#i am going to make coffee and go for a walk now

[sukeruton-san]

A Coffee Heart pt 4

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Red Robin found the apartment building his twin brother has been staying at with his adoptive parents. he is on the third floor, Apt 307, window is also unlocked.

He heads inside too investigate, he doesn't expect what he walked into.

_______________________________________________

Today has been a good day. No attacks of any kind against his person. Not to much destruction with his parents fiddling and he got a shit load of caffeine in his veins. So, it has been a good day.

" Danny-O look!!!" His dad holds up what looks like a death ray on steroids, he said so as well.

" I call it 'The Fenton Ecto-destruct' it's suppose to deconstruct ectoplasmic-entities into more of a liquid substance so we can get to the core Evan easier!!" So it is a death ray on steroids but worse because it's for the already dead.

"Cool, cool hay have you seen the plates I can't find them "

" I think there in with the ghost equipment I'll go get them!!" Dad sets down Fenton Ecto-destruct and hurries of to the makeshift lab in the spare room.

"And make the trip long" he mutters under his breath before picking up the device and takes it apart,rearranging some parts, and adding somethings aswell. Then he puts it together again placing it down where it was before.

"Found them!!" The plates get handed to him " now to test The Fenton Ecto-destruct!!!" He pulls the trigger

.

.

.

" Aww, it doesn't work, maybe I need to add more wires for the energy output!" Putting the ray in his pocket he heads back to the lab

" Don't think it will work at all with what I did to it" chuckling to himself he puts the plates in the cabinet before heading to his room for the time being half way there he feels like something isn't right

He looks around spotting an ajar window, tensing he closes it. Feeling movement to he's right he throws the nearest object to him, which is a box cutter, into a wall next to the sheepish face of Red Robin

" Ancients, you scared the shit out of me"

"Sorry, my bad "

Crossing his arms" Mind telling me why your here"

" May have over heard you conversation with your dad and got suspicious about it. Your quick with your hands it took you 10 minutes tops to rearrange the ray your dad built"

" Thank you, and sorry for disrupting your patrol or whatever you were doing " he rubs the back of his neck " you don't happen to know of places that dispose of lots of metal and equipment that don't interfere with rogues and or criminals do you, I don't want my parents interacting with anyone like that here with our stay but also don't want them in public."

The vigilante ferros his brows before stating" there's one in downtown Gotham that doesn't have much activity going on with it. Also are you okay your parents sound like rogues already and I Don't like it."

"They haven't killed anyone so far, so their fine for the most part just don't want them nere thing and or people that can make them worse then they already are."

" You haven't answered the first question tho also 'so far' isn't as reassuring as you think"

" Their fine, really" there was a ominous thump in the background " I am going to check that out, you have a good day" he hurries of too the destination the sound came from leaving a worried vigilante behind

_______________________________________________

The situation is worsening by the minute first he hears and sees the conversation between Danny and Mr. Fenton about something that can vary well kill Danny if the thing misfires. Next Danny's ability to deconstruct and rearrange or build upon things in fast pases hents that he has to do that often which means there are lots of potential weapons and or devices that can harm Danny or others aswell.

Third is that Danny knew that he was here and acted accordingly to the situation. he almost got my head with that box cutter if he didn't dodge in time. Fourth is the aparint need to keep his adoptive parents from rouges because they might learn from them when he is positive they already are rouges.

Last and most noteworthy is Danny's avoidance to answering the question if he was Okay.

He has a lot to unfold and first is the implied lab that the Fenton's are working in.

[frostiexavier]

-ˏˋ Surprise! ˊˎ

✩ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT ✩

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

ੈ✩‧₊˚ summary: It’s Zayne’s Birthday but unfortunately he does not get the day off. You decide to throw him a little “surprise” party for him in his office. However, once the parties over he gets to unwrap you.

ੈ✩‧₊˚ warnings: fem! reader x dr. zayne, semi-public sex, unprotected p in v, handjob ( m and f receiving), creampie, sex on a chair

ੈ✩‧₊˚ word count: 4.5k

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

“Hey Yvonne, is Zayne still in surgery”, you ask over the phone frantically waiting in line to pick up zayne’s favorite chocolates at the sweet shop near the Akso Hospital.

“Don’t worry we have at least another hour left, Greyson is setting up the balloons and I am making sure all the staff signs his birthday card”, Yvonne expresses on the other line.

“Okay I am almost done here I should be there in 10 minutes, see you then!”, you hung up the phone and proceed to order his favorite chocolates; making sure not to get the liquor filled ones. You giggle thinking back on that night. You can’t wait to see how Zayne will react later tonight when he doesn’t have his liquid courage this time.

You arrive at the hospital almost exactly 10 minutes after your phone call with Yvonne ended. You make your way to the elevator and take it to the floor where Zayne’s office is. You walk into his office and see various staff, nurses, doctors and other medical personnel here to celebrate your favorite person.

“Y/N you made it! We are almost set up, Greyson went to go check to see how surgery is going. Wait I think I hear him now!”, Yvonne states as we both move closer to the door of Zayne’s office.

“But Dr. Zayne, wouldn’t you like to stop by the cafeteria to get a coffee first before you go to your office and work on paperwork?”, Greyson states, almost like he is out of breath.

“There is no need. Surgery was successful and I will be leaving early today”, you can hear Zayne getting closer to the door.

“He’s early, tell everyone to hide”,you say in a hurried tone.

Everyone scrambles to find a place to hide, everyone pretty much hides behind the prettily decorated table that holds gifts and desserts. With not much choice you decide to hide behind the coat rack next to the door. Yvonne quickly turns the lights off and hides. Not long after the door was pushed open.

“Are you sure you don’t want to check on your patients again?”, Greyson asks as he frantically follows Zayne into the room. Making up excuses trying to give us more time to hide.

“I just checked on them after surgery, they are all doing well. Now if you will excuse me I will be going home now”, he turns the light on and tosses his white lab coat on the coat rack and reaches for his long black trench coat. Before he can grab his coat, Zayne spots you trying to hide behind the rack.

“Y/N?”, he questions. You slowly pop your head out of one of his coats.

“Surprise”, you say while waving both of your hands beside your head.

“SURPRISE”, the rest of the room erupts to join you. Everyone emerging from their hiding places.

“What is the meaning of all this?”, the shock on Zayne’s face is priceless. His face forming a light shade of red.

“We all wanted to celebrate you on your birthday so Y/N came up with an idea to throw you a surprise party”, Yvonne says winking at you. Zayne then directed his attention back to you.

“Well we all pitched in, it wasn’t just me”, you said shyly. Zayne sheepishly smiled.

“I don’t know what to say”, Zayne replied while examining the room of joyful smiles all for him.

“You don’t have to say anything chief, Happy Birthday”, Greyson explained while patting Zayne’s back. Zayne huffed and gave Greyson a side-eyed look.

“Anyways, here is a card from everyone and there are some gifts, desserts and of course a birthday cake”, you explained while pointing at the table.

“Go on, birthday boy gets the first pick of desserts”, you say as you guide him to the table full of treats and hand him a plate. You catch the dilation in Zayne’s eyes as he looks at the array of desserts and then glances back at you. He whispers a “thank you” to you then starts placing at least one of each dessert on his plate.

Laughter fills the room as everyone begins to enjoy desserts and share funny stories they have had with Zayne over the years. You have never seen Zayne like this before. He is smiling ear to ear and enjoying everyone’s company as we all joke around while also talking about how wonderful he is as a surgeon and a physician.

It’s time for cake and you escort Zayne to his super cute cake shaped like a snowman. Zayne lets out a little giggle.

“I suppose this is your doing?”, Zayne asks.

“Actually, I told Greyson what to order and he picked it up for me. I was in charge of getting your favorite chocolates”, you smile at him. You stick a few candles in the cake and light them with a match. Before Zayne could oppose, you start to sing “Happy Birthday” and everyone starts to join in as well. Zayne scans the room during the song and starts to clap his hands in a gentle and slow motion. Once the song is over everyone claps and cheers for your enduring boyfriend.

“Make a wish”, you state with a wild smile.

“But my wish already came true”, he gently smiles at you.

“Well then make another wish silly”, Zayne nods and closes his eyes. He briefly pauses and blows out the candles in one breath. Everyone cheers and you proceed to cut Zayne a piece of cake.

“Open up”, you prompt Zayne to open his mouth and take a bite of the piece of cake you cut for him. His faint smile quickly turns to a disappointing frown.

“What’s wrong?”, you asked him, a bit concerned.

“This is carrot cake”, Zayne states while struggling to swallow the bite he took.

You turn your head toward Greyson and shoot him a glare.

“What you said snowman shape and nothing but carrot cake”, Greyson raises his hands in defense.

“No, I said snowman shape ANYTHING but carrot cake”, you state firmly. Greyson’s face distorts to disappointment. But a slight chuckle brings you back to look in Zayne’s direction.

“That’s quite alright, if my blood sugar is concerned I have had enough sweets for tonight anyways”, he deeply chuckles at your disappointed face.

As everyone finishes their cake and conversations, more and more people start to filter out of his office while wishing Zayne a farewell.

I start to clean up the party when Yvonne approaches me.

“Well I would call that a success, do you want me to stay and help you clean up?”, she asks you.

“That’s okay, I still have one more gift to give him”, you wink at Yvonne.

“Ah okay, well have a good night”, she winks back while giving you an “ok” hand gesture. Yvonne proceeds to leave the room.

You continue to quickly clean up when you suddenly feel a presence behind you. Zayne wraps his arms around you from behind and places his chin on your shoulder. You smile placing the last piece of trash into the trash bag. You swiftly turn around and meet his gaze while wrapping your arms and clasping your hands together around his waist.

“Did you have fun today?”, you ask him while smiling up at his tall figure.

“Yes, I never got the excitement people had for surprise parties but I understand the idea now. Thank you again for putting forth so much effort for me”, he grins slightly.

“I am glad you enjoyed it, I wanted you to see how people around you truly love and appreciate you. But, you have one more present to open. I wanted to wait until now to give it to you”, you say excitedly grabbing his hand and leading him to his desk and prompting him to sit in his desk chair.

“Stay right here, I will be right back”, you say and quickly let go of his hands and step out of his office before he could say anything.

You go to the reception desk and retrieve the gift box that Yvonne hid away for you. You also quickly reapply your lip palm. You take a deep breath and head back into his office. You see him sitting exactly where you left him, he looks so calm. But your heart was racing, you had never given a gift to someone you saw romantically before and did not want to mess it up. By the time your mind stops racing your feet had carried you to Zayne.

“What’s that?”, Zayne raises an eyebrow.

“Open it, I hope you like it!”, you hold the gift box out to him.

He quickly takes the box and gently unwraps the bow that was cutely wrapped around it. The box held a soft blue stethoscope that had “to Dr. Zayne” engraved on the bell with a snowflake emoticon next to it. Zayne pulled the item out of the box and examined it.

“Do you like it? If you don’t I can always-“, zayne cuts you off.

“No, it’s perfect. I love it.”, he says softly. His gaze makes your heart melt just like snow and you quickly tell him to try it out.

“Try it out on me.”, you smile and assist him in placing the earbuds into his ears. You sit across from him as he places the stethoscope bell over your heart and closes his eyes. You don’t know what he hears but you can feel your heart pounding because of how nervous you are.

“Your heart is beating rapidly, are you alright?”, he says concerned and places the stethoscope around his neck.

“Yeah I’m just a little hot.”, you explain.

“Are you running a fever? You must be exhausted from today.”, he says, placing the back of his hand against your forehead.

Suddenly you grab his new stethoscope in your hands and gently tug him towards you, both of your faces mere inches from each other. Zayne locks eyes with you and gently whispers your name.

“I don’t think I have a fever”, you say before pulling him even closer to kiss him. Your lips merge so perfectly with his. His lips are soft and you can taste a bit of sweetness from the remnants of his chocolates he had earlier. You slowly pull away, both of you breathing softly.

“Happy Birthday Dr. Zayne”, you say just above a whisper against his lips. Zayne takes a moment to stare at you, no doubt your cheeks are a tint of red just like his.

Suddenly you are being picked up in one swift motion and placed on his lap. He removes his glasses and the stethoscope from around his neck and proceeds to place them on his desk.

He then places his hand behind your neck and tugs you toward him to reunite your lips. Chill bumps start to form all over your body from the sudden position change, Both of you fighting for dominance in the intense make-out session you have found yourselves in, and you end up winning.

You deepen the kiss, getting a small groan out of him. He places his other hand on the small of your back to pull you even closer. Feeling his cold fingers slip in the bottom of your blouse to touch your warm skin. You bite his bottom lip as you pull away for a second time. But this time your breathing is heavy and the air feels like it has thickened.

“We shouldn’t do this here”, Zayne says between his heavy breaths. His face now completely red tinted along with his ears. But no doubt his eyes filled with lust.

“I don’t think I can wait, I need you Zayne”, you spread your legs even more on either side of his thighs to where you are sat directly on his hardening member. You start to slowly unbotton your blouse to reveal your blue lacy bra with a neatly tied white bow on the front holding your bra together. Your chest on full display for him.

“I almost forgot, you have one more present to unwrap”, you say as you let your blouse fall to the floor behind you and wrap your arms around the nape of his neck. You can feel the heat radiating off both of you.

Zayne stares at you like you just told him he won the lottery. Instead of tugging at the bow he kisses you again, this time a touch more forceful and passionate. He got a moan out of you, which flips a switch in his brain. The kiss starts to get sloppy as he moves to your cheek and jaw.

You give your hips an experimental wiggle and he lets out a small growl near your ear. He soon moves his open mouthed kisses to your neck and he quickly finds your sweet spot, earning another moan from you. He smirks against your skin and gently grazes his teeth over it earning a moan from you.

“Are you sure you didn’t eat a liquor filled chocolate, what’s gotten into you?”, he asks while continuing to leave a pretty mark on your neck, his voice sounding more breathless.

“Unlike you Dr. Zayne, it would take me more than a few chocolates to get drunk”, you tease. He chuckles against your neck and moves the hand that was resting on the back of your neck and snakes it to just below your chest to where the bow strings on your bra dangle.

“Can I?”, he asks looking up at you like a puppy dog begging for a treat. He looks equally adorable and so fucking sexy at the same time.

“I said I’m your last present for tonight.”, you say then lean down closer to his ear.

“Do whatever you want”, you whisper. You can feel Zayne’s muscles tense underneath you and he wastes no time by pulling on the bows dangling string. His movements become more hurried.

Zayne lets the bra fall off your shoulders and admires every inch of your exposed skin. Feeling slightly embarrassed because of how much he is staring.

He reaches a hand out to knead your left breast while he kisses your collarbone down to the valley of your chest. Your skin feels like it’s one fire.

“Zayne-“, you let out a soft moan and you continue to grind on him and place your fingers in his hair on the back of his head.

“You’re so beautiful, how did I get so lucky?”, he asks while taking your right nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it.

“You throw me a birthday party”, he leaves your nipple and works his way to the other while leaving trails of kisses all over your chest.

“You bought all my favorite treats”, he continues his torment on your chest with his eyes closed, making sure he is focusing on your pleasure.

“You got me a gift, and spent time out of your day for me”, he leaves your chest and moves to look up at you. His hair already a mess and his eyes almost glossed over.

“What did I do to deserve you?”, he says, his desire almost palpable. You stop your grinding a moment to give him an answer.

“I could ask the same thing. You would do all of those things and more for me. It’s the least I could do for you. You also put me first and I don’t want you to feel left behind or forgotten. I could never forget you Zayne, your the love of my life. I-I love you.”, you spill your guts to him. This was the first time you said those three words. You both knew you loved each other but saying it,the reassurance was everything to him, and to you.

You had never seen Zayne smile like the way he did after your confession, so full of love and gratitude. He grabs your arms and places them behind his neck.

“Hang on”, he states. You give him a questioning look as he reaches below his chair and reclines it as far down as it can go pulling you forward and him backward. This motion making you bump chests and you could feel his toned abs through his shirt.

“Zayne!”, you say in surprise. He does nothing but smirk and traces his fingers from your hips down to your thighs while hiking your skirt up.

He finds the top of your lacy panties that matches your bra, a little white bow placed on top.

“Cute”, he chuckles.

“But, I need to get to my present”, He grabs them and rips them to shreds with his hands.

You gasp and look at him in utter shock. This is a new side of Zayne, one you never expected but undoubtedly love.

“You can’t be mad at me since it’s my birthday”, he smirks and lightly chuckles.

You go to retort his comment but he places his fingers against your slick folds causing you to moan.

“You’re soaked darling, is all this for me?”, he says while not faltering his gaze on you. Moving his fingers to your clit. Giving it a little pinch; causing you to squeak out in surprise.

“Yes Zayne, been needing you all day”, you explain, desperately needing him to stop teasing you.

“Well I guess I shouldn’t make my girl wait any longer huh?”, he removes his fingers, whining slightly at the loss. He moves to undo his zipper but you swat his hands away.

You decide to take it upon yourself to undo his zipper and he quickly works on his button down shirt to expose his broad chest and abdomen. After you’re done unzipping his pants you take a moment to admire his toned chest and abs. You couldn’t resist the urge to slide your hand up and then back down his front entirely, causing him to gasp.

“Keep going”, he begs breathlessly, looking at you and then down at his obvious bulge in his boxers.

You slowly tug at his boxers, soon releasing his hardened member, it almost reaches his belly button. You’ve only been intimate with Zayne a few other times so this all still feels new to you. Sex in general was still new to you. But thanking tumblr and wattpad for giving you tips over the years on what a man would want and what you would want from him as well.

Zayne looks at you with anticipation, pre-cum already leaking from his bright red tip. His face looks like he could bust at any moment.

“Please y/n”, he begs, making you yearn for him. You are putty in his hands, but tonight you want him to melt for you. You want to show him just how much you love him.

You slowly take his member into your hand and start giving it a few experimental pumps. Hoping to make him feel good and not disappoint him. Zayne lets out a low groan which makes you excited to continue. You start to quicken your pace while you lean down and give Zayne’s neck soft kisses. His chest beginning to turn the same shade as his cheeks.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes, letting himself feel you pleasure him. His sounds making heat and excitement radiate through your body.

“Fuck y/n, keep doing that”, he expresses, his brows furrowed enjoying himself. Mouth agape and he keeps his head back and eyes closed, enjoying the moment.

You keep at a good pace for a while and begin to rotate your hand a bit which causes his breath to quicken and his body stiffen. He grips the chair arms and jolts his head up look at you.

“Y/N stop, I don’t wanna cum like this”, he says placing his hand on your wrist and moving your hand away from his cock.

“But I wanted to make you feel good”, you say, a little disappointed you didn’t get to watch him come undone for you just by your hand.

