#i think. i may not be aware of how much or how little i post wwwww

[utilitycaster]

I may have mentioned this phrase before, but I was introduced to "would anyone be swayed by further discussion" in college to put an end to debates where people simply would not agree and (in that case) to just put it to a vote or make the decision that was being discussed. The thing is, on the internet there's not the same impetus to wrap it up already because we're doing this all asynchronously and aren't actually people who need to work together in the first place, and so two differing opinions can endlessly sling mud without real consequence, and I think the discourse has reached the point of "you're stupid" "no you're stupid", and to be clear, I have participated heavily.

I don't actually mind if the discourse remains that way, for reasons that will become apparent in the course of this post, but here's what I propose: this isn't the kind of discussion that vagueing forever can solve. It requires actual back and forth with opportunities for requests for more information (eg: if I'm not understanding the themes of this campaign, what are they, in your own words, and how are they being demonstrated throughout the course of the campaign) and a cessation of ad hominems and at least the appearance of an assumption of good faith on both sides.

Here is the other thing, though: it is my hypothesis that most people posting about why they don't like Campaign 3 are in earnest: they don't like Campaign 3, they are articulating why (perhaps imperfectly! perhaps even incorrectly, in your eyes), and that's that. I think the people complaining about those people, ultimately, are mad that their personal preferences aren't shared by all. Or, to descend back into the mud for a moment: I think when I call you an idiot it hurts your feelings, and when you call me an idiot I say "Likely thing for an idiot to do." I think if the discourse continues, anyone who dislikes Campaign 3 will keep posting and say "wow it's a little annoying that people keep complaining about me expressing my opinion but them's the breaks, I know what I'm about" and the people complaining about those posts are simply going to feel worse and worse, no matter how much they yell about the other side's stupidity, because what they really want is agreement and validation. In other words, there's a pretty clear advantage, because one side doesn't rely on the good opinion or really any actions of the other. Or in the words of what I consider to be a far superior campaign, you need me more than I need you.

So with that in mind. If you'd like to make a good faith attempt to convince me of Campaign 3's excellence (and I can only speak for myself but if anyone else wants to do this, be my guest), my inbox is open [note: if you're doing this, you'll need to be off anon as I'm not carrying on a discussion via 20 annoying asks that clog everyone's dash - we're using replies], you can @ me, and if you are blocked and you're someone who does not have a specific history of direct harassment of which I'm aware, have a friend message me and I'll unblock you for the duration of this discussion. Ad hominems in the course of this specific discussion constitutes an immediate failure on behalf of the person saying them. The focus is on the text of Campaign 3; bringing in external circumstances as supporting information is valid if relevant but I hope it's obvious that "WELL IT'S THEIR CAMPAIGN AND IT'S ENTITLED TO CRITICIZE A THING THEY KNOWINGLY PUT ON THE INTERNET" is an automatic forfeiture as well due to the utter lack of argument and the fact that I cannot be swayed of the belief that little is above criticism and even less above judgement. Otherwise, I'll leave your posts and inbox alone while saying whatever the hell I want and you can deal with that accordingly. You want to make this an actual discussion of literary criticism in which you need to structure arguments and provide evidence instead of yelling "but I like it and I think it's brilliant so you have to agree with me or you're a mean anti-intellectual [broadly despised group]"? Sure. I can do that. I think most people who agree with me can also do that and would love to.

(this is nonrebloggable because I don't think it needs to spread, but feel free to link it. Also, I hope it's obvious: yes I'm aware I sound like an anime villain; it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to either elevate the discussion to the point where something can get done; or call your bluff and keep doing what I was doing)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

A Dark and Drowning Tide

gothic fantasy romance

a folklorist is chosen as the co-leader of an expedition to find a fabled magical spring for the king, along with 6 nobles

when her mentor, the other leader, is found dead on their boat in the middle of the night, she has to figure out who did it; while continuing the mission through the wilderness and navigating the potential political fallout

and the only one she can probably trust is her academic rival, a naturalist, who she hates

dark folktales & creatures

Jewish lesbian MC

arc from netgalley! out sep 17

putting both covers here because they’re both so beautiful!! (artists: Audrey Benjaminsen, & Erica Williams)

[callilouv]

dont miss me too much ok

[silverselfshippingchaos]

could cozy up to me- ahem

[cardentist]

hey, so people need to be aware that youtube is now (randomly) holding basic features for ransom (such as being able to pin comments under your own videos) in exchange for Your State ID/Drivers License, or a 30 Second Video Of Your Face.

not to pull a "think of the children," but No Actually. I've been making videos as a hobby since 2015 (and I've had my channel since middle school), I was a minor when I started and I'm not sure I would have understood the kind of damage something a seemingly simple as a video of your face can do.

this is a Massive breach of privacy and over-reach on google's part No Matter What, but if they're going to randomly demand a state ID or license then they absolutely should not allow minors to be creators.

google having a stockpile of identifying information on teenagers is bad enough, but the Alternative of recording your face and handing it over to be filed away is Alarming considering it opens the gates for minors who Aren't old enough to have a license.

and yes, there is a third option, but it's intentionally obtuse. a long wait period (2 months), with no guarantee of access (unlike, say, the convenience of using your phone's cameras for either of the other two), with absolutely No elaboration on what the criteria is or how it's being measured.

it's the same psychological effect that mobile games rely on. offer a slow, unreliable solution with no payment to make the Paid instant gratification look more appealing (the "payment" in this case being You. you are the product being offered).

and it's Particularly a system that (I think intentionally) disadvantages people who don't treat their channels like a job. hobbyists or niche creators who don't create regularly enough or aren't popular enough to meet whatever Vague criteria needs to be met to pass.

markiplier would have no problem passing, your little brother might not be able to. and while Mark's name is already out there there's no reason why your little brother's should be too.

something like pinned comments may seem simple, you don't technically Need it. but it's a feature that's been available for years. most people don't look at descriptions anymore. so when there's relevant information that needs to be delivered then the pinned comment is usually the go to.

for my little channel that information is about the niche series I create for. guides on how to get into the series, sources on where to find the content At All (and reliably so). for other creators it can be used for things Much More Important.

Moreover, if we let them get away with cutting away "small" features and selling it back to you for the price of your privacy, then they Will creep further. they Will take more.

Note: I have an update to this post here: [Link]

[yeoldenews]

A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names

I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.

Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.

I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.

I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?

As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.

So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.

So let’s see what all that data tells us…

To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.

If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)

If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.

To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.

The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.

I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…

The Regency Name Popularity Tier List

The Tiers

S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.

S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).

A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)

B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)

C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)

D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)

E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)

F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)

G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.

H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)

Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.

Women's Names

S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      

S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria

A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca

B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan

C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla

D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>

E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa

F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina

G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah

H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity

Men's Names

S+ John, William, Thomas

S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel

A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#

B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David>, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy

C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter

D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon

E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah

F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent

G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah

H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier

# Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.

*Rank as a given name, not a nickname

+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included

~Primarily used by people of Irish descent

^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent

>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent

I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.

If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.

Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.

I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.

I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.

The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.

I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.

Sources of the records I used for my survey: 

Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].

Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].

[cocklessboy]

The biggest male privilege I have so far encountered is going to the doctor.

I lived as a woman for 35 years. I have a lifetime of chronic health issues including chronic pain, chronic fatigue, respiratory issues, and neurodivergence (autistic + ADHD). There's so much wrong with my body and brain that I have never dared to make a single list of it to show a doctor because I was so sure I would be sent directly to a psychologist specializing in hypochondria (sorry, "anxiety") without getting a single test done.

And I was right. Anytime I ever tried to bring up even one of my health issues, every doctor's initial reaction was, at best, to look at me with doubt. A raised eyebrow. A seemingly casual, offhand question about whether I'd ever been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Even female doctors!

We're not talking about super rare symptoms here either. Joint pain. Chronic joint pain since I was about 19 years old. Back pain. Trouble breathing. Allergy-like reactions to things that aren't typically allergens. Headaches. Brain fog. Severe insomnia. Sensitivity to cold and heat.

There's a lot more going on than that, but those were the things I thought I might be able to at least get some acknowledgement of. Some tests, at least. But 90% of the time I was told to go home, rest, take a few days off work, take some benzos (which they'd throw at me without hesitation), just chill out a bit, you'll be fine. Anxiety can cause all kinds of odd symptoms.

Anyone female-presenting reading this is surely nodding along. Yup, that's just how doctors are.

Except...

I started transitioning about 2.5 years ago. At this point I have a beard, male pattern baldness, a deep voice, and a flat chest. All of my doctors know that I'm trans because I still haven't managed to get all the paperwork legally changed, but when they look at me, even if they knew me as female at first, they see a man.

I knew men didn't face the same hurdles when it came to health care, but I had no idea it was this different.

The last time I saw my GP (a man, fairly young, 30s or so), I mentioned chronic pain, and he was concerned to see that it wasn't represented in my file. Previous doctors hadn't even bothered to write it down. He pushed his next appointment back to spend nearly an hour with me going through my entire body while I described every type of chronic pain I had, how long I'd had it, what causes I was aware of. He asked me if I had any theories as to why I had so much pain and looked at me with concerned expectation, hoping I might have a starting point for him. He immediately drew up referrals for pain specialists (a profession I didn't even know existed till that moment) and physical therapy. He said depending on how it goes, he may need to help me get on some degree of disability assistance from the government, since I obviously shouldn't be trying to work full-time under these circumstances.

Never a glimmer of doubt in his eye. Never did he so much as mention the word "anxiety".

There's also my psychiatrist. He diagnosed me with ADHD last year (meeting me as a man from the start, though he knew I was trans). He never doubted my symptoms or medical history. He also took my pain and sleep issues seriously from the start and has been trying to help me find medications to help both those things while I go through the long process of seeing other specialists. I've had bad reactions to almost everything I've tried, because that's what always happens. Sometimes it seems like I'm allergic to the whole world.

And then, just a few days ago, the most shocking thing happened. I'd been wondering for a while if I might have a mast cell condition like MCAS, having read a lot of informative posts by @thebibliosphere which sounded a little too relatable. Another friend suggested it might explain some of my problems, so I decided to mention it to the psychiatrist, fully prepared to laugh it off. Yeah, a friend thinks I might have it, I'm not convinced though.

His response? That's an interesting theory. It would be difficult to test for especially in this country, but that's no reason not to try treatments and see if they are helpful. He adjusted his medication recommendations immediately based on this suggestion. He's researching an elimination diet to diagnose my food sensitivities.

I casually mentioned MCAS, something routinely dismissed by doctors with female patients, and he instantly took the possibility seriously.

That's it. I've reached peak male privilege. There is nothing else that could happen that could be more insane than that.

I literally keep having to hold myself back from apologizing or hedging or trying to frame my theories as someone else's idea lest I be dismissed as a hypochondriac. I told the doctor I'd like to make a big list of every health issue I have, diagnosed and undiagnosed, every theory I've been given or come up with myself, and every medication I've tried and my reactions to it - something I've never done because I knew for a fact no doctor would take me seriously if they saw such a list all at once. He said it was a good idea and could be very helpful.

Female-presenting people are of course not going to be surprised by any of this, but in my experience, male-presenting people often are. When you've never had a doctor scoff at you, laugh at you, literally say "I won't consider that possibility until you've been cleared by a psychologist" for the most mundane of health problems, it might be hard to imagine just how demoralizing it is. How scary it becomes going to the doctor. How you can internalize the idea that you're just imagining things, making a big deal out of nothing.

Now that I'm visibly a man, all of my doctors are suddenly very concerned about the fact that I've been simply living like this for nearly four decades with no help. And I know how many women will have to go their whole lives never getting that help simply because of sexism in the medical field.

If you know a doctor, show them this story. Even if they are female. Even if they consider themselves leftists and feminists and allies. Ask them to really, truly, deep down, consider whether they really treat their male and female patients the same. Suggest that the next time they hear a valid complaint from a male patient, imagine they were a woman and consider whether you'd take it seriously. The next time they hear a frivolous-sounding complaint from a female patient, imagine they were a man and consider whether it would sound more credible.

It's hard to unlearn these biases. But it simply has to be done. I've lived both sides of this issue. And every doctor insists they treat their male and female patients the same. But some of the doctors astonished that I didn't get better care in the past are the same doctors who dismissed me before.

I'm glad I'm getting the care I need, even if it is several decades late. And I'm angry that it took so long. And I'm furious that most female-presenting people will never have this chance.

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

These are a couple doodles from yesterday, Gideon as a younger teen, before the growth spurt, maybe 14? He's discovered he's a vampire, and has a lot of recovery to do, since he's severely blood deficient.

I'm gonna let myself explode about my vampire gideon ideas, under construction, under the cut: (I don't write fanfiction, I just throw up my ideas on a tumblr post, apparently :'D)

This is what I love about tumblr - it's a place where I can throw the doodles (something that isn't finished *artwork*), and let myself be really delusional about fictional characters. So I'm gonna take a moment to ramble about the ideas I have for Gideon as a vampire.

If you're a fellow Gideon Head, HI THERE... anyway, here's my thought process on a potential vampire-gideon backstory???

I've always liked the idea of gideon being a vampire, and also becoming a much better person when he's older. And that got me thinking, maybe those two things are linked. Maybe the vampire thing is somehow tied into his reformation.

But I tend to lean towards building my ideas off canon (as opposed to making an AU). And if gideon was a vampire, and knew this during the events of the show, it would have come to light at some point. So, either he doesn't know he's a vampire, or he becomes one later. Becoming one later works narratively, but he's already so vampiric, with the white hair, pale skin, sunscreen, evil, etc. So I'm like, let's go with that.

So, gideon has gone his whole life without knowing he's a vampire, and without drinking blood. I'm thinking that being a vampire in this case (my gravity falls fan version of what a vampire would be) wouldn't adhere to typical vampire conventions. You don't NEED to drink blood to survive.

Here's the idea I got yesterday: after the events of weirdmageddon, gideons experience motivated him to become a better person. It was the awakening, basically. But in the subsequent years, he's still a little shit. Maybe he's in juvenile detention, or prison again. But now, he has the self awareness to know that what he's doing is wrong. This is where my ideas get a little fuzzy, so bear with me. Bud has his suspicions, and as a last resort, puts gideon on some sort of mission trip type of cross country trip, when he's in his teens. And along the way, maybe at the end, there's this secret group of vampires that open gideons eyes to what he really is.

Basically??? Without blood, gideon is very evil. He's an evil little shit. This may not be how it is for every vampire. Maybe some grow very sickly without blood, just get hungry, etc. The effects of blood deficiency vary from vampire to vampire. But Gideon becomes very unhinged. And he'd essentially been Blood Hangry for his whole life. That being said, some of it was just his personality that he needed to work through, but drinking some blood helped a LOT. Blood isn't food for him, it's more like his medication.

Once he has that discovery, he spends a long while, I'm thinking maybe even a year, just recovering from the deficiency. He's almost always drinking blood to keep up his levels, and he's very rarely seen in public to keep the vampire thing a secret. That's what these drawings were supposed to be, him in his pseudo bedridden state. This period in his life would be one big blur; mostly spent binge watching soap operas and being all cozy. In contrast to his usual suit + tie, he's dressing for max comfort: sweatpants, sweatshirt, a knit hat over his ridiculously big hair, and always wrapped in a blanket. Not sure if somehow he feels cold when drinking blood?? But for some reason, I feel like he'd always be wearing like 10 layers and laying under a heated blanket or something.

Eventually, he'd only need to drink blood about once a month for maintenance.

Character development wise - even as an adult, Gideon isn't sure if he's truly a good person. Is the blood deficient version of himself the true gideon? Or is this well adjusted man who he truly is? And there's an issue of the chicken and the egg, too. Gideon was born a vampire. Did these genes activate because he was predisposed to being evil? Or did the vampire thing happen by coincidence? Does being a vampire make him evil, or is it the other way around? He doesn't know, and he never will.

The one thing I'm not sure I like about this idea: i'm worried that I'd be writing off his villainous personality as an illness that can be cured with a thing. Obviously, it would be better if he faced that head on, and figured out how to be better. So I'm still grappling with that. But for now, this is an idea I'm entertaining. Of course, I think it would be interesting if there was a plot point where his usual source of ethically sourced human blood was compromised for a time, and he had to grapple with his personality going topsy turvy.

It's actually embarrassing how much I just wrote???? If you've made it this far, wow, I applaud you. I guess this was just my idea of having a good sunday night, writing down my silly thoughts on gideon gosh darn gleeful. Let me know your thoughts too!!!! I'd love to know if you have any ideas, or questions, or ways to strengthen this potential backstory.

[prael]

Day 3: Reciprocation

Itzy Yeji x male reader smut

words: 6,714 12 Days of Praelmas Masterlist

If there's one thing you've learned dealing with the rich, the famous and the devious, it's that there's always a deal to be made.

-

"Not often that I see a girl like you in a place like this."

"Well, you're an incredibly difficult man to track down."

It's the girl who's supposed to be on the main page of your site starting tomorrow morning. You gesture for Yeji to sit by your side, and while there are more than enough empty seats around you, she prefers to stand. What is this, a fucking power move?

"Well, you could have just called my office and made yourself an appointment."

It doesn't amuse her. She simply brings her hands up to rest on her hips as she looks at you.

"Look, let's get to the point. You can't post the article." There is something rather endearing in watching how she talks to you. Her hips are cocked and her face bears a look of determination, but she lacks confidence. You're not sure she even believes herself. Maybe she's just hoping that you'll cave.

You meet her eyes and hold her gaze for a few moments, searching for a crack in her armour. It's hard to say for certain when the only lighting in this club is what little neon they have on display, but there seems to be something else hiding behind her stare. A nervous energy, perhaps. So, you correct her, "I can post the article."

"Look— I, I have money." She takes a single stride towards you, with her long slender legs of which only part of her thigh is covered by the bottom of her dress. That thing clings to them like it does every other inch of her body. One hell of a figure.

"I'm well aware."

"Okay then, how much money will it take for you to drop the article?"

"Money doesn't compare to an article like this one—you know that. Come on," you lean forward a bit. "You should be smarter than that."

"How much?!" Yeji says again. There's an edge to her voice now and a stern look in her eyes. She must feel that you're not taking her seriously—honestly, you aren't. You can't count the number of times an agency has tried to block an article by simply throwing money your way. The novelty has worn off. 

"Listen, Miss Hwang, I appreciate the effort you have gone through to manufacture a meeting with me, however, just like I told your PR team, I'm not for sale. Should you want to avoid this sort of thing, then I'd recommend being a little more discreet the next time you want to fuck around." You glance at the door leading out. The exit sign above is blinking erratically, but it serves its intended purpose nonetheless. "I'll see you in tomorrow morning's news."

"No."

"No?" You raise an eyebrow. She may be a star and she may make people go crazy in more ways than one, but if you've learned something about yourself over the years, it's that you aren't as easily swayed by beauty alone, nor impressed by fame.

Yeji remains silent, her eyes looking down to the table in front of you and your mind instantly starts conjuring up scenarios where the girl goes into a screaming fit or starts throwing a tantrum until security drags her sorry ass out the door.

Her head snaps up again. "Fine." Yeji turns sideways and steps around the small table. It becomes apparent that she plans on sitting by your side, after all. She isn't exactly looking at you as she plops herself onto the cushioned bench. "You said 'next time', right?" She begins quietly.

In spite of yourself, a smile appears on your face when you see the wheels turn inside of Yeji's head. "I don't think I understand."

"Yes, you do," Yeji replies dryly. And with the certainty now back in her voice, it appears you've misjudged her.

When you remain silent for a few moments, Yeji eventually gives in and takes a quick, inconspicuous breath before looking up again. Her face is but inches from your own. "Have sex with me tonight."

It takes effort not to burst into laughter in response to such an absurd offer, and as a result, the amusement is probably pretty damn clear in the tone of your reply. "You're cute."

"I'm serious."

You look the girl in the eyes once more, leaning backwards. "You know how much trouble you could get into for trying something like this, right?"

Yeji's jaw clenches momentarily. "Yeah."

You gaze down along her body again. The skin on her thighs seems smooth and silky; definitely worth a closer inspection, and you would be lying if you said the knowledge of her dirty hook-ups didn't have your mind wondering about all the ways she might be willing to work her body in an attempt to sway you. You wonder if she likes it rough; likes having someone grab hold of those black locks of hers and yank her head back. Likes having a cock slammed down her throat. Your thoughts quickly go into a tailspin which has you imagining Yeji crawling towards you dressed up in nothing but skimpy lingerie, a hungry smile plastered across her face and a yearning desire to find out what sort of mess you could turn her into.

"So," you begin quietly. "I don't release an article about the K-pop star who keeps sneaking out into hotels to get herself fucked—and in exchange, I get to sleep with the K-pop star who keeps sneaking out into hotels to get herself fucked. Do I have that right?"

You see the embarrassment cross Yeji's features briefly, yet she still manages to bite out her reply with certainty: "Yes."

For some reason, even though she's been found out and forced into making such an absurd deal, she refuses to lower her gaze away from yours, almost daring you to judge her. You've seen her music videos online—goddamnit, everyone has—and she's sexy as hell. No one would deny that, and she looks stunning in that black dress of hers. It really compliments her figure. Legs go on for days, a toned physique and looking down the front of her dress as she leans into you, a pretty little pair of tits hidden somewhere in there as well.

