looking into his eyes. "And it would be good to spend more time with you too, away from all the chaos."

Lando's eyes brightened even more at your words. "That's great to hear," he said, his voice filled with genuine happiness. "We can plan something together. Maybe after visiting my mom, we can take that relaxing trip you mentioned. Just the two of us, somewhere quiet and beautiful."

"What do you think?" he asked softly, his breath warm against your skin.

Your heart fluttered at the idea. "That sounds perfect, Lando," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I think a trip like that would be exactly what we need."

Lando's smile widened, and he leaned in to press a soft kiss to your forehead. "I'm glad you think so. Let's start planning it then. Maybe we can look at some places tonight and figure out where we want to go."

His excitement was contagious, and you found yourself grinning back at him, already imagining the serene moments you'd share together.

"Let's just focus on today," you suggested, your eyes sparkling with a mix of hope and excitement. "How about we make some breakfast together? I promise not to burn the toast this time."

Lando laughed, feeling a sense of warmth and comfort envelop you. "That sounds perfect," he agreed, and together you started your day, leaving the uncertainties of the night behind.

As you tried to get up, you felt Lando's arm still around your waist, holding you close. "Lando?" you asked softly, glancing back at him.

His eyes were half-closed, a lazy smile playing on his lips. "I didn't say now," he murmured, his voice laced with playful insistence. "Sleep a little more."

You chuckled, feeling the warmth of his body against yours. "Okay, but only for one hour," you insisted, trying to sound stern but failing miserably as a smile tugged at your lips. "We have a lot to do today."

Lando's grip loosened just slightly, but he didn't let go. "Fine, one hour," he agreed, his eyes closing again. "But no burning the toast later, deal?"

You laughed softly, nestling back into his embrace. "Deal," you whispered, closing your eyes and letting the comfort of the moment wash over you. . . .

The next time you opened your eyes, the sun had climbed higher in the sky, casting a warm glow across the living room. You noticed Lando was no longer beside you.

Sitting up, you stretched and immediately caught the delicious aroma of something cooking. Curiosity piqued, you slipped out of the blanket and made your way to the kitchen.

There, you find Lando, humming softly to himself as he expertly flipped pancakes on the stove. The table was set with fresh fruit, juice, and a pot of steaming coffee. He turned and saw you, a grin spreading across his face.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," he teased. "Thought I'd surprise you with breakfast. And don't worry, I didn't burn the toast."

"Good morning, chef," you replied, hopping up to sit on the counter, your legs swinging playfully. "This looks amazing! I guess I should let you take over breakfast duty more often." You reached out to snag a piece of fruit from the table, popping it into your mouth with a grin.

Lando chuckled, his eyes twinkling with delight. "Don't get too used to it. I might just expect you to return the favor next time," he teased, flipping another pancake with a flourish.

"But seriously, I wanted to make today special. We have a lot to look forward to, and I thought starting with a good breakfast would set the tone."

You smiled warmly, feeling your heart swell with affection as you watched him move around the kitchen, his care and attention evident in every gesture.

"Should I get the plane ready?" you asked, reaching for your phone. Lando glanced over his shoulder, his brow furrowing slightly before softening into a smile.

"Let's not rush," he said, placing a stack of perfectly golden pancakes onto a plate. "We have the whole day ahead of us. How about we enjoy breakfast first and then take it from there?"

You nodded, sliding off the counter to help set the table. "You're right. We don't need to hurry. Besides, this breakfast looks too good to rush through."

Lando grinned, pouring syrup over the pancakes. "That's the spirit. Let's take our time and savor every moment today."

As you set the final plates on the table, you couldn't help but sneak another glance at Lando. The morning light streaming through the windows cast a warm glow on his face, making him look even more radiant.

"You know," you began, taking a seat beside him, "I never knew you could cook like this. Where did you learn?"

Lando smiled, a hint of pride in his eyes. "Believe it or not, my grandmother taught me. She always said that a good meal brings people together, no matter how busy life gets."

He placed a fork in your hand, nudging you playfully. "Now, dig in before it gets cold. We have a whole day to make the most of, starting with this breakfast."

You both settled into a comfortable rhythm, chatting and laughing as you enjoyed the meal. The promise of the day ahead making everything taste even sweeter.

After breakfast, the two of you cleaned up quickly, eager to start the day's adventure. "So, what's the plan?" you asked, excitement bubbling in your voice.

Lando smiled, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. "I thought we could explore my second home before heading back to the UK. There's a quaint little village nearby that I think you'll love. It's filled with charming cafes and picturesque scenery."

The thought of discovering new places together filled you with joy. As you packed your bags and prepared for the journey, you couldn't help but feel grateful for this spontaneous trip."Here first, then to the UK," you repeated, feeling the thrill of the unknown.

Lando nodded, his enthusiasm infectious. "Exactly. Let's make some unforgettable memories."

You chose to wear a stunning burnt orange printed mesh cut-out frill hem midi dress for the journey. The vibrant color complemented the morning's warm glow, and the intricate patterns added a playful touch to your look.

As you slipped it on, the dress hugged your curves perfectly, accentuating your silhouette in all the right places. The cut-out details added a hint of allure, while the frilled hem swayed gracefully with each step, giving you an air of effortless elegance.

Lando's eyes widened in appreciation as he saw you. "Wow, you look incredible," he said, his voice filled with admiration.

You felt a blush rise to your cheeks but smiled confidently. "Thanks, Lando. Ready to go?"

"Absolutely," Lando replied, his grin broadening. "But first, I have a little surprise for you." Intrigued, you followed him outside where a sleek, vintage convertible was parked in the driveway.

The car gleamed under the morning sun, its polished exterior hinting at many adventures yet to come. "I thought we could drive there in style," he said, opening the passenger door for you.

You slid into the plush leather seat, the scent of the car's interior mingling with the fresh morning air.

Lando hopped in beside you, turning the key and bringing the engine to life with a low, satisfying rumble.

"This is amazing, Lando," you said, your excitement evident. "I can't wait to see what the day has in store for us."

He backed out of the driveway, and the two of you set off, ready to embrace whatever adventures lay ahead.

As the car glided down the winding country roads, the scenery unfolded like a painting. Rolling hills blanketed with golden wildflowers stretched out on either side, and ancient oak trees stood proudly, their branches reaching out to touch the sky.

The morning mist began to lift, revealing quaint cottages with ivy-clad walls and gardens bursting with vibrant blooms, creating a postcard-perfect backdrop for your journey.

With the roof down, the wind tousled your hair and the warm sun kissed your skin, adding to the sense of freedom that the open road provided.

You could hear the cheerful songs of birds and the rustling of leaves, creating a symphony that perfectly matched the picturesque landscape around you.

The scent of blooming flowers and fresh grass filled the air, heightening your senses and making each moment feel even more magical.

You turned to Lando, his eyes sparkling with the same excitement you felt. "This is perfect," you said, your voice barely rising above a whisper as you took in the beauty around you.

He nodded, his grin never fading. "Just wait," he replied, "we're only getting started." The car cruised effortlessly through the countryside, each mile bringing new sights and experiences, cementing the day as one you would always cherish.

You soon reached a quaint little town nestled in the heart of the countryside. The cobblestone streets were bustling with life, as locals went about their morning routines.

Market stalls lined the square, offering everything from fresh produce to handmade crafts, and the aroma of freshly baked bread wafted through the air. Children laughed and played near a fountain, their carefree joy adding to the town's charm.

Lando parked the car near a cozy café, its outdoor seating shaded by colorful umbrellas.

As you stepped out of the car, the townspeople greeted you with warm smiles and friendly nods. The sense of community was palpable, and you felt an immediate connection to this charming place.

"This is the places where I used to go with my mom," Lando bragged as he got out of the car to help you out. "I know basically everyone here." His eyes twinkled with a mix of nostalgia and pride as he gestured towards the bustling market.

"Let me show you around. You'll love it."

As you walked, Lando pointed out various landmarks and introduced you to the friendly locals. "That's Mr and Mrs. Thompson's bakery," he said, nodding towards an inviting shop with a window display full of pastries. "They make the best scones you'll ever taste."

Every corner seemed to hold a memory, and Lando's excitement was infectious. "And over there is Mr. Miller's blacksmith shop. He's been here for as long as I can remember."

With each introduction, you felt more at home, your heart swelling with appreciation for this special place and the man who shared it with you.

You and Lando explored the town together, stopping to admire the intricate details of the historic buildings and sampling local delicacies from the market. Every interaction and discovery added layers to the day's adventure, making it clear that this visit would be a highlight of your journey.

"Oh, I have to go do a message for my mom," Lando told you, his expression suddenly serious yet still warm. "Come with me," he added, taking your hand and leading you through the lively town.

As you walked, the conversations around you seemed to blend into a symphony of community life, making you feel both a part of and a visitor to this wonderful place.

"Is it far?" you asked, curious about the errand and eager to see more.

"Not at all," Lando replied with a reassuring smile. "My mom always has something for Mrs. Thompson. They go way back. You'll love her; she's like another grandmother to me."

His words carried a sense of nostalgia that made you even more eager to meet this special person.

As you approached the bakery, the warm scent of freshly baked goods enveloped you, and you couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation for the next part of your adventure.

Mrs. Thompson appeared at the doorway, a petite woman with silver hair neatly tied into a bun and a welcoming smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She wore a flour-dusted apron and wiped her hands on it as she stepped forward to greet you both.

"Lando! It's been too long," Mrs. Thompson exclaimed, her eyes lighting up at the sight of him. Lando gave her a big hug, lifting her slightly off the ground, which made her laugh heartily.

"And who is this lovely companion?" she asked, turning her attention to you. Lando introduced you, explaining how he had been showing you around the town.

"Well, any friend of Lando's is a friend of mine," Mrs. Thompson said warmly, extending her hand to you.

"Come in, come in. You must try our new raspberry scones; they're fresh out of the oven." She led you both into the cozy bakery, the smell of sugar and butter wafting through the air.

The bakery was a charming blend of old-world elegance and rustic charm. Shelves lined with jars of homemade jams and preserves added a vibrant splash of color against the warm, wooden walls.

Vintage baking tools hung as decorations, each one a testament to the bakery's rich history. A large chalkboard menu displayed the day's offerings in beautiful, looping script, and a display case full of decadent pastries and breads beckoned invitingly.

In one corner of the room, a small seating area was adorned with mismatched, yet cozy, chairs and tables, each one covered with a delicate lace tablecloth. Potted plants hung from the ceiling, their green leaves creating a serene canopy overhead.

The walls were adorned with black-and-white photographs of the town from decades past, giving the space a nostalgic touch. It was the kind of place that made you want to linger, savoring not just the delicious treats, but also the warmth and history that enveloped you.

As you settled into one of the cozy chairs, you couldn't help but notice the friendly banter between the staff and the regular customers. Mrs. Thompson moved effortlessly from table to table, sharing a laugh here and a kind word there, making everyone feel like family.

A young barista behind the counter was expertly crafting lattes while exchanging jokes with an elderly gentleman who seemed to be a daily fixture.

"So, what brings you here?" Mrs. Thompson asked after greeting everyone and sitting with you both.

Lando smiled, taking a sip of his coffee before responding. "Well, first Mom told me to give this to you and we wanted to explore the town and thought there was no better place to start than your bakery," he said, handing a package to her.

You nodded in agreement, adding, "Lando's been singing praises about your scones and the warm atmosphere here, and I must say, he wasn't exaggerating."

Mrs. Thompson beamed at the compliment, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'm glad to hear that. We always strive to make everyone feel at home," she said, pouring herself a cup of tea.

"So, what do you think of our little town so far?" she inquired, genuinely curious.

You shared your initial impressions, mentioning the charm of the historic buildings and the friendliness of the locals. As the conversation flowed, you felt an even deeper appreciation for the bakery and the community spirit it embodied.

Taking a bite of the scone, you were immediately struck by its perfect balance of texture: a crisp, golden exterior giving way to a soft, buttery center. The subtle sweetness was complemented by the tang of fresh berries, creating a symphony of flavors that danced on your palate.

It was the kind of scones that made you understand why people kept coming back for more.

Excusing yourself to the bathroom, you left Lando and Mrs. Thompson to continue their chat. As soon as you were out of earshot, Mrs. Thompson gave a knowing look to Lando and leaned in with a mischievous glint in her eye.

"So she's just a 'friend'?" she asked, a smirk playing on her lips.

Lando blushed, clearly caught off guard. "Yeah, just a friend," he stammered, though the pink tint on his cheeks betrayed his words.

Mrs. Thompson chuckled warmly. "Oh, Lando, you young ones always think you can hide these things. It's written all over your face," she said, patting his hand. "Either way, I'm glad to see you two here. It's not often someone brings such a sparkle to your eyes."

Lando could only smile sheepishly, silently thankful for the warmth and understanding that Mrs. Thompson always seemed to offer.

You returned from the bathroom, catching the tail end of their conversation. "What are you two whispering about?" you asked with a playful grin, noticing the slight blush still lingering on Lando's cheeks. Mrs. Thompson winked at you, her expression as welcoming as ever.

Mrs. Thompson simply winked and said, "Oh, nothing much, dear. Just a little friendly chat."

You raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. "Is that so? Well, I hope it was something good," you teased, taking another sip of your tea.

Lando cleared his throat and tried to change the subject. "So, what other places should we visit while we're in town, Mrs. Thompson?" he asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from himself.

Mrs. Thompson smiled, playing along with the diversion. "Oh, there are plenty of wonderful spots to explore. The old lighthouse at the edge of town is a must-see, especially around sunset. And if you're into antiques, there's a lovely little shop run by Mr. Jenkins down on Maple Street. His collection is simply fascinating," she said, her eyes twinkling.

"But most of all, just take the time to wander and soak in the atmosphere. This town has a way of revealing its secrets to those who take the time to truly look."

You nodded eagerly, feeling a sense of excitement bubbling up inside you. "The lighthouse sounds perfect," you said, glancing at Lando, who seemed relieved to have the focus shifted away from him. "We should head over there soon if we want to catch the sunset," you suggested.

Lando's eyes met yours, and he gave a small, grateful smile before turning back to Mrs. Thompson.

"We'll definitely make time for Mr. Jenkins' shop too," Lando added, standing up and offering his hand to help you up. "Thank you so much for the recommendations, Mrs. Thompson. It was lovely chatting with you."

Mrs. Thompson beamed, her warm presence making you feel right at home. "Enjoy yourselves, dears. And don't be strangers—come back and visit an old lady like me sometime," she said with a wink.

With a final wave, you and Lando headed out, eager to chase the golden hour at the lighthouse.

As you strolled through the quaint streets of the town, the golden light of the setting sun bathed everything in a warm glow. The salty breeze from the sea whispered through the trees, carrying the faint sound of waves crashing against the shore.

With each step, the lighthouse grew closer, its silhouette standing tall against the vibrant hues of the evening sky.

As you and Lando approached the lighthouse, it became clear that Mrs. Thompson hadn't exaggerated. The structure stood majestically on the cliff, its whitewashed walls glowing softly in the fading light.

The panoramic view from the edge was breathtaking; the ocean stretched endlessly, reflecting the brilliant oranges and pinks of the sunset. You could hear the distant cry of seagulls and the rhythmic crashing of waves far below.

Lando turned to you, his eyes wide with awe. "This place is incredible," he said, his voice filled with wonder. "I can see why Mrs. Thompson suggested we come here."

You nodded in agreement, feeling a deep sense of peace wash over you. "It's like time stands still here," you replied softly. "I never imagined a place could be this beautiful."

Lando smiled, taking his arm around your shoulder. "Let's stay a little longer," he suggested. "I don't think I'm ready to leave just yet."

You felt a blush creep up your cheeks at his gesture, the warmth of his arm around you making your heart flutter. "I'd like that," you said softly, looking down at your feet to hide your shy smile.

"There's something magical about this place. It's like an escape from everything else."

Lando's grip on your shoulder tightened slightly, and he leaned in closer. "I'm glad we came here together," he murmured, his voice gentle and sincere. "Moments like these... they're worth holding onto."

You looked up at him, meeting his gaze and feeling a connection that was even stronger than the serene beauty surrounding you.

"I'm really glad we came here." you whispered, your voice barely audible over the sound of the waves.

You gently took Lando's hand that rested on your shoulder and held it tightly, feeling a rush of warmth spread through you. The simple act made your heart race, and you couldn't help but feel a deeper bond forming between you.

"This place really is special," you said, squeezing his hand gently, "and being here with you makes it even more unforgettable."

What you didn't see was how red Lando's face became from your actions. He looked down, a bashful smile tugging at his lips as he tried to steady his breath.

"Yeah, it really does," he managed to say, his voice tinged with emotion.

The two of you stood there, hand in hand, lost in the magic of the moment, with the world seemingly pausing around you. . . .

As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow across the landscape, you and Lando arrived in London. The bustling city lights began to twinkle as he navigated through the familiar streets, eventually pulling up to a charming, ivy-covered house.

"Welcome to my parents' place again," Lando said, a mix of excitement and nervousness in his voice.

He turned off the engine and looked at you, his eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort.

Stepping out of the car, you took in the surroundings, feeling a sense of anticipation. Lando walked around to your side as you two approached the front door. "I hope they still like you," he teased, his voice softer now. "Mom will definitely be looking forward to seeing you again."

A smile spread across your face as you remembered the warmth and hospitality of his family from your last visit. "I remember your mom's amazing lasagna and how your dad challenged me to that never-ending game of chess," you said with a chuckle.

"I'm looking forward to seeing them too."

As soon as Lando opened the door for you, you heard footsteps rushing towards the front door. "Lando! You're back!" his mom exclaimed, her face lighting up with joy as she enveloped him in a warm hug.

"And you brought our favorite guest!" she added, turning to you with a welcoming smile.

"Lando, it's good to see you, son," his dad called from the living room, his voice filled with genuine warmth. He appeared moments later.

"And you, young chess rival," he said to you with a wink, "ready for a rematch?"

The familiar, comforting atmosphere of their home washed over you, and you couldn't help but feel like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

"Honestly, Adam, you and your chess games," Lando's mom said with a playful roll of her eyes. "You know you always take forever to make a move."

Adam chuckled, shaking his head. "It's called strategy, darling. You wouldn't understand."

"Oh, please," she retorted, turning back to you with a conspiratorial smile. "Just make sure he doesn't keep you up all night with his so-called 'strategizing.' You know how he gets when he thinks he's winning."

"You mean when I am winning," Adam corrected with a grin, eliciting a light-hearted groan from Lando and a laugh from you.

"Also congratulations on winning the race, son!" Cisca said happily, her eyes sparkling with pride. "We watched every moment, and you were absolutely brilliant out there."

"Thanks, Mom," Lando said, his cheeks flushing slightly. "It was a tough race, but I gave it my all."

"And it showed," Adam chimed in, clapping Lando on the back. "You handled those turns like a pro. We're so proud of you."

"Yeah, the whole town's been talking about it," Cisca added, leading you all into the cozy living room. "But enough about the race for now. Let's get you both settled in. Dinner's almost ready, and we have so much to catch up on."

Lando placed your coat on the hanger before following you into the living room, where the aroma of a home-cooked meal wafted through the air.

"Smells amazing in here, Cisca," you remarked, taking a seat on the plush sofa. "What’s on the menu tonight?"

"Oh, just a little something special to celebrate Lando's big win," Cisca replied with a wink. "Roast chicken with all the fixings, and for dessert, your favorite—apple pie." Lando's eyes lit up at the mention of the dessert.

