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extravaguk · 4 years ago

Text

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

wordcount: 15k

genre: summer!au, ex high school classmaters, kinda frenemies to lovers, tattoo artist!&piercing artist!jungkook, popular!reader

rated: m (fluff - smut - angst)

warnings: you broke jungkook's heart you bitch!! , oral sex (m&f), protected sex (shocking tbh), CL as your bestie it doesnt get better than that! idk i dont wanna spoil too much

author's note: fucking finally dude!! i've been writing this since february but school was kicking my ass. now that i finished my exams and mercury is in gemini i was able to finish it. if you read this, i hope you enjoy it!

Inkphoria

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping the flyer too tightly, rumpling the paper in your hand until you're pretty much sure it's ruined. It's the first day of June, and it's already too hot. The sun and humid weather are causing beads of sweat to form in your hairline and your white tank top to stick to your skin. Your jean shorts didn't feel this uncomfortable a few hours ago and you're sure the heat is causing your mascara to transfer to your eyelids and lower lashline. You've never needed a slushie and a smoke this bad in forever, even if you knew the later would make your parents lose their shit.

Inkphoria

You read it again. Your brain is trying to guess what font its written in, an excuse to try to steady your heart beat until your nerves ease a little and you can finally gather the courage to step into the damn shop. You've noticed a few people passing by giving you strange looks because maybe it hasn't been fifteen minutes. Perhaps you've been unmoving like an idiot in the middle of the street for longer than you want to admit.

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

'Its not that much of a big deal. It's not even that painful, trust me.'

You wish you could trust your best friend, but your best friend is also the same woman who assured you Cats was the movie of the year. Yes, not 'Cats: The Musical'. 'Cats', the movie.

'And this could be a great start to get out of your comfort zone and start living your life exactly the way you want to, not the way people expect you to. Not the way your family wants you to, not the way Adam wanted you to.'

But although her credibility could sometimes be questionable - like that time she also told you she'd tried marmite and 'honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be'-, you also didn't trust anybody in this world as much as you trusted her. She had always been your entire support system, the only one around you who never sugarcoated, who always treated you as an equal, who was always there for you to help you discover yourself and, at the same time, remind you of who you were.

'And it's gonna look so hot, too.'

That's it. Sticking the wrinkled flyer on your back pocket, your feet finally start moving. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing open the door.

The first thing you notice is that, thankfully, the shop is empty. The second thing you notice is the bright sky blue walls, a green undertone peaking through. Your eyes scan nervously the interior. Frames with tattoo designs and people modeling other different designs decorate the walls, some skateboards also hanging from the ceiling. A few plants in the corner, and two leather couches on either side of the room. Your scanning stops on the counter, where a girl with short, platinium hair and -what you guess is- the eighty percent of her body inked. Face included. She's been looking at you, a smirk tugging at her lips. Her tone is amused when she speaks

"Hi." she says. "You can come closer, you know? We don't bite."

Great. As if you couldn't feel more out of place, apparently you also couldn't look more out of place.

"Sorry." you gulp as you walk forward. "It's my first time doing anything like this."

She laughs this time, but it's not mean. It's not mocking, thank God, and the smile she sends you is as warm as the weather, friendly, luckily helping you calm down a bit. "A virgin, huh? JK's gonna love this." your eyes jump in surprise, but she's fast to wave her hands in front of you. "Just a joke. So, first time getting a tattoo. You have something in mind, honey?"

"Um, no. Not a tattoo. Not yet, I think." you wet your lips, regretting not reaplying chapstick before stepping inside. "A piercing."

"Oh! Cool!" she claps her hands, too excited for your own taste, pulling from under the counter a catalogue. "So, where will it be? Cartilogue? Nose? A lot of people are getting their septums pierced right now, though, so you might-"

"Nipples. Like, one of them."

Her gaze finds yours in surprise, although her face swiftly transforms again into an amiable expression. "Now, that's badass. Alright!" she skims through the pages of the catalogue until she finds the nipple piercing collection. You scratch your head before wiping your forehead sweat-free. "You can pick either barbells or hoops, although barbells heal faster and they don't move around as much. There's different kinds of metal, too. Gold or platinium. If your skin is sensitive, I recommend titanium. It's hypoallergenic and not as problematic."

The blonde keeps talking as you nod your head, a smile making its way into your face while silently thanking her for her easygoing personality. It quickly makes you feel comfortable and stupid for being so terrified of doing this.

Once you decide, settle on the cost and sign the papers, she stands up from the stool she'd been sitting on. "Ok, I'll go tell my coworker. He's been sketching tattoos all morning, it's time he gets to work!" she laughs, but suddenly your smile banishes and your throat shuts down.

"He?" your alarmed tone halts her motions and she looks back at your frightened expression.

He? A he is going to pierce your nipple? You're about to let a random stranger, a HE, see and touch one of your boobs and then pierce a needle through one of your nipples?

"Oh, baby, don't worry. I'd do it myself if I knew how to, but I only do tattoos. Most of our staff are on summer vacation so it's mostly just him and I. If you don't feel comfortable, which is totally understandable, you can wait until september when Minzy comes back and she can do it for you." It's her turn to scratch the back of her head as she adds: "but trust me, we're professionals. He's not a creep or anything like that. He's been doing this for a long time. He won't cross any boundaries."

September? You won't even be here in september. Fuck.

Sure, you could do it when you move back into the city. But this summer was supossed to be the summer. You already decided after your breakup with Adam that there would be no trace of the old you. That it was time to push yourself, to do the things that you've always wanted to do, unapologetically. To find the new you, the real you. To stop being scared.

So after going through you options for a few seconds and taking a deep breath, you make up your mind.

"It's fine. I can do it."

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"JK, sweetheart!"

Jungkook is finishing drawing a Chinese dragon when Mijoo opens the door without knocking. Again. He puts the pen down, rubbing his eyes. It's monday, a slow monday, not much work, and he had hoped it would stay that way until closing time. It's summer and Jungkook hates summer. He hates the heat, he hates being drenched in sweat, and he hates the fact that he can do nothing about it. Because working in the summer is terrible. Summer makes him lazy, makes him want to bathe in a tub full of iced water and not get out until he turns into a raisin and october comes. It makes him irritable. Summer makes him annoyed by people -like Mijoo, even if he loves her to death- and himself.

"I got a girl here who wants a nipple piercing, her first piercing by the way, so get your shit ready and bla bla bla. Straight titanium barbell. Also, don't flirt and don't be creepy. She almost ran away when I told her a male was going to be touching and piercing her tit, be mindful of that. She's too cute, if you want to get her number you should wait until it's done. I think that's it. I'll bring her in in a minute."

Mijoo leaves as fast as she talks, but Jungkook is already used to it. He's already used to the headaches her mouth causes too. He sighs before standing up, tying his too-long raven hair into the best bun he can manage. He washes his hands, sets the table up, sits on the chair and puts the gloves on. He's too busy sterilizing the jewerly when Mijoo comes back with you.

"Alright, my babies. I'll leave you to it." she turns to you. "He'll explain everything, from how the process will be to how to take care of it after it's done." she leaves before saying bye, closing the door behind her, and then he finally turns to you.

Your eyes meet and suddenly everything stops. He almost drops the sterilizing machine, his whole body tensing, going into panic mode as he recognizes you immediatly. His hands shake.

Of course he does. Of course he recognizes his high school crush. The too goody two shoes, too pretentious and too rich, too good for everybody and, most importantly, 'too good for Jeon Jungkook' girl of his high school dreams. Of course he recognizes the girl he had confessed his stupid crush to when he was sixteen. Of course he recognizes the girl who rejected and broke his young and foolish heart when he was a dumb teenager.

It doesn't matter that six years have passed ever since. He still knows every lock of your hair like the palm of his hand. He still remembers the shape of your lips and the exact shade of your eyes. He can still identify the body he fantasized about -and jacked off to- when he was a hormonal teen, now filled in all the right places. Now a grown woman.

Just one look at you after years and years of pining is enough to almost make him faint. And grow a boner under his jeans.

And by the look on your face, your eyes wide and your mouth agape, you recognize him as well.

Dammit.

He schools his features and clears his throat. Forces his body to relax and compose himself, because he's not a teenager anymore. He's also a grown man, who has matured, who now has much more experience with women than he did back then. He had already embarrased himself enough when he was sixteen to be doing it all over again. You're just another attractive girl in a sea of attractive women.

He turns to you. You still haven't said anything. Neither has he.

"Um, you can sit on the table." he manages, motioning to the set up in front of him. He watches you taking doubtful steps until you're sitting down, your eyes avoiding his gaze. He almost forgot you were here to get pierced. Holy shit, you were here to get pierced. To get your nipple pierced.

You're a professional, Jungkook. You can do this, Jungkook. You've seen boobs before, Jungkook. You've pierced nipples before, Jungkook.

Clearing his throat again and forcing his hands to stay by his side, he speaks. "The... The top." your gaze finds his, like a puppy about to get scolded. You look at your top, realization dawning on you. "You don't have to take it off. You can just pull it down."

So you do, pulling the straps of the white tank top down and dragging the fabric down with trembling fingers. No bra. Jungkook gulps as your breasts comes into vision. As perfect as he had imagined years ago. His cock twitches. Round, full, perky and so damn inviting he has to hold himself back from latching onto one nipple with his mouth around it and swirling his tongue over the nub until you're a pretty, moaning, little mess on his piercing tabl-

He closes his eyes for just a second before reminding himself to act like the 23 year old Jungkook he's tried so hard to become. The confident, assured Jungkook he is.

"Okay, this is how it'll go. First I'll clean it and scrub it to get rid of any bacteria." he's so glad he hasn't stuttered yet. 23 year old Jungkook doesn't stutter like 17 year old Jungkook. He's also glad he can pick the alcohol bottle and the surgical scrub without trembling. When he faces you again, you're watching his motions with your lip caught between your teeth. That has him swallowing the lump in his throat.

Making eye contact with him again, you take a deep breath and offer a small nod, so he gets to work. He can show you and himself he's a grown man. A grown man who can pierce a nipple without appearing like it's the first time he's seen a boob in his life. The sooner he does it, the sooner it's over.

Jungkook wets the paper towel with alcohol before carefully wiping over your nub with it. Your back arches, probably from the cold feeling, he guesses. He rubs it a few times before throwing it in the trash can nearby. He avoids looking at how enticing the soft peak is salluting him when he reaches for the marker. He doesn't say anything when he dots it with it, jaw clenched and his dick painfully stiff.

"Lay back." his voice low as he commands, turning away to get the clamp. When he slides closer, he tries to ignore the view: you, with your hair sprawled and your sweaty, shiny skin and your eyes focused on the cieling, nipple fully erect, like the star of one of his most erotic dreams. He extends his free gloved hand before he can stop himself, fingers carefully working the nub until he's sure it's painfully hard. Almost as hard as he is.

You gasp, your back arching again. He stills and looks at you, your cheeks flushed pink. Probably from the heat, he guesses again. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He can't stop himself from wondering how responsive would you be in a different setting, most likely his bed while his teeth play with your breast and his cock dives into-

"You okay?" he studies your face, your eyes not meeting his and instead still focusing on the white ceiling.

"Mhm." you reply with a small voice.

"Relax, alright? It'll be over soon." his voice is as gentle as he can, his fingers mindlessly caressing your breast to try to soothe your nerves. Or maybe it's just because he's a selfish bastard. Whatever it is, he forces himself to bring the clamp to your nipple, securing it around it.

"Take a few deep breaths. This will only take a second of pain and then it will go away." He misses the way your mouth falls open, but he doesn't miss the way your eyes squeeze tight as the needle goes in.

"Ah!" he definitely doesn't miss that either. He goes rigid for a second, because that didn't fucking sound like a cry of painfulness. It's breathy, and whiny, not too loud and, for fucks sake, if that's how you sound when you're getting fucked, he swears to God-

He feels your heartbeat under his hands when he puts the barbell in and then the bandage over it. He takes a look at you, chest moving up and down. And then you take a look at him and what he sees is almost enough to take you right there.

Reddened cheeks, drops of sweat framing your face and those eyes glazed with something he's seen too much in the women he's fucked throughout his life. They're half lidded, mascara adorning your long lashes and almost smudged, looking right through him.

"Jungkook..." and your voice, as you say his name -acknowledging him for the first time since you stepped into his shop, for the first time since you were sixteen-, it's hoarse, almost inaudible, like you just came all over his-

He's on his feet in an instant like he's been burned. "It may bleed for the first week, and it can be really sore. The swelling will eventually come down." he's quickly tidying up the table, a bottle in his hand that he hands to you without looking directly. "Wash it gently with this soap and warm water once per day. Don't touch it. Wear a comfortable...bra. If it gets crusty, clean it with saline. Not alcohol or any other thing you might clean a wound with. The soap I just gave you or saline. Nothing else."

He's pacing around the room as he takes his gloves off and throws them in the trash bin, too agressively maybe, then he keeps rambling, like he's hurriedly trying to make you leave as soon as possible. "Avoid pools and the sea. It takes about six months to a year to heal, so don't... don't touch it, don't play with it or..." he clears his throat, "don't let anyone else play with it. And if it gets infected, come back immediately and I'll take a look at it." which he honestly hopes it won't happen. When he faces you, your top is back on and you're getting off the table.

"Alright, um...I'll do that." clearing your throat, your hand gripping the doorknob. "Thank you."

But right before you can exit the room, Jungkook says your name.

"_____." when you turn around to face him, it takes a few seconds for him to make eye contact from across the room. "It was good to see you."

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"Let me see!"

It's the first thing Chaelin says when she opens the door to her appartment. It's on the second floor, small enough to compare it to most expensive appartments you'd stayed in throughout your life, but big enough for Chaelin, her cat and her -impressive- collection of acrylic nail kits and pairs of high heels. It's also big enough for her to offer you the only guest room until summer is over so you didn't have to, one, stay at your parents' place, and two, find an appartment in a short period of time for a short period of time.

When you left years ago, you did so with the thought of 'never looking back'. You never really expected to return here, of all places. Maybe visit your best friend for a weekend at most, have dinner with your parents on a saturday and then go back to the new life you'd made for yourself on a sunday.

But that was before you'd caught Adam cheating.

Tale as old as time: childhood sweethearts get engaged, move in together, son of a bitch sleeps with the assistand he told his girlfriend not to worry about, and then the brokenhearted girl packs her bags and leaves the cheating bastard begging for her to come back.

You'd be lying if you said you were surprised.

Throughout your life, you'd learned to expect many things, regardless of being sheltered and babied by your family since you were born. Watched too much Maury and Dr.Phil. Too much Gossip Girl to know what the deal with life really is.

So, thankfully, you'd only shed a few tears, mostly because your ego and self steem were slightly triggered. You'd realize long before that your feelings for Adam started to disappear once he popped the question and you said yes. Your love story began as teenagers but soon after graduating, the two of you went on different paths: you'd matured, grown into your twenties while he got stuck at 17 and never stopped acting as such.

So yeah, whatever, break ups are hard. But they're not as hard when the love is gone and the sole reason to stay with your partner is to please your parents. You were also right when you expected your mom to tell you to 'forgive and forget' because 'those things just happen, it's not a big deal, honey'.

But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

The lanky nerd with braces, glasses and an anime obsession much bigger than his hentai obsession, which is saying a lot. The shy, awkward classmate who'd stuttered his undying crush for you when you were just kids. That one who you had rudely rejected like the bitch you used to be in high school.

But my God, Jeon Jungkook was anything but a kid now.

You were shocked. You were gagged. Couldn't seem to fathom what was happening and what your eyes were seeing. It took you a while to close your mouth when you realized JK was Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.

With messy black hair, a smoldering gaze free of glasses, piercings adorning both ears, and his right eyebrow,, the braces long gone showing perfectly straight - but still bunny like- teeth. The clothes he wore were loose, all black, but it was impossible not to notice the muscles of his back and arms, covered with tattoos from his hands to his forearms. You'd bet there were more of them underneath the fabric.

It was awkward at first. You didn't know what to do, or what to say. Didn't know if he rememberd you. So you chose to stay quiet while your body chose to react like it had never been in the presence of an attractive young man in it's entire life.

And oh, did it react.

He was reluctant, his old timid demeanor peeking through his newly adopted persona. But as soon as those hands came in contact with your skin, your whole body was lit on fire. Like you were 16 and losing your virginity over again and it was the first time a dude touched your boobs.

There shouldn't have been anything erotic about it -besides the fact that your entire breasts were exposed-, it should've been just a professional procedure. But those gloved fingers touched and pinched and suddenly you were too aware of Jeon Jungkook and the way you were starting to sweat profously, not due to the heat of the season.

You tried to distract yourself by looking at the cieling and not at his gorgeous face. Tried to avoid thinking about Jeon Jungkook and how his mouth would feel wrapped around you. Tried not to think about the way your panties were a second skin to your folds, and how tempted you were to grind your hips until you recieved some sort of friction with the jean fabric of your shorts. You wonder if he noticed you squeezing your thighs together. You hope not.

And then the needle happened. You never thought of yourself as a particularly kinky person. Sex with Adam was boring for the most part and you'd lost your libido for a long time. Stopped thinking about sex altogether. But the pain. The pain mixed with his hand rubbing soothing circles on your breast and his voice, as sweet as honey, guiding you through it. It made you reconsider a lot of things you'd once dismissed as 'weird' or 'deviant'

You swear you almost came right on his table.

And then your eyes connected, you made the mistake of calling his name like a satisfied woman who still needed more, and it was all gone. He stood up like a scared cat, gave you a bunch of explanations about the aftercare that you barely grasped without even looking at you and pretty much rushed you to leave.

So you walked, all the way from the tattoo parlor to Chaelin's appartment, mortified, and completely humilliated.

"Are you gonna let me see or not?" your friend says expectantly as you finally sit down after chugging a glass of iced water. You sigh, placing the glass on the table before carefully pulling down your top. "Oh my God, it looks so cool!" she gasps and you can't help a smile while she studies it in amazement. "Did it hurt?"

"Um, I guess." you keep out the part where you almost orgasmed, obviously, stopping her hand from touching when she reaches towards you. "Wait, no. He said something about not touching it for like six months or a year, I don't remember."

At that, Chaelin's eyebrows quirk up. "He? It was a he? Was he cute, at least?"

"You won't believe this..." looking away for a few seconds, you take a deep breath. "It was Jeon Jungkook."

There's a pause, a silence that fills the room when Chaelin's jaw drops. "Jeon Jungkook...pierced your nipple?"

You close your eyes, bracing yourself for what you're a hundred percent sure is coming.

"Ha..." there it is. "Ha ha..." you still know there's more. "Ha ha ha..."

Chaelin laughs hysterically for about God knows how long, while you keep drinking your glass of water unfaced, your mind drifting back to Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie, his tattoos and his stupid gloved hands.

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You know he's here.

Everything was cool, you were doing alright, having a great time with your vodka sprite in hand and your cute white bikini on. Chaelin was by your side, the guys were excited to have you back and thankfully, you'd avoided most questions about Adam and they'd avoided digging too deep into the topic. You'd sunbathed the whole afternoon, kept away from the water like he'd told you and ate the Hawaiian pizza Yoongi insisted on ordering despite Namjoon's and Jimin's complaints.

It's at night, when you're a little tipsy and your cheeks are flushed, that you feel it. You'd barely noticed Taehyung disappearing to let in a new guest.

You don't see him, but you feel him.

You're sitting on the pool tile steps, legs dangling and the water baely reaching your belly to make sure it doesn't touch your very sensitive and newly pierced nipple. Your back is facing the sliding glass doors of Hoseok's house, but the moment you hear his voice, smooth but animated as he converses with Taehyung, your body wakes up immediately, back straightening, goosebumps forming on your arms and nipples tightening against the fabric of your two piece.

You don't turn around, instead opting for downing the remaining of your drink and coming to the realization that, of course, Taehyung, social butterfly who'd always got along with everybody and remained friends with most people from high school, still keeps in touch with Jungkook.

You ignore him when he enters the pool, still peering from the corner of your eyes while pretending to be engaged in Chaelin's and Jihyo's conversation. Your mind sabotages you by taking you to that day a week ago at the tattoo parlor.

To the warmth of his hand, to the few strands of hair that his small ponytail couldn't keep together, to the way his eyes focused on such an intimate part of your body, to the endless ink decorating his skin, to-

Great. Now your bottoms are wet and not due to the water.

You don't miss Chaelin supressing a laugh and her not so subtle elbowing. You glance at her in warning and try to keep calm for the next fifteen minutes until Jin proposes moving to the living room to watch a movie.

"I'm gonna stay here for a little longer, guys." you say, after clearing your throat. You needed some time to gather yourself before being in a confined space with Jungkook.

