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leesolbeesol · 1 month ago

Text

LIGHTWEIGHT

univeristy!au taesan x fem!reader (ft. the rest of bonedo!)

SUMMARY: Meeting Taesan at a basement party doesn't go as planned, what happens when you can't get rid of him? Do you even want to?

GENRE: fluff, slightly suggestive in one chapter, university!au (mentions of fraternities, classes, lectures, dorms, etc.) WARNINGS: Taesan gets punched, he doesn't deserve it but everything is okay | swearing | mentions of moaning but it doesn't get too crazy, reader makes fun of Taesan for it | fem!reader | heavy mentions of alcohol in the first chapter | EXCESSIVE flirting | ends with a confession!! NOTES: I have never been to a frat party. I have never participated in Greek life. I do not drink for personal reasons. I have never dated Han Dongmin (unfortunately). In other words, this is likely very unrealistic because my information comes from speculation, reddit threads, and other fanfics on tumblr dot com. This was so fun to write WC: 16.2k, divided into 6 "chapters" of varying length

RIDE OR DIE

You shift on your twin bed and feel the crinkly sheets shifting under your weight. You glance at the egg-shaped off-white clock on your wobbly, school-provided desk. The clock hits noon, your roommate will be home any minute and you’re hoping to power through the end of this report before then. Since you chose her as your roommate freshman year (because of maybe five instagram messages), Jen’s been your best friend, your literal ride or die, but she’s not the best body-doubling partner for cranking out assignments. When she’s with someone, she needs to provide commentary on whatever's going on, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse when it comes to being someone’s study partner.

The wooden door opens in an instant, and Jen’s frame appears in the doorway, flanked by about three bags. “Oh, dear roommate!” She greets you in song. She lets the bags fall from her arms with a thunk on the floor, and a couple papers scatter on the floor out of one of many of her partially-zipped backpacks. She marches towards you, waving her phone in your face. “Look at this! One of our sisters invited us to a party Sigma Chi’s is throwing this evening!” She says excitedly before steadying her gaze on you. You back up as a carefully manicured finger stretches out towards your face. “We need to go.” She always refers to her sorority sisters as your (plural) sisters, which you think is sweet. It’s her way of including you. You figure that, at some point, she decided ‘my sisters this, my sisters that’ got a little bit exclusionary.

“No.” You answer her and turn back to your computer, entering the link for a hopefully-penultimate citation. This is the one thing you’re maybe not so “ride-or-die” about with Jen. You like parties, sure, but you aren't going to give up a good night’s sleep (without midterms, and all) so easily.

“What do you mean? It’s going to be so much fun!” She whines. “We just finished our midterms, we need to celebrate! What could you be even working on anyway?”

“There’s a presentation after midterms for some fucking reason, I don’t know. Plus, it's a totally bad idea to bring me. Nothing good happens at frat parties.” You tell her, pointedly. You do this dance with her semi-frequently: she invites you, you say no, she asks why, you say why, she asks again, you (sometimes) give in. You’ve got this waltz down to a science.

“Can you finish it later? Come on, please? You skipped out on the last three.” She looks at you with pleading eyes, ignoring your advice. You wonder if this was how she got everyone to do her bidding; pouting at them with her big brown eyes. You eye her suspiciously. It was true: you had denied her invitation to the last three events and probably the last three hosted by Sigma… what was it? Sigma Key? Whatever. You don’t particularly like most frat boys. In your experience, they tend to be on the annoying side… the very annoying side. The avoid-at-all-costs side.

You look at her as a smile grows on your face, “Will you do my laundry for a week when we get back from break?” At this point, you were considering going anyway, but you were going to try and milk it.

“And I’ll take out the trash.” She smiles back. Now… maybe hanging out in a dingy basement flanked by drunk college kids doesn’t sound that bad, right?

“Promise?”

She raises her hand as if to be sworn in to lawyerhood—or whatever they call it. “I, your loving, adoring roommate, solemnly swear to do your laundry and take out the trash for two weeks when we get back from break.” You suppress a laugh.

“What time is the party?” Satisfied, you surrender, albeit happily. She does manual labor for a couple weeks and you only have to go with her for a couple hours? Sounds like a dream.

“11pm.”

BUDDING ALCOHOLIC

The faint taste of tequila on your lips is your only reminder of your promise not to get the fuck out of dodge. If you hadn’t pregamed this party, you would have been regretting coming right about now, even if it means two weeks worth of chores being eliminated from your future. The music is noise-complaint worthy and not that good, even as far as frat music tends to go. Your best guess for timing is that it’s about midnight, and a couple of your peers are already drunk by the looks of it, making out by the window and stumbling on the grass out front. It already smells like vomit as you walk through the front door. To be fair, you’ve never been to a frat house in the daytime, so maybe the smell of vomit is just a permanent feature.

“You’re the best! Thanks for coming!” She swings an arm around you, at least a little tipsy. You shift in your Jen-approved outfit: a (very) tight black tank top, light-wash jeans, and a pair of Jen-borrowed, frat-designated, almost-destroyed sneakers. You’ve gathered from your brief excursions into the world of Greek life that this is the frat uniform.

“Hey, Jen-fer!” A guy, clearly a brother, comes up to the two of you with a cheeky smile on his face. It seems like every time someone greets Jen, she has a new nickname. Or maybe he’s just drunk and slurring his words. The guy looks like “people call me Chad but you can call me tonight” personified in his khaki shorts and impressively only slightly wrinkled t-shirt, sporting your school’s mascot with ‘VARSITY BASEBALL’ across it in loud, chunky lettering. “Who’s this?” He inquires as a girl swings her arm around his neck. The smile never leaves his face as he leans down to peck her. You watch as the girl and Jen have some sort of telepathic conversation by exchanging big smiles and little waves — she’s a sister, maybe? You really only know the girls that Jen’s closest to: Madelin (spelled like mandolin), Avery (who you thought was a boy for a couple months because you only know one other Avery, a boy), Elliann (whose name you remember how to spell only because you wrote Ellyanne once and you got a talking-to), and Gene (whose contact you have saved as the jeans emoji).

“Ugh, Jay! She’s my roommate, I told you about her.” You smile weakly as she points her attention towards you, “this is Jay. You remember Jay, right? From Econ?”

“Yeah… from Econ.” You mumble something unconvincing because you very much do not remember Jay from Econ. There are about a million Jay’s at this school. There’s Jason’s and James’s and Jongseong’s and Joshua’s and Julian’s who all go by Jay. Hell, there’s even a Jachariah (pronounced exactly like Zachariah but substitute the Z) who goes by Jay in your English Comp class. You think it would make sense to go by Jack (Like Zack) because there are less Jack’s, somehow, but whatever. When you return from zoning out, Jen starts talking at you. Some people are touchy drunks, some people are sad drunks, but Jen is a very, very talkative drunk. To be honest, she’s a talkative sober too.

She asks you to choose between the two drinks in her outstretched hands, naming both, though you can’t identify the taste or ingredients either, even with the name provided. Both looked like water.

Fuck it, what’s the difference? “Um, that one.” You say, pointing to the red cup in her right hand.

“Great! Are you okay on your own? I’m going to talk to Ellen!” She smiles big. Who’s Ellen? You have no idea. “Oh, hey! Meet my friend —hic! This is Tay!” She waves to someone behind you, and beckons them over with a finger. Great, now you have a Tae to keep track of. Her goodbye is sonorous, “Bye bye!”

“Bye, Jen-fer.” You tease her with the drawling nickname, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she waltzes off. You break into a slow smile as you see her leave. If you could remember what feeling sober is like, you would know by the drowsiness alone you’re a little more than tipsy. If Jen is a talkative drunk, you’re a sleepy drunk. You take a big swig of the red cup and it burns as it goes down, making you cough instinctively to get rid of the sensation. After taking a moment to compose, you shotgun the whole cup. Aside from the burning, you’re left with the distinctive aftertaste of artificial sweeteners sticking to your throat.

You back up a little, and bump right into a wall. You curse, thinking you probably looked stupid doing that… that is, before you nearly jump out of your skin when the wall puts a hand on your shoulder. Sufficiently scared, you jump right back to where you started like a tennis ball.

In your inebriation, you're pretty sure it might be the worst mistake of your life to look at the wall when you land eyes on the definitely-not-plaster you bumped into.

You realize that she was saying Tae, not Tay. Tae, though you know him as Taesan, is the name of a—kinda emo—guy in your World Literature class who you decided was cute one time when zoning out in a lecture and have been a little shy around ever since. Why is he here? A frat does not seem like his scene. Your drunk self agrees with your sober self on the former issue, however. He is cute—really cute. His hair is straight and black and his bangs fall just above his eyebrows. You were definitely catastrophizing, because bumping into Taesan is maybe the best thing you could have hoped for at this Greek-whatever party.

“Oh… it’s Taesan!” It doesn’t even cross your mind to suppress the giant grin that spreads across your face as you say his name as you sway. “Can I call you that instead of Tae? Too many ay’s around, I think.” You mumble, feeling as cloudy as ever.

He shrugs, “Sure, I mean, I call you by your full name, usually.”

Mostly ignoring him, you continue, focusing on the way the edges of his lips curl like he’s suppressing a smile. Squinting at him, you monologue. “You’re cute. But you’re bad at…” You squint harder, circling your finger in front of his face as if to cast a spell. He looks a little confused with his straight eyebrows raised, but he doesn’t look scared—yet. If you were in your right mind, you would have been amazed and totally terrified that you hadn’t scared him off with the wiggly finger. Maybe the slipped compliment at the beginning helped build some rapport? “You’re bad at… analysis.” You decide on pinpointing a weakness of his. Now, his analysis is actually pretty good. Sure, he's not going to win any awards with it, but who is in an undergraduate World Literature class taught by a less-than-enthusiastic professor nearing retirement? The alcoholic fog is just a little much, anyway. Maybe you’re more of a lightweight than you care to admit.

“I think my analysis is pretty good, actually.” He frowns, but doesn’t seem offended in the slightest. He’s always quiet in lecture, you’re surprised he hasn’t made a quick excuse to get away yet.

You part your lips as you squint harder and point up at his face again, grasping for words that don’t come all that easy to you. “You… should kiss me.” As the words fall out of your mouth, he seems to look around a little bit in surprise. To your luck, he still doesn’t run screaming.

It’s his turn to point a finger at himself and his cool, bad-boy act slips, “kiss—kiss me?” He stutters, going wide-eyed and glancing around like this is a big reality TV-style prank and there are cameramen waiting in the shadows of this sticky, stinky basement, itching to catch him off guard. Perhaps you’re subconsciously practicing rejection therapy.

“Yeah… you should analyze kissing me.” You attempt a smile as you try to keep your eyes open. The music is pounding in your ears as you stare into the gap between him and the wall to his left.

Still dumbfounded, he tries to find words, now staring at you staring off into space, “well, uh… you… that would be cool, but… I don’t… I don’t think you actually want to kiss me. You smell like tequila.” The alcohol is definitely taking its toll on you, evidenced by the way you lean forward and slump onto the boy in front of you, closing your eyes. His words don’t even go in one ear and out the other, they go over your head entirely. You could feel his body heat even through his thick navy tee. You hear his heartbeat and—you’re no medical student—it’s loud. With your eyes closed, you hear the DJ switch the song to something with less bass and you feel a warm hand come to your shoulder blade, patting it awkwardly. You hear an attempt at words coming from his vocal chords, but you hear nothing identifiable as human language. Just a few um’s and maybe an uh.

“Hey, Tae!” You hear Jen approach behind you, calling out to the boy who you’ve designated as your new mattress. You open your eyes for a second, and you’re kindly greeted with a view of his chest. Slowly analyzing your field of vision (which includes a fuzzy wall and his shirt), you blink once, twice, and then, the third time you close them, they stay closed. As fast as that, you’re gone: disappeared, asleep.

Before you can open your eyes again, you’re assaulted by a pounding headache. You haven’t felt a headache like this since the first time you got drunk with Jen. You’d assumed you’d learned your lesson. This time, it’s not a good thing that you exceeded your own expectations.

You open your eyes and see a rather unwelcome sight of Jen who has her hands on your shoulders, shaking you. It’s certainly not helping your headache. As you come to consciousness, you become aware of the damp, suffocating sweat that clings to your body and the aching that you feel in each and every of your muscles and joints. You can’t even lift a finger.

“Hey. Wake up! Don’t worry, you’re not dying. It’s just a hangover.” She consoles you, but she doesn’t stop pushing you, however. “You drank way too much.” She laughs, drawing out her words and turning her head to the side as her hair falls in front of her face.

You muster your words, “what?” Your voice is grainy and low. You feel like pure, unadulterated hell. The pounding in your head doesn’t stop, it just migrates from one side to the other. Back to left to front to right and back again like a cue ball bouncing around the table.

“You… are… hung… over.” She says like she's trying to teach a baby to say mama. You groan and roll over, freeing yourself from her manicured hands and burying your head in your sheets. As you roll over, you feel the familiar and deeply uncomfortable scratch of the seam of your jeans. You were still wearing the clothes you wore to the party, hooray! “And,” she continues, “you’re going to tell me why Han Taesan is at our door.” Her voice sounds half like she’s scolding you and half like she’s waiting for you to spill. Processing this information, you scrunch your eyes and groan again.

“He’s not.” You deny with a murmur despite the knocking that you hear on the door. The person at the door, reportedly Taesan, knocks one, two, three times.

“He is. He wants to know how you are… tell me what happened between you two!” She urges.

“You’re lying. He is not at the door.” Maybe if you say it enough he’ll go away. Manifesting, you know? You want to know nothing about why he’s here. The party last night was a blur. You remember drinking, seeing a couple familiar faces, bumping into Taesan and then it’s dark and you wake up in your bed with Jen shaking you.

“He is.” She says solemnly. She cocks her head and continues in a more sympathetic tone, “do you want me to tell him to go away?” She asks.

“Yes.” Regardless of whether you want to see him, specifically, you don’t want to see anyone at all. You’re still in your clothes from last night, your whole body hurts, you feel like total crap, and you doubt you showered last night. You do not want to see Han Taesan, and that’s final.

“Yes, ma’am.” She says and jumps off the tall bed. Through half-lidded eyes, you see her crack the door and exchange words with the visitor. You confirm it’s Taesan when his stupid face appears in the crack. Almost involuntarily you close your eyes. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Even with a foggy mind and a throbbing headache, you know nothing good can come out of talking to him, or even seeing him, when you’re so wildly hungover. You feel like a ghost haunting your body. You hear the door shut, and you open your eyes to see Jen shimmying over to you with her eyebrows raised and a disbelieving smile across her face. You close your eyes again, you do not want to see or hear what she has to offer unless it’s an ibuprofen.

“I can’t believe he came to check up on you! Isn’t that sweet? I have no idea what was happening with you two before I got there, but he was so cute about you. He looked so nervous! It’s not like him at all.” You can practically hear her dancing around in excitement. “Your love life never goes anywhere, this is so exciting!” You grumble in protest at her jab at you. She’s been begging to let her set you up with someone, but the only people she knows are frat bros and sorority girls, neither of which are your type, usually. Is Taesan part of a frat? Doesn’t seem like him.

“Jen… advil… please.” You reach out for her with a weak hand.

“You’re not dying.” She assures you, but dutifully returns to your bedside with two little red pills, a bottle of water, and a bag of goldfish. This is how Jen is, you’ve learned; poking fun at you while still looking out for you. “Come on, take them.” She says, holding out the pills. “You’re lucky it’s a Saturday. For a hangover, you need water, food, and sleep.” She recites. Maybe hangover care is a required class for members of the sorority known for the most functions.

“Thanks…” You mutter, bringing a weak hand to your still pounding forehead. “What happened?” You ask. It might help to know what you’re up against in terms of embarrassment.

“Before I got there? No idea. After I got there? Well, you were passed out,” she laughs, “I had no idea you could fall asleep that fast. He looked crazy confused, having you slung over him and all, you know? Anyway, he was dry sober, he just got there. I had the car, obviously, and so he offered to give you a ride back to the dorm in my car. Now, I went with you, of course. For one, I’m always going to come with you when you’re asleep and being taken care of by some man. Two, there’s no way I’m letting any man drive my car without serious supervision.” Now, this elicits a stifled laugh from you, after which you immediately wince in pain. Laughing isn’t good medicine for hangovers, apparently. “Anyway, he picked you up bridal-style, it was really cute, and brought you to our car, and then drove both of us home. I put you to bed, and he left after.” She states, "I wiped your drool, don’t worry.” She nudges you with an elbow.

“Ugh, Jen. Don’t joke with me right now.”

“No, seriously, you did drool. It’s one of, like, five reasons I’m never going to put you in a room with alcohol ever again.”

“I told you it was a bad idea to bring me.” You lament. You don’t like the idea of drooling in the vicinity of Taesan. And he carried you to the car? Seriously, not a high point for your ego. It’s not even about your germinal maybe-crush on him. “Give me some goldfish.”

“You always say that it’s a bad idea, but okay.” She hands you a handful and you shove it into your mouth. It doesn’t mix well with the morning-breath taste and somehow lingering tinge of alcohol. Your head is pounding and if the headache doesn’t kill you, the embarrassment might.

THE ILLUSION

Dr. Woo claps his hands together as the final undergrad enters the lecture hall. The long tables that act as desks proceed away from the central board in stairs.

“Yeah. Big project coming up, right?” He says with a hint of fake enthusiasm. “It’s going to be a group project, if two people count as a group. Hooray.” A resounding groan emanates from the student body. Dr. Woo is visually unphased by this. “Despite the fact that choice is an illusion, you can pick your own partners. This is college. I don’t care.” He waves a hand dismissing any rebuttal, not that any was coming. Regardless of any other feelings about Dr. Woo, everyone knows he’s a great (read: easy) grader. “Anyway, go crazy. You all know the topic.”

Your heart drops as the room immediately erupts in chattering. Your circle was small at best, and you knew no one in World Lit except for… oh no. You feel a tap on your shoulder. Almost in slow motion, you turn around and see Taesan’s damned handsome face.

“Hey,” he says, very, very casually, “do you want to be my partner?” Oh, what the fuck.

“Um…” You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not that you don’t want to be partners with him, really. It’s just that you don’t want to recoil in embarrassment every time you work on a project worth 20% of your grade.

He cocks his head to the side, “so?” You’re pretty sure his face could bring world peace. Have him try to convince a warlord to stop fighting by flashing a smile and they’d be a pacifist in under ten minutes.

You sigh, “yeah. Sure.” You try to smile, it doesn’t work that well. Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen? Do it for the plot, right? Choosing to partner with him is definitely for the plot. You’re not entirely convinced that he’s pure in his intentions to partner with you; maybe this is part of a bigger frat boy scheme.

“My analysis is actually good, I swear.” He says as he pulls back the chair next to you to sit down. Is that a reference? To what? You are thoroughly confused, clearly remembering very little of that fateful night. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back.

“What?” You laugh a little, if only out of awkwardness.

He presses his lips together and they contort as if a laugh is threatening him. “Nevermind. It’s nothing, really.” He is utterly unconvincing when he lies. Maybe he couldn’t convince the warlord.

“Taesan, what?” Your arms cross as you lean back in your chair. Around you, there’s a buzz of new partnerships and dates being set to meet. You two, however, are alone in your own world. In your periphery, Dr. Woo is staring you down. You’re pretty sure he can sense when work isn’t getting done. You can’t tell if he’s just a salty old man or a teenager with a gossip itch trapped in an old professor’s body.

Taesan notices, “Dr. Woo is creeping me out. I’ll tell you in the hall.” He picks up one of your pens and hands it to you in a non subtle suggestion for you to pack up.

You sling your backpack over one shoulder (despite how you’re told it’s bad for your back) and lead Taesan out of the lecture hall.

“So, are you partners with me just to make fun of me?” You probe him as he catches up to you. “I’m taking you to my dorm, by the way. We can get started on the project.” There’s a silent addition of ‘even if you’re being an asshole, I chose to be stuck with you for some reason’ when you give him a purposeful glance. Maybe Dr. Woo is right. Maybe choice is an illusion. He looks completely lost.

“No, no. It’s not like that, really. I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I just thought it was funny.” He turns around and shakes his head to punctuate his point.

“Is it better if I don’t know what happened at the party?” One eyebrow raises and you stare him down with some weird level of confidence. Maybe knowing that he’s seen you drooling, drunk, and looking crazy makes you feel like you don’t have much else to lose.

“No, nothing bad happened. You were just drunk. It happens to the best of us.” He shrugs as you enter onto the green.

“Don’t drag this out, let me bite the bullet if I want to.”

He laughs a little, “alright. In summary, you backed into me, told me I was cute, told me my analysis sucks,” so that’s what that was about, “and told me I should kiss you and I told you that you were too drunk,” oh, what the fuck, “and then you fell asleep on me and Jennifer came over. I carried you to the car and drove both you and her home because she had a couple drinks and I had none. I checked up on you because I knew you were going to have one hell of a hangover.” Great, you’re stuck with this fucker you borderline harassed while blackout drunk.

“You were right. It was one hell of a hangover.” You grumble, looking at the floor to avoid any eye contact with him.

“Don’t be embarrassed. You’re not the first person to tell me I’m cute when they’re drunk.” He teases and you roll your eyes. In your heart, though, this is deeply, deeply embarrassing. The thought of what happened stings like a blade in your heart and in your mind. It’s not as bad as the hangover, but it’s pretty damn bad.

“Yeah, right. I was drunk, okay?” Your words are biting. “Why are you partners with me, then? I wasn’t that great the one time you met me.” Maybe you don’t want to know the answer, but the words are already out of your mouth. You scuff your heels as you walk, still avoiding contact with the one and only Han Taesan.

“You’re cute and you’re smart.” He shrugs and you break your rule of avoiding his eyes because now you’re staring at him in disbelief. “Plus, you’re great at keeping me humble.” He meets your eyes now and you’re immediately regretting thinking anything about the previous compliment meant anything at all.

“If you keep being a jerk, I’m going to keep you humble as hell.” You grumble.

“Sorry,” he frowns mildly, “the first part holds more weight.” And now, you’ve flipped. It does mean something… maybe. You face forward again to hide a smile that he totally catches anyways. You’ve made great time alongside Taesan, you’re almost to your dorm.

“Thanks?”

“My pleasure.” He postures. “Why were you there in the first place? No offense, but you don’t strike me as an alcoholic. An alcoholic can handle being drunk better than that.” It’s sort of a compliment, you guess.

“None taken, I don’t believe that being an alcoholic is in the cards for me.” You snort. “Jen dragged me there. I told her it was a bad idea, but she convinced me to go anyway by bribing me with doing my least favorite chores for a week or two.” You explain, crossing your arms and he laughs. “No offense, you don’t seem like you’re part of the frat nor do you seem like an alcoholic. So, what were you doing there?” You redirect. It’s true: he doesn’t seem like a brother nor a drinker.

“I lost a bet. Riwoo bet me that I couldn’t fit fifteen grapes in my mouth and I wanted to prove him wrong because, well, he’s Riwoo, but I lost the bet.” A laugh bubbles up from your chest imagining the situation. Not only did he try, but he tried and failed. “My punishment was either to go to a frat or to do mine and six of my roommates’ laundry for a semester. I picked the frat, obviously. I’ve lived with those guys for long enough to know that all of them stink like hell.” He adds, grimacing. “Plus, ‘doing laundry’ meant changing the sheets and picking up laundry, too.” He looks at you, pointedly.

“You’re lying, no way.” You laugh, partly with him and partly at him.

“You clearly haven’t met my roommates, this way?” His finger points to the building that you’re rooming in with Jen. You pray she’s not there or you’re going to be met with a litany of highly invasive questions.

You nod at his direction, “yeah, there are like seven thousand people here and I can recognize about thirty faces max. That’s like nothing-percent.”

“Good for me, then. I don’t think I’d be the first person you’d be calling cute if they were there with me.” The tone of his voice is light, but in his eyes you see that he fears it’s the truth. Huh, Taesan is just like the rest of us, who’da thunk?

“Where did your cool guy act go?” You tease, leading him up the stairs to your dorm, distinguished by the handmade felt pennants, spelling your’s and Jen’s names. “Drunk me wasn’t lying when she said you were cute, seriously.” You assure him. “Now, I just have to learn if your analysis is as bad as she said it was.” You push open the door with your back, mostly so you don’t have to face him after calling him cute to his face. Last week, you would have run away on the spot; Taesan has you acting like a bad ATM—all out of order.

ENTOURAGE

You hated to admit it, his analysis was great. By spending hours writing and rewriting scripts to memorize for your oral presentation, you watched Taesan connect dots you didn't even know were there and recall obscure details from lectures that happened to be integral to the coherence of your project. You can practically see the cogs turn in his head, the way he bites the inside of his lip when he’s really focused, the way his face lights up when he gets an idea, the way he slides his thin wire glasses up his straight nose with a knuckle when they slip down because he furrowed his eyebrows too much.

This is how you find yourself at four on a Wednesday afternoon, weeks after your first incidental meeting with him: admiring his work on your dorm floor.

“Damn, Taesan.” You still kept to calling him his full name instead of Tae, you felt like it meant something. “This is amazing, I would have never thought to connect those passages, we read that first book ages ago!” You shook your head, his analysis was that good. Maybe not award-winning, but definitely worth an A, even in your harshest grader’s class. He smirks as he laughs a little, taking off his glasses and stretching his hands up, grasping at nothing while trying to stretch his back. You two had been sitting for hours on the hard floor of your dorm room; you told him to sit on your chair, but he refused, demanding he sit next to you so that he can ‘see what you’re writing’ better.