"I've been propositioned before, you know, but usually that's to get their face on the front page, not off it." You cock your head at her. "How badly do you want this dropped, anyway?"

"What are you trying to say?"

You lean back slowly, deliberately, resting your shoulders against the seat as you feel Yeji's eyes study your every move. Despite the terrible lighting, you can tell she's biting her lip nervously. She's so close that the scent coming off her fills the air around you. It's a pleasant smell. One you wouldn't mind having all over your bed.

"I'll be blunt." Your eyes fall to her chest and you take note of how Yeji squirms under your stare. A tiny smile appears on your lips. "I'd love to fuck you. Hell, anyone in their right mind would love to fuck you. You're a very attractive girl, after all." You nod in her direction. "So, that part will happen if I agree to this deal of yours, however, there's one thing you haven't accounted for."

Yeji meets your stare. Her voice is low, yet resolute. "Which is?"

"You have no idea of whether or not I'm actually going to uphold my end of the bargain."

She pauses in silence and then moves her hand across the table, scooping up your drink and raising it to her full lips. As she knocks back the remainder, the way her slender neck stretches makes you wish you could wrap your hands around it.

The glass hits the table and Yeji licks her lips softly. The sight has you licking your own and for just a second, the both of you simply gaze at each other in silence, almost sizing each other up. Yeji finally shifts closer to you until she's right by your side. Her breasts press up against your shoulder and you feel her warmth on your arm.

One of her delicate hands lands gently in your lap and slides upwards onto your thigh where she starts to draw small circles with her fingertips. You wonder if she notices the slight hitch in your breath as she touches you. "We can go to your office. Sign a document. Legally binding. Non-disclosure. And agree to write a favourable piece about me. You can send out the request to your best columnist there and then. And then you can take me right there." Her words come out in soft whispers and her eyes dart over your face, trying to read your reaction.

Yeji is young and beautiful and she's clearly horny enough to get herself into this kind of mess. It doesn't come as too much of a surprise to you, then, when you feel a delicate fingertip trace over your crotch. "Take you?"

"On your desk. Over your desk," she elaborates shamelessly and with a hint of cheek in her voice. There's a smug expression on her face. She's enjoying herself but also relieved to be getting through to you. "However you want me."

"So, it's an exchange? A dirty deal done in the darkness?"

Yeji smirks. "I prefer to call it reciprocation."

-

Friday night in the office and it still has the passive hum of life, though not much of it. Cutting through the air is the loud clack of Yeji's high heels as she follows you silently past empty room after empty room. The interns putting in the long hours are all on the lower floors, giving you just enough discretion.

You glance back briefly at her before rounding the corner. Just like you had imagined, she seems rather timid now. Head held slightly down and glancing around the place, almost like she's embarrassed to be here with you.

Finally, you reach your private office near the far wall of the floor and wave Yeji inside. As you step up to your desk and turn, Yeji closes the door behind herself and watches you intently. The soft light in here gives you a much better opportunity to appreciate her.

"Come." You gesture her over while simultaneously logging into your PC.

It only takes a few simple clicks to bring up a basic confidentiality agreement which you proceed to edit. "As requested," you begin. "This agreement prohibits me from writing anything related to your numerous encounters with nameless men and women in various hotels throughout Seoul. Failure to abide by these terms enables you to take legal action against me and my firm to any extent deemed necessary."

She places her palms on the desk as you turn the monitor to show her. She reads it. You read here. Leaning forward has the front of her dress hang open a bit further. It's the first glance you get of her red bra underneath and the swell of her chest, just big enough for handfuls. She sees your wandering eyes, yet continues to scan the terms of the contract. It makes you curious if the idea of being looked at like some cheap slut turns her on. Maybe you should try referring to her as such. Would she object? Or encourage?

Yeji nods in approval and you click 'print'. She looks past you, watching it emerge from the machine.

"That's all we need," you say, never looking away from her. There's something mesmerising about her eyes. They're large, they're dark and they tend to draw you in. "Now I can't expose your whorish tendencies."

She looks offended momentarily. "Whorish?"

"Two months. Forty-two hotel visits were recorded. Thirty-five different partners." The chair rolls away as you push it back and stand up, towering over her frame. "Yes, you're fucking whorish, Yeji. Our research was thorough."

"I'm just having fun." She stops leaning on the desk. You both take a step in unison, beginning to round the desk while staring each other down. The moment feels tense. "There's nothing wrong with that."

"Oh, I agree completely."

Another step. Another inch towards each other.

"There's no shame in being a bit of a slut. An incredibly beautiful slut."

A third.

You're face to face. Those heels make her almost as tall as you, and you glance at Yeji's lips as the tip of her tongue suddenly darts out over them. The only sound between the two of you is your shared breathing. Yeji tilts her head back slightly and gazes into your eyes, waiting expectantly for you to act upon your desire. Waiting for you to throw her onto the desk and fuck the living shit out of her, just as she asked for.

You wait.

Her lower lip disappears beneath the bite of her teeth.

Wait.

A sudden flush rises up onto Yeji's cheeks, undoubtedly born from her frustration, but you don't miss the excitement hiding within it either. Then, Yeji takes another step forward, one which has you taking hold of her waist, pushing yourself hard up against her body.

Almost instantly, the pair of you go from hesitant to frantic, moving without a single word being spoken between either of you.

Your mouths meet in an open-mouthed kiss of heat, passion and impatience. There's a gasp coming from somewhere, a mixture of a moan as the two of you collide. It takes more willpower than expected not to shove your tongue down Yeji's throat as you feel hers slide against yours in an instant. Fingernails dig into your neck; not hard enough to leave marks, yet not soft enough to be mistaken as anything else than a woman showing what she wants. It's exactly what you wanted to do when you first saw her tonight.

She bites on your lip, sucks on it and goes straight back in. You grab hold of her tightly and shuffle her backwards towards the desk. You can barely restrain yourself. A groan rises up in the depths of your stomach when Yeji parts her legs slightly, welcoming your body in between them.

Every part of you tells you to bend her over and start hammering yourself into her, yet there's still one last detail you must attend to. You break free of Yeji's grasp and shove her roughly down onto your desk.

Her hair fans out around her head and her gaze looks darker somehow, more lustrous under this light. You follow her shape, down, over the bumps of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips and then to the hem of her dress, where bare thigh begins again. She shudders under the weight of your stare. Legs falling apart, invitingly.

You feel Yeji tremble under your tender touch as you run your hand up the outside of her thigh and push up the fabric of her dress. The tips of your fingers bump along the rim of her underwear before reaching her hip where you trace shapes absentmindedly. She's smooth and silky everywhere.

"What is it?" Yeji asks breathlessly when you don't move for a few moments. Your attention remains firmly locked on that final detail. The thin lace material covering her cunt.

You look her dead in the eyes and curl your fingers around it. "Just wondering how many different people have had you like this."

The red lace is pulled aside. Yeji stares at you, seemingly taken aback by your bluntness as you lean down a little further and angle her leg to the side, letting cool air hit every inch of her bare sex. And it's a lovely sight, all things considered. Neat, trimmed and glistening wet. Your hand moves across her thigh to hold her in place. "Usually I'm on top," Yeji replies, finally regaining her confidence.

"You'd rather be riding me, huh?"

"Yes." Yeji's answer comes immediately. Your cock is stiffening already at the mere thought of having her small body bouncing in your lap as she rides your length like a bitch in heat.

She runs her own hands up her slender frame, feeling up the sides of her own waist, skirting around those perky tits and letting out the smallest whimper of anticipation as she caresses the side of her neck. Her eyelashes flutter with desire. It seems the girl enjoys being admired just as much as you enjoy admiring.

"Don't worry, you'll get to ride it soon enough." Slowly, you drag your middle finger up between her folds, making sure you put enough pressure down against the sweet little bud of nerves to make her arch her back at the sensation. A deep inhale catches itself in the back of Yeji's throat when you sink your fingertip inside of her, only for it to turn into a disappointed sigh when you withdraw.

She bites her lip in embarrassment, no doubt mortified that she couldn't keep quiet at such a simple action, although that doesn't stop you from repeating the movement, applying more pressure and then sinking further into her. This time you withdraw and then taste your finger curiously. If the sweet scent wafting off her wasn't enough indication, she tastes as good as she looks.

"How are you so wet already?" you ask. "All from thinking about getting railed over my desk, hmm?" You ask teasingly, lowering your mouth down closer to her pussy and holding your breath for a moment. You can feel the warmth coming off her.

"It's exciting."

"What, fucking a stranger?"

"Yes," Yeji says bluntly. She wets her lips. "There's nothing quite like giving yourself up to someone completely random."

Your hand slides down her calf and gently pulls off her heel. As soon as it hits the ground, it's replaced with a slow and tender kiss on the inside of her ankle. The skin is just as smooth and supple as the rest of her. From here you have a much better view of how her delicate little flower pulses in longing.

Your head dips and you suck hard on Yeji's inner thigh. You delight in the surprised yelp leaving her mouth as you rake your teeth over her soft skin, pulling at it before letting go. It leaves behind a lovely purple bruise which you blow cold air over, soothing the irritated skin. It makes you smile, knowing that mark will remain for a week, to be seen by whoever she fucks next.

"Do you get excited thinking about having me join the list of cocks pounding away at you?"

Without allowing Yeji time to think, your tongue finds her clit and starts drawing shapes around it. "Yes!" You hear her hiss. Your left arm reaches under her thigh and keeps her pinned down to the table while your right does the same, only giving your tongue freedom to dance over her wet cunt.

You sample her thoroughly, getting her used to the feeling of your warm tongue running over every part of her. You apply more pressure to your work once you notice Yeji bucking her hips upwards to grind against your mouth.

"Oh shit." Yeji is panting heavily now, gasping for breath whenever you pay special attention to her clit. Her thighs quiver every so often, tensing around your head. "Don't—don't stop."

Yeji has the nicest legs you've ever laid eyes on. The way they wrap tightly around your head, squeezing the air out of you when you suck down on her swollen clit, it feels heavenly.

Suddenly, Yeji's hips thrust forward, throwing your rhythm off momentarily.

"Mmm, oh—fuck," she whimpers as you feel her body shake and quiver underneath your touch. Your pace doesn't slacken even once throughout.

"Fuck," Yeji whines louder this time. "Fuck, I'm gonna cum."

Already?

You put more pressure on her hips, keeping them pinned down as best as possible, whilst your tongue attacks her with fervent desperation, spurred on by Yeji's declaration. As the seconds pass by, Yeji becomes more vocal, though not with her words—with her actions. Her breathing picks up noticeably. Soon it becomes short and ragged. Her chest heaves. Her fingers claw into the surface below her. Her spine curves beautifully and her lips hang open wide, allowing loud cries to escape her.

She practically sings out for you as her nails scratch at your desk, looking for something to hold on to, something to ground her. Her whole body tenses up for several moments.

Then it happens.

Her mouth opens up wide yet no sound comes out, her back arches almost unnaturally and her juices coat your chin. The silence hangs in the air, heavy, palpable as her walls contract in ecstasy. Then it's finally broken with a loud snap. One of her fake nails pops off and flies across the room as she grips too hard on the edge of the desk.

Then she moans. Guttural, wanton, unrestrained, absolutely filthy. It fills the room, reverberating back to you in a delicious chorus of hedonism and pleasure. She lies there limp with her eyes shut. Her mouth open. Panting heavily. Basking in the glow.

"So easily?" you ask quietly. Yeji takes a deep breath, trying to steady her heart rate. Your hands leave her hips, caressing her trembling flesh, sliding upwards, running up her dress and over the curve of her waist until you reach her shoulders. You tug the straps down the length of her arms and lean closer, pushing the soft material down to reveal the top of her matching red lingerie. Your hand cups the back of her head. She instinctively knows to lift it.

You lower your lips down to her collarbone as you reach behind her to unzip her dress. The sensation of your kisses against her neck draws another moan out of Yeji. A quiet one this time, however. Gentle. Contended.

You kiss upwards, planting several against the underside of her jaw and the corners of her lips. "I can't stop myself," she whispers, opening her eyes just in time for you to press your lips against hers, tasting the lingering sweetness in your mouth. She smiles.

"Let's get you out of that dress," you say and she nods in agreement. "Up," you order softly and Yeji complies, lifting herself high enough for you to pull the material down her waist and over the length of her thighs. It falls to the ground in a heap at her feet. All that remains is the expensive-looking red underwear set she chose for this occasion.

The two of you exchange looks. She bites her lip. She can see the burning lust raging within your eyes. You don't care if it gives the game away.

There's an absolutely wicked smile that draws across her lips as you start to unbutton your shirt. Her voice is all sultry seduction when she says, "I've been meaning to ask you, are you always swayed so easily?"

"Honestly? Not really," you respond calmly, watching how her eyes eagerly take in your torso as you shrug off your clothing. "Maybe there is something about you that's just..." you trail off, unsure of how to end the sentence.

Yeji sits up on the edge of the desk and throws her arms around your neck, dragging you in closer so that your bodies connect. You feel her lips press against your chest in soft kisses. A finger trails over your abdomen, drawing patterns over your skin before moving downwards. "Yes?"

"Different." Your belt is quickly undone and dropped alongside her dress. Nimble fingers begin unbuttoning your trousers. You run your hands through her hair, appreciating how silky it feels running through your fingers.

Yeji has her gaze focused between your bodies, on her hands as they push your jeans down to the floor and you notice the change in her breathing the moment she wraps her hand around your cock.

She kisses her way up to your neck where her lips tickle your skin as she mumbles: "In a good way?"

Yeji presses the flat of her palm against the base of your erection, rubbing slowly. Your head tilts backwards slightly and you allow yourself a low groan. There's a warm puff of air as she giggles quietly against your neck.

"In a great way," you answer.

"Good," she purrs, suddenly tightening her grip on you and giving you several deliberate strokes. You watch intently as Yeji runs her thumb over the tip of your dick, circling it a few times before continuing with her motions. She leans closer, wrapping her legs around your body and placing her mouth by your ear. "I know what I said earlier about loving to ride a cock and all that," her voice is filled with lust. Pure, unbridled desire. "But honestly? I'd do just about anything right now to have you fuck me against this desk."

And that does it for you.

All semblance of control vanishes entirely in a heartbeat.

You drag her from her perch, only to turn her around and push her right back against the desk. Yeji bends over the edge and places both her palms flat atop it. You watch her toned legs move apart as she spreads them invitingly. Your hand reaches out to rest on her ass.

Soft. Round. Supple. Just begging to be fucked. Your dick rests comfortably between her cheeks, which are covered by the flimsiest piece of lace you've ever seen. The pair of you groan together in anticipation at the sensation of feeling each other so intimately. The anticipation of what is soon to come.

"You want me to fuck you, huh?" you ask.

Yeji turns her head to look at you, dark strands of black hair hanging before her beautiful, desperate eyes. "Please."

She waits expectantly as you move back just enough to hook your fingers into her underwear and pull them down slowly, revealing the pretty little cunt you had tasted earlier. The desk is ever so slightly too tall for her, and her long legs stretch to rest on her tiptoes.

You run your hand down between Yeji's pert cheeks, delighting in the gasp of relief leaving her mouth as you cup her heat. Your fingers slip through her slick, coating themselves with her natural arousal before one sinks inside effortlessly. You push it deep, drawing a content sigh from her lips as your digit bottoms out.

A second follows shortly after and she clenches hard around the pair of them.

"Your cock," Yeji demands. You curl your fingers inside of her, delighted by how she struggles to speak when you graze her weak spots. "Want it..."

"But this is fun," you state simply, continuing to explore every inch of her, learning which places cause the biggest reactions and relishing in her quiet hums of satisfaction every time you stimulate them. You'd be lying if you said it didn't make your cock pulse with the need to be inside her. That warm wetness wrapped snugly around your fingers would feel downright amazing around you.

Yeji wriggles her body, pressing her ass against you and whimpering as your digits push inside again. "Please... your cock." Your eyes drop from the beauty bent over in front of you and focus instead on the sight of your fingers disappearing repeatedly between those gorgeous legs. How her muscles clench and her toes curl against the carpet with each and every motion of your digits inside her. She looks ready. She feels ready.

"Well, seeing as you're asking so nicely—"

You slip your fingers out. The whine of loss from Yeji barely has time to fade as you grab hold of her ass with both hands, spread it out, line yourself up with her cunt and sink inside without hesitation. Fuck it. Why go slow?

"Oh god," Yeji moans as your hips meet. Her knuckles turn white as she claws at the surface of the desk in an effort to cope with the feeling of fullness that she's clearly experiencing right now. Her eyes widen and she bites hard into the back of her lip as her cunt stretches around you, accommodating you perfectly. She exhales deeply.

It's all worth it—the workplace compromise. This moment right here where your thick cock rests deep inside of Hwang Yeji's warm, wet cunt. Finally. And holy fucking hell—it's everything you could've ever asked for.

"I knew you'd feel so fucking good," you murmur, trailing your hands up Yeji's slender figure, feeling her back tense slightly when she lets out a small moan of agreement. Your fingers tangle into her long hair, wrap it around your fist, give a harsh tug to pull her head backwards, earning a sharp intake of air—and then you start rutting your hips into hers. Long, forceful strokes fill the air with repeated claps of skin slapping against skin.

The choked moans which tumble from Yeji's lips are music to your ears, encouraging you to keep her pinned down against your desk with a strong hand on the small of her back. Your fingertips press into her flawless skin hard enough to bruise, yet neither of you cares—not when there are far more important matters to attend to. Namely, pounding Yeji's brains out and filling her tight little pussy with ropes of hot cum.

So, you pick up your pace, quickening the tempo and making sure each thrust of your hips goes harder than the previous. Her mouth hangs open in a silent scream with each movement of your body against hers. Every slap of your hips against her ass elicits a reaction.

You're already addicted to her. Everything about Yeji makes you want to hold nothing back, and as you pull yourself out only to slam back inside her depths, you can't help but notice the absolute debauchery dripping from her words when she begs: "Harder. Fuck me harder."

And who are you to refuse her request? She looks incredible anyway, but seeing her eyes screw shut in bliss while a strand of saliva escapes past her open mouth? Nothing would convince you to let up now.

The constant clatter of objects rattling and shifting across the surface of your desk adds a nice soundtrack to the experience. So do the increasingly frequent moans spilling freely from Yeji's lips, each one higher-pitched than the last. They spur you on. Give you the incentive to chase after her pleasure.

And then you feel the telltale clamping down of her walls around you. Your cock is held tightly in her warmth, refusing to relinquish its grasp on you until you've filled her with cum. Until you've pumped your load deep inside of her wanting cunt. You know it's coming and you adjust accordingly. Forcing yourself to maintain rhythm as you pound her pussy into submission.

You yank on her hair and tug her upwards, forcing her back to crash against your torso. You bring your other hand to her chest, sliding beneath the fabric of her bra to cup at her tit. Her hands desperately search for but fail to find, purchase on the desk. She's helplessly suspended between your grasp and your cock as she cums. Helpless to do anything except take it. Take what she's given.

An indecent series of shrieks and wails erupts from somewhere deep within her chest as Yeji's body seizes up and convulses violently against yours. It sets you off. You bury yourself hilt-deep inside of her and explode. Your vision goes blurry, your toes curl, your jaw clenches shut and your teeth grind painfully together.

It takes everything within you not to collapse forwards on top of the girl you're filling to the brim, instead relying solely on the strength of your grip to stay upright as your cock jerks erratically inside of her, pulsating again and again, releasing stream after stream of creamy spunk deep into her.

As soon as the world stops spinning and the fog starts clearing from your mind, you're met with the sight of Hwang Yeji trying desperately to regain any semblance of control over her own body as well. She's slumped atop your desk, panting heavily, her body twitching occasionally.

You lean down, peppering a gentle trail of kisses down the side of her neck, stopping briefly at the space just below her ear where you whisper, "You look stunning like this."

It takes Yeji several seconds before she manages a reply. She eventually opens her eyes halfway and gives you an exhausted smile. "Like what?"

"Sweaty. Thoroughly used. Filled to the fucking brim."

Your comment draws a faint giggle from her which ends abruptly the moment you drag yourself backwards, slipping your softening cock out of her cunt along with the rush of semen that spills from her and trickles onto your desk.

"Oh god," Yeji mutters as the mess slips from between her legs. She pushes herself up from her prone position and lifts herself off your table, leaving behind a lovely sticky patch where her crotch had rested. You stumble towards your chair and plop down on it, resting your back against the cool leather whilst admiring Yeji's flushed features.

"I still haven't gotten to ride your cock yet."

"I don't know if I—"

Yeji drops to her knees in front of you and grabs the base of your shaft without a second thought, squeezing it lightly and causing it to stiffen slightly. "Well I do," she declares.

She leans closer.

You catch sight of your reflection in her dark brown eyes just before Yeji extends her tongue, running it carefully over the sensitive skin of your cock before planting a wet kiss against the tip. Then she does it again. And again. The movements become a pattern until, suddenly, you're enveloped by the heat of Yeji's mouth.

