#i really hope this is the last wip for now this one lives in my head rent free

[woogiez]

wip TO THIS

[bunnybubae]

☔This and more

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Genre: One Shot - Established Relationship - Slice of Life - Fluff - Smutty Smut 

Summary: Your weekend at the beach seems to be completely ruined, but luckily, your boyfriend Jeon Jungkook is ready to change everything. 

Warnings: A delicious lunch and a drink at home, they call each other bubi and baby, Bf&Gf shenanigans,✨surprises✨, overall a tooth rotting piece of fluff served with a side of hot steamy smut *wink wink*, the end ❤️

Smut Warnings: Lots of steamy kisses, teasing, love bites, actual bites, dirty talking, worshiping, fingering, oral (F receiving), brief blowjob, rough sex, unprotected sex (she takes the pill), cum on breasts, love making 💓, creampie

Wc: 5.6k 

A/N:  Hiii!🫣I know I should be working on the Red Light series, I promise it's wip and will come to life sooner or later, but I miss my boyfriend who's traveling for work and the weather is shit over here... I had this idea in my docs and I just felt inspired to finally write it. I hope you like it! 🥺 - Joy 🐰

The sun is scorching and the sky is always clear. People wear light clothes and have fun outside. This is summer, right?

Wrong.

Not this weekend at least, since the weather forecast predicted heavy rain until Sunday.

This weekend, in which you had plans with your boyfriend and your friends to spend it at the beach, with tents, lots of food and beach games. Everything ruined, since the first thunder that rumbled.

You wouldn't have been so upset about it if it weren't for the fact that work has been a living hell lately and that you really were looking forward to this outdoor weekend. Even if it was only for a few days, you really wanted to regenerate and disconnect from everything work related.

The sky is so gray, almost black, like your mood right now.

It's Saturday morning and usually, you and Jungkook leave shortly after breakfast to go grocery shopping, when, presumably, there are less people and it is easier to find what you need for the week. As if the bad weather wasn't badding enough, something seems to have hurt your boyfriend, who reluctantly told you that he can't come with you.

You sigh deeply, it couldn't go worse, you think, but maybe it's just your bad mood's fault for these thoughts.

You worry about Jungkook as you look for a spot in the supermarket parking lot. You text him once you find one, asking if he needs medicine or anything else for his stomachache, but he reassures you shortly after, replying that some lactic ferments will do the job.

You continue to stare at his response on the screen thoughtfully, maybe last night's fried chicken was too spicy?

Anyway, the temperature has dropped a lot because of the weather. You put on one of Jungkook's sweatshirts and get ready by putting the hood on before going out to reach the supermarket.

You spend about a couple of hours inside, looking for everything you had on your list.

As you’re about to reach the checkout, with a full cart and the only desire to go home, your phone rings.

It’s a text from Jungkook.

Bubi ❤️: “Bubi could you please buy some fresh mint and lemons while u'r out?”

You check his request a second time, not too sure you understand.

You stop in your tracks, frowning as you type a response.

You: “What do you need them for?”

You watch the chat and his name as it appears and disappears shortly after, waiting for his response, which comes a few moments later.

Bubi❤️: “I read somewhere that making tea with mint and lemon helps calm a stomach ache and I wanna try.”

You're not too convinced but It makes sense, if you think about it.

You reply that you'll get mint and lemons and that you'll go to the pharmacy before you head back home.

It’s almost lunchtime when you park the car in front of the apartment complex where you live.

The rain shows no signs of ceasing, continuing to pound on the windshield of the car. 

When you’re about to get out to grab the groceries from the trunk, you see your boyfriend come out of the front door of the building and reach to your car door with a little jog.

He’s holding an open umbrella in his hand and when he opens the car door to let you out, he smiles widely.

“What are you doing out here?!”

“Let’s carry everything to the elevator together,”

And with that, he leaves a tender kiss on your forehead, a little damp from the rain.

You had forgotten your umbrella at home, despite his warnings. Too caught up in the greyness of your mood, evidently.

Once you have emptied your trunk and reached the elevator with the grocery bags in hand, you sigh loudly. A little tired from the weight of the bags and a little guilty for your state of mind.

He's always so helping and sweet and you have been quite intractable since yesterday. You feel the need to apologize to him.

Jungkook looks at you in silence, a slight smile on his lips as he plays with the piercing of his lip with his tongue.

"I'm sorry, bubi..." You break the silence, taking him by surprise.

"Mh? For what?"

You watch him as you explain why you really needed this weekend away to rest and relax a bit.

Jungkook nods, listening to you until your elevator ride stops at your floor.

"I know baby, don't worry."

The elevator's doors slide open.

It seems he wants to say something else, but he picks up the bags instead and starts to walk towards the front door of your apartment.

You follow him with the bags in your hand, feeling a little lighter and determined not to ruin this weekend any further.

Jungkook opens the door, gets rid of his shoes in the blink of an eye, leaving them near the shoe rack before running towards the kitchen. You don't understand what's gotten into him all of a sudden and when you enter, you put the bags down next to you to take off your shoes and tidy up his too.

When Jungkook returns a few moments later, he picks up your discarded bags too and rushes into the kitchen with them.

"What are you doing?"

You know very well that your boyfriend has these energetic outbursts from time to time, like the good golden retriever boyfriend he is.

He doesn't answer, instead you see him come back towards you, slightly out of breath.

“Ook, so,” He begins, catching his breath.

“I know this weekend at the beach meant a lot to you, especially after spending the last 3 months working non-stop,” 

His hands find yours and squeeze gently as he guides you through the small hallway of your entryway.

“And I know how much you need this, so,” He pauses, making you stop your tracks right in front of him as well.

“I’m sorry I made you go grocery shopping alone with this weather.”

He moves aside, allowing you to see what he was trying to hide behind his back.

The couch has been moved against the wall, the big carpet is adorned with countless children's toys, the classic ones for digging or making shapes in the sand and you notice an inflatable ball and some beach towels hidden under a beach umbrella.

The living room didn't seem that big, yet everything seems to fit in effortlessly. 

You don't know what to say exactly, you observe everything with wide eyes and open mouth as Jungkook continues his speech.

"I know it's not the same thing, but-" You don't even give him time to finish the sentence, that your lips crash against his, your hands holding his face still as you kiss his mouth softly.

Initially surprised, Jungkook gives in in a split second, wrapping his arms around your small figure.

You let him hold you as a few tears threaten to escape your eyes.

You part from his lips just for a moment. 

"So you didn't have diarrhea," And with that, you both burst into laughter in each other's arms as a small tear rolls down your face for the gratitude.

You are truly touched by the effort he put into it, by the love that hides such a gesture.

The laughter stops and your eyes lock. Jungkook caresses your cheek, wiping away that small, solitary tear.

"Thank you, babe..." Your tone is sweet and full of love and gratitude for him.

"This and more for you,"

He grabs one of your hands that are still holding his face and brings it to his lips, he kisses your knuckles with such delicacy before he moves away from you.

"Anyway, you don't look like you're dressed for the beach, why don't you go change while I sort out the groceries?"

You look down at yourself and giggle, even though it's not that hot, the idea of ​​indulging in this little indoor beach is thrilling, you nod, telling him he's right, then you turn around, heading to your bedroom.

"No! Wait!"

Jungkook suddenly exclaims, making you stop in your tracks.

"I moved the bag you had packed to the bathroom, so you can change right there!"

"Oh okay, I'll take the chance to take a quick shower, then."

You reach the bathroom, getting ready to shower before you could finally wear your new bikini.

During your shower you can't help but smile at the idea that you're about to spend some time at the beach, without the beach, and the sun, and the sea. It's amusing. 

Once cleaned and smelling nice, you put on your lilac bikini and its matching beach dress, fix your hair a bit and go back to the living room.

You don't remember seeing the TV on when you came in, but the sound of the waves envelopes you immediately. 

On the TV, a high definition video of the waves lapping the beach repeats over and over and it's yet another detail that makes you smile. Jungkook has really thought of everything.

He's not in the living room, though.

You walk towards the kitchen, smelling something nice as you near the door.  When you enter, you find your shirtless sexy boyfriend in front of the stove as he cooks something. 

"Damn, that smells good," The kitchen is filled with the smell of fresh fish and lemon, it's so mouth-watering.

"That's what you needed the lemon for!"

You giggle as you approach him from behind, wrapping your arms around his hips and leaving a light kiss on his shoulder as you watch his movements.

"I just watched a tutorial, I hope it turns out good."

He moves in your arms, turning around so he can observe your figure.

He hums delighted by what he sees.

The swimsuit hugs your curves perfectly and the beach dress semi-transparent fabric allows Jungkook to admire and go wild in his mind, with that see-through effect that makes him crazy.

You know exactly what's going through his mind right now. You can read it in his expression.

Despite the many years of relationship with him, the passion and attraction between you has always been strong, never faltering.

Jungkook has always worshiped your body in every possible way. 

And his carnal gaze, which gently caresses your curves, is proof of that.

It's unbelievable how one single look from him is enough to make you feel like the most beautiful thing in this world.

“You like it?”

You ask innocently, spinning around so he can look at beautiful ass as well.

He hums in agreement, “It’ll look great on the floor later.”

And it’s not the phrase that makes your legs feel weak, but the tone of his voice. Warm and provocative, just the way you like it.

He steals a kiss that’s way too innocent to justify the burning sensation in your belly, before turning his attention back to the stove.

“You should cook shirtless more often,” 

You try to speak, trying to sound unaffected, while your hands nonchalantly caress his pecs from behind, going down to his abs.

He chuckles softly, perfectly knowing what you're up to.

You love every single detail of his body. You swear you know by heart every groove and bump and yet the intensity of your yearning surprises you every time.

You sigh, trapping your lip between your teeth, unable to stop your hands from free roaming on his soft skin.

He is so addicting.

"Y/N.." Your name leaves his lips accompanied by a deep breath.

Your hands have the same effect that his skin has on you.

"What?"

You ask, not missing the contractions of his muscles under your touch when your hands tease his belly, just above the waistband of his swimsuit.

Jungkook turns off the stove and pushes the food away.

Then he turns around, and his face is now a few inches from yours.

In one quick and agile movement, he picks you up, letting your legs circle his bare waist. 

A deep breath escapes your mouth as his chest touches yours and a second later you're sitting on the countertop, its coldness briefly soothing your heat.

"You can't do that while I'm cooking,"

He lets out, then he urgently dives forward, peppering the thin skin of your neck with languid kisses..

You almost moan at the touch. 

"Why not,"

You ask, hoping your voice doesn't sound too desperate right now.

"Cause I'd have to fuck you hard and quick, right here on this countertop,"

You tilt your head backwards, allowing him to do as he pleases with your neck.

"And,"

He pauses, licking a long, slow stripe, from your collarbone to the skin below your earlobe.

"Even tho I know how much you love to be fucked like that,"

He softly kisses your jawline, then whispers right to your ear and your insides turn into boiling lava.

"I want to take my time with you, I want to taste you and savor every drop of your juice when I make you come."

His hands are nowhere on your body, you're only trapped between his arms that keep his weight slightly lean on you. And yet, your skin feels so hot, like his voice and words are washing the last bit of sanity away, leaving goosebumps all over you.

You gulp, unable to speak as you try to calm your breathing.

You love this man, you think you never stopped crushing over him, you're a total mess right now, by only his words and kisses on the neck.

"Fuck baby.."

You manage to say, even though your voice sounds strained.

"Be patient, yeah?"

And just like that, the magic is over.

He frees you, leaving your body hot and bothered just like that.

You whine a little, a sound that makes him chuckle darkly, probably proud of the effect he still has on you. 

You're a tad bit annoyed, you're not gonna lie, but the excitement for what's to come prevails.

After having lunch with some delicious lemony fish, you and Jungkook decide to enjoy some relaxation lying on the beach towels placed on the floor in front of the TV. The mint cocktails you made earlier rest next to you, while some music plays casually from your phone.

You have to admit that the whole vibe is working very well, you don't even miss the sand and the smell of saltiness in the air. Everything feels just right, with the man you love by your side.

The apartment isn't that big, but everything Jungkook has prepared for the theme seems to fit perfectly, without being too bulky.

You take a moment to observe your surroundings, while sipping your drink every now and then.

You notice that there is enough space between the towels and the television, so you decide to grab the Nintendo Switch from its dock, and place it in front of you.

"Wanna play?"

Jungkook, who seems far too relaxed on his towel, is drawn in by your playful tone, he smiles nodding before grabbing a pair of joycons.

"What do you wanna play?"

You think for a moment, as you scroll through the games you have, undecided between Just Dance, volleyball, which might be the most suitable for the beach mood, or WarioWare, which as stupid as it is, never fails to make you laugh.

"We could play some volleyball to begin with, what do you say?"

"I'm down,"

You make some space and strap your joy con, just to be sure you don't crash anything while playing.

The games go smoothly and match after match and sip after sip of your drinks, you grow dizzier. 

By the time you start playing Wario Ware, you both are a laughing mess, seeing your boyfriend copy those funny poses is the highlight of the day.

Your cheeks are hurting from the laugh and you don't even know what time it is while the rain keeps pouring outside.

The sound of sporadic thunder is a soft reminder that what is going on outside, doesn't bother you at all. 

Especially now, embraced in your boyfriend's arms, skin to skin, as the center of your living room becomes the center of your world.

He kisses you, ever so gently, as his mouth moves with yours in a dance they know oh so well.

You bet his lips shared some secrets with yours as when you part from each other for a moment, you both smile fondly. As if no words are needed.

The way he's looking at you makes you feel so lucky.

You feel so precious when he touches you, so cherished.

His hands are so tender and attentive, he outlines your sides, pushing his body to yours as if it was possible to feel you even closer.

The game is long forgotten as you share another kiss, less innocent than the previous one.

Your hands bravely caress his shoulders and nape before intertwining with some soft locks.

Some music is still playing from your phone, thrown somewhere on the carpet when suddenly, As Long As You Love Me by Justin Bieber starts playing. 

A pretty old song, but you remember you saved the acoustic version a long time ago, when you two weren't even a thing.

It couldn't be more apt for this moment in time, you think.

Your smile breaks the kiss and even though you feel your head a little heavy from the alcohol, you start singing.

He watches you fondly, swinging with you in his arms to the rhythm as he begins to sing the song with you.

His voice is heaven, you always told him that and he likes to sing for you. Although the shower or the car are his favorite stages most of the time.

You keep singing your heart out, pouring all your love in the lyrics as your gaze gets lost in his.

You've always been the sensitive type, especially in this kind of situation.

Your boyfriend seems as affected as you, though.

His gaze is glimmering and his embrace is tighter than before.

The song slowly but surely comes toward its end when Jungkook softly leans forward, whispering the last phrase right on your lips.

Your heart feels like it's about to burst in your chest and a moment later you're kissing him, like your life depends on it.

He lets you kiss him, lets you taste his tongue and maybe it's the alcohol, maybe the whole vibe, but you end up sprawled on the beach towels, kissing each other's brains out.

The beach umbrella, placed open on the ground for obvious reasons, offers some sort of shield from the artificial light of the lamp. The light filters through the colored material, leaving a soft hue of colors on your bodies.

You don't know where your beach dress has been thrown, the only thing in your mind right now, is your boyfriend's kisses.

He prints wet kisses all over your body and you feel like you're burning.

You breathe heavily, concentrating on the sensations of his lips on your abdomen.

"So fucking pretty,"

He states, seemingly out of breath. You shiver in pleasure as your heart skips a beat.

His hands reach your bikini bottom and you almost moan shamelessly as he asks,

"Are you already wet for me, baby?"

Then he pushes your bikini aside, not waiting for your answers, wanting to find out himself.

"Fuck, yes"

It's the only phrase that leaves your gaping mouth as he swipes his fingers between your legs.

You can feel the stickiness of your bikini and his breath right in front of your core.

"Want me to make you even wetter?

A soft yes leaves your lips, barely audible.

"Speak up, baby,"

It's a lewd scene, your legs are wide open in front of him and Jungkook is palming himself with his free hand. His swimming trunks are an uncomfortable obstacle but it's something he'll deal with later.

His attention is only focused on you right now.

"Kook-"

You moan as his wet fingers circle your clit.

"I want your tongue," you confess "Make me come on your tongue,"

You breathe out as your hands move over your tits, sliding under the fabric of your bikini top.

"Fuck, I love when you talk to me like that,"

He groans, and a moment later, he is giving in, licking your folds, sucking your clit, just as you like it. He knows it's going to make you a moaning mess before him.

He wasn't lying before, he is taking his sweet time savoring you, fucking you slowly with his tongue, then circling your clit and sucking on it every now and then.

When your body reacts at the waves of pleasure his motions are providing, he laughs darkly, the vibration of it a sweet addition to your pleasure.

Your body trembles, your orgasm building up at every french kiss he gives your pussy and you think you're going insane.

Your moans are louder, turning to sweet little whine when you know you're about to reach your high.

"I'm close, fuck, don't stop,"

As if he needed you to tell him not to stop.

Jungkook is quick to react, pushing with ease his middle and ring finger inside you.

The new stimulation makes you cry out in pleasure and he is so turned on by your sounds, he thinks he might bust in his swimming suit just with that.

"Love this pussy,"

He says, voice deep and steady.

"Can't wait to fuck you just right,"

And just like that, the built up tension in your belly snaps and a strong orgasm washes over you.

His hands, his words, the picture of his pretty cock slamming into your pussy, sends you over the edge. 

You let out a moan that sounds like his name and your hands move from your tits to brush his hair. 

You're still trembling from your orgasm when you open your eyes, not sure when you closed them and all you see is your boyfriend, hair disheveled, sucking on his wet fingers like a lollipop. 

His dark gaze meets your dazed eyes and he smiles, way too innocently considering the lustful motions of his tongue.

"God," you blurt out,  trying to regain a stable breathing, "Why are you still wearing that?"

You point at his bottom half, moving a second later to help him freed himself from the useless piece of clothing.  

His dick springs free, hungry and leaking some precum.

You hum, licking your lips as if you were a starved woman, ready to devour her meal. 

When you grab the base of his thick member and move to lick it, Jungkook surprisingly blocks your hand gently.

You frown, looking up mid motion, puzzled.

"I won't be able to hold back much longer if you suck me,"

His voice is almost apologetic and you tenderly smile, finding his confession hot and endearing at the same time.

"Just a little?"

You put up your best pleading eyes, softly adding, "Please?"

Jungkook's eyes roll back as he bites his lip and a deep breath leaves through his nostrils.

You know he likes when you beg for it.

While you scream in pleasure or with big innocent eyes, he just loves when you ask nicely, like a good girl.

He can't resist you.

He could never resist those pretty eyes of yours.

He shifts in his place, allowing you to get on your knees before grabbing your chin, ever so gently.

"Be a good girl then and open wide."

You smile in content, doing just as he asked, opening your mouth as wide as you can and sticking out your tongue.

When you look up at him, Jungkook slowly puts his fingers inside your mouth, and your faint taste still lingers in them. 

You suck and lick on them for a second, then when he pulls them out, he smears your saliva along his sensitive dick. 

His breaths are heavy and when he slams it a couple of times on your tongue he groans.

That's when he loses it a little. 

He grabs your jaw, helping you tilt your head at the right angle, then pushes the tip inside. 

You do your best by swirling your tongue around the salty tip, closing your lips around it just enough for him to feel a little pressure.

By the time you pop your lips open, he pushes a little more in, enough to stuff your mouth.

You instinctively bob your head, trying to get more of him inside and when a moan escapes his throat, you know he will stop you soon.

You take the opportunity to tease him a little, grabbing at his butt and fondling the soft skin of it as he sloppily thrusts.

Jungkook's sounds are animalistic, his thrusts are steady but right before he pulls out completely, he gives one last thrust that almost hits the back of your throat.

You gasp for air as he gently pushes you back down on the beach towel.

He swiftly takes your bikini away, both the bottom and the top, and latches his plumb lips to one of your breasts.

The coldness of his piercing mixed with his hot breath is a nice contrast for your perked up nipples.

You hiss when he bites the sensitive nub, but he quickly eases the pain away by kissing and lapping at the abused skin.

"Kook-"

A broken moan leaves your throat when he bites you again, this time on the delicate meat of your breast. It's softer than before, but you feel hyper responsive right now. 

"Can I come here?"

He whispers, leaving a trail of wet kisses all over your chest.

You giggle, feeling a little ticklish when his fingers travel down your sides.

"Why are you asking?" you pull him closer till his cock is leaning between your folds.

The contact sends shivers down to your core and you buck your hips almost automatically.

"You know I love it, Kook"

He just needed to hear you say that aloud, that's clear when pushes up a little, aligning the tip of his member with your entrance. 

"You love it, huh? Thought you loved it more inside you tho,"

He pushes in, inch by inch as he finishes his phrase.

You gasp at the sweet stretch, feeling breathless as he bottoms up.

"I love it down my throat too,"

That makes him go feral. 

It's all you're able to say before he props up on his elbow, one hand behind your shoulder, the other clasped around your hip to keep you there as he fucks you at a ruthless pace.

You're fucking on the floor, on a beach towel, shielded by a beach umbrella with Wario Ware long forgotten on the tv and some music shuffling from your phone, meanwhile outside it's pouring and thundering since this morning.

It might seem a messy situation, but everything feels at his place.. Nothing is missing here.

Every thrust elicits soft moans from you. He promptly kisses you, and as you make out you wrap your arms around him, trying to pull him closer and closer.

That allows him to jack hammer into you with measured force. 

The squelching sounds are filling the room, followed by his throaty moans and yours.

You're about to come once again, the pressure on your stomach well fed by the way his cock is hitting on the right spot inside you.

"Kook," you cry out, "I'm about to-"

"Me too baby," he pecks your lips before he adds, "Let me feel you come all over my cock,"

His hips slap against yours impossibly fast, just as fast as your orgasm approaches.

Your body stiffens and after a few seconds there it is, the sweet release, the white pleasure that washes over you.

You cry out his name repeatedly, till your cry subside to a moan and you feel his thrusts getting sloppier and erratic.

"Fuck, yes, I'm coming too,"

And he pulls out quickly, kneeling between your trembling legs before he pumps his fist around his drenched dick a few times before hot spurts of his cum lands on your body.

He moans shamelessly and you love when he gets all vocal, it turns you on even though you feel totally devastated right now.

He covers your breasts in sticky white and some of it lands on your chin too.

You don't mind, not when he looks so blissed and fucked out.

When he empties his load completely, he watches you, admiring his masterpiece and offering you a hand.

He chuckles breathlessly and pecks your lips as he pulls you up.

"Let's take a shower, shall we?"

You nod, not sure if you're able to speak right. 

You make sure to turn off the tv and the music on your phone before you head straight to the bathroom.

Jungkook offers to wash you up first and you let him do it.

It's obviously not the first time you shower together, but it doesn't happen that often either.

You wash up each other, giggling and chatting like he was not balls deep inside you just moments ago.

By the time you finish your shower and dry up, it's dinner time.

You enjoy your evening eating the food you thoroughly prepared beforehand right on the floor, because yes, Jungkook refused to put away the beach towels saying that "Our beach experience is not over yet". 

Even though you shake your head in defeat, you chuckle, amused by his determination.

The evening went by in total relaxation, you're curled up on your boyfriend's side as another episode of Demon's Slayer flashes on the tv screen. The air is chilly right now and you feel the fatigue of the day get the better of you. 

"Wanna go to bed after this episode?"

He asks, noticing your breathing is getting heavier.

You fell asleep a couple of times for a few minutes, trying to keep track of what you're watching when you woke up, but it's kind of frustrating.

You hum in agreement, stretching your back a little.

When the episode comes to its end, Jungkook stands up from the ground and leaves the living room. You walk up to the window, curious to see the state of the world outside.

Perhaps you hoped to see a clear sky, but unfortunately you were disappointed.

It's still raining, though it's not pouring like this afternoon. Droplets of water are slamming on the glass in a soft lullaby.

It's soothing somehow and you take a moment to take in the different effect the rainy weather has on you right now, compared to this morning.

Strong arms circle your waist and a soft peck on your head draws your attention away from the window. 

"There's another surprise for you,"

He whispers right in your ear before you turn around to look into his eyes.

Your arms find their place around his neck and you look at him, intrigued.

"Another one?"

He grins at your curiosity, pulling you towards the bedroom just a moment later.

When you enter the room, you're welcomed by his favorite galaxy lamp while it projects purple and blue hue up on the roof. 

Small green dots serve as little stars, scattered all around as they are slow dancing and a camping tent about the size of the bed is placed on top of it.

You're shocked, unable to speak as emotions get stuck in your throat, you inspect the room with teary eyes, touched by all his effort to make this weekend just perfect.

"Do you like it?"

He tentatively asks, watching your reaction by the frame of the door.

When you turn around you quickly reach out to him, hugging him so tight you think you might break his spine.

You softly sob on his chest as he returns the hug, kissing the top of your head affectionately and when you finally look up at him with a wide smile, Jungkook breaks in the softest laugh you have ever heard from him.

"It's perfect," you state, "You are perfect,"

Jungkook's gaze fills with all the love he has for you, a gaze that doesn't need words and after he dried away your salty tears, you kiss him passionately. 

Nothing could ever compare to this moment, to this little piece of heaven he created for just the two of you, under a starry sky that belongs to you and him and no one else.

You poured all your love on every inch of his body, tasted his soft skin and marked it as yours.

He did the same to you, making sure your body was worshiped as it deserves.

That night, you made love like nothing existed outside of your camping tent, it was only you and him, becoming one as your soft moans mingled in the room.

It was gentle, like the time was no longer flowing until slowly but surely, you reached your high together, hugging each other as he came inside you.

You felt full of him, in every sense possible as he softly kissed your forehead and you whispered the sweetest I love you in the air.

You cuddled to sleep, refusing to leave your tent to go wash up and when the morning after you woke up between your boyfriend's arms, you knew another beautiful day on a sandless beach awaited.

Another day with the love of your life, in your little perfect world.

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

You look like a fun place to sit.

Gif credits

Pairing: Neighbor!Frankie Morales x f!reader

Words count: 2667

Rating: + 18, MDNI

Summary: You decide to enjoy a night at the movies, your neighbor Frankie ruins it all. Or maybe not?

Tags: pov second person, no use of y/n, fluff, sort of romcom vibes (?), smut, enemies to lovers, age unspecified but they are both full grown adults, Frankie is annoying but also cute and lovely and fucking gorgeous, reader has hair, breasts and vagina, other than that no other description of her is given, fingering (f receiving), sexual acts in public places (again? Again. I'm not even particularly interested in doing that irl I don't know what to say to you, please forgive me), pet names (honey, baby, princess), arguing, kissing, no use of Spanish because I terribly suck at it and I don't want to butcher another language LOL. If by chance I realize I forgot something I'll add it right away.

It’s my first Frankie ff and I’m so incredibly nervous to post it you all! I really hope it doesn’t sucks because I had so much fun writing it today in one sitting ‘cause I’m just an impulsive impatient mess. (Leo sun and Aries moon, what do you expect from me if not chaos? I had nothing a few hours ago, I even skipped WIP Wednesday and btw thanks for the tag @almostempty 🩷)

Title comes from a gif of Karen Walker from Will and Grace that I saw last night, it made me laugh a lot and this thing was born LOL

As usual, English is not my first language so please be gentle, no beta and no proofreading, it’s tiny and it’s all my fault, I’m sorry 💀 Thanks to anyone who will read this!

“Excuse me, you should stand up, that’s my seat” 

Frankie turns, looking at you with a surprised expression “I don’t think so, you’re wrong” he replies. 

Ugh, your neighbor.

Frankie lives two houses away from you. Last winter you had a fight at a neighborhood meeting because you pointed out that he keeps forgetting to put the recycling bins back in, and he told you to mind your own business and called you an hysterical witch.

A stupid fight that ended up with you not saying hello to each other and various other arguments about your flashy Christmas lights or his overgrown yard. You and Frankie fight constantly, about everything. And now he's here.

You glare at him “I’m not wrong at all, look” and you wave your ticket under his nose “P10, see? It’s my seat and you’re rude”. 

A grin spreads across his face “listen, honey, I don’t know where you got this ticket, you probably made it yourself, I bought it a moment ago and it’s the same seat” 

He takes a card out of his pocket and hands it to you, remaining comfortably seated with a large popcorn box. 

You look at the ticket, him again, the ticket again “how the hell is that possible?! I booked it on their website a week ago” 

He sneers “I told you! It must be a system error, I don’t know, I’m not getting up from here”

You are furious. The theater is filling up and you absolutely don’t want to leave, you have been waiting for this movie for months and you have inspected the theater map choosing a seat that would guarantee you the very best view.

“I bought it first, so I have more right to be here than you do,” you say firmly and Frankie laughs. 

“Where are we, elementary school? Listen, honey, go buy yourself another ticket and leave me alone.” He replies crunching on popcorn.

The way he calls you “honey” irritates you deeply, it sounds like an insult.

“I’m not going anywhere, YOU get the fuck out of here” you hiss. 

“No” he simply replies and then he turns back at the screen pretending you’re not there. 

“Truly a gentleman, as usual. I have no words.” you roll your eyes and search for an usher to ask for help. No one is there. 

The movie starts in 5 minutes and you don’t want to miss anything you paid for. If you went to the box office right now to complain it would take forever to get back in. 

“Fuck” you exclaim and sit down next to him huffing. You are sure that someone will make you get up very early and it pisses you off.

Frankie continues to nibble on his popcorn and looks at you with an extremely amused expression, it seems like the show has become you.

“Why do you care so much about this movie anyway?” he asks you. “Does any of your relatives happen to be in it?“ 

You’re fuming. 

His teasing tone, his vaguely Spanish accent, his smirk, the sound of him chewing, everything bothers you.

“No. Shut the fuck up” you tell him with a death stare. 

You won’t tell him that your favorite actor stars in it, that you have every photo from the set of this movie saved on your phone, that you’ve read every article about it, and that you couldn’t wait to enjoy it on the first day of screening.

You can already hear his raucous laughter. No, you would never tell Frankie anything like that.

“You're not one of that guy's crazy fans, are you?” 

“What guy?” you ask him, pretending not to know what he's talking about. “Gladiator is one of my favorite movies, that's all. I just wanted to watch the sequel in peace. Someone is stopping me, though” 

“That guy, I bet you like him, what’s his name? Paul Pascal?” he stares at you searching for every little involuntary movement on your face that might give you away. 

“Oh for God’s sake, what are you doing here anyway? Do you even know what you're about to see? They are Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, two different people, you uncultered swine.” You yell. This guy is impossible.

“Yeah, whatever, so which one do you fancy?”

“Fucking nobody” you lie “I just want to watch a movie after a horrible week at work, okay?” You try to play on his guilt. If he has one, you think.

“Well, I've had a rough week too, okay?” he shrugs without stopping to give you that annoying little smile. “And it's not my fault that this theater is having problems with its computer system.”

You glance at him, wondering if he's telling the truth, it's impossible to guess from his face.

People keep sitting in the front rows and you start hoping that luck will be on your side and that no one will make you get up.

“Okay, look, now we're going to watch this movie and then we'll go our separate ways, please don't bother me anymore"

“As you wish, princess” he replies ironically.

You don't even answer him, you're too busy checking that no other people come in.

Finally the opening credits start to roll and the doors close with a dull thud.

You made it, despite this unbearable guy, you feel victorious.

You begin to relax in your chair and you don't know why you turn to look at him, lingering on his face for the first time in months.

His eyes are fixed on the screen. In the dim light you observe his raven curly hair tucked under his baseball cap, his dark eyes, the line of his prominent nose, his scruffy beard, his mustache, just above a pair of lips that seem made for kissing.

Really, truly, gorgeous.

You're so busy arguing with him all the time that you never realized how handsome he is.

He's wearing a grey t-shirt and a pair of jeans, you can’t help but admire the way the fabrics hug his body so deliciously. 

He’s just your type, built up in all the right ways, you find yourself unable to take your eyes off him until the last second. Then the movie starts and you look away.

He’s still your number one enemy, what the hell were you thinking?

When Pedro first appears, you shift in your seat, crossing your legs.

“FUCK” you scream internally “here we go”

Unbelievably stunning in his armor, you’re basically drooling. 

You try to stay as composed as possible but Frankie is next to you and notices.

He comes closer to you and whispers in your ear “So it was all about this guy… the fuss before” You feel one of his large hand brushing your arm that is resting on the armchair and you try with all your strength to remain still even if he causes a storm inside you and especially in your panties. 

“Shut. Up.” You hiss, without moving your gaze. You feel his breath on your skin and it’s intoxicating. 

He chuckles “Yeah, that was I was thinking” and throws another popcorn into his mouth.

Your cheeks burn and you're thankful you're in the cinema, in the dark.

“What’s so special about this guy?” Frankie approaches again “is his penis platinum by any chance? All my female colleagues at work are crazy about him”

You turn to look at him with the desire to slap him “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” 

“Okay, okay, I was just asking”

You hate people talking at the movies. You wonder if you could have a more annoying guy than Frankie next to you. Probably. 

Hotter? Probably not.

This dude hits on your last nerve but he makes you horny at the same time. 

Terrible combination. 

Frankie settles back into his seat and resumes watching the film.

You can't help but look at him from time to time and your desire grows. even if you're offended that he didn't even offer you his popcorn. Rude. 

His mouth pouted and his eyebrows furrowed as he seems all focused on the movie makes you want to cup his face and kiss him.

You can still feel the warmth of his hand on your arm and his breath on your neck.

Concentrate, you tell yourself, it's the neighbor you hate, the neighbor you hate, the neighbor you hate. Fuck. You want him so bad. This revelation drives you crazier than Pedro half naked on screen.

At a particularly bloody scene you involuntarily turn around and hide your face on his shoulder.

You feel his arm around you “hey, it’s okay. I’ll tell you when it’s over” and he holds you tight the whole time.

He smells clean and fresh, like citrus and sage with a light hint of cigarette that you assume he smoked right before entering. 

Your mind goes fuzzy and your pulse races at an impossibly high rate. 

“You can look now” and it takes you a few seconds too long to register his words. 

“Th-Thanks” you mutter, shifting back to your place. 

Halfway through the movie the lights come back on and Frankie bursts out laughing looking at you. “What?” you ask him with wide eyes “what is it that makes you laugh so much?”

“Your face” he grins “it's clearly painted on it how much you want that guy. He turns you on, huh?”

You roll your eyes “Oh my God! Can't you go sit somewhere else? Two rows down, look how many free seats there are”

“I like it better here” 

You cuss, there’s no way to get rid of him.

He has something magnetic that destabilizes you, your eyes fall involuntarily on his neck, slide along his broad chest and stop at the crotch of his pants. From the way he sits you can clearly see that he is quite big.

“What are you looking at?” he asks you amusedly. 

You immediately look up. “Nothing” 

“Nothing my ass. Did you like what you saw?” 

Fuck. He noticed. You're done for. You hate to make him understand that after all, yes, you like what you saw. He seems pleased, proud, you would so much like to wipe that little smile off his face. As much as you struggle to admit it to yourself, you like him.

“Well, maybe…after all, you look like a fun place to sit” 

You can't believe you actually said that.

Frankie's response is not long in coming, his eyes immediately darken and his smile twists in a mischievous way.

The lights go out again and you feel him tug gently on your arm “come here, pretty”

He sits you down on his lap and as the movie starts again he whispers “was that what you wanted the whole time? Were you offended that I didn’t invite you?” you can clearly feel his smile spread across your skin just before he places his lips on your neck.

You would like to say something back but his closeness makes you confused and excited.

He sucks your skin like he's hungry and you moan in the dark "shh baby you gotta stay quiet while I give you what you want”

You don't know how but you find the strength to reply, "God, you're so arrogant.”

He tightens his hands on your hips, pulling you towards him, now you are practically sitting on his cock. You feel it pressing against your ass, trapped in his pants.

A rush of pleasure wets your pussy and you bite your lips to hold back another moan, you hear his hoarse voice in your ear “Maybe. You like it though” You hate to admit that he is right. 

The heat of his body envelops you pleasantly, he raises a hand to one of your breasts and squeezes it over your shirt. You like his hands. They are big, expert and eager to touch you, they make your head spin. 

You completely forgot about the movie, which seemed impossible to you, if they had told you you would have laughed in their face. In no universe would you have expected this.

“God” you whine “oh my God” His hand slides under your shirt and reveals your breast pulling down your bra, it is still covered but now you can feel his skin against yours. His fingers gently grasp one of your nipples, pulling and twisting it.

“Open your eyes, baby. Watch the movie like a good girl” his voice sounds authoritative, it irritates you and another rush of pleasure floods you at the same time.

“It’s not that easy” you mutter between your teeth as you feel his other hand dangerously approaching the hem of your skirt. He slowly goes up, as you try to hold back and make sure no one notices what he’s doing to you. Luckily, everyone seems enthralled by the film.

At this moment you don't even know why you started arguing so fiercely, if you had known before you would have tried to smooth things over a long time ago.

His fingers reach your panties, you feel them barely touching you and you already feel yourself burning with anticipation.

They move under your skirt, pushing your panties aside, grazing at your outer lips and then dipping inside you “Fuck, you’re soaking” 

He moves them up and down between your folds, gathering your wetness towards your clit.

You feel his heavy breathing on your neck, his tongue running over your skin and his teeth nibbling on you.

“Fuck, Frankie” you cry 

“Eyes to the movie”

You want to turn around and straddle him but there isn't enough room and Frankie holds you firmly anyway.

He applies pressure on your clit just right, starting to move two of his thick fingers in circle over it, the motion of his hand is partially hidden by the fabric of your skirt and your moans die in your throat one after the other. Frankie is rubbing away your sanity, you feel possessed and delirious under his touch.

Your last shred of control is torn by his fingers entering inside you, claiming your cunt as his, curling and scratching at your spongy spot.

Your eyes are still fixed on the screen but your vision is totally blurred, you see nothing, you understand nothing, you only feel Frankie pumping incessantly inside you while continuing to rub your clit with his thumb.

You feel the soft reverberation of his voice behind you, close to your ear “good girl, you're taking me so well”

The subtle Spanish accent in his voice now seems to you the most erotic sound in the world, sweet, melodious, addictive.

He takes you to the edge, you throw your head on his shoulder, shutting your eyes so everything goes black and you only feel him, until even biting your lips doesn't help anymore. He covers your mouth with his hand as you explode in a devastating orgasm, you moan against his skin, between his thick fingers that have just left your breast and you already miss them, feeling full and satiated by him.

He uncovers your mouth and kisses your neck, pressing his hand to your hip to keep you from slipping off his lap as your body trembles against his.

“Shit” you mutter “Frankie…oh my god”

“Do you think we can stop arguing all the time now?” He playfully says as he nuzzles at your hair.

“I don’t like being told what to do unless I’m naked, you know, I’m just like that” you reply, grinning and turning around to finally fix your eyes on his. 

“I noticed it”

You take off his cap laughing and put it on backwards and before he starts to protest you kiss him deeply, licking into his mouth, tasting butter and salt on his tongue.

“Take me home”

“The movie isn't over yet,” Frankie observes, and you reply, “that means you'll have to take me to see it again and you’ll pay”

“Fine to me, princess” 

[jeanbie]

HIGHER THAN HEAVEN ★ masterlist.

pairing: levi x reader

genre: university au | warnings: sexual content, fem/afab!reader, masturbation, listening-to-the-other-fucking, sexual tension, slut/whore shaming (men being pigs), "slutty"!reader, mentions of spit | wc: 10.7k | ♬

note: why has this been a wip for like...a year? also i always like to try out new versions of levi and i feel like he'd actually be just a normal kinda grumpy guy in a modern setting so i hope u guys like my uni!levi interpretation ꒰* ॢꈍ◡ꈍ ॢ꒱.*˚

⏤ Levi wants to be mad that his neighbour keeps screwing guys really loudly. But how can he be mad when she's just so goddamn pretty?

It's the third time this week.

Levi knows what it means to let off steam, and he knows that exam season has just finished. For the last few days, the volume of noise where he lives has climbed exponentially; flats throwing parties, yelling in the hallways and laughter outside his window. 

Levi's happy, too, that his exams are over, but he has to admit, he thought there might be moral standards from the people he called neighbours. 

He sighs, momentarily tapping down the volume of his music as he hears what he thinks might be his neighbour against the shared wall. The sound is fleeting, and he almost thinks he's making it up, and then he hears her soft whimpers and two hard thuds against the thin separation between their bedrooms. Levi waits for a second, blinking, and then he closes his eyes.

He's never really met his neighbour. It's been around eight months of living next door to one another, and he doesn't think he's actually ever seen her. Once, he decided he'd try to confront her when she left her room, but just kept missing the opportunity. 

Unlike his previous three years of university, Levi had decided to bunk alone for the final climb of his undergrad degree. His friends would all be upstairs somewhere, either in studios of their own or sharing six-bed flats amongst themselves, but God knew that Levi needed the space this time around. 

In his first year, he'd shared with quite possibly the worst human beings he'd ever had the displeasure of knowing. He spent more time at Erwin's flat than his own, which is why he ended up moving in with him in his second year. Then, he took a spontaneous study abroad for his third year (spontaneous, as in all of his friends were doing the same thing, and there was no way he was staying here on his own when they were out having the greatest times in different countries), and now, in his fourth and final year, Levi just wants to know that being alone doesn't have to be a luxury. 