“You did love, I enjoyed it so much. But please I need to be inside you. I need to feel you”, he says in between gasping breaths. Looking like his life depends on it, you nod in agreement. You need him just as much as he needs you.

You align yourself on top of him but he stops you. Panic settling into your chest.

“What’s wrong?”, you ask, worried you did something wrong. You are so nervous that you don’t want to make a mistake, you just want this night to be perfect for him.

“Nothing but are you going to be okay? Do I need to prep you?”, he asks while practically panting. Your heart could burst over his concern for you but you lightly shake your head.

“I’ll be fine, even if it hurts it won’t last long, promise”, you kiss him on his forehead and he smiles. You then continue to align yourself with him. You can feel your heart beating in your chest.

You start to slowly sink down on him, inch by inch you can feel him stretch you out but it’s more pleasure than pain. Feeling every vein and curve of his cock, making you see stars. You continue to go slowly until he is all the way inside you, it feels like he is reaching your stomach he is so deep.

“You okay?”, he asks you while rubbing circles along your back. He is asking you but you feel like you should be asking him that question based on his messy appearance.

“Yes, feels so good”, you say head tilted slightly back. You wait a second to adjust before you start to move slowly up and down him.

You didn’t take Zayne for a vocal guy since he is normally so calm and collected but when he is falling apart like this, he can’t help but express how good he feels.

“F-fuck”, he curses, head resting back on his chair looking at the place you both meet. Both of his hands gripping your waist a bit harder, sure to leave marks for tomorrow. You have never heard Zayne curse before, making you feel like you’re doing a good job and turning you on even more.

“You feel so good darling but take your time, don’t hurt yourself”, he says while drawing small circles on your hips, releasing his grip a bit.

“Doesn’t hurt just feels good”, your eyes are closed as you lose yourself on him. Soon you find a rhythm you like and start to move faster on him, causing him to grip your hips tighter again and encouraging you to keep going.

“Shit y/n, thats my pretty girl”, he says out of breath. You both are making so much noise that you’re glad everyone went home and the whole floor was closed because you would be too embarrassed to walk out of his office later.

“What if someone walked in here? I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else seeing you like this”, he confesses looking straight into your eyes.

“Or is that something you want? To show everyone how good you make me feel? So everyone knows that I’m only yours?”, he says whispering into your ear. His words go straight to your throbbing core, making you tighten around him.

You take one of your hands and grip the bookshelf that is placed behind his chair and use it for leverage. Making it feel like he is even deeper inside of you if that were even possible.

With you leaning over him, Zayne takes the opportunity to sneak one of your nipples in your mouth and snake his hands to your ass and give it a good squeeze. You can’t help but moan in response as you feel a tingling sensation start to form in the pit of your stomach.

“Zayne I think I’m close”, you warn him, panting He grabs your ass pulling you even closer and starts thrusting up into you, meeting your movements. You feel unbelievably full and don’t want this feeling to end but your body needs a release.

“So perfect for me, my pretty girl. Cum around me”, he moans into your neck as he brings a hand to your forgotten clit and starts to rub it in figure eights.

“Love you so much, you’re the best gift of all”, he says against your ear. Thats all it takes for you to let go, gripping the bookshelf and his hair between your fingers. Feeling the waves of pleasure crash through you, something you haven’t gotten used to but never want to let go either. Throwing your head back while Zayne continues his torment on your clit, working you through your orgasm.

Zayne is overwhelmed, feeling how tight you are along with your pretty noises, he won’t last long. He needs you to bring him to the edge.

“Say my name”, zayne commands, not backing down from his pace.

So breathless from your orgasm, making it hard to get a word out Zayne commands again.

“Say it”, he says barely getting the words out.

“Zayne”, you finally say next to his ear, barely coming out as a whisper. That is all it took for Zayne to let go.

He finally releases with a loud groan, nose and eyes scrunched up. Still pumping into you while cumming. Making both of you go dizzy, the feeling of his cum inside of you makes you stir crazy.

As Zayne comes down from his high, you slump over him, putting your full weight on him because your weak legs can’t hold you up anymore. He loosens his grip on your hips and rubs them, You nuzzle your face into his neck and feel the sweat dripping from his forehead as he looks down towards you.

“Y/N, are you alright?”, he asks a little worried that you haven’t said anything in the last few minutes.

“Yes, just need a second”, you chuckle, making his worries wash away.

His fingers find your hair stroking the messy strands behind your ear.

“You know, this is the best birthday I have ever had”, he confesses. You look up, meeting his softened eyes.

“Really? How so?”, you smile at him.

“Because I got to spend it with you”, he admits and you give his chest a little slap.

“What?”, he giggles and protests your slap. You end up giggling too, making the moment heartfelt after you both just ruined each other.

“By the way, what brand is this chair? I can’t believe we didn’t fall on the floor”, you laugh as you look up at him, strands of his hair facing every direction.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll get you one for your birthday”, he winks at you as you blush.

After you both got cleaned up and redressed, you headed home with Zayne. You both decided to stay at your place since it was closer to the hospital. Once you made it in, you both didn’t bother to do anything else but change into pajamas and go straight to bed. Cuddling into his arms, your breathing steady.

“ Happy Birthday Zayne”, you say for the last time tonight as your eyes begin to feel heavy.

“Goodnight sweetheart, I can’t wait to share every birthday with you”, he pokes your nose and places his head on yours as you both drift to sleep.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

a/n: hi guys, my name is kaylee! Love and deepspace has been rotting my brain and I have been wanting to write fanfics for them for a while now! I have not written a fanfic in about 8 years so please give me some grace if this is trash. Thank you for reading and feel free to leave me any requests! Also I know Rafayels birthday is coming up so let me know if you want a birthday fic for him ;)

[ak4e7a]

𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞) - 𝐩𝐬𝐡

𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧 / '𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲'𝐬 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦

synopsis: you were never one to take the high road... until you met someone who made your body burn like rubber on asphalt.

street racer! hoon x street racer!maneater! reader

wc: 16.9k holy fuck honestly this hoe might be a 3-parter lowk

a/n: hi sorry i disappeared... but enjoy LOL and happy one year to my blog! i met so many cool people over this past year. reblogs are appreciated and i will astral project into your room and hug you ≽ܫ≼

banner by @karinasbaby i love you this one's for you big dawg. year in the making, let's go

“Didn’t think you were going to grace us with your presence tonight, Miss Probation,” Jaeyun smirks as you get out of your car, swinging both of your legs out closed like a lady so as to not flash anyone with the black miniskirt you’re wearing. He greets you with an air-kiss to your cheek, to which you roll your eyes—although you bask in the way the other girls stare at the two of you. If only they knew how annoying your best friend actually was.

“It’s Jungwonie’s turn to race for us, so who am I to deprive my brother and the team of our good luck charm? We need all the luck we can get tonight,” you reply, taking a seat on the hood of your baby pink Supra. “We’re on a good win streak. Might even take this season’s cup without me.”

The other racers from different teams have started to arrive, many of them making their way over to say hello to you. You give your girls—Jimin, who races for Razor; Aeri, the beloved race girl; and Soyeon, a member of the AZ team—air-kisses from across the parking lot. You aren’t feeling like walking over to the groups they’re mingling with. (And because you don’t feel like being near Hwang Hyunjin right now.)

“Fair enough,” he acquiesces, sitting beside you when you pat the spot next to him. “But you know, Wonie is better than you think—”

“Hey, you never let me sit on your car,” Wonbin says, striding over to you with a smirk. You glance up at him, and he looks like he’s expecting you to either push Jaeyun off or scoot over yourself—either way, he wants a turn.

Basically everyone in your little racing scene does, but you think it’s more fun to work them like dogs than to give in to anyone. Especially not after what happened with— “You’re not even in Enigma, Wonbin. Privilege is for teammates only, get lost,” Jaeyun says condescendingly.

He looks at you again, like an expectant puppy—which only works if it’s Jaeyun doing it to you— waiting for you to reach into your purse. You sigh and reach in and feel around for a particular wrapper. “Here. Go away.”

The Australian snickers as Wonbin walks away dejectedly. “The grandma coffee candy, huh?”

“He was too cocky, that's all he deserves tonight. Even if he’s cute. He’s lucky I gave him anything at all.”

“What about me? I’m cuter,” Jaeyun asks, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear with his signature cheeky grin, batting his eyelashes at you the way you do to him. You’re used to flirting with him; it’s more of a way to keep both your skills and his sharp than anything romantic or suggestive. After all, you grew up with Jaeyun, and you know all his embarrassing secrets just like he knows yours. One time in high school, the two of you fake-dated for a week to get some girl too obsessed with him for her own good to leave him alone. It’s safe to say she didn’t buy it, not one bit. You and him bickered too much for it to be believable, and you accidentally screamed when he kissed you on the forehead. 

“Hmm…” Playfully, you pretend to be deep in thought, hand digging in your purse again. “Here.”

His face lights up in innocent delight, a huge contrast to his outfit of baggy cargo pants, oversized hoodie, and sneakers, complete with a thick, iced-out Cuban-link chain around his neck. “Ooh, yum! Grape Hi-Chew!”

You roll your eyes. “I only carry that for you, loser. Everyone knows the mango one is the best.”

“You just say that because grape was—”

“Hey, Y/N! Nice wrap,” Riki says, waving his long arms at you like he’s drowning. The tall, newly-turned 21-year-old bounds towards you before tackling you in a hug that sends you almost crashing into the ground, your hands flying to tug the hem of your skirt down lest your protective younger brother scold you about not dressing for the weather. It’s a cold spring night, as proven by Riki who’s in a loose, knitted navy blue sweater and destroyed light wash jeans.

“Jeez, Riki, I just saw you yesterday, no need to suffocate me,” you grumble affectionately, reaching up to muss his black-and-silver hair before sitting back down on the hood of your car. You’ve been fond of the boy since Jungwon brought him over one day, his first new friend since losing his best friend (and one of yours, honestly) in a betrayal that still hurts to speak of to this day. Riki clings onto you like you’re his older sister, too, and you reckon it probably has something to do with missing his own sister back home. “You saw me finish the wrap on the car, too, remember? Jimin and Soyeon were there.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it looks good even at night! Very professional. Maybe you can wrap the GTR next?” he says, to which you side-eye him, and he adds, “I can pay you.”

“You can pay for my meals every time we go out to eat for the next three months and I’ll call it even.”

He laughs. “Okay, deal. You eat less than Jungwon hyung, anyways.”

“Why are you talking shit about me to my sister again, freak?” your younger brother demands, making his way up to the small crowd that’s starting to form around you, Riki, and Jaeyun. He looks taller today, you think to yourself, and when he comes into full view, you see that he’s riding on the back of an unfamiliar person, a tall man with a sharp jawline and a pretty nose, whose bangs droop over his eyes. He’s wearing a white tank top and jeans, with a black and blue leather racing jacket covering his torso from the chilly Seoul air. 

“Well, did I fucking lie?” Riki snaps back, arms crossed. You hide your laugh in the crook of your arm, eyes locking with the man who’s got your brother draped over his broad shoulders like a backpack. He looks at you intensely, in a way that makes you feel like he’s got x-ray vision or something. You feel like your insides are turning into lava. What’s his deal?

“Whatever, cricket legs.” Jungwon jumps off the man’s back, shaking his hair out of his eyes. You notice that he’s yet again stolen one of your oversized hoodies. “Oh, hyung! This is my sister, by the way. Noona, this is Sunghoon hyung. He’s joining Enigma.”

He’s cute, pretty, even, and you like that. You’ve always preferred pretty boys. And up until about five seconds ago, you would have said that—even though your ex-boyfriend is a cheating bastard who deserves nothing but suffering—he was still the prettiest man you’ve come across. 

But this one, this one in front of you right now, this one takes the cake. He’s got full, thick brows that frame dark almond eyes, and his cheekbones flow into his jawline in a way that makes you think his face has probably stopped traffic at least once in his life. Before you stare at him for way too long, you reach into your purse and pull out one of your mango-flavored Hi-Chews (from your personal stash) to give him. 

“Hi, Sunghoon. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Enigma.”

He repeats his own version of your greeting a bit too curtly for your liking, but you don’t care either way, he’ll be under your thumb in no time, just like everyone else, just the way you like. Rolling the wrapped cube in his hand, he asks, “What’s this for?”

To which you reply, “Oh, nothing. I just like candy.”

“I feel like ‘like’ is an understatement,” Riki snorts, sticking his hand in your purse for something he can snack on. You sigh and hand him your purse for him to rummage around more freely. 

Sunghoon raises an eyebrow at that, but turns to you anyways. “Do you race, too? I don’t want to assume or anything.”

You give him a coy smile, translucent bubblegum-pink-manicured fingernails clicking against the hood of your car as you drum your fingers against it. “Yeah, I do. I’m banned from racing right now, though, until the end of the season at least.”

He cocks his head like a curious puppy, blinking slowly at you. Oh, no. He’s cute and probably doesn’t know it, but he’s definitely dressed like he knows he’s hot. “Why’s that?”

Your smile turns into a smug smirk as you answer, “Because I go too fast.”

“Fourth-gen Supra,” he muses, glancing between your bare legs at the titanium Toyota emblem on the hood that you’d had imported from Japan. For some reason, you have to resist the urge to squeeze your thighs together. “Cute.”

“Oh? And what’s your ride?”

“Beamer M8 Comp,” Sunghoon says, an air of nonchalance about the answer like it’s nothing special. It kind of pisses you off. You’re pretty certain he didn’t win that car by racing for the pink slip like you did with your Supra. Before you got that car, Jungwon’s 350Z was yours, and you’d only had it because you salvaged it from a junkyard and rebuilt the whole damn thing yourself when you weren’t working or sleeping.

If there’s one thing you might hate more in this life than cheaters, it’s people who come from money, people who didn’t understand or couldn’t comprehend that they were playing life on easy mode. People who never had to suffer, because, to you, they never learned anything.

Sure, you had a hard life. Sure, your parents kicked you and Jungwon to the curb when the both of you refused to take over the family business. Sure, you worked hundreds or, more likely, thousands of hours just to make ends meet and take care of your brother while the two of you finished school. Sure, you wished you could have enjoyed your youth more instead of having to worry about money.

But instead, you had to pay the price for your freedom. Part of you still wonders if it was all worth it. If you should have stayed in your hometown. If you should have just went along with the arranged marriage your parents were proposing with someone you didn’t even know instead of running away with your ex and dragging Jungwon to hell with you.

Okay, maybe it really pisses you off. 

“Ooh, rich boy,” you deadpan, your long nails preventing you from balling your hands into fists. You deny him the pleasure of seeing you roll your eyes back into your head. “Daddy must have spent a lot on you.”

“That’s not very welcoming to say,” he shoots back, although his voice is just as flat, his eyes narrowed at you.

You pout mockingly at him. “I’m just teasing our newest member—don’t worry, silver spoon. It’ll be over for you sooner if you decide to quit while you’re ahead.”

“You scared you won’t be the best racer on the team anymore or something, princess?”

“Just wait for me to get off probation and I’ll make you eat my brake dust, Daddy’s Money.”

“You’re already calling me daddy, even though we just met? Because it was my money that bought the car, for the record.”

You’re a little embarrassed and also slightly turned on, neither of which you would ever admit to even Jaeyun, and he knows you just about as well as he knows every single Fortnite map. “Tell someone who cares.”

The back-and-forth between the two of you is thankfully cut short as everyone hears the roar of a particular engine, marking the arrival of Enigma’s leader. You could just kiss him for his impeccable timing—if it weren’t for the fact that neither of you saw each other that way. You reckon both of you would rather eat a jean jacket than get more intimate than the platonic skinship that marks your friendship with him and the other Enigma boys.

People move aside as he puts the metallic, slime green Lamborghini Huracan in reverse and backs up into the parking spot next to you. The ostentatious exotic car belonging to Jay was gifted to him by one of his first clients, a filthy rich businessman who respected and admired Jay’s hard work and dedication to his job despite Jay being a corporate grunt in those days. During this period in your lives, Jay never once showed up late to a meeting with Mr. Big—even when his old Mitsubishi Lancer finally gave up on him after years of being pushed to its limit, even if it meant he had to wake up at three in the morning to start walking from his old apartment in Ahyeon-dong to Gangnam to make the scheduled 6 AM meetings—since the subways unfortunately didn’t operate until 5:30.

After Old Moneybags found out about Jay’s struggle, it was safe to say your best friend wasn’t on hard times for very long after that.

“Jay!” you call out, playing up your role as the only girl in Enigma just to assert dominance over the racer groupies in attendance tonight. You haven’t seen him since the last race, on account of the both of you being too busy with your work schedules to hang out properly. You immediately nudge past everyone—including Sunghoon, who you intentionally brush up against, your ass against his leg—to be the first to greet him.

“Hey, sweets, missed you,” he says, pulling you into a hug. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, been just fine. You know me, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself,” you assure him with a smile. He pinches your cheek. “What about you?”

“Oh, same shit, different day. Hoping I finally clutch this huge promotion at work. Head of an entire department,” he answers, protective hand on your waist as he guides you back to the rest of the Enigma boys. Along the way, he daps up some of the other racers who say hi to him, before giving Sunghoon, Jungwon, and Riki a dap and that weird side hug that guys who are close friends do. “Have you met Sunghoon yet?”

“Yeah, I have.” Your lips form into a slight pout, even though you know everyone but Riki is immune to your occasional petulance. “No one told me we were getting a new member. I thought we agreed to vote if it ever happened again? And… I thought it was never going to happen again?”

“You weren’t answering your phone when we voted, so Riki and Wonie took your vote,” Jaeyun snickers, shaking Jay’s hand and giving him the one-armed, “definitely not gay, bro” hug. “Think you had the group chat muted again.”

“Well, that was for good reason,” you argue crossly. While you loved your boys, that didn’t stop them from getting on your nerves at least once a day. “I was mad at you guys for not wanting to go get milk tea with me. And then you got it without me, clearly.”

“Didn’t we bring you some that night, though?” Jay retorts, ever the level-headed one when his temper wasn’t getting the best of him.

“Yeah… but I wanted to come! We live in the same building, for fuck’s sake!”

“It was a boys’ night, silly. Are you a boy?” Jaeyun pats your head and you swat his hand away, grumbling under your breath at him to not to touch you and to fuck off. 

Your attention veers to Jungwon as he turns to Sunghoon, who’s standing with his arms crossed, watching you bicker with the boys from a distance. “Don’t mind her, she’s always like this. You ready to race?”

“Always like what, Yang Jungwon?” you ask mirthlessly, hands on your hips.

“A brat!” Jaeyun and Jay answer on his behalf, tugging you away so as to allow the racers on tonight’s card to drive up to the starting line, and everyone else can get behind them.