"You always know how to make us feel at home, Mom," he said, settling down beside you. Adam, meanwhile, was already setting up the chessboard on the coffee table, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Ready to lose again?" he teased, and you couldn't help but laugh as you moved your first pawn.

The next twenty minutes were a blur of strategic moves and playful banter between you and Adam. "You sure you want to move that knight there?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow. "Don't say I didn't warn you.

"Just wait and see," you replied confidently, sliding your piece into position.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Lando was busy helping his mom with the cooking and setting the table. "Mom, where do you keep the salad bowls again?" he called out.

"Top shelf, sweetheart," Cisca responded, her hands expertly basting the roast chicken. "And don't forget to set out the fancy napkins. Tonight's a celebration, after all."

As you captured one of Adam's bishops, you overheard Lando's cheerful voice. "You know, Mom, I think this might be the best meal you've ever made."

"Only the best for my champion," she replied, beaming. "Now, go check on the pie, will you?"

"It looks like you have a thing for my boy," Adam muttered for only you to hear, his eyes never leaving the chessboard.

"What?" you said, shocked, momentarily losing your focus on the game. Adam's smirk grew wider as he moved his queen into position.

"Checkmate," he announced triumphantly. You blinked, still processing his earlier comment. Adam leaned back, folding his arms. "You didn't deny it," he said teasingly, his eyes glinting with mischief.

"Well, I—" you stammered, your cheeks flushing.

Before you could gather your thoughts, Lando walked back into the room, holding a perfectly golden apple pie. "What's going on here?" he asked, glancing between you and Adam with a curious smile.

"Nothing much," Adam replied casually, though the smirk never left his face. "Just wrapping up another game of chess. You should join us next time."

You quickly nodded, trying to compose yourself. "Yeah, Lando, you'd be a worthy opponent," you added, hoping to steer the conversation away from your flustered state.

Lando chuckled, setting the pie down on the table. "Maybe next time. But for now, let's dig into dinner before it gets cold."

You got off the sofa and made your way to one of the seats in the living room, feeling a bit flustered. Lando quickly stepped in to help you with your seat, his warm smile putting you at ease.

As he sat down beside you, he leaned in slightly. "You okay?" he asked softly, his eyes filled with genuine concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you replied, offering a small smile. "Just a little thrown off by the game, that's all."

Lando chuckled, shaking his head. "Dad can be a bit intense, but he's harmless. Besides, he's just trying to get a rise out of you."

You nodded, grateful for his comforting presence. "Thanks, Lando. I appreciate it." He gave your hand a reassuring squeeze before turning his attention to the delicious spread in front of you.

"Now, let's enjoy this amazing meal Mom made," he said, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

Lando's parents exchanged a knowing glance, their smiles softening as they observed the tender moment between the two of you. His mother nudged his father gently, a silent communication passing between them.

They had seen their son grow up, and the way he looked at you now was unmistakable—he was completely smitten. Lando's father gave a slight nod, acknowledging the unspoken sentiment, and they both turned their attention back to the table, content to let the evening unfold naturally.

As the meal progressed, the warmth and love in the room seemed to envelop you, making you feel like part of the family. Each bite of the delicious food was savored, accompanied by light-hearted conversation and laughter.

You couldn't help but steal glances at Lando, who seemed equally enchanted by your presence. Lando’s hand would occasionally brush against yours as he passed you a dish or refilled your glass, each touch a silent promise of his feelings.

His parents watched these moments with quiet satisfaction, feeling a sense of peace knowing their son was in good hands.

"So, what do you think of doing for this summer break?" Cisca asked, her eyes sparkling with curiosity.

You paused, glancing at Lando for a moment before answering. "Well, we were thinking of going to the beach tomorrow," you said, your voice filled with excitement. "It's been ages since we've had a proper beach day."

Cisca's face lit up with enthusiasm. "That sounds wonderful! The weather has been perfect for it lately. You should take the opportunity to relax and enjoy yourselves."

Lando nodded in agreement, his eyes meeting yours as he said, "Yeah, I think it'll be a great way to unwind and make some fun memories."

His father chimed in, "Just make sure to pack plenty of sunscreen and stay hydrated."

The conversation continued with everyone suggesting their favorite beach activities and reminiscing about past vacations, making the anticipation for tomorrow even sweeter.

As the plates were cleared away and everyone settled back into their chairs, the conversation flowed seamlessly from topic to topic.

Lando's mother recounted a particularly amusing story from one of their family beach trips, causing everyone to burst into laughter.

“And that’s how your father ended up with a sunburn in the shape of a lobster,” she finished, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

Lando grinned, adding, “I remember that! He had to wear that ridiculous hat for the rest of the trip.”

His father chuckled, shaking his head. “Hey, it was either that or turn into a tomato again.” The room filled with laughter once more, the camaraderie palpable.

You felt a sense of belonging, grateful for the warmth and openness of Lando's family. It was clear that tomorrow's beach outing would be just the start of many cherished memories to come.

As the laughter began to die down, you glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed how late it had become.

"Lando, you should think about heading to bed," you said softly, turning to him with concern in your eyes. "You didn't sleep at all last night, remember?"

Lando stretched, stifling a yawn as he nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I could use some rest before our big day tomorrow."

His parents exchanged knowing looks, their smiles tender. "Get some sleep, son," his father said, patting Lando on the back. "We want you to be able to enjoy the beach without nodding off in the sand."

"Good night, guys," you said, standing up and stretching. "I think I'll head to bed as well." You noticed the subtle exchange of glances between Lando's parents and figured they might want a moment alone with him.

"Lando, about Y/N," Adam started as soon as you left the room.

"What about her?" Lando asked curiously, his brow furrowed slightly.

Adam exchanged a quick glance with his wife before continuing, "How do you feel about her? We can see there's something special between you two."

Lando hesitated for a moment, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "She's amazing," he finally said, a soft smile playing on his lips.

"I feel really comfortable around her, like I've known her forever. She's just...different, in a good way. I guess I really like her."

His parents nodded, their smiles growing wider. "We thought so," his mother said gently. "Just remember to be honest with her and yourself. Relationships are built on trust and communication."

"Also, put a ring on it before someone else does," Cisca teased, winking at her son.

Lando's cheeks flushed a deep shade of red, and he laughed nervously. "Mom, it's a bit early for that, don't you think?" he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "We're just getting to know each other right now."

His father chuckled, shaking his head. "Your mother's just looking out for you, son. But she's right about one thing—don't let a good thing slip away. If you really care about her, make sure she knows it."

Lando nodded thoughtfully, appreciating the advice. "I will, Dad. Thanks."

With one last glance at his parents, he turned and headed to his room, feeling hopeful about the future. . . .

You woke up late to being the first one awake. The sun was already shining brightly outside, casting a warm glow over the room.

You slowly sat up, feeling the drowsiness slowly fade away as you inhaled the aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee.

As you walked over to the kitchen counter, you heard a faint sound behind you.

Startled, you turned around to see Lando standing just a few feet away, a wide grin on his face. He had snuck up behind you, making you jump at his voice.

"Good morning! I hope you didn't mind me sneaking up on you," Lando said, his voice filled with laughter.

"Oh, Lando! You scared me! But it's okay, I'm glad you decided to join me," you said, feeling a warmth spreading through your chest.

Lando walked closer, his eyes shining with excitement. "I couldn't miss the chance to spend another day with you," he said, his voice sincere.

You couldn't help but smile at his words. "I'm glad too, Lando. Today, we have big plans, right?"

Lando's eyes widened. "Oh, yes! We're going to the beach!" he exclaimed, his voice filled with anticipation.

You nodded in agreement, excitement bubbling within you as well. "That's right! I thought we could have some fun building sandcastles and maybe go for a swim later."

Lando nodded eagerly. "That sounds like a great idea! I just love the ocean, it always puts me at ease."

As the two of you continued talking, you watched as Lando went about making his coffee, his movements fluid and graceful.

Lando's hair was tousled, a clear sign that he had just rolled out of bed. Despite the disarray, there was something endearing about his bed hair, giving him a boyish charm that made you smile.

His eyes, though slightly shadowed by remnants of drowsiness, sparkled with a warmth and energy that was unmistakable. The way the morning light played on his features highlighted the gentle curve of his jawline and the subtle freckles dotting his cheeks.

As he moved around the kitchen, you noticed the relaxed posture he carried, a testament to his easygoing nature. Even in his half-awake state, Lando managed to exude a kind of grace that was both captivating and comforting.

His casual attire—a simple t-shirt and shorts—added to the laid-back vibe of the morning, making the moment feel even more serene. You found yourself appreciating these small, intimate details, realizing how much they contributed to the special bond you shared with him.

"So, Lando, what do you want to build out of sand?" you said even though you knew the answer, taking a sip of your coffee.

Lando smiled, his eyes twinkling. "I want to build an McLaren,"

You couldn't help but feel a surge of adoration for the man. "I knew you were going to say that, but your last sand car looked amazing," you said, your voice filled with admiration.

Lando blushed slightly, a modest smile spreading across his face. "Well, thank you," he said, his voice filled with gratitude.

As you and Lando finished your drinks, you both stood up and headed to your own bedrooms to dress for beach day.

You changed into a pretty bikini, feeling the sun's warm rays on your skin as you stepped into the bedroom. The vibrant colors of the bikini complemented your skin tone perfectly, making you feel confident and ready for the day ahead.

The snug fit accentuated your curves, while the delicate straps added a touch of elegance to the overall look. As you adjusted the top, you couldn't help but notice how the design highlighted your shoulders and collarbone, giving you an effortlessly chic appearance.

Standing in front of the mirror, you admired the way the bikini hugged your body in all the right places. The fabric was soft and comfortable, allowing you to move freely without any restrictions.

You felt a sense of excitement bubbling within you, eager to join Lando on the beach and create unforgettable memories together.

With a final glance in the mirror, you grabbed a light cover-up and slipped on your sandals, ready to embrace the adventures that awaited you by the ocean.

When you stepped out of your bedroom, Lando's eyes widened with admiration. "Wow, you look incredible," he said, his voice filled with genuine awe. His appreciative gaze and warm smile made your heart flutter, adding to the anticipation of the day ahead.

Lando stepped out of his room, his toned and sculpted physique on full display as he changed into a pair of sleek swimming trunks. His broad shoulders and chiselled chest were a testament to his dedication in the gym, each muscle group clearly defined beneath his sun-kissed skin.

As he walked around the house, his powerful legs carried him with an effortless grace, the defined quadriceps and calves rippling with every step.

Lando's narrow waist and sharp hip bones accentuated his V-shaped torso, giving him an air of athletic prowess and masculine allure.

Your eyes were naturally drawn to Lando's striking facial features - his strong, angular jawline, piercing eyes, and neatly trimmed beard only added to his undeniable charisma and rugged good looks.

It was clear that Lando took great pride in maintaining his physique, and the end result was an incredibly attractive and impressive sight to behold.

"You ready?" Lando asked after packing all you two needed for the beach. His voice was warm and filled with excitement, matching the gleam in his eyes.

You nodded enthusiastically, grabbing the bag filled with towels, sunscreen, and other essentials.

"Absolutely," you replied with a smile, feeling a rush of anticipation for the day ahead.

Both of you left Lando's parents' home, the golden rays shining brightly over the beach. You and Lando carried all the chairs and equipment down the sandy path, the feeling of excitement growing with each passing step.

When you finally arrived at the shore, you spread out the chairs and arranged them in a comfortable spot, not too far from the waves.

Lando set down the last of the beach gear and looked up just as you finished applying sunscreen to your arms and legs. He smiled appreciatively at the sight of you so effortlessly preparing for the day ahead.

"Do you need help with the sunscreen?" you asked, holding up the bottle with a playful grin.

"Actually, I could use a hand with my back," Lando admitted, turning around and giving you a perfect view of his toned muscles.

You stepped closer, squeezing some sunscreen onto your hands before gently rubbing it onto his shoulders and back. His skin was warm from the sun, and you couldn't help but notice how smooth and strong it felt beneath your fingers.

"Thanks," he said, glancing back at you with a grateful smile. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"No problem," you replied, your fingers working to ensure every inch of his skin was protected. "Can't have you turning into a lobster, can we?"

You both laughed, the easy camaraderie and shared anticipation for the day's adventures blending seamlessly with the natural beauty around you.

After setting up everything, you and Lando looked at each other, a mischievous glint in both your eyes. You reached for the shovel and bucket, handing them to Lando.

"Okay, Lando, show me what you've got," you said, a mischievous grin on your face.

Lando laughed, excitement bubbling within him. "Oh, get ready, because we're going to build a McLaren out of sand!" he declared, his voice filled with determination.

You watched as Lando meticulously began sculpting the sand, shaping it into intricate shapes and curves. You couldn't help but be amazed by his talent, the way he transformed the sand into a work of art.

Hours passed as you and Lando worked together, perfecting every detail of the F1 car. It was hard work, but the two of you persevered, determined to finish what you'd started.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, you and Lando stood back to admire your creation. The F1 car stood tall on the sand, a testament to your combined efforts. You both broke out into laughter, the joy of the moment filling your hearts.

"Wow, Lando, you really outdid yourself," you said, your voice filled with admiration.

Lando nodded, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. "I couldn't have done it without you," he said.

You then took out your phone and snapped a few pictures of the sand car, eager to share the masterpiece on your socials. "This is definitely going to get some likes," you said, grinning as you angled for the perfect shot.

Lando struck a playful pose beside the sand McLaren, adding a touch of fun to the photos.

As you removed your beach cover-up, Lando couldn't help but notice how flawlessly the bikini accentuated your figure. The vibrant colours and delicate patterns complemented your skin tone, drawing his gaze towards the alluring curves of your body.

He found himself captivated by the way the fabric hugged your frame, highlighting your natural beauty in a tasteful and sophisticated manner.

Lando's eyes traced the contours of your body, admiring the graceful lines and the subtle movements as you adjusted your attire. The bikini top provided just the right amount of support, framing your chest in a way that was both elegant and alluring.

Meanwhile, the bottom half of the swimsuit clung to your hips, accentuating the natural shape of your legs and drawing attention to your toned physique.

Despite his best efforts to avert his gaze, Lando found himself repeatedly drawn back to the sight before him. There was an undeniable magnetism to the way you carried yourself, exuding a quiet confidence that only further heightened the captivating nature of your appearance.

He couldn't help but admire the overall harmony of the ensemble, which seemed to effortlessly highlight your natural beauty.

You both then headed into the refreshing waters of the sea, the waves lapping at your feet. The cool water provided a stark contrast to the warm sun, and you and Lando played together, splashing and laughing like carefree children.

The joy of the moment made all your efforts worthwhile, and for a while, the rest of the world seemed to fade away.

The water felt invigorating against your skin, its coolness providing a delightful respite from the sun's intense heat. Each wave that brushed against you sent a refreshing shiver through your body, awakening your senses and amplifying the joy of the moment.

The gentle embrace of the sea made you feel both energized and at peace, perfectly complementing the carefree laughter you shared with Lando.

You started to float, letting the gentle waves cradle your body as you closed your eyes and surrendered to the tranquility of the moment. The sea's rhythmic motion lulled you into a serene state, and for a brief period, you forgot all your worries.

Suddenly, you felt a hand slide under your neck, lifting your head slightly out of the water. Startled, you opened your eyes to find Lando looking down at you, his expression filled with concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice tinged with worry. You could see the anxiety in his eyes, and it touched you that he cared so deeply.

Smiling softly, you reassured him, "I'm fine, just enjoying the sea."

His features relaxed, and he let out a breath of relief.

"Since when can you swim, let alone float? I remember trying to teach you so many times but it didn't work," Lando asked as he floated beside you, holding your hand so you wouldn't drift far from him. Like otters when they fall asleep.

"I took some lessons a few weeks ago," you explained, feeling a bit proud of yourself. "I knew we were going to the beach during the summer break, and I didn't want you to have to take care of me the whole time again."

You could see a flicker of surprise in Lando's eyes, followed by a warm smile that made your heart flutter.

"But I like being your lifeguard," Lando said, his voice softening as he squeezed your hand gently.

You blushed at his words, feeling the warmth of his affection wash over you more intensely than the sun's rays. "Besides, it gives me an excuse to spend more time with you."

The sincerity in his gaze melted away any lingering doubts you had, and you couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Well, I appreciate that," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper, "but I think it's time I started taking care of myself, at least a little bit." You squeezed his hand in return, feeling a surge of confidence mixed with the comfort of his presence.

"And maybe now we can just enjoy the water together, without you having to worry so much."

Lando chuckled softly, the sound blending harmoniously with the waves around you. "I guess that's true," he said, his eyes sparkling with affection. "But don't think for a second that I won't still be keeping an eye on you."

He leaned in closer, his face inches from yours, and you could feel his breath on your skin. "After all, someone has to make sure you don't float away."

You laughed softly, the sound mingling with the gentle lapping of the waves. "Well, as long as you promise not to let go," you teased, feeling a playful glint in your eyes.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Lando replied, his tone serious yet tender, "You're far too important to me."

Your chest was filled with butterflies at his words, the sincerity in his voice making your heart race. It was in moments like this that you realized just how deep your feelings for Lando ran.

As the sun began to set, casting a golden glow over the water, you felt an unspoken promise hanging in the air between you.

You decided to take this time for a race.

"Last to the sandcar has to pack everything." You said, letting go of Lando's hand to start running early.

"You snake! That's cheating!" Lando called, taking off through the shallow water.

The two of you played and splashed, the warm sun beaming down as you revelled in the joy of the moment. Lando tackled you into the waves, sending you both tumbling in a fit of giggles.

"I win!" you declared, emerging from the water with a triumphant grin.

"Oh, is that so?" he challenged, splashing you once more. "I think we both know who the real champion is here."

"We could settle this with a game of beach volleyball," you suggested, nodding towards the net set up near the sandcar. "First one to ten points wins, and the loser has to pack everything up."

Lando's eyes lit up with excitement as he agreed. "You're on! But don't cry when I beat you," he teased, already making his way towards the net.

The game was filled with laughter and friendly competition, each of you determined to claim victory. The sound of the ball bouncing on the sand, mixed with your playful banter, created an atmosphere of pure joy.

As the score climbed higher, you could feel the tension rising, both of you giving it your all. Finally, with a well-placed spike, you secured the winning point, collapsing onto the sand in a fit of laughter.

"Looks like you’re on packing duty, Lando!" you exclaimed, your chest heaving with exhilaration.

Lando let out an exaggerated groan, flopping dramatically onto the sand beside you. "You got lucky," he said with a playful pout, though his eyes sparkled with amusement.

"But a deal's a deal—I guess I'll start packing," he added, giving you a mock salute before getting up with a grin.

As you watched him clean, you picked up your beach cover-up and slipped it on, feeling the cool fabric against your sun-warmed skin. Just then, you noticed a man walking over to you with a friendly smile.

He was tall and athletic, with skin the color of rich mahogany that glistened under the afternoon sun. His dreadlocks were neatly styled, cascading down to his shoulders like a waterfall of dark, twisted ropes.

He wore a simple white tank top that highlighted his muscular build and a pair of colorful board shorts that hinted at a vibrant personality. Around his neck hung a pendant, which caught the light and sparkled as he approached.

His smile was warm and inviting, contrasting with the intensity of his deep brown eyes that seemed to hold a world of stories.

"Hey there," he greeted, his voice carrying a hint of curiosity.