“You brought up At the Bottom of the River in the first place.” He deflects your praise. You’ll gladly take the compliment even if you had no part in his discovery. As you shrug his deflection off, you feel his arm come down around your shoulder and you jump a little, not expecting the touch. Of course, his hand feels nice where it rests, but you’re still not quite used to the way Taesan evidently shows affection. The first time he pulled the classic ‘I’m-just-stretching-actually-I’m-putting-my-arm-around-you’ move, you didn’t expect it in the slightest. You had finished a part you were putting off and he moved to stretch, suddenly putting his arm around you and shaking you while cheering you on about your victory. The laugh you let out when that happened was something entirely unprecedented for you, you laughed until your stomach hurt and your eyes watered, and you couldn’t even pinpoint why.

“Yeah, sure.” You look at him, exaggerating your skepticism with your one raised eyebrow, his arm still around you.

“When’s Jen getting back? Do we have time to mess around or should I go before she starts pestering you?” He asks, half-joking as he tilts his head towards yours. Jen had taken a liking to him, if not too much of a liking to him… for you. Whenever you and Taesan were together and Jen spotted you, she made the least subtle comments possible telling you to get together, wiggling her eyebrows and full of exaggerated winks. It wasn’t surprising in the slightest. Hey, look at the position you two are in right now: foreheads so close they’re almost touching, alone in your dorm, with his arm wrapped around your shoulder. Still, you’ve gathered that’s just kind of how Taesan is with his friends. From what you’ve heard, he’s like that with everyone. It’s not unique to you.

“She said she’d be back at five, so…” you check the egg clock, “like, thirty minutes?”

“Nice.” He purses his lips. “Are you nervous for the presentation? It’s tomorrow, you know?” Taesan has his sensitive moments, for sure. He sounds—he is—genuinely concerned about how you’re feeling about it, you can hear it in his voice. He’s not great at hiding things like that. Even when he’s making fun of you, it’s never malicious.

“I’m fine. I’m nervous, but it is a big presentation, after all. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” You tell him, flexing an arm to prove your point, though the action is inhibited by his arm still around you.

“Never doubted you for a second, Miss Independent. You can still be nervous though, it’s okay to be nervous.”

“Are you nervous? You sound like you’re projecting.”

He exhales, “yeah, I’m nervous as hell.” He laughs a little after the admission, but it’s not a humorous one.

“Hey, text me if you get nervous before, right? Doesn’t help to keep it to yourself. And, no offense, but I think I’ll be better at commiserating with you than your roommates, however lovely they are.”

He exhales. “Yeah, thanks.” He’s being surprisingly soft, and you can’t help but seize the opportunity to connect a little with the sensitive side of Taesan instead of the cool, nonchalant Taesan. From what you’ve gathered, his Nirvana-decorated headphones, monochrome black clothes, and his sullen resting face makes him less approachable to your peers.

“You’ll be fine. As you said to me when we were partnered, you’re cute and you’re smart. You’ve got it.” You tell him, leaning your head onto his shoulder. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating out of your chest. Can you feel someone’s heartbeat through their shoulder? Probably not, but the human body is full of surprises. One surprise is how hard you can see his pulse through his carotid artery, pulsing in his neck. Good God, this boy is going to get high blood pressure if his heart is always going a million miles an hour. “Tell me about writing music. I’m tired.” You tell him, closing your eyes.

You’re brought back to what you were told about the first time you met him. This time, however, you falling asleep on him isn’t so much of a surprise. Your knowledge of composition contrasts Taesan’s, you know little more than the basics. Asking him to talk about it is an easy route to a one-sided conversation where you get to listen to him talk, which is always a good time. He gets so animated, it’s hilarious and adorable.

“Your wish is my command.” He laughs, and you feel the vibration against your head and he starts on a critically tangential spiel.

Before you can get too comfortable leaning on Taesan listening to him talk about rhyme schemes, the door swings open. Jen walks in after opening the door with her signature slam. Why you haven’t gotten any complaints yet, you have no idea.

“Oh… my God.” You can practically hear her freeze in the doorway. Out of sight, out of mind, so you keep your eyes closed.

“Jen, no one’s dying.” You assure her, suddenly deeply uncomfortable, shifting on the floor.

“You’re right, no one’s dying. My heart is so happy, look at you!” She almost giggles.

“Is this a good time for me to go?” Taesan starts to ask the pivotal question that’s going to determine exactly how embarrassed you are going to be this afternoon.

“Yes—” “No—” You and Jen say in unison. You open your eyes just to glare at her, seeing her standing over you.

“No… I’m going to get to know my best friend’s… group project partner.” She winks very not-subtly at you. Taesan looks at you just as you look at him, and he shrugs.

“The more the merrier, right?” He asks. The rhetorical question becomes immediately very literal as Jen continues.

“Oooh… I like the way he thinks, girl.” She says, pointing to you. “Taesan, invite your roommates over, too. We can have a party!” She’s almost clapping with how excited she is, rolling back on her heels.

Taesan lights up, “oh hell yeah! I’ll see who’s available.” Oh, Taesan. Always the extrovert.

You groan, but it’s futile to try and stop the scheming. How did this get so bad so fast? “No drinking.” You instruct them.

“Half of them can’t even drink legally yet, plus, do you seriously think I’m going to drink the night before our presentation? No way.” He assures you, and you groan again in hesitant acceptance.

“I’m never letting you drink again. Don’t worry about that.” She promises you quietly before switching back to hyped-up Jen mode. “Oh, this is so exciting! When can they get here?” She’s sitting cross-legged in front of you two now, rifling through contacts on her phone in its sparkly case.

“Well,” Taesan pauses, “If they’d answer my texts—” ding! Almost like he scripted it, he gets a notification. “And there we go. Turns out they’re just hanging out at our place, all of them are free. Do you want them here now?”

“Hell yeah, I do! We should watch a movie… what movie should we watch? Don’t tell me they like horror…” She pushes her eyebrows together in what sounds half like a threat and half like a plea.

“Yeah, not that I know of.”

“We should watch 10 Things I Hate About You.” You suggest.

And that’s how you got to be sitting in a circle on your room’s floor with Taesan, Jen, and every single one of Taesan’s five roommates. You’d only briefly met a couple of them in passing before. Right now, you’re even managing to not cut each others’ throats out while playing UNO! What an achievement!

“And the color is… wait for it!” Taesan’s roommate with the light brown, almost orange hair and rounder, blueish-green black glasses says, leaning around to intimidate the others with a giant smile on his face. Everyone erupts in laughter at him. You remember that this is Riwoo, the one who dared Taesan to stuff 15 grapes in his mouth in the first place. “Blue!” He announces.

Your last card was red. Damn it.

Jaehyun immediately slumps over, Sungho frowns, Leehan stares at the card deck and Woonhak stares, terrified, at Jen when she jumps up, screaming “Uno!” as she slams her blue five on the pile. Shouts resound from the boys around you. Taesan is laughing.

As the room erupts around you, Taesan nudges you with his shoulder, showing you his card. His last color was red, too. “We’re both winners in my heart.” He tells you with a wink. What a sap. You push his face away with a hand, stifling a laugh as you feel a heat come to your cheeks. Your light push makes him dip away from you like the inflatable tube men outside gas stations.

“You’re so corny.” You tell him as you take in the scene unfolding around you. Inviting Taesan’s friends over was a great idea. Jen is yelling at Jaehyun, Jaehyun looks terrified. Woonhak and Sungho are yelling at Riwoo, Riwoo is laughing at them. Leehan is laughing at Riwoo laughing at Woonhak and Sungho.

Taesan catches you smiling at the camaraderie, “if people yelling at each other was all it took to make you smile, I’d have invited them over way earlier.”

“Taesan,” you laugh, “I don’t like schadenfreude. It’s nice to see Jen let loose sometimes. I don’t think she gets to argue with anyone very often.”

“If she wants anyone to argue with, I’m available.” He spreads his arms to punctuate his point. At this, you laugh even harder. As you look around again, you see everyone laughing and collapsing on the floor, except for Jen, who’s pretending to fume and sulk on her bed. You know her well enough to catch the smile that pulls at her lips.

“It’s like watching kids at the park.” You motion towards Taesan’s friends, who’ve clearly become very comfortable around you and Jen.

“This weird authenticity is kind of their whole M.O.” He smiles, very clearly adoring their antics. “Imagine having to do their laundry though. I’m glad I chose to go to the party instead.” He pretends to shiver which draws out a laugh from you.

“Yeah, if you had chosen to do their laundry you also wouldn’t have been able to see me drool on you when you carried me to the car.” You snort. You’ve made peace with your drunken night. After all, you’ve already lost your dignity and he’s still hanging around.

“It was so cute though!” He contests and you roll your eyes at him. You have sworn up and down that he doesn’t like you like… that. Even if he did like you, you’re pretty sure no one likes anyone else enough that their drool is cute. Therefore, Jen’s points are null. Simple as that.

“I’m just soooo adorable,” you roll your eyes, “you don’t have to rub it in, dude.” you smile incredulously at him, throwing one of your legs over the other, just short of taking out Riwoo’s leg.

“I’m not joking!” His tone is defensive in ultimate Taesan fashion.

“Yeah, sure.” You tell him as Jen reaches out to you and pulls you to your feet, leaving Taesan alone on the floor.

Jen whispers to you, “so, when’s the wedding?” You roll your eyes.

“Shut up, you always do this.” You groan. “Do you get some sadistic joy from seeing me uncomfortable?” You cross your arms, almost elbowing Woonhak. This room is not big enough for eight people to fit in comfortably.

“Can I be the maid of honor?” She ignores your complaints and you let out an exaggerated groan in response.

“Don’t make me regret not making him go home.”

“Fine, fine.” She looks to be backing down. That is until she smirks, meeting your eyes again. “I’m not the only one who sees something!” She says cheerily before bouncing off as far as one can, which is about a foot. She looks back at you and winks before (lightly) punching Woonhak in the back to get his attention. She’s immediately drawn into some debate of some sort or another. Earlier, Leehan had assigned you both fish and Jen had been assigned a ‘Cherry Barb’ and she immediately took issue with the name for some reason or other. It was very cathartic for Taesan to watch someone contest Leehan’s fish opinions. He was totally dumbstruck; it was hilarious. Then, of course, you got an informational speech from Leehan which quelled Jens’ argument. Now, she’s a Cherry Barb.

Maybe this is how it should be, friends arguing with friends and laughing about it after, cramped in a too small room. When you meet Taesan’s eyes, you see the sparkle in them tell you he thinks so too. Maybe your friends will become the opposite of children of divorce, gaining family instead of it being separated. Is that just children of marriage? Ugh, Jen’s infected you.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Taesan wiggles his eyebrows, clearly having heard the conversation. You roll your eyes.

BREAKING CODE

Jen is passed out on her bed on the opposite side of the room. The egg clock greets you with the time in blaring white: 11:32 pm. Head in your hands, you groan. No amount of free-on-youtube reality TV was going to calm your nerves. None of your favorite episodes are helping, even the one you have open on your computer.

After the boys had left, you guaranteed yourself that everything would be fine. Your presentation would go great, no questions asked. Now, sitting in your room practically alone, you feel way less optimistic.

Thoughts of Taesan cross your mind and you furrow your eyebrows, trying to shoo them. You wonder if he’s awake right now, if he’s anxious like you. You try to calm yourself by thinking that it could be worse, the presentation could be 30% of your grade. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t help. Your phone, thrown aside earlier and laying on the bed, is practically inviting you to make a bad decision with its open, empty screen.

You stare out the window, contemplating whether or not to take the risk and text him. Your window opens up to a view of the door to enter your dorm building, and you can see the freshly fallen snow settling around it. The snow covers the creaky benches and even the overhang above the door. It’s while you're doing this contemplating that, to your fortune or maybe misfortune, the risk decides to take you with a ding from your phone.

On your home screen, you see a contact pop up and you freeze. You read the name again, it still says MOUNTAIN. Taesan put that as his contact name.

You look again, you weren’t hallucinating. It’s Taesan texting you. Is he nervous? Did he seriously take you up on your offer? You were simultaneously hoping that he would text you while hoping that he would never, ever even think to.

You steel yourself and open your phone, that’s when you get your answer.

[MOUNTAIN]: are you up [MOUNTAIN]: i’m nervous are you

You did tell him to text you if he was nervous. That offer, however, happened when you were feeling a little bolder. You are not feeling especially bold right now.

[you]: i might be [MOUNTAIN]: meet me lets go to the convenience store [MOUNTAIN]: chills me out before midterms usually and this is like the same thing

You didn’t need to even try to make a bad decision, the bad decision came to you, enticing you with the lure of a convenience store and a chance to escape your stuffy dorm.

Resting your phone on your chest, staring at the ceiling like a corpse with the way your hands are positioned, you weigh your options. Mentally, you make a list.

PROs:

You see Taesan

You get a snack probably

CONs:

You see Taesan

It’s been established that crazy shit goes down when you see Taesan past like nine pm—it’s like your friendship is a vampire but night-intolerant instead of day-intolerant

The last time you made a for the plot decision it didn’t turn out that bad. Yeah, partnering with Taesan could have sucked, but it didn’t. Going to the party was a kind of yolo-esque decision, too, and that was kind of a blessing in disguise. You rationalize your preference for meeting him with the fact that you know him better now. He’s not a rando and, as far as you know, he’s not evil.

You only live once, right?

You pick your phone back up and text him before you can rethink it.

[you]: meet where? [MOUNTAIN]: outside your dorm building in 10

You squint at the screen. His place is like a twenty minute walk away and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t have a car, that would be weird for him. You can’t pinpoint why, but you don’t like the idea of him owning a car, despite the fact that he’s driven Jen’s with you in it. Ugh.

[you]: okay

You are totally chill about this.

Looking over at Jen in her bed, you decide you don’t want to be interrogated about this decision yet. She will not let you hear the end of it, and that’s not going to calm your nerves. It’s kind of against customary law safety recommendations to not tell your roommate where you’re going at night, but you decide that’s not applicable here.

Taking your computer off your lap and swinging your feet over the side of your bed as quietly as possible, you assess the situation. The nice thing about totally embarrassing yourself the first time you met him is that you now don’t particularly care about how you look. You’re wearing Jen’s mother’s giant Hartford Whalers hockey team brand shirt and some irritatingly red plaid pajama pants that totally crash with the cool blues and greens of your shirt.

Tiptoeing to the square, wooden-framed mirror hung in the entrance you check how your hair looks. You pull on your oversized puffer jacket as quietly as possible from the command hook-provided coat hanger adorning off the back of the exit door. The zipper is cold in your hands as you check to make sure Jen is oblivious to your impending excursion. She is still fast asleep, evident from the way her chest slowly rises and falls and the faint snores that you hear from her.

The door handle is freezing to the touch. You expected as much from a dorm building with as little central heating as it tends to cater, but it’s still unpleasant. The door opens with a loud creak. You stand assured that no one has successfully snuck out of any single one of these dorms because the floorboards creak and the doors practically announce over the loudspeaker when anyone opens them.

Thankfully, Jen is none the wiser as you glance back at her, she’s in the same sleeping position you last saw her in: lying on her stomach with one leg thrown up closer to her chest and an arm flung over her head. It’s completely bizarre and totally adorable of her.

You make your way through the straightforward yet somehow labyrinthine halls of your dorm building. As you approach the glass entryway, you see Taesan illuminated by the orange streetlight, leaning against the red brick of the adjacent building standing on a recently-hardened layer of snowfall. He’s layered an unzipped black puffer jacket, similar to yours, over a gray hoodie and accessorised with a hat that makes his head look round like an egg. He’s rubbing his gloved hands together to keep them warm. He sees you before you even open the door, and his face lights up when he does.

After suppressing a smile, you scold him, “I can’t believe you called me to meet you at this hour!”

“You told me I could!” He defends. You notice how you can see his breath against the cold air. It’s colder than you thought, you push your bare hands further into your pockets.

“How did you even get here so fast? Do you secretly live in the next building, or something? Are you my tropey boy next door?” You nudge him, wiggling your eyebrows as if this was some plot straight out of a fanfiction.

“Yeah, right.”

“Come on, you’re not secretly pining for me?” You tease him, sinking deeper into the collar of your coat on account of the biting wind that hits you once you leave the sanctuary of the protected building and, though you’re not willing to admit it to yourself, because the boy next to you makes your cheeks hot.

“Yeah, I’m secretly hanging off of your every word, just waiting for the moment I can confess my undying love for you.” He rolls his eyes. Noticing your hands shoved in your pockets, he changes the subject, “are you cold? I brought some extra gloves, do you want them?” His words are surprisingly considerate considering the incessant teasing you subject him to daily.

“Yeah.” You laugh, freezing as he takes the knit black gloves out of his pocket. Taking them from him and putting them on, you adjust them carefully. They’re far too big for you, but it’s the thought that counts, right? The “thought that counts” is definitely keeping your hands warmer. As you examine your new apparel with a smile, you feel a pressure over your head. Somehow, you hadn’t noticed him taking his hat off and now he is pushing it onto your head. You jump back, “hey! You could have lice!” Your smile disappears in favor of a pout. The hat does feel nice on your ears though.

Taesan bursts out laughing, “I do not have lice, I promise.” Still laughing, he elaborates, “plus, you’re cold. Your ears were so cold they were getting red.” You glare at him as he only laughs harder. Instinctively, you throw up your hands to cover your ears

“Point me to the convenience store or I’m going back inside whether you’re nervous or not.” You grumble.

“Okay, Miss Grump. Just follow me.” He says with a stupidly charming smile and grabs your wrist before picking up the pace. To him, picking up the pace means speed-walking, but for you, it means jogging.

“Ack!” You jump at the sudden movement, “Taesan! You can’t do that!” You try to free your wrist and, when you succeed, you cross your arms, standing solid in place as he turns around.

“If you don’t come with me, I’ll yell that you think Heath Ledger is super sexy during the presentation!” He yells, running backwards. Your jaw drops open. You want to trust Taesan enough to think he wouldn’t do that, but you also know Taesan well enough that he totally would do that. It was a bad idea to watch 10 Things I Hate About You with him, Jen, and his roommates after the Uno game. You do not need your personal preferences aired out to an auditorium of your peers and Dr. Woo. Plus, the only thing you like about Heath Ledger is that he essentially serenaded Kat Stratford!

Damn it. Stuck between would and would not, you narrow your eyes and start sprinting after him before he can turn a corner.

“You’re so on, Mr. Mountain!” He turns to look behind him, seeing you gaining fast on him as you run as fast as your legs will take you towards him. It’s his turn to be surprised, and he speeds up. After all, he wasn’t going that fast in the first place. As you close the gap between the two of you, you can hear his infectious laughter that makes you press down a swelling in your chest. You do not like Taesan, you assure yourself. It’s all in good fun. It’s only good fun. Focusing on the challenge ahead, you see Taesan just ahead of you, about to turn down a sidewalk.

He’s right behind a snowbank. If you’re the sun and the snowbank is the earth, he’s the moon in a solar eclipse.

It’s impulsive, your next action, truly. Presented with the right circumstances, however, you like to take your chances. With a shout that’s more primeval than you intended it to be, you grab onto his puffer jacket and tackle him onto the earth that is the snowbank.

It’s almost like slow-motion when you, with an evil smile, keep your eyes focused on Taesan as you see the world around you slowly become more horizontal as you fall, yourself falling on his back as he falls flat on his chest.

When his front compresses the snow enough to stop his descent towards the obscured grass, you hear him let out a moan. A moment of silence passes as both of you process what just happened. You’re propped up on your hands (gloved, thanks to Taesan) and he’s lying on his back, hands thrown above him because of his attempt at stabilization during the fall. His lips are slightly parted in shock, and his eyes are wide open, staring at you. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. He totally moaned when he fell. At least you can play teasing offense on him instead of having to defend why you tackled this man that is in no way, shape, or form your boyfriend. To be fair, men whimpering is hot. It’s just that you didn’t expect the man whimpering to be Taesan. It doesn’t really fit with his image.

You hold yourself up with one hand, clutching your stomach as you double over in laughter. “Oh my gosh, this is hilarious! I’m going to tell Riwoo that you moan when you get pushed around by women. He’ll never let you hear the end of it!” Taesan looks completely scandalized. His mouth is open and he looks totally terrified, you almost feel bad for him.

Almost.

He covers his eyes with his gloves, “don’t you dare say anything.” Tears form in your eyes as you attempt to suppress a laugh to try and spare any more of his dignity. That doesn’t extend to teasing, though. It’s simply too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“What if, during the presentation, I yell out that you moan when someone pins you down?” You theorize him, sitting down on the dry ground next to him, throwing your legs over his stomach.

Still holding his hands over his eyes, he mutters a defensive response, “it’s not like that!” Flat on his back, he looks, somehow, handsome with snow visible in and contrasting against his darker hair, and his gloves covering his reddening face in embarrassment. If you’re lucky, maybe this is how he felt watching you fall onto him when you were drunk the first time you met. It’s more adoration than disgust.

“Aw, there’s no shame in it.” You coax. He is completely and totally embarrassed, you can tell by the way his ears are bright, cherry red.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? What do you want?” He whines, refusing to look at you even when you try to pry his hands away from his face.

“Whatever we do and wherever we go together, it’s on you. Monetarily, I mean.” You push a finger into his chest as he finally frees his eyes from his own grip, daring to look at you face on.

“You serious?” He groans, he’s still red but looks to be over the initial shock. Either from the biting wind swirling around you or because of your teasing, his cheeks are coated in a dusting of red.

“Yeah, unless you want everyone to know about your sexual preferences.” Releasing him from your pushed finger, you cross your arms and shrug innocently.

“This is blackmail. This is extortion!” He complains, covering his eyes again.

“So… yes or no?” You grab his wrists and rip them from his face, revealing his angsty stare.

“...Yes, I’ll pay. Will you let it go now?” His words are harsher and he’s sulking, glaring at you. Maybe you pushed it too far.

“Hey, I meant it when I said it’s nothing to be ashamed about.” You let go of his wrists, opting to rub his shoulder instead, in an attempt to reassure him. “Listen, I lost my dignity by falling on you and drooling when we met, and you lost your dignity just now. Let’s just say we’re even.” You smile optimistically, hoping it will psych him into believing you because what you say is the truth, even if it’s a touchy subject, apparently.

Once he’s reminded of your not-so-cute meet-cute, he seems to relax a little. “You did drool like crazy. Do I really have to pay?” He’s smiling now, thank God. He rests his hands on his chest, looking way more comfortable.

“Yup. You do.” You laugh, it’s a softer laugh than your earlier fit, though. “Convenience store?” You prompt him, offering a hand to have him get up. As your hand interlocks with his, a smile tugs at the sides of your lips and you still can’t tell if the heat in your face is from the wind chill or Taesan. “And, take your hat back, idiot. Your ears are red.” The hat traps all the heat radiating from your flushed face and it makes you almost feel sweaty.

He laughs a little before speaking, “thanks for the hat. My ears are just so cold.” He jokes. “The store is just this way.” He points to the right he was going to take when you knocked him down. He was leading you the right way, at least. “Never try to blackmail me again, I swear.” He threatens, pouting, and then shoves you, however lightly. He doesn't look very scary.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.” You retort. He glares at you, keeping eye contact as you walk closer to the glowing, welcoming arms of the convenience store in the form of its bright lights, illuminating the street from the inside, casting an eerie glow onto the otherwise dark and snow-ridden street. In response to his look, you childishly blow a strawberry at him. This hasn’t been either of your finest hours. Your antics draw out a smile from him, at least. Practically skipping along, you try to change the subject to something less personal, maybe. “What did you expect when you called me out here? You said you were nervous, after all.”

“Yeah, I did say that. I got the pre-presentation nerves, you know? ‘Thought we could talk about it.” He rubs his neck. This is definitely a less personal topic, but that’s not to say it’s impersonal.

“So, talk.” You command, avoiding eye contact mostly so you don’t laugh, replaying him falling over.

“What is there to say? I had some nerves.” He laughs, opening the silvery door to the convenience store, stepping aside to let you through.

“What a gentleman,” you muse, “how’d you learn that? Rom-coms?”

“I’m allowed to be nice, too, you know. You watch more romantic comedies than me.” He rolls his eyes.

“I do it ironically.” You drawl. “I was nervous too, to be honest,” you were not going to tell him that you were watching rom-coms trying to relax, that would be a little too much ammo for him, “Jen was fast asleep and I was just kind of… lying there.” You pick up a miscellaneous chip bag, lazily inspecting it.

“Oh, I totally get it. The only other person awake was Leehan, and he was going to trap me in fish conversation if I even so much as approached him.” You snort at this. Even from your brief interactions with Leehan this afternoon, his passion is palpable. You can just see it in his face that he’s a little bit of an uber-nerd about those particular animals. Nerd is being used affectionately, of course. His interest is admirable. “Do you want those chips?” He asks, pointing to the bag in your hand.

“Not really, I like those other ones better.” You shrug, pointing to the alternative, an equally fluorescent bag of slightly better-tasting chips. “We can tame the worries together,” you smile at him, reaching behind you to grab your preferred flavor, “the question is how.”

“Going to the convenience store is a pretty good start.” He pushes his bottom lip into the top one. As you watch this action, he suppresses a smile, suddenly. “I have an idea.” Of course he does. He says this with a growing smile on his face as he locks eyes with you. “We should have a snowball fight.” Your own smile grows as he waits for your response.

“We should.” You nod. This time, you have an idea, a bad one. “Only if you moan again.” You charge him with the scandalous comment, and he looks affronted again, and immediately reaches out a free hand to shove you.