"Are you sure?" Jin stops by your side to place a hand on your shoulder as everybody starts exiting the pool. "It's Mean Girls! You love Mean Girls! You never miss a minute of Mean Girls!"

Rolling your eyes, you wave him dismissively. "I know every dialogue on Mean Girls like the back of my hand, I think I'll be alright, Jin."

When everybody finally leaves, you take a deep breath, covering your face with your hands in an attempt to get him out of your head. Damn Jeon Jungkook and his irresisitble glow up.

"You okay?"

The unexpected voice startles you, a gasp finding its way out of your mouth and causing you to jump on your seat, heartbeat erratic as you instantly recognize who it belongs to. Your hand grasps your chest as if that would do anything to protect yourself against him.

"Shit, don't do that!" you say, the words almost getting stuck in your throat as you see him approaching you, still submerged in the pool. The more he nears you, the less water depth there is and the more visible his torso comes into view. Wich was exactly what you'd been avoiding.

Because Jeon Jungkook was ripped, as you'd imagined when you first encountered him.

Broad shoulders and strong biceps and chiseled abs and veiny forearms. Drenched hair, a full sleeve of tattoos and water dripping from delicious tan skin and all just so very hard. That paired up with a loopsided smile that does nothing but make you shudder.

"Sorry." he doesn't sound apologetic at all when he says that, the smirk adorning his features telling. "You just seemed a little off." you advert your gaze when he pushes his hair back.

"I'm fine, just...just wanted to be by myself."

"Oh" Jungkook's smile disappears. "I can leave, if you want me t-"

"No!" you're not sure where that comes from and neither does he, judging by the look on his face when your eyes find his. Eyebrows raised and mouth slightly parted, he's as surprised as you and there's an awkward silence for a few seconds. "Um, you don't have to. I mean, it's not my house, you can do whatever you want." you sniff and tame your voice, trying to seem cool and collected like you didn't just practically beg him not to go.

Ironic, considering this was exactly what you had been fearing for the past thirty minutes.

And then he smiles. A knowing smile. A smile that says 'you just totally checked me out and now you don't want me to leave'. A smile that you would have never associated with Jeon Jungkook of all people years ago. A smile that makes you want to look away but still keeps you in place.

"Sure." he says, closing the space between the two of you slowly but still leaving enough distance. "So, how's it going?"

You clear your throat, head high and determined not to let this man, or any man for that matter, turn you into a trembling mess. You're still you and you're not easily shaken by the opposite sex. Or at least that's what you helplessly chant in your head.

"Everything's cool. I'm on summer vacation now," a little white lie, "so I decided to-"

"The piercing." he says, the smile never leaving his face. "I meant how's the piercing."

"The pier- right." you almost miss the step he takes forward, all too aware of his height over yours but thankful for the centimeters that being propped on the stairs added to yours. "It's-" you almost, almost miss his knee touching your knee and him slightly separating your legs with his own inch by inch. Or how your thighs open unvoluntarely to welcome him in and how you can barely find coherent words to speak. "It's doing-" or the way his smile disappears and is instead focusing his dark stare fully onto yours.

"It's doing well." you finally say in a whisper, not being able to bring yourself to be louder.

He hums. "May I see it?" Jungkook wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and the action and his voice is enough to make you nod your head, bewitched.

His movements are unhurried, his hand coming up to tentatively come in contact with the flesh of your clavicle. His fingers skim through your skin upwards, his touch is feather-like when it wraps around your throat. You pant, and he stops but he doesn't move away, his eyes still focused on yours, studying you, daring you to pull back, to tell him to back off. But just a simple touch of his and you're fully under his control. It reminds you too much of the day you got that damn piercing.

Your lips are parted and for a moment he stays just like that. His body so close to yours but not close enough, and his hand slightly gripping your neck. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you can't wrap your head around the fact that something so simple sets your entire being alive and leaves you aching.

Then, as slow as he started, his hand travels from the front of your neck to the back, pushing your hair aside to carefully untie the straps of your bikini. He breathes through his nostrils, doesn't make a sound. He seems so collected it's starting to annoy you.

Instead, your breathing is ragged when the top falls down, exposing both your breasts to him. That's when he removes his eyes from yours and his jaw clenches. Your nipples perk up under his gaze, like they remember him and the effect he had on them just a week ago. You're at least glad you're not the only one affected but he seems to be a master at keeping it under wraps.

Then, his hand moves again, leaving goosebumps on your skin as it goes south. Jungkook takes his time, so deliberate you want to scream, until he's cupping your pierced breast, keeping away from the nipple just like he'd advised you a few days prior. You can't look away from his face, from his eyes observing you like you're a full course meal and he's been starving for days. You feel drops of water falling from his hair to your thighs, his thumb caressing your skin so delicately as it faintly nears your still tender nipple. Just nearing it, never touching it.

"Beautiful." his murmur is almost imperceptible and for a moment you think you've imagined it. Your back arches on its own, breast pushed against the palm of his hand, almost like your body is begging him to come closer, to touch you more, to feel you all over. He meets your eyes briefly, gauging your reaction, before going back to your chest. Suddenly, the grip on your breast tightens, fingers ever so softly squeezing your flesh. From your throat comes a mewl, your eyes shut and your legs close around his waist.

"Jungkook, please..." you whisper when you open your eyes. He looks at you, unvertainty written all over his face, lips bruised as if he had been biting on them too hard, gaze as glassy as yours. And just like that, the spell is broken. He blinks and his expression changes completely. Lips forming a straight line and jaw tight. His hand retracts, fixing your bikini top over your breasts before tying it around your neck like it originally was. Meanwhile your eyebrows crunch in confusion. But when you're about to start asking questions, he clears his throat.

"It's healing okay." he steps back, avoiding your eyes. "I'll see you inside."

Jungkook leaves the pool like nothing happened.

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Jungkook is fiddling, fixing the position of his glasses and combing through his straight hair with shaky hands, habits he's tried so hard to get rid of in his sixteen years of existence but still finds impossible to.

He can't help it. He's always been like this: the quiet and awkward kid in class who sits in the back, a misunderstood puppy in a sea of stronger dog breeds that could eat him alive. An outcast. Too geeky for his own good. Notebokes full of Dragon Ball doodles on the margins of the pages, the shelves in his room stacked with Marvel figurines, and a closet filled with outdated clothes that he has been inheriting from his older brother.

He has never been the type to stand out, always being overlooked by people like he's invisible. He doesn't mind though. He'd much rather be ignored than getting picked on by bullies like he used to in elementary school.

He never gets invited to parties. Ever. He's a nobody who barely speaks, and when he does he either stutters or manages to embarrass himself in one way or another. He's seen the look on people's faces when they look at him. Their eyes seem to scream 'weirdo' everytime he gets acknowledged.

So obviously the only reason he was invited to this particular party had a first and last name: Kim Taehyung. The only kid in Jungkook's entire life who didn't look at him in a funny way, the only kid who took the time to entangle in a random conversation with him after class and who seemed geniune enough to make Jungkook feel comfortable.

He's not sure how it happened, since Taehyung mostly hangs out with the cool kids. But somehow it did, and now Jungkook is uncomfortably standing in a living room full of drunk teens, looking directly at you.

You, the one girl Jungkook had been pining on for God knows how long. You, who are obviously too pretty, too popular, and way out of his league. You, with your plaid skirt and your polo shirt and those legs that never seem to end. You, who are sitting with your friends in a couch, drink in hand and visibly tipsy. And yet, he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone pull of the 'drunk-rosy-cheek' look better than you.

He can hear your laugh through the music and he already thinks it sounds better than whoever is playing in the background.

"Come on, Gukkie! Her friends are leaving and she's all by herself now! It's your chance" Taehyung's obviously drunk too because it took Jungkook a while to decypher his exact words. He'd disappeared for a while and now that he's back, he's pushing Jungkook in your direction.

"This was a mistake, Taehyung." Jungkook shakes his hair and steps back, quickly glancing at the front door to prepare his escape. But his new friend's grip on his hoodie keeps him in place.

"Guk, listen. The only thing you have to do, is walk up to her, and say 'hey I think you're, like, really pretty. Just letting you know. Bye!' That's it. Jung- Dude, Guk, seriously, look at me." Taehyung grabs Jungkook's cheeks, squishing them between his hands and forceing him to face him. "You've been crushing hard on her for years, my man. We're graduating and you won't see each other again. What's the worst thing that can happen? Getting rejected?"

Jungkook's eyebrows draw together. "Um, yeah?"

"Exactly! Getting rejected is not the end of the world, bro! It just means keep trying on other girls!" Taehyung releases his hold on Jungkook's cheeks. "I just think you're going to regret not telling your crush she's your crush. Who knows? Maybe in the future you two will get married."

Jungkook snickers, muttering a 'yeah right' under his breath. Still, he can't help the smile that Taehyung's words always seem to pull out of him.

"Now," Taehyung playfully slaps Jungkook before turning him in your direction again. "Go get 'em, tiger!"

"Okay," Mijoo's voice slices through Jungkook's memories. She's sitting on Jungkook's desk, munching on her brownies and looking at her coworker expectantly. "And then what?"

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, sits back on his chair, already feeling the effects of Mijoo's baked goods. "And then I walked up to her, like a damn fool, stutter and all. And I say:" he clears his throat, making an effort to do his best teenage Gukkie impression."'Hey, _____, um, so, I think you're beautiful and I've had a crush on you since seventh grade, haha, just wanted to let you know.'"

Mijoo rolls her eyes, still chewing. "And then what?"

"And then she looked me up and down, giggled, fucking giggled, Mijoo, and said 'Who are you, again?'" Mijoo gasps and Jungkook closes his eyes, trying to force that recollecion out of his head.

"What a bitch." she can't help but laugh before apologizing. Jungkook merely shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite of his brownie. "She didn't say anything else?"

"She said something along the lines of:" he clears his throat again, this time, doing an impression of you. "'That's sweet and all but, you and I... we're not the same. And I have a boyfriend, so...' She said that like I didn't know, like I wasn't aware of the school's it couple! Like I was dumb!"

Mijoo nods. "And now you want to fuck her even more than you did in high school."

"I- No! Well, yes. Fuck, of course I want to sleep with her! But I just... can't."

"Why not?"

"Did you hear anything about what I just told you or were you too concentrated trying to get high?"

It's Mijoo's turn to roll her eyes. "I heard everything you just told me. I just don't understand what the problem is. You two were sixteen. Sure, she was a bitch about it, but Lord knows I've been a bitch my entire life and now I'm not anymore." Jungkook raises an eyebrow at that. "Okay, sometimes I can be nice. But the point is..." Mijoo finishes her piece of brownie before getting off of Jungkook's desk. "It's been, what? Nine? Ten years? People change, JK. You're the best example of that. You want to fuck her and she obviously wants to fuck you too. You're both adults." she wipes her hands on her shorts. "I think it's time you fulfill that high school fantasy of yours."

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You've made up your mind.

And by you, it means Chaelin has made up your mind.

It didn't take long to convince you though. That last interaction with Jungkook cause too many emotions stirring within you. It left you hot, it left you bothered, it left you confused. Sure, it also left you a little bit embarrassed like the first time, but above everything else, that interaction with Jungkook left you absolutely livid.

Because who the fuck did Jeon Jungkook, formerly known as Guk, Gukkie, Jungukkie, and currently known as JK, think he was to come near you, speed your heart rate's up, and then runaway like that?

You've spent days thinking about it. About that face, about that body, about those hands and- shit. You're doing it again.

You've spent days trying to push those intrusive thoughts. Spent days trying to bury what happened. You've spent days trying to keep quiet, not telling anyone about it and just wishing that stupid spark of desire simply went away.

But it has just been simply unavoidable. You haven't been able to ignore the sleepless nights with your brain drifting back to that night and forbidding your hand from slipping under your panties. Or the excessive amount of time during the day where images of him suddenly popped in your head and wouldn't go away, even with you squeezing your thighs to try to make the ache go away.

So you ended up ranting and ranting and ranting to the only person you could confide on, who is obviously your best friend. Your best friend, who's too smart for her own good and knows you too well for your liking. Because apparently your moodiness and snappy remarks couldn't go unnoticed.

And after explaining the fiasco over a bottle of wine -and minutes of endless laughing on Chaelin's part because, again, it's Gukkie you two were talking about and, according to her, this was "the most karmic thing I've ever seen"-, she gave you the best advice an older sister could ever give.

"Fuck him."

"I know right? Fuck him!"

"No. I mean, fuck him."

And now here you are. Right inside that room you stepped in weeks ago, confronting the man in question with the same confidence that has always distinguished you from others and trying to act like the fluttering inside your belly wasn't nauseauting.

"A date."

"Yes."

"You want to go on a date with me." this wouldn't be so hard if Jungkook didn't look so delectable in a plain white t-shirt and ripped jeans. You cross your arms over your chest, doing your best to not look down at the exposed skin of a man who obviously worked out a lot and apparently, never skipped leg day. "What's the catch?"

He's sitting on his chair, back resting comfortably and legs spread, narrowing his eyes at you and probably wondering why the girl at the front desk let you in without an appointment. Also, probably wondering if there was a catch to all of this.

"There's no catch. I just want to go to the fair this weekend. I'll ask Taehyung for your number and text you the date and the exact place we'll be meeting. Unless..." your quirk one of your eyebrows. "Unless you're already planning on how you'll chicken out this time."

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Of course, Jungkook says yes to going on a date with his high school crush but spends the following days overthinking every single thing.

He can't help but feel like it's kinda sketchy. What if you're planning your vendetta on him? What if you don't even show up and he ends up there looking like a damn idiot? What if you hate him and are just messing up with him? What if that incident in high school is going to repeat itself?

"If she doesn't show up, you simply move on and never speak to her again. It's that simple. She can't have that much power over you to cry about something like that." Mijoo had said that same day she let you in the tattoo parlor after you'd asked to see Jungkook. Jungkook's coworker hadn't even question you and just motioned you to Jungkook's room with a knowing smile on her face. Later that day, Jungkook had scolded her about it and she'd simply shrugged.

He considers cancelling, eyes reading the 'won't be able to make it, sorry (sad face emoji)' over and over again and fingers hovering over the send button so many times he's lost count. But then he remembers that comment of yours about him chickening out and Jungkook starts seeing red.

How couldn't you understand he's just terrified of you rejecting him one more time? Sure, Jungkook is now an adult who doesn't get butthurt over stuff like that. He's experienced too much after graduating from high school and he's a much stronger individual than his fragile self back was back then.

But something about you just makes him feel so... weak.

He still finds it impossible to concieve where he got the courage to approach you like that at Taehyung's pool, or how he brought himself to touch you for longer than a minute without coming in his pants. He'd enjoyed it too much. Allowing him to see you so exposed, just for him. He'd be so tempted to kiss you right there and then, to run his hands up and down your thighs and fully wrap your legs around him to let you known how much you'd affected him. Once you called his name, it was like he'd finally snapped out of it and backed away like he'd been burned by you. He spent the next twenty minutes trying to keep himself from pulling down his pants and jerking off in his friend's bathroom.

It's terrible. Because he feels like the teenager he used to be when you're around. Shy, insecure and overall a mess. You showing up in his life after so many years and now apparenly being interested in him seems like a dream that he's not sure he wants to keep being in or wake up from before it's too late and he falls back into that tumoltuous longing that will inevitably end up in heartbreak. His heartbreak.

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It's saturday night, he's standing by himself in the crowded fair at the spot. You're fifteen minutes late and he's already about to turn back and dip out. He feels too awkward and the nerves are eating him alive.

You're not going to show up. You're not going to show up and now he feels and looks even dumber than the time he told you he was crushing on you. You're not even going to show up and now he's going to come back home, get drunk by himself and curse your name for-

"Hey!" he turns around to the sound of your voice and sees you running towards him. "Sorry I'm late! I couldn't find my phone and spent like thirty minutes looking for it. Turns out, Sharon Stone, was taking a nap on top of it and I didn't even notice."

"Sharon Stone?"

"Chaelin's cat."

To be honest, he's too surprised to process your explanation right away. He might also be a little speechless because that sky blue sundress looks too good on your skin and your eyelashes are so long, framing your beautiful eyes, and your lips are all glossy and kisseable that it takes him a while to find his own voice.

He clears his throat. "It's alright." scratching the back of his head, he momentarely adverts his gaze from you in an attempt to not get distracted by how soft your hair looks and how much he wants to wrap it around his hands in a ponytail. "Um, where do you want to go first?"

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Almost an hour and a half later, when the sun has already disappeared and you're both surrounded by colorful lights, Jungkook decides to buy the both of you hot dogs and a drink and you both settle down on a bench.

You've been walking all over the fair, going from booth to booth, playing any game in sight Jungkook dared you to -he obviously had a competitive streak-: from the ballon and dart games, to the shooting games, to the bumping cars, to the ball-in-basket one. To say you were having fun was an understatement.

You'd almost regretted setting the date up. You were sure he wouldn't even show up and if he did, you were scared of how awkward things could get between the two of you. And if things were awkward, you were sure it would only take less than thirty minutes for the both of you to part ways and never talk again about such failure of a date.

To your surprise, none of that happened.

The conversation was flowing, both of you acting like you were strangers on their first date getting to know each other, which, to be fair, that's exactly what it felt like. There was a slight banter, teasing each other when one of you lost in whatever game you were playing while the other was obviously winning. There were laughs and a funny feeling in your tummy whenever you'd walk side by side and his arm brushed yours.

There was no stiffness on his shoulders, no mention of the past or your previous encounters, no acknowledgement of the blatant sexual tension you'd experienced before, not an ounce of avoidance whenever your eyes met his and he was even sure of himself enough to place a hand on your lower back or briefly interwine your fingers with his to guide you through the mass of people.

It felt like you'd both unspokenly agreed on making each other feel comfortable enough to have a good time.

"I didn't think you were going to show up, to be honest." you suddenly say, taking a sip of your strawberry juice and thankful to finally let your feet rest for a while.

Jungkook looks at you, hot dog mid air and eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline. "You didn't think I was going to show up? I didn't think you were going to show up." you simply shrug, lowering your gaze seepishly, the beginning of a smile on both your faces. He surprises you by tilting your head in his direction with his forefinger. You watch him watching you, a little dazed, a little lost in how his dark hair messily falls over his forehead and his equally dark eyes study your face, his thumb swiping over your lower lip. "You um... There was ketchup right there." he lies.

"Oh" you say, feeling your face heating up. "Thanks. Red doesn't really match this dress." you manage a smile and tuck a lock of your hair behind your ear.

At that, he eyes your dress for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. He's debating on whether or not to say something but you beat him to it.

"I'm sorry, by the way."

"For being late? I already told you it's fin-"

"No." you shake your head. "For... that time when we were young and I was such a concieted brat." you say, looking away , trying to find anything else that's not his pretty face. "I thought I was a queen bee back then. I was annoying and rude, specially to you. I..." you lick your lips. The cherry glittery gloss was already gone. "I thought it was cute, what you said. There was no reason for me to act like that. I know this doesn't make anything right but..." when you turn to face him again, there's still the same expression on his face. "I'm sorry."

A few seconds go by before it's him who's shaking his head. "It's okay. It was a long time ago, anyway." he smiles at you, although it doesn't reach his eyes and seems sorta forced. You sigh, and he takes your hand. "Let's go to the ferris wheel."

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tell you're tense. You're sitting right beside him in the ferris cabin, your back is all straight, you're facing forward and he believes you haven't blinked for what feels like an eternity. He thinks it has everything to do with your conversation a few minutes ago. You were probably not content with his response but what could Jungkook do? There was really no point in apologizing for something that happened years ago, but at the same time, he didn't want to hold anything against you like a resentful asshole because it was really not who he was. But there was still a little bit of stingyness inside of him and he didn't know how to make it go away.

At the end of the day, here you were, on a date with him that you'd asked for, getting along and asking questions about him and laughing at his jokes and trying to start all over again.

But then the ferris wheel starts moving, and he finally understands why you look so uncomfortable.

It's the way you immediately grip his forearm, nails digging in his skin and he swears he hears the smallest gasp forcing itself out your throat.

"Are you... scared?" he tentatively asks.

You say nothing for a while, not moving an inch. He would laugh if you didn't look so pained about it.

"I don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters." you finally say through gritted teeth.

"It's not really that small and ferris wheels are not rollercoasters. " your nails dig deeper and he winces. "Okay, okay. You don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters, and that includes ferris wheels. So why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know. I've never liked ferris wheels but you seemed excited about it, so..."

There's a silence after that in the environment, neither of you exactly sure of what to say or how to act. Until Jungkook moves one of his hands hands until it's resting on the one who's holding onto him for dear life, fingers caressing yours. The warmth of his hand spreads through yours and although it's almost July and you can already feel your sweaty back staining your dress, it's oddly comforting. What's more comforting even, is him twisting his body towards you and talking with the calmest and most soothing tone you've ever heard.