"Ah," you gasp as she takes you. So sensitive to the touch of her tongue as it swirls around you. She hums approvingly at your reaction and slides deeper, taking your semi-erect cock further into her mouth as she continues to suck you off. Her head bobs slowly up and down, gradually coaxing you back to life until she slips you out from between her lips with a pop.

"That got you hard fast enough." Yeji grins. She stands up straight, and then your jaw falls open slightly at the sight of Yeji reaching behind her back to unclasp her bra. It falls to the ground in slow motion. Delicate pale skin stretches beautifully over perky breasts topped with cute pink nipples. God damn.

Yeji straddles your lap, trapping your body underneath hers. It doesn't take much to push you inside. To have her slide down the length of your shaft once again. She sits still for a few seconds, grinding her hips subtly against yours whilst biting on her lower lip. "Fuck, this feels good." She rotates her hips in little circles. "Feel that? I'm still full of your cum."

The pace is slower now. You're content to sit back, listen to the sounds of wet, sloppy sex filling the office air, and watch how her beautiful features contort with pleasure when your cock scrapes against a weak spot. There's something incredibly arousing about having such a famous idol sitting in your lap, fucking herself silly on your dick alone. She uses it like a toy to chase after her own pleasure.

One of her hands laces itself into your hair, tugging on it harshly. You retaliate with equal ferocity by sinking your fingers into Yeji's plump ass. It earns you a wonderful hiss of approval which comes accompanied by a tight squeeze around your shaft as her free hand moves down between your bodies and furiously rubs at her clit.

It's not long before you realise that she's close, and judging by her frantic behaviour, you figure she isn't looking to make it last longer.

Yeji whimpers cutely. Her head falls backwards, exposing her perfect neck. An expanse of unblemished, untouched skin that simply demands to be marked. Claimed. Taken.

And so you lean forwards, place your mouth on the soft skin and start sucking on it, nipping at the supple flesh. You feel her tighten around you instantly.

"Oh god!" She cries out. Yeji tries to bounce in your lap but fails miserably. She's no longer in control of her body. All she can do is quiver, cry out, and gasp in ecstasy as another orgasm surges through her. It's nowhere near as powerful as the previous two. Instead, it's drawn out. Lasting longer and keeping her moaning throughout.

When it's over and done with, you release your hold on her neck. In return, her exhausted head comes to rest against your shoulder. Her hot pants hit your cheek as she lay there limply against your frame.

"Too much?" you tease and Yeji scoffs. You give her a gentle spank and ask, "That's all you've got?"

"Just catching my breath."

She puts action to word immediately and picks herself back up. There's a determination etched all over her face as she brings both arms to rest on your shoulders, locking you in place and supporting herself on top of you. The expression she wears leaves little room for misinterpretation; this one is yours.

Yeji begins riding you again. Slowly at first, letting herself grow accustomed to the sensation of being filled again. Then faster. Harder. Using your cock to fuck herself on. Taking charge once more. You happily allow her to have it. Glad to let the beautiful starlet do whatever the fuck she wants with your body. Relishing the fact that you're balls-deep inside of her and she loves every inch of you.

"I need it," Yeji whines, slamming herself down on top of you again and again, her soft ass smacking against your thighs repeatedly. Her hair billows wildly around her, sticking to her sweaty skin, flying every which way without rhyme or reason, driven mad by her insatiable desire to keep on going. She keeps saying things under her breath, nonsensical at best, unintelligible at worst.

But her efforts get results. As much as you want to prolong the moment forever, your body can only handle so much. Pleasure courses through your veins like electricity, setting alight every nerve ending within your body until finally, you feel that familiar heat rise from somewhere deep within.

Yeji must sense it because she suddenly kicks it up yet another notch, crying out incoherently as she drops down on your shaft once more, twice more—a third time sends you toppling over the edge. You grip her hips tight, digging your fingertips deep into her flesh as your cock pulses powerfully inside of her cunt, painting her walls white.

She drags it out. Uses gravity to force you as deep inside as possible, allowing every single drop to spill inside of her again. Your eyes roll into the back of your skull as you grunt loudly. Any coherent thought becomes impossible as you cum.

Once more, it takes several moments before you come back down from the clouds. When reality sets in again, Yeji is still straddled atop your lap, watching you with an amused grin stretching from ear to ear. You're left with nothing else to do except admire how her flushed cheeks accentuate her gorgeous features even further.

"I know. I know," she says while stroking your cheek. "I'm amazing."

"You're trouble," you correct breathlessly.

She rolls her eyes at your choice of words and then glances downwards. You follow her gaze just in time to see her raise herself off your spent member, allowing several thick strands of cum to dribble from her cunt and onto your leg. You both share a brief laugh at how filthy it looks before Yeji clambers off you and steps away, leaving you completely bare whilst she reaches down to retrieve her panties.

"No," you blurt out immediately. Your interjection catches her attention and she halts mid-motion, quirking an eyebrow curiously.

"No?"

"You can leave them."

She gives you a knowing look but acquiesces anyway, stepping aside and grabbing her dress instead. "Disgusting," she winks with a coy smirk.

[twihs-blog]

Guilt and Shame:

A few months ago I wrote the below post on my journey of sobriety. Making my sobriety public was never what I had envisioned when I went crawling into AA defeated. I’ve been thinking a lot recently on my journey as a human being on this planet. It’s a beautiful thing. I’ve been thinking a lot on guilt and shame surrounding my slip up and I suppose I wanted to share with you more on that.

I have been invited to a recovery house in America to help them raise awareness and money for their charity. I of course jumped at the chance, after all, giving back is what we are lead to do. I would be lying though if I said I wasn’t terrified. 

The fear of admitting fault of feeling like I let down those around me. Writing this is terrifying but I’m trying to push myself out of my comfort zone and become more attune with me and what my higher power want’s me to do.

I suppose ultimately I want to share this with you as I’ve already opened the door to this part of my life and it seems vital that I continue to do so.

Fear is at the root cause of so many issues regarding addiction in my experience. 

I still have anxiety, yesterday I took the tube to see some friends and had to leave half way through my journey due to the overwhelming feeling that I may at any second pass out. Even at dinner this feeling was hard to shake. It’s hard to describe. I walk out on to a stage to talk with you all or play music or act and I feel little of this, however in daily life it can creep in so quickly. 

Whilst my consumption of marajuana wasn’t what I would call habitual I recognize that it was a poor attempt at controlling my own feelings, anxiety’s and stressors. Which is backwards because it wasn’t exactly helping with those things either as they still were there regardless.

Living the life I am fortunate enough to live now I recognize those things and how I respond to them now is with choice. 

I suppose writing this is an exercise in digging in, in recognizing the feelings of guilt and shame, in owning up to myself and to my world. 

The last thing I ever want to be doing is walking out in to my world with a lie. 

It’s hard to know how to end this post. I suppose a thank you would be appropriate, I have a deep love for the world and for people in it. I have a love for my world and my higher power and I was very much moved to write this.

With love.

Jamie

[moonastro]

Groom persona chart

Asteroid groom (5129) in the house

what is a groom persona chart? this chart exhibits qualities that your husband will have and possible placements that can be seen in their chart. it is simply a chart all about your spouse in a woman's chart. the asteroid groom can be identified using the code 5129.

So the asteroid groom within the gpc will indicate the overall feeling and overall summed up vibe that your spouse can be linked to. This can interpret what kind of husband he can be and how he may be after marriage.

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[before you read this post... i want you all to know how grateful i am for each and every one of you <33 i took a little break from posting but will hopefully be back and consistent and hopefully will finish this series quicker.]

{ALSOO.. if you like this series and would like to support a small creator, go and check out my readings here--> 🤍🤍🤍}

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Groom in 1st house: your future husband can be a real me person. Can really be self aware and just be a confident and bold. He can be a real star and know himself better than anyone else. he is someone that can have a short temper and can have bursts of anger from time to time. although, your spouse can be a very energetic and confident individual. depending on the sign, it can make him become selfish and mine mine mine. especially if in scorpio can tend to hide things that they own or buy and just may not share as much of important information with you like any other couple would do. your spouse can be quite demanding but will give back always. can be a very attractive individual, takes care of his appearance and for sure can spend time by himself emotionally. this does not mean that he will be totally absent but he may just need his own space to just breathe and think.

Groom in 2nd house: so your husband can be a very much material mann. someone who is literally not afraid to spend money on himself and you. depending on the sign especially Saturn aspected or Capricorn, can indicate hoarding so not wasting money neither on themselves and on you even if they have a lot. spouse can be a comfort person, someone who is there and will listen to you and they dont even need to speak a single word and you will feel as if they have helped you a ton. your spouse can be very protective of you physically wise, especially if in the sign of aries, they will be ready to throw hands on anybody who upsets you or just handles you very badly. can tend to be very gentle with you and be very patient with you whether if its when you are facing your problems or when you need time to figure something out hell be waiting there.

Groom in 3rd house: so your fs can be a strong communicator whether it’s him talking for hours and hours or him being a very good listener and a good companion to those who he is in conversation with. This is an indication of your spouse being chronically online whether it’s not that big of a deal, expect him to know everything that’s going on the internet. Since he may be of curious nature, best believe your spouse is the one to even search and do his research when something interesting comes up on his social media feed. He might even post a lot online too. he can form strong opinions and often tend to make up arguments out of the most silliest of things. he may require lots of attention from you and he may just crave the attention a lot of the times. on the other hand, he is someone who is intelligent, smart and very humble and a person that is comfortable to hang and be around with.

Groom in 4th house: spouse can be very traditional and by that i mean that your future spouse is the one who takes roles of the home very seriously. have a leafy faucet, he will take care of it, you try to fix a light bulb, uh uh uh nope, he is taking care of it that sort of thing. he feels like you already have so many responsibilities so let him take care of the handy ones. if groom is in the sign of taurus or virgo even cancer, they will almost be looking out for you and doing the services in prevention to you getting hurt. so they will be like no sit and rest. furthermore, your spouse can be very witty and love to be too comfortable towards you. sometime referred to as 'tmi'. he can share a bit too much information at times and you may have to just pause that for a second to realise what just happened. but that just means that he is very comfortable and trusting towards you.

Groom in 5th house: this placement gives me real childhood sweetheart vibes and i just love ittt. just imagine the one boy that you met on a summer holiday that you later meet in life and you're just like "wait..🤔i know you". so basically with this placement your spouse can be someone that brings out the most inner fun, exciting, adventurous, romantic person within you. he is someone that will laugh when you are crying, cry when you are laughing literally match your energy in any type of situations. this placement is a very peaceful yet chaotic vibe, it gives the sense of seeing no one as beautiful as you, seeing no one but you, laying eyes only on you. he is literally the ray of sunshine to the point that you may literally crave them, like you'll be at work or something and you just NEED to be near him or to be within his presence.

Groom in 6th house: your future spouse can be what you think a normal town guy looks like. not that its bad but he can be very natural and not have too much going on. can work a job that he has had for many years and be too afraid to move on from fear of not knowing what to expect and how it may turn out to be like. on the other note, he can be a very heart warming and positive guy, that tries to live his life to the fullest. he is someone to be the first when it comes to help people out, he finds warmth and comfort in achieving good deeds. this placement is actually very good for those who need someone that does their own thing and have their own responsibilities. they may not like to be tied down to something so maybe staying at home for too long is not his go to and so forth.

Groom in 7th house: ommggg this placement is the biggest definition of a charmer and a spouse that wants fair share of everything so literally his money is your money. may share on bill payments so he may have the rent and you maybe the electric and so forth. he is someone attractive to a lot of other people so can cause a lot of jealous people around you because they may be jealous of the man that you have and they may hate you for it. your spouse is soft spoken and tries to be positive at all times, he can appear to be someone from a Disney book, can be absolutely perfect in your eyes especially if venus is conjunct with groom. your future spouse can be very into beauty and aesthetics, so he may like your house to have a specific colour, design, sets of cutlery, and so forth.

Groom in 8th house: spouse is full of surprises, can be very mindful and very picky of the information that he wants you or other people to know. he is very careful of the words and actions that he does. depending on the sign, like for example if in capricorn, can be a very isolating individual that like to stay away from people, on the other side can have a secret income of money that you may not know about until later on in the relationship with him. another example would be if in pisces, can be an individual with a lot of mental blockages and a lot of mental baggage. this is not me diagnosing your future spouse, i am only stating what this COULD possibly mean because the whole chart should be taken into consideration. on the brighter side, he can be a very emotionally smart person, the one to understand what your feeling or even thinking without you needing to tell them anything. he can also be very emotionally encouraging and comforting individual. also a very highly indication of them only allowing certain people to view his true emotions, can often appear to be hard as a rock but inside could be different.

Groom in 9th house: your future spouse is most likely a genius and an individual with great wisdom. He is full of ideas and creative finds that sometimes has no place to put them into the world. He most likely is smarter than he looks or he is always doubted by his intelligence. This is a STRONGGG indication of your husband being a foreigner or you meeting them in foreign land. Depending on the sign this can tell us the details of how your spouse may reveal his intelligence by. So in Gemini, may talk in a very sophisticated way and can reveal his wisdom through his words and writing especially. He can be a unique and self taught writer whether it’s for work or for himself. If in Taurus for example, can reveal his wisdom through cooking and money making, he may be a very experimental chef and a great cook with a ton of knowledge on recipes. Another thing about this placement is that your spouse may travel a lot, may go on trips a lot and meet foreign people a lot as well. He definitely has good humour and is someone who is known for his attractive humour.

Groom in 10th house: your spouse is mr. worldwide business sugar daddy rich. 🤭no but fr he can be a very chill yet providing person. may not exaggerate as much but will go with the flow and follow your rules in a way. if the sign is in leo, capricorn or jupiter is involved this for sure can indicate a spouse with his bank full. very mature, can indicate an older spouse physically and mentally. perhaps a spouse that is like your mother figure or reminds you of your mother. he can be serious and can take things seriously too much of the time, unless in sagittarius. can be quite an introvert, awkward person but can be an attractive kind of awkward if ya know what i mean. your spouse is the man that gets stares from strangers when in public and literally all eyes on him. there is just something magnetic about him that pulls others to him.

Groom in 11th house: spouse can usually act inconsistently. Meaning that he is really unpredictable in any situation given. Spouse can be quite isolating and may spend time alone or just refuse to do anything with anyone. This isn’t all the time as someone with good aspects can have a spouse that is social, and great with their social life, but this house is rules by Saturn so there is some strictness, discipline and alone time that is a big part of your future spouses personality and overall being. he can be with his friends a lot of the time though, so maybe he can have friends over to the house a lot of the times or him going over to theirs and all. he may have a sense of equality and sense of achievement that he may want to pursue. your fs can have goals that he is eager to reach so slowly he may like to show off his interests in these things with you.

Groom in 12th house: spouse can be distant in a way after marriage. with that i mean that he can always be away somewhere, travelling for work etc. especially if for example in Sagittarius your husband can be away travelling overseas or simply if he is a foreigner can be away visiting family a lot of the times. spouse can become quite lazy in a sense, of course depending on the sign and aspects however with this placement your husband after marriage has this reaction of already having this milestone completed and they know in a sense that they are secure and safe and comfortable and thats why this can make them a bit lazy. furthermore, your husband can become more and more in love with you the more that he is with you. this may really be a very beautiful placement if in the sign of libra or venus is conjunct groom asteroid.

thats it for now, i hope you enjoyed this post and have a good rest of your day/evening/night <<33

[pomefioredove]

Hello! I hope you feel better soon :) remember to drink lots of water!!

Could I request a one-shot with Idia, where reader brings him a meal they cooked themselves since he hasn't had much to eat in the past few days? (Sorry if this is too vague I've just been having thoughts of taking care of Idia)

no this is perfect! <3 actually just what I needed to write rn

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ you have that effect on him

type of post: fic characters: idia additional info: romantic or platonic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, food, mentions of eating and not eating, depression👍, actually cute, reader is not there much sorry,,,

One breath in. One breath out.

Idia has been counting the snicks and scorches on the ceiling all weekend.

They're mostly his. Haywire robots and Ortho mishaps, which he always takes the blame for. One dark smudge is from his shoe, when there was a bug on the ceiling and his brother was out of the room.

Each like a star in his own sky, memories of the days he could get out of bed.

This is not one of them.

Nor was yesterday. Or the day before that.

Just one of those weeks.

One breath in, one breath out. Idia feels painfully aware of the rise and fall of his chest.

He'd sent Ortho on some pointless sidequest for the day. He needed to be alone- well, not really. He just didn't want his brother to worry about him.

He gives up sleep, and lies on his side instead, opening his phone to doomscroll again. The harsh blue light makes his eyes water in the dark of his room.

It feels like he's been locked in an unskippable cutscene all week.

What would you think of him if you could see him now?

He doesn't want to picture it. Idia feels pathetic enough as a cringey, awkward, social reject, even if you like him that way.

There's no going up. When he hits rock bottom, he starts digging.

Knock.

Idia cringes at the sound. He was hoping to be asleep before Ortho came back.

Knock, knock.

"Come in,"

But he doesn't. Idia finally looks up, at the door. Ortho will give the compulsory three knocks, then wait for a verbal command, and then come in. He was programmed that way. He usually talks, too.

But, nothing.

Not Ortho, then.

Idia cozies himself back up in bed, dressing himself in blankets as if they were... well, a shroud.

Another hour goes by. At nine PM sharp, Ortho's melodious knocks, his happy chiming, and the light from the hall follow.

"Find that thing?" Idia asks. He can't even remember what he asked Ortho to get.

"Yep! And guess what! You have a present!"

Psh. Wut? Idia looks up from his phone.

Ortho hovers to the edge of the bed and hands Idia something lukewarm, in a covered glass dish.

"Whatsit?"

His brother giggles. "Can't you guess? You don't even need a scanner for it!"

Idia can't help but crack a smile at that, and he slowly sits up. He peels off the lid of the dish. It's soup.

"Did you make this?" he asks, inspecting the lukewarm dish.

Ortho gives a negative chime. "It was by your door when I returned. Would you like me to heat it up for you?"

"Uh..." Idia hums. "...Yeah. That'd be good."

Within a few minutes, it's back in his lap, hot again. Idia cautiously takes a bite. It's rich, filling, and good, clearly homemade. Not some cheap junk out of a can. One spoonful is more filling than any of the garbage he'd eaten in the past week.

"Your hormonal levels and body language indicate that it's satisfactory. Do you know who left it?" Ortho asks.

Idia shrugs. "Someone came by earlier, but I didn't get the door. Who'd leave me a home cooked meal, anyway?"

He eats some more. It's hard not to enjoy himself, if only a little.

"Well..." Ortho says. "...I may have mentioned to the Prefect that you've been unwell."

Idia almost does a spit-take. "WHAT?! WHA- WH?! This is- th-"

"Calm, Idy! I just said you weren't feeling well! They must have thought you were sick!"

He almost collapses on his bed. His hands are shaking. How humiliating. And he already looked lame enough as it was.

One breath in, one breath out.

"They came all the way out here..." he mutters, stirring the soup around the dish.

"They must really care about you, Idy!"

Idia's face goes bright red. "Don't say it like that..." he mumbles.

But he'd be lying if he wasn't secretly hoping that was true. The thought of you having made something like this just because he felt bad... well... it's a nice one.

You care.

Idia makes a mental note to send you a DM later. As thanks. And to ask if you have any soup left. It's pretty good...

Maybe the promise of you coming over will motivate him to get out of bed.

You have that effect on him.

[kingghoost]

Posting this Cybertronian Ratchet design because all the drawings I have ready forward use/reference it ^^

I made it awhile ago and it may not be super creative, but I actually didn't wanna change his design too much to portray how he himself doesn't change as a person (not in a bad way, he holds firmly to his beliefs and has a strong character💞)

I wrote a little backstory, too!! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

" Long before the war, Ratchet was one of the many medics stationed in Kaon with the task of nursing fallen gladiators back to health. Though he was considered the best, many feared his temperamental attitude, especially his own patients. Despite the coincidence, Megatronus and Ratchet had never actually interacted face to face, although they were aware of each other's existence. That is, until they had both been introduced through their mutual friend, Orion Pax.

With the little free time he had, Ratchet was one to frequently travel to Iacon to visit the Hall of Records, whether to spend his time reading or doing research on personal projects. Then, he met Orion at his workplace, and the two quickly formed a strong bond. When they weren't hanging out in person, they would keep contact via comms (sorta like online friends.) One fateful day, Orion had taken some time off of work to visit Ratchet in Kaon, coincidentally at the same time Megatronus had started to make a name for himself and his cause. This resulted in him witnessing one of Megatronus' speeches live, thus allowing them to meet and form a partnership as well.

In a way, Orion Pax changed Ratchet. Being surrounded by corruption and oppression from the caste system where it was at its worst, Ratchet had given up any hopes of a better Cybertron. However, Orion's altruistic nature inspired him, guided him to prove his mettle in the Great War, and binded him to Orion's—now Optimus'—side for millennia, and many more to come. "

Corny? I'm not sure. The writing's not all that good because of its age, but getting the point across is all that matters..