“Don’t say that so loud!” He hissed, looking around the almost empty store to see if anyone heard him. “That stays between you and me.” You roll your eyes but you can’t hide your amusement.

“Yeah, okay.” You walk off towards the cashier across the store to buy your snacks, sticking out your tongue at him. On the way, you inspect and in turn pick up a chocolate bar and a mediocre-looking apple to buy with your chips; it’s all about balance.

Taesan comes up behind you as you place your haul on the mini conveyor belt and gives a small bow to the cashier. He sets down two bags of chips and an enoki mushroom snack that has Japanese writing on it, for which you give him a disgusted look. Perusing his other selections, you smile when you see the second chip bag, for which you change your disgusted look for one of gratitude.

“Aw, did you get those for me?” You ask, pointing to the less perfect, but still pretty good flavor.

“No, I got them for… um…” He pauses, seemingly unable to think of someone else he would get them for. It’s kind of cute, if not a little embarrassing. “I got them for you. I can be kind, remember?” Sassy man apocalypse.

“Duly noted.” You purse your lips. You look at him expectantly, going from him to his card on the back of his phone, again.

“What?” He asks, innocently. Sungho wasn’t joking when he said that he looks like a cat. As he realizes you’re deadass, he narrows his eyes and turns to you, “are you serious about the whole paying thing?” He cocks his head.

“I was pretty clear. That is, unless you—” You’re cut off by Taesan clamping a hand over your mouth, for which he gets a repulsed and highly suspicious glare from the middle-aged cashier, he meets this with another bow, unclasping your face from his grip. When you’re let go, you raise your eyebrows at him as if to say ‘really?’ His hand smells like lavender soap, it’s kind of pleasant, actually. From the state of his and his roommates’ everything-but-sleeping room, you wouldn’t have guessed they were in possession of floral hand soap. When you’re done thinking about how he smells, you’re feeling a little embarrassed and also physically being led out of the store, hopefully after Taesan paid.

“Was that really necessary?” You ask, hands free because Taesan’s holding the store-provided bag that houses all of your treats.

“I don’t need anyone hearing about… that. Especially a middle-aged anyone.” He clarifies and fair enough. You take the opportunity, however, to scoop up a clump of snow (distinctly not yellow, you checked) and pitch it at him. Still carefully holding your bag, he looks at you with a sense of betrayal. “Oh, I’m going to get you.” He threatens before hurling a snowball that splashes against your only water-resistant coat.

Snowball after snowball is thrown, before your brief yet intense brawl is cut short by ice cold rain slicing through the air around you. Without Taesan’s hat, the sleet pummels your head and it hurts. Your puffer has no hood. Before you can let out an ‘ow,’ even, you find your oasis above you, a puffer. Taesan’s puffer. He managed to, in the short time it started sleeting and you noticed it, drop all of his stockpiled snowballs, pick up the convenience store’s bag, take off his puffer jacket, and cover your head with it, protecting you from the harsh, half-frozen rain. When you look at his face to your right, he looks totally angelic. The streetlight behind him makes him look like he has a halo from the light filtering through the edges of his hair. He’s smiling, despite all the teasing and irritation you put him through in the short time you’ve been out of your dorm.

“Yikes, that came fast.” He comments, looking around and noticing how the sleet pelts down around the two of you. “I’ll take you home, I think it’s our cue to wrap this up.” He suggests. His sweetness contrasts against the wistful feeling that unexpectedly forms when he mentions parting. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or maybe it’s the chill getting to you, but you feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s the most you’ve laughed since Jen told you the crazy goings-on between her highschool ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. Apparently, her ex-girlfriend is absolutely smitten for her friend and said friend completely ignores her at every turn. You laughed until your cheeks hurt that day. Your cheeks don’t hurt from laughing, necessarily, but it’s the same sort of freeing feeling. You don’t know what to make of that, but you’re damn sure you like the way he’s smiling at you.

“Whatever you say. Thanks for the roof.” You beamed, pointing up at the make-shift shelter he’s made for you.

“My pleasure, Miss Grump.” He says this with a posh accent that makes you laugh. You have no idea since when he’s started calling you Miss Grump, but there are worse names, probably.

“Don’t make me kick you.” You threaten, trying (and failing) to suppress the grin that tugs at your lips.

“Sorry, Madame Grump.” He corrects, still holding the cover over your head.

“I’m not even being grumpy.” You warn him, not even trying to hide the smile that spreads across your face. “Come on, get moving.” You cue him to start the walk back to your dorm.

“Your wish is my command, Miss—”

“Don’t you dare.” You threaten and bump your shoulder into his. The walk back to your dorm is short, it took you far longer to get to the convenience store because of… well… tangential events. Checking your phone, you finally learn the time. It’s fucking two in the morning. Great! You’ll get essentially no sleep, but that’s nothing a little caffeine can’t fix.

“I dare more than you think I do.” He purses his lips.

“Okay, I dare you to admit you moaned when you fell.” You challenge him with a smirk.

He groans, “I pick truth.”

“This isn’t truth or dare, you don’t get to pick. Plus, truth would be ‘did you moan when you fell.’” You can see your dorm from where you stand in front of the red brick building, it’s still brightly lit. Hopefully that means that Jen is still asleep and hasn’t woken up to turn the overhead off.

“You can’t subpoena me so I’m not playing this game.” He shrugs, stopping underneath the overhang above the glass door that marks the entrance to your building and the separation from Taesan. As he steps aside, taking his puffer with him and putting it back on, you’re suddenly and unfortunately aware of his body heat now that it’s gone.

“I’m less nervous.” He says with a smile that seems almost confidential, like a secret only you know. He’s undeniably easy on the eyes with his stupid hat and soaked gloves and hoodie.

“Me too.” The words come out of your mouth softly. Somehow, they’re vulnerable words to say. “Goodnight, Taesan.” After your parting words, neither of you make a move to leave. His full name feels more meaningful than his nickname, somehow. You stand there, lit up by the LEDs of the hallways, staring at each other, and you’re not entirely sure why. The tension might be thick, it might not be, you can’t tell by the way you’re focused on his face. Well, it’s not exactly his face. It’s the way his hair frames his face, yes, and the way that his eyes scrunch when he smiles, even slightly, it’s also the way his egg hat looks and the way his hoodie is so damp because he was trying to keep you warm and dry.

Then it’s all over. When the tension breaks, it’s not like it’s cut through. It’s more like it dissipates. It dissipates thanks to the man who barrels down the street adjacent to your bubble, blasting a Spanish ballad and singing his heart out. Soy capitán, soy capitán, soy capitán! blasts through the complex. You break eye contact with Taesan just to laugh at the oddity passing you. You watch him coast down the street on his green bike, singing, without a helmet, hands-free. Your mother would not approve. Taesan’s not laughing, but he’s beaming and staring at you as you crouch down because of your laughter. You try and convince yourself it’s not even that funny, but something about the era of the night just makes you heave with how hard you’re laughing.

“I mean,” recovering, you let out a sigh, finally releasing a breath that you don’t remember holding, “it is a college campus.”

“You can say that again.” His hands are on his hips, and he’s managed to pry his eyes away from you. The sleet’s stopped somewhat, but the ground is still icy from the snow and sleet and rain that have frozen and refrozen over the past few days. The same wistful silence settles between you two after the interruption.

“Maybe it’s a sign.” You laugh in disbelief. Now you’re sure you’ve laughed more than when Jen told you about her friend’s drama. Way more.

“A sign for what?” He questions, jocose and almost suspicious of your deduction.

“A sign you’ve violated like a million rules of common decency!” Another voice, one other than the singing man’s melody and Taesan’s and your chatter, is heard echoing throughout. “Han Taesan, I’m going to beat your ass!” The voice threatens angrily. At first, you don’t know where it’s coming from. At second, you don’t want to believe where it’s coming from. You slowly look up to your open dorm window and see Jen’s disheveled figure poking out with the single most serious scowl you’ve ever seen her wear. The only time that gets close to this nouveau expression is the time she decked a guy for… being a total freak for one of her friends, let’s say. Your body is confused on whether to panic, run, or just freeze. Waiting to act is still an action, and it’s the prognosis your body suggests. You freeze, looking from Taesan to the window, where Jen is notably absent.

You look at Taesan.

You look at the window.

You look at Taesan.

You look at the hallway.

Taesan looks terrified, you look utterly and visibly confused, and for Jen… well, it looks like there's smoke coming out of her ears as she storms down the hallway towards the doors that open to reveal your two-person symposium. Jen slams open the door and, if it wasn’t specifically made not to slam, the impact of the slam would have reverberated until even Dr. Woo heard it across the campus in his (probably sound-proofed) office where he probably still is because, you know, he’s Dr. Woo.

“You motherfucker, what did you do to get her to go out without telling me! What are you hiding? Are you a criminal? Are you a smoker? Oh no, you’re just a piece of shit trying to get in her pants!” Jen steps in front of you, blocking everything but Taesan’s head from your view. From what you can see, Taesan hasn’t been sucker punched yet. His eyes are wide and he’s holding his hands up like he’s waiting for her to swing, and maybe he is. You know he doesn’t know her well enough to know that she wants to beat the shit out of him, but she did say explicitly that she was going to beat the shit out of him so he had some reason to suspect that that’s what was incoming.

“W-what? I don’t— I didn’t do any of that stuff!” He’s shaking his hands wildly and Jen still looks like she’s about to swing by the way she’s pushing a finger into his chest. Still too shocked to do, well, anything except watch.

You see her rear up in a way that’s all too familiar to you, and when you remember you can move, “Jen, wait! It’s–” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you see her closed fist collide with his cheekbone and the impact make him reel back, clutching the affected area with a mittened hand. He almost knocks his head into the pole supporting the overhang, and you can see he’s visibly out of it. Is this a good time to mention that Jen is freakishly good at karate? What Jen is, however, not amazing at is analyzing the situation. As she battles with the follow-through of the swing, she loses her footing on the icy ground, falling flat on her ass. Now, both parties accompanying you are on the icy ground and you’re the only one still standing.

You act in a delay. “Jen! He didn’t do anything, I swear!” You reach for her shoulders that are no longer there, trying to stop an action that’s already happened. You watch as Taesan crumples further into a fetal position and you stand there in shock.

“See!” She spits, snapping her head back to look up at you. “He’s not even trying to help me up!” Her eyebrows are furrowed and angry.

“Jen,” you almost can’t help but laugh, “you decked him, he doesn’t even know what planet he’s on.” You look from your best friend to your… Taesan, and wonder how you attend to both of their bullshit situations at once. “Okay, first of all, Jen, please don’t punch his ass again—”

“Yeah, I’ll punch him in the gut.” She snarls, cutting you off.

“No! There will be no punching.” You declare, trying to sound confident but you’re so bewildered it comes out more as a question. You turn your attention to Taesan, whose nose is bleeding ever so slightly. He’s holding his hat-clad head in his hands and is grimacing in pain. You mirror him, a grimace appearing on your own face as you look upon his pitiful condition. This is going to be so fun to explain. “I came out here because I told him he could call me if he was nervous for the presentation tomorrow and I’d talk to him about it and so we went to the convenience store and… I’m fine! He’s not just trying to get in my pants, he would’ve done that already if he wanted to.” You ramble, using logic that probably wouldn’t withstand in court but works well enough when you talk a million miles an hour to a less than law-savvy subject, that subject being Jen. The subject, Jen, looks scandalized by this information.

“Where did my innocent baby go?” She pouts, getting up to put her arms around you. “Where did my sweet, lightweight, baby with no love life go? She’s sneaking out to see boys?”

“Jen, I’m a grown woman.” You tell her, incredibly blasé and stiff as she embraces you in a hug. From over her shoulder, you catch Taesan’s eye. When your eyes meet, he laughs and then winces. It probably wasn’t a good idea to welcome an uncontrollable movement when you have some sort of abrasion on your cheek and blood coming out of your nose. Jen pulls back to look at you and shakes her head, you can almost hear her saying they grow up so fast. Maybe this is the same kind of telepathy that goes down between her and her sisters. Maybe you get it. Jen, coming back to earth from her sappy, self-appointed caretaker meltdown, narrows her eyes and looks from you to Taesan, and then from you to Taesan, again.

She opens her mouth and lets out a puff of air as if to start speaking, but she only does so a few seconds later. “So… there was no reason for me to deck him?” She asks, raising an eyebrow in genuine confusion. You nod, solemnly. Her jaw drops and her eyebrows push together. She puts her tongue in her cheek, mind reeling. This is when she realizes she gave this poor man a bloody nose and probably a black eye for no damn reason. Suddenly, she fixes her gaze on you, “you’re the one I should be chewing out! Do you know how many staples of girl code you’ve violated?! You could have died!” She exclaims, clearly ready to give you a talking-to, way worse than when you spelled ‘Elliann’ as ‘Ellyanne.’ She’s like OSHA but for general female wellbeing.

You reach out to grab her hands that are moving dramatically to illustrate her point, “okay, you can chew me out after Taesan isn’t bleeding out.” She seems to relax like a combative patient injected with midazolam.

“I’m not bleeding out.” He huffs, but is still holding his nose bridge, so he’s still bleeding, at least, and that’s not exactly ideal.

“You look like shit, though.” You tell him

“Thanks,” he groans, “can I get some tylenol, or something?” Yeah, he totally looks like a hurt puppy. It’s kind of cute, you guess.

“Yeah, we’ll get you patched up.” You assure him, breaking away from Jen to attend to Taesan.

“No ‘we.’ Only you. Don’t let her punch me again.”

“We’re over the combat phase, it’s fine. Get up, do your legs still work?” You try to say your biting words as comfortingly as possible. It’s past two in the morning, you’re too over-tired to try to pick your words so they’ll feel better for the receiver. What’ll make Taesan feel better, physically, at least, is tylenol and making sure his nose isn’t broken.

“My legs don’t, my ass hurts like hell.” Jen complains, but helps in picking Taesan up anyway.

“It’s very hard to break a tailbone, a nose, on the other hand…” You raise your eyebrows but say no more. Taesan gets up just fine, but still clutches his nose. “Campus clinic’s probably closed, we have a first-aid kit, though.”

Jen issues a half-hearted-sounding yet fully meant apology in the form of a mutter of “sorry for punching you, man.”

“You’re cool, man. Cool that you were looking out for her.” He gives her a small thumbs up. It’s a weird moment of friendship between these two. For having met barely a week ago and having spent five hours together tops, these two have a more tumultuous relationship than most twin siblings at the age of nine, which is saying something considering most have chased each other with a knife by the age of five and a half. Jen has gone from asking to be the maid of honor to decking the presumed groom and now having a hopefully more stable relationship with said groom. So much plot it’s not even ‘for the plot’ anymore, you’re just riding the wave of unexpected inciting events.

“The more the merrier.” You mutter as you sling Taesan’s arm over your shoulder. Why he abets this when the damage is to his face, who knows. The more the merrier indeed in your cramped dorm, trying to ignore how the cold compress on his bruise keeps melting even though it’s so cold and the fact that you have an injured and sleep-deprived boy on your hands.

GOT GOOD

You bite the inside of your cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to express your dismay. You kind of bombed your presentation.

Scrap that, you really bombed your presentation.

As you step out of the lecture hall following the sea of your peers, you step aside to press your back into a free wall. It’s one of the moments where you need to just detach. Crossing your arms for stability, you melt into the wall. The overhead light that you can see even through your closed eyelids is obscured every so often by a moving body. This drowsiness is familiar.

Amid the frequent passings of students, the light is masked for longer than would be caused by someone in passing. You know who it is.

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad.” You open your eyes to a squint and see Taesan leaning against the wall next to you. Despite how you try to ignore it, you’re immediately drawn to the squashed berry purple color that blossoms on the inflamed skin under his left eye, giving way to a lighter almost green tint near his nose. Jen got him good. Your blinks are slow, the scant hours of sleep are getting to you. You slept through your alarm, foreboding you from even getting coffee before the presentation. Despite his injury, he’s smiling.

“I lost where I was like every other sentence.” You attempt to mirror his smile, but it doesn’t really work, leaving you with a smile that reaches your eyes but not your lips, somehow.

“It’s Dr. Woo, you’ll be fine. He doesn’t care nearly as much as you do. We got all of our information out. It doesn’t matter how graceful it was.” He lays out his reasons and you cock your head, weighing the possibility that he’s right.

“Are you like a vampire, or something? You don’t need sleep?”

“I’m used to it.” He shrugs. Maybe living with five as many people as you do makes you sleep way less; especially since it seems like Taesan is their chaperone despite the fact that Sungho and Riwoo are older than him, you’ve learned.

“You shouldn’t be. Sleep is good.” You close your eyes again, and a silence settles over you. You’ve created your own little bubble in the hallway, and it might not even include Taesan. Right now, it’s just you and your desperate need for rest. You are not the kind of person to pull an all-nighter.

“I told you you were going to crash.” He reminds you and you hum in response. “Look,” he gets your attention by putting a hand on your shoulder, “the boys are out, come back to my place and you can take a nap. I know that your room still smells like disinfectant.” A smile creeps across your face at this. It’s true: your room smells like the pungent iodine that you used to clean the minor abrasions on his cheekbone. You still have no idea why Jen has that much power in her.

“Lead the way.”

“It’s way closer to this building than it is to your building, it’s barely any walk at all.” He assures you. Regardless, you have to speed walk to keep up with the pace.

“Do you have hot chocolate, or anything?” At your drawled request, he tsks. Pressing his lips together, you take that as a no.

“I’ll see what I can do. Woonhak owes me like nine favors.” He laughs a little at this, and you smile too. Unremarkably, it hasn’t become spring overnight, and so the wind is still nipping at your face. You were wise enough to wear your Taesan-provided gloves, though. Looking at Taesan’s face and the way the wind makes his face a little pink, you’re pretty sure you could find the whole color palette on his face. Except blue, maybe. You’ve got the other colors covered. Red for his cheeks, orange, yellow, green, and purple for his bruise. Huh, that bruise contributes a lot. “It’s just this way.” He says, guiding you with a pointed hand towards a complex highly similar to your own. Same red brick buildings and same overhang. The difference is that, you know from picking your roommate, this building is the apartment sector. Frankly, it’s incredible that Taesan and his roommates are all friends. You know other people who got apartments, or even quads, who aren’t so happy.

As you step into the entrance way, you feel the warm air hit your face. This building is much warmer than yours, maybe that’s a good thing. Walking up the stairs, Taesan is steady behind you. You wonder if he’s thinking about catching you like he had to the time you were drunk off your ass.

As soon as you enter the apartment dorm, your focus tunnel visions on the soft couch in the middle of the room. It looks like heaven as you step towards it. You were unfairly ripped from the comfort of your bed for that fuckass presentation and now you can return to your natural state, sleeping. You thank whatever power is out there because this is so incredibly opportune.

As soon as you shed your backpack and winter coat and collapse on the couch, you’re out like a light. No words from Taesan can wake you now, even if it is him professing his undying love for you. No, it’s up to your internal clock to make you up, lest you sleep forever.

Your internal clock does wake you up. You’re groggy, but it’s still light out, so you couldn’t have slept for so long. As you assess your situation, you notice two differences.

First, you’re warm.

A navy blue throw blanket has been carefully draped over you, and you’re pretty sure you didn’t do that yourself. You bite the inside of your cheek—happily, this time. It’s proof he does care, and maybe you’re letting the gesture get to your head. You do… not like Han Taesan, right?

Second, you’re alone in Taesan’s living room.

There are no signs of life, not from his roommates nor from the mountain himself. That’s more puzzling. You would have assumed he would have stayed for one reason or another, maybe he went out to get hot chocolate? He told you that he would have Woonhak do it.

Looking around the room, you take in the sights. There’s a modest TV with various video game consoles, there is a section of the room clearly designated for guitars, and it’s remarkably clean. Not too bad for five early 20-somethings and one 18 year old. It’s kind of impressive, actually. There isn’t any leftover food out and even the dishes in the sink have been rinsed, if not thoroughly washed. You pat down the area around you in search of your phone, mainly to check the time, but also to figure out where the hell Taesan went. Something about his absence hurts your heart in an uncomfortable way. You would have liked to see him when you woke up. Still… you do not like Han Taesan… do you? No, no. You don’t like him, that’s silly. He’s just your partner for a group project.

As you locate your phone, you hear the door open behind you and you swing your head around to see Taesan standing in the doorway with a hand behind his back and a bag in the hand that’s visible to you. Another bag, nice.

“Good morning.” He smiles at your state. The way he looks at you suggests your hair is out of order. You fail obviously as you try to subtly sort it out.

“I had a great nap. You have a good napping couch.” You bring a hand up to rub your right eye even though your mom says it causes astigmatism. It would suck to have contacts in right about now.

“Well,” he says, setting down the bag on the counter, “I have your hot chocolate.” You’re pretty sure your face lights up at this, it’s the perfect thing for this kind of dingy day. “And,” he continues, “I got it from a café near here; store-bought isn’t as good.” He takes a cardboard carrier out of the bag and presents his finds to you, two lidded cups.

“You sure know the way to my heart.” You mean that on a deeper level that you hope he doesn’t catch. “What’s behind your back?” You ask, pointing to the obvious hand still tucked behind him.

He looks sheepish and brings the hand to his front, “I got these for you.” His cool act is far gone, he seems almost timid. In his left hand he grasps a bouquet of an assortment of colorful flowers. There are assorted yellows, blues, pinks, purples, and reds. It’s like a sunset wrapped in brown paper and tied in a pretty twine bow.

“Taesan!” You exclaim excitedly, jumping up from the couch to go collect your gift. “Why?” You poke. He’s quiet for a second, the question seems to echo throughout the room. A chorus of ‘why.’ You meet his eyes for just a second, but the shared glance makes your heart beat faster. He seems to bite his tongue, there’s a shining reflection of the kitchen light in his dark brown eyes. You don’t see them crinkle up, indicative of a straight face.

He swallows like his throat is thick, “I got them for you because I like you… I like you romantically.”

You’re not sure if your heart swells or drops.

From this one statement, you learn two things. You learn that Han Taesan likes you, and you learn that you like Han Taesan. You really like Han Taesan. You like the way he’s cold but kind and the way his bangs fall and his endless care for his roommates and his hardworking nature.

You like Han Taesan.

You take the bouquet in your hands, analyzing the flowers. You notice they’re mostly tulips, but flanked by carnations, baby’s breath, and bluebells. A smile grows on your face as you look back up at him. He looks absolutely terrified. It’s not worth it to tease him here. He’s vulnerable, you should be too.

You begin to open your mouth, but before you can, he continues in an attempt at defense, “listen to me, please. I thought you were cute and smart even before the party and all of those incidents, but now that I know you I can’t not tell you. You’re witty and stubborn and playful and it’s so easy to talk to you. You were cute when you were drooling, I didn’t know that was possible. You make fun of me but I like it because you’re so kind. I… I like you.” He confesses, he’s talking fast and you think your heart might burst with excitement. Excitement isn’t the right word—euphoria? Joy? Happiness? Exhilaration? No word is quite right for how you feel about Taesan. “The tulips symbolize love.” He says under his breath and the flowers take on a whole new meaning. You feel like a tulip. Tulips symbolize love.

The smile that bursts across your face makes his eyebrows release all their tension immediately, “Taesan, I like you too. I really like you,” you tell him, “tulips symbolize love.” You look down at the bouquet and see the array of tulips that smile back at you.

“Can I kiss you? I’m not drunk, I swear.” He promises. The allusion to your first meeting makes you laugh. You met with an ask for a kiss, and now he confesses with an ask for a kiss.

“Yes.” You whisper, and he throws his arms around you, pressing his forehead to yours. You sway like that for a moment, you feel the cold of his jacket against your arms and the pressure of his hand on the small of your back. You look at him and in his eyes you see him. No walls, just you two. Just you and Taesan.

You wrap your arms around his neck, one hand still holding the bouquet and pull his lips to yours. Warmth blossoms in your chest—his kiss is soft and tender and he tastes like mint. Mint might be your new favorite flavor. His lips fit perfectly with yours. You feel the soft press of his fingers into your back, pulling you closer to him. Your lips part slightly and you’re out of breath before he even starts to pull away. His kiss is just like him, just when you think you know him all, he shows you a new surprise, something new. After stalling for just a second, he pulls you back to him and deepens the kiss. You could kiss this minty boy forever.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours again, fluttering his eyes open and shut.

“I wrote a song about this. A serenade.” He says breathlessly.

Even in the dead of winter, you think your heart melts all over again.

NOTES: Shoutout Hartford Whalers even tho they sports disbanded! SINGING MAN CAMEO! The singing man is a genuine character in my life. Living in the city center of a major city means I get LOTS of people doing weird shit like the emoji guy (who wears outfits only with bright fucking emojis, my friends have seen him too, he’s wacky), the tree guy (a man who always walks around with a fallen branch on his head, no idea why), and the supercar medical worker (woman in scrubs who drives down the streets with a loud ass car that looks like one of those fuckass shoes with big holes in them you know what im talking about the kidney shoes). I take a pic and keep them in a folder on my phone called “recurring characters.” I have never seen the singing man. He walks past my house every weekday at 11pm and I like to have my windows open and he sings loud Spanish ballads. I love him. Singing man my beloved. Sorry this is a slowburn, it was forced out of me i fear. is this a slowburn? methinks so.