That’s how your scene’s races have worked since you were tasked with changing the rules two years ago; two drivers from each team participating would race, while the others would drive behind them as pace cars. They would also be ready to distract the police at a moment’s notice and keep the roads clear of civillians. It was as ethical as you could make it, and, honestly, it worked and kept everyone safe.

On this night, you’ve been roped into Jaeyun’s metallic blue Mustang Shelby GT500, with glimmering white racing stripes you added on yourself, huffing and muttering to yourself about how the boys were being “mean” to you in front of Sunghoon to try and impress him. Jay has gone ahead to wait at the finish line. He’d refused—again—to not “put the Huracan anywhere near any of these morons with driver’s licenses,” and so he’s there to note down the order in which the racers arrive, armed with several precisely-calibrated stopwatches. 

You yourself have refused to ride with any other driver even though many of them offered to bring you along as their “passenger princess”. You will only ever ride with one of your boys. Riki is in his blacked out R35 Nissan GT-R, the other seats occupied with the life-sized plastic skeletons that he “borrowed” from his school’s anatomy lab. He’s cruising beside Jungwon, and behind you and Jaeyun; Sunghoon is in his own car beside you two.

“How’d you even meet that guy, anyways?” you groan to your best friend, trying to shield your eyes with the way Riki’s obnoxiously bright, blue underglow on his car is blinding you in your side mirror. Your hand dangles out of the open window, fingertips tapping idly on the outside of the door. “He’s so unfriendly.”

“Actually, he’s pretty cool when you get to know him. Riki and I met him at the gym a few weeks ago. He asked if one of us could spot him on the bench press—for three plates, that’s fucking sick! But, uh, yeah. We started working out together after that.”

You scoff. “Oh, great. Another meathead like you two.”

“Y/N, that’s not nice,” Jaeyun chides, glancing at you with the same affection of an older brother, even though you’re both 24 years old. “You’re not being very nice tonight.”

“Well, neither is he. He’s just some spoiled little rich boy who thinks he’s better than everyone.”

“Um… so am I, honestly… and so is Riki, honestly, but you don’t say anything about that, do you?”

You begin to reply, but you frown as Sunghoon speeds past the two of you in his pearly black BMW M8 Competition, the exhaust pipes screaming bloody murder, heading for the starting line just a hundred feet ahead. “Did he hear me say that about him?”

“Most likely.”

“Fuck.”

Part of you wants to apologize; maybe you’re being a little harsh on him, maybe you’re projecting your feelings towards this guy just because he reminds you of a certain someone, maybe you need to finally come to terms with what you’ve been denying for all these years.

Jaeyun pulls up to his spot behind the racers, right between Riki’s GT-R and Jungwon’s 350Z. You signal to the Nissan Boys, as you affectionately call your little brothers, to put their seatbelts on. They both pretend to sigh begrudgingly as they buckle themselves in.

The race girl is your good friend, Aeri, who every guy in your racing division is also obsessed with. Between the two of you, you think that she’s the truly adored one, because she is still as sweet as the day you met her—and you have an inclination to terrorize anyone of the opposite sex who rubs you the wrong way (due to your past). You can’t help it though, and, surprisingly, none of the boys who fall at your feet fault you for it.

But no one ever seemed to feel the need to prove you wrong, either, and that was your problem with them.

Aeri stands in between the middle two drivers, reaching under her top to unclip her bra. You take this as your cue to pull out the megaphone from where it sits waiting at your feet. Leaning out of the window, you announce, “First one to the base of Namsan Mountain wins! I expect a clean race, no funny business. Take no shit, but do no harm!”

“Isn’t that backwards?” Jaeyun whispers to you. You wave him off. He’s right, but you’re trying to emphasize your point about not dragging any innocent people into the racers’ mess.

You continue.“Tonight’s winner will receive the cash prize from me, personally, at a later time. Are we clear?”

A chorus of revved engines gives you your answer. “Alright. Aeri, count us down?”

She nods, pulling out her bra from her top and holding it up in the air. “‘Kay! You guys will go on 1! Ready? 3… 2… 1!” At the final number, she lets the hot pink satin garment drop to the ground, and everyone guns it, driving off in a flurry of exhaust smoke and burnt rubber.

“How much was the buy-in tonight, sweetie?” Jaeyun asks, using his own form of the sugar-derived nickname for you.

“Five million won apiece,” you answer. You scroll through Yun’s phone and play a song on his obnoxiously overpriced sound system. You’ve been joking to your friends that you’re in your “girl Future” era, citing your borderline toxic behavior towards the other racers who constantly slide in your DMs as proof that you’re literally the female version of the rapper. It doesn’t help that your coworker, Minjeong (who is also your self-appointed “work wife”), encourages you to torment men.

“‘I Serve the Base’? Really?” he snorts, leaning back in his seat. “You’re in a mood tonight, huh?”

“I dunno, it just fits the vibe,” you shrug. “Just quit yapping and drive, please.”

“Like I said, a mood.”

You sigh and physically turn away from him like a petulant girlfriend would—knees pointing towards the door and all—and stare out of the passenger window at the cars in front of you. You watch as Wonbin and Hyunjin duke it out on the road, trying to put each other in last place. The way they’re maneuvering their cars makes you a little uncomfortable, but also annoyed that they clearly didn’t listen to a word you said not two minutes ago. “Yunie, flash your high beams at them.”

“Say please.”

You look at him in confusion. Where’d he learn to say that?

“Sorry, Sunghoon does that to Riki and Jungwonie all the time.”

Yikes. Part of you hopes he doesn’t do it to girls, too… but you wouldn’t mind it if he were to do it to you. It’s high time someone really makes an effort to put you in your place, honestly. You reach behind you, to the back seat and grab the laptop you took from Riki, opening it up and typing furiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Accessing the street cameras,” you answer like it’s obvious. Being nefariously good at using the Internet was a perk that came with hanging out with your brother way too much. “I want to see what’s going on.”

“Well? Give me the rundown, then.”

“Jungwonie is in third place, it looks like. He’s gapped Hyunjin in front of us by at least a kilometer… and he’s approaching San and Wooyoung real quick. But—fuck, wait.” You click through a bunch of tabs, scanning the screen faster than when you’re reading twenty-six text message screenshots that Aeri sent you to dissect. “I can’t find Sunghoon anywhere.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t find him? Did he get pulled over or something?” he asks, lowering the volume of his speakers using the button on his steering wheel, eyes still trained on the road in front of him. He flashes his lights again, this time at just Wonbin to pick up the pace, urging him to pass Riki—who now has his underglow set to a stealthy dark red—up ahead.

“No… just… wait, give me a sec… oh, holy fuck.” You click through the camera footage, rewinding it and slowing down the playback. “Oh, my God.”

“Jesus Christ, what is it? You can’t just cliffhanger me like that!”

“I can’t see him because his lights are off.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think he has a mod on his car—you literally can’t see him unless he drives under a streetlight.”

“Wait, that’s what Riki imported for him?!”

“What the—oh shut the fuck up, it was me who imported that light system! That fucker said it was for a friend when I asked him why he was buying new bulbs, ‘cause I knew he just got those halo LEDs!” You take a deep breath before sticking your hand in the pocket of Jaeyun’s pants.

“Yo! I thought we agreed not to fuck in the car! And especially not while I’m driving—but I guess I shouldn’t turn down some road head…”

“God, shut up, you perv! I need to get your phone and call Sunghoon!” you cry out. “He needs to turn his lights on, what if he gets hit by someone?!”

Jaeyun laughs. He laughs. At your misery, or your panic, or at you. “So you do like him.”

“Shut the fuck up, seriously, Yun, I just don’t want anyone getting hurt. We’re already on thin ice with the cops as it is!”

“Shoutout San, though,” he chuckles, shifting gears so he can close the gap between him and Wonbin, who is starting to approach Hyunjin again. 

Your friend Choi San, also a racer on the AZ team, is from a family of high-ranking Seoul Police Department officials; he’d gotten pretty much everyone off the hook more than once for various traffic violations. You keep a stash of mint chocolates in your purse for whenever he’s around—even if they remind you of your ex-best friend—as your way of thanking him for keeping everyone’s records clean. It also helps that he absolutely loves your attention. 

“You’re so annoying, Sim Jaeyun. Let me call Sunghoon, seriously.”

“Dude, chill, look at the cams again. The gap between everyone is getting smaller.”

You check the laptop screen again, and he’s right. You see Jungwon overtake both San and Wooyoung, and while you’re still holding your breath in worry over your baby brother, another part of your heart soars with pride at how good he’s gotten. You’d like to think that he got his driving skills from you, even though it was your stupid prick of an ex-boyfriend who first put him behind the wheel of a car.

But when you look up, you notice that Jaeyun is distracted trying to change the song playing on his phone. And there’s a sharp turn coming up ahead. You feel sick, adrenaline immediately rushing through your bloodstream.

Instead of screaming nonsense, you slam the laptop shut, tossing it on the floor and practically crawling across the center console to grab the wheel with one hand and the e-brake with the other. You drive your knee into Jaeyun’s leg to floor the accelerator, and at the same time, you deploy the e-brake and turn the steering wheel hard. The car drifts around the turn with ease, thanks to him immediately springing into action, tossing his phone somewhere in the cupholders and countersteering as he shifts gears.

“Pay attention next time,” you mutter in annoyance, as if the two of you almost crashing was a slight inconvenience and nothing more.

“Sorry, Mommy,” he snorts, downshifting back to his cruising speed. You give him the middle finger as you watch the cars change formation in front of you. Hyunjin cuts off Wooyoung at the junction between two roads, and Wooyoung swerves in the opposite direction to avoid hitting San to his left. Wonbin approaches from behind San, flashing his lights, trying to get one of them to move over, but they both downshift, forcing Wonbin to brake, fall back, and move over to try and find another opening.

And then it happens.

You hear a distinct 8-liter engine roaring furiously somewhere in the vicinity, but you see nothing. You think for a second that it could be the sound of a police helicopter overhead, but you doubt it, not if San tipped off his family that there would be a race tonight, and he always does, because you remind him to do it. You think that he pretends to forget just so you’re forced to text him and he’ll have an excuse to talk to you, but you don’t really care because he’s sweet and always earns himself the best of your candy stash—although you’ll reluctantly admit that Sunghoon has been the first to get the candy that you carry for yourself. 

Because you’re not allowed to smoke inside Jaeyun’s car, you unwrap another mango Hi-Chew and wonder if Sunghoon would taste like you if you kissed him. Sure, you don’t like him all that much so far, but he’s hot, so maybe you could just hook up with him and dip—

Oh, who are you kidding? You haven’t slept with anyone since your ex, even though everyone thinks otherwise. You’ve made out with San and Hyunjin a few times, much to the amusement of Jaeyun and Jay, but you never let it get past that. You just go home and use your vibrator to finish the job. Sex is too intimate, feels too much like baring your soul to someone else and you don’t want anyone to get too close like that any time soon.

Too close, too close, too close just like the sound of that engine, and it snaps you out of your thoughts. Sunghoon finally turns his lights on, and reveals his location for everyone to see. He’s at the front, way ahead of even Jungwon, who is currently trying to keep Hyunjin off his tail.

No one but Sunghoon ever had a chance to win.

The race ends before you can truly even register this fact, and everyone parks at the base of Namsan Mountain to congratulate the winner, who seems insanely put-off by all the attention.

“Jay,” you say, approaching the Huracan driver quietly, your shoes crunching the gravel beneath you.

He looks up from his phone at you, jawline illuminated by the screen. The way he slightly tilts his phone away from you signals that he’s texting Aeri. You laugh inwardly; he doesn’t know that you know about them secretly hooking up. “Mm?”

“What was Sunghoon’s time?” you ask. Your bottom lip is tucked under your teeth, and you don’t even realize how hard you’re biting down.

“Eight minutes, twenty three seconds.”

You gulp. Like actually, visibly gulp, as if you’re swallowing a hard-boiled egg whole like some cartoon character. “Oh. That’s—”

“Almost a whole minute faster than your record. He told me he took a detour somewhere at the halfway point.”

“He’s good,” you admit. “Just like—”

Jay interrupts you again, pocketing his phone. “Don’t say his name, sweets. They’re nothing alike.”

You turn to him, eyes searching for answers. He simply puts a hand on your shoulder before pulling you into the hug he knows you need right now. “It’s been two years,” you mutter into the fibers of his cashmere sweater, hoping that the knit is dense enough that it drowns out the sound of your voice. “Why do I still bring him up?”

“He was a big part of your life. And ours, too. It’s okay. You’re going to have to accept that none of it was your fault eventually.”

“And stop taking it out on anyone else that comes after him, huh?”

Jay pats you on the back. “Bingo.”

“Wait, no one ever gave me a real answer, but why do Jaeyun and Riki live together? And Jay and Jungwonie?” Sunghoon asks. He’s sitting across from you in the former pair’s living room, letting your younger brother lean against him as the alcohol takes over Jungwon’s weak tolerance.

You raise your glass like it’s an extension of your hand, leaning against the bottom of Jay’s leather couch where you sit beside him. “That was my idea, when I was moving out of my old apartment. I lived there with my ex, until I kicked him out. When my lease was ending, all of us decided to move to a new building—this one—and I figured that each of the two young ones should have a hyung to look after them. But also, I didn’t want anyone living with me.”

The last part leaves everyone silent, and you laugh, adding, “Why do you guys look surprised? I told you that when we were signing our leases.”

Sunghoon looks at Riki to his right, who is trying to make a soju bomb with more soju and less beer, and then across from Riki at Jaeyun, who is egging him on to just drink straight from the soju bottle, and back at Riki, who listens to the Australian intently, like he’s some sort of genius. “Are you sure that was a good idea?”

You wave him off. “Oh, yeah. They’re just off the clock right now. You know, can’t be serious all the time.” Oops, another dig at him.

Your phone chimes with notification after notification, and it’s not just updates from Candy Crush. It’s text messages, and not the good kind from Aeri or Soyeon telling you which racer they’ve gone home with tonight.

Before you can silence your phone, though, Jaeyun, who’s on your other side, picks up your phone, laughing exaggeratedly as he waves your glowing screen in the air. “Guys, look! I told you it was gonna happen!”

“What?” Sunghoon asks, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. You shake your head at him and mouth the words “don’t listen to him”.

But then Jay starts cackling, catching your phone over your head when Jaeyun throws it to him in order to read the messages out loud. You don’t even bother fighting their teasing anymore; in fact, you’re a little excited, because you know your boys are about to go in on whoever’s hitting you up. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here! From Wonbin: ‘it was nice seeing you tonight, do you want to hang out this week?’”

“Ewww, gross,” Jaeyun groans with a mouthful of fries. “He was literally trying to sit on the Supra when Y/N pulled up!”

His revelation is met with a chorus of laughs and jeers as your boys mock Wonbin for his transgression, for being so stupid and arrogant to think that you would have just given him a free pass. After all, that car is your baby. You suffered a lot for it, and not just anyone could come up and touch it. In fact, one time, Jungwon was banned from riding in your car for a month because he got his fingerprints on your side mirrors.

“Did San-hyung text noona?” Riki’s nosy ass asks, running up behind the couch and diving onto it to look over Jay’s shoulder. Jay pushes his head away. “Oh, shit, he did!”

Jungwon sighs, slumping further even against Sunghoon. “God, just read it and put me out of my misery. He’s so down bad for her, it’s disgusting.”

Jaeyun giggles, and kicks his sock-covered feet like a schoolgirl. “He’s probably gonna ask her on another date and make her bike along the Han River again.”

This makes you choke on your drink, and it almost comes out of your nose. “Hey, I thought we we agreed not to bring that up.”

“It’s not every day I open my Instagram and see your stupid ass fighting for your life getting hard-launched on his story,” he snorts. “Watching you trying to ride that bike gave me second-hand embarrassment.”

“Yeah, it’s like he didn’t even care that you looked stupid, he was really trying to let everyone know that he was out with you,” Jay adds. “Way to keep it lowkey, or whatever.” Your face burns hot with embarrassment as you realize that Yunie has taken out his own phone to pull up the screen recording of San’s Instagram story to show Sunghoon. Now you actually want to smack the phone out of his hand, but you figure it’s fine, you don’t care if he sees you like that. It shouldn’t matter, he’s just one of the guys now. He could join in the teasing for all you care.

Right?

“Yo, hold the fuck up, Y/N, I thought you and Hyunjin were done?” Jay says, scrolling through your notifications.

Your eyes flick up to Sunghoon, who is currently trying to busy himself with separating the perilla leaves—that no one has so much as breathed in the direction of tonight—as he seems to not pay attention to the video, or to what Jay is saying. Either that, or he really doesn’t find it funny. “Put it away, Yunie,” he says quietly, one hand gently pushing back Jaeyun’s phone towards him. “That’s too much. You’re embarrassing her.”

“I thought so, too,” you sigh at Jay, trying not to acknowledge the fact that Sunghoon may or may not have just stood up for you against your best friend. “He ignored my texts for, like, four days, and you guys know how much I absolutely hate that. I know I lag, too, but never that long. At least I’d tell you that I’m busy or whatever. Fuck’s sake.”

“What did Hyunjin hyung say?” Jungwon mumbles. He’s now using Sunghoon’s lap as a pillow, and the sight makes you feel a little soft. You love your younger brother to bits and pieces, and seeing him like this reminds you of the times he’d come home really tired from school and fall asleep at your dining table while you prepared dinner for the two of you. You often yearn for that period in your life, when things were much simpler and the only thing you were sad about was missing your family.

Now you have a new family, but another part of your heart is broken, and time hasn’t healed it—at least, not completely.

“He’s asking if she’s busy this week,” Riki answers. Part of you wants to drag him by the hair and put him on a one-way flight back to Japan. “Oh, Jay hyung is checking her calendar. Yikes, hyung… You’re still pushing that agenda?”

“What agenda?” Sunghoon pipes up after gulping down the last of his beer, his lips glossy from the liquor.

“Oh, he just thinks they’d be cute together,” the freakishly tall boy rambles, making a gesture out of Jay’s line of sight that signals to Sunghoon that Jay is crazy. The alcohol has made you basically nonverbal at this point, and you just let Riki explain your lore to the hot new member of your racing crew. Hopefully Sunghoon doesn’t remember any of it in the morning.“It’s kind of about time that noona gets a new boyfriend. Personally, though, me and Yunie-hyung are on Team San.”

“Isn’t that up to her though?” Sunghoon muses. “Like, why does it matter if she’s single or dating around?”

“Because she’s not that type of person who actually can do anything casual,” Jaeyun interjects, putting a hand over Riki’s mouth, only to pull away in disgust when Riki licks his palm. He wipes the drool off on Jay’s arm. “She just does it because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone who isn’t us. So it’s a vicious cycle. She says she’s healing, but she can’t fully heal the part of her that was wounded because she needs to be in a relationship with someone who will be patient with her and prove her wrong. Someone who will help her finally get over… him.”

