#i. ♡ ◟ out ────── i eat bees . ◞

[huellitaa]

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃🎀

[sceletaflores]

COMING UP QUICK (GOING DOWN SLOW)

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ೃ⁀➷ PAIR: Joel Miller x fem!reader

ೃ⁀➷ WC: 999

ೃ⁀➷ FOR: the super duper fun @sceletaflores & @ebodebo #ratwritingunder1kwordschallenge

ೃ⁀➷ CONTAINS: 18+ SMUT MDNI, swearing, set post-outbreak, unspecified age gap, joel’s pov, insecurity, lots of dirty talk cause he’s old and gross, oral sex (fem!receiving), pussy pronouns, wet & messy, come eating & swapping, we in fact now know what erectile dysfunction is in this house and we love it, porn w/o plot, no use of y/n.

ೃ⁀➷ ANON SAYS: Joel giving you filthy, nasty, messy oral after he comes inside you because he feels bad he can’t go for as many rounds as he used to be able to ♡

ೃ⁀➷ NAT’S NOTE: yet another installment of rylea and i being unstoppable…when we lock tf in and work as a team there’s nothing we can’t do. this all started with her daring me to write a fic under a 1k words since we all know that never happens on this blog, and ofc i can’t do a single thing without forcing her to do it too so here we are. plus we’re extra so we decided to make it a whole little challenge that anyone can do if they want! we’re just super whimsical like that. check out the masterlist here! hope y’all love it, mwah!

dividers by @cafekitsune!

joel miller always gives his girl one more round…

You’re still twitching as Joel pulls out.

Your pussy fluttering around him warm and wet like you don’t want to let him go just yet, like you don’t want to believe he’s already finished.

And fuck—neither does Joel.

He sits back on his haunches, panting like he ran a mile through mud, staring down at the mess he made between your thighs. His eyes follow the dirty trail of his come as it spills out of you, thick and slow, dripping down onto the sheets. 

He should be proud of it, the way he marked you, filled you up so good you can’t even hold it all. He used to be, his ego nice and stroked each time he’d leave his claim over you.

All he sees now is how fast it’s over.

It makes something ugly and hateful start wriggling to life beneath Joel’s skin, angry and buzzing through the hollows of his bones like bees. It’s all different now, his body doesn’t obey like it used to. He can’t stand it.

Joel’s age was never something that bothered you. It never put you off or made you stop wanting him—but the two of you have been together for a good while now, and he’s only getting older.

You're still young, in the prime of your life. All bright eyed and fiery and you're wasting it on a bitter old man who can barely get his dick up anymore. Joel’s more weathered, worn. Old bones and greying hair, more and more creases decorating the skin of his face.

Still, you never complain.

All that doesn’t change how you look at him like he hung the damn moon, and he tries his best to believe it. Tries his best to believe it when you tell him that he’s enough, but he knows better. 

You deserve more than one or two rounds before his cock is spent and lying uselessly limp on his thigh, his body aching and swamped with exhaustion. 

A younger man would have flipped you over and fucked you all damn night. Would’ve made you come again and again without breaking a sweat. Would’ve kept going until your thighs were shaking and your pussy was swollen and well fucked.

Joel used to be that man. 

“Used to” is a phrase that pisses him off more than he’d ever admit.

Joel’s not the man he used to be, so he does what he can. 

You’re still laid out for him—sweat dotted along your skin, thighs shaking, and pretty, so goddamn pretty. And somehow, he’s the one who gets to see you like this, warm and panting like you’re starved for more.

He’d never leave you like that, something buried deep in his gut just won’t let him.

So now, even as his cock flags between his legs and the muscle of his thighs ache with something fierce, he lowers himself anyway. The comforter makes soft shushing sounds under his palms, bunching around his knees as he settles between your legs.

“Joel?” Your head rises off the pillow, a confused little pinch between your brows. “Come back here, s’cold.”

He doesn’t answer, just trails kisses over the sweaty skin of your leg. Over the jagged scar across your left hip, over the bend of your knee, over the crease where your thigh meets your pelvis.

Lower and lower until his warm breath ghosts over the glossy expanse of your pussy.

“Look at that,” Joel murmurs, voice low and hoarse, like it scrapes up from the pit of his stomach. “Shit. You make me so fuckin’ proud, baby.”

His fingers part your lips, spreading you wide. “Still fuckin’ twitchin’,” he murmurs, dragging his knuckle over your entrance. “Poor thing’s still hungry, ain’t she?”

You open your mouth to say something—something reassuring, probably, something sweet he doesn’t deserve—but you never get the chance.

Joel bends low and licks a fat, slow drag up the slick mess he made between your legs.

He groans into your pussy—vulgar, guttural. The taste of you and him tangled together hits his tongue. Salt and sweat and musk and something sweeter. That thick, filthy taste of his come still leaking out of you and into his mouth.

You cry out, hips bucking, but he just grabs your thighs tighter, pins you down, keeps going. “Joel—shit, oh my god—”

“That’s it, sweet thing.” He presses a wet kiss over your clit, your thighs twitch around his head. “Taste’s so fuckin’ good, creamy little pussy’s makin’ your old man’s mouth water.”

You cry out when he drags his tongue up the mess leaking down your folds, catching every drop, sloppier than he’s ever been. Filthy, desperate sounds coming from his mouth—wet slurps, heavy breathing, growls low in his throat.

You’re close already. He feels it when you start to shake. Hears the way your voice cracks when you cry his name. “Joel—Joel, I’m gonna—fuck—”

“Go on, baby. Wanna feel you come. Wanna taste how sweet this pussy gets for me.”

Your thighs clamp tight around his head when it hits you, back arching, pussy spasming around his fingers like it’s trying to milk them, and Joel fuckin’ growls into you. Keeps his tongue on you through every wave, licking and sucking and moaning like a goddamn animal.

When it gets to be too much, when your feet start kicking at his shoulders and your breath catches on a sob, then he pulls back.

But not for long.

Joel crawls up the shaking length of your body, cranes his neck down and kisses you before he can stop himself. His lips fit perfectly with yours, slotting together slow and deep. You moan into his mouth, arms snaking around his neck as he glides his tongue over yours so you can taste it all. 

You. Him. The pure need pulsing through his veins.

It’s too much. It’s not enough.

“Let me do it again,” Joel begs against your lips. “Let me make it up to you, darlin’.”

And he does.

MINI NAT'S NOTE: love how i constantly yap about fucking that old man while i myself am toting around three (3) new knee braces, roll on icy hot, AND a super fancy prescribed pain cream at all times…like babes, you ARE the old man. he’d be digging in my purse for the extra strength advil just as much as i am.

also to the anon that sent this in…thank you. thank you so much. this is exactly what i needed, both in and out of the context of this challenge LMAO. i can’t tell you how much i struggled with this whole thing, like i literally started and scrapped two fics before i found this god send of an ask wrongfully collecting dust in my inbox. i hope you’re freak has been matched and you love it.

thank you so much for reading chickens, love you!

[100vern]

in the zone | ksy

what do you do when it feels like your entire life is falling apart? you spend the last of your inheritance on a beach house for the summer, of course. sure, the listing was suspiciously cheap, and there’s a massive waterpark right outside the bedroom window, but you just need to get away, so it’ll have to do. besides, it’s not like your entire world can get turned upside down in three months… right?

⟡ pairing: hoshi x f. reader ⟡ genre: strangers to lovers, (accidental) roommates; smut, fluff, lite angst ⟡ rating: explicit. minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⟡ warnings: bestie minghao. lots of talk about wasted potential, dead-end jobs, fear of change, job-based insecurity, self-doubt (no this is NOT a self-insert why do you ask!!). mentions of grief and mourning a loved one but nothing super heavy. alcohol and weed use. swearing. mentions of food/eating. pet names (baby, pretty girl). two down bad losers who are disgustingly into one another after a concerningly short amount of time, which is the beauty and entire point of fanfiction. please suspend any and all disbelief, thank u! ⟡ smut warnings: kissing. grinding/dry humping. public indecency but not public sex. hair pulling. dirty talk & praise. oral sex (f. receiving, mentions of m. receiving). protected vaginal sex. everyone orgasms. ⟡ wordcount: 20.2k ⟡ credits: bee (@imnotshua) and jess (@starlightkyeom) for reading this over for me, as always. i was in a time crunch and we're under a tornado watch so this is unedited and any mistakes are my own. if there's anything glaring i will fix it at a later date. :') ⟡ written for: the carat bay collab, hosted by @camandemstudios! thank you both for letting me participate. please make sure to check out the rest of the fics! ♡ ⟡ author's note: this is based entirely on the beach town i spent all my summers at as a kid, so there's a lot of nostalgia here. i wasn't sure i was gonna get this done on time, but with the power of god and anime vyvanse on my side, we managed to pull through... even if we had to pivot bc my original plan would've tripled the length. i hope you enjoy it!

Fate is not something you believe in, but if you did, you think it’d feel a lot like this.

“It’s not fate,” Minghao comments unhelpfully from his side of the lunch table, “it’s suspicious. It’s also highly concerning that they look the same to you.”

You frown. Spear a piece of near-wilted spinach on the end of your fork, sending a bead of salad dressing onto your phone that you don’t notice and consequently smear all over your screen when you scroll through the rental listing with your other hand. “Do the horrors ever cease?” Minghao stares blankly at you. You sigh at his lack of humor. “Are you saying you don’t think I should go?”

“No,” he’s quick to say, handing over a napkin. “On the contrary, I think you need to get the fuck out of here. All I’m saying is I think you should go to a place that isn’t such an obvious scam.”

A scoff escapes you as you stare down at the listing again. Super Host Soonyoung stares back at you for the hundredth time today. If it were possible to judge someone’s character from a blurry internet picture the size of an ant, you think he’d seem very kind with his beaming smile and doughy cheeks, not to mention the stylish sunglasses sitting atop his head that seem like they were purchased from an actual store and not a military-grade infomercial.

Besides, he’s opening up his home to strangers. Shitty people don’t do that, do they?

“They do if they’re landlords,” Minghao deadpans.

You concede the point. Not that you’d argue, anyway—renting out your beach house for the entirety of the summer is near-textbook landlording—but the lunch room is starting to fill up, and the last thing you need (or want) is your coworkers asking questions.

Aside from Minghao, these people are not your friends. They’re people you offer that weird closed-mouth smile to when you meet at the coffee machine and awkwardly have to wait your turn, sharing fake laughs when one of you complains that, no matter what option you pick, it always comes out tasting like an ashtray. They’re people you sign birthday cards for and have no idea how old they’re turning. They’re people who tell you all about their families and show you pictures of spouses and kids you swore belonged to someone else.

They’re people whose names you can’t match to faces when you get office-wide emails congratulating them on anniversaries and accomplishments; celebrating retirements; regretfully announcing departures for bigger and better things. They’re people you swear at under your breath for microwaving something foul or not pulling their weight; for wearing too much cologne and kissing ass for promotions that’ll never be theirs.

These people are not your friends, but you’ve been here so long that it feels like they should be.

“I need to decide before everyone else gets the same idea and it gets booked up.” A loud cackle sounds from the table beside you. Deborah, one of the new hires. You’d been expecting a picture of a middle-aged woman when her introductory email had been sent out. Imagine your surprise when a baby-faced new grad was staring back at you. “Wanna get together after work and tell me all the reasons why this is a terrible idea?”

Minghao, the bastard that he is, pretends to check his calendar. “Hmm. Looks like I’m all booked on the ‘dispensing extremely valuable advice no one listens to’ front. I do, however, have an opening tomorrow. Mimosa-drunk at brunch or wine-drunk at a more socially acceptable hour. Your choice.”

A glance at your phone tells you you’ve got five minutes and three-quarters of your salad left before your mandatory unpaid lunch break is over. You stab at the mixed greens again and frown—you left it too long and now everything is all soggy and gross. “First of all, this is the worst salad I’ve made this year. Don’t let me try any more Pinterest recipes. Second of all, you never ask me to hang out on weekends.” You narrow your eyes at him. “What’re you doing tonight? Do you have a date?”

Deborah immediately stops shrieking, attention piqued by her eavesdropping. Of course, she tries to play this off by pretending to check her makeup in her phone camera, except you can see her screen—and that she accidentally opened her credit card app.

So far, she owes $2,927.43 for the month of January.

A bastard but not an idiot, Minghao shakes his head, aware of the eyes on him. “No,” he answers, and his voice is so solid and sure you nearly believe him. “Well, not like that. I’m meeting my parents for dinner.”

God, you can practically see the cartoon hearts floating above Deborah’s head.

“Well, wine-drunk sounds better to me,” you answer, ignoring the fact that Minghao’s parents are in Turks and Caicos this week for their anniversary. Which he told you three days ago. “Orange juice gives me heartburn.”

With a put-upon sign, Minghao stands from the table. Gathers his trash and drapes his cardigan over his shoulders in a way that looks fashionable and cool. “I have got to make plans with people my own age.”

You snort. “Well, you can always ask—“

He cuts you off with a very pointed, “Back to the grind,” even though he says that’s “stuff white people say, along with ‘another day in paradise!’—and if you ever ask a white person how they’re doing and they respond with ‘I’m alive,’ you need to take a half-day.”

Everyone in this place is so fake.

And it isn’t like your day gets any better. An hour before closing time, your manager pops up on the ledge of your cubicle. “Heeey,” she chimes, pretending to wince at what’s about to come out of her mouth next. All things considered, she’s nowhere near the worst person to work for: she’s trustworthy, didn’t hesitate to give you the time off you needed, sends funny memes in the team group chat. So your whole thing with her isn’t her fault, it’s just—she’s years younger than you, so it touches on all those old insecurities. “Glenn needed to take the rest of the day, and in true Glenn fashion he didn’t get those reports done before he left. I hate to ask, but could you maybe, possibly, perhaps stay a little late…?”

In the split-second since she appeared at your desk like a bad omen, you’ve made up your mind: that beach house will be yours for the entire summer, scam or not.

Because you hate Glenn as much as the next guy (which, on your team, is mostly everyone), but you hate this place as an institution even more. What it represents. The insecurities and inadequacies it picks at. How comfortable you’ve grown here and the convenient excuses that comfort provides.

So you agree before you can come to your senses, because saying no will look bad, and the only thing you’ve got going for you and having been here so long with barely anything to show for it is the amount of PTO you’ve racked up, so you can’t and won’t give anyone a reason to refuse your request.

With a few minutes left in the day, everyone starts packing up and discussing weekend plans: sports and TV series they’ll be watching, new coffee shops they’re checking out, hobbies they’ll be catching up on. Before you can up the volume in your headphones, your cubicle mate asks if you’re doing anything fun. “Ah, just trying that new winery tomorrow, I think,” you answer, and you hope she won’t remember this come Monday because you don’t know anything about wine and can’t think of many things worse than discussing it.

Five-thirty hits. Everyone trickles out while you stay seated, glued to your desk and receiving everyone’s sympathetic glances. It takes a half hour just to get into Glenn’s reports because, for reasons unknown to you and your manager, he password-protected them—and once you’re in you see why. Half-baked columns, wrong formulas used even though knowing and understanding Excel was a job requirement, numbers you can’t trace back to any of the provided data. At seven you’re ready to put your head through a concrete wall. By eight you finally hit the halfway mark.

At quarter to ten, you finally send off the reports and sit back in your chair. Sitting in thischair for so long has to be doing irreversible damage, so you make a mental note to schedule a massage for tomorrow afternoon before you meet up with Minghao. With a sigh, you squeeze your eyes shut and try to conjure up some moisture. Nearly five hours after the rest of your coworkers, you pack up your belongings, twisting your body as you stand and trying not to wince as your knees and back make some concerning sounds.

Then, before you shut down your computer and go home to rot in bed until you’re forced to socialize, you put in your PTO request for June 2nd through August 29th.

(It gets approved first thing Monday morning.)

Vacations (In Theory) are very different from Vacations (In Practice).

Here you are on May 30th, mentally preparing for another long night hunched over your desk. Not only do you need to work ahead as much as you can for your nearly three month absence, you also have to include a paper trail to prove you at least tried to problem-solve before dumping it on whoever’s unlucky enough to cover you.

Minghao waits for you. Plops his stuff on your desk, pulls up a chair, and scrolls through social media while you work, making offhand comments every now and then about people you don’t know and all their drama while you try not to comment on how weird it is. In all the years you’ve worked together and have been friends, he’s never stuck around while you worked late, but the excuse had been convenient: I have plans tomorrow and you’re leaving early on Sunday so let’s grab dinner after work was much easier to say than I’m not going to see you for three months so let’s grab dinner because I’ll miss you.

You hadn’t commented on that, either.

Nonetheless, you put your head down and focus. Minghao had made a seven-thirty reservation at a place more upscale than the two of you usually frequent, and you’ll need to hustle if you have any hope of getting out of here within the hour.

Time seems to fly after that. Not only at work, but at dinner, too. Despite your first impression of him (deeply serious with a cutting resting bitch face), you’ve always enjoyed spending time with Minghao. He’s funny, now that you’re acquainted with his sense of humor, and he’s both carefree and solid in ways you could only dream of being. All of his troubles seem to come and go like the tide, never sticking around for too long and overstaying their welcome. The thought of him no longer being there when you return is too much to bear, so you make him promise not to change jobs until you’re back.

He quirks an eyebrow and pulls a face. “First of all, you’re going on vacation, you’re not dying. Second, I’m not promising you that. I apply to twenty jobs a week at minimum. I don’t want to be—” He pauses. Seems to be aware of what was about to come out of his mouth.

I don’t want to be like you, working a dead-end job.

I don’t want to be like you, undervalued by every metric of the word.

I don’t want to be like you, latching onto something no good for me just because it’s comfortable and I’m terrified of change.

I don’t want to be like you.

Minghao flushes. Stumbles over apologies. “No need to apologize,” you assure him, plastering on a smile you know isn’t fooling anyone. Take a sip of your drink to feign normalcy. Take a bite of food that tastes like sawdust. Good thing you were almost done, anyway.

Because Minghao was right, and everyone knows it.

Saying goodbye is awkward at best and painful at worst. Deep down, you know Minghao is just embarrassed—you would be, too, in his shoes—but just like Vacations (In Theory) and Vacations (In Practice), what you logically know to be true is very different from what you internalize. Because it’s not just embarrassment, it’s also the reason you don’t go for team drinks; the reason you don’t have anything personal on your desk. You just don’t see the point in integrating yourself into a place you shouldn’t be to begin with.

But that’s the whole point of this vacation, isn’t it?

Three months without having to think about work. Three months to decompress and pretend you’re going to do all that philosophical shit, like six a.m. trips to the beach to stare at the waves, stick your toes in the sand, and “find yourself.” Whatever that means.

There’s not much to do around the apartment except making sure you eat whatever’s left in the fridge. Coming home to a bunch of rotten food and having to go back to work the next day? Absolutely not. You’d need to bypass your office and go straight to an institution instead. You spend the rest of the day doing laundry and packing. You stand in front of your shelves and deliberate for far too long over which books to bring and then you do the same with your music library as you stare down at an empty playlist.

It’s early when your alarm goes off—barely eight o’clock, the sun already high in the sky as it beams through your curtains, birds chirping. Feels like waking up on a holiday morning or the first day of school: giddy excitement on the surface, nerves simmering just below. Makes it easy to get up and make your bed, to get dressed and put on sunscreen, your sunglasses, when there’s no dread weighing you down. Makes it easy not to mind the hours-long drive. Makes it easy to drive with the windows down, music loud, the wind in your hair.

Makes it easy to feel like you’re driving towards something, rather than away from it.

Halfway there, you stop at a small cafe for lunch, the feeling almost transcendental as you eat outside and let the sun warm your skin. You order an iced coffee to-go and it sweats in the cupholder, nothing but melted ice by the time you pull off the highway and navigate the smaller back roads, some of them covered in sand. You take a deep breath and smile. Everything smells like the sea—salty and slightly sweet, the sulphur of low tide.

The town looks like a postcard.

In your excitement, you’ve looked at a lot of pictures over the last few months, but none of them can compare to reality. Ice cream shops with striped awnings. Sidewalks covered in chalk doodles. More seafood restaurants than you can count. Antique and surf shops. Wooden playgrounds next to fenced-in basketball and tennis courts. Families walking back from the beach, pushing sleeping kids in strollers, lugging chairs and coolers and boogie boards behind them.

That excitement creeps back in the closer you get, and at every red light you look around and marvel at all the houses. How uniform they are. How they’re all elevated with ground-floor garages. The porthole windows and porches wrapped in white railing. Front yards with pinwheels stuck in thin strips of grass. Colorful cruiser bicycles stashed in tiny alleyways behind the houses, some laying on their sides with the wheels still spinning. If you close your eyes you can hear laughter and bells.

You pull into the driveway at ten after three, surprised to find that this house doesn’t look like all the others. Where they had vinyl siding in neutral, inoffensive colors, this one is mint green, bright and vibrant, with white scalloping along the facade. It reminds you of ice cream—the flowers in the wooden boxes beneath the windows look like sprinkles, and with how close you are to the boardwalk, the smell of fried dough hanging in the air, it’s easy to pretend.

Out of the car, an older couple in matching windbreakers waves as they pass you on the sidewalk. Everything sounds so much closer: the waves crashing, delighted shrieks from people on rides, the men combing the beach, trying to sell drinks and popsicles, squawking seagulls in search of someone’s food. You can see the ocean from where you stand, peeking out from beneath the boards. This is exactly what I needed, you think. Feels like your smile is permanent.

Until you try to get into the house.

You’d been given a door code when you confirmed your reservation. It doesn’t work. No matter how many times you try, 0-5-2-5 gets you nothing but a blinking red light and an encroaching panic. Phone already in hand, you send a message to the rental host—Hi! I’m at the house, but the door code doesn’t seem to be working. Is there another one I can try? Thank you!—before sitting on the porch steps to await your fate.

What you expect: a response rife with apologies, both for the mix-up and the inconvenience.

What you get: someone stampeding down the stairs and pulling the door open.

Super Host Soonyoung stands in the doorway wearing a sheepish smile and red-tinged cheeks. Except for the sunglasses, he looks just like his picture (especially the doughy cheeks), so at least you know you’ve got the right place. Still, you ask, “Hi, are you Soonyoung?” just to confirm, and that seems to knock him out of his stupor, offering to grab your bags and give you a tour.

Which seems strange. You don’t really need a tour, do you? Surely you’ll be able to find your way around over the next few months, but Soonyoung is extremely apologetic and seems a little embarrassed so you don’t say anything. You do let him grab your bag, though—mostly because meeting new people is always difficult for you, so letting him take one bag while you take the other gives you something to do with your hands. Gives you something to comment on and laugh about when he pretends to strain taking it out of the trunk.

When you get inside, Soonyoung gives you the choice of three bedrooms. Two are upstairs. Of those, one has two large windows facing the street, rewarding you with a view of the boardwalk and the ocean, while the other also has beach views that are semi-obstructed by the waterpark. The third and final bedroom is downstairs, just off the kitchen. Soonyoung offers this one and says it might be “less awkward,” which also strikes you as strange, considering—

Wait.

“Bathroom-wise, it doesn’t really matter what one you pick. There are full bathrooms on both levels—”

Reality hits you like a truck, head-on and all at once. Maybe it’s less reality and more the obvious, because listening to Soonyoung explain where the bathrooms are and giving you a tour and being here in general puts a lot of things into perspective very quickly.

“I think I fucked up,” are the only words you’re able to muster. Soonyoung’s mouth snaps closed. “Or you did. Either way, one of us really, really fucked up.” Soonyoung pauses. Tilts his head to the side like a puppy, the confusion obvious, and you think he’s about to ask what you mean so you beat him to it. “The listing was for the entire house.”

That does it.

“I—what? Are you sure?”

The second question is rhetorical. You know it, Soonyoung knows it, everyone knows it, so you don’t answer, just nod and offer a sympathetic, closed-lipped smile and hope the ground will split apart and swallow you.

Horrifyingly, all you can think at this moment is that Minghao was right about this being a scam. You’ll have to tuck your tail between your legs and tell him, because you can’t stay here. Sharing a space—not only is it foreign to you, you’re not sure you even can. There’s an art to being a good roommate, and after living alone both during college and all your years as an adult, it’s not a skill you have.

And it takes a while, longer than you expected, for the disappointment to hit. For all that excitement and all the plans you had—sticking your toes in the cold, early morning sand; sunset walks up and down the boardwalk; eating so much fried food you’re sick of it within a week; waking up to the sound of waves crashing—to come crashing down around you. This was supposed to be a reset. A reward for dragging yourself this far and surviving. A balm for all the regrets you have about your life and a compass to find a new direction.

All of it—gone.

The tears are just as embarrassing as you thought they’d be.