"Look at me." you do instantly, unwillingly, and kinda wish you hadn't. It's almost as if your body will do anything he says without question. Like he has some sort of power over it to just react however he wants. His eyes bore into yours and suddenly the cab doesn't seem so suffocating. "It's just you and me right now. We're not even on a ferris wheel." the corners of his mouth turn slowly upwards. You zone out the environment, suddenly too aware of him and how close he is and how loud the beating of your heart is to your own ears.

"Jungkook."

You swallow the knot in the back of your throat when he removes his hand from yours. It almost makes you protest, - now realizing you've losened the tight grip on his arm- , before it craddles your face, keeping you in place while bringing his body closer.

"You have to stop saying my name like that."

With his thigh touching your thigh, your whole demeanor melts. When he leans closer, and you feel his breath fanning over your lips, your eyes shut closed.

"Tell me I can-" he starts to say.

"Yes." you finish for him. He doesn't doubt on closing the distance between you two. His lips touch yours and your body shakes in excitement. It's just him lightly skimming your lips with his but it's already too much and at the same time, not enough. It has you deepening it, yourself moving closer when he kisses you again. It has you relaxing against him, the tenseness prior disappearing and making you arch your back when his tongue asks for permission.

But it's exactly then, the moment you open your lips to him, that has you losing your mind.

The sparks fly, traveling from your head to your toes and then settling on the pit of your stomach as soon as the kiss starts to turn desperate and rough. When he nibbles your lips with his teeth, it makes you mewl and whine and your nipples tight against the cotton of your dress. It makes the metal barbell to feel uncomfortable, slightly painful. And when he goes back to being messy and filthy with his tongue tangled with yours, your thighs close on their own.

He forces himself to pull his hand back and bring it down, finding the parting of yd opening them for him. "Wait," you say, your fingers wrapping around his forearm as you try to catch your breath."The ferris-" he shuts you up with another kiss.

"We're not on a ferris wheel." he reminds you, a soft whisper against your mouth. And for whatever reason, you believe him.

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"He fingered you on the ferris wheel."

"Yes."

"And you came before the ride was over."

You take a small sip of wine, your eyes focusing on the TV where a rerun of the Golden Girls is playing, although, to be fair, lately you haven't been able to pay much attention to anything else but a certain brunet with doe eyes and kisseable lips. "Yes."

She hums, stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl between your thighs.

"How long did it took? Like five minutes?"

There's a pause in which you clench your jaw, your fingers twitching around the glass in your hand, and then you answer. "Probably less."

There's another pause, and then-

"Ha...Ha ha...Ha ha ha-"

You let her laugh. It's okay. You knew you had it coming.

Chaelin knows the pillow you throw right at her face is also something she had coming.

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It's not that you're mad.

Jungkook and you had a great time on that fair date, he made you laugh, bought hot dogs and drinks for the two of you and got you off inside the cab of a ferris wheel on record time with those magical, long fingers of his. Technically, there shouldn't be anything to be angry about.

Except it's been a week and you can't stop thinking about him, about wanting more, and about those words that he left you with after the ferris wheel ride ended, when you had tried to return the favor.

'Next time, maybe.'

And there hasn't been a next time.

The thought of texting him or giving him a call to ask for another date is persistent in your mind. It remains while you do the laundry or wash the dishes, while you shower, while you eat or while you spend your days at the beach with Chaelin. There's always the incessant desire to reach out towards your phone, unlock it and dial his number to beg for more.

But you'd never been one to beg, so you resist the urge everytime that feeling starts to creep up on you and it washes over you like a wave. You silence your phone and try to concentrate on making the most out of your summer.

It's one random night, when you're tiredly dragging your feet across Chaelin's apartment's carpet, yawning and ready to succumb to a well needed slumber, that you see your phone screen's lighting up with a message.

Your heart pathetically leaps inside your chest when you read his name.

'you free on saturday?'

You wish you could say you ghosted him, ignored his text and moved on with your life until it was him who begged you for another date. But the truth is you opened it in a matter of seconds and typed 'i'm free, why?' back in a rush with trembling fingers.

So now you're on the passanger seat of his car while he sits on the driver seat, the first saturday night of July, like he's Danny Zuko and you're Sandy Olsson, watching a vintage movie in a drive-in theater which plot you don't give a shit about, even if Jungkook's date plan idea made something inside of you churn with adoration.

And the only reason why you don't give a single damn about the movie playing in front of your eyes, is because you're hot. Way too hot. And the reason and cause is none other than the boy-now-turned-man sitting on your left.

You barely exchanged words when he picked you up, just rode in silence until you got to your destination and you bet he can feel as well as you do the tension in the air.

You've surveyed him a few times from the corner of his eye, noticing him fiddling with the rings around his fingers and shifting in his seat from time to time. And if the sight of his fingers bring memories that you've tried to bury to keep yourself from lunching towards him, a brief glance at his forearms, adorned with ink drawn through his golden flesh -doing a poor job at concieling the veins running underneath- and his skin-tight jeans wrapping those muscled thighs of his is enough to have you be the one squirming in your seat.

A woman can only endure so much, and you come to that realization thirty minutes into the movie.

"I want to suck your cock." you say, a stern expression on your face as you turn your body in his direction.

Jungkook frozes as your voice slides over him. It takes him a couple seconds to look at you, shock widening his eyes and parting his lips.

"Huh?" he manages, his grip on the steering wheel turning his knuckles white.

Without separating your gaze from his, you gather your hair and tie it in a ponytail with the hair tie previously around your wrist. You don't miss the quick glance he sneaks into the curvature of your neck and the valley between your breasts.

Inching forward, closing in on him, you place one of your hands on top of his thigh, the action making his whole body tense. "____..." he whispers your name in a warning that doesn't sound convincing even in his own ears.

You smile, your eyes never wavering from his as your hand inches upwards, slowly caressing over the fabric of his jeans until you finally come across what you were looking for.

His hand flies to your wrist, stilling your movements. "____, this is not-". He starts, but his voice gets stuck inside his throat when you palm his undoubtly growing erection.

"Shh." your shaky breath fans over his cheek and you force yourself on your knees on the passanger seat in a more comortable possition to stop the trembling to reach them.

You fumble with the belt holding his pants in place, then with the button and finally with the zipper. He helps you by lifting his hips to pull his jeans and boxers to his thighs and you have to bite back a mixture between a gasp and a moan at the sight below you. You haven't even seen Jeon Jungkook naked all the way, but the mere sight of his hard cock with pre-cum glistening on his crown is probably the sexiest thing you've ever had the pleasure of appreciating.

It gets sexier when you wrap your hand around the base and his body melts in the driver seat, throwing his head back with his eyes shut. It gets even sexier when you finally lower your head, swirling your tongue over the head before finally engulfing him fully in the wet warmth of your mouth.

"Shit." his voice is tight, uneven as his hand loosely grips your ponytail, as if careful not to accidentally hurt you and break the glorious moment.

Although you wouldn't mind at all. Because the moment your hands are on him, and your tongue is on his shaft, that's the only thing you care about. Your belly is twisting, an undeniable wet spot on your panties as the fabric sticks to your folds, and the more you suck Jungkook, the more you want from him. His earthy taste is addicting and the soft little whimpers he occasionally can't prevent himself from are making you want to milk him until he can't take it no more. There's this desire within you to whorship him and his cock like you had been dreaming for the past weeks.

"This is s-so fucking h-hot." he rasps between ragged breaths, the bobbing of your head, sliding up and down his dick as your hand works the centimeters your mouth can't take is about to make him faint.

"Getting a blowjob?" you joke, your throat starting to feel sore as you kiss his leaking tip.

"N-no." he draws in a rough breath when you take him all of him again. "You giving me a blowjob... T-the f-fact that anyone c-could see us..." he darts a quick glance at your body, your ass up in the air and your dress sliding down, almost exposing you completely. "The fact that-ah! Shit..." he squeezes his eyes when he feels a glob of your spit lubricating him.

There's a sudden need to make you feel the same, to touch your skin and have you shaking the same way you have him. So one of his hands travels from your spine, to your perked ass, finally dragging the cotton of your dress to allow himself to see your thin white panties. "The fact that anyone could see you l-like this," he murmurs, regaining a little bit of control when he squeezes one of your cheeks. "letting t-them see you s-sucking my cock and..." he smirks when he feels you gasping around him, his fingers trapped between your thighs and pushing them inside your heat easily "and letting them see me fingering this pretty little pussy."

Soon after that he's cumming in your mouth while you're cumming around his fingers.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

At first, it's mostly on weekends when you see each other. Weekends of stolen kisses and soft sighs and whispering against each other's lips. Then weekends turn to week days, sitting on grass while sipping on refreshing beverages, drawing each other laughs, elbows touching as you walk around the park side by side because the both of you are too scared to interwine your fingers together.

Jungkook feels content like this: sitting on the sand with you between his thighs, admiring the sunset while nuzzing your neck and inhaling your scent every now. He likes waching you enoying your strawberry ice cream, almost forgetting the chocolate chip one already melting in his hand.

"If you were an ice cream flavor,which one would you be?" you ask him, relaxing against his chest.

"Rocky road."

"Why?"

He shrugs behind you. "Everyone likes rocky road."

You hum, playfully rolling your eyes. "What about me? Which ice cream flavor would I be?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer."

"Lemon sherbet? Out of all of the flavours out there, you're rocky road and I'm lemon sherbet?"

"Lemon sherbet, in the summer." he corrects.

"Okay, fine. Why?"

"You're boring and basic."

You gasp, trying to feign outrage but not being able to repress the laugh that escapes your throat. You elbow him, his laugh mixing with yours while taking the time to wrap his arms around your form, the breeze blowing your hair allowing him a spot between your neck and your shoulder. "You're boring and basic, but once you have a taste..." he presses a small kiss on your skin, causing the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck to rise. "Once you have a taste, specially on the hottest day in the middle of summer, you can't stop tasting and licking until there's no more lemon sherbet left."

You suck in on a breath when he craddles your jaw to face him. "It's been my favourite flavor since I was a kid." he kisses you immediately after, his lips swallowing the small whimper now stuck in your throat.

You close your eyes as his tongue opens your mouth, arousal blasting your insides and something much, much deeper that you fear to even name shredding your chest.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

The beginning of august comes faster then you two realize, but what you both do realize is how hard it's becoming to stay away from each other.

It's been thirty days of dates happening almost everyday, sharing high school memories and anecdotes of the time you spent away from each other. Hours of getting to know each other and opening up to each other. From failed relationships to new friendships. Of park dates walking side by side and fingers now interwined because you both realized one day that, fuck it.

It's difficult to sleep when you realize you're starting to catch serious feelings for somebody who was just supposed to be a fling. It's hard to sleep when his face, his voice and his touch and thoughts of missing him when you don't see each other start haunting you at night.

It's hard for Jungkook to focus on work when you're everything that's occupying his mind. Because he has a hundred sketches to make but he's too busy thinking about the hundred different sketches he would make of you.

It's hard not to send him a goodnight text, just like it's hard for him not to reply in a matter of seconds, almost as if he was already waiting to recieve it.

Jungkook thinks of you at night. Of how pretty and absolutely perfect you are for him. Of the taste of your lips, the way your hair feels between his fingers, or the flush on your cheeks when he makes you cum as droplets of sweat accumulate between your breasts. He thinks about your voice. He also thinks about the amount of hours left to be able to listen to it again.

But mostly he thinks about how ridiculous this situation is. Because he was stupidly crushing on you when you were only teenagers, daydreaming about a chance with you. And now his crush is long gone and he's starting to realize that he's falling, and falling fast.

You, too, think of Jungkook at night. Of his ability to bring a smile out of you, to soothe you with just a few words and filling your belly excitement, happiness and feelings you're sure you've never felt before.

Jungkook's managed to imprint himself in your dreams, and you, in his.

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Getting drunk with Jungkook is fun and messy.

It's fun because he lets loose, he stutters a lot like he used to do when he was a teenager and he makes you laugh louder than ever before. It's messy because he has no control over his hands as they explore your body, clumsily taking your clothes off as his mouth laps at the breast he's allowed to touch.

He's more forceful and dominating too, pinning your hands above your head, and commanding you to keep them right there, on the pillows of his bed. When you rebel against it, your fingers finding the hard planes of his chest, he pulls away from you and places them back where he left them. "Don't make me tie you up." he threatens, and your body shudders beneath him.

He sucks, and bites and leaves marks all over your skin, grunting in response to your moans. Creating a path of kisses from your lips to your stomach, his shoulders separating your knees, opening you up only for him. And thankfully, when you reach down to tug at the strands of hair framing his face, he lets you, because he knows you need something to hold on to the moment his tongue eats you up. He leaves his fingertrips on your thighs as he keeps you in place, not allowing you to runaway. Just forcing you to take it as he takes from you.

And when you cum, he doesn't back away. He keeps sucking, and licking and punishing you with his mouth until you're cumming over and ove again, screaming and begging for his cock.

Having Jungkook over you, both completely naked, skin to skin and only sweat in between is more than you could've ever fantazised about. He slurls your name when he puts the condom on. He would do anything to feel you raw, but he also knows he wouldn't be able to last a minute. The sight of you spread open, with your cheeks darkened by a crimson blush and your hair tangled all over his pillow is a picture he wants to keep forever.

He enters you when you call his name, your voice dripping with need. He stretches your warm and wet felsh, slowly easing himself into you at first, until he's fully inside and your bodies are completely in union. A shiver runs down Jungkook's spine when he looks at your contorted face in pleasure, your lips forming an 'O' and your pussy clenching around him.

"Oh, my God." you moan into the dark of Jungkook's room, and even then, he can clearly appreciate every curve of your body lifting off the mattress to connect with his. He lowers himself on his elbows on either side of your head, caging you in and capturing your mouth with his.

"I know, baby." he murmurs. It's hot, in the middle of August but suddenly Jungkook doesn't hate summer as much as he used to. Not with you sharing the heat with him. "It's way beyond what I could ever imagine." You nod hurriedly against his lips, your arms finding their way around his neck as he starts rocking in and out of you.

"It's too good." you cry, when he hits a particular spot that has you rolling your eyes in bliss and gripping his waist tighter with your legs against you. Your fingers thread through his hair, not bothered by the beads of sweat gathered on the nape of his neck.

"Too good..." he agrees, not missing the shiver that's shaking your own frame when he picks up his speed. "You have no idea what I would do t-to fucking feel you with n-no barriers between us," his movements become frantic as his hips slap against yours, his jaw clenched as he keeps talking, "to s-stuff you full of my c-cum over and over again until it won't stop d-dripping."

Jungkook's voice against your ear has you trembling and your orgasm nearing closer, your nails scratching down his back as his thrusts overpower your form. "Would you like that?" he asks with his voice strangled.

"Y-yes. Anything y-you want."

"You'd take all of my cum like a good cum-slut?"

You hate the fact that that's what makes you come undone. The twisting and knotting in the pit of your stomach finally snapping until you're holding on to him like you never want to let him go and he's following soon after.

Because if Guk, Gukkie, Jengukkie was not only able to make you come in less than a few minutes with his fingers or his tongue, but he was also able to make you cum instantly just by calling you a good cum-slut, that means you're fucked. Like, really, really fucked.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

There's a knot in Jungkook's stomach and a suffocating grip around his vocal chords as he caresses your skin. The sun is rising in the distance with the first rays of light entering his room through the window. Your shamphoo is intoxicating him, numbing him and enticing him to bury his nose in the tangled curls pressing against his chest. Your arm is thrown across his stomach, your breathing leavig goosebumps all over his body.

"It's too early. Go back to sleep." you mumble against his heart. He wonders if you can feel it dangerously speeding up.

"I can't." he says, voice struggling to stay balanced. "I have to tell you something."

You hum in response, sleep still interwined with your body, your arm tightening around him. You sigh in content, expecting him to elaborate.

He wets his suddenly dry lips. "I don't want this to end. In fact, ____.... I want more. Need more."

"Jungkook..." your whole body goes rigid right away, untanglling your bodies from each other and sitting up on the mattress.

"No, listen to me." he mimicks your movements, rapidly grabbing your hands to make you look at him. His eyes are expressive, a mixture of fear and hope swirling in his dark irises. "I wake up everyday, and you're the first thing I think of. I go on about my day, and I keep thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and counting down the hours until I get to see you again. I spend every night dreaming about you, and when we'e together, the only thing I can think about is how I wish I could stop time so I don't have to say bye to you the next morning. ____, I-"

"Jungkook, stop please." you shake your head, pushing away from him and in desperate need of air. You press a hand against your chest, beating back the throb of pain while the other curls in a tight fist, the feeling of your fingernails digging into your palm less painful than the ache inside your heart. "This... This wasn't supossed to happen, Jungkook." you start pacing around the room, as if trying to find an exit while avoiding his gaze. "This was just a summer fling. That's all it was, I'm supposed to come back to the city in two weeks and-"

"A summer fling?" a sardonic sneer comes out of him. "Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again..." he mumbles to himself before rising from the bed. You stop immediately, a shiver quaking through you as his impressive frame intimidates His eyebrows are drawn together and his dark eyes are void of any prior emotion. "You're going back to the city in two weeks? And you didn't care to tell me until now, after I just spilled my guts to you?"

You eyes fill up with uncomfortable tears, reaching one arm towards him. "Jung-"

He flinches, taking one step back. "A summer fling is all I mean to you?"

"Ju- "

"Look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me that's all I mean to you. A summer fling." panic crawls up your throat. There's the need within you to confirm, to stare into his beautiful and stern eyes and tell him that, yes, that's all he is to you. But you've never been a good liar. So nothing comes out. You opt for wrapping your ams around yourself wishing they were his and lowering your eyes to the ground. "I think... I think you should leave."

Those are the last words he says to you, and the last thing you see when you turn around one more time after gathering your clothes, is his back as he looks out the window.

You allow yourself to cry the exact moment you step into Chaelin's apartment. Your friend is sitting on the couch, bowl of cereal in hand and a fresh cup of coffee sitting on the livingroom's table.

"Hey, you're early tod- Baby, what's wrong?"

"Please, don't laugh."

That morning, you lay down for hours on the couch with your head on Chaelin's lap while she softly brushes your hair as you cry, hiccup, fight through the pain in your heart and relate to her as best as you can the latest events.

She doesn't laugh at all.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

"She'll come back." Mijoo's slurred words do nothing to put Jungkook's state at ease that night. He simply shrugs, fingers clenching at his sides, frowing into his drink before gulping down the bitter taste of vodka in one shot. "Seriously, I think she's just afraid. My ex was the same."

"Comparing her to your ex is not the analogy you think it is."

"Ugh, shut up. Things didn't work with my ex because she was a bitch." Jungkook gives Mijoo a pointed look which she responds to by rolling her eyes and sipping on her rum coke. "Your girl is not a bitch. She used to be a bitch. What she did this morning was bitchy, but, like I said, she's just being a pussy. If she only wanted sex with you, she wouldn't have been doing couple stuff with you the entire summer."

"Whatever. I don't care." he lies and Mijoo knows he's lying but decides to drop the subject fo now.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

"We can't keep spending our days smoking weed." Chaelin speaks over Blanche's voice on the TV.

"I know. I'm just sad."

"You have to come back and tell him how you feel."

"I know."

There's a beat of silence before your friend kicks your thigh with her feet.

"I know and I will." you mumble through red eyes and smoke clouds.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

It's September first and it doesn't feel like Jungkook's birthday at all. He's been trying to focus on his work, alternating between isolating in full hermit mode and hanging out with friends to drink away his sorrow. The days have gone by and before he could realize it, he woke up today with over twenty text messages wishing him a happy day and a throbbing hangover.

He dresses up on autopilot. First a cotton shirt, then a pair of jeans and lastly, his Nike's. He doesn't bother tying his sneakers just like he doesn't bother taking a shower. He smokes a cigarette for breakfast, the death stick making him feel nauseaus on an empty stomach. And then he goes to work.

He's been repeating the same routing for the past weeks and he's not thinking of changing it, not even on his bithday.

He spends hours drawing, tattooing and drawing some more between yawns. He ignores texts an phone calls and simply waits until the day is over to go home, go to bed and forget about the fact that you're probably on your way to the city and that he hasn't crossed your mind not even once.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

Inkphoria.

You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping cup of ice cream as it melts down your fingers the more you wait. The shop is already empty and it's starting to darken out side, and still you're so hot. Your shorts are heavy and your tank top is sticking to your skin. You didn't even bother to put on any make, although your eyebags definitely needed some concieling and your lashes some dimension to hide the fact that you'd been crying for the last few days.