“I figured, from what you told me before,” Sunghoon says quietly to your supposed best friend. He’s not really being much of a best friend now, you think, even though everything he’s said is both correct and true.

This piques your interest. Your index finger circles around the rim of the open bottle of soju that you’d confiscated from Riki. “What do you know?”

“Ey, Hoon, watch what you say, I don’t want her throwing her drink at me!”

You roll your eyes and look back at Sunghoon. “Don’t listen to him. Tell me what Jaeyunie told you, and I’ll decide if I throw it at him or not.”

“Well—”

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Jay says, setting down his now-empty glass of beer with a smug, victorious grin. “Well, actually, I’m not, but I texted Hyunjin back and said you’d meet him at that new fancy Italian restaurant in Gangnam on Wednesday at 7. And before you say anything, yes, you’re free that day. I checked your calendar and your emails.”

You flaked on your date with Hyunjin. To teach him a lesson, of course.

But you do start seeing more and more of Park Sunghoon as the weeks pass, what with him being a full-fledged, initiated member of Enigma now. And you hate to admit it, but he’s starting to grow on you, even though you still think he’s kind of stoic—mostly towards you. You can tell he’s softening a bit, though.

Because, truth be told, you’ve also observed him to be honest and kind and genuine, the latter the rarest thing you see amongst the racers involved in your second life who throw themselves at you like moths to a flame. He’s sincere, but he also doesn’t mince his words, so you have no choice but to take them at face value. You like watching him get along with the other boys in your life, the only ones you truly love, the ones who have done nothing but love you like a family could and couldn’t.

Riki, for one, loves to pester Sunghoon when he’s around and makes you sit and keep score for them while they play table tennis in the game room of your apartment complex. They’re both extremely competitive, and you think to yourself that Sunghoon is such a good sport even when Riki’s elaborate, well-choreographed victory dance gets too annoying even for you to tolerate. You’re pretty sure he adds a new move every single time he does it.

They go to the gym on days where Riki’s done with class early enough to beat rush-hour, and they bring you along for dinner afterwards if you feel like coming. Riki’s now got a debt to pay to you, on account of you wrapping his GT-R in a metallic oil-slick color. You and Sunghoon chose it together, because no one else was replying to you in the group chat. Sunghoon even helped you install it, if helping you meant feeding you dumplings from a takeout container because your hands were full with the heat gun in one and a felt-edge squeegee in the other. 

For an entire weekend, he sat in your garage with you quietly, making idle conversation when the white noise would get too much for even him. He asked you about yourself, and you told him about how you met Jake in third grade, when his family moved to your hometown all the way from Australia, and how you became friends with him only because you were the only one in your class who knew how to speak decent English. (You watched a lot of American TV shows on illegal streaming sites.) In turn, you asked him if he likes his job as an investment banker, and he tells you that he wanted to be an automotive engineer when he was younger, but every man in his family works in finance and expected him to do the same.

This admission prompts you to share that you were supposed to step up and run your family’s successful chain of restaurants, but you refused to do so, choosing instead to run away with your boyfriend at the time and follow him to Seoul for the two of you to go to college. Jungwon even came with you, and you let him. Sunghoon asks you if you regret it. You say no, because, really, you don’t. But you do still have trouble sometimes trying to understand why some of the people you loved the most in this life—your mother, your father, and later on, your boyfriend—did not care if you were happy. 

They only really cared that you did as you were told.

And Jay, much to your amusement, happens to be at the butt of most of Sunghoon’s teasing—whenever he’s in his extroverted mood, that is. They bicker much like Tom and Jerry, but you can tell that they get along just fine deep down. After all, Sunghoon’s been helping Jay decorate his and Jungwon’s apartment, listening (more like tolerating, if anyone were to ask you) to Jay ramble on and on about Herman Miller chairs and Noguchi lamps, and no one else can be in the same room as him when he gets like that, and that’s saying something because your apartment is also decorated in the mid-century modern style. 

Jungwon sometimes tags along with them to furniture showrooms, strictly on the condition that they treat him to a meal afterwards. Sunghoon, not so surprisingly, is always the one who invites you along with them as well, ever since that first night when you complained about the boys getting milk tea without you. You wonder if it’s a pity invite, but you don’t really care much if it is, because he doesn’t seem like the type who does things he doesn’t want to do.

There was this one time two weeks ago that you came along with them to go pick out a new rug—first mistake. Your second mistake was forgetting to eat before leaving your apartment. You sat on a chair clutching your stomach with one hand, scrolling through your phone looking at the drink menus of nearby cafes with the other. Little did you know that Sunghoon, who was standing right beside you, was nosily peeking over your shoulder while also on his phone, typing in the names of whatever menu item you would pause on.

He disappeared for a few minutes after telling you he forgot something in his car. This left you to decompose in your (very cushy) chair while you listened to Jay and Jungwon argue about low-pile versus high-pile rugs. You contemplated how long it would take for them to notice that you’d passed out from hypoglycemia. But then Sunghoon returned, holding a bag from the food delivery app you all like to use. He’d nonchalantly and wordlessly taken out a peach iced tea and a sandwich to hand to you, but you looked up at him like he was God coming down to earth to save you. You thanked him profusely and he actually smiled at you, eyes crinkling up at the corners and turning into pretty crescent moon shapes. 

If you didn’t already know that Jaeyun loves women, you’d think that he has a crush on Sunghoon. You seem to have lost your pet best friend to his new pet rich boy. Jaeyun loves to spend time with Sunghoon, even though he’s not at all very talkative. Regardless, every single time you come over to Yun’s apartment, Sunghoon is either already there or five or ten minutes away, depending on the day of the week and the time at which your best friend invites you over to his and Riki’s apartment. 

Then the three of you, with the occasional addition of any or all of the three other Enigma boys, will inevitably order some takeout delivery and watch a film—”Not a movie,” you insist—until you inevitably start crying at the plot and say you have to go home before the boys really start making fun of you. Sunghoon always walks you to your door, even though you live just down the hall. You always tell him he doesn’t have to, but he always brushes you off and tells you to get your things so you can leave. 

And one time, about a week ago, you heard him scold the other guys for being mean to you, reminding them that even though you’re technically one of the boys, you’re still a girl at heart, and they should make some effort to be nicer to you. You heard him really dig in to Jungwon in particular, and while you kind of felt the urge to come back into the room and defend him, Sunghoon told your brother to show some respect and think about all the things you’d done for him in the past seven years. So you stayed back, still in shock that Sunghoon had spoken up for you so vehemently.

Speaking of your younger brother, your precious baby all grown up, the only family you have left: Jungwon adores Sunghoon, viewing him as the older brother you wished you could have been for him. Yes, Jay and Jaeyun are literally right there, but you can tell that the connection between Jungwon and Sunghoon is different. Jaeyun is good for keeping both Jungwon and Riki out of your hair when you’re busy, and Jay indulges your brother, spoiling him every chance he can get, having no siblings of his own. 

Somehow Sunghoon has gotten through to your brother in terms of his life and his career; after all, he’s close to finishing college soon and doesn’t know what he wants to do just yet. You would kill for a chance to help Jungwon, but you reckon he hasn’t come to you because he doesn't want to add to your stress and you could cry at how considerate he can be when he isn’t teasing you. You promise yourself that one of these days you’ll thank Sunghoon for his help, maybe some time after you finally admit to yourself that you were wrong about him being a prick. And maybe you’ll apologize for making assumptions about him in the first place.

Yes, you’ve been observing the way Sunghoon gets along with everyone, and you’re happy, you really are, but something is gnawing at you. While the arrival of new racers in your scene is nothing new, Enigma itself hasn’t been disrupted since Jungwon met Riki and all of that other shit went down. 

More importantly, you haven't been disrupted for so long. Two years, to be exact. It’s been two years since you got your heart broken twice, and you’ve spent so long holding everyone at arm’s length away from you because you’re not too keen on ever experiencing that again. Sure, you date around, but like Jaeyun said, they don’t mean anything to you. You know what they want and it’s what you refuse to give them. And then this guy, this fucking guy with pretty brown eyes who is soft-spoken and quiet and has the most beautiful face you’ve ever seen in real life… this fucking guy comes in with the audacity to make you feel like he simultaneously likes you and wants nothing to do with you.

Although you think the latter is just a defense mechanism on your part. You’d tried to convince yourself that he only cares about you so that the boys don’t kick him out of Enigma, because if the two of you didn’t get along, there would be no way he could stay on the team. After all, you’re still their best racer, and more importantly, their best friend. But that can’t be all true, because you fight with the boys sometimes, sometimes real petty fights that end in everyone crying, and you’re still an Enigma member through and through. So telling yourself that Sunghoon secretly hates you because of your ways is a lie on your part.

Because right now, about three months after you’ve first met, when you’re at the club with the boys, there’s no way Sunghoon truly doesn’t like you. The rational part of your brain can recognize that; after all, you’ve watched him countless times coldly brush off the advances of random girls in public who see his credit card and try to take advantage of his generosity. 

And you saw with your own two eyes the way he looked at you when you’d asked him if what you were wearing (a white mesh mini dress with baby pink kitten heels) was actually “too much,” and if you should go change like the others had said. You heard with your own two ears when he told you, “It is a bit much, but you look good. If there’s any trouble, don’t worry, I got you.”

It’s a good thing your face was already pink from the makeup you’d dolled yourself up with.

You never have to pay for drinks when you go out. The boys know this. You always tell them to not waste their hard-earned money—or in Jungwon’s case, your hard-earned money—on you when you can get some rich loser to buy you a bottle of Clase Azul if you bat your eyelashes at them and say you want to ring the bell.

Tonight is different, though. Usually you can score some of the top shelf shit without so much as lifting a finger, but because Sunghoon went with you to the bar, you can sense that the men in the club are not willing to put your dirty Shirley Temple on their tab. He doesn’t even have his hand around your waist, but you assume it’s the malevolent energy radiating off him in waves of expensive cologne that have people socially distancing from you like you’ve got the plague.

“Something wrong, Hoon?” you ask him innocently, swapping cocktails with him as you’ve often found yourself doing whenever the two of you are out together. It’s been a running occurrence since you’ve started joining him and the boys on their hangouts. He’ll order whatever you want to try, be it pasta or a coffee, and you can order something else you like. You sip on his Jack and Coke before making a face and taking your tequila sunrise from him.

“Do you want to wear my jacket?” he says, leaning in close so that you can hear him over the thrum of the bass-boosted music. “These creeps are staring at you too hard. It’s freaking me out. Pissing me off, really.”

You shrug. The buzz is starting to really hit you, thanks to your pregaming session at Jaeyun’s before you left for the club. “Doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it. It’s not like any of them have a chance.” You reach over and brush off invisible lint off Sunghoon’s shoulder, lingering a little longer just to feel the hard muscles underneath his clothes. “You do, though.”

He looks at you with his lips pursed in a flat line, a look he often gives Jay when Jay won’t stop pestering him. Then he takes his jacket off and drapes it over you. “Just put this on. I’ll be right back, I have to take a call.” He shows you the glowing screen of his phone, and you can read the contact name. It’s one of his bosses, and you only know this from the time he invited you to have dinner with them (and they’d pestered Sunghoon into bringing a date, since all of them are married).

You nod in understanding and nestle yourself snugly in his leather jacket, the same black-blue-white combination that he’d worn the night you first met. Idly, you sip on your drink, watching the crowd of swaying bodies underneath the colored strobe lights. In the distance, you can spot Jaeyun’s freshly bleached head of wavy hair next to Jay and Wonie, and that’s only thanks to Riki’s freakishly tall frame standing out like a cell phone tower beside them. They’re dancing with a group of girls, and you try not to gag when you see your younger brother let a girl grind up against him.

“Hey, why don’t you take this off? It’s hot enough in here because of you,” someone yells out right beside you, trying to make himself heard over the music. You turn to him, already pissed off because who the fuck says that?

“No thanks,” you say flatly. “I’m good.”

Even if you are feeling a bit hot inside the packed club, there’s something in you that wants to respect Sunghoon’s wishes while he’s gone, because you know behind his cold exterior he means well and it’s his own roundabout way of looking out for you. Either that, or he’s possessive, your delusional brain thinks, catching a whiff of his cologne in the lining of it.

“Well—”

You’re not paying attention to the douchebag beside you. You look back to the crowd and your boys have disappeared, no giant, Oreo-haired Riki to mark where they are. Suddenly, your tequila sunrise threatens to show itself in your throat. You’ve been hit on before, of course, but not like this, not this insistently. You keep your poker face on, trying to figure out how to get away from him but also avoid getting sucked in and trampled on in the giant crowd that just seems to keep doubling in size.

“Is he bothering you, sweetheart?” another voice asks.

You look to your side and he’s there, he’s back, stone-faced and radiating what you would call actual bloodlust. You nod, giving him a look that you hope Sunghoon interprets as get him the fuck away from me.

“You heard her. You’re bothering the lady,” Sunghoon says flatly to the man beside you, in such a manner that leaves no room for argument. “And not just any lady, either. That’s my girl you’re bothering. Get lost.”

You yourself shiver at his tone. You’ve gotten used to seeing the icy but gentle side of him, so this shift startles you, making goosebumps raise on your back in fear and your core clench in need. You decide not to correct Sunghoon, either. The sooner you get out of this bust of a club, the better.

An hour later, you find yourself at one of your favorite restaurants, a little barbecue spot near your apartment building that serves the best marinated galbi you’ve ever had. You’ve taken the boys there countless times, enough for them to make a joke out of it. The place is supposed to be closed right now, on account of it being one-thirty in the morning but when you were in the taxi with Jay and Sunghoon, you overheard the latter on the phone, telling the other person on the line that he’d pay triple to have the place opened for three hours past closing time of midnight.

While Jungwon talks animatedly about the girl in his class who was at the club and how he somehow managed to get her number, Sunghoon serves you before everyone else, putting the strips of grilled meat on your plate. The other boys groan at him, telling him not to indulge you too much or you’ll get used to it and always expect it, just like you’ve done to them. They don’t really mean it, because you know them well enough that they—just like Sunghoon—don’t ever really do things they don’t want to do, but deep down you still hope he doesn’t take their words seriously.

“What’s so bad about that? Ladies first,” is all he replies to them, and you feel warm inside and it’s not just the double shot of peach soju making its way through your body.

“Okay, me next,” Jaeyun says. He’s still got sweat dripping down his forehead from chasing  tequila-drunk Riki and Jungwon down and dragging them both by the collars of their shirts into another taxi. 

Sunghoon looks at him before passing the tongs to him. “Do it yourself.”

“Jackass.”

This makes your smile widen, giggling to yourself uncontrollably. You take delight in messing with Jaeyun, and seeing the always-stone-faced Sunghoon take part in it brings a certain joy to you that’s both unfamiliar and welcomed. You catch his eye and he sends you a wink, so fast you wouldn’t have caught it if you didn’t have the habit of staring at him when you think he isn’t paying attention to you.

“Dickhead,” Sunghoon shoots back, bushy brows furrowed so cutely that you have the tipsy urge to kiss the peachy skin between them.

“Oh, well, at least if I liked a girl, I’d tell her, so I think that makes you the dickhead and not me.” Jaeyun rolls his eyes and takes a piece of meat out of your bowl, popping it into his mouth and seemingly swallowing it whole.

You frown. “What? Sunghoon likes someone? Is it Jimin? It’s Jimin, isn’t it?”

Jungwon and Riki groan. “Great, another idiot.”

Jay points his chopsticks at your younger brothers. “Shut up and eat your food already.”

“Yes, mother,” they say in unison, digging into their bowls of kimchi fried rice. You look down at your own plate, suddenly losing your appetite. You even consider going outside for a smoke break, but that’s how the boys disappeared at the club a while ago, and it’s too late for you to be going outside alone—at least, that’s what you’re very well aware that they’d argue. Your stomach hurts at the thought of Sunghoon liking another girl, and because you’re you, because you’re almost so self-aware to the point that it could put your therapist out of a job, you know it’s because you want him to like you, and only you.

And it’s not even because you want the same control over him that you have over the likes of San and Hyunjin and Wonbin and whoever else claims to be on your sad excuse of a “roster”. It’s because you like him, and it’s to the point that the only other being who knows this for a fact is your pet cat, because only she wouldn’t accidentally tell him the truth. She’s a cat, for fuck’s sake, a cat you unfortunately named after the girl you think Sunghoon might like.

Maybe the boys have noticed. But you doubt it, because if they did, they would have teased you so mercilessly about it that it would be considered bullying that could be punishable under law. It would be so severe that you’d have no choice but to leave the country if they knew.

What they actually do though, that you’ve picked up on in recent weeks, is their new nasty habit of dropping hints about how you should be with a guy who’s cold to everyone but you. Someone who’s both pragmatic yet thoughtful, someone who always tells the truth but can do so in a way that will spare your feelings because he makes an honest effort to not sound so harsh. Someone who can both protect you and yet also be able to get you to stop when you become… “irrational” was how they put it. Someone you’re attracted to, not just physically, but emotionally, as well.

You’re not stupid, no matter how often you think you are. You know they’re talking about Sunghoon. You know Jungwon and Riki will make plans with you and him and then flake at the last minute so that you two are forced to go out together, alone. They’ve done it enough times that you know it’s bullshit that they have a school assignment due at some random time in the evening. You know Jaeyun will loudly ask Sunghoon what he thinks of a certain girl when he knows you’re within earshot. It pleases you every time Sunghoon flatly replies “What about her? I don’t know her like that.” 

And you most definitely know Jay let Sunghoon take you on out to the racetrack to drive his Lamborghini for a few laps, under the guise that you’ve always wanted to go and Jay finally managed to get a slot booked on a day that he “isn’t able to make it” because of a “meeting”. Who the fuck even works on a Sunday? 

You fixate on this memory for a while. You can truthfully say it was one of the happiest days of your life.

“You’re telling me you’ve never used paddle shifters before?” Sunghoon asked with a lopsided grin, pulling into the paddock of the race track. Your leg bounces in your seat, not out of anxiety like usual, but out of impatience and excitement.

“I drive stick, why the hell would I use paddle shifters? Sorry not all of us drive M Comps,” you retort, rolling your eyes. “V8 bi-turbo headass. Can’t believe you run an automatic transmission.”

“I’m ignoring that. I’ll track it first.”

“What? No way, I’ve known Jay longer!”

“You’re going to drive it like it’s a city bus. I’m going to drive it like I stole it. You can sit there and look pretty first, then you can have a turn.”

“Sunghoon, if you’re just going to stare at me, you’re going to crash us into a wall.”