To his credit, Soonyoung doesn’t panic. He doesn’t seem to flinch at all, which surprises you; he gently grabs your arm and helps you to the small table in the kitchen. Pulls out a chair and gestures for you to sit, and when you do and he can be sure you aren’t going to bolt straight out the door, he pours you a glass of water, sits across from you, and calmly says, “We can figure this out.”

Any other time you’d probably scoff and say something that belied just how hopeless you found this entire situation, but now, after experiencing a concerning number of mental breaks in a very short amount of time, you’re happy to let someone else take the reins and do the heavy lifting. Of course, you don’t know what that looks like in this case. Do you ask for a refund and try to find a hotel? Surely not: any reputable hotel would cost ten times what you spent on this place, not to mention they’ve probably been booked solid since last year. Do you ask for a refund, find a hotel, book as long of a stay as you can, and spend the rest of your summer having a staycation at home? That sounds miserable.

There are probably thousands of podcasts talking about what a horrible idea it’d be to live with a strange man for three months, and it’s your fault for idealizing this entire trip so much to begin with that makes any alternative seem like a fate worse than death, but you can’t stay… right? Even if it somehow wasn’t the stupidest idea of all time, that doesn’t even touch on the fact that it’s Soonyoung’s house, and who's to say he even wants you here, anyway?

“Since this was my second embarrassing fuck up of the day, I’ll just… go somewhere else while you’re here, and you can have the house to yourself.”

You blink. “For three months?”

His eyes widen for a brief second. You’re starting to think he wasn’t prepared for any scenario, let alone this one. “I—yeah, yeah, of course. Three months! Psh, that’s nothing, you know? Barely any time at all.”

“I mean, it’s a quarter of a year. That doesn’t seem insignificant.”

Those same wide eyes have begun twitching. “Riiight.” He follows this with a very long sip of water. “It’s really no trouble, though. I can sleep at the studio. There’s a couch and a bathroom there and everything.”

It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s no trouble. Soonyoung looks like he’d rather remove all of his teeth with very dull tools, and even if this was his (admittedly catastrophic) error, it doesn’t feel right putting him out of his own home—especially to a place where having a couch and a bathroom are considered an upside. Does the bathroom even have a shower? How would he cook? Is any of his stuff there? God, you can’t do that to someone.

So it’s with a little caution, a lot of stupidity, and an ill-advised desire to be more spontaneous and free-spirited as if you’re a character in an Elizabeth Gilbert novel that you ask, “Is it weird for you if you just… stay?”

For all of Soonyoung’s mismanagement, it’s clear he doesn’t want to inconvenience you further or make you uncomfortable. He’s insistent that he’ll leave, insistent that it really is no trouble and it’s the least he can do for fucking up the listing, and insistent that if you just give him some time to pack some clothes, he’ll be out of your hair in no more than thirty minutes. With a sigh, you go through your questions again.

Does the bathroom have a shower? No, but—

How would you cook? Maybe I could come over once a week to meal prep, if you wouldn’t mind? There’s a microwave, at least.

Is any of your stuff there? Like, an old pair of sneakers. And maybe a musty sweatshirt.

By the time you ask your follow-up questions, both of you know he isn’t going anywhere, and perhaps if he’d confirmed that you’re one-hundred-percent okay with this nineteen times instead of twenty you wouldn’t have gone for it, but he does so you do.

“I really don’t have to—” You wave him off. Ask him if there are any house rules he’d like you to abide by aside from the obvious. When he sends you a questioning look, you admit you’ve never been anyone’s roommate before. “Oh,” he responds. Takes a second to think. “I don’t think so? Sometimes I keep weird hours. Like, I have my regular jobs, but sometimes I’ll go to the studio if I’m restless or want to work on something, so I guess me going in and out in the middle of the night is something to be aware of. I’ll make sure to be quiet, though.”

“Is it like a regular nine-to-five? I don’t want to disturb you, either.”

Soonyoung screws up his face. “God, no. I—wow, I just realized you have no idea what I’m talking about. I run a dance studio for the local kids. Most of them take summers off to go on vacations or whatever, so once school’s out we only open two or three days a week, depending on how many of them sign up. This year there weren't many, so we decided on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“And your other job?”

He scratches at the back of his neck. “Ah, that one’s kind of embarrassing? I… work at the waterpark next door. Carat Bay.”

“Oh, that doesn’t seem so bad.”

He sighs. Runs his thumb vertically along the length of his glass and collects the condensation. “When I first opened the studio, I didn’t realize it wouldn’t be busy all the time, you know? I spent my summers here, so I figured everyone else did, too, and I needed to pick up a second job to cover the studio rent on top of a million bills for both here and there.”

You want to tell him you understand. Want to tell him it isn’t embarrassing to do what you have to do to make ends meet; that, if anything, it’s brave. That you’ve been there (and still are). That you’re a little embarrassed by your job, too. But then he continues. “It probably isn’t embarrassing for the high school and college kids, but I’m almost twenty-nine and I’m operating the splash zone. It definitely feels embarrassing.”

You hum. Look around Soonyoung’s kitchen. From the listing photos, you knew it didn’t look like every other rental beach house, with all the ocean motifs and white wicker furniture and seashells nailed to the wall. It’s not sparkling marble and stainless steel, either, but it’s nicer than your outdated kitchen. “You seem to be doing okay, though. I mean—you’ve got this nice house and a dance studio. That seems pretty good for someone our age.”

Soonyoung laughs, a little shy and self-conscious. “I inherited the house from my grandma. I could never afford anything like this.”

“Mm, no offense, but I put that together pretty much immediately.”

When Soonyoung laughs this time, it’s bright and open, reaches his eyes and brings his entire being to life. The two of you make small talk for a few more minutes until you’re unable to stifle a yawn, and then Soonyoung is up and heading for a cabinet drawer immediately, pulling out a stack of takeout menus and saying to take your pick, dinner’s on him tonight. After you try (and fail) to protest, you ask him what’s good and accept his answer of a taco spot not far, and he puts through the order. Asks if you’ve decided on a bedroom so he can carry your bags, so you choose the streetside one upstairs with the view of the water, and while he’s gone to pick up food, you take a quick shower and unpack.

Minghao [6:22pm]: everything ok? how’s the house? You [6:49pm]: It’s a long story I’m too exhausted to type out rn You [6:49pm]: But I think this is gonna be really good for me 🤞

When you wake up the next morning, you expect it to have followed a night of fitful sleep.

Being in a stranger’s house. Said stranger sleeping only a few feet away, door cracked, his soft snores drifting down the hall. An unfamiliar place. A beach town that, while picturesque and dreamy, seems to also be nocturnal. Once most of the town turned off their lights and locked their doors for the night, it’d taken on a second life—groups of friends walking to and from the bars and clubs, shrieks of laughter and heated arguments, the to-be-expected disregard of the time and basic decency that comes with being immature and on a group trip in your early twenties.

You’re surprised, then, that you feel refreshed when you wake up. That the last thing you remember is your head hitting the pillow. It’s the most restful sleep you’ve had in months, and you roll over to check the time feeling ready to take on the world.

8:37am

Spoiled for and overwhelmed by choice, you take your time getting out of bed and going about your routine. When you slip out of your room to brush your teeth, you notice Soonyoung’s bedroom door is wide open. Even though you’re curious, you don’t (and wouldn’t) peek—instead, you’re distracted by the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee wafting upstairs.

“Good morning,” Soonyoung greets you. He’s sitting on the couch, one leg crossed and tucked beneath him. “I made coffee if you want some. I also left out the bread. If you wanna let me know what you like, I can go grocery shopping later—”

You smile. “Sure, thanks.” Wander into the kitchen. Fill a mug with coffee, cream, a little sugar. Pop two slices of bread into the toaster and, once they pop back out, spread on a thin layer of butter.

And then you hesitate. Should you eat here? Would it be weird to join Soonyoung in the living room? Would it be rude if you didn’t? With a sigh, you compromise and meet in the middle. Place your plate on the newel cap of the staircase and wrap both hands around the mug, soaking in the warmth. Soonyoung has the television on. You don’t recognize what’s playing, but it seems to be a mid-season rerun of some sitcom—background noise, mostly, which is exactly what it seems to be now.

Neither of you are watching. Soonyoung’s scrolling through his phone and you’re content to stare out the bay window facing the street, watching people pass by on their way to the beach. Large straw hats, colorful umbrellas, excited toddlers waiting for an opening to dart away. The waves still crash. The seagulls still screech. “Do you have to work today?” you ask Soonyoung because you feel like you should make conversation.

“Not today, thankfully,” he answers. He sets his phone down and twists his body so he’s facing you. “Back to the studio tomorrow, and I’m scheduled for the waterpark Friday through Sunday.”

You nod. You’re tempted to ask if he wants to do something together and decide against it, not wanting him to feel obligated. If you’re being honest, you’re not entirely sure you want to hang out, still wrapping your head around the fact that the vacation you spent months idealizing will not come to fruition. Not fully. But there’s nothing stopping you from grabbing a book and sitting on the beach for a few hours.

Long enough to decompress—or start to.

“I’ll probably head to the beach.”

“Cool. Let me give you a beach tag.” What he hands over reminds you of an oversized bread clip: octagonal and neon red, 2025 SEASON printed in the center. You have never seen one of these in your life. “Are these not a thing where you’re from?”

“You have to pay to go on the beach?”

Soonyoung’s nose twitches as he bites back a laugh and nods. Explains that the money’s used to maintain the beach and the restrooms and pay the lifeguards and a whole bunch of other things. “Supposedly,” he tacks on conspiratorially.

“Did the mayor get a brand new Porsche?”

“I don’t even know who the mayor is.”

An hour later, after you changed and decided on a book, and Soonyoung not only gave you a beach pass but also his favorite chair (one of the nice ones that recline and have a drink holder) and his phone number (under the guise of you sending him your grocery list, to which you inexplicably offered to just go with him instead), you have to admit the beaches are impeccably maintained.

Touché, beach pass.

With your toes dug into the warm sand, you get through half of your book. Spend the rest of the time dozing off in Soonyoung’s chair, lulled into a half-sleep by the rhythm of the waves crashing and retreating, the conversations of the people around you that becomes a singular thrum, the shrill sound of the lifeguard’s whistle that jolts you awake every time someone goes out too far.

Soonyoung texts you around three, asking if you still want to go to the store with him. No worries if not, he tacks on, you can just send me your list. So you start packing up what little you brought, thankful your walk back to the house is short. You’re drowsy from the sun, warmed through to your bones, still in awed disbelief that this is what the entirety of your summer is going to consist of. That you won’t have to suffer like the poor kid running the mini golf course, nearly dead from either boredom or a hangover behind the ticket window. That your whims will be able to come and go like the tide.

You rinse the sand from your feet at the spigot in the backyard. Return Soonyoung’s chair to where he’d grabbed it from. Leave your sandals by the back door and do a final shake of your bag to get rid of anything that might track into the house. Now that you have the right code (0-5-2-6; Soonyoung had mistyped it in his original message), you let yourself in, surprised to find him bent over the kitchen table with an extremely long grocery list in front of him.

“Lucy, I’m home,” you joke.

He looks up at you with a lopsided smile. “How was the beach?” he asks, eyes returning to his list.

“Beach-y keen.”

There’s a beat of silence—one that’s long enough to have your cheeks warming from embarrassment over a very bad dad joke—before Soonyoung lets out a snort of laughter. “Terrible.”

“Definitely not my best,” you concede, mirroring his smile. Even though he can’t see it, you nod at the list. “What are you up to?”

“Grocery list.” He holds it up, unfurling it like a scroll. “Do you think this is enough?”

You move closer, eyes scanning over what he’s written down. Four different types of burgers and soft drinks. Regular and gluten-free bread; milk and non-dairy alternatives. Brown, white, cage-free, organic eggs. Enough snacks to fuel a youth athletic team for at least a month. Pasta, lunch meat with ???? written next to it, cereal, rice. “Are you planning on buying out the store?”

“I—no, I just didn’t know what you like.”

“May I?” you ask, gesturing for him to hand you the list. When he does, you flip it over and create separate sections: one for each meal, one for pantry items (staples and snacks), and one for drinks. “Do you usually meal plan?”

Soonyoung’s stare is blank. “No. I just go to the store and buy things I like and try to eat it all before it goes bad.” Thankfully, you’re able to keep your horror to yourself. “You do? You’re that organized?”

“I wouldn’t say organized.” You flip the list back over and put checkmarks next to the things you like. “Do the same thing, and then we can come up with some ideas so we aren’t going rogue and overspending.”

After a lot of back and forth, a little friendly ribbing—“Do you really need four boxes of fruit snacks?” you tease Soonyoung, to which he replies, “Sorry, grandma. Add another box of Fig Newtons to the list instead,” which causes you to promptly cross them off—and even more organization and assigning of duties, the two of you emerge triumphant over the shopping list. If your calculations are correct (which they should be, considering how long you’ve lived alone and have done this exact thing every week), this shop should last roughly two weeks. You also give yourselves two days a week to either order takeout or go to a restaurant, considering Soonyoung’s sporadic work schedule.

As you pile into your car, Soonyoung slides into the passenger seat. Covers his eyes with a pair of sunglasses and rolls the window down. Leans his head back against the seat and sighs, appearing to be the epitome of contentment and inner peace. “Thank god it was you I fucked up the listing for.” He says this like it’s nothing. As if it’s a completely normal thing to say and it doesn’t have you nearly swerving into a telephone pole, stunned by the sincerity in his voice. “Can you imagine if it was someone as bad as me?”

It’s his words, and not the hours you spent in the sun, that keep you warm through the chilly grocery store aisles.

The first two weeks of your vacation feel well-earned and restorative, with a slight sunburn.

After that, however, everything starts to feel… different. Like you’re living someone else’s life. An alternate reality where you wake up whenever you want to, stroll casually up and down the boardwalk with an iced coffee and no destination in mind; where all those things you’d stressed over months ago are nowhere to be found, dragged out to sea by the current.

It’s a slow, gradual process. A little awkward and jilted at first as you both grow used to one another and figure out what and where the boundaries are. As you’re both determined not to make it weird or overstep.

Nonetheless, the two of you fall into an easy routine. Most of your afternoons are spent at the beach or around town, and on the two days a week Soonyoung is at the dance studio, he always texts you right before his last class to check in about dinner: if you want him to cook, if you want to cook, if you want to go out or order something for delivery. Meals are now eaten on the couch so the two of you can commentate whatever’s on the television.

(Fridays are your favorite. Soonyoung stops at the liquor store on his way home from the waterpark and the two of you get drunk on beer and soju and watch wrestling. You share two styrofoam takeout containers of tacos, and the drunker Soonyoung gets, the more ridiculous his commentary becomes. By the time the six-pack is gone, he’s sideways on the couch, his head nearly in your lap, bowled over from the weight of his laughter.)

A two-week trial period is usually far too short for you to make friends—hell, you didn’t even talk to Minghao until you’d run into him at the coffee machine every morning for three straight months—but Soonyoung is easy to get along with. To livewith. He’s easy to like. So you’re not shocked when you reach the three-week mark and all those inhibitions seem to disappear. When he appears in the doorway of your bedroom and asks if you wanna swing by the waterpark later that afternoon and keep him company.

“It’s so boring,” he whines. “I just sit there and make sure people don’t pee or drown, which is nearly impossible, anyway. It’s a giant bucket that dumps water on you—how could someone drown.”

You laugh to yourself, thankful your back is turned to him. You’ve been trying to decide between the neon green bikini and the one-piece with the cut-out just below your chest for a good fifteen minutes and aren’t any closer to a decision. “An adult human can drown in as little as two inches of water, you know.”

“Yeah, if they’re an idiot, maybe,” Soonyoung fires back. “Wear the green one. That color will look really good on you. And then come to the waterpark. I’ll give you a free pass.”

When you turn to face him, he quickly pulls out all the stops: truly pathetic puppy dog eyes, plush bottom lip pushed out, hands clasped together like he’s about to start begging. Before this exact moment, you would’ve said your resolve was made of steel, that you were not a person susceptible to a grown man’s pouting, but you cave in a concerningly short amount of time. Huff, try to act like you’re very displeased by this turn of events, and say, “Fine, but this is a family establishment so I’m wearing the one-piece. You only said the bikini because you’re a pervert.”

He’s torn between defending himself and letting out a triumphant hurrah before settling on both. “Hey, I’m not denying it,” he says casually. “You’ll really come, though?”

You shrug. “Sure, so long as you leave me alone sometimes so I can read my book.”

Cue the triumphant hurrah. “Yes! Okay, I can do that. I’ll see if there are any cabanas open and reserve one for you.”

“Wow, I even get my own cabana boy?”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes and starts down the hallway to his room. “And you called me a pervert,” he calls over his shoulder.

Well, if he didn’t bother denying it, you aren’t going to, either.

—

Not only is the heat relentless, the noise does not stop.

Luckily the first issue is largely solved by the cabana Soonyoung was able to nab you. It isn’t all that large, only enough space for two lounge chairs, and to your dismay there are no men in tiny swimsuits holding trays of colorful drinks with little umbrellas waiting for you to beckon them over, but at least it blocks out the sun. Shields you from the worst of it. There’s less to be done about the heat, but once the humidity becomes too stifling you wander over to Soonyoung—easily identifiable in his garish yellow shorts and matching visor—and wait for him to blow his whistle, alerting everyone to the giant bucket of water about to be dumped on them.

“Nice legs,” you tease, wolf-whistling as you approach.

Soonyoung pretends to be scandalized. Gasps. Twists sideways as if he’s trying to hide his skin from your lustful gaze. “In front of the children?” he accuses.

No kids are paying attention to your conversation when they’re about to get drenched, but you play along anyway, sliding your sunglasses down your nose. “Can’t help it. Those tiny little shorts and your pale thighs really get me going.” He scowls, pulling said shorts further down said thighs to hide the discrepancy in skin tone. “God, it’s loud here,” you change the subject, taking pity on him. “This is what you put up with the entire summer?”

“Just wait—it’ll get worse in a second.”

He’s right, unfortunately. From the second the bucket begins to tip and for at least three full minutes after it unleashes its gallons of water, all you hear is screaming. High-pitched, manic screaming loud enough to make your ears bleed, but the water is cold and you’re thankful for the reprieve from the heat, even if it doesn't last long before it evaporates.

“Ah, gotta love it,” he deadpans. “Only twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds until the next one.”

You snort. Ask him if he wants anything from the snack bar because you need a drink—a very cold, very refreshing drink. All he requests is a bottle of water. Not a bad idea, considering you’re probably dangerously dehydrated from how much you’ve sweat, but you change your mind as soon as you reach the counter. You hear a chorus of angels. It feels like the light of divinity itself shines a spotlight on the part of the menu advertising non-alcoholic piña colada slushies.

You promptly order two—and a water.

When the kid behind the counter hands over your order, you can’t help the beaming smile that forms on your face, but it’s short-lived. Yes, your drinks come with colorful umbrellas and are topped with cherries, and Soonyoung’s water comes straight from a cooler, dripping ice-cold condensation all over your hand and the warped wood top of the counter, but it’s hard to feel victorious when the kid who hands them to you looks like he’s going to keel over and die from heat stroke.

“I—thanks,” you mutter, taking in his flushed cheeks and the hair adhered to his forehead with sweat. You stuff a few bills in the tip jar. “Sorry you have to work here.”

You’re surprised to find Soonyoung in one of your cabana chairs when you return. His visor is pulled over his eyes, his energy completely boneless, and if you weren’t in this weird limbo of maybe-friends you’d probably tease him a little. Call him Sleeping Beauty or flick some of the cold water on your hands at him.

Instead, you place all three drinks on the small, rickety table in between the chairs. “Special delivery.”

Soonyoung lifts his visor. Laughs softly when he sees what you’ve ordered. Asks, “Is one of those for me?” and reaches for one regardless of what your answer is.

“It”—you begin to answer, watching as he dangles a cherry by the stem—“wasn’t,” you finish after he pops it into his mouth.

“But I’m on break.” He pouts. “And it’s so hot outside and this drink is so cold.” He sticks the straw in his mouth and has to speak around it. “And if Chan’s running the snack bar today I bet he put alcohol in this.” He takes a sip. “No booze. Coward.”

“Do you often drink on company time? Also, that kid at the snack bar looked about ten minutes from death. Someone should probably check on him.”

Soonyoung waves you away. “I’ll do it after I clock back in.”

“When is that? Rigor mortis might set in by then.”

“An hour. Rigor mortis is when they go all stiff, right?” You hum in agreement. “Easier to move, then.” He sucks down the rest of the slushie, finishing with a loud slurp that draws some attention your way, finishing with an exaggerated ahh. “Wow, that was really good. Can you wake me up in forty-five minutes?”

You scoff. Tuck your legs beneath you and reach for your book. “Don’t you have your phone? Set an alarm.”

“Mm, don’t want to. What are you reading?”

You tell him the title. Explain that you’d picked it up for cheap in a secondhand shop in town while you were wandering around one afternoon just because you’d liked the cover. “It’s okay,” you say. “It’s not really grabbing me, but it’s well-written and not very long so it could be worse.”

“Do you read a lot?”

“Try to.” Realizing this is not a very satisfactory response, you add, “I’ve tried to read at least three books a month since I graduated college.”

“I’m not good at math, but that seems like a lot of books.”

You laugh. “I don’t always manage it, to be fair. I’m happy with thirty books a year.”

“I haven’t read one book a year in maybe… ever. Do you have a book job?”

The question is asked around a yawn, words and inflection steeped in exhaustion, which is just fine by you. Because it’s easier to glance over at him—arms crossed over his chest, rising and falling rhythmically, and towel covering his face to further block the sun—and say, “Okay, old man, nap time for you,” and laugh at his responding middle finger than it is to exhume all that ancient history. Easier than adopting that indifferent affect as you say, “No, no book job, just a desk in an office,” and wondering if your discontent is made of tissue paper. If it’s palpable.

If it is, Soonyoung doesn’t say anything.

So you don’t, either. You stay mum about the lifelong absence of a dream. How there were things you liked but nothing you could envision doing forever. How it made you aimless, drawn to whatever felt easy at the time, content to let the wind pick you up and take you wherever it wanted. How you had to swallow down that small bite of embarrassment every time someone asks what you do for a living or how much you make. That lethal combination of hopelessness, bitterness, and jealousy you feel when it seems like all of your friends, classmates, and old coworkers are lapping you.

Those things don’t matter here, you remind yourself. You focus your attention back on your book and set an alarm so you can wake up Soonyoung.

Minghao wants to visit you.

This, of course, poses a problem. While you’d alluded to it on your first day here, you and Minghao haven’t talked much beyond a few texts every few days, so you never got around to telling him the full story. That the man you thought you were renting an entire house from is still occupying it. That he sleeps a few feet down the hall and cooks meals alongside you. That, even when he’s at work or both of you retire for the night, your phone will light up with messages or DMs from him as he sends memes or links to places around town he thinks you might like—and that you always hope he’ll ask if you want to go together.

There’s no real reason to deny his request. Much to your dismay, Soonyoung doesn’t mind. Seems to light up at the possibility of meeting one of your friends, someone he only knows about from stories and anecdotes and late-night scrolls through your Instagram feed, where you and Minghao have made it a game to tag one another in the ugliest photos either of you have ever taken. He goes into planning mode almost immediately, and if you were less mature you’d probably pout at the way the “you” in his messages becomes “you and Minghao.”

Inexplicably, you care about disappointing Soonyoung far more than you care about disappointing Minghao, so you tell him to call you once he’s done work so the two of you can come up with a plan.

Your phone rings just after seven, screen lighting up with the only normal photo the two of you have ever taken together. It should bring you comfort, the reminder that this is Minghao and he’s your friend and can even look ugly sometimes when he puts effort into it. But he’s also got the demeanor and general vibe of a parent picking you up from the police station. Something about him just exudes disappointment.

You’ll have it in spades soon.

Minghao spends a few minutes catching you up on things back home, tells you about the goings-on at the office: a new girl in his department he suspects might be a nepotism hire, the creepy IT guy you’ve all complained about for months finally getting fired, a day last week the plumbing broke and everyone got sent home early. “I’m ready for a vacation,” he sighs into the phone.

You grimace, thankful Soonyoung isn’t around to watch this trainwreck occur in real time. It’s another late night for him at the studio as he prepares for the mid-summer recital, still not fully satisfied with the choreography. He’d done the same two days ago and didn’t come home until nearly midnight.

“Hello? Are you there?”

You sigh. Tell yourself it’s better to just rip off the bandage and not prolong it anymore, but you can hear Minghao in your head saying I told you so and it gives you agita. Makes your palms sweaty. You cannot, in good conscience, allow yourself to be patronized by someone younger than you.

“Yeah, so, about that…”

Just as you expected, Minghao is not particularly gentle in his response. “A scam is a scam,” he says. “Do you have any idea how stupid it was to stay there? You don’t know that guy! He could be a serial killer for all you know, or worse—a furry.”