I really love the idea of a Kaonian Ratchet 💞💞

Ratchet being an indirect cause to Orion and Megatronus meeting is super interesting to me as well... do you think after all that happened, he feels at fault? In the episode where Ratchet was telling everyone about Optimus' backstory, he seemed to have nothing but bad things to say about Megatron, so they probably never got along since the beginning...

[lucyandthepen]

salted caramel | lmh ( m )

you hadn’t been aware that mark’s jealousy followed the rules of baseball — three strikes, and he snaps?

read the first part here!

pairing: barista!bf!mark x reader verse: college!au rating: r warnings&tags: unprotected sex, mentions of creampies (although not an actual one), hickeys, possessiveness and jealousy, exhibitionism, sort of phone sex in conjunction with said exhibitionism, oral (m!receiving), mark has an understated but unending obsession with mc’s stomach, tummy bulges, we always love an implicit bigdick!mark, donghyuck is kind of a little shit and basically he has to cross a few lines for this “plot” to get to where it gets word count: 20.3k

a/n: this is a bit rushed and panicked because I basically wrote it in a feverish 2.5ish days… i’m so sorry that the pacing might be a little off, especially since I can never tell if it’s actually too fast or not. this is also unedited and unbeta’d but oh well because i never edit my stuff before posting and just re-edit when I re-read! regardless, i hope it’s something that you can enjoy, and i couldn’t pick between sweetest bf ever!mark and hottest mf ever!mark, so i guess you get a little bit of both!

if you liked it, please consider reblogging to support (especially because this may get flagged for mature content)!

You should have noticed it the first time, but in your overall defense, you find most things that you take note of about Mark Lee to be more on the highly positive and greatly endearing side — or, maybe, you just have a tendency to paint him in that kind of light.

You can’t really help it; he’s still got that halfway shy, softly adoring look in his eyes whenever he sees you, which is more often now than ever before, and you just can’t do anything but reciprocate, if only to see his eyes grow a little brighter. You wonder if Mark’s aware that if this were a Shakespearean scenario, you’d easily fall on your sword for him without question, for as long as he asked, but you don’t think there’s any pressing need to remind him — not with the way you spend most of your free time figuring out ways to be with him. You’re certain he should know, what with the fact that every time he looks at you, even just a glimpse, your gaze is always on him, ready to make eye contact whenever he turns his head — something he often acknowledges with one of those signature blushes that spread like wildfire across his cheeks, up to the tips of his ears.

It also should be unmistakably clear that you’re head over heels for him, given how at least once a week, he’s got his face buried between your legs in an attempt to hear the thing he wants you to say the most (see: his name, in varying pitches and decibels) — but if he doesn’t notice then, you can’t hold it against him; Mark’s mouth is so attentive that you doubt his mind is anywhere else apart from what inch of you his tongue is going to meet next in that moment. At least, that much is true for you.

He should at least know, what with you waiting for his classes to end so you can walk to Starbucks for his afternoon shift; you even race the twenty-minute distance to the Department of Mathematics, still holding your European Renaissance History textbook from your last lecture, just to make sure you’re there right as he gets out — a fact he has to know is an act of devotion, considering how often he finds you heaving for air and leaning your back against the brick wall outside the Accounting 150 Lab. Even his professor knows you as Mark Lee’s admirer, which is all well and good, but if you had the breath to spare, you’d correct his terminology for accuracy. Girlfriend. You’re Mark Lee’s girlfriend.

It’s a fact you don’t mind reminding him of but that you actually have to do quite often, because when you call Mark the appropriate counterpart — boyfriend — his eyes still widen, like he’s hearing it for the first time. It’s cute, just like everything else about him. You just have to wonder, at times, if he doesn’t believe you.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter; you’ll just keep telling him.

You don’t have any classes with Mark this semester, which is a shame, considering your favorite pastime over the last few months had just been to stare at his side profile and wish he’d look over so you could kiss him, but the fact that you spend almost every day with him now, using that time to remind him of how much you want to kiss him and actually getting it to do it right then and there, pretty much more than makes up for your previous schedule of daydreaming.

However, hanging out with him doesn’t always mean you’re just with him; you came to learn this after the first week of the new semester, and you’ve now gotten used to the fact that with Mark Lee sometimes comes his band of tall, often loud friends.

The loudest by far is Lee Donghyuck, the mysterious figure last semester that you’d only known by one syllable, now easily recognizable (and no longer enigmatic by any means to you) by his booming voice and even more demanding personality. He’s supremely outgoing, a trait you can’t say you mind, but there’s an interesting contrast between Mark, who tends to say things after carefully considering his ideas, and Donghyuck, who seems to just burst out in fits of impulsive rambling that often leads to some kind of semi-structured debate. It kind of gives you whiplash, in a funny, slightly perplexing way.

The whole friend group likes to meet up at Starbucks while Mark is on his shift, and now that they’ve come to know you as that girl Mark didn’t teach a single thing in College Algebra to but still somehow got lucky with (something you’ve wasted immense efforts into correcting but have ultimately failed to do so), you now find yourself sitting with them, all somehow waiting for who appears to be the nucleus of this group to stop taking coffee orders and hang up his (cute, but you’re the only one that thinks so, actually) green apron.

Again, you don’t mind it; new people aren’t an issue to you, and you’re also interested in finding out more about Mark through those closest to him. You get to see the few ways they’re alike in contrast to the staggering number of things that make them amusingly different from one another. Despite the broad spectrum of their intersecting interests, you’ve come to learn, through the conversations you’ve had to sit through over the last month, that they have varying opinions on said interests. For instance, you know they’re all into video games, Japanese manga, and long-winding fantasy movies, but every conversation takes flight the moment there’s even a spark of dissent from one person — and the source, usually (and quite unfortunately), is Lee Donghyuck himself.

Today is no exception.

“Dude, you’re crazy,” Zhong Chenle practically seethes. Whether by sheer coincidence or actual desire, he’s the one who most often finds himself staring Donghyuck down, trying to bend the latter’s will into admitting defeat. Donghyuck, on the other hand, has mastered the art of looking supremely unperturbed, especially when Chenle is in the heat of his rage. “The ninth was the worst, hands down.”

“Art and rendering were so solid.” Donghyuck raises a finger, and you’re not sure if it’s to start off a list or to shut Chenle up. You don’t want to ask, anyway, too busy finding amusement in the shifting expressions of despair, rage, anguish, and murderous intent on the latter’s face to speak up. You presume that’s why everyone else isn’t stopping them — or maybe they’re just preparing their own defenses and points to raise. “Intuitive combat and flawless combo chains. The fucking open world? Which other installment in the franchise offers that much depth in the gameplay?”

“Depth? Do you even hear yourself right now?” Chenle grips his head so tightly that when he pulls his hands away, there are actual red marks across his forehead and temple, and his bangs are askew. “What kind of depth comes from cloned movesets? The character designs are so stupidly traditional too. And—”

“There’s a unique kind of beauty in familiarity.”

“The open world was a disaster,” Chenle plows on. “It was so empty, and the map was the farthest thing from intuitive. It’s quite literally the worst thing KOEI has ever done. That’s exactly why they went back to the limited map strategy in later installments. Even the spin-offs.”

“I thought the grappling and ambush systems were pretty intuitive. Ingenious, even.”

It’s a singularly amusing sight — Chenle is one insult to his pride away from imploding, and Donghyuck is just checking the dirt under his nails like he’s waiting in line to take his school ID photo. Park Jisung, one of the quieter ones in the bunch, tries to diffuse the tension by clearing his throat and going ‘I actually really liked the Age Of Calamity Zelda one they released with all the different campaigns,’ but that just goes unnoticed by either party.

“You once failed an ambush play just because you were stuck behind a wall you couldn’t scale. Don’t say shit about the ambush and grappling mechanics.”

“Unlike some people sitting around this table, I learn from my mistakes. That’s also probably why some people — not naming names — just can’t appreciate the artistic beauty that is Dynasty Warriors 9.”

Donghyuck doesn’t even look up from his cuticles when Chenle explodes.

“You’re fucking impossible!”

“Can you guys relax?” Lee Jeno, who had somehow miraculously found the space and silence in the breaths between the entire argument to doze off, opens one eye, only slightly irate. “You’re making a scene over a dead game franchise.”

“It’s not dead; they’re on hiatus,” both Chenle and Donghyuck chime in together, apparently finding a moment of unique solidarity to shoot Jeno down before going back to glaring daggers at each other. Jeno shrugs, gives everyone else at the table an I tried kind of exasperated expression, and settles back into his seat, the one eye already closing before he’s fully folded his arms across his chest.

Your eyes wander away from the group over to the counter. You’re thankful for the fact that most of the time, you just get invited to share a table with them without necessarily being trapped in the middle of a conversation — especially one as heated as the one Chenle is prolonging while jabbing his finger accusingly at Donghyuck, as if he’s trying to pin a crime on the latter instead of just explaining why Donghyuck’s opinion is ‘borne of ignorance.’ When they’re all caught up in their business like this, you end up being able to revel in your more or less unobstructed view of Mark behind the barista’s station, where he’s busy piping an extra helping of whipped cream on top of a strawberry frappuccino for a kid that’s already jumping up and down next to the pick-up station.

The biting winter had already given way to the first signs of spring, and the Starbucks Mark works at has a supremely effective central heating system that allows people to shed their coats. This works in your favor, considering Mark wears nothing but a button-up shirt over his apron while he works, and he’s got this habit of rolling up his sleeves so they don’t catch any stains. You’re pretty sure he has a second motive, though; surely, he’s aware of how the view of his arms, muscles tightening under his skin whenever he even lightly grips something, drives you crazy. You’d bet a month’s allowance he’s doing it on purpose so that you start entertaining the thought of yelling at everyone in the branch to fuck off so you can grab him by the front of his stupid shirt so you can kiss his stupid face. Or ride it.

And for some inexplicable reason, he still has the audacity to act like there’s nothing amiss. When he looks up at you right after pushing the frappuccino towards the little girl, his eyes still brighten, almost innocent in their gaze, the corners of his lips turning up surreptitiously, hiding the smile he seems to save for only you from everyone else in the room.

You smile back, but when he turns away to take someone’s order, you let out a heavy sigh and take a long sip of your vanilla sweet cream cold brew until you start reaching the last dregs of it under the ice. Your brain pretty much cries out in protest, but you know it deserves as much as a mental cold shower for entertaining the thought of asking him to bend you over the counter at five-thirty in the afternoon in a Starbucks.

Stupid Mark. Stupid brain. Stupid fucking people in the room.

The warm breath in your ear alerts you to a slowly approaching presence, but you don’t have the reflexes to turn back to its source before it starts talking.

“Got anything to add to either of our cases, ___________?”

“What?” Your palm comes up to rub your ear as Donghyuck pulls away, laughing lightly. You’re sucked back into the foreground of the conversation, but you’re just as lost now as you had been before you started tuning them out in favor of your lust. “Uh — no. Sorry. To be honest, I know nothing about… sorry, what were you guys talking about again?”

“See, that’s how normal people act,” Jeno grumbles, both his eyes flying open this time. “Instead of hosting a presidential debate about Dynasty Warriors.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” You’re quick to add, and Jeno looks mildly amused at your attempt to still mollify the rest of the group. “I’m sure I would have liked it. If, you know, I actually had been introduced to it at any point in my life.”

“And if you had, I’m sure you’d have the taste to assert alongside me that the seventh installment was revolutionary,” Chenle sniffs, but he’s looking more pointedly at Donghyuck, who’s still ignoring him, save for the fact that he’s now looking at you instead of at his nails (which doesn’t feel like such a great upgrade).

“Nah, she’d be on my side. ___________ looks like she’d appreciate a good, scenic open world and grappling system. Right?”

“Uh…” you say smartly.

“Man, shut up.” Chenle throws his hands in the air before he stands up, his chair scraping against the floor as he pushes it back with astounding force. “Got me so pissed off I need to pee now.”

You have no idea what the correlation is between getting annoyed and needing to use the bathroom, but even if you wanted to bring up your doubts — which you don’t — Chenle is long gone before you can get your thoughts together. It’s only when he’s out of earshot that Donghyuck leans in, almost conspiratorially, to whisper to you again.

“Actually, I think the ninth sucks too. But isn’t it kind of funny how worked up that fucker gets?”

“To be honest, I’ve never known anyone with quite your talent in riling people up,” you admit, and even though you’re not sure what kind of meaning you want attached to that, you notice that he decides to take it as a compliment all on his own, his chest puffing out in pride. “Too bad I have no idea which opinion is really right, or I’d weigh in, too.”

“Not a Dynasty Warriors kind of girl, then?”

“No one is, Hyuck,” Jeno snorts, shaking his head. “You two are the only people I know who still played that past the fifth installment.”

“Fair. I nurture a love for old franchises.” Donghyuck leans back, looking supremely satisfied at how he’s managed to tick off one of his most important ‘to-do’ points of the day. “So what’s your poison, ___________?”

“What’s that mean?”

“You a Gardenscapes kind of girl? Tekken? Maybe you like some good ol’ fashioned LoL?”

“I honestly don’t have the hand-eye coordination to play,” you confess. “I know Mark likes to play PUBG from time to time. I mostly just sit and ask questions, though. The few times I tried playing with him, I swear any normal person would’ve cried. He had to babysit me like crazy. It was a miracle he didn’t throw me out.”

“She even tries to play with him,” Donghyuck whistles lowly. “Dude, how’d Mark get a chick like you?”

“Meaning?”

“You’re way too good for that dope.” His laugh is light and good-natured. “Never thought a moony-eyed weirdo like him would actually wind up with his dream girl — which he’s called you, more than once, by the way. Fucking disgusting, but… I get it. Doesn’t make it less crazy or weird to hear, though.”

“Sorry to put you through that.” You smile, using your straw to stir the contents of your cup. A warmth spreads through your shoulders and down your arms to the tips of your fingers as you digest what Donghyuck’s just said to you, and you find your eyes trailing back to Mark, who’s pulling off his apron. His eyes are already fixed on you, and when you lock gazes, he mouths a wait for me that makes you want to squeeze the life out of something in pure joy. You settle for a soft sigh. “I guess it won’t help if I say your friend over there’s my dream guy.”

“It absolutely will not,” Donghyuck groans, faking a gagging noise that has you laughing. “But tell you what — if you ever get tired of Mark playing PUBG and ignoring you like the clown he is, I’ll find you someone else more your speed.”

“No thanks,” you snort, taking the last sip of your drink. “More than that, I’d just want to be some kind of helpful to him if I ever play with him again.”

“We can help you with that too,” Jisung volunteers. “Jeno taught me the basics. I’m sure he can teach you too.”

“Yeah, and I’m guessing you’d be a better student than mister “how come you didn’t tell me I had to focus the crosshairs myself” over here,” Jeno chuckles, surreptitiously pointing at Jisung when you cast him a questioning look.

“I’m pretty good at sneak attacks myself.” Donghyuck makes a show of pretending to slice your neck before grinning smugly. “We’ll take care of you. Mark won’t know what hit him next time.”

“What’s happening to me next time?”

You feel Mark before you see him, his hand landing on your head lightly and smoothing your hair back in an idle, gentle motion to announce his presence. You look up at him, already beaming, and he returns the favor as his hand settles on your shoulder.

“We were just talking about replacing you. Both as a friend and as a boyfriend, for your poor little dream girl here who’s just too nice to turn you down.” Donghyuck lies like it’s second nature; you wonder if that’s a Finance major thing or just a him thing.

“And you’re offering that to someone who didn’t ask for it?” Mark snorts, nudging Chenle’s bag over so he can sit in the empty spot.

“She’s so caught up in your sticky little web that she can’t struggle against you.” Donghyuck feigns a heavy sigh that suggests he feels sorry for you before he puts a hand on your free shoulder, shaking his head in a convincing kind of pity. “I’ll save you, so don’t worry. Mark can’t keep his grubby hands on you forever. Whenever you need to be saved, I’ll come a-running to free you.”

There’s a tightness on one shoulder that disrupts the balance of your torso, and you find yourself leaning closer to Mark. Your hand finds its way to his knee, giving it a light squeeze under the table, and his grip loosens by a fraction. Donghyuck’s as quick to let go as he is to hang on.

“We were just talking about PUBG,” you correct, and Mark’s eyes snap to you. “I was asking for help — you know, so I won’t drag you down the next time I join in?”

“I don’t mind whatever you do in-game.” He’s quick to comfort you, even if you don’t actually need it, but it feels warm and cold “I’m just glad you wanna try it with me.”

“No, but I kind of want to learn too. So it can be fun for both of us. Also so you don’t have to keep avenging me after five minutes,” you laugh. Mark cracks a smile then, and you don’t realize his expression had been slightly harder until it softens under your gaze.

“Then I’ll teach you next time.”

“No, I want to surprise you with how cool I get. And then next time, I’ll even beat you.” You turn to Donghyuck, slightly unsure. “Uh… I can beat him, can’t I?”

“If you play different teams, yeah,” he confirms. “Trust me. I’ll help you kick his ass.”

“Or we’ll both kick yours,” Mark chuckles, his grasp now tightening and loosening intermittently. He’s massaging your shoulder lightly, and you end up sinking deeper into his side. You don’t miss the slightly nauseated amusement that passes across Donghyuck’s face nor the way he mouths ‘sap’ to Mark, who ignores this comment in its entirety.

“Yo, hotpot at seven? Renjun’s asking,” Chenle announces as he returns to your table, his phone in one hand and a crumpled paper towel in the other. “Jaemin can’t make it, though. Study group or whatever shit he always says.”

“I’m down,” Donghyuck immediately replies, and Chenle’s eyes shoot heavenward, like he’s already asking for the divine strength to not sock Donghyuck in the face later.

“Can’t,” Jeno yawns, both his arms outstretched as he tries to move the sleep out of his spine. “Pre-test tomorrow.”

“Dude, it’s a pre-test,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to study if they’re just testing how much you know before studying.”

“Gotta study all the same.”

“I gotta pass too,” Jisung looks actually apologetic. “I promised my mom I’d help her move some stuff to my aunt’s place tonight.”

“Boring,” Chenle grumbles before turning to the both of you. “Lovebirds?”

“Rain check,” Mark shakes his head. “Family dinner. My brother’s home for the weekend. How about Monday instead? Most of us can’t make it anyway. At least Jaemin doesn’t have study group either.”

“If that’s even what that weirdo’s doing,” Chenle sighs, already punching in a message to send to Renjun. “Fine; I’ll ask about Monday. You guys better actually reply to the goddamn group chat. I can’t coordinate in six different private chats ever again.”

“You can put my name down already,” Mark casts you a sideway glance, and you nod immediately. “Two names, actually.”

“I’m good on Monday too. When we see each other again, I’ll bring some prospects for you to sift through,” Donghyuck adds to you, and you laugh. “Cool guys. Jocks. I know this upperclassman all the girls say is really hot. I think I still have his Messenger from when we did a group discussion last semester.”

“I’ll have Mark look at them so he can reject them all for me,” you promise. Donghyuck feigns affront before looking at Mark in utter disbelief.

“How the fuck did you snag a girl like this, man?”

“I’m pretty sure she once told me I… what did you say?” Mark glances at you amusedly. “I had some moves, I guess.”

“You mean stutter and blush in her presence?” Donghyuck can’t decide how to look at you without being even the slightest bit offensive; he just settles on incredulity. “And that won you over?”

“Most powerful move in the Mark Lee playbook,” you shrug, grinning. “Had me from the first ‘um,’ and he’s had me ever since.”

“You lucky son of a bitch,” Donghyuck snorts, and neither of you misses the slightly abashed but unmistakable smugness in Mark’s face when you lean in to rest your head on his shoulder.

The second time it happens is on that Monday, in a far more noticeable capacity. You just aren’t quick enough to read the signs, as usual.

But in your defense (again), it hadn’t felt all that significant.

“Fuck, this is spicy,” Na Jaemin sucks air in through his teeth and lets it out in a sharp whistle that’s broken by a laugh that’s not necessarily at anything funny. Maybe he’s just laughing at the sheen of sweat across his forehead that he has to wipe off with the other side of his napkin.

Miraculously, the hotpot plan pushes through, with no small amount of effort in coordination on Chenle’s part; he’d even texted you just to make sure he’d gotten the head count right, despite the fact that Mark had already confirmed your attendance twice over. Even the often elusive Na Jaemin, who always seems to have one or another study group to attend on most nights, manages to come and is currently busy mixing his peanut sauce in his little bowl with such vigor that you can’t help but wonder if he’s not trying to drown the mala-flavored strips of meat in it completely.

“That’s why I said you need a bowl of water for dipping, you dimwit,” Donghyuck points his chopsticks at Jaemin’s messy plate in a way you can only describe as nagging, even if that’s actually impossible. “You’ve got super mala breath now.”

“Don’t know about me, but I can smell yours all the way from over here,” Jaemin quips back with an easy kind of nonchalance, hastily ducking the balled-up napkin that goes flying across the table. It lands on the floor behind his chair harmlessly.

It’s nice, you think, that Mark’s friends like to invite you to their outings now; despite all the jokes they’ve made at his expense, they’ve been consistently open to having you around. You’re not necessarily the type of couple that acts in a way that disgusts people into moving to a completely different table anyway, and you allow their conversations to unfold easily without ever interrupting, so you think that this arrangement works for all parties involved.