“Nah, my peripheral vision’s pretty good. Why, you don’t trust me?”

You sighed. You do trust him, that’s what bothers you.

Ultimately, the idea of Sunghoon liking another girl makes you a little… irritated. That’s actually a gross understatement, if you’re being honest. You can feel the dragon’s head of your jealous streak rise up from the ashes where it had once laid dormant, asleep. It wants to breathe fire. It wants to get a rise out of him. It wants to see his reaction.

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on whose side you’re on, your best friend knows you too well.

“Y/N, can you pass the salt?” Jaeyun, who is sitting to your left, asks. The salt pot is right next to Riki, who is sitting to your right.

Taking this as your opportunity, you look at him, tilting your head before you say the exact line that, by now, everyone knows that Sunghoon likes to use. “Say please.”

Jaeyun is too intoxicated to fight back, but he knows you well enough even in his inebriated state that he knows exactly what you’re doing. “Please?”

“Okay,” you answer, reaching across Riki’s plate to grab the salt. When you hand it to Jaeyun, his fingers linger on yours way too long to be respectable. There’s nothing there, of course. It just feels normal, no spark, no giddy, lovesick warmth. He’s just being outright obvious.

Picking up on your scheme, Jay chimes in, a malicious glint in his eye that only comes out after you can smell the alcohol on his breath. You see him elbow Jungwon at the end of the table—quite subtly, to his credit. “Ew, what are you two doing? That’s gross, get a room.”

Jaeyun rolls his eyes, giving Jay the middle finger. Oh, he’s playing up the dramatics of your ploy to see if Sunghoon cares or not. This is what being friends with him for pretty much your entire life is all about. “Can’t a guy and a girl be best friends? Chill, bro.”

“Guys and girls can’t just be best friends,” Jungwon adds, his mouth full of rice and barbecue. “That’s such a lie. You don’t see me with a girl best friend, because if I had one, I’d be fu—”

Sunghoon’s knee hits the bottom of the table, causing everyone to jump back in surprise. “Sorry, guys.” He looks at you, staring at him wide-eyed. “And lady. Leg cramp.” He gets up from the table and excuses himself to go pay the bill, talking with the older woman who runs the restaurant and who you know is madly in love with him (much to everyone’s amusement).

“Alright, what’s going on here?” Jay asks in a hushed tone, dropping his smirk and leaning forward. “What are we doing to him?”

“Forcing Sunghoon to confess,” Jaeyun answers back, switching to English so only the three of you can understand. 

You look at him quizzically, but you speak to him and Jay in English anyways. “Wait, what? I just wanted to make him jealous, what are you talking about—”

“Alright!” Sunghoon says loudly from behind you. “Time to go.”

Exchanging looks with your best friends, you collect your things from where they rest on the worn leather seats of the booth. “I’m gonna take a walk first,” you say. “Anyone wanna join?”

“Nah,” Jaeyun answers. “I’m beat. Gonna take the little ones home.”

“Whoooo the fuck are y-you… callin’ little,” Riki slurs, slumped over a sleepy Jungwon’s shoulder. You know your brother is in a food-and-alcohol-induced coma, since he says nothing about the drool Riki’s getting all over his unbuttoned shirt. “Fuckin’ Oompa Loompa.”

“Riks,” you sigh, getting up on your tip-toes to push his sweat-soaked hair from his face. “Be nice to your Yunie hyung.”

“S-sorry noona,” he hiccups, putting more of his weight on Jungwon, who yelps. “I’ll be nice.”

You shoot Jaeyun a warning look, telling him not to egg on the poor boy who looks like he might throw up in his sleep later. “You guys gonna be okay going home?”

“Yeah, bro, it’s only like a block away,” Jay interjects, prying Riki off of Jungwon and hoisting him onto his own back. Jaeyun takes your brother in his hold, grimacing at the skin-to-skin contact of Jungwon’s bare chest on his fingers. “Go take your little walk. Text us when you’re back.”

“Yes, mother, I promise.” You can feel Sunghoon looming over you like a skyscraper. Without turning to him, you ask, “Are you coming with me?”

“Well,” he answers, his huffed breath blowing over your head in cigarette smoke. “Obviously. I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Okay, I guess,” you mutter with the same tone, shivering to yourself. The air is surprisingly cold for the beginning of June, and you’re dejectedly starting to regret your outfit.

And of course, like clockwork, Park Sunghoon notices your discomfort and quietly puts his jacket over you for the second time that night.

“Thank you.” Your voice comes out in a whisper. He acknowledges you with a soft hum, matching your stride as you cross the empty road to the little park nestled behind the flowering trees.

You continue to walk, trying to think, but it’s difficult to burn off the rest of the alcohol and gain some clarity when the man you’re thinking about is right beside you. You would kill to read his mind. You could just ask him, straight up. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? What’s the worst thing he could say? That he doesn’t have feelings for you? That he sees you as a sister? That he actually does like Jimin like that?

Fuck.

You finally admit to yourself that you do like him. You do like him, you do want him, you do feel those things genuinely and not out of greed, not out of wanting to make him one of your trained dogs, not out of wanting to punish your ex through him. 

You… you fucking like him, and it pisses you off. Him, of all people. Liking Jaeyun seems less complicated than this. You know for a fact that Sunghoon is quite possibly the king of hard-to-get. Kazuha and Yunjin, the race girls from AZ, both made a move on him and ended up fighting over him for nothing (which your own girlfriends clowned on them mercilessly for, while you sat back and watched rather smugly). He didn’t even give them the time of day, let alone his phone number. 

Minjeong, your beloved work wife, wanted to test that theory and when you’d left them during dinner one time to go use the restroom, she tried to flirt with him. She ended up meeting you in the restroom with a smirk, telling you that he’s impossible to break. She’d even asked you if you considered the fact that maybe he likes men.

Intrigued, you’d “innocently” asked Jaeyun and Riki, of all people, to get you the answer. Eager to please, and glad that they had some new bullshit to do, they came back to you after three hours of pestering Sunghoon at the gym during their workout. They’d reported that they annoyed him so bad he left them at the gym, forcing them to take the train back home.

That night, he texted the group chat “Not gay. Waiting for my wife” and nothing else.

A big shock to the rest of you, to say the least. The boys were busy laughing at the first sentence, while you were fixated on the latter half of his text. His wife. What a strong choice of words, you’d thought. But it was a good thing, too, that he knows what he wants. At least one of you does. A wife. That’s more definite than just wishing to feel safe and secure around other people.

“Did you eat well?” Sunghoon pipes up, finally breaking the chilly silence between the two of you.

“I did,” you reply curtly, now doing your best to match his pace. It’s hard. His legs are so long, with equally long strides, but you push yourself in your heels anyways. “Did you?”

“Yeah. Why do you always flirt back?” Sunghoon asks. He sounds like he’s been holding that in for a while.

“What? Are you talking about Jaeyunie?”

He grimaces. “No. I know that was just him being him. I’m talking about the others. That Wonbin guy. San hyung. Hyunjin hyung. Whoever the fuck. Them.”

You stop walking, and so does he. He turns around to face you as you incredulously ask, “So suddenly? Why? Does it matter?”

Sunghoon rolls his eyes at you. That’s the first time you’ve ever elicited that reaction from him, and it hurts a little. “Yeah, it does. You’re making them think they have a chance with you.”

“Okay, so what?” you say harshly. Really, why does it matter to him? He likes Jimin, doesn’t he? Why is what you do any of his business?

“Well, do they?”

“No!” you snap, hands on your hips. The sound of your voice, echoing through the deserted metal playground, startles the both of you. “None of it is ever serious with them! Men are dogs, anyways!”

“Meow.”

You look at the tall man in disbelief. Under the glow of the lampposts, he looks both sinful and heavenly. Even if he’s pissing you off like never before. Blinking—too shocked to laugh—you ask, “Did you just meow at me, Park Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. Because I’m not a dog, and I’ll prove it to you,” he answers, thick arms crossed over his broad, sturdy chest.

“Why bother doing that? Why does my opinion of you matter to you? It’s none of your business what I think. So why?”

He scoffs. But he can’t seem to meet your eyes. “You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure it out.”

Oh, you’re so annoyed. Why now, of all times, can he not be direct with you? Or is this how he actually is? Has he been pretending to be genuine this whole time? No, that can’t be. People usually can’t keep a facade up for that long without slipping up in between, unless they're sociopaths, serial killers, or both. “No, tell me why. I want to hear it from you. You and your stupid… your stupid… stupid, pretty mouth.”

“Did you just call my mouth pretty?”

“Answer the question, Park Sunghoon!”

He glares at you, but it’s not menacing. After what seems like hours, he sighs, turning away. Then he quietly says, “I love the way you love.”

You realize now that the entire time you’ve been watching Sunghoon, he’s been watching you, too.

“What… what do you mean?”

“The way you care about them. The others… The way you look out for them. For Jungwonie and Riki, always making sure they’ve eaten and they rest enough for school, and that they’re on top of their studies. Jay, you always scold him for working too much. And Jaeyunie, you get worried when he’s not home by a certain time… I realize now that you might not have space in your heart for me. And I should accept that no matter what I do, I’ll always just be another one of your dogs.”

“Sunghoon, what—”

He shakes his head, which hangs low in something you think must be shame. His bangs cover his eyes, so you can’t get a read on him unless you brush them out of his face. And with what he’s just said, you don’t think that now is the best time to touch him. “No. We’re not going to talk about this tonight. Or ever again. I can promise you that. Now come on. I’ll walk you home and we can pretend like this never happened.”

Back in your apartment, you lay in bed, wishing that there was still enough alcohol in your system to put your restless mind to sleep. But there isn’t, not after you walked it all off with an awkwardly silent Sunghoon escorting you back to your apartment. You’d offered your couch for him to sleep on—not out of pity, you’d told him. Out of worry. The trains had stopped running and there were no taxis coming to your side of town anytime soon.

He looked like he really wanted to stay. But for whatever reason, he shook his head at you again, told you it was okay, and said he’d walk home.

You’d texted him to keep you updated on where he was. He didn’t reply. You just got a single notification that “Park Sunghoon has started sharing locations with you,” and that was that. No actual message from him. You share yours right back, telling yourself that it’s fine, all the other Enigma boys had your location, too. But you know the truth.

Sitting up, you reach for your phone and your purse, fishing out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, both of which you’d stolen from Jaeyun. He would steal them back from you very soon, anyways, what with him sharing one singular, pitiful peach blueberry ice-flavored vape between himself, Jungwon, and Riki.

Your cat follows you curiously as you walk into the living room and slide the glass door to the balcony open. She curls up in your lap when you sit down on the rocking chair, just as she always does when you come out to smoke.

“You know this is bad for you, right?” you joke quietly, scratching her head with the hand not holding a cigarette. “You should be inside, breathing the purified air I pay good money for.”

Mrrow.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I should stop. But you should be proud of me. I don’t even do it that often.” That’s actually the truth. You and the boys all say that drunk cigarettes don’t count, and you can’t call yourself a smoker if you only go through one pack every two weeks at the very least. By Seoul nightlife standards, your lungs are healthy. “You can hiss about it to your Jaeyunie-oppa.”

Meow.

“Okay, Jiji. Whatever you say.” You take a long drag before pulling away, flicking the ash onto the ceramic tray that Riki brought back for you as a souvenir the last time he went home to Japan. “Fuck, I really do like him. Sunghoon. Not Yunie, ew.”

Mah?

“Because… because… I just do. He’s so… he’s so not like… you know. Heeseung.”

Your cat stiffens on your lap at the mention of your ex’s name. You laugh to yourself, knowing that there’s no one in this world she despises more than him.

“He’s not… he actually cares about me. He doesn’t have to tell me; I don’t even have to ask him if he does. I see it now. And it’s different from how he cares about the boys. I know it’s not just because I’m the only girl. I’ve seen the way he treats other girls. So… he probably doesn’t like Jimin, huh?”

Jiji perks up at the mention of her full government name, but then looks at you as if to say, are you fucking stupid?

“Yeah, I am, haven’t you noticed? I talk to you all the fucking time.”

Aaow.

“No, I don’t just like him because I get preferential treatment. I just—he never does anything to stress me out. I know he considers my feelings, I mean, fuck, he always tells Jaeyunie and Jungwonie to stop making fun of me when we’re hanging out, and, like, he’s always doing shit for me without me having to ask him or even hint at it. He just… he does it because he wants to? And being around him makes me calm. And he’s strong. And he’s kind, and he doesn’t brag about all the nice fucking things he does for everyone, for me… And… and…”

You lose your momentum as your face begins to sting, tears welling up in your eyes. You can hear the pain in Sunghoon’s voice when he said he’d “always just be one of your dogs” echoing in your head. 

“And he doesn’t lie.”

Lying is something you’ve always had a hard time stomaching. As a child, you were taught that it was better to tell the truth and be punished once than to get caught in a lie and get punished twice. You don’t feel good when you lie. Not even when they’re little white lies, like the one you told Hyunjin about Jungwon being sick when you��d flaked on your date with him.

So when you’d found out that Kim Sunoo, Jungwon’s best friend since literal birth, had been helping Heeseung hide his secret relationship with Sunoo’s own cousin, Chaewon—and had been accepting money from Heeseung to help him keep that secret—you lost your fucking mind.

You’d been through everything with your boyfriend. You abandoned your family for him. You moved to a new city with him. You slept on the floor of a shitty apartment for months with him, while Jungwon was stuck in the dorms of his university with three other roommates. You took home leftovers from the restaurant you worked at all throughout college to feed yourself and your brother.

All of that which you endured, just to find out that everything was a lie.

Heeseung didn’t love you as much as he said he did. Because if he did, he would never have gone behind your back with someone else for months and had the nerve to kiss you with the same mouth he used to lie to you.

Sunghoon doesn’t lie, you tell yourself.

He’s not him, he’s not him, he’s not him.

And it’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing.

Sunghoon, for as long as you’ve known him, always keeps his promises. But you also hope that he breaks that last promise he made to you.

You don’t make any appearance at the next race, which is a week later. You purposefully ignore the group chat when they ask you where you are, if you’re coming to watch Riki beat Shotaro and get his revenge for the last time they’d raced against each other.

They get the message—or lack thereof—loud and clear, and leave you alone. You’re grateful that they don’t pry, although Jaeyun texts you separately to scold you about “making Hoonie sad”. You reply to him with the middle finger emoji, even though you know he’s right. For once, at least.

You get texts from Jimin, Soyeon, and Aeri in the racer girls’ group chat, all of them pouting about how you’re not going to see Jimin and Soyeon race against each other in their newly-modified cars. You apologize and wire Aeri a million Won, telling her to place a bet on your behalf for Riki to win in his race. You stop replying when Jimin and Soyeon get on your ass for not being able to choose between who between the two of them would win.

Minjeong had said something to you at work a couple days ago that made your stomach not be able to stop hurting since. Because she’s the most neutral-territory friend you have, you told her exactly what happened between you and Sunghoon, not sparing any detail—not even the thing he’d said to you that made you feel like a monster.

“You can’t build a new house with the bricks from the last one and expect it to be different.”

She’d said it so casually, like she’d read it off the subject line off the first email in her inbox, but it struck you so hard, hammering in what Jay told you the first night you met Sunghoon. To stop taking out your pain on every man that tried to come your way after Heeseung.

In your defense, again, it wasn’t like they were truly serious about you, anyways. Except Sunghoon, who refused to play your games and refused to flirt back with you whenever you’d try to make a pass at him.

It was your automatic distrust of him that brought you here, sulking at home, feeling helpless beyond your control. What made it worse was that Sunghoon definitely knew why you are the way you are, what with Jaeyun’s big fat ginormous mouth being unable to stop itself from spilling all the gory details of your past to him before you two had even met.

There’s a knock at your door. You find that odd; everyone should be out on the road right about now. You check your friends’ locations on your phone to see who could possibly be in your building right now.

You see Sunghoon’s contact photo right above the glowing blue dot that signifies where you are.

“Fuck,” you mutter.

“Y/N?” he calls out, muffled by the thick wood of your front door. You turn to Jji, who is looking at you curiously.

“Go, bedroom.”

Obediently, your cat runs to your room, and you can tell she uses her back legs to kick it shut behind her by the way it closes softly. It’s a trick that Jungwon and Riki spent an entire week of their summer vacation last year teaching her to do, and this is the first time it’s ever been useful.

You check yourself in the mirror in the entryway to make sure you look at least somewhat presentable. You’re wearing Aeri’s light pink sweatpants and a massive white t-shirt you’re pretty sure Riki left in your car once and completely forgot about. You shrug. It’ll have to do.

You open the door. Your voice comes out harsher than you intend it to. “What are you doing here, Sunghoon?”

The man flinches almost imperceptably, but the glimpse of it still has your heart twisting in your chest. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry I hurt you. It’s not a question of if I hurt you or not with what I said, because I know I did.”

You purse your lips, trying to process the fact that he’s apologizing to you without you having to prompt him for it. “Oh…”

He continues shakily. “I realized that I didn’t tell you the truth. The full truth. I like you, I really do. Like, not just as a friend, you know. I like you like… that. Fuck, sorry, I’ve never had to do this before.”

You smile at him softly, looking up at him. The light in the hallway illuminates the crown of his head like a halo, making him look more ethereal than he usually is. “Never?”

“Yeah, never. It’s usually the other way around, but I caved this time.” He sighs. “You’re a special girl. You don’t know what you’ve done to me.”

You shrug. “Oh, I think I have some idea.”

“Meaning?”

“I thawed you out, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you really did. So—”

“Just come in,” you say, stepping aside to make room for him. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to offer you besides water or strawberry milk, but we can go raid Jay’s fridge. I have a key.”

He laughs. “That’s okay. I can order takeout for us.”

“What’s behind your back?”

He holds up a bundle wrapped in clean white paper. “I brought these for you. They’re not, um… they’re not really ‘I’m sorry’ flowers so much as they are ‘will you go out on a date with me?’ flowers.”

“Roses,” you muse, taking the bouquet from him. The arrangement is simple yet stunning, with various shades of muted pink that you realize are quite similar to the color of your Supra. “How original.” You pause, your voice softening. “But thank you, though, really. They’re beautiful.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I wanted to get you lilies, but I learned that they’re toxic to cats.”

You stare at him for a moment, dumbfounded. He’s so considerate, he even thought of that. Is there anything that he doesn’t think about? Is this what he does when he zones out? “Who told you that I have a cat?”

“You mentioned it a few times,” he answers softly, like he’s reminding you to breathe. “Like that one time Riki made us take him to the arcade and spent too much money trying to win the stuffed… whatever that was from the claw machine.”

“Hm. I did, huh?”

“Yeah... So can I see it?”