He needs the space, and the quiet. Granted, his studio is spacious, although it would be perfect if he wasn't on the ground floor with little to work with for a view. Eight months down the line, and he's still waiting for that promised peace and quiet.

There are two other people in this hallway, but his next-room neighbour, Room A, is by far the most interesting. He knows that the people in Room D are party animals, and during freshers week, they made that fact glaringly obvious. Room C are ghostly, silent most of the time until they remember that they, too, have music to play to block out other people's noise.

Levi likes being in Room B because it's not too far from the exit. If he were to open his door, he'd be adjacent to Room A; the space is so tight that he's not even sure they would be able to leave or enter at the same time. 

The list of what he thinks he knows about his next-room neighbour is longer than what he actually knows. He knows for certain that she's female, and that she cares about the cleanliness of her flat. If Levi's not listening to the sound of other people's mess, he can hear her vacuuming every other day, which he can respect. 

Levi knows that her name is Y/N, because he's heard it being called a few times, both for business and pleasure. He also knows that she's in her final year, just like him, because once he overheard her on a phone call complaining about her dissertation. That's about all he knows confidently. 

The rest is speculation, things he thinks he knows from listening: he thinks she sleeps with the radiator off, because he always hears the switch in the morning. He thinks she keeps her keys on her door because he hears them clink when it closes, and he thinks she mumbles to herself sometimes, because the walls are thin and if she's not on the phone, then who could she be talking to? 

Finally, Levi thinks that she might be a bit of a whore, and he means it endearingly, because the amount of times Levi has heard her fucking somebody is becoming ridiculous.

At first, Levi tried to be understanding. After all, it wasn't like she was screwing guys in the hallway. She was in her room, in her own time, and he tried to come to terms with that simply being out of his hands. The noise was unfortunate, yeah, but he could always put his headphones on for an hour or so. 

Then it just kept happening, like clockwork, like some sick joke. 

After about the sixth time, he was fed up. He'd thrown his headphones down, scowling angrily as his eyes flickered to the time in the corner of his computer screen — 1:23am. It was bad enough that he was working all night on his stupid assignment, and now his neighbour was screwing some asshole so loudly that he may as well have had no headphones on in the first place? 

At least she sounded good. 

Levi had deliberately ignored that thought for a while, until he heard her having sex with some guy a few months ago. He'd sighed, like a routine at that point, and remained seated on his couch, the remote in his hand ready to raise the volume of the football game on TV.

The noise was faint �� if Levi had to predict based on the floor plans of their rooms, she'd probably be on her bed — but if he strained enough, he'd be able to hear her mewling, the even fainter sounds of slapping skin. 

He sat there, silently, listening in like a priest taking confessions in church. His silence was judgement and equal measures of fascination. Having never really listened to her before, Levi never knew she sounded like that. Submissive, but seductive, dirty and slutty. Hm.

He had learned to respect her sex life — even creating his own for a while, too, giving her a taste of her own medicine. If anything, that only made things more lively in Room A. Somehow he blames himself for it having got to this point, presently, where he sits listening to her for the third time in a week — and it's not even Friday yet.

16:34 Levi: she's at it again 16:35 Erwin: AGAIN???? 16:37 Hange: isnt this like the fifth time this week? 16:37 Levi: third

Levi turns his chair to face the other wall, looking up at the blank plaster. There's another thud against it, and he blinks, his brows raised slightly. Is she fucking someone against the wall?

16:39 Furlan: theres no way its that bad 16:40 Furlan: send vid

After skimming over the texts, Levi's eyes flicker back to the wall. Then, he rises up from his chair and walks towards it, angling his body with his ear to the noise. Now that he's close, he can't hear a thing, and he scoffs — typical — and prepares to move away.

"Mphf — damn, bitch. You're more of a slut than I thought."

Levi stops. 

Bringing his phone to his legs, Levi slumps his shoulder against the wall casually and almost cranes to listen. Without seeing anything, he feels like a fly on the wall. He hears someone with a deep voice grunting — he doesn't care about them — followed by occasional gasps, much softer, honeyed, elusive. 

"You thought I was a slut?" 

Levi hears her voice quivering, but there's little hurt in her tone. It's all lust, and he can hear the smile in her words. 

For a second, Levi hears her body thud against the wall again and he flinches backwards. She must be directly on the other side — if the bricks weren't there, her body would be up against his own. 

"Dunno what I thought," the male voice says, strained. "Wasn't-expecting-this. Shit, that's tight."

"Mm. You like it?" There's a beat of silence, and the faint sounds of breathy moans, high in an octave that sends goosebumps pricking over Levi's arms. "You like me?"

"Like your pussy. Shit, girl."

With every imagined thrust, Levi can hear her moaning, her voice raising as the pace fastens. Levi stands there, his eyes zoning out on the crack under his door and eventually, he pulls back. There's a slight ringing in his ears, and blood rushes to the tips.

16:51 Levi: phone can't pick up the volume 16:51 Levi: just trust me

It happened two more times before the weekend rolled by, and Levi thought that she must be on a conquest of bedding every guy on campus. Half of him thought it was to spite him specifically, although he wasn't even sure that she knew what she was doing was bothering him so much. 

Friday evening had been a strange eve of silence, but he still felt on edge, as if waiting for the sounds to emerge. The weekend soon enough rolled by with no more sexscapades, and he felt almost a sag of relief in his shoulders.

Levi had just gotten out of the shower when he heard a knock on his door.

"Oh. It's you."

When he pulls it open, inwards on his own room, Levi props his weight against the door and stares out at Reiner, who is holding a light board under his armpit. Reiner holds it out to him with a nonchalant shrug and holds the door open with his foot as Levi takes the board with a raised brow and plonks it onto his bed. 

Reiner stands in the doorway until he comes back, not quite daring to enter.

"I need one of those," Reiner offers in conversation. 

"Well, you've got a job, buy one,” Levi replies, making Reiner smirk. "If you've broke it, then you can pay for it."

Reiner throws up his hands, "Hey, they don't call me the gentle giant for nothing."

Levi's face drops into a disapproving frown, "Nobody calls you that."

"You're right," Reiner sighs with a charming grin and then folds his arms. 

Reiner and Levi know one another from one of their elective classes, and by some magical fate — or a wild coincidence — Reiner had been a mutual friend of one of his closest friends since first year. He also lives upstairs on the third floor, alongside some other guys and a girl that Levi didn't know very well, but had met once at a party and had kissed. He'd considered bringing her back to his room just to torment his neighbour but passed up the temptation.

Thinking of his neighbour, Levi's eyes quickly dash to her door, wondering if she might be inside and listening to them. Reiner doesn’t catch the look — or maybe he does, prompting him to his next sentence.

"You should come out tonight," Reiner suggests.

"Where?"

"A few of us are getting some drinks at Sonny's," he says. "Feel like I haven't seen you properly since that party, like, what, three months ago? You should get out more, have fun." Then, Reiner's smile widens and he, too, glances to his left to Room A, "Escape your sex fiend of a neighbour."

Levi might have cringed at the thought of her listening in, but to his surprise, he found a thrill rush through his body. Maybe she was listening right now, curled up to the door.

"I don't like Sonny's," Levi replies.

"Oh, you've been there before?"

"No. But I saw it on Eren's Instagram once, and it looked awful, sorry."

Laughing, Reiner shrugs his shoulders. "I don't care. It's just nice to get out. Really — what if we changed bars, would you come then?"

Just as he says that a soft thud can be heard from behind him, beyond the walls of the thin hallway that houses Levi’s room and his neighbours'. Levi almost cranes to catch the sound, half expecting his party animal hall-mates from Room D to come bounding inside, dressed in flamboyant attire to listen to loud music whilst getting ready to hit the town for the Friday deals that bars boasted of to rowdy students. 

Instead, the door just to the right of Reiner swings open and a young woman steps inside. Levi blinks — depending on which direction she goes in, Levi's life could get a little bit more interesting.

Levi knows that he’s seen her before in the common room, chatting to other friends around a pool table, or shaking a vending machine with a stranger to try and free an overpriced bottle of Dr Pepper from the machine's claws. 

Levi blinks once again, and Reiner turns at the sound of the door creaking open, and the breath almost leaves Levi's body in one giant exhale when she steps in their direction, towards Room A.

Ah. So this is Y/N.

Reiner's eyes move up and down with intrigue as she — you — step closer towards them. Judging by your almost surprised gaze, and the flit of your eyes as you look between them and the door to Room A, even Reiner knows that you are the aforementioned sex fiend, the famous neighbour who screws guys all the time and makes Levi all hot and bothered. 

Nothing is said — there is nothing to be said. For a split second, you pause, judging the space past Reiner to your door, to your sanctuary, meanwhile, the two men size you up, intrigued by your very existence. Levi feels his conversation skills run dry — what could he say now that you were here?

He has to confess, against his previous wishes, that you were pretty. Beautiful, even. He tries to downplay it by thinking about you pushed up against the wall with a cunt full of someone else's cock, but if anything the thought only makes things worse. 

As you push through the awkward silence of the hallway, Reiner slightly inches closer to Levi, as if to give you space as you stride by. To their surprise, you do so with a lifted gaze, having the nerve to look shy, guilty, friendly. 

Everything would be easier if you weren't his type, weren't Reiner's type. Levi thinks about that for a second as his friend devours the sight of you, and Levi feels his stomach dip. He's never even spoken to you before, but he feels like Reiner has just crossed a boundary somehow. 

The fact of you being as pretty as you sound, as desirable as Levi imagined you had to be to bring so many people back to your den (either irresistible or slutty, but sometimes those went hand in hand and he knew it) just makes the dull ache in his abdomen worse, his heartbeat fluttering ever so out of pace.

As you pass, you peer over at the two men, gazing at Levi in particular. You even look around him, eyeing his room. Then, when you look back at Levi, it’s as if something clicks — it was as if you registered that this man had been enduring your fucks and flirts for weeks and weeks on end, and had been courteous with not complaining once. 

You look at him, over him, sizing him up greedily. Levi moves from foot to foot in a way that looks impatient, although he isn’t sure he's fully convinced you of his indifference when you smile charmingly, your cheekbones full and round.

"Hello," you say — Levi almost buckles. He's only ever heard your voice through walls and doors, never face to face. He blinks dumbly, says nothing.

"Hey," is what Reiner offers with a wide grin, his gaze flickering to your body and then back to your face. But you don’t look back, only look over Reiner's shoulder to Levi, and then turn to your door and thrust the key into the hole. 

Your door untwists, unlocks, and in you go. After it closes and clicks with the lock, Levi hears you shuffling in your room, and then he finally looks back at Reiner. 

For once, Reiner says nothing. He raises his eyebrows and pulls a face, one that Levi rolls his eyes at, and then Reiner claps his hands together and announces his silent leave. 

Levi watches as if frozen in place as Reiner leaves the hallway, and when his own door closes with a slight tick, he strains to hear you beyond the wall, but can hear nothing.

A whole day has passed since then, but Levi can’t stop thinking about it.

He hasn’t left his room all day, to the stressed displeasure of his friends. The hallway has been frozen in a quiet stillness, with nobody coming and going at any point. Levi hasn’t heard you stirring since you walked past him and Reiner the day before, but he supposes he’s just thankful that he has no fears of being bombarded with sex for hours on end, or minutes at a time depending on which loser you lure home. 

Levi drops his plate into the sink, sighing with both hands flat on the side of the counter. To the left, he casts a dirty glance out the window, looking at the grey landscape beyond the glass. The car park to the hotel that is tucked neatly behind his building is virtually empty, and the giant lake-sized puddles ripple with rain. He felt like it always rained here. 

Listening to the rain, Levi finishes his ritual of cleaning the dishes and then turns off the tap with another sigh. It has just been too quiet today — unnervingly quiet, in a way that makes Levi feel more on edge than at ease. He's been craving this taste of silence for so long, but now that it’s here, everything just feels off. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose with an irritated exhale and moves through the thin archway to get to his bedroom, near the front door, when he hears something beyond the threshold of Room A next door. Levi stops in place.

The noise is so faint that he almost misses it. He leans his head closer in the direction of the wall, waiting for the next sound to give when he hears it again — a breathy whimper. The whimper transforms into a moan, one that Levi can hear as clearly as he would if he were in the room. There are no other voices, and Levi pulls away from the wall quickly like it's on fire.

No. It can’t be.

Levi finds it both annoying and amusing when he hears you entangled with some random guy every other day, but just the possibility of it being you, and you alone, in your room with nobody but your fingers, makes Levi’s throat tighten.

Before, it felt as though your sex life was a performance intended for Levi to listen to, but now that it’s just you, the moment feels private and intimate, and Levi doesn’t know what to do.

The moaning continues, staggered, stuttered, falling and rising in a tempo he knows only the hand of the moaner can create. By now, he’s somewhat of an expert on your noises, how you respond to whatever your partner is doing — the unfamiliarity of your pleasure tonight has thrown him off, and all Levi can do is apologise in his head and pull himself back against the wall. 

He’s come this far listening to you play with others. It would just be unfair not to hear how you really like it when you’re alone.

Levi can’t be sure what it is you’re actually doing; he’ll have to leave it to his imagination to conjure up the perfect image of you on your bed, legs spread, fingers stuffed up your cunt. He closes his eyes as he leans his head against the plaster, quite literally straining to hear every gasp leaving your mouth.

The world seems to slow around him, the sounds of your one-man show all he can hear. All of a sudden, he’s thankful for the unnatural silence of the hallway outside so he can hear it all.

What he pictures is lewd and perfect; you’re biting your lip probably, trying to contain yourself as you plunge your fingers deeper inside your pussy, curling them in a way nobody else can. The lights are dimmed, but in his mind, the picture of your body is crystal clear; the shape of your body is outlined by light, shadows cast attractively around the perk of your breasts, the glisten of crystalline sweat on your skin. 

With your chest rising, Levi watches in his mind as your thighs quiver, your knuckles pushing against your opening — if it was possible to get more of your finger in there, you’d do it.

Your fingers slide in and out covered in wetness, each plunge inside accompanied by another moan that makes him shudder. Levi’s ear is flat against the wall, his cock hardening uncomfortably beneath his joggers. 

All of a sudden, the shame of eavesdropping washes over him and he pulls away, breathing heavily as he moves from the wall to the bathroom. For good measure, he slams the door behind him, immediately turning on the tap and washing his face. What was he thinking?

Thankfully, there’s nobody to greet his ashamed walk back into his bedroom. He rubs the side of his face with a groan and glances back at the wall. For a moment, he pauses, but he hears no more sound.

Levi’s been in a sour mood since the weekend, and nobody around him knows how to solve it. 

At first, it had started with the dream he’d had; the dream where he’d shoved your head into a pillow and fucked your brains out, which woke him with a start and another guilty walk to the bathroom. Then, he’d turned up late to his class and simultaneously discovered that Reiner had, in fact, broken the light board he loaned him the other week.

After that, he received a bitchy email from the receptionist at his building about upcoming fire alarm inspections, and because he’d been too busy looking at his phone, Levi had slammed into a group of first-year girls in the library and caused one of them to drop all of her books and her coffee on the floor. Now, his wallet was five pounds lighter and his expression was sour, and no matter how hard his friends tried to coax him out of his foulness, it was no use.

“At least you bought her another coffee,” says Eren with a shrug as he watches the flustered first-year disappear out of the student café with her friend.

“Not the point, dipshit.”

“It’s probably ‘cause of the lack of sleep this man gets thanks to his harlot neighbour,” Hange suggests, their shoulders hunched as they finish up one of their handouts for their evening class.

At that, Reiner looks up from his phone and adds, “Hot harlot neighbour.”

“Is she actually?” asks Erwin. “I don’t know if I can trust your judgement in women, Reiner.”

“She is beautiful,” Levi mutters reluctantly, his face still drawn together with irritance. Admitting that fact only makes him feel worse, especially when the memory of his dream creeps back into his mind. He sighs and rubs his neck. “But she hasn’t really made any noise in a while.”

“Maybe she’s on her period,” says Eren unhelpfully. 

“Whores are on the pill,” Porco adds, suddenly reminding Levi of his presence. The blond-haired guy sits to the right with a coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of sexist to call her a whore when I know most of you probably have higher body counts?” replies Isabel. She’s crept up on the knit of friends, but contrary to normal, her being here doesn’t make Levi feel any better. Right now, there are simply too many witnesses to his misery.

Eren shrugs. “Fine. Then she’s a slut.”

“As if that’s any better,” Isabel says dumbly. “You guys are pigs.”

“But she is beautiful,” Reiner says again. “I’m telling you — it’s a miracle Levi hasn’t made his move yet. If I lived next door to someone who looked like that…” He trails off. Levi cringes. How did he end up being friends with the worst people in the world?

Reiner sells Levi as actually having enough confidence to get up and knock on her door, when the truth of the matter is that Levi is too afraid to even approach the wall when he hears a noise anymore. In the time between him listening to you finger-fucking yourself and him having such an out-of-pocket dream about you, Levi hasn’t even wanted to listen to anything he hears outside of his room, too afraid of what he might do or think if he hears you again.

Besides, what would he even do? It’s been almost eight months of sharing a wall, and he’s come no closer to knowing you or anything about you. You’re as familiar to him as any stranger in this café, but the only difference is that he’s heard the way you whimper when your cunt is stuffed with cock and you’re up against the wall, which most people would have trouble competing with.

When you know how someone sounds when they’re most likely cumming on someone else’s dick, it’s an unbeatable bond.

Levi looks up at Reiner as if to say something, but then his eyes are drawn to the doors to the café. They widen suddenly, and after watching his expression shift, Reiner follows his gaze and looks over his shoulder.

After a few seconds, he whips his head back to the group and hisses, “That’s her!”

The speed at which their heads turn is almost funny to Levi, and he might have laughed had he not been so full of mortified fear at the sight of you. 

You look pretty today — really pretty. Pretty in a way that Levi can’t even begin to make sense of considering the only way he’s seen you so far is in glimpses, in the corridor dressed in comfy clothes, or stark naked with his dick up your snatch in his head. His whole body fills with a sticky heat as he narrows his gaze on you, hoping that by staring you might disappear like a mirage and spare him the embarrassment due to come.

But nothing ever goes the way Levi wants it to. He breathes in heavily when your gaze pans across the room as if you’re searching for someone, stopping with a comical wide-eyed look of surprise when you see a group of six or so people all watching you with strange intensity. 

Levi is not at all prepared for the way your brows knit together in confusion as you assess the strangers, only to raise in acknowledgement when you finally look at him for a moment too long. 

Words are not needed to convey the silent series of events that spiral after that look. Levi knows instantly what you’re thinking and what it means. He knows that you know he’s told everybody about you — and he knows that you know he knows who you are and how often you do what you do. 

There’s no way of explaining how confident he is that you’ve cracked the code in your head — he doesn’t know anything at all, only that when your face brightens into a smile he knows he’s screwed.

So fucking screwed.

“Oh shit, you were right,” Porco says after a while of mutual silence, and Levi is strangely grateful for the distraction of his voice as he turns back to his friend. “She’s hot!”

“And you’re being fucking loud, shut up,” Levi grumbles, his face scrunched into such a tight frown that it hurts to hold it. “Yes, that’s her. So what.”

“She’s looking at you,” Hange says rather unhelpfully. They’re sitting with their elbows on their spread legs, head low as they glance at you over the top of their glasses. Their brows are so high they might as well become a part of their hairline as they say a few seconds later, “Still looking.” A beat, and then, “Still looking.”

Levi huffs quietly, trying to find something interesting on the low table in the middle of the group to latch onto. All he can find are some of Hange’s papers and Porco’s bagel wrapper — neither are particularly inspiring to stare at, but he stares anyway, acutely aware of the heavy weight of your gaze on the side of his face as you approach the coffee counter. 

“Maybe it’s because you’re all fucking gawking at her,” Levi replies stiffly. 

To their credit, the group does their best to mask their very obvious staring, but Levi already knows that their hanging mouths have caused irreparable damage. He makes it a point not to look back over at you, and based on how his friends try to busy themselves with random things, he guesses you’ve reluctantly looked away from them and are currently buying something.

After today, Levi will never come here again — he’s just suddenly remembered that you’re real, and the notion of seeing you out in public just became his next biggest worry.

“Maybe you should go and say hi,” Isabel suggests, her mouth full around a bite of brownie. 

Levi looks at her with an incredulous look. “And why would I do that?”

“She’s your neighbour,” Isabel replies slowly. “It’s polite. And friendly.”

“I’ll go and say hi, if you want,” offers Reiner. When Levi throws him a dirty look, he says, “What? She smiled at me before. I might be her next conquest.”

“Not much of a challenge for her,” Levi mutters. Besides, you weren’t even looking at Reiner back then — but as soon as the thought comes to his head he immediately exiles it. He’s not going to stoop as low as to fight Reiner on it; it will only deepen the hole he’s dug himself now that he's opened his mouth and told people about you.

After around four minutes, Levi has exhausted all possible resorts of interest around the table and anxiously rubs the back of his neck. Reiner still has his head looking up towards the coffee counter, but the others have mercifully ceased their curious staring. He levels his breathing and takes a quick swig of his tea, all before absentmindedly turning his head to look over his shoulder.

Your back is facing everyone, your head thrown back in laughter at something someone next to you is saying. Levi represses the urge to bristle at his own thoughts of what you might be laughing at, what possibly makes you laugh and smile — what coffee did you order, or maybe you are a tea person? Hot chocolate? Levi’s face falls into a narrow look of horror — Jesus Christ, he’s in so deep and over what? The sound of you?

Levi decides that he’s possibly gone insane after a long four years in academia and rests his cheek on his shoulder for a minute, gaze low. His friends are right, to a fault; he could just talk to you, scratch the itch until it’s gone and he can relax and live like a normal human being again. But that would involve taking initiative and actually confronting you, which in the grand scheme of things seems like a terrible idea. 

He’d rather just forget about the delusional display of heated fantasies he’s conjured up after getting just a peek at you.

“Oh, shit. She’s looking again.”

It’s embarrassing how quickly Levi looks back at you without even thinking about it. 

Sure enough, you’re looking back at the group, a cup of something steaming in your hand as your friend leads the way through a cluster of tables towards the double doors leading out onto the wide front courtyard. The screaming voice in his head is commanding Levi to look away, but he just can’t. 

He watches you as you look back at him, mapping out every detail he possibly can while he has the chance to just look without any consequence, and feels his breathing constrict when you smile, so softly that it knocks the literal wind from his lungs, and raise your free hand in a wave.

And he doesn’t even move.

Somewhere behind him, Levi hears Reiner snigger and the brawny guy lifts his own hand to wave back at you, a grin plastered on his face. Your eyes barely move to look at Reiner in acknowledgement before locking back onto Levi with an almost hopeful look, and now would be a great time for Levi to move or do something in response, but he doesn’t. And he doesn’t know how to respond when your smile deepens into a smirk, almost like that was exactly what you wanted him to do.

“Why does she look down bad?” Eren asks quietly, making Porco cackle with a laugh that makes you look away and slink after your friend. Levi affords himself the time to watch you go, watching the way your ass moves in your jeans, the way your breasts bounce in that shirt, the way your waist looks and the way your hair moves and the way your smile widens—

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Porco says, shaking his head with an amused look on his face. “If I lived next to someone who looked like that, and looked at me like that—”

“Well, you don’t, so fuck off,” Levi snaps. Wrong answer: the boys in his group laugh even louder, and Levi wants to shrink to the size of an ant and drown in his tea.

God. Levi realises with a gigantic sigh that today has been a long ass day.

Levi rubs his hair with the towel and glares at his reflection in the mirror. He stares, long and hard, and frowns at what looks back. For a guy who is to be considered “grown”, he cannot believe how stupid he's being, how stupid his brain is.

He has never once had a crush on somebody he’s never even met before, and only actually seen properly about two times. In the long four years of being in this city, Levi has never entertained an interest in anybody, mostly because he felt he didn’t have the patience for a relationship nor the time, which is why the way he’s feeling now is all the more bothersome — and even worse when the person he’s having trouble understanding his feelings for is someone he’s barely met, never talked to, and knows likes cock more than the air they breathe.

It is simply outrageous that he likes you so much. And he’s not even sure if what he feels would qualify as liking you. 

Levi has never spoken one word to you and has never made any effort to do so, but alongside the audible archive of moans he has of yours in his memory and the mapped-out beauty of your face, Levi can distinguish that the pooling pit of desire in his tummy is closer to a crush than it is just general appreciation. And this feeling sucks.

Suddenly, Levi thinks back to seeing you in the student café and physically cringes at his reflection. All that for what? A smile? He is pathetic — Levi cannot believe that he has become such a strange man, and it is entirely your fault for being so pretty. And sounding so fucking sexy.

Levi hangs his towel on the small heated towel rack and washes his hands, hoping that in a metaphorical sense, it will wash away all of the terrible thoughts he’s having. Then, he shakes them dry and flicks off the bathroom switch, striding back into his room with a sinking feeling of emptiness. 

He makes his way to the kitchen and looks longingly at the kettle. A cup of tea would do wonders for the creeping headache forming in his skull, but like the idiot he’s suddenly turned out to be, Levi instead leans up on his toes to grab a bottle of whiskey from on top of the fridge and finds an accompanying glass to pour himself a drink. 

It’s been a long day, and he needs something strong. Quite frankly, Levi thinks he also deserves it.

For most of the evening, Levi entertains himself with his whiskey bottle, a glass and whatever the hell his TV can pick up in the black spot he calls home. He’s not sure how many glasses he’s had by the time he hears the corridor door swing open with its alarmingly loud squeal, but judging by how the room seems to tilt on its axis, Levi would wager a guess as to believe he’s had at least more than six glasses. 

He feels his heart in his ears, pounding like a war drum, and he immediately reaches for the remote and turns down the volume. Like a cat, he feels his ears prick at the slightest sounds, and quite quickly, it’s as though stones are weighing down his stomach when he hears a boyish kind of snigger in the hallway, followed by the sound of keys in Room A’s door.

Please no. Not right now.

Not when Levi’s trying to come to terms with the unnatural feelings he’s somehow garnered for you.

Levi hears you shush the guy of the night and push open your door, its hinges moaning with relief when both of you stumble inside and it closes with a click. It’s almost embarrassing how quiet Levi has gone in an effort to eavesdrop — as much as he dislikes the idea of you being fucked by some random guy, he has to admit that he’s come to find some enjoyment in the vision of you being destroyed, in the music made by your pleasure. It took a while to admit it, but now that he has, it’s like a weight being lifted.

Once again, he is left to wonder what you’re doing when he can no longer hear your moans or the guy’s stupid voice muttering: Levi’s imagined you stumbling through the narrow passage past the bathroom and towards your bed, arms snug around the guy’s chest. You’ve probably sat down, and the guy is between your legs holding your face with his hands.

Only you haven’t. Levi hears a familiar thump against the wall and his eyes widen excitedly.

“Get this shit off.” Levi hears the guy grunt unhappily, and, hey wait, when did Levi suddenly end up listening so close to the wall?

“You don’t like it?” you ask, your voice so quiet through the thin layer of brick separating you from Levi’s ear. 

“Like it better when it's not on,” the guy groans, and a few more thumps against the wall sound along with a strange dragging noise that Levi presumes might be your back. “God, you’re so hot.”

Well, that they can both agree on.

Levi closes his eyes as your voice begins to rise, foolishly high and breathy and in a way that makes Levi’s dick harden under his clothes. He pictures your face in his head, thrown back in a twist of pleasure, and fights the urge to grip his cock with his hand — he loses the battle and curses as he grabs his dick and begins to pump his wrist.

Levi leans his back against the wall and dips his head low to his chest, his eyes unwillingly fixed on the sight of his own cock hardening in his hand. Levi acknowledges that jerking off to his neighbour having a shag is a bit weird, but it could be worse, and as long as you can’t see him, he doesn’t care. 

He tightens his grip around his dick and drags his hand up and down, biting down on his lip to keep his satisfied groans from eliciting any unwanted attention.

On the other side of the wall, you feel the brick behind your head as the stranger lifts one of your legs up over his shoulder, falling to his knees like a beggar and lifting the bottom half of your skirt up over your hips. At some point during your ungracious entry into the bedroom, the man managed to slip down your panties and now has full, unrestricted access to your cunt, and wastes no time pushing his head between your thighs. 

Feeling the man’s tongue running flat up your slit, you moan breathlessly and stare up at the ceiling. You’ve fucked so many men it’s impossible to remember all of them, but you never get bored of the feeling of someone’s tongue up your pussy. Your heart stammers in your chest as you peer down at the stranger; his face is pushed between your legs and hidden from view, leaving you with nothing but dark locks of hair to gaze at, hunched shoulders and a pale hand pressing into your leg.

Admittedly, the only reasons you picked this stranger to approach in the bar had been because of the way he looked, and you close your eyes and let your jaw hang open in pleasure, all while your thoughts linger on who you pretend is between your legs instead of him. 

“You taste amazing,” the guy groans into you, and you smile pleasantly. Everybody likes being complimented, don’t they?

“Yeah?” you ask, smoothing one of your hands up around your tit, “It’s all yours.”

The guy groans, as does Levi, who’s listening so loyally that he might as well smash a hole in the wall and look through. Nothing is left to imagination anymore; it’s as if you’re narrating your night just for Levi’s sake.

“Yeah. You’re right. This pussy’s mine,” the guy laughs, nipping his teeth against your inner thigh and making you squeal unexpectedly. 

“Come on,” you rasp, worming your fingers through his twirly locks of hair with a slight grip. He winces and looks up at you from over your stomach, eyes dark and wide with the pain of your fingers tightening around his curls. “Fuck me, big guy. I want your cock.”

Levi’s wrist quickens. He blames the whiskey for the strangled little pathetic sound that burns in his throat, but there’s no way you heard it. Although these walls are so thin that he can hear every sound you make, there’s no way you can hear any of his noises. The logic defies Levi at that moment.

“God damn, you really are a needy girl, aren't you?”

No, you’re not, Levi thinks. Only you are — you grin down at the handsome man removing himself from between your legs and shuffle closer to grab a taste of yourself from his lips. He groans into your mouth, one hand on your ass and the other around the back of your neck. 

With his arms around you, the man guides you towards the end of your bed and ungracefully drops you down, groaning when you bite your bottom lip and stare up at him with an expectant look in your eyes. Levi could only dream of what makes the stranger growl like that as he strains to listen in. You open your legs to invite him in, watching as he pulls a condom from his back pocket and takes his jeans down to his ankles.

Levi’s cock is throbbing, the tip an angry shade of red as he swipes his thumb and smears a slip of pre-cum across the curved edge. Levi inhales deeply, feeling his whole body stiffen as he pulls his fist up and down, the fingers on his other hand grazing across his balls with a sensitive flush. He hears you moan outrageously loud and his wrist trembles — he must have slipped it in.

You tighten your legs around the stranger, pulling him and his dick further into your cunt, the wetness of it slippery and inviting and divinely powerful. Every man you’ve had up there has made a comment on how good it feels, and as the guy moans loudly and tells you it’s the best pussy he’s had, you think of your neighbour; his surprised expression when he saw you in the café, the way his friends threw him looks when you smiled. 

You know he’s been listening (if he hasn’t, then he’s admirably unbothered or deaf), and the thought excites you wildly.

You look beyond the man and to the wall, imagining your neighbour staring at the brick with a blank expression. Maybe he’s angry that you have another man over. You hope he is. 

Biting back a laugh, you moan for good measure and match every thrust with a sound. The guy stuffed inside of you mutters a string of curses, chest puffed with pride, oblivious to the vision you have in your head of your neighbour snug between your thighs, his face steeled into his usual displeasure. 

“Mmf, yes,” you whine, a little louder than you usually would. “Right there.”

“Say my name,” the guy growls, slapping your thigh rather sharply, “like a good girl.”

You flush, knees practically bent over to your chest as he folds you in half. For a second, you can’t even think of his name, don’t know if he ever even told you. Instead of wounding his pride, you drop a few girly moans and hope it distracts him, which it does. You wonder what would happen if you were to moan out your neighbours name — if you even knew it, that is.

“Oh, god,” you moan genuinely and close your eyes as the man sinks his cock in further. Thank goodness this man’s dick is long, you think, feeling the tip brush against a weak spot inside of you. The mattress beneath your spine is shaking uncontrollably, and the man peers down at you with a glint in his eye.

Levi’s head leans back and a breathless groan escapes — fuck, he thinks, but there’s no time to take it back, and certainly no chance he’s been heard. 

Unbeknownst to Levi, your ears prick up curiously. The man snug inside of you looks at your face with an equal amount of curiosity, his hands wide against your skin as he fucks you at an unmeasurably quick pace. It’s as if he has somewhere else to be than here, but the pressing wrinkle in his forehead deepens as he fucks you harder, nails digging into your skin, spit flying from his mouth to your breasts.

“My friend said your pussy was good, but I didn’t think it would be this good,” the guy says, his voice raspy. All you can currently focus on is the squelch between your legs, and for a hopeful sound of annoyance from your neighbour.

When nothing comes, you opt for staring up at the guy with wide eyes, as if the thought of being passed around a few friends shocks you. In actual fact, you could care less, just as long as you both feel good.

His next few thrusts knock the wind out of you, and Levi clings to those pitched sounds like they’re his new lifeline. Pumping the length of his cock with his hand, Levi clamps his eyes closed and tries not to become self-aware of what the fuck he’s doing, instead focusing all of his energy on the twisting ache in his stomach and the dull groan of his wrist bones.

What Levi does next horrifies him. His hips jerk suddenly, his breathing laboured as he imagines himself in your room between your legs. Just the thought of looming over you, chest bowed over yours, your legs over his shoulders as he sinks himself into your cunt. The look of pleasured joy on your face, that stupidly beautiful smile lifted so high. 

In the swirling darkness of his closed eyes, Levi conjures up images of you flustered and naked, covered in sweat and cum and as your breasts bounce the shine on your body curves — fucking hell, he’s in so deep, he’s so fucked.

“Oh! Oh, there, yep, there — hmpf!” 

Levi hears you so loudly that it’s as if you’re panting it in his ears. He fists his dick almost furiously, feeling the creeping heat move across his body like a wildfire. The phantom illusion of your body underneath him pulses, the feeling of your cunt wet and squishing around him feels so real he might believe it if he weren’t uncomfortably self-aware of how screwed up he is, fantasising about a girl he’s never even talked to before.

Even through the wall, Levi can hear your bed rattling against the opposite wall, each slap of skin as the stranger fucks himself into you; Levi zeros in on the sounds and produces the perfect scene in his head, one that makes his dick twitch in his hand and his feet slip slightly across the wooden floor. 

His chest rises and falls heavily, his hands trembling, his balls so sensitive he’s resorted to clinging to the wall like a rock climber with one hand while he pumps his cock with the other. Listening to you being fucked stupid is going to make him cum all over himself, and for a split second, that seems fine. That would be okay.

“Goddamn. You’re tighter than I expected,” the guy says, which sends Levi over the edge. 

He groans softly at the floor and feels his whole body trembling as the coil in his stomach suddenly releases, and a string of cum shoots from the end of his cock. Levi keeps pumping, cum falling down his hand and to the floor in a grossly filthy manner, one that he’s trying his best not to stress over as he focuses all of his energy and thoughts on the hand wrapped around his cock and how badly he wishes it was your pussy gripping him instead.

When he does open his eyes, Levi blinks away the blurry tunnel vision and tries to catch his breath, now uncomfortably aware of the sticky mess covering his hand and the floor around his feet. For a second, he feels complete bliss — until the ringing in his ears subsides and he hears you whining in that pretty fucking voice you have, and the shame washes over him like a bucket of cold water.

Levi forces himself up off the wall and stares back at it, almost as if it might transform into a window for you to gape at him, the dirty eavesdropper who just had an orgasm over a daydream and the sound of his neighbour fucking some random guy. He blinks in horror.

The guy screwing you groans like an animal — a dying animal, Levi thinks bitterly, until he realises that he’s the first person to have orgasmed in the strange threesome and he isn’t even in the room. 

Although guilt is consuming him, Levi can’t commit to pulling away yet. He might as well see it through to the end now that he’s become a part of it all.

Your cunt clenches around the guy’s cock like a vice, coaxing whatever last reserves of self-restraint he has before he grunts out a loud, “Fuck!” and slams his hips into you one last time, filling the condom with cum.

You feel the warmth bulging inside of you — lucky for someone to have gotten off in this exchange. Your pussy throbs and you squirm unhappily, hoping he might keep going.

“More?” the guy asks, breathless and shocked. “For real?”

“Mm. More, I need more,” you tell him, your walls fluttering around him. “Please, please give me more—”

No, no, no, Levi thinks in a panic. Please no more! As if being subjected to listening to some guy cumming after being in your pussy was bad enough, Levi wants nothing more than for it all to be over so he doesn’t have to listen anymore. He knows he could easily put in earphones and tune you both out, but that’s not the point. 

Still, he feels a sudden rush of bitter hatred when the guy slaps your skin and makes you whine, all before laughing and pulling out. Levi hears nothing for a moment until he hears a drawer pulling open and slamming shut, and he thinks in a hot flush that he’s about to have a terribly unhappy night listening to you getting screwed again.

You watch the stranger shake his cock for a moment once the old and used condom is off, and he quickly puts on a new one while he’s still hard and admirably shoves himself back inside. Your wet warmth welcomes him back encouragingly, and there’s no trouble keeping him hard once you’ve gripped him back inside. The man shifts himself inside of you and moves in and out, his eyes trained carefully on your face as if assessing your enjoyment. 

He creeps a hand between your legs and thumbs the hood of your pussy, and your eyes flash open with surprise at the feeling of his thumb on your clit.

“My god, you’re fucking gorgeous,” he comments, and Levi curses.

This can’t go on! Levi feels his mind reeling and he refuses to take responsibility for what his body does next; he wipes his hand on his joggers and glares at the door. Taking a few strides towards it, Levi forgets the cum on the floor and grabs one of his jumpers, pulling it over his head as he grabs his five seconds of courage by the balls and swings his door open. 

The sound of you being fucked is made even more pronounced in the hallway. Levi’s never admired his other hall-mates until now, because he knows they’re all either listening in the same horror as Levi used to or they’re out somewhere missing all of the drama. Still, Levi feels his heart thumping wildly in his chest as he raises his fist, and without thinking any of it through, he bangs his hand on your door three loud times.

The sounds cease.

Levi hears a flustered “fuck!” and a confused moan, each one from a different person, and now that he’s knocked, Levi knows if he does a runner, you’ll only know it was him when his door shuts in the now uncomfortable silence. Standing in the hallway, he knows he has to live out his embarrassment and see it through. 

The stranger pulls out of you in a fluster, staring down at you with surprise. “Should we answer it?”

You crane to listen, half-hoping it was a knock on someone else’s door and not your own, but you reluctantly glance up at him in shock and pick yourself up off the bed.

“Um…” you start, flustered and scanning the floor for something to put on. You spot your dressing gown slung over the chair at your desk and reach for it, giving the guy a pointed look as he scrambles for his underwear. You hoped it wouldn’t have, but the vibe is killed rather cruelly by whoever is banging your door so loudly. 

Tying the cord around your waist, you pass by the guy with a sheepish smile and smooth a hand across his chest. In a way, the stranger is surprisingly handsome, especially considering you only picked him out for the way his hair looked. He grins after a while and grabs his shirt, holding it in his hand as he leans to kiss your lips and slither past you.

“Lemme get it,” he suggests, already making his way to the door. You let him go without protest, simply standing to the side as he reaches the door, twists the handle and pulls it open. The map of muscles in his back tense when he sees Levi standing outside.

“Levi,” he says dumbly. Levi blinks in confusion. How does he know this guy, and more importantly, how does this guy know him? The stranger seems to pick up on his blatant confusion and shifts uncomfortably, “It’s Samuel. I live in Isabel’s flat.”

Levi visibly grimaces.

This city is just too small and he hates it so much. Why the fuck did the guy fucking you have to be someone in close connection to one of his closest friends, and why the fuck did it have to be the guy involved in the sex Levi has just jerked off to?

“We met?” Levi decides to ask.

“Not officially,” mutters Samuel.

Levi ignores him and glances back into the darkness, schooling his features into disinterest with all of his strength when he sees you standing in the shadows.

The revealing V of your dressing gown attracts his attention, his eyes trained on the curving line of your breasts pushed together by your folded arms. He looks up to your neck and face, shining with a thin sheen of sweat, and then finally acknowledges your face. 

Your makeup is smudged in a way that makes Levi’s cock twitch again, but he refuses to feed in to the pleasure he so badly wants to seek at the sight of you, fucked-out and equally surprised to see him standing like a loser in your doorway. You take a single step forward in what looks like wonder.

“What…are you doing here?” Samuel asks hesitantly.

Levi remembers he’s there and glares at him. “I live next door.”

“Oh,” says Samuel.

“I don’t care that you’re fucking. Trust me, I don’t.” He’s lying. “But can you be quiet about it?”

His voice cuts deep, making Samuel flinch, but in Levi’s peripheral he sees your face twist into an amused smile, your feet shuffling across the wooden floor to arrive by Samuel’s side.