They’re even louder outside Starbucks, you’ve come to note; the restaurant is significantly busier than the cafe anyway, filled with people on their company dinners, so Mark’s friends all seem to want to rival that boisterous energy. Weirdly, you like it, even when they’re already half off their seats and one (Chenle) is just about to strangle the other (Donghyuck). The laughter flows freely, and there’s a messiness to the whole affair that makes it impossible to feel uncomfortable.

Even Mark pipes in occasionally, offering his opinion on topics he knows much more about than you, and you can’t help but admire how everyone listens to him when he starts to speak, even if he has nothing realistically important to say. His friends might find it odd that you’d been so drawn to him, but they just don’t know that even they’re victims of Mark’s natural magnetism, also falling quiet and eager to hear his voice, his light-hearted laugh, in response to the things they say.

But even when he’s mostly distracted by conversation, there’s a part of him that continuously pays attention to you in his own way. He nudges his ginger and soy sauce bowl towards you with the side of his wrist so you can dip your beef in, even if you’d adamantly declined him giving you your own bowl of it in the first place (you’d always thought you were peanut sauce or nothing kind of girl, but one sneaky venture into Mark’s sauce proved you wrong). His hand hovers over your head when you drop your chopsticks and bend over to pick them up from where they’ve rolled under the table, making sure you’re bump-free when you resurface.

And his palms always, always settle somewhere on you, no matter what he’s doing. If one hand is busy feeding himself, the other is intent on warming your thigh, passing over the denim in slow, steady strokes. His fingers tickle your knee when you laugh, just to make you laugh a little harder — you’d even almost kneed the table at one point, much to Huang Renjun’s alarm. But the most common place for his arm is around you, fingers lightly bunched into the side of your shirt, like he’s worried loosening his grip on you further will cause you to vanish. It keeps him close to you, keeps his scent and warmth washing over you in gentle waves, so much so that you often have to remind yourself that he’ll be the target of much light-hearted mockery if you so much as lean into him and rest your head on his shoulder.

But it’s hard to resist it, especially when his hand seems to be intent on outlining every curve on that side, passing over your hip and dipping into your waist. The motion allows him to slowly but surely lift the fabric of your shirt, up until there’s just enough of an opening for his palm to slip under, and suddenly it’s much warmer on that side, with the light roughness of his hand grazing at your skin. His fingers always stretch apart, like he’s trying to feel as much of you as he can, and the pads of his digits have a tendency to graze the plane of your stomach — his nails sometimes even travel featherlight just next to your navel, etching out words you can’t really decipher. Like he’s writing a message just for you.

It makes you feel like no matter what he’s doing, a part of his mind is always on you.

“You guys want to see that new horror movie? The Ghost Within, I think it’s called,” Jisung asks the group from over at the other end of the table, having to raise his voice significantly to make sure it isn’t swept away by the raucous laughter from across the restaurant. “I think it’s coming out in a week or two.”

“I’d be okay with it,” Renjun shrugs, although he doesn’t look enthused. “Kind of looks like a cliche horror with all those cheap jump scares and shit, but I’m down if you all are.”

A wave of assent passes over the group in general, but you notice Mark doesn’t immediately respond. You take this opportunity to lean in and confess your stance.

“If I have to sit around and watch a ghost pop out at me from a big-ass movie screen, you may never again see me in the same wonderful light you do today,” you warn. “Remember me as I am, not as I will be, Mark Lee.”

He snorts, coughing lightly as a mixture of ginger and fishcake sticks in his throat. “Yeah — we’ll pass, I think.”

“Scaredy-cat,” Donghyuck teases, and you’re surprised that Mark doesn’t come to his own defense. There’s something romantic in him not wanting to be the one to sell you out, but you suppose there’s also a kind of chivalry in being the one to take the bullet.

“Actually, I’m the one who can’t handle it well,” you smile in apology. “Sorry. I don’t have much of a reputation, so to speak, but what elegance may be attached to my name, however misplaced, is something I really want to maintain. At least until I graduate.”

“In short, you don’t want Mark to see you scream and cry,” Chenle deduces. You can’t even find fault in him figuring it out so quickly.

“Bingo.”

“Well, we can solve the problem,” Donghyuck claps his hands, getting everyone’s attention for no good reason. “__________, you sit beside me, and Mark can sit on the far end of the row. With how dark it is, he won’t see anything, and I get to sit next to a cute girl in a movie theater. Win-win.”

“Thanks for the offer,” you laugh, shaking your head. “But it’s not a win-win if I accidentally grab your hand out of instinct.”

“It is to me,” Donghyuck winks, and you feel Mark’s hand stop brushing over your stomach. His fingers curl in lightly, almost like he’s trying to make a fist but can’t quite get to that point out of personal restraint. “Or better yet, you could do what we all think you should do and dump Mark for someone you won’t be ashamed to cry in front of. I, for one, would not even bother to comment on whatever emotions you’re going through in the middle of a movie, so what do you say? It’s a pretty sweet deal, in my humble opinion. Me versus Mark Lee. The showdown of the century, right here in Hai Di Lao.”

You’ve noticed that the more Donghyuck piles onto his little teasing rampage, the more forcefully Mark tugs you over; his fingers aren’t just skimming over your skin but have now grown into the habit of gently pinching it, as if begging for your attention. It feels nice but also a little urgent, although it’s hard for you to understand why; the whole foundation of this group is built on teasing each other until someone (Chenle) snaps and lobs a bottle cap at someone else (Donghyuck), so it should be normal for Mark to be at the receiving end of some light banter.

“Should we ask the hostess to referee the match, then?” You ride along with the joke.

“No way. You’re the one calling the shots.” Donghyuck sits up a little straighter, putting on a smug face. “Okay, pick, __________. Me or Mark; who’s got the better punches?”

You make a show of acting thoughtful, even tapping your chin to pretend considering it deeply, but there was never any doubt on your choice. Still, you can’t really decipher the sudden slowness, the light tremble in Mark’s palm as it travels to your hip, where it settles, heavy, over the curve.

“It’s a complete knock-out,” you finally announce, grinning. “Championship belt goes to Mark.”

“Man, if I had a girlfriend as straight-shooting about her feelings for me as you are about your feelings for Mark, I’d propose in a day, max,” Jeno groans, half-exasperated and half-amused all at once.

“Man must’ve saved a nation or something in his past life,” Donghyuck grimaces. “No way he deserves a girl this hot and crazy about him. Hey — got any tips on stopping natural disasters or something? I could use a sexy, loyal girlfriend in my next life. Or maybe I’ll just poach yours in this one and see what it feels like.”

“I would actually deck you, so don’t even try it,” Mark snorts, his arm now winding full around your waist. You’re flush against his side, and he uses this opportunity to do something he doesn’t often do in front of his friends: show explicit affection by pressing a light kiss just behind your ear. It tickles, his breath grazing your earlobe, and you giggle, squirming in his hold. All he does is smile and pull you in tighter.

The bill’s split eight ways, but Mark’s fishing out cash to pay for your share even before you can get your wallet out from the bottom of your bag; it’s one of those quick, instinctive moves he likes to use on you, where he pushes the money and sends the bill back to the staff before you can even protest in full, so you have to settle on thanking him by returning the earlier favor — landing a peck on his cheek, which flushes a warm and contented pink the moment your lips make contact.

You just pointedly ignore the snickers that run around the table, particularly from Donghyuck and Jaemin.

The group splits ways at the front of the school dorms; most of them head in after their goodbyes, while Chenle backtracks towards his apartment building off-campus, mumbling something about how he hopes his roommate’s in because he accidentally left his key in the bowl next to their doorway. Mark should be piling in with the rest into the dorms, but he has a habit of insisting that he take you to the subway station; you’ve long since given up on convincing him against tagging along, mostly because he looks slightly hurt whenever you try to get him to stay put. You’re not going to complain anyway; for as much as you like being around Mark’s friends, it’s even better when you have this little slice of alone time despite the hassle it brings him.

Your fingers are linked when you walk under the street lights, the campus road leading to the station entrance significantly less busy at this time of evening; it’s cool enough for you to have an excuse to press yourself into Mark’s form, and he accepts this additional burden with an immense amount of grace, his arm finding its way around you again. Two minutes later, his palm is pressed against your bare skin once more, rubbing small, gentle circles just above your pelvis.

A part of you wonders if you’ll be able to do this — lean in, flush against him — when the summer heat starts to stick, but rather than really worrying about the logistics, you realize you’re more hung up on the idea of spending this summer with him.

“Sorry,” Mark murmurs out of the blue. Your eyebrows shoot up, and he looks down at you sheepishly. “Isn’t hanging out with my friends kind of driving you crazy?”

You hum in thought before shaking your head in resolution. “Not really. Not in a bad way, at least. I like how close you guys all are — and how big the group is. It’s usually just Yeji and Jisu with me, and they’re definitely not as rowdy. The change of pace is pretty fun.”

“Yeji and Jisu,” he echoes. “Your best friends. I haven’t met them yet, have I?”

“Not yet. Jisu started a part-time job across town, so we can’t get our schedules to align right just yet.” Your hip collides gently with his. “Should I let you, though?”

“One day… I think it would be nice to hang out with a less migraine-inducing crowd for a change.”

“I’ll tell them, then. They want to meet you.” You crane your neck up slightly, lowering your voice into a hushed whisper that’s completely unnecessary. “They want to know if you’re as cute as you look in your pictures.”

Mark draws back, laughing incredulously. “How do they know what my pictures look like?”

“I stalked your Instagram and showed them,” you answer simply. He throws you a funny look that’s equal parts disbelief and amusement. “They liked that one with the Spider-man costume.”

“Please don’t,” he groans, passing a hand over his face. “I should have taken that down, but I didn’t think anyone would care.”

“Why? I like it.” Your hand’s the one that manages to slip under his sweater this time, fingers trailing down his stomach; you feel him suck it in for a second in surprise before he lets out an exhale.

“I can’t ever understand what’s going through your head,” he chuckles, and you think it’s unfair that he manages to extract your hand from under the fabric while his is still firmly pressed against the side of your stomach. “You saw that and still wanted to date me?”

“Mark Lee, you simply underestimate how much I adore you. It’s kind of hurting my feelings at this rate.”

You’re just a few inches shy of the circle of light cast by the subway station sign. Your feet try to bring you forward, but Mark lingers behind, just outside the curve of soft white on the pavement, and his hand slips from under your shirt. You turn, and his hand skims down your arm instead, fingers locking around your wrist. With the slight distance between you, it looks like you’re caught in motion.

“I still can’t wrap my head around it sometimes.”

“What?”

“I just look over at you and feel like it’s not real. Like you’re going to disappear, and I’m just going to wake up from a dream and see you the next day, just some other stranger who doesn’t even know my name.” He licks his lips, and you want to reach out and kiss him already, but you know he isn’t done talking. “And I’m going to remember how much I liked you in that dream, but you won’t ever feel that same way.”

“You know I’m right here, though, don’t you?” Your fingers mimic his, squeezing around his wrist. “You can feel me. I’m here with you.”

Hesitation flashes across his face even when he nods, and you notice his eyes flit down to his shoes before looking back up at you — a habit of avoidance you know he’s trying to correct. “Sometimes I have to wonder if they’re right.”

“If… who’s right?”

“Them.” He jerks his thumb back in the general direction of the school dorms. “The guys. You know — when they ask me how I got a girl like you… the truth is, I don’t even really know. They can’t believe it, and it’s so crazy to me that I still sometimes can’t myself. So I start wondering if—”

You don’t let him finish this time; it’s rude to interrupt, you know, but you also know that what he’s about to say is probably something neither of you wants to hear anyway. Your lips connect with his, firm and demanding, and his words die in his throat, melting into a soft groan that vibrates against your skin. When you pull away, you don’t create the same distance, and Mark’s hands find their way to your waist, slightly trembling.

“They’re wrong,” you murmur, a quiet strength in your voice. “So stop wondering and just be with me.”

A smile starts tugging on the corners of his mouth, and the next moment, he’s nodding in assent, in wholehearted agreement, and the next kiss you share is one he starts, far more gentle than earlier.

“Next time I catch you entertaining nonsensical thoughts, there’ll be consequences.”

“Are you threatening me?” His laugh is colored with incredulity.

“Yes.” Your tone is firm, but your grin gives away too much of the jest. “Maybe I’ll ground you for a week, or something really childish.”

“I’d take it if you were with me.”

“That’s not how it works,” you snort, gently flicking the tip of his nose. He scrunches it on impact. “You’d be in solitary. You must reflect on your actions and all that nonsense. Meanwhile, I’ll be out having some good hotpot with everyone else.”

“If that happens, promise me one thing, then.” He maneuvers your stance until you’re both back in the blanket of darkness, just out of reach of the subway entrance. “Don’t sit next to Donghyuck.”

“And let him and Chenle give me an earful about how bad-slash-good the first Human Centipede movie was all over again? I think not.”

“No, really.” Mark buries his face into your neck, and you hear the quiet inhale as he breathes in your scent. On instinct, your hand comes up to thread through his hair, nails gently scratching at his scalp. “I don’t want you sitting there and hearing him talk your ear off about how much I don’t deserve you or that he’ll help you find someone better.”

“You know he’s just joking — and I’m just joking, right?”

“Just promise me.”

You pause, wondering if it’s in your best interest to tease him for whatever act he’s pulling, but there’s a shortness to his breathing that makes the whole situation feel weirdly tense. He’s really waiting for something — an answer. The right answer, maybe.

“I promise,” you finally say, and you know you’ve said the correct thing when Mark’s lips press a soft kiss to your collarbone, like he’s sealing in your vow.

On the third time, Mark pretty much gives up.

The strangest thing is that it starts at a time when you’re not even actually together; if you had to pinpoint the exact moment, it probably had to be when Donghyuck had walked you to the dorm from library. No — maybe even before that. Somewhere in the time you’d spent in there, he’d thought up yet another way to push Mark’s buttons. You just didn’t really know the exact minute he’d first seen you with Jung Jaehyun.

You don’t know how Jaehyun does it; he skips half his classes and somehow doesn’t even get in trouble, let alone fail. You’d only met him last semester, but he was just about the only person who was halfway familiar in your Anthropology 120 class, so you thought you could at least feel comfortable enough to chat with him about the weather or what had happened in the last meeting. You don’t expect him to strong-arm you into being something of a literal proxy for him; the first week of the semester, you’d spend almost each lecture period gnawing on your nails and fretting over the fact that your signature for attendance looked nothing like his. By the second week, you’d already come to realize that it doesn’t matter because he had only attended one lecture — the first one — thus far and your professor was as clueless about Jaehyun’s handwriting as you. By the fourth week, you had resigned yourself to being his slightly unwilling associate for his random escapades, allowing him to copy off your notes and turning in his homework for him.

Now that you think about it, that’s probably how he does it.

You sacrifice your free time for him today, caged up in a library for pretty much the afternoon. You can’t help but resent him, not just because the whole room is stuffy and the librarian keeps passing by, clucking to remind people not to litter between shelves, but also because you’d much rather do things that are important to you — like pretending to flirt with Mark for the first time when you place your order and watching him act like it’s the first time you’re saying something so sweet to him, except he’s definitely not pretending. Instead of watching Mark’s face color that cute shade of pink and that sweet little smile pull at his mouth until he’s basically biting his lips back to stop himself from grinning, you have to bore yourself with the sight of Jaehyun trying to decipher your handwriting.

“You should really be more legible with your strokes.” He has the audacity to chastise you as if he’s the one doing you a favor by giving you constructive criticism.

“You should really come to class more often,” you bite back, although there’s no real heat to your words. You just look out the window and watch the sun sink down behind the university hospital building, wondering if there’s a chance you’ll still be able to catch Mark before his shift ends.

“Would if I could.”

“You actually fucking can,” you say tiredly, and even the way he turns the page is so impossibly slow. “Can’t you just take a picture?”

“Nah; writing it down carefully really helps my retention of this kind of stuff.”

“So take a picture and then write it down carefully.”

“With your ridiculous handwriting? I’d probably fail.”

“So come to class and write it yourself!”

Your hiss increases in pitch, and it calls the attention of the librarian over to you. She swoops in, clicking her tongue, but she’s not even looking at you. Her eyes are zoned in on Jaehyun, who meets her gaze with so much innocence it’s hard to imagine you’d wanted to smack him two minutes ago.

“Jung Jaehyun,” the librarian snaps in an undertone. The slow, punctuated way she says his name suggests she knows him fairly well — and not in a great way. “I see you’re back in here after your probationary period.”

“Sorry for the trouble, Mrs. Park.” He grins up at her, looking anything but apologetic. “I promise I won’t get in your way again today.”

“And this one—” She points to you, and you point to yourself in shock at being pointed to, and Jaehyun’s pointing at you and mouthing ‘this one’ with excessive mirth in his eyes. “Isn’t another one of those girls you plan on defiling my sacred space with?”

Jaehyun says ‘we didn’t defile anything’ at the same time you say I’m going to throw up, and the librarian just adds to the noise by shushing you on top of that jumble of words.

“I’ll be keeping a close eye on you two,” Mrs. Park warns before stalking away, tutting at a library assistant for wrongly shelving a volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica.

“Please, Jaehyun,” you groan, crossing your arms over the table and flattening your forehead against them. “Just hurry up. Release me.”

He ignores you, still leaning closer to your notebook to decipher your handwriting. “I would like to set the record straight and make it known I didn’t fuck anyone in the library.”

“What’d you get probation for, then?”

“Just making out.” You notice he has the energy to grin wickedly even without meeting your eye, even while he’s still scrawling on his own notebook, and you groan something incoherent and irate once again. “What are you in such a big hurry for, anyway?”

“Has it ever occurred to you,” you grumble, raising your head. “That some people might want to do better things than sit here and watch you write stuff for ages?”

“No,” comes his simple reply. You bop your head onto your arms a few times in the hope that the impact will shake you out of this nightmare and you’d find yourself waking up in Mark’s arms instead, but you have no such luck. “By better things, do you mean fucking Mark Lee in someone else’s bedroom? That’s real defilement, by the way.”

“How’d you hear about that?” You squeeze your eyes shut and growl under your breath. “Fucking Youngho.”

“You doing that too?”

“Shut — please, would you hurry?”

He pointedly purses his lips in an effort to keep himself from letting out what you can only assume is, by the glint in his eyes, a witch’s cackle. “Almost done, man. Relax a bit. So did you guys get together — like, together together?”

You initially contemplate not telling him, but Jaehyun’s nosiness is probably going to reveal the truth to him sooner or later anyway. “Yeah. What’s it to you, though?”

“Nothing. You’re lucky.”

For the first time today, you feel like Jaehyun has finally said something right. “Yeah — yeah, I am.”

“I bet his friends don’t seem to think so.”

“Is this something you know because it’s a guy thing or because you’re so nosy that you just can’t help but listen in on every other juicy conversation around you?”

“A bit of both,” he chuckles. “Mostly just because I know Lee Donghyuck was giving him a hard time about it last semester.”

“I noticed that too — a bit, anyway. But it’s just banter, I think.”

“Probably. Imagine being his friend and getting a girlfriend; it’s like… the perfect ammunition for teasing. But I’m pretty sure half of the things that come out of his mouth are jokes meant to annoy.”

“What about yours?”

“I get it,” he sighs, shutting your notebook resolutely. It makes a thud that alerts the librarian two tables away, and she glares at you like you’re climbing onto Jaehyun’s lap in the middle of the References on the Korean War aisle. “I’ll set you free. Thanks, by the way, for letting me copy from you. Same time next week?”

“Or how about you look up the schedules for our classes and actually come instead of piggybacking off of my efforts and making snarky remarks about my handwriting while you’re taking advantage of my goodwill?”

“Sounds like too much effort on my end,” he yawns, waving you off as you stuff your notebook into your bag. “Later, ___________. Say hi to Mark for me. The normal way — not the girlfriend way, please.”

You stick your tongue out at him before you make a mad dash for the door, ignoring Mrs. Park as she shushes your footsteps on the marble. You’re so intent on fishing your phone out of your bag that you almost ram the door into the person standing behind it.

“Oh, fuck— Jesus, I’m sorry, I wa— wait, Donghyuck?”

“Great to see you too, ___________.” He rubs his jaw where the edge of the door grazed it. “You in a rush?”

“I was just about to go see if Mark was still at Starbucks.”

“His shift’s probably almost over. I’m headed back to the dorm if you wanna tag along.” When you nod, he starts leading the way, breaking the silence again soon after. “Were you in a study group, or something?”

“No,” you jerk your thumb backwards towards the minuscule form of Jaehyun, who’s now busy wasting time and space playing something on his phone where you’d left him. Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot up. “He’s my classmate who never comes to class. I was just lending him my notes.”

“Oh, Jaehyun, yeah.” Donghyuck snaps his fingers. “We were classmates last semester. He never went to class either, but I don’t know who he mooched off of to pass. You guys close?”

“Not really. I just fell into the trap of being too nice to him.”

“It’s funny,” he hums, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Jaehyun seems more your speed. On paper, at least.”

You can’t help but look taken aback, and Donghyuck laughs at your expression. “What do you mean, my speed?”