“I’ll be surprised if he’s a furry,” you retort, picking at a bit of pilled fabric on the couch. “But also, it wasn’t entirely a scam, he just messed up the listing. It’s not like I got here and the house didn’t exist and some dude claiming to be a prince was laughing all the way to the bank with my money.”

“You’re hopeless.” You can practically hear the way he’s pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I am not. It’s really nice here, Hao. The town is nice and Soonyoung is nice and he owns a dance studio and works part-time at a waterpark that he gets me into for free sometimes.”

“Is the waterpark nice?”

You hesitate. “I, um—it’s not horrible. Sometimes Chan puts alcohol in the piña colada slushies.”

“That… sounds kind of good, actually. With the little umbrellas?”

“And a cherry,” you confirm.

This, more than anything else, seems to be what seals the decision for him. After confirming for the millionth time that Soonyoung doesn’t mind his company (and that he’s not a serial killer, to which you send him the link to Soonyoung’s Instagram and ask does this look like a serial killer to you? because his most recent post is a photo of him on a giant flamingo floatie in the pool, mouth stained orange from a bag of cheese puffs, to which Minghao reluctantly agrees it does not), he agrees to call out of work and make the drive Friday morning.

Which, of course, is the day the sky decides to crack open.

This is unfortunate for Minghao, who has to make the same hours-long drive you did. This is unfortunate for you, who was looking forward to trying a new brunch cafe on the boardwalk. This is not unfortunate for Soonyoung, who was scheduled from open to close at Carat Bay and now has the day off, which he’s spending preparing for Minghao’s arrival: fridge and pantry restocked, floors vacuumed and mopped, sheets washed and dried, downstairs bathroom stocked with fresh towels. Like the grocery shopping and cooking, you and Soonyoung had worked out a system early on, so on any other day all of this is stuff you’d be helping out with.

Except Xu Minghao must’ve either been a member of a spy network or a teenage girl in a past life.

Normally it’s to your benefit that Minghao can find anything on the internet. Unlike you, he’s not prone to or all that interested in gossip (so he says), but he’s receptive when you assign him a task, and over the time you’ve known each other, the partnership has served you well. Usually it’s just mundane work gossip: who’s sleeping together, who’s on job-hunting sites begging for leads, who got embarrassingly, shit-faced drunk over the weekend and overshared in their Instagram stories. Usually it doesn’t affect you all that much, forgotten soon after in the way mundane work gossip always is.

This time, however.

Although sending him Soonyoung’s Instagram had alleviated his fears that you’re shacking up with a serial killer, it revealed something far worse: you’re shacking up with a Gemini.

Again—not usually a problem, considering astrology isn’t really your thing. You’d be hard-pressed to differentiate a Gemini from a Cancer or whatever else, so when Minghao tells you this it’s met with a hum of acknowledgment and nothing else. It was only once he asked, “Did you guys do anything for his birthday?” that it all started to sink in and panic gripped at you.

Minghao can find anything on the internet because he doesn’t stop at the surface-level stuff. You’d sent him Soonyoung’s Instagram and he didn’t just scroll through the first few posts, he scrolled years back, almost to the beginning, and that’s where he’d found the post: Soonyoung surrounded by friends, their arms slung over his shoulders while he held a cake, two lit number candles perched on top. 25!!!! the caption read.

It was posted on June 15th.

Which was last Sunday. Nearly a week ago. Soonyoung hadn’t said anything, had gone about his day as usual—coffee and a breakfast sandwich eaten at the two-seater table on the front porch before he showered and got ready for work, and even after he got home and the two of you shared a pizza and watched baseball, he never mentioned it.

Hence why you aren’t helping Soonyoung with the cleaning. You’re at the grocery store ordering a birthday cake because if there’s one thing you cannot do it’s bake, even when it’s box mix and prepackaged frosting (and Soonyoung deserves a cake that’s both edible and stays upright). You move to the aisle with the party supplies and curse the lack of options.

A children’s cartoon character or plain red, edges yellowed from age. Tough choice.

You grab a few other things and stand in line to check out, checking your phone religiously. You’d gotten out of the house under the guise of a pilates class you “couldn’t cancel,” so anything longer than an hour will start looking suspicious, but the required 24-hour notice from the bakery had posed a problem. Soonyoung is scheduled at the waterpark tomorrow, and you can’t turn it down because he was kind enough to get you and Minghao another cabana (and Minghao really wants one of those slushies), and then he’s back at the studio on Sunday to put the finishing touches on the recital.

So, here you are. Arms full of items you can let overheat in the trunk of your car and a receipt for a small marble sheet cake, a request for Happy Birthday, Soonyoung! to be written on top in blue frosting, surrounded by confetti sprinkles.

—

Soonyoung and Minghao get on like a house on fire.

You aren’t surprised by this, considering you don’t think Soonyoung has ever met a stranger. He’s good at it—the small talk, navigating those awkward moments, making people feel comfortable. Minghao has only been in the house twenty minutes before he’s giggling and entirely charmed, made to feel right at home even though he’s dripping rainwater all over the freshly-mopped floors. Seems to forget he was supposed to be angry that the rain had ruined one day of his vacation.

Soonyoung insists on carrying on the Friday tradition of takeout, alcohol, and wrestling, which is not something Minghao would watch without outside influence. But he fits in seamlessly. Falls into step with Soonyoung’s chaos, taking over his ridiculous commentary when Soonyoung’s either too drunk or laughing too hard to finish his sentences. Polishes off two orders of tacos on his own. Assumes bartender duties and mixes your drinks to questionable ratios, but perfection nonetheless.

Not to mention he out-drinks both of you. Soonyoung is worse off, retiring to bed just after eleven, groaning about his head and worrying about how he’s going to get up for work as he ascends the stairs. Minghao laughs, watching him fondly. You get the impression there’s a lot he wants to say—and maybe he would if you weren’t seeing three of him—but as it stands he cleans up the living room and asks if you want a glass of water.

“No, I’m okay,” you answer. “I think.”

Still, you aren’t surprised to find water and painkillers on your nightstand when you wake up. Luckily you don’t need them, spared from the torture of spending hours at a waterpark with shrieking children with a hangover, so you send a double-text to Soonyoung—

You [9:37am]: Are you alive? You [9:37am]: Hao left me some water and painkillers if you need them

—to which he simply replies:

Soonyoung [9:50am]: p lease

With a laugh, you throw the duvet off of your legs and pad down the hall. Knock quietly on Soonyoung’s bedroom door and laugh again at the pitiful come in you receive in response. And he does look pitiful. When you walk in, he pops out from under the covers with dandelion hair, face puffy from the alcohol, cheeks ruddy. What little sleep he got must not have been great—he looks exhausted, so you move Minghao’s gifts to Soonyoung’s nightstand, whisper a little fighting!, and head downstairs to brew a pot of coffee.

Not long after, Soonyoung makes his way downstairs and collapses into one of the kitchen chairs. Face-plants onto the table and groans into the wood. Without a word, you grab the bread from the pantry and pop a few slices into the toaster, sliding them onto a plate and serving them to him plain once they’re done.

“This will help with the nausea. Do you think you can stomach coffee?”

He scoffs. “Sure hope so. What’s the point in living if I can’t?”

Minghao emerges halfway through Soonyoung’s third cup, looking fresh and well-rested in a way only the person who drank the most and isn’t suffering a hangover can do. He greets you and Soonyoung with cheerful good mornings and questions about how you slept and how you’re feeling. “Not as bad as him,” you answer, jerking a thumb in Soonyoung’s direction, who gives you both the finger before returning to his face-first position on the table.

Your friend looks at the plate of crumbs and the mug of coffee. He sends you a look that’s easier not to look at or acknowledge.

—

Somehow, Minghao is able to talk you into sharing a two-person tube and joining him on all of Carat Bay’s waterslides.

This is horrifying for many reasons (the height of the slides, seeing Minghao’s bare feet), but it also proves useful. At the top of the highest slide, just as you fit yourself in the front of the tube and screech when Minghao wiggles his painted toes at you, the worker responsible for pushing you towards your certain death asks, “Oh shit, aren’t you the one staying with Soonyoung?”

“I—yes.” You glance at his nametag. Mingyu, it says, and you think you vaguely recognize him from Soonyoung’s Instagram. Horrifying again, because he’s somehow even more attractive in real life and you’re squished into a two-person innertube with Minghao and his painted toes, but he’s friendly and charming and talks at you like you’re old friends.

“That’s cool,” he says, ignoring the impatient discontent and creative insults from the line of children behind you. “Soonyoung said he had someone staying with him and that you’d been here a few times, but I’m always stuck up here.” A child throws a tiny flip-flop at him. It hits him in the chest and falls to the ground. “Wow,” he deadpans, “lucky me.”

In an attempt to stifle his laughter, Minghao asks what time he gets done, telling him about the belated birthday party the two of you have schemed to surprise him with. Fuck me, you think, watching as Mingyu somehow becomes even more attractive as his eyes light up. Not only is he done two hours before Soonyoung, he’s going to invite more of his friends, too. They’ll pick up more food and more snacks and more alcohol. All you and Minghao have to do is pick up the cake and decorate, which last night’s drinking provides a convenient excuse for.

During Soonyoung’s break—which he once again spends napping on a lounge chair under the cabana—Minghao says the two of you will probably head back to the house soon. “I think the heat’s making her hangover worse,” he says, injecting a convincing amount of sympathy into his tone.

Just as you expected, Soonyoung buys it. Finishes up his break with a groan and says he’ll text you when he’s done to check in about dinner, and then there’s nothing but the thwack-thwack-thwack of his slides as he returns to his post at the splash zone.

Two and a half hours to go.

Minghao stays behind to start on the decorations while you go pick up the cake. It turns out better (and bigger) than you expected, and you thank the bakery profusely as you rush back toward the exit. Back at the house, streamers and balloons line the staircase bannister and hang from the light fixtures; a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! banner stretches across the doorway leading into the kitchen; the plates and napkins are both set out, sharing the same cartoon tiger.

Luckily, it gives you both enough time to shower and look presentable before everyone else arrives.

True to his word, Mingyu knocks on the door with his hands full: a case of beer, a pile of pizza boxes, bags of chips in various flavors. Behind him stands a group of people, only one of whom you recognize. Chan, alcoholic slushie barista extraordinaire, greets you with a wave and a large smile. You are wholly unsurprised to see he brought soju.

The next hour is met with more names and faces than you’ll ever be able to remember. Friends of Soonyoung’s, coworkers from Carat Bay, coworkers from the dance studio—all of them kind, making you and Minghao feel welcome and included. They shout in excitement when Soonyoung texts you saying he’s done work. Compliment your quick thinking when he asks what you and Minghao want to do for dinner and you tell him Minghao insists on cooking, and to just shoot you a text when he’s on his way back so he can put it in the oven. When that text comes through, they all hide in the kitchen out of sight and hold their breath, anticipating and waiting, the occasional giggle sneaking through.

You drape yourself across the couch. Minghao stays in the kitchen and, once you call out that the birthday boy is coming up the drive, pretends to chop vegetables to truly sell it.

And when Soonyoung comes through the door, looking just as exhausted as he had this morning and slightly more sunburnt, you almost feel guilty. Almost think he won’t be in the mood to host. Almost think you’ve made a horrible mistake. He asks, “Do you know what he’s making?” to which you shake your head.

“No idea. He won’t tell me—says it’s a surprise,” you respond, thankful your voice and expression both stay steady and neutral.

Soonyoung drops his bag at the door. “Hm. I’ll see if I can get it out of him,” he says, winking when he catches your eye, like it’s you and him against Minghao; like he’s solving this manufactured mystery for your benefit.

Then he walks into the kitchen.

There’s the expected shouts of SURPRISE!

And then there’s a few seconds of silence.

“What the fuck,” comes Soonyoung’s eventual response. You sidle up alongside him, laughing when he turns to look at you with a stunned expression. “What the fuck?” he repeats, quieter this time, meant only for you.

“Happy birthday.” You reach up to playfully pat his cheek. “Belatedly, anyway. Why didn’t you tell me?”

His cheeks go red. As he opens his mouth to answer, sheepish words biting at the back of his teeth, one of his friends interrupts. Slaps him on the back and puts a drink in his hand. Laughs and gives him shit, asking how he didn’t notice all the decorations.

Soonyoung steals a final glance in your direction as he’s pulled away.

Everyone eats, drinks, and laughs. You cut the cake before Soonyoung’s face can wind up in it, only for someone to grab a slice and smash it in his face anyway. Uproarious laughter follows. Someone snaps a picture: first, a close-up of Soonyoung’s face, covered in cake crumbs and enough frosting to stain his skin; then, a second photo of him washing it off in the sink, entire head stuck under the faucet.

It really shouldn’t strike you someplace deep. The memory should be enough, but you find yourself asking, “Do you guys want me to take a picture of all of you?” so you have something to remember it by, too, even if you’re behind the camera.

Minghao must notice, because he offers to take it instead, taking your phone from you and gesturing for you to join the group. They’ve all got their arms around Soonyoung again but they make room for you. Mingyu, heads taller than everyone, moves from Soonyoung’s right and to the back.

“Are you—is it on a timer?” Minghao shakes his head, clearly confused. “Well, put it on a timer and get over here.”

“Me?”

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Who else would I be talking to? Come on, it’s my birthday and you’re my friend, so get in the picture.” He coughs. “Please.”

Minghao laughs, but you can tell from the heat in his cheeks that he’s a little caught off-guard at Soonyoung wanting him in the picture, at declaring him his friend, so he fumbles with your phone. Can’t figure out how to set the timer. No one helps, of course—they give him shit and playfully boo him, flustering him more. Once he does figure it out, he sets the timer to the wrong length so the first few photos are candids, Minghao nothing but a streak across the frame. This earns him another round of boos that render him entirely useless, have him squatting beneath the weight of his laughter, but then he sets it correctly, thirty seconds, and there’s a smile on every single person’s face when you look at it later.

After that, it’s party time—within reason.

Someone connects to the small speaker in the living room and shuffles a playlist, upbeat with a low, thrumming bassline, perfect for a party. Minghao gets roped into a conversation with two people from Soonyoung’s studio, exchanging socials and numbers. Someone has left a pan of weed brownies on top of the stove, though no one takes credit for them.

That’s how Soonyoung approaches you some thirty minutes later, half of a brownie stuck between his teeth and chocolate clinging to the corners of his mouth. “Hellooo,” he greets you, each letter slurring together, eyes bloodshot. “Are you having fun?”

“I am,” you answer. “Are you?”

“Yes. D’you want the other half of this? I don’t think I should eat the whole thing.” Soonyoung offers the brownie to you, bottom lip slightly pouted. “I’m not a lightweight or anything,” he adds, as if it’s of the utmost importance to squash any thought you might’ve had about him being one. “And I didn’t stick the whole thing in my mouth. I broke it in half before I ate it, so there’s no spit on it.”

With a huff of laughter, you take the brownie from him and place it on a plate on the counter behind you. You also grab a napkin, turning to Soonyoung with what you intend to be stern, furrowed brows until he goes a little cross-eyed and it makes you laugh. “Why is your mouth always covered in something?”

You reach for him; he comes willingly and immediately.

“Ooh, are you gonna clean me up?” he quips, trying to wiggle his eyebrows. He winds up just squinting and un-squinting his eyes, heavy-lidded and getting redder by the second.

You ignore his teasing with a roll of your lips. Place your hand on his cheek to steady him, grounded by the warmth and softness of his skin. Soonyoung sucks in a breath when you touch him. Covers your hand with his own. Stares at you so intently you forget why you’re touching him at all, that there’s a party raging around you; forget that you’re surrounded by all of Soonyoung’s friends and their curious glances. You forget what the napkin in your hand is for, uselessly pinched between your fingers.

Everything narrows to the size of a pinhead. Soonyoung is all that exists in this moment, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying. Until now, you thought the banter had just been banter—innocent and fun but ultimately superficial. Until now, you could brush off his coy remarks and blame it on proximity and Soonyoung’s ability to flirt with a lamppost if he thought it’d flirt back. Until now, you thought the next two and a half months would be easy; that you’d be able to compartmentalize your attraction to him.

Because this isn’t about that.

You’d needed to get away—from your job, your apartment, your life. All of it. Needed a break from the constant what-ifs and self-doubt and the nasty, unrelenting feeling that you aren’t doing enough, aren’t living up to your potential. That what you are doing is walking down a dead-end street and foolishly trying to find an exit point. You needed to try to outrun everything you’ve pushed aside, knowing it’s long overdue for it to catch up.

You don’t want Soonyoung to be one of those things. Don’t want him added to your list of what-ifs, not realizing it’s already too late for that.

So, just for a moment, you let yourself indulge. You press the napkin to the corner of his mouth and wonder how it’d feel if it were your lips instead, how he’d react, what noises he’d make. If he’d gasp in surprise or suck in another breath through his teeth. If he’d push you away or move his hands to your hips to pull you closer. If he’d let you take your time and do what you wanted or if he’d take control. If everyone around you would be surprised or if they’d think oh, of course.

You don’t find out the answer to any of those questions.

Instead, you clean the stubborn chocolate from the corners of his mouth without a word. Your touch is far more tender and delicate than you think this moment calls for, but if Soonyoung agrees he doesn’t mention it. Keeps his gaze locked on you, eyes tracing every movement. His intensity surprises you, having been outshadowed by his larger-than-life personality, the way he makes you laugh without having to try. But the intensity of the moment surprises you, too, how it all feels amplified: how you can hear every hitch of his breath, even over the noise of the party; how you can not only feel the warmth of it on your skin, but also the tension. How it feels like a massive, tangible thing in the center of your chest.

“All done,” you manage to say, coughing to clear your throat, dry from nerves and the rest of the chaos swirling around in your head.

Soonyoung smiles. Sends a wink over his shoulder as he disappears into the crowd, and you feel his absence immediately and immensely.

Minghao calls you over and reintroduces you to the people he’s been talking to. They’re kind and funny and gracious with their time. Junhui tells you all about how he and Soonyoung met, about his time at his studio. Tells you all about the kids they teach and how much they love Soonyoung. All the gifts they make for him and how they watch him dance with wide, starry eyes, trying to replicate everything he does.

Which is exactly what you find yourself trying to do later on.

Soonyoung had found you in a half-hearted conversation with Chan and Mingyu and dragged you to the living room. “Dance with me,” he said, cackling brightly when you looked at him, bewildered, and said you didn’t know how. “I’ll show you. C’mon, it’s easy.”

Dancing with someone who does it for a living is not easy, but Soonyoung is a good teacher, full of praise and laughter and gentle corrections. It’s all in good fun, anyway, and that’s exactly how he makes it feel as he jokingly shakes his ass and twerks on his friends; as the room goes blurry when he takes your hand and twirls you around. And when the song switches to something slower, headier, more sensual, there’s an immediate spike of panic that Soonyoung snuffs out—he puts distance between the two of you but stays in your orbit, hovering, waiting for you to call the shots.

You know he’ll back off if you want him to. You know he’ll take it in stride and not allow things to get awkward. You also know this decision isn’t life or death, that this can just be harmless fun you blame on the alcohol and weed in the light of day when the sheepishness creeps in. And you have to admit that sounds enticing, because the two poles of your body are pulling you in opposite directions, warring with one another. Try as it might, your brain—with all its logic and reminders for you to use some common sense—is no match for the heat simmering beneath your skin.

It’s a split-second decision, you pulling him back in, letting him fit his hands to the curve of your waist, your eyes fluttering shut at the body heat that seeps into your skin. You watch as the corners of Soonyoung’s mouth lift infinitesimally before he straightens them again, like he doesn’t want to look cocky, doesn’t want this to look like a foregone conclusion, but you like it on him. He wears it well, and you’re taken by it in the same way you’d been taken by his intensity.

You know there are eyes on you—his friends’, Minghao’s—but you can’t find it in you to care. Every time Soonyoung touches you, it feels like you’re the only people left on earth, like you’re swimming through molasses, weighed down by the intoxication of it, the yearning, the need for more.

His hands move to your hips, his lips to just beneath your ear. “Is this okay?” he asks, words spoken so quietly against your skin you feel them more than you can hear them.

You nod. Still have no clue what you’re doing, feel awkward and too big in your own body, but you remind yourself it doesn’t matter. That it’s okay to just enjoy the way Soonyoung is touching you. The way he moves his body, perfectly in sync with the beat of the song, purposeful and precise. The proximity to and closeness of another person.

It’s the same later on, long after all of Soonyoung’s friends have left. Only you and Soonyoung are left at the house, your crossfades providing a convenient excuse to stay behind. No one says anything, but you catch the look Minghao sends you on his way out the door, having accepted an invitation from Jun and Mingyu to check out some new club, wanting to make the most of his last full day in town—it’s discreet and sly, but it also says I hope you know what you’re doing, because you’ve been doing it all night.

You don’t.

You know it just as well as Minghao does, so you start cleaning up the kitchen to give yourself something else to focus on. Plates, cups, and napkins in the trash. Leftovers in the fridge or pantry. Icing wiped off the floor and counters. A massive garbage bag tied up and placed next to the back door to take outside. Time alone, room to breathe. Being around Soonyoung is starting to feel like the two magnets of your head and heart are repelling.

“Leave that for tomorrow.”

You wipe the back of your hand across your forehead. “I’m almost done,” you gently argue. “Besides, it is tomorrow. It’s almost two o’clock.”

Soonyoung just laughs, nodding his head in the direction of the door. “Come on.”

“Soonyoung, there’s still food everywhere, you’ll get bugs—”

“Do I have to drag you out there myself?”

He doesn’t, though you don’t think you’d be upset if he did. “Fine. At least take the trash out with you,” you compromise.

You’re not sure what you were expecting, but it certainly isn’t for Soonyoung to lay on his back in the middle of the yard. No blanket, no towel—even if it’s mostly dried out from the previous day’s storm, you’re not exactly chomping at the bit to take the risk, but Soonyoung has no such reservations. He stretches out like he’s making a snow angel before he tucks his hands behind his head and sighs in content, though you’re not sure why. There’s far too much light pollution this close to the boardwalk to see anything in the sky, not to mention the noise.

Still, you either have to join him or stay standing and look like an idiot.

So you sit down beside him, arms stretched out behind you, your knee knocking into Soonyoung’s elbow. He rolls his head to the side and smiles, and you feel it behind your ribcage, sharp and hot like fireworks. “How did you know?” he asks. “About my birthday.”

Any other time you’d crack a joke, say something cheesy like ah, I have my ways, or that you’d paid an Etsy witch to find out, but in the middle of the night, sitting side-by-side in Soonyoung’s small, dewy strip of grass, it doesn’t feel right. Feels like a moment that requires sincerity. “It was Minghao, actually,” you admit. “He was there when I first saw the rental listing and told me it was a scam because of how cheap it was, so ever since then he’d sort of been convinced you were a serial killer or something. I had to come clean about us rooming together when he asked to visit and that only convinced him more.”

Soonyoung groans. “Damn. I wanna laugh but it’s not funny. Is it funny? He still came here after all that?”

“Well, luckily I’d already been to the waterpark with you by then and watched you nearly pass out when that kid fell and scraped her knee, so I knew there was no way you could kill someone—”

“Hey!”

“—and I sent him your Instagram. We both decided that, aside from the can’t handle blood thing, a serial killer probably wouldn’t post a picture of themselves with cheese dust all over their mouth.”

His jaw drops slightly. Looks like he wants to—and thinks he should—be offended before he snaps it shut and thinks it over. “Mm, that’s probably fair.”

“Yeah, so. As one does, he basically stalked your account until he saw one of your birthday posts from years ago and asked if we’d done anything fun for it this year, and I had to say no because someone didn’t tell me.”

Sheepish, Soonyoung apologizes. Says he didn’t have plans anyway and didn’t want you to feel obligated or make things weird. “It’d only been two weeks.” And when you move to protest, he rolls onto his side, head propped up by his elbow, and says, “I know now it was silly, and I’m still a little blown away the two of you threw all of this together. I—it just means a lot, so thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply, voice barely above a whisper. “I hope you and your friends had a good time.”

“I haven’t had a bad one since you got here.” Such a simple statement, but the honesty in his words steals the breath from your lungs. “I’d been having… a bad time. Before you got here. So yeah, it means a lot that you’d go through the trouble.”

It wasn’t any trouble, you want to say. Want to refute the notion that doing something nice, especially for him, was a bother, something only done out of a sense of obligation. Want to tell him you’ve been having a hard time, too, and doing something like this, celebrating someone else, helped ease that perpetual grief even a little bit. That feeling someone’s hands on you in the way his had been—selfish, wanting, longing—was a welcomed change from the hands clutching at your own, rubbing at your back, accompanied by waterlogged, sympathetic words. Apologies that only made you feel worse.

You want to tell him it was nice to be desired instead of pitied.