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adalindofcabinsix · 8 months ago

Text

that kind of love never dies (I)

summary: the one where barbara thinks about an act of rebellion.

pairing: jake x mc

word count: 1.3K

warnings: tkolnd takes place after the events of episode 10; cover images found on pinterest; english is not my first language.

author’s note: even though she lives in the usa, my main character, barbara, is brazilian. i added terms and expressions that we use in our country, as well as cultural elements, to this fanfic. the words that appear in portuguese are highlighted and you can contact me if you have any questions.

masterlist

Barbara was sprawled out on the dorm carpet, reading a Lucy Maud Montgomery novel she found by chance in the university library, when her cell phone began vibrating on the nightstand. Without wasting time, she closed the book and got up, waiting to hear from her roommate, Meera, but, when Barbara swiped her finger across the lock screen, she found some text messages from an unknown number.

i would like to invite you again to eat something at that chinese restaurant

if you want to meet me, just show up there tomorrow

i'll be waiting for you :)

Her head started to throb just at the possibility of it being who she was imagining, but she quickly pushed the thought away.

Jake wouldn't put himself in danger like that.

After everything that happened in Grimrock, Duskwood's chief of police, Alan Bloomgate, personally went after her to conduct the interrogation, and, more than once, made it very clear that it was best for her to stay away from her new friends for a while. He didn't go into detail when he told her about what happened at the Ironsplinter Mine, but he confirmed that Richy was alive — despite having some serious injuries — and that Jake had fled from the FBI agents during the confusion caused by the explosion.

All the messages she sent and received during that time became evidence. Barbara had what it took to close Hannah Donfort's case literally in the palm of her hand, including the kidnapper's confession.

Consequently, she also had the means that could lead the people who were after Jake straight to him.

She was interrogated by the FBI countless times for months, until Alan decided to intervene and convinced her to hand over her cell phone to them in exchange for her old life. Since then, Barbara has not been part of the joint investigation. Or at least that's what they say — she's too smart to really believe that.

For a few seconds, she considered the chance that it was someone trying to play a trick on her. The video Lilly Donfort posted accusing her of kidnapping had gone viral across the Columbia University campus. Even her grandmother, who lived in the interior of Brazil, found out about her involvement with a hacker wanted by the North American government. However, no one else knew about the brief conversation they had about the chinese restaurant.

Except, of course, the FBI.

Without a doubt, it was a trap. Barbara felt her face turn red. It seemed that solving an old international murder case, giving up her privacy, being forced to abandon her group of friends and possibly cheating on the guy she was in love with was not enough. She also needed to act as bait when it was convenient.

Barbara huffed, irritated. Little did they know that Jake had no contact. Their partnership in crime had ended almost a year ago.

Still, there was no reason to decline the invitation. She could very well take advantage of the opportunity to tell some truths to those nosy agents, and as a bonus she would have an excuse to go to Germany without Alan being able to question her too openly.

Her lips lifted into a smile as the plan emerged in her mind.

After going through customs at Zurich Airport, picking up luggage and going to an exchange office to exchange some notes, only an hour and fifteen minutes by car separated Barbara from Duskwood. Luckily, there were several yellow taxis forming a line next to the sidewalk, because it would be a nightmare to have to deal with someone trying to compete for the same vehicle as her.

She walked out of the lounge, pulling her hot pink rolling suitcase, and turned on her smartphone to announce on the family's group chat that she had arrived safely. But before she could check her contact list to see if her parents were online, she collided with a young man's broad chest.

She jumped away from him, apologizing — or at least trying to — in german. He laughed softly, grabbing her arm to stop her from tripping over herself, and for a moment, Barbara forgot to even breathe. The young man seemed to be a few years older than her, he was tall, had dark hair and prominent round eyes that resembled the curve of a teardrop, he was wearing a white sweatshirt with a hood and black jeans.

“I'm sorry, I didn't see you.” He spoke in english, with a slight accent.

“No problem, it was my fault.” Barbara quickly straightened up, realizing that she had somehow stared too long.

The young man analyzed her from head to toe with amusement before bending down and picking up the cell phone that had flown out of her hand during the impact.

“I believe this is yours.” He joked, handing the device to her.

“Thank you.”

He nodded curtly and turned, making his way through the travelers entering and exiting the airport, as silent as a wraith.

She was inexplicably disappointed to see him leave, however she had more important things to deal with. Then, she handed the luggage to the driver to put in the trunk and got into the taxi, giving the address of the Gates Hotel, on the outskirts of Duskwood.

Barbara ran across the room, feeling the cold floor beneath her feet. She was considerably late, but as far as she remembered, she had never arrived on time to participate in the interrogations, so whoever was waiting for her at the restaurant wouldn't mind too much. She put on a black strapless dress, put on her highest heels and curled her wet hair with her fingers, leaving a small trail of water on the floor.

Through an opening in the peach curtains, she noticed that the rain had picked up outside, beating violently against the window pane. She cursed under her breath, hoping someone at the front desk could lend her an umbrella, and before Barbara could procrastinate her meeting with the FBI Special Agent any further, she took one last look at the floor mirror near the entrance hall, realizing that she was dressed for revenge.

“Someone would definitely approve of that.”

Smiling to herself, she went down a small flight of stairs to the ground floor, where the girl at the reception was reading a magazine with Nicholas Galitzine's photo on the cover.

“How can I help you?” She asked in english, without taking her eyes off the celebrity gossip.

“Hey, how you doin'? Could you lend me an umbrella, please?”

“Of course.” She said, reaching for the object under the counter and handing it to her. “A fee of two euros will be added to your room bill.” Barbara sighed, surprised, as she mentally converted the currency. “What?” The receptionist looked up, frowning. “Did you think it would be free?”

“No, obviously not.” Barbara lied, smiling politely.

“Return it by midnight or I will have to charge the full value of the item.” The girl announced, turning her attention to the magazine. Then she added: “Nice dress.”

“Okay, I'll pay when I check out.” She assured, walking towards the glass doors while opening her rented umbrella. “And thank you.”

“Have fun, Cinderella!”

Barbara regretted walking out the door as soon as she set foot on the sidewalk. Not just because of the rain, but because of the wind blowing your hair back. In any case, she had come too far to give up, and despite the storm, she could see the lights of the chinese restaurant through the blue haze a few meters ahead, on the other side of the street.

Before she could take another step, someone grabbed her arm and turned her around.

“What?” She blinked in amazement at the handsome young man she had met at the airport.

“Come with me.” He said, pulling her away from the hotel entrance.

“You are crazy? I do not know you!” Barbara shouted, dropping the umbrella near her feet. The rain completely drenched them both in moments. “Me solta!”

“Barbara, please.” He asked, breathing short.

The sadness in his voice stopped her struggling.

“How do you…?” She gasped, eyes wide. “Jake?”

taglist: @daniiiworlds; @labemquarts; @deinily

#iamjake #duskwood #moonvale #everbyte studio #jake x mc #duskwood fanfiction

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 7 months ago

Note

Do you think it's weird that I was fine with Roxas finding out he was Sora's Nobody in Kingdom Hearts, but Adrien not being what we thought he was triggered my ick factor a lot? Do you think it's because we learned that about Roxas before we had a lot of time to get attached to him?

I was initially going to say that I can't answer this because I've only played Kingdom Hearts 1, so my knowledge of the later games is pretty limited. Then I remembered that my little brother is both obsessed with those games and the Mycroft to my Sherlock*, so I gave him a call and got the expert opinion (and a reminder that I need to play the Kingdom Hearts games so that my brother can talk about them with someone who understands story telling because those games apparently make a lot of... interesting choices.)

Here is the sum of my brother's analysis:

The two properties handled the concept of personhood and artificial beings in such wildly different ways that it would never even occur to him to compare them (though it was an interesting question once posed). A good portion of the later Kingdom Hearts games revolve around asking what a person even is. Should they try to make the Nobodies into people? Do the Nobodies even need to change to be people or are they people already? What makes Roxas different from other Nobodies? These questions start being asked very early on and, for all the story's flaws, you can tell that the writers are aware that they're dealing with a serious topic and that they're trying to do it justice.

Meanwhile, Miraculous introduces artificial beings who don't have true free will and then... completely ignores all of the ethical implications of that plot point. Emilie and Gabriel are good parents. The fact that the heroes have been killing off sentimonsters isn't concerning. Gabriel's commands are just a minor inconvenience to Adrienette and not anything that needs to be explored in a deeper way. He's still totally redeemable and it's fine that Adrien never learned the truth while his father was alive so that he could decide what that meant for their relationship on his own terms.

Given all of that, it's really not shocking that Kingdom Hearts makes you feel invested while Miraculous repulses you because the Miraculous introduced human sentimonsters for cheap shock value to the point where I firmly believe that it was a retcon. Meanwhile Kingdom Hearts planned major elements of the plot around the concept and set it up right from the start of the second game. If Miraculous had done the same kind of thing, then I doubt that most salters would be deeply upset by the concept. They still might dislike it, but it would be seen more as a matter of taste than as a true flaw.

*For those who don't know, Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock Holmes' older brother. Sherlock openly admits that Mycroft is the smarter and more observant of the two siblings. The same can be said of my sibling when it comes to story telling. Everything I can do, he can do just as well or even better. He's never seen miraculous, but knows the major plot beats from a mix of cultural osmosis and reading the occasional fanfic when an author he likes crosses fandoms. He is highly amused that no one he follows does anything save for fix-it type stuff and says it tells him everything he needs to know about canon's writing quality, an assessment I fully agree with.

#tallwriter #ml writing critical #ml writing salt

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fullsunstrawberry · 1 year ago

Text

Love Beyond Labels

synopsis: the misunderstood "rich girl," reveals her academic struggles to a loner with his own challenges. In an unexpected twist, they form a unique friendship—she gets study help, and he gains a true companion.

genre: slice of life, humor, fluff, angst, smut, freaky nerd

warnings**: bullying, swearing, self-hate, mentions of anxiety, jokes of social "suicide", dreamies are kinda mean in this..., no condom mentioned, praising, fingering, marking, lots of boobie touching cause haechan loves them okay, make-up sex, idk probably more lol

word count: 8.9k

a/n: first ever written fanfic....kinda nervous haha

School is easy, all you have to do is sit there and look pretty. Well, that's what all your classmates thought. They didn't know how difficult school was for you. You never got what was happening in class. Anytime you got an answer wrong, no one batted an eye because who expects the rich pretty girl to get an answer right? But little did they know you would cry in the janitor's room after each time. You just hated feeling so dumb.

"Ugh, I'm not ready for today's test," Jaemin huffed, plopping down beside you.

"Wait, there's a test?" you sighed, already predicting the outcome.

Mr. Moon whispered a half-hearted "good luck" as he handed you the test, before moving on and finishing handing out everyone else’s tests. He already knew how it was going to go.

You hated how even the teachers knew you were stupid.

After the test, you already knew you failed it. You were the last one to turn your test in, when Jaemin asked if you wanted to meet up with him, Jeno, Mark, and Chenle for lunch. You nodded telling him you had to stop at the office real quick.

Instead of walking towards the office, you sped walked to the janitor's closet, already feeling the tears threaten to escape. You knew you failed that test. Even though you acted like you didn’t know you had a test, you lied. You’ve been studying for it for a long time. Even canceling plans. But you would never admit it to anyone. You studied your ass off but still failed, that’s even more pathetic than forgetting about it.

You quickly took out the keys and opened the door quickly so no other student would see it. You thank the janitor for being so forgetful that you could easily steal one of his keys. He has a bunch of copies, one missing wouldn’t hurt. Right as you locked the door you sat in the corner, not even bothering to turn the lights on.

you were always an ugly crier, but it was okay cause you bought the most expensive waterproof makeup for these occasions. Only a quick bathroom stop is needed before meeting your friends for lunch.

As you were drying your tears you heard the door jiggle and then open. you quickly hid your face just in case it was someone you knew.

"Y/N?" a voice you didn't recognize spoke, interrupting your quiet moment in the janitor's closet.

Confused, you wiped your face and looked up at the mystery voice. You kind of recognized the thick black glasses boy in front of you. You knew he was in some of your classes but you couldn’t think of his name.

Fearing the worst you cleared your throat before asking “What do you want?”

“Uh, I don't want anything!" the boy replied, swiftly stepping into the room and closing the door. You noticed he had his lunch tray with him. "This might sound pathetic, but I like to eat my lunch here."

confused, you asked him “Why would you do that?”

“Well I don’t really have friends and I don’t want to get picked on” he explained sitting down next to you, not having much of a choice because there wasn’t that much room.

"Oh, I'm sorry for bothering you. I'll just go," you said, preparing to stand up. But before you could, he quickly called out your name, making you look down at him.

"You're not bothering me! You can stay and talk about what's going on. I know we don't talk, but I can listen to you." His hopeful eyes convinced you to sit back down. You quickly wiped away your tears before confiding in him.

“You can’t tell anyone this!“ You put your pinky finger up and put it near him. “promise?”

“I don’t have many people to tell” he let out a small laugh while putting his hands up defensively. “promise!” he took your pinky finger in his

“okay” you nodded “I failed my psychology test today”

you looked at his face and he looked confused “What?” you questioned

“Oh it's just, you always fail your tests. Everyone knows that”

As he said that you felt the tears start to come back. Of course, he wouldn’t get it. Why did you ever think he would get it?

“I didn’t mean it like that, I’m so sorry” he panicked “I shouldn’t have said that!”

you turn away, quickly wiping away your tears again. “no I get it, I’m the dumb girl”

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant. Hey, want to hear something embarrassing about me? I'm only here because of a scholarship. That's why no one wants to be friends with me!" he confessed.

you start to giggle “That’s not embarrassing!”

“It made you laugh! But here is something actually embarrassing, my teacher forgot my name today. Even though I've had her for the whole year.”

Your eyes widen, feeling bad that you forgot his name.

“ahh you don’t know my name either”

you smile “If you tell me your name, I’ll forgive you”

“haechan”

“That's a nice name, haechan” You smiled at the way it rolled off your tongue.

“thank you, I have a proposition or a proposal”

“I know what proposition means” you teased

he giggled, “I’ll help you study”

your eyes lit up, “really? What can I do for you?”

he avoided your eyes and cleared his throat “Be my friend”

your eyes softened “That’s not hard, I was going to be your friend after this conversation anyways” You pushed his shoulder.

He finally met your eyes and smiled at you. “then you don’t have to do anything, friends help friends”

As the bell faintly rang, you pulled out your phone. "Here, give me your number so we can talk."

he paused for a second before taking your phone

standing up and thanking him before you quickly left to go touch up your makeup in the bathroom. Reminding yourself you would have to tell Jaemin you were sorry for ditching him and the guys.

You walked into your next class as the late bell rang.

“there you are! Jaemin told me you ditched us” Mark laughed.

“I didn't mean to ditch you guys, just got carried away.”

“carried away, with what?”

“I was working on my psychology essay, and I can't believe she makes us write one every week!” you huffed out, setting your bag down before sitting down.

“Could have just said you were talking to guys instead of lying.” Mark laughed, too interested in whatever was on his phone to notice your face drop. What did your friends think of you?

“What do you mean?”

Mark glanced at you before laughing, “You always procrastinate, there is no way you even started it!”

Instead of arguing you turned to face the front, pulling out your notebook. The essay is due in two days, of course, you started it. There would be no way for you to finish the four pages if you didn't. Turning towards Mark again you huffed out, “Well someone is helping me study.”

Shocked, Mark quickly faced towards you “What? What happened to y/n?”

You scoffed, “Really? That surprising”

“I am, you never really cared for grades”

“Well I'm sick of failing every test”

“So who's helping you out?” Mark leaned towards you “Could have just asked me”

“His name is Haechan”

Mark’s eyebrows furrowed “That one kid that eats in the bathroom?”

“He doesn't eat in the bathroom!” You defended

“Just be careful, he’s a little weird”

“What do you mean, you don’t even know him” You started to get upset.

“He doesn't really talk to anyone” He could see how your face scrunched up and you were about to start an argument with him so he shrugged, not really caring “Why didn't you ask me, I'm one of the top students”

You didn't really want to explain what happened so you just blew his question off. Before he could press you for an answer, the teacher walked in.

Haechannie🤓🐻: When do you want to start?

Y/N☺️: I have my psychology paper due soon. Could you read it over before I turn it in?

Haechannie🤓🐻: Yeah meet me at the public library after school

Y/N☺️: Thanks!

Haechannie🤓🐻: No problem :)

Jaemin and Jeno are probably thinking you're going crazy when you tell them you didn't need a ride after school. But you didn't want them to drop you off at the library and question you the same way Mark did in class. So you just said you were meeting up with a girlfriend of yours who wanted to walk to the park. At the mention of a girl, they didn’t question anything.

Now that's how you ended up looking around the library for Haechan. He wasn't on the first or second floor, so you started making your way up to the third floor. Questioning why he even would go all the way up there, no one liked the third floor. As you looked around you spotted Haechan sitting at a table in the corner.

As he heard you coming, he looked up and smiled. “Took you long enough!”

“Who even uses the third floor of the library, all the books up here are just textbooks.” You huffed out, setting your bag down and taking out everything you needed.

“That’s the whole point! It’s quiet up here”

You can admit, that he has a point! Maybe you will actually start using the third floor more. As if you ever go to the public library without your friends dragging you there. Liking your room for studying a lot more because there are no judging eyes.

“Okay, let’s get started! Let me see what you have already” Haechan smiled at you.

You pulled out your notebook and quickly found the page you started to write on before handing it to Haechan. As you handed it to him, your fingers brushed, which made Haechan pull away quickly.

You watched as his eyes read through everything you wrote. Anxiety started to fill you up. What if it was really bad and he thinks you're even more of an idiot than before? Ugh, he’s a nice guy, he wouldn't think like that. But you don’t really know him— Before your inner monologue continues Haechan put down your notebook. Shock showed in his eyes.

“Wow, that was really good! The way you described Sensation and Perception was easy to understand. How do you usually fail with papers like this?”

Shocked that he actually liked your paper it took you a couple of seconds to register his question. “I usually get good grades on my papers and in-class work, but tests always seem to get to me.”

“mmm, I understand,” Haechan hummed. “A lot of people have test anxiety, I have some tips I can give you if you want”

Your eyes lit up as you nodded, eager to hear what he had to say.

“It’s getting quite late, maybe we should start wrapping this up?” Haechan yawned.

You quickly looked at the time, not believing him that it was so late. You gasped, shocked at how quickly time passed with Haechan. “Oh, I better get going, before my mom starts to ask questions.”

“Yeah, I have to get going too. It was nice hanging out with you.” Haechan quickly gathered up all his things before moving to leave.

“Wait!”

Haechan paused looking at you confused.

“What are you doing tomorrow after class?”

“Nothing, until I have to go in for work” Haechan sighed “I don’t want to study again tomorrow”

A little taken aback by the change in his tone, you quickly cleared things up “That’s not what I was going to ask you! I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out, like at the mall or something”

you couldn't quite read the emotion on Haechan’s face. Was he shocked? Happy? Confused? Maybe a little bit of each.

“Oh um yeah, we can hang out.”

“Good, I’ll text you the details” You smiled before turning away and leaving him to stand there not knowing what was going on in his head.

The final bell rang as you rushed out to find Haechan. Earlier promising that you both would take the bus to the mall together.

Your eyes lit up seeing him standing at the bus stop, calling out a quick “Haechan” to get his attention. Which seemed to work as he found you in the crowd of other students.

As you finally pushed through all the people to get to Haechan, your face dropped. He wasn't looking at you anymore. “What’s wrong?”

“You don’t want to be caught hanging out with me, it will ruin your reputation.” He whispered

Taken aback you laughed, which turned into a heavier laugher. Shocked and confused by your reaction, Haechan turned towards you, watching you laugh like you were crazy. “I’m not joking! Hanging out with me in public is literally social suicide”

You took a couple of deep breaths before answering him “Haechan, this isn't some teen drama! Who even cares about that”

Haechan looked embarrassed by this and started to fiddle with his fingers. You saw the bus starting to pull up so you took hold of his hand. Stopping him from fiddling with them and making sure you didn't lose him to the crowd of people waiting for the bus.

If you were paying more attention, you would have seen how bright his cheeks turned. Before quickly snapping out of it.

As you got onto the bus, you noticed how full it was. Only noticed one seat in the back. quickly you pulled him towards the back and offered him the seat.

Shaking his head, he told you to sit down. But you insisted that you were okay with standing. Looking around you noticed the other people starting to get annoyed, even hearing an older lady saying she hates teenage couples.

Before he could protest, you pushed him down onto the seat and sat on his knee. “Are you happy now? It’s a win-win situation, we both get to sit now” You smiled.

The whole ride there was silent. Maybe the stunt you pulled on the bus was a little too much for him to handle.

But you didn't let that stop you from grabbing his hand when the bus finally arrived at the mall. Excitedly telling Haechan about all your favorite stores and sales that are going on right now.

He didn't seem to care when you kept dragging him to different clothing and makeup stores. It wasn't until you noticed how uncomfortable he was did you realized how rude you were being.

“Oh shit sorry, where do you want to go next?”

Taken back by this Haechan quickly tried to brush it off “No it’s okay, where do you want to go next?” Not letting him dodge the question you push him for an answer. “No, come on, let's go somewhere you like next!”

“Uh I like Gamestop”

“Then we are off to Gamestop, I know where it is because it’s next to my favorite shoe store!”

Haechan’s eyes lit up when he saw the new Lord of the Fallen had been released. “Cool! I’ve been waiting for this to come out” But as quickly as he picked it up he put it down.

“You're not going to get it?” You questioned

“Oh no, it’s too much money” He turned to look at other things, leaving you the opportunity to grab and pay for the game without him knowing.

Finding him in the back, you asked if he was finished looking around. Which earned you a nod. As you stepped out of the store, you held up the bag. “What did you get?” Haechan asked, confused.

“It’s for you” You giggled handing him the bag.

He hesitated before looking in the bag and gasping “Y/n, this is $80!”

“That’s nothing! I love buying my friends things that I know they will like” You smiled, hooking your arm with his. “Now I'm hungry, let's go eat.”

The food court wasn't your first choice, but haechan insisted. Arguing that he knew you were going to try to pay for his food if you went to some fancy restaurant. Which he is right, you would have. But you settled for paying for his Taco Bell instead.

“Let's go near the carousel I love the view and plus not a lot of people sit over there”

Haechan nodded, letting you show the way.

Everything was going very smooth. You wanted to do this again and again. But as you were in your own world you heard voices call out “Hyuck”. Haechan's eyes widened and looked around.

Two boys, one tall and one short, sat down near you guys.

“Long time no see, we missed you!” The taller one said either not knowing or not caring about your presence.

The shorter one cleared his throat before asking Haechan “So are you going to introduce us”

Haechan laughed nervously before looking at you, pointing to the shorter one “This is Huang Renjun” and then pointing to the taller one who seem to now noticed you were there “And this is Park Jisung”

Before Haechan could speak you smiled “I'm F/N L/N!”

Haechan winced at your mentioning your last name. You looked at the other guys and their faces dropped. Confused, you asked “what's wrong?”

Haechan quickly cleared his throat and explained “It’s nothing! We used to know someone with that last name and so they're just surprised.”

The two boys looked confused before nodding “Sorry, just bad memories” Renjun forced a smile before getting up and announcing “Oh we’re gonna be late for our movie, let’s go Jisung”

They left before you could even get in another word. Noticing your shock, Haechan shakes his head “Those are my friends from my childhood, we haven't talked in a while because we go to different schools now.”

Not wanting to push you just hummed.

Something felt weird but you didn't want to bring it up. Today has been one of your favorites and you didn't want to sour the mood by letting Haechan know his friends acted a bit rude.

So the whole time you didn't bring it up, instead going back to your cheery self. After a few more stores, you both decided that was enough for today and Haechan really needed to get home so he could get enough sleep before having to go to his part-time job.

Soon days, weeks, and months flew by. Hanging out with Haechan really made things go by so quickly. You liked his company. So did your teachers, complimenting you on passing all your tests. One even accused you of cheating, but Haechan stepped in and confessed he had been helping you study.

Even your parents seemed to notice the change in your mood. Your mother loves getting her cheerful daughter back. The only people who seemed to hate the “new and improved y/n” were your best friends. It started with Jaemin accusing you of sleeping with Mr. Moon because he swore there’s no way you could have gotten scored higher on your test then him. Obviously, you were pissed that he could even suggest something like that.

So you ended up admitting to your not-so-secret tutoring sessions to your friends one day at lunch.

“So that's where you've been during lunch?” Chenle questioned.

“Yes, we’ve been eating in the library together”

“So you’ve been ditching us for that nerd this whole time!” Jeno’s voice raised, causing some of the other students in the cafeteria to look at your table.

“Don’t call him a nerd!”

“But he is one!” Jeno threw his hands up in the air.

“Just because he gets good grades? Then why don’t you call Mark or Jaemin a nerd?”

“Y/N Come on, why are you defending him? He’s just some loser who eats in the bathroom when you're not at school” Chenle laughed, trying to get everyone to calm down.

Taken back by how rude your best friends were, you looked around and made eye contact with Haechan.

He was supposed to meet your friends today. He was really excited after you hyped all of them up. But as he was walking to your table, you could tell that he heard everything.

You saw how his eyes were starting to water.

“Maybe he is a nerd but he is way hotter than all of you! Bet he can actually get me to cum unlike any of you” You smirked knowing this would get on their nerves. Hitting it where it hurt, their egos.

You heard Jaemin scuff, “Yeah right, we all know your type! You wouldn't even kiss him”

Taking the challenge, you looked around and spotted Haechan again. But this time his face was red and his eyes were wide. You smirked, “wanna bet?”