'You're crazy about him.'

Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.

You've lost count of how many times your best friend has given your advice, or simply encouraged you to do something you've been too scared to try.

'And he's cazy about you too.'

Chaelin might be wrong about marmite and the movie Cats, but she's definitely now wrong about anything regarding your and Jungkook.

That's it. You briefly close your eyes, inhale a deep breath then release it slowly. You start walking. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing the door open.

The tattoed blonde looks up from the counter the second you come into view. She smiles at the distance between you two. "You can come closer. I won't bite."

You clear your throat, stalking closer to her. "Is he-"

"He's in the back." she replies before you can finish you question. You close your mouth, clear your throat and nod your head.

"Thanks, Mijoo." she gives you a small wink, her smile easing your nerves like she had three months ago.

She watches you disappear. She shakes he head, her smile meeting her eyes. "I told him so."

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

Jungkook ignores the knock on his door at first. It's almost ten and the parlor is about to close. He just has to finish this last fucking sketch so he can grab his shit and go the fuck ho-

Knock knock.

He growls, exhasperation cursing through him. He runs a hand through his messy pile of hair, his rings tangling between the strands, making him wince in pain. "Come in." he grunts under his breath. The door opens. "Mijoo, I really have to finish-"

He stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sees you.

"Hey." you say after a moment of hesitation.

"Hey." he replies and although there's something inside, deep in his chest, shouting at him to stand up, run up to you and kiss your face while he tells you how beautiful you look right now and how happy he is to see that you're still here, he decides against it. "Listen, ____, I'm pretty busy-"

"No, you listen to me." you cut him off abruptly. He looks taken aback and is already opening his mouth to say something, but you're not having it. "Please, just... Let me talk."

Silence looms between the two of you for a while, a staring contest defying each other to back down. When you take one step inside and close the door behind you, he sighs and leans back against his chair.

You move towards him slowly, your lip caught between your lip going through your mind for the speech you'd been preparing the last few days. Your hands are sticky due to the the sugary treat liquifying in your hand. "I know there's no reason you should give me another chance after rejecting you in high school, and there's definitely no reason why you should forgive me for the way I shut you out a few weeks ago. You've been confessing your feelings to me since we were teenagers, and now it's my turn to tell you exactly how I feel about you."

"Jungkook, the truth is... I like you so much. I like you more than I've ever liked anyone. Ever. I said this was just a summer fling, and I was lying. I was lying because there's no way a simple summer fling could make me feel the way you do. There's no way a simple summer fling could make me want not just summer with you, but also fall and winter, and spring and every summer that comes next."

You hadn't realize when your eyes filling up with tears until the sight of him starts blurrying in front of you. His fingers reach yours, his thumb comforting on your skin. "____, it's okay-"

"I'm not done yet." you sniffle, gathering enough courage to continue. "I brought you a lemon sherbet because you said it was your favourite. But you also implied I was your favourite, and I want to keep being you favourite, but now it's already melted and-"

The corners of Jungkook's lips start pulling upward as he tugs you towards him, his heart loudly jumping inside his chest. "Shhh, come here."

He takes the ice cream from your hand and places it on his desk. Then he's helping you onto his lap, your head tucked under his chin and your arms wapping on their own around his neck.

He doesn't care about your sticky fingers or the wet stains of your tears in his shirt. The only thing he cares about is the fact that you're right there, letting him engulf your frame and drown in the scent and warmth he'd misses so much.

≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾

The first day of June has Jungkook sweating and wishing for a haircut. Jungkook usually hates summer. He hates the fact that he has to shower at least twice a day, and the fact that the heat is almost unbearable to sleep in and also the fact that he's easily sunburnt.

This year, however, Jungkook likes summer a little bit more.

"Excuse me, miss. Do you have an appointment?" it's the fact that you're starting to wear those summer dresses he loves so much, and the fact that your skin glows under the sun like glitter, and also the fact that he can lick ice cream off of it whenever he desires.

"I am the appointment." your giggle is almost childlike, playing with Jungkook's heart strings. You shut the door behind you, nearing him. You also seem to always have that flush on your cheeks. Although he likes to think part of it is due to him. He doesn't say anything else as he puts his pencil down and instead turns around in the chair to have you immediately on top of his thighs.

Yeah, he also likes the path your lips trace from his cheek, to his jaw, ending at the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. It still makes his body quaver to this day.

"Let me see." he murmurs against you forhear, his hand already working on unbottoning the front of your dress.

"Mijoo hasn't left yet." you whisper back, your smile impossible to supress and the faint whimper impossible to hide when his fingers expose your breast and tug at the titanium barbell adorning the already hardened nub.

Jungkook loves knowing he was the one to do that, and also the only one to play with it. He doesn't hesitate when he dips his head. "As if we'd ever cared about that." he adds, wrapping your sole point in his mouth.

He fucks you on his studio table with your legs around his waist and his tongue playing with both your breasts, the tattoo sketches long forgotten, scattered on the floor as he whispers against your flesh something that sounds a lot like 'I love you'.

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #bts fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #bts #bts fic #bts smut #jungkook fic

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gukyi · 4 years ago

Text

that’s the spirit! | myg

summary: min yoongi hates halloween. as his best friend and resident halloween-lover, that is simply unacceptable. but when halloween night rolls around and you and min yoongi feel farther apart than ever before, you discover that what’s come between you is more than just a bad trick, and that no matter what day it is, loving him is the sweetest treat of all.

{college!au, friends to lovers!au, halloween!au}

pairing: min yoongi x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, a little angst? (a little i promise) word count: 8k (woohoo! i did it!) warnings: alcohol consumption, underage drunkenness in flashbacks, misunderstandings, helpless but mutual pining, halloween parties, this is halloween during college, what else do you expect a/n: some scenes inspired by love, rosie, my absolute favorite rom-com! happy halloween, and i hope this brings some joy to your life before armageddon i mean election day rolls around! much love 🎃💜

Min Yoongi hates Halloween.

Which is ridiculous, because you assume that there must have been at least one time in his life where he liked it. Halloween is a universally-liked holiday. It was the one day of the year where he, an unbridled child rebelling against authority, got to dress up as his favorite book character, superhero, or movie star, hang out with his friends past sunset, and solicit strangers for free candy. Free candy! How could anyone hate that?

But the thing is, it doesn’t matter what Min Yoongi was like in his youth. Ever since you met him, he has hated Halloween. For reasons completely unbeknownst to you.

Unfortunately for Min Yoongi, just because he hates Halloween doesn’t mean that he gets to spend his October pretending that it doesn’t exist. Because, unlike him, you do not hate Halloween. In fact, you rather like it. So much so that Min Yoongi has to deal with the holiday no matter what. For better…

“Ah! What the fuck!”

Or for worse.

You pop your head out of your bedroom to find Yoongi about to throw down with the fake skeleton you’ve propped up by the door, one of those cheesy ones from Spirit Halloween that make a zombie sound whenever its artificial brain can sense someone near it. He’s got this wide-eyed look on his face, fists up in front of him like he’s going to beat the damn thing senseless, even though Min Yoongi is barely five-feet-ten and has a body that functions exclusively on iced coffee and could probably get taken down by the average third-grader.

Min Yoongi does not have a flight instinct. He only knows how to fight.

He’s muttering to himself by the time you emerge completely from your bedroom, grumbling about how he nearly wet himself at the sight of the thing, fingers glossing over the plastic bones as he inspects them. There he stands in the doorway of your apartment, curled-up fists tucked inside the too-long sleeves of his too-big hoodie, pink lips parted in innocent confusion as he blinks at your apartment’s new resident.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” You chide from where you stand in your room, watching as Yoongi jerks his head up. The sound of your voice seems to catch him off guard for a minute, eyes wide in shock before he realizes that it’s you and his whole body relaxes. “Was that you I just heard screaming outside my apartment, Min Yoongi?”

“No,” Yoongi deadpans, fully aware that the both of you know that it was him. “Must have been someone else.”

“Yes, of course, my mistake,” you tease, coming up behind him to rub his upper arm, the palm of your hand pressing against the worn fabric of his hoodie sleeve as he sighs. “You don’t have a problem with my festive decorations at all, do you?”

“Not those,” Yoongi frowns, pointing to the orange and black streamers hanging above your apartment window, to the mini pumpkins sitting in the center of your dinky kitchen table, to the construction paper cutouts of black cats decorating your walls. He rounds on the skeleton, propped up right next to the door with the sole purpose of scaring whatever visitors you have. “This, I have a problem with. What is this thing?”

You smile proudly. “Reginald.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Yoongi looks at you, positively flabbergasted. “You named it?”

You scoff. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I? I bought him, he’s mine now, and he needed a name. So I named him Reginald. What’s the issue here?” You weren’t about to buy a twenty-five dollar plastic skeleton, set him up to be your personal doorman, and not give him a name.

“The issue is that this—” he motions to Reginald’s face, “—is the first thing I see when I walk into your apartment, instead of—oh, I don’t know—you,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aw, I’m touched,” you say, pressing a hand to your heart. “Didn’t know you always wanted to see my face first thing when you come over.”

Yoongi’s gaze drifts down towards the floor, thumbs twiddling. “Well, yeah,” he mumbles, words barely audible. “Why else would I come over?”

“I don’t know, for the ambience, maybe?” You say with a shrug, watching him slide his backpack off of his shoulder and onto the floor by the couch. “Anyway, maybe if you had come with me to Spirit Halloween when I went shopping for decorations, you wouldn’t be so surprised.”

“I had two midterms that week! Two!” Yoongi reminds you.”

“I’m just saying,” you tell him, hands up defensively as you make your way to the kitchen, fishing out two teabags from the cabinet as you set the kettle to boil. You never used to like tea, but a year ago Yoongi convinced you to try this jasmine flower one from the Asian supermarket downtown and you haven’t looked back. Now there’s always at least three spare boxes in your kitchen cupboards, for you and for him. “No time is a bad time to get into the Halloween spirit.”

Yoongi sighs, loud and obvious, because this is the third year in a row you’ve brought up this conversation and it’s not any more convincing than it was the last two times. “Do we have to do this?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t we just pretend it’s November Eve?”

“Come on, Yoongi,” you plead, because he’s never given you a good explanation as to why he refuses to spend Halloween with you, and you just want to know why. “Won’t you just celebrate this one stupid holiday with me?”

“So you admit it’s stupid?”

“That’s not what I meant.” You frown at him, crossing your arms as the kettle starts whistling.

Yoongi exhales, reaching over you to pour the boiling water into your teacups, matching His and Hers ones you bought from the sale section of Target last year for Valentine’s Day. “It’s just not my thing. You know that.”

“But we’re college students,” you exclaim. “Halloween is the best when you’re a college student! You get to dress up as whatever you want and go to five different parties and spend the night with your friends without your parents chaperoning you.”

Yoongi purses his lips, unconvinced. “So… basically an opportunity to get piss drunk in a frat house? No thanks, I’ll pass.”

“You know that I wouldn’t care what we did if you celebrated Halloween with me,” you say, leaning against the counter as you hold your mug in your hands, the heat warming your palms and steam brushing against the skin of your cheeks. “Even if we just stayed in and watched a movie. Or played one of those horror video games Jungkook’s always talking about.”

“That sounds worse,” Yoongi admits with a helpless laugh. It really does. Neither you nor Yoongi have ever been huge fans of the horror genre Jungkook loves so much.

You chuckle. “Honestly, yeah, forget I said anything about that.”

“You know I just don’t care for Halloween that much,” Yoongi says, gazing down into the swirling brown of his mug, the steam from the water making his glasses fog up. “It’s nothing personal.”

You sigh. That’s about as good of an answer you’re going to be getting out of him. No matter what you suggest, whether it be a house party, a night in, or even just a candy feast, he has always declined, citing his unexplainable dislike for the festivities. The only reason he deals with the holiday in the first place is because you love it so much.

“Will you at least help me carve some pumpkins please?” You ask, a last ditch effort to get him to participate. “The supermarket on Fifteenth Street is having a sale on them, and I wanted to decorate the windowsill. It’s easier with two people, you know.”

Yoongi narrows his eyes, looking hesitant.

“Oh, please, Yoongi? Just this once? It’s not even, like, a strictly Halloween thing. It’s just a fall thing! Plus, we can roast the pumpkin seeds after for a snack,” you plead, placing your cup down on the counter so you can tug on his arms, hands wrapped around his wrists as you stare into his eyes, positively desperate.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Yoongi says with a huff, that resigned tone to his voice that signifies that he’s caving in. “Yes, we can carve pumpkins together. That I will do.”

“Oh my God, really? Yes! Yay, thank you so much!” In a fit of excitement, surprise, and joy, you pull Yoongi in for a hug, wrapping your arms around his neck as he tilts back in shock, tea spilling out over the edge of his mug and onto the linoleum floor beneath your feet, drops of it splashing against your skin.

“Whoa, whoa, okay,” Yoongi says, taken aback. Still nestled tightly within your arms, he carefully sets his mug down onto the counter so as to avoid more spilling, his other hand pressing against the small of your back. “I didn’t know pumpkin carving was so important to you.”

You laugh, pulling away as you look into his eyes, crinkled up into fond little crescents. “It’s not. But you are.”

“So cheesy,” Yoongi chides.

“You love it,” you remind him, pressing the side of your body against his as you lean against the counter together. Instinctively, you let your head flop onto his shoulder, fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck. “Thanks for doing this for me,” you say softly.

“Of course,” Yoongi says. “Anything for you.”

“Look how festive campus is!”

Yoongi chuckles as he watches you skip down the main walkway, the one that winds right from the west to the east side of campus, relishing in the feeling of autumn. Yoongi always forgets that it’s fall until it hits him like a brick to the head, and suddenly it’s getting dark at five-thirty and he can’t go outside without a proper jacket anymore. It’s a week until November, and Yoongi still refuses to wear anything heavier than a denim jacket, no matter how cold it gets. It can’t be winter yet, right?

“Wow, all the tones really fit the spooky mood,” you tell him, leaves crinkling as your feet step on the fallen foliage, brown and orange and yellow and red.

“How convenient it is that orange happens to be one of Halloween’s signature colors,” Yoongi chides with a roll of his eyes. “Is the Castle still hosting that party next week?”

“The costume one? Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” you tell him with a nod. “We’re still going, right?”

“Only because it’s our first year,” Yoongi reminds you pointedly. “And since you wanna celebrate together so badly.”

You scoff. “Don’t act like it’s such a drag. I know you want to spend time with me.”

Yoongi chuckles to himself, casual and cool. He knows you’re just teasing him but quite frankly, if Yoongi could spend every day of the rest of his life with you, then he would. If he could turn himself into a witch and cast a spell to keep you by his side for the rest of time, then he would. From the moment the two of you met in your dingy dorm, you clicked. And Yoongi knew, in that moment. He just knew.

“Oh my God, look at the pumpkins!”

Your voice breaks him from his thoughts, your finger pointing excitedly at the carved pumpkins outside of the dormitories that line the walkway, lit candles nestled safely inside. They’ve got everything from the college logo to video game characters to the face of your lovable-but-memeable university president carved into them, decorating the street with a little more personality than normal.

“They’re so cute, holy shit,” you tell Yoongi fondly, all endeared and heart-eyed, the same way you get when someone walks their dog through campus or a professor sends out an update email with a picture of their newborn grandchild. Yoongi’s only known you a couple of months, but already he’s starting to figure out what makes you tick. “I love them. Don’t you love them, Yoongi?”

You turn around to meet Yoongi’s eyes, and when he looks back at you it feels like his whole heart is lighter. He sees your smile and it makes his body fill with warmth, like someone’s wrapping a blanket around him, like a warm cup of hot cocoa on a cool autumn afternoon. He looks back at you, and it feels like everything is right.

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, grinning. “I do.”

The lopsided legs of your creaky kitchen table tremble as the pumpkin hits it.

“Damn, is this thing heavy or am I just getting weaker?” You ask, smoothing out the newspaper spread out on the flat surface of the table, two college students’ best attempt to avoid a mess. They’re old student copies with headlines like Brand New Cafeteria, but is the Food Even Any Good? and New Semester, New Me! sprawled across the front. You care about your school news, you really do, but the members of the newspaper team that hand out the papers practically stuff them down your throat whenever there’s a new issue, which is three times a week and at every street intersection on campus. So you’ve had extras lying around.

“Nope, they’re definitely heavy,” Yoongi agrees as he plops his pumpkin onto the table next to yours with a thud. “Though it’s not like I go to the gym much anyway.”

“Didn’t we say we were gonna try and be healthier this year, since we’re graduating?” You ask.

“That was before that new doughnut place opened up next to the ramen restaurant three streets up,” Yoongi reminds you.

“Maybe grad school?”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, reaching over the table to grab the pumpkin carving kits the two of you bought from the drugstore down the road. “Caution. Keep out of reach of children ages three and under,” he reads. “Welp, guess I can’t do this then…”

“Ha ha, very funny,” you say with a deadpan frown, grabbing onto his wrist. “Hold on a minute, Mr. I Promised I Would Do This For My Best Friend.” Yoongi exhales dramatically as you pull him back towards the table, though it’s not as if there was much resistance from him in the first place.

You pry open the plastic wrapping that surrounds the kit, the orange tools eventually popping out of their casing and onto your newspaper-ed table. Sure, you could have probably pulled out two knives from your kitchen drawer and it wouldn’t make a difference, but spending ten dollars each on these two little pumpkin carving kits didn’t seem like a waste of money. For the sake of Halloween spirit, right?

“What do you want to carve?” You ask, handing Yoongi your open kit as you gaze at the instruction manual. Pumpkin carving shouldn’t be too difficult, should it? You cut open the top, pull out all the gunk from the inside, and then carve a face, or something.

“I’m not a very good artist,” Yoongi admits, looking hesitant.

“Well, the good thing about pumpkin carving is that no one expects them to look nice,” you point out. “I think I want to do that anime eyes face emoji. You know the one. Let’s see…”

You grab a hold of the plastic knife that came with the kit, hover the tip over the top of the pumpkin, and stab. It sinks into the squash up to the hilt. That’s the good part.

The bad part is that, because you’re holding onto a knife made out of non-recyclable plastic, moving it once it’s inside the pumpkin is exceedingly difficult. You pull it right and left fruitlessly, watching as the knife sits firmly in place, the handle bending with the curve of your fingers if you tug on it too hard.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Yoongi says with another sigh, abandoning his own pumpkin, which he has already de-stalked in the minutes you weren’t looking his way. “Let me help you.”

Suddenly, you feel a warmth wrap around you. A figure presses against your back, this musky, coffee-laden scent surrounding you, and you watch as Yoongi’s calloused hands slowly envelop yours, fingertips pressing firmly against your skin. It makes you freeze up instinctively, jumping at the sensation of his body around yours, of his torso pressed against your back, of his breath tickling your ear.

“Relax, alright?” He says, voice calm and gentle. He brings your hands to the knife, lets his palms rest against them as your fingers slowly wrap around the handle. You can feel him breathing, feel the slow rise and fall of his chest against you, the heat of his mouth just inches away from your cheek. “It’s just me.”

You force a chuckle. “You just surprised me, that’s all.”

You feel Yoongi pause behind you.

“Seriously, I’m fine. Help me,” you insist.

Steadily, albeit a little bit tentatively, Yoongi does. His hand wrapped around yours, together the two of you carve out the top of the pumpkin, his chest pressed firmly against your back, body engulfing you. He feels so close, so goddamn close, like there is barely an inch of space in between the two of you, like if he were to bend down right there and if you were shift yourself around you would see nothing but his face right in front of yours, his hazy brown eyes looking back at you, twinkling in the white light of your kitchen.

It almost makes you want to turn around and look.

“There we go,” Yoongi says, voice suddenly soft, quiet like there’s something else weighing on his tongue. “What are you thinking of carving?”

“I don’t know,” you murmur, lips upturned. “Maybe you?”

“I don’t make for a very attractive pumpkin picture,” Yoongi says with a shake of his head, even though that’s total bullshit for a number of reasons.

First of all, a pumpkin portrait is by no means meant to be an attractive portrayal of you, unless you’re Keanu Reeves and you look photogenic no matter what. Second of all, there has never been a time where Yoongi has not looked good. He always does. He did during finals week when his body was made of nothing but iced coffee, he did in freshman year when the two of you would stay awake until the early morning getting vodka spilled all over you in frat houses, and he does now, tired eyes and soft skin, dark hair and pink lips, standing in your apartment like he belongs here, like this is where he was meant to be.

“I think you would,” you tell him honestly. “You’d look good no matter what.”

Yoongi’s silent at that, but you can tell from the way his cheeks are turning red he’s taken the compliment to heart. It makes you want to shower him in them. It makes you want to freeze this moment in time, suspended in reality, and stay like that forever.