"My name is Jordan, and I'm part of a model agency. We're looking for beautiful women to participate in a modeling project for two weeks. Of course, you get paid generously," Jordan explained, his eyes scanning the beach scene before settling back on you with a hopeful expression.

You blinked in surprise, glancing over at Lando who was still packing up the beach gear.

"Modeling? That sounds interesting," you responded, trying to hide your excitement. "What kind of project is it?"

Jordan's smile widened. "It's a beachwear campaign, perfect for someone like you who clearly enjoys the sun and sand. We're looking for fresh faces and natural beauty, and I think you would be a great fit. If you're interested, I can give you more details and set up a meeting with our team," he offered, extending a business card towards you.

You hesitated for a moment, glancing down at the business card in Jordan's hand before taking it with a smile. "That sounds like an amazing opportunity," you said, your voice laced with excitement.

"I've never done any modeling before, but I'd love to give it a try. When and where is the meeting?"

Jordan's eyes lit up with approval as he responded, "Great! The meeting is tomorrow afternoon at our local office just a few blocks from here. We can go over all the details, and you'll get to meet the rest of the team. Don't worry; we'll guide you through everything. Just bring yourself and that radiant smile. See you then?"

You nodded eagerly, feeling a blend of nerves and anticipation.

"Y/N! Who's that?" you heard Lando yell from a distance, his voice filled with curiosity.

You turned back to Jordan with a slight laugh, "That's Lando, my best friend."

Jordan chuckled, "You can bring your little friend if you want to," he said, winking before leaving you alone with your thoughts.

You waved back at Lando, who was now walking over. "Who was that?" he repeated, curiosity evident in his tone.

"That was Jordan," you explained, holding up the business card. "He's from a modeling agency and offered me a chance to be part of a beachwear campaign. Can you believe it?"

Lando raised an eyebrow, glancing between you and the business card. "Modeling, huh? That sounds pretty cool. Are you going to do it?"

"I think so," you replied, excitement bubbling in your voice. "The meeting is tomorrow afternoon. He even said I could bring you along if I wanted. What do you think?"

Lando grinned, giving you a reassuring nod. "Why not? It sounds like an amazing opportunity. Plus, I'd love to see you in action. Let's go check it out together."

You grinned at him before giving him a hug, feeling a wave of gratitude for his unwavering support. "Thanks, Lando. I don't know what I'd do without you," you said, squeezing him tightly.

As you both started walking back to the car, you couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement for what tomorrow might bring.

Lando glanced back over his shoulder to see Jordan disappearing into the crowd, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face. "I just hope he's legit," Lando muttered under his breath, his protective instincts kicking in.

"Don't worry, I'll be there to make sure everything goes smoothly," he added, giving you a reassuring smile as he opened the car door for you. . . .

You and Lando came back from the beach and were greeted by Lando's parents who were busy cooking dinner.

"So how was the beach?" Cisca asked, looking up from chopping vegetables. You could see the curiosity in her eyes as she waited for your response.

"You won't believe it! I got picked to be in a modeling program!" you said excitedly, barely able to contain your joy.

Lando's parents paused their cooking and turned their attention to you, their faces lighting up with surprise and pride. "That's amazing!" Adam exclaimed. "Tell us all about it!"

Without hesitation, you launched into the story, recounting every detail of your encounter with Jordan. "We were just walking along the beach when this guy approached me out of nowhere," you began, your hands gesturing animatedly.

"He introduced himself as Jordan from a modeling agency, and he said I had the perfect look for their upcoming beachwear campaign. He handed me his business card and invited me to a meeting tomorrow afternoon."

Cisca and Adam exchanged delighted glances. "That's incredible!" Cisca said, her eyes shining with pride.

"But, are you sure it's safe?" Adam asked, his tone shifting to one of concern.

"Lando's going to come with me," you reassured them, glancing over at Lando, who nodded in agreement.

"We'll make sure everything checks out. I just can't believe this opportunity came out of nowhere!" you added, your excitement bubbling over once again.

As you spoke about Jordan, Lando's parents noticed a hint of jealousy brewing within their son.

Cisca decided to tease her son by asking you more about Jordan.

"Who did you say gave you the card? Jordan was it?" She said innocently, earning a glance from her son.

"Yes, Jordan," you confirmed, your mind drifting back to the encounter. "He was tall, with dark hair and these piercing brown eyes. He had this confident yet approachable aura about him. Honestly, he looked like he could be a model himself."

Lando coughed subtly, but Cisca wasn't done. "And did he mention how he got into the modeling industry?" she asked, her tone teasing but genuinely curious.

"Oh, he did," you replied eagerly. "He told me he started as a photographer and slowly transitioned into scouting talent. He seemed really passionate about his work."

Lando shifted uncomfortably, but before he could say anything, Adam chimed in, "Well, it's great that Lando will be there with you. He'll make sure everything is on the up and up."

With each passing word, Lando's jealousy grew stronger, although he tried his best to hide it.

"I should get my skincare started before tomorrow, I need to go. Night, guys," you said, heading to your room with a cheerful wave. Cisca and Adam gave you warm goodnights, but Lando remained silent, his expression unreadable.

Once you were out of earshot, Cisca turned to her son with a knowing smile. "Lando, you know you don't have anything to worry about, right?" she teased gently.

"I'm not worried," Lando replied a bit too quickly, his eyes darting away.

Adam chuckled, patting his son's back. "It's natural to feel a bit protective, but trust her instincts. Besides, you'll be there to make sure everything is fine.

Lando nodded reluctantly, still trying to shake off the uneasy feeling that had settled in his chest.

Cisca's smile turned mischievous, and she leaned in closer to her son. "You know, if you don't prioritize her, someone like Jordan might just sweep her off her feet," she teased, raising an eyebrow.

Lando's eyes widened slightly, and he looked at his mother, a mix of annoyance and concern flickering across his face.

"Mom, that's not funny," he muttered, crossing his arms defensively.

Cisca chuckled and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I'm just saying, Lando, don't take her for granted. She's a catch, and you need to show her how much she means to you."

Lando sighed deeply, his eyes finally meeting his mother's. "It's not that simple, Mom. I'm scared of ruining what we have. She's my best friend, and if I tell her how I really feel and she doesn't feel the same... I don't think I could handle losing her," he confessed, his voice barely above a whisper.

Cisca's expression softened, and she squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Lando," she said softly, "sometimes the greatest risks bring the greatest rewards. If you truly care about her, she deserves to know. And who knows? She might feel the same way but is just as scared as you are. Trust in what you have, and believe in her as much as you believe in yourself."

Lando nodded slowly, taking his mother's words to heart, though the fear of the unknown still lingered in his mind.

Adam sensing his son's vulnerability, added, "Lando, your friendship with you and Y/N will always be our priority. We would never do anything to jeopardize that. Trust in our love and support."

Lando took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts before speaking. "I do love her, Mom. So much that it hurts sometimes. But there are moments when I feel like I don’t deserve her. She's confident, smart, and kind, and I’m just... me," he admitted, his voice wavering.

"What if she realises she deserves someone better, someone who isn't scared all the time?"

Cisca's eyes filled with empathy as she listened to her son's heartfelt confession. "Lando, you are more than enough. Everyone has insecurities, but it's how you deal with them that matters. She loves you for who you are, not for who you think you need to be."

Lando swallowed hard, trying to absorb his mother's comforting words. "But what if I'm not ready to face my fears? What if I mess things up because I'm too scared to take the leap?" he asked, his voice trembling with uncertainty.

Cisca gave him a warm, reassuring smile. "Lando, it's normal to feel scared when you're about to make a big decision, especially one that involves your heart. But you have to trust that your feelings for her are real and that they're worth fighting for."

"So what time are you free, Miss Y/N?" Jordan asked, glancing up from his computer screen to meet her eyes.

Y/N smiled, trying to sound confident before looking at Lando for confirmation of the time. "I'm free from 1 PM."

"Okay, that's good," Jordan replied, nodding his head.

"Now let me explain what will be happening over these two weeks. You will be modeling different topics inspired by various artworks. Each session will be designed to bring out a unique aspect of your style and personality. You'll have makeup artists and photographers to take care of you, so all you need to do is be there and give it your best."

Y/N glanced at Lando once more, feeling a mix of excitement and nerves bubbling up inside her. "That sounds amazing, Jordan. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm looking forward to it," you said, your voice steady despite the butterflies in your stomach.

Lando gave you an encouraging smile, his earlier doubts momentarily forgotten as he watched the confident and poised woman he loved prepare to embark on this new adventure.

Jordan continued, "Great! Each session will last about three hours, so make sure you're well-rested and prepared. We'll start with a briefing each morning to outline the day's theme and goals. If you have any ideas or specific looks you want to try, feel free to share them with the team."

Y/N nodded, her excitement growing with each detail. "That sounds perfect, Jordan. I'll be ready to give it my all."

Lando felt a surge of pride and admiration as he watched Y/N embrace the opportunity with such enthusiasm. He reached out and gently squeezed her hand, offering silent support.

"You're going to be amazing," he whispered, his eyes filled with unwavering confidence in her abilities.

"Thanks, Lando," you said, your voice tinged with hope. "You'll be with me the whole time, right?" you asked, looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes.

"Of course," Lando replied without hesitation, his grip on your hand tightening slightly. "Wherever you go, I go. I wouldn't miss this for anything."

His words wrapped around you like a comforting embrace, making you feel invincible. With Lando by your side, you knew you could face whatever challenges came your way during these two weeks.

"Thanks, Jordan. I'll see you tomorrow," you said, filling out all the forms before standing up. Lando closely followed, his presence a steady anchor in the whirlwind of new information and upcoming challenges.

As you handed the completed forms back to Jordan, you couldn't help but feel a surge of determination.

"Remember, if you have any questions or need anything, don't hesitate to reach out," Jordan assured you with a warm smile. "We're all here to make this experience as fulfilling as possible for you."

"Got it, Jordan. I appreciate it," you replied, feeling a sense of camaraderie already forming with the team.

Lando placed a reassuring hand on your back as you both made your way to the exit, ready to tackle the exciting journey together. . . .

The first day was amazing. There were more models just like you, and you were able to meet your entire team.

Sarah was your makeup artist, and she had an incredible job of making you look camera-ready.

She had a striking appearance that immediately caught your eye. Her short, platinum blonde hair framed her angular face perfectly, giving her a modern and edgy look. Her high cheekbones were accentuated with just a hint of blush, and her almond-shaped green eyes sparkled with an intensity that conveyed both professionalism and warmth.

A small, silver nose ring added a touch of rebellion to her otherwise polished look, and her full lips were painted a deep shade of red, completing her striking visage.

As she worked, you couldn't help but notice the precise and delicate movements of her hands. Her slender fingers moved with the confidence and grace of someone who had years of experience in the industry.

Despite her somewhat intimidating appearance, Sarah's demeanor was incredibly kind and approachable. She spoke to you in a soothing voice, offering tips and encouraging words as she meticulously applied each layer of makeup.

Her ability to balance such a bold personal style with a gentle and supportive personality made her an instant favorite for you among the team.

Tom, the photographer, was incredibly friendly and would make you feel comfortable in front of the camera.

He also had a laid-back, artistic vibe that made him instantly approachable. He wore a simple black beanie over his tousled brown hair, which always seemed to fall perfectly into place.

His casual attire—consisting of a well-worn graphic tee and distressed jeans—contrasted with the high-fashion environment, but it suited him perfectly. His blue eyes were keen and observant, always catching the perfect moment through the lens, and his perpetual smile added a sense of ease to every photoshoot.

Everyone on set was so welcoming and eager to help you succeed.

As you walked onto the set, you were immediately struck by the energy and excitement in the air. The other models were all friendly and supportive, and you quickly bonded over their shared experience.

Sarah greeted you with a warm smile and got to work on your makeup, transforming you into a polished and professional-looking model.

"So, do you have any experience in modeling before?" Sarah asked curiously as she blended the foundation seamlessly into your skin.

"No, never," you replied with a nervous laugh, "I don't even know why I got picked to be in this."

Sarah's eyes softened as she gave you an encouraging smile. "Everyone starts somewhere, and you have a natural look that's perfect for the camera. Trust me, you'll do great."

"Thanks, that means a lot coming from you," you replied, feeling a bit more at ease. "Do you have any tips for someone who's just starting out?"

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. "Absolutely. Keep your posture strong and your expressions natural. The camera loves authenticity, so just be yourself and enjoy the moment."

There was a moment of silence before Sarah decided to speak again. "Is the guy you came in with your boyfriend?" she asked, referring to Lando.

You glanced at Lando from the mirror and saw he was busy talking to some girls.

The girls surrounding Lando had blonde hair and pale skin, their model-shaped bodies making you envious. They laughed at his every word, their flirtatious giggles echoing through the studio.

You couldn't help but notice how Lando's eyes sparkled when he was with them, a clear sign of his preference.

Wasn't it obvious that they were exactly his type? You sighed internally, knowing deep down that you could never be what he wanted.

A pang of jealousy hit you, but you quickly masked it with a smile.

As you glanced back at Lando, laughing and charming everyone around him, you couldn't help but wonder if you'd ever be more than just a friend in his eyes.

Could you ever be the one to capture his attention the way those girls did, or were you destined to remain in the background?

"No, we're just friends," you said, hiding your feelings.

Sarah raised an eyebrow, sensing there was more to the story. "Just friends, huh? Well, he seems pretty protective of you. Sometimes, the best relationships start as friendships."

You shrugged, trying to keep your emotions in check. "Maybe. But for now, I'm just focusing on getting through this shoot without tripping over my own feet."

Sarah chuckled and gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You'll be just fine. And who knows? Maybe by the end of the day, you'll have more clarity about everything."

As Sarah finished the last touches, Tom approached with a reassuring grin.

"Hey there, ready for your close-up?" he asked, his blue eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.

"Honestly, I'm a bit nervous," you admitted, shifting slightly in your seat.

"Don't worry," Tom said, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. "We'll take it step by step. Just be yourself, and we'll capture some amazing shots together. You're going to be fantastic!"

Tom was a true professional. He gave clear instructions and made you feel at ease, even when you were a little nervous in front of the camera. He had a keen eye for detail and was able to capture your best angles, helping you look and feel your best.

When Tom finally showed you the first set of photos, you were blown away. "Is that really me?" you asked, your eyes widening in disbelief as you looked at the stunning images on the screen.

The transformation was incredible, and you couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. "Absolutely," Tom replied with a grin. "You did fantastic. These are some of the best shots we've taken today."

You turned to Lando, who was standing nearby, and showed him the photos. "Look at these, Lando. I can't believe it."

He looked over your shoulder, his face lighting up with a proud smile. "I told you, you're amazing and you look beautiful," Lando said, his voice filled with genuine admiration. "I knew you had it in you."

You blushed at his words, feeling a warmth spread through your cheeks. "Thank you, Lando," you said softly, glancing down at the floor for a moment before meeting his eyes again.

Sarah gave you a knowing look, a smirk playing on her lips. "See? Sometimes, others see what we can't see in ourselves," she remarked, her eyes twinkling.

"And it looks like someone else sees it too," she added, nodding subtly in Lando's direction.

You laughed softly, feeling a mix of gratitude and embarrassment at the attention.

"I couldn't have done it without all of your support. This whole team is incredible."

Lando chuckled, giving you a playful nudge. "Well, we knew you had it in you from the start. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll go far."

You nodded, feeling a renewed sense of confidence. "I will. With a team like this, how could I not?" You both laughed, the bond between you and your new colleagues growing stronger with each passing moment.

"Wow Y/N, is that you?" Jordan's voice echoed into the room as he approached, his eyes widening in surprise at the photos.

You smiled warmly, pleased by his reaction, while out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Lando's smile falter slightly, though no one else seemed to catch it.

"Yeah, it is," you replied, trying to keep the mood light. "Tom here worked his magic." Jordan nodded appreciatively, glancing between you and the photos. "Well, you look absolutely stunning. Seriously, these are just incredible."

"Thanks, Jordan," you said, feeling the support of your team even as you sensed a subtle tension in the air.

"Hey boss, I knew you had a good eye for beauty, you really picked a good one," Sarah said to Jordan, her voice teasing yet sincere.

Jordan laughed, placing an arm around your shoulders. "I knew it too, a rare beauty she is," he said, his tone filled with genuine pride.

You couldn't help but blush again, feeling both flattered and slightly overwhelmed by the attention. "Thanks, everyone. It really means a lot," you said, your voice a bit shaky but heartfelt.

Lando stood nearby, his expression now more composed, though you could still sense a hint of something unspoken in his eyes.

"Alright, let's keep this momentum going," he finally said, his voice steady. "We've got a lot more to capture today."

The team nodded in agreement, the energy in the room lifting as you all prepared for the next set of shots.

The room buzzed with excitement and focused energy as everyone moved into position. Lights were adjusted, cameras were checked, and the hum of whispered conversations filled the air.

Despite the earlier tension, the camaraderie among the team members was palpable, creating an atmosphere of mutual support and enthusiasm.

You then headed to the dressing room to change into a beautiful dress that complemented your skin tone perfectly. The dress was a rich, deep color that seemed to enhance your natural glow, and as you slipped it on, you couldn't help but feel a surge of confidence.

You took a moment to admire your reflection, appreciating how the fabric flowed gracefully and accentuated your features.

Tom's keen eye for styling had truly outdone itself.

Returning to the set, the collective gaze of your colleagues turned towards you, their eyes lighting up with admiration.

"Wow, you look absolutely stunning," Sarah exclaimed, her earlier teasing replaced with genuine awe.

Even Lando's guarded expression softened as he gave you a nod of approval. The atmosphere shifted, becoming even more charged with positive energy and anticipation for the work ahead.

As you took your practiced position, you felt the support and encouragement of your team, ready to capture the magic that was about to unfold. . . .

yourusername

liked by landonorris, mclaren, y/nbestie, and 3,612,937 others.

tagged; vogue

yourusername: One minute I was enjoying summer break, the next minute I'm modeling for a big company! Feeling incredibly grateful for this amazing opportunity and the wonderful team that made today unforgettable. Their support and encouragement transformed every moment into a magical experience. From the adrenaline rush of the camera clicks to the warmth of shared laughter, this journey has been nothing short of incredible. Here's to many more moments of creativity, camaraderie, and capturing beauty in all its forms.

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Lando sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Max, I don't know what to do, man. Every time I see her, I just—it's like my brain stops working."

Max chuckled, his face lighting up the screen. "Mate, you're actually down bad. You're totally whipped. It's hilarious to watch, honestly."

Lando groaned, leaning closer to the camera. "Thanks for the support, really. But seriously, any advice? I can't keep acting like a nervous wreck around her."

Max leaned back, a mischievous grin on his face. "Just be yourself, Lando. She's already into you, even if she doesn't know it yet. Confidence is key, mate. And maybe, you know, actually tell her how you feel?"

"You're just saying that because you already have a girlfriend," Lando said, rolling his eyes. "It's easy for you to give advice when you're not the one stuttering like an idiot every time she walks into the room."

Max's grin widened. "True, but that's how I got my girlfriend in the first place. I stopped overthinking and just went for it. Trust me, Lando, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Besides, the worst that can happen is she says no, and from what I can see, that's highly unlikely."

Before Lando could reply, he heard your voice calling from downstairs, "Lando, are you ready to go?" Panic flashed across his face for a moment as he scrambled to end the call.

"Uh, gotta go, Max. Thanks for the pep talk," he muttered hastily before disconnecting. He took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair, and made his way downstairs.