The tension in the cafeteria was thick after your bold statement, and all eyes seemed to be on the unfolding drama. Your best friends wore expressions of disbelief mixed with irritation. You made your way over to Haechan.

Haechan's eyes showed surprise, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. You could feel the weight of the challenge in the air as you took a hold of his sweater collar, the fabric warm beneath your fingers. The cafeteria buzzed with hushed whispers and curious glances, but your focus was solely on him.

Pulling him down gently, your lips hovered near Haechan's ear, and you breathed out a teasing question. "Can I?" The words were soft, carrying a hint of playfulness.

In response, Haechan nodded fervently, his eyes wide with anticipation. "Please," he whispered back, his voice barely audible.

With a mischievous smirk, you seized the moment, closing the distance between your lips and Haechan lips. Time seemed to slow as the cafeteria fell into a stunned silence, and then erupted into a mix of gasps, whispers, and scattered applause. The unexpected turn of events had caught everyone off guard, including your best friends, who now wore expressions ranging from shock to disbelief.

Breaking the kiss, you stepped back. You saw how Haechan went to lean back in again. Quickly placing a short kiss to his lips you whispered “everyone watching us” His eyes widened and looked around the cafeteria. Making you giggle and whisper a hushed “Cute”

After your little stunt in the cafeteria, everyone’s been asking you who that guy was and if you two are dating. You already knew poor Haechan was getting the same questions.

Y/N😊❤️: People keep asking me if you’re a good kisser

Haechannie🤓🐻: Well am I?

Y/N😊❤️: Absolutely

Y/N😊❤️: What are you doing after school?

Haechannie🤓🐻: Working and then going home

Y/N😊❤️: When do you get off? Want to hang out with you

Haechannie🤓🐻: 9 pm, at the convenience store on the other side of town

Haechannie🤓🐻: we can hang out only if you promise to kiss me again

Y/N😊❤️: we’ll see ;)

The convenience store was a far walk from your house so you asked your friend Yuna to drive you. But that didn’t stop your parents from scolding you for going out so late. All you had to say was that you were staying over at Yuna’s house. Yuna is your mom's best friend's daughter. She had no problem with this because last summer you had to do the same thing for her.

There was only a few people at the convenience store. You saw Haechan slumped over at the counter scrolling through his phone. “Aren’t you supposed to be working”

Haechan jumped up from his sitting position, ready to be scolded by his manager. But when his eyes landed on you he shook his head “Ah you scared me! I still have 10 minutes until closing”

“I wanted to get here early, I heard there is a cute cashier boy here” you smirked

You can already see Haechan’s face start to become a light shade of red.

“Stop flirting with me, I'm working!”

Before you could say a comeback, an older guy put down his stuff on the register.

“She’s just trying to get free stuff” The random guy scoffed

Taken aback you scoff, tilting your head “What do you mean by that?”

“You’re too pretty for him”

You looked at Haechan and saw his head lower.

Looking back at the guy you laugh “Nerdy guys are the freakiest” you winked

Haechan’s eyes widened, not being able to make eye contact with anyone.

“All girls are the same” The guy harshly stated before throwing ten dollars on the counter and leaving.

“How do you know I’m freaky?” Haechan busted out laughing.

“I don’t but guys hate when their masculinity is threatened” You shrug.

“So what do you want to do after I close”

“I don’t know, I told my parents I was staying over with a friend tonight. So I’m all yours”

“All mine? I like the sound of that” Haechan smirked leaning in “I live alone”

You gasp “How do you live alone?”

“It’s a small place, I don’t have a relationship with my parents anymore” Haechan grabbed the keys to close the shop. “It’s not too far from here, only a five-minute walk”

Entering Haechan's apartment, the reality of his living space matched his earlier description. It kind of reminded you of a college dorm. Only a small living area with his bed and a tiny hallway that leads to his bathroom.

As you took in the surroundings, Haechan couldn't help but laugh at your reaction. "I told you it was small," he remarked, his eyes glinting with amusement. "It's not the fanciest part of town, but it's affordable."

"It's nice!" you assured him, a genuine smile gracing your face.

Haechan, skeptical, teased, "You don't have to lie to me."

Your laughter filled the room. "I'm not lying! I was expecting much worse for a guy living alone." Your lighthearted comment elicited a chuckle from Haechan, getting rid of any lingering tension.

Looking around the compact space, you ask, "So, what do you want to do?"

"I was promised a kiss," Haechan said with a mischievous smirk.

Your laughter continued, but before you could respond, you felt his hand gently cup your face, pulling you into a kiss. This wasn't like the previous one in the cafeteria; it was more intense, and filled with passion.

As the kiss deepened, Haechan guided you backward until the back of your knees met his bed, causing you to gently fall onto it. Yet, he didn't break the kiss, instead, he adjusted his position to hover over you. Placing his knee between your legs, he elicited a soft moan from you. The sound only fueled Haechan's desire, and he broke the kiss momentarily, his gaze locking onto yours.

"You sound so beautiful," he murmured, his eyes fulled with desire. His fingers delicately traced the curve of your jawline, leaving a trail of electrifying sensations.

The air was charged with a blend of desire and anticipation as Haechan, deepening the kiss and found a comfortable position on top of you.

His hands, warm and assertive, traced subtle patterns along your sides, sending shivers down your spine. The small apartment seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you entangled in the intoxicating rhythm of the kiss.

As the kiss continued to deepen, Haechan's movements became more deliberate. He pressed himself against you, and the warmth of his body radiated through the layers of clothing, intensifying the sensations.

The noisy world outside seemed to disappear, leaving only the echo of shared breaths and the subtle noise of hearts beating together.

Breaking away from the kiss, Haechan's eyes held an unspoken question, seeking affirmation in the depths of your gaze. Without uttering a word, you nodded, granting permission.

Haechan's lips traced a path from your mouth, leaving a trail of lingering kisses along your jawline and down your neck. Each touch sent shivers through your body, awakening a heightened awareness of the closeness between you.

As Haechan's fingers delicately traced patterns on your skin, he whispered “God I can’t get enough of you”.

“I need you inside of me right now” You moaned as he started to take your shirt off.

Your words seemed to ignite something in Haechan, his eyes darkening with desire. He gently removed your shirt, his touch making your skin tingle.

You felt Haechan’s warm breath against your skin as he buried his face in your breasts. The sensation of his lips approaching your skin caused you to gasp, and the sound fueled his desire. As his lips made contact with your nipple, you felt a wave of pleasure run through you.

“God, Haechan”

His lips found yours once again. The pleasure of his lips on yours left you intoxicated.The feeling of the soft sheets against your bare skin and the warmth of Haechan’s body made you feel safe, yet vulnerable. Your heart skipped a beat as you felt his lips take your nipple in his mouth yet again, and the pleasure and excitement was overwhelming. The intensity of the sensations had left you without words, and you felt yourself wanting to scream with pleasure.

“G-God”

The moan that escaped from your lips seemed to ignite something in Haechan, and he moved his mouth to your other breast, leaving a trail of hot kisses. Each one caused you to gasp with pleasure and your hands explored the his back from under his shirt. The pleasure and excitement was too much, and you needed him inside you, but he kept teasing you in different ways.

When he finally moved to kiss you again, his hands gently moved down your body to rest on your waist. He seemed to be asking if it was okay to continue, and you nodded, silent. His hands moved to take off your pants, and you felt your heart start to race.

His touch was gentle and soft, and his lips were warm against your skin, leaving behind a trail of goosebumps. You could feel the bulge in his pants pressing against you. The feeling of his skin against yours was intoxicating. As his hands kept tracing patterns across your skin. As his lips reached your thighs, you moaned with pleasure, begging for more

"Please..." you moaned, "I need you inside me."

Haechan looked up and gave you a mischievous grin, and his body tensed for a moment before he moved to undress himself. His movements left you breathless, and you stared at him as he removed his pants. The light of the room glinted off of his skin, and you felt your body start to quiver with anticipation.

His eyes seemed to penetrate you as he looked at you, as if he could see things you didn't want anyone to know about. There was a moment of silence as the two of you stared at each other, before he moved over you and hovered on top of you. The moment was perfect, the way his body molded to yours.

His lips found yours once again, and the kiss started off soft but eventually deepened. The intensity of the moment was something you had never experienced before, and your body felt on fire as his hands explored your skin. As his fingers traced patterns on your skin, you felt more and more aroused, and you moaned with pleasure as his fingers moved down across your sensitive skin to your underwear.

As you felt his fingers graze across your most sensitive parts, you gasped with pleasure, and Haechan smiled

“you’re hands please, i just need something inside of me” you begged.

Haechan smirked as he continued to tease you over your underwear. “then we have to get rid of these”

He slowly removed them before stuffing them into his nightstand.

You could feel your heart pounding in your chest as Haechan's fingers continued to tease you over your underwear. Your body throbbed with need, and you couldn't help but beg for more. The anticipation was driving you wild, and you craved the touch of his hands inside of you.

"Please, Haechan," you whimpered, your voice laced with desperation. "I need you inside me."

Haechan's smirk widened, his eyes darkening with desire. He knew exactly what he was doing to you, reveling in every moment of your vulnerability. Without a word, he slowly removed your underwear and discarded it into the nightstand.

The cool air caressed your exposed flesh, making you shudder in anticipation. Haechan positioned himself between your thighs, his gaze intense and hungry. You could feel the heat radiating off his body as he hovered over you, his breath mingling with yours.

His lips crashed onto yours once again, this time with an even fiercer hunger. The kiss was bruising, and passionate, as if he wanted to consume every ounce of your being. His hands roamed your body, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Every touch sent electric shocks through you, heightening your desire.

But Haechan was not one to rush. He knew the power of anticipation. His fingers danced along the curves of your thighs. You squirmed beneath his touch, unable to suppress the moans that escaped your lips.

"Patience," he murmured against your skin, his voice laced with a raw sensuality that made your heart race. "I want to savor every moment."

His words only fueled the fire within you, igniting a primal need that consumed your thoughts. You could no longer wait, your body aching and yearning for release. With desperate boldness, you reached for him and pulled him closer. Haechan's eyes gleamed with a mixture of surprise and desire as you guided his hand to where you needed him most.

Without hesitation, his fingers slipped between your slick folds, finding your throbbing core. His touch was electrifying, sending waves of ecstasy through your body. You arched your back, giving him better access as he explored every inch of you, driving you to the edge.

As his fingers moved in delicious circles, your moans filled the room, mingling with the sound of his breathless whispers in your ear. It was as if time had stopped, leaving only the two of you.

Haechan's lips found yours once again, muffling the cry that escaped from deep within you as he brushed against your most sensitive spot. Your body shook with pleasure.

Every stroke sent shockwaves coursing through your body, building the pleasure to an unbearable peak. Your hips instinctively rose to meet his ministrations, wanting to feel even closer to him. The room seemed to spin as you felt your orgasm start to wash over you.

Haechan's fingers quickened their pace, pushing you further. With a sudden burst of overwhelming pleasure, your climax finally crashed over you. Your body shuddered beneath Haechan's touch as waves of intense bliss radiated from your core. It was an explosion of ecstasy that left.

As you finally started to get all your senses back you quickly reached out to Haechan. "Let me make you feel good too"

Haechan's cheeks flushed with embarrassment as he chuckled nervously, avoiding your gaze. "I-I get pleasure just from giving you pleasure," he stuttered.

The corners of your lips turned up in a sly smile as you teasingly asked, "Did you cum in your pants?"

In response, Haechan groaned and buried his face on your neck. "You just sounded so beautiful, I couldn't resist," he admitted shamefully.

You couldn't help but feel a mix of desire and amusement at his confession. Pulling away from him, you leaned into captured his lips with yours. "That's incredibly hot," you muttered against his mouth before breaking into a giggle.

"Alright," you said with a mischievous glint in your eye, "let's get cleaned up...and maybe we can find a way to get out of those pants too."

In the morning, you felt the warmth of hands around your body. With a content smile, you turned around to find Haechan already awake, looking at you. "Good morning, beautiful."

"How long have you been awake?" you inquired.

"Not too long, I didn't want to wake you up" he replied.

Leaning in to plant a morning kiss on Haechan's lips, you were halted midway. "I messed up," he confessed.

Shocked, you asked, "What do you mean?"

"I slept with my only friend," he admitted.

A chuckle escaped you. "Well, if you play your cards right, you might end up with a girlfriend instead."

He chuckled at your response, pulling you in for another kiss

As the soft morning light streamed through the curtains, the intimacy between you and Haechan deepened. The laughter from the lighthearted exchange lingered as he pressed his lips against yours.

Breaking the kiss, Haechan looked into your eyes with a mix of affection and sincerity. "I'm serious, though. I don't want this to change things between us."

You traced your fingers gently along his cheek, reassuringly. "Haechan, it doesn't change anything. We both have our pasts, and what matters is what we have now."

A grateful smile played on his lips as he held you close, appreciating the comfort of the moment. "You're amazing, you know that?"

The tenderness in his words made your heart flutter. "You're not too bad yourself," you teased, your fingers intertwining with his.

Your mother has noticed a change in your demeanor, catching glimpses of smiles and laughter while you were on your phone. Initially, you tried to dismiss it, claiming it was just conversations with friends, but the façade crumbled when your mother overheard you on a Facetime call, and she didn't recognize the voice. Peeking into your room she also didn’t notice the face on the screen.

Now, you found yourself anxiously anticipating how your parents would react to meeting Haechan for the first time. Your mother insisted on the introduction, pointing out that you had never appeared as happy with your previous partners. Which you had to give it to her, it was true.

While you were confident your mother would adore Haechan, your concern was with your father. He was often distant, engrossed in his role as the owner of a major technology company. His strict views on your relationships were rooted in a desire to maintain a family business, yet he doubted your ability to contribute to it.

Hoping your father would be too occupied to attend dinner wasn't far-fetched, he frequently skipped family gatherings. However, your mother's pleas for him to take a rare evening off for his "precious" daughter won him over.

When you first brought it up with Haechan he was terrified. Always saying he was too busy to meet them.

But you finally caught him. He was complaining that he hasn't seen you in some time and that he misses you. So you asked if he was free later. Implying something sexual so he would change his plans if he needed to. When he took the bait and said he would be free all weekend, you told him to get ready to meet your parents.

As the doorbell rang, you rushed to answer it before anyone else could. "You look so handsome," you cooed, admiring Haechan in a suit that, while not perfectly fitted, he still made it look good.

Haechan, in turn, was taken aback by your appearance. Clad in a baby pink puffy spring dress with pearl accessories, you radiated elegance. The elaborate outfit was your response to your father's decision to turn a family dinner into a business-oriented event.

Warned in advance, Haechan contemplated rescheduling, but your disappointment look and tears swayed him.

"I can't do this," he admitted.

"Yes, you can. It's okay," you reassured him, leading him toward the dining room.

As the evening unfolded, Haechan appeared more nervous than usual. Sensing his discomfort, you offered solace by whispering in his ear, "We can go to my room after we finish dinner." This seemed to ease his tension, evident in the subtle relaxation of his shoulders.

Upon entering the dining room, you wore a big smile, catching your mother's approving gaze. "Ah, this must be Haechan! I've heard great things about you," she greeted warmly.

"I've heard a lot about you too, Ms. [Last Name]," Haechan replied.

The initial interactions went smoothly. Haechan answered a few questions from your mother, and the room dissolved into various conversations. However, your father remained engrossed in discussions with his employees, seemingly oblivious to Haechan's presence.

Sensing Haechan's ongoing nervousness, you discreetly held his hand under the table. "You're doing amazing, we can sneak out soon."

As if on cue, your father redirected his attention to Haechan, acknowledging his presence. "How rude of me! I haven't even spoken to my daughter's new boyfriend," he announced. "So, what is it your parents do for a living?"

Haechan hesitated before revealing, "Well, they don't do much anymore. I work at a convenience store to pay for my apartment."

Your father raised an eyebrow. "Already working for yourself, impressive. Do you do anything else in your free time?"

Releasing the breath of air you were holding in, you smile. This was a small victory, your father rarely asked the guys you brought over questions. Not even caring for your friends. Remembering the time Jeno once threw up in your bathroom from how your father kept ignoring him.

"My father taught me how to code when I was younger," Haechan disclosed.

"That's impressive," your father acknowledged, swirling his wine before taking a sip. "What's your surname? You look familiar."

Haechan gulped before confessing, "Lee."

A collective widening of eyes among your father's employees followed, and your father smirked. "I knew you looked familiar, Lee Donghyuck."

Confusion furrowed your eyebrows. You expected Haechan to correct your father, but instead, he flinched and looked at you.

"I'm guessing you lied to my daughter?" your father quipped. "What was the name you came up with again? Haechan."

Tears welled up in your eyes, and to salvage any remaining dignity, you stood up and hurriedly left the room.

Your mother exchanged a glance with Haechan before whispering something to him. He excused himself from the table and followed you.

You slammed the door shut, intending to cry alone. However, Haechan entered the room moments later.

"Please let me explain first," Haechan begged, attempting to pull you in an embrace, but you resisted.

"What is there to explain? Have you been lying to me this whole time?"

"No, God, no! Yes, my name is Donghyuck.. Haechan is just a nickname," he clarified. "My dad worked at your father's company, coding for years until he was fired. They wanted someone younger."

He gently held your face in his hands, "At first, I hated you. But when I saw you tearing up and running to the janitor's closet, it made my heart hurt, so I had to follow you."

"I told you my name was Haechan because that's what I go by in school. I wouldn't have gotten the scholarship if they knew who I was related to. Your father basically runs this town! I had to!"

"I swear I was going to tell you, but then I started developing feelings for you. I couldn't risk it! This is the best thing to ever happen to me, you're the best thing to ever happen to me!"

As you stood there, emotions swirling within you, you listened to Haechan's explanation. His vulnerability and genuine regret were evident in every word.

A mixture of anger, confusion, and empathy danced on the surface of your emotions. "Haechan, why didn't you trust me enough to tell me the truth?" you asked, your voice a blend of hurt and frustration.

his eyes pleading for understanding. "I wanted to, but the fear of losing you, or jeopardizing everything we had, it paralyzed me. I never meant to lie to you. I just didn't know how to tell you."

You took a deep breath, attempting to collect your thoughts. The truth was a bitter pill to swallow, but his honesty and the vulnerability in his eyes struck a chord. "You should have trusted me, Haechan. Relationships are built on trust, not on secrets and lies."

He nodded, remorse written across his features. "I know, and I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, and I understand if you can't forgive me."

The room fell silent for a moment, the weight of everything hanging in the air. You finally spoke, "I need time to process this. It's not just about the lie but the fact that you felt you had to hide something from me. Trust is something we'll need to work on."

Haechan nodded, his eyes reflecting a mix of regret and determination. "I'll do whatever it takes to make things right, even if it takes time.”

“I love you, and I'll always be honest with you from now on," he promised, enfolding you in a tight embrace.

Your body resisted at first, still in shock of everything that just happened, but you eventually gave in, wrapping your arms around him. The familiar scent of his cologne and the warmth of his embrace made you realize how much you loved him despite the lies.

You looked him in his eyes, studying his face before slowly letting your body finally connect your lips to his.

Haechan’s kiss was soft and gentle at first, but it quickly grew in intensity as the passion between the two of you grew. You felt his hands on your waist as he pulled you closer, deepening the kiss.

Despite the initial shock and hurt, you found yourself unable to resist Haechan’s touch, his lips, the way he made you feel. You knew trust would take time to build, but right now, you couldn't resist the heat between the two of you.

Haechan’s hands moved up to your hair, tangling in the strands as he deepened the kiss even further. “Donghyuck” You moaned softly, unable to control the pleasure that coursed through you.

“I love the way you moan my name” he growled

As the kiss came to an end, you were both left breathless, panting from the intensity of the moment. You looked up into Donghyuck’s eyes, seeing the love and desire there, and you couldn't help but smile. “I love you so much” he whispered

"I love you too,"

Your eyes met his and your lips curved into a smile. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked

"For loving me enough to tell me the truth," you responded.

“I will never hurt you again”

You stared silently, soaking in his presence, and a moment later, a small smile stretched across your lips. Donghyuck pulled you in for another heated kiss causing you to let out a small moan before pulling away slightly.

“You promise?” voice still shaky from the kiss.

Donghyuck grinned, his hands moved to your waist. There was a brief moment of discomfort as he lifted you onto your bed, but your objection was quickly silenced once you regained your balance.

You couldn't help but giggle at the boyish grin on Donghyck’s face as he looked at you from between your legs.

“I promise” he spoke as his hands traced the edges of your panties underneath your dress, teasing you and leaving you desperate for more.

A mischievous grin spread across Donghyuck’s face as he slowly began to slide your panties down, revealing more and more of your skin. You bit your lip, enjoying the sensation as he removed the final bit of fabric.

Donghyuck’s hands quickly moved to hook your legs around his waist, and you felt his fingers move towards your wet core. He teased you for a few minutes before moving his fingers up your slit, one finger brushing against your clit.

You moaned softly, biting your lip as you tried to keep yourself from making too much noise. You couldn’t help yourself though, the sensation overwhelming you as he began to circle your clit.

The sensation was so intense you couldn’t help but squirm beneath Donghyuck, his lips leaving a trail of kisses up your clothed stomach. His fingers slowed and he looked up at you. “Shh…” he whispered, lowering his head to your chest, kissing your exposed skin as you tried to regain control of yourself.

For a few moments you could barely breathe, light kisses upon your skin driving you wild. You could feel his cock pressed against your leg, and could tell it was straining against his pants.

“You are so gorgeous,” Donghyuck spoke softly as he moved up your body. His lips pressed against yours, his fingers teasing your clit as he moved his hand away.

Your lips were breathing heavily against his, your hips bucked as you felt him tease your clit again. You began to breathe hard, hot breaths gusting between your lips and his. "I love you” he repeated as his lips moved to your neck. He bit your neck, his lips sucking just hard enough to leave a mark.

You moaned softly as you moved your hands to his pants, fumbling with the button before pulling them and his underwear down so he could step out of them.

You felt his cock pressed against your skin, and you couldn’t help but reach out for it. You could feel his shaft pulsating against your hand as you stroked it.

Donghyuck let out a small grunt, his hips bucking into your hand as you teased the head of his cock. “goddamn” he moaned as you pulled him closer.

“I want you inside me. You could feel his shaft twitch in your hand as you said the words, your fingers tightening around the shaft as you moved to stand in front of him.

You pulled your dress over your head, tossing it to the floor as you reached behind your back to unclasp your bra. The garment fell to the ground, your breasts exposed to Donghyuck’s hungry gaze.

Donghyuck reached up, taking your breasts in his hands. He gently laid you back on the bed, his hands moving from your breasts to your hips.

You waited with heavy breaths as he finished stripping down, your eyes eagerly scanning his chest and abdomen. Reaching for his cock again eager for him to be inside you.

Donghyuck quickly shifted his hips, slowly sliding his cock inside you. You let out a soft moan as he slowly filled you up. He began thrusting slowly, his thrusts growing stronger and deeper.

He moaned loudly as he thrusts inside you, letting you slowly push against him. His thrusts were desperate.

As he felt his climax coming he reached down to grab your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. The connection between you intensified, your bodies moving in perfect sync. It was a dance of pleasure and desire, each movement bringing you closer to that sweet release.

As his thrusts became more urgent, his hips snapped against yours with a hunger that matched your own. The room filled with your moans and the rhythmic sound of skin slapping together. Time seemed to blur as the world around you vanished.

Your nails dug into his back, leaving red trails as he drove deeper into you. Waves of pleasure crashed over you, dragging you deeper into the abyss of ecstasy.

Donghyuck's breath grew ragged against your ear as he moved faster, chasing his climax with fervor. His grip on your hand tightened, his body trembling with anticipation.

You arched your back as you felt yourself approach climax, your hands gripping the sheets as you sought more friction. Donghyuck’s pace quickened, his cock sliding in and out of you as you felt your orgasm approach.

Your body tensed as you came closer and closer. You cried out, moaning his name as he kissed you. “Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck’s thrusts grew more and more erratic. He began to let out a series of moans as he continued to thrust. He groaned loudly, your walls tightening around his cock as he continued to thrust. You could feel his cock twitch as he came, his cum filling you up.

Donghyuck’s cock slid out of you as the two of you came down from your orgasm. You curled up against him, his arms wrapping around you as you kissed him.

“I love you too.” you whispered, kissing his lips softly. You rested your head against his chest, and for the first time in a long time, you fell asleep without any worries.

The morning sun peeked through the curtains, casting a warm glow across the room. Donghyuck stirred, his eyes slowly fluttering open. He blinked sleepily and focused on the beautiful sight in front of him--your peaceful face, bathed in gentle morning light.

As he realized your arm was still snugly wrapped around him, a soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips. The night before had been filled with whispers, laughter, and tender kisses shared between you both. And in this quiet moment, as the world outside continued to awaken, Donghyuck felt an overwhelming sense of contentment.

Leaning in closer, he pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead. His touch was feather-light, melting away any lingering traces of sleep from your mind. You stirred slightly, a drowsy smile playing on your lips as you looked up at him.

"Mmm, good morning," you murmured, your voice filled with warmth and affection.

"Good morning," Donghyuck replied, his voice low and husky.