“She’s not that loud,” Samuel attempts to say, in a pathetically unenthusiastic voice. Even he must know to an extent that you’re actually extremely loud.

Levi’s brows raise. “It’s not her I’m bothered about.”

“Oh,” Samuel says again. He turns to look at you like a deer caught in the headlights, but when his face drops at the look of amusement on your face, something tells Levi that Samuel may have expected you to defend him the way he just tried to defend you. 

Samuel’s eyes narrow and he snatches himself away from the door to find his shoes and phone. “Whatever man. She’s a slut anyway, you must be used to it by now.”

Levi hums, his eyes on you as you look back at him, unmoving, unbothered. Your eyes drop suddenly to his bottoms before pulling back up with your brows raised. After looking down with reluctance, Levi spots the cum he wiped on his joggers in a smudge across his thigh and he pauses.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He can’t think of any other words.

Samuel slips his shoes back on and levels a dirty look in your direction, but you just smile sympathetically and wish him goodnight. He mutters something rude under his breath and barges past Levi on his way out, and Levi makes a point of watching Samuel go whilst trying to pretend that neither of you has just spotted what is drying to a crusty stain on his joggers.

Levi continues to stare down the hallway even when the door has slammed shut and Samuel has disappeared, but the sound of your feet shuffling on the floor makes him look back. He must be a good actor, because your brows furrow for a moment when you lock eyes, as if you aren’t sure whether or not he’s angry.

Of course, Samuel had been right. You were a loud fuck, you were a bit of a slut, and Levi is very familiar with the guests coming and going from your bedroom. But none of that matters at all now he’s here, looking at you hidden underneath a dressing gown, your lips parted with hesitance.

Levi stares at you for a second, wondering what he could possibly say to you now that the chance is right there. He should have known he’d say something stupid — Levi copies your facial expression and clicks his tongue: “I know you can actually do better than that.”

His words take you by surprise, but he watches as your wide eyes soften and your smile twists — his stomach churns, thrilled, enamoured. If he was stupid, he’d push himself into your room and kiss you, but luckily, he’s exhausted his daily dose of stupidity and fallen back into his usual state of normalcy.

“Oh, really?” you ask sarcastically. This is the first time he’s heard you talking since your shy little hello a few days ago, and without a wall between you and some dude’s dick up your pussy. 

Levi hums, weaker than before. “Him, of all people?”

“Well, I don’t pick them for their personality,” you tell him, and he blinks as he realises that you’re actually discussing the people you bring back to your room. Levi lets it sink in until it does, deep in his stomach, and he feels his neck burning.

Suddenly, Levi is uncomfortably aware of how aware you are; you know you’re loud, and you know Levi can hear every moan and cry and whimper, every thud against the wall, every gasp of breath, every boy. And something tells him that none of that is accidental.

“...Thank god for that,” he drawls finally, his gaze hardening on your own. This time, you hum, mockingly, and tilt your head while you look at him.

Levi doesn’t know how long he stands there for. All he knows is that the tension between you is so thick it’s almost choking him. He doesn’t even know if you can feel it too — the unimaginable jolt of sexual tension coiling around his body like a snake, his whole body vibrating excitedly. 

It would be so easy to move forward towards you. Levi doesn’t even think you’d refuse him. The sultry look in your eyes is inviting, enticing, and he lets his gaze wander back to the slip of skin above your breasts before he snatches his gaze back.

“I’ll be more quiet, if that’s what you’d like,” you say after a while.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks at you for a second, weighing his options. Then, his gaze softens and he grunts — no. Be as loud as you want.

You seem to understand, for the smile widens into a pleased grin. “Alright. Sorry, Levi.”

He prays that you didn’t just see his body flinch as you said his name. Levi grunts again and waves his hand dismissively, turning for his room before the excitement of everything makes him become stupid again. He’s done enough stupid things today, thank you!

“Night, Y/N,” he says through clenched teeth, and if he had looked back, he would have seen the smile widen to a degree he could have never even expected, the confirmation you needed being your name on his lips, a name he would have only heard had he been listening.

Levi refuses to give in to his dumb urges and leans his back against his door when it shuts closed, listening shamefully as you hesitate before closing your door behind him. Finally, he lets out an exhausted breath and closes his eyes again.

For fuck sake. He’s a moron.

A moron who wants to fuck his neighbour, and is pretty sure that you know it.

Would you let him?

Levi stops himself from groaning like a pathetic loser when he thinks of you again, this time opening your door and letting him in, slipping the gown down your arms so that your breasts fall out for him; his hands grabbing them, pushing you back on the bed you were just being fucked on; his dick slipping inside of you, your cunt clenched around him, lips on his hands, cum filling you up like a cake, pooling out of you—

Levi feels his cock twitch again. He sighs loudly. 

He’s going to need another shower. Preferably a long cold one. Hopefully cold enough to send him into shock and kill him, just to spare him from the humiliating reality that Levi Ackerman has become an infatuated sad fuck with a raging hard crush on his stunningly sexy neighbour. 

Levi groans again. Fuck.

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt behind the cut; "Tim's free cloning lab". (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“Red Robin’s commitment issues are his own problem, not mine. I’ve got a schedule to keep,” Luthor replies dismissively, then knocks back the last of his hopefully-actually-a-protein-shake-and-not-Bane-venom-or-something and gets to his feet, picking up his tablet again as he does. He does not seem concerned to be alone in a lab full of sharp objects and computers with two only negligibly-restrained Bats. Admittedly Luthor doesn’t tend to seem concerned during literal multiversal apocalypses, but Tim is vaguely insulted on principle. A multiversal apocalypse couldn’t do any worse than uncreate Luthor and everything he’s ever done in his life, after all. He could tank his stock prices and drive up all his insurance rates, and then make him have to live with it. 

A little respect isn’t that much to ask, is it? 

“Wow, called out by the supervillain,” Steph mutters to him under her breath. “The Metropolis supervillain, even.” 

“I do not have commitment issues,” Tim mutters back to her. 

“Yes you do, the issue is you commit yourself to somebody and then become an insane person about them but never actually mention the existence of said commitment to them,” she retorts frankly. 

“I do not–” 

“When did you go for the red and black suit again and how long did you stick with it?” 

“. . . we’re in a supervillain lair in Connecticut, I don’t have to answer that right now.” 

“Oh, so you will later?” 

“So anyway, new supervillain trap, how’s that going for you?” Tim asks Luthor. Steph snorts at him; he ignores her and all her baseless, ridiculous, baseless accusations that are definitely not currently reading him for absolute filth. “All coming together nicely, no tech issues? Because we could troubleshoot those for you while we’re waiting for extraction, no charge.” 

“The chemical breakdown of the necessary stabilizer you missed when you were cleaning out my old labs is laid out in file B-2.13, speaking of ‘troubleshooting’,” Luthor mentions, and Tim . . . pauses. 

“‘Stabilizer’,” he echoes carefully, and then glances around the sunroom lab. The sunroom cloning lab. 

The sunroom. 

Ah. 

That is probably a connection he should've made, like . . . literally instantly, yeah. 

“Oh my god, do you think you can actually convince Red Robin to make you another–wait, why do you even want Red Robin to make you another Superman or whatever, you did it better than he ever did,” Steph says, squinting in bewilderment at Luthor through her mask. Tim’s much more insulted this time, even if it’s objectively true that Kon is objectively–never mind. Luthor just looks dubious. 

“I don’t want another Superman, there are already far too many of those running around and being an issue as it is,” he snorts dismissively, waving her off. “And I’m willing to provide a useful little resource or two, of course, but it’s hardly traditional to have to make my own grandchildren, now is it. Besides, Supernova won’t be as annoyed about it if they come from you. Though I did include some potential design notes for your consideration in the C folder, of course. Streamlined the tactile telekinesis a bit, for starters. It really didn’t come out as effective as intended, unfortunately.” 

“Of course,” Tim echoes, perfectly aware of that one time that Kon took apart every single gun inside the exact city limits of Los Angeles and nothing else without even meaning to, and also that one time last week when he very much did mean to disassemble a bomb immediately after its trigger mechanism had been tripped, and did it so fast that it didn't detonate. 

So as politely as possible, that makes Luthor’s use of the word “effective” slipped in there a little mind-numbingly terrifying to consider. 

More than anything else, though, Tim really hopes that he’s just gone insane and hallucinated all this, because otherwise he’s going to have to write all this down in a report, and Steph will not lie for him about this one. 

Case in point: she is currently laughing her fucking ass off at him.

[pedgito]

𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐘 — two: first to lose | Joel Miller x reader

↝ masterlist | requests? | ao3 | update blog | fic rec | ko-fi

chapter summary | Left to your own devices in the cabin with Joel, you lean toward other means of entertainment and a game over food leads to more than you're expecting.

author's note | beta'd by my lovely jo (@jolapeno) who i originally undertook this idea with. it has been really hard to focus lately, but i am itching to work away at my wips and this one has been sitting around for a while unedited. we're in a rut right now, but powering through.

chapter warnings | 18+, early outbreak, age gap (early 20s, mid 30s), morally grey!joel with trust issues, tommy is buffer, sex games, fingering, oral (m receiving), mentions of hunting and animals, joel is only softer when he's exhausted, they're both sore losers jsyk (more to come on that)

word count —4.2k

SERIES MASTERLIST, PLAYLIST, AO3

“There’s more out there,” Tommy says over your canned dinner, huddled around the fire in the living room as Joel stuffed his mouth full of beans, his conscious distance from you not going unnoticed. You were less layered, more comfortable, stripped down to your jeans and a tank top, your socks stuffed into the boots placed beside the couch, “I think another trip tonight and we’ll be good for at least a month, it’ll give us time to plan.”

“For?” You question, taking the last bite from your bowl before shoving it aside.

“Gotta find a QZ,” Tommy offers in response, “can’t survive like this forever.”

Joel seems less than hopeful, his eyes flickering away from the conversation and toward the fire. And Tommy, oblivious to the events that had transpired in his absence, doesn't address his brother’s pessimism. He’s learned to work around it, listen to his older brother when he sounded reasonable, and remain amicable around the rest of it.

He knew Joel’s tendencies, but found ignoring them was easier than bringing up the issue.

“Can I tag along this time?” You ask curiously, those pleading eyes falling on Tommy.

He chuckles, his spoon clanging against the ceramic as he shakes his head, halfheartedly as he speaks around the food he was chewing in his mouth, “I can handle it, kid. Besides, someone’s gotta keep an eye on Joel.”

You tense at the mention of his name, forcing a soft smile. Tommy doesn’t suspect a thing, wouldn’t even have the inclination, but the look of disdain Joel offers to you both stings.

“It’s a long drive, probably a couple days,” Tommy nods his chin up toward his brother and kicks at his foot, the boot scuffing against the wood, “you can teach her how to hunt while I’m gone.”

Joel doesn’t respond immediately and Tommy presses, leaning slightly to obscure his brother’s glare at the wall across from him, eventually Joel nods but it was entirely unconvincing and Tommy shakes his head in amusement, disapproval crossing his face as he chews at his bottom lip.

“Don’t hurt each other while I’m gone,” Tommy jokes, “alright?”

You smile half-heartedly and spin your knife on the barely standing end table to your left, “I can behave—right, Joel?”

Joel grunts, barely an acknowledgement at your expense as he walks between you two and lands on the couch, kicking off his boots over the edge and allowing himself to get comfortable, forearm slung over his eyes as he shimmied his shoulders down until he was comfortable.

“We’ll be fine.” You tell Tommy softly and he nods, looking at his brother with a brief frustration.

He could take you with him, he knows that. But, he’s almost fearful that Joel would run off in the middle of the night, that Tommy would never see his brother again. Losing Sarah had taken a toll on both of them and while Joel tried his damndest not to show the effects, Tommy feels them lingering. You were the most rational out of all of them, despite your inexperience and hesitancy to fight for yourself, your emotions were in check. For the most part.

You could be the perfect little watchdog Tommy needed.

But, in the back of your mind, you knew Joel was in command. It had been that way from the beginning; the dutiful little brother, the helpless young girl who had nowhere to go. It just worked.

Tommy departs with a nod, chuckling quietly at the already snoring Joel on the couch to your left. And you sigh with your own creeping feeling of exhaustion taking over, falling back against the balled up coat on the floor and finding yourself drifting to sleep eventually too. 

–

You wake up in a different spot, feeling the rigid but somehow softer fabric of the couch under your body as you roll over, peeking your eyes open to the blinding light. You groan quietly, stretching out tense limbs as you spot Joel. He’s leaned back in a chair, feet propped up in another as he flicks away at a solid chunk of wood, knife gripped in his hand.

“That’s mine,” You grumble weakly, spotting the weapon in his hand. His eyes flick up briefly, a chuff of acknowledgment from his nose has you squinting in his direction, “—you didn’t ask.”

Joel squints in response, flipping the knife in his hand until the handle is facing out, offering up the knife to you. You rise slowly, feeling slightly wobbly on your feet as you approach him. He brings the knife back toward his chest as you reach for it, “I think you’re forgetting, it was mine.”

You snatch it against his weak grip, too irritated from the lack of decent and comfortable sleep to argue, tossing it away on the couch as you round the dining table, peering through the slip of curtains covering the window, spotting the pile of burnt and charred bodies outside the window.

“Why did you move me?” You ask idly, dragging your fingers down the silk curtain, watching a few drops of rain hit the window before the trickle becomes stronger, followed by a low clash of thunder.

Joel stares at the chunk of wood in his grasp, fiddling with it until he slides it on the table, speaking to you nonchalantly as he stands, “You looked uncomfortable,” Within a few second he’s at your side, looking out the window at the incoming rain storm, “besides—you kept tossing and turning, once you were on the couch it stopped.”

“Oh, so I was disturbing your sleep,” You snark at him, turning your head to look at him. He mimics the movement and chuckles lazily, nodding in agreement, “add it to the list, I guess.”

“Of?”

He’s feigning cluelessness, watching the rain take on a stronger current as it pounded against the roof and you speak absently, “So, hunting is out of the question?

Joel’s arm rises to rest against the wall beside the window, hand tucked at his hip, “No. There’s still plenty to hunt ‘round here, if you have enough patience.”

“Well, I’m hungry.”

“Well, that’s an issue, ain’t it?”

For you, yes. For him, no.

He knows you don’t have the first clue what to equip yourself with, what animals to look for and your head turns, peering up at him curiously with the beginnings of a too sweet smile gracing your features.

“Not happenin’, don’t even ask.” Joel tells you, your smile immediately falling as you step away.

Whatever intensity had lingered the night before—the adrenaline from the attack, was gone.

Joel looks exhausted, conveys it in the slow and tired blinks he aims your way. He’d given up sleep to allow you to get rest, sacrificing his own without outwardly admitting it.

He’s only now starting to regret it as his head pounds, attempting to work through his exhaustion but feeling it catch up on him in waves, “We’ve got a can or two left to pick at, try that.”

Your face contorts in subtle disgust, “We need meat. Beans and peaches can only get us so far.” Joel doesn’t hear your complaints though, departing for the couch with a hand rubbing at the back of his neck, tense and knotted up muscles causing a deep ache in his back. He falls to the couch and throws his head back, allowing a few minutes to pass where he feels himself drifting into a slumber with his large hand rubbing at his forehead, thumb and middle finger digging into his temples as he nurses a headache, only looking over at you when the couch dips under your weight.

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

Joel huffs at that, knowing that only you could find how to pull the levity out of a shitty situation. 

“I’m not—” Joel shakes his head, his hand falling to his lap, “We’re not doing that. It can wait until the rain clears up.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

There was no way to tell, really. It was all an educated guess, the darkened clouds hovering overhead letting you know that it didn’t have any plans to leave quite yet.

Joel doesn’t offer a response, his head tipping back against the back of the couch with his eyes closed, his hands resting in his lap as he shrugs his shoulders and settles, you tilt your head curiously.

“You seem tense,” You tell him, “like—more tense than usual.”

Admittedly, he was restless too. But, unlike you—he could fight it. 

All that energy, nowhere to put it toward.

There’s so much silence, a thickness in the air that lingers as his own gaze on you does. He’s become used to studying you; upset, worried, irritated—he’s got it all down by now. Although, he had one that stumped him hard: want— but, he seemed to be picking up on the cues, noticing the look on your face as your lip pulled between your teeth in absent thought, tilting your head at him. You’re staring at his exposed skin, the scruffiness of his jaw where he’s allowed his beard to grow out. 

“Fine,” You sigh, noting his stubbornness, “what about a game?”

He doesn’t like the way the word slips from your lips, noticing how much closer you’ve gotten. Your knees pressed into his hip as you slowly worked your way over, legs tucked under your ass. Joel’s eyes narrow before they relax, turning away with a grunt of indifference.

“Impossible,” You mumble under your breath, “look—either I go out there and risk my ass or you do it for me. It’s late, I’m hungry,” And, as if on cue, Joel’s stomach growls too, “and so are you.”

Joel relents, watching his chest rise and fall in one heavy breath, “What game are you talkin’ about?”

You could think of something on the fly, although Joel has done everything but touch you since the night prior—because if he did, he was doomed. So, you make the first move.

Your finger drags along his open flannel until it catches on the first button it finds, the rest of your hand slipping under the fabric and noting the lack of undershirt. He must have taken a layer or two off at some point, unbeknownst to you. His skin is warm under your hand, his chest hair soft against your fingertips.

Joel grabs at your wrist but doesn’t take the step to move it away—a warning. Stay still, don’t go further. He’s looking at you by then, eyes wider and more present and darker around the edges than usual, icing out the warm brown.

“Whoever loses goes hunting,” You suggest, “sound fair?”

“That still doesn’t explain the game,” His fingers tightening around your wrist, feeling your quickened pulse under his touch, “besides—you also don’t know shit about hunting game birds.”

“I can manage, Joel,” You argue, “can’t be that hard to kill a fuckin’ duck.”

Joel chuckles at the thought, a subtle smirk pulling at his lips and his cheek dimpling with the expression. He can appreciate the confidence, the stubbornness that you carried with every word.

“Rules?” Joel inquires again, a smile creeping its way onto your face as he takes the bait.

“You come, you lose.” It really was that simple. 

Besides, it was a better way to pass time than tense, uncomfortable silence. Sex could be easy–detached, emotionless, and fun. Something you desperately needed right now.

Joel is quiet for a while, longer than you’d like. The gears are turning in his head, his eyes trailing slowly over your frame, like he’s dedicating it to his memory, before they fall upon your face. His softer around the edges like this, still guarded, but less…vengeful. 

Fuck it, he needed this.

“I hope you can manage huntin’ on your own,” He taunts, earning a squeal of laughter as his fingers dig into your side and pull you to him, your leg swinging over his lap in time with his movements, “‘cause I don’t lose.”

Neither of you bother with anything other than your jeans, wrestling against each other’s confines and flicking open buttons on deft fingers, wiggling them down your legs and off as you leave his lap for a millisecond before he’s pulling you back to him with his hand wrapping around the back of your neck and squeezing, pulling you back far enough that you can see his opposite hand dip to your cunt, thick digits pressing against your clit as your eyes flutter shut.

While you expect intensity, his movements are torturously slow. Slow circles with his thumb against the sensitive nub while his middle finger teases your hole, clenching around the emptiness that yearned to be filled. He only grunts when you wrap your hand around his cock, hardening under your touch as you squeeze, jerking him to full attention.

Joel was a mystery still and you’re working out what he likes as you move, noticing the way his face twitches when you drag your thumb over the head of his cock, spreading the small dribble of precome at the tip as you rub, noticing the way his jaw tenses at the motion.

And you want to watch him, study him. But, his fingers are making it near impossible. Your sated sigh turns into a pathetic whine as he slips a digit inside of you to the first knuckle. It wasn’t nearly enough to quell the growing ache in your core, but then his teeth are on you.

Not his lips or his tongue—teeth digging into your collarbone as he pulls you to him, one large hand pressing against the center of your back and you hiss, cunt pulsing at the tinge of pain it allows but then his tongue is soothing over the marks his teeth left behind, lazy kisses following as he repeats the process along the expanse of your chest and eventually biting into the side of your neck as his fingers circle your clit quickly. 

Your opposite hand digs into his shirt at his waist, crumbling the material in your hand as you hand moves against his shaft quickly, hurried. It didn’t help that you couldn’t think, foolishly you expected to have the upper hand but it was easy to forget how quickly Joel could cloud your mind and rid you of any coherent thought besides want. And with that, Joel adds another finger, sinking them deeper inside of you

“You’re not even puttin’ up a fight,” Joel taunts, “I can feel that pussy squeezin’ around my fingers.”

You gasp, the heat in your gut swirling around as you try desperately to regain control. Your forehead drops against his shoulder, feeling pitiful as you moan and move your hips in time with his efforts and Joel chuckles beside you, so quiet you almost miss it. 

He’s amused clearly. It’s a taunting laugh, no deeper meaning than a ‘gotcha’. Because he did, he had you so wound up against his touch that you couldn’t think, making this game an easy win on his behalf. 

“Let me—let me suck your cock, I wanna—” You beg weakly, rambling incoherently, “—this isn’t fair.”

“You rules,” He retorts, “can’t go switchin’ up on me now, just ‘cause you’re losing.”

You feel the spiral coming, his hot breath against your neck as your hips jerk and the pressure builds. There was no use fighting it, giving into Joel’s selfless touch and his dirty words, moans growing in volume and intensity as he brings you over the edge with a satisfied remark.

“That’s right,” he declares with a deep growl, “go on, give it to me.”

The lewd sounds of your slick as he presses his fingers inside of you a few times as you catch your breath are enough to make you shove him away, too ashamed to allow him anymore satisfaction as he wipes his hand away on the inside of his flannel and reaches for his jeans, his eyes tracking the frown on your face as you settle into your own clothes again.

His fumbling with the button on his jeans as he leaned back, adjusting them better on his hips as he speaks to you, “I’ll be back in an hour,” he tells you, your eyes flicking up curiously despite your silence, “—you’re still hungry, right?”

If anything, you were ravenous now. 

“But, I lost.”

Joel shakes his head in amusement and slight disapproval, a smug smirk pulling at his lips.

“Either way, I was still goin’ out there,” Joel tells you, adjusting his still half-hard cock in his jeans and your gaze pulls down, unconsciously reaching for his arm but he shakes it off, standing on his feet, “—game’s over, I won.”

“But, you didn’t—”

Joel unravels his sleeves where they’re bunched at his elbows, buttoning up the loose buttons on his shirt before he’s wandering, reaching for his jacket folded over the back of a chair, effectively ignoring your attempts at returning the favor. He clearly didn’t care, so neither should you. 

He already seemed satisfied enough by the look on your face, knowing you were overconfident in the moment and hoping to knock him down a peg, but that had backfired. He considers a thought for a moment, knowing it was a bad idea. But, he wasn’t one for good, thoughtful choices as of late.

“Next time,” He offers quietly, tucking a knife away into his coat pocket and slinging the cheap bow over his shoulder, “keep quiet—shouldn’t take long.”

The words come as a shock, any inclination or acknowledgement toward your weird arrangement was enough to make your eyes widen in surprise, but you mask it well. Joel leaves without another word, braving the pouring rain for a desperate meal. It had been a long time since you’ve had a decent, filling meal. A handful of canned food a week, spread out sparsely to keep the three of you just on the edge of satisfaction. It wasn’t the best way to live, but it was all you had. 

The lighting cracks through the sky and is followed by a low, booming thunder that shakes the entire house as you sink into the couch, waiting anxiously for Joel’s return.

-

You can’t be accurate, but it feels like Joel returns right on time.

The storm had dissipated to a steady rain by now, occasionally fading into a soft trickle. He’s nearly drowning, but two ducks richer as he slaps the dead game on the table and slowly strips himself of his damp clothes, struggling with the sopping wet layer of his flannel. The fire was a welcomed warmth, his eyes closing as the floor creaked under your footsteps. He feels you hands before he sees you, helping him silently to unbutton his shirt.

It was harder to undress like this, the layers sticking heavily to his skin. When his flannel is unbuttoned you reach for his jeans, taking them to the sink to squeeze out the excess water before you lay them out in front of the fire, hoping it would be enough to dry them by morning. 

You repeat the process as he discards the layers, a silent chore to busy yourself while he strips to his underwear, not nearly as wet as the rest of his clothes but he hesitates, knowing he had an extra change of clothes in his pack.

He decides against it, finding that his hunger was far too persistent to allow him to go any longer without eating. He nods toward the already skinned and prepped animals on the table.

“Let’s eat,” Joel suggested, “before we ended up starvin’ to death.”

You weren’t going to argue, fetching the ducks off the table and presses them into Joel’s waiting hand, watching as he knelt down in his underwear and reached for two pokers resting in the holder besides the fireplace, situation the soon to be food onto the iron rod before he’s resting them directly into the flame.

You fetch a couple blanket off the couch as you watch, tossing one silently to Joel that he accepts with a nod, his eyes following you as you took a seat across from him, staying quiet as he turned the food a few times, allowing it a hopefully full cook—not that you could complain about eating slightly raw meat at a time like this.

The meal is messy but delicious, wiping your fingers against the blanket wrapped over your shoulders and licking away at the juices left behind and Joel mirrors you, devouring the food without a thought. It feels oddly domestic when you forget about everything happening around you, belly full as you set the iron rod aside and settle deeper into the cover.

You watch curiously, like a cat, while Joel rises to clean up the mess. His movements are slower, his stomach slightly fuller now that he’s eaten but it still amazes you at his broadness when the blanket drops to the floor. He strips out of his underwear without any acknowledgment, tossing them alongside the other slowly drying clothes and begins to depart for the bedroom, stopped by your hand scrambling for his wrist as you appear beside him.

He hadn’t even heard you move, wondering how you managed to keep so quiet. You’re startled by the warmth in his face, his gaze dropping to the fingers wrapped around his arm. His other hand is cupping himself, attempting some layer of decency but you’re only looking at his face.

“Tommy won’t be back ‘til morning,” You remind him, “how about a rematch?”

Joel doesn’t answer for a moment, feeling your stomach flutter with a disappointment you’ve never felt, but then he’s surging forward, fingers curling into your hair and tipping your head back as he kisses you, forcing in a sharp breath as his other hand mirrors and presses you backwards, guiding you toward the bedroom rather than the couch. 

His lips don’t leave, guiding you toward the mattress that was covered in a curtain Joel had ripped from its hinges. This kiss isn’t gentle, driven by lust and a need to keep you quiet. Joel finds it impossible to think around you sometimes and shutting you up was the easier route. So, it wasn’t genuine but it was needy, desperate. His tongue licks into your mouth as his hands trail down your body, lifting at the back of your thighs until you’re seated on the bed, level with his cock and eager to redeem yourself.

You pull at your top that Joel is itching to remove, his fingers tucking under the end of it and pulling up before you’re grabbing at his cock, dragging your tongue along the side and under, tracing the tip of your tongue along the vein that ran from base to tip, taking the thick girth of him into your mouth as you peer up, finding that he was staring right at you, eyes half-lidded and cloudy in the darkness but it was there. Admiration, a crack in his facade. He hisses under his breath when the tip of his cock presses against the back of your throat, repeating the motion until your eyes string with tears, trading your mouth for your tongue against as you circle it around the head.

“Up the bed,” He coaxes, gently pulling you away with a hand pressing against the front of your neck, a frown of disapproval thrown his way, “go on—up.”

You don’t argue though, crawling back on your hands as he tugs at your jeans, removing them alongside your underwear and leaving you in a complete state of undress alongside him. The clothes pile on the floor and Joel climbs over the edge of the mattress, prowling toward you slowly as you breathe consciously, comforted by the spread of Joel’s hand over your chest, his fingertips tickling the center of your throat.

“What’s the prize this time?” You ask softly, terrified that speaking too loud would spear the thick cloud of tension surrounding you both, “We never established that.”

“We can figure it out later,” Joel affirms, allowing the hand at your chest to trail down your stomach, to your core, fingers dipping inside of you again without warning, “when you lose.”

His confidence is attractive, but the smugness only infuriates you further. 

And with full stomachs, nearing the edge of exhaustion, you find that the delirium hits you both faster than you’re expecting. The pace is slow, exhausting—tantalizing and teasing touches that drag you both along the edge for far too long and you can’t tell if Joel’s doing it on purpose, bringing you so close to the end before letting you slip back, but eventually it happens by accident.

You flip him to his back when he’s distracted, his cock trapped between your stomach and his own as you grind yourself against his thigh lazily, his eyebrow pinching together at the surge of the sensation that hits him and he comes without warning, painting his stomach with the spurts of cum that spill from his cock with a low groan in his throat, barely able to keep his eyes open.

“You lose.”

Your voice is distant in his ears, but he chuckles quietly at your words.

By then, you’re both too tired to move and fall asleep as is, pressed against his chest as his cum dries against your skin and surely you’ll both regret it come dawn, but for now, sleep consumes you.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Sep 26th

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1. Hi good evening, I'm looking for a wangxian fanfic, where yu ziyuan was Jin guangshan's concubine, if not You already found it, on an old list, and I would love to read it again @glass-madness

FOUND? OOC! by -niehuaisang

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2. Hi there! I've been trying to find this fic to re-read for a while now and I'm hoping that someone else recognizes it (and that it's not deleted!)

I believe it was in the "LWJ marries the Yiling Patriarch" category and there was a Yiling Wei sect or something similar (although it's been a very long time and I don't recall anyone else actually being in the sect so I could be wrong on either/both counts). WWX often went back and forth between the Burial Mounds and Baoshan Sanren's mountain via portal (?) as they were trying to cure Lan Yi of her spiritual malady (?). Last I still remember it was a WIP, and one of the little details that sticks in my mind was that BSSR had gotten WWX doing decorative knotwork to keep his hands busy, so the palace had incredibly intricate pieces, like, everywhere, and he often gifted it to people.

Hopefully that sounds familiar to someone; thank you for all you do! @tevokkia

2 check #17 on this old post, it also mentions knotwork and BSSR and might be what you're looking for

FOUND? 💖🔒love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, immortal WWX, slow burn, pining, arranged marriages)

FOUND? inevitable everything by isabilightwood (E, 193k, WangXian, WQ/MM, JYL/JZX, BSSR/LY, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, but WWX is BSSR's disciple/adoptive grandson too, the cultivation sects think this is a, War Prize AU, it's actually self-arranged marriage, Arranged Marriage, yin iron shenanigans, LWJ Has Friends, Mutual Pining, Pining while fucking, LWJ Has a YLLZ Kink, Switch WangXian, BDSM, Submissive LWJ, Dominant WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, magical illness of a side character (who will get better), Rope Bondage, Impact Play, Rimming, Bottom LWJ, Temperature Play, Face-Fucking, Breathplay, (talisman-based breathplay to be specific), Cock Warming, Public Scene, no one gets naked in public this is the sense of WWX invents the, Remote Controlled Vibrator, Semi-Public Sex, Outdoor Sex, Blindfolds, one qingmian smut scene with oral and fingering, Minor Character Death, All Sex Scenes Are Skippable!)

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3. Hello! I’m looking for a short fic w 1-3 chapters where there’s canon divergence bc wwx was really pretty due to his dad. I remember in it, when jfm brings him back to the lotus pier, yzy actually denies any rumors of a possible affair bc he looks so much like wcz

I also remeber in it wwx uses his beauty to stop wrh from going into a qi deviation and stops the sun shot campaign as a result

FOUND! The Most Beautiful Man Alive (and his gremlin son) by meyari (T, 4k, WangXian, attempted child molestation (discussed), sexual assault (awareness of the possibility, it doesn't happen ever, beauty as a tool, Smart WWX, Protective JYL, Protective JC, Good Parent JFM, Protective YZY, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies)

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4. Hi, can you please help me find this fic. It’s a modern au where lan zhan and Wei Ying are soulmates. Wei Ying finds out because he saw a painting of Han Guang Jun and thinks his soulmate is dead. He starts to work in the museum operated by xiao xingchen or song lan where they collect stuff that belongs to Han Guang Jun and Yiling Laozu. At the end turns out lan zhan also went to the museum and they kept missing each other because they went at different timings. Thankssss @marshmallowbeats

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5. Hi! I'm looking for a wangxian omegaverse ao3 fic. It's in a futuristic cyber/tech setting where people have machine implants in their bodies. From what I remember the synopsis goes like this: Wei Ying was travelling from one planet to another with a baby a-yuan, his implants fail and Lan Zhan finds them. LZ takes them in and mistakes a-yuan as his biological son with WY. Some other details like the yin tiger seal being an AI and WY having dirt on the Jins. Thank you very much!!!!! @mithesimmer

FOUND? I'll buy you the moon (I'll buy you two) by Thesaurus_with_no_words (E, 27k, WangXian, Science Fiction, Space, Rebels, Space Opera, On the Run, Promoted To Parent, Robots, Androids, Mechs, Battle Mechs, Hurt/Comfort, Technopathy, Willful and Deliberate Baby and Wife Acquisition, Porn With Plot, Mpreg)

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6. hello! idk if this site is still active, but im looking for a mdzs time travel fic where wwx returned during cloud recesses study era. there was a scene where he slits his throat because he thinks its better if he just dies (everyone worries about him including madam yu)

FOUND? 💖 (Un)Hidden truth by Sarah_R (M, 291k, wangxian, major character death, time travel, characters watching their show, suicide attempt, panic attacks, self-harm, nightmares, hurt/comfort, angst, WIP)

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7. looking for a fic modern au established relationship one shot wangxian where lwj gets appendicitis (i think it was that, it was some kind of pain he had to have a procedure for) and he like wakes wwx up next to him so that he can go to the hospital and wwx feels worried/guilty/stressed bc he didn’t notice and lwj didn’t say anything can’t remember the name ! @willesnelson

FOUND? The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad (Valentine’s) Day by GhostySword, Two4Joy (T, 7k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Modern, Established Relationship, Sickfic, Valentine's Day, Hospitalization, Meet the Family, LWJ's Rabbit Children)

FOUND? like bunnies by idleorbitals (T, 4k, WangXian, Modern, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst)

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8. Hello! I had to switch phones and lost all my fanfic open tabs, and I'm trying to remember the names of all of them. One I cannot recall for the life of me was a WIP with only one chapter where during the Burial Mounds Siege Wei Wuxian was basically sort of rescued by Lan Wangji but then put to trial by the cultivation sects and he agreed to be imprisioned as long as they guaranteed A-Yuan's safety. I remember it being a sort of Madam Lan situation, or something. Can you help me?

FOUND? 在魔鬼的房间门口 | at the devil's room doorstep by thehundrethpoet (M, 22k, WIP, LSZ & WWX, JC & JL & WWX & LSZ, WangXian, LSZ & LWJ & WWX, WWX survives the First Siege of the Burial Mounds, But at what cost?, Post-First Siege of the Burial Mounds, WWX Adopts LSZ, WSZ Supremacy: a manifesto in various poorly written fics, XY will have no rights here, JGY also has no rights here, Child LSZ, the Madam Làn-ing of WWX, Good Kid LSZ, LWJ Has Feelings, And I hurt All Of Them, Protective LWJ, Pining LWJ, Good Parents LWJ & WWX, JC Has Self-Esteem Issues, Good Sibling JC, Good Uncle JC, JC & WWX Reconciliation, JL Has a Lot of Uncles, JL is Bad at Feelings, JL is a Good Nephew, JL is a Good Cousin, JL & LSZ Friendship, JL Swears, Protective WWX, WWX is Best Father, Good Parent WWX, BAMF WWX, things go to shit for a long long time, and people are very unhappy for like half of this work, but they end alright!)

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9. A) Hi! This is for fic finder. I dont remember much and i dont remember if it was modern with cultivation. Focus on junior quartet. Wen remnant live. They are on summer camp that the jin organized. A-yuan comes to the camp with JWY (im not sure about this). A-yuan then befriended jl, oyzz, ljy. I think they are in the same room (dorm room but its a cottage? I dont know what its called). In group activity, a-yuan sneak up to meet up with wn and the other three sneak up to follow a-yuan. Long story short, a-yuan, ljy, and oyzz is invited to lanling because they are jl friend (either because that or they rescued him). The one that invite them is either jgs or jgy (i think it was jgs). They tried to track wwx but always failed. When jgy comes to the summer camp, they tried to disguise a-yuan as lan diciple but failed. And then jgy found out that a-yuan is wwx son and forced them to go to lanling. In lanling, a-yuan wants to leave and jl, oyzz, and ljy helped. Su She is the one that tracked them down when they tried to run away. Thats all i can remember. Thanks

B) Hi! This is for fic finder. Its a modern with cultivation fic i think. Wen remnant lives and in hiding. Focused on junior quartet. A-yuan comes to summer camp that the jin organized with JWY. A yuan the befriended jl, ljy, and oyzz. They are in the same room (dorm room but a cottage? I dont know what it is called). Jl, ljy, and oyzz is kinda suspicious of a-yuan because he is the only one that are not affliated with a sect. The three of them followed a-yuan in secret when a-yuan sneak up to meet up with wn. Long story short, jgs invited ljy, oyzz, and a-yuan to lanling because they are jl friends. When jgy comes to the camp, they tried to disguise a-yuan as lan diciple and failed. Jgy forced them to go to lanling (honestly i think he kinda kidnapped them). I think he found out that a-yuan is wwx son and used him to lure out wwx. In lanling, jl, ljy, and oyzz helped a-yuan to leave. Su She is the one that responsible of them. Thats all i can remember. Thanks! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

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10. Hi, lovely people. I'm looking for a fic where LWJ takes WWX out the Burial Mounds, along w/all the Wens (against their will, but keeping 'em safe) & brings 'em to Gusu. He turns WWX into an omega w/a "recipe" of Wen Qing (who does it just for their own safety), until WY gets pregnant of Sizhu & Jingyi (not sure abt the names), but he often doubts abt having being an omega b4 & he's always being forced to have sex. LZ treats him rough & poorly, even in front of their sons. WWX ends up getting tired & runs away w/the kids, leaves 'em in the woods & jumps off a cliff. (Prob. Dark LWJ) TYSM! @einherjermineord

FOUND?🔒forfeit by eightroses (E, 12k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dark, Dark LWJ, Rape/Non-con Elements, Dubious Consent, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Alpha to Omega transformation, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, Omega WWX, Sexual Coercion, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Forced Feminization, Mpreg, Forced Pregnancy, Fainting, Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Vomiting, Rough Sex, Knotting, Medical Inaccuracies, Body Horror, Abuse, Domestic Violence, Trauma, No happy ending here)

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11. I’m looking for a wangxian fic where wangji tells wei ying what he did in the cold pond (the handfasting) while their in the cloud recesses and it diverges from there @wrappedaroundxielian

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12. For FicFinder – trying to find a fic I thought I had marked for later. I think it was modern with magic au? I think LWJ takes over an old theatre called the burial mounds which used to be WWX's? In this AU I think LWJ thinks WWX is dead or he didn't know WWX until he bought the theatre. honestly not sure this will be found but I appreciate any clues all the same. tysm for all you do running this blog. @itsallwearecalledtodo

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13. Hi, I’m looking for an ABO fic where WWX is an O and LWJ is an A and they’re soulmates. But WWX has been hiding his identity and pretending to be a B, because he got abused in his old pack and had run away (?) I think. @plzloveme

FOUND?🔒backfire by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 115k, wangxian, LWJ/MXY, One-Sided MXY/WWX, MXY/NMJ, Modern, BDSM AU, Biologically Determined Dom/sub Roles, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Sadism, Masochism, Past Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Self-Harm, BDSM as a Form of Self-Harm, Minor Character Death(s), Arson, Shades of Black Widow WWX, Extremely Dubious Consent, Rape/Non-con Elements, Normalized Homosexuality and Bisexuality, Normalized Polyamory, nonsexual bdsm, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Pining WWX, jealous WWX, Touch-Starved WWX, Professional Dominant WWX, Sex Worker WWX, gentle dom LWJ, Mean Dom LWJ, oblivious LWJ, Past WC/WWX, Minor JGY/WWX, Mentioned WWX/Others, Emotional Infidelity, Angst with a Happy Ending, endgame wangxian, MXY Also Gets a Happy Ending, the tags are scary but i promise there's some lightheartedness too, wangxian love one another so much, WWX is healed by the power of nonsexual bdsm and friendship, and then gets bdsm'd quite sexually and happily by the love of his life, Additional Warnings In Author's Note)

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14. hello! i’m looking for a fic where jc post-siege finds wwx’s diaries in the burial mounds and he gets transported???? into the memories of each book

FOUND! Waiting On You by SmellsLikeDeanSpirit (M, 26k, JC & WWX, WangXian, WIP, Graphic Depicitions of Violence, Major Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Memories, Time Travel, Sort Of, the characters watching the show trope but different, WWX has magical diaries that force the reader to experience his memories, JC finds them and reads them, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Bashing, Bad Parent YZY, YZY Bashing, Canonical Character Death, he comes back tho, JC regrets, JC Needs a Hug, WWX Needs a Hug)

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15. Hi, this is for fic finder! I’m looking for a fic where wei ying and lan zhan are betrothed (I can’t remember if they were betrothed since childhood or during the cloud recesses arc. But basically the jiangs agree to the betrothal because they expect wei ying to be miserable in cloud recesses with all the gusu lan rules. However when they see how wei ying is actually loved and respected, they get super mad. I think madam yu gets mad because her own children are not in loving marriages?

