#i will only be refering to him in character form from now on as i am grieving the loss of a man ive looked up to for 3 years now

[pomefioredove]

Hi, can I have a sugar cookie, #16, with chocolate drizzle?

o7

order #16, sugar with chocolate drizzle

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ it'll pass

tropes: exes to lovers characters: leona additional info: romantic, gender neutral reader, reader is yuu, post-nrc, a little bittersweet, for those thinking they wouldn't forgive him and would marry rook instead, I understand, yes this is a fleabag reference <3

That question, that bitter uncertainty that had caged itself in your chest, behind your ribs, by your heart, had not passed.

It will pass, you had said, your friends had said, even he had said it himself.

It'll pass.

And then, the question. But what if it doesn't?

What if you never forget Leona Kingscholar?

What will you do with this love, now that there's no one to give it to?

It becomes grief, and pain. Bitterness, anger, resentment, longing, desire.

It becomes a secret, it becomes a question.

But what if it doesn't?

You had, at first, slept too much; but then that reminded you of him, and you stopped sleeping altogether.

You began writing, not fiction, nor letters, but your thoughts, if only to get them on paper and out of your head.

Most days, they were nonsense. A procession of words and feelings with no meaning, nor sense, nor relationship between one another.

Bird, television, cold, knocking, tired, tired, tired...

It always ended with that.

And it always began with Why? Why, what? Why did he leave you? Why didn't you stop him? Why can't you move on? Why any of these things?

It was strange.

You were the one destined to leave. When you and Leona fell in love, in your years at Night Raven College, that threat loomed over you both.

One day, you would leave.

Leona still became yours. He was the one constant in your life, the only person you could really rely on. He cared about you, more than he'd ever admit.

Likewise, he had never said that he wanted you to stay, but you knew he did.

It didn't matter. Crowley never found a way home, or perhaps he did, and didn't tell you, but again, it didn't matter. You graduated NRC, and went to Leona.

You were happy, too.

And then he was suddenly betrothed to a duchess, to have a family he never wanted, in a position he resented, and that was that.

It'll pass.

That's all he had said when you told him you loved him.

"I love you,"

"It'll pass,"

You wanted him to stay, like he did to you.

It'll pass.

You became despondent, sleepless. You found shelter and companionship in the form of an affluent Rook Hunt, when you had no one else to call.

But he, too, must leave. For months, the villa is empty, and it's only you and your disconnected words and your paper and the night.

One day, there's a letter for you.

Not for Rook, or for the household, but for you.

It has no name, no initials, no return address. It's not signed. It's typed. It says:

French, confused, nosy, prick, soft, missing, quiet.

So on, so forth. Hundreds of those words, meaningless and senseless and yet special, precious, worthy.

You hold the letter to your heart and the ink smudges on your sweaty hands.

There's another the next day. Quiet, manners, hate, missing, windows, dark.

And one more after that.

Boring, empty, doves, missing, water, spoon.

They come, one after the other, until Rook returns at the end of the month, freckled from the sun and tired from his work.

"Ah... an admirer?" he had asked, listening to you read the letters aloud.

"They aren't from you?"

"From me? Heh. I like to think my prose is a little more cohesive, non?"

You wake the next morning to breakfast, courtesy of Rook, and a letter, courtesy of the wind.

This one only has one word on it.

Sorry.

No more come after that.

The news that Prince Leona had broken off his engagement to the wealthy duchess reaches you in your remote room, through the sharp eyes and upturned lips of a certain Rook Hunt.

Unhappy, was the word, this time.

It was bitterly poetic. Unhappy. It reminded you of something you had written, but when you went looking for that, you were met with an empty sheet of stamps, and a drawer with no paper in it.

"You must forgive me," Rook had said, "I could not bear to see you both suffer so."

The mysterious letters, your "admirer", suddenly make sense.

The next day, another letter comes. But this one is special; it's attached to a hand, that of a certain Leona Kingscholar.

This one, too, has a full sentence.

I love you too.

[cursedtrans]

Stars in Lobotomy Corporation and Libary of Ruina

Spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina

Stars in Project Moon are a incredibly eldritch and horrific concept, and they have massive implications for the story of Limbus and Project Moon as a whole.

Let's start with the origin point of the Project Moon universe, Lobotomy Corporation, and the references to Stars and the Galaxy as a whole there.

Note: While many Lobotomy Corporation abnormalities are based on mere trauma or city lore (such as W Corp inspiring Dimension Shredder or the Head inspiring the Bird Trio), I believe there is extremely important info thanks to several real characters and events having references to the Cosmic Trio's events in their logs.

There's three specific abnormalities that call out the concept of Outer Space and everything it contains. In my opinion this is very notable, as other groups like the Wizard of Oz, Magical Girls, and Bird Trio are all highly important abnormality groups that take up multiple abnormality slots.

First off is the TETH level abnormality Fragment of the Universe.

They're the lowest risk rating of their outer space related brethren, but subsequently have some of the least cosmic horror. While their cry is enough to damage both the mind and body, and is incomprehensible to mortals, it's not that relatively dangerous compared to other concepts.

Likewise, it's by far the most innocent of it's kindred. It's a mere part of outer space that is trying to 'sing' to mortals to convey it's love to them, and it's entire physical form is created by it's connection with a small child. (it wanted to make the child happy, and thus took on the form it uses now)

It doesn't seem to understand the damage it's doing, but it seems to have a permanent effect on certain individual's in it's lobotomy corp logs. All of them seem to be repeating the phrase "coming, coming, still coming" and other incomprehensible noises, and staring into the sky.

Second off, Child of the Galaxy, HE Level.

Child of the Galaxy is a very interesting abnormality that never breaches, but does get extremely violent when someone they care about seems to forget them by instantly killing them. While not uncommon in Lobotomy Corporation, it is a significant thing for them to have the instant kill at any range and no limit on their number of targets.

Additionally, it seems aware of what it's doing. It's extremely possessive in it's log and seems to know that it's very presence and pebble is haunting the person writing the log. Of note is his final two logs, which will show some themes that repeat over and over. I can't take it anymore. I can't escape him. I thought I was in charge, but the truth is I was just a pebble in his hands the whole time. Whatever I do, wherever I go, I hear his whispers. (I have to end it, but I’m not even sure if I can.) -- "...I came from afar. I'm so glad to meet you. Become a pebble, and let's walk the galaxy together..." I hear his whispers and breath. Pitch black darkness follows... just like the night I met him."

Finally, Blue Star, the Aleph level.

Blue Star is an extremely potent abnormality that seems to break out if the person working it is not competent enough, and is capable of massive areas of sanity damage. Even moreso, when they do finally wear down someone's sanity, they absorb them into themselves.

Their abnormality log details some very important details, including the rising of a cult that is infected with certain thoughts, that want to willingly throw themselves into the center of certain abnormalities (read:blue star). Additionally, one of these infected members writes a letter detailing some very important info.

"We are all sinners, and our Blue Star is the only sanctuary that accepts us. We will be cleansed of our sins there. We all go back to that place someday. This is an instinct. You thought Emily died when she threw herself into the Star, but she simply returned to her rightful place. She's a martyr. She has become an eternal star. The rise of a star is a brand new beginning. Don't you hear the everlasting sound of the trumpet? When you stand close to the Star, you can hear the welcoming cheers and singing. If every employee returns to that place, only Blue Star will remain here. Let us meet again as stars."

This begins some of the themes of Stars and Outer Space as a whole in Project Moon, and one of the key ones is rebirth. The employee writing a log ends up being requested to become another pebble by the Child, and each of the cultists of Blue Star firmly believe that they will be reborn as stars when they end up in Blue Star.

Ruina compounds on these cultists by showing us them and their idol in tandem. Notably, Blue Star is not fought, a trait shared solely by Apocalypse Bird (a symbol of the omnipresent and invincible head that rules over the City) and WhiteNight (a symbol of the omnipresent ghost over the City that distorts people into monsters) The only way Blue Star is beaten is by destroying it's Shrine, which ends the fight immediately. Additionally, Blue Star's only action in this is to emit a simple sound through it's Shrine. It does not slam the floor like Apocalypse Bird or emit circles of hell like WhiteNight. It's so far out of our reality that all it can do is show itself and sing through it's statue. Blue Star is also arguably even more important in Limbus, because of the host of connections it has to both the Blue Man Group and several different Star related abnormalities, but that's a post for a different day.

All that is to say for now is, don't be afraid of the stars in Project Moon. All they want is a new life for you...

(as usual thanks to @lu-is-not-ok for inspiring posts and getting me to think about the unregistered abnormalities in Limbus, and sending me down a Star rabbit hole)

[teakoodrawz]

" I'm a Psycho, loving it~ "

[minafeu]

I just found out the horrific truth that Wilbur was the one who hurt Shelby. I have been a fan of Shelby since I was young. I am disappointed but I will continue to support Shelby Shubble through all of this and like many of us did with Forever, seperate the character from fhe streamer. That's all I have to say.

[pioneer-over-c]

Draw Everything June day 5. Pre-Endar Spire and becoming a different person, Revan was a Form IV practitioner, so I thought this reference might fit him.

[jensthwa]

we can't be friends (CS x reader).

part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.

SUMMARY:

San is your first love. He broke your heart and played with your feelings without even kissing you back when you two were in highschool. Now, many years later, you do your best to avoid crossing paths with him because there's just no way you could ever hate him, but there's also no way you two can be friends again. But his best friend is also one of your best friends, so there's only so much you can do to avoid San when he arranges a dinner you're forced to go to.

PAIRING: first love!choi san x afab reader.

GENRE: one shot (fluff, angst, smut)

WORD COUNT: 20k (yikes).

WARNINGS: SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, unnecesary pinning, a looot of context, bad friends :(, some arguing, tension, drinking and drunk behavior, tears, making out, description of female anatomy, oral (f reciving), fingering, love making, pet names (babe, baby), flirty seonghwa, wooyoung being a little shit again but also a genius, gyuri almost commiting a crime.

NOTES: hi everyone! this is a lenghty one, i know, but trust me when I say the context is necessary to understand what reader goes through with san. also, some of this may or may not have happened to me (have fun figuring out which part) (it's quite obvious tbh). THIS IS PART OF THE SHOW AND TELL UNIVERSE BUT CAN BE READ AS A STAND ALONE, even though there's some references and characters that you can only know if you read s&t lol. this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3

POSTED: august 06 2024.

permanent taglist: @hotteokkay, @potatomountain, @fairylover68

masterlist.

You and Choi San go way back. 

Well, it's nine years way back? You were only fourteen when you first saw him. 

He moved back to your area of the city a year after you moved from an entirely different one. You thought you knew every school secret there ever was, provided by your new best friend, Gyuri, but she didn't tell you about him at all. 

She claimed that it was because he didn't cause any stir the years they studied together before and after spending a whole first period in your eighth grade classroom with him at the back of the class, silently taking notes, you couldn't phantom why.

He was great at every subject, seemed to have a lot of popular friends and was, overall, a pretty nice guy. He was also very cute, skinny but you could tell he was the kind of guy who played a sport outside of school hours and he had a cute pair of dimples that showed everytime you scanned the classroom just to lay eyes on him. 

Choi San was a perfect boy to crush on, even a perfect guy just to have as eye candy during recess. You felt really strongly about him, not really forming a full opinion although your gut told you right away you were right. There was something about him… but you only figured that something until later, next year, starting your ninth grade. 

Gyuri and you were avid readers. Precocious girls, with minds way above your age. All your teachers praised came laced with the same compliment so you both decided that was the truth. You rejoiced in it, thinking you shared things in common with the grown ups and decided that that was the key to feeling a little superior in comparison to the rest of your classmates, who neither of you liked very much. 

Until they all decided to start dating each other and you two realized you were nothing but two kids with great imaginations and a love for school, praise and fictional men that couldn't be translated to the real world without sounding delusional and weird. 

So you decided to do something about it. And so, on a random Tuesday recess, you two scanned the crowd trying to find two boys (or a boy and a girl, because you always knew you liked girls too) worthy of your affections. One for her, one for you. Bonus points if the two of them were also best friends, of course. 

Double dates were all the buzz at the time anyways. 

Besides, only then they could understand the bond you and Gyuri had. Sisterhood like no other, nevermind Gyuri actually had an older sister and a niece at the ripe age of fifteen. 

And so when your index finger scanned the crowd and eliminated at least three potential crushes before landing on Choi San, you felt like it was meant to be. 

You see, his best friend, Jung Wooyoung, was perfect for Gyuri to crush on. He was almost as tall as she was at the time and his easy, outgoing personality was compatible with her book crush at the time as well. 

He also flirted with her on several occasions before that. 

So it was meant to be. 

Choi San, on the other hand, had never even glanced in your direction before. 

Just like your book crush did before he fell in love with the main character. 

See? Meant. To. Be. 

It was decided then that, although Choi San was not going to be your first crush ever, he was going to be the guy that motivated you to be at school for the time being, because math gets really boring after trying and failing at least ten times. 

You thought nothing of it when it felt a little forced, when you couldn't blush at all at the sight of him and you gathered that it didn't need to happen like in the books you read. You simply needed to say his name when someone asked you if you had a crush on anyone and that was enough to be in symphony with the rest of your classmates. 

Your longing glances were caught once or twice by him and you brushed the weird flip your stomach did everytime he looked away, blushing a little. You never really cared when it happened, really, knowing his crowd and your crowd (Gyuri and you) would never even cross paths in the first place. 

You two kept to yourselves and your little book unofficial book club, sitting on the floor at lunch time and cursing everyone who dared to call you weird for it. San and Wooyoung had a crowd of people at the loudest table laughing with them over stupid teen jokes and, uh, sports? You didn't even know. 

And then the unimaginable happened. 

Jung Wooyoung sat down, criss cross applesauce and everything, in front of you on a random Monday afternoon while you and Gyuri discussed the english assignment due next period. 

Gyuri was not too excited about that. 

Turns out, the only one excited to have a crush at school was you. She was very much still in the Lonely Hearts Club phase while you skipped all the way to your The Notebook phase and she was, in her own words, too afraid to admit it when you came up with your crush plan. 

You forgave her, of course, and decided to wait for her as long as needed because you were certainly not about to be an individual and have a crush on your own. 

And by the time Wooyoung smiled at you both and introduced himself to you, like you weren't in the same class for a year already, you thought your pretend crush on his best friend evaporated and joined the void superficial and fleeting interests you had. 

But then Choi San sat beside him, his knee brushing against yours in the process, and you knew you would have to issue a formal apology to your best and only friend for leaving her behind on this little thing. 

Because, oh boy, were you crushing on Choi San. 

You felt the blush rush to your cheeks and then fell silent while your friend and his friend discussed Fifty Shades of Grey for some reason you never cared enough to discover and you knew you were done for.

It was the first time seeing his dimples in full action, so close to you, so you completely stopped functioning all together. Amazing. 

When you decided to have a crush, you never took into account that you were, actually, quite shy. And he really wasn't, but you noticed that he knew when to talk and what to say and with your friend being a lot more outgoing that you were it gave you the comfort that she would speak for the both of you while you admired from the sidelines as your little duo became a group of friends you still miss deeply to this day. 

He was funny and you laughed at your jokes even though you pretended to be tired and completely worn out by the school day, resting your head on Gyuri’s shoulder and stealing glances at the boy while she kept arguing with his best friend. 

Wooyoung was popular and liked enough to have a few people sit with you later that week, people who never even knew you existed before that. They were good friends with San as well, so you tried your best to keep up with everyone until she sat down next to you one day. 

Arin was not really a bad person. She just was a bit conceited, calling herself princess type of conceited and you never really related to her even if she was nice to you to your face. She was absolutely gorgeous and, you found out with Wooyoung’s arm around your shoulder and a whisper to your ear, she had been San’s crush since they were both in elementary school. 

That would explain the sudden tension at the table when she sat down next to you, said hello to everyone, offered you a sweet she just bought from the cafeteria, and stared at San for the remainder of lunch time. 

You also noticed Wooyoung glaring at her a little and he later explained to you that he didn't really like her all that much. She loved attention and San gave her attention, so she would intentionally flirt with him to get her ego stroked in return. 

It didn't really matter how he felt about the girl, though, he didn't have to like her just because his best friend did. And when you caught her batting her eyelashes at San, you knew you didn't even stand a chance.

You tried to hide the disappointed look on your face but both Gyuri and Wooyoung looked at you while the two of them flirted endlessly for the remainder of lunch time and you figured you were doing a pretty shitty job at it. He didn't glance at you once either way, so it didn't really matter. 

Arin did but she just complimented your eyes and then started a conversation with someone across the table, her annoying sweet and fake voice making your right ear ring in disapproval. 

Either way, you ended up becoming her friend. Gyuri was not very fond of her and neither were you, but you all went to the bathroom together, did your makeup together, did school projects together and then sat everyday at lunch together with the rest of the guys who were, in one way or another, trying to get her to like them. 

Because, once again, she was a sight for sore eyes. 

It wasn't until later, in the middle of the year, that one of them did. Not Choi San, but Choi Yeonjun. 

You remember the day you found out they were together and the gut wrenching concern you felt when you found out that San was not at school that day. 

It was after summer break, you remember Wooyoung telling you that San and his family took a few more days of vacation and if you couldn't believe your eyes when you saw the new couple sharing a sweet kiss at the designated lunch table, you could only imagine how San felt the next day when he saw the same image right in front of him. 

Yeonjun was his friend, right? He knew about his crush and decided to get together with her anyways. Surely, San was devastated. 

But he wasn't. He just cheered them on and then laughed along when Yeonjun shoved his arm playfully after the hollering. 

But you saw through it. 

Your crush on San made you observant. Made you believe you knew him better than everyone else and so, after lunch, you took out your phone and pulled up the notes app. Writing a simple “are you okay?” in it and passing it to him the next second, you were surprised with yourself before you saw him frown a bit. And then he understood what you meant. 

Nodding, he passed you the phone back, before giving you a reassuring smile that you treasured in your heart and saw in your dreams. 

You didn't believe him, though, but stayed close enough to everything related to the situation to hold Arin in your arms when Yeonjun inevitably broke her heart. 

Starting your tenth year, he moved back to his city and decided to play the I thought we weren't even that serious card on her. Which was nasty, considering love it's very, very serious for a sixteen year old girl. 

By this point, you were all a little family and hanging out after school and on the weekends was not unusual, so it didn't surprise you when Arin invited you, and only you, to her house after choir practice on a Thursday. 

She lent you her older sister’s clothes to wear (because her's would never fit you. Her words, not yours) and took you to a walk in the park just to break your heart for the first time ever. 

“You know… I thought love was something I couldn't find in highschool anymore. But San it's really making an effort, you know? He's been there for me ever since Yeonjun left and… Well, I think he's going to ask me to be his girlfriend tomorrow.” 

Grasping the park bench she forced you to sit at, you only nodded and let out a shuddering breath that gave away what she was trying to figure out since earlier that day. 

“I'll say yes but only if you say it's okay to do so.” 

Arin was not really your friend, the same way Yeonjun was not really San’s friend. 

Because there's no way you would ever be okay with it. 

And yet, you tried your best to give her a smile and pretend the sound of your heart breaking didn't bring tears to your eyes “Of course it's okay. Why wouldn't it be?” 

A week later, they were officially dating. The rumors spread around like a wildfire and it took out of you with everyone calling San a nasty rebound and you doing your best to prioritize the ghost of the friendship you had with him. That whole fiasco lasted a few months. 

Months in which your friendship with everyone just grew stronger. Gyuri was still your best friend, Wooyoung was crushing on her hard and everyone knew, Arin and San were a steady couple, a new girl joined your class that year, named Yeri, and the principal assigned her to you because she thought you two would get along really well. 

“I like girls,” was like, the third thing she ever told you while you were showing her the school “I'm just telling you now because I don't plan on hiding it and you are wearing a pride pin.” 

“Oh, that's cool. I like girls too,” you smiled, looking at your pride pin “I didn't hide it either and no one gave me shit about it, so, don't worry.” 

Yeri also liked the mainstream music that you liked and soon she became a new addition to your group. And with Arin spending all of her free time with San, you, Gyuri and Yeri only grew closer and closer. You didn't have Arin’s voice in your ear telling you the million reasons she found Yeri uncool, but you saw it in her face every time the table laughed at one of Yeri’s jokes. 

And so, it went on for a while: 

Your mom driving all of you around in her car to the beach, to dinner, to the movies and letting you have mixed sleepovers at your house (meaning you, Arin, Gyuri, Wooyoung, Yeri and San) was fun and all, but it was not enough to distract yourself entirely. Everytime you glanced at the couple, that sinking feeling in your chest would appear and sulk your whole mood for, at least, fifteen minutes.  

Fifteen minutes of pretending you were okay with them before forgetting completely for an hour or so and then the cycle would repeat until you were alone staring at the ceiling and doing your best to not cry about it.

All it took was your first kiss being Yeri of all people for you to decide that it was time to retire your crush for Choi San once and for all. 

And for a while, it all went according to plan. You decided to tell Gyuri that it was okay because he was your friend first and the guy that you liked second and that you were not fourteen and desperate for love anymore, that it was time to go on with your life as if nothing really happened in the first place. 

You were hooking up with Yeri anyways, so it seemed like you were doing just fine. 

You grew closer to San as well and even though he mostly talked to you about Arin and whatever tantrum she was throwing at the time, you really started to feel some sense of normalcy within you when it came to just speaking to him. 

You no longer blushed when he made you laugh, you no longer looked at him with the longing of a past life lover and you were really happy for him because, at the end of the day, he was really happy with his relationship. 

Until winter break came around and Arin decided to give San his first heartbreak ever. 

She decided to call for a break in their relationship because she was, in his words, too overwhelmed with the amount of love and attention she was getting from him. 

Which was completely fucking insane considering the fact she forced him to save her contact as Princess Arin and all. 

So naturally, you sided with him. And she didn't take it to heart because everyone knew you liked San anyways. 

She told you the news herself through Facebook after asking you to explain to her the English assignment due next day and then she decided to tell you something you'll never understand because you no longer are on speaking terms with her: 

Princess Arin: u know i broke up with him because of u right? :) 

Princess Arin: one day I'll tell u all abt it. 

She never told you anything about it. And by then, you were starting your last year and San was your best friend who hung out with you everyday after school, calling you late at night and helping you with assignments through Skype. So you didn't really care. 

And as the day passed, you started understanding the connection they talked about in books and movies. You thought you did before, Gyuri being your eternal person in this world, but it felt so different with San. 

Different and good. Different and achy enough for you to want to keep it in your life. 

Your dynamic was friendly, sure, but it was alright. It consisted of banter and daring stares as well as laughter and soft moments you treasured till this day. 

“It's way too early to be this annoying, Choi San.” 

“Oh, you think this is me being annoying?”

You both got an hour of detention for disturbing the class that day. 

You loved it. 

But then, after almost a month of picking up the broken pieces of his heart one by one, and your mother giving him a self-help book to make him regain the confidence he lost during the breakup process, you realized that you were in love with him and there was nothing you could do about that. 

You noticed one friday afternoon, when he offered to pay for your and your mom's ice cream at the drive through, when he scrambled to get all the change he had on him to leave a tip for the person who handed you guys the sweet treat, that there was no way you didn't love him. 

And it was confusing as fuck when everyone else started to tell you he had feelings for you as well. 

“Think about it. You text each other good morning everyday” Yeri listed with her finger and you nodded “Then, you go to school, sit together and spend the rest of the day together” another nod “Then after school you either go get ice cream together or hang out for a bit with your mom while she drives him home. And after that, you get on Skype for the reminder of the afternoon and then he calls you on your house phone and you two spend the rest of the night talking before falling asleep on the line together,” she looked at you like you were insane for even denying the accusations made against San, but she continued anyway “And then it's rinse and repeat and it has been that way since… What? Three months ago?” 

You nodded again, defeated. 

“Girl, he likes you.” she sighed, annoyed and a little tired, before sitting on your lap and kissing your lips affectionately “And you're here making out with me instead of him. You really are a lost cause.”

That didn't stop you from hooking up with her until she found a girl who's heart was not reserved for someone else, though. Said girl went to a different school and was a year younger than all of you, but she looked very happy and stopped secretly kissing you in the school bathroom like a week after they met. 

And when she finally told everyone, you were really happy for her, but San not so much. 

It was the night you thought everything was about to change. The night you thought he was about to kiss you or you were about to kiss him, whatever happened first. 

Laying in your bed, facing each other in the dim light, he thought it was the biggest form of betrayal and pouted the whole time he explained to you why. 

He thought you liked her and you realized he didn't really pay attention to you after all. Not the way you did with him. 

Bless his heart. 

You didn't kiss him that night because he wouldn't shut up about you and Yeri. 

“I mean, why couldn't it be you? She clearly liked you if you two were hooking up for over a year” and when his hand came to rest on your back, under your shirt, you breath hitched enough for him to notice it but not enough for him to just don't do anything about it except trace the curve of your silhouette with the pad of his thumb “I don't understand why anyone would pass the opportunity to be with you.” 

Huh. Maybe he did have feelings for you. 

No. He's just being a great best friend. Don't take that for granted. 

But it was impossible for you not to take Yeri’s words seriously as time went on. 

You didn't want to think he was giving you mixed signals, but yet again there was that one time when you reached behind your passenger seat in your mothers car to pinch his leg playfully after he pulled on your hair a little bit from behind, only to end up holding his hand the rest of the car trip to his house. 

His fingers slowly caressing the back of your hand were just too much for you not to get everything mixed up. 

Or that other time when your school held a Woman's Day event, and your class president decided that all the boys in the class were going to give roses to the girls.

When it was your turn to get a rose, you knew no one would give you one. But Yeri stood in line and collected a rose from the bin before the class president had the opportunity to say anything else. 

“I'll take that, thank you very much.” She turned to you, smiling. San blocked her way to you a second after. 

“And just what do you think you're doing?” 

“Giving my best girl a rose, of course.” She peeked around him, giving you a wink that you could only roll your eyes to. 

San turned to you, the fondness in his eyes making you question the decision of not pretending to be sick that day. It was too much for you to handle. 

“To the back of the line, then. I already called dibs on her,” he turned to your friend, snatching the rose from her hand in one swift move “I'll take that, thank you very much.” 

He had no idea what that meant to you back then. It was true that, at school, he behaved a little differently than when you two were alone. 

He was athletic, so he had some friends that you were sure used to ask him what the fuck was he doing wasting his time with a girl like you instead of getting a new girlfriend. 

He had a family that didn't approve of yours, too. You felt it the first time you met his mom and, even though she was nice to you and your mom, you could feel the judgemental stare she gave both of you when your mom told her she was a single parent. 

San told you that it didn't really matter, that his mom didn't have to like you because you weren't her friend, you were his. 

He played with your feelings a little too well. Wanting him, adoring him and letting yourself be consumed by the thought of him loving you back was enough to keep it going. To ignore the fluttering way your heart kept beating whenever he talked to you which was all the time. 

You assumed the way he behaved with you in private was the real him. The one who didn't care about appearances or his family approval. 

The one who cared about you. 

It was dizzying and fantastic and you thought he just might've been the love of your life. 

But then he would tell you how much it hurted when he saw Arin at school and how much he missed her, the intimacy they shared before, and reality would come crashing down and setting your delusions on fire again. 

He had sex with Arin. You would never stand a chance. 

Or so you thought he did. Except when you overheard Arin speaking to her friends and that was the first time you ever got mad at Choi San.

“And, you know, me and San were never intimate like that so I wouldn't know but I think boys have no idea how to please a woman if they tried to.” 

What? 

Oh. So he lied to you. 

And you were so upset by the thought of him making up stories of their intimate time together that it didn't even cross your mind that Arin might've been lying to save face. 

So when he came back from the bathroom and sat at his usual desk in front of you, you didn't even think about his feelings when you decided to treat him like shit for lying about something so important like sex to your face. 

“Leave me alone, San! I don't want to fucking talk to you right now!” 

The hurt expression he gave you after that is one you would never be able to forget. 

But you grew to be stubborn and a little overprotective of your own feelings, so you thought him playing the part of your best friend all these months and sweet talking to you was just another one of his lies. 

“You guys not being friends right now doesn't make any fucking sense, sweetheart.” Wooyoung's tone is careful and laced with affection, but you knew he was playing the devil's advocate on behalf of San. With his arm around Gyuri’s shoulder (by that point, they were a thing for over two months) you could swear you saw him smirk when the nickname brought a scowl to your face. 

He might've been worried, but he was also a little shit. 

“You really are going to let Arin ruin what you two have?” Your best friend was, of course, on your side. But she was your best friend for a reason and her love included pointing out when you were behaving like an infant at the age of seventeen and a half. 

“You two are practically dating and you're going to let the evil ex-girlfriend get in the way? Over something you weren't even supposed to hear in the first place? Come on.” 