Instead, you say, “I’ve been having a bit of a hard time, too,” because the rest feels too honest. More words not meant for this moment.

And it seems you chose correctly, because Soonyoung’s brows quirk upwards. “Really?” he asks.

You nod. “I don’t want to dump on you, but my grandmother passed away last year. I used all of my PTO and the last of my inheritance to book the rental. It just sort of… felt like everything was starting to catch up with me, you know? The grief, the insecurities I’m feeling about my job. I needed to get away.”

Soonyoung frowns, and you brace yourself for more of the usual—I’m so sorry for your loss and other such sentiments you wish you could feel thankful for and don’t—but, as usual, he finds a way to surprise you. “Damn,” he mutters, sounding entirely convincing as he whistles, “I feel like I should give you a refund now. I scammed you out of your inheritance.”

A bubble of shocked laughter erupts from you and spreads to Soonyoung. Soon, both of you have dissolved into breathless, belly-aching laughter, trying desperately to shush one another so you don’t disturb the neighbors. And maybe you hadn’t been able to say all those other things, but this you are:

“Don’t you dare. I’d pay it every single time, a million times over.”

July arrives before you know it.

After Soonyoung’s party, things largely go back to normal. Minghao stays in touch, not only with you and Soonyoung, but also Junhui. Like clockwork, he texts you often for “updates.” He’s not interested in what books you’ve read or how many hours of sun you’ve soaked up at the beach. No, all he cares about are any updates in your relationship with Soonyoung—of which there have been none, so these days, understandably, your conversations don’t last all that long.

Additionally, you see Chan and Mingyu more often. Sometimes, when their shifts end at the same time, they swing by the house after work and join you for dinner… and shenanigans. A random Tuesday sees the four of you having a water balloon fight in the backyard. Soonyoung calls dibs on Mingyu, thinking his height will afford them some sort of advantage, but he underestimates Chan’s dodge and weave and that Mingyu’s height is nothing more than a giant target. Another weeknight has all of you nearly coming to blows over a game of poker.

Occasionally, on days they don't work, they join you at the beach. They rope you into boogie boarding and volleyball matches; they nap or mess around in the water while you read. Sometimes Soonyoung will stay behind and pester you with questions: what you’re reading, what it’s about, whether or not you like it, isn’t that similar to that one you read last week, what you think is going to happen.

And then Soonyoung gets a rare weekend off.

Friday, too, which is spent like all the previous ones. Takeout, cheap beer, watching wrestling and adopting silly voices. Even with all the time in the world, it’s not something either of you are willing to give up.

Saturday, though—

Instead of preparing for another hot, sticky afternoon at Carat Bay, Soonyoung appears in the doorway of your bedroom not long after noon. He’s still in his pajamas—nothing but a pair of black briefs you’re sure were created with the sole intent of torturing you—and his hair sticks up at odd angles. But he looks good. Looks like temptation itself with his golden skin, honeyed from the sun; the six pack of abs peeking out from beneath the waistband; his voice, deep and husky from sleep.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” You try to swallow, not at all surprised to find your mouth has gone dry. “Sleep alright?”

Soonyoung hums. Crosses one arm across his body to scratch at his collar bone, which does nothing at all to alleviate your suffering. “You got anything on the agenda for today?” You shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak. “They’re doing fireworks on the beach tonight, if you wanna check it out? We can make a day of it and do the whole boardwalk thing.”

“Oh,” you manage to choke out. “Sure. That sounds fun.”

His responding smile is another arrow to your chest. “Cool. You’re good with rides, right? Or are you gonna puke on me if I drag you on a rollercoaster?”

I might puke on you if you don’t put a shirt on, you think. “No, I’m good,” you confirm instead. Then you actually give yourself a second to think of something that isn’t Soonyoung and his sculpted, insanity-inducing body and follow up with, “Except maybe that spaceship-looking thing that spins around really fast.”

Rookie mistake: you forget to put the teacups on your no-go list.

After getting your wristbands, it’s the first ride Soonyoung drags you on. “If you’re gonna puke, we might as well get it over with early,” he reasons. You’re too gobsmacked to argue or try to sneak out of line when he isn’t looking, so the next thing you know you’re being ushered into an empty cup by a minimum wage employee entirely indifferent to your plight, all hopes of a last-second escape dashed.

Soonyoung’s sinister grin fills you with dread.

Because you know exactly what he’s going to do.

“Soonyoung, don’t—”

It’s no use. As soon as the ride starts moving, Soonyoung’s grabbing onto the bar in the center and spinning your teacup as fast as he can. Aside from his wild cackles that slip through, you can barely hear anything over the sound of your own screaming, louder than even the small kids being spun around by their parents. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and hold onto the safety bar for dear life, filling your thoughts with anything that doesn’t require a barf bag.

(You obviously don’t know in the moment, but later on, Soonyoung digs his phone out of his pocket. Goes into his camera roll and thumbs until he finds what he’s looking for before holding it out to show you. And you’re a little stunned, is the thing, because there you are. Eyes shut, gripping onto the bar just like you remember, but it’s the way you’re smiling that takes you by surprise. You can’t remember the last time you looked so happy. Can’t remember the last time you felt it, either.

“Do you mind if I post it to my story?”

Feels nearly impossible to tear your eyes away from it, but you manage to nod. Say, “Sure, as long as you send it to me first,” and he does.

You [6:28pm]: [Attachment: 1 Image] You [6:28pm]: What do you think this means? Minghao [6:34pm]: that you’re fucked

A fresh wave of nausea hits you, because you don’t need Minghao to tell you that.

You already know.)

Somehow you survive, even though your first steps back on solid ground are a bit shaky. Soonyoung laughs and offers up a half-assed apology you know he doesn’t mean, but he lets you choose the next few rides to make up for it. Chivalrous, sure, but there are so many you don’t know where to begin. Anything upside-down is out of the question for now, given the state of your stomach, so you point at a dilapidated-looking ship and say, “What’s that?” even though it’s self-explanatory.

“Ghost Ship.”

The hesitation in his tone immediately piques your interest. Oh ho ho, you think, smiling to yourself—he should not have spun you dizzy on the teacups. “Oh. Is it scary?”

So subtle you nearly miss it, Soonyoung puffs out his chest and stands up straighter. Stares at the ride as if it offended him personally as he says, “I—no! Not really. No, it’s not.”

“Is it not scary or not really scary?”

“It’s not scary,” he clarifies, lying through his teeth. “Not to me, anyway.”

“Cool, let’s go on it, then.” You start walking towards the ride entrance, pretending not to know he isn’t following. “It’s eight tickets,” you say, keeping up the ruse. Soonyoung still hasn’t followed and your wristbands are loaded with unlimited ride tickets. “Do we have—Soonyoung? What’s wrong?” Checkmate. Soonyoung’s cheeks go pink as he shuffles a few feet closer. “Do you not want to go on it?”

“I do!” he insists. “It’s just—it’s just, uh. Doesn’t that rollercoaster look way more fun? Or… look! The log flume looks fun, too!”

“But then we’ll have to walk around in wet clothes.”

“That’s what the rollercoaster is for.” You stare blankly at him. “You know, for drying. ‘Cause it goes fast.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to go on that one,” you say, making sure to pout a little. There’s a very visible war waging inside of him. He either looks like a chicken on the ride or he looks like one by refusing to go on it at all. And that’s nothing a bit of bargaining can’t fix, so you say, “If you’re too scared, I can always hold your hand.”

You expect there to be at least a split-second of hesitation, but Soonyoung just says, “Deal!” and reaches for you. Laces your fingers together and doesn’t let go of you the entire time. Not while you wait in line, not while you’re on the ride (where he does scream his head off and grips your hand so tight you’re surprised it doesn’t cut the blood flow), and not after.

Soonyoung holds your hand as the two of you walk up and down the boards. As you duck into souvenir and t-shirt shops with crude sayings. As your stomach starts to rumble and he asks if you’ve ever had a deep-fried cannoli. As he somehow seems shocked when you say no and offers to buy you one, and when you jokingly ask if he’s trying to kill you, he squeezes your hand and says, “Never,” in a voice so soft it nearly makes you cry.

The only time he lets go is to pay for your food. He finds an empty table and sits on the same side as you, bodies pressed so close together your thighs touch. Takes another photo after he convinces you to try the cannoli. It’s far too sweet and far too rich, and you can’t stomach more than a couple bites, but Soonyoung wears a proud, beaming smile the entire time that helps it go down easier. He cleans the powdered sugar from the tip of your nose and, when he’s done, he stares at you so intently you think, this is it, he’s going to kiss me.

But he doesn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

There are things he wants to do first. More rides, more hand-holding, more obscene t-shirts he tries talking you into buying, more strange foods you can only find in a place like this. More people he wants to introduce you to, too, because he seems to know everyone. They all greet him warmly, like their day is better just by running into him, so by extension that warmth is also on offer for you. “Oh, hi! Who’s this?” they all ask, and Soonyoung introduces you by name each time.

He never says, Oh, she’s renting one of my spare rooms for the summer.

He never says, Oh, she’s just a friend.

He never says, Oh, no, it’s nothing serious, because it isn’t anything at all.

Not once does he shy away. Never seems embarrassed to be seen with you. Doesn’t seem fussed by his friends glancing down at your clasped hands and assuming you’re together, or watching the way he throws an arm around your shoulder and pulls you into his side. He doesn’t put a name to whatever is simmering between the two of you, but he doesn’t snuff it out, either.

Soonyoung gives you an answer to a question you haven’t dared to ask: does he feel it, does he want this, too?

A single spark of hope can be a dangerous thing. You know this as well as anyone. But it doesn’t feel so scary when, later on, the two of you see Chan manning one of the game booths, scrolling mindlessly through his phone as a young kid throws darts at a wall of colorful balloons. “Wow, great job,” he deadpans every time one pops, not bothering to check how many were taken out before handing over a giant stuffed animal.

“I’m gonna win you something,” Soonyoung declares. “Which one’s your favorite?”

You hum. Tap your finger against your chin as you pretend to mull it over. “The tiger,” you answer. “The really big one.”

Soonyoung pretends to push up sleeves that don’t exist. “Coming right up.” He approaches Chan. “Hello, sir. I’m here to win the giant tiger for the lovely lady.”

Chan ignores him and holds out his hand for the money. “Pay up, weirdo.”

As they argue, you wander into another souvenir shop. It’s mostly more of the same—tacky figurines of sea life and shot glasses featuring anatomically incorrect genitalia, skimboards and mugs with seashells for handles—but you pause in front of a rack of keychains. You’re not going to find Soonyoung’s name on any of these tiny surfboards. There are others, though: #1 Grandpa, Rock Star, Boy Mom, They Didn’t Have My Name. You laugh at the last one. Almost pick it up for Soonyoung until another one catches your eye.

Best Teacher

When you return to Chan’s game stall, Soonyoung is holding the tiger around the neck, grinning triumphantly as he rocks back on his heels like he hunted it himself.

“Welcome back! As you can see, I fought valiantly to win you your requested prize.”

He returns his arm to your shoulders, pulling you back into his side as he continues walking down the pier. From behind, Chan yells, “No he didn’t! He didn’t win shit, he grabbed it when I wasn’t looking! He’s a fraud!”

Naturally, Soonyoung ignores this. Pretends he doesn’t know Chan at all and asks what you’re going to name your new friend. “Probably nothing, if you keep carrying them like that. I think they’re turning purple. Or blue.”

Soonyoung gasps and adjusts his grip. Carries your new friend around their middle instead of their neck. “Okay, no attempted murder charges for me. One of my friends is on ferris wheel duty tonight—let’s see if he’ll let me use his locker.”

“Trying to get rid of my child already?”

“They’re heavy,” he whines.

You poke his bicep. “Are these just for show, then? God gives His biggest biceps to His most useless soldiers.”

“Did you forget I won this—”

“Stole,” you correct.

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Did you forget I won this for you? How can that be useless?”

You’re poised for a response that’s cut off by someone shouting his name. A lanky, kind of tall man is leaning over the wrought-iron railing, waving his arms like one of those blow-up things outside car dealerships. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt and his nametag has two names on it. HANSOL is crossed out with VERNONwritten underneath in bigger, bolder letters, prompting you to ask Soonyoung what his name actually is.

“Both,” he answers. Then, to Hansol-Vernon, he asks, “Can I use your locker for this thing?”

“Just leave it here,” Hansol-Vernon says, pointing at the floor of his operating station. He cracks open a can of beer. “Y’all want some? The fireworks are gonna start soon so everyone bounced. No one’s wanted to ride this thing in fuckin’ hours.”

Surely this is in violation of at least fifteen different safety standards. No one else seems to care, though, so you’re not going to be the one to bring it up and be a wet blanket about it. “Sure.” You shrug, accepting two cans when he hands them over.

Soonyoung, on the other hand, seems to have other plans. “Can we watch the fireworks from this thing?”

“Probably. They’re doing them all the way down the beach, so I don’t think they’ll, like, hit you.”

Soonyoung looks at you. Asks a question with his eyes that you answer with a small nod. “Sick. Give us more of those”—he points to Hansol-Vernon’s beer stash—“and don’t bring us back down until I say so.”

“Dude, no. If you’re planning on fucking up there again don’t even—”

You choke on your beer, coughing violently as you try to prevent it from coming out of your nose. Hansol-Vernon slaps you on the back and asks politely if you can get it together because he can’t have a death on his hands, either. “Thanks, Hansol-Vernon,” you say, wheezing a little as you regain your voice.

“It’s just Hansol. Or Vernon.”

That doesn’t clear up much.

Still stuck on three sentences ago, Soonyoung scoffs, indignant, and crosses his arms over his chest. “First of all, that was Mingyu! Don’t blame me for his debauchery! Second of all…” He pauses. “No second of all, actually.” He turns to you. “Do you wanna watch the fireworks from up there? I promise I won’t try to fuck you.”

You choke again.

Regardless, you agree. Vernon (which you’ve settled on calling him due to his shirt, which doesn’t have much of a Hansol vibe) gets you two situated, shouting a very pointed, “Hands where I can see them at all times!” when you reach the top.

And the view is breathtaking.

Nearly the entire town is visible, flat and sprawling as it encroaches on the shoreline to your right and the bay to your left. Lit up bright, welcoming like a beacon, though you’re not sure what it’s luring you into. You watch the waves break against the shore. The ant-sized people moving in herds. All the other rides that are operating and flashing and playing stupid little songs. You watch two seagulls perch on the roof of the ticket booth and fight over a french fry.

Under no circumstances do you look at Soonyoung, even though you know he’s looking at you.

The weight of his gaze is overwhelming. Has fire needling beneath your skin, pricking at your most sensitive spots. Because not only are there implications in it, there are wants. Wants that you know would be mirrored in your own eyes. And that’s… is it smart to start something with a predetermined end date? Soonyoung isn’t an idiot, wouldn’t be going into this with eyes wide shut, but you’re not sure where you stand. If it’s a risk you’re willing to take and a hurt you’re willing to both endure and put someone else through.

Still.

A single spark of hope can be a dangerous thing, and Soonyoung’s looking at you like he wants to engulf you. Like he wants to take every broken part of you and piece them back together with gentle hands. He’s looking at you with no trepidation at all, and it’s no small thing to be looked at like that. Like there’s potential. Like whatever you have to offer is worthwhile.

It should be scary. You should be throwing out emergency flares, begging whoever comes to your rescue to make you think rationally. It’s only been a month. You’re leaving in two. Hours of distance separate the two of you. You barely know him. He barely knows you; might eventually uncover all the things you hate about yourself and find them ugly, too.

It should be scary.

But it’s not.

So here, at the top of a ferris wheel that might as well be the top of the world, is where you finally meet his eye and manage to say, “I want you to kiss me. When the fireworks start, I want you to kiss me.”

Soonyoung smiles so wide his cheeks dimple. Scooches forward to sit on the edge of the bench, so close his knees knock into yours, always touching now that he’s allowed to. So close you can smell the sea salt and the remnants of cologne that stick to his skin. So close you can see yourself reflected in his eyes, surrounded by stars.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asks, voice deep and molten, words nearly spoken into the crook of your neck. You almost have to look away again—almost have to call the whole thing off out of self-preservation—because that intensity is back. Has your breath hitching in your throat, sweat beading along your hairline.

Soonyoung cups your jaw. Runs his thumb over the seam of your lips. If you were any more coherent you’d nip at it with your teeth, soothe the sting with your tongue, show you can give as good as you get. You want Soonyoung just as affected as you, just as wanting. Just as gripped by the anticipation. Just as fucked up over the possibility of it all.

And it seems like he is, because he leans in impossibly closer. Uses his free hand to grip at the meat of your thigh, slide it higher until it’s nearly settling on your waist. He pinches the fabric of your shirt between his fingers like he’s trying to savor it, trying to memorize every detail of this moment. When he speaks this time, you actually do feel it against your skin. Feel the way his lips form around each word. Feel his warm breath every time he exhales. Feel your stomach somersault when he asks, “What if I don’t want to wait for the fireworks?” Feel your core throb when he continues, tone headier than you’ve ever heard it, “What if I just pulled you into my lap and kissed you right now?”

If you were any more coherent you’d tell him to do it. You’d smirk, press your tongue into the fat of your cheek, lean in just as close and watch the goosebumps rise on his arms when you tugged his earlobe between your teeth and said, “Why don’t you find out?” But you’re all out of sorts here on the top of the world, scared you’re going to come plummeting back to reality any second.

Because Soonyoung feels like a dream—not idealized or put on a pedestal, but realistic and attainable. Someone it’s easy to exist alongside of. Someone who shows you off without reservation and swindles his friends out of glorified carnival prizes just because you want one. Someone not afraid of or deterred by the liminal state of your relationship, before things became more solid and defined. Someone who knows when to push and when to be patient. Someone who looks at you and sees a future you could barely imagine—not because you didn’t want it, but because all those assumed barriers.

Grief so overpowering some days you could barely get out of bed. Salary, title, and job prospects not where or what you thought they’d be after graduating nearly a decade ago. Feeling trapped by both of these things. Knowing it’s pointless to tie your self-worth to numbers and degrees and prestige but being unable to help it. Being quietly dissatisfied with a simple, ordinary life.

But while those things are true, they aren’t what defines you.

You haven’t decided this thing with Soonyoung is worth pursuing because of his job—jobs. How much money he does or doesn’t make isn’t what you see when you look at him. What you see is his smile when he walks through the door on Friday evenings. The way his brows pinch and his tongue sticks out just so when he’s cooking dinner for the two of you. The look he wears when he shows up in the doorway of your room, half embarrassment and half mischief as he asks you to help him bleach his hair at some ungodly hour—that he trusts you to help even though you’ve never done it before. You see a man that, for the past month, has welcomed you into his home and his life.

All of those things are what makes it easy to plant your hands in the center of his chest and push him back against the bench. To crawl into his lap just like he’d teased, to nip at his skin just like you’d wanted, and whisper, “Maybe I don’t want to wait, either.”

Fate is not something you believe in, but if you did, you think it’d feel a lot like this: the first firework exploding as soon as Soonyoung grabs you by the back of the neck and draws you in for a searing, bruising kiss. The way he groans into your mouth and moves his hands to your waist, trying to erase space that doesn’t exist. You can tell he’s holding himself back, that he wants to thrust his hips, desperate for friction, but doesn’t want to risk making you uncomfortable, is letting you set the pace.

And the pace you want is just as frenzied.

“Fuck,” Soonyoung swears, hissing as you fully drop your weight onto him. When he tilts his head back, you move your lips to the column of his throat, delighting in the sounds spilling from him, the way he finally dares to roll his hips.

You moan, unable to help the sleazy smile that stretches across your face. “God,” you rasp, matching his thrusts, “you’re so hard.”

Soonyoung scoffs. Makes a sound like the air’s been punched out of him. “Do you know—shit—d’you know how long I’ve wa-wanted to kiss you? And have you seen yourself?”

“I have,” you snark, threading your fingers through his hair. “You could’ve, you know. Would’ve let you.”

“Pull it harder.” You do as you’re told, tightening your grip, staring down at the man beneath you. Lips parted, breathing labored, unsure what to do with his hands. You want to mess him up. Want to bring him close to the edge and make him suffer through having to wait. “Mm yeah, just like that, baby—make it hurt.”

Every word strikes you deep. Has you needy and clenching around nothing, unfazed by the world around you, that you’re in public. Fireworks continue to explode. So will you, soon, if Soonyoung doesn’t—

“Touch me,” you beg, unashamed of the need in your tone. He should hear it. He should know how affected you are by him, what he does to you. What you’ve been trying to ignore for weeks. “Soonyoung, please. Touch me, take me home, I don’t care, just—”

You’d be hard-pressed to say how you got here.

On your back in Soonyoung’s bed, his head between your legs. Panties pulled down only as far as they needed to be for him to get his mouth on you, and god is it good. Soonyoung’s made a trembling, gasping mess of you in record time. Has you clutching at his sheets every time he suctions his lips around your clit; every long, pointed stroke he makes with his tongue. Stars explode behind your eyelids every time he praises you, and you’d wanted him on the edge but you make it there first.

Soonyoung can tell. Sucks two fingers into his mouth and teases your entrance. “You’re gonna come, aren’t you, baby?” You nod, unable to muster actual words. Soonyoung grins, devilish and wicked, and presses his fingers inside. Crooks them immediately against your front wall as he returns his mouth to your cunt, sucking and licking, nipping at your skin.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—”

“Mhmm, let me feel it—that’s it, good girl. Taste so fuckin’ good; you drive me fucking crazy.”

You come with a shout, vision nearly whiting out, your hands back in Soonyoung’s hair to anchor you to this plane of existence. Wave after wave of euphoria hits you, and you almost beg him to keep going, to not go easy on you, make you come again, but you also just want him closer. Want to taste yourself on his lips. Want to hear his fractured intakes of breath as you grip his cock and touch him properly for the first time. Want the two of you to have to sleep in your bed because you make such a mess of his.

All he gives you is a few seconds to catch your breath. You know what you must look like, chest heaving and sweat-slick, and it makes you feel powerful. Sexy. Gives you the confidence to shrug off the last of your inhibitions and say, “C’mere, please,” and kiss the taste of your pussy off his lips, suck it off his tongue.

You skim your hands down his body—the expanse of soft, warm skin, chest to thigh. Grab at him over his briefs, rub your thumb across the wet patch you find there. Soonyoung curses when you suck that same thumb into your mouth and groan at the taste, the musk and hint of salt. One day you’ll return the favor and make him come with your mouth, have his muscles contracting as you swallow him down and let him fuck your throat, but right now you’re too impatient. Need him inside of you too badly.

There’s plenty of time for everything else.

Hand dipping beneath his briefs, you’re finally able to feel the weight of him. His velvety skin. Soonyoung hisses and tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. Watches you like a hawk, predator and prey, and it just spurns you on more. Has you circling and pumping his length, trying to figure out what he likes—which seems to be everything, judging by the way he hides his face in the crook of your neck and whines. “Baby,” he mewls. “God, you’re gonna feel so good around me, so tight and wet. Fuck, I’m never letting you out of this bed.”

“Yeah?” you tease, thumbing at his slit, collecting the pearls of pre-cum. “You wanna keep me forever?”

Another loud moan. “Please don’t say things like that,” he pleads, and you swear your heart stops, that your stomach drops through the mattress and onto the floor, before he follows it up with, “you’ll make me bust in my underwear like a virgin.”

You giggle, because that’s just how it is with Soonyoung: so easy to exist, to let go of your fear; so easy to laugh when everything starts feeling a bit too serious.

Easy to lob a truly terrible joke right back at him. “Come lose it, then.”

He barks a laugh. Leans over to fetch a condom from his nightstand. “Would you, the beautiful, incredible woman who I can’t believe is naked in my bed right now after I scammed her, like to do the honors?”

You would, actually, so you do.

Soonyoung kisses you as he slowly presses inside. As he fucks into you inch by inch. When he bottoms out, he gives you time to adjust; moves his hands to your waist and massages the skin just above your hip bones. “Okay?” he asks, and when you nod, tell him it’s okay to move, he presses another kiss to your forehead. “Good job, pretty girl; took me so well. I knew you’d feel like heaven.”

He fucks you slowly at first, measured and precise. Takes his time rolling his hips as his hands explore anything they can reach, like he can’t bear to not be touching you even though you’re connected in the most raw, sensual way two people can be. He waits he can feel you spasming around him, until your legs are locked behind his back, begging him to fuck you faster, harder, before he obliges. Before he puts all the power in his hips to good use. Before he rolls you onto your stomach and enters you from behind, both of you gasping at how much more intense it feels.

“Close,” you warn him, not at all surprised at how quickly your second release has snuck up on you.