“My cat? That’s a little forward, don’t you think? Aren’t we moving too fast?”

“Your pet cat, you brat.” His grin is wide, though, as he looks down at you adoringly. 

“Oh! Oh, yeah, duh.” You take your phone out and swipe through your camera roll until you come across a picture of your white ragdoll cat, her pretty blue eyes staring at you much in the same manner that Sunghoon is right now. “This is her. Her name’s Jimin… erm, yeah, like the one we know… but I call her Jiji.”

“She’s cute… she kinda looks like you, hm? Is she not here right now?” he asks, scanning your living room. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, I sent her to my room before I answered the door—she doesn’t really like guys except for Wonie and Riki but I think it’s because she thinks they’re her servants. And, uh, also, I don't know if you're okay with cats.”

“Ah. I like cats, don’t worry. I’d love to meet her if that’s okay with you.”

“She might scratch you, though. Just a warning.”

“Yeah, that’s okay. You’d bandage me up, though, right?” When he smiles at you reassuringly, your heart thrums. You don't hear any innuendo in his voice, nothing that suggests that he expects something more from you. Turning away to hide your blushing face, you mumble a “yes” and make a beeline to your room to retrieve Jiji.

You get to the door and open it. She’s standing right in front of you, looking at you expectantly, as if she's asking you where Sunghoon is. 

“In the living room,” you answer. You’re talking to your fucking cat. What’s new? Jiji struts right past you, her tail flicking against your ankles, and trots to the living room. 

You follow her from a distance and watch as she pauses in front of Sunghoon, who extends a hand down for her to sniff at. 

“Hello, Jiji,” he says softly. “Nice to meet you.”

The cat chirps at him, and your eyes widen. Usually, she greets males (mostly your ex and his friend) other than your boys with something akin to a hiss that sounds like slicing someone’s tires open. Sometimes she swats at them, claws out and everything. But she hesitates for a second before butting her little head into Sunghoon’s palm, eyes closed and purring up a storm much like the way she does when she wants you to give her a treat. 

“Wow,” you remark. “She likes you. A lot.”

Sunghoon hums in agreement before saying, “Yeah. Wonder what her mommy thinks of me, though. And if she’ll go on a date with me.”

You blush yet again. He’s certainly dialing up the charm tonight. Mustering up the courage to flirt back, you reply, “I think… yeah, her mommy likes you too. And I think she will go out with you.”

“Mm.” He pets Jiji’s head, scratching between her ears which prompts your cat to roll over and expose her soft belly to him for him to rub. Whore, you think to yourself, as if you wouldn’t have done the same thing. “That’s good. I’m glad. Actually—scratch that. I’m relieved.”

By now you’re very well-acquainted to the way he speaks, straight to the point without very much embellishing in his sentences. At least it’s not hard to guess what he’s thinking. He doesn’t talk with the intent to deceive or play games, and, quite frankly, you adore that about him.

“I don’t just want you to care about me. I want you to let me care about you,” he says suddenly, looking up at you with round, sparkling eyes. He’s being forthcoming and earnest. Enthusiasm suits him well, you think. It makes his face look younger, softer, happier. “I want to earn your trust. I want you to feel safe with me.”

“I already do, though,” you reply, voice quiet as if you don’t want to jinx it somehow.

He gives you a nod of acknowledgement. “I know. But I want to be the one you come to for everything. For anything at all.”

“But—”

“You’d never be a burden to me,” he adds. “You couldn’t, even if you tried.”

There’s still enough time for you to go watch the final event of tonight’s race, the showdown between Riki and Shotaro. You hurriedly fix your hair and throw on a jacket, not caring about how your outfit looks because, frankly, you’re not interested in showing off tonight. You know for certain now that the only person whose attention you’ve wanted has been yours all along.

When you arrive, you can see that the Enigma boys are all circled around what you assume is Riki’s GT-R, only because you can see the underglow bouncing off everyone’s shoes. Leave it to your youngest to be annoying as usual.

You get out of Sunghoon’s car and head over to them, him following closely behind you. You pinch Jaeyun’s forearm and he immediately steps to the side to let you through so you can see what’s going on.

The engine hood is up, and you can see someone’s legs sticking out from under the car.

“What’s going on?” you ask no one in particular.

“Well… Riki fucking forgot to change his oil today, and the jack broke halfway, so none of us can fit under there… except Ning,” Jungwon answers.

“Ning?” you repeat.

“Yeah. The girl I’ve been seeing…” he mumbles. “You know, the one from school.”

Your heart drops at the idea that you’ve been so caught up in your own angst that you haven’t bothered to keep up with anyone else’s life, especially your own brother’s. “Oh. I see. She knows cars, huh?”

“Well,” Riki shrugs. “I guess. Jungwonie-hyung gave her the worst instructions on how to change this shitbox’s oil, and she’s doing it just fine, so she must be smart.”

Before Jungwon can even reach Riki, Sunghoon grabs him by the collar of his shirt, holding him back. “Chill out, bro.”

Jungwon glares at the taller man. “Hey, just because my sister thinks you’re hot doesn’t mean—”

“Good lord,” Jay groans. “Can we please have five minutes of peace so I can start this race? I want to go home already. I can feel my bed calling me.”

“Yeah,” Sunghoon snickers. “It’s calling you to wash the damn sheets, you slob.”

You bite your lip to keep yourself from laughing. Shaking your head, you approach Ning, who’s just rolled out from underneath the GT-R.

“Surprised you didn’t go blind in there,” you say, helping her up. “Riki’s lights are no joke.”

She smiles at you, shaking her head. “Actually, it helped, I could barely see anything down there, it was all covered in brake dust.”

This makes everyone burst out into laughter, mocking Riki for poorly maintaining his car. You roll your eyes, taking the wrench from Ning. You turn to Sunghoon.

“Hoon, can you help me with this? I think we’re gonna need more than an oil change to win tonight.”

“Hey!” Riki exclaims. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Language, young man,” you snap back at him before looking at Sunghoon. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Headlight air intake?” he asks, a smile forming on his plush lips.

You grin. “Headlight air intake.”

“Oh, you guys are officially fucking crazy,” Jay whistles, admiring your handiwork when you’re done. With Sunghoon’s help, you’d removed one of Riki’s precious LED headlights to allow more airflow into the engine, enabling him to push the car harder without fear of overheating. “Poor Taro isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

“This is legitimately worse than the time Y/N Viper-swapped her Supra,” Jaeyun giggles, clapping his hands together in glee. “Ooh, everyone’s so fucked. They’re lucky she doesn’t drive with a missing headlight, too.”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Sunghoon jokes. “She can barely see at night as it is.”

“Oh,” you flirt back, “Is that why I think you’re more handsome in the daytime?”

Riki and Jungwon fake gagging noises behind you, but you smile.

“We’re making it out of the hood tonight, boys!” Riki hollers from his position at the finish line. Jungwon is beside him, at the wheel of his 350z. To Jungwon’s other side is Shotaro, looking annoyed. You can see him glare a hole into the back of Riki’s head as he walks behind your brother and his friend.

“Since when was Itaewon considered the hood?” you call back at him. Everyone laughs.

You see Jaeyun whisper something into Jimin’s ear, and she giggles. Meanwhile, Jay, awkward as he can be sometimes, plants a kiss on Aeri’s forehead. “Is it fucking cuffing season or something?” you mutter under your breath, thinking it was low enough that no one hears your annoyance.

“Us next,” Sunghoon responds cooly from behind you, draping an arm over your shoulder. “How’s that sound?”

“Holy shit,” Riki gasps, dramatically putting a hand over his mouth. “Sunghoon-hyung’s—”

“Got some serious rizz,” Jungwon finishes. “And if it weren’t directed towards noona, I’d cheer him on.”

Jay rolls his eyes. “Shut up, Won, you act like you haven’t wanted them together since you first met him.”

Jungwon pouts cutely and shrugs. “Yeah, yeah. It’s more fun to pretend to be an opp, though.”

You glare at your brother. “Wanna see a real opp? I’ll tell Ning that you like to—”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” He turns to Sunghoon. “Hyung, did you know that noona sometimes drools in her sleep?”

“I do.”

“WHAT?” the boys chorus like they’re in a cartoon.

Sunghoon looks at them with pure curiosity. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I know? She fell asleep and drooled all over my arm when we watched Interstellar for the fifth time.”

“Sunghoon!” you squeal. “You’re not supposed to tell them that happened!”

“Wait, fifth?” Jaeyun asks, hands sassily placed on his hips. “We’ve only watched it four times.”

You and Sunghoon exchange a look, your face heating up. “Well, uh…”

“Nevermind that,” Jay interrupts, his arm around Aeri’s waist. “We know you two hang out without us. Jaeyunie’s just fucking with you.”

“Yeah,” Riki agrees. “In fact, we want you guys to hang out without us.”

You look at Ning, rolling your eyes. “See what you’re getting into?”

She gives you a warm smile. “I don’t mind.”

park sunghoon: We’re still on for our date tonight, yes?

you: yeah! what are we doing?? i can pick a spot if you don’t have anything in mind

park sunghoon: None of that from you, princess. Just be ready by 7, I’ll pick you up. Our reservation is at 7:30. I already made sure you’d like the restaurant and you can wear that black dress you bought last week.

… Princess?

you: how…?

park sunghoon: Well, I know what food you like because we’ve gone out to eat so many times. And also, I saw you post the dress on your story when you tried it on in the fitting room, so I figured you got it. 

park sunghoon: Before you get upset thinking I’m controlling what you wear, I’m not. I know you have a hard time choosing your outfits (even though they’re all very nice) and the dress looked lovely on you.

He’s trying to make your life easier. You smile to yourself, face going hot. You bite your knuckles to keep yourself from screaming at your desk.

you: oh… okay!

you: i’ll see you later hoon :)

park sunghoon: Can’t wait. Have a great day at work, beautiful.

God, you want to throw your phone across the office with how giddy you are. You finish work early by skipping your lunch break, and you go home at 2:30 in the afternoon, thanks to Minjeong excitedly whisper-yelling at you that she’ll cover for you and to “Go get some dick, girl!” and smacking your ass as you scurried to the elevator. When you arrive home, you immediately run to your bathroom and turn on the shower. You’ve got music blasting from your speaker while you wash your hair and shave and scrub down your entire body. You’re smiling at yourself in the mirror while you dry your hair and do your skincare routine, and you’ve still got a good four hours to get all dressed up for your first real, official date in years.

taglist: @enha-stars @karinasbaby @venomhee @lilifiedeans @sngleehee @hoonfr @seuomo @en-verse @starfallia @eloelooo @lhspeachie @idkdykilr @seochannnn @moon368 @capri-cuntz @p-d1ddy @xxbluestrifexx @p4ranormaluv @laurradoesloveu

[avonne-writes]

What would you do with ¹⁴⁾ a coffee shop at two in the morning for buff omega Gale :)

This has been in my inbox for quite a while, sorry! I'm going to combine it with one of my Mota 1st birthday bingo prompts 😊 Just a short drabble, but I hope it's at least entertaining.

What kind of coffee shop closes this late, Gale thinks morosely as he watches his boyfriend of three months lock the last cabinet and turn to him with a smile, spinning the keychain around his finger. He had a spectacularly bad day, and standing in the middle of an empty coffee shop at 2 am doesn’t make it any better. He craves warmth and soft fabric, cuddles in a full nest lulling him to sleep. All this dark, cold space around him prickles his skin. Even under the light of Bucky's smile, he can’t help but shiver.

It doesn't escape Bucky's notice. The excited tilt of his smile gentles as he walks over to Gale, and he throws his arm around Gale's shoulders to press a soft, smacking kiss to his cheek. "Ready to go home?"

"Hm. You bet."

Home, home, home. That's what Gale needs. Not this. But home wouldn't feel right without Bucky there. Not tonight, when Gale can feel the discomfort of his pre-heat crawling up his back, spreading like goosebumps down his arms. He doesn’t want to go back to his empty apartment. That's why he left in the first place, why he drove here in the middle of the night to wait awkwardly until Bucky closed the place. If only they had moved in together already. But they aren't there yet. Not even close. And it’s scary to need someone like Gale needs his alpha now. He’s not ready to give more of himself over yet, but on nights like this, he wishes he was.

"You’re thinking an awful lot for how fucking late it is." Bucky yawns into the back of his hand, pulling Gale gently towards the door.

Gale curls his arm around Bucky's waist and turns his head to tuck his face into the crook of Bucky's neck and scent him. The calm, warm smell of him settles in Gale's chest like a soothing weight. He doesn’t pull away even long enough to watch his step, too busy trying to soak it in. He trusts Bucky to guide him outside. When the cold air of the street brushes his skin, he pulls his coat tighter around himself and sighs.

"My heat's coming up." He says dejectedly over the creak of the door closing.

It’s not that he minds the heats themselves - in truth, he loves losing himself to the love and affection of it if he's safe - what bothers him is having to ask if he's going to have company this time or not. He hasn’t yet had an alpha he was so confident in that he knew he wouldn’t have to ask. "In a day or two."

"I know, baby." Bucky murmurs. He sounds amused. "Why do you think I took the night shift today? I got time off for your heat."

Gale's heart stutters in his chest. He didn’t even consider that Bucky might have asked his boss to shift things around just because of Gale's heat. It makes him feel even warmer inside, mellow like honey. "Figured you lost a bet."

"Me? Never." Bucky snorts, pulling away from Gale for a second to lock the front door and pull the metal shutter in place. When he turns back, he cups Gale’s cheeks. His hands are cold from the metal, but all that discomfort is forgiven when his warm lips press to Gale's in the chilly winter night. "My lucky charms actually work, you know."

Gale gives him a doubtful look. There's a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue, but another shiver runs through his body and cuts that thought off real quick. Perhaps his heat is closer than he thought. Getting home after work only to be greeted by silence sucked - parting from Bucky now sounds like the worst idea in the world. He curls his fingers around Bucky’s lapels.

"Can I sleep at your place?"

"Mine?" Bucky asks, surprised. "I thought you'd want to stay home for your heat."

Gale considers it, tries to be rational about it. He has all his supplies at his place. Hell, he was ready to go through it alone there, as usual. But all he can think about now is Bucky's cozy apartment where everything smells like him, where Gale built a nest just a few weeks ago because he was too happy to resist the instinct. That's the space he longs for now.

"I want to stay at yours."

Bucky's first reaction is a pleased smile, then he gives Gale a sheepish look. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Are you sure?"

Gale frowns. The situation feels familiar. A soft rejection from an alpha who still wants to keep him around, but doesn’t want to keep him. He reaches up to tuck a strand of his long hair behind his ear, suddenly conscious of his size again, the lack of softness on his frame. Rejection just before his heat would be awful, but he can take it. He's strong enough not to let it break him.

"You don’t want me there."

Bucky's expression shifts into embarrassment. "I do, of course I do."

He leans in and rubs the tip of his nose to Gale's neck, where his mark will be one day if they decide to become mates. His arms loop around Gale's shoulders to hold him close even as Gale remains tense under his touch.

"Then what?" Gale asks, annoyed. He tries to look at Bucky’s face, but Bucky seems to be trying to hide it in his neck.

"I still have your nest in my bedroom." Bucky mumbles at last.

Confusion, fuzzy and sparkling, overtakes Gale's irritation. "What?"

Finally, Bucky straightens again. Even in the cool light of the street lamps, he looks just as flushed as Gale feels. He takes Gale's hands from his chest to draw them around his neck, then curls his arms around Gale's waist.

"I kept the nest you made." He leans in close enough that their exhales mix in a cloud of mist between their lips. "I missed having you there. Couldn’t bring myself to take it apart."

Relief and affection expand in Gale's chest, cotton-candy sweet on his smile. He tilts his chin up to give Bucky a kiss, laughing when Bucky makes a noise and pushes hard into it. As if he was the one with the heat building slowly under his skin, not Gale. His arms tighten around Gale's waist.

"But it barely smells like you anymore." Bucky heaves a plaintive sigh.

"You could've just asked me to come over and make a new one." Gale points out with a small smile, too happy to even pretend to be unaffected. Alphas don’t tend to keep an omega's nest if they're not mated to them. It’s too intimate. He can’t fathom what made Bucky keep his, but it's a good sign.

"I didn’t want to overwhelm you." Bucky kisses him again, chasing the bite of cold on Gale’s lips with the heat of his mouth. He’s sloppy in his exhaustion, but sweet and hungry as ever.

"I love you." He says through a gasp swallowed by Gale's lips.

Gale doesn’t even realize what Bucky has said at first. His mind feels fuzzy with joy and the simmering need of his pre-heat, so he just dives back in to kiss Bucky one more time, combing through his curls. It’s only when Bucky touches his face to soothe him that he realizes -

"Oh." He breaks the kiss so abruptly that Bucky sways after him, then catches himself.

They both pause. Gale's racing heartbeat pumps loudly in his ears.

Bucky waits for a moment, but when it becomes clear that Gale doesn’t know what to say, he presses his forehead to Gale's. "I'm sorry, doll. Didn’t mean to say it like that."

Gale curls his fingers around Bucky’s coat again. "But did you mean what you said?"

"Yes." Bucky's reply is simple and earnest, the brush of his thumb over Gale’s cheek gentle. "I love you."

The laugh that escapes from Gale pushes past all the boundaries of his composure to lay his joy in front of Bucky like a gift.

"I love you too." He says through his smile.

~♡~

It's Bucky's turn to laugh out of happy relief. The half-moons of his eyes crinkle at the corners and his beaming smile brightens Gale's entire heart. He abandons his attempts to kiss Gale again in favour of lifting him off his feet in a tight, giddy hug. Although he can’t quite spin Gale around, Gale still feels like he’s flying.

Who knew that coming to see his boyfriend at 2 am in a coffee shop would give him the happiest moment of his life so far?

The bingo prompt was: love confession ❤️

[harmless-variety-of-garden-snake]

It's BuckTommy Fluffebruary Day Twenty-Four (already??): Breakfast in Bed (another alternate). It's also, in the timeline of these fics, Tommy's birthday. Aw. For reference: it's mid-November 2026. I can't imagine what horrors await us as a society by then, but at least Buck got to make his husband an omelette. Can also be read on AO3 over here. Tagging @bucktommyfluffebruary

Buck isn't great at getting up early, because he's not great at going to sleep in a regimented way. His husband, who was raised by a military father and then joined the military and then became a firefighter, is like a superhuman. If their superpower involved having a great internal clock. His husband also doesn't stay up late reading, so that might have something to do with it. He also wakes up if even the quietest alarm goes off.

So he has to plan the surprise he has in store for Tommy. It involves him getting off a shift at 6 AM, hauling his ass home, and making breakfast before Tommy can wake up at 7 AM—his “sleeping in” time. Part of that does involve making croissants at the firehouse, which causes everyone to have a sort of thousand-yard stare when they come through the kitchen.