There’s a possibility it might’ve been a/b/o but I’m not sure if i’m getting fics mixed up here 😭

But please help me find this fic! I’m always so grateful for the work you guys do

FOUND!🔒 Alliance AU series by Ilona22 (E, 21k, WangXian, JYL/OC, Arranged Marriage, A/B/O Dynamics, PWP, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Intersex Omegas, Not JC Friendly, Matchmaking, canon Jiang family dynamics, Family time, Night Hunts, Mention of male omega pregnancy, Intrigue at Jinlintai, Mentions of Prostitution, War, Conflict between characters)

NOT FOUND! in case you ever foolishly forget by RavenclawLoki (E, 19k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Engagement, fast burn, Fluff, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Bad Person YZY, YZY Bashing, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, LWJ & WWX are decent at communicating hense the fast burn, Good Uncle LQR, Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Established Relationship, BAMF JYL, she has given up on defending bad parents and we simply must support her, it's yanli's world we are just living in it, Demisexuality, Asexuality, Sex Positive Asexuality, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Soft WangXian, Implied Switching, LWJ shows love by slow blinking, Loss of Virginity, First Time, gonna add Out of Character tag to be safe regarding YL)

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16. Hello ^^ I am looking for a fic where LWJ and JC traveled back in time and LWJ was the first one that found Wwx on the streets. Thx! @yoonieby

FOUND? A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ)

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17. hi can you help me find a fic where lan zhan participates in a wei ying engagement tournament. Lwj wore a mask so as not to be recognized @silvanagomes87

FOUND? travelers through the empty gate by stiltonbasket (M, 107k, WangXian, royalty au, mistaken identity, emperor WWX, poor LWJ, forced marriage, (by LWJ himself), confused WWX, parenthood, misunderstandings, empress LWJ, fluff & humor, married life, angst w/ happy ending, WIP)

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18. Hey hi, I’m looking for a missing wangxian fic. It takes place during the sunshot campaign, lwj and wwx are cursed(?) so that they feel eachother’s emotions, lwj pines and wwx is acting aloof and angry, lwj goes to jiang cheng and asks to marry wwx and lwj hits the table when jc insults wwx. Lwj and wwx share a dream and wwx is convinced that it’s all in his head before lwj walks into his tent repeating what he said in the dream. Eventually, lwj and wwx are married before the last battle and lwj is grievously injured. There’s a happy ending tho. Please lmk if you find this, I’ve spent days looking @remembertosaygoodbye

FOUND? The dreamers. by orange_crushed (E, 17k, WangXian, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Spells & Enchantments, Canon Divergence, Oral Sex, Penetrative Sex, War, Canon-Typical Violence, Sunshot Campaign, Temporary Character Death, The Character Dies But Does Not Stay Dead Trust Me, Resurrection, Suicidal Thoughts, Loss of Identity, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst with a Happy Ending, Injury Recovery, Trauma, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, War Is Hell Etcetera, I Promise The Characters Do Not Stay Dead and Will Absolutely Be Okay, Masturbation, Fantasy, Very Brief Mention of Burial-Mounds-Era Cannibalism, Major Character Death... but only for a minute honestly!!, Awkward First Times, Marriage Proposal)

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19. Hi! This is for fic finder. I dont remember much, but i think it was mentioned that nmj is suspicious of the jin after the first burial mound siege. After he sees that the wen is just an old person. When jin rusong dies, nmj secretally goes to He sect and hide the non combatan in the sect. Thats all i can remember. Thanks @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

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20. hello! I'm looking for this wangxian fic I think it is based on the song Driver's License by Olivia Rodrigo, it does not have a happy ending since wwx and lwj do not end up together in the end

thank you!

hello! thanks for answering my question in the fic finder post! question #20 I reviewed the summary, but unfortunately that is not the fic 😭 I remember that in the end wwx marries someone else (but not lwj) thanks for responding! 💗😊 and sorry for not explaining my question well

NOT FOUND! driver’s license by cryptenhope (T, 5k, WangXian, Modern AU, Post-Break Up, Making Up, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending if you read the ending notes, Ambiguous/Open Ending)

FOUND? 🔒 drivers license by AG1234VL (T, 11k, WWX/Other, WangXian, LWJ/LQY, Modern AU, Hurt No Comfort, slight comfor?Non-Chronological, Song fic, Crying WWX, ice cream and beer, breakup weight gain, Lots of Crying, Angst, Homophobia, from lqr, wangxian breakup)

~*~

[crystalflygeo]

Sinful voice pt.2 ft “Morax”/Prof!Zhongli + fem!reader (modern AU)

cw/tags: Voice kink, daddy kink, dirty talk, female masturbation, oral and fingering implied but like it's just fantasizing?? petnames (sweetheart, babygirl, dear) Reader is DOWN BAD LMAO and suffers second hand embarrasment.

notes: EVERYBODY SAY THANK YOU @localplaguenurse!!They gave me a F A N T A S T I C idea that just inspired me to continue this wip and ended up not even being featured here yet but HEY... future p3!! //winkwink. That said I did NOT expect how much this would blow up and how ppl loved it and wanted more, y'all gonna make me giddy and/or cry pls (consider checking some of my other stuff too mayhaps? <3) Anyway I REALLY hope this delivers bc boi am I afraid of not meeting expectations vcgvhjbnjnmklal

Weeks had passed since your ‘big discovery’ and you still weren’t quite sure what to do with this information.

At first you chalked it up to just your imagination because… there was no way, right? Your new professor could just have a… similar voice… yeah… that was it.

Except the more you listened to his long-winded explanations the more you picked up certain words and intonations here and there and you knew you were just fooling yourself.

A lot had happened in these last few weeks, from organizing your new living space, to meeting your roommates, to grocery shopping, classes, and you had even considered the idea of maybe getting a part time job somewhere close by. There were plenty of small shops and places around the college campus neighborhood that not only offered valuable services to poor college students but also the opportunity to make a bit of money to help them out.

It had all been rather exhausting and stressing, exams, essays and projects were already starting too…

Lying back in bed you sigh and roll over, feeling the familiar faint throb of desire pooling between your legs, one you’d never really managed to sate with a person so much as with fantasies. But tonight, as you lay awake in bed aching for your usual touch, you feel conflicted.

Ever since that very first day you just couldn’t bring yourself to open up Morax’s website again. Hell, a new month had rolled over and you’d dutifully paid the subscription along with your other usual bills.

Part of you was itching for it, curious, frustrated.

And very very horny.

Thing is, your fantasies had often featured a faceless man, strong, imposing and dominating, taking you like a blushing maiden and making you beg for the pleasure he’d give, allowing him to do anything he wanted with your heated body. Now that man had a face… your history professor Mr. Zhongli.

You used to get off to imaginings of Morax tying you up and having his way with you, teasing you, fucking you into the mattress and making you cum over and over. Now it was Mr. Zhongli. Polite and courteous Mr. Zhongli with his refined gestures and well-mannered demeanor.

You wanted to cum, to reach that high and come undone and let out all the pent-up stress and frustration until you melted into a puddle and didn’t have to think about classes or money or life anymore, but the second your fingers began to rub at your clit, Mr. Zhongli’s voice would hit you with that even tone he used when scolding someone for gossiping during his lecture.

“Disgraceful behavior…”

A hot flash of shame burned at your face but for whatever reason it just turned you on more. You wanted to get fucked so bad you felt like you were going insane. You wanted that man to pin you up against a wall and thrust inside you until you turned into an incoherent moaning mess. You wanted to get bent over at his desk and filled up with cum until you were left gaping and oozing and told what a good girl you are. You wanted to get fucked on your hands and knees squirming and crying from overstimulation.

Lying in bed, you squeezed a pillow against your face and screamed.

You wanted to fuck your handsome history professor Mr. Zhongli.

-------------------------------------

It’s barely first period and you couldn’t concentrate.

You were sleepy, hungry and overall, in a bad mood. Standing in line at the cafeteria for a much-needed morning coffee and some snack you yawn and browse around your phone. Math. Gods you hated math.

At least you didn’t have history today. That was a whole other can of worms.

You figured you’d eventually have to get over it but it was just… so bizarre. Mr. Zhongli was quite the popular teacher, you’d learned. Extremely knowledgeable in various topics, a strict but kind and just teacher and good looking on top of all.

No wonder the upperclassmen flocked around him, probably half the campus lowkey had a crush on him, male and female students alike. It was genuinely a miracle he was not married or even had a significant other apparently.

And he was also Morax. Sensual dominating Morax who would just not leave your head-

“Good morning, how may I help you?” The cashier called out cheerfully and you pulled out of your thoughts.

“Morn-”

“Good morning.”

You gasp so sharply you almost launch into a coughing fit; your eyes widen and whole body tenses and oh shit-

Somehow you manage to trip and fall in the clumsiest, stupidest way possible.

“Woah-!”

“Miss?!”

Except you don’t actually fall, but someone manages to hold you, a hand grabbing your arm and the other pressed against your back steadying you as your poor brain goes into overdrive.

That voice!

It’s him!

Too close!

What is he doing here?!

Way too close!!

The seconds it takes for you to react feel like ages as you stare up at Mr. Zhongli like a deer caught in the headlights.

His hands are warm…

His cologne smells soooo good.

His eyes are gorgeous!

He’s so hot!!

“Are you alright Miss l/n?”

“I’M FINE! I-I’m fine!” You yelp, way louder than intended (or normal) and quickly scoot back to put some distance between yourself and the handsome professor. He picks up his dropped bag and dusts it a little, as well as his clothes, still pristine as ever. “I… think I got a little dizzy s-sorry I haven’t eaten yet and… yeah…” You chuckle nervously.

You see him frown slightly. “Going without food for long periods of time can be quite dangerous.” He states, obviously concerned. “Maybe you should head to the infirmary see Dr Baizhu, you look quite pale and the dizziness could be a symptom of low blood pressure. Do you have anything sugary to eat or drink?”

“I w-was about to buy something…”

“It might be best for you to sit down for the moment.” He nods, resolute. “Allow me.”

…And that’s how you end up sitting at one of the nearby small tables with a little glazed donut and a bottle of water, courtesy of your dear history professor.

You stare at the little treat in your hands, half eaten already as he insisted, at least your hands stopped shaking and some color returned to your face. Mr. Zhongli seemed content enough, sitting across from you.

“T-Thank you.” You mumble, refusing to meet his gaze. “How much was it? I’ll pay you back I have som-”

He sees you rummaging through you bag and raises a hand. “None of that, you needed it. I’m glad to see you’re looking a little better, please take care of yourself, health is very important.”

“Um, ok.”

Then he smiles, and it’s gentle, soft. “You’re Miss l/n, right? One of the new students from my history class?”

Huh?   

“You didn’t do very well on the essay assignment…”

Ack. You sigh and take another bite of the small donut. “History is just… not my strong suit. Too many dates and names to remember.”

He chuckles and oh God who gave him the right to make that sound? Your skin tingles.

“Fair enough. I know my classes can be a little daunting, I’m very particular about certain topics and tend to ramble sometimes. But I can tell you really put effort into classes and pay attention to my lectures.” He looks pensive for a moment. “Let me propose something. I usually impart some private tutoring sessions to students on more advanced levels, but I could make an exception for you. If you have time available it could help lift your grades.”

You stare up at him in surprise, grateful to not have a mouthful of donut or you would have probably choked again like an idiot. Did you hear that right? A private tutoring session after hours at his office?!

Now that sounded like a title for one of Morax’s audios: Hot professor bangs his stu-NOPE.    

“I-I’ll think about it! Sure.”

He nods and gets up, sparing a glance at his watch. “I have to leave now, please do consider it. And do try to eat at more regular intervals and take better care of yourself, you look quite tired.”

A polite way of saying you had marked eyebags, yep.

“I’ll try.” You mumble. Suddenly a little sad to see him go. “Professor… thank you.”

There’s that smile again, you could melt. “You’re welcome, my dear.”

----------------------------------

And yet that night, you’re once again rolling in bed unable to sleep.

My dear.

You couldn’t stop thinking on the whole incident, you’d certainly made a fool of yourself but the memory of his strong arms holding you, touch firm but gentle. The scent of his cologne that you wish had clung more on your clothes.

You really were down bad, this is ridiculous…

You bite your lip.

You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

Oh but you will, just one wouldn’t hurt.

Quite the opposite actually…

Unable to contain yourself (or your horniness) you take no time to pop in your earbuds and start scrolling. Hmm… there had been a couple new additions in these last weeks.

You can’t help but wonder why he does these. When. How. You never really considered or thought on it before, Morax has quite a lot of patrons (not a surprise) and thought you know nothing about sound and video recording or editing technically he’s making money just by using that honeyed velvet voice of his. That had to bring in some cash, right?

But then again, if you knew anything about these types of subscriptions it was that they required constancy and that meant hard work and dedication. Did he enjoy these? He really puts in the effort given the amazing quality…

You can’t help but picture your handsome professor unwinding a little after a long day, casual clothes, a cup of that tea he loves and setting up to record those dirty words and sinful moans.

Did he sometimes get worked up about these too? Did he also touch himself during or after recording a particular scenario? Sitting back slightly sprawled on the chair, brow slightly furrowed, stroking his co-   

Aaahhhh you needed to stop thinking on him.

…

Yeah right.

“Daddy eats you out and prepares you for his big cock.”

Well, this looks promising.   

The audio starts like many others, with some dialogue from him and setting the scene and oh… you had kind of missed the playful teasing tilt of Morax’s voice. You can’t help but chuckle lightly, this scene is so domestic. He calls you “sweetheart”, “babygirl” and there are the kissy noises.

You wish you could kiss him…

“Hmmm… daddy’s gonna get you nice and ready. Spread your legs for me.” Oh, you certainly do. “Daddy’s gonna get down here between them.”

You rub at your tights slowly, sensual, remembering his larger hands.

“Oh your little pussy is already so wet and swollen.” Morax coos, voice soft and airy. “You think it’s already ready I know.” He chuckles. “But you know daddy’s cock is big, yeah, your little pussy’s gonna need to stretch a little bit hm?” A kiss.

You whine.

“Shhh daddy’s gonna make you feel so good sweetheart.”

Lewd wet noises invade your ears and you waste no time starting to stroke yourself, slow and tender. He groans and sighs and you whimper, hips jolting from the bed.

Gods how was he so…

“Yeah… nice and gentle hmm, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

His words were a complete 180 from the long lectures about politics and wars, and yet, his voice…

“D-Daddy…” You sigh. “Please!”

“Oh I love how sensitive your little clit is… you like that babygirl?”

You rub and stroke at the little bundle of nerves and see stars already.

You were so pent up, so needy. Your orgasm was already building too quickly, mewling and whining at his words, his noises, trying to match the pace and follow his instructions.

“That’s a good girl.”

“F-Fuck-”

Your eyebrows furrow, your body trembles and you bit your lip to contain your noises. Morax warns you when he adds a finger, and after a few seconds another, chuckling low at how you clench, praising you, coaxing out your pleasure.

You can only picture him at the end of the bed, licking and sucking obscenely at your juices, pumping those slender fingers in and out, in and out…

That tantalizing voice teasing you, your fingers knotting that dark brown hair tipped amber, golden eyes staring up at you half-lidded but feral and fascinated. Focusing on you. Only you.

“A-Ah! Mhmm…”

“Now I want you to cum babygirl come on, in five… four…”

You stroke and pump faster, frantic, lost in that rapidly approaching high.

“Three… two…”   

You cry out, a spark cursing through your veins.

“One… hmmm that’s it my dear.”

“Z-Zhongli…!”

He ushers you out of your release with soft words before saying something else, but your mind is floating and hazy. Your take off the earbuds and place them away catching your breath for a moment, arm draped over your face, the audio still has a long way to go but you’re drowsy and sleepy so you decide to call it a night.

It is only a little later, once you’re done with a quick cleaning and putting everything away, curled up under the covers and dozing off that you realize…

Shit.

You’d called not for Morax but Zhongli.

[wolfjackle-creates]

Answer My Call Chapter 2 Part 2

Happy WIP Wednesday! So last week, we had a tie between Bring Me Home and Answer My Call. The tie breaker didn't come in until Monday after I'd already finished the entire Bring Me Home chapter and half the Answer My Call one.

So y'all will be getting two fic upates today then I'm going to sleep. I'm tired after a full day of work with a call out. XP

If you want a say in next week's update, vote in the poll!

Story Summary: Jazz, Sam, and Tucker manage to help Danny escape the GIW, but they can't follow him and are under too much surveillance to communicate with each other. Sam snuck Danny a phone as he ran and Jazz sends him a text every day, hoping to hear he is all right. But he's not the one getting the texts.

Jason was away for several months on a mission with the Outlaws. When he finally returns home, he is surprised to find dozens of messages from an unknown number begging a Danny to tell her he's okay. Looks like there's not going to be a break between missions this time around.

Chapter 1: AO3 (user locked), Tumblr

Chapter 2: Part 1

Word Count: 1.3k

-----

After the performances—an odd mix where the main band yielded the stage to a poet or an accordionist when they needed a break—Jazz and Todd continued to mingle.

Jazz waited until about fifteen minutes had passed before reaching into her bag to search for her phone. “Todd!” she cried.

“Jazz? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my phone! Shit, what time is it?”

Todd pulled out his. “Eleven fifty. Did you have it when we arrived?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t checked it. Where could it have gone?”

One of the other attendees broke into the conversation. “Lost your phone? What does it look like? We can help you look.” She was a woman in her forties or fifties. Next to her was another woman who nodded her agreement.

“Thank you, that’d be great.” It didn’t take much effort to bring tears to her eyes—all she had to do was remember that Danny was still missing. “It’s a Samsung in an unfortunately standard black case. The lock screen has picture of and my brother. My name’s Jazz, by the way. And this is Todd.”

“I’m Mel and this is my wife Jayden. I’m sure we’ll find your phone soon enough.” Then, in a voice loud enough to cut through the chatter, “Oi! Anyone see an unattended phone lying around? Jazz here misplaced hers?”

Even Mel, though, had to admit defeat after half an hour of searching through the entire apartment yielded nothing.

Jazz sat down on the floor and let herself cry. “And by now we’ve missed the last train. I’m sorry, Todd. What a disaster.”

“Hey, no. None of that, now. Tonight’s been a blast. This sucks for sure, but I can get us an uber or something—”

“How far are you kids going?” asked Jayden.

“Too far,” cried Jazz. “I live out of the city. Parked at Alewife and took the red line in.”

Jayden winced. “Well, we parked nearby. Is there somewhere close we can drive you?”

Jazz blinked up at them. “You’d do that?” She turned to Todd. “I just want to go to sleep. Is there a motel nearby we could stay at?”

Todd pulled out his phone and searched. “Looks like there’s a Holiday inn just down the street or a La Quinta that’s a little cheaper just a bit further out.” He smiled ruefully at the women who’d been helping them. “If you could get us to either place, we’d be more than grateful.”

One of the residents, an older man named Rob, took a seat next to them. “Hey, kiddo. What’s your email? We can contact you if anyone finds it.”

Jazz smiled at him gratefully and gave it. If it wasn’t so necessary, she’d feel bad for lying to and worrying all these people. But they were in so much danger. To the women, she said, “Would the La Quinta be too far out of the way? If I end up having to get a new phone, I’d like to save as much money as possible. Thank God I still have my wallet.”

“Sweetie, it’s totally fine,” assured Mel. “We’d take you all the way home if we didn’t live on the opposite side of the city.”

“Thank you, but that’s really okay. I just want to go to bed and worry about it tomorrow.”

“Come on, dear.” Mel reached out a hand to help Jazz up. “Let’s get you cleaned up then we’ll be on our way.”

Jazz thanked Rob for his help before Mel led her towards the bathroom with an arm around her shoulder.

Less than forty minutes later, Todd and Jazz were alone in a hotel room together. She pulled the blinds shut and finally let herself relax.

When she turned back to the room, Todd was looking at her with one eyebrow raised. “Want to explain to me what all of”—he threw out his hands—“that was about?”

Jazz glared back at him. “You didn’t tell me you died! Damn it, if I’d known in advance—!” she cut herself off and took a deep breath. “Never mind. What’s done is done.”

Todd was deadly still. “How do you know that?”

Jazz threw her hands in the air. “It’s obvious to anyone who knows how to tell. Including the Guys in White who I told you are dangerous to ghosts and liminals! I had plans for what I’d say when they found us, but those won’t work if you’re dead!”

“Wait.” Todd held up his hands. “You’re saying I can be persecuted under those Anti-Ecto acts?”

“Yes! You’re more ghostly than me, and I am watched every minute of every day.”

Todd narrowed his eyes and stared at her for a moment before asking, “Have you heard of Lazarus Water or had any dealings with the League of Assassins?”

“No! I have no idea what you’re talking about. Quit changing the subject. My brother is the only thing that matters and you and Red Robin promised to help me find him.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Jason’s eyes flashed green, and Jazz glared right back at him. “The League of Assassins are the ones who brought me back to life with Lazarus Water. I need to know if you and your brother are mixed up with them because that would change our approach. If it’s a rogue government agency, that’s one thing. If it’s also the league, we’ve got a whole set of other problems.”

Jazz sat down heavily on one of the bed. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t— It’s been a long few months. After a long few years.”

Todd sat down across from her and nodded for her to continue. “Tell me what happened.”

“It started three years ago. My parents, they’re ghost hunters. Been building weapons to detect and hunt ghosts since before I was born. But three years ago is when they finally finished their life’s work: the ghost portal. Only it didn’t work at first. Then my brother Danny and his friends decided to be stupid. They went to check it out. I wasn’t there and the three of them don’t talk about it, but something happened down there that day.

“My brother died and the portal was working. Only, he didn’t die all the way. He became half-ghost, half-human. And that would have been bad enough, but with the portal open, ghosts came through from the Infinite Realms, sometimes called the Ghost Zone by humans. Some were benign, but many of them came to cause problems or hurt people. Danny stopped them.”

Todd held up a hand to stop her. “Your brother became a supehero? How didn’t the Justice League hear about this? How old was he?”

Jazz shrugged. “I don’t know about the Justice League. It could be that no one ever contacted them. It could be they didn’t believe us. And it could be that no one cared. Danny felt responsible though, since it was his fault the portal turned on. And he was the only one with the ability to stop the ghosts, so…” She held up her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Todd closed his eyes and let out a careful breath. “I can guarantee you the JL didn’t know about your town. A fourteen-year-old would never have been left alone to monitor an interdimensional portal if we had.”

Jazz had no idea what she thought of that. Danny had done it all alone. So finding out he could have had help? She shook her head. What-ifs were a waste of time. “Well, he did. But the government didn’t like that a ghost was the main defense against ghosts. So the Ghost Investigation Ward, more commonly called the Guys in White or GIW was formed. At first, they were as incompetent as any other ghost hunter. But they didn’t stay that way.”

“What happened to your brother, Jazz?” asked Todd.

-----

Next

Sorry to end it there. But it's the right length and I need to go to bed. XP

Hope you enjoy!

I no longer do tag lists, but please check out the Subscription Post if you want notifications when I update.

Not much to say about this one. When I went to the event at this location, my friend and I very nearly missed the last train. It was pulling into the station as we entered. If we'd been 2 or 3 minutes later, we would've been stranded so far from my car, I don't even want to know what that uber or cab would've cost.

Luckily Jazz and Jason had a few good Samaritans nearby.

Next up: We learn more about what happened to Danny!

[billlydear]

SUPERNOVA - BILLY HARGROVE X READER (PART ONE)

word count: 3135 // masterlist | inbox (please request) | WIP list

Summary: max's english tutor has a black eye and a shitty alibi. billy sees right through it.

Contents/Warnings: fem!reader, angst, hurt/comfort, eventual happy ending, mentions of abuse, injuries mentioned (black eye), reader is abused by her mother just like billy is by his father

A/N: thank you for 300 followers!!! have this as a little gift from me to you <3 basic biology part three is in the works, don't worry! i just wrote this in a fit of sleep deprived passion the other night after thinking about it for a week or so and i wanted to share :) i hope you enjoy! the ending of this is pretty straightforward and, though i plan to write more parts, this can be read on its own for now.

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! your feedback motivates me to write more, so thank you for your support :-)

There’s never a good reason for Max to stomp into Billy’s room. It’s always either her demanding a ride somewhere, asking for money, or shouting at him to turn his music down. This time, though, there’s no music playing, and it’s nearing 11:00 PM, so he’s not sure why she’d need money or a ride.

He glances up at her, really more of a glare, through his eyelashes, reclined against the wall as he lounges on his bed. He’s got a magazine in hand and the pages are as boring as the cover was, but he’d rather stare at faded jet ski advertisements than read the book he’s supposed to be working on for English.

She stops just inside the doorway, jacket on and shoes laced. He narrows his eyes at her, something of a question, and she sounds just as venomous as he looks when she replies.

“I need to borrow your window.” She mutters, piercing eyes set on him.

He’s heard her say a lot of weird things since they started living together. Mom, I can’t find my left rollerskate, Why is my bra in the freezer?, and We’re not going in the theater, we’re going to sit outside and talk, have previously topped the list but this is off the charts.

“Sure, Max,” He drawls, fingers tightening against the waxy magazine paper, “Just haul it back in here when you’re done, okay?”

“You know what I mean,” She huffs, already lunging for his bed. She practically topples him in her overzealous attempt to reach the window, and he shoots a hand out to steady himself as the mattress rocks. He has half a mind to kick her onto the floor but he watches her click a flashlight open from her jacket pocket, and stares with suspicious intrigue instead.

“Come on, come on,” She huffs, clicking the light on, off, on, off, “Where is she?”

“Who?” Billy leans forwards, peering out the window into the blackened neighborhood, “Jesus, Max, don’t go shining lights into people’s windows at night, they’ll think you’re some creep trying to watch them change.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you know that from experience,” She grumbles, shoving his hand away when he tries grabbing the light.

“I’m not kidding,” Billy seethes, muscled arm coming to combat her defenses, nearly shoving her off of the end of the bed, “What are you even trying to do, anyways?”

“I’m trying to talk to my tutor,” She snaps, landing a sharp slap to his thigh that reddens the skin there, “Butt out, butthead.”

“Assface,” Billy grumbles, rubbing at the tender spot on his leg with half a mind to whack her upside the head. She ignores him completely, desperately flicking the light at a ground floor window.

“Do you really need tutoring help now?” Billy groans, the incessant clicking preventing him from what was supposed to be his before-bed relaxation.

“She wasn’t at school today,” Max explains in a huff, “Or- like, she didn’t show up at my school. She called this morning to say she was sick, but she sounded fine, and I heard someone in the parking lot say that they saw her outside her house, just sitting there, like, really late last night.”

“So she was getting some fresh air,” Billy deadpans, “Now get out of my room.”

“Would it kill you to cooperate?” Max turns to him with such a judgemental stare that Billy’s surprised he doesn’t wither away right on the spot. Hell hath no fury like a teenage girl scorned, he thinks, annoyance bubbling in his chest.

“She’s obviously not coming,” Billy reasons, his patience wearing thin after almost two minutes of flashlight nonsense, “She’s probably sleeping. She’s got the flu or something, and you’re gonna wake her up and make her even more sick. Just leave her alone, and leave me alone.”

“I’m not asking you to be a part of this!” She gushes, jaw set in a hard frown and eyes rolling when he props his elbow up on the windowsill, cheek smushed into a bored expression against his palm.

“I just want to see if she’s okay, because she doesn’t normally get sick, and I haven’t seen her window open all day, and I really think that something might be wrong, so-”

After a staggering two minutes and forty-six seconds of morse code from hell, your curtains part. Max practically lights up at the sliver of light that appears between the drapes, but when your face pops between it, her breath hitches in a gasp.

Your eye is bruised. It’s swollen shut and purple, an ugly stain that blooms down your cheek, like a rose that sticks its thorns straight into Billy’s chest. His posture, previously saggy and bored, stiffens until he’s nearly pressed against the glass, brows furrowed in horror as his lips part ever-so-slightly.

“Oh my god,” Max breathes, and you regard them both with a weary gaze.

Max lifts the lower half of Billy’s window, slipping out the gap with such agility and speed that Billy doesn’t have a chance to try to stop her before she’s already outside. He rushes to follow her, cringing as his bare feet land in damp piles of leaves.

“What happened to you?” Max runs to your window, bracing her hands on the sill.

“Nothing,” You try to smile, and it pulls at the skin around your eye, finishing the expression off with a wince, “I just- it’s silly, okay? I slipped and fell on the ice out front and I hit the stair rail on the way down. I was too embarrassed to go to school, ‘cause I knew everyone would ask, so I just called out sick. I’m sorry, Max, I know today was our day, but I’ll do double time once this heals.”

The more you ramble, the quicker you spew your pre-determined speech, the more the thorns lodge themselves in Billy’s gut. It’s familiar behavior, having an outlandish excuse at your disposal, reciting it like poetry, blaming the bruises on a misstep down the stairs rather than a rage-fueled fist. He’s done the same to countless teachers, all staring down at him with a condescending sneer, assuming he’d instigated another fight.

Max might not be well acquainted with different types of bruises - and god he hopes she never has to be - but Billy certainly is. And your black eye is not from a stair railing, he knows that. It looks the same as his does whenever Neil decides he’s in a fighting mood, and it doesn’t seem like you have the frozen peas that Billy usually medicates his marks with.

“It’s okay!” Max promises, and thankfully she commands enough of your attention to where you don’t notice Billy’s grief-stricken stare, looking for all the world like he’d been punched in the gut.

‘It’s okay, we can just meet up some other time. Or- or I can come over to your house! So you don’t have to show your face anywhere. And I won’t tell,” She insists, hands dug snugly into the pockets of her jacket, “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

So are you, Billy notes, just not to the people with the same ones.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” You frown slightly, biting the inside of your cheek, “This really hurts, and it’s kind of giving me a headache, so… might be best to just meet when it’s healed.”

“That’s fine,” Max nods, reaching up and through the window to sling her arms around your neck in a rushed hug, “Just- call me when it’s better, okay? My teacher set us this new essay, and it’s got some stupidly complicated prompt, so I need your help figuring out-”

Billy watches as your head ticks up, eyes widening slightly as you tune into the sounds of your house. He knows the look all too well, you’ve heard someone coming.

“That’s great Max,” You stammer, reaching for the window pane to close it, "I’ve gotta go!”

“-how to… write it.” She finishes, face wrinkling in confusion when you slam the window shut, yanking the curtains closed, “Feel better…”

“Go,” Billy jumps to action, hearing a raised voice from within your room, not your own, “Max, move!”

He pushes her along the side of their house, shoving her around the back until they’re out of the line of sight from your window. He peers around the corner from behind an overgrown trellis, one that lets him see you without you seeing him. He waits with bated breath, ignoring Max’s indignant protests and slamming a hand over her mouth.

She licks his palm, but he manages to stay calm and keep it there. He will smear it on her cheek later, though.

Sure enough, Billy watches your curtains fly open. There’s a woman in the window now, and you’re standing behind her, expression unreadable. Then you speak, and Billy can’t hear it. Your voice must be soft, gentle, calming. The woman barrely reacts, eyes scanning wildly for whoever you’d been talking to. But Billy keeps Max quiet, pinching her hard when she tries escaping his grip.

Billy watches the woman in your window with a hatred he’s only ever felt towards Neil. She acts the same, menacing glares and a puffed-up chest. You react just as he does, a personified tension-diffuser as you shrink in on yourself and give steady, slow answers. She’s shouting, you’re mumbling. She’s advancing, you’re backing away. She’s grabbing your wrist, forcing you close to her, and you’re squeezing your eyes shut.

Billy’s stomach churns; he can’t watch this any longer.

He herds Max to the other side of the house, keeps her restrained with one hand and pries at her window with the other. It opens smooth and easy, no squeaking that would alert their parents to their escapade.

Once they’re both inside, she flips.

“You asshole,” She huffs, “You manhandled me! You really couldn’t just let me have one nice conversation with my friend? You had to yank me away like some psychopath?”

“She wasn’t going to come back,” Billy murmurs, a glint in his eyes urging her to lower her own voice, “And she didn’t fall down the stairs. Go to sleep, Max.”

He feels a pillow hit him in the back as he strides out of her room, and each step down the hallway towards his own feels like he’s numbing from the inside out. The role reversal of his own life had been so mind-shattering, watching a scene from his household happen in real time in front of him instead of a torturous memory in his nightmares.

By the time he reaches his room, his fingers are too numb to shut the door. He kicks it closed instead, staring out of the still-opened window to watch your own. The curtains are drawn again, shutting you off from the world.

He stands there staring for what feels like seconds, but is probably minutes with the way his brain is warping his thoughts. Abuse felt so lonely, it was a soundproof room with padded walls, but they stung like hot coals when his dad came stomping in to shove him up against them. His family, his safe space, his padded room, came with the irony of only existing alongside pain, fear, and anxiety. And knowing there was an identical room beside his for god knows how long, thick layers of insulation drowning out each of your cries and blocking out each other’s existence, makes him sick.

His eye stings with the residual image of your own, a feeling he knows all too well. His hand, on instinct, tingles with a cold sort of sensation, the same that he got from grabbing the ice-covered peas out of the freezer.

He’s off to the kitchen in a hurry, feet padding carefully across the floor so as not to alert anyone of his presence. The biggest challenge is opening the freezer door quietly, but he’s a pro at it by now. He takes the peas back to his room, but this time he doesn’t curl up in his bed with them pressed to his eye, he clutches them tightly and heads for the window.

Max’s flashlight is discarded on the sill, and he wraps it in his free fist. He clicks it on cautiously, testing the sound to see how it echoes in the empty space between your house and his. It’s not obnoxiously loud, hopefully no one can hear it.

He flashes it against your window, only for a second, then ducks beneath the sill. He waits, expecting an explosion of sound as your mother reaches out to grab him. But nothing happens, so he straightens up to his full height. The wind nips at his bare arms, goosebumps erupting over the skin not covered by his muscle tank. He waves the flashlight once more at your window, covering it with his thumb to flash it instead of clicking the button rapidly. 

He hears shuffling from inside, then silence. Then shuffling again, a little closer, and silence. Then more shuffling, and the routine continues until he hears your fingers scrape at the window pane.

You duck under the curtains this time, easier to slip back inside and shut the window instead of drawing the curtains, “Max, I can’t-”

Billy doesn’t know what to say when your eye catches him. He blinks, once, twice, three times, watching as your anxious eyes rove over him. Only then does he register the chill in his hand, the peas.

“Here,” He murmurs, voice soft and slightly raspy, as he holds the package out to you, “Ten minutes, then turn the package around, then ten more minutes. And if it’s still icy, do it over again.”

You take the peas because you have to, because he’s pressing the cold package into your hand. Your fingers wrap around it and you peer curiously at the image on the front, only glancing back up at him when he shifts in his stance, leaves crushed beneath his feet.

“The package rustles,” He warns you, “Be careful. Don’t get caught.”

“I won’t,” You finally murmur, breaking your stunned silence, “I- Uh, thank you. It’s.. Billy, right?”

“Yeah,” He breathes, nodding once. He’s half aware that his curls aren’t exactly perfect like they typically are, because nodding sends one of them tumbling into his eyesight over his forehead, “That’s me.”

“Y/N,” You mumble, and this time even Billy hears the heavy footfalls in your hallway. They set you on edge again, and he yanks his fingers back from the windowsill so that you can snap it shut, “I gotta go.”

“Bye,” He whispers, voice lost to the night as he stands outside your window. He ducks beneath the sill again, where your mom can’t see him if she decides to search the premises. He doesn’t hear anything from your room, though, and he takes it as a good sign when the footsteps retreat. Then he hears the soft crunch of the package of peas, muffled beneath what he assumes is your blanket as bed springs creak from within.

His eyes snap shut at the sound, envisioning you curled up beneath your comforter, hugging the bag of peas to your bruise. It’s a position that feels so natural to him he almost replicates it, back slumped against the siding of your house. The rustling stops; you got yourself settled.

Only then does he move, climbing back through his window and shutting it for the night. He can’t sleep, though, eyes drifting towards your window from his seat on his bed. He watches, he waits, he stares until his eyes sting, every second that passes a blessing for the lack of commotion it causes. When he does fall asleep it’s after the upstairs lights of your house have shut off, because only then is it over, only then is it safe. He sleeps in solidarity with you, knowing that the click of the lightswitch puts you at ease just like it does him; if there's someone else awake, it’s not safe to sleep. He’ll wake up tomorrow morning with a stiff neck from sleeping up against the wall, but his eyes will flutter open and the first thing he’ll see is your window, hopefully open to showcase peace inside.

Never in his life has he felt connected to someone his age. That’s what abuse does, that’s what Neil does. He isolates Billy, keeping him under his thumb so the boy can’t escape his clutches. But now there’s a glimmer of hope right next door. Hope, he supposes, isn’t the right word. A muddy black eye isn’t hopeful. It is, though, when it’s matching his own, when your scars and bruises line up with each other’s to map out constellations of torture. He wants to chart them, find out where the patterns are, spit out the stories behind them.

He’s spent enough time stargazing his own past, picking a new ball of fire each night to examine. To pick apart, to wish he’d have acted differently in, to regret. Now there’s a whole other sky mere feet away from him, and he yearns to chart it, to explore its patterns in the desperate hope of finding companionship. Oh, that cluster? A missed curfew. That bright one? Backtalk.

He’s always felt like a potential supernova. Like one day, all of the hurt, rage, and despair inside of him is going to burst forth in an explosion of color, blood and guts paired with anguish and heartache. 

And now, knowing there’s another ticking time bomb beside him, two panes of glass separating the two dying stars, he has hope. Maybe it’s morbid, to want to explode in tandem. To seek connection in even destruction. All Billy knows is that if he can’t get out, he’ll die.

He thinks about it for a moment; getting out. Shooting across the galaxy, hurtling over the inky black sky until the swirling black hole that is Neil Hargrove can’t suck him in anymore. Landing somewhere where he burns bright without the threat of explosion. 

And for the first time since that vision began, he sees two stars. One yours and one his, twin flames, both rocketing towards a safe corner of the universe, one where no one else can dim your glow. 

Billy knows right then and there, he has to get to know you. He’s never tried making real friends, never wants to get close enough to have to reveal that Daddy hits him and Mommy - New Mommy - doesn’t care. But you’re the same as him, a dimming star puttering along with the desperate hope of migrating instead of exploding. And if you can feed off of each other’s light, merge into one, he knows you’ll be strong enough to escape together, to go out without a bang.

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! your feedback motivates me to write more, so thank you for your support :-)

[yournowheregirl]

wip wednesday weekend

i got tagged by the lovely @seths-rogens thank you sm friend! 💖

again, very much in a writing / hyperfixation rut BUT!! i decided to post blurbs from previous wips, in the hopes that it'll light the writing spark yet again.

so please enjoy quite a long blurb from an unfinished steddie fic based on that one scene in mamma mia where sam proposes to donna at sophie's wedding.

Eddie realizes then and there that he might never get an opportunity like this again. Well, he might but not another opportunity that has this level of show-stopping drama and Eddie lives for some drama in his life. 

And so, Eddie does what he does best and steps on top of the nearest chair, drawing the attention of the most chaotic wedding party he’s ever seen.

“Hang on!”

All the eyes in the room are on him in a split second and while he usually basks in all the attention, he also feel strangely nervous. But it’s now or never, everyone is already staring at him like he grew a second head, so he might as well continue. 

“Why waste a good wedding, huh?” Eddie grins as his eyes roam around the room before finally landing on Steve again. “How about it, Harrington?” 

The wedding guests once more erupt into hushed whispers of shock but Eddie can’t even hear them anymore. His sole focus is Steve, who looks at him like he’s certifiably insane. And maybe he is, maybe it is insane to propose to your ex from seven years ago during your friends’ canceled wedding, but Eddie’s just gonna take a chance. He’s not gonna run away, not this time.

“What?” 

Okay, not the answer Eddie was hoping for but he gets it. Maybe Steve needs a little more convincing. 

“Aw, c’mon. You gonna need someone to boss around in that newly empty apartment of yours and it might as well be me.” Eddie hops off the chair, his head cocked to the side and doing his best impression of Bambi to sell Steve on the idea. “What do you say?”

“Are you crazy?” Steve splutters, hands on his hips. His brows are furrowed and his lips are pursed in that famous Harrington scowl that Eddie knows and loves. 

“For you? Yes.” 

“You have a girlfriend!” Steve exclaims - which is quickly followed by grandma Wheeler’s 'oh dear'.

This makes Eddie frown because he very much doesn’t have a girlfriend, hasn’t had one in months not since- “Who? Donna? Nah, we broke up ages ago.”

“But- but- we live in totally different states.”

“I can pack up my things and move to Boston, no problem.” Eddie counters. “What else you got, because as you know, I can go on for hours.”

Steve apparently takes that as a challenge because that panicked look on his face melts away and is replaced by a cocky smirk and raised eyebrows. “What if I’m already dating someone?”

“Last thing I heard from Dustin you were dating that god-awful guy named Brad and considering that he isn’t anywhere to be found-” Eddie dramatically gestures around the room. “I figure that you did the right thing and dumped his ass.”