With a final nip to the back of your neck, Soonyoung plants his knees against the mattress and grabs you by the hips, angling your body so he hits deeper, harder; so his balls slap against your clit every time he thrusts into you. You’re mindless with pleasure. Babbling nonsense as you beg him not to stop. Wouldn’t fuckin’ dream of it, he speaks through gritted teeth.

The coil of tension in your gut finally snaps. Again, you come with a shout, entire body pulling taut as Soonyoung continues to fuck you through it, his own undoing not far behind. Only a few more thrusts before he’s draping his body over yours and spilling into the condom, hands immediately reaching for yours to twine your fingers together.

It’s quiet in the immediate aftermath. Soonyoung rolls onto his side and presses his front against your back, arm secured around your middle. Kisses the top of your head and sighs. “I need to clean us up but I don’t think I can move.”

“Hm. At least take off the condom so your dick doesn’t get all pruney.”

Soonyoung startles, bolting upright. “Can that happen?”

“Dunno,” you respond, feeling sleep nipping at your heels, “but I’d rather you didn’t risk finding out. I happen to like your dick very much.”

He laughs. Rolls out of bed and playfully swats at your ass on his way to the bathroom. “Yeah, we’re not leaving this bed for a long time.”

In the morning, you wake up Soonyoung with your mouth and ride him until you’re both dizzy and breathless.

You fetch a book from your room and read while he dozes in and out of consciousness, content to just be next to him. You ignore the slew of texts from Minghao, who had heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that there had been a development in your and Soonyoung’s relationship the night before, but once your phone vibrates for the hundredth time that morning, you figure you might as well get it over with because you know Minghao—know he won’t relent until he gets what he’s looking for.

Minghao [11:03am]: ignore my actually important texts all you want, but at least look at this 🙄

What he’s sent you is a job listing.

You can hardly believe what you’re reading. Not only is it nearly your dream job, but it’s remote and triple your current salary—and, most importantly, you’re qualified.

You [11:12am]: Minghao what is this?? Minghao [11:12am]: a friend is a higher-up there. says we can use him as a reference but if your resume looks good it might as well be a done deal Minghao [11:13am]: i already sent yours to him btw You [11:14am]: Freak. Why do you have a copy of my resume?? Minghao [11:14am]: i don’t. i sent him your linkedin Minghao [11:14am]: your ugly ass headshot must not have scared him off bc he said he’ll be in touch soon

Now you’re breathless for an entirely different reason.

You’ll figure out a way to thank him later, ask if he’s making the switch with you because both of you deserve better. You won’t get your hopes up—not until it’s a done deal, and not until you talk to Soonyoung. Because whatever this is between you is heading down a path you want to follow; want to see through to the end, wherever that may be.

For now, though, you’re happy to exist alongside Soonyoung. Happy to listen to his quiet snores and let him cuddle into your side. Happy to be in this house in this little beach town that has already given you so much.

Perhaps fate is something you believe in, after all.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Sharing and reblogging my work is the best way to show you enjoyed it, but I also accept any and all feedback and screaming in my inbox. <3

[lovelake]

Everyone’s sick of the two lovebirds at camp putting off an inevitable confession. Some of the members have their own way of pushing you two together, though. 

arthur morgan x gn!reader, drabble, 700+ wc, fluff, arthur and reader are oblivious fools pining for one another, gift giving, brief mention of drinking, set in horseshoe overlook, characters involved: javier, mary-beth, and lenny

note: would’ve finished this like four days ago if it weren’t for fucking finals LMAOO but i’m done 😌 comments/reblogs are always appreciated <3

˚₊·—̳͟͞͞♡. masterlist read on ao3

Everyone could see it. Even Kieran, who has only been around for a few weeks, could see it. Hell, a Pinkerton could show up and figure it out in the matter of minutes. 

Nobody could force a confession, but there were ways they could influence one.

The metal vibrations of the acoustic guitar combined with the Spanish language was a powerful force in the world of romance. Javier truly was the heart of nightly camp gatherings. And there was always a silent consensus to leave space for you and Arthur to sit right next to one another in the space surrounding the main campfire.

“Hasta un gorrioncito amoroso la oyó y dijo, ‘mi bonita, te quiero mucho yo.’ Hasta un gorrioncito amoroso…”

It was the subtlest of gestures that sent sparks flying in the air. Knees pressed up against one another, not daring to move from the other. Shoulders occasionally bumping into each other when you swayed to the sound of the music. Shy glances at one another whenever a joke was made, just to see if the other smiled/laughed or not.

There were so many people around, but it always felt like it was just the two of you in a small bubble trying so hard to act normal.

Mary-Beth, ever the romantic, also had her own tricks up her sleeve. Sometimes whenever Arthur walked by while she was with Tilly or Karen, she switched the topic and began talking about things you liked, small hints for him to know just what to pick up during his journeys to bring back to you. 

It worked like a charm. Every. Single. Time. 

“Got somethin’ for ya,” he murmured as he reached into his satchel, his palms sweaty with nerves underneath his well-used riding gloves. “I know ya didn’t ask, but, well…just thought you’d be sick of Pearson’s cooking and could use somethin’ nice, so here. Would’ve taken you myself, but I know you’re a busy bee.”

He fished out a spoon and a tin cup, pulling back the lid and revealing none other than banana pudding—something sweet, a far cry from what you usually ate. And you knew no places served pudding in a tin cup of all things. Arthur must’ve gone out of his way to order it and then stuff it in so he could bring it back to you. Honestly, the display looked clumsy and the pudding was a little melted, but it was oh so endearing. 

“That’s real sweet of you, Arthur. Thank you.” 

After taking the cup and spoon into your hands, fingers grazing his, you leaned in so you could press a kiss of appreciation against his cheek. Lord almighty, his knees nearly buckled, and it felt like all his blood rushed to that lucky patch of skin. He looked like a puppy, all wide-eyed before he regained his composure, nodding in response as he tipped his hat down to hide the upturn of his lips.

“I hope ya like it.” And like me, he thought to himself.

Was it normal for a thirty-six year old man to act like this? As far as he knew, everyone else at camp made it abundantly clear if they were sweet on someone. Sean flirted with Karen the instant he was brought back. And here Arthur was, trying and failing (miserably, in his mind) to express his feelings. Confessions weren’t his forte.

You asked him how his trip was while you started digging in. His crow's feet became more pronounced as he watched you eat—you were cute.

“Same ol’, same ol’. Headed up north towards the Grizzlies and lost track of time up there. Helped some folks out, too. It’s real pretty up there, quiet and peaceful. Reckon you’d like it.” A silent invitation lingered in the air, but he eventually decided to voice it. “...If you’re not too busy one of these days, maybe I could take–”

“I won’t be busy!”

“You sure 'bout that?"

“Yeah, I mean,” you shrugged, trying to act casual after your abrupt answer. “I’ve gotten enough done to get Miss Grimshaw and Dutch off my back for a while and I could use a change of scenery.”

Plus, you missed him. He was rarely around these days, one-on-one time with him was hard to get.

A certain pair of ears had overheard the entire thing. And boy, was he ready to tease.

People didn’t usually remember much on the nights they got shit-face drunk. A brief conversation stuck to Lenny like a second skin, though. Specifically, the part where he asked why Arthur wasn’t married. 

“‘No one would have me’ my ass.” Lenny muttered with a grin as Arthur eventually walked by.

“What?”

“Nothin’, Arthur.”

[blackenedsnow]

can i have a shadow fic? Just with his s/o whos going through extreme burnout and isnt taking care of themselves?...and needs help?..sorry beeing going through this myself and shadow my comfort boy

the weight of rest

WARNING: Burnout, self-neglect, emotional exhaustion

PAIRING: Shadow the Hedgehog x Reader

NOTE: Thank you for sending this in, this means a lot since I know the whole burnout thing too well lately. If anyone else needs a fic like this, please ask anytime ♡ for real, it’s ok to reach out <3. Hope you like this!

SUMMARY: Shadow finds you in a state of exhaustion and burnout, watching as you grapple with your own needs—ones you've left unmet for too long.

Some days you could feel it weighing you down, this silent and invisible load pressing harder on your shoulders, making every step an effort. You don’t remember when it started, this quiet, gnawing exhaustion that turned every little task into a mountain, every step into a crawl. But here you are, slouched over your desk, surrounded by half-finished tasks and reminders of things you should’ve done but couldn’t quite bring yourself to complete.

You weren’t sure when Shadow noticed. Maybe it was the nights you spent awake, staring blankly at walls, the way food lost its appeal, or maybe the quiet sadness that had settled in your eyes. But he noticed. Of course, he noticed.

“Hey.”

The familiar voice makes you look up, your tired eyes meeting his as he stands in the doorway. It’s that rare gentleness in his gaze, one that Shadow doesn’t bring out for many people. But it’s there now, steady and unwavering.

He moves closer, his eyes scanning the scene in front of him. He doesn’t comment on the mess, doesn’t lecture, doesn’t press. Instead, he reaches out, resting a gloved hand on your shoulder, grounding you just a little bit more in the present.

“I think…” Shadow starts, his voice low, deliberate. He trails off, like he’s choosing each word carefully. “You need a break.”

You look away, the words sinking in painfully, almost as if admitting it out loud made the exhaustion worse. But Shadow doesn’t push. He just waits.

“I know,” you manage to say, barely a whisper.

Shadow’s fingers brush along your shoulder, and he kneels down next to you, searching your face. “You don’t have to do this alone,” he says, and his voice, normally so distant and reserved, softens just a little more. “I’m here.”

You let out a shaky breath. You want to tell him everything, the tangled mess inside your mind that’s left you feeling like this. But the words feel heavy, weighed down by fatigue.

Without saying anything else, Shadow shifts his arms around you, carefully pulling you close. You melt into him, letting the exhaustion spill over, almost ashamed at how much you need this. Shadow’s grip is firm, grounding, and for a moment, everything else fades.

“Rest,” he murmurs, his voice quiet yet resolute, like it’s an order.

That was just once though, that didn't make much go away.

You can’t remember the last time you slept without feeling more exhausted than before you closed your eyes. You feel like you're drowning, and every breath is harder to take than the last.

Another day, you can feel him in the room even when you're not paying attention. His presence is heavy, quiet, steady. It’s the only thing keeping you tethered to the world when you're floating in a haze, the edges of your mind blurring, and your body slowly shutting down.

Sometimes you think he must be disappointed in you.

But when you look over at Shadow, sitting there in the corner, his dark eyes watching you with a patience you don’t deserve, you know he’s not disappointed. He doesn’t have to say anything. He’s just there. Always there, like the calm in the storm that rages inside your head.

"Are you going to eat today?" His voice breaks through your thoughts, low and measured, but you can tell there’s a hint of concern buried under the words. It’s not a question he’s used to asking. You've been slipping more and more, and he’s noticed. Once again, he's noticed. Of course he has.

You don't answer. You don’t have the energy to, and you're not sure if you even care anymore. You stare at the empty plate on the table in front of you, feeling the hunger gnaw at your insides, but the thought of putting anything in your mouth just seems impossible. Like you're too tired to even chew.

He moves closer, his heavy footsteps silent against the floor. You can feel the heat of his body as he stands beside you. You don’t look up at him. You don’t want to see the way he’s looking at you.

“I know you’re tired,” he says, voice quiet but firm. “But that doesn’t mean you can ignore yourself. You need to eat. You need to rest.”

The words should comfort you, but they don’t. They only make you feel like more of a failure. You can’t even take care of yourself, and you can feel the weight of that failure pressing down on you, suffocating you. You swallow hard, but your throat feels tight.

“It's okay,” you lie, your voice coming out hoarse, barely a whisper. But it’s a lie you tell yourself every day, and Shadow doesn’t buy it.

“It's not okay,” he replies, softer this time, but with an edge of steel behind it. “I can see it, [Y/N]. I can see what’s happening to you.”

He crouches in front of me, again, just like he did before. His hand gently lifting your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes. There’s something in his gaze, something raw and unspoken, and for a moment, You almost feel… safe.

“You think I’m broken,” you whisper, your voice cracking. The thought has been in your head for days, weeks, maybe longer, and you can’t hold it back anymore. “I think I’m broken.”

Shadow’s grip tightens on your chin, just enough to ground me, to pull you back into the present. His eyes soften, and you feel something inside of you stir. It’s not pity you see in his gaze. It’s something else. Something deeper, darker, like he understands in a way no one else does.

“You’re not broken,” he says, voice firm, a contradiction to the softness in his eyes. “You’re just… hurting. And that’s okay.”

“I don’t know how to fix this.” you admit, your voice trembling.

“You don’t have to fix it,” he replies, his voice low and steady, like he’s trying to anchor you to something solid. “You don’t have to do anything right now. Just let me help.”

Just let me help. It’s not a command, not an order. It’s a simple request. One you know he’s made before, but you've always been too stubborn to listen.

But now, you can’t push him away. You can’t deny that you need him. You need him more than you've ever needed anything else in your life.

“I don’t know how to take care of myself anymore,” you admit, voice barely above a whisper, like it’s a secret you've been hiding.

Shadow’s hand moves to your shoulder, his touch grounding, reassuring. “I’ll help you,” he says, and you can hear the promise in his voice. “One step at a time.”

[joelsmochi]

honey ♡ joel miller

rating: E 18+ only pairing: beekeeper!joel x f!reader summary: joel is obviously beekeeping age warnings: not proofread, no outbreak, best friends dad!joel, soft!joel, unspecified 30+ year age gap, a hint unrealistic in the sense that sarah doesn’t care, lots of bee science, mentions of bees/bee stings (ouch), honey play (i had to), fingering, f receiving oral, kitchen sex, pet names, plenty of dirty talk (mhm yes yum) a/n: i totally didn’t google bee sex for like an hour just to be accurate… nope… no i didn’t. lol enjoy & happy valentines day ;)

series masterlist | main masterlist

“Which eyeshadow should I use?”

You looked at the small, black palette and its array of choices before telling Sarah, “Purple, it goes great with green dresses.”

Sarah began to brush the product onto her eyelids while she talked about her plans for tonight with her boyfriend, Alex; her voice became white noise as you caught a glimpse of her father in the backyard working on something.

“Your dad’s a beekeeper, right?” You asked without realizing you interrupted her.

“Uh… Yeah?”

“Cool… How’d he get into that? Doesn’t seem like the type to… Save bees?”

“What do you mean?” She mumbled beneath her working hand.

Shrugging, you tried to keep your expression and tone neutral. “Aren’t beekeepers usually a bit dorky?”

“My dad is a dork.”

“I mean, not really,” you chuckled, watching the man pull out the different trays and examine them. “It’s cute, your dad keeping bees… How old is he again?”

Sarah only rolled her eyes.

“He’s definitely beekeeping age,” you continued. “Kinda sweet. Him caring for a colony of bees in your backyard.”

Your best friend was now looking at you look at her father—correction: you were ogling him. Your attempts at seeming unbothered by his looks failed. Sarah always said you wore your heart on your forehead sometimes.

You just couldn’t help it; Joel was tall and big and broad and… Older. He wore a tough exterior, one that always intimidated you, but now you see him tending to bees. The man was a softie at heart, not to mention insanely hot.

His skin tanned even deeper from the long hours of being in the sun, and his forehead littered with droplets of sweat. Was it so wrong to think about Joel f—

“Sarah, I wanna fuck your d—“

“Oh, really?”

You shrugged and sat down on her bed. “Can you blame me?! He’s like… Twenty times hotter than the guys our age.”

“He’s also twenty times your age,” she spat.

“Doesn’t he have a brother?” You shamelessly asked.

She scoffed and looked at you in disbelief. “Yeah, who’s married and has three kids.”

You groaned softly. “Bummer.”

“You have a fucking insane sex drive, you know?”

“Ugh, tell me about it,” you whined, “It’s making me masturbate more than I’d like.”

“You know what, if you wanna make the bold attempt to fuck my fifty year old dad then you have my blessing,” she sarcastically told you.

You simply raised an eyebrow and stared at her shit-eating grin, waiting for her to tell you she was joking. “Don’t bullshit me, Sarah, ‘cause you know I will.”

“Ah—la la la la la! I am not—I am not listening to it anymore. Get it out of your system before I take it back.”

You pretended to lock your lips and throw the key away as she got back on her boyfriend, but all you could think about was her dad.

♡

You waited for Sarah’s boyfriend’s car to leave the driveway before shakily fixing your hair and lip gloss, then you walked into the backyard with eyes set on the man and his work.

“Mr. Miller,” you called once you were a few feet away from him.

He looked up for a split second and motioned his head as a greeting, saying your name in response.

“Bees?”

“Yes, ma’am. Somethin’ I can help you with?”

Shrugging, you walked a little closer but kept your distance fearing a bee sting. “Maybe.”

He lifted a panel up and briefly examined it until he noticed the lingering silence. His dark eyes locked with yours and he sensed your hesitation. “You allergic?”

You only shook your head.

“They’re calm if you are.”

I am so not fucking calm right now, you thought.

“C’mere darlin’. I’ll show ya.”

He used his index and middle finger to beckon you, and you instantly fixated on why you were there in the first place.

You made the daring move to take a few more steps, ears coaxed by the hum of the colony.

“They usually only sting if you annoy them, or smell like a flower.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t spray floral perfume on my shirt this morning,” you joked.

He almost laughed as the bees didn’t seem to care for you so far. “Honeybees really don’t want to sting you.”

“‘Cause it kills ‘em, right?”

Nodding, Joel says, “Exactly. Their number one goal is to protect the queen. Second is to survive whatever threats they face.”

“How’d you get into this kinda stuff?” You asked.

You were trying to find some way to bring up your question without being sudden or rude, though beekeeping didn’t seem like a helpful topic.

“When Sarah was little she used to get a lot of rashes and she had some bad allergies. That over the counter medicine didn’t help, but honey helped. The natural shit— stuff they sell at the store… Well, it gets expensive. And I didn’t have as good a job as I do now... So I figured I’d give it a go and make my own honey.“

“That’s sweet of you. My dad always had me tough it out,” you chuckled.

“I have plenty stashed away in the kitchen. You’re welcome to take some,” he offered. “Hey, what was it you needed?”

“Oh, uh.” You pursed your lips unsure of whether or not you should lie. “Well, I have this sort of… Itch.”

“Itch? It’s not an STD is it, ‘cause I don’t think honey can help with that.”

You knew it was a deadpan joke but the tension had your face stuck in a scrunch.

“No. Not an STD,” you answered. “I just, uh… I really like you, I guess.”

“I hope so, you’ve been eating up half my groceries for the past twenty somethin’ years.”

Idiot.

“No, I mean…” You realized you wouldn’t be able to ask him. “Never mind, uh. Just forget it.”

He watched you turn and begin walking away before it dawned on him. “Oh!”

You faced him again, scratching your head and giving him a nervous look. “Yeah, like I said: forget it. We can just pretend I never asked—“

“Come here,” he said, adjusting his jeans and walking to the other side of the apiary. “Wanna show ya somethin’.”

You rolled your eyes, fighting your stress response of fleeing the scene and standing beside him again.

“Do you know why bees are so loyal to their queen?” He asked after pulling a panel out to show you.

“Mnh-mnh.”

“The queen is the only bee in the entire hive that can produce more bees. Again, a bee’s second main goal is to preserve the life of their species. The queen produces pheromones that calm the bees down and keep the structure within the colony. Drone bees are male bees that really only exist to mate with the queen when she’s a virgin and out of the hive. Worker bees are females that aren’t the queen, but they’re very nurturing. Especially to the queen because she’s the one in charge.”

“Ahh, a matriarchy. Count me in,” you giggled.

Joel chuckled and pulled a switchblade out of his pocket before forcing the blade to whip out. “Do you know how bees mate?”

His voice sounded a little more quiet, and his eyes met yours with curiosity. You shook your head and waited for him to explain.

“When a new queen is selected, she goes out just one time to find a group of drones who will essentially take her virginity. And drones have an endophallus so after they ejaculate into her, their insides are ripped out and the drone dies. When a new drone comes up to mate with the queen, he removes the last guy’s endophallus and does the same thing. Mate with her… And die. She can mate with about ten or twenty different drones before flying back to the hive and laying eggs.”

“So the drones’ only purpose is to mate with a queen?” You asked.

He began cutting away a small piece of the wax, and the honey trickled down slowly.

“It’s the only reason he lives,” Joel muttered. You watched his thick fingers scoop up the liquid gold and he raised them to your lips. “He waits… And waits… And waits… For the right queen to come along.”

He smirked at your amused expression.

“Are you trying to seduce me by telling me the sexual nature of bees?”

He softly shook his head and glanced at your shiny lips. “Not trying to seduce you. Just tellin’ you what most men really want.”

Exhaling, you tried to ignore his fingers lingering in front of your face. The sickly sweet smell of honey filled your nostrils as his words echoed inside of your head.

“Go on,” he whispered, “have a taste.”

It took you a few extra seconds to build up the confidence in order to take him on his dare, but you made sure you did it as slowly as possible.

Your lips parted and he immediately felt your warm breath flow over his fingers; instinctively, your tongue darted out to catch a drop of the honey before it fell to the ground. Then you wrapped your lips around his digits, softly moaning at the sweet tasting nectar that coated his wood scented fingers.

WIth steady eyes you watch his brown orbs darken with lust, hearing him let out a huff and seeing the muscles in his face relax as if your slick tongue gave him the satisfaction he’d been seeking for a long time.

You swirled your tongue around, persisted to taste every last drop. The thickness coated your throat while you desperately wanted it to be something other than honey.

Your lips left his hand with a wet pop that prompted him to lick whatever saliva and honey remained on his fingers.

“Tastes good.”

“Just good?”

“Tastes delicious,” you corrected.

He let out a soft chuckle and put the wood panel back in its place.

“Sarah know you’re out here?”

After rolling your eyes and smirking you said, “She doesn’t need to know. Actually quite sure she wouldn’t want to know. Besides, Alex just picked her up, so.”

“So we’re all alone,” he finished.

“I’m gonna go get some of that honey you were talking about. Though I might need your help finding the right cabinet.”

He watched you walk back into the house before following you; once inside he saw you reaching into a cabinet in the corner, but a big red bruise on your arm caught his attention.

Joel walked over to you and grabbed your arm. Confused, you tried to see what he was looking at to no avail.

“You got stung right here,” he said as if he read your mind. He started walking over to the correct cabinet.

Frowning, you lifted your arm before spotting the bump. “Weird. Didn’t even feel it.”

“S’normal,” he muttered.

He stepped in front you to lift you up underneath your arms and sit you on top of the kitchen island.

You carefully watched as he opened up a sealed mason jar and stood between your legs.

“Mmkay. Lift your arm up.”

You did as he told and tried not to grimace while he scraped the stinger out. Honestly you didn’t have to try too hard; he looked so good like this, taking good care of you. Focused and confident like he’d done this a million times. You were certain he had.

He dipped a finger into the jar and swiped a little honey over the bump, carefully rubbing it in and drifting his gaze to your eyes.

“Helps the itch,” he spoke. “You said you had one, right?”

“Think I’ve got a bigger itch,” you replied.

“Hmm. Where at?”

Biting your bottom lip you trailed a finger over your neck, finding your sweet spot and rubbing a small circle over it. “Here.”

Joel rubbed a some honey on your neck and lapped it up like a thirsty dog. He held back on sucking the skin, mindful that you might not be fond of hickeys.

“I get it?” His voice strained.

You hummed. “No… No it’s went down a little bit. Tryyy… Here.”

Your clavicle.

More honey. More licking.

“How ‘bout now?”

You took your shirt off revealing your breasts. “Try here, and here.”

Your breath shook when the cold liquid was smeared over your hardened nipples. Once he took the first one into his mouth you let a desperate breath and held the curve of his head in your palm, letting him have his way with your tits.

“Nope, still there,” you spoke once he pulled away.

His fingers found the button on your shorts, then the zipper.

“Damn itches,” he said, “they’re always so damn stubborn. Ain’t that right? S’okay. Think I have a remedy for that.”

Just like that your shorts and panties were off and his fingers scooped up some more honey—more than what was necessary for anything.

He bent down to your glistening pussy and lazily rubbed the honey all over. You’d be lying if you said that alone didn’t make that knot inside of you twist harder.

Joel’s tongue eagerly met your clit, and he didn’t bother wasting anymore time with teasing you. A gurgling moan left his mouth once he tasted your juices mixing with the honey, creating the perfect elixir for his tastebuds.

Your legs clamped around his head reactively but he was strong enough to force them apart and keep them open.

Whilst he sucked and pulled and lapped around your clit, your hands were reaching, searching for anything to grasp. As a result you ended up knocking over the jar and spilling its contents, but you were too dazed to give a fuck.

Somewhat annoyed with you flailing around like you’d never been eaten out before, Joel smacked the back of your thigh. You shuddered and calmed your body down, settling with pulling on his hair relentlessly since the force of his smack stung a little.

He preferred it that way; take your tension out on him. Make him hurt if it meant you felt good. It only stroked his ego.