Chimney had helpfully reminded him of the six different flavors of croissant he'd baked in one day when he and Tommy were broken up in which no one had been able to get near the kitchen without having a morose Buck trap them with extended Tommy-related woes. In Buck’s defense, that had been a particularly hard day for him because they were supposed to go to a winery in Santa Barbara together, and that was almost two years ago.

He gets home with basically no traffic and hits every green light, and he has to restrain himself from celebrating when he pulls up to their house. He doesn't want to jinx it.

When he goes inside, he has to unlock the door—a good sign, unless Tommy had gotten up to go for a run—and disarm the alarm—an even better sign, because he never remembered to arm it before going for a run. The house doesn't smell like coffee, he can't hear any water running, and it's so quiet that Buck feels like he's making too much noise when he takes his boots off and leaves them by the door.

He creeps back toward the kitchen and starts pulling out bowls, pans, eggs, vegetables, cheese, potatoes, and milk. Normally, he'll listen to something when he makes breakfast, but he wants to be able to hear if Tommy's awake.

While he waits for the shredded potatoes to fry into hash browns—at which state do they become hash browns and stop just being shredded potatoes?—he thinks he hears something. He tiptoes toward the front of the house and realizes he'd just heard the neighbors leaving for the day.

The omelettes come out perfectly, the hash browns are golden and crispy, and the croissants are reheated in the oven just long enough to be warm without cooking any further. He's pouring the coffee, adding milk and the tiniest bit of brown sugar, and then he hears it.

The goddamn toilet flushes.

He is going to kill him. Evan Buckley-Kinard will be a widower at the tragically young age of thirty-five years old, because he's going to kill his husband.

He walks to the bedroom just as Tommy is about to cross the threshold, and he cuts off his husband's sleepy smile with a hand to his chest.

“Get back in bed,” Buck says firmly, and Tommy’s brows raise in a surprised and then sexy way, which is not what he needs right now. “Nope, get back in bed. You're awake five minutes early.”

Tommy raises his hands in surrender and then backs up toward their bed, climbing back in and folding his hands over his stomach.

Buck goes back to the kitchen and gets everything on the tray, carefully balancing it on his forearm and hand. The coffee gets held in his other hand, because he's not about to unbalance a tray that includes a mug of hot coffee onto his husband.

When he gets to their bedroom, Tommy’s staring at the ceiling.

“Am I allowed to talk or should I be fake snoring right now?” he asks, looking to Buck and then at the tray. There's even a tiny vase with a rose from the front yard. His entire expression melts into a soft, sweet smile. “Baby.”

“I have never been able to do breakfast in bed for you,” Buck says, setting the coffee on Tommy's nightstand. “Because you always wake up while I'm cooking or you get up before me. This was my one chance.”

“We're going to be together for the rest of our lives,” Tommy points out, shimmying up so he's sitting against the headboard. “You'll probably have more chances.”

“Well, you only turn forty-two once,” Buck says, setting the tray on his thighs and bending to kiss his temple. “So happy birthday, babe.”

Tommy huffs out a laugh and looks so charmed and shy about the entire thing that Buck wants to do something obnoxious like fist-pump. He settles for kissing his upturned face.

“Let me get my breakfast,” he says, backing toward the door. “Do you need anything?”

“A fork,” Tommy says after surveying the tray.

“Dammit,” Buck sighs. “I knew I forgot something.”

He grabs his own tray and coffee, two forks, and an extra croissant. When he gets back to their room, he carefully climbs in next to Tommy and holds out the fork. His husband is eating a bit of hash browns with his fingers already and takes the utensil with a guilty smile.

“Did you sleep at all?” Tommy asks.

“Few hours,” Buck replies, cuddling up against him until they're pressed together from shoulder to hip bone. “I'll take a nap after your surprise.”

“Is taking me to the Academy Museum a surprise?” Tommy asks around a mouthful of omelette.

Buck is going to kill Chimney. “He told you?”

“She did,” Tommy corrects. “Jee remembers, like, everything she hears.”

He groans. He can't kill his niece, she's the best person in the world, even if she has a huge mouth. “Okay, yeah. So that. But also—”

“That was all she said,” Tommy says before Buck can spoil any further surprises. “So the rest gets to be a surprise.”

“Good,” Buck says, leaning over to kiss him. “But I have your overnight bag packed, so add whatever else you'll need to that.”

Tommy squints at him suspiciously as he piles omelette and hash browns onto the croissant that he's split down the middle. “Do I get to look at what else is in the bag?”

He considers the question. “No. Just put toiletries in the side pocket. I took care of the clothes. We'll go after the museums.”

“Museums?”

Buck shoves half a croissant in his mouth so he won't say anything else stupid.

“Would it be easier if I flew us to wherever we're going?” Tommy asks nonchalantly, like he's not trying to figure it out. He's awful at surprises, because he figures them out immediately.

“Nope,” Buck says once he's swallowed enough of the croissant that he can speak clearly. “Also, yes, I did tell Eddie you won't be at basketball, so don't try getting it out of him.”

Tommy smiles and sets the tray on the ground before grabbing Buck’s to do the same.

“I wasn't done,” Buck protests half-heartedly.

“We'll get back to it,” Tommy murmurs, crawling on top of him and leaning in for a kiss. “Have I shown you lately how much I appreciate you?”

Buck tries to play it cool, but Tommy is only wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top, and he's looking at Buck like he wants to devour him.

“You show me all the time,” he says, soft and serious, because Tommy does and he wants him to know that Buck knows that. “But if you want to show me again—”

Tommy ducks back in for a kiss, pulling Buck’s shirt up and then off before doing the same to his own. Soon enough, they're both naked and Tommy is rolling Buck onto his belly. He kisses down Buck’s spine to his tailbone, and Buck arches his ass up, spreading his knees, already panting at the promise of what's coming. When he feels a kiss to the swell of his ass, he also feels Tommy's lips twist into a smile and braces himself, because he knows what's coming.

“Does this count as breakfast in bed?” Tommy teases, and Buck flings the pillow back to hit him on the shoulder.

[daydreaming-paradies]

We are not a couple!...maybe

ᡣ𐭩 Summary: Ah love. A beauty and a curse to feel and to witness. But sometimes you and your crush is so convinced that you are not in love...its honestly very funny and endearing in a way

ᡣ𐭩Pair: Wriothesley x GN!Reader

ᡣ𐭩 Warnings: Fluff, idiots in denial, crack, and a happy ending

AN: For those who are wondering yes, I haven't write the duke himself and yes i love prompts like this. I just want to spice things up for a bit

The term Idiots in denial fits the relationship between you and Wriothesley.

You work for Chief Justice Neuvillette as his secretary and you love your job even though it’s kinda daunting. But nothing beats anything then your ‘hatred’ with Wriothesley, the Duke of Fortress of Meropide. You hated(love) his face, his personality and those muscles of his. Yet you just kept dying it but even everyone and their grandmothers can see it through the bullshit. You both are not slick with those actions of yours.

“Ugh!” You groaned while in the cafe with Clorinde. “This damn man and his tea obsession.” Clorinde calmly sips her coffee and glances at you. “What has the Duke done to infuriate you, (y/n)?” The Champion asked with a blank expression. You have to think for a moment. What did Wriothesley do to make you this mad? “He sassed me when I told him that Neuvillette is wanting a discussion with him.” You said, sipping your favorite beverage. “That damn smirk of his. I just want to kiss-I mean punch him.” Clorinde raises an eyebrow at you, a faint smirk appears on her face. “Punch him? Assault to an officer is illegal, (y/n).” Clorinde says with a teasing voice. “I do not want to have to duel you to prove your innocence.” You only groaned to yourself. “Fair point. I don’t want Monsieur Neuvillette to have a heart attack..”

Meanwhile at the Fortress of Meropide, Wriothesley is sitting in his office looking through paperwork while sipping my tea. He can’t stop thinking about you. Your cute face, that stupid giggle and your eyes…that he desperately wanted to dr—wait what?! He choked on his tea while Sigewinne looked at him in shock. “Duke. Is everything okay?” She asked with worried eyes as said man clear his throat. “Yes. I am fine, Sigewinne. Just thinking about something.” The melusine nurse tilted her head and spoke. “Oh? You mean (y/n)?” She asks, putting her finger near her mouth. “Now that I mentioned it, you two make a cute couple.” The poor man had to spit out his tea and whips his head towards Sigewinne. “No! No no no no. I hate them.” He said with a sigh. “And besides they are so stupid, hardworking and so determined that it’s stupidly adorable.” After the moment of silence, Wriothesley found out that he is in love with you…and he is doomed.

The day at the Palais Mermonia, it was your day off but you wanted to work but Neuvillette had to force you to take a break. ‘That is a hypocritical move, Monsieur.’ You think to yourself as you stroll through the Fountain of Lucine bored out of your mind when you bump into a firm chest. “Oof!” You were about to fall on the ground when a strong arm wrapped around your waist to prevent you from falling on the ground. “Woah. Did not expect you to be this clumsy.” A familiar voice is heard and the one you dreaded(loved) to hear. “As Monsieur Neuvillette’s secretary, you need to watch where you are going.” You look up to see bluish- grey eyes staring down at you with a sly smile on his face. “Hmph.” You huffed as you crossed your arms and looked away. “Cut the act, Duke.” You spoke, not looking his way. “What do you want from me?” The duke chuckles as he thinks for a moment and shrugs. “Well if you want me to take you out on a date as an apology, just say the word.” Not knowing his subtle hit on asking you out, you took the bait. “Fine. I am willing to go out with you.” And that is when you realize what you did and your face turns a deep crimson, Wriothesley smiles in pride as he turns on his heel and walks off. “Okay, see you tonight babe.

Oh you want to the ground to swallow you up whole. But hey, at least Wriothesley bagged you.

~Taglist: @areislol @husky-studies @windblumewishes @thestarswhisper @dailypenpen @sundaysareformoshi @mikashisus @yuan4i @wystiix @bbasorexja @bibiddibobiddi-boo @purpleqilinwrites @yoghurtsan @ddivilove @zhengbobatw

[sylusonychinus]

Episode Six : A Storm Brewing

The quiet hum of the morning was shattered by the sharp ringing of a phone.

[Reader]’s mother frowned as she glanced at the caller ID, her ex-husband’s name flashing across the screen. With a sigh, she picked up.

"What do you want?" she asked, already exasperated.

"Why didn’t you tell me our daughter is working in aviation?!" he barked on the other end. "Do you have any idea how hard this is making things for Liana?"

Her grip on the phone tightened. "And why exactly is that my problem?"

"Because it’s embarrassing!" he spat. "People are comparing them! Liana worked hard to be where she is, and now they’re saying that she—"

"Oh, please," she cut him off, her voice cold. "You don’t get to act like a father now. You never cared about [Reader], so don’t pretend you suddenly have an opinion about her career."

"I am her father—"

"No, you’re Liana’s father," she snapped. "You made that clear when you walked away from us. You have no say in her life."*

The silence on the other end was deafening.

"Stay out of this," she warned. "And tell your precious daughter to deal with her own insecurities."*

With that, she hung up, anger simmering in her chest.

Across town, Liana Reyes sat in a trendy café, lazily stirring her iced coffee as she listened to Marissa rant about her latest grievances.

"—and then he had the audacity to say he wasn’t interested. Can you believe that?" Marissa huffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Liana, only half-listening, hummed in fake sympathy. "Men are idiots."*

Marissa rolled her eyes before scrolling through her phone. She stopped suddenly, her fingers tightening around the device. "Oh. My. God."*

"What?" Liana asked, taking a sip of her drink.

Marissa turned the screen towards her. "Tara went to a wedding last month. Look who got married."*

Liana’s brows knitted together as she leaned in—only for her expression to twist in fury when she saw the photos.

"You’re kidding," she seethed.

[Reader]. And Caleb Xia.

Married.

"That little—" Liana set her cup down with a loud clink, gripping her phone with enough force that her nails nearly dug into the case.

"And she didn’t even invite you?" Marissa added, feigning shock. "Wow. Your own sister."*

Liana’s jaw clenched. "She really thought she could keep this from me?"

Her fingers hovered over her phone before she dialed a familiar number.

The line rang twice before [Reader] picked up. "Liana?"

"Meet me at Belleview Café. Now," Liana ordered.

A pause. "Why?"

"Because we need to talk about why I wasn’t invited to your wedding, dear sister," she sneered.

[Reader] exhaled sharply. "I don’t have time for this, Liana."*

"Make time," Liana snapped. "Or I’ll make sure everyone knows that you’re the daughter of a mistress."*

Silence.

Liana smirked. "See you soon."*

She ended the call, sitting back in her seat with satisfaction.

"She’s on her way," she mused, crossing her arms. "Let’s see if our golden sister can handle this one."*

Marissa giggled. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

The café was cozy, filled with the quiet hum of conversation and the scent of roasted coffee beans. But despite its warm atmosphere, the tension at one particular table was thick enough to cut with a knife.

[Reader] sat across from Liana, her fingers clenched into fists beneath the table as she listened to her so-called sister drone on.

"I just can’t believe you would do something so selfish," Liana scoffed, taking a delicate sip of her overpriced latte. "Marrying Caleb Xia of all people?"*

"Selfish?" [Reader] repeated, raising a brow. "How is marrying my husband selfish?"

"Because," Liana leaned in, her voice dripping with condescension. "You don’t deserve him."*

Marissa, sitting beside her, smirked. "I mean, let’s be real. You’re not exactly his type, are you?"

"Right!" Liana sighed dramatically. "Caleb is successful, charming, handsome. He’s been my friend for years. Honestly, he and I would have been the perfect couple."*

[Reader]’s patience was wearing thin. "Then why aren’t you together?"

Liana’s expression faltered for a split second before she scoffed. "Because you sunk your claws into him first."*

Marissa nodded eagerly. "You’re a nobody, [Reader]. You really think Caleb married you because he loves you? He probably felt pity for you."*

Something inside [Reader] snapped.

She grabbed the glass of water in front of her and, without hesitation, threw it straight at Liana’s face.

A gasp rippled through the café as cold water splashed all over Liana’s perfectly styled hair and designer blouse.

Liana let out a shriek, her hands flying up to her face. "You—!"*

"Oops," [Reader] said flatly, setting the now-empty glass back on the table. "Must’ve slipped."*

Marissa gasped, eyes wide in shock. "You bitch!"

Liana slammed her palms onto the table, seething. "Marissa, hold her down."*

Marissa immediately reached for [Reader], grabbing her arms to restrain her.

"You think you can humiliate me like this?!" Liana spat, raising a hand to slap her. "You’re nothing, you hear me? Nothing!"

But before her palm could make contact—

[Reader] was suddenly ripped from Marissa’s grasp.

"Let. Her. Go."*

The voice was cold. Dangerous.

Liana froze, her raised hand trembling slightly as she turned to see Caleb Xia standing behind [Reader], his grip firm on her wrist.

"C-Caleb?" Liana stammered.

Marissa’s smug expression instantly vanished as she let go of [Reader] like she had been burned.

[Reader], still shaken, looked up at him in shock. "Caleb?"

He had followed her.

Earlier, when [Reader] had taken the call from Liana, Caleb had just stepped out of the bathroom. He had overheard everything. When he asked where she was going, she had brushed him off, saying she was just heading downstairs.

But he hadn’t believed her.

And now, standing here, hearing every vile thing Liana had just said—his patience was gone.

His gaze flickered to Liana, his jaw clenched. "You’re seriously still like this, huh?"

Liana swallowed hard. "I—Caleb, you don’t understand, she—"

"I understand just fine."* His voice was calm, but there was a sharp edge to it. "And for the record? I was never interested in you."*

Liana’s eyes widened, her breath hitching. "W-what?"

"Not in high school. Not in flight school. Never." His grip on [Reader] tightened protectively. "I don’t know what delusion you’ve been living in, but my life? My choices? They were never about you."*

Silence.

Liana stood there, humiliated, her lips slightly parted like she wanted to argue—but for the first time in her life, she had nothing to say.

"Come on," Caleb murmured, gently pulling [Reader] towards the exit. "We’re leaving."*

And with that, they walked out—leaving Liana Reyes and Marissa alone in their embarrassment.

The moment they stepped back into their apartment, [Reader] pulled her wrist free from Caleb’s grasp and bolted for her room.

But Caleb was faster.

Just as she reached for the doorknob, his hand landed on the wood, stopping her from going inside.

"Oh, no you don’t," he said firmly.

She clenched her jaw. "Move, Caleb."*

"Not until you answer me," he countered, his tone unusually serious. "What would’ve happened if I wasn’t there on time?"

She looked away, arms crossing over her chest. "I could’ve handled it."*

"Really?" Caleb raised a brow. "Because from what I saw, Liana and Marissa were seconds away from ganging up on you."*

"I threw a drink at her first," she mumbled, avoiding his gaze. "I started it. I can finish it."*

Caleb exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down his face before leaning down slightly, forcing her to meet his eyes. "[Reader], listen to me. You don’t have to deal with this alone."*

She swallowed. "It’s not like you’ll always be around."*

"That’s what I’m saying—" He sighed, pressing his palm flat against the door beside her head. "If something happens, call me. I don’t care where I am, what I’m doing—call me. Because I’m your husband."*

She blinked up at him, his words sinking in.

Husband.

The weight of it still felt unreal sometimes.

After a beat, she let out a small breath and nodded. "Okay… I promise."*

Caleb studied her expression before sighing and stepping back, giving her space. "Good."*

Then, his usual playful smirk returned. "Now, on a much lighter note—dinner."*

She raised a brow. "Dinner?"

"Yeah. A few of my friends from the airline are meeting up tonight. Come with me."*

"You mean a pilot gathering?"

"Something like that," he shrugged. "It’ll be fun. You should get to know them."*

She hesitated. "I don’t know…"

"C’mon, [Reader]." He gave her a knowing look. "You can’t just hide in your room after throwing water at your sister. Celebrate your victory."*

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hold back a small smile. "Fine, I’ll go. Just let me change."*

Caleb grinned. "That’s the spirit."*

A few minutes later, [Reader] emerged from her room wearing a short skirt and a simple white blouse.

Caleb, who had been waiting in the living room, looked up—and immediately raised a brow.

"Are you dressing like that for me or my friends?" he teased, his eyes flickering over her outfit.

She scoffed, placing a hand on her hip. "Neither. I just felt like wearing this."*

He smirked, stepping closer. "Right. Of course."*

She gave him a pointed look. "Do you have a problem with it?"

"Not at all," he said smoothly. "In fact, I fully support this choice."*

She rolled her eyes and grabbed her purse. "Let’s just go before I change my mind."*

Caleb chuckled, placing a hand on the small of her back as they headed out.