Seeing you waiting at the bottom, looking effortlessly radiant, he felt his nerves kick up again.

As he reached the bottom, you greeted him with a bright smile. "Hey, you look great!" you said, your eyes sparkling with genuine warmth.

Lando's nerves seemed to melt away at your words, and he found himself smiling back. "Thanks, you look beautiful as well," he replied, his voice steadying. "Shall we?"

It's already been a week since the modelling project began, and while you were clearly thriving, Lando was feeling increasingly frustrated. Every time he tried to catch a moment alone with you, there was always something—another shoot, a meeting, or some other distraction.

How was he supposed to ask you out when you were both constantly busy?

The few times you did get back home early, you were so exhausted that you barely had the energy to keep your eyes open, let alone have a meaningful conversation. Lando couldn't help but wonder if this was even the right time to make a move.

What if you were too focused on your career to notice his feelings? Was he just setting himself up for disappointment by hoping for a perfect moment that might never come?

The weight of these thoughts pressed heavily on his mind as he opened the door for you, determined to find a way to break through the barriers that seemed to keep you apart.

The theme for this second week was love, which meant you had to be partnered with the opposite sex or the sex you're attracted to.

The theme of love for the photoshoot is meant to capture the essence of being loved or loving someone through a powerful visual representation. The goal is to create images that evoke the deep emotions and connections associated with love.

In the first stage, the photographs should convey a sense of warmth, comfort, and security. They could showcase the gentle embrace of a couple, the tender gaze shared between two individuals, or the simple act of holding hands - all of which communicate the feeling of being cherished and accepted.

The second stage should focus on the photographs that depict the passion and intensity of love. These images might feature couples gazing into each other's eyes with an unspoken desire, or caught in a moment of playful, intimate interaction. The aim is to capture the vibrant, all-consuming nature of love that ignites the senses.

You were partnered with a young boy called Marcus, who seemed to have a knack for making everyone around him laugh. As you both prepared for the next shoot, Marcus turned to you, grinning.

"You know, Lando's been looking pretty restless lately. Think he might have a crush on someone?" He winked exaggeratedly, causing you to laugh.

"Oh, Marcus, stop being silly," you replied, though a blush crept up your cheeks. "Lando and I are just friends."

"Really? Because the way he's staring at me makes me think he wants to kill me," Marcus joked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

You couldn't help but laugh at his theatrics, but a part of you wondered if there was some truth in his words. Lando had been acting differently lately, more reserved and distant, yet his eyes always seemed to find yours across the room.

"Maybe he's just stressed about the shoot," you suggested, trying to dismiss the flutter in your chest.

Marcus raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "Stressed? Or maybe he's just jealous?" he teased, nudging you playfully.

You shook your head, but the thought stayed with you, making you more aware of Lando's presence and the unspoken tension between you two.

Lando had become quieter, often lost in thought, and his usual easygoing demeanor seemed replaced by something more intense. He would catch your eye during team meetings, holding your gaze a moment longer than necessary, and his subtle glances were filled with unspoken questions.

Even his interactions with others had changed; he was more curt and less engaged, almost as if his focus was always drawn back to you, no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

You decided you would talk to him about it when you got the time, but for now, you had to focus on the photoshoot. The next session was crucial, and you couldn't afford any distractions.

As you adjusted to your position on the set and faced Marcus for the next photo, you couldn't help but feel Lando's eyes on you, adding an extra layer of intensity to the already charged atmosphere.

Lando's behavior was undeniably affecting your concentration. Each time you felt his gaze, a wave of nervous energy surged through you, making it difficult to maintain your usual composure.

The tension was palpable, and you couldn't shake the feeling that this unspoken connection might either elevate your performance to new heights or completely unravel your focus.

You weren't able to talk to him properly in the ride home because you fell asleep in the car and then you woke up the next day.

The drive home from the event had been long and tiring. You had spent the entire day posing and socialising, and by the time you got into the car, you could barely keep your eyes open.

As the car pulled out of the parking lot, you felt your eyelids grow heavy, and before you knew it, you had drifted off to sleep.

When you finally opened your eyes, the car was parked in the driveway, and the sun was peeking through the curtains.

You had completely missed the ride home and the opportunity to continue your conversation with Lando. Feeling disappointed, you made a mental note to reach out today and pick up where you had left off.

As you got ready for the day, you couldn't help but replay the events of the previous evening in your mind. You had been looking forward to spending more time with him, and the missed opportunity weighed heavily on you.

As you stumbled into the kitchen, you were greeted by the comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

Lando was already awake, sitting at the table with a cup in hand, his eyes lifting to meet yours as you entered the room.

"Morning," he greeted, a small but warm smile playing on his lips.

"Morning," you replied, feeling a mix of relief and anticipation. He had already prepared a cup for you, which you gratefully accepted.

"Thanks for the coffee," you said, taking a sip and feeling the warmth spread through you. There was a brief silence as you both sipped your drinks, and then you took a deep breath.

"About yesterday... I feel like there's something we need to talk about."

You could see him freeze at your words. "Really? Um, not now. You're going to be late for work," he said, making an excuse as he glanced at the clock on the wall.

His sudden shift in demeanor made you hesitate, but you knew this conversation was important, and you couldn't let it slide.

"I understand, but this is something that can't wait," you insisted gently, setting your cup down on the table.

"We need to clear the air, Lando. It's been affecting me, and I think it's affecting you too."

His eyes softened slightly, and he nodded, realizing that delaying the conversation wouldn't make the tension disappear.

His eyes widened at your words, but he nodded slowly. "I promise, when we get time, we'll talk," he said, his voice softer now.

"I just want us to be in the right mind space for it. I know it’s important, and I don’t want to rush through it before work."

You appreciated his honesty and the promise of a future conversation, but the weight on your chest remained.

"I understand," you replied, giving him a small smile. "But remember, Lando, we can’t keep pushing this aside. It’s something we both need to address sooner rather than later."

He gave a reassuring nod and squeezed your hand briefly before you both continued with your morning routines, the unspoken words lingering in the air before leaving the house.

You thought you would talk today, but that wasn't true.

As soon as Lando brought you back home from work, he immediately left, saying he had to go check out a new sim practice.

You knew it was an excuse, and the unresolved tension gnawed at you as you watched him leave, realizing this conversation was going to be harder than you both anticipated.

You felt a mix of frustration and sadness settle over you as the door closed behind him. The avoidance only made the issue seem larger in your mind, and you couldn't help but worry about the growing distance between you.

Determined to find a way to address it, you resolved to bring it up again tomorrow, no matter how difficult it might be. . . .

──── ⋆★⋆ ──── ･ ｡ﾟ☆ : *. ☽ .* : ☆ﾟ. ──── ⋆★⋆ ────

Yesterday was a fail, and you felt the distance between you and Lando only widening. As you immersed yourself more deeply in your modeling career, you found solace in the creative process, even as it distracted you from the unresolved issues at home.

Meanwhile, Lando seemed to be filling the void by engaging more with the girls around him, their laughter and chatter a constant reminder of the growing gap in your relationship.

The contrast between your focused, solitary work and his increasingly social behavior was stark, and it left you feeling isolated and uncertain.

You couldn't help but replay the missed opportunities for conversation in your mind, each one adding to your sense of frustration. Despite your busy schedules, the silence between you both was deafening, and the lack of communication weighed heavily on your heart.

Determined not to let another day slip by without addressing the issue, you resolved to confront Lando as soon as you two returned home, knowing that continuing to avoid the conversation would only deepen the rift between you.

When you and Lando arrived at the workplace, she quickly made her way to you, "Y/N! Terrible news!"

"What happened?" you asked, a sense of dread creeping up your spine.

"Marcus got into a car accident!" Sarah exclaimed, her voice laced with worry. Your heart sank as the news hit you.

"Oh no, is he alright?" you asked, your mind racing with concern.

Sarah shook her head saying, "He's hurt and has to stay in the hospital for a week."

"Which means for this week, you'll need a new partner for the photoshoot," Sarah sighed. "We'll find you one soon, don't worry," she added, trying to reassure you.

You nodded, though your thoughts were still scattered. "Thanks, Sarah. I hope Marcus recovers quickly," you said, forcing a smile.

Thankfully the theme today was the feeling of being lovesick, which was ironically what you were feeling for Lando, so you didn't have to pretend.

As you stood on the set, you got into your position, expressing the yearning and heartache you had been experiencing through your face expression. Each picture was resonated with the depth of your emotions, as if you were pouring your very soul into this.

Everyone on the set was captivated, their eyes fixed on you, mesmerized by the raw vulnerability you displayed. You could feel the connection, the shared understanding of the pain and joy that come with being in love.

It was as if you had opened a window into your heart, and they were peering in, relating to your every movement.

As the final photoshoot faded, you couldn't help but steal a glance at Lando, your heart racing with a mix of hope and trepidation.

"Wow Y/N! You made your facial expression look so real, are you sure you haven't experienced some heartbreak recently?" Sarah joked, her eyes twinkling with a hint of curiosity.

You forced a chuckle, but your gaze betrayed you as it drifted toward Lando, who was busy reviewing the shots with Tom. "Just good acting, I guess," you replied, trying to mask the turmoil bubbling inside.

Lando glanced up at that moment, catching your eye for the briefest second before returning to the screen. The unspoken words between you felt like a chasm, growing wider with each passing day.

Jordan then came over later and accessed everyone's pictures like he always does and he was seriously impressed with yours.

"Y/N, I think you should sign yourself up to be a real model!" he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with genuine admiration.

You blushed, feeling a mix of pride and embarrassment. "Really? You think I'm that good?" you asked, trying to gauge if he was serious or just being polite.

"Absolutely," Jordan said firmly. "The emotion you conveyed in these shots is something I rarely see, even in seasoned professionals. You have a real talent, Y/N. Don't let it go to waste."

You smiled, a genuine one this time, appreciating his encouragement. "Thanks, Jordan. Maybe I will consider it," you replied, feeling a newfound confidence bubbling within you.

As he walked away, you threw another glance at Lando, wondering if he too had noticed the depth of your performance.

"So I was thinking of experimenting with a new style," Sarah explained, excitement dancing in her eyes. "I was thinking of copying the style of a face being covered by lipstick kisses, giving the effect of being truly loved."

"But there is one problem," she added, her tone turning slightly hesitant.

"What is it?" you asked, curiosity piqued.

"You don't have a partner to place the kisses on you," Sarah admitted, looking slightly apologetic.

You bit your lip, contemplating her words. Just then, Jordan approached, having overheard the conversation. "I could help with that," he offered, his voice steady but his eyes betraying a hint of happiness.

Your heart skipped a beat at his suggestion. "Are you sure?" you asked, trying to keep your voice even.

Jordan nodded, grinning. "Yeah, I'm sure. Let's make this shoot unforgettable."

Sarah's face fell slightly, the excitement dimming in her eyes as she processed Jordan's offer. She had secretly hoped that Lando would step up, imagining how perfect the photos could be with him as the one placing the kisses.

There was an unspoken chemistry between you and Lando that she thought would translate beautifully through the lens.

However, seeing Jordan's eager grin, she forced a smile, not wanting to dampen the mood.

"Thanks, Jordan," Sarah said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "That would be great." She glanced at Lando, who remained engrossed in his screen, seemingly oblivious to the conversation.

A pang of disappointment tugged at her heart, but she quickly shook it off.

"Alright, let's get started," she continued, clapping her hands together. "This is going to be an amazing shoot."

Unknown to you and Sarah, Lando had been listening to the entire conversation, his eyes never leaving his screen but his ears tuned in to every word. He had felt a surge of jealousy and frustration when he heard Jordan volunteer.

Lando had wanted to step up, to be the one who would place those lipstick kisses on you, but hesitation had rooted him to his seat. Now, he was annoyed at himself for not acting sooner and at Jordan for taking what he secretly desired.

As Sarah and Jordan prepared for the shoot, Lando's mind raced with conflicting emotions. He couldn't focus on his work, the images of you and Jordan together clouding his thoughts.

He clenched his jaw, feeling a wave of regret wash over him. Unable to bring himself to look at you, he stared at his screen, wishing he had the courage to tell you how he really felt.

"Okay, you just have to put lipstick on and then you kiss her all over," Sarah instructed, showing them a picture of an example on her iPad.

Jordan studied the image and nodded, his confidence unwavering. He picked up a tube of lipstick and began applying it, a playful smile forming on his lips.

As Jordan leaned in closer to you, you could feel the warmth of his breath on your skin. "Ready?" he whispered, his eyes locking onto yours.

You nodded, trying to ignore the fluttering in your stomach.

Jordan then kissed just above your collarbone, and your breath hitched from the contact. The sensation was both surprising and exhilarating, sending a shiver down your spine.

You tried to stay composed, focusing on the camera and the task at hand, but the intimacy of the moment made it difficult. Sarah, ever the professional, continued to direct the shoot, her voice a steady anchor in the whirlwind of emotions swirling around you.

Lando, watching from a distance, felt his chest tighten with a mix of longing and frustration. Each kiss Jordan placed on your skin felt like a blow to his own heart. He wanted to be the one sharing that moment with you, to feel the connection he knew was there.

But instead, he was a silent spectator, his jealousy growing with each passing second.

Finally, unable to take it any longer, he stood up abruptly and walked out of the room, leaving behind a trail of unresolved feelings.

You noticed Lando's sudden departure out of the corner of your eye, and a pang of confusion and concern hit you. His abrupt exit left a tangible void in the room, distracting you momentarily from the shoot.

You couldn't help but wonder what had driven him away so suddenly, and the thought lingered in your mind, intertwining with the emotions already stirred by Jordan's closeness.

"Um, can I have a couple of minutes to myself?" you asked, glancing over to where Lando went.

The crew exchanged puzzled looks but nodded, granting you the brief reprieve you needed. As you stepped out of the room, you could feel Jordan's eyes following you, a mix of curiosity and concern etched on his face.

You found Lando in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his head bowed. "Lando, are you okay?" you asked softly, approaching him hesitantly.

He looked up, his eyes filled with a tumult of emotions. "I... I just needed a moment," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Let's talk in my dressing room," you said, taking his hand gently. He hesitated for a moment but then allowed you to lead him down the hallway.

The silence between you was heavy, filled with unspoken words and feelings. Once inside, you closed the door behind you, creating a small space of privacy amidst the chaos outside.

"Lando, what's going on?" you asked, your voice soft but insistent.

He took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair before meeting your gaze. "It's just... seeing you with Jordan," he began, his voice strained. "I know it's just a shoot, but it feels real, and it hurts. I care about you more than I should, and watching him be close to you, it's driving me crazy."

The raw vulnerability in his eyes mirrored the turmoil you felt inside, making it clear that this conversation was long overdue.

"Does this have to do with the conversation we're supposed to have?" you asked gently, your voice a mixture of concern and curiosity. Lando nodded, his eyes never leaving yours.

"I've been wanting to tell you for a while now, but I didn't know how. Every time I see you with someone else, it just reminds me of how much I need to say this," he confessed, his voice trembling slightly.

You took a step closer, your heart pounding in your chest. "Lando, you can tell me anything. I care about you too," you reassured him, your hand reaching out to touch his arm.

He took another deep breath, his eyes searching yours for any hint of rejection. "I know this might complicate things, but I can't keep it to myself anymore. I love you, and seeing you with Jordan today made me realize I can't just stand by and watch. I needed you to know," he said, his voice raw with emotion.

Your heart skipped a beat as the weight of Lando's words settled over you. You felt a mix of shock, relief, and an overwhelming surge of emotion. "Lando, I..." you began, your voice catching in your throat as you tried to process his heartfelt confession.

How could Lando possibly have feelings for you? He had always been drawn to blondes with striking, model-like figures, and you were the complete opposite of that ideal.

Every time you saw him at parties or events, he was surrounded by women who fit that mold perfectly.

So why now, and why you?

Was he just saying this because he was caught up in the moment, or did he truly see something in you that you couldn't see in yourself? Your mind raced with questions, each one more incredulous than the last.

Why would he choose you when he could have anyone he wanted? Was it possible that he saw beyond the superficial, that he appreciated the depth of your connection and the moments you shared?

The thought seemed almost surreal, making you question whether this was some kind of elaborate joke or misunderstanding.

Yet, the sincerity in his eyes left little room for doubt. Did he really see something in you that he had overlooked in others? Could it be that beneath his polished exterior, he was searching for something more genuine, something real?

The questions swirled in your mind, leaving you teetering on the edge of disbelief and cautious hope.

You loved him, but you didn't know if you could believe him or not. There was something about the way he spoke, the way he looked at you, that made you want to trust him completely.

But a part of you couldn't help but wonder if he was being completely honest.

You had been hurt before, and the thought of going through that pain again was almost too much to bear. But the way he made you feel, the way he made your heart race, was something you had never experienced before.

You wanted to believe him, to give him your whole heart, but the fear of being betrayed was always lurking in the back of your mind.

"You don't have to answer right now," Lando started gently, his voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. "I just needed you to know how I feel. I've been holding this in for so long, and seeing you tonight, I couldn't keep it to myself any longer."

"I love you too," you blurted out, grabbing the collar of his shirt as if to anchor yourself to the moment. His eyes widened in surprise, but then they softened with a warmth that melted your lingering doubts.

"I don't know if this is real or if I'm just dreaming, but I can't deny how I feel. I'm scared, Lando, but I want to trust you. I want to believe that this, what we have, is genuine."

Lando's face lit up with a mixture of relief and joy, his eyes sparkling as he pulled you into a tight embrace. "You have no idea how much this means to me," he whispered into your ear, his voice trembling with emotion.

"I promise you, I'll do everything I can to prove that this is real."

"How about you kiss me first?" you teased, your voice barely above a whisper.

Lando didn't hesitate for a second. His lips met yours with a fervor that sent a shiver down your spine, as if he was pouring every ounce of his feelings into that single moment.

The world around you faded, leaving only the sensation of his warmth and the certainty that, for now, this was where you both belonged.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and hearts pounding, Lando cupped your face in his hands, his eyes searching yours for any trace of doubt. "Was that convincing enough?" he asked, a playful twinkle in his eyes.

You nodded, unable to find the words to describe the tumult of emotions swirling within you.

"But what about those girls at the club in Belgium, or the girls here?" you muttered, the insecurity evident in your voice.

Lando giggled softly, shaking his head. "The girls at the club came over to ask if you were my girlfriend because I was staring at you the whole time while DJing," he explained, his eyes never leaving yours. "And I was talking to the girls here because I wanted to find a model agency for you to do this full-time since you look so happy doing this now."

You felt a wave of relief wash over you, your anxieties beginning to dissipate. "Really?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Really," Lando confirmed, his expression sincere. "I want to support you in every way I can. You mean everything to me."

Tears welled up in your eyes as you realized the depth of his commitment. "I don't know what to say," you admitted, your voice trembling. "You've always believed in me more than I believed in myself."

Lando smiled, glancing at your neck, "Can I wipe off those kiss marks now? They're really irritating me," he said, unable to look away from them.

You laughed, feeling the tension melt away. "Oh, so now you're suddenly concerned about my appearance?" you teased, brushing a hand gently against his cheek.

"Always," he replied, his tone softening. "I just want everything to be perfect for you." He reached for a tissue, gently dabbing at the lipstick kiss marks Jordan had left.

"Also, I wanted to replace his marks with mine," Lando grinned, tucking his head into your shoulder and placing soft kisses along your neck.