“You wouldn’t want to get married without Wayne here.” Steve counters, crossing his arms in front of his chest and God, Eddie had forgotten how hot Steve looks when he's up for a challenge.

“We’ll just have a second wedding. Periwinkle isn’t really my color either, but I’ll make an exception for you, sweetheart.” Eddie winks.

tagging (with zero pressure!!) some old friends and some new ones: @cheatghost @sidekick-hero @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe @spectrum-spectre @stevebabey @steddieas-shegoes & @steddielations big (consensual) kisses for you all, mwah!! 💖💖

[joelscruff]

Just curious but what are the WIPs you have brewing up? Can’t wait to see more from you <3

i have so many WIPs at the moment 😭 my current dilemma is having all these ideas but for some reason having no brain power to actually write any of them (except for the last one on this list 👀)

feelings on fire chapter 11 & beyond - i'm in a weird place with fof at the moment. i love these two so much and i have their whole story planned out (even further than you might think) and i do plan on finishing it, but right now it's just not flowing for me. it's affecting my other writing too because i just feel this immense pressure to get it done and because of that, i tend to guilt myself out of working on anything else. it's been a struggle lmao. but i'm trying. i go into the draft whenever i have a little bit of motivation.

darkness hums (next to freeze or to thaw installment) - joel's going on the raid so you're left behind with tommy 👀 i'll get this done eventually lmao i have to be in the right mood to work on this series

beautiful stranger - this is my joel x escort!reader fic that i still feel SO passionate about but haven't finished. featuring an insecure & out of practice joel + lots and lots of joel worship. again, it'll get done, just not sure when.

pick my petals off - THIS fic has been in developmental hell for a long time lmao. dbf!joel, very very pervy and coercive who wants to sleep with you before you go away for college. huge age gap obviously, very filthy. it's actually a series so i haven't had much time to really focus on it. will i ever write it? we'll see lmao

stray animal - can't say too much about this. but. VERY dark fic. kinda fucked up. involves a glory hole. stepdad!joel. we'll see what happens lol

untitled best friend's dad!joel fic - this is my current passion project, i'll be honest. been thinking about it for a long time and would really like to start writing it soon. it's a series though so i'd like to have most - if not all - of it written before i start posting it. it takes place in jackson and you're ellie's best friend. you have a crush on joel, he doesn't see you that way. but then something happens and you end up growing closer, very slowburn. i've also been referring to it as touch starved!reader fic lol. han @swiftispunk has heard alllllllllll about it

imperfect for you - a drabble i'm writing for @janaispunk's 1500 kisses challenge!! it's joel + nose kiss 🥰 hope to have this up soon, it's kinda taken a backseat because i suddenly got inspiration to write something else.....↓

⭐is it that sweet? - this one's coming tonight most likely, so i won't say too much 👀 pervy!joel + the beach ⭐

so yeah. a lot. i mean, this doesn't even include ideas that are only living in my brain rn and not a draft, like a sequel to my boss!dave york fic and a threesome sequel to my frankie fic one of your girls, more of my boyfriend's dad!joel (believe it or not, i do intend to return to these two eventually. i miss them v much), etc. i feel like sometimes readers might think that just because an author hasn't posted for a while they maybe have lost interest in their fics/writing/fandom/etc, but it really couldn't be further from the truth lmao. i have so many ideas and i'm constantly writing things down, it's just actually turning them into fics that i've been struggling with lately. bear with me 💖 and thank you for asking!

[vandnana]

Hello! I'd love to see some lo'ak fics! I love your writing

Hope you are having a good holiday xx

hello! thank you so much for loving my writing, i really appreciate you! i hope you’ve had a good holiday as well! 

i’ve been working on a new lo’ak  x reader series and below is a preview of it!

**if you would like to be added to the tag list for this fic, please comment on this post or if you’re more comfortable, send me a dm or an ask!  

In Love With the Enemy (Preview Below) 

Prologue Is Here!

pairing: lo’ak x female human turned na’vi reader

summary: during the time when jake became toruk makto, you were quaritch’s youngest and most valued soldier, the daughter he never had. but, pandora changed you and you died fighting with the na’vi, betraying quaritch and wishing that you had been able to do more. now, you have been reborn again, as a na’vi, tasked with quaritch’s new military avatar crew to kill Jake Sully. taking advantage of this second chance at life, you help the Sullys and fall in love along the way

genre: fluff, angst (wip, more themes to come)

word count (wip): 839

The prologue is now up! You can read it here!

You were the youngest in the regiment back then, too young for war and far too young for what was in store for you in Pandora. But, Quaritch took you in when you were a child. You had no family, no home, and no promise of a real future. He had seen himself in you: cunning, willing, strong, unafraid. You were everything he could have hoped for in a daughter, but you were real. His prodigy. And not a day went by when you didn’t live up to those expectations. You loved being with Quaritch. He had become your father and he always thought that nothing could ever change that. 

But, the more time you spent in Pandora, the more you began to see past the façade you let yourself believe. The mission was never about finding diplomatic solutions or building alliances. It was about destruction, money, and humanity’s wretched twist on glory, a misguided glory that Quaritch was more than happy to fulfill. It was Grace who helped you see that first. She always used to tell you that you were smart and far more capable than any of the trigger-happy morons you were with.

But even you couldn’t prevent Hometree from being destroyed, and although you did what you could to help Jake, Grace, and Norm escape with Trudy, the damage was done. You were an offender of the highest treason by helping Quaritch’s worst enemy, and you knew that you could never go back.

You feigned your innocence until the end, fooling everyone. You watched Quaritch shoot Grace and you cried alone when you heard about her passing. It wasn’t until you joined Trudy in her helicopter that you revealed whose side you were really on. Only for a moment did Quaritch hesitate to shoot you down, but his duty was above all. When he had dealt the final blow, the glass around you breaking with every explosion, you looked at Trudy with a smile. You were happy to be alongside her, dying with her as the sight of the Hallelujah Mountains became the last thing you ever saw, your vision fading into darkness as you descended downward into nothingness.

Then, came light again, invading your shut eyes as you heard voices around you, the sounds distant at first, but slowly heightening as you came to. When you opened your eyes, the fluorescent lights stunned you, your hand instinctively finding its way to the front of your face. Your eyes widened, and you figured you were in hell, punished to be what you failed to protect.

You were blue, a Na’vi, and everyone around you towered with their own blue figures, cooing you awake.

“Colonel, the baby’s awake.” One of them yelled, and you propped yourself up, taking in the appearance of those who had an air of familiarity, but still seemed to be strangers. 

There was Wainfleet, Warren, Zdinarsk, and Zhang looking at you, patting you on the back with satisfied smiles.

Then you saw him. Quaritch, the man you once owed your life to. But it wasn’t really him. He had become his worst nightmare and in seeing him, you were convinced that you really had been damned to hell. He was Na’vi too and a real sight for sore eyes as he looked like he wanted to jump out of his own skin, his movements awkward as he made his way over to you. The only comfort that he seemed to take refuge in was seeing you, his eyes still glimmering in fondness over you, the daughter he never had. 

He hugged you and for the first time, he smiled. “It’s nice to see you kid.”

You had all the memories from your old life, the old y/n that loved Quaritch and saw him as a father, the old y/n who trained endlessly to become that prodigy he loved so much. But you also remembered Grace, the only person you felt really saw you for who you were and who you could be, and it was her memory that really revived you. That was who you wanted to be now, not the monster that Quaritch had conditioned you to become.

Nothing felt real until that point, his embrace making your skin crawl, but it was a comfort nonetheless. you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, a lopsided smile on your face, “Nice to see you too, Q.”

It seemed that you had been given a second chance at life, given the video log that you had filmed so long ago. Among Quaritch and the rest of your team, you were granted an avatar too, stowed away in case the supposed small chance of failing ever came to fruition. Seemingly, it had, and you smiled. Yet, no one else remembered Grace or the scientists, or rather they didn’t really want to remember. It was as if this new team of recombinants were a hive mind with only one mission left to complete, a mission that churned your insides.

Eliminating Jake Sully.

~

Author’s Note:

i hope you enjoyed this preview! i’m so excited to write some more! again, if you would like to be added to the tag list, please don’t hesitate to reach out through this post or through a dm or an ask! 

[pimosworld]

Pairing-Joel Miller x reader

Summary-Joel conquers his fear to watch you walk across that stage.

CW-18+, No outbreak Joel Miller, unspecified age gap, reader is in college but can be any age, No description of reader other than they wear heels, Joel has agoraphobia, mentions of panic attack, mentions of large crowds and over coming that fear, reader is highly decorated, mentions of spicy times but no smut, angst, fluff, more fluff, Joel being obsessed with you.

WC-1.3k

A\N- This idea literally came to me in a dream so it’s just another procrastination for my other wips 😂. I write while I help my mom with chemo and It helps writing fluffy stuff so I hope you enjoy.

[Joel Miller Masterlist][Main Masterlist]

Not beta read

Collegiate

Joel’s not a fan of large crowds- well the crowds don’t have to be very large. More than ten people and he starts to sweat a little. Too many people to talk to. Too many chances at getting stuck in conversations he could care less about. 

  He’s starting to feel it now as he weaves his way through the sea of families. Groups of faces that look similar, matriarchs and patriarchs seated and gushing about their babies who aren’t really babies anymore at this high level of educational accomplishment. 

  One too many old ladies pointing him out as he finds an open seat hoping he can pretend not to hear the hushed whispers of ‘he must be married’ or ‘if i was a younger woman’. 

  He rubs his hand nervously along the back of his neck as he remembers those breathing techniques you told him about. You’d said the first time you noticed him gripping your hand a little tighter at the farmers market or the time at the movies when he wouldn’t stop checking the exits that maybe he had a little phobia. He can’t remember the name right now, maybe arachnophobia or somethin’. You are always so much better than him with words and explanations. 

  Right now though he breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth as the sound of the crowd dies down a little. 

  The announcements start for the English majors and his eyes are focused on the decorated caps. You’d kept it a secret all week while you were getting ready, promising to show him when it was all over. The ridiculous amount of gems and glue had him a bit worried of what the outcome would look like. 

  He’s trying to care about the other names but in reality there’s just one he wants to hear come over the loudspeaker. It drones on as each person smiles and shakes the hand of the men and women who selfishly collect money from them when they’ve yet to get their lives started. The woos from the families lull him into a sense of calmness and he nearly misses it when they announce you. 

  His ears perk up at the last name Miller and he’s not fully expecting to see you as you squeeze the hand of your friend next to you and head towards the stage. He’s still getting used to hearing his last name attached to yours and the pride swells in him as you cross the stage beaming from ear to ear as you accept your diploma. You don’t bother searching the crowd for family you know wouldn’t care and hasn’t cared in some time about your life and personal achievements. 

  He’s made it more than clear to you that he’s all the family you need. When he sees the way you are with his brother and Sarah he can’t help but think about what a loss it is for your estranged family. Their loss is his gain and he’d be a fool to let you slip away now that he’s got you branded with his name. 

  As you take your seat again he gets a good look at your cap, the sun catches it just right as the sparkles shine along the edges. The loud laugh that erupts from him startles the old woman next to him and he has to excuse himself as he covers his smile with his hand. Tommy will get a kick out of this later on when he sees it. He’s busy finishing up at the construction site so he can join the rest of them at the surprise party that Sarah and Maria insisted on throwing you at the last minute. 

  He steps out into the hallway with some of the other families as the ceremonies come to a close. He’s so excited and anxious to see you that he’s completely forgotten about his claustrophobia or whatever it’s called. Probably still the wrong name but he doesn’t really care as he starts to see the people filing out of the auditorium and running to greet their families. 

  You come out almost last walking hand in hand with one of your friends and your cap clutched between your fingers in the other. You give her a kiss on the cheek as you part ways and smile to yourself no doubt relieved and proud of yourself for finally finishing. He can finally get a good look at your ensemble, your shoulder adorned with all sorts of different color ropes and sashes. He listened to you explain what each one meant to Sarah the other night over dinner and he couldn’t have been more excited to think about her wearing them one day soon. 

  He can tell you didn’t expect him to be there as you make your way towards the exit, you stiffen as he gently places his hands on your shoulders. 

  “Where ya goin so fast darlin’?” You gasp before turning around as he cautiously kisses your neck, sending shivers down your spine. 

  He can smell your new perfume, the one he got you as an early graduation present. You were still so stubborn about asking for things you wanted and he saw you eyeing it in the mall and then he caught you smelling the page insert of that magazine you liked with the scent. 

  “Joel, what are you doing here?” You turn around leaping into his arms, squeezing the life out of him as he chuckles into your hair. 

  “Did ya think I was gonna miss this?” His southern accent comes out thicker and slurred when he’s in your presence, much more relaxed when he can touch and feel that you’re real. “It’s not everyday that my girl graduates from college.” He sets you down lightly on your heels, just about the only bit of skin he can see as the gown dwarfs the rest of you. He still doesn’t know how you walk in those things but he won’t complain when it’s all that you’re wearing at the end of the night. 

  You wipe the stray tears that have shed careful not to ruin your makeup. “I wouldn’t have been upset if you didn’t come.” You look around the hallway noticing most of the families have cleared. “That was a lot of people to handle with your agoraphobia, I’m proud of you.” 

  He snaps his fingers “agoraphobia.” 

  He closes the small space between you holding your face between his large palms. He kisses you like he’s been away at war, like it’s the last time he’ll kiss you or perhaps the first time and he can’t get enough. All the swell of emotions as you take in the fact that he wasn’t one for pda and now he’s got his tongue down your throat and you’re practically moaning at the way he consumes you. 

  He breaks the kiss momentarily as you catch your breath. You duck your head into his chest as he laughs quietly holding you close to him. 

  “What’s so funny Joel?” 

  “Oh nothin, I just find it funny that you’re proud of me. Figured it should be the other way around, don't you?” His eyebrows raise at you and then flit to the cap dangling in your hand. “Let’s see it then.” 

  You smile all innocently at him as you hand it over. A hint of mischief behind it and he can’t help but think about what’s usually happening when you look at him that way. 

  In large rhinestones reads Sponsored by Miller and Co. 

Comments and reblogs are much appreciated

[atelierlili]

It's time take you back to the past

to play the shitty games that suck ass.

Some besties wanted a list of Everlark fics recs where Katniss and/or Peeta are blasted to the past/alternate universe to relive the events of the games to fix it, so here we are!

Time Is Never Found Again...Or Is It? (113,000 + words) by blahblahblah1703

Katniss, after talking to Snow in his rose garden, finds herself somehow back in her childhood home. She has seven months until she enters the arena for the 74th annual Hunger Games, along with the love of her life, who when she last saw him, was still struggling not to kill her, just perfect.

The pre-game everlark that happens here is 🤌. This is part one of a larger series. The sequel (which is wonderful as well) can be found here. This is the series that got me into this rabbit hole.

Afterburn ( 104,000+ words) by BlueMaple

Katniss Everdeen-Mellark goes to the woods surrounding New Appalachia, a.k.a the former District Twelve, on the morning of the fiftieth anniversary of the final Reaping of the Hunger Games. There, she is literally waylaid by her own past, and wakes in the past, six weeks before Primrose was first Reaped. Alone, grieving, terrified, and without a clue on how she got there (and then), she realizes that it will be impossible for her- on every level- to simply live through events as they transpired in her personal future. With no way to return her to that future, she is nevertheless determined to get back to her own party - hopefully with a lot less damage and fewer crucial casualties along the way.

This is apart of the All Sorrows Less series, which is still being updated. It's filled with wonderful side characters, mindblowing twists, a baby I will kill people for and GILF Katniss, what more can I say?

Second Burn ( 127,000+ words) by carnationhes

Katniss wonders if things could be different if she got a second chance. And then she gets one. This morning she wakes up back in District 12 after Peeta's warning of the bombing on Thirteen.

Have you read Second burn? Why haven't you read it yet? You should read it. It's amazing. Literally makes my brain chemistry tingle. I think this is most accurate depiction of a Katniss being blasted to the past with no meta explanation why. It's sooo soo soo good. I'm on my knees please read it and please read the sequel Ignite as well. This series is so underated please.

over and over (lost again) (13,000+ words) by TeaBrigadier

I died in the Hunger Games. It isn’t even the first time it’s happened. I’ve died in the Hunger Games five times now

This is a very self contained time loop where Katniss continuously relieves the first games until she gets it right. I know it doesn't really fit the theme, but this one makes my feel happy feelings and i wanted to recommend something that's isn't so long so I'm adding it anyway. Deathloops are fun!

Ongoing:

Catching sparks (19k words) (Last update 26 Feb 2024) by Silver_Cleo

The time when 23 year old Katniss and Peeta get transported from their home in what had once been Victor's Village of District 12, and into the bodies of their much younger selves, who have just woken up from exiting the arena of the 74th Hunger Games.

Here Katniss and Peeta get traveled to the past to the point where they just win their games. It's a great WIP. I love Everlark working together and being cute + humanizing the 74th tributes and their family <3

I'm probably missing a few, but these are my favourite ones so far. As much as I love the trope, I know it's a monster to take on from a writing standpoint so props to the writers!

I hope you enjoy them <3 There's nothing I love more than shining a light on amazing fics new and old. If you have recs of your own, please send them my way. I love this trope so much haha

@bbrooklynbabe @nightlocked-in @waywardangel-wilds

[yuragiku]

silhouettes | song eunseok & jung sungchan

series masterlist | part one | part two | part three (this fic!)

pairing: jung sungchan x fem!reader x song eunseok

plot: love was a game of tug of war between your high school best friend and your quasi-campus rival—both of whom have become heavily intertwined with the course of your life thus far. one last letter to eunseok, and a missed call from sungchan. as your heart decides on who you truly love, you fail to realize that maybe one was never meant to be, while the other was yours to miss. to both, you were simply a silhouette, a mere outline of a chapter in their lives.

alternatively, the end.

wc: 33.1k

genre: melodrama, coming of age, slow burn, heavy angst

warnings: R18+ DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE A MINOR OR IF YOU THINK YOU'RE NOT IN THE RIGHT MENTAL HEADSPACE TO READ ABOUT THE FOLLOWING; heavy depictions and mentions of depression, anxiety, and mental illness; heavy discussions of death and s*uicide; heavy depictions of substance abuse (alcohol and smoking); graphic depictions of anxiety attacks; explicit sexual content; heavy discussions of sex; existential dread; hospital imagery; graphic depictions of mild violence; mentions of food and water; mentions of weight

extra notes: THIS IS PART THREE, I REPEAT, PART THREE OF THE AN ODE TO SEOUL SERIES. PART ONE IS NEVER MEANT, AND PART TWO IS MINE TO MISS. THIS WOULD NOT MAKE SENSE UNLESS YOU READ THOSE TWO FIRST. that being said, this was a seven-month journey, and it's finally coming to an end. i wanted to finish this before grad school started as i'd be super busy then. if you've been following me or reading me since never meant, thank you so, SO MUCH !! ugh, it gets tough writing here, but the positive comments keep me going :")) i promise to write more on here, and i acc have an anton wip in the making hehe !! this feels a bit bittersweet, and i'll expand more on the endnotes.

COPYRIGHT 2024 YURAGIKU. DO NOT STEAL, COPY, OR TRANSLATE.

That was the first and last time you would ever visit the hospital in Jongno. Sungchan’s father died two days after your visit at four in the morning. He called at six to tell you what had happened. It took two rings for you to pick up the landline, and you were still in your pajamas when you held the plastic phone between your shoulder and cheek. Through the sheer translucence of the curtains, you could see that the clouds were a murky gray, and rainfall had dotted the unkept glass of your windows, slowly but silently trickling down to your building’s pipe system. 

“My dad died a few minutes ago,” Sungchan said, voice barely audible through the line.

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” You asked. 

“Thanks, but no. It’s just the usual. We’re preparing for his funeral now. I just wanted to call you to let you know,” he replied, a long, drawn-out sigh escaping his lips. 

“Please don’t come to the funeral. I don’t want to see you there.” 

You nodded, and Sungchan took the silence as a yes. 

“Will you really take me to a porn cinema?” You asked sheepishly, cord tangled between your fingers. 

“Yes. I’ll show you a really disgusting one.” 

“Alright, I’ll do my own research to see if I can find something,” 

“Sounds good.” 

Sungchan hung up. 

A week had passed with no word from him at all. No missed calls on the answering machine or signs of him in the university hallways by the locker, where he would usually be with his teammates. You kept hoping for a message from him whenever you returned from your classes or your job at the library, but you would come home to not a single voice message from him. You tried to keep your promise to him by thinking of him when you masturbated, but nothing worked. Your fingers prodded to a dry entry, nails scratching the lips instead of lubricating it. You tried to switch to Eunseok, but at the time, even Eunseok’s face didn’t do it for you. 

It was a little ridiculous, really, and it made you feel like a clueless teenager trying to masturbate for the first time. After a few more tries, you gave up and brushed your teeth to go to bed. Then, when you woke up, you wrote a letter to Eunseok. You wondered why your hand had automatically spared all the details about Sungchan in your letter, but one thing you did tell him was the story of his father. 

‘I visited the hospital since I left Ujeong. The patient was my classmate’s father, and we had some cake in his room. When he saw me eating it with my hands, his eyes begged for a piece, so he ate it with some chopsticks. The whole thing, in as much vigor as a terminally ill person eating his last meal could muster. He died two days after I visited. I still think of him eating the slice of cake with me. I think that’s the first and last impression I’ll ever have of someone like him, a stranger I was able to both say hello and goodbye to all at once. Isn’t that weird? The way these small, tiny little fragments of everyday life remain when you die, like trails and traces of who someone once was. Maybe he was a person who really loved cake. I mean, who doesn’t?’ 

Then, you continued: ‘I think of you a lot. Both you and the cats every time I close my eyes. You’re the last thought in my head before I sleep and the first when I wake. I think of Kokuma, and the way he would curl up onto your lap and rub his head on your shin, even when you already gave him a handful of neck scratches! Thinking of you leaves me warmer than my own blanket when I sleep, as if you were there right beside me, breathing the same air. Then, I would think about how great all of that would be if it were true. 

I miss you, quite terribly so. It’s a little difficult to live, but I still manage with the energy I have left. Just as you tend to Kokuma and the other cats at Ujeong every morning, I try to create my own little sanctuary. I catch the newspaper boy before he reaches my doorstep, and by the time he arrives, I would’ve already washed my face, brushed my teeth, and brewed my morning coffee or tea—whichever I feel like having at the moment. I would prepare a light breakfast, then channel all my focus into what I’d be wearing that day, leave my apartment an hour and a half before any of my lectures begin, and spend some time in the library. I speak to myself in mantras, and I try to cheer myself up. Tell me I’ll make today, tomorrow, and the next a good one. I’ve never noticed this, but I’ve been told I often talk to myself. Probably tell myself the next steps to boiling water for my tea in the kettle or which route to take to get to campus. 

If I’m being honest, it’s been hard not seeing you at all, but I’m aware that my life here in Seoul would be a lot worse had it not been for you. It’s in your presence that I get another day out of bed and tell myself to have a good day. I know that I have to do my best no matter what, just as you are doing your best there at Ujeong. 

Today’s a Sunday, and I don’t wait for the boy to deliver my papers. I did my laundry in advance, and now, I’m just in my room, dedicating this sliver of time to you. After I finish this letter, stamp it, and drop it off the postbox, I have nothing else to do until the sun sets. I try not to study in a Sunday. I already do enough on the weekdays studying while on shift at the library, and I even started to study between breaks in my lectures. That leaves me with nothing to do on Sundays when the afternoons are peaceful, serene, and achingly lonely. I try to listen to records and read. Sometimes, I think back on our walks across Seoul on Sundays. When I concentrate hard enough, I can see in full clarity the image of you, the clothes you wore, what scent of detergent was permanently etched onto your clothes, and the soft bristles of your hair flowing in the wind. I remember all these kinds of things on Sunday. 

Tell Kokuma I said ‘Hi,’ although I doubt he’d remember me. I really miss his velvety fur, and I also miss you playing the piano. 

Once you had finished your letter, you walked to the nearest postbox, which was by the intersection between the bus stop leading to your old apartment and Hongdae. Then, you took a few steps down the street to buy some rice balls and a warm cup of corn tea at a nearby eatery. 

You took a quick path to the edge of the Han River, taking a spot on the grass below the bridge to eat your lunch. Your eyes traced the outline of the boys playing catch in a sparse, open field. Autumn had come; the songbirds had stopped singing; the leaves trickled down on the ground in a pile; the crisp cold air had hit your cheek; the skies deepened into a rich shade of light blue. With your fingers, you traced the trail of the morning mist until it dispersed with the heavy clouds that hung below the surface, hiding the sun in its dense, white cover. A ball came rolling your way, and you threw it back to one of the boys, who hit it with their bat across the entire field. One shouted, “Home run,” leading the rest to dash straight to a large oak tree, playing rock, paper, scissors to see who could climb and retrieve the ball. A short, puny child with glasses left a piece of candy by your side and muttered a small “Thank you, ma’am” before catching up with his friends. 

As the afternoon had made its way into the day, coating the skies with shades of orange, you found yourself back inside your room, brows furrowed in concentration at a copy of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. As you tried harder to concentrate, though, you found that any effort to divert all your attention to each word in the novel. The words would all get mixed up, and any imagery that Rushdie had tried to produce turned into fractures in Sungchan’s face—rather, of his face upon his father’s eventual fate. You began to wonder if his father had requested for you to take care of him in his own terminal code, but there was simply no way you could begin to fathom what was on his mind. In the end, you concluded that he had probably thought you were someone else. 

Regardless of the matter, his death occurred on a cold autumn morning, when the rain showers of the season had begun. It was impossible then, with the misty haze of dawn to search for the truth, and in your head, you saw his limp, lifeless body shrivel up even further. What was left of him? A stagnant, old record store in a stagnant, old neighborhood and two sons, one of them being short of strange. What kind of parent could he have been to have a son like that? Your head wondered even more about his life before the death of his wife, raising two sons on his own, and then, eventually, lying lifeless in a hospital bed with one of his balls cut off, and veins filled with medicine that made him less of a human. What was he thinking when he looked at you that day?

Thoughts like these about Sungchan’s father put you in such a tragic mood that you forced yourself out of bed once more, taking the laundry off your balcony before it dried, then setting off to Seochon to kill time walking along the narrow clusters of shops and houses. On a Sunday, the streets were alive, animated and effervescent to the point of reigniting your spirits. The bookstores and eateries were all jampacked as rush hour had settled, with an outpour of commuters stopping by some of the cafes and restaurants to have a quick bite before riding the train and tram back home. It was no different at the Kyobo books towards the end of the high street, where you allowed yourself to purchase a copy of Garcia-Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, then went into the noisiest bar you could think of, reading your new book while the cluster of drunken commuters and middle-aged men became the white noise you needed to focus. At around seven in the evening, you had consumed your third pint of stale draft beer, then ordered some chicken skewers for a light dinner. 

How many Sundays of dread were ahead of you? Fifty? Hundreds? Thousands? How many more lonely Sundays would you endure?

In the following week, you had managed to sprain your left hand upon dropping a pile of books from your shift. You hadn’t noticed how terribly sore it had become until you attempted to carry the rest of the pile, hearing a slight ‘crack’ reverberate across the entire study area. A junior two years your age had rushed to your aid, telling you she was a nursing student at Yonsei, then called for a staff member to bring in a first aid kit and some ice packs from the closest infirmary. Though he was usually useless, your managed ended up bringing a first aid kid and three ice packs immediately upon hearing of your wound. Fortunately, the university hospital was only three bus stops away, and your manager, along with the nursing student, had offered to accompany you all the way to the emergency room to get your hand checked. Judging by the way the busy corridors of the hospital had scuttled away from you, you wondered if people had thought you were robbed or assaulted on the streets. To you, though, the pain was insignificant. It was mostly the fact that you couldn’t seem to flick your wrists back in place, as if the joints were glued in the most obscurely angular position it could think of. 

The doctor tended to your sprain effortlessly, binding and looping the cast all over your left hand in a matter of minutes. He told you to come again in a few days, then sent you back to the library with your manager while the nursing student bade farewell to go to the morgue. Once you had reached the library again, the manager urged you to go home, offering to pay for your absence and the full time of the shift, even if you had sprained your hand in the middle of it. You took the earliest train from Yonsei to your apartment building, and then phoned Mirae at your earliest convenience. You wanted to speak to someone, and Mirae was the only person you could think of, having not spoken to her since the riots and party activities had dwindled. However, it could be that you haven’t shown up in a while, practically ceasing to become a non-active member of the party chapter in Yonsei. 

It took precisely ten minutes for Mirae to arrive, bringing two bottles of wine and a box filled with books tied in string. She excused herself and plopped her body on the sofa, then flaunted her new haircut—a short, chin-length bob that made her iciness apparent. 

“Jesus christ, what happened to you?” She asked, taking your arm by force and turning your cast around. Then, she took a pen and wrote some gibberish in English, with some recognizable words being ‘revolution’ and ‘pussy.’ Then, she grabbed a practice handbook for English, reciting some of the passages with you in perfect, near-native pronunciation. Meanwhile, you sauntered off into the kitchen to boil a pot of tea for the two of you, using some leftover leaves from Sungchan’s visit to complete the process. 

“Nice to meet you! I have a pen.” She repeated aloud, rolling her eyes at each of the asinine sentences that she had to utter. “This is fucking ridiculous. How the hell am I supposed to learn if this is all they teach me?!” 

After a few more practice sentences, she threw the book onto the coffee table and joined you at the kitchen counter, taking her share of tea without minding the boiling temperature. 

“Are you sure I’m not burdening you right now?” You asked. “I mean, you came all the way here, no?” 

“No, you’re not. I was so bored today that I forced myself to study to pass the time. Do you want some wine?” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“Oh, by the way, just letting you know, but I’m migrating to America! I got accepted to John Hopkins University.” 

John Hopkins? And this was the person who called the country the land of the pigs. No matter. You held your tongue and forced a smile, raising your hands in the air like a caricature of yourself. 

“Congrats!” You exclaimed, giving your right hand for her to shake. 

“Thank you.”

“I’m not surprised you got in.” 

“I’m not either,” Mirae agreed in jest. “But, you know, it’s nice to know that I have the brains to get into one of the best medical schools in the world.” 

“Think you’ll become a doctor there?” 

“Yeah, that’s the plan. I’m getting out of here, never looking back. The thing is, though, they just want my English to be a bit better than it already is now.”

Mirae had opened the wine bottle with a corkscrew that she fished out of her handbag, twisting it open with a ‘pop’ that almost broke your kitchen window. While she poured herself a glass, you sipped your tea and watched her practically overfill her share of wine. 

“I can give you some of my furniture, like, I don’t know, this pretty weird painting? Or a fridge? This one here,” you said, pointing at the decade-old American-styled fridge that had occupied your kitchen before you moved in. You were planning on replacing it once you saved up for a better one, anyway, and it would be a decent parting gift to a girl who had everything she wanted at the tip of her finger. 

“Yeah, no thanks! Free things are always great, but when I get there, I’m gonna live large. Bigger house, bigger car, and a massive fridge. I’m done living in that crappy, tiny dorm. So if you need anything from me, then take it all.” 

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure of it.” 

“We should eat out soon. I’ll take you to a lovely restaurant that does French cuisine well—of course, it’s on me.” 

“Do you mean one of your outings to catch rich boys?” You asked. Mirae shook her head. “Nope. It’s sort of a real deal. Just you, me, and my fiance, Eddy, at a fine dining restaurant. It’s to celebrate this new chapter in my life. He’s paying, too, so we should go somewhere super expensive.” 

“Eddy?” You asked. It could be one of her “kind benefactors,” but you begged to differ. With Mirae, it was difficult to tell what was in her head, or how she decided to handle her boyfriends. They changed with each month if they were lucky, but the name Eddy stuck around here and there for as long as the two of you had begun your party activities. 

It was ironic, really. She was an active member of an anti-American party while dating an American general. You didn’t pry into her relationship with Eddy too much, but from what you could understand, she had met Eddy on a ski trip at her parents’ village, when they privately hosted the whole American base in Yongsan. Eddy, unlike the usual batch of military men you’d get in Yongsan, was a well-to-do man who came from a WASP family. Bright, blue eyes, with striking blonde hair, he was tall to boot, with the physique of a weightlifting champion—at least, according to her description. You had never met Eddy personally, nor did you want anything to do with the Americans, but Eddy was the only man who lasted more than a month with Mirae. In fact, it would be nearing a year since the two of them had started seeing each other, and you wondered if he knew about her lecherous and adulterous nature. 

“Yeah, do you remember him?” She asked, now onto her second glass of wine. “He said he wants to meet you, and I think it would make it more comfortable for the two of us if you were around, no?” 

Oh. It would just be like Eunseok, his girlfriend, and you in Jeju all over again.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be going back with Eddy to his house, so please, just come for dinner.” 

“Alright, if you insist.” You replied, not knowing what tone or timbre you should layer your words with. “Are you and Eddy planning to get a house together in the States?”

“Nope. His family’s all the way in Wyoming, and I doubt he’d want to leave his post here in Seoul. He’ll move up the ranks here soon, and he might even be promoted to work in intelligence because of how good his Korean is getting, so I doubt he’d want to go back to America. So that’s all his problem once I leave.”

“I don’t think that makes any sense,” you said. Your share of tea had now finished, and Mirae had finished half the bottle, fighting back a large yawn that tried to escape her lips. 

“I made it very clear to him that I don’t intend on marrying him unless it suits me—which, in this case, it probably would. I told him that if he reconnects with his sweetheart in his hometown and decides to marry her over me, that’s fine. I’m not stopping him at all, and if he wants to wait for me, then so be it. I don’t know what’s so confusing about that.” 

You didn’t say a word to Mirae. You only stood there in silence, slowly lifting yourself off your seat to pour yourself another cup of tea from the kitchen counter. You pondered serving slices of cheese and other small snacks to the table, but your appetite had been drained. As you turned your back to the pot by the kitchen sink, you felt Mirae’s sharp eyes trace your every breath, as if trying to read the thoughts in your head. Sometimes, you felt as though she was capable of it. 

And, she was. 

“You think I’m horrible.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Beats me. This world is already cruel. I don’t make the rules. It’s been this way before I was born. And if you’re worried that I’ve been sleeping with other people behind Eddy’s back, then don’t. I was very honest with him from the start, and he got with me, knowing that I was a terrible person and that he could leave me at any time. We got into this knowing that.” 

Mirae had finished the entire bottle of wine and lit a cigarette, prompting you to open all the windows to your living room. 

“Mirae,” you started, turning yourself back to her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but does life scare you?” 

“Pah, of course it does! I’m human!” She guffawed, almost dropping her cigarette on your carpet. “I mean, yeah, it scares me a lot, but I don’t really let it get to me, or at least, I don’t make it the basis of how I choose to live. I like to think of my own happiness in the now, and follow my desires to my heart’s content. I take what I want and leave out what I don’t. That’s how I live, and if it all turns to shit, then I can just stop, think about it, then reevaluate. Realign. That kind of stuff. I mean, if we’re already acknowledging that the world is cruel, then exploiting your wanton desires is just how you’re supposed to play the game.” 

“I don’t know, it sounds like a selfish way to live.” You said. 

“True, but I’m not just waiting around. I’m hauling ass left, right, and center. I’m working just as hard, if not harder, than anyone on this planet.” 

“I guess so.” 

“I mean, think about it. Why are people less fortunate than others? It’s because those bastards don’t do anything with their lives. They have to have us, the intelligentsia, rile them up with words of equality and revolution while they don’t do a single fucking thing. Then, they have the gall to complain that things are unfair!” 

You were taken aback by the brazenness of Mirae’s tone. Though she was always blunt and honest, she was never this harsh. You looked at Mirae as a shell of her former self, then chose your words carefully. 

“I don’t see it that way, though. I mean, I think everyone is working themselves to the bone. It’s society and all things in place that pose a problem to the current illness of the world, no? Or am I wrong about this?” 

“How does manual labor count as hard work? You’re not using your head at all! What I think of hard work is something more personal, something that gives you a purpose in life?” 

“So, learning English while everyone else lives easily, building bridges, and selling fruits at the stores?” 

“I’ve gotten near fluent in only four months. Then, I’ll tackle German and Spanish all at once. That stuff doesn’t happen if you don’t work hard.” 

How about Sungchan’s father, who had dedicated his whole life to keeping a no-name record store afloat? Was he not working hard at all? With each puff of smoke that Mirae swirled in the air, you thought of Sungchan’s father. He was probably the kind of man who never thought of learning English through practice handbooks or had the time to think about the difference between hard and menial work. He was probably too busy fending for himself to send his children to school—and especially bringing one back home, a troublesome son who had brought himself all the way to Gongdeok. 

“So, as I was saying,” Mirae interjected. “Dinner? Sunday?”

“No, I’m busy on Sunday.” You replied nonchalantly, having nothing planned that day. Mirae’s persistence for dinner was something you didn’t expect from her, seeing as she would do the opposite when you used to be dormmates with her. Whenever you would reject her invitation, she would calmly leave, choosing to bother you tomorrow and the day after despite knowing your answer.

Mirae not backing down meant that you, in one way or another, had to go. 

“Saturday?” 

“Yeah, that works.” 

Mirae had reserved a dinner for three in a high-end French restaurant—one of the handful to exist in all of the country—in one of Apgujeong’s back alleys. You were ten minutes late to the reception, but upon saying Mirae’s name, you were quickly directed to a private room enclosed in rich, velvet curtains. The host uses a golden rope to pull each end of the curtain back slightly, revealing Mirae and Eddy sitting side by side facing a Lazy Susan. She was wearing a fine, black dress made of shiny silk that revealed much of her chest, while Eddy was in his uniform. You wore a white lace-collared dress adorned with ribbons on the waist down to the end of the backline. 

“Wow, you really went all out,” you exclaimed, eyes darting throughout the private room. As you took all the details in, Mirae told you that the color of the walls was a new kind of maroon exclusively released in the haute couture industry and is yet to be revealed to the masses. 

“Eh, sometimes excess can look cheap. I mean, look at those hideous curtains! Who thought coloring the ropes in gold was a good idea?” 

“I don’t know, honey,” Eddy said. “I think the gold adds a nice accent to how dark everything is.” 

You were taken aback by how fluent Eddy was. Though you were aware that he had spent more than four years in Seoul, the presence of a thick accent was quickly masked by the richness of his vocabulary. When he spoke, the words he would choose sang in rhyme like a bard, and you wondered if that was what English sounded like. 

“Eddy’s paying, so you don’t need to worry about the bills tonight,” Mirae said with a curt smile. “I know you like to think about money a lot, but the revolution says women have to spend every single dime and cent in the world. It’s not a prerogative; it’s a right.” 

She winked at a young waiter about four years younger than she might’ve been, leaning forward to protrude the ampleness of her breasts. You crossed your legs tightly, watching the blink of discomfort in Eddy’s face morph into a big, wide grin whenever she would turn back at him and smile. 

“Look at all these people here,” she said, eyes darting across tables. “Poor wives! They stay at home to watch the kids and clean while their husbands are out here having the time of their lives with such beautiful, young women.” 

Eddy said nothing, and raised a toast to celebrate Mirae’s move to the United States. 

Once the waiter had arrived with hors d’euvres, he took orders for the main courses. Eddy had a variation of roast beef, while Mirae chose salmon. You asked Eddy what he’d recommend, and passed on an order of cassoulet. Each course arrived in a way that left free room for small talk, so the three of you had ample time to drink wine, converse, and then focus on the food. Mirae would constantly talk about the process of entering medical school, saying that half the applicants were wannabe altruists, while the other half were dimwits who memorized textbooks with no substance or enrichment to their knowledge base.

“God, with people like that, the medical field is doomed, I tell you. So many machines, yet none of them work like brains.”

Mirae called the waiter again and asked for a few more bottles of wine. Eddy turned towards you and asked you about certain topics that you deemed quite personal to you, such as your family life, your future prospects, and your views on politics—things that you wouldn’t personally discuss with someone you considered a stranger. In the moment, the only thing that made Mirae a friend was the fact that she told him nothing too person, which might have been because the two of you hadn’t properly caught up since the demonstrations ended in June. 

“I know a nice Korean soldier who might be the perfect fit for you,” he said awkwardly. “He’s not too tall, but he’s got a good face and an even better heart. He’s been looking for a wife for a while, and I’ve tried to introduce him to everyone I can think of, but I think his virtues as a Christian thwarts him off from any kind of intimacy before he finds ‘the one.’”

“I’m alright,” you hesitated, slightly pushing yourself away from Eddy. Noticing the rigidity of your stance, he quickly apologized and cleared his throat, offering you some of his wine. 

“Yeah, she’ll be fine,” Mirae interrupted. “She’s got someone in the crack house to wait for.” 

“Excuse me?” Eddy said before you could even open your mouth. “Come one, hun. That’s not a nice thing to say to someone she loves.” 

“Weren’t you in one?” She asked with venom in her timbre.

“Anyway,” Eddy continued, visibly nauseous. “I won’t force it on you, but his name is Hyun Minwoo, and he might benefit having someone educated in his life.” 