Again, Wooyoung was a little shit. And you were so upset about everything that you shyness couldn't even help the fury behind your reply: 

“Stop saying that! We are not practically dating, he's in love with Arin and I'm not sure I even like him like that anymore!” Getting tired of everyone and their mother (your mother) feeding your delusions, you came to the conclusion that putting a stop to your friendship with Choi San was for the best. 

And, in doing so, you ended up breaking your own heart for the second time in your life. 

But he didn't put up an easy fight at all. You remember the feeling of pure joy when he grabbed your hand on the way to the cafeteria one day, pulling you so hard you almost ended up sitting in his lap, and the way his pleading eyes begged you to listen to him one last time. 

“Us not being friends doesn't feel right, Y/N…” he said and the word he used to categorize what both of you had hurted you, but you pushed the feeling away “Please, let's not fight anymore. I don't even know what happened, but I forgive you for yelling at me and I hope you forgive me for whatever it is you think I did.” 

Of course, you forgave him the next second without thinking too much about it. And for a while, everything went back to normal. You Skyped as usual and occasionally you let your other friends join the call even though it didn't really feel like it used to before. 

The next thing you knew, your feelings were in full bloom again and when you realized it, it was too late. 

Because by then, you had already let your childhood friend, Sunhee, join a few Skype calls and by the fourth one she invited her friend, Minseo, to them as well. 

Terrible, terrible mistake. Because even through the screen, you could see that Minseo looked a lot like Arin with the added bonus that she was down to earth and cool and liked the same things San liked.

You liked the same things San liked as well, but it never seemed to matter. 

Because not even two months after you decided to stop talking to San over a lie you weren't supposed to find out in the first place and then became friends one more time, he gets together with Minseo and you're sick to your stomach all over again. 

You hated her. Not because she was, suddenly, his girlfriend (not girlfriend girlfriend, but in a friends with benefits arrangement you never even knew why he agreed on in the first place) but because suddenly she was so fucking obnoxious and didn't seem to like you either. 

Was it not painfully obvious San didn't have feelings for you? Why was she mad at you then? You literally brought them together! 

And all you got in return was her telling him she didn't feel comfortable with him having a girl best friend. That ungrateful bitch. 

He stopped calling. He stopped texting, he stopped carpooling with you and your mom after school and he stopped caring whether your math assignment was done or not. 

He stared pulling away more and more and it didn't matter how hard you tried to get him to talk to you, it seemed like he never really fucking cared about you in the first place. 

And by may that year, you didn't speak to San anymore. Granted, the only person he did speak to was Wooyoung, but even their friendship was falling apart. 

For the first time ever, San broke your heart firsthand. And it felt really, really fucking bad. 

You cried to your mom about it, she reminded you that you were nothing but a great friend to him and that, if he didn't take the time to appreciate that, that was his loss not yours. 

And she started hating him from that moment on. But you couldn't hate San, not even a little bit. 

Why would you hate him for not liking you back? For not loving you the way you loved hi— 

Your laptop closes down right in front of you and when you try to look up to find out who's responsible for interrupting your writing time, you get interrupted again. 

“Ouch! What the fuck, Gyuri?” The slap to the back of your head is quick and filled with rage. 

“What the fuck are you even writing. I can read from here, you know?” 

“I'm just laying my feelings down and— Ouch! Stop that!” You try to hit her back but she turns away quickly when your hands almost knock her coffee mug out of hers. 

“You can't possibly still have love for San, Y/N. It's been years.”

It's been four and a half, to be precise. But who's counting, right? 

“And why are you writing it in third person? You don't usually do that.” 

“I don't really know, Gyuri!” 

“I’m telling you, this celebratory dinner bullshit it's affecting you way more than it should,” she sighs, plopping down on the couch of your shared living room, and you leave your seat at the table to join her “He might not even show up. He has that thing with Kyungmi.” 

Kyungmi. 

You couldn't get to that part on your open document, but San left Minseo when he met Kyungmi at one of the frat parties they love to attend. Wooyoung told you that he said that it was love at first sight and you even met her briefly when you picked Gyuri up from the apartment he and San got when they started college together. 

She’s gorgeous and doesn't look like Arin or Minseo at all. It’s a different type of gorgeous. She's a year older than San and went to the same school as them and Gyuri. 

You think you might even like her better than him. 

You tried to be happy for San when you found out, but you two barely even speak a word to each other and you convinced yourself a while ago that you couldn't care less if he sees right through you and your fake smiles. 

You gathered, after everything happened, that San knew you liked him and took advantage of that. Unintentionally, but he did anyway. 

You sigh, resting your head on your best friend's shoulder. “It’s his best friend's celebratory dinner, though, he needs to be there.” 

Two seconds pass and then you both say it at the same time: “He’s in love.” 

And when San is in love, he has a one track mind with the name of his lover as the goal. 

You nod, but you can't help but to be insistent “It's Wooyoung's celebratory dinner, he needs to show up, right?” 

“I might not even show up, he's a pain in the ass.” She replies but you can tell her annoyance is not genuine and it makes you smile. 

Gyuri and Wooyoung broke up towards the end of your first year of college but you all stayed close friends. A one year relationship was not enough to fuck up the friendship they had and they decided to stay civil until, eventually, they became close friends again. 

To this day, you wonder why you and San couldn't rekindle your friendship when it became clear to you that you missed your friend and not the guy that you liked. 

Because San was always your friend first and your first love second. 

But it doesn't really matter anymore, because Gyuri is forcing you to shower and reminding you that you two need to keep Wooyoung on his best behavior tonight. 

“That girl he used to like before me is going, he said. I looked her up, she's single and he needs to get together with her because I can't take him whining about it anymore.” 

They keep things with each other way too civil, you think. 

“I'm telling you, if we don't show up he's going to do that thing where he gets drunk and makes a fool of himself. I can't have that, I'm on a mission.” 

“A mission to get your ex laid?” You ask, shampooing your hair. 

“A mission to get him a girlfriend so he can stop crying to me about feeling lonely.” 

“Maybe he wants you guys to—” The shower curtain opens and you see your best friend’s scowl before covering yourself up with your hands. 

“Gyuri!”

“Don't you dare say what you were about to say or I'm divorcing you.” 

You chuckle “Sure you are.”

You're left alone again with the water stream and she goes back to do her makeup “I told you back in ninth grade that we weren't a great fit and I was right. We can't get back together,” she sighs “It'll ruin everything.” 

“I doubt it will but you guys have been friends longer than you were boyfriend and girlfriend, so I'll just have to deal with my parents being divorced and civil.” 

“God, don't ever refer to us like that again— Oh! Speaking of parents,” you see her beam at her phone when you move the shower curtain to search for your towel and then she shows it to you “Mingi and Love just celebrated their one year anniversary!” 

Love being Mingi’s best friend. Gyuri talks to you about her college friend group all the time. The drama fuels your dinner conversations, you even follow a few of them on social media. 

“What does that have to do with parents?”

“They're the mom and dad of the group.” 

San is in that friend group, you can see him in the back of the picture and you recognize his apartment layout too. He's not the main focus of it but he's all you can see until you notice the couple sitting near him on the couch. 

The picture shows both of them, her in his lap and Mingi looking at her with stars in his eyes. 

Good for them. 

“Is that the girl he was friends with forever before they finally realized that they were in love?” 

“Yeah,” she sighs in contempt, looking down at the picture again “I was there the day it happened. I mean, not physically with them, but they left Yunho's party together and I told Wooyoung that it was finally about to happen!”

Gyuri is not a romantic person at all. Her excitement shows you that she really loves them and so you soften at the news that would usually give you and your dry love life a headache “It was the day before you called me to get you out of that awful date.” 

Ah, that also happened back then. You shudder at the memory.

“Tell them I say congrats, babe.” 

“I'm bringing you as my plus one.” 

You laugh, confused “To where?” 

“Their wedding, duh.” 

“They practically just got together,” you remind her, a year is not enough time to propose “And I don't really know them, Gyuri!” 

“They love you,” she assures you as you step out of the shower “I have been speaking about your antisocial ass for years. They can't wait to meet you.” 

“So you've been shit talking behind my back for years? Is that what I'm hearing?” 

She laughs “No, babe, that's Wooyoung's job.” 

Clearing your throat and looking at your friend through the mirror, you try to be as nonchalant as you can when you ask: “Has he… Did he tell you if…” 

“No, Y/N, I have no clue if San is going or not and Wooyoung is actually mad at him at the moment.” 

“Why?” 

She looks at you, sighing “He's been lacking as a friend lately.” 

“Hm.” 

“I hope you're not planning on swooning if you see him. Fuck him, Y/N.��� 

“I know…” 

“And by fuck him I mean he doesn't deserve you or your forgiveness.” 

“He didn't do anything to me, Gyuri,” you remind her, shrugging “Not reciprocating my feelings is not a crime so I don't have to forgive him for anything.” 

You can practically feel her starting the San hate train engine, so you step out of the bathroom but her voice follows you. 

“And what about that time he ditched you for Minseo when you asked him to go with you to that medical appointment, huh?” 

“Cut it out, Gyuri…” 

But her head peaks around the corner, into the hall where you're rushing towards your room “Or that time when—” 

“Can't hear you!” Turning to look at her, she gives you an affectionate middle finger and heads back to the bathroom.

Closing the door, you lean into the thin wood and sigh, getting San’s face out of your mind so you can focus on getting ready and actually show up for Wooyoung and Wooyoung only. 

He just got a permanent position after completing his internship at a company that's your company's rival. He's going to crush you and steal clients from you but you are genuinely so happy for him. 

You should've guessed he enjoyed books as much as you did back in highschool. The debates he used to have with Gyuri were not all about flirting with her but also because he has a passion for books. 

And now he's going to work in the same field as you.

You're so proud of your friend. 

As you get ready, you remember the excitement cruising through your body when your boss trusted you enough to give you the first manuscript of a new client so you could edit it. You're sure Wooyoung is going to do better than you, taking into account that he actually went to college for this. 

You didn't. 

You met your boss at the part-time job you got in senior year, when you were trying to distract yourself from all the pain and the horrors of becoming a grown up. She was chatty, got a little too drunk on soju and told you she was starting her own book publishing company. 

When she returned months later after remembering that you told her you loved books and would love to work for as a publisher one day, she offered you a job in her company right after graduating highschool. 

You took it because you didn't think an opportunity like this would show up ever again. 

She was truly a blessing, the kind of person you never really believed in until she taught you all you needed to know about publishing and editing and encouraged you to take online classes during the nights so you could get, at least, a certification on what you do. 

You're proud of yourself too. The opportunity found you in a specific moment of your life where both your heart and your self esteem were destroyed and now you're not the person you used to be. 

Maybe that's why the possibility of facing San makes you so nervous. Collective memories are dangerous because the details never match the ones on the other person's head. 

You know who you were back then but… Are you the same person in San’s head? 

You don't even want to find out. 

Scanning your outfit in the mirror for the last time, you take the shoes you're wearing tonight out of your closet and walk over to the living room. 

Only to find Gyuri laying on the carpet under the coffee table, half dressed and on her phone. 

“You're going to mess up your hair.” 

“I don't care, I'm not going.” 

Sighing, you sit down on the couch and staring at the wood of the table covering her face. 

“What happened now?” 

“The bitch canceled!” 

“Wooyoung?” 

Poking her head out, she frowns at you “No, his first love.” 

“You were his first love.” 

“You know what I'm talking about, Y/N!” 

Laughing at her, you offer her your hand “Get dressed. Who cares if she's not going? He's not going to sulk because he's going to have you and his best friends there.” 

She whines like a child when you pull her up from the floor “I had a plan!” 

“Then make a new one, babe. We're going to be late.” 

She starts to whine again but then stops mid-groan to give you a once over. You shift uncomfortably on your feet, suddenly self-conscious about your appearance for the first time in years. 

“You look really hot…” she tells you and you fake gag at her words “Really pretty. Like a fairy and a smoke show at the same time.” 

You can't possibly look like that when you have such a simple outfit on, floor length high waist black pants and a flowy sleeve top that ties in the middle. It's barely formal but now you're thinking too hard about it. 

Blushing, you wave your hand to dismiss her compliment “Oh, my god. Go and change!” 

She rushes to her room on the opposite end of the hall and you finally breathe, looking down at your choice of fit and wondering if it's too much. 

Gyuri would've told you if that's the case, but either way it haunts your mind in the car on the way there, leg bouncing up and down under your best friend's judging gaze that only softens when you pout at her. 

“They are going to love you, babe. I'm so serious, they've been waiting years to meet you.” 

You nod because, yes, you're concerned that her friend group is not all as welcoming as she paints them to be. 

And you wish your doubts would go away but you're really, really not good at making friends. You're cautious, extremely closed off to new people and not as good with conversation no matter how much confidence you gained over the past years. 

When you walk to the loudest table at the laid back restaurant their friend Seonghwa made the reservation at, you think you won't be able to fit in with everyone else. You feel like an intruder, like Gyuri is supposed to enjoy this part of her life without you here. 

That's why you rejected every invitation they ever made. 

You celebrate birthdays with her, with Woo as well, but it's all very intimate and separate from their social circle, the one that includes the man you haven't fully faced in years. 

But you can't exactly back out now, not when one of them turns to you and seems to light up when they see you. 

“Oh? Is this her?” you recognize Hongjoong from pictures, he's the only one facing you when you approach the table, lowkey hiding behind Gyuri like a child. 

“Who?” 

“Huh?”

San is nowhere to be seen. Thank god. 

Slowly, everyone turns around and you see their faces light up with both delight and surprise. Your heart is pounding, you feel it in your throat, in your eyes, in the heat that colors your cheeks. 

But Gyuri just steps aside and presents you with a smile “This is her!” 

“Oh, Y/N!” Wooyoung gets up, rushing towards you and crashing into your frame with a crushing hug “I'm so glad you're here,” he murmurs into your hair and then turns to his friends, quiet them down “Everyone, this is Y/N, one of my best friends in the entire world.” 

He's such a dramatic human being.

You love him so much. 

Raising your hand, you shyly wave at them “Hi.” 

The entire table erupts with joy. Some of them greet you, some of them are saying that they are happy to be finally meeting you and Wooyoung grabs your arm and plops you down into the seat next to Gyuri, at the edge of the table. 

Laughing, you apologize for not meeting them sooner and then you feel a pair of hands on your shoulders. 

Panic raising, you quickly turn around to see who it is before releasing a shuddering, but calmer, breath. 

“She's a very busy woman, guys. She works for the competition, my competition,” everyone gasps at that but Wooyoung is smiling at you “and she's very good at what she does. Which means she's busy, get off her case,” he puts a glass and a can of beer in front of you “Drink, babe.” 

“Thanks, babe.” You whisper back and he leans in to peck your head before going away. 

Gyuri groans “Stop stealing that from us! It's our thing, Y/N, don't indulge him.” 

“It's his celebratory dinner…” you argue with a laugh that Hongjoong and Mingi follow. 

“Yeah! Can you get off my case tonight, Gyuri?” 

She huffs, wrapping her arms around you “I hate you all.” 

“No you don't!” 

The table laughs and everyone returns to their individual conversations when Woo sits down on his spot. 

There's a few seats left, one besides Mingi and one right in front of you but you don't think too much about it because soon Gyuri gets up to ask Yeosang something and Seonghwa occupies her seat right beside you. 

You think he can sense that you're more shy than you let on, because he doesn't include you in whatever he and Yunho were talking about and waits until he stops talking to him to turn to you. 

“So, you work for a publishing company?” 

The question catches you off guard and you swallow the beer quickly before nodding “Y-yeah, I… Yeah.” 

He chuckles “You're nervous.” 

“I'm just not as good at meeting people as Gyuri is. She usually does the job and I tag along.” 

“I feel like I know you already, though.” He says, leaning back on his chair. 

“Because she talks a lot about me?” he nods “Yeah, she tends to do that.” 

“Wooyoung also talks a lot about you, San too… Sometimes,” your cheeks heat up and he misinterprets what it means “All good things, I promise.” 

You doubt that. 

Your brain gives you a hundred and one possible things San could've said about you. 

For some reason, none of them are good. But you choose to believe the gorgeous, long haired guy in front of you. 

“Well that's good to hear,” you take another sip of your drink before smiling at him “I was sure Woo was trash talking about me.” 

He shakes his head with a smile “He wouldn't dare, he has Gyuri on his ass all the time and I'm sure she would kill him.” 

“I'm sure she would kill him even if he didn't do it.” 

His smile grows wider “That's true,” he says, looking over at them who are, very coincidentally, fighting about something. You let out a sigh and he laughs again before clearing his throat “So, the publishing company. What kind of books do you like to edit the most?” 

Your smile grows wider too. 

For the next hour, you talk to Seonghwa about your job and how you started in it. He asks you about your classes and the challenges that you face on a daily basis and Wooyoung overhears and ends up joining the conversation as well.

You don't even hear footsteps nearing until a voice cuts everyone off. 

“I'm sorry I'm late!” 

“Baby!” Mingi gets up from his seat, but no one else does so he's stuck between the table and his girlfriend. 

“Oh, that's Love, huh?” you ask Seonghwa, Wooyoung too entertained messing with the couple to hear you anyways. 

“Yeah… Is that how Gyuri refers to her?” He frowns.

“Mhm,” you answer, leaning into him like you're about to tell him an important secret “I'm not supposed to call her that, don't tell her.” 

Seonghwa leans in too, pretending to zip his mouth shut and you laugh. 

The girl wiggles her way into the seat reserved for her and everyone lets out a groan when they smooch each other. You can only giggle and the sound draws her attention to you “Y/N?” 

You quickly nod “Yeah, hi, nice to meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you! Finally, I thought Wooyoung and Gyuri had an imaginary friend,” you laugh, shrugging at the joke “Love your outfit, by the way, are those— Oh, San, hi— Are those jellyfish?” 

You want to answer. You truly do, the yes right at the tip of your tongue, but words leave you when you turn your head around and find San already looking at you with wide eyes.

He looks great, he's a bit more muscular than what the pictures show and than the last time that you saw him, his arms hugging the fabric of the dress shirt he's wearing like it was tailored for him and everything. 

How dare he. 

You wonder if his heart is beating as loud as yours is right now. If he's surprised, disappointed or happy to see you at all. 

“Her favorite animal.” He answers for you “Hi, Y/N.” 

“Hi…” you whisper back and it feels like you're in a trance. He doesn't look away but the table quieting down once again snaps you out of it and you turn to the girl with a wide smile that you hope conceals whatever the fuck you're feeling at the moment “I love jellyfishes. Had a phase as a child when I would exclusively talk about them, too,” you chuckle, nervously, reaching for your earrings instinctively “Gyuri gave them to me as a present last Christmas.” 

You definitely overshared just now. From the corner of your eye you catch your best friend getting ready to step in if needed. 

Love looks at you, then at San (who's just standing next to you without uttering a word) and then back at you again, smiling like she just figured something out “Well, I love them.” 

“Thanks…” 

Coughing unnecessarily loud, Wooyoung gets up from his seat “You're late.” 

It takes a second but San tears his gaze away from you to look at his best friend and you take the opportunity to chug down the rest of your beer “Sorry, something came up.” 

Seonghwa turns at that and looks at him as well “You good?” 

“I am. Did you guys already eat? I'm starving.” 

“Nope. We're about to order. Let me get you a drink, come here.” And just like that, he disappears from your view and you almost sigh in relief. 

“Are you good?” Seonghwa asks you next and you reckon he's very observant. But then again, you're not the most gracious human being when you're in San’s presence, so, you figure everyone else noticed your change of mood as well. 

“Yeah, I just… I haven't seen him in a while and I didn't think he was coming. I was surprised, that's all.” 

“I can see that,” his eyes move around your face for some reason, frowning a little bit but then he seems to let it go, getting the menu closer to you “Okay, good, um… I actually made the reservation here because they have the best samgyeopsal in town.”  

“Do they?” 

“Mhm, so…” 

He helps you pick your food and when it's time to order, he moves back to his seat. Gyuri asks you with her eyes if you're okay, you nod and grab her hand under the table with a tiny smile and then everyone is moving around to make space for San and Woo once they return. 

He doesn't sit in front of you. 

Relief floods you and you can finally feel your muscles relax as he is so far away, at the other end of the table and in the same row of seats, so you don't really see him unless you really try. 

Which you don't, so your food goes down easy and the rest of the night as well.

Until everyone but you and Seonghwa move around their seats and he ends up right in your point of view as you do your best to ignore him and focus on his friend. 

Seonghwa asks you about your hobbies, you tell him that you love to write movie essays on websites no one even cares to read and he asks you to show it to him so he can look it up when he gets home.

“And you've always done this? Since highschool?” 

You nod and he beams “I read like the first three lines and it looks really good, Y/N. Is that why you love books so much? Because you're a writer?” 

“I wouldn't consider myself a writer but… Sure, I love to write.” 

“Did you know this?” he turns to San and your smile drops a little. 

“Know what?” 

“Your friend is an excellent writer.” 

“Oh, I know. She, uh… Used to write stories on her notebook instead of paying attention in math class,” he sips on his drink and at the detail you didn't know he knew, you turn to him fully “I used to read over her shoulder sometimes.” 

“She's really good.” Seonghwa is looking at your phone, still reading “Really smart, too.” 

San’s jaw tenses a little and you can't understand why “I know.” He says again. 

His friend is none the wiser, blocking your phone and returning it to you “I like it,” he says, smiling and you blush “The essay.” He clarifies after a second, prompting a laugh out of you that he joins. 

San doesn't laugh, but you don't pay attention to him because Seonghwa is asking you something else. 

When it's time to leave the restaurant, Wooyoung suggests going back to his apartment to milk the get-together as much as you all can.

You all throw your napkins at him in feign disgust at the choice of words but you all accept his proposal either way. 

So now you're sitting on the couch, legs crossed and head on Gyuri’s shoulder while you listen to all of them talk (more like argue) about something that happened at their university last week, their voices drowning the soft music playing out of the tiny speaker resting on the counter. 

San is on the floor, to your right. It's hard to keep your eyes off him when you feel him looking at you when you close your eyes and let the noise fade into the background. It's not like you're able to add something to the conversation anyway and Gyuri seems to be drinking her sorrows (not being able to hook Woo up with the girl she told you about) away. 

Your best friend is slurring her words already, drink in hand and index finger pointing at Jongho accusatively because, apparently, the fight they're talking about was his fault. 

“You don't—” she hiccups “You don't even know why it was your fault and it pisses me off even more, you know?” 

“Okay, let me take that.” Taking the drink from her hand and before she starts complaining you stand up to make your way into the kitchen. 

The sink is full and a mess, so you pour the liquid into it and leave the glass sitting right beside it. Distracted by the dilemma of helping Woo out with the dishes or not, you don't notice someone else also entering the space.

That's why you jump a little when you turn and catch Seonghwa leaning on the wall by the entrance. It startles you enough to laugh the nerves out afterwards and he shakes his head, smiling. 

“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. They're boring me to death with the fight story.” 

You nod, realizing that maybe that's because he doesn't attend the university anymore. He told you he graduated last year “They're too drunk to let it go.” 

“Too drunk to dance to this amazing song, too. Who's playlist is that?” he frowns and you rest your back into the sink, rolling your eyes because he's pretending he doesn't know “Oh! Right, it's mine.” 

“And they just don't know how to appreciate it, huh?” he shrugs and you click your tongue “They're such bad friends, Seonghwa, I truly don't know why you keep them around.” 

“You appreciate it,” it's your turn to frown and he leaves his spot at the wall to walk towards you “You were singing along to it,” he explains and you let out an ah, nodding as he extends his palm to you, clearly inviting you to dance. 

“Oh, I don't… I don't really know how to—” 

“I'll show you.” 

His kind eyes are asking you to trust him. You really, really shouldn't. 

No matter how hard you try to bury the hopeless romantic little girl who decided to have a crush on a guy back in ninth grade, she's still there, begging you to let loose and live a little. 

When you grab Seonghwa’s hand, you think the smile he gives you was worth listening to her. 

You can't even tell the song that's softly playing anymore, a mellow r&b melody reaches your ear but you are not listening. You're focused on him, on the way he spins you around even if it doesn't fit the bit, on the way he laughs softly against your ear when he pulls you close by your hand and then pulls away just as quickly. 

Laughing as well, the spell of this beautiful stranger (because you remind yourself you don't really know him that well) is hard to break. 

Until it does. 

Someone clearing their throat behind you stops you and Seonghwa's feet from moving any further. When the tall, older guy turns you around, you're face to face with San and his scowl. 

“Sorry to interrupt but I need to get started on the dishes. Everyone else is heading out too,” he looks behind you, at the man who's still standing close to you and grabbing your hand “In case you want to ask Mingi for a ride.” 

“They finally stopped fighting!” he fakes excitement, finally letting go of your hand and walking in front of you, blocking San with his body. You chuckle, barely clapping your hands to join the pretense as he's pulling up his phone “Can I ask for your number, Y/N?” 

Blinking a few times, you're not sure if your heart speeds up because he's asking or because you hear San sigh exasperated behind him “S-sure.” 

When you put your information on his phone, he bids you goodbye with a pat on your head and hugs San on his way out the kitchen. 

Now that you two are alone, you suddenly want to run and join Seonghwa. You were doing so, so well. 

Avoiding San like the plague it's much easier when you're safe hiding behind your two best friends. 

Ignoring his stare would be much easier if you weren't stuck into place. 

“I—” 

“You—” 

You both speak over each other and you force out an uncomfortable laugh that he doesn't return. Instead, he motions you to go first while he occupies the space in front of the sink, turning the faucet on. In doing so, he has to grab your waist and move you out of the way which makes you short circuit for a second “I was going to help you with that.” You finally stammer out. 

He lets out what you take as an annoyed chuckle. 

“You seemed busy, I don't know how you would've done it.” 

Ouch. 

Why do you allow his words to cut so deep when you stopped caring about what he does a long time ago? 

The band aid rips, the stitches come undone and all it took him were five seconds to melt your resolve away like it was never there in the first place. 

“I'll… I go get Gyuri so we can leave Woo and you to get to it, then.” 

“Bathroom.” You hear him mutter under his breath as you are taking the final step to leave. 

“Huh?” 

“She's in the bathroom, probably puking her breakfast out,” he looks up at you to give you a tiny smile “You left her alone with Jongho and Woo for five minutes so she got ahold of another drink.” 

“God damnit.” 

Rushing out, you run into everyone else at the door and Mingi has to let go of his very intoxicated girlfriend when she reaches you to give you a hug “Don't be a stranger, Y/N! It was lovely to be around you, hm?” 

The sudden physical contact almost makes you gasp but you cover it up with a shy giggle “O-oh. Yeah, um, lovely to meet you too. All of you.” 

“Sorry about that,” her boyfriend grabs her arms and breaks the hug “She's right, though. Don't be a stranger.” 

You nod once, smiling a little more sincerely now and everyone says bye to you, including Seonghwa, who grabs your hand one last time and gives it a squeeze before closing the front door of the apartment. 

You think you feel your heart skip a tiny bit under all the shit San’s words pulled up to the surface a minute ago. But there's no time to dwell in that: you hear Gyuri opening up the bathroom door before gagging and closing it again with a slam. 

Jesus Christ. 

You two are really getting old. You stopped drinking like an hour ago, when you were starting to feel tipsy after your second beer, and you know she didn't drink as much as she used to maybe four years ago, but the visage that welcomes you when you open the door and find her crouched down in front of the toilet certainly brings back memories of those times. 

“I left you alone for like… five minutes.” Sighing, you lean in to hold her flimsy ponytail and pat her back. 

“I'm good,” she gags again and then holds up her hand to stop you from saying anything else “I'm fine.” 

Smiling, you help her up and she grabs the counter as she's washing away the taste of whatever she ate earlier today and alcohol “Me when I lie…”

“Y/N!” she hits your arm but the movement somehow almost makes her trip. 

“You want to lay down?” 

“Is she okay?” Woo’s head peaks into the bathroom and when he sees his ex, he makes a face. 

“Does she look like she's okay?” you help her out of the bathroom and start heading for Wooyoung's room. 

“Wow, wow— Where do you think you're taking her?” 

“To your room, dumbass!”

“Why mine? San's is literally right there.” He whines, pointing at the door you pass by without a second thought. You don't want to know where his room is or what it looks like at all. 

“Yeah, well, did San get her this drunk?” 

“How was I supposed to know that she was at her almost black-out phase? She never drinks that much in front of me!” he complains again but you're already tugging Gyuri in, who mumbles something incoherent and then flips Wooyoung off “Na Gyuri if you puke on my bed I swear to God!” 

If you didn't know Wooyoung so much, the whining and the attitude would probably make you think he didn't care for her at all. But he's brushing her hair out of her forehead, securing the blanket around her and moving to take her socks off when you reach the door. 

“I'm guessing you're okay with her staying the night?” 