His fingers gently traced the contours of your face, his touch so tender it sent shivers down your spine. As you peered into his eyes, you could see the love that radiated from within him. It was in those moments when the world was still and quiet, that you truly understood the depth of his affections. Donghyuck was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but in these stolen moments, he bared his soul to you.

taglist: @yesohhsehun @numberonekeehostan @rjreins @yutaswh0re @haechansbbg @fullsunahceah @sundamariis @sinsgaybutthatsokay @nae-vm @hcheach @snflwrhaerecs4u @jenodreamer @mystverse @lhcread @onlyoursol-ace @enchantingtreedrea @jaeimjaemin @justforme211 @jakejaehyun @nk-3554 @hyunniesvlog @bbyjayb @nodisdino @qwonii-111 @pwarkkjisung @wettestpoussy @bomi-ja

(srry if i forgot you or if it didnt tag you)

#nct dream #nct dream x reader #nct dream au #haechan #donghyuck #haechan smut #haechan x reader #haechan fluff #haechan angst #donghyuck smut #donghyuck x reader #nct dream smut

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defututus · 22 days ago

Text

Even When I'm Not With You

Through Snow & Sleet

masterlist

modern!Eddie Munson x AFAB!reader, college AU, strangers to friends to lovers

Summary: You meet someone in one of your college classes and it's love at first sight.

content warnings: swearing, it's a very modern AU

word count: 5.6k

author's note: this is technically my first fanfic. I began writing it in April of 2024 and only got around to posting it now. This is the backbone of the AU I've maintained in my head since I fell in love with Eddie. It takes place at the university I went to, involves all my friends, and some personal experiences. Once again, thank you to my two best friends @corroded-hellfire and @munson-blurbs for encouraging me to write and helping me out when I got stuck. Hopefully you guys like it because I have more to share in the future! ❤️

The cold February air was biting at your face as you hurried across campus, slow enough to avoid the ice that no doubt sat in the dark waiting for one careless student to step on it and fall flat on their ass. The walkways were lit just enough to allow you to see where you were going but not enough to help you spot any icy spots so this was as fast as you were willing to move. What should have been a relatively easy day turned into a nightmare the moment you woke up. It had snowed overnight and the university grounds crew had neglected to salt the sidewalks once again so you nearly fell twice just trying to get from your dorm building to the dining hall next door. Once you had a decent breakfast you made your way to work and learned that there was a bad cold spreading among the employees and had claimed three of your coworkers that you expected to work with today, thus leaving you with only your team lead to help you in your department. A good chunk of your morning was spent unloading consoles set to be released soon and left you exhausted. There were a fair share of unhappy customers that you had to deal with, and it only got worse when you finally got to go on your lunch and realized you left your wallet in your room so you had to eat the day-old bagels left in the break room. Five o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.

Your university was located in the middle of a metropolitan area so you were fully aware that the rush hour traffic was bad. To avoid the inevitable panic of wondering if you could be held up in traffic and be late to class, you built your class schedule around your shifts to leave an hour and a half for you to get home when the longest it could possibly take is twenty minutes with heavy traffic. Tonight’s class, Physical Anthropology, was on the other side of campus so you also had to factor in the time it would take to walk there. Still, you would be left ample time to get home, change out of your work clothes, and even have dinner without the need to rush. You were thankful that this was the last week before spring break so at least you could relax when you weren’t working.

Your careful planning had worked perfectly up until today because you couldn’t possibly account for the accident on the highway. Everyone was trying to get home before the storm came back to make the streets undriveable, but one driver was in such a rush that they lost control and caused a small pile-up. The drivers were all alright, thankfully, but this left you sitting in traffic for over an hour and your anxiety slowly creeping up. You were close to emailing your professor to tell them you weren’t going to make it even though the university was right in front of you. By 6:15pm, you were finally moving and rushed across campus. You weren’t even going to change out of your uniform and decided to just keep on the sweater you wore under your coat. All you had to do was grab your bag right by your door and make the trek across campus. Unfortunately once you grabbed everything you needed, you were now left with 15 minutes to make the 11-minute uphill trek to your classroom, assuming there were no obstacles in your way.

You made it inside the building and into your classroom with two minutes to spare, but in your mind you were basically late to class. You preferred to get there ten minutes early so you could choose a decent seat and get yourself situated, but by the time you were inside all the good spots were taken and the professor was already setting up for her lesson. The only seats left were in the back so you made your way over and put your stuff down at the first open spot you see. As you begin unpacking your things, the professor turns some of the lights off and puts on a video on osteology that you had been focusing on for the last two weeks.

You were never a very social person in school, always preferring to keep to yourself and only talk when other people initiate a conversation. This class was only on your schedule because it fulfilled a requirement, nothing else. Your only friends here were within your small program and none of them were in this class with you. You didn’t know anyone's names or faces, especially not the person you just sat next to. His only acknowledgement of you was in the form of scooting a little bit so he wasn’t taking up all the space at the table you were now sharing. He was focused on whatever he was frantically writing down in his notebook, a curtain of curly brown hair concealing his face from you. However, you were able to see what he was writing in. It was a beaten up spiral notebook full of carefully organized notes with color coded tabs. There were flowcharts, sketches of what looked like maps, and character information. He also had some pages printed out that were tucked between the pages. None of those things really stuck out to you, instead your eyes were drawn to a hastily drawn creature in the corner of the left page. It was a scaled, humanoid figure with wings and horns. You could almost mistake it for a gargoyle if it weren’t for its stature and flames surrounding it. It’s something you’d recognize almost anywhere.

You whisper to the person next to you, “That pit fiend looks really good.” His pen stops mid-sentence and his head shoots up to look at you. A woodsy smell mixed with a hint of tobacco and mint wafted towards you with his movements. It was almost intoxicating.The first thing you looked at were his eyes. They were wide open with shock and they were the richest, most beautiful shade of brown you had seen in your entire life. His lips were full, a little chapped either from biting and wetting them or the cold weather sucking all the moisture out of everything. He had light freckled across his nose and a small, faded scar on his forehead. The rest of his hair that wasn’t previously obscuring his face was tied back into a bun. You both sat there in silence for a moment as he struggled to put words together. He’s wearing chunky silver rings and a worn Slipknot hoodie. You could even see the edges of a tattoo peeking out from under the collar and another of a goat skull on his left hand.

“Oh, thanks. Um…” He looked down at the page for a second, ringed hands fidgeting with the pen he was holding before pointing towards the large flow chart, “It’s for this week’s campaign. I didn’t have a lot of time this week to plan so I’m trying to get it all done right before we meet up tonight. My friend, Jeff, his character looted these cultists…” He glances up to check and see if you’re listening and smiles when he realizes you’re actively paying attention, leaning in to get a better look at the pages. He continues with a little more confidence in his voice.

“So his character, this Triton named Kaglas, found a really old book on one of the cultists. Turns out this book was a cursed tome belonging to a demon prince and well, he cut his finger trying to pry the book open because it was being held shut with these really sharp teeth. The blood from his finger dripped onto the book and opened a portal so a prince of hell kidnapped him and now they’ll have to get past this guy to gain access to the prison… I’m just trying to finish up the encounter tables for the rest of the prison because I always leave those until the last minute.” Before he can delve further into the story, the lights come back on and papers are being handed out to each row of tables by the professor. “The goal of this lab is to identify the species of hominid based on everything you’ve learned so far. I’m not going to pull anything funny by giving you two of the same species so don’t worry about that. Each skull is numbered. Work with the other person at your table to identify the species, write the number down, and explain your reasoning. Please be careful with these.”

The papers make their way back to your way and you hand one to your new lab partner. He accepts it, mouthing ‘thank you’ and quickly scrawls Eddie on the top of the page. Good, you tell yourself. You know his name now, progress. There’s some shuffling in the back of the room as the professor goes off on some tangent. Both yours and Eddie’s attention is drawn back to the topic of his campaign.

You began speaking to him in hushed tones, “Your friend doesn’t seem very bright. Who in their right mind would try opening a book bound shut with fucking teeth? And they got it from cultists? Are they trying to get their characters killed or are they just dumb?” Eddie stifles his laughter and shakes his head. You’re sure the professor is saying something as she moves to the back of the room but your focus is only on the man next to you. His laugh is more beautiful than any song you’ve heard before. He begins to rock his stool back and forth as he continues to speak.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. We’ve been playing together for years and I think they’re getting more and more reckless as time goes on. At this point they can recognize when I’ve set up a trap and they take it every time just for the hell of it…” so, do you play?”

There’s some shuffling going on in the cabinets in the back of the room as the professor begins pulling out skulls and placing one on each table. Eddie takes the skull and begins looking it over. You hear a quiet, “These are really cool.” You glance over at it and note the size of the skull overall and the lack of a brow ridge, quickly jotting those down before moving your paper closer to Eddie so he can write them down as well.

“I just started recently, it’s me and a few friends. We just saved this sweet little dwarf bookseller named Barnes when these half-elves stole his book cart with him inside it.” You watch Eddie examine the skull, running his fingers along the area where the sagittal crest should be. His rings catch the warm light of the old overhanging lights of the classroom. There was black ink on his hands, or was that oil? You couldn’t tell. His fingers were calloused and you could only guess he was also a musician.

“Barnes, the bookseller, huh? What’s his last name, Noble?” The only response he gets is an eye roll before putting the skull down. “By the way, I think it’s a homo erectus. There’s no crest and its teeth are smaller.” You nod and Eddie hands the skull over for you to examine. You open its mouth to get a better look at the teeth and nod to him, writing ‘homo erectus’ on the paper. The skull remained in your hands and you began inspecting it out of curiosity.

You bring the skull up to eye level and respond to Eddie with a small smirk on your face, “As a matter of fact, it is. Y’know, it’s actually a family business. His father started it and he has a bunch of brothers with the same name. They all have their own book carts in different cities. Honestly, I think they’re gonna be real successful in the future.” The story makes you laugh. The book cart wasn’t meant to be anything more than a place for your crew to gain information on the area but your insistence on “getting to know the locals” to annoy your DM, Emma, led to them creating a character that you felt attached to right away.

He rests his head in his hand and gives you a look that you can’t quite read. He has this smile on his face and this soft look in his eyes that you’ve only ever seen in romance movies when the main characters are starting to fall for each other. It wasn’t something you had the chance to experience yourself, always too nervous to ask people out yourself. Dating apps were totally out of the question because you had only heard horror stories from your friends who had tried it. You open your mouth to continue telling the story and maybe ask Eddie about his own campaigns when your professor pipes up from the front of the classroom.

“Guys, just as a reminder. These skulls are REAL and are ON LOAN TO THE UNIVERSITY and they are VERY EXPENSIVE. Please be careful with them.”

If you were being honest, you should have realized this sooner. It didn’t feel like plastic at all and had small indentations and ridges on it. This was a person. The realization nearly has you dropping the skull that once held someone's brain but thankfully, you were holding it right above the table so there was no chance of it being damaged. A laugh rang out from the seat next to you which took your attention away from what you held in your hands. He’s smiling at you. A big, toothy, beautiful smile and you wish you could look at that smile all day long. He hasn’t been in your life very long, maybe 5 minutes in total, but you were infatuated with him. Once he manages to calm himself down, Eddie slowly reaches out and takes the skull out of your hands.

“Let me take that from you. We can’t have you hurting this guy, can we?” Once the skull was out of your hands, you hang your head low in embarrassment. You feel your face growing warm and pull at the loose strings of your sweater sleeve. You bought it when you first started attending the university and it had been through the wash more times than you could and somehow created a hole in one of the sleeves. The hole was just low enough so you would stick your thumb in it and pick at it, like you were doing right now. Eddie lowers his head a bit to get a better look at you and asks, “So I guess you never realized these were real.”

You reply, face still feeling slightly flushed, “I never really thought about it, but it feels weird… I mean, that was a person,” you reply, pointing to it with your pen as you begin noting the state of its teeth and the sutures on the top of the head, “this guy had hobbies, he had a family, he lived a full life!”

Eddie interjects, turning the skull around to the back to reveal a massive crack in the middle of it. You cringe at the sight of it with Eddie bluntly replying, “I don’t think this guy had a full life. Looks to be cut pretty short to me. This is probably from an axe or some other tool.”

The rest of the class period was spent finishing the lab and learning more about each other. The two of you talked about majoring in history and your love for classical antiquity while he told you about his band and working as a mechanic with his uncle. You also learned that your music tastes were pretty similar, you had a love for rock and metal and even complimented his hoodie (“I’m gonna be completely honest, you do not look like a Slipknot fan.” “Wow, rude.”). It felt as if you had known Eddie your entire life by the time class was drawing to a close. You two were so immersed in your conversation that you didn’t even realize you were one of the last people in the classroom. Eddie unlocked his phone to check the time, allowing you a quick glance at his lock screen with a red guitar on it. Your musician hunch was right. He shoots up from his stool, hissing “Shit shit shit” and begins shoving his stuff into his backpack. You look at him bewildered and he says, “I’m sorry, I need to go. Our session is supposed to start in five minutes and I need to be on the other side of campus right now!” Once his bag was hastily packed and he was pulling his jacket on, Eddie looks at you one last time and gives you a sheepish smile. “I’ll see you next week, right? No, two weeks. I’ll see you in two weeks. It was great to meet you!” You don’t even get the chance to properly say goodbye before he leaves the classroom in a blur of black leather and denim. All you hear is the sounds of heavy boots running through the hallway and out the nearest side door.

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The walk from Eddie’s class to the student center Tuesday night was usually a leisurely one. He always made sure he got out the moment class ended so he would be able to fetch the keys for the multi-purpose room down in the basement and unlock it before everyone else arrived. Eddie always preferred to have everything set up so it was less likely someone could sneak a peek at his notes. He learned his lesson after he arrived a few minutes late and Grant got a peek at his screen and saw their Arakocra guide that was helping them navigate enemy territory was actually a spy for the local warlord. Eddie was a stickler for punctuality (ironic considering how he was always absent in high school) and would rag on anyone that was even five minutes late. Hellfire was meant to start at 8pm sharp and Eddie was rounding the corner in the basement, keys in hand, by 8:07.

By the time he has the key and rounds the corner to their room, he sees everyone standing outside and their heads all turn at once. He honestly found it kind of disturbing.

“Well, well, well. Look who finally arrived,” Gareth said with his arms crossed, “we’re glad to see you could make it.” Eddie doesn’t bother trying to justify his tardiness to him and pushes through to unlock the door and set his stuff down at the end of the table.

Everyone agreed that the drama room back in Hawkins High was definitely more comfortable than their current room and was more aesthetically pleasing. Eddie thrived when he was sitting on that throne. He would have taken it home with him if he could. However, there were some cons to that location that were rarely brought up. They had to lug extra chairs into that room every week and always had to keep their voices down. Sometimes they’d arrive and find out the space was being used for something else that week and they had to cancel the meeting. It was also located in the one part of the school that lacked air conditioning so it became unbearable once the weather started to warm up. Also, the wifi was horrible.

Eddie considered this room to be an upgrade. It wasn’t as nice as the drama room with its white painted brick walls with absolutely nothing on them and the uncomfortable chairs, but he always knew this space would be open since he reserved it for them every Tuesday night. He also appreciated the monitor hanging in front of the tables so he could display the maps and character art he did himself. Yes, they did trade in a very hot room in Hawkins for a very cold one in a basement, but everyone thought it was worth it.

Everyone began to filter into the room and take their respective seats at the long table. There was only one seat open since one of their former players, Ronnie, had transferred to another school at the end of the fall semester so her seat was being used by Jeff. Eddie is working quickly to pull up the necessary resources and load up the map they were using last week with twisting pathways and lakes of lava. He’s filtering out all the chatter around him in order to get everything set up as quickly as possible. Jeff sits down next to him with a box of pastries from the local Dunkin Donuts. They could usually get them for free in the evening since they were about to be thrown out and Jeff was friends with one of the cashiers.

“So… what happened to you?”

Jeff’s question is only heard by Eddie and Doug, Hellfire’s newest member. The rest of the club were busy getting their own materials out and digging dice out of their bags. Eddie could vaguely hear Gareth complaining about losing his own set and having to use one of the sets Eddie brought because ‘Munson always has the weirdest dice, I don’t want to spend tonight staring at dice with a bunch of tiny baby heads in them’. Without looking up from his laptop, Eddie simply replies, “I had a lab and lost track of time, that’s all.”

Jeff doesn’t believe any of this. He and Eddie had been friends since they were both gangly teenagers who got detention for trying to skip gym class. Jeff knew when Eddie was lying - Eddie would always bite at his lip when he wasn’t telling the truth. It wasn’t just a lab. Something must have happened.

Jeff begins to probe Eddie with questions. He knew the only way he’d get Eddie to confess to whatever was going on was by guessing until he got a reaction out of him.

“A lab, interesting… So you weren’t able to finish it in time and that made you late?” Eddie says nothing.

“Did you drop something and get in trouble?” Someone else almost did, but not him. No reaction.

“Did you eat something and get in trouble?” Eddie reaches over to the box of pastries and grabs a boston creme donut.

“Did you meet someone? You found your soulmate?” Eddie pauses as he’s sitting back down in his chair. Bingo. Jeff is shocked. Throughout all the years he had known Eddie, the man was never known to believe in love. There was a girl he met when he was 18 but that never worked out so Eddie assumed he’d live the life of a bachelor. He grew up with parents who hated each other and always seemed to be fighting so he never knew what a healthy relationship looked like. Whenever someone asked about his love life he would brush them off and say it just wasn’t for him. He said it so much that everyone couldn’t help but believe him.

“Oh my god, Eddie Munson is in love.” Jeff says this slowly with a shit-eating grin on his face. He also said this loud enough that everyone else in the room could hear him so all the conversations being held ended at once in favor of learning about this mystery person in Eddie’s life.

“You’re WHAT?”

“I didn’t know you were capable of that.”

“What are they like? What’s their name?”

The group questioning turned into an interrogation that yielded no results. Everyone only stopped once Eddie had finally located the music he needed and drowned their questions out with the sounds of a haunting violin, creaking, and muffled screams.

“Ok, so where were we? Uh, Tayr,” Eddie looks up at Jeff and points his pen at him, “you’re still imprisoned deep underground. You had 7 hit points when we last left off and you said you were planning to break both your ankles to get out of your shackles so I’m holding you to that.” Eddie then turns to Grant and Gareth who are looking annoyed that their friend is ignoring them, but he persists. He has a campaign to run. “Hylbaez, I believe you and Ariver were going to attempt horse stacking to get up to that open window. I don’t know how the two of you plan on doing that without your horses and how you’re gonna reach the 7th floor even if you had your horses with you. You’ve had a week to figure that out.” He looks over his notes one last time before looking up at the group. Nobody appears to be ready to play. No pencils in hand, only a few papers out. Hellfire won’t start until they get what they want. Eddie was really hoping they’d all drop the group questioning but that doesn’t seem like it’s happening anytime soon. With a huff, Eddie rubs his face and gives them all a look of resignation. “Okay, fine. You want to know? There was a girl that sat next to me. She complimented some character art that I’ve been working on and we talked about D&D for a while. I’m gonna try to get her number after spring break. THAT’S IT.”

It’s almost like everyone’s ears perked up when they heard him mention Dungeons & Dragons. Doug puts a hand up as if he’s in class and asks the question that everyone is thinking. “Are you going to invite her to join Hellfire?” It’s a question that Eddie had been asking himself on the hurried walk from class to the student center. Sure, the campaign they were playing had already begun but he could find a way to write you in. He knew he was a good storyteller so it would be a great way to impress you. Sure, he’s no Matthew Mercer or Brennan Lee Mulligan, but he never struggled to keep everyone’s attention and he’s proud of the stories he created.

“I’ll think about it.”

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It had begun raining by the time their session was concluded (the student center was closing) and the shuttles weren’t running tonight so Eddie had to make the mile trek on foot. He didn’t even care that the elevator was broken again. He’ll, he wouldn’t care if it was broken for the rest of the year because he’s pretty sure he found the love of his life today and nothing could dampen his mood. He rushed up the four flights of stairs and fumbled with his keys before coming inside and slamming the front door shut behind him. His backpack was thrown onto the floor with a wet fwump and his bomber jacket followed close behind as he hastily shucked it off him.

Eddie had a routine he usually followed after each Hellfire Club meeting. He would always change into his pajamas, heat up the food he had brought back from the dining halls and make that his dinner, and retreat into his room where he’d go over what happened during their session and tweak his plans for their next meeting if necessary. He did this every week for the past three years he’s been DMing at this school and the only time he ever broke this routine was during finals his freshman year where he was convinced he’d fail if he didn’t dedicate all his time to actually studying. This was the second time he would ever break that routine. Instead of making himself comfortable, he stormed down through their small living space and walked past his own room to barge into the other bedroom.

This was the second year that Steve roomed with Eddie and the first year that they got their own rooms. Since they were so used to sharing a room together, it was second nature for Eddie to rush straight to Steve when he had to tell him something. Thankfully for him, Steve never locked his door so Eddie was able to rush in unannounced and blurted out, “You will NOT believe what happened today!”

Steve was sitting at his desk, still dressed in his red school scrubs from his clinicals earlier in the day with his nose buried in his textbooks. His hair was tied back in a small ponytail, wearing his glasses, and headphones over his ears. When Eddie forced his way into the room, Steve nearly jumped out of his seat and ripped his headphones off his head and was glaring daggers at the other man.

“Do you ever learn to knock?” Eddie ignores the comment from Steve and goes to the other side of the small bedroom to sit down on Steve’s bed, still wearing his damp clothes and definitely tracking mud across the apartment. Steve is only angry for a moment until he sees the giant smile on his friends face. Eddie wasn’t exactly a grumpy person, but Steve hadn’t seen him smiling like that in a long time, probably not since Eddie got Metallica tickets from his Uncle Wayne as a graduation present. He was smiling so much that Steve was sure his face actually hurt. Eddie was beaming just like he was all those years ago.

Eddie’s leg began shaking from excitement as he began speaking, “I think I met my soulmate today. I was in my anthropology class and she sat down next to me and she’s perfect. I mean, first of all, she’s beautiful. She plays Dungeons and Dragons and we like the same music and she’s so fucking funny.” The metalhead then gets up from Steve’s bed and takes the few steps it takes to stand right in front of him. He’s wildly waving his hands around as he recalls everything that you two talked about during that lab. Steve swore Eddie didn’t stop to breathe even once during this entire recollection. As the story starts to wind down, Eddie removed his hair tie from his hair and ran his fingers through his dark locks. He sighs and says, “Honestly man, I didn’t think after Paige that I’d find anyone who I really connected with but she’s different. I don’t feel like I need to hold back when I’m talking to her.” Eddie finally stops talking and takes a breath before moving back to Steve’s bed and flopping down to lay on his sheets, wet hair and all.

Steve fully turns around to face Eddie with an impressed look on his face as he closes his books, asking the other, “I’m happy for you, man. So what’s her name? Did you get her number?” Eddie hears this and his eyes widen, opting to look up at the ceiling rather than Steve. He realizes his horrible, horrible mistake and is kicking himself for hurrying off rather than taking an extra minute to get your name and contact information. His silence prompts Steve to scoot closer in his chair as his tone turns more serious. “Eddie, did you get her number?” Silence. “Her instagram?” Silence. “Snapchat??” Eddie purses his lips, too ashamed to say anything. “Munson, did you get ANYTHING from her??”

Eddie groans and sits up now, rubbing his face and tries to defend himself. “Listen. I was going to be late to Hellfire and I didn’t want to listen to anyone complaining about being late so I just told her I’d see her after spring break. I wasn’t thinking straight! I swear I’ll get her number the moment I see her in two weeks.”

It’s now Steve’s turn to groan and he shakes his head, getting up from his chair and moving to sit next to Eddie and begins to try to reassure his friend, telling him, “Ok, here’s what we’re gonna do. There’s like a missing connections instagram page for the school. You just need to message them and tell them you want to find her and get her contact information. Maybe she’ll see it.”

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You spent the rest of the week hopelessly searching for Eddie in the massive crowds of students. There were a couple instances of spotting a head of curly brown hair only to be disappointed when you realize it’s not him. There’s about 40,000 students in this school so you wonder why you figured you could just find him casually walking around campus. Your roommate, Elena, suggested looking at your school portal page to see if you can find him on your class page but your professor didn’t enable the ‘Students’ section, only opting for pages that were vital in completing coursework. One of your friends spent two hours scouring Instagram and Facebook convinced that they could find Eddie but came up empty handed. You told everyone you knew what he looked like and what his name was, but he wasn’t in anyone’s classes or in anyone’s dorms. It was like he just vanished into thin air. Elena reassured you that you’d see him in two weeks so all you had to do was wait.

Your search was paused during spring break and put on an indefinite hold when things went downhill. People all over the world were getting sick and you watched in horror as the virus slowly creeped closer to your home state. Then into your county. Spring break was extended for an extra week as the school administration worked to find a solution to keep the staff and student body safe. Schools around the country were shuttering their campuses while yours promised in-person classes would resume shortly but they soon changed their mind. You received an email by week three stating the remainder of the semester would be spent online and you needed to pack up your dorm room. The administration was unable to confirm if you’d be returning to campus in the fall. At this point, both you and Eddie came to the conclusion that you’d never see the other person again and it would take a miracle for you two to reunite.

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I’m not sorry

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #scripsi #eddie munson series

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vetochkarowan · 1 month ago

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So, dear friends, we’ve come a long way together: from accidentally peeking through someone else’s kitchen window to finding true happiness. It’s strange to think that it all started with my thought, “Oh God, what a silly idea, let me sketch it quickly to get it out of my head…” And here we are, about 150 pages later, all drawn in just three months. (Not bad for someone writing her very first fanfic, right?)

I never expected my work to receive so much love and feedback. The fact that the comic lasted this long is largely thanks to you, those who commented, supported me, and gave me the strength to keep drawing. Unfortunately, I don’t always manage to reply to comments on time, but please know—I read every single one, and your words mean the world to me.