You shivered at the sensation, feeling a mixture of amusement and affection.

"You're impossible," you murmured, tilting your head to give him better access. His playful yet tender gestures made your heart swell, and you couldn't help but feel grateful for his unwavering support.

"Impossible but irresistible, right?" he teased, pulling back slightly to meet your gaze. You nodded, unable to suppress a smile.

"Okay, maybe a little," you admitted, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Just a little?" he asked, raising an eyebrow mischievously. "I think I can do better than that."

Before you could respond, he leaned in, capturing your lips in a slow, lingering kiss that made your knees weak. "How about now?" he whispered against your lips, his breath warm and intoxicating.

You giggled, feeling your cheeks flush. "Alright, a lot," you confessed, playfully tugging at his collar.

"Good," he murmured, closing the distance between you, "because I plan to be irresistible for a very long time."

"Well, you certainly have my attention," you flirted back, tracing a finger along his jawline. "Think you can handle it?"

Lando's eyes sparkled with mischief as he tightened his hold on you. "Oh, I think I'll manage," he replied, his voice low and seductive. "After all, I have a lifetime to perfect my technique."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, causing both of you to jump. Lando instinctively held you tighter, his protective instincts kicking in.

"Who could that be?" he whispered, his brow furrowing as he reluctantly pulled away from your embrace. You quickly straightened your clothes and exchanged a curious glance with him before moving towards the door.

As you opened it, Sarah stood there, looking somewhat sheepish. "Y/N are you okay? You've been here for a while-" she said, her eyes darting between you and Lando. "You know what? Just take your time coming back,"

She closed the door and you turned back to Lando, who was already smirking at you.

"Now, where were we?" he asked, his playful demeanor returning as he stepped closer, making you forget all about the interruption.

You raised an eyebrow, matching his playful energy. "I believe you were about to show me just how irresistible you can be," you teased, stepping closer and running your fingers through his hair. "Think you can pick up where we left off?"

Lando's grin widened as he closed the distance once more, determined to make the most of every moment. . . . .

[kimstills]

i can see you

pairing: aaron hotchner x f!reader summary: "here i was thinking that i was special because you would only look at me with that desperate look on your face, but i see that you give any old man that look, right?” content warnings: jealous!hotch, reader is a panther (aren't we all), bathroom sex, mirror sex, p in v, sexual tension, unprotected sex (r mentions being on birth control but wrap it before you tap it!), rough sex, dirty talk, size kink if u squint, spanking, hair pulling, choking, dom!hotch, sub!reader. word count: 3.9k (y’all this was not supposed to be this long lmao) notes: day 18 of @hotchfiles marchhotchness 'self-image' but also HEAVILY inspired by this post from @softhairedhotch because it made me go FERAL and i love jealous hotch (but pls lmk if taking inspo was okay!!) this is also my first hotch fic ever so pls lmk ur thoughts or any other feedback <333

aaron hotchner was not a jealous man.

he had no right to be jealous over something that technically did not exist or someone that technically was not his.

and although he only had himself to blame for that, he really did wish that you were his. and as much as he was telling himself not to be, he was jealous.

but it wasn’t the typical jealous where he watched you be approached by someone much younger than him—someone your own age instead of his—and by someone who already had him beat in reciprocating that flirtatious energy you often used on aaron himself.

no, this type of jealousy was one that was boosting his ego and making him feel lightweight, albeit the fact that it still made him see red.

it was a typical night out with the rest of the team, all of you having agreed that the eight of you were in need of a couple of drinks after some long weeks of paperwork and back and forth cases.

you were all engrossed in the conversation, but you had left the table to get yourself another refill on your drink and had taken far too long than it normally would have, the rest of the younger members—all besides reid—having decided on hitting up the dance floor throughout the time you hadn’t returned to your seat.

it was practically natural for aaron to look for you in a crowd, but what he hadn’t expected to find was you, sitting in a bar stool on the right side of the bar, being hit up by a man who had to have been a couple of years older than aaron himself.

the front hairs of the man’s head were peeking of several grey hairs, paired with a matching grey beard and an overall radiance that screamed of that older man type that you were apparently into.

the sudden revelation made aaron feel dizzy, the confirmation of your attraction towards older men making his pants tighten as he watched the way you stared up at the man with that sultry look of yours—the one where you were somehow able to perfectly mix mischief and innocence seamlessly together.

while you had used that look on aaron countless times before, times where it had been only you and him alone in his office, way past working hours, he had never done anything about it. but, god, as he watched you do it to someone else, out on the open, there was nothing he was currently regretting more.

aaron’s train of thought was interrupted as he felt someone kick him from underneath the table he sat at, whipping his head to the person in front of him only to find rossi staring at him with a smug look on his face.

he cleared his throat, “what?”

aaron mentally cringed at the way his voice wavered.

“you gonna be done being jealous anytime soon and make a move or are you just gonna sit there throwing daggers at the guy?” dave asked, brows raised.

he took a long sip from his drink, trying to avoid the question for as long as he could as he tried to compose himself, “i don’t know what you’re talking about,”

rossi rolled his eyes, “oh, please, aaron. you don’t have to be a profiler to notice the way you can cut the tension that’s between the both of you with a butter knife,”

aaron’s brows furrowed.

“you have all the confirmation you need right there,” dave pointed his thumb behind him, signaling at you and the man, “if that’s not enough for you, then i’m declaring you helpless at this point,” he let out a sigh, standing from his seat, “i’m going to get another drink and if i find you still sitting here, wallowing in your thoughts after getting my refill, i’ll go up to them and encourage her to go home with the man.”

aaron’s fists clenched at the thought. at the thought of you sprawled on the bed of another man, wearing that same look you had on just now and staring up at him as you—

his body acted faster than his brain did, and before he even had the chance to process what he was doing, he stood from his own stool, not allowing for another moment to pass by as he stormed over to where you and the man were sitting.

from your side of the room, you can see aaron make his way over to you through the peripheral of your vision, the excitement of finally getting a reaction out of him making your heart skip and your thighs press together as you took into count the way his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.

the pressure you put on your thighs didn’t do anything to relieve the ache you felt in your core as he reached where you sat, coming to stand behind—was his name michael? although the stranger you had began talking to was definitely older than him, aaron was a good several inches taller, towering over the both of you.

he cleared his throat, cutting michael off from whatever he had been talking to you about as he turned around with a raised brow. aaron’s expression didn’t falter, not sparing a single glance at the man as his eyes landed on you, “y/n, can i speak to you for a moment?”

you mentally rolled your eyes. ever the formal one.

michael scoffed from in front of him, angling his body so that he was able to properly glare daggers at your boss, “we were in the middle of a conversation here, if you don’t mind?”

although your attraction for aaron skyrocketed in comparison to the man you had just met, you were thriving off of the jealousy radiating off of the one you wanted the most, the ache in your stomach only growing.

before aaron had the chance to shoot out a reply, you set your hand on michael’s forearm, giving him a small, but sad smile, “i’m sorry, michael,” you butted in, jumping off of the bar stool, “i’ll be right back, okay?”

another scoff comes from michael’s direction, “whatever,” he grabs his drink and rolls his eyes, “don’t even bother coming back,”

ew.

this time you actually rolled your eyes, grabbing at your drink and drowning the rest of it. you shrug, “older men are always a hit or miss,” you mumble, setting the glass down.

aaron’s hand comes to wrap around your wrist, a firm but gentle grip on it as he pulls you close to him, “let’s go,” he seethes in your ear.

you hide a smirk as you follow behind him, letting your body practically flail as you struggle to keep up with him. when he notices your staggered pace, he matches his footsteps with yours, moving his hand from your wrist to your waist as he guides you through the crowd and towards the hallway that lead towards the bar’s restrooms.

the both of you gave a silent thanks at the fact that there was no line, the hallway scarce and dimly lit with the exception of a few people standing together against the walls, either flirting or talking.

“what are you doing?” you ask, standing behind him as he knocks on one of the doors, his grip on your waist still very much present.

“you’ll see,” he mumbles, yanking the door open by the knob after no one replies and pulling the both of you inside before slamming the door shut behind him.

you try to take a good look at the interior of the bathroom, trying to guess if it was a good enough place to do whatever the two of you were about to do.

a faint gasp escapes your lips as you feel something hard press into your ass, immediately melting as one of aaron’s big hands comes to rub at the side of your leg, right below your hip. his whole body comes up behind yours, his other free hand coming to your stomach to press you into him.

“aaron—” you try to speak but get cut off as you let out another gasp, one almost like a sigh, as the hand that was rubbing at your leg sneaks further up and wraps itself around your hip, aaron’s thick fingers digging into your skin despite the material of your shorts that blocked his hand.

aaron dips his head so that his mouth is right next to your ear, his breath and the faint touch of his lips against the lower part of your jawline sending shivers down your spine.

“is this okay?” he asks softly, a total contrast from the vice grip he had on both your front and hip.

you nod quickly, your hand coming up to your right where he held your hip to wrap around his own.

“use your words, honey,”

the pet name makes you whimper and your thighs clench in spite of the fact that you were standing up. you let out a ragged breath as he awaits for your answer, the hand that was pressed to your stomach furthering down until it was right above your pelvis but below your tummy, pushing you further back until you could feel how hard he actually was.

you whine, your other hand coming to wrap around that one, too, “yes,” you sigh, “it’s okay,”

aaron presses his lips into that same spot below your jaw, gently and lovingly before whipping you around so that you were facing him and pushing you up against the counter.

not even giving you a chance to process what he had just done, his lips crash onto yours roughly, making you moan directly into his mouth. your bring your arms up around his neck, running your fingers through his hair and tugging.

aaron hisses, slapping at your thigh in a firm way that had you let out another moan.

“aaron,” you whine, pushing up into his chest out of desperation.

he hums, “do you want my attention now?” he asks through the kiss, “don’t wanna go back and talk to that guy you were all over just a couple of minutes ago?”

“no,” you mumble, huffing as he breaks away from you to wrap his fingers around your chin.

he chuckles as your lips form into a puffy pout, “here i was thinking that i was special because you would only look at me with that desperate look on your face, but i see that you give any old man that look, right?”

“no!” you whine again, your arms dropping from around his neck to wrap around his bicep, squeezing at the muscle to try and pull him closer to you, “just you!”

his confidence was beyond what it normally was, feeling you squirm from against him yet still wanting his touch, “really? so you weren’t planning on going home with that man? all those times you touched his shoulder or the times he would touch your thigh meant nothing?”

“yes, they didn’t mean anything!” you huff, “you’re the one i want to go home with all the time!”

aaron’s heart clenched at your confession, knowing that deep down you really did mean all the time. he had just never been sure if you truly were interested in living a joint life with him. up until now, that is.

he brings his hands to your back, right by your shoulder blades as he connects your lips once more. your shoulders relax and you lean into him with earnest, squeezing at the muscle from his bicep.

you hum, satisfied as he begins to run his hands up and down, resulting in the fabric of your shirt lifting with every time he went up, eventually ending up in nothing but rolled up fabric under his palm. he breaks the kiss once more to toss your shirt over your head and near the sink’s counter, leaving you in only your shorts.

aaron stared at your bare breasts, not expecting you to have not been wearing a bra despite the tight shirt you just had on.

you shiver under his gaze, opening your mouth to say something before he lowered himself and quickly attached a mouth to one of your breasts, the other one coming up to grab and squeeze at it. you moan, gripping onto the marble counter for support as he presses sloppy and wet kisses to each breast.

his fingers come to undo the button of your shorts, hooking them inside your panties before shoving both articles of clothing down your legs, signaling you to kick them off of you. you toed your shoes off as well, leaving you completely naked and bare for him while he remained fully clothed.

he turns you around gently, bringing you face to face with the sight of you completely stripped in the mirror, the image making you clench your thighs together once more as you stabilized yourself on the sink.

aaron’s hands soothed all around your body, a whimper leaving you at the feeling of his calloused hands groping at your breasts before moving down to your soaking pussy.

as if on instinct, you spread your legs open for him, practically inviting him to dip his fingers into your folds and inside your entrance. the thickness of both his index and middle fingers stretching you out. you knew you had always loved his hands for a reason.

a moan bounced off the walls as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, moving torturously slow before he began to pick up the pace. you could feel your slick drip onto the floor and probably onto the rest of his hand, but all you could focus on was shamelessly bucking your hips into your hand and spreading your legs for even more access.

“you’re soaking, honey,” aaron says, hand coming back around to squeeze at your breast again, leaving you gasping as he pinched your nipples.

you whimpered, “just for you,”

“‘just for me?’” he repeats, “not for anyone else, right?”

you shake your head no, pussy clenching around his fingers, “j-just for you, aaron,”

his hand left your breast to smack at your ass, making you jump, “good girl,”

with that, he takes his fingers out of you, a throaty whine leaving your lips at the empty feeling. you arched your back into him, but immediately stilled at the sound of him removing his belt filled the room. you watched from the mirror in front of you as he undid his pants button, reaching past his boxers to pull out his cock.

oh shit.

your mouth dropped at the sight of his dick spring out from where it had been confined, your slick hole clenching at nothing at how big he was. you knew that aaron hotchner was definition of big dick energy, always wondered what he was secretly packing, but now you wondered if you were going to be able to take it all.

he was thick, veiny all around with girth too thick that it hurt just looking at him. as much as you could tell you wouldn’t be able to walk after this, it excited you far too much.

you gulped, meeting his eyes in the mirror, landing on his hungry gaze, “is it going to fit?” you ask quietly, trying to bring your legs back together.

“we’ll make it fit,” he says, sounding confident of himself, a hand coming to stop you from closing your legs, “will you let me know if it’s too much?”

you take another look at his cock before giving him a determined look, “i will,” you nod.

he nods back, angling your head with his hand so he could press a kiss to your mouth.

you give into him easily, arching into him until you feel the tip of his cock slip through your wet folds and line up with your entrance. you had taken dick before, but never this big, so as he gave you one last look, you took a deep breath before feeling him sink into you.

you gasp, already feeling full by just the tip, though the slickness of your pussy helping you in adjust.

“still good, honey?”

you nod again, too busy focusing on how his length was stretching you out further than his fingers had.

smack!

aaron’s hand landed another spank on your ass, making you snap your heads toward him with a confused, dumbfounded expression. he glared, “use your words.”

you huffed, doing your best to not roll your eyes, “still good,” you replied, going back to focusing on how full your pussy already felt, “is it in yet?”

“almost, baby,” you whined again, pushing your ass back onto him and earning yourself another inch inside.

humming in delight, you felt aaron begin to move, setting a slow pace as he inched himself in and out to get you used to the length that was already inside you.

“aaron,” you sighed, “give it all to me,” you pleaded at him through the mirror, “i can take it,”

he studied your expression, all needy and flushed as you tried to buck your hips further back to fill yourself up more, “let me know if it’s too much,” he warned.

you nodded eagerly but didn’t get a chance to reply as he shoved the rest of his length inside, the tip immediately hitting that one spot. you gasped loudly, the feeling of his whole cock inside you awakening a hunger inside of you, “fuck,” you moaned, dropping your hands so that you were resting with your elbows on the counter, “please, aaron. move,”

he hesitated for another moment, and just as you were about to look behind you, you felt him begin to move, pistoling his hips into your ass roughly.

you let out a shriek, your hands grabbing at anything you could reach in order to stabilize yourself as he began to mercilessly pound into you from behind. he slipped his dick in and out of you each time, your pussy hugging the veiny length each time he did.

the sounds your juices made due to you being soaked vibrated against the room each time his hips hit your ass roughly, and it only edged you on further.

“a-aaron,” you moan, breasts jiggling against the cold sink as the girth of his cock stretched you out, “aaron! oh, fuck!”

you thought you had felt good getting his attention when you were back flirting with the guy, but nothing could have prepared you for the feeling of his dick slamming into you.

from above, aaron grunted and groaned, fingers and nails digging into your hips harshly as he pounded into your perfect pussy. he loved the way you clenched around him, taking it back perfectly each time he slipped back in.

his hand reached for your hair, wrapping his hand around it and pulling you back until you were flush against him with your back still perfectly arched. he dropped his hand from your head to wrap around your neck, fingers digging into the sides.

you gasped, not having a choice as you looked at him through the now foggy mirror, the image of your body rocking with every smack against your body only adding onto the sensation.

“such a perfect pussy,” aaron grumbled into your ear, “this pussy was made for me, wasn’t it sweetheart?”

you did your best to nod regardless of how weak your body felt, of the way you could feel your slick drip down to your thighs or the way you were drooling from your open mouth, “belongs to you, aaron,” you mumble, surprisingly coherently despite the way he was choking you.

“yeah, it does,” he grunts, free hand coming to grab at your stomach again before pushing against the spot where his cock was evidently sliding in and out of you, making you squirm, “this greedy pussy belongs to me. not to that bastard you were flirting with, right, honey?”

you nod again, eyes stuck on the tummy bulge you currently displayed, your hole clenching at aaron’s cock even tighter at the way the indent disappeared when he slipped out versus when it reappeared when slipping back in.

“feels so good, aaron,” you mumble, saliva dropping from your lips and onto your pointy, practically rock hard nipples that jiggled with each thrust.

“yeah?” he asks, breath hot against your ear, “taking it so well for me, such a good girl,” he praises, hand leaving from your stomach to slither down to where your bodies connected.

you let out a squeal as his middle finger slipped through your finger and his index began to rub furiously at your swollen clit, the feeling making the knot in your stomach tighten and tighten.

you babbled aaron’s name like a loose mantra, bodies rocking together as he quickened his pace after realizing that you were close to orgasming, hand tightening around your neck and finger rubbing even faster than before.

“c’mon, honey, come for me,” he encouraged, “come all over my cock, pretty girl,”

it was all the confirmation you need to let yourself go, body shaking and aaron’s name being repeated as you chased the high, glad that he was holding you up with his hands as your whole body stuttered.

the feeling of your pussy clenching and unclenching around him violently made aaron groan, sweat dripping down his body as he began to reach his own high just from the way your body reacted to orgasming from his dick. from the way he was fucking you and from the way he was naming you as his own.

you could feel his pace falter from behind you, lazily meeting his pace as you tried to encourage him to finish, “come in me, aaron, please,” you whined, needing to feel him fill you up to the point where his come would leak out of you, “fill up my pussy, aaron,”

he gave you a look of unsureness through the mirror before you nodded at him, “i’m on the pill. it’s okay. please,”

that had been all the confirmation he need for him to finish inside you, his cock twitching inside you as his seed filled you up, making you moan as you rode out your own orgasm, still clenching tightly around him.

you giggled at the way his body practically toppled onto yours as he tried to catch himself, bodies pressed together as he held onto the counter with his dick still inside you.

he snaked his hand around the side of your face as his breath evened, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek and shutting up your whines as he pulled out from inside you with a kiss to your mouth.

“jack’s at a sleepover today,” he says after a few moments of silence.

you inch an eyebrow at him, watching as he leaned over to grab some toilet paper, snatching some off the holder before wiping himself clean of you and wincing at the sensitivity as he wiped gently at your own folds and thighs, “is he now?”

he hums, tucking himself back into his boxers and quickly buttoning his pants to help you put your own clothes on, “he is,” he grabbed your discarded shorts and parties from the floor and signaled you to lift your legs, “we can go home and i’ll wake you up with breakfast in bed and ask you to be go on an official date with me in the morning,”

your heart pulls as he buttons up your shorts for you, reaching for your shirt, too, “i’ll only say yes if we keep going when we get home,” you admit, making him freeze in his movements.

he pinched your nipple.