“Not sure.” He pauses, trying to find the right words to explain himself. “Someone who’d fit more into your social circles. Someone who probably likes Formula One and considers men’s health magazines to be classic literature.”

“That’s your impression of my social circle?”

“You know what I mean. People like Jung Jaehyun or Seo Youngho. I literally thought you were dating him last semester, so it was totally crazy to hear you asked Mark out.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Like… you asked him out. Not even the other way around. That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” You know he doesn’t mean anything bad by it; Donghyuck has next to no filter, and something about him being unable to process your relationship is honestly a little funny. “A girl can’t ask a guy out?”

(You try not to think too hard about the fact that up until you’d cornered him in Youngho’s room, you had been praying to whatever god could hear you to convince Mark Lee to do the romanticist thing and ask you out.)

“Nah, dude. Like… a girl like you asked a guy like him out.”

“I didn’t ask him out because he was a guy like that,” you say pointedly. “I asked him out because he was a guy I liked. I wouldn’t have asked anyone else out if it weren’t him.”

Donghyuck falls quiet for a while, and only the crunching of the leaves underfoot accompanies your walk. “You really like him that much, huh?”

“I’m crazy about him.” His nose scrunches up like he’s been hit with a horrible smell, and you laugh. “Can you stop giving him a hard time? Or tone it down? I know you probably don’t like it—”

Donghyuck’s chuckle is light and easy. “I’m not teasing him because I hate it; let’s be clear on that. I actually really like that you guys are together. I’ve never seen him this happy with anything or anyone.”

“Then why are you—”

“Because he’s Mark.” A devilish grin creeps up his features as he holds the door to the dorm lobby open for you. “And teasing him is my favorite thing to do.”

You shake your head; you can’t help your amusement, but you’re not sure you fully understand this kind of friendship. You suppose if Mark is okay with it in its totality, then there isn’t much you can say to change it either.

The next twenty minutes pass in comfortable back-and-forths; Donghyuck is, as you already have learned, an expert conversationalist, and while he doesn’t aggravate you the way he does Chenle, he does manage to navigate a quick-fire kind of exchange of thoughts and information that allows you to see the speed at which he thinks. There’s barely any lag between when he digests what you say and when he responds. You suppose there’s a measure of wit in that, but it’s also a little bemusing to see someone speak without at least running it through the conscience checker every once in a while. You decide you’ve never met anyone quite like Lee Donghyuck before.

He’s in the middle of asking you what the Anthropology professor is like because he’s planning on taking it as an elective if he can when you notice a familiar figure pushing into the lobby, backpack swinging on a folded elbow.

“Mark!” The brief confusion on his face morphs into a surprised joy when he spots you on the couch, even though a bit of it lingers upon recognizing that Donghyuck is seated next to you. He walks over in long strides, and your posture straightens to meet his palm as it comes down gently against the crown of your head again; it bumps lightly, causing the both of you to laugh.

“Hey, you.” His voice is warm and fond in its greeting, and you beam up at him. “Did you have a busy afternoon?”

“Unfortunately. Did you just get back from your shift?”

“I passed by the co-op to check out the new university letter jackets. Design’s pretty dope.” He nods towards the elevator. “You wanna head up for a little bit?” You almost get to respond before your companion cuts in instead.

“Hey. Can’t you see we’re having a riveting conversation over here?” Donghyuck sniffs, making a show of hitting Mark’s shin lightly with the heel of his shoe. “Have some respect.”

“Is the conversation so riveting that I can’t take my girl for the evening at all?”

You mouth out a no, but Donghyuck’s flair for dramatics has him humphing and shoving Mark’s hand away from your hair. “Yeah, man. At least let us finish up.”

“What’s this even about?”

“How Jung Jaehyun asked her out in the library today,” Donghyuck replies easily. You start, shaking your head immediately, but Mark’s jaw slackens a little upon hearing this. Donghyuck continues loudly over your protests, and you can’t keep your voice straight because you’re adamant and yet, somehow, still laughing incredulously in your shock. “Oh, dude, let me tell you. He had his arm around her like this — and he was giving her the bedroom eyes… I wouldn’t have blamed her if she folded, honestly.”

“Mark, no,” your stupid gasp comes out as half a giggle as a result of Donghyuck trying to reenact his imaginary scenario. He’s slung his arm across your shoulders and pulled himself in, doing his best expression of a pleading dog’s gaze, which is both perplexing and hilarious. “He’s just kidding—”

“Then he got all close like this—” Donghyuck presses his forehead against yours, and the view he allows himself blocks him from having to look at Mark. You, on the other hand, are still trying to resist a misunderstanding, your palms up and every part of your body that can move shaking vehemently, but you can see Mark’s face turn a violent shade of red you can’t remember having seen from him before. “Spoke all low — you remember he had that sexy, husky voice, right? ”

“He’s just messing with you,” you wheeze out, trying to extract yourself from Donghyuck’s hold, but he only tightens his arm around your neck, almost to the point where you can’t inhale properly.

“And he said ‘you’re the hottest chick I’ve ever seen—’ then you know what he did, Markie?”

Mark doesn’t respond; you’re not even sure if he can, considering his Adam’s apple is bobbing dangerously like he’s one misstep away from exploding. You laugh again, stupidly, because you don’t know what else to do; you know Donghyuck’s teasing him, and you know Mark usually takes it in stride, but you’ve also never seen the latter look so focused on anything that didn’t involve a math problem or eating you out. “No, really, nothing hap—”

You don’t even have the space to finish your sentence. Donghyuck’s too quick when he grabs your face and plants a comedically sloppy kiss on your cheek, bursting out in laughter when he pulls away. You can only sit there, probably as stunned as Mark looks, raising your hand slowly to wipe the spittle Donghyuck left behind in his wake.

“Oh, Jesus,” Donghyuck rasps out between snorts. “Your face is priceless, man.”

“Not funny,” Mark grumbles, and there’s a hoarseness to his voice that makes you feel like it’s barely controlled.

“Also not true. I just bumped into her on the way from the library. We were talking about one of her classes or whatever.” Donghyuck dramatically wipes the tears from his eyes, and you sigh, nudging him. “Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t resist. Man, don’t even worry. She’s downright crazy about you. Even if Jung Jaehyun had asked her out—”

“Anyway.” Mark reaches down, lacing your fingers together, pulling you up and closer to his side like he’s worried you’ll catch Donghyuck’s crazy. “If that’s all of it…”

“Yeah, yeah. You two lovebirds go moon over each other already. I just love seeing your face like that.”

Mark snorts, yanking on Donghyuck’s earlobe punitively, and the latter cries out sharply (and a little exaggeratedly) at the pain. Mark doesn’t even seem to care; he leads you to the elevator and punches in his floor. You barely have time to call out a belated ‘bye’ to Donghyuck, who acknowledges it with a raise of his palm, before the doors slide shut.

It’s a slow elevator, given that it’s an old building, and the first couple of floors pass without much noise between the two of you. You’re not unaware of how tight Mark’s grip is on your hand, but you don’t comment nor take it against him. By the fourth floor, you’re raising his hand up to your lips and pressing a kiss against his knuckles.

“Nothing happened.” You confirm his unasked question, and you see a modicum of tension leave his shoulders. “He was just messing with you because he thinks it’s funny.”

“Yeah, I know.” Even if he says it like that, there’s still lingering doubt in his voice. “Were you with Jung Jaehyun today, though? Is that why you didn’t show up?”

You nod. “He was copying my notes for Anthropology. Guy barely shows up to lectures, so he borrows my stuff. I can’t believe he hasn’t been suspended yet. Or punched in the face by the people he leeches off of.”

“No kidding.”

You step out on the sixth floor with him. Even if you already know where Mark’s dorm is, you let him lead the way, and he ushers you into an empty and dimly lit living space while taking his shoes off. His roommate barely seems to be around; you’ve seen him all of two times, and it doesn’t look like he’s here either right now. You pause anyway, listening to any signs of life just to be sure, but when you both confirm that there’s no one but the two of you, you busy yourselves with turning on the lights and plugging in the water dispenser.

You work in relative silence; it isn’t anything unusual since you’ve done this a million times, and you’ve come to learn that small talk isn’t necessary when you’re just washing your hands or opening the refrigerator aimlessly even if you know you both plan on ordering in. But there’s a weird aura around Mark that you’re not sure how to place; he doesn’t seem like he’s mad, but there definitely seems to be something off — a problem, at least, that you’re not sure you know how to ask about.

So you just try to diffuse whatever it is by completely ignoring it.

“Pizza or Chinese?” You ask, flopping onto the couch as he plugs the television into the outlet. He looks up at you, and you notice his eyes are slightly dazed, like you’ve just woken him up from a dream. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice is hoarse the first time he says it, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, sorry.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“We just had pizza, so I’m thinking Chinese is the better option. Cream shrimp? Fried rice? Not the salted fish one, though, maybe.”

You hum in assent, but when he straightens up from behind the television, you extend your arm to him, attempting to clarify yourself. “I mean, what are you thinking so hard about?”

“Nothing.” His answer’s a little too quick. A moment of awkward silence passes where you telepathically tell him you know he’s lying and he has to come to terms with his horrible lying skills, and he sighs, crossing over to the couch and settling beside you. Immediately, he tangles your fingers together, belatedly returning the favor from the elevator and brushing his lips across your knuckles. “He didn’t ask you out, right?”

You know he knows the truth, so you decide to bat your own question back at him in an attempt at rhetoric. “What would it matter if he did? The answer would have been the same, real or imagined.”

Mark pinches the bridge of his nose, inhaling slowly. There’s a red flush on his neck that’s only started fading, it seems. You reach out and skim your finger along the vein that runs down the side of his throat. “I know. I don’t like it all the same. I hate… even thinking about it, actually.”

“Really — nothing happened. If you don’t count the fact that I almost strangled him for keeping me there — which I’m sure you’d agree doesn’t count as anything in favor of him.”

“I heard Jung Jaehyun’s kind of a playboy.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” His head lolls to the side, and his eyes hold a sadness that pulls at your heart. “It means he really could have made a pass at you. Or you could have — I don’t know. In the end… I just worry.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Your lower lip juts out, and his eyes widen slightly, his head shaking before his mouth can even work out a proper response.

“No — I mean, yes, absolutely. It’s — I mean, it’s just—” He inhales again to gather his wits, two fingers still rubbing his forehead. “I trust you, without a doubt. I don’t trust other people — not around you. Not Jaehyun, or Youngho, or—”

“Or Donghyuck?” You smile a little apologetically at his embarrassment, clear on his face when his eyes stray from yours. “Mark, you know he’s only messing with you, right? I thought it was a funny thing for you guys.”

“It’s not funny if it’s about you,” he mumbles, more to himself than to you. He looks up at you again, chewing on his bottom lip. “I know. I’m trying to control it. Sometimes… I don’t know why it gets under my skin. I guess it’s because it could happen — you… finding someone else. I kind of hate the thought of that.”

“And if I said I hate it even more than you?”

His gaze softens, something like relief passing over his features, but the rest of his body still holds a significant amount of tension; you know by the way he’s running agitated circles on the back of your hand. You gently tug on his arm, allowing yourself to use it as an anchor to shift your weight. Mark makes a soft noise of inquiry but says nothing more, waiting until you’ve maneuvered your body to settle on his lap.

The view is reminiscent, and you can see that the core memory you share flashes through his mind too. A small smile, still somewhat reluctant, plays on Mark’s lips, and you hate that it’s all you get right now, so you rectify this by leaning down and leaving a small, chaste kiss on them. You pull away much too soon, and his head follows in response to the distance, chasing your lips until you’re realistically too far to reach. His arm extends instead, swiftly tucking your hair behind your ear.

Your fingers close around his wrist, and your head turns, continuing the kiss against his palm — short and firm.

“Stop doing that.”

His eyebrows fly upward in questioning, his other hand freezing in its trail up your thighs. Even his breath seems to catch, and what’s left of it comes out as a raspy whisper. “Stop being jealous? I’m… I’m trying.”

You shake your head. “Stop being sexy when you’re jealous.”

The ‘what’ he seems to want to ask dies in his throat, his mouth only able to form half of the word before you interrupt, your lips taking in the rest of the syllable. When you kiss him this time, there’s a slow hunger to it; your teeth find his lower lip even before he’s able to get into the rhythm of kissing you back. You just want him to know — everything about him drives you wild, even when he doesn’t know it.

You’ll never grow sick of the taste of him, you’re sure; today, he tastes even more enticing, the hint of something rich mixing in with the stronger flavor of coffee on his tongue. It’s familiar and comforting, and it’s only when you break away, both your faces flushed from a prolonged lack of air, that you puzzle out what the taste is — the lingering aftermath of a vanilla sweet cream cold brew, one he must have prepared in anticipation of you this afternoon.

You briefly squeeze your eyes shut and thank whoever’s listening for the gift of Mark Lee.

“Mark,” your murmur, your voice much softer, intent on coaxing him into releasing his worries. “You know, right?”

His ‘hm’ is only half-there in focus, the rest of his attention on his hands, which have found their way to your ass and have started digging his fingers into the flesh beyond your jeans. You have to tilt his head up with one finger under his chin, and there’s a whirlpool of emotion in them: curiosity, desire, and, interestingly, a quiet, almost suppressed kind of anger.

“If it isn’t you,” you whisper. “Then there’s nobody else.”

You see his jaw tighten, feel his grip against you do the same, and his brow furrows, like he’s trying — much too hard, and for no good reason — to stop himself from tipping over. You don’t like that either; if he’s there, you think, you should take him over the edge.

“But if you want them to know so badly, then…” You tilt your head to the side, exposing more of your neck, bringing the expanse just a little closer to his mouth. “Why don’t you go ahead and put your claim on me?”

You swear you see his pupils dilate right before he presses his mouth to your skin. With a low, almost pained groan against your neck, he latches his teeth in lightly, and you feel the soft sting, the increase in pressure the moment he starts sucking a mark just above your collarbone. There’s a wet, messy pattern to his movements, always punctuated by the sweep of his tongue to soothe your flesh. Even with that, his movements are slow and careful, still gentle in the way he’s handling you, but you feel it anyway — all of his tension’s concentrated in his grip, the way he keeps you close, hips pinned against him as if he’s worried anything less will cause you to disappear.

“Every time you worry, remember you can do this.” You pause, your breath catching in a lilt as his teeth dig in a little more fiercely. “You’re the only one that can.”

His lips detach with a soft groan, fingers squeezing your ass tight for a moment. Warm breath cools against the damp patch on your neck, and a second later, you feel his mouth graze against the few inches of skin, sensitive and slightly raw. “I know. It’s just not fair.”

You hum in questioning, but he doesn’t answer immediately; his mouth busies itself just under the mark he’d surely left, already starting up the same routine. You’d let him, and you want him to, but you want to hear his voice more. Your fingers tangle into his hair, and you use that hold to ease his head back, urging him to look up at you. It’s almost a mistake, seeing him like that — lips slightly swollen and definitely slick with his own saliva, parted just a little to reveal teeth he’d been desperate to nip your flesh with again. It crosses your mind that Mark has a mouth made for kissing — no, that isn’t accurate.

A mouth made for you to kiss.

“What’s not fair?” You ask softly. Even now, he takes his time in answering, his eyes falling close for a second; you watch him swallow, lick his lips, breathe in before he speaks, and all of those mundane things he does somehow make you lose your mind all the more.

“How badly I keep wanting you,” he breathes out, his eyes slowly opening. “And how it makes me think everyone wants you just as much.”

His hands leave the curve of your ass, traveling up your shirt, resting against your sides. He holds you like he’s careful in trying not to break you, his fingers spread wide to make sure his thumbs almost meet against your stomach, but there’s a smoldering headiness in his gaze that tells you he’s thinking a little too hard about wanting to break you.

“I touch you like this, and I think that everyone would kill to do the same.” His fingers squeeze against your flesh, inching upwards until they rest just under your breasts; his thumbs stroke the curved underline of your bra. “I think about kissing you and it feels like everyone’s thinking it at the exact same time. I look at someone next to you, even if you don’t know them, and I wonder if they want to pull you close, if they want to feel you against them just as much as I do. When I—”

He inhales sharply between his words, and the exhale comes out somewhat shaky. For a moment, he grits his teeth, jaw flexing in an attempt to keep himself in check. You worry he doesn’t want to continue — doesn’t want to let you hear it, but it feels so important that you can’t let it go. “Tell me.”

“When I think about fucking you,” he breathes out, voice barely audible. “Whenever I look at you and think about how much I want to feel you around me, feel you cum around me… I just know everyone else wants the same thing, and it’s driving me crazy because… because they can’t.”

It’s there again, flashing in his eyes — a determination that reads almost like fury.

“They can’t,” he repeats, his voice firmer. “I won’t ever let them. Never.”

You don’t stop him this time when his mouth reclaims your skin. You let his thoughts fuel the need in his movements, allow yourself to move only in reaction to what he does — the tilting of your head to give him more room, the tightening of your fists against his shirt to keep yourself steady. A surprised mewl leaves you when you feel his teeth pinch against your flesh again, and it’s harder, sharper this time, his quiet anger finally dictating his strength. You grapple for words, but they come out in weak gasps.

“It doesn’t — doesn’t matter,” you manage to whimper out. “How many people think that way, how much they want me that way. I only ever want you.”

His breathing is caught, warm, in the pocket of space just between you and his mouth; it tingles against your skin, tickles your senses into heightening. Your fingers unfurl, pressing against his chest, and you can feel his quickened heartbeat thrumming under your palm.

“God, please,” he murmurs, the soft peck of a kiss landing against your collarbone. “Please, tell me.”

“Mark, I’m yours.” There’s no teasing in how you say it; it was never meant to rile him up. It even escapes sweetness, the romanticism it usually comes with when you remind him on any other occasion. This is a promise to him, something you’re reinforcing as fact, something that can’t ever change. “I’m always going to be yours — no one else’s. I’ll never let anyone have anything that’s yours. Ask anything, take everything you want. I’ll never say no to you. Only you — always you.”

You know something’s different in a number of ways; his arms circle around you, but instead of keeping you firm and stable in his lap, they’re tight, squeezing a whine out of you, holding your torso flush against his. His face never leaves the crook of your neck, but you hear — feel — something there — a soft growl of need, of frustration that begs release. Suddenly, you find yourself off the couch; you barely have the presence of mind to wrap your arms around his neck and tighten your thighs against his sides before he’s carrying you to his room, kicking the door open and letting the rebound of the impact against his wall slam it shut behind him.

You’ve been in Mark’s room before, so there’s absolutely no need for you to take in the scenery when he sets you down on his bed. It doesn’t matter anyway, even if this were your first time; Mark’s crawling over you, his face flush and eyes sharp with hunger, and he looks so enticing that you wouldn’t want to pay attention to anything else around you anyway. His limbs cage you in, arms on either side of your shoulders and his knees just by your thighs, and you don’t really know why he’s already panting, but it just makes you want him all the more.

“Never,” he groans out, leaning down to nose against the patch of skin his mouth had worked on. “I’m never going to let anyone take you, ever. You’re all mine.”

His name fades on your lips, carried away by a moan when his mouth reattaches itself to your neck; it moves, almost frenzied, to renew the mark he’d left, make it a deeper red, a slightly bruised purple. You’re usually careful not to do anything that will require any attention or cover-up after, but Mark seems a little too far gone to care, and you realize you like him best this way.

Even with all the attention he gives your neck, his fingers are busy; they work on the button of your jeans, sliding them down with the help you offer by raising your hips. They only reach halfway down your thighs, his reluctance to come back up for air stopping him from peeling them off completely, but it’s all he seems to need for now.

Eager fingers ease between your thighs, two at once, pressing against your folds. You’re unable to spread your legs like you usually do, but this tightness makes you all the more sensitive, and you keen as his digits fit themselves into your slit. Frustratingly, they don’t move right away, and you have to raise your hips again just to get some sort of friction. Even then, Mark doesn’t take the hint — or, perhaps, the bait — keeping a light pressure against your clit without doing anything else. His focus is still on your neck, now slightly aching under his lips, and when he finally pulls away, you see a look of triumph on his face. He tilts his head back slightly to admire his work — the blooming dark patch you’re sure he’s left where your skin tingles the most.

“If I said I wanted to mark you all over, would you let me?”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t ask for it?”

He chuckles, tightening the pressure of his fingers against your clit; you say something that sounds halfway between ‘Mark’ and a sob.

“I want to, so badly.” He admits, gaze still fixed on your neck. “I’d want to see you walk out of here, walk into class covered in them. I’d want people to ask you how you got them, and who gave them to you. And I’d want you to say it proudly — that it was me who did it. That I fucked you all night and made you mine over and over again.”

“Why don’t you?” His eyes snap up to you, a small smile forming on his lips. “I want to say that too. Let me brag about having you. Let me tell everyone how good you always make me feel. Then you can tell everyone who doesn’t believe you, too — how I let you take me every single time. Show me off and tell them to look at how you made me yours.”

Another laugh escapes him, but there’s more disbelief than humor in it; he seems to find it amazing, that you can just agree with what he says, no matter how strange he thinks it is.

“Show you off? If I mark you in other places, do I have to show them every part?”

“Do you not want to?”