For those who might have missed it, I’ll repeat my thoughts on a continuation: I don’t yet know if our show will be renewed for a full second season (Larian, call me!) or if there will just be a few sketches about Mac and Astarion’s life and adventures (I still have so much to tell), but in any case, this is not the end. Stories don’t end—we just stop watching them.

About the printed version: I have no idea how many copies I should print, but I do know it’ll be expensive. So, most likely, I’ll set up preorders soon, and together we’ll gather the needed funds.

I’m also planning to work on merch (not just for ModernBet but for BG in general) and start a Patreon, but those are just everyday plans for the future.

For now, I’ll be off the radar for about a month—I’ve got a big journey ahead. Don’t miss me too much (maybe just a little). Don’t forget me—I’ll be back soon with new stories for you.

Wishing you all the most magical things ( “squeak squeak” in bat language),

Yours truly,

Vetochka 🌿

#modernbat

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eveninglakehomeworld · 3 months ago

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hi friends and lovers, I've gathered a small collection of dialogues from Zevran in DA:O regarding Antiva & the Crows.

I got this together mostly for myself, but thought I'd share in case anyone who is maybe looking to flesh out their new Crow OC, write fanfic involving Crow characters, or is looking for a refresher on early Crow lore would like something to reference. I trimmed down dialogues a bit, so mostly just information relevant to the Crows, Antiva in general, and Zevran's own attitudes about being an assassin are present.

this post has dialogues from Zev's recruitment event and a couple of early game camp conversations. because it's only a handful of dialogues, this is, ostensibly, part 1 of several. I plan to post more as I progress through my replay of origins. enjoy! <3

Recruitment

Warden: "What are the Antivan Crows?"

Leliana: I can tell you that. They are an order of assassins out of Antiva. Very powerful, and renowned for always getting the job done... so to speak. Someone went to great expense to hire this man.

Zevran: Quite right. I'm surprised you haven't heard much of the Crows out here. Back where I come from, we're rather infamous.

Warden: "You came all the way from Antiva?"

Zevran: Not precisely. I was in the neighborhood when the offer came. The Crows get around, you see.

[After being asked if he's loyal to Loghain]

Zevran: Beyond that, no, I'm not loyal to him. I was contracted to perform a service.

Warden: "And now that you've failed that service?"

Zevran: Well, that's between Loghain and the Crows. And between the Crows and myself.

Warden: "When were you to see him next?"

Zevran: I wasn't. If I had succeeded, I would have returned home and the Crows would have informed your Loghain of the results... if he didn't already know. If I had failed, I would be dead. Or I should be, at least, as far as the Crows are concerned. No need to see Loghain then.

Warden: "How much were you paid?"

Zevran: I wasn't paid anything. The Crows, however, were paid quite handsomely. Or so I understand. Which does make me about as poor as a chantry mouse, come to think of it. Being an Antivan Crow isn't for the ambitious, to be perfectly honest.

Warden: "Then why are you one?"

Zevran: Well, aside from a distinct lack of ambition, I suppose it's because I wasn't give much of a choice. The Crows bought me young. I was a bargain, too, or so I'm led to believe. But don't let my sad story influence you. The Crows aren't so bad. They keep one well supplied: Wine, women, men. Whatever you happen to fancy. Though, the whole severance package is garbage, let me tell you. If you were considering joining, I'd really think twice about it.

Warden: "Aren't you at least loyal to your employers?"

Zevran: Loyalty is an interesting concept. If you wish, and you're done interrogating me, we can discuss it further.

Warden: "I'm listening. Make it quick."

Zevran: Well, here's the thing. I failed to kill you, so my life is forfeit. That's how it works. If you don't kill me, the Crows will. Thing is, I like living. And you obviously are the sort to give the Crows pause. So let me serve you, instead.

Warden: "And what's to stop you from finishing the job later?"

Zevran: To be completely honest, I was never given much of a choice regarding joining the Crows. They bought me on the slave market when I was a child. I think I've paid my worth back to them, plus tenfold. The only way out, however, is to sign up with someone they can't touch. Even if I did kill you now, they might kill me just on the principle of failing the first time. Honestly, I'd rather take my chances with you.

Warden: "Won't they come after you?"

Zevran: Possibly. I happen to know their wily ways, however. I can protect myself, as well as you. Not that you seem to need much help. And if not, well, it's not as if I had many alternatives to start with, is it?

Warden: "Why would I want your service?"

Zevran: Why? Because I am skilled at many things, from fighting to stealth and picking locks. I could also warn you should the Antivan Crows attempt something more... sophisticated... now that my attempts have failed.

A few early game camp conversations

Conversation 1 Warden: "What does it take to become an assassin?"

Zevran: Well, the Crows would have you believe that it is an involved process that takes years of training, the sort that tests both your resolve and your endurance. Survive that process and maybe, just maybe, you're good enough to start being considered one of them. But quite frankly the truth is that all it requires is a desire to kill people for a living. It's surprising how well one can do in such a field.

Warden: "It doesn't take any special skill?"

Zevran: I don't know about that. It's simply a slightly different skill set from your average killer, as I see it. An assassin simply specializes in striking from stealth... and in maximizing that first attack to be as lethal as possible. Debilitating your foe, either by poison or by crippling their limbs, makes any follow-up combat you need to engage in that much simpler.

Warden: "That sounds like it could be useful."

Zevran: See? Getting paid for the act is beside the point. An assassin is more a tactical choice than a lifestyle. Of course, the Crows like to pretend that their abilities are trade secrets, shrouded in shadows and wrapped in a blanket of mystery. So let's just keep this between you and me, shall we, hmm?

Conversation 2 Warden: "Why did you want to leave the Crows, exactly?"

Zevran: Well, now, I imagine that's a very fair question. Being an assassin, after all, is a living, at least as far as such things go. I was simply never given the opportunity to choose another way. So if that choice presents itself, why should I not seize upon it?

Warden: "You didn't choose the Crows?"

Zevran: Mm? To be truthful, I didn't even know the Crows existed when I joined them. I was but a boy of seven when I was purchased. For three sovereigns, I'm told. Which is a good price, considering I was all ribs and bone and didn't know the pommel of a dagger from the pointy end. The Crows buy all their assassins that way. Buy them young, raise them to know nothing else but murder. And if you do poorly in your training, you die.

Warden: "That sounds awful."

Zevran: "Oh, I don't know about that. The Crows who are actually good enough to survive come to enjoy some of the benefits. In Antiva, being a Crow gets you respect. It gets you wealth. It gets you women... and men, or whatever it is you might fancy. But that does mean doing what is expected of you, always. And it means being expendable. It's a cage, if a gilded cage. Pretty, but confining. [note: I transcribed the first line of the last section as it was written in the subtitles because it seemed to make more sense in context, but when Zevran speaks it aloud he actually says "That does not mean doing what is expected of you." presumably an editing error, but can't be 100% positive which is the intended message.]

[After being asked what he thinks his future might hold]

Zevran: As for what I'll do in the future... presuming that there is one... I truly can't imagine. It might be interesting to go into business for myself, for a change. Far away from Antiva, of course. For now, naturally, I go where you go.

Warden: "Won't the Crows eventually find you?"

Zevran: [laughs] Eventually can be a very, very long time if one plays one's cards right. Come, now. Enough chit-chat. Talking about the Crows summons them, you know. Any Antivan fishwife could tell you so.

Conversation 3 Warden: "Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?"

Zevran: And why not? There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected. You are feared. The authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. Even the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at. As for the killing part, well... some people simply need assassinating. Or do you disagree?

Warden: "You've never killed an innocent?"

Zevran: Now there's an interesting word, "innocent." How many men do you know who can claim to truly be innocent? But if you're talking generalities, such as children and relatives and bystanders and such... never on purpose, but it happens. It's unfortunate, but death comes to us all. If not me, then some wasting disease. Or a fall down the stairs. Or at the hands of a darkspawn. It's all relative in the end.

Warden: "I suppose that's true."

Zevran: "Death happens," as we like to say. And when I get paid for it, death happens more often. As far as enjoying the act of killing itself, why not? There is a certain artistry to the deed, the pleasure of sinking your blade into their flesh and knowing that their life is in your hands.

Warden: "I know what you mean."

Zevran: There are many things I did not enjoy about being a Crow, of course. Having no choice, being treated as an expendable commodity, the rules... oh, so many rules! But, simply being an assassin? I like it just fine. I will continue to do it, if I can, even if I am not a Crow. Honestly, could you picture me doing something else?

Conversation 4 [note: I trimmed this one down a lot bc it's just one of the ones where he tells you about a job and there's not a lot to be gleaned about Antiva, how the Crows operate, etc] [In response to being asked, "The Crows were willing to anger the Circle of Magi?"]

Zevran: In Antiva, nobody is too important to escape the reach of the Crows. They have killed kings and queens. That's simply how it is.

[After elaborating on how he fumbled an assassination attempt and the mark died accidentally, instead of by his hand]

Zevran: Then I found out she had told the driver to take her to Genellan instead. She has planned to lose me in the provinces. I would have looked very foolish to the Crows. As it was, my master was very impressed that I had done such a fine job of making it look like an accident. The Circle of Magi was unaware of foul play, and everyone was happier all around.

Conversation 5 Warden: "Tell me a little about Antiva."

Zevran: Oh? You wish to know about Antiva, do you? The only way to truly appreciate it would be to go there. It is a warm place, not cold and harsh like this Ferelden. In Antiva it rains often, but the flowers are always in bloom... or so the saying goes.

Warden: "Don't you want to go back?"

Zevran: [sighs] It is not really a matter of wanting to go back. I cannot go. At least not yet. I hail from the glorious Antiva City, home to the royal palace. It is a glittering gem amidst the sand, my Antiva City. Do you come from someplace comparable?

Warden: "I'm not from any glittering gem, no."

Zevran: No? That is too bad. If you were, then surely you would spend as much time boasting about it as I do! Hmm. You know what is most odd? We speak of my homeland, and for all its wine and its dark-haired beauties and the lillo flutes of the minstrels... I miss the leather the most.

Warden: "Is that some kind of euphemism?"

Zevran: [laughs] It may as well be! But not this once, no. I mean the smell. For years I lived in a tiny apartment near Antiva City's leather-making district, in a building where the Crows stored their youngest recruits. Packed in like crates. I grew accustomed to the stench, even though the humans complained of it constantly. To this day the smell of fresh leather is what reminds me most of home more than anything else.

Warden: "That's a little bizarre. There's leather everywhere."

Zevran: Ah, but it's not Antivan leather, is it? I do not know what the Antivan tanners do that is different, but ther is no leather more supple nor more fragrant.

Warden: "You sound like you've been away from home forever."

Zevran: Oh, not so long, I know. It is my first time away from Antiva, however, and the thought of never returning makes me think of it constantly. Before I left, I was tempted to spend what little coin I possessed on leather boots I spotted in a store window. Finest Antivan leather, perfect craftsmanship—ah, but I was a fool to leave them. I thought, "Ah, Zevran, you can buy them when you return as a reward from a job well done." More the fool I, no?

Warden: "Your home is still there, Zevran."

Zevran: True, and it's a comforting thought. One simply never knows what is to come next.

Now, if it is all the same to you, I would prefer not to speak more of Antiva. It makes me wistful and hungry for a proper meal.

Bonus banter snippet because I found it amusing:

Morrigan: You assassin types have a death wish, I see.

Zevran: [laughs] Only the really good ones.

#dragon age #zevran #zevran arainai #antivan crows #hopefully someone besdides myself finds this useful and im not just clogging up tags!!#yapping #daoblogging

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pedropascallovebot · 1 month ago

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Challenging

Luigi Mangione x reader

✧˖°.

a/n: i do my fanfic writing on ao3 now- including ceo killer smut, but i saw that blindfold video and i knew what i had to do and i knew the tumblr girlies were the crowd for this. i'm so sorry i don't know which depraved part of my brain this came from it just happened

cw: blindfolding, edging, author whipping her head back and forth as luigi and reader go back and forth on who the hell is the dom here

⋆˙⟡

It had started off as a joke, really.

Well, no- not a joke. When you quietly told your boyfriend you'd thought he looked "bite-able" in that blindfold, you had said so with a laugh to give yourself the excuse of being totally joking if he wasn't down to let you try the whole concept out in the privacy of his bedroom.

It normally would've been disappointing to leave your friend group's get-together so early- after all, you had movies and drinks planned, but wouldn't you know; an hour after your innocent comment in his ear, your neighbor coincidentally needed a ride to the hospital. Crazy how these things work out.

No, it was not disappointment you felt this time. An all too familiar sensation built between your thighs when his hand gripped the steering wheel, driving a little too fast back home.

You had almost asked your friend for the blindfold, but then you would of had to hear her ask why you'd need one when you were going to drop your neighbor off at the hospital, and you figured it'd be easier to just make do with something from your closet. Which you would- your brain was already brewing with ideas of different scraps of fabric you could use as a makeshift blindfold.

Back to your current predicament: soaking through your underwear, Luigi's fingers the star of the show you're playing in your mind as he drives you both home, and the bulge in his jeans.

"Tell me what's on your mind, love," he smirks, and then he's dragging his free hand that's not operating a moving vehicle up your thigh. Your breath hitches as he runs a thumb gently over the fabric covering your skin.

You stay silent, because if you speak you might just break immediately and beg for him to pull over and fuck you stupid on the side of the road.

He hmphs, delivering a firm smack to your thigh, and you let out a whimper at the stinging.

Luigi is normally a very safe driver, but it is nothing short of an absolute miracle that there were no cops out on the road to pull him over for a speeding ticket. It feels like you're parking and pulling out your apartment keys before the stinging sensation stops lingering.

You both say hello to your neighbor and his dog, about to go on a walk, and then shut the door.

"He looks remarkably well for someone needing to go the hospital," you joke, reaching your hands up to thread your fingers through Luigi's curls.

He leans into your touch, pinning you against the wall by the door in the process. This leads to your mouth being absolutely devoured by his own; your boyfriend is kissing you so desperately that when you pull away, a whine releasing from the back of his throat.

That blue checkered shirt, while fitting him exceptionally well, is unbuttoned and abandoned on the floor before you even drag him to the bed, wasting no time turning on any light except the bare minimum to see his shaking hands and achingly hard dick straining in his pants.

Pushing him down on the bed, you climb in on top of him, straddling his hips and shoving his shoulders down so his head meets the pillow. His arms go to find the hem of your own shirt, assisting you in pulling it off and then reaching to get the rest of your clothes off.

When the both of you are left in your underwear, your wetness is more prominent to Luigi, and he takes a breath, going to reach to help you out, but you're off his lap and hurrying to your closet.

"Baby," he mutters, his hand going to rest over his boxers.

Bingo. An old scarf- or, to better describe it, the idea of a scarf, because you had started crocheting it and then just never finished. However, it was perfect for the debauchery you had planned for you and your boyfriend.

"What's wrong?" you asked sweetly, stalking over to him and slowly climbing back on the bed to resume your position. "What can I do to help you out?"

You take his hand off his bulge, resting it on his side, and he shifts, his breath deepening.

"Need you so bad, please," he mutters. You drop the scarf while you place kisses down his jawline, eventually making your way to his ear.

"Lay back for me."

He obeys.

Luigi's eyes drop to the scarf, a smile building in the corners of his mouth makes you blush. There's no way you'll be able to keep your composure and not let him fuck your brains out, but you gotta keep it together long enough that you can get your boyfriend whining and moaning for your touch. You press another kiss to his lips, and tie the blindfold around his head, securing it in the back before ruffling his hair and grabbing his chin with your fingers.

"Not that you would know, but every single girl there was staring at you with that blindfold on," you remarked, your other hand running down his chest.

"Is someone j-" Luigi's voice falters when your fingers reach the waistband of his boxers, tracing over them.

"Hmm?"

You continue running your fingers over the skin, not bothering to take the fabric off until he can manage to form some words for you.

"If you were j- fuck- if you were jealous, you hid it very well," he says, hips raising so you can slide off his boxers.

Not jealous. Maybe a little annoyed, sure. But those girls were back there, and you were right here, with Luigi on your bed, your name falling from his lips, begging you to touch him.

"Or maybe that's why you were practically in my lap afterwards, huh?" he continues. "Wanting to show everyone there that I'm yours? Don't wanna share me?"

You're the one on top, you remind yourself so you don't melt in his hand and let him roll over to pin you down on the sheets. You look down at his dick, hard and standing at attention, waiting to be dipped into your warm, wet pussy.

Not yet. Not yet.

You move your mouth back down to his neck, right behind his ear, and bite down lightly.

Luigi gasps, but you quickly shush him and repeat the action on the other side of his face, a little harder this time.

"I told you I wanted to bite you," you admit, smirking when he throws his head back at the soothing kisses you leave over the teeth marks.

He twitches when your thumb finally runs over the tip, hands fidgeting at his sides. You watch his mouth open and close when you gather some of the precum, spreading it all over his length.

Breathtaking. He's truly the most beautiful man you've ever seen.

You feel more wetness gather between your thighs when you look at how hard he is, and how muscular his thighs are, and how you'd love to lower yourself on to him and take what you wanted. Instead, you wrap your fingers around him, pumping the length until his hands go to grab your waist.

You freeze, and Luigi whines again, bucking his hips up into your hand.

"Did I tell you that you could move, baby?" you scold him again, your free hand grabbing the nape of his neck, moving your lips closer to his. When he doesn't answer, you ask again.

"No- no, you didn't, fuck- baby, baby please keep going-"

Luigi's voice grows more desperate, filling you with a high that feels intoxicating. His precum soaks your fingers, his breath shaky- you want him so bad. Patience is becoming an unbelievably challenging attribute.

"Be a good boy and keep your hands to your side," you order.

He does. You watch the way his face contorts as you make him feel good, reveling in his moans. You continue stroking him until his whines get to a higher pitch, until he's involuntarily thrusting up into your hand.

You don't think you've ever been this wet.

When you know he's about to cum, you slowly pull your fingers away, licking all the precum off of them.

"No-" he protested, squirming and gripping the sheets so he doesn't reach and finish the job for you. "I was good- please- I wanna cum so bad, please."

You run your thumb over his cheek, tutting at the desperation in his voice.

"Maybe if you sit still, I'll think about it."

Maybe your newfound confidence is due to your own overwhelming urge to orgasm. Hearing him fall apart under you like this certainly helps as well. You adjust yourself in his lap, gripping his arms to support yourself in your quest to get a bit more comfortable, and then you pull of your own underwear.

However, you don't slide him inside you. Your own fingers go to run up and down your slit, and you sigh at how wet you are. It's incredibly tempting to use them to get yourself off, but knowing that Luigi's are right in front of you makes yours worthless by comparison. So you opt for grinding your pussy against his thigh, coating it in your slick.

You take a breath when you hit just the right spot, and you don't even say anything when your boyfriends hand shoots out to your waist to stabilize you and guide your body.

He whimpers when you grip his shoulders, quickening your pace as you use his thigh. Any other thought that wasn't about cumming like this was out the window, and it didn't help Luigi was coaxing it out of you, cursing and whimpering for him to let him help you out, for you to just take his blindfold off-

You snap back into reality before you finish, and with every single ounce of self-control you can muster, you pull yourself back.

Dipping your fingers into your pussy, you collect the wetness that's dripping out of you and bring it to Luigi's lips.

"Open," you command, and he eagerly takes your digits in his mouth, licking them clean and whimpering at how good you tasted.

It will be a cold day in hell before you forget that vision: him blindfolded, hand gripping your wrist and sucking on your fingers like it was candy.

You tug his hands back down to his side, ordering for him to keep them there, but he speaks up.

"Please, I need to feel you," he cries, squirming underneath.

You find a little bit of sympathy for him, because he asked so nicely.

So you only bring him to the edge one more time, as opposed to your original plan. He's trembling underneath you, whines and whimpers tumbling out of his mouth when you pull away again right before he cums, but you go back down again, this time with your mouth.

Luigi fucking sobs, hands pawing at the sheets and your hair and everywhere he can reach as you take all of him in, licking and bobbing your head up and down.

When he cums, it's everywhere. You think you have most of it in your mouth, swallowing it with the feeling of absolute ecstasy running through your body, but it's on his stomach, on yours, in your hair..

"You should see yourself, Lu," you tease, collecting the white off his chest and licking your fingers clean.

He doesn't respond for a minute, too out of breath. When he finally comes back around, he lets out a relieved sigh.

"Was the blindfold really that arousing?" he half-joked, rubbing his forehead and getting a little bit of cum on the edge of the scarf still tied around his eyes.

You shake your head yes, but then realize he still can't see you. When you go to answer him verbally, he starts again.

"Take it off me," he orders quietly, and you know you're about to get it.

When you finally let him have a look at you, he smirks.

"There you are."

He looks so angelic laying there, that you almost forget you haven't finished yet, and there's an ache between your legs that's begging to be quelled.

"Let's get this thing off you," he continues, taking the bra that you hadn't bothered to remove before and discarding it on the floor.

Luigi scoots you closer up his body, and you realize where he's going with this.

"Baby-" you plead, whimpering when his hands dig a little too hard into your hips. He smiles innocently up at you, the same kind of smile you gave him before blindfolding him and ruining his orgasms.

"M'just gonna make you feel good," he mumbles, and you gasp when he pulls you up onto his face. "Be a good girl for me."

#luigi mangione #luigi mangione x reader #fanfiction #unitedhealthcare ceo assassination #luigi mangione fanfiction #i may not be on the jury but i am sure as hell on a list somewhere #free luigi #luigi mangione smut

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heyitstam · 10 months ago

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dr. robert chase x reader - the chase itself (smut)

hi guys :D i know i haven't posted in a while, but i recently asked a VERY good friend of mine to cook me a fanfic of this very beautiful man, and HE DELIVERED. like all out jaws on the floor type delivered. i love this man fr, so i'm posting it here with his permission. it's his first fanfic ever, and in my humble professional opinion he overdelivered - so have fun reading this beautiful smut fic of reader and dr. chase <3

I. Humble Beginnings

Taking place in Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, New Jersey, you are a fairly new nurse who pursued a medical career in quite a common way. The way being that it was more so your parents’ wish for you to go to medical school than your own, but you don’t necessarily hate that fact; at least it gave you a direction, so to speak.

It’s early in the morning, so there’s not a whole lot going on. You went around doing your usual checkups already and what not, therefore you decide to go on your well deserved coffee break. However, right as you are are on that, and you step out of the cubicle you are in, you glance over to an unfamiliar face through an operating room.

Some would call it love at first sight, but it really is more than that. It’s the kind of tingly sensation no one could forget. It’s almost shameful, but you can’t be bothered by that feeling right now. As if you physically couldn’t take your eyes off of them, you lose all sense of purpose, standing there, unable to think. Suddenly, someone bumps into you, which wakes you up from your total amusement. You feel the need to know more, so as you squint your eyes, you can read their name off of the shirt they are wearing.

“Dr. Robert Chase..? I need to.. have a talk with him. I just need to.” – you think to yourself, ponderingly.

You go back to working with a saturated mind, unable to concentrate.

II. The Chase Itself

As days go by, you’re quite hesitant to reach out to him, but you seriously feel the need to. Why is that, really, you ask yourself. You ache to even have a talk with him at this point, but you long for more. Way more. You can’t think of anything else.

After contemplating for a good while, you decide to ask around to know what time he gets off from work, since you want to surprise him at the last minute. That’s the only way you see that you could have a one-on-one with him anytime soon.

With that out the way, you now know everything you needed to know. The only thing that divides you from your desire is to actually act up on it, so you gather all your courage. You look at the time, and you’re actually pretty shocked how caught up you were thinking about him. If you don’t hurry then you’re going to miss him that day entirely, so you start sprinting.

You notice him as he is turning around the corner, all dressed up, ready to leave, and you stumble right into him.

“I need to tell you something inside, it’s.. it’s important, alright. And it might just take a while” – you tell him, struggling with your words. “Great. I was just about to leave, you know. Whatever, show me, I don’t have much time for this. Is it really that important?” – he answers abruptly, being quite impatient.

You suddenly catch a rush of excitement. This is all that you were planning for the past few days or so, to get close to him, and it looks like you’re on track.

III. An Uneasy Start

Chase swings open the door of the office he’s just been in, ushering you in and closing the door behind him, since there’s quite the commotion even late into the night, it’s a hospital after all. It’s dark inside, the only light sources being a dim lamp he accidentally left on and the Moon seeping through the closed blinds faintly. The room has a surgical bed, a cabinet behind it with all kinds of training supplies, a desk with an office chair and a hanger stand. He puts his white coat on the stand, then undoes his tie, putting it into his pants pocket in a really apathetic way, with most of it hanging out.

Seemingly being quite contempt with the situation, he sits down onto the office chair, facing you, and he seriously doesn’t look like he wants to be there.

As a last effort at trying to ease up the situation, you grab the glass of water that is sitting on the desk and you splash it at him, in a playful way. Not surprisingly, this backfires, since he doesn’t seem too happy about, not in the slightest. He stands up from his desk and goes on to wipe off his shirt to make it slightly less messy, all without even muttering a word. You do feel pretty stupid for that.

With another attempt at getting his attention, you arousingly start to cut the strings off of a few upper buttons on your blouse with a surgical knife, as he turns back to you, giving him a snarky look.

“Was that really necessary? What was so important about any of this? Can we get to the damn point?” – he asks you with a loss of temper. “I might have lied about that important thing.” – you answer him not so bravely.