[soamericn]

𝜗𝜚 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

🐰ྀི₊˚⊹ ‘ one night he wakes strange look on his face pauses, then says you're my best friend and you knew what it was he is in love ‘

𝜗𝜚… summary , ( f!yn x oscar piastri ) oscar piastri is head over heels for his best friend, though he keeps his feelings a secret. he wins his first race in f1 and after seeing her cheering him on in the crowd he can’t hide his affections any longer.

𝜗𝜚… type , irl

𝜗𝜚… faceclaim , up to your imagination <3

𝜗𝜚… triggers , there is none

𝜗𝜚… authors note , my first f1 one shot! I'm really proud ngl and it's as cute as I was hoping! hope ya'll enjoy!

🐰ྀི₊˚⊹ masterlist

all he could hear was his heartbeat in his helmet; it flooded his ears like static on a radio. After getting out of the car without a thought in his head, he stepped onto the car in front of the halo putting both of his arms into the air. 

Adrenaline flooded his senses, his colorful helmet shined under the night race lights. The cheers were overwhelmingly loud as each voice blended together into the sea of people. 

Subconsciously so, his ears searched for one voice in particular, one that was soft and comforting. The one he’d share a laugh with until three in morning. Or would tease him inexplicably. But the voice was stirred in with the rest. 

Oscar stepped down from the car, and the first thing he did was run into the ocean of papaya. Many hands covered him, patting his back or helmet hearing many compliments on his win. After a minute or so of drowning himself in the praise and affection from his team he stepped away removing his helmet and placing it on a pedestal. 

He ran a hand through his damp hair, it staying in place as he did so. A hand landed on his shoulder and he turned, seeing a man in a matching suit who pulled him into a hug. “Mate you did great.” He complimented, his voice directly in his ear.

The Australian didn’t realize how truly speechless he was until someone directly spoke to him. The words formed in his throat but never made it out of his mouth. 

Lando pulled away with a light two taps on his back. “Thanks, maybe not pelting me with champagne could be a good job present.” Oscar jokes. 

The Brit lets out a small laugh and shakes his head, “Oh c'mon you need the full podium experience-” Oscar’s attention on Lando was cut off, the voice. 

The one he’d scanned for, moments before the voice had made itself known. She shouted his name from behind the short fence with the rest of the crowd desperately trying to get the man she’d known for most of her life’s attention. Oscar’s eyes searched the crowd, until they found her, he could’ve picked her out in any crowd his entire being always seemed drawn to her.

“Oscar!” His best friend. The only one he’s ever really known. Always supporting him, even today adorning herself in all papaya wearing a jersey he’d known for a fact had a huge eighty-one on the back (and might’ve been stolen from his closet), all for him. 

Oscar rushed over, as soon as he’d spotted her after the race, he just knew he needed her in the moment. The calm, composedness of his being suddenly dissolved into the smokey air. Still with a small fence between them he wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her into a tight hug. Her arms naturally floated around his neck, they fit together perfectly like two puzzle pieces made just for one another. Camera flashes flooded their sudden embrace, and he lightly lifted her into the air as he tightened their hold on one another. They could’ve done the whole podium ceremony, everyone could have gone home and Oscar would’ve stayed here with his arms around her always.

“You did so well today.” Her voice was soft, the words only meant for him. She only wanted him to know how proud she was of him. How much her heart raced as he crossed the checkered flag, and how much support she’d carried with her for him through everything.

His impulsiveness took over as soon as he heard her speak, he wasn’t thinking about anything in that moment, not the cameras, the thousands of people that surrounded the pair, and certainly not the feelings he carried for her for many years; the feelings he kept deep down for too long, way too long. He only thought of her, the way her soft voice tickled against his skin and the flush it brought to his already red cheeks.

Placing a delicate but firm hand on her cheek which she covered with her own hand, her cheeks turning a light and kind shade of pink and a gentle smile formed from her lips. The lips Oscar just happened to notice how pink and heart shaped they’d been and how soft they looked compared to his own chapped ones.

Oscar slightly looked down and she’d looked up at him, her eyes seemed as if they were looking into him, as if she could’ve read his thoughts. Standing like this for a second, there was a moment where the Australian had contemplated, was he going to possibly ruin a friendship over his own feelings? Before he could even think about not doing it, her eyelashes fluttered warm and innocent and he filled the gap between them. 

They were perfectly made for one another. They moved in sync, and she’d tasted of an orange mocktail and strawberry chapstick and everything that's made her, her. His thumb lightly stroked her cheek, and his arm snaked around her waist holding her tightly. 

Both her arms ended up around his neck, smiling sweetly into the kiss and giggled lightly into the Aussies mouth. Not hearing the reactions from the crowd surrounding them. 

When Oscar pulled away they’d both missed the warmth and comfort of one another. But realization hit him like a tidal wave, remembering all of his actions so clearly except for how her arms fit so perfectly around him, and the way she’d smiled at his affections. 

His hand removed itself from her waist and mind started to race and he pictured missed calls, a missing eighty-one jersey in the crowd, losing the praise of a voice that motivated him to be better. He’d completely zoned out at this point and she’d used her hand placing it back on his freckled cheek and directing him to look at her. Of course she’d know what he was thinking. 

She always did. 

She’d looked up at him, a small glint in her eyes, that made Oscar wanna kiss her all over again but he held back, fear filling his chest so tightly he’d felt like he’d choke on it. He’d race cars at 300km/h without as much fear as he felt now. 

Placing a hand on his other cheek, she stood on her tippy toes reaching his lips giving them a light peck. Her way of saying everything was gonna be okay. His cheeks flushed a deep shade of red and his arms comfortably made its way back around her waist and his hand slid up her back.

She looked up at him, anticipating him to make a move. Though she was impatient, she pulled his racing suit collar down and her lips landed on his once again. He gasped in between his lips, a small surprise of her sudden affection. 

“I think I’ve always loved you.” He whispered into her mouth in between kisses, her heart shaped lips formed in a smile against his. 

She pulled away, lightly biting his bottom lip, “you think I didn’t?” She grinned a light giggle leaving her lips. 

It was like a candle had been relit in Oscar’s head, a candle that flamed only for her. A flame that reminded him how much he needed her, how much he’d been needing her. His arms tightened around her almost possessively so, he reveled in the taste and feeling of her, and how she finally knew that most of him was hers.  

𝜗𝜚… tags , @whitcferrari @miguelasdr @lcvelctters @cedarbcws

[seraphdreams]

DON'T FORGET ME | BAJI KEISUKE.

⋆˙⟡♡ synopis. going to a concert with your best friend certainly has its perks. and so does hooking up with one of the bandmates.

⋆˙⟡♡ contains. bimbo!reader, rockstar!baji, unprotected sex, pet names, asphyxiation, creampie, semi-public sex, baji being sleazy + eighteen plus, mdni.

⋆˙⟡♡ word count. 3.3k.

“Thanks for coming to tonight’s show! Here’s one more song before we head out!”

You’d never been much of a fan of underground rock music, and quite frankly, you still weren’t. Something about obnoxiously loud vocals backed up with random electric guitar riffs just never settle right within your spirit. In fact, you almost forgot the real reason you stood just yards away from one of the biggest up and coming rock bands.

For one thing, the air was incredulously too suffocating. Bodies upon bodies virtually sewn together despite the spacious arena that held them, and the stage lights abnormally dim—Only a few saffron-hued luminescences casted upon the four males that appeared on the platform. You hardly saw the members in the far back on their guitars but of what you could make out, one had white hair decorated with a small black streak and tan skin that glimmered under the hot lights while the other, with a dark neck tattoo and bold eyes, drank from his half-full water bottle.

Mostly by the front and center of the stage, occupied the drummer and the person who was just speaking out from the mic mere seconds ago.

“That’s my fucking brother!” Your best friend and little sister of the main vocalist, Airi shouted. She was but the replication of her brother; large, emerald orbs dazzled with long dark brown eyelashes and heaps of wavy blonde hair that fell downward to her lower back. Her outfit choice of leather pants donned with a matching corset top left none of her figure to the imagination, an ode to her love of the genre.

Wherever Airi went, you followed, and when she proposed the idea of seeing her brother and his bandmates perform, you couldn’t pass up the opportunity—Not to mention the free front row tickets he offered.

It was clear Chifuyu heard his sister from the crowd, looking down at the two of you with an illustrious smile and gesturing a two finger salute. He inched back with the microphone taut in the grip of his left hand and sent off a cue to the rest of his bandmates. Music followed hastily after and he began to sing.

Throughout the whole show, your eyes remained locked onto the raven-haired drummer. You marveled at each and every ministration he made, how his demeanor seemed to switch with each passing song and how the sweat accumulated on his perfectly toned body. In your head, you could’ve cursed Airi for not telling you about him beforehand, he’s totally your type.

You bobbed your head along to the melody that flowed within your ears and it was evident to Airi that you were enjoying the show you formally told her you “probably wouldn’t enjoy.”

She leaned over to sonorously whisper-yell in your ear. “Having fun?” The expiration of her words practically fell to flat ears had you not seen her in your peripheral view. In all honesty, you were more-so focused on the aggression that sexy drummer displayed while he played. How did he not break the drumset? Surely, he was strong enough to do so.

“Huh?” You peered over at her, vacant eyes meeting her jaded ones. She gave you her signature allknowing look and turned back to face the band.

Soon enough, the music stopped and the venue was filled with its final cheers. The stage went ominously tenebrous and the rest of the audience filed out of the stadium, except for you and Airi.

“Wanna go chill backstage?” Airi proposed. She pointed her thumb in the direction of a hallway filled with staff. “Are we even allowed to?” you started. “The place is packed with security.”

Airi mirthfully elbowed you, that sly smile on her perfectly made-up face. “I’m family, they’ll understand.”

One thing you couldn’t knock about your best friend was her adventurousness. Truthfully, you were just as bad as her, yet a bit more wary of getting in trouble—Especially if the law was involved, but you liked fun. And this was definitely what you needed. “Show me the way then, Little Matsuno.”

And with that, the both of you had set foot on your way to heading backstage.

Which undoubtedly felt like the case until you found yourself stranded among other concertgoers and personnel that you lost sight of your friend. She couldn’t have gotten far so where the hell was she? You continued your search by calling her phone, walking in any direction to pick up the slightest amount of signal.

“Hey.”

The bellow of a deep voice stopped you dead in your tracks and you sheepishly looked up with silent hopes that you hadn’t gotten in it with the wrong person. Much to your dismay (Or maybe it was a blessing), the man you’d been eyeing all night stood tall above you. Long, wavy noir tresses sat at his wide shoulders to match his black tank top that was slightly rolled up at the hem, showing off his midriff and that delicious v-line. His toned and ink littered arms folded across his chest while an undistinguishable expression etched over his features.

“Uh, hi.” You blinked a few times in dubiousness at the circumstance you so gracefully landed yourself in. Proximal distance to his figure led you to tread backward a few steps until you were at a comfortable enough range to take him in fully.

He looked so fucking mean, thick eyebrows pursed together, and sharp, amber eyes narrowed upon your figure.

“What do ya think you’re doin’?”

You had half a mind to drop to your knees and show him what was on your mind, yet you remained to keep yourself where you stood, for his sake of course.

His eyes bored holes into your frame. Whereas you couldn’t keep up with his unwavering eye contact, he managed to take note of every little quirk about you. “Um.. I was looking for my friend.” Your throat felt dry as you began to speak. “She said I could come backstage—Her name’s Airi Matsuno, Chifuyu’s sister.” The words got quieter as you spewed them out. You weren’t sure if it was your nerves or the intimidation, he’s so much taller up close.

“Eh? Fuyu’s lil’ sis?” He looked behind him to one of his bandmates, that same one as before with the blond streaks and neck tattoo. It seemed as though every member had genes blessed by the deities up above. “Tora, does Fuyu have a sister?”

The man you come to realize as “Tora” affirms your claim, adding that he had just seen Airi and Chifuyu leave the venue.

“Damn it, Ai.” You thought to yourself as if she’d actually given one day to not be herself.

The drummer turns back to look at you, this time unfolding his arms and standing somewhat widely. His thick dark brows remained quirked in a perplexed manner. He leans down to meet your gaze, hands hidden in his pockets as he concludes. “Some friend you got there. She left ya all alone.”

“She does that sometimes.” You reply.

He straightened up back to his full height, his expression softening, and a slight crack of a smile on his lips. “Guess i’ll keep ya company ‘til she comes back.”

Any other day, your humility would’ve been disregarded to the back of your mind. In all actuality, you were discourteous and loved attention, yet the feeling of a celebrity seemingly stooping low enough for some lost, 20-something year old groupie in disguise, kept your modesty in perfect condition.

“Oh, you don’t have to-“

Your words were quickly cut off by his cold demeanor as he opened one of the doors in the narrow hallway beside him. “But I wanna. /Ven aqui/.“ Eyes looked into yours like daggers and you couldn’t quite tell if he were vexed at your facade or if he were just blessed with bedroom eyes.

You followed him into what seemed to be his greenroom. It’s complete with a set of drums on one side near the corner and a half opened window, and a leather couch in the middle, not to mention the rack of clothes on the other edge.

“Didn’t catch your name, though. You are?” He questioned, sitting at the drumset in front of you. You made yourself comfortable on the plush couch, pulling the hem of your pink bodycon down in hopes you don’t reveal too much.

“I’m Y/N. And you are?”

He raises an eyebrow then follows it with a hearty laugh. “You came to my show ‘nd ya don’t even know my name?” You felt heat rise to your cheeks in embarrassment, but he was right. You didn’t know any of the members aside from the obvious, Chifuyu.

“My friend dragged me here, I just go wherever she goes.” You retort, a cordial grin on your face. He adjusts his sitting position and spreads his legs slightly.

It’s coming. The urge to suck dick.

“Yeah? Name’s Baji. You can call me Keisuke though.”

He pulled the pair of drumsticks from his back pocket and quietly tapped away. “You’re cute.” Dexterously, he twirled one of the sticks between his fingers where you noticed his black lacquered nails paired with the skull-esque designs of the rings that adorned said digits. “You like a college student or something?” Heat spread across your cheeks at the comment. A band member calling you cute was not something you thought you’d experience tonight, but there’s lots you haven’t experienced yet.

“Mhm. It’s a lot though, I'm thinking of dropping out.” More calm your voice was, and he picked up on your energy, sending a stern glance your way.

“Nah, don’t do that.” The melodic tapping from the drumsticks halt. “Ya seem like a smart girl, don’t be like me.”

Curiosity overtakes you, causing you to press forward. “And what are you like, Keisuke?” His name tasted saccharine falling off your tongue and filling your ears with the sweetest music. Keisuke, Keisuke, Keisuke.

“Dropped out at 14, ran around with a few gangs, and now ‘m doing music.” His words register in his mind before he continues. “But ‘m makin’ good money now, maybe you should live like me a little.”

A giggle resonated within the room and he felt his heart swell at the cute laughter. He wasn’t quite sure what urged your joy but he returned it with a smile of his own. You truly do have the prettiest face. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Ya know..” His words slipped off his tongue like honey and in turn you gave him the most of your attention, curious eyes locked on his dismal bronze ones. “I got this beat I can’t get out my head. Can I get your opinion?” His expression was glazed over in calculation with a slight pat to his thigh that you seemingly picked up. Instinctively, your body moved on its own and replied to his silent call. As you nestled into his lap, you only hoped that this had been what he was asking for. “Mhm.” Your response was curt and barely escaped under the pressure of your breath.

Your back was pressed against his chest and your core was slotted over his thigh, a relatively intimate position despite the need for cordial relations. He started up on the drums, stirring up the common one-two, one-two beat that emphasized its focus on the round bass drum that sat at the bottom of the set. It was as if with each press to the drum pedal the muscle of his thigh dangerously tensed beneath your heat, eliciting surges of delirium and pleasure straight to the very source. It’s clear he knew what he was doing from the onsight of your glossy lips parting and the faintest decibel of a gasp leaving your lips.

“Y’like it?” Deep voice ghosted over your ear as he leaned in precariously close. “Y’sure it won’t sound better like this?”

The beat he originally created morphed into one of a sonorous, heavier tone. Your body vaguely rocked over his, your tits bouncing from the nefarious rising and falling of his leg in the sweetest, yet most sinister tandem with his flexing thighs.

And all restraint vanished from within you as you diligently rutted your hips. You felt embarrassed. Like a needy nuisance needed to be taken care of, yet again, your humility sat idly by and pride dwindled from your very being.

“That—That sounds nice.” Your reply was breathy and if you thought enough of this through, your little plan of passing your insatiability off as adjusting your position would’ve worked on him. But it didn’t.

The sultry, damp sensation he felt on his blackened denim pants told him otherwise. Baji chuckled to no one in particular, the sharp canines on display while he smirked mirthfully to himself. He’s had his fair share of girls practically throwing themselves at him, and still, you were the most fun to play with.

The flexing and relaxing of his muscles didn’t let up, as with your ruthless humping. You held tightly to his knees with the pressure only gradually increasing when you felt yourself crumbling in his hold.

On the verge of your awaiting orgasm, Baji’s lips press against the shell of your studded ear.

“I saw you starin’ in the crowd tonight—Couldn’t keep my eyes off that tiny lil’ dress you’re wearing.” He moved one hand from the drumset to snake over the front of your garment, calloused hands kneading at your soft and pert breasts. The movement was one of full dexterity. Your nipples ached as he pinched and rolled them between his fingers.

“Knew you weren’t wearin’ a bra.” his lips against your ear trailed down to your neck which caused the helplessly rutting of your core over his thigh, strikingly close to orgasm. You had managed to keep your whimpers low but due to proximity, you left nothing to be unheard. A harsh tug of your nipples pulled you from the hazed out state you were entranced in.

“Gotta tell Tora I won our little bet.”

False lashes fluttered with every move the both of you made. Your voice was soft as you responded, “You’re just so fucking fine, Couldn’t help myself.”

He was used to the attention. He’s a 6’0 rockstar with a checkered past — Any girl would fall for that cliche shtick, yet something within him wanted to toy with your naivety. Would you really believe anything he said?

“I don’t get much attention from fans, but you? You’re special.”

It was that moment that sent you over the edge, a lewd cry followed by your body convulsing, pretty face screwed up in pleasure, letting Baji know your release had hit you, and fucking hard at that.

“Oh ho? That did it for ya, huh?” He watched in awe at the sopping mess of his pants while allowing you to ride out your high completely before those same strong hands bunched your dress up at the hip.

You rested against his back for a while as stray pants waned themselves from your lips.

“Ya poor thing, I ain’t even get to finish my drummin.’” his hands left your tits as he rasped out the words and settled on turning you around to face him on his lap. “Sorry..” you meekly responded. An airy chuckle sounded itself from him as he whips out his throbbing hard length.

It should be illegal to be as thick as a fucking Coke can, yet there he was — The tip flushed a deep mauve, and pretty pearlescent beads of precum streaming down his cock and over the few veins that seemed to run along the shaft. The prettiest dick you’ve ever seen, and you stared in awe until the deep clearing of his throat caught your attention.

Pumping it shallowly, he pushed those cute fucking pink lace panties to the side, revealing your glistening and sticky folds to him. He prodded the tip at your hole, bullying your core that left you aching for his touch.

“Ride it for me, muñequita.”

With no hesitation, you sank yourself down onto his cock, carefully taking him in.