“Of course you guys can stay the night, Y/N.” He says and he stumbles a little to get to you, so you smile and shake your head, about to let him know that you're not staying anywhere near his roommate when he continues “You can come over whenever you like. You know that, right?” 

“I know, Woo.” 

“I barely even see you these days, I… Oh! I forgot!” he points to the end of the hall, towards the kitchen “You guys don't really like each other so maybe don't come over when he's here because I don't want to see you sad!” 

“Lower your voice,” you whisper to him, bringing a hand to his face and patting his cheek a few times to wake him up “Did the alcohol suddenly hit you or something?” you sigh for the umpteenth time “Anyways, you should lay down and I'll get going. I'll come pick her up tomorrow and—” 

“That's such a great idea! Oh, I'm a genius.” 

“You didn't come up with it, Wooyoung.”

“San!” he calls all of the sudden and you wish he was sober enough to read the panic on your features. He seems much, much sober when his best friend starts walking down the hall and stops right beside you “Take Y/N home, please, she's going to give you a bag that you must protect with your life.” 

Said best friend looks at you, his eyebrow arched in a silent question “Gyuri’s stuff.” 

“Ah.”

“Go, go. It's getting late, I'll just… I'll cuddle with my ex until you get home.” 

And she has the nerve to say he doesn't want her back. 

When the door to Wooyoung's room closes and you're left with San on the poorly lit hallway, you make a mental note to never step foot on this place or allow your friends to drink ever again. 

You don't even look at the guy before practically running down the hallway and reaching for your bag. You make sure your phone is secured in your pocket as you slip your shoes on and soon you're grabbing the front door knob and twisting it. 

Keys jingle next to you but, again, you don't spare San a glance. 

“So—” 

“I'll get out of your hair, you don't have to… walk me home or whatever he said.” 

“Y/N, it's late.” 

Turning to him, your smile is as fake as the ones you've been giving him the past couple of years “And I'm a grown up, San, I can walk myself home.” 

“What about Gyuri’s stuff?” 

“She can wear Wooyoung's clothes, it's not like they never shared before. Anyway… Thank you for having me, it was nice to see you. Goodnight.” Your response comes out fast and it sounds as planned out as it actually is, kinda robotic and devoid of actual emotion. 

San can't see through you the way you see through him. It's okay, he won't mind it. 

He probably won't mind that you close his own door on his face either. 

If that door is what you hear when you're making your way down the stairs in order to make a fast escape, you choose to ignore it. 

You have to stop mid-way to compose yourself. You don't know why you feel like crying or why your heart is beating so fast. 

You knew going in that there was a possibility of seeing him tonight. You know how San affects you, so effortless and seemingly like no time has passed at all in between senior year and present day. 

You know all of this already, it's an endless loop that will keep repeating until you either move away or decide to stop agreeing to Wooyoung's plans all together. 

So why is your chest heaving with emotion? Why is nostalgia playing mind tricks with you? Why do you want to turn back and hug him and beg him to turn back time so you can do it all differently now that you know how to look like and what to say to make him love you back? 

Ah, you're definitely not sleeping tonight. So you start distracting yourself while walking down the stairs again. You remind yourself to tell a much sober Wooyoung how proud you are of him. You think about Seonghwa, about his kind eyes and the way he grabbed your hand to dance with him just half an hour ago. You wonder how long it will take you to get home if you jog all the way there. You—

Why the fuck is San outside when you get there? 

In a comedic way, you can see your attempt to distract your mind off of him slipping through your fingers and evaporating in the warm summer night breeze. 

In a realistic way, you're fucking pissed at him for taking the opportunity of a good night sleep away from you. 

You pass him and start jogging like you planned a minute ago. Footsteps follow you until his arm brushes yours and you take a step to the side to stop it from happening again. 

“Go home, Choi San.” 

“Stop fighting it, Y/N. I'm walking you home.” 

“It's a twenty minute walk—” 

“Drop it.” 

You do. And for the first ten minutes, no one utters a word even if the tension feels electric and the street is so quiet so you can hear when his breath accelerates when he jogs to catch up to you whenever you try to leave him behind. 

Isn't that ironic. He was the one who left you behind all those years ago. 

“I didn't know that you danced.” 

He breaks the uncomfortable but safe silence to say that? 

“Well, you saw me dance so I clearly dance when I want to.” 

“You never danced with me.” 

“You never asked me to.” 

He laughs “I'm pretty sure I did on several occasions, Y/N.” 

“Well, you're wrong,” you're getting annoyed. How dare he think he remembers better than you? “It doesn't matter anyway, what's past is past and—” 

“You also gave Hwa your number,” he interrupts, his long legs taking two strides to get in front of you, still walking, facing your direction with his hands on his pockets. 

It's dangerous and stupid, even if the streets are practically empty and the sidewalk barely has any bumps. 

You hope he falls on his pretty face.

“I did.* 

“I don't have your number.” 

“Well, I changed it and you never asked for it, so…” 

“You could've called me or texted me to let me know you did it.” 

He's getting on your nerves.

“San,” you start, taking in a deep breath you hope calms you down “We don't even text anymore, why would you want my number?” 

“Do you like him?” 

“Seonghwa?” you ask, frowning and he nods “Like… As a person?” 

“As a potential love interest.” He clarifies matter-of-factly and you roll your eyes. 

“I met him today, San. Why do you want my number?” 

“Because we're friends?” he offers after a second, shifting so he's walking by your side again. 

“Are we?” you ask, laughing bitterly at that “Because we haven't spoken a word to each other in years.” 

“That's not true.” 

“It is, San.” 

“You… You don't speak to me anymore, so…” 

“Well your girlfriend at the time told me she didn't feel comfortable with me speaking to you anymore,” you sigh “so I didn't and you didn't try to talk to me either.” 

“Well, I want to talk to you now.” 

“And is your new girlfriend aware of that? Is she comfortable with that? Because I don't want anyone telling me what to do anymore and—” 

“Why wouldn't she be comfortable? We're friends, Y/N.” 

“Are we?” you insist, petty, bitter and overall very, very hurt. 

He looks offended at that “I assumed we were?” 

He's getting on your fucking nerves. 

“We stopped being friends the second Minseo asked me to stay away from you because she didn't like me, San.” 

“She’s not in my life anymore—” 

The words are coming out of your mouth without even thinking it through. His demeanor, the way he's somehow reproaching you for whatever he saw between you and his friend, the way he pretends nothing happened between you and him, thinking that you two are still friends. 

“We stopped being friends when you pulled away from me, saw me do the same and did nothing to stop it from happening, San.” 

He stops in his tracks at that. You don't, pushing forward and quickening your step even if your calves burn. 

“Either way,” you speak up “Make sure you tell your girlfriend about wanting my number and then you can ask Seonghwa for it if you want—” 

“She's not my girlfriend anymore!” 

Now that stops you, just a few buildings down from yours, you turn around just to find San closer that you thought he'll be.

“O-oh. I… I didn't know that. I'm sorry.” 

“You didn't do anything to be sorry for.” 

“Still, it must suck so I'm sorry you're going through that.” 

“We didn't want the same things and so we ended it. It is what it is.” 

You nod. 

He walks the few steps separating you and you have to raise your chin a little to look him in the eye for the first time since you left his apartment “I wanted to tell you.” 

“That you broke up with your girlfriend?” 

“Yeah, I don't know why. It happened when I broke up with Minseo too, I just… You're the first person that I thought of calling when it happened. I texted you, too, but the messages didn't go through.” 

You hum at that. 

Why would he even say that? 

You resume your step, not really knowing what to say until you reach the stairs that lead to your building’s entrance. 

“And you didn't ask Woo for my number?” 

He follows you up. 

“I don't think he would've given it to me if I asked.” 

That sounds like an excuse, so you don't let it slide as you enter the code to your building and let yourself inside, San holding the door so he can get in as well “Why would he do that?” 

“Because he…” San sighs, pressing the elevator button “Nevermind. He just wouldn't.”

Frowning, you turn to him “No, now you have to tell me.” 

“It doesn't matter, really—” 

“Tell me, San.” 

He stares for a second and then looks away, like a child, vulnerable and you can't help but soften at that “He didn't like the way I treated you.” 

Eating your words from before, you shake your head “You didn't treat me like anything.” 

The elevator dings and you get inside. 

San follows you. 

“Exactly,” he says, resting his shoulder on the metal “Like you said I just did nothing and—” 

“Well, sometimes that's just what happens,” you want to end this. You want to pack Gyuri’s bag, give it to him and never see him again. 

This conversation hurts, it reopens barely closed wounds and it creates new ones you don't really need when it comes to whatever happened between you two. 

There's only so much a person can handle and it really doesn't help that you're a fool for San. He takes advantage of it, of the fact you can't really push him away at this point and the fact that he wants to have this conversation now instead of four and half years ago? 

Mean. 

He's mean. He's evil. He's… He's staring at you with a spark in his eyes that you recognize too well. 

Hope. 

When you get to your floor, you try to wipe the image away while busying yourself with your keys. Your hands tremble a little but you're able to open the door of your apartment and get in without inviting him. 

He gets in anyway. You take off your shoes as he closes the front door. 

He stays silent as he follows you around the apartment and you don't worry about turning the lights on. You get into Gyuri’s room and start picking out a comfy hangover outfit for your friend. Some clean underwear, sweatpants, two shirts and socks. 

When you drop to the floor, in front of the closet, to look for a bag to stash all of it in, San silently clutches beside you. 

“It shouldn't have happened to us. Never us.” 

You can't take it anymore. 

“San, what is this? What are you doing? I mean, why are we—” 

“I know.” 

“It's been years…”  

“I miss you.” 

He's so mean. But the softness in his tone resembles the one he used all the way back in highschool, when he told you that not being friends with you didn't feel right and you want to cave in right there and then. 

Your heart screams at you to do it, your reason warns you that you both have been through this before and it never ends right. 

You simply can't stay friends with Choi San. 

Your love for him must run too deep, your resentment claws at it and tries to hurt it but it's an immovable force that won't budge even if you try to bury it under the years that have passed, the things he has done. 

Tears gather in your eyes and you try to blink them away as you stare at your best friend's clothes on your lap and try to come up with something to close this path up again, reconstruct the picket fence you built around it the second he broke your heart for the first time. 

“Yeah,” you whisper back, letting the walls fall a little “I miss you too but I don't think I miss whatever version of you you are right now, San.” 

“W-what?”

His shaky voice makes the walls crumble and crash. 

Turning to him, your hand shakes as you place it on top of his “And you don't miss the version of me I am right now. You miss what I was back then, the comfort and the shoulder to cry on I offered you when Arin and you broke up. You miss my availability and the way I didn't press my feelings on you because it didn't matter if I liked you or not, you were my friend first and the guy that I had a crush second but—” you choke up, tears falling down your cheeks even if you don't want them to “I can't do it anymore. I'm not that girl anymore and I won't be there for you now that you and Kyungmi broke up because I can't handle it. I can't, I'm sorry.” 

He doesn't deny any of it.

He stares at you, tears wetting his cheeks as well and it hurts even more this way. You wish you had the strength to hold it together, to treat him like you did on the street a few minutes ago, but you can't. 

There's no way you could ever hate him like you want to. 

“You know…” he starts in a whisper, letting out a humorless chuckle “That's what I used to tell myself too.” 

“Hm?” 

“That you were my friend first and the girl that I had a crush on second.” 

How dare he mutter the words you always wanted to hear, the ones you picture being said in a different setting, the ones that haunted your every waking thought that period of time you doubted your friends, your mom, yourself for even believing Choi San could ever have a crush on you. 

He doesn't get to say them. You want to tell him but the words die on your throat and form a lump that you can't swallow down. 

You don't get to say that. You don't get to say that. 

Your hand drops from his and you look away again only to grab the first bag you find on the closet floor and shove Gyuri’s stuff in it. 

If the lack of response it's what prompts the hurt in his voice the next time he speaks, you don't want to think about it. 

“I wish I didn't. Now it's too late to do something about it, huh?” 

This time the rage comes back with a mask on. Feing settlement for all the what if’s covers you like a blanket on a really hot summer night: unwanted, unnecessary. 

But you can't sleep without it, so you do nothing to push it away. 

“I guess it is.” 

You get up from the floor, leaving the room and wiping your face with bitterness coating your movements as you wait by the door for him to get out. 

When he does and he steps in front of you, you extend the bag and he takes it without missing a beat. 

Voice robotic and words premeditated, you open the front door for him “Thanks for walking me home and taking this back.” 

He leans a little into your space and you don't move away. But just as he did in highschool, he takes in your hitched breath and does nothing more.

“Thanks for letting me talk to you.” 

He didn't give you much of a choice there but it's okay. This is closure, this is the end of your story with Choi San and you convince yourself you're glad that it is. 

“Sure,” you whisper back and he steps outside, turning around to watch you slowly close the door “goodnight, San.” 

He doesn't say it back. 

When the darkness of your apartment engulfs you, that's when you let yourself breakdown. Covering your mouth with your palm, you descend until your knees are against the wood on the floor and closing your eyes you make it a point to let it all out. 

You'll let it all out, drink some water, text Wooyoung and Gyuri to let them know you're safe and go to bed. 

And tomorrow you'll begin your day with the freedom of finally knowing what would've happened if you or San ever took the next step. 

This is fine. This is moving on. This is— 

The doorbell rings. 

Opening the door again, you crease your eyebrows in a silent question that San doesn't care to answer, so you look around the floor in case he forgot something you're missing. You wipe your cheeks and under your eyes as you turn to him again “Did you—” 

Time slows down when he makes it past the threshold and you can't move an inch, gaping at who you once thought was the love of your life “What are you doing, San?” 

“Something about it.” 

“What?” 

“Forgive me,” he asks, breathless and in a murmur, fueling your confusion. And then he's closing the distance, dropping Gyuri’s bag and cupping your face so gently that it hurts “but I'm doing something about it.” 

You stopped dreaming about the possibility of San kissing you that one time you two were on your bed and, another time, you told yourself that, if it ever happened, you wouldn't kiss him back. 

It's too late to kiss him back. 

But sparks fly when he crushes you against the wall and takes in a breath before slothing his mouth against yours like he's been waiting to do this every single day for the past nine years you've known each other. 

There's nothing you can do to conceal the way yearning takes over you, pours out of you, making you breathe into his open mouth and kiss him back like you always wanted to. 

You already know it is a mistake by the time you grab his shirt to keep him in place but does it really matter when this is all you ever wanted? 

Feeling warmth leave your face, you notice the way he desperately crowds your space as his chest bumps into yours, leg claiming its place in between yours, the palm that leaves you pressing against the wall, next to your head. 

The kiss is filled with emotion, with longing and desire and it steals the air out of your lungs tragically and beautifully at the same time. Before, you used to dream about his lips making everything feel right, making you fit in in a world you didn't feel like you belonged to. 

But this kiss drops you into uncharted territory, drags you into the depths of something that should be buried by now, after all this time. It brings the flame back to life and it's dangerous. 

The fact that it feels this way, both marvelous and catastrophic at the same time, makes you so sad. 

Sorrow descends down your face until your mouth is picking it up and your tongue is mixing it with whatever emotion is cruising through San right now. 

You have to know. 

He spent your entire youth and early adulthood keeping it to himself, knowing when to show his true colors and when to hide them, choosing who to do it with and you realize the San that lives in your head is nothing but a figment of what you wanted him to be. 

Because him holding to your waist like it's his only lifeline doesn't fit the San you remember, him telling you he liked you back then doesn't fit the guy who was just your best friend. 

You need to know. 

“San,” brokenly, you speak into his mouth and he pulls away just enough to see your face. Your eyes remain closed, your chest heaving and your lips trembling “Why are you doing this?” 

“Because I want you, Y/N.” 

You push him away, weakly, almost like you don't really mean it because deep down you don't but he steps away like you're asking to. 

Because, of course, your mind scraps the bottom of your resentment to give his words a completely new meaning. 

“You can find another girl to fuck and be your rebound, San,” more tears spill down and you wipe them away in anger but more threat to fall down so you cover your face with your hands and groan, desperate “I can't do this, especially not when I know that you know how bad I wanted you. Y-you know what you do to me San so stop—”

“I want you in my life. I don't— What? I don't want you like a rebound, I… Can we sit down and turn on a light so I can look at you when I say this?” 

His words should be reassuring but they're not, the way you tend to feel unlovable around him coming up to the surface, preventing you from thinking clearly. 

You can also feel his lips on yours still. It's dizzying but you manage to push yourself off the wall and pad around until you hit the switch of the warm light lamp near the couch and the apartment comes to life just like that. 

He takes in the space he's never seen before, walking slowly towards the living room and looking over the bookshelf that screams your name all over it. He smiles a bit as he looks over the book titles and you look away before your heart starts acting up again. 

You can't stay mad at him for long if he's looking through something so personal to you and smiling that fondly at it. It feels even more intimate than the kiss you two just shared. 

Wiping your cheeks once more, you are sure you look a mess but he doesn't seem to mind it once he comes into your point of view, sitting down on the couch, in front of your standing form. He grabs you by your hands until you're sitting next to him, close to him, cologne intoxicating your senses. 

“I told you I liked you when we were in highschool, right?” 

You nod. 

“You seemed surprised but it was dark so I'm not really sure. I thought you knew, everyone knew.” 

Oh, he's a comedian. 

“How would I have known, San? I… Yeri told me you liked me one time, in senior year, but I denied it. Then, my mom told me you seemed to want me in a non-platonic way and I dismissed her as well,” you take in a deep, shaky breath “For me, the thought of you liking me just didn't make sense. You loved Arin and she's… She doesn't look or act like I did back then at all, so how would I have known?” 

You didn't need clues and puzzles and what if’s, you needed words and actions that weren't confusing. You needed him to tell you back then, because telling you right now and kissing you senseless after he broke up with a girl he supposedly was very in love with means nothing but pain. 

“I didn't realize you liked me too,” you make a face, about to tell him off, but he interrupts “I didn't! I thought you liked Yeri and I thought you saw me as the annoying guy who wouldn't leave you alone. I only just realized it a couple years ago, because Woo told me.” 

You raise your eyebrows and mutter under your breath “I'm murdering him tomorrow.” 

The corner of his lips twitch before he shakes his head in dismissal of what you said “I liked you. I really, really liked you and never told a soul because… Well, it's scary when you fall in love, right?” 

“San, you had no problem telling Arin, Minseo or Kyungmi that you liked them.” 

He looks down to the floor, lost in thought and you want to open your mouth to take what you just said into a new direction, but you don't “Maybe that's because I didn't love them the way I love you.” 

Oh. 

Love you? As in… He loves you right now too? 

No way. 

“You didn't love me, San. You don't love me right now either, you… Maybe we both were in love with the idea of love? Maybe that's what happened and—” 

“Quit telling me what I'm feeling, Y/N. You always do that, you always assume you know what I'm feeling but you don't!” 

Raising your voice a little more, you try to get your point across in the worst way possible: by being stubborn “You don't know me! How can you possibly—” 

“I knew you back then, Y/N! And I loved you back then, too!” He looks like wants to say something more but he doesn't, instead, he takes a calming breath and then leans into your space for the third time tonight “And I might not know you now but I want to. That's what I meant when I said that I want you. I want you in my life, I want to know the person you became when we stopped talking, I want to talk to you every single day and I want to hold you and kiss you and be by your side however you want me to, I just… I can't lose you again.” 

His confession renders you speechless and you notice his chest is heaving, going up and down in sync with yours. 

But the way he pulled away from you senior year still hurts, it paints a picture of what's going to happen if you accept this. 

You can't believe his words. 

He must feel lonely and confused, like he did when Arin broke up with him. He must be looking for a shelter you can't provide. 

“And when you find another girl that's more to your liking? What then, San?” 

“There's no one that I love more than you, Y/N and I'm sorry I was shit at proving it back then and I'm sorry that it took so many years for me to come to my senses.” 

He's tearing up and your heart pangs absurdly loud at that. 

“I saw you with Seonghwa earlier today, laughing and dancing and flirting and I thought: Oh, maybe if I didn't waste that much time pretending I'm someone I'm not, that would be me.” 

You stare for a second, you watch a single tear drop down his cheek and then look away. 

“Is that what you were doing? Is that why you pulled away?” 

“Maybe?” he offers and you turn to him again. Is not enough and maybe he can see it in your expression, because he goes on “I mean, I… I thought I wanted Arin. I thought I wanted Minseo. I had people in my life who were really happy to see me with them and I just…” 

“Wanted to keep them happy,” you nod, understanding. He doesn't have to say his mothers name for you to know he's referring to her and maybe his other highschool friends outside of Wooyoung “Were you pretending with me as well?” 

“No,” he answers right away “You and Woo were the only ones who saw me for who I really was back then.” 

“And why do you think you love me now, San?” you ask, deflating against the couch and ignoring the way your heart soars at his quick response.

“Because I never stopped,” he stammers out and then clears his throat “Because I looked for you in Minseo and Kyungmi and I wondered for years why they couldn't make me feel the same way. And I told myself I didn't need to feel the same way and that I deserved to wonder for the rest of my days but seeing you tonight? I can't.” 

Straightening your spine, the pained look you sent in his direction is not intentional but it prompts him to lean closer and closer until he's cupping your cheek again. 

“I can't keep wondering.” His voice is a sweet whisper, a siren song that draws you in until your forehead is resting against his. 

All these years, you were so self-focused on changing to a better version of who he used to know, learning from your mistakes and closing off to the opportunity of letting him prove himself a better man, you forgot that time passed for him too. He’s telling you he changed, too. 

Imagination is a safe space. Is where you hide, where desire can take its wings and fly high without hurting you too much. Make belief has rescued you before but this? The way his nose nuzzles softly into yours and your breaths tangle? This is very real. And reality is prone to hurt you. 

But the want you feel is undeniable. The way your entire being wants to cave in and give him an opportunity is suffocating, it makes you choke out a sob that he follows with one of his own. 

You kiss him, softly at the beginning, but his hands on you tighten and you let yourself get lost in the way they go down your neck and your arms, caressing you softly until they reach your waist and pull you into his lap. 

Pulling away, you grab his chin with two fingers and force his teary eyes to snap open, searching for an answer on yours.

“If you hurt me,” you start, breathless “If you're mocking me, if you're using me to get over Kyungmi, if you are pulling me back in to break my heart again, Choi San, I swear to God I will kill you.” 

“I won't do that to you ever again, Y/N,” he returns softly “I love you, I'm sorry if I ever hurt you but I love you.” 

Others would argue that it is pathetic how quickly you forgive him. But then again, you could never be mad at San. 

You were only mad at yourself for how everything turned out. 

“I love you too, Sannie.” 

Saying something never felt so freeing before. 

“Oh, Y/N…” you can see the way relief washes his worries away “Y/N…” he starts to say but then leans in to kiss you again and never finishes his words. 

You don't mind it. 

Pouring out all the pent up affection you pretended to bury for years, you explore his mouth and carve into your memory the way he feels. The way he sighs into it when your tongue brushes his, the way he pulls you in closer when your fingers reach the nape of his neck and pull on his hair there, hands splayed on your back so he can keep you in place as he leans down and places you against the worn out couch. 

He maps you out, hands going down your waist in a familiar feeling that brings back that memory of you two laying down on your bed. Only this time, he's actually touching you with a purpose. This time, you two have made up your minds and your limbs are tangled in a way you can feel all of him pressing up against you. 

It starts to get stuffy, the space on the couch not nearly enough to have him the way you want to. Soon, you're both standing up, mouths still moving against each other and hands roaming everywhere until you're undoing the buttons on his shirt. 

He pulls away to fully take it off, eyes never leaving yours, dropping the shirt to the ground, next to the couch and then he's on you again, making your back crash into the wall as he works the knots keeping your blouse together. 

He walks you through the hall, stopping only to take your top off and then he's walking you to a room that has a familiar scent that doesn't belong to you.

“Wrong room, wrong room,” you say into his lips and he laughs, looking to your surroundings “Mine’s over there.” you point to the other end of the hall, taking his hand and pulling him towards it. 

You don't make it far before he's yanking you towards him again. He looks down, taking your body in and you do the same, his firm and defined stomach a sight you never thought you would be able to see. 

“You're so beautiful,” he whispers, backing you against the wall again and kissing your cheek “So, so beautiful.” 

Turning your head to chase his mouth, he lets out a heavy sigh when his lips trail a path to your neck and murmurs against the skin there “I never told you how beautiful I found you before but you're so perfect, baby.” 

“I always thought I wasn't your type, San,” you let out a noise when he grabs your hips and pulls you forward, crashing his into yours “Fuck.” 

“And I always thought you were too much for me, too smart,” he kisses his way back up, focusing on your jaw and chin until he's kissing your cheek again “too pretty,” he moves to your ear, pecking right under it and you hold him closer “too good for me.” 

It doesn't really matter that this is all new to you, the way he's speaking, the tenor of his voice, the things he's saying… It sparks something familiar in you. You're pulling his hair back to make him look at you, a moan slipping out of his lips at that. 

You want to hear it again. 

He's smiling at your reaction, hand tightening on his locks.

However, that smile drops when he seems to recognize the gleam in your eyes. 

You gather up courage, feeling empowered by the way his hooded eyes darken but wait patiently for you to speak your mind. 

“Maybe I'm too good for you now, too,” you lean in, your lips softly tracing his “Maybe you should prove to me that you deserve me, San.” 

It's a dare. One that he seems to like a lot because his eyes sparkle with the same fire they used to back in the day. 

“Oh, I'll prove it to you, alright.” He whispers, panting when you let go of his hair and he leans into you to kiss your lips briefly before pulling away again.

His hand tilts your head back and you rest it against the cold wall, his fingers touch your bottom lip before going down and down and down until they rest against the seam of your pants, unbuttoning them in one swift movement. 

Going back up, his nails softly dig into your skin and you preen, taking the soft sting of his ministrations like you two have done this a million times before.  

His mouth is on yours again, his hands are pulling you off the wall and into your room until you two land on your mattress, a moan spilling out of your lips when he sloths his knee in between your legs and pulls them apart with expertise. 

You don't have the mind to break down what that means. 

Opening your eyes when he kisses down your neck again, you notice your room is barely lit by the street lights outside, curtains pulled open and windows closed but, this way, you can see the way San kisses between your breasts and your belly, catching his eyes when he looks up to measure your reaction. 

You sigh, already feeling some sort of build up going on down there and he hasn't even touched you properly yet. 

You don't even want to think about how wet you actually are. 

He leans back, open palms going down your legs slowly until they reach your feet. It tickles and you can't help but let out a giggle that he joins short after, his gaze never losing the edge because of it, though. 

“San…” 

He guides your hips up so he can take off your pants and you sigh when his hands return, raising your leg up “I missed your laugh,” he says low, attaching his lips to your calf “I miss being the one making you laugh too.” 

You feel like crying again but then he's letting your leg down and grabbing the other one to give it the same treatment, so your tears can wait. 

This time, he moves upwards till his mouth nears your clothed center and your breath hitches. 

Yeah, you can definitely cry later.

“You want me to prove to you how much I want you, Y/N?” he murmurs, his lips ghosting your mound now “How much I love you?” 

“San, p-please…” 

“Fuck, look at you.” He sounds like he's too lost in the heat of the moment and you're kind of grateful, because the moan you let out when his fingers hook on your underwear and pull them to the side to expose your pussy to his hungry eyes is loud. 

When he kisses you right where you need him, you let out another moan. And when he parts your folds to lick a stripe up to your clit, you curse him under your breath until he's laughing against you softly, the vibrations accumulating heat on your belly. 

He doesn't tease you much longer and you look down at him just to catch the moment his self control slips, eating you out like a man starved while his hand stays on your hip to hold you down and keep you underwear from interrupting his feast. 

“This is like,” he dives in again for a few seconds and you grab the sheets beneath you “All my fantasies coming to life but better.” 

He's so chatty during this and the only thing you can do is stammer a yeah? and pray for it to reach his ears.

“Mhm,” He circles your clit with the tip of his tongue and your legs shake “It tastes even better than what I dreamed, too.” 

The heat of his mouth leaves you, lips spreading your wetness through your stomach until he fully reaches your face, your eyes closed and lips already waiting for him. 

Tongue caressing yours, your hands trail down his torso and focus on getting his pants off. You're shaking with excitement so it proves to be more difficult than you imagined at first but he helps you in unbuckling his belt. 

Once the piece of clothing is on the floor (or the bed, you're not really paying attention to where it lands), you don't waste time in feeling him up through his boxers. 

The hiss you get in return makes you smile. 

Bringing your lips to his neck, you suckle on this pulse point and gain another pleased noise before grazing your teeth against skin and moving to his collarbone next.

In a way, you get what he means. If he truly was pining over you the way you were pining over him, the thought of exploring his tan skin and making him moan feels like a dream. 

So you kiss him again in order to make it all last longer. 