“What do I even talk about with a soldier?” You joked. “Well, you’re talking to one right now!” Eddy couldn’t contain the laughter that erupted like flames from his lungs. “Don’t worry about it too much, you’re great, as far as I can tell. You’re calm, caring, and understanding. When you’re a solider, you want three of those things in a partner.” 

“Babe, it’s no use,” Mirae said. “She won’t even say anything about the guy other than the fact that he’s in some sort of psycho hospital.” 

“Is it true?” Eddy asked. You nodded slowly. 

“Yeah, it’s true.” 

“Care to talk about it? Of course, if you want to.” 

You sipped more of the wine in your glass, finishing it in one gulp. 

“Look? You’re never gonna get anything out of her.” Mirae said. She was on her fourth glass of wine. “A lady keeps all her secrets close to her bosom.” 

Eddy shrugged his shoulders, using a steak knife to tear a piece of beef apart. 

“But, you know,” Mirae continued. “If you said yes to meeting Minwoo, we would’ve had an orgy!” 

“Mirae, please stop it.” 

“What?!” Mirae shrieked. Some of the patrons in the restaurant had dropped their utensils, metal clanging on ceramics interrupting the string quartet that played in the end of the restaurant. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” Eddy replied, eyes unyielding from his plate of beef and vegetables. “Minwoo deserves a nice woman, and that’s why I’ve been trying to ask her to see him, even just once.” 

“Oh, of course you say that. You don’t even know her like I do! Go on, then! She’s probably just entertaining her man in the loony bin because he’d kill himself if she leaves! Poor thing, stuck in a so-called relationship like that. And you call that kindness, her choosing to stay because of some high brow moral obligation!” 

Mirae could get nasty when she was drunk, and though she was hurling insults at you, the true aim was at Eddy. It was suffocating to sit there and watch the couple fall apart right before your eyes, but you kept your composure, easing your trembling hands by gripping your fork and knife tighter. 

“Well, staying with a person at their worst is something you usually look for in a partner,” Eddy muttered. 

“Oh please, you’re one to talk. You’re married!” 

“Divorced.” Eddy emphasized. “I had been divorced before I even met you. It was the first thing I told you when we met.” 

Eddy then lifted his eyes from his plate, the blue hues in his pupils reflecting the dim, yellow light of the candles in the chandelier above the room. A certain sorrow glinted in their reflection, and for one second, you were able to see how broken he truly was. 

“If you’re in love with someone, would you wait for them no matter how long it took? They could be right there, but something is stopping them from being with you. Some kind of illness in the brain that makes loving such a difficult, painful thing to do. Would you stay?” 

Eddy was pleading, not questioning. 

“That’s such a stupid question, you know damn—”

“I’m talking to her,” Eddy said, using his fork to point in your direction. It took a moment for you to think of an answer, but no matter how many times you opened your mouth, it shut back in place, zipped and sealed with the dryness of your lips. 

“I-I don’t know,” you finally sighed. “It can get lonely waiting for someone like that. You yearn for a type of warmth that you could only get with a man’s skin.”

“Every woman has her needs, just like every man does,” Mirae interjected. “She’s got a boy she likes, but because he’s in some mountain asylum, she can’t fuck him. She’s tried to be patient, but waiting for someone for that long is too much, so she has to take care of her needs. What’s so wrong with that? You’d certainly think otherwise if she was a man, no? Not that I know anything about her, or if she’s begun seeing anyone else, but what’s wrong if she chooses to give up? It’s just how life is.” 

“But she didn’t, right?” 

You kept your lips sealed with the residue of red wine. You never intended to bring Sungchan into the table, but for now, your main priority was to keep things civil before Mirae erupts. 

“No, I didn’t,” you said with a smile. “I’m still waiting for him, and I probably will wait, even if I do get very lonely.” 

“And what’s wrong if she does end up seeing someone else?” Mirae suddenly spoke, mouth filled with bits of salmon. “I’ve slept with plenty of men, and I’m still with you. Each person has their own needs, and she’s not wrong for having to fulfil her share. And even if she does end up sleeping with someone else, there’s no commitment, just like what I do. See them once or twice for dinner, then never speak to them again. Easy.” 

“I can’t stand you when you’re like this,” Eddy whispered, eyes still stuck to the emptiness of his plate. “Why do you have to bring it up? I’ve never been angry with you when you bring someone else to my house.” 

“Oh, please, it’s just a game! I told you a thousand times that it’s nothing serious!” 

“When will it be enough?” Eddy asked. 

“What?” 

“When will I be enough?” 

The waiter came back to ask for dessert. While Mirae indulged herself with a slice of pear tart, you and Eddy kept silent, somberly shaking your heads while staring at your plates, his empty, while yours half-eaten. 

“Just don’t drag her in your games, Mirae. Please.” 

“I can leave,” you interrupted, ready to leave your seat at any moment.

“Please, stay.” Mirae said, forcing a smile. “It’s better when you’re around.”

Once Mirae’s plate of pear tart was served on the table, Eddy lit a cigarette from his breast pocket, covering the end of the stick as he lit it with a match. The flames were dangerously close to burning his fingers off, but he didn’t flinch at all. He let the orange, gentle flame pass through his nail and on the padding, shaking the burnt matchstick as soon as he was satisfied. 

The more you peered into Eddy’s blue swirling eyes, you thought of Eunseok at Ujeong Inn. There was a shared sense of imposed solitude that both exuded, a neverending blueness that coated their every move. Then, you began to think of what Eunseok was up to right now, while you were here sat at an expensive French restaurant tucked away in the hidden troves of Apgujeong. He could be playing “My Grandfather’s Clock” on the piano in the recreation room, or he could’ve been doing some calligraphy by the garden patio. 

What the hell were you doing here, sitting with Eddy and Mirae, staring at your half-eaten, cold piece of scattered salmon and green puree? Why weren’t you in Ujeong again, spending time tending to the cats with Eunseok? 

“You see, what we both have in common is that we don’t care what anyone thinks about us, right?” Mirae asked, dangling a slice of pear in her dessert fork.” 

“No, not really,” you faintly replied. “I don’t think I have the resilience you do about that stuff, and even if I’m fine with nobody understanding me, I think it matters to me when I care about them. I want them to get me; I want them to understand me more than I do myself.” 

“Same thing, same same.” 

“So you don’t care if I don’t care about you?” Eddy asked. The ash had dropped on the table, and he smoked his cigarette past the filter. 

“God, you’re so stupid. What’s so difficult for you to understand? It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I know it all happens at the right time. If you still don’t understand me, then that’s your perogrative, not mine.” 

“You’re saying you don’t love me, aren’t you?” 

“Well, it’s just that we think different—”

“To hell with this ‘think different’ bullshit!” 

Throughout the entire night, this was the first time Eddy had ever raised his voice—and it wasn’t even directed towards Mirae. The hurt in his voice was marred by regret, regret that he probably felt for himself. 

Mirae called for the waiter and asked Eddy to pay the bill. She then muttered a small apology to you while Eddy excused himself to the bathroom, saying that she’d take Eddy home with her. You insisted that she didn’t have anything to apologize for, thanking her and Eddy for the meal. When Eddy came back to sign the check, nobody said a word to each other until Mirae hailed a cab. Instead of entering the cab, he stood still in silence. 

“Frankly, I don’t want to spend time with you anymore,” Eddy muttered, just enough for Mirae and the cab driver to hear. 

“Whatever.” 

Mirae shut the door, and you were left with Eddy—a tall, bumbling mess of a man who had just prepared himself to dump who he thought was the girl of his dreams. Through the tinted glass windows of the cab, you could already see that Mirae was thinking of someone else to see that night. 

“So, should I call you a cab?” You said, once Mirae’s cab was out of your line of sight. It had turned a corner, headed to a place that you remembered, shining in rhinestones in the shape of a heart on a pink lighter. 

“No,” Eddy replied, shaking his head. “I’d just like to walk, if that’s alright with you. Of course, you don’t have to accompany me. I just think I need to clear my head a bit.” 

“Sure, I’ll come.” 

Apgujeong, in the evening, prowled with drunken commuters, office workers, and businessmen who were looking to try their luck at one of the rooftop brothels that advertised themselves as massage parlors on the billboards. Each sign twinkled with temptation, but Eddy stood firm, eyes staring at nothing in particular. Once the two of you were out of the soap land, Eddy turned left, and you followed him into the entryway of a small greenspace tucked away into the entry of a residential area filled with ghastly, empty houses and brick-lined apartment complexes with all the lights turned off—a darkness in the bubble of light that Apgujeong was known for. 

Eddy folded his arms and closed his eyes, his feet mindlessly leading him to a dying oak tree. Once his leather shoes had scuffed themselves in their bark, he heaved a long sigh from the pit of his lungs, then leaned his back on the surface of the tree stump. Though he was in uniform, the green hues of his camouflaged army shirt seemed to stand out from the navy skies, a bright, white moonlight bathing him naked from the enemy. Every now and then, his blonde, light lashes would flutter, and you could see the deepness of his blue eyes, gently swirling with despair. Then, he started to tremble and quiver in his hands, burying his face in his large, rough palms as he caught himself whispering sweet words of comfort to ease the troubles that seemed to cloud his mind. Watching him, you can see why Mirae chooses to stay with Eddy for a long time. Though you weren’t too familiar with foreigners, you were aware that Mirae could’ve chosen anyone with better looks than Eddy in the barracks, but something about Eddy pierced through your heart. A wallowing, grieving sorrow that ebbed and flowed in subtlety as soon as you glanced into the swirls of his blue eyes. It wasn’t just you; it resonated with anyone who had the pleasure of looking into him for a moment. You watched him crouch down into the tree stump, his leather shoes now filled with specs of gravel. You wondered what you felt when you saw Eddy fighting back the hot tears that started forming in his eyes, brittle beyond repair. 

And then, it suddenly hit you. Years later, when you migrated to America, you followed in Mirae’s footsteps while being on the opposite end of the country. You had settled in a small town in Oregon, using a government stipend to attend the university’s postgraduate geography program. The Oregon Coast in a summer sunset was a breathtaking view, and even more so when an abundant clarity in the form of Eddy’s bottomless eyes washed away in tidal waves like the big waves of the ocean that flowed between surfers and boats that you counted with your eyes in the shoreline, suddenly soaked in a deep shade of blue. Then, you looked at your hands, the sand on your feet, the cars towards the end of the shoreline parked by the shops, and the surfboard abandoned in a layer of overgrown rocks. At that moment, you understood the slow, unmoving force that overwhelmed him, the tremors that overwhelmed him when you watched him kneel onto himself behind a tree stump in Apgujeong. 

It was longing in its purest form. What Eddy had stirred in you was a part of you that you had long forgotten, and when the realization suddenly hit, you were consumed with a chokehold of sorrow stuck in your throat. You had to sit on the sand beds yourself, gripping your fists while gnashing your jaws to wish the tears that had slipped out of your eyes would go back into your tear ducts. 

Eddy should’ve been saved. 

But you knew, all too late, that nobody—not you or Mirae—could’ve done that. Two years after the dinner, you received a short letter from Mirae that briefed you on her life in Baltimore. Eddy had gone back to Wyoming as soon as she had left for America, and then, he was killed in action during a campaign in Afghanistan. She said that it was an assignment that he had no choice in, but a part of you believed he had suddenly requested a change in post. It just didn’t make sense for someone like Eddy, who had been based in Asia since the beginning of his military career, to relocate to the Middle East with no training or specialization. It was, for the most part, a suicide mission. Mirae’s letter had ended in a curt acknowledgment of what Eddy’s death had done to her psyche, and you burned her letter in your stove, swearing to never speak to her again.

You learned a lot about Eddy that night after he had finished crying. You offered to take him to a pool bar for some games and drinks, but he turned it down, stating he had enough of playing pool at the base. 

“It gets too competitive when you’re in the military,” he said with a nostalgic hint. 

For an hour, the two of you simply sat in silence, eyeing the winds blowing the empty swings to and fro. Then, you suggested that if the swings swung left, you got to ask Eddy a question. If it swung right, then he gets to ask you the same question. The rule was that there were no lies between the two of you, and as the deep chill of the night settled in your skin, Eddy began humming the Johnny Cash version to “My Grandfather’s Clock.” 

As he reached the chorus, it just occurred to you that sitting here, alone in the park with Eddy, was just like going on those arbitrary, long walks throughout Seoul with Eunseok. 

Eddy told you of his life back in Wyoming. He was born in the late 50s, grew up with the buzz of the Civil Rights Movement, then decided to drop out of university to enter the military after his father had shot himself in the head in the back garden of their family home. There was no poetry or prose to the way he spoke about it; he was as earnest as possible. 

“I found him when I came back to visit the family. We owned a farm with a few cows, pigs, and some chickens. If you could picture an image of the American countryside, then you could probably see in full clarity what our farm looked like. It was small, simple, and even had those red barns that you’d see in picture books. But what those children’s picture books about America don’t tell you is that life on the farm only becomes miserable as soon as you leave. I didn’t mind running the stables and rolling hay my whole life, but leaving home to go to the big city scared and took my breath all the same. I never even wanted to leave, but my folks said it was a good idea.”

“Do you regret leaving?” 

“Oh, no, of course not,” Eddy said, a genuine, small smile forming on his lips. “I just regret being so cruel to him when I didn’t know what he was going through.” 

Eddy didn’t talk too much about his father, in part because he admitted he didn’t know too much. He never saw his father’s side of the family during Christmas, and his mother refused to speak on what she referred to as the “accident.” Her mother was now a recluse in the family home, now a dead shell of what was once a small, yet decent farm that produced enough grain and livestock to feed a family of seven. 

“What happened to your arm?” He asked, pointing to your cast. 

“It’s just some small thing, really. I was clumsy and dropped a pile of books on it.” 

“It would be believable if it was a stack of In Search of Lost Time.” Eddy chuckled. 

“Do you want me to help you replace the cast?” He asked. You shook your head. 

“It’s alright. The doctor just told me to come back to him every now and then, and he hasn’t said anything about getting a new cast.” 

“So, what do you think?” Eddy suddenly asked. 

“About?” 

“Mirae, should I leave her?” 

You pondered for a while, watching the swings fluctuate in between the swirling gust of wind that erratically pushed each swing in the opposite direction. 

“Well, I think I would’ve left her a while ago,” you started, carefully choosing your words while watching the sorrow in his eyes merge with a glint of genuine curiosity. “Say, for me, if my views don’t necessarily align with someone I want to spend my entire life with, then there’s no happily ever or even a future to think of. Sure, compromise is important, but when your entire life’s philosophy is at odds or at opposite ends, then I don’t think that’s necessarily something worth fighting for. Mirae, to me, always felt like a person who strives to make other people happy, and it even surprised me that the two of you had stuck together for a while. I mean, as a friend or whatever we are, I do find her fascinating, but in the end, I don’t think she’d make a good life partner. I even feel like she doesn’t want to listen to me at times, and it makes me feel like I’m running in circles trying to catch up with her. Do you get what I’m trying to say?” 

“Yeah, I do,” Eddy replied, furrowing his light brows in frustration. 

“I mean, I know the two of you will be in America, but a far as I know, you’d be in between Wyoming and Seoul, while she’d be in Baltimore for a long time—at least, until she finsihes medical school. Would you wait for her?” 

“I mean, I’m not the smartest tool in the shed. I’m a bit old-fashioned when it comes to things like this, and in a sense, I just want to settle down. Maybe get the farm back? Have a few kids in the stable, a wife that holds me and loves me—you know, that sort of thing.” 

“And I don’t think Mirae has anything to do with that kind of life.” 

“But I like to think that people can change, you know?”

“I mean, if she were an ordinary girl, sure. But she isn’t. She’s very stubborn, and that part of her is impossible to crack. She only ceases to increase her stubbornness by the minute. She’d probably swallow shit before yielding to anyone. What can you expect from a woman like her?” 

Eddy held his chin with his palm, cocking his head slightly in a way that allowed some of his blonde hair to frame his face. Then, he looked at you with an unreadable expression, but deep down inside, you could already tell what he was going to say without him opening his mouth. Eddy was determined to wait. That was how much he loved Mirae. 

Before you had gotten up to stretch and make the late-night bus to the station, Eddy had told you a bit about Mirae’s family situation. She had been disowned by her parents after her mother had found out that she tried to solicit some extra funds for her study abroad from her uncle, with promises to have sex with him behind her aunt’s back. Even then, Eddy’s expression remained unfazed—unbothered to an uncomfortable, self-deprecating degree. 

The last time you saw Eddy was when he walked you to the nearest bus stop, his tall, solemn frame crouched over at the end of the receiver on a phone box two blocks away. 

Once you reached home, you kicked off your heels to the side of the door, hung your dress in your closet, and unhooked your bra, brushing your teeth in the bathroom in nothing but your underwear. As you saw the clock strike twelve, you checked the calendar, toothbrush, and hints of mint-swirled saliva dripping to your chin as you realized it was a Sunday. 

Sunday? Sunday! It’s a Sunday again! After four more Sundays, you would be twenty-three. You washed your mouth with a glass of water and laid in bed, body sprawled all over the mattress as the window left ajar reflected the bright, full moon onto the crevices of the room. A brooding, dark feeling washed over you, and after a few moments of tossing and turning, you got up again to sit on your desk, writing a letter to Eunseok until the sun rose. You made yourself some coffee, and put on a record by The Smiths. A light, soft rain fell from the windows into the kitchen sink, and your room had a slight chill. 

The smell of wine had lingered on your dress. A dead fly was sitting on the window sill near the kitchen counter. With a slight wind entering your apartment, the scent of the river reminded you of the sea. A home that you no longer could return to. Muted chatter echoed in and out of your ears as the same, old couple fed pigeons on the pavement bench a few meters away from your building. You couldn’t even begin to imagine why such a couple would spend their morning walking around in such a cold, desolate morning, where the sun hid momentarily after it rose in a shroud of white, murky clouds. 

You penned another long letter to Eunseok. Luckily, there wasn’t any strain on your hand as you wrote it, and you let your eyes wander out into the droplets of rain that formed blobs and amorphous patterns on your windows.

The letter started with telling Eunseok how you got your wrist sprained at work, and then it went on to Mirae’s celebration dinner. You told him about Eddy, and how good his Korean was despite being a foreigner. You told him about the food and the wine, the quality of the meal, and the ambiance of the restaurant, wondering if you should bring up his girlfriend in regard to the dynamic that you, Mirae, and Eddy shared. You felt that it was something you had to write about, but couldn’t find the right words to begin drafting that section of the letter. 

You still remembered the last time you saw Eunseok’s girlfriend—the day she died. It was, to you, the first and last time you had spent time alone with her, and she had walked all the way from her end of the island to yours, standing in front of the school gates waiting for you. Then, the two of you went to the park, where she brought some snacks her mother had received from her relatives in Daegu—a Tupperware filled with maejakgwa cookies. It was the exact same position that you had with Eddy, where she was squatting on a large, old tree, holding the box of cookies in her hands while you took a piece out and savored the tangy and sweet flavors that swirled into your mouth. She had asked you about your plans after high school, and you told her that you were going far, far away. 

The image of Eunseok’s girlfriend is still vivid to this day. Her long, black hair swayed gently in the wind, and the skirt in her uniform formed abstract pleats that moved with her shifting body. She had conjured up a game of her own: question by the swings. If the swing moved left, she got to ask you a question that you had to respond to in full honesty, and if it swung right, you returned the favor. That day, the swings kept swinging left, and so she had asked the bulk of the questions that afternoon. 

It was odd that the thought of Eunseok’s girlfriend never occurred to you when you were alone with Eddy, and it took the next sleepless day when you were sat by the dining table, penning a letter to Eunseok. It came as such a shock to you, and you had always thought that last day with his girlfriend would haunt you for the rest of your life, but throughout the entire conversation with Eddy, her apparition laid dormant, never ceasing to show herself in the corner of the park near Apgujeong. 

There was a stipulation of guilt that started to consume you, as if you had abandoned her memory altogether. But when you decided to take a break from the pen and paper to lie down in your bed again, you tried to frame it in a different way. It had been six years since she had died, and she was still seventeen. Of course, that didn’t mean that her image in your memory had completely faded. The emotions and thoughts that stirred you about her death were still there, deep inside your heart in full clarity, some of the aspects of her even clearer to you than before. You suppose what you wanted to think of is that in four Sundays, you would be twenty-three. Part of what you shared with Eunseok and his girlfriend had already faded when the three of you were sixteen and seventeen, and there was nothing you could do—no crying, no grieving, or mourning—that could ever bring that past back. 

I think of you more than ever, you continued. Somehow, it always rains on Sundays. It’s very hard for me when the weather is like this, and I have nothing to do. I can only seem to read the morning paper and stay in my apartment. I can’t even do my laundry or go to the grocers, and I can’t even take a walk in the park. All I can do is write to you, listen to my records, and read the morning paper again. Now, it’s “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” over and over again while I watch the rain fall on my windowsill. This letter is so long because I don’t have anything to do. I’ll stop now. I’ll make myself a late lunch. 

Goodbye.

Sungchan was nowhere to be found yesterday, today, and at the next day’s lecture. What happened to him? Two weeks had gone by since you had spoken to him on the phone, and you thought about calling him, but decided against it. He told you he would call you when he decided when to take you to the porn cinema. 

One night, you were woken up by your telephone ringing. You were sleeping through what felt like a slow death, in the core of a state of immovable paralysis when you were thrown off by the high-pitched buzz of the telephone, groggily stomping out of bed to feel through the dark living room in a state of confusion, as if your brain had been plunged into a warm, simmering boil in a metal pot, swelling larger and larger until all that was left was a heavy wound that pressed onto your forehead. The digital clock by the coffee table read 6:27, but you weren’t too sure if it was six in the morning or six in the evening, and you couldn’t seem to remember what day it was. You looked out on your window and saw a dust of stars in the milky dark swirls of the sky, taking it in it before your brain had delayed into telling you it was six in the evening. Perhaps keeping your curtains open did have some kind of time-telling purpose, after all. 

“Hey, are you free now?” Sungchan’s voice wrapped in static passed through your ears from the receiver.  

“Maybe? I don’t know, what day is it?” You asked, murmurs wrapped in the blanket of sleep. 

“Friday,” he answered too quickly. 

“Morning, or evening?” 

“Evening, duh! It’s just past six.”

You looked out again, as if pinching yourself awake. Sure enough, the street lamps were still on, with droplets of young people walking on the pavement. It was six in the evening, and that was concrete proof that your clock didn’t need its batteries switched. You tried to remember the events that transpired before you dozed off: right, you were writing a letter to Eunseok, then you went out to eat lunch. You came back home at three in the afternoon with some groceries, and you didn’t have to go to work anymore. 

“Yeah, I’m free. Where are you?” 

“Gongdeok station. Come see me now.” Sungchan said. There was not a single sense of a command in his voice, yet you were gravitated to the idea of seeing him.

After he hung up, you met his tall, sun-tanned frame in front of Gongdeok. Then, the two of you took the bus to Sinchon, where your old apartment had been. When the two of you had sat down, Sungchan called for the waiter to revive his old tab. 

“What were you drinking?” You asked. 

“Whiskey on the rocks,” he replied with a smile. You ordered a gin and tonic, then saw the large backpack that he had hidden on the edge of his seat. 

“I was away for a bit,” he said. 

“Where did you go?” 

“Busan, then all the way up to Seokcho.” 

“On the same trip?” 

“No, don’t be ridiculous, there’s no way I can go North and South at the same time on my own.” He replied, shaking his head. You noticed that there were a few spots of freckles that neatly rested on the bridge of his nose. 

“Anyway, I went to Busan with my girl, then took off to Seokcho alone.” 

While sipping your glass of gin and tonic in one hand, you held the lighter that you had received from Mirae three years ago to light Sungchan’s cigarette. For a moment, your hands lingered close to his mouth, watching the sharpness of his jaw suck the cigarette in, before gently puffing swirls of smoke out of his plump lips. 

“Jesus I’m surprised you had the time, given the funeral and everything,” you said. 

“Funerals are easy. Don a suit, and sit there all prim and proper while the monk rings a bell and says something. Pick some bones out after the cremation, then go to a restaurant and eat expensive food while saying your condolences to each other. Rinse and repeat. It’s a lot easier compared to being an unpaid nurse. All of us were drained, my brother and I, and we had no tears left to cry. I think we got away with it because we were men, but deep down, you can tell that they all thought we were ungrateful bastards for not shedding a single tear when our dad died. That’s just how we are, though, and the more we could sense that they wanted us to cry, the more we dried our tear ducts.”

There were three wooden bracelets in Sungchan’s right arm that jangled whenever he spoke or made a hand gesture, each bead making its own distinct melody that sliced through the cacophony of the bar. 

“After the funeral was over, my brother and I went back to the shop and drank so much to the point where we passed out in the living room, the sun already up. The whole time, we picked out which relative irked us the most, and it really energized us from everything. We went out cold, and didn’t answer the phone at all. We were basically dead to the world, and once we were fully awake, we ordered some food and enjoyed ourselves. We took the rest of the beer in the fridge and drank even more. I think we deserve it. After that, my brother went to his fiance for a while, and I decided to go on a trip to fuck like crazy.” Sungchan said, exhaling another puff of smoke in between intervals of three sentences or so. He kept the slim cigarette in between his lips, closing one eye to not let the smoke enter his lids. 

“Did you end up doing that?” 

“No,” he sighed—more like heaved and hurled. “Like I said, she was a pure Christian at heart. Never even offered to give me a blowjob or ask me to eat her out. The moment we arrived at the hotel, she just stood there and slept.” 

What started as a light chuckle ended up in a sea of laughter that poured out of you. 

“Aw, come on! That’s not funny at all! I locked myself in the bathroom and genuinely cried about it! To think that I went through all that pent-up stress only to get nothing at all from a girl who supposedly loves me! She was practically angry the entire time! That’s how she always is, always angry! Said that all I had to do was pray to get rid of the grief. It’s not like I asked for my dad to die. Christians, I tell you. Not all of them are crazy, but stay away from the evangelicals! Never get involved with them again!” 

“What happened after that?” 

“I said no! I’ve had it! You are not converting me into your celibate lifestyle! I am out! Then, I took the first train going North, winding up in Seokcho.” 

“You just left her there?” 

“It’s fine, she’s from Busan anyway. Had family that she could stay with. Besides, we talked about it extensively. It’s not like I just dumped her and left. God, even if she frustrated me so much, I couldn’t do that. I care a bit too much about how she feels,” 

“So you didn’t even see the sea in Busan or anything?” 

“No, our fight was too huge that I couldn’t spend another night with her in our hotel. The moment we called it quits, I just left.”

“Have you been to Busan?” He asked, whistling to the waiter to refill his glass with another round of whiskey. 

“Once, but nothing beats the Jeju sea.” You remarked with pride. 

“I wish I could’ve gone.” Sungchan lamented. 

“You can come anytime, really. I have family there, so you have a place to stay,”

“That’d be nice,” he smiled. “What also would’ve been nice was if you were there with me the whole time on the trip instead of her. If that were the case, we would’ve toured Busan properly, then did something spontaneous and went up all the way to Seokcho together. That sounds really nice.” 

“Why me?”

“Are you dense? Do you want me to spell it out for you?” Sungchan exclaimed with shock, eyes peering into your pupils. 

“I don’t know, I’m just curious, I guess. I want to know why you were thinking of me.” You replied, unsure if you said something deeply wrong. 

“I like you, a little too much. Why else would I be thinking of you all the time? Why would I think of someone I don’t like?” Sungchan retorted, raising his voice to the point where it resonated across the entire bar. 

“But you were with your girlfriend,” you interjected. “I don’t think it’s fair to her if you thought of me the whole time, no?” 

Sungchan, red with anger, looked like he was about to burst in a second. 

“Ex. And like I said, it was a lot more complicated than that. Watch what you say to me, because I have an entire month’s worth of misery inside me that’s about to blow any second now. I’m an absolute animal when I start screaming and crying, so much so that I can flood this goddamn place with my tears. It doesn’t matter where I am, but when I explode, I explode. I’m not joking.” 

You slowly nodded, watching his every move at a microcosmic level until he had calmed down. Once it felt like you could move again, you finished your glass of gin and tonic in one go, silently calling for the waiter with a raised hand to refill your glass. 

“You see, things haven’t been right with her since we started talking about sex.” 

“How come?” 

“It’s like, every night, we’d come home to each other. She’d kiss me first and feel me all over, get me in the mood, and the moment I asked her if we could do it, she absolutely refused. For about six months or so, she would constantly turn me on and then do nothing! She never touched me, but she would always kiss me in a way that invited something more, sticking her tongue out at the back of my mouth and feeling it all over. Her hands would go all over me, too, carefully avoiding the one place she couldn’t touch. Of course, I understood when she told me she wanted to be faithful to her religion, but why arouse me like that when she would always say she couldn’t do more for Jesus? Don’t get me wrong, she’s sweet, but I feel like she’s a bit of a hypocrite in some ways. She’d say she wanted me, and then stop herself because it was a sin. And then, don’t get me started on her complaints! She would come out with us from time to time, abstaining from a drink, and then scold all of us for saying foul things such as so-called dirty stories! Then, we’d constantly fight about it when we get back, with her telling me I should get better friends or lecture them even harder about obscenity and how bad it is! Don’t you think she’s a little bit too narrow-minded?” 

“I don’t know, I think it’s a matter of taste. I think she should’ve been better off with a Christian man that doesn’t talk about girls touching themselves or frequent porn cinemas.” You joked.  

“What have you been doing?” He asked, changing the topic. 

“Nothing much, really,” you answered, then remembered your promise to Sungchan over the phone. “I tried to touch myself while I was thinking of you.” 

“Did it help?”

“No, I just got dry.” 

“I’m that ugly, huh?” He retorted in annoyance. 

“No, it’s not that at all. I just can’t bring myself to do it somehow,”

“Go on the phone next time, and I’ll help you out.” 

“Weird, but who knows? It might help me,” you said. 

“So, I’ll call you next time you do it, yeah? Just let me know, and I’ll dial it up.” 

“No problem,” you saluted like a soldier, remembering Eddy and what he had shown you at the park. 

“Maybe it’s just me, like I’m not sexy or anything,” Sungchan pouted. You shook your head, trying to find the words to soothe his sensitive state. 

“You are, but I think it’s just a question of attitude. When I think of you, I just think of the ridiculous things you say and it doesn’t help me at all.” You responded. 

“I think I’m pretty good at talking dirty. Like, there’s this one spot on my back that’s super sensitive, when you scratch it with your dainty fingernails, I can’t help but—”

“Enough, enough!” You exclaimed, pressing your index finger on his lips to shush him. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“You done?” He asked, pointing at your empty glass with the jingling of his bracelets. 

“Why?” 

“It’s time to watch a dirty film! A real filthy one!” 

The two of you left the bar after Sungchan paid the entire tab, then hopped onto a specialty seafood restaurant to eat a bowl of freshly cut sashimi slices. After dinner, Sungchan took your hand and intertwined it with his, dodging from one corner of an alleyway to the other until he was in front of a run-down building with a Western-styled cinema sign lopsided to the left. It was, according to him, the only cinema in the entire city that showed BDSM and hard kink films. 

Once you stepped into the cinema, a recognizable stench wafted in the air, prompting you to bury your face into your hands, pinching your nose to not catch anymore of the rancid odor in the entire room. What you can appreciate, though, was that the timing Sungchan had was somehow always great for all the wrong reasons. When the two of you came in, the film had just started, and he took you to your seats after showing his pre-booked tickets to the usher. It was difficult for you to discern the language that was being showed, so you assumed it was a European one. The story was vaguely understandable despite the language barrier. There was a girl dressed in copious amounts of leather from head-to-toe, wearing a lacey mask that protected her eyes. There were four men, each in submission in different ways: one was hanging lopsided in what you recognized as a beautifully artistic rendition of the shibari style, and another had a ball gag in his mouth while being handcuffed on a bed. Another man was strapped with a belt on a kitchen table mimicking a straitjacket, and the last man was tied onto a leash, crouched down inside a kennel big enough to fit a human being. At first, you were intrigued by the allure of the dominating woman, but after a while, it was the same pattern of whipping, flogging, breaking penises, and gagging that you quickly grew bored of the film. 

“Talk about size! That guy’s massive!” Sungchan exclaimed, eyes fixated on the screen. 

“He probably pumps it with something, I don’t know?” You said, recalling a fact that you had seen in the lifestyle portion of the morning paper, something about erectile dysfunction and how to have more stamina in bed as a man. 

“You can’t pump penises, silly.”

Sungchan’s eyes were glued to the screen, never once looking away for a break. It surprised you that he was capable of watching something so intense and standing his ground without faltering a single bit. He would constantly talk to himself, recording his thoughts out loud: “Shit that’s crazy!” or “My god, how is his back still okay after that?!” 

As the film went on, you enjoyed Sungchan’s presence more than the film. 

“Tell me, do you get wet watching this?” 

“Have never really seen the appeal, if I’m being honest,” you replied. “What about you?” 

“Yeah, I think they make these things for men, mostly. It’s like a natural reaction, almost, and I’m sure the rest of the men in the room also get hard watching stuff like this too. Imagine, thirty or forty dicks just standing upright, isn’t that funny?” 

“Gross.” 

The next film was milder and more typical of what one might expect at the porn cinema. The setup was simpler, and there wasn’t any foreplay save for the thirty-minute massage session that was uncut from the film. Every time there was cunnilingus or fellatio involved, the slurping and sucking noises echoed across the entire cinema, making you feel a sense of touching bizzarity about the state of the world you live in. 

“God, nobody actually sounds like that during sex! She sounds like a dying cat!” You said, attempting to cover your ears after an endless barrage of high-pitched shrieks that were passed off as moans. 

“I don’t know, I think it’s great! It’s funny as hell!”

By the time the scenes in the film switched into penetration, you were startled and stunted, to say the least. You had never paid attention to the way the penis sounded when it entered the vagina—so much so that you were convinced this was embellished in post. You looked to Sungchan whose enthusiasm had quickly died down, quickly snapping his neck back to you to take your hand and lead you out of the cinema. In a sense, this was the first time you felt that the Seoul air was refreshing, not stuffy. 

“Well, that was fun, let’s do it again sometime,” Sungchan said. 

“They’re not really creative. It’s a lot of shock factor, and then, it’s the usual. In and out,” you replied.

“What else can they do? I mean, sex is just that if you think about it?” 

Sungchan did have a point. 

Sungchan found another bar near the cinema, and the two of you ordered more drinks. This time, you ordered some beer, while Sungchan ordered at least five different types of cocktails in different shapes, colors, and sizes. When the two of you exited, Sungchan tried to climb a small tree near the street lamp.

“I have been cursed by my family to be tall. What a horrible thing to go through!” 

“Even I don’t think I can climb these trees at my height. They’re either too short or too thin—not much support. Also, you’re too drunk to even stand properly! What the hell are you gonna do if you fell off?” 

“God, you always ruin everything by being too sensible! What’s wrong with being drunk? I chose to be drunk today, and I will climb a tree! Shit, I’m gonna climb the biggest tree in here and pee on everybody!” 

Before Sungchan could take his jeans off, you quickly rushed him to the nearest park, desperately searching for an outhouse or a toilet that was free. Luckily, a cab driver was parked near a small entryway tucked under the edge of a residential area, and you watched him zip his pants up as he exited a tiled section of the park. While you waited for him to do his business, you asked the cab driver if he had anything you could read besides the morning paper. He tore off a crossword puzzle from the evening paper and handed you a pencil before driving off to pick up a customer. With each word across and downward, your worry over Sungchan grew more prevalent. By the time you were down to three words across the puzzle, you tucked the paper and pencil into your pocket and checked in on him, covering your nose before entering the men’s bathroom.

There he was, slouched over one of the stalls with a horrid pallor. 

“Sorry, I just passed out,” he murmured. Luckily for you and for him, there was no signs of vomiting. 

“You alright?” You asked, taking a few scraps of toilet paper and gently patting off the sweat that formed onto his forehead. Once you were finished, you took your cardigan off and draped it around his shoulders, only to find that his arms were too broad to slip into the sleeves. 

“No,” he replied, shaking his head vehemently. 

“Should I take you home?”

“I’m so tired of that crappy shop! It smells like the past and taxmen! Bring me to yours! I’m sick of being alone!” 

“You planned this all along, didn’t you?”

“Caught red-handed, I must say.” He said, half-lidded with a sly smirk on his lips. 

“I think you should’ve called your girlfriend, or ex, whatever the two of you are now. That’s the only thing that makes sense.” 

“But I wanna be with you,” he whined. 

“You can’t. And if I were to sleep with a man, I’m gonna do it with him. The last thing I want is to have to feel guilty sleeping with other people when I’m pretty sure I think I love someone else.” 

“But I’m so lonely! I really want to be with someone right now! I know I’ve been terrible to you, putting you in a stupid contract just to talk to you and get closer to you, saying whatever pops into my head, forcing you to come with me wherever I go, but you’re the only one I can do all those things with! I’ve never been able to have my own way with anyone! My parents never paid any attention to me, always focusing on my brother! Hell, even someone I called a girlfriend never cared about what I fucking wanted! She gets angry when I try to bargain, and only wants things to go her way! So we always fight, and it’s gets so fucking tiring. I’m fighting my parents, then I fight my brother about the store and what we should do after my dad died, and to top it all off, I fight with the only person who, as you’ve said, is supposed to help me get through this entire shitshow! You’re the only one I have left, and I’m really, really, really tired! I just wanna fall asleep next to someone who will listen to me, tell me how much they like me, how handsome I am, and all that stuff. That’s all I want. And when I wake up, I’ll stop being selfish. I’ll be a good boy, and I’ll never demand anything from you ever again.” 

“I get where you’re coming from, Sungchan, but there’s nothing more I can do,” you sighed.

“Please? I might sit down here on the ground and cry all night. Hell, I might even sleep with the first girl that talks to me.” 

You gently hoisted him up, wrapping his long arms on your shoulders while you used your weight to make him stand on his own. Then, you rerouted yourself to search for the nearest late-night bus that would take you straight to your apartment building. 

“All set to go?” You asked. A big, wide grin emerged and gave you uncomfortable chills. 

“Yep, let’s go to a club! It’s still early!” He exclaimed. At this rate, he was still holding onto you, all tiredness sucked out of him. 

“Wait, I thought you were tired?” You asked, trying to control the urge to roll your eyes. 

“Not anymore!” 

“For fuck’s sake.” 

And, to your lack of surprise, Sungchan was miraculously back in shape. He took you to a disco, arms waving up and down while his hips swung with the latest hits that was playing on the radio. He drank four glasses of rum and coke, and then continued to dance to New Order until you could see his hair glued to his forehead. 

“I haven’t danced like this in ages! It feels so liberating!” He shouted too close to your ears. 

“You practically embody liberation!” You responded with the same vigor. 

“No way,” he shrugged, then stopped dancing just as fast as he had started. “Let’s leave.” 

“It’s only been an hour.” 

“I know, and I’m hungry. Let’s go get pizza.” 

Even if you knew you had entered your side of the city, it was Sungchan’s rather bloodshot eyes that led you into the only pizzeria that was open, which was right next to the grocers that you frequented to buy your vegetables. You didn’t know that they were opened until this hour, but it wasn’t your position to know that much about this place—after all, you weren’t the type to stay out at a time like this. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, you passed out cold not too long ago?” You asked, watching Sungchan squat on the flour with a slice of pizza and a paper plate in his hands. You held the box for him in case it toppled over, watching him take slice after slice. You stopped at three slices, then took the box down the nearest trash can that you could find when he reached the last slice. 

“It’s because my selfish demands got through you, so now, I’m feeling so much better!” He replied with excitement, lips red with marinara sauce. 

“Are you sure you’re the only one home right now?” 

“Yeah. My brother’s with his fiance. Something about the house giving him insomnia after my dad died.” 

“So both of you don’t want to live in that place anymore, correct?” 

“The only problem is, he doesn’t wanna sell the shop. I do, though. It’s time to close this chapter of the Jung family! No more crappy record shop!” 

You pondered, heels turning against the direction to your house before walking right in front of him. Taking some of the napkins that came with the pizza, you folded two pieces together and wiped the corners of his mouth, watching some of the sauce stain your thumbs.

“You’ve made a selfish demand, so I’d like to make one in return,” you said. 

“As I’ve said, you gave in to my demands. I’ll be a good boy now.” 

“Can we spend the night at Jung Records? You know, before you sell it or close it?” 

Sungchan’s smile dropped a little while he furrowed his brows in deep thought. After what felt like minutes, he gave you a quick nod. 

“Okay, sure. Come on.” 

You didn’t know what time it was, but the nearest train station had closed, making the two of you walk back to the late-night bus stop that you usually used to come home from a late shift at the library. You didn’t know it took you as far as Ichon, but after twenty minutes of strolling around the neighborhood, you reached the dilapidated sign that made you witness your first house fire. A big, lopsided sign said CLOSED INDEFINITELY, and once Sungchan had turned the keys open, the overwhelming smell of vanilla and almonds greeted your nose, as if all the records had been trapped inside to allow their natural smells to take over the entire shop. The once overpacked, tiny record store now had at least a quarter of its collection emptied out, and all the records that were on display were idly sitting in large boxes, stacked together with some of them protruding out of its sleeves.

Jung Records was no more.