“Fuck—” The low whimper is sounded from you as you began to bounce yourself on his lap. He felt impossible to take and with your hands rested over his shoulders paired with his arms at your waist, slowly pushing you further down, you didn’t think you could take it. “That’s it, baby. Ride it like it’s yours.” He cooed, letting his head fall back as you got him off.

You bit at your plush bottom lip to elicit any moans from flying which reigned ineffective when you picked up pace and rolled your hips, allowing his cock to drag against that spongey spot within your walls that had your resolve weakening.

Obscenities and the reverberation of skin on skin bounced against the walls of his green room. You were tighter than any girl he’d ever been in and much cuter too.

Once you were able to fall into a comfortable rhythm of bouncing on his cock he hastily began to work toward his own release having grown tired of your saunterous riding.

He lifted you up off his length and turned you around so that you were bent over his drumset. “I know you were trying your best,” he followed up his words with a quick slap to your ass before aligning his cock with your slit once more, “But i’m gonna need better than that.”

Baji noticed the way you faltered once he built up his own pace, with more fervor than the previous. You almost fell forward with the trajectory of the thrusts and to his chagrin, your moans amplified.

“D-Deep! ‘S so deep!” You cried wantonly. You felt your guts get turned inside out with his vigor. A scoff was heard from him in response, the inked up hands that rested at your hips now filing up your body and hooking at your elbows, holding you back flush against him as he continued to hit harder within your walls.

You felt unsteady when his right hand trailed up to your neck and gripped at your jaw before his index and middle finger slipped past your lips into your mouth. The metal of the rings tasted metallic and felt cold against your tongue, those being the least of your concerns when you felt your high from previously coil right up within you once more.

Without warning, you were hit with your release that left you limp in his hold, his fingers retracting from your mouth and messily running down your fat bottom lip where he also smeared a mix of saliva and cherry oil gloss down your chin.

Just momentarily from the sight of how pretty you looked, convulsing and crumbling because of his doing, he followed suit and filled your insides in thick, hot spurts of his cum, drops dripping down your thigh when he continued to rut inside you, emptying himself of his need.

It took you both a while to settle down, his lips hungrily taking in your neck down to your shoulder.

“Was that deep enough for ya?” He rasped and haziness filled your system when you pant to respond. “I-“

Just before you could respond, there’s a knock at the door and a familiar voice accompanied.

“Y/N! You in here? I’m ready to leave!”

It’s Airi, loud and clear after her awaited reappearance.

“Shit.” Baji cursed under his breath. He pulled you off of him and bent you over slightly, fetching a thick black marker from the table beside him and holding the cap between his teeth.

The uncomfortable sensation of the felt tip on your ass trailing down to your thigh lasted mere seconds as you tried to make out the shapes you couldn’t see. “Here’s my number. Don’t forget me.”

He stood you up properly and fixed your skirt, sending you off with a pat to your ass.

“I’ll see you again, Keisuke?”

“Damn right you will.”

tags - @meena-in-a-nutshell @imkumichan @messofavs @aotdump @saaraunicorn @cloudnitee @saffronity @aasouthteranoswife @kageyama-i-want-tobiors @anahryal @withlovetengen @zuuki @keooooothings @bunnyyamor @koucaine @bluerskiees @ready2readagain @sarnghoe

+ a great big thanks to my moot ! @lovelysho thank you so much for beta reading my love !

– all rights reserved © seraphdreams 2023. do not repost, change, copy, republish, read, translate, or recommend my work on tumblr or any other platforms without prior permission. feedback is widely appreciated!

[idiotgojo]

eye fucking satoru <3

tags; gojo x reader | fluff, suggestive (?) | jealous (?) insecure (?) reader

note; here's some comfort before the next chapter leak... gojo comeback 😩

"I'm not jealous, I'm just—" you waved your hands in frustration, unable to put words to match what you were feeling. That was all you could manage. Gojo, on the other hand immediately understood. He smirked, narrowing his eyes at you.

"You really don’t realize the effect you have on me, do you?"

And that was how you ended up on top straddling him, both of you still fully clothed. The heat of his body radiated through your thighs as you sat on top of him.

“What are we even doing? I’m tired. Let’s just go to bed,” you sighed, trying to lift yourself off his lap, though a part of you wasn’t entirely convinced.

"While my princess is mad at me? I'd rather die than let you sleep upset with me," he murmured, his voice low and teasing. His hands tightened on your waist, keeping you locked in place, as his gaze softened just a little with a pout.

Suddenly, a wave of insecurity hit you out of nowhere. You were usually confident—quick-witted, and perfectly aware of your beauty. But something about the way that other woman had flirted with him earlier stirred doubts. She was a contrast of you—different hair, a niche style, a whole different vibe. Was Gojo craving something new? Was he tired of you?

Just as your mind began spiraling, his palm faintly tapped your thigh, bringing you back to the present. You bit your lip, refusing to meet his eyes, knowing if you did, you might just fall apart in front of him.

"Look at me," Gojo said softly, yet firmly, as he gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. Your eyes remained fixed on your fidgety hands in your lap. But Gojo wasn’t the type to let things go so easily. He leaned in close, his breath hot against your ear as he whispered,

"I dare you to look into my eyes and see what happens."

You hesitated, but curiosity, or maybe just him, got the best of you. Slowly, you met his gaze.

In seconds, you felt it—him hardening beneath you, unmistakable and sudden. You gasped, instinctively glancing down at his growing length pressing against the thin fabric of your clothes. Heat rushed to your cheeks as you blushed furiously.

Gojo chuckled, reaching up to grab your chin with one hand, tilting your head up to meet his eyes again. His other hand slid up your thigh, teasing.

"Now do you see the effect you have on me?" he asked, his voice loud with excitement, eyes locked on yours that sent a shiver down your spine. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sly smile as he waited for you to respond.

Words failed you, your brain fuzzy, buzzing with the intensity of the moment. Instead, you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him into a searing kiss. His lips claimed yours, biting gently on your lower lip, eliciting a moan from you. The pressure of his body beneath yours, the friction as you rocked your hips against him—it all made your pulse race, drowning out every thought but him.

Both of you groaned softly into each other’s mouths, hands roaming feverishly. The heat between you was undeniable, and the tension finally snapped as you deepened the kiss, tongues tangling, breathing ragged and needy.

That night, Gojo didn’t just show you his desire—he made it clear that you were the only one he ever wanted. Every touch, every kiss, every whispered word left no room for doubt. You were his one and only.

disclaimer (?); a lot of ??? in the whole post, which is probably because I'm not even a real writer. I just write for fun, a place to collect and keep my scenarios I create in my head before I go to bed lol. This is my first written piece! Enjoy :)

© idiotgojo 2024 do not steal or translate. if you wish to use the idea and create a better fic please tag me :)

[4unnyr0se]

PLS BOKUTO SMUT I WILL SELL YOU MY SOUL VIV 🙏🙏🙏

❥ nepenthe | kotaro bokuto

warnings: timeskip! bokuto, fem! reader, mutual pining, bokuto is emo in the beginning, dry humping/grinding, multiple orgasms, making out, incredibly lewd dialogue, fingering, missionary, two text messages, unprotected sex, tiny corruption kink, possessive! bokuto if u squint, extreme fluff at the end, bokuto is a semi-hard dom in bed, atsumu, hinata and sakusa mentioned, not proofread (unless u count grammarly)

MDNI | 18+ content

word count -> 5.3k (lol)

opal i would write anything for u i love u sm

got a request? asks are open!

Being on the MSBY Black Jackals was all the Bokuto could ever dream of. Playing on a team made up of his peers, the adoring cheers from the crowd filled his ears and boosted his ego. He especially loved how cute the girls in the stands were and how they wore merchandized versions of his jersey. People paid good money to watch him play, him. Was there nothing better than the universe could offer him? Indeed, Kotaro Bokuto’s life was perfectly perfect. 

Except until recently. He had missed a significant spike in the latest game against the Alders, which nearly cost him the match. He was not okay. But that was just a first-time thing, right? Indeed, he would not miss a spike in tomorrow’s practice. He’s Bokuto; he doesn’t miss spikes. And then he missed nearly all of his spikes. He was not doing well when he returned to his penthouse apartment that evening. Was he in a slump?

His golden eyes flicked back and forth on his ceiling as he lay in his plush bed, hands crossed over his chest in thought. Why was he acting like this? He occasionally missed a spike, but that was a rare event. Was he missing them so frequently? What if he wasn’t as good of a volleyball player as he thought? Anxiety plagued his mind, making him toss and turn in his cotton comforter decorated with owls (stylish owls, of course). Bokuto’s black and white hair became incredibly messy, reflecting his inner thoughts. Luckily, he had a means of comforting himself. When the opposite hitter wasn’t doing so well at times like these, he could always turn to you, one of his beloved Black Jackal Managers. 

You were the kindest of all the managers he had, that was for sure. While the other seven managers focused on scheduling or payroll, you were the personality hire. Your pretty face automatically boosted the morale of the entire team, like a beam of sunlight poking out from the clouds after a thunderstorm. Bokuto liked you; he really liked you. Every single practice, he would pray that you’d be there, sitting on your chair, diligently taking notes while wearing that MSBY windbreaker that covered the curves of your breasts in the most annoying manner possible. Fuck, you were so damn pretty.

Bokuto reached for his phone, which was charging on the bedside table, scrolling through his messages until he landed on your chat from a couple of weeks ago. The topic was simple: What kind of onigiri did he want from Onigiri Miya? It was just a question, but the notification made his heart race every time he read it. The pads of his thumbs hovered over the keypad for a moment, unsure of how to word his message. He wanted you to visit him. Why couldn’t he just type that? After minutes of contemplation, he had sent his message. Bokuto’s phone was thrown to the other side of the bed, nearly getting lost in the mess of thick duvet. The opposite hitter slammed his face into his fluffed pillow, groaning into the fabric. 

Kotaro Bokuto: Wanna come over and talk? Been feeling really down recently. :( 

It felt like hours since he sent the text, looking at where he tossed his phone every other minute to see if the home screen lit up. Finally, after agonizingly painful minutes passed, his screen lit up with your message, the cute little heart icon next to your name making him break out in a crooked smile. 

Cute Manager: I’ll be over in 30 minutes. Bringing my famous sugar cookies! They always brighten someone’s day <3

Bokuto practically threw himself off his bed, looking around his messy apartment. Shit, had that smell always been there? Why (and how) was there a sock on the ceiling fan? Don’t even get him started on the empty packages that littered his living room floor; this was a disaster. He had to ensure it was perfect for you, his angelic manager. You thought so highly of him; he wasn’t about to lose that due to a messy apartment. 

He cleaned like a man gone wild, sensual R&B music playing from a speaker in his kitchen. He had obtained three full trash bags and one spilling-over hamper, but he had made his apartment look presentable. The counters were no longer sticky, and the sock was down from the fan, thanks to him expertly flinging rubber bands at the blades. Bokuto was proud of himself, bearing a satisfied smirk while his hands rested on his hips in a hero pose. 

The doorbell rang. Oh fuck, how were you here already? Did half an hour seriously pass by so quickly? He didn’t even have time to change out of his black tank top! Maybe that was a good thing? Perhaps you liked looking at his massive biceps. Whatever, he didn’t have time to think about all that. His cute manager was waiting behind that door with a plate of delicious sugar cookies!

Bokuto swung the door open a little too enthusiastically, his crooked smile fully displayed amongst his handsome features. His golden eyes instantly landed on your figure, drinking in your outfit. A low-cut black scoop neck top with oversized ripped jeans; fucking perfection. You offered him a kind smile and held out the wrapped-up plate of cookies, tilting your head to the side. “Hey, Bokuto! I’m here, like I promised. Oh, and I brought the cookies. Don’t ask for the recipe because I won’t tell!” you giggled, stepping inside his apartment. It was cleaner than you imagined, and it smelled like roses. Who knew that Bokuto could be so neat?

“Woah, it’s even bigger than I imagined! Sometimes I forget how much professional athletes make annually,” you joked, kicking off your ballet flats on the shoe stand. “You must have an amazing view at night, look at the city! It’s gorgeous.” you turned to Bokuto and smiled, placing your hands on his shoulders. “It’s been a while since we last hung out, hasn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah! I guess it has, eh? Time flies when you’re a Black Jackal!” Bokuto awkwardly stammered, growing increasingly flustered as the almond shape of your manicured nails made contact with his muscular shoulders. “Thanks for coming over so quickly; I thought you were at a club or something.”

You shook your head and leaned against the raised kitchen counter, raising an eyebrow. “Nah, I hate clubs. It’s always so stuffy in there, and there’s always a hand on your ass, whether you want it or not.” you brushed your hair to the side, exposing your neck. The perfume you had to carefully put on, a mixture of lilac and jasmine, filled Bokuto’s nostrils. He was only a few feet from your body, yet the aroma drove him secretly insane. “What about you, do you like clubs? You seem like the type.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bokuto asked, pretending to clutch his pearls.

“Well, you’re extroverted and love having a good time. That’s what the clubs are for, aren’t they?” you paused your speech, matching his gaze with your own. “But you haven’t been having a good time recently, have you?”

Bokuto shook his head and slumped onto the sofa, his bottom lip curling into a childish pout. “No, you’re right. I just can’t hit my stupid spikes! Atsumu’s been on my ass about it like it’s my fault that I can’t seem to hit them! I mean, I guess it’s my fault…whatever! I don’t know what I’m saying anymore!” he slammed his face in his hands, groaning in exasperation. 

You smiled softly and sat next to him, patting his muscular back. “Hey, it’ll be alright. You’ve hit amazing spikes before, and you’ll hit amazing spikes again. I know you will.” your soft hands ran up and down the thin fabric of his tank top, massaging the tense muscles underneath. “We all have our slumps, you know. Nobody is perfect, not even Atsumu. Besides,” your lips were centimeters away from his ear. “Atsumu is my least favorite.”

Bokuto chuckled and wrapped his arm around your waist, pressing your cheek against his pectoral. “Yeah, but he’s really funny! Except when he texts the group chat with me, Shoyo, and Sakusa…then he gets really gross. Usually about the women he slept with or something.”

“Ew,” you blush softly as Bokuto's muscular bicep wraps around your waist, his large hand squeezing the fabric of your jeans. “So, are you feeling any better now? Do you wanna eat a cookie and watch a movie, maybe? What would make you feel better?” you could feel his heartbreak in his chest, the thumbing sensation of the organ being a somewhat calming presence. “Because when you’re sad, the Jackals can’t really get anything done. No offense.”

Bokuto chuckled and squeezed you closer, inhaling the scent of your shampoo. God, you smelled fucking amazing. Did you always smell so good? “I’m down for a movie if you’re down. What kind of movie were you thinking of?”

“Comedy, maybe? I don’t know, you can pick,” you replied.

“Comedy it is,” Bokuto leaned forward to grab the remote from the coffee table, turning on the massive television he owned. His hand remained firmly grasped on your waist, occasionally running his thumb up and down the denim of your high-waisted jeans. He flicked through a couple of films under the comedy section in his DVR until he selected a random one. He chose it solely on how fantastic the movie poster was, naturally. 

The opening credits played from the surround sound speakers, and his hand was still snug on your waist, his golden eyes occasionally stealing a chaste look. You were smaller than him, so he really only got to see the top of your head, but you were so fucking adorable. Bokuto thought it was vital that you didn’t push him away after he wrapped his arm around you and that you welcomed his touch. You trusted him so much, making his heart beat a million miles a minute. 

The movie's beginning was hilarious, as expected from an award-winning comedy. Bokuto’s laugh was deep in comparison to yours. Of course, your laugh was adorable; why wouldn’t it be? He felt as though his heart would explode from your presence, beating erratically in his chest.

“Are you feeling okay? Your heart is beating really fast,” you questioned, lifting your face from its comfortable resting spot on his chest. “Do you need anything at all?”

Bokuto bit down on his lower lip, unsure of what to say. Should he just confess how much he wants you, how much he craves to have your lips on his own? What if you rejected his advances and quit managing the team? “Uh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” Sweetheart, did he really just say that? Bokuto cringed at himself.

A small smile graced your delicate features at the endearing name, your tiny hand resting on his chest. “Bokuto, I’m always going to worry about my team. Especially you, you’re my favorite. Did you know that?”

His mind went blank for a second. He was your favorite. He was your favorite. Out of all the members of the Black Jackals, you liked him the most. “I-I didn’t know that at all, am I actually your favorite? You aren’t messing with me or anything?”

“Why would I lie about that?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s just…you’re beautiful. And I’m your favorite…it makes me feel special. I know I’m already special, just like, more special. Y’know?” 

“You think I’m beautiful?” your eyes bore into his once more, the chatter from the movie falling on deaf ears. “You really think I’m beautiful?”

Bokuto softly smiled at you, adoring how the light from the television illuminated your blushing face. “Yeah, I really think so. I’ve thought that for a while since you were hired.” his other hand cupped the right side of your face, his calloused thumb running across your cheekbone. “Do you…do you think I’m pretty, too?”

You giggled and rested your hand on Bokuto’s, smiling brightly. “Yeah, I think you’re beautiful, Bokuto. And handsome and adorable.” you leaned upwards, your noses touching. “You’re funny, kind, and sometimes a little too confident. You’re sensitive, and you care so much about your teammates. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“I want you to have me,” he whispered, his voice a low baritone. “Please, I’ve wanted this for so long. Tell me that I can have you, even if it’s just for tonight.” his lips hovered over yours, not daring to do anything without your permission. “Because if you say it’s okay, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold myself back, sweetness.”

His hot breath tickled the tiny hairs on your face, mouth slightly agape. You gulped and nodded, closing your eyes while his hands cupped your cheeks. “It’s okay, Kotaro.”

The sound of his given name falling from your lips was all he needed to press his mouth to yours in a searing kiss filled with unfulfilled desires. It was slow and sensual, yet it held so much molten passion. His lips molded with yours so perfectly, the taste of your chapstick making him savor you even more. His hands fled your face and grasped onto your hips, pulling you into his lap with no trouble at all. Bokuto pressed your chest against his own, groaning against your petal-like lips. A spark was set in his lower belly, his hands trailing down to your ass. He squeezed the denim fabric, eliciting an adorable squeak from your mouth. 

You pulled away after a moment, both of your faces incredibly flushed. “Shit,” Bokuto breathed out, toying with the hem of your jeans. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that, sweetness.”

“Me too,” you whispered, kissing his neck gently. “I’ve been wanting to do this,” you placed another kiss, then another, and another. “For so fucking long.” you nibbled onto his collarbone playfully, earning yourself a beautiful moan from Bokuto’s bruised lips. 

“Fuck, I never pegged you for a biter. Thought I would always be the one biting you,” he purred, slipping his hands underneath your jeans and panties. You gasped at the coldness of his hands on your warm skin, how his fingers kneaded the supple flesh of your ass. “But I guess I can let you nibble on me for a little longer since you’re so damn pretty.”

“When did you get so good at flirting, hm?” you began to suckle on his collarbone.

“The moment I got signed to the Black Jackals. They’re, fuck, they’re a bunch of womanizers.” he softly moaned at the sensation of your teeth suckling at his tough flesh. “Taught me a thing or two.”

You pulled away from his neck and smiled, kissing his forehead. “So I take it you picked up a thing or two?”

“Damn right, I have,” his hands squeezed your ass once more. “Can you do me a favor and take these off, sweetness? I’ll take mine off, too. That way, we’re even.”