The minutes pass between the both of you, softly making out and figuring out what gets both of you going, discarding your underwear in the process. 

You realize your moans make San’s cock twitch against your leg and he seems to notice the way your hips buck up everytime his hands handle you more roughly. 

After a few minutes of just this, you feel his hand making its way down again and the pads of his fingers circle your clit until you're grasping the sheets again. He gathers your arousal and then enters one finger slowly and when it slides in and out with ease, he enters the next one. 

There's really not much prepping he needs to do, already soft and compliant under him, you relax into his comfortable touch before you're aching for something else. And your mouth is preoccupied with his, so you do something else to catch his attention. 

Hands caressing his back, you let them drop to his ass with a soft smack that wins you a soft huff on amusement and then a whine when you move his hips towards yours. 

“Condom?” 

You shake your head “I'm clean and I have an implant.” 

“Oh?” he smirks, about to tease you but you squeeze his butt again and he moans “Fuck. I'm clean too.” 

“Good,” you whisper against his cheek, laughing as he arranges his position. 

And he might've been touching you all this time, kissing you until your mind emptied and your lips are all swollen up, but the look on his eyes when he slowly enters you is what might drive you over the edge. 

Grabbing your hands, he pins them on the side of your head as he moves, dropping his head down with a groan as you take him in, nose touching yours and moth whispering sweet things you can't quite pick up. 

He feels so good. 

This all feels way too good to be real. 

In the cloud you're at, you allow yourself to dream a little more before the reality of what your confessions mean dawns on you. 

For now, you allow San to make love to you. Sweetly, slowly and with a passion you never were lucky enough to encounter before. 

Maybe it's because your previous lovers didn't have your heart the way San does. 

He rams his hips into yours hard, closing his eyes and resting his warm cheek against yours, kissing your face inch by inch when you accompany his movements with your own. 

When his pace picks up, you hug him close and secure your legs around his hips as you moan. 

“Y-yes, fuck.” 

“Like that?” he repeats the movement from before, pulling out and then in with such force it rocks the entire bed. 

“Just like that, baby, fuck.” 

“God, you sound so good,” you smile a little, forehead resting on his shoulder before your head falls down against your pillow again “I love you,” he repeats against your lips, letting your hands go to cup your face with both of his again “I love you so much.” 

Teetering over the edge, you feel happy tears stinging in your eyes. Though closed, you can feel San’s stare on you, on your face, on the way you react to his sweet words and relentless pace. 

You say it back in a whisper and he repeats it again and again and again until you're both coming and tears are spilling down your cheeks. 

He kisses them away. 

You wipe his with trembling fingers as you come down, having trouble breathing from everything that just happened. 

You don't feel suffocated anymore, you feel like you've been freed. Like this was supposed to happen at some point and you two finally got around to it. 

“I love you,” he says once more before slipping out of you with a parting kiss. 

Holy shit. 

When San gets up from the bed and you point him to the bathroom, down the hallway, you're left with a sticky mess in between your legs and a lot to think about but you settle on four things. 

San just made love to you. There's no way that was just sex. 

There's also no way you're coming back from this. 

Gyuri is probably going to kill you. 

And that, obviously, your feelings for San never left. You feel the familiar warmth of them spreading through your post-orgasmic state. They're there, mocking you, asking you who the fuck you thought you were for pushing them away. 

He returns, toilet paper in his hands before leaning in and cleaning you up, lips immediately finding home on your skin as he does. 

You both giggle at that.

You probably need to shower but you've been crying and there's no way you're leaving this bed tonight. He throws the paper away on your bedroom’s trashcan and then crashes into the bed next to you, still naked, still looking at you with so much love you're wondering what stopped you from seeing it was there before. 

Taking his hand, you bring it to his lip and give his knuckles a peck “That was really good.” 

“It was.” 

“I can't believe we actually just did that…” 

He smiles and what he says next shocks you even more than his confession “I want to take you out.” 

“San… You just came inside me not even ten minutes ago.” 

“And?” you laugh and he shakes his head, leaning into your space again “I spent many years doing everything wrong, let me do it the right way.” 

“Making love to me one time and then taking me out on a date is not the right way, sir.” 

He nuzzles your cheek with his nose and you let out a pleased sigh “Who said it was just one time, huh?” Attacking your neck with his lips again, you push him away with a laugh. 

“Oh, come on!” 

He laughs as well “Give me ten minutes and I'll make it two!” 

San makes love to you two more times. And by four in the morning, you're snuggled into his arms and sleeping soundly. 

When you wake up and find the space next to you empty, you think it was all a dream. Your naked form begs to differ and you quickly put the t-shirt you usually wear to bed on and your panties underneath it to go out and face the feelings of your actions fighting with the blender in the kitchen. 

“How do you two live with this stupid thing?” 

“We don't,” you answer, startling him “We don't use it. What are you trying to make?” 

San’s shirtless, wearing his pants and his hair messy. Looking back at the living room clock, you see it's just five past ten. 

Smiling as he approaches you, you forget you must look a mess too when he pecks your lips and barely pulls away “Good morning, beautiful.” 

You pretend to cringe at that, pulling away “Oh, God. Morning, dumbass.” 

“You like it, you're blushing,” he points out and the pink on your cheek deepens as he's going back to the blender “Does anything work here?” 

“The microwave,” you shrug “And the stove. Were you trying to make yourself a…” you look over the ingredients he has pulled out of your fridge “Green juice?” 

“I was trying to make both of us a green juice,” he corrects and your heart skips at the immediate domestic attitude he has with you “But now I can tell neither of you drink anything like it, hm? I'm buying you a blender.” 

“Please don't.” 

“Why?” 

“Why do you think that one is broken?” 

He hums, huffing out a laugh seconds later and you walk over to him, unsure on how to approach him even though what you did yesterday night and earlier this morning didn't allow your shyness to step in. 

Now you're feeling it. 

He can tell, because he stops fighting with the steel appliances to grab your waist and pull you close “I wanted to make you breakfast.” 

“We can make breakfast together and I can order your green juice,” you compromise and he nods, but he doesn't let you go “And later we can go out on that date you promised me yesterday and we can go over what we're going to tell the two idiots.” 

His smile drops. 

“Oh, fuck.” 

Grimacing, you nod “It was the second thing I thought about after waking up.” 

“What was the first?” 

“Oh, I was trying to remember if you ever asked me to dance before,” he nods with a smile “Guess what? You didn't.” 

He fake gasps at that “I did!” 

“No, you didn't!” 

“Babe, yes I did,” he insists and you laugh, which prompts him to wrap his hands around you tighter when you try to get away from him “It was when—” 

“Oh. My. God. I'm going to be sick again.” 

Now when the fuck did Gyuri come back. 

And why is Wooyoung with her too, jaw slack as he watches both of you pull away from each other and create a safe distance that doesn't help whatever your best friends just saw. 

“It worked?” he asks and you can barely hear him until he hollers like a crazy person “Oh, it worked! I am a genius!” 

“Wooyoung, hold me! I'm going to kill them!” Gyuri looks like she's about to launch towards you at any second now, so you close your eyes and accept your fate. But nothing happens “Wait— What worked?” 

When you open them again, San is hiding behind you and Gyuri’s back is to both of you as she looks at Wooyoung with, what you assume, murderous intentions. 

“Gyuri, let's talk about this,” the black haired guy puts his hands up “You were too drunk to discuss it so I made the choice of— Gyuri, no!” 

You burst into laughter when she starts chasing him around the apartment and San giggles as well, only more nervous than delighted by their little cat and mouse game. 

He's probably sensing he's next on her hit list. 

As if you would let anything happen to him in the first place. 

“Stop, stop! I'm sorry, please leave me alone!” you hear Wooyoung’s voice echoing through your hall and in a second he's entering the kitchen, rounding you and San “I'm so happy for you guys, really, this was meant to happ— Stop!” He cries when Gyur catches onto him and yanks his hair to stop him from running.  

“Y/N,” she starts, chest heaving and you take a step back, crashing into San’s chest. He holds onto you only to push you a little and protect himself from the fury of your best friend “When I told you fuck him I didn't meant this!” 

“I know.” 

Wooyoung whines but he can't get away from her grasp so he just accepts it and pouts like a child. 

“A-and you!” She points towards the guy resting his chin on your shoulder “How dare you! If this is something casual for you then—” 

“I love her.” He defends himself quickly and your heart all but stops at that. 

“You do?” Wooyoung coos, amazed at his best friend’s confession. 

Gyuri's anger falters at that. 

“You… You do?” 

“And I love him,” you let out in a shy whisper, smiling a bit “But you already knew that.” 

“Of course I already knew that, bitch, I am your other half,” she makes a point to stare at San as she says it, letting Wooyoung go and he massages the part of his scalp that was targeted by his ex “Don't forget that.” 

“Y-yes ma'am.” 

You laugh again and Woo joins the embrace, eyeing you both expectantly and rolling his eyes when neither of you say anything to him “Well, you are so welcome guys. What are we having for breakfast?” 

You and San don't get to go out on that date. 

But when you do, he asks you to be his girlfriend the next day. 

And when you say yes he almost breaks down in excited tears.

Eventually, even Gyuri comes around and threatens him into treating you right, which means he earned her seal of approval. 

You delete the document on your laptop when you find it a month into being his girlfriend and, instead, start drafting your new beginning on it, in first person this time because the story doesn't feel like it belongs to someone else now.

The first line read as it follows: 

How did I ever think San and I could be just friends? 

If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

© jensthwa, 2024.

[sttoru]

·.⌇ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. your stressed lover comes home from a long day of work and finds you asleep. he can’t help but wake you up in a rather special way.

wc. 1.6k total

tags. dom!jjk men x sub!female reader (gojo, toji, sukuna). smut. general warnings: dark content — somnophilia (consensual). size difference because im self indulgent ; reader gets referred to as small. ehm they’re kinda depicted as perverts. rest of the warnings are given before each character.

GOJO SATORU; cw. cunnilingus. fingering. he’s a bit whiny. nicknames used ‘princess, sweets’. he cums untouched lol.

“mm, fuck. look at my sweet princess,” satoru sighs under his breath. he’s welcomed home by the sight of you sleeping peacefully on the bed, your hips lifted a bit as you rest on your stomach.

satoru’s voice is shaky as he mutters something to himself. he carefully sits on the edge of the bed, trembling fingers reaching out to trace the shape of your plump ass. he can’t not touch you—especially when you present yourself so nicely to him.

it isn’t long before his fingers dip under the material of your shorts. satoru gauges your reaction to his advances and notices the corners of your lips twitching. a sign you’re unconsciously feeling his warm touch.

“fuckfuckfuck. ‘m sorry, princess — i have to.”

satoru gives up any self-control that he had left. he doesn’t waste any time pulling down your shorts and panties to your knees. his already erect cock twitches in his pants at the beautiful scene; your wet cunt in all its glory.

he clenches his fists, desperately trying not to do anything. that determination does not last long.

in just a second, satoru’s already lapping up your juices, his hands firmly holding your hips still. his nails dig into your flesh and he moans once he feels your body instinctively pushing back against his mouth.

“mm, s’rry,” the sorcerer whines in a muffled voice. he knows you’re awake by now—judging purely by the increase of your little moans of pleasure. his tongue doesn’t stop moving between your spread folds, tasting you until your thighs are spasming.

you’re confused when you’ve awoken to a tingly sensation between your legs, though you quickly put two and two together. you’re too lazy to comment on satoru’s sudden actions, only babbling a soft ‘welcome home’ between whimpers.

satoru’s breath hitches the moment you tell him those words. those sweet words. like you don’t mind that he’s dragged you out of your slumber this way. it’s such a turn on—your acceptance to what he’s doing.

“yeah? oh god,” satoru’s nose bumps against your slit each time he moves his jaw, lewdly slurping the fluid your pussy produces. he can feel his dick throbbing against his pants, begging to be released, “ngh, can’t—gonna cum, sweets.”

your lover’s desperate whines make your fingers curl around the bedsheets. the sole image of him cumming in his pants just from eating you out pushes you over the edge as well.

you reach your climax at the same time. satoru lolls his tongue out to catch your juices, moaning loudly against your puffy folds as he feels it trickling into his mouth. he can feel a wet spot forming on the fabric of his boxers, “shit.”

the white-haired man removes himself from behind you, licking his lips for any residue. you lazily look over your shoulder at him with glazed over eyes. his big hands are already working on his belt and zipper.

satoru shows you the dark spot in his underwear and pouts, “ah, look what you’ve done to me, princess—made a mess out of my favourite boxers b’cause of you.”

FUSHIGURO TOJI; cw. tiny hint of implied age gap (reader early 20’s, toji early 30’s). p in v -> unprotected. spooning position. reader gets called ‘little girl, slut, whore’. degradation / objectification.

toji kicks his shoes off and makes a beeline towards his bedroom. he’s in a shitty mood after he had met up with a rude client. despite that, his lips curl up into a faint smile the moment he sees you laying on his bed.

“heh, there’s my little girl,” his voice is raspy, hoarse and utterly exhausted. the older man climbs under the covers and wraps his strong arms around your small figure. he nuzzles his nose into your hair, breathing in the nice smell of your shampoo.

toji wouldn’t be him if his hands didn’t wander all over your skin. his rough palms squeeze everywhere and anywhere—enjoying the feeling of your soft flesh in them. you subconsciously react to his touches by pushing your body back against his.

“. .do not,” toji hisses like you can hear him. he was already half hard on his way home as the thoughts of you clouded his mind, but now that he’s actually with you, he’s fully aroused. especially with your ass pushing back at his aching bulge.

he’s too lazy to get up and get himself off in the shower. thus, he starts off by humping the fat of your ass. the friction isn’t enough for the assassin and therefore he switches to the real thing.

“such a slutty fuckin’ thing. can’t keep my hands off ya,” toji groans into your ear, half hoping you’d hear all the dirty things he’s calling you. your pants are pulled down and your panties are pushed to the side—making way for his fat cock to drill into you.

your impatient lover adjusts your legs so he could have easier access to your tight cunt. the slow strokes inside you make you squirm and tighten up around his throbbing erection. this only riles toji up more.

“hah, y’can feel it even in y’r sleep, can’t you? my cock stretching your tight pussy out—my pussy,” toji corrects himself with a low moan. his warm breath hits the nape of your neck, his hands fondling you whilst he thrusts aggressively.

he doesn’t care if you wake up or not. he’s going to use your delicious body to relieve himself. you gave him the green light when he asked you if he could fuck you in your sleep when he needs it. so, there’s no reason to stop now.

you eventually jolt awake once the continuous stimulation become too much. if it wasn’t for toji’s hand on your mouth, you’d have woken up the neighbours with your loud and lewd moans.

toji scoffs. he keeps a tight grip on your face and thigh, not stopping the rough pounding he’s giving you. he sees your eyes roll back from the unexpected pleasure and he snickers.

his lips connect with yours, muffling your moans that way;

“hah, seems like you needed this as much as i did—waking up ‘n already moaning like a whore. missed me that much, huh?”

SUKUNA RYOMEN; cw. true form!sukuna. has two cocks woops. masturbation (m). turns into blowjob. hairpulling. reader gets called ‘brat’.

sukuna returns to his chambers. finally, after dealing with some sorcerers that’ve had challenged him for a battle. he’s tense, sweaty and obviously in need to blow off some steam. he knows just where to get said relief.

sukuna’s red eyes instantly spot your sleeping form on the middle of his kingsized bed. his favourite little human—resting without a care in the world. the innocent sight is one that sets his loins on fire.

“oi, brat,” the male speaks up as he sits on his side of the bed. the mattress dips to one side due to his huge form, causing your small body to automatically manoeuvre his way. you don’t seem to stir nor wake.

you’ve gotten used to sukuna’s demanding voice to the point that it doesn’t scare you anymore. he smacks his lips in frustration. guess he’ll take care of his problem himself for now.

low grunts fill the spacious room—sukuna’s head lolls back against the headboard whilst two of his hands move swiftly on his now exposed cocks. his sharp eyes are focused on your body, shamelessly checking you out. from the cleavage of your breasts, your clothed cunt to your perfect parted lips; all of you is turning him on.

“fuck, can’t believe this. .” sukuna curses under his breath. he can’t believe how weak he is for you. how his cocks throb and leak drops of pre-cum from just the sight of you sleeping. fully clothed at that.

whilst one set of his hands is busy touching himself, the other reaches out to grope your body. one hand on your chest and one on your ass. of course, sukuna doesn’t pass on the opportunity of smacking the soft flesh.

“i said get up,” sukuna clicks his tongue and tries to wake you again. this time you do actually wake up. a short, inaudible whine leaving your lips. you take a few seconds to process the view in front of you; your lover with both his thick cocks out, pre-cum making the lengths glimmer under the light of the lamp.

it got you horny. immediately. you slowly crawl over between his legs, like you know just what to do. sukuna raises an eyebrow—surprised by your lack of questioning. he’s amused at how fast you took the hint.

“that’s it. you’re learning fast,” sukuna sighs deeply the moment your lips wrap around his upper dick. your small hand jerks off the lower one. both stimulations at once makes the man beneath you grunt in satisfaction.

you still are and look extremely drowsy, though your devotion to sukuna knows no bounds. even in your half-asleep state. the king of curses pats your head—a surprisingly appreciative and loving gesture that he rarely does.

you bob your head carefully, not wanting to gag too much. however, the pace you set is too slow for sukuna who’s waited way too long to fuck you. in any way.

he bucks his hips—thrusting upwards into your hot mouth. his strong hands yank at your hair, keeping you in place as he hears your muffled whimpers of protest. not that he cares; you choking on his fat cock only adds to his pleasure.

“keep it up like that. fuck, where do you want me to cum? in your little mouth? yeahh, you’d like that huh, filthy girl. you’d have to work harder for it if you’re so desperate.”

REBLOG TO SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE CREATORS !!

[floatyflowers]

Hi can you write something about The Lord of the Rings, Elves💗?

Dark Platonic Father Legolas x Isakeied Reader x Dark Platonic Grandfather Thranduil

You awoke in a room bathed in soft, golden light, the ceiling adorned with elegant carvings of trees and vines.

The air smelled of pine and rain, but the unfamiliar surroundings caused you to panic.

Sitting up, you realized something was terribly wrong with you.

Your body was not your own.

Small, delicate hands replaced the ones you remembered, and long strands of silver-blonde hair cascaded over your shoulders.

The reflection in a nearby mirror near your bed confirmed your fear.

This wasn’t you in any way or form, but the body of someone else, and clearly the vibe of the palace indicates you are in a different timeline.

Or rather a different place.

All you can remember is that you accidentally fall from your balcony.

Your breathing quickened, and you clutched at the bedcovers as your heart pounded in your chest.

This had to be a dream, a strange, vivid dream.

Also, something caught your attention...you have elf ears.

The door creaked open, and in stepped a figure who took your breath away, not from awe, but from the shock of recognition.

Legolas.

His impossibly perfect features were softer than you’d imagined, but his piercing blue eyes filled with concern.

"You have finally woken up, are you unwell, iel?" he asked, his voice gentle, filled with concern.

The word 'iel' refers to daughter.

Did you really get reincarnated into Lord of the rings?

How is that even possible?!

You shook your head intensely, unable to speak as confusion overtook you.

His brows furrowed, and he moved closer, kneeling by the bed.

"You’re safe," he said, mistaking your terror for something external like the accident that happened to you.

The accident where you tried to run away.

His hand reached out, but you flinched away.

Not out of fear, because you love Legolas as he is one of your favourite characters.

However, you still are wary of what is happening.

The hurt in his eyes was clear, though he quickly masked it.

"What’s wrong, meleth nín, are you still upset about what happened?"

Now this added more to your confusion, what exactly happened?

"I apologise...I don't remember anything."

It's safer for you to take this route, pretending to have amnesia makes it easier for them not to doubt you if you act strange.

Before the Elven prince could say anything or even think of what to say.

Another figure entered the room, his presence commanding and regal.

Thranduil.

The Elvenking’s icy gaze softened when he saw you, yet his posture remained stiff.

"What is happening here?" he asked, his tone calm but laced with the usual authority.

Legolas glanced at him helplessly, gesturing toward your trembling form.

"She lost her memories, she doesn't remember anything."

Thranduil’s eyes studied you intently, his sharp features is unreadable at first.

But then he smirks.

"Then we will teach her, and make her remember by reminding her."

This made you feel more relaxed than they brought your lie.

But you can't contain your excitement to explore the world of your favourite books.

Yet, you don't know that you won't be allowed to do that.

And what your new grandfather means by 'reminding' is that he and Legolas will tell you false memories.

Only to remodel you into an obedient daughter and granddaughter.

[euphorajeon]

trippin' over, gettin' lost on you | jjk (m)

— pairing: jk x f. reader

— genre: fluff, smut | college au, slight coffee shop au (?)

— word count: 12.4k

— warnings: pov change after the first part (its kinda obvious.. i hope), sleeveless jk, jealous jk, like really jealous, side character yoongi, cameo jimin and hoseok, they work tgt in a coffee shop, boxer!jk is back to his nature (he's boxing again, at last), cocky jk (but he's hot so its ok), usual banter between jk and oc, also banter between oc and jimin, mentions of cuts and bruises from boxing, references to the movie Real Steel, uhh what else i dont rmb anything else this thing is GIANT for me, smut in the form of: kissing, marking (hickeys), making out, an attempt at dirty talk, dry humping, cumming in pants, hint at unprotected penetrative sex at the end (don't do this!). [pls lmk if i missed smth]

— summary: a visit to the coffee shop you work at rewards jeongguk not only with a cup of coffee and a plate of brownie, but also with something else simmering deep in his veins. a challenge is issued, and all hell breaks loose.

— author's note: okay first of all full disclosure i started this in sept 2022 and just finished it today ^_^ i tried to edit it as best as i could, so if you see any mistakes, pls kindly... ignore... thank you... ^_^ that aside, i also feel the need to disclose that this is only my second time attempting to write smut so pls.. be kind.. hehe. okay! i hope you enjoy this absolute giant baby of mine!!

masterlist | boxer!gguk masterlist

There’s an advantage to knowing someone for years. Jeon Jeongguk can attest to this fact from first-hand experiences he’d had with you throughout the many years you both have known each other. He’s seen you cry after you almost drowned when you were ten and you’ve seen him throw up his breakfast after drinking skimmed milk when he was twelve, where both life-threatening experiences had been deemed not serious by young-you and young-Jeongguk who used both experiences as means to roast each other. (Though growing up, your hands automatically grabbed the whole milk carton when grocery shopping with him and he’s never let you go within a five-meter radius of a swimming pool without his supervision.)

Years of friendship with you has also given him the advantage of being familiar with your likes and dislikes, from trivial ones like how you don’t drink coffee because it upsets your stomach to more serious ones like the type of boys you would date in your teen years. He’s never had a problem with the former, instead using it as another mean to annoy you (“You can’t drink coffee? What are you? A child?”), but the latter had always bugged him for reasons unknown prior to his big epiphany a little over a year ago. (Spoiler alert: it was the first time he came home with piercings on his eyebrow and lower lip, when he tempted you into kissing him stupid.)

Now he’s confident that the type of a boy you’d date would be someone who is handsome, tall, has a great smile and tattooed bulging biceps on the side. Add a lip piercing (and a fake tongue one!) as well and he’s sure you’re never going to look at other boys ever again. If you do, well, he’d just make the piercing on his tongue a permanent one, even though that means he wouldn’t be able to kiss you for weeks after. But as said earlier, he’s confident that you only have eyes for him alone.

With that same confidence, Jeongguk struts through the glass door of the coffee shop you’re working at for the summer, going up to the counter with a grin painted on his features. Said grin goes unnoticed by you, though, as you’re busy taking the order of the person in front of him. His lips stay tilted upwards as he watches you work, writing the customer’s name on the cup with your big, round, cute handwriting. Only when you’re done taking the order and the customer’s cup has been given to your coworker do you notice his presence, eyes lighting up at the sight of him.

“Hi, what can I get you today?” you greet him in your customer-service voice and smile like you do any other customer that has come before him. Jeongguk gives you an amused smile, making you chuckle as you key in his order even before he says it himself. He eyes the small screen in front of him that displays his usual choice of beverage, making a sound to stop you from ringing him up.

“Actually,” he says when you hum in question, “could you add milk to that? Make it a latte?”

“You want a latte?” you emphasize the last word, making sure you didn’t hear him wrong. “Like, with milk and foam on top?”

“Uh-huh,” Jeongguk confirms, leaning his elbows on the counter to stare at you as you change his order from an americano to a latte. “Can I also order you on the side? Look too good not to be devoured,” he adds, a sleazy smirk on his lips.

You scrunch up your face at his innuendo, his words hard to believe when you’re wearing a murky brown apron and a matching cap on your head. “I’m adding a brownie,” you deadpan. “That would be seven dollars.”

“You don’t want anything?” Jeongguk asks as he straightens up, hand reaching for his wallet to take out his credit card. “No coffee though, babe.”

“Nope, I’m good,” you answer as you accept the card Jeongguk hands you, swiping it through the card reader. “Yoongi said I can try the new menu in large for free! I’m saving calories for that so no sugar allowed for now.”

His forehead creases upon hearing the new name. “Yoongi? Who’s Yoongi?”

“Him,” you tilt your head towards a mint-haired guy who’s busy making all the drinks, hands skillfully moving from one cup to another. It’s a wonder how he doesn’t spill even a drop of liquid. “I’ll introduce you later but now you have to move, there’s a line. Shoo.”

Jeongguk gives you a playful pout as a protest but complies with your request to move, sliding down to the pick up counter as you greet the next customer in line. There are two people lined up after him, barely a line like you made it sound like, but he figures because it’s an hour before closing that you consider any amount above one person a line. He also notices that you and the mint guy (Yoongi, was it?) are the only ones manning the counter, so it’s not like you have any spare time to deal with him given the amount of work that has to be done.

“An iced latte and brownie for Jeongguk!” Mint guy shouts as he slides the drink and dessert on the counter, lingering for a second when he sees Jeongguk’s hands reaching for his order. Mint guy’s gaze trails up his arms to his face, eyes meeting Jeongguk’s confused ones. Recognition bleeds into his cat-like eyes as his mouth forms into an O shape.

“Kiddo’s boyfriend?”

The low baritone of his voice is unexpected, though that’s not the only thing throwing Jeongguk for a loop. ‘Kiddo’? He has a nickname for you??

Mint guy—Yoongi!—doesn’t take his lack of response personally, instead opting to turn around and talk to you who have just finished taking orders from the customers. Jeongguk can’t hear what words you and Yoongi are throwing around, but from the way you glance at him, it looks like the mint-haired guy is just trying to confirm the answer to his two-worded question directed at Jeongguk earlier.

Your response to Yoongi’s inquiry makes the guy give you double pats on your cap-covered head, triggering a laugh to come out of both of you. While Yoongi’s laugh looks like he’s teasing you good-naturedly, yours looks like a shy one if the pink dusting your cheeks are any indication. It prompts a scowl to appear on Jeongguk’s handsome visage, furrowed brows and clenched jaw. It is not in your nature to get shy.

As much as he wants to stay rooted to the pick-up counter to keep you and Yoongi in his close watch, he has to move his ass somewhere less crowded to avoid getting eye-fucked by the girl next to him who has been staring at his tattoos for the past five minutes. Prior to dating you, anyone who displays interest in his tattoos would make pride swell in his chest, an ego-booster guaranteed to make his day a thousand times better. He used to subtly flex whenever he caught someone looking at his sleeve tattoos, an equally subtle wink on the side if that someone is a girl he found attractive. But after dating you, he realizes that the only attention he wants (and matters) is yours. Now anyone staring at his tattoos with the intention of flirting or getting in his pants just makes him shiver in disgust.

Though, in this particular instance, Jeongguk admits it’s his own fault by showing up to the coffee shop in a sleeveless shirt. It wasn’t intentional, he just grabbed anything within reach when he packed for the gym earlier in the day, but the way he left his hoodie in the car is definitely intentional. He thought he would give you a distraction surprise by baring his sleeve when you’re working, but you seemed unaffected even when he leaned on the counter to flex his muscles. Which is weird, considering you never missed any chance to ogle his inked bicep whenever he’s boxing.

As Jeongguk plops a small piece of brownie into his mouth, he just realizes that your roles are reversed now, with you doing your thing and him doing the staring. His eyes never leave your figure as you ring up three more customers since he sat down, transferring plastic cups onto Yoongi’s never-ending queue of orders. He watches as you take the last two cups by yourself, re-reading the order before moving to grab the ingredients needed for the drink. Your hands don’t work as fast as Yoongi’s, the muscle memory not yet settling in, but Jeongguk can tell that your help is appreciated by the way the mint guy smiles at you while patting your shoulder.