“Then I’ll do you,” he says with a grin, because what else would he say? Who else would he choose? You are going to put two matching pumpkins on your windowsill, and they will be of you and him. Messy, Picasso-style portraits carved into the orange skin. Two best friends, together even as fucking pumpkins.

You will carve out a picture of him, and he will carve out a picture of you, and isn’t that what this is really all about?

“Do you think people are gonna get the wrong idea about us?”

“What do you mean?”

Yoongi turns around to face you where you stand in front of your dorm mirror, this giant plastic one hanging on two hooks that you’ve latched onto the door of your room. He knows that you can see him in the mirror, staring back at you with a black mask over his face and a cape draped over his shoulders, the giant yellow emblem printed out on a piece of paper and taped onto his chest. It’s a last minute costume, for sure, but it gets the job done nicely.

“I mean,” you say, fixing the cat ears that sit atop your head. “Do you think people are gonna think we’re a couple, or something?”

Yoongi grins nervously and hopes that you don’t notice. “I mean, we’re just going to a frat party. I doubt it’s going to be light enough to see anything at all. Why?”

“Well, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about us,” you say, adjusting the mask over your eyes. Yoongi, unabashedly, rakes his eyes up and down your figure. Your black turtleneck and skintight leather leggings don’t leave very much to the imagination. You’re definitely much more in costume than he is, to say the least.

“We’re freshmen, people already have the wrong idea about us,” Yoongi scoffs.

You turn around just so you can shoot a frown his way. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Why are you so worried about people getting the wrong idea about us?” Yoongi asks you, an eyebrow raised. This does not exactly bode well for him. “We can be Batman and Catwoman together no matter what people think.”

“I don’t know, I guess I just—” You stop in your tracks, letting the words fall off your lips and crash to the floor. “Never mind, it’s stupid.”

“What? You can tell me,” Yoongi says, concern lacing his voice. He rushes over to you, the two of you staring at your reflections in the mirror. Two friends, clad in black, wearing matching costumes. If Yoongi wasn’t sober right now, maybe he would actually do it.

Maybe.

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” you shrug it off with a shake of your head. “I’m happy to be doing this with you. Even if your costume totally sucks.”

“Hey!” Yoongi exclaims defensively. “It is not my fault you came up with this idea last minute even though you already owned everything. I had to pay twenty-five cents to print this in color, you know.”

“A Twenty-five cent costume and you still look good.”

You and Yoongi smile at each other in the mirror, lips turned up as you stare at yourselves, wondering if this is all you will ever be, or if there is something more.

Yoongi sure hopes it’s the latter.

And he’s determined to find out, once and for all, tonight.

You’ve just lit the candles that sit inside yours and Yoongi’s pumpkins when you hear the knock at your door.

You’re sure that Yoongi can hear you from a mile away as you scurry towards the door, white platform heels clapping against the floorboards with every step you take. You’re going to have to practice walking in these a bit more. Maybe you shouldn’t have bought them only a week before Halloween, and maybe you should have at least tried to break them in a little bit.

“Hello?” You swing open the door.

“He—whoa,” Yoongi begins before his eyes widen to the size of the moon as he fully takes in the sight in front of him. “What’s with the—uh, the… dress?” He’s scratching at the nape of his neck, eyes sweeping up and down your body.

You hold out the skirt of your sequined, bedazzled dress as best you can, and grin. “I’m a gogo dancer! What do you think?”

“Wow, I—” Yoongi starts, a little speechless. “I don’t know. Wow. You look… you look nice, Y/N.”

You smile, thankful for the compliment. Yoongi seems weirdly breathless, blinking more often than usual, like he’s trying to convince himself that what he’s seeing is real. Although, you will admit that this dress is much more sparkly than anything else you have in your closet. You reckon a few disco balls were sacrificed to make this costume.

“Why—uh, why did you call me over? Did you need something from me?”

“Actually, yes,” you say, ushering Yoongi into your apartment.

As he’s walking inside, Yoongi notices the pumpkins sitting on your windowsill. “Hey, those look cute together.”

“Don’t they?” You say proudly. Nobody else has commented on them, but then again, you live on the fifth floor of your apartment, so you don’t imagine many people can even see them from ground level. But it’s nice to know that they’re there, and that they mean something. Not to a whole lot of people, but to you. And to him. “But that’s not why I asked you to come over.”

“Why, what’s up?”

You freeze when he looks up at you, like you can hardly will the next few words to come out of your mouth. They’re stuck at the dam of your lips, refusing to budge, because there is this tiny, this little part of you that doesn’t even have the courage to ask. To say it. Because you know already.

“Hoseok’s throwing a party tonight—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!”

“But I know what you’re going to say,” Yoongi says like it’s obvious, because it is. “You’re going to ask me to come with you. And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, Y/N, but I am not going to go. I’m just not.”

“But it’s not a shitty frat party or anything!” You exclaim, desperately trying to dig yourself out of a hole you’re already six-feet in. “It’s at his place, an apartment across campus, with just some friends of his. There won’t be crazy music and sleazy guys and jungle juice. It’s just going to be a house party.”

“I don’t care, I don’t want to go,” Yoongi tells you. “There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

“Why? Why won’t you go?” You demand, because the least your best friend of nearly four years could do is give you a real reason. A real reason as to why he hates Halloween, why he never wants to celebrate it with you, why he never wants to go out with you on your favorite night of the year.

“Because I just don’t want to! Why can’t you just accept that? I don’t want to go!”

Silence. It’s almost as if Yoongi’s shocked he was even speaking so loudly in the first place.

Next to you, the candles flicker.

“I don’t get it,” you say, resigned. “I don’t understand. This is our very last year to celebrate Halloween as college students, as best friends, and you can’t even give me a real excuse as to why you won’t come with me.”

Yoongi frowns. “What do you mean, ‘a real excuse’?”

“Exactly that,” you say sharply. “A real excuse. Even when I offer for us to just stay in and eat KitKats and watch a shiity movie you refuse. All because it’s Halloween. I don’t get it. It’s not the crowds, and it’s not the drinks, and it’s not even the other stuff, like the pumpkins and the decorations. Is it me? Am I the reason you don’t want to celebrate Halloween?”

“No, what the fuck, it’s not you!”

“Then what is it, Yoongi?” You plead, not even making an attempt to lower your voice. Can’t he hear the sheer desperation in your voice? The hopelessness? “Why won’t you just tell me why you don’t ever want to celebrate this goddamn holiday with me? Is it my fault?”

“I just don’t!”

The sound of Yoongi’s shouts echoes throughout your living space, bouncing off of the walls. You look back at him, feeling helpless, but he doesn’t look angry, or enraged. He looks exhausted. Like this conversation has knocked the wind right out of him, stolen the breath from his lungs. Like suddenly the pot has boiled over, only it’s extinguished the flames that kept it burning.

“I just don’t,” Yoongi repeats, fists clenched tightly by his side. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

He gives you one last tired look, matching your own defeated expression, before turning around and walking out of your apartment. The door shuts firmly behind him, neither a slam nor a gentle stop, leaving you stranded in the middle of your living space, watching his silhouette disappear.

You sigh. You don’t think Yoongi will ever tell you why he hates Halloween. And while that may be no fault of your own, you can’t help but feel like it has something to do with you.

Yoongi could probably count the amount of times he’s gone to a frat party on one hand, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t already know everything there is to know about them. In his eyes, once you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all.

Still, he supposes that it being Halloween makes this one a little different. Everyone’s in some sort of costume, whether it be good or bad or just plain old lazy, and there are at least a few orange and black decorations lining the walls of the Castle, and they’ve curated a playlist with Halloween songs as well as rap songs Yoongi has heard plenty of times before, so for once, Yoongi will give the fraternity a bit of credit when it comes to their Halloween party-planning.

Beside him, you take another giant chug of your drink from the orange solo cup in your hand, wincing as the alcohol burns your throat on the way down.

“Hey, take it easy, okay?” He says, though he doubts you can even hear him over the music, loud in the kind of way that his ears are going to be ringing far into tomorrow morning.

“I’m fine!” You shout back, even though you are definitely not. The entire room reeks of a mixture of vodka and sickly sweet soda.

“I just want to make sure you’re not overdoing it!” He tells you as the two of you get shoved together from some massive guy pushing past Yoongi and sending him crashing towards you. He catches a glimpse of the contents of your cup, eyebrows raising when he sees that it’s almost empty. You just got that drink five minutes ago.

You smile. “I’m not!”

The song changes, and Yoongi swears that he can feel the entire house shake as everyone screams, cheering as they bounce up and down, dancing to the beat. Next to him, you are finishing the last few drops of whatever’s in your cup, finding an empty ledge to place it down on when you’re done, and pulling him in close to you.

“Let’s dance!” You shriek excitedly.

And who is Yoongi to resist?

He lets you take your hand in his own and parade him around the tiny little space the two of you share, a couple square feet of freedom in this crowded room, chock full of sweaty bodies just like his. Yoongi may not have had as much to drink as you, but the little bit of alcohol in his system is already shutting down normal mental processes like not-staring-at-you-constantly and pretending-that-he-likes-you-just-as-a-friend, sending him into a tizzy whenever he meets your starstruck eyes.

Even in this dingy, sweaty, unventilated fraternity living room, you are beautiful. You are beautiful here, and you are beautiful at three in the morning after twelve straight hours of studying, and you are beautiful after spilling the dining hall’s chicken noodle soup all over yourself.

God, you’re the only person Yoongi is looking at in this room. You’re the only person he sees.

Shaking his head, Yoongi abandons those thoughts as the song comes to an end, a hand wrapped around your wrist as he leans into your ear. “Do you wanna go outside? It’s hot in here!”

“Okay, whatever!” You agree easily, too easygoing after you’ve got a few drinks in you.

Yoongi grabs a hold of your sweaty hand and tugs you towards the back door, one that he thinks leads to a fenced in backyard. You squeeze through the crowd, getting a couple of drinks spilled on your shoes on the way until you reach the back door and Yoongi fumbles with the knob, shaking it a couple of times before it gets loose. Eventually, the two of you stumble outside into the backyard, where a couple of people are playing beer pong and a couple of others look like they’re making out.

It’s a frat party. What else did Yoongi expect?

It’s the end of October, and Yoongi doesn’t even have on a jacket, but the chill of the night has little effect on him after being in a room that’s felt like one hundred degrees for an hour. Out here, Yoongi feels like he can finally breathe.

“It’s kinda cold out here, don’t you think?”

Yoongi doesn’t even have time to respond before you’re wrapping yourself up in him, curling into his body and placing his arm around your figure, letting the heat from his frame radiate onto your skin.

“Better than being in there,” Yoongi reasons.

“But aren’t you having fun?”

He looks down to see you looking up with him with big, wide eyes, like you’re afraid that he isn’t having fun, or afraid that you’re enjoying this night more than he is. It makes him smile. “With you, I am.”

You grin at that, turning back to face forward, head pressing into the crook of his neck. “That’s good to hear,” you tell him. “It seemed like you were kinda nervous.”

“Nervous?” His voice cracks as he says it. Fuck.

“Yeah, is there something you wanna tell me? It looks like you’ve been dying to say something all night,” you comment mindlessly, clearly much more observant now than you are when you’re sober. Or perhaps, Yoongi’s just more obvious.

He takes a deep breath, pressing his eyes shut tightly. This is his chance. He knows it.

“Actually, yes, there is,” he says, and it feels like he has to force the words out of his mouth because they’re refusing to come out on their own, pausing at the edge of his lips. It feels like he has to overcome his own mind in order to tell you, feels like every word is a sucker punch to his lungs.

You pull away from him, looking up at Yoongi with big, blinking eyes. It’s a clear night, and Yoongi knows because he can see the fucking stars reflected in your pupils, see them twinkling as your glossy eyes gaze back up at him. You look up at Yoongi and God, you are just so beautiful. You are beautiful, and Yoongi wonders, then, if you know. If you know how Yoongi looks at you. If you know how he feels about you. He is so in love. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. You are beautiful and he is so in love, and he’s been dying to tell you that and this might be his only opportunity to do so, because tomorrow will be a new day and Yoongi won’t have the guts tomorrow. This is his only chance.

You deserve to know.

“Well?” You ask him. “What is it?”

Yoongi wraps his arm around the small of your back, pulls you into him, and presses his lips to yours.

Hoseok’s party is fun. It’s definitely one of the better ones you’ve been to in your four years of university so far. There aren’t too many people, and the drinks are actually good instead of just burning your throat, and his music taste is impeccable.

And yet, you don’t think you’ve ever been so unenthused at a party in your whole life. Thriller by Michael Jackson blares from Hoseok’s television speakers, chatter fills the room, and Hoseok’s girlfriend, Haebin, is constantly checking up on you, but never has one place felt so empty.

It’s not really very difficult for you to wonder why.

“Hey, Y/N!”

You whip your head around to find Haein standing by the kitchen table, gesturing towards Hoseok as he’s looking up the recipe for a drink he wants to try.

“You want one? Hoseok’s trying to make Long Island Iced Tea,” Haebin asks. Next to her, Hoseok is struggling to get the measurements right. At least he’s making an attempt.

You stare down at your nearly-full cup of strawberry daiquiri. You took one sip when Haebin first handed it to you thirty minutes ago, and haven’t touched it since. “No, I’m alright, thank you.”

Haebin sighs, patting Hoseok on the back encouragingly before she makes her way over to where you’re sitting on their couch, pressed up against the arm of the sofa as you mindlessly swirl the drink around in your cup, eyes zoning into the whirlpool you’re creating. She sits down next to you with a smile, with the kind of look on her face that makes you simultaneously thankful for and dread the conversation you’re about to have.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” You don’t even believe yourself when you say it.

“Listen, you don’t have to tell me. I just know that Halloween is your favorite holiday and I was wondering if there was something getting you down tonight,” Haebin says in that comforting, gentle sort of way, like an old friend who knows all your tells.

“It’s not a big deal, really. I think I’m just out of it tonight,” you say, not drunk enough to divulge more information but also not sober enough to keep your mouth completely shut.

Haebin smiles at you, lips pursed. “Alright then. If everything’s alright.” She pushes her hands onto her thighs as she gets off of the couch, heading back towards the kitchen to help Hoseok figure out how to mix drinks. But before she leaves you alone, she turns around and says one more thing. “You know, I don’t know why Yoongi’s not here or anything, but I wish that he was. You always look so much happier whenever he’s around.”

And that just sends your mind into meltdown.

Defeated, alone, and best friend-less, you place your cup down on the end table to your left and get up off of the couch, beginning to gather your belongings, your coat and your shoes and your bag, tugging your arms through the sleeves as you storm towards the door, eyebrows knitted together, lips pursed.

“Hey, where are you going—?”

“I gotta go, Haebin. I just—” You pull on a shoe, tugging at the boot as it slips over your heel, “—I gotta go. Thank Hoseok for me, okay? I have to go.”

You only have time to catch Haebin nod, wordless, before you tug open the door to Hoseok’s apartment and stomp outside.

This is the worst Halloween of your life, bar none. The time when you were four and you tripped over a curb on the sidewalk, spraining your ankle doesn’t even come close. It’s your very last year to celebrate Halloween as a college student, to celebrate it by getting dressed up in a low-effort costume and spending time with your friends, and your best friend isn’t even here. He refused.

He refused and you still don’t know why, but worst of all he refused and you still wish he was here. You wish you could have spent time with him tonight. More than anything else. You wish you could have spent the night wrapped up together on your couch, or on your bed, watching your favorite television shows and enjoying each other’s company. You wish you could have curled into his body as the television blared, pressed your head against his shoulder and felt the warmth of his skin on yours. God, you wish you could have.

You wish you could have told him.

You wish you had the guts to.

Twenty minutes later finds you outside one of the dozens of frat parties likely occurring on campus right now, the bass from the music so loud that you can feel it in your eardrums even outside of the building. No part of you wants to go inside something like that, but at this point you start to wonder if maybe hopping different frats is actually your best idea. Get a drink, get drunk, and then move onto the next one. Rinse and repeat until you don’t remember a thing about this terrible, awful night.

As you walk along the sidewalk, you spot another student sitting on the curb underneath a leaf-less tree, a cheap black drugstore masquerade mask covering the top half of his face. He doesn’t seem to be having a particularly enjoyable night either.

Normally, the last thing you’d want to do is sit down next to a stranger whose face is disguised, because who knows what could happen to you if you do, but there are at least twenty people surrounding the two of you, loitering outside the frat house in the hopes that they can eventually get inside. And honestly, you could use a fucking break.

As casually as you can possibly manage, you take a seat next to the boy, a few inches apart from him as he looks up at you. You can’t make out too much in the dim light of the frat house, but he’s illuminated just enough for you to see his eyes widen at the sight of you.

“You don’t mind, do you?” You ask.

He shakes his head.

You smile in thanks, shifting around where you’re seated on the cold cement, eyes drifting all over the place, from the houses across the street to the road to the people standing around, anything to avoid turning back towards the boy and initiating an even more awkward conversation. Sitting down, the world stops spinning, just a little bit. You didn’t have too much to drink at Hoseok’s, but it was enough to loosen your mind.

“Can I say something?” You say loudly, turning towards the boy.

It was enough to loosen your lips too, apparently.

The boy stares back at you, silent.

“I’m sorry, I just need to get this off my chest.” You close your eyes, breathing in and breathing out, feeling your chest rise and fall. “I am not having a great night. And I wish I was out here with another friend of mine, instead. He’s my best friend, actually. He just… didn’t want to come out tonight with me. But I wish he was here, because I love spending time with him, and I miss him.”

The words spill off of your tongue like lava from a volcano, bursting from your lips completely unfiltered. It surprises you, a little, how much you actually have to say. How much has been weighing on your chest.

You don’t expect him to respond. Truthfully, you can’t even believe you’re unloading all of your baggage onto him in the first place. Since when are you the type of person to tell other people about the tragedies of your life?

But then, he says, “You do?”

And it makes you wonder what else you’ve been keeping hidden.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” you realize. “I love spending time with him. He makes every day brighter, turns everything he touches into laughter. And I wanted to spend time with him tonight because I actually thought he would want to. You know, we carved pumpkins together a few days ago. Of each other’s faces.” You force out a laugh. “We carved each other’s faces into pumpkins and he still isn’t here tonight. I wanted him to be here because he’s my best friend, and because he makes me so happy, and even other people are noticing what effect he has on me. Noticing how fucking happy he makes me. Because he does. I feel like I’m a better person with him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him and he’s not here and instead of going to look for him I’m sitting here telling you the sob story that is my life and I just wish—”

“Does that mean you love him?” The boy asks softly.

“What?”

“Does that mean you love him?”

You turn to look at the boy, eyebrows raised, almost ready to deny such a thing, but when you open your mouth, nothing comes out.

How could you say you don’t love Yoongi? Of course you do. He is your best friend. You never want to live a day when he’s not by your side. You want to spend the rest of your life with him. He makes you smile and laugh like it’s nobody’s business, brightens your day without even trying. Just seeing him is enough to lift your spirits. Seeing his face on the other side of your apartment door, all ripped jeans and Converse sneakers, hands wrapped in the sleeves of his hoodie, dark brown eyes blinking back at you, pink lips parted in a grin. That image you have of him in your head—it’s one you don’t ever want to forget. He is standing in your apartment, lips upturned, eyes crushed into crescents, smiling at you. He is mid-laugh, grinning from ear to ear at something you said. He is right there.

“Well, yeah,” you say, because what else are you supposed to do? “I guess I do.”

Suddenly, your chest feels a whole lot lighter.

The boy next to you smiles, the dim light barely illuminating his features, but when you look at him there is something so strangely familiar about him, about the way he blinks at you, about the peak of his Cupid’s bow, about how his lips are stretched into a grin. It couldn’t be him… could it?

But before you have time to ask, he is leaning towards you and pressing his lips atop yours, crashing your mouths together in a desperate, messy kiss. His palm presses against your cheek and you can’t help but sink into it, sink into the way his other hand curls around to rest on the small of your back, let yourself be engulfed by him.

You’ve never kissed Yoongi before, but you know that this is what it must be like.

You know, from the way your blood starts to sizzle, sparks rushing through your veins. From the way your heart is pumping, loud and clear in your ears, like it’s been jolted to life. Like a shock is running through your body. Like a warmth is filling you up, from the inside out.

When you part, as Yoongi takes off his mask, he can’t keep the smile off of his face. “I knew it. I knew you loved me.”

“What are you doing out here?” You ask, positively shocked. “I thought you hated Halloween.”

“I do,” Yoongi confirms. “Or, well, I did, I guess.”

“Then what changed?”