“I want to, and I don’t.” He pauses, slightly amused, and you know he’s remembering the first time you fucked. “I don’t them to see your body, but I want them to see what I did to it. I don’t want them to look at what’s mine, but I just want them to know it is.”

“Then you can fuck me in front of everyone and make them watch you ruin me completely.”

He shakes his head, even if desire flashes clear across his features. He busies himself with actions while he mulls it over, tugging your jeans down alongside your panties and casting them aside before he straightens up. His eyes rake over your form; you’re bare from the waist down, your shirt halfway ridden up, the underside of your bra peeking out from under the hem. Again, his eyes land on your neck, and his smile widens slightly.

“Can’t.” He decides finally. “You’re too pretty for that.”

You hum thoughtfully, and he raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t move, even when you sit up, shifting yourself so you can tuck your calves under your thighs — not even when you reach out to undo his belt or tug down his zipper. He only reacts a little when your hand presses against his hardness through his boxers, the girth now easily familiar to your palm.

“What about something like this?” You ask, inching closer to the edge of the bed. You’ve started slow strokes against him, the fabric creating extra friction, more heat under your palm, and you watch his jaw clench as he swallows back a soft grunt. “Would you let them watch me do this for you?”

“Let me think about it,” he chuckles softly, and you nod, letting your fingers work to make your point. You don’t have to undress him completely to get what you want; all you need is to tug down the front of his boxers to free him, and you already have him wrapped in your palms, stroking his shaft to full hardness.

“Think faster,” you urge, and he shakes his head, slightly bemused. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t even want them to watch me jerk you off?”

“At least give me a full minute.”

You laugh lightly, whispering a ‘fine’ before you press a soft kiss against tip. He inhales sharp through his teeth, already sensitive, and you waste no time in letting your tongue flick out against the smooth head. He doesn’t need the lubrication, realistically; his precum’s already leaking from the tip, mixing in with your saliva as you run your tongue around it. All you do is make him a little messier, a little slicker, your spittle running down his length.

Taking Mark in your mouth is a demanding task, but one you’re always up for; there’s something uniquely satisfying about letting him fill your mouth, inch by inch, and watching his breathing hitch and stutter until your lips are closer to the base than to the head. What you can’t reach, your hand always squeezes around, eager to make sure he feels good completely. His expression is sublime when you draw your head back the first time, sucking as you do so — his eyes are half-lidded, and he doesn’t stop the moan that falls from his lips. His gaze is fixed on you, hazy but still able to drink the sight of you in, and you’re not sure how, but you almost feel like you could get off to watching him watch you taste him.

You try, somehow, vaguely conscious of the movement of your hips; you’re grinding at nothing at first, so your knees give way just enough for you to press yourself against his sheets. It’s slightly uncomfortable, a strain in your thighs that you’re not really used to, but you don’t care; Mark’s sharp inhale at seeing you attempt to grind your pussy against his mattress is pretty much as arousing as anything else. His cock twitches hard in your mouth, and you suck just a little harder, a little messier, your head bobbing down to meet your hand, still firmly wrapped around his girth.

The room’s filled with nothing but slick sounds and soft groans; Mark’s hand has found its way into your hair, tangled into a makeshift ponytail, and while he isn’t guiding your mouth to do anything, you can feel his hips stutter then start to move, pulling back when your head does. He tries to hide it, tries to keep himself steady, but pride blooms in your chest when you note that he can’t; he wants to feel like he’s fucking into your mouth, into your hand, the way he does when he takes your pussy.

It’s relatively quiet for that time, nothing but muffled moans from you that mix in with his noises, but you only realize you’d been waiting for an answer to something when he speaks up again.

“It’s… still a no for me.”

Your movements slow, your gaze lifting to communicate your mild confusion to him. You don’t want to ask; you just don’t want to lose the taste of him on your tongue just yet. He looks down at you, smiling with overflowing tenderness, almost like he’s apologetic.

“Even just this — you’re too pretty when you do it.” His hand reaches down, thumb stroking over your cheek. “I can’t let anyone see what you look like when you’re like this. They’ll keep thinking about you doing it for them. And you’d only do it for me — right?”

You nod immediately, your response causing your mouth to slip down his shaft just a little more. It elicits a guttural noise from him, one that fuels you into sucking him just a little harder, your enthusiasm overtaking your restraint. His fingers have let go of your hair, stroking it back into smoothness, almost comforting in their movements.

“God, I wish you could see yourself; you’d know what I mean,” he continues to murmur, his voice just a little louder over the eager, wet noises you’re making. “How pretty you look with your mouth wrapped around me. How perfect you are when you’re kneeling like this for me — how happy you look when you’re sucking me off. I can’t share that with anyone. Fuck — not ever.”

Your mouth draws back, completely this time, and your tongue presses against the underside of his cock. You lick a long stripe up his shaft, moaning softly at the light throb you feel, and you watch him tip his head back. The groan that follows soon after is almost close to a frustrated growl, ending in a whispered ‘shit’ before his eyes land back on you. He watches you press kiss after kiss against his tip, coaxing the precum out even more, and you take special care to leave more down each inch of his cock until you’re finally able to release your hold on his base so you can leave the last one there.

His hand combs your hair back before it falls to cup your chin, his thumb swiping at the corner of your mouth to gently clean up the froth of spittle there. You smile up at him in thanks, and his thumb sweeps over the seam of your lips to follow the slight curve.

“So pretty,” he repeats, and your cheeks glow pink under the palms that caress them. He leans down, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose. “Pretty as hell, fucking perfect — and you’re all mine.”

You kneel up again, chasing his lips with your own, and he locks you in his arms as his tongue slips its way past your teeth, the aroma of coffee still on it. He leaves today’s taste of him against your tongue, on the ridges of your teeth, until you feel like you’ve all but consumed him, and you whimper softly when he pulls away, urging you to turn around and lean back into his chest.

His mouth reattaches itself to the same spot; it’s like a home base for him, and he breathes in your scent from there before giving the same patch of skin a light suck, almost as if he’s worried it’ll fade in a few minutes’ time if he doesn’t give it attention.

“Show me.” Hands slide down to your hips, squeezing them lightly, like a prompt for your response. “Show me how pretty you are for me.”

His palms never leave you, not even when you detach yourself from his chest and bend down; your elbows meet the mattress, but your hips stay raised, giving him a view of your pussy. Your gasp easily turns into a moan when his digit dips into your wetness again, his other hand pushing gently at your asscheek to keep you open.

You think he’s about to slip his finger in, the tip brushing against your entrance, and you tense in anticipation, but it doesn’t happen; he continues to run his finger down your slit, careful not to linger against your clit for too long. The result is that you tighten around nothing, and you hear him suck in a breath as he watches your hole grow smaller for a second. You laugh breathily, resting your chin against the backs of your hands, one folded atop the other. “Pretty enough for you to fuck?”

“Do you have to ask if you already know?”

“I want to hear it anyway.”

His finger slips into your hole, finally, and you keen softly as he breaches the first ring of tightness. He doesn’t really move it, just tests your tightness, feels you contract around him as if to know what his cock will feel in a few moments.

“Your pussy’s too pretty not to fuck,” he manages out, and his throat sounds as tight as you feel. “Seeing it like this… makes me think there’s no way anyone can resist. It’s exactly why I can’t let anyone see you like this.”

You hum as his finger presses in deeper, and you know it’s nothing in comparison to the real thing, but you like feeling that mild stretch, the depth it reaches all the same. “How should we let them know, then? That I’m all yours.”

His finger stills, and you hum softly, swaying your hips to shake him out of whatever trance he’s in. He’s grown quiet, but there’s a thoughtfulness in this pause, like he’s seriously considering your question. You laugh lightly, ready to tell him you’re just egging him on until he fucks you, but he slips his finger out of you, leaving you clenching around nothing again. You can’t help the confused noise that comes out of you, but you at least know he isn’t completely backing away, his other hand still firmly on your ass.

“Mark, what—”

You get your answer in the thud that interrupts your question — he’s tossed his phone onto the bed, having it land next to you. Something in your blood runs hot, and your fingers tremble when you pick it up. You see yourself reflected in the blackened screen — excitement in your eyes, your lips glossy from your blowjob.

Mark’s silent as you let the meaning of his actions settle; wordlessly, he slips his finger into you again, followed by another one this time, and you shudder in pleasure at the difference in the stretch. He doesn’t ask, but you can tell he’s wondering if he’s gone too far— if you think he’s crazy. He lets his fingers stay anchored in you, unmoving, waiting for you to say something, but from where he is, he just can’t know the smile that passes your face.

Finally, he tries to speak up. “We don’t have to— I just meant—”

“What’s your passcode?”

He breathes out, the exhale quivering as much as you probably are. “Your birthday.”

Your smile only widens when you tap the screen to life and see a picture of you — you don’t even remember when he’d taken it, but it’s a shot of you sprawled on his bed, bundled in his blanket and reading something that looks oddly like your textbook for your European Renaissance History class. It’s grainy and dimly lit, a stolen photograph of you, but it makes your heart swell, and you laugh lightly as you key in your birthday; the screen unlocks, allowing you access to all his applications.

“What’s funny?”

“Just thinking about how you should replace this wallpaper.”

“To what?” He sounds bemused.

“The view of me you have now.”

His fingers curl in you, pressing down against your walls, and you push your hips back in a bid for more friction; you hear him hiss out a ‘fuck’ under his breath, and his hand digs harder into the flesh of your ass.

You open Mark’s contacts, scrolling down aimlessly. Most of the names, you don’t recognize, but you see a few familiar ones crop up here and there. He doesn’t ask, only starts pumping his fingers into you in quiet anticipation, wondering how far you’re willing to take it, how much you’ve bought into this crazy idea.

“Mark,” you call out, and he hums in response. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“With my life.”

“So if I called Donghyuck right now—” His fingers hook into you, the delicious pressure on your walls making you squeak instead of finish your sentence immediately. You twist your torso to meet his eyes, and you’re slightly surprised but not at all displeased to see something crazed lingering in his gaze. “How much of a show would you want to put on for him?”

He shifts his weight, his knee sinking into the mattress as he slots it between your legs. This change in position allows him to angle his fingers a little differently, driving down into you with a force that makes you squirm. You almost forget you’ve asked him something again until he leans in closer, his murmur almost drowned out by the slick sounds of his finger pressing into your hole.

“Just… enough for him to know you’ve always been mine.”

Your thumbs are shaking when you scroll through his contacts again, up and down until you find the right name — Lee Donghyuck — and Mark watches you intently, wordlessly, as you press his number, start the call, and put it on speaker.

The wait feels like an eternity, with Mark’s finger slipping in and out of you in a steady, languid pace as you watch the line connect, but in reality, Donghyuck really only answers after the fourth ring. “Yo, Mark.”

His voice is casual, lacking in any sort of expectation; you can hear explosions and gunshots in the background, and you’re willing to bet he’s in the middle of an action movie. You’re proven right when you hear random English babbling soon after.

“Hi, Hyuck.”

“___________?” He sounds genuinely confused that it’s you that greets him. “Where’s Mark? You okay?”

“He’s right here with me; don’t worry.” Your voice is a soft croon, and he has to lower the volume of the television to be able to hear you better. “We’re totally fine. What are you up to?”

“Watching Resident Evil. Uh, is there a reason you called?”

You want to draw out the lie of something casual for as long as you can, but Mark doesn’t let you. His fingers push, suddenly forceful, into you, and you let out a soft cry into the receiver. You look back at him, eyes wide with amusement, and he shrugs, having at least enough sense to look slightly abashed at his experiment.

One moment, you’re listening to a female voice shout something, and the next, Donghyuck’s side of the call is silent except for his breathing. When you don’t bother explaining what had just happened, he takes matters into his own hands.

“Hello?”

He sounds equal parts affronted and amused, like the shock of it has tickled him. You can’t help it; you laugh too, but it’s quickly cut off by another whine when Mark pulls his fingers out. Donghyuck makes an incredulous noise.

“Now, what the fuck is all this about, you freaks?”

“You kept wondering why I ended up asking Mark out,” you evade his question with another one. “Should I tell you why, if you’re that curious?”

“No way. Have fun, weirdos,” he laughs, and the line goes dead a second after.

You snort out a laugh, and Mark mumbles something that sounds vaguely like that was crazy before he leans down and presses a kiss to the small of your back. You make to turn so you can finally face him, but you’re distracted when his phone screen lights up again, and Donghyuck’s name flashes across it.

You exchange amused glances before you pick up the call, and you don’t even get a ‘hello’ out when his voice rings out, sharp and clear.

“But pretending I am,” he says, as though he hadn’t hung up the call a few seconds ago. “Exactly what kind of answer would I get?”

“The kind that’ll hopefully shut you up for good,” Mark pipes in instead of you.

“What’s that even going to sound like?” Already, Donghyuck’s activated whatever toggle in him that gets him to push Mark’s buttons. This time, though, you can’t say it works against you; you feel Mark inch closer to you, and a moment later, the fat tip of his cock nudges against your entrance. “I bet you can’t even get her to yawn, man.”

Mark doesn’t have to respond; you do it for him when he pushes in, torturously slow, as if to draw out your moan. It works a little too well, with you keening into the phone, and yet no part of you is acting for his sake. As familiar as the stretch is, it’s not something you’ve ever been able to commit to memory fully, and it feels like a new breaching of your tightness each time. Your legs fold in slightly, a useless movement that attempts to get you adjusted to his size faster, but Mark interprets it as discomfort, his hands tightening on your hips.

“You okay?” He sounds genuinely worried for a second, forgetting that Donghyuck’s still on the line. Your cheek brushes against his sheets as you nod, trying to meet his eye even in this position to let him know you’re being honest.

“Fucking big, Mark.” You hear Donghyuck tsk from his end, and you laugh breathlessly. “You don’t like knowing he’s big?”

“I just hate that fucker,” Donghyuck quips back easily, but there’s no seriousness in his voice. If anything, it sounds a little raspy, with him clearing his throat soon afterward.

“Well, I’m crazy about him,” you whisper into the call, and your breathing hitches as Mark finally bottoms out, groaning at your tightness. “I’m crazy about the way he touches me, the way he tastes. I’m crazy about how big his cock is, how deep it gets when he’s inside me, how he stretches me out — fuck—”

Your verbal rampage is cut short by a loud moan as Mark draws his hips back and pushes forcefully into you; you haven’t fully adjusted, and you’re even tighter now from what you’re saying, so the friction inside you is nothing short of delicious. He starts a pattern of thrusts, not bothering to build up from his usual slow and steady pace — hearing you talk that way and knowing that Donghyuck is listening is enough to get him to abandon self-imposed restrictions.

“Mark,” you whine out, accidentally pushing the phone a little further away as you reach out blindly for him behind you, and he catches your wrist to let you know he’s there. “Mark, fuck, it feels so good—”

You tighten around him as if to prove your words, and he growls in response. You find yourself having to press your cheek in a little harder into the mattress as he gathers your wrists together into one hand, pinning them to your lower back, and it’s with that hold on you that he leverages his thrusts, pumping into you a little harder each time.

You’re not completely unaware of your surroundings, but it takes a while for you to process the sounds coming from the phone’s speaker — labored breathing, the sound of a zipper being pulled down. You want to wonder if this is working a little too well, but nothing comes from your mouth apart from soft whimpers, and it’s all the cue Mark needs to be the one to fill in the relative silence himself.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” he whispers, and you feel his lips press between your shoulder blades. It feels like a chaste kiss at first, but he leaves his breath there, still flitting over your skin as he continues to speak. “I’ll never get tired of how pretty you are — how pretty you always sound for me. Doesn’t she sound pretty, Hyuck?”

“Fucking pretty,” Donghyuck agrees, though his voice sounds somewhat distant. You can only sob back a quiet ‘fuck me, harder, harder,’ in response.

“Can you imagine how much prettier she looks under me?” It’s almost a full-blown conversation now, but even if Mark’s addressing Donghyuck, the rest of his attention’s fully on you. He adjusts his stance, still keeping his hold around your wrists as he angles himself deeper into you, causing you to cry out and squirm in pleasure. With your face pressed against the bed and his weight driving down into you, you feel utterly trapped, in the best kind of way. Mark, in the way he is now, is inescapable, almost incorrigible, and he pistons deeper into your pussy, his free hand brushing your hair away from your shoulder so he can leave a kiss against it. “Bent over, legs spread just a little, all for me to take. Pretty little hole wet for me, and so fucking tight. Can you imagine that?”

“I’m doing it right now.”

“It’s a thousand times better in person. Trust me.”

The same hand slips between your thighs, two fingers spreading your folds apart; the middle one circles your clit in a pace that matches his thrusts, sudden and shocking, and you arch your back upwards slightly with a choked noise. He finally releases your wrists, and you claw at the sheets helplessly to keep yourself somehow upright as the force of Mark’s hips, their impact against the backs of your thighs, pushes you forward, closer to the phone again. The stimulation is merciless, endless, and in the haze of your pleasure, you wonder if you should make Mark a little more jealous everyday if it gets him to act this way.

“Mark, I…. I’ve been— s-since—”

“Not yet,” he whispers, his teeth sinking into your shoulder as if to bring you back to reality. You shudder at the pain, the pleasure that accompanies it, and when you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, you notice that a few tears escape your eyes. “Hold out for me a bit, okay? Please. It’s not enough. Not yet enough.”

You wonder if ‘enough’ is a concept the both of you even understand when it comes to wanting each other; already, you feel desire pooling in your stomach, threatening to spill from you, and clenching around him isn’t helping you stop it the way your body seems to think it’s supposed to. It also doesn’t help that Mark’s fingers are relentless, one still drawing tight, heavy circles around your clit, and the other creeping up under your shirt to tug down the cup of your bra, letting a breast spill into his warm palm. He kneads with an unusual — but not unpleasant — roughness, and you squeak out incoherently as he tweaks at the hardened bud of your nipple, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

“Hold on for me a little,” he continues murmuring, even after you shake your head and whisper ‘can’t’ to him over and over. “Do it for me. Tell Donghyuck — tell him how good it feels. How much you want to keep feeling me inside you.”

You don’t even know what to say; the pleasure that washes over you, the new kind of roughness that Mark exhibits has you drawing a blank, and you can only whine in a last attempt at protest, only for your tongue to start moving on autopilot, fueled by your want.

“It’s not enough,” you echo — and even if it feels like it is, even if it feels even more than you can possibly handle, something tells you that it’s true. “Not enough — need to feel you more, Mark. God, I want to feel you stretch me out, fuck my little hole into the shape of your cock— until no one else can fuck me but you—”

“What,” Donghyuck breathes out, his exhale coming across as static. “The fuck.”

You don’t have to explain; your babbling’s doing most of the work in that regard anyway, and you can tell by the wet, staccato noises on the other end that Donghyuck can easily piece together the scenario anyway. He’s jacking off to the both of you, something in your mind whispers, and the notion of that alone has you tightening around Mark’s cock. The change doesn’t go unnoticed, and his fingers sink deeper into your flesh; you cry out softly when you feel a jolt of pleasure as he gives your clit a sudden pinch.

“How much tighter can you get?” He sounds incredulous but also, interestingly, proud — there’s a smug tinge to his voice that arouses you even more. “Does it feel that good?”

“Fuck, yes,” you breathe out, the syllables quivering in your throat. “So good I’m going to lose my mind. Let me — God, please, let me—”

“Not yet,” Mark mumbles, and you whimper as he slows and slips out of you, his hand gently rubbing your folds in what feels like comfort — a small apology for his overt enthusiasm that you don’t even really need. “Just a little more. I need to see it.”

“See what?” Donghyuck’s voice is barely above a whisper, hoarse and pretty much muffled by the sound of his hand pumping his own shaft. Your head’s light, so your body moves on its own when Mark inches away slightly, giving you room to turn yourself around and lay on your back. You’ve barely even settled when he lifts your hips, dragging you closer to him and easing your thighs apart to slot himself between your legs.

His cock weighs heavy, pressed up against your folds, and he pushes his hips in a superficial thrust to get them to spread. His eyes fall briefly on your swollen clit, the wetness that you left on his shaft, even more of it still leaking from your hole. When he looks back up at you, there’s something triumphant in his gaze.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he coos, so lovingly it’d be hard to imagine his cock still sliding against your folds if you couldn’t feel it yourself. “I’ll never get enough of your perfect pussy — so perfect that it was made to take me.”

“See what?” Donghyuck presses, an impatience now coloring his voice. Mark chuckles, nodding at you and mouthing silently. Tell him.

Your inhale’s shaky, quivering like the rest of your body, and you don’t ever break away from Mark’s gaze, even as you speak.

“His cock fucking me in my stomach.”

Donghyuck’s ‘Jesus fucking Christ’ is drowned out by your cry of need as Mark pushes back into you. There’s no lag time now, no wait for any kind of adjustment; he takes you in one motion, until you feel his hips hit the backs of your thighs again. Your walls flutter around him, unable to process his size fully, and all that comes out of you is a string of messy mewls that’s constantly interrupted by the wet sounds of his thrusts.

Your body feels almost weightless, the only thing you can understand being the feeling of his cock pumping into you, stretching you out further. You’re only able to shake yourself out of the reverie when you feel his hands push back against your thighs, folding you in half, before they crowd atop your stomach.