“So it’s final, right?” You asked. Sungchan slowly nodded, muttering curses under his breath every time his toes had stubbed the boxes strewn around the shop. 

“Yeah. I made the decision to sell the shop behind my brother’s back. At first, he really got angry with me, but after we had a proper talk about it, we decided to divide the money up and live our own lives for a while. My brother’s saving up for a wedding ceremony, and I have one more year of university left before I have to get a real job. It won’t be much of a hassle if I get a full-time position after I graduate. I already have a place lined up for me with the amount I’ve been saving through my job at the radio, and with the inheritance and the money from selling the shop, I’ve secured a down payment.”

Sungchan took you upstairs into the kitchen table, then sat you down with a cold can of beer before excusing himself to take a shower. When you heard the shower, you quickly got up from the chair and took the beer back in the cooler, heading to the stove to boil some water for tea. Once he had emerged out, with nothing but a towel on his waist, the two of you sat facing each other on the dining table, sipping some tea. Chin resting on his palm, he cocked his head and took a long, hard look at your face. The silence quickly choked you, and your only form of release was the whirring of the old refrigerator situated next to the marbled kitchen counter. 

“You think someone will want to buy this place?” You asked, fingers tightly curled on an odd, frog-shaped mug. 

“Oh, you’d be surprised! Most of them are real estate people who want another massive apartment complex, but I managed to find someone who would transform this into a nice little boutique. Sucks to be dad, though. Grandpa worked so hard to get this place; this building is pretty much all he’s ever known. He has a bad head for business, too, but even then, he was stubborn as hell, taking loans out bit by bit until he had nothing left.”

“He had you, though,” you said. 

“Me?! God, you call me crazy, but you’re the insane one here!” 

Beads of water dropped one after the other onto the wooden table, and Sungchan continued to peer into you, looking for something in the shape of the mug he never took to his lips. 

“You’re pretty.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah, you heard me. You’re pretty. The more I look at you, though, the more I realize you have an interesting face. You’ll do, you’ll do just fine.”

You took the mug down from your lips, feigning hurt as you put a fist to your chest. 

“Hey! I don’t mean that in a bad way! I’m not that good at putting my thoughts into words, and that’s why many people misudnerstsand me. All I’m trying to say is that I like you, I like you a lot. Did I tell you that?” Sungchan asked, then rummaged through the kitchen to search for a pack of cigarettes. 

“Yes, you did,” you nodded, taking a long, gas lighter and pointing the flame to the tip of his cigarette after a few tries. 

“Girls are complicated, but I think I’m getting closer to understanding you all. Bit by bit.” 

Through the corner of your eyes, you saw a glint of obsidian sparkle through a dark, unlit room. The door had been left ajar, and the scent of faded lavender slowly permeated the room.

“Do you have any incense?” You asked. 

“Yeah, I do. Why?” 

“Let’s burn a stick for your father,” you offered.

Sungchan took you to the room and pulled on a string to light up the altar, while you brought the gas lighter with you to light a stick of incense. One for Sungchan, and the other for you. Before sticking the incense in the urn, you clasped your palms together in a deep, silent prayer. 

“I thought of stripping naked in front of my dad’s memorial portrait, to show him how much I’ve grown since he’s last washed me naked when I was a kid. But then, I stopped myself. My brother came in, and when he found me with my pants down, he almost passed out.” 

“I’d do the same too if I saw someone go naked in front of my dead dad or something,” you replied, knowing it was futile to focus on your prayer.

“You’re just too normal, just like my brother,” he muttered in annoyance. 

“Anywho, what did you think of my dad?” 

“I haven’t been with him long enough, but he seemed alright. I was pretty comfortable with him. I was mostly talking to myself in the room, but his presence made it feel like he was listening to everything I said.” 

“What did you say to him?” 

“I talked about economics, mostly.” You hesitated, watching the incense burn in a bright shade of amber. 

“Ew, nobody talks about the economy with a dying person they’ve just met!”

“Nobody tries to strip naked in front of their dead father either!” 

Sungchan chucked, then took a cylindrical, wooden stick to ring the singing bowl.

“Goodnight, dad. I hope you’re not suffering anymore in the afterlife. You’re dead, okay? If you are suffering for whatever reason, go complain to the gods. Tell them that you’ve had enough. I hope you reunite with mom too, and the two of you really do it to make up for the lost time since she died. Give it everything you’ve got, because the Jung men aren’t too shabby.” 

You asked Sungchan if you could use the bath, and he told you he already had it boiling. He offered to join you to save water and time, squeezing himself into the tiny ceramic bathtub. The two of you sat facing each other, his feet sloppily hanging on the curb of the bathtub. Whenever he shifted, you felt his toes touch your face, and you turned in response to give him more space. By this point, his legs and ankles were touching your waist, and you brought your knees up to your chest, allowing the rest of your body to sink into the warmth of the water. 

“I’ve never been in a bathtub with someone else before,” you said. 

“Me neither,” he replied. 

“I can feel your legs touching mine.” 

“What the hell am I supposed to do? It’s a tiny space, and you’re too tall.” He complained, then took his feet back inside the tub to splash your face with water.

 “See, your feet are touching my face! Ew!” 

“Come closer, then, if you don’t want my feet touching your face.” He said, resulting in you backing into a corner, burying your chin on the comforts of your knees. 

“If I do, I’m gonna feel your erection on my back.” 

“You say it like it’s so revolting!” 

“It is! I’m all here, trying to take a bath and relax! The last thing I want is to feel your hard dick on my back! It’s gonna keep poking me!” 

“Deal with my feet, then,” he joked, splashing you with another wave of water while his toes curled onto your eye level. 

“Fuck you!” 

“I wonder what it’s like fucking in the bathtub,” he asked, resting his chin on his knuckles while his legs spread out of both ends of the bathtub. 

“Slippery?” 

“Wanna try it out?”

“No thanks, I’m leaving,” you said, dragging your body out of the bathtub and wrapping yourself with a towel that was too long for you. 

“Cold!” 

Sungchan tossed you a shirt and some of his late mother’s underwear, which you didn’t end up wearing as you felt it was inappropriate, even if they had just come out of an unopened pack. His shirt was enough to cover your entire body, but it was better than nothing. Instead of taking you to his room, Sungchan brought out a mattress and some bedsheets in front of the altar, then came back with a set of pillows and blankets. It was a twin-size, so it barely fit the two of you. Out of instinct, you held onto Sungchan, afraid that you were going to fall off the edge. With your nose against his chest, you felt his large hands slowly move their way down to your hips, fingertips tightly holding onto your skin. You had your arms wrapped around the circumference of his shoulder blades, feeling their sharp protrusions as he pulled you closer to him. You wouldn’t exactly say this was the right timing to engage in any sexual activity, with Sungchan sneezing every time the tips of your hair would tickle his nose. 

“Come on, say something to me,” he whispered.

“Go to sleep.” 

“Come on!” 

“Okay, fine. Hi. Now go to bed,” 

“You’re mean,” he pouted. You could feel his lips shake as he kissed your forehead. 

“What do you want me to say?” You asked in confusion. 

“Something that makes me feel good,” he replied. 

“You’re handsome.” 

“Sungchan. Say my name,”

“You’re really handsome, Sungchan.” You corrected. 

“What do you mean by really handsome?” 

“So handsome that mountains crouch in fear by your presence and oceans wilt into mere ponds. That type of handsome.” 

Sungchan took your cheeks in his hands and lifted your face to meet his sparkling, doe-like eyes. 

“You’re good with words.” 

“Thank you, I try,” you replied with a soft smile. 

“Say something nicer.” 

“I really like you too, Sungchan. A lot more than I’d like to admit.”

“How much is a lot?” 

“A lonely planet on the other side of the galaxy.” 

“Cliche.” 

“Alright, I’ll think of something better: How about a tiger?” 

“I don’t get it,” he said, eyes focused on nothing but yours. 

“You’re in the vast winter of Siberia, all by yourself, with nothing but a big coat. You see this big predator coated in orange, black, and white, sticking out like a sore thumb in the white, empty blizzard. Instead of eating you, the tiger instead asks you to roll in the snow with it. So there you are, rolling in the snow with the tiger, spending a whole day playing around and making snow angels. Then, the tiger snuggles up to you, giving you more warmth than your coat so you can survive the harsh winters. Sounds nice, right?” 

“Really nice.” 

“That’s how much I like you,.” 

“Wow, I’ve never had someone say such nice things about me like that,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Tell me, if you like me that much, you’ll do anything I tell you to do, right? You won’t get angry with me?”

“Of course not,” you reassured him, gently shaking your head while you felt the warmth of his palms transfer to your cheeks. He wrapped his legs around your waist, and you returned the gesture with a soft nudge from your feet to his. 

“You’ll always take care of me forever?” 

“Of course I will. Everything’s going to be fine.” You replied, gently placing his head on your chest while you stroked his soft, black hair. 

“I’m scared,” Sungchan whimpered. 

You continued to hold him close to your chest, and he slowly succumbed to a deep, peaceful sleep. You felt his chest rise and fall on your stomach, and once you felt that not a single noise could stir him awake, you slowly slipped out of the bed and closed the door, silently taking the cold can of beer you left on the cooler to crack it open as quietly as you can. Despite the long, exhausting day that you had, you couldn’t quite figure out why sleep wasn’t coming to you at all. You rummaged through some of the shelves for something to read, but everything was neatly packed in boxes, and you were too afraid of making noise. 

So, you stood by the marbled kitchen counter, beer in hand, while staring out into the window. This was a record store, after all, and the only thing you could do, if the circumstance allowed it, was to pick up a record from downstairs and play it. Sungchan wasn’t much of a reader, either, so it was no use trying to look for anything to read in the Jung domicile. However, you had to keep yourself busy. There was no simple way that time would pass if you just idly sat by the kitchen doing nothing in particular. 

Then, albeit a little too late, you thought of making a small, heartfelt contribution to Jung Records. Slipping a small 50,000 Won note crumpled into your pockets on the cash register, you slowly approached the barrage of boxes and picked out a record you wanted to bring home. Though their collection wasn’t that impressive, you noted a few interesting deep cuts before finalizing your choice in the form of a Billie Holiday collection, making your way back upstairs to place it next to your neatly folded clothes. You then consumed the rest of your beer while drinking what was left of the tea in Sungchan’s mug, feeling a tinge of warmth but no sleep. You went back into the room to check on him, but he was fast asleep, his exhaustion taking the form of a ring of dark circles that formed underneath his eyes.

Save for a single street lamp by the post office, Ichon was shrouded in a dark, looming mist. Sungchan slept with his back facing the window, the light of the street lamp embracing his bare skin in perfect stillness. While bending over to his chest, you watched it rise and fall, just as his father had been at the hospital. 

Once the skies had emerged from a period of deep darkness, you made yourself a cup of tea and scribbled a note on a receipt you picked up from the trash can.

I bought a record. It’s one of Billie Holiday’s. I also stole your beer, but that comes with the tip. I went home in the morning because I had something to do. See you soon. Then, after pondering on which words to choose, you wrote, I love watching you sleep. Then added, it’s cute, before returning to the kitchen to wash both your mugs. You quietly made your way downstairs, carrying the record between your arms, glanced up at a curtainless window above the dilapidated Jung Records sign, then stepped out, ensuring the door was shut before walking to the nearest bus stop. The only semblance of life that greeted you was a family of crows perched on the wires of a thick utility pole, beaded eyes staring down at your every movement while you walked away from Jung Records. On the way to the bus stop, you knocked on a door to a corner store that said open, then purchased two portions of kimbap before riding the bus, feeling sleep come gently in the lullaby of the bus engine.

You wrote to Eunseok every week, and he wrote back to every single one you posted. His letters weren’t as long as yours, and before you knew it, December had arrived in light snow and a frosty chill in the air. 

It takes me back to the last time you visited. I can’t believe it’s been over a year now! This season is quite bleak, so much so that the hole in my heart from missing you had deepened. 

I talk about you with some of the patients all the time. They said they want to meet you if you ever visit again. Don’t worry about me, because they’re all very nice to me. I really don’t think I would survive living here if it weren’t for them. Did you know, I still cry a lot. I think it’s because I’m lonely.

The doctors say that it’s a good sign, but it hurts. Loneliness hurts so much, and when I close my eyes, this loneliness makes me hear things, hear things that are wrapped inside the slow rumble of the dead leaves being blown away by the winter winds. They talk to me in the language of the breeze: her, my mother, and you. They all talk to me because they’re lonely, just like me. 

At nights like these, I return to the comfort of your letters—of your kind words. The thought of the outside still scares me, but you have a way of describing every little detail in such a benign, thoughtful way. It’s strange, really, that a piece of paper can bring me so much comfort. It puzzles me so much that I wonder why this effect has come in place, but all I can do is read them over and over again. Sometimes, I even talk about the things you tell me to the doctors, and they also started to wait for your letters. 

There was something about your classmate’s father that really resonated with me, and it seemed to keep the doctors anticipating as well. I mean, I don’t say this out of any ill will, but it’s true. In a place like this, your letters have become a kind of entertainment for us. 

I try to make some time out of my already sparse schedule to write to you, but seeing the blank sheet of paper makes me so blue that I can’t even touch the pen next to me. Even this one had to be forced out of my own will. The doctors have been urging me to get back to you, but it’s not you that’s at fault, this I can promise. I have a lot I want to talk about, but it’s really hard for me to think of what to say, and this pains me, because I think of a lot, but I can’t, no matter how hard I try, put them into my own words. 

When I read the part about your classmate, I think to myself that he is in love with you. The doctors agree, too, and say that your classmate is a funny one. I’ve been tending to the cats more that I’ve stopped writing calligraphy, but I still play the piano every day—and I’m serious about this. Each day, it’s a different song that I play, and I even get suggestions from the other patients! 

Well, I guess that’s it from me. Goodbye.

Once the fourth Sunday had arrived, you received a package from Eunseok. It was a small, personal cake with candles and a knitted sweater. Along with it came a card. 

Happy birthday! You’re twenty-three! At least you’re not as miserable as I am at the age, but I thought it would be nice if I could share this wonderful moment with you. I tried knitting this sweater myself with one of the patients, but he ended up doing the other half of it because I was too awful at tying the loose yarn together. If I challenged myself to finish this all on my own, I think I wouldn’t even make it until Chuseok. You can clearly tell which side I did, because it’s the bad one. God, there really isn’t a single thing I’m good at.

Bye. 

You were now twenty-three, and the trees were bare, crestfallen with its naked branches. Nothing in your life had changed, and it was the same routine that you had managed since Eunseok got admitted to Ujeong Inn. You woke up early to make yourself some tea and read the morning paper, then prepared to go to your lectures, resumed your shifts at the library once your wrist had completely healed, and then do your laundry on a Sunday, while writing a long letter to Eunseok. Sometimes, you would meet Sungchan to stroll around the river or go to a porn cinema. Jung Records had officially been sold to a large, foreign property management service, and he moved to a two-bedroom apartment near Guryong with his brother, who said he would move out and leave the apartment to himself after he gets married. He invited you for lunch over the phone on Friday after your lecture with Professor Goo, and you could tell that living outside of the store had uplifted him tenfold. 

By the end of the winter term, you wrote to Eunseok again to see if you could come to Ujeong for your break. The letter you received didn’t have his handwriting, and it was penned under a Dr. Park, explaining that he had been in charge of counselling Eunseok since the spring. He told you that Eunseok was having trouble writing, so he would pen the letters while he recovers. He reassured you that this didn’t mean Eunseok had an issue with you personally, and told you not to worry about it. 

Things like these are more of a spiral, not a straight line, Dr. Park had written towards the end of the letter. 

When you finished your last exam, you packed your things in a hiking backpack, laced your snow boots on, and wrapped yourself in a scarf that Eunseok had given you when you were twenty, before walking up to the train station to make your way to Ujeong Inn. The mountain ranges were just as beautiful as you had imagined, with layers of snow adding a picturesque touch that deserved to be stamped onto a postcard. Instead of staying the full week, you opted to cut your stay short, only spending two nights with Eunseok. He was less talkative than he had been when you last visited, and most of the time you spent with him were indulged in an eerie silence, both of you hardly saying a word to each other. Whenever you asked him if he was okay, he would reassure you that he just wanted to watch you from afar. So, you started talking to Dr. Park, who often spoke of seafood in Jeju and missing the taste of ginger pork chops. Sometimes, Eunseok would listen into the conversations you shared with Dr. Park about books or music, silently nodding along and smiling with each word uttered. Once the evening curfew had struck, Dr. Park excused himself out of the lobby and went back into his lodge, leaving you to return to Eunseok’s room. 

Once the two of you were alone, you held Euseok’s face with your hands, feeling his cold skin feel as brittle as glass on your fingertips. He leaned in to kiss you, slowly, but surely asking your tongue for permission. He drew his body close, pressing his erection on your stomach as his lips left trails of kisses on your neck, shoulders, and breasts. His thumb massaged the tip of your nipples, flicking and sucking on them ever so often. Once his warm tongue had lathered itself all over your breasts, you brought your lips to the tip of his penis, circling your tongue up and down as you slid your hands up and down, feeling his erection grow harder. He came all over your mouth, just before you could put his entire length up to your throat. 

You held him close on his bed, telling him that the ghost of his touch had lingered on and kept you going for the year that you hadn’t been with him, that the only way you can make yourself cum was if you thought about him. 

“Did you sleep with anybody else?” He asked. 

“No, not at all,” you replied, shaking your head. 

“Here’s something you can remember,” he whispered, gently licking your ears while his hands traveled down to your hips, fingers curled inside you. With each moan through gritted teeth, he pushed his fingers up, drawing his lips to your neck and leaving bite marks up to the top of your breasts. While using his free hand to feel your waist, he continued to pump his fingers, inserting one more until you came. With all the strength you can muster, you hoisted yourself up, going on top of him. Instead, he shook his head and held your waist, carrying you back down to his side. In his arms, the only thing you can hear was his hot breathing in intervals of a mantra to calm him down. 

“I’m graduating soon, and when I do, I’m thinking of going abroad. I don’t know what it is, but I’d like to explore a lot more of what the world has to offer. Nothing’s set in stone yet, though, and I was also thinking of passing the civil service exam and getting a job in the Ministry of Finance. I’ll be moving out of where I currently live for a bigger apartment. How about you come live with me?” 

“I’m so happy that you would ask me to do something like that!” 

“Not that I think there’s anything wrong with this place, but you ought not to stay here for a long time. It’s not the kind of place you live in. It gets harder to leave the longer you stay here.” 

The response you received was Eunseok’s arms slinking away from your waist, facing his back against you. He turned his gaze to the window, watching the white clouds and the snow pile over the forest.

“Take your time and think it over.” You said. “Whatever happens, I’d be graduating in the summer at August. If ever you decide you want to come, you can always join me in Seoul.” 

Eunseok turned back to face you, arms on your waist again to draw you close. He looped your leg over his waist, a frustrated groan escaping under his lips as he grew softer and softer with each attempt to get inside of you. 

“I can’t get hard again, what’s wrong with me?” 

“It’s probably a psychological response. There’s not need to hurry,” you reassured him, slowly caressing his back in soft pats.

“But all my problems are psychological,” he replied, annoyance growing in the form of his furrowed brows.  “What if I never recover? What if I can’t have sex for the rest of my life? Will you keep loving me the same? Will my hands be enough for you? Or will you solve your problems by sleeping with other boys?” 

“I think I have enough restraint.” 

Eunseok got out of bed and slipped a shirt on, then took a pair of boxer briefs out of his closet. You did the same, picking your underwear up from the floor and putting it on again, feeling the wetness transfer into the soft pads of cotton. 

“Alright, then I’ll think about it. You should think about it too.” 

“I will.” 

The two of you left the room to enter the emtpy cafeteria, breaking curfew and sneaking past the janitors while doing so. For the first time in a while, Eunseok talked about the old days—about Jeju, the sea, his girlfriend, and your walks together. Every now and then, he would ponder, asking himself if he used the correct word or phrased his sentences right. The skies had been white the entire time you were there, and before you knew it, your three-day stay had come to an end. 

“I think I can come back before August. Things are gonna get busy when my last semester kicks in, but I’m sure I’ll be alright.” You said, zipping your coat up and giving him a terse kiss on the lips. 

“Goodbye.”

You were now twenty-three, and the eighties had come to an end. It was officially 1990, a year that marked a new decade for all who celebrated it. Somehow, even with the unexciting number in age, you felt yourself rise up from a slump, passing another round of your exams with relative ease. You had to give a presentation for a research proposal that was met with approval from the entirety of the economics department, and you had nothing else to do other than write—this time, not to Eunseok. 

By this time, the political movement had ceased to exist. Times were getting better—at least, that was what the morning papers had forecasted. Stock prices were going up, and the introduction of the computer in your library made it easier to write your research dissertation. You filed a letter of resignation to the Democratic Party of Korea, a body you couldn’t recognize anymore, and you slowly slipped out of a life in politics and activism, solely focusing on acing your end-of-term exams. 

Despite this, there were simmering talks on campus about another large protest planned in late spring, which resulted in at least five people in your department getting expelled from the university. This created a tense, unspoken atmosphere around campus, and you felt the ominous, oppressive air puncture your lungs when you attended your morning lectures. One time, you had been in the crossfire of a fistfight, almost getting your face scarred with a broken, blunt glass bottle. In any case, you tried to spend as little time as possible on campus, burning your research document on a floppy disk to resume your work in the local library instead. 

Once you had finished your exams, you focused your energy on house hunting, which came easy with the income you saved up from your shift at the university library. After two weeks, you made arrangements to move into a cozy, semi-detached unit just around Itaewon. The location was right by two bus stops and a train station, and you were surprised to find such a spacious house available in what otherwise would’ve been a busy area. 

Your landlord was an old couple who only had a strict demand to keep the garden up, but other than that, they didn’t make any demands. Eddy and Mirae helped you with the move, and you received all the small kitchen appliances that you needed from Eddy, who asked around the base for any extra furniture or appliances that the residents didn’t need anymore. While the people in the base considered these appliances as scrap metal, you were more than happy about the fact that they were sturdy and in working condition. The two were off to America the following week, and you said your goodbyes before they drove off. 

After a few days of settling into your new place, you penned a long letter to Eunseok again, describing your new neighborhood, the house that you secured, and how, despite missing your old place, it was a nice change to be situated at one of the urban centers of the city. It felt like an appropriate change to make, especially as you turn the page over from your student days to what felt like the end of a marathon. 

Despite living in Itaewon, my house is tucked away in a cul de sac, covered in oak and pine trees while overlooking the river. It warms my heart to be next to the river again, and I even have a family of strays visiting me for breakfast and dinner, so you wouldn’t have to worry about leaving the cats at Ujeong behind. In the morning, I like to make the effort to catch the newspaper boy in the nick of time and head out into the river, putting my tea in a thermos while looking out at the scenery in front of me. The river at this time is calm and still, and sometimes, one of the cats comes with me, curling up on my lap while I read the business section of the morning paper. I’d bring a can of tuna, and with enough bribery, I’m sure they’ll be my friends.

The commute is a lot easier from here because all the train lines and the bus links lead straight to my university, but I don’t think I’d need to go to campus any longer. I’m even thinking of quitting my job at the library on campus to switch over to the local library. I mean, it’s all I know how to do, really. Sort books out. Either way, if that doesn’t work out, I’ll try to work at a bakery or at one of the cosmopolitan restaurants that are quickly opening up around the downtown core. 

I know I sound a little desperate, but the spring symbolizes rebirth, and I can’t help but feel optimistic that we will be living together here, in our little house, very soon. You could resume your studies in Dongguk, too, because I’ll have enough to support us. If you don’t want to live with me for any reason, I can even help you with house hunting. What matters to me is that we have to be close to each other, preferably on a walk. Of course, the season doesn’t have to be spring. It could be whenever you feel like it. 

Let me know what you think, okay?

I’ll be a bit busy with school as I wrap up my final year, and I aim to graduate before next spring. I’ll also need to search for a new job that pays better because I’ve spent quite a lot on securing this place. Though Eddy and Mirae were kind enough to give me everything I needed, I still had to buy some furniture and upholster my couch. I’ll be free in April or May, and I can’t wait to see you again. What dates work best for you? I’ll see if I can borrow Dr. Park’s computer to do some of my dissertation there. I look forward to your response. 

Over the next few days, you strolled around the neighborhood, visiting bars in your locality and eating out at the cosmopolitan restaurants that were opening around the area. There was an abundance of cafes selling croissants and other French pastries, but you quickly grew bored of the taste and decided to buy a cookbook at the Kyobo nearby to cook more meals at home. You found a standing mirror and a bookshelf for half the price at a furniture shop run by a family of four near the area, all while tending to a family of cats who frequented your garden. One of the kittens had taken a liking to you, so you decided to adopt it, naming it after Kokuma in Ujeong. 

While you were feeding Kokuma one morning, the thought of Sungchan began to occupy your head. You hadn’t spoken to him in a while, and you hadn’t even told him about your new place. The last time you talked to him, you brought up the idea of moving, and he even suggested that the two of you should go look for apartments in the same neighborhood. 

You have recently switched from an answering machine to a large cellphone that you can comfortably hold in your hands. Using the bulky keypad, you typed in Sungchan’s phone number. By the third ring, it wasn’t Sungchan’s voice that answered, but his brother's. You asked if Sungchan was around, and he put you on hold, but he never came to the phone. 

“Sungchan said he’s too angry to talk to you.” His brother explained in a flat voice. 

“Can you just pass him the phone? I can explain,” you insisted.

“He said he doesn’t wanna hear anything.” 

“Can I just tell you what’s going on, then? I hate to involve you in this, but could you just listen and tell him what I said?” 

“Hell no! Do it yourself! What kind of a woman are you to ask me to explain your troubles to him. That’s your responsibility! Just do it yourself, and make sure to do it right.” 

You said a word of thanks to his brother and hung up, placing the phone in its charging dock by the window. Sungchan was right to be angry. You hadn’t said a word to him throughout the entire moving process, and not a single thought of him had entered your head then. The only person you thought of was Eunseok and the hopes of having him return to you in the real world, living in a small, cozy house in Itaewon. 

Allowing yourself to think of how Sungchan must’ve felt and putting yourself in his position suddenly made you feel a pang of pain in your chest. If the situation was reversed, and he had not said a single word to you while thinking of another girl and the prospects of living with her, you would’ve been hurt. Though you wouldn’t consider Sungchan a lover, he was, in a way, someone more than that. You were honest with each other, and the thought of hurting Sungchan struck you with an immense, harrowing grief, and you allowed yourself to sink into your seat, thinking of how terrible you were to him.

Once you got back from the local library, you quickly threw your bag to the side and wrote to Sungchan, telling him your honest feelings. You apologized profusely without elaborating on too much and told him you missed him. 

I really want—no, need—to see you. The sooner, the better. I want to take you here, to my new place. Please respond. 

You posted the letter for an express service with hopes of it arriving in three days time. After a week, you didn’t receive a response. 

The thawing of the last specs of snow came with an odd spring that marked a different sort of beginning than you had hoped for. You mindlessly attended lectures and read journal articles and books in your spare time, returning to the local library with a bag full of floppy disks to resume research for your dissertation. There was no telling when you would ever receive a response from Eunseok asking you to see him at Ujeong, and there was also no telling when you would see Sungchan again. Your afternoons were slowly being booked with a research assistant job under Professor Goo despite your discomfort with the growing chaos and tension in school. You were mostly in his office sorting papers and exams, listlessly grading each student’s papers until the sun had set, allowing you to unwind in a cafe that specialized in Italian desserts. Apart from Professor Goo and the rest of the economics department, you saw no one and talked to no one in particular. You spent every waking Sunday writing to Eunseok. You didn’t pressure him for an answer but used Eunseok more as a diary of your day. You told him about your new position in Professor Goo’s office, how you graded papers throughout the day and brought them home with you, the details of your research dissertation, and about Kokuma. You also told him about the cherry blossoms blooming near the Han River, the landlords who would check on you from time to time with imported sweets from America, the opening of a new supermarket that sold everything you needed in one place, a restaurant serving Thai food, and the meals you would cook at home.

Even then, he never wrote back. 

Whenever you grew tired of the same Billie Holiday or Johnny Cash record that you would play in your room, you bookmarked a paragraph or two and spent some time out in the garden, tending to various flowers that you never knew grew in the country. You would rake up the lawn for any stray leaves, use the garden shears and some gloves to pull out the weeds, water the flowers, and pick some of them to flatten in between a pile of books, then pin the dried flowers on the envelopes that you used to send Eunseok your letters. Though you were still an amateur with horticulture, the landlord’s wife often came out at the same time you did, giving you suggestions on how to tend to the garden. She would lend you her tools and teach you how to properly weed out any parasites in the flower beds. She taught you about the type of fertilizers to buy for what kind of soil, and how to cut bushes in any kind of shape. 

Up until the end of April, the only letter you had received other than your utility and phone bill was an invitation to a class reunion in Jeju—which was the last thing you had wanted to receive. Tearing the invitation up and tossing it in the bin, you then hoisted a tote bag filled with floppy disks to continue writing your dissertation. 

In the next week, you finally received a letter from Ujeong penned under Dr. Park’s name. You had returned from the library late in the evening, and a bottomless pit of dread had pooled into your stomach upon opening the letter, which opened with an apology from Dr. Park.

Eunseok has been struggling, it said, without provocation. I know it must be difficult for you to wait so long, so I’ve decided to write one myself. It has been quite difficult for Eunseok as well, so all I ask is for your understanding. Three weeks ago, he couldn’t bring himself to stand up, and I should’ve seen the signs coming the moment he confided in me about losing the ability to write back to you.

In these past few weeks, we tried our best to accomodate to his needs. As our institution values confidentiality, I will not bore you with the details nor am I supposed to do so, but think of me as a friend. I’m not writing as a doctor, I’m writing as a friend, as my government name, Park Subin. 

Now, I can spare you some details that I feel comfortable sharing with you. I don’t know how familiar you are with the world of psychiatry, but Eunseok’s condition is rather serious. He told me that he would hear voices whenever he even thought of penning you a letter, and these voices only became stronger and stronger, disrupting his capacity to live normally at the Inn. These voices would talk to him, tell him what to write in his letters to you, and would revoke his will to choose his own words to write. I didn’t think too much of it at first because, as I’ve mentioned, mental illness is a cycle, and I had thought that this was a cycle. 

It’s not. His condition kept getting worse and worse, and it’s been difficult being his counselor when he can’t even say a single word to me anymore. He would mumble in tongues and become frustrated at himself that he couldn’t speak. Tells me it’s the voices that are stopping him from speaking, telling him that I’m not a person to be trusted. We tried various exercises, and the only thing he could say to me in absolute coherence was that he needed to be “clean” and “pure” before he returned to you in the “real world.” 

To preface this: we are not an institution or an asylum suitable for his needs. Ujeong is a place delegated to psychiatric patients who bear signs of becoming better. Therapy isn’t working for him anymore, and all I could offer was a referral to a mental asylum at Seoul University’s hospital to work out exactly what he is dealing with. We are what comes after a diagnosis, and it appears that Eunseok hadn’t been properly diagnosed with anything prior to coming here, so he will undergo medical evaluations and treatment at the university hospital. 

I cannot say this enough, but Eunseok wasn’t just a patient to me. He was a friend as well. It pains me to see him suffering, but there is a sliver of hope in me that he will be cured. 

He is doing everything he can, and all I ask is for you to keep writing to him. 

The tears in your eyes stained the already ineligible penmanship that Dr. Park had, assuming he rushed to write to you. It was dated a month prior and posted to your old address. Clouds of pink petals had carried over into your garden, resting with the rest of the flowers in full bloom. A permanent blur had stained your eyesight, making the entirety of the garden dreamlike and fictional. Kokuma had leaped out of the house window and into the garden, balancing on wooden fences before coming back to you to curl by your feet. 

You tried to take everything in, but it was too difficult to register. Simply thinking about the next course of action made your ears ring and your head hurt, and you felt that you had no choice in the matter. 

Despite this, you felt that you simply didn’t have the time to think about it now. 

For the entire afternoon, you were out in the garden, staring at blank spaces on crevices and corners, hiding away in shadows. You hadn’t done anything productive that day, but you were drained. The only signifier of time was the setting sun and the afterglow of your shadow growing larger and larger, looming over the flower beds and wilting some of its leaves. Kokuma had gone off, but you went on staring at a certain spot: the large peach tree just across your garden. Rotten peaches had their juices and guts spilling out onto the neatly trimmed grass, their flesh completely exposed to the curbside. Just then, you thought of Eunseok’s beautiful flesh bursting open in the darkness, bursting with a large seed with all of his guts spilled out in a fine splatter. The core of his body wilted and trembled upon being consumed in decay by the ground above. 

Why is it that nobody picks up fruits that they tend the tree to? Why is it that no matter how beautiful a garden and luscious a peach tree is, the delicious fruit is always neglected to fall to the ground? Why can’t the peach be picked up, tended to and cared for, eaten delectably with cream, and then replanted back to the garden?

Why didn’t you tend to Eunseok?

By the time the skies turned dark, you called for Kokuma and returned to the house, closing the curtains shut, but even then, the sweet smell of fallen peaches lingered in the room. It filled the entire space, making you dizzy with its saccharine nectar—too sweet, in fact, that it turned sour in fermentation. 

You hated spring; hated how sweet the flowers were; hated the endless pain it aroused inside of you; hated it with such an intensity that all you did was stay inside.

On May 1, a letter came from Sungchan. He gave you some coordinates that led to a hallway just outside of Professor Goo’s office, and then told you he was waiting for lunch on the third, which was the end of the spring term. 

Look, I didn’t want to do this, but I miss you. Miss you so much that it hurts me to not write to you. You’re so selfish, you know. This is what you do to me, so please, come see me. 

Despite the letter only being a few sentences, you had to read it again and again to decipher what he was trying to say, but to no avail. Your brain felt swollen and filled with water that it made reading words difficult. Your whole body, in the span of a week, had been pulled out of a state of drowning, and it felt like it was your first time reaching the surface. 

Did you force him to write you a letter? Were you selfish? What did you do to him? You were losing it, and so you tucked the letter in your pocket after folding it three times, getting up from the dining table to do the first set of laundry you’d done in weeks. You took a long, warm bath in the middle of the day, swept the entirety of your place, went out to the supermarket to stock your fridge full, and made a meal using the cookbook that had been collecting dust on your kitchen counter. You fed Kokuma, took a shot of rice wine, and ran thirty laps around the cul de sac. When you returned to wash your face, you peered into every detail of your face, wondering how you let yourself become so emaciated. Your jaw was protruding, the fat in your cheeks had sunken in a hollow depth, and your eyes were red, bursting with eagerness to pop out of your sockets. 

You hardly recognized yourself. 

After running another thirty laps around the Han River, you returned to read Dr. Park’s letter again, running through your options on what you ought to do next. A brief moment of Eureka had struck you, and you finally understood why it took so long for you to read Dr. Park’s letter again. You led yourself to believe that Eunseok could only get better and better, and you hadn’t come up with a scenario about his condition regressing. Eunseok had warned you several times that his condition was deteriorating, telling you it was “far worse than you think,” but you didn’t heed it at all. In your last two visits to see Eunseok, you thought that he was getting better and better and that he was one step closer to coming back to you. You assumed that his only doubt lay in his trepidation about coming out of Ujeong Inn, and in an instant, the walls of the faux understanding you had built around your idea of Eunseok shattered and burned to ashes, leaving not a single spec of dust. 

You have known Eunseok for as long as you could remember, and yet you didn’t understand him at all. 

It didn’t matter if you become strong enough to support Eunseok’s weight alongside yours. It was his matter to deal with, and you finally swallowed that one lump of truth. Hi, you thought, attempting to reach out to Eunseok’s girlfriend. I’m not going to end it. I’ll live, alright. It’s been hard, but I’ll live. Live the life you left behind, because what you did was cruel. You left him like that, did you know? Left him in such a terrible state that he can’t even read or write. Tell you what, I won’t do that. Ever. I’ll never, ever turn my back on him. I love him, and I’ll get stronger and stronger. I can’t be stuck at seventeen like you. I will develop, mature, and grow, no matter how long it takes. I can be twenty-five, thirty, or fifty, and I’ll keep on growing stronger. I’m not who I was then, when it was the three of us at Eunseok’s house in Jeju. I’m twenty-three, and I’m old enough and ready to know that what lies ahead will be more painful than anything I’ve ever felt at seventeen.

“God, what the fuck happened to you! You’re all skin and bones!” 

“Do I look that bad?” 

“I bet fucking that married boyfriend of yours made you shrink up like a raisin. How many rounds did you do, huh?” 

Despite the tangible venom in Sungchan’s voice, you smiled and gently shook your head in confidence. “I haven’t slept with anyone since last year,” 

“That can’t be true! That’s like… a whole year!” 

“You heard me.” 

“How did you lose so much weight, then?” 

“I just grew up, I suppose,” you said with a shrug.

Sungchan leaned closer until the tip of his nose touched yours. The weight of his palms on your shoulder made you feel so brittle, as if you were going to shatter in his arms. 

“You’ve changed.” 

“It’s adulthood, makes you skinny or something,” you joked. 

“Come, let’s eat. I’m hungry.” 

You took Sungchan to the staff room and ordered the lunch special, which consisted of a warm chicken ginseng soup. He did the same, allowing his eyes to explore the caverns of a new territory before taking the seat in front of you. 

“Are you mad at me?” He suddenly asked. 

“For what?” 

“For ignoring you just to get even. Do you think I shouldn’t have done that? I mean, you apologized for it.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say a word to you at all. I’d get extremely upset too if that happened to me.”

Sungchan hummed, nodding his head while scooping a large portion of rice with his chospticks. 

“My brother gave me hell for it. Told me I was being a child for ignoring you.” 

“But it ended up making you feel better, right?” 

“Right.” 

“Then that’s that.” 

“You’re too forgiving. Even more so than I thought. I guess a year without sex had made you a monk.” 

“Clean and dry as fresh laundry,” you said. 

“So when you were with me—both at the bathtub and my bed—you wanted me so bad, didn’t you?” 

“More or less?” 

“But you didn’t do anything?” 

“You’re the only best friend I’ve got, and I don’t wanna lose you,” you lamented, focusing on shredding some of the chicken thighs in the soup into smaller pieces. 

“Before you went rogue, I decided that I’d believe in you. A hundred percent. I was able to sleep like a log after being determined to do that. I knew I’d be safe and sound so long as you’re here. I did sleep well, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah, you did.” 

“But if you were to say, ‘Hey Sungchan, let’s do it,’ then I probably would’ve done it with you. I’m not trying to seduce or tease you or anything. This is me being completely honest,” 

“I know,” you sighed. 

Sungchan showed you his schedule for the next year, and you skimmed through his calendar while combining rice, soup, and chicken in your mouth. Judging by the look of his timetable, you figured that he opted out of the dissertation route, taking smaller classes and electives instead to gather enough credits to graduate by next spring. You told him you were marking papers for two of his classes, and he asked you to go easy on him. He then told you about his current living arrangements, about how empty it felt to stop running errands for the shop. 

“I finally got used to being alone. My brother finally got a place with his fiance, and I got a neat little apartment just outside of Yonsei, near the Han River. It’s not close to where you used to live, but I can see it from my window. My first night alone, I had to call you, but you didn’t respond. Then, I called my brother and told him I couldn’t do it, that I would buy Jung Records back and live the way I was used to. Nothing seemed real, and I thought that life couldn’t actually be the way I was living—all alone in a new place with nothing familiar. My brother and I were both equally as tense as if everything was about to be turned upside down at any minute.” 

“You’re strong, Sungchan. You and your brother, I’m sure it worked out for the better,” you said, touching his wrists. 

“It’s just that life’s been so cruel to us up until now, but that’s okay. We’re gonna get our lives back after everything that’s been thrown onto us,” Sungchan explained. 

“Of course you are, but tell me, how’s your brother been since then?” 

“Oh, he’s gone mad! It’s like he can get the bad businessman outside of him, and he’s planning to move to the countryside after he gets married! Buy a small property there and open a small, tiny restaurant. He’s been enrolling himself in culinary school, going on dates with his fiance, watching movies, starting hiking, and is just enjoying life.” 

Sungchan moved the conversation to you, and you told him about your cul de sac in Itaewon. Using the back of his calendar, you drew to your best memory what the house and the garden had looked like and then made a small sketch of Kokuma. You told him about the cafes, restaurants, your landlady’s obsession with horticulture, the supermarket, and how difficult it was for you to adjust to changing times. 

“Aren’t you enjoying life?” He asked. 

“Pretty much,” you shrugged.  

“You don’t look like it, though,” he replied. You raised your head from your empty tray to focus on him, eyes pondering in question to what he implied with the statement. 

“It’s spring, and you’re wearing this big ugly thing that your boyfriend made for you,” he elaborated, using his chopsticks to point at your sweater. 

“How did you know?” 

“God, you’re boring. You gave it all away! I was just guessing!” He laughed. “What’s been wrong with you?” 

“I don’t know, I’m just trying to be optimistic these days,” you replied, forcing yourself to look into his eyes earnestly. 

“Life is a box of chocolates,” he said.