“You. Us. We changed,” Yoongi says, motioning between your bodies. “I hated Halloween because it had bad memories for me. Nothing crazy, but, yeah. You don’t remember?”

“What?” Your mouth drops open. “What should I remember?”

“We kissed that night.” Yoongi begins, eyes shifting down towards the ground. Clearly recalling this is awkward for him. “Halloween, freshman year. Outside of the Castle.”

You don’t remember this at all.

“Well, I kissed you and you kissed me, and I thought that we had established then and there that we liked each other. You know, like, really liked each other. But you were so drunk that night. I don’t know what you had, but you could hardly walk by the time I got you back to your dorm. Your roommate was furious with me.” He shakes his head at the memory, replaying in his mind like a movie. “And I thought, okay, we’ll just talk about this tomorrow. But you must have had a wicked headache or something, because I saw you the next day and you said—”

“God, whatever happened last night, I don’t want to know.”

It’s the middle of the day, the sun high in the crisp November sky, but you have been cradling your forehead ever since Yoongi last dropped you off, back at your dorm, when you were slowly starting to crash.

“What?” His voice is hollow, empty.

“Last night fucked me up real good,” you say with a huff, shaking your head. “I’m glad I don’t remember what happened last night.”

As Yoongi traipses back to square one, his heart shakes in its cage.

“I guess you just didn’t remember,” Yoongi tries to explain, much to your horror as you realize that you and Yoongi have been crushing on each other hopelessly for three years extra without you even realizing it. “So, uh, yeah. That’s why I didn’t like Halloween.”

“You kissed me that night?”

“What?”

“You kissed me that night? Outside of the Castle?”

A tingling on your lips. A faint feeling of warmth. You remember bits of that night. It was cold, and you were freezing in your costume. And you and Yoongi had gone outside to escape the crowd, and he said something, and then you said something, and then he—!

“Yeah.” Yoongi nods. “I did.”

“And I didn’t remember?”

“I mean, you were really drunk.”

Your shoulders sink, the thought of Yoongi, helplessly pining after you for three more years because he thought you didn’t like him like that, because he thought that the love you shared was one-sided, still sticking by your side as your best friend. At the thought of him deciding it was better to be best friends and keep that love hidden than tell you and risk it all over again. At the thought of him accepting what he thought was his fate.

“I’m sorry,” you say. What else is there to tell him? If you had remembered, if you just didn’t say those words, if you had just told him how you felt, this would have all been so much easier.

“It’s okay now,” Yoongi says, expression growing fond as he pulls you in for a hug, sad to see you so gloomy. “You love me and I love you. What more could I want?”

A realization dawns on you.

Pulling apart from him ever so slightly, you quirk an eyebrow. “You know, you could have just kissed me again the next day, and then we wouldn’t have had to deal with all of this. Plus, you would have still liked Halloween.”

Yoongi scoffs, pressing a kiss to your icy cheek. “So what? I like it now, how about that? I fucking love Halloween now. It turned my best friend into my girlfriend. She’s the love of my life. We can celebrate every Halloween together from now on until the end of time.”

You grin, pressing a kiss back on his little button nose, pink from the cold. Finally. “That’s the spirit.”

↳ don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

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nambamjun · 4 years ago

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Star Stuff {SMG}

Pairing: (Hufflepuff) Song Mingi x (Hufflepuff, Gender Neutral) Reader

Genres: Hogwarts AU, mutual pining, friends to perhaps lovers, fluff, some angst

Warnings: I think one or two instances of slight language? Nothing too too bad though

Word Count: 1.4K

A/N: I’m finally and officially done with university for the semester! Off and on break till the fall, which means I’ll have a lot more time to write! I’m home with my cat and it’s missing Mingi hours (as per usual) so I figured why not put a lil thing out here super quick? Comments and (constructive) criticisms are always welcome, hope you enjoy ~<3

You stood on the top most floor of the astronomy tower, pulling your jacket closer to your frame and breathing outwardly before burying your nose deeper into your house scarf that wrapped tightly around your neck. The crisp October air swirled around you, miscellaneous leaves dancing around the floor as it tousled your hair. You looked at your wrist watch, a gift from your muggle friend back home. Staring at the face you wondered how she was getting on these days. Sure, it had only been two and a half months since you had seen her last before leaving for this term, but knowing that didn't really make you miss her any less.

To keep you company while missing old friends, though, you made new ones. Friends that you didn’t have to hide a pretty substantial part of your life from... aka, anything to do with magic. While it wasn’t as if you were popular you did have a few people who really exemplified the saying “quality over quantity”, and you knew that just as you would always have their backs, they would always have yours. Seeing as most of them were hufflepuffs including you this wasn’t too surprising. Most, not all, but hey the value of loyalty was held quite highly in your close knit group.

Speaking of a hufflepuff friend… you zoned back in to your wrist. 11:37pm. You stuffed your now icy hand back in your pocket and huffed. Where is he…? This wasn’t the first time you two had snuck out after hours, far from it. Still, you hoped he hadn’t been caught. That would have definitely weighed on your conscience. I’ll give him until ten of midnight. Thirteen minutes is enough time, if he isn’t here by then… I guess I’ll head back and hope that he just fell asleep or something.

And that is what you did. Five minutes... eight... eleven... thirteen... heck, fifteen. You gave an extra two minutes, but you could only wait around for so long. Briskly walking towards the door the only thought in your head was that you hoped he was warm in bed and that’s all there was to it. Well, that and the hopes that you, too, would be in that same placement in your own room. Lost in thoughts of blankets and pajamas, however, you failed to see someone start to come through the doorway just as you were about to exit. Your bodies crashed together and you stumbled backward, about to give them a right piece of your mind, but any anger faded instantly when you looked upon the apologetic yet smiling face of your best friend.

“Song Mingi how dare you keep me waiting,” you pointedly whispered, lightly pushing him with your fist. “You had me worried! I had half a mind to send an owl straight to your room!” He started chuckling at your reaction and despite wanting to just be a tiny bit dramatic you couldn’t help but let his contagious smile spread to you. “So you’re laughing at me now, okay, I see how it is-” you started to throw your hands up in mock frustration.

“Oh come on, stop being a drama queen. Besides, I’m here now!” You crossed your arms and tried your best to look as indifferent as possible. He sighed and gave you a big eyed stare. “I’m sorryyyyyyy...”

Well who could stay mad at that face?

You relented, stepping forward to give him a short hug before returning to your bundled up state, nose once again deep in your yellow and black scarf. Wordlessly you two made your way over to the usual sitting spot on the side steps and sat down, backs leaning against the wall. You allowed yourself to scoot right next to him and lean into his side, sharing the warmth as your eyes gazed out into the expansive night. You didn’t know he was looking at you until he lightly muttered, “is it just one of those nights…?” You looked up at him, his eyes soft and compassionate, and felt a flood of warmth bloom outward from your chest. You hummed and slightly nodded your head before lightly placing it back down onto his shoulder. He didn’t say anything else, just put his cheek on the crown of your head and moved even closer.

It was times like this that you felt truly at peace. Here, with him, thoughts of all of the assignments you had to do didn’t even cross your mind. School drama was little more than something to chuckle at. Being homesick wasn’t even an issue, because although you were far from your family, you felt at home with him. Yes, the assignments were still there, and maybe two of your other friends were in the middle of a fight that put you in between them, but all of it would work out eventually. You’d be able to get through it all with him by your side. You grew up together, him having been one of the first friends you made upon arriving and being sorted into the same house. Now it was both of your sixth year. The fact that you didn’t have all the time in the world for moments like this loomed over your head sometimes, and it scared you that after this it would be time for the real world, where summer breaks would be no more and nights like these… you hoped they would still happen but who knows? Adults go their separate ways sometimes.

Actually, no, it wasn’t adulthood that scared you. It was the change. Being ripped away from everything you knew, maybe even everyone, just to start something else, whatever that would be. But you were especially afraid of losing him. Not being able to see his beautifully unique smile every day, hear his laugh that was sweeter to you than bird song, or even just exchange little looks so many times a day to have two second long silent conversations that the others wouldn’t be privy to.

Did you have feelings for your best friend? No.

Were you in denial about that? Well… maybe…

Were you going to do anything about it? Absolutely not.

Because he’s your best friend, and you his. You couldn’t - you wouldn’t - afford to change anything from where it is now. Moments like this still had to happen. You wouldn’t know what you would do if they didn’t, let alone if he looked at you differently. Treated you differently. Or even, worst case scenario, left altogether.

You blinked and forced yourself out of your head. You wanted to be in the moment and enjoy every moment with him you could, as fully as possible. All of that could wait until later. You took a deep breath inward and released it, letting yourself revel in the serenity you felt beside him. Little did you know that Mingi was thinking almost the same exact thoughts, with the same worries, and the same fears pitted in the bottom of his stomach. Looking up at the stars without tilting his head he thought to himself that he wouldn’t let any of that happen. He wouldn’t let you drift apart, in fact he would do everything in his power to make sure that the bond between the two of you would be stronger than ever. He allowed a small grin to work its way onto his lips. Right there and then he started plotting.