When the orders are all done, you go up to the glass door to flip the sign so it shows the Sorry, we’re closed! side. A glance at the clock tells him that it is thirty minutes until closing time, meaning thirty minutes until you can get out from behind the cashier and into his waiting arms. He hasn’t seen you all day today and all he wants to do is kiss you breathless the second you get rid of that horrendous apron and cap. Jeongguk starts counting down from the thirty-minute mark, hoping time would tick by faster.

Behind the counter, Yoongi is still busy making one more drink while refusing your offer to help. It’s weird seeing your kindness being offered to someone that isn’t him, but Jeongguk supposes this time it’s strictly work-related as he knows Yoongi has been making all the drinks (except the last two that you did) ever since he sat down with his order. Though, it seems like the drink in his hand is not an order at all, because he gives the plastic cup to you instead of putting it on the counter for a customer to take. There’s an almost childish grin on your face as you sip on the drink, eyes lighting up as you shoot Yoongi a thumbs up. After you exchange some more words with Yoongi, Jeongguk watches as you skip happily to his table with your drink in hand.

You place said drink next to his cup of latte on the table before your hand reaches for his drink to steal a sip. “I just have to clean up and wait for everyone to leave, then we’re good to go.” You steal two more sips of the latte just because you can.

“Okay, babe, but I still want my latte, you can put it down now,” Jeongguk chuckles, watching you do as he says with a guilty smile on your face. But then your hand takes the little spoon that came with the brownie to cut a sizable chunk from his half-eaten treat, quickly plopping it into your mouth. “Finish your brownie so I can take the plate away to wash it.”

“Are you just here to steal all of my food?” Jeongguk jokes, no menace behind his words as he reaches up to thumb away a stray piece of brownie from the corner of your lips. “And you said you didn’t want anything when I offered earlier.”

“I didn’t,” you confirm, “stealing from you is just too hard to resist.”

Jeongguk would’ve continued the banter if not for Yoongi calling your nickname from behind the counter, signalling for you to get back to your job.

“Boss calls,” you say, sneakily stuffing some more brownie into your mouth. “Should get back. Bye!”

“He’s your boss?” Jeongguk asks incredulously, glancing at the mint-haired guy who’s still busy moving around behind the counter. “That young guy is your boss??”

“Yeah, I’ll explain later,” you wave your hand dismissively, turning to leave. “Don’t steal my drink!”

In true Jeongguk fashion, of course he steals a sip from your drink. He does it just to be petty that you won’t explain anything about Yoongi, but he’s also curious what the new menu tastes like. He doesn’t remember seeing any banner for a new menu when he entered the shop earlier, so he’s guessing it hasn’t gone on sale yet.

He scrunches up his face the moment the drink touches his taste buds, tasting the bitterness of coffee among the layers of other flavors. It’s not as strong as the americano he usually has, but he can still feel it linger even after he swallowed the drink. Definitely not the type of drink you’d order on your own, though, so why were you so excited to try this new menu?

Looking around the shop, Jeongguk’s gaze falls on Yoongi. You did say he was your boss, didn’t you? Could it be that this free drink is just a plot to use you as a guinea pig for his experimental weird recipes, knowing that you can’t refuse your boss? Was that why he refused your help earlier? So he could make the drink taste as bizarre as it is right now?

His eyes continue following your and Yoongi’s figures behind the counter, squinting them in distaste whenever he sees you laughing at something the mint-haired guy said. Your smile, your lowered gaze, your shy demeanor, all remind him of a feeling he thought he had buried a long time ago—the same feeling he got whenever you got a boyfriend in your adolescent years. Suddenly, Jeongguk feels fifteen all over again—a clueless doe-eyed boy who donned t-shirts in every color of the rainbow every day of the week and strutted like he owned the school just so you can see that he was cool, only for you to deny him of a Sunday together.

Those years have become a core memory for him that it inspired him to get one of his tattoos: Rather be dead than cool, because he realized the way to your attention was not by being cool, it was by just being himself. (Yes, the ‘him’ who showed up unannounced at your doorstep after two years and ended the day with you on his lap stealing all the breath straight from his lungs.)

Anyways, all of that doesn’t matter because currently, your eyes are not on him but on your mint-haired boss who’s busy grinning while washing some equipment. Why are you both smiling so much around each other? Do you have some kind of inside joke that’s so funny you can’t stop laughing? What is so pleasing about Yoongi’s presence that you keep beaming at him?

Jeongguk chews the straw of your drink in anger, not realizing that he has inhaled almost half of the cup’s content despite claiming that he hates the taste. Sipping on your drink has become an afterthought as he was busy analyzing how wide your smiles are while working with Yoongi and how friendly the shoulder and head pats you give each other are. It’s sickening.

Eventually, everyone else in the coffee shop left and you’re in front of him once again to get rid of the brownie plate from his table, whining when you see the half-empty cup in Jeongguk’s hand even as you’re chewing the rest of his brownie in your mouth. Fair trade, he says as you walk away with the plate and spoon in hand.

Not even five minutes has passed since you left his table, yet Jeongguk feels tired of being patient, taking your and his coffee cups in each hand before coming up to the counter. It seems like Yoongi senses his presence, because he looks up from the calculator app on the tablet in front of him to give Jeongguk a curious glance. Their eyes meet for a split second before Jeongguk moves his gaze past Yoongi’s shoulder to you, who’s still busy wiping down the counter. A knowing smile curves on Yoongi’s lips.

“Hey, Kiddo,” Yoongi turns towards you, the nickname still irritating to Jeongguk’s ears. “I’ll finish closing up, you can go. Great work today.”

“No it’s okay, I can help you mop the floor after I’m finished with the counter.” You don’t even look up as you wave him off, oblivious to Jeongguk’s presence and his increasing impatience in front of your boss. He clears his throat comically loud, making you turn around to see a frown etched on your boyfriend’s face and Yoongi tilting his head towards him with a small, almost teasing smile on his face.

“Oh.” You pull your lips into a thin line. “Okay then. Sorry about him, Yoongi.”

“No worries, Kiddo.”

Yoongi’s nonchalant response is laced with a chuckle, which for some reason, upsets Jeongguk even more than the nickname he keeps calling you by. Is Yoongi not scared of him? Of his tattoos, of his muscles? Is he not intimidating? Can’t he feel the piercing stare Jeongguk keeps giving him ever since he walked into the coffee shop?

“You.” Your stern voice tears his hot gaze away from the mint-haired guy, whose focus is back on the calculator on his tablet to count the sales they made today. “I’ll clock out first then we can go. Please don’t do anything weird in the five minutes that I don’t have my eyes on you.”

Jeongguk follows your figure with his eyes until you disappear into the backroom, leaving him alone with Yoongi. Yoongi, the guy with the mint hair, whose surname he doesn’t even know, who is your boss that strangely have an endearing nickname for you. Things that stream steady questions into his head, about your initial meeting with Yoongi to the extent of your relationship with him. It’s the nickname he can’t seem to shake off of his mind, the way it rolls easily off Yoongi’s tongue, as if he’s been calling you that for years. Has he known you for years like Jeongguk has? Been through near-death experiences with you like Jeongguk has? Has he deserved the right to call you by a nickname like Jeongguk has?

“You can stop shooting daggers at my head, you know,” Yoongi’s low drawl almost makes Jeongguk think that he’s talking to himself, but the sentence is clearly directed at him. The older guy finally looks up from his tablet to look at Jeongguk in the eyes for longer than a second, no coffee orders to complete to interrupt their interaction this time. “Kiddo’s boyfriend, Jeongguk, right?”

As Jeongguk gives a nod to confirm Yoongi’s question, a hand is extended towards him to complete the introduction. “I’m Yoongi, Kiddo’s coworker-slash-boss.”

Jeongguk grips Yoongi’s hand with more strength than necessary, unintentionally flexing his muscles too. He thought that would be enough to tell Yoongi that Jeongguk is your boyfriend and he has no business being so friendly with you, but Yoongi only glances at his tattooed arm before letting go of his hand with a comment about how strong his grip is.

“Thanks, I do boxing,” Jeongguk mutters curtly, upset at the degree of nonchalance Yoongi is showing. He starts glancing at the door to the backroom where you currently are, wishing you would emerge right this second so he can go and doesn’t need to face Yoongi’s mint hair ever again.

“Yeah, Kiddo might have mentioned that a few times, just like she won’t shut up about your sleeve tattoos,” Yoongi says, going back to his tablet. “I used to box too, by the way.”

If you asked Jeongguk what Yoongi used to do, he wouldn’t be able to answer at all as he chooses to focus on the part where Yoongi said you won’t shut up about his sleeve tattoos and tune out the rest of his sentence. “My tattoos? What about them?”

“She said you have tons. Shoulder to fingertips. That’s how I recognized you when giving your order,” Yoongi answers lightly, which piqued Jeongguk’s interest even further. Wouldn’t it be fun to use this coworker-slash-boss of yours to get information about what you’ve been saying about him at work? What else does Yoongi know about him other than he does boxing and has a sleeve tattoo?

“Really? Does she gush about how hot they are to you, too?”

It’s not a question meant to be answered, its sole purpose to show off that you indeed gush to him about how hot his tattoos are. Though, if one thinks about it, why would Jeongguk need to boast to Yoongi about the compliments you give him about the strokes of ink on his arm? What business does Yoongi have knowing about it?

Yoongi seems to be unaware of Jeongguk’s inner dilemma as his face breaks out into a grin. “I think she’d be mad at me if I told you half the things she gushes to me about you.”

So you do gush about how hot his tattoos are to Yoongi. Interesting.

The fact that Yoongi insinuates there’s more to that is both endearing and terrifying to Jeongguk, because while he’s giddy that you talk about him with other people with so much enthusiasm, too much of it could end up in you sharing something about him that you should not have. Not to mention you’re sharing it with your boss, someone you should keep at an arm’s length when it comes to sharing about your significant others. One wrong move and he could use it against you.

Jeongguk is just about to ask Yoongi to elaborate further on his statement when you step out of the backroom, now out of the murky brown cap and apron and in a white t-shirt that looks like it belongs to Jeongguk. All thoughts of Yoongi knowing all sort of things about him evaporates right away, his mind focusing on how cute you look instead. If only Jeongguk doesn’t know basic human decency, he’d pull you by the waist to taste the mouth he’s been deprived of for the whole day, not giving an ounce of care about your boss watching the whole thing.

No, he’s a good boyfriend so he opts to pull you by the shoulders instead, letting your arms go around his waist before squeezing you in his arms. The kiss he drops on your cheek is chaste yet lingering, like he wants to let you know just how much he missed you. You tighten your arms around him in return, wordlessly saying the same thing back.

“Ready to go?” Jeongguk mumbles into your hair, not yet letting go of the hug.

“Ye—oh, wait!” You pull your face away from its initial position on Jeongguk’s chest. “You haven’t met Yoongi yet.”

“We did, Kiddo,” Yoongi waves you off. “You’re free to go. Your boyfriend here has been waiting long enough.”

“No,” you say, pulling away from Jeongguk’s hold. “I mean I haven’t introduced you two properly.” You gesture to the both of them back and forth as you say their names. “Yoongi, meet my boyfriend, Jeon Jeongguk. Jeongguk, meet my boss, Min Yoongi. His family owns this coffee shop.”

“That’s what you mean by proper?” Jeongguk says to you as he takes Yoongi’s hand for the second time that day, regular grip this time because you’re watching his every move like a hawk. “I didn’t know you own the shop. Nice place,” he nods to the older guy, releasing his hand.

“Thanks. It’s my dad’s, though. I just help from time to time,” Yoongi shrugs.

“You ‘just help from time to time’ but willing to dye your hair mint in honor of the new menu.” You nudge his elbow playfully. “Speaking of the new menu, did you finish the whole cup, Jeongguk? I’ve only had a few sips.” You frown as you bring the cup to your eye level, examining just how much of it is left. It’s an exaggeration, obviously, as the cup in your hand is still half-filled. But Jeongguk plays along, saying the reason why he inhaled your drink is because he’s tired from having just gone back from boxing.

“You have your own latte,” you point out, finally taking a much-deserved sip from your free drink. It still tastes okay, so you stop grilling Jeongguk about stealing your drink (even though you kinda stole his too, in the middle of your shift nonetheless.) “Oh, and did you know Yoongi also—”

Yoongi clears his throat loudly before you can finish your sentence. You look up from your drink, alarmed, afraid you might have said something wrong. Your eyes meet Yoongi’s and he gives you a tiny shake of his head, one Jeongguk doesn’t notice because he’s busy taking sips from his own cup of latte. (And because he’s more focused on you than Yoongi.)

“He knows, I told him I used to box too,” Yoongi says.

“You did? I didn’t catch it,” Jeongguk averts his eyes from you, turning to look at Yoongi. “Wanna have a match? I could use an opponent for my session tomorrow.”

“I said I used to, Kid,” Yoongi re-emphasizes on the two words. “I have a shoulder injury. It’s healing, but I still shouldn’t do too much to it.”

“Oh come on, I’ll go easy on you.”

“Jeongguk!” A slap lands on his bicep courtesy of you.

“What? He said it’s healing!”

It’s only now that Jeongguk witnesses the exchange between you and Yoongi using only your eyes, yours looking frantic while Yoongi’s looking as cool as a cucumber. Maybe he should dye his hair a shade of green resembling a cucumber rather than a mint.

After watching you and Yoongi have a silent conversation for a minute, Jeongguk lets out a sigh as he takes the final sip from his latte. “It’s okay, babe, I was just kidding. It’s fine if Yoongi doesn’t want to have a match with me.” He throws the empty cup into a trashcan nearby. “It just means that he backs down easily from a challenge.”

You physically face-palm at his sentence, missing the way Jeongguk throws a challenging smirk Yoongi’s way. The older doesn’t seem fazed at all, instead letting a small smirk take over his features as well. “That’s not a really nice thing to say to someone you’ve just met,” he drawls.

Jeongguk shrugs. “Just stating the truth.”

“Jeongguk, please stop,” you whine from behind your hands, still facepalming because you don’t want to become a witness in case this coffee shop becomes a crime scene.

“Alright, I’ll have a match with you,” Yoongi says finally, tone resolute. You peek out from the cocoon of your hands, glancing back and forth between your coworker-slash-boss and your boyfriend who are having a staring contest, both refusing to back down. “Tomorrow after my shift works? Kiddo here can take the same shift so she can watch us too.”

“Sure,” Jeongguk agrees without a pause. “It ends at three, right?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. See you then.”

Then Jeongguk puts his arm around your shoulders, pulling you away from the counter to finally go take you home as it’s the reason he came here in the first place. You hastily give your coworker a wave goodbye over your shoulder, getting a wave back accompanied with a laugh. Jeongguk uses the opportunity to steal yet another sip from your drink.

“Stop it! You’re gonna finish it all!”

“What even is it? It tastes really weird.” Jeongguk scrunches up his face.

“It’s mint mochaccino, you ass.” You pull the cup away from him, who chases the straw with his mouth while grinning wide. “Stop or I won’t kiss you until tomorrow morning.”

“Always withdrawing kisses when I need them the most,” he pouts, retreating from your drink to let you finally finish the cup yourself. “Can I kiss you in the car or should I wait until we get home?”

(Does not matter what you answer is, because he grips the back of your neck in the car to make out with you for five minutes, and then finish what he started in the safety of his room, under the blankets.)

“Are you sure you want to fight with Yoongi later?”

You and Jeongguk are back in his car, on the way to the coffee shop for you to start your shift and for Jeongguk to get his americano to kick off the day. His nod to your question is firm.

“Yeah. My coach said it’s good to train with an opponent sometimes.”

“You could’ve fought with your coach instead, then,” you point out.

“True, but—” Jeongguk tilts his head, sucking in a breath. “He’s the one who trained me, so he knows my fighting style and pattern. It’s good indeed, but it’s missing that element of fun.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Besides, I want to know what your Yoongi is made of.” He casts a glance at you to see your reaction.

“What ‘my’ Yoongi, what are you talking about …” You heave a sigh, massaging your temple. It’s not even 9 AM yet but you can already feel a headache coming. Sometimes you wonder why you’re willing to date this childhood friend of yours, knowing all of his flaws and bad habits like this. Though it’s given you the advantage of being able to read between the lines of his actions, often you wish he’d just say things outright without you having to dig it out of him.

“You know, the Yoongi you work with? The Yoongi who gives you head pats? The Yoongi who has a nickname for you?” Jeongguk’s tone gets more annoying near the end of his sentence, almost as if he’s trying to get a certain reaction out of you.

“The Yoongi who owns the cafe I work at, which is the sole source of income I have?” you reply instead, refusing to give in to Jeongguk’s silent provocation. “Also, the Yoongi who used to box. I think you should keep that in mind when you fight him later.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bet he wasn’t even that good.”

You manage to arrive at the cafe unscathed, only losing a tiny piece of sanity because your boyfriend couldn’t keep his mouth shut about Yoongi and his non-existent boxing skills (Jeongguk’s words, not yours.) It doesn’t help that the Yoongi in question is already standing behind the register, greeting you with a smile and throwing a lopsided smirk your boyfriend’s way. You don’t like the thick tension between them at all so you quickly slip into the backroom to let Jeongguk be a big boy for once and order his own americano for the day.

Stepping out of the backroom in your mandatory work apron and cap, you’re kind of relieved when you see the shop is still intact, not thrown upside down courtesy of your boyfriend and his inability to control his strength (and emotion) in the face of a threat (read: Yoongi.) Upon seeing you, Jeongguk pushes himself off the counter he’s leaning against before reaching for your waist despite your boss standing just a few feet away. The cup of americano on the counter tells you that you took too long in the breakroom, which if anyone asks, you’d justify with adjusting your work attire. In reality, you just don’t want to face your boyfriend and the sour look he has whenever he so much as glances at your boss.

“You can always cancel the fight with Yoongi, you know,” you murmur, biting your bottom lip in worry. “You could hurt him, he could hurt you … it’s not ideal.”

“Hmm.” Jeongguk purses his lips. “What’s not ideal is your boss having a nickname for you.” There he goes again, always having something to say about Yoongi. “Aside from it being highly unprofessional, it’s also inappropriate since you have a boyfriend and that is me. Jeon Jeongguk. I am your boyfriend.”

“Jeongguk, he knows,” you groan, fed up with the back-and-forth about this whole Yoongi thing. You don’t even know why your boyfriend is so threatened by the older guy when he’s a whole lifetime ahead of him. “It’s not even a nickname. You’re just seeing what you want to see.”

Jeongguk’s reply never makes it out of his mouth as he’s interrupted by Yoongi clearing his throat, making you both look at him tapping on his wrist to signal the time. It’s a reminder that you’re here to work, not to continue the argument that sparked in the car. Your boyfriend rolls his eyes at your boss, sharing a hard stare with him before deciding to do something one should not do in front of their boss: dip down to kiss you, using your surprised gasp as a way to slide his tongue inside your mouth. In the five seconds he manages to tangle his tongue with yours, you completely missed the sound of the glass doors opening and the low whistle that came after, along with Yoongi’s chuckle and greeting to the person who just came in.

Shoving Jeongguk away by your hand on his chest, you try to cover your burning face with your other hand as an attempt to save your dignity in front of Yoongi, though you doubt it’s working at all. Jeongguk licks his lips then winks at you, squeezing your waist in his grip before stepping back to grab his cup of americano, now full of condensation sliding off the plastic cup. He takes a sip to taste test before scrunching up his nose.

“Could’ve been better,” he sneers, making you glare. “Alright, I’ll let you get to work. See you later, babe.” Then, after a second, turns to Yoongi to add: “you too.”

When Jeongguk disappears into his car, you put your head in your hands and let out the loudest groan known to man. “I’m sorry, Yoongi.”

The mint-haired guy only gives you a gummy laugh, eyes turning into crescents as he shakes his head. “Your boyfriend is really something, Kiddo,” he muses. “A really … fun early morning entertainment, you could say.”

“Entertaining it was!” You hear the voice first before you see the person, the one who must’ve come in when you were rather preoccupied with your boyfriend. Park Jimin, your other coworker, slides behind the counter in a brown apron identical to yours and Yoongi’s, just minus the cap. Good, that means he doesn’t have a bad hair day today and can take the position at the register instead of you. You could use some more time to learn to make the drinks, anyway.

“Didn’t know you and your boyfriend were such exhibitionists, Kim,” Jimin taunts you, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. “Although, if my boyfriend were that hot, I would have wanted to exhibit him too…” He purses his lips in an exaggerated manner of faux thinking, obviously trying to rile you up. “Lucky you, Kim.”

“Shut up, Park,” you seethe through your teeth, slapping him with a dish rag while he cackles happily. “We’re not exhibitionists. You just have terrible timing.”

“Oh, it was perfect I’d say, just in time to catch sight of his tongue going into your mouth—”

“JIMIN!”

When Jimin continues making fun of you by making gross kissing sounds, you turn to Yoongi for help. As the oldest amongst you three, he must have a sound solution to get Jimin to stop making those awful sounds and put you out of your misery. Although, your trust in him is probably misplaced as Yoongi just chuckles and tells you something your own mom would tell you whenever you’re telling on Jeongguk: “Just ignore him, Kiddo.” The sacred word of ignore. “Go prepare the breakfast pastries now.”

So much for sound solution.

You go about your shift as usual, with Jimin manning the register like you planned to. Time goes by quickly when you’re busy working (and when your coworker is Park Jimin) that you didn’t realize it’s almost time for your shift to end. You glance at the line in front of Jimin and see that there are still three more people he needs to serve, while you and Yoongi still have about five tickets to finish before you can clock out and leave. Scratch that, might be eight tickets to go considering the workers who have their shift after you aren’t here yet. It’s gonna be a while before you can see your boyfriend and be a witness to an unnecessary fight between him and Yoongi.

“Hey, Kim, where’s your boyfriend? Didn’t you say he was gonna pick you up from work?” Jimin nudges your elbow when he finishes taking one customer’s order, sliding a plastic cup into the queue in front of you. “I want to see just how hot he really is,” he continues while wiggling his eyebrows.

Before you can slap the guy with your dish rag again—it’s looking more like your weapon rather than a cleaning tool at this point—Yoongi pipes up from his position in front of the sink. “Just look for someone with a tattoo sleeve. He loves brandishing it.”

“Ooh, a hot guy with tattoos,” Jimin whistles. “Add some piercings and I might steal him away from you.”

“Jimin, quit drooling over my boyfriend,” you sigh, taking the next cup in line as your coworker turns back to the register. He’s already starting to greet the next customer when you decide to give him a taste of his own medicine, sliding next to him to brew the espresso needed for the order you’re making. “He has one on his lip, but he’s mine. Note that, Park,” you whisper to him while he’s keying in an order, earning a light chuckle from the man.

“He’s just messing with you, Kiddo, don’t mind him,” Yoongi chuckles from beside you, eyeing Jimin whose focus is currently on the cup he’s scribbling a customer’s name on. “He has his eyes set on someone else already.”

“Gossiping, aren’t we?” Jimin turns to you and Yoongi with a sleazy smile. “Careful now, unless you want Hoseok to know about your hot boyfriend too, Kim.” He gestures to the glass doors, where Hoseok from the next shift just walked through. He’s a great guy, but you’ve only shared a couple shifts with him, so you think you haven’t got to the point of sharing about significant others.

With the mention of Hoseok, you and Yoongi move to finish the orders you have left before handing over the shift to the aforementioned man. When all your orders are done and you’re ready to head to the backroom, you turn to ask Jimin to go with you only to find him still rooted in front of the register. “Jimin, you’re not going?”

“Oh, I’m actually covering for Eunbi.” Jimin shrugs, sliding a cup into Hoseok’s line of orders. “Go, Kim. Have fun with your boyfriend,” he grins, sending you a teasing wink.

Hoseok, a clueless witness, looks at the both of you with a scandalous stare. “What, what, what did I miss? Why are you winking like that, Park Jimin?” he says, urging Jimin to elaborate while pouring drinks into a plastic cup.

“You should ask her, Hobi,” Jimin snickers into his hand as he turns to greet a customer. Hoseok turns to you, his expression hopeful that you will shed light on the reason behind Jimin’s wink.

“My boyfriend is about to fight with our boss and I don’t know how to talk him out of it,” you say through your teeth, giving an overly-sweet smile to a confused Hoseok. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet him and make sure he’s not gonna bite Yoongi’s head off.”

“Bye, Kim,” Jimin sing-songs, waving his hand to you. “Say hi to your boyfriend for me!”

You’re already walking away, turning to tell Jimin off when you bump into Yoongi who’s just came out of the backroom, void of his work apron and ready to go. He grabs your shoulders to turn you around, pushing you into the backroom to prevent anymore banter between you and Jimin. “Let it go, Kiddo.”

In the backroom, you catch a text from Jeongguk saying that he’s already in the coffee shop, ready to go when you are. You emerge from the room after clocking out, moving your feet to the dining area of the cafe while waving to Jimin and Hoseok behind the counter. Scanning the room, you search for a familiar mop of black hair that belongs to your boyfriend.

It’s easy to spot Yoongi’s mint hair amongst the sea of other natural-colored hairs. What’s not easy is believing your eyes when you see the person sitting in front of Yoongi waving wildly at you, grinning like a mad man. It’s your boyfriend, the person you’re supposed to see after work, the person you’re supposed to supervise when he fights your boss later, alright, that part you know. The part that you don’t know and have a hard time believing is:

Jeongguk’s hair is mint.

Not black, not brown, not the experimental half-half he tried in high school. Mint.

The exact same shade as Yoongi’s.

It feels like you’re on autopilot when your feet carry you to their table, jaw on the floor while your eyes are stuck on Jeongguk’s freshly-dyed strands.

“Hi, babe,” your boyfriend has the audacity to say, lips stretching impossibly wider. He reaches up to run his fingers through his mint hair, an act so deliberate even Yoongi sighs at the sight of it, but it makes your heart skip a bit nonetheless. “Do you like my new hair?”

The light green strands previously tangled with his fingers fall back to cover his forehead and frame his face perfectly, the light hue somehow blending well with Jeongguk’s skin tone. It also accentuates his jaw more, making it appear sharper when the grin on his lips morphs into a smirk once he notices that you can’t stop staring. Oh, that smirk. Usually hot with his previously black hair, it is now lethal with his mint hair, toeing the line of playful and dangerous at the same time.

You want to scream at the obvious and cheesy question.

Yoongi, the third person who’s been watching the entire interaction unfold before his eyes, clears his throat. “If you’re done eye-fucking your boyfriend, can we go now? I have somewhere else to be after this.”

“Yoongi!” you whisper-shout, half scandalized, half disbelieving that your boss can say something so crude in the middle of his own buzzing coffee shop. Maybe he’s been hanging out with Park Jimin too much. (Or maybe he’s just sick of you drooling over your boyfriend time and time again … yeah, maybe that.)

“Can’t wait to lose to me, Min?” Jeongguk snickers, taking your hand in his as he follows Yoongi—who pointedly ignores his taunting question—towards the glass door of the coffee shop.

You catch Jimin’s eyes as you’re stepping out, his eyes rounding in surprise before a sly smile takes over his features. Have fun! he mouths, giving you a wink. Ugh, you’re gonna face a lot more questions the next time you have a shift together with him.

After another futile attempt at talking Jeongguk out of fighting with Yoongi, you’re seated where you usually are, on the sidelines of Jeongguk’s gym, this time with heightened anxiety out of fear that your boyfriend and your boss could hurt each other. You’re worried less about the physical part—boxing is a very physical sport, after all—and more about the mental part.

Boys are full of pride, full of ego. They pride themselves on their ability to box, delivering punch after punch until their knuckles bruise. They pride themselves on their muscles, bulging biceps that took years to build and maintain. They pride themselves on their strength, how they are able to hold you up against the wall when you’re busy sucking air off each other’s lungs.

Oh, and in case it’s not clear, by boys you mean Jeongguk.

You have a lot of faith in your boyfriend, of course, but knowing Yoongi’s boxing skills, no matter how long ago it was, the outcome of the fight today could just be the one that would hurt Jeongguk’s pride. The possibility of it happening is so high that you’re already preparing yourself for when Jeongguk comes back to you with his ego bruised. God, you can only hope Yoongi won’t hit too hard.

You’re too busy thinking of the many possible outcomes of this fight that you don’t realize when Jeongguk is back from putting his gloves on and warming up, now standing in front of you. “Wish me luck?” he says, along with a toothy grin your way.

“Yeah, good luck, Ggukie,” you reply, lacking your usual sarcastic bite. Jeongguk seems to pay no mind to it, though, ducking down to peck your lips before turning around to face his opponent for the day.

You catch Yoongi’s eyes when Jeongguk has his back to you, quickly mouthing don’t hurt him! to your boss, which he only responds with a smirk. All the blood drains from your face. Looks like your worries about someone getting his ego bruised won’t be just worries after all.