His tongue slipped between your pussy lips and slurped up whatever it could, the vibrations making you cry out his name. He did it again and again and again and again and a-fucking-gain until he was certain you were screaming from an orgasm.

Joel moaned at your thick cum pouring out of your cunt and down his sticky chin, drinking up anything he wasn’t missing.

He only stopped when he figured you’d had enough and stood eye level with you while fumbling with his belt buckle.

“I think that itch got a little deeper now,” he cockily said, “wouldn’t you say?”

Your eyes were wide, pupils nearly blown, mouth agape, and chest heaving. “I think you can reach it just fine, Joel.”

Holding back a boastful laugh, he lined his erection up with your soft entrance and slid inside carefully.

“So pretty,” he whispered, “you look so fucking pretty like this, baby.”

You pulled his face in for a sloppy kiss, happily tasting the mixture of you and his honey. He noticed your hand was tacky from the spill and stuck a few fingers into his mouth, spreading the stickiness anywhere he could get it.

“Your cock,” you moaned into his chin. “So big.”

“It’s all yours, princess,” he moaned.

His hips pulled back and then snapped back into yours; his tip pressing into the deepest part of your pussy.

“Fuck. You get so fucking deep,” he praised. “S’it feel good, baby?”

“Yes,” you said against your will. “Oh my God, just like tha—fuck!”

Joel fucked you just the way you liked: fast, but not sloppily or too hard. He watched his cock disappear into you a dozen times, and he grew harder than he ever had before.

“You look so pretty with my cock inside. Such a dirty fucking girl,” he shouted over your moans. “You take it so well, baby.”

Joel felt the his orgasm begin to arrive so he pulled out and took a step back; you whined a bit and reached for him but you were already so sore.

Meanwhile he just undressed himself and laid you down on the marble countertop, climbing on top of you not long after.

“I hear you, baby,” he cooed. “You don’t need to beg… I’m gon’ take real good care a’you.”

You lazily smiled and wrapped your legs around his broad waist.

“There you go,” he whispered against your lips as he slid back into you, hearing your whines turn into moans. “There you go, sweetheart. I got you.”

He returned back to his original pace, only his hips thrusted harder into you. You felt every curve and vein along his cock, every inch he gave to you.

Your nails clawed at his back and feet dug into his hips. You reached for him in any way you could. His lips danced with yours as you drank each other’s honey-coated moans.

“Joel, fuck. Oh, Joel I’m gonna cum,” you admitted.

He felt your back arch off of the counter as if your tone was indicating enough.

“I know, baby, I know. You’re doing so well. I got you, I got you. Need you to look at me, darlin’, can you do that? Can ya look at me with those pretty eyes when you cum?”

You struggled to open your eyes, wanting to wilt up at the intensity building inside of you. But once you saw his eyes again you were hooked.

“Good girl,” he chuckled, wearing the proudest grin imaginable. “Doing such a good job, let it out sweetie. You can cum.”

“I’m cu—oh!”

“I know, babygirl. I can feel it. Let it out for me. Let it out for daddy.”

He watched and held you as you writhed from your orgasm; your skin was on fire, stomach fluttering with elation.

Joel loved the sound of your voice calling his name, so precious and shameless. He couldn’t hold back anymore. He didn’t want to. He wanted to make you his own, even if it had to be temporarily.

“Cum inside me,” you breathed out, feeling overstimulated and overstretched. “Need you to—ah.“

He leaned down for another kiss just when he began to cum inside, a feeling so raw and deep he hadn’t felt in years. He forgot how fucking good it felt, and savored it by pushing through every painful bit of the overstimulation.

Joel gave you a few more soft kisses and slowly got off of the island. He ran a hand over your thighs and watched you come down from your high.

“My hair is covered in honey,” you giggled.

“Let’s go wash you up. Maybe we can find a few more itches to scratch.”

[kxsagi]

hello! I know I’m asking this on ur glorious main character goatsagi’s bday but w the recent manga leaks (IF U HAVENT READ THEM YET PLS STOP HERE) I have a request (SPOILERS BELOW)

Could you write abt Househusband!Nagi like in an AU where bro doesn’t become a pro footballer after his Blue Lock elimination 😞 and what you think he would be like? For example: he’s unhelpful post u guys moving in together until reader lwk crashes out from the strain of carrying their household on their back (poor reader) and then nagi locks in 😈 and they r happy!! Or they aren’t I feed off of angst so either is ok 😊

“𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝! 𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐢”

a/n: this request is exposing how behind i am on requests 💀 BUT MY GLORIOUS GOATSAGI LMAOSJKSGJS

i’m all caught up to the manga so don’t worry! can’t spoil me 😼

i decided to not write angst for this one because nagi deserves to be happy after all the “burger king” jokes 

(i wish i knew art credits bc the art is so cute ☹️)

at first, living with house husband! nagi is like adopting a really pretty cat who doesn’t know what a vacuum is and keeps eating your leftovers. not out of malice, he just… forgets. or assumes you won’t mind. 

you do mind. 

"sei, did you wash the dishes?" 

"huh? no, i thought you were gonna do it after your class." 

cue the twitch in your eye. 

he’s not mean or messy. actually, house husband! nagi’s pretty neat. he wipes down the counters after he makes instant ramen and always folds his socks into perfect pairs. but helpful? not exactly. not unless you're standing there, giving him a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it. 

you didn’t expect it to be this hard. being the one who works, cooks, cleans, keeps track of bills, makes the appointments. he lounges around in oversized hoodies and his soft, soft hair, watching you buzz around the apartment like a stressed-out bee. 

and you love him, you really do, but love doesn’t clean the bathroom. 

so it happens. you burn out. 

it starts with you skipping breakfast. then forgetting to charge your phone. then breaking down in the laundry room because the dryer ate one of your socks and you’ve been on your feet for 12 hours and there’s no more clean towels. 

you come home and just. crash. 

no fanfare. no dramatic monologue. you face-plant into bed and sleep through dinner, still in your shoes. 

when you wake up, everything’s… quiet. 

no game noises. no crumbs on the floor. you blink blearily and shuffle into the kitchen, expecting chaos. 

instead, there’s house husband! nagi. hair tied back messily, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing a pot like he’s reenacting a cooking show tutorial. 

you just stare. 

"oh. you're up," he says, looking over his shoulder. there’s an apron tied crookedly around his waist. you don’t even own that apron. where did it come from? 

“did you… did you cook?” 

"mhm. made curry. didn’t know how spicy you liked it, so i made it mild and left the chili flakes on the side." 

you blink again. 

he glances at you, then at the floor. “also cleaned. and made a list of stuff we need. you look tired, so… i figured.” 

turns out, house husband! nagi just needed a wake-up call. he doesn’t like seeing you worn down. he doesn’t like knowing he was part of the reason. 

after that day, it’s like he flips a switch. he’s still the same laid-back, sleepy house husband! nagi, but now he folds your laundry with yours on top so you don’t have to bend down. he sets timers for the rice cooker and writes "don't forget lunch ♡" on post-its he sticks to your keys. he learns your favorite shampoo and stocks it before you run out. 

he even starts meal-prepping. you catch him slicing vegetables with alarming precision while watching cooking videos on 2x speed. when you ask him if he’s okay, he shrugs. 

“it’s kinda like a puzzle game,” he says, sticking a cut carrot slice to your forehead. 

he still doesn’t like vacuuming, but he does it anyway. with noise-canceling headphones and a sour face. 

"i miss football sometimes," he admits one night, curled into your side on the couch. "but this isn't bad, y'know? taking care of you. feels like i'm good at something again." 

your fingers slide through his hair. "you’re amazing at it." 

he hums, sleepy, a little smug. “yeah? then let me spoil you, okay? house husband! nagi’s locked in.” 

and you let him. because for all the lazy afternoons and pajama days and burnt toast attempts, he really is locked in. 

and the two of you? you’re happy. 

finally. 

© 𝐤𝐱𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢

[dioslesbianwife]

Can I please request the Jojo's with the most wholesome cinnamon roll partner the type of person who cried because she stepped on a bug and now the bug family must miss them.

Their partner making the cutest lunches ever with notes saying how much she loves them 💖

sure this is so cute, i hope you enjoy and thank you for requesting :33

Jonathan Joestar

Jonathan is already the human embodiment of a golden retriever boyfriend, so when he meets someone even softer than him? He’s absolutely smitten.

When you cry because you accidentally stepped on a bug and whisper, “What if he had a little beetle wife and three beetle children…” Jonathan kneels down beside you and holds your hands so gently:

“Let’s say a prayer for him, my dear. May his beetle family find peace.”

He's genuinely touched by your compassion. Your gentleness gives him strength, and he tries to match your level of empathy in everything he does.

The first time you pack his lunch, he’s shocked by how beautiful it is. You cut the fruit into little hearts and arranged tiny sandwiches shaped like flowers. And then he finds the note.

“To my brave and handsome gentleman ♡ ♡ ♡ I’m so proud of you!! Eat lots and don’t forget you’re loved ♡  –Y/N”

He tears up. In front of everyone.

Joseph Joestar 

Joseph acts like a goof, but when he sees how sincere and tender you are, it absolutely melts him.

He teases you when you cry over the squished ant (“Was his name Tony?! Did you kill Tony the ant?!”), but when he sees how genuinely sad you are, he immediately goes full boyfriend mode. “Hey, hey, c’mere- how about we save a worm from the sidewalk next time? Bug karma, right?”

When you start packing his lunches? He brags to EVERYONE.

“Look at this adorable rice ball!! Shaped like me!! She made it with love, Caesar, try to compete with that.”

He reads the notes out loud with a sappy voice and kisses the paper like a drama king.

“To my one and only, the most heroic dork in the world- ♡  GOD she loves me so much- wait, what’s this? A stick figure of me punching a vampire? I’M FRAMING THIS.”

Jotaro Kujo

At first, your overflowing affection and softness confuse him.

You wept for a full 10 minutes because he killed a spider that “wasn’t hurting anyone!!!” and now you’re pacing the kitchen whispering, “What if he was bringing food home to his babies-”

Jotaro: “…You want me to go dig a grave for the spider?”

You: “... Could you?”

He does it.

He acts annoyed by the cutely packed lunches, but he never misses a single one. They always disappear. Every single time.

The first time he finds a note that says, “Don’t forget you’re amazing, Jotaro, Star Platinum isn’t the only one who’s got your back!” he hides it in his wallet and reads it on lonely nights.

Jotaro isn’t good with words, so when you cry over injured pigeons or send him off with “have a heroic day, my angel!” he just blushes and grunts,

“…Yare yare… you're too good for this world.”

Josuke Higashikata

The minute he realizes you have that kind of softness? He vows to protect you with his life.

Josuke is good at matching your emotions too, so when you cry over accidentally stepping on a caterpillar, he’s right there with tissues like,

“He probably had a name… like, uhh… Mr. Squiggles or something. It’s okay, babe. We’ll plant flowers in his memory.”

When you give him a lunch box shaped like a cat’s face and inside is a smiley-face made out of rice and seaweed?? He SCREAMS.

He takes selfies with his lunch every day and sends them to you with captions like:

“Best. Girlfriend. Ever. Look at this masterpiece!!!”

He keeps every love note, even the silly ones like “you’re the king of my heart (and my favorite pompadour ♡)”

Giorno Giovanna

Giorno is so used to cruelty and cold ambition, he doesn’t know what to do when he meets someone genuinely sweet.

You once cried because a bee drowned in your tea. Giorno silently used Gold Experience to make a new one, then handed it back to you like nothing happened.

You whispered, “You’re my hero,” and he literally looked like you just stabbed him with love.

He sees your kindness as revolutionary. He’s so moved that you choose to care so deeply about the smallest lives.

Your bento boxes are art. You include color themes, edible flowers, and once even made a tiny pastry version of his ladybug brooch.

Giorno is silent when he reads your love notes… then folds them carefully and tucks them into a hidden drawer.

They remind him of the world he wants to create: gentle, safe, and full of warmth.

Jolyne Cujoh

Jolyne pretends your wholesome vibes are way too much for her, but secretly? She’s obsessed.

“You’re crying over a bug again? Ugh… c’mere you soft weirdo, let me hold you.”

(She’s rubbing your back while you sob about how “he probably had tiny dreams and little bug hopes-”)

When you start packing her lunches- either from outside the prison or getting to the lunch line early to make the gross cafeteria food at least presentable- She’s shook.

You make every meal look so cute along with a note that says:

“You’re the coolest girl in the world and I love you more than butterflies love sunshine and nectar ♡”

She straight-up flexes that lunch in the prison yard.

“Yeah, I’ve got someone who actually loves me. What about it?”

She’ll act like she doesn’t care, but she reads those notes before bed every single night.

Johnny Joestar

Johnny has a lot of pain in his heart, and when you show him so much softness, he doesn’t know how to receive it at first.

He asks, confused: “Why… do you care so much about everything?”

When you gently explain that the world has enough cruelty, and you want to be something kinder in it, he stares at you in awe.

One day you’re sobbing because you accidentally kicked over an anthill and you’re whispering, “I’ve destroyed their kingdom… the queen is probably weeping,”

And Johnny just strokes your hair and goes, “Damn… I love you.”

You pack him the cutest lunches full of squishy fruit gummies, sandwiches shaped like horses, and smiley cheese cubes.

He reads your notes with trembling fingers and starts believing- really believing- that he deserves love after all.

Josuke Higashikata (Gappy)

Josuke is extremely confused at first. You’re the first person to be so affectionate and pure.

The first time you cry because you stepped on a snail, he thinks he did something wrong. But you just whisper, “Snail heaven better be nice…” and he realizes you’re just like this.

He gets really protective of you. He doesn’t want the world to crush your spirit.

When you give him a lunch with strawberries cut like hearts and a note that says, “No matter what happens, I’m proud of you ♡”-he hides behind a tree to cry.

He keeps the notes in a shoebox under his bed and reads them when he’s anxious. They mean more to him than you’ll ever know.

[absdoll]

Hi bee:3 requesting for Abby eating out or playing with readers 🐱 with her fingers while reader is playing a game

It's all I've been thinking about lwjeuvesivdsi

hi qt ૮ ˶´ ᵕˋ ˶ა i luv this idea ! ty for requesting 🎀

cw : pervy!abby <3 my beloved ♡ // reader is playing animal crossing new horizons !

“abs! guess who just came to my island?!” you squeal as abby lifts her head from her book to meet your sparkling eyes. “hmm let me guess, the weird looking red dog?” she asks, quite genuinely.

“wh-… oh! cherry? she’s so cute! you’re mean.” you furrow your eyebrows at her, offended she called one of your favorite villagers weird looking.

your girlfriend smirks, a sigh leaving her mouth. abby gets a rise out of making her sweet doll-face frown and pout. abby knows it’s wrong to think such dirty thoughts about how innocent you are. the way your cute little butt peeks out of the bottom of your cotton shorts when you try to reach the top cabinet. when you’re all doe-eyed and curious asking her what she wants for dinner. how you sit crisscross applesauce in the big comfy living room chair, looking so small and fragile. and right now, the way you’re so giddy about a silly animal video game. she takes a deep breath as she moves over to where you’re lounging.

“i’m sorry baby, can i see?” abby rests her head on your shoulder, her right hand settling on your bare thigh. you giggle when she gives your soft flesh a little squeeze.

“it’s chai! i’ve wanted her to move to my island since i started playing!” you ramble on about your beloved blue elephant. “she’s just like cinnamoroll, look!” you tilt your nintendo switch screen in abby’s direction, biting your bottom lip in excitement, so happy you get to share this moment with your favorite girl.

abby glances at the game for a moment, then looks up at you, your eyes glistening. she looks back down at the screen, noticing your small fingers toggling with the knobs of the device. she takes another deep breath.

“mm so cute angel, i love the little teacup on her head.” abby kisses your shoulder. “i’m gonna get something to drink from the fridge, you want anything?” she inquires. you shake your head no, too focused on trying to make a good impression on your new guest.

the tall blonde stands to walk to the kitchen, stopping to stretch her arms above her head, letting out a long sigh. she turns around to give you a sweet look before she leaves the room, but her eyes fall somewhere else.

as you sit with your legs in the butterfly position, your pretty pussy on half display. abby clenches her fists, she’s resisting the urge to pry your game out of your soft dainty hands, pin them above your head, and fuck you dumb. she can’t hold back much longer.

“baby,” abby breathes, she walks back over to you, kneeling before you, elbows on your knees. “just keep playing, okay? don’t mind me.” you’re too busy cleaning up your island and making small talk with your digital neighbors to give abby any more than a “mhmm! okay bibi!” and she knows it.

abby begins planting gentle kisses to your cold thigh, humming against your skin as she sees goosebumps rise up your legs. you shiver a little when her face gets closer to your half covered heat. you move your game slightly to the left, looking down at her. “what’d i say pretty girl? hmm? eyes on the screen, don’t look at me again.” abby softly speaks through her pebbled kisses. you frown, confused, but decide to listen and be the good girl abby wants you to be.

abby’s mouth is nearing your pool of slick, you can feel the warm breeze of her breaths tickling your entrance. she uses her nose to reveal your wet pussy from your shorts.

“abs!” you attempt to close your legs around her head, but she knows you, she knows your movements. she knows that you like to play this little game where you say “nooo abs! don’t wanna! too sensitive!” and then a few seconds later, you’re spread wide open, desperately waiting for her skilled tongue to plunge into your aching hole.

“cmon princess, i don’t have to tell you again, do i?” abby coos. “spread.” her voice a little huskier.

you nod and relax your legs. you resume playing, eyes glued to the screen again, quickly getting distracted by the singsong isabelle is putting on outside town hall.

abby’s tongue now inches away from your puffy pulsating clit. all she can think about is devouring every last ounce of you while you sit there, so innocently focused on something far less disgusting than what she’s doing.

your perverted girlfriend watches as your cute hole tightens around nothing, a smile forms on her freckled face. she extends her wet pink muscle and licks a gentle zigzag from fold to fold. “mm-aahh!” you let out in a high pitched moan. abby shoots you a glare, a warning, that if you acknowledge what she’s doing again, she isn’t gonna be so sweet and soft anymore.

she’s drinking your pussy, tongue circling your sensitive nub, slurping every drop of white cream that’s sticky all over her chin. abby glances up at you, “good girl, so proud of you angel.” you bite your lip so hard that you wince a little at the sudden taste of blood, but you know better than to look at abby, let alone let her know how good she’s making you feel.

abby slides one finger into your pussy with ease, your drenched entrance practically sucking her in. “so wet for me.” she’s making out with your thumping clit, curling her index finger up, the pad perfectly tapping your g-spot.

you can’t breathe, you can’t think, you’re trying to move the controls of your game, your hands shaking. all you want to do is buck your hips up to her face, shoving her tongue so deep inside of you that feel her nose touch your clit over and over and over. “you’re close princess, i can feel it.” abby hums.

she’s going so agonizingly slow, the soft sensation of her saliva mixed with the unhurried pump of her finger, you’re dying for her to pick up the pace — and that’s exactly what she isn’t gonna do.

“cum slowly for me baby, ride it out.” abby continues lapping up your slick, using her free hand to hold your legs open. “that’s it sweet girl, riiight…. there.” you’re cumming all over her face, from her nose to her chin, her face is buried in your juices.

“let me hear that pretty moan of yours.” abby’s eyes fixated on your blissed out face. finally granting you permission, you scream out in euphoria, “uug-uuuh aahh aaa-bby-y-y!”

abby removes her finger, plopping it in her mouth, eyes rolling to the back of her head as she sucks your cum off.

sliding your shorts back up your legs and kissing the top of your head, she starts to walk towards the kitchen. “you want something to drink now?” she teases.

a/n : i loved writing this ପ૮๑ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ๑ აଓ hehe if u don’t love pervy!abby then idk what to tell u , ur missing out ! 😵‍💫💕 hope u enjoyed bbs <333

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆ @whore4abby @hersweetheart @enbesbians ♡🧁

[jjsloverre]

introducing…! popular!reader x nerd!jj

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♡ nerd jj who… was a highschool senior, his favorite spot to hang out, eat, learn, teach, etc was the library.

♡ had straight a’s and was a tutor to help other kids with their studies, overall just wanting to help anyone he can.

♡ had a huge crush on popular!reader and did everything to gain her attention.

♡ was a true and inexperienced sweetheart. when he and popular!reader talked, he acted like he knew what you were talking about (he barley did).

♡ always thought popular!reader was a straight beauty. when they were alone, and when she allowed it, he’d hug her small frame and whisper beautiful nothings on how pretty she was to him.

♡ was a good friend to popular!reader, and an even better boyfriend when the time came. catering to all her needs and gave her the love she deserved. he was in love.

__________________________________________________________

ꨄ popular!reader who… was a junior in highschool, definition of beauty and brains.

ꨄ was the most popular girl at school, her class, her style, all of it caught the eyes of everyone.

ꨄ always thought nerd!jj was cute, just a little weird, but not a harmless bone in his pretty body.

ꨄ eventually started to have a big crush once nerd!jj asked her out. she spoiled him with amounts of gifts, food, and his favorite: books.

ꨄ loved nerd!jj’s abs, she’d convince him to take his shirt off when they went on beach dates just so he’d be comfortable and not burning hot. (and to stare at those stunning abs duh!)

ꨄ believed she found something special with nerd!jj and learned to love him to pieces.

__________________________________________________________

taglist: @sturniologirlzz @sturns-mermaid @aaliyahsturniolo @sophand4n4 @ethanthequeefqueen @anacamofficial @bee-43 @superlegend216 @eddxemxnson @chalahyung01 @always-reading @maybankslover @slut4rafecameronn @kieeslove @leaseyes @imsiriuslyreal @sttaejoon-blog @glitterybombshell @idontknowwhyimhere33 @coalicionees @moonywhisp3rs @sturnioloenthousiast

a/n: yeah i just had to💔

__________________________________________________________

masterlist:

__________________________________________________________

[cowgirlcherrie]

florist! abby Headcanons ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა

a/n: something quick n sweet you knowwwww got this random thought and had to write it I couldn’t resist I couldn’t. I also saw that no one done florist! abby(?) so I wanted to be the first to hop on! plus I missed writing for Abs — my baby, so enjoy ♡

warnings: 18+, MDNI, some fluff, gets smuttier halfway in, strap, blowjob (strap), eating you out, mentions of obsessive behaviors, polaroid nudes-ish, fingering, edging, public-sex-ishh, soft dom! Abby, tatted! Abby. Hinted at smoker Abby if you squint, petnames, fingers in mouth, masturbation, use of the word mommy, use of the word pussy, fem reader.

divider creds here

ೀ florist! Abby wears a basic white cropped t-shirt and black dickies under her beige apron. Her apron has a rainbow flag pin, with black pliers in one pocket. Doc Martins on her feet, tied miserably into a bow, it’s a miracle she doesn’t trip around the flower shop. She has a carabiner on her belt loop that jingles every time she walks. 

– apart from smelling like the flowers (obvi bc of where she works) smells like heavy pine and fresh soap, like forget the additives – just clean if ykyk

ೀ florist! Abby gets little patchwork tattoos in random places: a dainty lavender tattoo on her wrist, a little crescent moon behind her ear, paw prints on her bicep for her late dog Alice, a ‘gentle artist’ in bolded times new roman font – but dainty on her forearm. Her knuckles are tatted spelling out “FUCK YOU”.

ೀ florist! Abby that has a ‘Save the Bees!’ sticker on the back of her phone case. Super Bee activist.

ೀ florist! Abby who spends all day in the floral shop, playing music from her playlist on the shop’s aux, slightly swaying to the music as she works on a bouquet. She works with such prestige, god her hands work so quickly at building arrangements but the outcome is so beautiful and that’s why she has many customers. She definitely uses any leftover flowers as bookmarks for her books.

ೀ florist! Abby who’s aux will go from Lauryn Hill to Boy Genius to Mac Miller — she gets compliments on her music taste by customers all the time.

ೀ florist! Abby stops working on a bouquet when you walk into the store because of how confused you look. Wanting to save a damsel in distress. Abby moves from her place at the counter walking over to where you stood looking at the different types of flowers, creeping behind you. You smell divine to her, driving her head crazy knowing that your scent alone will be stuck in her head all day. The floral shop is a slow yet steady business, so Abby definitely doesn’t forget a face or a smell. The form-fitting dress you wore that day, the way your hands bunched at the fabric in confusion had her head spinning!

“Beautiful aren’t they?” Abby whispers from behind you,

Actually scares the living shit out of you when you see her standing behind you, but the way the sun was hitting her face from the big window panels made you less nervous. Rather in awe at the beauty in front of you. Her sunkissed skin, and silky blonde mane, were raveled in a delicate braid with wispies around her face. The raspiness from her voice – which honestly sounded like a smoker's voice now that you thought about it. 