Maybe Yunho could do me a favor and get the Gryffindor quidditch team involved. That would be so cool, with sparkling letters in the air that would fly out of the ends of their brooms! Is there even a spell for that…? What about maybe putting something like a slip of enchanted paper into that one book? No that might be too subtle and easy to miss. Maybe she’s not into grand gestures though. What wouldn’t be too big but yet still somehow grand? OH! OH! What about that one plant in herbology that blooms those little flowers she loves so much? Maybe I could…

~~~~~

As his mind ran away from him the stars twinkled on above you, hearing the way your two minds crossed so beautifully and whispering to one another about where they thought it would lead. They looked down on the pair and sent some good old fashioned celestial luck to the young romantics. They knew soulmates well enough, and knew that luck wasn’t exactly something they needed in the first place, but why not? It couldn’t hurt. And besides, Mingi was coming up with so many ideas. He could use that energy to help him pick one of them and make it as perfect as possible. After all, to him, you were deserving only of perfection. Nothing less. And he’d be damned if that wasn’t exactly what you got.

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iamtheblondestblonde · 4 years ago

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The Clark Kent Effect

Part One

AN: So this is meant to be the beginning of a (semi short) series, depending on how well it’s received. Feedback is therefore more than appreciated and always remember I love reading tags. Feel free to message me or send me anons as well, every interaction makes my day :)

To all my American followers: please go vote tomorrow, I don’t even live there but I still know how important it is.

Word Count: 2.9k (short boi)

Warnings: alcohol and one swear word maybe?

Part Two

My other writing can be found here

While your costume had seemed like a great idea two days ago you now thought differently.

Technically it was a great costume, but only because you hadn’t exactly planned on needing to step out of the club to make an angry phone call. Alas here you were, legs shaking and teeth clattering because of your stupidly short dress, this situation the last nail in the coffin that would finally pronounce your disaster with Colin dead for good. You weren’t sad about it in the least, only cold. If only you’d thought of grabbing your jacket on your way outside this wouldn’t be as bad, it was the end of October and you were in New York after all, but you’d been so angry to see his caller ID on your screen that you’d stormed out without thinking, which you now deeply regretted.

Stepping back inside was like heaven and running into a wall at the same time, if said wall was made out of hot air and the smell of sweat, hairspray and alcohol. You really shouldn’t be happy about stuffy air, but at least you weren’t shivering anymore so you were going to mark it down as a success in your books. Since the restrooms were close to your right you made a quick detour, checking if everything was still where it was supposed to be.

At least your boobs hadn’t fallen out yet and you dismissed the judgy stares in the restroom as you readjusted your cleavage and reapplied your bold red lipstick. Normally you’d stare as well, not judging but usually intrigued by women who portrayed such confidence but tonight you were one of these women and you wouldn’t let anyone else ruin it. You’d earned a good night out after finally escaping Colin’s manipulative fuckboy ways and telling him to get lost for good.

So with your chin up and your shoulders straight you stepped out of the restroom, determined to find your group of friends again so you could get drunk and finally have a good time. It took a bit longer than you’d like to admit, your heels only barely giving your tiny frame a height advantage but then you finally spotted the fluffy halo of your best friend. After making sure that it was really her – there were enough angels in this room to make any priest happy after all – you quickly made your way over to her.

Or at least you tried.

You’d only gotten a few steps in when your heel got caught in the costume of a guy dressed up as mummy – which really only consisted of his regular clothes and what you estimated to be about three rolls of toilet paper – and you stumbled. You could already see yourself in the emergency room of the closest hospital with a broken nose from crashing to the ground, blood running down your face and staining your already red dress. Perhaps you could play it off as a part of your costume but it’d still hurt and your night would definitely be over.

But none of that happened because you were saved by a very handsome Superman. He’d stood with his back to you, you’d definitely spotted his broad shoulders underneath the stretched blue fabric earlier, but he’d turned in your direction right before gravity had decided to take its toll on you. Apparently his costume was justified though, because he caught you with cat-like reflexes, wrapping his hands around your arms and pulling you back towards an upright position before anything damaging could happen.

He was a lot taller than you so the first thing you really noticed of him was his throat and perhaps you really should’ve dressed up as a vampire because you noticed that he had a very sexy throat, if that was even a thing. Your weird thoughts were interrupted by him chuckling though and your gaze quickly snapped up to meet his and you really weren’t sure if you should congratulate or scold yourself for how you’d managed to end up in his arms.

The handsome stranger was wearing glasses in true Clark Kent fashion and his hair was better than any DC artist could have dreamed of, perfectly tousled in the way that showed that he liked to run his hands through it and you’d be lying if you said that you weren’t tempted to do the same. In the dim lighting of the club you couldn’t make out the color of his eyes behind his glasses but they could honestly be yellow and he’d still be hot as fuck.

Sometime during your almost-fall your hands had ended up on his chest and you really should be embarrassed about the fact that you were practically feeling him up but somehow you couldn’t find yourself to care enough to let go. You relaxed your hands from the tight grasp they had on his shirt and instead carefully splayed them out on his chest as if you were going to push yourself off of him but not really doing so. With how you were pressed against him you could feel the heat radiating through his shirt and how firm his body was, his muscular built more and more evident with every passing second. His hands had started to wander as well, moving up from the side of your arms towards the top of your shoulders, the size of them burning itself into your mind as you just stared at each other.

If one were to ask you what day it was right this moment, you honestly wouldn’t be able to answer them despite everyone in this club dressed in Halloween costumes. Mozart himself could have returned from the dead to perform “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” with a string quartett in the middle of this dancefloor and you probably wouldn’t have noticed right now, too caught up in the eyes of this handsome stranger.

When he reached up with one of his hands to adjust the little devil’s horns on top of your head you blinked in surprise, finally snapping out of your daze.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry, I totally didn’t mean to crash into you but my heel got caught and-“, you began to ramble, your sense of common decency finally kicking in but he only laughed and since neither of you had taken a step backwards yet you could feel it rumbling through his chest.

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t mind having beautiful girls quite literally falling for me”, he joked and if he were any other guy you probably would’ve scoffed at his choice of words but somehow the boyish charm worked well for him and you found yourself grinning as you came up with a response.

“Mmm let’s hope this isn’t a normal occurrence for you because I’m not a fan of getting caught in traffic.” You finally found the strength to take a, very reluctant, step back, untangling yourself from his grasp and dropping your hands but still smiling up at him. He definitely had the potential to be your catch for the night. You could really use the distraction after all.

Your blissful thoughts were interrupted by someone tugging at your arm though, a look over your shoulder revealing a pouting angel dressed in white and with a bouncing halo. It seemed like Emily had found you instead after you’d gotten distracted by your hero.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over the place for you”, she whined and you could tell by her slurred words that she’d gotten quite the head start while you were outside on your phone as she was well on her way to get plastered. Otherwise she never would’ve interrupted a conversation with a hot guy either, it was an unspoken wingwoman rule after all.

“Come on, Dana just brought a new round of shots and you need to catch up!” And with that she tightened her grip on your wrist and pulled you away. You barely managed to tell the handsome stranger to come find you later before he disappeared between the writhing bodies and was out of your sight.

Way too many shots later you found yourself on the dance floor, intoxicated and having a great time.

Your thoughts hadn’t wandered to Superman in quite a while, too consumed by alcohol and the thumping beat of the music, until you spotted him leaning against the banister of the top floor, drink in one hand and definitely watching you. Again, this would be creepy if he were anyone else but in this case it only made you appreciate the current sensual song even more, your eyes never leaving his as you moved your body to the beat. You were planning on going home with him later either way, you could tease him a little more before then, show him what he could have if he played his cards right.

He was still watching you a couple of songs later when your throat had gotten dry and your heels were starting to grow uncomfortable. In need of a break you pointed towards the bar, hoping that he’d understand and when he nodded you smiled brightly, excusing yourself from your group of friends so you could grab some water. You were done drinking for tonight, much more exciting things laying ahead of you and you wanted to be sober for them.

Water was apparently a welcome change from the regular orders the bartenders got because you were served immediately, a cool bottle set in front of you seconds later. You checked over your shoulder before taking a sip, spotting your Superman as he made his way towards you with a smile, one you returned before turning back around to climb on the stool that had just freed up so you could give your feet a well-deserved break.

When you felt a tap on your shoulder you fully expected it to be the hot guy, your most dazzling smile instantly on your lips as you turned around but it quickly fell off your face as you realized who it really was.

When you were younger you’d often imagined yourself in this moment, thought of what you’d say when you’d finally see him again after all this time apart. A small part of you had pined after him for years and fantasies of how your eyes would meet from across the room and how everything else would stop mattering had filled your daydreams once upon a time. But as you looked at him now there were no butterflies, no fireworks and you could still hear some remix of “Monster Mash” blaring over the speakers, the world was definitely still turning.

Perhaps you’d built up what had been between the two of you in your mind in the years of his absence, put him on a pedestal – he deserved to be one though because through everything he had been nothing short of a great guy – but as you looked at him you realized that all that was in the past. There was just a warm afterglow of what once was. As you looked at him now, there was absolutely no doubt that you didn’t love Anthony Beauvillier anymore.

“I wasn’t sure if it was really you, but wow Y/N you look great”, his familiar voice met your ears and it took you a second to realize that he’d slipped into French, the way the two of you had done countless times as teenagers.

You probably resembled a fish with the way you were opening and closing your mouth without saying anything but you couldn’t help yourself. Seeing Tito in this club had hit you like a fright train and you hadn’t expected it at all, which only made it worse.

Almost 20 Million people lived in New York State and over 8.3 Million in New York City alone. Brooklyn housed well over 500.000 people as well and yet you still managed to run into your ex in this club, despite the both of you growing up in Québec. If you were any good at math you would calculate the probability of this happening but you’d always sucked at it and it really wouldn’t help your situation either. You reminded yourself that you both worked here now but that was absolutely beside the point.

Before you managed to embarrass yourself even further you shook your head to clear your thoughts, smiling at the guy who had once held your heart before making the break into the NHL. He was dressed as a boy scout, with medals pinned to his shirt, the scarf thingy and everything and the costume was so incredibly him that you immediately felt catapulted back into your teenage years. It was easy to fall back into your old routine then.

“Oh yeah, do you think your Mom would still speak so highly of me if she saw me dressed as a slutty devil?”, you joked and he threw his head back in laughter, taking you even more by surprise when he threw his arms around you in a hug. It was a bit awkward with you sitting on the bar stool and all and it made you realize that he himself didn’t even feel the same anymore, his career of being a professional athlete shaping his body into a much more bulkier version of the one you were used to.

As you looked over his shoulder you caught the gaze of your Superman and your thoughts immediately returned to him. What must he be thinking of you hugging another stranger at the bar after telling him to come see you? The confusion was evident of his face, a crease between his eyebrows giving his thoughts away and you noticed how he scrunched up his nose in a very cute way so you immediately pulled back from Tito, reaching up to adjust your horns as a disguise for your sudden movement.

“So, did you finally manage to make your dreams of living and working in New York City come true?”, he asked as he took a step closer to let someone else pass by and you nodded, amazed that he still remembered after all these years. He really was one of the good guys.

“Yep, I finally made it, although it’s not as glamorous as I thought it would be. But maybe that’s only us working class people, I’m sure it’s a lot different in your line of work.” Thankfully he picked up on your teasing and wasn’t insulted, only laughing even more as he finally had the space to move next to you so he could look at the crowd as well.

“Speaking of work..”, he trailed off as he switched back to English and to your utter disbelief he waved your Superman over. Superman was reluctant to move at first, that much you could tell by looking at him, and since you watched him extra closely you were probably the only one to catch him flinching a little as Tito threw his arm around his shoulders but his confused expression was obvious as he looked between the two of you.

“Y/N, this is my teammate and best friend Mat, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Mat, this is my ex Y/N. You’ve also heard of her.”

Of course you’d heard of Mathew Barzal, last year’s Calder winner and rising star among the NHL’s elite players but it seemed like you were a victim of the Clark Kent Effect because you hadn’t recognized him at all with the glasses on.

Now your Superman had a name but the only thing you could focus on were the words “best friend”. No matter how hot Mat was and how much you’d wanted him before, very much imagining him helping you out of your tight dress, you couldn’t do that to Tito.

Mat seemed to come to the same realization as you because he plastered what could only be described as a business smile on his face, extending his hand for you to shake. You took it, relishing in the way his warm palm felt against yours and allowing yourself to enjoy his touch one last time before letting go and smiling at him with sad eyes as you introduced yourself.

Tito stayed to order a drink, pulling Mat and you into a conversation and therefore preventing your escape and while that was already bad enough in itself, he unknowingly took your breath away when he asked Mat:

“Hey, did you ever find that hot klutz you told me about? The one that fell into your arms earlier?”

Tito had his back towards the both of you so he didn’t see the way Mat looked down at you with sad eyes as well before pulling himself together and responding:

“Yeah, but turns out she’s not available after all.”

The rest of the night passed in a blur, you’d returned to alcohol after saying goodbye to Tito and Mat and promising Tito to stay in touch, so you barely remembered climbing into an uber hours later and only really came to your senses when you chugged a water bottle in your kitchen.

“Wait, weren’t you planning on going home with that hot Superman you mentioned earlier? What happened to him?”, Emily asked from her spot on the couch, her usual spot after a night out since your apartment was closer.

“I guess he left”, you answered, not really willing to go into any details right now.

“Aw, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

And wasn’t that the truth.

#mat barzal #mat barzal x reader #mat barzal imagine #new york islanders #nhl fanfiction #hockey imagine #hockey writing #my writing #nhl players #nhl

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straybreeze · 3 years ago

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GX MONTH 2021

Day 1: “Hero Signal”

We’re kicking things off with everyone’s favorite hero Judai/Jaden Yuki’s birthday! Show the fluffy boi some love!

Yay, this is my very first time participating in a Tumblr event! Thank you @gxmonth for making this, I'm so excited!

I tried my best to include my OC as well, I hope it won't be too cringe lol.

Also, I would like to remark here, that I'm not a native English speaker, so if I made any grammatical errors or other mistakes, please let me know!

Word count: 2475

Pairing: implied spiritshipping

Warnings: slight angst

Happy, happy birthday Judai.

The sun was already high on the endless blue sky, showering the small apartment room in golden light when a big, orange and round thing pushed the door open with its head. The cat made his way through the mess and straight to the bed, where his owner was still sleeping. Confuting his own respectable weight, he jumped easily into the bed and snuggled up to the sleeping boy’s side, purring loudly. The quiet snoring suddenly stopped as the boy slowly opened his deep brown eyes, his hand automatically searching for the cat’s fluffy head.

“Let me sleep, Pharaoh! Just five more minutes!” Judai pleaded and covered his eyes with his free hand.

But it had been proven to be an unacceptable answer to Pharaoh. If he was hungry, nothing was an excuse for being late for breakfast. And in fact, it was almost lunchtime.

“Meow!”

However, Judai still didn’t seem willing to move, so he had to try harder.

“Ouch! Pharaoh, I know you are hungry, but I’m not your food! Don’t eat me!” Judai moaned as he sat up reluctantly. He squinted in the vivid lights, reaching the phone on the nightstand. The screen was showing 11 AM and the date below: 31th August.

31st August. The last day of summer. And his birthday.

Judai almost forgot about his nineteenth birthday. But to be honest, this day is going to be just like any other of the past week. He had nothing to do besides sitting at home and feeding Pharaoh occasionally. There was no real difference from what he did ever since he arrived from his last journey.

In fact, he was stuck in Domino City and had to stay there until he would eventually get a phone call from Chancellor Samejima. In the past one year of his life, an incoming call from his ex-headmaster meant one thing: a new job is on the sight. Not that Judai minded that. He loved travelling around the world and solving intriguing cases with his dueling skills. He didn’t continue his studies in a college, nor joined the Pro Leagues like his other friends. No, he just did the same as in his Academia years: slacking and occasionally saving the day. That is the duty of the heroes after all.

…And at least he could be useful in something as well.

Judai spent the last two weeks in this apartment, which he and Johan were renting together. In the first days, it wasn’t so hard to stay put, but Johan went on a holiday to his family in Sweden more than a week ago. He promised that he will get home before the end of summer, yet he messaged his roommate that he had to stay for a few more days. So in the end, Judai was left alone for his birthday.

Okay, not completely alone. At least Pharaoh was there for him, he thought as he strolled out to the kitchen to find some breakfast for his hungry cat. And for himself.

One year had already passed since they graduated from Duel Academia. A lot of things happened to everyone and it appeared that nobody had the time to greet Judai on his birthday. At least none of his friends told him that they would like to see him today. No missed calls, no unread messages yet.

Have they already forgotten him?

No, that was nonsense. They might be just… busy.

Sho and Manjoume have joined the Pro Leagues right after their graduation, so they were already living their restless life just like his other pro friends, Edo and Kaiser. Well, in his Academia years Judai already got used to that Edo is as much unavailable as the Emperor of Japan himself, but it appeared that Kaiser is that kind of celebrity too. Since he more or less recovered from his heart condition, he started a Cyber Pro League along with Sho and they both attended various events actively in the country and lately overseas too. Of course, Kaiser was told that he must not overstrain himself and stress too much in general, but Judai would bet that he disregarded all of those rules anyway. Especially because he hadn’t talked to him in months, so he must be busy as hell as always.

On the other hand, as far as Judai knew the Tenjoin siblings still lived in North America – Asuka was still studying in Duel College for sure while her brother, Fubuki-san was… doing something too, he assumed? Judai hadn’t heard much of them lately, but he knew that Fubuki-san followed his younger sister to chase his dreams and become an idol abroad. Judai didn’t know much about the school system of America, so Asuka might have classes at this very moment, maybe that’s why she hasn’t called him yet.

For his younger friends, Kenzan graduated from Duel Academia this summer, while Rei is going to start her last year in October. Maybe they are both on a vacation right now, enjoying themselves on a beach or something. It was still summer anyway, Judai couldn’t blame them for that.

And oh, there was Aurora, too. She was the roommate of Edo (and maybe his stepsister as well? Or something more? Who knows. She was a mystery anyway), who befriended him less than a year ago. Judai supposed she doesn’t even know that this day is his birthday.

After he gave some salmon flavored cat food and fresh water to Pharaoh, he decided to grab a bowl of cereal for breakfast and lunch at once.

As much he wanted to act like his birthday was nothing, if it was just like any other day, it made him hurt deep inside that nobody, even his closest friends haven’t paid attention to him on his day. He already got used to that his parents don’t care about him, but he thought he found a new family in his friends.

Maybe he was wrong.

But hey, it was him who abandoned them in the first place, Judai reminded himself. He was the one who left the Academia without saying goodbye and ran away from them straight to another country. He shouldn’t feel sad, because he knew that their friends would be estranged from him sooner or later. And he was the only one to blame.

Judai was so lost deep in his thoughts that he didn’t even realize that the milk was long overflowed the bowl and it was already spilling down the table. Pharaoh didn’t waste a single second: he leapt to the white liquid dripping from the edge of the table and licked it with such joy as if he had never tasted it before in his entire life.

“Dammit!” Judai moaned, then hastily wiped the milk off from the table and the parquet.

Oh well. He hadn’t been awake for ten whole minutes yet, but he already knew, birthday or no birthday, this was not going to be his day.

As the day continued, Judai climbed back to the bed and chose to do nothing today besides watching silly TV shows. He could have gone out at least for a walk, that’s true. He lived in Domino City after all, the city he loved the most. If you are a duelist, this is the best place for you in the entire world, especially if you live in downtown. The coast was not too far, Kaiba Land and other fun places were within easy reach too. But nothing was entertaining enough if you had no friends around.

“I feel like you’ve forgotten something,” Judai heard a familiar voice from all of a sudden. Slowly, the television screen became blurry as he was still staring at it, and a demonic shadow appeared at the end of his bed.

“Yubel,” he spoke their name aloud as he closed his eyes. “What did I forget?”

“Me,” came the obvious answer. “Why do you feel so lonely?”

“I’m not lonely. I’m just…” Judai began but then realized that the sentence had no continuation. “No, Yubel, everything’s good.”

“You sure?”

“Uh, yeah! I’m glad you’re here. It is enough for me.”

“You are a bad liar, Judai. You know that?”

“Hey, I mean it! I’m glad you are here, Yubel.”

“… I know.” Yubel smiled, gentler than it was imaginable from them. As they took a short break, their heterochromatic eyes curiously scanned the boy who was bound to them for an eternity. “But I still don’t understand, what is the matter with you?”

Judai didn’t answer their question. At least with words. He thought it was enough for an answer that he checked his phone every five minutes if someone messaged him already. But sadly, nobody had searched him so far.

It was already late afternoon when he finally heard the standard ringtone of his phone. He almost fell asleep again, and the vibrating sound made his heart pound in excitement. He immediately grabbed his phone, but when he checked the screen, he had mixed feelings.

The caller was Aurora, Edo’s roommate. And the last one who Judai thought would call him on his birthday.

“Hello, Rory! What up?” he greeted her, a soft smile unintentionally crossed his lips. But it had soon vanished when Aurora didn’t answer immediately. “Rory? Is something wrong?”

“Judai,” she spoke finally. Her usual melodic voice was trembling somewhat as if she was nervous. “I’m glad I could reach you!”

“Yeah, I mean, you could have totally called me all day! I had nothing to do, you know.” Maybe he shouldn’t have hinted things like these, but still.

“I see. Sorry, Judai, but may I ask you something?” Aurora’s voice still didn’t sound too firm.

“Sure, anytime!” Judai’s eyes sparkled at thought of the adventure. “But you’re fine, aren’t you?”

“Y-Yeah. I just… need to talk with someone. With you.”

“Really? Well, I’d gladly chat with you, but if you wanna talk about some… girlish thing, you know I’m not your man.”

“You will be completely fine. I wanna talk about something else, not girlish things.”

“Something happened with Edo maybe?” Judai guessed.

“Not at all! Ahw Judai, stop asking questions! I will tell you everything if I see you in person. So get ready and come!”

“Come where?”

“I’ll be waiting for you at the entrance of Kaiba Land in fifteen minutes.”

“Why there? You’re not even a duelist—„

“See you later, Judai!”

Before Judai could remark that he may not be there in fifteen minutes, Aurora had already hung up the phone. Surely, she became weirder and weirder. Maybe it was Edo who was a bad influence on her.

When Judai arrived at the said place, he was nearly jumping out of his skin. He was curious about what Aurora wanted to talk to him about, and at the same time, he was glad that he finally had a reason to leave the apartment.

Though it was still a bit unexpected that he would spend his birthday with Aurora, but why not? They were friends after all. He should have thought about her sooner.

“Judai!” Aurora shouted and waved him from the distance.

As he came closer, Aurora silently turned around and headed into the Park. It was almost sunset, the monstrous structures of Kaiba Land were glowing in orange.

“Okay, would you tell me now what are we doing here?” Judai asked while he barely could keep up with her.

“You will see, I promise!”

“Come on, Rory!”

“No worries, we are almost there!”

And that was all she told him, no matter how hard he tried to get more information. But the sparkle of hope ignited in his heart, that something bigger was standing behind this weird invitation.

Kaiba Land was slowly emptied out as the closing hour was coming, so they didn’t meet too many people. Especially as they got deeper and deeper into the amusement park.

They were nearby the rollercoaster when they finally stopped.

“Judai,” Aurora turned to him. “I know that this whole thing came from all of a sudden, and I’m so happy that you followed me without a question anyway.”

“Well, actually—”

“I hope you know that it means a lot to me. Not just me. To all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Judai, you have amazing friends. And you are the best among the best for all of them.”

“Rory, I’m not sure I understa—„

“SURPRISE!!”

Shouts were coming from everywhere, and suddenly a shadow of a whole crowd appeared in the dim lights of the setting sun. Before Judai could have the time to react, a short figure stood out from them and started running towards him.

“Happy birthday, Aniki!” Sho shrieked as he bumped into Judai and embraced him closely. Shortly after, he found himself surrounded by people. Surrounded by his friends.

“Happy birthday, Judai!”

“Judai-sama! I wish the bestest birthday in the world to you!”

“Nice to see you, loser! Where the hell have you been for this long?”

“Yeah, Judai, we were all waiting for you!”

“Happy birthday, Aniki-don!”

“Damn, I missed you so much!”

Everyone was there. Asuka and Rei. Manjoume, Fubuki-san and Kenzan. Sho was still holding onto him, almost crying.

“Hehe, surprise! I came back from Sweden today just because of your big day!”

Even Johan was there. He came home finally! Judai couldn’t help, but sudden warmth flowed through his body as Johan hugged him along with everyone else. Even Manjoume was in the crew.

“Hey guys, you flatter me…”

“See, Edo? We almost missed the group hug because of you.” Another familiar voice came from the distance, and when Judai glanced up, he saw Kaiser Ryo and Edo Phoenix’s silhouettes were approaching them.

“Don’t blame me because Kaiba Seto himself wanted to talk with me. But I assume you can still join the group hug if you’re really that desperate.”

When the pros reached the crew, they greeted Judai in unison.

“Happy birthday, Judai!”

“You two…”

“In fact, these two were the masterminds for this plan,” Aurora joined the celebration too. “Happiest birthday for you!”

With suppressed tears in his eyes, Judai looked around his friends. Yeah, Aurora had right. He had the best friends in the world and now he felt terrible guilt that he had ever questioned them. Yubel were right after all, for not understanding what was his problem. Now he didn’t understand too.

“Okay, who wants some cake?”

“WAIT, we have cake?” Judai asked in shock. How the hell did they bring it to here?

“Of course! I mean you have it, Judai,” Asuka corrected him.

Before Judai could shout in happiness, his phone started ringing again. To his surprise, Chancellor Samejima called him.