When the fight has started (Jeongguk’s coach started it—you’re grateful he’s there because then you don’t have to worry too much about Jeongguk and Yoongi beating each other to a pulp), you can’t help but watch. You just realize, in the years you’ve known Jeongguk and watched him box, you’ve never actually seen him fight anyone else other than his coach. He’s said before that he only took boxing as a way to work out, not to actually fight, so you guess that makes sense.

You don’t watch boxing matches a lot (actually, you don’t watch them at all), your only knowledge of boxing you get from watching Real Steel, a movie about boxing matches for robots, set in the far future when human boxing is not interesting anymore due to the limited brutality. You’re not sure how much information you retained from the movie, and how accurate they are, but you’re pretty sure you don’t need much boxing knowledge to know that right now, Yoongi is playing defensive while Jeongguk is playing offensive.

Alright, you admit, you have no idea if the terms you’re using are right, but it’s the simplest ones you can use to describe the sight in front of you. Since the start of the fight, Jeongguk has been throwing punches continuously, while Yoongi has had his gloved hands covering his face the entire time. Okay, not the entire time, but he’s only thrown one punch compared to Jeongguk’s one hundred ones.

As the fight goes on, Yoongi starts throwing punches here and there while still dodging Jeongguk’s aggressive fists. You’ve never seen Yoongi move this much in the entire time you’ve known him, and it surprises you how agile he is. The way he ducks under Jeongguk’s arm and throws him off balance is admirable, sometimes a little bit funny (just a bit, you promise) because it shows just how calm he is compared to Jeongguk’s aggressive, almost-angry boxing style.

When Jeongguk’s coach declares a break, your boyfriend walks back to you with his brows furrowed, tearing off one of his gloves so he can remove his mouth guard and grab his water bottle. After chugging down half of its content, Jeongguk heaves a frustrated sigh.

“I can’t grasp his fighting style,” he grumbles to himself. His eyes are set on Yoongi, who’s on the other side of the room, drinking from his own water bottle. “Who the fuck ducks all the time while boxing?”

“Maybe it’s because you keep throwing angry punches at him, babe,” you say, initially to keep his frustration at bay, but instead it makes him raise his eyebrow at you in a duh way. You backtrack immediately. “Okay, okay. But it’s just your first time fighting him, isn’t it? Be patient, Jeongguk, and maybe let up your punches a little bit?”

“Baby, it’s boxing,” he says exasperatedly. “Someone has to throw some punches.”

“I know, but you just seem so … angry. Yoongi’s only ducking to dodge that. I’m saying maybe you can tone it down so he could stop dodging, so then you can see his fighting style better.” You’re saying this while gripping his biceps, hoping your words can go through his seemingly-clouded mind. “When you see his fighting style, won’t it be easier to figure out a way you can beat him? Isn’t that what you taunted him with at the cafe?”

You know it’s not even remotely possible to learn one’s boxing style just from a single fight, let alone “figure out a way to beat him”. Somewhere in his fogged mind, you believe Jeongguk stores this fact as well, he’s just currently too deep in frustration to place it in the front of his mind. You’re not even sure your suggestion to learn Yoongi’s fighting style is registered well in his head, considering your boyfriend is now back to eyeing your boss with fire in his gaze.

“Jeongguk?” You give his shoulder a firm grip as he puts his mouth guard back on. “Tone it down. Yoongi could just be waiting to punch back. You don’t want that.”

Jeongguk parts ways with you with an absent-minded nod and two pats to your head with his heavy gloved-hand. On the other side of the room, Yoongi looks ready to go back into his fighting stance. You sigh internally. Jeongguk is so going to punch him aggressively, again.

The next thirty minutes of the fight goes like a blur in front of your eyes. Jeongguk throws a hook that Yoongi dodges, Yoongi retaliates with a jab to Jeongguk’s side which makes you wince, rinse and repeat. Maybe you’re wrong about your boyfriend for once, you think, seeing his calmer fighting style now. With the way he left your conversation minutes prior, you really thought he was gonna continue raining punches on any part of Yoongi’s body he could reach. You’re relieved that that’s not the case.

Although, perhaps your relief came too soon because a boxing match isn’t over until it’s over.

Watching Jeongguk fight with Yoongi is like watching a cartoon character with an energy meter atop his head, except for Jeongguk, it measures his patience instead. As the minutes went on, you feel like you could see the patience meter above his head depleting until it’s all gone, and that’s the moment he went back to his initial fighting style: aggressive and angry. You almost pull your hair out in frustration because you just know that this is what Yoongi has been waiting for ever since the fight started.

The next thing that happens reminds you a lot of one fighting scene in Real Steel, where Atom was waiting for his opponent to run out of energy so he can fight back. In the movie, Atom knocked the other robot down with a final uppercut, gaining him a win and advancing him to the next round. Well, uh, in this case, just replace Atom with Yoongi and the other robot with Jeongguk.

Yoongi’s clean uppercut wiped your boyfriend out, who’s now lying on the ground clutching his face—which you’re sure is beginning to swell right now. Despite already knocking Jeongguk down, Yoongi is still in his fighting stance, never lowering his guard even as Jeongguk’s coach counts to ten. Your boyfriend remains immobile, though, and the second the count is up you’re running towards Jeongguk’s limp body.

“Gguk, are you okay? Baby, look at me,” you say hurriedly as you try to pry his arms away from his face. He doesn’t budge, and for a second, you’re scared that Yoongi has maimed your boyfriend for life. “At least let me know you’re alive,” you continue when his silence becomes concerning.

“Hmmph,” Jeongguk grunts. You heave a huge sigh of relief.

“Okay, good.” You run your fingers through his sweaty hair, trying to offer some comfort even though you know he had this coming. Gigantic ego, big talk, cocky as shit? Yeah, you understand that Yoongi would want to knock him down a few pegs. But now is not the time to launch into an ‘I told you so’ spiel, not when Jeongguk is still freshly bruised—both his body and his ego.

So instead, you lash out at your boss.

“I told you not to hurt him, Yoongi,” you snap-slash-whine, a frown on your lips. You thought, as the oldest among all of you, Yoongi could be trusted to knock some sense into Jeongguk’s mind without physically hurting him like this. As it turns out, all boys are the same.

The older guy just shrugs. “Probably wouldn’t get my point across if he weren’t knocked down.” He shakes the sweat out of his hair as he starts taking off his boxing gloves. When he sees you’re not impressed, he chuckles. “Relax, Kiddo, I didn’t even hit him that hard. He’ll be okay.”

“Really, Yoongi?” You roll your eyes. “You gave my boyfriend an uppercut just to prove a point!”

Yoongi just continues laughing as he chugs from his water bottle. His nonchalance about this is starting to piss you off. Maybe it’s your turn to put on the boxing gloves and sock him in the face, give him a taste of his own medicine. You scoff to yourself, picturing your own body lying next to Jeongguk if you really did that.

“Just tell your boyfriend here that there’s no need to be jealous of me, Kiddo,” Yoongi says, picking up his bag. Just then, Jeongguk’s coach appears with an ice pack in his hand, offering it to you so you can place it against Jeongguk’s swollen jaw. Despite your attempt to coax him out of his arm cocoon, he still refuses to move.

“Yoongi, look at him, you really broke him.” You’re flat-out whining now, kicking your feet like a child. It doesn’t even occur to your mind that you’re all still in the middle of a public boxing gym, with other people around you, being witness to this ridiculous scene.

“Oh my God,” Yoongi laughs before crouching down at Jeongguk’s legs. “Hey, Jeongguk, you hear that? Your girlfriend is worried about you,” he says, nudging Jeongguk’s leg lightly. “She only has eyes for you and your tattoos, too, you don’t need to be jealous at all.” You smack him on the shoulder for that.

Jeongguk finally removes his arms from his face at Yoongi’s words, his doe eyes menacing. “Go away,” he grits out at the older male, his scratchy voice making him sound less threatening than he intended. Despite that, Yoongi still holds his hands up in surrender.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Yoongi relents, standing up while adjusting the hold he has on his bag. “Was gonna go anyway, I have a date to get ready for,” he throws a grin your way. “Alright, I’ll be going first. Take care of your boyfriend, Kiddo.”

Yoongi retreats with a wave towards you both.

Jeongguk lets out a groan, shifting your attention away from your boss who’s already backing his car out of the parking lot. “Quit your job tomorrow,” he says. “I hate your boss.”

“Stop moving around!”

“It hurts!”

You’re both back at Jeongguk’s house now, with you sitting atop his outstretched legs on the bed, attempting to take care of his battle wounds courtesy of his fight with Yoongi. Aside from the swollen jaw, Jeongguk has a cut on his eyebrow and a split bottom lip. For a boxing match, you’d say these are minor injuries—proving Yoongi’s words right, he didn’t hit Jeongguk that hard—but your boyfriend is acting like a baby. He keeps jerking his head away every time the alcohol swab comes in contact with either of his cuts, it irritates you to no end.

“You have a goddamn full sleeve of tattoo and a lip piercing, quit acting like this hurts more,” you hiss, pressing the cotton in your hand to the cut on his lip as Jeongguk hiss back in response.

“At least when I got my tattoos and piercing, the artist didn’t do it while yapping my ear off,” he lisps through the cotton. “What happened to the caring girlfriend at the gym? Did she go away too, alongside Yoongi?”

“Oh, shut up, if I yapped back there Yoongi would’ve stomped on your ego more than he already did, do you want that, Jeongguk? Huh?” Your words are harsh, but you try hard for your hands to be the opposite, gentle as they cover the cut on his eyebrow with a band-aid. Jeongguk’s forehead is still damp from his quick shower earlier, beads of mint clinging to his skin. He might look smoking hot with his newly dyed hair, but the way the color rubs off on anything is starting to get onto your nerves. You wipe lightly at the color to make sure the band-aid sticks to his skin and does not come off the second he jumps around again.

“My ego is fine, you don’t need to protect it like this,” Jeongguk grumbles, adjusting the ice pack he’s holding to his jaw as you press a new cotton ball on his lip, discarding the one stained crimson red to his bedside table. “Maybe if you care about me as much as you care about my ego, everything would’ve been better.”

The way he’s rambling like he got his sense knocked out of his head as well makes you roll your eyes to the back of your head. “Don’t test me, Jeon. If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t be here sitting on your thighs patching your minuscule injuries like they’re fucking wounds from a war.”

“Maybe,” Jeongguk half-agrees, a pout on his lips. “But you haven’t kissed me even once ever since the fight ended. Do I not deserve a kiss because I lost? Do you not want to kiss me ever again because I can’t beat Yoongi in boxing? Do you think Yoongi is way better than me now? Do you want him to be your boyfriend instead of me?”

With every nonsensical question, his pout deepens, and his eyes droop to stare blankly at nothing.

“Hah, ‘my ego is fine’ my ass,” you mumble, mostly to yourself as you turn the gears in your head on how to stop the bleeding on Jeongguk’s lip. It keeps gushing out blood, and you can’t exactly stick a band-aid to it like you did his eyebrow. At last, you just hold a cotton ball against it and hope it stops bleeding soon.

“Yoongi was right, you know,” you say clearly now, the tumble of Yoongi’s name out of your lips making Jeongguk glance up and focus his sight on your face. “You don’t need to be jealous of him at all. Heck, you don’t need to be jealous of anyone, Jeongguk. I’m your girlfriend and will always stay your girlfriend, no matter what. You don’t need to beat anyone in boxing or dye your hair the exact same shade as anyone for me to stay. You, Jeon Jeongguk, are enough.”

Jeongguk’s eyes, gazing into yours, are glassy with unshed tears. You don’t know if they are there because he’s touched by your words or are leftovers from crying over his bruised ego from the fight with Yoongi. Either way, it throws you off balance. Next thing you know, you’re being tugged down by the nape for a kiss.

Jeongguk’s lips are warm, like usual, but the tinge of metal you taste on your tongue is making you worry. Before you lose yourself in his kiss, you pull away to thumb at his lip lightly, seeing streaks of red on your skin. You’re about to continue pressing the cotton ball in your hand to his lips and stop all forms of kissing immediately, but your boyfriend has a mind of his own as he instead sucks your thumb into his mouth, wrapping his lips around the digit delicately as he holds eye contact with you.

Gone is the trace of any tears from his eyes, now replaced by something you can only identify as lust. As flattered as you are that Jeongguk finds you desirable in your current situation, it also makes you confused. He’s hurt and the only thing in his mind is getting his dick wet? Unbelievable.

The ice-cold feeling on your waist tears your attention away from Jeongguk’s dark eyes as you yelp, hand instinctively prying the cold thing away. The ‘thing’ turns out to be his hand, which was previously holding the ice pack to his swollen jaw. He’s sneaked his fucking cold hand under your shirt to hold your waist when he should’ve kept holding the ice pack to his jaw—his swollen jaw!

Your boyfriend has a swollen jaw, a busted lip and a cut eyebrow. This is not the time to be screwing around.

Pulling away your thumb out of Jeongguk’s mouth at the speed of light, you attempt to climb off his lap, but he’s read your mind even before they are conjured up in your own brain. His hands are back on your waist—yes, the cold one too—and they hold you firm in place. The side of Jeongguk’s lips turn up into a sickeningly sweet smile, before he tugs your body towards his, making your hips come in contact with his crotch. He’s hard. Oh, fuck.

“You know, I never really understood why you’re so bratty whenever you’re horny and I can’t tend to you right away, but I think I get it now,” he says right by your ear, making a shiver run down your spine. “I’ve been trying to will away my boner ever since you sat on my lap, but your weight on it is so damn distracting, it’s hard.”

“So,” he punctuates the word with a kiss on your neck, “I started saying anything to get my mind off it, but the way you care for me just … turns me on even more, if that was even possible.” He noses his way down your throat, coming to a stop at your collarbone. “And then all that talk about how I am enough … holy shit, I lost it. All I could think about was how I want to kiss you and fuck you into next week on this very bed.”

You can barely hear the last few words Jeongguk is saying, because he’s mumbling them into your skin as he peppers kisses and nips there. His fingers are now pressing into your back, pulling you closer and closer to him until there is no space left between you. You crane your neck so he can have more room to splash reds and purples onto your skin, sighing to the top of his mint head.

“You know, for someone claiming to be horny, you’re doing a terrible job at dirty talk,” you jab at your boyfriend, earning you a bite on your neck and a tightened grip on your body, making you close your eyes with stuttered breath.

“Easy, babe,” Jeongguk chuckles. “You talk as if you won’t be a moaning mess by the end of this,” he continues with much confidence. “But also, my lip is still kinda bleeding and my sides are still throbbing from the bruises. Kinda debating should we continue or just go to sleep.”

“Jeon Jeongguk I swear to God if you leave me high and dry—”

“Maybe you should kiss them better,” he cuts you off with a suggestion, his lips still trailing butterfly kisses on your neck and collarbone. The hands still on your back sneakily climb up and up until they’re reaching for the clasp of your bra, easily opening it to free your breasts from its confines. Your sound of protest gets stuck in your throat as a strangled moan comes out instead when Jeongguk massages your breasts tenderly with his fingers.

“Maybe I would—fuck—if you get rid of your shirt,” you say, tugging on the offending piece of fabric still covering your boyfriend’s gorgeous body. It’s not fair that he’s got you half naked already and he’s still fully clothed.

Jeongguk parts himself from your body long enough to tug his t-shirt off from the back of his neck in one smooth motion, exposing the golden expanse of his skin to your hungry eyes. If you thought his mint hair was smoking hot with his shirt on, it’s literally burning a flame of desire deep in your belly with his shirt off. You’re tongue-tied as you marvel at the sight in front of you, you almost jump when your own shirt and bra are taken off your body.

Now both bare from the waist up, Jeongguk wastes no time leaning back in for a kiss on the mouth, this time open-mouthed so he can slide his tongue inside. You keen happily, slipping a sigh in between as he slowly lowers you to the bed. Jeongguk anchors his hands on your hips, teasing at the waistband of your sweatpants as he keeps your mouth busy with his own. In contrast, your hands are everywhere, from his broad shoulder to his firm back, from his bulging biceps to his rock-hard abs. You even tease your fingers past his waistband, grabbing onto his ass and squeezing, making him groan hotly into your mouth. It’s only when your fingers brush against his sides that he winces, reminding you of his earlier request.

“Flip around,” you whisper against his lips, “so I can kiss your bruises better.”

“Hmm?” Jeongguk hums, your words a murmur in his head. “But I like having you like this. Under me, naked, panting, wet,” he says, slipping his hand beyond your sweatpants to prove his words right—you’ve soaked through your panties. He drags a finger slowly up your center. You shudder.

“Yeah? I can be naked, panting, and wet on top of you as well.”

“Ooh, tempting.” Jeongguk licks his lips. He flicks your clit with a cheeky smile dancing on his lips, before settling his hands back on your waist. “Alright, I’ll flip over.”

The next second, you’re staring at him from up top, admiring how his mint hair looks against his dark grey bed sheets. Although, his hair is the least of your concern right now, as you’re tugged back down for another bruising kiss. Now that you’re on top, Jeongguk takes the opportunity to return the favor that is slipping his hand into your pants to squeeze your ass, but his version involves pulling your hips down while his thrusts up, creating a delicious friction between your body that makes you exhale a moan into his mouth.

You move away from his lips, down to his jaw where you take care to land a kiss light as a feather, before moving to his neck and collarbone where you have your own share of bites and licks. Aside from your infatuation with his tattoos and biceps, you actually have another one with his collarbone, this one you keep secret from him lest he goes around the house shirtless more often just to brandish his clavicle. But maybe he’s already noticed from the way you always make sure to cover that body part of his in blooms of red and purple, taking care to trace each and every bite mark slowly with the tip of your tongue.

While you’re busy with his collarbone, Jeongguk keeps dragging your crotch steadily over his, like he can’t get enough of the feeling and wants to keep chasing it. The delicious pressure on your center is a bit distracting, so you smooth your palm across his chest to pinch at his nipple in warning. Jeongguk lets out a broken whine from his throat.

“Stop humping into me, do you want to cream your pants?” you chide, fingers still giving tiny pinches to his nipple to keep him on his toes.

“Was trying to get you to cream your pants,” Jeongguk grins guiltily, his hips snapping up yet again to collide with yours. Even if you roll your eyes at his antics, you still continue your journey of kissing down his body, making sure to suck and lick on his sensitive nipples. You love the moans and groans that slip out of his throat every time you do things to his nipples. He likes it so much that his hips keep chanting up, searching for friction, that you have to pin them down so you can slide down to pepper kisses on his abs and waist.

Jeongguk works really hard to maintain the body he has, clearly evident in the eight pack he’s sporting on his stomach and the tiny, minuscule waist that’s way too slutty for a man to have. Sometimes you’re jealous of how nice his body looks, how firm it is to touch. You told him this one time, along with your regret that you couldn’t give him a similar experience, but he’d only laughed and said that admiring and appreciating him was enough, before proceeding to show you how he admires and appreciates your soft body (he kept biting into your inner thigh as he was eating you out, coaxing you into four orgasms back to back that day.)

And so, you admire his body by kissing the taut muscle one by one, tracing the lines outlining them with your hot tongue, caressing his bruised waist with the pillow of your lips and the feather of your touch. You know he’s hurt, but you can’t hold yourself from nipping on his slutty waist, gifting him another bruise that’s not a result of a punch. From the choked sob that rips out of his throat and the jump of his dick somewhere on your stomach, you take it he likes the bite.

“So,” you say as you mouth at the seam of his waistband, hand massaging his hard cock through his pants. “Do you want to cum in your pants, in my hand, in my mouth, or—?”

“Fuck, in you, please,” Jeongguk begs, eyes glassy from your ministrations. “But can we go back to dry humping for a while? Kinda like the friction on my sweatpants,” he breathes.

“Like this?” You move your hand up and down his cock, dragging the material of his sweatpants with it, paying special attention to the head. With every rub of the sweatpants against his head, a bead of precum comes out, with Jeongguk throwing his head back in silent pleasure. “Yeah, fuuck, that feels good.”

“But babe, want you, on top,” he demands, making grabby hands at you. “Was serious when I said I wanted you to cum first,” he continues, sighs in content when you oblige, resuming your position on top of him and lining your clothed crotch with his. He starts dragging your hips against his, building the pleasure up the faster he goes. “Want to fuck your swollen pussy, dripping with cum. Oh, I’ll slide right in, no problem, so wet, warm … fuuuck.”

The grip Jeongguk has on your hips is bruising, you have no choice but to let your body be manhandled by him. Slowly but surely, the band inside your stomach begins to tighten as your hold on his shoulders does as well. You’re so close, just one more move to tip you over the edge. When Jeongguk sucks one of your nipples into his mouth, the band inside you snaps and you come with a jerk of your hips and a whine from your throat.

Jeongguk slows down his move, taking care not to cum before being inside you, before stopping altogether and wrapping his arms around you to bring the both of you into a sitting position. Your limbs feel like jelly, still trying to come down from your high, when Jeongguk pecks your cheek before carefully lying you back down on the bed with your face down. He then maneuvers himself behind you, lifting your hips off the bed. You’re starting to have an idea what position he wants you in when he spreads your knees and slowly peels back your pants and panties to reveal your bare ass and pussy.

He takes his time caressing the globe of your ass, inching his fingers towards your pussy lips before spreading them apart, tearing a low whine from your chest. You guess he’s admiring the way cum still drips out of your cunt, because he’s silent, immobile for almost a minute.

“Gguk…” you whisper out. “You gonna fuck me or not?”

Jeongguk scrambles to get his pants off. “Fuck, yes, of course, baby, you just look so beautiful like this, I want to stare all day long,” he breathes, lining up his dick with your entrance.

God, I’m so thankful you’re mine, is his last warning before he slides home in one thrust.

Later, when you’re both freshly showered and cuddling on Jeongguk’s bed—with blue bed sheets this time, because you forced him to change the sheets as the grey ones smelled gross after your activities—you ask him a question.

“Are you still jealous of Yoongi?”

There’s a three second pause before Jeongguk’s answer comes. “Maybe a tiny bit,” he says, nearly connecting his thumb and forefinger together in a ‘tiny’ motion. “Of his boxing skills only. Amazing how he could still move like that with an injured shoulder. I want to be like that too.”

“You want to injure your shoulder?”

He gives you a flat look. You giggle.

“His shoulder is actually healed, you know, so he’s still actively boxing until now. He trains the boxing club at my campus whenever our coach can't, that’s where I know him from and how I’d gotten the job at his cafe.”

Jeongguk purses his lips. “So he lied to me.”

“Hmm,” you agree. “I figured it was to ‘teach you a lesson’, that’s why I asked him not to hurt you before your fight. Did you, though? Learn your lesson?”

“What? To not be jealous of him?”

You pinch his waist. “To knock your ego down a peg and stop feeling insecure whenever I interact with other men?”

“Baby, the guy had a nickname for you. My insecurities were valid!”

“You mean the ‘Kiddo’ one?” you ask. Jeongguk nods. “He calls Jimin Kiddo. He calls Eunbi Kiddo. He calls you Kiddo. He calls everyone younger than him, Kiddo.”

More silence ensues.

“So … my jealousy was for nothing?”

“Yes! What I’ve been saying!”

Jeongguk giggles. Then he kisses you. Then he giggles again, while still kissing you.

“How about an apology?” he offers.

“In what form?” you challenge.

“Round three?”

“No.”

Well, at least he’s not jealous anymore.

a/n: thank you for reading!! please let me know what you think of this, i literally almost cried in the process of writing it and when i finally finished it :') and yes this started because of that one mint jeongguk in memories 2020/2021, i think? the one with him in a black sleeveless and a pair of sunglasses, hahah. wish he'd dye his hair mint again (he looks rly good in it ugh)

→ request is open for my 1k folls celebration!

[yourloveaton]

(THE EVENT HAS ENDED)

WILL TRICKSTER SURVIVE CHRISTMAS?

Welcome to the FIRST TRICKSTER EVENT that is ever hosted on this account ! With the Trickster Day event occurred last month, the threat of being baked is still apparent for Trickster !!! Will he, with the help of his defenders, be able to evade from the people that want to put him in the blazing hot oven, OR is his fate as a baked food already set? Come join to the battle between the OVENERS and DEFENDERS, Trickster’s fate is in your hands !!!!

I. HOW IT WORKS AND HOW TO JOIN

1. You join a team (OVEN vs FREEDOM)

2. Make an introductory post, with your preferred nickname and what team you’re in! This post will not be counted for points, as its only for data purposes!

3. Then you may draw or write for your team! You may draw trickster in any of the designs (nutcracker, gingerbread, og, etc. references are down below ⬇️)

4. Your points will be counted based on the effort given! (see III. for points)

5. Use hashtags #tricksterxmas2024 and #teamoven2024 OR #teamfreedom2024 (pick based on your team)

II. RULES

1. You may only be in ONE team. However, you get ONE chance to change teams if you wish.

2. No AI, tracing, stealing, or any of that stuff (duh)

3. Spamming low-effort sketches (like lazy scribbles or few-sentences of writing) is strictly prohibited!! please put time into your works, so that the event will remain fun and fair for everyone!

4. For writers: please ensure your writing is at least 150 words!

5. Trickster’s design may be modified/changed however you please (just don’t be weird alright :))

6. Trickster may also be drawn with other characters! Have fun with interactions!

7. Failure to follow rules may result in art not being counted for points! As long as you follow the rules and use the hashtags you should be good!!

III. POINTS SYSTEM

Sketches ONLY = 5 points

COLORED sketches = 10 points

Lineart ONLY = 15 points

COLORED lineart = 20 points

Any form of shading = +5 points

(Can be digital or traditional)

Writing, per 150 words = 5 points

For animation/animatics, depending on how much motion the animatic/animation has, we may assign it 5/10/15 points per second

IMPORTANT NOTES

1. To change teams, you must make another introductory post and DELETE the old one, and you must CLARIFY that you’re changing teams!

2. The event period is from the 18th to the 26th (old) December. The results will be out within a week after the event. ONE DAY EXTENSION ADDED IN !!!! The deadline is now on 27th !!!!

3. Please do let me know/ask if you got any questions about the event and I HOPE YOU HAVE FUN !!! 💖

4. BIGGEST LOVE AND KISSES TO @bloobluee FOR WRITING THE RULES AND HELPING ME OUT WITH THE EVENT, THANK YOU SO MUCH BLUE UR THE BEST 💖💖💖

TEAM REPRESENTATIVE REFERENCES

TRICKSTER REFERENCES

The battle… starts… NOW !!!

[sturniqlo]

YOURE YOU- CHRIS STURN

summary: after finding out that they're both twenty year old virgins, both bff!chris and bff!y/n decide to take each others virginity.

cw: cursing, SMUT; unprotected p in v, pull out method, oral!f&m!receiving, making out

an: thank you to this anon and @monroesturnns for the idea

masterlist | join my taglist

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

"Chris! Shh, I can't hear the movie." Y/n puts her hand over Chris' mouth who just can't stop talking. Chris' voice turns muffled and he licks her hand making her pulls her hand away. "You animal!" She gasps, wiping her hand against his shirt.

"You were asking for it, putting your hand over my mouth like that." He pinches her side lightly. "Well you don't ever shut the fuck up while a movie is clearly playing." Y/n points her hand to the movie. "Okay, okay. I'll shut my mouth for the rest of the movie." Chris holds his hands up in surrender. "Thank you, Chris. Now hand me the remote, I missed some parts."

"That's his first time? Doesn't seem like it." Chris says through a mouthful of M&M's, referring to the sex scene that is currently playing. Y/n only giggles, stealing a few pieces of chocolate from Chris' hand. "You never told me about your first time now that I think about it. We've been friends all these years and you never told me." Chris turns to look at her and she feels her face turn hot.

"W-what?" She stutters. "Your first time? How'd it go?" He shrugs as if this is something people talking about in a normal conversation. "I- I haven't- you know." She mutters but Chris couldn't quite hear her. "What was that?" Y/n covers her face. "I haven't had sex yet!" She says, peeking through her fingers to look at his reaction. Although it was totally okay to be a virgin, she still felt a bit embarrassed about it.

"Y/n-" He starts. "I know! I know! I'm almost twenty one and haven't been fucked yet, laugh all you want." She looks at him, dropping her hands in her lap. "Hey, 'm not gonna laugh. Since we're being honest here, I still haven't fucked anyone either or gotten my dick sucked." Y/n furrowed her eyebrows. "You're just saying that to make me feel better." She looks back at the movie, the two main characters were still going at it.

"I'm not, I'm being serious, I'm still a virgin." He grabs her chin so she can look at him. "Really? I mean how? You're- you're you!" She says finally meeting his eyes. "I could say the same thing about you." He leans in closer to her, their lips inches apart. "Are we really doing this?" She whispers. "Only if you want to." He brings her closer.