ೀ florist! Abby who makes small talk with you while making your boquette for you (taking her slow sweet time), asking you where you’re from and what you’re doing in town? Absolutely praying that the flowers aren’t for some significant other of yours, Abby letting out an exhale when you say that they’re for your mom who you are visiting for dinner. When you mention you are unsure of what flowers to get don’t worry Abby will help you!

“So pretty girl, are you more minimalistic, talking Lilies, Gardenia’s, Jasmine – which is over there...or colorful? Which I think your beautiful self enjoys a nice Orchid, Camellia, or Begonia?”

Definitely shocks you with how well she knows her stuff

ೀ florist! Abby zones out when you are speaking and stares at your lips for far too long, looking at the way your pink gloss shines wondering how your pretty lips would look taking her strap. Percase covered in spit, from your saliva that has built up from blowing her off. Abby wanted to do nothing more than take the pretty little fabric ribbon from your hair and tie it around your hands as she went down on you while you beg her to touch you in all the right places – it was all a dream to her. Wet dreaming with you right in front of her.

Undeniably horny and touch deprived…she spends so much time in the floral shop she doesn’t have time for dating apps and finds shit like Tinder CORNY LOL. 

Meanwhile, you are trying your hardest not to stare at the way her arms are flexing or how her fingers are paying delicate attention to your bouquet, mentally laughing at the “FUCK YOU” on her knuckles, it contrasted her soft nature so much.

ೀ florist! Abby who slips in a little note into your tote back when you’re not looking, with her number on it, hoping that you would find it and call her soon, Which you do find when you are scrambling for your keys on your way back to the car. Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to give the overly, steaming attractive florist a call. 

ೀ florist! Abby when the two of you start dating, she would teach you how to make a bouquet, standing closely behind you – her body right up against your back as you feel her breath tickling your ear as she whispers to you what to do

“Atta girl, look at that my sweet girl – woah! watch your hand there’s a thorn baby.”

Will definitely put her hands over yours as she works with the knife to make sure there isn’t any thorns so you don’t prick yourself. 

ೀ florist! Abby fucking you in the flower shop, when the shop is closed. Having her head in between your thighs, as her jaw slacks – the sound of your juices sloshing against her mouth as she sends hums into your pussy making you let out low mewls. Bringing a hand up to cover your mouth but she slaps it away so that she can see you

“Don’t hide from me baby, I wanna see you…look at how beautiful you look whining for me doll”

ೀ florist! Abby who kept your lace underwear in her pocket after she fucked you in the floral shop keeping it for safe-keeping (pft…we all know what she is doing with that)

ೀ florist! Abby who shows you her small pocket-sized notebook full of different flowers and arrangement ideas she had. Even the sketches of a flower bouquet that she made inspired by you and all your favorite flowers.

ೀ florist! Abby definitely tucks flowers behind your ears, specifically a white or light-pink Carnation. Especially loves putting one behind your ear as she fucks you with her strap, missionary style so she can see your face – just loves your face honestly. Bending down to kiss your lips, her cheeks dusted red with the pressure she applies.

Tucking her head into your neck swiftly smelling the carnation that she put behind your ear driving her even further insane as she drills into you — makes her go faster.

ೀ When she starts teaching you more about flowers, Definitely uses sexual enforcement to get you to remember it. Will have you sat on her counter as she stands in between your legs – locking you in as she lunges two fingers into you, edging you and not letting you cum until you say the right name of the flower that she taught you. But you could hardly focus staring at her inked knuckles as they pump in and out of you which only makes you reach your climax even further. 

“You wanna come don’t you my sweet girl? I know you want to…just say the name– awh don’t whine at me…I know you know it dollface, I don’t buy that you don’t.”

Sometimes she’ll give you a hint if the flower starts with one of the letters on her knuckles she will stick the corresponding finger into you, working at getting you just about there as her finger curls into you. Your vision is blurry as you can hardly tell what the letter is, moaning out as you try to focus on the order of the letters on her knuckles to catch the hint.

“C’mon baby I’m giving you a hint…pay attention sweetheart– focus!”

ೀ florist! Abby when you get it wrong and she finally lets you come — is fake-mad at you, shoving the lettered finger down your throat as you gag on her fingers covered in your juices.

“Baby the hinted letter was C, and the other finger was U, flower: Curcuma. You’ll get it right next time right sweetheart? You won’t let mommy down hmm?”

ೀ florist! Abby is definitely a soft dom just saying… soft as hell, loves when you hold her – kiss her, and skin-to-skin contact is important as hell she just wants to feel you and loves when you baby her. 

ೀ Definitely keeps a Polaroid of you holding flowers in pink floral lingerie in her beige apron and another one of you in her wallet, that way she has you on her at all times (honestly probably touched herself to blow off some steam after a hard shift while looking at it)

ೀ Depending on how far the relationship goes, especially if y’all start talking marriage will get your favorite flower tatted and not tell you until you see a dainty tattoo of your favorite flower on her collarbone slightly above her heart as she is filling you up, you questioning her in between moans about it.

“Mmhm…fuck is that new? Shit..abbyplease – wait is that my favorite flower?” You ask, as she grinds into you – your finger dragging against the tattoo

“Yes baby, you’re all mine. Mine…mine…mine” As she pounds harder into to you each time she says mine. Obsessive, possessive + territorial, let’s talk about it 

ೀ florist! Abby is overall just a sweetheart who loves you so much and just wants you to be her pretty flower – her muse, you definitely inspire most of her bouquets and she is so happy you ran into her shop looking for flowers that day.

[mimikittysblog]

♡23:55♡

Pairing: Poly! Ateez x Fem! Reader

Genre: Unbelievably fluffy. Like mountains of fluff.

Warnings: mxm, pet names, uh.. mentions of going to church, not really proofread so probably some mistakes. that’s about it really! If I missed anything let me know!

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS!! A lil present for my poly! Ateez lovers hehe! Thank you all so much for loving my works. It means so much to meee! I hope you all have a merry Christmas and to those who don’t celebrate, I wish you happy holidays! Love you all so much and I hope you enjoy this! Also thank you for 400 followers! I can hardly believe I have that many! Just thank youuu!

Tagging: @stay-tiny-things @jaerisdiction @bee-gremlin @faeprincess777 @starygw3n @pinkpearlstar @sweetinsaniiity (if you’d like you can join my Taglist)

.✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ✧.

It was Christmas eve and the apartment you 9 call home couldn’t be more cozy. You were all excited to spend Christmas together. Of course they had some Christmas schedules at first, but they were able to get some time off. You all were able to go home for a good few days to celebrate with family.

Ultimately though you wanted to spend Christmas all together for once.

This morning you finished up wrapping up your presents with Yeosang and Jongho for your secret santa later. Then you cooked a big Christmas dinner with Wooyoung and Mingi. After that you finally added the final touches to the Christmas tree with San. Where San lifted you up so you could put the star on top.

Later on in the afternoon, next to the tree you set up some chairs, pillows and blankets with Seonghwa and Hongjoong as thats where you’ll be opening up the presents and sleeping for the night. Added some festive decorations as well, where you also sneakily put a mistletoe on one of the door ways. Getting some cute Christmas kisses and making your boyfriends kiss as well. And lastly you to cap off the evening, you accompanied Yunho to church. Which he greatly appreciated.

The day couldn’t be more perfect.

Well actually…

Of course it can with the loves of your life!

After returning from church with Yunho, you all sat down to enjoy the Christmas dinner. It was so much food but you all couldn’t get enough and made sure to enjoy it.

“You guys really out did yourselves! The food is so good!” San said with a huge smile.

“I’m glad you like it Sannie.” Wooyoung said as he pats San’s tum.

“Thanks for making it guys. Like San said, it’s absolutely delicious.” Hongjoong added as he looked at you three.

“It’s no big deal!” You smiled

“We’re just happy you enjoy it!” Mingi exclaimed.

“Of course we enjoy it! Our loves made it for us.” Yeosang said deciding to be a lil flirty.

Wooyoung cackled at that while the rest of you chuckled.

“So how was church you two?” Seonghwa asked making light conversation as some of you were still eating.

“Oh it was fine! The decorations this year were so pretty!” You tell them.

“Yeah, they chose a pink theme this year so you know she very much loved it.” Yunho explains with a chuckle.

“Well duh!”

“So all the decorations were pink?” Jongho asked.

“Oh no! It was still mainly red and green! But it was a softer red and green, with some pink sprinkled through out! And the kids there were all so cute!”

You all then kept the conversation going. Never a dull moment with these 8. Soon enough everyone finished their food. So with that you all cleaned up before moving to the living room.

“Okay it’s almost midnight! Everyone go get your presents from under the tree!” You exclaimed happily.

The boys then hurried to the tree to find the box that had their name on them. Jongho handing over the box that had your name.

“Thank you baby bear.” You smile. He gave you a kiss on the cheek before sitting down.

You all sat down in a circle, patiently waiting for midnight to indicate that it’s already Christmas!

“3.. 2… Aaannndd yay!! Merry Christmas my loves!” You say once the clock finally struck. Cheers and wishes of a merry Christmas filled the apartment. Along with some smooches here and there.

“Aw our first Christmas together. I could get used to this!” Yeosang says happily.

“Mhm we all can. How about we do this every other year if we can? Next year it’ll be with our families, then the year after that it’ll be together!” Yunho suggested pulling Yeosang into a side hug. Where Yeosang of course nuzzled into him.

“Ooooh!! Please please!! I’d love that!” You say.

“Great idea Yun!” Mingi added.

“Hmm that sounds great. Well.. I say let’s keep that in mind. But remember our schedules are really unpredictable. It’s no guarantee we can always do that.” Hongjoong said reminded with a bittersweet smile.

Most of you then pouted as you remember how unpredictable your lives are. Kinda sad that sometimes moments like these have to be sacrificed.

“Hey lets not dwell on that right now.” Jongho speaks up.

“Yeah! We’re celebrating now! Next year is far away and it’ll be future us’ problem to deal with!” Seonghwa reminded.

“Hmm you’re right and we always figure it out in the end! We’ll find ways to compromise! We always do.” You reminded them with a loving smile. With this big of a relationship there are times where things get out of hand. However you all always find a way and it’s why and how your love is so strong.

The rest of them now sport a smile to match your own as they nuzzle into each other even more.

“Aright alright!!! Present timeeee!” Wooyoung exclaims.

From there you all open your presents all at once.

“Oh my god!!! Which one of you remembered I wanted these??” Hongjoong asks. He looks around the room to see which on of his lovers got him the pair of shoes he always wanted. “Thank you!”

“WOAHHH SPIDERMANNNN!!” Yunho screams loudly as he got a limited edition Spiderman figurine. “This looks so cool!!! Omg thank you!!! Whoever gave this to me thank you!!”

“OMGOMGOMGGG!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUUUU!!” You’re practically vibrating with happiness as you see the special edition books you’ve been dying to have there in your gift box.

“JONGHO I KNOW THIS WAS YOU!” Mingi shouted and hollered with laughter as he revealed a pink dress. Everyone else laughed along as Jongho shrugged.

“To go with the princess set Yunho got you!” However as Mingi looked back into the box he saw his real gift which were a new pair of headphones.

The present opening continued and soon the room is filled with with more sounds of laughter and loving appreciation. Seonghwa exclaims happily as he gets a new lego Star Wars set.

“Who gave me this?! I love you so much!!” Seonghwa says with pure joy in his eyes.

San over there got a new bag that he’s been eyeing, he was so happy he immediately started modeling with the bag. Earning some chuckles along with some “oooh”’s and “aaah”’s.

“It looks great on you Sannie!” Yeosang compliments.

“Oh? Did you get me this Sangie?” San asks with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Nooo unfortunately not! Wish I did though!”Yeosang chuckles.

Wooyoung was gifted a vinyl of one of his favorite artists. Boy screamed so happily seeing it. Hugging it closely to his chest, screaming how he’s gonna give his secret santa the fattest smooch.

Jongho actually got a camera. He smiles at Yunho knowing it was from him as he’s the only one he confided in about taking an interest in photography as well. Yunho returns the smile.

Finally Yeosang got a vintage watch that he once mentioned looked like his grandfathers. Yeosang almost shed a tear. He mutters a soft ‘thank you’ before putting it on.

You all really couldn’t be happier and more grateful to have each other.

Once the hype of presents died down, you all turned on soft Christmas tunes and gathered up into a big cuddly heap. Everything in this moment just felt so right. As you played with Yeosangs hair, you let out a big happy sigh.

“Hmm? Something the matter darling?” Seonghwa asks softly, looking up from Wooyoung’s chest.

“No. Nothing. I’m just… happy. So unbelievably happy. Thank you guys. For making this the best Christmas ever.”

Yunho then reaches over and softly pets your head.

“Thank you too. All of you.” He says. Everyone hums and mutters out how happy they are too.

“I’m so lucky to have you all..” Mingi mumbles.

“And we’re lucky to have you.” San added as he nuzzles into him.

The night finally coming to a close, despite how none of you want this moment to end. You all need your sleep after all. Plus when you wake up, you have plans for ice skating and baking. So something to look forward too!

Your eyes started to flutter close, but before sleep overtakes you. You hear Hongjoong mutter one final thing.

“Merry Christmas my loves.”

“Merry Christmas.”

.✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ✧.

© mimikittysblog 2024

[lieslab]

All is lost, hope remains, and this war's not over

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Og8 X male reader

Summary: After collapsing at the start of the Mama Awards performance, you completely fall apart.

Genre: 9th member AU

Word Count: 3.2k

Depression and eating disorder resources

Trigger warning: Depression, eating disorders, and toxic masculinity.

A/N: June is men's mental health awareness month. Men are more likely to die by suicide and less likely to seek assistance for mental health treatment. Requestee, thank you for requesting this. No matter who you are, or what you identify as, please don't be afraid to seek mental health help when you need it. The world is better with you in it <3

_ _ _

Boys shouldn’t cry and men shouldn’t weep. You looked in the mirror, sucking in deep breaths, trying to push away the urge to fall apart. Behind stage and beyond the audience, bodies weaved down trailing halls and between one another. Groups rushed to get ready for their performances. 

The Mama Awards occurred every year and this year wasn’t any different. Well, if you didn’t count the amount of time Stray Kids spent practicing again. The pressure was on to perform perfectly, not just for the award ceremony, but for the watching groups, executives, fans, and most of the world. Every part of the performance would be filmed. For weeks, all nine of you had spent hours working with props and performing, trying to make it perfect. 

You weren’t just overworked and exhausted, you were miserable. There was already an added pressure being in the K-pop industry and here, it was worse. Much worse. You thought you were handling things pretty well, if you ignored the skipping meals and empty numb feeling you experienced. 

You used to laugh and joke between the guys, but lately, it’d ceased. You didn’t have time to laugh. The choreographers became strict. Tensions ran high between members. You were all so frazzled and this was it. Just this performance and then maybe you could breathe, just a little bit. You could keep yourself together for this, right? 

The moment the bathroom door swung open, you reached up and rubbed your eyes. Changbin’s head peeked in and the moment he saw you, he pushed the door open. “Hey, there you are! The makeup artists are waiting for you.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” you mumbled. You didn’t have to force a yawn, it came naturally. “I’m trying to pull myself together, I’m exhausted.” 

“Yeah, we all are. We go on stage in a half hour and that’s plenty of time for you to get your makeup finished. How’s your outfit?” 

You looked down at your black suit and dress shoes. “If I’m being honest, the shoes are a little tight, but I’ll make it work. I’m not a huge fan of dancing in a suit, but whatever works to make the performance look good, I suppose.” 

“That’s the spirit!” Changbin’s hand hit your back, causing you to wince. He didn’t realize it as he led you out of the room and back towards the dressing room. “Just a little bit more and then we won’t have to worry about this again.” 

You nodded, but deep down, you really hoped his words were true.

~ ~ ~ 

Your hands wouldn’t stop sweating. You wiped them on the fabric of your thighs, but they wouldn’t stop. Nerves buzzed in the pit of your stomach and they wouldn’t turn off. In and out, you tried to take deep breaths to slow your racing heart. 

If the guys noticed your increased nerves, they didn’t question you. Perhaps, they were caught up in their own heads, or maybe, they just didn’t care. Your eyes went down to the squeaky clean floor. Probably freshly waxed early this morning. Before people bloomed and buzzed around like bees. 

“Thirty seconds,” a soundcheck guy called out. An earpiece sat in his ear. With a clipboard in his hand, he fluttered through papers. 

Another staff member appeared in front of you. Sensing them, you glanced up. A microphone passed into your hands and you thanked them, forcing yourself to smile. The tension grew between the group again. You could feel it pulsing like electricity. Anxious and eager to get it over with, excited to show it off, and just plain exhaustion.

Your hands squeezed the microphone. Something physical and real. A reminder that this wasn’t a dream. You had to go out and do this right. Perform correctly, or risk embarrassing your entire group. You couldn’t end up embarrassing everyone. 

“Alright, group up! Come on, let’s do this. Remember who we are and what we can do. We’ve been waiting for this day for a while now. Let’s get out there and do our best, no matter what.” Chan’s hand jutted out in the center of the guys. 

Hands went out and joined him. Yours was the last to join, bumping against Hyunjin and Jeongin’s. They didn’t notice your shaking fingers and fatigue. They all internally switched over to performance mode. It was the only thing they could think about. 

“Fighting!” Felix called out. 

“Let’s show ‘em what we got!” 

“Skrrt!” 

Straightened spine and confidence. You remembered the words from the trainee days. When you walked onto that stage, you owned it from now on. From now until you walked off and disappeared behind the wings, it was yours. Nobody could take it from you. 

Felix was the first to head out on stage. He walked with his head down. Seungmin followed and Minho went after him. One-by-one, the guys trickled out and you couldn’t breathe. You didn’t know where it went. The breath you could normally catch, it evaporated. You struggled slightly, but when Chan’s hand found your back, you forced yourself to move. 

On stage, the lights were dim. You could hear the faint murmurs from the audience. Every camera was on you. Lightsticks were already turned on in the crowd. They waited for your performance. Everyone counted on you. You had to perform. Do it well. Keep the right beat and perform the right moves. 

The microphone went heavy in your hand. Your stomach gurgled and twisted. You were starving and you had been for a while. So determined to keep your body weight low and look good for the cameras, you skipped a meal now and then. The Mama Awards were full of so many cameras. Every angle would be shown off, so you started to skip them more. 

It wasn’t an eating disorder, you swore to yourself. It was part of your job. You were remaining small for the clothes. The stylists could put you in anything. You were making the right choice for your job and for your career. The cameras couldn’t catch your bad side. 

In the lineup of Stray Kids, you’d never been considered for the visual, not once. You never ranked in visuals. Fans knew you for your personality and spunk, but never for the way you looked. There were so many edits of the other guys, but you? 

Your body moved against your will, you slipped into your position. Small lights appeared in the crowd. The room buzzed with awaiting energy. A loud bang and pyrotechnics whirled to life. Golden sparks shot up, shooting fire in every direction, and the music roared. You tried to move, but your body didn’t follow your brain. 

Spotlights turned on, but your world turned dark. 

~ ~ ~ 

When you regained consciousness, you blinked rapidly. Your body moved against your will. Strong arms sat beneath you, rushing you back to the dressing room. “Is he awake?” 

“Shh, don’t be too loud.” 

“What happened?” 

“Did he get sick?” 

“I don’t know. Calm down. Give us some space.” 

Whispered worries and eyes of pity stayed on your figure. Your head laid against Changbin’s chest. The fabric of his suit itched your cheek, but you didn’t have the energy to pull away. Everything hurt and the side of your head throbbed. 

In the dressing room, you were gently placed onto the couch. Bright fluorescent lights threatened to blind you. Footsteps streamed in and the overwhelming scent of Chan’s sharp cologne blindsided you. 

“Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” 

“My head,” you mumbled.

“Figures. You hit it pretty hard when you landed on the microphone.” He leaned over, cautiously letting his hand cup the side of your head. His fingers pressed against the skin. When he touched the forming knot, you hissed in pain. “I’ll see if I can get you some ice.” 

“The performance,” you started, “we have to–” 

“The performance was cancelled,” Felix spoke up. He dropped to his knees down by your side. He reached out and gently cupped your hand with his. “We’re not going on without you.” 

You tried to jerk yourself up, but the moment you did, you were hit with another wave of dizziness. Your eyes squeezed shut and Felix’s hand reached out to steady you. “Calm down. It’s okay, the show is continuing on.” 

“But we have to perform.” 

“Your health comes first. You’re not okay and you need to be checked out.” Minho’s voice came out stern. His arms crossed over his chest. “When was the last time you ate? Hyunjin, where’d you get that water bottle from earlier?” 

“There’s a vending machine down the hall.” 

“Can you go get one?” 

He nodded and hurried out the door. You pinched the bridge of your nose. “We can’t do this, we have to perform. We’ve been practicing for so long. You’ll have to go on without me.” 

“We need you in the dance,” Seungmin stepped forward. “Without you, our dancing will be off. We’re not prepared to sing your lines. It’s not worth it, so it’s been cancelled.” 

“You can’t just do that! We’ve all worked so hard! I worked so hard and I ruined it!” Your emotions ran high. Guilt and disappointment intertwined with one another. “I fucked it all up like I always do.” 

It was a feeling that you could never shake. You always felt like you held the group back. You were okay, but they were better. More talented, more attractive, and they were actually meant to be idols. You? You debuting with the group was an accident, it had to be. 

“I’m such a fucking failure. We’ve spent so long and all that time wasted for nothing! It’s bullshit!” 

Felix’s face fell and he gently squeezed your hand tighter. “Please don’t say that. We didn’t fail and neither did you.”

“You don’t get it, Felix! You’re not the one that fucked it up! I’m the one that ruined it! I ruined the dance! We’re going to be mocked and ridiculed for it. They’re never going to let me live it down.” 

“But–” 

“Shut up!” You snapped. “Just shut up!” 

Minho called your name sternly. “That’ll be enough. It’s not Felix’s fault and it’s not yours, either. We’re all tired and overworked.” 

“Fuck off, Minho. If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not going to work. I should just leave the group and maybe then you’ll all finally be good at something!” 

“Hyung, is that really how you feel?” Jeongin asked. 

You stayed silent, glaring at the linoleum floor. Makeup palettes sat in the distance, still all over the desks with attached mirrors. Bright lights faintly hummed. The guys shared looks, but nobody said anything. 

Squeaking footsteps appeared and Hyunjin came back with a bottle of water. He looked at everyone and raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What? What did I miss?”

Chan popped up behind his shoulder, standing up on his tiptoes. “I found some ice and put it in a ziplock bag. Hopefully, this will make your head feel better.” He ducked beneath Hyunjin’s arm and headed inside. When his eyes found you, he stopped. “Are you crying?” 

Your head shook and you wiped at your eyes. “No. Of course, I’m not crying. Crying is stupid and pathetic. Everyone knows boys don’t cry.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Everyone cries, even me sometimes. Sometimes, I watch a really good anime and the waterworks build up.” You shot Han a glare and his face fell. “Oh,” he mumbled. He nodded and glanced down. He stepped back and curled his arms around his body. 

“That’ll be enough out of you! You can be distressed and you can be upset. You can be angry, but you’re not going to sit there like a dickhead and take it out on everyone.” Seungmin grabbed the back of Han’s shirt and tugged him closer. Han’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t stop him.

“What’s your problem?” 

“Everything is my problem.”

“Use your goddamn words.” 

“Maybe it’s just simply existing, Seungmin. Is that what you want to hear? I’m tired of all of it! Starving and trying to stay skinny! We’ve been working our asses off and we have time for nothing! We can’t do anything and we can’t go anywhere. We’re always practicing and doing work and I…” You trailed off. 

Tears pricked in your eyes again and you shut them. You couldn’t fall apart in front of the guys. Your parents coached you from when you were younger. Boys don’t cry. They suck it up, straighten their backs, and pretended nothing bothers them. That’s always their role. Crying was a weakness that nobody needed to see, especially not other men. 

Toxic masculinity slips into the cracks of society and turns men into monsters. The need to dominate, to control, and be aggressive. Ignore skyrocketing emotions, be the strongest, be the bravest, and be the best. That’s what being a man is about. Who can lift the most, climb the highest, and sprint the furthest. 

“One time, I was online and fell down a rabbit hole about tribes,” Jeongin cautiously spoke up. He looked at his fingers, not looking at you. “There’s a group of people that live in Africa, they’re called the Aka People. When babies are born, men are right there from the start, doing almost as much work as the mothers. Changing diapers, feeding the baby, helping out with naps.” 

“So?” 

“Sometimes they respond to the baby's cries before the mother can reach them. They’re not mocked and ridiculed for cooing at babies and being soft. They’re encouraged to connect with one another and they live in that tenderness.” 

“What’s your point, Jeongin?” 