“Happy birthday, Judai! Are you ready for your next adventure?”

Judai couldn’t help but smile again.

“Ready as I’ll ever be!”

#gxmonth2021 #yugioh gx #ygo gx #yuki judai #jaden yuki #fanfiction tag

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vtforpedro · 4 years ago

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medical update and stuff. trigger warnings in tags I’m extremely frustrated. it’s been 15 months of frustration lol so so so sick of doctors, so sick of living through this. I am tired and getting no relief you might remember, but I was given a ‘possible’ IIH diagnosis in October. we’ve been treating it like it is IIH, which means everything has always been real etc etc and the treatment is weight loss. started my ‘better eating habits’ on nov 1st. then I immediately had the thing with my chemo pill packing on a ton of excess fluid, worsening my head to the point of ER and calling my neurosurgeon, getting taken off my chemo pill, and it wasn’t until mid-december that I actually started to see any fucking weight loss cause of that my pcp told me 5lbs a month. so I’ve been right on track with that despite wishing I could lose 10 a month but that’d be starving myself so lol I’ve lost 15lbs but now something exciting is happening again!! I am retaining fluid and I have NO idea why. which means my head is now as bad as it was last summer when everything was at its worse. constant all day long, pills barely doing anything for me, vision issues, pain issues. it feels like something broke in the base of my skull/neck because I get the scariest sensations there. it’s horrible. no human being should have to live this way and I do it every single day, numerous times a day anyway I had to go to the ER last thursday A G A I N because a doctor sent me. my pupils were noticeably two different sizes. I’d noticed three days beforehand and convinced myself I was imagining it cause it wasn’t a huge difference. finally took a picture and no, def not the same size and my eye looked like it was going inward? anyway, called my pcp, they had me come in that day, he saw it from a foot and a half away, sat back, and said I need you to go to the ER, you need your brain looked at. so again, I’ve been seeing this for three days while my head has been 10/10 extreme due to pressure in it. I get there and have to wait a while but less than two hours later when they finally looked at me? gone. pupils back to normal. doctor talking down to me like I was just an anxious mess and not that another dr sent me cause he saw what I did lol and his notes were in my chart. so, wasted visit and they put a covid patient 15ft from me and intubated them, so get to remember what that sounds like forever and ever (covid patients are supposed to be separated from other ER patients). now I’m doing a 10 day quarantine while I am so severely disabled I cannot bend over to take care of my cats food/litter/etc and it’s why my mom half lives with me but she can’t right now :) getting a covid test in three hours and it’s been eight days with nothing but head issues + fluid retention so hoping it’s negative the fluid retention I had before was a side effect of my chemo pill. I don’t know why this is happening. I should be 17lbs down now and I’ve actually gained weight despite being on the same diet that lost me the 15. I’m back to 13lbs down. this makes me feel like I might be carrying 4lbs of water weight. let me break this down because yesterday a PA told me my symptoms were too ‘ambiguous’ to say if fluid retention is happening or not - fluid retention from the chemo pill was ALL felt in my stomach. it was distended and bloated like I’d eaten at a buffet every single day - head got massively worse, enough to go to the er, doc and I agreed the fluid retention causing me to fluctuate between 15lbs was making the IIH worse - not urinating often despite drinking a normal amount - got on a diuretic, seven days later the weight was gone, head was better, started losing weight this is what I’m experiencing now - fluid retention that is causing my stomach to feel very bloated and look/feel distended - head has gotten massively worse, enough to send me to the ER - should be losing weight, have actually gained weight on a low fat, low calorie diet - the only difference this time is that I am dehydrating myself (yes I know, bad, but it is literally saving my life) because I experimented one day with half my water intake and my head was miles better. still experiencing a terrible head episode once or twice a day but it’s not 10/10 constantly - and the second difference is despite not drinking enough water, I am actually urinating more often and it’s a lot more clear than it should be, the color I expect when I’m hydrating well I consider this ^^^^^ to be a good case of why I think I have fluid retention but being told my symptoms were ‘ambiguous’ and throwing me to my neurosurgeon instead is HNNNNG (esp because diuretics are known to help IIH symptoms FOR THIS EXACT REASON) I have VERY recently had my sugars checked a few times, glucose is normal. VERY recently had an abdominal CT, also normal. it’s not diabetes, it’s not something happening in my abdomen. they hear abdomen vs legs swelling and think it’s GI because doctors never fucking listen and actively put their patients in danger but o h w e l l, I guess anyway as it’s been for 15 months, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I go this way and experience agony, I go that way and experience agony I need extra hydration for weight loss, leukemia, being obese. I need less hydration because it worsens IIH to the point of 10/10 I want to die (which makes me heavily and actively suicidal. doctors see I take anti-depressants and assume idk I’m being dramatic but no, it’s really this fucking bad. I would rather die that moment than keep feeling what’s happening in my head) there’s like no middle ground and my body and these doctors are making it impossible to figure this shit out. my mom had to come over at 1:45 AM last night (hasn’t had to rush here since april 2020 cause that’s just how bad it is) because I lost my balance twice and was lucky I had something to catch onto or I would’ve been on the ground (neuro symptoms which could be IIH, could be chiari, could be stroke) and my speech got SUPER bad almost immediately. scared the hell out of me, I have never in my life lost balance that badly before things are going downhill and I would’ve thought losing weight they’d start improving but when has my body ever made this easy lol meeting a new neurologist on monday who works in the same building with my neurosurgeon. I’ve been avoiding them cause every single one of them told me I was just anxious despite specific physical movements causing an episode lmao but hopefully this guy is better and he has access to all of my neurosurgeon’s notes and stuff. I can’t keep dehydrating myself but at the same time I can’t let my head get so bad I make a farewell note for my mom, you know? it’s just been really bad and I don’t know how to get people to listen to me. I have a 99% diagnosis and they still don’t take me as seriously as they should. this has ruined my quality of life and they would have you believe that doctors take that seriously but they do not neurosurgeon wants me to see an ophthalmologist again cause of my vision issues and to check for specific things that relate to IIH. he wants another MRI done in early may cause it’s been a year since my last one by then (actually a month later, my last one was in april, but I’m curious if the neurologist will order one sooner) to check to see if anything has worsened so yeah living in absolute hell again and don’t know if I can just get a simple one week diuretic to get this fluid out of my body. what the FUCK else can it be when I’ve experienced this exact thing twice!! before. it happened to a much, much lesser degree the first time I got on the chemo pill. but the same shit :) hanging on by the thinnest thread guys and 15 months of feeling like I’m going to die almost every single day through that has destroyed my psyche. destroyed me as a person. I don’t know what to do anymore sorry this is all a lot of Bad™ but it’s been a lot of bad for 15 months. if I can keep going, I hope one day to be able to give an update of improvement love you all

#medical #medical trauma #tw suicidal thoughts #personal #long post

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #236: “I Want to Be an Avenger!”

October, 1983

Spider-Man -- An Avenger -- ?

Y’know, march of time and all that but this doesn’t seem as surprising as it once did.

Not much to say about this cover. It doesn’t have a lot to say about the issue other than ‘SPIDER-MAN INSIDE’ but boy does it say it.

But, oh, the logo changed and its snazzy! I quite like it!

So recent going-onses for the Avengers. Thor and Iron Man quit the team for personal business. Hawkeye broke his leg and is on medical forced-to-leave. Scarlet Witch and Vision were called in as reservists and Vision immediately got damaged by a crossover and has been in a robot-coma ever since. Starfox joined the team.

But in more positive news, they totally kicked the Wizard’s ass last issue and it cheered everyone up.

So the issue starts on a lazy summer day.

Scarlet Witch is on monitor duty, scanning for any ‘this looks like a job for the Avengers’ type calls. And multi-tasking by also thinking of her tubed husband.

Captain America takes his turn standing watch over the comatose synthezoid.

And for some reason, Cap leaning on the tube like that cracks me up.

Starfox spends his downtime trying to hit on Wasp.

His pickup line is so bad.

Wasp finds it charming in its misapprehension although it could also be the sexy beams Starfox emits from his brain.

And She-Hulk is taking a bath in a large barrel in the Avengers’ rec center, which they have. Maybe its the super hot bath?

She(-Hulk)’s also multi-tasking by looking up apartment listings while she soaks but finds that everything on the NY listings is either too small or too ritzy.

It be like that sometimes.

Jarvis comes into the rec center barrel bath area with iced tea for She-Hulk, trying to politely avert his eyes. But the intruder alarm goes off and she(-Hulk) tells Jarvis to hand her a towel and runs off to his flusterment.

Between Tigra and She-Hulk, I think poor Jarvis is getting overwhelmed with rad ladies on the Avengers.

The Avengers assemble in the main foyer and found that someone just barged in the front door and disabled the security tentacles with some sort of odd, artificial webbing.

Who could it be?

Who could possibly break into Avengers Mansion under the mistaken impression that its actually a cool way to impress them while asking for a job, showing that he’s learned nothing in years?

Could it be the person who expressed interest in joining in the previous issue? And who is also on the cover of this issue??

Yes.

Honestly, though, what an amazing splash page!

Also, spectacular and no-adjective.

Spider-Man knows how to make an impression.

Not a good one, certainly. But the Avengers aren’t going to forget the time he was casually chilling above the dining table.

And Pete isn’t going to forget it either. He’s going to wake up in a cold sweat years later still mortified at himself.

I also love it when the title of the issue is something someone said but since it has to be emphasized to make it clear its the title, they suddenly start yelling in the middle of a conversation.

She-Hulk has no patience for Spider-Man’s nonsense and grabs him off his web hammock to yell at him for barging in.

Spider-Man: “Well, I’m not exactly uninvited! Your buddy Thor asked me to join the club just a few months ago. Sure, I’m a little slow in replying, but I’ve had a busy season!”

And then he snarks about She-Hulk just wearing a towel because Spider-Man loves low hanging fruit.

SURELY, Spidey knows that offers usually expire, right? A few months ago is forever in comic time and Thor himself isn’t even on the Avengers right now.

I guess, in fairness, he has his reasons.

Besides his usual perpetual poverty liking the sound of a thousand bucks a week.

As he later muses to himself, Black Cat has been hospitalized because she tried to help him and he feels obligated to pay for her not-cheap medical bills. And he’s already quit grad school to spend more time earning but his freelance paychecks are nothing compared to an Avengers salary.

He’s being an incredibly presumptuous dick... but for a good cause.

And its just like Spidey that he has a good reason for being a jerk that he’d never mention leaving everyone to think he’s just a rude goofus.

What a shame.

Anyway, back at the present, Spider-Man asks where he enlists but Cap tells them that unfortunately their roster is full up. The sixth spot is being held open for Hawkeye when his leg stops being broken (and you think he was moany about being sidelined while his leg was broken, imagine him learning that he was replaced, eesh).

Cap does suggest that Spider-Man could join Starfox in the trainee program but Spidey throws a fit.

Spider-Man: “Trainee program?!? Hey, I’m Spider-Man, remember? I was sticking to walls when you guys were still looking for a clubhouse. I’m no green rookie!”

Starfox: “Green -- ? I take offense at your tone, Spider-Man!”

She-Hulk: “There’s nothing wrong with being green.”

Pffft.

As an actual rookie who is physically green, She-Hulk doesn’t care for that phrase, maybe.

She-Hulk and Starfox possibly beating up or more likely being embarrassed by Spider “will punk the entire X-Men in the not too distant future” Man is interrupted by a priority alert that goes ARROOOOOOOO

... Is it the Nixon alarm?

Why haven’t the Avengers fought Nixon’s head on a war mech yet??

Spider-Man offers to give them a hand if their priorities are being alerted but with this particular alarm, Wasp decides its best if they stick to the rules.

And then She-Hulk chases Spidey out by throwing a chair at him.

Spider-Man: Well, that was certainly a wash-out! Maybe I shouldn’t have come on as such a wise guy... Maybe I should have come to the door all humble and contrite. Nah, they wouldn’t have believed it was me!

.... Hah.

But he sees the third-floor of Avenger’s mansion opening up to launch the Quinjet and fount of good decision making that he is, he decides to jump onto the Quinjet as it launches.

Spider-Man: Whew! This baby is really starting to pick up speed! I feel like I’m in a wind tunnel. My sticky fingers can hold onto just about anything under normal circumstances... boy, I wish these were normal circumstances! I wonder if this was such a good idea.

No, Pete, it wasn’t.

But your inner monologues do add a bit more joy to this issue so I forgive you.

Inside the Quinjet, She-Hulk notes that the controls handled a bit sluggish right after take-off but eh whatever the problem disappeared after they went supersonic.

Huh. I wonder if Pete is ok.

Anyway, Captain America, She-Hulk, and Starfox are headed towards Project Pegasus.

Since it hasn’t come up in Avengers yet, Project Pegasus is a government research facility that seeks out new types and sources of energy. And Cap helped organize their security force back in Marvel Two-in-One #42.

The priority alert wasn’t the highest priority. Just a code-five, indicating a low-grade emergency. But it didn’t come with any details so Cap is vexed.

Three Avengers should be enough for a code-five but problems at Project Pegasus tend to balloon into worse problems.

You wouldn’t think a research facility would attract so much negative attention but as Cap points out, there’s a lot of people who have a vested interested in making sure energy stays scarce, expensive, and presumably non-renewable.

And considering that the oil companies like Roxxon are EVEN MORE BLATANTLY EVIL in the Marvel U, yeah, uh, bad shit is going to occur.

Also, Project Pegasus doubles as a place to jail supervillains so their powers can be studied.

So, yeah, Pegasus having a priority alert probably means a headache.

So these three Avengers are going in but Wasp and Scarlet Witch are on stand-by just in case.

The visit to the super secure research station goes off to a bad start when guards rush the Quinjet when it lands because a foreign object was detected on the undercarriage.

Of course it’s Spider-Man.

But before he can be arrested for breaking into a secure facility, his spider-sense buzzed.

It’d be a bit confusing if it wasn’t buzzing before though. He has a bunch of rattled guards pointing guns at him right after some unexplained emergency has happened.

That doesn’t set off the Peter Tingle at all??

Anyway, since the buzz is pretty intense, he figures that its warning him of something “a lot more dangerous than the lecture Cap’s going to give me!”

Hah!

He doesn’t manage to warn anyone before a tremor knocks (almost) everyone off their feet with a THROOM

Spider-Man is still standing because he loves Elton John forewarned is forewarned and he can stick to things. And to his surprise, Cap manages to stay on his feet.

Cap: “It’s just a matter of knowing how to react and how to brace yourself, Spider-Man.”

Hah!

That’s So Cap.

Spider-Man asks if he realio trulio can’t give Cap a hand with this situation. Y’know, since his spider-sense probably will come in handy. Cap isn’t sure because of the question of security but Spider-Man has an idea there.

See, he’s been here before!

In Marvel Team-Up Annual #5 he helped save the dang place! They can ask chief of security Wendell Vaughn (who is also known as Quasar but probably not to all the people in this scene?).

Unfortunately, Vaughn quit a couple months back. Oops.

But since Cap vouches for him the guard driving them to the lower levels is like ‘eh whatever.’

The power of a Cap vouch is not to be underestimate and never to be used for evil.

They’re headed to the thermal research dome because its the last known location of new security chief O’Brien. And where he sent the alert from. AND where the recent quake came from.

That’s good multitasking.

They reach the blast doors sealing off the entire level.

Because yes, not only did O’Brien send an alert, he also sealed off the entire level and now something’s jammed the lock.

They have no idea what could be locked behind there but they do have a Spider-Man and Starfox asks him if he’s getting a bad feeling about anything.

Spider-Man isn’t getting any bad vibes, deeming it safe to go inside.

Y’know, this is an amazing way to use Spider-Sense that they could do more with. I always love it when Spidey basically exploits the sense for things other than combat dodging.

Like when trying to figure out how to turn off a device he didn’t understand in Avengers EMH, he just went around almost yanking wires until he found one that didn’t set off the ‘OH MY GOD YOU’LL DEFINITELY EXPLODE IF YOU DO THAT’ buzz.

Anyway, it being probably safe, Cap tells She-Hulk and Starfox to open the door.

Which they do, with gusto.

And a GRU-U-UNNG

Inside the ruins of the thermal research dome, a bunch of semi-conscious technicians lie about in heaps.

Some Project Pegasus security personnel fan out to do administer first aid while the Avengers look for O’Brien.

Makes sense. The nameless extras help the nameless extras so we don’t go ‘hey are the Avengers dicks for only talking to people with names?’

O’Brien is pinned under an arc of steaming rock which Cap starts chipping in half with his shield while She-Hulk, Spider-Man, and Starfox - all people who could lift that rock - just stand and watch.

Or heck, maybe its not supposed to be a random rock arc. Maybe its attached to the floor. Still though, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, and Starfox could probably break it more easily than Cap does.

Teamwork makes the dream work, guys and She-Hulk.

Spider-Man recognizes O’Brien’s green and also green Not-Iron Man armor from newspapers and realizes that he’s the Guardsman.

That just makes O’Brien sad.

Guardsman: “Aye, I am... or I was. The state this armor’s in, no one’ll ever be callin’ himself the Guardsman again! As of now, I’m just plain Michael O’Brien.”

The Michael Formerly Known as Guardsman starts to Explain It All.

He had come down to the thermal dome to watch the thermal dome researchers sink a new magma tap.

But molten rock came shooting up from the tap hole, which is a thing that’s definitely not supposed to happen.

Oh, and some molten men (but not Molten Man) climbed out of the hole and started trashing the joint.

Plain Michael O’Brien realized pretty quickly that he was the only one who could stand up to these hot men so he signaled for help, hit the evacuation alarm, and sealed off the level from the rest of the project so the problem was contained.

And then he got mobbed by the hot men and got his ass kicked. Turns out that his armor was pretty useless against lava men.

Oh, yeah, Cap recognizes them as lava men from his description.

Spider-Man: “Lava men? You have to be kidding, Cap! Lava men? I don’t believe in lava men!”

Cap: “Belay that, mister! I’ve been up against lava men -- and they’re nothing to joke about! You’d better thank your stars that they left -- !”

You might also remember that Cap has been up against lava men allllllll the way back in Avengers #5. Technically the first adventure he had with the Avengers after officially joining them.

It was also the issue where Thor stoically sank into lava without changing his expression from his default vaguely annoyed one.

Anyway, O’Brien tells the Avengers that the lava men battered their way into the maintenance section since they couldn’t escape to the rest of the facility.

It’s a real good news bad news situation because there’s no one for them to hurt in there and also its a straight shot into the nuclear research dome.

And we don’t want any kind of meltdown there.

Cap decides that this looks like a job for AVENGERS to ASSEMBLE towards. And more than the three plus special guest star they already have.

MEANWHILE, over in New Orleans at an important meeting that definitely would be bad to interrupt, Monica Rambeau (secretly the Avenger known as Captain Marvel but not the dead guy version, true believers) is applying for a small business loan.

And then she gets a bzzt on her radio watch for an Avengers emergency.

Oh no, what of her small business loan!

And also: what small business is she starting? I think I heard at one point that she ran a fishing business with her father?

But what of her small business loan!

Well, Monica agrees with her bank guy Mr. Hillbee that its an alarm watch and that its reminding her of another pressing engagement so hey is there a lot more that they have to do here?

Luckily, all that’s left is for her to sign the documents.

Phew, I’m very used to superhero stuff interrupting a superhero’s civilian life and then them angsting about it. It’s actually a relief that Monica was able to finish up at the bank before dashing off to a phone booth to take a radio watch call with Scarlet Witch.

Wanda tells Monica that they just received a call from Cap(tain America) telling them to get to Project Pegasus. Wanda tells Monica that they’re in transit now and asks if she can join them.

And then the line goes dead before Wanda can give coordinates.

Because Monica just followed the radio signal back to the Quinjet.

She apologizes that it took her so long (!!) because she had to stop at home first to pick up her costume.

Wanda marvels captainly “And I thought my brother, Pietro, was fast!”

Ha ha amazing.

I love Captain Monica Marvel’s ridiculous powerset.

She’s even talking right into their radio so she can communicate from outside the Quinjet.

Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and Captain Marvel arrive at Project Pegasus where they’re briefed of the lava men situation by some of the security staff.

Captain Marvel nyooms ahead lightspeed dash style while Wasp and Scarlet Witch lag behind by taking a high-speed railcar.

Dang, Project Pegasus is big.

I just flipped ahead pages to see how long it takes Captain Marvel to join Cap(tain America)’s group and its a bit.

I guess maybe there’s some overlapped time going on though.

Meanwhile, two technicians in research dome D-2 (called the Compound for some dang reason) ignore all the various alarms and such that have been happening because they’re super into their project. And are possibly mad scientists.

They have the intensity.

But they’re working on... Dr. Croit’s stabilizer? And apparently its vibratory pitch was changed by the tremor that happened? Unbeknowst to them, Captain Marvel just nyoomed by outside and the proximity of her energy form activates the device and the silhouette of some guy leaps out proclaiming FREE!!

Back at the Avengers side of the plot, Cap(tain America)’s group has encountered some lava men.

Spider-Man: “Hey, Cap... I take it all back! I do believe in lava men! I really do!”

Hah.

The lava men are between the Avengers and the nuclear dome so Cap starts thinking of ways to flank them so they can keep them away from it.

She-Hulk starts trying to plow a hole through their forces and... uh.... ok. Cap has Starfox just fly around and annoy the lava men because they’ve never seen a flying man before and its just freaking them out.

Really.

Cap asks Spider-Man to use his webbing to throw up some barriers in the lava men’s path.

Spider-Man: “Heck, I can do better than that, Cappy! Just a couple spritzes of webbing, and these little hotheads won’t be going anywhere for hours!”

Cap: “No, you young fool! Don’t you see what you’ve done!”

Throwing web on the lava men makes them panic because it seems like there’s a lot of stuff that they’re not familiar with and all of it alarms them. When they’re alarmed, their body temperature raises and can get up thousands of degrees.

So they just melt loose of the webbing and now they’ve learned not to be afraid of the webbing at all and they can’t use it to corral them.

Spider-Man: “Would it help if I said I’m sorry?”

Cap: “It would help if you’d follow orders! The Avengers is a team! If you want to be part of the team, act like it! Otherwise, stay out of our way!”

Yeahhhhh. I mean, most of the time. You have your fair share of idiots doing their own thing in the Avengers because all of these guys have egos you wouldn’t believe. But generally they can agree to work as a team.

And Spider-Man, of this era, isn’t much of a team player. Not like Wolverine or Batman ‘i work best alone, bub’ type of not a team player where they’re lying about not being good at teamwork because they like being surly and dour because they think it makes them more interesting. But Spider-Man mostly works alone and is used to just doing whatever he thinks the best idea is. And he has the proportionate speed and reflexes of a spider so he can do whatever he thinks the best idea is way before you can tell him its a bad idea.

That’s why Spider-Man makes so many bad decisions, because he can make them faster than good sense can catch up [citation needed].

Anyway, as he is NOW, he’s not a good fit for the Avengers.

Then again, neither was Hawkeye and they let him join. Makes ya think.

Back over at surprise man out of a box lab, the surprise man was Blackout.

He looks like he’d be an electricity themed villain but apparently his element is darkness. Annd he debuted in Nova annnd this is his second appearance?

At the end of his debut story Nova #19, Blackout was apparently sucked into the Darkforce dimension, a fate that Dr. Croit’s stabilizer had been invented to prevent.

So I guesss.... the stabilizer’s settings were altered by an earthquake and then it was powered by ambient energy from Captain Marvel zipping past and it managed to stabilize Blackout, yanking him free of the Darkforce dimension?

I guess??

As far as villain returns go, its not the most ridiculous but it is a bit contrived.

Blackout has no idea where he is and rants about how he’ll level the place if that’s what it takes to find his way out and in a more acceptable contrivance, he happens to be passing Moonstone’s cell when he says this out loud to nobody in particular and she likes the cut of his jib.

Moonstone: “Sounds like you’re a man after my own heart!”

Moonstone tells Blackout that she’s been locked up here so Project Pegasus could study her powers and that they want to use her the way they would have used Blackout but hey what if they join forces and get some comeuppance.

Blackout: I don’t know if I should trust her... But something about her voice is so reassuring.

Yeah, that’s what we call a red flag, you dingus.

Are we back to the days where some dudes will just villain because a lady bats her eyes?

Anyway, the locking mechanism is too complicated to figure out so Blackout just squeezes it until it explodes.

Um. Okay.

-checks wiki-

The wiki says he’s only supposed to have normal human strength but Blackout himself claims that his body is a living generator of black star energies.

Which apparently means he can squeeze an electronic lock to death. I dunno.

Freed from her cell, Moonstone leads Blackout to what they can do next.

Meanwhile, the Avengers are still struggling with the lava men two levels below. And the fracas has reached the corridor to the nuclear dome. Its now or never but the numbers are too overwhelming even for She-Hulk.

Spider-Man manages to leap above the fray and get forgotten in the confusion but doesn’t find that he can do much. He tries webbing the door to the nuclear dome shut but the lava men don’t even bother opening it when they can melt through.

Hmmmmm not a good showing for a guest starring so far...

When the lava men succeed in melting through the door, a blinding light shines through and the lava men kneel down and start bowing to it.

Ohhhhhh, I get it! They’re not trying to cause a meltdown! They just want to worship nuclear light!

... No? I don’t got it? Okay.

The bright light is actually Captain Marvel who took a shortcut to the nuclear dome to reach the Avengers.

And the lava men are really enamored with her, proclaiming her the lady of light foretold in legends.

Captain Marvel just kinda rolls with this and asks them whats the deal with all the rampaging and destroying.

Lava man: “We did but strike back, radiant one! Our village, deep beneath the Earth, knew peace -- until the surface men bored into our midst with their machines. We could not allow this attack to go unanswered. We only used our powers to stop the invasion!”

Wait, isn’t this the plot of the Jetsons movie?

Cap(tain America) smoothly slides in, diplomatically, to announce that then the surface people beg forgiveness and that this has all been an unfortunate misunderstanding that he pledges shall be put right.

And like how Cap’s clout got Spider-Man into this story, Cap borrows Captain Marvel’s clout to back up his diplomacy roll, saying “The Lady-of-Light will tell you that I speak the truth!”

It’s a good thing that Monica wouldn’t go mad with power.

Also, Scarlet Witch and Wasp show up, while Spider-Man snarks that they “missed the end of the movie.”

But since we can’t have pat resolutions given the subplot that was happening while the Avengers were distracted elsewhere, in the Compound, it turns out that Blackout and Moonstone have freed Electro and Rhino. And Moonstone has a Big Evil Plan.

Blackout: “Pay them back? Yes... yes, we must. But how?”

Moonstone: “In the best way possible! We’re going to bring this place to its knees -- by seizing the nuclear research dome!”

But that’s where the Avengers are! Silly villains, you’ve double booked!

Also, I wonder if the universe cosmically influenced Moonstone to get two Spider-villains involved on the one day that Spider-Man was tagging along.

I also wonder what Moonstone is thinking. She’s the ‘know when to fold ‘em’ villain.

Hmmm... Putting Electro and Blackout side by side makes Blackout look like Electro’s grumpy younger brother.

All kinds of good decisions have been made!

Follow @essential-avengers for more thoughts on villain couture. Also like and reblog so I can feel like I did a good job.

#avengers #lava men #Spider Man #Captain America #She Hulk #Starfox #the Wasp #Scarlet Witch #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging

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