“God, I need to feel it,” he groans out, his palms skimming under your navel, searching. “Please — do it for me.”

Even with your brain muddled, you don’t even have to try to figure it out; you let him feel it every time he asks. You inhale, deep and slow, until your stomach sinks, and the walls of your stomach flatten against his cock, which pauses briefly in its movements as he revels in the newfound feeling.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, and you flush in pleasure, in satisfaction at his praise. “Love seeing my cock inside you.”

He adjusts himself before he starts pumping into you again, burying his shaft all the way to the hilt each time; each thrust is followed by a soft sob from you, and you reach out, planting your hands on top of his. You obviously can’t feel his cock under your palms, but you don’t have to anyway; the fit’s tight enough that it feels, ridiculously, like he’s fucking your whole body, like he’s pressing into the deepest part of your core. You just want him to feel it more — the movement of the bulge under his hands, the resistance it has to push through to get to your stomach.

“Love feeling me inside you,” he continues, and his breathing stutters then, signaling that he’s also barely hanging on. “Love seeing how pretty you look when I rearrange your insides.”

You mouth out a disbelieving ‘what the fuck’ that earns you a simple smile, but Mark’s unrelenting in his movements anyway, his palms completely covering your stomach.

“Dude, I wanna see it too,” Donghyuck reminds you both of his presence when his voice comes through the speaker. “Put her on video.”

“No way,” comes Mark’s swift, firm reply. Donghyuck makes a noise of protest. “This is just for me.”

“Selfish as hell, calling me without really sharing.”

“The point wasn’t really ever to share.”

Mark’s hands suddenly press down on your stomach, and you stifle a soft scream; the pressure increases tenfold, as does the tightness of the fit, his cock brushing against your walls in a way that makes you feel breathless — it makes you feel used. Your hands fly up, fingers locking behind his neck, and you squirm under him, knowing fully well that you can’t escape anyway — not that you really want to, anyway.

“Mark,” you warn him again, your voice thin and airy. “I can’t anymore — I really—”

“I got you,” he murmurs — something you’ve come to learn he always says, always wants to let you know. He’ll be here until you break, until you can’t take anymore. “One second, okay?”

“Bro, what? Are you serious—” Even Donghyuck sounds confused, although his voice is tight too; he must be close, your mind weakly registers, but it doesn’t matter. Mark, albeit reluctantly, slips one hand away from your stomach — for a good cause, he must think, and you learn what it is when he ends the call, effectively cutting off Donghyuck’s complaints. Your eyes widen in confusion, but all Mark’s gaze is to you is reassuring, gentle, and he leans down to press a soft kiss to your lips before he answers your unspoken question.

“Can’t let him hear you cum,” he murmurs against your mouth. “That’s only for me, isn’t it?”

You nod, letting the movement of it brush your lips against his. “You’re the only one I’ll cum for — the only one that can make me.”

Above your head, his phone is trilling noisily; the vibrations course through your back, weak but persistent, and for some reason, it heightens your arousal all the more. Mark ignores it completely, single-mindedly focused on pistoning into you with the bulk of his strength. His hands push down just under your navel, increasing your awareness of the feeling of his cock, him fucking you, coaxing out your climax.

“Do it. Show me how pretty you look when you cum for me.”

You don’t think it’s possible for him to inject any more strength into his movements, but he proves you wrong time and time again; the wind’s knocked out of you as he braces himself and fucks you harder, sharper into the bed, and the only noises you can make are weak whimpers and choked sobs. Your mind’s so overrun with pleasure that your climax hits your body first before your mind fully parses it; your back arches again, and you mewl out something broken, something that sounds like his name as you come undone.

Mark still doesn’t relent, the tremble in your legs somehow only inspiring him to put more power in his thrusts. Even through the dazedness that comes with all the stimulation, you can see the fine details you’ve come to know so well — the tightness in his jaw, the growing flush across his collar, the quick heaving of his chest. He’s close too, so close he’s just holding himself back out of sheer force of will to make sure he can watch you come down from your climax completely. You don’t know why he has to, but you want to see him let go too, and you scramble for words, for more touch — pressing your thighs firm against his sides to keep him close, locked — just to get him there.

“Will you mark me up one last time?” You breathe out. He reacts almost instantaneously, moving to lean down and press his mouth against the still-untouched side of your neck, but your palm on his chest stops him from doing so. Surprise crosses his face, followed by slight confusion. You squeeze your thighs against him, trying to make your point, but even then, his brow furrows. “Mark me — inside.”

His eyes widen, and his hips stutter before they resume pace, his fingers digging into your stomach almost painfully as he tries to keep himself in control. “I— no, you know I can’t…”

“Do you want to?” You egg him on, your hand dropping from his chest to land on top of his again, adding to the pressure until you’re sure he can feel every small movement, every throb of his own cock inside you. “You can, you know — make me yours, from the inside out.”

“God — we can’t; you know we’d be in so much trouble.”

“But I’d let you anyway, if you wanted to. Do you ever think about it, Mark?” Your fingers toy with his, almost like you’re having a casual conversation instead of a situation in which he’s deep inside you, already aching for release. “Fucking your cum deep into me, letting it seep into my stomach — making sure no one else can fill me up?”

“Jesus,” he growls, and he reluctantly slips his hands out from under yours to grip your thighs. Realistically, he has enough strength to peel them away, have you release him, but his hold just tightens, not really making any motion to do so. You see the thought flash in his eyes, serious even just for a moment. He thinks about it all the time.

“Think about it,” you urge, your voice soft but close to a demand. “And every time you do, remember one day, you will — because you’re the only one that can.”

He tilts his head back, letting a growl rip from his throat, and he finally manages to push your thighs apart. You let him, let them fall apart so he can slip out of you. You watch him shift upwards, his knees on either side of your torso, and you’re met with the erotic sight of him fisting his cock in front of you, urging himself into completion. You do the only thing you can think of to help; you open your mouth wide, pushing your tongue out, silently asking for his load.

“Even when you do that, you’re fucking pretty,” he groans out, and his thumb presses his cock down, resting the underside flush against your tongue as he rocks his hips. “How much prettier are you going to look with my cum all over your face?”

He doesn’t have to wait long to find out, and you don’t have to respond; he gets the answer he wants with one last thrust against your tongue, and you close your eyes briefly, allowing yourself to drink in the taste, the smell of his cum as it streaks across your cheeks, all over your lips. You hear his release as it comes too — the soft rumble from his chest, the release of air that gently whistles through his teeth.

When you open your eyes again, Mark is looking down at you, a warm flush creeping up his cheeks and ears again; he’s breathless, panting as he comes down from his high. From the daze of his climax, a slightly sheepish look of apology crosses his face, and he reaches down, seemingly without any real plan, to clean you up, only to withdraw, slightly bemused, when you shake your head.

A laugh escapes him when you shimmy out from under him, straighten up, and extend your arms upward, puckering your lips in slight demand. You think he might reject you, but Mark doesn’t even hesitate longer than a second. He swoops down, capturing your lips in a fierce kiss, and your thighs press together tight as you enjoy the feeling of his tongue swiping away his cum from your bottom lip before he takes it between his teeth, sucking softly as if to clean you completely.

When he pulls away, his head dips into your shoulder; again, his face turns to press against the mark he’d left, and his teeth nip at the soft bruise that’s already begun to blossom. Satisfied by the soft noise you make at the sensitivity you feel from the contact, he breathes out, long and steady, against your skin.

“Just… can’t get enough of you,” he finally exhales, pressing another kiss to your neck; it’s gentler, situated just under your jaw.

“You don’t ever have to think about having enough,” you whisper, leaving a light nuzzle against his shoulder. “Just always think about having more.”

He lets out a breathy laugh, but he nods, accepting your offer anyway. A moment of silence passes, where you’re wrapped up in each other, his weight against you in a blanket of heat, and it stretches to what almost feels like an eternity — if not for the phone suddenly ringing again, Donghyuck’s name coming up on the ID. You both start, and Mark reaches over, fumbling with the sides of his device before he finds and toggles the silent switch.

“Seriously,” he grumbles, watching the call drop just for it to start up again, the screen flashing.

“We kind of left him hanging, to be fair.”

“No fairness.” Mark tosses the phone to the foot of the bed, where it lies, facedown and buzzing. “He got more than he deserved today.”

You watch him as he slips off the bed, rearranging himself before clipping his jeans button back into place. He whispers a gentle ‘be right back’ and exits the room, leaving the door only slightly ajar. You hear the water run in the bathroom, and a few moments later, Mark returns to your side, holding a damp towel.

He leaves a kiss after each light swipe across your face, as if to apologize for the pain he thinks he might be causing; you laugh, partly because it’s ridiculous, but mostly because you like it. He cleans your mouth last, even though there’s already nothing left, just so he has an excuse to leave a long, lasting kiss there.

You think it’s the last you’ll get for now, but he surprises you by bending down even further, hiking your shirt up your torso again. His hand rests on your thigh, keeping himself balanced as he presses a flutter of kisses around your navel, lingering at the exact spot that sits above where he knows his cock hits every time he bottoms out in you.

“One day,” he whispers into your skin before he looks up at you, his eyes shining. “I’ll really make you all mine.”

“Dummy.” Your voice is just as low, and you pull his head up again, enjoying the brush of his hair against your hand, the swoop of his jaw under your palm. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Every single day, considering I’ll never get tired of it.”

You hum, not one to deny him of what he asks anyway; you push him back onto his calves, climbing back onto his lap; it’s your favorite way to be near him, you decide, with almost nothing between you, almost everything of yours touching everything of his — like you fit in him perfectly. You rest your cheek against his shoulder, feeling their soft rise and fall as his breathing steadies, and you squirm a bit, if only to make sure his arms are locked securely around you — to make sure he won’t let go. Just like that, in his arms, you say it again — a truth, a fact, and a promise.

“I already am.”

[eamour]

a manifestation routine.

! long post ahead !

in this post, i want to give you an idea of how a manifestation "routine" could look like. i'm aware that this is one of my longer posts but i wanted to give as many insights and as much reassurance as possible. it’s a guide especially for those, who need a bit guidance, who may have come off track a little and who want to discipline themselves a bit more.

morning and evening.

right before you wake up or fall asleep, lay down on your bed and close your eyes. try to calm your mind, loose any tension built up in your body and take deep breaths in and out. with your eyes closed, pay attention to the darkness you're seeing. everything around you doesn’t exist for now. the outer world is none of your concern. your responsibilities fade away and in this given moment, there is nothing that needs to be worked on, nothing that needs to be fixed, nothing that needs to be dealt with. right now, it’s only you in this darkness. you are safe. you are protected.

now, think about it: what is it that you want? what is it that you wish to experience? this isn’t about what you feel like you should want or what you need to experience but rather what YOU deeply want. what would having / being it feel like? what would it look like? what if you had / were exactly what you wanted?

as you become more and more decisive and definitive about who you want to be and what you want to have, you begin to enter the state of the wish fulfilled. you take a step towards the end. you start to bask yourself in the feeling of being the version of yourself who has or is what you desire to have or be. for this, you can visualise yourself or use affirmations that go hand in hand with your desired outcome.

at the same time, let go of your old conception of self. leave your old mindset. right now, you aren’t who you were before you entered this state of calmness. shift your states. go from your former one to your desired one. give life to your new state and death to your old state. abandon the old story. you don’t need it now. you no longer need to retell it. you don’t need to carry it with you anymore.

don’t focus on details. don’t worry about your scenes of visualisation or wording of affirmations. don’t try to make it perfect. don’t question it. and don’t reason your way into it. try to make it natural. try to make it enjoyable. in imagination, you cannot do anything wrong. feel free to imagine any way you would like to. doing any technique without feeling it to be true and without accepting it won’t do anything. it cannot change you. not the technique itself but the feeling will alter self. your visualisations and affirmations shall only support you by guiding you to your desired state. don’t perform anything in vain. do it with purpose. do it with conviction. do it with acceptance. mere repetitions lead to mere results. if you repeat, then do it with feeling. for feeling is the secret.

this way, you become conscious of your new self. and since consciousness is the one and only reality, things can only appear through consciousness. becoming conscious of having your desire means to feel your desire to be yours. by making consciousness your aim, you are aiming to become conscious of BEING and HAVING your desire.

rest of the day.

after you took time to meditate in the morning, you continue to live with your wish fulfilled during the day. whenever you think of your desire, whenever you start to desire something, you claim it to be yours. you declare that it’s part of your reality now. you simply accept it to be true instead of letting your mind wander, overthink or worry. you don’t leave any space for feelings of desire and refrain from living in desire as well. you don’t have to go into a deep meditative state either. you think of it, recognise your desire, imagine it to be yours, feel it to be yours and then go on with your day. this way, you only aim for your inner fulfillment and get rid of any desire that comes up.

you don’t need to force yourself to think of your desire for a very long time, nor do you need to immediately start affirming or visualising a scene that implies you having your desire. what you do is that you take some time, not a lot, to acknowledge your desire and to shift your state from desiring to owning. you do this for as long as you like, until you have accepted your desire to be yours. you will know when you have shifted your state as you won’t feel feelings of desire anymore. you won’t want it anymore because you know there is nothing left to desire that isn’t already yours.

there's no need to constantly bring you back and to remind yourself of your manifestation. the moment you accept it, you can let it go. it’s done now. it belongs to you. assuming your desire to be yours once you think of it is totally enough. you don’t need to obsess over it either.

the more you do this, the easier it will be for you to remain in your desired state. you will get used to the state because you get used to the feeling. it will start to feel familiar to you. it won’t be as difficult as before. it won’t scare you as it did in the beginning.

once in the state, it will become easier to handle the outer world. your thoughts come from your state aka your feeling and if you happen to be in the state you wanted to occupy, you will respond better to 3D circumstances (if there are any). you'll stop viewing your physical world the way you used to and you'll also stop feeling like it’s a lot of work to be in the state of the wish fulfilled. you'll stop viewing the act of shifting your state as effortless. as normal. as natural. you can happily live in the 3D while still experiencing your manifestation from within, giving your inner self what you want. from now on, you will want to identify with your real self more frequently and anything outside of you will lose importance. you won’t care about how the world may look like, you won’t stress about your physical existence. anything that does not serve you will be of little account.

everyday.

the purpose of this guide is to motivate you to make fulfillment your one and only goal. make it a lovely habit to daily manifest your desires. do it each day.

do not waste time contemplating whether your desires are easy to manifest, quick to manifest, possible to manifest or logical to manifest. stop categorising your manifestations into "big" and "small". do not concern yourself with these matters.

the moment you accept your assumption to be true, it has no option but to materialise. your 3D can never stop reflecting your 4D. you can never run away from your feelings, so why not change them? why not choose lovely feelings for yourself? why not claim great things about yourself? why not immediately grant yourself every wish you have? stop wasting time, conditioning your desires and doubting your abilities as creator of your reality.

within imagination, all things exist and all things are possible. you can be or have anything you'd like in your imagination. it doesn’t have to be hard to get. you don’t need to earn your way to happiness. and you don’t need to work hard for it either. so why would you deny yourself that experience? why would you actively choose not to fulfill yourself? why would you not manifest your desires?

make your imagination a place you love spending time in. make yourself feel feelings of wealth, love, success, health and more. make it so amazing, so addicting that you cannot be bothered or moved by the limitations of the outside world. quoting aphrodite apprentice: "see your desires as invitations to experience something new within yourself and fulfill yourself. and then walk in that fulfillment. just live your entire life in fulfillment."

with love, ella.

[copilot-crashout]

Anyway, I wanted to ask how the tulpar crew would react to reader style. Is gyaru that includes heavy makeup, long nails , a short skirt, etc? In which, they always think she’s a bitch for her style but is the most sweetest person ever? Please and thank you if you have the time!!

Pairing: Tulpar crew x fem!reader

Content Warning: Jimmy's part has brief mentions of misogynistic ideology and language. ( -᷄ _ -᷅ ; )

[A/N]: This was a really fun ask. Thank you! o(≧▽≦)o I like your pfp also, I love ALNST!! Happy New Year to everyone reading!

CAPTAIN CURLY:

-> As a kid, the first lesson he was taught was to never judge a book by its cover. No matter how extravagant it was. The same applies to you, and he's so thankful for it.

-> If you ever want to take pictures of your outfits, he'll be the best cameraman ever. He'll tell you where to stand and take multiple pictures before returning your phone. He'll take them from different angles, asking you to move slightly to get better lighting. Back home, he'll steal your phone, sending himself all the photos he had taken as keepsakes, grinning like a fool. Yeah, he really is lucky to have you.

-> Definitely buys you clothing to match your style! He wants to support your hobbies as much as he can, noting what he sees you wearing the most often! Takes you out on dates to try and find different pieces for both of you. He has you sitting outside his dressing room before stepping out in a simple low-cut shirt and khaki pants you swore he had at home. He does a little spin, walking slightly to test the fit of his trousers before he faces you, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

"What do you think, honey? You're the fashionista out of the two of us."

-> Bless his heart, the man really is clueless. He'd be happy to learn from you, though! Ask to dress him up in a similar style and he's hesitant. He's comfortable with what he knows. He'd much rather spend it on you, to see you smile in those gorgeous outfits.

DAISUKE:

-> He thinks it's so cool! He's not one to judge right off the bat, especially as to someone's style. However, his mood dampers once he's aware not everyone thinks like that. He hears the curt answers people give you, the whispers behind your back and the harsh stares he quickly returns when you're not looking. You're not scary at all! How come he's the only one to see that?

-> He'll take you outfit shopping but it's more for him! He rocks with the cardigans you wear so hard. He starts looking around for different styles that he might like. Daisuke loves the way you're dressed and wants to seem as cool as you did when you first met. He leans to more colourful outfits, saving different fit inspirations that he scrolls past on Instagram. He's inspired by those accounts that post couple fits, wanting to do the same with your style.

"This is cute but it looks waaayyy better on you!"

-> He's swapping accessories with you! Daisuke steals some of your hairclips and you snatch his jewellery to wear with your fits. His heart wells up with pride when he sees you wearing something of his. He must've done a good job picking it out. Daisuke kicks his feet and giggles whenever you compliment him on his outfits. You? Of all people!? Like his outfit!?! He's hit the jackpot!

ANYA:

-> Initially, Anya is intimidated. However, it easily melts away at how kind you are! Instead, she's quickly charmed by your confidence to wear gyaru fashion when it's not very conventional.

-> Supports it fully! She does extensive research into the subculture. Dedicates her time to learning about the different types of Gyaru styles and its history - the whole nine yards!

-> She likely won't dress up in that style, but you have inspired her to focus more on fashion. Those socks and sandals may be good for work, but not the best for streetwear style. She doesn't wear extremely alternative outfits but is drawn to simpler and neutral outfits that still scream fashionable.

-> Anya holds onto one of your hairpins when she works! It's a sweet reminder of you and her patients compliment her for it. It's a win-win!

-> While you're preparing for a date with her, she'll walk into the bathroom, observing how you do your make-up and taking note of your routine. Eventually, she builds up the courage to ask if she could do it for you, promising with a grin that it'll look great.

-> You're sitting in the bedroom, nimble hands cupping your face as Anya draws your eyeliner on, tongue sticking out in concentration as she works on keeping it even on both sides. All you can focus on is the proximity between you both, the gentle warmth radiating from her hands. She gently tilts your face as she applies your blush before leaning down and pressing a swift kiss to your glossed lips.

"There. You look gorgeous, starlight. Ready to head off?"

JIMMY:

-> Hates it at first. It's obnoxious, loud, and only makes you look intimidating. Pretty girls like you should be dolled up but only in the way he deems appropriate.

-> He's... Weirdly envious. Not at the clothes you wear (although being able to afford a style like that seems like an unneeded expense) but more so at what it means. You don't care for others' opinions, wearing what you like because it makes you happy. No matter how much he wants to deny it, Jimmy thrives off the opinions of others. He looks like an everyman. The most average man you could conceive of. Not like anyone important. How could you stand out next to him? You look like someone worth remembering and it pisses him off.

-> If you're in a relationship, I could see him warming up to it. He'd still prefer it if you didn't wear it but if it makes you happy... Plus, having a cute girl like you on his arm is certainly an ego booster. He buys you a skirt or two, smirking when you notice its shortness compared to your usual ones.

"What? Don't like it? I thought this sorta thing was up your alleyway? You'd look sexy in it anyway, doll."

SWANSEA:

"This isn't one of those fads, is it?"

-> Swansea can only sigh. This isn't his first rodeo with self-expression. His kids have done it all, including driving him up the wall as they explore their identity through their fashion. It doesn't make him any less confused, unfortunately.

-> It's more... out there than he was expecting. It's not one he's seen before. Rather than researching in his own time, he'd much prefer to get a first-hand account of it all. He asks questions in that fatherly way. It seems like he's judging but he is genuinely curious.

-> He doesn't think he could ever wrap his head around it but that doesn't mean he won't support you. Instead of buying you clothes, he'll pay for your nail appointments, muttering how "you kids are always runnin' me dry."

-> For all his grumbles, seeing you happy is his #1 priority, and the grin on your face when you show him your outfit is enough to make it all worth it.