“You got that from a book, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah! I’ve been reading a lot more lately, and this book called Forrest Gump was something I just finished. The main character says life is like a box of chocolates because it always surprises you. You never know what’s inside the box, and you can also pick and choose which ones you like and don’t like when you open the box. I always think back on that book and that quote whenever something shitty happens in my life.” 

“That’s your own philosophy!” 

“I could start a school with all I’ve been through, no?” 

As the two of you placed your trays in the disposal area, Professor Goo and another woman you hadn’t recognized entered the staff room’s cafeteria. Sungchan quickly bowed to the lady and began talking to her with enthusiasm, proudly showing her his schedule. From eavesdropping on their conversation, you found out that she was teaching Mandarin. Slowly, their conversation drowned into a tunnel that was shut off into your ears. Ordering a coffee from the counter, you sipped it and gazed out the large glass windows that surrounded the cafeteria. There were a lot of new faces that you hadn’t recognized, and they dressed differently than you do. Out were the days of bulky jackets and loose jeans, and in were women wearing construction pants and spaghetti tops. Apart from fashion, you could tell a freshman from a senior how many books they carried with them. You felt yourself in-between spaces, one right where you were and another in the comfort of Ujeong Inn with Eunseok. You thought about visiting Dongguk just to taste what it would’ve been like for Eunseok to have continued his studies. 

Once Sungchan had wrapped up his conversation with Professor Goo and his companion, the latter told you all meetings and sessions this week were canceled. 

“You deserve a break,” he smiled. “Go and have fun.” 

You left with Sungchan to walk around Yonsei, visiting the charity bookshop, buying each other copies that one suggested to the other, and then bringing that pile together to a cafe that had just opened on the outskirts of the law building. After finishing your coffees and reading a few pages from your pile, Sungchan took you to an arcade, where the two of you played a new game that had been serialized by Nintendo. Then, you wound up by the river, sitting on a bench with Sungchan, who was talking endlessly. Every now and then, your head had caught up to the conversation, but the rest of the afternoon remained foggy. He said he was thirsty at some point, leading you to leave the bench to buy some water. Then, you came back to him, scribbling in his notebook. 

“What are you doing?” You asked, trying to peer over his shoulder. He snapped back and shut his notebook.

“Nothing.” He said, then stretched before packing his things. 

“Well, I have to go. I’m supposed to be meeting my brother in Sangsu.” 

You dropped him off to the train station, then took the bus back to Itaewon. Before you left the station, Sungchan gave you a crumpled piece of paper, instructing you to read it when you get home. You opened it as soon as you sat down on the bus. 

I’m writing this letter to you while you were away buying drinks. I’m not the type of person to write letters, and it’s sure as hell my first time writing a letter about someone sitting right next to me on a park bench, but I’ve grown to realize that you were never much of a talker. You’re always absorbed in books and essays, and the only way to get to you is through words on paper. After all, you hardly listen to anything I say, don’t you?

Did you ever realize how terrible you’ve been to me today? You never noticed my new haircut? I cut it short and styled it in a way that made me appear less disheveled compared to the mullet, and I got to a point where I could curl my bangs to frame my face, but you never even noticed. I spent time trying to pick out the right clothes, and I even used gel to keep my hair in place since it should’ve been the first time you’ve seen me in so long. I wanted to give you a shock, but you didn’t even bat a single eye or notice anything. Isn’t that awful? I bet you can’t even remember what I was wearing today! I’m a man, but men also care about what other people think of them. So, you’re occupied with some deep, dark secret that you never even bothered to tell me. You can spare a second to take a look at me and notice that I’ve changed quite a lot. All you had to say was, “Oh, you changed your hair,” and I would’ve been able to forgive you then and there, but no! 

Do you want the truth? Here it is. I lied about having to see my brother at Sangsu. I was planning to visit your new place, and I even brought a change of clothes in my backpack, along with a toothbrush. God, I’m so stupid! I mean, you never even bothered to invite me to see your new place! You clearly want to be alone, so to hell with it, be alone! 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not as mad as I was when you left me in the dark for a solid three weeks. I’m just sad. You were so nice to me when I was going through it, but now that you’re going through a lot, you’re not giving me any options for me to help you. You’re all locked up in your little world, and whenever I try to knock on the door and come in, you don’t even bother opening it up for me. You just stare into the window, then go back inside. 

Now, I see you coming back with our drinks and some snacks, thinking to myself and hoping you’d trip and fall, but you didn’t. You’re now next to me, cracking open a can of Coke. There was a sense of false hope in me that you would finally notice my new hair, but no. If you had, I would’ve stopped writing, tore the letter in front of you, and said, ‘Hey, fuck it, let’s go to your place and stop by a grocery store. I’ll make you a nice meal.’ But you’re as dense and sensitive as a block of wood. 

Goodbye.

P.S. Don’t talk to me if you ever see me on campus.

You tried to dial Sungchan’s phone number with your cellphone once you reached home, but there was no response. Despite Professor Goo dismissing you of any work, you rang him in the evening after you made dinner, begging for any sort of extra work you could do for him. Your weekends were now free, and you had been filling yourself shift after shift at the campus library in hopes of keeping yourself busy. Once he told you that there was nothing you could do, you hung up and tried to dial Sungchan again, but he never picked up the phone. 

Each night after returning from campus, you tried to write to Sungchan, but couldn’t seem to muster a single sentence that felt right. So, you switched over to Eunseok, feeling the words flow out of you naturally. 

It’s the end of spring, and I’ve just finished what would sort of be my last academic year. I’m just doing research now, and I miss you so much. I hope to see you and talk to you sometime soon. 

I don’t know if you care or not, but you’re the only person I’ve slept with. I’m not seeing anyone anymore, and I fear that if I sleep with someone else, I’ll lose your touch. It might have been nothing to you, but it’s the reason why I live, breathe, and strive to see another day. I think about it all the time, and it’s what keeps me going. 

You stuffed some dried flowers in the envelope, but a cold, hard lump in your throat stopped you from walking to the post box. Of all the letters you penned to Eunseok, this was the shortest one, but maybe all the prose fell on deaf ears. Maybe all you needed was to be curt, honest, and to the point. You put off sending the letter, poured yourself a glass of soju, then fell asleep on the couch.

After a week, you caught a flash of Sungchan in his soccer jersey, holding up a queue in the main cafeteria with his teammates. It was true; his hair had grown longer, and instead of the choppy mullet, he curled and kept his hair in a voluminous, pristine state, framing the sides of his face with loops of hair that rested still on top of his cheekbones. You tapped his shoulders and asked him to talk to you, causing the rest of his teammates to disperse out of the queue and occupy an empty table by the window. You thought the change in his hair made him look more mature. 

“I need to talk to you,” you repeated. Sungchan rolled his eyes and hoisted his sports bag up his shoulder, ready to leave the queue and join his teammates. 

“I have to meet someone,” he replied, clearing his throat. 

“Just five minutes, please. I won’t take up too much of your time.” 

“I don’t wanna talk to you.”

From the corner of your eyes, you could see his teammates leering at you as if to tell you that you weren’t the only girl wanting a share of his time. 

Today, you filled in for Professor Goo to teach an introductory course into capital markets, glancing at Sungchan, who was sat with a group of his friends at the far end of the lecture hall. Once you had looked back down to the podium to signify the end of class, he was gone. 

What should’ve been the month that summer began quickly turned into a cold, lonely season. Everyone around you looked happy, planning trips to the beach and enjoying each other’s company on the first week of sun. They sat outside the benches, talking, sunbathing by the lawn, holding hands, and playing catch in the common area. 

But you were always alone. Eunseok, Sungchan, and Mirae. All of them were gone. Nobody greeted you in the morning apart from Professor Goo or anyone in the economics department when you had an early tenure, and you even grew to miss Peanut. You spent the entirety of May hopeless and desolate as one can be, with any attempts to speak to Sungchan returned with the beep of your cellphone. Every now and then, the people he was with changed. In some of the seminars you filled in for, he was with his teammates. Sometimes, he was with a girl with long, flowing hair curled to perfection while her eyes sparkled with glitter under her cheeks. 

June was worse than May. In the wet season, you had no choice but to physically and mentally recognize the loneliness that consumed you, with the rain stopping you from tending to the garden, running laps by the river, or even going out to do your groceries. You felt your heart swell up and lurch with a pang of pain, but no waiting seemed to stop it from throbbing even further. In those times, you found yourself writing to Eunseok more, sparing the details of your despair and telling him about the beauty of rain. How the droplets made the flowers in the garden bloom and glow with luscious colors that spread into a spectrum, the soft sound of the rain on your window, a film you had seen on new technology that made it easier to watch things at home, a CD you purchased, or a passage in a book that moved you if you had the time to read anything other than tests, textbooks, essays, or journal articles. In these letters, you would tell him that the life you’ve been living was wonderful. 

You posted several of these letters to both Eunseok and Dr. Park, but nobody responded.

Sungchan picked up after countless attempts to reach him over the phone. 

“Stop calling me. I don’t wanna talk to you right now,” he said flatly. 

“I know, but I don’t want it to end like this. You’re one of the few friends that I have left, and it hurts me to not see you at all. When can I talk to you? Just tell me that much, please.” 

“When I feel like it.”

“How are you?” You asked. 

He hung up. 

In the middle of June, a letter from Dr. Park came with the morning paper. 

Thank you for continuing to write despite the complex situation. Eunseok enjoys your letters as much as I do, and I hope you don’t find it intrusive if I read them. 

I apologize for keeping you waiting for a response. To tell you the truth, Eunseok is doing worse. His aunt came all the way from Jeju three days ago, and we all had a long conversation about Eunseok, concluding that he should be moved to the university hospital for a full psychiatric evaluation and—fingers crossed—treatment. He may come back to Ujeong, depending on how well he does. 

Eunseok tells me he wants to stay and has begged me to cure him, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s getting harder and harder for me to stay as his counselor, and nothing I’ve been trained to do has been received positively. I won’t get into the medical nitty-gritty of it all, but anything I’ve tried just makes him more unstable. I’ve tried to change the method of therapy, asking him to do some thought exercises and meditate, but it serves to make him worse. 

Eunseok’s instability makes it extremely difficult to predict his actions. When he is going through these episodes, he would shut himself in his room. Not a single drop of water in his mouth or a single bit of food tasted. He would lock himself, and there’s nothing we can do other than wait for him to come out, not just for his own safety, but for the safety of our staff. I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. 

I’ve finalized my draft of recommendation to send Eunseok to Seoul National Univeristy’s hospital for a re-evaluation of his psyche. It’s the worst-case scenario, but it’s all that’s left solution-wise. 

By the time you receive this, he will be transferred to the university hospital. There are professionals there trained in America and England who should do just fine, and I’ll write the address to the hospital below. FYI, you cannot visit. I’ve tried to ask, but he is undergoing an intense evaluation, and not even a single family member or next of kin could visit him at this time. They told me they’d keep me updated on his progress. I know it sounds hopeless, but please keep hoping. It’s all we can do. 

This might be a selfish request from me, but once again, think of me as a friend, not a medical professional. Please keep writing to Eunseok, and if it helps you, you can write to me as well. 

I hope for nothing but the best. 

That summer was spent writing. Half of you was split between days at the local library wrapping up your dissertation, and the other half was dedicated to writing letters to Eunseok, Dr. Park, and Sungchan. You wrote in Professor Goo’s office, wrote in your free time on campus between lectures and seminars, wrote at the library, and then wrote at home. It was as if writing was the only way you could keep yourself together, the glue that held your decaying, fractured body. 

The summer and the end of spring were some of the loneliest times I’ve spent, you penned to Sungchan. It’s because I couldn’t see you, and I never knew that I would ever experience a summer so painful as this. I know I’m too late, but I mean it. I like your new hairstyle. It suits you so well that you grow more handsome every time I see you in the seminar. I’ve been learning how to cook more meals, and I’d love to make you dinner sometime soon, so please, come. 

You barely spent time at home, and all you knew were the comforts of the economics department’s staff room, ceaselessly grading papers and spending overtime reading student essays when you didn’t have any shifts at the library. You would then run to the local library near your house to write up more sections of your dissertation, then stay until closing each time to write letters. You entertained Kokuma with a new feather toy you purchased at the supermarket, cooked dinner, tended to the garden, and rented more VCR copies from the rental store. 

It was towards the end of July when Sungchan started talking to you again. He had rushed to the economics department, asking the receptionist to see you. It was an odd sight, especially considering the fact that the two of you were technically classmates, and yet you were at the other end of the reception desk, marking papers and assisting PhD candidates and professors with menial tasks. He excitedly waved his arms out upon seeing you through a thin, sheer window that separated you from the reception, and you told him to wait at the chair. After twenty minutes, you emerged to greet him, hands full of a stack of papers from the summer course intake. 

To your surprise, he said nothing. From the fourth floor of the offices down to the parking lot, he didn’t say a word. He stuffed his pockets in and out of his hands, felt for a lighter, and then lit a stick of Dunhills once you were a few blocks away from campus. He blew a gentle cloud of grey smoke on your face, prompting you to squint at the slight sting in your eyes. 

“Do you like my hairstyle?” He asked. 

“It looks great,” 

“How great? 

“Great enough to burn forests and dry up oceans.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, really.” 

He kept his eyes on you for a while, then held his hand out to you, a slight, expecting smile forming on his lips when you took it and laced your fingers with his. He stubbed the cigarette with his sneakers, then leaned closer to your ears. 

“Come, let’s eat.”

“Where do you wanna go?” 

“This fancy place on the top floor of a big department store in Gangnam.”

“Why there?” 

“Just cause.” 

The bus was empty when the two of you boarded it en route to Gangnam. Once you reached the extravagant, golden gates of the department store, you quickly stuffed the papers inside your bag. It shocked you that the store itself smelled of rain, even though it had completely stopped in the morning. Some people carried their wet umbrellas with them, wrapped in plastic, while the janitor tirelessly mopped the tiled floors clean. He took you to the eighth floor and pressed his face on a crude, waxen display of the menu outside while you occupied yourself by skimming through the actual menu that was placed on a shiny, silver stand just outside the entrance of the restaurant. Both of you ended up ordering the same thing: a dongaesu set with miso soup.  

“I think the last time I had lunch at a department store was when I was a kid,” you said, watching bits of fried pork fly out of his mouth. 

“I like doing things like this. I don’t know. It makes me feel like there’s something special going on in my life. It’s probably because my parents only took me to department stores whenever it was their anniversary or my brother’s birthday.”

“My mother took me to department stores all the time,” you complained, stabbing a small piece of cutlet with a fork. 

“Well aren’t you a lucky one! Didn’t realize they had those in such a small island.” 

“It’s not like I enjoyed going…” 

“But you were lucky enough to have your parents care enough to take you.” 

“I’ve been really lonely these past few months, if I’m being honest with you,” you said out of the blue. 

“I know. I’ve read your letters. Let’s eat. Food’s all I can think about right now.” 

Sungchan ended up eating half of your dongaesu, drank all of your miso soup, and slurped his green tea so loud that some of the wait staff had to come to the table to tell him to keep it down. He then excused himself to go to the smoking area after paying the bill, asking if you wanted to come with him—to which you refused politely. Once he was finished, he took you to the department store’s rooftop, then complained about forgetting his umbrella. You offered yours and propped it up in the hole of an empty table where a parasol should’ve been, watching the abandoned state of the small quasi-amusement park while admiring how small the city looked from above. There was not a single soul on the roof once it had started to rain again, and the rides were covered in blue tarp. It was difficult to imagine a place in Seoul that was so devoid of people, but you supposed that every large city had gaps in its urban cacophony. 

Sungchan tossed a coin into a telescope, and the two of you took turns looking around the city, alternating the task of holding the umbrella onto each other. 

“Come now, talk.” He said. It was your turn to look through the telescope, and you had stopped by Seoul National University’s hospital before the lens faded to black. 

“I’m not trying to make any excuses,” you started. “But I was really depressed. My brain was stuck in a blurry haze. Nothing really registered with me, and that haze only cleared up when I thought about not being able to see you anymore. You were the only one who pushed me to survive, and losing you made all the pain and loneliness come to me all at once,” 

“Did you ever think about how lonely I was these past two months?” Sungchan interrupted, causing you to lose your train of thought. 

“No, because I thought you were angry with me and never wanted to see me again.” 

“How can you be so stupid? Of course, I wanted to see you! I even told you how much I liked you! When I like someone, I really like them! It’s not just some fleeting feeling that comes and goes! Didn’t you ever realize that?” 

“Yes, but—” 

“That’s why I was so mad at you! I wanted to kick you in the ass and beat you up, give you all the hell that I could! I mean, we hadn’t seen each other in what felt like forever, and you were so spaced out thinking about this other man that you didn’t even bother looking at me! How could I not get angry at you? Apart from that, I had a growing realization that maybe it’s best if I spent time away from you for a while, you know, to clear my head.” 

“Clear your head from what?” 

“I’d been going back and forth with her to fill the void you’d left me, but I can never shake the feeling that I enjoyed being with you far more than I enjoyed being with her. Don’t you think that’s weird? I mean, we’ve technically broken up, but it makes things all the more difficult when I think I still like her. She’s a good girl despite being ultra-religious and stuck-up, and she’s the first girl I’ve ever felt serious about.” Sungchan lit a cigarette in between his words despite the rooftop being a non-smoking area. “The problem is, though, that I also know what I have with you is far more special than what I can ever get with her. You just feel right, and I believe in you. I like you—hell, I think it’s something more than that. I really don’t wanna let you go. I was getting so confused that I had to force myself to be with her for a bit, asking her what I should do. She told me to stop seeing you, and that if I do see you, I should never speak to her again.”

“So, what happened?” 

“We never spoke to each other again after that.” 

He paused to inhale his cigarette. You took the umbrella from him, and he crouched lower until his eyes met yours. All you could do was stare at him in a state of shock. 

“It hurts me to say this, but I love you. I love you so much, and I know you love somebody else, so stop giving me that look, or else I’ll cry right here. I’m not expecting anything from you, but the least you can do is hold my hand. It’s been really tough lately, you know.” 

“Sungchan,” you started, then stopped. This pattern went on until you cleared your throat, inhaling some of the smoke that escaped Sungchan’s lips. In a flash, you dropped the umbrella, holding him as tightly as you could. The rain had grown stronger in a downpour, but Sungchan’s face was in full clarity. Holding his face in yours, you leaned over to give him a slow, passionate kiss. The smell of his cigarette had quickly damped down with the strength of the rain, and you were surprised that he could stay so warm despite the chilly weather. 

How long had it been since you’d last held someone in your arms?

“I love you too,” you whispered, leaning your forehead against his. 

“Do you mean it?” 

“Of course, I mean it. From the bottom of my heart. I don’t wanna let you go every again, but I’m stuck.” 

“Is it because of him?” 

You hesitated before nodding. 

“Did you sleep with him?” 

“Twice, but nothing more.” 

“Have you seen him since then?” 

“Twice, but we didn’t do anything.” 

“But doesn’t he love you?” 

“No. It’s really complicated, and sometimes I think he loves me, but it’s been going on for such a long time that I don’t know what’s what anymore. He doesn’t know either. All I know is that it’s starting to feel less and less like love and more like a responsibility, a sort of moral obligation. Like I can’t turn my back on him after all that we’ve been through. At least, that’s how I feel now, even if I know he doesn’t love me back.” 

“Let me tell you this,” Sunghcan started, backing away from you. He didn’t pick up the umbrella and stood out in the rain, drenching his body in its properties until he glowed like a saint. He held his arms up to the sky, screaming in the air with the thunderstorms that blew your umbrella to the other end of the rooftop. 

 “I’m a real, breathing man, alive and well, with blood rushing through my veins. I will hold you in my arms and tell you that I love you. I’m ready to drop everything and do anything you ask me to. I can be a bit odd, but I’m a good boy. I’m earnest, I work hard, and I’m handsome. My dick’s pretty big, I can cook very well, and I have a trust fund from my dad, alongside the leftovers I saved up from selling the shop. If I was in a market, everyone would want me, and if you don’t take me now, I’ll end up going somewhere else.” 

“Sungchan, I need time,” you shouted back in desperation, the howling of the wind obscuring your hearing. “I need time to sort things out and make my decision!” 

“But you love me from the bottom of your heart, right?” 

“Yes, and I mean it!” 

In an instant, you were in Sungchan’s arms again, and he hoisted you up to give you another kiss.

“Alright, I believe you. But when you decide to take me, you take only me. Nobody else. And when you hold me and kiss me, you only think of me and nobody else. Is that clear?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“I don’t care what you do to me, but I don’t want you to hurt me. I’ve already been hurt by everything in my life, and I just wanna be happy.” 

Before he could say another word, you leaned in and kissed him. Kissed him until the rain turned into a raging storm. 

“Hold me tight, please.” 

“I think we should dry ourselves off first!” You joked. 

“I don’t care! I’m already soaked anyway!” 

To hell with the umbrella! The wind had probably blown it off the roof anyway! You held him close, hearing his rapid heartbeat as you buried your face in his chest. The rain soaked you until you felt its downpour seep into your skin, burying itself beneath your scalp. You couldn’t tell if you or Sungchan were crying or if it was just the rain. The papers had stained your bag and Sungchan’s shirt with black and red ink, but the two of you didn’t seem to care. After what felt like infinity, you were finally in someone’s arms again, and that was all that mattered.

Instead of going home, you had walked from Gangnam to Sungchan’s place, hands laced with each other while getting soaked in the rain. By the time he had inserted the keys to his new place, the rain had stopped completely, and a faint rainbow loomed over the entire span of the Han River. Taking a shower together, he offered the same shirt you wore at the shop, dressing himself in a loose-fitted baseball jersey and some shorts. Sitting at his coffee table with a towel on your hair, you waited for him to make you coffee, tracing the outline of his back with your fingers. You asked if you could borrow his cell phone, then quickly phoned Professor Goo to inform him that the downpour had affected the mock exam papers. To your surprise, he didn’t seem to mind and told you not to fret too much about it. 

“Tell me more about yourself,” he said, placing two mugs down before stretching his arm over your shoulders. 

“Like?” You asked, patting your hair dry before leaning on his shoulder. 

“What do you hate?” 

“Not much in particular. I don’t think I hate things,” you said after pondering on an adequate answer. 

“I’m sure you do, so come on, spill it out.” 

“Alright, well, to start things off, I hate lonely and sleepless nights. On the milder end, I don’t particularly like raw fish despite growing up near the sea, and I don’t like customer service. When I shop, I just wanna be left alone.” 

“What else?” 

“That’s all I can think of, really.” 

“My ex hated a lot of things. She hated my mullet, she hated when I wore tank tops because it was too much skin, and she hated it when I smoked or drank or said things that she considered impure or obscene. If there’s anything you don’t like about me, just tell me, and I can fix things.”

“I like you the way you are,” you whispered, burrowing your nose in the crook of his neck. “There’s nothing you can improve on.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, really. I like what you wear, I like what you say, even if sometimes it can be a bit disgusting, and I like how you walk and get drunk to climb trees. Everything.” 

“So you’re telling me I’m okay just the way I am?” 

“I can’t suggest how you can change, so yes, you’re fine the way you are,” you smiled, tickling him in the process. 

He took you to his bedroom and stripped your shirt off, feeling your abdomen with his large hands while kissing your neck. You held him close until you could feel his erection, using one hand to gently rub your thumb on his tip while the other tugged at his hair, deepening the kiss until you could feel his tongue intertwine with yours. You felt a static shock whenever he touched you, electrifying you back to life after a period of stagnation. In the form of his touch, you breathed and sighed as if you had been underwater for too long, desperately clinging onto him while he rubbed his fingers on your clit. His hair tickled your nipples when he slowly went lower and lower, shoving a finger inside your entrance while his lips curled over to leave gentle yet harsh kisses all over your thighs. With one tug, his teeth sank into your flesh, leaving a throbbing, red mark that he licked before moving onto your clit. You bucked your hips to feel his tongue, and he pushed three fingers up and down. Your moans and squelches resonated across the white walls of the room. You felt the vibrations of his groan on your lips, pleading for him to enter you. 

Before he flipped you over the bed and went on top of you, he bit into your clit, soothing the initial pain with the wet pleasure of his tongue. When you offered to suck him off, you felt his soft hair shake against your thighs. 

“I told you I’m a good boy,” he whispered. “And good boys only want what’s best for you.” 

“I don’t care about that,” you grunted, impatient at his every touch. “Please, just please.”

“Please?” 

You closed your thighs on his face and flipped him onto the bed, going on top of him to hastily feel his girth. You were wet enough for him to slide down so easily, and you moved your hips slowly, allowing yourself to feel him inside you. Whenever you moved, his hips rode up, gripping your ass tightly until you could feel his nails dig through your skin. You bounced up and down, a wave of euphoria consuming you as his tip hit deeper and deeper inside. Running your fingers up and down his muscular abdomen, you rested your palms on his chest, feeling the signs of life in his pants and heartbeat that resonated with yours. 

He drew you closer, flipping you over to take charge. The beads of sweat that formed on his forehead trickled down to your breasts, and he hammered his hips onto yours, the sound of skin hitting skin drowned out by the haze that consumed you in the shape of his lips smashed into yours, tongues clashing with the rhythm of his thrusts. 

As you felt yourself reach a climax, you wrapped your legs around his waist, leaving scratches all over his back while he leaned closer, his hot breath tickling your neck. Your legs grew weaker and weaker each time you felt him hit your womb, only ceasing to stop all motions completely when you felt an oozing warmth fill you up. 

“How much do you love me?” He asked breathlessly. 

“Enough to create another planet and suck up the entire universe into a black hole,” you replied, feeling his weight drop onto you. 

“Come here.” 

“I’m already here, dumbass.” 

After he had gone to the bathroom to get tissues, the two of you were buried under the covers, legs entangled in a mess. The rain had resumed, with soft splatters hitting his window, creating blobs and patterns that morphed into one. 

“Tell me about him,” he demanded, fingers already itching to rub against you. 

“Who?” 

“Your boyfriend.”

Under the covers, he felt around and smiled when he pulled out his fingers, showing you how wet you were. 

“Like I said, I don’t think I can call him that, but sure, what do you wanna know?” 

“Everything.” 

While he gently caressed your lips and massaged your thighs, you began to think of the past. 

“We grew up together in Jeju. I first met him when he was nine at the beach, when he helped me with a wound. Since then, we’ve been friends. We went to school together, woke each other up, and then walked by the beach after school. That was our routine until he had to move to another part of the island. He started dating a girl from his school there, and the three of us would hang out together in his room. We’d play board games, talk, and repeat everything until it was time for me to go home. He and I would frequent the beach still, but his girlfriend died, and after that, things changed a lot. He was going through a rough time and decided to move to Seoul about a year and a half after I did. We lived right next to each other, and we’d often go on walks around the city.” 

“You slept with him, right?” He asked. Instead of slowly entering each finger, he stuck three up your core, aggressively curling them up while he pressed his thumb on your clit. 

“Yeah, on his twenty-first birthday. After that, though, he disappeared without a word. He only left me a bookshelf, but everything else was gone. I kept his place clean for an entire summer and wrote to him. I wrote many letters and only got a reply in the autumn when he told me he was institutionalized. Since then, I’ve visited him when I could. He’s currently in a mountain villa up Gwanaksan, and I thought we were all right, but in the end, he was just too confused. We wrote to each other regularly for a while, but that stopped about four months ago. I haven’t heard from him since, and I don’t know what he’s up to now. When I tried to call the place, they told me he was gone.”

“So he’s dead?” 

By this point, he had gone back to gentler thrusts, using his free hand to flick your nipples. 

“Pretty much. I wrote to his aunt in Jeju, and all I got was an address to his funeral.” 

“God, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” he said, stopping completely. He drew his hands back to your waist, feeling your wetness on his fingertips. 

“It’s alright,” you whimpered, pressing yourself against him to feel how hard he’s become again. 

“Sungchan, how much do you love me?” You asked, cupping his balls in your hands as you slowly licked his navel, then pressing your lips on the tip of his penis to give it a soft kiss. 

“I bet you’re thinking about him now, aren’t you?” He asked, a pang of hurt in his voice. 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

“Because I would really hate that,” he said. You felt him tremble beneath you, and you used your tongue to lick his entire length. 

“I know, and rest assured, I can’t think about anybody else right now,” you replied, looking up at him while he bundled your hair in his hands.

“Don’t hold back. You can come all over my mouth.” 

You bobbed up and down, feeling the tip of his penis touch your throat. You clamped onto every crevice with your lips, using your hands to alternate between fondling his balls and jerking him off. Once he finished, you sucked the tip and swallowed all that you could, tasting the bitterness of his climax in one gulp.

You said goodbye to Sungchan after eating dinner at his place. While waiting for the bus, you tried to fish out some of the book chapters you had scanned at the office, but you didn’t have it in you to form words in your head and gauge their meaning. All you could do was glare at each page, the letters you’ve been reading your whole life a jumbled mess. What would happen to Eunseok? How would things change from now on? Can you even tell him what has just happened? You felt the world pull you on two ends, then sighed deeply at the thought that there was not a single ounce of regret in your heart. You knew, deep down, that if you had the choice to relive the day, it would end the same way. You would be in Sungchan’s arms in the downpour, you would get wet for him without a single thought of Eunseok in your head, and then you would come while he thrust himself deep inside you. There was no doubt about it. You were sure you loved Sungchan, and you were overjoyed when he finally responded to you. If it was the two of you, then it could happen. After all, Sungchan is real. You felt his skin on yours, and the warmth of his temperature was shared with your cold touch. You were a woman with needs, and there was no use fighting back the intense desire that loomed in the air whenever you spent time with Sungchan. You knew it was impossible to stop yourself when he pushed his fingers up inside of you.

You wanted him just as much as he wanted you, and why would you get in the way of that. You love Sungchan, and he loves you back. 

The more you allowed yourself to think about the outcome, the more you accepted the fact that you had known you loved Sungchan for a while. You had just been trying your best to avoid the truth—the truth you’d have to tell Eunseok, especially with his worsening condition. At any point, it was difficult for you to pen how you felt about Sungchan, and as twisted as it might be, you still loved Eunseok. There was a frozen, unmoving component of your heart that was kept stored just for Eunseok and nobody else. 

As soon as you had opened the door to your apartment, you greeted Kokuma and quickly penned a letter to Dr. Park, confessing everything that had transpired today. The rain had stopped again, and your gaze landed on a cluster of tiny frogs that leaped up and down the wet grass. 

I know you had urged for me to write to you as a friend, not a doctor, so here I am, writing to Park Subin, and not Dr. Park. Before you went onto your confession, you tried your best to summarize your relationship with both parties, sparing any details if possible. 

I have known Eunseok since we were children. I’m sure you’re aware of that. I loved him then, and I love him now. But I think my heart has room for another person. Think of it this way: Eunseok is an idea that I kept alive in my head for god knows how long, and Sungchan is a real, breathing man who I can run to with open arms. The love I feel for Eunseok feels like a distant memory, a nostalgic daydream that feels speculative. Sometimes, I can’t even discern between the actual events that transpired in the past vis-a-vis the imaginations I’d feed myself about an idyllic, still period of my life, and it’s something about the latter that makes Eunseok feel like a myth. However, the love I have for Sungchan lives, breathes, and grows. It has a life of its own, with deep roots that continue to dig into the depths of the earth, and tall branches that reach up and up into the sky. 

Sufficed to say, I’m stuck. I feel confused, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can bring myself to tell Eunseok all of these complex feelings I have for him, but the only thing I can promise you is my honesty. I’m not making any excuses for myself, and I do think I have lived as an honest woman. 

You don’t have to respond to me if you don’t want to, but I would appreciate some advice. 

A week later, at the start of August, you received a phone call from Dr. Park.

“Hi, is this a good time?” He asked. 

“Yes.” You replied, holding the cell phone between your shoulders and your neck. “I’ve just returned from campus. Is there anything urgent? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call at all.”

A long sigh echoed from the other end of the line.

“I’ve posted a letter in response to yours, which should arrive in three days. There’s been a delay because of the weather, but it should be there. In the meantime, I’m calling to tell you that Eunseok passed away.” 

You dropped the cell phone and poured a glass of rice wine, forcing yourself to succumb to a deep, impenetrable sleep.

The details of Eunseok’s death had been neatly written in the lines of loose leaf paper in Dr. Park’s messy penmanship. He assured you that it wasn’t your fault, or anybody’s and that you should never blame yourself for what happened to him. You didn’t write back to him, not out of your own volition, but you simply had no idea what to say in return. 

What good would it do? He was gone.

You returned to Jeju for a funeral with the Song family and a few people in the neighborhood, then returned to Seoul. You broke your lease with the landlord, asking the couple to rent it out in its current state. You phoned Professor Goo to request a study leave, and though you could sense the annoyance in his hoarse voice over the phone, he gave in, stamping and sealing your request for approval to the Dean. To Sungchan, you penned him a short note saying that you were stuck in his locker at the stadium. 

I’m sorry. I need time alone. I’ll tell you everything when I’m ready, but for now, please wait for me. I promise you that I’ll come back. You spent the next week sitting idly in your room, plugging VCR after VCR while tending to Kokuma. After you had finalized what clothes and toiletries to pack in your backpack, you dropped Kokuma off to an adoption center and then took the first overnight train to Busan. After picking up a ferry to Fukuoka, you made your way up the mainland, trekking up to Hokkaido, where you took a small carrier to Vladivostok. 

Time was split between day and night, and you refused to look at a calendar. You could remember the sounds of the languages you’d hear in hostels and eateries, but the names of each village, town, or city you had visited were lost in your head, splintered in fragmented syllables that were impossible to piece out. You can remember the order of where you traveled and the countries that you entered, but the details were murky at best and absent at worst. When you were running low on money, you worked temporary jobs that didn’t require a contract: you cleaned floors, became a nanny, and helped farmers with their yield in rural areas. Though some were kind enough to offer you a place to stay, your main sleeping quarters were in parking lots and parks, where you laid out a sleeping back and used your backpack as a pillow. You washed your clothes using hand soap and would often leave them to dry by hanging them in branches, negligent of the dirt that would accumulate if your clothes fell to the ground due to a gust of wind. When you entered Russia, you were given a warm coat and some snow boots by a small farming family of seven, where you stayed for as long as you liked, drinking vodka out of a bottle every evening to numb yourself back to sleep. 

There was no end in mind, and you simply moved from town to town, entering Mongolia through land and then going into China. The world was so vast, yet everything felt cramped and narrow. 

Inserting several coins in a phone box by the police station, you rang Sungchan to hear his voice. 

“Professor Goo keeps asking me where you are,” he chimed. “You have a dissertation to finish, and you know damn well that you can’t graduate unless you complete it. It’s been a semester already, and you should be lucky that you’re all set, credit-wise. I got my timetable for my final term, and then I’m set to graduate in the spring. Where the hell are you? Hello?” 

The line kept cutting, but you remained silent, wrapping yourself in the worn coat the farmers had given you. 

“Don’t you realize that you’ve not been here, on this Earth, for an entire month now? Where did you go?”

“Sorry, Sungchan, I just don’t think I can return to Seoul yet.”

“Seriously, that’s all you’re gonna tell me?” 

“I can’t really say anything at this point,” you sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Sungchan hung up without a word. 

You lurched back in disgust when you saw your reflection through a car window. You looked horrible. Your eyes were hollowed out, sinking deep into your lids, and your skin was discolored with a blue, purple, and yellow mixture. There were unrecognizable cuts and bruises all over your body, and your spine had protruded out of your back, poking in swollen hues of red. 

You couldn’t tell if you were dreaming, but the sea by the coast of China looked just like home—back in Jeju, with a young Eunseok tending to your wounds. You tried to strike a match and light a fire, but you gave up after the waves kept blowing the pile of wood you had collected. Whenever you heard a wave crash onto the shore, you thought of Eunseok and how he was gone. He was not at Jeju at nine; he was not on the other side of the island at seventeen; he was not in Seoul at twenty; and he is not in this world at twenty-three. 

It was difficult to believe that he was gone when he had been a part of your life for as long as you could remember. Even though you had seen his bones and ashes scooped into an urn with your eyes, a part of you was convinced it was a farce. If he was gone, why could you still picture every detail of Eunseok in total clarity? See his calm, gentle face in the spring breeze, walking ahead of you in Seoul? It seemed as if the more you thought about him, the more vivid your memories with him became. You brought everything back to life, feeling his tiny, nimble fingers flimsily place a plaster on your wound. Felt the sound of his shoes pace forward with the sound of cars passing through your ears, hear his soft murmurs under his breath when he was lost in thought, see the swirls of his brown eyes hypnotize you whenever he would look up from a book he was reading.

But no, he wasn’t there. 

He’s gone.

“Where are you?” 

Sungchan’s voice continued to permeate through the chambers of your head, lost in echoes that reminded you of your time in Seoul. You couldn’t remember the last time you were in Seoul, nor could you even tell what day it was today. All you knew was that the office had celebrated your birthday yesterday, with twenty-nine candles to count and not a single one to blow out. You changed your hair, spoke a different language, and lived a different life from the one you had forced yourself to abandon. Yet, you find yourself attempting to answer this simple question from the moment you wake up to watch the news on television through the end of the day when you kick your heels off the entrance and drink a glass of wine to read some articles about the performance of the stock market before going to sleep.

Time had lapsed in missing gaps that embedded visible, tangible holes in your memory, and no matter how hard you tried to recall everything, the only things you could see were disfigured faces, shapes and blobs, and fragmented pieces of a life that felt so far away. 

You continue to write to Dr. Park, who had moved to Atlanta from his post at Ujeong Inn to practice as a full-time therapist. You even started to write to Professor Goo, whose wife had phoned you the other week to tell you that he had peacefully died in his sleep, dreaming of tests, scores, and a life that could’ve been had he not dedicated his entire life to a field that would soon forget his name.  

Through these letters, you would attempt to fill the holes in your memory, but to no avail. The words and scripts would jumble together, and it was getting harder and harder for you to decode a part of your life that you had lived subconsciously. 

The details of your return to Seoul and immigration to America were difficult to recall, especially with time. Even in the present, when you had woken up from a deep, deep slumber, it was difficult to discern what was real or not. Sometimes, when you closed your eyes, you could see Eunseok poking his head through your hospital door, then sitting by your bed to tell you that everything was going to be okay. 

Death was death. Eunseok was Eunseok, and Eunseok is dead. Has been for a while, but it shouldn’t bother you when he was right there, caressing your cheek while the waves of the ocean off the China Sea whistled like the jittery rattles of your chest. 

You received news that Professor Goo had exempted you from the dissertation, giving you a pass even though you hadn’t finished it or recovered enough to deliver your thesis defense. Your diploma was mailed to the hospital, and you took the first flight back to Jeju, with everything becoming a foggy haze of mist that evaporated into the sky. 

It took a flight to New York to finally phone Sungchan, but every time you heard the phone ring, a wave of tears struck you, and you would put the phone back into the receiver. The airport staff had asked if you needed help operating the phone, and you turned away to kneel and keel over, chest heaving and throbbing in pain as you let all the tears flow into your eyes. 

“Where are you?” 

I’m in America now, you wanted to say but kept silent after every single attempt at phoning him. He usually picked up after a single ring, never failing to miss your calls. Somehow, when you leaned over to the glass reflection of the phone booth, a window to Seoul emerged, where you saw Sungchan sitting on the couch with the plastic end of a cellphone in hand, idly waiting while listlessly watching the window until the phone rang. 

“Where are you?” 

I don’t know, but I have a lot to say to you. A million, even a billion, things I want to say, but I don't know where to start. How do I even start? Where should I begin? I want to see you again, will you come to America and start a life with me?

Again and again, you called for Sungchan’s name, but the details of the airport and the people walking to and fro converged in a singularity, a void that sucked you in until all you could see was Sungchan’s back turned against you, slowly walking away until there was nothing. 

“Where are you?”

Eddy’s funeral. He was killed in action in Afghanistan, shot by the Taliban. You saw footage of him on the news in between mourning services for the victims of 9/11. Frames of his face, along with soldiers who had fought, were plastered in newspapers, but all you could see was Sungchan. You called out for him and reached into the void for his hand, only to know you had a missed call in your receiver.

A voicemail that repeated the words “where are you” stuck in a loop.

FIN.

post mortem: I'M SORRY IF THE ENDING WAS UNSATISFYING BUT I LITERALLY CAN'T PICTURE A HAPPY ENDING FOR THE THREE. by the time i finish writing this, it would have been eight months since i first posted never meant, and i think a week or two? since i posted mine to miss. i've ngl been putting this off and even thought of abandoning this blog altogether, but i figured i needed to finish this series at the very least. i have a really bad habit of starting things and not finishing them, so in a sense, this is a big accomplishment for me, finishing off a fic that i've been putting off for eight months now. i know that a lot of you might find this ending a) open ended and b) unsatisfactory, but that's fine. once this has been posted, i have no control of what you guys think, and i don't really intend to elaborate on my thoughts as to why things had to be this way between the three. this much i hope you can understand. i have a way of thinking, where every story or word that comes out doesn't belong to me anymore, and in a sense, this work is now yours. think about it the way you want to. that's so cheesy lmao anyway this is getting long THANK YOU FOR READING MUAH MUAH KISSES I WILL TRY TO WRITE MORE I PROMISE!