He's visibly frustrated at you, and with a change of demeanor, he stands up and is now closing distance between you in a rush, as you are backing up. He halts as he catches up to you, towering over you.

With both hands on your shoulders, clenching them hard, he asks you, in an almost belittling tone: “Is this what you wanted? “ “I don’t know, is it?” – you answer him in a pretty similar way.

Like the kind of tease you tend to be, you start gliding around your fingertip on his chest, which he.. seems to enjoy, and lets you do for a short while, for then to push you to the nearest wall.

IV. Lust

Fueled by lust, you immediately grab his chin and assertively start kissing him, which absolutely catches him off-guard. In reaction to the advancement on him, he forces your body onto his as he caresses your back. After this goes on for a bit, he grabs you by the thighs, lifts you up and tosses you onto the surgical table.

With your arms behind you, you’re sitting halfway up as your legs are pulled up. You lock eyes while he is still holding you by your thighs. He leans over, drags you closer and is now standing between your legs.

You clumsily unbutton Robert’s shirt, one by one. In contrast, he carelessly tears off a few more of your buttons, making the blouse slide off your shoulders, which then falls onto your lap, flustering you in the process.

He then puts a hand on your lower abdomen, which feels surprisingly soft, even though his hands are quite firm. Most notably, it’s warm. So warm in fact, you feel like you could melt into him, and you are all about that feeling. Starting from your thighs, continuing to your hips, he brushes his both his hands across all the way up to your chest in a painstakingly soft and throughout way, but at the same it’s quite the calm moment.

An intrigued nervousness starts to pile in you as he suddenly starts to unbuckle his belt, which was undoubtedly the loudest noise in the room so far. In the meantime, like the obedient girl you feel like you are, with each rattle, you can't wait to obey. As if you were a household maid, you’re more than ready to satisfy the head of the house, as if he shook a bell around.

He tosses aside his pants and boxers and you feel like you can’t catch up with your heavy heartbeats as he rests his rigid cock on your stomach. It all just feels so sudden, and it’s starting to grow on you in a pleasurable way. He goes onto removing your bra, while you’re simultaneously stroking him slowly and briefly, before he goes down on you again.

You can feel it throb against you, and it’s just as, if not hotter than his hand is, which he has below your stomach again. He needily grinds against you over and over, lifting your skirt up with it every time, and rubbing against your inner thighs.

He doesn’t wait around before removing your panties, which are drenched by this point, and neither does he wait to penetrate you, as he is inside you now.

“Maybe I did need this.. “ - you hear him talk out loud quietly.

At once, as he is slowly, but forcefully thrusting into you, you see him pulling out the tie out his pocket, which he puts around your neck now, instead of his own.

It’s tightened real well, and he’s gripping it by the base, close to your neck. In the meantime he’s constantly pulling on it upwards, as it’s digging into the back of your neck, scraping your chin against it’s band, making your head tilt backwards considerably. With every moan you make, he tightens more on it, leaving your neck all bruised up. As he is fucking you, you’re nails deep in the sheets. You can’t help yourself but feel pleasured.

As he’s starting to get rougher on you, you begin to develop second thoughts and try to resist him, but as you’re doing that, he immediately tugs you closer, rendering your attempt futile. As you look at him, he seems to be way too into this, as his eyes lose all focus and glare, and you can only watch as his control over himself fades, railing you without a care in the world. This creates even more neediness in you, as you cross your legs behind his back, clinging onto him.

You can barely even keep your eyes on him, and you’re not even resisting his pull on your neck anymore, so you fully commit into tilting you head back in joy. All this sexual fulfillment demands you to do so, as you are slipping out of control more by the second. You feel like you could finish at any time, and as he’s also getting close, he’s painfully grazing your stiff walls more and more, with your moans sounding pitifully more helpless.

Ejaculating with a quiet grunt, he blasts the majority into you, leaving two strings across all the way up your body, all for you to feel ecstatic about. You really do feel like you owned up to it with your services, as if it was his way of rewarding you. Not to forget about you, he pushes you over the edge too, as you’re desperately gripping his shoulders. No matter you could barely take a break after your climax, he leans closer over your stimulation filled shivering body, and goes for a deep passionate kiss. Not even bothered by the fact you are still desperately panting and gasping for air along with him.

V. Not So Aftercare

After standing up from the bed, he comfortably hugs you by your hips, to which you endearingly put your hands onto his. After romantically rocking you slightly around with his hug, he leaves his hands off of you to start dressing up. It’s getting quite late.

As he is about to button back his shirt, he looks at you still standing there, still looking a bit shocked from everything that happened so far. Deciding to help out, he steps besides you, getting your bra back from your bed, and putting it on you. He’s slowly buckling the back together, and you are simply just unable to look him in the eyes, since you're becoming increasingly shy in a sudden way, blushing like you never have before.

"You.. didn't have to, you know.." - you tell him in a higher pitch voice.

You really enjoy his care, it does fill you with joy. Then you reach out for your panties, but as you are pulling them up, he slides his hands under yours, taking the lead again, which surprises you even more. You are so overwhelmed with emotions at this point, you shake right into his hand as he pulls it all the way up, giving you a slight friendly chuckle, and blowing you a kiss right above the lining of your briefs, gaining him an immediate gasp from you. You're truly mesmerized by him.

He continues dressing himself, and as you calm down, you rush into his arms, facing his chest. He caresses and pets your face and head with one arm, for him to go onto groping your ass, and going down to your thighs. His hand lifts your skirt away from time to time, letting colder air in. After he finishes clothing up, he swings you to his other side and pushes you right to the desk.

“I need more of you. I need to feel you in more ways.” – he tells you with a shaky voice.

You almost even stumble, and with an utterly scared look on your face, you glance at him. Without precaution, he pushes you down onto the floor. You look down onto your legs. Your knees are together and your feet are far apart, completely side-tracking you. You even put your hands on your knees in a cute way, but as you lift your head, his cock gets into view, poking through his pants fly, which takes you aback.

Your first and immediate reaction is to press your lips all around him, kissing and licking his shaft as it pumps against your mouth. After growing tired and wanting more, he puts his thumb in your mouth, and with a few fingers latching onto your chin, he pushes downwards on your jaw. With closed eyes, you stick out your tongue, waiting for him to enter. He lets go off of his fingers from your face, following up with exactly what you expected. It feels way bigger than what you anticipated, leaving your mouth sore in the first minute, already. He’s being frantic with you, mouth fucking you without relent. You’re huffing for air as you whimper, but you aren’t getting any. You start to sob as he goes deeper down your throat. As you move your tongue in a swing like motion, from side to side, you circle the bottom of his shaft as he shoves himself in an out. You soak his cock with your saliva, blending with his precum. No matter how much of it you gulp down, It’s flowing out your mouth.

Resting his elbows and head above you on the desk, he looks down at the top of your head, as you suck him off. From the table, as he rocks you around, all kinds of documents fly off. Not that he cares, really.

Without even telling, he comes into your mouth, throbbing against your lips. You stomach it all as you look up to him, initiating eye contact, and smiling. After spewing out his cock, you grab it by the base and gently rub it off with a napkin. He pulls his zipper up, and kneels down. He parts your hair slightly and greets your forehead with a last smooch.

Looking back at you for the final time, he waves at you, winks in a mocking, yet sweet way and leaves though the door. You can only wish to meet soon in a similar fashion.

VI. Reflection

You’re at a loss of thoughts. He’s been so careful, yet so careless with you at the same time, and that’s just messing with your brain right now, so you lean your head against the desk, you close your eyes and give into the bliss once again.

Even after he left, you’re sitting in the dark, in the same position he left you in, with his tie still around your neck. You feel embarrassed, but you can’t help yourself as you take in the scent of his tie, pleasuring yourself through your clothes, while thinking about him. He has a hold on you, and you know that well.

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wannabespacesmuggler · 20 days ago

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TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE ➵ A. HOTCHNER [1]

Part One | Part Two | Masterlist | Buy me a coffee

Summary: You've found yourself spending more time with Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner after a mysterious figure begins following you home. After your stalker's arrest, you believe your freedom is too good to be true. Maybe Arron should've listened.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x BAU!Reader

Warnings: mentions of stalking, kidnapping, canon-typical violence, mutual pining, mentions of Foyet, flashbacks in italics, part one of two

Word Count: 4k

Author’s Note: Your boy has been rewatching Criminal Minds, and Hotch has always been my favorite. After realizing how little Aaron Hotchner fanfic there is on Tumblr, I decided to write my own. This is part one of two — let me know if you want to be tagged in part two.

“You know, you don’t have to bring me coffee every morning.”

You watch Hotch’s eyebrows knit together as a deep stoicism floods his handsome features, but he still graciously takes the small thermos from your hands, which is full of fresh, hot coffee. The two of you have been doing this same song and dance for the past three months — since Hotch started acting as your personal Uber to and from Quantico.

You had noticed a dark vehicle following you on your way home from work several times. At first, you thought you were just being paranoid — a natural side effect of your job with the BAU. But then you started feeling uncomfortable in your own home, as if someone was watching you the entire time. You mentioned it to Garcia offhandedly one morning, and she begged you to tell either Hotch or Morgan. To her dismay, you waved off her concern. In all honesty, you were conflicted. Half of you desperately wanted to tell Hotch and Morgan what was going on — the two men in your life who consistently make you feel safe. However, the other half of you wants to face this fear on your own because what if this is nothing but your own mind playing tricks on you? I mean, you’re an FBI agent after all. You didn’t want to face the embarrassment of telling the two bravest men you’ve ever known that you’re afraid of something lurking in the shadows.

But then you received the first note.

You finally had a weekend away from the BAU to relax and catch up on some much needed sleep, but those plans immediately fell apart once you picked up your mail on Saturday morning. There, shoved between your water bill and a Crate and Barrel catalogue was a nondescript envelope with no return address and one word messily written on the front: your name. Inside of the envelope were dozens of photos of you living normally, taken over the course of several months: waiting for the bus on your way to work, grabbing drinks after a long case with Derek and Penelope, relaxing in your own home on your rare days off. And if that wasn’t enough, there was a handwritten note inside with a single sentence written in the same messy handwriting from the front of the envelope: I know who you are.

You immediately called Derek, who was out the door before you could even finish explaining. He spent the short car ride to your townhome scolding you for not telling him about this situation. You shouldn’t be surprised. The two of you met during training at the FBI Academy. Derek Morgan, at face value, was nothing more than a cocky hot shot, but he became your closest companion at the Academy. He’d never really noticed you in class, until one day in hand-to-hand combat training. You were scrappy and eager to prove yourself and Derek watched as you took down the biggest recruit in the class with nothing more than your wits. The odds were stacked against you and yet, you fought like you had the winning hand. In that moment, you earned his undying respect. After the training was done, he watched the man you’d taken down attempt to take a cheap shot at you from behind while you were distracted by a group of recruits. Derek stepped in immediately grabbing his arm before he could get his hands on you. And in that moment, he earned your undying respect. From then on, the two of you were thick as thieves — two bright eyed recruits against the world. You graduated together, kept in touch as the two of you went back to your hometowns, and when Morgan was recruited by Hotch you were the first name he offered when asked if he knew anyone else interested in working for the BAU. So, you shouldn’t be surprised that Derek is overprotective when you tell him about your situation — he’s been looking out for you since the beginning.

Derek took a look at the note and photos when he arrived at your townhome and immediately knew that this was not a situation that the two of you could handle alone. No, you needed the team to help investigate this. But first, you needed to call Hotch. Hotch was, arguably, more concerned than Derek when you called and explained the situation. After the momentary shock wore off, Hotch ordered you to meet him at Quantico with Derek.

Everything after that felt like a blur — as if your life was suddenly set to fast forward.

Derek helped you gather all your important belongings into a couple of bags and loaded them into his car before heading off to Quantico. To no one’s surprise, Hotch beat the two of you there and immediately asked to see the envelope when you entered the bullpen. You watched as Hotch spread the photos out on an empty table. His brow furrowed and his face twisted into a tight scowl, as his eyes carefully studied every image. Hotch enlisted your help creating a timeline of the photos as Derek called the rest of the team. They arrived over the course of the next hour: Rossi first with an ample amount of coffee and Garcia not far behind. The team got to work finishing the timeline, while Reid memorized every aspect of the note and Morgan went through a cognitive interview with you. Eventually, you all hit a wall. Without a license plate number or a physical description, the profile was just too vague and the search parameters were too wide. Hotch eventually sent the rest of the team home, except for Derek. He ushered both of you into his office and began making a plan of immediate action: getting you set up in an FBI safe house, making sure that there is a constant patrol outside of the premises, setting up a carpool system to and from work.

“Just think of it as a thank you for driving me every day.”

Hotch scoffs at your words before taking a long sip and putting the thermos down in his cup holder. His expression notably softens as he regards you once more. At some point during your late night and early morning one-on-one drives, your relationship with Hotch moved from strictly professional into something much more tender. And you aren’t the only one aware of this not so subtle change. On the rare mornings that Hotch cannot pick you up due to a conflict with Jack’s schooling, Morgan picks you up and grills you about the nature of your relationship with Aaron Hotchner.

“You know you don’t have to thank me, right?”

A small smile spreads across your face at Hotch’s question. You know you don’t have to thank him, not only is it his job to ensure your safety, but you are also fully aware that he likes the responsibility. It’s his natural instinct to protect you. And it’s a different type of protection than Derek’s brotherly, reactive protectiveness. Derek steps in without a second thought when you’re in danger. Whereas Hotch has a watchful, proactive protectiveness. He has a knack for sensing danger before there are any warning signs. You often feel his eyes on you in the bullpen, on the jet, and in the field, deciphering your facial expressions and body language.

“I know, but still.”

Hotch rolls his eyes as he pulls out of the driveway, but you notice the ghost of a smile that pulls at the corners of his lips. It doesn’t take long to get to work from the safe house, it’s conveniently almost halfway between Quantico and Hotch’s apartment. What you don’t know is that it isn’t convenient, it’s purposeful. Although Hotch respects and trusts Derek almost more than anyone else and knows he’d protect you with his life, this is something he needed to do. He’s not sure if he could sleep at night if he wasn’t the one making sure that you got back to the safe house at the end of the day or the one checking in with the patrols every morning.

Hotch parks in his designated spot and climbs out of the vehicle, grabbing both his bag and yours before walking into the building with you side-by-side. Your routine is second nature now. Hell, it’s hard to remember when you didn’t spend this much time with Hotch. He’s become somewhat of a safety net for you. No matter what’s happening with your life or with a case, Hotch is always there at the end of the day to talk it out.

The bullpen is bustling with activity as the two of you enter. Derek’s voice cuts through the commotion and he motions you both to the conference room.

“We got him.”

Your brow furrows at Derek’s statement and Hotch’s expression matches your own.

“We just arrested a white male, early thirties, driving a black four door sedan near your townhome with various photographs of you in the back seat. Reid’s conducting a handwriting test now to compare to the letters we’ve received, but we’re sure we got him.”

Tears well up in your eyes at Derek’s words and you pull him into a tight hug. It was beginning to feel like you’d be in that safe house forever. Although your stalker has always been a top priority for the team, there were always other cases that needed your attention. At first, your stalker was sending letters to you almost every day, either to your townhome or direct to Quantico. But as their contact slowed down over time and there was less and less evidence to gather intel from. You pull away from Derek’s embrace and immediately glance behind your shoulder, to Hotch. A bright grin has spread across your face and Hotch has a hard time remembering the last time he’s seen you this happy.

Hotch had a front seat ticket to your descent into a reasonable madness. Watching as you supplemented your non-existent sleep schedule with a staggering amount of caffeine. He understands your situation better than anyone else. He’s fairly certain he never got a full night’s rest when Foyet was after him — reviewing case files late into the night and early into morning until they were burned into his memory. He knew based on the dark circles under your eyes and your ever decreasing energy level that you’d been doing the same. Hotch kept an eye on you, but didn’t intervene.

Not until one late night about a month and a half after you were moved to the safe house. The two of you were the only ones left at the office. You had told Hotch that you needed to stay late to finish the paperwork that’s been piling up on your desk. He knows that both Morgan and Reid offered to take some of it off of your plate, but you’re stubborn and you won’t let your personal setbacks affect your professional life. As Hotch finished the last of his paperwork, his eyes landed on you. You were sitting at your desk, sandwiched between Morgan and Reid’s, with an astonishing amount of case files. Hotch was about to busy himself with something else since you were still focused intently on your own work, but stopped as he noticed your pencil snap due to the intense amount of pressure you’d been writing with. It was such a simple inconvenience, but it pulled you into a sudden tailspin. You threw the pencil down onto your desk angrily before pushing your chair out and rushing to the break room.

Hotch waited for a moment before following you. He found you sitting on the floor, back against the counter, and head in your hands. Without a word, he slid down next to you and simply sat shoulder-to-shoulder with you. Your breathing was uneven and you suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed that Hotch just watched you lose your shit over something as simple as a pencil.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Hotch shook his head at your apology and covered your hands with his once began nervously picking at your fingers which were already worked red and raw. You lifted your head up to look at him and Hotch’s heart damn near stopped once he noticed the tears streaming down your face.

“You don’t have to apologize. I know how hard this is.”

Your eyes squeezed shut at his words and you let out a shaky breath.

“I just feel stupid right now, Hotch. I shouldn’t be this upset over a pencil.”

“We both know this isn’t about the pencil.”

For a moment you both just sat in comfortable silence, as you relished in the warmth of Hotch’s large hand around yours. Hotch has always been an incredible profiler — there’s no one else on the team that can manage to get inside an unsub's head like him. But you think that maybe the person he’s always been best at reading is you. You have known Derek Morgan for over a decade, but no one knows you better than Aaron Hotchner.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Hotch.”

Your defeated tone made Hotch’s heart twist uncomfortably in his chest. This wasn’t like you. You weren’t one to simply lay down and take the punches. No, Hotch had always admired your resilience. But there’s only so much one person can take, and you were at your breaking point.

“I know. But you have to take care of yourself or at least let me — let us — help you.”

His words made him cringe slightly. He’s tried to stay professional during all of this, but it has been difficult. It had been easy covering up his soft spot for you when he only saw you at work, but the lines between work life and personal life had blurred. At first he had simply just driven you to and from work, but after a particularly bad night during your second week in the safe house Hotch started coming in after work every day to search the premises for you. And it quickly became a slippery slope after that. He started staying a little later day by day and then, a month in, you asked if he wanted to stay for a drink and he knew the professional thing to do was to say no, but he was enjoying his time with you too much to be professional. So now here he was, the unit chief of the BAU teetering on the edge of something a little too personal with one of his agents.

“First things first, you need to get some sleep.”

Hotch shakes off the memory and stiffens his posture. This is exciting news, but as the unit chief he needs to make sure this man’s arrest and interrogation isn’t rushed. He wants nothing more than for you to feel safe in your own home again; however, in order to do that he needs the team to do this correctly. He starts giving orders to Morgan, Rossi, and Prentiss before turning to you.

“You know, you don’t have to sit in on the interrogation, right?”

You know it’s supposed to be a question, but his tone is matter-of-fact. The underlying meaning of his words is clear to you: it’s better that you’re not there. It’s not patronizing, no his words are laced with care and concern. He’s trying to do what’s best for you, without taking away your autonomy. You give him a nod before responding.

“I’ve got some desk work to get done, anyways.”

You turn on your heel, grabbing a stack of case files from Derek’s desk on the way. With your back turned to the conference room, Hotch looks at the only person left: JJ. She’s looking at him expectantly as the last member of the BAU without a plan of action.

“JJ, I need you to do me a favor. Keep an eye on them, okay?”

JJ watches as Hotch’s eyes find you at your desk, before returning back to her. She raises an eyebrow quizzically, but nods at his request. You start working diligently on Derek’s unfinished paperwork, but your curiosity peaks as JJ approaches you. To your surprise, she simply slides into Reid’s desk and starts getting to work on her own files. You brush off your curiosity as you’re ultimately glad to have some company. The two of you work quietly together for the next couple of hours while the team works to put your stalker behind bars. Sometime after midday, JJ finally looks up from her work and gives you a gentle smile.

“Want to take a break and grab some coffee?”

You let out a sigh as the words leave JJ’s mouth and you close the file in your hands.

“Please. My eyes are killing me.”

The two of you make your way to the break room and JJ pours three mugs full of coffee. Before you can question her about the third mug, Hotch’s figure sidles next to you. JJ slides two mugs towards the both of you, before giving you a knowing look and making her way back to the bullpen. You grab cream and sugar, putting an ample amount into your mug as Hotch takes his black. He could laugh at the juxtaposition: bitter and sweet. After taking a sip from your mug, you place it on the counter and turn your attention to Hotch.

“Good news or bad news?”

You wish you could read his face, but his workplace stoicism has settled deep into his features. That is, until his lip quirks up every so slightly into a small, lopsided smile.

“We got him.”

You let out a heavy sigh of relief as you take in his words. You’re not quite sure how to react at this moment. A part of you is still in disbelief that this is actually happening, but then your posture relaxes as the severe anxiety you’ve experienced for three months straight starts to dissipate. Without thinking, you lean your head forward to meet Hotch’s shoulder and wrap your arms around his waist. Hotch looks around the break room which is uncharacteristically empty before wrapping a strong arm around your shoulders.

“It just feels too good to be true.”

Your words are muffled into his shoulder, but he still manages to make them out. And his arm tightens around your shoulders in response. He knows. Of course he knows. Even though he killed Foyet with his own hands, he still finds himself looking over his shoulder for the man. That anxiety — that fear — nestles deep into your bones and stays with you like a parasite. Hotch knows he’s still working through his own trauma, and he’ll stand by you as a helpful, steady hand as you begin healing yourself. You reluctantly pull away from Hotch and take a step back.

“So I can go home?”

Hotch nods at your question.

“I can help you pack up your things when we get back to the safe house.”

You shake your head at his offer. There aren’t enough personal items at your safe house to warrant help and the thought of independence tastes sweet on your tongue.

“Actually, I’m going to do this on my own.”

Hotch’s brow furrows, but you interrupt him before he can protest.

“Aaron, I haven’t been able to do anything by myself for three months. I need this.”

His face softens at your words. He knows he can’t force you to have an escort. After all, the threat has been neutralized. But there’s still this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This need to hold you close and keep you safe. But this feeling doesn't stem from his position as unit chief. No, this feeling is due to the affection that has taken hold of his heart. Affections he’s been trying to keep at bay long before he started acting as your personal bodyguard. He not only fears for your safety, but also for the change that is about to happen in your relationship with him. You don’t need him around anymore. Hotch will spend his mornings taking Jack to school and you’ll start going out with Derek and Penelope after work again. Things will go back to normal — and that’s what he’s afraid of. But that’s not fair to you, so he bites down his emotions and gives you a curt nod.

“I understand.”

The hollowness in his voice doesn’t escape you and for a moment, you fear that you’ve hurt him with your decision. But why would that make sense? You know Hotch has missed spending time with his son and now all that time he’s had to waste protecting you can be spent on Jack. Still, there’s something in his tone, the way that his words are void of all emotion, that rubs you the wrong way. But he turns to make his way back to his office before you can question him further. And you fear that this unspoken, tender thing you built with Aaron Hotchner over the past three months left with him. You swallow your heartbreak and go to find Derek.

Hotch collapses into his desk chair with a heavy sigh and attempts to busy himself with the paperwork he snatched off your desk. It helps for a few hours, but you’re there in the back of his mind the entire time. He knows you’re right — you need to feel independent again. But something you said keeps nagging him: it just feels too good to be true. He looks down at his phone, if he leaves now he’ll make it home in time to eat dinner with Jack. As he grabs his coat from the back of his chair, he sends you a quick text to ease his worries. It’s simple, just asking if you made it home safely. He doesn’t wait for your response, instead he pockets his phone, puts on his jacket, and makes his way to his car.

His night passes quickly as he enjoys a meal with his son and helps him with the last of his homework. It isn’t until he puts Jack to bed, that he finally looks at his phone again. His anxiety spikes as he notices that you didn’t respond. Hell, you didn’t even read the message. He quickly dials Morgan’s number, hoping you’d simply gone out with him and Penelope to celebrate your newfound freedom. He picks up on the second ring and Hotch asks if he’s heard from you.

“No, but Garcia and I are on our way to their place.”

Hotch lets out a sigh of relief.

“Can you tell them to check their phone when you get there?”

“Will do, Hotch.”

Hotch mutters a thank you before hanging up. He distracts himself with dishes as waits for your response. Suddenly, embarrassed at how needy he’s become. He craves your attention in a way that makes him feel vulnerable. Finally, his phone vibrates against the kitchen counter, but to his surprise it’s Morgan’s name that lights up the screen.

“Hotch, we’ve got a problem.”

Hotch’s heart rate quickens at Morgan’s words. His tone is sharper than the last time they spoke, laced with a concern that mirrors his own.

“What’s wrong Morgan?”

“They aren’t here, but their phone is and the door has been kicked in.”

Hotch’s heart stops, and for a moment he genuinely worries that he might be experiencing cardiac arrest. But Morgan’s voice calling his name pulls him out of his terror.

“Hotch, I’m pretty sure they’ve been taken.”

“I’ll meet you there in 20. Call the rest of the team.”

Hotch hangs up before Morgan has a chance to respond.

He should have trusted his instincts. Everything about the arrest this morning seemed too perfect — as if your stalker was dropped in front of them wrapped in a bow. He tries to ignore your words still nagging at him: it just feels too good to be true. But a wave of nausea suddenly hits him as he realizes you were right.

This was too good to be true because they got the wrong man.

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