“That tenderness includes crying.” He stepped forward, getting closer, until he sat upon the arm of the couch. “The whole idea of men being ‘too soft’ because they cry, it’s outdated. Would you ever judge Felix for getting emotional and crying?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Then why do you see it as a weakness to let yourself cry?” 

“Because it’s what I’ve been taught. Haven’t you seen movies? Read books?” 

“Strength isn’t about silence. It’s about harmony. The kind of people that feel deeply, those are the kinds of people who can lead wisely.” 

You vowed not to cry, but the waterworks broke through in the end. Silent tears streamed down your face and you cracked. The wall you’ve been taught to put up since birth, it didn’t just crack, it crumbled. You didn’t cry, you sobbed. 

Your head fell forward and your shoulders shook. Right in front of the people you loved most, you fell apart. Some hidden part of you expected mockery and ridicule, but it never came. Instead, the warmth of Felix’s arms. Minho’s palm awkwardly patted the top of your hand. Han’s hand in yours and the gentleness of Chan pressing the ice against the side of your head.

You might have fallen apart, but together, they held you up. Supporting you, touching you, empathizing with you. They reminded you that you weren’t in this alone. You didn’t have to suffer by yourself. You were family and family means being there for one another, through thick and thin. 

It means, no matter how much you suffer, no matter what you go through, you don’t have to face your demons alone.

~ ~ ~ 

Later that evening, you nibbled on a breadstick. You weren’t sure how much you could eat, since you’d been regularly skipping meals, but you were trying. You promised the guys you’d try to eat. After a lot of tears and comfort, Hyunjin was the one who suggested a nice dinner. “We might as well not let these fancy suits go to waste,” he said. 

So you sat at a table between Seungmin and Han. Jeongin and Minho sat across from you. Appetizers spread out along a white tablecloth. Minho grabbed the edge of it and gently tugged. “Why do you think they picked white?” 

“Because they can bleach them, right?” Seungmin glanced up. “That’s gotta be why. Considering there’s a lot of pasta dishes and people can easily make a mess.” 

“If people could properly eat without getting food everywhere, they wouldn’t have to worry about it,” you spoke up. 

“Unfortunately, we have Han and Changbin.” 

“Huh?” Changbin’s head turned in your direction. “What about me and Han?” 

Han slowly shifted and looked up. He bit the end off his breadstick when he was first given one. He shoved it on his finger, thinking it was funny, but now he second guessed his action. He looked down at his finger and looked down your way. 

“See?” Minho threw a hand towards him. “The first two to stain it.” 

“Hey! I won’t! I’m not like him!” 

Han scoffed, rolling his eyes and waggled the garlic butter drenched breadstick around on his finger. “Changbin, you’d definitely be the first one to make a mess here.” 

“Oh! Look at that! They have chicken alfredo! Felix!” Chan jerked a hand across the way, trying to point it out on Felix’s menu. Right as he tried to, he bumped into Felix’s glass of water. 

Felix gasped and quickly attempted to steady the cup. Before he could, it tipped and flew to the side. Icy water flew towards Hyunjin and landed right in his lap. He gasped and his mouth opened. Changbin reached up and slammed a hand over his mouth. “Don’t yell.” 

“You motherfucker!” He jerked away from Changbin and slapped his hand away. “Who did that? Who poured their ice water on my goddamn coc–” 

“Language!” Chan snapped. He grabbed his utensils and unwound them from his cloth napkin. Felix winced and grabbed his as well. The two of them quietly dabbed up water. 

“See, I told you.” With a smug look, Han bit the top of the breadstick from his finger. 

“Yeah,” Changbin agreed, “he told you.” 

Minho rolled his eyes and shook his head. He called your name and pointed at the menu. “Do you want anything?” 

“I think I’ll steer clear from the pasta, so I don’t, uh.” Your head tipped toward Hyunjin’s way. 

Seungmin nodded and shut his menu. “Yeah, that’s probably a good choice.” 

So maybe things might not be perfect. You’d fuck up a lot, but everyone fucked up, including the leader of your group. As you watched Chan and Felix work together to clean up the mess, Hyunjin squirmed and grumbled. He wiggled off the top half of his suit and revealed the black button down beneath it. 

“My tighty whities are soaked.” 

“Good news, Hwang, you don’t need a shower tonight.” 

“Kim Seungmin, I’ll kill you.” 

“Or maybe you could take one, just let me watch.” 

“Luckily for you,” Minho mumbled, “Seungmin doesn’t look down.” 

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” 

“Nope.” 

Jeongin sucked in a deep breath and shook his head. “This is why I never go out to dinner with any of you.”

For the first time in quite a while, you genuinely smiled. Too wrapped up in conversation, the stress and anxiety of the failed performance left you. You talked to the guys, managed to eat a few bites of your salad, and had a far better time than you imagined. 

Crying earlier really did make you feel a bit better. The guys being there and reassuring you that things were okay, it made you feel seen. For once in your life, as you sat with the guys, you realized something that changed your mindset. 

Maybe the true fragility isn’t in men who cry, or those that feel deeply, but in the societies that refuse to evolve beyond outdated norms.

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lia-linny @seungnishi @stellasays45 @emilyywhyy @rockstarkkami @flightlessackerman @inlovewithstraykids @velvetmoonlght @chrizrizz @ari-hwanggg @m-325 @justcallmewhatyoulike @bokkiesluv @phinnyphinnegan @zayn-210 @beal-o

Masterlist

Taglist and inbox rules

Ko-fi

[maneskinwh0re]

modern!sevika — [gym] headcannons (butch or femme!reader)

part 3

!! sfw + nsfw implied !!

♡ she makes the pre-workout’s and/or smoothies while you fill up the water bottles.

♡ helps you with your diet and makes sure you eat enough but in the sweetest ways—based on your bulking goals or weight loss goals.

♡ just because she’s your girlfriend doesn’t mean she’s gonna take things easy on you. if you have goals, she’s gonna make sure you reach them.

♡ pays for your membership because she loves to spoil you.

♡ one time you felt adventurous, so you tried her weights (it didn’t go well).

♡ her back is CRAZY, you’ll stand behind the machine she’s on and subtly watch the way her muscles move. when she catches you staring she’ll just tease you about it.

♡ “you’re staring, love.”

♡ you get a little (a lot) flustered whenever she lets out any quiet whimpers or groans as she’s lifting her heavier weights. when she’s done, she’ll stand up breathing hard, then confused by your flushed face while you silently hand her her water and avoid eye contact.

♡ “what?” ♡ “nothing…” ♡ “no, what is it?” ♡ “really, it- it’s nothing.”

♡ she just hums inquisitively at your stutters, and eventually if you keep up the innocent/denial act, your gym sesh ends with a quickie in the bathroom.

—i kinda wanna write a smut chapter based on this but lmk if y’all want it lol

- bee xx

[promptfairy]

❥    𝐕𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒    [   𝚂𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂    ]   .

change gendered language   &   add context to your needs . happy roleplaying !!  ♡

“ the best way to make beautiful art is to constantly expose yourself to new & exciting places . ” “ nothing makes me happier than seeing a plant i’ve grown from a seed produce a gorgeous bloom !! ” “ you have this magic ability to make people happy . i hope you’ll show me how you do it someday . ” “ it’s good to live in the moment & not worry too much about the past . ” “ isn’t that nice ?? we’re all just little clumps of stardust , walking around . ” “ i was so innocent back then , before i learned the cruel ways of the world . ” “ all i want to do right now is hop into a warm bed & not get out until the end of winter . ” “ come on , treat me like a pretty princess !! ” “ i’ll love myself by eating my favorite ice cream & wearing baggy clothes . ” “ lots of folks try to take the easy road , but that just means you’ve gotta deal with a lot of traffic . ” “ thanks for being my friend . you’re always there for me , & i think that’s great . ” “ there are some things you just don’t realize about places until you leave them . ” “ it’s like i gave you a little piece of my heart , & you kept it safe & warm . ” “ i don’t feel like i can trust anyone right now , so i need to be alone . ” “ were you being nice or sarcastic ?? ” “ no matter how much time passes , i can’t forget him . ” “ why think about boys when you could be thinking about really important issues ?? ” “ my dream is for everyone to find something they can be passionate about & to fully enjoy each day . ” “ i’m okay with anything , as long as there’s some romance in the story . . . ” “ you’re looking awful as ever . who dresses you ?? ” “ are you some kind of antisocial freak , or something ?? ” “ whenever we talk , i feel like there’s a lot more going on inside you than you ever let anyone see . ” “ you’re so passive - aggressive . get some therapy . ” “ sometimes , all it takes is a good friend to remind you of all the things you like about your life . ” “ if you waste your time doing something you enjoy , then you’re not wasting your time . ” “ i hope you get stung by a thousand bees . ” “ who decided oranges have to be named after their color , but bananas aren’t just called ‘ yellows ’ . . . ?? ” “ doesn’t the sight of petals falling make you feel sad ?? . . . makes me feel kind of sad . life is so fragile . . . ” “ if i pass out here , please make sure i have some lipstick on . ” “ you could give me bellybutton lint & i would still treasure it . ” “ when you laugh , you look dreamy . ” “ i hope you go to jail & that your stupid house is torn down . ” “ you are in need of some serious fashion first - aid . ” “ what sort of sadist would drag me out of bed this early in the morning ?? ” “ i have to drink ten gallons of mint tea every single day . ” “ well , you’re so pretty , it doesn’t matter what atrocious thing you wear . ” “ there are things you want to do & things you have to do . . . but don’t forget to do nothing now & then . ” “ please don’t question my driving or parking skills . you couldn’t even begin to understand the level i’m on . ”

[mybelovedfleur]

,,𝐵𝑒𝓁𝓁𝒶𝒹𝑜𝓃𝓃𝒶" 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐼𝐼

(Yandere!Silco x Amnesiac!Fem!Reader)

!TW! FantasyAU! Heavy Yandere Themes, Silco is ooc for sure, vomiting, sick!reader, violence, mention of death, violence, dark yandere, I will tag every chapter seperately! :)

Description: ,, A series of unfortunate events causes you to completely lose your memory. Now, you find yourself thrust into the role of the Duchess of Zaun, married to a man you don’t recognize. But was this ever truly your life? And why does the scent of blood cling to you, no matter where you go? "

Note: english is NOT my first language, I am very much open for critique and suggestions but pls be nice and respectful :c I DO NOT support any of these behaviors!

─ ⊹ ⊱ -'♡'- ⊰ ⊹ ─

Silco leaned over you, concern in his eyes, as if the slightest sign of your pain hurt him just as much. He carefully adjusted the pillow so that you could comfortably rest your injured head on it.

"Do you feel worse? Should I get a doctor?" he whispered with tension in his voice, the trembling note betraying how much he cared about your health.

You haven't shown the slightest interest in leaving your bed all morning - a completely different behavior from your determination yesterday.

No wonder Silco noticed it right away. Seeing that you didn't even try to get up to eat breakfast, he became clearly worried. From that moment on, he constantly circled you like a tireless bee, trying to help you in every way possible. Instead of comforting you, his excessive concern began to irritate you - it was the first time he seemed so burdensome. You were overwhelmed by the dark memories of the nightmare that still weighed on your mind, and Silco didn't give you a moment's respite to simply delve into your own thoughts.

,,I feel like I always do, I just don't have the strength. It's nothing serious" you said, finally trying to calm him down. But Silco didn't look convinced. His gaze wandered over your body, as if stubbornly searching for something that could betray you

,,I have an important meeting today... " he whispered under his breath, clearly to himself, but you heard it clearly. You didn't have time to say anything, because his gaze fell roght back on your face.

,, It doesn't matter" he said in a confident tone, his voice firm" I'll stay with you"

If you had more strength, and the wound on the back of your head wasn't throbbing with irritating pain, you would have surely jumped up.

"No, please..." you said pleadingly, staring at him. "I don't want to be a burden again. You hardly leave my side anyway"

Silco froze for a moment, as if your words had hurt him more than he would like to admit. When he finally spoke, his tone was unexpectedly serious.

"Don't ever say that again" he said firmly.

You sighed, feeling the weight of guilt gripping your heart."I just don't want to stop you," you began quietly, struggling to gather your thoughts. 

"I want to prove to both of us that I can handle myself, even in times like these. If you go to this meeting... I'll be truly happy"

Silco stood up and began to pace nervously around the room, you could almost hear the grinding of his teeth. His hand involuntarily went to the scarred side of his face, which he rubbed as if trying to quell the growing frustration. You waited tensely, holding your breath, wondering if your words had angered him.

"The servants are well trained" he finally said, his voice full of reluctance, as if each word was difficult for him. "They know what to do. Don't hesitate to send for me if something happens, or if you simply need me."

His gaze finally met yours.

"I'll drop everything and come to you" he added with such intensity that you had no doubts about the sincerity of his words.

─ ⊹ ⊱ -'♡'- ⊰ ⊹ ─ 

It wasn't like you hadn't noticed the estate workers before – they were there, but rather like shadows moving in the background, silently carrying out your husband's orders. They were the ones who helped you with more intimate activities, such as changing or washing. Although it made things easier for you, you quickly noticed that Silco approached this matter with clear reluctance.

When you first asked for a new nightgown and the opportunity to wash up, he fulfilled your wish almost immediately. However, his reaction to this request exceeded your expectations - before you knew it, he was already filling the bathtub with water, sitting you on the stool next to it. When with unwavering determination he wanted to help you take off your clothes, you felt your face immediately turn red like a beetroot.

Embarrassed, you calmly asked him to let you do it yourself. His expression was hard to read - as if he was fighting with his thoughts. From that moment on, he waited for you outside the bathroom door, visibly anxious and even outraged whenever one of the servants helped you with something that he felt should have been his role.

 Now, you had a real chance to make contact with them, maybe even have a short conversation. Up until now, everything you knew about your life had come from Silco's mouth. His stories, while very romantic, were undoubtedly tinged with his feelings, perhaps even idealized – which was no surprise, considering the way he was devoted to his role as your loving husband.

The prospect of hearing something about yourself from an outsider, someone who wasn't emotionally attached to you, seemed almost exciting. It could be a chance to look at your life from a different perspective – and perhaps discover something new about yourself.

You were being looked after by three women: two middle-aged and one clearly younger. They were all dressed in impeccably ironed black uniforms that emphasized their professionalism. They moved around you with mechanical precision – their movements were so perfect and synchronized that they almost resembled some sort of machines. Silco wasn't exaggerating when he said that they were highly trained.

 Your ambitious plans to start a conversation didn't go so well at first. You were too nervous, and their distant attitude only increased your embarrassment.

It was only when the younger girl was left alone in the room to change the sheets on the bed that you felt it was the right moment to speak up. So you broke through, saying the first words

"What's your name?" you asked, trying to make your voice sound natural, although you yourself felt slightly embarrassed. The girl, noticeably surprised, stopped for a moment, as if wondering what she should do, whether to answer you at all.

 A moment of silence passed, which seemed to last forever, before finally, with a nervousness in her voice, she answered

"Erin, my lady"  she somehow radiated a warmth that immediately worked in your favor, and you felt your self-confidence begin to grow.

"Erin" you repeated. 

You noticed how the girl visibly relaxed, and a delicate, almost shy smile appeared on her face.

"Tell me, how long have you been working here?" she put down the pillow she was working on and finally turned her full attention to you.

"Only a month, Ma'am" she replied. As soon as you heard her words, you sighed with resignation.

"The entire staff has been here for a month" she added quickly. At these words, you looked up, and your eyes narrowed in a sign of dissatisfaction and suspicion.

"How so?"

The girl, now clearly regretting speaking, began nervously adjusting her uniform.

"The Duke replaced the entire staff after your accident," she explained quickly, as if these words were supposed to calm the situation, although they had the opposite effect.

You wanted to ask for details, for reasons, for what exactly had happened, but before you could say anything, the door flew open. One of the older women entered the room with a silver tray full of medicines.

The older woman gave the girl a reprimanding look that was telling enough for the young maid to immediately return to her work, lowering her gaze like a guilty child.

When the servants finished their duties, both women bowed low and asked if you needed anything else. You forced yourself to briefly deny it, even though your thoughts were screaming to stop them and force out more information. A moment later, the door closed behind them, leaving you alone in the room, again.

─ ⊹ ⊱ -'♡'- ⊰ ⊹ ─ 

By the end of the day, your strength had returned, at least enough to get out of bed and sit on the edge. You still felt a slight weakness in your legs, but the knowledge that at least you had managed to overcome your constant fatigue was comforting. On the nightstand stood a silver tray of medicines – the same tablets whose bitter taste made you nauseous, and whose effects locked you in a numbing fog. You looked at them with reluctance, the dark purple – almost black liquid standing in the cup almost made you nauseous by its very sight. A decision was made in your head – not now. You would use this moment, when your body finally did not betray you, and Silco did not hover nearby like a guard watching over a prisoner.

Without the constant feeling of sleepiness, you finally felt like your thoughts were your own—clear, clear, unencumbered by the fog of medication. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you could look at your situation clearly. For days, weeks, maybe even longer, you felt like Silco had not only taken control of your life, but also of what you thought and felt. His words, his presence, even his care—all seemed to shape your reality.

But now, as that grip eased, the truth began to weigh on you, something here was wrong. The situation you found yourself in was far from normal, no matter how beautifully Silco tried to present it. There were too many of his versions of events in this story, his sweet promises, his comfortable half-truths. And the answers you were desperately searching for? There were none. There were only gaps, silence, and then his narrative again. You could see it clearly now—and it was that clarity of mind that made the weight of it all seem unbearable.

You knew that if you wanted to regain even a shred of sanity, you had to get out of this room—this claustrophobic prison where everything seemed to reek of control. You wanted to feel the fresh air, to touch the earth in the garden that had only existed for you as a view through closed, unyielding windows.

But you couldn't. Your body was betraying you, just as it had been betraying you all these days. You knew that if you tried, your legs would give out and you would eventually collapse to the floor—helpless, weak, unable to even get up. The arms that should have held you up would fail. Your imagination showed you the image of Silco entering the room, of you lying there—motionless, completely defenseless, yet more proof that you should have listened to his commands.

The thought squeezed you from the inside, and the frustration you had tried to suppress surged like a wave. You felt the stinging tears welling up in your eyes, the helplessness choking you in your throat. You yearned for freedom so much, but you were a prisoner of your own body.

As if all that wasn't enough, you still felt the weight of your nightmare from today, never leaving you. It lingered in the back of your mind like a persistent shadow, blurry but still clear enough to send shivers down your spine. There was something disturbingly familiar about the nightmare, something that wouldn't leave you alone.

Raised voices could be heard from behind the door leading to Silco's office. They were muffled, but their tone indicated that this was no ordinary conversation - it was an argument. You easily recognized one of the voices as Silco's. The other voice, however, was unfamiliar to you, although unlike your husband, he didn't care about the volume of his tone, probably not knowing that someone on the other side could hear them, the words were still too distorted for you to understand anything.

Your eyes automatically went to the tray of medicines, and then to the door leading to the office. Common sense told you to stay in bed, but something else - curiosity, anxiety, maybe even instinct - told you to act. Pushing aside all logical thoughts, you slowly shifted on the bed, trying to get closer to the source of the sound. However, despite your efforts, the voices were still indistinct, and frustration grew inside you.In a burst of courage—or perhaps mad stupidity—you decided to do something more. 

You grabbed the bed frame, bracing your shaking hands on it, and struggled to your feet. The wall was your only support as you took your first step toward the door.

When you reached your destination, your heart started beating faster, but this time not from the effort, but from relief. You made it – for the first time, you had crossed the entire room without anyone's help. But that feeling of pride only lasted a moment, because suddenly you heard the slam of the office door and quick footsteps, clearly heading your way. Your heart froze in your chest. You didn't have time to back up or think about what to do. 

The door opened abruptly, almost hitting you in the face. You were leaning against the door frame and the handle to keep your balance, but the sudden movement took away all of your support. The world around you blurred, and you felt yourself starting to fall. Before you could touch the floor, you felt strong hands grab you at the last moment. 

The grip was firm, almost too strong, you looked up and looked straight into Silco's eyes, which shone with something between surprise and irritation. His face was drawn, as if he was fighting to keep from exploding with anger, but you could clearly see the shadow of concern that was breaking through his mask of composure.

"What are you doing?" he hissed quietly, his voice laced with a mixture of anger and concern.

Silco wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer, so that your faces were almost at the same level. You felt his hands grip your waist tightly, holding you in place as if to make sure you didn't disappear from his field of vision. His gaze was intense, piercing, but you avoided it, lowering your gaze and whispering barely audibly:

"I heard noises outside the door... I got scared" your voice was shaking. Silco narrowed his eyes, then looked away, glancing over your shoulder as if searching for something behind you. But that only lasted a moment. His gaze quickly returned to you - now full of irritation, and his expression changed as if someone had turned off the mask of composure he always wore.

"Why didn't you take your medicine?" he asked, anger growing in his voice.

 "Why are you trying so hard to disobey me?!" before you could say anything, his hands moved to your shoulders, gripping them tightly, his voice growing increasingly tense. Before you could protest, you felt him shake your body. Not hard, but enough to force you to look him in the eyes. His hands seemed to desperately hold you to him, as if they were trying to force you into obedience. 

"Look at me" he growled, his voice shaking, but it wasn't just anger anymore. There was something else in his eyes, behind the facade of anger - fear.

Your gaze remained fixed on your hands clasped on his torso, however, Silco clearly had no intention of waiting for your reaction. In a burst of frustration and desperation, his hand moved to the back of your head, grabbing a spot that had not yet healed. Before you could react, he forced you to lift your head and look him straight in the eye.

Pain exploded like fire, spreading throughout your body, and a sudden, suffering cry escaped your lips. Silco froze, as if he had only just realized what he had done. His hand immediately let go of your head, and the rest of your body recoiled in terror, it was enough for your tired legs to give out. You fell to the floor, with nothing to hold on to.

For several long seconds, Silco stood motionless, as if what had happened was unreal to him. His gaze, filled with anger a moment ago, now seemed as if something inside him had snapped.

As you lifted your gaze, trying to catch your breath and control the pain, something about the image before you seemed strangely familiar. Silco stood still, his silhouette silhouetted against the warm glow of the dying fire in the fireplace, but your eyes could no longer focus on the details. The tears that had welled up in your eyes began to blur reality, and you felt as if the room had suddenly become dark.

You blinked once, then twice, and the image before you changed. Instead of a room, you saw something that resembled a scene from a nightmare. Silco stood before you in the rain, his clothes soaked through, drops running down the material in a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pace.

The entire figure seemed to be taken from another world, yet terrifyingly real at the same time. The only thing that remained clear in this illusion was his injured eye. It glowed in the darkness like a cursed light.

You didn't know if it was a memory, a hallucination caused by the pain, or something more. But one thing was certain - at that moment the line between reality and nightmare began to blur, and you felt like you were drowning in this darkness, the epicenter of which was him.

You curled up on the floor, burying your face in your shaking hands. Tears flowed steadily, hot and stinging, as if burning paths into your skin. The pain, both physical and mental, seemed to take over every aspect of your existence.

"Drink," you heard suddenly, his voice hard, almost impervious to argument.

Before you could protest, you felt Silco lift you off the floor. His movements were surprisingly gentle, though you could feel his hands shaking.

Before you knew what was happening, a silver goblet touched your lips. The dark liquid, the sharp smell of which filled your nostrils, was thick, viscous, its bitter taste immediately hit your taste buds, almost causing a gag reflex, but Silco didn't stop

"Drink" he repeated, this time more insistently, and his free hand held your face, not letting you turn away

You felt the liquid pour into your mouth, and he forced you to swallow. His hand, although shaking, was unwavering, and his gaze was focused on only one thing, regardless of your protests.

When he finally moved the cup away from your lips, you felt the remnants of the liquid run down your chin, leaving a sticky trail on your skin. A few dark drops landed on your nightgown, staining the delicate material.

Your body began to betray you – weakened and tired, unable to fight any longer. Your head fell limply, and Silco gently supported it and placed it on his lap. His touch, although full of anger a moment ago, now seemed almost tender.

You felt a piece of his shirt wipe your face. It was a rough, yet surprisingly caring attempt to wipe away the tears, the traces of liquid, and the pain that seemed to be etched into your skin. His gestures were mechanical, as if he was trying to recreate something a loving husband should do.

Your eyelids began to close, heavy with fatigue and tears. You closed your eyes, feeling the warmth of his presence surrounding you, although you didn't feel safe at all. It was more than resignation – it was capitulation to fate, to him.

─ ⊹ ⊱ -'♡'- ⊰ ⊹ ─

Taglist: @missbeeentertainment

Notes: I'm sorry if there is a lot of mistakes, I was writing it on my phone which has a polish auto correction, and I do not know how to turn it off :( Thank you so so so much for all your love and support, every time I see a notification I feel so grateful for every one of you! Thank you so much and hopefully see you again! <3