"Yes, I want this." She nods, moving her face closer to finally connect their lips. Their lips mold together perfectly. Chris holds the bottom of her jaw and nudges her face up so he can get better access. Y/n gasps and Chris takes the opportunity to stick his tongue in. She can taste the faintness of the M&M's they had both eaten a few minutes earlier. "Get on my lap." He pulls away gasping for air.

Y/n giggles, she can't believe this is happening right now. "Should I take this off?" She tugs on the hem of her shirt as she gets situated on his lap. "Please do. Wanna see you." He runs his hands up her thighs. Y/n places one last kiss on his jaw before removing her shirt, her bare breasts now exposed to Chris.

"Look at you." He moves his hands up her bare torso, placing a kiss on the valley of her tits. "Please, Chris." She whimpers. "Patience, baby." The pet name falls easily from his lips. Soon enough, Chris gives in and gives her what she wants. He kisses from her neck down to her right breast and sucks her nipples into his mouth, kneading the other with his hand.

"Oh!" She gasps at the sensation, feeling a wet patch form on her panties. "Does that feel good, hm?" He mutters against her nipple, looking up at her through his lashes. "So good." She nods, gripping his hair at the back of his head. Chris' moot comes off her nipple with a pop and gives the same treatment to her other.

Y/n pulls Chris' head away and reconnects their lips. Panting against their lips, Y/n pulls away and starts kissing down his jaw, bringing his shirt up. "Off, please." She mumbles, rolling her hips against his, making him groan. He soon gets his shirt off and flips them, now he's on top of her. He licks, sucks and nips against her neck and collarbones. Chris' kisses her lower and lower and he find himself pulling Y/ns' sweats down her legs chucking them to the floor.

"So wet already." Chris presses a finger on the wet patch and Y/n tries to close her legs. "Hey, it's okay." He coos, going back up to be face to face with her. "Are you sure you want this." He looks at her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "Yes, sorry. I just, you know. Never been touched there by anyone else." She leans up to give him a kiss. "Okay, if you want me to stop just tell me and we'll stop, alright?" He kisses her cheek before going back down to meet her covered cunt.

"Can I?." He puts her legs over her shoulder and kisses her inner thigh. "Yes." She nods. Chris moves her panties to the side and stares at her glistening pussy. "I've never done this before-" Y/n cuts his off. "It's okay, do what you think is natu- Oh!" She moans when she feels his tongue lick up from her hole to her clit. "Is that good?" He looks up at her while tonguing at her clit. "So good." She nods and sighs with pleasure.

Chris continues to suck on her pussy and slurp her juices. "You taste so sweet." He presses one last kiss to her puffy clit before coming up to kiss her, his chin wet with her arousal. Y/n can taste herself on his tongue. "Can I suck you off?" Y/n says through kisses, running her hand down to his hard on. "You want to?" He closes his eyes when he feels her squeeze his cock. "Yeah, same as you, I've never- you know." Chris chuckles. "I'm sure you'll be incredible."

Y/n now flips them over and Chris is sitting against the headboard, Y/n on his lap, kissing, nipping, and sucking on his neck. Like Chris, her kisses get lower and lower until she's on her knees face to face with his clothed dick. "Can I?" She asks. "Please do." Y/n lowers his sweats down and pulls him out, holding him in her hand. "So big." She kisses his pink leaky tip. "Oh fuck." He whispers. Y/n sucks on his top and leans in more until he's hitting the back of her throat.

"Shit!" He groans, gathering her hair into makeshift ponytail. She bobs her head up and down sucking his dick and she feels a string of her saliva go down her chin. "I'm- I'm close!" He tugs on her hair and brings her off his cock. "You don't want me to-" He shakes his head. "Wanna come with you." He smiles, bringing her to kiss him on the lips.

"Are you ready?" He refers to finally having sex. "I- yes." She nods, kissing him once more as he flips them and she's back against the mattress again. "I'm gonna go slow okay? Don't wanna hurt you." He kisses her forehead. As he grabs his cock to align himself to her hole, he remembers. "Fuck!" He groans, but not in pleasure. "What's wrong?" She says, coming up to lean on her elbows. "I- I don't have a condom. I can try to pull out- I will." He corrects himself. "Sounds perfect."

"Ready?" He slides his dick up and down, wetting his cock with her arousal. "Mhm." She nods. Chris stops his tip at her hole and slowly pushes in. "Oh." Y/n falls onto her back, feeling herself become full with Chris' cock. "You doing okay?" Y/n nods. "Yes, keep- keep going."

Once Chris is fully in her, he stops for a few seconds before pulling back and thrusting back in her. "Shit!" They both moan. Chris brings his thumb to her clit and draws 8's on the swollen nub. "Just like that- oh my god." She cries out, arching her back at the immense amount of pleasure. "You feel so good around me." He groans into her neck. "Fuck, Chris. Keep going." She whimpers.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I'm cumming." Y/n feels the imaginary rubber band snap in her lower belly. "I'm almost there, baby." He keeps thrusting in and out of her. "Shit- I'm almost. Fuck!" He pulls out and cums on her stomach, some landing on her tits. Y/n moans at the sight, feeling his warm spurts land on her body. "Holy fuck!" He lands on top of her, not caring at the fact that he's now got his cum all over himself. "How's that for a first time?"

"Better than I imagined it." She giggles, kissing his lips.

[guilty-pleasures21]

My friend and I were talking about Jason and she said it would be cool if Jason's S/O got along with Bruce, but I honestly don't see that happening?

I can't imagine being in a relationship with Jason and at the same time thinking Bruce is a nice guy after all

What do you think?

Oh my god! I’m so excited for this! I decided to respond in the form of a story 😉.

Bruce Wayne

Warnings: brief references to loss and trauma.

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

It took nine months for him to finally let you in enough for you to start falling in love with him. 

     You’d first met Jason in the library; specifically the literature section. He’d been standing by one of the shelves, quietly flipping through a copy of Jane Austen’s Emma. He’d had the build of a stereotypical jock, so you’d honestly been a little surprised to see him focusing so intently on the British classic. But those were just your own biases, so you’d quickly tossed them aside in favour of returning to your search. Halloween was coming up, which always put you in the mood for one of your favourite classics: Dracula. It was short and the unconventional style of writing was always a little jarring at first, but you absolutely loved reading about how the characters puzzled through the mystery. You’d knelt down, searching the shelf where the novel should have been sitting according to the alphabetical filing system. But it hadn’t been there. You’d frowned and tsked in irritation, then quickly snuck a glance at the man standing behind you. You’d barely caught him raising an eyebrow at you over the top of his book before he’d quickly lowered his gaze, acting as if he hadn’t even noticed you there. You’d turned back to the shelves and stood up, checking to see if someone had accidentally misplaced the book after picking it up for a quick read … There! On the top shelf! You’d stretched onto your toes, reaching for the spine, but your fingers had barely grazed the edge of the shelf. 

     “Need some help?” You’d turned to find the man’s attention fully focused on you now, his startling green eyes studying you intently. He’d lowered his book, allowing you a glimpse of his rugged features, his wide lips and his crooked nose that looked like it had been broken and reset a few times already. He’d raised an eyebrow at you and you’d realised suddenly that you’d been staring. 

     “Oh!” you’d gasped, embarrassed by your own actions. “Uh, thank you!” 

     You’d stepped aside, giving him the space to get the book for you, and you couldn’t help but notice how big he was - tall and strong and broad. He’d grabbed the book with ease and rolled his eyes at the title before handing it over to you. 

     “Excuse me?” you’d said, frowning up at him whilst cuddling the book protectively to your chest. He’d given you a once-over in response, taking in your small form, so fragile compared to him, then he’d gone back to his side of the shelf, his expression unimpressed. 

     “Nothing,” he’d drawled, opening up his book again. But the amount of sarcasm contained in that single word had only caused your anger to bubble even more. 

     “What’s wrong with Dracula?” you’d asked, a hundred different retorts coming to mind immediately. Your heart had thudded with anticipation as the adrenaline had raced through your system, your defences instinctively locking into place to shield you from whatever hatred might have been about to spew from his mouth. 

     “It’s a little cliche, isn’t it?” he’d suggested, picking up his book again. “Halloween … vampires … You in a book club or something, princess?” 

     He’d flashed you a little smirk, his expression more teasing than unkind, but the condescending nickname had raked over your nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “At least his characters are more nuanced! And he develops more of a plot in these few pages than Jane Austen does in any of her hundred novels! It’s not just the same old story of two extremely unlikeable characters falling in love over and over again under a different title!” 

     Jason had flinched at your outburst, taken aback by your sudden vehemence. He’d told you later that he didn’t usually let people off so easily, but he hadn’t been able to get mad in the face of your adorableness. You’d rolled your eyes at his admission, but smiled anyway as you’d curled up into his side. It had taken about a year after meeting him before you’d finally realised the real reason he hadn’t shot back at you - the reason he’d just given you an amused smirk and asked if you’d read all of Jane Austen’s ‘hundred’ novels.

     Because he’d seen in you that same instinct - that same fear - to always be on your guard, to always be prepared for someone to attack you and know that no one would come to your defence but you. 

     And that was how you’d first become friends with Jason Peter Todd. 

It took three months after you’d admitted your feelings for him to yourself before you’d realised that he was never going to be the first one to make a move.

     You’d been sitting on his sofa, watching a movie at his place as was your weekly Friday night ritual. You’d never been able to get into Jane Austen’s books, but you’d always loved the movie versions of her stories. Jason had been sitting beside you, legs spread apart, one elbow on the armrest, his hand propping his head up as he’d focused on the movie. You’d inched closer to him at a cautious pace, slowly closing the distance between the two of you. 

     “What are you doing?” Jason had asked finally, nothing ever escaping his notice. His tone was amused - as it always was when he was with you - but it did nothing to ease the churning of your stomach as you’d gathered up your courage. You’d kept your attention fixed on the television, watching as Alicia Silverstone sat in the exact same position as you, puzzling over how to express her true feelings to Paul Rudd beside her. 

     “I like you.” A blanket of tension had smothered the room at your confession, the only sounds coming from the movie that neither of you were paying attention to anymore. Finally, unable to take it any longer, you’d paused the movie and turned to Jason, your brows furrowed in irritation. “Well?” 

     He didn’t know whether to laugh or bolt in terror. Of course you would be the only person to confess your feelings and then get mad when the other person didn’t respond. But he had that same instinct too: to take your fear and twist it into anger - to defend yourself even before the other person could think to attack.

He’d turned away from you, his leg starting to shake as he’d processed your words. He couldn’t- You couldn’t. You couldn’t like him! Not like that! You were his friend and … he couldn’t afford to f*ck up the best thing had ever happened to him in his life! Even if he’d been finding it more and more difficult to stop his gaze from lingering on your soft curves and your full lips and imagining what you would feel like pressed up against him with absolutely nothing in between your bod- No! No. It was a horrible idea. 

     He’d turned to face you, wanting to list out all the reasons he wasn’t good for you. But you’d known him for too long now and you knew by the defeated slump of his shoulders exactly what was going to come out of his mouth. 

     “Don’t!” you’d exclaimed, jumping to your knees and clamping your hands over his mouth before he could speak. His eyes had widened in surprise at your sudden movements and you’d removed your hands from his mouth, satisfied that you’d startled him enough for him to not argue with you. “I don’t want a list of bullshit reasons about why you think you’re not good enough to be in a relationship or how you think it’s going to mess up our friendship or whatever else nonsense you’ve somehow convinced yourself of over the past few years.”

     You’d rearranged yourself on his lap then, swinging your leg over both of his and sliding your arms around his neck as you’d laid your head on his shoulder. 

     “I love you, Jace,” you’d continued softly, running your fingers through his hair. “We can take it slow - we have the rest of our lives, after all - but I want to make this work. I want us … I want you. I just want you, for the rest of our lives.” 

     You’d sat there in silence for a while, letting him digest your words. And slowly, his heartbeat had slowed and his muscles had relaxed until finally, he’d let his arms come loosely around your waist. “I don’t-” 

     He’d cut himself off as his voice had cracked with emotion, and he’d tightened his grip on you, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You’d continued to brush his hair gently, keeping your breathing steady and allowing your weight on top of him to keep him grounded. You’d seen him have panic attacks before and though he’d told you a little bit about what had caused them, he still hadn’t gone into much detail about it. All you knew was that he’d gotten beat up by a bad guy as a kid. He’d seemed horribly uncomfortable even telling you that much, so you’d never pushed him for more information. You were too good to him. 

     “I love you, Jay,” you’d repeated, holding him close to you, trying to physically transfer your love for him from your body into his. Eventually, you’d sat back and moved your hand to his cheek instead. You’d studied his features carefully: his thick eyebrows, his moss-coloured eyes, the tiny scar that cut into the corner of his upper lip … “We can … take it slow …”

     And then you were kissing, your lips brushing each other’s softly as your tongues explored one another’s mouths. You’d let him take the lead, stepping back after being the one who’d made the first move, and soon, your kisses had turned heated: his hands squeezing every curve they ran over, your fingers sneaking beneath his shirt to glide over his hard muscles, your hips moving against one another’s as you'd both started getting excited. Eventually, he’d lifted you up and walked you backwards to his bedroom, your lips never leaving the other’s as you’d pulled each other's clothes off along the way. 

     And that had been the best night of your entire life, no thanks to Jason Peter Todd. 

It took another six months after that for him to tell you the whole story of what had happened. 

     He’d sat on your sofa, leg shaking vigorously, teeth buried in his lower lip as he’d waited for you to say something. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d finally told you the whole story: the day he’d gone to the warehouse, the thrashing he’d gotten from The Joker, the trauma of having his soul forced back into his body … and then having the only person who’d saved him from the streets - who’d promised him that there was something in him worth saving - turn around and tell him that no, there really wasn’t anything in him worth saving after all. Now you understood why he found it so hard to let himself be loved by you - to believe that anyone could ever find something in him worth loving. 

     “Oh, Jay.” You’d wrapped your arms around him, pulling him close to you and murmuring into his hair over and over again that you loved him, you loved him, you loved him. You loved his righteous anger and his concerned protectiveness and his unwavering sense of justice. For you, there wasn’t any part of him that wasn’t worth loving - that wasn’t worth saving. Over and over and over again. Maybe you hadn’t been there to save him then, but you were there to save him now. As many times as he needed someone to. 

Finally, he took you to meet his family. 

     You clasp the man’s hand, fixing him with a wary expression as you shake it. “Mr Wayne.” 

     “Please, call me Bruce,” he insists, fixing you with the same smile he’d probably been trained to wear as a child. You let out a noncommittal hum as your hand falls back to your side and you don’t miss the minute flicker in his expression in response to your cold demeanour. But he brushes it aside and glances over at Jason in question, waiting. 

     He’d told him a few days ago that he was planning to ask his girlfriend to come over for Thanksgiving. The rest of the family had already met you - mostly by stalking Jason and constructing elaborate situations in which they’d ‘casually’ ‘bump into’ both of you on the street or a café somewhere - and they’d all been delighted by his sweet little girlfriend who, at times, seemed to have even worse of a temper than him, but who also appeared to love him more than anything else in the world. Bruce’s heart had swelled at the thought of someone giving his son all the love he deserved - all the love he himself had failed so miserably at giving him - and he’d barely managed to keep a lid on his excitement when Jason had finally mentioned bringing you over. But he’d follow his son’s lead and do only as he said. 

     Jason shakes his head slightly, telling Bruce not to take it too personally, then he guides you to the kitchen, his arm wrapped firmly around your waist. Bruce waits for the rest of his kids to follow, then finally, he joins you all at the dining table. 

     The atmosphere is lively, everyone laughing and joking and sarcastically listing all the things they’re thankful for. You join in the fun, easily fitting in with the rest of his family, but there’s a moment when you pause - when your gaze lands on Bruce and you find yourself taking a moment to study his expression. 

     He hadn’t said much the entire meal, but he’d watched his family with an expression of tenderness - of disbelief - his lips curled into a soft smile as he’d surveyed his loved ones celebrating this day of thanks together. And it struck you: the familiarity of that look. 

     Because how many times had you seen it on Jason? Jason, who would watch you with that same tenderness on his face whenever you did something to make him believe that maybe, just maybe, he really was worth loving. From something as simple as calling him cute when he was annoyed with someone for deviating from his mission plan to the bigger stuff like surprising him with a tray of brownies you'd made from scratch because you knew they were his favourite. He'd spent so long being convinced that he wasn't worth loving that he still couldn't quite believe it whenever you made space for him in your life. And now here was Bruce, giving the large, boisterous family he’d so carefully cultivated the exact same look.

     The moment continues to linger in your mind as you all settle down to watch a movie, Jason's siblings arranging themselves across the various forms of furniture scattered around the room while you cuddle up with him on a loveseat by the sofa. The night soon turns into a game of who can stay awake the longest as one by one Jason's family begins dozing off, their satisfying meal coaxing them into a state of sleepiness. You yourself find it hard to keep your eyes open when you're wrapped up in your boyfriend's big, strong arms, all snuggled up against his broad chest. Eventually, Bruce forces everyone up and to their beds, making sure they're all safely tucked in before retiring to his own bedroom. 

     You lie with Jason in his bed, tickling his scalp in the way that always makes him drowsy, even when he's finding it difficult to sleep. 

     “What?” he asks finally, sensing that you're still awake. You narrow your eyes in thought, combing through all the information Jason has ever shared with you. 

     “How old was Bruce when his parents died?” You knew the story, of course - Bruce Wayne had lost his parents in a mugging incident when he'd been just a child - but you hadn't grown up in Gotham, so you weren't too sure about the details of the case. 

     “Hmm, I think he was eight,” Jason supplies, doing his best to stay focused despite your soothing touch. “Why?” 

     Eight?! That must have been horrible! “And did he … have a lot of other family to take care of him?”

     He was rich - obscenely so - and he had a house big enough to rival the President's! So of course he must have had some wealthy aunt or uncle who'd taken him in after his parents died. 

     “No,” Jason mumbles, starting to lose the battle against sleep. “He just had Alfred.”

     Your heart squeezes in your chest, hurting on behalf of the little boy who'd had to grow up almost completely alone, no parents, no siblings, no one at all who understood his circumstances and gave him a reason to keep living.

     “But … How did he keep living? In spite of it all?”

     Jason hums softly, not quite registering the question as he splays his limbs out across you. “I don't know. How do any of us?” 

     You swallow down the lump in your throat and resolve to forget about it. For now, at least.

     You wake up earlier than Jason the next morning - a rare feat, especially considering that it's almost noon - and head to the kitchen to get some coffee after taking a shower. You're surprised to find Bruce already doing the exact same thing, but he greets you with a welcoming smile. 

     “Need any help?” he asks, giving you enough space to stand in front of the machine. You study the various buttons and knobs, trying to see if you can puzzle it out yourself. But in the end, you decide that it's probably better to just let him handle it. 

     “Um, yes, please!” you agree sheepishly, stepping aside and letting him take over. “Can I just have a latte?” 

     He gets to work making you your coffee, then invites you to join him in the garden outside. You clutch your cup tightly, refusing to make it so easy for him to get into your good graces, but you join him anyway, intrigued to find out more about this man who had forsaken your precious Jason when he'd been just a child. You sit in silence for an uncomfortably long amount of time, refusing to start the conversation first. So Bruce begins. 

     “My kids have told me that they think you’re really good for Jason,” he tells you softly, gazing out at his beautifully staged garden. He turns to you and his gaze bounces between your face and the table as he continues speaking. “I’m glad … I’m glad that he’s finally found someone … who makes it easier.” 

     He chose his words carefully, unsure of how much you knew about Jason’s life, so you decided to enlighten him. “He told me … everything.”

     Bruce lifts his head and fixes you with a surprised - and wary - look. 

     “I know … about his parents and Red Hood and … and The Joker.” Your voice grows soft at the last part, your heart aching at the memory of everything he’d told you. You slide your gaze over to Bruce, who’s lowered his head at the revelation that Jason really had told you everything. You narrow your eyes at the look of shame on his face and the rage begins to take over you. “I know … what you did after he came back - or, really, what you didn’t do. Were your morals so important that you couldn’t … Didn’t you think …” 

     You clench your fists, trying to find the words to convey your emotions. Finally, you push yourself out of your seat, your features hard with the same righteous anger that Jason always wore. “I love Jason! I think he’s the most wonderful, sweetest, most caring human being I have ever known in my life! He deserves the world and everything more! And you …” 

     You dig your nails into your palms then force yourself to take a deep breath, letting the anger pass through you. 

     “I agree.” He says it so quietly that you almost miss it. Then he holds your gaze and repeats the words. “I agree with you. Jason deserves everything he never thought … he was good enough for.”

     He clasps his hands together, fidgeting with his fingers as he tries to figure out how to continue. “I …”

     I was wrong? I did my best? I’d do it differently if I could go back in time and fix it? The excuses leaped to the tip of his tongue, but they were all lies. Jason Todd had always been Jason Todd, and it didn’t matter how many times he ran over the millions of different scenarios in his mind: the two of them would have always ended up in the same stalemate in the end. Because Bruce Wayne had always been Bruce Wayne too. 

     Bruce sits back and returns his gaze to his garden, serene and calm and the opposite of everything his life had ever been. “Is he still going to therapy?” 

     You grit your teeth, irritated by the sudden change of topic. But you’ve loved Jason Todd everyday for almost two years now: you knew how to look for the subtle shifts in his expression, the small ticks and habits that gave away his emotions when he was working so hard to hide them. So you don’t miss the tightness of Bruce’s jaw and the tension in his biceps and the minute shifting of his shoes as he probably wriggled his toes in them. 

     “Yes,” you sigh, sitting back down again. “He’s doing a lot better.”

     “Good.”  Bruce nods slowly. “Good. And his … Has he had any attacks recently?” 

     He turns to you, his eyes overflowing with concern, and the final remnants of your anger leave you. “He’s had a few, but they’ve been getting less over time. And he’s gotten better at dealing with them.” 

     Bruce nods again. “I’ve heard about this … tapping technique? Apparently it can help with anxiety if you tap certain places on your body? I can send you a few links if you think it might help him?” 

     And suddenly, he’s not Bruce Wayne, the untouchable billionaire with the practised smile, nor is he Batman, the sour vigilante who thinks he knows better than everyone. He was Bruce Wayne, the little boy who’d lost the most important people in his life and been forced to learn how to grow up without them. The little boy who fought so desperately every single night to make sure that no one else would ever have to go through the same things he had. The little boy who still couldn’t figure out why no one had thought that he was worth saving. Just like Jason Todd. 

     And now you understand. Bruce Wayne had never forsaken Jason Todd. He’d never abandoned him or chosen anyone else over his precious second son. He just hadn’t known how to save the little boy who’d been forced to grow up on his own, who fought every single night to make sure no other child suffered the same fate as him, who had never been able to figure out why he hadn’t been worth saving. He hadn’t known how to save himself. 

     “That’d be great,” you tell Bruce, giving him a warm smile. His lips curl at the ends in response and he sits back again, lighter now that you seemed to have forgiven him. “And Bruce? Thank you for saving Jason.” 

     Bruce lets out a self-deprecating chuckle and shakes his head in disagreement. “I didn’t-”

     “You did,” you tell him, firm in your conviction now. “You saved that little boy from a rough life on the streets. You helped him live again after he came back. You gave me the Jason Todd that I know and love today. So if you think that there’s anything I’ve done to save him, it’s only because you saved him enough first for him to get to me.” 

     Bruce stares at you for a minute, his expression unreadable. Then finally, he smiles. “You know, I guess my kids were right about you after all.” 

     And that was why you and Bruce got along so well, you would think to yourself any time Jason would ask you about it. Because Bruce Wayne had always been Bruce Wayne, but he’d done the best he could to make sure that Jason Todd always stayed Jason Todd; that no matter how hard the world shoved him to the ground, no matter how strongly he believed there was nothing in him worth loving, the world needed Jason Todd. The world needed someone who would do the right thing, even when it was difficult - especially when it was difficult. You smile and ruffle Jason’s hair. 

     “Because Bruce Wayne has always been Bruce Wayne,” you tell him in response. Jason rolls his eyes at your usual vague answer, but his lips curl at the ends like they always do. He lies down, resting his head on your lap, and you stroke his hair softly as the two of you continue watching your movie.

So yeah! Those are my thoughts 🤔😋.

[fairytaleendingss]

Room for One More?

Chapter 4

Summary: Your heating system breaks and you and the boys have to come up with an unconventional way to combat the cold.

CW: Description/Talk of Chronic Illness, swearing.

Pairing: Poly!Marauders x fem!reader

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Hey everyone! Thanks so much to all of you who have been reading and following along!

I just want to preface this chapter by saying that I am not a doctor nor do I have any personal experience with RA. I have done some research on it but I am definitely not an expert on the condition and I apologize for any inaccuracies that may be present in this story

My goal was to include a condition that mimicked symptoms of Remus' lycanthropy as I feel that is an important part of his character and I wanted to make reference to that. But if anyone reading who has more experience in this area has noticed anything they'd like changed or corrected, feel free to reach out and let me know :).

Otherwise, enjoy the chapter!

--

"Ah, fuck! Damnit!"

You jolted awake at the sound of a crash coming from the kitchen and a slew of curses that followed. A quick glance at your clock on your bedside table told you it was nearing 2am.

Everyone should've been long asleep by now in your apartment but that didn't always mean they were. You'd grown accustomed over the last few weeks to being woken up at odd hours by your noisy roommates watching international sporting matches on TV or attempting to cook an unusually complicated late night snack.

This voice, however, you were not particularly used to hearing at this time of night.

You rolled out of bed, pulling on a robe as the harsh winter air hit you. You reminded yourself to ask Sirius about the heating in the morning.

Then you tiptoed out in the hall, a light flutter of concern in your stomach, to see what all the fuss was about.

You peaked around the corner to see a pajama clad Remus, leaning against the kitchen counter, a hand pressed into his forehead and eyes clamped shut in frustration. There was a wheat bag discarded on the kitchen floor beside him.

You approached cautiously, like you were approaching a wild animal. Then you cleared your throat lightly so as not to startle him.

He looked up, hurriedly trying to regain his composure.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he muttered bashfully, as if he was a child who'd been caught sneaking cookies after bedtime.

"It's fine," you gave him a tight lipped smile. "Is everything okay?"

He huffed and rolled his eyes, only this time you could tell that his frustrations weren't directed towards you.

"Yeah, I just have this... thing." He stumbled over his wording, clearly embarrassed about whatever was going on. "It's called RA. It's a type of arthritis. The symptoms get worse in the cold weather. I was just trying to heat up my pack but my fingers aren't working properly."

Your brows furrowed as a jolt of sympathy washed over you. It was no secret that you and Remus didn't have the most friendly of relationships but you still felt for him nonetheless.

"Well, here," you said gently as you moved towards him. "Let me help."

You lifted the wheat bag from the floor and placed it into the microwave. You expected some form of protest from the man beside you but were surprised when he stepped aside in compliance.

"Thank you," he muttered distantly. You expected that on another occasioned he may have rejected the assistance, especially from you. From what you knew of Remus, he was headstrong and independent, almost to a fault. However, tonight you could tell he was exhausted and probably in a lot of pain.

He leaned back on the counter as the microwave began to turn and a low humming filled the room. In the low light, you could make out the lines of his face and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked slightly older than 23, you observed.

It seemed as thought the stressed of life had worn him down. Yet even at 2am with his hair crumpled from sleep and his eyes weary, he was still devastatingly handsome.

"If it's not out of turn to ask, how long has this been going on?"

"A while, since I was a teenager, at least. Maybe before that. I was diagnosed at 16 but I've had some level of aches and pains as long as I can remember."

You grimaced. "I'm sorry. That must have made things hard for you."

He shrugged in response. “It’s okay usually. I mean, I can deal with it most of the time. It’s just when I have these flare ups that it becomes a problem.”

“You’ve never mentioned it before.”

He sighed. “I don’t like to make an ordeal out of it if I can avoid it.”

You could tell from the look in his eyes that he was uncomfortable. You assumed he didn’t bring it up on purpose so as to not seem weak or needy.

“Well I hope you feel better soon,” you told him gently.

The microwave beeped and you removed the heat pack. You’re fingers brushed as you passed it too him.

“Thank you, really.”

He gave you a small smile which you couldn’t help but return.

“Don’t mention it.”

Going back to bed, you felt a little lighter. Things were far from perfect in your relationship with Remus but tonight had felt like progress. Who knows, maybe you were finally on the verge of a breakthrough with him.

Maybe soon you’d actually be able to become friends.

The thought comforted you as you drifted back off to sleep.

—

Stepping out of bed in the morning felt like stepping straight into a freezer. You shivered immediately and put your robe on. When that still wasn't enough to shield you from the cold, you pulled your fluffy blanket off the end of the bed before waddling out into the living room looking like a medieval peasant.

"Yep, this thing's buggered," you heard Sirius say as you stepped out into the living area.

"What's buggered?"

He looked up at you from where he was crouched in the corner of the room.