The dinner was held at a high-end steakhouse near the airport, where several of Caleb’s airline friends had already gathered.

The atmosphere was lively—full of laughter, teasing, and the occasional talk about flight routes and emergency landings.

But there was one person who didn’t seem thrilled about [Reader]’s presence.

Mark.

He had been close with Liana during training and was clearly on her side. Throughout the evening, he made little side comments, subtle digs aimed at [Reader].

"So," he mused after taking a sip of his drink. "Marrying into the aviation industry, huh? That’s one way to stay relevant."*

[Reader] tightened her grip on her fork, but before she could respond, Caleb shot Mark a sharp look. "Watch it."*

Mark raised his hands in mock surrender. "Relax, man. Just making conversation."*

[Reader] exhaled slowly and placed her napkin on the table. "Excuse me, I need to use the restroom."*

She needed to cool off before she actually threw something at him.

But the moment she stepped out of the restroom, she saw Mark standing near the entrance, scrolling through his phone.

Her eyes narrowed.

Perfect.

She walked up to him, voice cool and calm. "You have something to say to me, Mark?"

He looked up, smirking. "Just surprised, that’s all. Never thought Caleb would settle for—"

"For me?" she cut him off, tilting her head. "You mean someone who actually knows how to do her job? Or someone who doesn’t cling to him like a desperate high schooler?"

His smirk faltered. "Look, I didn’t mean—"

"No, go on," she crossed her arms. "Because I find it funny how you’re talking so much when Liana isn’t even here to defend herself."*

Mark cleared his throat. "I was just looking out for—"

"For what?" she raised a brow. "For your friend or your own misplaced bitterness?"

He looked away, jaw tightening.

She stepped closer, lowering her voice. "If you have an issue with me, be a man and say it to my face. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut."*

Mark let out a slow breath before finally muttering, "Fine. My bad."*

"Glad we understand each other."*

And with that, she walked back to the table, leaving him standing there in silence.

Taglist: @jinwoosbabyboo @kithyyy @mcdepressed290 @nezuswritingdesk @elegantdeerlady @yuuuumii @duhgurl @lumieresdreams @bidisasterforevermore @i-messed-up-big-time

@that-one-scoundrel @justpassingdontworry @ansbobcar @nagireos @auriuswolve

[agirlwithdemonblood]

Fear & Forever

Pairings: Dean x Reader

Summary: Fear made him hesitate, but love made him stay—now, their names are written in ink and sealed in forever.

Warnings: Flangst, tattoos, mentions of giving tattoos.

Check out my Masterlist here!

Dean Winchester was not the kind of man who got rattled easily. He had faced down demons, ghosts, and creatures that haunted the darkest corners of the world. But tonight, as he sat across from Dave at the bar, a different kind of fear settled into his chest.

"She left," Dave muttered, taking a long swig of his beer. "Lynne and I... we couldn't make it work. Hunting and love don't mix, man. I thought I cherished her enough, but... turns out, I didn’t."

The words landed like a punch to Dean’s gut. He swallowed hard, gripping his glass as the ice clinked against the whiskey. Y/N had been his for months now, and damn if he didn’t love her more than he’d ever loved anyone before. But was that enough? Or was he on borrowed time, just waiting for the day she realized he was too much of a mess—too broken, too closed off, too haunted?

The thoughts festered, sinking deep into his bones as he left the bar, the night air sharp against his skin. He had to do something. Had to show her. Prove to her—and maybe himself—that he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers.

By the time he walked through the bunker’s door, his nerves were frayed, his heart drumming a little too fast.

Y/N knew something was up the second Dean walked through the door with a bouquet of flowers, a velvet box in his hand, and a sheepish grin on his face.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead as he handed her the gifts.

Her eyes widened, surprise flashing across her face before softening into something warm. “Dean…” she breathed, gingerly taking the flowers, pressing them to her nose, and inhaling deeply. “These are beautiful.”

He swallowed, watching her closely. “Yeah? And, uh… open the box.”

She did, her lips parting when she saw the delicate silver necklace inside, a small heart-shaped pendant etched with their initials. “Dean… this is....,” she whispered, eyes glistening. “I love it.”

He moved behind her, clasping the necklace around her neck, his hands lingering on her shoulders. “Looks good on you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the back of her head.

She turned in his arms, cupping his face with gentle hands, peppering his cheeks with soft, lingering kisses. “You are the sweetest, you know that?” she murmured, smiling up at him. “Thank you. I love it—I love you.”

Dean exhaled, relief washing over him. “Just wanna make sure you know how much I love you, sweetheart.”

The next morning, Y/N woke to the smell of bacon and coffee. She shuffled into the kitchen to find Dean at the stove, flipping pancakes with a look of intense focus.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, flashing her a smile that was way too bright for this hour.

She beamed, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Morning, handsome. What’s all this?”

“Breakfast. And a plan.” He set a plate in front of her, smirking. “Thought we could spend the day at the lake. Just us. No hunts, no research, no monsters.”

Her eyes sparkled. “That sounds amazing.” She kissed his cheek, lingering as she nuzzled against him. “You’re spoiling me, Dean.”

“Damn right, I am.”

Her eyes narrowed with a cheeky grin. “Alright, what did you do?”

He chuckled as he faked offense. “What? Nothing! Can’t a guy just spoil his girl?”

She smirked, but there was curiosity in her gaze. Dean wasn’t exactly the ‘spoil-you-rotten’ type. Sure, he showed his love in a hundred little ways—fixing her weapons, keeping an arm around her in crowded places, always making sure she had the last slice of pie—but this? This was different. "Sure..."

The lake was perfect. The sun glowed golden across the water, a lazy breeze rustling through the trees. They waded into the water together, the coolness a contrast to the heat of the day. Y/N giggled as Dean suddenly splashed her, sending a wave of water her way.

“Oh, you are so dead,” she laughed, retaliating by cupping water in her hands and flinging it at him.

Dean grinned, diving forward to scoop her up into his arms. She squealed as he spun her around, both of them laughing as the water sloshed around them. He held her close, pressing a kiss to her wet shoulder, his heart swelling as she leaned into him.

They spent hours like that—floating, kissing, teasing. At one point, Dean pulled her into a slow, lazy dance in the water, humming a classic rock tune under his breath as she rested her head against his chest.

For the first time in hours, Dean felt the anxiety in his chest loosen. Maybe he was overthinking things. Maybe they were okay.

“This is perfect,” she whispered, tracing patterns on his shoulder. “You. Me. Here.”

Dean pressed a kiss to her forehead, his grip tightening. “Yeah, sweetheart. It really is.”

After a long time swimming and splashing around, they decided to get out of the water and dry off. Y/N stretched her arms over her head, the sun warming her skin as they walked back toward the car. Dean was right behind her, running a towel through his hair when it happened.

Y/N yelped as she stepped down onto something sharp. She barely registered the sting before a warm, wet sensation spread beneath her foot. Then, the pain hit. “Shit!” she gasped, stumbling back.

Dean’s head snapped up at the sound of her cry, and before she could even process what had happened, he was there, catching her before she could fall. His hands gripped her arms, his eyes wide and frantic as they dropped to her foot, and his knife. His blood ran cold when he saw the deep slice along the arch, crimson pooling into the sand beneath them.

“Damn it—baby, I’m so sorry,” he choked out, already reaching for her. “I—shit, that’s my knife—I left it out—I didn’t mean—”

Y/N winced but forced a breathy laugh. “Dean, it’s okay. It’s just a—”

But he wasn’t listening. Panic took hold as he scooped her up into his arms, carrying her toward the car in long, desperate strides.

“Hold on, sweetheart, I got you,” he murmured, his voice thick with worry.

He set her down carefully on the trunk, dropping to his knees in the sand. He ripped off his flannel and pressed it tightly to her wound, his hands shaking as he tried to apply pressure.

“Dean, breathe,” Y/N said softly, reaching for his face. “I’m not dying.”

But he shook his head, his breathing uneven, his grip on her too tight. “Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I’m sorry—I don’t tell you enough, I don’t show it enough—I just… I can’t lose you.”

Y/N frowned, confused by the sheer desperation in his voice. “Whoa Whoa, baby, what are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I should’ve told you, should’ve shown you more—I don’t deserve you, and if you go—”

She squeezed his face in her hands. “Dean, stop. I’m right here. I’m not leaving. Where is this coming from?"

He let out a shuddering breath, finally looking at her, really looking at her. “Dave and Lynne,” he finally admitted. “They broke up. Dave said he didn’t cherish her enough. That hunting and love don’t mix. And I—” He swallowed thickly. “I got scared.”

Y/N’s expression softened. “Dean… we’re not them.”

He let out a shaky breath. “I have anger issues. I suck at communicating. I’m not the best at showing my love. What if—”

She cut him off. “I love you. Every messy, grumpy, ridiculous part of you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean stared at her, her words sinking in, but doubt still lingered in his eyes.

Y/N smirked a bit, and pulled away. “Fine. You need proof?”

She limped over to the car, grabbed something from the backseat, and sat down in the grass. Dean’s eyes widened when he saw her tattoo kit.

“Y/N, what the hell are you doing?”

She ignored him, setting up the ink and needle. Without hesitation, she started etching into her thigh.

Dean’s chest tightened. “Sweetheart, come on. Don’t—”

Minutes stretched on like hours until she finally sat back, exhaling hard. Ink stained her skin, raw and fresh with two words permanently carved into her thigh. "Now, your with me forever."

Dean Winchester.

His breath hitched. He stared at her thigh, at the bold, permanent declaration, his fingers shaking slightly as they ghosted over the ink. “You’re insane,” he murmured, but his voice was thick, warm. Full of something he couldn’t quite put into words.

She smirked, her eyes glimmering. “Insanely in love with you.”

Dean swallowed hard. The weight in his chest, the fear, the doubt—it all melted away, leaving only the overwhelming, aching love he had for her.

“Tattoo me,” he blurted.

Y/N blinked. “Wait, what?”

He grabbed her wrist gently, pressing her ink-stained fingers against his chest, right over his heart. “I want your name. Here.”

Her expression softened, the teasing fading into something deeper. “Dean…”

“Please.” His voice was quieter now, almost vulnerable. “I want to be yours the way you’re mine.”

Her lips parted, surprise flickering across her face before she smiled. A soft, knowing smile.

“Alright, tough guy,” she murmured, reaching for the needle. “Shirt off.”

Dean smirked, shaking his head. “You just wanna see me shirtless.”

She rolled her eyes, but the fondness in them gave her away.

As she inked her name onto his skin, Dean watched her, his heart pounding—not from fear, not from adrenaline, but from something real. Something unshakable.

She was his. He was hers.

Nothing—not hunting, not his demons, not even fate itself—could change that.

When she finished, she leaned up, brushing her lips over his in a slow, lingering kiss. “Feel better now?”

Dean exhaled, a real, genuine smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, sweetheart. I really do.”

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

Like, comment, and reblog, feedback is my fuel 💕

[the---hermit]

25|02|2025

I have been debating on whether going to uni today or not, since instead of our normal lecture we were attending a book presentation sort of thing. I decided to go against my instincts and actually go despite it not being part of the exam materials, and the fact that I could have definitely used half a day of studying at home. I kind of regret my decision but also not. Don't get me wrong the presentation was very badly done, and it's not even the writer's fault, it was the other people on the panel. Anyway I ended up leaving early and going for a coffee with two classmates and ended up chatting for over an half an hour. It was a nice interaction, I had a good time and the coffe was good so the afternoon was not wasted. I have this class till the end of the semester, so I am very happy I am managing to make friends at the beginnig. As I have mentioned I struggle a lot with these things but this seems to go well so far so I'll be focusing on that.

14/50 days of productivity:

read first thing in the morning and finished my book (which means now I am going back to the grady hendrix book and hopefully I won't get stuck with it. I don't want to dnf it because I have read like two thirds of it and I want to know what happens but gods is it long and slow ugh)

continued working on the same spaces of knowledge document as yesterday which I'll definitely won't finish tomorrow but whatever

went to a book presentation disguised as a lecture which was honestly not great

practiced Irish on duolingo

📖: Walking Practice by Dolki Min

[triplezzina]

Teach me how to talk without a pen in my mouth

Two pairs of eyes. Two phones. One pen. A notebook.

or

Oscar writes, Lando reads.

fic!

He has it with him. It’s in his backpack, then, on the seat of his car, after, in his coffee table. He looks at it, the pit of his stomach churns, his head spins, he feels like throwing up. He lifts his hand from where it’s laying on his knee and tries to touch it. He can’t. He bolts from the sofa, dropping one of his favorite cushions on the floor, and walks. 

He goes out. It’s the middle of the night. He hasn’t eaten since lunch. It 's 03:00 am and he feels like walking. There is really nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

“ It’s with me” He tells himself. “ It’s with me, its mine” 

Then why does it feel bad? When all his life it has been good.  But it’s been touched, been held, been read most probably. He doesn’t, not even for a second, believe that stupid note. 

“Found it! Dk. Didn’t read, just enough to see your name. Sorry”

Finding it in his locker had been a blessing in disguise. The days, four days he had been without it had been excruciatingly long. In the meetings, looking around, trying to see who looked at him weird, who knew. 

In the hallways, paranoid, in the sim, in everywhere he went. He felt naked. But now, now he felt as if his skin had been peeled off, leaving only the bare bones of his being exposed. 

He turned around. A ‘U’ turn like the one in Monaco. He tried to keep himself calm.

“ Breathe, breathe, breathe” 

But the air in his lungs was failing him. He wondered for a second if he even had air in them. His pace was fast, his legs burned, when he looked up from his feet he realized he was running. Running and running. 

When he was a kid he liked to run as much as he liked to drive and race. Because when he didn't have his kart, when he wasn’t on the track, he could run and imagine the lines, the curves, the stops. Sometimes, as young as he was, he imagined crashes, and red flags when he needed to drink water. 

His mother joked that when he retired from F1, because there was never a doubt in her mind that he would make it, he could be a track coach. Teach kids how to run as fast as he could. As focused as he was. 

In his apartment he didn’t even think it, he grabbed the notebook, opened a new page and scrambled to find a pen. He only found the sharpy he used to sign cards and stuff the marketing team gave him. 

“Mom, people watch me. They watch their TV’s, their phones and look at my face. But do any of them see me? I need to know what you would say. Even when I know the answer.”

When he lifted the pen, he saw the chicken scratch of a handwriting he had left, engraved on that notebook, that notebook he loved, but that didn’t feel his anymore. The letters curved and dissolved, the A’s were round, the T’s sharp. It was the same handwriting he used to have, back in boarding school. Back when he started writing. 

He closed the notebook with force, the coffee table moved a bit, and because it was old, it made a little sound that seemed too loud in the apartment, when the world was dead, and it was only him, the little light in the corner on, because he never liked the big ceiling lights. 

The phone rang. Beside the notebook was his phone, and it seemed absurd to pick it up, not now, not ever. It was dramatic, but he didn’t remember how to talk. He didn’t remember how to be him. The ringing stopped. And on the screen it read. 

3 missed calls. 2 new messages. 

Two calls and one message were from his mom. One call and one message were from Lando. 

He picked the phone. His hands were shaking. He looked at the screen for a moment that seemed too long, the screen got wet. As he dried it with his hoodie, he considered calling his mom. But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Not for now. He had the excuse of it being late at night. He had the excuse that he had work tomorrow. And that when he was working he always slept well. He pressed the message from his mom. 02.45 am. 

“Honey, how are you? Call me, okay? I miss you, and I need to talk to you. Love you honey, bye” 

Then, Lando’s. It was sent at 02:31 am. Thirty seconds, most of them, pure silence. The breathing through Lando’s nose that hit the phone. The muted sound of a club in the background. The sound of a feeling he couldn’t pinpoint. 

“ Oscar- Oscar I need to talk to you, like right now… I mean- I mean it can wait ‘till tomorrow I guess… I’m sorry, okay? I can explain, but please just call me… I didn’t mean to screw everything up… I really didn’t.”

“Osc... Please just call me, please” 

And something, like a knot fell from his brain to his stomach, bouncing around like a tire that got loose. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He tried to lay back but his body was stiff. The world was a blur besides his phone and that damn notebook. 

The phone. The notebook. His life. All things that days, even moments ago seemed so his, didn’t belong to him anymore. And it kept ringing, vibrating in his hand after silencing it. His hands failed him, betrayed him. But he pressed all the buttons, confirmed all the ‘Are you sure?’ And when the final word on the screen read, ‘blocked’ did he turn back to reality. 

The humming of the refrigerator in the background, that annoying thing now kept him tethered. This was reality. Oscar knew who it was. His mom knew about the letters. Lando knew everything. And there was nothing to do to take it back. He took the notebook from the table, he looked at it. It wasn’t the same. 

He threw it against the wall. The sound pierced like a bullet. Then he laid on the sofa, pretended everything was fine. Though it wasn’t. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t wish to be someone, he just needed to be nothing, no one. How could he be so stupid? 

[tokitooth]

the urge to just say fuck it and book myself a trip to gothenburg BY MYSELF NO ONE ELSE ALLOWED so i can just go there and be there and see what it would be like to start a new life somewhere completely different where i can. i almost want to say pretend to be someone else but that’s not charitable it’s more like actually finally be who i want without any of my previous social inhibitions that i’ve built up from living in the same city i went to high school in and the same city i got my first job in being constantly surrounded by people who’ve known me since i was 16 if not even younger. being completely by myself in a brand new country maybe i can figure out how to talk to strangers at a bar or how to drop in on a social event and actually be social and not clam up for half an hour and leave “but you can do that at home without going to sweden” NOT THE SAME i need that spirit of knowing i’m somewhere where no one absolutely no one knows who i am so i don’t have to worry about seeming out of character. do you feel me

[pynkhues]

I met friends after work last night and we had a drink and dinner and then went to see Conclave, and I was very determined that I was not going to be wrangled into going out after the movie, which finished at 9.30pm on a Tuesday, but my arm was twisted (easily, haha) and anyway I got home at 2am yet somehow still managed to show up for my 7.30am reformer Pilates class, which I don’t think is something I’ve been able to do since my 20s, haha.

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

The woman's voice in earbuds: Battery Low Arthur: So you're just going to leave me. Just like everyone else

[taniushka12]

#worlds best worst grandson 👍

[koishua]

my mom sitting there nodding along to my very emotional retelling of how i was chased by my classmate (actually my crush but she doesn't have to know that) who kept shoving a dead lizard in my face in ninth grade

[shirleyjacksons-exwife]

My uncle and his family stayed at my Nana's house for three weeks and did a lot of cleaning etc but they did so much that now it doesn't smell like her house anymore biting maiming killing etc