You got off his lap and shimmied out of your jeans, tossing them aside along with your top. You wore a matching bra and panty set, the black fabric hugging your curves tenderly. “Now, you do yours. Don’t keep me waiting, Ko’.” 

His nickname rang in his ears, your voice making it drip like honey. Bokutp practically ripped off his clothes, leaving him in only his MSBY boxers. “Shit, you’re gorgeous.” he leaned into the leather couch, spreading his legs. “C’mere gorgeous, sit on my lap.”

Bokuto’s hands once again cupped your ass as you straddled his lap, admiring how thick his thighs were. You had never noticed it before, but Bokuto was a big guy. “That’s it, good girl. Right on my thigh there, pretty.”

“Fuck,” you moaned as your clothed pussy made contact with his bare thigh, unconsciously rubbing against it. “You’re really fucking sexy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Bokuto pulled you into another kiss, aggressively slamming his lips against yours while his hands remained glued to your ass. His tongue prodded against your lips impatiently, begging to be let inside your mouth. You happily obliged, a mewl falling from your lips as his tongue briefly danced with yours. Bokuto pulled away, breaking the strand of saliva that connected your lips. “Your voice is too damn pretty,” his hand cracked against your ass, causing you to grind further onto his thigh. Embarrassed, you hid your face in his bruised neck, earning a smug smirk from Bokuto. “Oh, did that feel good, baby? Don’t be shy now; you can tell me.” he smacked your ass once more, relishing in your pleasurable squeaks and squeals. “Does someone like it when I smack their ass?”

“Y-yeah!” you whimpered into his neck, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. Your hips bucked against his thigh, your core desperate for friction. “Please, lemme ride your thigh. You feel so fucking good, Ko’.”

Bokuto threw his head back at your begging, his cock growing painfully hard in his boxers. “Yeah, you wanna grind on my thigh, pretty girl?” he squeezed the plushness of your thigh. “I’m the only one who can make you feel this way, right? Because I’m the best. Say it, and you can do whatever you want.” 

You let out a broken sigh and pulled your face out from his neck, your pearly whites nibbling at the shell of his ear. “You’re the only one who can make me feel this good, Kotaro.” Your breath was sweet and sensual, and you were full of wanting for your release. “Please, I wanna ride your thigh.”

“Good girl,” he praised, gripping onto your hips. He began to drag you up and down his thigh, embracing the cute little noises you made. “That’s it, baby, talk to me. Tell me how good I make you feel, yeah?”

“So good! So good, Ko’.” you whimpered, a warmth sensation bubbling up inside your belly as your clothed clit rubbed against his thigh. Your small hands rested on his abs, running up and down the prevalent muscle. “T-talk to me, helps me get off–fuck!” you tossed your head back, hair falling out of your face as Bokuto purposefully flexed his thigh muscle. 

He groaned at the sight of you, head thrown back, tits bouncing in your bra as you used his thigh to get yourself off. His goddess of a manager was using him to cum, his thigh. It was so fucking perfect. “You’re so fucking sexy, you know that? You come to practice in those short shorts that show off your ass so well. Do you know what you do to me?”

“Tell me,” you moaned, feeling your climax approach quickly. You were basically rutting yourself against his thigh like a bitch in heat, and it felt fucking incredible. 

“Every time you bent over, I thought about this ass,” he smacked the exposed flesh, definitely leaving a handprint later. “Thought about squeezing it, about smacking it, how it would look wearing slutty black panties.” Bokuto flexed his thigh muscles even more, giving you a sturdier surface to grind on. 

“Thought about you clawing at my back while I fuck you in the locker room, so the rest of the team can back the fuck off. Keep you all to myself, my pretty manager.” he spat through his teeth, gripping your jaw tightly with his hand. “Look at me when you cum, pretty girl. Wanna see that cute little face.” his thumb ran across your bottom lip, pulling slightly.

Your mouth went slack-jawed as your orgasm washed over you, your eyes struggling to look at Bokuto while you continued to ride his thigh until you came down from nirvana. “F-fuck!” you sobbed, your hips ceasing their bucking once your high was finished. “Shit, I made a mess on your thigh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fucking apologize. That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.” Bokuto groaned, lifting you off of his thigh so quickly. “Fuck, you soaked your panties. I guess you gotta take them off now, yeah? Bra, too. Don’t be shy around me.” he set you down on the coffee table, your form blocking the movie, but he didn’t care about the movie anymore. There was only you. 

Still shaking from the shockwaves of your release, you slowly stripped yourself of your remaining clothes, placing them down on the glass of the table. Bokuto drank in your view, like an artist staring at a finished painting. You were gorgeous, ethereal, out of this world. Surely, it would be impossible for anyone else to match your beauty. “Fucking hell,” he groaned, pushing himself off of the couch to grab your wrist. “Bedroom. Now.”

He practically dragged you into his bedroom, throwing you down onto the plush owl-themed comforter. You giggled at the childish fabric as Bokuto hovered above you, his hands on either side of your head. “I take it you love owls?” you raised an eyebrow.

“I fucking love owls,” he smirked, leaning down to peck your nose. “Not as much as I love how you look right now, pretty girl.” his right hand squeezed your breast, thumb rolling over your nipple while his left hand managed to continue holding him up.

“You’re such a tease,” you moaned as he pinched your sensitive bud, his massive hand encasing your entire breast. “I thought you wanted to fuck me, Kotaro. Am I wrong?” 

“You aren’t wrong, sweetness,” he purred, rolling his hips against yours. You could feel his cock pulsating through his boxers, begging to be inside you. “Just wanna make sure you’re prepped first. I’m a big guy, y’know?” he stuck his fingers inside of his mouth, coating them with saliva before prodding at your entrance with the digits, slowly sticking them inside your heat. “Holy fuck, you’re so fucking wet. Did my thigh make you cum that much, princess?”

You gasped as he curled his fingers deep inside of you, his ministrations slow and sensual. “Fuck! Y-yes, y’made me cum so much! Love your thighs, Ko’!” you squeaked, instinctively squeezing your thighs together.

Bokuto tutted and used his free hand to shove your legs apart, now kneeling above you. “Don’t try to hide it, sweetness. You know I don’t like that.” he was not knuckle-deep inside your weeping cunt, his fingers plunging inside so expertly. “Fuck, gotta make sure you’re nice and loose for me, yeah? Don’t wanna hurt you.”

“S-shit! You’re gonna make me cum again!” you whimpered, grasping onto your breasts for additional stimulation. “God, how do your fingers feel so fucking good?”

“Can’t answer that for you, sweetheart. You wanna cum again, pretty girl? Want me to rub your clit and make a mess all over my hand?” he teased, beginning to massage your sensitive clit with the pad of this thumb. His fingers were still scissoring you open, coating you with the mixture of his saliva and your release. 

“Yes, fuck! Please, Ko’!” you whined, the familiar bubbling sensation in your belly threatening to spill over. Your legs were now dangling over his shoulder, quaking in ecstasy. “Wanna cum, fucking make me cum!”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he offered you a mischievous smirk, furiously rubbing his thumb over your clit as you tumbled into pure pleasure once more. Your mouth became agape; your head tossed into the plush pillow behind you. His fingers ceased their movement, sliding out of your cunt covered in your slick. “Shit,” Bokuto mumbled, bringing his fingers to his mouth. “Fucking delicious.”

He gave you another kiss, leaving some of your release on your lips. His boxers were peeled off and thrown onto the nightstand as he fumbled through one of the drawers, cursing at himself. “God dammnit, I know I have one. Where the fuck is it?”

“Looking for a condom?” you asked, the breath still being knocked out of your lungs.

“Yeah, it’s being a pain in the ass to find, though.”

“I’m on the pill.” you plainly state, smiling at him. “You don’t have to use a condom. It’ll be okay with me.” 

Bokuto stopped rummaging through the drawer, turning over to look at you with a look that could only be a mixture of lust and absolute delight. “Are you sure? I-I mean, I’m happy to hit it raw; I just don’t wanna pressure you or anything.”

You nodded your head and pulled him close to you by his shoulder, pecking his nose sweetly. “I promise, Kotaro. You don’t have to use a condom when you’re with me.”

“God, that’s music to my fucking ears, baby,” his voice rumbled, his hands resting on the bottoms of your thighs. You were propped up by your elbows and Bokuto’s variety of pillows, his cock painfully hard against his abdomen. “Can’t wait to ruin this fucking pussy.”

You tilted your head to the side in confidence, winking. “Then what are you waiting for?” you spread your legs, exposing your glistening heat to him once more. “Ruin me, Kotaro.”

Bokuto bit down on his lower lip and growled, aligning his cock with your cunt. “You have no idea what you’re in for, pretty girl.” the mushroom head pushed past your folds, the newfound sensation causing the both of you to moan softly. “Shit, you’re still so tight. That’s okay,” he chuckled, snapping his hips against yours. His cock slammed inside of you, filling you up so quickly. “I’ll fucking make it fit.”

“Holy shit!” you sobbed, your fingers scrambling for purchase in the bedsheets. “Kotaro!”

“That’s it, baby, scream my name while I fuck this pussy stupid.” Bokuto hissed, pounding into you without giving you the chance to catch your breath. You looked so fucking pretty underneath him, especially the way your greedy pussy took him so well. The way your sobbing walls enveloped him entirely it was perfection. “Taking me so well, good fucking girl.”

Your pathetic mewls were like that of a morning songbird, the most beautiful melody. Bokuto hoisted your legs above his shoulders once again, his cock hitting you at a deeper angle. You screamed, the head prodding at your cervix. “Fuck, shit, oh my god! Kotaro, f-fuck!”

His thrusts were animalistic as if he were in heat. They were uncalculated and had no rhythm, only a mission to make you stupid on his cock. His hands gripped onto your ankles while he started at your lewd form, admiring how your small hands encased your breasts in an attempt to create more stimulation. How greedy you were. He thought it was adorable. Everything about you was simply adorable. 

“Good fucking girl, that’s my girl,” he groaned as you squeezed around him, pulling him impossibly deep. “Oh, you like it when I call you that? Your pussy is sucking me in, pretty girl.” he teased, smacking the underside of your thigh. 

You attempted to speak, but all that fell from your lips was incoherent babbling. Your mind was all fuzzy, full of nothing but thoughts of Bokuto fucking you senseless. You arched your back further into the mattress, your hair forming the messiest halo above you. The sound of his balls slapping against your ass filled the bedroom, the movie in the living room being a thing of the past. 

“My pretty girl can’t speak now, but that’s okay,” Bokuto assured you, punctuating his sentences with a harsh slam inside of you. “I’ll just make you cum again, yeah? We’ll cum at the same time, okay, pretty girl? I know you got one more in you. Wanna give it to me? Don’t you think I deserve it? I wanna hear you say that. Say I deserve to make you cum again!”

“Fuck!” you sobbed, your orgasm dangerously close. You didn’t think you could handle one more, his cock bullying its way in and out of your weeping cunt. “Y’deserve to make me cum again, Kotaro! F-fuck, think I’m gonna cum soon!”

“Don’t fucking hold out on me, baby. You know I like it messy!” Bokuto bent forward, his thrusts becoming more erratic and needy as his cock twitched inside of you, begging for release. “Gonna fucking cum in this pussy, make it all fucking mine!”

“Shit!” you sobbed, tears welling up in the corners of your eyes. “Kotaro!” his name fell from your lips like a broken pair as you came for the third and final time that night, completely coating his cock in your glistening slick.

“Holy fuck, yeah, yeah! Fucking hell!” Bokuto roared, shooting ropes of cum deep inside your core, creating a new warm sensation in your belly. His thrusts grew slower and slower, almost as if he was attempting to fuck his cum inside of you. “Dont wanna…stop fucking you…but I’m tired.” he groaned, letting your legs fall back onto your chest. “Shit.”

Bokuto shamelessly collapsed onto you, purposely landing on your breast. He lifted his hips so his cock could slide out of you, almost with the thinnest streams of his release down your bruised thighs. “Mmm, that was so fucking good,” he mumbled against your breast, sucking on your pert nipple for a moment. “You got the best fucking pussy I’ve ever had.”

“You flatter me,” your hands ran through his damp black and white strands, acting as a comb. “You felt so fucking good, Kotaro. I’m glad I could help out. Do you think you’ll feel better at tomorrow's practice?”

Bokuto looked up from your breast and smiled brightly, cupping your flushed face with his hands. “I’m totally gonna kick everyone's ass! Atsumu won’t know what’ll hit him!”

“There’s the Bokuto we know and love!” you chuckle. 

“I’m back, baby!” he weakly flexed his muscle, kissing your cheek playfully. “Guess all I needed was my sexy manager. Best damn cure on the planet!”

You rolled your eyes and kissed the top of his head. “You act completely different when you’re inside of me.”

“Is that a bad thing?” he titled his head.

“Absolutely not. I think it’s adorable. You’re adorable.” you kissed his cheek once more. “So, uh, is it possible for us to do this again sometime? I-it was nice.” your eyes landed on the floor, embarrassed for no reason.

Bokuto flashed you his signature crooked smile and laughed, kissing your neck. “What a stupid question. Of course, we can do this again! We basically confessed before I fucked you, remember?”

“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot.” you awkwardly chuckled, leaning into his enthusiastic kisses. “Maybe your dick knocked all the brains out of my skull.”

“But then you won’t have any more left when you watch us practice!” Bokuto whined, snuggling his face into your chest once more. “You gotta have some brain left, okay?”

“Okay, Kotaro,” you mumbled, your eyelids growing heavy. “Hey…it’s pretty late. Would it be okay if I slept here for the night? I understand if you don’t want me to.”

“Hell yeah, you can sleep here!” He cheered softly, running his hand up and down your arm. “That way, you can arrive with me to practice tomorrow. Then I can show off my new girlfriend to the team and make them all super jealous.”

You chuckled. “Oh, am I your girlfriend now?”

“Do…do you wanna be my girlfriend?” his voice was soft and unsure.

“Of course I do, cutie.” you pecked the top of his head, pulling up the owl-themed covers. “Now, get some sleep. You got a lot to do tomorrow, yeah?”

“Mm, okay, baby. I can’t wait to wake up in your arms tomorrow.” he innocently whispered, shutting his eyes as sleep overtook him.

“Goodnight, Kotaro,” you whispered, flicking off the lamp as the two of you fell asleep in a mutual embrace, eager for what tomorrow will bring.

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[phas3d]

Famous!s/o Makes A Song About Him | Slytherin Boys

type :: fluff

tw/cw :: sexual hints (mattheo)

contains :: draco, tom, matt, theo, lorenzo

summary :: you're a rising pop star, similar to sabrina carpenter/olivia rodrigo and you dedicate a song to them

notes :: heavy inspo from @goldsainz and their writing for f1 drivers! i've been binge reading all of their stuff pls go read it :) they're lowkey inspiring me to make my own f1 page LMAOOOO

DRACO MALFOY "i know i have good judgement, i know i have good taste" - please please please by sabrina carpenter

He listens to the sing intensely, he's enjoying it but you can't read his face properly - thank god you were performing on stage so you couldn't look at his judgy face

But as you keep singing and poking jokes at him, he can't help but break his strong stare and chuckle. He hated admitting that you were funny, but goddamnit your fans just recorded him laughing and blushing

Once you finish performing, he smiles happily and cheers. He can't help but continue to laugh and shake his head from his own shock that YOU, the (y/n) who's famous, beautiful, and talented, is singing a song about HIM???

He'd never admit that all out loud, but you could read him so easily, you knew he was wrapped around your finger

Once your performance is over he greets you backstage with a smile that he's desperately trying to hide

"The song was a solid 8/10" he says as you scoff at him, you could tell he loved it and was too much of a wuss to admit it

And you were right, he has that song on REPEAT - he probably gave you like a million streams on his own

TOM RIDDLE "my baby, here on earth - showed me what my heart was worth" - my love mine all mine by mitski

When he first heard it, he's shocked that it's so somber and slow compared to your usual upbeat songs

He's even more shocked when he hears the lyrics and how simple yet impactful it is, it almost makes him blush

Tom has always been a sucker for poetry and music with simple instrumentals, so when you combined those both into this song he felt so loved

Once you finish performing it for the first time, he can't help but smile to himself, looking at the floor and putting his hand over his mouth to mask his happiness

When you finally come back stage, he walks up to you and hugs you tightly - despite PDA being literally vomit worthy for him

It surprises you so much, you weren't even aware you could have this impact on the cold-hearted Tom - but you did and you loved every second of it

Your song plays on repeat for him constantly, it reminds him that he's loved. He's never ever felt that in his entire life, even from his own brother

The song healed a small part of his deeply broken heart and soul, and he's so grateful for you to bring him even the slightest bit of joy, especially because he knows how difficult he is at times

MATTHEO RIDDLE "the boy is mine, i cant wait to try him, lets get intertwined" - the boy is mine by ariana grande

The second he hears the song and the lyrics, he's smirking and feeling so confident. The entire song is just basically flexing that he's yours - but he feels like he should be the one singing about you like this

Everything about the song is suited to match him perfectly, the beats, the sexual lyrics, even the choregraphy is amazing to him - it's like a perfect art piece just for him

Once you finish recording it, he's left dumbfounded and just smiling. It doesn't help that you send him a wink as well, making his already rapid heart beat even faster

After you finish the entire show, he can't get his hands off of you. He kisses you everywhere, does every command you ask of him, and drives you home at 100 mph

He wants to reward you :)

THEODORE NOTT "when i talk to you, oh cupid walks right through and shoots an arrow through my heart" - from the start by laufey

This song was basically a confession to him, which you hoped he wouldn't notice, but he did instantly and he loved every second of it

He had zero clue you had feelings for him, and vice versa. You guys were both known as the oblivious slow burn couple but you both were clueless to this rumor

Once you perform it live on stage, he decides to steal a random bouquet of flowers from a fan and run backstage to greet you

He gifts you the stolen flowers and smirks, "If you love me just say so," He says with a cocky grin on his face

Before you can tell him to shut up and stop stroking his ego, he leans down to your height and gives you a peck on the lips - making both of you blush

"Once you're done performing, how about we go on a little date" He says with a cute smile, making it impossible to say no

But he lied - that date was not "little" and instead one of the fanciest restaurants ever that he paid extra to play your entire debut album over and over for all the patrons to hear

He's your biggest fan ever and posts your song about him everywhere, literally fucking everyone god he can't stop

LORENZO BERKSHIRE "tangled in love, stuck by you from the glue" - glue song by beabadoobee

Oh my gosh he's already your biggest fan boy ever, so when you sing this song as a surprise gift for him - he's freaking out and shaking against the barriers

He bites his lip and smiles as you sing this cheesy love song about him - he's never had his ego been this inflated and he loves it

Once you finish singing, he screams and shouts so loud that even your die hard fans start to judge him

But he doesn't care and he runs backstage so fast you'd think he's the Flash. He waits backstage for you like an excited puppy waiting for their owner. You could almost see his tag wag from how bright his smile is

The second you walk off the stage, he hugs you tightly and covers you in a thousand kisses - your makeup artist won't be happy but you don't care

"Ohmygosh!!! I love it! I love you! You're so sweet! Ohmygosh!!! The hottest EVER just wrote a song about me!!! A happy little love song!!! Is that the song you've been practicing for so long? Why did you never tell me-" You laugh and shut him up with a kiss on the lips and then another one on his cheek - giving him a kiss lipstick mark on his face

He understands you need to go back and perform so he leaves

Oh, also he doesn't remove your kiss :) He keeps it there the wholeeee night