"The radiator," he replied, tapping it with his knuckle. "I'll call the landlord about it but he's a right git so It might be some time before he bothers to get it looked at."

"Well, I suppose we'll all just have to freeze to death then," James teased. "What a shame. I was really looking forward to New Years."

"You'd probably hold out a little longer if you ever bothered to put a shirt on," Remus deadpanned from his spot on the sofa. He was half listening to the conversation while also clearly immersed in a book.

James was standing in the kitchen pouring himself a bowl of cereal, his bare chest on display, showing off his perfectly chiseled abs.

"Oh come on Remus. Admit it, you know you love the view."

He sent his friend a wink as he rounded the counter and came to flop down beside him on the couch. He was met with an eyeroll in response.

"Sorry to interrupt the fun," you murmured. "But seriously, what are we going to do about the heating? I'm freezing."

Sirius stood up, looking at you with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Well, you know, we could always cuddle for warmth."

"Ha-ha. Very funny Sirius," you scoffed but the suggestion had James sitting up straight, coming very close to sloshing his bowl of cereal all over his lap.

"You know that's not actually such a bad idea!"

You raised a brow at him. "You can't be serious."

"I'm not Sirius, actually, I'm James," he teased. "But I'm not joking about this idea! We all have the day off today don't we? Why don't we all grab our bedspreads and we can huddle up on the couch and spend the day watching Christmas movies!"

His eyes were bright like a little kids and you couldn't help but smile in return.

"Okay. That sounds like fun."

"Hey, it'll be like those sleepovers we had at your Mum's place back in high-school!" Sirius exclaimed.

"What about you, Rem?" he turned to his friend. "You in?"

The boy looked between the three of you for a moment as if considering the offer.

"I really should be studying today."

James groaned, clapping him on the shoulder. "Come on! It'll be fun."

He stood up, closing his book and began to retreat down the hallway.

"Sorry, guys. I can't today. You all enjoy though."

With that he was gone, the door of his bedroom falling shut behind him.

James sighed but it was quickly replaced by his usual lopsided smile. "Oh well! Let's get going then."

--

It wasn't long after when you found yourself situated on the couch beside Sirius, with James on his other side, practically swaddled in blankets. James had made you all teas and a large array of snacks were splayed out on the coffee table, however, none of you were willing to poke a hand out of your cocoon to reach for them.

You all decided to start with Elf (which James had suggested as his favourite Christmas film) and work your way through the list of classics.

Laughter emitted through the air as you watched Buddy the Elf discover New York city. However, you noticed the way that Sirius glanced down the hall towards Remus' closed door every so often, as if he was disappointed that Remus wasn't there to enjoy the fun with you.

You couldn't help but feel slightly guilty at the situation. You felt responsible for Remus choosing not to spend the day with his two best friends. You were sure if it wasn't for your participation he wouldn't have hesitated to agree to the day's events.

You had thought that last night had been progress but now you weren't so sure. Remus, for whatever reason, still hadn't warmed up to you, despite not knowing what you did to warrant his reaction and all the attempts you'd made at a peace offering. Whatever it was, it was starting to really frustrate you.

You tried to wipe the thought from your mind as the movie progressed, instead enjoying the time with the two boys you did get along with.

By the time the end credits were rolling, you'd almost forgotten all about your plight with Remus and were just enjoying the laughter that rang through the air at some of the commentary Sirius had made throughout the film.

"Alright! What's next on the list?" James called, leaning forward to grab the remote.

“I vote Home Alone!” You chimed in.

Sirius sent you an odd look. “What? Home Alone isn’t a Christmas movie.”

James gasped and you flashed him a dramatic look of mock offence.

“Yes it absolutely is!” James argued.

“Yeah, the best one at that,” you declared.

“No it’s not! It’s just a movie that happens to be set at Christmas time. That doesn’t make it a Christmas movie!”

You rolled your eyes. “Sirius, that’s literally the entire criteria for what a Christmas movie is.”

James shook his head at his friend. “Yeah! Next you’ll be claiming that Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie either!”

Sirius looked at him with a deadpan expression. “It’s not.”

James put a hand on his chest and pretended to faint at the notion.

“How dare you! Die Hard is a fabulous Christmas movie!”

“Okay, now you’ve gone too far!”

Sirius threw his hands up in surrender. “Okay okay, fine. Let’s watch Home Alone.”

You smiled at him. “Good, I knew you’d come to your senses.”

James chucked in response as he put the movie.

You nestled down into your blanket nest, feeling a shiver run through you as the opening credits began.

“Are you cold, love?” Sirius leaned down, almost whispering the words into your ear.

“Just a little,” you mumbled. “But really it’s fine.”

“Well that won’t do!” He shook his head playfully. “Here!”

He stood up from the sofa, gesturing for you to shuffle over. When you did, he sat back down on your other side, slinging an arm around your shoulders. James, who was now to your right, pulled your curled up knees into his lap so that you were sandwiched between the two boys.

You felt your face heat up as you sat there, surrounded by their gentle embrace. You hoped they were too distracted with the movie to notice the way your pulse began to climb.

“Feeling better now?” Sirius murmured into your hair. A chill ran up your spine but this one you knew wasn’t from the cold.

“Much,” you murmured nestling your head back against his warm chest.

You felt it rumble as he let out a chuckle, rubbing and hand up and down your arm soothingly.

—

About halfway through the film, you were interrupted by the sound of a door swinging open. Three sets of eyes looked up to see Remus shuffling rather bashfully into the room.

He was dressed in a large knitted jumper and long brown pants but even under all the layers, he was visibly shivering. You weren’t surprised. Those bedrooms were like ice boxes.

“Do you mind if I join you?” He asked quietly, scratching the back of his neck.

You smirked in response.

“Couldn’t hold out any longer, could you mate?” Sirius teased.

“Come on, Sirius, don’t be mean. He looks freezing!” James exclaimed, lifting up the blanket and gesturing Remus to join you under it.

Sirius rolled his eyes.

“I’m just kidding. Of course you can join. Here, sit, I’ll make you a tea.”

Sirius stood up abruptly, heading into the kitchen and opening a space beside you for Remus on the couch.

He looked hesitant at first, as if he wasn’t sure if you would want him with you, but you gave him a small smile and lifted up your blanket.

He sat down then, sighing as he nestled under the warm covers and you splayed the bed-spread over his lap.

Sirius returned moments later with fresh cups of tea for the four of you and plonked himself down beside Remus. You noticed the way the taller boy leaned into him, almost as if they were unconsciously pulled towards each other.

Sirius reached out a hand and softly rubbed the other boy’s knee. You raked your eyes away from the scene focusing back onto the movie. But every so often you couldn’t help but watched the way they drew together, like they were puzzle pieces perfectly made to fit into each others embrace.

It made you feel odd, and you didn’t quite know why. You had no reason to be jealous and you weren’t even fully sure who there was to be jealous of. But the feeling in your stomach had become all too familiar over the recent weeks.

You moved closer to James, snuggling in to his side.

—

Several hours, and four movies later, the sun had faded outside over the horizon. The room had become dark, the only light coming from the flickering TV screen as the Polar Express played.

Sirius sat up to stretch and looked around. It was then that he noticed you and James, fast asleep, your head leaning against his chest and one of his arms thrown lazily over your shoulder.

His glasses were askew and your cheek was smushed against the front of his t-shirt, hair falling across your face.

A smirk blossomed on Sirius’s lips at the sight and he gently nudged Remus in the ribs and gestured towards the two of you.

He raised a brow. “They look… uh, comfortable.”

Sirius chuckled. “That they do.”

He stood up from the couch, shedding his blanket and pulling his phone from his pocket to take a snapshot of the two of you, which he definitely intended to send to your friends.

“Leave them be,” Remus chided, grasping the boy by the arm and pulling him back down onto the couch.

“What? It’s cute. And it will be perfect blackmail material. It’s a win win.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “You’re cruel. You know that?”

“I’m wonderful, thank you very much.”

Remus shook his head fondly. Then he glanced over again as you shifted in your sleep. Without thinking, he leaned over and tugged the blanket up where it had fallen off your shoulder.

Then he sat back, nestling back into Sirius’ side. The other boy raised a brow at the display but chose to say nothing as he wrapped an arm around his friend and let the movie continue.

—

Taglist:

@hisparentsgallerryy

@navs-bhat

@shushbruv

@magicwithaknife

@eeviee4

@notapoetjustscar

@gugggu6gvai

@robertsmithclone

@ilovesugurugeto69

[lightseoul]

IN THE DARK (1.8k)

a/n. thought about taking a break from my 2k milestone event by writing something that felt very personal to me. i was supposed to rest today but this sort of just...happened. i hope y'all like it.

cw. afab!reader, pro-hero!katsuki, aged-up characters, themes of body image issues, mentions of weight gain, minor nsfw references, basically just some hurt/comfort goodness

you’re in the middle of re-scooping your boobs into what has become a tiny ass tank top when a soft array of knocks echoes from the door.

“babe? are you almost done?”

alarmed, you quickly glance at the mirror. it only takes you one look at your reflection to decide that nope—you’re definitely not going with this one—before you swiftly tug it off your body.

at least, you try to do so.

the fabric catches on the areas of your torso that have noticeably gotten fuller in the course of the past year and a half. you huff in frustration as you squirm, desperate to have what used to be your favorite halter top off you.

another round of knocks comes again.

“babe? you okay in there?”

“yeah!” you manage to choke out, finally out of that damned material. “don’t come in—i’m not decent.”

the moment you say those words, you instantly know what the reaction would be.

“hah?” comes his incredulous, borderline offended reply. “the fuck do you mean ‘you’re not decent’?”

scanning the interior of your small walk-in closet, you feel the panic rise in your throat until your eyes land on the pajamas and baggy t-shirt you were wearing before you started trying out outfits for the reunion you were having with the class of 1a tonight.

“i’m just in my underwear,” you retort, frantically putting back on the much more forgiving articles.

“i think i’ve seen you with much less than that, dumbass.”

“okay,” you call out, ignoring his comment and slightly winded from your efforts, “you can come in now!”

as if on cue, the door slowly opens, and in comes bakugou, who’s already dressed in a crisp, black button-down and straight-legged pants, a suspicious glint in his eyes as they dart across the room before landing on you.

and when they do, his lips almost instantly form into a frown.

“i thought you were getting changed?”

you feel yourself flame in embarrassment despite yourself.

“yeah, well…” you wrack your brain for a not-so-incriminating excuse, “none of the outfits i was envisioning are working.”

well, that is the truth, anyway.

it’s just not necessarily complete.

“okay…” he drawls out, entirely unconvinced. “why’d you put your pajamas back on, though? it’s not like i haven’t seen you naked or some shit.”

“uh—” you pause, before finally settling with: “—it’s just that i’m wearing ugly panties, is all. real granny, the-type-you-wear-on-your-period kinda stuff.”

bakugou only stares at you. “since when have you cared about me seeing that?”

you are not about to say that was a shitty excuse you pulled from your ass just now.

so instead, you turn your back against him and start riffling through the racks of clothes. “how ‘bout you help me pick out what to wear for tonight, huh, kats?”

a few moments of silence pass before you finally hear a quiet ‘sure’—which is immediately followed by him stepping forward and occupying the space beside you.

he goes through the options himself before his hands land on the white, off-shoulder peplum blouse you got around a year ago. taking it by the hanger, he lifts it on display.

“how ‘bout this?”

you immediately shake your head. “those make my arms look extra big.”

at that, bakugou’s face contorts in confusion. “what? no, they don’t.”

you chuckle dryly, wondering why you’re even having this conversation.

you coax the shirt from his grip and place it back where he pulled it from. “pick another one.”

bakugou doesn’t say anything, but you can feel him side-eyeing you more than anything. still, he relents, and picks out a sky-blue sleeveless high-neck top you copped from your go-to store a few months ago.

“i remember you looked really good in this,” he offers.

you hum absentmindedly at his comment, studying the spandex-like material. ultimately, though, you shake your head.

“that one hugs me in all the wrong places. really emphasizes my midriff.”

“but—”

“can you choose another one, please?”

the man huffs in what you think is disgruntlement but follows suit anyway. once again, he traces his hand along the articles of clothing for a minute until they finally stop at what used to be your favorite sleeveless, v-neck black crop top.

grinning, he pulls it out.

“you’ve got to wear this.”

at the sight of it, you pull your lips into a tight line. “…i don’t know, babe.”

“seriously?” he asks, looking dangerously close to insulted. “this one makes your boobs look absolutely incredible.”

“katsuki!”

“what? i’m not wrong, am i?”

for a second, you let yourself imagine what you would look like in that rather skimpy top. and for a brief moment, you actually believe it’ll work out.

that is until you remember you’re imagining the you from way back when, and the last time you put it on a few weeks ago, you thought you looked fucking horrendous.

with a heavy sigh and a shake of your head, you take the clothing from his hand so you can return it to the rack.

at least, you try to, because bakugou doesn’t let you.

when you tug again and his grip tightens, you finally look up at the man, confused.

“wha—”

“we need to talk.”

almost instantly, your stomach drops in anticipatory dread.

“oh?” you try to answer nonchalantly, trying to take the item again from his hold. thankfully, this time he lets go, but his serious gaze that’s fixed on you remains unyielding.

“oh? that’s all you have to say?”

you turn away from him, moving to hang it back on the cabinet. “i don’t think there’s time for that right now, kats.”

to further emphasize your point, you glance down at your watch, which now reads 6:17 pm.

fuck.

you’re already going to be late.

you think about it for a beat before finally coming to a conclusion and shifting to face him again.

“i think you should just go ahead.”

bakugo gapes at you like you just told him the sky was green. “what?”

“we’re already running late and i haven’t even done my makeup, let alone picked out what to wear,” you reason.

“you really think i even want to go to this stupid party?” he retorts right back. “you’re the only one who makes them bearable. to hell with this going alone shit.”

“but—”

“not happening, babe.”

you let out a heavy exhale, struggling to tamp down the disappointment at your failed attempt to get out of the situation.

neither of you says anything for what feels like minutes before bakugou finally breaks the monotonous quiet.

“…can i ask you something?”

his voice is so uncharacteristically soft that you can’t help but look up at him despite the visceral urge to avoid his gaze, anticipatory anxiety now churning in your gut at the question.

the man, though, apparently takes your silence as a yes, because he continues.

and you barely manage to stop yourself from choking on your spit when he does.

“why do we only have sex in the dark?”

that was not what you were expecting him to say.

“e-excuse me?”

bakugou moves to rub the back of his neck, perhaps feeling sheepish at his blunt query.

but he presses on.

“it’s just that i remember it wasn’t always like this. when we first started getting intimate with each other, you didn’t mind when the lights were on or if the curtains weren’t drawn. but then…”

“my preferences simply changed,” you interject, scared of letting him continue.

“really?” he asks, but the question seems more rhetorical than not. “because if you were to ask me, i’m starting to think…maybe, just maybe—and i could be wrong about this—you don’t want to be perceived.”

a long pause.

“baby?” comes bakugou’s worried voice when you don’t reply. “did i hurt you?”

you shake your head, although your eyes are trained downcast to your socked feet, unable to meet his gaze.

“say something, please.”

at his request, you finally look up, trying to blink away the tears that are pooling in your eyes before he notices.

but it’s either you don’t do it fast enough, or he’s just insanely perceptive, because bakugou manages to catch sight of it, eyes widening the second he does.

“shit, i’m so—”

“it’s okay!” you chuckle, waving him off. you take the hand that was just reaching out to wipe the tears away and encase it with yours. you chance a glance at the man, who’s now peering at you guiltily.

“i really didn’t mean to hurt you,” he starts again, “i just wanted to finally talk about it because—”

“i know, i know,” you cut him off before he can ramble any further. “don’t worry, babe. i’m not angry at you. it’s just…”

you take a shaky inhale.

“…it’s just that it’s been so hard, you know? i really try not to dwell on it because most of it is beyond my control, but…whenever i try on a dress that used to fit me so well, or when i look at my reflection, or especially when i’m bare for you to see and i feel your eyes roving over my body—it just hits me all over again.

“the fact that this is how i look like now. and i hate it.”

you look at bakugou, who’s staring at you so intently with a pained expression on his face.

“you don’t have to say anything,” you quickly add on. “i know this is kind of a lot to take in.”

“yeah—no, it’s just that i’m angry at myself for ever making you feel judged,” he huffs, and you can practically hear the frustration seeping out from his tone.

he tightens his hold on your hand.

“believe me, baby, when i say that when i look at you all so vulnerable like that, it’s never me fucking judging you. i can’t even—

“i can’t even begin to describe how much i love your body. every time i see even just a sliver of what’s underneath your clothes i get so hard i—”

you snort.

“—laugh all you want, but it’s true. it’s fucking embarrassing sometimes, how much my body reacts to seeing yours, but it’s true.”

you shoot him a sad, albeit grateful smile, to which he responds by squeezing your hand.

“look, i know i can’t change how you feel about your body, and i understand that you want to look differently. but i also do know that i can’t just stand here and watch you tear yourself apart like that. you don’t deserve any of that, you fucking hear me?”

you don’t even know where to start with your reply, so you opt to just nod wordlessly instead.

“good,” he grunts. “i’m just here to support you, whatever you wanna do. you already know that i think you’re beautiful the way you are right now, but if you want to do something or work towards a certain goal, i’ll be here.

“i know a thing or two about fitness, if you’re interested in exploring that.”

“really?” you beam at him, already feeling so light. “you’ll really help me with that?”

at that, bakugou scoffs. “‘course i will, dummy. actually…”

you peer at him curiously. “actually, what?”

he grins at you, the mood suddenly taking a mischievous turn.

“…i actually know of a certain cardio activity i wanna do right now, if you’re open to that.”

my replies, reblogs, and asks are open if you wanna talk about stuff <3 sending hugs to you!

[gh0stsp1d3r]

second chance ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

warnings: r is a mutant w/ blood manipulation powers :3, death is mentioned, grief, angsty and fluffy

a/n: I wanted to make the readers power dark but her personality the complete opposite. I like dark and brooding characters w/ sweethearts LMFAOO it’s my favorite trope atp

MASTERLIST

Being sent to the void and being trapped in there was not how this was supposed to go at all. You stood up, confused as to where you were. You looked wildly around the deserted world, finding no one around you.

Sometimes you wonder how exactly it is that you got into this shit. After your boyfriend died saving the world, you let yourself go, not the happy go lucky person you usually were. Your friends noticed, you sulking around during missions, usually not saying a word to any of them.

Why’d he always have to be the damn hero?

And now you missed them, it was too quiet here for your liking. Your gaze landed on a patch of trees, seeming like the only form of life there. With a huff, you picked yourself up and walked towards the forage, walking around for a while until you came across something rather odd in this place.

A car? Here? It was random. What made you even more confused was the blood splatters all over it, the windows cracked. It was fresh blood, not dried yet, you could tell that much.

Slowly and curiously,you walked towards the car, peering inside quietly the two of them, Wade wrapped up in the seatbelts. Then your eyes were stuck on logan, heart stuttering and breath stopping at the sight of his bloodied body.

His eyes snapped open, eyebrows furrowing and forehead creased, he was going to attack you, barreling out of the car and standing in front of you before you jumped back and his movements paused.

You had already created a shield of their blood from the car, holding your hands out in front of you. You stared back at Logan, examining you as if it was as if he was wondering the same thing you were.

Is that you?

You put your hands down, blood falling back into the soil, both of you left staring at each other in silence.

It went on like that until Wade left out a cough, gasping and sitting up, struggling against the seatbelts.

“Motherfuck-“ he murmured out, both of you turning your heads to watch the man get out of his restraints.

He hopped out of the car, turning to the both of you staring back at him now. “You know what, I forgive you for that back there.” He told Logan.

“Gonna introduce me to your friend?” You asked with a small smile, both of them turning to look at you.

It was the first words Logan had heard you speak in a while, and Jesus, you even had the same smile.

“Pool. Dead.” He held his hand out, which looked broken. “Or Wade. You can just call me Wade.”

“Your um…” you cleared your throat, motioning to his floppy hand, that he quickly fixed back in place.

You shook his hand. “Y/n.” You mumbled.

“Where have I heard that name before…?” He asked, mostly to himself.

“I’m part of the x-men.” You told him. He snapped his fingers, remembering you suddenly.

“Oh, yeah! You’re dead in my universe.” He said the last part flatly.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Didn’t go so well for you. You have like… the blood bending powers, right?”

You snickered at his choice of words. “Blood bending is from avatar. Blood manipulation.” You corrected, but nodded anyways.

“So you’re like… Marie Moreau from gen v?”

You didn’t understand his reference.

“Are you two done?” Logan asked, his arms crossed against his chest.

“Cool your jets, wolvie.”

You had to suppress a smile at his choice of words, wolvie. You used to tease him with that nickname all the time. He glanced at you, before fixing his gaze back on Wade.

“What are you guys doing here anyways?” You asked them.

“Long story.” Logan spoke, still avoiding your gaze, his mind suddenly being flooded with the worst memories he has.

“Okay, then what are you guys planning to do? Except for stabbing each other.”

“We’ll catch you up, Katara.” Wade spoke, all of you piling back into the car, you staring out the window as Wade explained everything.

“Wait, let me get this straight, so she was your girlfriend but then she died, in your universe?” Wade whispered to Logan, who just grimaced and nodded, downing the rest of the alcohol in this place.

“I find it kinda hard to believe that you, the epitome of I have a grey cloud over my head at all times, and her, the living embodiment of fucking sunshine. She’s like fucking.. princess peach. You’re like bowser.”

Logan scoffed, glancing back at you for a moment. He was right. Despite him not getting the references, he knew what he was trying to say.

He ruined everything he touched, everything he went near. It was better to stay away from you, even if you are from another universe.

They didn’t get the chance to talk about it, because the others began walking in, Logan and wade taking one last glance at you before you all turned to them.

“You know, princess, you should talk to him.” Wade spoke suddenly, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, an innocent gesture.

You furrowed your eyebrows at Wade. “Princess?”

Somehow, in the few hours you knew wade, he was pretty nice, and you two quickly became friends.

“You remind me of like princess peach or something.”

Your eyebrows remained furrowed, face full of confusion.

“Oh my god, you guys don’t have Mario in your universe?”

You shook your head. “No clue what you’re talking about right now.”

“That’s.. tragic…”

“Anyways, what were you saying? Who should I talk to?”

“Mr dark and brooding outside.”

“Logan?”

“You know I’m talking about logan.”

You sighed, shutting your eyes for a moment and nodding, leaning your head back against the couch you sat on, recalling everything about the man.

“I was his friend for years. We met… through the X-men shit or whatever.” You waved it off. “I was… in love with him. I still am. We… eventually started dating, and we both were probably the happiest we could be. Then he had to go be the fuckin’ hero.” You said with a bittersweet laugh, Wade listening intently.

“It’s been 1 year, 3 months, and 11 days.”

“Wow… that is… bringing a tear to my eye.” He flicked the stray tear off his face, shaking his head to himself.

“Well, to me it looks like him and mini him are done talking,” he gently shoved your shoulder with his arm, motioning for you to go outside.

“Alright, alright, I’m going.” You murmured when he kept shoving you to the edge, small smile still on your face.

You shoved your hands into your pockets as you left, he glanced back, ready to tell whoever was coming up to go away, his words getting caught in his throat when he saw you. He turned back around, swallowing down the alcohol in seconds.

You sat next to him, both of you silent until you spoke up.

“Am I dead in your universe?” You asked him, voice almost a whisper.

He nodded, still not turning to look at you.

“Oh. You’re dead in mines.” You said, also turning to look ahead.

“How’d that happen?” He asked you, you were shocked that he was engaging in any conversation. You answered quickly.

“He was ripped in half.” You swallowed, remembering the scream you had let out, the cries you choked out on that day. “Right in front of me. Y-He told me…” you hesitated, turning to him, reaching for the bottle in his hands. He gave it to you, you taking a swig, the alcohol burning down your throat.

“He told me that he loved me, and that we needed to leave. I regret leaving. I regret it all.” You told him quietly, he stared at you now, and you stared at him back, passing him the bottle again.

“She was… stabbed, in the heart.” He told you, voice wavering for a moment. “I was so pissed off,” he chuckled for a moment. “I couldn’t kill them.”

You listened intently to the man.

“I never thought I would see…you again.”

“I know. It’s odd.” You said with a quiet laugh, both of you staring at each other for a moment, just sitting in silence, a collective understanding that maybe, just maybe, you were put in the void by fate.

A second chance. That’s what it was for you both.

[kachowden]

OMG I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ARMAROS!!!! he’s lovely

For those of you curious about this creature v

Here’s a little information about him ❤️

He was originally created as a baldurs gate oc! He was my Tav, before becoming a part of a short story I had written (self indulgently), where he becomes a party member of the Player. And then from them I kinda fell in love with him and he took on a life of his own as a completely separate character.

His lore stems from having been a somewhat unconventional drow, who had a few too many ideals about life outside of the underdark and too many altruistic ambitions that stray a bit too far from their typical religious teachings under Lolth.

With his desire to venture outward and away from the group, as well as being a rather tall species of drow, and therefor “imperfect”, he was cast aside into the above to live out his absurd existence. After an unsuccessful attempt at becoming part of the elven species, (still being regarded as an “evil drow”, despite his rather timid disposition) he was led to wander for a while, before coming across a traveler. (In this case, you)

Now drow are known for their manipulation and mistrust of others, and while Armaros is a bit of an unusual drow, that way of life is still rather ingrained into his heart and mind. So he puts on act, a rather silly one given his stature, and plays the role of a helpless victim. He sells the role rather convincingly, and is absolutely delighted when you allow him to join your journey.

It doesn’t take long for him to develop a crush on you, especially if you’re of a separate species. But it all becomes set in stone when you valiantly come to his aid during a particularly nasty spat with some ogres and goblins.

“‘….This feeling in his chest. It hurt. Was he dying? Had life outside the underdark warped him deep inside? Why was it, that as he watched you fight against the beasts that had attacked him, his heart raced and throbbbed within his ribs. His lungs hurt from how powerful the thuds were, and his ears twitched, swearing that even amidst the swords clashing against each other, you’d be able to hear it….’

‘..His cheeks burned in an unusual manor, almost like the shameful burn he’d feel when his fellow drow had scoffed at his words when he gushed about life above. But this wasn’t shame. No, it was too fluttery, to dizzying to be such a negative emotion…’

‘Drow were highly intelligent, so it didn’t take long for Aros to connect the dots, when his eyes stayed so dutifully locked onto your form, a holy light seeming to shine around you and reflect off the sweat that beaded your skin…’

‘..You must have been a god.’

‘…A benevolent being sent to guide him and keep him safe, to restore his faith and to nurse him back to health with your kind words and gentle touches..’

‘..Yes, that was it. You were a God. His God.’”

Armaros, despite being a highly intelligent creature, had taken his realization of love towards you (despite only having known you a few days), and twisted into something made of unhealthy devotion. His belief that Lolth teachings were not suited to him, left him feeling a bit lost previously, and so when his somewhat deluded mind latched onto the way you protected him, and seemed to bathe him in your holy presence, he became your faithful little follower.

Offering you gifts, and praising poems. Upholding your words like they were sacred teachings, and even going as far as to write them down. “My god, My savior, My Lord, My Holy One” were all names he had referred to you as while you continued your journeys together. You were obviously a little disturbed by such a drastic title, but no matter how insistent you were, he would merely smile with such a love struck gaze and go on about humble and kind you were. You could be a completely evil and rule being deep down, and he’d still defend you till dying breath, and insist that his god could do no wrong.

Now despite the belief that the very ground you walked on was sacred, it didn’t stop his more selfish desires. Yes he knew he was hopelessly in love with you, but his belief that you were his god shrouded that love with obsession and a twisted lustful shame that brewed deep inside him. He even fought with himself in thinking that he did not deserve you in such a way, and yet did not believe anyone else would be a more suited lover for you. No one would worship you like he did.

His eyes would often wander down your figure, or lunge towards your lips when you spoke. He was still a rather pathetic character, or at least he behaved in a rather timid and shy way. Often whining about various things, and clinging desperately to your form as you walked, mumbling about how unfit it was to have you walk, you should let him carry you! He’s strong, and his stamina in unmatched. He could take care of you in anyway you saw fit.

No no! You mustn’t prune your hands with the rivers water, let him! He’ll bathe you, and rest assured he won’t miss a a single inch. Perhaps his hands wander a little to much and his washing becomes something more akin to a massage but nonetheless. You’re certainly squeaky clean by the end of it. 



Overall, his help is usually more of a hindrance, with how much he hovers around you, and how hostile he can be towards potential party members. He’s selfish with his god, why would others deserve to worship you the way he does? They can praise you from a distance.

But anyway that’s pretty much his lore🙏 I love him so freaking much, makes me kick my feet and twirl my hair fr.